The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [543]
13. The archetypal role of the feminine remains vestigially present in this story, in the part played, as a symbolic figure helping the Israelites on towards their goal, by `Rahab the harlot. Betraying her own people, she assists the Israelites when they are besieging the city of Jericho, by letting down a rope from its walls. But Rahab represents the feminine in very much an `inferior' guise. Her walkon part as a traitrous prostitute hardly equates to the inspiring central roles played in Greek myth by figures such as Athene or Ariadne; and her part in the story is not even crucial to its outcome. What wins the victory for Joshua's followers is not her betrayal but the trumpet blast which brings down the city walls.
14. The feminine value is also presented positively in the `books of wisdom, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. The first nine books of Proverbs take the form of a 'hymn to Wisdom' who is personified in animaguise as a woman, like the Greek Sophia or Athene. This book also contains the famous passage in praise of the perfect wife, whose `price is above rubies'.
15. Satan also, of course, became later identified with the serpent which tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, although in the original account in Genesis this personification of ego-consciousness is given no name.
16. A striking feature of the story of Jesus, as presented in the Gospels, is how consistently it is structured round the Rule of Three. We see this in the original triad of Mary, Joseph and Jesus; the three wise men; the three temptations; the three years of his teaching; the three crosses; the three hours of his death agony, his resurrection on the third day. After 40 days, a multiplication of four as the number of completion, he ascends into heaven, to become part of the Trinity. He lived on earth for 33 years, and chose the archetypal number of 12 apostles, multiplying three by four.
17. It was precisely this which first gave rise to the Greek word `tragedy; derived from tipayws, a 'goat'. The tragic figure is the `scapegoat' whose death purges the community of darkness, so that light and wholeness can be restored.
18. As a four-cornered mystical symbol of `wholeness, sometimes representing the four points of the compass, the cross in numerous forms is found in different cultures all over the world. It was a holy symbol in Egypt millennia before Christ. To the Aztecs it was a sign of Quetzalcoatl the creator, master of life and god of the four winds. One ancient form, found widely, was the cross as a symbol of the sun, with arms trailing backwards from the four points as if it is revolving clockwise. This was known in Sanskrit as sv-astika from sv-asti, `well-being'. In the old Teutonic religion the trailing arms were reversed, so that they look either as if they are revolving anti-clockwise or are like menacing hooks. This was the form adopted by Hitler's Nazis, whose hakenkreuz, or `hooked cross' thus inverted the ancient symbol of `well-being'.
19. The central day of the Anglo-Saxon week was reserved for Woden, chief of the Germanic gods. `Woden's day' (Wednesday) is flanked by those named after gods representing the masculine values: `Tiw's day' (Tuesday) after the god of justice, law and order, and `Thor's day' (Thursday) after the god of thunder, battles and physical strength. On each side of them are days dedicated to female divinities, the Moon goddess (Monday) and Freya (Friday) commemorating the wife of Woden, representing the feminine attributes of love, beauty, marriage and care for the sick. The week ends on `Surtur's day, named after the god who, like his Roman