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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.
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Philemon Foundation is a non-profit foundation dedicated to preparing for publication the Complete Works of C.G. Jung.
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) |
The only extant information about Onesimus apart from this letter is
found in Paul's epistle to the Colossians 4:7–9, where Onesimus is
called "a faithful and beloved brother":
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
