Prince Caspian
Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 1:26 pm
Hi again! Here’s another essay… I just wanted to write a brief response, but I guess it got away from me again…
Early Christianity was deeply influenced by Neo-Platonism and also by the much older Persian faith Zoroastrianism, which also had an enormous influence on Judaism and, later, Islam as well. A multitude Zoroastrian ideas turn up in the Bible—they can be seen in Daniel, Matthew, the three Wise Magi (Zoroastrian priests from the East), Revelations, etc. But the point at which Zoroastrianism and Christianity most sharply differ is also the point that makes it impossible for me to view The Last Battle as a fully Christian analogy. That point is Dualism.
The idea that the material world is divided between good and evil and that humans must choose between them is an ancient one, and it has many levels. Zoroastrianism claims there are two opposing “uncreated” beings, one fully good “creator” and one fully bad “destroyer” – creation vs. chaos. Throughout Christian history, just about every one of the most “dangerous” and most violently cleansed heresies have incorporated that sharply dualistic belief. Two of the most famous (or perhaps infamous) were Manichaenism—a heretical Christian sect which dated from the Roman Empire and disturbed both pagans and Christians—and Catharism, a dualistic faith that took root in medieval France, Italy, and the southern Holy Roman Empire, and launched the Albigensian Crusade.
Mani, the founder of Manichaenism, argued there was a fundamental conflict between Dark and Light, two primordial realms of being that were completely opposite and equal, with neither having created the other. Each of these realms had a king. Humans were created out of the conflict between Light and Darkness and incorporated elements of both. With the help of Emissaries of Light, a list that included Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, and Mani, humans had to purge themselves of their darkness.
Cathars believed the physical world was evil and worshiped the pure spirit. Considered dangerous by both French rulers and the Catholic Church, Cathars renounced earthly power and denied that Jesus could have taken on physical form, since physical matter was evil. The Church launched the Albigensian Crusade to crush the movement before it could spread. The Albigensian Crusade lasted 20 years and helped inspire the Medieval Inquisition that burned Cathars across Europe until 1321.
The big problem with all this dualism stuff is the issue of the Uncreated beings. According to Christian teachings, only God is the creator. God creates everything, including Lucifer. One of the most major heresies that shook the early Church was Arianism. Arianism was dangerous because it claimed Jesus was a Created being, and not Uncreated God at all. He was a Creature. This was the version of Christianity most of the “barbarian” tribes turned to when they first converted to Christianity, which is why Clovis, the Frankish King who converted to Roman Catholicism right off the bat, was able to make such a strong alliance with Rome and the Pope and build up his Merovingian Empire.
The “heretical” belief that Jesus was a Creation of God and not the Word of God—aka God Himself, really messed things up for the Roman Emperor Constantine, who had wanted to convert the divided Empire to Christianity to make it stronger under One Emperor and One God. Rome had to go through the entire Nicene Struggle before the Christian fathers declared God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit were a “community” all sharing the same divine substance: Homoousios.
Why does all this relate back to the Last Battle? Because in the Last Battle Lewis sets up such a sharply Dualistic faith – two beings, Tash and Aslan, complete opposites to the point where no good deed can go to Tash and no bad deed to Aslan. This isn’t God vs. Satan, this is Zoroastrian-inspired dualism.
Here’s a quote from C.S. Lewis summing up his interpretation of the difference between dualism and Christianity:
“I freely admit that real Christianity goes much nearer to Dualism than people think. The difference is that Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Harper Collins, 1952, pg 45).
In his imagination, Lewis took that division further and created Tash as the opposite side of the Aslan coin. He drew the parallel to Zoroastrian influence even further by making Tash the “god” of his (rather cruelly stereotyped) Middle-Eastern-inspired Calormens (ancient Persia, perhaps?)
Lewis always said he didn’t mean the Narnia books to be direct allegories for Christian teachings. “I did not say to myself 'Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia': I said, 'Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as he became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen” ('C.S. Lewis, quoted in Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide). In the Last Battle, he supposes there is an opposite for Aslan the Creator and makes Tash the Destroyer—an agent of Chaos that appears as the world ends in a very Zoroastrian/Revelations-type apocalypse.
So, that’s why I see a Zoroastrian influence when I read The Last Battle. It’s the Dualism that gets me. I mean, Aslan said he was the son of the great Emperor beyond the Sea. If Tash is Aslan’s opposite, he was either created by the Emperor—which implied Aslan was also created (the Arian heresy)—OR Aslan shares the same divine substance as the Emperor (he is God in the same sense the Christian God is One and Three) and Tash is a creation, which makes him a lesser force than Aslan and not his opposite—OR Aslan and Tash are both Uncreated Beings, equal and opposite like the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda and the evil Angra Mainyu / Ahriman. Lewis certainly knew about all this stuff, so he probably used elements of the ideas that shaped Early Christianity when he was making up his imaginary worlds, just as Tolkien used elements from Norse and German mythology, including Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda (from which he pinched all the names of the Dwarves and Gandalf and Frodo…), the Kalevala, and the Nibelungenlied, to name a few. That’s my opinion, anyway. What do you think?
[Edited on 30/5/2009 by Rowena]
Early Christianity was deeply influenced by Neo-Platonism and also by the much older Persian faith Zoroastrianism, which also had an enormous influence on Judaism and, later, Islam as well. A multitude Zoroastrian ideas turn up in the Bible—they can be seen in Daniel, Matthew, the three Wise Magi (Zoroastrian priests from the East), Revelations, etc. But the point at which Zoroastrianism and Christianity most sharply differ is also the point that makes it impossible for me to view The Last Battle as a fully Christian analogy. That point is Dualism.
The idea that the material world is divided between good and evil and that humans must choose between them is an ancient one, and it has many levels. Zoroastrianism claims there are two opposing “uncreated” beings, one fully good “creator” and one fully bad “destroyer” – creation vs. chaos. Throughout Christian history, just about every one of the most “dangerous” and most violently cleansed heresies have incorporated that sharply dualistic belief. Two of the most famous (or perhaps infamous) were Manichaenism—a heretical Christian sect which dated from the Roman Empire and disturbed both pagans and Christians—and Catharism, a dualistic faith that took root in medieval France, Italy, and the southern Holy Roman Empire, and launched the Albigensian Crusade.
Mani, the founder of Manichaenism, argued there was a fundamental conflict between Dark and Light, two primordial realms of being that were completely opposite and equal, with neither having created the other. Each of these realms had a king. Humans were created out of the conflict between Light and Darkness and incorporated elements of both. With the help of Emissaries of Light, a list that included Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, and Mani, humans had to purge themselves of their darkness.
Cathars believed the physical world was evil and worshiped the pure spirit. Considered dangerous by both French rulers and the Catholic Church, Cathars renounced earthly power and denied that Jesus could have taken on physical form, since physical matter was evil. The Church launched the Albigensian Crusade to crush the movement before it could spread. The Albigensian Crusade lasted 20 years and helped inspire the Medieval Inquisition that burned Cathars across Europe until 1321.
The big problem with all this dualism stuff is the issue of the Uncreated beings. According to Christian teachings, only God is the creator. God creates everything, including Lucifer. One of the most major heresies that shook the early Church was Arianism. Arianism was dangerous because it claimed Jesus was a Created being, and not Uncreated God at all. He was a Creature. This was the version of Christianity most of the “barbarian” tribes turned to when they first converted to Christianity, which is why Clovis, the Frankish King who converted to Roman Catholicism right off the bat, was able to make such a strong alliance with Rome and the Pope and build up his Merovingian Empire.
The “heretical” belief that Jesus was a Creation of God and not the Word of God—aka God Himself, really messed things up for the Roman Emperor Constantine, who had wanted to convert the divided Empire to Christianity to make it stronger under One Emperor and One God. Rome had to go through the entire Nicene Struggle before the Christian fathers declared God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit were a “community” all sharing the same divine substance: Homoousios.
Why does all this relate back to the Last Battle? Because in the Last Battle Lewis sets up such a sharply Dualistic faith – two beings, Tash and Aslan, complete opposites to the point where no good deed can go to Tash and no bad deed to Aslan. This isn’t God vs. Satan, this is Zoroastrian-inspired dualism.
Here’s a quote from C.S. Lewis summing up his interpretation of the difference between dualism and Christianity:
“I freely admit that real Christianity goes much nearer to Dualism than people think. The difference is that Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Harper Collins, 1952, pg 45).
In his imagination, Lewis took that division further and created Tash as the opposite side of the Aslan coin. He drew the parallel to Zoroastrian influence even further by making Tash the “god” of his (rather cruelly stereotyped) Middle-Eastern-inspired Calormens (ancient Persia, perhaps?)
Lewis always said he didn’t mean the Narnia books to be direct allegories for Christian teachings. “I did not say to myself 'Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia': I said, 'Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as he became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen” ('C.S. Lewis, quoted in Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide). In the Last Battle, he supposes there is an opposite for Aslan the Creator and makes Tash the Destroyer—an agent of Chaos that appears as the world ends in a very Zoroastrian/Revelations-type apocalypse.
So, that’s why I see a Zoroastrian influence when I read The Last Battle. It’s the Dualism that gets me. I mean, Aslan said he was the son of the great Emperor beyond the Sea. If Tash is Aslan’s opposite, he was either created by the Emperor—which implied Aslan was also created (the Arian heresy)—OR Aslan shares the same divine substance as the Emperor (he is God in the same sense the Christian God is One and Three) and Tash is a creation, which makes him a lesser force than Aslan and not his opposite—OR Aslan and Tash are both Uncreated Beings, equal and opposite like the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda and the evil Angra Mainyu / Ahriman. Lewis certainly knew about all this stuff, so he probably used elements of the ideas that shaped Early Christianity when he was making up his imaginary worlds, just as Tolkien used elements from Norse and German mythology, including Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda (from which he pinched all the names of the Dwarves and Gandalf and Frodo…), the Kalevala, and the Nibelungenlied, to name a few. That’s my opinion, anyway. What do you think?
[Edited on 30/5/2009 by Rowena]