The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pagan & Christian Creeds, by Edward Carpenter

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Title: Pagan & Christian Creeds
Their Origin and Meaning

Author: Edward Carpenter

Posting Date: August 26, 2008 [EBook #1561]
Release Date: December, 1998

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAGAN & CHRISTIAN CREEDS ***

Produced by Charles Keller

PAGAN & CHRISTIAN CREEDS: THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING

By Edward Carpenter

"The different religions being lame attempts to represent under various
guises this one root-fact of the central universal life, men have at
all times clung to the religious creeds and rituals and ceremonials as
symbolising in some rude way the redemption and fulfilment of their own
most intimate natures--and this whether consciously understanding
the interpretations, or whether (as most often) only doing so in an
unconscious or quite subconscious way."

The Drama of Love and Death, p. 96.

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTORY
II. SOLAR MYTHS AND CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS
III. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ZODIAC
IV. TOTEM-SACRAMENTS AND EUCHARISTS
V. FOOD AND VEGETATION MAGIC
VI. MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS
VII. RITES OF EXPIATION AND REDEMPTION
VIII. PAGAN INITIATIONS AND THE SECOND BIRTH
IX. MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE
X. THE SAVIOUR-GOD AND THE VIRGIN-MOTHER
XI. RITUAL DANCING
XII. THE SEX-TABOO
XIII. THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY
XV. THE MEANING OF IT ALL
XV. THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES
XVI. THE EXODUS OF CHRISTIANITY
XVII. CONCLUSION

APPENDIX ON THE TEACHINGS OF THE UPANISHADS:
I. REST
II. THE NATURE OF THE SELF

PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS: THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING

I. INTRODUCTORY

The subject of Religious Origins is a fascinating one, as the great
multitude of books upon it, published in late years, tends to show.
Indeed the great difficulty to-day in dealing with the subject, lies in
the very mass of the material to hand--and that not only on account of
the labor involved in sorting the material, but because the abundance
itself of facts opens up te