Mythical theology is one of three branches of theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 established by the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro was an ancient Roman scholar and writer. He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.-Biography:...

 (116-27 BC) in his lost work Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum. The other two are political theology

Political theology

Political theology or public theology is a branch of both political philosophy and practical theology that investigates the ways in which theological concepts or ways of thinking underlie political, social, economic and cultural discourses....

 (theologia civilis) and natural theology

Natural theology

Natural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, theology from a priori reasoning.Marcus Terentius Varro ...

 (theologia naturalis).

Mythical theology is practiced by poets, based on narratives (mythoi

Mythos (Aristotle)

Mythos is the term used by Aristotle in his Poetics for the plot of an Athenian tragedy. It is the first of the six elements of tragedy that he gives.- Variations on plot :...

) pertaining to divine matters.

The theologians of civil or political theology are the people, asking how the gods relate to daily life and the state (see imperial cult

Imperial cult (Ancient Rome)

The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State...

). The theologians of natural theology are the philosophers

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, inquiring into the nature of the gods.

"Mythical theology" should be distinguished from the theologia mystica of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, also known as Pseudo-Denys, was a Christian theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, the author of the Corpus Areopagiticum . The author is identified as "Dionysos" in the corpus, which later incorrectly came to be attributed to Dionysius...

.

Literature

• Shanks A., In Defence of “Mythical Theology”, Cultural Values, Volume 3, Number 2, April 1999, 244-249.
• W. Geerlings, Die "theologia mythica" des M. Terentius Varro (1990), ISBN 3-922031-88-9.