Saturnalia and the O Antiphons

No matter what week of Advent it is, the 17th of December is the first night when the O Antiphons are recited in the evening, generally before the chanting of the Magnificat. In order they are:

17 December: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
18 December: O Adonai (O Lord)
19 December: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
20 December: O Clavis David (O Key of David)
21 December: O Oriens (O Dayspring)
22 December: O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)
23 December: O Emmanuel (O With Us is God)

They are invocations to Christ to come soon in seven aspects. They could be looked at, but a few of these aspects are not necessarily identified with Jesus. Sapientia is generally perceived of, even in the antiphon, as female and separate from the conventional Christian view of God. Adonai is the name Jews use in place of Tetragrammaton. Clearly, on one hand, what the antiphons are doing is looking at Divinity is seven different phases and saying that a true Christ is in all of them, not merely Christian, not merely male and not merely contained in the story of Jesus. There may even be some connection to the Jewish idea of the seven sefirot, or the Hindu idea of the various gods all being avatars of One.

The first avatar called upon is the Lady Sapientia, Wisdom, Sophia, Prudence, sometimes identified with the Virgin or the Holy Spirit. She is certainly virginal in aspect, and definitely holy. Her Tarot card it the High Priestess.

Latin:

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem,
fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.
English:

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other,
mightily and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.

(Coincidentally???) the 17th is also the start of the old Saturnalia, the time when Romans consecrated themselves to the God who consumed what was waste and brought renewal, and they looked back to an old age of gold while praying for a better future. Saturn is more than the Roman name of Greek Kronos. Saturn was a deity who was eventually identified with Kronos, but they were not exactly the same. Their origins were different for one. Kronos is famous for being the Titan who castrated his own father, Uranus with a sickle (we'll come back to this sickle) and then took his turn as ruler of the older gods, the Titans. His age was, for most people, an age of gold. But not for his children. As the Goddess Rhea bore each one, he consumed them until, at last, Rhea wrapped the last child, Zeus, in a blanket and replaced him with a stone. Later, Zeus's first wife/girlfriend, the old goddess Metis, helped him give Kronos a potion by which he vomited out the other Gods. To make a long story short, Zeus takes over, Kronos is chained in the depths of Tartaros.

The Roman stories differed, and they said that Saturn was not exiled two Tartaros, but to Italy, where the golden age continued. In then end he kept traveling West, even went to Britain. There is more to this story, and we'll return to it later. For now let's stay with Italian Saturn and even with our O Antiphons. Later, Metis, who made Saturn/Kronos, vomit his children up, is herself, eaten by Zeus (long story) only to be reborn as Athena who bursts from his head. But when I grew up reading myths, I got the Roman version based on Ovid and there Metis has her Latin name: Prudence. Athena is, of course, Wisdom, and I cannot help but see an interesting link between the antiphon stating:  O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, and the Goddess who turns the High God's mouth, a consuming tomb, into a womb. There is a mystery here worth dwelling on.

But before we leave, why would Romans devote so much time to a God who ate his children, who had attempted infanticide on all of his children, the ruling gods of this world? I think maybe it was for that very reason. The Greeks had a very interesting relationship to their Gods, but the Romans had a very interesting relationship to themselves. Most of their culture had not only Greek origins but Etruscan origins, and the Etruscans had known their own golden era before being eclipsed by Greece and Rome. Their myths were quite different from Greek and Roman stories and became darker as the time of their freedom and independence was further in the past. Many of their gods took on Greek or Roman names. The Etruscans were still very much a people in the time of the early Roman Empire, many Roman families were descended from them as was much of Roman religion.

The chief of the Roman gods was Jove or Juppiter who we know as Jupiter who is amalgamated with Zeus as his wife Juno is identified with Hera. But the head of the Etruscan gods was Tinia, an altogether different type of monarch, and his gracious wife, Uni. Her name is probably the origin of Juno, but she is identified not with Juno, but with Mama Matuta, the Great Mother, Ops, the Mother of Grain, who the Romans eventually identified with Rhea. This would make Tinia not synonomous with Zeus, but with Saturn, and when people in the present looked about and saw hor troubled they were, and how unjust the gods of the current age were, why would they not revere the god of a better time, the one who castrated old powers with his sickle, who had attempted to devour the gods who did so little or maintained such a stale status quo, and who might do it again. After all, to the Romans he was not chained in Tartaros. He was just hanging out west, biding his time, and they may have thought, as Christians pray today, "Lord, quickly come!"