medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Bonjour, eh?
I'd tend to agree that the idea of Christ as a
warrior is profoundly inappropriate except
that someone on the thread mentioned the
image is Germanic.
Early German hymnody, from what very
little I know, tended to emphasize the
Christus victor idea. It did this, insofar
as I understand, because the German
pagans being approached, for lack of a
better term, had gods who tended to
be warriors. Obviously, in a pantheon,
only victorious warriors counted for
much.
There remains a fragment of this hymnody
in Luther's "revision" of the early medieval
"Christ lag in todesbanden". See in particular,
verse four, which begins "Es war ein
wunderlicher Krieg", where "Tod und Leben
rungen".
There seems to be -- from what little I
have left of my library -- some dispute
concerning how much of the hymn is
medieval and how much Luther. Since
I have no idea what the hymn looked like
before 1524, I shall leave that discussion
to my betters.
I hope to see far more on this thread;
you have rung my chimes.
Cheers!
Frank
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