RESURRECTION TRADITIONS AND CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC I T IS VERY difficult to account for the origin of the Christian Church unless it is conceded that Jesus's disciples and the apostle Paul really did undergo experiences which convinced them that Jesus himself had been raised from the dead and had personally made an appearance to them. But it is another question entirely when one asks whether their own interpretation of their experiences was the correct one. Not infrequently it has been suggested that the conviction of Jesus's resurrection was simply the product of their own minds. 1 It is this suggestion, primarily, that Christian apologetic has to deal with, and it is the contention of the present essay that the apologetic arguments commonly employed are unconvincing. It is a peculiar difficulty of the problem that it arises directly out of New Testament studies and yet leads the inquirer into a field of psychological theory in which the New Testament specialist has no professional competence. This has not, however, deterred New Testament scholars from raising the possibility of psychological explanations and apparently refuting them. It may therefore be worthwhile for a fellow New Testament specialist to point out that, even to the eye of the layman in psychology, there seem to be obvious possibilities which have not been thoroughly considered, and which might prove somewhat difficult to demolish. The purely psychological explanation of belief in the resurrection (as this explanation is commonly understood) is conveniently summarised by C. F. D. Maule as follows : 1 See, e.g., Maurice G-Oguel, La Foi a la Resurrection de Jesus dans le Christianisme Primitif (Paris, 1933), pp. 109-117, 393-396, also Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos, ET by J. E. Steely (Nashville, 1970), p. 106. 197 198 MARGARET E. THRALL What is more widely believed, so far as I can ascertain, is that the Christian Church took its rise not indeed from a deliberate falsehood but from a sheer, honest misapprehension-assisted, perhaps, by superstitious awe and hallucination. For some reason (which, it is presumed, may be psychologically explained) these men and women became mistakenly convinced that their adored leader was alive again. A hoary old theory such as that the women went to the wrong tomb, or (a theory that was known as long ago as St. Matthew's Gospel) that the body was surreptitiously taken from the tomb, is still sometimes revived. On this showing, some of them genuinely found an empty tomb-emptied by some rationally explicable means unknown to them-which, it is suggested, assisted their belief that Jesus had risen. For, after all (it is urged) the traditions do say that Jesus himself predicted his resurrection; so that, even if the disciples were temporarily shaken by the disastrous death, it is hardly surprising if courage returned into their consciousness and they began to rally: they remembered the predictions; hope reasserted itself; the wish became father to the thought; he must have risen again-he had risen again: Alleluia! the Lord is risen indeed. 2 According to this summary of the psychological argument, the genesis of belief in the resurrection had three elements. Two of these are in fact psychological in character: the disciples' recollection of predictions Jesus himself had made about resurrection; and their swift recovery of hope after his death. The third, the discovery of a grave which was empty for some ordinary, natural reason, served to confirm the belief which had grown out of the first two. What does Christian apologetic have to say in reply? Defenders of the Christian account have had something to say about all three aspects of the explanation. Since it would be helpful to be able to establish some objective historical fact which would count in their favor, over against the more hazardous process of determining the subjective mental state of the recipients of resurrection appearances, a fair amount of attention has been paid to the third aspect, and it has been forcefully argued that the various natural explanations of the • C. F. D. Moule, The Phenomenon of the New Testament: Studies in Biblical Theology, Second Series 1 (London, 1967), p. 9. RESURRECTION TRADITIONS & CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 199 empty tomb are unconvincing. The most plausible is perhaps the one advanced some time ago by Kirsopp Lake, on the basis of the story in Mk. 16: 1-8. The women went by mistake to a different tomb which happened to be empty. A young man who chanced to be on the spot at the time told them that Jesus's body was not there but somewhere else. They ran away in fright, believing that they had seen an angel who had told them of the resurrection. 3 But this explanation is very unlikely. Its inadequacies have been sufficiently pointed out by J. C. O'Neill: It is possible that the women mistook the tomb, but very unlikely that anyone would be present to tell them their mistake. If a gardener were present, it is unlikely that he would startle women who had come to anoint a body. If he did startle them, it is unlikely that he would allow them to run off without reassuring them. 4 In any case, the Marean young man is an angel, and his assertion that Jesus is not there is simply a dramatic device which prepared for the announcement of resurrection, not a recollection of words actually spoken at the time. 5 Lake's theory is untenable, because it lacks plausibility and takes the story as too literal an account of what actually happened. With this we may agree. But the rejection of the theory as a whole does not necessarily require us to reject the basic sugestion that the women went to the wrong tomb. O'Neill admits that this is a possibility. At this point, however, we should find ourselves confronted with a further apologetic argument. If the women went to the wrong grave, then the right grave would still contain the body of Jesus. And in that case, the Jewish authorities would have been able to produce the body, so as to put a stop to the 3 Kirsopp Lake, The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (New York, 1907), pp. 68-69, 250-252. • J. C. O'Neill, " On the Resurrection as an Historical Question," Christ, Faith and History, ed. S. W. Sykes and J. P. Clayton (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 205-19; seep. 210. • Ibid., p. 211. 200 MARGARET E. THRALL proclamation of Jesus's resurrection. That they were not able to do so constitutes strong proof that the right tomb was known to be empty. Thus, W. Pannenberg quotes Althaus: The resurrestion kerygma "could not have been maintained in Jerusalem for a single day, for a single hour, if the emptiness of the tomb had not been established as a fact for all concerned ".6 And O'Neill remarks: If the first witnesses to the appearances of Jesus believed that he had been raised from the dead, their assertion could have been refuted by producing the body. 7 Furthermore, the story of the guard on the tomb in Mt. 27: 6228: 15 is evidence that the opponents of Christianity were forced to accept that Jesus's tomb was empty and to invent an explanation. The story is designed to show that it would have been impossible for the disciples to have stolen the body, and also to explain how a rumor to this effect had arisen. It is therefore evidence that this was the form taken by Jewish polemic. To quote Alan Richardson: St. Matthew's Gospel provides evidence that years later the Jewish anti-Christian polemic had to invent the charge that the disciples of Jesus had stolen the body, because they could not deny that the tomb had been found empty. 8 (The explanation is obviously unlikely. The enthusiasm and devotion of the first Christians, which in some cases led them to sacrifice their own lives, could not have been the result of deliberate fraud. 9 ) This line of argument, however, is not as strong as it might at first sight appear. It is at least possible that even if the authorities knew that Jesus's body remained where it had been 6 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus-God and Man (London, 1968), p. 100. See also Gerald O'Collins, The Easter Jesus (London, 1978), p. 48. 7 Art. cit., p. !W9; cf. O'Collins, op. cit., p. 48. 8 Alan Richardson, "The Resurection of Jesus Christ," Theology, Vol. 74 (No. 610, April 1971), pp. 146-54; see p. 158; cf. O'Collins, op. cit., p. 48. 9 Wolfhart Pannenberg, "Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? ", New Testament Issues, ed. Richard Batey (London, 1970), pp. 102-107; see p. 114. RESURRECTION TRADITIONS & CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC buried they might not have wished to disinter it for public display. Might not a public exhibition of the corpse have constituted a threat to public order? A Jerusalem crowd which had been roused once again to enthusiasm for Jesus's movement by the powerful preaching of the apostles might conceivably have been provoked to riot by the sight of his body. Popular reaction is not always logical, and many of the apostles' hearers may have had only a hazy notion of the precise import of their message. But in any case the apparent production of the body could not have provided any conclusive evidence to controvert the apostles' claim, and one suspects that those who make so much of the argument are unconsciously influenced by the conditions of the twentieth century, when anonymous and disintegrating corpses may be identified by means of their dental history and the more esoteric methods of the forensic laboratory. How long would a corpse in first century Palestine have remained identifiable with any certainty? R. Robert Bater has argued that it may have been a long time before the Christians attracted enough publicity for their claims to be put to the test. 1 -0 Even if this is incorrect, there may well have been a certain time gap between the original Easter experience and the apostolic preaching in Jerusalem, as Acts suggests. The resurrection appearances were probably spread over a period of time,11 and the disciples may well have waited until their collective and cumulative experiences assured them that the first appearance was not an illusion on Peter's part. If this was .so, no one would have been able to say for certain whether a corpse in the tomb where Jesus had been buried was really the body of Jesus or not. His followers would have denied it, since they were absolutely convinced that they had seen him raised from the dead. And those Jews in Jerusalem who were impressed by the apostles' spiritual fervor and obvious conviction would have believed them. The simplest 10 R. Robert Bater, "Towards a More Biblical View of the Resurrection", Interpretation, Vol. 23 (No. 1, January 1969), pp. 47-65; see especially p. 56. 11 Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology: Part One (London, 1971), p. 301. MARGARET E. THRALL answer to the question of why the authorities failed to produce the body may be that the lapse of time since the crucifixion would have rendered it unrecognizable, and the action pointless. Nor is the Matthean story of the guard very strong evidence that the tomb was known to be empty. If we accept the usual dating of this gospel, the controversy it reflects was taking place (outside Palestine) at a time subsequent to the fall of Jerusalem. There is nothing to show that it reflects an earlier controversy before the devastation of the city and its inhabitants, when some people might still have been in a position to know whether the grave was empty or not. If, then, we have no substantial independent evidence that this was so, the possibility remains open that the women did go to the wrong grave. But even if they went to the right one there remains the alternative possibility that the Jewish authorities had themselves removed the body. They might well have seen some danger in Joseph of Arimathea's overhasty act of piety. To have Jesus buried in an individual and identifiable tomb might cause trouble. The grave might become a place of pilgrimage in memory of the popular prophet from Galilee, 12 and attract sympathetic crowds who would regard Jesus as a martyr to the pagan tyranny of Rome, and might consequently threaten the public peace. In that case they might have removed the body elsewhere, to some common grave. Nor would they have been likely to produce it to refute the apostles' preaching at a later stage. To produce a corpse out of a common grave would be even less convincing, from the point of view of its identification, than to disinter it from an individual tomb. This historical component of belief in the resurrection of Jesus is therefore ambiguous in character. We may grant the truth of the tradition that certain women went to a grave which they supposed to be that of Jesus, and found it empty, and that 12 See James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (London, 1975), p. 120: "In the history of religions (not least Judaism-Matt. 23.29/Luke 11.47) the sacredness of a dead prophet's tomb or burial place is a regular feature." RESURRECTION TRADITIONS & CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC !203 this tradition may have played a part in confirming, if not originating, the resurrection faith. But the question which has to be settled is whether the discovery of the empty tomb is capable of a natural explanation. If it is not, then we have a piece of historical evidence which would count in favor of the objectivity of the resurrection appearances. But if it is, then the possibility that the appearances were simply the product of human psychological processes must remain open. We have argued in favor of the second alternative. Let us note, however, that we have not actually disproved the resurrection itself. What we have disproved is the validity of certain apologetic arguments commonly used as positive support for the Christian belief. The possibility that the women went to the wrong grave does not logically exclude the possibility of the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the tomb in which he had really been buried. And if what happened was that the Jewish authorities removed the body from the original place of burial, the same conclusion follows. Resurrection from a common grave is just as conceivable, in strict logic, as resurrection from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Another originating factor has been held to be Jesus's own predictions of future resurrection. These predictions would have led his disciples to expect some miraculous restoration after his death, and may have played a part in producing the resurrection appearances. To this suggestion Christian apologetic has a ready reply. A. M. Ramsey points out that if Jesus did make any predictions of future vindication, these were probably of a mysterious nature and somewhat incomprehensible to his followers. He continues: ' The disciples were not anticipating the Resurrection. It is possible to dismiss at the outset any view that their belief in it sprang from a projection of their own expectations.' 13 We may add that the more common it has become to cast doubt on the passion and resurrection predictions as the au then13 Michael Ramsey, The Resurrection of Christ (London, 1946), p. 89. MARGARET E. THRALL tic words of the historical Jesus, the stronger Ramsey's argument appears to become. It has been re-stated recently by B. Rigaux, who writes: ' On ne recourt plus non plus a l'idee d'hallucination. Psychologiquement, cette idee ne resiste pas a la critique. Elle suppose aussi une foi que rien ne preparait. Elle attribue aux predictions de Jesus une valeur que l'exegese conteste et une intelligence de la Resurrection que les textes leur refusent.' 14 Jesus made no such clear prophecies of personal restoration to life as would lead the disciples to expect to encounter him raised from the dead. Before we consider the validity of this line of apologetic argument, let us look at the remaining component of belief in the resurrection, i. e. the speedy recovery of hope and confidence on the part of the disciples. The likelihood of any such reaction is strongly denied hy Pannenberg. He points out that Jesus's death must have exposed the disciples' faith to extreme stress: it cannot possibly have remained unshattered. In such a situation one could hardly suppose that it was their own enthusiastic imaginations which produced the resurrection appearances. 15 It seems, then, that the Christian apologist can legitimately argue that neither the mental nor the emotional condition of Jesus's followers was such as to produce the visions of the risen Lord which they experienced. These arguments, however, become rather less convincing if they are considered in the light of various principles of Jungian psychology. The case of the apologist rests on the presupposition that what is under consideration is the conscious memories and conscious hopes of Jesus's followel'.s. No such memories or hopes existed, at the conscious level, as would create the resurrection appearances. But according to Jung it is the unconscious mind which may sometimes produce visions. They occur, he claimed, when a person is suffering from a psychic dissociation: 14 Beda Rigaux, Dieu l'a ressuscite: Studii Biblici Franci.scani Analecta 4 (Gembloux, 1973), pp. 346-347. Cf. O'Collins, op. cit., p. 31. 18 New Testament Issues, p. 119t. RESURRECTION TRADITIONS & CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 205 . that is, when there is a split between the conscious attitude and the unconscious contents opposed to it. Precisely because the conscious mind does not know about them and is therefore confronted with a situation from which there seems to be no way out, these strange contents cannot be integrated directly but seek to express themselves indirectly, thus giving rise to unexpected and apparently inexplicable opinions, beliefs, illusions, visions, and so forth. 16 It is precisely in the case of " the very people who are least prepared for such phenomena and least inclined to believe in them" that visionary images may be produced. 11 l£ we set this quotation from Jung side by side with the words of A. M. Ramsey cited above, we may be inclined to ask whether Ramsey's assertion, if true, does not prove the exact opposite of what he intended. At any rate, the apologetic force of his argument is considerably weakened. At the conscious level, doubtless, the disciples' state of mind was just as Pannenberg and Ramsey picture it. But this gives us all the more reason to ask whether, at the unconscious level, different forces were at work which were much more favorable to the production of visions of the risen Jesus. This requires further investigation. Let us first note that in the case of two of the people named as witnesses to the resurrection, i.e. Paul and James, it is highly likely that there was precisely the conflict between conscious and unconscious attitudes which Jung described. Paul originally persecuted the Christians, and James had not accepted his brother's claims during his lifetime. In both cases there may have been a high degree of conscious resistance to the possibility that Jesus could have been vindicated by God by means of resurrection. l£ so, we should have promising conditions for the production of visions of the risen Christ out of the unconscious minds of the people concemed. 18 16 C. G. Jung, Civilization in Transition: Collected Works, Vol. IO (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964), p. 319. 17 Ibid., pp. 18 Pannenberg would object at this point that what he calls the psychiatric concept of vision is primarily concerned with mental illness. One cannot apply it without further ado to religious phenomena, and the New Testament texts 206 MARGARET E. THRALL So far we have established a negative result. We have shown cause to doubt the effectivenes of apologetic designed to prove that the resurrection appearances were not simply the product of the minds of the recipients. But the representatives of this apologetic might reasonably require some more positive evidence to show that a psychological explanation is plausible. They might point out that the psychological processes attributed to Paul and James do not account for the experiences of Peter and the other original disciples. In the one case we have conscious rejection of the claims of Jesus coupled with an unconscious realization of their truth, in the other the conscious acceptance of Jesus during his lifetime. They might ask how we propose to account for the numinous element inherent in all the recorded experiences 19 and particularly prominent in the experience of Paul, who understood the event as a theophany 20 in which he had seen the being to whom he attributes the divine title Kvpwi;; (I Cor. 9: l; cf. Acts 9: 5; 22: 8; 26: 15). In short, a convincing refutation of the usual Christian apologetic requires the production of a coherent psychological explanation which takes account of as many aspects of the resurrection traditions as possible. The tentative explanation outlined here proceeds in three stages. First, it will be argued that the numinous element in the resurrection appearances suggests, in Jungian terms, that the visions were in part due to the activation of the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Secondly, a correlation will be established between the archetypes and the historical fate of Jesus. Thirdly, we shall attempt to show how the impact of the death of Jesus upon the original disciples and upon Paul give no evidence that mental illness was a causative factor in the production of the resurrection appearances. (Jesus-God and Man, pp. 94-95). Jung, however, claims that" a vision is a phenomenon that is by no means peculiar to pathological states." (Civilization in Transition, p. 314, n. 1). Since it is the applicability of Jungian theories to the New Testament evidence which is under consideration here, it is Jung's viewpoint which is accepted. 19 J. D. G. Dunn, op. cit., pp. 127-131. 20 H. J. Schoeps, Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Religious. History (London, 1961), p. 54. RESURRECTION TRADITIONS & CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 207 might have activated the archetypes and caused the resultant images to be presented to consciousness as visions of the risen Christ. Jung applied the term" archetypes" to what he called" the primordial images common to humanity," that is, "the inherited possibilities of human imagination " which explain the universal appearance of identical motifs in myth and legend at all times and in all cultures. 21 They are" the most ancient and the most universal thought-forms of humanity." They lie buried in the deepest layer of the unconscious, where they " lead their own independent life." 22 Jung described these contents of the unconsc10us as: the hidden treasure upon which mankind ever and anon has drawn, and from which it has raised up its gods and demons .... 23 The emergence of an archetype to consciousness, in whatever form, may exercise " a numinous or a fascinating effect." 2• The numinous quality of the archetypes is in fact basic to the Jungian understanding of them. If it should be possible to understand the visionary experiences of Paul and the rest as the manifestation and external projection of an archetype, the numinous element in the experiences would be accounted for. This brings us to the second stage of the explanation. We need to establish a connexion between the archetypes and what happened, and was believed to have happened, to Jesus. This is by no means difficult. Jesus died by crucifixion, and was believed to have been restored to life: the archetypal motif of rebirth, immortality, or resurrection as the sequel to death is of wide occurrence, and the manifestation of the archetype is traceable in many forms. 25 We find the theme of the god who experiences death and rebirth, 26 and of the hero's self21 C. G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology: Collected Works, Vol. 7 (London, 1966), p. 65. ••Ibid., p. 66. •• Ibid., p. 67. "' Ibid., p. 70. ••Victor White, God and the Unconscious (London, 1960), p. 25!l. •• C. G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation: Collected Works, Vol. 5 (London, 1967), pp. 887-SSS. 208 MARGARETE. THRALL sacrifice for the attainment of immortality. 27 Furthennore, there is a particular variant of the theme of life out of death which is of especial interest to the argument we are pursuing. This is the image of the tree which is both the tree of death and the tree of life.28 Within Christianity this becomes related to the cross upon which Jesus was crucified: " In this world of images the Cross is the Tree of Life and at the same time a Tree of Death ... 29 If this is so in later Christian legend, and if the image is a universal one, deriving from the appropriate archetype, it is possible that the motif may have been latent in the Christian mind from the very beginning. It is perhaps worth noticing that in the New Testament the word g-UA.ov is used both for the actual cross (Acts 5: 30; Gal. 3: 13) and also for the mythical tree of life (Rev. 2: 7; 22: 2), just as in the Old Testament we find the same word r;:t for the tree of life in Gen. 2: 9 and for the' tree' upon which the criminal is hanged in Deut. 21: 22-23. At any rate, it seems clear that what the New Testament presents as a sequence of events which happened to Jesus of Nazareth has some considerable affinity with the primordial images of the collective unconscious. We come, thirdly, to the most important question of all. How can these theories be fitted together so as to provide an explanation of the visionary experiences which Christians regard as resurrection appearances? We could begin with the suggestion that the actual historical manifestation, in Jesus's death by crucifixion, of the one aspect of the archetype of death and new life might have led to its activation, and have produced a visionary manifestation of the other, complementary, aspect. But we need to consider also the various situations of some of the people concerned. In Paul's case we might suppose that the following process took place. The claims made for Jesus by the Christians he was persecuting may Ibid., p. 412. •• Ibid., pp. 246-247. 2 • Ibid., p. 2SS. 21 RESURRECTION TRADITIONS & CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC have made a deep impression upon him. Since, however, the possibility that they might be valid would have been wholly unacceptable on the conscious level, any such conviction would be totally repressed into the personal unconscious. It would be able to achieve consciousness only as a vision of something external to Paul himself. This is the explanation of Paul's experience given by Jung himself in the course of his discussion of autonomous psychic complexes which may exist independently of the central ego-complex and so remain unconscious until brought to light by some psychological upheaval. " Saul, as he was then called, had unconsciously been a Christian for a long time, and this would explain his fanatical hatred of the Christians, because fanaticism is always found in those who have to stifle a secret doubt. That is why converts are always the worst fanatics. The vision of Christ on the road to Damascus merely marks the moment when the unconscious Christ-complex associated itself with Paul's ego. The fact that Christ appeared to him objectively, in the form of a vision, is explained by the circumstance that Saul's Christianity was an unconscious complex which appeared to him in projection, as if it did not belong to him. He could not see himself as a Christian; therefore, from sheer resistance to Christ, he became blind and could only be healed again by a Christian. We know that psychogenic blindness is always an unconscious unwillingness to see, which in Saul's case corresponds with his fanatical resistance to Christianity." 30 We should have to add that this vision must also have become linked in some way with the manifestation of the contents of the collective unconscious, that is, with the activation of the appropriate archetype which is able to impart the numinous quality to the experience. The obvious link would be the impact made on Paul by the crucifixion of Jesus, as we have already suggested. The substantial nature of this impact is indicated by his later concentration upon a theologia crucis. In his pre-conversion state he must consciously have seen the crucified Jesus as subject to the divine curse. If, at the same time, the claims of the Christians he was persecuting were •• C. G. Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche: Collected Works, Vol. 8 (London, 1969), pp. 307-308. 210 MARGARET E. THRALL having their effect at the unconscious level, a conflict situation would arise which was specifically related to the crucifixion. Now a situation of distress, Jung maintained, may bring about the activation within the unconscious of the relevant archetype. 31 We might therefore suppose that inner conflict related to the crucified Jesus might bring about the constellation of the archetype of the tree of death which is transformed into the tree of life, and that the way would be prepared for the revelation of Jesus as restored to life again. It is true that Paul's references to his vision of the risen Christ contain no overt allusions to the tree of life motif. But this might be explained on the grounds that the activated archetype has to attract to itself conscious ideas in order to become perceptible and capable of conscious realization. 32 Paul's conscious ideas about Jesus's restoration would be those he had acquired from his acquaintance with the claims the first Christians were making, and these were concerned with the presentation of Jesus as the glorious celestial Messiah. 38 It would be this picture which would provide the structure of his own vision. The vision itself would occur at the climax of the conflict situation, and provide its resolution. We may conclude that it is by no means impossible to construct a psychological explanation of the resurrection appearance to Paul. In the case of the original followers of Jesus it might appear more difficult, since the kind of inner conflict attributed to Paul can hardly be attributed to them. We can, however, suggest one or two possibilities. We may plausibly suppose that the tragic and brutal death of their leader, and the destruction of all their conscious hopes, constituted so formidable a shock as to bring about the temporary withdrawal of their psychic energies from the outer world and their regression to the inner world of the unconscious. Certainly the execution of Jesus was an event which would have required a fresh orienta- •1 SymboT,s of Transformation, p. 294. ••Ibid. 88 Barnabas Lindars, "Re-Enter the Apocalyptic Son of Man," New Testament Studies, Vol. 22 (No. 1, October 1975), pp. 57-72; see especially pp. 61-62. RESURRECTION TRADITIONS & CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 211 tion on their part. At such times, Jung claimed, there occurs the introversion and regression of the libido, it.s entry into the interior world of the unconscious, and this effects the constellation of the primordial images which are relevant to the need of the moment. Their emergence to consciousness may be experienced as a revelation. 34 In the case of Jesus's disciples immediately after his crucifixion, the prime need would have been to counteract the brute fact of his death. The emergent archetype, therefore, would have been that of death and resurrection.35 The more impossible the conscious acceptance of the idea of resurrection, the more likely that it would be projected in the form of an external vision. The experiences of Peter and the rest could, perhaps, be accounted for in this fashion. The case of James is probably more akin to that of Paul. We should have to postulate a similar conflict between conscious and unconscious attitudes towards Jesus, resulting in the external projection of an unconscious acceptance of Jesus's me.ssiahship. H. C. Snape suggests that when James heard of the appearances his attitude towards his brother unconsciously began to change, and that " in the depths below his consciousness he began to realize that if Jesus was Messiah as Jesus's brother he had a claim to take his place provisionally." Jesus will have appeared to him as Messiah at the moment when this new orientation emerged to consciousness.36 ••Symbols of Transformation, pp. 293-294. 35 I am grateful to the Editor in Chief of The Thomist for drawing attention to the possibility that 'resurrection ' should be distinguished from ' immortality ' as a Jungian type. Jung himself appeared to make no distinction, and one certainly feels that he was wrong not do so. From the theological point of view the two concepts differ considerably, and this should make some difference, one would think, to the argument we are pursuing here. Further reflection, however, that the objection would be answ.ered, from the Jungian viewpoint, in terms of the principle we have already mentioned: the activated archetype has to attract conscious ideas in order to become perceptible. At least one of the conscious ideas prevalent in first-century Judaism was a belief in resurrection. It could therefore be argued that the archetype of death and life would manifest itself in this form to Paul and to Jesus's original disciples. •• H. C. Snape, "After the Crucifixion or ' The Great Forty Days ' ", Nurrwn, Vol. 17 (1970), pp. 188-199; see especially p. 198. MARGARET E. THRALL It is along these lines that one might perhaps argue the case that the resurrection appearances were the product of the minds of those who experienced them. The explanation sketched here would meet some further apologetic arguments to which we have not so far referred. J. D. G. Dunn, in his book on the nature of early Christian experience, admits the possibility that the visions of the risen Christ may have been "all in the mind," but argues that "the weight of probability" favors the Christian interpretation. 37 Why, he asks, should the first witnesses assume that they had seen Jesus, rather than an angel? We should reply that it was the person of Jesus, and especially his death, which evoked the psychological reactions which produced the visions. He refers also to the fact that the experiences of Peter, James and Paul were independent of each other. This is true. But we have suggested that there was a basic psychological mechanism common to them all, i. e. the projection into the external world of unconscious contents rejected by, or unavailable to, the conscious mind. Probably all the experiences involved the activation of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, and, as we have just remarked, it was the personal fate of Jesus which provided the stimulus. There is enough common ground here to facilitate the production of similar visions without any direct influence of one recipient upon another. Lastly, Dunn alludes to "the divine significance so quickly attributed by monotheistic Jews to one of their fellows." 38 But this would be readily explained by the numinous nature of the archetypes. In the light of the argument developed here, we might ask, in conclusion, whether the apologist for the Christian interpretation of the resurrection appearances has any other options which remain open. J. D. G. Dunn suggests that psychological explanations may simply throw light on the recipient's mental mechanism without providing an exhaustive account of what took place. 39 Despite all that has been said so far, it might Op. cit. pp. 131-132. Ibid., p. 132. 89 Ibid., p. 107. 87 88 RESURRECTION TRADITIONS & CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC still be legitimate to argue that the psychological processes here described may have served as the vehicle for divine revelation. Although Jung sometimes spoke as though 'God' were nothing but the highest archetype, he strenuously denied that he was trying to replace God by a psychic image. The psychic image, on the contrary, might perhaps become a receptacle for divine grace. 40 In the case of the resurrection appearances, then, we should have to ·say that the kind of reactions we have postulated were the means by which Paul and the rest were able to perceive the real personal presence of the risen Christ, and that it was this presence which ultimately set the psychological processes in motion, ·enabling the unconscious mind to create and project the resurrection visions. We are familiar with a somewhat similar phenomenon in everyday life. Our recognition of the presence of our friends and acquaintances depends upon our own mental synthesis of a multitude of sense impressions, and also upon our memories of previous encounters, so that in one sense it is we ourselves who create the people we meet. This does not, however, disprove their objective existence, and it is their actual arrival within our field of sense perception which sets in motion the process of recognition. It might be along lines such as these that Christian apologetic would have to proceed. It would still be necessary, however, to find some criterion to justify a decision in favor of the Christian interpretation. What follows is a tentative suggestion only. It is that if the resurrection appearances are set within the wider context of the theistic faith of the biblical tradition, the Jungian explanation may appear less than adequate. Let us reiterate the two alternatives. The resurrection appearances may have been solely the product of the activation of the archetypes. Alternatively, the experiences may genuinely have been experiences of the presence of a divine, transcendent reality, mediated, however, through these human psychological processes. From the point of view of the recipients, the events •• Victor White, op. cit., p. 258. 214 MARGARET E. THRALL may be classed under the general heading of theistic religious experience. That this is so has been made plain as a result of various studies of the significance of the use of the term l/Jifa01J in connexion with the resurrection appearances (Lk. 24: 84; Acts IS: SI; 26: 16; I Cor. 15: 5-8; cf. Acts 9: 17). Fergus Kerr 41 notes that in the Septuagint l/JifaO'fJ commonly refers to the appearances of the Lord, or the Angel of the Lord, and he sees this as constituting a model for the language of the credal fragment quoted by Paul in I Cor. 15: "there is every likelihood that Paul aligned the appearances of the risen Jesus with Old Testament theophanies." 42 Luke also saw Paul's Damascus road experience as belonging to this tradition. He refer:s to the light from heaven, and he describes Paul's reaction as prostration, which would be an appropriate response to a disclosure of the divine presence. If this is how the experiences of resurrection appearances are to be understood, then, fundamentally, the question we are asking is the same as the more general question of whether God is really the absolutely transcendent reality, or only the dominant image of the collective unconscious. Can the psychological processes postulated by Jung provide an entirely adequate account of the religious experience which is reflected in the biblical writers' theistic beliefs? If they cannot, then it would be logically possible to maintain that in the particular case of the experiences of the risen Christ the Christian interpretation may be required as a means of explanation. 41 Fergus Kerr, 0. P., "Paul's Experience: Sighting or Theophany?", Ne;w Blackfriars, Vol. 58 No. 686 (July 1977), pp. 304-313. He refers also to the article on opaw by W. Michaelis, in the Theological Dictionary of the Ne;w Testament, Vol. V, ET: G. W. Bromiley (Michigan, 1967), pp. 315-382. I am indebted to the Editor in Chief of The Thomist for the reference to Kerr's article. •• Fergus Kerr, art. cit. p. 310. I have myself argued elsewhere that the numinous, theophanic element was especially prominent in the case of Paul. Christ called him in the same way that the Lord of the Old Testament had called the prophets, and he consequently identified Christ in some wtty with the Lord of the prophetic revelation. (Margaret E. Thall, "The Origin of Pauline Christology," Apostolic History and the Gospel, eds. W. Ward Gasque and Ralph P. Martin (Exeter, 1970), pp. 304-316; see pp. 313-315). RESURRECTION TRADITIONS & CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC I suggest that a comparison between the characteristics of biblical theism and Jung's account of the archetypes may at least cast some doubt on whether the latter can sufficiently account for the former. According to Jung, the archetypes are very ancient thought-forms. 43 They are typical thought-forms, moreover, activated in response to typical situations, constantly repeated: The archetypal structure of the unconscious corresponds to the average run of events. 44 And they are derived ultimately from very primitive perceptions of the world of nature. For example, the rising and setting of the sun, with the regular alternation of day and night, imprints itself upon the primitive psyche, and produces the primordial image of the divine hero born from the sea, who travels to the West in the chariot of the sun, traverses the depths, engages in combat with the serpent of night, and is reborn again in the morning. The image is a counterpart of the natural process, enabling a kind of participation in it. 45 It seems rather doubtful whether psychological processes of this kind could wholly account for the religious experience which is reflected in the theistic faith of Deutero-Isaiah and the first chapter of Genesis, or for the experience which produced the prophetic confidence in God as the J,ord of history. The Creator of Genesis and Deutero-Isaiah is not the mythical projection of the forces of nature: he is wholly transcendent over them. Could the experience of such a Creator have arisen from a primitive form of perception in which the deity and the natural process are ultimately identical? And the first Christians' experience of the risen Christ led them, not to abandon the theism of the Old Testament, but to understand Christ in terms of it, as instrumental in the creation of the universe. Furthermore, the God who is experienced as active in human history is the God who brings about new events, creates new ••See above, p. 9W7. .. Symbols of Transformation, p. •• The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, pp. 158 fl'. MARGARET E. THRALL possibilities, and changes the expected and routine order of things. Could this kind of experience of God derive solely from typical unconscious reactions to the repetitive sequence of typical events? Again we may note that belief in Jesus's resurrection did not turn his followers into adherents of a nature religion. Rather, it caused them to take their situation within history with the utmost seriousness, as those living in the last age, called upon to make a radical decision in the present moment and commanded to preach to all nations within the space of human history which should remain, so giving this final period of history its ultimate significance. Lastly, whatever the explanation of the experiences from which the Christian faith took its origin, one can surely claim that they were primary religious experiences of a new and creative kind. It is questionable whether new and creative apprehensions of the divine presence can originate in psychological processes which are the product of ancient and typical thought-forms. 46 The possibility remains open, therefore, that the theistic faith of the biblical writers does relate to some strictly transcendent reality, and that it is in terms of this ultimate reality that the resurrection appearances are to be understood. MARGARET E. THRALL University College of North Wale& Bangor, Gwynedd, United Kingdom •• There seems here to be a fundamental inconsistency in Jung's exposition of the nature and function of the archetypes. On the one hand, they are said to be typical patterns of response to typical situations: very ancient thought-forms deriving from perception of regular natural processes. On the other hand, the claim is made that it is to the archetypes that all forms of cultural creativity, scientific, artistic and religious, are to be ascribed: "All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes." (The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, p. 158). This appears self-contradictory. DIVINITY AND IMMORTALITY IN ARISTOTLE: A " DE-MYTHOLOGIZED MYTH" ? I T HAS BEEN said that " the Olympian gods, though they were manifest in nature, had not made the universe and could not dispose of man as their creature with the same unquestioned right of ownership which the ancient Near Eastern gods exercised." 1 Knowing their gods as they did and believing that they themselves were also of divine origin, the Greeks were prompted to harbor feelings which bordered on disrespect and jealousy. It is in this mood that Pindar complains in his Sixth N emean Ode that common ancestry with the gods does not translate itself into equal power and equal rights: Of one race, one only, are men and gods. Both of one mother's womb we draw our breath; but far asunder is all our power divided, and fences us apart; here there is nothingness, and there, in strength of bronze, a seat unshaken, eternal, abides the heaven. (After Cornford.) 2 Such a lack of awe for the deities was bound to have repercussions on Greek philosophy, the most important being perhaps the admirable serene and philosophical approach to death which characterized most of the Greek thinkers. One might even say that the basic premise of all Greek arguments concerning the immortality of the soul is based on their belief in its divinity, a belief which is found also at the root of their lack of awe. In this sense, the basic premise of the soul's divinity depends on the Orphic myths, as interpreted by the Hellenes, which was taken seriously by all Greek philosophers. The Frankforts' commentary goes like this: i H. and H. A. Frankfort, "The Emancipation of Thought from Myth," in The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1967), p. 374. • Op. cit., p. 374. 217 FRANCISCO L. PECCORINI The initiate of the Orphic mysteries, for instance, not only hoped to be liberated from the 'wheel of births' but actually emerged as a god from his union with the mother-goddess, ' queen of the dead.' The Orphic myths contain speculations about the nature of man which are characteristically Greek in their tenor. It was said that the Titans had devoured Dionysus-Zagreus and were therefore destroyed by the lightning of Zeus, who made man from their ashes. Man, in so far as he consists of the substance of the Titans, is evil and ephemeral; but since the Titans had partaken of god's body, man contains a divine and immortal spark. 8 I. De-mythologizing the Myth. Aware of the force of the Orphic myth in their culture, even the most dedicated philosophers would take seriously the myth of the Titans' destruction and recognize a necessary relation between an immortal substance and a sort of participation in the divine Being; this would be done by taking the explanatory nucleus of the myth and incorporating it into the description of those natures which are supposed to be immortal, such as the one of the" mind" or" Nous." The greatest representative of " empiricist " philosophy in Greece, the Stagirite, seems to guarantee with his authority the scholarly value of such a procedure; he writes in Bk. XII of his M etaphysfos the following confession on the occasion of his dealing with the first substances: Our forefathers in the most remote ages have handed down to their posterity a tradition, in the form of a myth, that these bodies are gods and that the divine encloses the whole nature. The rest of the tradition has been added later in mythical form with a view to the persuasion of the multitude and to its legal and utilitarian expediency; they say these gods are in the form of men or like some of the other animals, and they say other things consequent on and similar to these which we have mentioned. But if one were to separate the first point from these additions and take it alonethat they thought the first substances to be gods-, one must regard this as an inspired utterance, and reflect that, while probably each art and each science has often been developed as far as possible and has again perished, these opinions, with others, have s Ibid. DIVINITY AND IMMORTALITY IN ARISTOTLE been preserved until the present like relics of the ancient treasure. Only thus far, then, is the opinion of our ancestors and of our earliest predecessors clear to us. 4 We might call this method the" demythologizing of myth." Its justification lies in the assumption that there is a very metaphysical nucleus in all true myths. The Frankforts concur in that Aristotelian evaluation, and they exhort us to take mythical explanations into consideration as a philosophical, rational, matter. "Myth then "-they write in another contribution to the already-mentioned book-" is to be taken seriously, because it reveals a significant, if unverifiable, truthwe might say a metaphysical truth." 5 Accordingly, we may safely state that both Aristotle and the Frankf orts view myth as a function of speculative reason. Kant, upon pointing out the essential trait of pure reason, .seems to make room for such a contention, since reason, according to the author of the Critique of Pure Reason, is nothing but the same mind which, in its capacity as understanding, wa.s already concerned with the "whatness" of things. The only difference consists in the fact that, insofar as the mind is fascinated with the" why" and the "how," it is led to draw conclusions in search of ever more fundamental explanations and thus deserves the name of " Reason." As a result, the philosopher of Koenigsberg reduces the essence of reason to a frenzied drive in the pursuit of the unconditioned condition according to the following principle: reason, he writes," follows the principle that, if theconditionedisgiven, the whole sum of conditions, and therefore the absolutely unconditioned, must be given likewise, the former being impossible without the latter." 6 In this sound conception of reason, as can be easily seen, the nature of the conditions on which the mind relies is not confined to that with which science is concerned. Any explanation, even of the metaphysical kind, is acceptable as long as it seems to be necessary to the mind's drive toward Aristotle's Metaphysics, XII, 8, 1074bl-15. H. and H. A. Frankfort, " Myth and Reality," op. cit., p. 7. 6 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der Reinen V ernunft, B436. The italics are mine. 4 5 FRANCISCO L. PECCORINI full accountability. By way of expanding this thought, Guthrie firmly protests against the remarks of Levy-Bruh! concerning certain assumed pre-logical Platonic accounts by placing the difference not in the nature of reason, but only in the different perception of the premises that it uses: " It is not "-he writes-" that the human mind ever worked on entirely different lines, but simply that in the then state of knowledge the premises from which men reasoned were so different that they inevitably came to what are in our eyes very odd conclusions." 7 In .sum, myth is but one of the three possible courses that are available to speoulative reason in its essential pursuit of "sufficient reasons," according to the principle that Leibniz made so famous: (a) an extreme right course, the one of science, which relies on the discovery of necessary physical " laws " as sufficient reasons, (b) an extreme left course, the mythical account, to which the primitive mind would resort whenever its limited natural observation of the immediately surrounding objects did not offer an acceptable account, and finally, (c) the middle course, which is the one traced by Kant in his theory of " philosophical belief," and which consists in resorting to metaphysical accounts when and if no one can find any other sufficient "wherefore" in the realm of nature. Consequently, whenever a .scientific theory is not available nor can be adduced by anyone, myth and the Kantian " belief " cannot help but fully coincide with each other " in substance." This, in Aristotle's view, would be the case with the Aristotelian metaphysical solution just mentioned. They differ from each other only in the sense that the metaphysical thought is totally free from imaginative representations, whereas the mythopoeic thought finds in imagination a kind of necessary vehicle for its own expression and its popular acceptance-as pointed out by the Stagirite-and perhaps even for its own conception. But as the Frankforts warn us: " The images . . . are products of imagination, but they are not mere fantasy. It is essential that 7 W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers from Thales to Aristotle (New Harper aud Row, 1960), p. 13. York: DIVINITY AND IMMORTALITY IN ARISTOTLE 221 true myth be distinguished from legend, saga, fable, and fairy tale ... true myth presents its images and its imaginary activity. It perpetuates the revelation of a 'Thou'." 8 In the Frankforts' opinion, " It is likely that the ancients recognized certain intellectual problems and asked for the 'why' and ' how,' the ' where from ' and ' where to.' Even so we cannot expect in the ancient Near Eastern documents to find speculation in the predominantly intellectual form with which we are familiar and which presupposes strictly logical procedure even while attempting to transcend it." 9 In other words, the primitive mind may be described as lacking in experience, in sharpness and in abstractive power, and therefore as being unlike that of the present generation; the primitive mind can be said to be ultra-sensitive to emotional stimulation and inclined to judge everything in terms of a limited experience, according to which the concept of causal activity rests only on the observation of human interaction; but it cannot be indicted on the grounds of 'illogicity' or even 'pre-logicity.' "We shall find"say the Frankforts-" that if we attempt to define the structure of mythopoeic thought and compare it with that of modem (that is scientific) thought, the differences will prove to be due rather to emotional attitude and intentions than to a so-called pre-logical mentality." 10 In other words, there is still hope of coming to right conclusions through a careful " demythologizing " procedure, such as the one taught by Aristotle. H. and H. A. Frankfort, "Myth and Reality," op. cit., p. 7. •"Myth and Reality," op. cit., p. 6. It should be added that, by the same token, primitive mentality does not indulge in poetic " personifications." It rather conceives causality altogether in terms of " persons," due to the fact that the empirical observation has not yet been able to observe the actual causal process of inanimate nature, having been restricted to focusing upon the final product only. In this respect the warning issued by the Frankforts is correct: " This does not mean (as is so often thought) that primitive man, in order to explain natural phenomena, imparts human characteristics to an inanimate world. Primitive man simply does not know an inanimate world. For this very reason he does not 'personify ' inanimate phenomena nor does he fill an empty world with the ghosts of the dead, as ' animism' would have us believe." (Op. cit., pp. 5-6.) 10 " Myth and Reality," p. 19. 8 FRANCISCO L. PECCORINI 2. Myth and Analogy. By way of parenthesis, let us insert an aside concerning the conscious use of imagination as a means to the build-up of the explanatory" myth." We might point out that medieval philosophy, and Kant himself in later times, was going to resort to the same kind of help. The medieval thinkers also borrowed concepts that apply only to creatures and used them to" represent" somehow God's Being, which properly cannot be" represented " conceptually because it is not a finite entity; but at the same kind of help. The medieval thinkers also borrowed borrowed " concept." They called this operation the "logic of analogy," and justified it on the grounds that through thinking we can come to the conviction that God exists and possesses in an infinite manner the same perfections that we only possess finitely, and that consequently such perfections can be "represented " by means of our corresponding concepts as long as we make in our minds an inner correction-which is not itself representable-, namely, that God's perfections are such as ours but in kind only, not in intensity, thus pointing to the infinite excess that characterizes whatever is divine. Friedlander presents Plato's method in the same light: "In the unique, unrepeatable, and unsurpassable Platonic world, the myth has its necessary place. Its formal changes tell us something about Plato's growth or, to speak more carefully and correctly, about the growth of Plato's work. But whether they are playfully anticipating, whether they are guides along the path, or, finally, whether they show eternity incorporated in this world of nature and history, the myths invariably have one element in common. Mythology is fiction mixed with truth (Republic 377A) . This formulation does not mean it is arbitrary, but rather that it is deeply embedded in the nature of being and the human knowledge of this being. Pure truth belongs to God." 11 Perhaps we might put together the theory of " analogy " and the Kantian description of " belief " to 11 Paul Friedlander, Plato (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 209. DIVINITY AND IMMORTALITY IN ARISTOTLE 228 describe the nature of myth. We would say then that since we do not know its object we cannot have a true concept of it; but, on the other hand, being able to reach it with certainty through " thinking" or belief, we only need an analogical expression to communicate to others what we are thinking. The analogical expressions may he more or less accurate, more or less naive, according to the thinking habits and the differences in temperament and power of abstraction that the different civilizations may have been endowed with, but the object about which we are thinking can be perfectly correct. We can detect these two steps in Plato's justification of his dwelling for so long on the myth of Tartarus towards the end of his Phaedo; Step I: Now to insist that these things are just as I have described them would not befit a sensible man; Step II: but a belief that this or something similar is the truth about our souls and their habitations-since the soul has been shown to be immortal-is proper and worth banking on (Kiv8vvevo-ai) for one who thinks as we do. The venture is a splendid one, and one must, so to speak, sing such things over to oneself like a charm. That is why I have been telling my story at such length. 12 12 Phaedo, 114d. In Phaedrus, Plato draws a clear line between the nucleus (if;vx7J 7rcura a!Mvaros), which is the nature of the soul, and the mythical form. See 245a5 ff. He does the same in the Phaedo. From 84c up to 9lc, Socrates takes care of a disturbing whispering that is going on between Cebes and Simmias and that he views as a sign of disagreement with something he may have said. What he utters at that point seems to be a prelude to the reply to their respective objections. In it we are told that we should not give in to the frustrating sceptical attitude that the exceptional dexterity the Sophists were able to show in the use of the "pro-con" argument tends to create. To the contrary, we should persevere in the hardnosed research, not only to convince ourselves of the truth as much as possible, but also to defeat those "people who are quite unconcerned about the truth of any question which may come up in debate, but devote all their effort to persuading the company to adopt their own thesis" (9la-b). But what is really important is that such a digression-which is also a dramatic transition to the examination of the steering objections raised by Simmias and Cebes-though coming immediately after the digression on transmigration, bears only on the main thesis of the dialogue, namely, on the immortality of the soul itself, FRANCISCO L. PECCORINI W. K. C. Guthrie, in his monumental study on Plato (vol. IV of A History of Greek Philosophy), concurs in this interpretation when he takes note of Plato's epistemological humility to praise it as an indication of a .sharp sense of moderate realism: As dialectic progresses, the field of mythical expression is reduced and the philosopher's aim is to reduce it as far as possible: but unlike his greatest pupil he would never deny that there are some truths, and those the greatest, which can never be demonstrated by the method of dialectical reasoning.13 It might well be the case that the very illustrious disciple who is being contrasted herein with the Master was doing nothing more than corroborating Plato's position, as interpreted by Guthrie. In fact; we have already had the opportunity to encounter in Aristotle's Met., XII, 8,1074bl-15 a clear treatise detailing a method as to how to " de-mythologize " the myths without losing sight of the valuable truth they always contain. Now, what Guthrie refers to, in this context, is precisely one more illustration of the same technique volunteered by the Stagirite. Aristotle, indeed, is speaking of " The school of Hesiod and all the theologians," who, as he points out, "thought only of what was plausible to themselves, and had no regard to us. For, asserting the first principles to be gods and born of gods," -with which he is in full agreement, as we heard him telling us in 1074b5-15-, "they say that the beings which did not taste of nectar and ambrosia became mortal; and clearly they are using words which are familiar to themselves, yet what they have .said about the very application of these causes is above our comprehension. For if the gods taste of nectar and ambrosia for their pleasure, these are in no wise the causes of their existence ... " 14 Obviously, then, his disagreement with Hesiod and with the theologians bears only on the " additions," which is the nucleus of the transmigration, not on the " additions " that give it colorfulness (see: 84cl, 84c5-6, 84d4-8, 85bl0-c, 85e3-86a3, 86b5-7, 86e687a4, 87a9-b2) . 18 W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. IV: "Plato" (Cambridge: University Press, 1975), pp. 363-365. "Met., III, 4, 1000a9-17. DIVINI'l'Y AND IMMORTALITY IN ARISTOTLE 225 of which he spoke in Bk. XII, not on the main bulk of the myth, which had to do only with the divinity of the fir.st substances. To put it in modern terms-in Bultmannian terms, to be specific-we ought to agree that, although the form of the structure which embodies mythic symbolic phenomena may be invalid, the content is always valid. Hence, Bultmannian " demythologizing " cannot be essentially different from that proclaimed by Aristotle. As David M. Rasmussen puts it: " The basis of the Bultmannian enterprise of demythologization is constituted by the assumptions that religious phenomena are primarily myth: that the form in which such language manifests itself obscures the reality that it attempts to present. If it is possible to find a way to free the intention of myth from the rigidity of its expression, one may discover the true and real message contained in mythic-symbolic phenomena. Myth then presents a fundamental problem, a hermeneutical problem. Myth raises the question of understanding. 15 3. Aristotle's Platonic Period. Aristotle, coming from the Platonic School himself, did not fail to .show some clear traces of Platonic idealism for quite some time before finding his own personal position; for example, in the dialogue Eudemus, one of his early writings which was written under the impact of the grief caused to him by the premature death of one of his beloved young disciples. In it he still conceived of the soul as a form in itself (eiBos n), not as the form of something (eiBos nv6s), that was to become the trademark of pure Aristotelianism. 16 Characteristically, in this work, the mythological theories which could be found in Plato's books-such as the theories on the heavenly origin of the soul, on its temporary banishment to the earth, and on its eternal repatriation-had .still the upper hand. 11 If we listen to Jaeger, the genuine empiricism of Aris15 David M. Rasmussen, Mythic-Symbolic Language and Philosophical Anthropology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhofl', 1971), p. 11. 16 See Eudemus, fr. 45 (according to the Teubner Edition of the Aristotelis fragmenta). 17 See Eudemus, fr. 44. FRANCISCO L. PECCORINI totelianism was diametrically opposed to the kind of Platonism that the Stagirite shows, mainly in connection with the problem of immortality. Jaeger writes: "Aristotle's Platonism comes out most clearly in the main subject of the dialogue, the doctrine of immortality. Later on he held that the essential problem of psychology was the connexion between the soul and the bodily organism, and he claims to have been the first to recognize the psycho-physical nature of mental phenomena. The first result of the discovery of these psycho-physical relations was inevitably to undermine the Platonic belief in the permanence of the individual soul, and the only part of his original conviction that Aristotle could retain was the belief that pure Nus is independent of the body. All the other functions of the soul, such as reflection, love and hate, fear, anger, and memory, involve the psycho-physical unity as their substratum and disappear together with it." 18 We will have the opportunity to see that, despite the empirical accuracy of Aristotle's psychological observations of his mature period, he never went so far as to affirm that the soul breaks into parts when the subject dies, and that only the upper part of it is divine and survives. That will be one more confirmation of the contention that Aristotle's conception remained always dependent upon a kind of critical acceptance of the Greek myth of the Titans. In the Protrepticus:-which was not written in the form of a dialogue, but rather was conceived with a proselytizing purpose in mind and was addressed as a letter of exhortation to Themison, a prince of Cyprus with whom Aristotle had become acquainted through the mediation of his friend Eudemus-the Stagirite wanted to convey the message that philosophy cannot be avoided at all. Either we ought to philosophize, he thought, or we ought not. If we ought, then we ought. If we ought not, then also we ought (in order to justify this view). Hence in any case we ought to philosophize.19 18 1• Werner Jaeger, Aristotle (London: Oxford University Press, 1962) p. 49. Fr. 51. See Jaeger, op cit., pp. 56-57. DIVINITY AND IMMORTALITY IN ARISTOTLE 227 Jaeger links Aristotle's Protrepticus to Plato's inspiration as follows: "Just as in the Eudemus Aristotle took the Phae