synkrētismos
synkrētismos
Greek
“Syncretism began as a political metaphor from Crete — Greek synkrētismos meant the joining of Cretan factions, and Plutarch used it to describe old enemies uniting against a common threat, before it became the word for religious and cultural blending.”
The Greek word synkrētismos was built on syn (together) and Krētes (Cretans). Plutarch in his essay 'On Brotherly Love' (1st century CE) used synkrētismos as a metaphor: just as the Cretan city-states, which habitually quarreled among themselves, would unite against an external enemy, so brothers should unite against outsiders rather than fight each other. The Cretans' political practice of uniting under pressure gave its name to the principle of unity through strategic combination.
The term entered theological usage in the 17th century in a very different sense. Georg Calixtus, a German Lutheran theologian, promoted a movement to reconcile Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist Christianity in the early 17th century. His opponents called this syncretism — and meant it as a charge. To blend different religious traditions was to compromise the truth. Syncretism became a theological pejorative: the illegitimate mixing of incompatible beliefs.
Anthropology and religious studies rehabilitated syncretism as a descriptive term in the 20th century. Every religious tradition absorbs elements from the traditions it encounters: Christianity absorbed Roman, Greek, and Egyptian elements in its early centuries; Islam absorbed Persian, Greek, and Indian elements in its classical period; Vodou blended West African Yoruba religion with Caribbean Catholicism. Syncretism is not contamination — it is how living religions survive and grow.
Brazilian Candomblé, Caribbean Vodou, Mexican popular Catholicism, Japanese Shinto-Buddhist combinations, Sikhism's synthesis of Hindu and Islamic elements: all are syncretic in different ways. The charge of impurity directed at syncretic traditions usually comes from traditions that have already forgotten their own syncretic origins. Syncretism is the normal condition of religion in contact with other religions.
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Today
The accusation of syncretism has always been a way of saying: your tradition is impure because it contains ours. The 17th-century Lutheran theologians who attacked Calixtus for syncretism were implicitly claiming that Lutheranism was pure and complete, that it needed nothing from Catholicism or Calvinism. This was an illusion — Lutheran Christianity had already absorbed enormous amounts from the traditions it claimed to have superseded.
Purity of tradition is a story traditions tell about themselves. Every tradition that has survived long enough has changed, absorbed, and combined. The Cretan city-states that Plutarch described were quarrelsome but capable of unity under pressure. Syncretism — cultural combination under the pressure of encounter — is how traditions stay alive.
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