April 22, 2001

There are few things that will raise eyebrows in the allegedly open-minded "Pagan" community more quickly, than the report that Jesus is a member of one's pantheon. This has lead to a few questions, and, as is often the case in the Neo-Pagan community, more than a little deliberate disinformation, some of which we will seek to clear up, here.

Question: "I hear that you teach that Jesus is the Priest of the gods. What basis for this teaching could there possibly be, in the original Paleo-Pagan source material?"

Answer: Your question begins with a fundamental error. It assumes that we "teach" anything, here. We don't. We hold discussions, and offer speculations, nothing more. One of the many reasons we came to reject the label of "Pagan" was the seeming inability, or unwillingness, of so many of those from that subculture, to understand this distinction.

It follows with a second - that the Pagan source material, is the only material available to us. Not so. There is also the Bible. While we do not accept it in the fundamentalist sense, as being the infallible, directly revealed word of an infallible Supreme being (there are too many contradictions present within for that to make sense), we do accept it as the product of human beings who are responding to a legitimate encounter with the Supreme Being, with all of their imperfections present, and occasionally getting in the way. It is accepted in the sense of myth, albeit highly sophisticated myth.

We have had the experience of praying to both the Christian and Olympian divinities, and seeing those prayers answered. Having had that experience, we now seek to make sense of it. In order to do so, we examine the body of myth surrounding each pantheon, and ask, under what model of reality, would one expect to see both of these bodies of myth arising, under the assumption that both of these sets of divinities exist, and act in the world. How does one reconcile the two bodies of myth ?

If you look in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, you can find Jesus, the Christ, saying that none come to the Father (his name for the Supreme Being), except through him. This point is expanded upon so extensively, as to be impossible to dismiss as a mere translation error or misunderstanding. This, to us, seems to be as clear a statement of a claim to a priestly role, as could be asked for.

The gods/angels, in such a scheme, however greater their dignity than our own, remain creatures as are we, and thus Christ's ministry would extend to them, who would be members of his congregation. Where we take issue with Pauline Christianity, is with the assertion that this implies unquestioning servitude on the part of the lesser divinities. Slavery seems to us to be a strange reward to offer in exchange for such distinguished service.

At this point, we would invite the reader to note that both the Greeks and Romans made reference to Supreme Beings of their own (Moros, or "Doom", in the case of the Greeks, Janus in the case of the Romans). The question we would pose to the reader, is whether or not it is possible that the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans had an experience of the same Supreme Being, and that the differences between these 'different' deities may be nothing more than a reflection of the differences between the cultures of those having the experiences, that gave rise to the myths.

Question: "We hear that you teach that Jesus and Jehovah are Olympian gods. Is that true?"

Answer: Again, with the 'teaching' business? Listen up. "Teaching" implies the presence of a teacher. It speaks of Wiccan-style authoritarianism, because a teacher can not teach in a classroom he has no control over. Our culture is that of the discussion circle, which, to function as it should, must be a circle of equals, presided over by a moderator, who keeps order, not a teacher, who imparts knowledge. Think of it as being akin to a faculty tea, with the dean stepping in, should one of the professors behave inappropriately, during a discussion of somebody's research. Teachers impart knowledge that already exists. Discussion circles are in the business of working to find new knowledge, the limits of the certitude with which its findings may be held, being set by the available evidence and methodology. For somebody to assert the "teacher" role at such a gathering, would be to forget that the truths that teachers impart, had to come from somewhere, and it would be to overstep one's bounds.

Speaking of "teaching", though: we find it amusing that the "scholarly" criticism of our alleged doctrine comes from somebody who thinks that the transliteration of the Hebrew name for God, the Almighty, is "Jehovah", when any Jewish day schooler (or Catholic CCD student) knows that it's "Yahweh". Hebrew lacks the English "J" sound.

Question: "OK, fine, smart aleck. Yes, or No. Do you say that Jesus and Jehovah are Olympian gods, or don't you?"

Answer: That's not a "yes or no" question, because it glosses over some very important distinctions.

When we speak of Aphrodite, for example, there are really at least three goddesses that we speak of. There is the image of divinity that exists in one's mind. Call her "one's personal, phenomenal Aphrodite". There is the character one encounters in the myths. Call her, "the literary Aphrodite". Then, perhaps there is the real being, external to ourselves, our writings and our thoughts, who we and others have an experience of, which inspires our subsconscious minds to create the personal, phenomenal Aphrodites, and our conscious minds to create the literary Aphrodite (or, perhaps, Aphrodites, given the tendency of people to differ on what is or is not a myth to accept). Call her, the "noumenal Aphrodite". (Yes, I do maintain that she exists). Like all other realities that exist outside of ourselves (ie. noumena), she is knowable to us only indirectly, through our perceptions of her (the phenomenal Aphrodites) and the thoughts that those perceptions give rise to (ie. a sort of literary Aphrodite).

The error in thinking that lies behind the assertion that the above should be thought of as a "yes or no" question, lies in a failure to distinguish between these three concepts, and maybe a few others. The differences are not small ones. The phenomenal deity is a creation of our own psyches, under the slow, gentle coaxing of the Divine influence, if there is one to be found. To confuse this with the noumenal deity is to flirt with schizophrenia. The literary deity is a creation of its culture, under that same, slow coaxing. To confuse it with the noumenal deity is the error of fundamentalism, and is a short road to fanaticism and hysteria.

Do we maintain that the literary Jesus, or the literary Yahweh, show up in Classical literature as members of the Classical pantheon? No, and that would be absurd. But, is it possible that the noumenal deity who inspires the creation of one character (one literary deity) in one mythos will be the inspiration for another literary deity in another mythos? The Ancients certainly thought so, judging from how often they would equate deities in one religion with deities to be found in their own.

Are we inclined to think that the noumenal Yahweh, the noumenal Moros, and the noumenal Janus, are one and the same? Tentatively speaking, yes. How about the noumenal Christ? Well, some have identified him with the noumenal Prometheus, others with the noumenal Saturnus. Still others have argued that he is an altogether novel deity. Our position? We don't take one, because we do not, at this point, feel that we have the information needed to justify a choice. As Metaphysical Quasi-Empiricists, we must refrain from making a choice, given this. However, given our basic operating philosophy, we are untroubled by this, as we feel that we will not need to take a position, until we can take a position. Until then, our state of mind on this, in worship, is a tentative acceptance of all positions the facts seem to leave open to us, as possibilities. The logic of induction is not a two-valued one.

Question: "But, how do you justify this? Such a combination of creeds was never seen in antiquity."

Answer: Oh, quit whining! History did not end in the third century AD. The Greeks and Romans alike added, and occasionally even replaced deities down through the centuries to such a point that the very concept of the "original" Hellenic or Roman pantheon, is a meaningless one. Aphrodite, herself, was imported from Asia, Ares and Dionysus from Thrace, some will argue. Even Zeus was brought in, by Indo-European invaders. We do nothing here, that the Ancients didn't do, themselves.

As for Christo-Pagan Syncretism being a modern innovation, the Gnostic Christians might have disagreed with you on that one. (Note that they are pre-Constantine, putting them well within the bounds of Antiquity). I understand, from a reputable source, that there was even an early Christian heresy that made Christ the son of Zeus! If so, then even Christo-Hellenic synchretism has an ancient predecessor, leaving the above argument twice removed from reality.

But, once removed is plenty. We've said it before, we'll say it again. This is the 21st century, not the first. 40 percent of recorded history has elapsed, since that time. This raises the awkward question, for the Pagan purists, of how it is, if the Judeo-Christian divinities are merely fables, while those accepted as 'Pagan' are real, that the real deities have not objected to their supplanting by these supposed imposters, forcibly enough to make a difference, for so very long. It also raises what, for some, will be the uncomfortable reality that our mindset, while perhaps having some real, firm roots in that of antiquity in many cases, is not the same, and can never become the same.

Question: "But, isn't this incompatible with your objection to Eclecticism?

Answer: Not at all. Remember, 40 percent of recorded history has passed, since the time of Christ. The assimilation of Christianity by the West is complete. While I would maintain that, in its pure, Pauline form, it and Western values form a dysfunctional mix, in practice, the form followed in the West has seldom been pure, anyway. One might refer to "the common faith", that which people actually believe in, as opposed the formal doctrine of the churches that claim their nominal support.

For example, Pauline Christianity teaches a doctrine of non-resistance to aggression. Historically, prior to the last few decades, has that value really seemed to be one that the West has embraced, outside of a few pockets of Shakerdom, and the like? In determining what the position of the common faith (as opposed to the official faith) is on that issue, we should look to see how people actually have responded, as opposed to how it is said that they should have. On inspection, while it seems that the influx of Christian ideas has had an impact, they have not rewritten the cultures and associated mores in the West.

The cultural syntheses that we are opposed to, are ones that history has not yet produced. If I was sitting in late, pre-Roman Gaul, would I be opposed to the notion of the Romans coming in, and replacing the existing culture with a hybrid one, instead of letting it evolve in its own way? Yes, any thinking person would have to be, at that point. But, we're not at that point, we're here, 2000 years later. Regardless of whether or not history could have followed a better path, it didn't, here we are, and it's a little late, now, to do anything about it, so we might as well just deal with it as best we can. "As best we can", has included the growth of a new culture out of the hodgepodge made of the old, resulting in the birth of France.

"And you like France, so you approve of the process, right?" Wrong. Do you love your relatives? I assume the answer is "yes". But, if you trace anybody's family tree back far enough, presumably one will come to a child who was a product of rape. Had that rape never occurred, your relative would never have been born, so it did lead to something you like - the existence of that relative. Nevertheless, we do not, on that basis, decide that we approve of rape. In much the same way, while we may be fond of some of the cultures that earlier imperialism, or assimilationism helped begin, we do not approve of assimilationism or imperialism. Like rape, we see them as things that posterity can manage to overcome, not as something that it has benefitted from.

Present day, historically unrooted Eclecticism is, as we have argued, a form of Assimilationism. However, much as the Gaulish, Greek and Roman strains of modern French culture are now inextricably meshed together, so to are the Christian and Paleo-Pagan strains of religious thought and practice. The novelty would lie in attempting to separate these streams of thought, not in accepting that history has already joined them.

Question: "Now, wait a second. Aren't you glossing over something, here? Fine, some Pagan rituals and philosophy have carried over into modern Roman Catholicism, in some countries, or visibly influenced some of what we see in the latter day faith. But, how do you justify this melding of pantheons?"

Answer: The cult of the saints? Just as Classical Traditionalism, with its temples to "the Unknown god", left open the possibility of introducing outside deities, Catholicism, with its unspecified multitudes of angels and saints to whom one prays for intercession, leaves open a door for us to step through. In its folk tradition aspects, it is hardly unknown for the angels and saints to be thought of as having power of their own (with God's blessing, of course). Given this, if one of those angels should happen to be named "Aphrodite", where is the crisis?

What is absent, here, is the clash of discordant elements waiting to be slowly, and laboriously reconciled, as we would see were we to attempt the uniting of Classical and Norse Traditionalism, for example.

Question: "If it is all so easy as that, then why has there been such annoyance among some Hellenic Reconstructionists over this practice?

Answer: Are you sure you want us to answer this? It's mostly about politics, and people being unpleasantly silly. Your call. Would you like to return to the main page, or would you like us to bring on the sludge?