The Myth of The Eternal Return
Historicity and Transcendence in the Thought of Mircea Eliade
Oct 20, 2009
Mircea Eliade’s The Myth of The Eternal Return, also known as Cosmos and History, has made important contributions to the history and philosophy of religion.
Eliade argues archaic humanity first tried to ignore history and then to tolerate it through archetypes and repetitions and belief in cosmic cycles. He says Judeo-Christianism for the first time transcended the myth of the eternal return by introducing the category of faith.
He concludes modern humanity which has fallen from the paradise of archetype and repetition into historicity can be redeemed, justify historical misfortune, and regain the freedom to participate in cosmogonic acts only by embracing Christianity.
Archetype and Repetition
In archaic society, Eliade declares, objects and human actions have meaning only so far as they participate in a transcendent reality. Physical objects, for instances, gain value either because they are instrumental in interpreting sacred mysteries or because they have some magical or supernatural power. Objects which do not display supernatural significance are deemed profane and of no use to society.
Whenever the need arises to use natural objects hitherto considered profane, Eliade says that archaic society will find a way of attributing cosmic significance to them. For instance, a new living space must first be consecrated through rituals and made real before it is occupied. Likewise, every other natural resource or object that archaic community needs to control is declared to have some cosmic signification.
Similarly, every meaningful human action is perceived as a reproduction of a primordial act. All the important human activities — hunting, war, dancing, love-making, mourning — have their exemplars in mythical time. What men and women do is to repeat these exemplary and paradigmatic gestures repeatedly. Mundane activities that lack mythical meaning or exemplary models are considered profane. In short, archaic society derives meanings through archetypes and repetitions.
Another aspect of archaic ontology is the abolition and periodic regeneration of time through sacrifices and ritual ceremonies which re-enact the first exemplary acts by gods or heroes. This practice allows traditional societies to transpose themselves to the primordial mythical moment when everything began. It is also indicative of archaic society’s attempt to abolish history which it tolerates with difficulty.
The cyclic regeneration of time through “ritual purifications” usually takes place at New Year ceremonies. Eliade says that on these occasions, archaic cultures annul sin, demons and diseases. Most importantly, by repeating the cosmogony, archaic society abolishes concrete time, refuses to preserve the memory of the past, and resists accepting itself as a historical being.
The Myth of the Eternal Return
According to Eliade, when history began to assert itself, societies of antiquity developed theories of cosmic cycles which still afforded them the opportunity to annul history and begin afresh even though the regeneration of time now took place at longer intervals.
The myth of the eternal return, which asserts the cyclic destruction and re-creation of the universe, manifested itself in both the Oriental and the Hellenic minds. The myth might appear in variant forms in different societies, but is essentially the same everywhere in defying historical consciousness and justifying suffering: time is not linear because it has infinite endings and beginnings, and suffering is a necessary ingredient of life sanctioned by universal causality which demands progress and regress, joy and pain.
Linear Time and Historicity
Eliade says that history was granted value and considered not only meaningful but necessary for the first time when Hebraism broke free from the traditional “vision of the cycle” to discover a “one-way time.” Placed under extreme historical pressure and unable to tolerate their sufferings, the Hebraic prophets were finally forced to place value on the historical event as a coherent and concrete expression of Yahweh’s will. “This God of the Jewish people is no longer an Oriental divinity, creator of archetypal gestures, but a personality who ceaselessly intervenes in history, who reveals his will through events.” The Hebrew began to interpret their defeats and humiliations as punishments from the God whom they had angered by worshiping idols.
Thus, the Messianic religion of the Israelites invested history with value by regarding it as a theophany. Time is now conceived as linear, with a beginning and an end. The journey between these points, which constitutes history, may be tortuous and filled with misfortune; but it is tolerated and justified because it is the expression of God’s will.
Faith and Transcendence
Building on Judaism, Christianity further advanced the linear concept of time and established not only the necessity of history but also its uniqueness as symbolized by the incarnation. “Christ died for our sins once only, once for all; it is not an event subject to repetition, which can be reproduced several times.”
For Eliade, the faith inherent in Judeo-Christianity is modern humanity's only weapon against the terror of history – aggression, massacres, genocides, and other human-induced catastrophes. Historical humanity is conscious of time’s linearity and irreversibility. It cannot tolerate historical terror and natural misfortune without appealing to a meta-historical power, which for Eliade takes the form of Christianity. Frederich Nietzsche, who is the subject of another article, had taken a diametrically opposite view to Eliade’s. Declaring that Christianity devalues life, Nietzsche proposed the doctrine of the eternal recurrence.
Source:
- Eliade, Mircea. The Myth of The Eternal Return. New York: UP of Princeton, 1991.
