Honourable Pagans and the True Myth
A Framework for Christian Reading of Mythology
“In the great religions which have given shape to human aspirations, God has played on an orchestra which is far out of tune, yet there has often been a marvellous, rich music made.”
[Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, 27.]
“The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them…”
[J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories”, Tree and Leaf, 73.]
The concept of ‘truth’ for Christian’s must be fundamentally associated with God. God is truth itself, and thus any reflection of truth in our experience of the world must be from him. But what does this mean for truth found in places that are…shall we say…fraught with inconsistency, legend, myth even? I speak, of course, of the thousands and thousands of years of human history that has unfolded largely without the light of the full revelation of God’s truth. The pagan world. The ‘nations’ of the fallen world who were lost at Babel and thrown into the spiritual darkness of the absence of God. Was God really absent in these cultures, in these stories and in the movements of history that shaped and sculpted the rest of the world outside of Israel?
We must conclude in the negative. Of course God was not absent. God is ‘omnipresent’ after all. Yet the question as to his revelation of himself in such contexts is up for debate. We must recall that Scripture itself is the account of God’s revelation to a particular people group, Israel, and as such it is ultimately (and understandably) silent on God’s workings with the nations. I affirm that God largely left the nations in darkness following the dispersal at Babel a fact which Scripture seems to affirm (Isa 9:2; 60:2; Rom 1:24; 1 Cor 12:2). Yet, we still encounter tantalising accounts of many pagans and individuals outside of Israel that God certainly seems to converse with (Balaam) and reveal himself too (Job, Nebuchadnezzar, the Magi) that would suggest that God allows himself to be found by them. Indeed, St Paul seems to indicate this in his sermon on the Areopagus:
“And he made from one man every nation of humanity to live on all the face of the earth, determining their fixed times and the fixed boundaries of their habitation, to search for God, if perhaps indeed they might feel around for him and find him. And indeed he is not far away from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being…”
(Acts 17:26–28)
Or as the Prophet Jeremiah wrote:
“I am a God who is near… and not a God far off. Can a person hide himself in secret places and I cannot see him?… Do I not fill up the heaven and the earth?” says Yahweh.
(Jer 23:23-24)
But this forces us to grapple with a perplexing question. If God was not wholly absent from these pagans…this would mean that they, in some mysterious way, may have been able to grasp elements of God’s truth - they were able to “feel around and find him”. There is the hope within Scripture that the nations would “see and know the Lord” (Pss 22:27; 86:9; 102:15). Sure, they were “darkened in their minds” but they also “knew God” (Rom. 1:21). Their hearts were spiritually dull, and they were alienated from the life of God (Eph. 4:8), but they were perhaps not completely blind - though their myths were indeed dark reflections of their pagan worldviews, but they were yet able to recognise truth and goodness when they saw it.
The conclusion then is, at the very least, a tentative yes - the pagans were indeed able to refract elements of the truth of God in their stories and writings. God had very much left his mark on the pagan myths, as John Henry Newman put it;
‘Even on the unseemly legends of a popular mythology He casts His shadow, and is dimly discerned in the ode or epic, as in troubled water or in fantastic dreams…”
[John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University, 58-59.]
Newman’s words here are reminiscent of Paul’s analogy of the “mirror dimly” through which humanity perceives the reality of God (1 Cor 13:12). C. S. Lewis called them the “good dreams” of the pagans. For Lewis too;
‘We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about “parallels” and “pagan Christs”: they ought to be there—it would be a stumbling block if they weren’t. . . . If God chooses to be mythopoeic—and is not the sky itself a myth—shall we refuse to be mythopathic? For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact.”
[C.S. Lewis, ‘The Myth Became Fact’, God In the Dock, 82.]
Again, I quote Tolkien’s great line:
“The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them…”
[J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories”, Tree and Leaf, 73.]
For these great 20th century writers, the great tales of the pagans reflect the glory of the story of God. And while Newman, Lewis' and Tolkien’s claims may seem scandalous to some, we may be surprised to find that such conclusions are not novel , but were indeed the assumption of many of the early Fathers of the Church…
St Basil’s Address to Young Men
St Basil, in his text called ‘Address to Young Men’ says the following:
“Into the life eternal the Holy Scriptures lead us, which teach us through divine words. But so long as our immaturity forbids our understanding their deep thought, we exercise our spiritual perceptions upon profane writings, which are not altogether different, and in which we perceive the truth as it were in shadows and in mirrors.
Thus we imitate those who perform the exercises of military practice, for they acquire skill in gymnastics and in dancing, and then in battle reap the reward of their training. We must needs believe that the greatest of all battles lies before us, in preparation for which we must do and suffer all things to gain power. Consequently we must be conversant with poets, with historians, with orators, indeed with all men who may further our soul’s salvation.
Just as dyers prepare the cloth before they apply the dye, be it purple or any other colour, so indeed must we also, if we would preserve indelible the idea of the true virtue, become first initiated in the pagan lore, then at length give special heed to the sacred and divine teachings, even as we first accustom ourselves to the sun’s reflection in the water, and then become able to turn our eyes upon the very sun itself…”
[St Basil, Address to Young Men, II.]
For St Basil, in order to comprehend the depths of the Scriptures, one must first grasp the conceptual world into which and from which we have received them. He urges us to train ourselves on this other literature, as gymnasts would, preparing ourselves for the true task of interpreting the mystery of Scripture. He likens the radiance and holiness of the Word of God to beholding the Sun. Just as we cannot stare straight into the radiance of Sol, we cannot expect to gain the fullness of Holy writ without first beholding its reflection in lesser literature.
St Basil’s words are simply sublime. At once presenting anew to us the holiness and wonder with which we should approach the written Word of God, but at the same time capturing the goodness that is to found in the great literature of the world. Pagan literature, then, is not something to be feared, or treated with contempt, but rather a tool that can be used for our maturity and training in the Word of God. To borrow an image from Paul, might we say that the literature of the pagans may serve as ‘milk’ before we cut our teeth on the true ‘meat’ of Holy Scripture?
Justin’s First Apology
Of course, we must exercise caution here. What we are not saying is that the errors of pagan literature are harmless. Such literature is not wholly without its blemishes, and some blemishes may be more nefarious than others in their origin, as St Justin would warn us:
“But those who hand down the myths which the poets have made… we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered by the influence of the wicked demons to deceive and lead astray the human race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales, like the things which were said by the poets. And these things were said both among the Greeks and among all nations where [the demons] heard the prophet's foretelling that Christ would specially be believed in; but that in hearing what was said by the prophets they did not accurately understand it, but imitated what was said of our Christ, like men who are in error…”
[Justin Martyr, First Apology, 54]
Justin’s approach to pagan literature is a little different. Rather than identifying the good as St Basil would, Justin warns us of the sinister side of pagan literature. He posits that the demons have woven deception into pagan literature, assigning mythological characters to the prophecies of Christ in order to mislead humanity:
…when they heard it said by the other prophets Isaiah, that He should be born of a virgin and by His own means ascend into heaven, they pretended that Perseus was spoken of. And when they knew what was said, as has been cited above, in the prophecies written aforetime, “strong as a giant to run his course” [] they said that Hercules was strong, and had journeyed over the whole earth. And when, again, they learned that it had been foretold that He should heal every sickness, and raise the dead, they produced Æsculapius….
[Justin Martyr, First Apology, 54]
The figures of pagan mythology are thus ‘shadows and mirrors’ of Christ, but in a reverse manner. They do not glorify or point to him, but rather can be employed to diminish his glory. But, Justin claims, the demons were not capable of replicating the mystery of the cross in these deceptions, for “they could not comprehend it”, and thus Christ crucified remains the “true” and “greatest symbol of his power….”
Akin to St Basil though, St Justin does indicate the positive influences of pagan poetry and philosophy, though he claims that any such truth is derived from their dependence on the earlier Hebrew poets. For example, Justin claims that the brilliant mind of Plato was influenced by Moses, and indeed, whispered to by the very Spirit of God:
“Moses is more ancient than all the Greek writers. And whatever both philosopher and poets have said concerning the immortality of the soul, or punishments after death, or of things heavenly, or doctrines of the like kind, they have received such suggestions from the prophets as have enabled them to understand and interpret these things. And hence there seem to be seeds of truth among all men…”
The Hebrew prophets thus find themselves as the bearers of the true myth amidst the dissonance of the world’s many mythologies and religions. Their message is akin to their contemporaries, but at its heart beats the life and love of God. The prophets certainly employ elements of pagan myth, but it is always baptised, indeed, revealed, in the light of the truth story of God’s salvation.
For St Justin then, pagan literature is to be read and understood with caution, but as St Basil would note too, this is for the growth of our maturity. We must read such literature as a means to sift the wheat from the chaff. To isolate and understand the purity of the good things within such literature, we must learn the discipline of discernment in identifying the ways in which demonic deception has also influenced such stories and cultures.
I suppose the main point here is to clarify that there is no neutrality when it comes to mythology . While reading pagan literature may aid in our conceptualisation of Scripture, and certainly glorifies God and the mystery of his revelation, it may just as easily serve as a window into the deception of the Enemy and the darkening of the heart.
Our example should be St Paul, who, in his maturity, could navigate both. In his sermon on the Areopagus, Paul included writings from pagan poets and philosophers :
‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
(Acts 17:28)
Though it is debated, Paul’s words here are generally understood to be a quotation from the philosopher Epimenides and the poet Arastus. It would seem then that St Basil and St Justin’s sentiment was apparent also to the Apostle to the Gentiles himself. Within this logic, there is a sense that the pagan philosophers, the poets and myth makers, were not wholly incapable of grasping the one true story at the heart of creation. Rather, through “shadows and in mirrors” as St Basil put it, the truth was hinted at, however dimly. Yet Paul still identifies the darkness therein. He expresses righteous indignation at the pagan trappings of his surroundings (17:16) and while quoting the good things of their poets, Paul emphatically calls the pagans to repentance, noting how while “God has overlooked the times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent” (17:30).
Such pagan literature should not be read as an end in and of itself, but as a vehicle for salvation, leading us, as St Basil put it, to eventually “turn our eyes upon the very sun itself…”
Closing Thoughts
In this very brief discussion, I have tried to show that the the early church understood the mythology and worldview of their pagan neighbours to be dim refractions of the truth. For the likes of St Paul, St Basil and St Justin, pagan literature was understood as finding its zenith in the truth of the logos in Scripture. Analogies like ‘turbulent water’, ‘dim mirrors’ or ‘shadows’ have been utilised to convey this point. And while their is great goodness to be found in this literature, we have also been warned of, and therefore must recon with, the reality of demonic deception therein. From this, we find the early evangelistic hermeneutic was one of drawing out truth from these stories, and framing them alongside their completion in the self revelation of God in Scripture, in order to bring the light of the Gospel to those “living in darkness” (Isa 9:2; Matt 4:16).