Insights from Margaret Barker’s “Temple Themes in Christian Worship”

 The Secret Temple Tradition

This begins a series of posts in which I hope to share some of the most exciting insights provided by biblical scholar Margaret Barker in her most recent book, Temple Themes in Christian Worship (T&T Clark International, 2007). Margaret Barker has become well known and well respected in LDS circles because of her research into the Temple, the use of Temple imagery and rituals among the early Christians, and other topics of great interest to LDS readers. Anyone with interests in religious studies should seriously look at her many amazing books. She is one of my favorite authors and I will dedicate many posts to what I have learned from her research. I had the great privilege of meeting her at the 2007 Society of Biblical Literature conference in San Diego, where she spoke on the topic of Melchizedek at an LDS-themed session. LDS readers will find many of her ideas similar to their own beliefs.

You really should read this book, but until you have the opportunity, I hope to share with you some of the points I found most inspiring (although to truly do so would mean reprinting most of the whole book right here).

To begin her study of “temple themes in Christian worship,” Barker begins by giving evidence that there was, in fact, a “secret tradition” of beliefs/practices that had its roots in the ancient Temple of Solomon. Many of the early Church Fathers knew of “authentic Christian traditions not recorded in the Bible” (p. 1).

She cites St. Basil the Great, one of the influential Cappodocian Fathers, as saying:

“Of the dogma and kerygma which are preserved in the Church, we have some from teachings in writing, and the others we have received from the tradition of the apostles, handed down in a mystery“ (On the Holy Spirit 66) (1, emphasis mine).

and also:

“The apostles and fathers who prescribed from the beginning the matters that concerned the Church, guarded in secret and unspoken, the holy things of the mysteries…A whole day would not be long enough from me to go through all the unwritten mysteries of the Church” (On the Holy Spirit 67) (1-2).

The Apostles had passed on teachings that Jesus shared with them in private –the mysteries (Greek mysterion) or “secrets” of the Kingdom of God (Mark 4:11). For Barker, the Kingdom of God is the place of God’s Throne, the Holy of Holies. When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom, he was speaking of the Temple. Jesus had passed on to select disciples the true practices of the ancient Temple; practices not recorded in the Scriptures, nor written down by Jesus’ disciples.  This Temple knowledge was to be passed on unwritten–in secret.

She notes that Josephus recorded a similar practice (of passing on secret traditions) among the Essenes. Entry into their community was very strict, and new members had to swear an oath “invoking the living God and calling to witness his almighty right hand, and the Spirit of God, the incomprehensible, and the Seraphim and Cherubim, who have insight into all, and the whole heavenly host” (Jewish War 2:138 ) (5). The Essene swore that he would reveal none of the sect’s secrets, even under torture.

For the earliest Christians, knowledge of this secret Temple tradition was an important factor in distinguishing true believers from heretics (although this perspective seems to have been reversed later on). Clement of Alexandria identified heretics as those who did not have knowledge of the secret truths: “They do not enter in as we enter in, through the tradition of the Lord, by drawing aside the curtain” (Miscellanies 7:17) (15).

Barker astutely interprets the reference to “the curtain” as an allusion to the Temple veil, and that knowledge gained beyond “the curtain” must have been the sacred truths of the Holy of Holies, reserved for the high priests. “This knowledge concerned the vision of God,” she says, “and had been transmitted by a few ‘having been imparted unwritten by the apostles’ (Miscellanies 6:7)” (15).

The Old Testament potrays the Holy of Holies as having been restricted to the high priests alone. For Christians, Jesus was the great High Priest who had brought them the secrets of the Heavenly Holy of Holies. Besides the knowledge, it appears that Christ also passed on his high priesthood. The early Christians knew John the Beloved to be both a prophet and a high priest (Eusebius, Church History 3:31). Likewise, James was a high priest of the Jerusalem church, and is known to have shared a “secret teaching” that was revealed to him and Peter by the Lord (13).

Furthermore, the Christians, as a group, were “the new royal high priesthood,” according to Origen, and thus worthy to see the Word of God and receive the mysteries of the Temple (Homily 5, On Numbers) (12). Elsewhere in the book, Barker specifically refers to this priesthood as a restoration of “the older priesthood of Melchizedek” (57, emphasis in original).

Jesus brought a restoration of the ancient temple practices that had existed in the First Temple. Temple themes and practices pervaded early Christian beliefs and rituals. Although the original forms and meanings were obscured over time, many themes from these Temple roots can be found in early Christian writings, liturgies, rituals, and architecture. While the early Christians were preserving the ancient Temple tradition, the contemporary Jews were establishing an identity that emphasized “a tradition that had no place for the temple and priesthood” (14).

Margaret Barker’s research in temple traditions gives ample evidence that there was a tradition in early Christianity of a secret teaching that was handed down unwritten from the time of Jesus and the Apostles. It was believed to be the authentic ancient temple tradition, along with its priesthood, restored.

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