Jernets alder

Resumé

Samson, socalled "judge" and "nazarite", belongs to the same anti-heroic type as the legendary Amirani from Caucasus, masterly analyzd by George Charachidzé as a transformation of Prometheus. The two of them articulate a form of life which denies culture; their necessarily victorious enemies are women and blacksmiths. The human condition, being the world of bread, iron, work and death, stands in oppostion to the golden age. In Old Testament priestly thinking this "golden age" finds a spatial expression in the Tabernacle, administered by men, not women. In traditional christianity, to which belongs the t heme of the chained Devil, a replica of Amirani, the temptation is no longer, as with Samson and Amirani, to regress to a golden age, but to stay satisfied with the human condition of this world.