"'...the gates of Tartarus will be opened!'" (p. 74)
I am focusing on interesting words and phrases rather than on a plot summary. I hope that blog readers will read the novel. We probably have some idea of what "Tartarus" is but might also be interested to check the Wikipedia article.
Fleeing, Eodan would be expected to make for Helvetia (Switzerland). (p. 75)
Eodan is pure pagan. He would offer sacrifice if he knew which Power had helped him but he does not know the local gods and those of Cimberland are too far away even to have heard about his present problems. A later generation of slaves will be consoled by the belief that a single omnipresent god is always with them and that they have not left Him behind in their homeland.
"O my weird which I invoked, help me now! [Eodan] thought." (p. 78)
That is not all of this chapter but all that there is time for before going to the Gregson.
5 comments:
Hence the spread of the religions of the Book in a more "globalized" world like the Hellenistic, and even more in the Roman Empire. The Book was portable.
Note that in the relocalized world of the medieval period, the cult of (local) saints became more prominent.
I have always thought that local saints were like gods. This explains that.
(Big event here Fri evening: fund raiser for ST. JOHN'S (!) Hospice. Busy between now and then.)
Like the Book, cash is portable. A community denied ownership of land and often needing to escape from persecution, survived by lending money, then was condemned for doing that.
Kaor, Paul!
Paul: But those early Christians who happened to be slaves (by no means most, btw!) were not the first to take consolation from their faith. We saw that kind of attitude long before then in the Jews who were dragged off into captivity, exile, or slavery after the Babylonians conquered Judah in 587-86 BC. As Psalm 137.1-4 says: "By the rivers of Babylon we sat mourning and weeping when we remembered Zion./On the poplars of that land we hung up our harps./ There our captors asked us for the words of a song; Our tormentors, for a joyful song: "Sing for us a song of Zion!"/But how could we sing a song of the LORD in a foreign land?"
And of course Poul Anderson speculated about what kind of world we might have seen if Judaism had disappeared after 587 in "The House of Sorrows."
And I emphatically stress that we Catholics and Orthodox do not believe the saints to be "gods." But of course I know you know that. It's simply that I see so often wearisome nonsense from anti-Catholic Protestants about us "worshiping" saints.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But here the Jews are saying that they are unable to praise God in a foreign land.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That is a weak point in my suggestion. I should have added that the verses I quoted from Psalm 137 at least shows the Jews still remembering God, rather than worshiping pagan gods and losing their identity as a people of their own.
Ad astra! Sean
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