Christian Tradition is one in Christ, one in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, one in the transmission of the Name, one in the faith that hallows the Name and bears witness to the Kingdom come. Wisdom discerns the unifying glory of the Name as the New Jerusalem, Bride of Christ, transmitting the communion of the Bridal Chamber, the voice of love in the Holy of Holies. Leaning on the breast of Jesus, the Beloved Disciple is the Church in person, listening to the heart of Christ in the midst, unveiling resurrection to the apostles in seven ‘I AM’ sayings with names, as way, truth and life, and seven ‘I AM’ sayings without names, as ineffable oneness of Godhead beyond all names. Union with Christ in the unifying Name imparts healing in the Gospel of John as seven hallowing signs which harrow the inversions of wisdom’s seven heavens, seven hells cured by wisdom as seven realms of consummating completeness. Known as the Beloved in the Song of Songs, this same wisdom that inspired the Fourth Gospel inspired three Epistles and the Book of Revelation. The Odes of Solomon are widely regarded as springing from the same inspired wisdom. Perhaps the Beloved Disciple was the Odist, who bequeathed forty-two mystical psalms to the Johannine community, the second of which was lost. The Odist transmitted a Song of Songs in which the voices of both Bride and Bridegroom were conjoined in Odes of incomparable beauty.
Wisdom in Temple tradition was Mother and Bride of prophets, priests and kings. As the Bride of Christ, she is the Church in person singing wisdom songs of resurrection, hallowing the ascending, glorifying Name. Inspiring Mari Yah of Magdala, wisdom bore witness in the Spirit to Christ’s resurrection, fulfilling through her the function of apostle to the apostles. Twelve apostles opened her mysteries of the Name as twelve gates to the New Jerusalem, unveiling the completeness of wisdom to the mystical Church as twelve orbed spheres, twelve realms of heavenly glory imparting one radiant, simple wisdom, one hallowing embrace.
Sent out from Antioch by way of Edessa to the east and from Antioch by way of Rome to the west, this wisdom also spread from Jerusalem by way of Ephesus to Byzantium. The New Jerusalem was Christ’s Bride, holy wisdom, in all three Churches, the Church of Rome in the west, the Church of Antioch in the east, and the Church of Byzantium in the midst. The persecuted legacy of wisdom at the heart of the Oriental Churches extended from Antioch to Edessa, through Nisibis to Herat, from Syria to India, through Samarkand to Tibet and from Persia to China. Free of the temptations of Roman imperial power, these Oriental Churches of the Silk Road were martyred over and over again, planting seeds of crypto-christian inspiration in Sufism under Islam, as Dzogchen in Tibet, and as Taoism in China. Surviving at the heart of the Mar Thoma Christian Churches of India, wisdom’s broken legacy found a temporary home in Languedoc, ancient Occitania, only to be annihilated by the genocide of the Albigensian Crusade.
Whenever wisdom’s witness was subject to martyrdom, she rose again with her Bridegroom, for her self-emptying kenosis did not cling to the self-obsessed identity of ancient Christendom or modern Christianity, but resurrects as wisdom’s leaven in the bread of life. Wisdom is profoundly at home in traditions like Sufism, Toaism or Dzogchen, and though unrecognised by conventional Christendom, her veiled and martyred witness rises in our time as the glory of resurrection to renew all Churches, east and west, in the Name.
Wisdom dwells wherever hearts turn and see, bearing witness to glory in the Kingdom come, from glory poured out, martyred and hidden, to the glory of the Bride, unveiled and radiant. Love’s glory, the New, renewing Jerusalem, is her transmission of resurrection, unveiled in the ascended body of uncreated light. Her presence is everywhere that the Name ‘I AM’ is hallowed in the Kingdom come, everywhere that God’s will is heard in the Spirit and well done. Jerusalem is holy wisdom, Mother and Bride, descending whenever hearts turn and see the uncreated light of the Beloved, transmitting the Name in the Spirit’s hallowing glory.
The whole Church is one in wisdom, and no satanic confusion has ever divided her inner heart, bedevilling her insight or obscuring the clarity of her vision. Her wholeness holds even when opinions divide and schisms split what she knows was always one. Her Jerusalem is forever new, regenerating the tradition to renew the world. She lives the oneness of the Christian tradition in God, through God, as God’s own oneness in the heavenly Kingdom. Hidden in traditions that no longer know Christ by name, she remains the wisdom that underlies all worlds, love’s glory tending every wound and hallowing every heart. The tradition is one, one turning into God, one seeing of God through God, one holy communion with God in God, one saving Name everywhere and always. Wisdom is always humble, not with the self-interested humility of ambitious men, but with the hidden humility of God. As Bride of the Lamb, her wedding never ends and her wine never runs dry, utterly untouched by the narrows of schism or the shallows of indifference. Wisdom discerns the glory of the Bride, the renewing Jerusalem, bearing witness to God’s unbroken oneness, ineffably present and aware at the heart of all things.