Some time ago I published on this blog a review of the first volume of “The Chalice and the Sword” that had the title “Suddenly That Light” in which I expressed my perplexity at certain curious aspects of this novel. Later, the second volume titled “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” in reference to Psalm 23 in which this verse appears: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because you are with me; “Your rod and your staff give me encouragement.” In this second part, reference continues to be made to the so-called “Solomon's Table”, also known by the names of Table or Mirror of Solomon–, a legend that tells how King Solomon wrote all the knowledge of the Universe, the formula of creation and the true name of God: he Shem ha-meforash, which can never be written and must only be pronounced to provoke the act of creating, supposedly deposited in the second temple of Jerusalem, later transferred to Rome when Titus destroyed it in the year 70 and kept first in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and then in the imperial palaces. When the goths they sacked Rome In the year 410, it was taken to Carcassonne, as part of the "Ancient Treasure", and then to Ravenna, to save her from attacks francs. In 526 the king claimed it Amalric, and Theodoric, king of the ostrogoths, he gives it back. When Alaric II had to abandon Toulouse, the capital of Visigoths, in the year 507, persecuted by the Franks, to take refuge in Spain, he took her with him. It is assumed that, after the assassination of the king in Barcelona, the Table was moved with the rest of the treasure, which was installed in Toledo (new capital), specifically in the so-called Caves of Hercules. It seems logical to assume that, faced with the possibility of it falling into the hands of the Muslim conquerors, its custodians made it undertake a journey northwards, towards Oviedo, at first, and perhaps later towards France or any other Christian kingdom, sheltered from such a threat. This theme of the Table has frequently been related to the legends of the Holy Grail and those of the Arthurian cycle, in which, as is common knowledge, the Round Table is mentioned, which may not be as it is usually imagined.

   This would apparently be the main theme of the novel since, in fact, the characters in the work, representatives of the main political factions of the time, confront each other, under the watchful eye of Charlemagne, to seize such an important object. However, behind the theme of the Table, there is hidden another no less mysterious and loaded with mystical connotations and implications: that of ““hieros gamos”, from the ancient Greek hieros, sacred, and gamos, union or sexual relationship, designating in mythology a sacred union between two divinities, or between a god and a human being. Hierogamy is situated in a symbolic, often ritual, framework that assigns sexual activity a mystical meaning, the sexual union of the two divine principles, the masculine and the feminine. Traces of such a vision are found in Celtic and Germanic mythology, as well as in Gnosticism, which attributes to the meeting of the masculine and feminine principles one of the highest purposes of the spiritual existence of the human being. In the Gospel according to Thomas, a Christian apocryphal that emerged from the Nag Hammadi library, we read (logion number 7): "Shall we go to the Kingdom? Jesus says to them: When you make the two One… in order to make the male and the female into one."

   Carl Gustav Jung, in his work "Four Archetypes", when speaking of the positive aspects of the mother complex, writes the following: "There is no consciousness without discrimination of the opposites… Nothing can exist without its opposite; the two were one in the beginning and will be one again in the end… Conflict engenders fire, the fire of the affections and emotions, which, like any other fire, has two aspects, that of combustion and that of the creation of light. On the one hand, emotion is the alchemical fire whose heat brings everything into existence and whose ardor burns the superfluous and turns it into ashes. But on the other hand, emotion is the moment when steel meets stone and the spark arises, that is why emotion is the main source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light, or from inertia to movement, without emotion… What seems like a meaningless convulsion becomes a process of purification… Consciousness transforms it (the woman) into liberating and redeeming.”

   Here is the true theme, secret, or rather buried by words, of the novel. All who try to pronounce the name of divinity inscribed on the Table fail and die. However, those initiated into the mystery reap the benefits, since they pronounce it for two and they are a man and a woman.

   Perhaps the mysterious author-narrator wants to suggest to us that every prayer, every magical formula, must be pronounced in this way for there to be true creation. Although, after all, it is only a novel, that is, a work of fiction, which, if spurred by curiosity you want to read, you can find it here:

https://amzn.to/3loqZZU

And in audiobook.

http://bit.ly/3Tnj6k0

https://books2read.com/ap/xrw0jL/Alba-Longa

Automatic translation of the original article. The language of this page does not determine the language of the book: purchase links lead to the editions indicated, including editions in their original language.