Download - Smashing Barriers to Love

7/28/2019 Smashing Barriers to Love

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/smashing-barriers-to-love 1/6

THE TERRIBLE TIMES

Page1of 6

King Josiah Destroying the Idols of Baal. Gustave Dore

SMASHING THE BARRIERS TO LOVEBY

DAVID ARTHUR WALTERS

The elephant dung affixed upon ‘The Holy Virgin Mary’, an allegedlyblasphemous image of the Madonna created by British artist Chris Offili andexhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art on October 2, 1999, resulted in an

indignant uproar throughout the city and nation. Mr. Offili’s allusion to hisAfrican heritage as the inspiration for the excremental adornment did notsatisfy the caustic conservative critics who demanded the immediateremoval of the insult and the withdrawal of public funding for the museum.

Critics who believed the image was desecrated by the dung necessarilybelieved the image was otherwise sacred, wherefore they were idolaters



THE TERRIBLE TIMES

Page2of 6

themselves, for images of beings are not the beings themselves. Indeed,staunch mystics have traditionally averred that any figurative representationwhatsoever of the only possible Holy One, no matter how lovely the imagemight be, is sacrilegious. For instance, the Divine Mother is Immaculate

Space, the Maternal Ark of All, the Dark Womb, The Black Virgin; i.e.Nothing.

Iconomachists, people who hate the worship of images, would normallyhave been too busy waging war on genuinely Catholic images to beconcerned with a single image at the Brooklyn Museum. In any case, peoplewho love images are better idolaters than those who hate them. The squabblebetween the two idolatrous camps might be called a dung fight. Indeed, theGreek word eidolon is used to translate the Hebrew word for dung –Ezekiel’s favorite term for idol was gillotim, meaning “dunghill”. That is to

say, idols are worthless vanities or nothing at all, as are fixed ideas carvedon stone or written in books and worshipped as such.

For example, posting the Decalogue on the wall to be adored as some sort of magic charm or formula is absurd. The Ten Commandments should bediscussed for a few minutes every day, until the spirit in which they wereuttered circumscribes the hearts of every participant in the greatconversation. That conversation must not end in stone, for such a stonewould mark the gravesite of human civilization, which is, after all, morally

and mentally – that is to say spiritually – inspired.

No, the ultimate sacred power cannot be confined to an idol in a certainlocation, not even in the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem; as Jeremiah said:

“I will give you shepherds after my own heart, and these shall feed you onknowledge and discretion. And when you have increased and become manyin the land, then – it’s Yahweh who speaks – no one will ever say again:Where is the ark of the covenant of Yahweh? There will be no thought of it,no memory of it, no regret for it, no making of another. When that time

comes, Jerusalem shall be called The Throne of Yahweh; all the nations willgather there in the name of Yahweh and will no longer follow the dictates of their own stubborn hearts.” (The J erusalem Bible)

Jeremiah took a dim view of things in his day (c.640-580 BCE). He wishedhe had not been born. He prayed for the death of his family. He shunnedsociety and avoided marriage. He thought his god Yahweh had raped him.



THE TERRIBLE TIMES

Page3of 6

He was a traitor to his country: He believed it was Yahweh’s will for Judahto submit to the Babylonians; surrender would be “the way of life”, andresistance “the way of death,” yet he turned down a handsome offer fromBabylon. He was eventually carried off by his people to Egypt, where he

was presumably stoned to death.

In contrast to his pessimistic outlook, Jeremiah had a bright place in mindfor his people, a utopian dream city; a dream city that could never berealized on Earth. Although his dream city was an impossibility, Jeremiahspoke with the authority of personal experience if not from divine revelationabout arks and political reform. He was born when eight-year-old Josiah waselevated to the throne of Judah by the revolutionary faction after theassassination of King Amon. Judah had been a vassal of the AssyrianEmpire, which had imposed its alien cults; but the Empire weakened, and

fell into chaos. Egypt was also weak at the time therefore Judah waspresented with a golden opportunity. Josiah was king at the right place andright time for reformation, and acted accordingly. Jeremiah commended

Josiah for being a just and righteous king. Indeed, Jeremiah might even havebeen an itinerant preacher of Josiah’s reform in the early days. However,

Jeremiah became greatly disillusioned with Josiah’s reform.

The Deuteronomy book, purportedly the record of farewell address deliveredby Moses on the verge of the Promised Land, was found and brought to

Josiah during repairs to the Temple, whose cult and priests Jeremiah sharplycriticized. Deuteronomy includes a revised covenant between Yahweh andhis vassal, Israel. Josiah was so taken aback when he read it that he rent hisgarments and proceeded with the reformation forthwith. The Deuteronomywe have today is not what it was then, but the gist of the old text is apparentin the new, and one legal clause of the code is particularly striking:

“You must destroy completely all the places where the nations youdispossess have served their gods, on high mountains, on hills, under anyspreading tree; you must tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down

their sacred poles, set fire to the carved images of their gods and wipe outtheir name from that place.”

That injunction was even more severe than the proclamations of Akhenaton,the sun-worshipping, monotheistic pharaoh who ordered the obliteration of all inscribed references to plural gods. Akhenaton’s one-god was actually atrinity-in-Aton. Furthermore, he was obliged to tolerate some of the lesser,



THE TERRIBLE TIMES

Page4of 6

more popular personifications, particularly those enjoyed by the populace inthe privacy of their abodes. Yahweh was certainly not as tolerant as thelegendary Pharaoh of Love, at least not according to Mosaic lore. Yahwehmade only one exception to absolute iconoclasm:

“Not so are you to behave towards Yahweh your God. You must seek Yahweh your God only in the place he himself will choose from among allyour tribes, to set down His name there and give it a home. There you shallbring your sacrifices, tithes, and offerings.”

That commandment dovetailed nicely with Josiah’s agenda: thecentralization of government and worship in Jerusalem. It was an agendaboth religious and political. People did not draw nice distinctions betweenreligion and politics in those days. Religion was about power, and politics

was about who had it. The early monarch was the penultimate if not ultimatepersonification of power for his people, whether he was an agent of god orwas presumed to be a god himself, hence the modern argument over whetherancient iconoclasm was religiously or politically motivated does notcoincide with the nature of the beast. Like David, Josiah was anointed by

Yahweh. Like Moses, he was leading his people to freedom. He was theinstrument of Yahweh’s law. Obedience to that law would save Israel,

Yahweh’s chosen people, from bondage to despised foreign and localenemies.

Josiah’s people went on a rampage, smashing and burning the shrines andidols of the enemy. The discrimination was justified because only Israel hada valid contract with Yahweh: Canaanites, Moabites, Ammonites, andmembers of the reviled ruling class had no absolute right to exist in

Yahweh’s domain. Although the Hebrew Lord was a loving god whoseaffection extended even to birds, trees, and oxen, he was also a jealouslandlord who must not be provoked.

Even the local shrines to Yahweh were abolished, their priests ousted or

slain; only one temple good enough for Yahweh: the Temple of Jerusalem.And at one curtained, windowless end of the Temple was placed the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, the receptacle of the true Yahweh legislation, thecentral symbol of Josiah’s administration in the name of Yahweh, the verythrone or stool of god.



THE TERRIBLE TIMES

Page5of 6

The idolatrous cult of the ark, perfected by ancient Egyptians and Hebrews,was derived from prehistoric Black Africa, where even today a sacred stoolis covered, carried in procession, and then re-lodged in a holy chamber onone end of the lodge, where the holy stool—standing for the law excreted by

divinity—and its occupant, now invisible to the public, are protected byspirits and privileged attendants.

All priests and prophets were now under Josiah’s control. The formerlypolitical authority of local priests was vested in his provincial magistrates.As the revenue flowed into Jerusalem, King Josiah sought to centralize andstrengthen his army and extend his territory. He decided to engage in battlethe forces of Pharaoh Necho, who was on his way to help Assyria againstBabylonia. Josiah believed that if he were to defeat Necho’s forces, he couldunite Judah with Israel to the south. But Josiah was slain: Assyria was

defeated; the Egyptians withdrew. Israel thus weakened was forced tosubmit to Babylonia, the New Mesopotamian Empire.

As in the case of Akhenaton, Josiah’s reforms died with him: the old idolsand high places were soon restored; Jerusalem and its fine Temple wereeventually destroyed. Jeremiah had prophesied the Temple’s destruction,denouncing the people’s dependence on it.

Thus do we have an instructive historical occasion of iconoclasm to reflect

upon after considering the dung-laden image of a contemporary artist, anartist of African heritage for whom dung may or may not have been sacredin itself, or perhaps made sacrosanct by slapping it on his Madonna alongwith what appears to be vaginal butterflies—elephant dung, particularly thedung of a white elephant, has long been considered to have magicalproperties in certain parts of the world.

As indignant critics wage war over our postmodern excremental cultureinstead of loving their enemies as their religion professes, we might try tomatch our own deeds with the admittedly absurd command to love our

neighbors because we hate them. At least we will know what our perceivedenemies are up to if we are intimate with them. Why not lovingly smash allthe symbolic barriers between us?

It is said that Akhenaton’s religion of iconoclastic love failed because he didnot resort to arms to enforce it. As for loving his neighbors, he did not sendmaterial aid to his besieged allies. Archeologists have discovered evidence



THE TERRIBLE TIMES

Page6of 6

of footpaths well worn by troops tramping along the perimeter of Amarna,from which we may surmise that Akhenaton’s new capital for loving thethreefold Power-in-the-Disc was in fact a paranoid armed circle.

As for the commandments to love and fear a transcendental lord as sufficientincentive to desist from our crimes against humanity, faith in words aloneshall not suffice to accomplish the works. In Josiah’s case, we see that wordsin a box, even when supported by the force of arms, do not suffice forenduring, radical reform, for such reform must be of the willing heart.

- XYX-

South Beach 2006

Download - Smashing Barriers to Love

Top Related