Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
Journal of
Religion in
Europe
brill.nl/jre
Western Suspicion of Polytheism, Western Thought
Structures, and Contemporary Pagan Polytheisms
Maria Beatrice Bittarello
Pomezia (Rome), Italy
[email protected]
Abstract
This paper argues that in contemporary Western culture, polytheism meets with
strong theoretical opposition because it is implicitly subversive of powerful
thought structures. The paper examines how scholars have conceptualized polytheism; subsequently, it tries to establish what are the concepts connected to a
polytheistic religion and worldview, and to define what thought structures are
threatened by ‘polytheism.’ Finally, by examining how contemporary Pagans
are reconceptualising polytheism, the author points out that certain contemporary Pagan statements represent an interesting attempt to overcome dualistic
thinking.
Keywords
polytheism, contemporary Paganism, Western thought structures, monotheism,
binary oppositions
1. Introduction
This paper argues that in contemporary Western culture the idea of polytheism meets with strong theoretical opposition because polytheism is
implicitly subversive of powerful, underlying thought structures. The paper
examines how scholars have conceptualized polytheism; subsequently, it
tries to establish what are the mostly (though not solely) negative concepts
connected to a polytheistic religion and worldview, and to define what
thought structures are threatened by ‘polytheism’. Finally, by examining
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010
DOI 1001163/187489209X478319
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
69
how contemporary Pagans1 have (and still are) reconceptualising polytheism, I will point out that certain contemporary Pagan statements represent
an interesting attempt to overcome dualistic thinking. Such modern Pagan
re-evaluations of polytheism, however, appear to be akin to, though not
necessarily depending on, certain Western re-evaluations of polytheism
(conceived as tolerant and as acknowledging the inherent powers of
nature), on certain Enlightenment and Romantic re-evaluations of polytheism, as well as to non-Western representations of polytheism. Therefore,
the new Western polytheism(s) still largely maintain the structural dualistic oppositions embodied by the concepts of monotheism and polytheism,
in spite of some elements of novelty.
I maintain that recognising the dualistic bias that shapes the opposition
monotheism/polytheism is particularly important because, as some thinkers have pointed out, it is the source of the subordination/marginalisation
of women and nature,2 and, obviously, of all the categories that occupy the
second element of any dialectical opposition in Western dualistic paradigms, such as white/black (or mixed-heritage and so on), Western/Eastern,
and rational/irrational.
2. The Invention of Polytheism: Academic Formulations of the Concept
The first part of this paper tries to answer the following questions: how has
been, and is, polytheism defined and described in academic discourse?
What specific features are ascribed to polytheism (usually in opposition to
monotheism, or to other academic labels, such as animism)? What are the
consequences of this construction—i.e. what meanings does ‘polytheism’
convey in Western culture, and what purposes does this construction serve
in academia and in Western culture at large? The representation of polytheism in academic discourse can hardly be fully examined in an article;
the survey that follows does not aim at being exhaustive or complete, but
it is limited to a specific aspect—to ascertain if, and how, polytheism is
1)
It has become common practice to refer to the pre-modern forms of paganism as
“pagan(ism),” and to the new, consciously pagan groups as “Pagan(ism).”
2)
Carol P. Christ, “Ecofeminism and Process Philosophy,” Feminist Theology 14.3 (2006),
289-310, p. 290.
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loaded/charged with negative meanings, either in an explicit or in an
implicit way. Therefore, the paper touches on significant and influential
positions, in a chronological order.
In the West, monotheistic religions have been apparently dominant
after the edict of Constantinople, which banned any form of private pagan
worship, promulgated by Theodosius in 362, with only sporadic attempts
to propose theologies based on Neoplatonic ideas or on ideas of nature as
full of gods. Polytheism is an abstract category, created by scholars to define
those ‘other religions,’ which did not focus on one transcendent god. The
term polytheia (‘many gods’), seems to have been originally used by
Christian elites in the Greek east to describe Graeco-Roman religion,
alongside with ‘Hellenism’ and eidolatria (idolatry, i.e. worship of images).3
Polytheia was later adopted by Philo of Alexandria, again in conjunction
with idolatry;4 several centuries later, the term polytheism was rediscovered
and adopted, as Francis Schmidt has illustrated, by Protestant polemists in
their writings against the Roman Catholic Church, whose practices were
portrayed by Reformation leaders as ‘idolatry’ and ‘polytheism.’5 In the
early eighteenth century, Christian theologians adopted the term, to indicate all those ‘religions’ that did not share the worship of one god.
Polytheism and monotheism appear from the start as totally irreconcilable
polar opposites.
In 1757, David Hume formulated the idea that polytheism (or ‘idolatry,’ a term he used as synonymous of polytheism), was the original religion of humankind. His position was that religion did not arise from the
contemplation of the works of nature, but from practical concerns regarding the events of life.6 Voltaire, who wrote the entry ‘Polytheism’ for the
French Encyclopaedia, shows an ambivalent attitude: he read polytheism as
a degradation of natural religion, because he thought that initially the
humankind knew one god, and then because of the lies of priests adopted
many; at the same time, he deemed the Eastern polytheisms of the Chinese
3)
Polymnia Athanassiadi and Michael Frede, “Introduction,” in: Polymnia Athanassiadi &
Michael Frede (eds.), Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press
1999), 7.
4)
Francis Schmidt, “Polytheisms: Degeneration or Progress?,” in: Francis Schmidt (ed.),
The Inconceivable Polytheism: Studies in Religious Historiography (Paris: Harwood Academic,
1987), 9.
5)
Schmidt, “Polytheisms,” 9-12.
6)
David Hume, The Natural History of Religion (New York: MacMillan, 1992).
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
71
and Hindus similar to Enlightened European philosophy and morally
superior to Israel, Christianity and ancient Greece.7 Rousseau, instead,
makes a distinction between polytheism, the first ‘civic religion’ of humankind, which is not condemned as it had some positive practical aspects,
and the monotheistic ‘religion of man’ he advocates.8
Romanticism focused on the question of the origins of monotheism and
polytheism. In any case, polytheism was presented as an imperfect form of
religion, and viewed negatively—in Max Müller polytheist mythology is a
‘disease’ (of the language).9 Francis Schmidt shows how two contrasting
theories appear in the modern age: the theory that reads polytheism as the
‘degeneration’ from an original monotheism (found in authors such as
F. Max Müller),10 and the theory of progress in which from an original
polytheism there is a progress towards monotheism (as in Edward B. Tylor,
who substantially followed Auguste Comte—who described polytheism as
the intermediate stage in religious evolution, following fetishism and preceding monotheism—though the stage preceding polytheism was, for
Tylor, animism).11 What is of interest here is that both theories implicitly
consider polytheism in a negative light. In the first case, polytheism is a
corrupted, debased mockery of monotheism (a sort of fall from grace); in
the second case, it is a state of ignorance and lack of right knowledge, followed by an awakening to truth. I used the terms ‘fall’ and ‘awakening’
intentionally, in order to show how theological conceptions are at work in
seemingly ‘rational’ and ‘scientific’ discourses.
The Austrian scholar Wilhelm Schmidt, who postulated the existence of
an original monotheism, Ur-Monotheismus, from which polytheism later
developed,12 is yet another follower of the degeneration theory. The Italian
scholar Raffaele Pettazzoni (the founder of the Rome School of History of
Religions) contested Schmidt’s theory, on the grounds that Schmidt’s position represented a compromise between historical inquiry and theology;13
7)
Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire. A Contemporary Version, Vol. 6. (New York: E.R. DuMont,
1901).
8)
Timothy O’Hagan, Rousseau (London: Routledge, 2003), 221-225.
9)
Friedrich Max Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language (Armstrong, N.Y.: Scribner,
1875), 21-22.
10)
Schmidt, “Polytheisms”, 9.
11)
Tylor, Edward B., Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology,
Philosophy, Religion, Language. Art and Custom (London: John Murray, 1871).
12)
Wilhelm Schmidt, Der Ursprung der Gottesidee (Münster: Albrecht, 1926/1955).
13)
Raffaele Pettazzoni, L’ onniscienza di Dio (Torino: Einaudi 1955).
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as noted above, a theological penchant is present in all the theories
postulating a degeneration/fall reading of the dialectics monotheism/
polytheism.
Pettazzoni’s pupil Angelo Brelich attempted a reformulation of the concept of polytheism, and described its features in a landmark article originally published in Numen.14 Brelich’s work is an interesting attempt to
redefine the category of polytheism; keeping to the literal meaning of polytheism, he considers polytheistic only those religions in which we find
‘gods,’ not simply extra-human personal beings (hence the exclusion of the
Celtic religion). He focuses primarily on the features of the polytheistic
gods and goddesses, in order to show that the polytheistic god is intrinsically different from the monotheistic god. The polytheistic gods are
presented as immortal, with an anthropomorphic aspect and complex personalities, with a specific character, functions, and spheres of competence;
they have influence on human lives; they are closely interrelated to form an
organic divine world (pantheon). Such deities are immanent in reality,
though they are not ‘personifications’ of natural phenomena; rather, they
function as complex models for the control of nature. All the gods must be
worshipped, since the well-being of each individual, as well as that of the
community to which he (or she) belongs, depend on the harmonious coexistence of all the gods of the pantheon. Divine beings have specific spheres
of influence, but these overlap, so that critical moments in human life are
protected against uncertainty by several powerful deities. Such critical
moments can be either ‘natural’ (birth, puberty, giving birth, death), or
‘cultural’ (initiations, marriage, working life, civic activities, and so on).
Brelich presented polytheism as the form of religion typical of cultures
possessing writing, agriculture, cities, an extensive specialisation of human
activities, and distinct social classes—cultures such as those of the ancient
Mediterranean basin, of Mesopotamia and Europe, but also India (Mohenjo
Daro), China, Japan, and pre-Columbian America.
Dario Sabbatucci’s research on polytheism mostly focused on the issue of
the origins of polytheism, and on an evaluation of this category as Western
cultural construction. In his view, the first (and only true) polytheism was
the Sumerian, from which derived all the other polytheisms.15 Brelich’s and
14)
Angelo Brelich, “Der Polytheismus,” Numen 7 (1960), 123-136. Later, Brelich expanded
and deepened his argument in his Introduzione alla storia delle religioni (Roma: Edizioni
dell’Ateneo, 1966).
15)
Dario Sabbatucci, Politeismo (Roma: Bulzoni, 1998).
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
73
Sabbatucci’s work is important because of their attempt to closely connect
society structure and religious form, in order to define the features of polytheism more precisely. Indeed, by stressing the interrelations between specific polytheistic religions (e.g. between the Sumerian, the Greek, and the
Roman), Brelich and Sabbatucci end up stressing the differences and peculiarities of each polytheistic system. For example, in Egypt polytheism is
tied with the concept of royalty;16 Greek polytheism, instead, created the
heroic model, in which heroes, i.e. exceptional human beings who had
lived and died in the time of myth received specific cult.17 Such differences
reveal that ‘polytheism’ as category is an academic abstraction.
More recently, the Egyptologist Jan Assmann has investigated the origins of the opposition polytheism/monotheism by investigating the origins of monotheism; I focus here exclusively on Assmann’s outline of
polytheism, and not on other important aspects of his work. His thesis is
that Akhenaton introduced monotheism in ancient Egypt; he argues that,
even if this experiment was a failure, and the opponents of the Pharaoh
destroyed any trace of his revolutionary attempt, this had a lasting influence
in cultural history.18 Assmann’s thesis is contested by other Egyptologists,
who consider Akhenaton’s reform as an example of monolatry (i.e. a religious form in which the existence of many deities is not denied, but only
one is worshipped), rather than of monotheism, on the grounds that the
existence of other gods is never denied by the Pharaoh.19
In a recent article, Assmann has specifically focused on monotheism and
polytheism in the religions of the ancient world.20 In his view, in polytheistic
16)
Dario Sabbatucci, Il Mito, il Rito e la Storia (Roma: Bulzoni, 1978), 362 and 368.
Angelo Brelich, Gli Eroi Greci: un problema storico-religioso (Roma: Edizioni dell’ Ateneo
1958).
18)
Assmann introduced the concept of mnemohistory, intended as a subdiscipline of history and “concerned not with the past as such, but only with the past as it is remembered”:
Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge
MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 9. Assmann draws on previous theories of ‘collective’
or ‘social memory,’ such as those A. Warburg or M. Halbwachs, who both dismissed early
interpretations of collective memory as linked to biological factors (such as the archetypes
in C.G. Jung’s psychoanalytical theories): cf. Jan Assmann; John Czaplicka “Collective
Memory and Cultural Identity,” New German Critique 65 (1995), 125-133.
19)
John Baines, “Egyptian deities in context: multiplicity, unity, and the problem of
change,” in: Barbara N. Porter (ed.), One God or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient
World (Chebeague, Maine: Casco Bay Assyriological Institute, 2000), 9–78.
20)
Jan Assmann, “Polytheism,” in: Sarah I. Johnston (ed.), Religions of the ancient World
(Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2004), 17-31.
17)
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religions we have a cosmic dimension (i.e. the deities cooperate in creating
and maintaining the world), and we have evidence of the gods “through
the natural world and its phenomena”;21 a cultic dimension related to
political organization (e.g. the ‘town gods’ receive cultic worship), and a
mythical dimension (the personal or biographical aspect of the divine
world, in which the gods display their character). Assmann also stresses
other aspects as typical of polytheistic religion. First he suggests that the
key difference between polytheism and monotheism lies in the exclusivity
of monotheism, rather than in the conception of the divine as unity or
oneness.22 Second, Assmann argues that monotheism establishes the distinction between true and false religion, which was substantially unknown
to polytheistic religions; this distinction fostered the transferral of religious
ideas about a single truth to all fields of knowledge and society.23 Assmann
also argues that polytheistic religions lack the notion of a canon of written,
normative texts. Indeed polytheistic religious did not produce normative
sacred texts—not only oral (and thus uncodified) tradition maintained its
relevance,24 but written text never had the absolute authority ascribed by
the ‘religions of the Book’ to their texts.25 Finally, whereas Brelich considered as the central element in polytheism the multiplicity of divine figures,
Assmann stresses the translatability of these gods and goddesses—foreign
deities are welcomed into national, or civic pantheons and integrated into
them.26 Nonetheless, both note that the multiplicity of divine beings is one
of the most evident features of polytheism.
The issue of the one god versus the many gods/goddesses in ancient religion still influences current debates on the origins and development of Near
Eastern religions; for example, Simo Parpola has recently pointed out the
possible existence of a tendency towards monotheism in the Assyrian religion.27 Some classicists, such as Athanassiadi and Frede, have tried to show
21)
Assmann, “Polytheism”, p. 17.
Assmann, Moses, pp. 1-2; “Polytheism”, p. 17.
23)
Assmann, Moses, pp. 1-8.
24)
See on Roman religion, John Scheid, An Introduction to Roman Religion (Bloomington
IN.: Indiana University Press, 2003).
25)
Jan Assmann, “Five stages on the road to the Canon,” in: Religion and Cultural Memory:
Ten Studies. Transl. Rodney Livingstone (Stanford University Press, 2006), 63-80.
26)
Assmann, “Polytheism,” p. 24.
27)
Simo Parpola, “Monotheism in Ancient Assyria,” in: Barbara N. Porter (ed.), One God
or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World (Chebeague, Maine: Casco Bay
Assyriological Institute, 2000), 165-209. Gerlinde Baumann has noted this recent trend.
22)
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
75
that in late antiquity there existed a widespread tendency towards monotheism among pagan elites, especially in the Greek east. In their view,
Christianity was successful precisely because of the “way of seeing things, of
thinking and acting, which it shared with a growing number of pagans.”28
These authors refer to later developments; nonetheless, there had been critical voices on the worship of anthropomorphic gods and goddesses in the
classical world ever since Xenophanes (late sixth through early fifth century
BCE). Such criticism of traditional religion, as Lloyd-Jones has argued, was
limited to marginal (elite) groups that did not question polytheistic practices in everyday life. In his view, Greek religion is something between monotheism and polytheism, because one of the gods (Zeus) is “preponderant
over the rest.”29 According to Lloyd-Jones, ever since the Homeric poems
Zeus plays a key role as the champion of justice.30 This god is not the transcendent creator and good father of the humankind, rather the gods maintain a cosmic order.31 Greek religion remains different from monotheism
essentially because human beings must honour all the gods.32 Lloyd-Jones
concludes that Xenophanes, in spite of his recognition of a single divine
principle beyond the multiplicity of the ancient gods, never invited to abandon the polis religion.33 The main change occurred, instead, with Plato, who
broke with traditional religion, by replacing the gods’ punitive justice with
dogmatic metaphysical and theological constructions, i.e. by identifying
justice with the good and punishing injustice in another world.34
The tendencies towards monotheism found in Greek or in other ancient
religions, such as the idea of a higher god, as well as the acceptance of other
However, Baumann prefers to consider Ashur and other similar examples as instances of
‘insulated monotheism,’ defined in B. Gladigow’s classification of religious forms as private
or local worship of a specific god that progressively developed from polytheism (Gerlinde
Baumann, “Trendy Monotheism? Ancient Near Eastern Models and their Value in Elucidating ‘Monotheism’ in Ancient Israel,” OTE 19.1 (2006), 9–25).
28)
Athanassiadi and Frede, “Introduction”, 1.
29)
Hugh Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley: University of California Press 1971),
160.
30)
Lloyd-Jones, The Justice, 77.
31)
Lloyd-Jones, The Justice, 161. As Mary Lefkowitz remarks, since the gods are immortal,
they may often postpone the punishment of criminals for generations (Greek Gods, Human
Lives [New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2003], 151).
32)
Lloyd-Jones, The Justice, 160.
33)
Neither did so other pre-Socratic philosophers, nor the so-called sophists in the fifth
century BCE (Lloyd-Jones, The Justice, 130-135).
34)
Lloyd-Jones, The Justice, 135.
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people’s deities in the pantheon, are interpreted as expressing the tolerance
of other forms of worship in polytheistic systems. On the contrary, biblical
and Christian monotheism is interpreted as characterised by “exclusivism,
the belief that worship is to be offered to a single god to the exclusion of
all other gods and goddesses,”35 so that the bible condemns polytheism
because there is only one “True God,” and those who pray to any other god
or goddess commit a crime.36
The programmatic refusal of the possibility of imagining a plurality of
divine figures, which the West has inherited from Judaism and Christianity,
has led to a lack of self-reflexivity on the characteristics of Christian monotheism in the West. As Michael C. Rea has noted, the prejudice against
polytheism is so strong that Christians are unable to recognise the polytheistic nature of the Trinity: he argues that Social Trinitarianism should be
classified as a form of polytheism rather than monotheism.37 As Wouter
J. Hanegraaff points out, “it is always possible to argue that many so-called
monotheisms are actually polytheistic (see e.g. the Christian trinity or
angelic hierarchies), and that so-called polytheisms are actually monotheistic (see e.g. supreme gods in polytheistic religions).”38 In his view, “the
belief in “one God” is not actually the bottom line of monotheism, and it
35)
Jonathan Kirsch, God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and
Polytheism (New York: Viking Compass 2004), 34.
36)
Kirsch, God, 39.
37)
Michael C. Rea, “Polytheism and Christian Belief,” The Journal of Theological Studies
57.1 (2006), 133-148.
38)
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Idolatry,” Revista de Estudos da Religião 4 (2005), 80-89, at
pp. 81-82. As both Rea and Hanegraaff suggest, Christianity is purposefully blind to the
polytheistic aspects present in its own doctrine and practice—such as the presence of saints,
and angels, or the peculiar position of the Virgin Mary and of the Devil. We find the same
apparent contradiction in the Islam tradition; the Qur’an often mentions jinn, Angels,
Archangels and, obviously, Shaitan. Such points are scarcely new; however, they are usually
ignored, because it can be easily argued that all such ‘super’-human or ‘special’ beings derive
(their substance or power) from the one God and are not divine themselves. This objection
ignores the practice of vernacular religion in monotheistic religions, and therefore creates
an artificial distinction between theology and popular practice (cf. Amy Whitehead, “The
Goddess and the Virgin: Materiality in Western Europe,” The Pomegranate 10.2 [2008],
163-183, at pp. 166ff.). What is more, in his discussion of the role of angelology in
Christianity, Islam, Neoplatonism, and Mazdaism, Henri Corbin raises a crucial issue: how
can the transcendent manifest itself to the humankind? His answer is that angelology is
indeed necessary in monotheistic theologies focusing on a transcendent god, as a medium
between the Transcendent being and the human being is needed (Le Paradoxe du
Monothéisme [Paris: L’Herne, 1981]).
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
77
is misleading to frame the problematics of monotheism in terms of the
opposition between “one God” and “many gods.” Hanegraaff suggests
therefore that “at stake there is something more than the opposition
of ‘one’ to ‘many.’”39 Hanegraaff’s interesting insight is indeed worth
developing.
Both Hanegraaff and Rea are correct in pointing out that there is more
in the prejudice against polytheism than the hostility against the idea of
honouring many gods and goddesses instead of One Supreme God. The
history of the modern representations of polytheism briefly sketched above
has shown how negative connotations have been attached consistently to
the concept of polytheism by theologians and academics in Western culture. Indeed, Burkhard Gladigow, who has examined the history of (the
concept of ) polytheism in several of his works, has pointed out the negative aspect attached to the model of polytheism in the history of religions.40
Gladigow also examined certain positive evaluations of polytheism in
Western religious history, highlighting the connections between pluralism
and polytheism.41
Graham Harvey, who is a scholar of Judaism as well as of contemporary
Paganism, has recently remarked that polytheism has been used as a label
put on others (i.e. non-Westerners, non-Christians, but also non-Jews and
non Muslims), and on their beliefs and practices. Harvey further notes
that ‘polytheism’ is commonly used as a technical term for “a class or style
of religion,” but he highlights how the “prevalent comparison with monotheism”, make a “scholarly, critical” use of both polytheism and monotheism rather “complicated.”42
A well-balanced and self-reflexive article by the Japanese scholar
Katsuhiro Kohara illustrates how different the discourses on polytheism
39)
Hanegraaff, “Idolatry,” 81. His argument is based on M. Halbertal and A. Margalit,
who have argued that prohibition of idolatry is the wall that separated the non-pagans from
pagans; see their Idolatry (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).
40)
For example, B. Gladigow, “Polytheism,” in: Kocku von Stuckrad (ed.), The Brill
Dictionary of Religion, transl. by Robert R. Barr. Vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 1466-1471.
41)
See, for example, Burkhard Gladigow, “Europäische Religionsgeschichte seit der
Renaissance”, in: zeitenblicke 5 (2006), Nr. 1, [04.04.2006], URL: http://www.zeitenblicke
.de/2006/1/Gladigow/index_htm (accessed 6 July 2009).
42)
Graham Harvey, “Review of The Deities are Many: A Polytheistic Theology, by Jordan
Paper,” The Pomegranate 8.1 (2006), 119-121, at p. 119.
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are in Japan, compared to the West. Kohara starts his considerations by
noting that: many Japanese experts “consider polytheism superior to monotheism. In Japan, monotheism is often criticized as being the cause of
wars, conflicts, and the destruction of nature.”43 He then examines in
detail the differences and similarities between western and Japanese representations of polytheism, pointing out that the negativization of monotheism in Japan is grounded in specific historical conditions, and ‘mirrors’
that of polytheism in the West. Kohara’s paper is especially interesting as
he notes, as some Western scholars do, that discourses on monotheism
and polytheism have not been (and still are not) confined to religious
aspects, but have close connections with politics, ethical issues, and law in
societies.44
I agree with Kohara’s argument that discourses on monotheism and
polytheism have not been confined to just religious aspects; I also maintain
that the implicit negative connotation of polytheism as religious form is
reflected in the West also in the way modern thinkers use the term polytheism, even if they do not specifically deal with religions. For example, Max
Weber, considered polytheism as opposed to monotheistic systems but also
as a metaphor of the antagonism, in human existence, between different
principles and values. By using the metaphor of the warring gods of polytheism to exemplify what he terms the ‘polytheism of values,’ Weber ends
up recalling images of violence, fragmentation, egotistical strife—all arguably far from positive.45 I argue that, on a formal level, Western culture
refuses the idea of worshipping/honouring/venerating many gods and
goddesses; what is left unsaid and unrecognised is that polytheism represents a threat also to a series of concepts implicitly regarded as naturally
positive, such as ‘unity,’ ‘wholeness,’ ‘homogeneity,’ ‘stability,’ which in the
West have found a religious expression/representation in the idea of the
one supreme and transcendent god. Therefore, in Western culture the idea
of polytheism was received negatively by connecting polytheism to a constellation of concepts charged with negative (or, at best, ambiguous)
connotations.
43)
Katsuhiro Kohara, “Discourses and Realpolitik on Monotheism and Polytheism,”
Journal of the Interdisciplinary Study of Monotheistic Religions 2 (2006), 1-16, p. 2.
44)
Kohara, “Discourses,” 12-13.
45)
On Weber’s polytheism see Julien Freund, “Le Polythéisme chez Max Weber,” Archives
des sciences sociales des religions 61.1 (1986), 51-61.
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
79
3. Re-Approaching Polytheism and Monotheism
Assmann’s suggestion that the key difference between polytheism and
monotheism lies in the exclusivity of monotheism, sets us on a specific line
of enquiry, since it suggests that there may be two different, unexpressed
sets of ideas connected in (and by) Western culture to polytheism and
monotheism. This section tries to identify two sets of ideas that appear to
be associated with the two concepts, and that are constructed in binary
opposition to one another. The idea that monotheism and polytheism can
lead to different theories of knowledge is not new; however, I attempt to
explore here what are the concepts, ideas, and tendencies that have been
attached to monotheism throughout the centuries, and have served to construct polytheism as a worldview mirroring and opposing (Christian)
monotheism. Three key areas shall now be examined: ideas of the divine,
knowledge, and (representations of the) structure of society.
In the binary opposition monotheism/polytheism, one of the terms
(monotheism) is charged with connotations perceived and presented as
positive, the other (polytheism) with meanings that appear to be consistently negative. As we shall see, monotheism is identified with oneness,
unity, integrity, wholeness, programmatic equality—all terms charged with
very positive meanings. Some of such implicit connections made in
Western culture have been identified by the post-Jungian psychologist
James Hillman. In Sanford Drob’s view, Hillman reads monotheism and
polytheism as twin poles, which alternate in history in order to correct
each other’s excesses, so that the contemporary return of polytheism and
multiplicity aims at correcting “the repressive monism of ego, reason,
consciousness, and central control.”46 As David L. Miller, a follower of
Hillman’s theories, argues, through a polytheistic theology “we can experience multiplicity without jeopardizing integration and wholeness.”47 This
statement indicates that, in reality, a radical polytheism is perceived as
jeopardizing integration and wholeness, and that polytheism must be
somehow resolved in monotheism to become acceptable—gods and goddesses are presented as different aspects of the one divine. It is worth noting that wholeness is connected to expressions such as “to be whole,” which
46)
Sanford L. Drob, “The Depth of the Soul: James Hillman’s Vision of Psychology,”
Journal of Humanistic Psychology 39 (1999), 56-72, 69.
47)
David L. Miller, The New Polytheism: Rebirth of the Gods and Goddesses (New York:
Harper & Row, 1974), 30.
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indicates a state of mental and physical health. Integrity means “that which
is not divided”; however, it also signifies consistency and honesty. Polytheism is thereby characterized as representing and expressing multiplicity,
division, and fragmentation—in turn, these can be easily identified with
confusion or even chaos.
The god of the three monotheistic religions has not been created (or
generated) by other divine beings or from a primordial (or supreme) divine
principle. In the religions described as polytheistic, there are families of
gods and goddesses, and often we find a first divine being (such as Gaia) or
a first divine couple that generates the other deities.
The omniscience of the monotheistic god is the attribute that most
troubled pagan writers and thus it is the root of a series of theological
issues; for example, if god is omniscient—i.e. if he possesses the full knowledge of past, present and future—the human ability to choose freely is
greatly limited. The gods and goddesses of polytheistic pantheons have a
knowledge vastly superior to that of any mortal being; however, they are
shown (for example in Greek myths) as not knowing important details of
the future (see for example the myth of Prometheus, imprisoned because
he possesses a piece of information that Zeus wants to have).
The monotheistic god is presented as absolute and self-sufficient. The
root of this term comes from ‘absolutus,’ i.e. free from chains. Nobody can
condition and influence this being as it is superior to anything and anyone,
and he does not seem to need humankind. The deities of polytheistic religions are bound by fate, the laws of which they must abide, and they
appear to need human worship (as outlined, for example, in the myth of
Gilgamesh). The deities of the polytheistic pantheon are not perfect and
myths show their complex personalities and how they progressively acquire
their cultural status. The god of monotheism is perfect and complete—he
does not need to change.
Monotheism expresses homogeneity, as it postulates the existence of one
god, or one divine substance, generally described as belonging to one specific gender; polytheism, with its families of gods and goddesses belonging
to different groups, and in some cases even born from human beings,
expresses dis-homogeneity. Monotheism also embodies stability, since the
one god has no beginning and no end; polytheism instead, expresses
dynamism, and even forward motion since older gods and goddesses
are no more in power, and new gods and goddesses can enter the pantheon. Thus, monotheism is closed, while polytheism is presented as openended, also because the former expresses the idea of immutable eternity
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
81
(the transcendent god of monotheistic religions has no end and no beginning); in ancient polytheism the gods are perennial, i.e. they are going to
last for a long time but, since the pantheon is subject to change, not forever
(perennial is a term connected to the Latin word perennitas, which indicated an extremely long period of time, not eternity). In other words, the
polytheistic gods and goddesses are immortal, but not eternal as the monotheistic god. Monotheism expresses programmatic equality; such equality
should rather be described as sameness, as it erases and annihilates difference in sameness. For example, the feminine is absorbed into an allencompassing divine masculine: god is male in the religions of the book.48
Polytheism, instead, takes into account differences (there are gods and
goddesses) and acknowledges diversity (all aspects of life are somehow connected to the divine; foreign deities are welcomed). It is worth remembering
that diversity and acknowledgement of differences as positive contributions are a relatively recent development in Western culture. The one monotheistic god is transcendent, located outside the world, and entirely
independent from it; the gods and goddesses in polytheistic religions are
immanent and inextricably linked to this world. For example, Greek gods
and goddesses govern the world through “natural processes” and human
beings “through human passions.”49
Most important with regard to the relation between the human and the
divine is the fact that the god of monotheism is the creator of human
beings, which are made in his image. In the mythologies of polytheistic
religions, human beings often come into being by accident, and only
rarely divine beings are directly involved in their creation, making, or
generation. The consequence is that monotheistic religions can be considered as anthropocentric; in polytheism, instead, human beings have a relative importance in the cosmos and the gods care little for them.
Monotheism and polytheism have been read as structuring theories of
knowledge in a different way. Freud’s second essay on Moses opposes
the Egyptians’ “frantic” impulse to represent their gods in stone, metal,
and clay,50 to the monotheistic prohibition of representing the divine in
images.51 Freud also connected the Egyptian worship of beings that are
48)
See Luce Irigaray, “Divine Women,” in: Sexes and Genealogies Transl. G.C. Gill. (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 57-72.
49)
Lloyd-Jones, The Justice, 160.
50)
Sigmund Freud, L’uomo Mose e la religione monoteista (Torino: Boringhieri, 1977), 26.
51)
Freud, L’uomo, 26.
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represented as animals to ‘totemism,’ which he thought to be a ‘primitive’
stage in the ‘evolution’ of religions. He went on to affirm that this shows
that polytheism remains near to ‘primitive’ stage, whereas monotheism
reaches heights of sublime abstraction.52 In this case, as Docker notes,
Freud reveals a refusal and fear of the ‘sensuous knowledge’ at the basis
of polytheistic religions: polytheism is associated to concrete and tactile
knowledge of the world, monotheism to abstraction.53 Freud also mentioned the condemnation of magic and witchcraft in monotheism, both
described as typical of polytheism.54
Assmann has pointed out that the distinction between true and false
religion was unknown to polytheistic religions, which had important consequences as they lacked the conception of a single (and exclusive) ‘truth.’55
They also lacked the (closely connected) notion of a canon of written,
normative texts, depositary of the ‘true’ law. Polytheism would then be
associated to visual representation, monotheism to the written word.56 If
we follow Assmann’s interpretation, we must conclude that the idea of
codified religious norms considered as possessing an absolute value, of the
existence of an absolute truth, and of the impossibility of mutually exclusive truths, are all expressed by monotheism. Polytheism is therefore associated to the absence of canonical text, of absolute and normative truth
(either religious or, later, scientific). Finally, the association monotheismtranscendence also has consequences for theories of knowledge. The approach adopted in a polytheistic worldview would be based on experience,
and on knowing by induction (if the divine is immanent in the world, it
can be known by experiencing the world). In a monotheistic worldview,
deduction is the preferred approach (if the divine is transcendent, the
approach is that of detaching oneself from experience and recur to
abstraction).
As for the relation between religious form and structure of society, polytheistic religions have shaped divine kingship and multi-ethnic empires as
well as democracy; monotheism has legitimated absolutism, and highly
centralised authority. One key difference between the two would be, nonetheless, the translatability (of divine beings), a cultural practice typical of
52)
53)
54)
55)
56)
Freud, L’uomo, 25.
John Docker, “In Praise of Polytheism,” Semeia 88 (2001), 149-172, 160.
Freud, L’uomo, 25-26.
Assmann, Moses, 1-8.
Docker, “In praise”, p. 160.
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83
polytheistic religions, whose cultural implications are however much
debated.57 In monotheistic religions, instead, the religion of the other is
necessarily false (or demonic). It can be argued that this results in the creation of the concept of orthodoxy (literally ‘right/correct opinion’), mainly
found in a monotheistic context. Monotheism would therefore express
the certainty of possessing not a superior, but the right culture, which
should therefore not tolerate the survival of any other culture. This is
why polytheism is now read by some as expressing tolerance and
cosmopolitanism.
The binary opposition structuring the concepts ascribed to monotheism
and polytheism in Western culture is illustrated in the table below.
MONOTHEISM
POLYTHEISM
The Divine
One(ness)
Poly/multi(ness)
Transcendent
Immanent
Un-created
Generated (by other gods) / unspecified
origin
Omniscient
Do not Know everything
Unity
Multiplicity
Stability
Movement/Dynamic
fixed hierarchy
Hierarchical change is possible
it revolves around itself/himself
Forward motion
Eternal
Immortal and Perennial
Homogeneity
Dis-homogeneity
Cannot be visually represented
can be visually represented
God’s name cannot be pronounced
Can be invoked
57)
See, for example, James Rives’ argument on the interpretatio romana as a means to deny
reality to other peoples’ deities, which would be, in the Roman opinion, Roman deities en
travesti (Roman Interpretation, 2006; see http://www.philipharland.com/travelandreligion
.htm, accessed 6 October 2009). Assmann’s interpretation is diametrically opposed: “The
practice of translating the names of the gods […] produced the idea or conviction that gods
are international” (Moses, 45).
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M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
MONOTHEISM
POLYTHEISM
The Divine
Creator
Self-sufficient
Absolute
Perfect
Unchangeable
Craftsman, or generator
Organized in a Pantheon
Dependent on Fate
Imperfect (passions)
Changeable
Knowledge
Written word
Literal interpretation
Abstraction
Abstract knowledge and reasoning
Knowledge gained by observing from
the outside (deductive approach)
True/False
Idea of (written) canon Normativity
(Assmann)
Refusal of Magic
(Freud)
Images and visual representation
Allegory
Concreteness
Sensuous knowledge
Knowledge is gained by observing from
the inside (inductive approach)
Multiple contradictory interpretation
are not necessarily wrong
Myth variants are neither mutually
exclusive nor normative (Assmann)
Magic
Society
Programmatic Equality
(Ignores differences Promotes
sameness)
Absolutism
Only ‘true’ god
Refusal of other religious and
cultural values (because
considered respectively false
and wrong) Intolerance
Diversity
(recognises differences: e.g. differences
gender acknowledges otherness)
Either democracy or divine kingship
or multi ethnic empires
Translatability of the gods
Cosmopolitanism
Tolerance
4. Positive Evaluations of Polytheism in Western Cultural History
So far, we have seen how there is a strong current in Western culture that
evaluates polytheistic religions negatively and, by extension, attaches negative connotations to polytheism. Nonetheless, there is also a long tradition
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
85
of positive evaluations of polytheism in Western authors, which often is
grounded in ancient polemical writings against Christian monotheism.
This section discusses the key features and the limits of such positive evaluations, before examining, in the next section, the contemporary Pagan
re-evaluation of polytheism.
Positive evaluations of polytheism focus on two main aspects. The first
is the interpretation of polytheism as a religious form favouring tolerance
of other religions; the second addresses the relationship between divine,
human qualities (imagination, art), and nature (conceived as divine). The
idea that pagan religions (characterised by many deities) were inherently
more tolerant and pluralistic than monotheistic religions, is grounded in
the representation of (Christian) monotheism in ancient pagan polemists,
who perceived Christianity as ‘exclusive’ and ‘separatist.’58 Such interpretations were later reshaped by various thinkers.
The Renaissance saw an attempt by the Byzantine philosopher Gemistos
Plethon to propose a plan for an ideal state based on Neoplatonic polytheism. Plethon’s attempt is interesting for two reasons. The first is that in late
antiquity the polytheism of the elites was mostly grounded in Neoplatonic
philosophy,59 the second is that certain recent readings describe the polytheism of Proclus as exemplifying an approach that appears to originally
conciliate henotheism and polytheism.60 The latter interpretation matches
well with Burkhard Gladigow’s stress on the connection between religion
and politics, and religion and pluralism in Plethon’s ‘Hellenic theology.’61
Gladigow stresses that Plethon indirectly started the Florentine renaissance
through his follower Marsilio Ficino; in this scholar’s view, with Ficino we
reach a critical node in the religious history of Europe, as the Florentine
philosopher considered human beings as inherently religious, though the
natural religion he postulates does not exclude revealed religion—and thus
re-evaluates non-Christian religions.62
58)
Cf. on ancient polytheism’s ‘relative’ tolerance: Kevin Corrigan, “Ritual Resources of
Tolerance in Graeco-Roman Religion,” in: Jacob Neusner & Bruce Chilton (eds.), Religious
Tolerance in World Religions (West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania: Templeton Foundation
Press, 2008, 99-132).
59)
Emilie F. Kutash, “The Prevailing Circumstances: The Pagan Philosophers of Athens in
a Time of Stress,” The Pomegranate 10.2 (2008), 184-206.
60)
Edward P. Butler, “Polycentric Polytheism and the Philosophy of Religion,” The
Pomegranate 10.2 (2008), 207-229.
61)
Gladigow, “Europäische Religionsgeschichte,” 2.
62)
Gladigow, “Europäische Religionsgeschichte”, 4.
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M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
In the nineteenth century, two philosophers have given positive evaluations of polytheism: one is, obviously, Nietzsche and the other is the
American philosopher William James.63
As Albert Henrichs has recently shown, Nietzsche was ‘thrilled’ by Greek
polytheism, because “it set their religion drastically apart from the Christian
monotheism he detested.”64 The frequent comparisons between Greek religion and Christianity found in Nietzsche’s work emphasize the dichotomy
polytheism/monotheism.65 Nietzsche considers the Greek gods as ‘ideal
mirror-images’ of human beings.66 Two more elements are relevant in the
context of this paper: first, for Nietzsche the centrality of the dualistic
opposition between monotheism and polytheism, which is an expression
of his reading of reality as polar opposites—thus his view of polytheism
does not abolish, but rather reinforces dualisms. Second, as Henrichs highlights, Nietzsche managed to “de-deify polytheism and to transform it into
a divine metaphor for human self-assertion and individualism.”67 Whereas
Nietzsche’s monotheism informs uniformity and normality, his polytheism is associated with ‘freethinking’ and ‘pluralistic thinking,’68 an element
reprised by other philosophers in the twentieth century.
In a recent article Richard A.S. Hall has re-examined the issue of James’
polytheism; Hall notes that James’ polytheism is connected to his pluralism. For James, polytheism offers a way out of the problem of evil (if there
is only one god, this god must also be the source of evil), dissolves the possibility of religious conflicts, and offers a possibility of communion between
human beings and gods (an infinite god is not easy to relate to). Benjamin
Franklin, too, had given—in a private script—a positive evaluation of
polytheism, postulating an infinite being who created the gods, who in
turn govern each single world and solar system. The interesting device
adopted by Franklin—which closely resembles the beautifully imaginative
63)
See Amos Funkenstein, “The Polytheism of William James,” Journal of the History of
Ideas 55.1 (1994), 99-111.
64)
Albert Henrichs, “‘Full of Gods’: Nietzsche on Greek Polytheism and Culture”, in: Paul
Bishop (ed.), Nietzsche and Antiquity. His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition.
Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture (Rochester, NY: Camden House,
2004), 114-137, at p. 120.
65)
Henrichs, “‘Full of Gods,’” 120.
66)
Henrichs, “‘Full of Gods,’” 121.
67)
Henrichs, “‘Full of Gods,’” 124.
68)
Henrichs, “‘Full of Gods,’” 124.
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
87
creation myth in Tolkien’s Silmarillion, where Iluvatar is the creator of the
Ainur, the gods and goddesses linked to planet Arda—can, in my view,
lead to a compromise between monotheism and polytheism. In the end,
the ‘finite’ gods have been created by the infinite one, un-created and
supreme ‘God.’69
In the twentieth century, a positive evaluation of polytheism from a
philosophical point of view is found in the philosopher Odo Marquard’s70
famous article entitled ‘In praise of Polytheism.’71 Marquard’s position is
indicative of the translation of the concept of polytheism from the religious sphere to all aspects of culture. He opposed monomythical and polymythical thinking: the first monomyth is the Christian myth (the first
monomyth), later substituted by the secularised and disenchanted monomyth of progress. Polymythical thinking offers instead the possibility of
pluralism; in particular Marquard talks of polytheism in relation to the
separation of powers in the modern state–in other words he values the
stress on ‘multiplicity’ in polytheism. This specific aspect of Marquard’s
position is implicitly criticised in Jan Assmann’s work; as Georg Essen
noted, in Assmann polytheism should not be re-evaluated because of the
multiplicity of its deities, but rather because of the fundamental meaning
that it ascribes to the cosmos.72
The positive evaluation of the relationship between divine, human, and
nature in polytheistic religions is also grounded in late ancient writers who
criticised the Christian separation of god from nature.73 Spinoza’s pantheist
philosophy brought back god within the cosmos, as he argued that god is
69)
Richard A.S. Hall, “The Polytheism of William James,” The Pluralist 4.1 (2009), 18-32.
The Silmarillion. Christopher Tolkien, ed. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977.
70)
For a very critical evaluation of Marquard’s position see James Schmidt, What is
Enlightenment?, University of California Press, 424 n.20. Albert Henrichs also criticises
Marquard’s confusion between polytheism and mythology and the association of polytheism with literature rather than religion (“Full of gods”, 121).
71)
Odo Marquard, “In Praise of Polytheism,” in: idem, Farewell to Matters of Principle
(New York, Oxford University Press, 1989), 87-110.
72)
Georg Essen, “Ethical Monotheism and Human Freedom,” in: Norbert Hintersteiner
(ed.), Naming and Thinking God in Europe Today: Theology in Global Dialogue (Amsterdam &
New York: Rodopi, 2007), 275-294, at pp. 285-286.
73)
See on this Robert L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven &
London: Yale University Press, 1984), who points out that, for example, in Plato’s cosmology “God was part of nature” (p. 87), and that Celsus’ criticism of Christianity also focused
on the Christian god’s radical separation from nature (p. 90).
88
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all there is, and identified god as nature—though his system rejects the
possibility of personal individual gods.74 On the whole, Romanticism
attempted a recovery of ancient myth and ancient mythologies (Greek and
Nordic), and gave a positive evaluation of the immanent deities of ancient
polytheisms. Several Romantic poets, from Schiller to Goethe, have used
the term polytheism in a positive key. In “The Gods of Greece,” Schiller
claimed that with the rise of monotheism and of its transcendent, omnipotent, and distant god “the divine became less human and the human less
divine”;75 in Goethe, the gods are “symbols of universal human poetic
capacity.”76
Thus, we may call this positive evaluation of polytheism, particularly in
the realm of art, a disenchanted polytheism.77 Romantic poets and philosophers also paved the way to a re-enchantment of Nature. The reduction of nature to a mechanistic construction is very recent, as Carolyn
Merchant as shown.78 As a reaction to Kant’s critique of reason, from
Friedrich Schlegel’s attempt to re-enchant nature through poetry,79 to
Schelling’s ascribing a teleological character to nature,80 German Naturphilosophie represented nature in a way that in part draws on Spinoza and
reshapes his concept of natura naturans. Even if Romanticism attempts a
re-evaluation of the world as organism, subject, or energy, such attempts
74)
See on Spinoza’s refusal of polytheism Jonathan Bennett, “Glimpses of Spinoza,” Syracuse
Scholar 4 (1983), 43-56.
75)
George S. Williamson, The Longing for Myth in Germany: Religion and Aesthetic Culture
from Romanticism to Nietzsche (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 38.
76)
Williamson, Longing, 40.
77)
Commenting on Goethe’s distinction between a “monotheism of reason and the heart”
and “a polytheism of imagination and art,” Burckhard Gladigow notes that Goethe gives a
“relative, and at the same time positive, evaluation to the theologically negatively composed
concept of polytheism” (Gladigow, “Polytheism,” 1466), which is undeniable. Nonetheless,
Goethe perpetuates the traditional dualism between polytheism and monotheism by
opposing imagination and art (polytheistic) to reason and heart, i.e. presumably ethics and/
or love (monotheistic).
78)
Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution
(San Francisco: Harper, 1980).
79)
Alison Stone, “Friedrich Schlegel, Romanticism, and the Re-enchantment of Nature,”
Inquiry 48.1 (2005), 3–25.
80)
Daniel Breazeale, “Fichte and Schelling: the Jena period,” in: The Age of German Idealism,
Robert C. Solomon & Kathleen M. Higgins, Routledge History of Philosophy Vol. VI
(London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 138-180, at p. 166.
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
89
do not make of nature an individual complex entity as the (many) gods
and goddesses of polytheism.
We can conclude that only certain features ascribed to polytheism are
positively evaluated in Western thinkers. These are this religious form’s
supposed tolerance and pluralism in politics, and the idea of a world full
of immanent gods and goddesses, as a way to represent the immanent
powers of nature—thus giving value to this world and rethinking the relationship human beings/ earth (or nature).81 Nonetheless, the re-evaluation
of polytheism remains confined to the fields of art, imagination, and ethics
rather than being presented as a viable religious alternative.
5. The Re-Evaluation of Polytheism in Contemporary Paganism
Today, the West is experiencing the re-appearance of openly polytheistic
religious forms in contemporary Paganism. The contemporary Pagan reevaluation of polytheism follows along the traditional lines of the Western
defences of polytheistic worldviews, which could be synthesised as an exaltation of tolerance and a re-enchantment of nature but which also adds
some new elements (e.g., a re-enchantment of technology). ‘Neopaganism/
Neo-paganism,’ ‘Modern Paganism,’ and ‘contemporary Paganism’ are
terms used by practitioners and scholars alike to indicate a contemporary
new religious movement that includes several different traditions, which
often draw on ancient or native ‘religions.’82 There seems to be an ongoing
tension between polytheistic and monotheistic tendencies in contemporary Paganism; Douglas Cowan even considers this tension as one of the
central features of contemporary Paganism in its online version.83 Many
81)
This is an aspect of key importance in relation to the place that the humankind occupies in the cosmos, and it is therefore closely connected to ethical and environmental
issues as several scholars have pointed out, especially after the ground-breaking article by
Lynn White: “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis” Science 155 (10 March 1967):
1203-207.
82)
Pagans share a particular attention to the earth (so that contemporary Paganism has
been defined as “nature religion”), to ancient/indigenous religions, from which they creatively borrow myths, rituals, and symbols, and often a re-evaluation of magic: see Joanne
Pearson, Richard H. Roberts & Geoffrey Samuel (eds.), Nature Religion Today: Paganism in
the modern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), 22-32.
83)
Douglas E. Cowan, Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet (New York: Routledge,
2005).
90
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contemporary Pagans claim to be polytheists;84 Prudence Jones, a member
of the British Pagan Federation, agrees that contemporary Paganism is a
‘Polytheistic Religion.’ However, she emphasises that not only there is a
considerable difference between ancient polytheism and the modern Pagan
polytheism, but that some contemporary Pagans make reference to many
divine entities, while others consider different gods and goddesses as
‘aspects’ of one divine principle.85 Philip Shallcrass, a British neo-Druid,
writes: “It is a Pagan axiom that ‘All gods are one God and all Goddesses are one Goddess’”86 and a modern witch interviewed by Margot
Adler, while claiming to be a polytheist, affirmed her concomitant belief
in one Spirit, among whose forms what can choose at his or her own
leisure.87 Adler, who refers to Hillman’s view that psychological theories are
grounded in a monotheistic theology, because “unity, integration, wholeness,” are “always the proper goal of psychological development and […]
fragmentation is always a sign of pathology,”88 notes that Pagans tend to
describe polytheism as “an attitude and a perspective,” which translates into
a worldview opposing the “calls for unity, integration, and homogenization in the Western world,” which “derive from our long-standing ideology of monotheism.”89
In other words, Adler argues that monotheistic religions appear to
intrinsically deny difference—whether this is expressed by a plurality of
gods and goddesses, by ethnic differences, or by the possibility of different
interpretations of moral laws. Contemporary Pagans choose polytheism
because “reality (divine or otherwise) is multiple and diverse.”90 Thus,
84)
Pagan and Neopagan were used by practitioners as early as 1967 “to refer to the new
polytheistic nature religions” (Mary-Jo Neitz, “In Goddess we Trust,” in: T. Robbins &
D. Anthony [eds.], In Gods We Trust [New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990],
353-372), such as “the ancient Greek, Roman, or Egyptian religions” (Margot Adler,
Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers and Other Pagans in America
Today [Boston: Beacon Press, 1986 [1981]], 10).
85)
Prudence Jones, “The European Native tradition,” in: Joanne Pearson, Richard
H. Roberts & Geoffrey Samuel (eds.), Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), 77-87, at pp. 77ff.
86)
Philip Shallcrass, “A Priest of the Goddess,” in: Joanne Pearson, Richard H. Roberts &
Geoffrey Samuel (eds.), Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press 1998), 157-169, at p. 164.
87)
Adler, Drawing, 140.
88)
Adler, Drawing, 30.
89)
Adler, Drawing, 24.
90)
Adler, Drawing, 25.
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
91
unity, integration, and homogenization would be ideas expressed by and
connected to monotheism; polytheism would instead express multiplicity
and diversity—here read as positive concepts.
According to scholar and Pagan practitioner Dennis Carpenter contemporary Paganism synthesises monotheism and polytheism, an idea
grounded in the view that reality is multiple and diverse.91 Michael York
also sees neopaganism as radical polytheism.92 However, both York and
Carpenter point out that Wiccans may be considered duo-theists, because
in the Wiccan ‘dualistic theology’ there are only a god and a goddess who
both have a number of ‘aspects.’93 In sum, according to these scholars,
some Pagans, such as Asatru, inspired by Norse religion, have a “more
polytheistic approach,”94 whereas Wiccans and Druids have a dualistic
approach (Simes 2001, 227).
Some contemporary Pagans could, however, be defined as monotheists;
the goddess spirituality movement holds the basic idea that an ancient
woman-centred Goddess religion was suppressed by patriarchal invaders “at
the beginning of history”: the goddesses that we find in various cultures are
‘aspects’ of the primordial Great (Mother) Goddess.95 In the ‘thealogy’ proposed by the goddess spirituality movement, the focus seems to be mainly
on the one (mother) goddess, conceived of as an immanent divine being,
who has many aspects, forms, and names.96 An interesting contribution to
this thealogy is Carol Christ’s attempt to free the ‘goddess’ from gender
determinations by suggesting ways of imagining the divine as unbound to
91)
Dennis D. Carpenter, “Emergent Nature Spirituality: an Examination of the Major
Spiritual contours of the Contemporary Pagan Worldview,” in: J.R. Lewis (ed.), Magical
Religion and Modern Witchcraft (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996), 35-72, at p. 55.
92)
Michael York, The Emerging Network: Sociology of the New Age and Neo-Pagan Movements
(Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield, 1995), 100.
93)
Carpenter, “Emergent,” 55; York, Emerging Network, 102, 160.
94)
Amy Simes, “Children of the Gods: The Quest for Wholeness in Contemporary
Paganism,” in: Alaine Low & Soraya Tremayne (eds.), Sacred Custodians of the Earth?
Women, Spirituality and the Environment (New-York: Berghahn Books, 2001), 219-237, at
p. 227; York, Emerging Network, 160.
95)
Goddess religion’s claim that the matriarchal past was an historical reality has been criticised by some for its essentialism (the reduction of women to their biological reality) and
carefree attitude towards historical evidence; see Cynthia Eller, Living in the Lap of the
Goddess (New York: Crossroad, 1993) and Philip G. Davis, Goddess Unmasked: The Rise of
Neopagan Feminist Spirituality (Dallas: Spence Publishing Co, 1998).
96)
Melissa Raphael, “Truth in Flux: Goddess Feminism as a Late Modern Religion,”
Religion 26 (1996), 199-213.
92
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
the human form, while avoiding conceptualisations of the divine as exclusively transcendent.97 The thealogical discourse, which is still largely in fieri,
seems to be oriented towards oneness rather than to the creation of a fully
polytheistic thealogy. To some, goddess religion appears indeed to be essentially monotheistic: “the major authors affirm the pagan polytheistic deities
as valuable images or representations of the one true Goddess herself.”98
This brief survey indicates that there seem to be different views on polytheism within contemporary Paganism. If we look at statements on polytheism made by pagan polytheists online, we find similar differences. An
in-depth study of how contemporary polytheists describe and define their
concept of polytheism online would require an extensive analysis of newsgroups and social network websites; such analysis goes beyond the limited
scope of this study. Therefore, I shall focus exclusively on documents freely
available online that represent self-reflexive attempts to define the features
of contemporary Pagan polytheism.
I focus on FAQ (frequently asked questions) compiled by Andrew
Campbell that circulate on the websites of various Pagan groups; on the
definitions of polytheism respectively found on an Hellenic reconstructionist website (Hellenion) and on a Roman reconstructionist website
(Nova Roma);99 and finally on a statement published on the APT (Association of Polytheistic Traditions) website.
In examining Andrew (or Drew) Campbell’s FAQ, which is found on
various Pagan websites, some relevant elements emerge. The first is a stress
on the discontinuity between Greek religion (as we know it from texts and
archaeological sources) and the Pagan recrafting of that religion, which is
an attempt to adapt a traditional religion to our contemporary reality.
As for the place of divine beings in Hellenic polytheistic practice, according to this FAQ the deities worshipped include the Olympians (i.e. the
twelve gods and goddesses listed in the ancient Pan-Hellenic pantheon),
97)
For example as a field covered in wild flowers (Christ, “Why,” 84).
Davis, Goddess, 90. In Davis’ reconstruction, the monotheism, immanence, and biological definition of the Goddess are the product of the alliance between the Romantic
reaction to the Enlightenment, its (male) idealisation of women, and its invention of a
prehistoric matriarchy with the esoteric tradition of European high magic, which resulted
in the (dualistic) Gardnerian witchcraft.
99)
Reconstructionist or ethnic Paganism draws on literary and iconographic original
sources, as well as on scholarly works to reconstruct ancient religions and aims at adapting
them to the modern world.
98)
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
93
unspecified divinities of nature and the underworld, as well as heroes.100
Hellenic practitioners also honour their biological ancestors, as well as
beings that they consider inspirational; such practice is connected to practices attested in late antiquity (Alexander Severus). The basic mechanism
underlying the human-deities relationship is the human request of the
gods’ blessings in return for devotional offerings (for example, prayers).
The gods are conceived as having well defined personalities and wills; in
other words, they are not aspects of one spirit or god. The ethics of
Hellenismos is based upon values that were also espoused by the ancient
Greeks, such as the concepts of reciprocity and hospitality (upon which
the Greek idea of xenia was founded), and moderation (i.e. the Greek call
for measure in all aspects of one’s life).101 The tone of the FAQ lacks any
trace of dogmatism, which is consistent with the general attitude of contemporary Paganism; the focus is on the personal relationship with the
deities, and fellow Hellenes; polytheism is not a metaphor (the gods are
‘real’); heroes and ancestors are also honoured.
Hellenion, a Greek Reconstructionist group based in the USA102
describes its polytheistic practices, as focusing on the “respect” for the
twelve gods and goddesses of the pan-Hellenic pantheon. Their practices
include ancient Greek rites such as the offering of libations, prayers, and
the attitude of acknowledgement of human inferiority with respect to the
deities that was central to Greek religion.103 The most interesting element
for this paper’s focus on polytheism is the opposition they make between
eclecticism (i.e., the indiscriminate mixing of elements borrowed from
different religious traditions that had not been historically in contact), a
practice they refuse, and syncretism, which is instead interpreted as consistent with a polytheistic understanding.104 Such statements are openly
100)
Heroes received a peculiar form of cult in the ancient world, though scholars have long
discussed the difference between heroic cults and divine worship. The most complete work
on the issue is still Angelo Brelich, Gli eroi.
101)
The version of the FAQ commented upon here is entitled “About Hellenismos: Some
Frequently Asked Questions Version 2.0 by Drew Campbell,” available online at http://
www.ecauldron.com/dc-faq.php (accessed 12 March 2008).
102)
Members of Hellenion pay a membership fee and are invited to make donations
to Hellenion, registered as no profit religious organization (‘church’) in the state of
California.
103)
http://www.hellenion.org/ (accessed 12 March 2008).
104)
http://www.hellenion.org/Mission.html (accessed 12 March 2008).
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M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
critical of both Wicca and goddess religion and they imply the refusal of
occultist magic.
This renewed Greek polytheism presents several elements of novelty:
first these are (by necessity) mostly private practices, whereas classical
Greek religion, like other polytheistic religions of the ancient world, was a
religion of the community (polis), i.e. of the state; private religious practice
was an important component, but the two aspects (public/private) were
complementary. Furthermore, there is no apparent fear of the gods and
their punishment; also absent is the idea of family curse, a concept that
would be difficult to reconcile with the stress on personal choice and
responsibility, and with a thoroughly positive view of the gods. These
are presented as much more benevolent than we might expect—they ‘care’
for the humankind.105 The ethical code is close to the Christian one, and
gender relationships are egalitarian: men and women can be priests and
priestesses. In sum, this polytheism appears as intrinsically different from
ancient state polytheisms—Hellenion borrows as much from Christian and
Western culture as from ancient Greece.
Nova Roma is an international organisation whose members belong to
different nationalities and are located in several different countries (from
the USA to Italy and Japan). Nova Roma seems to be more focused on the
restoration of cultural and moral values, rather than just on religion, which
is consistent with ancient Roman culture.106 There is nonetheless evidence of the influence of Christian concepts on this re-elaboration, as, for
example, the ancient Roman religion is defined as “faith.”107 Nova Roma’s
approach is also, as they state, ‘syncretistic’, on the grounds that the
Romans practised their religion not in opposition to, but in harmony with
other ethnic religions. Rites and worship include several public and private
practices historically attested in ancient Rome, such as a focus on prayer
and philosophical contemplation, or reconstructions of ancient rituals; but
we also see modern adaptations of ancient practices.108 Like the members
105)
As exemplified in the devotional materials by members of the group published in a
section of organization’s website, (the ‘Hymnodia Project’): http://www.hellenion.org/
Hymnodia.html (accessed 12 March 2008).
106)
http://www.novaroma.org/religio_romana/rites_and_rituals.html (accessed 12 March
2008).
107)
http://www.novaroma.org/main.html (accessed 12 March 2008).
108)
http://www.novaroma.org/religio_romana/declaration_religio.html (accessed 12 March
2008).
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
95
of Hellenion, Nova Romans oppose contemporary Pagan eclecticism to
their own syncretism, for example by claiming that worshipping gods or
goddesses who were adopted by the Roman themselves (such as RomanCeltic deities) is an appropriate practice, whereas offering sacrifices to
“Mercurius-Quetzalcoatl” may not be appropriate.109
The most self-reflexive document is that produced by the Association of
Polytheist Traditions (APT), a non-profit organisation based in the UK,
whose members focus mainly on the practice of reconstructed European
pagan religions; here we find represented not only Greek and Roman
reconstructionists, but also Celtic and Norse ones.110 The short ‘declaration’ in four points available on the association’s homepage represents an
interesting attempt to set a benchmark for the construction of contemporary polytheism.
The first point declares that many gods are recognised and that the existence of gods from other religions is not denied; the acceptability of deities
from different traditions is coherent with the idea of respecting other people’s ideas, which is common in contemporary Paganism. The second statement focuses on the individuality of the gods who are not just ‘aspects of
the Divine’; this is a polemical statement against certain contemporary
Pagans who are either influenced by Brahamanic Hinduism (the gods as
‘avatars of the Godhead’) or elaborate on the idea that one single divine
being/principle/substance can express itself in different aspects. The refusal
of such ideas by the APT is of special interest here because such an elaboration seems to be an attempt to reduce polytheism to monotheism. The
third point is openly polemical with the psychoanalytical Jungian and postJungian interpretations of ancient deities as archetypes—though Jung is not
mentioned—because these deny an independent existence to the deities;111
a Jungian, or post-Jungian approach indeed denies the ‘reality’ of the contemporary Pagan gods and goddesses, and their immanent, embodied
119)
http://www.novaroma.org/religio_romana/reconstructionism.html (accessed 12 March
2008).
110)
http://www.manygods.org.uk/ (accessed 12 March 2008).
111)
C.G. Jung, himself not a scholar of religion, developed his theories from his analytical
practice and self-analysis; he also drew on most diverse sources of inspiration, including
esotericism, and made, according to Richard Noll, a rather ‘creative’ use of evidence; see his
The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1994). Nonetheless, several academics have drawn on Jung’s theories and developed the
various strands of his work in very different directions and in various academic fields.
96
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
quality. As already in Nietzsche, the gods of a polytheistic pantheon are
reduced to mere metaphors by approaches such as that of James Hillman
and David L. Miller. Miller claimed that monotheism reduces human experience to a single pattern, while polytheism gives form to the plurality of
human experiences, gods and goddesses are the “names of the plural patterns of our existence.”112 Indeed, neither Hillman who was “apprehensive
about a true revival of paganism as religion,” fearing that it would bring
dogmas and soothsayers in its wave, nor Miller wanted a return to polytheistic practices.113 Finally, the fourth statement stresses that the gods may
“appear to us as male, female, or of no fixed gender,” i.e., the divine as such
is not gendered, though it can take a gendered form. This formulation
neatly opposes elaborations of the divine as exclusively female (as in the
goddess spirituality movement), or exclusively male (as in the scriptural
religions), also refusing to constrain the deities within dualistic representations of gender.
This brief survey shows that there are some fundamental difference
between ancient polytheisms and their contemporary Pagan versions. The
‘reconstructed’ gods appear to ‘care’ for human beings and their well-being,
which, as we have seen, was not their primary concern in ancient polytheisms. The principles of tolerance for other cults and the translatability of
the gods are maintained, though there are interesting exceptions to the
second (it is likely that the equation Mercury-Quetzalcoatl is rejected
because the Aztec gods were practicing human sacrifices).
Nonetheless, these three groups represent an interesting attempt to reintroduce a polytheistic worldview and to offer a positive image of polytheism. Two key elements have emerged in this paper that can be of help
in future attempts to re-approach the issue of polytheism. The first is that
some polytheists seem to ‘feel’ the need to borrow concepts from monotheism, or to resolve the multiplicity of polytheism in oneness; the second
is that scholars who give an overall positive evaluation of the notion of
polytheism, transform it into a ‘psychological device’: James Hillman and
David L. Miller wished for a ‘polytheistic psychology,’ rather than the
return to polytheism.
Two main issues have also emerged, that show the difficulty of proposing a ‘radical’ polytheism in the contemporary world. The first is that the
112)
113)
Miller, The New Polytheism, 28-29, 34.
Adler, Drawing, 31.
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
97
tendency to borrow concepts from monotheistic religions (polytheism
as faith; caring gods), and to reduce polytheism to monotheism, especially
in goddess religion; the second is that some reconstructionist polytheistic groups (not examined here) may often have a strong nationalist and
conservative (right-wing) component.114 In Europe, as Stephane François
argues, several reconstructionist groups remain linked to the extreme
right.115 In the former Soviet republics the return to traditional paganism
is sponsored by intellectual elites as a way to build a centralised leadership
around traditional practices.116
6. Conclusion
It is now possible to draw some conclusions regarding the various issues
examined in this article. First, it has become clear that the academic study
(and the consequent use) of the concept of polytheism is still mostly
informed by the opposition monotheism/polytheism, in spite of a few
attempts to readdress the issue (for example, from Brelich and, especially,
Sabbatucci on the origins of ancient historical polytheisms, to Burkhard
Gladigow). Secondly, it has to be stressed that research on historical polytheisms and on varying formulations of the concept of polytheism is still
rather scant.
As to the relationship between contemporary Paganism and polytheism,
I have argued that, first, there are different understandings of polytheism
in contemporary Paganism, and, in some cases, radical polytheistic choices
are avoided, by recurring, for instance, to the idea of gods/goddesses as
“aspects” of one god/goddess (Wicca, Thealogy), or to Jungian and postJungian readings, or by saying that monotheism is included in polytheism,
114)
Davis, Goddess, 290; Karla Poewe, “Scientific neo-paganism and the extreme right then
and today: from Ludendorff ’s Gotterkenntnis to Sigrid Hunke’s Europas eigene Religion,”
Journal of Contemporary Religion 14.3 (1999), 387-400.
115)
Les Néo-paganismes et la Nouvelle Droite (Paris: Archè 2008). The elitist German occultist revival of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, somewhat connected to the Nazi party
(cf. Davis, Goddess, 225) does not seem to have fully or consistently espoused polytheism,
an aspect that would certainly need further exploration.
116)
Victor A. Shnirelman, “Christians! Go home”: A Revival of Neo-Paganism between the
Baltic Sea and Transcaucasia (An Overview),” Journal of Contemporary Religion 17.2,
(2002), 197-211, at p. 205.
98
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
or that Christianity and Paganism are compatible. Secondly, a close connection exists between former re-evaluations of polytheism, which have
played a marginal but important role in European culture, and the modern
Pagan re-evaluation; nonetheless, modern Pagans’ attempts to reformulate
polytheism have a specific character, as they do not appear to be connected
(with the exceptions outlined in the previous section) to conservative, but
rather to countercultural positions.
My main argument was that in Western culture certain specific concepts, presented as positive, have been consistently expressed by monotheism; their opposites, presented as negative, have been implicitly expressed
by polytheism. A series of concepts standing in binary opposition to one
another have been identified, which could be a first step towards a thorough re-examination of key ideas on polytheism in the West and to the
identification of biases deeply inbound in the academic study of religion.
In particular, implicit dualistic oppositions between monotheism and polytheism are almost impossible to escape within our current cultural framework, which explains why, in spite of elements of novelty and serious
attempts by Pagan practitioners at re-defining “polytheism” (such as that
by APT), their task is a difficult one. One of the reasons for this is that the
direct or indirect influence of Neoplatonic thinkers and of late periods of
ancient paganism on contemporary Paganism may be stronger than we use
to think. Two elements should be stressed: first, the substitution of animal
sacrifice by the offering of hymns to the gods was an issue already in
Neoplatonism; second, the idea that the gods are but steps to a unified
divine being is a peculiar form of polytheism.117
As for the ‘actual’ positive or negative effects on society of the adoption
of a polytheistic or monotheistic worldview, it seems clear that any value
judgement on the positivity or negativity of polytheism and monotheism
fully depend on the observer’s (i.e. on the scholar’s, practitioner’s, philosopher’s, psychologist’s, and theologian’s) personal standpoint. Historically,
both monotheism and polytheism have legitimated gender disparity (even
if polytheism acknowledged the existence of feminine divine deities), as
well as the existence of oppressive social hierarchies and inequalities
(such as slavery, torture, and colonial oppression); both monotheism and
117)
Cf. Henri-Dominique Saffrey, “Filosofia: Neoplatonismo e Miti Greci,” in: Yves
Bonnefoy (ed.), Dizionario delle mitologie e delle religioni”, Vol. II (Milano: Rizzoli, 1988),
1238-1248.
M.B. Bittarello / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 68–102
99
polytheism have been used to support oppressive political forms. Indeed,
when religious systems are extrapolated from their historical context, distilled, and transformed into abstract concepts and categories (polytheism,
monotheism, but also animism, totemism, and so on), such abstractions
can serve any agenda—either deeply conservative or countercultural. The
point that I wish to make is that when Western culture uses concepts as
dialectically opposed, these should not be considered as reciprocally exclusive (and their theological origin needs to be outlined more carefully). In
other words, an experience (and conceptualisation) of reality as multiple
and diverse should not necessarily exclude an experience (and conceptualisation) of reality as unique/unified/unity.
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Websites
APT: http://www.manygods.org.uk/.
Cauldron: http://www.ecauldron.com/dc-faq.php.
Hellenion: http://www.hellenion.org/.
Nova Roma: http://www.novaroma.org.