Category Archives: History

Golden Calf

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Medieval manuscript depiction of Moses seeing the Hebrews worshipping the golden calf.



Aaron made a golden calf for the Hebrews to worship when Moses disappeared for six weeks high atop Mt. Sinai. What was he thinking?!

Aaron probably did not think of the golden calf as an “idol,” per se. Often, the image of a calf or bull was thought to be the throne of a god; the god was seated in the empty space between the horns of the animal. When God gave directions for making the ark of the covenant, he promised that his glory would dwell atop the ark, between the two cherubim at each end of the ark’s lid; this was a very similar idea to what Aaron probably thought he was doing. He was making a throne for God, whom his brother Moses had gone up the mountain to meet.

Why a calf rather than a bull? A calf—a young cow—might have reminded Aaron of Hathor, the goddess of Egypt who was a maternal figure, nurturing and sustaining the people. She fed the people, much as God fed the Hebrews with quail and manna. She helped people cross from life to death, not so unlike the Lord delivering the Hebrews through the Red Sea. (Hathor was the great Mother before Isis was.) She was also associated with the land of Canaan—exactly the place the Hebrews hoped to journey to through the wilderness. Maybe Aaron thought that Hathor’s cow horns would be an appropriate throne for the God of Israel.

This might explain what Aaron did but does it excuse what he did? Although he made the calf, he was not subjected to the consequences and punishment for worshiping the calf—he was not forced to drink the gold dust water and he was not killed by the Levites when Moses came back to the Hebrew camp. So Moses might have understood Aaron’s motivation although disagreeing with his brother’s behavior.

How do we make a golden calf for ourselves? How do our motives seem reasonable though our actions are not? How do we accidentally make idols for ourselves or others? Anytime we let something—even a good thing, such as providing for our families—become the most important thing in our lives, we have constructed an idol. We make a throne for God in our hearts but then the throne itself is mistaken for the One who is enthroned.

Read more about the golden calf here and here.

I am Sending my Angel

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  • Moses receiving the Law on Mt. Sinai from the Logos

See, I am sending my angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. (Exodus 23:20)

The Lord promises Moses that not just any angel but MY angel will lead the Chosen People to the Promised Land. This particular angel–named Metatron in Jewish folklore but sometimes also identified with Michael–would be the guardian angel of the people, just as each nation/language group–there were thought to be 70 or 72 such “nations”–had a guardian angel.

Christians understand this reference to MY angel, however, to be either the Holy Spirit or the Logos himself. (As Christians understand the Logos to be the divine Person speaking with Moses, it seems more consistent that the reference to “my angel” would be the Spirit rather than the Logos referring to himself in this way.) Almost all the appearances of “God” or “the Lord” in the Old Testament are understood to be the Logos, anticipating his coming among us; throughout the Gospel According to St. John, the point is made that no mortal has ever met or seen or experienced the Father–only the Son, who reveals the character of the Father by the Son’s self-revelation.

Prophets, such as Malachi, also refer to “God’s angel” in a way that Christians understand to be referring to the Logos. The angel who appeared in the fiery furnace in the book of Daniel is understood to be the Logos, the divine messenger sent to protect the three young men. As “angel” means “messenger,” it is one way that early Christians understood Christ: he is the divine messenger of the Father.

As theology became more sophisticated, Christians understood this understanding of Christ as an “angel” was inadequate. But many were reluctant to abandon theological language that had been in use since the earliest days. It was this adherence to a previous “orthodoxy” that came to be known as heresy–heresy meaning “choice” and it was a choice to reject the theological advances of the Church as she came to understand Christ more clearly.

Faithful adherence to Tradition or stubborn heretical obstinacy … a fine line divides these two attitudes. Only by faithful discernment, “listening,” can we distinguish between them as the Church adjusts her language so that the Gospel can be clearly understood in new times and places. The message must remain the same even as vocabulary changes.

“Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk”

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“Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.” (Exodus 23:19)

I remember as an undergraduate that someone read this verse and gasped, “Who would boil a kid in its mother’s milk!?” They were aghast at such an idea and it took several minutes for them to understand this the “kid” in question was a baby goat, not a human child.

Even so, few people would cook goat in milk nowadays. But no one makes rules about things that don’t happen. So we can deduce that several non-Israelite cultures in the Middle East evidently did cook goat in milk—a kind of cream-of-goat soup or a stew with a splash of milk in it—and the point of this command is that the Hebrews should not cook in the same ways as their neighbors.

The Hebrews already understood that they should not eat meat with “the life” (blood) still in it. Now they are told not to cook meat with milk. Is there a connection?

In the ancient and medieval worlds—really, until the early 1700s—milk and semen were thought to be blood that various organs (breasts and testes) had heated until it became warm and frothy. Blood, milk, and semen were all the same bodily fluid at different temperatures. So the command not to cook with milk is equivalent to being told not to eat meat with blood still in it.

Because of this identification of blood/milk, preachers have identified the Blood of Christ in Holy Communion with the milk Mother Church suckles her children—the Faithful—with. (In the second-third century, newly baptized people would receive the Precious Blood from one chalice and warm milk with honey from another chalice because they had been brought in to the Church, the true Promised Land that flows with milk and honey.) As Christ identified himself with a mother hen who gathers her chicks beneath her wings to protect them, his Blood is also the milk that sustains the newborn Christian who is newly baptized.

Images of the Blessed Virgin nursing the Christ Child is a Eucharistic image. She nurtured her Child with her milk, which is her blood. That milk/blood then becomes Christ’s own body/blood as a child. As he grows, that body/blood grow and mature and he then gives us his Body/Blood in Holy Communion. Everything human about Christ was given to him by his mother; we participate in his family connections when we participate in him. Body/Blood are fundamental to our humanity and sharing his, we share in everyone who also shares in him. (Read more about the Nursing Madonna here.)

Most Christians still refused to eat meat with blood in it until the 1600-1700s. Nowadays few people cook goat with milk but that’s because cuisine habits have changed, not because milk is still identified as a variation of blood. We forget how differently our Christian ancestors lived and what they took for granted; what do we think is self-evident today that will surprise Christians in three hundred years?