[gothic-l] Re: "Eruli", "Goths", "Danes" and wherefrom the runes

[Tore Gannholm]

>
>
>>I would call it a kind of segregation of churches. The
>>  eventual failure of the Arian church as a religion seems also to
>>  proove that its real purpose was political and not religious.
>
>How do you figure that?
>
>>  I suspect that most Goths were entirely agnostic businessmen with a
>>  penchant for battle.
>
>I suspect that there is a tendancy for some non-Christian modern people
>to want to project their own non-Christianity back onto ancient people
>like the Goths, since Fifth and Sixth Century Christianity - Arian
>or Catholic -
>is sometimes difficult for us to comprehend.  This is a distortion of history.
>All the evidence indicates they were well and truly Christian.


Tim,
I fully agree with you. It is too easy to think in ones own terms.

The Arianism and Catholisism were both Christianity. The main
difference was on what level God , Jesus and the Holy spirit should
be regarded; as equals or God above the other two.

At the meeting in Nicea in 325  Catholisism won over Arianism.

Still during the 4th century there were big fights between these two.
Depending on which belief the ruling Roman Caesar had either
Catholisism or Arianism were favoured.

Like they do today in USA at election time where the office holders
are replaced if the other party wins, all the priests and bishops
were replaced a couple of times during the 4th century.

As you can see it was not only the Goths that adopted the arian
belief, even a few of the Roman Caesars did so.

Still today there are arian churces in the USA.

Tore

>
>And no - I am not a Christian.  I'm an atheist.  But I'm also a historian and
>I don't think we should try to cast the past in our own image.
>Best regards,
>
>Tim O'Neill
>


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