{"id":82113,"date":"2024-04-30T15:16:36","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T20:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mindseyemag.com\/magazine\/?p=82113"},"modified":"2024-11-19T22:23:12","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T04:23:12","slug":"aslan-and-bacchus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mindseyemag.com\/magazine\/aslan-and-bacchus\/","title":{"rendered":"Aslan and Bacchus"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks there have been new conversations about European Paganism, Christianity, and whether it\u2019s possible that the two are compatible. Platonists like Arvoll believe a fusion is necessary. \u201cI realize the idea that we can have and celebrate both our Pagan and Christian traditions at the same time is offensive to both Pagans and Christians, and that I’m doomed to get hate for promoting it, but it is true and is the view that will ultimately win.\u201d\u00a0 Modern Christians are largely hostile toward Paganism, associating it with leftist Wiccan and Satanic groups. More surprisingly we see Christians getting outraged at European cultural ceremonies such as a prayer to Apollo for 2024 Olympics. Even most boomer Christians would be more open to these kinds of traditions. All of this brings to mind some ideas about the fusion of Paganism and Christianity from two great Christian thinkers- G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis.<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n

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In <\/span>Orthodoxy<\/span><\/i>, Chesterton wrote,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is said that Paganism is a religion of joy and Christianity of sorrow; it would be just as easy to prove that Paganism is pure sorrow and Christianity pure joy. Such conflicts mean nothing and lead nowhere. Everything human must have in it both joy and sorrow; the only matter of interest is the manner in which the two things are balanced or divided. And the really interesting thing is this, that the pagan was (in the main) happier and happier as he approached the earth, but sadder and sadder as he approached the heavens. The gaiety of the best Paganism, as in the playfulness of Catullus or Theocritus, is, indeed, an eternal gaiety never to be forgotten by a grateful humanity. But it is all a gaiety about the facts of life, not about its origin. To the pagan the small things are as sweet as the small brooks breaking out of the mountain; but the broad things are as bitter as the sea. When the pagan looks at the very core of the cosmos he is struck cold. Behind the gods, who are merely despotic, sit the fates, who are deadly. Nay, the fates are worse than deadly; they are dead. And when rationalists say that the ancient world was more enlightened than the Christian, from their point of view they are right. For when they say “enlightened” they mean darkened with incurable despair. It is profoundly true that the ancient world was more modern than the Christian. The common bond is in the fact that ancients and moderns have both been miserable about existence, about everything, while medi\u00e6vals were happy about that at least. I freely grant that the pagans, like the moderns, were only miserable about everything\u2014they were quite jolly about everything else. I concede that the Christians of the Middle Ages were only at peace about everything\u2014they were at war about everything else. But if the question turn on the primary pivot of the cosmos, then there was more cosmic contentment in the narrow and bloody streets of Florence than in the theatre of Athens or the open garden of Epicurus. Giotto lived in a gloomier town than Euripides, but he lived in a gayer universe.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chesterton makes an interesting comparison between the metaphysics of the ancient world and the modern world. A similar sentiment is expressed by Edith Hall-Professor of Classics at King’s College London- when discussing Greek Tragedy and the God Dionysus:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\ud83c\udfad pic.twitter.com\/WUvRBzRUmj<\/a><\/p>\n

— wpp\ud83c\udfad (@skycaptaingroyp) January 24, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n