Bryce & Damon in Europe
by Pertinax Carrus
Chapter 12, Up the Rhine
Mainz
On Saturday, June 26, Bryce and Damon left Cologne in their Focus Wagon, heading upstream along the Rhine towards their next goal, Mainz, called in French Mayence. The trip was about 150 miles but involved many curves along the picturesque river and passing through many small towns along the way. Bryce purposely chose the slower route along the Rhine as it is much more picturesque than the major highways (autobahns). They would cross the Rhine several times on their journey. Bryce explained to Damon that when he visited this area with his family they took a river cruise from Cologne to Mainz. There was regular service provided by the Köln-Düsseldorfer line, but they could not take advantage of this opportunity because they had the car to take into consideration. Besides, with many stops and going against the strong current, it would take the boat much longer than they would take driving. Bryce figured somewhere between four and four and a half hours, depending on how much time they took for lunch and traffic.
Bryce and Damon set out after a leisurely breakfast. The land around Cologne and for some distance upstream was relatively level, but the farther upstream they went, the hillier the landscape became. They paused for lunch at Koblenz, an important crossing point on the river, and the largest town between Cologne and Mainz. Then they entered the Rhine gorge, the stretch of river between Koblenz and St. Goarshausen, which is the most picturesque portion of the Rhine valley, with castles along the shores and on islands in the river. This stretch of about 65 kilometers or 40 miles has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. They stopped the car and took a brief respite in order to visit the Lorelei. This is an outcropping on a sharp curve in the river which has become famous in legend and song. According to the legend, the Lorelei, a kind of siren, sits on the rock combing her hair, which distracts boatmen, causing them to wreck. In 1824 the poet Heinrich Heine penned the best known version of the story, which was set to music by Friedrich Silcher, Franz Liszt, and others. Farther upstream they came to St. Goar, named for a sixth century hermit and priest who lived in the area. Finally, after taking longer than they anticipated because of their sightseeing stops, they arrived in Mainz, located at the confluence of the Main River with the Rhine.
Mainz, like Cologne, was an ancient Roman city founded in 13 B.C. as Moguntiacum, commanding an important crossing on the Rhine. It was the site in 9 B.C. of the funeral of Nero Claudius Drusus, younger brother of the later Emperor Tiberius and step-son of Caesar Augustus. It was an important military base during the Roman period, but when Rome was in extremis in the early fifth century it was also the crossing point for the Vandals, who invaded Gaul and then settled in southern Spain (Andalusia, land of the Vandals) for a while before moving on to North Africa. Mainz was the site of a Christian bishopric from the fourth century, and became an archbishopric in the eighth century as the center of the missionary activities of St. Boniface. During the medieval and early modern periods, the Archbishops of Mainz were also Arch-Chancellors and Electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Annexed to France by Napoleon, it became part of the Grand-Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt during the nineteenth century. Since 1946 Mainz has been the capital of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz).
Bryce had made reservations for them at the Hotel Ibis on Holzhofstraße in the old part of town, and near the Rhine. Although in the old town, it was a new hotel, and like almost all those at which the guys stayed, offered internet connections. In this case, free use is available only in the lobby, while connections in the rooms cost nine Euros per day. It took longer to arrive in Mainz than originally planned, so they were able to check in right away. They went immediately after checking in to one of the two really important locations on their itinerary, the Gutenberg Museum, named for Johann Gutenberg (1398-1468). Around 1450 Gutenberg invented a system of using moveable type for printing. This had been discovered several centuries earlier in the Orient, but the Chinese system of writing, using thousands of characters, made it extremely expensive and hence impractical. Gutenberg also developed a way of mass producing the type, oil based ink, and a printing press based on the wine presses in use in the countryside around Mainz. Mainz is in the center of the wine producing region of Germany. He came from a patrician family of Mainz, but because of political turmoil spent much of his youth elsewhere, and appears to have been employed as a goldsmith. He began experimenting with his printing enterprise while living in Straßburg about 1440, but by 1448 he was back in Mainz. Although not the first work printed, it is the so-called Gutenberg Bible, printed between 1452 and 1455, which is most famous. Two copies were owned by the museum. It has been said that printing is one of the most important inventions in all history, making possible the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries and mass education. At the museum, located in the seventeenth-century building Zum Römischen Kaiser, they were able to see a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, a reproduction of the first printing press and, in fact, Gutenberg’s entire shop, and a variety of books and other works produced by the press. Also located there was a statue of Gutenberg by the early nineteenth century Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldensen. This activity took the remainder of the afternoon.
During the evening the guys decided to simply enjoy strolling about the city and along the banks of the Rhine. They happened upon the Rococo Church of St. Augustine, a much different style than the medieval Romanesque and Gothic structures they had been visiting. The Rococo is highly decorative, but light and playful, leaving a quite different impression than the earlier styles. They passed the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, located in the former palace of the Archbishops-Electors, but arrived there too late to view the collection of prehistoric, Roman, and early medieval artifacts.
The next day being a Sunday, they made certain they were up, breakfasted, and checked out in time to attend Mass at 10:00 in the cathedral. This massive Romanesque structure dates primarily from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, on the site of earlier churches. It is dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, who was becoming Damon’s favorite saint. While still at the cathedral after Mass, they become involved in a conversation with a fellow worshiper, who drew their attention to the work of the nineteenth century bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler, who was Bishop of Mainz (Mainz lost its archepiscopal rank during the French occupation) from 1850 to 1877. Ketteler came from one of the old noble families of Westphalia, like Archbishop von Droste-Vischering of Cologne a generation earlier. In 1861 he published Freiheit, Autorität, und Kirche (Liberty, Authority, and Church), demanding the freedom of the Church from secular control, and proposing working towards understanding with the Protestants. Two years later, he published his second major work, Die Arbeitfrage und das Christenthum (The Question of Work and Christendom) where again he challenged the authoritarian state, adopting many of the positions of the Socialist thinker Ferdinand Lassalle, and laying out many of the social positions later adopted by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum (Of New Things) of 1891, in which treating workers as commodities was condemned. Bryce told Damon that Ketteler was another hero with whom he identified. During the Third Reich, Bishop Albert Stohr of Mainz organized a secret group to help Jews escape. This bit of information was thrown in after the more detailed talk about Ketteler as an example of the continued role of the Bishops of Mainz in the life of the German nation.
After Mass, Bryce drove them out to see the Drusus monument on the grounds of the former citadel. The structure is not very imposing today, having been stripped of its marble casing early in the Middle Ages. After battling Germanic tribes called the Chatti (Hessians) and Marcomanni (Bavarians), Drusus reportedly died as a result of a fall from his horse.
Damon commented that he had fallen from a horse several times since Bryce began insisting on taking him horseback riding, and all he got were a few bruises. That must have been some fall.
There were some other ruins of Roman works in Mainz, but none of them were particularly impressive. Hence, after obtaining lunch, they drove south, primarily on the autobahn A-67, about 60 miles to their next stop at Heidelberg.
Heidelberg
As they entered the city of Heidelberg, located on the Neckar River, Bryce informed Damon, “This is the first place and in fact the only place on our tour which is not closely associated with something Catholic. Of course, like everyone else, Heidelberg was Catholic during the Middle Ages, but it became Protestant, first Lutheran, then Reformed, during the sixteenth century.”
“Then why are we stopping here?” Damon asked. “After all, this is supposed to be a trip about you and your Catholic heritage.”
“For two reasons. One is negative. In 1685 the senior line of the Electors Palatine, who ruled here, died out. The heir in the male line was the Catholic Duke of Neuburg, but Louis XIV of France claimed a big chunk of the area for his sister-in-law, Elisabeth Charlotte, who was married to Louis’s brother Philip of Orleans. In the war which followed, the French devastated the entire region, destroying the castle, which we will tour shortly. In the peace treaty in 1697, the French insisted that all the churches which had been turned over to Catholics by them must remain in Catholic hands, so for the next century most of the churches were Catholic, but most of the people were Protestant,” Bryce related.
Damon grinned as he said, “There you go, running down the Catholic Church again. What a prejudiced old warthog you are.”
Had Bryce not been driving, this would have led to a tussle, but as it was that had to wait. Instead, on a serious note, Bryce said, “I am convinced that forced conversions seldom work. You surely know how much I would love it if you joined me in the Church, but I am trying my level best not to put any kind of pressure on you. It has to be completely voluntary or not at all.”
Again teasing his partner, Damon said, “You mean dragging me all over Europe and forcing me to visit all these churches is not part of a campaign to force me into the Catholic Church?”
By then, they were parked by the Hotel zum Ritter St. Georg on the Hauptstraße (Main Street), so this time Bryce did attack Damon. They were still in the car, so there was not lots of room to manoeuver, but in the end Damon pinned Bryce down and kissed him. “I love you,” he said simply.
“And I love you. But I think you ought to get off me. We’re collecting a crowd,” Bryce said, indicating the several people standing nearby and staring.
“Who was it who started this?” Damon demanded.
“I surrender. I alone am guilty! Forgive me, O Great Damon!” Bryce clowned.
To the amusement of the onlookers, they exited the car and went hand-in-hand into the hotel. It was a delightful building in the German Renaissance style (which is really late Gothic, like the Tudor style in England), and located in the center of town, at the beginning of a mile long pedestrian area with lots of shopping. While checking in, Bryce found that, while WiFi was available in the rooms, there would be an extra charge, as well as a charge for parking.
After checking in, the two adventurers made their way to the famed Heidelberg Castle, located on a slope overlooking the town and the Neckar valley. As they walked up the slope to the ruins, Damon remembered, “Hey, you said there were two reasons for stopping in Heidelberg, but you only talked about one.”
“Whose fault was that?” Bryce taunted him. But he added, “Heidelberg is probably the most romantic location in a romantic country. Before all the nonsense of Prussian domination after 1871 and the abominations of the Third Reich, Germany was the Romantic country par excellence. You can’t visit Germany without a stay in Heidelberg if you have even a spark of romantic feeling.”
“And you do. I can attest to that,” Damon responded. “Growing up in the projects, it was kind of hard for me to be romantic in this sense.”
“But you’re making remarkable progress,” Bryce assured him.
They entered the grounds of the castle, which in its present form dates to the seventeenth century. Even in ruin, it was impressive (romantic?). Standing on the terrace and overlooking the Neckar valley, both young men were impressed by the beauty of the site. They climbed the many steps to the top of the tower with the same enthusiasm as they had tacked the Eiffel Tower’s 300 steps. But the best discovery was saved for last. In the cellar is a huge barrel, the Heidelberger Tun, which at least on occasion holds wonderful Rheinwein (Rhenish wine). The barrel presently in the cellar is the fourth in that location, the first dating to 1591, this one to 1751. It has a capacity of 220,000 liters or 58,100 gallons. There is even a dance floor built on top of the barrel. The ruling spirit is the dwarf Pekeo, or Perkeo, who was reportedly the court jester of the Electors Palatine when the first Tun was installed. In the cellar, Bryce and Damon were presented with glasses of wine, and given an impromptu entertainment by a young man who began singing, “Es war der Zwerg Pekeo, im Heidelberger Schloß ...” (There was the dwarf Pekeo in the Heidelberg Palace ...), evidently a popular drinking song, as quite a few of those in the cellar joined in.
Leaving the castle, they began searching for a place to eat. Teens are always hungry. In the old town, they came across a place called Hackteufel, which Bryce decided he liked based on nothing more than the name. He was not at all certain about the Hack part, but he knew that ‘teufel’ in German meant ‘devil,’ so that sounded interesting. It turned out the place usually required a reservation, but they were (as usual) early, and so would be fitted in. The restaurant is part of the hotel of the same name, located very near the Alte Brücke (Old Bridge) across the Neckar. Both the food and the wine were excellent, but the guys did not linger, as they knew the management had made room for them even though the restaurant would be full later. Leaving while it was still light, they came to the university, the oldest in Germany (although Vienna, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire like Heidelberg at the time, was older - Vienna 1363, Heidelberg 1386). The 1954 film The Student Prince with Mario Lanza is set in Heidelberg. Crossing the Alte Brücke, they walked up the side of the hill on the north side of the Neckar, along what is called the Philosophenweg (Philosopher’s Walk), so called because professors of the university were given to walking that way. It provided a wonderful view of the town as the sun set.
Celebrating the romantic ambiance of Heidelberg, Bryce and Damon carried out their own private celebrations back in their hotel of the knight St. George. The next morning, after a heartier than usual breakfast at the hotel, they checked out and began the journey to Freiburg, traveling through the Black Forest.
Freiburg-im-Breisgau
The trip from Heidelberg to Freiburg was about 133 miles, which Bryce estimated would be about two and a half hours driving time. He and Damon would take a break and switch drivers at Baden-Baden. For most of the way, they would be on Autobahn A-5. The landscape through which they traveled was like something out of a fairy tale, with wooded areas and vineyards predominating. About half way, they arrived at Baden-Baden. Like Aix in French or Aquae in Latin, Bad in German refers to a spa town. The word is related to the English word ‘bath,’ and, in fact, also has that meaning in German. The town where they stopped was not originally saddled with a double name. It was just Baden – the baths, the waters, the springs, the spas. But there was a ruling dynasty over many years called the Margraves of Baden, and they split into several branches, so they were called by their residence place – Baden-Durlach, or Baden-Hochberg, or, of course, Baden-Baden, and so it became common to use both barrels when referring to the town as well as the rulers. The town did not officially acquire its double name until 1931.
Known from Roman times, Baden suffered the typical ups and downs of German towns throughout the medieval and Early Modern eras, including devastation by the French in 1689, the same time as Heidelberg. During the nineteenth century, the waters of Baden were among the leading leisure spots in Europe, being visited by royalty and celebrities, including Queen Victoria, Napoleon III, Brahms, and Dostoevsky. The Russian wrote The Gambler while himself gambling compulsively at the casino. Following Bryce’s directions, Damon drove past the Kurhaus or Spa, which also contains the casino. The gambling there became really lucrative when the Bourgeoise Monarchy of Louis Philippe prohibited gambling in France. Frenchmen swarmed across the borders to gamble at Baden, a lesson in the fruitlessness of attempting to legislate public mores, similar in a way to the American experiment with prohibition. Then the guys settled at a restaurant on the town square for a glass of Rhine wine before resuming their journey, with Bryce now at the wheel.
Continuing south on the A-5, they passed the turn-off to the city of Strasbourg in France across the Rhine. Damon noted that he had seen something similar in the Gutenberg Museum back in Mainz, but it was spelled Straßburg, with that peculiar German letter called the ‘ess-zet.’ Bryce dredged up from his memory the information that the city had been a German town, part of the Holy Roman Empire, until the French captured it in 1681, so we are dealing with the same place, one with the earlier German spelling, the other with the modern French spelling.
Continuing through the romantic Black Forest, they arrived at Freiburg-im-Breisgau. Just as Baden-Baden today sports its double name to distinguish it from other Badens, so also does Freiburg add the information that this is the Freiburg (free town) located in the district called Breisgau. The hotel chosen by Bryce was the Hotel Schwarzwälderhof (Black Forest Court) on the Herrenstraße, which was right in the center of the old town. He was pleased to find that at this hotel wireless internet access was not only available in the room, but was included in the room price (so naturally the hotel advertised it as free). Parking, however, was at a public facility nearby at a cost of ten Euros per day. While they could leave their car and luggage, it was too early to be assigned a room.
Practically next door was the Münster Unserer Lieben Frau, or Minster of Our Beloved Lady, which is roughly the German equivalent of the French Notre Dame, and found on churches throughout the land, often in the form Liebfraukirche. The church was begun about 1200 in the Romanesque style, but merged into the Gothic during the succeeding century. The spire is said to be the only church spire in Germany which was completed during the Middle Ages and is still intact, as most suffered loss during the bombings of World War II. It was called the “most beautiful on earth” by the nineteenth century historian Jacob Burckhardt. Hans Holbein the Younger left an important side altar. In a very unusual arrangement, the church building never belonged to the Catholic Church, but was always the property of the citizens of Freiburg. Since 1827 it is the cathedral of the Bishop of Freiburg in the reorganized German Church following the Napoleonic era.
After visiting the cathedral, it was time for lunch. A short distance to the south lay the former Augustinian monastery, which now houses a museum and a café. The café seemed to be just what Bryce and Damon needed. It added a bit of unique character by offering seating in what had been the cloister of the monastery. While just a bit pricey for what it offered, it was still an experience to be remembered.
After lunch, Bryce bought a cuckoo clock, a specialty of the area. He was collecting quite a few items which would have to be shipped home. These items of local craft have been created in the Black Forest region for generations, and spread from there to other parts of the globe. He was able to deposit it in the hotel for the time being.
A few blocks north of the münster (now the cathedral) lie the old buildings of the Albrecht-Ludwig Universität, founded in 1457 by Archduke Albrecht VI of Ausria. Until the Napoleonic era, Breisgau was part of the lands of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty, and in fact, the street leading from the cathedral to the university is called Habsburg Street. During the years 1529-1535 the famed humanist Erasmus taught at the university. Later in was in the hands of the Jesuits, who in 1683 built the church which now serves as the university chapel. During the Napoleonic era Breisgau was handed over to the Protestant Grand Dukes of Baden, who seriously considered suppressing the university, but when Grand Duke Ludwig came to power he decided to keep it open, which is why it is the Albrecht-Ludwig University today. In 1900 Freiburg became the first German university to admit a female student. Significant professors in the twentieth century include Martin Heidegger the philosopher and Friedrich Meinecke the historian. Today, the university has about 22,000 students.
After wandering about a bit, Bryce and Damon grabbed a table on the sidewalk and ordered beer at a local Gasthaus. The local brew is called Ganserbreu, or goose brew. Damon liked that, as it reminded him of th story of St. Martin and the goose. They sat, sipping, and watching the people go by, just enjoying the ambiance. Before too very long, however, as the outside tables filled up, they were approached by a young man and woman.
“Ist hier noch frei?” the young man asked.
“Sorry,” Bryce answered, “but neither of us speaks German.”
“Ah, you are Americans,” the man said. “I asked whether these places were free so that my girlfriend and I might sit. As you see, it is very crowded here at this time of day.”
“Yes, certainly, have a seat,” Bryce invited them.
After being seated, the male said, “My name is Wolfgang König, although I am usually called just Wolf, and this is my girlfriend, Bettina Lauffer.”
Bryce and Damon shook hands and introduced themselves, and explained that they were students, but were traveling in Europe during the summer, on their way across the Alps to Italy.
“Ah, yes, Italy. Bettina and I spent some very pleasant weeks there last summer,” Wolf told them. Bettina blushed, evidently having very vivid memories of those “very pleasant” times. “What is your Fach – um, I am not sure of the English word for that. Your area of study?” Wolf asked.
“It’s called our ‘major,’ in America, at least. I’m not sure about England. Mine is history,” Bryce replied.
“And mine is Political Science,” Damon added.
“Ah, I understand why you are traveling in Europe, then. We have much history, and we have managed to overcome many political problems. With the European Union, I hope we will never again see the kinds of problems we had in the past,” Wolf said.
“But we still have problems, like how to integrate the large Mohammedan groups who have come to us since the war,” Bettina added.
Bryce noted that she used the word “Mohammedan,” which is not considered politically correct back home, so he asked, “What is the word for Moslem in German?”
“I suppose the direct equivalent would be Muslim, but the word most often used for the adherents of the prophet Mohammed is Mohammedamer,” Wolf said. Then he grinned knowingly. “You find this word offensive?”
“No, I do not,” Bryce replied, “but I think American Moslems would.”
“In fact, I’ve known that to lead to fights back in my home town of Chicago,” Damon added.
“Why is that?” Wolf asked. “We Christians do not resent being called for our founder, Jesus Christ. Why should those who follow the religion founded by Mohammed object to being called Mohammedans?”
“I don’t know, but they do,” Bryce asserted. Picking up on another part of Wolf’s statement, he changed the subject. “So you consider yourself Christian? So many Germans today are thoroughly secularized, so I hesitate to make assumptions.”
Wolf sighed. “You are right. The greatest need for evangelization is not somewhere like Africa or Asia, but here in Europe. That is what I hope to do with my life.”
“Oh? Are you ... well, I’m not sure what to call it. Back home, I’d say a preacher?” Damon asked.
“In America, and particularly among the more fundamentalist denominations, the ministers are called preachers,” Bryce elucidated, as Damon made a face at him.
At that, Bettina laughed.
“No,” Wolf said, “I am not intending to be a preacher. I am in the program here called Caritaswissenschaft und Christliche Sozialarbeit. I am not sure exactly how you would translate that, but I wish to work with the poor and ill-educated, who do not understand the Gospels or how it applies to them. I believe very strongly that by addressing the social and physical needs of the individual, we can reach the spiritual, and, I hope, ease the erosion of believers.”
“So, this is what we might call an outreach ministry at home, somewhat like the work Damon and I do with the St. Vincent de Paul Society’s soup kitchen,” Bryce decided.
“Yes, yes. St. Vincent de Paul. That is exactly the kind of thing I mean,” Wolf cried. “Are you then Catholic?”
“I am, but Damon is not. But we both work with the soup kitchen. In fact, it was Damon who got me involved,” Bryce admitted. “And you, are you also Catholic?”
“Oh, yes. Freiburg is a very Catholic place, although it is, like all the universities, state supported and non-sectarian.”
“But you are not a seminarian, I assume,” Bryce said, looking towards Bettina.
“Definitely not,” Betting replied for Wolf. “I will not allow it.”
“Perhaps, if this medieval rule about priestly celibacy were lifted, I would consider it, but, as Bettina says, we are not interested under present conditions. We are very fond of each other, and intend to marry soon,” Wolf added. In a joking manner, he added, “I am very fond of the pleasures of the flesh.”
Bettina blushed again.
“We talked about that when we were in Tours,” Damon volunteered.
“We did?” Bryce questioned.
“Yes, Dodo, we did. Remember, the discussion about the Arians and the spiritual and the physical worlds?”
“Oh, yeah,” Bryce remembered, “that does connect, doesn’t it, Boyfriend?”
Bryce was unaware that he had outed himself and Damon. Wolf and Bettina exchanged glances, with she giving him a triumphant look, as if to say, “I told you so.”
Wolf avoided the matter by asking, “What was the discussion about?”
“Well,” Damon contributed, “Bryce is trying to instruct me in his Catholic background, so at Tours we talked about this dude called St. Martin. He told me Martin was against these guys called Arians, who had a hang-up about Jesus being completely human and also completely divine because they thought the physical was somehow wrong.”
“I guess that’s a good quick summary,” said Wolf. “I have, of course, had to study the history of the Church, and of dogmatics, as part of my curriculum in the theologisches Facultät here at the university, and have some knowledge of these early heresies.”
“What is the tee-oh ... whatever you said?” Damon asked.
“Ah, pardon. The theologisches Facultät is the theological faculty,” Wolf replied.
“Oh, you’re a faculty member. I thought you were a student,” Damon said.
“But I am a student,” Wolf replied. It took a while, but eventually they worked out that the German word Facultät was more or less the equivalent of the American use of ‘school’ or ‘college’ for an academic division within a university.
That settled, Damon returned to the problem of the Arians. “What was their hang-up all about?” he asked.
“The Arians represent an attempt to adapt the Neoplatonic philosophy to the Christian faith,” Wolf explained. “The Neoplatonists were a school of thought based at Alexandria in Egypt who believed in a kind of mystic approach to reality. In their thought, the most perfect thing was called the One, which was pure spirit. Then, there were various descending levels of being down to pure inanimate material objects, like rocks. This was called the great chain of being. At each step, the link in the chain was less spiritual, more material. The material was seen as a kind of corruption or degenerate form of the spiritual. The Arians identified the One with God the Father, and a lesser emanation with the Christ, so Christ was less than the Father. That interpretation was condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325, so in the Nicene Creed we stress the equality of Father and Son: “God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, of one substance with the Father.”
“I know that,” Damon exclaimed. “I’ve attended Mass with Bryce many times, and heard people say that over and over, but never really knew what it was all about. Well, I decided at Tours that I like this St. Martin guy, cause I sure am not ready to give up what you called the pleasures of the flesh.”
“You can overdo it of course,” Wolf cautioned, “but on the whole I consider that a healthy attitude. In fact, if we look at it from one perspective, all the early heresies were about just that.”
“I never quite thought of it that way,” Bryce intervened. “How so?”
“Well, in addition to Arianism, we have Gnosticism. That’s a very difficult movement to pin down, precisely because they claimed to have secret knowledge. As it was secret, it was never laid out in a creed, and I suspect there were many forms of Gnosticism. But, the core seems to be the knowledge that the spirit was good, while the flesh was evil, or, in some versions, simply a degenerate form of being. In any case, definitely making a sharp contrast between the spiritual and the physical. Then, there was Nestorianism, which tended to deny the full humanity of the Christ. And Adoptionism, which said the Christ, or the divine essence, entered the person of the man Jesus of Nazareth at the baptism by St. John, and left before the Passion of the Christ, presumably at the Garden of Gethsemene. The Monophysites, at least in their origin, I think were a result of bad communication. Translating from Greek to Coptic to Aramaic led to confusion and apparent differences where I do not think any existed at the beginning. Now is another matter. But in all these conflicts – Gnosticism, Arianism, Nestorianism, Adoptionism – the basic conflict is over whether the God-Man, Jesus Christ, could really be both God and human, because of the strong suspicion of the flesh, or the physical, in the thought of the early centuries of Christianity,” Wolf lectured.
“I thought the Roman Empire was full of all kinds of orgies and other things considered degenerate or sinful by the Christians,” Damon protested.
“And so it was,” Wolf replied. “It was a world of extremes. Complete sexual orgies on one hand, and extreme asceticism of the Stoics and similar groups on the other. As I see it, Christianity represented a middle ground, insisting that both the body and the soul are necessary parts of a human, and both are good.”
“But doesn’t your St. Paul come down on the flesh pretty hard?” Damon continued to object.
“Yes, in places he does. But you have to understand that he was working in the context of the first century of our era. My professor says that when St. Paul condemns the flesh or the world, what he has in mind is the excesses, the ‘anything goes’ aspect of contemporary culture, which included orgies and ritual prostitution. In fact, he is condemning the attitude we find very frequently today. What is the American saying? ‘If it feels good, do it.’ The kind of mindless wallowing in the flesh, with no thought of the spiritual,” Wolf insisted.
“I seem to remember that Stoicism strongly influenced St. Paul,” Bryce contributed.
“Right,” Wolf agreed. “Stoicism seemed at the time to be a reasonable alternative to the kind of hedonism I mentioned, and was very widespread. Perhaps it went too far in the other direction, however, and perhaps St. Paul was likewise influenced to go too far in the other direction, the direction of asceticism, of having a negative attitude towards the flesh. But, if you take his writings as a whole, there is a balance.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind when I encounter a verse with which I disagree,” Bryce said.
“So,” Damon pondered, “you Catholics don’t have to take everything literally.”
“Oh, no,” Wolf insisted. “It all has to be taken in context, which is why Bryce’s study of history is so important. If we want to separate the divine message in the writings of St. Paul from what we might call the Zeitgeist ... are you familiar with that term? No? Well, I guess we might translate it as the outlook of the times. You know, the Spanish thinker José Ortega y Gasset wrote about the ‘unspoken element’ each generation has. Things we just consider so obvious we don’t have to think about them or discuss them. But, as I started to say, if we want to separate the eternal truth from the ‘unspoken element’ of St. Paul’s writings, we need to think about what that element was in his day, and part of it was the Stoic outlook.”
“That’s a new one on me,” Bryce declared. “I’ve never encountered this guy Ortega y Gasset before.”
“He is very worth your attention,” Wolf declared.
Later in the day, Bryce and Damon joined Wolf and Bettina at a place called the Jazzhaus, near the main train station. There, in a cellar location, with immense brick vaulted ceilings, they encountered wonderful jazz, to Damon’s unfeigned delight. They returned to the Hotel Schwarzwälderhof after midnight.
The next day, they departed somewhat later than they intended for the trip to Lucerne in Switzerland.
Lucerne
Leaving Freiburg later than intended, they still covered the slightly more than a hundred miles to their destination in Lucerne before lunch. Lucerne is located on Lake Lucerne, which is fed by Alpine glaciers. It is at the outflow of the Reuss River, which flows into the Aar River, which is a tributary of the Rhine, so it still counted as traveling up the Rhine. Lucerne is almost at the very heart of Switzerland. In 1291 the neighboring cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden rebelled against the rule of the Habsburgs (William Tell and all that), and began the Swiss Confederation. Later, Lucerne joined them in the Eidgenossenschaft (sworn league), which later spread from the German speaking region to include French, Romansch, and Italian speaking parts of Alpine Europe to form the Swiss Confederation of today, composed of twenty-two cantons. During the period of the Reformation, Switzerland divided between Catholic and Protestant cantons. Lucerne remained Catholic. Between the Catholic victory at the Battle of Kappel in 1531 and the Protestant victory at Villmerg in 1712, Lucerne was the leading city in the Confederation. Earlier in 2010, as a result of a referendum, the suburb of Littau was merged with Lucerne, creating a city of about 76,000.
Bryce had reservations not, this time, in the center of town, but at the Seminarhaus Bruchmat, something almost like a retreat house on the outskirts. Bryce had initially intended a visit to the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln, but found that it involved too much of a delay in his schedule. At least another day in Switzerland would be required, and, while that was not impossible, he was anxious to get to Italy. Einsiedeln was significant in that it sent monks to found a number of daughter abbeys in North America, beginning with St. Meinrad Abbey in Indiana in 1854. St. Meinrad was the hermit who first built the chapel around which the abbey later grew.
In Lucerne, they visited the Church of St. Leodegar, also called the Hofkirche, dedicated to the monk around whose monastery the city grew. The twin towers date to an earlier period, but the present nave is from the seventeenth century, and exhibits the exuberant style of the Baroque. Straddling the Reuss River is the Kapellbrücke, or Chapel Bridge, which suffered extensive damage in 1993 as a consequence of a carelessly discarded cigarette, but contains an octagonal water tower dating to the thirteenth century and a series of paintings illustrating the history of the city dating to the seventeenth century. These sites were visited before the two made their way to their accommodations for the evening. There they remained, enjoying the dinner served by the hotel and the Alpine scenery as the sun set. Bryce noted that their waiter responded to the tip he left with “Merci vielmals,” a blend of French and German which seemed somehow to typify Switzerland. They also engaged in conversation with a local man in the bar, who discussed with them the Swiss Guards, of which he was a veteran. Today, that term is almost exclusively associated with the Pontifical Swiss Guards in Rome, but in earlier times many monarchs had Swiss Guards, including the famed 100 at the royal court of France, who, with their colleagues, were massacred by the mobs in 1792 doing their duty, protecting the royal family at the Tuileries. There is a monument to them at Lucerne called the Löwendenkmal, or Lion Monument, sculpted in 1819 by Bertel Thorvaldensen, the Danish artist who spent most of his creative life in Italy. It is in the romantic neo-classical style, which the guys remembered from their view of the works of Canova in the Louvre and, Damon reminded Bryce, the statue of Gutenberg in Mainz. From their interlocutor Damon also learned that Lucerne was a sister city of Chicago.
Before departing for Italy the next morning, the two visited the Lion Monument, witnessing the dying royal beast resting on symbols of the French monarchy.