Foundations for Lifelong Learning John Piper
Visit to download the full and correct content document: https://textbookfull.com/product/foundations-for-lifelong-learning-john-piper/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant download maybe you interests ...
Second Language Acquisition and Lifelong Learning 1st Edition Singleton
https://textbookfull.com/product/second-language-acquisition-andlifelong-learning-1st-edition-singleton/
Foundations of Radio for Scientists and Technologists Christopher John Coleman
https://textbookfull.com/product/foundations-of-radio-forscientists-and-technologists-christopher-john-coleman/
Transforming Perspectives in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education: A Dialogue Laura Formenti
https://textbookfull.com/product/transforming-perspectives-inlifelong-learning-and-adult-education-a-dialogue-laura-formenti/
Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches A Contemporary Ecclesiology John S. Hammett
https://textbookfull.com/product/biblical-foundations-forbaptist-churches-a-contemporary-ecclesiology-john-s-hammett/
The 60 Year Curriculum New Models for Lifelong Learning in the Digital Economy 1st Edition Christopher J. Dede
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-60-year-curriculum-newmodels-for-lifelong-learning-in-the-digital-economy-1st-editionchristopher-j-dede/
Adult Education and Lifelong Learning in Southeastern Europe 1st Edition George A. Koulaouzides
https://textbookfull.com/product/adult-education-and-lifelonglearning-in-southeastern-europe-1st-edition-george-akoulaouzides/
From the Cast Iron Shore In Lifelong Pursuit of Liberal Learning Francis Oakley
https://textbookfull.com/product/from-the-cast-iron-shore-inlifelong-pursuit-of-liberal-learning-francis-oakley/
Europe's Lifelong Learning Markets, Governance and Policy: Using an Instruments Approach Marcella Milana
https://textbookfull.com/product/europes-lifelong-learningmarkets-governance-and-policy-using-an-instruments-approachmarcella-milana/
Mathematical Foundations for Linear Circuits and Systems in Engineering John J. Shynk
https://textbookfull.com/product/mathematical-foundations-forlinear-circuits-and-systems-in-engineering-john-j-shynk/
FoundationsforLifelongLearning
Other Books by John Piper
AllThatJesusCommanded
BattlingUnbelief
Bloodlines:Race,Cross,andtheChristianBrothers,WeAreNot Professionals
Come,LordJesus
TheDangerousDutyofDelight
DesiringGod
DoesGodDesireAlltoBeSaved?
Don’tWasteYourLife
ExpositoryExultation
FiftyReasonsWhyJesusCametoDie
FinallyAlive
FivePoints
FutureGrace
GodIstheGospel
God’sPassionforHisGlory
AGodwardLife
GoodNewsofGreatJoy
AHungerforGod
LettheNationsBeGlad!
APeculiarGlory
ThePleasuresofGod
Providence
ReadingtheBibleSupernaturally
TheSatisfiedSoul
SeeingandSavoringJesusChrist
SpectacularSins
TasteandSee Think
ThisMomentaryMarriage
27ServantsofSovereignJoy
WhatIsSavingFaith?
WhenIDon’tDesireGod
WhyILovetheApostlePaul
Foundations for Lifelong Learning
EducationinSeriousJoy
John Piper
FoundationsforLifelongLearning:EducationinSeriousJoy
© 2023 by Desiring God Foundation
Published by Crossway
1300 Crescent Street
Wheaton, Illinois 60187
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.
Cover design: Jordan Singer
First printing 2023
Printed in the United States of America
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, En glish Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license.
The ESV may not be translated into any other language.
All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.
Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-9370-3
ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-9372-7
PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-9371-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023941019
Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. L
To
TimTomlinson
FoundingPresident
BethlehemCollegeandSeminary
2009–2021
Contents Preface ix
Introduction: Education in Serious Joy 1
1 Observation 19
2 Understanding 47
3 Evaluation 73
4 Feeling 91
5 Application 117
6 Expression 137
Conclusion: Foundations for Lifelong Living 161
Appendix: Agassiz and the Fish 165
Preface
This book attempts to give a glimpse into the way we think about education at Bethlehem College and Seminary (www
.bcsmn .edu). I hope students in high school, college, and seminary will read it.
But, as a matter of fact, the way we think about education makes the book relevant for all who want to grow in wisdom and wonder for the rest of their lives. Our aim is to equip students for lifelong learning. Therefore, this book is for anyone, at any age, who refuses to stagnate intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally.
Bethlehem College pursues this goal by focusing, as we say, on “the Great Books in light of the Greatest Book for the sake of the Great Commission.” We agree with the late David Powlison when he explained why he loved the great novels and histories: Because you learn about people. You gain a feel for human experience. You come to understand riches and nuances that you could never understand just from knowing the circle of people you happen to know. You come to understand the ix
Preface
ways that people differ from each other, and the ways we are all alike—an exceedingly valuable component of wisdom.
You become a bigger person with a wider scope of perception. All those things you come to know illustrate and amplify the relevance and wisdom of our God (see below, p. 36).
But what do we do with such books? And all books? And the Bible? And nature? And the world? That’s what this book is about.
Six habits of mind and heart describe what we do with God’s word and God’s world—all of it. Observation. Understanding.
Evaluation. Feeling. Application. Expression. Undergirded by a Godcentered worldview, and guided by the authority of Scripture, we believe these six habits of mind and heart are the foundations of lifelong learning.
While Bethlehem College focuses on the great books in the light of the greatest Book, Bethlehem Seminary focuses with assiduous attentiveness on the great Book with the help of great pastorscholars. We like to say that the seminary is “shepherds equipping men to treasure our sovereign God and sacred book for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.”
But whether for those in college, or in seminary, or in the marketplace, this book is about the foundations of lifelong learning beneath all those phases of life. The book is not about the subject matter of our curriculum, but what we dowith it—indeed what we do with the subject matter of life. How do we deal with allsubject matter in such a way that the outcome is ever-maturing disciples of Jesus who glorify him in every sphere of life?
x Preface
Why we call it “Education in Serious Joy” is what the introduction is about. Such an education is a lifelong joy; it never ends.
We are still on the road. We invite you to join us.
xi
Introduction
Education in Serious Joy
This book is for serious seventy-somethings and seventeen-yearolds, and everybody in between, who share our excitement about what we call “education in serious joy.” It is the overflow of our exuberance with the habits of mind and heart that we are trying to build into our lives and the lives of those we teach. We believe these habits are the pursuit of a lifetime, and therefore relevant for every stage of life.
Serious Joy
In our way of thinking, “serious joy” is not an oxymoron.
“Serious joy” is not like “hot winters” or “cold summers.”
It’s what the apostle Paul was referring to when he used the phrase “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” in 2 Co rin thi ans 6:10.
We believe this is really possible. It’s the experience of people whose love is big enough to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice—even at the same time, if not in the same way.
1 Introduction
These are the kind of people we want our students—we want you, young and old—to be. Most readers probably have enough people in their life that someone is always happy and someone is always sad. So every shared happiness happens while there is sadness. And every shared sadness happens while there is happiness.
When you rejoice while someone is weeping (for there is no other time in this world), this will be “serious joy.” Not sullen joy. Not morose joy. Not gloomy joy. But seriousjoy. Being serious is not the opposite of being glad. It’s the opposite of being oblivious, insensible, superficial, glib.
Joy So Prominent?
Why do we make joy so prominent in our understanding of education? Why do we even have the phrase “education in serious joy”? The reason has to do with the ultimate questions of why the world exists and why we exist in it. We believe that everything in this universe was created by Jesus Christ. He owns it. He holds it in existence. It exists to put his greatness and beauty and worth (his glory) on display for the everlasting enjoyment of his people.
In fact, we believe that our joy in treasuring Christ aboveall things, and inall things, is essential in displaying his glory. Education is the process of growing in our ability to join God in this ultimate purpose to glorify Jesus Christ. That’s why we give joy such a prominent place in our understanding of education. That’s why we have a phrase like “education in serious joy.”
Biblical Pillar
The biblical pillar for this understanding of our existence is Colossians 1:15–17:
2 Introduction
[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For byhimall things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things were created through him and forhim.
And he is before all things, and inhimall things hold together.
Christ is the beginning, the middle, and the end. He is Creator, sustainer, and goal. The words “created forhim” do not mean for his improvement. He doesn’t have deficiencies that need remedy-ing by creation. “Forhim” means for the praise of his glory (cf. Eph. 1:6). His perfection and fullness overflowed in creation to communicate his glory to the world.
He made it all. So he owns it all. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (1 Cor. 10:26). Abraham Kuyper, who founded the Free University of Amsterdam in 1880, said in one of his most famous sentences, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’ ”1 As with all ownership, therefore, the world exists for the purposes of the owner. That is, for the glory of Christ.
That is the deepest foundation of education in serious joy: all things weremadeby Christ, belongtoChrist, and existforChrist.
Humans exist to magnify Christ’s worth in the world. But he is not magnified as he ought to be where humans are not satisfied in him as they ought to be—satisfied in him aboveall things, and inall things. Therefore joy, serious joy, is at the heart of Christ-exalting education.
1 Abraham Kuyper, AbrahamKuyper:ACentennialReader, ed. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd mans, 1998), 488.
3 Introduction
Soul Satisfied, Christ Magnified
If that’s a new thought for you—namely, Christ being magnified by our being satisfied in him—be assured its roots go back to the Bible. Paul said that his eager expectation and hope was that Christ would be magnified by his death (Phil. 1:20). Then he explained how this would happen: “for to me . . . to die is gain” (1:21). In what sense would his death be gain? He answers: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (1:23). Death is gain because death is “better”—that is, death brings a more immediately satisfying closeness to Christ.
How then will Paul magnify Christ by his death? By experiencing Christ as gain—as satisfying—in his death. Christ will be magnified by Paul’s being more satisfied in Christ than in the ordinary blessings of life. This is why we think serious joy is essential to Christmagnifying education. Christ is magnifiedin us by our being satisfied in him, especially in those moments when the satisfactions of this world are taken away.
We are not the first to draw out this essential truth from Scripture. It was pivotal, for example, in the thinking of Jonathan Edwards, the brilliant eighteenth-century pastor and theologian in New En gland. Here is how Edwards said it: God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways: 1.
By appearing to . . . their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself.
. . . GodisglorifiednotonlybyHisglory’sbeingseen,butbyits beingrejoicedin. When those that see it delight in it, God is 4
Introduction more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart.
. . . He that testifies [to] his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also [to] his approbation of it and his delight in it.2
There it is: “God is glorified . . . by [his glory] being rejoiced in.”
The difference between Edwards’s expression and the way we like to say it is that ours rhymes: “God is most glorifiedin us when we are most satisfiedin him.” Christ’s worth is magnified when we treasure him aboveall things and inall things.
Joy in a World of Suffering
This happens in the real world of suffering— oursuffering and the suffering of others. Christ’s worth shines the more brightly when our joy in him endures through pain. But what about the suffering of others? How does their suffering relate to our joy in Christ? We start with this observation: Christ-exalting joy in us is a living, restless, expanding reality. Then we observe this remarkable fact about our joy: it becomes greater in us when it expands to include others in it. So when we see the suffering of others, the effect it has on us is to draw out our joy in the form of compassion that wants others to share it. Joy in Christ is like a high-pressure zone in a weather system. When it gets near a low-pressure zone of suffering, a wind is created that blows from the high-pressure zone to the lowpressure zone trying to fill it with relief and joy.
This wind is called love.
2 Jonathan Edwards, The“Miscellanies, ”vol. 13, TheWorksof JonathanEdwards(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 495, miscellany 448; emphasis added.
5 Introduction
This is what happened among the Christians in Macedonia: “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy . . . overflowed in a wealth of generosity” (2 Cor. 8:2). First, joy in the gospel.
Next, affliction that does not destroy the joy. Then, the overflow of that joy to others in generosity. That overflow is called love.
Paul assumes that without the expanding impulse of joy toward others in need, there would be no love.
Putting it all together, I would say that the great purpose of lifelong learning—education in serious joy—is to magnify Christ by enjoying him aboveall things and inall things, with the kind of overflowing, Christlike joy, that is willing to suffer as it expands to include others in it. I know that’s a complex sentence. Please read it again slowly and let it sink in. The name for that process—the aim of lifelong learning—is love (cf. 2 Cor. 8:8).
Enjoying Christ inAll Things At least four times in the preceding paragraphs I have said that we should enjoy Christ not only above all things, but also inall things. Why do I say it like that? The first (enjoying Christ aboveall things) is obvious: if we prefer anything above Christ, we are idolaters. If he is not our supreme treasure, we devalue him. Jesus said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37). Paul said, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8).
But why do we say that the aim of lifelong learning is to enjoy Christ inall things? One reason is that God created the material 6
Introduction world so that we would see him and savor him init—the world itself for what it is. God did not create the pleasures of the world as temptations to idolatry. They have become that, because of sin.
After the fall of the world into sin, virtually every good can be misused to replace Christ as our greatest treasure.
Sex and Food as Revelation
This is not how it was from the beginning. And this is not how it should be for those who are being made new in Christ. We know this because of the way the apostle Paul speaks about the enjoyment of created things—like food in moderation, and sex in marriage. In 1
Timothy 6:17, he says that God “richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” And he gets specific with regard to food and sex in 1
Timothy 4:3–5. He warns against false teachers who “forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”
The enjoyments of sex in marriage and food in moderation are “richly provided” by God. They are not simply temptations.
They are occasions for worship—namely, Godward thankfulness.
They are “created . . . to be received withthanksgiving.” Created things are “made holy by the word of God and prayer.” “Those who believe and know the truth” receive them as undeserved gifts from God, feel gratitude to God for them, and offer God prayers of thanks that acknowledge him as the merciful giver. In this way, potential means of idolatry become holy means of worship.
7 Introduction
This is what Paul has in mind when he says, “Whether you eat or drink . . . do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Eating and drinking can replaceGod or revealGod.
Thus, education in serious joy aims for Christ to be magnified above and inall things. But not just “in all things” as the giver to be thanked; also “in all things” as the good to be tasted. God did not create the countless varieties of enjoyments of this world only to receive thanks. He also created those enjoyments to reveal something of himself in the very pleasures. “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8) means that God gives his people a spiritual palate that can discern more of what God is like through the way he has revealed himself in the created world.
For example, honey reveals something of the sweetness of God’s ordinances: they are “sweeter also than honey and drip-pings of the honeycomb” (Ps. 19:10). The rising sun reveals something of God’s glorious joy: “The heavens declare the glory of God. . . . In them he has set a tent for the sun . . . which
. . . runs its course with joy” (Ps. 19:1–5). The expectant thrill we feel at weddings is part of the pleasure we will have at the “marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 18:7, 9; also Matt. 22:2).
The morning dew reveals something of his tender coming to an unfaithful people: “I will be like the dew to Israel” (Hos.
14:5). The fruitful showers reveal something of God’s life-giving mercies: “He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth” (Hos. 6:3). Light (John 8:12), thunder (Ps. 29:3), vultures (Matt. 24:28), lilies (Matt. 6:28), ravens (Luke 12:24) —these and thousands of other created things were made by God not only as gifts to elicit our thanks, but also as reve la-tory tastes of his perfections.
8 Introduction
Focus of Our Study
When we speak of enjoying God inall things, the things we have in mind include both the wordthat God inspired and the worldthat God made. We have honey and sunshine and weddings and dew and rain and light and thunder and vultures and lilies and ravens. We know these things not first from God’s wordbut from his world. Yet I cited a Scripture to go with each one. The significance of that interweaving of world and word is that it points to our answer to the question, What is the focus of our education in serious joy? What do we actually study? If God’s aim in creating and governing the world is the display of his glory, where should we focus our attention? Where will we see the glory?
Our answer is that God has two books: his inspired wordand his created world. This is what we study: the Bible, on the one hand, and the whole organic complex of nature and history and human culture, on the other hand. We are not the first to call creation and Scripture God’s two books.
For example, in 1559, Guido DeBrès wrote the BelgicConfessionfor the Dutch Reformed churches and said in Article 2, under the title “The Means by Which We Know God”:
We know [God] by two means: first, by the creation, preserva-tion, and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as amost elegantbook, wherein al creatures, great and smal , are as so many characters leading us to contemplate the invisible things of God, namely, his power and divinity, as the apostle Paul saith, Romans 1:20. Al which things are sufficient to convince men, and leave them without excuse. Secondly, he 9
Introduction makes himself more clearly and fully known to us by his holyand divineWord, that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to his glory and our salvation.3
God created the world to communicate truth about himself.
“His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). But man has suppressed the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18).
God’s answer to this blindness was not to spurn the world, but to speak the word. He did this through the inspiration of Scripture and the sending of his Son. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb. 1:1–2). We are rescued from our sin and blindness not by the reve la tion of God in the world, but by the heralding of the word of Christ: “Since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21).
God’s Word Sends Us to God’s World to Learn But the decisive, saving power and authority of God’s word does not cancel out God’s world. The Bible gives the decisive meaning of all things. But the Bible itself sends us over and over again into the world for learning.
Consider the lilies; consider the birds (Matt. 6:26, 28). “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise” (Prov.
3 Belgic Confession, Christ Reformed Church (website), accessed January 4, 2023, https:// www .crcna .org/; emphasis added.
10 Introduction
6:6). “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?” (Isa. 40:26). And God says to Job, if you would be properly humbled before your God, open your eyes and consider the oceans, the dawn, the snow, the hail, the rain, the
constellations, the clouds, and lions, and ravens, and mountain goats, and wild donkeys, and oxen, and the ostrich, and horse, and hawk, and eagle (Job 38–39).
In fact, think about the way the prophets and apostles and Jesus himself used language. They used analogies and figures and metaphors and similes and illustrations and parables. In all of these, they constantly assume that we have looked at the world and learned about vineyards, wine, weddings, lions, bears, horses, dogs, pigs, grasshoppers, constellations, businesses, wages, banks, fountains, springs, rivers, fig trees, olive trees, mulberry trees, thorns, wind, thunderstorms, bread, baking, armies, swords, shields, sheep, shepherds, cattle, camels, fire, green wood, dry wood, hay, stubble, jewels, gold, silver, law courts, judges, and advocates.
In other words, the Bible both commands and assumes that we will know the world, and not just the word. We will study the general book of God called natureandhistoryandculture. And we will study the specialbook of God called theBible. And the reason is that God has revealed his glory in both—and means for us to see him in both, and savor him in both, and show him to the world through both.
The two books of God are not on the same level. The Bible has supreme authority, because God gave the Bible as the key to unlock the meaning of all things. Without the truth of the Bible, 11
Introduction
the most brilliant scholars may learn amazing truths about nature.
And we may read their books and learn from them. But without the special reve la tion of God, they miss the main point—that everything exists to glorify Christ. Not just some generic deity, but Jesus Christ, God’s Son, the eternal second person of the Trinity.
Without the special reve la tion of the gospel of Christ through Scripture, we remain blinded by sin. We do not see that we need a
Savior and that Christ came into the world to save sinners. We do not see that the whole universe gets its ultimate meaning in relationship to him. When we miss the main reality, everything we think we have learned is skewed.
So, for Christians, lifelong learning—education in serious joy—is permeated by the study of the Bible. The Bible gives the key that unlocks the deepest meaning of everything else.
What Do We Do with God’s Books?
If we are going to spend a lifetime focusing on the glory of God revealed in these two books—the word that God inspired and the world that God made—what should we do with these two books?
We hope that you put out of your mind the thought that lifelong learning is about getting degrees behind your name (whether BA, MA, DMin, or PhD). They are incidental to real learning. We also hope that you don’t think of education mainly as acquiring moneymaking skil s. Of course, skil s that enable you to function productively in your calling are important. But that is not mainly what lifelonglearningis about. That is not mainly what we want you to do with God’s world and God’s word.
Our aim is to help you grow in the habits of mind and heart that will never leave you and will fit you for a lifetime of increasing 12
Introduction
wisdom and wonder through all the sweet and bitter providences of life. The well-educated person is not the one with degrees, but the one who has the habits of mind and heart to go on learning for a lifetime. Specifically, to go on learning what we need in order to live in a Christ-exalting way for the rest of our lives—whatever the vocation.
Six Habits of Mind and Heart
Lifelong learning for the glory of Christ calls for continual growth in six habits of mind and heart. These are the habits we seek to instill in our students so that their education does not stop when their schooling stops. These are the habits we seek to grow in ourselves. Helping you grow in these habits over a lifetime is why I have written this book.
These habits of mind and heart apply to everything we experience, but most importantly the Bible, because the Bible provides essential light on the meaning of all other reality. Growing in these habits can be summed up like this:
We seek to grow continually in the ability:
• to observethe world and the word accurately and thoroughly;
• to understandclearly what we have observed;
• to evaluatefairly what we have understood by discerning what is true and valuable;
• to feelwith proper intensity the worth, or futility, of what we have evaluated;
• to applywisely and helpfully in life what we understand and feel; 13 Introduction
• to expressin speech and writing and deeds what we have observed, understood, evaluated, felt, and applied in such a way that its accuracy, clarity, truth, worth, and helpful-ness can be known and enjoyed and applied by others for the glory of Christ.
So the habits of mind and heart are:
• observation
• understanding
• evaluation
• feeling
• application
• expression
Whether you are looking at a passage in the Bible, or at the US Constitution, or the double helix of DNA, or a mysterious pattern of scratches on your car, the habits of mind and heart are the same.
1.Observation
We want to grow in our ability to observethe world and word accurately and thoroughly—as the world really is. We think it is crucial to see what is really there. If we fail in this, the failure is called delusion or blindness. Not to see what is really there with accuracy and thoroughness is to enter an illusory dreamworld.
Such dullness to the facts before us is not a virtue. It is not only a fault in itself, but it also will result in the distortion of our understanding and evaluation.
14 Introduction
2.Understanding
We want to grow in our ability to understand clearly what we have observed. Understanding involves the severe discipline of thinking. The mind wrestles to understandthe traits and features of what it has observed. We may observe that certain kinds of violent crime dropped from one year to the next. Then comes the step of understanding: Why did this happen? Or we might observe in the
Bible that four women are mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah.
Then comes the step of understanding. Why these four?
The aim of understanding when reading the Bible is to discern what the author is trying to communicate. We aim to think the author’s thoughts after him. Or, more accurately, we aim to see the reality his thoughts are seeking to communicate. We aim to understand the author’s purpose—ultimately, God’s purpose.
Otherwise, education simply becomes a reflection of our own ignorance.
3.Evaluation
We want to grow in our ability to evaluate fairly what we have observed and understood. We don’t want to make value judgments prematurely. But neither do we want to shrink back from the judgments that must be made about truth and value on the basis of careful observation and accurate understanding.
Here is where our Christian worldview will make all the difference. We believe in truth and goodness and beauty. We believe that with the guidance of the Scriptures and the help of the Spirit, we can know the truth. Not infallibly but really. God’s word is 15
Introduction infallible. We are not. We believe that it is virtuous for right observation and right understanding to precedeevaluation. The opposite is to say that our judgments do not need to be based on reality. This is called prejudice. We don’t like it when people evaluate us without true observation and understanding. Therefore, we ought not do it to others.
4.Feeling
We want to grow in our capacity to feel properly in response to what we have observed and understood and evaluated. Our feeling should be in accord with the truth and worth of what we have observed and understood. If we have observed and understood a terrible reality like hell, our feeling should be some mixture of fear and horror and compassion. If we have observed and understood a wonderful reality like heaven, then our feelings should be joy and hope and longing.
I tried to show earlier in this introduction that God is glorified not just by being known, but also by being loved, treasured, enjoyed. Therefore, our emotional response to his glory (and what opposes it) has ultimate significance. Some people think that emotions are marginal in the task of education. We regard them as essential. This means that prayer and reliance on the heart-changing power of the Holy Spirit are indispensable for lifelong education in serious joy.
5.Application
We want to grow in our ability to apply wisely and helpfully what we have observed and understood and evaluated and felt. It takes wisdom, not just factual knowledge, to know how to wisely and 16
Introduction
helpfully apply what we are learning. Suppose a person is led by true observation and understanding and evaluation of his own life to feel earnestly that he should redeem the time (Eph. 5:16).
Now what? What is the applicationof that insight? Only wisdom informed by Scripture and counsel and self-knowledge and circumstantial assessment and prayer-soaked meditation will lead to a fruitful application of Ephesians 5:16. A lifelong learner seeks to grow in the wise life-application of all he learns.
6.Expression
We want to grow in our ability to express in speech and writing and deeds what we have seen, understood, evaluated, felt, and applied. Yes, the line between application and expression is fuzzy.
Expression, one could say, is a kind of application. But we hope to show why the habit of expressing what we know and feel through speaking and writing is worthy of a distinct focus. In a Christian worldview, the aim of expression is that our observation and understanding and evaluation and feeling and application will be made useful for others. In other words, as with other kinds of application, the aim is love. Throughout our lives, we long to grow in our effectiveness in expressing ourselves in a way that helps others see and savor and show the glory of God.
Invitation to Join Us
This brings us back to our original reason for being. God created his worldand inspired his wordto display his glory. A well-educated person sees the glory of God in the word that God inspired and in the world that God made. An educated person understands God’s glory and evaluates it and feels it and applies 17
Introduction it and expresses it for others to see and enjoy. That outward bent is called love. Therefore, the aim of lifelong learning is to grow in our ability to glorify God and love people. We think the six habits of mind and heart are a description of that process of growth. We invite you to join us.
18 1
Observation
Wewanttogrowforalifetimeinourabilitytoobservetheworld andthewordaccuratelyandthoroughly.
By observing, we mean seeing or hearing or tasting or smelling or touching what is really there.
But that could be misleading. We don’t mean that the only reality is what we experience by our five natural senses. The Bible speaks of the “eyes of the heart,” not just the head. May “the eyesofyour hearts[be] enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you” (Eph. 1:18). There are unseen realities that Christians hope for.
This conviction pervades the Bible. Jesus indicted some people in his day because “seeing they do not see” (Matt. 13:13). Paul said that Christians in this age “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor.
5:7). Hebrews 11:1 says that “faith is the conviction of things not seen.” Peter says, “Though you have not seen [Christ], you love 19
Observation
him” (1 Pet. 1:8). All these texts teach us that there is reality that is not immediately observable by our five senses.
But that does not mean it can’t be known by “observation.” We just need to make sure that we don’t have a constricted view of observation that arbitrarily limits the kind of reality that we can observe. All five of our natural senses have spiritual counterparts.
There is spiritual seeing, spiritual hearing, spiritual touching, spiritual smelling, and spiritual tasting.
Seeing
For example, Paul says in 2 Co rin thi ans 4:4 that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from
seeingthe light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” This implies that with naturalsight, we see the facts of Christ’s life as they appear in the story of the gospel.
But Satan works in such a way that our spiritualsight fails to see in that story the “light . . . of the glory of Christ.” God turns this around in 2 Co rin thi ans 4:6: “God . . . has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” In other words, natural seeing has its counterpart in spiritual seeing.
Hearing
Paul says that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). But why is it that many hear and do nothave faith? Because, Jesus said, “hearing they do not hear” (Matt. 13:13). They hear the words, but they do not hear the voice of Christ. They do not discern the authenticating voice of the shepherd. “The sheep follow him, for they know his voice” (John 20
Observation
10:4). When Jesus said, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear”
(Mark 4:23), he meant that natural ears have their counterpart in spiritual ears. There is natural hearing and spiritual hearing.
Touching
The apostle John spoke of touching Jesus Christ who is the embodiment of eternal life: “That which was from the beginning, which we have . . . touched with our hands, . . . the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us” (1 John 1:1–2). It is as though there were spiritual eyes in the fingers of the apostles—as if touching was seeing.
Jesus spoke just that way when he said to the frightened apostles after the resurrection, “Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). And again he said to doubting Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands. . . . Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:27).
Touch and see. There is a natural touching that does not “observe”
who Christ is, and there is a spiritual touching that falls down and says, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
Smelling
There is a spiritual smelling that discerns the fragrance of Christ.
Paul said, “Through us [God] spreads the fragranceof the knowledge of [Christ] everywhere. For we are the aromaof Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perish-ing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life” (2 Cor. 2:14–16). The point is that there is true spiritual discernment (smell) of Christ as life-giving, and there is the failure of that discernment which only “smells” Christ as death.
21 Observation
Tasting
When we think of spiritual tasting, we might be tempted to think of the Lord’s Supper and the tasting of the actual material bread and cup. That would not be wrong. But the New Testament does not make that connection. Rather Peter says, to born-again Christians, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tastedthat the Lord is good” (1 Pet. 2:2–3). When we are born again, it’s as though our hearts are given new tastebuds that can taste the sweetness of
Christ and his love for us. As with touching, it’s as though there are eyes in the tastebuds of the soul: “Oh, taste and seethat the Lord is good!” (Ps. 34:8).
No Merely Natural World
When we define observingas seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching what is really there, we don’t confine this act of observing to natural, physical acts of the senses. In fact, we believe that all of the material world, because it is created by a self-revealing God, reveals something of God not only to our natural senses but also to our spiritual senses—if they are alive. As Jonathan Edwards wrote:
God is infinitely the greatest being . . . ; all the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation is but the reflection of the diffused beams of that being who hath an infinite fullness of brightness and glory.1
1 Jonathan Edwards, TwoDissertations:TheNatureofTrueVirtue, ed. Paul Ramsey, vol. 8, TheWorksofJonathanEdwards(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 550–51.
22
Observation
The natural beauty of creation reveals the spiritual beauty of God. Poets have tried to capture the reality of those “diffused beams” of God’s reality in what he has made. For example, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote in his famous poem “God’s Grandeur”:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.2
Elizabeth Barrett Browning pointed to the same divine penetra-tion of material creation in her epic poem AuroraLeigh, written in 1856:
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
Cosmogony.
Northern cosmogony was not unlike the Greek, for the people imagined that the earth, Mana-heim, was entirely surrounded by the sea, at the bottom of which lay the huge Midgard snake, biting its own tail; and it was perfectly natural that, viewing the storm-lashed waves which beat against their shores, they should declare they were the result of his convulsive writhing. The Greeks, who also fancied the earth was round and compassed by a mighty river called Oceanus, described it as flowing with “a steady, equable current,” for they generally gazed out upon calm and sunlit seas. Nifl-heim, the Northern region of perpetual cold and mist, had its exact counterpart in the land north of the Hyperboreans, where feathers (snow) continually hovered in the air, and where Hercules drove the Cerynean stag into a snowdrift ere he could seize and bind it fast.
The phenomena of the sky. use; and in the Northern mythology the divine conquerors repair to Asgard, and there construct similar dwellings.
Like the Greeks, the Northern races believed that the earth was created first, and that the vaulted heavens were made afterwards to overshadow it entirely They also imagined that the sun and moon were daily driven across the sky in chariots drawn by fiery steeds. Sol, the sun maiden, therefore corresponded to Helios, Hyperion, Phœbus, or Apollo, while Mani, the moon (owing to a peculiarity of Northern grammar, which makes the sun feminine and the moon masculine), was the exact counterpart of Phœbe, Diana, or Cynthia.
The Northern scalds, who thought that they descried the prancing forms of white-maned steeds in the flying clouds, and the glitter of spears in the flashing light of the aurora borealis, said that the Valkyrs, or battle maidens, were galloping across the sky, while the Greeks saw in the same natural phenomena the white flocks of Apollo guarded by Phaethusa and Lampetia.
As the dew fell from the clouds, the Northern poets declared that it dropped from the manes of the Valkyrs’ steeds, while the Greeks, who generally observed that it sparkled longest in the thickets, identified it with Daphne and Procris, whose names are derived from
the Sanskrit word “to sprinkle,” and who are slain by their lovers, Apollo and Cephalus, personifications of the sun.
The earth was considered in the North as well as in the South as a female divinity, the fostering mother of all things; and it was owing to climatic difference only that the mythology of the North, where people were daily obliged to conquer the right to live by a hand-tohand struggle with Nature, should represent her as hard and frozen like Rinda, while the Greeks embodied her in the genial goddess Ceres. The Greeks also believed that the cold winter winds swept down from the North, and the Northern races added that they were produced by the winnowing of the wings of the great eagle Hræsvelgr.
The dwarfs, or dark elves, bred in Ymir’s flesh, were like Pluto’s servants in that they never left their underground realm, where they, too, sought the precious metals, which they molded into delicate ornaments such as Vulcan bestowed upon the gods, and into weapons which no one could either dint or mar. As for the light elves, who lived aboveground and cared for plants, trees, and streams, they were evidently the Northern substitutes for the nymphs, dryads, oreades, and hamadryads, which peopled the woods, valleys, and fountains of ancient Greece.
Jupiter, like Odin, was the father of the gods, the god of victory, and a personification of the universe. Hlidskialf, Allfather’s lofty throne, was no less exalted than Olympus or Ida, whence the Thunderer could observe all that was taking place; and Odin’s invincible spear Gungnir was as terror-inspiring as the thunderbolts brandished by his Greek prototype. The Northern deities feasted continually upon mead and boar’s flesh, the drink and meat most suitable to the inhabitants of a Northern climate, while the gods of Olympus preferred the nectar and ambrosia which were their only sustenance.
Jupiter and Odin.
Twelve Æsir sat in Odin’s council hall to deliberate over the wisest measures for the government of the world and men, and an equal number of gods assembled on the cloudy peak of Mount Olympus for a similar purpose. The Golden Age in Greece was a
period of idyllic happiness, amid ever-flowering groves and under balmy skies, while the Northern age of bliss was also a time when peace and innocence flourished on earth, and when evil was as yet entirely unknown.
Using the materials near at hand, the Greeks modeled their first images out of clay; hence they naturally imagined that Prometheus had made man out of that substance when called upon to fashion a creature inferior to the gods only. As the Northern statues were all hewed out of wood, the Northern races inferred, as a matter of course, that Odin, Vili, and Ve (who here correspond to Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Minerva, the three Greek creators of man) made the first human couple, Ask and Embla, out of blocks of wood.
Creation of man.
The goat Heidrun, which supplied the heavenly mead, is like Amalthea, Jupiter’s first nurse, and the busy, telltale Ratatosk is equivalent to the snow-white crow in the story of Coronis, which was turned black in punishment for its tattling. Jupiter’s eagle has its counterpart in the ravens Hugin and Munin, or in the wolves Geri and Freki, which are ever crouching at Odin’s feet.
The close resemblance between the Northern Orlog and the Greek Destiny, goddesses whose decrees the gods themselves and were obliged to respect, and the equally powerful Norns and Mœræ, is too obvious to need pointing out, while the Vanas are counterparts of Neptune and the other ocean divinities. The great quarrel between the Vanas and the Æsir is merely another version of the dispute between Jupiter and Neptune for the supremacy of the world. Just as Jupiter forces his brother to yield to his authority, so the Æsir remain masters of all, but do not refuse to continue to share their power with their conquered foes, who thus become their allies and friends.
Norns and Fates.
Like Jupiter, Odin is always described as majestic and middleaged, and both gods are regarded as the divine progenitors of royal races, for while the Heraclidæ claimed Jupiter as their father, the Inglings, Skioldings, etc., said Odin was the founder of their families. The most solemn oaths were sworn by Odin’s spear as well as by
Jupiter’s footstool, and both gods rejoice in a multitude of names, all descriptive of the various phases of their nature and worship.
Odin, like Jupiter, frequently visited the earth in disguise, to judge of the hospitable intentions of mankind, as in the story of Geirrod and Agnar, which resembles that of Philemon and Baucis. The aim was to encourage hospitality, therefore, in both stories, those who showed themselves humanely inclined are richly rewarded, and in the Northern myth the lesson is enforced by the punishment inflicted upon Geirrod, as the scalds believed in poetic justice and saw that it was carefully meted out.
The contest of wit between Odin and Vafthrudnir has its parallel in the musical rivalry of Apollo and Marsyas, or in the test of skill between Minerva and Arachne. Odin further resembled Apollo in that he, too, was god of eloquence and poetry, and could win all hearts to him by means of his divine voice; he was like Mercury in that he taught mortals the use of runes, while the Greek god introduced the alphabet.
Myths of the seasons.
The disappearance of Odin, the sun or summer, and the consequent desolation of Frigga, the earth, is merely a different version of the myths of Proserpine and Adonis.
When Proserpine and Adonis have gone, the earth (Ceres or Venus) bitterly mourns their absence, and refuses all consolation. It is only when they return from their exile that she casts off her mourning garments and gloom, and again decks herself in all her jewels. So Frigga and Freya bewail the absence of their husbands
Odin and Odur, and remain hard and cold until their return. Odin’s wife Saga, the goddess of history, who lingered by Sokvabek, “the stream of time and events,” taking note of all she saw, is like Clio, the muse of history, whom Apollo sought by the inspiring fount of Helicon.
Just as, according to Euhemerus, there was an historical Zeus, buried in Crete, where his grave can still be seen, so there was an historical Odin, whose mound rises near Upsala, where the greatest
Northern temple once stood, and where there was a mighty oak which rivaled the famous tree of Dodona.
Frigga, like Juno, was a personification of the atmosphere, the patroness of marriage, of connubial and motherly love, and the goddess of childbirth. She, too, is represented as a beautiful, stately woman, rejoicing in her adornments; and her special attendant, Gna, rivals Iris in the rapidity with which she executes her mistress’s behests. Juno has full control over the clouds, which she can brush away with a motion of her hand, and Frigga is supposed to weave them out of the thread she has spun on her jeweled spinning wheel.
Frigga and Juno.
In Greek mythology we find many examples of the way in which Juno seeks to outwit Jupiter. Similar tales are not lacking in the Northern myths. Juno obtains possession of Io, in spite of her husband’s reluctance to part with her, and Frigga artfully secures the victory for the Winilers in the Langobardian Saga. Odin’s wrath at Frigga’s theft of the gold from his statue is equivalent to Jupiter’s marital displeasure at Juno’s jealousy and interference during the war of Troy In the story of Gefjon, and the clever way in which she procured land from Gylfi to form her kingdom of Seeland, we have a reproduction of the story of Dido, who obtained by stratagem the land upon which she founded her city of Carthage. In both accounts oxen come into play, for while in the Northern myth these sturdy beasts draw the piece of land far out to sea, in the other an ox hide, cut into strips, serves to inclose the queen’s grant.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, who could attract all living creatures by his music, is like Orpheus or Amphion, whose lyres had the same power; and Odin, as leader of the dead, is the counterpart of Mercury Psychopompus, both being personifications of the wind, on whose wings disembodied souls were thought to be wafted away from this mortal sphere.
myths.
The trusty Eckhardt, who would fain save Tannhäuser and prevent his returning to expose himself to the enchantments of the sorceress in the Hörselberg, is like the Greek Mentor, who not only accompanied Telemachus, but who gave him good advice and wise
instructions, and would like to have rescued Ulysses from the hands of Calypso.
Thor, the Northern thunder-god, also has many points of resemblance with Jupiter. He bears the hammer Miölnir, the Northern emblem of the deadly thunderbolt, and, like Jupiter, uses it freely when warring against the giants. In his rapid growth Thor resembles Mercury, for while the former playfully tosses several loads of ox hides about a few hours after his birth, the latter steals Apollo’s oxen before he is one day old. In physical strength Thor resembles Hercules, who also gave early proofs of uncommon vigor by strangling the serpents sent to slay him in his cradle, and who delighted, later on, in attacking and conquering giants and monsters. Hercules became a woman and took to spinning to please Omphale, the Lydian queen, and Thor assumed a woman’s apparel to visit Thrym and recover his hammer, which had been buried nine rasts underground. The hammer, his principal attribute, was used for many sacred purposes. It consecrated the funeral pyre and the marriage rite, and boundary stakes driven in by a hammer were considered as sacred among Northern nations as the Hermæ or statues of Mercury, whose removal was punished by death.
Thor and the Greek gods.
Thor’s wife, Sif, with her luxuriant golden hair, is, as we have already stated, an emblem of the earth, and her hair of its rich vegetation. Loki’s theft of these tresses is equivalent to Pluto’s rape of Proserpine. To recover the golden locks, Loki must visit the dwarfs (Pluto’s servants), crouching in the low passages of the underground world; so Mercury must seek Proserpine in Hades.
The gadfly which hinders Jupiter from recovering possession of Io, after Mercury has slain Argus, reappears in the Northern myth to sting Brock and prevent the manufacture of the magic ring Draupnir, which is merely a counterpart of Sif’s tresses, as it also represents the fruits of the earth. It continues to torment the dwarf during the manufacture of Frey’s golden-bristled boar, a prototype of Apollo’s golden sun chariot, and it prevents the perfect formation of the handle of Thor’s hammer.
The magic ship Skidbladnir, also made by the dwarfs, is like the swift-sailing Argo, which was a personification of the clouds sailing overhead; and just as the former was said to be large enough to accommodate all the gods, so the latter bore all the Greek heroes off to the distant land of Colchis.
The Germans, wishing to name the days of the week after their gods, as the Romans had done, gave the name of Thor to Jove’s day, and thus made it the present Thursday.
Thor’s struggle against Hrungnir is like the fight between Hercules and Cacus or Antæus; while Groa is evidently Ceres, for she, too, mourns for her absent child Orvandil (Proserpine), and breaks out into a song of joy when she hears it will return.
Magni, Thor’s son, who when only three hours old exhibits his marvelous strength by lifting Hrungnir’s leg off his recumbent father, also reminds us of the infant Hercules; and Thor’s voracious appetite at Thrym’s wedding feast has its parallel in Mercury’s first meal, which consisted of two whole oxen.
Thor’s crossing the swollen tide of Veimer reminds us of Jason’s wading across the torrent when on his way to visit the tyrant Pelias and recover possession of his father’s throne.
The marvelous necklace worn by Frigga and Freya to enhance their charms is like the cestus or girdle of Venus, which Juno borrowed to subjugate her lord, and is, like Sif’s tresses and the ring Draupnir, an emblem of luxuriant vegetation or a type of the stars which jewel the firmament.
The Northern sword-god Tyr is, of course, the Roman war-god Mars, whom he so closely resembles that his name was given to the day of the week held sacred to Mars, which is even now known as Tuesday or Tiu’s day. Like Mars, Tyr was noisy and courageous; he delighted in the din of battle and warfare, and was quite fearless at all times. He alone dared to brave the Fenris wolf; and the Southern proverb concerning Scylla and Charybdis has its counterpart in the Northern adage, “to get loose out of Læding and to dash out of
Droma.” The Fenris wolf, also a personification of subterranean fire, is bound, like his prototypes the Titans, in Tartarus.
The similarity between the gentle, music-loving Bragi, with his harp in hand, and Apollo or Orpheus is very great; so is the resemblance between the magic draft Od-hroerir and the waters of Helicon, which were also supposed to serve as inspiration to mortal as well as to immortal poets. Odin dons eagle plumes to bear away this precious mead, and Jupiter assumes a similar guise to secure his cupbearer Ganymede.
Idun, like Adonis and Proserpine, or still more like Eurydice, is also a fair personification of spring. She is borne away by the cruel ice giant Thiassi, who represents the boar which slew Adonis, the kidnapper of Proserpine, or the poisonous serpent which bit Eurydice. Idun is detained for a long, long time in Jötun-heim (Hades), where she forgets all her merry, playful ways, and becomes mournful and pale. She cannot return alone to Asgard, and it is only when Loki (now an emblem of the south wind) comes to bear her away in the shape of a nut or a swallow that she can effect her escape. She reminds us of Proserpine and Adonis escorted back to earth by Mercury (god of the wind), or of Eurydice lured out of Hades by the sweet sounds of Orpheus’s harp, which were also symbolical of the soughing of the winds.
The myth of Idun’s fall from Yggdrasil into the darkest depths of Nifl-heim, while subject to the same explanation and comparison as the above story, is still more closely related to the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, for the former, like Bragi, cannot exist without the latter, whom he follows even into the dark realm of death; without her his songs are entirely silenced. The wolfskin in which Idun is enveloped is typical of the heavy snows in Northern regions, which are considered a great blessing, as they preserve the tender roots from the blighting influence of the extreme winter cold.
Idun and Eurydice. Skadi and Diana.
The Van Niörd, who is god of the sunny summer seas, has his counterpart in Neptune and more especially in Nereus, the personification of the calm and pleasant
aspect of the mighty deep. Niörd’s wife, Skadi, is the Northern huntress; she therefore resembles Diana. Like her, she bears a quiver full of arrows, and a bow which she handles with consummate skill. Her short gown permits the utmost freedom of motion, also, and she, too, is generally accompanied by a hunting hound.
The myths of the transference of Thiassi’s eyes to the firmament, where they glow like brilliant stars, remind us of many Greek star myths, and especially of Argus’s eyes ever on the watch, of Orion and his jeweled girdle, and of his dog Sirius, all changed into stars by the gods to appease angry goddesses. Loki’s antics to win a smile from the irate Skadi are considered akin to the quivering flashes of sheet lightning which he personified in the North, while Steropes, the Cyclops, typified it for the Greeks.
The Northern god of sunshine and summer showers, the genial Frey, has many traits in common with Apollo, for, like him, he is beautiful and young, rides the golden-bristled boar which was the Northern conception of the sunbeams, or drives across the sky in a golden car, which reminds us of Apollo’s glittering chariot.
Frey has some of the gentle Zephyrus’s characteristics besides, for he, too, scatters flowers along his way. His horse Blodug-hofi is not unlike Pegasus, Apollo’s favorite steed, for it can pass through fire and water with equal ease and velocity.
Fro, like Odin and Jupiter, is also identified with a human king, and his mound lies beside Odin’s near Upsala. His reign was so happy that it was called the Golden Age, and he therefore reminds us of Saturn, who, exiled to earth, ruled over the people of Italy, and granted them similar prosperity.
Gerda, the beautiful maiden, is like Venus, and also like Atalanta; she is hard to woo and hard to win, like the fleet-footed maiden, but, like her, she yields at last and becomes a happy wife. The golden apples with which Skirnir tries to bribe her remind us of the golden fruit which Hippomenes cast in Atalanta’s way, and which made her lose the race.
Freya, the goddess of youth, love, and beauty, like Venus, sprang from the sea, for she is a daughter of the sea-god Niörd. Venus shows that she is not entirely devoid of martial tastes by bestowing her best affections upon Mars and Anchises, while Freya often assumes the garb of a Valkyr, and rides rapidly down to earth to take her part in mortal strife and bear away one half of the heroes slain to feast in her halls. Like Venus, she delights in offerings of fruits and flowers, lends a gracious ear to the petitions of lovers, and favors them as much as she can. Freya also resembles Minerva, for, like her, she wears a helmet and breastplate, and, like her, also, she is noted for her beautiful blue eyes.
Odur, Freya’s husband, is like Adonis, and when he leaves her, she, too, sheds countless tears, which, in her case, are turned to gold, while Venus’s tears are changed into anemones, and those of the Heliades, mourning for Phaeton, harden to amber, which resembles gold in color and in consistency. Just as Venus rejoices at Adonis’s return, and all Nature blooms in sympathy with her joy, so Freya becomes lighthearted once more when she has found her husband lover beneath the flowering myrtles of the South. Venus’s car is drawn by fluttering doves, while Freya’s is swiftly carried along by cats, which are emblems of sensual love, just as the doves were considered types of tenderest love. Freya is so sensitive to beauty that she angrily refuses to marry Thrym, and Venus scorns and finally deserts Vulcan, whom she has been forced to marry much against her will.
Odur and Adonis.
The Greeks represented Justice as a blindfolded goddess, with scales in one hand and a sword in the other, to indicate the impartiality and the fixity of her decrees. The corresponding deity of the North was Forseti, who patiently listened to both sides of a question ere he, too, promulgated his impartial and irrevocable sentence.
Uller, the winter-god, resembles Apollo and Orion only in his love for the chase, which he pursues with ardor under all circumstances. He is the Northern bowman, and his skill is quite as unerring as theirs.
Heimdall, like Argus, was gifted with marvelous keenness of sight, which enabled him to perceive even the growth of the grass. His Giallar-horn, which could be heard throughout all the world, proclaiming the gods’ passage to and fro over the quivering bridge Bifröst, was like the trumpet of the goddess Renown. As he was related to the water deities on his mother’s side, he could, like Proteus, assume any form at will, and made good use of this power on one occasion to frustrate Loki’s attempt to steal the necklace Brisinga-men.
Hermod, the quick or nimble, resembles Mercury not only in his marvelous celerity of motion, but he, too, was the messenger of the gods, and, like the Greek divinity, he flashed hither and thither, aided not by winged cap and sandals, but by Odin’s steed Sleipnir, whom he alone was allowed to bestride. Instead of the Caduceus, he bore the wand Gambantein. He questioned the Norns and the magician Rossthiof, through whom he learned that Vali would come to avenge his brother Balder and to supplant his father Odin. Instances of similar consultations are found in Greek mythology, where Jupiter would fain have married Thetis, yet desisted when the Fates foretold that she would be the mother of a son destined to surpass his father in glory and renown.
The Northern god of silence, Vidar, has some resemblance to Hercules, for while the latter has nothing but a club with which to defend himself against the Nemean lion, whom he tears asunder, the former, protected by one large shoe, rends the Fenris wolf at Ragnarok.
Odin’s courtship of Rinda reminds us of Jupiter’s wooing of Danae, who is also a symbol of the earth; and while the shower of gold in the Greek tale is intended to represent the fertilizing sunbeams, the footbath in the Northern story typifies the spring thaw which sets in when the sun has overcome the resistance of the frozen earth. Perseus, the child of this union, has many points of resemblance with Vali, for he, too, is an avenger, and slays his mother’s enemies just as surely as Vali destroys Hodur, the murderer of Balder.
Rinda and Danae.
The Fates were supposed to preside over birth in Greece, and to foretell a child’s future just as well as the Norns; and the story of Meleager has its unmistakable parallel in that of Nornagesta. Althæa preserves the half-consumed brand in a chest, Nornagesta conceals the candle end in his harp; and while the Greek mother brings about her son’s death by casting the brand into the fire, Nornagesta, compelled to light his candle end at Olaf’s command, dies as it sputters and goes out.
Hebe and the Valkyrs were the cupbearers of Olympus and Asgard. They were all personifications of youth; and while Hebe married the great hero and demigod Hercules when she retired from office, the Valkyrs were relieved from further attendance when united to heroes like Helgi, Hakon, Völund, or Sigurd.
The Cretan labyrinth has its counterpart in the Icelandic Völundarhaus, and Völund and Dædalus both effect their escape from a maze by a cleverly devised pair of wings, which enables them to fly in safety over land and sea and escape from the tyranny of their respective masters, Nidud and Minos. Völund resembles Vulcan, also, in that he is a clever smith and makes use of his talents to work out his revenge. Vulcan, lamed by a fall from Olympus, and neglected by Juno, whom he had tried to befriend, sends her a golden throne, which is provided with cunning springs to seize and hold her fast. Völund, hamstrung by the suggestion of Nidud’s queen, secretly murders her sons, and out of their eyes fashions marvelous jewels, which she unsuspectingly wears upon her breast until he reveals their origin.
Just as the Greeks fancied that the tempests were the effect of Neptune’s wrath, so the Northern races attributed them either to the writhings of Iörmungandr, the Midgard snake, or to the anger of Ægir, who, crowned with seaweed like Neptune, often sent his children, the wave maidens (the counterpart of the Nereides and Oceanides), out to play in the tossing billows. Neptune had his dwelling in the coral caves near the Island of Eubœa, while Ægir lived in a similar palace near Cattegat. Here he was surrounded by the nixies, undines, and mermaids, the counterpart of the Greek water nymphs, and by the
Myths of the sea.
river-gods of the Rhine, Elbe, and Neckar, who remind us of Alpheus and Peneus, the river-gods of the Greeks.
The frequency of shipwrecks on the Northern coasts made the people describe Ran (the equivalent of the Greek sea-goddess Amphitrite) as greedy and avaricious, and armed with a strong net, with which she drew all things down into the deep. The Greek Sirens had their parallel in the Northern Lorelei, who possessed the same gift of song, and also lured mariners to their death; while Princess Ilse, who was turned into a fountain, reminds us of the nymph Arethusa, who underwent a similar transformation.
In the Northern conception of Nifl-heim we have an almost exact counterpart of the Greek Hades. Mödgud, the guardian of the Giallar-bru (the bridge of death), over which all the spirits of the dead must pass, exacts a tribute of blood as rigorously as Charon demands an obolus from every soul he ferries over Acheron, the river of death. The fierce dog Garm, cowering in the Gnipa hole, and keeping guard at Hel’s gate, is like the three-headed monster Cerberus; and the nine worlds of Nifl-heim are not unlike the divisions of Hades, Nastrond being an adequate substitute for Tartarus, where the wicked were punished with equal severity.
The custom of burning dead heroes with their arms, and of slaying victims, such as horses and dogs, upon their pyre, was much the same in the North as in the South; and while Mors or Thanatos, the Greek Death, was represented with a sharp scythe, Hel was depicted with a broom or rake, which she used as ruthlessly, and with which she did as much execution.
Balder, the radiant god of sunshine, reminds us not only of Apollo and Orpheus, but of all the other heroes of sun myths. His wife Nanna is like Flora, and still more like Proserpine, for she, too, goes down into the underworld, where she tarries for a while. Balder’s golden hall of Breidablik is like Apollo’s palace in the east; he, too, delights in flowers; all things smile at his approach, and willingly take an oath of allegiance to him. Just as Achilles is vulnerable only in the heel, Balder can be slain only by the harmless mistletoe, and his death is
Balder and Apollo.
occasioned by Loki’s jealousy just as truly as Hercules was slain by Dejanira’s. Balder’s funeral pyre on Ringhorn reminds us of Hercules’s death on Mount Œta, the flames and reddish glow of both fires serving to typify the setting sun. The Northern god of sun and summer could only be released from Nifl-heim if all animate and inanimate objects shed tears; so Proserpine could issue from Hades only upon condition that she had partaken of no food. The trifling refusal of Thok to shed a single tear is like the pomegranate seeds which Proserpine ate, and the result is equally disastrous in both cases, as it detains Balder and Proserpine underground, and the earth (Frigga or Ceres) must continue to mourn their absence.
Through Loki evil entered into the Northern world; Prometheus’s gift of fire brought the same curse down upon the Greeks. The punishment inflicted by the gods upon both culprits is not unlike, for while Loki is bound with adamantine chains underground, and tortured by the continuous dropping of venom from the fangs of a snake fastened above his head, Prometheus is bound to Caucasus by adamantine fetters also, and a ravenous vulture continually preys upon his liver. Loki’s punishment has another counterpart in that of Tityus, bound in Hades, and in that of Enceladus, chained beneath Mount Ætna, where his writhing produced earthquakes, and his imprecations were the sudden eruptions of the volcano. Loki further resembles Neptune in that he, too, assumed an equine form and was the parent of a wonderful steed, for Sleipnir rivals Arion both in speed and endurance.
The Fimbulwinter has been compared to the long preliminary fight under the walls of Troy, and Ragnarok, the grand closing drama of Northern mythology, to the burning of that famous city “Thor is Hector; the Fenris wolf, Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who slew Priam (Odin); and Vidar, who survives in Ragnarok, is Æneas.” The destruction of Priam’s palace is the type of the ruin of the gods’ golden halls; and the devouring wolves Hati, Sköll, and Managarm, the fiends of darkness, are prototypes of Paris and all the other demons of darkness, who bear away or devour the sun maiden Helen.
Ragnarok and the Deluge. According to another interpretation, however, Ragnarok and the consequent submersion of the world is only a Northern version of the Deluge. The survivors, Lif and Lifthrasir, are like Deucalion and Pyrrha, who were destined to repeople the world; and just as the shrine of Delphi alone resisted the destructive power of the great cataclysm, so Gimli stood radiant to receive the surviving gods.
We have already seen how closely the Northern giants resembled the Titans; now it only remains to mention that while the Greeks imagined that Atlas was changed into a mountain, so the giants in Germany formed the Riesengebirge, and that the avalanches were the burdens of snow which they impatiently shook off in changing their cramped positions. The apparition of one of the water giants, in the shape of a bull, in order to court the queen of the Francs, has its parallel in the story of Jupiter’s wooing of Europa, and Meroveus is evidently the exact counterpart of Sarpedon. A faint resemblance can be traced between the giant ship Mannigfual and the Argo, for while the one is supposed to have cruised all round the Ægean and Euxine Seas, and to have made many places memorable by the dangers it encountered there, so the Northern vessel sailed about the North and Baltic Seas, and is mentioned in connection with the Island of Bornholm and the cliffs of Dover.
While the Greeks imagined that the Nightmares were the evil dreams which escaped from the cave of Somnus, the Northern race fancied they were female dwarfs or trolls, who crept out of the dark recesses of the earth to torment them. All magic weapons in the North were the work of the dwarfs, the underground smiths, while those of the Greeks were manufactured by Vulcan and the Cyclops, under Mount Ætna, or on the Island of Lemnos.
In the Sigurd myth we find Odin one-eyed like the Cyclops, who are also personifications of the sun. Sigurd is instructed by Gripir, the horse trainer, who, like Chiron, the centaur, is not only able to teach a young hero all he need know, and to give him good advice concerning his future conduct, but is also possessor of the gift of prophecy.
The marvelous sword which becomes the property of Sigmund and of Sigurd as soon as they prove themselves worthy to wield it reminds us of the weapon which Ægeus concealed beneath the rock, and which Theseus secured as soon as he had become a man. Sigurd, like Theseus, Perseus, and Jason, seeks to avenge his father’s wrongs ere he sets out in search of the golden hoard, the exact counterpart of the golden fleece, which is also guarded by a dragon, and is very hard to secure. Like all the Greek sun-gods and heroes, Sigurd has golden hair and bright blue eyes. His struggle with Fafnir reminds us of Apollo’s fight with Python, while the ring Andvaranaut can be likened to Venus’s cestus, and the curse attached to its possessor is like the doom which accompanied Helen and caused endless bloodshed wherever she went.
Sigurd could never have conquered Fafnir without the magic sword, just as the Greeks could never have taken Troy without the arrows of Philoctetes, which are also emblems of the all-conquering rays of the sun. The recovery of the stolen treasure is like Menelaus’s recovery of Helen, and it apparently brings as little happiness to Sigurd as his recreant wife did to the Spartan king.
Brunhild resembles Minerva in martial tastes, in physical appearance, and in knowledge; but when Sigurd deserts her in favor of Gudrun, she becomes angry and resentful like Œnone, when Paris left her to woo Helen. Brunhild’s anger continues to accompany Sigurd through life, and she even seeks to compass his death, while Œnone, feeling she can cure her wounded lover, refuses to do so and permits him to die. Œnone and Brunhild are both overcome by the same remorseful feelings when their lovers have breathed their last, and both insist upon sharing their funeral pyres, and end their lives lying by the side of those whom they had loved.
Containing, as it does, a whole series of sun myths, the Volsunga Saga repeats itself in every phase; and just as Ariadne, forsaken by the sun hero Theseus, finally marries Bacchus, so Gudrun, when Sigurd has departed, marries Atli, the King of the Huns. He, too, ends his life amid the flickering flames of his burning palace or ship. Gunnar, like Orpheus or Amphion, plays such
marvelous strains upon his harp that even the serpents are lulled to sleep. According to some interpretations, Atli is like Fafnir, and covets the possession of the gold. Both are therefore probably personifications “of the winter cloud which broods over and keeps from mortals the gold of the sun’s light and heat, till in the spring the bright orb overcomes the powers of darkness and tempests, and scatters his gold over the face of the earth.”
Swanhild, Sigurd’s daughter, is another personification of the sun, as is shown by her blue eyes and golden hair; and her death under the hoofs of black steeds represents the blotting out of the sun by the clouds of storm or of darkness.
Just as Castor and Pollux hasten off to rescue their sister Helen when she has been borne away by Theseus, so Swanhild’s brothers, Erp, Hamdir, and Sörli, hasten off to avenge her death.
Such are the main points of resemblance between the mythologies of the North and South, and the analogy serves to prove that they were originally formed from the same materials, and that the difference consists principally in the local coloring unconsciously given by each nation.
INDEX TO POETICAL QUOTATIONS.
Aager and Else, Ballad of, 170.
Anderson, Rasmus B. (translations from the Elder Edda in Norse Mythology, S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago), 13, 24, 27, 43, 53, 78, 80, 81, 88, 110, 111, 118, 124, 139, 147, 149, 264, 266, 270.
Anster (translation from Goethe), 130
Arnold, Matthew, 12, 14, 15, 21, 23, 28, 29, 46, 47, 64, 68, 84, 107, 126, 144, 160, 167, 183, 188, 189, 192, 193, 194, 196, 267, 271.
Baldwin, James, Story of Siegfried (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York), 172.
Brace (translation of ballad), 212.
Brand, 120.
Browning, Robert, 33, 34.
Coneybeare (translation from the Anglo-Saxon), 165.
Du Chaillu, Paul, Viking Age (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York), 142, 143.
Edda (Sæmund’s, or the Elder), 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 24, 25, 27, 29, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 62, 65, 71, 75, 80, 81, 85, 88, 91, 96, 97, 98, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 122, 123, 124, 129, 131, 134, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 147, 149, 151, 154, 157, 162, 163, 164, 168, 174, 175, 177, 183, 184, 185, 195, 198, 200, 204, 205, 206,
207, 236, 242, 244, 246, 254, 262, 266, 267, 269, 270, 271, 272.
Edda, The Younger, 53, 77, 78, 79.
Forman (translations), 37, 40, 57, 100.
Goethe, 130.
Gray, 184, 185, 186.
Grotta-Savngr, 122, 123.
Heine, 180, 216.
Hemans, 30, 161.
Henderson (translations), 11, 154, 162.
Herbert (translations), 77, 79, 114, 115, 116, 138.
Herrick, 121.
Hewitt (translation), 162.
Homer, 36.
Howitt, 36, 65, 195, 222, 272, 273.
Jones, Julia Clinton, Valhalla (Bosqui & Co., San Francisco), 11, 16, 53, 62, 86, 89, 90, 91, 101, 102, 103, 152, 156, 166, 167, 168, 171, 178, 182, 195, 203, 205, 208, 264, 266, 267.
Keightley (translation), 179.
Kingsley, Charles, 50, 127
L. E. R., 178.
La Motte-Fouqué, 218.
Longfellow, Saga of King Olaf, in Tales of a Wayside Inn (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston), 45, 63, 82.
Macdowall, Asgard and the Gods, 51.
Martin (translation from Heine), 216.
Mathisson, 179.
Meredith, Owen, 56, 57, 145.
Morris, William, 19, 24, 61, 113, 128, 156, 178, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 234, 235, 237, 238, 239, 241, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 252, 255, 256, 258, 259, 260, 261.
Naogeorgus, 119.
Oehlenschläger, 36, 66, 67, 68, 138, 176.
Oxford Carol, 119.
Percy (translation from the Edda), 62.
Pfeiffer (translation), 265
Pigott (translations from Oehlenschläger), 66, 67, 68, 138, 176.
Scott, 32, 221.
Selcher (translation), 180.
Shakespeare, 85, 158, 223.
Southey, 35
Spenser, 219.
Stagnelius, 179.
Stephens (translations from Fridthiof’s Saga in Viking Tales of the North, Rasmus B. Anderson, S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago), 20, 28, 44, 52, 72, 73, 98, 106, 113, 128, 135, 173, 195, 197, 265, 270
Taylor (translations from the Sagas), 15, 17, 18, 27, 37, 38, 92, 269, 271.
Tegnér, Fridthiof’s Saga, 20, 28, 44, 52, 72, 73, 98, 106, 113, 128, 135, 173, 195, 197, 265, 270.
Thomson, 27, 168.
Thorpe (translations from Sæmund’s Edda), 12, 16, 21, 25, 29, 31, 39, 41, 42, 45, 71, 75, 85, 91, 96, 97, 98, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108, 112, 113, 116, 129, 131, 134, 137, 138, 139, 141, 144, 146, 151, 157, 163, 164, 168, 169, 174,
