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Subject:      Re: Inklings Discussion
From:         Andrew Rilstone <andrew@aslan.demon.co.uk>
Date:         1997/07/30
Message-Id:   <m3ZCuLA$U43zEwLi@aslan.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups:   alt.books.inklings,alt.books.cs-lewis,rec.arts.books.tolkien
[More Headers]

In article <33DD8CFA.3C93@unity.ncsu.edu>, Dan Knauss
<dpknauss@unity.ncsu.edu> writes
>I was merely quoting Lewis, and he probably had Mithratic cults in mind.
>What you think of their influence on Christianity is doubly
>irrelevent--it was Lewis' claim, and secondly, you provide no reasons
>for not being convinced.
>
>My view is this: symbolic rituals never get invented out of thin air.
>Their is always a cultural source that can in turn be traced back to
>another source and another and another. This only attests to the truth
>of the myth as Lewis migth say--the truth of natural (and through
>nature, pan-historical) revelation.

Lewis was one of the last generations to have been educated by a
civilisation which saw itself (probably naively) as being continuous
with paganism -- that is, with the Graeco-Roman world. When Lewis speaks
of "the great pagans" he means Artistotle and Plato. 

When he says "most of what was good in paganism is prevserved in
Christianity" I think it is this he has in mind: something along the
lines of "Socrates and others of the wisest and best pagans were,
humanly speaking, and influence on the thought of St Paul. Thus, in
Christianity, the wisdom in paganism remains a living thing: elsewhere,
it is a pile of dusty books."

His view of the relationship between "pagan" myths like Mithras and
Christianity is actually rather complicated. It goes something like
this.

1: It is a fundemental truth about our world that God had to die and
rise again to save it.

2: This truth is so fundemental that it is reflected in various ways in
the whole universe. 

3: The best and wisest pagans looked at the universe, and told stories
about it. Quite often they personified aspects of it as "gods" and
"goddesses."

4: Since the universe is in some sense a portrait of Christ; and since
the pagan myths were in some sense a portrait of the universe, it would
be very surprising if there was not a close resemblance between some of
the pagan gods and Jesus. 

5: And of course, God is God of the whole world, so it is quite possible
that He intended, or Inspired the best and wisest pagans to create these
"good dreams". 

He saw "paganism" as superior, both poetically and intellectually, to
most forms of 20th century secularism. "When people tell me that Britain
is relapsing into paganism" he said "I am tempted to answer Would to God
that it were!" (quote from memory.)

When he talked about his practice of Christianity being like keeping a
blood-feast, he was, of course, making a joke. When he had been a
sceptic, he had (presumably) subscribed to the view that Holy Communion
was nothing more than a very primitive symbolic act of cannibalism. He
refers back to his old position in a self-deprecating way. When I, more-
or-less a Baptist, started attending an Anglican church, I might have
humerously said to a friend "just going off to be lukewarm and
woolyminded!"
-- 
Andrew Rilstone  andrew@aslan.demon.co.uk   http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/
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       "Why can't I be a non-conformist like everybody else?"
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