Israel’s apparent desire to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities can’t help but draw Americans in to a very confusing drama. For many reasons Israel is important to Americans. For some American Christians the Jews represent spiritual kin. Still, other Christians, such as Christian Zionists, emphasize the division between Christians and Jews.
The relationship between the U.S. and Israel is every bit as complex as the relations between Christians and Jews. In both cases conflicting opinions about Jewish destiny muddy the waters. For example, it has been argued that Israel acts as the United States’ peacekeeper in the Middle East. This contrasts with the claim that the U.S. is Israel’s pawn. Some believe the “ruling class” in the U.S. wants to limit Israel’s territory–not an easy argument to follow, in part because there is disagreement about whether the ruling class is represented by Democrats or Republicans. It is clear, however, that the pro-Israel lobbies in Washington have taken the stance that Israel can do no wrong. They tend to encourage territorial expansion of the State of Israel. The pro-Israel lobbies are perhaps the most troubling part of this troubling story. Israel’s recent threats to Iran may serve to bring the lobbies into focus. This, in turn, may shed some light on various other mystifying events, such as the United States’ involvement in the Iraq War.
At the center of the storm is the Christian Zionist movement. Many elements of this movement have been called heretical. The main influence behind Christian Zionism is Christian Dispensationalism, which has been influential in the U.S. for about 150 years. The majority of Christian Dispensationalists are Evangelical Christians and tend to favor a Middle Eastern War, believing that war is necessary for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Also included are most of the Southern Baptist churches, as well as fundamentalist sects. However, many Christians are opposed to this movement, including Christians in Palestine. When Jesus returns, the Dispensationalists say, he will rule over the Jews in the earthly kingdom of Jerusalem and also over Christians, who will reside in Heaven, directly above Jerusalem. But I can’t imagine that they have made it clear to the Jews who immigrate to Palestine that they expect the majority of them to perish during the coming “tribulation”.
“Crucial to the dispensationalist reading of biblical prophecy is the conviction that the period of tribulation is imminent along with the secret rapture of the Church and the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in place of, or along side, the Dome of the Rock. This will signal the return of the Lord to restore the Kingdom to Israel centered on Jerusalem. This pivotal event is also seen as the trigger for the start of the war of Armageddon in which most of the world’s population together with large numbers of Jews will suffer and die.
“Convinced that a nuclear Armageddon is an inevitable event within the divine scheme of things, many evangelical dispensationalists have committed themselves to a course for Israel that by their own admission, will lead directly to a holocaust indescribably more savage and widespread than any vision of carnage that could have been generated in Adolf Hitler’s criminal mind….”
Again, according to Dispensationalists such as author Hal Lindsey, these events are desirable, as they will merely hasten the return of Jesus Christ as King of the Jews, who will rule over the nations from the rebuilt Jewish temple in Jerusalem. This doctrine actually depends on Islamic resistance, envisioning that it will lead to a nuclear holocaust centered on Jerusalem, “with the 200 mile valley from the Sea of Galilee to Eilat flowing with irradiated blood several feet deep.”((http://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/31794-christian-zionism-dispensationalism-roots-sectarian-theology.html title=”Christian Zionism: Dispensationalism and the Roots of Sectarian Theology”))
Religious believers, together with certain members of Congress (who may or may not think this is simply a political issue) represent the War Party. Fear-mongering is an important tool in the War Party’s arsenal. Presently Iran is being held up as the next great threat to the Middle East and the world. However, a new U.S. intelligence report concerning Iran’s possible nuclear weapons program was released November 8, 2011 and it agrees with the last report, which states that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003.Unfortunately, that may not be the end of it. In NPR’s eerie coverage of the latest intelligence report the part about the lack of evidence was presented in a rather mealy-mouthed fashion, toward the end of the segment. Worse, it was alleged that regardless of the lack of hard evidence, secret activities may still be taking place.
There are several foci in this for our American conversation. One focus has been provided by Mark M. Hanna, Ph.D., a Dispensationalist working against Christian Zionism. Hanna argues among other things, that when the Bible refers to Israel as a nation it means ‘a people’, not a territory or state.This is an important point.
When I wrote [intlink id=”226″ type=”post”]The Community of Ancient Israel[/intlink] I wanted to explore how people in the 21st century who are isolated, alienated and solitary, might begin to forge the bonds of kinship necessary for a true community. This seemed crucial because traditionally holiness, or sanctity, was manifest at the center of human communities. Unfortunately, war has always worked to tear societies apart, leaving individuals open to the lure of centralized authority and universal religious systems.
In this light, it is interesting to remember that the Jews who first developed the universal ideals held today by Christianity no longer had a unified, coherent social structure. This was the result of conquest, the Babylonian exile and Hellenization. Yet they seem to have had no illusions about returning to a simpler, bygone age. It might be interesting to reexamine their vision for starters, as it has never really been tried–Christianity had its own unique, non-Jewish character from the beginning.
Although Christianity has always had a universal tendency, individual churches and sects provide a sense of community and family, which could never be provided by nations or empires. However, this function is not limited to Christian churches. The lodges of the Freemasons fulfilled the same function for members. It almost seems that sects with divergent beliefs call into question the meaning of universalism and nationalism. A case in point: Christian Dispensationalists don’t represent the entire population, but the sect has political clout and a universal agenda. Currently, there are more than 120 pro-Israel organizations and lobbies influential in Washington D.C. with the proven ability to influence national policy.
Regardless of religious claims of bloody inevitability, I insist that we can still decide to forgo the War Party’s dreadful scenario. This blog has been the attempt to build. War does the opposite–it tears down. It is not possible to build and tear down at the same time. Now the alternative comes clearly into focus. The alternative is, go to war for the sake of a virtual tribe that is plotting secretly for their religious agenda. Then perhaps those who survive after everyone else has been killed will go to live in the sky with Jesus. There they will hover over the earthly city of Jerusalem and gaze down at the little remnant of Jews who somehow manage to escape the blood bath and nuclear holocaust.
In our society, one is free to chose religious beliefs. History has shown it is also easy to deny responsibility for the consequences of one’s religious and political beliefs. However, some of America’s enemies have already said they hold the American people responsible for the actions of their government. If Dispensationalism is the reason that so many Americans supported the Iraq War, I’m afraid I can’t argue with them. Religious beliefs are no excuse for an unjust war–one freely chooses such beliefs. Dire predictions and drastic scenarios carry an obligation to get the facts straight. Here is food for thought:
1. Dispensationalist teachings say that only the Jews who believe in Jesus Christ will survive the holocaust. However, in the early days of the Church Jews were not allowed to live in Jerusalem, not even those who had converted to Christianity.
2. The Dispensationalists’ claimed that Saddam Hussein was re-building Babylon. It wasn’t true, although this was part of the rhetoric leading up to the Iraq War.
3. Christianity did not have to go in this direction. The idea of a divine messiah who glories in the end of human history is a Zoroastrian idea. In other words, this state of affairs can’t be blamed on a Hebrew named Jesus.
Dispensationalism is currently being disseminated to the rest of the world through the work of the Dallas Theological Seminary. The Seminary was founded in 1924 by Lewis Sperry Chafer. Chafer was a student of Cyrus I. Scofield who began a Comprehensive Bible correspondence Course in 1890 (later taken over by the Moody Bible Institute). During the 1890s Scofield was also the principal of the Southwestern School of the Bible which became the Dallas Theological Seminary.
In “The Stakes of the Warrior” Georges Dumézil uses his theory of the tri-functional structure of Indo-European society as a framework for the analyses of stories belonging to three different areas of the world; India, Scandinavia, and Greece. His comparative study includes the Scandinavian saga of Starkaṓr, the Indian tale of Śiśupāla, and the Greek story of Herakles. ((Dumézil, Georges. The Stakes of the Warrior. Translated by David Weeks. Ed. With introduction by Jaan Puhvel, University of CA Press, Berkeley, LA, London. 1983)) In each story, the warrior sins and his gods demand sacrifice. This study was cited in Hermes in India and it will be used again in subsequent posts, so I would like to summarize it here.
In each story the hero sins against each of the three Indo-European functions–the functions of the sovereign, the warrior, and fertility or sexuality. In the process he fails in the very duties and responsibilities that give his life meaning. An important element in each story is the rivalry of two deities who take an interest in the life of the hero, and are directly or indirectly responsible for his crimes.
Starkaṓr/Starcatherus and Odin
For the Scandinavian tale of Starkaṓr there are two sources. One is the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus (1150–after 1216). The other is the Gautrekssage, which is a redaction of the poem, the Vikarsbálkr, from the 13th or 14th century. The saga also adds additional material from ancient sources. Saxo calls the hero Starcatherus; the saga calls him Starkaṓr.
Starkaṓr/Starcatherus is either a giant, or he has giant ancestry. In the saga, his grandfather was a giant but he has a human form. In Saxo he is born with extra arms and Thor prunes them off, giving him a human appearance. The child begins life under the patronage of Othinus or Odin, but also under the hostile and watchful eye of Thor, who hates giants in general, and according to the saga, Starkaṓr in particular.
As Starkaṓr’s story begins, the fathers of little Starkaṓr and Vikar are killed in battle. The boys are brought up together among the people of Herthjófr, king of Hördaland. One of Herthjófr’s men, Hrosshársgrani raises Starkaṓr. Hrosshársgrani is Odin in disguise, and the god has dark designs on him. Although he is supposed to be Starkaṓr’s protector, he has decided that Starkaṓr will be the one to bring him Vikar, king of Norway and Starkaṓr’s childhood friend, as a sacrifice.
After living for nine years with Hrosshársgrani, Starkaṓr helps Vikar reconquer his realm, and accompanies him on many victorious expeditions. During a Viking expedition Vikar’s fleet is “becalmed” near a small island. The king and his crew have a “magical consultation” and determine that Odin wants a man of the army to be sacrificed by hanging. They draw lots and the king is chosen. After this shocking development they postpone deliberations until the next day.
In the meantime Hrosshársgrani acts. He wakes Starkaṓr and takes him to the Island and through a forest. In a clearing they come upon a strange assembly.
“A crowd of beings of human appearance are gathered around twelve high seats, eleven of which are already occupied by the chief gods. Revealing himself for who he is, Odin ascends the twelfth seat and announces that the order of business is the determination of the fate of Starkaṓr…The event comes down to a magical-oratorical duel between Odin and Thor.”
Thor hates Starkaṓr because his grandfather was a giant. He hates him even more because his grandfather, long ago, abducted a young girl. When Thor rescued her he found that she actually preferred the giant over the “Thor of the Æsir”! This was Starkaṓr’s grandmother. In consequence of this lasting grudge, Thor imposes Starkaṓr’s first curse before the council of the gods, “Starkaṓr will have no children.”
Odin compensates for this curse. “Starkaṓr will have three human life spans.”
It continues in this way, the gods taking turns.
Thor says “He will commit a villainy in each.”
Odin answers, “He will always have the best arms and the best raiments.”
Thor: “He will have neither land nor real property.”
Odin: “He will have fine furnishings.”
Thor: “He will never feel he has enough.”
Odin: “He will have success and victory in every combat.”
Thor: “He will receive a grave wound in every combat.”
Odin: “He will have the gift of poetry and improvisation.”
Thor: “He will forget all he has composed.”
Odin: “He will appeal to the well-born and the great.”
Thor: “He will be despised by the common folk.”
As they return to the ship, Odin informs Starkaṓr that he must pay for the assistance he has just received by sending him the king, or in other words, by putting Vikar in a position to be sacrificed. Odin will take care of the rest. Starkaṓr is apparently convinced that he must pay and he agrees to help Odin. The pact between the warrior and his gods has already decided Starkaṓr’s fate.
The next day Starkaṓr suggests to the king that they carry out a mock sacrifice and Vikar agrees. Starkaṓr bends down the limb of a tree and fastens a noose to it and also around Vikar’s neck. Then Starkaṓr takes a magic reed-stick given him by Odin and thrusts it at the king saying, “Now I give thee to Odin.” Then he releases the branch. The reed-stick becomes a spear and pierces the king. The branch springs up and drags the king into the leaves, where he dies.
Starkaðr and the murder of King Víkar
“From this deed Starkaṓr became much despised by the people and was exiled from Hördaland.”
Now we depend on Saxo’s version. Starcatherus still has a long career ahead of him and he accomplishes many admirable exploits, but after the death in battle of another master, a Swedish king, he shamefully flees from the battlefield, allowing the army to be defeated. After this debacle, he joins an army of Danish vikings and eventually serves the Danish king, Frotho, where he is a “model of martial virtue”.
For his third sin he allows conspirators to bribe him and he kills another master, the Danish king Olo. He has already sinned against his duty to kings and his duty as a warrior. In taking a bribe for the murder of Olo he sins against the morality of the third function–not through sexuality but through greed.
The hero has been aging during his three life spans but he keeps all of his strength until after the third crime. Finally old age, his many wounds, and his crimes burden him to the point where he wishes for his own death. He doesn’t want to die shamefully of old age so he looks for a warrior who will give him an honorable death. Providentially he meets Hatherus, the son of one of the conspirators in the murder of Olo. He confesses that he is the one who killed Hatherus’ father, (Starcatherus killed all of the conspirators). Hatherus agrees to behead him in exchange for the money that Starcatherus received for killing Olo. Starcatherus also wishes to give Hatherus his invulnerability and tells him to stand between his head and his body after his death. In a moment of suspicion, however, Hatherus stands back and does not accept this gift.
Śiśupāla and Kṛṣṇa
Dumézil acknowledges that there are problems posed by the character of Kṛṣṇa in the Mahabharata. He thinks that what is said about him is a transposition of the myth of an ancient Viṣṇu, like that which produced the Pandavas from an archaic list of the functional gods. But for this study it is enough that the relationship of Kṛṣṇa/Viṣṇu is stated in the episode. It provides structure comparable to the tale of Starkaṓr/Starcatherus.
The story of Śiśupāla is not central to the cosmic conflict in the Mahabharata. And while Starcatherus, aside from his three crimes, was a perfect example of a defender of kingship, as well as a warrior and a teacher, the Indian hero is said to be the reincarnation of a demon that Viṣṇu has already killed twice in past lives. We learn of his previous lives after he challenges the proceedings of Yudhisthira’s sacrificial ceremony. This information, and the story of the hero’s birth, provide the justification for his hostility to Kṛṣṇa.
Śiśupāla was born into the royal family of the Cedis. He had three eyes and four arms and he uttered inarticulate cries like an animal. His parents had decided to expose him, but they heard a disembodied voice saying that this was not the “Time” for the child’s death. His slayer “by the sword” has been born, lord of men.
His mother demands to know “who shall be the death of this son!”
The voice answers,
“He upon whose lap his two extra arms will both fall on the ground like five-headed snakes and that third eye in the middle of the child’s forehead will sink away as he looks at him–he shall be his death.”
These things happen as soon as the child is placed on Kṛṣṇa lap. Śiśupāla’s mother witnesses the fulfillment of the prophecy and is fearful for her son. She asks Kṛṣṇa to forgive the “dereliction of Śiśupāla”.
(Because of Śiśupāla’s physical similarities to Rudra/Śiva, and also because of his name, which is said to be a transposition of paśupati or lord of animals, this story is similar to the story of Starkaṓr/Starcatherus in its conflict between two divinities, in this case Rudra/Śiva and Kṛṣṇa/Viṣṇu.)
Kṛṣṇa promises that he will forgive one hundred offenses, even though they may be capital offenses. But by the time Śiśupāla challenges the proceedings of Yudhisthira’s sacrificial ceremony he has exhausted his one hundred offenses. His tirade against Krṣṇa is the one hundred and first offense. However, only five offenses are listed. Dumézil argues that the list can be further reduced to three. The five sins, which Kṛṣṇa recited to the kings assembled at Yudhisthira’s ceremony are:
1. “Knowing that we had gone to the city of Prāgjyotiṣa, this fiend, who is our cousin, burned down Dvārakā, kings.”
2. “While the barons of the Bhojas were at play on Mount Raivataka, he slew and captured them, then returned to his city.”
3. “Malevolently, he stole the horse that was set free at the Horse Sacrifice and surrounded by guards to disrupt my father’s sacrifice.”
4. “When she was journeying to the country of the Sauvīras to be given in marriage, the misguided fool abducted the unwilling wife-to-be of the glorious Babhru.”
5. “Hiding beneath his wizardry, the fiendish offender of his uncle abducted Bhadrā of Viśāla, the intended bride of the Karūṣa!’
The offenses are distributed as follows: The first and second offenses are committed against the warrior function; the third offense, against sovereignty; and the forth and fifth offenses have to do with sexuality. However, all of the sins are directed against the king. The similarity of the first and last two offenses indicate that the list may have been inflated, and that originally there were only three sins.
Kṛṣṇa continues,
“For the sake of my father’s sister I have endured very great suffering; but fortunately now this is taking place in the presence of all the kings. For you are now witnesses of the all-surpassing offense against me; learn also now the offenses he has perpetrated against me in concealment.”
Śiśupāla does not relent. He continues to scold those who honor Kṛṣṇa, who is “no king”. Finally Kṛṣṇa throws his discus, cutting off Śiśupāla’s head. A sublime radiance rises from the “body of the king of the Cedis, which, great king, was like the sun rising up from the sky; and that radiance greeted lotus-eyed Kṛṣṇa, honored by the world, and entered him, O king…”
Krsna cuts off Sisupala’s head
There is no mention of corresponding consequences after each of Śiśupāla’s sins and he does not offer himself for death as Starcatherus did. Also another king, Jarāsandha, is mentioned, although he has no part in the story itself. Śiśupāla, although a king in his own right, is said to be Jarāsandha’s general, giving him the same position as Starcatherus, who served kings but was not himself a king. Jarāsandha is accused of holding Kṛṣṇa’s clan in jail, with plans to sacrifice them. In other words, he was under contract to Rudra/Śiva, just as Starkaṓr/Starcatherus was under contract to Odin. This provides another correspondence between the Scandinavian and Indian stories. However, in the Indian version human sacrifice is not as believable as it is in the Scandinavian tales. Also Śiva has no particular interest in kings, as Odin does. This only makes the Indo-European framework of both stories more apparent.
Herakles and his gods, Hera, and Athena
In the Greek story of Herakles, genders are reversed–the rival deities, Hera and Athena, are female. Dumézil makes an interesting observation–the rival deities in the first two stories answer to no superior judge or authority. But in the tale of Herakles, the patriarchal Zeus is given the final word.
Herakles’ birth is told by Diodorus Siculus (iv, 9, 2-3). When Herakles was born he was not monstrous or demonic but he had a certain excess. He was the son of Zeus and Alkmene. Zeus had taken the appearance of Alkmene’s husband, Amphitryon, in order to beget an exceptional king who would rule over the descendants of Perseus. But when Hera learned of his plans she was jealous. She caused the labor pains of Alkmene to slow down and the result was that another heir, Eurystheus, was born first. Zeus then decreed that Herakles would serve Eurystheus and perform twelve labors. In this way he would earn immortality.
Alkmene abandoned her baby out of fear of Hera. Athena and Hera found him, and Athena gave him to Hera who began to nurse him. This saved his life. However he bit her and she pushed him away. Dumézil suggests that this is like the story of Śiśupāla, whose deformities disappeared at the touch of the very god who was destined to kill him. Hera is the sovereign whose first concern is to exclude Alkmene’s son from royalty and demote him to a champion. Athena is the warrior and becomes Herakles’ most trusted friend. The patronage of Athena and the enmity of Hera are a constant theme in Herakles’ life. As for his attitude to the two higher functions, the kingship and the labors, (or fights) he does not attempt to replace the king. He serves him and is sometimes rewarded, but his first sin actually involves his hesitation over entering the king’s service. Starkaṓr/Staratherus serves kings ostentatiously. Śiśupāla is a king who voluntarily serves as a general of another king.
For his hesitation in obeying Zeus and entering the service of Eurystheus Hera strikes him with madness, causing him to kill his own children. He is consigned by Eurystheus to perform twelve labors as well as additional sub-labors.
His next sin is the killing of an enemy by a shameful trick, rather than in fair combat. For this sin he contracts a physical disease. At this point he has no choice but to become a slave of Omphale, Queen of Lydia.
The penalties are not cumulative with Herakles and he is cured of them each time, until the last one. After a new series of “free” deeds he forgets that he has just married Deianeira, and he takes another lover. Deianeira sends him a cloak that she thinks contains a love potion. However, it contains the poisoned blood of Nessos and it gives Herakles an incurable burn. Two of his companions consult the oracle at Delphi in his behalf and Apollo tells them,
“Let Herakles be taken up to Mount Oeta in all his warrior gear, and let a pyre be erected next to him; for the rest, Zeus will provide.”
When all is made ready, Herakles voluntarily climbs onto the pyre and asks each one who comes up to him to light it. No one but Philoktetes has the courage to light the pyre, and Herakles gives him his bow and arrows. Immediately after Philoktetes lights the pyre “lightening also fell from the heavens and it was wholly consumed.”
Hercules burning himself on the pyre
But later the arrows caused the death of Philoktetes.
Summary
The strongest similarities are between Greece and Scandinavia.
1. The divinities who oppose each other over Herakles and Starkaṓr are those of the 1st and 2nd functions. The ones in India (Krṣṇa/Viṣṇu and Rudra/Śiva) don’t fit in the tri-functional structure but they compare to Odin and Thor in other aspects.
2. Herakles is reconciled after his death with the sovereign Hera, wife of Zeus. The one who benefits from the death of Starkaṓr is Höṑr, (Hatherus) who is close to Odin, (the sovereign, and dark god comparable to Śiva). Śiśupāla is reconciled with Krṩṇa/Viṣṇu.
3. Herakles and Starkaṓr are similar in their basic nature. Herakles has no demonic component and Starkaṓr is made human. But Śiśupāla remains demonic and Sivaistic. Neither Herakles nor Starkaṓr provoke the deity who persecutes them. Śiśupāla does however, although Krṣṇa does not persecute him.
4. Herakles and Starkaṓr are more interesting than the deities, but Śiśupāla is just an incorrigible Indian Loki in the career of Krṣṇa. The reader is on the side of Starkaṓr and Herakles, and also on the side of Athena, but only as Herakles’ helper. The Indian story is more complementary to Krṣṇa/Viṣṇu, and against Śiśupāla.
5. The deaths of Herakles and Starkaṓr are good and serene. That of Śiśupāla is the result of a “frenzied delirium”.
6. A young man is asked to kill the hero in the stories of Herakles and Starkaṓr–but not in the story of Śiśupāla.
7. In the stories of Herakles and Starkaṓr the gift or payment is ambiguous. The arrows kill Philoktetes and Hatherus chooses not to receive the essence of Starkaṓr.
8. The types of Herakles and Starkaṓr are the same, a wandering hero, redresser of wrongs, given to toil
9. Both are educators.
10. Both are poets.
But other similarities tie India and Scandinavia together, in contrast to Greece.
1. Śiśupāla and Starkaṓr are born with deformities. Heracles is not.
2. The Indian and Scandinavian legends make much of a royal ideology. The Greek legend outlines the opposition of Erystheus and Herakles but does not dwell on it.
3. The faults of Śiśupāla and Starkaṓr are foreordained. Śiśupāla’s fate is decided by his demonic ancestry. Starkaṓr’s is decided by lots.
4. Given that Jarāsandha completes the legend of Śiśupāla, India and Scandinavia both charge the heros with the human sacrifice of kings. The Greek legend does not.
5. Starkaṓr and Śiśupāla are both beheaded. Heracles is burned.
6. The deities in the stories of Starkaṓr and Śiśupāla have no higher judge. Krṣṇa/Viṣṇu and Rudra/Śiva don’t answer to Brahma, for example. The divinities in the Greek story are supervised by Zeus.
There aren’t as many similarities between Greece and India, but the failings of Śiśupāla and Herakles are similar in that:
1. The first sin offended a god in the case of Herakles who resisted the command of Zeus; and a sacrificer in the case of Śiśupāla who stole the king’s sacrificial horse. In Starkaṓr’s case his failing resulted from an excess of submissiveness towards a god.
2. The second sin in the case of Śiśupāla and Herakles involves the unworthy betrayal of a warrior. For Starkaṓr it was a shameful flight on the battlefield.
3. Śiśupāla and Herakles have no particular prejudice against the sensuous aspect of the third function, but Starkaṓr, who is ruled by Odin and Thor, condemns this kind of weakness.
In Hermes in India a discussion began about the Lord of Creatures. It is now obvious that this subject is more difficult than I imagined. There are several related terms that have to do with the nature of God. They have similar meanings, but they can belong to completely different gods.
Dumézil said the name paśupati (Lord of Animals) might be the name of the demon who opposed Kṛṣṇa–the demon’s name was Śiśupāla, but it might be a ‘transposition’ of Paśupati. According to a Wikipedia article, paśupati is Sanskrit for Pashupati. This is one of the names of Siva. Definitions differ, but some say it means the Lord of all Created Beings. Here Śiśupāla is associated with Siva.
The name given in the Hindu Pantheon is Prajapati and it belongs to Brahma. It means the Lord of Creatures, or Lord of all Created Beings. Prajapati can also refer to the three major deities together–Vishnu, Siva and Brahma. It seemed reasonable to associate paśupati with Prajapati–both terms denote lordship over animals. Also Śiśupāla possessed a ‘sublime radiance’ which passed to Kṛṣṇa.
In The Names of God another term entered the discussion by way of a new translation of the Book of Job. It was argued that the god who spoke out of the whirlwind was not the sky-god that we normally associate with the Old Testament but a Master of Animals–he was a deity equally concerned with humans and animals–a Paleolithic, hunter-gatherer Master of Animals. This idea led to more research on the archaeological evidence for this deity. The name of Hermes is prominent in discussions about the Master of Animals.
The next set of clues comes from a legend told in “The Hindu Pantheon” and has to do with the nature of the war described in the Puranas. It is said that the conflict arose between the worshipers of the female principle and the worshipers of the male principle. It was “a battle of cosmic proportions” in which the earth lords resisted the rise of a sky god. The war started in India and spread all over the world. It was discussed by Wilford in “Egypt and the Nile”, and repeated by Moor, and also by Christian missionaries in a publication called the Chinese Recorder. Versions differ, but the theme is the same. This was the basis of Grecian mythology with its battles between the gods led by Jupiter; and the giants or sons of the earth. The gods led by Jupiter were the followers of Iswara, worshipers of the sky-god. The giants were the men produced by Prit’hivi, a power or form of Vishnu, (see more on this below) who acknowledged no other deities than Water and Earth.
This conflict is to blame for the rise of theological and physiological contests, veiled by the use of allegories and symbols. Wilford offers the following example of allegorical mythology: “On the banks of the Nile, Osiris was torn in pieces; and on those of the Ganges, the limbs of his consort, Isi, or Sati, were scattered over the world, giving names to the places where they fell…In the Sanskrit book, entitled Maha Kala Sanhita, we find the Grecian story concerning the wanderings of Bacchus; for Iswara, having been mutilated through the imprecations of some offended Munis, rambled over the whole earth bewailing his misfortune: while Isi wandered also through the world, singing mournful ditties in a state of distraction.”
The Servarasa is more specific and says that the conflict involved Siva and Parvati:
When Sati, after the close of her existence as the daughter of Dacsha, sprang again to life in the character of Parvati, or Mountain-born, she was reunited in marriage to Mahadeva. This divine pair had once a dispute on the comparative influence of sexes in producing animated beings; and each resolved, by mutual agreement, to create apart a new race of men. The race produced by Mahadeva was very numerous, and devoted themselves exclusively to the worship of the male deity; but their intellects were dull, their bodies feeble, their limbs distorted, and their complexions of different hues. Parvati had at the same time created a multitude of human beings, who adored the female power only; and were all well shaped, with sweet aspects and fine complexions. A furious contest ensued between the two races, and the Lingajas (worshipers of Siva) were defeated in battle. But Mahadeva, enraged against the Yonijas (worshipers of Parvati), would have destroyed them with the fire of his eye, if Parvati had not interposed, and appeased him: but he would spare them only on condition that they should instantly quit the country, to return no more. And from the Yoni, which they adored as the sole cause of their existence, they were named Yavanas.
The declared victors of the contest differ depending on the storyteller’s point of view. Wilford thought this version must have been written by the Yonyancitas, or votaries of Devi because the Lingancitas say that Siva’s offspring were the most beautiful. The most numerous sect of Hindus are those who attempt to reconcile them, saying that both principles are necessary, and so the navel of Vishnu is worshipped as identical with the sacred Yoni. But it is important to mention, in light of our interest in the Lord of Creatures, that Brahma is ignored.
Brahma was the creator. In the Hindu solar religion, he represents one aspect of the Sun and corresponds to the early part of the day, from sunrise until noon. His realm is the earth, and fire. However, in Hinduism Brahma is not as familiar a figure as Siva and Vishnu, or even mentioned as much as the incarnations and lesser deities. The reason given in “The Hindu Pantheon” is that the act of creation is past. The creator has no further role in the “continuance or cessation of material existence, or, in other words, with the preservation or destruction of the universe.” Now this is the basic premise of Deism. Deism was the religion of the Enlightenment.
Siva, on the other hand, in his aspect of the destroyer, is said to have a sort of “unity of character” with Brahma, although they are usually found in hostile opposition. It is said that destruction is inevitable. It is actually another form of creation.
As mentioned in American Civil Religion and the Enlightenment one of the criticisms of the Enlightenment is that Reason has replaced God. However, it seems that Reason is not just an abstract principle; Reason is a god. In The Hindu Pantheon Reason is an attribute of Nareda.
If Brahma is Prajapati and Śiśupāla is paśupati, Śiśupāla must have been associated with Brahma, not Siva. If the Grecian giants are part of the same conflict, they should also have been associated with Brahma, not Vishnu. So it shouldn’t be surprising that Śiśupāla is not a solar figure. In the Mahabharata, the would-be king whom Kṛṣṇa supported forced Śiśupāla and his fellow kings to attend a sacrificial ceremony where he claimed for himself universal kingship. The original kings were to be his subjects and accept a subordinate relationship to him. During the ceremony Kṛṣṇa was honored all out of proportion to the kings, and Śiśupāla objected. The highest honor being given to Kṛṣṇa was not appropriate, he said, in the presence of “great spirited earth lords”.
Greek mythology and religion have an interest in the names of God. God is often said to be Lord of Animals. Hermes received the following mandate from Zeus.
And from heaven father Zeus himself gave confirmation to his words, and commanded that glorious Hermes should be lord over all birds of omen and grim-eyed lions, and boars with gleaming tusks, and over dogs and all flocks that the wide earth nourishes, and over all sheep; also that he only should be the appointed messenger to Hades, who, though he takes no gift, shall give him no mean prize.
There is a comparable command in the Book of Genesis, which gave humans dominion over every living thing, including all animals, wild or domesticated.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over all 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 creeps upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said unto them, ‘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 every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
(Gen. 1:26-28)
Religion is Concerned With the Relationship Between Humans and Animals
Although the religious traditions are fundamentally different, they both indicate the importance of the relationship between humans and animals.
The purpose of this essay is to examine three similar names describing the deity involved in these relationships: the Lord of Creatures in the Hindu Pantheon; the Lord of Animals or paśupati, a name of Rudra, (and later of Rudra-Śiva); and the Master of Animals.1
Moor mentioned the impossibility of correctly interpreting the complex meanings in the Hindu Pantheon. The stories about the deities and their natures are not simple to properly define or even describe. Even with the help of this book, it is difficult to write briefly about the deities. The entire book is a treatise on God in all his various aspects.
Dumézil must have been expressing the same sentiment when he prefaced an idea by saying, “If this comparison is correct…” Here are some of the similarities and differences in these mythological and religious figures. Sources are provided for further research.
The Place of the Lord ofCreatures
There are three major deities in the Hindu pantheon and their places are the earth, the intermediate region, and heaven. These are associated with fire, air and the sun. Collectively, they are Prajapati.
Only Brahm, the Supreme One exists absolutely. The others are Maya or delusion. The body of the Sun is also considered as Maya. However, the Sun is the “active emblem of God” and therefore receives veneration.
In Mythology, Brahma is the first of the three “personified attributes of Brahm.” He is called the first of the gods, framer of the universe and guardian of the world, and he has also been referred to as Prajapati. In him the universe pre-existed. Here Moor quotes Darwin:
Grain within grain, successive harvests dwell,
And boundless forests slumber in a shell.
Brahm
Brahm is said to be incomprehensible. It is stated in one place that he is neither male nor female (“neuter”). He manifests his power by the operation of his divine spirit. Vishnu (the pervader), and Narayana (or moving on the waters) are in the masculine gender. For this reason, Brahm is often named the first male.
Mahadeva
In a previous post, Mahadeva was pictured as Ardha Nari, or half woman. This is a typical characteristic of a god who creates by himself from nothing. But apparently, the creation can be discussed without this information. According to Moor, “there is no general orthodoxy among Hindus, any more than among Christians.”
The Matrix of Brahma and the Linga of Siva
Brahma is sometimes called Kamalayoni. “Kamal is the lotos, Yoni the pudendum muliebre, the mystical matrix, into which is inserted the equally mysterious Linga of Siva.” According to the Vaishnavas, or worshippers of Vishnu, Brahma appeared on a Lotus, which sprung from the navel of Vishnu.
Vishnu v Brahma
Vishnu on Ananta Naga
The Quarrel Between Vishnu and Brahma
But the Saivas, or worshippers of Siva, tell a different story. Brahm willed the creation of the world and produced two beings, male and femal. Their names were Purusha and Pracriti. These were later called Narayana and Narayani. The lotos grew from Narayana’s navel, bearing Brahma, “and from her sprung Vishnu.” A quarrel ensued between Vishnu and Brahma, and the Linga arrived to reconcile them. In this Purana, Brahma is associated with Siva. Also in this account, another form similar to Siva’s sprang from a wrinkle in Brahma’s forehead and was named Rudra with all of the same characteristics as the three deities–Siva, Brahma and Vishnu.
Paśupati, The Lord of Animals
Previously I assumed that Dumézil’s paśupati was the same as the Lord of Creatures and therefore the deity of humans as well as animals. This seemed to make sense in the story of Kṛṣṇa who received the luminous essence of Śiśupāla, and was thereafter deified as the Lord of the Universe. However, based on the structure of the story, it wasn’t necessary for Śiśupāla himself to be the Lord of Creatures.
Kṛṣṇa was connected to Brahma by his birth and also to Viṣṇu as his avatara. I haven’t found ‘the Lord of Animals’ as a name of Siva, but he has 1000 names. As it turned out my assumption that he is the same as the Lord of Creatures was not correct. Online definitions of paśupati give the meaning as ‘the Lord of tethered or sacrificed animals’. (Paśupati can have a similar meaning to the Lord of Creatures. See (the next post)
The Master of Animals
Please see this footnote for a download. The focus is on archaeological evidence.2Available here:
Is the Master of Animals in the Bible?
I became aware of the Master of Animals concept through a new translation of the Book of Job. (cited below) I include it here because it proposes a theory about the changing relationship between humans and animals.
The Book of Job
At the time the Book of Job was written there were many reasons for disillusionment among the Hebrews. “Israel had lost its land for two generations and its autonomy forever.” Apparently, Job is considered heroic in this story. He is not heroic because of his patience but because of his loyalty to a conception of God as both all-powerful and fair. But as the story indicates, this conception does not match reality. We are left to contemplate the mystery of it. The only explanation offered by this author is that Job was written as a comedy.
The Sky God as The Master of Animals
In any case, the content of the story suggests a different type of deity. Job addresses God as a sky-god. But judging from the answer he receives, God is nothing like Canaanite El, the sky-god, nor Baal, the storm-god. The content of God’s answer to Job identifies him as the Master of the Animals, “an order of deity who is associated with Paleolithic hunter-gatherer society, and who guarantees the well-being and fecundity of life and has no especial concern with humans. This is a god neither of the sky nor of the land, but of the superabundance of life, the cosmic generosity.”
Elihu and His Greek Ideas
A discordant element is added to the story by Elihu, who unlike Job’s other friends develops a new concept of man as The Reasoner. It is argued that the supremacy of reason at the expense of custom has had direct bearing on the relationship between humans and animals.
Elihu was not an original part of the story. His ideas are Greek, not Hebrew. Also his speeches have stylistic differences. Finally, his ideas completely change the story’s conclusion and its assertions about the nature of God. These points have been generally accepted, but current Rabbinic and Christian translations force the rest of the book to conform to Elihu’s ideas. For this reason, it shouldn’t be surprising that the Master of Animals is not in the Jewish Encyclopedia.
Reason
Elihu calls reason ruah El, “the spirit of God.” He considers ‘pure knowledge’ superior to customary belief.
But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding.
The majority are not always wise, nor do the aged always understand what’s right.
(Job 32:8-9)
The Re-definition of Man as a Rational Being Distinguishes Him from the Animals
By contrast, Job’s friends appealed to customary belief and the experience of elders. There has been a tremendous cost involved in this redefinition of man, the one most relevant to this article being, “The definition of man as a rational being entails a distinction made between him and the animals.”
But none saith, where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night,
Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser
than the fouls of heaven.
(Job 35:10-11)
In the Book of Genesis man was given dominion because of God’s will, not because man had superior reason.
Elihu also redefines sin as arrogance. “Once rationality becomes the queen of the faculties, its opponent is the non-rational in Man: desire, passion, willfulness.” The definition of Man as the Reasoner is a partial definition because it omits those things, along with imagination. It gives Man an impossible ideal that can never be achieved–a “robotic self-mastery”.
Two Versions of Man’s Nature
Psalms 8:4-6 is quoted to illustrate the Biblical concept of man’s nature.
What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou
visitest him?
For thou has made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned
him with glory and honor.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands: thou has
put all things under his feet.
The idea of man The Reasoner is better illustrated by another author.
What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite
in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in
action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god! the
beauty of the world; the paragon of animals…
Clues about the occult foundations of American Healthcare from India and Scandinavia
The use of the caduceus of Hermes as a symbol of the medical profession was the subject of Dr. Walter Friedlander’s book “The Golden Wand of Medicine.” You can read my summary of Dr. Friedlander’s book in Hermes Trismegistus and American Healthcare. Friedlander posed many questions about the use of this symbol and its adoption in the United States in 1917. Today, runaway healthcare costs and inaccessibility of medical care have revived interest in the caduceus of Hermes, the liar, thief and trickster god. Who is Hermes, and does his caduceus form the occult foundations of American healthcare?
Friedlander focused mainly on Hermes in Greek mythology but there are echoes of this deity in other parts of the world. Additional clues about the nature of Hermes are provided by Edward Moor’s “The Hindu Pantheon” and Georges Dumézil’s “The Stakes of the Warrior.” These accounts give strength to Dr. Friedlander’s identification of the caduceus of Hermes as a malevolent influence. We begin by identifying deities similar to Hermes in The Hindu Pantheon by Edward Moor.
Nareda
One of the points Friedlander made in his book is that it is not known why the Greeks chose to associate Hermes with the Egyptian Thoth, who has a very different personality. Moor’s description of the Hindu deity Nareda provides the answer. According to Moor, Nareda or Narada is a key figure connecting the Hindu scriptures to Hermes. Narada has many of the characteristics of Thoth. He is “a wise legislator [and] great in arms, arts, and eloquence;” he is also an astronomer, and a musician. He invented the Vina, a sort of lute…and was a frequent messenger of the gods. In these and other points he resembles Hermes, or Mercury. Some think he is the same with Thoth.
In the Hindu Pantheon, Nareda is one of the ten lords of living beings. In the Sivpuran, which contains the doctrines of the worshipers of Siva, Nareda was born from Brahma’s thigh. However he is also said to be the offspring of both Brahma and Saraswati. He was one of the seven Rishis.
The histories of Krishna often introduce Nareda. They say he is only another form of Krishna himself…Crishna (in the Gita, p. 82) speaks of his ‘holy servants, the Brahmans and the Rajarshis.’ He says, ‘I am Brigu among the Maharshis…and of all the Devarshis I am Narad.’ (P. 80)
Buddha and Woden
According to Friedlander, there are five main historical accounts of Hermes. In the classical period the Homeric version of Hermes changed to become associated with inventing, buying and selling. This was probably the influence of Rome and resulted in the Greek Hermes becoming associated with Mercury.
In Moor’s Hindu Pantheon, Buddha has been said to share the same character with Mercury. So has the Gothic Woden. Each gives his name to the same planet, and to the same day of the week: Budhvar, in India, is the same with Dies Mercurii, or Woden’s day–our Wednesday. Buddha, Booda, Butta, and others are mere varieties, in different parts of India…and so ‘perhaps is the Bud, or Wud, of the ancient pagan Arabs. Pout in Siam; Pott, or Poti, in Tibet; and But, in Cochin China, are the same.’
Noah
It was mentioned in American Cosmology and Arlington National Cemetery that many of America’s founders were believers in the doctrines of Hermes Trismegistus and that when he was discredited as an historical figure, he was replaced by Noah. In the Hindu pantheon, the seventh Menu was Vaivaswata, or child of the sun. He is the one saved on the ark and therefore the father of the whole human race. The seven Rishis were said to be with him on the ark, although they are not mentioned as fathers of human families. However, it is also said that Vaivaswata’s “daughter Ila was married…to the first Buddha, or Mercury, the son of Chandra, or the Moon, a male deity, whose father was Atri, son of Brahma.” Because of this, Vaivaswata’s posterity are divided into two branches called the Children of the Sun, from (Vivaswat, the Sun) his own father; and the Children of the Moon, from the parent of his daughter’s husband. One of Vaivaswata’s other names is Satyavrata, whom Sir William Jones thinks corresponds to the Italian Saturn.
Aesculapius, Hermes and Parvati
In Hinduism, Parvati is the sacti or energy of Siva. She has many additional names, the most common aside from Parvati are Bhavani, Durga, Kali, and Devi, or the Goddess. Ma is a name of Bhavani in her personification of nature, and under the name of Bhavani she represents the “general power of fecundity.” She has connections both to Aesculapius and to Hermes.
According to Moor, “The word Cala, or Kala, signifying black, means also, from its root, Kal, devouring: whence it is applied to Time, and, in both senses in the feminine, to the goddess in her destructive capacity. In her character of Mahacali she has many other epithets, all implying different shades of black or dark azure: viz. Cali, or Cala, Nila, Asista, Shyama, or Shyamala, Mekara, Anjanabha, and Krishna.”
Wilford said that the river Kali, the Nile in Egypt, got its name from Mahacali, who, according to the Puranas, made her first appearance on its banks in the character of Rajarajeswari, also called Isani, or Isi. That river is also called Nahushi, from the warrior and conqueror Deva Nahusha, or Deonaush, who Wilford thought was probably the Dionysius of the ancient Europeans. Dionysius is often portrayed with similar characteristics to Nareda and Krishna. (Some writers have suggested that Dionysius was a Minoan deity–I think the fact that he was born from Zeus’ thigh makes that doubtful, but more on that later.)
Mahadeva as Ardha Nari
Sir William Jones thought that in her character of Bhavani, she was “Venus presiding over generation, and for that reason was sometimes portrayed as having both sexes. He refers to her bearded statue at Rome, the images called Herma-thena, and in those figures of her which had a conical shape.” (Hermes is also said to be a hermaphrodite)
In her form called Bhadra-Kali, Maha-Kali, and by other names, she is eight-handed, ashta-buja. In one image of her one of her right hands holds something like the caduceus of Hermes, without snakes.
Badra Kali
Friedlander said that the caduceus of Hermes was originally topped by a figure-eight with the top open.
On the other hand, Mahacali also has the names of Amba, or Uma; and Aranyadevi, or goddess of the forest. She is Prabha, meaning light; and Aswini, a mare, the first of the lunar mansions. It is said, “In this shape, the Sun approached her in the form of a horse, and, on their nostrils touching, she instantly conceived the twins. Her twins are called Aswini-Kumari, the two sons of Aswini.” They are beings of importance in the identity of Aesculapius. The house cock is one of the Goddess’s symbols; Friedlander said the house cock was a symbol of Aesculapius.
Surya and Esculapius
(Moor’s spelling)
It is believed that Surya, (the Sun) descended frequently from his car in a human shape, and left a race on earth. They are equally renowned in the Indian stories with the Heliades of Greece. His two sons, called Aswina, or Aswini-Cumara together, are considered twin brothers, and painted like Castor and Pollux. But they have each the character of Esculapius among the gods. The story says they were born of a nymph, who, in the form of a mare, was impregnated with sunbeams.” (Jones. Asiatic researches, Vol. I. p. 263.) Esculapius’s symbol is not identical to the caduceus of Hermes. He carries a rod with a single snake. Many consider it a more appropriate symbol for a healer.
Fourteen Gems and the Beverage of Immortality
There is a Escuapius-like figure among the Hindus, who had a different sort of birth. In the notes on page 342 Moor says, “…I do not recollect that Dhanwantara, the Esculapius of the Hindus, has an attendant serpent like his brother of Greece. The health-bestowing Dhanwantara arose from the sea when churned for the beverage of immortality. He is generally represented as a venerable man, with a book in his hand.” He was a physician and was also one of the fourteen gems obtained when the ocean was churned for the recovery of Amrita, the beverage of immortality.
The Caduceus of Hermes Gets Wings
Friedlander said the staff of Aesculapius had snakes by the 5th century BC, wings by the 1st century AD, and snakes and wings together by the 15th or 16th century. There is a picture in Moor’s plates of Krishna with a winged figure, who Moor thought was his divine spouse Rukmeny. Moor calls this picture ‘singular’. He seems to be saying that the caduceus of Hermes may have developed from the staff of Aesculapius.
Woden/Odin, as characterized by Georges Dumézil
If the caduceus of Hermes symbolizes the occult foundations of American healthcare, and if this symbol is associated with the Hindu deity Siva, Scandinavian mythology describes the nature of these influences. The connection with Odin, or rather the relationship between Odin and Thor on the one hand, and Siva/Rudra and Vishnu on the other, is discussed by Georges Dumézil in “The Stakes of the Warrior,” where Kṛṣṇa represents Viṣṇu as his avatara.
Dumézil presents legends from Scandinavia and India, which have similar patterns and themes, and discusses the comparison first in terms of his theory of the three functions, where Odin and Thor represent the magical sovereign, and the champion or warrior, the “first and second entries on the canonical list of the gods of the three functions.” The problem, he attempts to solve, is this: Although the elements of the stories are too similar to be coincidence, in the Rg Veda, Rudra (Mahadeva or Siva) and Viṣṇu don’t fit, individually or together, in the trifunctional structure. He says the Vedic Viṣṇu is an associate of Indra at the second level (warrior) and although he is above Rudra in the hierarchy, he doesn’t fit in the first level, or that of magical sovereign, and the two of them, Rudra and Viṣṇu don’t interact. It was Hinduism that later gave them trifunctional characteristics. (Actually, Dumézil says the Indian gods still do not have a definite trifunctional aspect, although Hinduism put Viṣṇu and Rudra in a more oppositional relationship.) Further, Rudra operates more on the third level as a healer and herbalist, and on the second level only as archer, alone or in his plural form Rudrāh. Also there are problems with fitting Odin and Thor into the trifunctional structure in the Scandinavian legend.
In fact, in the tales of the Scandinavian Starkaṑr and the Indian Śiśupāla, there seem to be strong similarities between Odin and Rudra, even though, hierarchically speaking, the similarities should be between Odin and Viṣṇu. Both Odin and Rudra have a weakness for the demonic, and in the end, must be rescued or have things put right again, in Odin’s case by Thor, and in Rudra’s by Viṣṇu (or Kṛṣṇa).
Others, besides Dumézil have listed physical and mental traits of character and behavior shared by these two seemingly different deities, Odin and Rudra.
Both are tireless wanderers, they like to appear to men only in disguise, unrecognizable, Odin with a hat pulled down to his eyes, Rudra with his uṡniṡa falling over his face; Odin is the master of the runes as Rudra is kavi; and above all the bands of Rudra’s devotees, bound by a vow, endowed with powers and privileges recall sometimes the berserkir, sometimes the einherjar of Odin. This sovereign god, this magician, unarguably has one of his bases in the mysterious region where the savage borders on the civilized. Like Rudra-Śiva he is often, in terms of ordinary rules, even immoral…Like Rudra-Śiva, he has his taste for human sacrifice, particularly the self-sacrifice of his votaries. More generally, like Rudra-Śiva, he has in him something almost demonic: his friendship and weakness for Loki are well known; but Loki is the malicious rogue who, one fine day, in arranging the murder of Baldr, takes on the dimensions of a ‘spirit of evil,’ of the greatest evil.
By contrast, Thor, like Viṣṇu, exterminates demons, or giants (although he is also sometimes aided by Loki or Thjalfi). According to Dumézil, the “overriding difference” between the pairs of Odin-Thor and Rudra-Viṣṇu is that “Viṣṇu–in the only sense that matters here–is superior to Rudra-Śiva, even constituting his ultimate recourse, while Odin, notwithstanding his impudences with the giants, is superior to Thor, hierarchically speaking and apparently also in the degree of esteem accorded him by human society. His complexity, his magical knowledge, the post-humous happiness he assures his followers in Valhöll, all make him theologically more interesting.”
For these reasons, Dumézil categorizes Odin and Rudra-Śiva as the “dark gods,” and Thor and Viṣṇu as the “light gods…Each of the two heroes, the Scandinavian Starkaṑr and the Indian Śiśupāla, belongs entirely to the dark god and is opposed by the light god. But the structures are almost reversed by the fact that in Scandinavia the dark god holds the first place, being more important in this life and especially in that to come, and that consequently his favor is the more desirable, the light god having only an immediate and limited range; whereas in the Indian legend it is the light god who is in the spotlight and directs the game, and whose favor in this life and in the hereafter is most fervently sought, while the dark god acts only implicitly, without showing himself, through the “Rudraic” nature of the hero.” Dumézil concludes that the Scandinavian hero, the favorite of Odin, is the good hero, while the Indian hero, a type of Rudra-Śiva, is the evil one, apparently because of the hierarchical superiority of Odin, or his function as magical sovereign.
The Question of Incarnation
According to Moor, only the Gokalast’has adore Krishna as the Deity; other sects of Hindus condemn him. “The anathematizing of Krishna is not confined to the Buddhists, but is common to other sects of Hindus equally hostile to his claims to deification.”
It is told in the Puranas how:
Krishna fought eighteen bloody battles with Deva-Cala-Yavana, or Deo-Calyun, from which the Greeks made Deucalion.” Deo-Calyun was a powerful prince who lived in the western parts of India. In the Puranas he is called an incarnate demon because he resisted Krishna’s ambitions, almost defeating him. However, Krishna was victorious in the eighteenth battle through treachery.
The title of Deva is not of course given to Calyun in the Puranas, but would probably have been given him by his descendants and followers, and by the numerous tribes of Hindus, who, to this day, call Krishna an impious wretch, a merciless tyrant, an implacable and most rancorous enemy; in short, those Hindus who consider Krishna as an incarnate demon, now expiating his crimes in the fiery dungeons of the lowest hell…
Dumézil, Georges. “The Stakes of the Warrior”. University of California Press Berkeley. 1983
Moor, Edward. “The Hindu Pantheon”. T. Bensley. London, 1810.
Scholem, Gershom. “On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead”. Schocken Books Inc. New York. 1991
Pictures from Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon”:
Mahadeva as Ardha Nari: Plate 24, figure 1
Bhadra Kālī and Caduceus: Plate 28
Rādhā, Krishna, and attendant Gopia: Plate 67
Crishna nursed by Dēvakī: Plate 59
I should explain the reference to Cain that was in the first version of the Patriarchy article, and which I left out of this version. I wrote that in the Old Testament story Cain sinned because he forced the ground, which was how it was presented in “Mythology Among the Hebrews.” At the time I also thought it was meaningful that Cain was male. I think that approach may have created unnecessary confusion about the meaning of the myth. I suspect that the assumption that the Hebrew patriarchs are the model for modern patriarchy is incorrect, although the story of Cain and Abel wasn’t the best way to argue that point.
In Mythology Among the Hebrews, the story had more to do with the age-old strife between nomads and city-dwellers. Cain, a solar figure was a builder of cities and an agriculturalist. Abel was a nomad. Their mutual animosity was a fact of life.
I found another version of the story in Edward Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon.” Moor cites Mr. Wilford, who argued that the following is similar to the death of Abel. It provides an interesting perspective on the Hebrew interpretation.
“Iswara attempted to kill his brother Brahma, who, being immortal, was only maimed; but Iswara finding him afterwards in a mortal shape, in the character of Daksha, killed him as he was performing a sacrifice.” (Iswara is Siva or Mahadeva.)
“There had subsisted for a long time some animosity between Brahma and Mahadeva in their mortal shapes; and the latter, on account of his bad conduct, which is fully described in the Puranas, had, it appears, given much uneasiness to Swayambhuva (Adam) and Satarupa (Eve); for he was libidinous, going about with a large club in his hand. Mahadeva was the eldest, and was indignant at seeing his claim as such disregarded in favour of Brahma, which the latter supported by such lies as provoked Mahadeva to such a point, that he cut off one of his heads in his divine form.”
Later, Brahma, in his human shape, or Daksha, was found boasting that he ruled over mankind.
“One day in the assembly of the gods, Daksha coming in, they all respectfully arose except Mahadeva, who kept his seat and looked gloomy, which Daksha resented; and reviled and cursed Mahadeva in his human shape, wishing he might ever remain a vagabond on the face of the earth; and ordered that he should be avoided, and deprived of his share of the sacrifices and offerings. Mahadeva, irritated, in his turn, cursed Daksha; and a dreadful conflict took place between them: the three worlds trembled, and the gods were alarmed.”
The conflict escalated to the point that the gods separated them and effected a reconciliation. Eventually Daksha gave one of his daughters to Mahadeva in marriage. But later when this daughter, Devi, was treated disrespectfully by Daksha, she threw herself into the sacrificial fire. The battle between Daksha and Mahadeva resumed, and Mahadeva killed Daksha by cutting off his head. But before that, several of the gods were wounded in the battle, “particularly the Sun and Moon: heaven, hell, and the earth, trembled.”
Sources:
Moor, Edward. “The Hindu Pantheon”. T. Bensley, London. 1810.
This was written for the Wikipedia article. Much of that article was deleted in a dispute.
What is Patriarchy?
Patriarchy is a social system in which the father or eldest male is head of the household, having authority over women and children. Patriarchy also refers to a system of government by males, and to the dominance of men in social or cultural systems. It may also include tracing title through the male line (Webster’s New World College Dictionary). Feminist theory considers rule by men to be detrimental to the rights of women. However, patriarchal systems of government do not benefit all men of all classes.
Patriarchal Institutions versus Patriarchal Attitudes
The term patriarchy generally refers to institutions but the term is sometimes used for societal attitudes. It has been argued that “Institutions are very persistent and may last, with little change, into a period in which attitudes have altered considerably since the institutions were devised.” Gordon Rattray Taylor used the words “patrist” and “matrist” to describe these attitudes. He noted that the outlook of the dominant social group seems to swing between the two extremes. However, the patrist assertion that the patriarchal system of authority was the original and universal system of social organization leads to the establishment of corresponding institutions (Taylor, Gordon Rattray. Theories of Matriarchy and Patriarchy. Sex in History ).
History of Western Patriarchy
Aristotle
Antique illustration of Aristotle Credit: ilbusca
In the third century BC, Aristotle taught that the city-state developed out of the patriarchal family. However, he thought the family and the state were different in kind as well as in scale.[mfn]Lock, John, “Two Treatises of Government, with a supplement Patriarcha by Robert Filmer, edited with an introduction by Thomas I. Cook, New York. Hafner Press, 1947[/mfn] He wrote that the highest form of human community is the political community.
The Politics
In The Politics, Aristotle attempts to illustrate the nature of the hierarchies that exist in the political community and its subordinate communities. He then argues for an origin of male rule. In Chapter Thirteen he states that men and women have different kinds of virtue, “just as those who are natural subjects differ (from those who rule by nature.)” Other types of community, such as the household, are subordinate and inferior to the polis.
Aristotle proposed that the household is subordinate to the political community because the aim of life in the household is the mere preservation of life, or the satisfaction of life’s daily needs, whereas the aim of membership in the political community is to live well. He also proposed that the household is inferior to the political community in the character of its rule. In the household, the man rules by virtue of his age and sex, monarchically at best and tyrannically at worst. In the polis, citizens choose their rulers on the basis of merit. (Stauffer, Dana Jalbert Aristotle’s Account of the Subjection of Women
Socrates
Illustration of a bust of the Greek philosopher Socrates after Visconti. credit: Gwengoat
Both Plato and Aristotle seem to have followed the lead of Socrates. Socrates denied that citizens had the basic virtue necessary to nurture a good society. He equated virtue with knowledge unattainable by ordinary people. During Athens’ struggle with undemocratic Sparta, Socrates favored Sparta (Linder, Doug, The Trial of Socrates).
Plato
Plato (Greek philosopher, 428/427 BC – 348/347 BC). Lithograph after an antique bust by Joseph Brodtmann (German-swiss engraver and publisher, 1787-1862), published c. 1830. Credit: ZU_09
Plato never mentioned Socrates’ sedition against Athens. However, the cosmology of the Timaeus includes the idea that a man who lives well will live a happy and congenial life on his consort star. Failing this a man’s second birth will be as a woman. (41E-42D, on the Creation of Souls).
The Athenians and the Egyptians Compared
Other ancient societies contemporary with Aristotle, as well as many Athenians, did not share these views of women, family organization, or political and economic structure.[mfn]del Giorgio, J.F. The Oldest Europeans. Guadeamus, Caracas, Venezuela, 2003[/mfn] Egypt left no philosophical record. Herodotus, on the other hand, left a record of his shock at the contrast between the roles of Egyptian women and the women of Athens. He observed that Egyptian women attended market and were employed in trade. In ancient Egypt a middle-class woman might sit on a local tribunal, engage in real estate transactions, and inherit or bequeath property. Women also secured loans, and witnessed legal documents.
This changed, however. Greek influence spread with the conquests of Alexander the Great, who was educated by Aristotle.[mfn]Bristow, John Temple. “What Paul Really said about Women: an Apostle’s liberating views on equality in marriage, leadership, and love”, Harper Collins, New York, 1991[/mfn] Eventually, when Alexander wanted to unite his two empires in equality, Aristotle was adamant that all non-Greeks should be enslaved.
Aristotle and the Jews
About 200 BC the Jewish Philosopher Aristobulus of Panaeas claimed that Jewish revelation and Aristotelian philosophy were identical. Within 200 years, it was assumed that Aristotle derived his doctrine directly from Judaism. In the 12th century the Talmudist philosopher and astronomer, Maimonides harmonized Aristotlianism with Judaism. Subsequent rabbinical thought includes such pronouncements as “Eve was not created simultaneously with Adam because God foreknew that later she would be a source of complaint (Gen. R. xvii). “Nine curses together with death befell Eve in consequence of her disobedience” (Pirke R. E. Xiv.; Ab. R.N. ii. 42). While Maimonides dared to contradict Aristotle’s ideas in matters of faith, it wasn’t long before the Islamic Philosopher Averroes, endorsed them without reserve. Aristotle in Jewish Legend
Adam and Eve: Patriarchy in Christianity
For the last 1800 years Christian leaders have placed great emphasis on the creation of Eve, believing that the story was historical fact, rather than androcentric myth. This has been used as evidence of insurmountable character defects, not just for Eve but for all women. In the 2nd century Tertullian, the son of a centurion and a pagan until middle life, told women believers, “Do you not know that you are Eve?…Because of the death which you brought upon us, even the Son of God had to die” (De cultu feminarum, libri duo I, 1).
In the 4th Century, the basic attitude was one of puzzlement over the fact of woman’s existence. Augustine of Hippo said he could not see how a woman could be any help for a man if the work of childbearing is excluded. However, it was only with Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century that Aristotle’s teachings emerged in the official teachings of Roman Catholicism. In the Summa Theologica, Aristotle asserted that women are misbegotten males (I 92 I ad 1). The influence of combining Aristotle’s theory with Biblical interpretations can’t be overestimated.
Christine de Pizan on the Christian Canon
In about 1404 Christine de Pizan wrote “Le livre de la cite des dames”. This was a systematic feminist treatise arguing against the misogyny in classical works and the Christian Canon. After the advent of printing, the discourse became known as “the Querelle des femmes” and continued for the next 400 years.
Sir Robert Filmer and the Divine Right of Kings
From the time of Martin Luther, Protestantism regularly used the commandment in Exodus 20:12 to justify the duties owed to all superiors. ‘Honor thy father,’ became a euphemism for the duty to obey the king. But Aristotle’s appeal took on political meaning primarily as a secular doctrine. Although many 16th and 17th century theorists agreed with Aristotle’s views concerning the place of women in society, none of them tried to prove political obligation on the basis of the patriarchal family until sometime after 1680. Sir Robert Filmer is primarily responsible for the patriarchal political theory. Sometime before 1653, Filmer completed a work entitled Patriarcha. In it he defended the divine right of kings as having title inherited from Adam, the first man of the human race. He based this theory on the Judeo-Christian tradition.
John Locke on Filmer
In 1688 John Locke called Filmer’s all-powerful prince “…this strange kind of domineering phantom called the ‘fatherhood’ which, whoever could catch, presently got empire and unlimited, absolute power.” Locke asserted that if ‘honor thy father’, places everyone in subjection to political authority, then it couldn’t mean the duty owed to natural fathers, since they are subjects. By Filmer’s doctrine fathers have no power since power belongs solely to the prince. Locke also observed that those who propose political rights based on this commandment invariably omit the word ‘mother’ which is present in the Biblical verse. (His editor, however, made a note of Locke’s inconsistency in attributing natural law to the governance of relations between a father and his children, while stating that the law governing relations between a man and his wife is based on legality, or on Eve’s punishment after the Fall. Two Treatises of Government).
Aristotle’s view was not weakened by this argument. It had been elevated to an anthropological doctrine.
Nineteenth Century Feminism
In the 19th Century, Sarah Grimké dared to question the divine origin of the scriptures. Later, Elizabeth Caddy Stanton used Grimke’s criticism of Biblical sources to establish a basis for feminist thought. She published The Woman’s Bible, which proposed a feminist reading of the Old and New Testament. Subsequently, feminist theory denounced the patriarchal Judeo-Christian tradition. [mfn]Castro, Ginette. American Feminism: a contemporary history. New York University Press. 1990[/mfn]
“Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman’s movement. Illustration was published in 1882″Credit: denisk0
Theosophy, Evolution and Racism: Patriarchy at its Worst
In Europe, from about 1770, the rationalist Enlightenment and the desire for mystery had brought about a resurgence of a synthesis of Gnosticism, neoplatonism and kabbalistic theosophy. This particular version arose first in the utilitarian and industrial countries of America and England with the theosophy of Madame Helena Blavatsky. This had a profound impact in Germany where it fit into the lebenzreform movement. Blavatsky probably influenced Adolf Hitler through the writings of Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels.
Guido von List
List sought a chauvinistic mystique for the defense of Germandom against the liberal, socialist and Jewish political forces in the late Wilhelmine Era. His blueprint involved ruthless subjection of non-Aryans in a hierarchical state; qualification of candidates for education or positions in public service, as well as in professions and commerce, based on racial purity. All non-Aryans were to be slaves. His political principles included racial and marital laws, and a patriarchal society where only male heads had full majority and where only Ario-Germans had freedom and citizenship. Each family was to have a genealogical record, proving Aryan lineage. he proposed a new feudalism where only the first-born inherits. These ideas were published as early as 1911. They were similar to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.
Lanz von Liebenfels
Darwinist writers, who wrote of blond, blue-eyed Aryans, were influential in the writings of von Liebenfels. Von Liebenfels had illiberal, pan-German and monarchical sentiments. He believed the lower classes were inferior races. It followed that they must be exterminated along with the weak. Socialism, democracy and feminism were his most important targets. Women were a special problem in his view because they were more prone to bestial lust. He advocated brood mothers in eugenic convents, sterilization and other practices that later influenced the Third Reich, apparent in Himmler’s anticipation of polygamy for his Schutzstaffel (SS), care of unmarried mothers in SS homes, and musings on the education and marriage of chosen women.[mfn]Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan cults and their influence on Nazi ideology: the Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935, New York University Press. 1992[/mfn]
Romantics and Marxists
By 1673, Francois Poullain de la Barre, “On the Equality of the Two Sexes”, had turned feminism into a systematic Enlightenment philosophy (as opposed to the previous Renaissance feminism). However, in 1861, Johann Jakob Bachofen, a German romantic and writer of the counter-Enlightenment said that matriarchy preceded patriarchy, and is superior to patriarchy on moral grounds. Bachofen influenced Karl Marx and Frederick Engles. Marxist analysis has been a basis for subsequent feminist thought.[mfn]Stjepan Gabriel Meštrović, Durkheim and postmodern culture. A. de Gruyter, New York. 1992[/mfn] From the beginning, socialist feminists in France, for example, were challenged by the republic, which “oppressed them as workers and women; by Marxism, which ignores gender; and by the misogyny of their socialist brothers. This struggle continues within all parties of the left (History of Feminism).
This was written for the Wikipedia article. Much of it was deleted in a dispute.
Patriarchy is a social system in which the father or eldest male is head of the household, having authority over women and children. Patriarchy also refers to a system of government by males, and to the dominance of men in social or cultural systems. It may also include title being traced through the male line. (Webster’s New World College Dictionary)
Within feminist theory, patriarchy refers to the structure of modern cultural and political systems, which are ruled by men. Such systems are said to be detrimental to the rights of women. However, it has been noted that patriarchal systems of government do not benefit all men of all classes.
While the term patriarchy generally refers to institutions, the term is sometimes used less effectively in describing societal attitudes. It has been argued, “Institutions are very persistent and may last, with little change, into a period in which attitudes have altered considerably since the institutions were devised.” Gordon Rattray Taylor used the words “patrist” and “matrist” to describe attitudes (as opposed to institutions), and noted that the outlook of the dominant social group seems to swing between the two extremes. however, the patrist assertion that the patriarchal system of authority was the original and universal system of social organization inevitably leads to the establishment of corresponding institutions.(Taylor, Gordon Rattray. Theories of Matriarchy and Patriarchy. Sex in History )
History
Aristotle
In the third century BC, Aristotle taught that the city-state developed out of the patriarchal family, although he thought the two were different in kind as well as in scale (Lock, John, “Two Treatises of Government, with a supplement Patriarcha by Robert Filmer, edited with an introduction by Thomas I. Cook, New York. Hafner Press, 1947). He wrote that the highest form of human community is the political community. In the Politics, Aristotle attempts to illustrate the nature of the hierarchies that exist in the political community and its subordinate communities. He argues for an origin of male rule. In Chapter Thirteen he states that men and women have different kinds of virtue, “just as those who are natural subjects differ (from those who rule by nature.)” Other types of community, such as the household, are subordinate and inferior to the polis. Aristotle proposed that the household is subordinate to the political community because the aim of life in the household is the mere preservation of life, or the satisfaction of life’s daily needs, whereas the aim of membership in the political community is to live well. He also proposed that the household is inferior to the political community in the character of its rule. In the household, the man rules by virtue of his age and sex, monarchically at best and tyrannically at worst, while in the polis, citizens choose their rulers on the basis of merit. (Stauffer, Dana Jalbert Aristotle’s Account of the Subjection of Women
Socrates
Both Plato and Aristotle seem to have followed the lead of Socrates, who denied that citizens had the basic virtue necessary to nurture a good society and equated virtue with knowledge unattainable by ordinary people. During Athens’ struggle with undemocratic Sparta, Socrates favored Sparta (Linder, Doug, The Trial of Socrates).
Plato
Plato never mentioned Socrates’ sedition against Athens, but the cosmology of the Timaeus includes the idea that a man who lives well will live a happy and congenial life on his consort star. Failing this his second birth will be as a woman. (41E-42D, on the Creation of Souls).
The Athenians and the Egyptians Compared
Other ancient societies contemporary with Aristotle, as well as many Athenians, did not share these views of women, family organization, or political and economic structure (del Giorgio, J.F. The Oldest Europeans. Guadeamus, Caracas, Venezuela, 2003). Egypt left no philosophical record, but Herodotus left a record of his shock at the contrast between the roles of Egyptian women and the women of Athens. He observed that they attended market and were employed in trade. In ancient Egypt a middle-class woman might sit on a local tribunal, engage in real estate transactions, and inherit or bequeath property. Women also secured loans, and witnessed legal documents. Greek influence spread, however, with the conquests of Alexander the Great, who was educated by Aristotle (Bristow, John Temple. “What Paul Really said about Women: an Apostle’s liberating views on equality in marriage, leadership, and love”, Harper Collins, New York, 1991). Eventually, when Alexander wanted to unite his two empires in equality, Aristotle was adamant that all non-Greeks should be enslaved.
Aristotle and the Jews
About 200 BC the Jewish Philosopher Aristobulus of Panaeas claimed that Jewish revelation and Aristotelian philosophy were identical. Before another 200 years had passed it was said that Aristotle derived his doctrine directly from Judaism. In the 12th century Aristotlianism was harmonized with Judaism by the Talmudist, philosopher and astronomer, Maimonides. Subsequent rabbinical thought includes such pronouncements as “Eve was not created simultaneously with Adam because God foreknew that later she would be a source of complaint. (Gen. R. xvii), and “Nine curses together with death befell Eve in consequence of her disobedience” (Pirke R. E. Xiv.; Ab. R.N. ii. 42). While Maimonides dared to contradict Aristotle’s ideas in matters of faith, it wasn’t long before the Islamic Philosopher Averroes, endorsed them without reserve. Aristotle in Jewish Legend
The Christians
For the last 1800 years Christian leaders have placed great emphasis on the creation of Eve, believing that the story was historical fact, rather than androcentric myth. Combined with the account of the Fall in Genesis, Chapter 3, it has been used as evidence of insurmountable character defects, not just for Eve but for all women. In the 2nd century Tertullian, the son of a centurion and a pagan until middle life, told women believers, “Do you not know that you are Eve?…Because of the death which you brought upon us, even the Son of God had to die” (De cultu feminarum, libri duo I, 1).
In the 4th Century, the basic attitude was one of puzzlement over the seemingly incongruous fact of woman’s existence. Augustine of Hippo said he could not see how a woman could be any help for a man if the work of childbearing is excluded. However, it was only with Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century that Aristotle’s teachings emerged in the official teachings of Roman Catholicism. Aristotle’s assertion that women are misbegotten males can be found in the Summa Theologica, I 92 I ad 1. The influence of combining Aristotle’s theory with Biblical interpretations can’t be overestimated.
Christine de Pizan on the Christian Canon
In about 1404 Christine de Pizan wrote “Le livre de la cite des dames”, a systematic feminist treatise arguing against the misogyny in classical works and the Christian Canon. After the advent of printing, the discourse became known as “the Querelle des femmes” and continued for the next 400 years.
Sir Robert Filmer and the Divine Right of Kings
From the time of Martin Luther, Protestantism regularly used the commandment in Exodus 20:12 to justify the duties owed to all superiors. ‘Honor thy father,’ became a euphemism for the duty to obey the king. But it was primarily as a secular doctrine that Aristotle’s appeal took on political meaning. Although many 16th and 17th century theorists agreed with Aristotle’s views concerning the place of women in society, none of them tried to prove political obligation on the basis of the patriarchal family until sometime after 1680. The patriarchal political theory is associated primarily with Sir Robert Filmer. Sometime before 1653, Filmer completed a work entitled Patriarcha. In it he defended the divine right of kings as having title inherited from Adam, the first man of the human race, according to Judeo-Christian tradition.
John Locke on Filmer
In 1688 John Locke called Filmer’s all-powerful prince “…this strange kind of domineering phantom called the ‘fatherhood’ which, whoever could catch, presently got empire and unlimited, absolute power.” Locke asserted that if ‘honor thy father’, places everyone in subjection to political authority, then it couldn’t mean the duty owed to natural fathers, since they are subjects. By Filmer’s doctrine fathers have no power since power belongs solely to the prince. Locke also observed that those who propose political rights based on this commandment invariably omit the word ‘mother’ which is present in the Biblical verse. (His editor, however, made a note of Locke’s inconsistency in attributing natural law to the governance of relations between a father and his children, while stating that the law governing relations between a man and his wife is based on legality, or on Eve’s punishment after the Fall. Two Treatises of Government).
Aristotle’s view, by Locke’s time elevated to an anthropological doctrine, was not weakened by this argument, and subsequent writers continued to give credence to Filmer’s views.
Nineteenth Century Feminism
In the 19th Century, Sarah Grimké dared to question the divine origin of the scriptures. Later, Elizabeth Caddy Stanton used Grimke’s criticism of Biblical sources to establish a basis for feminist thought. She published The Woman’s Bible, which proposed a feminist reading of the Old and New Testament. This tendency was enlarged by Feminist theory which denounced the patriarchal Judeo-Christian tradition. (Castro, Ginette. American Feminism: a contemporary history. New York University Press. 1990)
Theosophy, Evolution and Racism: Patriarchy at its Worst
In Europe, from about 1770, the rationalist Enlightenment and the desire for mystery had brought about a resurgence of a synthesis of Gnosticism, neoplatonism and kabbalistic theosophy. This particular version arose first in the utilitarian and industrial countries of America and England, with the theosophy of Madame Helena Blavatsky. This had a profound impact in Germany where it fit into the lebenzreform movement. It is likely that Adolf Hitler was influenced by Blavatsky through the writings of Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels.
List sought a chauvinistic mystique for the defense of Germandom against the liberal, socialist and Jewish political forces in the late Wilhelmine Era. His blueprint involved ruthless subjection of non-Aryans in a hierarchical state; qualification of candidates for education or positions in public service, as well as in professions and commerce, based on racial purity. All non-Aryans were to be slaves. His political principles included racial and marital laws, and a patriarchal society where only male heads had full majority and where only Ario-Germans had freedom and citizenship. Each family was to have a genealogical record, proving Aryan lineage. he proposed a new feudalism where only the first-born inherits. These ideas were published as early as 1911 and were similar to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.
Darwinist writers, who wrote of blond, blue-eyed Aryans, were influential in the writings of von Liebenfels. Von Liebenfels had illiberal, pan-German and monarchical sentiments. He believed the lower classes were inferior races and must be exterminated along with the weak. Socialism, democracy and feminism were his most important targets. Women were a special problem in his view because they were more prone to bestial lust. He advocated brood mothers in eugenic convents, sterilization and other practices that later influenced the Third Reich, apparent in Himmler’s anticipation of polygamy for his Schutzstaffel (SS), care of unmarried mothers in SS homes, and musings on the education and marriage of chosen women (Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke,The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan cults and their influence on Nazi ideology: the Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935, New York University Press. 1992).
Romantics and Marxists
By 1673, Francois Poullain de la Barre, “On the Equality of the Two Sexes”, had turned feminism into a systematic Enlightenment philosophy (as opposed to the previous Renaissance feminism).(Feminism) However, in 1861, Johann Jakob Bachofen, a German romantic and writer of the counter-Enlightenment said that matriarchy preceded patriarchy, and is superior to patriarchy on moral grounds. Bachofen influenced Karl Marx and Frederick Engles. Marxist analysis has been a basis for subsequent feminist thought. (Stjepan Gabriel Meštrović,Durkheim and postmodern culture. A. de Gruyter, New York. 1992) From the beginning, socialist feminists in France, for example, were challenged by the republic, which “oppressed them as workers and women; by Marxism, which ignores gender; and by the misogyny of their socialist brothers. This struggle continues within all parties of the left (History of Feminism).
Meanwhile, back at the Patriarchy article an editor has been arguing that Sarah Grimke did not question the divine origin of the scriptures; she only doubted the King James translation. In my opinion this distinction doesn’t change things much, although it makes an interesting discussion. (The claim that Grimke questioned the divine origin of the scriptures was taken from Ginette Castro’s book, “American Feminism.”)
It seems to me that Grimke’s challenge to the Christian scriptures makes sense; the feminist objections to the Judeo-Christian tradition arose only after centuries of defamation of the female sex. But I suppose the point in question is the same whether we are talking about religion or politics. Is loyalty to a creed an all-or-nothing proposition? Should criticism of a tradition be forbidden, regardless of its history?
A similar question came up in an essay by American Protestant Scholar Franklin H. Littell, “The Other Crimes of Adolf Hitler.” In the Holocaust, “six million Jews were targeted and systematically murdered in the heart of Christendom by baptized Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox who were never rebuked, let alone excommunicated.” Of course, there were many other individuals and groups of people who were targeted and murdered, but Littell argues the uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust is found in the identity of the Hebrews, the people of the Book. The Holocaust is unique to the history of the west in its betrayal of Biblical morality. The failure to face this fact has resulted in a credibility crisis for Christianity, as well as for the institutions of democracy and academia. But that little problem is studiously avoided in current discourse.
Littell also stresses the role of Enlightenment thinking, which serves to block effective analyses of this “terrifying, mysterious, and demonic chaos for which we have no adequate words.” We, in our “reasonable universe” think of it “in terms of the exigencies of modern war, or the inexorable logic of dictatorships, or the disposal of surplus populations…” But these are merely attempts to explain it in a way that people “long-out-of-touch-with-the Bible worldview, can understand.”
He concludes that the world’s most powerful nations are ”idolatrous nations, peoples who have turned aside, a civilization that sorely needs to have its feet set on the high road of righteousness and justice and peace.”
In this light, the attempt to distinguish between the King James translation as the cause of Christian error, as opposed to some hypothetical, accurate translation, misses the point. What difference does it make after all? One version is as easy to ignore as the next.
Sources:
Littell, Franklin H. “The Other Crimes of Adolf Hitler”. The Holocaust and History: the known, the unknown, the disputed, and the reexamined. ed. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck. Indiana University Press. Bloomington and Indianapolis. 1998.
The premise of these essays is that our turbulent times represent the birth of a new age—in other words, the turmoil actually carries the hope of something better in the future. Many of these essays have attempted to continue conversations begun by sociologists, poets and political analysts who clearly believe in America’s future, and who have responded to a need for clear thought and accurate perspective. However, in order to continue the discussion it seemed necessary to address the continuing roadblocks of arbitrary taboos and ideological rigidity. I didn’t intend this to be the final word or to be dogmatic in any sense. In my opinion, the only thing really necessary to progress in this discussion is honest intent.
My main regret at this point concerns the influence I allowed the national media to have on my comments about Libya. The fear that they are no longer trustworthy has been the biggest conversation stopper I can imagine although I still hope something good will come of our involvement in the Middle East. It is always possible that someone will do the right thing. However, without free presses everything is much more complicated.
But in any case the main ideas in America and the World (the original name of this blog) were never presented as quick fixes. They have to do with fundamental principles and require far more time and thought if anything is to come of them. You could say America and the World is a discussion about the discussion. As I pointed out previously, the great civilizations of antiquity were thousand of years in the making. We would be cheating ourselves to arrive at this auspicious time only to add a few symbols of nature religion on the National Mall and call it good—we need genuine understanding. Again, that takes time and patience. Besides, history has shown that Pagan symbols can coexist very well with inequality and oppression.
In addition to the current lack of a free press, the continuing furor over the roles and interactions between men and women represent a threat to any discussion about the future. I have tried to avoid getting bogged down by this debate—it just seems shameful to admit that women still must prove good will and positive contributions even though their worth is self-evident. I assume the political use of gender roles is at the heart of the problem because certain tactics that started at the Patriarchy article are continuing.
For my part I don’t know whether these attitudes and tactics are more widely accepted than I realized, or if they represent the attempt by one group to change the consensus. In other words, am I talking to people who want to get it right, or am I talking to people who want their own way regardless of what is right? Considering that the sources already cited have argued many of these things and have been ignored, I would have to say it is a concerted effort to promote ideology and it won’t stop any time soon. This is a huge problem when it comes to a conversation about where the nation is headed. This specific disagreement is particularly dangerous because the role given to the male and female principles in nature and custom is at the heart of culture.
Maybe the politicians won’t be able to perform miracles in the short term, although the continuing effort is a source of pride, for example, “The People’s Budget” introduced in April by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. As for the long-term solutions promised by the principles of ancient religion, we might despair if we assume they were originally developed in an idyllic era and suffered no resistance or conflict of any kind. I doubt if that is the case. Human culture is far more ancient than our history books indicate. Ancient people may have faced many of the same obstacles that we face. Anything is possible.
