PAUL’S TEACHINGS ABOUT WOMEN, Epilogue, Part 7
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The Law of Truth: Truth pounds error; any person or institution embracing the error also receives the pounding and eventually joins the dust carried away in the wind. To avoid the pounding, one must let go of the error. Denying the error and declaring the truth make up the first step of that process of repentance and healing in the human experience.
As quoted in Chapter Five, Thomas Aquinas reasoned that “it is according to his intelligence and reason, which are incorporeal, that man is said to be according to the image of God.”[i] But there is more than intellect in the image and likeness of Elohim. From Mind, Life, Spirit, Truth, Love, and, if acceptable to the reader, Principle and Soul, dozens upon dozens of qualities radiate. If St. Paul is correct that “there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28), then all these qualities are equally available for any individual to live the image and likeness of Elohim. What grace we find through Christ!
We had more than fifteen thousand years of rule by women, called matriarchy. As Endo-European, patriarchcal culture slowly replaced the old European, feminine culture, a thousand years or so of transition began to strip women of their power and rights. As might be expected, Hebrew women resisted giving up their belief in a fertility goddess for an all-male Deity called Yahweh, or Jehovah. After the Exile, when Jehovah emerged a masculine-feminine God like Elohim, women finally let go of their fertility goddess.