Month: August 2013

On the stale air of our societies

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“We are told that the air of the world is unbreathable. I agree with that. But the first Christians found each morning at their door an atmosphere saturated with vices, idols, and incense offered to the divinities. They were for more than two hundred years relegated, slandered and marginalized by the current of the social river which carried them away and rejected them altogether. Do you think that the grace of their baptism kept them away from urban life almost in its entirety? They renounced taking part in major civic performances, such as the entry into office of a magistrate, or the triumph of a victorious general, because none of these ceremonies could be inaugurated without a sacrifice of incense offered to the emperor, divine character. The grace of their baptism kept them away from the thermal baths, a morning meeting place highly prized by the Romans, because of the nudity of their bodies and the shamelessness of their attitudes. They also gave up circus shows because of the scenes of cruelty that made them the main subject. But these early Christians formed a society, and this society by force of spirit broke through the shell of ancient paganism. Their earthly hope was limited to the desire not to die before seeing Christ return on the clouds, and they were the founders of Christian Europe. »

Dom Gérard, in Tomorrow Christianity

Speech by Donoso Cortes (1850)

Published on by Emmanuel L. Di Rossetti Leave a comment

“Regular armies are the only thing today that prevents civilization from losing itself in barbarism.
Today we see a spectacle new in history, new in the world: when, gentlemen, did the world see, except in our day, that we are heading towards civilization through the arms and towards barbarism through ideas? Well, the world is seeing it as I speak. This phenomenon, gentlemen, is so serious, so strange, that it demands some explanation on my part. All true civilization comes from Christianity. This is so true that the whole civilization has been concentrated in the Christian zone. Outside this zone there is no civilization, everything is barbarism. And this is so true that before Christianity there were no civilized peoples because the Roman people and the Greek people were not civilized peoples. They were cultured people, which is very different. “Christianity has civilized the world by doing these three things: it has civilized the world by making authority inviolable, obedience a holy thing, self-denial and sacrifice, or better, charity a divine thing.
In this way Christianity civilized the nations. Well (and here is the solution of a great problem), the ideas of the inviolability of authority, the sanctity of obedience and the divinity of sacrifice, these ideas no longer exist in civil society. : they are in the churches where we adore the just and merciful God, and in the camps where we adore the strong God, the God of battles under the symbols of glory. And because the Church and the army are the only ones which have preserved the notions of the inviolability of authority, the sanctity of obedience and the divinity of charity, they are also the two representatives of European civilization. "I don't know, Gentlemen, if your attention will have been drawn like mine by the resemblance, the quasi-identity between the two persons who seem to be the most distinct, the most opposite, the resemblance between the priest and the soldier. Neither of them live for themselves, neither live for their families. For both, it is in sacrifice and self-denial that their glory is found. The soldier's job is to ensure the independence of civil society. The office of the priest is to watch over the independence of the religious society. The duty of the priest is to die, to give his life as the good shepherd for his sheep. The duty of the soldier, like a good brother, is to give his priestly life, the priesthood will appear to you, and indeed it is, like a veritable militia. If you consider the sanctity of the military profession, the army will seem to you a veritable priesthood. What would the world be, what would civilization be, what would Europe be if there were no priests or soldiers? »