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The authority of a king or duke, territorial limits to episcopal sees, and personal freedom—are all directly rooted in the soil, even though these forces competed, and still do, for ascendancy. If it is clear now that it was the most purely Nordic Germanic states, peoples and tribes which most consistently and resolutely defended themselves against the assault on everything organic by Roman ecumenical conformism, then we shall be able to see that even before the great victorious awakening of those forces from the hypnotic influence of Rome and the Levant, there was an heroic struggle in progress directly linked to the still "pagan" Teutons. The history of the Albigensians, Waldenses, Cathars, Arnoldists, Stedingers, Huguenots, the reformed church and the Lutherans, as well as of the martyrs of free research and the heroes of Nordic philosophy, draws an edifying picture of a gigantic contest for character values, those prerequisites of soul and spirit without the assertion of which there could have been neither European nor national culture.
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Der Königs- und Herzogsgedanke, raumbegrenzter Episkopalismus, Persönlichkeitsfreiheit, das alles wurzelt unmittelbar im Erdreich, so sehr diese Mächte auch unter sich um die Vorherrschaft gerungen haben und noch heute ringen. Und erscheint es auch jetzt mit Händen greifbar, dass die am reinsten nordisch-germanischen Staaten, Völker und Stämme sich, als die Zeit gekommen war, am entschiedensten und am folgerichtigsten gegen den römischen Universalismus und gegen die alles Organische bekämpfende geistige Einheitsform (Unitarismus) wehrten, so werden wir auch vor diesem siegreichen großen Erwachen aus der römisch-vorderasiatischen Hypnose diese Kräfte — in unmittelbarer Anknüpfung an die noch "heidnischen" Germanen — in einem heroischen Kampf am Werke erblicken können. Die Geschichte der Albigenser, Walenser, Katharer, Arnolbisten, Stedinger, Hugenotten, Reformierten, Lutheraner zeichnet neben der Geschichte der Märtyrer der freien Forschung und der Darstellung der Helden der nordischen Philosophie das erhebende Bild eines gigantischen Ringens um Charakterwerte, d.h. um jene seelisch-geistige Voraussetzung, ohne deren Durchsetzung es keine abendländische, keine volkliche Gesittung gegeben hätte. (Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts ("The Myth of the Twentieth Century") - Page 47 - 1930)

 

Alfred Rosenberg

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But the Teuton has not, unfortunately, kept up his guard. Magnanimously, he conceded to alien blood those same rights which he had gained for himself as a result of his great sacrifices through the centuries. He carried tolerance of religious diversity and scientific speculation into areas where he would have done better to lay down strict limitations; the areas involving the creation of the national state and of the folkish type. Such are the prerequisites for organic life in general. He failed to see that a spirit of tolerance, as between catholic and protestant religious convictions concerning God and immortality, was not at all the same thing as toleration of anti-Germanic character values. Surely it is obvious that there is no equivalence of rights as between the stock market manipulator and the heroic man; or those who follow the immoral and non-Germanic laws of the Talmud cannot be accorded equal rights in shaping the national life as a Hanseatic merchant or a German officer. From this sin against the own blood sprang the national guilt ...

 

Alfred Rosenberg

 

I believe, indeed, that overemphasis on the purely intellectual attitude, often directed solely to the practical and factual, in our education, has led directly to the impairment of ethical values. I am not thinking so much of the dangers with which technical progress has directly confronted mankind, as of the stifling of mutual human considerations by a "matter-of-fact" habit of thought which has come to lie like a killing frost upon human relations. ... The frightful dilemma of the political world situation has much to do with this sin of omission on the part of our civilization. Without "ethical culture," there is no salvation for humanity.

 

Felix Adler

 

I believe, indeed, that overemphasis on the purely intellectual attitude, often directed solely to the practical and factual, in our education, has led directly to the impairment of ethical values. I am not thinking so much of the dangers with which technical progress has directly confronted mankind, as of the stifling of mutual human considerations by a "matter-of-fact" habit of thought which has come to lie like a killing frost upon human relations. ... The frightful dilemma of the political world situation has much to do with this sin of omission on the part of our civilization. Without "ethical culture," there is no salvation for humanity.

 

Albert Einstein

 

In principle he (Constantine) treated religion as a matter of choice and conscience, an arena free of state meddling...Liberis mentibus — "With Free minds" — all are to worship their Gods. It is a remarkable policy, an unexpected one, since it would have been natural for a ruler after his conversion to Christianity to shift all the previous relations. … Most of the apologists who defended the Church in the early centuries advocated freedom of religion...the latin rhetor Lactantius developed a theological arguement for religious freedom. Lactantius was close enough to Constantine later to serve as tutor to the emperor's sons, and his influence is evident in many ways in Constantine's own writings...He (Lactantius) asked those who believed in compulsion of religion: "What good can you do, then, if you defile the body but cannot break the will?" It is a surprisingly modern statement, arguing, that religious freedom is the "first freedom", rooted in the very nature of religious life as an exercise of free will...Under Constantine's policy of concord, the Church was flooded with new converts, not through coercion but by force of Imperial example...Eventually, Christian Emperors abandoned Constantinian religious policy...Constantine favoured the Church but gave serious attention to protecting the rights of non-Christians. One cannot help but muse how European history would have been different if Christians had had the patience to let Constantine's original settlement alone.

 

Constantine the Great

 

Catullus was the leading representative of a revolution in poetry created by the neoteroi or "new men" in Rome. Rather than writing about battles, heroes, and the pagan gods, Catullus draws his subjects from everyday, intensely personal life.

 

Gaius Valerius Catullus