The Dark Herald posted about trickster gods—think Loki and the like—in mythology. From “The Sons of Mercury – The Trickster Heroes”:
There is no pantheon without a trickster. No mythology without an agent of chaos in the court of gods.
The Trickster is not the enemy of the gods—for the most part. But he is the permanent thorn in their side. He’s the uninvited guest who rearranges the furniture and then somehow gets thanked for it. He follows you into a revolving door and somehow comes out in front of you and is holding your umbrella open for you just as the rain starts.
He belongs to the Realm of Chaos, and though he is often dressed as villain, when he is heroic, his virtues are Prudence and Justice. He’s terrible at Temperance and mostly indifferent to Fortitude. But sometimes that’s what the world needs more than anything else.
When the gods become too proud, too static, too certain in their authority, it is the Trickster who opposes them.
In real-life supernatural lore, even Yahweh likes a good deception. Consider what He approved of when a spirit on His divine council suggested when He asked what to do about the idolatrous King Ahab of the northern kingdom of Israel. Ahab wanted to retake the city of Ramoth Gilead alongside King Jehoshaphat of the southern kingdom of Judah. Jehoshaphat wanted Ahab to inquire of Yahweh, through an actual prophet, before going into battle, and Micaiah here is the only genuine prophet of Yahweh amongst all the prophets Ahab kept around (2 Kings 22, NIV):
19 Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. 20 And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?’
“One suggested this, and another that. 21 Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’
22 “‘By what means?’ the Lord asked.
“‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said.
“‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’
23 “So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you.”
There other examples of trickery like this in scripture—1 Corinthians 2:6-8 comes to mind, as a rather wide-ranging deception. Ahab’s prophets were mightily kissing Ahab’s butt the whole time, and he fell for it. Strategically, it feels off for Yahweh, through Micaiah, to reveal His hand if He really wanted to trick him. Why not just let the deception ride out to its conclusion, without Ahab the wiser? I think He did this as a display of power and as a last resort. Ahab could have recognized that Yahweh was in control the whole time, and he would have a chance to repent of his idol worship*. It’s also a demonstration for us, to show a bit about how He and His cohorts work in the supernatural domain.
* Idea for alternate history writers: what would have turned out differently had Ahab repented?
4 Comments
Pagan mythology does have a lot of deities who are morally not above humans. Because the trickster is a personality or character trait among humans, the pagan imagination asserts that such a person would be a separate entity in any pantheon. So far as I know, only in Scripture does God propose having an element of chaos to reset things built into His Creation. It doesn’t require a specific entity to head up the chaos department. We looked at that with Pageau’s book.
Agreed. I hope I wasn’t implying that the pagan trickster figure was an element in the divine council in what I wrote.
What Pageau book was that? Wanted to make sure it was on my list.
The book covered by Catacomb Resident last year, The Language of Creation. It’s time versus space; time includes chaos.
Got it! Thanks.