Some Thoughts on Miraculous Motherhood and Christianity

In my previous post I quoted a couple of little known Christian texts relating to the conception/birth of Jesus. One, the Proto-Evangelion of James, should be better known and read, not least because it is the source of much of the back story that now frames the canonical accounts in Luke and Matthew. The other, Ode 19 from the Odes of Solomon, is from an ancient Christian hymn collection of extraordinary beauty and strangeness that should not only be better known but should, in my opinion, be incorporated into the liturgy, if not even the New Testament itself. The Proto-Evangelion is a harmony of the Matthean and Lucan accounts and incorporates other elements (the midwife) either derived from or shared with Ode 19. Matthew and Luke however are separate and independent accounts which don't appear to have influenced each other.


I overlooked another ancient account which, while it shares some elements with Matthew and Proto-Evangelion, is also quite odd. I refer to the Ascension of Isaiah, a Christian modified Jewish text, the Jewish parts of which could date to the 1st/2nd century BCE while the Christian parts of which could date to late 1st or 2nd century CE. The second and Christian part, also known as the Vision of Isaiah includes a birth narrative for Jesus recounted as part of Isaiah's vision. There is also a quite strange conception in chapter 10 account detailing the descent of Jesus' spirit through all the heavens to earth. The overall account can be read here but below is the birth narrative from chapter 11:

11. And after this I looked, and the angel who spoke to me and led me said to me, "Understand, Isaiah son of Amoz, because for this purpose I was sent from the Lord." 2And I saw a woman of the family of David the prophet whose name (was) Mary, and she (was) a virgin and was betrothed to a man whose name (was) Joseph, a carpenter, and he also (was) of the seed and family of the righteous David of Bethlehem in Judah. 3And he came into his lot. And when she was betrothed, she was found to be pregnant, and Joseph the carpenter wished to divorce her. 4But the angel of the Spirit appeared in this world, and after this Joseph did not divorce Mary; but he did not reveal this matter to anyone. 5And he did not approach Mary, but kept her as a holy virgin, although she was pregnant. 6And he did not live with her for two months. 7And after two months of days, while Joseph was in his house, and Mary his wife, but both alone, 8it came about, when they were alone, that Mary then looked with her eyes and saw a small infant, and she was astounded. 9And after her astonishment had worn off, her womb was found as (it was) at first, before she had conceived. 10And when her husband, Joseph, said to her, "What has made you astounded?" his eyes were opened, and he saw the infant and praised the Lord, because the Lord had come in his lot. 11And a voice came to them, "Do not tell this vision to anyone." 12But the story about the infant was spread abroad in Bethlehem. 13Some said, "The virgin Mary has given birth before she has been married two months." 14But many said, "She did not give birth; the midwife did not go up (to her), and we did not hear (any) cries of pain." And they were all blinded concerning him; they all knew about him, but they did not know from where he was. 15And they took him and went to Nazareth in Galilee. 16And I saw, O Hezekiah and Josab my son, and say to the other prophets also who are standing by, that it was hidden from all the heavens and all the princes and every god of this world. 17And I saw (that) in Nazareth he sucked the breast like an infant, as was customary, that he might not be recognized.

The Vision of Isaiah, with its ascents and descents through the various heavens, shows strong affinities with the Enochic literature, in which Enoch is taken on tours of the heavens, also multi-tiered. In this birth narrative, Jesus miraculously appears outisde his mother's body sparing her any travails of childbirth. Thus the birth narrative echoes a miraculous birth narrative found in one of these Enochic texts, the birth of Melchizedek in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch to which I will return.


Now it's often been argued that the miraculous/virgin conception of Jesus as recounted in both Matthew and Luke is a later Gentile intrusion on the original Jewish Christianity deriving from "pagan" misunderstandings of the term Son of God in the gospels and influenced by accounts in the Gentile world of kings (e.g. Alexander) and other figures reputed to be of divine human ancestry. Thus Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, was visited by Zeus in the form of a serpent who had sex with her and begot the world conqueror. The idea of miraculous conceptions at the behest of a divine figure was alien to Judaism as it was a strictly monotheist religion.


However my readings of ancient and even rabbinic Jewish texts made me come to question such thinking. Firstly miraculous motherhood as such is not an unknown in biblical texts. The matriarchs of Genesis, as well as Samson's mother in Judges and Hannah in in 1 Samuel are mothers who conceive by divine intervention and often with annunciation scenes.


Nevertheless the implication in these accounts is that divine intervention enables conception during sexual intercourse with their husbands but with one exception, Sarah. I was struck by a range of inferences in a number of Jewish texts such as the ancient Jubilees and the medieval Zohar, that Sarah's conception of Isaac might have been a non-sexual or 'virgin' one. Some of thses ideas were also found in some ancient Christian texts in which Sarah is understood as a forerunner of Mary and which recount a variety of miraculous elements found in rabbinic texts. In many of these rabbinic texts the miraculous prodigies that accompany Isaac's birth are signs as a guarantee of Abraham's paternity; in other words these texts display an anxiety that Abraham is not the real birth father, begetter of Isaac.


So what was going on here? It was then that a friend of mine told me about the birth of Melchizedek in 2 Enoch. Concerning 2 Enoch, it is a text that has only been preserved by Christians. All the extant manuscripts are in Slavonic and hale from late medieval Russia, 14th 15th centuries (fragments of a Coptic version have been found in Upper Egypt dating from 9th/10th centuries). There is no complete text of 2 Enoch either. It exists in multiple recensions and that relate only parts of the whole. The other thing about 2 Enoch is that not only are these Slavonic versions translated from older Greek forms but it is also clearly not a Christian text. The text narrates an antidiluvian world as we find in Genesis and recounts the experiences of Enoch in the heavenly realm and looks fwd to the destruction of the world in the Flood. Because these narratives are quite critical of the Temple establishment many argue that they originate from the days when the Temple was still operating i.e. pre 70 CE.


Temple themes are prominent in the account of Melchizedek's conception birth. Melchizedek's parents are part of an ancient Temple establishment prior to the Flood. Mechizedek's. mother , Sopanim, is wife to Nir, brother of Noah and priest in this temple. Melchizedek himself is a heavenly being, the heavenly high priest in fact. Here is the account of his conception ( from 2 Enoch 71, short version):

Behold, the wife of Nir, whose name was Sopanim, being sterile and never having at any time given birth to a child by Nir -

Sopanim was in the time of her old age and in the day of her death. She conceived in her womb, but Nir the priest had not slept with her. From the day that that The Lord had appointed him to conduct the liturgy in front of the face of the people.

When Sopanim saw her pregnancy, she was ashamed and embarrassed, and she hid herself during all the days until she gave birth. Not one of the people knew about it.

Sopanim gets no annunciation. Her consent is not canvassed in contrast to Mary and there is no indication that she even desires a child, unlike Sarah. She is nothing but a vessel and she is forced to hide herself from her husband. But pregnancy is not something that can be hidden easily over time, even with a husband like Nir

When 282 days had been completed, and the day of birth had begun to approach, Nir remembered his wife, he called her to himself in his house, so that he might converse with her.

Sopanim came to Nir, her husband; and, behold, she was pregnant, and the day appointed for giving birth was drawing near. Nir saw her and became very ashamed. He said to her, "What is this that you have done, O wife? Why have you disgraced me in front of the face of these people? Now, depart from me and go where you began the disgrace of your womb, so that I might not defile my hand on account of you, and sin in front of The Face of The Lord."

Sopanim spoke to her husband, Nir, saying, "O my lord! Behold, it is the time of my old age, the day of my death has arrived. I do not understand how my menopause and the barrenness of my womb have been reversed." . Nir did not believe his wife, and for the second time he said to her, "Depart from me, or else I might assault you, and commit a sin in front of the face of The Lord."

And it came to pass, when Nir had spoken to his wife, Sopanim, that Sopanim fell down at Nir's feet and died. Nir was extremely distressed and said in his heart, "Could this have happened because of my word? And now, merciful is The Eternal Lord, because my hand was not upon her."

It is only now that there is an angelic annunciation

The archangel Gabriel appeared to Nir, and said to him, "Do not think that your wife Sopanim has died because of your error, but this child, which is to be born of her is a righteous fruit, and one whom I shall receive into paradise, so that you will not be the father of a gift of God."

Nir however takes himself to his brother Noah for help because his main concern is scandal

Noah said to Nir, "Don't let yourself be sorrowful, Nir, my brother! For The Lord today has covered up our scandal, in that nobody from the people knows this. Now let us go quickly and bury her, and The Lord will cover up the scandal of our shame." They placed Sopanim on the bed, wrapped her around with black garments, and shut the door. They dug a grave in secret.

However while they are doing that:

... a child came out from the dead Sopanim and sat on the bed at her side. Noah and Nir came in to bury Sopanim and they saw the child sitting beside the dead Sopanim, wiping his clothing. Noah and Nir were very terrified with a great fear, because the child was fully developed physically, he spoke with his lips and blessed The Lord.

Noah and Nir looked at him closely, saying, "This is from The Lord, my brother." And behold the badge of priesthood was on his chest, and it was glorious in appearance. Noah said to Nir, "Behold, God is renewing the priesthood from blood related to us, just as He pleases.."

Noah and Nir hurried and washed the child, they dressed him in the garments of the priesthood, and they gave him bread to eat and he ate it. And they called him Melchizedek .

Noah and Nir lifted up the body of Sopanim, divested her of the black garments, and washed her. They clothed her in exceptionally bright garments and built a grave for her. Noah, Nir, and Melchizedek came and they buried her publicly. Noah said to his brother Nir, "Look after this child in secret until the time, because people will become treacherous in all the earth, they will begin to turn away from God, and having become totally ignorant, and in some way when they see him, they will put him to death."

Then Noah went away to his own place, and behold, great lawlessness began to become abundant over all the earth in the days of Nir. And Nir began to worry excessively about the child saying, "What will I do with him?" And stretching out his hands toward heaven, Nir called out to The Lord, saying, "How miserable it is for me, Eternal Lord, that all lawlessness has begun to become abundant over all the earth in my days! And I realize how much nearer our end is, on account of the lawlessness of the people. And now, Lord, what is the vision about this child, and what is his destiny, or what will I do for him, so that he too will not be joined with us in this destruction?"

The Lord heeded Nir and appeared to him in a night vision. And He said to him, "Behold already, Nir, the great lawlessness which has come about on the earth, which I shall not tolerate anymore. Behold, I plan not to send down a great destruction onto the earth. But, concerning the child, do not worry, Nir; because I, in a short while, will send My archangel Gabriel. And he will take the child and put him in the paradise of Edem.

He will not perish along with those who must perish. As I have revealed it, Melchizedek will be My priest to all holy priests, I will sanctify him and I will establish him so that he will be the head of the priests of the future."

Nir arose from his sleep and blessed The Lord, Who had appeared to him saying:

Blessed be The Lord, The God of my fathers,
Who has not condemned my priesthood
and the priesthood of my fathers,
because by His Word, He has created a great priest
in the womb of Sopanim, my wife.
For I have no descendants.
So let this child take the place of my descendants and become as my
own son, and You will count him in the number of your servants."

"Therefore honor him together with your servants and great priests and me your servant, Nir. And behold, Melchizedek will be the head of priests in another generation. I know that great confusion has come and in confusion this generation will come to an end, and everyone will perish, except that Noah, my brother, will be preserved for procreation. From his tribe, there will arise numerous people, and Melchizedek will become the head of priests reigning over a royal people who serve You, O Lord."

This is a pretty strange and disturbing story. The Melchizedek child is really quite monstrous and inhuman, as probably befits a heavenly (derived) being. Nir is a vainglorious klutz and Noah is not much better. The only person I can feel any connection with is the hapless Sopanim who is someone monstered in/by the narrative. The longer version which is not available online adds greater dialogue which only enhances the tragedy and horror of Sopanim's situation as well as the utter self centredness and crassness of Nir. Melchizedek in the longer version is no different - he makes no connection with any of the human protagonists. The story continues with Melchizedek being taken up into the heavens to be placed in Edem/Eden until a time after the Flood and concludes with Noah being instructed by the Lord to build the ark.

I wont go into the gender and sexuality issues of this story (I have written an Irigarayan analysis of these dynamics which is on its long journey to publication). Well I will but only in so far as they relate to the Temple themes that predominate throughout. And it's the Temple that's front and centre here. Indeed in some ways the story seems to echo Matthew's birth narrative but in very bizarre and monstrous ways while at the same time providing the Temple context that Matthew's narrative lacks (Luke's narrative focuses primarily on Mary and other women and at the same time puts the Temple in the foreground throughout).

It's important to remember that the ancient Temple/s represented the Garden of Eden. Indeed Eden was the mystico-mythical dimension of the Temple. Temple represents the cosmos and Eden is the cosmos the way it was meant to be, the idealised cosmos, the cosmos in which 'God is with us', Immanuel. The architecture of the Temple represents the 6 days of creation in Genesis 1 (and Genesis 1 is a poetic configuration of the cosmos as Temple). Eden/Genesis 2 represents the space/time complex before death came into life, which is also the sacred space within the Temple, the space where heaven and earth meet and where on the Day of Atonement, the Lord is physically present in the person of the High Priest who comes out of the Holy of Holies to heal the cosmos from sin with the divine life force (as represented by the blood of a sacrificed goat - blood is life). In that the Lord takes physical form in the Holy of Holies, the Holy of Holies is actually a kind of womb space. And indeed in Chronicles, especially, the Temple is configured in its dimensions as a kind of androgenously phallic womb.

As Eden, the Temple is regarded as standing on the site where the first human, the Adam or Earthling was shaped from the ground. A curious feature of this second creation story is that before YHWH Elohim forms the earth creature out of the earth the text says in Genesis 2:6 that "a mist (in some translations a spring or stream) came up from the earth and watered the face of the ground" - this was before the time YHWH Elohim caused rains to fall upon the earth. Rain falls from the sky which is the heavenly realm and the heavens in both ancient pagan and Jewish cosmologies are the masculine realms of the divine, the immortal. The earth on the other hand was the feminine realm of the human and mortal. But what we have here in Gen 2:6 is the earth fecundating itself so that the ground becomes alive in readiness for YHWH Elohim's shaping of the Earthling, the first human, and then all other living things. In other words, it's possible to read the creation of the Adam as a type of Virgin Birth from the potently alive earth.

The motif of Virgin Birth (or more properly conception) appears again in the Adam and Eve narrative this time relating to the birth of Cain, Eve's first born. The name, Cain, is a pun on the words Eve speaks in Genesis 4:1 when she gives birth to him "I have acquired (produced, created) a man from the Lord" Cain is a pun on the Hebrew for 'I have acquired'. Now the interesting thing about this verse, is that even though the earlier text says that Adam had sex with Eve, Eve's words deny any role to Adam at all. This phrase generated two readings in rabbinic texts. The most common one was that Adam was not the father of Cain. Instead the serpent had lain with Eve and begotten her first-born son. Another far more subversive and minority reading was that Cain was miraculously conceived by YHWH in Eve's womb. (Another even more dangerous reading in some Jewish esoteric circles is that Cain was YHWH incarnate through Eve).

So the Eden narrative contains within it two instances of miraculous conceptions, one definite and the other implied. Both instances are connected with new beginnings. In the first the earth can be seen as readying itself to collaborate with the Lord in the process of creating living creatures, human and other. The second involves the first-born human (neither Adam or Eve could be said to be born in any literal sense). The Eden that is the Temple is likewise associated with a miraculous Incarnation of the Lord in the person of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement in the wombspace of the Holy of Holies. The Day of Atonement is part of the larger New Year (Rosh Hashanah) high holy days. As part of the annual new beginning the Lord incarnates in the Temple to atone or heal/repair the cosmos of all the ill that had accrued in the previous year.

So, with this Edenic/Temple, perspective in mind lets return to the three miraculous mothers, Sopanim, Sarah and Mary. Starting with Sopanim, hers is clearly a miraculous conception of a heavenly being, Melchizedek who will be the progenitor of a new priestly lineage in the new world that will emerge after the Flood. Sopanim is wife to a priest, Nir, the last priest of the primordial Temple and so through her is guaranteed a continuity between the old Temple and the new. Even though Nir is not the biological father of Melchizedek, he is, as husband in the patriarchal order, the owner of Nir's womb and the products thereof. He may well have been cuckolded by Heaven but as priest, he stands as guardian of the sacred anyway and Melchizedek's occupation of Sopanim's womb can be interpreted as a claim on Nir's lineage as owner of that womb. The story is itself tragi-comic depending on which perspective you adopt, Sopanim or Nir. And it must not be forgotten that this is an end of the world story. The world is careering down to destruction in the Flood. This unravelling can be seen as affecting even the heavenly realm. And in the Enochic literature the final act in this apocalyptic drama is ushered in when the Sons of God, the Watchers, decide to come to earth and mate with human women, giving rise to the Giants who proceed to oppress and destroy the earth. Sopanim's fate, her death at the hands of a heavenly intervention, her lack of choice in everything that happens can be read as anticipating what will befall the earth itself. The earth is oppressed, suffering the monstrous chaos unleashed by the Sons of God and through which all life is corrupted. In the end the bounds of the earth are dissolved to wipe away the corruption and chaos in the Flood. Sopanim's story is both beginning and ending.

Turning to Sarah, what we have here is a new beginning analogous to the new beginning of Genesis 2. Sarah is the mother of Isaac her only son. Abraham is the father of many sons and thus, mythologically, the father of many nations. Sarah, however, has only one son, Isaac, and thus through him, mythologically, she is the foremother of two nations, Israel and Edom. The Israelites might call themselves children of Abraham but they are more truly and intimately the children of Sarah. Isaac, through Sarah, represents a new beginning. Unlike Sopanim, Isaac is a child long desired by Sarah and, unlike Sopanim, Sarah experiences an Annunciation of her forthcoming pregnancy (in Genesis 18). In this Annunciation she and the Lord speak directly to each other dissolving any patriarchal bounds from her marriage to Abraham. Furthermore, the Temple and more particularly the Day of Atonement come into view through the Binding of Isaac when Abraham takes Isaac to Mt Moriah to offer him in sacrifice to the Lord. Subsequent Jewish tradition associates Mt Moriah with the Temple Mount and furthermore the sacrifice of Isaac as also associated with the day of Atonement, anticipating the annual Atonement rituals in the Temple and thus Isaac is a type of both the High Priest and the Lord who annually make atonement through the metaphorical and symbolic giving of their life (blood). (And thus the Binding of Isaac mythically acknowledges the origins of Atonement rituals - Jewish and pagan both - in the scapegoating rites of human sacrifice). I should also add that Melchizedek's first appearance in the biblical texts is in the Genesis narrative of Sarah and Abraham as king (-priest?) in (Jeru-?)Salem.

Finally Mary. In Christian perspective, Mary marks the ultimate new beginning. Her son, like Isaac, is a child of promise, and, like Melchizedek, is a heavenly being, Son of the Most High. And indeed Psalm 110 with its Melchizedek oracle - The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” (110:4) - is a key text deployed in the New Testament to understand Jesus. Jesus is also the new Adam (and Mary becomes the new Eve) thus evoking and confirming Edenic associations with Jesus. Unlike Sopanim but like Sarah Mary receives an Annunciation (Luke 1: 26 - 38). Unlike Sopanim too, Mary's consent is crucial. Her 'fiat' 'let it be done' has long been celebrated in Catholic traditions east and west as an act of free choice on Mary's part, a choice by Mary alone on which hinged the divine program for salvation. Mary's freely chosen collaboration echoes the earth in Genesis 2:6 which fecundates itself so as to collaborate freely with YHWH Elohim's great project of creating living creatures starting with the Adam. (Protestant traditions played down Mary's autonomy and free choice; in the case of Calvin, as Mary Daly would say, making Mary the ultimate rape victim). According to Luke, Gabriel tells Mary that "the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Lk 1:35). Is this dynamic analogous to what was understood to occur in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement? Certainly the Lucan Infancy story puts the Temple front and centre which the Proto-Evangelion of James repeats and further develops making Mary herself a child of the Temple, a promised child too (with the inference, too, that hers is also a miraculous non-sexual conception). The later cult of Mary applies a myriad of titles to her evoking all manner of aspects of the old Temple. (And just as the Israelites are truly children of Sarah so Mary is celebrated as the mother of the Church, the mother of all Christians). The Christian proclamation too is that Jesus' death and resurrection constitute the final great act of Atonement, linking Jesus to Isaac who represents the originary primordial rite of Atonement. Early Christians saw the Binding of Isaac as foreshadowing the Crucifixion and understood both Isaac and Sarah as protoytypes of Jesus and Mary. Jesus, Isaac and Melchiszedek stand in an Edenic Temple gestalt, as do their mothers Mary, Sarah, and Sopanim together with Eve and the primordial earth itself.

And so I would say that miraculous/virginal conception/motherhood as applied to Mary and Jesus is not a pagan import into early Christianity based on a misunderstanding of the term of Son of God, but instead comes out of the heart of ancient Temple Judaism. It affirms a new beginning - I would suggest, drawing on the Day of Atonement liturgy, it affirms the restoration of Eden, a central theme of the new movement of Christians back in the first centuries. Eden is a time before patriarchy and I think virginal motherhood is based upon, recognises, perhaps even celebrates, the primal maternal power that patriarchy has sought to harness, contain and restrain. This maternal power is equated with the power of the earth itself.

Some Thoughts on Animals in the Biblical World (for JH)

I'm starting this on Saturday night after being at Pride all day but will probably finish and post it tomorrow. On Monday I begin almost 3 weeks of housesitting at two different addresses. When I say housesitting, I really mean catsitting. Their humans are going away and so they need someone to attend them. For the next roughly two weeks, I'll be at Corinda looking after a delightful cat called Pi. And then on the 28th I go to Chelmer to look after Gerald. Gerald is quite elderly and will sometimes get distressed late at night which can make for disturbed sleep. But he's quite a sweetie too.

There's a number of cats that I've gotten to know over the last five years or so and I look forward to being able to spend time with them. It's not easy to have pets when you're renting and where I used to live, when I was studying, was also not a good place for animals, being unfenced and on a corner block, the kind of corner that seemed to bring out the worst in drivers. So I look forward to spending time with my animal friends. One place I regularly sit, they also feed their possums and four years ago I was there for almost five months. I got quite friendly with one possum and of an evening I would call out "possum" and I would hear the thump and scratchings of a possum on the roof and next thing I knew the possum would appear on the back deck. It would often hang down by its tail and I used to put food into its paws, which it would eat still hanging above me.

My first experience of death was the death of our first family dog. I was only about 4 or going on 5 when it happened. It was while we still lived in Lithgow so I know how young I was at the time. I have never forgotten him and after we settled in Brisbane there was a hankering from my brothers and I for a dog. Eventually we were adopted by a dog. I remember after school I was lying on the grass in the back yard and next thing I knew there was a snuffling at my ear. I opened my eyes and there was this dog who'd just wandered in off the street. Much pressure on our parents to keep him was successful and he lived with us for many years until he was run over in the street in 1968. I would be adopted by another dog in my 20s who turned up one morning at the front gate of the house I was living in at the time. She was very timid at first. I think she'd been dumped as she turned out to be pregnant. And I think her previous owners did not treat her well. She loved kids. I remember coming home early from work one day to see her on the front footpath surrounded by some school kids who were patting and fussing over her. And she loved it. I have also been adopted by a number of cats, too, in my life.

There is a book that didn't get into any biblical canon, 2 Enoch or the Secrets of Enoch. It only survives in Slavonic but it probably dates from the 1st century and from before the first Jewish War. In chapters 58 and 59, there are some strong and remarkable pronouncements concerning animals. Chapter 58 basically expands on what human dominionship over creation entails vis a vis animals. It recounts how God made all the animals and brought them before Adam to name them. It then declares

The Lord will not judge a single soul of beast for man's sake, but adjudges the souls of men to their beasts in this world; for men have a special place.

And as every soul of man is according to number, similarly beasts will not perish, nor all souls of beasts which the Lord created, till the great judgement, and they will accuse man, if he feed them ill. (57: 6-7)

In other words at the final judgement, the animals will be there to give account of human actions towards them. Chapter 59 opens saying, 'WHOEVER defiles the soul of beasts, defiles his own soul.' and, after summarising the correct way of sacrificing animals concludes, 'And he who does any beast any injury whatsoever, in secret, it is evil practice, and he defiles his own soul.' Furthermore in the Testament of Zebulon, part of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, a text that was part of the Armenian Old Testament for many centuries, Zebulon exhorts his children:

And now, my children, I bid you to keep the commands of the Lord, and to show mercy upon your neighbour, and to have compassion towards all, not towards men only, but also towards beasts. For for this thing's sake the Lord blessed me; and when all my brethren were sick I escaped without sickness, for the Lord knoweth the purposes of each. Have therefore compassion in your hearts, my children, because even as a man doeth to his neighbour, even so also will the Lord do to him (T.Zeb 5:1-2)

Perhaps the thinking expressed by these texts lies behind the 7th injunction of the Noachide Covenant for righteous Gentiles, as taught by the Rabbinic sages, not to eat flesh torn from a living creature. I have read a number of accounts in the last few years arguing that this injunction is meant to enforce ethical treatment of animals. In Leviticus as Literature (2000), Mary Douglas argues that the whole purpose of the Jewish dietary laws in Leviticus is to enforce an ethical approach to animals and the relationship of human beings to other creatures. Being denoted as unclean, out of bounds for sacrifice and food, is actually a good place to be for pigs and rabbits and prawns and crabs. And Douglas points out that at the time Leviticus is thought to have been written "the whole world as it was known to those who lived between the Mediterranean and the Aegean and on through Asia Minor to the Himalayas, was engaged in theological controversy about the right to take animal life" (171). And her observations are underscored by the fact that the Orthodox rabbi here in Brisbane I met with regularly, while doing my PhD, to learn more about Jewish biblical interpretation, was in fact vegetarian.

Christianity abolished the Law or, perhaps, opted to live under a simplified Noachic rule rather than the Mosaic one. But at least up until the Renaissance and Reformation, Monasteries observed a vegetarian regime with meat only reserved for the sick in the infirmary. In the West, there is also the outstanding example of Francis of Assissi famous for his preaching to the birds. Here is Bonaventure's account from Friar Jack Wintz's Musings

“He came to a spot where a large flock of birds of various kinds had come together. When God’s saint saw them, he quickly ran to the spot and greeted them as if they were endowed with reason….

“He went right up to them and solicitously urged them to listen to the word of God, saying, ‘Oh birds, my brothers and sisters, you have a great obligation to praise your Creator, who clothed you in feathers and gave you wings to fly with, provided you with pure air and cares for you without any worry on your part.’…The birds showed their joy in a remarkable fashion: They began to stretch their necks, extend their wings, open their beaks and gaze at him attentively.

“He went through their midst with amazing fervor of spirit, brushing against them with his tunic. Yet none of them moved from the spot until the man of God made the sign of the cross and gave them permission to leave; then they all flew away together. His companions waiting on the road saw all these things. When he returned to them, that pure and simple man began to accuse himself of negligence because he had not preached to the birds before.”

And Wintz adds:

Thomas of Celano, who wrote an earlier biography of St. Francis, told this same story of Francis’ sermon to the birds, including Francis’ admission of “negligence,” but Celano adds this sentence: “From that day on, [Francis] carefully exhorted all birds, all animals, all reptiles, and also insensible creatures, to praise and love the creator…” (see I Celano XXI)

And I am also reminded that it was humans not animals that drove St Seraphim of Sarov from his forest hermitage. A band of robbers assaulted him and left him for dead.


In many respects, the medieval world (and eastern Christianity almost to this day) is strongly influenced by a Platonic theology of a hierarchy of being ranging from the angelic world through to the humblest insects and worms. This worldview comes to an end or at least loses its dominance around the time of the Renaissance and Reformation. The Reformation desacralises the world. Then Descartes puts the human 'I' at the very centre of all existence, disconnected and non-material. The world of matter is a mechanical world, only humans have souls. Consequently animals don't count. And with the rise of a reductionist and mechanist world view and an economic system based on it, the way was open to view animals as little machines, programmed by God or Nature or DNA. But creatures like us with their own fears and joys? Not at all, hence the rise of factory farms and the incredible abuse of animals. And we laugh at the medievals for wanting to put animals on trial but at least they acknowledged some kind of personhood to the animals in their world as the story of Francis shows.

Yakov Leib HaKohain from Donmeh West highlights a different perspective drawing on Jewish tradition. Firstly here's his take on the story of Balaam's ass in Numbers 22:

Moreover, consider the following story from the Bible of Balaam's donkey, a dumb animal:

"Balaam's going kindled the wrath of Yahweh, and the angel of Yahweh took his stand on the road to bar his way. He was riding his donkey . . . . Now the donkey saw the angel of Yahweh standing on the road . . . . and she turned off the road and made off across the country. But Balaam beat her to turn her back on to the road. The angel of Yahweh then took his stand on a narrow path among the vineyards with a wall to the right and a wall to the left. The donkey saw the angel of Yahweh and brushed against the wall, grazing Balaam's foot. Balaam beat her again. The angel of Yahweh moved and took up his stand in a place so narrow that there was no room to pass right or left. When the donkey saw the angel of Yahweh, she lay down under Balaam. Balaam flew into a rage and beat her with his stick.

"Then Yahweh opened the mouth of the donkey, who said to Balaam, 'What have I done to you? Why do you beat me three times?' . . . . Then Yahweh opened the eyes of Balaam. He saw the angel of Yahweh standing on the road, a drawn sword in his hand; and he bowed down and fell prostrate on his face. And the angel of Yahweh said to him, 'Why did you beat your donkey three times like that? . . . . The donkey saw me and turned aside from me three times. You are lucky she did turn aside or I would have killed you by now, though I would have spared her.'" (Numbers 22:22)

Here we see that Balaam's donkey, a dumb animal, could see the angel of Yahweh whereas Balaam himself could not and, intuitively understanding its intention, she surrendered to its will three times, out of what could only have been her soul's inherent knowledge of its creator. Now ask yourselves this: Who here has the "higher" soul? The man who cannot see the angel of the Lord, or the dumb animal who does?"

This kind of statement drives the inflated ego of some people crazy. How dare anyone, they assert, imply that an animal's soul -- in this case, that of a dumb ass -- is not only on a par with, but possibly higher than, that of a man? The answer, of course (whether they like it or not) is because that's precisely what the Bible story of Balaam's donkey is saying . . . . for anyone, that is, who has ears to hear it.

But just as Balaam's own bloated ego led him to whip his donkey three times out of his spiritual blindness, so too we dismiss and "whip" our animals out of ours -- never understanding that without their intercession on our behalf we, like Balaam, are threatened by Yahweh's punishment for being unable to see with our spiritual eyes what they can see so readily with theirs. (Numbers 22:22)

His comments are oddly evocative of those pronouncements in 2 Enoch. And here is a remarkable story from the Jewish Midrashim which share in the quality of Oral Torah in Judaism.

This point is made even more forcefully in a Midrash (Oral Scripture) which states:

"Because the dogs of Egypt did not bark when the Children of Israel fled Egypt, Almighty God rewarded them with the [unkosher] hind-quarters of cattle. Therefore, whenever anyone who has eaten unkosher meat comes to the Gates of Paradise, the dogs who stand at guard there say to him, 'You may not enter here because you ate our portion'."

When I was told this Midrash by a Hassidic Rabbi at his Shabbas table, I asked him, "Rebbe, what does this mean?" To which he answered (somewhat impatiently, I might add), "It means that Jews are not to eat unkosher meat." To which I replied, "But Rebbe, does it not also mean that dogs have souls? Otherwise, how could they be standing at the Gates of Paradise? And does it not mean as well that God has given to these very dogs the power to judge among us humans who is fit to enter into heaven, and who is not?" I was never invited back to his Shabbas table again.

I think his is a quite delightful perspective here. I can't help but think of 2 Enoch again and the animals that testify for or against humans at the last judgement. Animals are persons, too, with their own desires, loves and fears. We humans are persons too but as 2 Enoch suggests, we have a capacity and an awe-inspiring responsibility towards the planet. That we have made such a mess is testimony enough to that capacity and responsibility.

HaKohain quotes one more passage from Jewish Oral Tradition which is evocative of the story of St Francis

consider this quotation from Jewish Oral Scripture (Torah Sh'Baal Peh):

"Every being -- from the heavenly hosts, to man, to the tiniest creature -- blesses God with the words of the Psalm (89:53), Boruch Yahweh l'olam, omayin v'omayin! -- 'Bless Yahweh forever, amen and amen'." (Midrash, quoted in The Wisdom of the Hebrew Alphabet, Rabbi Michael L. Munk, Mesorah Press, 1983, p. 56)

Given that the "Oral" Torah (set down in the Midrash, Talmud, Zohar, etc.) is considered in Jewish tradition to be equal in authority to the "Written" Torah (i.e., "Old Testament") -- and that both were given simultaneously to Moses on Mt. Sinai (e.g. see Abraham Cohen, Everyman's Talmud, Schocken Books, 1995, pp. 146-149)

On the strength of such Oral Torah, HaKohain argues that animals have souls, "even the tiniest among them." He goes on to state that they also know the Torah and can speak Hebrew, which strikes a jarringly literalist note. But rather might it mean that animals have no sense of separation from the Divine, unlike we humans. So blessing the Divine comes easily to them (I hesitate to say automatically).

I remember as a child in convent school, the question would recur "Will animals get to heaven?" It represented a concern for the wellbeing of our pets who we loved. I've seen such concerns crop up on the sites of Left Behind Religion. Will our pets be left behind? The discussons can be quite touching, really.

And so I want to close these jottings with some passages from Isaiah, which very much more than Thomas is the fifth gospel of Christianity. Both pertain to the vision of the final restoration and consummation of all creation. "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." (Isaiah 11.6). This passage might be exuberant metaphor but it also signifies that humans and animals, all, will join in the new order, an order of overarching solidarity, both amongst animals and animals and humans. This chapter of Isaiah continues, "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah 11.9). And it is echoed here, "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD." (Isaiah 65.25). The holy mountain is the Temple, which represents Eden. The consummation marks the restoration of Eden. Revelation closes looking forward to a new heaven and new earth with a vision of a new Jerusalem descending without a Temple, the place where earth and heaven meet, because Earth is now permeated by Heaven through and through. All of earth is now heaven, which is why Hosea can proclaim, "And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely." (Hos. 2.18). All of animalkind is included in a covenant with Yahweh.

So are animals unimportant in the cosmos? Are they locked out of Heaven and its ways? Are they just objects subject to the bow and sword of human desire and convenience? Do they have no stake in the tikkun olam, the repair of the world? Those who might answer 'yes' think carefully before you speak. Remember the dogs who guard the Gates of Paradise (I'm sure the cats are there, too, to give back-up).

Important Text Discovery - Fragments of a Coptic version of 2 Enoch

I had been planning to write something on the Roman Catholic Apocrypha (not to be confused the deutero-canonicals in the Roman Catholic Old Testament) however I saw something quite important over at PaleoJudaica. Apparently some manuscript fragments have been found in Upper Egypt. It turns out they are from a Coptic version of 2 Enoch, a text so far only known in Slavonic. I'll quote some of the material posted at PaleoJudaica:

During his work preparing the publication of Coptic manuscripts from Qasr Ibrim in Egyptian Nubia, Joost Hagen, doctoral student at Leiden University, The Netherlands, very recently came across some fragments he could identify as part of the text of the so-called ‘Slavonic Enoch’ (2 Enoch), the first time a non-Slavonic manuscript of this intriguing text has been found.

The fragments were discovered at Qasr Ibrim, one of the capital cities of Christian-period Nubia (southern Egypt, northern Sudan, 5th-15th cent. AD), during excavations by the British Egypt Exploration Society (EES) which started in 1963 and have brought to light an astonishing number of finds, textual and other. Joost Hagen has been entrusted by the EES with the edition of the manuscript material in Coptic, the language of Christian Egypt and one of the literary languages used in the Christian kingdoms of Nubia.

The ‘Slavonic Enoch’ fragments, found in 1972, are four in number, most probably remnants of four consecutive leaves of a parchment codex. The fourth fragment is rather small and not yet placed with certainty, also because there is as yet no photograph of it available, only the transcription of its text by one of the excavators. For the other three fragments, both this transcription and two sets of photographs are available. The present location of the pieces themselves is not known, but most probably they are in one of the museums or magazines of the Antiquities Organization in Egypt.

The fragments contain chapters 36-42 of 2 Enoch, probably one of the most interesting parts of the work one could wish for, with the transition between two of its three main parts: Enoch’s heavenly tour and his brief return to earth before the assuming of his task back in heaven. Moreover, they clearly represent a text of the short recension, with chapter 38 and some other parts of the long recension ‘missing’ and chapters 37 and 39 in the order 39 then 37. On top of that, it contains the ‘extra’ material at the end of chapter 36 that is present only in the oldest Slavonic manuscript of the work, U (15th cent.), and in manuscript A (16th cent.), which is closely related to U. For most Coptic texts, a translation from a Greek original is taken for granted and the existence of this Coptic version might well confirm the idea of an original of the Book of the Secrets of Enoch in Greek from Egypt, probably Alexandria...

Archeologically it seems likely that the Coptic manuscript is part of the remains of a church library from before the year 1172, possibly even from before 969, two important dates in the history of Qasr Ibrim; a tentative first look at palaeographical criterea seems to suggest a date in the eighth to ninth, maybe tenth centuries, during Nubia’s early medieval period. This would mean that the fragments predate the accepted date of the translation of 2 Enoch into Slavonic (11th, 12th cent.) and that they are some several hundred years older than the earliest Slavonic witness, a text with extracts of the ethical passages (14th cent.).

2 Enoch was a text that I became acquainted with during my PhD. The Slavonic vesions occur in two recensions, a longer and shorter. In the longer version only there occurs one of the most explicitly homophobic references to Sodom and Gomorrah in all the Old Testament pseudepigrapha. But the oldest Slavonic manuscripts of 2 Enoch date from the 14th century. These finds in Egypt date back several centuries earlier. That they come from a church library also demonstrate how important the pseudepigrapha were for Christianity.

2 Enoch, also known as the Secrets of Enoch, is a really fascinating text, which the scholarly consensus places in the first century. Leaving aside the homophobic Sodom reference, most likely a much later Christian addition, 2 Enoch is noteworthy for its narrative account of the miraculous conception of Melchizedek who here is a heavenly being. It is definitely a non-sexual conception but given that the mother, Nir, is married at the time to the brother of Noah it can't really be said to be virginal. But it shows that there were groups of 1st century Jews for whom miraculous, non-sexual conception was an acceptable notion. The other fascinating thing about the book is that it relates how at the last judgment all the animals will be called to give account of how they have been treated by humans. You can find out more about 2 Enoch over at Andrei Orlov's 2 (Slavonic) Enoch website.

New Resource Pages at Slavonic Pseudepigrapha Project

I see over at Antiquitopia there's a notice from the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha Project about two new resource pages. Not many people know about the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha, a collection of para-biblical (pseudepigraphal) texts that only exist in Slavonic. The 2 resource pages are for 2 Enoch also known as the Secrets of Enoch and the Apocalypse of Abraham. 2 Enoch is a fascinating text or collection of texts. It exists in a variety of versions or recensions. The oldest manuscripts in which it is found are from the 14th century. Nevertheless, it most likely dates from the 1st century as it does not know of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. The Apocalypse of Abraham does know of the Temple's destruction and most likely comes from the 2nd century CE as we have references to it in early Christian literature. These texts seem to have been tramslated from Greek into Slavonic although it appears that there was a Semitic Vorlage, either Hebrew or Aramaic, behind the Greek.

I came across 2 Enoch doing my PhD as in one of its versions it contains a brief reference to Sodom in a homophobic context. I would also discover that 2 Enoch contains an account of the miraculous/asexual/'virgin' conception of Melchizedek. I've written an essay on that for an anthology on biblical mothers which I hope is forthcoming this year. This time last year the editor assured me that it should be coming out last year but I've heard nothing so far. Anyway, I've yet to read the Apocalypse of Abraham in full but it does have some intersting material, including a strange angel called Yahoel, who seems to be an echo of a time when YHWH was known as the Great Angel, chief of the Divine Council.

The resource page for 2 Enoch is here and that for Apocalypse of Abraham is here. An online translation of 2 Enoch without the Melchizedek story can be found here. An online translation of Apocalypse of Abraham can be found here.

COLIN GRIFFITHS - REQUIESCAT IN PACE

I planned this to be an occasional blog i.e. a posting frequency of once a week roughly. But here I am putting up two posts on the same day. But yesterday I got word of the death of Colin Griffiths in Newcastle. I’d been emailed the night before that Colin was in hospital and not expected to live very long.

Where to begin with Colin? Maybe right at the very beginning. I don’t think Colin or I ever worked out when or where we first met. We had too many overlapping circles of friends, which was a fact of Brisbane gay life and a fact consequently of the Brisbane HIV/AIDS ‘community’ in those days. But one thing Colin and I worked out pretty quickly was that we were astro twins, born the same day, same year, same city – Sydney 5/7/1952. I had a pretty good idea of when I was born – my birth, it turns out, was a bit of a medical emergency and so my father remembered the nurses saying the time I was born when he went in to the hospital to visit Mum. However Colin only knew that he was born around lunchtime. His father remembered getting the word when he came home for lunch. I ran up a chart for him on www.astro.com for the time 12.10pm. I’m not into rectifications and the time was sort of a compromise based on Colin’s recollections of what his father had told him but the chart seemed to make some sense. But I guess the interesting thing about astro twins is we represented to each other different possibilities of what our lives might have been given that birth, our own birth, is something over which we humans have no control whatsoever. But while we might represent different possibilities to each other we also had some uncanny instances of parallel tracking. I remember still to this day when we were first alerted to this fact. I can’t quite remember the year, 1989 or 1990. I was then working for the AIDS Council and Colin worked for the Injectors AIDS organisation, QuIVAA. We both went to a meeting in Qld Health, it might have been a World AIDS Day planning meeting or maybe a meeting re the non-English language speakers national AIDS campaign that the federal gov’t launched in 1989. But anyway Colin and I turned up at the meeting wearing exactly the same shirt. We were also wearing blue jeans and sneakers. Jeans and sneakers were fairly standard dress in the community sector and while jeans come in a variety of colours blue is pretty standard. But the same shirt! Everyone commented on it as did we ourselves who had a bit of a giggle about it. Neither of us knew we had that shirt – think I might have bought mine not long before. I don’t know when Colin bought his.

In 1996, Colin moved into the house I was living in, in Brisbane’s West End. The house belonged to Stephen Brown who had also worked in the AIDS Council in those days and was studying social work at Uni of Qld. Both Steven and I had started our doctorates. Colin, Steven and I lived together in that house until late 2003 when Colin moved to Newcastle. By that stage Steven had dropped out of his doctorate and was back working at the AIDS Council. The following year major funding changes meant the end of QuAC as we knew it to be rejigged in ’05 as a community based health promotion organisation, Qld Association of Healthy Communities (also pronounced quack). Steven took the change as an opportunity for ‘early retirement’ (he was younger than me) to be partly financed by selling the house. In retirement, he would live between Pattaya, Thailand and Brisbane. It was in Thailand, two years ago that Steven died suddenly of a stroke, pretty much on this day or the day after. So it is quite uncanny that Colin, whose health had been deteriorating markedly over the last year, should die at this time. It’s also very strange to realise that the two people with whom I lived for 7-8 years are now both dead.

So I’m thinking about Colin and thinking about Steven and thinking about death. Curiously next month will mark 24 years since my first experience of a friend dying from AIDS. It will also be three years since the death of an old ex of mine in Wagga, also from HIV disease (it seems Marc could not respond to the treatments cocktail being given to him – but given that his sister had died in the year before, reopening all manner of family wounds I suspect he might have died of grief). Like most gay men my age, I got used to the ways of death and funerals a long time ago. What was strange for me was the lull that occurred from the late 90s onwards with the kicking in of the new treatment regimes. But the last four years have been marked by a rising tide of deaths and funerals, the only difference being that most are now not HIV related.

I prayed for Colin this morning and will pray for him over the coming days. For some time now as part of my spiritual practice I pray for those who’ve died. It’s a very Catholic thing to do – also very Buddhist, especially for those in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition. I remember a film I saw many years ago in my AIDS Council days. I can’t remember the name – maybe it was Longtime Companion? – but it was about the pandemic and it’s impact on a community of gay men in New York in the 80s. There’s a beach, probably at Fire Island, that recurs throughout the film. Early on it’s a place of much gay abandon – the favourite summer haunt of these New York queens. The final scene, which stays with me still, is set on the beach. A couple of surviving characters are on the beach talking about the last few years remembering all those who have died. All of sudden great crowds of people surge onto the beach. They are all the dead, and the living, back together in an amazing moment of gay eschatology, recapitulation, reconciliation. It reminded me of the final chapter in D M Thomas’s White Hotel, itself a remarkable evocation of life, life within death, life beyond death. Following the bayonet rape/death of the main character at Babi Yar in the previous chapter, this chapter opens with the arrivals of all these trainloads of people, including Lisa, the main character, at the end of their journey of 'resettlement in the east', in a dreamscape Palestine beyond, which is rapidly filling with all manner of folk as the massacres of World War 2 progress. And while the initial arrivals are Jewish this Palestine is a place open to all and hence not marked out by borders and fences, not owned/claimed by anyone.

The German Marxist philosopher, Ernst Bloch, asked how can we live when the Revolution comes knowing how many countless generations did not make it to the new age of justice and freedom. How can one live in the new age knowing that it rests on the bones of the countless dead? An AIDS musical from the 80s ends with Vaccine Day celebrating the eventual end of the reign of HIV. But what of those who never made it? A Russian theologian/philosopher, from the 19th century I think or maybe early 20th century (his essay is in an anthology on Russian spirituality, which I might have packed away but even if not, I’m housesitting and so don’t have access to my books), wrote that the only task of Christians is to raise the dead. He doesn’t actually say what he means by that, at least not in any sort of logical, rational way. His essay is mystical, poetic. Intuitively, poetically, I know what he means but to put it in dry mundane speech is not possible. At best I can only say – to raise the dead means to remember them, to value them, to live and hope for a time of recapitulation, reconciliation, restoration. Vaccine Day, the Revolution can only be fully realised if the dead themselves somehow share in that moment.

One text that turns up frequently on ancient lists of New Testament texts is the Apocalypse of Peter. If people think the Book of Revelation is scary (I don’t, actually) then they should read the Apocalypse of Peter. It’s really nasty stuff. But in my readings of and around this text I stumbled across a reference to a scholar (whose name escapes me now) who argued that despite its horrors, the Apocalypse of Peter originally included the notion that at the last judgment those who are consigned to damnation are saved by the prayers of the saints (i.e. Christians) that indeed those saints will be praying for all those others, that it is a natural thing for saints to do. The idea is definitely found in the 2nd century Epistle of the Apostles and also in the Christian Sybillene books. And I wonder if such thinking lies behind eastern and western catholic traditions of praying to the saints, especially the Virgin Mary, and asking them to pray for us. And does such thinking lie behind the extraordinary medieval accounts of how Mary saves so many reprobates (read ordinary people trying to get through life in all its day to day fucked-up-ness) who have kept up praying to her despite all else? (Some of these stories are quite delightful and would make the fire and brimstone set wince) In other words, far back in the Christian tradition there seems to be the notion of a universal reconciliation and restoration. I should add that in 2 Enoch, at the last judgment all the animals are there to give testimony on human behaviour, to call humans to account. In other words it’s not just humans who are included in the new era of the eschaton. For those who don’t know it, 2 Enoch is part of a whole library of ancient Jewish literature that was only preserved by Christians (in 2 Enoch’s case, Slavonic Christians).

And so Catholics pray for the dead. We pray in part because we recognise we are part of a community that transcends time and space including the walls of death. (That is why Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic churches are adorned with images icons paintings statues of the saints – to acknowledge and affirm that community) We pray for the living and we pray for the dead and (the hope) the dead pray for us too. It is part of what it means to work together, to help each other, to support each other. It is part of justice making, of community making, of what in Judaism is known as tikkun olam, the spiritual repair of the world, a repair that comes through, to coin a term of Peter Kropotkin, mutual aid. Mutual aid is the mark of the Revolution, of Vaccine Day. It’s how the Revolution is waged. It’s how to raise the dead.

And so I pray for Colin and I hope he’s saying a prayer for me. And I look forward to catching up with him sometime, somehow, perhaps on a beach, or a beachside terrace. We can share a few camparis and soda and some joints (my stash runneth over). And he’ll laugh and say ‘it was a bit fucked up sometimes but we did it fine’. (And I hope, even though he didn’t like parties, that Steven will come along for a drink too).

Solidarity forever!