Aversion of the Gaze
This sixteenth-century mural in the twelfth-century church of Moster shows the drama of the fall. Man and woman, created to face one another fearlessly with love, can no longer look upon one another. Adam’s face is turned away, invisible. His betrayal has reduced him to something less than the prosopon as which he was created to subsist. Impressive is the energy of the serpent whose disturbing coils, for being interrupted by whitewash, testify to a determined purpose to undermine relationship.
‘When Scripture speaks of the origin of sin, the first casualty is the natural, free relationship between the sexes. The fall lets Adam and Eve know what it means to be ‘cut off’. They no longer find themselves in one another. They hide. They are ashamed.’ From Chastity.
