My Kingdom is not of this world… that one never fails to miss the mark. It’s very difficult for the modern to understand faith, the next world, praying for the dead, it must be a trick to subdue the foolish and unwary.
The modern cannot conceive of anything but this world, or that anything isn’t about power or gain. Nor that anyone would think differently. Universalism indeed. As far as Christianity being Ethnocide exactly WHO is getting ~ cided ? Go to an American Catholic Church and I daresay most Christian ones, or a mosque. What ethnicity is being genocided?
One of the many great poxes upon the Right is what I think of as the 'libertarian mindset.' The idea that if people read words, they have no recourse but to shrug their shoulders and obey mindlessly.
Found a 15th century British court ruling that says income tax is illegal? Claim you don't have to pay income tax and act astonished when the government is still able to throw you in jail until you do pay it.
Government is oppressing you? Write out 30 pages of theory on how to decrease the power of government, which requires the government to pass a law limiting its power, and the government to obey laws limiting its power... when government is the force that decides if government is incorrectly following laws or not.
Stock market privileging rich people over poor? Write 300 pages of theory on how to make things more equitable and efficient, as if those who implement such rules aren't on the take from the rich. Then act surprised when those in power continue to privilege those who bribe them to do so.
Religion is the same. So many on the Right read something about Christianity and they assume everyone who calls themself Christian must obey that text mindlessly or be cast into outer darkness. They don't realize that populations always re-interpret religion to fit local needs and customs. Which is why those with lots of power always seem to interpret their religion, whatever it is, as meaning they should use their power to get more power over more people.
I feel like this is the great limiting factor in our ascent as a people. We get a superior group together for whatever reason, we become powerful and take land. Then we decide to conquer people so we can tax them rather than push them off the land so our people can spread out. Inevitably that superior group is overwhelmed by the inferiors they conquered. Until we get rulers that are willing to wait a generation or 2 before collecting taxes on land so we can repopulate what we conquered, this cycle will continue.
Thomas Sowell wrote a great book called Conquest and Culture that deals with those themes.
It’s true that in some sense “Christianity” is an abstraction and that its instantiation as an active creed will vary in terms of enthusiasm and understanding. But at the same time ideas really do have an impact, both on individual and collective levels. People shape and are shaped by the ideas they profess.
Well, you’ve kicked the hornet’s nest with this one. Being raised a Presbyter and well indoctrinated, and yet finding the lure of that olde tyme pagan religion to be near irrestistable, I would say that in the end, the religion that strengthens the flock is the one to abide with. Can’t say that seeing all the rainbow flags flying outside the churches in my home town give me a lot of inspiration, exept to hate myself.
So the will to dominate didn’t start with Christianity or end with it. Let us not forget Pope Urban and the Crusades. How tiresome, after a while, becomes the moral imperative.
But of course none of these issues are really that new; the Epistles mention all the people dragging the faith through the mud within living memory of the earthy ministry of Christ, so if anything it’s all predictable. All the rainbow flags seem bad, but I consider the phenomenon much like aposematic coloration- a kind God warning the world about venomous creatures.
Yes Librarian. It is ahistorical, wrong, and counter productive. It splits part of the dissident right into hairy Viking-cosplayers. It throws out the entirety of Renaissance thought and science, which is to say, modernity in all its positive aspects. It makes the 19th century Romantics look like hard headed materialists in comparison. And if course it's extremely Nazi-adjacent.
Hi Librarian, nice post. I have not read the underlying Guillaume Faye essay, as the essay series looks paywalled on Arktos Journal unless I am missing something, so my comments are based on your post (and hence may be off in certain respects).
It seems like whatever dogma animates society must discriminate ruthlessly on one basis or another: Hellenist Rome discriminated on the basis of culture and the imposition of Rome's legendary administrative system, but let the locals their religion (so long as it was non-exclusive); Christianity discriminated on the basis of religion (except for allowing Judaism) and material knowledge but was perhaps more lenient on culture. With religion it was intrusively meddlesome; for example John Chrysostom reassured his followers that being intrusive and meddlesome on the basis of religion was not done to harm others but to help them. To turn on, hound and hunt their fellows in this way was not to harm them — it was to save them, a concept totally missing from Hellenic thought. Catherine Nixey's The Darkening Age (https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885 ) does a good job describing the long-term desecration and destruction of the ancient world by Christians imposing its religion. Or it's available for free online if one Bing's it.
Personally, I enjoy certain aspects of this current age, particularly the uncertainty surrounding faith. It is that uncertainty that allows a creative exploration of ideas to flourish (for those who are looking for it, anyway). As Emil Cioran wrote, "“Is there a pleasure more subtly ambiguous than to watch the ruin of a myth? What dilapidation of hearts in order to beget it, what excesses of intolerance in order to make it respected, what terror for those who do not assent to it, and what expense of hopes for those who watch it . . . expire! Intelligence flourishes only in the ages when beliefs wither, when their articles and their precepts slacken, when their rules collapse. Every period’s ending is the mind’s paradise, for the mind regains its play and its whims only within an organism in utter dissolution. The man who has the misfortune to belong to a period of creation and fecundity suffers its limitations and its ruts; slave of a unilateral vision, he is enclosed within a limited horizon. The most fertile moments in history were at the same time the most airless; they prevailed like a fatality, a blessing for the naive mind, mortal to an amateur of intellectual space. Freedom has scope only among the disabused and sterile epigones, among the intellects of belated epochs, epochs whose style is coming apart and is no longer inspired except by a certain ironic indulgence.
To belong to a church uncertain of its god—after once imposing that god by fire and sword—should be the ideal of every detached mind. When a myth languishes and turns diaphanous, and the institution which sustains it turns clement and tolerant, problems acquire a pleasant elasticity. The weak point of a faith, the diminished degree of its vigor set up a tender void in men’s souls and render them receptive, though without permitting them to be blind, yet, to the superstitions which lie in wait for the future they darken already. The mind is soothed only by those agonies of history which precede the insanity of every dawn.”
The notion that Rome was tolerant of religious difference and Christendom was not is a bit binary (and we moderns hate those). Rome had a range of acceptable beliefs beyond which the hammer would drop- not only human sacrifice, but any cult associated with political subversion or even repudiation of hierarchy. The main problem they had with Christianity was the unwillingness of the Christians to allow that their God was one in the same with what the Romans worshiped, as it created what looked like a disloyal bifurcation in the Christians’ identity, apart from the cult being low, foreign, and concerned with a state criminal.
The relations between Church and state were by no means a simple matter of the state enforcing orthodoxy against unbelievers. In the first place, throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries there were numerous periods where the Church actively opposed the state. Chrysostom ended his days in exile. Athanasius of Alexandria endured that fate five times, at the command of emperors who were variously Orthodox, Arian, and pagan. And even when the policy was official intolerance policing was difficult and most leaders prefer to let things lie until heretical groups became associated with political factions. Various gnostic groups and syncretic cults like the Paulicians and Bogomils existed within the Byzantine Empire for centuries before anyone attempted to kick them out.
As for uncertainty, I suppose its a matter of personal taste to a degree, but one thing I’ve always found reassuring about Christianity is the promise of the Gospel that one will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. The promise of liberation from human fallibility through a revelatory encounter with a super-rational truth seems to embody both paganism at its highest level and the visions of the great Hebrew prophets.
I think a great problem with the "Christcuck" worldview is that it ignore the Hellenistic period: a normieclassicist read the Ilias & Odysseia (wrote in the Archaic Age, not the Micaenean) then the Aeneis, then Julian, then Gibbons. A classicist knew two things more:
1. the Alexandrian bottleneck, i.e. the Classics were edited in one place in a very short time (and with many errors, e.g. the second proem of Thucydides and the first books of the Ellenikes) and
2. the Roman bottleneck, i.e. the Romans destroyed the Hellenistic world in the III century BC so there was no one but uncultured romans (like Cicero, may Satan enjoy his sufferings) to edit the Hellenistic culture - e.g. Lucio Russo proved that the Scientific Revolution happened in the Hellenistic period, was destroyed by the Romans and rediscovered by the Humanists - few know Cristoforo Colombo spent more time looking for ancient copies of Strabo than calculating heart radius.
Why this matter? Because normieclassicist ignore that "cosmopolitism" is a stoic word, better a stoic IDEAL that informed the whole Diadochoi and Roman imperial proget: have someone ever read Aeneas' Katabasis?
The Hellenistic Age doesn’t get a lot of love from Classicists, but honestly I find it just as interesting as the Classical Period. I wrote a good bit about it in my essay on the Septuagint.
Yes, I read it and I appreciated it a lot. May I suggest you to read Lucio Russo's book?
I think we should study more the Alexandria bottleneck: many belive in Christian censorship but why do Christian should censor Faestus or Callimachos but not Homer? I mean, Homer is basically pagan Euangelist: if you were a Christian censor, would you censor Homer or Callimachos? A better explanation is that Alexandria edited and diffused pre-Hellenistic literature but not its one, then the same happened to Latin literature (e.g. Ennius got cumberstomped by Vergelius because there were more copist in imperial Rome than in Republican one).
One thing that makes discussions of "Universalism" so confused is that the word has two diametrically opposite meanings and both supporters and opponents frequently slip between them without even noticing:
1) The idea that a single religion or philosophy is or should be universally applicable to everyone.
2) The idea that all cultures and traditions or belief systems are equally valid.
Je vais juste remarquer une chose, vis-a-vis ta dissertation; l'élément Celtique n'a jamais vraiment départit de Gaule. Oui elle a été latiniser/romaniser, cependant apparemment des études des personnalités et natures de la culture des Gaulois révèlent qu'ils avaient les mêmes apparences, attitudes et natures des Francs du jour de Charlemagne, et d'aujourd'hui.
Les Francs ont envahis Gaule c'est vrai, cependant ils ont fallu absorbez la population, dedans leur tribu/nation, et ont entre-marier avec elle, pour qu'ils ont avec le temps devenus Romano-Celtiques. C'est a dire Francais.
Cesar a succédé, mais les Romains n'ont pas eut la dernière parole. La France est une nation aussi Celtique que Romaine, héritier a les deux en meme temps qu'elle est différente.
Au sens linguistique, l’element Celtique est presque entièrement disparu. Seulement a peu près soixante-dix mots in la langue Française modern sont de l’origine Celtique. Le culture Celtique existe seulement en la pays Breton, comme le « Celtic Crescent » de Eire, Scotia, et Cornwall, car les légions des Cesars n'y sont pas allés. Mais vrais, les peuples ne sont pas très différent de le Francs culturel.
Sur le point linguistique t'as raison, toutefois la France est un pays Celtique sur ce point tu ne vas jamais me convaincre autrement hahaha ;). C'est pourquoi nous les Francais, on s'entend si bien avec Scotia et Eire, eh oui il y'a un élément Romain en particulier en Toulouse et Provence.
Ben en tout cas, ce qui est important c'est que la France, Scotia comme tu l'appel, et Irlande sont tous des amis, et doivent maintenir leur 'Auld Alliance'.
On a related point.... not only did the pagans already have the idea of universalism -- Paul likely picked it up from Stoic influences around Galilee, a hotbed of Hellenistic learning, which is why the Pharisees sneer about Jesus coming from there, and ironically, this is also used by those trying to argue that Jesus was "really" an Aryan! -- they also didn't need Judaism or Christianity to learn about pity and compassion. Compassion was highly lauded, and even the Emperor's issued coins showing themselves in acts of compassion, and even taking names like Clement. Julius C. was famous for his compassion, leading some to suspect he was the model for the fictional JC of Nazareth (see the evidence collected in Caesar's Messiah; not necessarily agreeing with their theory though!) He forgave enemies if they accepted his offer to choice forces, thus building his powerbase. (I guess he ultimately turned the other cheek too often!) Nietzsche's absurd idea that Christianity corrupted Rome by teaching compassion is an artefact of his blind hatred of Schopenhauer, and has infected many on the Right with the idea that pagan = ruthless (e.g. BAP)
Thank you for the comments. I would say that the antecedents of Christian universalism are most obvious in the works of the greater prophets, in particular Isaiah and Jeremiah, which considerably predate Stoicism and the Caesars. If anything, Stoicism owed its universalism to currents in Jewish thought, or at least in the wider Semitic world; consider that Zeno of Citium was probably of Phoenician descent from the crossroads island of Cyprus.
Great article! I loved your defense and must say, although not picking on the pagan guy he seemed truly unconcerned with actually learning any Christian political theory or history before making baseless accusations against it. Good rebuttal
One concept Ive been mulling is dividing what we call “culture” into two categories: Cultural Accoutrements and Moral Values.
God intended humans to form many disparate nations living in different biomes with different resources and different genes and different languages. All the cultural distinctives that flow out of these nations would be cultural accoutrements: Clothing, Food, Poetry style, economy/agriculture. The diversity (buzzword!) of these things is natural and can be wonderful if they fit within God-ordained ethical frameworks.
But the moral values of all people should be oriented towards Christ. For instance, a diversity of music styles are beautiful, but they should all glorify God and not be debaucherous. Clothing can be diverse but should be modest amongst all nations. Different nations will have different pack animals but as proverbs says “A good man cares for his livestock”. Different marriage customs but all abide by Leviticus 18 rules
So I think that is a solid (tho rudimentary explanation) Christian framework for understanding the unique cultures of diverse nations who also all honor and abide within the Kingdom Culture spelled out in the Bible’s exhortations.
When I went to Peru it was quite a shock to see their take on Catholicism. Our group walked in on a large parade and dance of people in masks, moving to the beat of some harsh drums. When we asked what it was for, they responded it was a Marian feast day. Now, it's clear this was an old pagan practice that was "baptised" into a Christian form some time ago, along with amulets that hanged outside many of the houses there. One of my colleagues, an American protestant, was appalled and said it was simply idolatry. To her defense, it was a very fine line they were treading.
The point is ,though, that there aren't European priests coming over and forcing their culture into the norms of Europe, and they seem reasonably happy with the unique take they have on Catholicism, though probably not without some reservations. Like you wrote, it's not Christianity that is forcing homogenization on these people.
Curiously, the problems Faye associates with Christian values are primarily rooted in Greco-Roman ones. And Christiandom took on those problems when rediscovering Greco-Roman values. It would seem that the disease ailing the West is that too much is rooted in Athens, and Rome, rather than the north…
On the other hand, it's altogether possible that the more words (and emotions) it takes to try to settle an old question like this, the further all parties concerned become inadvertently alienated from the actual matter being discussed and pursued.
Well I went from Asatru neo paganism to Old Calendar Greek Orthodox. Why? Because Traditional Christianity is True. We daily venerate the AngloCeltic saints of the British Isles before the Norman conquest Most of what the new right think of as being Christianity is merely heretical woke western confessions that are little more than Marxist social workers in fancy dress. Oh and the Latins and their Protestant alter egos aren't Christian…
That kind of ahistoricism is what I was mostly getting at, the idea that one can just assume from very general tendencies that Christianity leads to woke in some straight line, which to my mind is a bit like saying the cause of cancer is lungs.
My Kingdom is not of this world… that one never fails to miss the mark. It’s very difficult for the modern to understand faith, the next world, praying for the dead, it must be a trick to subdue the foolish and unwary.
The modern cannot conceive of anything but this world, or that anything isn’t about power or gain. Nor that anyone would think differently. Universalism indeed. As far as Christianity being Ethnocide exactly WHO is getting ~ cided ? Go to an American Catholic Church and I daresay most Christian ones, or a mosque. What ethnicity is being genocided?
It’s a temporal challenge or so they misperceive.
Interesting read.
One of the many great poxes upon the Right is what I think of as the 'libertarian mindset.' The idea that if people read words, they have no recourse but to shrug their shoulders and obey mindlessly.
Found a 15th century British court ruling that says income tax is illegal? Claim you don't have to pay income tax and act astonished when the government is still able to throw you in jail until you do pay it.
Government is oppressing you? Write out 30 pages of theory on how to decrease the power of government, which requires the government to pass a law limiting its power, and the government to obey laws limiting its power... when government is the force that decides if government is incorrectly following laws or not.
Stock market privileging rich people over poor? Write 300 pages of theory on how to make things more equitable and efficient, as if those who implement such rules aren't on the take from the rich. Then act surprised when those in power continue to privilege those who bribe them to do so.
Religion is the same. So many on the Right read something about Christianity and they assume everyone who calls themself Christian must obey that text mindlessly or be cast into outer darkness. They don't realize that populations always re-interpret religion to fit local needs and customs. Which is why those with lots of power always seem to interpret their religion, whatever it is, as meaning they should use their power to get more power over more people.
I feel like this is the great limiting factor in our ascent as a people. We get a superior group together for whatever reason, we become powerful and take land. Then we decide to conquer people so we can tax them rather than push them off the land so our people can spread out. Inevitably that superior group is overwhelmed by the inferiors they conquered. Until we get rulers that are willing to wait a generation or 2 before collecting taxes on land so we can repopulate what we conquered, this cycle will continue.
Thomas Sowell wrote a great book called Conquest and Culture that deals with those themes.
It’s true that in some sense “Christianity” is an abstraction and that its instantiation as an active creed will vary in terms of enthusiasm and understanding. But at the same time ideas really do have an impact, both on individual and collective levels. People shape and are shaped by the ideas they profess.
100% agree. I was going to rant about that for a bit, but realized I'd already written a manifesto ;)
Impose religion on a people, and they reshape the religion but are themselves reshaped by it, ad infinitum.
Most excellent. I am so tired of such trite statements as Faye’s and your dismantling was great.
Well, you’ve kicked the hornet’s nest with this one. Being raised a Presbyter and well indoctrinated, and yet finding the lure of that olde tyme pagan religion to be near irrestistable, I would say that in the end, the religion that strengthens the flock is the one to abide with. Can’t say that seeing all the rainbow flags flying outside the churches in my home town give me a lot of inspiration, exept to hate myself.
So the will to dominate didn’t start with Christianity or end with it. Let us not forget Pope Urban and the Crusades. How tiresome, after a while, becomes the moral imperative.
The old time pagan religion is very much a new thing, with all the new thing baggage.
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/icelandic-pagans-defend-gay-rights-support/
But of course none of these issues are really that new; the Epistles mention all the people dragging the faith through the mud within living memory of the earthy ministry of Christ, so if anything it’s all predictable. All the rainbow flags seem bad, but I consider the phenomenon much like aposematic coloration- a kind God warning the world about venomous creatures.
Three words: King of kings.
Yes Librarian. It is ahistorical, wrong, and counter productive. It splits part of the dissident right into hairy Viking-cosplayers. It throws out the entirety of Renaissance thought and science, which is to say, modernity in all its positive aspects. It makes the 19th century Romantics look like hard headed materialists in comparison. And if course it's extremely Nazi-adjacent.
Hi Librarian, nice post. I have not read the underlying Guillaume Faye essay, as the essay series looks paywalled on Arktos Journal unless I am missing something, so my comments are based on your post (and hence may be off in certain respects).
It seems like whatever dogma animates society must discriminate ruthlessly on one basis or another: Hellenist Rome discriminated on the basis of culture and the imposition of Rome's legendary administrative system, but let the locals their religion (so long as it was non-exclusive); Christianity discriminated on the basis of religion (except for allowing Judaism) and material knowledge but was perhaps more lenient on culture. With religion it was intrusively meddlesome; for example John Chrysostom reassured his followers that being intrusive and meddlesome on the basis of religion was not done to harm others but to help them. To turn on, hound and hunt their fellows in this way was not to harm them — it was to save them, a concept totally missing from Hellenic thought. Catherine Nixey's The Darkening Age (https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885 ) does a good job describing the long-term desecration and destruction of the ancient world by Christians imposing its religion. Or it's available for free online if one Bing's it.
Personally, I enjoy certain aspects of this current age, particularly the uncertainty surrounding faith. It is that uncertainty that allows a creative exploration of ideas to flourish (for those who are looking for it, anyway). As Emil Cioran wrote, "“Is there a pleasure more subtly ambiguous than to watch the ruin of a myth? What dilapidation of hearts in order to beget it, what excesses of intolerance in order to make it respected, what terror for those who do not assent to it, and what expense of hopes for those who watch it . . . expire! Intelligence flourishes only in the ages when beliefs wither, when their articles and their precepts slacken, when their rules collapse. Every period’s ending is the mind’s paradise, for the mind regains its play and its whims only within an organism in utter dissolution. The man who has the misfortune to belong to a period of creation and fecundity suffers its limitations and its ruts; slave of a unilateral vision, he is enclosed within a limited horizon. The most fertile moments in history were at the same time the most airless; they prevailed like a fatality, a blessing for the naive mind, mortal to an amateur of intellectual space. Freedom has scope only among the disabused and sterile epigones, among the intellects of belated epochs, epochs whose style is coming apart and is no longer inspired except by a certain ironic indulgence.
To belong to a church uncertain of its god—after once imposing that god by fire and sword—should be the ideal of every detached mind. When a myth languishes and turns diaphanous, and the institution which sustains it turns clement and tolerant, problems acquire a pleasant elasticity. The weak point of a faith, the diminished degree of its vigor set up a tender void in men’s souls and render them receptive, though without permitting them to be blind, yet, to the superstitions which lie in wait for the future they darken already. The mind is soothed only by those agonies of history which precede the insanity of every dawn.”
The notion that Rome was tolerant of religious difference and Christendom was not is a bit binary (and we moderns hate those). Rome had a range of acceptable beliefs beyond which the hammer would drop- not only human sacrifice, but any cult associated with political subversion or even repudiation of hierarchy. The main problem they had with Christianity was the unwillingness of the Christians to allow that their God was one in the same with what the Romans worshiped, as it created what looked like a disloyal bifurcation in the Christians’ identity, apart from the cult being low, foreign, and concerned with a state criminal.
The relations between Church and state were by no means a simple matter of the state enforcing orthodoxy against unbelievers. In the first place, throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries there were numerous periods where the Church actively opposed the state. Chrysostom ended his days in exile. Athanasius of Alexandria endured that fate five times, at the command of emperors who were variously Orthodox, Arian, and pagan. And even when the policy was official intolerance policing was difficult and most leaders prefer to let things lie until heretical groups became associated with political factions. Various gnostic groups and syncretic cults like the Paulicians and Bogomils existed within the Byzantine Empire for centuries before anyone attempted to kick them out.
As for uncertainty, I suppose its a matter of personal taste to a degree, but one thing I’ve always found reassuring about Christianity is the promise of the Gospel that one will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. The promise of liberation from human fallibility through a revelatory encounter with a super-rational truth seems to embody both paganism at its highest level and the visions of the great Hebrew prophets.
Thank you very much, Caelano: you said in a long post what I said yesterday in a short post (https://open.substack.com/pub/neofeudalism/p/deeper-societal-trends-predating-fad?r=1m606h&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=54619464).
I think a great problem with the "Christcuck" worldview is that it ignore the Hellenistic period: a normieclassicist read the Ilias & Odysseia (wrote in the Archaic Age, not the Micaenean) then the Aeneis, then Julian, then Gibbons. A classicist knew two things more:
1. the Alexandrian bottleneck, i.e. the Classics were edited in one place in a very short time (and with many errors, e.g. the second proem of Thucydides and the first books of the Ellenikes) and
2. the Roman bottleneck, i.e. the Romans destroyed the Hellenistic world in the III century BC so there was no one but uncultured romans (like Cicero, may Satan enjoy his sufferings) to edit the Hellenistic culture - e.g. Lucio Russo proved that the Scientific Revolution happened in the Hellenistic period, was destroyed by the Romans and rediscovered by the Humanists - few know Cristoforo Colombo spent more time looking for ancient copies of Strabo than calculating heart radius.
Why this matter? Because normieclassicist ignore that "cosmopolitism" is a stoic word, better a stoic IDEAL that informed the whole Diadochoi and Roman imperial proget: have someone ever read Aeneas' Katabasis?
The Hellenistic Age doesn’t get a lot of love from Classicists, but honestly I find it just as interesting as the Classical Period. I wrote a good bit about it in my essay on the Septuagint.
Yes, I read it and I appreciated it a lot. May I suggest you to read Lucio Russo's book?
I think we should study more the Alexandria bottleneck: many belive in Christian censorship but why do Christian should censor Faestus or Callimachos but not Homer? I mean, Homer is basically pagan Euangelist: if you were a Christian censor, would you censor Homer or Callimachos? A better explanation is that Alexandria edited and diffused pre-Hellenistic literature but not its one, then the same happened to Latin literature (e.g. Ennius got cumberstomped by Vergelius because there were more copist in imperial Rome than in Republican one).
I’ll find the Russo book; thank you for the suggestion.
Hope this may help https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Revolution-Science-Born-Reborn/dp/3540200681/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.SPPjJw2BHfYQk6gSVLb1Qb6DPbuFclwx93WHHsHuKBWMkUKuBydtPU6fqKcBeAAHdwxkNhF_PN4W1ngIMwK3UQ.jh4Jc58-ZK0FSi-BQ_Jw0SFZt9u9q3aGEa-riqDY7rg&dib_tag=se&qid=1713952014&refinements=p_27%3ALucio+Russo&s=books&sr=1-1
the rest is untranslated.
It is our job to persuade you, vide St John Goldenmouth, to not burn but not be consumed in a river of fire for all eternity… Nothing else matters.
One thing that makes discussions of "Universalism" so confused is that the word has two diametrically opposite meanings and both supporters and opponents frequently slip between them without even noticing:
1) The idea that a single religion or philosophy is or should be universally applicable to everyone.
2) The idea that all cultures and traditions or belief systems are equally valid.
Je vais juste remarquer une chose, vis-a-vis ta dissertation; l'élément Celtique n'a jamais vraiment départit de Gaule. Oui elle a été latiniser/romaniser, cependant apparemment des études des personnalités et natures de la culture des Gaulois révèlent qu'ils avaient les mêmes apparences, attitudes et natures des Francs du jour de Charlemagne, et d'aujourd'hui.
Les Francs ont envahis Gaule c'est vrai, cependant ils ont fallu absorbez la population, dedans leur tribu/nation, et ont entre-marier avec elle, pour qu'ils ont avec le temps devenus Romano-Celtiques. C'est a dire Francais.
Cesar a succédé, mais les Romains n'ont pas eut la dernière parole. La France est une nation aussi Celtique que Romaine, héritier a les deux en meme temps qu'elle est différente.
Au sens linguistique, l’element Celtique est presque entièrement disparu. Seulement a peu près soixante-dix mots in la langue Française modern sont de l’origine Celtique. Le culture Celtique existe seulement en la pays Breton, comme le « Celtic Crescent » de Eire, Scotia, et Cornwall, car les légions des Cesars n'y sont pas allés. Mais vrais, les peuples ne sont pas très différent de le Francs culturel.
Sur le point linguistique t'as raison, toutefois la France est un pays Celtique sur ce point tu ne vas jamais me convaincre autrement hahaha ;). C'est pourquoi nous les Francais, on s'entend si bien avec Scotia et Eire, eh oui il y'a un élément Romain en particulier en Toulouse et Provence.
Ben en tout cas, ce qui est important c'est que la France, Scotia comme tu l'appel, et Irlande sont tous des amis, et doivent maintenir leur 'Auld Alliance'.
On a related point.... not only did the pagans already have the idea of universalism -- Paul likely picked it up from Stoic influences around Galilee, a hotbed of Hellenistic learning, which is why the Pharisees sneer about Jesus coming from there, and ironically, this is also used by those trying to argue that Jesus was "really" an Aryan! -- they also didn't need Judaism or Christianity to learn about pity and compassion. Compassion was highly lauded, and even the Emperor's issued coins showing themselves in acts of compassion, and even taking names like Clement. Julius C. was famous for his compassion, leading some to suspect he was the model for the fictional JC of Nazareth (see the evidence collected in Caesar's Messiah; not necessarily agreeing with their theory though!) He forgave enemies if they accepted his offer to choice forces, thus building his powerbase. (I guess he ultimately turned the other cheek too often!) Nietzsche's absurd idea that Christianity corrupted Rome by teaching compassion is an artefact of his blind hatred of Schopenhauer, and has infected many on the Right with the idea that pagan = ruthless (e.g. BAP)
Thank you for the comments. I would say that the antecedents of Christian universalism are most obvious in the works of the greater prophets, in particular Isaiah and Jeremiah, which considerably predate Stoicism and the Caesars. If anything, Stoicism owed its universalism to currents in Jewish thought, or at least in the wider Semitic world; consider that Zeno of Citium was probably of Phoenician descent from the crossroads island of Cyprus.
Great article! I loved your defense and must say, although not picking on the pagan guy he seemed truly unconcerned with actually learning any Christian political theory or history before making baseless accusations against it. Good rebuttal
One concept Ive been mulling is dividing what we call “culture” into two categories: Cultural Accoutrements and Moral Values.
God intended humans to form many disparate nations living in different biomes with different resources and different genes and different languages. All the cultural distinctives that flow out of these nations would be cultural accoutrements: Clothing, Food, Poetry style, economy/agriculture. The diversity (buzzword!) of these things is natural and can be wonderful if they fit within God-ordained ethical frameworks.
But the moral values of all people should be oriented towards Christ. For instance, a diversity of music styles are beautiful, but they should all glorify God and not be debaucherous. Clothing can be diverse but should be modest amongst all nations. Different nations will have different pack animals but as proverbs says “A good man cares for his livestock”. Different marriage customs but all abide by Leviticus 18 rules
So I think that is a solid (tho rudimentary explanation) Christian framework for understanding the unique cultures of diverse nations who also all honor and abide within the Kingdom Culture spelled out in the Bible’s exhortations.
Great points. You should consider expanding them into a full essay.
When I went to Peru it was quite a shock to see their take on Catholicism. Our group walked in on a large parade and dance of people in masks, moving to the beat of some harsh drums. When we asked what it was for, they responded it was a Marian feast day. Now, it's clear this was an old pagan practice that was "baptised" into a Christian form some time ago, along with amulets that hanged outside many of the houses there. One of my colleagues, an American protestant, was appalled and said it was simply idolatry. To her defense, it was a very fine line they were treading.
The point is ,though, that there aren't European priests coming over and forcing their culture into the norms of Europe, and they seem reasonably happy with the unique take they have on Catholicism, though probably not without some reservations. Like you wrote, it's not Christianity that is forcing homogenization on these people.
Curiously, the problems Faye associates with Christian values are primarily rooted in Greco-Roman ones. And Christiandom took on those problems when rediscovering Greco-Roman values. It would seem that the disease ailing the West is that too much is rooted in Athens, and Rome, rather than the north…
On the other hand, it's altogether possible that the more words (and emotions) it takes to try to settle an old question like this, the further all parties concerned become inadvertently alienated from the actual matter being discussed and pursued.
Well I went from Asatru neo paganism to Old Calendar Greek Orthodox. Why? Because Traditional Christianity is True. We daily venerate the AngloCeltic saints of the British Isles before the Norman conquest Most of what the new right think of as being Christianity is merely heretical woke western confessions that are little more than Marxist social workers in fancy dress. Oh and the Latins and their Protestant alter egos aren't Christian…
That kind of ahistoricism is what I was mostly getting at, the idea that one can just assume from very general tendencies that Christianity leads to woke in some straight line, which to my mind is a bit like saying the cause of cancer is lungs.
No soup for you, Western man.
Of all the things the Nazis ever did, that denial of soup reaches its own depths of absolute depravity…