Donna Bowman
Honors College, University of Central Arkansas
Abstract
While a Gnostic interpretation of The Matrix illuminates that
film's presentation of enlightenment and salvation, the sequel The
Matrix Reloaded takes the inadequacy of the Gnostic worldview
as one of its themes. The community of the enlightened is revealed
to be in the thrall of dangerous illusions, and its saviour, who is
effective only within the unreal world, lends paradoxical gravity
to the discredited realm. The Zion community represents the failure
of a realized eschatology to recognize binding relationships of dependence
and to steer a sustainable middle way between the mental and the physical.
[1] Frances Flannery-Dailey and Rachel Wagner's groundbreaking article
"Wake Up! Gnosticism and Buddhism in The Matrix" (2001) convincingly
argued that The Matrix (Wachowski and Wachowski 1999) draws
on several religious traditions in its presentation of an unreal material
world requiring mental liberation for participation in true reality.
This article has provided the impetus for much fruitful discussion
of The Matrix both in the scholarly and popular press.[1]
[2] It is interesting, therefore, that the film's much-anticipated
sequel, The Matrix Reloaded (Wachowski and Wachowski 2003),
critiques the Gnostic program that Flannery-Dailey and Wagner uncover
in its predecessor. In this paper I will show that the Wachowski brothers
(writers and directors of both films) reveal the limitations and inconsistencies
of the Gnostic approach through their portrayal a type of "realized
eschatology" similar to that found in some outposts of the early Christian
church. Gnosticism typically (a) rejects the material world as malevolent
and illusory, and (b) advocates a program of special intellectual
training, culminating in the possession of secret knowledge, in order
to escape it. In The Matrix Reloaded, Zion, the underground
outpost of the free humans, is, quite literally, the kingdom come.
Within it, the enlightened and the saved savour a foretaste of what
all civilization will someday be, after the machines are defeated
in the final apocalyptic showdown. Their model not only accepts, but
also embraces and celebrates embodiment and the material world. The
illusions of the Matrix are revealed as the non-material ideas - computer
programs, data, information - that Gnosticism would claim as the dimension
of true reality. In short, the sequel turns the first aspect of the
Gnostic system on its head. Flannery-Dailey and Wagner note that "when
we ask the question, 'To what do we awaken?', the film appears
to diverge sharply from Gnosticism and Buddhism. ... 'Waking up' in
the film is leaving behind the matrix and awakening to a dismal cyber-world,
which is the real material world."[2]
But they also contend that The Matrix leaves open the possibility
that the "desert of the real" that Neo is shown on a computer screen
is not, in fact, real at all.[3]
While that reading may have been possible with the evidence of the
first film alone, The Matrix Reloaded significantly alters
the possibilities for a Gnostic interpretation. A realm of true reality
- a material, embodied, and historical realm of human existence -
is the setting for much of the second film's action.[4]
[3] The second film finds the Wachowskis taking pains, it seems,
to deconstruct explicitly some aspects of the Gnostic interpretation
of the first.[5] The first act of The Matrix
Reloaded reintroduces us to Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus, front-line
fighters in the resistance movement, and takes us for the first time
to Zion, the movement's underground haven. There we observe, also
for the first time, the religious rites of the Zionites. In a "Temple
gathering" of the whole community, a Councilor (who seems to perform
a civil-religious function) introduces Morpheus, whose communication
with the Oracle and steadfast belief in her pronouncements make him
a prophet to a large segment of the community. When he calls on the
group to make a statement against the machines tunneling down toward
them, the Zionites burst into ecstatic dance, driven by complex, irresistible
drumbeats. The "temple" setting and the response of the Zionite characters
clearly indicate that this is neither a spontaneous celebration nor
a secular party. This is a religious rite of long standing that is
supported by the movement's theology. A cry of defiance against the
machines is a statement in favour of a specific alternative; it entails
and reveals the Zionites' beliefs about authentic human existence,
beliefs they make concrete and real in Zion.
[4] The scene continues without dialogue, cross-cutting between
the dancers on the one hand, and Neo and Trinity, who have stolen
away to make love, on the other. The drums unite the two rites, one
public and one private, but both intensely sensual and physical. The
dancers' clothing becomes transparent as they sweat, revealing breasts,
chests, and legs. Their bodies shine with sweat. Periodically a dancer
leaps out of the pack, twisting like a whale breaching the ocean's
surface. Filmed in slow motion, sometimes in close-up, other times
in medium shots, the ritualized dance clearly expresses a celebration
of the body. In defiance of the machines that use human bodies as
merely functional appendages and feed human minds with rich ideational
constructs, the Zionites surrender themselves to a purely bodily,
purely sensate, purely material experience. The ritual elevates somatic
existence into a sacrament.
[5] At the same time, Neo and Trinity celebrate their embodiment
through the sexual act. The two have been searching for a private
moment to make love ever since they arrived back at Zion. Their hunger
for each other's bodies is at a peak, as demonstrated by their immediate
embrace and passionate kisses as soon as they are left alone in an
elevator. As important soldiers in the war against the machines, they
use their minds to fight the enemy in the realm of ideas and information,
and their bodies are restrained, denied, and rigidly controlled in
that role. But as the ritual makes clear, the non-material realm in
which the battles take place is enemy turf. And, as the film's climax
shows, the danger of The One (Neo in his messiah role) is that his
mastery of that turf makes him a slave to it. If the war is to be
fought on unfriendly ground, then the ground dictates the tactics.
Those who accept that bargain might find that these necessary tactics
undercut or even destroy the reasons for which they are fighting.
The Architect reveals at the film's end that Neo is an "anomaly" that
crops up periodically in the Matrix's programming. When he uses his
power to manipulate information to save Trinity's life, he is capitulating
to that disembodied role and choosing against the embodied lives of
the millions of human beings still in thrall to the Matrix.
[6] The sexual relationship that we see consummated during the ritual,
then, exists both in concord with it (as a celebration of embodiment)
and in tension with it (as private rather than public). The communal
sexuality of the dance is ritualized, sacramentalized, and therefore
depersonalized and generalized. It is an orgiastic sexuality in which
all embodiments have a kind of equality - every body is to be celebrated.
This is a religion more akin to the paganism that Gnosticism explicitly
rejects or to the libertinism that is the result of the Corinthian
church's realized eschatology than it is to either Pauline Christianity
or Gnostic asceticism. We come to see that there is a danger in the
intensely personal, private, and compartmentalized sexuality that
Neo and Trinity share. The danger is that Neo will value the survival,
however temporary, of this particular psychosomatic being over the
survival or flourishing of all psychosomatic beings. When Neo brings
Trinity back to life at the end of the film, he does so in the Matrix
by reaching into her information-body and restarting her heart. As
the entire religious construct of prophecy, oracle, and messiah dictates,
Neo believes that the solution to all problems is found and enacted
within the Matrix, a realm where he operates with unique power. But
the lady-or-the-tiger choice that the Architect presents demonstrates
that this mode of problem-solving is self-defeating. It contains the
seeds of its own destruction, because ultimately, the Matrix controls
those who operate within it, even if they believe they are operating
to subvert it. They have submitted themselves to the logic of the
realm in which they live and move and have their being.
[7] The New Testament Gospels narrate a story of the disciples'
relationship with a human man, Jesus - their belief that he is the
promised Messiah, and their expectation that he will inaugurate an
earthly kingdom. The Gospel of Mark, particularly, stresses the theme
of the disciples' ignorance and delusion. They repeatedly misunderstand
the nature of the kingdom Jesus has come to inaugurate, looking forward
to a political and historical domain of God's rule. But as the letters
of Paul demonstrate, the belief that the kingdom is nonetheless coming
to earth, and that churches across the Roman empire are foretastes
of what that kingdom will be like, was widespread. What has been termed
a "realized eschatology" among the Corinthians, for example, led them
to believe that they already lived a spiritual, heavenly existence
while still present in their embodied, material life in Corinth. The
freedom from and fulfillment of law that Jesus preached and represented
becomes the Corinthians' assertion that "All things are lawful for
me" (1 Cor 6:12a)[6], including the satisfaction of any physical appetite, including
sexual desire, with any object that comes to hand.[7]
[8] Similarly, the Zionites emphasize their freedom in sensual,
bodily experience to demonstrate that they are living in a qualitatively
different type of existence than that of the machine world. The sacrament
of the dance and public sensualism reminds them what they have been
liberated from. At the same time, however, and perversely, in this
ritual dance they are expressing their support of a war against the
machines that is not being fought in the material world that they
celebrate. Paul opposed the Corinthians' libertinism on the grounds
that the Christian has not been liberated from creation, but
liberated within its "very good" framework. Simplistic expressions
of sexual freedom make a liar out of God, whose creative acts reveal
that sex was intended for the marriage relationship (1 Cor 6:18-20).
Notice, too, that Paul also opposes another Corinthian faction's sexual
abstinence on the same grounds (1 Cor 7: 1-6)! He advocates
a middle way between the extremes of promiscuity and celibacy: that
Christians can be in the world without being of it, that they have
not transcended it but have been set free from their bondage to it.
[9] Although the filmmakers do not provide any cinematic signifiers
of judgment or disapproval with the regard to the Zionites' ritual
or Neo and Trinity's lovemaking, The Matrix Reloaded moves
in a direction that criticizes the religio-philosophical assumptions
behind their acts. The dance and the sexual encounter are filmed lovingly,
lingeringly, sensually. There is no foreboding of danger in the Zionites'
belief that they have achieved full embodied freedom, or in the couple's
complete physical expression of loving union. These scenes are presented
as fulfilling, righteous, and intrinsically good. The drums sweep
both characters and audience into an ecstatic state, in which ideas
and justifications take a temporary hiatus, and only sensation is
real. But as the movie continues, the theme of control and dependence,
first expressed in the conversation between Councilor Hamann and Neo
on the engineering level, calls the integrity of these experiences
into question. Those who feel they have broken free from the control
of the non-human - from the "world" - are operating under a dangerous
illusion.
[10] The religio-philosophical conflict underlies even the more prosaic
difference of opinion between Commander Lock and Morpheus. Commander
Lock wants to concentrate the resources of Zion on the physical battle:
repelling the machines that are tunneling toward Zion. He opposes
the allocation of some ships and personnel toward the effort of penetrating
the Matrix, distrusting the Oracle's prophecy of the One (which originates,
the Architect contends, in an "intuitive" program that is part and
parcel of the Matrix itself[8]). Commander Lock is treated by
our heroes, the Nebuchadnezzar crew, as a villain, not least
because he expresses opposition to the Gnostic salvation protocol
advanced in The Matrix. Knowledge, he implicitly contends,
does not inoculate the bearer against evil and corruption. Indeed,
the feeling of invincibility that enlightenment brings is itself the
most dangerous illusion, convincing the adept that she can operate
with impunity in a realm that she believes she has transcended.[9]
In fact, continued operations in the Matrix of information and ideas
entail the fatal yielding of control to that realm: the Matrix is
allowed to define the problem and the solution, although it is completely
unreal. The strength of human beings is their solid physicality, or
so states the civil religion of Zion; yet they entrust their defense
to champions who give up that high ground and play into their opponent's
strength. The realized eschatology of the Zionites, then, is not complete.
It is fatally flawed by its assignment of an important reality-function
to the rejected realm of ideation. If the Plain of Armageddon for
this struggle is in the Matrix, then the Matrix is not ultimately
treated as an illusion.
[11] The problem with a realized eschatology is that it presents
a false dichotomy. Being in the world means being a part of the world.
So it follows that if Christ assures us that we are no longer of the
world, then we can no longer actually be in it. An eschatological
bubble, invisible to those without eyes to see, separates our community
from the outer darkness. Within those boundaries, the parousia
has arrived. There is no longer any danger of falling into sin or
despair, because the work of salvation has been accomplished, and
the kingdom of God is present (in proleptic form) today.[10]
[12] Zion appears to be justified in this belief, much more so,
in fact, than any group of early Christians would have been. After
all, the early Christians were still physically present in the mundane,
and time and history still continued to flow around them. It took
some philosophical gymnastics to assert that, all appearances to the
contrary, the early church community had slipped the tether of the
temporal. Zion, on the other hand, is physically and psychically separate
from the dreamworld of the Matrix. The woken sleepers are literally
disconnected from the world they had formerly known, and their freedom
in space is physically demonstrable by movement and sensation. They
have been transported, if not to a heavenly kingdom, then at least
to a Garden that could be the seed for a millennial reconstitution
of life before the Matrix. Why, then, is their realized eschatology
dangerous and false?
[13] Like the Corinthians, the Zionites depend on structures that
they reject as evil, and at the same time deny in their actions that
this is the case. A realized eschatology proclaims that the new covenant
instituted by Christ trumps all former covenant relationships, even
the relationship of creation. Yet those in the eschatological community
continue to depend on divinely-ordained structures of creation to
satisfy material needs. To do so without regard for the purposes of
God in creation is to proclaim a more radical separation than has,
in fact, taken place. It is to claim a simplistic freedom from,
a childish longing for an amoral world and an indifferent God who,
like an indulgent parent, will chuckle at a toddler's willful and
pointless destruction. One aspect of the freedom from sin in a realized
eschatology is the belief that one can no longer truly or seriously
hurt one's self or others - an abdication of responsibility and a
reversion to a pre-moral state.
[14] But of course, as Paul points out, even the saints can hurt
each other, themselves, and the world in which they live. He suggests
a test of functionality - a kind of realpolitik - for the ecstatic
lawbreakers. "'All things are lawful for me,'" he writes, quoting
the Corinthian assertion, and then adds his own qualification: "but
not all things are helpful. 'All things are lawful for me,' but I
will not be enslaved by anything" (1Cor6:12, my emphasis). In
Paul's view, the Corinthians need to understand that their actions
are not religiously neutral for two reasons. First, the pagans are
watching. To them, the eschatological "bubble" is invisible, and lawbreaking
and licentiousness appear to be exactly that. A Christian community
needs to be a model of righteousness, not of sin. Second (and immediately
pertinent to Zion), the assumption of transcendence is patently false.
As long as Christians remain in God's good creation, they are bound
to the covenants that govern righteous behaviour in that setting.
Libertinism and asceticism alike let the fallen world set the
agenda. Both these ways of being in the world enslave the Christian
to the categories of a fallen world, because both are (over-)reactions
to the worldly reality of sin - the one foolishly denies sin's power
by reveling in sinful behaviour, the other overestimates it by retreating
from any appearance of connection to the world that is identified
with it. Paul advocates a third way: letting Christ's incarnation
(the cross and the resurrection, both historical, bodily experiences)
set the agenda. He advises the Corinthians to "glorify God in your
body" (1Cor6:20b) - the "very good" body given in creation, the "member
of Christ" (v. 15), "meant for the Lord, and the Lord for the body"
(v. 13b). The Christian is simultaneously a part of creation restored
and a sojourner in a sinful world. Her moral agenda is set by this
reality, not by an ideal that ignores her material and spiritual dependence
on it.
[15] Zion's enslavement is evident, even in the midst of its rituals
of freedom. Councilor Hamann tells Neo that no one comes down to the
engineering level, where automated machines sustain all Zionites'
air, water, food, and power. Instead they rally against the machines
that formerly imprisoned them in the Matrix, celebrating their independence,
while below, unseen and ritualistically denied, the machines on which
they depend hum and turn. Their belief that they have transcended
the machine world enslaves them to a deadly illusion of independence.
It is what we do not recognize as controlling that exerts the most
pervasive and masterful control. The Zionites need to "wake up" anew
- this time from their Gnostic dogma. They have escaped one illusion
of independence only to fall into another.
[16] The gnosis that provides power to Neo, and in which
the Zionites place their faith, is a recognition of the unreality
- or the virtuality - of the apparently real world. Flannery-Dailey
and Wagner write:
Like an ancient Gnostic, Morpheus explains that the blows he deals
Neo in the martial arts training program have nothing to do with
his body or speed or strength, which are illusory. Rather, they
depend only on his mind, which is real. ... [Neo] learns that "the
mind makes it [the matrix, the material world] real," but it is
not ultimately real.[11]
Is mind, then, the ultimate reality in the religio-philosophical
system of the Matrix films? Mind can be enslaved; mind contains
the key to freedom. (The ad campaign for The Matrix Reloaded
urges viewers: "Free Your Mind"). But the ritual of the Zionites shows
that minds are freed in order to return to psychosomatic unity, not
in order to transcend bodies. An extreme interpretation of the scene
in which the ritual dance and Neo's sexual encounter are cross-cut
might even suggest that minds should be turned off, freeing the
body for real experience, unfettered by thought-constructions.
[17] The gnosis that frees Neo, then, seems to be a special
discipline for the adept. Although all the Zionites have "awoken"
from their dream-state, only a select few return to the Matrix to
do battle with the mental powers their gnosis has given them.[12]
The Zionites offer sacrifices and ask for blessings from Neo, elevating
him to the status of the holy one on whom their salvation depends.
The gnosis that gives power within the Matrix is only
for a few, then; most awakened sleepers leave the Matrix forever,
and trust the adepts to hold the machine-world back with their mystical
battles in the mental dimension. The salvific mysteries have two levels.[13]
[18] Although the Nebuchadnezzar crew understand themselves
as sacrificial heroes rather than adepts, a stylistic reading of The
Matrix Reloaded indicates that this self-understanding is shallow.
Those who battle in the realm of the Matrix do not fully enjoy the
material freedom of Zion. As already noted, they conduct themselves
with restraint and stoicism in all public appearances, "letting go"
and succumbing to their bodily desires only in private (or so we infer
from Neo and Trinity's behaviour). According to the realized eschatology
of the Zionite religion, this separation between the warriors and
the citizens is a necessary evil; in the coming kingdom of pure material
freedom, the (ascetic) disciplines of the mind and body practiced
by the Nebuchadnezzar crew will be unnecessary. The warriors
continue to "plug in" to the Matrix, voluntarily returning to the
realm of samsara and illusion, placing themselves at risk for
the good of the entire community. But the filmmakers portray Zion
as colourless, ragged, and drab, in contrast to the colour, vitality,
and sophistication of the Matrix, calling into question the protagonists'
commitment to Zion's values. Do they really want to destroy the Matrix
once and for all? After all, only in the Matrix are they dressed in
the height of fashion, cool, sleek, and perfect; when they "wake up"
they are wearing torn, stained, salvaged clothing. Only in the Matrix
do they have paranormal abilities; when they wake up they are limited
to their puny bodies. Although nowhere in the films is it suggested
that the characters are aware of this discrepancy between their thoughts
and their deeds, the style of the film and the performances - rigid,
clumsy, and ugly in the Zion scenes, but fluid, graceful, and richly
ornate in the Matrix ones - drives the point home. What the Nebuchadnezzar
crew consciously believes to be sacrifice, turns out, in their deepest
convictions, to be nothing of the kind. Rather than feeling sullied
by continued contact with the Matrix, they feel that they are elevated
by it, made better than the participants in the lower level of gnosis.
Witness the uncomfortable self-promotion involved in Morpheus' insistence,
to Commander Lock and the Council, that the Nebuchadnezzar
be exempted from the fight against the machines. Witness the adoring
and misplaced worship of the Nebuchadnezzar crew by the Zionites.
Witness Neo's "Superman thing" - a flashy and self-indulgent display
of his power of flight. Neo and his fellow adepts are not properly
humble. They clearly consider themselves special, apart, transcendent
- better than the average Zionite.
[19] This unacknowledged hubris is yet another example of the hypocrisy
that The Matrix Reloaded explores as a major theme.
When religious and philosophical tenets, as expressed in ritual and
belief, ignore the deeper assumptions that are revealed in actual
practice, then the characters chain themselves inside new prisons
of illusion. The realized eschatology of the Zionites ignores their
continued dependence on machines. Believing that humanity's mistake
was only in providing the machines with artificial intelligence, they
assume that they are the masters of instruments that, in fact, sustain
their very existence. At the same time, the messianic aspect of the
Gnostic religion of the Zionites ignores the very core of the gnosis:
the unreality of the Matrix world. By claiming that this illusion
can only be destroyed by an adept working within it, they are granting
ultimate reality and ultimate efficacy to the illusion. Neo and the
crew of the Nebuchadnezzar ignore the obvious joy they receive
from their Matrix-based power and from the violence they perpetrate
there, insisting to themselves that their task is onerous and sacrificial.
[20] Central to all of these dangerous illusions is the false dichotomy
of a realized eschatology. If one has "woken up," then one is, by
definition, awake. The option is binary: one or zero. The Zionites
and their warrior-adepts do not recognize that the saved may still
sin - that woken sleepers may remain blind to the truth. The point
is driven home by the presentation of several binary options to Neo
in The Matrix Reloaded, including the Architect's two doors
and Persephone's demand that he kiss her or forfeit the Keymaster.
In each case Neo does not try to find a larger way out of the dilemma.
He accedes to the Matrix's definition of the problem, and simply chooses
one of the proffered alternatives. By failing to challenge the dichotomy,
he abdicates his power over the Matrix, opting instead for power merely
within it. Thus Neo is revealed as a slave to the illusory world.
[21] If Neo is the messiah of The Matrix films, it is clear
that Zion awaits the coming of a Paul. The revel that accompanies
an awakening, an exodus, or a liberation cannot productively be translated
into a way of life. As the Corinthians mistook the triumph of Christ
for the abolition of the category of sin, the Zionites mistake being
unplugged for being free. Paul created Christianity as a stable religious
institution by identifying a third way between asceticism and libertinism:
a praxis of realism liberally salted with regeneration, undergirded
by Christian hope. This third way required the proponents of a realized
eschatology to recognize the real conditions of ongoing life in the
world, including relationships of dependence and practicality. Paul's
tone to the Corinthians is aggrieved, exasperated: "Wake up," he seems
sometimes to be saying through his structure of rhetorical questions
and reductiones ad absurdum. Salvation - enlightenment - is
not the end of the story, nor does the plot continue only at the level
of the cosmic battle between God and Satan. We may live authentically
and mindfully, or we may forget ourselves and fall into new errors
and illusions; both alternatives are possible for saved persons.
In other words, the only dichotomy that the Corinthians recognized
was Christian/pagan, forgiven/sinner; Paul wanted to show that the
category of Christian contains the possibility of grievous error,
deceit, and even evil. The Zionites and the Nebuchadnezzar
crew have yet to open their eyes to this reality. Blinded by the Gnostic
underpinnings of their worldview, they consider themselves already
to have attained transcendence over every dangerous illusion.[14]
A Paul must emerge to teach them a sustainable, honest perspective
on their situation, reconciling their belief system with the unstated
assumptions in their practice.
References
Flannery-Dailey, Frances, and Rachel Wagner. "Wake Up! Gnosticism
and Buddhism in The Matrix." Journal of Religion and Film
5,2 (October 2001). http://www.unomaha.edu/~wwwjrf/gnostic.htm.
Talbert, Charles. Reading Corinthians: A Literary and Theological
Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians. New York: Crossroad, 1987.
Wachowski, Larry and Andy Wachowski, dir. The Matrix. Warner
Bros., 1999.
__________, dir. The Matrix Reloaded. Warner Bros.,2003.
Žižek, Slavoj. "Ideology Reloaded." In These Times
27,6 (June 6, 2003). http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=220_0_4_0_M.
Notes
[1] See for example:
Julien R. Fielding, "Reassessing The Matrix Reloaded," Journal
of Religion and Film 7,2 (October 2003) (http://www.unomaha.edu/~wwwjrf/Vol7No2/matrix.matrixreloaded.htm);
Steven Tomkins, "Forget sci-fi and guns: The Matrix is really
about religion," BBC News World Edition, May 14 2003 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3027027.stm);
"Spiritual Themes of The Matrix Reloaded," Religion and
Ethics Newsweekly, July 25, 2003 (PBS, WNET-New York; http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week638/feature.html).
[2] Flannery-Dailey
and Wagner (2001), ¶38. For further exploration of the religious and
philosophical implications of the Matrix trilogy, see Chris
Seay and Greg Garrett, The Gospel Reloaded: Exploring Spirituality
and Faith in The Matrix (Colorado Spring, CO: Pinon Press, 2003)
and William Irwin, ed., The Matrix and Philosophy (Chicago:
Open Court, 2002).
[3] ¶39.
[4] While I concentrate
in this essay on the Gnostic system advocated within the films by
the Council and Morpheus, ultimately the trilogy may embrace a kind
of Buddhism, calling on the enlightened saviour-adept (Neo, as the
bodhisattva) to help his fellow humans along the road to a
deeper appreciation of reality that rejects both material and non-material
forms of existence and recognizes existence itself as the source of
suffering. But this is only one of many possible outcomes, analysis
of which must wait for the third film in the trilogy, to be released
late in 2003.
[5] As Flannery-Dailey
and Wagner generously report in their article, I played a very minor
role in the formation of that initial thesis.
[6] All quotations
from the Bible are from the Revised Standard Version.
[7] See Charles Talbert,
Reading Corinthians: A Literary and Theological Commentary on 1
and 2 Corinthians (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 29-30, 36. The
quoted passages illustrate the antinomian expression of the Corinthians'
realized eschatology, which has an apocalyptic aspect; the kingdom
has come, and laws regulating ritual purity are no longer needed.
A related usage of the term "realized eschatology" applies to Jesus'
assertion in the gospels that the reign of God has already been enacted
- that it is not a future reality, but a present one.
[8] Here the film is
open to interpretation. When the Architect describes the intuitive
program, Neo expostulates: "The Oracle." To which the Architect sniffs,
"Please." The Architect's response can be interpreted at least two
ways: (1) The intuitive program to which he refers is not what
Neo calls the Oracle, and the Architect is belittling Neo's attempt
at identification; or (2) The name that Morpheus and the Zionites
have given to the intuitive program - "Oracle" - is ridiculous to
the Architect.
[9] Slavoj Žižek
(2003), commenting on the resolution of the first film, astutely notes
its wish-fulfillment structure - the adept can have it all: "The choice
is not between bitter truth and pleasurable illusion, but rather between
the two modes of illusion. The traitor is bound to the illusion of
our 'reality,' dominated and manipulated by the Matrix, while Neo
offers to humanity the experience of the universe as a playground
in which we can play a multitude of games, freely passing from one
to another, reshaping the rules that fix our experience of reality."
[10] Cf. the discussion
of food offered to idols in 1 Cor 8, and the words Paul puts in the
Corinthians' mouths: " all of us possess knowledge" (v. 1) and "an
idol has no real existence" (v. 4).
[11] ¶14.
[12] Here the Buddhist
notion of the bodhisattva, the enlightened one who delays nirvana
in order to serve as a guide to the unenlightened, seems to be helpful
(cf. Flannery-Dailey and Wagner 2001, ¶29). And of course, only
one has the power to be the way for all sleeping human beings
- Neo, elevated to a Buddha figure (¶31).
[13] As in the Gospel
of Mark, with its intimations of the secrets conveyed only to the
disciples: some of the saved are more equal than others.
[14] Cf. Phil 3:12-16.
