Visigothic identity of Spain

[ualarauans]

Hails Iggwimer,

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Ingemar Nordgren" <ingemar at ...> 
wrote:
>
> As though people in that time
> > chose their religion after a long logical deliberation, comparing
> > different views and their own intuitions, considering whether this
> > or that particular confession behaved politically correct towards
> > minorities and religious dissidents etc.
> 
> In this case you must consider the Germanic tradition where all gods
> were as accepted and could be used for different means. The Christian
> varnish was presumably not so thick with the general Goth and the
> tradition of respecting people confessing to other gods surely
> remained as a cultural heritage. Before they took Arianism they as
> well respected Christian non-Goths while the pre-christian fertility
> cult for the Goths themselves rather was used as an ethnicity 
warranty
> as was also Arianism BTW.This ethnicity however was lost when the
> leading folks turned Catholics.

Yes, what I was trying to say, rather disorderly, in my previous post 
is that it was more a problem of collective identity, not theology, 
which divided Arian and Catholic-Orthodox. When marching under Totila 
to meet Narses' hordes in the field, our average Goth was probably 
aware that the enemies had a different ("wrong") interpretation of 
Christ's nature than himself. He must have been said by his priest 
that he would fight for the right cause (standaiþ nu, ufgaurdanai 
hupins izwarans sunjai jah gapaidodai brunjon garaihteins – Eph. 
6:14), he had received his absolution and a promise of paradise if he 
would fall in battle (didn't this idea correlate to the concept of 
Walhalla?). But when meditating in his soul what it actually is – to 
be Arian – he was hardly pondering all the arguments of the parties in 
Nicaea, nor recalling polemic points of theological treatises which 
deacon Gudilub did sometimes cite in their communal church. He was 
much more likely thinking of his wife, a woman of Roman descent, of 
their children, their house and a plot of arable land (haim-oþli) 
given to his grandfather after Theodoric brought the people to Italy. 
Of his parents and friends being Arian too, though firmly believing 
that Xristus-Iggws resurrects on Easter making herbs and crops grow 
again after winter death. In short, to be Arian meant for him to keep 
the way of life he got used to. The invading Byzantine armies 
threatened to destroy it. Maybe, they were bringing a higher culture 
and a better administration, but these were felt as something "alien", 
something "unnatural", still more loathsome because they were planted 
through political intrigues and military violence.

This clash of cultures was apparently often comprehended within the 
predominant religious world picture as a struggle between good and 
evil. The enemy was utterly demonized. People behaved according to the 
principle "right or wrong – my kin". And many of them did not regard 
the terrestrial human life as the highest value. If we want to 
understand and explain historical events of that time, we must not 
only compare the contesting theological doctrines, but also the way 
these doctrines could get reflected in the mass consciousness of their 
bearers.

Ualarauans




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