By Christopher Zehnder
Many years ago I read, in a history of the Holy Roman Empire (I think it was Friedrich Heer’s History of the Holy Roman Empire) a startling claim. The claim was that medieval Germans of Saxony had never abandoned paganism – and it was their fidelity to paganism that was the source of their infidelity to the Catholic Church in the 16th century.
According to Heer (if Heer it was), the conversion of the Saxons to the Christian Faith had never really taken. In the centuries after Charlemagne had made them pass through the waters, Saxon fathers had passed on to Saxon sons knowledge of where the ancient idols lay hidden, deep in the forest. Along with this lore, they had instilled in their boys a profound disdain for the Catholic Church, the religion they had been forced to embrace. So, when Luther came along, they were quite willing to cast off the old religion for the sake of the new.
Thus went the argument.
