Christians & Pagan Mythology Addendum

G.K. Chesterton, the Catholic novelist, split pagans of the ancient world into two categories: the benevolent and virtuous ones who loved their mythology for the truth and beauty they conveyed and the ones who entangled themselves with demons through human sacrifice and occult activity.

If there is any evidence that Christians are allowed or even encouraged  to engage with pagan mythology, then look no further than Chesterton, who commended the first group of pagans. He even called myth a lost art in his book The Everlasting Man. 

To Chesterton, there is a distinct difference between myth and religion. The gods featured in pagan myths weren't real gods in Chesterton's eyes. Scripture supports such a claim in multiple passages. The best evidence that backs this up is the Book of Exodus, when God sends the 10 plagues to afflict the Egyptians. Each of the 10 plagues was a direct assault against key Egyptian deities. For me, the 1956 film The Ten Commandments gets this across even more clearly when the tenth and final plague strikes the first-born sons of the Egyptians, particularly Pharoah's firstborn son. 

After Pharoah lets the Israelites go, the film shows that his heart was hardened yet again.  Pharoah (Yul Brynner) is in the royal palace, standing next to the lifeless body of his son, which has been placed in the arms of a giant idol of Seker, an Egyptian god of life and death. Pharoah's wife, Queen Nefretiri (Anne Baxter), asks him, "how many more days and nights will you pray? Does he hear you?" This prompts him to raise his head and pray once more to Seker, begging the deity to resurrect his son. The Queen replies, "He cannot hear you. He's nothing but a piece of stone with a head of a bird." 

Pharoah insists that Seker will hear and answer him because Pharoah is Egypt. Nefretiri sadly replies that no god can revive their son. And sure enough, Pharaoh's prayers to Seker do not bring their son back, proving that the deities of Ancient Egypt are powerless. Only the Judeo-Christian God has the power that the Ancient Egyptians attributed to their deities. 

The upright pagans Chesterton spoke of did not interpret their mythology as literal truth. They did not believe Hades and Persephone, Loki's punishment, or Ra traveling across the underworld in his sun barge were actual, dogmatic events. Rather, they believed that these stories revealed important truths about the world and ourselves. It is like myths about fairies in forests conveying that forests have something special and divine about them, not that fairies actually exist and live in forests. 

So if you are a God-fearing person with an appreciation of pagan mythology, be assured that engaging with these myths is not something God disapproves of. He might be trying to teach you something through your engagement with them. 

In the past, I have talked about what the religious practices of the Ancient Greeks and the Vikings were. And from now on, I will be sticking to the mythology only.