ABSTRACT

The term 'myth' has endured a confused perception in recent years. Anti-mythic views of this kind have at times been taken as axiomatic, as though the problem is over and done with, so that we can now get down to the serious business of an adequate, non-mythological study of the text and the religious beliefs to which it bears witness. The anti-mythicist may prefer an expression such as 'the religious imagination'. To author's mind, that is synonymous with the mythic mind. The theme is securely established in the Marian text A1968, concerning royal legitimacy, in which the mythic weapons of the god are ritually delivered into the hand of the king, so that he too may win victories over the forces of chaos. The most characteristic feature of the mythic mind may be said to be its concern with the past, above all with the sacred time which Eliade called lud tempus.