Re: MD Static and dynamic aspects of mysticism and religious experience

From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Mon Mar 07 2005 - 18:19:49 GMT

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    Hi DMB,

    I just wanted to add something on the Orpheus point, as I know it's close to
    your heart. I think there's a basic mistake involved in saying that the
    Orpheus story is equivalent to the JC story. CS Lewis puts it much better
    than I can:

    "I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all
    my life. [That's what he was a professor in] I know what they are like. I
    know that not one of them is like this [the gospel account of JC]. Of this
    text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage - though it
    may no doubt contain errors - pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close
    as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without
    known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique
    of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be
    narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn't see this has simply not
    learned to read. I would recommend him to read Auerbach['s Mimesis; The
    Represenation of Reality in Western Literature]."

    I'm not disputing that there are parallels. But to equate the two seems to
    be a fundamental mistake.

    Sam

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