Pagan persecution

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The term pagan persecution denotes the violent enforcement of so-called book or revealed religions such as Christianity or Islam . The means used range from pressure such as exclusion from public office to the physical extermination of people or cultural tradition.

Persecution of the Gentiles in the Roman Empire

In the late ancient Roman Empire there can be no question of regular persecution of the heathen , but of the withdrawal of privileges and preference for Christianity. This already began under Emperor Constantine . There was also the looting of pagan temples and the ban on private haruspicos or magic bans . While Emperor Constans still issued protective regulations for pagan temples in 342 (Cod. Theod. 16,10,3), his brother Constantius II , like Constans a Christian, pursued an anti-pagan religious policy and took legal action against the pagans, as the prohibition of pagan cults shows (354). After the death of the last pagan emperor Julian , who failed in his attempt to restore the old religions, attempts were made from Jovian and Valentinian I to create a balance between pagans and Christians. In the east, however, Emperor Valens , who was an Arian Christian , took action against pagans and especially against Nicene Christians . This shows that the Christian emperors did not have a strict policy towards the pagans as long as Christianity was not the only dominant religion.

Under Theodosius I , in 380 and 391/392, Nicene Christianity was declared the sole state religion and pagan religious practice was made subject to the death penalty . However, the more recent research assumes that the pagan cults were hardly exposed to persecution by the state. The sanctions did not initially affect the pagan senators in Rome. It was more important for Theodosius to take action against heretical Christians . For the Christian emperors, the fight against paganism , which was not organized uniformly, was not a priority. Nevertheless, there were severe anti-pagan attacks. In Alexandria , where there were sometimes violent clashes between the oppressed minorities of the Gentiles and Jews on the one hand and the Christians on the other, Hypatia, the most important scientist of late antiquity, was cruelly murdered by a Christian mob and the famous Serapis shrine was destroyed, where previously a pagan mob was against Christians had become violent. The destruction of classic Pagan cultural assets was sustainable for further development, as was the loss of books in late antiquity .

The pagan cults were fought more vigorously under the subsequent emperors. The number of pagan officials already decreased noticeably under Theodosius I. The climax of this development was reached under Justinian I : If the Christian emperors had previously tried above all to prevent pagan cult practices, Justinian endeavored to force a change of attitude among the pagans. Justinian's self-image as a Christian emperor certainly played a major role, which differed in important points from that of his predecessors. Thus in 529 the Platonic Academy in Athens was closed and pagans were forcibly baptized . The Manicheans were severely persecuted among other non-Christian groups.

Persecution of the heathen in the Frankish Empire

The nun Baudonivia describes how Radegunde , daughter of King Berthachar of Thuringia and wife of the Frankish king Chlothar I , had a Franconian sanctuary destroyed in the 6th century.

Saxon Wars

→ Main article: Saxon Wars At the beginning of Charlemagne's campaign against the Saxons in the summer of 772 , the Saxons still clung strongly to the Germanic traditions. The war began with the destruction of pagan sanctuaries such as the Irminsul by Charlemagne. After battles in Syburg, Eresburg and Brunsberg ( Höxter ), some Saxons in the East Saxon area on the Oker were subjected to the Frankish king in 755 . The army march back via Hildesheim and Nordstemmen into the Bukkigau, where the Saxon sub-tribe of the Engern had to take hostages to the Frankish king. In 777 , a Frankish imperial assembly took place on Saxon soil in the newly founded Karlsburg , today's Paderborn . It was supposed to promote the conversion of the Saxons. In 782 the Saxon state was divided into Frankish counties at the Reichstag in Lippspringe . Karl had taxes collected, pagan customs suppressed and forced conversions to Christianity carried out.

Karl responded to the stubborn resistance of the Saxons with brutal repression, including the infamous blood court of Verden 782 ( see also Verden (Aller) ), in which 4,500 Saxons were supposedly beheaded. In 782 he also passed a special law, the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae , which threatened the disregard of the Christian order of the empire, such as the denigration of a priest or a church, the cremation common among pagans or the eating of meat on days of fasting with the death penalty. It says:

  • 8. Whoever wants to remain a heathen and hides among the Saxons should die in order not to be baptized or to disdain to go to baptism.
  • 21. Whoever makes vows in accordance with pagan custom at springs, trees or groves or makes sacrifices in accordance with pagan custom and organizes a communal meal in honor of the idols, pays 60 as noble, as friling 30, as late 15 sol. And if he does not have the money, should he work it off in the service of the church.

In Detmold and on the Hase, there were battles in the summer of 783 , in which Saxon women are said to have rushed to the bare chests of the surprised Franks. Fastrada , daughter of Count Radulf, who became Charles' new wife after the death of his wife Hildegard in 783, is said to have thrown herself into battle, just as bare-chested.

792 came as a reaction to a forced draft (recruiting) for the Avar wars for the last major uprising against the Franks. Karl responded with forced deportations and awarded Saxon land to Franconians and his abotritical allies. The places of exile of the Saxons can still be recognized today by place names. A large part of the Saxons now submitted.

Karl is said to have also used deportations as a means of submission. Even in the closest vicinity of Charles this rigor met with reservations: Alcuin , an Anglo-Saxon scholar and from 796 abbot of Saint-Martin de Tours and confidant of the Frankish king, warned in a letter restraint: According to the teachings of Scripture and the Church Fathers should one spread the word of God with sermons and not with the sword. Karl's brutality and uncompromising attitude earned him the unflattering nickname Sachsenschlächter . Up until the Franks' campaign to northern Elbe in 804 , there were repeated unrest.

Scandinavia

King of Denmark Canute I was defeated at the Battle of Haithabu in 934 and had to be baptized Christian at the end of the battle to save the lives of his surviving men.

Slav Wars

The Christianization in the time of the Ottos was also against the Slavs pretext for military action. The newly created dioceses then served to implement the supposedly God-willed religious order, to provide prayer assistance and to increase the Christian cult.

Later pagan persecutions

literature

  • Matthias Becher : Violent Mission. Charlemagne and the Saxons. In: Christoph Stiegemann et al. (Ed.): CREDO: Christianization of Europe in the Middle Ages. Vol. 1. Petersberg 2013, pp. 321–329.
  • Johannes Hahn : Violence and Religious Conflict. Studies of the conflicts between Christians, Gentiles and Jews in the east of the Roman Empire (from Constantine to Theodosius II) . Berlin 2004
  • Karl Leo Noethlichs : Persecution of the heathen . In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum 13 (1986), Sp. 1149ff.
  • Karl Leo Noethlichs: Empire and Paganism in the 5th Century . In: J. von Oort and D. Wyrwa (eds.): Heiden und Christians in the 5th century . Leuven 1998, p. 1ff.