1. The Pope card in 15th-century Italy
The card later known as the Hierophant, was in the traditional tarot, i.e. the deck used to play a trick-taking game, called the Pope. As the male head of the spiritual hierarchy, the Pope complements both the Popess, who is his spiritual female counterpart (however interpreted), and the Emperor, who is his temporal counterpart, all seen as heads of transnational hierarchies. As befitting trump cards, they are more powerful than the Kings and other members of the four suits, but less powerful than the powers above them in the tarot sequence, such as Love, the virtues, the passage of Time (the Old Man), and Death.
The earliest surviving version (far left below) is
that of the 1450s Visconti-Sforza deck (also known as the Pierpont-
Morgan-Bergamo [PMB] and Colleoni-Bagliati). A bearded older man stretches out one hand toward the viewer while he holds a cross-staff in the other. The staff appears to have one horizontal bar near the top, as with the staff of the
Popess. Whether the figure is blessing or admonishing is not clear. The sterm expression would suggest the latter, but the office suggests the former.
The next known Pope card, that of the “Charles VI” deck (2nd left above), probably from Florence of a few years later, neither blesses nor holds a staff; instead, he holds two keys, while two cardinals sit at each side on a lower level. These three motifs – blessing, keys, staff, and subordinates – will reappear in various ways through the centuries.
Another difference is that his headgear is conical, without the three crown-like tiers usually seen in the 15th century. It is an older style, as seen for example in a c. 1300 fresco of Bonifacio XIII by Giotto in the Church of San Giovanni of the Laterano in Rome, far left above (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Boniface-VIII).
In the Charles VI card, the pope’s face has been compared to that of Pope Eugenius IV, as painted c. 1447, the year of his death, by the visiting French painter Jean Fouquet. The painting is lost and only survives in engraved copies, such as that published in 1568 as part of a book on the popes by the Veronese scholar Onofrio Panvinio (http://expositions.bnf.fr/fouquet/grand/f216.htm, 3rd left above).
The next surviving Pope card is from a deck made for the d'Este rulers of Ferrara, perhaps for the wedding of Ercole d'Este and Eleanor of Aragon in 1483, as coats of arms of both appear elsewhere in the cards. This pope clearly is making a blessing, but in his other hand instead of a staff he holds what appear to be the same two keys as in the Charles VI card. In the latter, at least one of the keys is gold-colored; in the d’Este, both appear to be gold.
The two keys continue in a sheet of cards probably from Ferrara (or Venice) of the early 16th century and now in Budapest. This card, second from left above, is extraordinarily detailed for a woodcut card: on the bottom, besides the keys are two acolytes, or perhaps angels. The pope himself has one hand outstretched, although we cannot see if his fingers are giving the sign of blessing, while the other holds a staff. On top we can see that there is one bar on it, and there are also two columns with what appears to be a bridge between them, very much resembling the Rialto in Venice. Given that "pontiff" comes from the Latin for "bridge" (ponte, the same in Italian), there is perhaps a visual pun.
The two keys, this time clearly gold and silver, also appear in a late 17th-century card from Bologna (far right), which has only them and the blessing.
The motif of the keys relates to Matthew 16:19, where Christ says to Peter: “ "I will entrust to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Since Peter was considered the first pope, it was understood that this power was given to all popes after Peter. According to Bruno Bernhard Heim, in Heraldry in the Catholic Church: Its Origins, Customs and Laws (Gerrards Cross: Van Duren, 1978):
The golden key, which points upwards on the dexter [right] side, signifies the power that extends even to Heaven. The silver key, which must point up to the sinister [left] side, symbolizes the power over all the faithful on earth. The two are often linked by a cordon Gules [red] as a sign of the union of the two powers. The handles are turned downwards, for they are in the hand of the Pope, Christ's lieutenant on earth. The wards point upwards, for the power of binding and loosing engages Heaven itself.
These remarks are quoted by Wikipedia in its entry “Coats of arms of the Holy See and Vatican City.” It adds, with documentation, that the heraldic of the two keys dates from at least the beginning of the 14th century, sometimes both gold, sometimes one gold and one silver, and less often both silver. The practice of having one gold and one silver was slow in establishing itself; Wikipedia quotes John Goodall in “The Sovereign Pontiff has the Oldest Arms,” The Catholic Herald, June 1, 1956: "The practice of placing a gold key in bend over another in bend sinister of silver is not found with any certainty before the time of Pius II (1458–64)." This papal coat of arms is what is shown above, 3rd from left.
2. The Pope card in France
In France the various motifs of the Italian cards continue,
again not all in every version: at least one key, the three-tiered crown, the
two lower figures, and the staff. At the far left, the Catelin Geoffroy of Lyon 1557 has at least one key and at last the clear depiction of a three-barred cross. In the third from the left, Vieville of around 1650 in Paris, adds the columns behind him and two acolytes, from their red hats perhaps cardinals. Between the columns is a roof, in the style of the pagan temples that still stood in Rome (the roof seems to be supported by nude maidens, as on the Acropolis in Athens). The staff is now a bishop's crozier. The same is true in the Noblet, where the acolytes have been given proper tonsures. The crozier had
also appeared in Italy, on the Popess card in the Ferrarese sheet and on a card
in the Cary Sheet that is either Pope or Popess (see my post on the Popess). In the Noblet we see a characteristic difference betwen the two acolytes, one with hands apart and the other hands together. As in the Visconti-Sforza card, it is becoming unclear whether it is blessing or admonishment - or perhaps, especially in the Vieville, simply instruction.
I have skipped over one of the early French cards, the second from the left, so as to give it special attention. Called the "Anonymous Parisian" and of the early 17th century or earlier, it features a small sphinx at the Pope's feet. It is of the Greek rather than the Egyptian
variety, but it is doubtful that the distinction was well known, because at
that time the Sphinx at Giza usually had only its head exposed, the rest covered with sand. The difference
is that the Greek sphinx had the head and breasts of a woman, while the
Egyptian was a man; also the Egyptian didn't have wings (whether the one on the card has wings I can't tell). At that time the sphinx was known best as the proposer of the
riddle that ensnares Oedipus in the ancient Greek cycle of plays. She perhaps poses the riddles of existence, in this world and the next.
In 1781 Court de Gebelin argues that since the deck also has a Popess, the card cannot have originated in Christian Europe, which knows no such figure. As further evidence pointing to ancient Egypt he cites the papal cross, He compares the three-barred Pope's staff with a figure he says is on the "Table of Isis under the letter TT." He means the Mensa Isaica or "Bembine tablet," which turned up in the Renaissance and was copied in many sources. In the version currently appearing on the Internet, there is no "letter TT," but what Gebelin is talking about appears at the letter e, of a priest holding a staff with three horizontal bars on it, among other things (my thanks to Ross Caldwell on the Tarot History site on Facebook for pointing out this detail).
Gebelin continues (J. Karlin, Rhapsodies of the Bizarre, p. 20).
It has a connection to the triple Phallus which was promenaded in the famous Festival of the Pamylia where one rejoiced to have rediscovered Osiris, and where it was the Symbol of the regeneration of Plants and of all of Nature. (1a)
Here de Gebelin is paraphrasing Plutarch's Isis and Osiris, a text at least as well known in the 15th-18th centuries as the Bembine tablet. Plutarch says ( http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Isis.html, sections XII and XXXVI)
And when they celebrate (as already stated) the feast of Pamylia, which is a phallic one, they expose and carry about an image of which the genital member is thrice the natural size; for the god is the Final Cause, and every Final Cause multiplied by generation a function, that which proceeds from itself: and for “often” we are accustomed to say “thrice,” for example “thrice-happy,” and—
“Three times as many chains, without an end.”
How a phallus three times normal size relates visually to a three-barred cross is unclear. Perhaps it is merely the custom of saying “thrice” to mean “a lot,” or "to a special degree," as in "Hermes Trismegistos," Hermes Thrice-great. Of course it does not follow that the triple cross goes as far back as Egypt. The quote from Plutarch merely shows the history of one way to emphasize the high value of something.
Otherwise, there the Djed Pillar, like the Pope’s
staff but usually with four bars, at right (https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/117868). It symbolized the backbone of Osiris, the
stability of the realm, and the tree that grew around Osiris's body after it
had washed up on the shore of Byblos, as Plutarch described it. (http://touregypt.net/featurestories/djedpillar.htm.
Plutarch, Of Isis and Osiris XXXVI).
Whether any of these symbols has any connection with
the papal cross is dubious. A three-barred cross seems first to have been used
by the Marionite Church in Lebanon, but with one of the bars bent. But it is
certainly not for any connection to Lebanon, where the ancient city of Byblos
was located, that a three-barred cross appears on the Pope card in late 17th or
early 18th century France (and not before). It most likely simply reflects the actual cross with which the
papacy was then identified. According to Wikipedia’s source, a two-barred cross signified
an Archbishopric: a third bar indicated a superiority over that one. It was a matter of emphasis. It also is a reminder of the trinity.
The same reasoning applies tor the three-tiered crown. Wikipedia cites documents indicating that it was introduced to indicate the superiority of spiritual over secular authority, with first two levels (to the one level of kings) but later increased. Again, that it is on the card just reflects what the crown of the popes actually looked like.
France did not invent the pillars behind the main figure (they can be seen on the 16th century woodcut of Venice or Ferrara), but it certainly emphasized them, in the long-lasting pattern known as the "Tarot of Marseille." Noblet replaced Vieville's roof with a wall, making the background like the Popess's, only sturdier. Later card makers just kept the columns. Probably it just was meant to signify where the Pope lived, Rome. But an association with Yacin and Boaz, the pillars at the entrance to Solomon's Temple (I Kings 7:20, 2 Chronicles 3:17), was probably inevitable. In that case, the frills at the tops of the two pillars might be the "networks of checker work" referred to in the Bible (I Kings 7:17).
The Kabbalist
Gates of Light, a condensed version of which was published in
Latin in
1516, made more of these two names, characterizing the two sides of the
"tree of life" as the
"pillars of Solomon," now called "Boaz" and
"Yacin" (English translation, p. 125). The two columns represented opposite tendencies, mildness
and severity. Of course the Pope, in the middle, knows when each is appropriate.
Another possibility, from the interest in Egypt then, might be as symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt, and of the antagonism between evil Seth and good Osiris, which Horus ended as the first pharaoh of a united Egypt (http://www.egyptologyonline.com/introduction.htm.).
The later Tarot of Marseille (below left) adds a couple of other details not found in Noblet (above far right). In particular, the folds in the right-hand acolyte's cossack can be seen as an arm reaching across the back of the right-hand acolyte, a fourth person, outside the picture frame, at whom the Pope seems to be looking. One Italian version, reportedly of 1832, even shows such a person, now standing behind the acolyte, looking sinister.
Another detail is a another fold below and to the left of the right-hand acolyte's hand, a curved line like a crescent moon. In Chosson of 1672/1736 (far left), it is rather harmless; but in the 1761 Conver card (second from left), the line has changed to a double line ending in the person's hand and now, if you like, can be imagined as a curved dagger. If you can't see it, look at the Camoin-Jodorowsky "restoration" (third from left above) where they highlight the "knife" in dark blue.
The Bembine Tablet shows such a curved knife in the hands of two of the priestesses. These knives would have been interpreted as sacrificial knives. But in the context of an initiation, they suggest what will happen to the acolytes should they divulge the secrets they have sworn to protect. Masonic and other secret societies actually did threaten initiates with death in such a case, as did trade organizations against members who betrayed trade secrets. (5)
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Another interpretation also occurs to me. Every ancient source about the Osiris myth tells about his death and dismemberment at the hands of Seth (Plutarch Isis and Osiris XV, Diodorus, Library of History 21). In the tarot such dismemberment is suggested in the Death card, with hands and feet sticking up out of the ground. There is an alchemical image of 1618 with this same reference, at right, with the motto (in Latin) as indicated.
In this interpretation, the knife signifies the dismemberment experience that the initiates will undergo. Pico described it in his Oration: (http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Mirandola).
At one time we shall descend, dismembering with titanic force the unity of the many, like the members of Osiris; at another time, we shall ascend, recollecting those same members, by the power of Phoebus, into their original unity.
By Phoebus, Pico means Apollo. So after the dismemberment of the Death card, there will be the ascent, a re-membering through rebirth by the power of the Sun, a metaphor for Christ.
3. The hierophant of the occultists
The only card of Etteilla's with a religious figure is his number18, which has a figure resembling the Marseille Hermit, a monk holding a lantern. Its keywords are "Traitre" and "Faux Devout": Traitor and False Devout. As a supporter of the French Revolution, which the Church opposed, it is no wonder that Etteilla has neither Imperial nor Papal cards in his tarot deck.
Etteilla gives the cards the keywords "Etteilla"
and "Questionnant." The card stands for the querent, if the one who
for whom the reading is being done is male. If it comes up in the reading of a
woman, it is replaced by the eighth trump in his deck, showing a naked woman in
a garden with the keyword "Questionante." The querent is then
symbolized both by the white space in the middle and the clouds around it: his
mind is full of clouds which the cartomancer will soon dispell.
The keywords on the card, “Etteilla” and “Le Questionant,” have no clear
relation to the Pope. The lists of synonyms and alternative are more enlightening.
Here I have put words in d’Odoucet only in italics, while those of the c. 1838 “Julia
Orsini” only are in bold:
Upright: ETTEILLA. God.
All-Powerful, Eternal, Very-High, Unitrine, the Supreme Being, the Central Spirit,
the Spirit of God, the Male Consultant, Chaos. Thought. Meditation,
Contemplation, reflection, concentration.
Reversed: [Le Questionnant.] THE MALE QUERENT. The Universe. The physical
man or the male. The querent. Philosophy. Philosophical. Philosophically.
Philosopher. Sage. Sagacity. Sagely.
The c. 1838 words can be related easily to the Pope card. The Sage is the secular replacement for the Pope as the representative of God, the being declared in the Uprights, along with Etteilla, the designer of the cards and the master card-reader. The Querent is then the Chaos, to which the reading will bring light and order.
After Etteilla and his followers comes Eliphas Levi, first of the modern occultists. The card is "the grand hierophant,", meaning "Indication, demonstration, instruction, law, symbolism, philosophy, religion. demonstration, teaching, laws, symbolism, philosophy, religion" (Transcendental Magic, Waite trans., p. 364). The two columns behind him are now those of "Hermes and Solomon": he is thus the pope of the hermetics, combining the philosophical, astrological and alchemical teachings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus with those of esoteric Judaism, i.e. the Kabbalah, thereby reviving a sterile Christianity.
As fifth in the sequence, his symbol is the Pythagorean
Pentad, a number Levi finds in the card by counting both heads of the acolytes
as the bottom vertices of a square, the tops of the columns as the top
vertices, and the Pope as the center point. It thus represents a pentagram. The columns represent necessity and the heads liberty.
Levi's follower Paul Christian offered a similar reading overall but with a slightly different interpretation of the different elements on the card. The two columns are the divine law on the right and the freedom to obey on the other (History and Practice of Magi. English translation of L’Hoistoire de la Magie, vol. 1, p. 99). The two smaller figures, one red and the other black, represent "the spirits of Light and of Darkness, both of whom obey the Master of the Arcana," i.e., the Hierophant. He represents the spirit of good intentions and conscience; he invites us to "listen to the voice of the heavens in the silence of the passions and the instincts of the flesh." The triple cross represents "the spirit of God in the three worlds," i.e. the spiritual, intellectual, and physical, which are the basis for his system
Papus largely repeats Christian, but adds some points of
interest. For one, in contrast to the High Priestess, the Hierophant is active
and gives secret instruction that is "oral and practical," as opposed
to a book (Tarot of the Bohemians, 1896 trans., p. 124). Another is that the card is about "the
reunion of opposing principles." This is a generalization of Christian's observation, which Papus repeats, that one pillar is the law, the other the freedom to obey or disobey. Also, the three bars on his cross represents the three worlds that Christian formulated: the divine, the human, and the material. Finally, he asserts that this card in particular has to do with initiation, with the Hierophant as the initiate, i.e. the initiation-master.
Oswald Wirth (left) has a different interpretation of the two lower
figures. The one on our left anxiously seeks a rational understanding of the
Pope's words, while the other bows in simple acceptance (p. 79 of Tarot of the Magicians, 1985). The Pope's words are for
both. Here the raised fingers would seem to indicate a time of instruction.
The pillars similarly represent "the two opposite poles in the sphere of faith: an anxious search for religious truth and confident adherence to the beliefs which are held respectable." As the Yachin and Boaz of Solomon's temple, they mark the limits within which the human spirit moves.
The Pope's three crowns represent three aspects of his knowledge: the lowest is that of the exterior rituals of the Church, such as the mass, of which he must know every detail. Second is knowledge of divine law, which enables him to "judge accurately the actions and feelings of men." Third is knowledge of abstract truths which are imposed upon the human spirit" (pp. 81-82).
Wirth also says (p. 81) that the Pope is the mediator between God and the
Universe, symbolized by a human form inside a five-pointed star, the head representing the divine
and the four other points the four elements and a person's four limbs (left below). The number 5 attached to this card signifies a relationship to the "conceivable quintessence," which again presumably relates to the head.
As
for the three-barred cross (above right, from p. 82), Wirth sees its six sides as three pairs of
contrasting qualities, divided by a seventh vertically, each correlated with
one of the seven planets interpreted in a certain way. The word for the top figure,, unaccountably cut off in the English-language edition, is "discernment" (p. 125 of 1927 French ed.)
In relation to the Kabbalah, the card embodies Gevurah, the spirit of judgment, fear of punishment, and severity in relation to divine law and conscience. Yet the figure also embodies, Wirth says, kindness and wise generosity (pp. 82-83).
Waite, writing in 1911, declares himself against all esoteric
interpretations (Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1911, https://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/pktar05.htm. He says of the Hierophant, "He is the ruling power of
external religion," as opposed to the "esoteric, withdrawn power of
the High Priestess." His is "the power of the keys, external orthodox
doctrine," and "certainly not the prince of occult doctrine, as
another commentator has suggested." "He symbolizes also all things
that are righteous and sacred on the manifest side; as such he is the channel of grace belonging to the world of institution . . . he is the leader of
salvation for the human race in general. He is the order and the head of the recognized hierarchy, which is the reflection of another and greater hierarchic order; but it may so happen that the pontiff forgets the significance of this
his symbolic state and acts as if he contained within his proper
measures all that his sign signifies or his symbol seeks to shew forth."
Paul Foster Case calls the Hierophant our "inner teacher", whose voice we must learn to recognize in ourselves, separating it from "telephathic invasions from other personal entities, incarnate or discarnate, human or non-human" (Tarot Fundamentals, Lesson 14, p. 7, online in archive.org):
True intuition unfolds principles. It does not counsel what is merely expedient. It is always concise, clear, and its meaning is unmistakable. It never flatters: more likely it will reprove. It never misleads, and can stand the severest spiritual, moral and intellectual tests. As Lao-tze says: "Its counsel is always in season."
When the instruction is received, Case says, it must always be obeyed, because it is the solution to one's difficulty. The two acolytes are then "desire" and "knowledge" (Ibid, p. 5), presumably he means one as the questioner to the inner teacher and the other as the receiver of the response.
I would wonder here if that is not also the meaning of the hand gestures in the Tarot of Marseille card, the one on the right praying, so meditating on a problem, and the other, with hands outstretched, is amazed at the answer he has received.
The two keys, he says, are gold for the sun and heaven, and silver for the moon and hell. The moon was worshiped by the followers of Hecate, he argues, goddess of the underworld (Ibid, p. 4). They are also superconsciousness for the gold and subconsciousness for the silver, and from another perspective Astrology and the Tarot.
The two pillars are masculine and feminine energies. And the three bars are earth and the physical plane (lowest), air and the astral plane of Formation (next), and water and the mental plane of Creation (highest). Fire, and the Atziluth or Archetypal World, are represented by the knob on top of the cross.
In a rare criticism of another occultist, in Tarot: Key to the Wisdom of the Ages (revised ed., Los Angeles, 1990), p. 78, Case says:
We do not agree with Dr. Waite that the Hierophant "is the ruling power of external religion, . . . exoteric orthodox doctrine,. . . the outer side of the life which leads to the doctrine." On the contrary, he is the pontifex, the "bridgemaker" who provides a connecting link between outer experience and interior illumination.
This remark brings to mind the early 16th century woodcut card where behind the pope is a bridge between two columns or buildings. If the Pope is the bridge, then the two pillars would seem to be outer and inner, or in exoteric terms earth and heaven. Or in Waite's terms, two hierarchies, one "recognized" and the other "greater," in which there is the danger that "he forgets to recognize the significance of his symbolic state."
4. Jungian Interpretations
Jung once said that “the soul is by nature Christian” (Psychology and Alchemy, 2nd ed., trans. R. F. C. Hull, 1968. para. 24, p. 21). This is said not in a dogmatic sense but in the way in which the symbols of Christianity are felt psychologically. That statement is preceded by the observation, “The reality of evil and its incompatibility with good cleave the opposites asunder and lead inexorably to the crucifixion and suspension of everything that lives.” This is much like Christian’s "forces of light and darkness,” leading to Papus’s "reunion of opposing principles." The breaking of the communion wafer thus corresponds to the dismemberment experience of which Pico speaks, as a prelude to psychological rebirth. The figure of the Pope then embodies that connection to the divine, in the sense of the totality of one's being, the connection of ego with self.
Wirth's distinction between the two kinds of seekers corresponds to Jung's advice to two types of persons: he advises believers in existing institutional faiths to seek renewal there rather than with his school. His own method is for Wirth's anxious souls seeking understanding, which for both theorists occurs by a kind of inner dialogue between the ego and a more inclusive being within. At the same time, Jung would not be opposed to interpreting the two as the desire for guidance and the instruction received. The function by which such instruction would be received is intuition. However for Jung such instruction is also a dialogue between ego and self, conscious and unconscious, involving other functions and activating what he calls the "transcendent function," which unites the opposites (see his essay by that name, in vol. 8 of his Collected Works, pp. 67-91, and his entry for that term in Psychological Types). See also Jeffrey Miller, The Transcendent Function: Jung's Model of Psychological Growth Through Dialogue With the Unconscious, 2004).
Wirth's interpretation of the horizontal bars in terms of six contrasting qualities is reminiscent of Jung's four functions, even if not precisely the same. The bottom two in Wirth's diagram are not the same as introversion and extroversion, but restriction versus generosity has the same opposition of pulling in versus expanding outward. Then the vertical line of the staff could be what Jung called the "transcendent function," which includes all pairs of opposites and therefore transcends them.
The three bars are also reminiscent of the various levels of awareness: we could perhaps say "ego" for one, "personal unconscious" for the next, and "collective unconscious for the third. Or different levels of the unconscious, personal, cultural, and collective.
Jung's concept of the shadow is of course suggested by Levi's drawing of the Pope's hand of benediction (blessing) vs. the Devil's head expressing malediction (damnation). The shadow side of papal authority, when spiritual authority succumbs to self-gratification by any of the "seven deadly sins," becomes the "prince of this world," i.e. the Devil who tempted Christ in the wilderness.
Sallie Nichols (Jung and Tarot, 1980, p. 125) says that the card represents Emma Jung's fourth stage of animus development in the unconscious of a woman, i.e. meaning. But as logos, another term Nichols uses, it would seem to apply equally well to either gender. First is "directed power," which Nichols finds in the tarot Magician, then "the deed," which she finds in the Knights, then "the word" (Logos), personified by the Emperor, and finally "meaning," portrayed as the Pope. There are men of physical power, men of deeds, i.e. action, men of words, and men of wisdom. Meaning, Nichols says, is no longer satisfied by the dogma of the Church and its figurehead the Pope, but something "we must somehow discover within ourselves" (p. 126).
Another archetypal motif introduced by the card, it seems to me, is that of initiation (see e.g. Henderson, Thresholds of Initiation). This is suggested not only by the apparent dagger behind one of the small figures – the penalty for revealing the mysteries, or perhaps for failure - but by the presence of the two acolytes in general. Two smaller figures exist on some early versions of the Empress and Emperor, too: female on the one, male on the other (at right the so-called "Alessandro Sforza" Empress and the Charles VI Emperor). The upper figures may be presiding over the scene, but in none are the lower figures actively attending to the upper figure's words.
Secret societies of the 17th and 18th centuries of course reveled in initiations, by which members ascended through the hierarchy by "degrees". In musical drama, there is the famous example of Mozart's Magic Flute, in which the two candidates for initiation are first the hero, Tamino, and his more earthy companion Papageno, and then, after Papageno is booted out, the heroine Pamina. Initiating them into the initiation is of course the ruler-priest Sorastro, a play on Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrian religion of ancient Persia.
The two figures on the Pope card are similarly entering an initiation. On the one hand the colors of the two keys, in the official Emblem of the Papacy, are gold and silver; these suggest the sun and moon and so masculine and feminine as well as heaven and - well, not hell, but earth. "Witches" followed the wisdom of the earth, including influence on it from above. When combined, as the keys are in the Bolognese and Case's cards, the result is also something that embraces and so transcends the opposites, not just masculine/ feminine but also, in the tarot sequence, wise/foolish, noble/ignoble, upward/downward, etc. Even as the two represent the opposites, they are also united with each other and by the figure above them. This is a pattern that will be repeated in cards to come: the two women on the Love card, the two horses of the Chariot, the two pans of the scales, the upward and downward figures on the Wheel, the disembodied heads on the Death cards, the two jugs of Temperance and the Star, and so on, twosomes that are sometimes opposites.
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