The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel

[Biff]

I believe I read somewhere that The Saxon Gospel has been revised and is now called The Norman Gospel by Hastings Publishing.

It was unharolded

Down on the Bayou it was...

[jruegg]

I believe I read somewhere that The Saxon Gospel has been revised and is now called The Norman Gospel by Hastings Publishing.

It was unharolded

[coco]

Contextualization is communicating biblical principles into cultural contexts via comparisons with distinctions. Failing to make the proper distinctions results in syncretism. This sounds closer to the latter.

[Del]

Contextualization is communicating biblical principles into cultural contexts via comparisons with distinctions. Failing to make the proper distinctions results in syncretism. This sounds closer to the latter.

This sounds right, The Heliand was composed in the 900's.

St. Augustine of Canterbury arrived to re-evangelize England in the late 500's. Christianity was quickly re-established, and England produced many great saints and missionaries for centuries.

By the 900's, England was sending missionaries to the Germanic tribes of northern Europe. Perhaps they were the likely target audience of The Heliand. This is certainly not how we would evangelize to pagans today.

I wonder now if The Heliand might be at the root of the bombastic warrior boasts of Martin Luther?

[tuttle]

Contextualization is communicating biblical principles into cultural contexts via comparisons with distinctions. Failing to make the proper distinctions results in syncretism. This sounds closer to the latter.

This sounds right, The Heliand was composed in the 900's.

St. Augustine of Canterbury arrived to re-evangelize England in the late 500's. Christianity was quickly re-established, and England produced many great saints and missionaries for centuries.

By the 900's, England was sending missionaries to the Germanic tribes of northern Europe. Perhaps they were the likely target audience of The Heliand. This is certainly not how we would evangelize to pagans today.

I wonder now if The Heliand might be at the root of the bombastic warrior boasts of Martin Luther?

It's highly speculated that Luther knew of and appreciated the Heliand (of course it wasn't called that in his day). Even the translator of the copy I have (a Jesuit!) believes some of the wording in parts of the Heliand seems to come up later in Luther.

I haven't read all of it, but this seems less of a tool of conversion and more of a tool of discipleship. Certainly a contextualization and I think an argument can be made that some syncretism might have crept in here and there, but the severity of it depends upon some factors. Incorporation of or perhaps emphasis of certain ethics from within that culture, even stemming from their paganism, might be "baptized" rather than "burnt", if you follow. The use of gods or the powers of pagan gods (like Fate and Time in this case) are used to indicate God as the ultimate wielder, the one who created and controls fate and time, etc. Christ is Lord over whatever the pagans worshipped. Reading it, however, you must be either familiar with how the former pagans heard these words, or need a scholar to point it out.

Some people think Christmas trees are a type of pagan synchronization and therefore off limits for Christians. The Heliand is probably in the same boat.

[Del]

I wonder now if The Heliand might be at the root of the bombastic warrior boasts of Martin Luther?

It's highly speculated that Luther knew of and appreciated the Heliand (of course it wasn't called that in his day). Even the translator of the copy I have (a Jesuit!) believes some of the wording in parts of the Heliand seems to come up later in Luther.

Really? I thought I was just trolling a bit there!

To be fair to Martin Luther, his errors were entirely Christian errors against Christian faith. He was not restoring pagan errors, nor was he adding gnostic errors.

I haven't read all of it, but this seems less of a tool of conversion and more of a tool of discipleship. Certainly a contextualization and I think an argument can be made that some syncretism might have crept in here and there, but the severity of it depends upon some factors. Incorporation of or perhaps emphasis of certain ethics from within that culture, even stemming from their paganism, might be "baptized" rather than "burnt", if you follow. The use of gods or the powers of pagan gods (like Fate and Time in this case) are used to indicate God as the ultimate wielder, the one who created and controls fate and time, etc. Christ is Lord over whatever the pagans worshipped. Reading it, however, you must be either familiar with how the former pagans heard these words, or need a scholar to point it out.

Some people think Christmas trees are a type of pagan synchronization and therefore off limits for Christians. The Heliand is probably in the same boat.

Bah, humbug! Christmas trees and mistletoe are bits of ancient mid-winter celebrations which were incorporated into the general celebration of Christmas. They may or may not have been part of pagan religions.... probably were, but who cares? No one remembers or associates those customs with any pagan superstitions. We just use them to enjoy Christmas.

English Puritans outlawed the celebration of Christmas entirely. That was a far greater error against Christian faith than decorating a tree.

Missionaries has long used the local pagan symbols to help explain Christian faith. St. Paul opened his address at the Areopagus by praising the Athenians for having an altar "to an unknown god." To this day, our communion bread is round-shaped because St. Mark introduced this in Alexandria. The pagan Egyptians worshipped the sun, symbolized by raising a bright, round disk.

God Himself has used pagan images: The miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe incorporates several pagan images that were very familiar to the Aztecs and their neighboring victims. This icon-image triggered the rapid conversion of natives throughout Central and South America, the greatest missionary work in Christian history.

The Heliand came out of Christian England. Whatever part The Heliand played in evangelizing Northern Europe, we know that the region was was "only just Christian for a handful of centuries before they were asked to stop being Catholic." (as GK Chesterton puts it)

[tuttle]

I wonder now if The Heliand might be at the root of the bombastic warrior boasts of Martin Luther?

It's highly speculated that Luther knew of and appreciated the Heliand (of course it wasn't called that in his day). Even the translator of the copy I have (a Jesuit!) believes some of the wording in parts of the Heliand seems to come up later in Luther.

Really? I thought I was just trolling a bit there!

To be fair to Martin Luther, his errors were entirely Christian errors against Christian faith. He was not restoring pagan errors, nor was he adding gnostic errors.

I haven't read all of it, but this seems less of a tool of conversion and more of a tool of discipleship. Certainly a contextualization and I think an argument can be made that some syncretism might have crept in here and there, but the severity of it depends upon some factors. Incorporation of or perhaps emphasis of certain ethics from within that culture, even stemming from their paganism, might be "baptized" rather than "burnt", if you follow. The use of gods or the powers of pagan gods (like Fate and Time in this case) are used to indicate God as the ultimate wielder, the one who created and controls fate and time, etc. Christ is Lord over whatever the pagans worshipped. Reading it, however, you must be either familiar with how the former pagans heard these words, or need a scholar to point it out.

Some people think Christmas trees are a type of pagan synchronization and therefore off limits for Christians. The Heliand is probably in the same boat.

Bah, humbug! Christmas trees and mistletoe are bits of ancient mid-winter celebrations which were incorporated into the general celebration of Christmas. They may or may not have been part of pagan religions.... probably were, but who cares? No one remembers or associates those customs with any pagan superstitions. We just use them to enjoy Christmas.

English Puritans outlawed the celebration of Christmas entirely. That was a far greater error against Christian faith than decorating a tree.

Missionaries has long used the local pagan symbols to help explain Christian faith. St. Paul opened his address at the Areopagus by praising the Athenians for having an altar "to an unknown god." To this day, our communion bread is round-shaped because St. Mark introduced this in Alexandria. The pagan Egyptians worshipped the sun, symbolized by raising a bright, round disk.

God Himself has used pagan images: The miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe incorporates several pagan images that were very familiar to the Aztecs and their neighboring victims. This icon-image triggered the rapid conversion of natives throughout Central and South America, the greatest missionary work in Christian history.

The Heliand came out of Christian England. Whatever part The Heliand played in evangelizing Northern Europe, we know that the region was was "only just Christian for a handful of centuries before they were asked to stop being Catholic." (as GK Chesterton puts it)

It actually comes from the Germanic peoples on the European mainland. Cousins (in genetics/culture/language) of the Anglo-Saxons in England.

And more regarding the contextualization vs syncretism stuff: It seems to me the most successful usage of 'contextualization' (I really hate that word) or the incorporation of pagan into Christianity, was less a teaching tool for evangelism, and more of a re-orientation of reality.

The pagan symbol is re-oriented to be aligned with the truth. It's what Paul did. He took a pagan poet, grabbed what was true, and used it to re-orient his hearers towards reality. So to a pagan culture that held that X or Y was sacred, the Christian took it, said, yes this is sacred, but not for the reasons you think. Where they found power in the symbol or object, Christianity revealed the true power that was behind it.

Syncretism, however, is a danger when the re-orientation doesn't occur. There may be truths about the Greek gods, Apollo, Hermes, Zeus that are splinters of the true light, but Paul didn't conflate Apollo with Christ, or Apollo or Diana as one to whom it was cool to worship so long as we recognized God over all. Syncretism says, hey Apollo is Christ, always has been and always will be, now Christianity has given you a nudge to know a bit better but keep on worshiping him with an eye toward Jesus. What Christianity actually does however is say, Apollo is a devil. Christ has conquered all devils. But all those symbols and rituals and things you attributed to Apollo? The fulfilment is found in Christ. Apollo is a healer? Christ is a greater healer. Apollo is a sun god? Christ created the sun. It's the spoils of spiritual war. You worshipped some goat demon around a well in the woods? Looks like a fine little shrine to convert to the worship of Christ you got there...

There's more to it, but the nuance is important.

We actually have an interesting case study in real time happening with Pachamama. I have opinions, most were lost in the old forum. We could start a new thread if we wanna go there.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

[…]

We actually have an interesting case study in real time happening with Pachamama. I have opinions, most were lost in the old forum. We could start a new thread if we wanna go there.

--> --> CLICK

[mcommini]

[Worship at the Divine Liturgy was also according to the English Rite in Old English. I just checked on this myself, and English Catholics worshipped in English language right up to the Reformation, when Catholic worship in English was suppressed for 300 years and lost forever. By the time Catholics were emancipated in England, the Tridentine Mass in Latin had become the norm of the universal Church. The myth that English Catholics had been "forced by Rome to worship in Latin" in the centuries before the Reformation is just one of many Victorian-era historical errors and slanders that persist today. Even I believed it.]

This is only partly correct. It is true that the English Rite was celebrated all over England up until the Reformation. But the English Rite(s) wasn't in Old English- it was indeed in Latin. The English Rite (or Use of Sarum, to name one of the more common rites.) was one of the many venerable descendants of the early Roman Rite- though it certainly never would have been celebrated in Old English, as it was a Norman recension of earlier English rites, also from the Latin.

Let us not forget, the English Church predates England as a nation. When St Augustine of Canterbury went on his mission trip, it wasn't to a unified ethnic group but rather many disparate Germanic tribes, each with their own Germanic language. Old English itself didn't exist yet. And he landed on an isle that already had its own established Church for quite some time before various waves of Germanic tribes pushed the Church and it's congregants to the western and northern portions of the isle, and that Church celebrated their pre-Roman rite in Latin. Latin made more sense than producing several Germanic translations in the age before the printing press.

The English Rite wouldn't be fully translated into English until the 19th Century Anglo-Catholic movement, though Cranmer relied heavily upon his translations for the earliest Books of Common Prayer.

And the death of the rite is, I think, one of the great tragedies of the Reformation. It was one of the few rites Rome exempted from the promulgation of the Tridentine mass revision at Trent, and one of the treasures of liturgical antiquity. The newly formed English Church stamped it out under Elizabeth. Faithful English Catholics had to smuggle clergy in from the continent, and these priests had no idea how to celebrate English Rite, so Tridentine became the norm.

These days only a handful of Anglo-Catholic churches celebrate the original rite in either Latin or English. A few Orthodox Western Rite parishes use it as well, though we have additions to the Canon of the Mass purists might take issue with - though the same could be said for any of our Western Rites (for some reason we want to be darn sure you westerners know the Holy Spirit is responsible for the change of the elements. Explicitly sure). Ironically, from all I can tell, the Roman Catholic Anglican Ordinariate doesn't use it in any language, preferring one of the many late 19th century Anglo-Catholic attempts to wed the Tridentine ride with the Book of Common Prayer.

Sorry, bit of a derailment. Ignore the liturgy nerd.

PS for anyone who is interested, Google books has a ton of scans of those 19th century Sarum translations. The Encheiridion has many treasures for praying the hours and a unique Rosary.

[Hugo Drax]

As long as we're digressing, I do not agree with Sr. Commini's lax method of marking exams. I feel it does no service to Del.

Yes, he spelled Sarum correctly. And he noted that this was the English Rite. Everything else was gloriously, magnificently wrong and used to advance a silly theory. Quoting himself as an authoritative source was the chef's kiss of flunkeroony.

In order to soar, the eaglet must spend a considerable amount of time ineffectually flopping about until it finally gets it right. To achieve the Chestertonian, we must stamp out coarse OrDellian tendencies.

Flunk him, buddy. It will do him a power of good in the long run.