Tyndale knew the whole gambit on the words and the intents and meanings hold mins in trances, money does it..  enjoy only Jesus, matters....

 Who is Circe?    (RE: kirke, or circe the word church…)

In the post Courtesans, queens, maidens, and wives I wrote about the important role played by women and goddesses in the Odyssey. I connected the archetypal feminine (as embodied in the many female characters) with the quality of changeability, and suggested that trickster-like Odysseus, who is defined by his versatility and multiplicity, is the type of man who can successfully engage with this power. (For more on this theme see Odysseus, a man for changing times).

You could read Homer’s poem as the story of a man’s initiation into the realm of the feminine.

I find the goddess Circe particularly fascinating and continue to ponder her complex nature as threat, lover, and benefactor to Odysseus. When he first speaks of her, Odysseus calls Circe “an awesome power that speaks with a human voice.” He says she is skilled in spells. Later she is “lustrous,” “lovely,” “queenly.” I wonder if she is the mirror of his wife Penelope. And she was expecting him. Their meeting was prophesied. He was the one man who would be able to resist her spells and come into deeper relationship with her.

In the Courtesans post I identified Circe with the archetypal “witch,” a woman who practices magic. Described as “enchanting,” Circe is a mysterious, beautiful woman who lives alone outside of society. She uses a potion and a wand to transform Odysseus’ men into swine. Odysseus is protected from her spell by moly, a plant that he receives from Hermes along with instructions for how to interact with the goddess. In the ancient Greek world, magic (magikē) included the use of drugs (pharmakon), spells, or other mysterious means to influence events, bring about transformation, create illusions, or reveal the hidden nature or meaning of things. All of these forms of magic seem to apply to Circe’s actions.

Circe is a witch, but can we take this identification further by asking why she turned the men into pigs? Why exercise this power over them, and why pigs? No definitive answers here, but a bit of information about the mythological/religious context for pigs and their relationship to the ancient Great Mother Goddesses who arbitrated the mysteries of life and death. These are certainly magical mysteries, the catalysts for our ideas about magic and the need for magical powers. Nothing is more profound, or poses more questions, than birth and death.

We commonly think of pigs as just dirty and greedy, but pigs were one of the earliest holy animals, associated with fertility, purification, the underworld journey, and immortality. The feminine and her companions have been denigrated together. Snakes have suffered a similar fate. In ancient Greece specifically, pigs were linked to Persephone and Demeter. When Hades abducted Persephone the earth opened and a herd of swine fell in as well. Rituals invoking these goddesses, as arbiters of fertility or death, included the sacrifice of pigs, and we will soon see that Circe has a familiarity with the underworld as well. 

I love this weird painting of Circe by Gustave Adolf Mossa (1904). I don’t know where he was coming from (and have heard him described as misogynist) but I think this image powerfully unites the figure of Circe with the archetypal feminine as goddess, sow, and mother.

The wild boar, as the consort of the goddess, also has a long, rich mythological past. Visit the work of Joseph Campbell for cross-cultural examples of the boar as her killed/sacrificed and resurrected son or spouse, the male creative element in the cycle of life. The return of the rejuvenated male in this mytheme resonates in Circe's restoration of Odysseus's men, who come back stronger, handsomer, and more youthful than before.

In Greek mythology there is also the youth Adonis, jealously loved by Persephone and Aphrodite, who is gored to death by a boar. Odysseus was badly wounded by a boar in his youth and has a scar on his thigh from this injury. We haven’t gotten to this part of the story yet, but when he arrives back in Ithaca his nurse Eurycleia will recognize him when she sees this mark. His identity is linked with the boar (and so with this ancient goddess and her cycles?).

But what about the wild animals? This piece of the story haunts me and I see it in many of the images of Circe that most intrigue me. Are the tame lions and tigers and wolves the goddess’s past lovers (as some suggest) or do they link Circe to something or someone else?

The Sorceress, John Williams Waterhouse 1913

The name Circe (Kirke) is the feminine form of the GR. kirkos. One meaning of this word is circle and Circe is often referred to as the “encircler.” But the primary meaning of kirkos is falcon or hawk. (I thank Judith Yarnell for this information and for developing this insight in Transformations of Circe, the History of an Enchantress). Archetypally, birds are oracles and messengers from the spirit realm, carriers of spiritual aspiration. The connection with raptors leads one to flesh-eating birds generally (think vultures, hawks, and kites) and back once again to the ancient goddesses of life and death that were the foundation of a world imagined in feminine forms, faces, and terms. Representations of these ancient goddesses include wild animals. There seems to be a link between the goddess and carnivorous creatures of all sorts. The birds can remind us that eating and being eaten are transcendent realities with a spiritual component, not just bodily necessities.

There is a lot of speculation about the meaning of prehistoric figures and images and the possibilities they seem to raise about earlier matriarchal cultures. My intention is merely to broaden your awareness of the cultural context for a goddess like Circe and to suggest that the tension between the Great Goddess and great God may be another cultural conversation that we can trace in Homer's epic, alongside the morphing notions of heroism and justice and social order, and the integration of the feminine in a man capable of receiving that energy.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Here are a few images to spark your mythological imagination as we return to the story, Circe, and Odysseus.

Below left is the Seated Woman/Mother Goddess of Catal Huyuk (now in Turkey), 6000 B.C.E. She has her hands on the heads of two leopards or panthers. I wonder what, if anything, Waterhouse knew about this image? On the right is his painting, Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses, John William Waterhouse, 1891. Note the arms of her throne.

                                                                                                     http://www.fossilizedcustoms.com/circe.html

Who is CIRCE?   (A WOMAN HOLDING A GOLDEN CUP FILLED WITH ABOMINATIONS)

THE 3 ESTATES, AND CIRCE:
  William Tyndale was burned at the stake because he translated "qahal / ekklesia" as "congregacion" instead of "church". 
The hierarchy (nicolaitanes) wanted to make the distinction between them and the "laity" (common people). In the Medieval period, there were 3 "estates": the 1st estate was the clergy (those who were literate were appointed positions within the Circus hierarchy, since "clericus" meant "literate"); the 2nd estate was made up of the nobility, rulers, and owners of land. The 3rd estate was comprised of the "commoners", or laity, having no authority whatsoever. To translate the word as "congregation" put everyone on equal footing before Yahusha. So, the 1599 Geneva Version, and the KJV (Authorized Version) based on the Geneva Version, used the word "church". This term was understood to apply to the 1st estate, the "clergy", not to include the 2nd and 3rd estates.
View more here on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgp-ioXkaZA&list=TLWkVooOOkbI6L81rFSHLfnr6nxJA8F80B