Janne Floris speculates about a Germanic religion inspired by Veleda:
"'It could grow and develop onward after her death. Oh, it would not become monotheistic or anything like that. But this goddess would be the supreme figure, around whom everything gathered. She would give folk as much, spiritually, or almost as much, as Christ could. Few would ever join the Church.'" (p. 568)
Jens Ulstrup concurs:
"'Quite conceivably the Nerthus faith can become the seed and core of a Germanic civilization - not barbarism but a civilization, however turbulent - which has the inner richness to resist Christendom as Zoroastrian Persia will.'" (ibid.)
Does this timeline exist somewhen even if prevented, in their experience, by the Patrol? How did the Tacitus Two manuscript originate?
Why should the Nerthus faith not become monotheistic? One deity becoming the supreme figure around whom everything else gathers is one way that monotheism does emerge from polytheism. Floris can only mean that full monotheism would not be immediate
I have tried to imagine a world religion as different from Buddhism and Christianity as they are from each other. The best that I can think of is a feminine monism recognizing many local manifestations of the Goddess. I would expect it to be tolerant and to be able to practice just sitting meditation within it.
What does any deity give folk spiritually? A local Evangelical apparently reached rock bottom with drug abuse, then asked for help from Whoever was there, then began to recognize and accept help offered by other people and external events. She did that. She personified the source of the help as the deity named by the local dominant tradition - Jesus, not Krishna or Allah. Of course, she also believes that that deity literally exists and that the others do not. Someone brought up in the Nerthus tradition would believe likewise.
9 comments:
The Veladist religion would resemble Hinduism after its mutations, in some respects -- even by the classical period it was already very different from the faith of the beef-eating, beer-swilling charioteer head-bashers who were the original Aryans.
However, there's an error in that quote from STAR OF THE SEA. The evidence indicates that Sassanid Persia was already about half Christian by the time of the Muslim invasions. The Western parts of the Persian empire -- Mesopotamia, the Caucasus -- were already majority-Christian and it was steadily spreading eastwards.
Without the Muslim invasion, probably Persia would have become "officially" Christian in another century or two, and eventually variations on Christianity would have become predominant all the way to Mongolia.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Testing. My first comment here disappeared.
Paul: And the closest real world example I can think of a kind of monotheism emerging from a pagan pantheon would be the abortive Aten cult during the reign of Pharoaoh Akhenaten of Egypt.
Mr. Stirling: And you beat me to citing you stressed Sassanid Persia was already have Christian by the time of the Arab Muslim invasions. Perhaps that fact was not very well known at the time Anderson was writing STAR OF THE SEA.
My belief is that Islam has not been beneficial to the world. I recall Anson Guthrie, in HARVEST OF STARS, calling Mohammed one of the worst disasters happening to mankind.
Ad astra! Sean
I have seen the claim that adherents of non-trinitarian varieties of Christianity got pushed out of the Roman Empire into Arabia & likely influenced Mohammed. The fact that Jesus is a revered prophet second to Mohammed in Islam makes this sound plausible to me.
Kaor, Jim!
That's basically true. Many who followed non-Nicene and non-Chalcedonian forms of Christianity left an Empire hostile to them. Mohammed may have known some Arians or semi-Arians in Mecca and Medina, before he started calling himself a prophet.
Ad astra! Sean
There's evidence that chunks of the Koran are (bad) translations of Aramaic gospel stories floating around the Middle East at that time. Late spoken and written Aramaic are fairly close to classical Arabic, and in some cases similar enough that -mis-understandings are easy.
The creeping Christianization of Sassanid Persia escaped historical notice for a long time, because our Persian sources tend to be heavily royal-aristocratic, which was the strata most deeply committed to Zoroastrianism. Also they tend to come from the Iranian plateau, and not the western areas most heavily Christianized.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, about what you said as regards the Koran. I have read about how some of what is found in it about Christ were taken from apocryphal/non-canonical sources.
And there's also the issue of the Yemeni Fragments, variant readings and texts of the Koran springing from non-Othmanic sources.
A pity Anderson was not aware of how Christianized Sassanid Persia was becoming by the time of the Muslim Arab invasions. It would have been interesting to see how he would have handled that in STAR OF THE SEA.
Ad astra! Sean
I was interested in his treatment of Islam in "Boat of a Million Years" It shows the Muslim conquest of a large part of the Roman Empire as a disaster for the status of women. As he shows it, while the Roman/Byzantine Empire was a long way from being a feminist utopia, it was far better for a woman than living under Islam.
Since Poul usually got things right when I knew a fair bit about what he was putting in the story background, I'm inclined to believe him on this.
Kaor, Jim!
First, I don't have much use for all kinds of "feminism," esp. the man hating types. That said, I agree with you in disliking how Muslim doctrine, law, custom, etc., treats women. And there are many other reasons why I dislike and disagree with Islam. Needless to say, I have no reason to doubt many male Muslims treat women decently and kindly.
I also agree, rare mistakes aside, Anderson was scrupulously careful and accurate about what he wrote into his stories.
Ad astra! Sean
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