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Structuralist interpretations of biblical myth
Reviews and Book Notes
389
main drift is to show how at every turn the Sangha tries io institutionalize a middle way between self-indulgence and moritification, and how what always counts is the spirit rather than the literal detail, so that `solitude', for example, is interpreted primarily as a psychological condition . Naturally I do not find the book completely satisfactory in every respect . I am sorry that Dr Wijayaratna nowhere mentions the issue of monastery servants (aramika), for it would be interesting to read his discussion of how five hundred servants allegedly were assigned to a single hermit who was constructing a cave (Vin I, Mahavagga, p . 207) . His chapter on the Sangha's mechanisms for selfregulation is also rather disappointing, in that it fails to explore the discrepancy between the. norm of individual self-regulation and the procedural paraphernalia for communal jurisdiction . I have found quite a few wrong references (mostly by a page or so) and many slips in the Pali : his fluency in French seems to have made the author unwilling to supply aspirates . I trust that this admirable young scholar will remedy these blemishes in his future work, while preserving his clarity, lack of modishness, and familiarity with the sources . We should not only learn facts from this book but try to emulate its virtues . RICHARD GOMBRICH Balliol College, Oxford Peter Pfandt, Mahayana Texts Translated into Brill, 1983, pp . 167 .
Western Languages .
Leiden,
This extremely useful bibliography lists 260 Mahayana Buddhist texts and gives references to their translations or partial translations into European languages . The originals are listed by Sanskrit title (with a few exceptions where this is not appropriate) and there are cross-indices for alternative Sanskrit titles and for Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan titles . The work is both careful and clear, and congratulations are due to Hans Joachim Klimkeit of the University of Bonn for arranging the publication on behalf of the Religionswissenschaftliches Seminar of Bonn University . The price is not indicated but as the first printing is of 400 copies only, interested readers should address their requests to The Director, Religionswissenschaftliches Seminar der Universitat Bonn, Am Hof 34, 5300 Bonn 1, Federal Republic of Germany . MICHAEL PYE University of Marburg Edmund Leach and D . Alan Aycock, Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth . Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp . vii + 132 . This book is a collection of seven essays on the Bible and early Christianity, and the method used is Leach's anglo-structuralism known from his earlier Genesis as Myth (1969) . The fourth paper is excellent . Anthropologist Leach proposes to study ancient (post-biblical) Christianity as `a millenarian movement in the literal sense of that term' . Although this is not a new project (see John G . Gager, Kingdom and Community : The Social World of Early Christianity, Prentice-Hall, 1975), the way in which Leach carries it out is illuminating and quite convincing . Millenarian
390
Reviews and Book Notes
Christianity is sectarian in nature, relies on inspired prophets, expects an imminent physical millennium here on earth, and favours an 'Arian' image of Christ-an image which allows any human prophet possessed by the Holy Spirit to be a kind of Christ himself. Post-millenarian Christianity, on the other hand, is characterized by a doctrine of Christi's sacrificial death on the cross, and a hierarchical priesthood that had to mediate between `this world' and an almighty trinitarian God . The central opposition is between the priestly sacrifice, representing man's institutionalized approach to God (icon of orthodoxy), and prophetic inspiration representing God's own initiative which disrupts the established order of things . Leach traces these two models through the Christological controversies, apocryphal Christian literature, patristic writings, and especially through iconographic representations of Melchisedech . In the second century A .D ., this figure was a man of the people, while by the sixth century he became a mythical priest-king in an imperial autocracy . Unfortunately, this best paper in the collection has the somewhat apocryphal title of 'Melchisedech and the Emperor' and is peripheral to the book's general focus on biblical structuralism . The other chapters include a survey of twentieth century anthropological approaches to the study of the Bible (with devastating critiques of Frazer and Julian Pitt-Rivers, and more nuanced ones of Mary Douglas) ; an analysis of female figures surrounding religious heroes such as Moses and Jesus ; and structuralist readings of selected Old and New Testament passages . Biblical specialists find few structuralist studies convincing, or even suggestive . They feel that Levi-Straussian models are reductionist, or that structuralists are unable to cope with the intricacies of established biblical criticism . Aycock's `The Fate of Lot's Wife : Structural Mediation in Biblical Mythology', however, ranks among those rare structuralist studies that are acceptable for the biblical guild . Relying on Levi-Strauss's celebrated `Story of Asdiwal', Aycock argues that Lot's wife, as a pillar of salt, is another example of an `immobilized mediating figure' . There is, then, at least one article that can be recommended to readers interested in biblical structuralism . For those who want to study Leach's most recent and most nuanced view of religion, the book is indispensable . BERNHARD LANG University of Mainz James R . Horne, The Moral Mystic (S . R . Supplements, 14) . Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1983, pp . x + 134 . $6 .50 . Most philosophers who discuss mysticism are concerned with the epistemological questions which it raises . Professor Horne, however, concentrates in this little book on its moral aspects, and goes on to consider more generally the relationship between religion and morality . After outlining some of the attacks made on mysticism on moral grounds by both religious and secular thinkers, Horne makes a number of distinctions, of which the most important are that between `pure' and `mixed' mysticism, and that between individual (or `proper name') and social morality . He argues that the pure mystic tends not to be concerned with social morality, whereas the mixed mystic (i .e . one from a religious tradition which encourages active thought and emotional involvement with doctrinal and moral questions) may well be concerned with it
389
main drift is to show how at every turn the Sangha tries io institutionalize a middle way between self-indulgence and moritification, and how what always counts is the spirit rather than the literal detail, so that `solitude', for example, is interpreted primarily as a psychological condition . Naturally I do not find the book completely satisfactory in every respect . I am sorry that Dr Wijayaratna nowhere mentions the issue of monastery servants (aramika), for it would be interesting to read his discussion of how five hundred servants allegedly were assigned to a single hermit who was constructing a cave (Vin I, Mahavagga, p . 207) . His chapter on the Sangha's mechanisms for selfregulation is also rather disappointing, in that it fails to explore the discrepancy between the. norm of individual self-regulation and the procedural paraphernalia for communal jurisdiction . I have found quite a few wrong references (mostly by a page or so) and many slips in the Pali : his fluency in French seems to have made the author unwilling to supply aspirates . I trust that this admirable young scholar will remedy these blemishes in his future work, while preserving his clarity, lack of modishness, and familiarity with the sources . We should not only learn facts from this book but try to emulate its virtues . RICHARD GOMBRICH Balliol College, Oxford Peter Pfandt, Mahayana Texts Translated into Brill, 1983, pp . 167 .
Western Languages .
Leiden,
This extremely useful bibliography lists 260 Mahayana Buddhist texts and gives references to their translations or partial translations into European languages . The originals are listed by Sanskrit title (with a few exceptions where this is not appropriate) and there are cross-indices for alternative Sanskrit titles and for Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan titles . The work is both careful and clear, and congratulations are due to Hans Joachim Klimkeit of the University of Bonn for arranging the publication on behalf of the Religionswissenschaftliches Seminar of Bonn University . The price is not indicated but as the first printing is of 400 copies only, interested readers should address their requests to The Director, Religionswissenschaftliches Seminar der Universitat Bonn, Am Hof 34, 5300 Bonn 1, Federal Republic of Germany . MICHAEL PYE University of Marburg Edmund Leach and D . Alan Aycock, Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth . Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp . vii + 132 . This book is a collection of seven essays on the Bible and early Christianity, and the method used is Leach's anglo-structuralism known from his earlier Genesis as Myth (1969) . The fourth paper is excellent . Anthropologist Leach proposes to study ancient (post-biblical) Christianity as `a millenarian movement in the literal sense of that term' . Although this is not a new project (see John G . Gager, Kingdom and Community : The Social World of Early Christianity, Prentice-Hall, 1975), the way in which Leach carries it out is illuminating and quite convincing . Millenarian
390
Reviews and Book Notes
Christianity is sectarian in nature, relies on inspired prophets, expects an imminent physical millennium here on earth, and favours an 'Arian' image of Christ-an image which allows any human prophet possessed by the Holy Spirit to be a kind of Christ himself. Post-millenarian Christianity, on the other hand, is characterized by a doctrine of Christi's sacrificial death on the cross, and a hierarchical priesthood that had to mediate between `this world' and an almighty trinitarian God . The central opposition is between the priestly sacrifice, representing man's institutionalized approach to God (icon of orthodoxy), and prophetic inspiration representing God's own initiative which disrupts the established order of things . Leach traces these two models through the Christological controversies, apocryphal Christian literature, patristic writings, and especially through iconographic representations of Melchisedech . In the second century A .D ., this figure was a man of the people, while by the sixth century he became a mythical priest-king in an imperial autocracy . Unfortunately, this best paper in the collection has the somewhat apocryphal title of 'Melchisedech and the Emperor' and is peripheral to the book's general focus on biblical structuralism . The other chapters include a survey of twentieth century anthropological approaches to the study of the Bible (with devastating critiques of Frazer and Julian Pitt-Rivers, and more nuanced ones of Mary Douglas) ; an analysis of female figures surrounding religious heroes such as Moses and Jesus ; and structuralist readings of selected Old and New Testament passages . Biblical specialists find few structuralist studies convincing, or even suggestive . They feel that Levi-Straussian models are reductionist, or that structuralists are unable to cope with the intricacies of established biblical criticism . Aycock's `The Fate of Lot's Wife : Structural Mediation in Biblical Mythology', however, ranks among those rare structuralist studies that are acceptable for the biblical guild . Relying on Levi-Strauss's celebrated `Story of Asdiwal', Aycock argues that Lot's wife, as a pillar of salt, is another example of an `immobilized mediating figure' . There is, then, at least one article that can be recommended to readers interested in biblical structuralism . For those who want to study Leach's most recent and most nuanced view of religion, the book is indispensable . BERNHARD LANG University of Mainz James R . Horne, The Moral Mystic (S . R . Supplements, 14) . Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1983, pp . x + 134 . $6 .50 . Most philosophers who discuss mysticism are concerned with the epistemological questions which it raises . Professor Horne, however, concentrates in this little book on its moral aspects, and goes on to consider more generally the relationship between religion and morality . After outlining some of the attacks made on mysticism on moral grounds by both religious and secular thinkers, Horne makes a number of distinctions, of which the most important are that between `pure' and `mixed' mysticism, and that between individual (or `proper name') and social morality . He argues that the pure mystic tends not to be concerned with social morality, whereas the mixed mystic (i .e . one from a religious tradition which encourages active thought and emotional involvement with doctrinal and moral questions) may well be concerned with it