Pynchon's RC Sources

[Terri]

Elaide, as several critics have demonstrated, is one of P's
most important sources for religious material. 


In the Jews, Eliade argues, we  encounter a people with a 
personal God of history. This is something quite new. This
is evidenced in the famous biblical story of the patriarch
Abraham, who prepares to kill his son as an offering to
God.  If Judaism were an archaic religion, says Eliade, this
fearsome act would be an instance of human sacrifice. 
Killing of the firstborn to renew the sacred power of life
in the gods. 

However, within the New Judaism, the Event has  quite a
different character. Abraham's encounter is a very personal
transaction in history with a God who asks him for his son
simply as a sign of his faith. This God, not an Earth God,
but a sky God,  does not need sacrifices to renew his divine
powers. In fact, he does spare Isaac, the son. This Father
God requires from his people is a heart loyal enough to make
that ultimate  sacrifice if asked. Christianity inherits
this same
perspective. The sequence of events that make up the life
and death of Jesus forms a singular and historic instance, a
decisive moment which, occurring ONCE ONLY, serves as the
basis for a personal relationship of forgiveness and trust
between Christian believers and their God. In celebrating
the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ, the
Christian faithful do not engage in a ritual of seasonal
rebirth; they do not act out an eternal return to
beginnings. 


Of course, this new historical religion did not win an
instant victory over the older, archaic attitudes, which are
deeply rooted in human psychology. The tremendous attraction
of the  fertility religions did not simply go away. 




In Western civilization, especially modern Europe and
America, in the last few centuries, Eliade explains, we have
once again seen something quite new in human history: the
wide acceptance of philosophies that deny the existence and
value of the sacred altogether. Advocates of these views
claim that it makes no difference where one wants to find
the sacred, whether in history or beyond it, for the simple
reason that human beings do not need it. The truth, they
say, is that
there are no gods, there are no "sacred archetypes" which
can show us how to live or what ultimate purpose to live
for.  We must now live as Profane, without the sacred
altogether. We can put aside for a moment the question of
whether this modern, totally unsacred view of the world is
good or bad or what the applied author or what TRP thinks
about all this. Where did this thinking come from? WHo let
the dogs in? Eliade argues that the door to this second
revolution was in fact opened by the very same shift of
ideas that created the first: the coming of Judeo-Christian
historical religion. This seems puzzling at first sight, but
for Eliade the sequence is clear. It comes into focus the
moment we place everything within the original context of
archaic religion and the myth of eternal return. We must
remember, he says, that to the first archaic peoples, the
world of nature was of pivotal importance. It was able at
any instant to come alive with the sacred. Symbolism clothed
it in the supernatural; legend and myth sang of the gods
behind the storm and rain. Clues and hints of the sacred
could be found
in a tree, a stone, or the path of a bird in flight. When I
argued that Pynchon's sympathies for some early Puritans is
evidenced in Slothrop's passion for trees, directly
attributed to his Puritan heritage (see also Milton's Sonnet
on Piedmont, How Milton Works?) some objected to this. Even
here in V., Pynchon's critique of Puritanism is obvious, but
a claim that in P one finds a condemnation, is not
warranted.  Nature was the garment of the divine. This was
not to be the case, however, in Judaism and Christianity.
The prophets of Israel and writers of the New Testament
pushed nature into the background and brought history up to
the front of the stage. The seasons, storms, and trees were
"desacralized," for the God of Israel and of Christian faith
chose to show himself chiefly in the twists and turns of
dramatic human events-in the Hebrews' escape from Pharaoh,
in the battle of
Jericho, or in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. In this new perspective nature still had a part to
play, but only in a supporting role. Israel's prophets still
saw the great wind that parted the Red Sea as a sign of the
sacred, but in the light of their historical perspective,
they read it quite differently. For them it disclosed the
divine not because it was a wondrous natural event as
archaic peoples would have said, but because it contributed
to God's  purposes. It delivered his people from the hands
of their enemies. As Eliade sees it, this change of
religious sensibility is a significant one, not only on its
own terms, but because of the momentous consequences that
follow from it. For gradually, and almost imperceptibly,
this original move from religions of nature to religions of
history laid the groundwork, in the present era, for a
further shift from the newer religions of history to
philosophies of history and society that discard religion
altogether. Through the long passage of centuries, and
especially in Western civilization, the removal of the
divine from nature has slowly opened the way for entire
societies to adopt a style of thought that only a few
isolated individuals ever seriously considered until the
coming of the modern era. That style is secularity--the
removal of all reference to the sacred from human thought
and action.  Eliade explains that the logic behind this move
away from religion is simple enough. Secular thinkers argue
as follows, if
religions like Judaism and Christianity made one great
change in the world's religious consciousness, does that not
license us to make another if we should so wish? If the
prophets felt they had a right to take the sacred out of
nature and find it  only in history, why can we not follow
their own example and dismiss it from nature and history
alike? In short, why can we not remove it from human affairs
completely?  Eliade describes these secular creeds as forms
of "historicism," a type of thought that recognizes only
things ordinary and profane while denying any reference at
all to things supernatural and sacred. "Historicists" hold
that if we want significance, if we want some sense of a
larger purpose in life, we obviously cannot find it 
in the archaic way, by escaping history through 
some eternal return.  But neither can we
find it in the Judeo-Christian way, by claiming that there
is in history some great plan or purpose of God. We can find
it only in ourselves. Examples of this historicist thinking
can be found in any number of modern systems and thinkers.
Eliade notes the developmentalism of the German philosopher
Hegel, the communism of Karl Marx, and the perspectives of
twentieth century fascism and existentialism. Modern
capitalism might be included as well.