Crossroads

The previous post has inspired me to stay with the symbolism of the cross for a little longer. In Poul Anderson's heroic and historical fantasies, old gods withdraw before the advent of the White Christ. Ysan astrologers see changes in the heavens. They know that Gods represent Beings as words represent things and that, like languages, Gods change over time. See Lir II.

Christianity stands at the crossroads between the cyclical, seasonal time of agricultural societies and the linear, historical time of urban civilizations. Divine death and resurrection, originally a perennial process, was transformed into a unique and pivotal historical event with a specific date, "under Pontius Pilate." This was a transition. The next stage was fully secularized history, beginning with the Greeks.

In our seaside town, Morecambe, a "Dark Wiccan," told me about his seasonally changing deity. When I commented that this was cyclical, seasonal time and asked him how he responded to linear, historical time, he replied, "I don't." Every past stage of development is preserved somewhere, studied by scholars and lived by those who prefer the perspective of a previous era. Vicariously, we inhabit the past eras through fiction.