RE: For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus
February 24, 2013 at 5:12 pm
(This post was last modified: February 24, 2013 at 5:34 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
An amusing and more recent corollary to the John the Baptist bit can be found in Acallam na Senórach, where St. Patrick meets Caílte mac Rónáin and Oisín (members/warriors of Fianna - one of them the deer-son of a mythical warrior and leader regarded as immeasurably and mystically wise after eating a salmon that had eaten a nut and grandson of a legitimate god) and a sort of symbolic "passing of the torch" is performed between christianity and earlier beliefs to which these characters (and their narratives) are attached. This story comes to us from the 12th century (at the latest) though we know that other variants of it were told before this up to and including St. Patrick meeting pagan gods and same said pagan gods conceding that christ was king (then dispersing like mist).
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