Anyone know if the old gods protect anyone outside Europe?

December 5, 2007 4:49 PM

I came across a reference to the "Pillars of Hercules" and a notion that the old European pagan gods had never intended their followers to live beyond the Pillars of Hercules (so roughly, nowhere west of Spain, south of North Africa, and I am unclear on other boundaries). Does anyone know a source which expands on this notion?

I am more interested in the spiritual implication of living outside the pillars, as I got the impression the gods would not protect anyone outside this territory. I may have seen this in a political piece which referenced the Monroe Doctrine or Manifest Destiny. Anybody know where I could read about this idea or study it in depth?

posted by Deep Dish to Religion & Philosophy (4 answers total)

The Monroe doctrine had nothing to do with Europeans, other then to tell them to stay the hell out of the Americas after pretty all of the colonies rebelled during and after the Napoleonic wars. Manifest Destiny was not a document, it was a phrase used to describe a concept, that Americans (i.e. Europeans by decent) should go forth and make this land (the continental U.S. theirs, which is directly contrary to your assertion.
posted by BobbyDigital at 5:24 PM on December 5, 2007

Best answer: This site seems to think it was Phoenician propaganda, intended to keep trade rivals out of the Atlantic. (And the "Pillars of Hercules", as far as I've ever heard, are just the two points of land that mark the entrance to the Mediterranean - not a complete east/west/north/south bounding.)
posted by ormondsacker at 5:24 PM on December 5, 2007

Best answer: And here's some discussion on how Dante's Inferno turned the original idea of "Western end of the world, nothing left but Ocean" into a more abstract notion of "abandoning divine protection".
posted by ormondsacker at 5:50 PM on December 5, 2007

Response by poster: it was a phrase used to describe a concept, that Americans (i.e. Europeans by decent) should go forth and make this land (the continental U.S. theirs, which is directly contrary to your assertion.

The connection is not really apparent I guess, but I think ormondsacker's links helped me figure out what what the Monroe Doctrine/Manifest Destiny connection was. So I will explain here.

The political piece I am thinking of was written by an aboriginal (American) I assume, and he asserted that white European settlers crossed the pillars of Hercules to settle the Americas (in pursuit of a largely undocumented, but fairly visible concept we call Manifest Destiny), and in doing so violated a very ancient (pre-Christian) code of morality which their European ancestors acknowledged and followed for centuries.

So this particular aborginal scholar felt that the white settlers in the Americas had a regrettable state of relations with the Aborignal communities, they also violated an ancient moral code and the wishes of their ancestors.

Religious changes in Europe (the ancestors of the white Americans) complicate the morality question somewhat, but it was a very fresh and thoughtful piece.

I hope more good links appear in this thread. I wish I could find the article I am trying to figure out.
posted by Deep Dish at 8:46 PM on December 5, 2007