The four hidden keys could be called simply (too simply) the physical,
intellectual, emotional, and spiritual parts of life, but describing them this
simply drains them of all the depth of meaning and interconnections within life
that Christ gave them. For Christ, each of of these keys is a complex idea that
could only be explained by analogies.
Each key is part of many different cycles of life.
The nature of these keys is defined largely by the role they play in these
cycles. These cycle are described throughout the Gospels in analogies.
Quick test, what does "parable" mean in Greek? It means "analogy" or
"comparison." These keys are "hidden" only because they appear almost
exclusively in analogies.
There is very little in the Gospels that isn't connected to one of these four keys,
their analogies, or the related cycles.
A Quick Overview of the Keys
These four keys are explained in more detail on their own pages. Click on
titles for more detail. They are also better understood by the role in the
Three Key Cycles.
The Physical Key: This is the realm of the body, needs
and deeds, eating and drinking, symbolized physically by bread, water, the sea,
fish, fruit, the sense of sight, and personified by Jonah who went into
the belly of a fish and by David who ate the consecrated bread from the temple
when he was hungry. Christ does NOT condemn physical needs. Indeed, he
contrasts himself to John the Baptist because John fasted and he and his
followers enjoyed eating and drinking. As the story of David explains, sometimes
physical needs trumps religious rules.
The dark side of the physical is the the body is temporary. Hunger and thirst
are only temporarily satisfied. The analogies are that fish and fruit rots. The
physical is by its nature transient.
The Intellectual Key: This is the realm of the mind, ideas and
thoughts, symbolized by grain, metal, wine, trees, fire, demons, the sense of
hearing, and personified by Solomon. Again, Christ does NOT condemn wealth and
power as such. They are worldly forms of achievement. I don't say success,
because the word is too intangible. Christ talks about real, tangible success in
the form of possessions. The ultimate power and wealth, after all, belongs
to God. Most of Christ's parables have rich men and kings
symbolizing God. Christ ties wealth and power to mind and wisdom. This is
not a condemnation of wealth and power but a recognition that it takes wisdom to
be successful in life.
The dark side of the intellectual is useless thinking and poor judgment. Worthless
thinking leads to physical and emotional consequences. This dark side is
symbolized by demons, that make your life worse.
The Emotional (Relationship) Key : This is the realm of the heart,
caring and sacrificing for others, symbolized by the heart, the earth, flesh and
blood, and personified by Christ. Though we call it "emotional," the
concept
is defines and is defined by our relationships with others. It is specifically
what we care about in our relationship with other people. It is the emotional connection between
people. Sex in Christ's view falls under feelings for others, not physical
needs. This emotional
connection is both personal and social.
The dark side of the emotional is social concerns, worrying about what
society thinks about you and acting on the basis of social rewards.
The Spiritual Key: This is the realm
of the divine. It is symbolized by the seed, the air, breath, the sky
(heaven), blinding light, and the
wind. This key is personified by the prophets
who were inspired by God. In the original
Greek, the term used for "spirit" is pneuma, which means
the wind, the blast, and divine inspiration. Christ's role was to bring the age
in which spirit reigns supreme.
Christ makes a clear separation between our personal relationship
with God in pure spirit and our social relationship with the priests, tradition,
and other church members. Religions are part of the emotional realm, the
realm of relationships. In personification, prophets are those who
experience divine inspiration directly while the observant (the righteous, in KJV, from the Greek
dikaios) personalizes those who follow tradition, that is, care about
social rules.
Christ draws between spiritual concepts and mental thoughts. Spiritual ideas
or concepts exist independent of any specific person or thing. The number "pi,"
for example, exists as an concept independent of any round form. It is real even
without tangible form, even if no one knows it. The number "pi" existed even
before people knew about it. Spiritual ideas inspire and shape thoughts, but
they are not the thoughts themselves. Once people know about "pi" the can use
the idea and it can shape their plans and actions. This is what Christ means by
"spirit," the real concepts underlying reality. People can think about concepts,
but concepts are bigger and beyond those thoughts, like "pi" is beyond our
ability to write it all down.
Only God's concepts underlie physical reality. When we get into the realm of
relationships, the emotional, God's concepts contend with human concepts.
Christ's role is to bring the kingdom of heaven, that is, God's concepts, back
to human relationships and human society. This is his "leaven." These concepts
must contend against those of organized religion and the state. He is warning
the apostles that it is very easy to mix spiritual and worldly ideas.
The spirit in its pure form of the universal rule is the beginning
and purpose of life. We can blaspheme (argue) against Christ as a
personification of caring, but we can never blaspheme the spirit.
The Four Elements Connected to the Keys
There is a connection in these four Gospel keys and four classical elements.
Water represents the physical realm. Fire represents the intellectual realm.
Earth represents the realm of emotions. Air represents the spirit realm.
When Christ says "winged ones of the air" he is talking about the divine, the
realm of God. However, demons, interestingly, clearly belong to the realm
of the mind.
Fire is symbolic of judgment in the intellectual realm, so it is the image for
punishment. Heat is another symbol for this element. Its opposite is the the
light of the air, which is spirit and pure knowledge, which is beyond our
intellectual
abilities.
Interestingly enough, in the Greek much of the discussion of fire and ovens
in the Gospels is not as much about punishment as it is about separation and
even fuel.
Symbolically, most of the mingling of worthwhile (good) and evil (useless)
takes place in the "field," which is another metaphor for the
intellectual realm, the
world of our thoughts. Christ makes the point that only the angels, God's
messengers, can sort this out and that the worthless thought or demons of the
intellectual realm are eventually destroyed in fire. Specifically, the fire is in a
oven, but the word for furnace is specific to the bread ovens of the time. Fire
symbolically becomes the fuel that allows the conversion of grain, the product
of our intellectual work, into bread, the satisfaction of our physical needs.
Fire is a tool of the mind. It does cause weeping and gnashing of teeth
because it represents a mental realization of the truth after it is too
late to act. Taking the heat for worthless thinking always hurts.
