re MDDM 35 Christ and History

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Terrance wrote:

> I recall that God (not unlike Saturn)
> was a very hungry god sometimes and he hunted men, and that the metaphor
> of the Hunt or the simile, the spirit of the Lord is as a Hunter and so
> on, was very exciting and sometimes used with men hunting or preying on
> Christ.

Yes, I was hoping for something like that. Some old collection of
emblems might be helpful here.

<long passage snipped>

> Greeks? And I wonder how they saw their gods sawn out and hacked and docked by
> the......

Where is that all from? One of the Early Fathers of the Church?

> You get the idea, I suppose. Sounds like RC, a Catholic of sorts,
> traveling about and  around with outlaws and  outcasts, jesuits and the
> like, has just the right metaphor.

I am not sure whether I get the idea. The author of these paragraphs
tries to prove that the old gods were no gods and thus had to be
replaced by the one God of Christianity, right? His main argument is
that these gods were mortal - that they were subject to the cycle of
nature, that they ate and were eaten, that they hunted and were hunted,
that they sinned and were sinned against. Next, the author probably goes
on to
emphasize the singularity of Christ's resurrection from the dead.

Christ's resurrection, or the legend that one man overcame mortality, is
certainly the single event, or text, from which Christianity derives its
authority and the source of the power it needed to replace the old
religions. But when Cherrycoke compares the longing for immortality,
which from his POV in the passage under discussion fueled world history
in the Christian era, to a hunt, he aligns Christ with those old gods,
no? Or is he saying that the hunt is as cruel as it is because man has
gotten everything wrong? Because secular history has got nothing to do
with Christ? Because, as the text you quoted implies, Christ cannot be
hunted down?

Confusedly, 
Thomas