KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 30 April
I am hemmed in on every side
Artemisia Gentileschi’s 1610 painting of the story of Susanna captures the moment when she discovers that she is being watched by two elders who conspire to have sex with her. The painting shows Susanna’s shock, dismay, and vulnerability at the ‘male gaze’ which reduces her to the object of their lust and violates her privacy and her personality.
While the story may have been composed as early as the sixth century BC, it was added to the cycle of stories about Daniel in the first century BC. Some argue for an Hebrew original but the story itself has come down to us in Greek as part of the Septuagint and subsequently included in the Latin Vulgate. Regarded as canonical, though not without debate, by Roman Catholics and the Churches of Eastern Orthodoxy, it is regarded as an Apocryphal text by Protestants. Yet the story of Susanna along with the story of Esther, of Judith and of Sarah (in The Book of Tobit), not to mention the admirable mother of the sons of Eleazar in The Books of Maccabees, contribute to a remarkable collection of texts which deal intentionally with strong, virtuous, and pious women in the face of persecution, adversity, and abuse. They exemplify the classical virtues as seen through the lenses of Hebrew law.
Such stories are intriguing and illuminate an important aspect of the philosophical literature of religious traditions. They reveal the concept of self-correction and self-criticism in the awareness of the limitations of human justice and of its betrayal through the various forms of sin. Here the story is about the attempted abuse of Susanna by the elders who have betrayed their office of guarding and governing their people. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guard themselves? The ancient and classic question is our modern question too. “They perverted their minds and turned away their eyes from looking to Heaven or remembering righteous judgements,” as the text puts it.
A gem of a short story from a literary standpoint, it is sometimes regarded as the first detective story. How do we face adversity? How do we face abuse? These are real questions and here those questions are addressed theologically and in terms of character. The story of Susanna has not only influenced a great number of artists, appearing as a fresco in the catacombs of Rome as well the subject of paintings by Tintoretto, Rembrandt, and others, not to mention Artemisia Gentileschi’s achievement. It has also influenced Shakespeare, explicitly in Measure for Measure and in The Merchant of Venice.
