63

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H :

T h e C l e a v i n g F e m i n i n e W i n g o f t h e D u a l - G e n d e r e d C h e r u b i m i n 2

C h r o n i c l e s ( D i v r e i H a y a m m i m )3 : 1 1 – 1 2

J u l i e K e l s o *

Th e angelic world, whether it be metaphor or reality, is a giant image in which we may see and study our-selves, even as we move towards what may be the end of our time. (Bloom 1996, 11)

1. Introduction: Philosophers and Angels

According to Harold Bloom, contra Augustine, a serious meditation on the angel is not a pursuit valid only as an intellectual exercise and nothing more. As the above passage suggests, to contemplate the angelic world entails the possibility of an encounter with our own image, one that changes through the ages, to be sure. In other words, the malleable conceptualisation and theorisation of that curiously beautiful, utterly strange, and at the same time terrifying (as Rilke knew only too well) mediatory fi gure we fi nd in so many of our world’s religions and their stories off ers us the chance to assess, philosophically, who and what we were and are.

And will possibly be? Th e fi nal clause of Bloom’s statement is enig-matic: ‘…even as we move towards what may be the end of our time.’ Bloom seems to suggest that we are still capable of seeing our image somehow in the angelic world (‘even as…’), despite our possible non-

* Julie Kelso, Assistant Professor in Philosophy and Literature, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

64

P O L I G R A F I

future (‘we move towards what may be the end of our time’). If so, what is this non-future, this possible ‘end of our time’? Is it the end of our era, be it the (then) twentieth century, modernity, post-modernity, late-capitalism, or some Old-Hegelian culmination of human progress? Or is he heralding that most annoyingly fashionable (pre-mature) idea of the post-human (future)? Whichever it may be, the close study of these fi gures can serve an important purpose with respect to the future.

Th is project of critically exploring the images and concepts that fl ood our past and present landscapes with the dual aim of understanding why we are what we say we are and what we may possibly become is, I think, a good way of generally describing Luce Irigaray’s philosophical interpretation of the angel. Th e appearance of the angel in her work is a rather beautiful and for many, at fi rst, perplexing aspect of her writings concerning the possibilities of sexual diff erence–of civic, intellectual, emotional and carnal relations between the sexes, especially through the becoming of female sexed subjectivity. Or, as Gail Schwab puts it more generally, the angel is ‘one of the most puzzling and profoundly original aspects of Irigarayan thought’ (Schwab 1994, 366). I suppose the perplexing or puzzling quality of the angel in Irigaray’s writing concerns the problem of utilizing such a religio-mythological fi gure in a discourse (philosophy) that, these days, is supposed to be resolutely secular and empirically reasonable. Surely talk of angels in such a manner as Iriga-ray’s belongs only to the past, or to those with fundamentalist leanings, or (similarly) to the new-agers who truly believe in such beings, espe-cially the guardian variety? Moreover, statements such as “(t)he mucous should no doubt be pictured as related to the angel” (Irigaray, 1993a, 17) are perplexing for the novice reader, be they philosopher, theologian, biologist, or feminist theorist.

Yet, neither the presence of angels in philosophical discourse nor the question of how to interpret them is a new one. Appearing in many re-ligious traditions, angels are described as those non-human, quasi-di-vine messengers who bear words that bring together the divine and the human, the transcendent and the material; they deliver messages that cannot be heard or understood according to the usual channels of com-munication and interpretation. And such fi gures, whether called angels or not, have been a part of the western philosophical tradition. Indeed,

65

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

mediation between the human and divine realms, between the material or immanent and the immaterial or transcendent, has often, it seems, been an intriguing aspect of Western philosophy.

For example, In Plato’s Apologia Socrates famously claims to have to daimonion (“divine entity”) who warns him against making certain mistakes (see: Joyal 2005). In the early Christian and medieval periods, when Christian theology and Greek philosophy were dancing around each other, this fi gure of mediation between the transcendent and the material realms became an important and prominent focus. In his Stro-mata, Clement of Alexandria claims that Greek (pagan) philosophy was stolen from God and brought down to earth by the fallen angels (his idea derived from the Watchers of 1 Enoch). While his opponents claimed this was why philosophy was not necessary to the Christian (it being false knowledge, and therefore the enemy),¹ Clement seemed ada-mant that while stolen it may be, false it was not.² Whereas Augustine had earlier declared that contemplating the nature of angelic being was useful only as an intellectual exercise, the later scholastics, notably Aqui-nas, the so-called angelic doctor, and Bonaventure, the seraphic doctor, took the questions concerning angels more seriously. Th ough Aquinas, despite popular belief, won’t actually ask how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, he will ponder whether angels pass from one place to another without going through the middle (Part I, q. 53, art. 2), whether angels have ‘morning knowledge or evening knowledge’ (q. 58, art. 6) and whether angels know each other (q. 56, art. 2).³ Later, Kant will speak of “beings of whom we are unable to say whether they are even possible” (Critique of Pure Reason). Locke, less cautiously, will refer to beings (spirits [i.e. angels]) who are capable of knowing more than the human because of their ability to “frame and shape to themselves organs of sensation or perception as to suit them to their present design” (Es-say Concerning Human Understanding). In more recent times, the angel has served Heidegger and Benjamin. Specifi cally, Rilke’s Angel (of the Duino Elegies) represents, for Heidegger, Being itself. Benjamin argues

¹ On Justyn Martyr’s loathing of the fallen angels, see: Reed (2004).² So too Hermias, in his Irrisio Gentilium Philosophorum. See: Bauckman (1985).³ See: Ross (1985, 495–496) for a discussion of the mistaken belief that Aquinas pondered the question of angels dancing on a pinhead.

66

P O L I G R A F I

that Klee’s Angelus Novus is how the “Angel of History” must look, facing the past with his back to the future, blown on by a storm from Paradise called “Progress”. As Ross (1985) points out, whether philosophers be-lieve in such supernatural entities is not the point. Th e point is that these more-than-human images, in these cases angels, are useful in some way to the progress of philosophy; they aid the lover of wisdom.

So, while we may at fi rst be puzzled at the image of the angel in Iri-garay’s writings, we really cannot claim that it marks a departure from philosophy into, say, theology or mythology (though, of course, the distinction between these is a problematic one for Irigaray, justifi ably I think). Th e more astute and patient readers of Irigaray have more than competently interpreted the role of the angel in Irigaray’s philosophi-cal project of thinking the possibility of an ethics of sexual diff erence. I am indebted to them in my own discussion of this function, below. However, I have a specifi c interest here. I want to look, specifi cally, at the biblical fi gures of the cherubim. For Irigaray, these ancient fi gures (from Exodus specifi cally) speak somewhat silently to the possibility of sexual diff erence and sexual ethics, possibilities subsequently shut down by patriarchal desires. Th is is an important and invaluable suggestion for feminists who desire a recasting of sexual diff erence in Western culture. However, I wish to introduce the cherubim as they are described in the fi nal book of the Hebrew canon, Th e Book of Chronicles (Divrei Hay-ammim) to argue that these curious cherubim insist on calling for sexual diff erence.⁴ In other words, while the confi guration of the cherubim in Exodus may be “a representation of a sexuality that has never been incarnated”, the gesturing of the very unusual cherubim in Chronicles represents their desperation, indeed the exigency of desire for diff erence. I suggest we need to include them in our genealogy of the “angel” as harbinger of an ethics of sexual diff erence.

⁴ What follows is developed from an idea I could not explore in great detail in O Mother Where Art Th ou? (Kelso 2007), though some of that work appears here, notably the fi nal paragraph.

67

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

2. Irigaray’s Angels

In An Ethics of Sexual Diff erence, Irigaray, evoking Heidegger, states that each age has but one issue “to think through” (Irigaray 1993a, 5). For Irigaray, this one issue of our time is sexual diff erence, a project with far reaching implications for other major issues of our time (racial, ecological, economic, political and social). If we think through sexual diff erence, understood as recognition of two irreducibly distinct sexu-ated subjects, man and woman, we will eff ect a change for the better in our world:

Sexual diff erence would constitute the horizon of worlds more fecund than any known to date – at least in the West – and without reducing fecundity to the reproduction of bodies and fl esh. For loving partners this would be a fecun-dity of birth and regeneration, but also the production of a new age of thought, art, poetry, and language: the creation of a new poetics. (Irigaray 1993a, 5)

It is evident that, for Irigaray, the monologic of hom(m)o-sexuality not only has dire eff ects on the lives of women especially, but also men, though less so. Furthermore, the culture of death that reigns under Western patriarchies also has catastrophic eff ects on nature. Th us, our task is one of great exigency.

Crucial to this task is a re-thinking of the relationship between space and time and between form and matter. In order for a new age to issue in, we need somehow to change our

perception and conception of space-time, the inhabiting of places, and of containers, or envelopes of identity. It assumes and entails an evolution or a transformation of forms, of the relations of matter and form and of the inter-val between: the trilogy of the constitution of place. Each age inscribes a limit to this trinitary confi guration: matter, form, interval, or power [puissance], act, intermediary-interval. (Irigaray 1993a, 7–8)

Traditionally, woman has been reduced to the representation of place for man. As the maternal-feminine container or envelope, she is thus also a “thing” for him, a spatial entity that exists for his respite, protection and nourishment. She is his original home and she continues to house him when he needs housing, outside of the world of his civic life. She is his domus. Th e problem, however, is that while she is asked to perform

68

P O L I G R A F I

this function for man at all times, he very rarely returns the blessed fa-vour (if at all).

Moreover as place for someone else, she has no place of her own. How is it possible to be a subject who fi rst needs and then fi nds or is given a place of refuge if one is understood as place itself? Th is inability means that women are bereft of the necessary act of symbolically articu-lating their own specifi c relation to spatial origins, to the maternal body. Both mother and daughter represent the same thing: asexual, maternal place-holder of the void for man:

She is left with a void, a lack of all representation, re-presentation, and even strictly speaking of all mimesis of her desire for origin. Th at desire will hence-forth pass through the discourse-desire-law of man’s desire. “You will be my woman-mother, my wife, if you would, and (like) my mother, if you could,” is a statement equivalent to: “You will be for me the possibility of repeating-representing-appropriating the/my relation to the origin.” Now this operation – and we quote Freud’s own words against him here – in no way constitutes a displacement of the origin – desire of the little girl, of the woman. It is more in the nature of an exile, an extradition, an exmatriation, from this/her economy of desire (Irigaray 1985a, 42–3).

As representative of origin (for man), woman can have no relation-ship with “it;” there can be no ‘“other side” of the representation of ori-gin. Woman cannot turn it into her project of return or turning back’ (Irigaray 1985a, 41). She is in a state of ‘exile’ or ‘dereliction.’

Ultimately, in a dreadful twist, woman’s destitution of place (because she represents what contains space) is threatening for man – she is an enveloping wanderer who lacks, a mendicant who is lack itself:

Th e maternal-feminie remains the place separated from “its” own place, de-prived of “its” place. She is or ceaselessly becomes the place of the other who cannot separate himself from it. Without her knowing or willing it, she is then threatening because of what she lacks: a “proper” place. (Irigaray 1993a, 10–11)

Perceived as threat to his identity, man must contain woman. In-tellectually and spiritually, he achieves this by prohibiting her from a genuine relationship to language, to image creation, to law, to anything outside (for him) the realm of mute nature. Physically, he has done this by giving her a pseudo-home, one where he can shut her in and return to her at his will. But she stagnates there, because it is, after all, yet an-

69

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

other place for him to return and repose, not her: “he contains or en-velops her with walls while enveloping himself and his things with her fl esh” (Irigaray 1993a, 11). Th is entombment, as we shall see, is evident to some extent in the temple description given in Chronicles.

Ultimately, in the West at least, all of this is symptomatic of the mal-adic fact that sexuate diff erence is yet-to-be. To understand how and why this has come to be, how and why this failure has been sustained, it is necessary to examine our history thoroughly, to return to the texts of our cultural past, those that are most meaningful to us (philosophical, political, religious, literary texts) paying close attention to the images we have employed therein. Irigaray’s task is not revisionist; she is not interested in simply exhuming these images for the purpose of improv-ing our knowledge of the past. Such an act really counts for little more than nostalgia, particularly when it comes to our analysis of sacred lit-eratures. Her interpretive purpose, as she puts it, is one of “founding a new ethics”:

Th e myths and stories, the sacred texts are analyzed, sometimes with nos-talgia but rarely with a mind to change the social order. Th e texts are merely consumed or reconsumed, in a way. Th e darkness of our imaginary or symbolic horizon is analyzed more or less adequately, but not with the goal of founding a new ethics. Th e techniques of reading, translating, and explaining take over the domain of the sacred, the religious, the mythical, but they fail to reveal a world that measures up to the material they are consuming or consummating (Irigaray 1993b, 86).

One of these fi gures of importance to Irigaray is the angel, and it is a fi gure whose function our tradition proff ers as mediatory between dis-tinct, though related, places and entities. Indeed, angels are in constant motion, are never contained in place, bear messages to and from a be-yond, bear messages often of renewal, change and the new. Importantly, in the West, the angel is required by the god to communicate something that cannot be communicated by the usual channels. Th e angel is thus one of a number of fi gures (speculum, the ‘two lips,’ the placenta, mu-cous) in Irigaray’s work that represent the ethico-nuptial work of the psychoanalytic practicable, the setting designed to enable and sustain

70

P O L I G R A F I

meaningful and ultimately healthy dialogue between two distinct sub-jects, analyst and analysand.⁵ As Elizabeth Hirsch explains:

the praticable as interpreted by Irigaray (re)mediates the “divorce” of the oppositions that silently govern the production of theory – silently, because they occupy the place of the a priori that stands outside and above any pos-sibility of interrogation. Like a praticable connecting two spaces (one onstage and one off , for example), the psychoanalytic praticable does not, ultimately, confound or destroy the identity of the two but depends upon preserving them as distinct even as it eff ects their connection’ (Hirsh 1994, 289).

In An Ethics of Sexual Diff erence, Irigaray speaks of an era to come, which she calls the ‘era of the spirit and the bride.’ Here, in this ‘third era of the West’ (a reworking of Joachim of Fiore’s three ages of history) Irigaray gives woman a place as she who shares in the spirit as an em-bodied, sensual, and valued partner:

– Th e Father, alone, invites, and disappears with Moses and the written law.– Th e son (and the mother) invites; but the son remains bound to the Fa-

ther, to whom he “goes back,” to whom he arises.– Th e spirit and the bride invite beyond genealogical destiny to the era

of the wedding and the festival of the world. To the time of a theology of the breath in its horizontal and vertical becoming, with no murders (Irigaray 1993a, 149).

Th e spirit, ‘as the third term,’ functions as a praticable capable of con-necting man and woman, masculine and feminine, as two distinct par-ticipants who share and produce the world together.6 Most importantly, what is produced through this praticable is ‘an ethical God,’ an ethics, in other words, of sexual diff erence:

As long as the son is not in mourning for the Father, neither body nor fl esh can be transfi gured in the couple; as long as the daughter is in mourning for the spirit, then neither body nor fl esh can be transfi gured in the couple… For woman to affi rm that her desire proceeds or wills thus, woman must be born into desire. She must be longed for, loved, valued as a daughter. An other

⁵ I have written at length about the importance of the practicable as a mode of interpretation. See: Kelso (2007, 68–109).⁶ See also: “Divine Women” (Irigaray 1993b, 55–72), “Letting Be Transcendence” (Irigaray 2002, 65–75), “Sorcerer Love: A Reading of Plato, Symposium, ‘Diotima’s Speech’” (Irigaray 1993a, 20–33).

71

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

morning, a new parousia that necessarily accompanies the coming of an ethi-cal God.

He respects the diff erence between him and her, in cosmic and aesthetic generation and creation. Sharing the heaven and the earth in all their elements, potencies, acts (Irigaray 1993a, 149–50).

Irigaray’s poetic rendering of the fi gure of the angel, like the spirit, needs to be understood as an image or signifi er of potentiality for sexuate diff erence, which is both currently impossible and yet-to-be. Th e angel may be read as one of our cultural signs of desire for diff erence, for intel-lectual and carnal interaction between two who still remain distinct and un-appropriable. However, they are also signs of the failure of an ethics of sexual diff erence to have taken place, in our recorded history at least. Staying with An Ethics of Sexual Diff erence for the moment, Irigaray speaks of the angel as an image of the failure, albeit a beautiful one, of this ethics taking place in the realm of time and space:

Th e consequences of the nonfulfi llment of the sexual act remain, and there are many. To take up only the most beautiful, as yet to be made manifest in the realm of time and space, there are angels. Th ese messengers who never remain enclosed in a place, who are never immobile. Between god, as the perfectly immobile act, man, who is surrounded and enclosed by the world of his work, and woman, whose task would be to take care of nature and procreation, an-gels would circulate as mediators of that which has not yet happened, of what is still going to happen, of what is on the horizon. Endlessly reopening the enclosure of the universe, of universes, identities, the unfolding of actions, of history. (Irigaray 1993a, 15)

When divinity is cast beyond our space-time framework, and under-stood (barely) as the creator of everything who withdrew from his cre-ation to dwell in a place best called “nowhere,” man will claim culture and relegate nature to woman. None of these three (God, man, woman) can move in this framework. God is the “perfectly immobile act”, man forgets to nurture his spirit and his body, busy as he is with his “work”, and woman is buried in the dirt she represents. It may be that we can interpret the angel–the one who mediates between these frozen players, heralding what will be–as symbol of the desire to shatter this sepulchral triad, to set free a future arrangement unimaginable by those who can-not move. Th e angels “destroy the monstrous, that which hampers the

72

P O L I G R A F I

possibility of a new age; they come to herald the arrival of a new birth, a new morning” (Irigaray 1993a, 15).

For Irigaray, the angels of the Bible especially seem closely aligned with sexuality, understood phallicly (i.e. teleologically) as procreative. Gabriel is of course both astonishing and problematic, for he announces the birth of a god as man. Th is will be a god-man brought into the world like all humans, with and through the body of a woman, but there will have been no sexual act between a man and a woman here. Th ere are those angels (though I’ll describe the problematic nature of this term below) in the Hebrew Bible who announce the coming of a birth, ex-traordinary in the case of Sarah who is ninety-one (or so) when she gives birth to Isaac (a name that means “he laughs”). Th e angel, Irigaray suggests, is possibly “a representation of a sexuality that has never been incarnated” (Irigaray 1993a, 16). Th is sexuality that has never been in-carnated is a sexuality that will come about once our obsession with the one, transcendent male creator god has itself been transcended. What is necessary for an ethics of sexuality is a radical recasting, or rather an awareness, of divinity as both immanent and transcendent, where the divine is recognised as both within man and woman and also between them. In Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche, Irigaray puts it this way:

Surely evil, sin, suff ering, redemption, arise when God is set up as an ex-traterrestrial ideal, as an otherworldly monopoly? When the divine is manu-factured as God-Father? As long as the divine remains within the human as its strongest center of attraction – in the midst of and between the man and the woman, according to the myth? – would either fall or redemption have any meaning, except as a way to forget the deepest of the most intense aspect of the attraction? (Irigaray 1991a, 173)

Whether the angel is what will mediate between the sexes in this new era of the spirit and the bride has become a point of debate. Accord-ing to Penelope Ingram (2000), both Gail Schwab (1994) and Elizabeth Grosz (1993), for example, misunderstand Irigaray to be extending the angel’s mediatory role into this new age, when it arrives. Th is reading, Ingram claims, is erroneous for it fails to “recognize how Irigaray in the-orizing her concept of the sensible transcendental has attempted to close the gap between God and the human” (Ingram 2000, 66). Moreover, Ingram argues, if we wish to view the fi gure of the angel as the necessary

73

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

mediator between men, women, and the divine both within and beyond them, we “continue to uphold the traditional Christian conception of ‘God in his heaven’ a representation of God which Irigaray is at pains to dismantle” (Ingram 2000, 66). Part of the problem with Grosz’s and Schwab’s interpretation of Irigaray’s angel is that they perceive a need to corporealise the immaterial and unsexed angel of the West; they want to gender the angel as in some sense maternal-feminine. Ingram sug-gests that the ease with which they associate the angel with the maternal is problematic because it gives a sexual embodiment to the angel; such readings corporealise the angel rather than angelicizing the human (In-gram 2000, 64). Th is gendered corporeal status is something enabled, to a certain extent, by Irigaray’s interpretation of the veil in little Ernst’s game of fort-da as comparable to the placenta and the veil that sepa-rates God and humans, one penetrable only by angels (Irigaray 1993b). Here, according to Ingram, the angel seems to be cast as appropriating the feminine relationship with divinity:

When the angel goes toward her, might he not actually be coming from her? Hasn’t the angel taken off from her, fl own away from her? Skin and mem-brane that can hardly be perceived, almost transparent whiteness, almost unde-cidable mediation, which is always at work in every operation of language and representation, ensuring that the lowest earth and highest heaven are linked, that fi rst dwelling place in her, from which he makes and remakes his bed, and works out the transcendence of the lord. (Irigaray 1993b, 37)

To be sure, on Grosz’s reading of Irigaray, an ethical sexual union “involves the corporealization of the angelic, an attribution of a body and sex to that always moving, shimmering being” (Grosz 1993, 209).7 And Schwab, too, is problematic, for her interpretation of Irigaray’s an-choring of the angel image “in the female body, from which it had been carefully cordoned off before, since angels are supposed to have no sex” (Schwab 1994, 369). Really, Ingram’s problem is that Schwab and Grosz don’t acknowledge what she believes to be the temporary status of the

⁷ As Ingram points out, she is quoting from a re-published version of Grosz’s “Irigaray and the Divine”, which was originally published in 1986. In Grosz’s Sexual Subversions (1989), Grosz put this diff erently: “In her ideal union of and exchange between the sexes, each seeks to become a corporealisation of the angelic, a sexualised, shimmering, always moving being” (Grosz 1989, 161).

74

P O L I G R A F I

angel as mediator in Irigaray’s re-conception, or name the future media-tory fi gure “God” or the divine.8 Th ey confuse Irigaray’s criticism of the angel as one of the symptoms of man’s inability to acknowledge his debt to the maternal body (a criticism Irigaray develops from her reading of Ernst’s game) with her recasting of the angel as harbinger of what is to come: an ethics of sexual diff erence.

I think it is safe to say that the angel of the West is both, and this is precisely Irigaray’s point. Th e angel, this fi gure that stands between woman and the divine, represents man’s inability (or refusal) to acknowl-edge his debt to the maternal as giver of life and represents the future possibility of an ethical exchange between two sexuate, civic subjects. In this latter sense, the angel is a readable fi gure of our (man’s? given that he has authored most of the religious texts of the West) desire for diff erence and for the possibility of its future coming. I think Ingram is correct in challenging the idea that the angel will have to continue its mediatory role once two sexuate, civic subjects emerge. However, I wonder if we are not a little premature in our presumed knowledge of the nature of that which we call “angel”. Perhaps some genealogical searching is nec-essary at this point in our attempts to think the possibility of sexual dif-ference with the aid of this fi gure?

Interestingly, Ingram fi nds evidence for this idea of abolition in Iri-garay’s reading of the cherubim who guard the ark of the covenant in Exodus (Ingram 2000, 65). For Irigaray, the cherubim of Exodus rep-resent the sexually diff erentiated couple who await the incarnation of a new divine:

So here, two angels face one another to guard the presence of God, who may perhaps be turning away in his anger or absence. Th e angels face one an-other over the ark of the covenant. Beneath them, the tablets of the law, and between them, between their wings, the divine presence that cannot be sensed or seen...It seems to be setting up the future presence of God in the more airy element: he can come and go freely, the word that has already been off ered and inscribed in stone is loosed, and a new covenant is prepared...Neither like nor other, they guard and await the mystery of a divine presence that has yet to be made fl esh. Alike and diff erent, they face each other, near enough and

⁸ For an interesting interpretation of the mediatory function of the angel in the late medieval period, see: Ashton (2002).

75

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

far enough for the future to still be on hold...Something forever deferred until the divine comes or comes back, perhaps has never taken place in this advent setup between the two angels: the advent of fl esh itself, which in its most airy, subtle rapture might go beyond or before a certain sexual diff erence, once that diff erence has fi rst been respected and fulfi lled. Beyond and before this parting of ways, enveloping it as its future advent and ultimate home, here stand the an-gels in deep meditation. (Irigaray 1993b, 45; my emphases)

Th e cherubim do not here announce anything verbally, like the lat-er angels. Th eir heraldry is readable only through their description, through “the gesture that represents them” (Irigaray 1993a, 16).

What I want to do for the rest of this essay is take a closer look at the biblical cherubim, for they are not so easily cast as angels. I think part of the problem Ingram fi nds with the reading of Grosz and Schwab (two fi ne readers of Irigaray, it has to be said) emerges out of the use of the (translated) term “angel” by Irigaray to speak of the cherubim. Th e cherubim are not really ethereal mediators between the divine and the human; they are not translators or bearers of the words of the god. Th e cherubim are, if we can say something about them (see below), guard-ians, as Irigaray makes clear.

3. What are the Cherubim?

Th e cherubim are now part of our angiologia, but they are not really angels, at least as angels have come to be conceived. Th e fi gure of the angel has a long, diverse and complex history. Most, if not all, religions or spiritualities include some fi gure or entity capable of mediating be-tween the transcendent and immanent realms. In the “great” monothe-istic religions (Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism) this fi g-ure is the angel. Most of us conjure the image of a winged, human-like ethereal being when we read or hear the word ‘angel.’ Th is is the most recent and most popular form of this creature known as angelos in Greek and angelus in Latin. In fact, angelos means messenger and the Hebrew equivalent is malak, not cherub. Already, when we seek to contemplate the angel in Old Testament literature, we have a problem. Linguistically, our English word ‘angel’ derives from the Greek word for messenger, which originally, like malak, referred to anyone bringing a message. A

76

P O L I G R A F I

human being can, of course, be a messenger and in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, more often than not, messengers are humans (for ex-ample, Gen. 32:4 and Judges 6:35). More problematic, however, are the messengers of Yahweh or ’Elohim (such as the one that brings Sarah the news). Th ese fi gures, while human in shape, and without wings, seem sometimes capable of moving between the sky and the earth, and thus either more-than-human or not human at all.

In post-biblical Jewish writings, with the development of Rabbinic Judaism, discussion on the nature of the angels is rich and extensive, as it is in Christian writings (and likewise often infl uenced by Aristotle’s “Intelligences”, especially in Maimonides). Th e Jewish angels, too, have become mediatory fi gures whose tasks include transferring the prayers of humans up to the god and pleading on behalf of the righteous. Th ey are also understood as ministering to the god in heaven (though care-fully constructed as non-divine, mere “agents” of the One god), partici-pating in creation, assisting the god in the performance of good works, guarding individuals and the seventy nations, involved in both life and death.⁹ In the Hekhalot literature (esoteric texts produced sometime between late antiquity and the early Middle Ages) and the Sefer ha-Razim (a collection of Kabbalistic adjurations generally dated around late 3rd early 4th century CE), we encounter hymns designed to bring angels down to earth to impart wisdom, instructions for how to get to the seven palaces in heaven to see the god and participate with the an-gels, healing incantations and rituals, etc. (Lesses 1996). Th e question of whether such beings are actually described in the canonical scriptures (excluding the Book of Daniel, which is traditionally assumed to be a later text than the rest) is still a perplexing one. In general, Jewish an-gelology derives from the Aramaic apocryphal text of 1 Enoch, itself a lengthy expansion of the story of the nephilim of Genesis 6:1–4, who are understood as “fallen angels” (the word nephilim literally means some-thing like “rejects” or “refuse”).¹⁰

⁹ For a discussion of the Rabbinic angels, see: Fass (2001).¹⁰ For a good discussion of how the “fallen angels” appear in Jewish, Christian and Moham-medan literature, see: Jung (1925).

77

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

Nevertheless, the Hebrew cherubim are now generally understood to be angels (like the other Hebrew fi gures, the seraphim). Th is is largely due to their early acceptance as angelic by Cyril of Jerusalem (370) and St. Chrysostom (about 400), but more popularly by their Renaissance reconfi guration in the form of a small child with a bow and arrow. Th is is cupid or eros represented in the form of the infant and called “cher-ub”. (As Bloom puts it, “(t)he popular imagination has achieved few triumphs more striking than the total transformation of the cherubim of Genesis, dread beings blocking the way back to Eden, into the baby cherubs of western painting” [Bloom 1996, 57].) Th is later, erroneous confl ation of the cherub with eros is, in light of Irigaray’s reading of the angel as heralding an ethics of sexual diff erence, an important one to which I shall return. For now, however, we need to note that, linguisti-cally at least, if there is a Hebrew equivalent to angelos, it would be the malak, not cherub. So what are the cherubim?

Etymologically, we have no real answer due to the lack of a Hebrew stem, though the word does seem to be closely related to the Assyr-ian karâbu, which can mean either “to bless” or, adjectivally, “great or mighty”. As Pfeiff er (1922) argues, after the discovery of three Assyrian texts that mention the kuribi, colossal creatures like the winged bull and lion colossi, it seems that the cherubim are of Assyrian origin. Kuribi were statues erected at each side of the gates leading to the shrine of Ašur, according to one of the texts (Pfeiff er 1922, 249).

Th e cherubim appear in Gen. 3:24 as post-fall guardians of the tree of life, though no description of them is given. Th ey are placed there with a “fl aming sword which turned every way”. As guardians here, it is not unreasonable to presume that they are living creatures of some kind. Such mythological examples also appear in Psalm 18:11 (18:10 in the English) and 2 Sam 22:11), where the cherub functions as the living chariot of the theophanic god:

He rode on a cherub, and fl ew; he came swiftly upon the wings of the wind. (Ps. 18:11/10)

He rode on a cherub, and fl ew; he was seen upon the wings of the wind. (2 Sam. 22:11)

78

P O L I G R A F I

Ezekiel gives a very vivid description of the cherubim as the grotesque living chariot of the God of Israel (chapters 1 and 10). Each cherub has four faces (human, lion, ox and eagle); has the fi gure and hands of a human but the feet of calves; has four wings, two of which reach up-ward, the other two covering themselves; is covered with eyes; and is like burning coals of fi re.

Ezekial’s celestial vision is quite diff erent to the description given of the cherubim upon the ark in Exodus, and those of the temple in Kings and Chronicles. I want to deal only with the diff erences between these three descriptions, with a main focus on Chronicles. However, I think it is important to remember that when these creatures are depicted as unambiguously alive, they are monstrous and to be feared. As Yahweh’s living chariot, they are far from our image of ethereal, robed, human-like winged beings, i.e. angels.

My interest with Chronicles stems from its quite utopian desire for a better future. It manifests a concern to “return” to the past in order to eff ect some change in the present from which it arises (generally pre-sumed within Biblical Studies to be a post-exilic production; the sixth century BCE, post-exilic period is understood to be one of instability and uncertainty). Th e Chronicler’s re-telling of Israel’s social, cultic and political history, including a discernable obsession with origins, is one that scholars have traditionally disregarded as fi ctitious in relation to the more historically “accurate” version from Genesis to Kings. More recently, however, scholars such as Roland Boer (1996) and Steven Sch-weitzer (2007) have focused on the utopian features of Chronicles, with very interesting results. According to this type of reading, the “present” context of the production of Chronicles is also understood as a pres-ent within which it functions as a possible catalyst for future change. Th e past is something that must be returned to, and reworked, without concern for historical “fact,” so that some unimaginable future may un-fold from a present that currently forecloses all possibility of doing so. Th is understanding of origins, and of the past, in relation to the present and the future can be read as a utopian desire. But, as I have argued at length (Kelso 2007) the relationship between origins or beginnings and the past, present, and future in Chronicles, while arguably utopian, par-ticipates in a foundational denial. Indeed, it is the disavowal and repres-

79

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

sion of corporeal origins, the disavowal and repression of originary ma-ternal space that enables the construction of the socio-political utopian vision of Chronicles. Th e alternative history given to us here prepares an unimaginable future that enables the progress of the masculine and of men, at the expense of the feminine and of women. Yet, according to the (Marxist) theory of utopian literary production (notably from Louis Marin and Fredric Jameson), utopian fi ction always turns in to its op-posite, dystopia: it fails, in other words, largely because of the impossi-bility of its project–the imagining of something impossible because un-imaginable. But this failure is crucial. It is ultimately a productive, and necessary failure, for out of the undesired dystopia, which can only be arrived at for now, emerge signposts for a better future. Th us, I wish to suggest here that the description of the cherubim in Chronicles might just off er such a signpost. Th is reading is really only possible, however, when read alongside Irigaray’s philosophy of sexual diff erence, in par-ticular her incorporation of the fi gure of the angel into that philosophy.

4. Th e Cherubim of Chronicles

As I mentioned earlier, Irigaray’s reading of the biblical cherubim concerns their depiction in Exodus. After the dimensions and materials required for the ark are commanded by the god, followed by the instruc-tion to place the testimony inside it, he then gives the following orders:

Th en you shall make a cover of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. Th e cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark; and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. Th ere I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel. (Ex. 25:17–22)

80

P O L I G R A F I

Th e ark is to be placed in the tabernacle (mishkan, “dwelling place”) that they are to build so that Yahweh can “dwell in their midst” (Ex. 25: 8). Th is will, in turn, be placed in a tent. Later, with King David, Yah-weh desires a proper home in Jerusalem, so he orders the building of a temple. However, David is said to be too war-loving and blood-thirsty and so must leave this job for his son, the wise king Solomon (a name meaning “peace”). Th is story appears in both the Kings and Chronicles, which give remarkably diff erent historical accounts of the Davidic line. Likewise, the description of the temple structure in the two versions is quite diff erent. Before giving an account of this diff erence, and its im-portance for this present study, let me fi rst show how the confi guration of the cherubim in Chronicles diff ers to that of Exodus. In Chronicles, they are described as follows:

‘He made, in the house of the Holy of Holies, two cherubim (cherubim shenayim), a work of sa‘asu‘im (meaning unknown), and they overlaid them with gold. Th e wings (kanephe; masculine plural) of the cherubim were twenty cubits long; the wing of the one, for fi ve cubits reached (magga‘ath; 3fs Hiph`il participial form of ng‘) to the wall of the house and the other fi ve cubit wing reached (maggiy‘a; 3ms Hiph`il participial form of ng‘) to (or for?) the wing of the other cherub. And the wing of the one cherub, fi ve cubits, reached (maggiy‘a; 3ms Hiph`il participial form of ng‘) toward the wall of the house and the other fi ve cubit wing cleaved (debeqah) to the wing of the other cherub. Th e wings of these cherubim were spread over twenty cubits. Th ey stood on their feet with their faces toward the house (2 Chr. 3:10–13).

We note already that the cherubim are quite diff erent in design to those of Exodus, for here they do not face each other with their wings folded inwards and upwards. Rather, they face the same direction, to-wards the house or sanctuary, with their wings outstretched so that one wing touches the wall while the other touches the wing of the twin cherub. On closer inspection of the Hebrew, however, things get a little more interesting.

Th e fi rst feature to note is that the word used initially to describe the cherubim (sa‘asu‘im) is untranslatable. Usually, the translations will give something like “wood”, so that the text reads “a work of wood” (al-though the Jewish sages Rashi, Mefaresh, Radak and Mettzudos trans-late it as “child-like”). However, this word doesn’t even appear to be a

81

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

proper Hebrew word, having too many consonants. Elsewhere (Kelso 2007, 181), I have suggested that this word alerts us to the diffi culty the author has, from the beginning, in describing the cherubim in Chron-icles (this strange word does not appear anywhere else).

Second, while the plural ending “-im” is a masculine ending in He-brew, meaning that “cherub” is understood as a masculine noun, each of the cherub’s wings, while the same length, has a specifi c gender associ-ated with the verbs of reaching and cleaving. Where the text reads “the wings of the cherubim”, the gender of the plural “wings” (kanephe) is masculine, although the word kenaph is generally feminine. According to the verbs, the inner wings of the cherubim – the ones that touch each other – are masculine in the case of the fi rst cherub, and feminine in the second case. Indeed, they are not described as simply reaching each other in the sense of measured extension. Rather, the feminine wing cleaves to her partner’s masculine wing, with this masculine wing reach-ing to (or for?) this cleaving feminine wing. It is important to note that this bi-gendering of the cherubim is absent from the parallel description in 1 Kings 6:27, where only feminine forms of the verb ng‘ are used. In other words, there is no bi-gendering of the cherubim in Kings because all of the verbal acts associated with the wings are feminine. Further-more, the feminine cleaving wing in Chronicles is not present in 1 Kings 6:27. Th ere, the two middle feminine wings are described as touching (nog‘ith; the Qal, feminine plural participle of ng‘). We should also note that in Exodus the wings don’t get to be the subject of the verbal actions. Indeed the verbs of spreading (porese) and overshadowing (sokkim) are participial in form.

Th e verb “to cleave” itself is interesting. In the pointed Hebrew text (the Masoretic version), the word is made an adjective, while the con-sonantal form allows for the word to be interpreted as a verb. Conso-nantally, we may read this word dbqh as the 3fs Qal form of dbq, ‘she cleaved,’ though with qere (as it is pointed/spoken), the word is a femi-nine adjective. Given the repeated verbal forms of ng‘ in 3:11–12, and the gender pattern that emerges here with the verbs, the pointing may be an interesting example of Masoretic interpretation. Th at is, while the masculine wing only reaches to (or for?) the feminine wing, the latter cleaves, which is considered a more forceful verb according to Jewish

82

P O L I G R A F I

tradition (Eisemann 1992, 21). Perhaps our medieval scribes could not consider the possibility of a stronger feminine verbal act? Furthermore, this verb is associated with “marriage” language. In Genesis 2: 24, we are told that “man leaves his father and his mother and he cleaves to his woman,” albeit because she is made from his fl esh. Nevertheless, the verb is associated with carnal union between the sexes.

In order to push our comprehension of this strange image a little fur-ther, it is crucial to examine the curious structure of the temple as it is described in Chronicles, the “place” that houses these fi gures. Th e fi rst feature of interest is the temple’s vestibule or hall:

Th e vestibule [or porch] in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits long, equal to the width of the house; and its height was a hundred and twenty cubits. He overlaid it on the inside with pure gold (2 Chr. 3:4).

Th is vestibule is described as being twenty cubits wide and one hun-dred and twenty cubits high. Given that the entire length of the tem-ple is sixty cubits, and its width twenty cubits, this enormous vertical structure at the entrance is architecturally improbable, though perhaps not impossible.¹¹ Still, it is rather a precious “thing,” something that is overlaid inside with gold.

And the second intriguing feature is that, while windows with re-cessed frames are a feature of the temple as described in the parallel text of 1 Kings (6:4), the temple in Chronicles seems utterly devoid of win-dows, and only brief mention is made of doors to the great court: 2 Chr.

¹¹ For most scholars, this fi gure of 120 cubits must be an error on the part of the ancient writer or copyist. For a more interesting reading of this feature of the temple as it appears in Chroni-cles, see: Boer (1997, 146; 161). Boer introduces the argument from Marxist utopian studies that descriptive language necessarily breaks down within utopian writing: …the idea of a vestibule six times as high as its width, even twice as high as the length of the full temple, indicates a representational fl aw: a temple with an immense tower at its front is followed by the main sanctuary which is half the distance (on the ground) of the tower itself. Th is is not implausible – a high rise temple for Solomon would be novel – but it seems to me that this is another example of the breakdown of descriptive language in the realm of utopian construction (Boer 1997, 146). Th us, the description of the temple in Chronicles symptomatically alerts us to a politically utopian form of thinking on the part of the Chronicler, a form of thinking distinct from that of the so-called Deuteronomist. Boer, however, makes nothing of the obvious phallic structure here, nor is he interested in the relationship between this phallic vestibule and the rest of the features of the Chronicles temple.

83

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

3:9, and ‘the entrance of the house, the innermost doors to the Holy of Holies, and the doors of the house for the Temple…:’ (4:22). Th ere seems to be only one entrance to this house, with all other doors being internal, or leading to the courtyards. When trying to imagine what this internal space of the temple might look like, based on the descrip-tion given, without windows, with only one door leading outside, and a series of internal doors, I fi nd myself in darkness. Without any details of the windows, and with only one main entrance, the building as it is described is a cave-like space, with all its internal chambers.

Th e third interesting feature is the description of the curtain that separates the Holy of Holies from the main section of the temple:

And he made the curtain of blue and purple and crimson (fabrics?) and linen, and he worked cherubim upon it (2 Chr. 3:14).

A delicate piece of fabric separates the holiest place in this construc-tion, not a wall or a door. Something tear-able, though untorn, deco-rated with cherubim similar to the ones located within the inner sanc-tum, the holiest place, where the God-Father’s law will be located and his name and presence contained (restrained?). Within this cave-like architectural space, with one principal entrance, no windows, and what appears to be a number of internal rooms or chambers, we arrive at this intricate curtain, beyond which is the Holy of Holies.

Elsewhere (Kelso 2007), I have argued that this temple, with its anomalous vestibule and internal structure, is testimony to the repressed status of the maternal body, for it reveals, symptomatically, the phantasy of the mono-productive male body: a male (phallic) body with a womb. It exposes the repressed status of the maternal body in this discourse as a whole. First of all, the vaginal and cave/womb-like interiority of the ma-ternal body is useful to this representation. Th e maternal body, repressed from the beginning of the narrative, returns here in imaginary service as a prop, even a stage, for this sacred drama. But even more striking is that this architectural construct reveals, symptomatically, the phantasy of the mono-productive body that sustains this discourse. Th e temple consists of both an enormous, almost unsupportable erection along with a vaginal and womb-like internal space. In other words, this temple, as described in Chronicles, is a doubly sexed body: a male (phallic) body

84

P O L I G R A F I

with a womb.¹² Furthermore, the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple is untorn, signifying a preference, if you like, for the virginal maternal body. Th e Father-God will be both honored and contained by the son (who is erecting this monument) in this ma-ternal space: no sexual alliance for these two.

Returning to the cherubim of Chronicles, on an initial reading we might argue that the doubly sexed cherub replicates the doubly-sexed structure of the temple itself; that is, they alert us to the governing fan-tasy of the mono-productive male body in Chronicles: double-sexing equates to an appropriation of maternal productivity by the masculine subject. Or we might even see something of Aristophanes’ lovers, where-in “the yoking of two into one same one paralyzes the whole scene” as Irigaray describes them (Irigaray 1993b, 46).

And yet, the Jewish sage Malbim has something interesting to off er us.¹³ In his commentary on Leviticus 16:5, Malbim argues that when the two cherubim face each other, they constitute one unit: this denotes a perfectly matched pair. In such cases, the correct wording for “two cherubim” is the construct form: shene cherubim. He then notes that,

¹² Instead of dismissing this description of the temple vestibule in Chronicles as an error, I ar-gue that it is more productive to read it in such a way that builds upon Irigaray’s thesis that the phallus monopolizes conceptual (masculine) thought, and that the maternal body is the mute foundation of that thought: Th e phallus erected where once there was the umbilical cord? It becomes the organizer of the world of and through the man-father, in the place where the umbilical cord, the fi rst bond with the mother, gave birth to the body of both man and woman. (Irigaray 1991b, 38) Th is is how men gather together in the mystery of the here and now present of a body and a blood that have not fi gured on the stage and thus allow that stage to be set. Many, many years ago, in our tradition, the pick was driven into the earth-mother’s womb in order to build the sacred enclosure of the tribe, the temple, fi nally the house. (Irigaray 1993b, 47). Th e temple in Chronicles reveals, if you like, the phallocentric logic underwriting the very concept of sacred architectural space. As Grosz puts it (with respect to Irigaray’s thesis on the masculine appropriation of the maternal body): Irigaray claims that masculine modes of thought have performed a devastating sleight-of-hand: they have obliterated the debt they owe to the most primordial of all spaces, the mater-nal space from which all subjects emerge, and which they ceaselessly attempt to usurp…Th e production of a (male) world – the construction of an “artifi cial” or cultural environment, the production of an intelligible universe, religion, philosophy, the creation of true knowledges and valid practices of and in that universe – is implicated in the systematic and violent erasure of the contributions of women, femininity, and the maternal (Grosz 1995, 121).¹³ What follows, concerning Malbim, comes from Eisemann (1992, 20).

85

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

according to Bava Basra 99a, the positioning of the cherubim portrays God’s relationship to Israel. He also notes that the cherubim are made male and female to denote the source and recipient of divine favour. Pre-sumably, Malbim is imagining that each cherub maintains a distinct sex. It is only when the two face each other (as they do in Exodus) that the relationship between God and Israel is as it should be. However, if the two face forward, they disregard each other. As such, their sexual diff er-ence is maintained. For such cases, the unusual cherubim shenayim will be used. Th e construct form is used when a pair is perfectly matched, meaning the identities of male and female have been eradicated, while shenayim is used when the diff erence is maintained. When shenayim is used, in other words, as it is in Chronicles, God and Israel are not in a proper relationship and corporeal sexual diff erence exists. Th is is consis-tent with the feeling in Chronicles: that proper relationship is to come.

We might give Malbim the benefi t of the doubt and say that he is ac-knowledging the eradication of traditional, binary sexualities (presum-ably all he could know) when God and Israel are said to be in a proper relationship, and when the (traditional) male and female distinction re-mains (i.e. when each cherub has a distinct gender) then that relation-ship is unsatisfactory. Is Malbim hoping for the advent of a new sexual diff erence, an ethical one such as that toward which Irigaray is working? Probably not. Haven’t we come to realize that the desire for the neutral or neuter is really just a masked desire for the masculine? To put it sim-ply, Malbim is saying that when sexual diff erence disappears (“neither male nor female” as that Jewish follower of Jesus will put it) all will be right with God and Israel (and gentiles; “neither Greek nor Jew”). Th e idea is that all diff erence will be eradicated, and this is hardly consistent with what we that engage with Irigaray are aiming for today.

But, then, what of the cherubim of Chronicles? Shenayim is used, but we can hardly say that the cherubim are gendered unproblemati-cally male and female. Nor can we say that gender is eradicated (which it couldn’t be anyway, given the fact that Hebrew is a gendered language with no neuter). Th is confi guration doesn’t make sense on Malbim’s and Bava Basra’s terms. Are they ultimately, hopelessly mono-logical as per the Aristophanic model? If so, why are there two of them, two bi-gen-dered creatures gesturing to each other, when one would have suffi ced

86

P O L I G R A F I

given that male and female coalesce in one form? I think another read-ing is not only possible, but desirable.

And so, I ask the following: each cherub is given both sexes, but to-gether, do they long for each other as distinct sexual beings, a longing for sexual diff erence despite the imposed double-sexing of their own being? Why not have unambiguously feminine cherubim? Why not have one masculine (two masculine wings) and the other feminine (two feminine wings)? How are we to understand this desperate verbal instance where a feminine wing cleaves to a masculine wing? If she simply wanted the masculine, couldn’t “she” have turned inwards towards her bi-gendered self, cleaving to the masculine wing on this/her doubly-sexed (Aristo-phanic) body? Instead, “she” reaches out beyond to a diff erent “being,” or rather, to the masculine wing of the other cherub. And let us not forget that these curiously double-sexed cherubim have been placed in the holiest space in the building, that appropriated womb-like place in this phallicised building. Do these angels protest such a structure, por-tents of a yet-to-be sacrality, which we can recognize, but ultimately must conceal (and yet, alas, cannot)? Do they protest the asexual status of the mother and father (indeed, anticipatorily, do they reject Freud)? Th is desperate feminine act, reaching out for, holding on to, but more strongly cleaving to that masculine wing that belongs to the other begs us, I think, to yearn for, indeed work for a sexual and sexuated diff er-ence. Were this cleaving feminine act not present, I think we would have a diff erent picture. In other words, I want to suggest that these strange, ancient, doubly-sexed cherubim implore us to work toward the possibil-ity of a yet-to-exist, genuinely heterosexual economy (a radical hetero-sexuality: the love that can not [yet] speak its name?), one that refuses the phantasy of mono-sexual, masculine production. Th is cleaving femi-nine wing belongs to a doubly sexed entity. But does ‘she,’ who is housed and protected (why?) in that most holy space, not ask us, even perhaps (silently, yet, audibly through her gesture) beg us, to set her free? Perhaps her rejection of this imposed foreign gender will be painful. Perhaps she is willing to endure that. Perhaps the day will come when the pain will have actual rewards, if it happens at all. But most importantly, I think, she wants us to set her free so she may love the other, the masculine who, here, himself, can only, simply, reach for her. We need to hear this.

87

W H E N C H E R U B I M T O U C H

R e f e r e n c e s

1. Ashton, G. (2002), “Bridging the Diff erence: Reconceptualising the An-gel in Medieval Hagiography”. In: Literature and Th eology 16, 3 (August), pp: 235–247.2. Bauckham, R. (1985), “Th e Fall of the Angels as the Source of Philosophy in Hermias and Clement of Alexandria”. In: Vigiliae Christianae 39, 4 (De-cember), pp: 313–330.3. Bloom, H. (1996), Omens of Millennium: the Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection. NY: Riverhead Books.4. Boer, R. (1997), Novel Histories: Th e Fiction of Biblical Criticism. Sheffi eld: Sheffi eld Academic Press.5. Eisemann, M. (1987), Divrei Hayamim II: II Chronicles: A New Transla-tion with a Commentary Anthologized from Talmudic, Midrashic and Rabbinic Sources (ed: Y. Danziger). New York: Mesorah Publications, Ltd.6. Fass, D.E. (2001), “How the Angels Do Serve”. In: Judaism 40, no. 3 (Sum-mer), pp: 281–289.7. Grosz, E. (1993), “Irigaray and the Divine.” In: Transfi gurations: Th eology and the French Feminists (eds: C.W.M. Kim & S.M. St Ville & S.M. Simion-aitis). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. [First published as: (1986) Irigaray and the Divine. Sydney: Local Consumption]8. Grosz, E. (1989), Sexual Subversions: Th ree French Feminists. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.9. Grosz., E. (1995), Space, Time, and Perversion: Th e Politics of Bodies. St Leon-ards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.10. Hirsh, E. (1994), “Back in Analysis: How to Do Th ings with Irigaray.” In: Engaging with Irigaray: Feminist Philosophy and Modern European Th ought (eds: C. Burke & N. Schor & M. Whitford). New York: Columbia University Press, pp: 285–315.11. Ingram, P. (?), “From Goddess Spirituality to Irigaray’s Angel”. In: Feminist Review 66 (Autumn), pp: 46–72.12. Irigaray, L. (1985a), Speculum of the Other Woman (translated by: G.C. Gill). Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.13. Irigaray, L. (1991a), Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche (translated by: G.C. Gill). New York: Columbia University Press.

88

P O L I G R A F I

14. Irigaray, L. (1991b), “Th e Bodily Encounter with the Mother” (translated by: D. Macey). In: Th e Irigaray Reader (ed: M. Whitford). Oxford: Blackwell, pp: 34–46.15. Irigaray, L. (1993a), An Ethics of Sexual Diff erence (translated by: C. Burke & G.C. Gill). Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.16. Irigaray, L. (1993b), Sexes and Genealogies (translated by: G.C. Gill). New York: Columbia University Press.17. Irigaray, L. (2002), Th e Way of Love (translated by: H. Bostic & S. Pluháček). London and New York: Continuum.18. Joyal, M. (2005), “To Daimonion and the Socratic Problem”. In: Apeiron vol. 38, no. 2.19. Jung, L. (1925), “Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan Lit-erature: A Study in Comparative Folk-Lore”. In: Th e Jewish Quarterly Review. New Series. 15, 4 (April), pp: 467–502.20. Kelso, J. (2007), O Mother Where art Th ou? An Irigarayan Reading of the Book of Chronicles. London: Equinox.21. Lesses, R. (1996), “Speaking with Angels: Jewish and Greco-Egyptian Re-velatory Adjurations”. In: Th e Harvard Th eological Review. 89, 1 (January), pp: 41–60.22. Pfeiff er, R.H. (1922), “Cherubim”. In: Journal of Biblical Literature 41, 3/4, pp: 249–250.23. Reed, A.Y. (2004), “Th e Trickery of the Fallen Angels and the Demonic Mimesis of the Divine: Aetiology, Demonology, and Polemics in the Writings of Justin Martyr”. In: Journal of Early Christian Studies 12, 2, pp: 141–171.24. Ross, G.M. (1985), “Angels”. Philosophy 60, 234, pp: 495–511.25. Schwab, G.M. (1994), “Mother’s Body, Father’s Tongue: Mediation and the Symbolic Order.” In: Engaging with Irigaray: Feminist Philosophy and Modern European Th ought (eds: C. Burke & N. Schor & M. Whitford). New York: Columbia University Press, pp: 351–378.26. Schweitzer, S. (2007), Reading Utopia in Chronicles. Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 442. New York: T &T Clark.