{"id":50871,"date":"2016-06-20T00:33:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T00:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=50871"},"modified":"2016-06-20T00:33:14","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T00:33:14","slug":"dont-hide-your-money-in-a-hortus-conclusus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=50871","title":{"rendered":"Don’t hide your money in a hortus conclusus"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — a criminal twist in Argentinian politics amid lofty considerations of convents, the Virgin Mary, and unicorns ]
\n.<\/p>\n

The King James Version<\/strong> of the Bible, Song of Solomon<\/em> 4:12, reads: <\/p>\n

A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the Latin Vulgate<\/strong>, the phrase “a garden enclosed” is rendered “hortus conclusus” — and as the context makes clear, it refers both to a garden, literally, and metaphorically to a woman. In the Christian Middle Ages, the phrase was often used to indicate the Virgin Mary, often enclosed within a literal garden, as in this Hortus Conclusus<\/em> from Cologne, ca 1430:<\/p>\n

\"600<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Parhaps unsurprisingly, the hortus conclusus<\/em> is also the place where the unicorn — only ever tamed by a pure virgin — ends up, as in this example from the Cloisters Unicorn Tapestries<\/strong>: <\/p>\n

\"600<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So much art history, so much beauty, so much virginity — and all so that I can make a couple of points about Jose Lopez<\/strong>, an Argentinean MP who was arrested earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

The unfortunate Lopez made the error of tossing some bags of money, or moneybags as they are sometimes called, over a hedge into a convent garden…<\/p>\n

A convent, as we’ll easily understand, is a terrific example of the hortus conclusus<\/em> — and since nuns are typically sworn to poverty as well as chastity and obedience, it is altogether contrary to the intended purpose of a convent’s hortus conclusus<\/em> to use it as a stash for ill-gotten gains, especially of a monetary kind — to the estimated tune of US$5-8 million. <\/p>\n

So that’s my point number one: that Lopez was acting in direct opposition to the contemplative and unworldly intent of the convent garden. Worse, indeed, he was also carrying some form of Sig Sauer<\/strong> rifle along with his “160 bundles of cash, 108 of dollars, and some of them still thermo-sealed with the stamps from China’s central bank.”<\/p>\n

Ouch. <\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

But what I like best from the report is the sting in the end of this first paragraph:<\/p>\n

The ex-Kirchnerite official, considered the right\/hand man of ex Federal Planning minister Julio De Vido was caught by the police after neighbors and a nun of the Fatima monastery warned authorities about the presence of a man throwing bags over a dividing line of bushes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s that bit about “throwing bags over a dividing line” that gets me. <\/p>\n

I’ve discussed the concept of liminality<\/strong> before, both lightheartedly, as in Liminality I: the kitsch part [note: NSFW]<\/a>, and more seriously, in Liminality II: the serious part<\/a> — where I discussed the behavior of the USS Topeka<\/strong> at the Equator as the Second Millennium CE turned in to the Third, and the curious tale of the demonic king Hiranyakasipu<\/strong> and his death at the hands of Narasimha<\/strong>, an avatar of Vishnu<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A limen<\/em> or threshold is always a “special place” set apart, and thus sacred and powerful in its own right — and the limen<\/em> around a convent’s perimeter even more so. We’ve seen the extraordinary effort ISIS made very early on in their campaign to erase the limen<\/em> between Iraq and Syria established no less determinedly by Sykes-Picot<\/strong>. And we know, too, that the central rite-of-passage by which a woman becomes a nun is a liminal<\/em> rite (van Gennep<\/strong>, Victor Turner<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Beware, be very aware of the liminal!<\/strong> Enjoy the security a hortus conclusus<\/em> provides the pure in heart — but don’t abuse it!<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
  • Wikipedia<\/strong>, hortus conclusus<\/a>\n
  • Wikipedia<\/strong>, Narasimha<\/a>\n
  • MercoPres<\/strong>s, An Argentine ex-Kirchnerite official caught red-handed trying to hide bags of cash in a monastery<\/a><\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [ by Charles Cameron — a criminal twist in Argentinian politics amid lofty considerations of convents, the Virgin Mary, and unicorns ] . The King James Version of the Bible, Song of Solomon 4:12, reads: A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. In the Latin Vulgate, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[384,385,526,497,1080,832,583,790,1223,501,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-art-history","category-charles-cameron","category-christianity","category-gun","category-hinduism","category-latin-america","category-law-enforcement","category-liminal","category-myth","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50871"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50885,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50871\/revisions\/50885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}