not needed it was not used, although the mythical character of the relevant literature meant that it occurred fairly frequently.10 We ought therefore to remember that modern attempts to connect theology with poetry and mythology are not an advance in understanding, but a retreat to a more primitive stage of culture, from which even Plato and his successors were struggling to be free. For a theologian to go back to it, even with the aid of the sophisticated jargon of modern anthropology, is an abdication