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Myth, Saga, Legend and Necessity

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Myth, Saga, Legend and Necessity Myths Saga, Legend and Nece8Sifcy9 * + S b A Preface to Liturgy® had to For thousands of years, the students of antiquity/faavjsixread of the wicked T&rquinius Superbus who was driven out of Rome » Also they a ll had to hear the fable of Menenius Agrippa which he told on the stomach and the other members of the human body when he tried to persuade the Plebeians to return to Rome® This is called saga or legend and now is dismissed as not trustworthy for the use in history books# And as Latin disppears from our schools, the two stories about the Republic and the Plobejans on the Adventine are no longer public property • But the schoolchildren of today again are told of some untrustworthy traditions# This time it is not called saga or legend, but the term myth is applied to the Easter grave in Jerusalem® And a firrc e dabate rages on the myth of Christianity or in Christianity® I find these debates so long fru itle s s as long as nobody seems to know what a saga, a legend, a myth re a lly is , and why they exist and what their righteous place in the life of a society is. To my own surprise, I found fifty years after leaving ray old schoDl that Tarquinius Superbus and ftenenius Agrippa may s t i l l be of some use for the purpose of enlightening us on myth, saga, legend# Some patient/is needed before the reader w ill see the connection in the following two articles with our own problems of myth. But I feel able to promise the patient reader that we at least wj.ll emerge at the end out of the fog in which the word'myth'now is bandied around without any certainty about the central question : Why myth? and what produces myth with perpetual necessity ? And why and when may we boast of livin g without myth or mythology, in the c la rifie d realm of reason and miracu­ lous freedom ? We may anticipate one answer because this answer w ill not help anybody who is too lazy to read on! Myth remains indispensable for those who are too lazy to participate in the miracle of freedom them­ selves; Mr. Bultmann1s discussion of myth is a frightful indictment of the laziness of those whom he presupposes to make up the Christian Church. Ju p p ite r and Vediovis / M « i t p K j w n % «*30^' f y ■n ° F SSA.Q N a m i n g yxh© Gods y Around $000 roost probably since 509 when the temple on th e Capitoline Hill fo r Jupöiter Optimus Maximus, fo r Juno, and for Minerva was built, and un­ t i l , in k9k& the A©diles of the plebs were put in charge of the Aedesxxsumt Sacra© for ^eres , Liber,and Libera , on the Aventine H ill, the religious order of th® Romans underwent a r/adical tranformation. Names t e l l us th is s to ry • T h erefo re, a L atin Grammar a lso is a v aye even th© only explanation of the historynof Roman Religion. Renee, as we may look into this story without any personal bias, we here receive from grammar an o b je c t lesson in the way history works. And it certainly does not proceed in the manner in which the Enjfl, fig h t enment of the la st two hundred years asnmedz assumed history to operate. The Revolution of $00 B. C. in Rome meant that the Sex^ P rie st, Commander , and Judge at one time in one person, lo st h is role as Commandos -irK Ih ie f to a new patrician, a kind of m ilitary Major domo, called th® Praetor Maximus, the^Blggost Loader » This Praetor was the forerunner o f ijJ the la te r Consuls. But the Greeks , through a l l antiquity, translated the Latin word Consul by the tit le HYPATOS, the BIGgBStt.'VThis would be inex­ plicable unless they simply continued th© £atin usage of Maxizaus , fo r the 1 new office. And the Maximus of course was one only, the Praetor maximus. At this time, then, also The Pontifex*. Maximus, the Cu&lb Maximus , and the vestalia Virgo Maxima, received their titles• The Patricians of Rome under the leadoBship of the two new rfaxim i. Praetor and Pontifex, stripped thejKlng of h is role in battle. He became a rex sj|orotum at home only, Inside the w alls of Rome, **lntra ppmoorium.* The God whom he embodied was^Dles, thé King of Heaven, Rex” . The Die8 , however, who was worshipped on the Capitoline H ill, was not invoked as”Rex” . TfcAs was not easily accomplished. And w© find in this necessity a of dropping the byword'Rex' from* the Divine liim rg *f &«. cta$/h <*& Qksi /f-MiWo Jn-thi s-ne oes sl-ty-,_tho—-nse-of—the-torn —-Max-iiHus—y-^inds Jita, v ' explanation. Dies or Diovis beaame , instead of Dies %x, Juppiter Optimus Maximus. ikeSCthree.changes together would propitiate the God. i He remained the FATHER, he f ^ s called the h ig h e st and the richest as well« The three changes wfeee ingeniuusly coupled by the invocation Juppiter. this vocative form bore no semblance any more to Diovis Rex. And thus, as Juppiter prevailed exclusively now, the forbidden combination of Diovis Rex was made linguistfically inaccessible. The Tabab- of language with which we here m è% i s aWlghty weapon in the chang ©tf|>f re lig io n . As tb® change in the ? command o r the army of men was the issue, Juno Regi­ na did not loose her title ‘regina* • But she never had ac.coi|ttpanied her hu< husband^brother into the fie ld . Minerva now( the motherle’ss daughter of ..squeezed Juno out as th# single companion.* Minerva, raastermina in the assembly ox men, had to be accented by jealous Juno ct '-*Ju!5bkfce r and yjelnvi;S> Lround $ 0 0 , the Kin, o f RomK lost his•position of the commandor - i n - i / ____ Lef of the army*'' A H^Tpato. a Praetor /Maxuraus tob ils place* the Rex deura hCminumque , Uiovis was t^ be/the K n&mua» in line with the prae >r maximus » the Curio maximus » tab Ve^talis Virgo maxima, and tnebhe pontpontirex if ex maximus»maximus, m «xa-- title of DioviSQA th £ name/Rex8ceased to he aptooprlate * f Juno reginaAdid not see A offensive as thip was a military revolution, a change in the colamahd of the army* Juno Regina » an invooatioj^left intact .r B u ^ i°vi8/ maximus ƒ optimuaj instead of ’Rex/ ^cftSbi-beat-ho. Mm Hp&mfd by only spox 'speaking I f him now in the vpcati^form of 'JuppiterW The predilection for* Juppiten.* instead/of y$&$r£iy, came about » /wken^lt was important to av&id the temptation of callin g B * ^ * # e x > (4 n e form of the Nominativ D ilsgiter disppeared now® We oiuy0read^idW of Jiippiter . This made any Yev iv al of a Diovis\%x im- bXar-unfeasibltoWdVor, the hew invocation of Juppiteh Maximus Optlraus .m x on thjrGapitoljNhad further consequence^ dfAgreat litu rg ic a l in^- pacty Juno-R©gina^—worshipp©d~ln~th0^gr0ve" wi-th-Biovia^ was not- t^TOn~up~to'~th@~-Cap4to3rin®“Hiirl® Minerva» the'sovereign Mind of V Juppiter himself » -thok-Juno^s^plaoey once mores, stressing the A -^as^emblj/of men», the %hqiy, as tinspired by the Godct-v^ ‘rujcr, u [s x u ttn , -tuCi W ' The b ro th er of yputhful Juno» the Diovls of ?h$ a n cie n t Brother-Sister marriage, beoamo, in precise contrast to the new Optimua Maximus» theAVediovls, the little» small» low, ^ q a j / Diovls who kept his cult at the foot of the Palatine Hillo * f S o alsoj-reraained everywhere over Latiura# As Juppiter Anxur» ° L j ^ j * *or asf vediovis where the Roman reform struck» he remained . Cu<s>i as the J u lii neauihiax served him as his priests down to the days of ^ e s a r in their Latin town« £hxx±ilmt ^ci^od <d i *3 ,£<dvvV$I ^e&.£ytL* t •mctnv <^oJc<sA, Tee 'Q t n r i ^ l G $ to $ s lthe Reformers did not rest their case by the dialec­ tics of Juppipter Maslmus and V©diovis* They were the new officers corps, a„corps which replaced the king as commander^in-chle! by a praetor maxumusj but it is sometimes forgotten that they of course » from the very first day » had to provide for the s p ir itu a l welfare of the common man, the plefcs » as well* The religious reorganisation of the plebs and of the patricians ran parallel®, ^he class wars often ton simply are made in to a barren sequence of kingship» aristocracy» democracy» as though at any one time, only one of these institutions had to be cared { for® This is not so® The complexity of history consists » as a ll medieval or modern h is to r y proves again» in doing Justice to the permanent groups although in varying degree or prepon­ derance® Royalty has its democratic and aristocratic's orderd/» and the patricians of Rome cared very much for the plebs f 00m the very first# Our tradition states this very clearly by giving the pgebs th e Aedes Ceroris, Llberl and Li/bera®» on the Aventihe* already in the year I4.9I+® \ Now» in this temple» the plebs received their MAgna Charts, within the military revolution of the praetdr Maxurau3s| and his p o n tifex Maxumul• The very names of the privileges tjestowbd on the plebs» do reffe&ct the share which f o r the plebeians wgg^-^1^ ^ the most substantial and the most valuable rosult the change* Juppiter and Vediovis m We are told that the Plebs had tribuni plebis now-» and f*«*» *he temple of Os® r e s » Liber , and Libera, the./had aediles plebis, p r ie s ts of the Aedes 3'acrae on the Aventine 1 1 1 1 4 Both, the names of the d e itie s worshipped in the temple, and the fact that the priestsƒ/$/// of the plebs were given th e ir name from the new buildings, is equally eloquent® C - -wye J u For, Liber, ( the Greek "Dionysos”» ) and Libera^' replaced Vediovis, the young appearance of iiippjüfKcRKyxtBtiüi« Jovis Res, in the same manner as Ju p p ite r Optimus Maximus , on the Capitol Hill, replaced the Diovis Rex of the Lucus and the Juno Lucina» at the foot o f the Hills® The parallel is astonishing exact® , , J't'.Ls-j t /fix.
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