God and Civilization

I was at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in New York City on Sunday afternoon for a beautiful performance of Bach’s Cantata No. 139, written and first performed in 1724. It is all about the theme that if you make God your friend, you will be able to get through every danger and evil. The soprano recitative goes in part:

Ja, trag ich gleich den größten Feind in mir,
die schwere Last der Sünden,
mein Heiland läßt mich Ruhe finden.
Ich gebe Gott, was Gottes ist,
das Innerste der Seelen.

Yea, though I bear the greatest foe within me now ,
the heavy burden of sin,
my Savior lets me find peace.
I give to God, that which is God’s,
the innermost of my soul.

I was struck by the thought that, in the early eighth century, the time of the Carolingians, most of the people of Germany were rough barbarian tribesmen, requiring generations of unceasing struggle and evangelization by Charles Martel and his descendants Pippin and Charlemagne to bring them within the orbit of law and Christianity. Yet a thousand years later those barbarians’ descendents were singing, to Bach’s music, “I give to God, that which is God’s, / the innermost of my soul.”

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Bruce B. writes:

In the case of the continental Saxons I would say “struggle” more than “evangelization” as they were brutally forced to convert (many were slaughtered). The Saxons were a notoriously fierce tribe. They tortured and killed the two missionaries (Ewald the Fair, Ewald the Black) their converted, Britain-dwelling Saxon cousins sent. It’s fun to romanticize about Germanic barbarian bravery, but in reality, they were pretty loathesome in many ways.

Charlemagne finally succeeded in destroying the Saxon’s sacred tree, the Irmin-sul, helping to complete the conversion.

Charlton G. writes:

We should further remember that Charles Martel, Pippin and Charlemagne were all Germans, too. And they spoke German. The French language as we know it had not emerged at that time. Charlemagne was the prime mover in Christianizing the Saxons. He paused at the border of Denmark. A pity he did not continue northward. After his death and the resulting weakness in the Frankish kingdom, the Vikings, close cousins to the Saxons, renewed hostilities on a far greater scale. We know the results.

RB writes:

I was also struck, given the history of the last century, how a people that attained some of the world’s most sublime achievements in music, science, art and philosophy, could rapidly descend into a condition of loathsome barbarism that would have appalled even their savage ancestors. The veneer of civilization is very thin; a fact that our enemies in the dar-al-Islam are well poised to take advantage of.

“Snouk Hurgronje” writes:

Bruce B.: “In the case of the continental Saxons I would say “struggle” more than “evangelization” as they were brutally forced to convert (many were slaughtered). The Saxons were a notoriously fierce tribe. They tortured and killed the two missionaries (Ewald the Fair, Ewald the Black) their converted, Britain-dwelling Saxon cousins sent. It’s fun to romanticize about Germanic barbarian bravery, but in reality, they were pretty loathesome in many ways. Charlemagne finally succeeded in destroying the Saxon’s sacred tree, the Irmin-sul, helping to complete the conversion.”

Snouck: The missionaries working on the Conversion of the Saxons and Frisians such as Ewald the Fair and Ewald the Black and Bonifatius destroyed the Donarsoak and the Irminsul and other sacred objects. They also attacked the sacred sites of Foste (Or Forsyte) the German god of Laws and Justice on Ameland and similar attacks were carried out on Helgoland (then called Forsytesland). The temples and sacred objects of the Saxons, the Angles and the Friesians were destroyed.

These trees, temples and islands were important objects of the religion of my, our ancestors. They had an important function in the legal life of their nations and the orderly settling of public and private disputes. According to the laws of the Saxons and the Frisians as we know e.g from the Lex Frisionum, destroyers of temples and sacred sites was punishable by death.

The missionaries being headmen of the Saxons in England knew this, because they had been taught the same laws, being from the same culture and blood.

It is therefore not correct to speak of murder. Murder in the German idea of law had to be in secret and was without honour. The attack on Bonifatius [i.e. the English monk Boniface] , who is better known in my country than the Ewalds, was not done in the darkness of night, but at dawn the time of battle and combat. The attackers carried shiny weapons and shields. It was a lawful execution and carried out in a way that gave honour to the missionary.

I do not see what is loathsome about that. The missionaries brought the light of Christ to the Saxons and the Saxons were loyal to their laws and traditions. Something that we would be happy to see in todays descendants of Frisians and Saxons.

Frisian greetings,
Snouck

Bruce B. writes:

Snouk wrote: “I do not see what is loathsome about that.” My use of “loathsome” was partially Christian snobbery towards our pagan ancestors and partially the residual PC-liberalism in me. I’ve always been fascinated by the types of things Snouk writes about, but I’m afraid of coming across as a Nordicist or neo-Nazi (try researching Germanic-Norse mythology/history online and observe how many neo-Nazi types are attracted to it). So writing a strong word like “loathsome” puts a lot of distance between them and myself. Despite what some liberal “neo-pagan” types will tell you, Germanic-Norse mythology can be used to support Nazi ideas of racial supremacy. Tolkein himself, in a letter to his son, wrote about how the “ruddy little ignoramus” Hitler was rendering the spirit of the north “forever accursed.”

Some of the Germanic/Norse practices such as human sacrifice and ritual sex-orgy ceremonies are pretty loathsome from a Christian point of view. The best value we can derive from our pagan ancestors is fearless courage in the face of certain doom, the essence of the spirit of the north (even the gods are doomed). This value serves both Christian and pagan well. In fact, the Franks combined the Light of Christ and the “spirit of the north” pretty effectively. Look at the results. Our (historically) magnificent civilization.

First I insult Hindu pagans, now I insult my own pagan ancestors (I’m, paternally, of Northwestern German “Low Saxon” stock).

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 20, 2006 01:30 AM | Send