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| Cuneiform sign INANA, used to write the names of the goddess Inanna (=Akkadian Ishtar), Akkadian sign mùš | |
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| Rectangular, baked clay relief panel; modelled in relief on the front
depicting a nude female figure with tapering feathered wings and talons,
standing with her legs together; shown full frontal, wearing a
headdress consisting of four pairs of horns topped by a disc; wearing an
elaborate necklace and bracelets on each wrist; holding her hands to
the level of her shoulders with a rod and ring in each; figure supported
by a pair of addorsed lions above a scale-pattern representing
mountains or hilly ground, and flanked by a pair of standing owls. Known
as the "Burney Relief" or the "Queen of the Night" The Queen of the Night = She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna, and is the cognate for the Northwest Semitic Aramean goddess Astarte. |
A figure appeared to Jung in a dream in 1913. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung recounted the dream in which Philemon first appeared to him.
Jung saw a sea blue sky, covered by brown clods of earth that appeared to be breaking apart. Out of the blue, he saw an old man with kingfisher wings and the horns of a bull flying across the sky, carrying a bunch of keys. After the dream, Jung painted the image, as he did not understand it.
During this intense period, Jung was struck by the synchronicity of finding a dead kingfisher, a bird rarely seen around Zurich, in his garden by the lake-shore. Thereafter, Philemon played an important role in Jung’s fantasies. To Jung, he represented superior insight and was like a guru to him.
"There is no human experience, not would experience be possible at all, without the intervention of a subjective attitude. What is this subjective attitude? Ultimately it consists of an innate psychic structure which allows men to have an experience of this kind. The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definite world where there is water, light, air, salt, carbohydrates etc. The form of the world into which he is born is already inborn in him as a virtual image. Likewise parents, wife, children, birth, and death are inborn in him as virtual images, as psychic aptitudes."
~Carl Jung~ ("Two Essays in Analytical Psychology" In CW 7: P. 188)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_Queen_of_the_Night.jpg
The Philemon that I know of is the character of the book in the New Testament dedicated to Philemon.
Paul, who was then a prisoner (in either Rome or Ephesus) and Timothy, wrote to a fellow saint named Philemon and two of his associates: a woman named Apphia, sometimes assumed to be his wife, and a fellow worker named Archippus, who is assumed by some to have been Philemon's son and who also appears to have had special standing in the church that met in Philemon's house (see Colossians 4:17). Since Onesimus was one of the Colossians (see Col.4:9 quote below), it can be assumed, though not expressly stated, that Philemon lived in Colossae. It is supposed that he was wealthy by the standards of the early church and this is explained by noting his house was large enough to accommodate the church that met in his house. Paul wrote on behalf of Onesimus, a former servant of Philemon who had left him. Beyond that, it is not self-evident what has transpired. Onesimus is described as having "departed" from Philemon, once having been "useless" to him (a pun on Onesimus's name, which means "useful"), and having done him wrong.
The modern scholarly consensus is that Onesimus was a runaway slave who became a Christian believer. Paul sent him back to face his aggrieved master, and sought in this letter to effect reconciliation between these two Christians. What is problematic is how Onesimus came to be with Paul. Various suggestions have been given: Onesimus being imprisoned with Paul; Onesimus being brought to Paul by others; Onesimus coming to Paul by chance (or in the Christian view, by divine providence); or Onesimus deliberately seeking Paul out, as a friend of his master's, in order to be reconciled.
However, Onesimus' status as a runaway slave was challenged by Allen Dwight Callahan in an article published in the Harvard Theological Review.
In this article Callahan notes that the weight of proving Onesimus' servile identity falls on verse 16; beyond this "nothing in the text conclusively indicates that Onesimus was ever the chattel of the letter's chief addressee.
Moreover, the expectations fostered by the traditional fugitive slave hypothesis go unrealized in the letter. Modern commentators, even those committed to the prevailing interpretation, have tacitly admitted as much.
"Callahan points out that the earliest commentators on this work -- the homily of Origen and the Anti-Marcion Preface -- are silent about Onesimus' possible servile status, and traces the origins of this interpretation to its first documented advocate, John Chrysostom, who proposed it in his Homiliae in epistolam ad Philemonem, during his ministry in Antioch, circa 386-398.
In place of the traditional interpretation, Callahan suggests that Onesimus and Philemon are brothers both by blood and religion, but who have become estranged, and the intent of this letter was to reconcile the two men.
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| Papyrus 87 (Gregory-Aland), fragment of Epistle to Philemon (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord: Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate, and comfort your hearts; With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make known unto you all things which are done here.
Diarmaid MacCulloch, in his A History of Christianity, described the epistle as "a Christian foundation document in the justification of slavery". Due to its ambiguity, the letter was a cause of debate during the British and later American struggles over the abolition of slavery. Both sides cited Philemon for support.
Cuniform INNANA from Margaret Studt
1 comment:
Hello, nice article. I found out about Jung's Philemon and thought to read the Bible Philemon, to get some more info. Then read about Onesimus and became more curious, a google search lead me here. I haven't solved the mystery yet. Simon Magus, Jung, Philemon, Onesimus, Innana, Ishtar, Hecate, Sophia, Helen, Mary, Eve? How does it all fit together?
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