the heliand

on christ’s arrest in the garden of gethsemane from the gospel of luke 22:39-51 (the revised standard version):

“Jesus went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation.’ And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed…. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, ‘Why do you sleep? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.’ While he was still speaking, there came a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?’ And when those who were about him saw what would follow, they said, ‘Lord, shall we strike with the sword?’ And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his [right] ear. But Jesus said: ‘No more of this!’ And he touched his ear and healed him.”

and the same (sorta!) story from the heliand, an old saxon poem from the early 800s commissioned to aid in the conversion of the saxons on the continent to christianity (“Song 57: Christ’s Deep Fear Before Battle, His Last Salute in the Garden” and “Song 58: Christ the Cheiftain is Captured, Peter the Mighty Swordsman Defends Him Boldly”):

“Christ’s warrior companions saw warriors coming up the mountain making a great din, angry armed men. Judas the hate-filled man was showing them the way. The enemy clan, the Jews, were marching behind. The warriors marched forward, the grim Jewish army, until they had come to Christ. There he stood, the famous chieftain. Christ’s followers, wisemen deeply distressed by this hostile action, held their position in front. They spoke to their chieftain: ‘My lord chieftain’ they said, ‘if it should now be your will that we be impaled here on their spearpoints, wounded by their weapons, then nothing would be so good to us as to die here, pale from mortal wounds, for our chieftain.’ Then Simon Peter, the mighty, the noble swordman, flew into a rage. His mind was in such turmoil that he could not speak a single word. His heart became intensely bitter because they wanted to tie up his lord there. So he strode over angrily, that very daring thegn, to stand in front of his commander, right in front of his lord. No doubting in his mind, no fearful hesitation in his chest, he drew his blade and struck straight ahead at the first man of the enemy with all the strength in his hands, so that Malcous was cut and wounded on the right side by the sword. His ear was chopped off. He was so badly wounded in the head that his cheek and ear burst open with the mortal wound. Blood gushed out, pouring from the wound. The men stood back. They were afraid of the slash of the sword.”

(~_^)

pre-christian germanics were clannish. very clannish!

presumably, this is the sort of thing discussed by james russell in his The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, another book which i haven’t read.

here’s jesus the warrior for you, from the stuttgart psalter, also from the early 800s:

btw, i transcribed those passages from lecture 15 of the Early Middle Ages audio course from The Great Courses. excellent course!

_{(note: comments do not require an email. jedi jesus.)}

Advertisement

human biodiversity and culture and history

william hamilton, considered to be one of the — if not the — greatest evolutionary theorists since darwin, had this to say:

“The incursions of barbaric pastoralists seem to do civilizations less harm in the long run than one might expect. Indeed, two dark ages and renaissances in Europe suggest a recurring pattern in which a renaissance follows an incursion by about 800 years. It may even be suggested that certain genes or traditions of pastoralists revitalize the conquered people with an ingredient of progress which tends to die out in a large panmictic population for the reasons already discussed. I have in mind altruism itself, or the part of the altruism which is perhaps better described as self-sacrificial daring. By the time of the renaissance it may be that the mixing of genes and cultures (or of cultures alone if these are the only vehicles, which I doubt) has continued long enough to bring the old mercantile thoughtfulness and the infused daring into conjunction in a few individuals who then find courage for all kinds of inventive innovation against the resistance of established thought and practice. Often, however, the cost in fitness of such altruism and sublimated pugnacity to the individuals concerned is by no means metaphorical, and the benefits to fitness, such as they are, go to a mass of individuals whose genetic correlation with the innovator must be slight indeed. Thus civilization probably slowly reduces its altruism of all kinds, including the kinds needed for cultural creativity (see also Eshel 1972).”

so hamilton clearly thought that biology and human biodiversity strongly influence culture and history, including the broad movements of history like renaissances or maybe even reformations or enlightenments, etc. and he thought that outbreeding, specifically too much outbreeding (i.e. panmictic populations), and presumably inbreeding too, relate to the selection for altruistic behaviors…and, therefore, certain aspects of cultures and history, etc. (remember that there’s more to hbd than just iq. (~_^) ) i dunno, maybe i and other hbd-ers are crazy (if so, we’re in GOOD company!), but this just makes intuitive sense to me. as john derbyshire said [15:00]:

“…if dimensions of the individual human personality are heritable, then society is just a vector sum of a lot of individual personalities.”

i like the big, probably impossible to answer fully questions: where does culture come from? where do institutions come from? where do renaissances come from? i don’t have the answers to those questions. nor am i under any illusions that i’ll ever be able to answer them. but am i very certain that they cannot be answered without taking into consideration human biology and biodiversity along with more conventional explanations drawn from history, economics, etc., and so i like to periodically bring them up.

so, if you happen to be new here, if you don’t like questioning — on every level — or biological explanations applied to The Big Questions, i’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place. sorry. for my fellow hbd-ers — see you back here later in the week! (^_^)

previously: renaissances
_____

p.s. – btw, my vacation has been extended by a week (long story), so i’ll be back properly next week. sorry for the delay! (*^_^*)

_{(note: comments do not require an email.)}