Syncretism
Syncretism is the attempt at reconciling disparate, even opposed, beliefs and melding practices of various schools of thought. It is especially associated with the attempt to merge and analogize several originally "discrete" traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an underlying unity.Syncretism is also common in literature, music, the representational arts and other expressions of culture. (Compare the concept of eclecticism.)
The word Syncretism is formed on the same model as "concrete" (con + cretus the past participle of crescere, "to grow," giving "grown together") or "accretion" ( a + crescere) "grown towards [a nucleus]]." Plutarch apparently overlooked these analogies when he was writing his essay "Fraternal Love" in his Moralia. Reaching for a source, he found it in the example of the Cretans who were reconciliated in their differences and came together in alliance when faced with external dangers. "And that is their so-called "Syncretism.'" So the word was in circulation when Plutarch wrote in the late 1st century CE, though we have no other examples.
The concept of syncretism was also in circulation. In fact it was an essential feature of Greek and Roman paganism. Hellenistic culture in the age that followed Alexander the Great was itself syncretic, essentially a blend of Persian, Anatolian, Egyptian (and eventually Etruscan-Roman) elements within a Hellenic overall formula. Syncretic gods of the Hellenistic period found wide favor in Rome: Serapis, Isis, Mithras are syncretic deities. Cybele, as she was worshiped in Rome, was essentially a syncretic goddess. Pagan elements transformed in Christianity are also examples of syncretism. All scholars agree in principle, though any specific example is likely to be labeled "controversial."
The Romans, identifying themselves as common heirs to a very similar civilization, identified Greek deities with similar figures in the Etruscan-Roman tradition, though cult practices were not usually copied. (For details, see Roman/Greek/Etruscan equivalency in mythology.) The correspondences varied: Jupiter is perhaps a better match for Zeus than say the rural huntress Diana is for the feared and Artemis. Ares is not quite Mars. The Anatolian goddess Cybele was physically imported to Rome from her Anatolian cult center Pessinos in the original aniconic archaic stone idol; she was identified in Rome as Magna Mater and was given a matronly iconic image that had been developed in Hellenistic Pergamum.
The Egyptian god Amun developed as Hellenized Zeus Ammon after Alexander the Great went into the desert to seek out Amun's oracle at Siwa. The Greek god Dionysus was imported into Rome as Bacchus, and the Anatolian Sabazios was converted to a Roman Sabazius; given these precedent, the Romans of the Empire saw no hindrance to the worship of Isis or Mithras Likewise, when the Romans encountered Celts and Teutons, they mingled these Northern gods with their own, creating Apollo Sucellos (Apollo the Good Smiter) and Mars Thingsus (Mars of the war-assembly), among many others.
These identifications derive from the Hellenic habit of identifying gods of disparate mythologies with their own. When the proto-Greeks whose language would evolve into Greek first arrived in the Aegean and mainland Greece early in the 2nd millenium BCE, they found localized nymphs and divinities already connected with every important feature of the landscape: mountain, grove, cave and spring all had their locally-venerated deity. The countless epithets of the Olympian gods reflect this syncretic character. "Zeus Molossos" as worshiped only at Dodona is "the god identical to Zeus as worshipped by the Molossians at Dodona." Much apparently arbitrary and trivial mythic fabling is the result of later mythographers' attempts to explain these obscure epithets.
"Syncretism" slept soundly. Christian writers do not seem to have evoked the obscure old word to unite East and West during the Great Schism. It awoke with the rifts of the Protestant Reformation, with Desiderius Erasmus' readings of Plutarch. Erasmus used the term in his Adagia ("Adages"), published in the winter of 1517/18, to designate the coherence of dissenters in spite of their difference of theological opinions. In a letter to Melancthon, April 22, 1519, Erasmus specifically adduced the Cretans, an example of his adage "Concord is a mighty rampart." In 1615 David Pareus of Heidelberg urged Christians to a "pious syncretism" in opposing Antichrist, but few 17th century Protestants discussed the compromises that might effect a reconciliation with the Catholic Church: the Lutheran G. Calisen "Calixtus" (1586-1656) was ridiculed by Calovius (1612-1685) for his "syncretism."
The modern, rational non-pejorative connotations began with Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie articles, "Eclecticisme" and "SyncrÃÂétistes, HÃÂénotiques, ou Conciliateurs." Diderot portrayed syncretism as the concordance of eclectic sources.
Overt syncretism in folk belief is a sign of cultural acceptance of an alien or previous tradition, but the "other" cult may survive or infiltrate without authorized syncresis nevertheless. Some modern religious movements have embraced syncretism, while others— Islam provides a spectacular example— have rejected the practice as devaluing precious and genuine distinctions. Syncretism tends to blur local cultural distinctions, a factor that has recommended it to rulers of disparate populations. The rejection of syncretism, in the name of "purity" and "orthodoxy" helps generate and authorize a sense of cultural unity. The modern celebrations of Christmas and Halloween offer many details of official culture and syncretism in practice; leaders who oppose syncretism generally express their rejection of it in terms of piety.
Recently developed religious systems that exhibit marked syncretism include the New World religions CandomblÃÂé, Vodun, and Santeria, which analogize various Yoruba and other African gods to the Roman Catholic pantheon of saints. Some sects of CandomblÃÂé have incorporated also Native American gods, and Umbanda combined African deities with Kardecist spiritualism. The larger, major world religions also have exhibited degrees of syncretism. For example, pagan Yule traditions were adopted by Christianity into its Christmas celebrations, and Roman Catholicism in Central and South America integrates a number of elements derived from indigenous cultures in those areas.
Examples of strongly-syncretist Romantic and modern movements include mysticism, occultism, theosophy and the New Age movement, and in the arts the ecelectic aspects in postmodernism.
External link
(French); brief survey of "syncretism" in opening pages