Monday, June 29, 2015

The "CSL was never an atheist" canard

It has been unusually well expressed by one "Gaunilo II" and "reviewed 'In Behalf of the Fool'", whose words I found on Into the Wardrobe*:

The Fool does not question Lewis' conversion to Christianity, and he is quite overwhelmed with his intellect, imagination, and ability to write fiction. But the Fool doubts that Lewis ever was a convinced and dedicated agnostic or atheist. It is true that while still a young man, he professed to have no religion and maintained that "All religions, that is all mythologies, to give them their proper name, are merely man's own invention - Christ as much as Loki." (C. S. Lewis, A Biography , p. 48) but the tone of his objection to religions seems more the schoolboy realization of religious errors and inconsistencies than that of a mature thinker who has considered the atheist or agnostic positions extensively and sympathetically and who accepts the inevitability of one or the other of both positions. As a youth he had an apparent fascination with elaborate systems of mythology, and his later fiction, the Narnia saga and stories of the planets, is filled with poetic symbols of power and morality. It is a small step from contemplating a deity to bowing before it. In one account of his conversion, he said, "In 1929 I gave in and admitted that God is God." ...


1) Being an Atheist is not limited to being "a mature thinker who has considered the atheist or agnostic positions extensively and sympathetically and who accepts the inevitability of one or the other of both positions".

2) He did "accept the inevitability" of Christianity being just one more mythology, all of which were completely false, precisely as Dawkins' argument that Christians or adherents of any other religions are "atheists about all gods except their own, we are so about one god more".

3) He did "accept the inevitability" of miracles not occurring.

4) He did above all "accept the inevitability" of "God is either evil or impotent or both".

In other words, he was a fairly thoroughgoing atheist.

... Had Lewis been a comfortable atheist or committed agnostic, he would not have had anything to "give in" to.


Unless there was some inconsistency about his atheism which he discovered. For instance, where does logic come from, where does morality come from, where does beauty come from. And he tried an impersonal or not sure if personal or impersonal Hegelian absolute before giving in and admitting the Absolute had to be a personal god.

Note that when he became a Theist in 1929, he waited still another year while still rejecting the Gospel as "yet another myth" before becoming a Christian.

The objection of "the fool" (well named since the fool hath said in his heart there is no god) reminds me of Evangelical reactions to apostates. "If he apostasised he can't have been really saved in the first place". May we wager a guess about Gaunilo II's cultural background?

What is true is that he was not trained or house dressed by the specific modern type of Atheism in which QQ like "where does logic come from, where does morality come from, where does beauty come from?" are pushed off as "scientifically unsound" or fallacies - by people who have a hard time sometimes to see what this argument really means and how one using this argument could find anything really logically objectionable in theirs.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Sts Peter and Paul
29-VI-2015

*Into the Wardrobe : Mere Christianity: A Review
http://cslewis.drzeus.net/papers/mere-christianity-review/

Some Catholics have a Beef with CSL Because of Dom Bede Griffiths

It may be instructive for them to read this sentence:

This was my point about Griffiths. He was not only both Catholic and Hindu but was a Priest and a Sanyassi. However as I discovered in checking this out Griffiths did not travel to India in search of the other half of his soul until 1968 so at the time Lewis was learning about Hinduism from him his knowledge would have been more theoretical.


It is from page 6 of a discussion starting here:

Into the Wardrobe — a C. S. Lewis website
Message Forums — A Community of Wardrobians
Board index ‹ C. S. Lewis & related ‹ Apologetics & Other Works
Lewis' thoughts on other major religions?
http://cslewis.drzeus.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=10088


Reading, I am mostly in agreement with rusmeister - except in his preference of EO over RC./HGL

PS, so far./HGL

Friday, June 26, 2015

Local Motion in Scholastic Terminology

First of all, in Latin we deal with « motus » rather than « motio », so it is more like « move » than « motion ». Second, « motus localis » was called « local » for a very specific reason.

Local motion: from the chair to the computer away there, from this floor of the library to the next lower, from the library to the public garden – or from one end of the universe to another. Exactly, that is a « motus localis » a « local move » too.

Substantive motion: coming into being of a substance, like being created or engendered, ceasing to be, like annihiliation or death, changing nature, like wood burning to carbon dioxide and mineral ashes – or like transubstantiation, unless St Thomas specified this was no « motus ». (He did specify it was no « motus localis »).

Qualitative motion: blushing means turning red which colour is a visible quality.

Habitative motion (if such): acquiring or losing or giving away, putting on and off clothes.

Could one speak of « motus » in the other categories? Active? Passive? Situational? They are sometimes local, sometimes not. They are not as « motus » either automatically same or automatically different from local motion.

The point is, the Latin word for change is « motus ». « Cambium » first of all is not Classic, and second means trading, specifically currencies. When we say blushing is a « change » in colour, scholastics called it a « motus », more precisely a « motus qualitativus visibilis qualitatis ».

We are not dealing with « motus localis » as opposite of « motus universalis » (non extant) as precisions on how far a « motion » extends. Since « motus localis » does not mean « motus in loco » but rather « motus de loco in alium locum » and « motus qualitativus » similarily means « motus de qualitate in aliam qualitatem ».

Second, this means that when St Thomas says* the power of angels over material objects is restricted to local motion, that is to « motus localis », this says nothing about any restriction on the scale on which angels can exercise that power. It says that they cannot directly make a substantive motion or a qualitative motion (that is a substantial or qualitative change, as we would say, to distinguish it from locomotion) happen in these material objects.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Sts John and Paul of Rome,
martyrs under Julian Apostate
26-VI-2015

*S. Th. I P, Q 110, A 3
http://newadvent.com/summa/1110.htm#article3

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Two Questions on Narnian Philology (One of them on Charnian such, really)

1) Was the first Tisroc Tash and was he not an Archenlander? 2) Could Jadis' Great-Grand-Father really read people's minds, or did he just imagine so?

1) Was the first Tisroc Tash and was perhaps he himself not an Archenlander?

As readers of the Narnia chronicles will know, Tisrocs in Calormen claim to descend from Tash who is portrayed as a "god" (a false and rather obviously evil heathen god). As readers of the Narnia chronicles will have noticed, though Tisroc and Tarkaan and Tarkheena are obviously not any English titles, nevertheless, Shasta and Aravis grew up in Calormen and have no linguistic difficulties when getting to Narnia and Archenland, while over there the Pevensies a few years earlier had had no linguistic difficulties in Narnia - which gets a satisfactory explanation in the fact that the Narnian world's "secondary Adam and Eve" so to speak are an English couple, Frank and Helen.

Now, this poses a little problem for whatever other linguistic material is there.

Telmarine names have a Spanish flavour. Now, the Telmarines, though descending from English pirates (Spanish is not the court language at Miraz' court, Caspian X has no linguistic difficulties in speaking to the returned Pevensies), may have descended from such as had had contact with Spanish and some nostalgia for Spanish sounding things - enforced perhaps by some similar sound patterns in Polynesian indigenous women's original language. Though very English names, like Rynelf and Rhoop occur as well. And someone among the pirates must have brought along Latin as a learned language. Doctor Cornelius taught it.

Next question is Calormen.

Outside story, one can notice some similarities here and there to scattered European language references. "Lady Zardeenah" has some reminiscence of sardines. Azim Balda is playing around with a Portuguese sound pattern around French "assez" (very, pretty, rather, sufficiently) and German "bald" (not bald headed, but quickly, soon) - very fitting for a city where Calormene post offices are centred. However, this will not do inside the story (or, if, requires quite a few intermediates). What is the explanation in the story for gods like Zardeenah, Tash, people like Ahoshta, Rabadash, Aravis, Alimash, Kidrash, Ilsombreh, Ardeeb, Lasaraleen, places like Zalindreh, Tashbaan (except first syllable clearly refers to Tash), Azim Balda (remember : in story, not in author's associations!), Tehishbaan, and titles like Tarkaan, Tarkheena (notice that we have a consonant change and not just a vowel change), and Tisroc?

Here we get to the wiki on Calormen, as given on Narnia.Wikia.com :

The Calormene empire was founded in the early days of the Age of Conquest, after certain exiled outlaws from Archenland fled across the southern desert and arrived in a then un-inhabited land. They founded the Calormen empire in this new land in the year 204, which started off in the northern band of the country. This was led by a cult leader from Archenland who was called the Tisroc, who claimed himself to be a descendent of the god Tash.

Many disagreed with the new authority's politics, so they migrated south of the small nation, and formed their own nations. Over the years, the Calormenes expanded their empire greatly, conquering many southern countries, whose inhabitants had separated from the early Calormene settlers, most notably the province of the city Zalindreh. In 300, they even colonized the land of Telmar in the west, ... The colonial remnant was plundered into anarchy, until they were forced to assimilate with the 12 Pirates that came from Earth's "South Sea" in 460. After Telmar became a kingdom, it allied itself with Calormen, and the two nations conquered the Conglomeration of Nations between the two countries, and made them satellite states of the Calormen Empire.


Can Calormenes have adopted English first from Telmarines in Telmar and later it went on to Calormen?

Or would Calormenes as coming from Archenland, which was colonised from Telmar, have been English speakers from the first?

Now, this poses a question where the remnants (presumable such in this scenario) of a "Calormene language" came from. My solution is that the first Tisroc was himself called Tash (a cult leader making his followers believe he was god, much like Odin did in Uppsala and Nimrod presumably in Assyria), and that, like Pevensies and first Telmarines, and like Jadis, he was not born in the Narnian world. "Calormene language" would be his native language. Or his construct (like Enochian is also a cult language construct).

One more pointer in this direction:

Calormenes were known to be dark-skinned, with the men mostly bearded. Flowing robes, turbans and wooden shoes with an upturned point at the toe were common items of clothing, and the preferred weapon was the Calormene scimitar. ... It is unknown from where the human race of Calormenes originated, although it is suspected they may have been outlaws sent into the Great Desert from Narnia and Archenland as punishment. Instead of dying, though, they appeared to have successfully crossed the desert, creating their own civilisation at the River Calormen, which eventually became the country of Calormen. Their migration through the Great Desert, with the sun beating down on them, may have also attributed to their dark complexion.


And here end my quotes from:

WikiNarnia : Calormen
http://narnia.wikia.com/wiki/Calormen


Unless some of the river gods or dryads and naiads the sons and daughters of Frank and Helen married were of darker complexion than Frank and Helen, or unless one of them at least was a gipsy, this can't really be. Losing genes for skin colour does not equal gaining them. Whites have lost such genes, and are not likely to get them back by mutations. Of course, genetics maybe doesn't work that way in the Narnian universe. But they could have got it from a new arrival, who would be Tash-the-first-Tisroc. If he had other background.

The dark complexion might even come from Telmar - since the pirates had married (or rape-married) the islanders' women, some of the early Telmarines would have had darker complexion than others - if these had gone south to Calormen?

But would that explain the Calormene language? Only if, a) it was that of islanders' before the pirates and b) it was attached to Calormen after they had received some additions from Telmar.

However, Tash as a new arrival might explain some too. Note, the in this case human Tash would not be identic (though perhaps lending leanness and facial features) to Tash the demon who arrived to the Last Battle. But Tash the demon can have been a demon who already arrived and possessed Tash the man, the first Tisroc.

If such a man, for some reason, had come from our world to Narnia, then he might explain both Calormene cult language and Calormene darker race. There are precedents "in our world" (the real one, in which this is a story) for such things : Nimrod as Gilgamesh or Enmerkar or both and as Osiris, Odin in Uppsala. We might soon be up to a new version of this perverted theme.

This much on the first question.

2) Could Jadis' Great-Grand-Father really read people's minds, or did he just imagine so?*

WikiNarnia : Jadis' great-grandfather
http://narnia.wikia.com/wiki/Jadis'_great-grandfather


"This was the old banqueting hall where my great-grandfather bade seven hundred nobles to a feast and killed them all before they had drunk their fill."


―Jadis, describing her ancestor (Chapter 5 of The Magician's Nephew, cited in article)

He once bade seven hundred nobles to a feast, but killed them all before they had even drunk their fill of wine. He did this simply because they had all had "rebellious thoughts". ... From how he was described by Jadis, her great-grandfather obviously had the power to look into people's minds and read their thoughts. It is not known for certain if Jadis had the same trait as he, but considering the magic that ran through their family's bloodline it is definitely possible. Plus, there were some scenes when she spoke to Digory Kirke and his Uncle Andrew, and seemed like she was able to see into them.


It is uncertain how much C. S. Lewis agreed with St Thomas Aquinas on the topic at hand. If he did, he would hardly have considered either the great grand-father or Jadis herself as capable of actually accurately reading what a man thought or intended in his reason.

Even demons cannot do that.

Demons can pretend to do it:

  • a) by instilling a thought themselves and then when they think it is accepted refer to it;
  • b) by reading physical signs of emotions, which give some probable clues to thoughts.


Note, probable. Not certain ones. Thus, any profession which pretends to read people's thoughts (apart from their normal and clear verbal expressions) is a bogus one.

This includes psychiatry and Freudian psychology.

Such pretences are, and CSL considered Freudian psychology used it that way, likely to be abused in ways of tyranny.

It is likely that we here deal with a warning.

Some of these nobles could very well have been loyal and therefore innocent (in relation to the greatgrandfather, if not to all their people) and his burning them would have been the price he paid for trusting some magica which made him believe he could read thoughts, and where demons used their skills in probabilities and emotion scanning.

CSL might here have been warning us, that psychology and psychiatry might one day be abused for similar securitarian abuses. Or perhaps even magic, if that should be giving better results. It was already and is still (through hospitalisation for mental illness) punishing people for their thoughts. So, take a look at what CSL is parodying. The point is very much the same as in Isaac Asimov's Minority Report, which recently went to be a film. (I take that point as obvious from summaries of film action).

Obviously, like the Tisroc dynasty descending from Tash is a reference to perhaps Yngling dynasty descending from Odin and Frey, so also this illdeed of Jadis' great-grandfather is a reference to the last Yngling who ruled in Uppsala. CSL knew his Nordic stuff.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Vigil of St John the Baptist
23-VI-2015

* Perhaps an apt day to speak about this type of false prophecy on the vigil of a feast day of a true prophet. Obviously God can read men's hearts and can and on occasion did communicate what he knew to men, to real prophets, to the human mind of Christ and to priests like the curate of Ars or Padre Pio. But these hardly committed arson.

Sartre aurait raté le Grec? (Ou était-ce "l'agrég"?)

Pour moi, c'est anecdotique. Dans le fil d'attente devant Georges Pompidou, la conversation du groupe devant moi inclut un homme qui dit que Sartre ratait son Grec. [Voir correction en bas, deuxième PS.]

Que ça soit vrai ou non, il y a une vérité symbolique dedans. S'il n'a pas forcément raté le Grec (bien qu'il puisse l'avoir raté aussi), il a certes raté le dialogue Gorgias quand au contenu.

Comment ça? Parce que Gorgias le préfute. Et préfuter, c'est quoi? Bon, "pré" c'est en avance, "refuter" c'est montrer que la preuve ou même l'idée de l'autre ne tient pas, et "préfuter" c'est plus court que "prérefuter". Le dialogue Gorgias montre, en effet, que l'homme ne fait pas sa nature, il en a une en avance, et il fait sa vie en consonance ou dissonance avec sa nature. On peut aussi dire "essence" au lieu de "nature" tant qu'on comprend qu'ici "essence" ne veut pas dire fioul (au moins les Québecquois comprendront quel calembour je vise).

Tant que je sache, Sartre n'a rien réussi pour montrer le contraire, rien pour prouver son fameux "chez les autres êtres et choses, l'essence précède l'existence, mais l'homme a son existence et choisit son essence".

Après, il a peut-être quelque miettes de Gorgias contre l'égoisme - mais qui sont illogiques (et donc émiettées) par rapport à ce principe erroné. L'homme retrouve du plaisir naturel dans la générosité envers quelqu'un d'autre. Na - tu - rel. Pas juste par le choix (comme le voudrait Sartre) d'y trouver plaisir. Donc, la réfutation de l'égoisme n'est pas qu'elle est une des essences que l'homme peut librement acquerir. La réfutation de l'égoisme avare est qu'elle est contre la nature, contre l'essence innée, de l'homme. Et Aristote l'observe. Et St Thomas LE reprend.

Je n'ai pas raté mon Grec, même si je l'ai en grande partie oublié. Et mon Latin, je ne l'ai ni raté, ni oublié. Gorgias, je l'ai lu avant de les apprendre, ces langues, à peu près à 13. Sartre ne me tente pas.

Il y a d'autres que Sartre, comme C. S. Lewis, qui n'a pas raté son Grec.

Hans Georg Lundahl
BU de Nanterre
Veille de St Jean Baptiste
23-VI-2015

PS, si quelqu'un imagine que j'aurais raté mon Grec par le fait que j'ai analysé "πεφηνε" comme impératif du parfait (forme non-existante), je suis conscient que l'impératif du parfait est une forme non-normalement-existente, et j'avais oublié que c'est la forme (correcte, si au moins πεφην- est thème de parfait correct pour φαινομαι) pour une autre forme : 3 p. sg. indicatif du parfait. En fait, la désinence -ε est toujours 3 p. sg. indicatif des temps qui commencent avec ε- (y compris le plus que parfait, car -ει = -εε), et toujours 2 p. sg. impératif des temps non-passés qui en ont un (présent, aoriste modal). Mais le parfait est de ce point de vue traité comme étant un temps commençant avec ε-, la réduplication est assimilée à l'augment. Donc, la forme serait théoriquement ambigue entre les deux, habituellement un 3 p. sg. indicatif du parfait, et l'impératif normalement pas existent. Mais, en plus c'est la mauvaise diathèse pour "sois apparu", car l'actif existe et veut dire "montrer", et la mauvaise forme du thème. Dans la vie réelle de l'écrivain, c'est que j'ai oublié mon Grec assez beaucoup (et je me trouve normalement trop privé de sommeil pour utilement reviser) et dans l'histoire, on peut attribuer ce résultat au fait que Schliemann est en train de rêver, après avoir trop mangé et un peu trop bu./HGL

PPS, je parle à l'homme qui avait dit ces mots, et je dois les avoir mal compris (il était tourné vers ses camarades, pas envers moi le 23). Il est d'abord confus avant de comprendre que j'avais mal entendu "l'agrég" - l'agrégation. Voici le renseignement: "En 1928, Sartre échoue à l'écrit de l'agrégation, qu'il repasse brillamment en 1929: il est reçu premier, et Simone de Beauvoir, dont il a fait la connaissance en juillet, deuxième." Voir :

Alain Buisine
Sartre, Vie et Oeuvre de Jean-Paul Sartre
La République des Lettres
http://www.republique-des-lettres.com/sartre-9782824900513.php


Reste qu'il reste vrai que Gorgias l'a préfuté. :)

Monday, June 22, 2015

Benjamin L. Corey - Very Right and Very Wrong

Where Benjamin Corey is very right is on his rejection of his former Zionism.

Formerly Fundie : Standing With Israel: how bad theology duped us into supporting terrorism and oppression
August 16, 2013 by Benjamin L. Corey
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/standing-with-israel/


Now, actually bad theology of a somewhat different slant did that earlier. The new governments of Cuba up to Batista, as well as those after that, namely Castro, were easily worse for Cubans than the Spanish Colonial one that US fought in the ending years of the 19th C. Woodrow Wilson overdid the Austrian guilt for WW-I (especially ludicrous after Charles the Last's proposal for Separate Peace, after Francis Joseph and his griefstricken vendetta were buried in the Franciscan Crypt) and it is pretty easy to see how the Czech National Socialist Party was in some ways (not all) as bad as the German one and a lot worse than Habsburg rule. And ask a Yaqui if it was such a very good idea of US to support Benito Juarez when he overthrew Emperor Maximilian.

But, this does not mean US has no fresher bad foreign policy, like the one mentioned by BLC:

Why “Stand with Israel” theology is literally destructive

1.By saying that you “Stand with Israel” you are, by definition, saying that you “stand against” the Palestinian people. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, not to stand against them.

2. By supporting Israel as she has continually taken land away from the Palestinian people, we have contributed to a massive crisis of refugees without a home. This has led us to stand with the oppressor, not the oppressed, as scripture commands us.

3. By supporting settlement expansions in Israel, we are supporting the Israelis breaking the law. We cannot say that undocumented immigrants in our country need to “respect the law” while supporting Israel’s daily refusal to obey international laws. That is ridiculously hypocritical.

4. This theology requires you to reject the role of “peacemaker” as Christ commanded. Almost every time the US has attempted to broker a peace deal in the middle east, I’ve seen the pro-Israel folks take to the internet to condemn western leaders for making any compromises or dividing any land. I’ve heard preachers say that to obey the Bible (citing Joel) means that we are forbidden from sharing the land with outsiders. In fact, many churches in America actually donate money to help fund these illegal and oppressive settlements. These attitudes do not reflect the love of Jesus, the role of peacemaker, and are not “Christian” attitudes.

5. This theology requires us to oppress other Christians. There are more Christians living in Palestine than in Israel, and when we support violence and oppression against the Palestinians, we are supporting the oppression of our own brothers and sisters.


He lists four more reasons.

"My own take" (but I hope it is first of all the right one and thus not originally mine) is this:

Abraham's Seed is Jesus Christ, Jesus from Nazareth, King of the Jews. Whoever curses Christ or Mary is cursed, whoever blesses Christ or Mary is blessed. It is also the mystical body of Christ, the Catholic Church.

Now, there is a racial component to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And, Palestinians do not just descend from Abraham via Ishmael, they descend from all three. Jordanians partly descend from Esau and partly from Lot's two sons, but Palestinians are mainly the Christian portion of the Israelite population of Roman Province Palestine, plus their either Christian (30%) or Islamised (70%) descendants.

This means that the "children of Israel" as most racially pure come in three main groups:

1) Christian Palestinians (in the New Covenant)
2 & 3) Muslim Palestinians and Jews (outside the New Covenant).

There are also Jews who convert to Christianity, but often though not always to the heretical Protestant sects, however, some of these are in some ways less heretical than original Protestants. I am neither "Hebrew Roots" nor Calvinist, but I would rather be "Hebrew Roots" than Calvinist. I am, as some may have gathered from my saying it over and over again on my blogs, a Catholic. Also, these are fewer than Christian Palestinians.

And this means that Aliyah rights should be given to Palestinians and withdrawn from Jews who can show no Palestinian Jewish ancestry last five generations or last seven generation before a new Aliyah arrival in Holy Land.

Government should be divided over a united territory, if possible, so that each of the named three groups should have its own laws and own rulers. None of the three should be allowed to oppress the other two, no two of them should be allowed to opress the third (in such a case, a crusade might be necessary).

Now, this is where BLC was right, and very much so. Here is where he was wrong:

Formerly Fundie : Literal or Metaphoric? (or are we asking the wrong question entirely?)
August 12, 2013 by Benjamin L. Corey
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/literal-or-metaphoric/


The one right thing with it is, we should take the morality of the Bible story seriously.

But the wrong thing is looking back on a question on whether a text is literal OR metaphorical (creation week is literal about creation AND metaphorical about redemption week, from Palm Sunday to Good Friday and Holy Saturday), and resolving by concentrating on moral sense ONLY and doing so on the pretext that:

First, I think an important foundation for us to agree upon is that the Bible is ridiculously hard to interpret. Yes, I know you’ve been told that scripture is actually so simple that anyone can understand it, but that’s usually a line used by people who don’t want their worldviews shattered. I have two master’s in the subject, am mid-way through my doctorate in the subject, can read biblical Greek… and for me, it is STILL hard to interpret scripture… certainly not a task that I would ever attempt in isolation. Understanding scripture is more than understanding the words… it’s understanding nuance of language, issues in translation, cultural differences with authors, audiences… understanding the Bible means we have to work tirelessly to understand the people it was about.


For certain parts of Gospel story which we agree are literal (Christ did literally say to Peter "on this rock I will build my Church and I will give thee the keys to the kingdom of Heaven") we might do well to be very wary this way and well armed with information.

The one available to me certainly supports more than my Church History that Peter was First Pope rather than First Local Bishop, so that Popes rather than Local Bishops are his principal successors. But this is an issue on which I have stumbled.

But when it comes to the passages where the debate is between literal and metaphoric interpretation, usually no amount of cultural info tends to draw into any real shadow of a doubt that the texts were meant literally. Example for how very disingeniously this is done: Creation story was to be taken metaphorical, because it is a parallel to Canaanean myths about Baal. This reasoning presupposes Canaanean myths about Baal were in the first place meant to be taken metaphorically, as allegories. I don't think so. I think back then, after Joshua had conquered the "debate" between an Israelite and his neighbour or someone he had conquered was not which of the stories was the better allegory or which of the allegories signified a true theology, but which of the stories was literally true : do we owe the Earth we live on to a God deciding to create, or do we owe it to a Superman who did some useful rearrangements of the carcass of a monster he had beaten? BOTH stories were meant to be taken, by their respective believers, as literally true. One of them must, both of them theoretically could be wrong, so both cannot be literally true. But neither was, as to the topic of creation, in any way meant as a metaphor for some other scenario of creation. The six days are NOT a metaphor for millions of years, and Christ makes it pretty clear in Mark 10:6. Death coming from Adam was literally true, and St Paul makes that clear.

A Jew who does not count Mark or Romans as Holy Scripture could, if dismissing Rabbinic tradition, come to conclude that one could take the six days metaphorically and yet not be scrapping all of the Tanakh. BUT, a Christian who does accept Mark knew what Christ had said, and who does accept Christ is God has no such liberty. It is not the rest of the OT one is scrapping so much as the NT.

As I mentioned the Seed of Abraham is the Catholic Church as well as Her Divine Bridegroom, it follows that the tradition of the Church over the Centuries is binding. And though there is some vacillation between "six literal days" and "one single moment", there is no hesitation in rejecting Egyptian chronologies as inflated. There is no doubt at all about the "young earth" if you count 5500 - 7500 years as young (or add another century or two even). A Pagan who counters "we have preserved history more than you, we know of 40.000 years of history" or who says "in Lhasa the library contains a million years of history" is simply bragging. And so are the guys who misuse dating techniques (either misuse C14 in ranges where it's not calibrated for the young earth or use techniques entirely fabulous like K-Ar) to make similar brags.

However, though the sensus moralis (the one good part) of this essay is usually good, there are two items on which he even gets that wrong:

  • I

    Instead of debating whether or not God flooded the whole world, or if it was a localized flood, the question becomes:

    Do you take it seriously that God is so anti-violence that he allowed the world to experience judgement when it became too violent?

    Here in America, we tend to forget that God’s disdain for violence was what triggered the flood story. Do we take it seriously? If we take this seriously, we must become the people who reject violence, instead of the people who are protesting in support of our right to use violence. We must be people who take God so seriously, we pick up a cross instead of a .45


    Violence was one part of the pre-Flood corruption. And the right to carry arms was not what triggered it. Invention of arms by Tubal Kain or by some fallen angel advising him may certainly or at least very probably have been part of it, but probably there was some gun control too before reaching that degree of violence. Some people with arms telling others they must have no arms. Or abusing their conscientious objections to carrying such.

  • II

    Instead of debating whether or not there was a burning bush, or a host of plagues across Egypt, the question becomes:

    Do you take it seriously that God hates slavery and wants people to go to any length to end it?

    If we do take the story of Moses seriously, we must be serious about addressing Human Trafficking in our culture. Whether or not every aspect of the story happened “literally”, the entire point was that God hates slavery and wanted Moses to free slaves. If we take this seriously, we’ll find ourselves doing the same.


    The slavery of Israelites was unjust in its origins, since Egyptians hadn't bought them as slaves, nor beaten them into slavery after an attempt against Egyptian freedoms. Some lengths to which abolitionists might want to go might be unjust too.

    But foremost, the slavery in Egypt was already hindering Israelites from worshipping God. Which not all slavery does, though slave hunters very typically do so (yes, God hates salve hunters, like Nimrod). Work loads preventing prayer and under one recent Pharao attacks on their fertility are not just any slavery, it is treating people like chattel.

    Freeing slaves is an act of mercy - if done the right way. If slave hunters are beaten in battle and the chief ones hanged, that is not bad. If slaves are bought in order to free them, that is very good and correct too.

  • III

    Instead of asking “Did God really rain fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah?” the question becomes:

    Do you take it seriously that God hates greediness, consumerism, and oppression of strangers/immigrants?

    If we do take the story of Sodom and Gomorrah seriously (which I wrote about here), we will be forced to recon with the fact that God was furious with this culture because they were “overfed”, “arrogant” and mistreated immigrants and strangers.


    Aren't you leaving something out here?

    There was a triple sin in Sodom "thy sister Sodom" as a prophet says of her to Jerusalem:

    • i) satiety of bread with pride
    • ij) inhospitality
    • iij) and ... and ... and abominations!

      A very clear indication of intentionally non-fertile sex. Of the opposite of "be ye fruitful and multiply".


So, there were actually three items where this no longer quite literalist (on Biblical history, where one should clearly be literalist) was not up to correctly identifying the sensus moralis of the passage.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
St Pauline of Nola
22-VI-2015

Friday, June 19, 2015

Interesting, Peter Goodgame Thinks Krishna Was Nimrod/Osiris

Both Peter Goodgame and I accept death of Krishna as having happened at beginning of a correctly counted Kali Yuga.

3102 BC would be death of Krishna.

But after that, we have a difference on whether this was pre-Flood or post-Flood.

I have followed St Jerome, who considers Christ was born 2957 after the Flood (see Christmas proclamation of the Latin Rite, which, despite St Jerome having translated Vulgate from a non-LXX text, conserves his calculations in chronology from the LXX text). This makes beginning of Kali Yuga pre-Flood.

Peter Goodgame on the other hand has followed the chronology (also LXX based) by Barry Setterfield, September 1999, in his page CREATION AND CATASTROPHE CHRONOLOGY.

He says the Flood was "Approximately 2256 years after Creation or about 3536 BC" - which makes beginning of Kali Yuga post-Flood.

We do agree that Krishna has a special relation to the Hamite section of humanity. I was guessing it might be the father in law of Ham, maternal grandfather of Kush - which, like Krishna, means "the black one". But, of course, also of Chanaan and a few others. He considers it might have been Nimrod the son of Kush (of the Biblical Kush).

I for my part considered it more probable that if Nimrod came into Hindoo myth, then it was as Hanuman (the monkey god) in Ramayana. You see, Josephus says Nimrod started out as a good guy, protecting his near and dear - and Regma, a son of Kush, sounds a bit like Rama. If Nimrod was "Hanuman", he would have been helping his brother.

Not meaning Nimrod was a true monkey, of course, but ... well, there was eventually sth wrong with him and it might have shown physically.

Here is Goodgame's word on Krishna:

Turning to Indian (Hindu) histories we find the story of Krishna in the epic known as the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna appears as a foreign king instigating a great battle between Arjuna and the rest of Arjuna's family in the great Mahabharata War. Could Krishna be another historical version of Osiris?


Not quite correct. Krishna is remembered for instigating the pursuit of purpose Arjuna shows in his battle - but not for instigating the war itself. Indeed, he is remembered for trying at first to avert it, after Arjuna wants to take a dire vengeance on his cousins.

But still, if he "appeared to Arjuna in his universal form" (as a god), he practised deception, possibly by hypnosis, possibly by magic.

Nevertheless, I am not sure he was Nimrod or post-Flood.

I may, of course, have been wrong. What we can know for sure is, we ought not to worship these men.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Juliana Falconieri
19-VI-2015

Friday, June 12, 2015

The Nibelungen Poet and Camoes

Imagine, Germany had had a poet like Camoes. Or imagine Hitler had been a Brazilian, then taking over Portugal too (a bit how he really acted with Austria in 1938). What harm he would have wrought with Camoes!

It is a very nationalistic, a very chauvinistic poem, and it lacks nobility.

If Hitler wanted something similar for the East front, he was stuck with Nibelungen. It is a very Christian poem, any nationalism has to be read into it, since Burgondians and Ostrogoths, fighting on diverse sides, were all Germanic, and since Etzel, though not so, is not portrayed any worse for that. It has nobility. It has the sense that ambition is worthy of noble men - and yet a trap for them.

If we take one eyed men, for Nibelungen, it is the bad guy, the one too eager to obey even immoral orders, for Os Lusiadas it is the poet himself.

On the subject of treachery, Camoes teaches us very quickly that Moslems are inherently such. That might have been true, it may still in certain contexts be true, but it is not a very noble lesson. But with the Nibelung poet, treason flows slowly from loyalties and rivalries - as it does (even when the traitors are Moslems). And the Nibelung poet starts out to show the loyalties first.

In Camoes, Olympian gods come in by convention (epic being an heritage from Homer) and in Nibelung poet, they come in not at all. In other versions of the story, Odin does come in, but mainly as a supernatural ancestor who now and then erratically supports his human offspring. And never in a way that too clearly shows him as divine, always in ways that could refer to a human magician or something.

The real difference is that 1200 plus something in Austria, people were truly Christian.* And 1500 something in Portugal, even Catholics were somewhat Pagan. In Camoes, Venus plays a role that resembles Venus Mater in Virgil's Aeneid. If Nibelung poet in any sense deals with "Venus", it is as a temptation, a risk of over fixation even among married people. Beware who you marry - if you take the wrong one, she may lead you to treason.

Even more, Camoes was writing with his age. The Nibelung poet, after hearing no doubt Walter von der Vogelweide say something of woman being the inspiration for all true nobility contradicted, slowly and carefully, the unstated obverse of the sentiment, that women could inspire to nothing bad. He had the courage to go against his age. To say what his people did not want to hear. Far from becoming a poet laureate, he is to us anonymous.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St John of Saint Facundus
12-VI-2015

* In Portugal too. In 1203, traditional date of the poem, the future St Anthony of Padova was an 8 year old boy in Lisbon.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Ormulum vs. Priestesses

When I was as yet a Lutheran, and risking to have a "female priest" or priestess in my parish (I left when she came or when I knew she was coming, to become Catholic), I often repeated the good argument that Jesus only chose men for his twelve apostles. Some might have replied - but this was less likely to happen among Lutherans - that the twelve apostles and priests are two different stories. Which is of course untrue. But the main answer, given by Lutherans aware of the connection between the twelve and NT priesthood, was that Jesus was suffering the constraints of the culture He came into, back then it would have been unthinkable to have female priests.

First of all, this is factually wrong. It was unthinkable among Jews, because Aaronite priesthood was all male, but Christ was the Divine Person, the Son of the Father, who had spoken to Moses and was responsible for that - and outside the true faith, plenty of religions back then had priestesses. Vestals were not just "pagan nuns", they were priestesses of fire and hearth. Unlike the Christian nuns. Priestesses of Venus were harlots. There were priestesses of Isis. And so on.

But, one could add a second one: what if it had been true? Christ chose when and where He was to become Man. And Ormulum puts it very well:

Forrþrihht anan se time comm
þatt ure Drihhtin wollde
ben borenn i þiss middellærd
forr all mannkinne nede
he chæs himm sone kinnessmenn
all swillke summ he wollde
& whær he wollde borenn ben
he chæs all att hiss wille. (3494–3501)

Source:
Wikipedia : Ormulum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormulum


Forthright an came the hour, that Our Lord was wont to be born in this Middleearth for all mankind's need, He chose for Himself the/his kinsmen all such as He would, and where He would be born, He chose all at His will.

In other words, every circumstance of social and historical matter surrounding His Incarnation was totally at His discretion. Including the Jewish priesthood being all male and including being born in Jewry.

So, not just on this single matter of priestesses, but on any matter, one cannot reason as if God couldn't help such and such a detail, as if He was under some kind of constraints from when and where He was born, except of course, when it came to speaking openly about His Godhead - which He did, but with some indirectness. Here, He was also fulfilling a plan of keeping Satan in the dark on whom he was plotting to get crucified. On the other hand, there we are not relying on a late speculation, we are relying on early tradition. Including the post-Resurrection accounts, where more fulness is given.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Audoux, Paris
St Barnabas
11-VI-2015

Friday, June 5, 2015

Learning by Rote and Socratic Method

Heather Hastie
A good education teaches you how to think – i.e. critical thinking skills, not what to think. It gives you the ability to analyze evidence and reach sound conclusions. In the past, a lot of education has been about rote learning.

hglundahl
Education has to be about rote learning.

It is given to very young who are not yet in a very good position to think everything out for themselves (not that many ever are in such a very good position by themselves).

It is there to give them a solid bases for the own thinking and that solid basis must be fact.

Any education which is complete according to one creed will overstep that and include falsehoods according to another creed.

But it is certain that fact can and should be learned by heart.

“Tretti dagar har November
April, Juni och September
Tjugoåtta en allen
Alla de öfriga trettioen.”

Plus add that the one month that is alone in having “tjugoåtta” (28) days is february. Plus add that this is not strictly true for leap years (29!). How much more elegant can you get an introduction to days of the months?

Reasoning it out would be unreasonable.

There is no particular reason why Julius Caesar settled on giving Quintilius 31 and Sextilius 31, where Junius had only 30 and September only 30.

Or there may be some reason which would be inappropriate for young decent Christian minds to know. But the rhyme (I hope you Englishmen have similar ones) will give us the correct day numbers for each month.

Ben Goren
Education has to be about rote learning.

Paging Mr. Socrates. Mr. Socrates, please pick up the white courtesy phone. Mr. Socrates to the white courtesy phone, please.

Heather Hastie
There is a reason. Originally there were ten 30-day months.* When it was discovered the year was the wrong length** and needed a couple of extra months, and some needed 31 days.*** July and August were added, named after Julius and Augustus Caesar respectively.° July was a 31 day month, but Augustus couldn’t have a shorter month than Julius, so it got 31 days too.°° Too accommodate now having too many 31 day months, February lost a couple of days, except in leap years. (That still wasn’t quite correct of course, but assuming you have a good education, you will know how to find out what happened next. Hint: 2000 wasn’t a leap year, although one was due, and 2400 won’t be either. 2100 will be a leap year. )


I gave two answers, both to Ben Goren and to Heather Hastie. But they would not show, that is the blog pwner under whose post we debated was not validating my part.

@ Ben Goren

Socrates used his method on adults, not against facts they had learnt by the rote, but against more sophisticated things they thought they had learned. He did not educate school children.

Furthermore, if his method is misapplied to school children, for things they could as easily be learning by rote, the problem occurs, if one tries Socratic method on them while adults, after they grow up, they may get the impression they are being adressed like school children.

@ Heather Hastie

Several things you got wrong [I enumerated them in original answer] but even if your explanation had been entirely true, this would not have been a reliable memory aid for recalling days of the month. Hint : your misinfo includes ones falsehood about Gregorian Calendar and when it hasn't [and Julian calendar has] leapyears.

The leap years at centurial years are 1600 and 2000. 1500 was before Reform, so anyway a leap year. 1700, 1800 and 1900 were no leap years. 2100 won't be either.

Since your way of learning things left you getting this simple fact backwards, perhaps learning by rote has a few perks when it comes to getting facts into the head correctly?

If I write footnotes to this one, it will be on the rest of the errors in the answer by Heather Hastie.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Boniface
5-VI-2015

* Originally there were ten lunar months, and a month-indifferent winter.

** While there were ten lunar months and a month-indifferent winter, you did not have the wrong length of the year any year. The trouble started when you started a twelve lunar month cycle with intercalatory months. The new months were January and February. Intercalatory month was Mercedonius. And during the wars Romans eventually bungled which years should and which years shouldn't have a leap month to keep the mean year stable.

*** It is actually true that when Julius Caesar worked out the new calendar he found some months needed to be 31 days to make a year last 365.25 days. Which is still the days of the Julian year. But for Gregorian, introduced by Pope Gregory in 1583, first only Papal States and Spain, every 400 years are 3 days shorter (like missing leap days in 1700, 1800, 1900 for either 1600 - 1999 or 1601 - 2000).

° July and August were not added, but renamed. While Caesar was doing the calendar stuff, they were still called Quintilis and Sextilis. Augustus called Quintilis July for him, Tiberius called Sextilis Augustus for HIM.

°° Nice explanation if those working with the calendar had had to deal with two new months and with those names. But Caesar was doing the calendar, in his day these months were long established, and he called them Quintilis and Sextilis.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

There has been a severe browbeating going on - about a child burned on Guernsey

About Catholicism. In England.

To some of English descent, it is as if Mary Tudor was the epitomé of what a Catholic monarch would eventually look like.

Never mind that James VII and II preferred exile to using the arms of Louis XIV to reconquer his lands. Never mind that far from burning anyone on any stake, he lived a very modest life of penance in exile.

I thought Foxe had added an unnecessary flourish to his catalogue of martyrs in England by stating a woman was burnt for heresy, while pregnant, her belly burst open, the child was first rescued and then thrown back.

No, the reason it could happen was that the woman had not specified she was pregnant. Thus she was probably not at all yet round bellied. Thus, the foetus which was thrown into the fire was probably unsightly and inviable and the bailiff of Guernsey had an emotional overreaction, thinking such a horrid sight must be a monster, not suspecting he had looked like that himself a few months before birth.

In cases where a woman to be burnt was known to be pregnant, burning had to be postponed till after she had given birth - so as to ensure saving the child, for baptism. Often enough, this would of course also involve the conversion of the mother. Knowingly tying to a stake someone who was pregnant was not done across the Catholic world.

Supposing that it was done knowingly under Mary Tudor, then? Well, if so, her reign was not a very typical Catholic reign, that is all.

But even so, and even centuries after burning of heretics ceased as no longer a possible means of saving a Catholic doctrine across population, English school children, presumably, are still taught that Catholicism is like Mary Tudor (and not like the 50 - 100 other Catholic princes at the time, and not like Mary Queen of Scots, and not like the Catholic Monarchs of the Middle Ages, but JUST like Mary Tudor) and that Mary Tudor is resumed in the one case of a pregnant woman burnt at a stake and her child thrown back into the fire, which happened on Guernsey, where the bailiff was pretty much doing his own thing, within larger orders : it is being taught as if his personal act was a faithful reflection of Mary Tudor's Catholic Faith.

And the irony is, the Catholics are the ones defending young life that age now, while nearly all non-Catholics in England are either saying "it's up to the mother to decide" or "it's murder, of course, but we can't impose our ways on a non-Christian society".

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Sts Pergentine and Laurentine
of Arezzo, Child Martyrs
3-VI-2015

I have taken contact with an archivist of Guernsey. He wrote an article in which he concluded Perotine Massey either may have hidden or been "in denial" of her pregnancy. I quote one and a half paragraphs, with the footnotes*:

§ Although native to the island, Perotine was in several respects an outsider; a Protestant, living in an almost wholly Catholic community. Her marriage, the allegations made at the enqueste, and – eventually – the defences of those who condemned her, all confirm this. She was married to a Protestant foreigner, who was absent, and under threat of persecution himself. She lived with her widowed mother and elder sister, probably outside their native parish11, in a household that may have attracted suspicion, not only for its religious attitudes, but also as a family of women „living at their own hand‟.12 The possibility that the women did mock the beliefs of the Catholic generality, as alleged,13 and the outcome of the trial, imply a breakdown in neighbourhood relations. The court record initiating the enquiry also suggests this; the women are referred to as „the mother and the daughters of the Cauches‟.14 They are the Cauches already, something of a known quantity, objectified by use of the definite article, even before their neighbours reported on them.

§ In all the circumstances, we might venture to explain Perotine‟s experience in a manner that differs from the awkward surmises of Foxe and the Catholic apologists. Laura Miller describes how today potential mothers may cope with extreme conflicts or stress by a strategy of denial, whereby „threatening information is actively excluded from conscious awareness. The strategy is more likely to be used when the external situation cannot be altered or when the person perceives it cannot be altered‟. Social isolation, she concludes, is a feature common to nearly all occurrences of pervasive pregnancy denial. ... 15

11 The Cauches family was long established in the parish of St Martin. By a contract dated 23 October 1524, Pierres Cauches, Catherine‟s father, had conveyed a house and appurtenances in the Saints district of that parish to one Ostes Filleull. The latter and his wife, another Catherine, died without issue. The premises at that event, or perhaps earlier, had passed to Collas Maugeur and others. These transferred the property to a Collas Vaulcourt. On 16 May 1566, Guernsey‟s Royal Court ordered its delivery to Mathieu Cauches, son of Pierres. Mathieu Cauches was Catherine Cauches‟ brother. On 31 May 1568, Mathieu conveyed it to Vaulcourt. Hence this house at Saints, St Martin, may at one period have been Perotine‟s mother‟s family home. (Greffe: Jugements, i, p. 249; the conveyance of 1568 is to be located by J.H. Lenfestey (ed.), List of Records in the Greffe, Guernsey: volume 2 (List & Index Society Special Series 11, London, 1978), p. 68). The property‟s approximate site may still be established by reference to manorial records. The Massys appear to have been native to the parish of St Pierre du Bois: Lenfestey (ed.), List of Records in the Greffe, Guernsey: volume 2, pp. 30, 40, 118, 121, 122, 136.

12 Bernard Capp, When Gossips Meet: women, family and neighbourhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003), pp. 36-42; Cf. Ogier, Reformation and Society in Guernsey, p. 13.

13 Hatfield House: Cecil Papers 207/12 (not paginated).

14 Greffe: Jugements, i, p. 357.

15 Laura J. Miller, „Denial of pregnancy‟, in M.G. Spinelli (ed.), Infanticide: psychosocial and legal perspectives on mothers who kill (Washington, D.C., and London, 2003), 81-104, pp. 87, 92-93, and cf. Naïma Grangaud, „Psychopathologie du déni de grossesse: revue de la littérature‟, Perspectives Psychiatriques, 41/3 (2002), 174-81. Miller‟s typology is lucid and helpful. It is not, however, unanticipated in its broad terms by other scholars, including historians; see, for example, the overview of K. Wrightson, „Infanticide in European History‟, Criminal Justice History, 3 (1982), 1-20, pp. 7-8, and R.W. Malcolmson, „Infanticide in the Eighteenth Century‟, in J.S. Cockburn (ed.), Crime in England 1550-1800 (London, 1977), 187-209, p. 192.

* For those desiring to read his article, which goes beyond the Perotine Massey case but starts with it, it is entitled NEW-BORN CHILD MURDER IN REFORMATION GUERNSEY, by Darryl Ogier.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Et la Sororité Aryenne se trompe sur l'amour et sur le Moyen Âge.

« Notre fascisme raciste donne un sens nouveau à l’idée d’amour dans le couple. »


Et si je préfère le vieux sens depuis Adam et Ève ?

« Avec l’apparition de la Sororité Aryenne est née pour l’homme fasciste raciste une nouvelle relation à la femme aimée : il s’agit d’un amour de race, d’un amour entre êtres racés, »


J’imagine que si les chiens et les chevaux « de race » ont de l’affection en s’accouplant, ce n’est pas en première ligne comme représentants des races de Lipiza ou de St Bernard, pour nobles qu’elles soient. D’où la nécessité des gens voulant fournir des chevaux de Lipiza et des chiens de St Bernard de « préserver » leurs genisses et chiennes des mâles d’une autre race. Un système à ses moments assez pénible pour les chevaux et les chiens, j’aurais dit « somme tout » mais ils ne sont pas conscients et ne peuvent pas comparer leur passé et leur présent.

« qui se veut différent de l’amour grossier des prolétaires ou intéressé des petit-bourgeois. »


Pourquoi l’amour ne serait-il pas grossier, quand le sexe l’est ?

Pourquoi l’amour ne serait-il pas intéressé, quand les héritiers le sont ?

« L’imaginaire qui le fonde se calque à la fois sur les structures religieuses de l’histoire européenne et sur celles de la société féodale du Haut Moyen-Âge : c’est pourquoi il implique des rapports de soumission de la part de l’homme fasciste raciste à l’égard de Celle qu’il aime et vénère. »


L’amour courtois, par contre, était quasi une aberration de la vie sexuelle et celle-ci limitée aux cours féodaux. Aberration de la part de l’homme qui tombe amoureux de la femme de son souverain, par manque d’une femme propre à lui. Aberration de la part de la femme, qui tombe amoureux d’un serviteur du mari au lieu de le faire du mari – par absence ou peu d’affection que lui il lui montra. Aberration des deux car amour adultère.

« L’instinct sexuel se trouve exalté pour permettre à l’amour de se dépasser selon ses propres lois, et non d’après des impératifs sociaux fondés sur d’autres sentiments, ou une intellectualisation excessive de l’amour sur le modèle de l’amitié, sans parler des conventions mondaines trop subtiles affadissant la fièvre charnelle des amants. »


Faux.

« Rappelons, si le terme de « supériorité » peut effaroucher quelques lecteurs chatouilleux, qu’au Moyen-Âge, la cérémonie de l’hommage se décomposait en trois parties : le vassal s’agenouillait et, par un engagement verbal devant témoin, se déclarait l’homme du seigneur avant de placer ses mains (immixtio manuum) dans celle de son nouveau suzerain, geste transcrivant à la fois la protection de celui-ci à laquelle répondait la fidélité du vassal. Ensuite ce dernier prêtait serment sur la Bible de respecter sa fidélité, et la cérémonie s’achevait par le baiser sur la bouche entre le suzerain et le vassal comme signe de leur égalité, car les relations dites féodo-vassaliques correspondaient à un ensemble d’obligations réciproques entre le suzerain et le vassal : celui-ci était tenu d’apporter à son suzerain aides militaire et financière, et en retour le suzerain lui devait respect et protection et assumer l’éducation de son fils. On voit comment il sera aisé de transposer, en les sexualisant, les aspects tant cérémoniels que sociaux de cette symbiose dans une société vaginocratique où seules les Femmes assureront pouvoir et décisions. »


Le langage de l’amour courtois pouvait être emprunté du langage de l’hommage. Mais le propre langage de l’amour est celui du mariage.

Hans Georg Lundahl
BU de Nanterre
Sts Marcellin, prêtre
et Pierre, exorciste
Martyrs à Rome sous Dioclétien
2-VI-2015