The Logos According to the Gospels

A page from a medieval Bible: Johnbod

Until not long ago I thought I knew Christianity and had thoughtfully rejected it, then my podcast addiction led me to bump into information that suggested I knew nothing but shadows on a wall when it came to this important and complex religion. Because I regard myself as a truth seeker, and truly open-minded, for some months now I have been trying to unlearn my prior suppositions and learn what this religion actually is. An obvious starting point is the Gospels. I have relied on two translations, one is the New King James Version (NKJV) and the other is the Eastern Orthodox Bible (EOB). They are each translated from slightly different original manuscripts – the NKJV mostly derives from Greek manuscripts that were available in north-western Europe in the early 16th century, whereas the EOB is translated from different Greek manuscripts held in libraries in south-eastern Europe. In this post all of the quotes are from the text of the EOB.

The transitory world of men versus eternal life

A prominent theme in the Gospels is the juxtaposition between the everchanging worldly realm of men, of which death is an aspect, and that of God’s (Matt 16:23), which is associated with eternal life. The earthly realm is transitory (Luke 21:33), full of many distractions that are both pleasurable and unpleasurable (Luke 21:34), and it contains much evil (John 7:7). Whereas the realm of God has “many mansions” (John 14:2) but it “is not of this world” (John 18:36), even though it “is within you”, but it cannot be seen (Luke 17:21). Jesus explains (after exorcising a man) that it “is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12:28), which suggests the kingdom is a state of being that can be experienced in this life. This experience starts as something small (like a mustard seed) but if the seed grows within the fertile soil of a human heart it (allegorically) “becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and find shelter in its branches” (Matt 13:32).

Note that “kingdom of God” is not a literal translation from the original Greek. According to the EOB a more literal translation is “rule of God”, “ruling power of God” or “reign of God” (at xvi). This connotes an experience of God’s power, whereas “kingdom” is more suggestive of a physical place that is elsewhere.

Valkyries

"Dream Idyll (A Valkyrie)" by Hughes c. 1902

In the Prose Edda Snorri Sturluson describes Valkyries as women who “serve in Valhalla. They bring drink and see to the table and the ale cups … They are sent by Odin to every battle, where they choose which men are to die and they determine who has the victory” (at 44-45). In the Völuspá Valkyries are described as coming “from widely beyond, ready to ride to the people of the Gods. Shall-be wore one shield, Brandisher another, Battle, War, Wand-maid and Spear-brandisher: now are the War-lord’s ladies, ready to ride over earth, Valkyries” (Elder Edda at 9). In the Grímnismál Odin is said to speak of the Valkyries thus:

“I want Wielder and Mist to bring me a horn; Axe-age and Brandisher, War and Strength, Clash and War-bonds, Smash and Spear-waver, Shield-truce and Counsel-truce and Power-trace: they bring the Einherjar ale [Elder Edda at 56]”.

Renowned Old Norse scholar H R Ellis Davidson describes Valkyries as:

“… fierce female spirits attendant on the war-God … Valkyries play a great part in the stories and poems about the exploits of the legendary heroes … They are said by Saxo to vary their appearance, and to be seen sometimes as fearsome beings and sometimes as beautiful maidens, who offer love to the warrior. Protective spirits of this kind were said to attach themselves to the kings and princes who worshipped Odin, giving them help and counsel and bringing them luck in battle, while at death they received them as their ‘husbands’ [Scandinavian Mythology at 41]”.

Fate in the Germanic Tradition

Brynhild and Gudrun are bound by fate; by Rackham (1911) 

In the Hamdismál (a poem within the Codex Regius) a man who is about to die says to his brother: 

“30. ‘Great glory we have gained though we die now or tomorrow; no man survives a single dusk beyond the Norns’ decree’.”

The brothers have won “great glory” because they have, at the urging of their mother Gudrun, avenged the death of their sister by slaughtering her murderer and in the doing of it showing themselves to be fearless warriors. They do not lament their imminent death; to do so would be futile, for the date is preordained. They cannot choose the hour of their death, but they can choose the manner in which they meet it, either boldly or otherwise. It is as if they fearlessly look into the eyes of death even as they succumb to his grip. Equally pointless as resisting the hour of one’s death is attempting to embrace death before the hour decreed by fate – just as Gudrun failed in her attempt at suicide by wading into a rough sea:

“13. [Gudrun laments:] ‘I went to the sea-shore, I was angry with the Norns, I wanted to rid myself of their painful plans: high waves lifted me, didn’t drown me; I climbed up on to the land, since I had to live [Gudrúnarhvöt, Codex Regius].”

These lines suggest that in traditional Germanic polytheism fate is immutable, and we only have so much control over the things that happen to us. The disparity in the fortunes of men is explained through the workings of the Norns, who dwell by the Spring of Fate:

“20. From there come maidens, knowing much, three from the lake that stands under the tree [Yggdrasil]: Destiny they called one [Urdr], Becoming the second [Verdrandi] – they carved on wood-tablets – Shall-be the third [Skuld]; laws they laid down, lives they chose for the children of mankind, the fates of men [Völuspá, Codex Regius].”

Hecate in the Roman Tradition – Trivia of the Crossroads

"Hekate" by Blake (1795)

Hecate (or Trivia, to use her Latin name – as this is now also an English word with a very different association I will retain her Hellenic title) is an enigmatic Goddess of the triple crossroads, the stygian night and magic; though she walks through the dark she is not a Goddess of darkness itself, for it is her torches which lit up the way for Ceres when she searched for her abducted daughter. Hecate is associated with both Diana,* who lights up the night, and Proserpina, who gives us hope that life can emerge from death. Hecate's rites were not recorded on the official Roman calendar (Beard at 384), but her veneration was well known in Rome. Cicero tells us that altars and shrines to her were commonplace in Greece, though not apparently in Rome at this time, however, she is referred to by a number of contemporaneous Roman poets, such as Horace and Catullus, which suggests that Hecate had already been successfully synchronised into Roman polytheism by the 1st century BCE. By the 4th century CE her worship was apparently prominent enough for Roman senators to be counted among her priests. This was during the last gasp of overt Paganism in Italy, when Christianity had become the religion of emperors; Paganism was increasingly mocked as a set of superstitions befitting peasants and barbarian Germans. Perhaps in an effort to assert greater spiritual legitimacy, some affluent and well educated Pagans were embracing an increasingly more sophisticated species of polytheism, by fusing it with mystery religions and philosophies from the east (a process which had been ongoing for centuries in any case). Roman veneration of Hecate appears to have gone hand-in-hand with this, for she almost certainly featured prominently within the well known Eleusinian Mysteries – a Pagan sect that was apparently so spiritually fulfilling that initiation into its secret rites brought about the apostasy of Constantine I’s nephew Julian, who would later be known as the last Pagan emperor of Rome.

Dis Pater and Proserpina

"The Rape of Proserpina" by Ulpiano Checa (1888)

In Roman polytheism Dis Pater, Pluto and Orcus are all names for the same God of the underworld and of death. His consort Proserpina is equally a Goddess of death, but also of spring, and thus the possibility of renewed life. Any discussion of one of these deities is incomplete without the other. Both deities should be understood as being essentially the same as the Hellenic Hades and Persephone. Although they are infernal Gods they are in no way like their Christian usurper, Satan. They are not inherently evil and their raison d'etre is not to torture the damned or tempt the weak. Nor is their domain a burning hell, but rather a “gloomy palace” (Ovid) surrounded by water. Dis Pater is euphemistically called the rich one – this title meaning, literally, rich father. As the foremost God of the underworld Dis Pater is naturally associated with all the wealth that comes from it, including gold, precious gems and, most importantly, the latent fertility of the earth. This latter aspect of the God links him with the Goddess of the harvest (Ceres), and of course her daughter who emerges from beneath the earth every spring, Proserpina. 

Buddhist Beliefs Regarding the Afterlife

"Courtesan looking into the mirror" by Yoshitoshi (19th century)

It is axiomatic that nirvana (ie, the extinguishment of suffering) is the ultimate end goal in Buddhism, however it is equally axiomatic that most people dwell in an ocean of suffering, hence most people do not achieve nirvana, but they do die. What happens after death is something that not all Buddhists agree on. Many Western Buddhists hold afterlife views that differ little from atheism, which is to say that essentially they do not believe in an afterlife except in some very abstract way (such as that what we do in our life echoes on through the ages, or that our material remains will eventually become the basis of some new form of life). However, the orthodox teachings make it clear that traditional Buddhism embraces the concept of repeated rebirths into multiple realms of being. Thus when most of us die we do not die with finality, rather death is part of the ongoing life-death-rebirth cycle that characterises ordinary existence.

The Theravada afterlife

The orthodox position of Theravada Buddhism on rebirth is laid out in The Debate of King Milinda, as written down in the 1st century BCE – it records a dialogue between the Greek king of Bactria and the sage Nagasena. Nagasena says that ordinary people are reborn but that from existence to existence these people are:

“Neither the same nor another … [just as] a pot of milk that turns first to curds, then to butter, then to ghee; it would not be right to say that the ghee, butter and curds were the same as the milk but they have come from that so neither would it be right to say that they are something else [Pesala at 11].”

Western Mourning Traditions – After the Funeral

"Love's Melancholy" by Meyer (1866)

In secular times such as ours the rites of mourning have become somewhat vague. Generally speaking, there is a notion that one wears black for a period of time – though no one really expects black to be worn at any time other than at the funeral – and sometimes a group of people may wear black armbands for a certain period, such as a football team at a sports event. There is also a half-remembered tradition that widows should wait for a year before becoming romantically involved with someone new. In the last few decades a new quasi-tradition has arisen whereby the bereaved are encouraged to book some sessions with a grief counsellor or psychologist. Beyond these things it is hard to pin down Western mourning traditions, even Debrett’s fails to say much on the matter, advising of little more than the intricacies of funeral arrangements while acknowledging:

“It is only in our increasingly secular times, when death has become something to be ignored, avoided and indeed feared, that these most final and utterly inevitable rites of passage are often, quite wrongly, skimped on [Morgan, Debrett’s New Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners at 96].”

The truth of the matter is that we are mostly left to invent our own way of mourning. Society at large, as fragmented as it is, will expect little from us once the funeral is over. The insensitive will hope that we will simply move on and adapt to the new normal as quickly as possible – the grief of others and the reality of death is simply too awkward to deal with. Those who care will probably encourage us to do “whatever feels right” and treat us gently (unless they are overwhelmed by their own grief). Those who mourn are often left grasping onto thin air, with few known traditions to fall back on – at such times looking at historic traditions may give the bereaved something to work with.

Germanic Beliefs Regarding the Afterlife

"Ingeborg" by Zorn (1907)

One thing of which we can be certain is that the pre-Christian Germanic peoples generally believed that the spirit continued on in some way after death. The popular presentation of the afterlife presented by Snorri Sturluson invites us to think of a sort of Viking heaven, called Valhalla, where slain warriors battle perennially by day, followed by lavish feasting and drinking in Odin’s hall. Alternately, some warriors go to a seemingly similar place overseen by Freyja, the Folkvangar – “wherever she rides in battle, half of the slain belong to her. Odin takes the other half” (Prose Edda at 35). For those who do not die violently Helheim is at least one of the major destinations of the dead. This apparent underworld is perhaps a place of latent dormancy, for from here Baldr (the slain son of Odin) and Hod (another slain God) will emerge when the next cycle of life begins after the world destroying events of Ragnarök. Aside from Sturluson, other sources on Germanic religion indicate a profound and beautiful approach to understanding the afterlife – a topic which we can be sure our Germanic ancestors would have considered deeply, given how comparatively frequent their confrontations with death were.

Pagan Funeral Rites

Source: www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones

I’ve heard it said that there is a spiritual lesson to be learnt in contemplating death, thus I attempt to summarise traditional Germanic, Celtic and Roman funerary practices below. 

Germanic funerary customs

The numerous Germanic burial mounds scattered across Europe appear to be connected to the worship of Vanir Deities (associated with fertility); they are the kinds of Gods that farmers and fishermen would have particularly revered, or indeed anyone to whom fertility was important. It seems that those inhumed in burial mounds were thought to live after death as spirits connected with the land. Davidson notes that there “seems to be some link between elves and the dead within the earth” (Scandinavian Mythology at 117). 

Another reasonably common feature of pre-Christian Germanic funeral practices involved the use of a wagon or a ship as a sort of coffin. This was the case for both men and women – it could be buried in the earth or burnt, and might, in the case of ship burials, be first pushed out into water. Both the wagon and the ship are Vanir symbols, and hence may represent life after death.

As with Celtic and Roman funeral rites, it seems to have been normal practice to burn or bury the dead with personal items, food and a fermented drink (presumably mead or ale), and animal sacrifice accompanied many funerals. 

Roman Beliefs Regarding the Afterlife

"Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus"
by Waterhouse (1900)

February is the month when ancient Romans traditionally honoured their dead, during the festival of the Parentalia, and this got me thinking about Roman attitudes to the afterlife. Roman polytheism does not provide clear-cut answers about the much pondered question of whether or not there is life after death:

“Traditional Pagan culture offered all kinds of views of death and the after-life: ranging from a terrifying series of punishment for those who had sinned in this life, through a more or less pleasant state of being that followed but was secondary to this life, to uncertainty or denial that that any form of after-life was possible (or knowable) … the official state cult did not particularly emphasise the fate of the individual after death, or urge a particular view of the after-life [Beard et al, Religions of Rome 1 at 289-290].”

Traditional views – realms of the dead

The conventional view of life after death in ancient Rome conceived of an afterlife wherein the soul separated from the body and then typically lived on in the underworld kingdom of Orcus (Dis Pater/Pluto). Sometimes the spirits of the dead might return to the world of the living, as either Manes (protecting spirits of the dead) or Lemures (malevolent spirits of the dead). Over time, Roman ideas about the afterlife came to be strongly influenced by Hellenic visions, which were themselves not always uniform. The features most commonly ascribed to the afterlife included descriptions of Hades being surrounded by various rivers, including the rivers Styx, Acheron and Lethe. From this latter river the dead drank the waters so to forget their former lives. Meanwhile they crossed the river Styx by paying Charon the ferryman – thus the dead customarily had a coin placed in their mouths or their hands lest their souls be stranded in limbo. Upon crossing to the other side of the river they were confronted by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, who prevented unauthorised souls from entering or leaving Hades. Once within Hades, the earthly behaviour of the dead was judged by Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aecus, to determine their fate in the next life. War heroes went to the paradisiacal Elysium, as did, by some accounts, the virtuous. Those guilty of hubris or other behaviour deemed particularly offensive to the Gods might find themselves in Tartarus: a place of divine punishment apparently inhabited by only the most unfortunate of criminals. Meanwhile most of the dead were thought to dwell on in the Asphodel fields, which was neither particularly pleasant nor unpleasant.