The Cosmic concepts of the Indo-Europeans

 

[caption id="attachment_1576" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Fyodor Bronnikov, Pythagoreans' Hymn to the Rising Sun, 1869[/caption]

“In the recorded cosmic or Midgard concepts of the Indo-Europeans, man has his proper place in the great scheme of ordered life, but he is not enchained to it as are the oriental religions, with their star worship and priestly prophesies of the future — the study of entrails and the flight of birds, practised by the Babylonians, Etruscans and others. He appears in a trusting relationship with his God, whose nature itself is connected with the world order, and he joins with this God on a national scale in the struggle against all powers hostile to man and God, against chaos, against Utgard. The Indo-European recognises Midgard, the earth-space, as the field in which he may fulfil his destiny, cherishing life as a cultivator or farmer, where plants, animals and men are each called to grow and ripen into powerful forces asserting themselves within the timeless order. Guilt in man — not sin — arises wherever an individual defies or threatens this order and attempts through short-sighted obstinacy to oppose the divine universal order in life. For such a crime an individual incurs guilt. By such a crime, his people are threatened with the danger of decline and degeneration, and the world order with confusion and distortion.“

~   Hans F. K. Guenther,  The Religious Attitudes of the Indo-Europeans