Emperor Julian: Against the Galilaeans

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Translator's Introduction

Julian, like Epictetus, always calls the Christians Galilaeans because he wishes to emphasise that this was a local creed, "the creed of fishermen," and perhaps to remind his readers that "out of Galilee ariseth no prophet"; with the same intention he calls Christ "the Nazarene." His chief aim in the treatise was to show that there is no evidence in the Old Testament for the idea of Christianity, so that the Christians have no right to regard their teaching as a development of Judaism. His attitude throughout is that of a philosopher who rejects the claims of one small sect to have set up a universal religion. He speaks with respect of the God of the Hebrews, admires the Jewish discipline, their sacrifices and their prohibition of certain foods, plays off the Jews against the Christians, and reproaches the latter for having abandoned the Mosaic law; but he contrasts the jealous, exclusive "particular" Hebraic God with the universal Hellenic gods who do not confine their attentions to a small and unimportant portion of the world. Throughout Julian's works there are scattered references, nearly always disdainful, to the Galilaeans, but his formal attack on their creed and on the inconsistencies of the Scriptures, which he had promised in Letter 55, To Photinus, the heretic, was not given to the general public, for whom he says he intends it, till he had left Antioch on his march to Persia in the early spring of 363. He probably compiled it at Antioch in the preceding winter. Perhaps it was never completed, for at the time Julian had many things on his mind. It was written in three Books, but the fragments preserved are almost entirely from Book I. In the fifth century Cyril of Alexandria regarded the treatise as peculiarly dangerous, and said that it had shaken many believers. He undertook to refute it in a polemic of which about half survives, and from the quotations of Julian in Cyril's work Neumann has skilfully reconstructed considerable portions of the treatise. Cyril had rearranged Julian's hurriedly written polemic, in order to avoid repetitions and to bring similar subjects together. Moreover, he says that he omitted invectives against Christ and such matter as might contaminate the minds of Christians. We have seen that a similar mutilation of the letters occurred for similar reasons.

Julian's arguments against the Christian doctrine do not greatly differ from those used in the second century by Celsus, and by Porphyry in the third; but his tone is more like that of Celsus, for he and Celsus were alike in being embittered opponents of the Christian religion, which Porphyry was not. Those engaged in this sort of controversy use the same weapons over and over again; Origen refutes Celsus, Cyril refutes Julian, in much the same terms. Both sides have had the education of sophists, possess the learning of their time, borrow freely from Plato, attack the rules or lack of rules of diet of the opponents' party, point out the inconsistencies in the rival creed, and ignore the weaknesses of their own.

For his task Julian had been well equipped by his Christian teachers when he was interned at Macellum in Cappadocia, and he here repays them for the enforced studies of his boyhood, when his naturally pagan soul rebelled against the Christian ritual in which he had to take part. In spite of his insistence on the inconsistency of the Christians in setting up a Trinity in place of the monotheism of Moses and the prophets, he feels the need of some figure in his own pantheon to balance that of Christ the Saviour, and uses, both in this treatise and in Oration 4, about Asclepius or Dionysus or Heracles almost the language of the Christians about Christ, setting these pagan figures up one after another as manifestations of the divine beneficence in making a link between the gods and mankind.

Though Julian borrowed from Porphyry's lost polemic in fifteen Books,5 he does not discuss questions of the chronology and authorship of the Scriptures as Porphyry is known to have done. Libanius, always a blind admirer of Julian, says that in this treatise the Emperor made the doctrines of the Christians look ridiculous, and that he was "wiser than the Tyrian old man," that is, Porphyry. But apparently the Christians of the next two centuries did not agree with Cyril as to the peculiarly dangerous character of Julian's invective. At any rate, the Council of Ephesus, in a decree dated 431, sentenced Porphyry's books to be burned, but did not mention Julian's; and again in a law of Theodosius II. in 448, Julian was ignored while Porphyry was condemned. When in 529 Justinian decreed that anti-Christian books were to be burned, Porphyry alone was named, though probably Julian was meant to be included. Not long after Julian's death his fellow-student at Athens, Gregory Nazianzen, wrote a long invective against him, in which he attacked the treatise Against the Galilaeans without making a formal refutation of Julian's arguments. Others in the fifth century, such as Theodorus of Mopsuestia and Philip Sideta, wrote refutations which are lost. But it was reserved for Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, writing between 429 and 441, to compose a long and formal refutation of Julian's treatise; the latter seems to have been no longer in circulation, or was at least neglected, and Neumann thinks that the bishop was urged to write his polemic by his dislike of the heretical views of other and earlier antagonists of Julian, especially Theodorus of Mopsuestia. This refutation, which was dedicated to the Emperor Theodosius II, was in at least twenty Books. But for Cyril's quotations we should have a very vague idea of Julian's treatise, and as it is we are compelled to see it through the eyes of a hostile apologist. Cyril's own comments, and his summaries of portions of the treatise have been omitted from the following translation. Spanheim's (1696) edition of Cyril's polemic Pro Christiana Religione, was used by Neumann to extract and string together Cyril's quotations of Julian. There is, therefore, an occasional lack of connection in Julian's arguments, taken apart from their context in Cyril's treatise.

By Wilmer Cave WRIGHT, PH.D.

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Against the Galilaeans


It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind
the reasons by which I was convinced that
the fabrication of the Galilaeans
is a fiction of men composed by wickedness.

Though it has in it nothing divine,
by making full use of that part of the soul
which loves fable and is childish and foolish,
it has induced men to believe
that the monstrous tale is truth.

Now since I intend to treat of all their first dogmas, as they call them, I wish to say in the first place that if my readers desire to try to refute me they must proceed as if they were in a court of law and not drag in irrelevant matter, or, as the saying is, bring counter-charges until they have defended their own views. For thus it will be better and clearer if, when they wish to censure any views of mine, they undertake that as a separate task, but when they are defending themselves against my censure, they bring no counter-charges.

It is worth while to recall in a few words

• whence and how we first arrived at a conception of God;
  
• next to compare what is said about the divine among the Hellenes and Hebrews; and
• finally to enquire of those who are neither Hellenes nor Jews, but belong to the sect of the Galilaeans,
  
  why they preferred the belief of the Jews to ours;
  and what, further, can be the reason why they do not even adhere to the Jewish beliefs but have abandoned them also and followed a way of their own.

For they have not accepted a single admirable or important doctrine of those that are held either by us Hellenes or by the Hebrews who derived them from Moses; but from both religions they have gathered what has been engrafted like powers of evil, as it were, on these nations----atheism from the Jewish levity, and a sordid and slovenly way of living from our indolence and vulgarity; and they desire that this should be called the noblest worship of the gods.

Whence and how
we first arrived
at a conception of God

Now that the human race possesses its knowledge of God by nature and not from teaching is proved to us first of all by the universal yearning for the divine that is in all men whether private persons or communities, whether considered as individuals or as races. For all of us, without being taught, have attained to a belief in some sort of divinity, though it is not easy for all men to know the precise truth about it, nor is it possible for those who do know it to tell it to all men. . . . Surely, besides this conception which is common to all men, there is another also. I mean that we are all by nature so closely dependent on the heavens and the gods that are visible therein, that even if any man conceives of another god besides these, he in every case assigns to him the heavens as his dwelling-place; not that he thereby separates him from the earth, but he so to speak establishes the King of the All in the heavens as in the most honourable place of all, and conceives of him as overseeing from there the affairs of this world.

What need have I to summon Hellenes and Hebrews as witnesses of this? There exists no man who does not stretch out his hands towards the heavens when he prays; and whether he swears by one god or several, if he has any notion at all of the divine, he turns heavenward. And it was very natural that men should feel thus. For since they observed that in what concerns the heavenly bodies there is no increase or diminution or mutability, and that they do not suffer any unregulated influence, but their movement is harmonious and their arrangement in concert; and that the illuminations of the moon are regulated, and that the risings and settings of the sun are regularly defined, and always at regularly defined seasons, they naturally conceived that the heaven is a god and the throne of a god. For a being of that sort, since it is not subject to increase by addition, or to diminution by subtraction, and is stationed beyond all change due to alteration and mutability, is free from decay and generation, and inasmuch as it is immortal by nature and indestructible, it is pure from every sort of stain. Eternal and ever in movement, as we see, it travels in a circuit about the great Creator, whether it be impelled by a nobler and more divine soul that dwells therein, just as, I mean, our bodies are by the soul in us, or having received its motion from God Himself, it wheels in its boundless circuit, in an unceasing and eternal career.

What is said about the divine
among the Hellenes and Hebrews

Now it is true that the Hellenes invented their myths about the gods, incredible and monstrous stories. For they said that Kronos swallowed his children and then vomited them forth; and they even told of lawless unions, how Zeus had intercourse with his mother, and after having a child by her, married his own daughter, or rather did not even marry her, but simply had intercourse with her and then handed her over to another. Then too there is the legend that Dionysus was rent asunder and his limbs joined together again. This is the sort of thing described in the myths of the Hellenes. Compare with them the Jewish doctrine, how the garden was planted by God and Adam was fashioned by Him, and next, for Adam, woman came to be. For God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone. Let us make him an help meet like, him." Yet so far was she from helping him at all that she deceived him, and was in part the cause of his and her own fall from their life of ease in the garden.

This is wholly fabulous. For is it probable that God did not know that the being he was creating as a help meet would prove to be not so much a blessing as a misfortune to him who received her? Again, what sort of language are we to say that the serpent used when he talked with Eve? Was it the language of human beings? And in what do such legends as these differ from the myths that were invented by the Hellenes? Moreover, is it not excessively strange that God should deny to the human beings whom he had fashioned the power to distinguish between good and evil? What could be more foolish than a being unable to distinguish good from bad? For it is evident that he would not avoid the latter, I mean things evil, nor would he strive after the former, I mean things good. And, in short, God refused to let man taste of wisdom, than which there could be nothing of more value for man. For that the power to distinguish between good and less good is the property of wisdom is evident surely even to the witless; so that the serpent was a benefactor rather than a destroyer of the human race. Furthermore, their God must be called envious. For when he saw that man had attained to a share of wisdom, that he might not, God said, taste of the tree of life, he cast him out of the garden, saying in so many words, "Behold, Adam has become as one of us, because he knows good from bad; and now let him not put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and thus live forever." Accordingly, unless every one of these legends is a myth that involves some secret interpretation, as I indeed believe, they are filled with many blasphemous sayings about God. For in the first place to be ignorant that she who was created as a help meet would be the cause of the fall; secondly to refuse the knowledge of good and bad, which knowledge alone seems to give coherence to the mind of man; and lastly to be jealous lest man should take of the tree of life and from mortal become immortal,---- this is to be grudging and envious overmuch.

Next to consider the views that are correctly held by the Jews, and also those that our fathers handed down to us from the beginning. Our account has in it the immediate creator of this universe, as the following shows. . . Moses indeed has said nothing whatsoever about the gods who are superior to this creator, nay, he has not even ventured to say anything about the nature of the angels. But that they serve God he has asserted in many ways and often; but whether they were generated or un-generated, or whether they were generated by one god and appointed to serve another, or in some other way, he has nowhere said definitely. But he describes fully in what manner the heavens and the earth and all that therein is were set in order. In part, he says, God ordered them to be, such as light and the firmament, and in part, he says, God made them, such as the heavens and the earth, the sun and moon, and that all things which already existed but were hidden away for the time being, he separated, such as water, I mean, and dry land. But apart from these he did not venture to say a word about the generation or the making of the Spirit, but only this, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." But whether that spirit was ungenerated or had been generated he does not make at all clear.

Now, if you please, we will compare the utterance of Plato. Observe then what he says about the creator, and what words he makes him speak at the time of the generation of the universe, in order that we may compare Plato's account of that generation with that of Moses. For in this way it will appear who was the nobler and who was more worthy of intercourse with God, Plato who paid homage to images, or he of whom the Scripture says that God spake with him mouth to mouth. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters. And God called the firmament Heaven. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass for fodder, and the fruit tree yielding fruit. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven that they may be for a light upon the earth. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to rule over the day and over the night."

In all this, you observe, Moses does not say that the deep was created by God, or the darkness or the waters. And yet, after saying concerning light that God ordered it to be, and it was, surely he ought to have gone on to speak of night also, and the deep and the waters. But of them he says not a word to imply that they were not already existing at all, though he often mentions them. Furthermore, he does not mention the birth or creation of the angels or in what manner they were brought into being, but deals only with the heavenly and earthly bodies. It follows that, according to Moses, God is the creator of nothing that is incorporeal, but is only the disposer of matter that already existed. For the words, "And the earth was invisible and without form" can only mean that he regards the wet and dry substance as the original matter and that he introduces God as the disposer of this matter.

Now on the other hand hear what Plato says about the universe :

"Now the whole heaven or the universe,----or whatever other name would be most acceptable to it, so let it be named by us,----did it exist eternally, having no beginning of generation, or has it come into being starting from some beginning? It has come into being. For it can be seen and handled and has a body; and all such things are the objects of sensation, and such objects of sensation, being apprehensible by opinion with the aid of sensation are things that came into being, as we saw, and have been generated. . .It follows, therefore, according to the reasonable theory, that we ought to affirm that this universe came into being as a living creature possessing soul and intelligence in very truth, both by the providence of God."

Comparison between what is said about the divine
among the Hellenes and Hebrews

Let us but compare them, point by point. What and what sort of speech does the god make in the account of Moses, and what the god in the account of Plato?

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, and our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them, and said, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over all the cattle and over all the earth."

Now, I say, hear also the speech which Plato puts in the mouth of the Artificer of the All.

"Gods of Gods! Those works whose artificer and father I am will abide indissoluble, so long as it is my will. Lo, all that hath been fastened may be loosed, yet to will to loose that which is harmonious and in good case were the act of an evil being. Wherefore, since ye have come into being, ye are not immortal or indissoluble altogether, nevertheless ye shall by no means be loosed or meet with the doom of death, since ye have found in my will a bond more mighty and more potent than those wherewith ye were bound when ye came into being. Now therefore hearken to the saying which I proclaim unto you : Three kinds of mortal beings still remain unborn, and unless these have birth the heaven will be incomplete. For it will not have within itself all the kinds of living things. Yet if these should come into being and receive a share of life at my hands they would become equal to gods. Therefore in order that they may be mortal, and that this All may be All in very truth, turn ye according to your nature to the contriving of living things, imitating my power even as I showed it in generating you. And such part of them as is fitted to receive the same name as the immortals, which is called divine and the power in them that governs all who are willing ever to follow justice and you, this part I, having sowed it and originated the same, will deliver to you. For the rest, do you, weaving the mortal with the immortal, contrive living beings and bring them to birth; then by giving them sustenance increase them, and when they perish receive them back again."

But since ye are about to consider whether this is only a dream, do ye learn the meaning thereof. Plato gives the name gods to those that are visible, the sun and moon, the stars and the heavens, but these are only the likenesses of the invisible gods. The sun which is visible to our eyes is the likeness of the intelligible and invisible sun, and again the moon which is visible to our eyes and every one of the stars are likenesses of the intelligible. Accordingly Plato knows of those intelligible and invisible gods which are immanent in and coexist with the creator himself and were begotten and proceeded from him. Naturally, therefore, the creator in Plato's account says "gods" when he is addressing the invisible beings, and "of gods," meaning by this, evidently, the visible gods. And the common creator of both these is he who fashioned the heavens and the earth and the sea and the stars, and begat in the intelligible world the archetypes of these.Observe then that what follows is well said also. "For," he says, "there remain three kinds of mortal things," meaning, evidently, human beings, animals and plants; for each one of these has been denned by its own peculiar definition. "Now," he goes on to say, "if each one of these also should come to exist by me, it would of necessity become immortal." And indeed, in the case of the intelligible gods and the visible universe, no other cause for their immortality exists than that they came into existence by the act of the creator. When, therefore, he says, "Such part of them as is immortal must needs be given to these by the creator," he means the reasoning soul. "For the rest," he says, "do ye weave mortal with immortal." It is therefore clear that the creative gods received from their father their creative power and so begat on earth all living things that are mortal. For if there were to be no difference between the heavens and mankind and animals too, by Zeus, and all the way down to the very tribe of creeping things and the little fish that swim in the sea, then there would have had to be one and the same creator for them all. But if there is a great gulf fixed between immortals and mortals, and this cannot become greater by addition or less by subtraction, nor can it be mixed with what is mortal and subject to fate, it follows that one set of gods were the creative cause of mortals, and another of immortals.

Accordingly, since Moses, as it seems, has failed also to give a complete account of the immediate creator of this universe, let us go on and set one against another the opinion of the Hebrews and that of our fathers about these nations.

Moses says that the creator of the universe chose out the Hebrew nation, that to that nation alone did he pay heed and cared for it, and he gives him charge of it alone. But how and by what sort of gods the other nations are governed he has said not a word,----unless indeed one should concede that he did assign to them the sun and moon. However of this I shall speak a little later. Now I will only point out that Moses himself and the prophets who came after him and Jesus the Nazarene, yes and Paul also, who surpassed all the magicians and charlatans of every place and every time, assert that he is the God of Israel alone and of Judaea, and that the Jews are his chosen people. Listen to their own words, and first to the words of Moses: "And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Israel is my son, my firstborn. And I have said to thee, Let my people go that they may serve me. But thou didst refuse to let them go." And a little later, "And they say unto him, The God of the Hebrews hath summoned us; we will go therefore three days' journey into the desert, that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God." And soon he speaks again in the same way, "The Lord the God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness."

But that from the beginning God cared only for the Jews and that He chose them out as his portion, has been clearly asserted not only by Moses and Jesus but by Paul as well; though in Paul's case this is strange. For according to circumstances he keeps changing his views about God, as the polypus changes its colours to match the rocks, and now he insists that the Jews alone are God's portion, and then again, when he is trying to persuade the Hellenes to take sides with him, he says : "Do not think that he is the God of Jews only, but also of Gentiles : yea of Gentiles also." Therefore it is fair to ask of Paul why God, if he was not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles, sent the blessed gift of prophecy to the Jews in abundance and gave them Moses and the oil of anointing, and the prophets and the law and the incredible and monstrous elements in their myths? For you hear them crying aloud: "Man did eat angels' food." And finally God sent unto them Jesus also, but unto us no prophet, no oil of anointing, no teacher, no herald to announce his love for man which should one day, though late, reach even unto us also. Nay he even looked on for myriads, or if you prefer, for thousands of years, while men in extreme ignorance served idols, as you call them, from where the sun rises to where he sets, yes and from North to South, save only that little tribe which less than two thousand years before had settled in one part of Palestine. For if he is the God of all of us alike, and the creator of all, why did he neglect us? Wherefore it is natural to think that the God of the Hebrews was not the begetter of the whole universe with lordship over the Avhole, but rather, as I said before, that he is confined within limits, and that since his empire has bounds we must conceive of him as only one of the crowd of other gods. Then are we to pay further heed to you because you or one of your stock imagined the God of the universe, though in any case you attained only to a bare conception of Him? Is not all this partiality? God, you say, is a jealous God. But why is he so jealous, even avenging the sins of the fathers on the children?

But now consider our teaching in comparison with this of yours. Our writers say that the creator is the common father and king of all things, but that the other functions have been assigned by him to national gods of the peoples and gods that protect the cities; every one of whom administers his own department in accordance with his own nature. For since in the father all things are complete and all things are one, while in the separate deities one quality or another predominates, therefore Ares rules over the warlike nations, Athene over those that are wise as well as warlike, Hermes over those that are more shrewd than adventurous; and in short the nations over which the gods preside follow each the essential character of their proper god. Now if experience does not bear witness to the truth of our teachings, let us grant that our traditions are a figment and a misplaced attempt to convince, and then we ought to approve the doctrines held by you. If, however, quite the contrary is true, and from the remotest past experience bears witness to our account and in no case does anything appear to harmonise with your teachings, why do you persist in maintaining a pretension so enormous?

Come, tell me why it is that the Celts and the Germans are fierce, while the Hellenes and Romans are, generally speaking, inclined to political life and humane, though at the same time unyielding and warlike? Why the Egyptians are more intelligent and more given to crafts, and the Syrians unwarlike and effeminate, but at the same time intelligent, hot-tempered, vain and quick to learn? For if there is anyone who does not discern a reason for these differences among the nations, but rather declaims that all this so befell spontaneously, how, I ask, can he still believe that the universe is administered by a providence? But if there is any man who maintains that there are reasons for these differences, let him tell me them, in the name of the creator himself, and instruct me. As for men's laws, it is evident that men have established them to correspond with their own natural dispositions; that is to say, constitutional and humane laws were established by those in whom a humane disposition had been fostered above all else, savage and inhuman laws by those in whom there lurked and was inherent the contrary disposition. For lawgivers have succeeded in adding but little by their discipline to the natural characters and aptitudes of men. Accordingly the Scythians would not receive Anacharsis among them when he was inspired by a religious frenzy, and with very few exceptions you will not find that any men of the Western nations have any great inclination for philosophy or geometry or studies of that sort, although the Roman Empire has now so long been paramount. But those who are unusually talented delight only in debate and the art of rhetoric, and do not adopt any other study; so strong, it seems, is the force of nature. Whence then come these differences of character and laws among the nations? Now of the dissimilarity of language Moses has given a wholly fabulous explanation. For he said that the sons of men came together intending to build a city, and a great tower therein, but that God said that he must go down and confound their languages. And that no one may think I am falsely accusing him of this, I will read from the book of Moses what follows: "And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, before we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men had builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they have begun to do; and now nothing will be withholden from them which they purpose to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that no man may understand the speech of his neighbour. So the Lord God scattered them abroad upon the face of all the earth : and they left off to build the city and the tower." And then you demand that we should believe this account, while you yourselves disbelieve Homer's narrative of the Aloadae, namely that they planned to set three mountains one on another, "that so the heavens might be scaled." For my part I say that this tale is almost as fabulous as the other. But if you accept the former, why in the name of the gods do you discredit Homer's fable? For I suppose that to men so ignorant as you I must say nothing about the fact that, even if all men throughout the inhabited world ever employ one speech and one language, they will not be able to build a tower that will reach to the heavens, even though they should turn the whole earth into bricks. For such a tower will need countless bricks each one as large as the whole earth, if they are to succeed in reaching to the orbit of the moon. For let us assume that all mankind met together, employing but one language and speech, and that they made the whole earth into bricks and hewed out stones, when would it reach as high as the heavens, even though they spun it out and stretched it till it was finer than a thread? Then do you, who believe that this so obvious fable is true, and moreover think that God was afraid of the brutal violence of men, and for this reason came down to earth to confound their languages, do you, I say, still venture to boast of your knowledge of God?

But I will go back again to the question how God confounded their languages. The reason why he did so Moses has declared: namely, that God was afraid that if they should have one language and were of one mind, they would first construct for themselves a path to the heavens and then do some mischief against him. But how he carried this out Moses does not say at all, but only that he first came down from heaven,----because he could not, as it seems, do it from on high, without coming down to earth. But with respect to the existing differences in characters and customs, neither Moses nor anyone else has enlightened us. And yet among mankind the difference between the customs and the political constitutions of the nations is in every way greater than the difference in their language. What Hellene, for instance, ever tells us that a man ought to marry his sister or his daughter or his mother? Yet in Persia this is accounted virtuous. But why need I go over their several characteristics, or describe the love of liberty and lack of discipline of the Germans, the docility and tameness of the Syrians, the Persians, the Parthians, and in short of all the barbarians in the East and the South, and of all nations who possess and are contented with a somewhat despotic form of government? Now if these differences that are greater and more important came about without the aid of a greater and more divine providence, why do we vainly trouble ourselves about and worship one who takes no thought for us? For is it fitting that he who cared nothing for our lives, our characters, our manners, our good government, our political constitution, should still claim to receive honour at our hands? Certainly not. You see to what an absurdity your doctrine comes. For of all the blessings that we behold in the life of man, those that relate to the soul come first, and those that relate to the body are secondary. If, therefore, he paid no heed to our spiritual blessings, neither took thought for our physical conditions, and moreover, did not send to us teachers or lawgivers as he did for the Hebrews, such as Moses and the prophets who followed him, for what shall we properly feel gratitude to him?

But consider whether God has not given to us also gods and kindly guardians of whom you have no knowledge, gods in no way inferior to him who from the beginning has been held in honour among the Hebrews of Judaea, the only land that he chose to take thought for, as Moses declared and those who came after him, down to our own time. But even if he who is honoured among the Hebrews really was the immediate creator of the universe, our beliefs about him are higher than theirs, and he has bestowed on us greater blessings than on them, with respect both to the soul and to externals. Of these, however, I shall speak a little later. Moreover, he sent to us also lawgivers not inferior to Moses, if indeed many of them were not far superior.

Therefore, as I said, unless for every nation separately some presiding national god (and under him an angel, a demon, a hero, and a peculiar order of spirits which obey and work for the higher powers) established the differences in our laws and characters, you must demonstrate to me how these differences arose by some other agency. Moreover, it is not sufficient to say, "God spake and it was so." For the natures of things that are created ought to harmonise with the commands of God. I will say more clearly what I mean. Did God ordain that fire should mount upwards by chance and earth sink down? Was it not necessary, in order that the ordinance of God should be fulfilled, for the former to be light and the latter to weigh heavy? And in the case of other things also this is equally true. . . . 34 Likewise with respect to things divine. But the reason is that the race of men is doomed to death and perishable. Therefore men's works also are naturally perishable and mutable and subject to every kind of alteration. But since God is eternal, it follows that of such sort are his ordinances also. And since they are such, they are either the natures of things or are accordant with the nature of things. For how could nature be at variance with the ordinance of God? How could it fall out of harmony therewith? Therefore, if he did ordain that even as our languages are confounded and do not harmonise with one another, so too should it be with the political constitutions of the nations, then it was not by a special, isolated decree that he gave these constitutions their essential characteristics, or framed us also to match this lack of agreement. For different natures must first have existed in all those things that among the nations were to be differentiated. This at any rate is seen if one observes how very different in their bodies are the Germans and Scythians from the Libyans and Ethiopians. Can this also be due to a bare decree, and does not the climate or the country have a joint influence with the gods in determining what sort of complexion they have?

Furthermore, Moses also consciously drew a veil over this sort of enquiry, and did not assign the confusion of dialects to God alone. For he says that God did not descend alone, but that there descended with him not one but several, and he did not say who these were. But it is evident that he assumed that the beings who descended with God resembled him. If, therefore, it was not the Lord alone but his associates with him who descended for the purpose of confounding the dialects, it is very evident that for the confusion of men's characters, also, not the Lord alone but also those who together with him confounded the dialects would reasonably be considered responsible for this division.

Now why have I discussed this matter at such length, though it was my intention to speak briefly? For this reason: If the immediate creator of the universe be he who is proclaimed by Moses, then we hold nobler beliefs concerning him, inasmuch as we consider him to be the master of all things in general, but that there are besides national gods who are subordinate to him and are like viceroys of a king, each administering separately his own province; and, moreover, we do not make him the sectional rival of the gods whose station is subordinate to his. But if Moses first pays honour to a sectional god, and then makes the lordship of the whole universe contrast with his power, then it is better to believe as we do, and to recognise the God of the All, though not without apprehending also the God of Moses; this is better, I say, than to honour one who has been assigned the lordship over a very small portion, instead of the creator of all things.

That is a surprising law of Moses, I mean the famous decalogue! "Thou shalt not steal." "Thou shalt not kill." "Thou shalt not bear false witness." But let me write out word for word every one of the commandments which he says were written by God himself.

"I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt." Then follows the second: "Thou shalt have no other gods but me." "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." And then he adds the reason : " For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third generation." "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." "Remember the sabbath day." "Honour thy father and thy mother." " Thou shalt not commit adultery." "Thou shalt not kill." "Thou shalt not steal." "Thou shalt not bear false witness." "Thou shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbour's."

Now except for the command "Thou shalt not worship other gods," and "Remember the sabbath day," what nation is there, I ask in the name of the gods, which does not think that it ought to keep the other commandments? So much so that penalties have been ordained against those who transgress them, sometimes more severe, and sometimes similar to those enacted by Moses, though they are sometimes more humane.

But as for the commandment "Thou shalt not worship other gods," to this surely he adds a terrible libel upon God. "For I am a jealous God," he says, and in another place again, "Our God is a consuming fire." Then if a man is jealous and envious you think him blameworthy, whereas if God is called jealous you think it a divine quality? And yet how is it reasonable to speak falsely of God in a matter that is so evident? For if he is indeed jealous, then against his will are all other gods worshipped, and against his will do all the remaining nations worship their gods. Then how is it that he did not himself restrain them, if he is so jealous and does not wish that the others should be worshipped, but only himself? Can it be that he was not able to do so, or did he not wish even from the beginning to prevent the other gods also from being worshipped? However, the first explanation is impious, to say, I mean, that he was unable; and the second is in accordance with what we do ourselves. Lay aside this nonsense and do not draw down on yourselves such terrible blasphemy. For if it is God's will that none other should be worshipped, why do you worship this spurious son of his whom he has never yet recognised or considered as his own? This I shall easily prove. You, however, I know not why, foist on him a counterfeit son. . .

Nowhere is God shown as angry, or resentful, or wroth, or taking an oath, or inclining first to this side, then suddenly to that, or as turned from his purpose, as Moses tells us happened in the case of Phinehas. If any of you has read the Book of Numbers he knows what I mean. For when Phinehas had seized with his own hand and slain the man who had dedicated himself to Baal-peor, and with him the woman who had persuaded him, striking her with a shameful and most painful wound through the belly, as Moses tells us, then God is made to say : "Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them; and I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.'' What could be more trivial than the reason for which God was falsely represented as angry by the writer of this passage? What could be more irrational, even if ten or fifteen persons, or even, let us suppose, a hundred, for they certainly will not say that there were a thousand,----however, let us assume that even as many persons as that ventured to transgress some one of the laws laid down by God; was it right that on account of this one thousand, six hundred thousand should be utterly destroyed? For my part I think it would be better in every way to preserve one bad man along with a thousand virtuous men than to destroy the thousand together with that one. . .

For if the anger of even one hero or unimportant demon is hard to bear for whole countries and cities, who could have endured the wrath of so mighty a God, whether it were directed against demons or angels or mankind? It is worth while to compare his behaviour with the mildness of Lycurgus and the forbearance of Solon, or the kindness and benevolence of the Romans towards transgressors. But observe also from what follows how far superior are our teachings to theirs. The philosophers bid us imitate the gods so far as we can, and they teach us that this imitation consists in the contemplation of realities. And that this sort of study is remote from passion and is indeed based on freedom from passion, is, I suppose, evident, even without my saying it. In proportion then as we, having been assigned to the contemplation of realities, attain to freedom from passion, in so far do we become like God. But what sort of imitation of God is praised among the Hebrews? Anger and wrath and fierce jealousy. For God says : "Phinehas hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them." For God, on finding one who shared his resentment and his grief, thereupon, as it appears, laid aside his resentment. These words and others like them about God Moses is frequently made to utter in the Scripture.

Furthermore observe from what follows that God did not take thought for the Hebrews alone, but though he cared for all nations, he bestowed on the Hebrews nothing considerable or of great value, whereas on us he bestowed gifts far higher and surpassing theirs. For instance the Egyptians, as they reckon up the names of not a few wise men among themselves, can boast that they possess many successors of Hermes, I mean of Hermes who in his third manifestation visited Egypt; while the Chaldaeans and Assyrians can boast of the successors of Oannes and Belos; the Hellenes can boast of countless successors of Cheiron. For thenceforth all Hellenes were born with an aptitude for the mysteries and theologians, in the very way, you observe, which the Hebrews claim as their own peculiar boast. . .

Hellenic gifts: science, philosophy, mathematics, music, harmony

But has God granted to you to originate any science or any philosophical study? Why, what is it? For the theory of the heavenly bodies was perfected among the Hellenes, after the first observations had been made among the barbarians in Babylon. And the study of geometry took its rise in the measurement of the land in Egypt, and from this grew to its present importance. Arithmetic began with the Phoenician merchants, and among the Hellenes in course of time acquired the aspect of a regular science. These three the Hellenes combined with music into one science, for they connected astronomy with geometry and adapted arithmetic to both, and perceived the principle of harmony in it. Hence they laid down the rules for their music, since they had discovered for the laws of harmony with reference to the sense of hearing an agreement that was infallible, or something very near to it.

Need I tell over their names man by man, or under their professions? I mean, either the individual men, as for instance Plato, Socrates, Aristeides, Cimon, Thales, Lycurgus, Agesilaus, Archidamus,----or should I rather speak of the class of philosophers, of generals, of artificers, of lawgivers? For it will be found that even the most wicked and most brutal of the generals behaved more mildly to the greatest offenders than Moses did to those who had done no wrong. And now of what monarchy shall I report to you? Shall it be that of Perseus, or Aeacus, or Minos of Crete, who purified the sea of pirates, and expelled and drove out the barbarians as far as Syria and Sicily, advancing in both directions the frontiers of his realm, and ruled not only over the islands but also over the dwellers along the coasts? And dividing with his brother Rhadamanthus, not indeed the earth, but the care of mankind, he himself laid down the laws as he received them from Zeus, but left to Rhadamanthus to fill the part of judge. . .

But when after her foundation many wars encompassed her, she won and prevailed in them all; and since she ever increased in size in proportion to her very dangers and needed greater security, then Zeus set over her the great philosopher Numa. This then was the excellent and upright Numa who dwelt in deserted groves and ever communed with the gods in the pure thoughts of his own heart. . . . It was he who established most of the laws concerning temple worship. Now these blessings, derived from a divine possession and inspiration which proceeded both from the Sibyl and others who at that time uttered oracles in their native tongue, were manifestly bestowed on the city by Zeus. And the shield which fell from the clouds and the head which appeared on the hill, from which, I suppose, the seat of mighty Zeus received its name, are we to reckon these among the very highest or among secondary gifts? And yet, ye misguided men, though there is preserved among us that weapon which flew down from heaven, which mighty Zeus or father Ares sent down to give us a warrant, not in word but in deed, that he will forever hold his shield before our city, you have ceased to adore and reverence it, but you adore the wood of the cross and draw its likeness on your foreheads and engrave it on your housefronts.

Would not any man be justified in detesting the more intelligent among you, or pitying the more foolish, who, by following you, have sunk to such depths of ruin that they have abandoned the ever-living gods and have gone over to the corpse of the Jew. . . . For I say nothing about the Mysteries of the Mother of the Gods, and I admire Marius. . . . For the spirit that comes to men from the gods is present but seldom and in few, and it is not easy for every man to share in it or at every time. Thus it is that the prophetic spirit has ceased among the Hebrews also, nor is it maintained among the Egyptians, either, down to the present. And we see that the indigenous oracles of Greece have also fallen silent and yielded to the course of time. Then lo, our gracious lord and father Zeus took thought of this, and that we might not be wholly deprived of communion with the gods has granted us through the sacred arts a means of enquiry by which we may obtain the aid that suffices for our needs.

Asclepius: the Greatest Gift of the Helenes

I had almost forgotten the greatest of the gifts of Helios and Zeus. But naturally I kept it for the last. And indeed it is not peculiar to us Romans only, but we share it, I think, with the Hellenes our kinsmen. I mean to say that Zeus engendered Asclepius from himself among the intelligible gods, and through the life of generative Helios he revealed him to the earth. Asclepius, having made his visitation to earth from the sky, appeared at Epidaurus singly, in the shape of a man; but afterwards he multiplied himself, and by his visitations stretched out over the whole earth his saving right hand. He came to Pergamon, to Ionia, to Tarentum afterwards; and later he came to Rome. And he travelled to Cos and thence to Aegae. Next he is present everywhere on land and sea. He visits no one of us separately, and yet he raises up souls that are sinful and bodies that are sick.

But what great gift of this sort do the Hebrews boast of as bestowed on them by God, the Hebrews who have persuaded you to desert to them? If you had at any rate paid heed to their teachings, you would not have fared altogether ill, and though worse than you did before, when you were with us, still your condition would have been bearable and supportable. For you would be worshipping one god instead of many, not a man, or rather many wretched men. And though you would be following a law that is harsh and stern and contains much that is savage and barbarous, instead of our mild and humane laws, and would in other respects be inferior to us, yet you would be more holy and purer than now in your forms of worship. But now it has come to pass that like leeches you have sucked the worst blood from that source and left the purer. Yet Jesus, who won over the least worthy of you, has been known by name for but little more than three hundred years: and during his lifetime he accomplished nothing worth hearing of, unless anyone thinks that to heal crooked and blind men and to exorcise those who were possessed by evil demons in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany can be classed as a mighty achievement. As for purity of life you do not know whether he so much as mentioned it; but you emulate the rages and the bitterness of the Jews, overturning temples and altars, and you slaughtered not only those of us who remained true to the teachings of their fathers, but also men who were as much astray as yourselves, heretics, because they did not wail over the corpse in the same fashion as yourselves. But these are rather your own doings; for nowhere did either Jesus or Paul hand down to you such commands. The reason for this is that they never even hoped that you would one day attain to such power as you have; for they were content if they could delude maidservants and slaves, and through them the women, and men like Cornelius and Sergius. But if you can show me that one of these men is mentioned by the well-known writers of that time,----these events happened in the reign of Tiberius or Claudius,----then you may consider that I speak falsely about all matters.

Why do the Galilaeans prefer
the belief of the Jews to ours

But I know not whence I was as it were inspired to utter these remarks. However, to return to the point at which I digressed, when I asked, "Why were you so ungrateful to our gods as to desert them for the Jews?" Was it because the gods granted the sovereign power to Rome, permitting the Jews to be free for a short time only, and then forever to be enslaved and aliens? Look at Abraham : was he not an alien in a strange land? And Jacob : was he not a slave, first in Syria, then after that in Palestine, and in his old age in Egypt? Does not Moses say that he led them forth from the house of bondage out of Egypt "with a stretched out arm"? And after their sojourn in Palestine did they not change their fortunes more frequently than observers say the chameleon changes its colour, now subject to the judges, now enslaved to foreign races? And when they began to be governed by kings,----but let me for the present postpone asking how they were governed: for as the Scripture tells us, God did not willingly allow them to have kings, but only when constrained by them, and after protesting to them beforehand that they would thus be governed ill,----still they did at any rate inhabit their own country and tilled it for a little over three hundred years. After that they were enslaved first to the Assyrians, then to the Medes, later to the Persians, and now at last to ourselves. Even Jesus, who was proclaimed among you, was one of Caesar's subjects. And if you do not believe me I will prove it a little later, or rather let me simply assert it now. However, you admit that with his father and mother he registered his name in the governorship of Cyrenius.

But when he became man what benefits did he confer on his own kinsfolk? Nay, the Galilaeans answer, they refused to hearken unto Jesus. What? How was it then that this hardhearted and stubborn-necked people hearkened unto Moses; but Jesus, who commanded the spirits and walked on the sea, and drove out demons, and as you yourselves assert made the heavens and the earth,----for no one of his disciples ventured to say this concerning him, save only John, and he did not say it clearly or distinctly; still let us at any rate admit that he said it----could not this Jesus change the dispositions of his own friends and kinsfolk to the end that he might save them?

Hebrew Generals

However, I will consider this again a little later when I begin to examine particularly into the miracle-working and the fabrication of the gospels. But now answer me this. Is it better to be free continuously and during two thousand whole years to rule over the greater part of the earth and the sea, or to be enslaved and to live in obedience to the will of others? No man is so lacking in self-respect as to choose the latter by preference. Again, will anyone think that victory in war is less desirable than defeat? Who is so stupid? But if this that I assert is the truth, point out to me among the Hebrews a single general like Alexander or Caesar! You have no such man. And indeed, by the gods, I am well aware that I am insulting these heroes by the question, but I mentioned them because they are well known. For the generals who are inferior to them are unknown to the multitude, and yet every one of them deserves more admiration than all the generals put together whom the Jews have had.

Further, as regards the constitution of the state and the fashion of the law-courts, the administration of cities and the excellence of the laws, progress in learning and the cultivation of the liberal arts, were not all these things in a miserable and barbarous state among the Hebrews? And yet the wretched Eusebius will have it that poems in hexameters are to be found even among them, and sets up a claim that the study of logic exists among the Hebrews, since he has heard among the Hellenes the word they use for logic. What kind of healing art has ever appeared among the Hebrews, like that of Hippocrates among the Hellenes, and of certain other schools that came after him? Is their "wisest" man Solomon at all comparable with Phocylides or Theognis or Isocrates among the Hellenes? Certainly not. At least, if one were to compare the exhortations of Isocrates with Solomon's proverbs, you would, I am very sure, find that the son of Theodoras is superior to their "wisest" king. "But," they answer, "Solomon was also proficient in the secret cult of God." What then? Did not this Solomon serve our gods also, deluded by his wife, as they assert? What great virtue! What wealth of wisdom! He could not rise superior to pleasure, and the arguments of a woman led him astray! Then if he was deluded by a woman, do not call this man wise. But if you are convinced that he was wise, do not believe that he was deluded by a woman, but that, trusting to his own judgement and intelligence and the teaching that he received from the God who had been revealed to him, he served the other gods also. For envy and jealousy do not come even near the most virtuous men, much more are they remote from angels and gods. But you concern yourselves with incomplete and partial powers, which if anyone call daemonic he does not err. For in them are pride and vanity, but in the gods there is nothing of the sort.

If the reading of your own scriptures is sufficient for you, why do you nibble at the learning of the Hellenes? And yet it were better to keep men away from that learning than from the eating of sacrificial meat. For by that, as even Paul says,he who eats thereof is not harmed, but the conscience of the brother who sees him might be offended according to you, O most wise and arrogant men! But this learning of ours has caused every noble being that nature has produced among you to abandon impiety. Accordingly everyone who possessed even a small fraction of innate virtue has speedily abandoned your impiety. It were therefore better for you to keep men from learning rather than from sacrificial meats. But you yourselves know, it seems to me, the very different effect on the intelligence of your writings as compared with ours; and that from studying yours no man could attain to excellence or even to ordinary goodness, whereas from studying ours every man would become better than before, even though he were altogether without natural fitness. But when a man is naturally well endowed, and moreover receives the education of our literature, he becomes actually a gift of the gods to mankind, either by kindling the light of knowledge, or by founding some kind of political constitution, or by routing numbers of his country's foes, or even by travelling far over the earth and far by sea, and thus proving himself a man of heroic mould. . .

Now this would be a clear proof: Choose out children from among you all and train and educate them in your scriptures, and if when they come to manhood they prove to have nobler qualities than slaves, then you may believe that I am talking nonsense and am suffering from spleen. Yet you are so misguided and foolish that you regard those chronicles of yours as divinely inspired, though by their help no man could ever become wiser or braver or better than he was before; while, on the other hand, writings by whose aid men can acquire courage, wisdom and justice, these you ascribe to Satan and to those who serve Satan!

Asclepius heals our bodies, and the Muses with the aid of Asclepius and Apollo and Hermes, the god of eloquence, train our souls; Ares fights for us in war and Enyo also; Hephaistus apportions and administers the crafts, and Athene the Motherless Maiden with the aid of Zeus presides over them all. Consider therefore whether we are not superior to you in every single one of these things, I mean in the arts and in wisdom and intelligence; and this is true, whether you consider the useful arts or the imitative arts whose end is beauty, such as the statuary's art, painting, or household management, and the art of healing derived from Asclepius whose oracles are found everywhere on earth, and the god grants to us a share in them perpetually. At any rate, when I have been sick, Asclepius has often cured me by prescribing remedies; and of this Zeus is witness. Therefore, if we who have not given ourselves over to the spirit of apostasy, fare better than you in soul and body and external affairs, why do you abandon these teachings of ours and go over to those others?

And why is it that you do not abide even by the traditions of the Hebrews or accept the law which God has given to them? Nay, you have forsaken their teaching even more than ours, abandoning the religion of your forefathers and giving yourselves over to the predictions of the prophets? For if any man should wish to examine into the truth concerning you, he will find that your impiety is compounded of the rashness of the Jews and the indifference and vulgarity of the Gentiles. For from both sides you have drawn what is by no means their best but their inferior teaching, and so have made for yourselves a border of wickedness. For the Hebrews have precise laws concerning religious worship, and countless sacred things and observances which demand the priestly life and profession. But though their lawgiver forbade them to serve all the gods save only that one, whose "portion is Jacob, and Israel an allotment of his inheritance "; though he did not say this only, but methinks added also "Thou shalt not revile the gods"; yet the shamelessness and audacity of later generations, desiring to root out all reverence from the mass of the people, has thought that blasphemy accompanies the neglect of worship. This, in fact, is the only thing that you have drawn from this source; for in all other respects you and the Jews have nothing in common. Nay, it is from the new-fangled teaching of the Hebrews that you have seized upon this blasphemy of the gods who are honoured among us; but the reverence for every higher nature, characteristic of our religious worship, combined with the love of the traditions of our forefathers, you have cast off, and have acquired only the habit of eating all things, "even as the green herb." But to tell the truth, you have taken pride in outdoing our vulgarity, (this, I think, is a thing that happens to all nations, and very naturally) and you thought that you must adapt your ways to the lives of the baser sort, shopkeepers, tax-gatherers, dancers and libertines.

But that not only the Galilaeans of our day but also those of the earliest time, those who were the first to receive the teaching from Paul, were men of this sort, is evident from the testimony of Paul himself in a letter addressed to them. For unless he actually knew that they had committed all these disgraceful acts, he was not, I think, so impudent as to write to those men themselves concerning their conduct, in language for which, even though in the same letter he included as many eulogies of them, he ought to have blushed, yes, even if those eulogies were deserved, while if they were false and fabricated, then he ought to have sunk into the ground to escape seeming to behave with wanton flattery and slavish adulation. But the following are the very words that Paul wrote concerning those who had heard his teaching, and were addressed to the men themselves : "Be not deceived : neither idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And of this ye are not ignorant, brethren, that such were you also; but ye washed yourselves, but ye were sanctified in the name of Jesus Christ." Do you see that he says that these men too had been of such sort, but that they "had been sanctified" and "had been washed," water being able to cleanse and winning power to purify when it shall go down into the soul? And baptism does not take away his leprosy from the leper, or scabs, or pimples, or warts, or gout, or dysentery, or dropsy, or a whitlow, in fact no disorder of the body, great or small, then shall it do away with adultery and theft and in short all the transgressions of the soul? . . .

Now since the Galilaeans say that, though they are different from the Jews, they are still, precisely speaking, Israelites in accordance with their prophets, and that they obey Moses above all and the prophets who in Judaea succeeded him, let us see in what respect they chiefly agree with those prophets. And let us begin with the teaching of Moses, who himself also, as they claim, foretold the birth of Jesus that was to be. Moses, then, not once or twice or thrice but very many times says that men ought to honour one God only, and in fact names him the Highest; but that they ought to honour any other god he nowhere says. He speaks of angels and lords and moreover of several gods, but from these he chooses out the first and does not assume any god as second, either like or unlike him, such as you have invented. And if among you perchance you possess a single utterance of Moses with respect to this, you are bound to produce it. For the words "A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; to him shall ye hearken," were certainly not said of the son of Mary. And even though, to please you, one should concede that they were said of him, Moses says that the prophet will be like him and not like God, a prophet like himself and bom of men, not of a god. And the words " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a leader from his loins," were most certainly not said of the son of Mary, but of the royal house of David, which, you observe, came to an end with King Zedekiah. And certainly the Scripture can be interpreted in two ways when it says "until there comes what is reserved for him "; but you have wrongly interpreted it "until he comes for whom it is reserved." 90 But it is very clear that not one of these sayings relates to Jesus; for he is not even from Judah. How could he be when according to you he was not born of Joseph but of the Holy Spirit? For though in your genealogies you trace Joseph back to Judah, you could not invent even this plausibly. For Matthew and Luke are refuted by the fact that they disagree concerning his genealogy. However, as I intend to examine closely into the truth of this matter in my Second Book, I leave it till then. But granted that he really is "a sceptre from Judah," then he is not "God born of God," as you are in the habit of saying, nor is it true that "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made." But, say you, we are told in the Book of Numbers also : "There shall arise a star out of Jacob, and a man out of Israel." It is certainly clear that this relates to David and to his descendants; for David was a son of Jesse.

If therefore you try to prove anything from these writings, show me a single saying that you have drawn from that source whence I have drawn very many. But that Moses believed in one God, the God of Israel, he says in Deuteronomy: "So that thou mightest know that the Lord thy God he is one God; and there is none else beside him." And moreover he says besides, "And lay it to thine heart that this the Lord thy God is God in the heaven above and upon the earth beneath, and there is none else." And again, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord." And again, "See that I am and there is no God save me." These then are the words of Moses when he insists that there is only one God. But perhaps the Galilaeans will reply: "But we do not assert that there are two gods or three." But I will show that they do assert this also, and I call John to witness, who says : "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." You see that the Word is said to be with God? Now whether this is he who was born of Mary or someone else,----that I may answer Photinus at the same time,----this now makes no difference; indeed I leave the dispute to you; but it is enough to bring forward the evidence that he says "with God," and "in the beginning." How then does this agree with the teachings of Moses?

"But," say the Galilaeans, "it agrees with the teachings of Isaiah. For Isaiah says, 'Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son.' " Now granted that this is said about a god, though it is by no means so stated; for a married woman who before her conception had lain with her husband was no virgin,----but let us admit that it is said about her,---- does Isaiah anywhere say that a god will be born of the virgin? But why do you not cease to call Mary the mother of God, if Isaiah nowhere says that he that is born of the virgin is the "only begotten Son of God " and "the firstborn of all creation"? But as for the saying of John, "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made," can anyone point this out among the utterances of the prophets? But now listen to the sayings that I point out to you from those same prophets, one after another. "O Lord our God, make us thine; we know none other beside thee." And Hezekiah the king has been represented by them as praying as follows : "O Lord God of Israel, that sittest upon the Cherubim, thou art God, even thou alone." Does he leave any place for the second god? But if, as you believe, the Word is God born of God and proceeded from the substance of the Father, why do you say that the virgin is the mother of God? For how could she bear a god since she is, according to you, a human being? And moreover, when God declares plainly "I am he, and there is none that can deliver beside me," do you dare to call her son Saviour?

And that Moses calls the angels gods you may hear from his own words, "The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." And a little further on: "And also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became the giants which were of old, the men of renown." Now that he means the angels is evident, and this has not been foisted on him from without, but it is clear also from his saying that not men but giants were born from them. For it is clear that if he had thought that men and not beings of some higher and more powerful nature were their fathers, he would not have said that the giants were their offspring. For it seems to me that he declared that the race of giants arose from the mixture of mortal and immortal. Again, when Moses speaks of many sons of God and calls them not men but angels, would he not then have revealed to mankind, if he had known thereof, God the "only begotten Word," or a son of God or however you call him? But is it because he did not think this of great importance that he says concerning Israel, "Israel is my firstborn son?" Why did not Moses say this about Jesus also? He taught that there was only one God, but that he had many sons who divided the nations among themselves. But the Word as firstborn son of God or as a God, or any of those fictions which have been invented by you later, he neither knew at all nor taught openly thereof. You have now heard Moses himself and the other prophets. Moses, therefore, utters many sayings to the following effect and in many places: "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve." How then has it been handed down in the Gospels that Jesus commanded : "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," if they were not intended to serve him also? And your beliefs also are in harmony with these commands, when along with the Father you pay divine honours to the son. . . .

And now observe again how much Moses says about the deities that avert evil: "And he shall take two he-goats of the goats for a sin-offering, and one ram for a burnt offering. And Aaron shall bring also his bullock of the sin-offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself and for his house. And he shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the covenant. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scape-goat'' so as to send him forth, says Moses, as a scape-goat, and let him loose into the wilderness. Thus then is sent forth the goat that is sent for a scape-goat. And of the second goat Moses says: "Then shall he kill the goat of the sin-offering that is for the people before the Lord, and bring his blood within the vail, and shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar-step, and shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel and because of their transgressions in all their sins." Accordingly it is evident from what has been said, that Moses knew the various methods of sacrifice. And to show that he did not think them impure as you do, listen again to his own words. "But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings that pertain unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people." So cautious is Moses himself with regard to the eating of the flesh of sacrifice.

But now I had better remind you of what I said earlier, since on account of that I have said this also. Why is it, I repeat, that after deserting us you do not accept the law of the Jews or abide by the sayings of Moses? No doubt some sharp-sighted person will answer, "The Jews too do not sacrifice." But I will convict him of being terribly dull-sighted, for in the first place I reply that neither do you also observe any one of the other customs observed by the Jews; and, secondly, that the Jews do sacrifice in their own houses, and even to this day everything that they eat is consecrated; and they pray before sacrificing, and give the right shoulder to the priests as the firstfruits; but since they have been deprived of their temple, or, as they are accustomed to call it, their holy place, they are prevented from offering the firstfruits of the sacrifice to God. But why do you not sacrifice, since you have invented your new kind of sacrifice and do not need Jerusalem at all? And yet it was superfluous to ask you this question, since I said the same thing at the beginning, when I wished to show that the Jews agree with the Gentiles, except that they believe in only one God. That is indeed peculiar to them and strange to us; since all the rest we have in a manner in common with them----temples, sanctuaries, altars, purifications, and certain precepts. For as to these we differ from one another either not at all or in trivial matters. . .

Why in your diet are you not as pure as the Jews, and why do you say that we ought to eat everything "even as the green herb," putting your faith in Peter, because, as the Galilaeans say, he declared, "What God hath cleansed, that make not thou common"? What proof is there of this, that of old God held certain things abominable, but now has made them pure? For Moses, when he is laying down the law concerning four-footed things, says that whatsoever parteth the hoof and is cloven-footed and cheweth the cud is pure, but that which is not of this sort is impure. Now if, after the vision of Peter, the pig has now taken to chewing the cud, then let us obey Peter; for it is in very truth a miracle if, after the vision of Peter, it has taken to that habit. But if he spoke falsely when he said that he saw this revelation,----to use your own way of speaking,----in the house of the tanner, why are we so ready to believe him in such important matters? Was it so hard a thing that Moses enjoined on you when, besides the flesh of swine, he forbade you to eat winged things and things that dwell in the sea, and declared to you that besides the flesh of swine these also had been cast out by God and shown to be impure?

But why do I discuss at length these teachings of theirs, when we may easily see whether they have any force? For they assert that God, after the earlier law, appointed the second. For, say they, the former arose with a view to a certain occasion and was circumscribed by definite periods of time, but this later law was revealed because the law of Moses was circumscribed by time and place. That they say this falsely I will clearly show by quoting from the books of Moses not merely ten but ten thousand passages as evidence, where he says that the law is for all time. Now listen to a passage from Exodus: "And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever; the first day shall ye put away leaven out of your houses." . . . Many passages to the same effect are still left, but on account of their number I refrain from citing them to prove that the law of Moses was to last for all time. But do you point out to me where there is any statement by Moses of what was later on rashly uttered by Paul, I mean that "Christ is the end of the law." Where does God announce to the Hebrews a second law besides that which was established? Nowhere does it occur, not even a revision of the established law. For listen again to the words of Moses : " Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it. Keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day." And "Cursed be every man who does not abide by them all." But you have thought it a slight thing to diminish and to add to the things which were written in the law; and to transgress it completely you have thought to be in every way more manly and more high-spirited, because you do not look to the truth but to that which will persuade all men.

But you are so misguided that you have not even remained faithful to the teachings that were handed down to you by the apostles. And these also have been altered., so as to be worse and more impious, by those who came after. At any rate neither Paul nor Matthew nor Luke nor Mark ventured to call Jesus God. But the worthy John, since he perceived that a great number of people in many of the towns of Greece and Italy had already been infected by this disease, and because he heard, I suppose, that even the tombs of Peter and Paul were being worshipped ----secretly, it is true, but still he did hear this,----he, I say, was the first to venture to call Jesus God. And after he had spoken briefly about John the Baptist he referred again to the Word which he was proclaiming, and said, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." But how, he does not say, because he was ashamed. Nowhere, however, does he call him either Jesus or Christ, so long as he calls him God and the Word, but as it were insensibly and secretly he steals away our ears, and says that John the Baptist bore this witness on behalf of Jesus Christ, that in very truth he it is whom we must believe to be God the Word. But that John says this concerning Jesus Christ I for my part do not deny. And yet certain of the impious think that Jesus Christ is quite distinct from the Word that was proclaimed by John. That however is not the case. For he whom John himself calls God the Word, this is he who, says he, was recognised by John the Baptist to be Jesus Christ. Observe accordingly how cautiously, how quietly and insensibly he introduces into the drama the crowning word of his impiety; and he is so rascally and deceitful that he rears his head once more to add, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." Then is this only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father the God who is the Word and became flesh? And if, as I think, it is indeed he, you also have certainly beheld God. For "He dwelt among you, and ye beheld his glory." Why then do you add to this that "No man hath seen God at any time"? For ye have indeed seen, if not God the Father, still God who is the Word. But if the only begotten Son is one person and the God who is the Word another, as I have heard from certain of your sect, then it appears that not even John made that rash statement.

However this evil doctrine did originate with John; but who could detest as they deserve all those doctrines that you have invented as a sequel, while you keep adding many corpses newly dead to the corpse of long ago? You have filled the whole world with tombs and sepulchres, and yet in your scriptures it is nowhere said that you must grovel among tombs and pay them honour. But you have gone so far in iniquity that you think you need not listen even to the words of Jesus of Nazareth on this matter. Listen then to what he says about sepulchres : "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres; outward the tomb appears beautiful, but within it is full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." If, then, Jesus said that sepulchres are full of uncleanness, how can you invoke God at them? . . .

Therefore, since this is so, why do you grovel among tombs? Do you wish to hear the reason? It is not I who will tell you, but the prophet Isaiah : "They lodge among tombs and in caves for the sake of dream visions." You observe, then, how ancient among the Jews was this work of witchcraft, namely, sleeping among tombs for the sake of dream visions. And indeed it is likely that your apostles, after their teacher's death, practised this and handed it down to you from the beginning, I mean to those who first adopted your faith, and that they themselves performed their spells more skilfully than you do, and displayed openly to those who came after them the places in which they performed this witchcraft and abomination.

But you, though you practise that which God from the first abhorred, as he showed through Moses and the prophets, have refused nevertheless to offer victims at the altar, and to sacrifice. "Yes,'' say the Galilaeans, "because fire will not descend to consume the sacrifices as in the case of Moses." Only once, I answer, did this happen in the case of Moses; and again after many years in the case of Elijah the Tishbite. For I will prove in a few words that Moses himself thought that it was necessary to bring fire from outside for the sacrifice, and even before him, Abraham the patriarch as well. . .

And this is not the only instance, but when the sons of Adam also offered firstfruits to God, the Scripture says, "And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offerings; but unto Cain and to his offerings he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord God said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? Is it not so----if thou offerest rightly, but dost not cut in pieces rightly, thou hast sinned?" Do you then desire to hear also what were their offerings? "And at the end of days it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruits of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof." You see, say the Galilaeans, it was not the sacrifice but the division thereof that God disapproved when he said to Cain, "If thou offerest rightly, but dost not cut in pieces rightly, hast thou not sinned?" This is what one of your most learned bishops told me. But in the first place he was deceiving himself and then other men also. For when I asked him in what way the division was blameworthy he did not know how to get out of it, or how to make me even a frigid explanation. And when I saw that he was greatly embarrassed, I said; "God rightly disapproved the thing you speak of. For the zeal of the two men was equal, in that they both thought that they ought to offer up gifts and sacrifices to God. But in the matter of their division one of them hit the mark and the other fell short of it. How, and in what manner? Why, since of things on the earth some have life and others are lifeless, and those that have life are more precious than those that are lifeless to the living God who is also the cause of life, inasmuch as they also have a share of life and have a soul more akin to his----for this reason God was more graciously inclined to him who offered a perfect sacrifice."

Now I must take up this other point and ask them, Why, pray, do you not practise circumcision? "Paul," they answer, "said that circumcision of the heart but not of the flesh was granted unto Abraham because he believed. Nay it was not now of the flesh that he spoke, and we ought to believe the pious words that were proclaimed by him and by Peter." On the other hand hear again that God is said to have given circumcision of the flesh to Abraham for a covenant and a sign : "This is my covenant which ye shall keep, between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations. Ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be in token of a covenant betwixt me and thee and betwixt me and thy seed." . . . Therefore when He has undoubtedly taught that it is proper to observe the law, and threatened with punishment those who transgress one commandment, what manner of defending yourselves will you devise, you who have transgressed them all without exception? For either Jesus will be found to speak falsely, or rather you will be found in all respects and in every way to have failed to preserve the law. " The circumcision shall be of thy flesh," says Moses. But the Galilaeans do not heed him, and they say: "We circumcise our hearts." By all means. For there is among you no evildoer, no sinner; so thoroughly do you circumcise your hearts. They say: "We cannot observe the rule of unleavened bread or keep the Passover; for on our behalf Christ was sacrificed once and for all." Very well! Then did he forbid you to eat unleavened bread? And yet, I call the gods to witness, I am one of those who avoid keeping their festivals with the Jews; but nevertheless I revere always the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; who being themselves Chaldaeans, of a sacred race, skilled in theurgy, had learned the practice of circumcision while they sojourned as strangers with the Egyptians. And they revered a God who was ever gracious to me and to those who worshipped him as Abraham did, for he is a very great and powerful God, but he has nothing to do with you. For you do not imitate Abraham by erecting altars to him, or building altars of sacrifice and worshipping him as Abraham did, with sacrificial offerings. For Abraham used to sacrifice even as we Hellenes do, always and continually. And he used the method of divination from shooting stars. Probably this also is an Hellenic custom. But for higher things he augured from the flight of birds.

And he possessed also a steward of his house who set signs for himself. And if one of you doubts this, the very words which were uttered by Moses concerning it will show him clearly : "After these sayings the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision of the night, sayings Fear not, Abraham: I am thy shield. Thy reward shall be exceeding great. And Abraham said. Lord God what wilt thou give me? For I go childless, and the son of Masek the slave woman will be my heir. And straightway the word of the Lord came unto him saying, This man shall not be thine heir: but he that shall come forth from thee shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth and said unto him, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them : and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And Abraham believed in the Lord: and it was counted to him for righteousness."

Tell me now why he who dealt with him, whether angel or God, brought him forth and showed him the stars? For while still within the house did he not know how great is the multitude of the stars that at night are always visible and shining? But I think it was because he wished to show him the shooting stars, so that as a visible pledge of his words he might offer to Abraham the decision of the heavens that fulfills and sanctions all things. And lest any man should think that such an interpretation is forced, I will convince him by adding what comes next to the above passage. For it is written next: "And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of the land of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle-dove and a pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another; but the birds divided he not. And the fowls came down upon the divided carcases, and Abraham sat down among them."

You see how the announcement of the angel or god who had appeared was strengthened by means of the augury from birds, and how the prophecy was completed, not at haphazard as happens with you, but with the accompaniment of sacrifices? Moreover he says that by the flocking together of the birds he showed that his message was true. And Abraham accepted the pledge, and moreover declared that a pledge that lacked truth seemed to be mere folly and imbecility. But it is not possible to behold the truth from speech alone, but some clear sign must follow on what has been said, a sign that by its appearance shall guarantee the prophecy that has been made concerning the future. . .

However, for your indolence in this matter there remains for you one single excuse, namely, that you are not permitted to sacrifice if you are outside Jerusalem, though for that matter Elijah sacrificed on Mount Carmel, and not in the holy city.

Fragments From Other Sources

As is further detailed in the translator's note following, the above writing of Julian was not sourced directly from preserved works of Julian, because they were not preserved. The above is derived from a refutation of Julian, written by Cyril, in which Cyril's quotations from Julian have been reconstructed by Neumann.

The translated work also included a few additional phrases which had been sourced outside of Cyril's Refutation of Julian. These are listed as follows:

1. Such things have often happened and still happen,
 and how can these be signs of the end of the world?

(Neumann frag. 3; from Julian, Book 2, derived from Cyril, Book 12.
 Quoted by Theodorus, bishop of Mopsuestia, in his Commentary on the
 New Testament. Neumann thinks that Theodorus probably wrote
 a refutation of Julian at Antioch about 378 CE.)

2. Moses after fasting forty days received the law,
 and Elijah, after fasting for the same period,
 was granted to see God face to face.
 But what did Jesus receive,
 after a fast of the same length?

(Neumann frag. 4; from the same source as above.)

3. And how could he lead Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple
 when Jesus was in the wilderness?

(Neumann frag. 6. From the same source as above)

4. Furthermore, Jesus prays in such language as would be used
 by a pitiful wretch who cannot bear misfortune with serenity,
 and though he is a god is reassured by an angel.
 And who told you, Luke, the story of the angel,
 if indeed this ever happened?  
 For those who were there when he prayed could not see the angel;
 for they were asleep. Therefore when Jesus came from his prayer
 he found them fallen asleep from their grief
 and he said: "Why do ye sleep? Arise and pray," and so forth.
 And then, "And while he was yet speaking,
 behold a multitude and Judas."
 That is why John did not write about the angel,
 for neither did he see it.

(Neumann frag. 7. From the same source as above.)

5. Listen to a fine statesmanlike piece of advice:
 "Sell that ye have and give to the poor;
  provide yourselves with bags which wax not old."
  Can anyone quote a more statesmanlike ordinance than this?
  For if all men were to obey you who would there be to buy?
  Can anyone praise this teaching when, if it be carried out,
  no city, no nation, not a single family will hold together?
  For, if everything has been sold,
  how can any house or family be of any value?
  Moreover the fact that if everything in the city
  were being sold at once there would be no one to trade
  is obvious, without being mentioned.

 (Neumann, frag. 12. From Cyril, Book 18, quoted by Photius.)

6. How did the Word of God take away sin,
 when it caused many to commit the sin
 of killing their fathers, and many their children?
 And mankind are compelled either to uphold their ancestral customs
 and to cling to the pious tradition
 that they have inherited from the ages
 or to accept this innovation.
 Is not this true of Moses also, who came to take away sin,
 but has been detected increasing the number of sins?

 (Not in Neumann; reconstructed by him from the polemical writings
 of Archbishop Arethas of Caesarea who wrote in refutation of Julian
 in the tenth century. First published by Cuinont, Recherches sur la
 tradition manuscrite de l'empereur Julien, Brussels, 1898. Neumann's
 reconstruction is in Theologische Litteraturzeitung, 1899.)

7. The words that were written concerning Israel
 Matthew the Evangelist transferred to Christ,
 that he might mock the simplicity of those
 of the Gentiles who believed.

 (Neumann frag. 15. Preserved by the fifth century writer Hieronymus
  in his Latin Commentary on Hosea 3. 11.)

.

Leisure in Action: Work as Play! The Yeguanas

.

"Several more contributions to an alternative point of view on the subject of work penetrated past the intervening layers of my prejudice ...

... One was the apparent absence of a word for 'work' in the Yequana vocabulary."

In her book "The Continuum Concept" Jean Liedloff describes her experience of living with Stone Age Indians in the South American jungle for two and a half years. (Most of her time was spent with the Yequana.) She found these people to be the happiest she had seen anywhere. What stuck most in my mind on reading this incredible book was the Indians' attitude towards "work," or rather their experience of all activity as play; they made no distinction between work and play ...

"There appeared to be no Yequana concept of work similar to ours. There were words for each activity that might have been included, but no generic term."

Jean initially visits the jungle with two young Italian explorers on a diamond hunting expedition. Soon after her arrival she is presented with a powerful example of the Indians' radically different approach to life ...

"Some small illuminations did get through to my civilization-blinded mind: for example, some concerning the concept of work. We had traded our slightly too small aluminum canoe for a much too big dugout. In this vessel, carved from a single tree, seventeen Indians at one time travelled with us. With all their baggage added to ours and everyone aboard, the vast canoe still looked rather empty. Portaging it, this time with only four or five Indians to help, over half a mile of boulders beside a large waterfall, was depressing to contemplate. It meant placing logs across the path of the canoe, and hauling it, inch by inch in the merciless sun, slipping inevitably into the crevices between the boulders whenever the canoe pivoted out of control, and scraping one's shins, ankles and whatever else one landed on, against the granite. We had done the portage before with the small canoe and the two Italians and I, knowing what lay ahead, spent several days anticipating the hard work and pain. On the day we arrived at Arepuchi Falls we were primed to suffer and started off, grim-faced and hating every moment, to drag the thing over the rocks.

When it swung sideways, so heavy was the rogue pirogue, it several times pinned one of us to the burning rock until the others could move it off. A quarter of the way across all ankles were bleeding. Partly by way of begging off for a minute, I jumped up on a high rock to photograph the scene. From my vantage point and momentary disinvolvement, I noticed a most interesting fact. Here before me were several men engaged in a single task. Two, the Italians, were tense, frowning, losing their tempers at everything, and cursing non-stop in the distinctive manner of the Tuscan. The rest, Indians, were having a fine time. They were laughing at the unwieldiness of the canoe, making a game of the battle, relaxed between pushes, laughing at their own scrapes and especially amused when the canoe, as it wobbled forward, pinned one, then another, underneath it. The fellow held bare-backed against the scorching granite, when he could breathe again, invariably laughed the loudest.

All were doing the same work, all were experiencing strain and pain. There was no difference in our situations except that we had been conditioned by our culture to believe that such a combination of circumstances constituted an unquestionable low on the scale of well-being, and were quite unaware we had any option in the matter.

The Indians, on the other hand, equally unconscious of making a choice, were in a particularly merry state of mind, enjoying the camaraderie; and of course they had had no long build-up of dread to mar the preceding days. Each forward move was for them a little victory, enjoyed to the full."

Not only was I struck by the Yequana's playful attitude to all activity, but also by their complete freedom from the moral judgment, resentment and guilt that is so often, and so unecessarily, attached to such concepts as "working hard" or "being lazy" in western "civilised" society ...

"Another hint about human nature and work came later.

Two Indian families lived in a hut overlooking a magnificent white beach, a lagoon in a wide crescent of rocks, the Caroni and Arepuchi Falls beyond. One paterfamilias was called Pepe, the other, Cesar. It was Pepe who told the story.

It seems that Cesar had been 'adopted' by Venezuelans when very young and had gone to live with them in a small town. He was sent to school, learned to read and write and was reared as a Venezuelan. When he was grown, he came, like many of the men of those Guianese towns, to the Upper Caroni to try his luck at diamond hunting. He was working with a group of Venezuelans when he was recognized by Mundo, chief of the Tauripans at Guayparu.

'Were you not taken to live with Jose Grande?' Mundo asked.

'I was brought up by Jose Grande,' said Cesar, according to the story.

'Then you have come back to your own people. You are a Tauripan,' said Mundo.

Whereupon Cesar, after a great deal of thought, decided that he would be better off living as an Indian than as a Venezuelan and came to Arepuchi where Pepe lived.

For five years Cesar lived with Pepe's family, marrying a pretty Tauripan woman and becoming the father of a little girl. As Cesar did not like to work, he and his wife and daughter ate the food grown in Pepe's plantation. Cesar was delighted to find that Pepe did not expect him to clear a garden of his own or even help with the work in his. Pepe enjoyed working and since Cesar did not, the arrangement suited everyone.

Cesar's wife liked joining the other women and girls in cutting and preparing the cassava to eat, but all Cesar liked was hunting tapir and occasionally other game. After a couple of years he developed a taste for fishing and added his catches to those of Pepe and his two sons, who always liked to fish and who had supplied his family as generously as their own.

Just before we arrived, Cesar decided to clear a garden of his own, and Pepe had helped with every detail, from choosing the site to felling and burning the trees. Pepe enjoyed it all the more because he and his friend talked and joked the whole time.

Cesar, after five years' assurance, felt that no one was pushing him into the project and was as free to enjoy working as Pepe, or any other Indian.

Everyone at Arepuchi was glad, Pepe told us, because Cesar had been growing discontented and irritable. 'He wanted to make a garden of his own,' Pepe laughed, 'but he didn't know it himself!' Pepe thought it hilarious that anyone should not know that he wanted to work."

We have focussed here on the Indians' approach to 'work.' In 'The Continuum Concept' Jean goes on to explore their attitudes to all areas of life, particularly child-rearing and looks at why they are so much happier and at ease with themselves than the average 'civilised' person. Her revelations are profound and their implications far-reaching. Everyone should read this book.

All extracts taken from The Continuum Concept, written by Jean Liedloff in 1975.

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A Pagan Mari Sacrificial Prayer from the 19th Century

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This prayer song, performed in a sacrificial festival of the Cheremiss people (indigenously called the Mari) was preserved by the scientist, A. Genetz, in the Krasnoufimsk kray of the Perm oblast. Here the prayer is presented in the form it was published in the legendary work "The Cheremiss Religion" by Uno Holmberg (Harva) in 1914. The surviving wording of the prayer represents an altered tradition contaminated by the Greek Orthodox church and the Islam practiced by the neighboring Tatars and Chuvasses. This may have affected the characterization of the concept of god, and certain words could be borrowed.
Although the written text shows various cultural layers, the most ancient and most essential core is clearly present. The traditional (earth) religion of the Volga Finns is part of the living religious tradition of the European pagan agricultural population, and its social and ethnic function has not essentially changed from the times when the European peoples began to till soil and cultivate plants, although new elements and overtones have been added along the millennia. For example, the central position of festival beer is a very original trait.
This prayer has been performed on an occasion when the village community has gathered to a sacred site to perform a regular sacrificial rite. The sacrificial priest reads aloud or sings the prayer while the others listen seriously. The prayer enlists all the sources of livelihood essential to the village community, asking blessing for them, remembers the relatives enlisted in the imperial service (war) and implores the Cheremiss gods to protect the rulers of the country, especially the Czar. It is odd that they should have mentioned bleeding among the dangers threatening the ruler--it is unlikely that the people living on the shores of the Volga have had any information about the affliction of the Czarevich [son of the emperor suffering from hemophilia; but was Alexei Nikolayevich even born when this prayer was chanted? Perhaps a form of prophecy?] Other sequences listing various dangers do not mention bleeding in particular.
Mentioning the ruler within the prayer may have been inherited from the period when the Volga Finns had countries of their own. During the wars waged by Ivan the Terrible against the Kazan khanate the independent duchies of the Mari and the Mordvins were destroyed, but rural life continued as usual, with a pagan religion, still for centuries to come.
The prayer is addressed to the godhead of fire who forwarded the messages on to greater godheads. An interesting feature: the priest wishes that "the two worlds" remain in harmony and aid his community. A. Genetz has paid special attention to the denomination used of the "circle" responsible for the sacrificial festival, certain houses or villages: MIR. In Russian it is a common word for a village community with a wider meaning of e. g. world, now also world peace etc. [Before the 1922 orthography reformation, the two mir's were separated by writing 'world' with 'i s tochkoy', looking like the Latin i, while 'peace' was written with the regular 'i' resembling an N upside down, derived from the Greek eta.] Finnish has assimilated the word through Karelia in the form 'miero.' When someone was 'mieron tiellä' [on the road of/to miero,] he was dependent upon the welfare food given away by the community. The word 'miero' was used among others during the starvation mutiny of the Käkisalmi county in the name of a mutiny meeting: "Musta miero" [Black Miero.] Probably the word mir/miero is precisely the original denomination of the habitations belonging to the same sacrificial circle, just like "pogosta" (bog = god.) Anyway, the text of this prayer offers a rare view of the pre-Christian culture of the Finno-Ugrians and the Europeans. Most notably: the pagan tradition of the Volga Finns has continued without interruption from the introduction of agriculture in Europe until the modern times, and still continues. [Wherever one personality is addressed, forms of the word 'thou' have been used, in the case of several, the word is 'you' and its forms. The difference is not always quite clear.]

A Cheremiss Sacrificial Prayer:

Dear, great god, dear god of providence, dear god of thunder, dear god ruling over children, great divine force (?), dear god of the sacrificial mir [vide supra], dear mother of god, dear providence, dear prophet, dear protection angels, dear spirit of home and hearth, dear angel of the day of rest, dear mother earth, dear mother sun, dear mothers moon and wind, dear old man and woman frost, dear mother water, dear familial prosperity, grant the family a long life; dear birth-giver of cattle, ruler of cattle, dear birth-giver of grain, ruler of grain, warehouse of grain, key to the warehouse of grain, open thy warehouse of grain; dear birth-giver of grain, ruler of grain, grain prosperity, grain chief, open the warehouse of grain, key to the warehouse of grain, open thy warehouse of grain; Birth-giver of bees, ruler of bees, bee prosperity, bee chief, bee warehouse, key to the warehouse of bees, open thy warehouse of bees; warehouse of triple money, key to the treasury, open thy treasury!

Dear, great god, god of thunder, ruler of children, divine force (?), god of the Mir, mother of god, providence, prophet and dear protection angels, be merciful and receive with joy from this large sacrificial table the abundant steam of my feast which I have prepared and put forth with loaves of uncut bread, fragrances rising up from a large frying pan and with abundant beer mixed with mead! After you arrive to the fragrant smoke and settle down, do leave us pure like the flame of fire, light and unpolluted like smoke; surrounding us with fire and smoke, banish evil where smoke does not reach! Thus do we say, pray and beseech, amen be merciful to us, dear gods! If you grant this to us, we shall be grateful to you!

With the first uncut loaves of bread do we pray for your blessing, dear gods; follow the clinking sound of iron and settle down here, grant us the hardness of steel, the purity of iron and beating with your steel knives and axes, banish and drive away evil where the sound of iron does not reach, to the shores of night which the running water of the stream does not reach, where salt and bread are not eaten! For that do we beseech and pray, for such blessing do we ask, dear gods, dear angels, amen; unanimously be merciful to us, dear gods!

Dear gods, dear angels! Wherever we may walk, allow us to roam safely, wherever we may sit, allow us to be happy and to roam safe from pestilence, diseases and spells, do protect us from knives and axes hanging from belts, from fires and witches and warlocks, you, dear gods yourselves; do not allow our minds to err, our feet to stumble. There must be those who wish to damage whatever is found in our habitations, there must be those who wish evil to the triple family of the house: do not leave it in the hands of evil but banish the ill-willed; protect the triple cattle wealth living in the corral; probably there are also those who plan destruction for our triple grain; do banish the evil of mind; should anyone envy our bee wealth, drive the envier away from us, should anyone envy our triple wealth of money, banish him as well, so that we might live and prosper in the habitations built with our own hands with our triple families, with our triple cattle living in the courtyard, with our warehouses of triple grain, with our treasures of bees and money! For that do we beseech and pray, dear gods, for your blessing do we ask, amen; have mercy upon us! If you grant this to us, we shall be grateful to you, dear gods!

Grant us brightness of the sun, fullness of the moon, fertility of the earth, purity of water, mildness of temperature for us to live, rising like the morning star, jumping like the flea, gathering steadily like the beaver, moving gracefully like the otter, chirping like the swallow, waving like the hop, hanging like the pea-stalk, blossoming like the flower, soft like wax, durable like silk; grant us high age, long years and long days! For this do we beseech and pray, dear gods, amen; have mercy upon us! If you grant this to us, we shall be grateful to you.

Let two complete strangers unite, let them go to bed as two, let them rise as three, let them bear seven daughters, nine sons; let their seven daughters find a new homeland beyond the stream, and their nine sons a bride beyond nine streams, may the names of the daughters be known in the country, may the fame of the sons spread up till the emperor! Let two complete strangers unite again, let the offspring of these strangers be numerous like cuckoos; and so that they may live conversing familiarly, let them have high age, long years and days! For that do we beseech and pray and ask of you, amen; have mercy upon us, dear gods! If you grant this to us, we shall be grateful to you.

Wherever the family travels, let it travel safely, wherever it sits, let it be happy; protect it from various diseases, do not let its mind err, its feet stagger; protect personally, dear gods, it from knives and axes hanging from belts, from fires, witches and warlocks! For that do we beseech and pray, amen; have mercy upon us! If you grant this to us, we shall praise you.

Grant them brightness of the sun, fullness of the moon, purity of water, mildness of temperature, so that they might live, rising like the morning star, jumping like the flea, gathering steadily like the beaver, moving gracefully like the otter, chirping like the swallow, waving like the hop, hanging like the pea-stalk, blossoming like the flower, soft like wax, durable like silk; grant them high age, long years and days! For that do we beseech and pray of you, dear gods, amen; have mercy upon us! If you grant this to us, we shall praise you.

When the family has received abundant blessings to its triple cattle which it grasps each morning and evening to fondle it, and, in the springtime, after it has sent the cattle in three groups to the valleys of the field, make the sick healthy, the infertile fertile, to the fertile give offspring in abundance, and at the same time, protect, lead, and take care of them; let the grass that they eat be sweet and the water they drink tasty, let their resting places be soft; protect the creatures against dry and stinging twigs, the claws and teeth of wild predators, swamps and deep riverbeds, protect them from envious looks, evil tongues, witches and warlocks. When autumn sets in and snow falls upon black earth, let a cattle-shed be built beside another, let the cattle be rounded up and enclosed in the corral in one group, the same cattle which in three groups was sent out to the pasture; let us wake up in the middle of the night if a calf lows, a lamb bleats, or a foal neighs; when the cattle is being taken to drink, let one end of the herd be already by the hole made in the ice while the other still moves around by the habitation; grant us wealth of cattle, and multiplication of the herd the way you did to the people of yore. Thus do we say, pray and beseech, amen; unanimously have mercy upon us, dear gods! If you grant this to us, we shall praise you.

When springtime comes and it is time to bring out the rooster-shaped plow and set its both plowshares in parallel, do grant people intelligence and understanding, set the tools in order, give power to the powerless horse, so that the plowmen, having reached the end of the ditch and stopped and saying "bless!" might plow a deep ditch into the fallow field, and having plowed one, might reach a third ditch, having plowed the third one, reach a fifth, seventh, ninth one, and having plowed the ninth one might reach a thousandth one, and with the thousandth time might turn over like a black cloud. And when the sower, having stacked three kinds of seeds in his load carries them to the field, and saying "bless!" sows a seed, let it become a thousand grains, may the root spread as wide as a plate, the straw grow solid like pearled grain, hard like an egg, smooth like butter, sturdy like fresh bulrushes, the heads strong like silver buttons; fertilize the pistils and let the flowers blossom; with warm thunderstorms, warm lightnings, warm winds and rains let the grain ripen, let it swell like dough; protect it against biting frost, and the damage caused by cold or heat, protect it against sharp wind and hails; from greedy herds of cattle, chewing mice, hungry rats, lusty grasshoppers, gnawing bugs and worms keep and protect it! Allow the owner, after he has inspected every part of the field, return home, rejoice with his next of kin and talk about it while sitting with the family.

When the time is up, let him lift an arched iron upon his shoulders and, having bound up the hems of his garment, in a good and playful mood step to one end of his ditch and, saying "bless!", cut the straw; instead of a straw, let him fold up a bunch, instead of a bunch let him gather a sheaf, and instead of a sheaf, build a whole stack at each angle of the field, thus making the field pleasant like a wood! Should the cattle have dropped something, should something have been strewn from the hands, should something have gotten under the feet and left in the ditch, do gather the grains into the lap of their mother without harming them and send them speedily to the grain stack! That do we beseech and pray of you, amen; have mercy upon us, dear gods! If you grant this to us, we shall praise you. When the autumn sets in and snow falls upon the black earth and the time approaches to take the sheaves from a threshing house to another and when they are shoved into strong heat and their drying begins, let them dry, protect them from burning fire through the smoke of strong heat, and when threshing begins and when, after threshing, the grain has been winnowed with a grain-filled shovel and the grain is carried into warm wind to be cleansed from chaff and the airing of the grain has been started, grant that the grains will be like the sands of the Belaya [white] river, and when three or four granaries have been shoved full, and when god and providence have been worshiped with the first uncut bread and when the one who has arrived hungry has left sated, the beggar has been given his share and the borrower has been given his part, let us receive during one day three or four times, "let god repay you!" as thanks. Grant us property and agricultural prosperity which you have granted to the people of yore, so that when we scoop, our sieves or baskets will always be full of grain, and when we say "old, old! sour, sour! [leavened?]" we could never finish it by eating or drinking! For that do we pray and beseech, amen; have mercy! If you grant this to us, we shall be grateful to you.

Perhaps thou hast been granted a beehive manufactured by the owner's father, himself, or his forefathers, hollowed inside a tree trunk, which, if set upon the ground, spreads like a woolen carpet: do set the one above and the one below at the same height, do set the damaged right, do make the inner part resplendent like mother-of-pearl, do make the honey-cakes like gold and silver! Perhaps thou hast been granted the bees of the proprietor or thou hast been entrusted with the bees of the community, perhaps their buzzing resounds in bright daylight or accompanies the moonlight, possibly thou hearest it from the cliffs or an island in the sea, perhaps thou hast bees that have come on their own accord; strengthen the wings of the queen bee and lead the swarm like a black cloud over the mountains, set them in every tree-trunk, let them settle therein. Thus we say, pray to you and beseech, amen; have mercy, dear gods! If you grant this to us, we shall be grateful to you.

The infertile render fertile, grant the fertile offspring in abundance, make the drones industrious, grow flowers useful to them, protect them against sharp winds, thick fog, claws and teeth of predators, save them from evil looks, evil tongues, witches and warlocks and allow them to develop in peace. Let the owner, when he goes to inspect and peeks around, find now ten, now fifteen, until he returns home; let a stranger notice what he has not seen himself and let him know; let him sit with his family and neighbors full of awe and conversing joyfully; let the bees prepare honey resembling dough, and when the time of gathering draws nigh, let the owner leave walking and bring back walking, let him leave by horse and return having loaded the animal with such a load that its back gives way under the weight; whatever he has not been able to bring back home, let him leave there, hung in a tree in the meadow; let him sacrifice the first part to god and providence, whatever is left in the crock let him eat and drink with his family, his closest neighbors, and relatives coming and leaving; grant us infinite multiplication of honey and unending abundance of honey! For that do we pray and beseech, amen, be merciful, dear gods! If you grant this to us, we shall praise you.

When youths gather from everywhere, grant them intelligence and understanding; give their dogs good scent, make their steeds fiery; when they go wandering over woody hills and through valleys, let them find close by what they desired to meet far away, turn towards them the game that had turned its back to them, and shorten their wide tracks! Thou hast bushy-tailed squirrels and hares with plow-shaped legs, thou hast black-tailed weasels and fast-running brown and black foxes, and the grouses and capercaillies of the forest are thine. For the benefit of the high emperor, grant them wisdom and understanding to collect the quarry from the bosom of every fallen tree and with the speed of fire take every shot creature from each tree-trunk! For this we beseech and pray; if you grant it to us, we shall praise you.

Grant each man intelligence and understanding so that, having taken a backpack, preparing for a long journey and entered a dark spruce forest, he might find game near by; direct to him any creature that has turned its back to him, shorten the wide roads! Thou hast long-legged deer and moose that run speedily, thou hast furry bears, red foxes ready that escape quickly, and martens with green necks, and also thou hast beehives not made by human hands, greenish and sturdy. Grant the men wisdom and understanding so that, for the benefit of the high emperor, they might collect every shot creature from the bosom of each fallen tree and claim it for themselves from each tree-trunk! For this do we beseech and pray; have mercy, dear gods, and be unanimous! If you grant this to us, we shall praise you. After leaving the game tracks and entering the riverbank, they will notice that thou hast many gray partridges in the alder grove; thou hast geese and swans prone to be trapped, and also river fish, beavers, polecats and water bulls. Grant them intelligence and understanding for the benefit of the high emperor to attack the game like the foam of water against the current, so that the bodies strike sparks! For that do we beseech and pray, amen; if thou grantest that to us, we shall praise thee for it.

When there is a stock of wares gathered from cattle or grain or game, when it has been bound into groups of ten and polished bright like metal, shimmering like the sky and glimmering like mother-of-pearl, and when it has been brought to the marketplace of the high emperor, let the price of each item be multiplied by three, seven or nine, and let us return with our trunk full of money. Part of it shall be saved, part of it shall be used for necessities, buying garments and underwear, for gloves and footwear, for purchasing salt and food, for paying taxes to the high emperor, and giving to the beggar and whoever wishes to borrow; present us with three kinds of money, infinite like groats! For that do we pray and beseech, amen; unanimously, have mercy upon us, dear gods! If you grant that to us, we shall praise you.

To the high emperor, whose subjects we are, with all his various nations and all his troops, grant long life, many years and days, health, wealth and strength and, wherever he may move, grant him success, wherever he may sit, make him happy; protect him against all kinds of illnesses and pestilence, all mishaps, malicious rumors, knives and axes hanging from belts, and fire; do not allow his understanding to fail or his feet to stagger, so that he may without injury or bleeding act and work; grant him high age and long years of life! For that do we pray and beseech you, amen; have mercy! If you grant us this, we shall praise you.

To the emperor whom we revere grant purity of the sun, fullness of the moon so that he may live and work, rising like the morning star, fertility of the earth, mildness of temperature, purity of water, so that he may live jumping like the flea, gathering like the beaver, crawling like the otter, chirping like the swallow, waving like the hop, hanging like the pea-stalk, blossoming like the flower, soft like wax, durable like silk; may he be granted high age, many years and days, firmness and strength! Thus do we say, pray and beseech, amen; have mercy, dear gods, dear angels! If you grant us this, we shall praise you.

When children of mothers and fathers embark upon a journey to the high emperor to serve him, fathers and mothers send their prayers to god for the high emperor, mother with mother, father with father shed tears for their children who leave to serve their high emperor, then spouses cry together and children likewise for those leaving to serve the high emperor, father and mother pray to god for happiness and luck for their children: "Dear, great god, return him and lead him back home!"

Dear spirit of fire, thy smoke is tall, thy tongue is sharp, pray for us in front of the good gods, let the first bits of sacrifice be ready, take everything with thee and give on to the good gods! Dear spirit of fire, thy smoke is tall, thy tongue is sharp, of the good gods do we pray this day for augmenting the family, we pray for a long, sinless life to the family, three kinds of cattle wealth, three kinds of grain and bee stock, three kinds of money treasure do we beseech; whether the riches you are going to give us are up in the heavens or down on earth, do reign rising like the morning mist, light like the water foam, allowing the two opposite worlds to shine, and impart us infinite happiness unanimously, dear gods! For this blessing do we pray you. Dear spirit of fire, let them consume entirely the butter and milk bread and the great sacrificial beverage, blessing with loving hands and feet the abundance of the sweet fragrance, saying, "bless!" Dear spirit of fire, eat thou the first sacrificial bits together with those in hand, take them with thee and give to them, amen! Unanimously, have mercy, dear gods! Dear spirit of fire, thy smoke is tall and thy tongue is sharp, give thou them, in our name, the blessing of the sweet smoke, carry it on and give it to them! Therefore may blessing follow thee, and may gratitude be thy own part, dear spirit of fire!

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Ionic, by Constantinos Cavafis

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That we’ve broken their statues,
that we’ve driven them out of their temples,
doesn’t mean at all that the gods are dead.

O land of Ionia, they’re still in love with you,
their souls still keep your memory.
When an August dawn wakes over you,
your atmosphere is potent with their life,
and sometimes a young ethereal figure,
indistinct, in rapid flight,
wings across your hills.



(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.)

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Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood

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Influential Classical scholar who brought methodological rigour to the study of Ancient Hellenic religion and ritual

Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood was an international authority in the field of Ancient Greek religion and one of the most prolific and influential Hellenists of her generation.

She was remarkable for her penetrating and uncompromising intellect and for her astonishing range of scholarly interests, which spanned almost every area of Ancient Greek culture from Minoan iconography to Greek tragedy.

She was born in Volos, Greece, in 1945, but grew up in Corfu. Her father was a colonel in the Greek Army, her mother a teacher. Sourvinou-Inwood studied as an undergraduate at the University of Athens, and began research in the young and exciting field of Mycenology in Rome and later in Athens.

Coming to England in 1969, she graduated from Oxford in 1973 with a doctorate on Minoan and Mycenaean beliefs in the afterlife, and went on to a junior research fellowship at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. She then worked as a lecturer at Liverpool (1976-78), as a senior research Fellow at University College, Oxford (1990-95), and as Reader in Classical Literature at the University of Reading (1995-98). She turned down many more foreign invitations than she accepted, but she did cross the Atlantic to give the Carl Newell Jackson lectures at Harvard in 1994, and she gave the Martin P. Nilsson lecture in the Swedish Institute at Athens in 1997.

The focus of her early work was the Bronze Age and its iconography; experts still cite her brilliant defence of the authenticity of one particularly beautiful Minoan ring in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford – about which later discoveries proved her right. But in time her interests gravitated to the Classical period, and she was as adept at using textual sources as at using images and material culture – something which few classicists achieve.

She was particularly interested in rituals relating to young women and devoted a book to some of the interpretative problems connected with the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron near Athens, where young girls danced as bears (Studies in Girls’ Transitions, 1988).

Another interest, sustained since her doctorate, was Greek representations of the afterlife, her definitive statement on which was Reading Greek Death (1994). Perhaps most significant of all was her examination of the ways that Ancient Greek religion was determined by the political structure of the city state, set out in a paper What is Polis Religion? (1990), which bristles with insights in every paragraph. She explored literary aspects of the same theme in her provocative reading of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone (1989), and at greater length in her Jackson lectures which were published as Tragedy and Athenian Religion (2003).

Methodology was a vital concern and she developed a repertory of technical terms such as “reading” (roughly, “methodologically rigorous interpretation”); “schema” (an ideologically significant narrative pattern); and “zooming” (the effect of bringing the world of the text or image nearer to the world of the viewer or listener). It was, and still is, unusual for classicists to be so explicit about methodology, and reviewers often commented on the style, length or frequency of her methodological pronouncements. She was unrepentant. In the first chapter of her Reading Greek Culture (1991) she explained that she aimed to produce a “neutral” interpretation by rigorously eliminating all modern assumptions and “perceptual filters” derived from unreflective common sense or traditional scholarly baggage.

Her “reading” of the texts or images could then begin, and an important part of it was the identification (or “recovery”) of ideological “schemata”. The result was sometimes to show that texts believed to have specific historical reference were better understood as ideological constructions, but if that meant we now knew less about history, we at least knew more about ideology.

Sourvinou-Inwood insisted that her aim was to establish “ancient realities and perceptions”. Thus, just as naive empiricism was her early target, so, later, she was anxious to combat extreme scepticism about the past, “nihilism” as she called it in her final book, Hylas, the Nymphs, Dionysos and Others (2005).

Her approach shares a lot with the structuralism of the French scholars Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, both associated with the École des Hautes Études, and in its later formulation it owed something to semiotics and even poststructuralism. But she was no follower of academic fashion, and her approach should be seen as an independent response to her own interpretative experience.

Those who knew her only from her publications were likely to form the impression of a certain intellectual defensiveness and a tendency to devote more space and ingenuity to demolishing her critics’ arguments than was strictly necessary. But to those who experienced her in the lecture room, she was an inspiring teacher and a warm-hearted mentor, convinced that even the least promising undergraduate was capable of brilliance if given enough encouragement.

Her own sense of being an outsider had given her a heightened empathy. That she taught formally for only brief periods is a great loss to the institutions that could have employed her, and to the profession.

Ill-health restricted her movement in the last decade of her life, but she still made herself available to friends, disciples and awed fans who visited her in Oxford, usually to be entertained over lunch in an Italian restaurant. To younger scholars facing uncertainty in the early stages of their careers, she could be a tower of support.

Her own tower of support was her husband, Mike Inwood, philosophy tutor at Trinity College, Oxford, whom she married in 1971.

Considering the volume of her publications, it is remarkable that she also wrote a series of detective novels. One appeared in Greek in 2003 as Enas polu klassikos phonos under the pseudonym Christiana Elfwood (the English version is to appear imminently).

She married first J. P. Olivier (divorced). Her second husband survives her.

Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Classical scholar, was born on February 26, 1945. She died of cancer on May 19, 2007, aged 62

From "The Times".

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"Hate You, Christ, I Do Not", by Fernando Pessoa

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Hate you, Christ, I do not, or seek. I believe
In you as in the others gods, your elders.
I count you as neither more nor less
Than they are, merely newer.

I do hate, yes, and calmly abhor people
Who seek you above the other gods, yours equals.
I seek you where you are, not higher
Than them, not lower, yourself merely.

Sag god, needed perhaps because there was
None like you: one more in the Pantheon, nothing
More, not purer: because the whole
Was complete with gods, except you.

Take care, exclusive idolater of Christ: life
Is multiple, all days different from each other,
And only as multiple shall we
Be with reality and alone.


(09.10.1916)



'Selected Poems', translated by J.Griffin.

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Serpentine Power In Greece And India

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The essential role played by serpents in some mythical Greek episodes does not appear to be sufficiently clarified. In view of the impossibility to find decisive explanations in the Hellenic culture itself, we decided to use an instrument of historical-religious analysis, the comparative method, to find an extra-Hellenic example with a sufficient degree of relevancy to enlighten the religious "reality" that underlies these serpentine episodes (note 1). The country where the systematization of the symbolism of the serpent is accessible and with a suitable development for our purpose is India. In this multiform culture we will try to find an example that offers an explanatory linkage for the sparse information that survives in the Hellenic culture.

Diviners, Serpents and Staves

Melampous and Teiresias

Several Greek mythological characters attain mantic capacity because of their contact with serpents. Melampous and Teiresias are exemplary, illustrating two different ways in which to reach the transmutation of common human nature into a superior one (the conversion into diviners, mediators between gods and men).

The serpents lick the ears (note 2) of Melampous (note 3), he obtains the comprehension of bird language and guesses the future. He later becomes a iatromantis, a healer using sacred dances (he is a girls' initiator (note 4) ) but also other physical (perhaps his own name is a reference to the use of plants in healing (note 5)) or supernatural methods.

Teiresias obtains mantic power in two different ways which differ according to the classical sources we use. In the first version that starts with Hesiod (fr. 275 M/W = Dichaiarchos fr. 37 Wehrli = Callimachus fr. 576 Pfeiffer Phleg. 257 F 36 Jacoby-) and is transmitted for example by Apollodorus (III[70] 6,7), Hyginus (75) and Ovid (Met. III, 322ff.), (note 6) the gift of divination is conferred by Zeus because of the mediation in the controversy against Hera to decide which of the sexes find more pleasure in copulation. Teiresias has been man and woman and was thus qualified to answer that the greater pleasure is perceived by the woman. Zeus, the feminine secret unveiled, attains the victory; but Hera, vexed, blinds Teiresias. Teiresias' change of sex is motivated by the fact that he had touched or wounded with his staff two serpents entwined in sexual intercourse. The other version (note 7), transmitted by Pherekydes (3 F 92a Jacoby Apollod. III[70], 6,7-), Callimachus (H. V, 5,75ff.) and Nonnos (D. V, 337ff.) states that Athena, seen naked by Teiresias, was obliged to punish him with blindness, but to compensate Chariclo, mother of the diviner and loyal servant of the goddess, she purified his ears and bestowed on him the gift of understanding the language of birds. Furthermore she offered him a staff that allowed him to walk like a sighted person.

Despite the differences observed, the background of both versions is similar in essence:

• the blindness is compensated with the gift of divination (that turns out to be an alternative way of seeing);
• the decisive role played by the serpents in the sexual mutation of Teiresias in the first version seems very similar to the purification of the ears effected by Athena (evidently the same modus operandi of the serpents with Melampous) in the second version.

The Serpentine Staff

In the version transmitted, for example, by Ovid (Met. III, 316ff.) or Hyginus (75) (note 8)Teiresias touches the copulating serpents with his staff, triggering the metamorphosis. Evidently Teiresias' action momentarily creates a figure whose iconographical shape is a staff with intertwined serpents. Such a staff already existed in the Hellenic culture, taking the technical name kerykeion (note 9), and was used by Hermes on the divine level and the heralds on the human level, as can be seen in iconography (note 10) (illustration 1). An interesting text of Hyginus (Astron. II,7,2) (note 11) narrates the manner in which Hermes obtains the serpentine staff, in circumstances identical with those originating Teiresias' sexual mutation (only the interpretation differs, the separation of the serpents is understood as a pacification, according to the major function of the kerykeion as staff of the mediator). The link between both evidences is clear (note 12) , and we believe that the meaning must be similar.

All the bearers of the serpentine staff (Teiresias included in the group) have a common link: they are mediators; the heralds on the political level, Teiresias between genders and later between gods and men. Hermes, the most interesting, in a holistic field, uniting with his presence the underworld, the sky and the earth, moving between the kingdoms of the gods and the land of humans, linking divergent and opposed spaces (note 13).

Branchos: The Diviner Without Serpent

An episode in the life of Branchos, the mythical founder of the Didyma's oracle and ancestor of the priestly lineage of the Branchidai, is significant for our purposes and determines the name of the character. According to Cono, while Brancho's mother was in labour, she had a vision in which the sun penetrated by his mouth, and passing through the stomach, ended the path in sex (note 14) (evidently an "experience of light" (note 15)). Because of this visionary experience (the sun passed through the bronchial tubes) she named her son Branchos. Later, his homosexual love for Apollo leads to the conversion of Branchos into a powerful diviner (Branchios is one of the epithets of the god).

In an attempt to explain the vision of Branchos' mother, the episodes of Melampous and Teiresias and the serpentine head of the kerykeion we have resorted to a religious tradition that displays in a structured manner most of the elements that scattered throughout Greek mythology are incoherent.

Serpentine Power and Tantric Mystical Physiology (note 16)

The Origin and Antiquity of Tantrism

The major drawback to using Tantrism in comparative religion is the lack of literary evidence of the movement prior to the sixth century CE (note 17). But the literary transmission, or even the generalization of a doctrine does not imply the nonexistence of previous strong and long-dated roots. On the one hand, the significance of the cult to Shiva-Shakti (note 18), the basis of Tantrism, exhibits an evident archaism in some aspects. On the other hand, Tantrism does not seem to be a movement of rupture, and does not display elements of radical innovation. Tantrism is a religious movement that elaborates concepts pre-existing in the Vedic tradition, combining them with religious practices from different sources. The historical sociology of Tantrism is still impossible to outline (the difficulty increases the farther back), all these uncertainties making it increasingly difficult to detect the role of Prearian and popular tradition in the formation of Tantrism. The fact that the greatest development is observed in contact zones (northern India), open to foreign influences, may indicate that in these ambits the rigidity of traditional religion was surpassed, and the priestly elite embraced alternative (foreign or sociologically different) practices. Thus, we could delimit the three major roots of Tantrism, the Vedic one, the autocthonous (Prearian but perhaps popular also) and the aloctone (Asiatic Chamanic techniques, perhaps even Gnostic influences, as Mircea Eliade suggests (note 19)). In spite of the hypothetical basis of the analysis, it seems acceptable that Tantrism is not a modern phenomenon in its roots even if the literary formulation and the major expansion were developed towards the end of the first millenium and during the first part of the second. The archaism of some Tantric practices allows us to justify the comparison with the Greek practices (we are not comparing religious forms with more than thousand years between them, but possibly practices of a similar antiquity).

The Tantric Mystical Physiology

The basis of Tantric esoterism is the experience of liberation revealed in the adept's body (note 20) in which two powers coexist in a latent stage, one situated in the lower part of the trunk (the feminine principle or Shakti), the other in the upper part of the head (masculine principle or Shiva). Joining both we find a number of channels (named nadis), the three major ones being Sushumna (in a straight line and the main channel), Ida (left channel, lunar and feminine) and Pingal (right channel, solar and masculine). The last two nadis are entwined round Sushumna , meeting at a number of centres, named cakra, where subtle energy gathered. In the most usual system called acakra (six-centred) they are seven in number (the six cakra and the seventh in the upper part of the skull). The lower centre, named Muladhara cakra or cakra root of the nadis, placed in the intermediate region between genitals and anus is the seat of the personal Shakti that appears coiled among common men (named kundalini: the coiled one), in repose and with the appearance of a serpent. The following are Svadhisthana cakra, over the genitals, Maipra cakra or centre of the region of the navel, Anahata cakra or centre of the heart, Vishuddha cakra or centre in the region of the throat, Ajna cakra or centre between the eyebrows where the nadis unite to ascend to Sahasrara or the lotus with a thousand petals placed in the upper part of the skull (perhaps in the fontanelle in spite of the fact that we are summarizing a subtle or mystical physiology with no real correspondence in organs or regions of the common physiology). The masculine power or Shiva settles in this centre and seems not to be included in the acakra system being in essence supracorporeal.

The purpose of the system is to make the serpentine power ascend from Muladhara cakra to Sahasrara; whoever reaches this union becomes a jivanmukta (note 21), a person who has attained liberation of the limitations of the human condition (achieving release from the wheel of reincarnation---Samsara). Serpentine power (Kundalini) must ascend exclusively by the central channel (Sushumna) to produce the alchemy of liberation.

Elements of Comparison

Summarizing, Tantrism shows the following elements for the comparison:

• The purpose of Tantric mystical physiology is the transmutation of the common human being into a truthful man, a superior creature who knows all things (because he has experienced the nature of divinity, in this case the union between Shiva and Shakti) and in which the dissolution (laya) of the ordinary essence was produced.
• The serpent appears as the personification of the power that promotes the transmutation in the body of the adept.
• The sexual region is basic in the system. The canonical practices based the trigger for ascent of Kundalini on ascetic techniques, but other schools (perhaps the most archaic ones, close to the primitive Sivaism) seem to use hetero or homosexual techniques to awaken the serpentine power.
• The iconographical representation of the nadis was a straight line with intertwined serpents.
• The nadis Ida and Pingala were related to the nasal breathing (perhaps Sushumna to oral breathing).
• To describe the fusion between Kundalini-Shakti and Shiva in Sahasrara the comparison is used with the "brightness of a hundred suns" (evidently an "experience of light").

Comparative Religion:
Teiresias, Melampous, Branchos and Tantric Mystical Physiology

We find a number of coincidences between the experiences of Teiresias, Melampous and Branchos and the Tantric initiates:

• After fulfilling these experiences, they become special beings, diviners, powerful men: Melampous is an iatromantis, Teiresias maintains after death intact his cognitive abilities, Branchos establishes a parental guild of diviners. The Tantric adepts, as we have seen, reached different physical and spiritual powers upon experiencing the inner mystical union. Their esoteric knowledge is a matter of small gatherings of initiates, often transmitted inside the family group. In both cases we find experiences of a minority, men without common vital trajectories.
• Melampous and Teiresias undergo a serpentine experience that leads to their transmutation. In the case of Melampous, the serpents purify his ears and reveal to him the knowledge of a completely different world. In the case of Teiresias, the experience with a male and a female serpent (the relationship with the nadis Ida and Pingala seems evident) provoke the change of sex that closely resembles to the androginy (note 22) of the Tantric adept who experiences in his body the alchemy of the supreme mixture of masculine and feminine essences. The serpentine symbol is used in both cases in a very similar field of significance (note 23).
• The experience of the mother of Branchos is very similar to the "experience of light" of the Tantric adepts but occurs inversely, the relationship with Buddhist sexual Tantric practices in which Bindu (subtle energy concentrated at a point and closely connected with breathing) "let down from the upper part of the head and fills the sexual organs with a jet of quintuple light" (note 24) is clear. The nasal cavities (and also the mouth) develop in Tantrism a basic role in the respiratory exercises to awaken Kundalini. Without forcing the identification to the point of connecting the name Branchos (in its etymological sense) to the subtle channel Sushumna, it should be stressed that both "experiences of light" are very similar.
• The importance given in Greece to the kiss of the god in order to accede to complete mantic power (undoubtedly in the case of Branchos and very probably in the case of Melampous) is yet another fact of a sexual nature (in this case not transexual -as in the example of Teiresias- but clearly homosexual). We could approach these practices from the angle of the homosexual rites used in Tantrism to awaken Kundalini (anal penetration is one of the most powerful triggers to provoke the ascent of serpentine power in some sects of the left hand), but we could also, thanks to the Tantric example, attempt to deepen in the explanation of the homosexual Greek practices adopting a different approach from that utilized in the excellent works of Bernard Sergent (note 25). Greek homosexuality seems therefore to be included originally in a complex initiatic paideia (in both senses of initiatic) (note 26): the learning of the real essence of the human being and his potentiality, including homosexual practices with mystical purposes (to awaken the serpentine power). The experimentation of this power determines the special status of the initiate within the social group (the nobles were superior kalokagathoi- because of their knowledge of this "mystery"). We propose a partial explanation of the lack of inhibitions of the Greek aristocrats (Plato at the head of the list) in the face of this kind of behaviour and also the secrecy surrounding the practice.

Hermes, The Kerykeion and Gorgo

The intertwining of the three nadis creates a figure very similar in essence to the Greek serpentine staff named kerykeion. The god Hermes is normally shown bearing it in the iconography (note 27), this being one of the definitive attributes to assure identification. It seems worthwhile to analyse briefly the tasks of the god to clarify his role in the mystical physiology that we are endeavouring to unravel (note 28). A deity of ambiguity, he is the lord of the lands with diffused frontiers. He is epitermios, divinity of all the limits, not only the frontiers of the social topography but also the psychic or mythical one. He is the support of the traveller who crosses the frontier of the known country, of the foreigner far from his fatherland; he indicates the ambiguous point of confluence of the territory of two poleis; he helps thieves (note 29), working on the fringe of the social system. He is also psychopompos, helping the dead to find the way from the world of the living to the underworld (note 30). His son (daughter) Hermaphroditos (note 31) and a number of his archaic representations (note 32) show that he moves in the sexual indetermination or even in androginy. As herald of Zeus he unifies the human world with the reigns of the gods. He is the central divinity in the space construction of the Greeks, as pointed out by Vernant (note 33), he determines the links among the different ambits that give structure to the social and religious Greek imaginary. A deity of transitions (including, evidently, the "rites of passage" (note 34)) he is the perfect candidate for presiding over practices that include a transition to a different sort of existence and an ascensional ritual. Iconography could assist in illustating this. In one of the earliest images of the god, in the olpe of the Gorgon painter (circa 600-590 BE) in the National Museum of Athens (note 35) (illustration 2), Hermes is portrayed with the kerykeion held aloft his right hand and flanked by two winged sphinxes. The image is included in a series of representations dated between 600 and 560 in which Hermes is flanked by mythical winged creatures (sphinxes or sirens) (note 36). The meaning of the scenes does not seem to be completely clarified (the interpretation of the master of animals seems much too simple). The scene can be interpreted by comparison with the relief of the Cretan bronze helmet in the Norbert Schimmel Collection (New York) (note 37) (illustration 3 not in this article, see cited ref.) showing two winged youths holding intertwined serpents. Hermes in the first case fulfills the same role as the serpents in the second and the kerykeion in the centre of the image seems to emphasize this significance. To control the serpentine power is the task of the god and the winged beings are a represention of the ascension included in the rite. Seen from this point of view, we could almost risk an attribution to the pair of winged genies of the New York helmet. This doublet is in essence only one (with the same significance as the ambiguous god who presides over the serpentine power), being like a double Hermes.

Another mythical being, whose meaning is lately being investigated by a number of researchers (note 38) and who is shown as possessing similar attributes (wings, serpents) is Gorgo. In the oldest iconography his/her sex is undetermined (note 39), and this being is represented like a terrible strength, the control of which determines a superior power. His/her head surrounded by serpents in a number of images (note 40), his/her body entwined with reptiles (for example in the pediment of the temple of Artemis in Corcyra where the serpents form a girdle (note 41) (illustration 4-), Gorgo seems a candidate to symbolize among the Greeks the radical alterity named Kundalini in Tantric tradition, a terrific power mastered by a select group of special men, transformed into heroes.

Thanks to the Indian parallel we can better understand the subtle role of Hermes, the god in the Greek pantheon who best symbolizes the ritual of ascension and change to a new reality that is the experimentation of serpentine power, the alterity and strength of which are reflected in the hypnotic and terrifying glance of Gorgo.

Conclusions

Among the Greeks a knowledge seems to be attested of subtle or mystical physiology having a number of elements comparable with Indian Tantrism. The symbols (serpent, light, ascension) and the experience (importance of sex, access to a greater personal development) are similar. In the Greek case the information is hidden in the mythical language (in the literary or iconographical transmission), reelaborated and transmitted in most cases by authors who are unaware of the real dimension of the facts they are relating. Without the instruments of the comparative method the sole interest of the vicissitudes of diviners such as Teiresias, Melampous or Branchos, heroes like Perseus or gods like Hermes is to show the ravings of mythical creation; in the light of the Indian example, the Greek myth grows in meaning and could be explained, in part. It is hard to agree with the idea that both traditions draw on a common source (because of the paucity of documentation) and difficult to affirm that a lending relationship exists between both countries (note 42) and cultures in the archaic period or even earlier; it seems more acceptable to defend that we are dealing with similar models to characterize extraordinary religious experiences. But the result is different and exemplifies the cultural adaptation produced in the social mentality in each country that seems to illustrate the archaism of the practices and permits us to refute a recent loan. Heroes, kings or diviners in the Greek case or creatures liberated from the bonds of human nature in the Indian case are two ways to represent the man who had developed potentialities beyond the reach of common human beings.

Notes

1. We follow a methodology of analysis completely different from Krappe, A.H. "Teiresias and the Snakes" AJPH 49, 1928, 267-275 in spite of using the Indian parallel in both approaches.
2. Hesiod fr. 261 M/W (Schol. Ap. Rhod. 11, 118-121); Apollod. I[96], 9, 11. The same means confer the gift of divination on Hellenos and Kassandra (cf. Schol. Hom. Il. VII, 44); see Halliday, W.R. Greek Divination, Chicago, 1913, 83ff. The role of Melampous in the pseudo-hesiodic Melampodia (see Loeffler, I., Die Melampodie, Meisenheim 1963 or Schwartz, J. Pseudo- Hesiodeia, Leiden 1960, 227ff.) must have been essential but the fragments surviving (M/W 270-279) held no interest for our research.
3. For recent approaches, see Jost, M. "La legende de Melampous en Argolide et au Peloponnese" Simon, E. "Melampous" in LIMC VI, 1992 405ff. (iconography); Scarpi, P. "Melampus e i miracoli di Dionysos" in Perennitas. Studi Angelo Brelich, Roma 1980, 431ff. and Su rez de la Torre, E. "Les pouvoirs des devins et les recits mythiques: l'exemple de Melampous" LEC LX, 1992, 3ff. Also Pley, R. in RE XV,1 s.v. or Wolff, O. in Roscher's Lexikon II,2 s.v..
4. Dowden, K. Death and the Maiden. Girls' Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology, London/New York, 1989, 71-115, he follows the ideas expressed by Burkert, W. Homo Necans, Berlin, 1972, 191- 194 and Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, London, 1979, 86-87.
5. The relationship between Melampous and the Melampodion (Helleborus Orientalis Lam.) was quoted by Murr, J. Die Pflanzenwelt in der griechischen Mythologie, Innsbruch, 1890, 228; also Edmunds, L. "The Cults and Legend of Oedipus" HSPh 85, 1981, 221ff.
6. Version A in the catalogue of Brisson, L. Le mythe de Tiresias, Leiden, 1976, 12-21. The book of Brisson is the best analysis of the mythical diviner, also Garcia Gual, C. "El adivino Tiresias o las desgracias del mediador" in Mitos, Viajes, Heroes, Madrid, 1981, 121ff.
7. Version B (Brisson). See also Loraux, N. "Ce que vit Tiresias in Les experiences de Tiresias, Paris, 1989, 253- 271. We do not take into account the aberrant version in Sostratos (32 F 7 Jacoby; SHell. II, 733, 352-353 -Eustath. Hom. Od. 10, 492-).
8. In the cases Ao2, 4, 6, 9, 10 and 11 (Brisson) the use of a staff is quoted, in the other versions Teiresias kills or wounds the serpents but no mention is made of the use of a sword (contra de Waele, F.J.M., The Magic Staff or Rod in Graeco-Italian Antiquity, Gent, 1927, 146ff.).
9. See Boetzkes, R. Das Kerykeion, Giessen, 1913 (summed in RE 11, 1921, col. 330ff.); de Waele, op. cit.(supra note 8) passim; Schouten, J., The Rod and Serpent of Asclepios, Amsterdam-London-New York, 1967, 177ff.; Preller, L., "Der Hermesstab" Philologus I, 1846, 516ff.; Hoffmann, O.A. Hermes und Kerykeion, Marburg, 1890.
10. See Crome, J.F. "Kerykeia" AM 63/64, 1938/1939, 117ff.; Diez de Velasco, F., "Un aspecto del simbolismo del kerykeion de Hermes" Gerion 6, 1988, 39ff.; Siebert, G. "Hermes" in LIMC, V, 1990, 381ff. For the kerykeion of the Norbert Schimmel Collection (New York) see Muscarella, O. W. (ed.) Ancient Art. The Norbert Schimmel Collection, Mainz, 1974, num. 28 (with bibliography, dated in the sixth or early fifth century BE).
11. "... petenti Apollini ut liceret se dicere inuenisse lyram, concessit, et ab eo uirgulam quandam muneri accepit. Quam manu tenens Mercurius, cum proficisceretur in Arcadiam et uidisset duos dracones inter se coniuncto corpore alium alium adpetere, ut qui dimicare inter se uiderentur, uirgulam in utrumque subiecit; itaque discesserunt. Quo facto, eam uirgulam pacis causa dixit esse constitutam. Nonnulli etiam, cum faciunt caduceos, duos dracones inplicatos uirgula faciunt .." ed. A. Le Boeuffle, Paris,(CUF), 1983, 34-35.
12. We follow the argumentation in Brisson, op. cit.(supra note 6), 55 who seems to have only one hypothetical iconographical confirmation (expecting the complete analysis in the LIMC - forthcoming-) in an Etruscan bronze vase in the Museo Archeologico of Arezzo (Brisson, op. cit. -supra note 6- fig. 10) with the representation of Teiresias and a staff with entwined serpents at the top.
13. See infra. part 4.
14. 26 F 1(33) Jacoby (Phot. Bibl. 186,33)
15. See Eliade, M. M phistopheles et l'androgyne, Paris, 1962, chap. 1.
16. We follow particularly the general surveys in Padoux, A. "Tantrism" in Eliade, M. (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Religions (ER), New York, 1987, vol. 14, 272-280; Eliade, M. Le Yoga: immortalit et libert , Paris, 1964, chap. 6; Dasgupta, S. Obscure Religious Cults, Calcutta, 1963; Gupta, S. (et alii) Hindu Tantrism, Leiden, 1979 and Zimmermann, H. "Le Tantrisme. Origine et caract Lettres 3, 1982, 11-43 (especially for the origins of Tantrism) and the editions of texts in Woodroffe, J., Principles of Tantra, Madras, 1913; id., The Serpent Power, Madras, 1928 and id. Sakti and Sakta, Madras, 1927, 3rd ed.
17. See Padoux, A. "Hindu Tantric Literature" in ER 6, 365-367 (including the translations in the major European languages and the main bibliography), the information is much more thorough in Kaviraj, G. Tantrik Sahitya (in Hindi), Lucknow, 1972.
18. See for example Danielou, A. Mythes et dieux de l'Inde, Paris, 1992 (1975), 329ff. 387ff.; O'Flaherty, W.D. Shiva: the Erotic Ascetic, London, 1980 or Lorenzen, D. N. / Padoux, A. (et alii) "Shaivism" ER 13, 6-20.
19. Eliade, op. cit. (supra note 16), 199.
20. We follow particularly Woodroffe, The Serpent Power (supra note 16), passim; Padoux, A. "Cakra" in ER 3, 4-5; id. "Kundalini" in ER 8, 402-403 and Silburn, L. La kundalini: l'energie des profondeurs, Paris, 1983.
21. Gupta, S. "Jvanmukti" in ER 8, 92-94.
22. On androgyny see O'Flaherty, W.D./Eliade, M. "Androgynes" in ER 1, 276-281; O'Flaherty, W.D. Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts, Chicago, 1980 (sp. chap. V); Baumann, H. Das doppelte Geschlecht, Berlin, 1955; Eliade, M. op. cit. (supra note 15) chap. 2 or Delcourt, M. Hermaphrodite. Mythes et rites de la bisexualite dans l'antiquite classique, Paris, 1958 (chap. III on Teiresias).
23. The symbolism of the serpent is extremely complex and varied, see for example Lurker, M. "Snakes" ER 13, 370-374; id. Adler und Schlange, Tuebingen, 1983; Mundkur, B. The cult of the Serpent, Albany, 1983 (chap. 4 on sex and serpent) or Koester, E. Die Schlange in der griechischen Kunst und Religion, Giessen (RGVV 13,2), 1933.
24. Eliade, op. cit. (supra note 15), chap. "lumi maithuna" based on Guhyasamaja Tantra.
25. Sergent, B. L' homosexualite dans la mythologie grecque, Paris, 1984 especially chap. IV, and L'homosexualite initiatique dans l'Europe ancienne, Paris, 1986, define the role of homosexuality in the Greek class-age initiations, but do not go deeply into the meaning of the behaviour. Similarly, Bremmer, J. "An enigmatic Indo-European Rite: Paederasty" Arethusa 13, 1980, 279-298 or Cantarella, E. Secondo natural, Milan, 1988, chap. 1 (with a review of the different interpretations of the origin of Greek homosexuality from Bethe). See a previous attempt at explanation in Diez de Velasco, F. "Anotaciones a la iconografia y el simbolismo del laberinto en el mundo griego: el espacio de la iniciaci"n" in Olmos, R. (ed.) Teseo y la copa de Aison (Anejo de AEA XII), 1992, 195-197.
26. Initiation as "rite de passage" and initiation as an access to knowledge of superior or mystical nature. On initiation in Greece see especially Jeanmaire, H.Couroi et Couretes, Lille, 1939; Brelich, A. Paides e Parthenoi, Rome, 1969; Dowden, op. cit. (supra note 4); Sourvinou-Inwood, C. Studies in Girls' Transitions, Athens, 1988; Vernant, J.P./Vidal-Naquet, P. La GrLa Grece ancienne, 3, 1992 especially chap. 5 and chap. 8 or Dowden, K. The Uses of Greek Mythology, London/New York, 1992 chap. 7,2, 110-118. More general Bianchi U. (ed.) Transition Rites, Rome 1986 (1984); Ries, J. Les rites d'initiation, Louvain 1986 (1984); L'initiation 2 vols. Montpellier 1992 (1991); Leveque, P. Les rites de passage dans l'antiquite in MEFRA 102, 1990, 7-137. More bibliography on initiation over the world in Eliade, M. / Kaelber, W. O. / Lincoln, B. "Initiation", ER 7, 224-238.
27. See Siebert, op. cit. (supra note 10), ils. 185ff.
28. The major lines of these analysis were sketched in Diez de Velasco, F. "Un aspecto del simbolismo del kerykeion de Hermes" Gerion 6, 1988, 39ff.
29. See Brown, N. O. Hermes the Thief. The Evolution of a Myth, Madison, 1947.
30. See Eitrem, S. Hermes und die Toten, Christiania, 1909; Philippart, B. "Hermes, repartiteur des ames" RBPh 1930, 549ff.; Raingeart, P. Hermes psychagogue, Paris, 1935, Kerenyi, K. Hermes, der Seelenfuehrer, Zurich, 1944 or Karouzou, S. "Hermes Psychopompos" AM 76, 1961, 91-106.
31. See Delcourt, M. Hermaphrodite, Paris, 1958 (chap. IV); id., Hermaphroditea, Brussels, 1966 or Ajootian, A. "Hermaphroditos" in LIMC V, 1990, 268-285.
32. See Marcade, J. "Hermes doubles" BCH 76, 1952, 596ff
33. See the masterly analysis of Vernant, J.P. "Hestia-Hermes sur l'expression religieuse de l'espace et du mouvement chez les Grecs" in Mythe et penssee chez les Grecs, Paris, 1965, 124-170; enlarged in Kahn, L. Hermes passe ou les ambiguites de la communication, Paris, 1978; id. "Herm l'identite" Ktema 4, 1979, 201ff.
34. See Costa, G. "Hermes dio delle iniziazioni" CCC, 3, 1982, 277ff. Hermes is the god who naturally ought to preside over an initiation in the way expressed supra in note 26.
35. Inv. 19159, Beazley, J. Paralipomena, Oxford, 1971, 9,11; Siebert, op. cit. (supra note 10), num. 230 (with illustration); Petrakos, B. Mus e National, Athens, 1982, 167 il. 145.
36. Siebert, op. cit. (supra note 10), num. 230-240.
37. Muscarella, op. cit. (supra note 10), num. 15 (with illustration and bibliography). Burkert, W. Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, Berkeley-London, 1979, 32, in a different way of research, marks the parallels with Mesopotamian images (e.g. the seal of Gudea in the Louvre - il.1, p.31-, other Near-Eastern examples in Van Buren, E.D. "Entwined Serpents" Archive fur Orientforschung, 10, 1935-36, 53ff.).
38. The most comprehensive approaches are Vernant, J.P. La mort dans les yeux, Paris, 1985, sp. chap. 3,4 y 7; id. "La figure des dieux I: Gorg " in Figures, idoles, masques, Paris, 1990, 85ff. and Frontisi-Ducroux, F. Le dieu-masque, Paris, 1991. Also Krauskopf, I. "Gorgo, Gorgones" in LIMC IV, 1988, 287 for more bibliography (in spite of the omission of a number of the works of the "Paris school") and iconography. See also the use of comparative method to explain Gorgo (in a different way from ours) in Gershenson, D. E. "The Beautiful Gorgon and Indo-European Parallels" The Mankind Quarterly 29, 1989, 373- 390.
39. Krauskopf, op.cit. (supra note 38), num. 4ff. (with illustrations).
40. Examples in Krauskopf, op.cit. (supra note 38), num. 36, 45, 46, 67b, 156, 172, 234ff. (with illustrations).
41. Dated in 590 B.E. See Rodenwaldt, G. Die Bildwerke des Artemistempels von Korkyra, Berlin 1939; Krauskopf, op. cit. (supra note 37), num. 289.
42. Despite of using the comparative method the position followed in this paper differs completely from the diffusionist interpretations expressed for example in Frotingham, A. L. "Babylonian origin of Hermes the snakegod and the caduceus" AJA 20, 1916, 175ff. or in Krappe, op.cit. (supra note 1).

by Prof. Dr. Francisco Diez de Velasco

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Carl Gustav Jung on Wotan

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'What is curious is that an ancient god of storm and frenzy, the long quiescent Wotan, should awake, like an extinct volcano, to new activity, in a civilised country that had long outgrown the Middle Ages. We have seen him come to life in the German youth movement, and right at the beginning, the blood of several sheep was shed in honour of his resurrection.

'Armed with rucksack and lute, blond youths and girls were to be seen restlessly wandering on every road from the North Cape to Sicily, faithful votaries of the roving god. Later, towards the end of the Weimar Republic, the wandering role was taken over by thousands of unemployed. By 1933 they wandered no longer, but marched in their hundreds of thousands. The Hitler movement literally brought the whole of Germany to its feet, from five-year-olds to veterans, and produced the spectacle of a nation migrating from one place to another. Wotan the Wanderer was on the move.

'Wotan is a restless wanderer who creates unrest and stirs up strife and works magic. He was soon changed by Christianity into the devil, and only lived on in fading local traditions as a ghostly hunter who was seen with his retinue (the Wild Hunt) flickering like a will o'
the wisp through the stormy night.


'The German youths who celebrated the solstice with sheep sacrifices were not the first to hear a rustling in the primeval forest of the unconscious. They were anticipated by Nietzsche, Schuler, Stefan George, and Ludwig Klages. The literary tradition of Germany has a classical stamp that cannot easily be got rid of; every interpretation of intoxication and exuberance is apt to be taken back to classical models, to Dionysus.

'No doubt it sounds better to academic ears to interpret these things as Dionysus, but Wotan might be a more correct interpretation. He is the god of storm and frenzy, the unleasher of passions and the lust of battle; moreover he is a superlative magician and artist in illusion
who is versed in all secrets of the occult.
'We are convinced that the modern world is a reasonable place, basing our opinion on economic, political, and psychological factors. I venture the heretical suggestion that the unfathomable depths of Wotan's character explain more of National Socialism (Nazism) than all three reasonable factors put together. There is no doubt that each of these factors explains an important aspect of what is going on in Germany, but Wotan explains yet more.

'Perhaps we may sum up this general phenomenon as 'Ergriffenheit' - a state of being seized or possessed. The term postulates not only an 'Ergriffener' (one who is seized) but also an Ergreifer (one who seizes). Wotan is an 'Ergreifer' of men, and, unless one wishes to deify Hitler - which indeed has actually happened - Wotan is really the only explanation. It is true that Wotan shares this possession quality with his cousin Dionysus, but Dionysus seems to have exercised his influence mainly on women. The maenads were a species of female storm-trooper, and according to mythical reports were dangerous enough. Wotan confined himself to the Beserkers, who found their vocation as the blackshirts of mythical kings.

'It seems to me that Wotan hits the mark as an hypothesis. Apparently he really was only asleep in the Kyffhauser mountain until the ravens called him and announced the break of day. He is a fundamental attribute of the German psyche, an irrational psychic factor which acts on the high pressure of civilisation like a cyclone and blows it away. The Wotan-worshippers seem to have judged things more correctly than the worshippers of reason. Apparently everyone had forgotten that Wotan is a Germanic factor of first importance, the truest expression and unsurpassed personification of a fundamental quality that is particularly characteristic of the Germans.

'The emphasis on the Germanic race, the Germanic heritage, blood and soil, the ride of the Valkyries, Jesus as a blond and blue-eyed hero - all this is the indispensable scenery for the drama that is taking place and at bottom they all mean the same thing: a god has taken
possession of the Germans and their house is filled with a 'mighty rushing wind'.

'It was not in Wotan's nature to linger on and show signs of old age. He simply disappeared when the times turned against him, and remained invisible for more than a thousand years, working anonymously and indirectly. Archetypes are like river-beds which dry up when the water deserts them, but which it can find again at any time. An archetype is like an old watercourse along which the water of life has flowed for centuries, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it has flowed in this channel the more likely it is that sooner or later the water
will return to its old bed.

'We are driven to conclude that Wotan must, in time, reveal not only the restless, violent, stormy side of his character, but also his ecstatic and mantic qualities. National Socialism will not be the last word. Things must be concealed in the background which we cannot imagine at present, but we may expect them to appear in the course of the future.'


Jung had much more than just an academic interest in Wodhanaz, in fact he came to believe that this god is the true deity of the Germanic peoples of Europe. Of particular interest in this regard was a dream Jung had the night his mother died. In his autobiography, 'Memories, dreams, reflections', Jung writes:

'The night before her death I had a frightening dream. I was in a dense, gloomy forest; fantastic, gigantic boulders lay about among huge jungle-like trees. It was a heroic, primeval landscape. Suddenly I heard a piercing whistle that seemed to resound through the whole universe. My knees shook. Then there were crashings in the undergrowth, and a gigantic wolfhound with a fearful, gaping maw burst forth. At the sight of it, the blood froze in my veins. It tore past me, and I suddenly knew: the Wild Huntsman had commanded it to carry away a human soul. I awoke in deadly terror, and the next morning I received the news of my mother's passing.


'Seldom has a dream so shaken me, for upon superficial consideration it seemed to say that the devil had fetched her. But to be accurate the dream said that it was the Wild Huntsman, the 'Grunhutl', or Wearer of the Green Hat, who hunted with his wolves that night. It was Wotan, the god of my Alemannic forefathers, who had gathered my mother to her ancestors.
'It was the Christian missionaries who made Wotan into a devil. In himself he is an important god - a Mercury or Hermes, as the Romans correctly realised, a nature spirit who returned to life again in the Grail legend. Thus the dream says that the soul of my mother was taken into that greater territory of the self which lies beyond the segment of Christian morality, taken into that wholeness of nature and spirit in which conflicts and contradictions are resolved.

'I went home immediately, and while I rode in the night train I had a feeling of great grief, but in my heart of hearts I could not be mournful, and this for a strange reason: during the entire journey I continually heard dance music, laughter, and jollity, as though a wedding were being celebrated.


'This paradox can be explained if we suppose that at one moment death was being represented from the point of view of the ego, and at the next from that of the psyche (soul). In the first case it appeared as a catastrophe; that is how it so often strikes us, as if wicked and pitiless powers had put an end to a human life....from another point of view, however, death appears as a joyful event. In the light of eternity, it is a wedding, a 'mysterium coniunctionis'. The soul attains, as it were, its missing half, it achieves wholeness.'

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"The Religion of the Ancient Greeks", by Mary Lefkowitz

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Prominent secular and atheist commentators have argued lately that religion "poisons" human life and causes endless violence and suffering. But the poison isn't religion; it's monotheism. The polytheistic Greeks didn't advocate killing those who worshiped different gods, and they did not pretend that their religion provided the right answers. Their religion made the ancient Greeks aware of their ignorance and weakness, letting them recognize multiple points of view.

There is much we still can learn from these ancient notions of divinity, even if we can agree that the practices of animal sacrifice, deification of leaders and divining the future through animal entrails and bird flights are well lost.

My Hindu students could always see something many scholars miss: The Greek gods weren't mere representations of forces in nature but independent beings with transcendent powers who controlled the world and everything in it. Some of the gods were strictly local, such as the deities of rivers and forests. Others were universal, such as Zeus, his siblings and his children.

Zeus did not communicate directly with humankind. But his children -- Athena, Apollo and Dionysus -- played active roles in human life. Athena was the closest to Zeus of all the gods; without her aid, none of the great heroes could accomplish anything extraordinary. Apollo could tell mortals what the future had in store for them. Dionysus could alter human perception to make people see what's not really there. He was worshiped in antiquity as the god of the theater and of wine. Today, he would be the god of psychology.

Zeus, the ruler of the gods, retained his power by using his intelligence along with superior force. Unlike his father (whom he deposed), he did not keep all the power for himself but granted rights and privileges to other gods. He was not an autocratic ruler but listened to, and was often persuaded by, the other gods.

Openness to discussion and inquiry is a distinguishing feature of Greek theology. It suggests that collective decisions often lead to a better outcome. Respect for a diversity of viewpoints informs the cooperative system of government the Athenians called democracy.

Unlike the monotheistic traditions, Greco-Roman polytheism was multicultural. The Greeks and Romans did not share the narrow view of the ancient Hebrews that a divinity could only be masculine. Like many other ancient peoples in the eastern Mediterranean, the Greeks recognized female divinities, and they attributed to goddesses almost all of the powers held by the male gods.

The world, as the Greek philosopher Thales wrote, is full of gods, and all deserve respect and honor. Such a generous understanding of the nature of divinity allowed the ancient Greeks and Romans to accept and respect other people's gods and to admire (rather than despise) other nations for their own notions of piety. If the Greeks were in close contact with a particular nation, they gave the foreign gods names of their own gods: the Egyptian goddess Isis was Demeter, Horus was Apollo, and so on. Thus they incorporated other people's gods into their pantheon.

What they did not approve of was atheism, by which they meant refusal to believe in the existence of any gods at all. One reason many Athenians resented Socrates was that he claimed a divinity spoke with him privately, but he could not name it. Similarly, when Christians denied the existence of any gods other than their own, the Romans suspected political or seditious motives and persecuted them as enemies of the state.

The existence of many different gods also offers a more plausible account than monotheism of the presence of evil and confusion in the world. A mortal may have had the support of one god but incur the enmity of another, who could attack when the patron god was away. The goddess Hera hated the hero Heracles and sent the goddess Madness to make him kill his wife and children. Heracles' father, Zeus, did nothing to stop her, although he did in the end make Heracles immortal.

But in the monotheistic traditions, in which God is omnipresent and always good, mortals must take the blame for whatever goes wrong, even though God permits evil to exist in the world he created. In the Old Testament, God takes away Job's family and his wealth but restores him to prosperity after Job acknowledges God's power.

The god of the Hebrews created the Earth for the benefit of humankind. But as the Greeks saw it, the gods made life hard for humans, didn't seek to improve the human condition and allowed people to suffer and die. As a palliative, the gods could offer only to see that great achievement was memorialized. There was no hope of redemption, no promise of a happy life or rewards after death. If things did go wrong, as they inevitably did, humans had to seek comfort not from the gods but from other humans.

The separation between humankind and the gods made it possible for humans to complain to the gods without the guilt or fear of reprisal the deity of the Old Testament inspired. Mortals were free to speculate about the character and intentions of the gods. By allowing mortals to ask hard questions, Greek theology encouraged them to learn, to seek all the possible causes of events. Philosophy -- that characteristically Greek invention -- had its roots in such theological inquiry. As did science.

Paradoxically, the main advantage of ancient Greek religion lies in this ability to recognize and accept human fallibility. Mortals cannot suppose that they have all the answers. The people most likely to know what to do are prophets directly inspired by a god. Yet prophets inevitably meet resistance, because people hear only what they wish to hear, whether or not it is true. Mortals are particularly prone to error at the moments when they think they know what they are doing. The gods are fully aware of this human weakness. If they choose to communicate with mortals, they tend to do so only indirectly, by signs and portents, which mortals often misinterpret.

Ancient Greek religion gives an account of the world that in many respects is more plausible than that offered by the monotheistic traditions. Greek theology openly discourages blind confidence based on unrealistic hopes that everything will work out in the end. Such healthy skepticism about human intelligence and achievements has never been needed more than it is today.


Mary Lefkowitz, in the L.A. Times

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