Everywhere there are survivals of pagan thought and pagan experience. When a Christian speaks of this, he tends to speak of it disparagingly or as though it must be outlived, annihilated, as if there should be nothing left of it. I disagree. I think that in the ancient world there was a degree of intuition, of perception which is perfectly genuine and real. If I may put it this way, no one could have discovered God, the idea of God, the experience of God, if God had not revealed himself to the degree to which people were capable of perceiving him within the limitations of that time. The Holy Spirit was, is and shall be at work in the whole world from the start to the finish of it. There is no knowledge of God in pagan religions, or elsewhere, in which God has not participated. God was not invented, he was experienced. Of course our understanding and knowledge of God is - in our conviction, at least - truer, more complete, more perfect. But we cannot say that there is no knowledge there. There are intuitions and images which, I believe, are so close to our own as to suggest that we should look into this, and not dismiss it. I am thinking at the moment of the death of Hercules. You probably remember the story. Hercules had wounded to death the centaur. Now the centaur was half man and half beast, so that in our terms he was an image of fallen man. The only true man is the Lord Jesus Christ, and we ourselves are all centaurs to a greater or lesser degree. The centaur, then, to avenge himself and kill Hercules, dipped his tunic into his own blood, which had been poisoned by Hercules arrow, and sent it to him as a gift. It is yours, put it on, he said. Hercules did so, and this tunic, soaked in the blood of one who was half beast, half human being, clung to Hercules body and burnt him in such a way that he tore it off his body together with his own life. Is this not an image of Christ? Putting on man and dying of it? I think one could go into many more of the myths of pagan religion and find in them an intuition, a momentary vision that is valid and can open for us an understanding of the soul of the people who have seen the truth, however dimly. We do not need to dismiss them as just impious legends. - Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh, Orthodoxy in a Non-Orthodox Land (Full talk here: mitras.ru/eng/eng_16.htm)
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:42:20 +0000
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