Eschatology

Eschatology (pronounced es-kuh-tol-uh-jee)

(1) Any system of doctrines concerning last, or final, matters, as death, final judgments or the future state.

(2) The branch of theology dealing with such matters.

(3) Of or pertaining to the end of times, notably in Jewish, Christian and Islamic theology and in Christianity, associated particularly with the second coming of Christ, the Apocalypse or the Last Judgment.

1844: From the Greek ἔσχατον (éskhaton), neuter of ἔσχατος (éskhatos) (last, furthest, uttermost, extreme, most remote), the construct being was éschato(s) + logy.  Origins were in academic theology, the study of the four last things: death, judgment, heaven & hell.  Eschatology, eschatologism & eschatologist are nouns, eschatological & eschatologic are adjectives and eschatologically is an adverb; the noun plural is  eschatologies.

Most interesting aspect of the etymology is the -logy suffix.  Although use has extended, -logy originates with loanwords from the Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix - λόγος (lógos) is an integral part of the word loaned, a sixteenth century English example being astrology, from astrologia.  The French -logie was a continuation of the Latin -logia, also ultimately from the Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an abstract from Ancient Greek λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), itself a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English, the suffix quickly became productive, applied particularly to the sciences, often analogous to names of disciplines borrowed from the Latin, such as the earlier mentioned astrology and geology from geologia.  By the later eighteenth century, it became applied to compositions of terms with no precedent in Greek or Latin, sometimes imitating French or German templates such as insectology (1766) after the French insectologie or terminology (1801) from the German terminologie.  Linguistic promiscuity soon followed with the rapid application to words long wholly absorbed into English; undergroundology was noted in 1820 and hatology in 1837.  The form -ology is also used when including the connecting vowel -o- that is frequently used in connecting two elements of Greek origin.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are written of in the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament which tells of God summoning four beings who ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses. The four riders are usually described as symbolizing Pestilence (black), War (red), Famine (black) and Death (pale) and in Christian eschatology are sent by God to deliver upon the earth a divine apocalypse as harbingers of the Last Judgment.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (circa 1496), woodcut by Albrecht Durer (1471–1528).

Jewish and Christian eschatology differ but whatever the theological divergence, there are structural similarities in the visions of the Old and New Testaments.  In Ezekiel 1:5-14, God summons another quadrumvirate:

5: And from the midst of it there came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: They had the likeness of a man.

6: And every one had four faces, and every one of them had four wings.

7: And their feet were straight feet, and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot; and they sparkled like the sight of burnished bronze.

8: And the hands of a man were under their wings on their four sides. And the four of them had their faces and their wings thus:

9: Their wings were joined one to another; they did not turn as they went; each went straight forward.

10: As for the likeness of their faces, they had the face of a man; and the four of them had the face of a lion on the right side, and the four of them had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four of them had the face of an eagle.

11: And thus their faces were. And their wings were spread out upward; two wings of each were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.

12: And each went straight forward; wherever the Spirit was to go, they went; they did not turn as they went.

13: As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches; the fire went to and fro among the living creatures, and the fire was bright; and out of the fire went forth lightning.

14: And the living creatures ran to and fro like the appearance of a lightning bolt.

Amateur painter George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) putting the finishing touches to his take on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  Mr Bush wasn’t noted for his subtle irony so he probably was thinking only of the Book of Revelation when he depicted Pestilence, War, Famine & Death although for many the sight of the painting might summon memories of (1) the former president, (2) Dick Cheney (born 1941; US vice president 2001-2009), (3) Condoleezza Rice (b 1954; US secretary of state 2005-2009) and (4) Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021: US defense secretary 1975-1977 & 2001-2006).  The art and theology departments in some (liberal) university should include an exam question inviting students to explain which horse each neocon best represented, points to be deducted for anyone who took the easy option and called Dr Rice “Pestilence”.

Doom

Doom (pronounced doom)

(1) Fate or destiny, especially adverse fate; unavoidable ill fortune.

(2) Ruin; death.

(3) A judgment, decision, or sentence, especially an unfavorable one.

(4) In Christian eschatology, the Last Judgment, at the end of days.

Pre 900: From the Middle English dome & doome from the Old English dōm (a law, statute, decree; administration of justice, judgment; justice, equity, righteousness; condemnation) from the Proto-Germanic domaz (source also of the Old Saxon and Old Frisian dom, the Old Norse domr, the Old High German tuom (judgment, decree), the Gothic doms (discernment, distinction), possibly from the primitive Indo-European root dhe- (to set, place, put, do), (source also of the Sanskrit dhā́man (custom or law), the Greek themis (law) and the Lithuanian domė (attention)).  It was with the Old Norse dōmr (judgement), the Old High German tuom (condition) and the Gothic dōms (sentence).  A book of laws in Old English was a dombec.

Lidsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011. 

In all its original forms, it seems to have been used in a neutral sense but sometimes also "a decision determining fate or fortune, irrevocable destiny."  The Modern adverse sense of "fate, ruin, destruction" began in the early fourteenth century and evolved into its general sense after circa 1600, influenced by doomsday and the finality of the Christian Judgment. The "crack of doom" is the last trump, the signal for the dissolution of all things and the finality of the Christian Judgment Day, is most memorably evoked in the Old Testament, in Ezekiel 7:7-8.

(7) Doom has come upon you, upon you who dwell in the land. The time has come! The day is near! There is panic, not joy, on the mountains.

(8) I am about to pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices.

Doom Paintings

Doom paintings are the vivid depictions of the Last Judgment, that moment in Christian eschatology when Christ judges souls and send them either to Heaven or Hell.  They became popular in medieval English churches as a form of graphical advertising to an often illiterate congregation, dramatizing the difference between rapture of heaven and the agonies of hell, consequences of a life of virtue or wickedness.  During the English Reformation, many doom paintings were destroyed, thought by the new order rather too lavishly Romish.

Weltgericht (Last Judgement) (circa 1435)); Tempera on oak triptych by German artist Stefan Lochner (c1410–1451).

Antichrist

Antichrist (pronounced an-ti-krahyst)

(1) In Christian theology, a particular personage or power, variously identified or explained, who is conceived of as appearing in the world as the principal antagonist of Christ.

(2) An opponent of Christ; a person or power antagonistic to Christ (sometimes lowercase).

(3) A disbeliever in Christ (often initial lowercase)

(4) A false Christ (often initial lowercase).

1400s: From the Middle English, from the (pre 1150) Late Old English antecrist (an opponent of Christ, an opponent of the Church, especially the last and greatest persecutor of the faith at the end of the world), from the Late Latin Antichrīstus, from the Late Greek ἀντίχριστος (antíkhristos & antíchrīstos (I John ii.18)), the construct being aντί- (anti-) (against) + khristos (Christ); the Greek Χριστός meaning "anointed one".   This was the earliest appearance of anti- in English and one of the few before circa 1600.  In contemporary English, it’s often (but not always) preceded by the definite article: the Antichrist.  Antichrist is a noun, antichristian is a noun & adjective, antichristianism is a proper noun, antichristianly is an adverb and antichristic is an adjective; the noun plural is antichrists.

The Antichrist and the End of Days

The Antichrist is mentioned in three passages in The New Testament, all in the First and Second Epistles of John (I John 2.18-27, I John 4.1-6, 2 John 7).  Common to all is the theme of Christian eschatology, that the Antichrist is the one prophesied by the Bible who will substitute themselves in Christ's place before the Second Coming.  Biblical scholars note also the term pseudokhristos (false Christ) in the books of Matthew (chapter 24) and Mark (chapter 13), Jesus warning the disciples not to be deceived by false prophets claiming to be Christ and offering "great signs and wonders".  Other imagery which can be associated with an Antichrist is mentioned in the Apostle Paul's Second Epistle to the Thessalonians and, of course, the Beast in the Book of Revelation.  The scriptural language is redolent with drama, the Antichrist spoken of or alluded to as the “abomination of desolation”, “the son of perdition”, “the man of lawlessness” or “the beast” (from earth or sea).

For most of the Middle Ages, it was the scriptural construct of the Antichrist as an individual which dominated Christian thought; the Antichrist born of Satan but yet an earthly tyrant and trickster, perfectly evil in all he was and did because he was the diametric opposite of Jesus Christ, perfect in his goodness and deeds.  Jesus Christ, the son of God, was born of a virgin into earthly existence and the Antichrist, the son of Satan would be born of the antivirgin, a whore who, like her evil offspring, would claim purity.  More than a fine theological point, it’s also quite deliberately a hurdle for Christ to cross in his Second Coming.  Where Christ was God in the flesh, the Antichrist was Satan in the flesh and point was to beware of imitations.  This was the framework of the medieval narrative, well understood and hardly remarkable but writers fleshed it out to create essentially two threads.  For centuries there was the idea of the single Antichrist who would accrue his disciples, have his followers accept him as the Messiah and put to the sword those who did not.  He would then rule for seven years before until his defeat and destruction by (depending on the author) the archangel Gabriel or Christ the true and his divine armies, all before the resurrection of the dead and the day of Final Judgement.

For two-thousand-odd years, there has been speculation about the identity of the Antichrist. 

By the late Middle Ages, another narrative thread evolved, this one with a modern, structuralist flavor and one more able to be harnessed to a political agenda.  Now the Antichrist was presented not as a force of evil outside the Church but the evil force within, the deceiver perhaps the Pope, the institution of the papacy or the very structure of the Church.  This was a marvellously adaptable theory, well suited to those seeking to attack the institutional church for it rendered the Antichrist as whatever the construct needed to be: the flesh incarnate of a pope, the sins and corruption of a dozen popes and his cardinals or the very wealth and power of the institution, with all that implied for its relationships with the secular world.  That was the position of the more uncompromising of those who fermented the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century.  The monk Martin Luther (1483-1546) saw about him venality, depravity and corruption and knew the end of days and the Final Judgement was close, the pope the true “end times Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ”.  Unlike the long tradition of antipopes, this was true eschatology in action.  There have been many Antipopes (from the Middle French antipape, from the Medieval Latin antipāpa) although just how many isn't clear and they came and went often as part of the cut and thrust of the Church’s ever-shifting alliances and low skulduggery.  While some of the disputes were over theological or doctrinal differences, sometimes they were about little more than whose turn it was.

The Reverend Dr Ian Paisley, European Parliament, Strasbourg, France, 11 October 1988.

For centuries, Antichrist was a label often used, Nero, Caligula and the prophet Muhammad all victims, sometimes with some frequency and the epithet was often exchanged in the squabbles between Rome and Constantinople.  In the modern, mostly secular West, while the Antichrist has vanished from the consciousness of even most Christians, in the pockets of religiosity which the general godlessness has probably afforced, Antichrists appear to have multiplied.  Like “fascist” in political discourse, “Antichrist” has become a trigger word, a general category where disapprobation is not enough and there’s the need to demonise though even the hunter can be captured by the game.  In October 1988, Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła 1920–2005; pope 1978-2005), who had often warned of the Antichrist waving his antigospel, was interrupted during a speech to the European Parliament by the Reverend Dr Ian Paisley (1926–2014; leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) 1971-2008 & First Minister of Northern Ireland 2007-2008), who loudly denounced him as ''the Antichrist.''  Standing and holding a large red placard displaying his message, Dr Paisley shouted out ''I renounce you as the Antichrist!''.  He was soon ejected, his holiness seemingly unperturbed.  The late Reverend had a long history of antipathy to popery in general and the “Bachelor bishop of Rome” in particular and, when later interviewed, told the press ''I don't believe he is infallible. He doesn't have the power to turn wine into the blood of Christ.''

Coming usually from the evangelical right, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, it seems to play well and it’s been aimed at the usual suspects including Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Bill Gates, George Soros, at least two ayatollahs and, perhaps most plausibly, crooked Hillary Clinton.  Interestingly, although never denying practicing witchcraft or voodoo, crooked Hillary Clinton did feel the need to deny being the Antichrist.  In What Happened (Simon & Schuster, 2017, 512 pp ISBN: 978-1-5011-7556-5), a work of a few dozen pages somehow padded out to over five-hundred using the “how to write an Amazon best-seller” template, a recounting of the denial is there and the exchange does have a rare ring of truth.  It’s a shame that didn’t extend to the rest of the book; claimed to be a review of the 2016 presidential election, it might have been an interesting apologia rather than a two-inch thick wad of blame-shifting.

Never despair.  In the Christian tradition, the Antichrist will finally be defeated by the armies of God under the leadership of Christ with the Kingdom of God on earth or in heaven to follow.  Good finally will prevail over evil.

Valhalla

Valhalla (pronounced val-hal-uh or vahl-hah-luh)

(1) In Norse mythology, a dwelling in Asgard, the Norse heaven, the hall of Odin, reserved to receive the souls of those who fell in battle and others who died heroic deaths.

(2) In casual use, by extension from the classic meaning, an abode of the gods or afterlife in general.

1696: From the New Latin Vahalla, from the Old Norse Valhöll, the construct being val(r) (the slain in battle (and cognate with the Old English wæl)) + höll (hall).  The heavenly hall in which Odin receives the souls of heroes slain in battle appears often in Norse mythology and the word Vahalla was introduced into English in Archdeacon William Nicolson’s (1655–1727) English Historical Library (1696).  Valr (those slain in battle) was from the Proto-Germanic walaz (source also of Old English wæl (slaughter, bodies of the slain)) from the Old High German wal (battlefield, slaughter), from the primitive Indo-European root wele (to strike, wound (source also of Avestan vareta- (seized, prisoner), the Classical Latin veles (ghosts of the dead), the Old Irish fuil (blood) & the Welsh gwel (wound)). Höll (hall) is from the primitive Indo-European root kel- (to cover, conceal, save).  Nicolson’s work was long known only to scholars and it wasn’t until the word was re-introduced in the eighteenth centuries by antiquaries there was any revival of interest but it was the work of Richard Wagner (1813–1883) in the next century that popularised the Norse myths and, in some circles, made Valhalla a cult.  The familiar figurative sense has been used since 1845.  Vahalla was also spelled Valhall, Walhalla & Walhall; the plural is Valhallas (and not always with the initial capital).

Hermann Burghart's (1834-1901) design of Valhalla and the rainbow bridge for the staging of Das Rheingold, Bayreuth, 1878.

Valhalla is the great hall where the god Odin houses the dead whom he deems worthy of dwelling with him.  In the Old Norse poem Grímnismál (The Song of the Hooded One), the architecture of Valhalla is described as honouring military tradition, the roof of the “gold-bright” Valhalla made from the shields of fallen warriors with their spears its rafters.  Around the many feasting tables are chairs made from breastplates and the gates are guarded by wolves, eagles circling above but there are different depictions and there's no one view of where Valhalla was.  In some Old Norse literature, it’s said to be located in Asgard, the gods’ celestial fortress yet other texts suggest it was underground, one of the many places of the underworld.

The dead who reside in Valhalla, the einherjar (the ɛinˌherjɑz̠, (those who fight alone, literally "army of one")), live on as warriors, fighting among each-other and enjoying vivid adventures during the day.  Yet every evening, their wounds are healed, and, restored to full health, they feat on roasted wild boar (Saehrimnir (from the Old Norse Sæhrímnir of unknown origin)) and a mead from the udder of the goat Heidrun (from the Old Norse Heiðrun of unknown origin), all the while waited on by the same beautiful Valkyries who circled the battlefields on which they were slain.  But the einherjar are doomed because Odin has recruited only the bravest soldiers for he wants them for his army in his struggle against the wolf Fenrir during Ragnarok, a battled which Odin and the einherjar are fated to lose.

Robert Lepage's (b 1957) design of Valhalla for the staging of Das Rheingold, Met Opera, New York, 2010.

Like the mythology of Greek and Roman antiquity, it’s possibly some of what was passed down during the middle ages is just one variation of the original myth(s) and it’s only in the poetry of Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) that there’s a statement of the path of the fallen to Valhalla.  Snorri’s Prose Edda (circa 1220), a four-volume work drawn from many sources remains the most complete and extensive collection of the Norse mythology known still to exist but the author was also a lawyer and politician and scholars have noted he wrote long after the old Norse paganism had been replaced by Christianity; there’s the suspicion this may have been an influence in the way he synthesized strands from earlier traditions with Christian teaching.  Snorri said those who fell on the field of battle ascend to Valhalla, while those who die a less heroic death are consigned to hell, the underworld.  That does seem unfair (and probably bad public policy) and elsewhere in the Edda, he’s not above allowing the odd fudge, just as Roman Catholic theologians would invent limbo, their own medieval conjecture to tidy up the margins of God’s mysterious ways.  Snorri makes no attempt to justify his (actually quite blatant) contradictions and it’s thought what he wanted to achieve was a kind of lineal alignment between the pagan ways and the Christian, Valhalla and Hel the same diametric opposite as Heaven and Hell in Christian eschatology.  However, as many surviving fragments from earlier texts attest, the tidy, systematized paganism described by Snorri was not entirely that which had been practiced.

Anagoge

Anagoge (pronounced an-uh-goh-jee)

(1) The spiritual or mystical interpretation of a word or passage beyond the literal, allegorical or moral sense (especially in Biblical criticism); A form of allegorical interpretation of Scripture that seeks hidden meanings regarding the future life.

(2) A spiritual interpretation or application of words (following the tradition with the Scriptures.

(3) In psychology, deriving from, pertaining to, or reflecting the moral or idealistic striving of the unconscious.

(4) The mystical interpretation or hidden sense of words.

1350-1400: From the Middle English anagoge, from the Late Latin anagōgē, from the Medieval Latin anagōgia & anagogicus from the Ancient Greek ἀναγωγή (anagōgḗ) (elevation; an uplifting; spiritual or mystical enlightenment), the construct being an- (up) + agōgḗ (feminine of agōgós) (leading), from anagein (to lead up, lift up), the construct being ana- (up) + agein (to lead, put in motion) from the primitive Indo-European root ag- (to drive, draw out or forth, move).  In theology, the adjective anagogical was from the early sixteenth century the more commonly used form, explaining the ways in which passages from Scripture had a “secondary, spiritual sense”.  The idea of a “spiritual, hidden, allegorical or mystical meaning” spread to literature and other fields where it operates as a special form of allegorical interpretation.  The alternative spelling is anagogy.  Anagoge is a noun, anagogic & anagogical are adjectives and anagogically is an adverb; the noun plural is anagoges.

Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley at the Baths of Caracalla, depicted writing Prometheus Unbound, oil on canvas, painted posthumously Joseph Severn (1793–1879), Rome, Italy, 1845.

In literary analysis, there does seem a fondness for classifying methods into groups of fours.  Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866) was an English novelist and poet but despite a background in literature and little else, through family connections he was in 1819 appointed an administrator in the East India Company (which “sort of” ran British India in the years before the Raj).  It was an example of the tradition of “amateurism” much admired by the British establishment, something which didn’t survive the harsher economic realities of the late twentieth century although some still affect the style.  Despite being untrained in such matters, his career with the company was long and successful so he must have had a flair for the business although his duties were not so onerous as to preclude him from continuing to write both original compositions and works of literary analysis.  In 1820 he published Four Ages of Poetry which was regarded as a “provocative” and although a serious critique, the tone was whimsical, poetry classified into four periods: iron, gold, silver & brass.  His friend Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) understood the satire but seems to have been appalled anyone would treat his art with such flippancy, quickly penning the retaliatory essay Defence of Poetry although the text was unfinished and remained unpublished until 1840, almost two decades after his death.  It’s remembered now for its final sentence: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”  With that, the few thousand souls on the planet who buy (and presumably read) poetry collections might concur but for the many more who can’t tell the difference between a masterpiece and trite doggerel, it may sound either a conceit or a threat.

Peacock not treating poets and their oeuvre which what they believed was due reverence left a mark and while Shelly died before he could finish his reply, more than a century later the English poet & academic literary I.A. Richards (1893–1979) in Science and Poetry (1926) still was moved to defend the poetic turf.  Although approvingly quoting the words of English poet (and what would now be called a “social commentator”) Matthew Arnold (1822–1888): “The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay.  There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve.  Our religion has materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it.  But for poetry the idea is everything.”, he nevertheless admitted “Extraordinary claims have often been made for poetry…”  Tellingly too, he acknowledged those claims elicited from many “astonishment” and the “more representative modern view” of the future of poetry would be that it’s “nil”.  Modern readers could decide for themselves whether that was as bleak as Peacock’s conclusion: “A poet in our times is a semi-barbarian in a civilized community.  He lives in the days that are past... In whatever degree poetry is cultivated, it must necessarily be to the neglect of some branch of useful study and it is a lamentable thing to see minds, capable of better things, tunning to seed in the spacious indolence of these empty aimless mockeries of intellectual exertion.”  Take that poets.

Peacock's second novel was the Regency-era three volume novel Melincourt (1817).  It was an ambitious work which explored issues as diverse as slavery, aspects of democracy and potential for currency destabilization inherent in the issue of paper money.  Another theme was the matter of differentiating between human beings and other animals, a central character being Sir Oran Haut-ton, an exquisitely mannered, musically gifted orangutan standing for election to the House of Commons.  The idea was thus of “an animal mimicking humanity” and the troubled English mathematician Dr Alan Turing (1912–1954) read Melincourt in 1948, some twelve months before he published a paper which included his “imitation game” (which came to be called the “Turing test”).  Turing was interested in “a machine mimicking humanity” and what the test involved was a subject reading the transcript of a natural-language conversation between a human and a machine, the object being to guess which interlocutor was the machine.  The test was for decades an element in AI (artificial intelligence) research and work on “natural language” computer interfaces but the field became a bit of a minefield because it was so littered with words like “feelings”, learning”, “thinking” and “consciousness”, the implications of which saw many a tangent followed.  Of course, by the 2020s the allegation bots like ChatGPT and character.ai have been suggesting their interlocutors commit suicide means it may be assumed that, at least for some subjects, the machine may have assumed a convincing human-like demeanour.  The next great step will be in the matter of thinking, feelings and consciousness when bio-computers are ready to be tested.  Bio-computers are speculative hybrids which combine what digital hardware is good at (storage, retrieval, computation etc) with a biological unit emulating a brain (good at thinking, imagining and, maybe, attaining self-awareness and thus consciousness).

Westminster Bridge And Abbey (1813), oil on canvas by William Daniell (1769–1837).

There’s more than one way to read Richards and it may be tacitly he accepted poetry had become something which would be enjoyed by an elite while others could spend their lives in ignorance of its charms, citing the sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth (1770–1850) as an experience for “the right kind of reader”.  So there it is: those who don’t enjoy poetry are the “wrong” kind of reader so to help the “right kind of reader”, Richards also came up with a foursome.  In Practical Criticism (1929) he listed the “four different meanings in a poem”: (1) the sense (what actually is said, (2) feeling (the writer's emotional attitude to what they have written), (3) tone (the writer's attitude towards their reader and (4) intention (the writer's purpose, the effect they seek to achieve).

A vision from Dante's Inferno: The Fifth Circle (1587) by Stradanus (1523-1605)), depicting Virgil and Dante on the River Styx in the fifth circle of Hell where the wrathful are for eternity condemned to splash around on the surface, fighting each other.  Helping the pair cross is the infernal ferryman Phlegyas.  Stradanus was one of the many names under which the Flemish artist Jan van der Straet painted, the others including Giovanni della Strada, Johannes della Strada, Giovanni Stradano, Johannes Stradano, Giovanni Stradanus, Johannes Stradanus, Jan van Straeten & Jan van Straten.

In literary theory, anagoge is one the classic “four levels of meaning” and while there is no consensus about the origins of the four, it’s clear there was an awareness of them manifest in the Middle Ages.  It was Dante (Dante Alighieri (circa 1265–1321)) in his Epistola a Cangrande (Epistle XIII to Cangrande della Scala (described usually as Epistle to Cangrande)) who most clearly explained the operation of the four.  Written in Latin sometime before 1343, the epistle was the author’s letter to his patron Cangrande della Scala (1291–1329), an Italian aristocrat and scion of the family which ruled Verona between 1308-1387; it was a kind of executive summary of the Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy (circa 1310-1321)) and an exposition of its structure.  Dante suggested the work could be analysed in four ways which he distinguished as (1) the literal or historical meaning, (2) the moral meaning, and (3) the allegorical meaning and (4) the anagogical.

Among scholars of Dante the epistle is controversial, not for the content but the matter of authenticity, not all agreeing it was he who wrote the texts, the academic factions dividing thus: (1) Dante wrote it all, (2) Dante wrote none of it and (3) Dante wrote the dedication to his patron but the rest of the text is from the hand of another and it’s left open whether that content reflected the thoughts of Dante as expressed to the mysterious scribe or it was wholly the creation of the “forger”.  Even AI (artificial intelligence) tools have been used (a textual analysis of the epistle, Divine Comedy and other material verified to have been written by Dante) and while the process produced a “probability index”, the findings seemed not to shift factional alignments.  Dante’s authorship is of course interesting but the historical significance of the “four levels of meaning” concept endures in literary theory regardless of the source.

First edition of The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) by John Bunyan (1628–1688).

So the critics agreed the anagogical meaning of a text was its spiritual, hidden, or mystical meaning so anagoge (or anagogy) was a special form of allegorical interpretation.  Whether it should be thought a subset or fork of allegory did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries trouble some who argued the anagogue was a wholly separate layer of meaning if the subject was biblical or otherwise religious but merely a type of allegorical interpretation if applied to something secular; that’s a debate unlikely to be staged now.  However, given the apparent overlap between anagogical and allegorical, just which should be used may seem baffling, especially if the work to which the concept is being applied has a religious flavor.  There is in the Bible much allegory (something which seems sometimes lost on the latter-day literalists among the US Republican Party’s religious right-wing) but only some can be said truly to be anagogic and although the distinction can at the margins become blurred, that’s true also of other devotional literature.  The distinction is more easily observed of less abstract constructions such John Bunyan in The Pilgrim's Progress calling his protagonist “Christian”, the choice not merely a name but symbolic of the Christian soul’s journey to salvation, hinted at by the book’s full title being The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come.  For something to be judged anagogical, the text needs to look beyond the literal and moral senses to its ultimate, transcendent, or eschatological significance, illustrated by applying the four-fold technique (literal, moral, allegorical & anagogical) to the biblical description of Jerusalem which deconstructs as: (1) Literal (the actual physical city in history), (2) Allegorical (the Church), (3) Moral (the soul striving to find a path to God and (4) Anagogical (the heavenly Jerusalem, the final destiny of those humanity who kept the faith).  The point of the anagoge was thus one of ultimate destiny or divine fulfilment: heaven, salvation, forgiveness and eternal life.

Anagoge (pronounced an-uh-goh-jee) should not be confused with Anna Gogo (pronounced an-uh-goh-goh), a chartered engineer at Red Earth Engineering (left) or Anna Go-Go (pronounced An-uh-goh-goh), the persona of the proprietor of Anna's Go-Go Academy (a go-go dancing school) (right).  Ms Go-Go is also a self-described “crazy cat lady” and the author of Cat Lady Manifesto (2024); she is believed to be on J.D. Vance’s (b 1984; US vice president since 2025) enemies list.  Note the armchair's doilies, a cat lady favorite.

That does not however mean the anagogical is of necessity teleological.  Teleology was from the New Latin teleologia a construct from the Ancient Greek τέλος (télos) (purpose; end, goal, result) genitive τέλεος (téleos) (end; entire, perfect, complete) + λόγος (lógos) (word, speech, discourse).  In philosophy, it was the study of final causes; the doctrine that final causes exist; the belief that certain phenomena are best explained in terms of purpose rather than cause (a moral theory that maintains that the rightness or wrongness of actions solely depends on their consequences is called a teleological theory).  The implications which could be found in that attracted those in fields as diverse as botany & zoology (interested in the idea purpose is a part of or is apparent in nature) and creationists (anxious to find evidence of design or purpose in nature and especially prevalent in the cult of ID (intelligent design), a doctrine which hold there is evidence of purpose or design in the universe and especially that this provides proof of the existence of a designer (ie how to refer to God without using the “G-word”)).  Rationalists (and even some who were somewhere on the nihilism spectrum) accepted the way the phrase was used in philosophy & biology but thought the rest weird.  It was fine to accept Aristotle’s (384-322 BC) point the eye exists for the purpose of allowing creatures to see or that it’s reasonable to build a theory like utilitarianism which judges actions by the outcomes or goals achieved but to suggest what is life of earth is an end, purpose, or goal which can be explained only as the work of a “creator” was ultimately just “making stuff up”.  So to reductionists (1) the allegorical was “means something else”, (2) the anagogical was “points upward to our ultimate spiritual destiny” and (3) the teleological was “explained by its end or purpose”.

Although long in the toolbox of theologians & Biblical scholars, anagogical analysis became an element for critics of poetry and, as the post-modernists taught us, everything is text so it can be applied to anything.  One case-study popular in teaching was George Orwell’s (1903-1950) Animal Farm (1945) and that’s because there’s a interesting C&C (compare & contrast) exercise in working out the anagoge first in Orwell’s original book and then in the film versions distributed in post-war Europe, the fun in that being the film rights were purchased by the US CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) which prevailed upon the makers to alter the ending so the capitalist class didn’t look so bad.  By conventional four-way analysis, Animal Farm traditionally is broken down as (1) Literal meaning: A tale of the revolt of the animals against their human overlords, and the outcome of that revolt, (2) Moral meaning: Power tends to corrupt'; (c) Allegorical meaning: Major=comrade Lenin; Napoleon=comrade Stalin; Snowball=Comrade Trotsky; Jones=corrupt capitalist owners of the means of production & distribution.

The Canyons, Cinema Poster.

Although theologians and literary critics alike prefer to apply their analytical skills to material densely packed with obscure meanings and passages impenetrable to most, their techniques yield results with just about any text, even something as deliberately flat and affectless like The Canyons (Paul Schrader’s (b 1946) film of 2013 with a screenplay by Bret Easton Ellis (b 1964)) one intriguing aspect of which was naming a central character “Christian” although unlike Bunyan’s (1628–1688) worthy protagonist seeking salvation in The Pilgrim's Progress, Ellis’s creation was an opportunistic, nihilistic, manipulative sociopath.  The author seems never to have discussed any link between the two Christians, one on a path to salvation, the other mid-descent into a life of drugs, sex, and violence.  It may be it was just too mischievously tempting to borrow the name of one of Christendom’s exemplars of redemption and use it for so figure so totally amoral and certainly it was a fit with the writer’s bleak view of Hollywood.  Structurally, the parallels were striking, Bunyan’s Christian trekking from the City of Destruction to Celestial City whereas Ellis has his character not seeking salvation but remaining in Hollywood on his own path of destruction, affecting both those around him and ultimately him too.  In interviews, Ellis said he chose the name after reading the E. L. James (b 1963) novel Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) in which Christian Grey was a central character and The Canyons does share more contemporary cultural touch-points with the novel than with Bunyan’s work.

A Lindsay Lohan GIF from The Canyons.

(1) Literal or Historical Meaning (a trust-fund movie producer exercises control over his girlfriend while being entangled in transactional and destructive relationships with others in a decadent Hollywood; (2) Moral Meaning: Christian’s controlling, voyeuristic cruelty and his girlfriend’s compromises illustrate the corrosion of moral agency induced by narcissism and a superficial, consumerist culture); (3) Allegorical Meaning (The Canyons is built as a microcosm of what Hollywood is imagined to be, Christian representing the ruthless producer; Tara the girlfriend as the powerless talent unable to escape from a web of exploitation and other characters as collateral damage.  The shuttered cinemas in inter-cut shots serve as allegory for the death of cinema, replaced by shallow, formulaic “product”; the film ultimately less about the two-dimensional characters than the descent of a culture to a moral wasteland and (4) Anagogical Meaning (The film is an eschatology of cultural decay; art corrupted by money, leaving something alive but spiritually dead, something which some choose to map onto late-stage capitalism sustained by atomized, voyeuristic consumption with human life cast adrift from moral responsibility or even its recognition).  Of course for moral theologians accustomed to dancing on the heads of pins, an anagogical viewing of The Canyons might allow one to see some hint of something redemptive and the more optimistic might imagine it as a kind of warning of what may be rather than what is, encouraging us to resist in the hope of transcendence.  That’s quite a hope for a place depicted as owing something to what’s found in Dante’s nine circles.

Druid

Druid (proniunced droo-id)

(1) A member of a pre-Christian religious order which existed among the ancient Celts of Gaul, Britain and Ireland (sometimes with initial capital).

(2) A member of any of several modern movements which have attempted to revive (what they claim to be) druidism.

1555–1565: From the Latin druis (feminine druias; plural druidae), from the Gaulish Druides (and replacing the sixteenth century French druide).  In the Old Irish druí was the nominative, druid (wizard) the dative & accusative and druad the plural.  from the Celtic compound dru-wid- (strong seer), from the Old Celtic derwos (true), from the primitive Indo-European root deru- (tree (especially oak)) + wid- (to know), from the primitive Indo-European root weid- (to see).  The meaning in the Old Celtic was thus literally "they who know the oak" which some etymologists have suggested may be an allusion to divination from mistletoe but probably was understood as something like “those able to divine (know) the truth.  In the Anglo-Saxon too, there was an identical word meaning both "tree" and "truth"; that was treow.  The adoption in English came via Latin rather than directly from Celtic although in the Old English there was dry (magician) which, though unattested, has always been thought likely from the Old Irish druí from which Modern Irish and Gaelic gained draoi, genitive druadh (magician, sorcerer).  Druid, druidism, druidry & druidess are nouns, druidish, druidical & druidic are adjectives and druidically is an adverb; the noun plural is druids.  The derived forms include archdruid, druidcraft & neo-druid.  The adjective druidesque is non-standard.

Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England.

Despite the popular association, archaeologists believe there's no basis for the medieval myth Stonehenge was built by druids, the construction pre-dating them by many centuries.  In medieval histories, there was not a little "making stuff up", even some of what were passed-off as myths from Antiquity creations of the time.

The class structure of ancient Celtic society was not untypical, the major strata, like the Indian caste system, organized in four groups (1) peasants and artisans, (2) warriors, (3) the ruling classes and (4), the druids although, unlike in India where the Brahmin priestly caste sit atop the hierarchy, among the Celts, it was the kings and chieftains who enjoyed primacy.  That much is certain but the rest of what constitutes druidic history is mostly a mix of the writings Classical Greek & Roman authors, medieval writers with varied relationships to scholarship and the work of modern anthropologists who have examined the archaeological record.  Given the time which has passed, evidence is not only patchy but limited in scope.  Although the Romans & Greeks had encountered the Celts in the wars of earlier centuries earlier, it was only in the first century BC their historians began, sometimes impressionistically, sometimes more systematically, to observe their cultures and customs.

Among the earliest observers was the Syrian stoic polymath Posidonius (circa 135-circa 51 BC) although none of his text survives, except in referenced by later writers, notably the Greek geographer Strabo (circa 64 BC-circa 24 AD) who credited Posidonius as his primary source.  Contemporary to Posidonius (though, as a born politician, perhaps less reliable) was Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) who devoted some pages to a description of "the barbarians" in Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War), his vivid recollections of the conflict.  Written as a third-person narrative in which Caesar describes the battles and political intrigue of the conflict, it too shows evidence of the legacy of what was created by Posidonius but the Roman general certainly had many first-hand experiences with the Celts, both as opponents and allies, some (notably the Aedui), serving in the ranks of his army.  Obviously astute in the practice of politics as well as military matters, Caesar suggested druidism had probably originated in Britain and from there spread to the Gauls but although he had the advantage of being there at the time, he offered no documentary evidence and scholars and historians have long speculated about their origins.  What's more solid is his description of their place in society.  He wrote that they seemed a secretive but learned group who enjoyed certain privileges among the Celtic population, exempted from taxation and military service and acting as judges, deciding cases and setting penalties.  Unlike most in the tribal-based culture, they appeared to enjoy freedom of passage through any territories.

He found one aspect most curious.  Although a partially literate society (the Celts, depending on the state of conquest, using both Greek and Roman script, the druids seemed never to have committed their learning and traditions to writing, remarkable given it apparently took over twenty years fully to be schooled in the philosophy, divination, poetry, healing, religious rites and spells that was druidic knowledge.  That knowledge therefore existed almost entirely in the collective memory of the living druids, its transmission oral except for a few inscriptions found in sacred sites such as shrines and sanctuaries.  There may have been some philosophical basis for that or it may have been just a restrictive trade practice designed to maintain closed shop, Caesar observing the Gauls were a most religious people but they always had to wait for the druids to perform the necessary rituals or sacrifices.  The exclusivity of the trade and the secrecy of its protocols was sound business practice and one that can be identified in religions and other institutions over the centuries.

There are both similarities with and differences between Celtic and other religious traditions.  The Celts didn’t build temples to their gods, the druids practicing their worship in the open air in places they described as sacred, often a space with some geographically distinct identity such as a grove or the shores of a lakes although, as Caesar noted, a sacred spot could be anywhere a druid nominated, a kind of ad-hoc consecration; another practical advantage of having no written record to contradict the assertion.  As later writers confirmed, the Gauls believed in an immortal soul but rather than a conception of heaven & hell or any other afterlife, they believed that upon death, it passed to another body after death, an eschatology of reincarnation.

Druids, gathered for the annual summer solstice ceremonies, Stonehenge, June 2019.

The lack of historic documents means it's impossible exactly to describe any exact sense of an internal druidical structure or indeed any indication whether it was essentially static subject to evolution.  Caesar wrote that that in Gaul there were three groups: the druidae, vates or uatis & bardi (which existed in Ireland as the druidh, filidh & baird) but whether these were exact organization divisions or simply a description of traditions or disciplines is unknown and all druids seem to have been required to learn all the skills to permit them to function as teachers, philosophers, physicians, priests, seers and sorcerers.  It was certainly a wide job-description which ranged from teaching the children of the nobility to performing human ritual sacrifice but the fundamental role (and the one which gave the druids their mystique and legitimacy) was that which appears in the institutional structure of the clergy in so many religions: the druids were the priests who would communicate with the gods on behalf of the Celtic people and thus mediate their relationship with the gods.  However, although the name was shared, what is often casually referred to as druidism wasn't monolithic and there are Irish and Welsh texts which mention druids as teachers, healers, seers and wizards, but not as priests and certainly not following the Gallic druids tradition of prayer, Irish myths suggesting druids were sorcerers and wizards rather than priests.  More is actually known about the druids of the Partholonians, Nemedians, Milesians & Fomorians because, unlike those in Gaul and Britain, there were no rules against writing.

Modern interest in the druids focuses mostly on their magic, sorcery and spells.  Over the centuries, there's been much imaginative speculation about their nature and purpose in Gaul, something inevitable because unlike in what survives in the Irish and Welsh record, there's scant evidence.  In the Irish & Welsh literature, classical authors found mentions of magic and witchcraft although the details were vague, it’s clear ancient druids were much concerned with healing and divination, like the shamans or medicine men who gathered herbs and poultice to ward off evil spirits.  There was also practical medicine, the scientist Pliny the Elder (29-79 AD) writing that druids held the mistletoe and oak trees as sacred, the former cultivated and, with great ceremony on the sixth day of the moon, a golden sickle was used carefully to cut the mistletoes, the druid garbed in a full-length white cloak.  A bit of a cure-all in the druidic medicine cabinet, mistletoe was said to be able to heal all illness and disease, act as the antidote to any poison and impart fecundity to barren cattle.  In the medieval Irish histories, the vista of arboreal sacredness and utility is wider spread, ash trees (often called rowan and quicken), the yew, the apple and the hazel all listed.

For the professional historian, the druids are difficult subjects because nobody will ever know how much truth lies in so many ancient and medieval writings.  The speculations, exaggerations and general mischief-making however probably accounts for much of the interest in druidism and it long predates both the revival of paganism and the weird world of the new age.  The haziness means it can by anyone be constructed to be what they wish it to be and there are many societies to join if one wishes to become a druid although those lured by the attraction of ritual human sacrifice will these days have to join a more accommodating religion.

A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids, oil on canvas by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

William Holman Hunt's 1860 painting was at the time of its exhibition sometimes referred to as A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Priest from the Persecution of the Druids by those who liked the whiff of popery which "priest" seemed to summon.  The depiction is of a family of ancient Britons in their hovel, concealing and tending to the wounds of a Christian missionary, injuries inflicted presumably by the pagan Celtic Druids, seen outside pursuing another fleeing missionary at the urging of the white-robed Druid priest.  The artist always remained convinced this early work was one of his finest but it was much criticized on both compositional and representational grounds.

As a work, it's indicative of the disapproval of paganism among Victorian Christians which even some historians tended to dismiss as something which, except for the odd deranged heretic, vanished wherever Christianity arrived which wasn't true; paganism in Europe enduring in places for centuries and even enjoying spasmodic revivals after Christianization.  The first country outside of the Roman Empire to embrace Christianity was Armenia in the fourth century and the last, Lithuania in the fifteenth so the two systems co-existed for a millennium.  In England, despite what Roman church's publicity machine taught to generations, paganism was not eradiated by the mission of Saint Augustine of Canterbury (circa 520-604) in 597 but by the ninth century conversion of Danelaw (the central and eastern regions of England where the way and laws of the Danes were practiced) and the killing of Eric Bloodaxe ((Eric Haraldsson (also known as Eirik fratrum interfector), circa 885-954; of Norwegian origin and variously (and apparently briefly) several times King of Norway and twice of Northumbria (circa 947–948 and 952–954)) in York in 954.  Beyond England however, paganism lived on as the dominant social order in Viking Scandinavia and the more remote regions of the British Isles until well into the twelfth century and in Prussia, it wouldn't be until the later fourteenth century crusades of the Teutonic Knights that Christendom finally prevailed.

Fueling the popular imagination, women in Druidry tend now to be depicted as ethereal figures in flowing robes, wandering the forest floor, sometimes surrounded by birds and other attentive creatures: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates, rendered by Vovsoft.

The feminine form druidess (female druid; druidic prophetess or priestess (plural druidesses)) was actually coined as late as 1755; prior to that druid had been used when speaking of box sexes.  Despite the similarity in spelling and a speculative etymological link, the female proper name Drusilla (diminutive of Drusus and a frequent surname in the gens Livia) is derived from the earlier Drausus which, although of uncertain origin, may be from a Celtic word meaning literally "strong" (thus the possible connection with the Old Celtic dru- which meant both "oak & "strong".

Like some other stuff which exists in popular history, the notion of female druids as decorative vegan tree-huggers is at least misleading and likely a product of revisionism by men, anxious as always to devalue the contribution of women to any field in which they claim proprietorship.  Historically, there’s no doubt there were many female druids (described often as druidesses or priestesses) and they seem to have exerted on the Greeks and Romans a special fascination, something thought a product of the realization the place of women in Celtic society was so different from their own.  Those who research the matter (and it’s conceded there may be a bit of feminist bias in the cohort) have concluded druidry may, as in many fields, have suffered the “…subverting taint of patriarchy over equality”, something attributed to the druidic revivalists of the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries who were part of a cultural milieu in which women were repressed and denied access to power and authority.  Tellingly, reviews of the art of the period appear mostly to focus on “older, mostly bearded men in togas… collecting mistletoe or performing ritual sacrifice” with women noticeable only by their absence.  In that, note the feminist critics, there is a parallel in the art and literature from “…other patriarchal cultures… and the subsequent Christian faith.”  Where women do appear in the Welsh mythologies written by the revivalists, they seem to be treated as “weak, submissive [and] overly passive”, appendages, something thought shaped by a patriarchal worldview.  In the twenty-first century things in paganism have changed (or, according to some, reverted to what they once were) and women are now often the most numerous at ceremonies, sometimes taking the priestly lead and for those who wish to become Druids, there are training courses.