Pagan Foreshadowings
Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology Through Christian Eyes
by Louis Markos
Classical Academic Press, 2020
(420 pages, $27.99, hardcover)
Louis Markos has written a book unlike any other I have reviewed or read, and, apart from any consideration of its quality, I must say that I was immediately struck by the ingenuity of the idea. Inspired by C. S. Lewis's essay, "Myth Became Fact," Markos has undertaken to work out in practice the notion that Christianity is not discredited because it is mythical, like (for instance) classical paganism. The reason is that Christian "myths," unlike those of paganism, are true. "The heart of Christianity," Lewis writes,
is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be a myth [emphasis in original], comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens [emphasis in original]—at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Baldur or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate [emphasis in original]. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
R. V. Young is Professor of English Emeritus at North Carolina State University, and a former editor of Modern Age: A Quarterly Review. His Shakespeare & the Idea of Western Civilization is forthcoming in January from Catholic University of America Press. He and his wife are parishioners at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Dunedin, Florida. They have five grown children, 15 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
33.3—May/June 2020
On Flight & Fight in the Present Tribulation by Douglas Farrow
31.2—March/April 2018
How Best to Face the Total War of the Anti-Culture by R. J. Snell
28.2—March/April 2015
Why Scientism's Cherished Progress Narrative Fails by Jonathan Witt
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
