[gothic-l] Re: "Goths" and modern "identity"

[lindarichters <lindarichters@yahoo.com>]

> The idea that "*most* Goths were astute Christians in the 5th
century" is not supported by the sources or accepted by many leading
authors.

Are we supposed to take this statement seriously? Please tell me that
this is a joke.

> The Goths did not convert to Christianity easily or sincerely.
Heather mentions how "the Tervingi resisted the spread of
Christianity in at least two periods of persecution, in 347/8 and
from 369 onwards (Heather, Goths and Romans 105). Athanaric ordered
the persecution of Christians because "the ancestral religion was
becoming debased" no doubt from the negative influence of
Christianity on the traditional Gothic culture, values and community
solidarity.

Would you care to describe the supposedly non-Christian "culture,
values and community solidarity" of the Goths?

 In the opinion of Eunapius, "the Tervingian refugees had only
feigned their Christianity in order to be admitted by the Romans"
(Wolfram, Goths 84).

I would hardly cite the "opinion of Eunapius" as proof that these
Tervingian refugees were somehow non-Christian.

>
> "The Goths would seem to have been afraid that Christianity would
undermine that part of Gothic identity which was founded in their
common inherited beliefs, so that religion was not just an individual
concern, but also a political issue standing in some relation to
Gotho-Roman affairs."

These common inherited beliefs were Christian. To state otherwise
amounts to revising history according to your own whim. I suspect
that the only real "political issue" here is one stemming from the
search for a pre-Christian "identity" current in certain segment of
today's youth. Transfering such an "identity" to the Goths would,
however, contradict generations of scholarship on the subject.


  The Goths officially adopted the Arian Christianity of the emperor
Valens in 376 not because of the more than half a century of
unsuccessful missionary work, which was completely rejected by the
Goths; the Tervingi accepted Christianity to please the emperor who
was admitting them into Roman lands. The Gothic priests carried the
old cult images with them in the crossing, which further
substantiates the insignificance of this surface conversion to the
new religion.

To describe this missionary work as "unsuccessful" is misleading. It
has long been established that the Goths were not only the first
Germanic people to convert to Christianty, but that they also played
a very important role in converting other Germanic peoples. Finally,
to describe their conversion to Christianity as "surface" or somehow
insignificant is truely misleading. I think it would be a serious
mistake to edit and revise Gothic history in the modern search for a
pre-Christian identity. Like it or not, the historical Goths were not
only the first Germanic Christian people, but also the most important
Germanic missionaries of Christianity to the other Germanic peoples.

Linda A. Richters



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