The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel
Posted: 03 Mar 2023, 07:18
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This sounds right, The Heliand was composed in the 900's.
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.Del wrote: ↑05 Mar 2023, 12:25This 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?
Really? I thought I was just trolling a bit there!
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.tuttle wrote: ↑06 Mar 2023, 05:41I 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.
It actually comes from the Germanic peoples on the European mainland. Cousins (in genetics/culture/language) of the Anglo-Saxons in England.Del wrote: ↑06 Mar 2023, 08:51Really? 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.
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.tuttle wrote: ↑06 Mar 2023, 05:41I 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.
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)
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.Del wrote: ↑01 Mar 2023, 06:04
[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.]