The Terror of History
BY ROBERT GRAVES THIS is a book about two different human senses of time, by -a Rumanian student of philosophy and comparative religion.* Dr. Eliade has taught at the Sorbonne and writes very clearly. in custom, either good or bad, for which he is remembered What distinguishes Acrisius and Proetus from all other warring pairs of twins is that instead of killing each other, in the usua style, they withdraw angrily to different parts of the double kingdom. What distinguishes Orestes from other matricides i; that he manages to appease his mother's Furies. What distin guishes Idomeneus from Maeander is that he does not, after all, sacrifice his child to the god who demands it. These depar tures from pattern reflect historical events and, instead of being suppressed, become embodied in myth as precedents for the guidance of future heroes.
Dr. Eliade is at his best when discussing the tremendoth need felt by many traditional people for transforming Chao: into Order at regular periods. They try to make themselves real, not by carving a niche in history but by relating them selves to mythic patterns. First they find a spot, the sanctity o which has been divinely revealed by the falling of a thunder bolt, the decision of a wandering cow to lie down, or soul( oracular direction, and make it the centre of their universe They divide this spot from the surrounding chaos by till constructive act of measuring out a precinct in accordance will astronomical observation, and building a temple to the goc who chose it for them. The temple is designed as a symboli' meeting place of heaven, earth and the underworld; as well a of the four quarters of the world. Dr. Eliade quotes instance from Babylonia, Palestine, India, Java, China and Rome to show the wide distribution of this centrality principle.
Every such act of foundation is accompanied by a sacred drama : the myth of how the gods of intelligence and good will banished the ancient uncultured demons, after a hideous fight. and created absolute order. Once a year the same rites are repeated to convince the worshippers of their own timeless reality. On such occasions, a short period of confusion and licence is announced—slaves change places with masters, well brought-up young women behave promiscuously, a chariot without a driver careers down the streets, the high priest insults and degrades the king—but the Saturnalia inevitably ends in the renewed killing of the demons, and their mother the old Dragon of Confusion, and in the restoration of things as they should be. The exhausted people then cast out their scapegoat. with'the national sins and follies tied to its horns, and the land is reborn clean and prosperous. However, even this annual regeneration is not always enough. The Israelites had jubilees; the Romans held Scecular Games; the Egyptians hatched a new Phcenix chick at the end of every Sothic year; the Brah- mans thought, and still think,,in even longer cycles of regenera- tion. Moreover, in some civilisations the same formula for creating order out of chaos is applied to every wedding, and the building of every private house, and the cure of every serious illness.
Dr. Eliade describes the growing conflict between this mythi- cal sense of eternal pattern, which makes everyone who shares it a mere persona or passive personage, and the sense of history. viewed as a series of 'accidents, experiments,, inventions and disasters, which produces active personality. He himself identi- fies history with misfortune; and describes various attempts to overcome it by philosophical and religious tricks : such as the theory that its terror is only a preparation for a golden age just round the corner (after a consuming fire has destroyed all evil on earth), and meanwhile a rigorous testing ground for individuals in quest of salvation; or that God is constantly showing His displeasure with man's presumption, but that He can be assuaged by repentance. It is natural for a Rumanian who has been turned out of his country by Marxists, spent a year in Calcutta, and then gone to live in the Fourth Republic to make this his personal obses- sion. But is it of universal validity? Surely, for example. the Vikings and the Crusaders and the Spanish conquistadors felt no terror of history, but only pride in making it? And what of the glowing happiness which the idea of historical progress spread throughout the English-speaking world from about the middle of last century until thc first decade of this?
Dr. Eliade writes:
For our purpose, only one question concerns us: How can the 'terror of history' be tolerated from the viewpoint of historicism? Justification of a historical event by the simple fact that it is a historical event, in other words, by the simple fact that it 'hap- pened that way,' will not go far toward freeing humanity from the terror that the event inspires. Be it understood that we are not here concerned with the problem of evil, which, from whatever angle it be viewed, remains a philosophical and religious problem; we arc concerned with the problem of history as history. of the 'evil' that is bound up not with man's condition but with his beha- viour toward others. We should wish to know, for example, how it would be`possible to tolerate, and to justify, the sufferings and annihilation of so many people who suffer and are annihilated for the simple reason that their geographical situation sets them in the pathway of history; that they are neighbors of empires in a state of permanent expansion.
He argues that the traditional view of time as repetition enables humanity to bear these ills better, especially peasant Christians whose faith is linked to the cycle of nature by the Liturgical Year. Every war renews the fight between Michael and the Devil, every victim of oppression or injustice is Christ on His way to the cross, every ,massacre renews the massacre . of the primitive Christians in Nero's amphitheatre. But this Psychological defence is denied the educated person trained to think historically—and Dr. Eliade does not like militant Marxism, though it does provide a faith in a golden age of universal brotherhood, after capitalism has been abolished and even the State has withered away. He puts his finger on the weakness of intellectual, as opposed to popular. Christianity Which is that it has become too closely associated with histOry. 'Christ died for our sins once only, once for all; it is not an event subject to repetition. The development of history is thus governed and oriented by a unique fact that stands entirely alone.' And the continually sharper sense of history that we %apply to Jesus as a first-century character—however exemplary a one He may prove to be--conflicts with the Christ, the eternally suffering God-man of the Osiris, Dionysus. Tammuz type, who until then had never been anchored in historic time.
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