The One Myth that is True?

New blog on the kid: Was C.S. Lewis refuted by Elisabeth Anscombe? · somewhere else: The One Myth that is True?

C.S. Lewis:

Baldr, Osiris, how come Jesus isn't also a myth?

J.R.R. Tolkien:

Of course it is, but it's the one myth that is true.

T.W. Rolleston:

[named a book Celtic Myths and Legends]

How come Baldr and Osiris are untrue myths and Jesus is a true one?

Now, I would say definitely that Baldr is an untrue myth, the Danes seemed to have kept a memory from before they became Odinists of Odin simply grieving over a Baldr killed in battle (see Saxo). The ideas later spread of Baldr being killed by Hodr and then ruling a land of blessed dead in the underworld is simply a rip off from the Osiris story.

Osiris could have lived and been killed by his brother Seth and had his wife and sister impregnated by some primitive type of artificial insemination, but the parts about his then going on to rule the blessed dead in the netherworld is an error. It's wishful thinking on part of those grieving. It involves no immediate nor any observed resurrection.

With Perseus, I don't deny he killed a dragon to save Andromeda. I do deny he went up to heaven to form a star constellation and that she did so.

Romulus, Perseus, perhaps (as said, it's more questionable to me) Osiris were played out by real men, before their eyes. Like Ulysses getting home to Ithaca, like Aeneas leaving Troy.

What one would normally mean by "divine myth" (Göttersage in German) are things like Apollo chasing Daphne and then turning her to a laurel tree or Ymer proceeding with the cow Audhumbla from a mixture of ice and fire. If true, we would not have seen it, and it concerns the divine.

What one would normally mean by "heroic legend" (Heldensage in German) is - if true - played out before human eyes.

Sometimes these overlap, as with Romulus : it is divine myth that he and Remus were sired by Apollo or that he vanished and was taken up to the gods and one ows him worship. It is heroic legend that he and Remus had a part semi-feral upbringing (semi-feral, since having each other, if no adult humans around among the wolves, or with the she-wolf). It is also so that they revenged their at least reputed grandfather Numitor on the grand-uncle Amulius and that they founded Rome, on which occasion Romulus hit too hard, namely with a sword, and killed Remus.

Now, I would definitely say that in the divine myth part of mythology (the pure divine myths, and the divine myth part of overlapping myths/legends) Pagans were bad theologers. Their views include errors. But I would equally say, that in the heroic legend part of it (pure heroic legends and the heroic legend part of overlapping myths/legends), they were decently good historians.

Hercules was a strong man, and wrongly taken to be son of Zeus. Romulus and Remus were sired mysteriously (bad guarding or demonic versions of medically assisted procreation) and belligerent and victorious and this was wrongly taken to mean they were sons of Mars. Nothing in the lives indicates any serious claim to real divinity, except to Pagans who have low bars. Hercules restoring Alcestis to life could be plagiarised from an event older than the oldest telling we know of Alcestis, namely Elias raising the boy.

Gospels are far nearer, and Jesus raising dead and even, very uniquely, resurrecting without someone else raising Him, that argues the divine of some sort. And the Church, founded on a basis of pious Hebrews, give a faithful recording, both of the miracles and of the claims to be God, the Son.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St.Henry I
15.VII.2021