THE ORIGIN OF THE SLAVS. 417 



with tife ancient Venetish cremationists. There are still further 

 proofs that the Slavs are the descendants of the cremationists of 

 t2,500 years ago. 



IV. 



CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA ON THE ODER, IN lUSATIA, AND ON THE VISTULA, 

 MORE OR LESS VIOLENT WORK OF GER:MANY. 



The first preachers and bishops sent out to convert the Slavs came 

 to the Vistula from Germany. In their work, w^hich was promoted by 

 the expeditions of the German princes of the frontier, they were 

 joined by Bohemia. 



Bohemia, which was a Slavic state toward the seventh century, 

 adopted, through its prince, the Grteco-Slavic cult toward the end 

 of the ninth centurj^, after Rotislas, the grand duke of Moravia, had 

 the apostles Methodius and Cyril brought before him. But the 

 German clergy won Bohemia over to Roman Catholicism, and in the 

 tenth century it was itself the propagator of this faith among the 

 other Slavs of the north. It Avas thus only in the second half of the 

 tenth century that Christianity began to obtain a foothold betw^een 

 the Oder and the Vistula, and it does not seem to have taken deep 

 root in Pomerania before the twelfth century. Helmold, a priest 

 of Liibeck, who was sent in 1155 to evangelize the Slavs, speaks of 

 them as a " depraved and perverse nation," and their country is to 

 him a land of " horror and a vast solitude." In his work, Chronicon 

 Slavorum^ he treats in particular of the peoples wdio advanced far- 

 thest eastAvard and were thus inclosed in the German colonies 

 betAveen the Elbe and the Oder. Being familiar with the Slavic 

 tongue he put under contribution for his book such Avorks as that of 

 Adam of Bremen of the first half of the eleA^enth century; also 

 Avritten traditions as Avell as the oral narrations of old Slavs who 

 " preser\'ed in their memory all the deeds accomplished by the bar- 

 barians." He knows Avell, and admits, that the German Christians 

 committed depredations on the heathen Slavs, Avhich sufficiently 

 explains Avhy the latter so long resisted the new religion or abandoned 

 it after having accepted it. He says, among other things : 



Of the whole Slavic nation, which is divided into provinces and principali- 

 ties, the Rngii are the most obstinate in the darkness of infidelity, and they 

 persisted in it to our time. 



It is, in fact, known from the mythology of the Slavs that the 

 Slavic inhabitants of the isle of Rugen Avere still attached t-o the cult 

 of Svantovit in the middle of the twelfth century, and from time to 

 time offered human victims to him, preferably Christians. 



SM 190(3 27 



