A Hopeful Form of Humanism: Mazeppism Re-Visited

The image of Mazeppa strapped naked to a wild steed and sent hurtling through a dark wood--chased by wolves (no less)--is, like all great religious images, symbolic of human truths.

A similar image, found in Homer's Odyssey, depicts Odysseus "strapped to the mast/Back to the mast/Begging to be untied" while the Sirens attempt to seduce him and his oarsmen into running their ship aground.

I have long associated these images with one another and each of them also with a third: that of Christ on the cross. Whenever I see a crucifix, I never see Rabbi Jesus hung on a gibbet, but all of humanity stretched out upon the planks of injustice: the scaffolding of a civilization founded upon violence and inequality and maintained by force of law and brute coercion.

Nevertheless, I tend to be somewhat selective when it comes to crucifixes. Most seem to appeal to a Mel Gibson-like aesthetic which revels in sado-masochistic depictions of the Christ figure: those which emphasize a beaten "savior." Since I find the notion that God demands human blood sacrifice in exchange for forgiveness unworthy of a just Deity, I reject the doctrine of sacrificial atonement. That makes the image of a crucifix problematic for me. Occasionally, however, one finds a crucifix (like the one above left) in which Christ appears almost unconnected to the cross--it is as if crucifixion and resurrection are, in some mysterious sense, one and the same event. Some sects of Gnostic Christians and the Qur'an endorse similar views of the Christ victorious over those who would railroad him to his death by torture. That is a Christology of which I approve.

At the end of his long and painful ride, Mazeppa lives to struggle on behalf of the oppressed. Odysseus escapes the enchantments of the Sirens to be re-united with his family. And, despite all odds, humanity overcomes its civilizational self-crucixion.

Mazeppism is, in fact, a hopeful form of humanism.