How did the ideas of an obscure Jewish Rabbi in the Levant dethrone mighty Odin in Northern Europe? Not by miracles or kind gestures. It was a brutal, slow process driven by trade and war. Convert or die was the ethos. And at the center of it all was the prime motivator: money. Jesus would have been appalled.
Arrival of the Long Ships
From the beginning of recorded history, the Mediterranean Sea was always a bathtub of trade. Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Armenians, Venetians, Romans – everybody got into the act and turned the entire Mediterranean basin into the wealthiest, most lucrative trade route in the world. China’s “Silk Road” and the Persian and Indian Ocean trading empires were significant, but the Mediterranean was the grandaddy of them all. The wealth generated by Mediterranean trade was coveted by Northern Europe and – with the fall of the Roman Empire – barbarians converged on the remaining bits and pieces of Rome’s greatness and picked it clean. The dynamic was simple: wealth was in the Mediterranean basin – and poor Northern tribes wanted a piece of the action. So they went South and took it.
This grand re-distribution of wealth started with the Visigoths sacking Rome under Alaric, their Commander, in 410AD. The Huns started invading Roman territories between 395 and 398 AD and ramped up their plundering in the decades thereafter.
But on On June 8, 793AD, the whole of Medieval Europe changed forever. The continent would thereafter be in the grip of the so-called Viking Age (800-1050AD). Three Viking Longships landed on an island off the Northest Coast of England in Northumberland called Lindisfarne. At least fifty Viking Warriors set about looting and pillaging the Abbey of St. Cuthbert, eventually slaughtering all the clerics in residence and taking back to their ships church treasures, relics, gold and silver objects of great value.
From that point on, Priests would regularly intone an extra prayer at Mass: “Oh God, please save us from the heathen barbarians that come by sea”.
Word of the Lindisfarne raid spread throughout England like wildfire. For the next two hundred years the Vikings would plunder their way through England, Ireland, France and as far South as Spain and Gilbraltar, amassing huge wealth and terrorizing Western Europe. Another flotilla of Viking ships and warriors would tact their sails Eastward from Scandinavia, through the Baltic Sea and down the Volkov and Dnieper Rivers, deep into Central Europe. There they set up profitable trading empires with the Slavs and Byzantine peoples. Novgorod and Kiev became fabulously wealthy trading centers where the Vikings traded furs for gold, silver and goods from Byzantium and Persia. Even today archaeologists throughout Scandinavia unearth coins stamped with insignias of origin from as far away as Alexandria, Egypt, Greece and Rome.
This profitable gold and silver churning trade incentivized Vikings to eventually settle permanently along the Volkov and Dnieper River communities, marrying into the Salvic population and taking on the names “Varangians” and “Rus”. Prince Vladimir of Kiev did quite well trading with the Christian Eastern Roman Empire Capital of Byzantium, modern day Constantinople. So well, in fact, that in 988 AD he marched the entire population of Kiev into the Dnieper River to undergo a mass Christian Baptism (Byzantine merchants preferred trading with fellow Christians). He positioned crack units of Varangian archers at the shore line and told anyone that did not want to convert: “walk out of the water”. Many clambered out of the river and were promptly cut to pieces as they screamed out one word: Perun! Perun was the Slavic people’s name for Odin. Convert or die was the ethos. Affluence and economic security hung in the balance. Armies had to be paid in order to defend and expand the footprint of Kievan Rus. Vladimir needed Byzantine gold and Persian silver – and he accomodated his trading partners accordingly. Christianity became the offical religion of Kievan Rus. Out with the Old Gods……in with the new.
Let’s review a timeline, shall we?
– 793 AD: Lindesfarne Raid
– 795AD: Vikings invade Ireland, Scotland and Wales
– 810 – 820 AD: Charlemagne builds up River defenses against Viking attacks
– 830 AD: Vikings sail up the River Seine and attack Paris
– 842 AD: Vikings set up their base at the mouth of the Loire River in France and strike at Northern Spain
– 844 AD: Vikings attack Lisbon, Portugal
– 859 AD: Vikings establish Novgorod on the Volkov River in modern-day Russia
– 862 AD: Northmen Vikings under Rurik take leadership of the Slavic and Kievan Rus Peoples in Kiev
– 882 AD: Vikings establish Kiev as a center of trade on the Dnieper River in modern-day Ukraine
– 884 AD: Danish Vikings are driven back by Germanic Tribes on the North Sea Coast in Bremen
– 911 AD: Vikings raid Normandy and establish a permanent presence
– 1066 AD: English Saxons finally defeat their Viking invaders at Stamford Bridge
The Vikings wanted all that sweet Mediterranean wealth, so they built state-of-the-art longboats (called Knorr) and commenced pillaging and looting wherever and whenever they pleased. But their cousins in the Eastern regions were having better success setting up trading settlements. Eventually, the battling “Western” contingent of Vikings realized that trade was more lucrative and preferable to constant bloodletting. During the course of this Viking epiphany, their interaction with European tribes changed them in subtle ways. Vikings became “tamed” by riches and signed treaties with their erstwhile enemies. Gradually, a new Europe emerged and throughout this process religion became a powerful influence – a code of conduct and moral authority, an international base-line for cooperation and commercial trust. People traded best when they weren’t fighting. And people prospered most when they and their trading partners shared a common belief system.
Enter Christianity.
Christianity became what we recognize as “Christianity” through centuries of human events and influences. The Christian “Faith” evolved through numerous Ecumenical conferences (Synods) and pronouncements – all crafted by men who never met Christ but endlessly “interpreted” his message to suit their purposes. Christianity is a composite, a construct crafted by committees of Bishops and acolytes who, over time, promulgated a Dogma loosely based on the teachings of a holy man – a Hebrew Rabbi named Jesus Christ who was crucified by Rome. Jesus was a Judean teacher, deeply steeped in Jewish and Old Testament canons who exclusively preached to the Judean Tribes of Israel in the Levant. The Christian Church “adjusted” Christs’ non-European narrative to launch a more universal and user-friendly belief system. In short order they relegated Christ’s Jewishness and Levantine origins to anecdotal status where it became little more than an irrelevant ethnic footnote of history. Viola! The new Christ was now as European as Odin.
Early Christian Church “Fathers” transformed Christ’s crucifixion into a western murder story and embarked on endless revisions and mystical acclimatizations until they achieved their apotheosis: The Roman Catholic Church, symbolized by the Cross. Jesus Christ himself would never have recognized the “Faith” that became Roman Catholicism. And the wealth of the Vatican would have had him spoiling for a fight and looking for money-changers’ tables to turn over.
After centuries of “Faithful Bishops” polishing, tweaking and rehashing Christ’s warm and pacifist Sermon On the Mount- style homilies, the Catholic Church brought forth their ultimate treatise – precious little of which was rooted in historical accuracy – to cohere European peoples into a domesticated polity that made possible Western Civilization as we know it today: The New Testament. This Book triggered a political and social reorganization in Europe of epic proportions that we refer to today as Feudalism. There were no miraculous Christian mass conversions of ethnic peoples in Europe. Christianity spread methodically, through trade and war – slowly and inexorably. And Christianity forged our modern idea of what “civilization” is.
Who wrote the New Testament? We know that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke were written down (not by Matthew, Mark and Luke) somewhere around seventy years after Christ’s crucifixion. The New Testament itself was written in 325 AD when a group of “Bishops” were (literally) locked in a room in Nicaea, Turkey and “agreed” among themselves what written records were henceforth going to be accepted as the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Emperor Contantine ordered them to aggregate a common book for all Christians throughout the Roman Empire and Byzantium to revere as the word of God. He wanted a book that would put to rest all of the fractious doctrinal disagreements and accusations of heresies that set Christians at each other’s throats. Emperor Constantine decreed that everyone in his kingdom would henceforth pull their spiritual oars in the same direction. This text was to be the glue that bound his people together.
These captive Bishops in Nicaea kept some writings and disgarded others and ultimately agreed on a common book that would forevermore define Jesus Christ. The irony was, of course, that nobody attending the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD ever saw Jesus, heard him preach or was alive when Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem. Each page of Jesus’ “Holy Word” that they sewed into their Magnum Opus was written by others who also never knew or saw Jesus Christ. It was all second, third and forth degree historical hearsay. A monumental exercise in accumulating disparate writings, local legends, oral traditions and customs into a single tome that an ambitious Emperor Constantine needed to achieve his political goals.
From the Council of Nicaea onward Christian “Doctrine” became what these Nicaean Bishops in 325 AD pieced together and christened their “New Testament”. Their epiststemological mission was simple: craft a Bible that would satisfy Emperor Constantine. Their task was an ecclesiastical nightmare. Fitting all the pieces together was maddening. Synchronizing the second and third generational writings (all based on hearsay) into one tome given the linguistic dissimilarities and variations unique to the many languages involved was almost unworkable. Making sense of the dialects alone was daunting. Many words had inexplicable meanings outside the contexts of their geographical locales.
So much effort was expended to reconcile and harmonize the agglomeration of “Holy” scriptures the Bishops reviewed from far and wide that bitter arguments broke out. Bishops insulted each other and the spectre of ethnic rivalry reared its ugly head. Entire epistles of Saints – like Mary Magdalene, Jude and Barnabas – were rejected and dismissed as “Apocryphal” (doubtful). Eventually, compromise won out. The New Testament was born. Constantine got his Holy Book. Over the years Christianity became even more nuanced as Popes, Church scholars, clerics and academics freely read into the New Testament Gospels their own interpretations and spin of what the textual “Word of God” meant. Their “commentaries” would take on a gravamen all their own in the eyes of the faithful. Protestant Reformers would fight wars to prove this point.
As a central feature, however, Church Fathers at Nicaea downplayed the Jewishness of Jesus’ dogma, untethering his message from its Old Testament backdrop and the ancient Hebrew belief system that overshadowed most of his teaching. It was decided that Christ “transcended ethnicity”. The “Word” of Jesus Christ was for everyone now! Just because Jesus lived with and delivered his truths exclusively to Jews in the Levant hundreds of years ago was of little import. Jerusalem was yesterday’s news. The New Testament was the actual new Word of God, written down by Bishops who were “Divinely Inspired” by the Holy Spirit. Constantine’s book was the Alpha and Omega of Christ’s doctrine. It became the very embodiment of Christianity.
The most frustrating part about all this is that we still don’t know exactly what Jesus preached. We know what others say he said 70 years after the fact. And we know what others say about what they think he said hundreds of years after that. We also know how some people throughout history interpreted what they think he said and their assessment of it’s “spiritual impact” on mankind. But it’s all hearsay on top of hearsay with a side-order of hearsay. Vision-based and abstract testimonies – mostly well-intentioned, of course – but unverifiable nevertheless, It’s the same story with the Old Testament yarns. Without “Faith” none of it makes sense.
In Conclusion
Trade and war spread Christianity. That’s historical fact. Not miracles. Not revelations. Christianity became the solidifying and cohering influence in Western Society that drew all nations closer and “Tamed” the Barbarian Hordes and Viking Berserkers so that modern Europe could be born. It was the right religion at the right time, appealing to the rich and poor alike – yet able to be readily “interpreted” and leveraged for political gain. Along the way it evolved into a force to be reckoned with, manipulated by savvy men called “Popes” who knew a good thing when they saw it. The Christian message was massaged and repurposed, purged of its exclusively Jewish antecedents and let loose. In substance and in presentation it became a unifying political doctrine advantageous to all echelons of the leadership elite. Christianity made European Feudalism possible – and the unwashed masses would never be the same.
So why was the Christian God so preferable to the Old Gods in this context of European restructuring, Feudalism and social upheaval? The “New” Christian Faith was targeted to appeal to the lowest social classes everywhere because it promised liberation from worldly afflictions and preached a doctrine of Salvation – once a Christian was Baptized, his or her soul was granted peace and eternal grace after death, but it was subject to the rules of the Pope during life. The Pope called the shots in this world – the Pope and the Feudal Lords. The Old Gods were agrarian Gods, helpers of farmers and protectors of Warriors. Individual initiative, valor and courage was praised. To be “as the Gods” a man had to be fierce and brave in all things. The Christian God expected you to know your place and submit to authority, civil and clerical.
Belief in the Old Gods developed organically – over years of harvests and snowfalls, enemy attacks, disease, births and deaths. The day to day struggles of people trying to survive in a harsh environment. Christianity, on the other hand, was contrived – almost engineered – to achieve a political purpose under the guise of eternal salvation and pacifistic dogma. The Old Religion had little, if anything that could remotely pass as “Dogma” and was a dynamic, constantly evolving spirituality linked to nature, the Four Seasons, Solstices and astrological events. It wasn’t “Sin” obsessed and punishment oriented. It’s Holy Men weren’t tyrants. They were members of the community.
The Old Religion was a better fit for hard-core, independent and freedom-loving souls. Why, then, was it adopted so comprehensively throughout Northern Europe? Or was it? Did it just go underground?
Feudalism crushed people’s spirits and it rejected self-determination. Freedom was anathema. The lower classes (Serfs) were assigned their place at the lowest rung on the social ladder and were expected to stay in it – for generations. Fighting Wars was the business of the landed gentry and wealthy classes – Dukes, Barons and Viscounts – who lived off the sweat and toil of serfs who raised all the food and tended livestock. Serfs owned no property. Christianity was a hierarchy that was structured along the lines of a Pyramid, a top-down management system. Feudalism was the same construct in the civil and social realm. The Feudal Lords protected the Church Lords and vice-versa. Control of the lower classes was ironclad. Christianity as a social management paradigm was was – literally – “Heaven Sent” for the wealthy and powerful classes. The Era of Feudalism was called “The Dark Ages” for good reason. And it’s loyal handmaiden was Christianity.
The New Testament crafted by all those Bishops in Nicaea, Turkey in 325 AD became the bedrock of the Christian Faith and it travelled well – far and wide. Money and trade set the stage for the migration of ideas (one of which was Christianity) from the rich Mediterranean regions to the cold, poor Northern reaches of Europe. The have-nots sheathed their swords once resources and wealth made its way to their villages on trading ships instead of Viking Knorrs fresh from the kill. Wealth had a calming and domesticating effect – when local Lords and Royal families weren’t fighting each other for a bigger slice of the pie.
With our hindsight of 20/20 vision we can see that Christianity – or at least the construct of what we’ve all been taught is Christianity – was a methodical development that unfolded over a sustained period of years. It was nurtured by influential and exceedingly intelligent forces for practical reasons: power and riches. We still don’t know any more about the historical figure we call Jesus Christ than we did after his cucifixion. The fog of history and the endless fogs of wars waged in his name have overwhelmed our zeitgeist with myths and mysteries that we now blithely conflate as “Faith”.
The true history of the Roman Church is relevant so that we may examine our world through the cold, hard lens of historical facts with our feet planted firmly on the ground. Was Christianity spread through mass miracles and rapturous spiritual fervor? No. It was spread through trade and war. And in the process, it evolved into what we know as “The Church” today. Brute force, war, money and politics is the true story of Christianity. Christian “Missionaries” were just a sideshow – some say they were little more than cadres of Vatican spies. But that’s something for the academics to debate.
So – how was mighty Odin dethroned in Northern Europe by the ideas of a pacifist, obscure Jewish Rabbi from the Levant? What possible relevance and appeal did this murdered Semitic minister have to free-spirited Pagan warriors who had their own fully developed religious belief system and social fabric? Where are the commonalities? Was the Christian Gospel so seductive, so alluring that upon hearing it Pagans spontaneously tore down and burned their holy places in a frenzied rapture of conversion, bleating Hosannas and tearing at their garments with joyful voice?
Not by a long shot. Let’s just say………it’s complex.
Keep your eyes open and your powder dry. Question everything.
