When monotheism arrives, most of the sacred sites are swept away, and those that remain are, as it were, baptized into meaning as part of the monotheism. The landscape is cleaned and emptied, to some degree dis-enchanted, certainly somewhat exorcised.
If the monotheism fades, what new demons come to fill that now-empty space?
2 comments:
Perhaps the old ones; but many of them were helpful. That was something I noticed in the long commentary on Xenophon. It’s surprising how useful their auguries were.
From a Neoplatonic perspective, it isn’t surprising. Everything comes from the One; what then is there to fear? St. Augustine was long a Neoplatonist, though he eventually changed his mind. Yet even he agreed that everything made must be good; evil is just, he said, a failure by the created to achieve the fullness of the good intended.
Yes. And boundary stones were sacred, and so is marriage; everybody recognized that.
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