sweet seventeen & never been kiseed nor missed ...

In
our collection
of martyr stories
from the Talmud Avoda Zara,
a text that insists on the representation of the Christian heresy as a beautiful prostitute
who tempts the male Jewish people away from G d,
the Rabbis seem very close to those Christian ascetics who at exactly the same period
also were using the female virgin as
their
most valorized exemplar.

{See
also Thecla
as a model
in the writings of Methodius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Jerome.
It is ambiguous in this context, however, whether Thecla was being held up as a model
for men or only
for women?}

The harlot,
moreover, was a priviliged metaphor for heresy
among fourth-century Christians, as well!
These Christians were tangled up with power and prestige in the Empire in highly complex and nuanced ways that have been explored by others:
"To state the thesis in general terms:
post-Constantinian Christianity lays claim to the power of classical male speech;
yet at the same time late ancient Christian discourse cntinues to locate itself in paradoxal relation
to classical discourse through a stance of feminizing ascesis
that renounces public speech."

{See also
their concise description
of the relevant political conditions for the shifts
in Christian representations
of virginity!}

As they here unveil,
within the discourse of such figures as the late fourth-century Christian writers Ambrose and Prudentius, there are knotty and intricate elements of resistance to the dominant {Roman} discourse of masculinity, and of masculine sexuality in particular.
This resistance or reconception of masculinity is achieved in no small measure
by "thinking with" virgins.

For example, in Ambrose's
On Virgins,
we find such countermasculiity thematized and symbolized in a story that issues in an array of paradoxical gender identifications. In one crucial episode, Thecla, the apocryphal female associate of Paul, has entered the martyrological ring. She is the proverbial
Christian who has been thrown to the lions. As Ambrose structures his recounting of this episode, the lion
"initially represents the sexual violence signalled by both the 'rage' of Thecla's would-be husband and the
'immodest eyes' of the male onlookers who gaze
upon the spectacle of her nakedness."

The would-be martyr, Thecla,
voluntarily presents to the lion her "vital parts," an obvious eroticized displacement of the offer of her sexual parts to her rejected fiance. Male sexuality is figured as devouring
of the woman, and the lion represents the rapacity of a husband,
as well as that of the Empire.

Interestingly enough,
the Rabbis also used the lion a s a symbol for a violent male sexuality,
saying that
"the ignorant man is like the lion who tramples and then devours its prey,"
while they used the courting routine of the rooster as a positive example of the husband who plays,
dallies with, and arouses his wife before intercourse. For the lion as an image of violent male sexuality
in Roman literature, see the text of Martial! [
The Garden of Priapus]
For the persistence of the lion in this guise, see
Ulysses
{James Joyce}, in which Bloom
remarks
"the lion reek of all the male brutes that have possessed [a prostitute]!"

"Christians inherited a discourse of sexuality as invasive and violent!"
This fitted very neatly with [a Christian interpretation of] the story of the Fall in the book of Genesis,
in which sexual awareness was the first sign that humans had acquired knowledge of 'evil'?
But since then it has been adequately demonstrated by now that this is neither the "original" nor an ineluctable construction of the Genesis narrative{s}!

The text
draws an explicit analogy
between the hunger of the male lion to eat the virgin's flesh and the lust of her husband to consummate the marriage. Even the lion, a mere beast, however, is led to transform its bestial and violent maleness in the presence of the virgin martyr,
and by her example.

Kortom:
in feite blijven
de hoofdlijnen dezelfde als 'altijd' al:
alleen tijd, plaats & omgeving beinvloeden de weergave ervan dusdanig,
dat je in de loop van die 3000/2000/1000 jaar, en korter periodes, haast telkens weer zou kunnen spreken van een totaal andere boodschap [euangelium], speciaal als het gaat over de gezalfde [masjiach/mosjiach/messias/christus/verlosser/bevrijder/mensenzoon/zoon van g d/heilige geest e.d.]!?
Afhankelijk van hun voorgeschiedenis, levenservaring, vervolging, marteling & 'executie' zie je zowel
hun overeenkomsten als verschillen excessief benadrukt als het gaat om zaken als opoffering,
vlucht, verborgen teksten & bedoeling,
hun al of niet evasief gedrag
& 'tricksterism'!

Je zou
zelfs kunnen zeggen:
het maakt niet uit in welke tijd, cultuur,
in welk land of wat voor een continent men leeft ~
menselijkheid en vermenselijking worden nagenoeg bijna hetzelfde omschreven,
alleen de manier waarop, de uitwerking ervan in de praktijk,
en de literaire vrijheden die men zich al of niet
kan veroorloven kunnen
sterk uiteenlopen &
verschillen van
elkaar.

blozen
14 aug 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
Weet je zeker dat je dit verhaal wilt rapporteren? Ja | Nee
Profielfoto van Asih
Asih, man, 80 jaar
   
Log in om een reactie te plaatsen.   vorige volgende