Tuesday 5 February 2019

Old Powers

In the pagan world-view, there was no difference in meaning between the questions, "What gods exist here?" and, "Which gods are worshiped here?" although an attempt was made to reduce divine overpopulation ("All things are full of gods," Thales) by identifying, e.g., Jupiter with Zeus and Thor, and the identifications could be arbitrary, e.g., Jupiter with Thor, not with Odin, because Jupiter and Thor both wielded thunderbolts.

So, from within that pagan world-view, it becomes possible to ask, "Where are the gods now?" In Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys, Mithras, the Olympians and the Three of Ys withdraw before the new God born in the age of Augustus. I wanted to quote some relevant dialogue from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Dream Country. However, googling for an appropriate image, I found this very dialogue in an image (see the attached image), although I would not have quoted the old English proverb in the last speech balloon. 

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And the only answer a Christian or Jew can give to the question "Where are the gods?" is this: nowhere. Because the pagan gods never existed at all. Which does not mean I deny there were people who believed in the reality of these gods.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
But works of fiction can explore the ideas.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Of course, and I agree with that. Such as in Poul Anderson's recently discussed novel THE BROKEN SWORD, where we see pagan "gods" existing alongside the one God.

Thanks again for your two part article, Nicholas!

Sean