Athens and Jerusalem IV: Medieval Christian Wimps
by Thomas Fleming
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Like, for example, Charles Martel and his son Charlemagne, Otto the Great and Barbarossa, Henry II of England and his son Richard Coeur de Leon, or, going to the East, Belisarius and Heraclius, Leo the Great and Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, or the Christian Medieval rulers of Serbia—Stephan Dusan and Prince Lazar—and Hungary and Rumania—Janos Hunyadi and Vlad Drakul, whose enormities against the Muslims made his name a byword for vampirism.
If there were any merit in the case being made by the Anti-Christians who describe themselves as members of the so-called “Alternative-Right,” it would collapse on the historical reality of the Medieval Christian fighting men who combined the toughness of the Texas Rangers with the violence of Icelandic revengers and, in many cases, with the piety of the saints. Take the case of Fulke Nerra, the count of Anjou, whose atrocious violence in maintaining and extending his territory are matched only by a religious fervor that sent him more than once on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Medieval history is an endless catalogue of violence, in causes good and bad, which might be interpreted as a residuum of Germanic paganism. So, to test the hypothesis of Medieval Wimpery, let us look only at a few people who have been honored with the title of “saint”: Saint Henry, Saint Joan, and Saint Louis. The first is a German emperor, who enforced his claims throughout the Empire, especially in Burgundy, the second a peasant girl who led the French liberation war against the English, the third a French king who defended his crown’s authority in France and the faith on Crusade in the Middle East.
The Neopagans might make two retorts that these tough guys were only superficially Christian and that their courage is a legacy from their Germanic pagan ancestors. There are two fatal flaws in this line of “reasoning.” The first is the simple fact that it is all based on a single book, Russell’s dissertation on the Germanization of Christianity, a piece of sociological speculation they have wildly misconstrued (if, indeed, they have actually read the book). The second is the martial valor and military successes of warriors who had little, sometimes no Germanic blood.
Anyone who knows anything about early Medieval history can cite the examples of Pope Leo IV who defended Rome against the attacks of the Arabs. Some of his allies certainly had Frankish, Gothic, and Lombard blood, but the Roman Church was itself the last bastion of Romanitas in Italy. It is true that the Italian Joan of Arc, Countess Matilda, had Germanic blood, but the bulk of the Italians who made Pisa and Florence and, especially, Venice great powers were not predominantly Germanic but of Roman extraction.
And what can the Neopagans say about the undoubted glories of Byzantine soldier-emperors like the aforementioned Basil and Leo or such great heroes as Nicephoros Phokas and John Tzimisces and Alexios Komnenos. True, none of them was purely Greek or Roman: The Armenians, Isaurians, and Thracians contributed a great deal to the defense of the Eastern Empire, but whatever they were, these men were not Germans: Their identity came from their participation in the Christian Church and the Greek-speaking Empire.
I shall take up Russell’s arguments next, but at this point it is enough to say that no one who is not an historical illiterate could possibly put any stock in the Alternative/Neo-neopagan Right’s characterization of the Christian men and women of the Middle Ages.
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1 Comment by Theodore M. Van Oosbree on 17 November 2009:
Yes, the Medieval Christians were a formidable bunch but it’s deplorable so much Medieval Christian ferocity was directed against other Christians.
2 Comment by Allen Wilson on 17 November 2009:
Mr Van Oosbree is right, it was very deplorable, but of course that only underscores Dr Fleming’s point.
This article says it all succinctly. After all, any one who knows anything about Mediaeval history and about people who lived in that period would dismiss accusations of Christian effeminacy out of hand, as Dr Fleming has done here. It really is that simple. The accusation cannot be taken seriously.
As for ‘assertions that if you dont agree with Dr Fleming you are intellectually deficient’, well, the argument of the Alternatives is itself intellectually deficient, which reflects the mentality and knowledge level of those who make the argument.
I get sense that the ‘Alternatives’ are simply nihilists who reject their patrimony and therefore refuse to really study anything about it or it’s history. This their ignorance and blind assertions.
3 Comment by Allen Wilson on 17 November 2009:
Last sentence should read: ‘I get the sense that the ‘Alternatives’ are simply nihilists who reject their patrimony and therefore refuse to really study anything about it or it’s history. Thus their ignorance and blind assertions.’
I should add that when they do try to learn anything about history, they are most likely only looking for ‘evidence’ to support their a priori assumptions.
4 Comment by Chesterbelloc on 17 November 2009:
The “alternative right” has gotten pretty ridiculous lately. They don’t think Christianity can save the West, but they think pagan death metal and “The Game” (a technique developed by a guy with painted fingernails to bed trashy women) might. They seem to think that if they are witty and sneaky enough they can rise to the top of the postmodern societal heap. In reality, the only way to fix things is to fall back on the mighty traditions of Christendom, regroup, and confront the whole modern mess with a calm but steady pressure.
5 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 17 November 2009:
#5 – I was having trouble figuring out who was the target of this essay, as I have had the same trouble with some of the other essays in this series. So now I am guessing that it refers to a couple of the sillier writers on Taki’s site. Are these people significant enough to be called by such as impressive sounding term as “the alternative right”.
6 Comment by Bruce on 18 November 2009:
I don’t like the direction they’re going in and I don’t understand why their patron is allowing it. It’s laughable that vomit-rock performed by 30-something goth kids is going to rally us. They need to grow up.
But I haven’t seen them claim that Medieval Christians were wimps. Unfortunately, many (most?) modern Christians, whether Protestant or Catholic, are wimps.
7 Comment by Bruce on 18 November 2009:
I might also add that Sam gave a (this is from memory) generally positive review of Russell’s book at the Occidental Quarterly. I think it will be interesting to compare your review with his.
I say that not to put your words at odds with those of your deceased friend but only to point out that Sam provided an alternative view but wasn’t cut out of the same cloth as the young men you’re referring to above.
P.S. the Death Metal guy over there is nearly 40 years old and on his bio they emphasize what year he was born in as if to emphasize his youth as part of his credentials in a “let’s inject some youngblood” sort of way. It’s bizzare. Gen-Xr’s don’t want to grow up.
8 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 18 November 2009:
I wrote this piece in great haste, wanting only to make the basic point that the attack on Medieval Christianity, which goes back to Nietzsche and beyond, is fundamentally stupid. The arguments are being repeated by tiresome young men on the Internet and a guru perpetually in search of disciples. What is truly amusing is to see these aspiring anti-Semites sitting at the feet of a Jewish intellectual.
The boys calling themselves “the alternative right” are insignificant in themselves, but the movement they are latching onto is extremely important. Its elements include: the Neopaganism that reemerged in the Renaissance, the nationalism spawned by the French Revolution, the occultism of Madame Blavatsky and Aleister Crowley, the Nordicism of mystical Germans, and the millennialist aspirations that have launched so many mediocre young men into revolutionary communism and Marxism. It is a foul-smelling brew, but in a society that is losing its bearings, such improbable and illogical combinations begin to seem to make sense to unhappy members of the dispossessed majority.
I am going through Russell in spare time. Like most dissertation writers, he has taken on more than he can chew, but it is a serious book of some value. His primary interest, as evinced in the introduction and the first part of the book, is not the Germanization of Christianity per se but in putting forward a sociological interpretation of the interaction between a new religion and its alien converts. Sam Francis was a brilliant man, and he was somewhat interested in Germanic history. Unfortunately, he knew next to nothing about early Christianity except what he had picked up in dubious secondary sources. He firmly believed, for example, that it was the established academic position that Constantine’s conversion was a cynical ploy to attract support from the vast number of Christians within the Empire. This has not been a mainstream view for some time, but it fit Sam’s thesis.
Let us drop the subject of the young and not-so-young Alternatives and move on to the substance of the argument. It may be true that it is a waste of time even to talk about such people, but it is often necessary to clear away the rubbish before laying out the garden. After discussing Russell, I am going to move on to some aspects of Neopaganism.
9 Comment by Bruce on 18 November 2009:
Not just medieval Christians but almost all pre-20th century Christians were non-wimps. The early Christians were a persecuted minority but that isn’t the same as being a wimp.
It should be easy to refute their accusations of historic “wimpery.”
I guess the real issue (particuarly for non-believers and those with less than a mustard seed of faith) is whether or not this was a latent tendency within Christianity. I think 19 of 20 centuries strongly suggests “no” but when the devil is trying to tempt me with doubt he always whispers Chesterton’s famous quote in my ear:
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried”
10 Comment by F. Roger Devlin on 18 November 2009:
The legend of “Nietzsche’s syphilis” was refuted by Dr. Leonard Sax in “What was the cause of Nietzsche’s Dementia?,” Journal of Medical Biography 11 (Feb. 2003). Sax concluds that the most likely diagnosis ia “a meningioma (tumor) of the right optic nerve.” You would already know this if you read The Occidental Quarterly!
11 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 18 November 2009:
Nietzsche’s recent biographers, at least those I have read, have adhered to the traditional story. Counter-arguments do not constitute refutation, at least not among people with a drop of respect for scholarship. It goes without saying that I do not read the Occidental Quarterly. Whatever Nietzsche suffered from, he was quite mad in the end and, I would suggest, intellectually irresponsible in his first book. A very young Wilamowitz, who had known Nietzsche in school, did a devastating review in which he suggested the author should find a new profession. He did, as a poet-essayist of considerable genius. As a philosopher, though, he was nothing. Unlike Hegel, for example, Nietzsche had never made a serious study even of Greek philosophy. Like me, Nietzsche had concentrated on tragedy, but he so soon became trapped in his own egomania that he never went on to learn anything else. I suggest FRD learn better manners or better scholarship if he wishes to appear again on this site.
12 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 18 November 2009:
PS My late friend Curtis Cate published a biography in 2005. He was somewhat deficient in his understanding of FN’s philology and somewhat too enthusiastic about his philosophy, but it is over all a pretty thorough book. Curtis was bilingual in French and English and quite fluent in German, and he did his usual solid job as a biographer. He presents the medical records of FN’s institutionalization with, as I recall, a doctor’s note that attributes the traditional account to Nietzsche himself. I don’t know that I’ll have time to look up the matter, especially since it is rather off topic here.
13 Comment by Bruce 2 on 18 November 2009:
Minor nit, if Wikipedia is to be believed, Charlemagne is the *grandson” of Charles Martel, no the son.
B.
14 Comment by J.D. Salyer on 18 November 2009:
As a powerful and inspiring figure, Joan of Arc is particularly interesting — speaking of biographies. I have a copy of a book Mark Twain did on St. Joan which I’ve been meaning to read. From what I understand from dabbling, his approach to narrating her biography was… unusual.
Apparently, in spite of his bitter & decidedly unchivalric cynicism — or perhaps, in some odd way, because of it — Clemens had an intense admiration for her.
15 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 18 November 2009:
Thanks, Bruce 2, for correcting stupid slip. Charlemagne’s father was the misnamed Pepin/Pippin the Short, who established his family as kings of the Franks and crossed the Alps to save the papacy from the Lombards.
16 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 18 November 2009:
In looking up Sax’s arguments, I have to say he has raised a serious challenge to the traditional view. FN’s physicians did maintain that he suffered from Syphilis, and, though FN appears to have had a very limited sex life, he does appear to have frequented brothels, but the tight little story does appear to have been put together as an anti-Nazi piece of propaganda. It does not appear from what I have read that Sax has proved or can prove the cause of madness and death. That he was quite mad is beyond dispute. That he had been increasingly detached from reality for years is also clear. On one occasion he grew so envious of Wagner that he insisted on playing one of his own piano compositions. If I recall the story correctly, Cosima wrote in her diary that the “professor” should stick to philosophy. Actually, he should have stuck to philology.
17 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 18 November 2009:
There you go again, Tom, picking on the well-off. Some of today’s males are actually quite virile, they work out in sports clubs and can almost bench press their own weight.
And furthermore,a high percentage has also been well-educated at important universities.
18 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 18 November 2009:
I’d also like to point out that tolerance is neither a gift or a fruit of the Holy Spirit, yet Christians live their lives by its supposed virtue as they are told to do by socialist schools, crooked courts, wicked corporations and pernicious television.
Perhaps if today’s girly men, many of whom defer to their Womens’ Aglow wives on matters spiritual, set out to be offensive, then society might get back on track.
19 Comment by Red Phillips on 19 November 2009:
Greg, why would you think this is aimed at Marcus Epstein, who hasn’t written at Taki Mag in a long time and hasn’t really majored, as far as I know, on the issue at hand?
20 Comment by J.D. Salyer on 19 November 2009:
Part of the issue at hand is whether or not Christianity robbed pagans of their strength, tenacity, self-confidence, valor, etc.
Ergo Dr. Fleming’s critiques are not simply coming out of the blue.
I should have thought that would have been obvious.
21 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 19 November 2009:
I have no idea of who Tirell Traper is. Perhaps he might develop the courage to give a real name? No, I suppose not. If you wish to know more about him, feel free to write to him at titri@gamail.com.
Although I have been repeatedly accused by the Podhoretzes of being an anti-Semite, it is a foolish charge that can be rebutted by everything I have written both about Israel and about the Jews. To be a real anti-Semite, one must hold to A) a scientific theory of race and B) a conspiracy theory that blames the Jews for all that has gone wrong in our history. I have never done either. The reason I am so hated by anti-Semites is because I see us, the post-Christian WASPS and other gentiles as having destroyed our civilization. Outsiders naturally joined an intellectual movement that offered them opportunities for advancement, but they did not create it and they have not led it. There is no monolithic Jewish identity, and though every race and nation has its own peculiar set of common traits, one has to judge men one by one.
My object in writing these pieces is to 1) defend Christianity against the foolish and ill-informed attacks that continue to be made against it by uneducated would-be Nietzscheans, and 2) to explore the roots and character of Neopaganism.
Far from wishing to start a quarrel with Takimag, which is, after all, owned by a good friend, I did intend to point to the foolishness of younger neopagans who have taken to talking about the alternative right and “postpaleoconservatism.” I have discussed this problem both in private conversation and in emails with the editor of Takimag. He does not agree with me at all. As I have explained, I believe this stuff is not only poisonous to the souls and minds of those who imbibe it, but it also has the terrible effect of dividing whatever is left of the right. I have suggested that he undertake a serious study of paganism and neopaganism and as a scholar on the subject, I am happy to assist. The reason I do not give the names of the offending young writers–and Mr. Spencer is not one of them–is that they are not important in themselves but only as illustrations of what is going wrong with American youth.
Under the inspiration of my former colleague Paul Gottfried, these peripheral males have embraced anti-Christianity and in looking for a Germanic way out they have latched upon Wagnerian Nordicism as a religion surrogate that will restore American manhood, and yet, when one looks at the pictures they choose to post of themselves, they deliberately adopt poses that make the comic David Spade seem like a macho man. Why do they do this? One thinks inevitably of Ernst Röhm and his boys.
I should not have posted what I wrote in far too much haste, if only because I do not wish to offend my friends at Takimag. It was a mistake I would not have made had I not been traveling so much. I shall leave this conversation open for so long as it returns to the point at hand, but I am going to delete not only offensive messages but also this entire line of discussion.
22 Comment by Bruce on 19 November 2009:
Back to the issue I don’t think it’s possible for young men to recreate the pagan ethos. That was a very different world and those men lived HARD.
23 Comment by Bill Wilder on 19 November 2009:
I appreciate Dr. Fleming’s explanation for undertaking this discussion (and as he is a classicist, it is understandable he would be offended by historical illiteracy and misrepresentation), but do we really need to engage people who probably live in their mother’s basement?
The notion of neopaganism is laughable. No reasonable man should run after “gods who are not gods” as the Apostle Paul might have said (1 Cor 8:5).
These seem like very silly people. (“You’re a loony”, as Monty Python might have said.)
24 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 19 November 2009:
As I said in the beginning, the younger neopagans are not in themselves significant, though I have to say it pains me to see young men, in one or two cases young men of promise, throwing their lives away on what can only be regarded as a fad or a hobby, much as if a man were to sell his soul not for gold or women or power but for string art or a collection of Fantastic Four comic books.
That said, neopaganism is the most significant intellectual threat of the past 500 years. Starting in Renaissance Florence–Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, moving to England (John Dee, Francis Bacon, even Philip Sidney), and France (Descartes), Germany (the Rosicrucians, Nietzsche), it flowered in the French and Russian Revolutions. Although neopaganism usually flies under another flag–rationalism, Enlightenment, Romanticism, Marxism, homosexualism, environmentalism–the rebellion against Christianity and a preference for religious pluralism–of gods as much as of faiths–is the common thread. It is particularly pernicious when, as in the case of Nietzscheans and Evolans et al, it claims to be conservative or reactionary. It not only divides the ranks but seduces the young.
25 Comment by S.L. Toddard on 19 November 2009:
Neopaganism as it manifests itself in 21st century people concocting rites to worship Odin, much like the 19th century “druids” did for Celtic paganism, seems to me to be too ridiculous for words. Worshipping Odin? Now? It strikes me as the most ludicrous sort of affectation. I can’t imagine it possible to take any such person seriously. To be frank, I can’t imagine ever believing such a person to be *sincere*. I doubt that there is even one person alive who believes Odin to be an actual existent god.
26 Comment by Bruce on 19 November 2009:
Actually it’s much worse than fantastic four comics. They’re into death metal vomit rock videos with supposedly intelligent, volkish lyrics (which you can’t understand). These videos feature imagery which includes performers dressed-up and made-up like those nihilistic, imitate-a-corpse goth kids. At least Wagner had some tasteful and relevant imagery. This isn’t a good thing to rally our youth in the defense of our civilization whether or not you see our civilization as Christian.
The whole “alternative right” thing has struck me as them saying we’re going to be more open minded and exploratory. That doesn’t sound like the right to me.
27 Comment by Bruce on 19 November 2009:
“I doubt that there is even one person alive who believes Odin to be an actual existent god.”
I wonder how they propitiate him? The one-eyed wanderer required human blood. Blutwurst on the old backyard BBQ grill just won’t do.
28 Comment by S.L. Toddard on 19 November 2009:
Bruce – doesn’t it strike you as profoundly silly? Not just as a Christian, but as a plain human being with eyes and a brain? And I understand that in this discussion “neopagan” is being used to refer to more than the sort of phenomenon I’m talking about. I’d not known that this neopagan vs Christian debate was taking place (somehow I missed it over there, despite Takimag being – along with Chronicles, American Conservative and Front Porch – a daily read for me) so I went on to Taki to see how it’d played out, and there’s a piece where Mr. Spencer mentions a certain Dan Halloran, a neopagan elected to city office in NY. He is a devotee of “Asatru”, a quasi-recreation of the Germanic pagan tradition. There is a picture of him with his Asatru costume on, performing what I assume to be a rite of Asatru, staring into a bowl. It is comical. How can anyone take such a person seriously?
29 Comment by Thomas Flinn on 19 November 2009:
#27: “I wonder how they propitiate him? The one-eyed wanderer required human blood.”
Perhaps abortion would work.
30 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 19 November 2009:
I have discussed this problem with more than one professing Odinist. As one of them told me recently, when I asked whom and how he worshipped, “You have touched on a weakness.” Indeed. I think Richard Spencer must have been “funning” us. He cannot possibly take Dan Halloran seriously, though I fear his readers probably do. Believe me, Armin Mohler and Alain de Benoist would be entirely revolted by this degrading nonsense. At the John Randolph Club meeting, which Taki attended, Aaron Wolf made a few apposite remarks about Dan Halloran and his “conservative” admirers. Dr. James Patrick commented that in a degraded secular world, a healthy old-fashioned paganism would be an improvement. The trouble is, as CS Lewis wisely pointed out, it is simply not possible. Something happened once some 2000 years ago, and whether one believes in God, His Son, and the Nicene Creed or not, the world has been changed. In attempting to go back to paganism, the only god they will discover, at the end of their journey, is the god of lies.
31 Comment by S.L. Toddard on 19 November 2009:
“You have touched on a weakness”
Haha. “Our religion does have *one* chink in its armor: none of us believe it, at all.”
32 Comment by louise kristensen on 19 November 2009:
Dear Thomas Fleming
First of all this question I have for you is not regarding Athens and Jerusalem, however, I hope you can find time to answer one day. I could not find your email address on the net.
I would like to know if you know of any great thinkers who have dealt with the issue of the character of a nation and how it affects our culture/and the other way around how the culture affect the character of a nation.
Furthermore I would like to know what your opinion is on how we shall go about the western popular culture, and the way it affects us all. I’m thinking about that the responsibility of the media, the role models they provide, (Britney Spears, etc ) the products we consumer ( computer games where you learn to kill, Bratz dolls which are designed after the ideals in the porno industry).
It seems as if we have replaced the values of christianity with a new religion preaching sex, money and power. We can’t neglect that it affects us all especially our children as we cannot expect them to become more than what we inspire them to. What do you think the best and most responsible solution is. When christianity and its values is no longer the glue that ensures that the western culture maintains healthy, how do we replace it with a new constructive value – system? If there is no moral obligation to anything any more, then how can our society sustain?
Thank you very much.
33 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 19 November 2009:
These are very large questions, questions we try to take up in virtually every issue of our magazine Chronicles. You are completely correct in your horror and in your interpretation of the causes. I think the West began its long decline many centuries ago, as we turned our backs on Christ and on the traditions that made Europe and America what we were. The way back is to reeducate ourselves so that we can educate our families and friends and set an example to the world. There are no silver bullets that will kill this Dracula, only the Cross and the traditions we inherited, generation after generation. I know it will sound self-serving, but I dealt with the problem of moral obligation in my book The Morality of Everyday Life, where I tried to show that when liberal universalism replaced Christianity it ended up putting an intolerable burden on us to be equally responsible for all human beings and, more recently, all living things. Christianity, by contrast, asks us first to be sure we have fulfilled our our natural and local obligations, to our parents and children, to our friends and neighbors, to our village and parish, before we even begin to think about China or Afghanistan.
Many writers have explored the nexus between the character of a nation and the culture. In a political sense, the Machiavellians–Machiavelli, Pareto, and Mosca–did the most significant work, and they can be studied in the very useful book by James Burnham, The Machiavellians. This also a subject taken up indirectly by ancient Greek writers like the medical theorist Hippocrates and the historian Herodotus, who studied the culture of his own people as well as the cultures of the Persians and Egyptians. I would not begin this study by reading the universal historians, like Arnold Toynbee or William McNeill, but I would focus on a few nations, such as the Romans (read Livy) or the English–there is all of English literature. Let me give this some more thought. In the meantime, if I forget to write you directly, you may send me an email in care of the webmaster here, and I shall answer directly. I don’t publish my email, because I already receive 50-100 messages a day, most of which I do not want, and that is nothing compared to the junk spam that is filtered out. When you write, do tell me something of your particular interests, and I may be able to steer you toward some good books.
34 Comment by James Kabala on 19 November 2009:
“As one of them told me recently, when I asked whom and how he worshipped, ‘You have touched on a weakness.’”
I know this is a deadly serious matter, but that made me laugh the hardest I have in several days.
35 Comment by Marc on 19 November 2009:
This and the accompanying Part V contain some of the best, most thoughtful discussions I have seen on the Chronicles website, not only from Dr. Fleming but from most of the readers. I have nothing to add worth the typing, except perhaps to draw attention to some lively older discussions of our theme of the contrast between the fierce, manly, but pious medievals and our wan, languid moderns primping themselves on their pagan virtues while lisping “Thou hast conquered O pale Galilean!” in D.B. Wyndam Lewis’s works, especially his biographies of Villon and Gilles de Raiz.
(A note to Mr. Check: I see your point about using full names here, but I work for a firm that “is proud of its diversity policy,” I’ve already been reported to the chief once because of a true but un-PC comment made online, I like my job, and I don’t want to see some intemperate remark wind up as exhibit A at my depo in a hostile work environment suit. The searchability of the internet has changed some things for those of us with an unusual name.)
36 Comment by Allen Wilson on 19 November 2009:
As one who has been fascinated for years by the pagan legends of Egypt, Greece & Rome, and of the Northern and Eastern Europeans, and at the same time realising that within these traditions there can be found wisdom, nevertheless, it really is amusing that some people think they can revive long dead cults based on such legends. Once a religion is gone and the memories of the practices of that religion pass from human memory, that’s it. The religion is no more and cannot be resurrected. Anyone who thinks he can do so is simply deluded. They may as well start some brand new cult like certain 19th century American nut cases did. In a bizarre way, it would make more sense.
37 Comment by Bruce on 20 November 2009:
I agree with Marc’s last paragraph. It wouldn’t be a horrible thing if my full name got posted but most of us aren’t self-employed and obviously don’t work for a non-pc, right-wing think-tank. A prospective employer in the future could google an unusual name pretty easy. In my case there’s two in the world: me and my dad.
That said, just use your first name or initials. I hate the stupid pseudonyms.
38 Comment by Simon Newman on 20 November 2009:
There was of course already a strong martial strain in Roman Christianity well before the German reception of Christianity. It seems to me though that, given the absence of any martial tenor in Biblical or early Christianity, that this was likely due to incorporation of Mithraic elements into Christianity as it developed into the Roman State religion.
39 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 20 November 2009:
The influence of Mithraism on early Christianity is almost nill. Mithras was never a rival to Christ, because his cult was confined to the military. It was never the Roman state religion, though individual emperors had a personal devotion. A more popular elite god was Sol Invictus, promoted by soldier-emperors like Aurelian and Constantius Chlorus. Constantius’ son Constantine probably found it difficult to distinguish clearly between Sol Invictus “the one true god” and the God of the Christians, but even Sol had little impact on Christianity. What does happen is that Christ and his followers took for granted and absorbed the Greco-Roman world in which they lived. From the first, soldiers were converts: the soldiers that John told not to abuse the people, the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant, the centurion who invited Peter to dinner. The freaks were the extremists, e.g. Montanists who denied the Empire’s validity and civic responsibility. These points were made in parts one and two of this discussion.
40 Comment by Simon Newman on 20 November 2009:
“A more popular elite god was Sol Invictus” – which was a popularisation and westernisation of Mithras, from what I can tell.
I’ll go read the earlier sections now.
41 Comment by Ken Zaretzke on 20 November 2009:
#25. An extremely smart young ex-friend of mine, who used to wear a “Jesus loves me” bracelet in his early twenties and now is something of a confused Nietzschean, named his son “Odin.” Whether this is an indication of post-Christian neo-paganism, I do not know. (He is of Icelandic descent.)
42 Comment by M.A. Roberts on 20 November 2009:
Although Odin is a bit egregious, many European names can be traced back to pagan origins. ‘Oliver’, for example, which takes on a Christian element in the Song of Roland originally meant something along the lines of “leader of the elf army.”
43 Comment by Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. on 22 November 2009:
Thank you, Dr. Fleming. Long live Medieval Christian Wimps! We can use such men today.
Relevant to the discussion of names, it is a tangent, but a point of interest nonetheless, that many “pagan” names were baptized. The custom of naming one’s child with the name of a saint was of fairly late coinage in Christianity, and for evident reason, given the variety of cultures to which the Church spread.
As a result, we have a “Saint Mars,” a “Saint Bacchus,” a “Saint Lucifer (of Cagliari)” (an heresiarch who later came round). One could probably spend many quality hours romping through the Roman Martyrology or the Greek Synaxarium to find numerous other specimens.
The point is the same as Dr. Fleming’s. Something happened 2,000 years ago, and we even coopted their names. The Germano-Pagan name “Clovis,” for instance, was just as baptized as its most famous bearer. It is now a saint’s name: Louis, Aloysius, Ludwig, Luigi, etc. Many more otherwise respectable pagan Norse and German names underwent the same awful fate as Greek and Roman names.
It was John Calvin’s frigid heresy that mandated exclusively Old-Testament names (under penalty of law), thus divorcing his votaries from the rich patrimony of historical Christianity — that is, of the Medieval Christian Wimps and their ancestors.
44 Comment by Bruce on 23 November 2009:
Saint Alfred, Saint Sigfrid.
45 Comment by Allen Williamson on 23 November 2009:
As a practitioner of the Germanic Folk Faith I will agree with some of your criticisms of our earnest and evolving attempts to reconstruct our beliefs and practices. However, very few of us are the viking metal-heads that you caricature–we are soldiers, cops, doctors, and lawyers, like myself and Mr. Halloran.
Obviously you and I would disagree over religious beliefs and practices, but we are in complete agreement as to the abhorrent condition of our current society. Its decadence and nihilism are abominations to our ancestral legacy of moral uprightness, as noted by Tacitus when he first encountered our peoples.
We stand with you against the common enemies of Western Civilization (pardon the redundancy): hyper-individualism, forced egalitarianism, and the Leviathan State and its Socialist/Communist proponents.