A Short History of Myth Read online

  100 Gregory of Nyssa, ‘Not Three Gods’.

  101 Richard S. Westfall, ‘The Rise of Science and the Decline of Orthodox Christianity: A Study of Kepler, Descartes and Newton’ in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (eds), God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1986), 231.

  102 Gregory of Nazianzos, Oration, 29:6–10

  103 Blaise Pascal, Pensées (trans. A. J. Krasilsheimer, London, 1966), 209.

  104 R.C. Lovelace, ‘Puritan Spirituality: The Search for a Rightly Reformed Church’ in Louis Dupre and Don E. Saliers (eds), Christian Spirituality: Post Reformation and Modern (London and New York, 1989), 313–15.

  105 T. H. Huxley, Science and Christian Tradition (New York, 1896), 125.

  106 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (New York, 1974), 181.

  107 Thomas Mann, ‘The Making of The Magic Mountain’, in The Magic Mountain. (trans. H.I. Lowe Porter, London, 1999), 719-29.

  108 George Steiner, Real Presences: Is there anything in what we say? (London, 1989), 142–43.

  A SHORT HISTORY OF MYTH

  KAREN ARMSTRONG’S first book, the best-selling Through the Narrow Gate (1981), described her seven years as a nun in a Roman Catholic order. She has published numerous books, including A History of God, which has been translated into thirty languages, A History of Jerusalem and In the Beginning: A New Reading of Genesis. Her more recent works include Islam: A Short History and Buddha, which was an international best-seller. Since 1982 she has been a freelance writer and broadcaster. She lives in London.

  Myths are universal and timeless stories that reflect and shape our lives – they explore our desires, dour fears, our longings, and provide narratives that remind us what it means to be human. The Myths series brings together some of the world’s finest writers, each of whom has retold a myth in a contemporary and memorable way. Authors in the series include: Chinua Achebe, Margaret Atwood, Karen Armstrong, AS Byatt, David Grossman, Milton Hatoum, Natsuo Kirino, Alexander McCall Smith, Tomás Eloy Martínez, Victor Pelevin, Ali Smith, Donna Tartt, Su Tong, Dubravka Ugresic, Salley Vickers and Jeanette Winterson.

  Also by Karen Armstrong

  The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  Buddha (2001)

  Islam: A Short History (2000)

  The Battle for God (2000)

  A History of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (1996)

  In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis (1996)

  Visions of God: Four Medieval Mystics and Their Writings (1994)

  A History of God: The 4000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (1993)

  Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (1992)

  The English Mystics of the Fourteenth Century (ed.) (1991)

  Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact on Today’s World (1998)

  The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity’s Creation of the Sex War in the West (1986)

  Tongues of Fire: An Anthology of Religious and Poetic Experience (ed.) (1985)

  Beginning the World (1983)

  Through the Narrow Gate (1981)

  Credits

  Designed by Pentagram

  First published in Great Britain in 2005

  by Canongate Books Ltd,

  14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE

  This digital edition first published in 2008

  by Canongate Books Ltd

  Copyright © Karen Armstrong, 2005

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on

  request from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 84767 388 6

  www.meetatthegate.com