re MDDM 35 Christ and History

[Terrance]

Thomas Eckhardt wrote:
> 
> 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.

http://www.newartexaminer.org/archive/marcath.html

See, Sir James Frazer, Louis Charbonneau-Lassay,   Eliade, Graves and
Branston, Weber....


I simply don't think it is an odd or nasty,  or in any way an unusual
metaphor, for a Rev.d with a Catholic bent. 

> 
> <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?

I included that because it is the antithesis of Mandeville. One man goes
out and finds, in the cults of foreign men, Christ,  while another man
finds only devils and primitive gods. . Excellent analysis on your part,
thanks very much. 


What did the Jesuits do in New France? Quite different from what they
did in the American slave south. Why? 

> 
> > 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? 


Yes. 

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.
> 

Right. 


> 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. 

Yes. 


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? 

Yes. 


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


Oh yes, Christ is Hunted down and eaten. And the history or dance is
commemoration of the Hunt, like putting on a Buffalo skin Christians in
Ireland put on a cow hide and dance.