THE HOUSE OF
A Study on Footwashing, the Johannine Community
& the Family of Jesus
‘The unicorn of prophecy’
By James Wesley Stivers, General Overseer
The Cambrian Episcopal Church of the Grail
2007
From Hierogamy & the Married Messiah
Of course no one-horned rhinoceros was there
pointed to, nor any two-horned minotaur. But
Christ was therein signified:
“bull," by reason of each of His two characters, - to some fierce, as
Judge; to others gentle, as Savior; whose "horns" were to be the
extremities of the "cross". For even in a ship's yard - which is part
of a "cross" - this is the name by which the extremities are called; while
the central pole of the mast is a "unicorn". By this power, in fact
of the cross, and in this manner horned . . . .
- Tertullian
(Emphasis
added)[1]
After
referring to Christ, again, as the
"bull" of prophecy, he quotes a Scripture
unknown to us (but well-known to the Fathers) that the Lord "might reign
from the tree" - meaning, that this was the unique feature of his
government. Later, he quotes Isaiah 53:12,
Therefore He shall have many for
an heritage, and of many shall He divide spoils.
Tertullian condenses the sense of two verses here, but it
clearly refers to the Messiah's procreative power:
He shall see his seed.
- Isaiah 53:10, Received Text
Tertullian also refers to the Messianic prophecy in Psalm 21 in the Septuagint (Psalm 22 in our Bibles), which speaks of the
Messiah's seed serving the LORD.[2]
Thus,
to summarize, Christ "rules from the tree," the Cross, as Savior
and as Judge, and then, as "unicorn": the symbol of the
phallic Christ.