When Kyra Davis asks, "'Is this real?'":
"'"What is reality?' said jesting Pilate," Rinndalir answered." (p. 364)
Pilate has been quoted before but as saying, "What is truth?" Rinndalir's version is yet another understated Biblical reference and proves that even the Lunarians, like the Devil, can cite scripture for their purpose.
Anderson's Biblical references are too numerous to count. I have obviously missed this one before.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Of course I immediately recognized the Biblical echoes in "What is reality." Another I sometimes come across is "What I have written I have written." Spoken by an irritated Pilate to an annoying Sanhedrin.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Is "What I have written..." anywhere in Anderson's works?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I have no recollection of seeing that in any of Anderson's works. I am almost sure he never quoted/alluded to that Scriptural line. A pity!
Ad astra! Sean
Pilate was using a cliche, given his background as a man with a standard late-Hellenistic classical education.
The intellectual tradition he was working from was extremely sophisticated and had exploded "naive positivism" as early as the First Sophistic.
Spoken in a backwater like Jerusalem, where different flavors of fanatic shared only the conviction that there -was- an absolute capital-T "Truth" (and that they alone had it), it would go off like a bombshell.
Epistemic skepticism is alien, evil weirdness in that context. All the locals were arguing (and fighting) over truth, and Pilate says "what if there -isn't- any?" and the earth turns to jelly beneath their feet and they recoil in horror.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Well, I do believe there are some things which are absolutely true! E.g., two plus two can never be anything BUT four.
And since I believe Christ is God incarnate as well as man, I can still see Pilate, whatever his educational/cultural background, reacting to Him with bewilderment.
Ad astra! Sean
Pilate isn't bewildered in that scene; he's a world-weary sophisticate confronted with naive backwoodsmen getting really upset.
Yes. I think that we have to understand Pilate, and every other actor in this drama, as responding to events and to each other on the basis their then current world-views, not on the basis of a later theological interpretation. At one stage, Pilate is described as becoming more afraid because, however cynical he may be, he has also been brought up with the idea that any unimpressive looking man might turn out to have been the son of a god.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: That too is a legitimate explanation for how Pilate reacted to Christ and His Jewish opponents. But I still think even a world-weary sophisticate who no longer really believed in the Olympian gods could still have been bewildered by passionate believers in the one God of Judaism.
I don't know if you have ever read them, but Fr. John Meier's four volume MARGINAL JEW series (I've read the first three) includes detailed studies of the Jewish background in which Christ lived. The Sadducees and Pharisees, for example, can't fairly be called "naive backwoodsmen", being instead amply learned and sophisticated, albeit in ways strange to a Roman like Pilate.
Paul: And I would still argue, as C.S. Lewis did, that in His dialogue with Pilate Christ was making claims that made sense only if He was literally what He said He was or a madman. I would also note Pilate wanted to release Christ, finding nothing deserving of crucifixion in Him. Pilate erred in yielding to threats from the Sanhedrin and mob pressure.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think that the author of the Fourth Gospel, having identified Jesus with the Logos, wrote the dialogues, monologues and Last Supper discourse in his text to express this belief, just as Plato put words into Socrates' mouth and the authors of Mahayana sutras put words into the Buddha's mouth. There was no tape recorder or short hand typist at the Last Supper or at Jesus's trial.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course I agree theological reflections are to be found in John's gospel. But I also believe those reflections were based on what had been revealed as actual divine revelation to the apostles.
Ad astra! Sean
Also, keep in mind that to a Classical pagan, the boundaries between "divine" and "human" were different (and much fuzzier) than those we see, shaped as we are by thousands of years of monotheism.
The ancient polytheisms were more like Shinto that way, or you could say Shinto preserves ancient attitudes.
Instead of sharp boundaries, animals and humans and spirits and demigods and Gods shade into each other by imperceptible gradations.
In Shinto, this is shown in the fact that "kami" simply means "spirit". For one of the great Gods of that pantheon, like Amaterasu, you simply add "omi".
Omikami means God... but literally, it simply means "big spirit".
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