The Goddess

[Andrew Dinn]

RICHARD ROMEO replied to Bonnie:

> Are you saying (or the sources you quote saying) that the patriarchical 
> society has "castrated" the destroyer impulse in the Goddess-that 
> society's views (based on this usurption) then of the feminine (and of 
> their own god(s)) are always half-wrong? Fearing the competition, those 
> of the Judeo-Christian persuasion had to demonize the gods of others, 
> particulary one that is "female"?  

I'm sure this `fear' was nothing to do with other Gods, female or
otherwise, but rather to do with maintaining a particular social order
with women kept firmly in `their place'. Priests of `the
Judeo-Christian persuasion' didn't so much demonize as co-opt and
(attempt to) relativise other Gods, including those who were mapped
onto The Virgin and the female Saints.

In addition to Graves' book you could try Jean Seznec's `The Survival
of the Pagan Gods' for a history of the (barely-veiled) assimilation
of Pagan Gods into the (Judaeo-)Christian tradition. And, of course,
there is always Henry Adams `Mont St Michel and Chartres' which uses
an architectural survey to chart the parabolic arc of Christian
cultural aspirations from the paternalistically exclusive and upwardly
mobile aspirations of the Archangel Michael's church militant to the
decidedly populist and downmarket explosion of the Cult of the Virgin.

This pagan co-option all has resonance wrt Gaddis and `The
Recognitions', of course.  One of these days I am going to get my
hands on those Clementine Recognitions. I did at least pick up John
Foxx's `Book of Martyrs' in a nice Victorian edition with woodcut
plates (which it appears are still fairly easy to obtain). Another
useful source for Gaddis on Mithraism in Christianity (mind you, this
is a book I read almost 20 years ago) is Esme Wynne-Tyson's `Mithras:
the fellow in the cap' which documents the prevalence of Mithraic
ritual and symbolism in Christianity. Interestingly enough, she has
written another book entitled `The philosophy of compassion; the
return of the goddess'.


Andrew Dinn
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