"Out of the east, the morning behind them, rode the Anses into the world." (Time Patrol, p. 557)
Remember, new gods coming from the east with the sunrise. I have attended Pagan ceremonies where we each speak and drink from a horn of mead before passing the horn around the circle. At such ceremonies, I have recited Poul and Karen Anderson's "Tene Mithra, etiam miles, fides nostris votis nos," (see here) and will in future recite, "Out of the east..."
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Both here and in your "Heath" piece you are coming close to idealizing paganism. And I don't think Poul Anderson would agree with the modern day idealizing of paganism. My view is that in his "Foreword" to HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA (Ballantine Books: 1973) we get a glimpse of how he regarded paganism. This is what Anderson wrote on page xix: "A greater hazard lies in the very spirit of the saga. Here is no LORD OF THE RINGS, work of a civilized, Christian writer--though probably it was one of Tolkien's many wellsprings. Hrolf Kraki lived in the midnight of the Dark Ages. Slaughter, slavery, robbery, rape, torture, heathen rites bloody or obscene were parts of daily life." And we certainly see all of these things in "Star of the Sea"!
Given all this it is not surprising paganism, whether Greco-Roman or Germanic/Scandinavian, eventually died out with the rise of Christianity. There was simply too much that was absurd and WRONG in paganism for it to last after the Incarnation of Christ. My view is that the modern day "neo paganism" we see now owns much to Christianity itself--altho it would be illogical of neo pagans to try importing Christian ideas into the "craft."
Sean
Sean,
All traditions have become less barbaric and more civilized over the centuries. Informed neopagans know that they do not reproduce practices from the Dark Ages any more than Jews still stone adulterers. My practice is Zen.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
"All traditions have become less barbaric and more civilized over the centuries"? I'm not so sure that is true of Islam--while NOT denying many INDIVIDUAL Muslims are decent persons. But the savageries being perpetrated by fanatical Muslims are too easily justified by them by ample citations from the Koran and the other prime Muslim doctrinal sources.
I certainly hope our neopagans DON'T relapse into the "heathen rites bloody or obscene" that were so chracteristic of Germanic paganism 2000 years ago. But I still argue that, whether acknowledged or not, the ideas that make for decent neopagans today came from Christianity.
And Buddhism still puzzles me! It still baffles me that a PHILOSOPHY came to take on many of the forms of a religion. That is, there are Buddhist abbots, priests, monks, nuns, monasteries, etc. I'm not at all sure Buddha himself would have approved of such things, considering how little interest he had in God or gods.
Sean
Sean,
Imagine if analytic philosophy were practiced in front of an altar to Socrates!
Paul.
Sean,
I think the answer is that Buddhism is also a religion because it is a response to transcendence understood as a state, not as a being.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Responding to both of your comments here.
OR Catholic theologians and philosophers studying and debating philosophical problems before images of Christ and the saints. Philosophers like Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Jacques Maritian comes to mind.
AND if we can trust the not always reliable AUGUSTAN HISTORY's biography of the Emperor Alexander Severus (r. 222-235), that prince had the custom of worshiping or venerating not only the standard Greco-Roman gods but also philosophers like Socrates in his private chapel. And he allegedly even included Christ amont those he venerated.
I understand your point about how Buddhism can be understood as a response to transcendence as a state, rather than a Being. But, the idea of a religion without God or "gods" makes no sense to me.
Sean
Sean,
Socrates vindicated the Delphic Oracle, claimed to have a daimon and offered a cock to Asclepius so he was a religious figure as well as the first analytic philosopher!
Paul.
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