can be interesting things.

Mrs Jameson just delivered to me a small card, perhaps two-thirds of a normal personal one, saying:

AN EXCEPTIONAL OCCASION
The Preacher at St. Martin’s
To-morrow, Sunday, October 14th at 11 am,
will be
An Indian Clergyman
the Rev. S.J.B. Bhosle

Someone went to some trouble to print that.

May latest Fall arrived this morning, a two-volume set, Sacred and Legendary Art by Mrs Jameson, 1890 (third edition). For £8 including postage, how could I resist? (In fact there’s a really nice 18th-century book going tomorrow for £45, when on abebooks it’s hundreds of pounds; very tempting.)

Get there behind me Satan! Whoops, you can tell that I’ve been reading, or at least browsing, Mrs Jameson.

Apropos my earlier discussion of how powerful and scholarly women get slandered, here I’ve been seeing how the saints are all beautiful, fair and modest, which is usually what gets them into trouble.

I particularly liked St Filomena, whose remains were found in 1802 in the catacomb of Priscilla in Rome. “The remains, reasonably supposed to be those of one of the early martyrs for the faith, were sealed up and deposited in the treasury of relics in the Lateran; here they remained unthought of. On the return of Pius VII from France, a Neopolitan prelate was sent to congratulate him. One of the priests in his train, who wished to create a sensation in his district, where the long residence of the French had probably caused some decay of piety, begged for a few relics to carry home, and these remains were bestowed on him…. another priest … was favoured by a vision in the broad noon-day, in which he beheld the glorious virgin Filomena, who was pleased to reveal to him that she had suffered death for preferring the Christian faith and her vow of chasitity to the addresses of the emperor, who wished to make her his wife …” (vol II, pp. 672-3)

Finally, Mrs Jameson records, “in the last twenty years” she has become of the most popular saints in Italy. She says dryly: “it is difficult to account for the extension and popularity of this story”. I think I might have to find out more about Mrs Jameson.

I was going to provide a sample of the line drawings of the art in the book, which I assume are also Mrs Jameson’s, but having downloaded “Hello”, as recommended by Blogger, I haven’t got very far. Another day.

… older mothers.

The Hon Georgiana Arstruther (1810-81) gave birth to her first child in January 1862 and twins in December of the same year, having been married at the age of 37.

from J. Lewis, “‘Tis a misfortune to be a great ladie’: Maternal mortality in the British aristocracy,” in The Journal of British Studies, Vol 37, No 1, Jan. 1998, p. 48.

The article argues that aristocratic women’s rate of maternal mortality matched the national average (although contemporaries thought that they were much more likely to die). It says that you might have expected, however, their rate to be lower, given their presumed better nutrition and living conditions; probably their earlier marriages were a factor.

Continuing from Elaine Pagel’s The Gnostic Gospels ….

“The absence of feminine symbolism for God marks Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in striking contrast to the world’s other religious traditions” but the Gnostics were different.

One group believed it had received a secret tradition from Jesus via James to Mary Magdalene. They prayed … “From The, Father, and through Thee, Mother, the two immortal names, Parents of the divine being …” (p. 71)

Marcus the magician invokes her as Grace (charis) and taught that the wine symbolised his blood. (p. 73)

Others declared her to be the Holy Spirit, or Wisdom, or sometimes she seems to be an earlier goddess, as in the Secret Book of John:

“[The creator] becoming arrogant in spirit, boasted himself over all those things that were below him, and exclaimed, ‘I am father, and God, and above me there is no one.’ But his mother, hearing him speak thus, cried out agains him, ‘Do not lie, Ialdabaoth …”(p. 77)

This seems to have had practical consequences, since at least three heretical groups had women in leadership positions: the Marcionites, Montanists (who honoured Priscilla and Maximilla as founders) and Carpocratians, but after 200 there is no evidence of any such role in the orthodox churchs.

Sometimes this went a long way into true democracy. A congregation in Lyon refused any hierarchy. At each meeting they cast lots (men and women equally) to decide who should be priest, bishop or prophet for the day. They believed by this they were leaving the choice to God. (p. 66)

What a different world it could have been, had the Gnostics won, although (see previous) post, it seems the meek never could inherit the earth.

I’ve been saying for years when the subject of women and Christianity came up: “Well of course the Gnostics were different and women had a prominent place among them,” without knowing any more than that.

So, prompted by a review of another of her books, I finally got around to buying Elaine Pagels’ The Gnostic Gospels.

It is not so much about what they believed, in fact she suggests that the label was applied promiscously to a wide variety of beliefs that didn’t square with the organisation that would become the established church.

Instead, it looks at why The Establishment won and the Gnostics lost. She argues this was not fundamentally because of politics, or chance, or geography, but because what became the orthodox beliefs were the most functional for the setting up and growing of the institution.

Among these were:
*Literal belief in the physical resurrection of Christ (which one Gnostic called the “faith of fools”). For the orthdoxy contact with the risen Christ gave the apostles an authority that they then passed down to the early bishops. Authority was in an agreed, settled form.

* Belief in Christ’s humanity, and hence his suffering on the Cross encouraged others to be martyrs, hence strengthening the church. (Lots of Gnostics said this was a stupid idea and there was nothing wrong in lying to the Roman authorities about their beliefs.)

*Gnostics believed in a spiritual church that only consisted of those who had seen the light, dismissing organisational links as meaningless. (Rather as a lot of 17th-century English dissident grousp did.) For both lots, however, it did tend to be a basis for argument and schism, rather than agreement.

Next, why they were good for women …

… is the title of the exhibition on George III and Queen Charlotte at the Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace.

I visited this afternoon, as promised earlier, but was serious disappointed. There is nothing on George’s interest in scientific instruments, beyond clocks and barometers, and only one small case on the Queen’s patronage of botany and “women’s” crafts. There is an awful lot of ordinary to bad royal portraiture and really ugly silver and china, however.

And the £7.50 entry charge is seriously expensive for what only amounts to three rooms, even if there is Molton Brown handwash in the loos. I’m not surprised that the staff often outnumber the visitors. (It must be losing a mint!)

But there were a couple of highlights:

* an astronomical clock of 1765 that was in the octagon library (which from a print looked very like a miniature round reading room) that also told the time at 30 places around the world (although displayed so you couldn’t see all four sides!)

*a nice portrait of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany, (of which there was unfortunately not a postcard) to go with the collection of papercut cut-outs, a couple done by her, others by Princess Elizabeth and the sewing kit the Queen gave her.

Overall it seems Queen Charlotte was a promoter of botany, particularly for women (nothing wrong with that), needlework and obscure crafts such as the paper cutting. e.g. some really hideous gilded chairs were upholstered with embroidery by “the pupils of Mrs Phoebe Wright’s school”. The value that was placed on these was shown by the fact that the collection of Mrs Delany’s papercuts was dispersed (read thrown out) after the Queen’s death.