Editing Pan (god) (section)

=="The great god Pan is dead"<span class="anchor" id="The great god Pan is dead"></span>==
[[File:Vrubel pan.jpg|thumb|''Pan'', painted by [[Mikhail Vrubel]] in 1899.]]
In [[Pseudo-Plutarch]]'s ''[[Moralia|De defectu oraculorum]]'' ("The Obsolescence of Oracles"),<ref>''Moralia'', 5:17; Ogilvie, R. M. (1967). [[doi:10.2307/1086762|"The Date of the 'De Defectu Oraculorum'"]], ''Phoenix'', 21(2), 108–119.</ref> Pan is the only Greek god who actually dies. During the reign of [[Tiberius]] (AD 14–37), the news of Pan's death came to one Thamus, a sailor on his way to Italy by way of the Greek island of [[Paxi]]. A divine voice hailed him across the salt water, "Thamus, are you there? When you reach [[Pelodes|Palodes]],<ref>[http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/mailing_lists/CLA-L/2002/07/0398.php "Where or what was Palodes?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060916001729/http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/mailing_lists/CLA-L/2002/07/0398.php |date=16 September 2006 }}.</ref> take care to proclaim that the great god Pan is dead." Which Thamus did, and the news was greeted from shore with groans and laments.

[[Christian Apologetics|Christian apologists]], including [[Eusebius of Caesarea]], have long made much of Plutarch's story of the death of Pan. Due to the word "all" in Greek also being "pan," a pun was made that "all demons" had perished.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lane Fox |first=Robin |date=1988 |title= Pagans and Christians |location=London |publisher=Penguin Books |page=130 |isbn=0-14-009737-6}}</ref>

In [[Rabelais]]' ''[[Fourth Book of Pantagruel]]'' (sixteenth century), the Giant [[Pantagruel]], after recollecting the tale as told by Plutarch, opines that the announcement was actually about the death of [[Jesus Christ]], which did take place at about the same time (towards the end of [[Tiberius]]' reign), noting the aptness of the name: "for he may lawfully be said in the Greek tongue to be Pan, since he is our all. For all that we are, all that we live, all that we have, all that we hope, is him, by him, from him, and in him."<ref>François Rabelais, Fourth Book of Pantagruel (''Le Quart Livre''), Chap. 28 [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Book/Chapter_XXVIII].</ref> In this interpretation, Rabelais was following [[Guillaume Postel]] in his ''De orbis terrae concordia''.<ref>Guillaume Postel, ''De orbis terrae concordia'', Book 1, Chapter 7.</ref>

The nineteenth-century visionary [[Anne Catherine Emmerich]], in a twist echoed nowhere else, claims that the phrase "the Great Pan" was actually a demonic epithet for [[Jesus Christ]], and that "Thamus, or Tramus" was a watchman in the port of [[Nicaea]], who, at the time of the other spectacular events surrounding Christ's death, was then commissioned to spread this message, which was later garbled "in repetition."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Emmerich |first1=Anne Catherine |title=The Life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, volume IV |date=2006 |publisher=Saint Benedict Press |location=Charlotte, NC |isbn=9781905574131 |page=309 |url=https://tandfspi.org/ACE_vol_04/ACE_4_0301_out.html#ACE_4_p0309 |access-date=16 May 2021}}</ref>

In modern times, [[G. K. Chesterton]] has repeated and amplified the significance of the "death" of Pan, suggesting that with the "death" of Pan came the advent of theology. To this effect, Chesterton claimed, "It is said truly in a sense that Pan died because Christ was born. It is almost as true in another sense that men knew that Christ was born because Pan was already dead. A void was made by the vanishing world of the whole mythology of mankind, which would have asphyxiated like a vacuum if it had not been filled with theology."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chesterton |first1=G. K. |title=[[The Everlasting Man]] |date=1925 |at=Part I. On the Creature Called Man |chapter=Chapter VIII. The End of the World |chapter-url=https://ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/everlasting/everlasting.iv.viii.html |publisher=[[Hodder & Stoughton]] |via=[[Christian Classics Ethereal Library|CCEL]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |date=1986 |title=The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton II |location=San Francisco |publisher=Ignatius Press |pages=292 |isbn=978-0-89870-116-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |date=2004 |title=Orthodoxy |location=New York |publisher=Dover Publications, Inc. |pages=69 |isbn=978-0-486-43701-9}}</ref> It was interpreted with [[Polysemy|concurrent meanings]] [[Allegory in the Middle Ages|in all four modes of medieval ''exegesis'']]: literally as historical fact, and [[allegory|allegorically]] as the death of the ancient order at the coming of the new.{{Original research inline|date=July 2013}}

In more modern times, some have suggested a possible naturalistic explanation for the myth. For example, [[Robert Graves]] (''The Greek Myths'') reported a suggestion that had been made by Salomon Reinach<ref>Reinach, in ''Bulletin des correspondents helleniques'' '''31''' (1907:5–19), noted by Van Teslaar.</ref> and expanded by James S. Van Teslaar<ref>Van Teslaar, "The Death of Pan: a classical instance of verbal misinterpretation", ''The Psychoanalytic Review'' '''8''' (1921:180–83).</ref> that the sailors actually heard the excited shouts of the worshipers of [[Tammuz (deity)|Tammuz]], {{lang|grc|Θαμούς πανμέγας τέθνηκε}} ({{lang|grc-Latn|Thamoús panmégas téthnēke}}, "All-great Tammuz is dead!"), and misinterpreted them as a message directed to an Egyptian sailor named 'Thamus': "Great Pan is Dead!" Van Teslaar explains, "[i]n its true form the phrase would have probably carried no meaning to those on board who must have been unfamiliar with the worship of Tammuz which was a transplanted, and for those parts, therefore, an exotic custom."<ref>Van Teslaar 1921:180.</ref> Certainly, when [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] toured Greece about a century after Plutarch, he found Pan's shrines, sacred caves and sacred mountains still very much frequented. However, a naturalistic explanation might not be needed. For example, [[William Hansen (classicist)|William Hansen]]<ref>William Hansen (2002) "Ariadne's thread: A guide to international tales found in classical literature" Cornell University Press. pp.133–136</ref> has shown that the story is quite similar to a class of widely known tales known as ''Fairies Send a Message.''

The cry "The Great Pan is dead" has appealed to poets, such as [[John Milton]], in his ecstatic celebration of Christian peace, ''[[On the Morning of Christ's Nativity]]'' line 89,<ref>Kathleen M. Swaim, "'Mighty Pan': Tradition and an Image in Milton's Nativity 'Hymn'", ''Studies in Philology'' '''68'''.4 (October 1971:484–495).<!--"ecstatically celebrates Christian peace", p. 484-->.</ref> [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]],<ref>See Corinne Davies, "Two of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Pan poems and their after-life in Robert Browning's 'Pan and Luna'", ''Victorian Poetry'' '''44''',.4, (Winter 2006:561–569).</ref> and [[Louisa May Alcott]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Alcott |first=Louisa May |date=September 1863 |title=Thoreau's Flute |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1863/09/12-71/132121219.pdf |journal=The Atlantic Monthly |pages=280–281}}</ref>