The Ancient Stories That Broke C.S. Lewis

The pagan gods died and rose again.

Christ died and rose again, too. It

sounds like the same story. So, how do

we deal with the claim that Christianity

copied its central message from the

pagan myths? For many atheists,

including the young C. Lewis, these

similarities were a serious problem.

Some critics went so far as to say that

Jesus never existed at all, while others

accepted that Jesus was a real person,

but believed that miracles and

resurrection stories were taken from

other religions.

Lewis called these dying and rising gods

corn kings because their stories

followed the pattern of crops dying and

coming back again each year. At the

time, Lewis believed Jesus was just

another corn king, another recycled

myth. But that view began to change

during a walk around Magdalene College,

Oxford with his friend J.R.R. Tolken. As

Lewis Marcos, author of the myth made

fact, describes it. Tolken offered Lewis

a different way of looking at the

problem. What if Tolken suggested the

reason Christ sounded so much like the

corn king myth was that Christ was the

myth that became fact? To put it another

way, perhaps the reason that every

ancient culture yearned for a god to

come to earth to die and to rise again

was because the creator who made all the

nations placed in every person a desire

for that very thing. This idea

completely changed how Lewis understood

myth and Christianity and it eventually

led him to convert. But before that,

Lewis had to wrestle seriously with the

pagan stories. Who were these dying and

rising gods? And how similar were they

really? The corn kings Lewis was

thinking about came from many different

ancient cultures. Because these stories

were so widespread, critics argued that

Christianity simply copied them. But

when we look closely, each of these

myths falls short of the gospel story in

very important and distinct ways. In

Greek mythology, Adonis, sometimes

linked with Bacus, was a mortal known

for his beauty. after being killed by a

wild boar. One version of the story has

it that he turned into a flower when his

blood mixed with the tears of Aphrodite.

Another version says that he returned to

life after Aphrodite begged Zeus to

restore him. Another example is the

Egyptian god Osiris connected to farming

and fertility. Osiris was murdered by

his brother Set who then cut his body

into pieces and scattered them across

the world. His wife Isis then gathered

the pieces and restored him, but not to

life on Earth per se. Osiris instead

ruled the underworld, the realm of the

dead. A third figure from mythology is

Tamuz from Mesopotamian lore. Stories

vary, but some describe his death

followed by a return from the underworld

as well. And then much later in history,

so after Christ, Norse mythology has

Balder, the son of Odin, as another

figure to compare to Christ. The veles

calls him Balder, the bleeding god, and

fortells that he will one day return and

bring peace.

Nepro's Eda also describes him in

language that sounds surprisingly close

to Christian descriptions of Jesus.

The second son of Odin is Balder, and

good things are to be said of him. He is

best and all praise him. He is so fair

of feature and so bright that light

shines from him. He dwells in the place

called Brightlick which is in heaven. In

that place may nothing unclean be.

Beyond these dying and rising gods,

pagan myths include other familiar

themes. There are stories of miraculous

healings like those attributed to the

Greek god Eskelepius. There are wine

related miracles linked to Dianisis,

which reminds many people of Jesus's

turning the water into wine at the

wedding of Kaa. And some have even

compared the gospels to Homer's Odyssey,

arguing that Jesus was a real person,

but his life was shaped into a heroic

myth later. Another source of confusion

was Mithraism. It's a religion popular

in Persia and parts of the Roman world

at the time. Now Mithra was believed to

be a divine savior born from a rock. His

followers used water as a symbol of

salvation too similar to how Jesus is

called the water of life. Mithraism also

practiced a ritual meal that closely

resembled the Christian Eucharist. Early

Christians noticed this too. So Justin

Martyr wrote in his first apology, "The

wicked devils have imitated this in the

mysteries of Meith commanding the same

thing to be done. For the bread and a

cup of water are placed with certain

incantations in the mystic rights of one

who is being initiated. You either know

or can learn. Tertullan also made

similar comments believing these rituals

were copied from Christianity. Whether

the similarities were exact is debated,

but the overlap made it easier for

critics to claim Christianity was just

another myth among the many.

This confusion increased when early

Christians used familiar artistic

styles. Some early images of Jesus

resemble pagan gods like Hermes,

Sclepius or Zeus. Hermes, for example,

was often showed as a shepherd carrying

a ram, similar to Christian images of

Jesus as the good shepherd carrying a

lamb too. And even halos were already

used in art depicting the son, God,

soul, and victus. So once again, the

question remains, how do we make sense

of all of this? First, I'll note that

the criticism is nothing new. In the

second century, the philosopher Kelsus

had accused Christianity of copying

earlier myths, pointing to similarities

between the virgin birth of Jesus and

the stories of Greek heroes. But modern

scholars, many of them atheists, too,

admit the weakness of these claims. Most

so-called dying and rising gods don't

actually die and rise in the same way

that Jesus did. Their stories are often

symbolic, partial, or set outside of

real history. Today, many historians

agree that the gospel accounts are

unlikely to be simple copies of pagan

mythologies. Theologians also point out

that Jesus's earliest followers were

devout Jews who strongly rejected the

pagan religions around them. That makes

it very unlikely that they were going to

be borrowing from the paganism that

surrounded their everyday life.

So, how should we understand these

myths? Tolken and later Lewis came to

believe that pagan myths were not rivals

to Christianity but instead preparation

for it. These stories express humanity's

deep longing for redemption before that

longing was fulfilled in history.

Christianity then is not myth recycled.

It's myth fulfilled.

CS Lewis later explained it this way.

God is more than a god, not less. Christ

is more than Boulder, not less. We must

not be ashamed of the mythical radiance

resting on our theology. We must not be

nervous about parallels and pagan

Christs. They ought to be there. It

would be a stumbling block if they

weren't. He then continued, "For this is

the marriage of heaven and earth,

perfect myth and perfect fact, claiming

not only our love and our obedience, but

also our wonder and delight. addressed

to the savage, the child, and the poet

in each one of us no less than to the

moralist, the scholar, and the

philosopher.

Christians often point out that God

specially prepared the Jewish people for

the coming of Christ. But in a wider

sense, all people were partially

prepared through philosophy, moral

reasoning, and myth. Every culture saw a

piece of the truth through a narrow

opening, through Plato, through natural

law, or through Osiris.

Just as later Christian thinkers learned

from Aristotle without abandoning

Christianity, we can also better

understand Christ by seeing how he was

hinted at in the ancient myths.

Evangelization has its stepping stones

and C. Lewis was led to the higher by

the lower and found God through the

gods.

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