Abstract
A discussion of Lewis's lecture giving a "description of the times," published in C. S. Lewis, They Asked for a Paper: Papers and Addresses (London, 1962). Excerpt: "The third and no doubt most salient point for our contemporary consideration is that the “christening of Europe,” deplored by some (like Gibbon, the “humanistic unbeliever”), seemed a unique, irreversible event. “But we have seen the opposite process,” Lewis writes. To be sure, “the un-christening of Europe in our time is not quite complete; neither was her christening in the Dark Ages,” but it proceeds apace. Consequently, while our “ancestors divided history into two periods, the pre-Christian and the Christian, and two only, for us it falls into three— the pre-Christian, the Christian, and what may reasonably be called the post- Christian. This surely must make a momentous difference.” In fact, “the second change is even more radical than the first. Christians and Pagans,” he notes, “had much more in common with each other than either has with a post-Christian.”"
Recommended Citation
Elshtain, Jean Bethge
(2009)
"De Desciptione Temporum: Revisiting C. S. Lewis' Inaugural Lecture,"
Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal: Vol. 3
:
Iss.
1
, Article 2.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55221/1940-5537.1025
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/cslewisjournal/vol3/iss1/2