Parallel Myths
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HISTORY AND MYTH
History is not an objective empirical datum; it is a myth. Myth is no fiction, but a reality; it is, however, one of a different order from that of so-called empirical fact. Myth is the story preserved in the popular memory of a past event and transcends the limits of the external objective world, revealing an ideal world, a subject-object world of facts.
Historical myths have a profound significance for the act of remembrance. A myth contains the story that is preserved in popular memory and that helps to bring to life some deep stratum buried in the depths of the human spirit. The divorce of the subject from the object as the result of enlightened criticism may provide material for historical knowledge; but insofar as it destroys the myth and dissociates the depths of time from those of man, it only serves to divorce man from history. For the historical tradition which criticism had thought to discredit makes possible a great and occult act of remembrance. It represents, indeed, no external or externally imposed fact alien to man, but one that is a manifestation of the inner mysterious life, in which he can attain to the knowledge of himself and feel himself to be an inalienable participant.
—Nikolai Berdyayev, Russian Christian Existentialist
philosopher, The Meaning of History
I am not far from believing that, in our own societies, history has replaced mythology and fulfils the same function, that for societies without writing and without archives the aim of mythology is to ensure that as closely as possible the future will remain faithful to the past. For us, however, the future should always be different, and ever more different, from the present…. But nevertheless the gap which exists in our mind … between mythology and history can probably be breached by studying histories which are conceived as not at all separated from [,] but a continuation of mythology.
—Claude Lévi-Strauss, French anthropologist,
Myth and Meaning
In short, it would be necessary to confront “historical” man (modern man), who consciously and voluntarily creates history, with that of the man of the traditional civilizations … who has a negative attitude toward history. Whether he abolishes it periodically, whether he devaluates it by perpetually finding transhistorical models and archetypes for it … the man of the traditional civilizations accorded the historical event no value in itself; in other words, he did not regard it as a specific category of his own mode of existence.
—Mircea Eliade
To so-called primitive man, myth is history. To modern people, myth and history are considered two distinct and very different things. Despite the fact that our own secular history is reckoned in terms that come directly from myth and religion, we do not, as a rule, see history as integral with our religious life in the same sense that earlier peoples did. One reason the mythic bases of dates and years exist is that it is only relatively recently that Western culture separated history and myth.
To a person living in a traditional culture, there is no such distinction, and myth is the only history that really matters. For the traditional culture, all that we do in our lifetimes is merely a replay of events that took place in the myths. History in our sense of the word, as specific and unique actions of persons living and dead, can be abolished and the time of beginning can be reestablished (this is the origin of our modern New Year’s Eve revelry). All human experience in the past derived its value from myth, which was perceived as infinitely more significant than the life of an individual. Even today it is not uncommon for a person living in a traditional culture to not know his or her chronological age; it simply doesn’t matter.
The rituals required by traditional cultures are a return to in illo tempore (Latin for “in that time”), the undated “once upon a time” period of myths providing the blueprint for all forms of human experiences and behavior.
In order to make sense of the myths as we read them, it is necessary to understand two very different views of history, the linear and the cyclical. We live in a generally linear conception of history: It begins at a fixed point and progresses in a straight line toward the present day. In Christianity, Judaism, and Marxism, time moves toward an end of history, whether an apocalypse or the establishment of a utopia. There is a past point of beginning and a future point of ending.
Viewed cyclically, however, history is merely a procession of identical cycles. There are eternal, endlessly repeating principles. Hindu myths do not speak of “the age of Kali” but say “in every age of Kali.” The world, in Hindu thought, has been created, destroyed, and re-created many times, abolishing what the Western mind might think of as “history.” Only Brahman* is eternal, and he takes on various avatars, or roles, to fit the stage of the cycle, whether as Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, or Shiva the Destroyer. In such a worldview, linear history and chronologies mean very little, as they are dwarfed by the eternal principles manifested in the cycles.
The Aztecs of Mexico also viewed history in a cyclical way, in which they knew just enough about the earlier worlds to understand the redemptive principles and appropriate behaviors necessary in their present one. They really didn’t need to know details of earlier eras. The only eternal factor was Onteotl, the Supreme Being; even the other gods passed away.
THE CIVIC MYTH
The destiny of the state was closely bound up with the fate of the gods worshipped at its altars. If a State suffered reverses, then the prestige of its gods declined in the same measure—and vice versa. Public religion and morals were fused: they were but different aspects of the same reality. To bring glory to the City was the same as enhancing the glory of the gods of the City; it worked both ways.
—Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), French sociologist
and philosopher, on the civic religion of the
Greek city-states
What gives nations their cohesiveness? Certainly it may be common ethnicity or a common language; but in all states, and especially in ethnically diverse states, myth acts as a social “glue.” National identity is based on a shared history and shared symbols of nationhood. The basis of the founding and legitimacy of governments, the civic myths of countries unite their citizens by an acceptance of common symbols.
American civic myth consists of many symbols such as the flag, the Statue of Liberty, and others. The best symbols of our civic myth, appropriately enough, can be found on our money, where we share the history of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, as well as recognize the American eagle.
On British money and stamps, we find portraits of the Queen, the symbol of national unity. In a Canadian wallet, we find her portrait as “Queen of Canada” on bank notes printed in English and French, the two national languages. The coat of arms of Canada contains both the British Union Jack and the French fleur-de-lis.
In the former Soviet Union, the founding myth that held the nation together has crumbled. The symbols of the Soviet state, Lenin and the hammer and sickle, were the first things attacked as the Soviet government fell. A majority of the population rejected the Soviet civic myth* and sought to replace it.
The Jews and the early Christians were persecuted in ancient Rome as “atheists.” Now, they were hardly atheists in our modern sense of the word. Rather, they refused to worship the emperor as a god, a requirement of the Roman civic myth, part of what identified the Roman citizen. In Rome, religion and the state were entirely fused.
The Bible contains an excellent illustration of the binding power of civic myth, as well as what happens when the myth breaks down. To be a Jew in ancient Israel meant to accept the king and the Torah as the moral, civic, and religious authorities. One had to identify with the sacred history of the Jewish people and accept that nationhood was defined by a covenant with God. The Old Testament sets forth that Israel prospered when the nation was faithful to the covenant; when that covenant was abandoned and the people worshiped the gods of neighboring peoples, society broke down and the Jews were sent into exile. This is the power of myth in action.
MORALITY AND MYTH
> For centuries morals and religion have been intimately linked and completely fused. Even today, one is bound to recognize this close association in the majority of minds. It is apparent that moral life has not been, and never will be, able to shed all the characteristics that it holds in common with religion. When the two orders of facts have been so closely linked, when there have been between them so close a relationship for so long a time, it is impossible for them to be dissociated and become distinct. For this to happen they would have to undergo complete transformation. There must, then, be morality in religion and religion in morality.
—Émile Durkheim
With their old taboos discredited, they immediately go to pieces, disintegrate and become resorts of vice and diseases…. Today [1961] the same thing is happening to us. With our old mythologically founded taboos unsettled by our own modern sciences, there is everywhere in the civilized world a rapidly rising incidence of vice and crime, mental disorders, suicides and dope addictions, shattered homes, impudent children, violence, murder and despair. These are facts, I am not inventing them. They give point to the cries of the preachers for repentance, conversion and a return to the old religion.
—Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By
Myth, especially as codified in religion, has always been the basis for the morality of a society. With a mythic basis—a revelation from God or the gods—the legitimacy of a system of ethics was absolute and unquestioned. There were no shades of gray, for to question the validity of the moral code was to question the validity of the myth and the legitimacy of the society itself.
To return to the example of Old Testament Israel, the state was defined by the Torah, which in turn established an absolute standard of morality in the Ten Commandments. In this case, the civic myth and the absolute standard of morality were inseparable. In many premodern cultures, the price of violating a taboo is not death but something far worse from the standpoint of traditional culture: banishment from the group.
The wholesale devaluation of life in our culture through violence, crime, and addictions, as well as the decline in public and private ethics, is an indication of the weakening of our respect for myth. The establishment and maintenance of a widely held moral code are the most important functions of myth.
As we read the myths of numerous cultures, we will see a number of moral lessons presented. Of particular interest are “dualist” myths, such as the Persian and Chippewa stories of Creation. In these, there are two deities, one good and one evil, and good always prevails. Such tales were moral object lessons for the people, a means of conforming the behavior of the individual to that of the group.
THE SENSE OF THE SACRED
From Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy; quoted by Victor Gollancz in From Darkness to Light.
Max Eyth recounts in his story “Berufs-Tragik”* the building of the mighty bridge over the estuary of the Ennobucht.† The most profound and thorough labor of the intellect, the most assiduous and devoted professional toil, had gone into the construction of the great edifice, making it in all its significance and purposefulness a marvel of human achievement. In spite of endless difficulties and gigantic obstacles, the bridge is at length finished, and stands defying water and waves. Then there comes a raging cyclone, and building and builder are swept into the deep. Utter meaninglessness seems to triumph over richest significance, blind “destiny” seems to stride on its way over prostrate virtues and merit. The narrator tells how he visits the scene of the tragedy and returns again:
“When we got to the end of the bridge, there was hardly a breath of wind; high above, the sky showed blue-green, and with an eerie brightness. Behind us, like an open grave, lay the Ennobucht. The Lord of life and death hovered over the waters in silent majesty. We felt his presence, as one feels one’s own hand. And the old man and I knelt down before the open grave and before Him.”
Why did they kneel? Why did they feel constrained to do so? One does not kneel before a cyclone or the blind forces of nature, nor even before Omnipotence merely as such. But one does kneel before the wholly uncomprehended Mystery, revealed yet unrevealed, and one’s soul is stilled by feeling the way of its working, and therein its justification.
* “Achilles’ heel” comes from the Homeric epic. The gods had advised Achilles’ mother that he would be impervious to injury if bathed in a sacred pool. His entire body was invulnerable to spears and arrows, except for his heel, which is the spot where his mother held him as she dipped him in the water. Needless to say, only a wound to the heel could kill him. Achilles’ tendon is likewise named for him.
* An interesting insight into anthropomorphism is given by the German-born American theologian Paul Tillich in volume I of his Systematic Theology:
The gods are subpersonal and suprapersonal at one and the same time. Animal-gods are not deified brutes; they are expressions of man’s ultimate concern symbolized in various forms of animal vitality. This animal vitality stands for a transhuman, divine-demonic vitality. The stars as gods are not deified astral bodies; they are expressions of man’s ultimate concern symbolized in the order of the stars and in their creative and destructive power. The subhuman-superhuman character of the mythological gods is a protest against the reduction of divine power to human measure. In the moment when this protest loses its effectiveness, the gods become glorified men rather than gods…. Therefore religion imagines divine personalities whose qualities disrupt and transcend their personal form in every respect. They are subpersonal or transpersonal personalities, a paradoxical combination which mirrors the tension between the concrete and the ultimate in man’s ultimate concern and in every type of the idea of God.
* Ha loshen ha kodesh: Hebrew, “the holy tongue.” Yiddish, the German-derived “secular” language of the Central and Eastern European Jews, is mama loshen, or “the mother tongue.”
* From Robert Graves, The White Goddess.
In India, the same pattern holds true and appears to be influenced by ancient Babylonia: Hindi
MANGALVAAR—Mangal, the planet Mars.
BUDHVAAR—Budh, the planet Neptune.
BRIHISPATIVAAR—Brihispati, the planet Jupiter, the priest of the gods (devas).
SHUKRAVAAR—Shukra, the planet Venus (Sanskrit: Shukravaasarah).
SHANIVAAR—Shani, the planet Saturn (Sanskrit: Shanivaasarah).
Sanskrit
INDUVAASARAH—Indra, the sky god.
GURUHVAASARAH—Guruh, the planet Jupiter.
* A.D., Anno Domini—Latin: “The Year of the Lord;” B.C.—“Before Christ.”
* In India, “Brahman” is the eternal, absolute; “Brahma” is the form “Brahman” takes as Creator.
* Or perhaps they never accepted it, their own national myths (i.e., Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek) being stronger.
* German: “Vocation Tragedy.”
† The Ennobucht is an estuary on the Baltic Sea in northern Germany.
2. The Cast of Characters
The word pantheon comes from the Greek pan, meaning “all,” and theon, meaning “gods.” A pantheon is thus a collection of gods, the cast of characters of the myths.
THE GREEK AND ROMAN PANTHEON
Greek myth has many minor gods and goddesses, but the chief gods were the Olympian twelve, said to live at the summit of Mount Olympus in Greece, and the two gods of earth. The Latin (Roman) names of these gods are given in parentheses.
The Olympian Twelve
Zeus (Jupiter, Jove)
His name means “bright sky” in archaic Greek. He is the thunderbolt-wielding King of the Gods who overcame the Titans, an earlier race of giants, to establish his authority over the universe. His name is akin to the Latin deus, meaning “god” and the Sanskrit (Indian) Dyaus, the name of an early Indian sky-god.
Zeus cast lots with his two brothers over the domains. His brother Poseidon won mastery of the sea, and the other brother, Hades, became lord of the Underworld. Zeus is master of both the skies and the land surface of the earth.
The wife and twin sister of Zeus, she is frequently angered by her husband’s adultery, but at no time does she leave him. However, she has no fear of him and often scolds him.
Her name means “protectress” in Greek, and she is worshiped as the patroness of brides on their wedding night, of mothers in childbirth, and of nurses. She can renew her virginity periodically by bathing in a sacred spring. Wives appeal to her for revenge against their erring husbands.
Aphrodite (Venus)
Her name means “born of foam,” as she is said to have risen naked from the foam of the sea, a fully mature woman, riding on a scallop shell.
She is the goddess of beauty and sexual desire. She is analogous to the Middle Eastern fertility goddesses Ishtar, Ashtaroth, and Astarte.
Her son is Eros (Cupid), the god of love, whose irresistible arrows cause mortals to fall hopelessly in love.
Zeus gave Aphrodite in marriage to Hephaestus, the crippled god of the forge, but she bore children fathered through an adulterous union with Ares (Mars), the god of war.
Her Latin name, Venus, is the root of venereal disease.
Hermes (Mercury)
His name means “pillar” or “phallus.”
The son of Zeus by a nymph named Maia, he is the god of the crossroads and of commerce, a patron of travel and thieves, and is the messenger of the gods. He is pictured as having winged feet, and is a clever trickster.