Here the desolate figure of Mary Magdalen clings to the foot of the cross on which Jesus hangs.
On the right is a figure of an angel gripping a fox, which he holds upside down by the tail.
Dark
storm clouds in the painting are being driven away, and from the nimbus
in the upper left corner, where God the Father is pictured blessing the
scene, angels are descending from the sky, each bearing a shield of
white with a tilted red X emblazoned on it.
The
angels with the red crosses are dispelling the darkness that
enshrouds the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalen.
The
fox is a Gnostic symbol for pious fraud. Popular stories and pictures
from the Middle Ages often depict a fox dressed in a monk’s robe, going
slyly about his business of deceiving and exploiting the people. For
them, the clergymen of the Roman Church were “foxes”.
Reference
to foxes is found in the favourite scripture of the heretics, the Song
of Songs, in which the “little foxes” spoil the vines in the vineyard
of the Bride (Can.2:15).
The fox in the painting represents
the fraud perpetuated by the orthodox church, which insisted that Jesus
had been celibate. This belief was, in effect, “spoiling the vine” by
denying the legitimacy of the bloodline.
The tilted red
crosses on the shields of the angels, echoing the emblem of the Knights
Templar, denote the protection of the true “vine” by the Priory of Sion
and its militant arm, the Knights of the Temple.
Interpreted
along these lines, this painting becomes a reflection of the tenets of
the Grail heresy, of which Botticelli is claimed to have been chief
custodian at the time this masterpiece was painted. | Perhaps the most significant painting of Fra Angelico that seems to
contain a hidden reference to the Grail heresy is a painting on the
wall of the first cell in the San Marco Convent in Florence. The famous
mural is called Noli Me Tangere. The title is taken from the Gospel of
John 20:17.
Jesus is standing in the enclosed garden with a
hoe over his shoulder, a symbol emphasizing his role as husbandman, the
“gardener” of the Fourth Gospel. Kneeling at his feet and reaching out
toward him is Mary Magdalen, dressed in a rose-colored gown. Under her
left hand, painted unobtrusively among the flowers in the grass, are
three tiny red Xs in a row.
The triple Xs under the left
hand of the Magdalen refer to the secret doctrines. In the picture, her
right hand is pointing directly toward these Xs.
X is a symbol of
true enlightenment, symbol of lux or “light.”The heretics often used
the letter X as a secret code for their faith.
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When
I was ordained a Spiritual Peace Minister in 2005 in Assisi, Italy, I
committed myself to 
