It’s true. My dad was a Protestant pastor, and also sort of hippie about some things. No drug use or sleeping around, but he liked to live “simply” (for example, keeping his old coffee percolator), and around the time I was a baby, he had become a convinced pacifist. That is, he had become convinced based upon the Sermon on the Mount (mostly) that for Christians nowadays, it is never permissible to resist violence with violence. And this went for nations too. For him, principled pacisfism was part of following Jesus.
So here it was, the mid 1980s, late in the Cold War (though we did not know it was late at the time). A no-nukes protest had been planned in a downtown plaza in our large Midwestern city. I believe it was organized by the city’s churches, because among other people, my dad had been asked to sit in a panel onstage.
I was probably 9 or 10 years old. I was excited to go along. It seemed like a good thing. It was pretty clear to me that us, or anybody else, getting killed by nukes was a bad thing, something that we would not want to have happen. I had heard gruesome stories about people’s eyeballs being turned into jelly when the bomb was dropped (by us!) on Hiroshima. This was in a book that we had at home called Peace Be With You.
As the family artist, I made the sign for our protest. I tried to draw the symbol from the cover of Peace Be With You, a dove holding a branch in its beak. I had never drawn a dove before, and I got the beak wrong, so it came out looking more like a parrot.
I don’t remember all the content of the rally, but two things stand out. There was a play about a couple who survive a nuclear holocaust and live in a tent city, only to get radiation sickness. And, I remember the final song.
With the panel of pastors still seated on the stage, a lady came up to give a moving musical number. The first verse was about the Statue of Liberty and how she represents to many people that they have arrived in a place that is free from oppression. The second verse was about the cross of Christ, and how, to the Christian, it means liberty from sin, death, and hell. The refrain was “the Cross is my Statue of Liberty.”
Horribly blasphemous, of course. It was trying to compliment the greater by comparing it to the lesser, which actually reverses the roles of greater and lesser, unintentionally offering a huge insult to Christ.
As soon as he realized where the song was going, my dad abruptly got up from his seat on the stage behind the singer, stalked off the stage in a huff, and marched me and my brother out of there before the rally ended. I’m still proud of him for this. As someone said (I can’t find the reference, but I think it was Spurgeon), “Even a dog barks when its master is attacked.” Referring to himself defending the honor of Christ, however inarticulately.
I think what the organizers were trying to convey with that song was, “We are Christians, and don’t worry, even though we are against nukes we still definitely love our country.” But it was ill chosen.
Although I now think the whole event was incredibly naive, I commend my dad for attending it and for bringing his kids. Kids need to have experiences where they go fight for the right alongside their parents, even if the cause later turns out to have been somewhat misguided. This sends the message, “We have certain values as a family, these are important enough to do something about, my parents are good people” and, above all, “I and my parents are on the same side.” Please, give your kids many experiences like this before they become teenagers!
So, why naive? Well, I can’t blame myself for not noticing this as a kid, but why in the world did we think we were the only people who objected to the idea of a nuclear holocaust? Surely that is something that everyone recognizes is bad? (Except, perhaps, the mullahs, I digress.)
And given that we were not uniquely intelligent or good such that we were the only ones who didn’t like the idea of people being annihilated by a nuclear bomb, it would make sense to connect the next pair of dots (#s 2 and 3) and ask ourselves, since 99% of people don’t like nukes, how is it that they still exist? Could it be that, once you have a nuclear standoff, getting rid of nukes is more complicated than just “getting rid of them”? Perhaps there are people who also don’t want an apocalypse, but whose options are limited?
By the same token, perhaps there are more obstacles standing between humanity and the cessation of wars in general than just a dearth of people saying, “We don’t like war.” After all, most people don’t like wars, including most people who fight them.
But we, the anti-war protestors of the Cold War era, honestly, naively, conceitedly thought we were the only people in our country who saw a moral problem with human suffering. And we thought it would somehow stop if only we were to stand up and heroically say, “We are against this.”
It didn’t work. And not because not enough people were against it. It turns out, just saying that doesn’t do anything.
I’m sure my dad’s generation would say that these antiwar protests were ineffective because “our leaders didn’t listen.” “Listening,” in this context, would mean disarming our nukes and other WMDs, and perhaps completely disbanding our military. After all, if every country did this, peace would flow into the empty space where the weapons used to be. And someone has to go first! So it might as well be us! Someone has to give peace a chance.
This made sense to me at 10, especially when it was coming from respected authority figures. Once we grow up, however, we have a responsibility to ask ourselves what could possibly go wrong with this scenario. And the answer is: a lot. Everything.
War is, unfortunately, the default state of human beings. When we are not at war, it is because a lot of people are working very hard to maintain a precarious balance where things don’t tip into war. Fortunate are we who live in a country or empire large enough, or strong enough, that all that work has paid off and we get to go about our daily lives, assuming that peace is the natural state of things. But it isn’t. It is not the case that wars don’t happen unless some “war monger” goes out and “starts one.” That would be nice, but it’s not what we have here.
There are multiple reasons for this. Until recently, I thought it was sufficiently explained by human beings being sinful, and full of fears, lusts, and cravings. All of that is certainly a huge factor. We usually see wars explained as being caused by “fighting over scarce resources,” but I think that materialistic explanation is far from sufficient. Wars have not become less common as the worldwide standard of living has increased. I have also seen wars attributed to “religion.” There are a number of logical problems with this as well. To test this theory, you’d need a control group of humans who had either no religion, or no war. Since both war and religion are things that humans universally do, such a control group does not exist. To say that because both are universal, means one causes the other, is the post hoc fallacy.
So in general, I think the stubborn persistence of war is adequately explained by the Seven Deadly Sins: Envy, Greed, Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, Anger, and Pride. Especially Pride and Envy.
Say somebody hates you and wants to go to war with you because they are prideful and think their way of life is better, but also, at the same time, they envy some things about, tacitly acknowledging that in those respects, you are better than they are. Is such a person going to put down their weapons because you fold your hands and say, “Look. None of us like war. Let’s all mind our own business and disarm”? No, unfortunately, your enemy may not like war, but they hate you a lot more than they hate war. If they even recognize that you are taking the moral high ground, that is only going to exacerbate the wounded-pride-and-envy problem.
This is why fifty years of “anti-war” protests have done nothing but make the protestors look silly.
But it recently came to my attention that there may be an additional cause besides human sin that keeps stirring up wars in the world.
We need to expand our understanding of spiritual warfare to include the larger social and political structures of our world. Why does war bring ruin to the world? Why do we feel constantly on the verge of a new world war? … Why is peace, specifically the peace the permeates through the spread of the gospel, such a threat to world powers? The answer to these questions falls under the larger context of the unseen battle, a battle that has in mind the final unification of the nations of the world under the banner of Christ.
–Joel Muddamalle, The Unseen Battle, p. 120
Muddamalle is suggesting that the gods of the nations, who would prefer to go on ruling them, feel threatened by the spread of the Gospel and use geopolitical instability as one of their tools to slow this spread. (For more about these entities, see my review of Michael Heiser’s book.)
The idea is that human beings, while plenty fight-y on our own, would sometimes like to rest. But these spiritual entities will not let their people rest. They are hard at work, with demonic delight, stirring up, prolonging, and accelerating generations-long conflicts, to keep the Gospel of Christ out and also perhaps, as a side benefit, because they enjoy human suffering.
This certainly matches the picture of “the gods” that we get in, say, Greek mythology. People are bad enough on their own, but even when you have a majority of people who want to do the right thing, you will see that Fate, or the gods, or whatever, intervene so that exactly the wrong thing happens at exactly the wrong moment. The result: ten years of war.
Peace, it turns out, is not a passive, waterlike thing that flows in wherever a space is opened for it. It has to be established, like a fortress. It is the result of someone coming in, taking names, and routing the false gods. That someone is the Lord Jesus.
Just as the sun must come up every day, rain or shine, so I am cursed to plod forever through an endless treadmill of answering questions. The questions are ever the same, but on the plus side, my answers keep changing.
I am so hardcore. But, as usual, Bookstooge, thanks for doing everything exactly like Puddleglum. Or Trumpkin.
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What’s your favorite book and why?
The Bible, because so many reasons, but among others, it’s got some really wild ancient history that you won’t find anywhere else. At least, you can find stuff elsewhere that’s sort of similar, but you won’t know which parts of it are true.
Can you share some obscure/unusual words you like to use when writing?
I like “interlocutor.” It means whoever the person in focus is speaking to. I also like “salient” and “equivocation.” But obviously, which fancy words are the most salient changes depending on the context of the writing.
When I’m writing narrative, I prefer to describe the action and people’s thoughts as simply as possible and let the actual events deliver the emotional impact.
Do you have pets (if yes, photos!)
Not anymore, sadly. Our last remaining rabbit passed just a few weeks ago. We (my son and I) hope to get another batch of chickens this summer, but standing between us and them is a large run-and-coop building project that, to me at the moment anyway, seems as intimidating as the Tower of Babel.
What brings you joy?
Beauty.
Landscapes, especially if I can paint them; beautiful folk clothing from around the world; beautiful items knitted or crocheted by myself or others; the simple, unforced beauty when your favorite mug is sitting on your favorite coaster and they match. The beauty of a plant: hens & chicks filling a planter, a Boston fern spilling towards the floor. Sunshine on my dining room walls. I love beautiful music, even though I’m not very gifted at it, which is no doubt a trial to the people around me.
I also love things that are beautiful even though they are ugly. “Brutalist” jewelry, that looks weathered, like it came through the apocalypse. Things that are painted, knitted, or sewn in unexpected colors, like browns and greys, or colors that you’d think would clash but then don’t. Stuff that looks worn or pieced together, like an old farm quilt. Well-told tragedies, like the recently reviewed story of Jason and Medea.
Here’s an example of a “brutalist” ring.
“All things counter, original, spare, strange;/Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)/With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;/He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change/Praise Him.”
–Gerard Manley Hopkins
If there’s anything that can make you look forward to tomorrow, what would that be?
I have fond memories of a little cabin hut bungalow on a small island called Gili Air, off the coast of Lombok. Go out and snorkel in the morning, come back in the afternoon and sit on the porch and read. Look across the bay at sunset, and see the mountains of Bali looming out of the sea. Beach is not even my favorite setting, but boy that was one relaxing vacation.
I realize you all have been aware of this song for years, but I just heard it in its entirety a few months ago. Like probably every listener, I found it to be a stunning work of art and also kind of a puzzle, and I listened to it a couple of times in a row for several days until I felt I understood it. I’ll spare you my analysis, as I think volumes have already been written.
How many blogs do you have?
Just this one. I used to have a recipe blog and a book review blog, both on Blogger. I haven’t checked them in years and am not even sure if I could find them anymore.
But don’t forget to buy my books! And for goodness’ sake, please don’t return them. My publisher charges me when you do that. If you buy a hard copy and hate it, just burn it or send it to Goodwill or something.
What’s your favorite quote?
There are so many good ones, I can’t really pick a favorite. It goes in seasons with me. But for today, I’ll leave you with this one:
This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man,/who depends on flesh for his strength/and whose heart turns away from the LORD./He will be like a bush in the wastelands;/he will not see prosperity when it comes./He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,/in a salt land where no one lives. "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,/whose confidence is in Him./He will be like a tree planted by the water/that sends out its roots by the stream./It does not fear when heat comes;/its leaves are always green./It has no worries in a year of drought/and never fails to bear fruit." The heart is deceitful above all things/and beyond cure./Who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:5 - 9
Now, my questions for you, Gentle Reader. These are inspired by our experience in grade school, where you were sure that you had to have a quick, permanent answer about your favorite color, animal, and favorite everything else ready to go. This is important! You never know when you might need to know this stuff! Answer with your first instinct and no cheating!
What is your favorite brand of tractor?
What is your favorite kind of cow?
What is your favorite kind of chicken?
Country or city?
Ford or VW?
Pickup truck or motor scooter?
Star Wars or Star Trek?
Beach or mountains?
Sweet or savory?
Sci-fi or fantasy?
Favorite animal, domestic or wild, in your region or any other.
This is my final post about The King Must Die. It will have spoilers. They will be the sort of spoilers that make you want to read the book.
Like any good literary book with a strong theme, this one announces the theme in its title. The King Must Die. Why? Why must the king die? The entire story is an effort to provide the answer.
A Rude Awakening: the Death of the King Horse
The first major incident in the book involves the slaughter of a sacred horse. Theseus, who is about seven at the time, loves this horse. It is the “king horse,” the stallion of the sacred herd. Theseus, who has been told that the god Poseidon is his father, thinks of this horse as his literal brother. He is taken to the sacred island to attend a special ceremony. He has no idea that this ceremony is going to culminate in the slaughter of the horse he adores.
It was a good clean killing. I myself, with all Athens watching, am content to do no worse. Yet, even now, I still remember. How he reared up like a tower, feeling his death, dragging the men like children; the scarlet cleft in the white throat, the rank hot smell; the ruin of beauty, the fall of strength, the ebb of valor; and the grief, the burning pity as he sank upon his knees and laid his bright head in the dust. That blood seemed to tear the soul out of my breast, as if my own heart had shed it.
As the newborn babe, who has been rocked day and night in his soft cave knowing no other, is thrust forth where the harsh air pierces him and fierce light stabs his eyes, so it was with me.
p. 13
This is the first king to die in the story. And for Theseus, it is also a kind of death, and a kind of birth. He is the grandson of a king, and this is his birth into the world where the king must die.
Then Theseus is “dedicated.” This involves smearing the horse’s blood on his forehead. But when his older cousin tells him “Come, you must be dedicated,” he thinks that he is about to be sacrificed like the King Horse. So the little boy steps forward in his first act of courage, ready to give his life. And for the first time, he senses the presence of the god Poseidon with him.
Theseus’s grandfather, the king, notices that his grandson is struggling with what just happened. Later, in grandfather’s upper room, the two of them have a talk.
The Lord Poseidon, who rules everything that stretches under the sky, the land and the sea. He told the King Horse, and the King Horse led [our ancestors to new grazing grounds].”
I sat up; this I could understand.
“When they needed new pastures, they let him loose; and he, taking care of his people as the god advised him, would smell the air seeking food and water. Here in Troizen, when he goes out for the god, they guide him round the fields and over the ford. We do that in memory. But in those days he ran free. The barons followed him, to give battle if his passage was disputed; but only the god told him where to go.
And so, before he was loosed, he was always dedicated. The god only inspires his own. Can you understand this, Theseus?
The King Horse showed the way; the barons cleared it; and the King led the people. When the work of the King Horse was done, he was given to the god, as you saw yesterday. And in those days, said my great-grandfather, as with the King Horse, so with the King.”
I looked up in wonder; and yet, not in astonishment. Something within me did not find it strange.
“Horses go blindly to the sacrifice; but the gods give knowledge to men. When the King was dedicated, he knew his moira [=destiny]. In three years, or seven, or nine, or whenever the custom was, his term would end and the god would call him. And he went consenting, or else he was no king, and power would not fall on him to lead the people. And the custom changes, Theseus, but this token never.
“Later the custom altered. Perhaps they had a King they could not spare, when war or plague thinned the Kindred. Or perhaps Apollo showed them a hidden thing. But they ceased to offer the King at a set time. They kept him for the extreme sacrifice, to appease the gods in their greatest angers … And it was no one’s place to say to him, ‘It is time to make the offering.’ He was the nearest to the god, because he consented to his moira; and he himself received the god’s commandment.”
He paused; and I said, “How?”
“In different ways. And so it is still, Theseus. We know our time. Listen, and do not forget, and I will show you a mystery. It is not the sacrifice, whether it comes in youth or age, or the god remits it; it is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting, Theseus. The readiness is all. It washes heart and mind from things of no account, and leaves them open to the god. But one washing does not last a lifetime; we must renew it, or the dust returns to cover us.”
pp. 16 – 19
Thus the king of Troizen lays out the entire rationale for Hellene royal sacrifice. Perhaps you have already noticed a few Bible Easter eggs. “Behold, I tell you a mystery” and Jesus saying, “The Father loves me because I lay down my life. No one takes it from me; I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (John 10:17 – 18) Those few lines map exactly onto what Theseus’s grandfather has just told us, albeit with perfect clarity instead of wrapped in mysterious ancient customs.
Was all this really present in the culture of the ancient Greeks and their Indo-European forebears? Or is Renault reading it back into that culture from the Bible? Or, did Jesus borrow all this from the ancients? I’m looking into it.
You might think that Theseus’s grandfather’s speech is too heavy-handed; showing instead of telling. But Renault knows what she is doing. This is not the whole secret of the book laid bare within the first twenty pages. It is only the beginning. This instruction from his grandfather sets Theseus’s attitude towards the god, himself, and his duty. It will guide how he responds to things throughout the rest of the book.
All the Kings that Die
Spoiler time. Here is a quick list of all the kings whose death Theseus causes or witnesses in this book:
Kerkyon, the “king” of Eleusis. This young man is a “solar king,” that is, he lives in a matriarchal society where the king reigns for only one year and then is killed by his successor. Thesus gets chosen as the next solar king and kills Kerkyon in hand to hand combat. Then he becomes the next Kerkyon.
Minos. Minos is dying and has no legitimate heir. He eventually becomes aware of Theseus and asks him to kill him using the sacred double-headed axe that has been used by kings in Crete from ancient times.
Astarion, the “Minotaur.” In this version of the story, Astarion is Pasiphae’s illegitimate son by an Assyrian bull-dancer. He is angling for the throne of Crete, and after Minos dies he has himself crowned king. A priest anoints him with oil and puts on him the sacred gold bull-mask. Theseus interrupts the ceremony and fights Astarion, who is still wearing the sacred mask. Though he gained the throne by illegitimate means and held it for only a few minutes, technically Astarion is another king whom Theseus kills.
The solar king on the island of Dia. Theseus, Ariadne, and the fleeing bull-dancers make a stop on this island on the way home to Athens. It happens to be on the day of the year that the Dionysian rite will take place, where the past year’s king is torn to pieces by the Maenads.
Theseus’s father Aigeus. Aigeus kills himself by leaping from the cliff of Athens when he sees that the returning ship is bearing a dark blue Cretan sail instead of a white one. Leaping from the cliff is the traditional way that kings of Athens have been known to “make the sacrifice” when the god calls them.
All of these tragic events might seem like an unrelated potpourri of senseless suffering. But actually, they are all closely bound up with each other, and we can see it if we look at the Hellene, Minyan, and Cretan attitudes towards sacrifice.
Other Sacrifices
Sacrifice is everywhere in this ancient world. Every year, the people of Troizen kill a “scapegoat,” a non-royal person that they have decided is causing their troubles. There are animal sacrifices, there are libations of wine poured out, and so forth. The priestess, when she goes to do divination, offers the “house snake” a dish of milk. In Crete, when a man is going to become king, he throws a ring into the sea to “marry the sea lady.” I want to here mention two notable sacrifices that royal characters make.
Early in the book, we learn that during a time of drought and plague, Theseus’s mother sacrifices her virginity. Typical of ancient pagan thinking, when none of the gods of the Hellenes claimed responsibility for the plague, the king, with increasing desperation, finally figured out that the god who was angry was “the Mother.” He offers a “holocaust” (a burnt offering) of pigs all around the large mossy rock in the Mother’s shrine, but apparently this is not sufficient. The old priestess, who is unattractive and dislikes pretty girls, tells the king that his fifteen-year-old daughter must “hang up her girdle for the Mother.” This means she must go to the “myrtle house” (a shrine on the sacred island) and give herself to the first man who shows up, as an offering to the Mother. Then the drought will stop.
It’s an incredibly poignant scene as the king, now a grandfather, describes to Theseus how he felt he could not get out of this. He goes to his daughter about it, and she says of course she is willing to make this sacrifice to save the life of the people.
As it happens, the king of Athens is visiting Troizen, and he agrees to go and visit the young princess on the island so that at least her experience will be with a man who is kind, and whom she has met before. But the king of Troizen cannot tell his daughter that this is going to happen, because as a member of the royal family, she has to go to the sacrifice consenting. “The readiness is all.” So the king of Athens swims over to the sacred island and becomes Theseus’s father. As he jumps into the water, a thunderstorm is already coming to end the drought.
Later, Theseus sacrifices himself for his people when he volunteers to go to Crete as part of the tribute of seven youths and seven maidens. He feels the god Poseidon calling him to do this, “sending him to the bulls.” (The bull-dance of Crete is actually a sacrificial rite in honor of Poseidon.) At first, Theseus resists. He tries to offer the god his horses instead, but he can feel the presence of the god withdrawing from him in response to this. So, in a moment of anguish, he makes the decision to give up his life in Athens, with his father and eventually the throne. Going to Crete does not mean instant death, though it’s understood that bull-dancers last a maximum of six months in the ring. But it is a death to all of Theseus’s hopes and dreams.
Two Attitudes to Sacrifice
As I’ve hinted in this and in previous posts, the customs of the earth-mother-worshipping Minyans differ quite a bit from those of the sky-god-worshipping Hellenes when it comes to sacrifice. In contrast to the Hellene approach laid out in the first section of this post by Theseus’s grandfather, the Minyan solar “kings” are not really kings at all, but more like sacrificial animals. The “king” serves as the consort of the priestess/queen for one year. During this time, he is pampered in every way, sort of like fattening an animal for slaughter, but he has no real power. The queen, together with the other matriarchs, is one who conducts the business of the land. In Eleusis, the war chief is not the queen’s husband but her brother. In these “earthling” societies, the important thing is not how the king dies but simply that he die.
Just inshore, the road sloped upwards to a flat open place at the foot of a rocky bluff. Stairs led up to the terrace where the Palace stood: red columns with black bases, and yellow walls. The cliff below it was undercut; the hollow looked dark and gloomy, and had a deep cleft in its floor that plunged into the earth. The breeze bore from it a faint stench of rotten flesh.
She pointed to the level place before it, and said, “There is the wrestling ground.”
I looked at the cleft and said, “What happens to the loser?”
She said, “He goes to the Mother. At the autumn sowing his flesh is brought forth and plowed into the fields, and turns to corn.”
ibid, p. 68
It is not the king’s life, his attitude, his self-sacrifice, or his leadership that the goddess-worshippers need, but only his rotting body, his symbolic and literal death.
This system produces a fatalism in Minyan “kings” that is very different from the warrior spirit of the Hellenes.
As we met each other’s eyes, I thought, “He has stood where I stand now, and the man he fought with is bones under the rock.” And then I thought, “He has not consented to his death.”
I drank of the mixed drink, and the priestess gave it to the King. He drank deep. The people gazed at him; but no one cheered. Yet he stripped well, and bore himself bravely; and for a year he had been their king. I remembered what I had heard of the old religion. “They care nothing for him,” I thought, “though he is going to die for them, or so they hope, and put his life into the corn. He is the scapegoat. Looking at him, they see only the year’s troubles, the crop that failed, the barren cows, the sickness. They want to kill their troubles with him, and start again.”
I was angry to see his death not in his own hand … But I saw from his face that none of this came strange to him; he was bitter at it, but did not question it, being Earthling as they were.
“He too,” I thought, “would think me mad if he knew my mind.”
ibid, pp. 69, 71
Theseus encounters this same unbridgeable disconnect again near the end of the book, when on the island of Dia he meets their sixteen-year-old “king.”
There was something about him I could put no name to, a daimon in his eyes; not that they wandered, like men’s eyes whose wits are troubled; rather they were too still. Whatever he fixed his gaze on, it was as if he would drain it dry.
Something oppressed me in his silence, and I said only to break it, “You have a god’s feast here tomorrow.”
“Yes.” That was all; but something woke in my mind, and of a sudden I saw everything. I remembered Pylas saying to me in the mountains above Eleusis, “I know how a man looks who foreknows his end.”
He read it in my face. For a moment our eyes met, seeking to speak together. It was in my mind to say, “Be on my ship before cocklight, and with the dawn we will be away. I too have stood where you stand now; and look, I am free. There is more in a man than the meat and corn and wine that feeds him. How it is called I do not know; but there is some god that knows its name.”
But when I looked into his eyes, there was nothing in them that I could say it to. He was an Earthling, and the ancient snake was dancing already in his soul.
ibid, pp. 319 – 320
The Minyans kill their king, and “do not share the sacrifice, offer nothing of their own.” This attitude is even more pronounced in Crete, as Theseus finds when he goes there.
Theseus takes his call to go “to the bulls” very seriously, as a form of sacrifice. Indeed, the bull-dancing developed from an original simple human sacrifice where a single victim was thrown into a pit to be gored by a bull, representing the god. But in the aeons since then, it has developed into entertainment. Originally, it was the youths of the noble families of Crete who would dance with the bulls until the day they were killed. Even then, they were celebrities. But now, the people of Crete do not enter the bull-ring themselves. Instead, the bull-dancers are slaves taken as tribute, captured, or bought from all corners of the world: not only the Greek islands but Libya, Phoenicia, Assyria, Scythia, even Israel. The Cretan upper classes adore these teenaged bull-dancers. They bet on them, send them gifts, have affairs with them, invite them to parties. They cry over their deaths. But ultimately, what is life and death to the bull-leapers is, to the Cretans, a diversion.
Avoiding the Sacrifice
Theseus does not resent being the one to put his life on the line in the bull-ring, because the sport itself is intoxicating, perfect for a teenaged adrenaline junkie. But he observes more than once, “These people only play at their sacrifices.” For example, the Cretan upper classes have dolls made of themselves which they hang on the trees every year in their place, at the time of year when, in ancient times, a royal person would be sacrificed.
“But that is a …” She checked herself and said, “only a mainland custom. Here in Crete no king has been sacrificed for two hundred years. We hang our dolls on the trees instead, and the Mother has not been angry.”
I made over her the sign against evil.
p. 253
As a result of this unwillingness to do the actual sacrifice, even the family of Minos no longer have the presence of the god. Theseus is appalled when Ariadne tells him how she plans to fake a fit of prophecy in her capacity as priestess. And he is stunned to find that Minos does not hear the voice of the god.
“Come,” he said, “tell me of this. The god spoke to you, you say. You have heard the voice that calls the king. How does it speak? In words? In a sound of music, or the wind? How does it call?”
I stared at him. Amazement rooted my tongue. I thought I must have heard wrong, yet knew not how to ask. We were silent, looking at each other.
He was the first to speak. He leaned his head on his hand, and said in his sad muffled voice, “Boy, how old are you?”
I said, “If I live to spring, my lord, I shall be nineteen.”
“And after dark, when the bats fly over, you hear their cry?”
“Why, yes,” I said. “Often the night is full of it.”
“They cry to the young. And when the old man passes, they are not silent; it is his ear that has hardened. So also with kings’ houses; and it is time then to think of our going. When the god calls you, Theseus, what is in your heart?”
Finding what words I could, I opened my heart in this small closed room to Star-Born Minos, Lord of the Isles.
When I had said my say … he raised his crystal eyes again, and slowly nodded. “So,” he said, “you made the offering. And yet, it is your father who is King.”
His words went sounding through me, deeper even than my grandfather’s long ago; deeper than my own thought could follow. “No matter,” I said. “A good Shepherd will give his life for the sheep.”
pp. 265 – 266
So Minos has lost, but he knows what he has lost. There is an even deeper depth of cynicism displayed in his stepson, Astarion, Pasiphae’s illegitimate child by a bull-leaper. When Theseus finds out that Astarion is planning to become king by a political coup, he can barely comprehend it:
“But,” I said, “then Crete is being ruled by a man who does not belong to any god; who was never dedicated. He has all power; yet he has not consented to make the sacrifice. Has he consented?”
There was a shadow on her cheek, as if she would smile; but her face grew grave, and she shook her head.
“Then,” I said, “the god will never speak to him. How can he lead the people? Who will see their danger coming? What will happen, if the god is angry, and there is no one to offer himself? He takes service, tribute, honor; and he gives nothing! Nothing! He will be death to your people if they let him live.”
p. 256
Theseus understands what many Cretans, and many in our godforsaken time, do not: that being a king is about more than just power.
Eventually, Astarion commits what reads to Theseus as the ultimate sacrilege. Astarion has sponsored Theseus’s team of bull-leapers for almost a year. Hard up for money, and with no access as yet to the royal treasury, Astarion seeks to make some money off his team. He places bets that they will die in the next dance, and then secretly has their bull drugged to madden it. Though Theseus is gored, the team manages to survive for a few minutes, and then the stratagem backfires when the bull dies of the drugs. The team, when they realize what he has done, are furious: “How this man has despised us!”
But Astarion has not only despised his team. He has despised the bull, the ritual, and hence, the god. Within twenty-four hours, Theseus is feeling the warning in his body and spirit that always comes over him right before Poseidon sends an earthquake. But this time, it is stronger than ever before.
The noise tormented me; the warning surged and roared and crashed through my head, or withdrew leaving a dreadful hollow hush filled with the tread of the approaching god. The awe and terror which it is man’s nature to feel before the Immortals goaded and spurred me to fly for my life. And when I held my ground, the madness burned me up, and the warning would not be contained within me. I shook Amyntor off and leaped on the table among broken winecups, and shouted it aloud.
“Poseidon is coming! Poseidon is coming! I Theseus tell you so, I his son. The sacred bull was killed and the Earth Bull has wakened! The House of the Ax will fall! The House will fall!”
p. 294
After the massive earthquake, when Theseus defeats Astarion,
Now I saw his face, grimacing with bared teeth. I stepped up to him, to hear what he would say to me. But he only stared at me as at some shape of chaos, seen in a dream when nothing makes sense. He who had thought to rule without the sacrifice, who had never felt the god’s breath that lifts a man beyond himself, had nothing to take him kinglike to the dark house of Hades.
p. 312
By denying the gods and expecting others to sacrifice for him, Astarion has destroyed his own mind and ushered himself into hell. This is the darkest place. It is darker even than the Minyan solar kings. Though they are about 90% scapegoat and only about 10% king, yet even they, because the Minyans still take their sacrifices seriously, provide some faint foreshadowing of Christ. When the young king of Dia rides off in a cart to go up the mountain and be torn to pieces, he goes crowned with ivy, raising a wine cup in his hand, and scattering wheat (bread) onto his people. Apparently, this is part of the deep structure of a properly done sacrifice: sharing out the bread and the cup before one’s death. Going up the hill. A vegetable crown.
And Today?
What did I mean, “And Now”? I can barely remember why I put that in the title.
Obviously, we no longer live in a world where human sacrifice is necessary to keep ourselves alive. Arguably, it never was, but I think this novel makes a pretty good case that there was something deep going on there. Human sacrifice bad, yes, but we cannot by the same token say paganism worthless, with no glimpses of the truth and with nothing to teach us.
Regarding the question of where these resemblances came from, I do not have time to go into whether Christianity “copied” from ancient Greek mystery religions, was not even aware of them, or was aware of them and did some riffing on them. But in the providence of God, I recently ran across a book that looks into exactly that. I’ll be back when I’ve read it, with a more robust case that these types and shadows found in paganism had their source in God.
The book of Hebrews–and in fact the entire New Testament–makes a strong case that, when our King laid down His life, that was the last, sufficient sacrifice, making it no longer necessary even to sacrifice animals. The only reason Theseus comes out looking so heroic is because of his resemblance to the King of Kings. And a Happy Easter to you. He is risen indeed!
But there is a miniature version of “the king must die” that applies in the daily life of every Christian, indeed of every adult. Being a king is about much more than just power, and this goes for every kind of leader. In order to be a good parent, you should be sacrificing yourself for your children much more often than you expect them to sacrifice for you, although of course this doesn’t mean that you let them be in charge. Most of a parent’s sacrifice is invisible to the children. And in fact, the one who sacrifices the most is the one who has the most authority. Otherwise, how will the unction of the god fall upon you to lead your people? Who will see danger coming?
Similarly, a good boss or manager works harder than any of his employees. A major principle of leadership and love is “my life for yours.” As Jesus said, “Whoever wants to come after me must deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow me.” “Pick up their cross” corresponds to getting in the cart, the one that takes you up the hill. So, you, know, in a small way, we should all strive to be Theseus and not Astarion.
I read The King Must Die back in university. My education up to that point had some gaping holes, but I had been privileged to attend a school one time where they spent an entire year getting us thoroughly familiar with Greek myths and history. My point is, I knew the story of Theseus. I knew the labyrinth and the Minotaur were the main event. And I was eager to get to them. So I moved through the first part of the book at a pretty good clip, the part that tells of Theseus’ childhood in Troizen, his coming of age, and his journey across the Peloponnesian Peninsula to find his father, the king of Athens.
I thought then, and still think now, that Theseus is not an especially likeable character to modern eyes. He’s a prince of Heroic Age Greek culture, and he is, as they say, a product of his time. He is proud, ambitious, pious towards the gods, stoic, brave, and clever (those are his virtues), and also snobby, entitled, callous, cruel, sexist, and promiscuous. He has all the virtues of ancient paganism, but none of the virtues a Christian man. You can’t endorse all his actions or even his value system. (By the way, that is exactly what makes this such a fantastic historical novel.) But despite all this, there are moments in his story that ring incredibly poignant. And these are moments that I either forgot since my first reading, or missed entirely.
You want to hear about the Minotaur? Let me tell you about a son and his father.
Theseus’s grandfather is king in Troizen, a small Greek kingdom on the east coast of the Peloponnesian Peninsula (or what they call the Isle of Pelops). His mother, a princess, had him when she was a teenager. She lives, still unmarried, in the palace, and serves as a priestess of the Mother, who is goddess left over from before the Greeks arrived, whom they feel they must give her due.
Theseus’s mother has always told him that he is the son of Poseidon. Theseus takes this seriously as a little child. He views the sacred horse, also called a son of Poseidon, as his brother. He whispers “Are you there, Father?” into the sacred well that sometimes grumbles when Poseidon is stirred up. But as he gets a little older, he sees that other people doubt he has a divine father. He becomes defensive.
Truly “god-got” children are known to be really tall, and Theseus has always been small for his age. He waits and waits to grow (he hopes to be six or seven feet tall). He develops “short man syndrome,” taking daring risks in order to prove himself in front of the other boys. He is the best at every sport except for Hellene-style wrestling, because that requires mass and weight.
Once, he even swims way out into the ocean, figuring either Poseidon will prove he is his father, or Theseus will welcome a death by drowning. The current sweeps him back to the island, and he figures he has his answer.
Then Theseus turns seventeen, and his mother shows him the rock that his father said he should try to raise in order to prove whose son he is. So, it wasn’t Poseidon after all.
Theseus tries and can’t raise it by brute strength. He is broken, furious with his mother who won’t tell him anything.
But eventually, he realizes that he can raise it with a lever. That’s when he finds the sword.
His grandfather tells him the story, which is full of the tragedy, ugliness and beauty of ancient paganism is and basically a mini novel within this novel. There was a plague, a drought. Apollo claimed not to be responsible. Poseidon wasn’t answering. Finally, the priestess said it was the Mother. “A virgin must go and wait in the myrtle-house and give herself to the first man who comes along.” The priestess disliked Theseus’s mother, because she was an attractive young girl. His grandfather couldn’t see a way to get her out of this.
But it happened that Aigeus, the thirtysomething king of Athens, was visiting Troizen. He agreed with Theseus’s grandfather that he would be the man. At least the princess would lose her virginity to someone she had met before, and he would be kind and gentle with her. They could not tell her about this arrangement beforehand, because when a member of the royal family is in some way sacrificing themselves for the people, their willingness to make the sacrifice is a critical element. Only then will the god bless it.
The thunderstorm was already arriving. Aigeus stripped and swam across the channel to the sacred island where the Myrtle House was. A flash of lightning revealed to the princess a dark-haired man rising up out of the water, with a ribbon of seaweed on his shoulder. She thought he was Poseidon. She knelt, and crossed her arms over her chest, as one would do for a god.
Why didn’t he wait for the boat? Why did he jump into unknown waters, in a rainstorm, and swim across? Was Poseidon indeed possessing him? say these pagans. Who knows?
Theseus is disappointed, but intrigued, to find out that he has a human father. He travels over the Isthmus (a dangerous and lawless place), gets entangled with the earth-mother-worshipping people of Eleusis, which is very creepy, and eventually makes it to Athens and reveals himself to his father, narrowly escaping being assassinated first.
On the map above, if you look around the Saronic Gulf, you can see Troezen on the south side, Athens on the north side, and Eleusis just a bit west of Athens. I wish I’d had this map 25 years ago, when I first read the book.
Aigeus has no other sons. He is thunderstruck and delighted to see Theseus.
There’s not exactly hugging and crying, because both of them are proud, aristocratic, cautious men. On the whole, Aigeus probably wears his feelings closer to the surface than Theseus does. Still, they start getting to know each other.
Theseus’s birthday is approaching. Aigeus wants to have a feast for him. Theseus suggests sending to Troizen to bring his mother for the feast, but Aigeus dismisses this plan. If they wait, the time will get too close to “the tribute” (the sending of young men and women to Crete), and he doesn’t want to be celebrating his long-lost son when some of his subjects have just had to give up theirs.
It’s at this point that the reader who knows the outline of the story realizes that Theseus and his father are not going to have much more time together.
The day of the feast comes. Aigeus gifts Theseus a chariot, “of dark polished cypress-wood, with ivory inlays and silver-bound wheels, a craftsman’s masterpiece.”
It was a gift beyond my dearest wish. I thank him on one knee, putting his hand to my brow; but he said, “Why this haste, before you have seen the horses?”
They were matched blacks, with white-blazed foreheads; strong and glossy, sons of the north wind. My father said, “Aha, we slipped them up here, as neat as Hermes the Trickster lifting Apollo’s steers. The chariot while you were in Eleusis; and the horses this very morning, while you still slept.”
He rubbed his hands together. I was touched at his taking all this care to surprise me, as if I had been a child. “We must take them out,” I said. “Father, finish your business early, and I will be your charioteer.” We agreed that after the rites, we would drive to Paionia below Hymettos.
pp. 154 – 155
In case you missed it, Aigeus just gave his son a sports car.
After the rites, Theseus goes to the stables and waits and waits for his father. When the king does show up, he seems to have forgotten their plan to take a ride. He is stressed out by something. He urges Theseus to ride by himself, but to leave by the back gate.
The reader realizes, with a sinking feeling, that the representatives from Crete have come early to collect the youths and maidens for the tribute.
Aigeus, almost in tears, is trying to get Theseus away from there. But Theseus, too sharp not to realize something is wrong and too proud to be hustled out the back, quickly finds out what is happening and insists on entering the deadly lottery.
And now, the reader realizes that they are never, ever going to take that chariot ride.
The youths and maidens of Athens are chosen by putting their names on scraps of pottery, which are then drawn at random out of a bowl. Aigeus puts in a lot for his son, on which he has surreptitiously written some other youth’s name. But Theseus, standing among the crowd, realizes what has happened when he sees that his father is not worried. What should he do? Should he let the deception stand? Or should he stride forward and insist on being among those who are sacrificed?
I thought, “What was it? What has my father done? What every father would do if he could. And he is King. He has to think for the kingdom. It is true enough that I am needed here. I ought not to think like a warrior only. Has someone else gone to Crete for me? I have led such lads to war, and never thought I wronged them, though some were sure to die. Why then do I hate my father, and myself still more, and feel I cannot bear my life?”
I looked at my father, and remembered how he had invoked Poseidon, praying him to choose the victims. And I thought, “Yes! That is it! He has mocked the god, the guardian of the house, who brought him to beget me. Well may I be angry! This man has mocked my father.”
p. 163
Theseus begins praying his heart to Poseidon. He senses that the god wants him to go to Crete. It is time to make the sacrifice.
Sorrow fell black upon my eyes and the sun grew cold. I thought of what I had planned to do in Athens: small things I had to hoped to force my father’s hand to, great ones when my own time came. I knelt where I was, with my hair hiding my face, and thought of my life; of hunting with the Guard, of feasts and dances, of my room with the lion walls; of a woman I wanted, and had meant to speak to at the festival; of my beautiful horses, who had scarcely felt my hand; of the war paean, the bright rage of battle, and the triumph song. And I thought, “The god cannot mean it. He sent me here to be king.”
“Father Poseidon,” I whispered, “take something else from me. I will not ask to live long, if I can make a name and be remembered in Athens. Now it will be as if I had never been born.” I heard the name called of some Athenian. It was the last of the seven. “Lord Poseidon, I will give you my horses, the best I ever had. Take anything but this.”
The sea-sound grew fainter in my ears. And I thought, “The god is leaving me.”
p. 164
So off he goes. Rather than lose the unction of the god to rule, Theseus insists on going to Crete, where, he has been told, bull-dancers last six months at the most.
“Don’t grieve, Athenians. The god is sending me. He has called me to the bulls, and I must obey his sign. But don’t weep for me, I will come again.” I did not know these words till I had spoken them; they came to me from the god. “I will go with your children, and take them into my hand. They shall be my people.”
They had left off weeping, and their voices sank to a hush. I turned, and faced my father.
I saw the face of a man who has got his death-wound.
I was heavily pregnant throughout the holiday season. On New Year’s Day, we spent the day with my in-laws. I had a persistent lower backache. Sometime that night, it became evident that this had been the beginning of labor. We drove to the hospital in what was being called a “polar vortex,” and we barely made it in time. I almost delivered my son in the toilet while waiting for my husband to park the car. It was a very short labor. He was a rather small newborn. We were so happy to finally be able to see our new person.
I am very, very thankful to have been able to have children. I was on the older side when I made this person. He, and his siblings, are God’s gift and mercy to me and my husband.
Now, that person is an adult. We have had eighteen Christmasses with him (counting the one just before he was born). Reader, I need you to understand that this is a very finite number of Christmasses.
What happens now? I don’t know. I am happy with my son’s character. It is far better than my character was at eighteen. But good, newly minted and still very immature adult character does not a future make. What path will open up before him? We are trusting God.
Parenting is nothing if not fearful. When my son was an infant, my big fear was that he would die or come to some physical harm while still a baby. I assumed that, once he was a teenager, this fear would diminish. Wrongo, or only half right. I’m less hormonal now (so the emotions are less intense), and the fears have changed. Now they are things like the draft, car crashes, heartbreak.
I have friends who really only had eighteen Christmasses with their son, because he was killed at the age of eighteen. Praying for them. Eighteen Christmasses is such a small number.
This is a view of my neighbor’s house on a smokey afternoon late last summer. It’s also part of the internal landscape of my mind.
Farmlands are one of my favorite biomes. (Yes, they are a biome. I will die on this hill. They are a part of Naure. They are what nature looks like when people live in it.)
Farms and I go way back. I didn’t grow up on one, but I grew up around farms and farmers.
My early years were spent in eastern Pennsylvania, which is a country of rolling green hills and low mountains. My dad was the pastor of a small country church, and most of its members were dairy farmers. Whenever we visited anybody, which was often, we would first be taken into the cow barn. These were black-and-white milk cows. As soon as you stepped into the barn, your senses would be filled with cow sensations: the chorus of moos, the smell. To this day, when I smell a cattle lot, it doesn’t smell bad to me, just like a clean farm smell.
And even cleaner farm smell was the “milk room,” a little brick building with a large stainless-steel tank of milk in the center, and a drain in the middle of the wet floor. It smelled like coolness, milk, and water.
These are memories from when I was very small. That same family that I have in mind, although they had indoor plumbing, also still had a working outhouse in their back yard. There were bees, and the smell wasn’t so nice, but it was raised up on several steps, not just thrown together but definitely constructed. My brother and I would torment this family’s chickens by pulling backwards on their tails so that they flapped. (Not recommended.) We would sit in corrugated buckets filled with water to cool down in the summer, and drink from the garden hose. This family had Dobermans, and I can remember a black bear hanging up in their barn after the father shot it while hunting. Later, it was stuffed in a scary pose and placed in their study.
The dairy farmers in our church also had fields of crops. Our own house had a yard of about an acre and a half. At the back of this yard was a line of poplar trees, and right beyond them, fields rolling away towards the creek. Beyond that, you could see a mountain. They must have rotated the crops in these fields, but I know that at least one year, they were soybeans. We were allowed to pick the pods, open them, and eat the tiny, hard beans out from inside. There was a lot of milkweed, which was fun to pull open and let the tufty parachutes out when it was ripe. There was a lot of ragweed, which my brother turned out to be allergic to, and one year a plague of tent caterpillars turned the mountainside brown.
My dad had a somewhat free schedule, and he would take my brother and me (and later, our sister) on walks in the countryside. These were probably short walks, given that we were little kids, but I remember them lasting hours. We could walk along the borders of the fields and find new fields, or the creek. This habit set “walking between farm fields” permanently in my mind as a normal thing to do. If it was nighttime during this walk, my dad would sing “Walking at Night,” which, in retrospect, is probably a German hiking song.
When I was eight, we moved to western Michigan. Worse, we moved to a city. I complained hard about this. It was the first remotely tragic thing that had ever happened to me, and I was determined to milk it. By this time, my crush on American Indians was well-developed, and I was keenly aware that it was tragic to be driven off your land.
However, despite that we technically lived in a city, our tiny church there was still about half farmers. There were still many opportunities, on prayer meeting and picnic and potluck nights, to run on vast grassy lawns while the adults sat and talked, to climb trees, walk between fields, and hide in the hay lofts and corn cribs.
The countryside in Michigan was flatter and dryer than it had been in Pennsylvania. Furthermore, my small denomination (the “Michiana Mennonites”) straddled the border between Michigan and its neighbor to the south, Indiana, which is really flat. The summer camp we went to served kids from both states, and we often found ourselves crossing the border for pulpit exchanges and things like that. I have attended church in what was literally a tiny, plain white chapel perched at the edge of a sea of fields with no other building nearby. I have tramped over Indiana farms, again with my brother and usually another farm boy, while the adults sat in the house and talked. And these Indiana farms are truly the farmland biome, because there is nothing there but farms, not even a hill to break up the monotony.
The farmland biome combines the best features of wilderness and human habitation. You can walk for as long as you like in solitude. There is wind, there is the changing sky, there are wildflowers, and flora and fauna on the windrows. You can get lost if you want, and if it’s winter, you can get cold and miserable too. But as the sun goes down, you can see in the distance the lights of houses. Coming back from the walk to the warmly glowing farmhouse provides all the romance that a kid with a big imagination and a copy of The Lord of the Rings could desire.
Farms have always been with us, and, though technology has changed somewhat, the logistics of having fields surrounding clusters of buildings mean that farmlands in every place and time look essentially the same. You have the wide horizon, the walls, canals or windrows carving the space up and giving some sense of distance, and the lights low to the ground. Perhaps one reason I like fantasy, as a genre, is that it naturally includes farms surrounding the town and castle.
Some of my favorite fantasy series start with, and often return to, the humble but honest farming community. O.K., actually I can only think of two, but they are good ones. The Belgariad starts off with Garion growing up on Faldor’s farm in Sendaria. Actually, it starts in one of my favorite parts of the farm, the kitchen. And, of course, The Lord of the Rings. Bilbo is not really a farmer, he’s more of a country squire, but the Shire is definitely a farming countryside. The four hobbits’ journey starts out hiking through the fields, as every journey should. Their first encounter with one of the Nine takes place on an otherwise ordinary country road. Farmer Maggot, a wholesome character, takes the four friends in, feeds them, and gets them safely to the river crossing in his wagon. And, when the journey is over, the four hobbits must come back and rescue from collectivization the ordinary, boring farms that they sacrificed to save. What would we do without ordinary, boring farms, after all? We’d starve, that’s what. And we would go insane, because the farming life, though hard, represents a very basic pattern for the way people were designed to live.
Out of Babel Books 