Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [343]
After a short but disagreeable interaction with Noah (now a villain), the remainder of the text describes Norea’s confrontation with the Archons and her subsequent revelation of Eleleth (a Savior figure whose name appears to be a variation or garbling of a name of God in Hebrew) which reveals that she has the knowledge to save humanity. Seth and Norea are singled out as the progenitors of the Gnostic community due to their spiritual superiority. Norea’s incorruptibility, in combination with her material presence, allows her to be the link between the cosmic Female Spiritual Principle and Eve’s physical progeny. With Norea’s help, humanity will eventually be saved. Pearson explains, “Just as the heavenly Eve functions in that text as an agent of salvation to Adam, so also does Norea function as an agent of salvation for Seth and the subsequent generations of the elect.”59
As the Archons pursue Norea in an attempt to rape her, Eleleth comes down from the heavens and teaches Norea the truth about the powers of the world and promises salvation for her offspring. With the appearance of Eleleth there is a shift in the narrator’s voice. The narrative is transformed from a dialogue to an eyewitness account by Norea. This personal account has been interpreted by some scholars as an inner psychological withdrawal.
Again, cosmology is being used to describe and define an ancient understanding of the self. This bizarre use of myth twice to split the saved personality from raped personality seems to many to indicate a “self” in great distress. In her essay, “The Book of Norea, Daughter of Eve,” Karen King characterizes Norea’s vision of Eleleth as a psychic dissociation.60 King explains that Norea’s reaction against her aggressors is a painful solution to her predicament. Her search for inner revelation splits the body and soul, therefore separating the body from the self and taking refuge in the spiritual soul. This is a very revealing detail that suggests a radical reaction to a terrible trauma. Severe disassociative responses to traumatic events, such as rape, not uncommonly produce the same reactions. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), for example, is a complex consequence of exposure to extreme events, which encompasses trauma-related symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and symptoms otherwise found in depressive disorders.
Perhaps behind these stories are real incidents of sexual abuse. PTSD is also thought to be the pathological outcome of many traumatic events.61 Reexperiencing the traumatic event occurs spontaneously or in response to reminders that are linked to the traumatic event. A similar “rape trauma syndrome” exists that results in a form of psychological paralysis of the victims. Withdrawal is one psychological defense. Victims have described a sensation of leaving their bodies and looking down from above as their bodies are subjected to rape.62 Norea’s inner withdrawal, which resulted in her vision of Eleleth, could be an example of this type of stress-related disorder. If an abuse victim separates herself from her body, her true self emerges from the encounter unscathed.
In his dissertation, Lawrence P. Jones examines the Hypostasis of the Archons and suggests that it is a natural reflection of sexual abuse of slaves in the second and third centuries CE. Although society expected a master to be fair-minded and humane to his slaves, infidelity with servants was just as often overlooked because a master could misuse his slave in whatever ways he wished.63 Jones suggests that slaves motivated by Christian or Jewish religious beliefs were most likely to refuse their masters’ sexual advances, and therefore may have been more likely to be the victims of rape.64
For Jones, Norea’s psychic withdrawal in reaction to her aggressors is an example of how