Dr. Utr. Iur.

Frank

Van den Broeke

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The Fourth Day: a quest for Dan Brown ?

Is God male or female ? A crime story.

In my earlier article about the Light of the first day,I was talking about spiritual Light. It's only on the fourth day that the Lord created the physical light.

In this article, I will go to a some unconventional approach of the way Michelangelo depicted God in the cycle of the Creation: Is God man or female? An average observer can see clearly that Michelangelo painted the Creator as an old man, long beard and .... a pair of breasts !!! did Michelangelo did it on purpose, and what can be the theological consequences of it?

This article could be read as a script of a book of Dan Brown, a religious thriller. If you would ever ask me what I am thinking of his books: The Da Vinci code, Angels and Demons, Inferno ...., my judgement will always remain the same: Fantastic ! Sublime ! ... for entertainment during an intercontinental flight during which you can't sleep. It is not literature, the books are actually a script for movies. And therefore, the movies are better than the books. If you want a really good religious thriller, read the books of Morris West, like: The Devil's Advocate or The Shoes of the Fisherman, or Umberto Eco's, The Name of the Rose.

The books of Dan Brown, in there simplicity, needs ad good plot, a serial of locations where we find the murdered, and a secret society that keeps an unveiled truth far away of the comon people and that, if it should be released, would bring a chock-wave into the Roman Catholic Church.

Michelangelo has it all: his women, are they women or men with long hair and a pair of breasts? We know he took often his inspiration of male bodies: and especially from the famous Torso di Belvedere in the Vatican Museum, have just a look at the Cumaean Sybil in the Sistine Chapel.

Our quest is the question:

Is God Male or Female ???

If He is female, than nothing stops women for becoming priest or even pope ...

Let's get started ....What follows is fiction ! At the end we will find the real motives of Michelangelo of painting God as well as male as female.

In the beautifull chapel dedicated to Saint Cecilia by Antonio Gherardi, in the Church San Carlo ai Catenari in Rome (see about Light as Grace), just at the entrance of the Chapel, in the arch, an angel is writing a text: Cantantibus Organis Caecilia Virgo Dom...

Praise the Lord, O Virgin Caecilia

But as we clearly can see, the Angel didn't found the time to finish it's writing.

If this angel just got a few seconds more in order to finish the line it started here, than today we would have known if God is male or female. We all suppose the angel wanted to write: .... Dominum. But nothing is said that the angel wanted to write: .... Dominam, and than God would be female!

Just below the arch we find the first victim, who, before dying wrote the following text in his blood on the ground: "Look above me... Our Lady of the Rose bears the secret" "Call R.L."

When the investigators found the body, they stood for a mystery. But the last words could help them "Call R.L." That could be nobody else than Robert Langdom, the famous american professor and researcher of secret societies.

When R. Langdom heard about the mysterious death and the message, he taught immediately about the Congregation of "Our Lady of the Roses" in New York, Bayside NY 11361 - USA. When he arrived there, it seemed all so peaceful.

But when he asked where the name of the Congregation came from, they referred to a 13th Century monastery in Belgium of Augustine-sisters who had a hospital for helping mothers in need.

More he didn't need to continue his research; back home, he went on google, with about 415,000 results.

But on the top was the "Hopital Notre-Dame à la Rose" Today a Museum, but from the 13th to the 20th century a monastery, founded by Arnould IV of Oudenaarde. When he tried to contact them, the phone went over without result. Finally after a few hours, he got connection. It was quite disturbing. Just the day before a murder had tooken place and the investigators stood for an enigma. What it was couldn't be said over the telephone for not interfering with the investigation.

When Robert arrived in Lessen, Belgium, the head of the investigation team took him to the Museum where they found the murdered in front of a very unusual painting of the 16th Century. Robert found out that the body of the deceased belonged to the man who had recently restored the painting. After the cleaning a shock went through viewers, and the church hierarchy had requested not to expose it to the public. The restorer had recently removed the overpaintings on the "Lamentations around Christ", and the result was stunning !! Christ was painted with a female bosom !!!

On the spot they could find no clues who had done the killing, so Robert Langdom asked if he could go to the workshop of the restorer for having a look if he could find there an answer.

In the workshop on the table was a study of the vault the Sistine Chapel, and the restorer had written a few words aside it:

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Michelangelo knew the nature of God !!! There I will find the answer ...

Christ is here painted with a female bosom. This representation of Christ as spiritual father and mother is rare in religious iconography. Many writings make reference to the maternal side of Jesus, which is evident: Christ suffered on the cross to give life and he is the source of celestial nourishment for Christians – and for the members of the religious order also, for sure. The nourishing breast that you see in this tableau is therefore understandable and represents the richness of the mystical life of the members of the religious order of the hospital at that time. Furthermore, in the catholic religion, the Trinity plays a fundamental role. God the father is the transcendence and Jesus, the son, the incarnation. As such, he must also represent both man and woman. In the early days of the Church, major controversies also surrounded the masculine or feminine nature of the Holy Spirit.

Robert Langdom had been often in the Vatican, and after he had helped to save the church (that story was told in his book Angels & Demons), all doors easely opened for him. And, as historian and researcher of ancient codes, he was well aware of existance of secret messages in the works of Michelangelo. Didn't his contemporanean Leonardo da Vinci had not done the same? But that the Creator of Michelangelo was always depicted with a pair of breasts, was something he had overlooked. And not only once, but each time the Creator/God had a pair of breasts in the vault of Michelangelo.

When he asked the head of the Vatican Library if the archieve had some notes in the corrispondence of Michelangelo with allusion on this remarkable feature of the Creator, there was a moment of hesitation.

It seemed that Pope Julius II had sealed in a box a few letters and documents to keep secret. He was the only one who would have the key, and only the actual pope would have today that key of the box and it's secret. Now, it happened that only 10 days earlier that box had disappeared in mysterious circumstances and the custodian of it was murdered. It was always said that the box hold a secret that could shake the Church in its fundaments. An obscure confraternity, who called themselves the Brotherhood of Foucault had claimed the theft.

Robert Langdom of course had heard of them. The Brotherhood of Foucault were a group of men, based at the Pantheon in Paris, who rejected totally the female priesthood, and were founded in 1851 when Foucault demostrated for the first time his pendulum. For years they tried to find the documents that proved the name and nature of God. They claimed that God is man, and therefore only men can be priest. That document, in the sealed box of Julius II, could proof the opposite. And today, with a modern pope in the Vatican, nothing was said that he would publish it.

The confraternity took his name from Léon Foucault, who was the first to show with a simple experiment that the earth rotates. His pendulum made it for everybody clear. The pendulum also proved that God is male. In revisionists papers they had published there findings, but never managed to convince the authorities of the Church of totally of it. Still there were theologians who claimed that also women are called for the priesthood. If that would be truth, then all obstacles for the ordination of women to the priesthood would be removed. Was the document in the box the last missing link? The final prove? Was it worth to kill for it?

There arguments were the following: They called themselves the Brotherhood of Foucault, after his experiment in 1851. In 1300 Dante Aleghieri had written "Questio de aqua et terra: De forma et situ duorum elementorum aque videlicet et terre" . The question was quite simple: If the earth is flat, what is the middle of the earth: the water or the land, and how do you explain that water is going to the sea. Earth is seen as a stable platform, fixed and invariable, with God as it's creator. At the end of the sea, you would fall of the earth. And in his Divine Comedy, the cosmos is divided in Heaven, Pulgatory and Hell. And the Brotherhood of Foucault claimed in its revisionist papers God who created the earth a firm and stable place, also He should be invariable. Being God in heaven, in the cosmos, He lives in a vacuum that makes Him unchangeable. And Foucault's Pendulum was the proof. And indeed: Moving the pendulum in a vacuum, it is only going from right to left. Our perception is wrong, claimed the Brotherhood of Foucault. We are seeing an ellipse ! That is because the earth rotates. But, so they argumented, the pendulum in realty is only going from left to right. The image aside proofs it.They even went in the Midrash, the varies interpretations of Hebrew of the name of God. I am that I am.  And if God became man on earth, he must have the same form as in heaven: being a man and not a woman.

The First Victim .... in The Chapel of Saint Cecilia in the Church San Carlo ai Catenari, Roma

The Tetragrammaton was the ultimate prove for the Brotherhood. The four consonants: Yod, Hey, Vav, Hey are always there (Exodus 3,14) in the name of God. The masoretes in the 13th century started causing the confusion by writing vocals underneath. And so you can pronounce it once "Jahweh" and the next time "Jehovah", and that all when the Hebrew people are saying "Adonai", a word that has nothing to do with those four letters, because you can't pronounce the name of God. He is just what He is and therefore unvariable. That his incarnation was in the form of a man proves that God is man and therefore only male priesthood can be accepted.

But the Brotherhood of Foucault knew there was one document that could reveil the truth about the nature of God: it was in that box of Julius II.

Robert Langdon knew that he only could ask the Swiss Guards to retrieve the box of Julius II. By being the bodyguards of the Popes, and military trained by the best secret services in the world, the Colonel of The Swiss Guards, Col. M. Aeder was the only one who knew how the box looked alike.

The Pantheon in Paris and the Pendulum of Foucault

The Brotherhood of Foucauld were the honor guards in the Pantheon in Paris. Ironically in the building dedicated to ALL the GODS, male and female: PAN stays for panorama, an overview, and THEON stands for Theology, the divine, the Gods. A temple for all the Gods like the Pantheon in Rome.

For making a long story short, the box was found back exactly under the stone in the middle of the Pantheon in Paris, under the Pendulum of Foucault. The head of the Brotherhood of Foucault was processed and found guilty on multiple murder on those who wanted to reveal the truth and theft and imprissoned with a lifetime sentence.

The box returned to the Vatican, but the spectacular process against the Brotherhood of Foucault was breaking news for months, even it happened behind closed doors for protecting the pope and his immunity. But, the Holy Father had no other choice than to reveal it's secret. The whole world was looking. And so, on the day of Pentecost, at the end of the celebration on Saint Peters' Square, the box was put on the altar for being opened in public to the public for the first time. The actual Pope had always been a fervant opposer of any kind of secracy: "the Church can only survive if it is living in the Truth", he would say.

At exactly 12:00 o'clock, when all the bells of Rome were ringing, he took a little key that was hanging as a pendant around his neck, and after blessing the box, he opened it.

What was in the Box you will find out tomorrow.

Nobody will ever hear what was really behind those crimes ...

The link to this murder-story and this page is hidden somewhere in my weblog, only you will know the truth ...

A Second Victim was found.... in a museum in Belgium, in a former flemish cloister .....

Stunning: Christ is female.

The answer is in the Stars

A new exhibit of mechanical puzzles includes work by Akio Kamei, who specializes in trick-opning boxes called Karakuri. From the outside, the puzzle aside appears a simle wooden cube. But a subtle clue on top reveals how to open its secret compartment.

A Third Victim in the secret Archive of the Vatican

The Box and its secret ....