Athens and Jerusalem V: The Germanization of Christianity
Some Tedious but Necessary Preliminaries
The title of James C. Russell's The Germanization of Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation does not sound like the opening shot in a war against Christianity. However, ever since Sam Francis' apparently glowing review, conservative neopagans, atheists, and Nordicists have trumpeted the book as proof that whatever virility existed in Medieval Christianity comes from the German element.
I have not read Dr. Francis's review and do not intend to. This is a field in which he had so little knowledge that his opinion—so valuable in American politics and British history—is ideological and irrelevant, rather like my own opinions on Chinese philosophy or the political situation in India. In such cases, we are forced to fall back on preconceptions and paradigms that may be entirely off the point. (I sympathize, for example, with the Hindus because their religion is Indo-European and they have been persecuted by Muslims, but in any historical case I am hopelessly ill-equipped to assess claims of guilt or innocence.)
Before examining Russell's argument, we should try to have an overall understanding of his book. First, anyone looking, however briefly, at Germanization will realize that it is a revised version of a dissertation. This means, basically, that it has been written as a series of footnotes in search of a text. This does not mean that Russell has not made a a valuable contribution to Medieval studies, only that his work is technical, difficult, and a trap for non-scholars.
Second, like too many dissertation writers, he has bitten off more than he can chew. The subject of the German's "reception" of Christianity is too vast for a young scholar to tackle, especially when he has approached it from a broadly theoretical point of view that presumes to find overarching patterns in the development of all religions. At the very least, a writer should be well-grounded not just in the Germanic Middle Ages but also in classical antiquity and in early Christian history and theology before undertaking a study of the changes Christianity underwent in moving from the Mediterranean world to Northern Europe.
Germanization
I had hoped that Russell would nail his argument in the last chapter. Unfortunately, this chapter suffers from the same defects and limitations as its predecessors. In applying a “big theory” to secondary academic monographs and studies, without serious consideration of primary texts and sources, he is free to pick and choose what ideas or even quotations that fit his thesis. He spends a good deal of time on Gregory the Great’s approach to the Anglo-Saxon mission he sent out. Gregory, however, gives conflicting advice. To an AS ruler, he advises toughness in putting down the relics of paganism, while to his missionary he advises a slower and more accommodating approach. Inevitably, Russell relies on Markus’ life of Gregory and sees a significant evolution in Pope Gregory’s thinking, from asperity to accommodation. But Markus does not have to be right about everything, and he certainly is not. We simply have too little evidence on which to judge. Gregory, one needs to remember, had been a major diplomat, and it is quite natural for him to advise discretion to a missionary while instructing a ruler with power to crack down. Thus one cannot go on to construct an account according to which the Church in Germany learned to accept important elements of Germanic paganism.
This is only one instance of many that can be cited. JCR’s more general thesis is not without merit, though it would require a good deal of nuancing and a thorough-going comparative study of the Church in Southern Italy and in the Byzantine East. The general idea is that the world-denying individualistic and otherworldly Christianity ran headlong into a magical, king-revering, collectivist German mentality that it was forced to accept. But, as I have pointed out in this discussion, this world-denying business has been rather overstated. Remember Christ at the wedding and all the homely parables of everyday life, His sense of humor, and His acceptance of publicans and sinners. There has always been an other-wordly mysticism in some important Christians and a tendency to contemn the authorities of this world, but St. Paul tells us that obedience to the powers-that-be is required of Christians; St. Justin writes with great respect to the Antonines; the Apology of Aristides and the Epistle to Diognetus both emphasize how normal Christianity was and is.
The idea that Germans made their rulers semi-divine would not seem terribly strange either to Constantine or to 1000 years of Byzantine Emperors. Surely, these sacred majesties were not influenced by Germans. A similar point would have to be made about Christianity’s hostility toward German paganism’s sacred places. Exactly the same thing happened in the Greek and Slavic world, so whatever took place is not exclusively or even primarily Germanic. In the case of Northern Europe, where some sacred places were identified with human sacrifice, the missionaries were quite naturally suspicious.
What JCR does not seem to understand is Christianity’s complex relationship to this world. The veneration of relics goes to the beginning of our faith, to the woman who touched the hem of Christ’s garment, to Peter’s wrong-headed desire to build three tabernacles to commemorate the Transfiguration, to the pious Christians of Smyrna who gathered up the relics of their martyr Polycarp. Much like Plotinus, Christians are caught between two poles, between the recognition that God is greater than all his creations and the recognition that what God has created is good.
Stripped of its grand sociological theory and reinforced by a comparative study of Eastern Europe, JCR’s argument might be corrected to the point it could be accepted, but the what would it mean? That some harmless elements were Christened and adopted more or less permanently by Northern European Christians, just as Southern Europeans kept many Greco-Roman customs. That, at the other end of the scale, some bad medicine was also incorporated and this was only diminished after a long time—magical practices, fortune-telling, witch-craft, trial by ordeal. A similar story, again, can be told in the Balkans and in Italy. Finally, some customs and attitudes, neither good nor bad in themselves, perhaps, but risky were accepted into Christian practice and have to be looked at from time to time. At what point does the Germanic sense of courage and honor turn into a justification for murder and mayhem?
The best that I can say of The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity is that it has a pretty good bibliography from which JCR is able to provide a broad overview of what major scholars have said on this subject. In the end, the verdict must be the Scottish verdict of “not proven,” though in this case, I should add, “not even close.” Even the title puts the reader on a false track. It is not Christianity that might have suffered from Germanization but Christendom, the way of life of the Christian West. Even his title, then, illustrates what he himself has called a “subjectivist” and “relativistic” definition of Christianity.
Unfortunately, Russell relies far too much on secondary sources of unequal value, and where they are wrong or misleading, he can only aggravate their mistakes. Even important scholars like Nilsson and Guthrie had their fair share of foibles and made many mistakes that can only be corrected for by someone who knows the primary sources, and, when it comes to anti-Christian ideologues like Elaine Pagels, a scholar who knows the material would simply discard her entirely. To say that his bibliography and notes relating to early Christianity are deficient would be a reckless understatement. The entire chapter on the religion of the Roman Empire would not past muster in a decent seminar. So, starting off with the wrong base-line, it will be very difficult for Russell to understand what sort of religion was carried northward.
Third, one can fault him for a sociological approach that is largely borrowed from Robert Bellah. Now, Bellah did some good work on the rise and fall of Christianity in Japan, but his broad-brushed theories about types of religion and evolutionary patterns one can either accept, reject, or ignore. That is the trouble with all sociological theories: They cannot be proved and therefore cannot be made the basis, as Russell makes the approach of Bellah and other theoreticians, of evaluations of real-world events. Bellah, it should be said, is one of those reds who turned green, that is, he was a communist who turned communitarian. His approach seems to assume that religions are sociological phenomena, and while some of them might be more useful than others, there is no truth, either unique or common. A unique truth would be the Christian teaching of Christ's Incarnation, death, and resurrection, while a more generalized insight would be the belief in a dying god or the notion of an intermediate logos or intermediate divine power between god(s) and man. Naturally, Bellah and Russell would claim to be skeptical scholars, but true religious skepticism or agnosticism would require the thinker to "bracket" all questions of the divine and leave questions of God's existence unsettled. But that is exactly what they do not do, and in deciding in advance that religion is bunk (though they never put it quite that bluntly or that clearly), they take a party line that makes them anything but objective.
To conclude the preliminaries, Germanization is the work of a neophyte scholar, who has accepted, apparently without much reflection, a sociological methodology whose validity cannot be demonstrated and an anti-Christian perspective that makes anything like a comprehensive understanding impossible. At best, such a man would be capable of relaying borrowed truths, much as a celibate marital advisor can tell the couple what his Church teaches about sex without knowing much about the subject personally. But, in the example I have chosen, the priest may have many true and significant things to say about sex and marriage, and in Russell's case, when he gets down to historical business (as opposed to the posturings of sociology) he has a good deal to contribute, though his treatment needs to be stripped of his naive faith in modernism.
The Basic Thesis
In his third chapter, with the ghastly title "Sociohistorical Aspects of Religious Transformation," Russell develop's Bellah's argument with some modifications. Folk religions are either supplanted by universalist religions or transformed by a universalizing prophet (like Zoroaster or the Hebrew prophets). However, the process can be reversed: "It seems that the tendency of folk religions to be supplanted by universal religions occasionally may be reversed by the imposition of a folk-religious world-view which, in turn, reinterprets the universal religion in a folk-religious mode." This happens, he argues, when the religion expands--whether Buddhism into China and Japan or Christianity into Germany--"into areas where folk-religious attitudes are solidly entrenched." This is true, though hardly startling. Historians were well aware of these tendencies long before Bellah drew up his turgid sociological categories.
Russell's problem, just to anticipate a bit, is that he has no way of knowing what, exactly, can have been included in the early Christian approach to society, a subject he has only studied at second hand in the writings of liberals. As if he wished to demonstrate his incompetence, Russell invoke the Dead Sea scrolls (p.77), albeit with an academic caveat, to suggest that the Essenes influenced Christ in world-denying asceticism. But since he is wrong both about Christ and about the connection with the Scrolls, his grasping at straws indicates the weakness of his argument--and his knowledge. Similarly, his second-hand treatment of Gnosticism is both warped and irrelevant to this thesis. What is interesting is the frequency with which he cites Mankind Quarterly, a journal that has some merits but can rarely be trusted because of its tendentious biological reductionism, eugenics, and edgy racialism. I have no quarrel with its editors and their policies: Let them write what they will. But Russell does reveal some of the roots of his own ideology in his citations. That is certainly a plus, however, for his Neopagan fans.
I am going to skip chapter four "Psychosocial Aspects of Religious Transformation," not only because it is more boring even than chapter three, but because he bases his argument on the silly Wayne Meeks, whose attempts to go beyond liberals and conservatives and beyond the Jesus of history have given him a lucrative career at Yale. The same chapter cites Talcott Parsons, Eliade, a book about Moonies, another about Southern blacks--none of which subjects does Russell himself know anything about.
Chapter 4 also begins on a dangerous note. Since we don't have good sources on German "religiosity," we can fall back on Georges Dumézil's comparative studies of Indo-European religion. Hunh??! Dumézil is a brilliant man, but to take his conjectural reconstructions and read them into a real historical people is a little like an article I once read on an ode of Horace by one of my former professors. Reading through the ode, he tried to imagine what had been on Horace's mind, and, armed with that conjectural reconstruction, he proceeded to interpret the ode. I asked him if he did not think his thinking was a bit circular--to say nothing of putting the hermeneutic cart before the textual horse--and he took an instantaneous dislike to the student. This is simply not scholarship, not even bad scholarship.
In reviewing the sources for Germanic religion, he relies on Snorri Sturlson, the great Icelandic writer of sagas. Using a 13th century Icelandic writer as evidence for Germanic religion in the sixth century is a real act of legerdemain. A real Germanicist, armed with every text and comparative tool, might supplement his evidence from Snorri, but Russell is not a real Germanicist and he is out of his depth--as any young non-specialist would be.
Russell follows closely in the footsteps of Georges Dumézil, the trail-blazing Indo-Europeanist who tried to draw up a composite picture of IE society and religion and culture. Dumézil's work emphasizes the hierarchical nature of IE cultures, their structures of authority that are found in an ossified form in the Indian caste system. IE society, according to him, was based on a hierarchy of priests, warriors, and, at the bottom, the farmers and herdsmen who produce food. (I am grotesquely oversimplifying.) Inevitably he was accused of fascist/Nazi tendencies, especially by Arnaldo Momigliano, a Jewish-Italian classicist of considerable reputation, and by Bruce Lincon, a Russian scholar of conservative/moderate liberal tendency, who wrote for Chronicles on one or two occasions. What Lincoln could possibly have to say about a comparative philologist is beyond me. It is true that neopagans like Benoist and wackos like Foucault considered themselves his disciples. Russell's rather blind attachment to Dumezil is one more sign of his orientation. Now, again, I have no objection to his orientation, but it is important to note that he appears to be writing as an anti-Christian racialist, not out of a serenely skeptical indifference to ideology.
JCR quotes (112) Dumézil's summation of Icelandic/Germanic mythology as a starting point for his analysis: "the central motif of I-E ideology , the conception according to which the world and society can live only through the harmonious collaboration of the three stratified functions of sovereignty, force, and fecundity." Maybe so, but then, maybe not, and even if so, maybe irrelevant to the subject at hand, since the Christianity introduced into Northern Europe had been undergoing a transformation at the hands of IE peoples for 5 centuries. The use of a term like 'ideology" is itself deeply disturbing. Yes, I believe only means the collection of basic notions, but it is, nonetheless, a dangerous word that might imply there is some kind of IE world view implanted in our genes. This is not only bad science, but it is evidence of the sort of mysticism that afflicts German literature and all too much writing about IE cultures.
This themes of the alternation of religious sovereignty with martial force certainly occurs in diverse IE cultures, but it is not clear to me that it is absent from non-IE cultures. You see, in an experiment like this, one has to have controls. I certainly see something like this in Sumerian and Egyptian history. It has long been noted that there is an alternation in Livy between warrior kings like Romulus and Tullus Hostilius and peaceful religious kings like Numa. But there might be many explanations. Romulus and Numa might actually have existed and had these qualities. Or it might be a useful literary device, or the Romans might themselves have developed this tendency themselves. It is interesting that we find an alternation or contrast between soldier-emperors (Julius, Tiberius, Vespasian, Trajan) and the men of peace and religion: Augustus, Nerva, Hadrian. Is this a residue of IE mythology.
To cut this discussion of the chapter, let me just say that Russell repeats all the cliches about later Roman history--the family declines, patriotism is on the wane, German mercenaries are hired because of lack of solidarity, and while there is truth in the traditional analysis, it is true only insofar as it can be nuanced by reference to specific events and documents. Otherwise, it is pure rubbish. Much of the problems of the later Empire were caused by the increased barbarian threat that becomes apparent in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. To fight off all those bloody Germans and Iranians, the Romans did what they always did--hire foreign auxiliaries. In retrospect we can see they went too far, but a good many well-intentioned and hardworking rulers and commanders did their best down to the mid-fifth century. Majorian made a super attempt, but even in the reign of Theoderic we can witness a Roman elite class that does its duty and tries to salvage Romanitas. This project does not come to an end until after Justinian's reconquest and the subsequent Lombard invasions. For every eminent scholar Russell borrows from, there is an equally eminent scholar who would say either the opposite or offer a useful nuance.
It is not, I repeat NOT Christianity that changed the social life of the Empire's peoples but the facts of living in a vast, bureaucratic, multi-ethnic empire with diminishing financial resources. Pagans and Christians were no different, and if one studies the response made by Christian communities to invasions, we can find many instances of robust resistance. In conclusion to this part of the argument, whatever Russell may prove in his two historical chapters, the foundations he has laid in the theories of Bellah and Dumezil and in broad overviews of late Roman history are far too shaky to make any conclusive case on.
Chapter Six: "Germanization and Christianity: 376-678"
Up to this point I have been a bit hard on Dr. Russell, though if someone like me had been on his dissertation committee, he would have avoided many pitfalls. Someone should have sent it over to my old friend and former fellow-student Harry Evans in the Fordham classics department. But, enough cavils about ancient history and the flawed methodology of sociology! Let us turn to his historical treatment.
His general account of the Germans' reception of Christianity in this period is basically sound. Once he is on firm ground, his writing--and thinking--become clearer and more forceful. He accepts the views (probable but not provable) of Peter Heather and EP Thompson that the Goths were drawn to Arianism precisely because it was not the religion of the Empire. Unfortunately, he goes still further and seems to endorse the argument that Germanic leaders were generally opposed to Roman culture. Even the much-cited case of Theoderic the Ostrogoth, who did not want his people to adopt Roman customs, can have other explanations: He may not have wanted too much fraternization with possible enemies; he may have believed, as he said, that his warriors would grow weak if they turned Roman. Other Germans like Stilicho's father did not have any trouble in marrying a Roman or raising their children, whether in Italy or Constantinople, as good Romans. Besides, a GErman would not need to have a firm anti-Roman conviction to feel some reluctance about an alien people. The Franks, as Russell acknowledges, adopted a rather pro-Roman stance, which probably had something to do with the fact that Clovis adopted the Catholic religion. This in itself did not drive them into the arms of Rome, but Catholic Italians and Catholic Franks shared a similar enemies' list of Arian Germanic peoples.
The Frankish situation is complex, and JCR does his best to do justice to the complexity. Early Franks, though he does not make this clear, had been rather on the fringes of the Roman area of influence, and this may partly explain their sluggish progress in Romanization. The interaction between Franks and the Roman remnant in Gaul was a two-way street, and JCR adopts the view that Clovis, after baptism, began interfering in the hitherto Gallo-Roman Church, which he filled with his less-than-qualified stooges--a problem that plagued the Church in France down to Napoleon's day, at least.
He has a good deal of less than satisfying discussion of the supposed group identity of the Franks from a Weberian point of view, combined with speculation about the attraction of Germanic warriors for heroic Irish monks. This is the context in which he takes up the failure of Merovingian kings to do much in the way of religious education, but the Franks were, after all, a crude lot, a far cry from the Goths who had been civilizing themselves for a fair amount of time. He accepts the argument that the popularity of votive masses, in the Early Middle Ages, implies a radically different understanding of the mass as a good work, but he does not offer much more than the argument from authority, that is, some important scholars have said so. I simply don't know how Augustine or Ambrose or Gregory viewed the mass, and thus it seems difficult to draw such broad conclusions from such a dearth of evidence. That, indeed, is the major problem of even the best parts of his study: the lack of a firm foundation in actual documents. What is seriously lacking, in this chapter, is any treatment of Christian evolution in non-Germanic Christendom, particularly in Rome and Ravenna. Even if the changes he thinks were taking place did in fact take place, Germanization is only one possible explanation.
Nonetheless, this chapter was well worth reading, and JCR picks his way among the conflicting theories with a far surer foot than in earlier parts of his book. Does he nail his case in these early centuries? I don't think so. Everything changes, as Heraclitus observed long ago, but sometimes what we regard as dynamic change or progress is simply decay. We may learn to like the flavor of "aged" game and rotten cheese, but it is still rotten. It naturally took a long time to civilize the Germans. Carolingian and Capetian kings and aristocrats had a terrible problem with Christian monogamy. One interpretation might be that they were Germanizing Christianity, but it seems simpler to suppose that they had not yet got the hang of Christian marriage or even that they were not even trying. Our barbarian ancestors only made a stab at being civilized after the Church had been doing a job on them for five centuries. And, I suppose it is worth noting, that as soon as the Northern West began pulling away both from the Church and from the civilization(s) of the oikoumene, we started acting once again like beasts. I have noted many times before that the post-Christian Germans and Scandinavians are far more repulsive than post-Christian Italians, Greeks, and French.
Conclusion
I had hoped that Russell would cinch l his argument in the last chapter on Germanization post 678. Unfortunately, this chapter suffers from the same defects and limitations as its predecessors. In applying a “big theory” to secondary academic monographs and studies, without serious consideration of primary texts and sources, he is free to pick and choose what ideas or even quotations that fit his thesis but without ever really going deep enough into any event or situation to establish a solid basis for the argument. He spends, for example, a good deal of time on Gregory the Great’s approach to the Anglo-Saxon mission he sent out and its possible indications of a softening of Rome toward Germanic paganism. Gregory, however, gives conflicting advice. To an AS ruler, he advises toughness in putting down the relics of paganism, while to his missionary he advises a slower and more accommodating approach. Inevitably, Russell relies on R.A. Markus' Gregory the Great and His World, from which he derives evidence of a significant evolution in Pope Gregory’s thinking, from asperity to accommodation. But Russell pushes the argument well beyond anything Markus has suggested, and Markus, though a fine scholar, does not have to be right about everything, and he certainly is not. (I find him particularly weak, for example, on Gregory's moral theology.) We simply have too little evidence on which to judge this case. Gregory, one needs to remember, had been a major diplomat, and it is quite natural for him to advise discretion to a missionary while instructing a powerful converted ruler to crack down. To go from Gregory to Boniface is thus not entirely legitimate, especially given the spotty evidence, though Boniface certainly read Gregory's letters. It is simply a conjecture that Boniface, influenced by Gregory, decided to go easy on pagan practices. Thus one cannot go on to construct an account according to which the Church in Germany learned to accept important elements of Germanic paganism. It may well be true, but the historical case is shaky
This is only one instance of many that can be cited. JCR’s more general thesis is not without merit, though it would require a good deal of nuancing and a thorough-going comparative study of the Church in Southern Italy and in the Byzantine East. The general idea is that the world-denying individualistic and otherworldly Christianity ran headlong into a magical, king-revering, collectivist German mentality that it was forced to accept. But, as I have pointed out in this discussion, this world-denying business has been rather overstated. Remember Christ at the wedding and all the homely parables of everyday life, His sense of humor, and His acceptance of publicans and sinners. There has always been an other-wordly mysticism in some important Christians and a tendency to contemn the authorities of this world, but St. Paul tells us that obedience to the powers-that-be is required of Christians; St. Justin writes with great respect to the Antonines; the Apology of Aristides and the Epistle to Diognetus both emphasize how normal Christianity was and is.
The idea that Germans made their rulers semi-divine would not seem terribly strange either to Constantine or to 1000 years of Byzantine Emperors. The Hellenistic kings had been divine or semi-divine, and in the East Augustus was worshipped even in his lifetime. Later emperors were less modest than Augustus. Even Constantine, after accepting Christianity, actually enhanced and magnified the religious reverence due to the emperor. The word sacred, for example, was more or less used in bureaucratic circles as term to denote what belonged to the emperor. Surely, these sacred majesties were not influenced by Germans. A similar point would have to be made about Christianity’s hostility toward German paganism’s sacred places. Exactly the same thing happened in the Greek and Slavic world, so whatever took place is not exclusively or even primarily Germanic. In the case of Northern Europe, where some sacred places were identified with human sacrifice, the missionaries were quite naturally suspicious.
What JCR does not seem to understand is Christianity’s complex relationship to this world. It is both word-denyint and world-accepting from the beginning. In the ancient Church, a distinction gradually developed between the strict expectations of the clergy, especially monastic clergy, and the requirements for ordinary men and women. Celibacy and communism turned out to be impractical, and, indeed, neither is actually taught by Christ Himself. On the magical elements in Christianity, we should remember that Christ worked miracles and passed on this power to his apostles. The veneration of relics goes to the beginning of our faith, to the woman who touched the hem of Christ’s garment, to Peter’s wrong-headed desire to build three tabernacles to commemorate the Transfiguration, to the pious Christians of Smyrna who gathered up the relics of their martyr Polycarp. Much like Plotinus, Christians are caught between two poles, between the recognition that God is greater than all his creations and the recognition that what God has created is good.
Stripped of its grand sociological theory and reinforced by a comparative study of Eastern Europe, JCR’s argument might be corrected to the point it could be accepted, but the what would it mean? That some harmless elements in paganism were Christened and adopted more or less permanently by Northern European Christians, just as Southern Europeans kept many Greco-Roman customs. That, at the other end of the scale, some bad medicine was also incorporated and this was only diminished after a long time—magical practices, fortune-telling, witch-craft, trial by ordeal, polygamy. A similar story, again, can be told in the Balkans and in Italy. Finally, some customs and attitudes, neither good nor bad in themselves, perhaps, but risky were accepted into Christian practice and have to be looked at from time to time. At what point does the Germanic sense of courage and honor turn into a justification for murder and mayhem?
The best that I can say of The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity is that it has a pretty good bibliography from which JCR is able to provide a broad overview of what major (and not so major) scholars have said on this subject. In the end, the verdict must be the Scottish verdict of “not proven,” though in this case, I should add, “not even close.” Even the title puts the reader on a false track. It is not Christianity that might have suffered from Germanization but Christendom, the way of life of the Christian West. Even his title, then, illustrates what he himself has called a “subjectivist” and “relativistic” definition of Christianity.
In conclusion, Neopagans who trot out The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity as proof that whatever manly elements there are in Medieval Christianity derive from Germanization are, first, misapplying Russell's book, because that is not his argument, and two, even if they were correctly interpreting the book, Germanization is not one of those magisterial books that closes and argument.
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Dr. Fleming,
I think you're correct that Medieval Christians were not wimps. As part of this series you're writing, if you have time, I'd like to see you address the arguments of Philip Jenkins (Next Christendom, et al.). Jenkins believes that in the near future Christianity will largely be a non-Western phenomenon. In fact, in its orientation, Christianity may be anti-Western. (One already sees this in Africa, and Central and South America where congregations are purging occidental elements from their services, traditions, etc.) What will this mean for Western Christianity? Will Western Christianity be but a few small islands surrounded by seas of non-Western Christianity?
As a minor point, I've only read a few books on Hinduism, but it's always been my understanding that modern Hinduism, heavily influenced by the Dravidians, is only in part Indo-European. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza somewhat underscores this point when he characterizes the modern Indians, even in the north, as a distinct genetic cluster - quite different from Europeans and NE Asians.
Dr. Fleming,
What do you think of Christopher Dawson's and Henri Pirenne's treatments of the Christianization of the various Germanic groups?
Also, is there enough in common between Goths, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, continental Saxos and Scandinavians over a period of centuries for there to be something "Germanic" per se to affect Latin Christianity, a much more definite and well-organized thing?
One more point. At least as far as the European tradition is concerned, I like to see paganism and Christianity as complementary, not necessarily at odds. Both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, devout Christians who recreated modern pagan mythologies (Anglo-Germanic in the case of Tolkien), seemed to believe this. C.S. Lewis even once remarked that a return to paganism in the general surrounding culture would help to renew and return Christianity to its original apostolic zeal.
Dawson and Pirenne were both well-read and intelligent scholars, whose work is very much still worth reading. Some of Pirenne's bigger theses, e.g., the shrinkage of the economy in the Dark Age, have been seriously contested, but his descriptive accounts are very good. I have not read enough Dawson to make a sound judgment. Why? Because I try to begin at the bottom with primary sources and it will be a long time before I feel capable of making judgements about big-picture studies.
The second question, on the unity of the Germanic peoples, goes to the heart of why Russell is not entirely to be trusted. Each of these peoples had quite distinctive social and legal systems, and while it is entirely fair to talk about their commonalities, the differences can be equally important.
I think my friend Philip is trying too hard to be original. He may be right, but then, neither he nor I really know much about the quality--the whatness--of African Christianity. One or two missionaries and one Nigerian Christian have expressed grave doubts about the faith of people who still claim a right to have sex with minors, including their own children, and still take part in completely foul rituals. One missionary told me that whenever he remonstrated with the people of his parish, he was told to mind his own business: They had a right to maintain their traditions.
Cavilli-Sforza is a brilliant geneticist, but I would not take his word on Hinduism. As I remarked earlier, I make absolutely no claim. I once took a term of Sanskrit, but I have forgotten almost everything. Obviously, there has been a lot of interbreeding in India, but how much this has affected North Indian hinduism, I haven't a clue. Some day, some day, when I am in my 80's, perhaps I'l go into this.
PS I entirely agree with MAR in seeing pre-Christian European religions and mythologies as part of our tradition. While the Germanic pagans and Christianized Germans did not produce a literature that can be compared with the Greeks and Romans at their best, their poems and sagas are nothing to sneer at. Far from it. Tolkien's portrayal of the Rohirrim is a wonderful evocation of the Norse peoples he so admired. We are doing our next Summer School on Anglo-Saxon England, which will give us a chance to revisit these themes. In the meantime,my mind is set on the Greeks for our Winter School. We have a good number signed up and a number of students and impoverished scholars have applied for scholarships. It is not too late to join us in digging down to the Greek roots of Christendom. I'll try, tomorrow, to post some remarks about Russell's general thesis. To go back to Mr. Bass's query, the Visigoths and Burgundians came sooner to Christianity, but the early Franks and Lombards are pretty repulsive characters, even after they accepted Christianity. Russell has one way of viewing this, but it is also possible to lament that it took so long for the Franks to understand something so simple as monogamy. It is not a question of their paganism--Greeks and Romans, from the earliest times we know, were--unlike ancient Jews--monogamous, something neither the Merovingian nor the Carolingian Franks even attempted.
Christian civilization has never appeared save when European cultures and languages are mandarin.
That fact should remain front and center at all times. It is the reason, for example, that Jewish and Mohammedan Semitic wars, cultural for the former and both cultural and military for the latter, are against both white people for being white Europeans and orthodox Christian for being Christian.
We know that Christian missionaries got to China by the 2nd century AD, and Christianity clearly was preached in black Africa within two decades of the Resurrection. But only in lands where European languages an cultures ruled did Christianity establish itself and build a civilization. That includes the Middle East, where Greek was the language of scholarship and art, and Latin was the language of law, the two combining to determine that political and cultural leadership patterns, which would influence the masses, were European. When Semitic raiders defeated culturally European led Middle Eastern kingdoms and cities, the process of conversion to Islam was easy.
Ethiopia seems an exception, but its Christianity never created anything worthy of the name civilization, perhaps because it shared the nation with black Jews and, more equally, black pagans, perhaps because it has always been about half Gnostic. Ethiopia is the best case scenario for the non-white Christianity that Jenkins sees for the future, and that is a Christianity that anti-Christ Semites can make deals with.
In short, without Greek thought, Greek philosophy, there is no such thing as Christian theology. Without Latin logic and sense of order and pragmatism, abstract Greek thought is rather easily prone to fits of hippy-dippiness, such as we see in various Gnostic sects. The marriage of the two, Greek and Latin, is necessary for Christendom. Stripping them leaves a professed Christianity that will see endless pagan elements creeping in and taking over, in the name of restoring the pure, true church. Voodoo is a good example of where such non-European, usually anti-European, 'Christianity' leads; a Late Antiquity example is Manicheanism.
I am glad to see someone finally discussing the horrible implications of James C. Russell's book (I have had quite a few putative conservatives bash me for asserting its perniciousness), but I do think that Francis' views on related matters - say, English culture and his love of the savagely heretical Judaizing Anglo-Saxon Puritans - are relevant to his passionate promotion of The Germanization of Medieval Christianity.
Dr. Fleming,
Just speaking from personal experience: I'd have to say the average Chaldean Catholic, Egyptian Copt, or Nigerian Anglican I've met have a deeper commitment to education, faith, and family then I've seen exhibited by my own countrymen. They are respectful, pious, and I can have meaningful conversations with them for hours on end.
There's nothing quite like having your village raided by Muslims and growing up with a father whose arm was hacked off by Muslim raiders. And by the Grace of God, escaping it all and winding up in America.
It sure beats having a two minute conversation with some unkempt, lukewarm, American Christian youth, whose biggest concern seems to revolve around fixing his water logged Xbox console and attending a third-rate rock concert billed as "worship."
I'm with Jenkins on this. Perhaps the Chaldeans, Copts, and Nigerians need to come and teach us a thing or two about faith.
We can leave the neopaganism to the the ungrateful heirs of Western Civilization. My only fear is that for the recent Christians who have landed on these shores, their children will succumb to our depraved culture.
Thank you for taking the time to pen this series. Truly, it has been a blessing to read.
@7 Jeremiah
The last I heard, an African (Nigerian?)Anglican bishop was shepherding several flocks in the Old Dominion, and elsewhere in the New World. They are also sending missionaries to preach the gospel in London, and possibly Canterbury, where it needs to be heard. Monty Python could not have dreamt up a stranger scenario.
Mr. Gervaise,
That would be Archbishop Peter Akinola. Your absolutely correct, reality is oftentimes stranger than fiction.
#7 & 8:
Evelyn Waugh predicted this exact scenario via his peculiar fantasy short story "Out of Depth", circa ~ 1930.
Recently I started reading the book under discussion but put it down after its fifth chapter. It seemed interesting because it might have had something to say about the effect culture has on our faith, an important topic in my mind. Unfortunately Russell did nothing of the sort. Not that I could follow at least. Chapters 3 and 4 were as tedious as any reading I've ever done, scholastic conjecture that went on and on.
Russell irritates the Christian early with his insufficient description of a core belief of Christianity being simply the death of Christ. That's all. Nothing is written of the resurrection. Imagine describing the Titanic as a ship which hit an iceberg without mentioning it being the greatest ship of its time or that it and most of its passengers went to the bottom a few hours later. Either Russell is ignorant or dishonest about the ultimate distinction of our faith.
Still, the effect of a culture on Christianity is a question worth digging into. Take contemporary American culture, it's hard not to notice some effects on say, Pentecostalism, that have little relation to historical Christianity.
In my view - the only two religions/value-systems that can withstand the corrosive effects of modernity are Orthodox Christianity and yes- either Sunni or Shia Islam. The Roman Catholic Church has been gutted from within- and Protestantism is too splintered.
“The second question, on the unity of the Germanic peoples, goes to the heart of why Russell is not entirely to be trusted. Each of these peoples had quite distinctive social and legal systems, and while it is entirely fair to talk about their commonalities, the differences can be equally important.”
Dr Fleming,
I’m not very well read but it is interesting to note that the conversions of these peoples had some striking similarities despite the fact that they existed over such a large area and didn’t have decent lines-of-communication & literacy. In particular, I’m thinking of how the Christianity was presented to them in heroic warrior terms. E.g. the Heliand, the Anglo Saxon body of poetry, the conversion of Scandinavians, etc.
Arguably, fasting discipline was slackened.
Bruce mentioned Anglo Saxon poetry: it relied much on Olt Testament stories (Genesis, Exodux, Judith) but that was true in Provence as well.
Orthodox Christendom says a soldier who has killed in battle must do three years penance. Was it during Germanic reception that this was disused in the West? Still, some Germanic Kings did act like Boris and Gleb, I think of Sweden's King Saint Eric and England's King Saint Edmund (today's feast?) - but this has been slackened in the East too, as I have read Orthodox priests complain about.
On Nigerians, as I explained above, neither Jenkins nor I have sufficient experience in Nigeria to have an informed opinion. I assume also that Mr. Whitmoore would say the same. I have met and read of very fine African Christians, but two of them--leading Catholics in their country--told me rather grisly stories about Nigerian morals in general and about the tendency of Nigerian Christians to lapse into the old customs. These observations only strengthened what I had heard from missionaries. Under the circumstances, one cannot form an honest opinion. The whole Jenkins thesis is far too sociological for my taste. The problem is to lead a Christian life here and now and to hope for the conversion of the rest of the world. Drawing up scifi alternative history scenarios for the future strikes me as an enormous waste of an intelligent man's time. One of Jenkins' problems is that he is an incorrigible Anglican. Loyalty to the CofE in any of its forms is like loyalty to the Republican Party. Of course there are good people, of course there are fine traditions, but in this here and now--and in retrospect--these projects (to this former Anglican) seem a big waste of time. If the Anglo-American church can only be rescued by foreigners, what is the point? I wish my Anglican friends well and can still hear the lovely words of the Prayerbook echoing in my heads, but if they cannot help themselves they cannot be helped.
"The last I heard, an African (Nigerian?)Anglican bishop was shepherding several flocks in the Old Dominion, and elsewhere in the New World. They are also sending missionaries to preach the gospel in London, and possibly Canterbury, where it needs to be heard."
Excellent news! Perhaps they can help us make the West more like thier African paradise!
Also, I’d like to know your definition of Nordicist. I don’t mean textbook definition, I mean what you see in some people that warrants that term being used as a pejorative (if you intend it that way). My guess was that you’re referring to people that lie about or at least exaggerate the contributions of the Northern peoples to our civilization. This sort of Nordicism is not new.
I am very interested in the peoples that I am physically descended from. I’m fascinated by their cultures, histories, myths, etc. And I even love their lands as the most beautiful and their climates as the most hospitable (I hate hot weather). I don’t discount the enormous contributions of the Medditeranean civilizations and I don’t make stupid, provocative comments like “Africa begins just south of the Alps.” I guess what I’m getting at is that when I see you write “Nordicist” I wonder if I’m in that category. Aren’t we supposed to relate more to the people we physically descend from?
“Nordicist” conjures up the third reich in the popular imagination. There’s no such effect when someone uses the term “classicist.”
Obviously, Nordicist can simply mean someone who studies the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples either as a scholar or as a reader. In that sense, I am a Nordicist, though a very amateur one. I am using it, as it has been used by some racialist ideologues, to refer to people who overvalue the Nords and disparage everything Mediterranean. At the extreme end, they are the kind of people whom even Hitler derides for wearing boars tooth helmets etc. and dividing his movement into Northern (ex-Protestant) and Southern (ex-Catholic), when all the aspiring Fuhrer wanted was a unified Germany. Thanks for the query, because I have fallen into a bad habit of writing a bit too much in shorthand. Let us say that Tolkien was a Nordicist in the former sense, but not the latter. There is a distinction, though, that one can make between classicists who concentrate on the common inheritance of all Europe, East and West, and Nordicists who are more area specialists. Greeks and Italians, French and English and Germans, Serbs and Rumanians all derive much of their cultural tradition from classical antiquity. If we were at all hostile to the Nords, we would not be doing a summer school on Anglo-Saxons.
I have added this little bit to my critique of Russell's treatment of the ancient world: The entire chapter on the religion of the Roman Empire would not past muster in a decent seminar. So, starting off with the wrong base-line, it will be very difficult for Russell to understand what sort of religion was carried northward.
TJF: "Greeks and Italians, French and English and Germans, Serbs and Rumanians all derive much of their cultural tradition from classical antiquity. "
Good point. Even though there are some differences between the Germanic tribes, there similarities are remarkable. From the Völkerwanderung and these people resettling much of Western Europe to the present day, one can still see many similarities. Linguistically, all the Germanic languages are closely related (except English because of the Latin and French influence). I've known Swedes who could pick up nearly fluent German in around six months despite the fact that Swedish lost its inflections. Also interesting are the similarities between the Germanic tribes and the Celts. H.R. Ellis Davidson, in Myths and Symbols of Pagan Europe, demonstrates how closely related the Celtic and Germanic pagan religious are. (Unfortunately, the Celts did not have an Iceland to preserve their myths.) And on an even broader theme, one can see the similarities between the Celt-Germanic religions and the Greco-Roman religions (e.g. the Norns and the Fates). I know next to nothing about the Slavic pagan religions, but I've read there are many similarities here, too.
People refer to the Germanic religions as Nordic, but it's really an historic accident that Iceland/Scandinavia preserved these myths. Germanic paganism just as easily could have been preserved by the Lombards or Burgundians had things been different.
Speaking of Tolkien, I've always thought that his pagan creation story in the Silmarillion is more beautiful than the original Germanic one in the various surviving sources.
Regarding Peter Jackson's film adaptions of the Lord of the Rings, I thought he did a decent job. Although he changed the story in places to adapt it to film, he resisted much of the political correctness that New Line Cinema and others wanted to insert into the trilogy. Unfortunately, Guillermo del Toro Gómez, the director of the Hobbit films to come out starting in 2011, will, I bet, insert much political correctness into the films. (I hope I'm wrong.)
I don't recall his name but I once read an essay by an Italian Catholic scholar who maintained that Christianity had been more deeply absorbed in Northern Europe because the Southern Europeans had a highly sophisticated pagan culture in competition, whereas the North had not. Those Nordicists who take the ancient pagan religions seriously may be likened to adults who have decided to resume belief in the Tooth Fairy.
M.A. Roberts @ 20,
I've read that something like 80% of the 800 (numbers from my memory) most commonly used words in everyday language are directly descended from Anglo Saxon. I’ve also read somewhere that the Low German/Saxon languages can be picked up relatively easily by English speakers. The classical languages obviously expanded our vocabulary infinitely.
I’d also read the Davidson book you reference. It goes into Nordic-Celtic similarities in culture as well as religion. Some people such as the people of the “Nordwest” (present Lower Saxony and the Eastern Netherlands) are ambiguous (were they Celts or Germans?) I’ve read that it’s still ambiguous as to whether the Cimbri and Teutones were Germans or Celts.
From what I’ve read no one knows much about the religion of the ancient Slavs. Some authors think it is closer to the original Indo-European religion.
BTW I have seen your writebacks here for a while. Are you the same fellow that posts at Takimag once in a while?
Yes, that is I.
Perhaps a little cold water is in order. The percentage of Germanic words in everyday use depends upon the speaker. The lower the social class and education, basically, the higher the percentage of AS. Walter Scott noted so long ago that the swineherd raises pigs or swine (AS), which are served at the lord's table as pork (Norman French; cow is served as boeuf; sheep as mouton, etc. I wish it were not so, but it is. AS English today would be pidgin, though there is no reason to suppose that AS could not have evolved into a highly literate and sophisticated language. Even GErman suffered from a great deal of Latinization until Goethe and the Romantics purged the language, making it even less accessible to us who speak a language that is about 2/3 Latin-derived.
No, there is no dialect of German that can be picked up easily by English-speakers, including Frisian, which is the closest. I speak from bitter experience. Authors who think that the religion of the ancient Slavs is close to the original Indo-European religion know as little of the one as of the other. Hilda E. Davidson was a lovely grandmother and fine scholar, but her arguments--and she is not alone on this--rest on such shaky evidence that nothing can be built on them. I have only so much as glanced at her work, but, for example, any comparative analysis of symbols is based on a flawed methodology. As Levi-Strauss pointed out a knife is not always and simply a knife; it depends on the structure of the society. A swastika in ancient India has nothing to do with a swastika in Nazi Germany; a cross around a white gang-banger's neck means he identifies with whiteness; the bishop's pectoral cross something rather different. I'll get Davidson's book, which I have meant to make a study of.
The Celtic and Germanic peoples, if one can judge from the languages, are as aliens as Greeks and Romans or Romans and Persians. The fact that they lived near each other meant that they absorbed each other's cultures, but the stereotypes of the two groups are rather different, both in the ancient world and in their mythologies. Celts, especially in their Irish form, tend to be sex-obsessed drunken boasters with a talent for poetry and an incapacity for government. The Germans were and are rather different, but even in the case of Germans, we have so little firm evidence it is not always easy to make broad-brushed generalizations about their commonness. When we do not an cannot know something, it is best to move on. The last stuff I read on the Cimbri and Teutons is that they were a mixed group. I think the Celto-Germanic thesis resonates with the same people who have swallowed the ridiculous line that ancient Celts and Germans were as civilized as Greeks and Romans, only in a different way. Yes, one that included daub and wattle huts instead of stone buildings, human sacrifice, and illiteracy. I love my barbarian ancestors, but we need to be discriminating
We see a similar hybrid phenomenon when Germanic tribes and Iranian peoples work together or later, when Sarmatians and Slavs and Bulgars and Slavs join forces. The modern Bulgars are an interesting case in point. Slavicized, largely, in language and religion, they nonethless speak a kind of subgrammatical dialect in which prepositions replace case endings--much as in English. Southern Slavs find it hilarious. However, Serbs who live adjacent to Bulgarian, e.g., as in Nish suffer from the same tendency and, on Srdja Trifkovic's malicious advice, I asked a prospective assistant, "Vi ste iz Nish?" and aroused a fury. (Serbian has the genitive Nisha). The devil, as they say, is in the details, which is why I do not think it is a good idea to read big-picture books before looking at the little pictures.
Yes, the devil is in the details.... In ancient times, the Roman soldier often couldn't distinguish between the Celts and Germans. (I doubt he would have confused a German soldier with a Parthian soldier.) Caesar presents the Celts as being a little more civilized, but this probably is in part because many of the Celts were pro-Roman. He actually didn't seem to know much about the Celts or Germans. (He reports that German elks didn't have joints in their legs and slept leaning against trees!) I'm not saying the ancient Celts or Germans reached the level of civilization of the Romans, but they were certainly the successors to this civilization. Today, I suppose we Midwesterners are the true Celto-Germanics (I'm roughly 75% Celtic, 25% Germanic).
The Romans were not the best ethnographers. Unlike Herodotus they seem somewhat indifferent to the cultural peculiarities of the peoples they conquered. However, if one compares the idealized portrait of the Germans in Tacitus with the portrait of the Celts drawn by Livy, the stereotypes are different. To make matters very confused however, there were who Germanized and Germans who Celticized. The Celts had rather early contacts with the Greeks, e.g. the Ionian Phocaeans of Marseilles from whom they purchase wine, oil, and luxury items. Caesar's depictions of the tribes he knew comparatively well, e.g. the Aedui and the Sequani, make it appear that despite a certain instability in their politics, they were rather on the upper reaches of barbarism. Within a generation, most settled down as Roman subjects and even citizens, though there was resentment when even thoroughly Romanized Gauls entered the Senate. Iranian peoples have a distinct physical type, to say nothing of costumes, etc. On the other hand, could a Roman have distinguished a Hellenized Persian from a Greek? In some cases, certainly but in others? I am not sure that when a Roman of Caesar's day thought of the Greeks, he was not thinking of the cosmopolitan Hellenized mongrels of the Eastern Mediterranean.
It is hard to guess one's ethnic percentage. For example, a Catholic Irishman might think of himself as Celtic, but he may be half Germanic, with Norse and Norman ancestors, while someone from Northern England might boast of his AS ancestors, but not know how much Celtic blood was actually up there. You run into weird things,. In Dumbarton, for example, the Brythonic Celts maintained themselves for some time, meaning the people were more akin to the Welsh than to the people from Ireland called Scots who gave their name to Scotland. I would not wish to discourage this kind of speculative conversation, but I only want to draw attention to the danger of beginning with speculation and proceeding to real people.
Oh, I was only in part joking regarding the Celto-Germanic Midwesterner boast.
I just took Davidson's book off the shelf and am rereading parts of it. She seems to think that the main difference between the Celts and Germans was linguistic. She writes, " It seems that there was no fundamental difference between the two except that of language, and as Powell pointed out, the many resemblances between them in religious practices, social organization and vocabulary may have been derived from a common ancestral source. But in spite of this, and the fact that they were in contact with each other for considerable periods, the difference in language must reflect a distinct separation between the two sets of peoples." Some specific similarities she draws: Odin and Lug as battle gods, the Morrigan and the Valkyries and the female battle goddess tradition somewhat unique to the Celts and Germans, similarities in feasts, burial rites, and hundreds of other examples. But, as Levi-Strauss pointed out, a knife is not always a knife. Regardless, I find it an interesting read.
Back to the main discussion. I unfortunately have not read Russell (I put it on my list), but regarding the Germanization of Christianity, I just pulled down Gregory of Tours. Of special interest to me is II.30 - II.43, the part on King Clovis I (466 - 511 AD), Merovingian and Christian convert who popularized Christianity among the Franks. Regarding his conversion, one can certainly see the Germanic warrior king in his conversion prayer: "If you will give me victory over my enemies...then I will believe in you and I will be baptized in your name." At his baptism, the priest says, "Bow your head in meekness, Sicamber [of the Sicambri]. Worship what you have burnt, burn what you have been wont to worship."
Like many kings, he was first introduced to Christianity through his wife (Clotilda, a Burgundian). Probably most important, historically, was that Clovis converted to Roman Catholicism, as most of the other Germans at that time were particular to Arian Christianity, probably since it was closer to Germanic paganism. Clovis, as a Germanic warrior king, set out to crush these Arian kings - first Gundobad and Godigisel of Marseilles. "I find it hard to go on seeing Arians occupy a part of Gaul. With God's help, let us invade them. When we have beaten them, will will take over their territory," said Clovis to his ministers. He then marched on Poitiers, killed Alaric II (of the Goths), and then killed King Ragnachar (of the Cambrai) splitting his skull with a battle axe. At least in GT's telling of Clovis, one can certainly see the Germanization of Christianity. Granted, GT is not the most reliable source, but I suspect that he errors on the side of downplaying the warrior aspect of the Germanic-aristocratic converts, meaning that the Germanic-warrior-king ethos probably had an even greater influence. Unfortunately, GT doesn't go into detail about the Germanization of Christmas and Easter (I think Bede only mentions the pagan Eostre in passing), which is unfortunate because these still live with us today.
That said, I don't think that anyone is denying a certain amount Germanization of Christianity took place (just look at Easter and Christmas), but the question is to what degree? Dr. Fleming, do you think that Russell takes it too far? Or is it just his methodology with which you disagree?
It seems to me that Christianity, like natural law, has the power to manifest itself in various ways. In Europe, there is a certain Western Christianity that absorbed the traditions of the Greeks, Romans and Germans. But if Jenkins is correct, a whole new (non-Western) form of Christianity will soon manifest itself.
N.B. that it's becoming common for Third World Christian churches (e.g. the Pentecostals in China) not to worship Christmas (at least not on Dec. 25) because they see it as a European pagan holiday.
Matt Roberts at 30:
There are certain strains within Protestantism that have long disdained Christmas as "pagan." The Puritans did that, in England and here, and some types of evangelicals still do. Fortunately, that strain is a small minority.
I am going out onto thinning ice here, bit it was my understanding that the Celtic languages were closer to Latin and Tocharian than to Germanic, and that any similarities between Celtic and Germanic were likely from cross-cultural influences. Indeed, I suspect that the ancestors of the Italic peoples had vacated the Rhine valley when they entered Italy, and that this accounts for similarities between Latin and Celtic.
Perhaps the most uncertain issue revolves around the similarities between Germanic and Celtic artistic styles in metalworking. They look rather similar, and this may lead some to conclude that this is because of cultural contact. However, very early pre-Hellenised Thracian metalworking also has a similar style, leading me to wonder if the similarities were inherited from earlier ancestors.
As for differences between Celts and Germans, they seem to be greater than those between Celts and early Tocharians, who actually wore clothing similar to those of the Celts.
Of course any people who adopt Christianity will adapt it to some degree, and I think the church allowed this as long as it didn't compromise Christian doctrine. That's why the rejection of Christmas is ridiculous. It's just bible-thumping city-on-a-hill utopianism.
Oh, I know that certain sects (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses) have not celebrated Christmas on the grounds that it's "pagan," but it's my understanding this is becoming more widespread in the Third World as part of the general trend of shedding European baggage (not only is it "pagan" but "European paganism").
Allen Wilson's ice is only slightly thinner than mine, which is all that is left over from a course on comparative Indo-European philology with the great George Sherman Lane--a course that taught me the inestimable superiority of philologists over linguists. At any rate, the conventional view back then was that Celtic and Italic had sufficiently similar traits, e.g. formation of future/subjunctive, that they could be grouped in a family. Lane was an expert in Gothic and Icelandic but he studied Tokharian seriously. Although I have a grammar, in German, I know very little about Tokharian, It is an odd IE language, a centum island in the satem sea of the East, that is, its word for hundred, kant, begins with a palatal consonant (Latin centum, English hundred) as opposed to Sanskrit Satam, Serbo-Croat sto). So far as I know, it is no more related to Celtic than to other centum IE languages.
What I find incredible in the Celto-Germanic hypothesis of common culture is precisely the great gap between the languages. There is no more fundamental cultural given than language, and while an African may pick up English language and cultural traditions, his native tradition can only be understood in terms of his language. There are two explanations for whatever parallels exist between Germanic and Celtic cultural traditions: First, the resemblances are common features of primitive IE cultures, and, Second, cultural contamination of the type that happens on frontiers: Even 100% Anglos in San Antonio and El Paso speak some Spanish and eat some kind of Mexican food on a regular basis.
I have begun adding material to the basic review of Russell--I don't really recommend buying the book, but if it is a convenient library, you might have a look at the last chapters--and as soon as I finish off a section, I'll post it as a comment.
The Basic Thesis
In his third chapter, with the ghastly title "Sociohistorical Aspects of Religious Transformation," Russell develop's Bellah's argument with some modifications. Folk religions are either supplanted by universalist religions or transformed by a universalizing prophet (like Zoroaster or the Hebrew prophets). However, the process can be reversed: "It seems that the tendency of folk religions to be supplanted by universal religions occasionally may be reversed by the imposition of a folk-religious world-view which, in turn, reinterprets the universal religion in a folk-religious mode." This happens, he argues, when the religion expands--whether Buddhism into China and Japan or Christianity into Germany--"into areas where folk-religious attitudes are solidly entrenched." This is true, though hardly startling. Historians were well aware of these tendencies long before Bellah drew up his turgid sociological categories.
Russell's problem, just to anticipate a bit, is that he has no way of knowing what, exactly, can have been included in the early Christian approach to society, a subject he has only studied at second hand in the writings of liberals. As if he wished to demonstrate his incompetence, Russell invoke the Dead Sea scrolls (p.77), albeit with an academic caveat, to suggest that the Essenes influenced Christ in world-denying asceticism. But since he is wrong both about Christ and about the connection with the Scrolls, his grasping at straws indicates the weakness of his argument--and his knowledge. Similarly, his second-hand treatment of Gnosticism is both warped and irrelevant to this thesis. What is interesting is the frequency with which he cites Mankind Quarterly, a journal that has some merits but can rarely be trusted because of its tendentious biological reductionism, eugenics, and edgy racialism. I have no quarrel with its editors and their policies: Let them write what they will. But Russell does reveal some of the roots of his own ideology in his citations. That is certainly a plus, however, for his Neopagan fans.
I am going to skip chapter four "Psychosocial Aspects of Religious Transformation," not only because it is more boring even than chapter three, but because he bases his argument on the silly Wayne Meeks, whose attempts to go beyond liberals and conservatives and beyond the Jesus of history have given him a lucrative career at Yale. The same chapter cites Talcott Parsons, Eliade, a book about Moonies, another about Southern blacks--none of which subjects does Russell himself know anything about.
Chapter 4 also begins on a dangerous note. Since we don't have good sources on German "religiosity," we can fall back on Georges Dumézil's comparative studies of Indo-European religion. Hunh??! Dumézil is a brilliant man, but to take his conjectural reconstructions and read them into a real historical people is a little like an article I once read on an ode of Horace by one of my former professors. Reading through the ode, he tried to imagine what had been on Horace's mind, and, armed with that conjectural reconstruction, he proceeded to interpret the ode. I asked him if he did not think his thinking was a bit circular--to say nothing of putting the hermeneutic cart before the textual horse--and he took an instantaneous dislike to the student. This is simply not scholarship, not even bad scholarship.
In reviewing the sources for Germanic religion, he relies on Snorri Sturlson, the great Icelandic writer of sagas. Using a 13th century Icelandic writer as evidence for Germanic religion in the sixth century is a real act of legerdemain. A real Germanicist, armed with every text and comparative tool, might supplement his evidence from Snorri, but Russell is not a real Germanicist and he is out of his depth--as any young non-specialist would be.
Russell follows closely in the footsteps of Georges Dumézil, the trail-blazing Indo-Europeanist who tried to draw up a composite picture of IE society and religion and culture. Dumézil's work emphasizes the hierarchical nature of IE cultures, their structures of authority that are found in an ossified form in the Indian caste system. IE society, according to him, was based on a hierarchy of priests, warriors, and, at the bottom, the farmers and herdsmen who produce food. (I am grotesquely oversimplifying.) Inevitably he was accused of fascist/Nazi tendencies, especially by Arnaldo Momigliano, a Jewish-Italian classicist of considerable reputation, and by Bruce Lincon, a Russian scholar of conservative/moderate liberal tendency, who wrote for Chronicles on one or two occasions. What Lincoln could possibly have to say about a comparative philologist is beyond me. It is true that neopagans like Benoist and wackos like Foucault considered themselves his disciples. Russell's rather blind attachment to Dumezil is one more sign of his orientation. Now, again, I have no objection to his orientation, but it is important to note that he appears to be writing as an anti-Christian racialist, not out of a serenely skeptical indifference to ideology.
JCR quotes (112) Dumézil's summation of Icelandic/Germanic mythology as a starting point for his analysis: "the central motif of I-E ideology , the conception according to which the world and society can live only through the harmonious collaboration of the three stratified functions of sovereignty, force, and fecundity." Maybe so, but then, maybe not, and even if so, maybe irrelevant to the subject at hand, since the Christianity introduced into Northern Europe had been undergoing a transformation at the hands of IE peoples for 5 centuries. This themes of the alternation of religious sovereignty with martial force certainly occurs in diverse IE cultures, but it is not clear to me that it is absent from non-IE cultures. You see, in an experiment like this, one has to have controls. I certainly see something like this in Sumerian and Egyptian history. It has long been noted that there is an alternation in Livy between warrior kings like Romulus and Tullus Hostilius and peaceful religious kings like Numa. But there might be many explanations. Romulus and Numa might actually have existed and had these qualities. Or it might be a useful literary device, or the Romans might themselves have developed this tendency themselves. It is interesting that we find an alternation or contrast between soldier-emperors (Julius, Tiberius, Vespasian, Trajan) and the men of peace and religion: Augustus, Nerva, Hadrian. Is this a residue of IE mythology.
To cut this discussion of the chapter, let me just say that Russell repeats all the cliches about later Roman history--the family declines, patriotism is on the wane, German mercenaries are hired because of lack of solidarity, and while there is truth in the traditional analysis, it is true only insofar as it can be nuanced by reference to specific events and documents. Otherwise, it is pure rubbish. Much of the problems of the later Empire were caused by the increased barbarian threat that becomes apparent in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. To fight off all those bloody Germans and Iranians, the Romans did what they always did--hire foreign auxiliaries. In retrospect we can see they went too far, but a good many well-intentioned and hardworking rulers and commanders did their best down to the mid-fifth century. Majorian made a super attempt, but even in the reign of Theoderic we can witness a Roman elite class that does its duty and tries to salvage Romanitas. This project does not come to an end until after Justinian's reconquest and the subsequent Lombard invasions. For every eminent scholar Russell borrows from, there is an equally eminent scholar who would say either the opposite or offer a useful nuance.
It is not, I repeat NOT Christianity that changed the social life of the Empire's peoples but the facts of living in a vast, bureaucratic, multi-ethnic empire with diminishing financial resources. Pagans and Christians were no different, and if one studies the response made by Christian communities to invasions, we can find many instances of robust resistance. In conclusion to this part of the argument, whatever Russell may prove in his two historical chapters, the foundations he has laid in the theories of Bellah and Dumezil and in broad overviews of late Roman history are far too shaky to make any conclusive case on.
"Both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, devout Christians who recreated modern pagan mythologies (Anglo-Germanic in the case of Tolkien), seemed to believe this."
What an ignorant statement. They both were members of the Order of the Golden Dawn, not real followers of Christ.
The use of the word "ignorant" is interesting coming from the computer of an obvious ignoramus. First off, there were foolish or misguided Christians who joined the Order of the Golden Dawn, just as most American freemasons regarded themselves as Christians. Second, though Charles William joined the Order, I was not aware that Lewis and Tolkien had joined and no one in his right mind would take the unsupported statement of a fool as proof, particularly a fool who thinks he can date the birth of Christ and knows absolutely nothing about either Roman history or the Church. Must be a brain-dead Pentecostal. I shall mark his post as spam and it will disappear.
In response to "Tarkin" in comment #36, I refer the Chronicles reader to an excellent article on the subject;
Hermetic Imagination:The Effect of the Golden Dawn on Fantasy Literature, by Charles A. Coulombe. Mr. Coulombe informs us that Charles Williams did join the Golden Dawn in 1917, and "was active for at least five years thereafter." Regarding C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, Coulombe says, "One may legitimately wonder what influence the Golden Dawn had on Lewis and Tolkien via Williams." This tenuous link is a far cry from Tarkin's iron-clad assertion that "They were members of the Order of the Golden Dawn, [and] not followers of Christ." Mr. Tarkin, you have impugned the character of two Christian men who are no longer here to defend themselves.
Sloppy, offhanded comments made via blog response do have the power to hurt people. I think that we should all take care to do better than you have done.
I am quite surprised by Thomas Fleming’s acrimonious comments about me and my book on the Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity. From the preposterous first sentence, in which he infers that my book is “the opening shot in a war against Christianity,” it is apparent that Fleming is engaging in histrionics, rather than scholarly criticism.
Fleming suggests that Sam Francis’ “apparently glowing review” of my book has contributed toward its popularity among “conservative neopagans, atheists, and Nordicists,” who are using the book to argue that “whatever virility existed in Medieval Christianity comes from the German element.” Based on this assertion, one might think that Fleming’s first step should be to consult Sam Francis’ review, but Fleming has not, and does not intend to—and here the condescension and insults begin: “This is a field in which he [Sam Francis] had so little knowledge that his opinion . . . is ideological and irrelevant.”
Although we have never met or corresponded, Fleming even presumes to know my personal religious views. He might be surprised to learn that the allegedly “anti-Christian” and “modernist” target of his disparaging remarks regularly attends the Tridentine Latin Mass, and yesterday, following Mass, also attended Benediction.
Far from being “anti-Christian,” my book on the Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity studies the sociohistorical conditions surrounding the conversion of the Germanic peoples to a Christianity that was itself inadvertently transformed by a missionary policy of accommodating pre-Christian beliefs and practices. As Rev. Josef Jungmann, S.J., the author of the definitive two-volume study of The Mass of the Roman Rite, concluded: “from the 10th century onwards the cultural heritage which had accumulated in the Carolingian North, streamed in ever increasing volume into Italy and became the cultural standard in Rome itself,” and from there, eventually “became normative for all the West.”
If our civilization is to survive, we need a religiosity that reinforces, rather than undermines it. We cannot allow our religion to be turned into a weapon against us. The heroic legend of St. George, the valiant life of St. Joan of Arc, and the history of the Crusaders, as well as the Saxon image of Christ as a warrior leader have been replaced with a self-destructive spiritual AIDS that is compromising the immune system of our civilization, rendering us defenseless.
If Fleming prefers to focus on the Greek and Roman influences on Christianity and locates Christian virility there, so be it. At this stage in the “decline of the West,” it would be counterproductive for those who sincerely wish to reverse direction to engage in internecine bickering.
The reader who is interested in these topics may consult online excerpts of my Germanization book which are available at Google Books and Amazon. My more recent book, Breach of Faith: American Churches and the Immigration Crisis (2004), includes a discussion of the subversion of both Catholic and Protestant denominations over the past century. jcrussell5@yahoo.com
Dr. Russell,
Having just read the review of the late Dr. Francis (whose wit and courage I greatly admire), I'm not certain that his description of your work's thesis differs from the description implied by Dr. Fleming's critique.
That is, they both seem to agree about the content of your argument, only parting ways in their assessment of how well-founded that argument is.
Of course, not having read your work I don't know how accurate Dr. Francis' review is.
But I am (I hope) no dumber than the average reader -- and from the review, this is the impression I got of your position:
In history, Christianity has had no continuous essence in and of itself, and has mutated not only accidentally, but in its very fundamentals. There was a Christianity as believed and taught by the early Christians, which can be seen as a sort of proto-Bolshevism -- while, on the other hand, there is a post-Germanization Christianity, utterly alien to the former kind, which can be seen as the fecund source of European civilization.
That's the impression rendered by the review -- that, ultimately, the term "Christian" should be regarded via the lens of nominalism.
Dr Fleming,
Forgive the digression, but some thoughts on some of the more tangential things discussed above @ 25:
"No, there is no dialect of German that can be picked up easily by English-speakers, including Frisian, which is the closest. I speak from bitter experience."
I misstated. What I had read was that when English speakers learn the languages of the low countries they can learn to speak them well i.e. with little foreign accent. I might still be wrong. My last name is a neder deutsche/saxon word meaning "a strike or blow" that's entymologically-speaking closely related to the English word "bat" as in a wooden stick used to strike things. I've seen many platt/neder words that seem like they're somewhere in between standard high German words and English words (those descended from AS).
On H.R.E Davidson's book, I'd point out that the title is misleading. It's more of a discussion of cultural comparisons than symbols and myths. As far as the similarities, I've read that Strabo considered the Germans virtually identical to the Celts but fiercer (more primitive). Do you know Strabo well enough to comment on this?
"I think the Celto-Germanic thesis resonates with the same people who have swallowed the ridiculous line that ancient Celts and Germans were as civilized as Greeks and Romans, only in a different way. Yes, one that included daub and wattle huts instead of stone buildings, human sacrifice, and illiteracy."
The "they're civilized but in a different way" theme IS popular among modern academics. Or they'll write "civilized" in mocking quotes when referring to the Romans which always tells me they're knee-jerk liberal idealogues. But I don't see them putting forth the Celto-German hypothesis much. Most of them pick one or the other and emphasize their distinctiveness from all other peoples. I think the Celto-German hypothesis has most appeal to pan-Northern European movements. The northern barbarians have romantic appeal to those of us who hate big cities and long for a simpler life. As long as it stays romantic and is kept in perspective, I think it's harmless.
As another note, I think we should distinguish between the insular, British and Irish Celts and the continentals. I wonder if most of what we know about the Celtic languages isn't from the insular Celts. Do we know much about the language of the Gauls, Galatae, Helvetii, Celtic allies of the Batavii, Rhineland Celts, etc?
Mr. Russell,
It was good of you to come aboard and state your case on line isntead of some street corner or before some child who is powerless to decide these matters.( as so many "popular" catholic voices do today) The "Rhine flowing into the Tiber" is not a novel idea and should be familiar to those who have an interest in the permanent things of our Holy Religion. Josef Jungman S.J. is one of many prominent scholars who has gathered the primary texts and then attempted his own history of the First Mass. Dom Gueranger and others have also spoken on these matters with a certain love and open heartedness that is valuable as well. The two thousand year experience of The Mass in different parts of the world is for me the best source of the things that can change and the things that cannot and there are actually more permanent parts of the Mass dating back to Christ and the apostles than we moderns are lead to believe. Thanks again for coming on the blog and stating your case.
First off, let me say that it is with great pleasure that I read Mr. Russell's response. If I appear to have been acrimonious, I apologize, and if I have attributed religious or ideological opinions that he doe not hold, it is a grievous fault. What I did note are tendencies in his citations that point in the direction of the eugenicist and racialist right. I tried to make it clear that I do not pass judgment on otherwise intelligent and honorable men who take this approach. I have more than a few friends who have gone down that road. I do not see that it took them anywhere worth going, but they remained my friends. I do not think it is at all wrong, however, to point to the sign posts in a man's work that indicate the road he has taken. I think it not unfair to point out that I do not attribute the argument that Christianity feminized robust Germans to Mr. Russell. Indeed, the main point of this discussion is to show that he has made no such argument.
I have not got to the meat of his book, the final chapters, which I shall do in the next few days. At this point, though, I would remind both Mr. Russell and my readers that my intention was not to debunk a work of serious scholarship but to prevent it from being misused by ill-informed neopagans. Most of my actual critique of Germanization is directed to the inevitable shortcomings of a dissertation-writer who has bitten off more than any younger scholar can possibly chew. I should add that after spending much of a life in reading the dreadful productions of sociologists and political scientists, I have come to the conclusion reached by one of my undergraduate professors, who had clearly read his Aristotle: There is no such thing as a social science and that it is a fundamental error to think there is.
As to the late Sam Francis, I have chosen not to read his review because he was a very good friend for many years and the Washington editor of our magazine. I have a bad character trait, which is that I blurt out what I think even when it is about something a friend has written. I know that it is his review that has attracted so many young conservatives, because they have all told me so, some of them in these discussions.
If Mr. Russell will read what I have written he will see that I am not at all advocating an exclusively Mediterranean world-view, that I have an amateur's interest in my own Anglo-Saxon and Celtic ancestors and their culture. If I had several lifetimes, I would devote one of them to Northern Europe. Indeed, I have suggested more than once that a good world-history could be written from a geographically top-down perspective, emphasizing the links of norther peoples--Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia, Russia--rather than the usual London-Paris-Rome axis. The heroes of such a study would be men like Harald Hardrada.
But being a Hellenist and Latiniist rather than a Germanist, I have limited time, attention, and opportunity to pursue such an enthusiasm. The point of this discussion in general is to explode the Neo-pagan arguments and in this episode in particular to point out that Mr. Russell's book 1) has been misrepresented by Neopagans and 2) is not sufficiently strong to build any thesis on. On the historical question, there is much that is useful and interesting in the later chapters, but the big sociopsyychohistorical thesis--like all such big theses--is one that we can take or leave.
Hilaire Belloc who was right about so many things has closed the issue for me concerning German contributions to civilization. That part conquered by Rome and thus adequately prepared for the Incarnation (mostly South) has contributed. The Northern part? Hardly at all. This is not simply an idea or prejudice, but historical fact available to any serious student of the question. Dr. Fleming is correct with his emphasis on Greece and Rome, and should not be criticized for speaking this simple truth. The comparison is no comparison at all.
"Adequately prepared for the Incarnation..." Ugh. Nobody is adequately prepared for the Incarnation. The Apostles spent three years with Jesus and were not adequately prepared for the Incarnation.
Tom, plowing through this whole thread was rewarded by your description of Irish Celts as "drunken boasters with a talent for poetry and an incapacity for government."
That Mr. Russell comes on here and defends himself lends an especially high tone to this internet conversation. Unusual, as well. It will be fascinating to see how it develops.
I just finished teaching Magna Carta to freshmen. It gives one a rather high regard for germanic Christians.
@4 Mr. Wislon,
I should have said "preparatio fidei” but I know you as a good man and will, I am sure forgive me my poor choice of words. This issue of "Why Rome?" is a very interesting issue in itself. It is not part of he deposit of faith, but it is a historical fact that Peter went to Rome to be crucified upside down while James stayed in Jerusalem to be thrown from the tallest building and Thomas ended his doubts in India. Why one was designated the head while others were arms and legs must remain a mystery -- even to Reformers.
Chapter Six: "Germanization and Christianity: 376-678"
Up to this point I have been a bit hard on Dr. Russell, though if someone like me had been on his dissertation committee, he would have avoided many pitfalls. Someone should have sent it over to my old friend and former fellow-student Harry Evans in the Fordham classics department. But, enough cavils about ancient history and the flawed methodology of sociology! Let us turn to his historical treatment.
His general account of the Germans' reception of Christianity in this period is basically sound. Once he is on firm ground, his writing--and thinking--become clearer and more forceful. He accepts the views (probable but not provable) of Peter Heather and EP Thompson that the Goths were drawn to Arianism precisely because it was not the religion of the Empire. Unfortunately, he goes still further and seems to endorse the argument that Germanic leaders were generally opposed to Roman culture. Even the much-cited case of Theoderic the Ostrogoth, who did not want his people to adopt Roman customs, can have other explanations: He may not have wanted too much fraternization with possible enemies; he may have believed, as he said, that his warriors would grow weak if they turned Roman. Other Germans like Stilicho's father did not have any trouble in marrying a Roman or raising their children, whether in Italy or Constantinople, as good Romans. Besides, a GErman would not need to have a firm anti-Roman conviction to feel some reluctance about an alien people. The Franks, as Russell acknowledges, adopted a rather pro-Roman stance, which probably had something to do with the fact that Clovis adopted the Catholic religion. This in itself did not drive them into the arms of Rome, but Catholic Italians and Catholic Franks shared a similar enemies' list of Arian Germanic peoples.
The Frankish situation is complex, and JCR does his best to do justice to the complexity. Early Franks, though he does not make this clear, had been rather on the fringes of the Roman area of influence, and this may partly explain their sluggish progress in Romanization. The interaction between Franks and the Roman remnant in Gaul was a two-way street, and JCR adopts the view that Clovis, after baptism, began interfering in the hitherto Gallo-Roman Church, which he filled with his less-than-qualified stooges--a problem that plagued the Church in France down to Napoleon's day, at least.
He has a good deal of less than satisfying discussion of the supposed group identity of the Franks from a Weberian point of view, combined with speculation about the attraction of Germanic warriors for heroic Irish monks. This is the context in which he takes up the failure of Merovingian kings to do much in the way of religious education, but the Franks were, after all, a crude lot, a far cry from the Goths who had been civilizing themselves for a fair amount of time. He accepts the argument that the popularity of votive masses, in the Early Middle Ages, implies a radically different understanding of the mass as a good work, but he does not offer much more than the argument from authority, that is, some important scholars have said so. I simply don't know how Augustine or Ambrose or Gregory viewed the mass, and thus it seems difficult to draw such broad conclusions from such a dearth of evidence. That, indeed, is the major problem of even the best parts of his study: the lack of a firm foundation in actual documents. What is seriously lacking, in this chapter, is any treatment of Christian evolution in non-Germanic Christendom, particularly in Rome and Ravenna. Even if the changes he thinks were taking place did in fact take place, Germanization is only one possible explanation.
Nonetheless, this chapter was well worth reading, and JCR picks his way among the conflicting theories with a far surer foot than in earlier parts of his book. Does he nail his case in these early centuries? I don't think so. Everything changes, as Heraclitus observed long ago, but sometimes what we regard as dynamic change or progress is simply decay. We may learn to like the flavor of "aged" game and rotten cheese, but it is still rotten. It naturally took a long time to civilize the Germans. Carolingian and Capetian kings and aristocrats had a terrible problem with Christian monogamy. One interpretation might be that they were Germanizing Christianity, but it seems simpler to suppose that they had not yet got the hang of Christian marriage or even that they were not even trying. Our barbarian ancestors only made a stab at being civilized after the Church had been doing a job on them for five centuries. And, I suppose it is worth noting, that as soon as the Northern West began pulling away both from the Church and from the civilization(s) of the oikoumene, we started acting once again like beasts. I have noted many times before that the post-Christian Germans and Scandinavians are far more repulsive than post-Christian Italians, Greeks, and French.
PS I should add that Russell is described as a Christian conservative. If he says he is, I shall take his word for it, though his book is hard to reconcile with any traditional Christian point of view. If he has undergone a conversion, he should make that clear. If he wishes to claim that he wrote his book as a Christian, I can only describe his state of mind as highly confused.
“as soon as the Northern West began pulling away both from the Church and from the civilization(s) of the oikoumene, we started acting once again like beasts.”
What do you mean by “the Church” and do you mean in the 1500’s? I’m just trying to understand the reference.
“I have noted many times before that the post-Christian Germans and Scandinavians are far more repulsive than post-Christian Italians, Greeks, and French.”
Can you prove this? I don’t know much about the modern Greeks but the French and Italian popular cultures seem as porn and violence obsessed as the Northern European cultures. And they seem to be contracepting, sterilizing and aborting themselves into extinction too. Is there really such a big difference?
Not the 1500's but the 1700s, though Nietzsche did make the argument that Luther's rebellion permitted the Germans to return to the ancestral barbarism. I mean the Enlightenment and what has followed.
Greece is perhaps the most socially conservative and non-violent society in Europe. There are no nicer people in Europe. Slovaks and Portuguese are also said to be conservative, which is confirmed in the case of Slovakia by my observation. The issue is not sexual morality per se but grossness./ What would constitute proof? I spend a good deal of time in Mediterranean countries, less so in Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. The Swiss strike me as pretty decent people, but the grossness of German television is not matched by Italian or French. It is not in Italy, for example, that cannibalism has become a minor rage. There is a residual pleasantness in southern Europe that is not absent from northern European countries but certainly seems less common. As I pointed out in the Spectator a few years ago, we Americans like to pat ourselves on our puritanical backs, but social statistics do not bear us out. Yes, I know, all the problems with teenage promiscuity and drugs and crime are all caused by minorities, but that is not true, and the white majority is acting increasingly like Third World people. Why do decent Germans and Dutch and Bellgians put up with what goes on under their very noses? On American immigrant who married a good Christian girl from outside of Amsterdam says that his in-laws think it is better to give the degenerates all the porn and drugs they want to keep them away from decent people. The opposite happens, alas. My perception of these differences is matched by virtually everyone I know who spends a lot of time in Europe. Here is one tidbit: The nastiest piece of porn I have run into in Italy was in the North, where my hotel had a mainstream German channel. With the Latins, it is mostly teasing, not grossness.