Without her uncouth barbarism
reigned, and it was her task, while elaborating the system of the
universe for which she stood, to teach and convert the new nations, to
spread a uniform Christian civilisation.
On the mere face of it it must seem strange that a religion which had
grown on foreign soil, out of foreign spiritual assumptions, should have
been accepted so readily and quickly by nations to whom it must have
been alien and unintelligible. The love of war and valour of the
Teutonic tribes and Christian asceticism were diametrically opposed
ideals, and very often their relationship was one of direct hostility. I
need only remind the reader of the contempt expressed for the chaplain
by Hagen (in the "Song of the Niebelungen"). On the other hand, the
ancient Celtic and Teutonic races shared one profound characteristic
with the Christian world, the consequences of which were sufficiently
far-reaching to raise the religion of Christ to the religion of Europe.
The characteristic common to the still uncultivated European spirit and
Christianity, and meaningless alike to the Asiatic barbarians, the Jews
of the Old Testament and the Greeks, was the importance which both
attached to the individual soul.
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