fredag, september 12, 2008

Sodom and Sodomia II

According to San Pietro’s writ to the Bishop of Rome, the problem without procreative intent had become much worsened since Christianity arrived on the scene, being especially rampant in monasteries (although, apparently, not in his own, the Fonte Avellana ;=) Thus San Pietro demanded from Leo IX that all priests and monks who – if only once – had ejaculated, should be put into isolation.

But at this hour in Time, around 1050, only Anchorites (recluses) endured (self imposed) isolation – monasteries had Dormitories for their professed – and lay (= serfs) – members.

San Pietro classified his sodomia according to method: 1. with one self; 2. with somebody else (man, woman, child, animal); 3. inter femore (between the buttocks – it remains unclear exactly what this is); and finally 4. what we would call anal copulation.

And in accordance with the idea of Traducianism it was the person who Spilled Semen who was the culprit.

Mutuality didn’t exist for this beaten child.

Nothing of this had anything to do with homosexuality the way we define it, but was about (hetero-sexual) Monks and Priests, particularly married Priests, declared Lateran IV in 1215.

In 1139 Lateran II hade ordained Celibacy Mandatory for Priests, declaring their marriages invalid and the Bastardy of their sons. That is, they were excluded from the inheritance. Daughters weren’t mentioned. That a daughter could inherit apparently didn’t occur to messrs Neo Platonists, although daughters kept their right to inherit in all lands throught the 13th century, and in most through the 14th… In some to this day.

The Spilling of Semen was the Horror at least in Academic circles. Sperm being perceived as the soul of the (male) Academic, inherited from Ol’ Adam (= Traducianism) and this little nous was in strange ways twinned to the Big NOUS; The Highest Being of the Neo Platonists, their a-personal divinity (it is this, The Highest Being not being a theòs, that makes Philosophy not a theología but a filo-sofía; a Love of (absolute) Truth.

Consequently, from the 10th century the word malakós in 1 Cor 6:9 became important, it was henceforth claimed – in the West as in the East – to refer to “men who spill their Semen”.

The importance of this propaganda is made clear by the fact that malakós in Modern Greek as come to mean masturbation. For both women and men…

But in itself malakós means ”soft”. It is used of textiles. So in Luke 7:25 and Matt 11:8, when Jesus from Nazareth speaks about his cousin John the Baptist: Whom did you go out to see? A man in soft clothing? Such are found in Palaces…

Luke 7:25 and Matt 11:8 are the only 2 places in the NT, where malakós is (almost) correctly translated. The Swedish State 1917 has fine clothes, NT 1981 (= 1982) and Bible 2000 the same.

But then, the meaning cannot be mistaken…

In 1 Cor 6:9 the word is used in a secondary sense: ”sloppy” – referring to ”sloppy” Husbanders (think Count Almaviva in Figaro). But that one can wait until an other time…

In 1966 malakós was dramatically re-interpreted in Pater Zerwick’s Roman Analysis philologica Novi Testamenti graeci from masturbation, a predominantly hetero-sexual activity, to homo-sexual “Orientation” as identity, in late 20th century fashion; “passive” gay man.

It was now clamed to be a synonym for the (authentic) Greek loan in Latin catamita (a distortion of Ganymedes, the name of the shepherd abducted by Zeus in the form of an eagle).

At the same time the Abstinence/Chastity Paradigm of 10 century Academia “men who masturbate” lingers on in the New Catholic Encyclopaedia of the same year (1966) – and, naturally, in the East. But that one can wait until an other time…

But back to Leo IX. He doesn’t seem to have been at all amused by San Pietro and his conspirational theories, but gave him a wholesome trashing in a 1051 bull with the interesting name Nos humanius agentes Us acting (more) humanely… in which he rejected San Pietro’s methods 1, 2, and 3...

However, this rejection – and the remaining nr 4: anal copulation (something already Justinian in his battles with the Byzantine Church had made a Crime against the State castrating oppositional Monks) – a century later, on the left banks of Paris, turned San Pietro’s novel Concept (he had seen sodomitas as an identity, as the “incurable” Inhabitants of an abstract Sodom…) into a hazard for contemporary Ganymedes; the gay sub culture of the Metropolis of the day.

Important in this context is a figure, called Maître Pierre Chanteur (Peter Cantor, for you lot) having sometimes been Singing Master, thus also School master, at Nôtre Dame in Paris.

Like the pupils of a previous School Master, Petrus Lombardus, Bishop of Paris 1159-1160, whose Neo Platonist “teaching” had been rejected as heretical by the 1164 Provincial Council of Sens, Maître Pierre was ousted from the Cathedral school, dying c:a 1197 in one of Emperor Louis’ “reformed” Benedictine monasteries (requiring quarterings…), somewhere on the Loire.

Upon leaving Nôtre Dame Peter Lombard’s former pupils had opened their own place rive gauche – which in 1200 became la Sorbonne (le Sorbon was the fellow they got the house from in 1257) – where they busied themselves with Moorish Aristotelian Averroës (= ibn Rushd) and later with his enemy Tomas ab Aquino, who a century later still worked on Peter Lombardus’ famous Compendium; his 4 Books of Sentences… (Trinity in Book I, Creation in Book II, Christ the savior of fallen Creation in Book III, the Sacraments in book IV).

Theology was born.

5 kommentarer:

Brother David sa...

3. inter fermore (between the buttocks – it remains unclear exactly what this is)

Goran, may I suggest that this means between the thighs. The femoral arteries run down the inside/medial of both legs. This would involve the man stimulating his penis between the thighs of his partner until he achieved orgasm. It is similar to vaginal intercourse, but not entering the vagina.

Anonym sa...

My trouble is that different cultures (and different classes) locate the buttocks in different places ;=)

As are for instance throat vs. bosom and so on...

Brother David sa...

But since your author was speaking/writing Latin, femore would signify the upper part of the leg to anyone familiar with a Latin-based human anatomical nomenclature.

The femur is the largest bone in the body and from its name derives the names of the associated anatomical parts; femoral artery, femoral vein, etc.

Whereas the buttocks, in English, are associated with the gluteal muscles; the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus. Had he meant to refer one to this area, he would have used a derived word.

Brother David sa...

But thank you for all of this. Your English is difficult for me to understand at times, however, with several readings I begin to understand.

I am learning much from you!

Anonym sa...

Your very kind David!

I lived in London in the summer of 1972, haven't been back since but for the odd week...

It begins to notice :- (