2007/7/15, Berto 'd Sera <albertoserra(a)ukr.net>et>:
I kind of believe that breaking tribal taboos maybe
involved in the death of
many early missionaries, yet one needs evidence for this. I can hardly
imagine a way to find it.
To be sure the early Christian times were close to soviet censorship
regarding whatever data about any form of organized pagan resistance. AFAIK
no pagan tribal documents have remained, either.
So what can he use for evidence? Because unless he really has some serious
academic evidence... he is not reporting about anything apart from his own
beliefs.
Well, his main argument is that the whole story of Boniface's murder
is a christian apology (interestingly, on the same grounds I have
argued that his story is wrong - if Boniface had been killed for the
reasons he supposed, he would have been a full-fletched martyr rather
than a half-baked one, and so the hagiographies would have embellished
the story rather than hide it away).
His main evidence is
http://www.friesgenootschap.nl/artikelen/bonifatius.htm, which as its
main theme has the ineffectiveness of Boniface as a missionary in
Friesland, but also says:
"According to their own laws, as known from the Lex Frisionum, [the
Frisians] were in their right to punish those who desecrate holy
buildings by dead. Cutting down holy trees belonged to Boniface's
missionary repertorium, but no messages about that have been told for
Friesland. In this case only in general it is mentioned that he
disturbed holy rites. Even if it was not through that, we can still
imagine that Boniface's massive evangelisation campaign [...] would
have provocated his opponents."
--
Andre Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels