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Autobiography Evil Judeo-reductionism Neanderthalism

On the admin of this site

Below, an excerpted translation from the German Metapedia’s
article about me (the below pic was taken in 1973):

 

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C.T. (born 1958) is a private scholar and writer living in Mexico City. He publishes in Spanish and English, with emphasis on analysis of childhood trauma related to abuse. He acts as a staunch advocate of combative white self-assertion, including his blog The West’s Darkest Hour. In 2017, C.T. recorded the production of English-language radio broadcasts.
C.T. is the son of a composer known in Mexico in the tradition of classical music; his mother was a concert pianist. Remotely, he traces his origins back to Spanish ancestors.
The parental home was not only very Catholic, it was also the place where he experienced maltreatment as a teenager: experiences that shaped his character. Decades later, he made this topic the subject-matter of various publications that aim to prevent such events.
 
Christianity as the downfall of Whites
Mentally and spiritually, C.T. turned his back on Christianity in adulthood. He considers this religion to be an outrageous ‘death cult for whites’. All white values have been inverted by Christianity since its emergence in Europe, so that sub-humanism can be spread and triumph unhindered, while the white race is increasingly degenerating, to such an extent that it must fight for its bare survival.
In his investigations and assessments C.T. uses the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the champion of white race interests, William Pierce, whom he considers the greatest spirit America has produced.
Already at the conquest of the American continent, the Spaniards and Portuguese had spoiled their blood due to an ignominious, racial mixture of Christian convictions (‘all human brethren in Christ’). In this context C.T. strongly disagrees with what he calls ‘monocausalists’, who only blame the long-lasting, vicious Jewish influence, for the decline of whites. Long before Jews had set foot on American soil, the Christian European conquerors and colonists, including Englishmen and Frenchmen, were driven by greed to ensure that the conquered territories were filled with mestizos and Mulattoes.
 
Attitude to the Germans
C.T. shows an exceptionally strong understanding and sympathy for the Germans, especially as far as their historical fate is concerned. In his opinion, the two world wars fought against Germany in the 20th century were the most fatal crimes that whites ever instigated. Instead of living peacefully in the guise of the ‘crown of evolution’, the Germans of that time, the leaders of the Anglo nations decided to create a world in which the cloaca gentium of the human race is on top.
The most indispensable book that every white man should read to focus on the monstrous acts done to the Germans, and to provide a foundation for contemporary historical education and judgment, explains C.T., is Hellstorm: The Death of Nazi Germany, 1944-1947.

Categories
Friedrich Nietzsche

Not a Nietzsche scholar


Writing on Occidental Dissent, in his most recent article Hunter Wallace wrote: ‘There is a strong vein of nihilism that runs through the Alt-Right. If I had to identify its sources, it seems to spring largely from Nietzschean philosophy…’ One of the Christian commenters said: ‘What is needed is an embrace of Orthodox Christianity and its theology’.
Well, well. Wallace might be a good scholar on American history but certainly not on Nietzsche.
One of the things that bothers me most about our time is that the Jews and the academic gentiles quote Nietzsche with a spin in which they put him exactly as the opposite that he represented. As before I became openly racist I read a lot about Nietzsche, I remember very well some details of the biographies that have been written about him. One of the things that surprised me is that, when a young Wagner was involved in illegal activities against the king, the child Nietzsche played at home ‘King Squirrel’ with his sister, in which the traitors to the King were shot.
Even in his mature books Nietzsche was an exponent of the morality that Wallace laments has been lost in the Alt-Right. If instead of making the mistake of reading what academics opine about Nietzsche, we read Nietzsche directly, we will be surprised to learn that even in the 19th century he already complained that the institution of marriage was in danger in Europe, as can be seen: here.
Those who wish to enter the thoughts of the German philosopher would do well to start with the masthead of this blog, whose last pages contain lucid comments by Nietzsche showing that the ethnosuicidal problem of the West, rather than ‘cultural Marxism’, is ‘cultural Christianity’ (precisely the self-incriminatory term that Richie Spence has used to describe himself).
Those who wish to enter the tragic life of the philosopher could read some excerpts from a very lyrical essay, The Struggle with the Daimon: a real treat from the literary point of view!

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Categories
Christendom Communism Egalitarianism New Testament Old Testament St Paul Theology

Why Europeans must reject Christianity, 16

by Ferdinand Bardamu

 
Christianity: the grandmother of Bolshevism?
In 1933, the German historian Oswald Spengler wrote: “All Communist systems in the West are in fact derived from Christian theological thought… Christianity is the grandmother of Bolshevism.” This alone makes Christianity one of the most destructive forces in world history, a force so radioactive it destroys everything within its immediate vicinity. But how is this even possible?
Equality is such a fundamental aspect of the church’s kerygma that if it were removed the entire ideological structure of Christian orthodoxy would collapse like a house of cards. The “catholicity” of the church signifies that membership in the body of Christ is open to all men, regardless of ethno-linguistic or socio-economic differences. Salvation, because it is equally available to all, means that all men possess the same innate capacity to achieve it. There is also universal equality in sinful depravity, as well as in the possession of unmerited divine grace. Jesus’ commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself is merely the application of universalist and egalitarian principles to human social life. In the New Testament, believers are asked to serve one another, with the aim of achieving social equality within an ecclesiastical setting.
Assimilation of Platonic idealism by Ante-Nicene theologians added a metaphysical dimension to the egalitarian pronouncements of the New Testament. When God created man, he imparted the breath of life through his nostrils. This “breath,” psyche, or anima, translated “soul,” served as the life-principle of the animate body. The equality of souls before god obtains because all bear the same imago dei or image of god. In the Garden of Eden, man lived in circumstances of natural equality. St. Augustine writes that before the Fall, no one exercised dominion or lordship over anyone else, but that all ruled equally and indifferently over the inferior creation. The natural equality that once existed in this mythical prehistory was lost because of sin, which corrupted human nature. This brought slavery and other inequalities into the world. The church believed that the kingdom of god would restore Edenic conditions at the end of time.
To the Ante-Nicene church, belief in spiritual equality was not some ossified formula to be recited by rote like the Apostle’s Creed, but an ever-present reality with real-world, “anticipatory” consequences. Gospel narratives that incorporated elements of primitive communism were received favorably by the church and declared canonical. In Luke 3, John the Baptist, a member of the communist Essenes, exhorts his followers to share their clothing and food with those who are destitute. The communist pronouncements of John foreshadow the more explicit primitive communism of Jesus.
In Luke 4, Jesus begins his ministry by inaugurating an acceptable “year of the Lord’s favor.” This is a direct reference to the Hebrew Jubilee, which came every fifty years after the completion of seven sabbatical cycles. The proclamation of Jubilee signified manumission of slaves, absolution of debt, redistribution of property, and common ownership of the land’s natural produce.
According to Leviticus, no one owned the land, except YHWH; only its usufruct could be purchased. This was not a literal year of Jubilee inaugurated by Jesus. The passages being quoted in Luke are from Isaiah, not Leviticus which contains the actual Hebrew legislation. The imagery associated with the Jubilee is used to describe the realized eschatological features of the new age inaugurated by the coming Messiah. His return symbolizes the complete reversal of the old order. The new age will bring about communistic social relations through the ethical transformation of believers. From a biblical hermeneutic standpoint, the Torah Jubilee foreshadows the greater Jubilee now realized in Jesus’ ministry.
Jesus’ economic teachings go far beyond Levitical communal sharing. They necessitate large-scale re-organization of society along egalitarian and communist lines. In Luke 6, Jesus commands his audience to give to all those who beg from them, without distinction as to friend or enemy. His condemnation of violent retaliation is closely linked to this ethic of universal sharing; the communist social arrangement envisaged by Jesus cannot flourish in an atmosphere of violence and suspicion. The eschatological age inaugurated by the Messiah is one where lending without expectation of financial reward has become a new moral obligation, one that must be carried out if one wishes to obtain treasure in heaven.
That early Christian communist practice was morally obligatory is supported by numerous passages from the New Testament. According to 1 John 3:16-17, true believers will sacrifice their lives for the good of others, especially by giving to those in need; anyone who refuses to do this cannot claim to be a Christian in good moral standing.
In the Ante-Nicene church, fellowship was not only spiritual, but included mutual aid in the form of concrete material and economic assistance. The canonical epistle of James defines true religion as caring for “orphans and widows,” an ancient Hebrew idiom for the economically disadvantaged. Those who favor the rich over the poor, instead of treating both equally, are sinners in need of repentance. They have transgressed Jesus’ great commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” James says that “faith without works is dead.” What do these “works” consist of? We are informed that true faith is shown by those who feed and clothe the wretched of the earth. If one refuses to do this, one’s very identity as a Christian is placed in jeopardy.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul provides additional theological justification for early Christian communist practice using the kenosis of Christ as a reference point. Christians were expected to follow the example of Jesus, who was “rich” in his pre-existent state, but willingly “impoverished” himself so that believers could become “rich” through his “poverty.” This meant that wealthier Christian communities were morally obligated to share their abundance of riches with poorer ones. The purpose of re-distributing wealth from one Christian community to another, writes Paul, was the achievement of economic equality between believers.
The apostolic identification of “true faith” with material re-distribution led to the establishment of the world’s first welfare system and centrally planned domestic economy. While some form of primitive communism existed before the institutionalized Christian communistic practices of the first three centuries AD, these were reserved for small communities of Greek-speaking intellectuals or Jewish religious fanatics. What made Christian communism unique was its moral universalism and non-ethnocentric orientation. Given the egalitarian thrust of early Christian communist ideology, it should come as no surprise that the central organizing principle of classical Marxist economics, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” was lifted verbatim from the pages of the New Testament.
Marxism-Leninism, a murderous 20th century ideology that led to the deaths of over 100 million individuals worldwide, was directly inspired by the ethical pronouncements of the New Testament. This is a source of great embarrassment to the Christian religionist. In defense, apologists emphasize the voluntary nature of communist practice in early Christianity. Yet this apologetical evasion is clearly anachronistic.
Freedom defined as the ability to choose in the absence of external coercion is a uniquely modern idea inherited from post-Enlightenment philosophies of liberalism. This idea of freedom affirms the sovereign will as one obedient to itself, but also reducible to the basic laws of the free market. However, this understanding of freedom is diametrically opposed to the one encountered in the ancient Greek philosophical tradition. In this context, there is no sharp distinction between voluntary action and involuntary obligation; individuals are not conceptualized as autonomous agents with a multitude of options to choose from.
Instead, freedom is the ability to pursue the Good without impediment; only a properly functioning will, in which the subject has fully realized his true essence, can do this. To do evil goes against the proper functioning of the will; it is not an expression of one’s individual capacity for freedom. No one willingly or voluntarily refuses to pursue the Good; rather, they lack sufficient moral training or the appropriate self-restraint.
The Christian in the ancient world was free to not worship or consume meat sacrificed to idols; he was not free to do the opposite because he was no longer pursuing the Good. A Christian who violated the prohibition against idolatry was not legitimately exercising his capacity for free will, even though the prohibition had been violated in the absence of external coercion. Instead, such an action was the result of moral ignorance or error.
The same could be said of the early Christian practice of communism. This was only “voluntary” in the sense that Christians were freely pursuing a morally acceptable outcome. If freedom is pursuit of the Good without obstruction, Christians were morally obligated to participate in the communist socio-economic practices of the church, otherwise they would not be considered righteous before god.

The good Jew

Last year Franklyn Ryckaert said on Carolyn’s site:

Kevin MacDonald is under the illusion that there exists such a thing as the “good Jew” and he hopes he can make a deal with him: we support Israel as the ethnic state for the Jews, and the Jews support an ethnic state for us. That is not going to work. The Jews want it all: ethnocentrism for themselves, but multiculturalism for us. Recently he allowed a Jew to write an article on TOO. That decision was severely criticized by the commenters, including by me, then Kevin closed the comments on that article and threatened to close comments on TOO altogether if such criticism didn’t stop. This might be the beginning of Jewish infiltration of TOO. If the Jews will have their way with TOO, it will become like AmRen, allowing criticism of Blacks and Hispanics, but not of Jews.

Today a guest responded:

Excellent comment, and thanks for outing AmRen (Jared Taylor), as well. I dumped McDonald’s site, TOO, a couple years ago when I realized all the site consisted of was commiserating our respective situations in the west. Yes, it was commiserating at an academic level, but high brow complaining was all it was. There were never any solutions offered. When I messaged the editor about possibly publishing some strategic articles regarding social and political action plans so we could actually DO something about all the issues TOO was complaining about, the terse response I received was that if I didn’t like the site, I could leave it. So I did.
McDonald had nothing to lose in truthfully addressing the holocaust question. He’s retired from CSULB with an enormous public pension that’s protected. He failed a crucial litmus test here and only confirmed my thoughts about him. As they say, make of no man an god, for idols always fall on those who worship them.

But all WN sites, not only The Occidental Observer are only commiserating, right?

Categories
Islamization of Europe Judeo-reductionism

Blue-pill continent

Last year I sent an email to Prof. Kevin MacDonald complaining about an influential Mexican Jew and he asked me if I’d okay publishing it in his webzine, with a little editing. Of course I accepted and it can be read: here. But I knew that if I had written a lengthier piece I’d have mentioned something even more alarming. In Latin America, Jew and gentile intellectuals are on the same page. A single example will illustrate my point.

Every Monday the Mexican viewers of Foro TV can watch a roundtable with two Jews and two gentiles. Leo Zuckermann presides the program Es la Hora de Opinar. On Mondays he usually invites another Jew, Jorge Castañeda (second from left) and two non-Jews, the mestizo Héctor Aguilar Camín and the criollo Javier Tello Díaz.
Earlier this year I heard Castañeda pronouncing these lovely words in that program (my translation): ‘…the fact that Angela Merkel has allowed almost two million refugees to enter—and how good she did it! How good—I mean: we should congratulate ourselves, and congratulate her for having done so’. [1]
Not surprisingly, the two gentiles, Tello and Aguilar, not only agreed with such outrageous statement but even expanded Castañeda’s premise, concerned about the recent surge of nationalist sentiments in Germany in face of the so-called refugee crisis.
This has been my experience with intellectual gentiles in Latin America: the way they see the world is the same as the Jews do. This is why I have so many difficulties with the single-cause hypothesis of Western malaise. Not even those gentiles who phenotypically are indistinguishable from the Spaniards, like Javier Tello and many others, think different. In fact, there’s no single notable intellectual in the whole of Latin America that I am aware of who defends the white race from the ongoing exterminationist campaign.
That’s why I call it the blue-pill continent. That’s why I have almost zero contact with the intelligentsia in the country where I happen to be living. That’s why I have been forced to blog in a second language.
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[1] ‘…el que Angela Merkel haya dejado entrar a casi dos millones de refugiados—¡y qué bueno que lo hizo! Que bueno, o sea: hay que felicitarse, y felicitarla, por haberlo hecho’.

Categories
Architecture Catholic Church Christendom Evil Islamization of Europe New Testament Theology

Why Europeans must reject Christianity, 15

by Ferdinand Bardamu

 
What has Christianity done for Europe?
Christianity is a violent, destructive, murderous cult. It is dangerous for the following reasons: 1.) the religion promotes the survival of the sick, the weak and the stupid at the expense of good racial hygiene. This drastically lowers population IQ and capacity for civilizational attainment, and; 2.) the cult relies on blind faith instead of rational persuasion, which has resulted in long periods of widespread chaos and bloodshed, especially during the Christianization of Europe. These dangers were even noticed by contemporary pagan writers, who immediately recognized the threat a triumphant Christianity would pose to the survival of Western culture.
Christianity never “civilized” or “domesticated” Europeans. On the contrary, Europeans were forced to endure a Neolithic existence when Christians were at the apogee of their power and influence. The church sent men of genius to monasteries or had them consecrated to the priesthood. This prevented them from passing on their genes, a significant dysgenic effect that lowered the collective European IQ. Only the pagan science and reason of classical antiquity could re-domesticate Europeans after 500 years of total intellectual darkness.
The church successfully defended Europe from invasion, argue some apologists, but nothing could be further from the truth. Charles Martel’s confiscation of church property to defend Europe from Moslem intruders was met with significant ecclesiastical opposition. If the church had succeeded in withholding the necessary funds, all Europe would have been reduced to a province of the Umayyad caliphate. Nevertheless, Martel was unable to pursue the Saracens across the Pyrenees and dislodge them from their Andalusian stronghold. The Moslems would continue their occupation of the Iberian Peninsula for 800 years, until their final expulsion by Ferdinand and Isabella in the late 15th century.
Southwestern France and Italy were periodically raided and sometimes controlled by Moslem invaders. The emirate of Sicily endured for over two centuries. Even after Norman conquest, a significant Moslem presence remained on the island. The Moslems of Sicily were finally expelled by the middle of the 13th century. The crusades to retake the Holy Land from the Saracens (1095-1291), a series of large-scale military operations under the joint leadership of papacy and feudal aristocracy, failed to achieve its primary objective. In 1204, Christian crusaders sacked Constantinople in an orgy of rape, pillage and murder. The crusaders caused so much damage that the Byzantines were unable to resist their Ottoman conquerors in 1453.
Christianity provided no adequate defense of Europe. The church only did enough to maintain herself as a viable institution. In the process, the church weakened Europe, making her ripe for conquest by the Umayyad and Ottoman caliphates.
Apologists tentatively acknowledge that although Christianity hindered scientific and technological progress, it still made “contributions” to fields as diverse as architecture and philosophy. On closer examination, these “contributions” are neither “Christian” nor worthy of being considered “contributions.” The great churches of the Middle Ages are frequently trotted out, but these have their origin in Roman building methods. The dome, the arch and the vault, the typical features of the medieval Romanesque style of architecture are all borrowed from the imperial Roman architecture of pre-Christian times. The basic architectural plan of most medieval churches is the Roman basilica, a public building reserved for official purposes. Even the Gothic style that supplanted Romanesque still employed architectural features of Roman origin. The ribbed vaulting that was typical of Gothic architecture was originally used in Vespasian’s Roman colosseum and by Hadrian in the construction of his Tibertine villa.
While acknowledging Romanesque as an “accomplishment,” the Christian religionist will conveniently ignore the almost total disappearance of Roman building methods from western Europe for almost 300 years. This was a direct result of the church’s active suppression of Western scientific and technical knowledge. From the completion of Theodoric’s mausoleum in Ravenna to the consecration of Aachen in 805, nothing of monumental significance was built in western Europe. During the intervening period, Europeans, like their Neolithic ancestors, had returned to the use of perishable materials for use in building.
Apologists for Christianity will mention Aquinas and scholasticism as the highpoints of not only medieval, but European intellectual development, even though Aquinas set European scientific and technological progress back by hundreds of years. Scholasticism was an object of ridicule and mockery during the Renaissance. Religionists mention the Christian “contribution” of the university, oblivious to the many institutions of higher learning that existed and even flourished in the ancient world. The first universities taught scholasticism, so they were the frontline in the Christian war against the pagan values of intellectual curiosity, love of progress for its own sake and empirical rationality.
In the Christian religious mind, science and technology are of Christian origin because the men doing the discovering and inventing during the Scientific Revolution were nominal Christians, like Galileo and Newton. This argument is just as absurd as arguing that the Greek invention of logic, rhetoric and mathematics were the result of Greek pagan theological beliefs because Aristotle and other ancient scientists and philosophers were pagans. No, these men were “Christians” because public avowals of atheism were dangerous in an age where even the most innocuous theological speculation could smear reputations and destroy careers. It is a glowing tribute to the courage and honesty of these men that they were able to abandon Christianity’s reliance on blind faith, often in the face of public censure, and consciously re-embrace the pagan epistemic values that produced the “Greek miracle” 2000 years before the Scientific Revolution.
Christian religionists claim that the New Testament, a collection of childish scribblings penned by semi-literate barbarians, is a great contribution to Western civilization. As has been pointed out for generations, even by other Christian religionists, the work is notorious for its use of bad grammar and unrefined literary style. Much of it was composed by Jews who were not even fluent in koine Greek. Overall, the New Testament is an inferior production compared to the meanest writers of Attic prose. Even St. Jerome, the translator of the Vulgate, expressed contempt for the crude, unsophisticated literary style of the Bible. He preferred the elegant Latin of Cicero instead.
What has Christianity contributed to Europe? The answer is nothing! No art, culture, architectural monuments, science or technology. Christianity was a massive waste of European intellectual and physical potential. Furthermore, Christianity almost destroyed Europe.
The church discarded over 99% of ancient literature, including works on science, mathematics, philosophy, engineering and architecture. This was the largest campaign of literary censorship and suppression in history, an act of cultural and physical genocide that nearly severed medieval Europe from the great achievements of classical antiquity.
This was cultural genocide because the church nearly wiped out an entire civilization and culture; this was physical genocide because the church’s deliberate eradication of secular knowledge placed millions of lives in danger, unnecessarily subjecting them to the ravages of disease, war, famine and poverty.
Far from being largely benign, the Christian church is a power-mad religious mafia. It bears sole responsibility for perpetrating the greatest crimes in history against Europeans. How long shall the Christian church escape punishment for this criminal wrongdoing? No other religion has caused as much suffering and as much damage to Europe as this spiritual syphilis known as Christianity.

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Categories
Judea v. Rome

Who knows the masthead?

Today Richard Spencer debated Jay Dyer on YouTube, a Biblicist pundit, about the religion of our parents (here). Spencer seems to subscribe the thesis of our site: that, axiologically, ethnosuicidal liberalism is the offshoot of Christianity.
But these guys ignore that, if Aryans don’t give up Christian ethics, they will go extinct. What we are experiencing today is that the Christian star is in its last, ‘red giant’ phase, which ethics have engulfed the entire West (here).
For whites, including the agnostic nationalists who cling to Christian ethics, the window of true apostasy (here) is gradually closing. If whites go extinct, Muslim and Chinese scholars will be writing in the 22nd century that even self-styled white nationalists were too addicted to the Jewish drug to save their race.
Incidentally, in the debate Spencer said, ‘I admire Jesus in the way that Nietzsche did’ and Baked Alaska told him ‘You said a lot of good things about Christianity’. I wonder if these guys know that Nietzsche literally called Jesus an idiot (here).
As far as I know, no notable racialist has read the masthead that leads the flagship of my site: Evropa Soberana’s Rome vs. Judea. Or if they have read it, they don’t say a peep in discussions that ignore the historical facts, just as today’s debate between Richard and Jay ignored the true history of Judeo-Christianity.

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Categories
So-called saints

A notification


As soon as I finish reproducing Ferdinand Bardamu’s excellent series on why Europeans should abandon Christianity (I would add that Americans and Australians must also do so), I will resume Deschner’s chapter on the three assholes: Athanasius, Ambrose and Augustine.

Categories
Obituaries

Gary Lee Yarbrough

(1955-2018)


The Silent Brotherhood (German: Brüder Schweigen) was a pro-white organisation active in the US between 1983 and 1984. Members, including Gary Yarbrough, were unjustly accused and convicted of various crimes.
Yarbrough died in jail a couple of days ago.

Categories
Charlemagne Christendom Constantinople Evil

Why Europeans must reject Christianity, 14

by Ferdinand Bardamu

 
Christianity is a form of magical thinking. It cannot be disseminated on a large scale through rational persuasion. No one can explain how Christ rose from the dead, how god subsists as three persons in one or how a bible that teaches a geocentric, flat earth cosmology is an infallible guide to universal truth. These are “mysteries.” This is what makes Christianity such a dangerous and destructive cult. Conversion, unless done for gain or under threat of force, is an emotional affair. No one is “reasoned” into Christianity. Either that person must be gullible enough to accept the teachings of the Christian faith without question or he must be forcibly converted using the sword. It was through the latter that Christians were able to spread their gospel beyond imperial frontiers, nominally converting all Europe by the 14th century.
The spread of Christianity cannot be understood apart from the use of force. The barbarians who invaded the western empire had to convert to Christianity as soon as they set foot on Roman territory. Conversion to the religion was a condition of their migration and settlement on imperial soil. They would not have been allowed to participate in Roman society as pagans.
Christian missions located beyond the imperial frontiers would typically focus on converting barbarian rulers and their courts. Once the king was made to accept the new religion, he would then compel his followers to convert along with him. This pattern emerged early in the Christianization of Europe. These kings were the “new Constantines,” because they embraced Christianity, often after invoking Christ for victory in battle, like Constantine during the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, and then imposed the religion on the aristocracy and the common people.
The earliest of these new Constantines included Caedwalla, the 7th century king of Wessex. He invaded the island of Wight and exterminated most of the Jutes who lived there. Caedwalla replaced these with Christian West Saxons and forced the survivors to convert to Christianity at sword-point. Another was Edwin, the 7th century king of Northumbria, who used a mixture of bribery and threats to convert aristocracy and common people to the new religion.
After the collapse of the West, Christianity remained confined between the river Elbe in the north and the Danube in the south on continental Europe, until 1000. Barbarians motivated by greed and lust for power were the driving force behind the renewed territorial expansion of medieval Christendom. They were impressed by the wealth, opulence and might of Constantinople and the Frankish dominions and wanted it for themselves. For the pagan warlord, Christianity was akin to the cargo cults of Melanesia. If only his barbarian court displayed all the trappings of the Christian religion, he would be as rich as the emperor in Constantinople!
In an illuminating anecdote, medieval chronicler Notker the Stammerer accurately captured the mentality of barbarian converts to Christianity. In the 9th century, Danes would flock to the Frankish court of Louis the Pious to undergo baptism. In exchange for conversion, Louis would give each man a set of brand new garments and weapons. Once, when Louis ran out of these articles to give prospective converts, he had a few rags stitched together into a coarse tunic and gave it to an old Dane who had been baptized some twenty times before. “If it was not because I was ashamed of my nakedness, I would give you back both the clothes and your Christ,” the Dane snapped back angrily. The “rice bowl” Christians of the 19th and 20th centuries make it difficult to dismiss this story as just another monkish fable.
The power-mad King Stephen of Hungary forced his subjects to convert to Christianity. He believed that Christianization of his kingdom would make it as powerful and as influential as Byzantium. Laws were enacted forbidding pagan ritual practice. Stephen ordered all Magyars to attend church on Sunday and observe Lent and fast days. Failure to obey this draconian legislation was dealt with harshly. Eating meat during Lent was punished by imprisonment; working on a Sunday was punished by confiscation of one’s tools and beasts of burden. The legal penalty for murmuring during a church service was having one’s head shorn, accompanied by a severe flogging. The “Black” Magyars who resisted Stephen’s forced conversion of Hungary were cruelly suppressed. Many were tortured and then blinded by Stephen’s Christian soldiers, who were angered by the intransigence of their pagan foes. These men preferred death to the shame and dishonor of being forcibly baptized into an alien Semitic religion and culture.
Christianization in Poland unleashed a similar wave of violence. Mieszko I forcibly Christianized Poland to strengthen his grip over the country and avoid forced conversion by the East Franks. Idolatry was suppressed by smashing pagan idols and sanctuaries, confiscating estates and beheading those who refused to convert. Although very little Christian legislation survives from Mieszko’s reign, his successor Boleslaw I, prescribed knocking a man’s teeth out upon refusal to observe Lenten fasting. Fornication was punished by nailing a man’s scrotum to a bridge and giving him the choice between death and castration.
The brutality of these methods led to a great pagan reaction to the Christianization of Poland. Pagans retaliated by killing Christian priests and destroying churches. By the middle of the 11th century, the land was plunged into chaos, the Christian church in Poland nearly wiped out, and Mieszko’s dynasty temporarily driven from power.
The Saxon Wars of Charlemagne, lasting from 772 to 804, was the first time in history that Christianity was used as an instrument of imperialist conquest. Charlemagne initiated formal hostilities by destroying pagan monuments in Saxony. In 782, Charlemagne promptly avenged a Frankish defeat at Saxon hands by massacring 4,500 Saxons in savage reprisal. The Saxon Capitulary of 785 ordered the death penalty for any Saxon caught resisting baptism or observing heathen practices.
Rulers forcibly converted pagans to Christianity for reasons of personal self-aggrandizement. Michael III, emperor at Constantinople, forced the Bulgarian Khan Boris to accept the eastern orthodox rite in 864, after he was defeated in battle. Forced Christianization allowed Michael to expand his sphere of influence in the Balkans. Bulgaria was then flooded with Byzantine clergy who, with the help of Boris’s army, began a nationwide campaign to demolish all pagan holy sites.
The boyars accused the Khan of accepting laws that threatened the stability and autonomy of the state. In 866, they revolted against the khan’s forced Christianization of the country but were suppressed with great cruelty. In the final decade of the ninth century, Boris’s eldest son Vladimir, who became ruler of Bulgaria, tried to eliminate Christianity and restore paganism. In this endeavor, he was supported by the boyars. Vladimir ordered the killing of Christian priests and the destruction of churches. Boris was compelled to leave his monastic retreat and suppress the revolt. Vladimir was deposed, blinded and imprisoned in a dungeon, never to be heard from again.
By the 12th and 13th centuries, crusades were launched to convert the indigenous peoples of Scandinavia and the Baltic region to Christianity. There were crusades against the Wends, Finns, Livonians (Latvians and Estonians), Lithuanians and Prussians. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a monastic reformer, called for the cultural and physical extermination of northern Europeans who resisted forced conversion to the Christian religion.

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