I’ll be up front: I’m an astrologer, researcher, and academic. I also grew up in a Christian household, completed 20 years of Christian education (including seminary), and have participated in more than half a dozen Protestant and Catholic traditions…and I did not go to church this Easter. 

This is not an article about disillusionment, nor is it a missionizing argument cloaked in esotericism. It is about critical thinking and about the expanded worldview that emerges the more I realize how much I don’t know—something I truly wish to see more of in religious tradition and discourse.

My interest was piqued when I heard my mom recount her church’s Good Friday service and tradition of reading “The 7 Last Sayings of Jesus” before his death. It’s a unique Easter tradition in that it’s practiced across both Protestant and Catholic contexts. What many may not realize is that it is also a purposeful blending of multiple Gospel perspectives—but I’ll return to that shortly.

This tradition began to take shape in the Medieval Period, and off the cuff, I wondered whether it was a retrospective symbolic arrangement of scripture rather than a revelatory pattern emerging from shared worldviews. 

Upon a closer look, I found that while “The 7 Last Sayings of Jesus” was formally structured in the Medieval period, it may reflect a much older cosmological narrative. When viewed through a cultural-historical lens, Plato’s model of planetary ascent reveals a striking alignment with Christ’s crucifixion narrative as a symbolic journey through the celestial spheres toward reunion with the Divine (aka Truth, Beauty, and Goodness).

I am not arguing that this structure was intentionally encoded, but that it reflects a shared symbolic framework through which both ancient and Medieval thinkers understood reality.

To explain why, we must first examine why this tradition emerged in the Medieval Period, and more importantly, consider the mindset and knowledge of the first-century Middle Eastern zeitgeist.

Affective Piety and the Humanization of Christ

In the Medieval Period, the Church shifted toward a stance of affective piety—a movement away from an abstract, theological understanding of Jesus and toward a more emotional and experiential connection to his suffering. 

Part of this shift emerged from a centuries-old theological tension between emphasizing Christ’s divinity versus his humanity, with this practice leaning strongly into the latter. Another factor was the harsh realities of life at the time and the search for meaning and relief amid suffering. (Thomas, p. 5–9) Who better to empathize with human pain than Christ himself?

In the 12th century, theologians and mystics such as Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), St. Francis of Assisi (1181–1226), and Bonaventure (1221–1274) began compiling the final words of Jesus to facilitate deeper emotional and spiritual connection through structured prayer and meditation. 

By the 16th century, this practice had formalized into liturgy, now known as “The 7 Last Sayings of Jesus” and incorporated into traditions such as The Stations of the Cross. Its influence extended beyond the Church into broader culture, including Joseph Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ in the 1780s.

Over time, each saying became associated with specific theological principles tied to Christ’s life, ministry, and death. However, what drew my attention was the numerological significance—something both first-century and Medieval thinkers would have readily recognized, and which still holds meaning today. (Johnston, p. 71)

Christianity within a Cosmological Worldview

Like any religious tradition, Christianity developed within—and in dialogue with—existing cultural, philosophical, and religious frameworks. 

For example, various ‘pagan’ influences were integrated into Christian practice, often as a way of translating meaning across cultures or for political influence. These include aligning the birth of Jesus with the winter solstice and Easter with Passover—or the first full moon following the spring equinox. The Passover/Easter lineage itself traces back to the Babylonian festival akitu—a 12-day commemoration of death and rebirth. (Campion, Astrology and Cosmology, p. 165-166) 

Similarly, the Egyptian concepts of the judgement of the dead alongside Persian ideas of good and evil was adapted into Christian thought of heaven as a reward for ethical behavior. Iconographic parallels—such as Mary and Jesus with Isis and Horus, or Jesus overcoming Satan with Horus overcoming Set—further reflect this cultural continuity. (Campion, Vol. I, p. 88, 90-91)

More pertinent to this discussion, early Christianity also incorporated Greek philosophy, particularly Stoicism and Platonism, which themselves intermingled with other ideas like Hermeticism. One well-known example is John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word” or the logos, (Campion, Vol. I, p. 245) a concept that emerges alongside the same named in The Hermetica. (Freke, p. xxix) 

Within this context, Platonic cosmology was not foreign. It was embedded in the language, metaphors, and worldview of the time.

The same numerology foundational to Babylonian, Jewish, and Pythagorean traditions also underpin astrological thinking. While Christianity has had a complex relationship with astrology, it’s important to recognize that first-century audiences were deeply familiar with cosmological symbolism.

This is why Scripture not only explicitly gives examples of astrology via the birth of Jesus but also includes implicit use of astrology. This last point illuminates both the philosophical connections important to understanding how “The 7 Last Sayings of Jesus” are connected to the planets.

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The most obvious implicit use of astrology are mentions of celestial omens as warnings of the apocalypse (ex: Mark 13:24-26) which naturally leads us to the book of Revelation where the number 7 alone appears over 50 times. It has been suggested that Jesus’s messages were infused with cosmological significance. Nicholas Campion notes: 

“The key ritual numbers in Hebrew tradition, seven being the number of the days of the creation, twelve the number of tribes. Any intelligent audience of the 1st century would have been deeply aware of the cosmological significance of these numbers, there being seven planets and twelve signs of the zodiac.” (Astrology and Cosmology, p. 166-167)

This first-century cosmological awareness also sheds light on some of Jesus' parables. 

Consider Mark 8:18-21: 

“‘Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ ‘Twelve,’ they replied. ‘And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ They answered, ‘Seven.’ He said to them, ‘Do you still not understand?’” (NIV)

Jesus highlights the numbers 7 and 12 which point to the totality of time. 7 is the days of the week and number of planets and 12 is the tribes of Israel, as well as the number of zodiac signs and months. “When Jesus uses the numbers 7 and 12 as the keys to his ministry…he is sending a clear cosmic message—that his preaching concerns the mystery of space and time, particularly his role in bringing a world age to an end and inaugurating the kingdom of God.” (Campion, Vol. I, p. 247-248)

Recognizing this numerological thinking is not anachronistic. Jesus, the disciples, and early Jewish and Christian thinkers operated within a worldview shaped by Platonic, Aristotelian, and Pythagorean ideas about numerology and the moral and cosmological structure of the universe, including Plato’s concept of the World Soul which emanated from the mind of God out through the heavenly spheres to the Earth.

From Plato to Christ: The Soul’s Journey Through the Spheres

Plato’s cosmology continued to influence later philosophical and theological developments. For example, Gnostic traditions drew upon this model, suggesting that Christ’s ascent through the planetary spheres neutralized their influence. (Campion, Vol. I, p. 276) 

This numerological and cosmological thinking persisted into late antiquity. St. Augustine, for instance, used Pythagorean analysis to explore the relationship between sin and salvation through biblical genealogies. (Campion, Vol. I, p. 248-249) 

Augustine also proposed that Christianity, in essence, had always existed—that it was a truth unfolding across time, with traces present even before Christ. (Freke, p.xxix-xxx) 

Later thinkers continued this synthesis. Returning to the Medieval period, Roger Bacon, both a father of modern experimental science and a magician, argued that even Christ operated within planetary influences, drawing on Islamic astrologers such as Abu Ma’shar and Masha’allah to link religious cycles to planetary alignments. (Campion, Vol. II, p. 59)

More recently, Richard Tarnas has identified that executions of leaders carrying out divine or moral missions happen with Saturn-Pluto hard aspects, including Jesus, John the Baptist, and Socrates. (Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche, p. 235) He also connects the Uranus-Neptune cycle to widespread spiritual awakenings and the birth of new religious and philosophical movements, again including Socrates and Jesus. (Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche, p. 356)

Taken together, these perspectives suggest that cosmology, numerology, and theology were deeply intertwined. Within such a worldview, it is not unreasonable to consider the possibility that planetary symbolism could reflect “mankind’s future resurrection and reunion” with logos. (Tarnas, Passion, p. 97)

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that the Gospel writers explicitly encoded a planetary ascent narrative. Each wrote for a different audience and emphasized different aspects of Jesus’s life, ministry, and death. However, when these accounts were later synthesized in the Medieval period, they may have unconsciously carried forward a symbolic structure that was already deeply embedded in cultural understanding.

I realize this could imply that a certain ‘Truth’ appears across cultures and time. However, my focus is less a religious one and more an observation that humans across time have shared symbolic structures (such as numerology and cosmology) to make meaning of our experiences like suffering, death, and rebirth. 

In addition, Christianity is not isolated but embedded in a larger stream of cultural awareness. This not only makes the practice of Hermeneutics highly important; it also reminds us that the neat boxes we put ideas like theology, philosophy, and astrology into, aren’t as separate as we think.

When viewed through that lens, the connection between ‘the 7 sayings’ and the 7 celestial spheres becomes far less surprising.

‘The 7 Sayings’ as a Celestial Ascent

The number seven has long symbolized completion, fulfillment, and perfection in both Jewish and Christian traditions. (Johnston, p. 71) It is also associated with the seven days of creation, the seven-day week, and the seven visible planets—hence the naming of the days of the week. (“Days of the week…”)

While the sayings were initially compiled for devotional purposes, their eventual number—seven—carried deep symbolic weight. Combined across the four Gospels, they formed a “complete” account of Christ’s final moments. (Houlden, p. 645) Paired with the combined philosophical and theological framework, a more “complete” picture of what it means to face death and to be reborn also arises.

Most pertinent to this is Plato’s planetary order which was culturally and ideologically relevant before Christ, during the life of Jesus, during the writing of the gospels, and for some, many centuries after. From Earth outward toward deep space and the ‘unchanging’ fixed stars where God and heaven were believed to be, Plato’s system differed from the Chaldean order (1). From the vantage point of Earth, the order was: the Moon, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. (Campion, Vol. I, p. 157-158) 

Aristotle expanded on this model, associating the outer, unchanging realm of the fixed stars with perfection and the inner spheres with change and decay. (Campion, Vol. I, p. 168-169) After death, the soul was believed to ascend through these spheres toward the divine.

This cosmological language was familiar to both ancient and Medieval audiences. It was part of how meaning was constructed and communicated.

Whether intentional or emergent, the Medieval arrangement of the seven sayings reveals a striking alignment: a devotional structure that mirrors the same cosmological ascent through which ancient thinkers imagined the soul’s return to the Divine.

With this framework in mind, we can read Christ’s final words as both a human and cosmic journey.

Returning to Goodness, Beauty, and Truth

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they do.” (Luke 23:34) — The Moon

The theological principle tied to Jesus’ first saying is Forgiveness and Mercy. In Aristotle’s explanation of the closest planets’ association with constant change, the Earth, Moon, and Sun were actually equated to plants and animals in that they had no hope of returning to God because they were the furthest away from God. (Campion, Vol. I, p. 168-169) 

In essence, in the sphere closest to Earth and the furthest from the firmament, we are so far removed from our divine nature that we don’t even know what we do is wrong. It’s this ignorance that Jesus called for Mercy and Forgiveness for those so tied to terrestrial and emotional needs and desires (the Moon) that they could not fathom the weight of their actions.

“I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) — The Sun

This statement is identified with Salvation. While still within Aristotle’s proximity of reprobate nature, the Sun shines light where the Moon had only darkly or dimly lit. Here there seems to be an awareness of one’s position and distance from Goodness but with that awareness despair can follow. 

Christ, the ultimate solar figure, is responding to a criminal who admits that he is being punished justly for his crimes and rebukes the others for their lack of awareness of their distance from God. Christ honors this awareness and offers a promise of the path to Paradise. Despite the distance and potential despair, it is still possible to be reunited with Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.

“He said to his mother, ‘Dear woman, here is your son’, and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother’.” (John 19: 26-27) — Venus

It’s not difficult to correlate the planet of relationship to Jesus' statement to Mary and John and the theological connection to Relationship, Care, and Community. The Virgin Mary has been symbolically and artistically linked to the planet Venus via her lineage in a long line of mother goddesses. The Babylonians and other ancient civilizations who came from these lineages were aware of this planet’s star-shaped pattern and illuminates why the Virgin Mary is also sometimes called Star of the Sea.

This connection to Relationship, Care, and Community is evident in Jesus entrusting his mother to the disciple he loved. It was an act of relational continuity in the midst of rupture. Following the awareness of separation, it is relationships that begin to restore wholeness.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34) — Mercury

The theological principle connected to this saying is Jesus’ Identification with Humanity through his experience of Abandonment and Suffering. It is also often quoted when discussing Christ’s dual nature as it depicts that he is both human and divine. 

It is worth noting that this is the only saying that appears in two gospels: Matthew, who wrote primarily to the Jews emphasizing the divinity of Christ, and Mark, who wrote to the Romans emphasizing the humanity of Christ. (White) Mercury is not only the planet with a dual nature; it is also personified by the only Greco-Roman god who could freely travel back and forth between Hades (Hell) and Olympus (Heaven).

After coming face to face with our short-comings and experiencing grace through community, there is an awareness of our own dual nature as well. We feel both the separateness from Truth, Beauty, and Goodness due to our choices. But we also feel a yearning to return to the perfect state we too once held. This dual awareness is what leads us to a turning point.

“I am thirsty.” (John 19:28) — Mars

This saying is connected to the concept of Fulfillment. To understand why, the context of this saying is important. Jesus had knowledge that all of the Scriptures needed to be fulfilled so there was one last thing he needed to do: ask for something to drink. This statement is more directly connected to the fulfillment of Psalm 22; however, there’s another reason.

The drink Jesus is asking for is wine vinegar. This wine was administered by soaking a sponge into it and placing it on a hyssop branch. These were the same branches used by the Israelites to mark their doorposts in Egypt so that the Angel of Death would “pass over” their homes and spare their firstborn sons. (NIV, Exodus 12:22) Just before being taken, Jesus held the Last Supper with his disciples in which he held up the wine and stated, “This is my blood of the covenant.” (Matthew 26:28)

Here, sacrifice becomes active and chosen. In this sense, Mars represents not only sacrifice, but the decisive act of relinquishing what separates us from Truth. In that journey towards the Divine, we are drawn to make a decision to release behaviors, beliefs, and actions that separate us from Truth. It is this sacrifice that actually offers us the renewal and life we thirst for.

“It is finished.” (John 19:30) — Jupiter

This is Jesus’s theological statement of Triumph. He has fulfilled everything and his job is done. In the Roman world, victorious generals would impersonate and become Jupiter (aka Zeus to the Greeks), riding in a chariot through the city and up to the Temple of Jupiter. Here an entirely white lamb or ox would be sacrificed to Jupiter at the temple.

After we realize that in spite of everything, we can survive sacrificing those parts of ourselves that separate us from Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, then comes gratitude and freedom. Jupiter, the ultimate benefic planet representing these qualities, also represents the magnification of joy from achieving success.

“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23:46) — Saturn

In the outermost sphere and at the doorstep of the unchanging fixed stars, there are the final theological principles of Trust and Surrender. Jesus has completed his mission and is now surrendering his spirit to God for judgement.

Saturn was considered to be at the edge of heaven or the last stop before the soul surrendered for judgement. To the Romans, Saturn was associated with dissolution and liberation for this reason. Saturn is also associated with sowing and reaping (aka ‘karma’). 

In this sense there is a dual meaning of the Platonic-Egyptian view of standing trial and of reunion with the Divine if the feather and the heart weigh the same. Plato depicts in Republic that if a soul arrives at heaven’s gate and is not pure, it is sent back down to Earth. (Gaudio) Once we have surrendered what separates us from the Divine and experienced that sense of Triumph over our less-than-good tendencies tied to a carnal world, we experience liberation from that thing, and that feeling of surrender is a small part of the heavenly experience we seek.

Heaven as Practice

Jesus’ return to heaven represents ultimate fulfillment within the Christian narrative. Yet the process of spiritual death and rebirth is not reserved for a single moment—it is enacted daily through our choices.

Each time we move: 

from ignorance to awareness,

from isolation into community,

from fragmentation into integration,

from indulgence into sacrifice,

and from effort into surrender,

we participate in this same journey—

through the spheres and back toward Goodness, Truth, and Beauty.

This story of completion—whether consciously constructed or symbolically inherited—was mapped out by Plato, embodied by Christ, and preserved through Medieval tradition. It is both cosmological and human.

It is not only a divine journey taken once, but one we are asked to walk every day. This is the process of reuniting divinity with humanity and bringing heaven to Earth.

To that end, let the Word guide your ascent.

(1) The Chaldean Order is: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. (Campion, Vol I., p. 258)

References:

Campion, N. (2008). A history of western astrology, volume I: The ancient and classical worlds. Bloomsbury Academic.

Campion, N. (2009). A history of western astrology, volume II: The medieval and modern worlds. Bloomsbury Academic.

Campion, N. (2012). Astrology and cosmology in the world’s religions. New York University Press.

“Days of the week meaning and origin in astrology.” (2017, April 20). Astrology Club. https://astrologyclub.org/days-week-meaning-origin/#google_vignette

Fowler, W. W. (1916). Jupiter and the Triumphator. The Classical Review, 30(5/6), 153–157. http://www.jstor.org/stable/698888

Freke, T., & Gandy, P. (1999). The hermetica: The lost wisdom of the pharaohs. Penguin Group.

Gaudio, R. (2022, April 3). The hope of resurrection and the hopelessness of reincarnation. The Socratic journey of faith and reason.https://socratesjourney.org/metaphysics-of-resurrection/

The Holy Bible, New International Version. (1984). Zondervan. (Original work published 1978).

Houlden, Leslie (2003). Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO.

Johnston, R. (1990). Numbers in the Bible: God’s design in biblical numerology. Kregel Publications.

Sayings of Jesus on the cross. (2026, April 2). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sayings_of_Jesus_on_the_cross&oldid=1346737175

Tarnas, R. (2006). Cosmos and psyche: Intimations of a new world view. Plume.

Tarnas, R. (1991). The passion of the western mind: Understanding the ideas that have shaped our world view. Ballantine Books.

Thomas, K. (1971). Religion and the decline of magic. Penguin Books.

White, L. (2025, February 24). “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Meaning of Jesus’ words.” Bible Study Tools. https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/my-god-my-god-why-have-you-forsaken-me.html#google_vignette