... on Duration of Roman Empire (quora)

Q

How long did the Roman Empire last?

Answer requested

by Wesley Black

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Answered just now

V e r y good question.

First, we can divide it into two.

When did it begin? When did it end?

And either of them is related to a third, what is it?

If it is “command of city of Rome over a territory larger than Rome,” the answer is shortly after 753 BC to present. A bit short of 3 millennia.

If it is “unified command of Latin speakers outside Italian peninsula” it is from Punic wars to … whenever Byzantines ceased to be fluent in Latin. Probably sth above 13 centuries.

If it is “command of a kinglike character inheriting dignities from Julius Caesar” it began in the time of Julius Caesar and ended in World War I or its aftermath. Czar Nicolas II and Emperor Charles I left their monarchic positions after signing treaties with the Entente powers. So, sth like 2000 years.

Now, which of these senses is most relevant to the Bible?

I would say that the Imperium of the Senate, of the Roman Republic, could have been the Fourth Beast of Daniel (while Antiochus IV Epiphanes, prefiguring Antichrist, was a Greek, he was also subservient to Roman Senate). However, if we speak of what is holding back (in Thessalonians) so the mystery of iniquity cannot fully come forth, in the time of St Paul, it was arguably the dignity of Caeasars, and indeed both Lenin and Hitler appeared in power after Charles the Last and Czar Nicolas had lost it.

Note, there are some other conventions, like saying “it lasted to 476 AD” or “it lasted to 1453 AD”. While more common, I think they are less meaningful than the said Bible relevant ones, and less likely to correspond to a good definition of what the “Roman Empire” means.

The one where 476 AD could be relevant would be “ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue”, but that is only on the reading that ten nations are what is meant not only with “ten toes” which aren’t actually mentioned, but also the vision of ten horns, which I believe refers to sth other and closer to actual end times.

Also, as to Roman Republic’s Empire, “ten horns” corresponds to “Decemviri legibus faciundis” - two committees of ten men who were making laws. But arguably, the ten kings of the endtimes might well be such of different nations, or could refer to prime ministers of Israel.

Reading “nations of former Roman territory after 476” into ten horns is bad as to end times prophecy and probably not much better as to secular cultural understanding of Romanity either.

Language Questions on Quora

Q I

How were languages created and how did they evolved through time?

A Req

Answer requested by Marine Baptiste

Hans-Georg Lundahl, amateur linguist

Answered just now

Evolving through time is a process still very well observable for many languages, so, take that first.

Pronunciation, sentence building, word choice, morphology can all shift, often very minutely (in each step), and usually each shift is also at first optional, some are reversed, some go through, some leave traces.

All of this leaves more traces in writing if it is word choice or sentence building and less if it is pronunciation or morphology.

Because, the first things you learn when you learn to read and write is how words are spelled and how the grammatical forms are made.

This means, if you deviate from morphology or previous standard spelling (if any) you are usually involuntarily mistaken, you correct yourself if you see a model corresponding to what you learned, but if you deviate from previous sentence structure or word choice, you more like say “you can say that too”.

This means, the acquired synaesthesia between language sounds and spelling will change over time, like English is much less phonetical in spelling now than in Chaucer’s time, but also the basic phonetic implications of any given letter or letter combination may also change.

Long a? Once, that would have been like the word father, both in the verb bathe and the noun bath. Since then, the sound in “father” and “bath” is seen as an exception, and the sound in “bathe” is the normal, even if bathe and lots of other words have shifted pronunciation.

Sometimes languages (not as in spoken languages, but as in a spoken and a written language going together in acquired synaesthesia) are created. This happens when you give a spelling system and alphabet to a language that was only spoken, this happens when you replace spelling system for a language, or (rarer) replace language for a spelling system.

You are a missionary and you give a writing system to a native language? That is how St Jean Bréboeuf and others created Huron as a written language.

You think the old spelling of a language looks very unfamiliar (you learned reading and writing in another one, and the books are very old), so you replace the spelling system with one from the language you know to write? That is how later version of Middle English (Chaucerian and West Midland versions, as well as Courtly Scots) were created, abandoning the very much older writings in Old English. Those creating them used the basics of French spelling system, back then, and added a few signs not needed in French, usually digraphs.

Or, you think priests in a certain country speak Latin very bad, and need to rehearse pronunciation? That is why Charlemagne (after hearing complaints) imported Alcuin from York …

As a by product of Latin writing acquiring a new prounciation (meaning to restore an older and more international one), producing Medieval Latin properly speaking, the Latin speech got a sound-to-letter correspondence to create a new written language from, and that is how Provençal and French were created.

If you mean very much older ultimate origins with language creation, both Hebrew and the Babelic languages were given or created directly by God.

And God used all the ingenuity of any conlanger, from Tolkien to Zamenhoff, to create new ones, except ingenuity is the wrong word for the omniscient … Hebrew (in some form) can probably be considered to be God’s own language. The one “He thought in” before He created.

Q II

What was the very first language recorded in history?

A Req

Answer requested by Evelyn Baker

Hans-Georg Lundahl, amateur linguist

Answered 24m ago

In history or archaeology?

Each people’s history usually considers either the own language or a specially fine version or older version of it as the first language.

In archaeology, that means, what deciphered written language has left the oldest remains.

So, as a Christian, I answer oldest language in history is Hebrew.

As knowledgeable about archaeology, I refer you to the list here:

Egyptian, Sumerian, Canaanite, Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hurrian, Hittite, Palawian - the wiki gives a timetable like 2690 to 16th C, referring to carbon dates of the remaining tablets or other supporting materials related to some organic material, and deflating the carbon dates to Biblical times gives from Joseph in Egypt or somewhat before to Exodus or somewhat later.

Note that Canaanite and Hebrew are aliases for same language and Eblaite is for Syriac, and theologians differ on whether oldest Hebrew was what we now call Hebrew or Syriac.

Here is the wiki, linking to relevant passage, by the way:

List of languages by first written accounts - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_first_written_accounts#Before_1000_BC

Q III

Is there a native American language family that is comparable in size to Indo-European?

A Req

Answer requested by Andrew Pece

Hans-Georg Lundahl, amateur linguist

Answered Feb 27

According to some, there are only three language families in native languages of America, with Amerind as largest of the three.

That would be the position of Ruhlen. However, others split up Amerind into several language families and come up with a somewhat different result.

Rich Alderson,

BA, MA, doctoral research in Indo-European linguistics

Thu

Ruhlen simply follows Greenberg, who was also wrong.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Thu

I’m aware that he follows Greenberg, and if you say Greenberg was wrong, I suppose you are among the splitters.

Rich Alderson

Thu

“Splitters” is a would-be pejorative coined by Greenberg’s follower(s), but it makes no sense.

Any of us who has worked on the languages of the Americas would be happy to demonstrate a connection between previously unconnected language families, but we’ll do it with hard work and principled comparisons, not a scan through unanalyzed data hoping for “ooh, that’s one!” moments.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

I’d consider “splitters” and “lumpers” two tendencies in any venture of taxonomy.

Neither more pejorative than the other.

I also think, if your criteria were used, possibly Indo-European, and probably Afro-Asiatic would not be language families.

Which might be a good thing, by the way. If it was the reverse perhaps …

Ural-Altaic has been a thing and is no longer, since criteria changed over decades.

Rich Alderson

15h ago

Non sequitur. The implication that there are only “lumpers” and “splitters”, and that “lumpers” are the good guys and “splitters” are the bad guys, misses the point that real linguists (and I’m sorry, but Joe Greenberg lost the right to call himself such when he moved beyond Africa) will happily combine language families *when the evidence is there*.

Indo-European is solidly confirmed, with nearly 250 years of study. Afro-Asiatic is pretty solid, but needs another few decades of solid work (not Greenbergian guesswork) to confirm it.

Ural-Altaic (and even Altaic) were essentially early examples of what you call “lumper” proposals: Things *looked* kind of similar, so they must be related; further study showed that this was the wrong way to do linguistics. If you want to call getting things right after getting them wrong “being a splitter”, that’s your poor choice.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

How about learning to read?

You stated this in an answer to me:

“The implication that there are only “lumpers” and “splitters” (1), and that “lumpers” are the good guys and “splitters” are the bad guys,(2)”

I very clearly not only did not say these things, also did not imply them, because I said opposite things.

I will now quote myself with clarifications:

• 1.) “I’d consider “splitters” and “lumpers” two tendencies in any venture of taxonomy.” = Two tendencies or two poles = there are lots between the extremes.
• 2.) “Neither more pejorative than the other.” = lumpers will consider splitters as bad guys and splitters will consider lumpers as bad guys. Those exactly in the middle on the hedge will consider both as bad guys.

“Indo-European is solidly confirmed, with nearly 250 years of study.”

Starting, according to Greenberg’s and Ruhlen’s resumé with a methodology rather close to their own.

I will begin by stating, I distinguish group from family, as family is one of three group relations.

Balkan group = mutual adstrate, classic Sprachbund case.

West European group = common superstrate, namely Ecclesiastic Latin, so to speak “Sprachbund per lingua franca”.

Romance group = Romance family, solidly documented as descending from Latin.

I will now add, when it comes to IE langs, I am a lumper as to group status, but splitter as to family status.

I take it, while evidence for Ural-Altaic or Amerind is insufficient for family status, it might be clearly sufficient for group status, as per Balkan group as comparison, or two West European languages. My actual point is, this is how I view the IE group.

“If you want to call getting things right after getting them wrong “being a splitter”, that’s your poor choice.”

That’s a partisan appeal from splitters, if you like. As such, it is perfectly licit. Oh, were you trying to give scientific expertise status to that? I don’t believe there is such a thing in the theory of knowledge in the first place. Or not beyond direct observations.

Q IV

Do we have any idea about the Proto-Indo-Europeans' clothing? What was their standard attire?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Answered 35m ago

In order to know anything about Proto-Indo-European culture, we would need to know two things about Proto-Indo-European language:

• that it was a single language
• and which human group studied by archaeology spoke it.

The answer would depend very much on whether you consider Indo-European started as a single language in Yamnaya or as a Sprachbund spanning parts of Anatolia and Balkan and the seas between and south of them. And by what time they would have coalesced.

Q V

What were the personal pronouns in Proto-Indo-European language?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur linguist

Answered 59m ago

For I and II person, just taking nominative and accusative, as I see probable:

Sg:
Egô, me
tû, te

Du:
weh, noh
yuh, woh

Pl:
wei, nos
yus, wos.

Supposing there were really forms from one single proto-language.

I don’t know any single “branch of Indo-European” which uses all of above.

Perhaps some very early versions of Germanic (Gothic, Old Saxon, archaic types of Old English?)

(also, the classic six close blood relatives only have the “full Indo-European panoply” as one could say in Germanic).

Crediting:

Proto-Indo-European pronouns - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_pronouns#Personal_pronouns

Q VI

How did Proto-Indo-European turn a statement into a question?

A Req

Answer requested by Adam Abahot

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur linguist

Answered 1h ago

That is precisely one the things which have not been reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European.

There are a few others as well.

What is Proto-Indo-European for hand? For mouth? For head?

As far as I know, we don’t know.

Q VII

What do all/most languages that descend from PIE have in common (aside from many vocabulary roots)?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur linguist

Answered Thu

I don’t think there is any thing all languages supposed to descend from it have in common, and fairly little most … wait … numerals from 2 to 10. That would be in all languages. Already for 1, you have a different word in Greek than for the others.

In order for either a vocabulary item or an item of morphology to count as coming from Proto-Indo-European, it has to:

• exist in 3 or more of the “branches of IE” (the terminology presupposes a common root, a proto-language, I don’t quite agree, but am following common usage);
• and not be a recent loan from one of them (example : “astronomy” is from Greek and is in other languages more or less recent, in Latin going back only sth like 2000 years, and then clearly borrowed from Greek).

I have started a little checkup on the Indo-European roots in Pokorny, and I am not sure how much of it will cover all or most “branches.” Some cover fewer, like “apple” or “wasp”.

Q VIII

Is it possible to reconstruct the original "Indo-European" language and teach it?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur linguist

Answered Thu

Any reconstruction depends on assumptions about what historically happened.

Suppose Proto-Indo-European actually existed, rather than say Greek, Hittite, Aryan forming a Sprachbund and loaning words from each other, only what is preserved in sufficient commonolities between branches can be reconstructed.

As long as you stay with reconstruction only, you are therefore reconstructing an incomplete language.

You want a complete Indo-European? Fine, invent it.

Invented languages can be taught and lacunar languages can be extended by more invention. But someone else might invent another complete PIE.

... on How I Became a Fascist, Continued

... on How I Became a Fascist · ... on How I Became a Fascist, Continued

How did you become a fascist?

Hans-Georg Lundahl, Blog : "http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com". Debating evolutionists for 15 years

Answered Mar 8, 2018

I read Alexander Ramati’s The Assisi Underground .... etc. As per previous post.

I

Gary Goodman

Jun 2, 2018

Upvote because interesting and thoughtful.

I'm influenced by the fact of intelligent westerners fighting for republican Spain, with the understanding that anarchism is fairly impossible at any scale (as I understand that), and that Stalin had the Spanish Communists betray the Anarchists.

Also reports that the anti-republics took to hiding on rooftops and shooting “anyone wearing overalls” under the assumption they were laborers, and as laborers, communists.

Yet I read a bit on Julius Evola, a self-described super-fascist (his legal defense that he wasn't a Nazi, iirc).

He described this as a yearning for a spiritual fascism, a warrior ethic of strength, with a proud God or Gods who backed Man.

That in contrast to the Jewish and Christian ideas of God, with Man humble and subservient and loving. The fact that the Christian God-Man aka Jesus was a martyr rather than hero.

That's roughly what I got out of the essay, tho I'd like to read again.

Evola seemed to not be against Jews per se (didn't say that at all in the essay), but rather had opposition to Judaism or Judeo-Christian Christianity. Kinda similar to the “Aryan race” of ideal warrior.

Am I mistaken? Let me know.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

8m ago

My reasons for describing as Fascist and Evola’s are very different.

II

Dave Smith

Aug 16, 2018

Mussolini was not by any means pro Jewish. During the war (even before german occupation) he shipped off hundreds of thousands of Italian jews off to their deaths, calling Hitler “soft” and saying he himself had “been a racist since 1921”.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

6m ago

Have you ever come across the idea that puppet régimes tend to be subservient to occupant?

Oh, “even before German Occupation”? Since when, then?

And where can I verify it?

Anyway, I think Mussolini took a turn or two to the worse in 1938 (I’m against Carta della Razza).

III

Edward Carmex

Jun 5, 2018

Feels strange upvoting a fascist but hey, you answered the question thoroughly so credit where credit's due.

The idea that fascism is harmony between the classes is laughable though.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

No, it’s not.

The point of Capitalism is, employers have the money and therefore have the say, screw the workers if they don’t like conditions.

The point of Communism is workers saying “hey, let’s become our own employers on working places not yet our own, we can use some violence, right?” and screw the employers if they don’t like to be robbed.

Anything rejecting both is roughly speaking Fascist : Italian Fascism, Spanish Falangism, Austro-Fascism, also Distributism to some degree (Chesterton did not give the problem that particular thought, but Belloc considered a successful Distributism in the countryside could take care of itself - though Austro-Fascism is helping farmers to this day in Austria! - but Distributism in cities might need Corporatism to preserve itself from returning to Big Business Capitalism). Social Democracy and Democrat Party are also here, as is Peronismo, both (or all three) have done some good, but Scandinavian Social Democracy and US Democrat party have abortion blood on their hands.

Here are some debate or comment exchange under other answers than mine:

I

Sihan Cao

Answered Feb 4, 2018

Being a serious Roman Catholic and hating both Communism and Liberalism, I found myself no choice but naturally sympathizing Falangism.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mar 8, 2018

Thank you very much.

In my case the history is reversed.

I was pro-Falange even before my Baptism at age 15, while a believing, Church Hopping Christian somewhere in the grey zone between Lutheran, Anglican, Evangelical and … Catholic.

Obviously, being pro-Falange helped in my Catholic conversion.

Sihan Cao

Apr 27, 2018

Salute

II

Jeremy Brown, Business owner (2015-present)

Answered Oct 29, 2017

Originally Answered: What made you into a fascist?

Bottom. Still Don't even know what Fascist actually means..

a)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

If you have employees and make them feel you treat them as fellow people, it’s just someone has to boss the business and you get a bit more of the share, and if you pay them well, you have done with Mussolini wanted business owners to do.

b)

Walter Stanger

Oct 29, 2017

Fascism is basically the thought that some people are (because of ethnicity, usually) are superior to others, usually tied to extreme right-wing ideologies and an authoritarian government.

It’s horrible.

David Lake

Oct 29, 2017

Here’s the problem - Mussolini and the Italian fascists defined the word “fascist” in economic terms. By your definition, Mussolini was not a fascist, as the Italian fascists vehemently defended class equality.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

4m ago

I would say Walter Stanger may be thinking of National Socialism and using a Commie and East Bloc terminology where Fascist is euphemism for National Socialist.

Which kind of poisons the debate when someone likes Mussolini’s Carta del Lavoro for instance.

I like Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno a bit better, so I like Austro-Fascism better than Italian Fascism.

Can Anyone Suffer from Schizophrenia?

Q

Do some Christians think that it's impossible to be Christian and suffer from schizophrenia?

Hans-Georg Lundahl, Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?

Answered Mar 6, 2018

I think it is impossible to be anything and suffer from schizophrenia.

A sham diagnosis is not sth which one can suffer from.

Oh, you can of course suffer socially from it, but I meant medical suffering.

Holly Baier

Feb 5

Could you further explain this answer. Specifically what you consider to be suffering socially, verses suffering medically.

Also would you (in your opinion) apply this to any other mental illnesses? Or just personality disorders?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

If you suffer because someone considers you as schizophreniac and therefore takes responsibilities from you so you can’t do what you want, or forces medication or hospital emprisonment on you that you don’t like, I consider such suffering definitely social and not medical.

As to medical conditions, people can suffer from some of the conditions lumped together as schizophrenia, but that would still not always qualify as medical suffering properly in all cases (with madness, one of them, it would, it’s a ten thousand times more scientific word than schizophrenia), and there are conditions that are neither medically bad nor suffering (hebephilia, if enjoyed, for one), and there are also conditions that are improperly verified involved, as auditory hallucinations often being verified either by someone talking to himself (which could very well be Ben Gunn’s syndrome) or by someone to confessing to “hearing voices” in a sense where what is involved is an interior voice. Not one perceived as a perception from the ear, but one perceived, as with own thoughts, as one perceives memories of what one hears.

Do you have an inner dialogue instead of an inner monologue? Stay CLEAR of shrinks, then!

Bipolar is usually genuine as to condition, but shrinks would probably too often overdo how hard one is suffering from it and intervene when no intervention is needed.

Putting people on lifelong medication for bipolar, and scaring either them or their surroundings that if they leave off medication they could commit suicide is not taking into account that antidepressants have been linked to suicides or murders, and also overdramatising the simple depression factor in suicides, as if cultural and religious outlook had nothing to do with how intense depression one can take without actually getting suicidal.

Holly Baier

1h ago

It sounds like you may have some personal experiences from which you are drawing from. Would that be a correct deduction?

If no, and your above answer is more than baseless opinion, could you provide some sources from the medical community supporting any of your conclusions?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

Let’s put it like this.

I have read a novel by Chesterton in which a man is a hero because he saves another man from being shut up in mental hospital.

I have seen sufficient in my life to fully endorse that, but even if I hadn’t, I would not feel the need to provide sources from the medical community, as if they were the only ones who had a say.

We live after a century of fairly open abuse of power by mental institutions, and calling it out for the bullying it is doesn’t take medical expertise.

Some Arguments Against School Compulsion

Whether TopTenz saw it like that or not.

10 Mind-Bogglingly Terrible Decisions Made by Schools
TopTenz | 12.I.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH2LQn8S4rk

I

10 - so the Jewish children were ok with it, why are you not?

How many Jews are for instance ok with The Dictator by Chaplin or with Mel Brooks?

How do you judge there was no such context?

II

Before even watching:

"9. School tries to ban Harry Potter for being about magic, allows students to read Chronicles of Narnia series"

It so happens, in Narnia series, any human or mortal humanoid practising magic is in fact doing sth wrong.

Starting the series with The Magician's Nephew very much highlights this.

A few quibbles on this point.

• a) using yellow and green rings to get from world to world is in fact wrong, and Uncle Andrew is guilty for inventing this, and this is exactly why Aslan tells Digory and Polly to bury the rings, in The Magician's Nephew, and why in The Last Battle, they are never used.
• b) being brought between worlds by a wardrobe (Lion, Witch, Wardobe) or by an irresistible pull (Prince Caspian) or by a painting (Voyage of the Dawn Treader) or by a door one was simply trying to get away from school and hide from bullies (The Silver Chair) or through a train crash the split seconds before you die in a train crash (The Last Battle) is, unlike the use of rings, not practising magic.
• c) Cornelius' practise of "sleep magic" seems to be either hypnosis or a sleep drug (in other words, in normal terms he is not practising magic).
• d) Voyage of the Dawn Treader is in parts a bit flaky on this point, but at least gives some hints on morality of magic use, as in what not to use it for, while the actual use not wrong is in obedience and basically under a death threat - at the same time, Coriakin is also not a mortal human, but a star.

Harry Potter makes the "a bit flaky" side the rule for those who are going to Hogwarts. And who are mortals at least in the sense they can be killed. PLUS can be born of Muggles. That is perfectly normal human mortals.

It seems, Narnia reflects a Christian morality on this point, while Harry Potter looks more like some versions of Jewish morality.

(So much for "Judeo-Christian").

For instance, Kaytek the Wizard (the author of which is better known for King Matt) has hero learn to "deal responsibly" with having magic powers. That school should logically endorse Narnia and The Satanic Mill (where magic is, correctly, presented as a deal with the devil the hero needs to be delivered from), and ban Harry Potter and Kaytek.

Nothing like any kind of illogic in what the written summary has shown.

The idea is a bit like saying one must either allow or forbid both Narnia and Dark Materials - because both involve getting to another world through a wardrobe. But one has reasonably argued Dark Materials is morally an "anti-Narnia".

1:40 "promotes witchcraft and the occult"

Key word : promotes.

While, precisely, Narnia definitely warns against it.

2:16 In LWW an evil precisely witch is overcome by powers of good like Son of God incarnate in that world as a lion having created it.

In Harry Potter, an evil warlock is overcome, but not by any God, but by other warlocks and witches who are just not evil (though they occasionally enjoy a magic prank or two, of the kind specifically warned against in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Lucy fiddles around with that kind of thing, when she shouldn't).

Narnia says "witchcraft is evil". Harry Potter says "witchcraft can be used for good or evil, and small pranks with it aren't really evil".

III

8 - I agree. Eavesdropping by computers is as evil as eavesdropping by other means.

3:14 None on the school saw that as a big deal?

Well, perhaps they were avidly reading Harry Potter before they became school staff?

You know, the moral world in which magical (and by extension technological) minor pranks is ok ...

3:57 (#7) Also agreed. Schools should not push commercial preferences on their students (ok, some, like what Latin books to buy ... because that's the one the Latin teacher uses).

"disruptive" seems to be a code word for lots of "undesirable" behaviour, these days.

#6 - agree again. Btw, both 7 and 6 argue for my and against your point on #10.

IV

#4 - Banning that book may have been a move of sarcasm or irony on part of people who had erroneously been considered as racialist for ... using the N-word.

How many have come from Germany or Sweden where "neger" simply is the normal word for a man with skin of darker shades of brown?

And how often is this even done these days, if not in Germany at least in Sweden by hawks of the PC movement?

One librarian (himself immigrant) removed Tintin in Congo "for being racist".

Skin-Walkers, Shapeshifters, Odinist Idols

When Coulomb Comments on Catholic North Lands · Skin-Walkers, Shapeshifters, Odinist Idols

Skin-walkers
Tumblar House | 2.III.2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHZJRf-1hfA

I happen to have a Catholic author to add to the previous list of Catholic Scandinavia - or two, a Norwegian subject residing on Iceland and a Dane clearly favouring Valdemar Atterdag.

It's the Dane, Saxo Grammaticus, who has most to say on this subject, and if you believe Odin coming to Uppsala and Bödvar Bjarke's fylgia appearing and so, here are two things related.

• 1) Odin was able to look like he had just died (no breathing or heartbeats visible) and, when waking up, to shift shape to a vulture and fly away.
• 2) When Bödvar Bjarke slept, his fylgia, shaped like a bear, was fighting for him (and fighting better than he), meaning, his protégé Hjalte (formerly Hött) does a mistake in waking him up in the final battle.

The fylgia is easiest to explain. Some kind of angelic (or elfin) being was sometimes showing. Fallen or not fallen.

Now, that one would be a different person from Bödvar himself.

Odin ... I tend to think he knew the arts of fakirs including hypnosis.

His pseudo-dead state ... fakirs sometimes do that.

His appearance as a vulture flying away? If one observer regularly observing this was sufficiently important, this would spread. Poor Gylfe, last monarch previous to Odin, could have been hypnotised, deeply, and Odin abused it to give this impression.

As to any less important person NOT so hypnotised seeing Odin rise up normally, well, I guess you know H. C. Andersen's Emperor's Knew Clothes ...? With the added incentive to comply, that not doing so might land him on the sacrificial list. You know, Odinism did - like Druidism - involve human sacrifice.

By the way, Bödvar, who considered Odin as giver of victory and loss in battle, fairly appropriately called him a traitor. Perhaps one of the truest words a Pagan said of his false gods ... though not for the reason Bödvar imagined.

Compared to that, Snorre (the Icelander / Norwegian) has less to say on shapeshifting, but the behaviour of his historic Odin (the one starting Yngling dynasty after deluding Gylfe) seems to involve invisibility in the perception of, precisely one man, Gylfe.

I think Charles can imagine exacly how this was arranged. If not, ask John Cerbone.

The non-historic Odin is of course Odin's self-representation, as having formerly killed a monster with his two brothers and created the world from it, and man and woman from two trees trunks.

Don't you believe a Swede could be sufficiently stupid to believe that?

Well, look at Reformation, Enlightenment and Social Democracy in Sweden!

The latter involved an episode c. 40 years long, of enforced sterilisations. Lapps and gipsies targetted.

You know, "believing doctrines of demons" and all that. And of course, "ab aquilone pandetur malum supra terram".

Btw, what do you consider as best among my theories on identity of Odin?

• 1) A Druid, fleeing from Julius Caesar? One whose Teutates' name was Nodens, changing it to Vodens and playing the part?
• 2) Yeshu Ben Pekharia (if that is how he was called) whom some Jews later confused with Our Lord Jesus Christ?

Odin very arguably DID found an idolatrous cult.

His son probably in some fashion played the part of a thundergod.

And the sons of Zebedee are also called "Boanerges" (which does not linguistically mean "sons of thunder") and why? "Because sons of thunder". Like Our Lord teasing them on their father or grandfather having been adored as an idol (but repented, otherwise he would not be back in Holy Land), and them responding by moaning like oxen (that is what boanerges does mean!)

When Coulomb Comments on Catholic North Lands

a Catholic North Lander can't just stay away.

[When Coulomb Comments on Catholic North Lands · Skin-Walkers, Shapeshifters, Odinist Idols]

Catholic Scandinavia
Tumblar House | 23.II.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLsuVozkEds

I

St. Bridget is major Apocalyptic literature, next to the Bible, for one?

She also showed criticising a Pope doesn't mean you are not Catholic (though in her case, the criticism was from Christ, not from her personally, and He did back it up, since every time she prediected someone would die, he died - I had this from my Latin professor, now he has died himself some time ago, who was an atheist and considered her "schizophreniac").

Oh, yeah, a saint to show against atheists who are at ease with considering a Catholic schizophreniac too (as mentioned in previous aside).

Or St Olaf, descending from Odin and Frey ... shows you don't need to be an Antichrist just because your family is, and you don't have to worship Antichrists just because they are blood relations.

As to pre-Catholic Scandinavia, I think the story of Beowulf may have inspired Anglo-Saxon missionary St Sigfrid to come over and baptise some of us ...

You know that line where Geats sitting around the pond where Beowulf has dived down an hour earlier when confronted to the irrationality replied "Geats know how to wait, when wan is hope" / "when gone is hope".

I suspect there was one listener who said they behaved better than the 12, and decided "they SHALL be Christian". You know, the "non Angli sed angeli" theme.

II

2:03 I hear you have been reading Halldór Laxness!

3:02 You saw Queen Christina's grave in Church of St Peter?

III

3:22 An example even better than Queen Christina. Steno.

Founder of geology, and as CMI like to note, a perfectly orthodox Genesis believing Flood Geologist.

What they less note, he was converting bc of Real Presence, and he became a missionary bishop in Denmark and North Germany, and died from the strain of cold and hunger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Steno#Religious_studies

IV

4:03 "People discovering their own heritage"

A bit like Anglo-Catholics, I was one for about a year, from age 15 to 16 or so. Planning to convert collectively with these guys, then deciding to convert a bit more rapidly.

Another one who decided not to wait for them is Stephan Borgehammar, author of How the Holy Cross was Found.

V

Heliand and a Catholic bishop of Brandenburg are technically speaking somewhat South of Scandinavia ... may I recommend the Swedish history by Olaus Magnus?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaus_Magnus

It's in Latin, and while an archbishop of Uppsala, he was such in Rome, like a certain bishop of Geneva was so in Annecy. (St. François de Sales, pray for us!)

Fun fact, wikipedians have placed him as having Laurentius Petri as "successor."

Laurentius Petri was one of two brothers who had studied under Luther, so he was hardly a successor on either one's view.

Olaus began his real rule (though of limited social effect, due to exile) in 4 June 1544. Laurentius Petri had begun his socially vastly more effective pseudo-rule (by appointment of King, not Pope), back in 1531.