Looking For George

August 13

Put On Your Thinking Caps: Christ and the Deathly Hallows

I know you’ve just spent all weekend thinking, “I can’t wait until E. explains how she thinks the Deathly Hallows represent the temptations of Christ.  I can’t wait!  I can’t wait!  I can’t wait!  I can’t wait!”

So, because I have nothing of more interest to blog about today, here goes.

First, let’s review the necessary Bible verses:

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
ST MATTHEW

CHAPTER 4

  1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

  2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

  3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

  4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

  5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

  6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

  7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

  8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

  9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

  10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

  11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

Christ’s first temptation, then, is to turn stones into bread so that he might have food with which to reinvigorate his body. This would correspond with the resurrection stone which: a). is a stone and b). brings back, to a certain degree, life which was lost.

The second temptation is to cast himself from the pinnacle of the temple. In Christ’s time temples probably more closely resembled Mesopotamian ziggurats, with the pinnacle, or highest point, being somewhat flat. In the more Anglo-Saxon sense, however, a temple, or cathedral if you will, pinnacle would be a spire. If you hadn’t noticed, this is also, roughly, the shape of a wand.

For the last temptation, to fall down and worship Satan, Christ was taken up to a mountain. This would be a vantage point which would allow him to be able to see the masses, but would make it pretty impossible for the masses to see him. We all know a basic mountain shape:

It is, of course, the same shape used to symbolize the invisibility cloak.

Put it together and what have you got?

Bibitty bobbity:

Well, crap!  The three shapes combined won’t copy and paste, so just superimpose them in your head.  If you’ve read the book it should all make sense by now anyway.  The circle and the line are also in the wrong spots (over their corresponding paragraphs rather than under), but I figure most of my readers are smart enough to figure it all out.  Except for last night’s perv, of course.

Interestingly enough, just as Christ’s temptations were a bit futile, given that he was already master over all things, so were Harry’s. He, too, was the true master over all of the Hallows, which were tempting him away from his true mission (to destroy horcruxes), he just didn’t know it yet.

I’m telling you folks, Harry Potter is one of the biggest Christ figures in modern literature, and the whole series is one big allegory. I’m sure there is tons of stuff I haven’t even thought of. Like today, A~ points out to me that Lee Jordan’s code name on Potterwatch is River.

“Uh, yeah, I know,” I say.

“Like the Jordan River!” she says with great, deserved pride.

See, hadn’t thought about that one.

Percy, of course, would be the prodigal son. The seven horcruxes might have something to do with the seven deadly sins; or they could just represent 3 (the godhead/divinity) + 4 (earths seasons/temporal world) = 7 (mastery over all things both spiritual and temporal).  One of these days I’ll actually try to sort that all out in my mind.  The Dursleys would just be representative of Christ’s humble beginnings.  And who was it, Fred or George, who went by the code name Rapier on Potterwatch?  I know there is a scripture or two in the Bible referring to the sword of truth.  See?

And I, of course, am becoming the modern-day version of a Trekkie: a Potterhead.

A referral should redirect my thoughts, don’t you think?

And George, if you’re out there, Tewt the Newt says to just remember that it’s an allegory, but not every single character, object, or situation will fit perfectly with the Christ story.

Technorati tags: Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows, Christ, Temptations, Allegory

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