Comments on: Athens and Jerusalem IV: Medieval Christian Wimps

By: Allen Williamson

Allen Williamson — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:25:09 +0000

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.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:23:53 +0000

Saint Alfred, Saint Sigfrid.

By: Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M.

Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:44:36 +0000

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.

By: M.A. Roberts

M.A. Roberts — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:47:53 +0000

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."

By: Ken Zaretzke

Ken Zaretzke — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:39:07 +0000

#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.)

By: Simon Newman

Simon Newman — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:34:13 +0000

"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.

By: Thomas Fleming

Thomas Fleming — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:26:59 +0000

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.

By: Simon Newman

Simon Newman — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:11:41 +0000

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.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:59:08 +0000

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.

By: Allen Wilson

Allen Wilson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:11:48 +0000

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.