The Survival of the Pagan Gods

The gods of Olympus died with the advent of Christianity--or so we have been taught to believe. But how are we to account for their tremendous popularity during the Renaissance? This illustrated book, now reprinted in a new, larger paperback format, offers the general reader first a discussion of mythology in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, and then a multifaceted look at the far-reaching role played by mythology in Renaissance intellectual and emotional life.

According to an online biography of Jean Seznec, 'The Survival of the Pagan Gods' is a seminal work in its field, meaning that it influenced the direction of thought of subsequent researchers. Seznec's work was a reevaluation of the idea that the gods of Greece and Rome were banished by Christianity, and only resurfaced in works of art during the Renaissance.

With intense documentation, Seznec shows that, even though the church fathers preached damnation for consorting with these pagan gods, that in practice many of the old beliefs persisted. Even among church officials, there was not yet a firm disbelief in the existence of the old gods. In particular, there was still a strong current of belief that figures from mythology and fable had been founders of civilizations or progenitors of races.

There was also still a great deal of credence given to astrology, with astrological symbols showing up even in Christian art in the Vatican. Since there was a powerful connection between astrology and astral divinities, this was another way in which Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and the rest were perpetuated.

During the middle ages, the pagan myths, even with all the bawdiness and capriciousness of the gods, were analyzed for moral lessons in the form of allegories. Many of those good scholars claimed to be able to see foreshadowing of Christianity by rightly interpreting the antics of the Olympian divinities. This pracice of finding allegory in myth sanctioned the fondness that scholars had for Greek and Roman culture, and ensured that the gods would continue to be represented in art and poetry.

But even though knowledge of the character of the ancient gods was kept alive, it is true that the classical representation of their attributes was lost during the dark ages, due to the loss of contact with the sculpture and other artworks of the classical world. Thus, the gods of Olympus became mongrelized in their appearance, in extreme cases acquiring such bizarre modifications as animal heads, but in general succumbing to a very unclassical form, often with strong oriental influence.

This pursuit of the pagan myths as sources of allegorical moral instruction continued up to the Renaissance. Several manuals were published in which there were descriptions given of the clothing, appearance, powers, and temperaments of individual gods, along with listings of other deities with whom they had close associations, etc. These manuals emanated primarily from Italy, the seat of the classical Roman deities, but ironically were full of descriptions which had been contaminated by oriental graftings as well as out-and out errors of transcription and copying.

Understandably then, the correspondence between pictorial representations of the gods and the classical ideal was very poor through the middle ages. Incredibly enough, artists and scholars disregarded the actual artifacts of antiquity in favor of these literary descriptions contained in the manuals. Not until the Renaissance did the Venetian artists restore the classical proportions of the gods, freed from the clutter and encumbrance of the heavy moralistic interpretation of previous generations.

Seznec portrays this survival of the pagan gods as the preservation of humanistic principles within the confines of the dogmatic theocracy of Catholicism. The flowering of the gods during the Renaissance was not due to the rediscovery of the classical ideal, but due to the metamorphosis of a tradition that had continued under different guises ever since the rise of Christianity.

This is a very scholarly work with an amazing amount of detail which fleshes out and supports the main thesis. There are copious notes and a 27-page bibliography. This level of scholarship will undoubtedly be too much for most readers to bear, who might be interested in something more geared to the casual reader.

But if you have a taste for art, history, mythology and literature, this book might hold possibilities for you. If you further enjoy learning of obscure, yet interesting and relevant cultural phenomena, then the possibility is even greater you might find some enjoyment here. In the course of the book you will see how such people as Petrarch, Dante, St. Augustine, Albrecht Durer, and many other famous authors and artists figure into this story of the survival of the gods. But, in all honesty, this appears to be a book which was primarily written for other scholars.