A Poem About Eve

Started by Matto, June 12, 2017, 09:11:26 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Mono no aware

Quote from: Jayne on June 13, 2017, 05:20:29 PMThere was war in heaven and St. Michael the Archangel is consistently portrayed holding a sword in the midst of battle.  There is no Scriptural basis for the idea of feminine or ethereal angels.  The descriptions of angels sound terrifying and often their first words on appearing to a human are "Do not be afraid."

Yes, but that war was subsequent to a heavenly calamity where some of the angels fell.  The name "Lucifer," as you know, means "bringer (or carrier) of light," and he was said to have been the most sublime and luminous and beautiful among all the angels.  The reason he turned against God was because he felt threatened by the creation of humans, that they would surpass him.  Perhaps he feared the creation of Eve more than that of Adam.

DominusTecum

Quote from: Pon de Replay on June 12, 2017, 05:43:10 PM
I remember reading one of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's interview books, and his interrogator Peter Seewald said, "we might sometimes think that women, representing as it were a second attempt, are an improved version of creation, more successful than men.  They seem to be not only more beautiful but also maybe more fully developed as persons."  The now Pope Emeritus waved the comment off, saying, "I'd rather not get into that," but I have always liked that heretical view of Seewald's: that Eve was sort of a "humankind 2.0."  It's definitely true that women are aesthetically speaking far more beautiful, and when I think of virtues like gracefulness, serenity, and quietude, I find that they are more perfectly exemplified when I think of a graceful, serene, and quiet woman than when I think of a man having the same qualities.   Oddly enough, the word "virtue" has an etymology which suggests that moral excellence is the province of men.

I've encountered this view before, most prominently in Jacques Ellul's work.

https://www.cbeinternational.org/resources/article/priscilla-papers/feminism-writings-jacques-ellul

QuoteAlthough some theologians have seen woman's creation after man's as evidence of female inferiority, Ellul maintains the opposite: each stage in creation is superior to the previous one, so that woman represents the high point of creation. She is the perfection of man, who was incomplete without her, and the source of his freedom in the sense that he finds freedom in relationship with her. The serpent attacks the woman because she is the head and perfection of creation, not because she is weaker than man.3 According the Ellul, women's superior values stem more from education and culture than from their genes, which probably play a role in shaping them but do not constitute a determining factor. Since women are excluded from politics, for example, they tend to form relationships based on values other than competition and force. Ellul explores this idea most extensively in The Subversion of Christianity,4 where he also offers his  most detailed contrast of men and women's values.

Quote... men incline to eros the conqueror, rigid order, morality, power, rationality, pitilessness toward the weak, violence and quantitive values, whereas women favour agape the servant, flexibility, the faith-hope-love trilogy, nonpower, intuition, care for the weak and wounded, nonviolence, and qualitative values.

I think it's gravely mistaken.

What Ellul has failed to recognise is that all of the supposedly negative qualities he associates with the male are the very qualities that women by nature seek out in men, in other words, the qualities that women love, while the positive qualities he attributes to women are things that men seek in women, the qualities that men love.  It is a fact of human nature that where women fall for the pitiless conqueror, the rich man, the Don Juan, men fall for the innocent maiden, whatever her station in life. It is men who are more naturally inclined to seek and to love goodness and holiness, I think, which is why men tend to be the romantics. The rise of feminism has met with a corresponding decline in feminine virtues amongst women, because those feminine virtues were themselves the products of a patriarchal society guided by masculine loves. Without male guidance, women have given in to their lower tendencies and have come to pursue only power, status, and material wealth, the only difference being that now power, status, and wealth do not need to be mediated through men, but can instead be seized directly.

Men often bear the blame for violence, wars and destruction, but the female role in fomenting those conflicts is minimized or denied. Take for the example the "white feather girls" of WW1 who shamed young men into fighting and dying for the feminist British political establishment.

http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/feminists-sent-men-die/

In any case, the worldwide 21st century phenomenon of the slutwalk should be sufficient to exorcise any lingering idealism about the nature of women. It's a mass manifestation of a specifically feminine kind of evil, the kind of evil that seeks to justify itself, that demands not only acceptance but applause and adoration.

PerEvangelicaDicta

QuoteIt's a mass manifestation of a specifically feminine kind of evil, the kind of evil that seeks to justify itself, that demands not only acceptance but applause and adoration.

Excellent.
That describes sodomites also.
They shall not be confounded in the evil time; and in the days of famine they shall be filled
Psalms 36:19

Mono no aware

#18
Quote from: DominusTecum on June 14, 2017, 12:57:08 AMWhat Ellul has failed to recognise is that all of the supposedly negative qualities he associates with the male are the very qualities that women by nature seek out in men, in other words, the qualities that women love, while the positive qualities he attributes to women are things that men seek in women, the qualities that men love.  It is a fact of human nature that where women fall for the pitiless conqueror, the rich man, the Don Juan, men fall for the innocent maiden, whatever her station in life.

This is true.  (Tangentially, I would only observe that it is these very behaviors of humans that I think make a strong argument for evolution.  A lot of evolutionists seem to rely on DNA and the fossil record, but I think you only have to look at our hedonism and our barbarism to see that we disturbingly evince the characteristics of primates: the reason men are ruthless and brutish is because they are trying to survive in a world indifferent to their survival, and the reason women prefer such men is because to be off on their own, or with a milquetoast male, is to risk the survival of their offspring.  If evolution is true, then these behaviors and preferences would be inherited & instinctual because they were advantageous in the primitive landscape.  There doesn't seem to be anything particularly holy about these ugly and gritty relationships between the sexes.  But that is neither here nor there). 

One of the interesting things about the poem in the OP, for me, is that there is no mention of Adam at all.  Eve seems to be the lone creation, and she is doing something (naming the animals) that Adam is originally said to have done when he was by himself, before her creation.  I suppose that's "feminist" in a way, but the fact that Eve doesn't know her name suggests vulnerability rather than "girl power."  It offers a picture of Eve wandering alone in the garden, and evokes an image of just a woman.  It's aesthetically paradisaical.  That's why I like Blake's view of the prelapsarian state, that it was virginal and androgynous.  Sex, as pleasurable as it is, is nevertheless earthy and temporal.  It's a corruption of purity, which is why it's said that when someone loses their virginity they have "lost their innocence."  This is probably why the Church esteems virginity higher than marriage, and why the resurrection is said to restore the original state: "for in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven."

With Adam on his own, it's implied that something is missing here.  A man without a woman is kind of dull.  A newly-created woman is sufficient unto herself, an image of purity that needs no compliment.  The only thing missing, to my lights, is the water, which the Greeks had in the birth of Venus.  I've always thought the water theme was best expressed in the psalm used for the Asperges: "wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."  I'm not even a big admirer of Bouguereau, but the pallor of Venus in this painting, contrasted with the swarthy hairy coarseness of the male gods (they almost look like craggy brown rocks jutting from the sea) is nice.  "Whiter than snow."  The cherubs are childlike, translucent, and sexless—a far cry from Jayne's exegesis of them as terrifying.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, The Birth of Venus (1879)

Jayne

#19
Here is a cherub according to the description in Ezekiel and in traditional angeology:

Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine.

Mono no aware

Yes, but somewhere along the line, that concept fell out of popularity.  Most of the angelic art in the Catholic Church depicts them as either feminine or childlike: delicate and hazy.  The style in the image you have provided is more typical of Byzantine iconography than Catholic art.

PerEvangelicaDicta

Quote...but I think you only have to look at our hedonism and our barbarism to see that we disturbingly evince the characteristics of primates:

That's actually quite a brilliantly simple and interesting angle, but I've always chalked those tendencies up to original sin and Satan.  Is that naive?  From working in zoological sciences I held a  pro evolution pov, but discovered many sound refutations to the theory (many summed up well here in an SD thread), and that was before my move from Novus Ordo to tradition. In addition, I just can't move past my distrust of the modern atheist minded scientific community of propaganda and oligarchical pre-determined research outcomes. After being saturated for years in that environment, I'm an uber skeptic - my particular dysfunction  :P
They shall not be confounded in the evil time; and in the days of famine they shall be filled
Psalms 36:19

PerEvangelicaDicta

QuoteMost of the angelic art in the Catholic Church depicts them as either feminine or childlike: delicate and hazy.

I wonder why that is?  Scripture typically impresses that they are frightening at apparition. Notable exception:  St. Gabriel's reverence at the Annunciation.
They shall not be confounded in the evil time; and in the days of famine they shall be filled
Psalms 36:19

Mono no aware

#23
Quote from: PerEvangelicaDicta on June 14, 2017, 02:28:12 PM
Quote...but I think you only have to look at our hedonism and our barbarism to see that we disturbingly evince the characteristics of primates:

That's actually quite a brilliantly simple and interesting angle, but I've always chalked those tendencies up to original sin and Satan.  Is that naive?  From working in zoological sciences I held a  pro evolution pov, but discovered many sound refutations to the theory (many summed up well here in an SD thread), and that was before my move from Novus Ordo to tradition. In addition, I just can't move past my distrust of the modern atheist minded scientific community of propaganda and oligarchical pre-determined research outcomes. After being saturated for years in that environment, I'm an uber skeptic - my particular dysfunction

I don't think it's naive at all.  Original sin is the time-honored explanation for the tribal, barbaric, and brutish behaviors of humans, but it's an uncomfortable coincidence that such activity is so animalistic.  Human partying and reveling, to me, is not too far from the hooting and hopping of excited chimpanzees.  "WOO-HOO!"  When the neon lights come on, and the electronic beats start pumping, and the arms go up in the air, and the bodies start hopping around, and the inane laughter and cheers get exclaimed, I'm helpless but to shake my head in dismay and think to myself: "human primates."   

Like you, I am skeptical of everything.  I can appreciate (or at least empathize with) both sides.  I do think the evolutionists have a strong hand in DNA, but I also don't see how the "theistic evolutionists" are able to square the theory with the bible, tradition, or the magisterium.  There seems no way to reconcile it.  Theistic evolutionists always just howl, "the bible is not supposed to be a science textbook!," as if anyone claims it is.  But if a primeval pair and original sin are not actual facts of human history, then I don't see how the whole thing doesn't fall apart.


Mono no aware

Quote from: PerEvangelicaDicta on June 14, 2017, 02:33:16 PM
QuoteMost of the angelic art in the Catholic Church depicts them as either feminine or childlike: delicate and hazy.

I wonder why that is?  Scripture typically impresses that they are frightening at apparition. Notable exception:  St. Gabriel's reverence at the Annunciation.

Indulging in some "armchair Jungian theorizing," maybe it has something to do with subconsciously associating the feminine and childlike with concepts like innocence and purity.

Chestertonian

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has not made me a woman
"I am not much of a Crusader, that is for sure, but at least I am not a Mohamedist!"

Chestertonian

#26
Quote from: Pon de Replay on June 14, 2017, 10:47:00 AM
Quote from: DominusTecum on June 14, 2017, 12:57:08 AMWhat Ellul has failed to recognise is that all of the supposedly negative qualities he associates with the male are the very qualities that women by nature seek out in men, in other words, the qualities that women love, while the positive qualities he attributes to women are things that men seek in women, the qualities that men love.  It is a fact of human nature that where women fall for the pitiless conqueror, the rich man, the Don Juan, men fall for the innocent maiden, whatever her station in life.

This is true.  (Tangentially, I would only observe that it is these very behaviors of humans that I think make a strong argument for evolution.  A lot of evolutionists seem to rely on DNA and the fossil record, but I think you only have to look at our hedonism and our barbarism to see that we disturbingly evince the characteristics of primates: the reason men are ruthless and brutish is because they are trying to survive in a world indifferent to their survival, and the reason women prefer such men is because to be off on their own, or with a milquetoast male, is to risk the survival of their offspring.  If evolution is true, then these behaviors and preferences would be inherited & instinctual because they were advantageous in the primitive landscape.  There doesn't seem to be anything particularly holy about these ugly and gritty relationships between the sexes.  But that is neither here nor there). 

One of the interesting things about the poem in the OP, for me, is that there is no mention of Adam at all.  Eve seems to be the lone creation, and she is doing something (naming the animals) that Adam is originally said to have done when he was by himself, before her creation.  I suppose that's "feminist" in a way, but the fact that Eve doesn't know her name suggests vulnerability rather than "girl power."  It offers a picture of Eve wandering alone in the garden, and evokes an image of just a woman.  It's aesthetically paradisaical.  That's why I like Blake's view of the prelapsarian state, that it was virginal and androgynous.  Sex, as pleasurable as it is, is nevertheless earthy and temporal.  It's a corruption of purity, which is why it's said that when someone loses their virginity they have "lost their innocence."  This is probably why the Church esteems virginity higher than marriage, and why the resurrection is said to restore the original state: "for in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven."

With Adam on his own, it's implied that something is missing here.  A man without a woman is kind of dull.  A newly-created woman is sufficient unto herself, an image of purity that needs no compliment.  The only thing missing, to my lights, is the water, which the Greeks had in the birth of Venus.  I've always thought the water theme was best expressed in the psalm used for the Asperges: "wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."  I'm not even a big admirer of Bouguereau, but the pallor of Venus in this painting, contrasted with the swarthy hairy coarseness of the male gods (they almost look like craggy brown rocks jutting from the sea) is nice.  "Whiter than snow."  The cherubs are childlike, translucent, and sexless—a far cry from Jayne's exegesis of them as terrifying.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, The Birth of Venus (1879)

So much nudity tsk tsk... What would Jerome say
"I am not much of a Crusader, that is for sure, but at least I am not a Mohamedist!"

Jayne

Quote from: Chestertonian on June 14, 2017, 09:14:14 PM
So much nudity tsk tsk... What would Jerome say

It was bad enough that people mocked Jerome when he was here.  It is even worse to do it after he has left.

You are also making light of anyone who struggles with chastity and finds that image a source of temptation.  How uncomfortable it will be for anyone in that situation to ask for help, knowing that his struggles have been ridiculed.

You mentioned elsewhere that you do not struggle with chastity.  Many of us do.  I personally do not have a problem with that particular picture,  but there are other pictures that could be a problem, even if they have been labeled as great works of art. I am not willing to stake the souls of my brothers on a bet that nobody here is aroused by artistic nudes.

I had been internally debating whether I should report that picture, but you have made the answer clear.  Whatever problems that picture might cause in itself, it has already been used to mock those who strive for purity.  That is not something that should happen on a traditional Catholic forum.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine.

Lydia Purpuraria

#28
Quote from: Pon de Replay on June 14, 2017, 05:59:44 PM
Quote from: PerEvangelicaDicta on June 14, 2017, 02:28:12 PM
Quote...but I think you only have to look at our hedonism and our barbarism to see that we disturbingly evince the characteristics of primates:

That's actually quite a brilliantly simple and interesting angle, but I've always chalked those tendencies up to original sin and Satan.  Is that naive?  From working in zoological sciences I held a  pro evolution pov, but discovered many sound refutations to the theory (many summed up well here in an SD thread), and that was before my move from Novus Ordo to tradition. In addition, I just can't move past my distrust of the modern atheist minded scientific community of propaganda and oligarchical pre-determined research outcomes. After being saturated for years in that environment, I'm an uber skeptic - my particular dysfunction
I don't think it's naive at all.  Original sin is the time-honored explanation for the tribal, barbaric, and brutish behaviors of humans, but it's an uncomfortable coincidence that such activity is so animalistic.  Human partying and reveling, to me, is not too far from the hooting and hopping of excited chimpanzees.  "WOO-HOO!"  When the neon lights come on, and the electronic beats start pumping, and the arms go up in the air, and the bodies start hopping around, and the inane laughter and cheers get exclaimed, I'm helpless but to shake my head in dismay and think to myself: "human primates."

Indeed, much of human behavior really is animalistic and reminiscent of chimps, which makes sense if evolution is true since chimps (and bonobos) are considered humans' closest relatives.  Bonobos are quite different from chimps in their social structure/interactions, though.  Much more peaceful and subdued (yet, more "hedonistic" and matrifocal ... yikes.). 

QuoteLike you, I am skeptical of everything.  I can appreciate (or at least empathize with) both sides.  I do think the evolutionists have a strong hand in DNA, but I also don't see how the "theistic evolutionists" are able to square the theory with the bible, tradition, or the magisterium.  There seems no way to reconcile it.  Theistic evolutionists always just howl, "the bible is not supposed to be a science textbook!," as if anyone claims it is.  But if a primeval pair and original sin are not actual facts of human history, then I don't see how the whole thing doesn't fall apart.

+1





Mono no aware

Quote from: Jayne on June 15, 2017, 07:29:28 AM
Quote from: Chestertonian on June 14, 2017, 09:14:14 PM
So much nudity tsk tsk... What would Jerome say

It was bad enough that people mocked Jerome when he was here.  It is even worse to do it after he has left.

You are also making light of anyone who struggles with chastity and finds that image a source of temptation.  How uncomfortable it will be for anyone in that situation to ask for help, knowing that his struggles have been ridiculed.

You mentioned elsewhere that you do not struggle with chastity.  Many of us do.  I personally do not have a problem with that particular picture,  but there are other pictures that could be a problem, even if they have been labeled as great works of art. I am not willing to stake the souls of my brothers on a bet that nobody here is aroused by artistic nudes.

I had been internally debating whether I should report that picture, but you have made the answer clear.  Whatever problems that picture might cause in itself, it has already been used to mock those who strive for purity.  That is not something that should happen on a traditional Catholic forum.

As you know, Jayne, I appreciated reading Jerome's arguments on the forum when he was here.  One of the countless snarky comments directed at him when he made his case for modesty in art was, "whatever you do, Jerome, if you visit the Sistine Chapel—don't look up."  And yet there also was some truth to this.  Somewhere around the time of the Renaissance, Catholic artwork got pretty "nudie," so to speak.  Although the subject of that Bouguereau painting is pagan, Bouguereau himself was, I think, a Catholic, and many of his paintings are religious.  I often see Bouguereau Madonnas as avatars on Catholic forums.  If Kaesekopf wants to remove the image, then that's up to him, but it seems odd to remove something that would pass muster in countless churches or hang in a public museum.

At best, what Jerome pointed out was an interesting dichotomy: the Church's strictures against revealing the body in fashion, up against the Church's implied permission to reveal the body in representational art.  I believe he did cite the Council of Trent, though, in supporting his contention that nudie art was lascivious.