The Reversed Hierophant

The Pope’s convoy arrived in Vallado City three days later in the evening. They would rest here for a day before taking a train to Perigo, the capital of the Roman Empire. Vallado was the last city in the Papal States bordering Rome. Due to its proximity to Rome and other free city-states, commerce and trade were very developed here. There were seven banks in the city alone.

The mayor borrowed a holiday castle from a baron and barely managed to accommodate the Pope and his entourage. Rafael took a bath and came down the stairs with his long hair still a little wet. Several black-clothed monks were scattered around the hall on the first floor. Two soft chairs were placed in front of the fireplace, and Ferrante stood beside an empty chair.

Rafael walked over and sat down in the chair next to Ferrante.

Ferrante turned his head and glanced at him, his eyes showing a hint of helplessness. He reached into his sleeve and took out a roll of silk ribbon, tying Rafael’s long hair up. His movements were so skilful that it was astonishing, as if he had repeated it countless times.

Rafael obediently let him play with his hair, staring intently at the person in the opposite armchair with curious and inquiring eyes.

It was a woman.

But at first glance, it was really difficult to identify her gender.

Her hair was shaved shorter than that of an ordinary man, like a messily trimmed stubble, piled haphazardly on top of her head. A tattered felt hat covered most of her forehead, revealing a pair of particularly spirited blue eyes. Her cheekbones were high, her chin was pointed, and her facial features had a masculine toughness. She was thin and wrapped in a loose, men’s short coat and her trousers were tied at the waist with a straw rope. She wasn’t really a woman who could be praised for her beauty. Rather, according to current standards, a woman with such a masculine appearance could be considered ugly, especially since she didn’t seem to consider herself a woman. Whether in her dress or expression, she exuded a masculine aggressiveness.

“Ms. Anastasia, I apologize for inviting you to visit in this way. I hope my children have not been rude to you,” Rafael smiled apologetically at her. “In fact, my original plan was to visit you, but my attendant said you’ve been staying in the cemetery these past few days—”

Seeing her vigilance, Rafael gently placed the book he had been holding in his hand on his lap and revealed the cover to her.

As soon as she saw the book, Anastasia’s eyes changed. Her gaze fixed on the cover, and the vigilance melted away from her face like water, replaced by another kind of joy and excitement. “You’ve read this book? Do you agree with my point of view? I told you! There are still smart people in the world! Are you here to exchange ideas with me…”

Her questions came at Rafael like a string of cannonballs, one after another. The young Pope involuntarily leaned back, a surprised smile on his face. He didn’t expect that a woman who had been so on guard just a moment ago would let down her guard so easily. He didn’t know whether to praise her naivety or criticize her lack of vigilance.

Anastasia was completely unaware of Rafael’s complex psychological activities. She seemed to be immersed in her own world, beginning to preach her self-contained “academic theory” on her own: “… Through my research, I have found that everyone’s structure is exactly the same. God created us and gave us perfect bodies in the womb. This is not a feat that humans can accomplish. Every organ has its purpose, and the direction of blood flow is also fixed. No theory can explain this. Except for the omnipotent and supreme God, who else can formulate such a sophisticated system and make it work? In fact, through my research and confirmation, I believe—”

Rafael listened to her enthusiastic preaching with a smile, picked up the porcelain cup next to him, and gently sipped the sweet tea with the fragrance of flowers and herbs. This sweet tea made from seasonal flowers and herbs was a specialty of Vallado City. The mayor of Vallado was promoting this product to the merchants in His Holiness’s entourage, and Rafael didn’t mind tasting this unique tea more often during his subsequent journey.

As soon as the sweet tea entered his mouth, he heard Anastasia announce firmly and loudly, “—God has a gender, and God is female!”

“Cough, cough, cough…” Rafael choked on a mouthful of tea, and his trachea immediately issued a solemn protest. The Pope almost couldn’t hold the cup in his hand. Ferrante took the teacup from his hand and placed it on the table, patted His Holiness on the back and glared at Anastasia with cold eyes.

“A very, very creative insight, but I sincerely hope you haven’t publicized your new discovery to others.” Rafael said this with absolute sincerity.

This involves the Church’s current interpretation of doctrine.

At present, when theology and religion have not yet developed to a perfect stage, the Holy See holds all the rights to interpret the doctrine. Any new interpretation of the scriptures and doctrines was not allowed. Once there is a different interpretation of the doctrine, the person will be judged as a blasphemer by the Holy See and subjected to strict education. If the education is ineffective, the Holy See has the right to legally sentence them to death.

Of course, within the Holy See, there are also different schools of interpretation, and the Pope often has to be involved in these disputes. Of course, apart from the most devout believers, many disputes are based on whether the interpretation was beneficial to oneself and whether it can increase the Church’s ruling power.

Of all these issues, one of the most important was naturally the debate over the gender of God.

Is God male or female? Does God have a specific gender, or is Their gender fluid? Or are They without gender?

This question has been highly debated within the Holy See for over a hundred years, but the current mainstream thought is that God appears on earth in a male form. This choice symbolizes the absolute dominance of men over women, indicating that men are the perfect first gender and rightfully acquire a higher status than women—of course, such an explanation was entirely to annotate the gender oppression of a patriarchal society.

And the “Goddess” believers propose that only women can give birth to offspring, and the first child in the world was also born of a woman. By extension, God, when giving birth to the firstborn, should be a woman. This was absolutely certain. It is women who holds the most primitive power to continue one’s bloodline, therefore God is a woman.

But once this theory is proposed, it will overturn the fundamental legitimacy of the Pope’s rule: the Pope claims to be the incarnation of God on earth, and the legitimacy of his power is based on this point. If it is proven that God at that time was a woman, then all the popes in history will be branded as heretics—as everyone knows, the most basic condition for participating in the papal election is that the candidate must be a man.

So, undoubtedly, no matter the purpose, the Pope is definitely a staunch supporter of the “male God” faction.

Rafael didn’t care whether God was male or female. He wasn’t the kind of stubborn and conservative classicist who insisted on forcing people to recite the scriptures word by word, and who would jump up and down to seek life and death at the slightest difference of opinion. But this didn’t mean that others could so unscrupulously promote “heretical” ideas in front of him.

“Oh, I’ve said it,” Anastasia admitted nonchalantly, “but no one believes it. Men are all stupid and arrogant. They don’t want to and dare not admit that the supreme God who created everything is not male. And the women… they have been domesticated for too long and dare not even finish listening to what I say. It’s not their fault, they have been imprisoned and brainwashed since birth. Men are so afraid of women that they have to tame them – well, I admit you’re a little smarter than other men, at least you discovered my work.”

The woman arrogantly raised her head, her blue eyes twinkling with amusement.

When she was halfway through her speech, Lucrezia came down from the stairs with a book in her arms. When she found a guest here, she quietly hid behind the curtain of the bay window. Her actions were obviously not hidden from those monks who had eyes everywhere and ears everywhere, but since His Holiness had not given any instructions, they pretended not to see.

Hearing this, Lucrezia felt like she had met an incomprehensible lunatic. Everything this woman said was so crazy, every word deserved to have her sent to the gallows and burned as a witch. She even criticized His Holiness to his face! But in the shock and fear that shook her soul, Lucrezia couldn’t help holding her breath. She couldn’t stop herself from wanting to listen, just as a bird couldn’t stop itself from spreading its wings.

Rafael rubbed his temples. He understood why the crows reported that this was a “madman, mentally deranged, intellectually deficient person”. Anastasia’s current performance… was indeed extremely abnormal in the eyes of most people.

Not only abnormal, but completely worthy of being caught and sent to a monastery to have the monks perform an exorcism!

In fact, Anastasia had already been exorcised three times, and had also spent a year and a half living in a monastery – in fact, she was forcibly locked up in a monastery as a lunatic. In the end, this woman took advantage of the nuns’ inattention and crawled out of the underground drain, hiding here and there for a year until others completely gave up on catching her.

This was the case in Vallado city, a commercially developed and open-minded area, if it were in a more conservative inland area, Anastasia would definitely have died for this.

“I’m glad to be praised by you, ma’am, but I’m not here to discuss this with you today,” Rafael said slowly, opening the book in his hand and quickly turning to one of the pages, raising it again to show the other side, “but this.”

Anastasia’s gaze froze for a moment: “Oh, this… this is just a by-product of my great discovery of the truth. It’s not worth mentioning. If you have enough wisdom, you should know that what I just told you is the truth for centuries! The absolute truth hidden by the Church!”

Rafael coughed violently, forcibly interrupting her words. Under Anastasia’s fanatical and shining eyes, he suddenly realized something and calmly asked, “Ma’am, do you know who I am?”

“What?” The woman instinctively asked back, looking confused.

Rafael and Ferrante sighed at the same time and looked at each other.

Ferrante said, “Before you is His Holiness Pope Sistine I, Lord of Florence and the Papal States, Vicar of God on earth, Shepherd of the Pious.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Anastasia froze completely. Her eyes widened, bulging like fish eyes, and she fell into a comical silence.

Then, to everyone’s surprise, she suddenly jumped up from her chair like a cat with its tail stepped on—it was simply unimaginable that a person could have such superior jumping ability. The woman was as flexible as a water snake and as nimble as a black cat. She slipped past Rafael and rushed towards the open door before anyone could react.

Rafael: ?

Ferrante: ?

The two of them stared blankly at the empty soft chair in front of them, with various expressions on their faces.

Finally, Rafael covered his face with his hands, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and raised his voice: “Bring her back!”

The surrounding monks all moved, and after a chaotic scene, they finally caught Anastasia, who was trying to escape, and pressed her back into the chair.

This time, she wasn’t treated as well as last time. Two monks stood behind her, one on the left and one on the right, ready to hold down this activist at any time.

After discovering that she couldn’t escape, the woman glared at Rafael angrily: “Liar! You hypocritical liars! You use embellished lies to deceive the ignorant masses, and you arbitrarily tamper with God’s will to realize your own greedy ambitions. You blaspheme the most supreme God!”

She cursed the Church and the Pope with spit flying all over the place, wishing she could single-handedly overthrow the entire Church and sweep away all the clergy in Florence, tearing up all the doctrines and throwing them into the cesspool. Seeing her getting more and more excited, with a crimson blush on her cheeks and her blue eyes burning like fire, Rafael took a deep breath: “Madam, if you don’t want to go to prison for the crime of desecrating corpses and digging up other people’s bodies without permission, you’d better shut up before my patience runs out. According to what you did to those poor people, perhaps an unprecedented huge bonfire will need to be erected for you in front of Vallado Square.”

Anastasia’s voice suddenly stopped.

Her face also turned colourful, and after a long while, she mumbled, “Oh.”

Obviously, this seemingly fearless lady also knew that what she was doing was not actually legal.

She was both bold and pragmatic, highly adaptable to an astonishing degree. She seemed crazy, but in fact, she was very clear-headed and rational.

A very powerful woman.

Rafael pointed to the page with the human figure drawing towards her again and said concisely: “As for what you did in the cemetery, the people here have some guesses, but they just don’t have such wild imaginations, and they just think you are studying some kind of witchcraft. In fact, the punishment for both is burning at the stake. If you don’t want to be suddenly reported and exposed in the future, please keep silent at the right time on the right topic. I came here to find you for this matter. I think you should know about the great epidemic in Florence half a year ago?”

Anastasia snorted reluctantly from her nose.

“… Some of the medical discoveries you made in it are considered to be very valuable after being studied by my doctors. I hope you can go to Florence and become my personal medical advisor to help my doctors in establishing the Florence Medical School. At that time, you can study these openly, and you don’t have to sneak into the cemetery at night… to steal from those poor people.”

Anastasia raised her head sharply, almost twisting her head off with such force: “Are you serious?”

Rafael didn’t care about her rudeness and said tolerantly, “I never lie.”

The woman looked at him cautiously for a few seconds, then smiled and said, “Deal.”

Rafael was surprised to find that when this woman with a hard and sharp face smiled, she actually had a unique and heroic temperament. This temperament made her instantly stand out from the crowd, making her possess a kind of wisdom and invincibility of a female warrior in a classical painting.

“Just watch, without women, you can’t do anything.” Anastasia arrogantly raised her head.

Lucrezia watched this scene while hiding behind the bay window, her slender fingers tightly gripping the cover of her book. She suddenly felt that this strange, ugly, and disheveled woman seemed to be glowing.

Future history books will record this meeting in detail, describing how Anastasia, the mother of modern medicine, a woman born in poverty without even a surname, tore open her own sky in this chaotic and gloomy era.

She was a staunch feminist and one of the earliest initiators of the women’s movement. She saved countless people with her medical talent, was the first doctor to systematically conduct anatomical research on the human body and was also the first doctor to try to establish a systematic modern medical system. Her research greatly reduced the risks of women during childbirth, abandoning the primitive and faith-based methods of inducing labor, and adopted more scientific methods of childbirth, greatly improving the survival rate of both mothers and infants. Therefore, although she remained unmarried and childless throughout her life, she was also known as ‘our mother’.

She, single-handedly, proved that women could shine as brightly as men in any field, completely crushing the derogatory term “male appendage” under her feet. In her time and after, women with the same talent began to emerge continuously. Their brilliance was so faint in the long river of history, but these faint points of light, when connected together, were enough to illuminate the sky.

A personal statue of her was erected in Signoria Square. The woman with her short hair and trousers was looking forward, holding a notebook in her hand, with a thin robe draped over her shoulders. Her strong face bore a proud smile and she looked high spirited as if she was constantly running from one ward to another. On the bronze base was engraved a personal quote of hers. Because this saying violated the doctrine, it wasn’t engraved until more than 50 years after her death when the will left by Pope Sistine I came to light.

——Women are born from women, and one must become women themselves.

Author’s Note

A unique new character, hahaha! I quite like Anastasia hehehe. I tried to create a character that I’ve never seen in any literature before. Hope you like it!

The last sentence is inspired by Simone de Beauvoir’s “One is not born a woman, but becomes one,” which is so insightful.

However, the ‘woman’ in “Women must become women” is defined by Anastasia as being intelligent, brave, strong, and independent, which is different from the traditional image of a woman at the time who is virtuous, kind, and being completely devoted to their family. It cannot be said who is right or wrong, please interpret it in the context of the times in the story.

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