Eroticism,
Sexual Physiology and Embryological Themes in Late Antique Soteriology
A proposal for a postdoctoral research project
Zeke
Mazur
Doctoral
Candidate,
University
of Chicago
ajmazur@uchicago.edu
During
the period of this fellowship, I would like to investigate the pervasive but
under–remarked imagery of sexuality, eroticism, gender, and reproductive
physiology in late antique Gnostic and Platonic literature dealing with salvific
and / or ritual “ascent” towards the divine.
The
idea for this research project arose from the observation that although late
antique religiosity is conventionally associated with antisomatism, ritual
techniques of salvation often employed models drawn from eroticism and / or
sexual physiology itself (the theme is, of course, quite ancient, and is
already evident in Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus).
This
research will have four interrelated textual foci: [1] the Patristic
heresiologies; [2] the Coptic Nag Hammadi corpus; [3] the Greek medical literature
on sexuality and / or embryology; and [4] the Chaldaean Oracles and
other Platonic texts relating to theurgy.
The
point of departure will be an examination of the Patristic accounts of sexual
ritual among the Gnostics. The topic emerges in Epiphanius’ description (Panarion
26.4.3-8) of a sect whose members perform a ritualized coitus interruptus,
sacramentally collecting and consuming the semen of the man and also, whenever
possible, the menses of the woman, for the purpose of ‘recycling’ the divine
substance inherent in the human soul. Although Epiphanius’ account has been
treated with skepticism, elsewhere in Patristic literature as well as the Nag
Hammadi corpus itself one can also find intimations of ritual praxis modeled
upon the structure of human sexual physiology that also resonates with sexual
and embryological themes in Gnostic protology. Thus, for instance, there are
subtle suggestions that human sexual fluids–– semen and menstrual blood–– were
believed to be consubstantial with the primordial, pneumatic efflux of the
transcendent deity: an efflux often referred to as a sperma imbued with pneuma
(just like semen, which is said in Hellenistic medical literature and in
Stoicism to be a mixture of pneuma and other substances). Here one may
detect echoes of an ancient conception according to which the soul, brain,
spinal marrow, and semen comprise a hydraulic continuum with a limited economy
of vital fluid. Salvation was dependent upon the control of precious sexual
fluids, either through rituals involving their sacramental use (one supposedly
“libertine” option), or, alternately, through contemplative practices that
sought to reverse the natural downward flow (the “encratite” option). Sexual
physiology was thus understood as a microcosmic homologue of reality, and that
the body itself was envisioned as a vertical conduit extending between the
celestial head (often encoded as “male”) and the terrestrial genitals (encoded
as “female”), along which the divine “seed” could either descend and dissipate
through “emanation,” i.e. ejaculation and sexual reproduction, or, conversely,
ascend towards reintegration with its source, in an act most often evoked with
erotic, reproductive, or nuptial imagery. I would suggest that this cognitive
metaphor underlay a broad range of ritual speculation in late antiquity.
This project will help to deconstruct the overly–simplistic category of “antisomatism,” and to situate Neoplatonism and Gnosticism within a more complex discourse of embodiment, gender, and the hermeneutics of metaphor. |