Tag Archives: Egypt

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 Black and Beautiful:” the Queen of the South

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  • The Queen of Sheba, from a 15th-century manuscript now at Staats – und Universitätsbibliothek Gottingen
  • Sanctae Mariae Coronavi by Giacomo di Mino‘s Gothic version. Circa 1340–1350

The Queen of Sheba, whom Jesus refers to as “the Queen of the South” who “came from the uttermost parts of the earth”, i.e. from the extremities of the then known world, to hear the wisdom of Solomon (Matthew 12:42, Luke 11:31), has long fascinated us. She is a mysterious figure who appears briefly in 1 Kings 10 and 2 Chronicles 9 and then seems to vanish again. Who was she? What do we really know about her? Why should we care?

Sheba, also known as “Saba,” is mentioned in the Psalms. It was a wealthy kingdom that included modern Yemen and Ethiopia and was connected to a vast network of trading routes and business exchanges. When the Queen came to visit King Solomon, it might well have been a trade mission–a sort of G8 meeting!–to make new trade deals and sign new business agreements between the two monarchs. Solomon and the Queen were both known for their wisdom and keen senses; while striking their business deals, they traded riddles. Folklore has suggested many possible riddles that they might have traded, including the famous, “What land has only seen the sun once?” (Answer: the bottom of the Red Sea, which was exposed to sunlight when it parted for Moses and the Hebrews to escape from Egypt.)

Origen, who wrote a voluminous commentary on the Song of Songs, identified the bride of the Song with the “queen of the South” of the Gospels, i.e. the Queen of Sheba, and assumed she was Ethiopian as the bride in the Song says, “I am black and beautiful” (μέλαινα εἰμί καί καλή ). Not only is the bride in the Song identified as the Queen of Sheba, the bride is also understood by Christians to be an allusion to both the Church and the Mother of God. (It is the identification of the Mother of God with the dark and beautiful bride that results in the depictions of the “black Madonna.”) Because of the identification of the bride as Queen, Church, and Mother of God, the Queen of Sheba herself comes to be seen as a type of the Church and the Mother of God: the wonderful gifts of gold and incense that the Queen brings Solomon is seen as a foreshadowing of the adoration of the Magi (Matthew 2) and the Queen of Sheba enthroned represents the coronation of the virgin.

St. Raphael, Looking Out For Mankind–and New York!

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A modern painting of the Archangel Raphael in 17th-18th century Peruvian style by Elizabeth Alvarez. He is holding the fish that was so important in healing the blind and the possessed.

Archangel Raphael tells us in the Book of Tobit that he is one of the seven archangels that stand before the throne of God, offering the prayers of the saints like incense. We know the names of three other archangels: Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel. Michael is known as a warrior and Gabriel is a messenger while Uriel is a keeper of secrets but Raphael is known as a healer.

In Tobit, St. Raphael tells Tobias how to use the heart, liver, and gall of a large fish to save Sarah and heal his father’s eyes. Because of this, Raphael is often considered the patron of the blind and of pharmacists who mix or oversee the use of medicinal herbs and drugs for healing ailments. Because he also bound the demon Asmodeus in chains when Asmodeus fled to Egypt, the archangel is also the guardian of those possessed or under attack by the demons. Asmodeus attacked Sarah at night, so Raphael is invoked against nightmares.

In the Old Testament, the land of Egypt is both a symbol of fertility or safety and the “land of the shadow of Death,” the region most associated with all that is opposed to God. Egypt was the source of food that saved Joseph and his brothers and the people of Israel who came to escape the famine in the Promised Land. Egypt is the fertile bread basket of the Ancient World, including Greece and the Roman Empire. The importance of Egypt as food source continued into the Byzantine period. The known world relied on Egypt to survive for centuries. The prophets refer to Egypt as a garden similar to Eden (esp. Jeremiah and Isaiah), providing all that humans need to live. Yet Origen says that “Egypt” is the world steeped in Death because Pharaoh opposed God, inflicting suffering and death on the Chosen People; Pharaoh brought down the Ten Plagues, killing many of his own people as the water was undrinkable or the cattle sickened and died even before the firstborn were slain. Most of his soldiers drowned at the Red Sea. The gods worshipped in Egypt were thought to be devils in disguise by the Christians as well. The wilderness of the Egyptian desert was the home of devils and demons so mons and nuns went out into the wilderness to pray and fight against the devil on his own turf.

Asmodeus fled to Egypt because that was the natural home on earth of all demons. Raphael bound him in chains and imprisoned Asmodeus in Egypt because the desert of Egypt is the icon of Hell.

In Greek, the words “health” and “salvation” are slightly different versions of the same word. Miracles of healing are paradigms of salvation. Raphael brought health and salvation to Tobit, Tobias, and Sarah–the family that stands in for the human race. Because Raphael saved them, he guards and protects us all.

St. Raphael keeps an eye on New York as well. He stands atop the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park (designed by Emma Stebbins, who was the first woman to receive a public commission for a major work of art in New York City and completed in 1873) because the fountain refers to Healing the paralytic at Bethesda, a story from the Gospel of John (chapter 5) about an angel blessing the Pool of Bethesda, giving it healing powers. Folklore has always insisted that the angel who troubled the water at Bethesda was St. Raphael.