Gnostic Wolfe

James Jordan · 04 Nov 2002, 19:43 · from urth-v0211.mbox · original

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Subject: RE: (urth) Gnostic Wolfe
Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 13:43:43 -0600
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At 12:22 PM 11/4/2002, Dan'l wrote:
>Nutria,
>
>It's good to hear your comments, and to the very large extent
>that we seem to be in agreement I take this as a point in
>favor of what I've been saying -- not merely because you are,
>as always, astute, but because you are this list's other
>vocally professing Christian; I think that our agreement
>suggests that what we are seeing may well be close to what
>Wolfe, also a vocally professing Christian, intends, in that
>we're coming from a similar world view to his.

Thanks. Just a couple of quickies.

>Pythagoras and Plato, certainly; I'm not as sure about
>Aristotle, who leaned almost to empiricism at times, or
>at least this is the impression I get from my limited
>reading of his work (lecture notes, whatever you want
>to call it).

         To be sure. But I dimly recall from college days that Aristotle=20
replied to a letter from one of his former students, who expressed concern,=20
that none of the really deep and esoteric stuff had been put down in his=20
lecture notes. All that good stuff had been preserved for the inner circle.=20
But I'm going from ancient memory here.

>I think this is too sweeping a statement ... or, perhaps,
>one that depends on a specific interpretation of "baptizing,"
>different from what many writers mean when they say that,
>e.g., Christmas "baptises" the Saturnalia. It does not, in
>the sense that it does not simply take the Saturnalia and
>substitute Christian names and concepts and otherwise keep
>the Saturnalia intact. It does, in the sense that baptism
>is in part an act of exoricism,

         Okay. I was not thinking in that particular sense, but in the=20
popular and milder view of what "baptizing something" means. Point granted.


>There is _so_ much "point of view" to be taken into account
>here ... if you take the point of view of someone like Graves
>or Campbell, you find all manner of similarity, and uncover
>the Deep Psychic Structures of "all" religions. If you take
>the point of view of someone like Lewis, you perceive that
>they are quite different in orientation -- that the Nordic
>myths, for example, are deeply pessimistic in a way that
>neither the Greek nor the Middle-eastern myths are.

         Right. My bad. Should have left the Nordics out of it.

Thanks.

Nutria


--=20

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