True Cross

The term True Cross denotes the actual cross on which Jesus was crucified. According to legend, the True Cross was hidden following Jesus’ death but was eventually found by Empresss Helena during her fourth century C.E. travels to the Holy Land. The cross was then broken up into different shards and distributed across Christendom to be used as relics. Throughout history, different kings and churches claimed to possess fragments of the True Cross to legitimize their power and status.

For over a millennium, these supposed fragments of the True Cross were a prominent feature in the devotional practice of relics in Christian veneration. Saint John Chrysostom relates that fragments of the True Cross were kept in golden reliquaries that persons reverently wore upon themselves. By the end of the Middle Ages, so many churches claimed to possess a piece of the True Cross, that John Calvin is famously said to have remarked that there was enough wood in them to fill a ship. It is possible that many of the extant pieces of the True Cross are fakes, created by traveling merchants in the Middle Ages, during which period a thriving trade in manufactured relics existed.

Today, Santo Toribio de Liébana in Spain is also said to hold the largest of these pieces and is one of the most visited Roman Catholic pilgrimage sites.

History

Many ancient historians attest to the existence and supposed discovery of the “True Cross.” Among these historians was Eusebius of Caesarea who, in his Life of Constantine, describes how the site of the Holy Sepulchre, originally a site of veneration for the Christian community in Jerusalem, had been covered with earth and a temple of Venus had been built on top—although Eusebius does not say as much, this would probably have been done as part of Hadrian’s reconstruction of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina in 135, following the destruction during the Jewish Revolt of 70 C.E. and Bar Kokhba’s revolt of 132–135 C.E. Following his conversion to Christianity, Emperor Constantine ordered that the site be uncovered and instructed Saint Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, to build a church on the site. In this Life, Eusebius does not mention the finding of the True Cross.

Another ancient historian, Socrates Scholasticus (born c. 380), in his Ecclesiastical History, gives a full description of the discovery that was repeated later by Sozomen and by Theodoret. In it he describes how Saint Helena, Constantine’s aged mother, had the temple destroyed and the Sepulchre uncovered, whereupon three crosses and the titulus (inscription) from Jesus’s crucifixion were uncovered as well. In Socrates’s version of the story, Macarius had the three crosses placed in turn on a deathly ill woman. This woman recovered at the touch of the third cross, which was taken as a sign that this was the cross of Christ, the new Christian symbol. Socrates also reports that, having also found the nails with which Christ had been fastened to the cross, Helena sent these to Constantinople, where they were incorporated into the emperor’s helmet and the bridle of his horse.

A third ancient historian, Sozomen (died c. 450), in his Ecclesiastical History, gives essentially the same version as Socrates. He also adds that it was said (by whom he does not say) that the location of the Sepulchre was “disclosed by a Hebrew who dwelt in the East, and who derived his information from some documents which had come to him by paternal inheritance” (although Sozomen himself disputes this account) and that a dead person was also revived by the touch of the Cross. Later popular versions of this story state that the Jew who assisted Helena was named Jude or Judas, but later converted to Christianity and took the name Kyriakos.

Another writer, Theodoret (died c. 457) in his Ecclesiastical History Chapter xvii gives what had become the standard version of the finding of the True Cross:

When the empress beheld the place where the Saviour suffered, she immediately ordered the idolatrous temple, which had been there erected, to be destroyed, and the very earth on which it stood to be removed. When the tomb, which had been so long concealed, was discovered, three crosses were seen buried near the Lord’s sepulchre. All held it as certain that one of these crosses was that of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the other two were those of the thieves who were crucified with Him. Yet they could not discern to which of the three the Body of the Lord had been brought nigh, and which had received the outpouring of His precious Blood. But the wise and holy Macarius, the president of the city, resolved this question in the following manner. He caused a lady of rank, who had been long suffering from disease, to be touched by each of the crosses, with earnest prayer, and thus discerned the virtue residing in that of the Saviour. For the instant this cross was brought near the lady, it expelled the sore disease, and made her whole.

Along with the Cross were also found the Holy Nails, which Helena allegedly took with her back to Constantinople. According to Theodoret, “She had part of the cross of our Saviour conveyed to the palace. The rest was enclosed in a covering of silver, and committed to the care of the bishop of the city, whom she exhorted to preserve it carefully, in order that it might be transmitted uninjured to posterity.”

Another popular ancient version from the Syriac tradition replaced Helena with a fictitious first-century empress named Protonike.

Historians consider these versions to be apocryphal in varying degrees. It is certain, however, that the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre was completed by 335 and that alleged relics of the Cross were being venerated there by the 340s, as they are mentioned in the Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem (see below).

The silver reliquary that was left at the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in care of the bishop of Jerusalem was exhibited periodically to the faithful. In the 380s, a nun named Egeria who was travelling on pilgrimage described the veneration of the True Cross at Jerusalem in a long letter, the Itinerario Egeriae that she sent back to her community of women:

Then a chair is placed for the bishop in Golgotha behind the [liturgical] Cross, which is now standing; the bishop duly takes his seat in the chair, and a table covered with a linen cloth is placed before him; the deacons stand round the table, and a silver-gilt casket is brought in which is the holy wood of the Cross. The casket is opened and [the wood] is taken out, and both the wood of the Cross and the title are placed upon the table. Now, when it has been put upon the table, the bishop, as he sits, holds the extremities of the sacred wood firmly in his hands, while the deacons who stand around guard it. It is guarded thus because the custom is that the people, both faithful and catechumens, come one by one and, bowing down at the table, kiss the sacred wood and pass through. And because, I know not when, some one is said to have bitten off and stolen a portion of the sacred wood, it is thus guarded by the deacons who stand around, lest any one approaching should venture to do so again. And as all the people pass by one by one, all bowing themselves, they touch the Cross and the title, first with their foreheads and then with their eyes; then they kiss the Cross and pass through, but none lays his hand upon it to touch it. When they have kissed the Cross and have passed through, a deacon stands holding the ring of Solomon and the horn from which the kings were anointed; they kiss the horn also and gaze at the ring…

Before long, but perhaps not until after the visit of Egeria, it was possible also to venerate the crown of thorns, the pillar at which Christ was scourged, and the lance that pierced his side.

In 614 C.E., the Sassanid Emperor Khosrau II (“Chosroes”) removed the part of the cross as a trophy, when he captured Jerusalem. Thirteen years later, in 628, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius defeated Khosrau and retook the relic, which he at first placed in Constantinople, and later took back to Jerusalem in March 21, 630. Around 1009, Christians in Jerusalem hid the part of the cross and it remained hidden until it was rediscovered during the First Crusade, on August 5, 1099, by Arnulf Malecorne, the first Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, conveniently at a moment when a morale boost was needed. The relic that Arnulf discovered was a small fragment of wood embedded in a golden cross, and it became the most sacred relic of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, with none of the controversy that had followed their discovery of the Holy Lance in Antioch. It was housed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre under the protection of the Latin Patriarch, who marched with it ahead of the army before every battle. It was captured by Saladin during the Battle of Hattin in 1187 C.E. and subsequently disappeared.

Other fragments of the Cross were further broken up, and the pieces were widely distributed; in 348, in one of his Catecheses, Cyril of Jerusalem, remarked that the “whole earth is full of the relics of the Cross of Christ,” and in another, “The holy wood of the Cross bears witness, seen among us to this day, and from this place now almost filling the whole world, by means of those who in faith take portions from it.” Egeria’s account testifies how highly these relics of the crucifixion were prized. Saint John Chrysostom relates that fragments of the True Cross were kept in golden reliquaries, “which men reverently wear upon their persons.” Even two Latin inscriptions around 350 C.E., from today’s Algeria, testify to the keeping and admiration of small particles of the cross. Around the year 455, Juvenal Patriarch of Jerusalem sent to Pope Leo I a fragment of the “precious wood,” according to the Letters of Pope Leo. A portion of the cross was taken to Rome in the seventh century by Pope Sergius I, who was of Byzantine origin. “In the small part is power of the whole cross,” so an inscription in the Felix Basilica of Nola, built by bishop Paulinus at the beginning of fifth century. The cross particle was inserted in the altar.

The Old English poem Dream of the Rood mentions the finding of the cross and the beginning of the tradition of the veneration of its relics. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also talks of King Alfred receiving a fragment of the cross from Pope Marinus, albeit the poem need not be referring to this specific relic or have this incident as the reason for its composition.

Relic

Most of the very small relics of the True Cross in Europe came from Constantinople. The city was captured and sacked by the Fourth Crusade in 1204: “After the conquest of the city Constantinople inestimable wealth was found, incomparably precious jewels and also a part of the cross of the Lord, which Helena transfers from Jerusalem and was decorated with gold and precious jewels. There it attained highest admiration. It was carved up by the present bishops and was divided with other very precious relics among the knights; later, after their return to the homeland, it was donated to churches and monasteries.” A knight, Robert de Clari wrote: “Within this chapel were found many precious relics; for therein were found two pieces of the True Cross, as thick as a man’s leg and a fathom in length.”

By the end of the Middle Ages, so many churches claimed to possess a piece of the True Cross, that John Calvin is famously said to have remarked that there was enough wood in them to fill a ship:

“There is no abbey so poor as not to have a specimen. In some places there are large fragments, as at the Holy Chapel in Paris, at Poictiers, and at Rome, where a good-sized crucifix is said to have been made of it. In brief, if all the pieces that could be found were collected together, they would make a big ship-load. Yet the Gospel testifies that a single man was able to carry it.”

Conflicting with this is the finding of Rohault de Fleury, who, in his Mémoire sur les instruments de la Passion (1870) made a study of the relics in reference to the criticisms of Calvin and Erasmus. He drew up a catalogue of all known relics of the True Cross showing that, in spite of what various authors have claimed, the fragments of the Cross brought together again would not reach one-third that of a cross which has been supposed to have been three or four meters in height, with transverse branch of two meters wide, proportions not at all abnormal. He calculated: supposing the Cross to have been of pine-wood (based on his microscopic analysis of the fragments) and giving it a weight of about seventy-five kilograms, we find the original volume of the cross to be .178 cubic meters.

The total known volume of known relics of the True Cross, according to his catalogue, amounts to approximately .004 cubic meters (more specifically 3,942,000 cubic millimeters), leaving a volume of .174 cubic meters lost, destroyed, or otherwise unaccounted for. A large quantity of wood also said to be from the True Cross exists at Mount Athos.

In recent times, four cross particles—of ten particles with documentary proofs by Byzantine emperors—from European churches, i.e. Santa Croce in Rome, Notre Dame, Paris, Pisa Cathedral and Florence Cathedral, were microscopically examined. “The pieces came all together from olive.” Gerasimos Smyrnakis notes that the largest surviving part, of 870,760 cubic milimeters, was in Mount Athos, 537,587 cubic milimetres in Rome, 516,090 in Brussels, 445,582 in Venice, 436,450 in Ghent and 237,731 in Paris.

Santo Toribio de Liébana in Spain is also said to hold the largest of these pieces and is one of the most visited Roman Catholic pilgrimage sites. It is possible that many of the extant pieces of the True Cross are fakes, created by traveling merchants in the Middle Ages, during which period a thriving trade in manufactured relics existed.

The Roman Catholic Church, many Protestant denominations (most notably those with Anglican origins), and the Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14, the anniversary of the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In later centuries, these celebrations also included commemoration of the rescue of the True Cross from the Persians in 628 C.E. In the Gallician usage, beginning about the seventh century, the Feast of the Cross was celebrated on May 3. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, when the Gallician and Roman practices were combined, the September date, for which the Vatican adopted the official name “Triumph of the Cross” in 1963, was used to commemorate the rescue from the Persians and the May date was kept as the “Invention of the True Cross” to commemorate the finding. The September date is often referred to in the West as Holy Cross Day; the May date was dropped from the liturgical calendar by the Second Vatican Council in 1970. The Orthodox still commemorate both events on September 14, one of the twelve Great Feasts of the liturgical year, and the ‘Procession of the Venerable Wood of the Cross’ on 1 August, the day on which the relics of the True Cross would be carried through the streets of Constantinople to bless the city.

In addition to celebrations on fixed days, there are certain days of the variable cycle when the Cross is celebrated. The Roman Catholic Church has a formal ‘Adoration of the Cross’ (the term is inaccurate, but sanctioned by long) during the services for Good Friday, while the Orthodox celebrate an additional Veneration of the Cross on the third Sunday of Great Lent. In Greek Orthodox churches, a replica of the cross is brought out in procession on Holy Thursday for the people to venerate.

Medieval Legends

In the Latin-speaking traditions of Western Europe, the story of the pre-Christian origins of the True Cross was well established by the thirteenth century when, in 1260, it was recorded, by Jacopo de Voragine, Bishop of Genoa, in the Golden Legend.

This states that the wood of the True Cross came from a seed of the Tree of Life which grew in the Garden of Eden. When Adam lay dying, he begged his son Seth to go to the Archangel Michael and beg for a seed from the Tree of Life. As he died, the seed was placed in Adam’s mouth and was buried. The seed grew into a tree and emerged from his mouth.

After many centuries the tree was cut and the wood used to build a bridge over which the Queen of Sheba passed, on her journey to meet King Solomon. So struck was she by the portent contained in the timber of the bridge that she fell on her knees and worshipped it. On her visit to Solomon she told him that a piece of wood from the bridge would bring about the replacement of God’s Covenant with the Jewish people, by a new order. Solomon, fearing the eventual destruction of his people, had the timber buried. But after fourteen generations, the wood taken from the bridge became the Cross of the Crucifixion. Voragine then goes on to describe its finding by Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine.

In the late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, there was a wide general acceptance of the origin of the True Cross and its history preceding the Crucifixion, as recorded by Voragine. This general acceptance is confirmed by the numerous artworks that depict this subject, culminating in one of the most famous fresco cycles of the Renaissance, the Legend of the True Cross by Piero della Francesca, painted on the walls of the chancel of the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo between 1452 and 1466, in which he reproduces faithfully the traditional episodes of the story as recorded in The Golden Legend.

It is worth noting that The Golden Legend and many of its sources had neither acceptance nor parallel in the Greek- or Syriac-speaking worlds. The above pre-Crucifixion history, therefore, is not to be found in Eastern Christianity.

 

Pornography

Pornography, often shortened to porn or porno, and sometimes referred to in official matters as x-rated material, is the explicit representation of the human body or sexual activity used for the intents of stimulating sexual arousal.

Though mass-distributed pornography is as old as the printing press itself, it was not until the mid-twentieth century that it became a part of western mainstream culture after the introduction of Kinsey’s sexology in the late 1940s, the growing popularity of such popular pornographic magazines as Playboy (first published in 1953), and the evolution, in the 1960s, of the sexual revolution. An immense industry for the production and consumption of pornography has grown, making use of technologies from photographs, to television, to video to the internet.

Religious and spiritual groups, in addition to those favoring a higher ideal of sexuality, have long complained of pornography’s negative and rampant presence within society, its destructive effect on family relationships, and its demeaning perspective on women. According to those belonging to anti-pornography movements, the illicit material is culpable in further degrading society’s perspective of true sexuality: As a divine process, a sacred art form, and a religious act. Proponents of pornography, however, argue that pornography is enjoyable, harmless, and profitable. While society in general and lawmakers in particular may disagree over pornography and obscenity, most agree that child pornography has no merit and its production is a form of sexual abuse.

Definition

Pornography derives from the Greek pornographia, which derives from the Greek words porne (“prostitute”), grapho (“to write”), and the suffix ia (meaning “state of,” “property of,” or “place of”). It is the explicit representation of the human body or sexual activity used for the intents of stimulating sexual arousal.

Pornography differs from obscenity in that obscenity is what is legally regarded as being offensive to the prevalent sexual morality of the time. Though many categories of pornography may be deemed obscene (particularly child pornography), not all pornographic materials are judged legally obscene, that is, lewd, indecent, or offensive. However, this territory remains gray as there are many whom argue that all pornography is obscene.

Pornography manifests in a multitude of forms, all geared to appeal to the diverse sexual tastes and fetishes of the market. These include, heterosexual porn, gay porn, bestiality or animal pornography, as well as appealing to numerous character themes, such as vampires, medieval characters, characters in popular movies, and so forth. What is probably considered as the most offensive kind of pornographic material, as well as most consistently policed and prosecuted, is child pornography.

Child pornography

“Child pornography” refers to pornographic material depicting children. The production of child pornography is widely regarded as a form of child sexual abuse and as such these images and videos are illegal in most countries. Some outlaw only production, while others also prohibit distribution and possession of child pornography. Prohibition generally covers visual representations of sexual behavior by children under a given age but may also include all images of nude children, unless an artistic or medical justification can be provided.

History

Enthusiasts often point to the sacred Indian tradition of Tantra and the ancient Indian text, the Kama Sutra, as justification for their enjoyment of pornography. However, it should be clarified that Tantra is a type of Hinduism that treats sexuality as a path to spiritual enlightenment, not as a casual device through which to achieve a temporary arousal and mere physical satisfaction. The Kama Sutra was regarded as a holy text and was used to aid devotees in their appreciation of sex as a sacred act of love.

Starting with the rise of Christianity in the early centuries C.E., views of sex changed dramatically—at least in parts where Christianity and its influence prevailed. Christians were educated to deny all “pleasures of flesh,” which resulted in an unbalanced outlook on sex, confusing its divine value with its fallen degradation. Traditions such as Tantricism and materials such as the Kama Sutra certainly had no place in such societies, and so the negative stigma attached to the naked form of man and woman as well as the act of their sexual intercourse increased over the course of the following centuries with the growing prevalence of Christian culture.

Society’s official stance toward pornography, as understood today, did not exist until the Victorian era in terms of its state-ordained censorship. Previous to this age, although some sex acts were regulated or stipulated in laws, looking at objects or images depicting them was not. In some cases, certain books, engravings, or image collections were outlawed, but the trend to compose laws that restricted viewing of sexually explicit materials in general was a Victorian construct.

When large scale excavations of Pompeii were undertaken in the eighteenth century, much of the erotic art of the Romans came to light. When, in the early nineteenth century, the royalty and nobility of Europe began to visit exhibitions they were shocked by what they considered to be pornography. The Victorians who saw themselves as the intellectual heirs of the Roman Empire did not know how to react to the frank depictions of sexuality, and endeavored to hide them from everyone except upper class scholars. The artifacts were locked away in the Secret Museum in Naples, Italy and what could not be removed was covered and cordoned off so as to not corrupt the sensibilities of women, children, and the working class. Soon after, the world’s first law criminalizing pornography was enacted in the Obscene Publications Act of 1857.

Christian views of sex and the naked form remained highly looked down upon until a dramatic shift occurred in the late 1950s inspired by the American biologist Alfred Charles Kinsey, who is regarded by many as the father of sexology. Kinsey, passionate about human sexual behavior and the different forms of sexual practices, began attacking the “widespread ignorance of sexual structure and physiology” and rose to celebrity status with his several published works on the topic. The Kinsey Reports, which led to a storm of controversy, are regarded by many as a trigger for the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

This shift in the cultural outlook on sex opened the way for magazines, such as Hugh Hefner’s Playboy, to find their place in society and for individuals to dissolve their inhibitions in enjoying them. Since this early crack in the dam and the subsequent era of free love, the porn industry has made itself quite at home in Western societies. Eastern societies, for the most part, have amply followed this trend.

Industry

Since its boom in the 1950s with the iconic presence of Playboy magazine, the pornography industry grew in even greater magnitude as it became more and more accessible through advanced forms of media. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, revenues somewhere between $40 and $60 billion have been estimated, an amount that is larger than all combined revenues of professional baseball, football, and basketball franchises, as well as the combined revenues of American television networks ABC, CBS, and NBC.

Worldwide pornography revenues have been calculated as totaling $97.06 billion in 2006, though this includes the categories of novelty items and exotic dance clubs, which technically are not pornography. China, South Korea, Japan, the U.S., and Australia are listed as accruing the highest numbers in porn revenue respectively, with $27.40 billion accredited to China and $2 billion accredited to Australia. The U.S. figure for 2006 was $13.33 billion. For the U.S., video sales and rentals were the biggest contributor to the total figure, cashing in at $3.62 billion, followed by the internet at $2.84 billion.

Internet distribution

A report of internet pornography statistics compiled in 2006 estimated that some twelve percent of the total number of websites online are pornographic sites. These websites, the vast majority of which come from the United States, are visited each month by 72 million people worldwide. They range in everything from “softcore” porn to “hardcore,” to heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual content, and even those dedicated to images of bestiality, necrophilia, and an interminable selection of different fetishes. There are about 100,000 websites offering illegal child pornography. Some further statistics from the 2006 report include.

• Daily pornographic search engine requests: 68 million (25 percent of total search engine requests)
• Daily pornographic emails: 2.5 billion (8 percent of total emails)
• Internet users who view porn: 42.7 percent
• Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography: 11 years old
• Largest consumer of Internet pornography: 35-49 age group
• 8-16 year olds having viewed porn online: 90 percent (most while doing homework)
• Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites: 72 percent male-28 percent female

The character of the internet provides an easy means whereby consumers residing in countries where pornography is either taboo or entirely illegal can easily acquire such material from sources in another country where it is legal or remains unprosecuted. A further problem is that the internet renders these types of material very accessible to any child old enough to use a computer and perform simple online navigation. Despite the filters and settings on most internet search engines, porn sites are easily found on the internet, with adult industry webmasters being the first and most active to optimize their pages for search engine queries.

The low cost of copying and delivering digital data boosted the formation of private circles of people swapping pornography. Additionally, since the late 1990s, “porn from the masses for the masses” became another trend. Inexpensive digital cameras, increasingly powerful and user-friendly software, and easy access to pornographic source material have made it possible for individuals to produce and share home-made or home-altered porn for next to no cost.

Legal status

The legal status of pornography varies widely from country to country, with the majority of nations deeming at least some forms of pornography acceptable. In some countries, softcore pornography is considered tame enough to be sold in general stores or shown on television. Hardcore pornography, on the other hand, is usually regulated everywhere. The production and sale—and to a lesser degree, the possession—of child pornography is illegal in almost every country, and most nations have restrictions on pornography involving violence or animals.

The use of 3D-rendering to create highly realistic computer-generated images creates new legal dilemmas. For a period there existed the discrepancy that it was possible to film things that were imagined but never done, as the synthetic manifestation of the imagined acts did not constitute evidence of a crime. However, child pornography laws have been amended to include computerized images or altered pictures of children and counterfeit or synthetic images generated by computer, to be treated as child pornography.

The internet has also caused problems with the enforcement of age limits regarding the models or actors appearing in the images. In most countries, males and females under the age of 18 are not allowed to appear in porn films, but in several European countries the age limit is 16, and in the UK (excluding Northern Ireland) and in Denmark it is legal for women as young as 16 to appear topless in mainstream newspapers and magazines. This material often ends up on the Internet and can be viewed by people in countries where it constitutes as child pornography, creating challenges for lawmakers wishing to restrict access to such materials.

Most countries attempt to restrict minors’ access to hardcore materials, limiting availability to adult bookstores, mail-order, via pay-per-view television channels, among other means. There is usually an age minimum for entrance to pornographic stores, or the materials are displayed partly covered or not displayed at all. More generally, disseminating pornography to a minor is often illegal. However, many of these efforts have been rendered irrelevant by widely available and easily accessible internet pornography.

Child pornography as child abuse

Where child pornography involves depictions of children engaging in sexual conduct, the production of this material is itself legally prohibited as sexual abuse in most countries. Children are generally seen as below the age where they are effectively able to consent to images of them being used for sexual purposes. Children’s charity NCH have claimed that demand for child pornography on the internet has led to an increase in sexual abuse cases.

Effect on sex crimes

One of the arguments for the criminalization of pornography is that exposure to such materials, particularly for young people, corrupts their moral sensibilities and makes them more likely to commit sexual crimes. However, some reports suggest that the availability of pornography on the internet reduces rather than increases the incidence of rape.

Anti-pornography movement

Opposition to pornography comes generally, though not exclusively, from religious groups and feminists. Some of these critics have expressed belief in the existence of “pornography addiction.”

Religious objections

In the religious view, passion, greed, covetousness, hatred, and lust are emotions dominate that the soul, causing blindness to the truth and leading to destruction. Every major religion recognizes that suffering and evil are caused by excessive desires or desires directed toward a selfish purpose. Buddhism sums up the idea of craving in the second of the Four Noble Truths: “Craving is a fetter: Poisoning the heart, deluding the mind, and binding people to evil courses of action.”

Many religious groups discourage their members from viewing or reading pornography, and support legislation restricting its publication. These positions derive from broader religious views about human sexuality. In some religious traditions, for example, sexual intercourse is limited to the function of procreation. Thus, sexual pleasure or sex-oriented entertainment, as well as lack of modesty, are considered immoral. Other religions do not find sexual pleasure immoral, but see sex as a sacred, godly, highly-pleasurable activity that is only to be enjoyed with one’s spouse. These traditions do not condemn sexual pleasure in and of itself, but they impose limitations on the circumstances under which sexual pleasure may be properly experienced. Pornography in this view is seen as the secularization of something sacred, and a violation of a couple’s intimate relationship with each other.

In addition to expressing concerns about violating sexual morality, some religions take an anti-pornography stance claiming that viewing pornography is addictive, leading to self-destructive behavior. Proponents of this view compare pornography addiction to alcoholism, both in asserting the seriousness of the problem and in developing treatment methods.

Feminist objections

Feminist critics, such as Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, generally consider pornography demeaning to women. They believe that most pornography eroticizes the domination, humiliation, and coercion of women, reinforces sexual and cultural attitudes that are complicit in rape and sexual harassment, and contributes to the male-centered objectification of women. Some feminists distinguish between pornography and erotica, which they say does not have the same negative effects as pornography.

However, some feminists disagree with this position opposing pornography. They suggest instead that appearing in or using pornography can be explained as each individual woman’s choice, not caused by socialization in a male-dominated culture. Thus, it is the right of each woman to choose whether or not to participate.

MacKinnon and Dworkin have noted that in addition to dehumanizing women pornography is likely to encourage violence against them. While it has been found that “high pornography use is not necessarily indicative of high risk for sexual aggression,” nevertheless “if a person has relatively aggressive sexual inclinations resulting from various personal and/or cultural factors, some pornography exposure may activate and reinforce associated coercive tendencies and behaviors.”

According to Diana Russell, “When addressing the question of whether or not pornography causes rape, as well as other forms of sexual assault and violence, many people fail to acknowledge that the actual making of pornography sometimes involves, or even requires, violence and sexual assault.”

In 1979, Andrea Dworkin published Pornography: Men Possessing Women, which analyzes (and extensively cites examples drawn from) contemporary and historical pornography as an industry of woman-hating dehumanization. Dworkin argues that it is implicated in violence against women, both in its production (through the abuse of the women used to star in it), and in the social consequences of its consumption (by encouraging men to eroticize the domination, humiliation, and abuse of women).

 

John Jacob Astor

John Jacob Astor (July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) became the first American millionaire. He was the creator of the first Trust in America, from which he made his fortune in the fur trade, real estate, and opium. Astor was a very ambitious and shrewd businessman amassing a fortune in only six years. In 1808, he organized the American Fur Company in response to British Fur trading dominance in Canada. When he retired and sold his fur-trading business, he spent his time and money to improve the lives of others. He left an endowment of $400,000 to New York City for a public library, later known as the Astor Library. This library eventually became what is now the world-famous New York Public Library.

Biography

Early life

Astor was born in 1763 to a poor working class family in Waldorf, Germany. He was the youngest of three sons born to butcher (Johann Jacob Astor). Astor left Germany at the age of 18 to work with his oldest brother, George Astor, manufacturing musical instruments. Although, he was earning a good living in London, he left for the United States. Astor arrived in America in March, 1784, just after the end of the Revolutionary War. He traded furs with Indians and then he started a fur goods shop in New York City in the late 1780s. The fur trading business was very lucrative for Astor, he began trading internationally and quickly made a name for himself. During this time in New York, Astor met and married Sarah Todd. They had eight children.

Children

1. Magdalen (1788-1832)
2. Sarah (1790-1791)
3. John Jacob II (1791-1879)
4. William Backhouse (1792-1875)
5. Dorothee (1795-1853)
6. Henry (1797-1799)
7. Eliza (1801-1838)
8. Jacob Warndorf (1802)

Fortune from fur trade

Astor took advantage of the Jay Treaty between Great Britain and the United States in 1794, which opened new markets in Canada and the Great Lakes region. By 1800, he had amassed almost a quarter of a million dollars, and had become one of the leading figures in the fur trade. In 1800, following the example of the “Empress of China,” the first American trading vessel to China, Astor traded furs, teas, and sandalwood with Canton in China, and greatly benefited from it. The Embargo Act from Thomas Jefferson in 1807, however, disrupted his import/export business. With the permission of President Jefferson, Astor established the American Fur Company on April 6, 1808. He later formed subsidiaries: the Pacific Fur Company, and the Southwest Fur Company (in which Canadians had a part), in order to control fur trading in the Columbia River and Great Lakes area.

The Columbia River trading post at Fort Astoria (established in April 1811) was the first United States community on the Pacific coast. He financed the overland Astor Expedition in 1810-1812 to reach the outpost. Members of the expedition were to discover South Pass through which hundreds of thousands settlers on the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails passed through the Rocky Mountains.

His fur trading ventures were disrupted once again when the British captured his trading posts during the War of 1812, but rebounded in 1817 after the U.S. Congress passed a protectionist law that barred foreign traders from U.S. Territories. The American Fur Company once again came to dominate trading in the area around the Great Lakes. In 1822, Astor established the Astor House on Mackinac Island as headquarters for the reformed American Fur Company, making the island a metropolis of the fur trade. A lengthy description based on documents, diaries etc. was given by Washington Irving in his travelogue Astoria.

In 1802, Astor purchased what remained of a 99 year lease from Aaron Burr for $62,500. At the time, Burr was serving as vice president under Thomas Jefferson and was desperately short on cash. The lease was to run until May 1, 1866. Astor began subdividing the land into nearly 250 lots and subleased them. His conditions were that the tenant could do whatever they wish with the lots for 21 years, after which they must renew the lease or Astor would take back the lot.

Real estate

In the 1830s, John Jacob Astor figured that the next big boom would be in the buildup of New York, which would soon emerge as one of the world’s greatest cities. Astor withdrew from the American Fur Company, as well as all his other ventures, and invested all his proceeds on buying and developing large tracts of land, focusing solely on Manhattan real estate. Foreseeing the rapid growth northward on Manhattan Island, Astor purchased more and more land out beyond the current city limits. Astor rarely built on his land, and instead let others pay rent to use it.

Later life and legacy

After retiring from his business, Astor spent the rest of his life as a patron of culture. He supported the famous ornithologist, John James Audubon, the poet/writer Edgar Allan Poe, and the presidential campaign of Henry Clay. At the time of his death in 1848, Astor was the wealthiest person in the United States, leaving an estate estimated to be worth at least 20 million dollars. In his will, in addition to the orders to build the Astor Library for the New York public, he had a poorhouse erected in his German hometown, Waldorf. As a symbol of the earliest fortunes in New York, John Jacob Astor is mentioned in Herman Melville’s great novella “Bartleby the Scrivener.”

The great bulk of his fortune was bequeathed to his second son, William Backhouse Astor Sr., instead of his eldest son John Jacob Astor II (1791-1869).

John Jacob Astor is interred in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The famous pair of marble lions that sit by the stairs of The New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street were origially named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, after Astor and James Lenox, who founded the library. Then they were called Lord Astor and Lady Lenox (both lions are males), before being given the names Patience and Fortitude by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia during the Great Depression.

 

Gospel of Judas

The Gospel of Judas, a second century Gnostic gospel, was discovered in the twentieth century and publicly unveiled in 2006. It portrays the apostle Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, in a more positive light than can be found in the New Testament accepted by Christianity. According to the traditional canonical Gospels, Judas betrayed Jesus to the Great Sanhedrin, which officiated over his crucifixion. The Gospel of Judas instead presents this act as one performed in obedience to the instructions of Jesus. Such a portrayal of the “betrayal” of Jesus is consistent with the Gnostic notion that the human form is a prison of the spirit within; thus Judas helped to release the spirit of Christ from the physical constraints of his body. An alternate reading of the Gospel’s incomplete text suggests it is really saying that Judas was possessed by a demon.

The papyrus has been carbon-dated to approximately the third to fourth century C.E., and its text points to a date in the second century, as evidenced by its introduction and epilogue, which assume the reader is familiar with the canonical Gospels. The gospel of Judas contains no references supporting the view that Judas himself was its author, but rather that it was written by Gnostic followers of Jesus the Christ. Still, there are nagging questions about whether the document could be a modern forgery.

Background

During the second and third centuries C.E., various semi-Christian and non-Christian groups composed texts that are loosely labeled as New Testament Apocrypha, which were usually (but not always) written in the names of apostles, patriarchs or other persons mentioned in the Old Testament, New Testament or older Jewish apocryphal literature. The gospel of Judas is one of these texts and is so described by the only two references to it in antiquity.

Mention in Antiquity

The manuscript called Codex Tchacos, the only known manuscript that includes the text of the Gospel of Judas, surfaced in the 1970s in Egypt as a leather-bound papyrus manuscript. The papyri on which the Gospel is written is now in over a thousand pieces, possibly due to poor handling and storage, with many sections missing. In some cases, there are only scattered words; in others, many lines. According to Rodolphe Kasser, the codex originally contained 31 pages, with writing on front and back; but when it came to the market in 1999, only 13 pages, with writing on front and back, remained. It is speculated that individual pages had been removed and put up for sale. The early Christian writer Irenaeus of Lyons, whose writings were almost all directed against Gnosticism, mentions The Gospel of Judas in Book 1 Chapter 31 of Refutation of Gnosticism calling it a “fictitious history.” His death around 200 C.E. presents a terminus ante quem for its date of origin.

It was also referred to by Origen in the year 230 C.E. in his book Stromateis, which indirectly attacked Gnosticism.

Dating and Authenticity

Due to textual analysis for features of dialect and Greek loan words, academics who have analyzed the Gospel of Judas, which is written in the Coptic language, believe that it is probably a translation from an older Greek manuscript dating to approximately 130–180 C.E. Additionally, the references to the gospel found in early church writings (mentioned above) offer another way to date the text by providing a definite end point to its composition.

The existing manuscript was radiocarbon dated to be “between the third and fourth century” according to Timothy Jull, a carbon-dating expert at the University of Arizona’s physics centre. Only sections of papyrus with no text were carbon dated.

Nevertheless, there are nagging questions about whether the document could be a modern forgery. Doubts arise from a grammatical error carried over from a published copy of the Nag Hammadi text of the Apocryphon of John and a modern-sounding polemic against homosexual priests. If so, the forger would have to be a modern scholar of who knew second-century Coptic and who had access to an old papyrus that would yield the early radiocarbon date.

Content

Like many Gnostic works, the Gospel of Judas claims to be a secret account, specifically “the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot.”

Over the ages, many philosophers have contemplated the idea that Judas was required to have carried out his actions in order for Jesus to have died on the cross and hence fulfill theological obligations. However, the Gospel of Judas asserts that Judas was acting on the orders of Jesus himself.

The Gospel of Judas states that Jesus told Judas “You shall be cursed for generations.” It then adds to this conversation that Jesus had told Judas “you will come to rule over them,” and that “You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”

Unlike the four canonical gospels, which employ narrative accounts of the last year of life of Jesus (three years in the case of John) and of his birth (only in the case of Luke and Matthew), the Judas gospel takes the form of dialogues between Jesus and Judas (and Jesus and the 12 disciples) without being embedded in any narrative or worked into any overt philosophical or rhetorical context. Such dialogue gospels were popular during the early decades of Christianity.

Like the canonical gospels, the Gospel of Judas portrays the scribes as wanting to arrest Jesus, and offering Judas money to hand over Jesus to them. However, unlike the Judas of the canonical gospels, who is portrayed as a villain, and chastised by Jesus, “Alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born,” (Mark 14:21; Matthew 26:24) (trans. The New English Bible), the Judas gospel portrays him as a divinely appointed instrument of a grand and predetermined purpose. “In the last days they will curse your ascent to the holy (generation).”

Another portion shows Jesus favoring Judas above other disciples, saying, “Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom,” and later “Look, you have been told everything. Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is your star.”

The Gospel of Judas does not say that Judas hanged himself—indeed it seems to indicate Judas died while being stoned by the remaining eleven disciples. (He is said to have died by hanging himself in the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 27:3-10, and by bursting open after a fall, in the Book of Acts, Acts 1: 16-19.)

Ancient controversy

Irenaeus mentions a Gospel of Judas in his anti-Gnostic work Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies), written in about 180. He writes there are some who:

…declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves…. They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictional history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas. (Irenaeus, “Doctrine of the Cainites”

This is in reference to the Cainites, an alleged sect of Gnosticism that especially worshipped Cain as a hero. Irenaeus alleged that the Cainites, like a large number of Gnostic groups, were semi-maltheists believing that the god of the Old Testament—Yahweh—was evil, and a quite different and much lesser being to the deity that had created the universe, and who was responsible for sending Jesus. Such Gnostic groups worshipped as heroes all the Biblical figures that had sought to discover knowledge or challenge Yahweh’s authority, while demonizing those who would have been seen as heroes in a more orthodox interpretation.

The Gospel of Judas belongs to a school of Gnosticism called Sethianism, a group who looked to Adam’s son Seth as their spiritual ancestor. As in other Sethian documents, Jesus is equated with Seth: “The first is Seth, who is called Christ” although this is in part of an emanationist mythology describing both positive and negative aeons.

For metaphysical reasons, the Sethian Gnostic authors of this text maintained that Judas acted as he did in order that mankind might be redeemed by the death of Jesus’ mortal body. For this reason, they regarded Judas as worthy of gratitude and veneration. The Gospel of Judas does not describe any events after the arrest of Jesus.

By contrast, the Gospel of John, unlike the synoptic gospels, contains the statement of Jesus to Judas, as the latter leaves the Last Supper to set in motion the betrayal process, “Do quickly what you have to do.” (John 13:27) (trans. The New English Bible). Interpretations include: this was a direct command to Judas to do what he did; Jesus was speaking to Satan rather than to Judas (thus “Satan entered into Judas”); or Jesus knew what Judas was secretly plotting.

Some two centuries after Irenaeus’ complaint, Epiphanius of Salamis, bishop of Cyprus, criticized the Gospel of Judas for treating as commendable the person whom he saw as the betrayer of Jesus, and as one who “performed a good work for our salvation.” (Haeres., xxxviii).

The initial translation of the Gospel of Judas, widely publicized, simply confirmed the account that was written in Irenaeus and known Gnostic beliefs, leading some scholars to simply summarize the discovery as nothing new.

However, a closer reading of the existent text, presented in October 2006, shows that Judas may have been set up to actually betray Jesus out of wrath and anger:

“Truly [I] say to you, Judas, [those who] offer sacrifices to Saklas [… exemplify…] everything that is evil. But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me. Already your horn has been raised, your wrath has been kindled, your star has shown brightly, and your heart has [been hardened…]”

The initial translators might have been misled by Irenaeus’ summary, which although an exciting idea was not necessarily accurate. Their theory is now in dispute.

Rediscovery

Origins

The content of the gospel had been unknown until a Coptic Gospel of Judas turned up on the antiquities “grey market,” first seen under shady circumstances in a hotel room in Geneva in May 1983, when it was found among a mixed group of Greek and Coptic manuscripts offered to Stephen Emmel, a Yale Ph.D. candidate commissioned by Southern Methodist University to inspect the manuscripts. How this manuscript, Codex Tchacos, was found has not been clearly documented. However, it is believed that a now-deceased Egyptian antiquities prospector discovered the codex near El Minya, Egypt, in the neighborhood of the village Beni Masar, and sold it to a Cairo antiquities dealer called “Hanna.”

Around 1970, the manuscript and most of the dealer’s other artifacts were stolen by a Greek trader named Nikolas Koutoulakis, taken out of Egypt and smuggled into Geneva. Hanna managed to recover the codex by coordinating with antiquity traders in Switzerland. He then showed it to experts who recognized its significance, but it took him two decades to find a buyer who would pay the asking price of $3 million.

Sale and study

During the decades that the manuscript was for sale, no major library felt ready to purchase a codex with such questionable provenance. In 2003, Michel van Rijn started to publish material about the dubious dealings. Eventually the 62-page leather bound codex was purchased by the Maecenas Foundation in Basel, a private foundation directed by lawyer Mario Jean Roberty. Its previous owners now claimed that it had been uncovered at Muhafazat al Minya in Egypt during the 1950s or 1960s, and that its significance had not been appreciated until recently. It is worth noting that various other sites were mentioned in other negotiations.

The existence of the text was made public by Rodolphe Kasser at a conference of Coptic specialists in Paris, July 2004. In a statement issued March 30, 2005, a spokesman for the Maecenas Foundation announced plans for edited translations into English, French and German, once the fragile papyrus had undergone conservation by a team of specialists in Coptic history to be led by a former professor at the University of Geneva, Rodolphe Kasser. In January of 2005 at the University of Arizona, A. J. Tim Jull, director of the National Science Foundation Arizona AMS laboratory, and Gregory Hodgins, assistant research scientist, announced that a radiocarbon dating procedure had dated five samples from the papyrus manuscript from 220 to 340 C.E.. This puts this particular copy of the Coptic manuscript in the third or fourth centuries, a century earlier than had originally been thought from analysis of the script. In January 2006, Gene A. Ware of the Papyrological Imaging Lab of Brigham Young University conducted a multi-spectral imaging process on the texts in Switzerland, and confirmed their authenticity. “After concluding the research, everything will be returned to Egypt. The work belongs there and they will be conserved in the best way,” Roberty has stated.

Over the decades, the manuscript had been handled with less than sympathetic care and single pages had been stolen to be sold on the antiquities market (one half page turned up in Feb. 2006, in New York City. Today, the text, now in over a thousand pieces and fragments, is thought to be less than three-quarters complete. In April of 2006, an Ohio bankruptcy lawyer claimed to have several small, brown bits of papyrus that are parts of the Gospel of Judas, but he refuses to have the fragments authenticated and his claim is being viewed with skepticism by experts.

Responses and reactions

Scholarly debates

Professor Kasser revealed a few details about the text in 2004, the Dutch paper Parool reported. Its language is the same Sahidic dialect of Coptic in which Coptic texts of the Nag Hammadi Library are written. The codex has four parts: the Letter of Peter to Philip, already known from the Nag Hammadi Library; the First Apocalypse of James, also known from the Nag Hammadi Library; the first few pages of a work related to, but not the same as, the Nag Hammadi work Allogenes, and the Gospel of Judas. Up to a third of the codex is currently illegible.

A scientific paper was to be published in 2005, but was delayed. The completion of the restoration and translation was announced by the National Geographic Society at a news conference in Washington, DC on April 6, 2006, and the manuscript itself was unveiled then at the National Geographic Society headquarters, accompanied by a television special entitled The Gospel of Judas on April 9, 2006, which was aired on the National Geographic Channel.

Terry Garcia, an executive vice president of the National Geographic Society, asserted that the codex is considered by scholars and scientists to be the most significant ancient, non-biblical text to be found since the 1940s. Many copies of the Gospel of Judas appear to have been destroyed by the early Church to prevent its views from spreading, and to conform to orthodoxy. In 367 C.E., the bishop of Alexandria urged Christians to “cleanse the church from every defilement” and to reject “the hidden books.” It is possible that, in response to calls such as this one, Christians destroyed or hid most of the non-canonical gospels including the Gospel of Judas. Thus, its re-surfacing in the twentieth century was a very important event in biblical archeology and scholarship. However, James M. Robinson, one of America’s leading experts on such ancient religious texts, predicted that the new book would not offer any insights into the disciple who betrayed Jesus because, though the document is old, being from the third century, the text is not old enough. According to Robinson, it was probably based on an earlier document. However, Robinson also suggested that the text would be valuable to scholars concentrating on the second century, but not because it provided a greater understanding of the Bible.

National Geographic responded to Robinson’s criticism by saying that “it’s ironic” for Robinson to raise such questions since he had “for years, tried unsuccessfully to acquire the codex himself, and is publishing his own book in April 2006, despite having no direct access to the materials.”

Robinson describes the secretive maneuvers in the United States, Switzerland, Greece and elsewhere over two decades to sell the Judas manuscript, while a novel by Simon Mawer, The Gospel of Judas (published in 2000 (UK) and 2001 (US)), revolves around the discovery of a Gospel of Judas in a Dead Sea cave and its effect on a scholarly priest.

Religious responses

In his 2006 Easter address, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, condemned the credibility of the gospel, saying, “This is a demonstrably late text which simply parallels a large number of quite well-known works from the more eccentric fringes of the early century Church.” He went on to suggest that the book’s publicity derives from an insatiable desire for conspiracy theories:

We are instantly fascinated by the suggestion of conspiracies and cover-ups; this has become so much the stuff of our imagination these days that it is only natural, it seems, to expect it when we turn to ancient texts, especially biblical texts. We treat them as if they were unconvincing press releases from some official source, whose intention is to conceal the real story; and that real story waits for the intrepid investigator to uncover it and share it with the waiting world. Anything that looks like the official version is automatically suspect.

The official position of the Roman Catholic Church toward the Gospel of John was released on April 13, 2006:

The Vatican, by word of Pope Benedict XVI, grants the recently surfaced Judas’ Gospel no credit with regards to its apocryphal claims that Judas betrayed Jesus in compliance with the latter’s own requests. According to the Pope, Judas freely chose to betray Jesus: “an open rejection of God’s love.” Judas, according to Pope Benedict XVI “viewed Jesus in terms of power and success: his only real interests lied with his power and success, there was no love involved. He was a greedy man: money was more important than communing with Jesus; money came before God and his love.” According to the Pope it was these traits that led Judas to “turn liar, two-faced, indifferent to the truth,” “losing any sense of God,” “turning hard, incapable of converting, of being the prodigal son, hence throwing away a spent existence”.

 

Bark

Bark is the outermost layer of stems and roots of woody plants, such as trees and shrubs. The tissues included depend on how broadly the term is defined and the age of the plant (whether considering primary tissues or secondary growth). Broadly defined, bark refers to all those tissues outside the vascular cambium, or all tissues from the living phloem outward. However, in popular use, the term bark is often used in reference to only the cork or only to the periderm (cork, cork cambium, and phellederm) in plants with secondary growth. Some definitions include the vascular cambium in the definition.

The outer bark of dead cork cells gives the pattern seen in trees, adding to the diversity in nature and enhancing human aesthetic pleasure. But bark also provides many other values to human beings. Bark is the source of the anti-malarial drug quinine, the commonly used salicylic acid (aspirin), and numerous cancer drugs, as well as adding a wide variety of other benefits, such as cork, teas, cinnamon, fiber, tannic acid, and so forth.

Tissues included in bark

For many plants, the dividing point between bark and the rest of the organism usually is considered the vascular cambium. The vascular cambium is a part of a woody stem where cell division occurs. It contains undifferentiated cells that divide rapidly to produce secondary xylem to the inside and secondary phloem to the outside. The vascular cambium lies between these two layers. Vascular cambium is usually found on dicots and gymnosperms but not monocots, which lack secondary growth.

Along with the xylem, the phloem is one of the two tissues inside a plant that are involved with fluid transport. The phloem transports organic molecules (particularly sugars) to wherever they are needed. Xylem is the primary water-conducting tissue. Xylem is not part of the bark, whereas phloem is included.

Cork, sometimes confused with bark in colloquial speech, is the outermost layer of a woody stem, derived from the cork cambium. Cork is an external, secondary tissue impermeable to water and gases. It serves as protection against damage, parasites, and diseases, as well as dehydration and extreme temperatures. Some cork is substantially thicker, providing further insulation and giving the bark a characteristic structure; in some cases thick enough to be harvestable as cork product without killing the tree.

Epidermis is the outer, single-layered group of cells that covers the leaf and young tissues of a vascular plant, including primary tissues of stems and roots. The epidermis serves several functions—protection against water loss, regulation of gas exchange, secretion of metabolic compounds, and (especially in roots) absorption of water and mineral nutrients.

In young stems of woody plants (trees, shrubs, and some perennial vines), the bark is made up of the following tissues arranged from the outside surface to the inside:

• Cork – an external, secondary tissue impermeable to water and gases.
• Cork cambium – A layer of cells, normally one or two cell layers thick that is in a persistent meristematic state that produces cork.
• Phelloderm – (not always present) A layer of cells formed in some plants from the inner cells of the cork cambium (Cork is produced from the outer layer).
• Cortex – The primary tissue of stems and roots. In stems, the cortex is between the epidermis layer and the phloem, in roots the inner layer is not phloem but the pericycle.
• Phloem – nutrient conducting tissue composed of sieve tub or sieve cells mixed with parenchym and fibers.

In primary tissues, the bark of stems (broadly defined) includes the phloem, cortex, and epidermis, and the bark of roots would be the cortex and epidermis. The cork cambium subsequently is responsible for secondary growth that replaces the epidermis in roots and stems..

In roots with secondary growth, the cortex and epidermis may be sloughed off as cork is formed, and in these cases the bark includes the phloem, cork cambrium, cork, and phelloderm.

In old stems, the epidermal layer, cortex, and primary phloem become separated from the inner tissues by thicker formations of cork. Due to the thickening cork layer, these cells die because they do not receive water and nutrients. This dead layer is the rough corky bark that forms around tree trunks and other stems. In smaller stems and on typically non-woody plants, sometimes a secondary covering form called the periderm, which is made up of cork cambian, cork, and phelloderm. It replaces the dermal layer and acts as a covering much like the corky bark—it too is made up of mostly dead tissue. The skin on the potato is a periderm.

Uses

The bark of some trees is edible, and native American Indians used to feed on the inner bark of various trees, such as ceder, slippery elm, and white birch, when other sources of food were scarce. Diverse teas are produced from bark, such as using the inner bark of slippery elm (Ulmus rubra), and the bark from different species of trees historically has been used for such treatments as toothaches, fever, low blood pressure, asthma, inflammation, and so forth.

Many important medicinal products are obtained from bark. These include the alkaloid quinine, which is extracted from the root and trunk bark of Cinchona, native to the South American Andes. Quinine is an effective remedy against malaria, and indeed the plant was named after the Countess of Chinchon who was cured of malaria in 1623 using the bark, the Spanish having been introduced to its use in 1633 by the native Indians in Peru. Salicylic acid (aspirin) is derived from the bark of willow trees. Cancer drugs, among others, are also derived from barks, including treatments for colon, ovarian, lung, and breast cancer.

Bark is used for basketry making, clothing, and cloth (from beaten bark, principally in Pacific Islands, southeast Asia, parts of Africa and South America). Among the commercial products made from bark are cork, cinnamon, fiber, roofing material, tannic acid (used in tanning, most notably from the bark of oak, Quercus robur), and antiseptics, like tannins. Historically, shelters, belts, headdresses, coffins, and ornaments were made with bark, and canoes made from bark have been in use for over 3,000 years.

 

Haggis

Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish. Haggis is extremely well known and, perhaps, the one food which most represents Scotland. Traditionally, the haggis is cooked in a sheep’s stomach, rather like a very large oval sausage. The haggis was the subject of the Robbert Burns’ poem, Address To A Haggis, which is recited while the haggis is marched in, accompanied by bagpipes, to be served at a Burns supper.

The haggis is an example of human ingenuity in using every part of an animal for food, in a way that preserves the meat without spoiling for later consumption and in a manner that allows transportation. Also, the haggis has become a cultural icon. Its contents and preparation reflect the Scottish trait of thriftiness. Its popularity among expatriates is evidence of pride in their culture, particularly as represented by Robert Burns. Well-known throughout the world as typical Scottish fare, yet rather enigmatic in origin and flavor, the haggis also reflects not only the mystique but also the humor of the Scots, as tourists are often teased and tricked with tales of the fictional Wild Haggis.

Preparation

Haggis somewhat resembles stuffed intestines (pig intestines otherwise known as chitterlings or the kokoretsi of traditional Greek cuisine), sausages, and savory puddings of which it is among the largest types. As the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique puts it, “Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour.” There are many recipes for haggis, most of which include the following ingredients: sheep’s “pluck” (offal) (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal’s stomach for approximately three hours.

Haggis is widely available in supermarkets in Scotland (and in some parts of England) all the year round, with cheaper brands normally packed in artificial casings, rather than stomachs, just as cheaper brands of sausages are no longer stuffed into animal intestines. Sometimes haggis is sold in canned, and can simply be microwaved or oven-baked. Some supermarket haggis is largely made from pig, rather than sheep, offal.

Since the 1960s various Scottish shops and manufacturers have created vegetarian haggis for those who do not eat meat. These substitute various vegetables and lentils for the meat in the dish, and have proved remarkably popular. Since both the offal-based and the vegetarian haggis have wide variations in flavor depending on the recipe used, it would be difficult to demonstrate that the two varieties do or do not taste alike.

History

The haggis is frequently assumed to be Scottish in origin although there is little evidence for this. It appears that the Ancient Romans made products of the haggis type. A kind of primitive haggis is referred to in Homer’s Odyssey, in book 20, when Odysseus is compared to “a man before a great blazing fire turning swiftly this way and that a stomach full of fat and blood, very eager to have it roasted quickly.”

Clarissa Dickson Wright repudiated the assumption of a Scottish origin for haggis, claiming that it “came to Scotland in a longship [in other words from Scandinavia] even before Scotland was a single nation.” Dickson-Wright further cites etymologist Walter William Skeat as further suggestion of possible Scandinavian origins: Skeat claimed that the hag– part of the word is derived from the Old Norse hoggva or the Icelandic haggw, meaning ‘to hew’ or strike with a sharp weapon, relating to the chopped-up contents of the dish.

Dickson Wright suggests that haggis was invented as a way of cooking quick-spoiling offal near the site of a hunt, without the need to carry along an additional cooking vessel. The liver and kidneys could be grilled directly over a fire, but this treatment was unsuitable for the stomach, intestines, or lungs. Chopping up the lungs and stuffing the stomach with them and whatever fillers might have been on hand, then boiling the assembly—likely in a vessel made from the animal’s hide—was one way to make sure these parts did not go to waste. In fact, in times of famine people would eat whatever it was that they could get their hands on, which is how all those fascinating ingredients became a part of Scottish tradition.

Popular folklore has provided more additional theories regarding the origins of the haggis. One such belief is that the dish originates from the days of the old Scottish cattle drovers. When the men left the highlands to drive their cattle to market in Edinburgh the women would prepare rations for them to eat during the long journey down through the glens. They used the ingredients that were most readily available in their homes and conveniently packaged them in a sheep’s stomach allowing for easy transportation during the journey. Other speculations have been based on Scottish slaughtering practices. When a Chieftain or Laird required an animal to be slaughtered for meat (whether sheep or cattle) the workmen were allowed to keep the offal as their share.

Use

Haggis is traditionally served with “neeps and tatties” (Scots: swede, yellow turnip or rutabaga and potatoes; these are boiled and mashed separately) and a “dram” (a glass of Scotch whisky). However, it might perhaps be more accurate to describe this as the traditional main course of a Burns supper, since on other occasions haggis may be eaten with other accompaniments. Whisky sauce (made from thickened stock and Scotch whisky) has also been developed as an elegant addition.

Haggis can be served in Scottish fast-food establishments deep fried in batter. Together with chips, this comprises a “haggis supper.” A “haggis burger” is a patty of fried haggis served on a bun, and a “haggis bhaji” is another deep fried variant, available in some Indian restaurants in Glasgow. Higher class restaurants sometimes serve chicken breast stuffed with haggis which is often referred to as “Chicken Jacobite”; haggis can also be used as a substitute for minced beef in various recipes.

Another modern haggis-based dish is “Flying Scotsman,” chicken stuffed with haggis. This dish is also known as Balmoral Chicken when the chicken is stuffed with haggis and also wrapped in bacon.

Scotch whisky is often asserted to be the traditional accompaniment for haggis, though this may simply be because both are traditionally served at a Burns supper. Warren Edwardes of Wine for Spice notes that haggis is spicy and therefore recommends refreshing semi-sparkling wines to drink with haggis with increasing level of sweetness depending on the spiciness of the haggis. He argued that whisky, on the other hand, with its high alcohol level, can exaggerate spice rather than complement it. Haggis-maker MacSween conducted a taste-test, confirming that whisky is a proper accompaniment for haggis, adding that lighter-bodied, tannic red wines, such as those made from the Barbera grape, are also suitable, as are strong, powerfully flavored Belgian beers, such as Duvel and Chimay Blue.

Haggis is popular with expatriate American Scots due to the strong connotations it has with Scottish culture. It is particularly popular for celebrations of St. Andrew’s Day (November 30) and Burns suppers in January. In summer, the “off-season” for haggis, it is a popular dish at Scottish and Celtic festivals. However, the import of haggis to the USA was deemed illegal, in a measure that dates back to the Mad-cow disease scare of 1989. This is due to the offal ingredients, such as sheep lungs, found in haggis. The British Food Standards Agency disputed these concerns, and claimed there is no reason for the import of haggis to be restricted. As a result of the ban on imported haggis, several American manufacturers have developed their own recipes, which have become popular.

Burns supper

Haggis is traditionally served with the Burns supper on the week of January 25, when Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, is commemorated. He wrote the poem Ode Tae a Haggis, which begins “Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!” During Burns’s lifetime haggis was a popular dish for the poor, as it was very cheap being made from leftover, otherwise thrown away, parts of a sheep (the most common livestock in Scotland), yet nourishing.

The traditional Burns supper always includes haggis as the main dish. Whether the whole event is formal or not, everyone stands as the haggis is brought in by the cook, generally accompanied by a piper playing bagpipes. The host then recites the Address To a Haggis. This custom has been carried through the years and is firmly established as one of the key recitals at any Burns Supper, celebrated by millions throughout the world.

Entertainment

Haggis, along with some other foods associated with a specific country or region (such as Australia’s Vegemite, Minnesota’s lutefisk, or Scandinavia’s salmiakki), is perceived to be loved in its home country and loathed by the rest of the world. The Scots often enjoy exploiting the unusual aspects of haggis to visitors who are curious, albeit with expectations of disgust, about this famous yet rather mysterious dish. Tourists are often fooled (at least briefly) by Scottish pranksters attempting to lead them on a ‘Wild Haggis Hunt’. Furthering this joke, The Scotsman newspaper’s web site runs an annual Haggis Hunt.

Haggis is also used in a sport called haggis hurling, throwing a haggis as far as possible. The Guinness World Record for Haggis Hurling was held by Alan Pettigrew for over 22 years. He threw a 1.5 lb Haggis an astonishing 180 feet, ten inches on the island of Inchmurrin, Loch Lomond, in August 1984.

Wild haggis

Wild Haggis (Haggis scoticus) is a fictional creature said to be native to the Scottish Highlands. It is comically claimed to be the source of the traditional haggis dish.

According to some sources, the left legs of the wild haggis are of different length than its right legs, allowing it to run quickly around the steep mountains and hillsides which make up its natural habitat, but only in one direction. It is further claimed that there are two varieties of haggis, one with longer left legs and the other with longer right legs. The former variety can run clockwise around a mountain (as seen from above) while the latter can run anticlockwise. The two varieties coexist peacefully but are unable to interbreed in the wild because in order for the male of one variety to mate with a female of the other, he must turn to face in the same direction as his intended mate, causing him to lose his balance before he can mount her. As a result of this difficulty, differences in leg length among the Haggis population are accentuated.

The notion of the wild Haggis is widely believed, though not always including the idea of mismatched legs. According to a survey released on 26 November 2003, one-third of U.S. visitors to Scotland believed the wild Haggis to be a real creature.

Similar dishes

Dishes similar to haggis are found in a number of other cultures. These dishes include the following:

Chireta is an Aragonese type of haggis. It is a flavorful rustic dish in the counties of Ribagorza, Sobrarbe, and Somontano de Barbastro, high up in the Spanish Pyrenees. In the Catalan counties of Alta Ribagorça and Pallars, chireta is known as gireta, or girella, respectively. Being a mountain recipe, nothing goes to waste: once the choice cuts of a slaughtered sheep have been reserved, the Chireta is made by boiling a mixture of rice and sheep offal, mainly lungs and heart, inside the sheep intestines. The mixture is enhanced with rice, chopped pancetta or bacon, cured ham, parsley, garlic, a pinch of cinnamon, salt and white pepper. Chireta literally means “Inside Out”—the sheep’s intestines which make up the casings are cleaned and turned inside out for a smoother, more appetizing appearance.

Drob is a Romanian dish, similar to haggis, traditionally served as the main dish at Easter. It is a cooked mix of spiced minced lamb organs (liver, heart, and lungs) together with green onions and eggs, cooked in the lamb’s stomach.

Saumagen is a German dish popular in the Palatinate. The name means “sow’s stomach,” but the stomach is seldom eaten, rather it is used like a casing. Saumagen consists of potatoes, carrots and pork, usually spiced with onions, marjoram, nutmeg white pepper, and various recipes also include other herbs or spices. Sometimes beef is used as well. The larger ingredients are diced finely. After that, the saumagen is cooked in hot water and either served directly with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes or stored in the refrigerator for later use.

Slátur (meaning (“slaughter”) is an Icelandic dish in which sheep’s stomachs are filled with blood, fat, and liver. The idea is to use everything from the slaughtered sheep and not let any food go to waste. Many Icelandic housewifes used to make one or two types of slátur each autumn with the participation of the whole family. In contemporary times they generally buy slátur in the supermarket.

Jane Elizabeth Digby

Jane Elizabeth Digby, Lady Ellenborough (3 April 1807 – 11 August 1881) was an English aristocrat who lived a scandalous life of romantic adventure, spanning decades and two continents. She had four husbands and many lovers, including King [[Ludwig I of Bavaria, his son King Otto of Greece, statesman Felix Schwarzenberg, and an Albanian brigand general. She died in Damascus, Syria as the wife of Arab Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab, who was 20 years her junior.

Family

Jane Elizabeth Digby was born in Forston House, near Minterne Magna, Dorset on 3 April 1807, daughter of Admiral Henry Digby and Lady Jane Elizabeth née Coke, a renowned beauty. She was often called Jenny, or Aurora, the latter bestowed upon Jane by one of her many admirers. Jane’s father seized the Spanish treasure ship Spanish ship Santa Brigada in 1799 and his share of the prize money established the family fortune.

As captain of HMS Africa he participated under Admiral Nelson’s command in the Battle of Trafalgar. His estate, Minterne Magna, was inherited. Jane’s maternal grandfather was Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester. Pamela Churchill Harriman was the great-great-niece of Jane Digby.

Marriages, scandal, and affairs

Considered promiscuous for her times, she was first married to Edward Law, 2nd Baron Ellenborough (later Earl of Ellenborough) on 15 October 1824 who became Governor General of India. At the time of her marriage, Jane was described as tall, with a perfect figure. She had a lovely face, pale-gold hair, wide-spaced dark blue eyes, long dark lashes, and a wild rose complexion. They had one son, Arthur Dudley, who died in infancy.

After affairs with her cousin, George Anson (whom Jane thought was the biological father of her son), and Felix Schwarzenberg, an Austrian statesman, she was divorced from Lord Ellenborough in 1830 by an act of Parliament. This caused considerable scandal at the time. Jane had two children with Felix before he left her in Paris: a daughter, Mathilde “Didi” (born 12 November 1829 and raised by Felix’s sister) in Basel, Switzerland; and a son Felix (born December 1830) who died just a few weeks after his birth.

She then moved on to Munich and became the lover of Ludwig I of Bavaria, but had a son, Heribert, by the Bavarian Baron Karl von Venningen, whom she married in a relationship based on convenience in 1832. Heribert was born on 27 January 1833 in Palermo, Sicily where Jane was residing at the time with her husband.

Soon she found a new lover in the Greek count Spyridon Theotokis. Venningen found out and challenged Theotokis to a duel. He wounded him but generously released her from the marriage, took care of her children, and remained her friend. Jane married Theotokis and they moved to Greece. Greece’s King Otto, became her lover. The marriage to Theotokis ended in divorce after the fatal fall of their 6 year old son, Leonidas.

Next came an affair with a hero of Greek revolution, Thessalian general Hristodoulos Hadzipetros , acting as ‘queen’ of his brigand army, living in caves, riding horses and hunting in the mountains. She walked out on him when he was unfaithful.

Life in Syria

At age forty-six, Jane traveled to the Middle East, and fell in love with Sheik Abdul Medjuel el Mezrab (also known as Sheikh Abdul Mijwal Al Mezrab in accounts by contemporary Western travelers in Syria). Abdul Medjuel was a sheik of the Mezrab section of the Sba’a, a well-known sub-tribe of the great `Anizzah tribe of Syria].

Although he was twenty years her junior, the two were married under Muslim law and she took the name Jane Elizabeth Digby el Mezrab. Their marriage was a happy one and lasted until her death 28 years later.

Jane adopted Arab dress and learned Arabic in addition to the other eight languages in which she was fluent. Half of each year was spent in the nomadic style, living in goat-hair tents in the desert, while the rest was enjoyed in a palatial villa that she had built in Damascus.

She spent the rest of her life in that city, where she befriended Richard and Isabel Burton while he was the British consul, and Abd al-Kader al-Jazairi, a prominent exiled leader of the Algerian revolution.

She died of fever and dysentery in Damascus on 11 August, 1881, and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery there, where her grave may still be seen today. Upon her footstone – a block of pink limestone from Palmyra – is her name, written in Arabic by Medjuel in charcoal and carved into the stone by a local mason.

After her death her house was let and the family of the young H. R. P. Dickson rented it. A small part of the house still survives today, still in the ownership of the same family who purchased it from Abdul Medjuel’s son in the 1930s.

 

Demiurge

Demiurge (from the Greek δημιουργός dēmiourgós, meaning “artisan” or “craftsman”) is a term for a creator deity or divine artisan responsible for the creation of the physical universe.

The word was first introduced in this sense by Plato in his Timaeus, 41a (ca. 360 B.C.E.). It subsequently appears in a number of different religious and philosophical systems of Late Antiquity, most notably in Neoplatonism and Gnosticism.

Three separate meanings of the term may be distinguished. For Plato, the Demiurge was a benevolent creator of the laws, heaven, or the world. Plotinus identified the Demiurge as nous (divine reason), the first emanation of “the One” (see monad). In Gnosticism, the material universe is seen as evil, and the Demiurge is the creator of this evil world, either out of ignorance or by evil design.

Alternative Gnostic names for the Demiurge include Yaldabaoth, Yao or Iao, Ialdabaoth and several other variants. The Gnostics often identified the Demiurge with the Hebrew God Yahweh. Christian opposition to this doctrine was one factor in the decision of the Church to include the Hebrew scriptures of the “Old Testament” in the Christian Bible.

Platonism and Neoplatonism

Plato’s character Timaeus refers to the Demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue which bears his name, written around 360 B.C.E. Timaeus refers to the Demiurge as the entity who “fashioned and shaped” the material world. He describes this being as unreservedly benevolent and hence desirous of a world as good as possible. The world remains imperfect, however, because the Demiurge had to work with pre-existing chaotic matter.

Timaeus suggests that since nothing “becomes or changes” without a cause, there must be a cause of the universe itself. He thus refers to the Demiurge as the father of the universe. Moreover, since the universe is fair, the Demiurge must have used the eternal and perfect world of “forms” or ideals as a template. He then set about creating the world, which formerly only existed in a state of disorder. Timaeus states that it is “blasphemy to state that the universe was not created in the image of perfection or heaven.”

For Neoplatonist writers like Plotinus, the Demiurge was not the originator of the universe, but a second creator or cause (see Dyad). The first and highest God is the One, the source, or the Monad. The Monad emanated the Nous, divine mind or reason, which Plotinus referred to as the Demiurge.

As Nous, the Demiurge is part of the three ordering principles:

1. arche – the source of all things
2. logos – the underlying order that is hidden beneath appearances
3. harmonia – numerical ratios in mathematics

In this Plotinus claimed to reveal Plato’s true meaning, a doctrine he learned from Platonist tradition but did not appear outside the academy or in Plato’s texts. Writing in the third century C.E., Plotinus was clearly aware of Gnostic teachings about the Demiurge and wrote in part in opposition to them.

In relation to the gods of mythology the Demiurge is identified as Zeus within Plotinus’ works.

Gnosticism

Like Plato, Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God and the demiurgic “creator” of the material world. However, in contrast to Plato, several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being. His act of creation either occurs in unconscious imitation of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. In such systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to the problem of evil.

Demiurge as ignorant

In the most common form of Gnosticism, the Demiurge had an inferior though not intrinsically evil function in the universe as the head of the psychic world. According to second-century teacher Marcion—not yet a fully developed Gnostic, but an important member of the Roman Church until his views were declared heretical—the Demiurge was to be sharply distinguished from the Good God. The Demiurge was severely just, the Good God loving and gentle. The Demiurge was actually the God of the Jews, while the true God was the Heavenly Father of Jesus and the Christians. Christ, though in reality the Son of the true God, came in the guise of the Messiah of the Jews, the better to spread the truth concerning his Heavenly Father. The true believer in Christ enters into the God’s kingdom, while the unbeliever remains forever the slave of the Demiurge.

Later Gnostics held that the Demiurge was the great tyrant Ialdabaoth, the Son of Chaos. He is the maker of man, but is filled with envy because of the spark of divine light within each human soul. Ialdabaoth thus tries to limit man’s knowledge by forbidding him the fruit of knowledge in paradise. This Demiurge, fearing lest Jesus—whom he had intended as his Messiah of wrath—should spread the knowledge of the Supreme God, had him crucified. At the consummation of all things, all light will return to the fullness (pleroma) of heaven. However, Ialdabaoth and the material world, together with those humans associated with them, will be cast into the lower depths.

One Gnostic myth recounts that Sophia (Greek, literally meaning “wisdom”), the Demiurge’s mother, and a partial aspect of the divine Pleroma or “Fullness.” She desired to create something apart from the divine totality. However, she did this without divine assent. In this abortive act of separate creation, she gave birth to the monstrous Demiurge. Then, being ashamed of her deed, she wrapped him in a cloud and created a throne for him within it. The isolated Demiurge did not behold his mother, nor anyone else. Being ignorant of the superior levels of reality that were his birth-place he concluded that only he himself existed.

The Gnostic myths describing these events are full of intricate nuances and variations, portraying the declination of aspects of the divine into human form. This process occurs through the agency of the Demiurge who, having stolen a portion of power from his mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior realm. Thus Sophia’s power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe. The goal of Gnostic movements was typically the awakening of this divine spark of wisdom, enabling the enlightened soul to return to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source.

The Demiurge in Valentinianism

According to the Gnostic teacher Valentinus, the Demiurge was the offspring of the union of Sophia’s daughter Achamoth with matter. Achamoth herself was the last of the 30 Æons. Thus, the Demiurge was separated by many emanations from the Supreme God. In this view, the Demiurge, in creating this world out of chaos, was unconsciously influenced for good by the higher Aeon Jesus Soter, the Logos; and the universe became almost perfect. The Demiurge, however, regretted even this slight imperfection. Thinking himself to be the Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending his Messiah, who in turn became united to the pre-existent Jesus, and thus provides the way to redemption, not through his death on the Cross, but by revealing the secret Truth of Gnosticism. In Valentinian eschatology, carnal men will return to the grossness of matter and finally be consumed by fire. The second level of humans, called “psychic” men, will enter a middle state, neither heaven (pleroma) nor hell (hyle), where they will dwell together with the Demiurge as their master. The purely spiritual men, who have been enlightened to the Truth, will be completely freed from the influence of the Demiurge. Together with the Savior and Achamoth, his spouse, they will enter the pleroma of heaven.

Under the name of Nebro, Yaldabaoth is called an angel in the apocryphal Gospel of Judas. He is first mentioned as one of the 12 angels to come “into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld].” He comes from heaven, his “face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood.” Nebro’s name means rebel. He creates six angels in addition to the angel Saklas to be his assistants. These six in turn create another 12 angels “with each one receiving a portion in the heavens.”

The Demiurge as evil

Some Gnostics were not satisfied merely to emphasize the distinction between the Supreme God, or God the Father, and the Demiurge. In many of their systems, they conceived the relation of the Demiurge to the Supreme God as one of actual antagonism. The Demiurge thus became the personification of the power of evil, the Satan of Gnosticism, with whom the faithful had to wage war to the end that they might be pleasing to the Good God. The Gnostic Demiurge then assumes a surprising likeness to Ahriman, the evil counter-creator of Zoroastrian philosophy.

The character of this outright evil Demiurge became still more complicated when in some systems he was identified with Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, and was brought in opposition to Christ of the New Testament. As the Demiurge was essentially evil, all his work was also evil. In consequence, not only the Law of the Jews, but all law was intrinsically evil. The duty of the children of the Good God was to find true spirituality by ignoring the supposed moral precepts of the Demiurge and prove themselves to have transcended any association with the world of matter. This led to the wildest orgies of antinomian Gnosticism.

Neoplatonic and Christian criticism

Plotinus criticized Gnosticism in the ninth tractate of the second Enneads, entitled “Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Cosmos and the Cosmos Itself to Be Evil.” Plotinus criticizes his opponents for “all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own” which, he declares, “have been picked up outside of the truth”; they attempt to conceal rather than admit their indebtedness to ancient philosophy, which they have corrupted by their extraneous and misguided embellishments.

The majority view tends to understand Plotinus’ opponents as being a Gnostic sect. Several such groups were present in Alexandria and elsewhere about the Mediterranean during Plotinus’ lifetime, and his criticisms bear specific similarity to Gnostic doctrine. Plotinus points to the Gnostic doctrine of Sophia and her emission of the Demiurge for example.

Christian critics of the idea of the Demiurge begin in the New Testament. The First Epistle to Timothy, for example, says, “Command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies.” (1:3-4) This is apparently a reference to Gnostic mythology, which often involved long lists of intermediate spiritual powers between the Supreme God and the Demiurge. Later Christian writers directly criticized Gnostic teachers and their doctrines. Since many Gnostic writings themselves were destroyed by the Church once it had the power to do so, these anti-heretical authors were the main source of knowledge concerning ancient Gnostic doctrines about the Demiurge until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library and other Gnostic works in recent centuries.

 

Malleus Maleficarum

The Malleus Maleficarum or Der Hexenhammer (Latin/German for “The Hammer of Witches”) is arguably the most infamous medieval European treatise that focused on identifying, characterizing, and combating witchcraft. It was written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger with the explicit endorsement of Pope Innocent VIII, who desired “that all heretical depravity should be driven far from the frontiers and bournes of the Faithful.” It was first published in Germany in 1487. Though it was eventually banned by the Vatican, it remained a popular tome among both Catholic and Protestant witch-hunters, eventually selling out over thirty editions throughout the two hundred years that it was in print.

The text was the culmination of a long history of medieval theological treatises on witchcraft, the most famous of these earlier works being the Formicarius by Johannes Nider in 1435–1437. The main purpose of the Malleus was to systematically refute all skepticism about witchcraft, to counter those who expressed even the slightest doubt about the propriety of the Inquisition, to prove that witches were more often woman than men, and to educate magistrates on the procedures that could “unmask” and convict these demonic heretics.

Composition

In the late medieval period (1100–1500 C.E.), the Roman Catholic Church was riven by controversy. Various antipopes vied with the Vatican for ecclesiastical legitimacy, theological positions branded as heretical (including those held by the Catharites, Waldenses, and Hussites) were vigorously persecuted, and, in general, the spiritual malaise that came to prompt the Protestant Reformation was becoming steadily more pronounced. One response to these various (and related) crises was an overall shift towards conservatism, insularity, and a type of religious xenophobia, which culminated in the persecution of various individuals and groups deemed dangerous by the religious authorities. It was in this context that, on December 5, 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus (“Desiring with Supreme Ardor”), which authorized two zealous German Inquisitors (Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger) to act as they saw fit in combating the scourge of heresy, witchcraft, and immorality:

Wherefore We, as is Our duty, being wholly desirous of removing all hindrances and obstacles by which the good work of the Inquisitors may be let and tarded, as also of applying potent remedies to prevent the disease of heresy and other turpitudes diffusing their poison to the destruction of many innocent souls, since Our zeal for the Faith especially incites us, lest that the provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, and territories of Germany, which We had specified, be deprived of the benefits of the Holy Office thereto assigned, by the tenor of these presents in virtue of Our Apostolic authority We decree and enjoin that the aforesaid Inquisitors [Kramer and Sprenger] be empowered to proceed to the just correction, imprisonment, and punishment of any persons, without let or hindrance, in every way as if the provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, territories, yea, even the persons and their crimes in this kind were named and particularly designated in Our letters. Moreover, for greater surety We extend these letters deputing this authority to cover all the aforesaid provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, territories, persons, and crimes newly rehearsed, and We grant permission to the aforesaid Inquisitors, to one separately or to both, as also to Our dear son John Gremper, priest of the diocese of Constance, Master of Arts, their notary, or to any other public notary, who shall be by them, or by one of them, temporarily delegated to those provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, and aforesaid territories, to proceed, according to the regulations of the Inquisition, against any persons of whatsoever rank and high estate, correcting, mulcting, imprisoning, punishing, as their crimes merit, those whom they have found guilty, the penalty being adapted to the offence.

This bull, whose promulgation had been indirectly requested by Heinrich Kramer, prompted the composition of the Malleus Maleficarum in 1486. The text has traditionally been ascribed to Heinrich Kramer (Latinized as “Heinrich Institoris”) and Jacob Sprenger, who were both members of the Dominican Order employed as Inquisitors by the Catholic Church. Despite the text’s official attribution, modern scholars believe that Jacob Sprenger contributed little (if anything) to the work besides his illustrious name.

Kramer (and possibly Sprenger) submitted the Malleus Maleficarum to the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Theology in 1487, hoping for an endorsement that would lend the text a further air of legitimacy. Instead, the faculty condemned it as being both unethical and illegal. In spite of this rebuff, Kramer proceeded to insert a fraudulent endorsement from the University into subsequent print editions of the text. In a similar manner, most versions of the Malleus also include the full text of the Summis desiderantes affectibus bull, an inclusion that implies papal sanction, despite the fact that the papal statement predated the text itself.

Regardless of the less-than-stellar reception the text received upon its initial publication, it gradually became one of first (and most influential) handbooks for Protestant and Catholic witch-hunters in late medieval and early modern Europe. Between the years 1487 and 1520, the work sold out a total of sixteen editions, which led to an additional sixteen being printed and sold in the following hundred and fifty years.

Contents

In general, the Malleus Maleficarum presents a relatively overall theology/demonology, asserting that three elements are necessary for existence of witchcraft: The evil-intentioned witch (whose particular moral failings impel her to sin), the intercession of the Devil (who is the proximate cause of the witch’s supernatural abilities), and the (implicit) permission of God (who is the ultimate cause of all actions). In terms of textual organization, the treatise is divided into three sections: The first “presents theoretical and theological arguments for the reality of witchcraft” (aiming to silence critics of the Inquisition’s efforts); the second describes the actual applications of witchcraft, and compiles various remedies that can be used by those “bewitched”; finally, the third section provides instructions to judges, in order to assist them in their “divine mission” to confront and combat witchcraft. Superseding this organizational principle, each of these three sections is also united by a ubiquitous emphasis on providing textual definitions and practical guidelines for classifying witchcraft and identifying witches.

In spite of the document’s place of primacy in the history of the European “witch-craze,” the Malleus can hardly be called an original text, for it relied heavily upon earlier works by Visconti, Torquemada, and, most famously, Johannes Nider (the Formicarius [1435]). However, these inter-textual parallels merely indicate the “canonicity” of demonological beliefs in the late Middle Ages. As Krause notes, “[D]emonology soon claimed for itself an authoritative status as demonologists interpreted puzzling features of witchcraft in light of the work of other demonologists. In the Malleus Maleficarum, references to Johannes Nider’s Formicarius reside comfortably alongside passages from Aquinas, both texts serving as authorities.… Demonology had become in effect its own self-legitimating discourse.”

Section I – Background assumptions

Section I argues that, because the Devil exists and has the power to do astounding things, witches (immoral women) exist to make these powers manifest. However, it avoids the theological problem of under-representing the power of the Divine by arguing that even these malevolent actions are performed with the permission of God. This repugnant misogynistic theodicy is argued at great length in the text:

God in justice permits evil and witchcraft to be in the world, although He is Himself the provider and governor of all things;… But God is the universal controller of the whole world, and can extract much good from particular evils; as through the persecution of the tyrants came the patience of the martyrs, and through the works of witches come the purgation or proving of the faith of the just, as will be shown. Therefore it is not God’s purpose to prevent all evil, lest the universe should lack the cause of much good. Wherefore S. Augustine says in the Enchiridion: So merciful is Almighty God, that He would not allow any evil to be in His works unless He were so omnipotent and good that He can bring good even out of evil.

The central role that the text assigns to women in bring evil into the world requires that the author(s) make certain (defamatory) ontological assumptions about the natural qualities of females:

All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable. See Proverbs xxx: There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, a fourth thing which says not, It is enough; that is, the mouth of the womb. Wherefore for the sake of fulfilling their lusts they consort even with devils. More such reasons could be brought forward, but to the understanding it is sufficiently clear that it is no matter for wonder that there are more women than men found infected with the heresy of witchcraft. And in consequence of this, it is better called the heresy of witches than of wizards, since the name is taken from the more powerful party. And blessed be the Highest Who has so far preserved the male sex from so great a crime: for since He was willing to be born and to suffer for us, therefore He has granted to men the privilege.

Section II – Witchcraft in practice

In Section II, the author(s) begin to address more practical matters by discussing actual cases. The section begins by exposing the multifarious powers of witches, and then goes on to detail their recruitment strategies. In doing so, it places the blame squarely upon these duplicitous females, suggesting that they purposefully lead moral women astray, either by causing disasters in their lives (which could impel them to consult the arcane knowledge of a witch) or by introducing young maidens to physically appealing demons. Given the assumed weakness of spirit introduced above, the second approach would have been seen as virtually infallible. This section also explores the mechanics of malefic spellcraft, lists some of the dreadful offenses perpetrated by these evil-doers (including promoting infirmity, causing damage to livestock, sacrificing children, and even stealing a man’s “virile member”) and concludes by instructing the reader in various defensive techniques that can be used against these powers (whether one is aiming to avoid ensorcellment or to mitigate the effects of existing curses).

Section III – Juridical procedures for witch trials

Unlike the sensationalistic visions proposed in the previous sections, Section III is comparatively dry and legalistic, as it describes (in great detail) the correct procedure for prosecuting a suspected witch. Therein, the author(s) offer a step-by-step guide to conducting a witch trial, from the method of initiating the process and assembling accusations, to the proper forms of defensive council, to the interrogation of witnesses and the formal laying of charges against the accused. A small snippet from the chapter on appropriate forms of inquisition is sufficient for establishing the overall tone and stance taken by this section as a whole:

While the officers are preparing for the questioning, let the accused be stripped; or if she is a woman, let her first be led to the penal cells and there stripped by honest women of good reputation. And the reason for this is that they should search for any instrument of witchcraft sewn into her clothes; for they often make such instruments, at the instruction of devils, out of the limbs of unbaptized children, the purpose being that those children should be deprived of the beatific vision. And when such instruments have been disposed of, the Judge shall use his own persuasions and those of other honest men zealous for the faith to induce her to confess the truth voluntarily; and if she will not, let him order the officers to bind her with cords, and apply her to some engine of torture; and then let them obey at once but not joyfully, rather appearing to be disturbed by their duty. Then let her be released again at someone’s earnest request, and taken on one side, and let her again be persuaded; and in persuading her, let her be told that she can escape the death penalty.

Unfortunately for the women accused in these tribunals, the procedures advocated by the Malleus made it nearly impossible for them to emerge with a “not guilty” verdict. For instance, women who did not cry during their trials were automatically believed to be witches. Likewise, those who would not confess to their “crimes” were assumed to be supernaturally fortified by a “spell of silence,” a demonic charm that would allow them to brave the questions and tortures directed at them.

It is here that one can take full measure of demonology’s logic of certainty, its self-confirming capacity: if the suspected witch confesses, then guilt is firmly established; if the suspect does not confess, she is bewitched but guilty nonetheless. Demonologists push this logic of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, one step further: a silent or otherwise resistant person is even more guilty than a defendant who confesses easily.

Major themes

Misogyny

Misogynistic attitudes are an unfortunately ubiquitous feature of the Malleus Maleficarum. As discussed above, the treatise argues that the inherent failings of women (most particularly their lascivious sexuality) inclined them towards participation in witchcraft, because they were susceptible to the sexual temptations of demons and devils. This dreadful perspective is summarized by Broedel:

Their minds are warped, twisted like the rib from which Eve was first formed; and, just as the first woman could not keep faith with God, so all women are faithless. The very etymology of the word “woman” shows this to be true, since, as Institoris adds, “it is said that femina is from fe and minus because a woman always keeps less faith.” Further, women have weak memories, and from this defect “it is a natural vice in them to refuse to be governed, but to follow their impulses without any due reserve.” Their will, too, is deficient because they are inordinately passionate, more prone to violent love and hate, and so often turn to witchcraft in order to gratify these desires (Malleus, 12–13). In sum, Institoris [Kramer] concludes, women are natural-born liars, they are proud and vain, and their hearts are ruled by malice, all of which make women the ready dupes and/or willing slaves of the devil (Malleus, 44).

After the publication of the Malleus, Kramer and Sprenger’s misogynistic thesis became an accepted fact, and most of those who were prosecuted as witches were women. Most typically, the women demonized by these poisonous attitudes were those who had strong personalities and were known to defy convention by overstepping the lines of proper female decorum. Further, these negative stances towards both women and sexuality were common to all demonological treatises of the medieval period, where tales of lesbian sexual orgies, congress with demons, and magical castrations were all too common. Among the authors of these texts, “[T]heir detailed reflections on the nature of sexual intercourse with demons, on the pleasure and pain experienced by witches coupling with demons, and on the generalized lubricity of the sabbat suggest that demonologists were deeply interested in eliciting confessions of sexual secrets. With good reason, early modern demonology has been described as a kind of scholarly pornography.”

Breadth of textual inspiration

In spite of the text’s unforgivable misogyny, the Malleus Maleficarum was significantly influenced by humanistic ideologies. Just as the ancient subjects of astronomy, philosophy, and medicine were being reintroduced to the west at this time, the Malleus helps to expand typical Scholastic discourse by referring, not only to the Bible and early theologians, but also to Aristotelian thought and Neo-Platonism. It also mentions astrology and astronomy, which had recently been reintroduced to the West by the ancient works of Pythagoras.

Reasons for popularity in the late Middle Ages

The Malleus achieved such a height of influence and popularity for two primary reasons, one socio-cultural, the other technological.

As mentioned above, the late fifteenth century was a period of religious turmoil, already charged with the inchoate challenges that would eventually spark the Protestant Reformation several decades in the future. The Malleus Maleficarum (and the witch craze that it helped engender) took advantage of the increasing intolerance of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Europe, where the Protestant and Catholic camps each zealously strove to maintain the purity of faith. Indeed, “[I]t could be argued that witch-hunting was ecumenical: it united Catholics and Lutherans, Puritans and Anglicans, as no other purpose ever would.” Some theorists argue this intolerant and dogmatic religious climate actively encouraged religious people to adopt beliefs that may have otherwise seemed bizarre, dangerous, or even unethical:

The discourse of witchcraft theorists shows that they were above all metaphysical opportunists, seizing any bit of oral or literary lore that would reinforce their crumbling faith in the authenticity of Christianity as the revealed will of God. The witch coalesced in the imagination of the literate male elite at a moment when the internal contradictions of Western Christian metaphysics had reached an unbearable pitch of intensity. Those who invented and then persecuted witches never openly admitted, probably even to themselves, that the purpose of the witch-hunt was to authenticate Christianity, to defend it against their own suspicions of its facticity or even fictionality.

Technologically speaking, the text of the Malleus Maleficarum was able to spread throughout Europe so rapidly in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century due to the innovation of the printing press in the middle of the fifteenth century by Johannes Gutenberg. That printing should have been invented thirty years before the first publication of the Malleus was, fatalistically speaking, a piece of remarkable ill-timing. As Russell suggests, “[T]he swift propagation of the witch hysteria by the press was the first evidence that Gutenberg had not liberated man from original sin.”

Consequences

The popularity of the Malleus Maleficarum cannot be overstated, especially given its extensive publication history (where it sold out over thirty editions over its print run). However, as with any historical phenomenon, it is not possible to draw a direct causal link between the bitter invective spouted by the text and the total number of individuals (predominantly women) executed during the witch trials of the following centuries. Also, as some researchers have noted, the fact that the Malleus was popular does not imply that it accurately reflected or influenced actual practice; one researcher compared it to confusing a “television docu-drama” with “actual court proceedings.” Estimates about the impact of the Malleus should thus be weighed accordingly. However, it is undeniable that such a text, with its dogmatic theology, rampant misogyny, and explicit endorsement of torture, would have had a markedly legitimizing effect upon these hateful movements. Indeed, whether the witch-hunters “killed 100,000 people in 300 years, as some historians believe, or only 30,000, as others more cautiously estimate,” it remains the case that this singular text was one of the primary inspirations that undergirded their systematic campaign of brutality.

 

Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl (October 6, 1914 in Larvik, Norway – April 18, 2002 in Colla Micheri, Italy) was a marine biologist with a great interest in anthropology, who became famous for his Kon-Tiki Expedition in which he sailed by raft 4,300 miles from South America to the Tuamotu Islands. National Geographic best summarizes his life by these words: “He crossed three oceans in primitive rafts and boats to prove theories about where man has been and how he got there… Heyerdahl said his life was dominated by three challenges: to live in harmony with nature and improve it, to make his mark on the scientific community, and to build on his conception of the basic unity of mankind.”  Heyerdahls’s voyages across the Atlantic and across the Pacific proves that pre-Columban exchange between Africa, Europe and the Americas and between the Americas and the islands of the Pacific is historically probable and that the ancient world was more aware of the global interdependence of human life than has usually been assumed. While his voyages did not conclusively prove that such exchange actually took place, alongside other evidence, such as similarities in the archeological record and in mythology, it makes it highly likely. In proving that non-European cultures had the technology to cross the world before Europeans did, Heyerdahl also challenged ethnocentric notions of cultural and racial superiority.

Fatu Hiva: Back to Nature

Fatu Hiva: Back to Nature is the name of a book, published in 1974, by Thor Heyerdahl, detailing his experiences and reflections during a one-and-a-half-year stay on the Marquesan island of Fatu Hiva in 1937-1938.

Background

On the occasion of their honeymoon, Thor Heyerdahl and his first wife Liv, determined to escape from civilization, and to “return to nature.” The couple arrived at Fatu Hiva in 1937, in the valley of Omo’a. Finding that civilization, albeit on a vastly reduced scale, was still present there, they decided to cross over the island’s mountainous interior to settle in one of the small, nearly abandoned, valleys on the eastern side of the island. There, they made their thatch-covered stilted home in the valley of Uia.

Development of Heyerdahl’s Ideas about the Origins of the Polynesians

It was in this setting, surrounded by the ruins of the formerly glorious Marquesan civilization, that Heyerdahl first developed his theories regarding the possibility of trans-oceanic contact between the pre-European Polynesians, and the peoples and cultures of South America.

During several exchanges with an elderly Marquesan man who lived in Uia with them, Heyerdahl determined that, although prior to the arrival of Europeans, cats were not to be found in Polynesia, the Marquesans were nonetheless familiar with the creatures, and indeed, certain of the carved tiki figures seemed very much to represent felines:

To our surprise, the reliefs of two human figures with hands above their heads appeared, and between them, two large quadrupeds in profile, each with an eye, a mouth, erected ears, and a tail. Two quadrupeds!…A cat?…Felines yes, but not rats (173). ‘The ccoa was an important figure in the Andean cultures. In the Mayan language, toh is the name for the puma. In Polynesia, toa is the word for “brave.” Cats are not native to Polynesia, but somehow feline icons are found in their primitive sculptures and figures. In Samoa, pusi is an English derivative that was adopted with the newly arrived cat. In Fatu-Hiva, the name for cat is poto. The fact that cats seem to display some sense of keen intellect probably caused the natives to name the new arrivals poto after the Polynesian word for smart, poto.

The observation prompted Heyerdahl to ask Tei Tetua from whence his people had come, to which he replied “the east”:

“From where?” I asked, and was curious to hear the old man’s reply. “From Te Fiti” (The East), answered the old man and nodded toward that part of the horizon where the sun rose, the direction in which there was no other land except South America. (217)

Heyerdahl went on to explore this possibility a number of years later, as is detailed in his books Kon-Tiki, Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island, and Easter Island: The Mystery Solved.

The Kon-Tiki expedition

In the Kon-Tiki Expedition, Heyerdahl and a small team went to South America, where they used balsawood and other native materials to construct the Kon-Tiki raft. Kon-Tiki was inspired by old drawings of Inca rafts made by the Spanish conquistadors. After a 101-day, 4,300-mile journey across the Pacific Ocean, it smashed into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947, showing that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America. The only modern technology the expedition had was a radio, food in the form of military rations, and fresh water in 56 small cans. While en route, the crew supplemented their diet by fishing. The documentary of the expedition, itself entitled Kon-Tiki, won an Academy Award in 1951.

This expedition demonstrated there were no technical reasons to prevent people from South America from having settled the Polynesian Islands. Nevertheless most anthropologists continue to believe, based on linguistic, physical and genetic evidence, that Polynesia was settled from west to east, migration having begun from the Asian mainland.

Heyerdahl’s theory of Polynesian origins

Heyerdahl claimed that in Incan legend there was a sun god named Con-Tici Viracocha who was the supreme head of the mythical white people in Peru. The original name for Virakocha was Kon-Tiki or Illa-Tiki, which means Sun-Tiki or Fire-Tiki. Kon-Tiki was high priest and sun-king of these legendary “white men” who left enormous ruins on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The legend continues with the mysterious bearded white men being attacked by a chief named Cari who came from the Coquimbo Valley. They had a battle on an island in Lake Titicaca, and the fair race was massacred. However, Kon-Tiki and his closest companions managed to escape and later arrived on the Pacific coast. The legend ends with Kon-Tiki and his companions disappearing westward out to sea.

When the Spaniards came to Peru, Heyerdahl asserted, the Incas told them that the colossal monuments that stood deserted about the landscape were erected by a race of white gods who had lived there before the Incas themselves became rulers. The Incas described these “white gods” as wise, peaceful instructors who had originally come from the north in the “morning of time” and taught the Incas’ primitive forefathers architecture as well as manners and customs. They were unlike other Native Americans in that they had “white skins and long beards” and were taller than the Incas. They also had Semitic facial features. The Incas said that the “white gods” had then left as suddenly as they had come and fled westward across the Pacific. After they had left, the Incas themselves took over power in the country.

Heyerdahl said that when the Europeans first came to the Pacific islands, they were astonished that they found some of the natives to have relatively light skins and beards. There were whole families that had pale skin, hair varying in color from reddish to blonde, and almost Semitic, hook-nosed faces. In contrast, most of the Polynesians had golden-brown skin, raven-black hair, and rather flat noses. Heyerdahl claimed that when Roggeveen first discovered Easter Island in 1722, he supposedly noticed that many of the natives were white-skinned. Heyerdahl claimed that these people could count their ancestors who were “white-skinned” right back to the time of Tiki and Hotu Matua, when they first came sailing across the sea “from a mountainous land in the east which was scorched by the sun.” There is no ethnographic evidence to back up these claims.

Heyerdahl proposed that Tiki’s Stone Age people colonized the then-uninhabited Polynesian islands as far north as Hawaii, as far south as New Zealand, as far east as Easter Island, and as far west as Samoa around 500 C.E. They supposedly sailed from Peru to the Polynesian islands on pae-paes, which were large rafts built from balsa logs complete with sails and each with a small cottage. They built enormous stone statues carved in the image of human beings on Pitcairn, the Marquesas, and Easter Island that exactly resembled those in Peru. They also built huge pyramids on Tahiti and Samoa with steps like those in Peru. But all over Polynesia, Heyerdahl found indications that Tiki’s peaceable race had not been able to hold the islands alone for long. He found evidence that suggested that seagoing war canoes as large as Viking ships and lashed together two and two had brought Stone Age Northwest American Indians to Polynesia around 1100 C.E., and they mingled with Tiki’s people.

Crew

The Kon-Tiki was crewed by six men, all Norwegian except for Bengt Danielsson, who was from Sweden.

• Thor Heyerdahl was the expedition leader.

• Erik Hesselberg was the navigator and artist. He painted the large Kon-Tiki figure on the raft’s sail.

• Bengt Danielsson took on the role of steward, in charge of supplies and daily rations. Danielsson was a sociologist interested in human migration theory. He also served as translator, as he was the only member of the crew who spoke Spanish.

• Knut Haugland was a radio expert, decorated by the British in World War II for actions that stalled Germany’s plans to develop the atomic bomb.

• Torstein Raaby was also in charge of radio transmissions. He gained radio experience while hiding behind German lines during WWII, spying on the German battleship Tirpitz. His secret radio transmissions eventually helped guide in British bombers to sink the ship.

• Herman Watzinger was an engineer whose area of expertise was in technical measurements. He recorded meteorological and hydrographical data while underway.

Anthropology

While this was an interesting experiment that demonstrated the seaworthiness of Heyerdahl’s raft, his theory of the Polynesians’ origins is now widely discounted by anthropologists. Physical and cultural evidence had long suggested that Polynesia was settled from west to east, migration having begun from the Asian mainland, not South America. In the late 1990s, genetic testing found that the mitochondrial DNA of the Polynesians is more similar to people from Southeast Asia than to people from South America, showing that their ancestors most likely came from Asia. The Kon-Tiki adventure is often cited as a classic of pseudoarchaeology, although its daring and inventive nature is still widely acclaimed.

However, it should be noted that Thor Heyerdahl never set out to prove that the current Polynesians were descended from South America. According to Heyerdahl, some Polynesian legends say that Polynesia was originally inhabited by two peoples, the so-called long-eared and the short-eared. In a bloody war, all the long-eared peoples were eliminated and the short-eared people assumed sole control of Polynesia. Heyerdahl asserted that these extinct people were the ones who could have settled Polynesia from the Americas, not the current, short-eared inhabitants. However one of the problems with this argument is that traditions involving long-ears and short-ears are found only at Easter Island, and are unknown in the rest of Polynesia.

Heyerdahl further argues in his book American Indians in the Pacific that the current inhabitants of Polynesia did indeed migrate from an Asian source, but via an alternate route. He proposes that Filipino natives (whom Heyerdahl asserted held cultural and physical affinities with Polynesians) traveled with the wind along the North Pacific current. These migrants then arrived in British Columbia. Heyerdahl points to the contemporary tribes of British Columbia, such as the Tlingit and Haida, as the descendants of these migrants. Again Heyerdahl notes the cultural and physical similarities between these British Columbian tribes, Polynesians, and the Old World source. Heyerdahl suggests how simple it would have been for the British Columbians to travel to Hawaii and even onward to the greater Polynesia from their New World stepping-stone by way of wind and current patterns. Heyerdahl’s claims aside, however, there is no evidence that the Tlingit, Haida or other British Columbian tribes have any special affinity with Filipinos or Polynesians. Linguistically, their morphologically complex languages appear to be far from Austronesian and Polynesian languages and their cultures don’t validate any links to the rest of the peoples of North America.

The Boats Ra and Ra II

Heyerdahl built the boats Ra and Ra II in order to demonstrate that Ancient Egyptians could have communicated with the Americas or transferred pyramid-building technology. The original Ra took on water and had to be abandoned. Heyerdahl thought the cause was that a supporting rope present in the ancient design was omitted in construction. On May 17, 1970, Heyerdahl set sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean, covering the 4,000 miles to Barbados in just 57 days. Yuri Senkevich, who was the expedition physician, later became a popular TV host in USSR and Russia.

The Tigris

His next boat, Tigris, was intended to demonstrate that trade and migration could have linked the Indus Valley Civilization in India with Mesopotamia. The Tigris was deliberately burned in Djibouti on April 3, 1978, as a protest against the wars raging on every side in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa. In Heyerdahl’s open letter to the Secretary of the United Nations he said in part:

Today we burn our proud ship… to protest against inhuman elements in the world of 1978… Now we are forced to stop at the entrance to the Red Sea. Surrounded by military airplanes and warships from the world’s most civilized and developed nations, we have been denied permission by friendly governments, for reasons of security, to land anywhere, but in the tiny, and still neutral, Republic of Djibouti. Elsewhere around us, brothers and neighbors are engaged in homicide with means made available to them by those who lead humanity on our joint road into the third millennium. To the innocent masses in all industrialized countries, we direct our appeal. We must wake up to the insane reality of our time…. We are all irresponsible, unless we demand from the responsible decision makers that modern armaments must no longer be made available to people whose former battle axes and swords our ancestors condemned. Our planet is bigger than the reed bundles that have carried us across the seas, and yet small enough to run the same risks unless those of us still alive open our eyes and minds to the desperate need of intelligent collaboration to save ourselves and our common civilization from what we are about to convert into a sinking ship.

 

Other work

Thor Heyerdahl also investigated the pyramidal mounds found on the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean. There, he found sun-oriented mounds and courtyards, as well as statues with elongated earlobes. Both of these archeological finds fit with his theory of a sea-faring civilization which originated in what is now Sri Lanka, colonized the Maldives, and influenced or founded the cultures of ancient South America and Easter Island. His discoveries are detailed in his book, The Maldive Mystery.

In 1991, he studied the pyramids of Güímar on Tenerife and discovered that they cannot be random stone heaps, but actual pyramids. He also discovered their special astronomical orientation. Heyerdahl advanced a theory according to which the Canary Islands had been bases of ancient shipping between America and the Mediterranean.

His last project was presented in the Norweigan book Jakten på Odin—På sporet av vår fortid, (“The Hunt for Odin”), in which Heyerdahl initiated excavations in Azov, near the Sea of Azov at the northeast of the Black Sea. He searched for the possible remains of a civilization to match the account of Snorri Sturluson in Ynglinga saga, where Snorri describes how a chief called Odin led a tribe, called the Æsir in a migration northwards through Saxland, to Fyn in Denmark, settling in Sweden. There, according to Snorri, he so impressed the natives with his diverse skills that they started worshipping him as a god after his death. Heyerdahl accepted Snorri’s story as literal truth. This project generated harsh criticism and accusations of pseudo-science from historians, archaeologists and linguists in Norway, who accused Heyerdahl of selective use of sources, and a basic lack of scientific methodology in his work. The central claims in this book is based on similarities of names in Norse mythology and geographic names in the Black Sea region, such as Azov and æsir, Udi and Odin, Tyr and Turkey. Philologists and historians reject these parallels as mere coincidences, and also anachronisms. For instance, the city of Azov did not have that name until over 1,000 years after Heyerdahl claims the æsir dwelt there. The controversy surrounding the The Search for Odin project was in many ways typical of the relationship between Heyerdahl and the academic community. His theories rarely won any scientific acceptance, whereas Heyerdahl himself rejected all scientific criticism and concentrated on publishing his theories in best-selling books to the larger masses.

Subsequent years

In subsequent years, Heyerdahl was involved with many other expeditions and archaeological projects. However, he remained best known for his boat-building, and for his emphasis on cultural diffusion which is the spread of cultural items, such as ideas, styles, religions, technologies, etc., between individuals, whether it is within a single culture or from one culture to another.

Heyerdahl’s expeditions were spectacular, and his heroic journeys in flimsy boats caught the public imagination. But his diffusionist theories were considered eccentric and old-fashioned by some archaeologists. His central claims that migrations linked comparable ancient civilizations have not been supported by more recent evidence. Heyerdahl undoubtedly increased public interest in ancient history and in the achievements of various cultures and peoples around the world. He also showed that long distance ocean voyages were technically possible even with ancient designs.

Thor Heyerdahl was a member of the Foundation for Exploration and Research on Cultural Origins (FERCO). Another member of FERCO, fellow researcher, and writer, Donald P. Ryan, describes Heyerdahl (in 1997):

In Scandinavia and elsewhere, Thor Heyerdahl is revered as an example of many of the highest of human qualities: courage, strength, intelligence, creativity, humility and compassion. He is the confidant of world leaders and at the same time, perfectly at home in the simplest of villages anywhere in the world. Despite his extraordinary accomplishments, he sees himself as an ordinary man and it is clear to me that even fifty years after the Kon-Tiki expedition, he remains slightly embarrassed if not perplexed by his celebrity. Resigned to this unintended role, he has accepted his public responsibilities with dignity. In his writings, Heyerdahl has emphasized the unity of all human beings and other living things on this planet and he has become an advocate of international cooperation and a spokesman for global environmental issues.

Biographer Christopher Ralling wrote,

Apart from heads of state, I doubt if there is another man on earth who would find it so easy, if he chose, to travel the world without a passport. It is not just that Thor Heyerdahl is known and admired almost everywhere, by schoolchildren and scientists alike; in some unidentifiable way he actually seems to have become a citizen of the world. (Ralling 1991, 323-324)

Thor Heyerdahl died at his home in Colla Machari, Italy, at the age of 87 on April 18, 2002; he had been diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor in early April. He died in his sleep surrounded by relatives. Amazingly, according to his relatives, Heyerdahl had made more than seventy airplane trips around the world during the last year of his life.