Parallel Myths (4 page)

The sacred time of the Sabbath must be carefully separated for its duration from profane time through scrupulous ritual. The profane world of anxiety, work, and care must be left behind. Traditionally, Jews prepared special meals in advance of the Sabbath, as work would “profane” it. People wore special clothes for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was personified as “Queen Sabbath” and greeted as a beautiful bride in the hymn “Lekhah Dodi.”

Like a bride, the Sabbath is something that is yearned for and met with joy. The day itself is an important part of Jewish identity; celebration of the Sabbath separates the Jew from his non-Jewish neighbors. The sacred time of the Sabbath is so clearly delineated that
precise hours are given for the lighting of the traditional candles at its beginning. At its end, there is the ceremony of
Habdalah
, literally “separation.” The
Habdalah
includes opening a box of aromatic spices as prayers are recited, allowing one to savor the last sweet moments of the Sabbath. With the closing of the
Habdalah
box, profane time returns.

History is not an objective empirical datum; it is a myth. Myth is no fiction, but a reality; it is, however, one of a different order from that of so-called empirical fact. Myth is the story preserved in the popular memory of a past event and transcends the limits of the external objective world, revealing an ideal world, a subject-object world of facts.

Historical myths have a profound significance for the act of remembrance. A myth contains the story that is preserved in popular memory and that helps to bring to life some deep stratum buried in the depths of the human spirit. The divorce of the subject from the object as the result of enlightened criticism may provide material for historical knowledge; but insofar as it destroys the myth and dissociates the depths of time from those of man, it only serves to divorce man from history. For the historical tradition which criticism had thought to discredit makes possible a great and occult act of remembrance. It represents, indeed, no external or externally imposed fact alien to man, but one that is a manifestation of the inner mysterious life, in which he can attain to the knowledge of himself and feel himself to be an inalienable participant.

—Nikolai Berdyayev, Russian Christian Existentialist
philosopher,
The Meaning of History

I am not far from believing that, in our own societies, history has replaced mythology and fulfils the same function, that for societies without writing and without archives the aim of mythology is to ensure that as closely as possible the future will remain faithful to the past. For us, however, the future should always be different, and ever more different, from the present…. But nevertheless
the gap which exists in our mind … between mythology and history can probably be breached by studying histories which are conceived as not at all separated from [,] but a continuation of mythology.

—Claude Lévi-Strauss, French anthropologist,
Myth and Meaning

In short, it would be necessary to confront “historical” man (modern man), who consciously and voluntarily creates history, with that of the man of the traditional civilizations … who has a negative attitude toward history. Whether he abolishes it periodically, whether he devaluates it by perpetually finding transhistorical models and archetypes for it … the man of the traditional civilizations accorded the historical event no value in itself; in other words, he did not regard it as a specific category of his own mode of existence.

—Mircea Eliade

To so-called primitive man, myth is history. To modern people, myth and history are considered two distinct and very different things. Despite the fact that our own secular history is reckoned in terms that come directly from myth and religion, we do not, as a rule, see history as integral with our religious life in the same sense that earlier peoples did. One reason the mythic bases of dates and years exist is that it is only relatively recently that Western culture separated history and myth.

To a person living in a traditional culture, there is no such distinction, and myth is the only history that really matters. For the traditional culture, all that we do in our lifetimes is merely a replay of events that took place in the myths. History in our sense of the word, as specific and unique actions of persons living and dead, can be abolished and the time of beginning can be reestablished (this is the origin of our modern New Year’s Eve revelry). All human experience in the past derived its value from myth, which was perceived as infinitely more significant than the life of an individual. Even today it is not uncommon for a person living in a traditional culture to not know his or her chronological age; it simply doesn’t matter.

The rituals required by traditional cultures are a return to
in illo
tempore
(Latin for “in that time”), the undated “once upon a time” period of myths providing the blueprint for all forms of human experiences and behavior.

In order to make sense of the myths as we read them, it is necessary to understand two very different views of history, the linear and the cyclical. We live in a generally linear conception of history: It begins at a fixed point and progresses in a straight line toward the present day. In Christianity, Judaism, and Marxism, time moves toward an end of history, whether an apocalypse or the establishment of a utopia. There is a past point of beginning and a future point of ending.

Viewed cyclically, however, history is merely a procession of identical cycles. There are eternal, endlessly repeating principles. Hindu myths do not speak of “the age of Kali” but say “in every age of Kali.” The world, in Hindu thought, has been created, destroyed, and re-created many times, abolishing what the Western mind might think of as “history.” Only Brahman
*
is eternal, and he takes on various avatars, or roles, to fit the stage of the cycle, whether as Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, or Shiva the Destroyer. In such a worldview, linear history and chronologies mean very little, as they are dwarfed by the eternal principles manifested in the cycles.

The Aztecs of Mexico also viewed history in a cyclical way, in which they knew just enough about the earlier worlds to understand the redemptive principles and appropriate behaviors necessary in their present one. They really didn’t need to know details of earlier eras. The only eternal factor was Onteotl, the Supreme Being; even the other gods passed away.

What gives nations their cohesiveness? Certainly it may be common ethnicity or a common language; but in all states, and especially in ethnically diverse states, myth acts as a social “glue.” National identity is based on a shared history and shared symbols of nationhood. The basis of the founding and legitimacy of governments, the civic myths of countries unite their citizens by an acceptance of common symbols.

American civic myth consists of many symbols such as the flag, the Statue of Liberty, and others. The best symbols of our civic myth, appropriately enough, can be found on our money, where we share the history of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, as well as recognize the American eagle.

On British money and stamps, we find portraits of the Queen, the symbol of national unity. In a Canadian wallet, we find her portrait as “Queen of Canada” on bank notes printed in English and French, the two national languages. The coat of arms of Canada contains both the British Union Jack and the French fleur-de-lis.

In the former Soviet Union, the founding myth that held the nation together has crumbled. The symbols of the Soviet state, Lenin and the hammer and sickle, were the first things attacked as the Soviet government fell. A majority of the population rejected the Soviet civic myth
*
and sought to replace it.

The Jews and the early Christians were persecuted in ancient Rome as “atheists.” Now, they were hardly atheists in our modern sense of the word. Rather, they refused to worship the emperor as a
god, a requirement of the Roman civic myth, part of what identified the Roman citizen. In Rome, religion and the state were entirely fused.

The Bible contains an excellent illustration of the binding power of civic myth, as well as what happens when the myth breaks down. To be a Jew in ancient Israel meant to accept the king and the Torah as the moral, civic, and religious authorities. One had to identify with the sacred history of the Jewish people and accept that nationhood was defined by a covenant with God. The Old Testament sets forth that Israel prospered when the nation was faithful to the covenant; when that covenant was abandoned and the people worshiped the gods of neighboring peoples, society broke down and the Jews were sent into exile. This is the power of myth in action.

Myth, especially as codified in religion, has always been the basis for the morality of a society. With a mythic basis—a revelation from God or the gods—the legitimacy of a system of ethics was absolute and unquestioned. There were no shades of gray, for to question the validity of the moral code was to question the validity of the myth and the legitimacy of the society itself.

To return to the example of Old Testament Israel, the state was defined by the Torah, which in turn established an absolute standard of morality in the Ten Commandments. In this case, the civic myth and the absolute standard of morality were inseparable. In many premodern cultures, the price of violating a taboo is not death but something far worse from the standpoint of traditional culture: banishment from the group.

The wholesale devaluation of life in our culture through violence, crime, and addictions, as well as the decline in public and private ethics, is an indication of the weakening of our respect for myth. The establishment and maintenance of a widely held moral code are the most important functions of myth.

As we read the myths of numerous cultures, we will see a number of moral lessons presented. Of particular interest are “dualist” myths, such as the Persian and Chippewa stories of Creation. In these, there are two deities, one good and one evil, and good always prevails. Such tales were moral object lessons for the people, a means of conforming the behavior of the individual to that of the group.

From Rudolf Otto,
The Idea of the Holy;
quoted by Victor Gollancz in
From Darkness to Light
.

Max Eyth recounts in his story “Berufs-Tragik”
*
the building of the mighty bridge over the estuary of the Ennobucht.
†
The most profound and thorough labor of the intellect, the most assiduous and devoted professional toil, had gone into the construction of the great edifice, making it in all its significance and purposefulness a marvel of human achievement. In spite of endless difficulties and gigantic obstacles, the bridge is at length finished, and stands defying water and waves. Then there comes a raging cyclone, and building and builder are swept into the deep. Utter meaninglessness seems to triumph over richest significance, blind “destiny” seems to stride on its way over prostrate virtues and merit. The narrator tells how he visits the scene of the tragedy and returns again:

“When we got to the end of the bridge, there was hardly a breath of wind; high above, the sky showed blue-green, and with an eerie brightness. Behind us, like an open grave, lay the Ennobucht. The Lord of life and death hovered over the waters in silent majesty. We felt his presence, as one feels one’s own hand. And the old man and I knelt down before the open grave and before Him.”

Why did they kneel? Why did they feel constrained to do so? One does not kneel before a cyclone or the blind forces of nature, nor even before Omnipotence merely as such. But one does kneel before the wholly uncomprehended Mystery, revealed yet unrevealed, and one’s soul is stilled by feeling the way of its working, and therein its justification.