Pagan and Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning

Edward Carpenter

Description

First published in 1921, this vintage book looks at paganism and Christianity, exploring their various connections and analysing where these similarities came from and what they mean. Edward Carpenter (1844 – 1929) was an English philosopher, poet, and pioneering activist for gay rights. He had many notable friends including the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore and celebrated American poet Walt Whitman; and also corresponded with many famous figures, including Jack London, Mahatma Gandhi and Annie Besant, amongst others. Contents include: “Solar Myths and Christian Festivals”, “The Symbolism of the Zodiac”, “Totem-Sacraments and Eucharists”, “Food and Vegetation Magic”, “Magicians, Kings and Gods”, “Rites of Expiation and Redemption”, “Pagan Initiations and the Second Birth”, “Myth of the Golden Age”, “The Savior-god and the Virgin-mother”, “Ritual Dancing”, “The Sex-Taboo”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

Sujets

• Christianisme
• Religion
• Paganism
• Philosophie et théologie
• Neo-Paganism

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 08 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528767958
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

PAGAN CHRISTIAN CREEDS:
THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING
By EDWARD CARPENTER

1921
Copyright 2018 Read Books Ltd.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Edward Carpenter
Edward Carpenter was born on 29 August 1844, in Hove, Sussex, England. He is best known as a socialist poet and philosopher, and an early gay activist.
Carpenter was educated at the nearby Brighton College, where his father was a governor, and received his university education at Trinity Hall, Cambridge . It was during his time at university that Carpenter began exploring his feelings for men. He developed a close friendship with Edward Anthony Beck, which, according to Carpenter had a touch of romance . When Beck eventually broke off communications, Carpenter suffered great emotional heartache; the overall sense of rejection mirrored his general unease with his sexuality as a whole.
Carpenter graduated from Cambridge, tenth in his class, in 1868, and thereafter joined the Church of England as a curate. In the following years, Carpenter experienced an increasing sense of dissatisfaction with what he saw as the hypocrisy of Victorian society and as a consequence, resolved to work for the benefit of the working classes. Carpenter left the church in 1874 and became a lecturer in astronomy at the University of Leeds as part of University Extension Movement-a movement formed by academics in order to introduce higher education to deprived areas of England. He hoped to lecture to the working classes, but found his lectures were mostly attended by middling sorts, many of whom showed little interest in the subject. After this failure, Carpenter moved to Sheffield and became increasingly radical, joining the Social Democratic Federation in 1883. Whilst living in the city, he wrote a piece in the Sheffield Independent , criticising the poor living and health-care conditions which the inhabitants were subjected to. During this period he also wrote England Arise! ; a rousing socialist marching song.
Whilst still in Sheffield, Carpenter was gifted a pair of sandals from a friend in India, and soon found the joy of wearing them as he later reported. He began making them himself, and this was the first successful introduction of sandals to Britain.
In 1890, Carpenter travelled to Ceylon and India to spend time with the Hindu teacher, Gnani, who he described in his work Adam s Peak to Elephanta . The experience had a profound effect on his social and political thought. Carpenter began to believe that Socialism should not only concern itself with man s outward economic conditions, but also affect a profound change in human consciousness. This form of mystical socialism inspired Carpenter to begin a number of campaigns against air pollution and the promotion of vegetarianism. On his return from India in 1891, Carpenter met George Merrill, a working class man from Sheffield, with whom he formed a romantic relationship. The couple moved in together in 1898, and remained partners for the rest of their lives; an extraordinary feat given the rife hysteria generated by the Oscar Wilde trial of 1895. Their partnership, in many ways, reflected Carpenter s cherished conviction that same-sex love had the power to subvert class boundaries. He wrote about this in The Intermediate Sex (1908), claiming that Eros is a great leveller. This text was soon followed by Carpenter s even more radical work Love s Coming-of Age , in which he gave a clear analysis of the ways in which sex and gender were used to oppress women; regarding marriage both as enforced celibacy and a form of prostitution. Carpenter remained politically active his entire life, and his left-wing pacifism led him to become a vocal opponent of the Second Boer War and then World War One. In 1919, he published The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife , where he argued passionately that the source of war and discontent in western society was class-monopoly and social inequality. Nine years later, in May 1928, Carpenter suffered a paralytic stroke and died on 28 June 1929. He had entreated in writing, for a statement to be read at his funeral, however the request was not discovered until several days after the burial. The words are now engraved on Carpenter s tombstone; reflecting his life and all he worked towards; Do not think too much of the dead husk of your friend, or mourn too much over it, but send your thoughts out towards the real soul or self which has escaped-to reach it. For so, surely you will cast a light of gladness upon his onward journey, and contribute your part towards the building of that kingdom of love which links our earth to heaven.
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS
THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING
The different religions being lame attempts to represent under various guises this one root-fact of the central universal life, men have at all times clung to the religious creeds and rituals and ceremonials as symbolising in some rude way the redemption and fulfilment of their own most intimate natures-and this whether consciously understanding the interpretations, or whether (as most often) only doing so in an unconscious or quite subconscious way.
The Drama of Love and Death, p. 96.
CONTENTS
I.
INTRODUCTORY
II.
SOLAR MYTHS AND CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS
III.
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC
IV.
TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS
V.
FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC
VI.
MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS
VII.
RITES OF EXPIATION AND REDEMPTION
VIII.
PAGAN INITIATIONS AND THE SECOND BIRTH
IX.
MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE
X.
THE SAVIOUR-GOD AND THE VIRGIN-MOTHER
XI.
RITUAL DANCING
XII.
THE SEX-TABOO
XIII.
THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY
XIV.
THE MEANING OF IT ALL
XV.
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES
XVI.
THE EXODUS OF CHRISTIANITY
XVII.
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX ON THE TEACHINGS OF THE UPANISHADS:
I.
REST
II.
THE NATURE OF THE SELF
INDEX
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS:
THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING
I.
INTRODUCTORY
T HE subject of Religious Origins is a fascinating one, as the great multitude of books upon it, published in late years, tends to show. Indeed the great difficulty to-day in dealing with the subject, lies in the very mass of the material to hand-and that not only on account of the labor involved in sorting the material, but because the abundance itself of facts opens up temptation to a student in this department of Anthropology (as happens also in other branches of general Science) to rush in too hastily with what seems a plausible theory. The more facts, statistics, and so forth, there are available in any investigation, the easier it is to pick out a considerable number which will fit a given theory. The other facts being neglected or ignored, the views put forward enjoy for a time a great vogue. Then inevitably, and at a later time, new or neglected facts alter the outlook, and a new perspective is established.
There is also in these matters of Science (though many scientific men would doubtless deny this) a great deal of Fashion . Such has been notoriously the case in Political Economy, Medicine, Geology, and even in such definite studies as Physics and Chemistry. In a comparatively recent science, like that with which we are now concerned, one would naturally expect variations. A hundred and fifty years ago, and since the time of Rousseau, the Noble Savage was extremely popular; and he lingers still in the story books of our children. Then the reaction from this extreme view set in, and of late years it has been the popular cue (largely, it must be said, among armchair travelers and explorers) to represent the religious rites and customs of primitive folk as a senseless mass of superstitions, and the early man as quite devoid of decent feeling and intelligence. Again, when the study of religious origins first began in modern times to be seriously taken up-say in the earlier part of last century-there was a great boom in Sungods. Every divinity in the Pantheon was an impersonation of the Sun-unless indeed (if feminine) of the Moon. Apollo was a sungod, of course; Hercules was a sungod; Samson was a sun-god; Indra and Krishna, and even Christ, the same. C. F. Dupuis in France ( Origine de tous les Cultes , 1795), F. Nork in Germany ( Biblische Mythologie , 1842), Richard Taylor in England ( The Devil s Pulpit , 1 1830), were among the first in modern times to put forward this view. A little later the phallic explanation of everything came into fashion. The deities were all polite names for the organs and powers of procreation. R. P. Knight ( Ancient Art and Mythology , 1818) and Dr. Thomas Inman ( Ancient Faiths and Ancient Names , 1868) popularized this idea in England; so did Nork in Germany. Then again there was a period of what is sometimes called Euhemerism-the theory that the gods and goddesses had actually once been men and women, historical characters round whom a halo of romance and remoteness had gathered. Later still, a school has arisen which thinks little of sun-gods, and pays more attention to Earth and Nature spirits, to gnomes and demons and vegetation-sprites, and to the processes of Magic by which these (so it was supposed) could be enlisted in man s service if friendly, or exorcised if hostile.
It is easy to see of course that there is some truth in all these explanations; but naturally each school for the time being makes the most of its own contention. Mr. J. M. Robertson ( Pagan Christs and Christianity and Mythology ), who has done such fine work in this field, 1 relies chiefly on the solar and astronomical origins, though he does not altogether deny the others; Dr. Frazer, on the other hand-whose great work, The Golden Bough , is a monumental collection of primitive customs, and will be an inexhaustible quarry for all future