2nd death

For ages the Chritians sung their hymns. With the advent of modernity in the Renaissance and Enlightenment period however the started looking back. In the faithful polemics that saw the light ever since blame is shed upon infidels and heretics. It is however the Christians themselves who sent their beloved leader back to the underworld.

What happened? Scholars and intellectuals as a result of their revaluation of human reason expressed their doubts about Christian dogmatics. This led eventually to the critical bible studies which taught us so much about the historical conditions of the communities that produced the biblical literature. These historical investigations proved a lot of dogmatics untenable. The development of a historical critical method of studying the biblical literature brought about a deep schism within Christianity. On the one hand there were the liberal adherents that felt the need to think through the implications of the new approach, on the other hand conservative forces percieved this as a direct challenge towards their authority. This current in Christianity brought about a different approach in the historical studies. Their students set out to use the tools of the historical- and literary criticism to proove the authority of the biblical literature.

Many examples of this method could presented. I will limit myself to one. In the history of Christianity the book of Jonah is one of the most beloved stories. Not only is the book itself a very elegantly composed piece of literature. It is also the image of the obstinate prophet -a not so pious religious official that stimulates the imagination. On top of that there is the outrageous idea of a human being that survives being swallowed by a large fish. In literary criticism this idea is dismissed as an aspect of mythical reason from which pre-modern man could not yet liberate himself.

The new current in biblical studies countered exactly this aspect of literary criticism, what could be called the modernist prejudice. Their motto could be stated: the bible witnesses  miraculous events although not many supernatural ones. Someone who bothered himself with this method is Roy Pinney, author of The animals in the Bible: the identity and natural history of all the animals mentioned in the Bible.

In order to account for the rescue of Jonah the author proceeds with a two step method. First a fish or annother animal living in the sea big enough to be able to swallow a human being is needed. It turns out this can only be the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). This whale eats giant squids & octopuses of sizes that exceed the size of the human body. Therefore, one can imagine this whale swallowing a human prophet. In fact the curator of a certain museum of natural history went to find out for himself after many questions of visitors. He shoved his upper body through the throat of a sperm whale. Afterwards he concluded that it must be posiible for a whale to swallow a prophet, only if the prophet was not too big. Second, equivalent cases must be recorded: i.e. other people who have been swallowed by a whale and survived. Fortunately these exist. Mister Pinney recounts the story of a whaler by the name of Charles Bartley. While whaling this chap went overboard and was swallowed by a whale. His fellow whalers caught the sperm whale and slit it open to recover their unfortunate colleague. He was braught ashore, raving mad, which he remained for forteen days. He received a permanent souvenir of this adventure: a bleached skin as a result from the acidous gastric juices in the whales stomach. It must be noted that before Pinney this story has been used by a certain Ambrose Wilson in an article in the Princeton Theological Review titled ‘The sign of the prophet Jonah and its modern confirmation’ published in 1927.

Enough of Jonah for now. These theologians who try to find evidence of miraculous events in the bible do what they assiduously try to avoid. Whether it is proving that Jonah’s fate is true or identitying the star of Bethlehem or proving people have actually rose from death and still do, they contribute to the 2nd death of Christ. By trying to prove that the stories of the bible are reliant accounts of historical events they make clear that this approach has serious limitations.

This is what happened to the historical critical method. This method has proven not to work as a basis for Christian faith. Therefore this fate has struck the conservative current as well. Faith does not relie on the historicity of certain  events. Faith is a result of the social circumstances of actual reality. What the described events in biblical scholarship have produced is Orpheus looking over his shoulder only to see Eurydice fade away. The studious efforts to prevent Orpheus look over his left shoulder, made him look over his right shoulder. As a result Eurydice/Jesus died for the second time. In his poem Orpheus & Eurydice the Dutch poet Albert Verwey puts it very well: Heeft Orpheus niet Eurydice gedood/ door zelf te hunkeren naar haar levende ogen. The biblical scholars who wanted to prove the reliability of the biblical tradition yearned for the living eyes of Jesus and by doing so they killed him for the second time.

In medieval christianity an interpretatio christiana of the orpheus myth occurs. eurydice is humanity that fell & died as a result of the original sin committed by Eve. Orpheus is Christ who descended into the realm of death to bring her back to life. Now this allegorical interpretation misses the point on the aspect of the 2nd death of eurydice.

What happened after Good Friday? This is the core myth of Christianity. Jesus rose from death and his followers from then on participated in his victory over death. From this perspective stems the christian interpretation of orpheus. What happened?

After Jesus died, his followers were overcome with grief. Some may have believed he was a prophet. The least they thought was that he warned the people of his time like the OT prophets did. Now after his death they did not loose faith, instead of following Jesus they became followers of his teachings. By remaining true to these teachings they would be able to participate in his final victory over death.

In those days the belief in a world going up in flames was widespread -Armagedon. In Jewish circles this was combined with a belief in a promised Son of Man. This Son of Man would appear as an eschatological judge. At the end of times he would judge mankind by measuring their truthfulness to God’s law. The first Christians made up an image of Christ by blending Jesus and the Son of Man. This belief was very actual. The first Christians believed they would witness the return of Christ. They would not die until they see the victorious coming of the Lord. However, as we know, this appeared not to be the case.

And as more and more of the initial followers died the Christians started accepting they would not live to see the coming of the Lord. Did this lead to a fall from belief? Indeed not! It led to a transformation of doctrine. The coming of the Lord was postponed to an indefinite future, while his physical resurrection was projected back to shortly after his death. To be more precise, on the third day after his death.

This is the original orphic christianity. Overcome with grief the first christians could not accept the death of their leader. Therefore they staged the resurrection of their Lord. When it turned out it did not go as planned they altered the initial image, they did not abandon it. Orpheus/Christians descended into Hades and they sung their beloved teacher Jesus/Eurydice back to life. Their songs? The dogma’s of physical resurrection, the double nature of Christ and diverse trinitary formula’s. And the singing did not stop. The Christians have sung for ages as some still do today. For centuries and centuries the have been ascending from Hades to bring their beloved leader back to life.

Until … the next post.

Do you know what happened to Orpheus? This Thracian figure was a master musician and as such Orpheus is the mythical ancestor of musicians. He would make the grievous sing with joy. He could make stones speak of the deeds of old. As he played the deaf heard. Orpheus was a very often invited musician. Once he played at a party when his eyes met those of a beautiful girl: Eurydice. It was love at first sight, for a while they were the most happy couple alive … alas what harsh fate these lovers struck. Out in the fields Eurydice was persued by a faun. In the rush of the pursuit she stepped on an adder. The venomous creature bit her heel and she died. Struck with grief Orpheus could not accept her death & he went to get her.

He descended towards the river Styx. There he softened the heart of Charon, he outwitted Cerberos with his snares and he warmed the spirits of the dead so they brought him to their master: Hades. The god of death lent his ear and Orpheus told of his love and of the grievous fate they met. Reminded of his love for Persephone Hades granted Orpheus what he never granted a living soul before. Orpheus could leave hades & take his love and bring her back to life. Overcome with joy Orpheus returned … only after hearing the one condition Hades demanded. Eurydice should follow Orpheus and he may not look back. You probably know what happened: Orpheus did look back, eurydice was inhaled by Hades. She died for the second time -the 2nd death.

in medieval christianity orpheus is considered to be a christ-figure. just like orpheus jesus christ descended into hades to bring back his beloved believers. in this blog i want to contemplate a different option and its consequences. More in the next post.