Christian mythology

Christian mythology is a body of stories that explains or symbolizes Christian beliefs. A Christian myth is a religious story that Christians consider to have deep explanatory or symbolic significance. Christian mythology can also be taken to refer to the entire mythos surrounding the Christian religious system, including the various narratives of both the Old and New Testaments.

Christian mythology, without addressing any issues of core beliefs of Christianity, includes the body of legendary stories that have accumulated around New Testament figures and elaborates upon the lives of the Saints, to emphasize, explain, or embody Christian beliefs. The legendary details of the career of Pontius Pilate are prime examples of Christian mythology. Many of the common themes in hagiographies are among the conventions of Christian mythography.

These stories include many that do not come from canonical Christian texts and still do illustrate Christian themes. Other stories that are intended to foster Christian values, or address specifically Christian spiritual traditions, may be included in Christian mythology. These stories are considered by some Christian journalists, theologians, and academics (see citations below) to constitute a body of Christian mythology. Stories which were once taken as true but are no longer accepted by most Christians are most easily identified as Christian mythology, such as the tale of Saint George or Saint Valentine.

Adoption and Spread of Christian mythology

Works such as the epic poem Beowulf (c. 700-1000 CE) and other works of the period, suggest that the actual adoption of a Christian beliefs was a very slow and gradual process, as they permeated society, existing as a combination of both Christian and pagan beliefs through the centuries.

Theological and academic studies

In theological and academic studies, describing a story as myth sometimes, but not necessarily, implies falsehood. A true story can also be symbolic and explanatory. However, in common usage a myth is a story that is not true. Therefore to describe Bible stories and deeply held beliefs as 'myth' is frequently taken as an attack on those sources and on the beliefs which are based on them.

Many Christian scholars have adopted the terminology, and employ it without the connotation of disbelief (although almost always to distinguish their treatment of a story as a source of Christian belief, in contrast to literal history). In such a case the term myth may be applied to many Christian stories, including Biblical narrative. For most people the categorisation of a story they believe to be true as myth is taken as attack on that story, and frequently as an attack on Christianity.

However those Christians who do not accept the Bible as a literal history will accept those parts which they do not consider literal as myth.

Selection of stories

A selection of such stories with mythic content might include:

Stories from the apocryphal books.
Traditional stories such as that of Abgarus of Edessa.
Stories about the Holy Grail.
Elaborations or amendments to Biblical tales, such as the tales of Salomé, the Three Wise Men, or St. Dismas.
Names and biographical details supplied for unnamed Biblical characters: see List of names for the Biblical nameless
Literary treatments of traditional Biblical lore, such as Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton
Literary treatments of themes from Christian theology or eschatology such as the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Tales of saints (hagiographies) whose historicity is doubtful, like Saint Christopher or St. Catherine of Alexandria
Miraculous stories of saints such as are found in Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend.
The legends of King Arthur and other tales of medieval chivalry, especially the Quest for the Holy Grail.
Legendary history of the Christian churches, such as the tales from the Crusades or the paladins of Charlemagne in medieval romance.
Stories about angels, guardian angels, devils, and tales of making pacts with the Devil (see e.g. Faust).

Narrative fictions

Narrative fictions with Christian content may fall within the category of Christian mythology. A case in point is the historical and canonized Brendan of Clonfort, a 6th century Irish churchman and founder of abbeys. Round his authentic figure was woven a tissue that belongs more to legend than mythology, the Navigatio or "Journey of Brendan". In this narrative Brendan and his shipmates encounter sea monsters, a paradisal island and a floating ice island inhabited by a holy hermit: literal-minded devotés still seek to identify "Brendan's islands" in actual geography.

Many fictions written to personalize Christian themes are better regarded as allegory. Examples of these might include:

Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

Some Christians discover Christian themes in The Lord of the Rings and other works by J.R.R. Tolkien. Though the author adamantly denied that his story was to be taken as an allegory, he admitted to influence from his own experience, which included devout Catholicism.

Legacy

From the time of St. Augustine in the fifth century to the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, biblical stories provided the framework of European mythology. Other myths found in different parts of Europe were Christianized and incorporated into this framework. Stories such as that of Beowulf and Icelandic, Norse, and Germanic sagas were reinterpreted and given Christian meanings. The legend of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail is a striking example (Treharne 1971). The thrust of incorporation took on one of two directions. When Christianity was on the advance, pagan myths were Christianized; when it was in retreat, Bible stories were mythologized, sometimes into foreign myths.

Since the end of the eighteenth century, biblical stories have ceased to provide the central mythology of Western society. Owing to the scepticism of the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century freethinking, most Westerners no longer find in Christianity the basic imaginative and mythological framework by which they understand their place in the world. While many people still profess to be Christians, on the whole, Christian belief is restricted to the realm of private spirituality, and as a result Western mythologies now lack a strong Christian content at both their popular and official levels. Certain subgroups within modern society still retain a strong element of Christian mythology in their understanding of life. It is also true that Christian values often inform law and other official elements within different Western societies, but nowhere today do we find biblical mythology providing both the popular and official myths of modern industrial society.

External links

Louis A. Markos in Myth Matters, from Christianity Today magazine. Quote: "just as Christ came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, so he came not to put an end to myth but to take all that is most essential in the myth up into himself and make it real."
Mark Filiatreau in A Master of Imaginative Fiction, from BreakPoint Online. Quote: "Classics of Christian Myth -- MacDonald’s key mythic works include five full-length books, which we’ll introduce here."
Abstract of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung, from The CG Jung page. Quote: "The astrological characteristics of the fish are seen to contain the essential components of the Christian myth."
James W. Marchand in Christian Parallels to Norse Myth, from the Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois. Quote: "This reluctance to weigh fairly the possibility of the influence of Christian myth on Norse myth has had a number of unfortunate consequences. The most unfortunate is the resolute refusal on the part of most students of Norse myth to look at medieval Christian myth."

Christian mythology | Indo-European mythology