Clementine creation image

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Jung draws our attention to the peculiar theory of world creation in the Clementine Homilies in CW9.2: par. 400 :

(a)

Jung: I would liketo mention the peculiar theory of world creation in the Clementine Homilies (fig. 6) . In God, pneuma and soma are one. When they separate, pneuma appears as the Son and “archon of the future Aeon,” but soma, actual substance ( ousia) or matter (ule), divides into four, corresponding to the four elements

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(b)

And out of that, psyche and a number of syzygies or paired opposites appear. Once again, the material is so condensed that it is very difficult to understand. It is elaborated here

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RIGHT HAND OF GOD

(c)

The basic image is of some interest to Jung and was mentioned earlier in CW9.2: par. 99. There Jung talked about the Clementine image of God, in which the right hand of God is good and the left hand is evil. Here in CW9.2: par. 400, another version of the same image, the unitary God divides into a good son and a bad son, so to speak, the pneuma / spirit, the bad son is matter, and this matter further divides into the four elements, out of which then comes the devil. This is just the first pair of opposites. Other opposites which emerge from the unitary God are heaven and earth, day and night, male and female, light and dark, Adam and Eve. This is a close parallel to the Kabbalistic Sefirotic Tree, also an image of the Deity emanating into a series of opposites

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CONTAINED THE OPPOSITES

(d)

The Clementine idea is important for Jung because it is an early God-image that explicitly contained the opposites and did not split them apart, even though it was the Christian image expressed in a Christian text. It foreshadowed Jung's conception of the Self as a reconciliation of opposites

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