The Man is Become as One of Us: The Rule of Living Beings
Speculations on Genesis 2 & 3
Following the “genealogy” of the “six days” of Genesis from the perspective of no God in particular – although some pre-eminence might be assumed for YHWH or El Elyon – we move on to the perspective of YHWH in particular, and his own creative activity, which is central here because he is the central Deity in Jewish and Christian devotion. While the six-day creation might be the work of a Pantheon of Gods working together, the subsequent creation narrative is YHWH’s in particular, as the Demiurge of the Jewish and Christian theological narrative. The following short essay is not a commentary like the previous, it is instead an exposition and speculation on the system I see expressed in the Myth. It is still a theological interpretation, but not a commentary, as I think that will hinder what I want to show here. The basic assumptions of a “vertical” mythological temporality remain, but unlike its prequel, interaction goes both ways, following the back and forth of the myth’s narrative. Because of similarities, this “back and forth” is interpreted according to platonic principles such as remaining/procession/reversion, demiurgic and vivific causation, among others. The rules of interpretation that inform this are taken from the text, such that it should be noted that the images used to describe this or that principle in Jewish and Christian mythology is not necessarily that which is used to describe the same principles in other traditions. To be clear, I will be coming from this as a Christian adherent of a Polytheist philosophy, so while the Jewish background is indispensable in my interpretation, it is a Christ-centred use of Jewish sources, like those found in the New Testament; and it is a Christ centred interpretation structured by the Polytheist Platonist Philosophers, primarily Proclus, as I find his ideas congruent with the Spirit of this theology. I welcome other parallel interpretations, as there is never just one perfect and exclusive interpretation of these things[1]. I accept all errors here as mine. I dedicate this essay and the entire series (if it goes on or not) to my Lord and My God, His Father, His Mother, and His Spirit.
I
The powers and roles of YHWH in Genesis 2 are indicated in the way he is described using the language of “wind” and “breath”. He is the source of Adam’s breath and according to some translations, he comes “in the cool of the day” after their “sin”, which is a reference to the evening breeze. Thus, he is presented as superior to the ground, the source of wind or ruach (Greek: pneuma). There is also an association with the Greek word Nous which can be translated as “Spirit” just like pneuma can also be translated as “Spirit”. If we are to say what “Spirit” is through those two words, we might say that pneuma emphasizes life, while nous emphasizes knowledge, particularly self-knowledge. Those two senses play out in YHWH, whose first act involves vivifying an entity with the capacity for knowledge. He also plants a garden, and trees in much Jewish symbolism are both connected with Life and Knowledge, as we see with the two trees. We see traces of his consort in this Vivific power of YHWH, as the wind of YHWH can also be the Shekinah, his “presence”, considered feminine, and is His consort. It seemed to have been a theme in Ancient Near Eastern theology to have a consort as manifest from the male deity as the personification of his power, or as his intermediary, which is technically the same thing[2]. This theme is important, as it will appear with Adam and Eve, as “images” of the Elohim.
All of this characterizes YHWH’s demiurgy. And I should be clear, this is not “creation ex nihilo”, but demiurgy, with “pre-existing material”, where the demiurge produces “things that can be characterised as becoming, insofar as they are such”[3]. There is some sort of duality between the wind – rooted in YHWH, his consort, and the other unnamed Gods present in the background – and the ground, which alternatively symbolizes some form of passive material[4], or mutability (in the sense of changeability), or maybe even an agent, depending on the context. This superior position, along with the symbolism, to me, means that YHWH here should be characterized as Noetic, the first Universal Demiurge.
That this accords with the Christian interpretation can be seen in the fact that Paul calls Christ, the Logos that is YHWH at the centre of the Cosmos, a life-giving Spirit. Christian Icons also portray the creation of man in Genesis 2 as Christ creating Adam. I would, based on this, see YHWH here as referring to Christ as Noetic Logos, the “Second Adam” of Paul. As we will see, and as is very important to this interpretation, “man” refers not to a physical species, but to Souls in general, including Gods, angels, daimons, “heroes” (if we can call them that), ergo retrospectively the Demiurge that “generates” the “rational” part of these entities is called by the name “man”. It is the “rational” centre of a Soul or Spirit that makes it “human” in the mythical sense. In this ontology, the highest sense of “man” is as a “centre” or “Logos”.
Back to the question of YHWH as Christ; on the one hand, as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – whether he appropriates the name of another God or not – He is “El Shaddai”. On the other hand, as El Shaddai, he is subordinate to El Elyon[5], for whom he is a priest, the premier Priest, and the King. He is Melchizedek, or at least, his principle. This “middle” position, which might also be between the duality of “qualities” he instantiates through his consort – Life and Knowledge, Peace and Justice – is one of the key characteristics of his demiurgic role. Thus we might see it symbolized on the Orthodox Cross, the vertical Pole going from El Elyon (and his Consort perhaps) to Adam (and/or Abraham). The higher, horizontal beam holds Life on the right and Knowledge on the left; the lower slanted beam has Peace on its lower right, and Justice on its higher left.
II
The demiurgic activity of YHWH is described in terms of “planting”. It is well known that Eden is a Temple complex and the garden is supposed to be the temple proper, with the “midst” or “centre” where the trees are representing the holiest place. ANE cultures represented the whole Cosmos as a temple, and here, the Edenic Garden is the Universal temple reflected in Psyche, planted by the Universal demiurge. “Planting” is thus a demiurgic activity, one that will be done by Adam, among others. This temple is not extensive, but intensive. Adam being placed in the Garden is in fact the Garden being placed in Adam, for the Edenic temple is the heart.
Adam is “made” from the dust of the ground and breathed into. Adam is birthed by the Divine Couple. The breath roots him to YHWH, the dusty body intimates his separation from YHWH. It is the establishment of something that will be made explicit with the “curse”. Adam receiving the breath is also him receiving the heavenly temple garden from YHWH, and the two trees in the “midst”, in the “heart”, represent the two dispositions to “eating”, corresponding to the only two entities apart from YHWH Adam interacts with (Eve and the Serpent) and the latter two phases of Platonic Intelligible activity:
Being, Life, Intellect.
Remaining, Procession, Reversion.
Adam remains, Eve Proceeds, and the Serpent Reverts
Adam’s form is the “Clay” in certain Islamic traditions[6], which I interpret here as the psychic form of the “mundus imaginalis”[7] between the unextended forms in Nous and the extended forms in the Cosmos. This is the “resurrection body”[8], at least, when compared to our world of frail bodies. As the first living soul, he is perhaps the first Psychic God. It is unclear to me whether he could be considered the “World Soul” of this Cosmos. I lean towards him simply being in the position of “Hypostasis Soul” prior to being the Soul of any body, even the Cosmic body. In both cases, however, he is in the position of a “Hypercosmic God”. He “remains”, unmoved relative to the Cosmos. His first Job is to tend the garden. We are still emphasizing continuity with the universal demiurgy of YHWH. He is to “tend his heart”, from which his second job will flow, although that second job is framed in negative terms because of the region it covers[9].
Apart from the trees, YHWH brings the “beasts” and the “fowls” – at once the animal species and the daimonic/angelic intermediaries – for Adam to “name”. That is, Adam also receives the “logoi”, the “forms”, of these entities into himself so that he might assign them to their places. They are “immediately” before Adam, not separated by intermediary and distance, and are thus not separate entities “yet”. Adam’s job is still universal. He is assigning “archetypal” places to species, not particulars of those species. Separation comes with Eve.
The gift of Eve is in keeping with Adam as “Image”. Just as YHWH has a consort who is his “Presence”, his very “wind”, “life”, Shekinah, so too Adam must have his:
In a pattern discernible in North-West Semitic religions, an abstract aspect of a male deity 'is hypostatized, personified, and worshiped as a goddess, who may then be thought of as the consort of the god'.[10]
Adam’s sleep is his remaining from which Eve proceeds. Just as YHWH and his consort are inseparable, so too Adam and Eve are inseparable. She is the bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh. She is what will cause Adam to “leave father and mother” (YHWH and Shekinah), a language of distinction contra the language of continuity that precedes in the narrative. It is already telling us of the “exile” from the garden, but from the angle of marriage. This informs how I interpret said “exile”.
At this stage, Adam and Eve do not have their complete “roles” in the ontological and soteriological economy, thus they are relatively undifferentiated, “one flesh”. They don’t know they are naked. Eve, at this point, is simply an extension of Adam. Their separation comes with the Serpent. Keep in mind that their “continuity” – and all such continuities in these series of myths – do not disappear. They are as eternal as the “discontinuities”. We are simply describing one vertical hierarchy in its different elements, the eternal activity of the Gods.
With Eve as “extension”, the “beasts” (and by extension all other logoi of the animals and the daimonic) find expression. The Serpent, who is most likely a “Seraph” – a fiery serpent, probably with wings and limbs – is the first to be expressed. Adam did not just proceed the Goddess Eve, he proceeds everything posterior to Him, through Eve. But, as the first thing to proceed from the couple, the serpent has a particular character. It is “clever”, and it “tempts” with knowledge. The role of the serpent is thus revealed: the keeper of Knowledge.
The duality of Eve and the Serpent mirrors the two Trees. She will be called the “Eve”, “mother of life”. The serpent is “clever”, or we might say, “knowledgeable”. The two trees that were in Adam are now exteriorized.
It should, however, be clear that, following Sallustius, “every God is good, without passivity, and free from all mutation”[11]. This applies to all myths about Gods, whether the myth speaks of the Gods in ways that may make them capricious. In Origenic terms, we are to interpret them “spiritually”, according to their goodness. And also to be clear, the serpent is a God in my view. As every role that is described in terms of transgression tends to concern things towards the end of an ontological domain, we can say that this is what the “disobedience” and ‘conflicts” in the myth describe: activities in view of the last of ontological states of a system. The distinction between Adam and Eve brought about by knowledge is Good, as sameness and difference are inevitable principles of ontic being. The Serpent, in reverting, completes the triad and finally “reveals” the distinctions of the Triad. “The beginning can only be fully seen at the end,” to paraphrase a saying. This is the “nakedness” and the “shame”. They indicate “difference”, while the proclamation of “one flesh” indicates sameness.
The “blame game”, which is a sequence of naming, follows from Adam to Eve to the Serpent, while the consequences, and “curses”, start with the serpent, as we work our way back up to Adam. Adam subsequently names his wife “Eve”, completing the Heptad. I do not know yet what to do with this particular structure. Perhaps someone can comment on it. I simply note it for posterity’s sake. What is interesting to me is the sequence of “curses” from the Serpent “upwards” to Adam. The “curses” are roles that turn “downward”. Note that Eve is not a role, and so she is not a “curse”. The Serpent’s first role is clear. He is the Lord of Knowledge, the particular kind of knowledge is made clear with the effects. The serpent’s knowledge “divides”, “discriminates”. It is “philosophical” knowledge, in the sense of the discursive. His own “curse” bounds all “beasts”. He is to “lose” his height of “legs” and crawl on his belly, and “eat dust all the days of his life”. In subsequent chapters, we see that Adam “dies”, which we may take to mean his explicit causation ends, although the type of causation here is unknown to me as of now. The serpent, curiously, is never said to die. In order to understand the purpose of the loss of limbs, consider this quote:
One value of these is that humans are given a role to supplement a God's loss. To take a Hellenic example, one meaning for Hephaistos' being lamed is that He is the agent of human technology. So His disability is directly related to a potency of his in which we especially participate. Osiris' phallus is lost on the mortal plane because a crucial part of His resurrection lies in mortals going on. In this sense, His phallus is the mortal phalli, Hephaistos' walking is the mortal kinesis. I don't want to distract anyone from the mysteries of identification with these Gods through the experience of disability through this sort of reading, however. That embodiment, that presencing of the God, is sustaining for individuals and for communities.[12]
It is telling that the Serpent is to crawl on its belly beneath all the cattle, and that although he is said to await death, he is never actually said to die in Genesis. His loss of limb, I believe, is our gain in the “motion” characteristic of discursive thinking in general, and his horizontal legless crawl indicates his role as the ruler of the historical, which is considered “horizontal” with respect to the “vertical” history of myth. The Serpent’s “death” is not a historical event. It is instead a supratemporal event. It is the vertical feet of the “Woman’s seed” interrupting history. It is the Parousia, eschatology, apocalypse. For the Christian, it is as much Sinai as it is Bethlehem or Golgotha or the empty tomb or the more specific “last judgement”, even as all of these meet in eternity. In this way, the serpent’s head is “crushed”, and the heel of the Woman’s seed “bruised” in its incarnation and descent. This is another way to identify the serpent as the “God of this age”, that is, historical time and particularly the bewildering multiplicities, accidents, and marvels that happen in its belly crawl. None of this indicates the Serpent is evil. It simply describes its role at the edge of the ontological cosmos in “edgy” terms.
The Woman’s “curse”, pain in childbirth, indicates that she rules over the Psychic as such. The “Pain” is the same what Paul refers to: “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” (Romans 8:28; KJV). She is creation qua life, and thus in charge of the Souls in transmigration, who as a whole, “groan” in labor towards transcending the cosmos, to be born “Sons of God” in resurrection. This is said in the “future” to show that this function is for souls down the hierarchy, our Souls. Thus, she rules over the things that binds and looses souls to the Cosmos, in this case the passions. She “desires” her husband, thus opening up a road to the higher reaches of Soul through “desire”, or perhaps, “Love”. I’ll state again here that anything done by Gods, is for us[13], in order to, in this case, provide for us resources for salvation. The Goddess’s desire is archetypal for our own, and is in a sense our own. It is that which draws us up to the divine, a power. It establishes for us the rulership of Adam as the first Hypercosmic God and the God that leads us still higher, thus the verse says “he will rule over you”.
Adam in turn, is to rule the ground. Like YHWH, he will “plant”, and he will do it in “sorrow”, which also indicates that he has some power over the various transmigrations. However, instead of having powers over souls as such, his Sorrow is concerned with the crops he will grow, that is, the various forms he will himself emanate and thus the knowledge he will contemplate, or “eat”. The reference to “bread” indicates the active power of imagination to synthesize from the raw elements. The Serpent divides, the Goddess binds and loosens, the God synthesizes. His is the imagination, the ideal, which will never be fully expressed in temporality, hence the “sorrow”. There is also the symbolism of the “harvest” in the New Testament, where the crops are “souls”, which indicates the Salvific aspect of this activity. Adam is the one who snatches Souls into either felicity or perdition. His is the Sickle and the wine press. He is the “Angel” who does all of these, or at least the psychic principle of the various intermediaries that will do this within the Cosmos.
With these roles specified, Adam aptly names his wife “Eve”, cementing her role, and providing us with some thoughts for this conclusion.
III
First, YHWH’s proclamation to the Gods should be taken as the next step above Adam’s cutting off from Eve by “cutting him off” from Paradise. Since Paradise is already “in” Adam, I would say it describes YHWH revealing the distinction between the Noetic Paradise and that in Adam’s heart, the difference between Noetic forms – and Nous in General – and Psychic forms (or Psyche in General). The “garments of Skin” thus describe the “psychic bodies” of the various lower manifestations (angels, daimons, etc) of both Adam and Eve who effect their work. The “Cherub” would then describe possibly two levels: The first is the deities that separate the Demiurge from Psyche[14], the second would be these same deities separating the highest manifestations of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent from their manifestations in “psychic bodies”.
Secondly, for Eve, there is some parallel to the Gnostic “Sophia” whose Son is the Demiurge, a solar serpent figure with a lion head. This would fit with what the Serpent is, and the Serpent coming after Eve would fit this interpretation, along with the title “Mother of all Living”, through which Adam proceeds all subsequent entities. This is not exactly my interpretation here, but it is an interesting way to view this myth.
Lastly, I still have not determined who would be the “World Soul”. Eve would fit this, but I have reservations. I will hold that off until I can make a decision. In any case, the difficulties of this type of interpretation, with respect to this myth, are perhaps very small when compared to what comes next. It’s very interesting to see where this experiment will lead. Until then, Pax Christi, Hail Mary, and thank you for reading.
[1] “…theology cannot be conceived as completely independent of other forms of knowledge. The awareness of this interdependence would not only allow us to review problematic theological positions but also to expand our possibilities of conceptual formulation. Taking our current knowledge of the world into account allows us both to rethink old themes and also to reflect on new domains, new ranges of phenomena that broaden our metaphysical and consequently theological horizons.” - Hübner, Petter. “Against Closed Theology: Human Knowledge and Revisibility.” Polytropes, July 29, 2020. https://politropos.art.blog/2020/07/29/contra-a-teologia-fechada-conhecimento-humano-e-revisibilidade/.
[2] Mondriaan, Marlene Elizabeth. “The Rise of Yahwism : Role of Marginalised Groups.” University of Pretoria, 2010.
[3] D’Hoine, Pieter, and Martijn Marije. All From One: A Guide to Proclus. Edited by Pieter D’Hoine and Martijn Marije. 1st Edition. Oxford University Press, 2017.
[4] Andani, Khalil. “Metaphysics of Muhammad the Nur Muhammad from Imam Ja’far Al-Sadiq (d. 148/765) to Nasir Al-Din Al-Tusi (D. 672/1274).” Journal of Sufi Studies 8, no. 2 (2020): 99–175. https://doi.org/10.1163/22105956-12341317.
[5] “If Melki-Tsedeq is thus superior to Abraham, it is because the ‘Most High’ (Elion), who is the God of Melki-Tsedek, is himself superior to the ‘All-Powerful’ (Shaddaï), who is the God of Abraham” - Guenon, Rene. Lord of the World. Coombe Springs Press Ltd, 1983. In this interpretation, contra Guenon, we see it as two Gods, rather than two aspects of the same God.
[6] “Tustarī writes concerning Q. 2:30, in which God announces the creation of Adam to the angels that “He created Adam from the clay of might consisting of the Light of Muḥammad.”” Andani, Khalil. “Metaphysics of Muhammad the Nur Muhammad from Imam Ja’far Al-Sadiq (d. 148/765) to Nasir Al-Din Al-Tusi (D. 672/1274).” Journal of Sufi Studies 8, no. 2 (2020): 99–175. https://doi.org/10.1163/22105956-12341317.
[7] “The theophanic aspect of the creative imagination of the Platonists would later be interpreted in the Islamic context by philosophers such as Sohravardi as corresponding to the prophetic vision itself (haqiqat mohammadiya), and constituting an entire ontological domain of its own: “the land of nowhere” (nâ-kojâ-abâd), which was also called “mundus imaginalis” by Henry Corbin.” Hübner, Petter “Mythology as Mathematics , or How to Become a Demiurge.” Oscillations, 2022, 1–14.
[8] “The jabarūt and the states beyond it are above forms and formal manifestation, whereas the malakūt, which corresponds to the world of imagination (älam al-khayal or mithal), possesses form but not matter in the ordinary Peripatetic sense. That is why in fact this world is also called the world of 'hanging forms (suwar al-mu'allaqah), and later Persian philosophers like Mullā Şadrā have devoted many pages to its description and proof of its existence. But from another point of view this world possesses its own matter 72sm-i latīf), which in fact is the body of resurrection', for in this world is located both paradise in its formal aspect and the inferno.” Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. “The World of Imagination and Concept of Space in the Persian Miniature.” Islamic Quaterly
[9] Butler, Edward P. “The Wrath of Sekhmet,” 276–316.
[10] Mondriaan, “The Rise of Yahwism : Role of Marginalised Groups.”
[11] Sallustius, and Thomas Taylor. “On the Gods and the World.” London: Edward Jeffery and Pall Mall, 1793. https://www.platonic-philosophy.org/files/Sallustius - On the Gods (Taylor).pdf
[12] Butler, Edward P. “Tweets on Tradition and on Divine Disability.” Endymions Bower, January 16, 2015. https://endymions-bower.dreamwidth.org/47816.html
[13] “The relations between the Gods are, most authentically, relations of power, while the mythological constellations that dispose them relative to each other and in relation to a narrative telos exist for the constitution of hypostases and the illumination of Being – ultimately, in other words, for us.” Butler, Edward P. “The Metaphysics of Polytheism in Proclus.” New School University, 2003. https://henadology.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/dissertation-copy.pdf.
[14] “A question naturally arises as to the status of the guardian class, for the Gods of this class seem imperfectly distinguished from the Gods of the principal intellectual monads. Both terms of the oppositions constitutive of this order belong to the three chief monads; it is simply that the determinations attributed to the guardian class belong to the intellectual “fathers” by virtue of their guardians. This ambiguity is perfectly reasonable insofar as the identification of these guardian functions is with an anonymous multiplicity of Gods, and not with fully individual Gods whose autonomy would thus be inconsistently and improperly infringed. This lack of differentiation among the guardian class seems to foreshadow the sub-divine orders of angels and daimons, however, in which such multitudes are common in light of the lesser degree of individuality manifest below the henadic realm. The operations of such beings would, again, be a matter appropriate to a comprehensive discussion of Neoplatonic psychology.” Butler, “The Metaphysics of Polytheism in Proclus.” Butler elsewhere identifies these “guardians” with the “Kouretes”. I would ascribe this role to the “Cherubs” and the “Seraphs”, the latter of which would describe the Serpent in some sense.