Coordonat de Sorin BOCANCEA
Volum V, Nr. 3 (17), Serie nouă, iunie – august 2017
Eschatological paradigms from the perspective of gender relations:
„crushing the head of the serpent”, by the women (breaking the false history about the human being,
breaking the splitting paradigm). The ”omega point”1 (i)
Mădălina Virginia ANTONESCU
Abstract: The originality of our approach lays in the effort to read some key-paradigms and symbols from the Bible, one of the sacred books of an ancient religion, from the gender perspective: analysing different major paradigms (like “the serpent-history”, “the cosmic-divine wedding”, “the Omega point”, “the woman dressed with the sun” etc.) as points of re-discussing the gender relations, seems to represent, at the beginning of our post-modern world, a necessary approach. Principles of non-discrimination between woman and man, the great separation of human history (from the history of gender separation and discrimination of women, to the new history, of “wedding”, as a time of gender reconciliation, unity and harmony), the symbolic role of woman in taking the lead of her destiny and in re-interpreting mentalities, archetypes and stereotypes that she’s faced in the past, are analysed in a gender and biblical mixture.
Keywords: Gender Equality, Non-discrimination, Gender Relations in New Testament, Eschatological Paradigms, History/her-story, The “Cosmic-divine Wedding” Paradigm, “The Serpent-history” Old Paradigm.
Introduction: from the “serpent-history” old, discriminatory paradigm to the new, post-patriarchal relation (the symbolism of the “cosmic-divine wedding”)
The woman has a great eschatological role, the role of cancelling (with the “end of times” and as a consequence of these times, reaching the Omega point) the history produced by man, the false history in which she was silenced, marginalized or from which she was even excluded. This history in which the woman did not participate on an equal position with the man, in which she was not respected, in which feminine values and energy received all sorts of depreciative, condescending and hierarchizing epithets, when not essentially demonized[1], is the history rejected by the woman. It is the history denied by the woman, because this history denied the very essence of the woman, thus denying the unity of the human being[2], it denied the human being the chance to fulfilment through the man-woman complementariness.
This fabricated history based on models of male supremacy (and implicitly on supremacy models of a male energy, deviated from its initial sense of co-generator and keeper of life) was a history of cruelty, of worshiping death, of destruction, exploitation of life, contempt for the feminine energy and universe, a history of ambition, haughtiness, hatred, competition among the human beings seen as an “existential model” (“competition” becomes a subtle term for chasing profits or a privileged position in the society), a history of collecting and possessing material goods and of separation in all its forms (based on the most diverse criteria, depending on the social rank, wealth, gender, age, social class, social origin, ethnicity, race, political orientation, religion etc.)
The purpose of this fabricated history has been to diversify the methods and forms of split among the human beings, thus never becoming aware of their force, of their cosmic-divine capacities and rights. “Divide et impera” was the pillar of support for the entire fabricated, so-called “human” history (although it failed to promote authentic human values such as cooperation, tolerance, respect, peace among the human beings, even in our so-called “evolved” age, in which we witness tons of declarations in the international legislation, concerning these aspects).
The “serpent history”, i.e. the false history of humanity, the history of schisms, of great divisions of Humanity, does not represent the human being; instead, for millennia, it has been separating it systematically (by using entire systems based on the logic of schism and discrimination among the human beings) from himself/herself, as a complete human being (“face and likeness of God”, “God’s blessed creature”).
The act of stepping on “the head of the serpent” is symbolized by the cosmic-divine wedding between the Bride (the Holy Spirit) and the Groom (Christ[3]), godly event with the power to transform Creation, in its entirety and in its every single part, beyond the human capacity of comprehension. Here, the “serpent” symbolizes the fall of the human being into duality[4], it is the initiator of the Great Division of Genders (with the man and woman falling into history, i.e. by sanctifying their gender alterity/opposability – with the aid of mental, cultural constructions, perpetuated for millennia, until the present, so-called “evolved” day).
With the divine and cosmic act of “crushing the head of the serpent”, the symbol of overcoming the split among the human beings, between the man and the woman, between the human being and God, between the human being and his/her own planet is clearly revealed. The actual paradigm of the “Serpent”, i.e. the paradigm of endless schisms is destroyed, a paradigm in which the human being was lost as if in a labyrinth of profane, attempting to cross the wildwood of a false history; this history is based on fragmentation, on dichotomy, on separation and destruction, on death, exploitation, humiliation, terror, fear, a history of degradation of the human being, of denying the cosmic-divine rights of the human being (the divine blessing to rule the Earth[5]).
Two images about “God” and their consequences over the gender relations evolution
From the start, the Earth (Terra) was made for the human being, to be ruled by him/her (the human being construed as “man and woman together”, therefore a complete human being), not the human being, for the Earth. Secondly, for millennia, the verb “to rule” has been associated with an erroneous patriarchal-imperial view, suggesting “domination, absolute, destructive power, irresponsible exploitation” (including the use of the “divine representative” argument[6]). However, “God-Love”[7] is a model opposite to the artificial, dogmatic model, built for the priesthood to explain the Being of God to people, during the fabricated history of the human kind (an unnatural history, since it is based on dogmas and multiple schisms, meant to keep the humanity in mental captivity – whether laic or religious, depending on the historical period and on the region – in a state of incapacity of fulfilling the creative potential, at spiritual, cosmic, divine level, by working with God[8], activating the feminine and masculine energy within oneself and the other – as revealed by the New Testament[9]).
It is not the man who fulfils the great cosmic and divine act (with implications at the level of the entire Creation, not only at the level of the entire humanity, in the unnatural state of split, therefore of fall) of “crushing the head of the serpent”, but the woman.
In the serpent-history (the false, fallen history of the Schism between Genders, origin of all schisms), the woman is not treated as a human subject, by the “history-makers” (the men, represented by the Church, political, military, cultural elite, exclusively or mainly formed of men, as holders of the decision-making and interpretation monopolies, in these fields), or as a person (creator of values, able to transcend, able to shape history, to assume her position in history and over history, exactly like the man). The woman is abandoned to a disdained solitude, somewhere on the fringe of history, on the brink of a gap that separates the “civilized masculine world” of the “creator of history/culture” (the man) from the “feminine destructive chaos”[10]. She is metaphorically kicked by the man (even by the Church Fathers, in several discriminating statements, displaying a view that does not match the deep message of Christian love for the fellow human being and that follows the Jewish patriarchal conception described in the Old Testament, with a discriminatory attitude, which digs deep into the New Testament foundation, coming from the age before Christ (in the sense of “age before the people created the Christic law”[11].
In the serpent history (i.e. in the history of sublimating the masculine prototypes deviated from their initial meaning connected to life, the feminine energy, nature, a masculine aspect “displeased” with his own essence of “co-creative energy”, a masculine aspect separating himself, “emancipating”, longing for “freedom” in the absolute sense, to the point of destroying the feminine energy, perceiving it as “energy hostile towards him and his independence” – we see here, in the cult of worship death in promethean, masculine civilizations, the apology of a dominating, deviated, destructive masculinity, not co-creative and integrative, but separationist and negating)[12] is a pale, secondary presence, humble and hidden, when not downright … absent (defining the woman by her actual absence from history, the “silence”[13]).
The serpent-history is the history of denying the fellow human being, the other half of the human being, the feminine energy, the feminine values; it is the history of an expansive male ego, spreading through systems and civilizations (diverse, apparently), millenary, as “human” history and arrogantly self-proclaimed as being “human” history[14].
The serpent-history is a history of the deviated, separationist, negating masculine – however, by denying the woman, this history denies the very accomplishment of the human being, the divine principle of complementariness (“ying-yang”); above everything, this history denies the very love for the human being, the Christic law, given that the split cannot give rise to love, but to hatred, loneliness, fear, suspicion, envy; therefore, the state of split is a state of fall, from which it will never be possible to return to the state of authentic civilization, of spiritual evolution. This history can be divided into two periods:
– the pre-Christic period (the new law, the law of love for the neighbour, construed as conditioning the essence of the love for God, had not been revealed to the people; the people lived in patriarchal systems, which treated the woman as an “inferior” being)
– the post-Christic period (when despite the Christic message clearly revealed, a message of love for the neighbour, the elites and even the Church Fathers, nourished with the rabbinic teachings of the Old Testament[15], failed to take a clear stand against this discriminating schism, belonging to the “pre-Christic world”; instead, they perpetuate it and enrich it with their own conceptions and words, providing the arguments necessary to build systems and civilizations that continue to be based on the schism between the genders[16] and that, to make matters worse, also incorporates the Christic message in these artificial constructions, based on praising the separatism, incorporating it as “compatible” to these systems and with the dichotomist logic). However, this is a great historical error, which allows the untroubled continuation of the serpent-history, a history of the masculine battling the feminine (actually, a history of denying the feminine).
For example, looking at the post-Christic period of the serpent-history (the period following the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ to the heavens, as the zero moment in the human history, when the elites could crush/break away from the serpent-history, the false history, based on the schism between the genders) and at how, from a religion of love for the neighbour (in this case the woman), Christianity turns into a justification for the untroubled continuation of the patriarchal-imperial mode, for another two millennia, until the present time (even today, theological studies or the dogma makes insufficient efforts are made to repair this historical error against the status of the woman in history), we note the following statements:
- “the woman is the gate to inferno” (Tertullian, De cultu faeminarum);
- “married people should blush when looking at the state they live in” (SaintAmbrose, Exhortatio virginitatis);
- “any woman must be overwhelmed with shame, when considering she is a woman” (Clement of Alexandria, Paedadogus, II);
- “the heavens belong to the eunuchs” (Tertullian, De monogamia);
- “But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man and the head of Christ is God.” (Corinthians I, chapter 11:3): we note the introduction of gender hierarchy, using the divine argument to justify the submission, the position of inferiority in which the woman is placed in relation to the man (association between the term “head” and the concept of “master”).
Perpetuating with obstinacy the idea of gender hierarchy, the man proudly proclaims himself some sort of “conqueror of the woman”, he “he seizes her” as if she were an object (various moments in the Christian wedding ritual evoke “the change of ownership over the woman”, as the bride is symbolically handed from one man to the other). He claims to be “master and lord of the woman”, introducing a relation of domination between himself and the woman, which excludes ab initio the existence of love. As said before, the model of “God-Supreme Man” or “Absolute Patriarch”[17] serves the masculine elites to perpetuate the masculine model and, implicitly, their privileges and power. This mode does not acknowledge, respect and honour the feminine universe, opening towards it, towards the feminine energy and values. On the contrary, this model fundamentally opposes the “God-Spirit”, “God-unconditional love” model, i.e. the model entailing an absence of differentiations, fragmentation (schisms of all types, which, like a fatal disease, destroy the humanity fallen in the feminine-masculine duality).
In God (in Christ)[18], there is no difference in terms of social status, social class, origin, race, ethnicity, wealth or gender. In Christ, all is one, without differences, because love in unconditional and it pours eternally in the glass of compassion and love of God for the human being, filling His entire Church and flowing over the vessel-bodies and souls of the human beings. The body and soul of the human being are holy in Christianity, because they are the work of God and carry His face and likeness in the human being (man and woman), not only the body and soul of the man. Based on the model of God-Love, the apostle tells us that the “human body is a chosen vessel/a temple of the Holy Spirit”[19], therefore so is the body of the woman[20], which must not be demonized/possessed/defined/rejected, as suggested by the patriarchal model.
- “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” (I Timothy, chapter 2:12, 13)[21]. Here, the role of teach (of law, social order, divine law, word about God) enters the masculine monopoly, which creates over the millennia a certain approach to God and the woman, one that cannot be disputed). This passage directly contradicts the dignity, freedom of the woman to the idea that the woman can be, as much as the man, a creator of significations, symbolist, civilization, norms, rules, her own interpretations).
- “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, inasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man” (Corinthians I, chapter 11:7): therefore, another dogmatic constructed shaped on the patriarchal pattern, crediting the “incapacity” of the woman to sublimate, to rise to God. This is another example of man confiscating the quality of “being blessed by God”, of “face and likeliness to God”, while the woman is denied this quality or it is acknowledged for her only through the man, indirectly, as “the glory of man” (as if only the man were the “son of God”, while the woman is not “daughter of God”, although, nota bene, this is the essence of the Christic law).
From the patriarchal old logic of “gender hierarchy” to the new, Christic mentality of “gender harmony”
Does God not say when He creates mankind that “they are meant to rule over the Earth” (here, the concept of “mankind” is construed as woman, as well as man, it is not limited to the meaning of man)?[22] How is it then that the patriarchs place the woman in a position of inferiority, in relation to her other half, depriving her of the divine blessing of “ruling over the Earth” (as social acknowledgement of this benefit, at the level of the system)?
Being assigned a secondary position by the man (through the masculine elites, including the male theologians – how many feminine interpretations, made by female theologians or from feminine perspective, by male theologians (which is a rather difficult task) – have been made in this period – 2000 years?), a position which expresses a relation of domination (submission to the man, from a slave-like position), the woman “cannot enjoy” the divine blessing (in the masculine view, perpetuated even through these statements made by the Apostles and, afterwards, by the Church Fathers, influenced by the patriarchal logic of the Old Testament and rabbinic interpretations).
Therefore, the patriarchal logic displays a form of seizing the very language and religious concepts, which is harmful to the woman, to the Christian perspective, in its essence. Christianity becomes a religion attached to the discourse of power, in the patriarchal-imperial sense, it becomes a construct of masculine power over the universe, over the woman, as well as a dialogue of the man (as “human being”) with God. By appropriating the Christic concepts and message, masculine elites (therefore the man) arrogate the role of “spokespeople” for the woman, even in the sacred area, in the relationship to God. Only the man represents the “human being”, not “the man and the woman”, as created by God, at the beginning of time (according to the first version of the Genesis[23]).
The second version of the Genesis (the creation of Eve, out of Adam’s rib[24])is convenient to perpetuate a patriarchal-imperial model, in which the woman takes the back seat, the “chair of silence/submission/humility” (as a consequence of the fact that she is “taken out of Adam” and “named by Adam”[25], like an animal). This second version of the Genesis (in the exclusivist sense of “Adam/man”), fundamentally different from the first version of the Genesis, is used by Paul the Apostle, when making the so-called “primordiality” of man in relation to the woman, in order to justify the inferior position reserved for the woman and her “silence” in history: “For man did not come from woman, but woman from man[26]”. He continues in the same patriarchal logic, adding a utilitarian sense to the walling in of the woman, far from the Christic message, from the “God-Love” model: “neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” (Corinthians I, chapter 11:9). This single phrase provides an entire range of justifications for subsequent patriarchal theologies, based on the idea of praising the man as “human being” (confiscating the concept of “humanity” – including from a cultural, as well as sacred standpoint) and of the male as “primordial creation” (as compared to the female, seen as “secondary creation, derived from the male”). This version of the Genesis beautifully served the purpose of perpetuation in full post-Christic period (therefore, when in the court of the Christic law of loving one’s neighbour, of the integrative paradigm, left by Christ to the human beings) of the primitive model opposing in its essence the Christic law, of the patriarchal-imperial type. This model is innocently used by the Holy Fathers, by the renowned theologians of the Church, for 2000 years, and put to work, managing to perfect a deviation to the essence of Christianity (love for the neighbour – here, the woman recovers the image of the sacred image of the woman, recapitalizes the image of the woman, the woman returns in history to her rightful position, a position of dignity, honour, praise and respect).
Thus, the act of “crushing the head of the serpent” (a sacred act, which insists on the end of time, as an end of the Old Paradigm, which was a time of blocking the manifestation, perpetuation and advancing of the woman, of the feminine energy to her true, royal value), the false history, the false identity of the man as “human being” (by separating and negating the woman) suddenly ends. The Old Paradigm, based on the Division between the Genders, suddenly ends without a trace (“Crushing”).
It is a sacred act, reserved to the woman, by which she makes the decision and has the power (given by God, the model of love, of cancelling the differences) to identify the Great Error and to erase the traces of this error (disclose and annul the entire human history based on falseness, on praising a destructive, corrupt “masculine”, acquired through systematic, institutionalized split and hatred of the “feminine”). A history of hatred between the genders or, to be more specific, a history of the “masculine” deviated hate for the “feminine” is crumbling and this history cannot be specific to the “humanity”. It is only a failed experiment, since it did not lead to the fulfilment of the human being, as God intended the human being to be fulfilled, and it did not lead to understanding and exercising the true sense of ruling of the Earth, as God intended; instead, it has led to the exploitation of the human being by the human being, to the woman being under the heel of the man, to the woman being “silenced”, during a schizoid masculine history, it has led to an existential and axiological failure of the man-human being.
In this view, the woman is the Great Destroyer (somehow, a recovered sense of the destruction – falseness, lying, darkness, captivity – also present when we refer to the ending era of Kali-yuga)[27]. Far from being an “age of the demon”, of deviated feminine destructive energies, this ending age is one of the deciding, active feminine energy (“the Crushing”), a purifying energy, especially recovering the initial lost senses (complementariness) of the two failed energies, in the serpent-history. Far from being an age of Chaos, this Great Eschatological Gesture reserved by God to the woman is the gesture of deciding and enforcing the end of a long period of involution in the history of humanity, a period of hatred, conflicts, praising death, violence, split and hostility among the human beings.
It is a bellicose gesture of ending the corrupted history (“the serpent”), the history of constant manipulation and lies regarding the being and destiny of the human being (“the serpent” is associated with deception/falsity/imposture), who failed miserably in expressing “humanity”. It is the end of a history stripped of an essential part, always torn off and tossed aside (the feminine part, active, decision-making and creating history). This is the great sacred sense of the Woman as Great Destroyer (in Kali-yuga), yet not the destroyer of a “highly evolved, spiritual” order, of a “great patriarchal-imperial civilization which, alas, lies in ruin!” (as the supporters of millenary Patriarchalism might be tempted to lament), but a destroyer of a history (with all its corrupted systems and civilizations) built on hatred, hostility towards the fellow human being, lack of understanding for the fellow human being as a “woman”, on the non-fulfilment of the human being.
Carrying on with this history would be monstrous, subhuman, pseudo-human, the ultimate aberrations born from the masculine temptation to be completely separate from the woman and from the “feminine”, out of vanity (tempted by the techné[28], whence the idea of “man accomplished without and contrary to the woman, through mechanisms and robots”). The “ascetic” (elevation of man to God, with the “feminine” rejected as “demonic”, construing salvation as “freeing oneself from the demonic feminine”)[29] is replaced by the “robot-man”, the “cyborg” (in the scientist age, the man achieves elevation to a “higher condition”, while continuing to deny the “feminine”, alienating from nature/soul/the woman and turning into a robot, in praise of the mechanic being, the “perfect soldier”, the “killing machine”). It is the last temptation of the corrupted “masculine”, to which the globalist age (stuck in the techné and in praise of technologies) yield. Only then, on the ruins of systems and civilizations based on techné and on a type of culture alienated from nature, opposing it and opposing the “feminine”, the “End of Times” and “Crushing the Head of the Serpent” will take place.
Kali-yuga has a great grasp of this aspect of destruction. It is the only type of positive destruction that can exist in the cosmos and can be accepted at the level of the entire Divine Creation: destruction of evil, of the corrupted existence. It is the destruction of a history of darkness (of the mind and the soul, of the captivity of human existence, both of men and women, since both spent their lives in a paradigm which corrupted their energies and determined them to fight each other, even to define themselves in opposition to the other). Kali-yuga does not destroy chaotically (good and evil, all at once), nor does it destroy a positive paradigm (as many are tempted to believe, fooled by the assimilation of the corrupted masculine civilization with a “human civilization”, by making the “masculine/human” association).
Kali-yuga destroys (relating to the Vedic eschatology) a history, which has been perverted by the unnatural manner (proud, hostile, exclusivist) in which the man relates to the feminine energy, to the woman, to the feminine universe, to God (the “supreme Patriarch”, not “God-love”). By destroying this erroneous history (invalid from the cosmic and divine viewpoint, since it cannot fulfil the “face and likeness to divinity, in the human being”, it fails to sublimate humanity and the human working relation – understood as a relation between the man and the woman, a complementary pair – with God), Kali-yuga ensures transfer to the New Eon (age of recovering the sacred, complementary sense of the two masculine and feminine energies). It is the age of pure masculine and feminine energies, i.e. separated from the serpent-history, freed from the cage of the Old Paradigm (in terms of humanity and each human being, in turn).
These energies restore the human time as a new time, a time of complementariness between the two energies and unity of the human being (monad, as well as the cosmic-divine wedding in the Apocalypse), and as theosis of the human being (activating the face and likeness to God in the fulfilled human being, i.e. in the man-woman unity). Thus, the human being (as monad, as man-woman) becomes co-creator with God, because he/she activates his/her entire potential and sublimates it through unity, not through separation (every human being for himself/herself). Only here, does the Apostle manage to grasp the unity (the human being) towards which the feminine and masculine energies must converge, to fulfil the work of God (Corinthians I, chapter 3:9), when specifically recognizing the essence of the message of Christ: “Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord” (Corinthians I, chapter 11:11). Unfortunately, it is the same Paul the Apostle who places the essence of the Christic message (“however”) on a secondary position, in relation to the clearly discriminating statements against the woman (Corinthians I, chapter 11:7-10) and which belong to the patriarchal mental and cultural pattern (domination over the woman, by using the religious argument).
Technically, an entire system and even a civilization are built on Corinthians I, chapter 11:7-10 and, in full post-Christic period (!) until the present, when entering the New Eon, it perpetuates the splitting, discriminating model, hierarchical to the woman, opposing the Christic message. Based on the patriarchal model specific to the post-Christic period (the Old Testament in particular, but also the Leviticus, the Talmud, as well as other patriarchal-type texts), the Christic model is used, but it is restructured, reinterpreted not to disturb the power, the privileges of the (masculine) elites, of the great “teachers of law”, priests and scholars (theologians), the vast majority of whom are men (not to say exclusively men) and representing the masculine view of the Christic message, perspective which the women had to embrace, apply and to whom it was applied, starting from the Christian religious perspective of the woman, as described above, to the social, political ecclesiastic (non)status of the woman.
In mid post-Christic period, when we would have expected to witness the exposure of discriminations against women, specific to the ante-Christic period, the period of the Old Testament; we would have expected an attitude of respect, of appreciation, of praising the woman, the feminine energy, an attitude of open mindedness and love for the feminine energy, for the feminine universe and for the woman[30] – who is not the “enemy”, but the “fellow human/neighbour”, not the “adversary”, but one “half of the monad”[31], we witness in actuality an attitude of perpetuating antagonism, suspicion, disdain, belittlement of the woman. Great theologians, teachers of law, people who interpret the Christic message and bring it to the people are exclusively men. This is the first aspect we must seriously consider, when analysing the texts, because they are the direct expression of a perspective in which the masculine speaks and which explains the woman, a perspective in which the woman is “silent”, in which she is defined and she is not allowed to define herself.
Secondly, as a logical and proven consequence of the first ascertainment, “great law teachers”, Holy Fathers and the entire range of theologians to follow fail (even with the best intentions) to produce a sufficiently strong, non-discriminating vision of the relation between the man and the woman, from a Christian perspective, able to take root in the collective mind and the mind of the priesthood elites, able to enable the overcoming of the patriarchal model in the Corinthians I, chapter 11: 7-10.
Thirdly, it is no wonder that this purpose is not achieved, since (returning to the symbol of “Crushing the head of the serpent”) this sacred act (of redefining the feminine energy, of redefining the human nature, of identifying the error of the “human” history – as a history of patriarchal-imperial acts and decisions – and, even though some of these decisions have been made by women sometimes, they always fit the millenary patriarchal-imperial logic and pattern[32]) is an ultimate sacred act, reserved to the woman,
The “Decline of the Gods” (i.e. of the patriarchal-imperial model, which bred and nurtured entire cohorts of war gods, for millennia, dominating the world, nature, the woman, the feminine universe) takes place precisely through the warlike feminine action (“Crushing the head of the serpent”. It is a sacred act, with the woman as sole protagonist, followed by another cosmic-sacred act, in which we witness the woman participate as Empress, i.e. she is honoured, respected, crowned, receiving the praise and grace of an empress: it is the act of cosmic-divine Wedding in the Revelation[33], of recovering the pure sense (not perverted by the humanity, during the false history, the snake-history, invalid from the cosmic and divine viewpoint) of the masculine and feminine energy.
(continuare în numărul viitor)
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Notes
[1]David C. Korten, Marea Cotitură. De la imperiu la comunitatea terestră, translated by Mihnea Columbeanu, Antet Publishing House, Prahova, 2007, pp. 23-27.
[2] And we wonder: in what system or form of governance, during the post-Christic period for example (as a period during which the man – represented by the masculine elites – knew the Christic message of love for the fellow human being, as an intrinsic condition of the love for God, having thus the possibility and revelation to change the course of “human” history and to leave the state of split, did the woman receive the honour she deserved? In what political, economic, religious or secular system, in what type of post-Christ civilization do we encounter the moment and form of cancelling the split between the genders, do we encounter the respect, appreciation, honour paid to the feminine energy, the woman and the feminine values? On the contrary, the post-Christ period (after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, when the people had discovered the message of Christ and they could have used it to exit the false history, they could cancel the snake-history, they could crush the Great Split between Genders and all the divisions created for millennia, systems and civilizations) sees an ill-purposed interpretation of Christ’s message of live (it is depersonalized in order to cover the entire world, in general, losing sight of the neighbour, of the woman – even if referring to the concept of “man striving to receive salvation”, seen however as a “state of freedom from the woman, from her temptations and seductions, from the feminized demonic, from the earthly realm associated with the woman, the sin, the flesh”). Christianity (at least the Occidental version, since Christianity itself saw a series of schisms) becomes a pretext for the deviated, separationist masculine to perpetuate the schism, i.e. it is deviated from its original message (love for the neighbour, i.e. inclusion of the woman in history, accepting that she is equal and complementary to the man, not an “enemy” of whom one must get rid and against whom one must guard, to avoid being assimilated, mesmerized or destroyed) and modelled according to the Patriarchal view in the Old Testament. At this point, we note the fact that the humanity is blocked in the process of properly understanding God (as Love), we see how the elites turn enforcing the law (i.e. the message of Christ) into its opposite (consolidating the division between the genders, i.e. exactly the point which the human being of Christ should have overcome by loving his/her fellow human being). Through their dogmatic interpretation (which bears no deviations) the elites turn humanity back to the old age of schism between genders and hierarchization of genders, draining Christic message of content (that of non-differentiation between genders, through the love for the fellow human being).
[3] Book of Revelation, chapter 19: 7-9. Chapter 21 :2, 9, 10 (the fortress descending from the sky is Anima, the fortress filled with the Holy Spirit, the sanctified Church, witnessing a symbolic, sacred and cosmic unification among the woman, the bride, the Church and the Holy Spirit).
[4] As noted by theologian Paul Evdokimov, Femeia și mântuirea lumii, Christiana Publishing House, translated by Gabriela Moldoveanu, Bucharest, 1995, p. 25.
[5] Genesis, chapter. 1 :28, chapter. 9 :1-3, 7
[6]Traditionally, a link was established between the woman and nature (or the environment), with the man proclaiming his absolute property right over nature and going as far as enjoying unlimited use, exploiting and destroying it. Also see Mircea Duțu, Andrei Duțu, Dreptul de proprietate și exigențele protecției mediului, Universul Juridic, Bucharest, 2011, pp. 29-30. Also see Andrea Dworkin, Economia sexuală, cruntul adevăr (essay, 1976), in the anthology Războiul împotriva tăcerii, translated by Reghina Dascal, Gender Studies collection, Polirom Publishing House, Iași, 2001, pp. 123-129.
[7] Mihaela Miroiu, Convenio. Despre natură, femei și morală, Alternative Publishing House, Bucharest, 1996, pp. 40-42.
[8] “For we are co-workers in God’s service” (I Corinthians, chapter 3:9)
[9] “Nor the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, but working with each other” (Paul the Apostle, Corinthians I 1:11), which is the very cancellation of the hierarchization between the man and the woman, on which the patriarchal-imperial mode leading to the exclusion of the woman from the “human” history is based, silencing her. “The silence” of passing through the false history, the history of Division between Genders, a history which does not represent the human being in his/her divine depth of “face and likeness of God”, a history created to keep the human being far from the model of God-Love, to turn Him into an absolute tyrant-God, in the supreme Man-God, into the fear-God, revenge-God, anger-God, therefore to hinder the human being from fulfilment through ascension to God-Love, to hinder the co-work of human being and God, therefore the fulfilment of the cosmic and sacred role of the human being.
[10]Mihaela Miroiu, Gândul umbrei, Abordări feministe în filozofia contemporană, Alternative Publishing House, Bucharest, 1995, pp. 49-50.
[11]Mihaela Miroiu, Convenio, quoted op., pp. 38-39.
[12]Paul Evdokimov, quoted op., pp. 180-181.
[13]Excluding the woman and her influence on the serpent-history, by condemning her to “silence” and by denying her right to operate with her own definitions and concepts regarding the human nature, the world and the very feminine energy. The woman has always been defined, she was not allowed to self-define (even from the separationist perspective, in which each gender has a right to define itself, including the separation from the other gender, each isolated in its own universe; thus, the a lack of communication and the isolation result in the matriarchate – “the overly feminine” – and the patriarchate – “the overly masculine”). The best definition of the human being is “one through another”, complementariness (“woman through man and man through woman, one with God – the only God”, which means the sublimation and fulfilment of the human being, within the spirit of God).
[14] A history that denies the Christic law of love (“Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.”)
[15]Mihaela Miroiu, Convenio, quoted op., pp. 39, 35-37
[16]Paul Evdokimov, quoted op., pp. 171-172.
[17]Mihaela Miroiu, Gândul umbrei. Abordări feministe în filozofia contemporană, Alternative Publishing House, Bucharest, 1995, pp. 31-32.
[18]Galatians, chapter 3:26-28
[19] I Corinthians, chapter 6:19
[20]About the woman-Holy Spirit connection, in Manfred Schmidt-Brabant, Isis-Sophia și Marea Mamă, în Manfred Schmidt-Brabant, Virginia Sease, Femininul Arhetipal în curentul misterial al umanității,translated by Daniela Lazăr, Univers Enciclopedic Gold Publishing House, Triade, Bucharest, 2001, pp. 52-62.
[21]Another clear indication of the so-called “obligation of the woman to remain silent”, in a history that does not belong to her, which defines her in opposition to the man and which robs her of the cosmic-sacred honor, placing her on an inferior position of “attachment”, “servant”, something secondary and meaningless. From the very beginning, as the Apostles state the woman is ”forbidden to teach the others”, i.e. to express herself regarding God and to reconsider the human being-God relation, from the viewpoint of feminine values (which would have meant discussing and removing the patriarchal dogmas from the Old Testament, being able to remove these constructs of “theological argumentation”, the interpretations generated by the masculine elites, from the divine message), value which contradict the patriarchal model and remove the woman from the inferior position imposed by these Church elites, with millenary decision-making monopoly of the theological interpretation (either of the Old Testament, or of the New Testament). How many feminine perspectives, texts written by women-theologians are there in the works written by the Church Fathers (the patristic-patriarchal name, derived from the word “pater”, head of the family; this is how the man becomes head of the religious interpretation, as well, holder of truth regarding the man-woman-God relation, from the perspective of Church elites and male scholars, who shape the Christic message based on the caduceus pattern of the… Old Testament (i.e. following the patriarchal model and perpetuating the inferiority position of the woman, her “silence”, even more, expressly obligating her to respect the monopoly of the priesthood and theologians… “A woman[a] should learn in quietness and full submission” Timothy chapter 2:11-14
[22] Genesis, chapter 1:27-28, chapter 5:2
[23] Genesis, chapter 1:27-29
[24]Genesis, chapter 1:21-23
[25]According to the second version of the Genesis, which contradicts the first version – illustrative for the patriarchal model (based on the premise of man’s superiority to the woman and on the argument of “primordiality” of man, in comparison to the woman – according to the first version, used by most interpretations and comments on the Old and even New Testament texts, including the Apostles and the Church Fathers). Genesis, chapter 2:23
[26]I Corinthians, chapter 11:8
[27] The fourth age of time, the age of decline, according to the Hindu religion. In John Bowker, Credințe care au schimbat lumea. Istoria și ideile marilor religii,translated by Iulia Pomagă, ed. Didactică și Pedagogică, RA, Bucharest, 2010, p.106.
[28]A civilization based exclusively on technology, instead of culture, is in fact a barbaric state.
[29]Mihaela Miroiu, quoted op., pp. 60-61. Paul Evdokimov, op. cit., pp. 174-175, 177-179.
[30]Starting from both the archetype of Virgin Mary and from the feminine aspects of the Holy Spirit, ignored by the theological discourse, for a long time. Also see Paul Evdokimov, quoted op., pp. 217-230.
[31] In the work of Dumitru Stăniloaie, the human being means the complete human being (full human being, man-woman) who, in this plenary and sacred view, becomes the church and the human person becomes a priest of the church – the inside of the human soul is the altar of God). See Dumitru Stăniloaie, Spiritualitate și comuniune în liturghia ortodoxă, 2nd edition, Ed. Institului Biblic și de Misiune al BOR, Bucharest, 2004, pp. 34-35
[32] The women who asserted themselves during these periods did not defy the patriarchal-imperial pattern itself; on the contrary, they emphasized its importance, acting, deciding and behaving like “true men”. To receive recognition, access to power in the world of male decision-making monopoly, they had to abandon their femininity (they had to become masculine from the mental/social/political/cultural viewpoint, to a higher extent than the men, in order to be capable of dominating them, based on their masculine rules and criteria. Therefore, they de-feminized intentionally, turning against their own nature and acting as catalysts for a system strange to their nature), they turned to trickery (false, perverted feminization, with seductive purposes, using the man in a perverted game of mutual deceit, to access power: “who tricks whom”). However, we cannot talk about pure energies at this point, i.e. about energies open to the world, to love, which recreate the monad; instead, we are talking about perverted energies, through the systems and civilizations built on the hierarchized model of split between the genders. Domination does not create love, nor does the split between the genders.
[33]The Revelation, as a final point of crossing from a history to another, from a manner of creating and understanding history to another, from the Omega point to the Alpha point, from the decline of a corrupted planetary civilization, through the feminine/masculine split to the rise of a new civilization, of a New Eon, in which the Monad is accomplished (the Human being is recovered, through the complementariness the feminine and masculine part). The transfer is made by “Crushing the head of the serpent”, i.e. by abandoning the split between genders, by abandoning the dualist civilization, of the man versus woman type. Through the “crushing”, the woman becomes an active factor in the creation of a new civilization; she becomes the Creator of the New Civilization, the initiator of the Monad. If the split was generated by the moment when the woman was tempted by the snake, the man-woman reunion in the New Civilization is made by the same woman who acknowledges the split and ends it, by crushing the head of the serpent that tempted her. If the serpent placed the woman in the history of the Other (history of the masculine split from the feminine), by crushing the false history, the woman opens the gate to the New Eon, the Eon of the Monad, of reuniting the feminine and the masculine.
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