IN ST. ISIDORE OF SEVILLE we move from the era of the Rome to the era of the Barbarians, and the so-called Dark Ages. In the social and political turmoil that followed, the preservation of culture and of knowledge became the emphasis of scholars. So these days are not the days of great speculation, but of great preservation. The European mind was on the defensive. The fervent of the Barbarian tribes, the challenge of the Moorish hoards who hacked their way up through Spain with the sword of Muhammad, the arbitrariness of petty princes and rogue Kings who carved up parts of Europe as if it were a checkerboard. Within the forces of disorder, however, monks and canons and the Pope at Rome worked sedulously, but quietly, at a "New Evangelization."
Miniature of St. Isidore Writing his Etymologies"It is in this context of the preservation of the past that we must place Isidore of Seville (ca. 570-636). . . . [O]n the particular topic of law . . . he provided the link between the second century Roman lawyers and the medieval civilians and canonists [of the 12th century] . . . ." Crowe, 68. He was "the main transmitter of the legal ideas of the [Roman] juriconsults to the Middle Ages." Crowe, 68. Montalembert, citing Cuvier, called St. Isidore the last scholar of the ancient world, "le dernier savant tu monde ancien." Les Moines d'Occident, II. 204 (Paris: Jacques Lecoffre, 1860). St. Isidore's efforts were sufficient justification for Dante, who included him with the wise in the fourth circle of heaven. See Paradiso, Canto X. Building upon the Roman encyclopedic tradition, best personified in Marcus Terentius Varro (116 BC – 27 BC), St. Isidore compiled what may in fact be the first Christian encyclopedia. It was to be a constant reference by the medievals that followed him. Crowe, 68 n. 62. In terms of his understanding of law, which was a topic of Book V of his encyclopedia entitled Etymologies, we find captured the distilled thought of Roman and Stoic jurists purified somewhat through the filter of the Christian Fathers. But that thought was distilled not without confusion.
St. Isidore Among the Wise in Dante's ParadisoIn his handling of the law, St. Isidore distinguishes between divine law and human law. In the second section of Book V of his Etymologies, St. Isidore has this entry:
II. DIVINE LAWS AND HUMAN LAWS. 1. All laws are either divine or human. Divine laws are based on nature, human law on customs. For this reason, human laws may disagree, because different laws suit different peoples. 2. Fas is divine law; jurisprudence (ius) is human law. To cross through a stranger's property is allowed by divine law; it is not allowed by human law.Etym., V.ii.1. (For the meaning of fas see May All Our Laws Be Farious!)
II. DE LEGIBVS DIVINIS ET HVMANIS. [1] Omnes autem leges aut divinae sunt, aut humanae. Divinae natura, humanae moribus constant; ideoque haec discrepant, quoniam aliae aliis gentibus placent. [2] Fas lex divina est, ius lex humana. Transire per alienum fas est, ius non est.
St. Isidore of Seville (San Ysidro de Sevilla)St. Isidore's tie between the divine law and the natural law ([Leges] divinae natura . . . constant) was to be fateful, and in a negative way. As Crowe notes, there was precedent among the Fathers for such a linkage, and God is the author of both so they may be in a manner identified. But perhaps the tie in was too closely bound by St. Isidore, and the distinction between divine law and natural law not sufficiently stressed, because it was to influence the canonist Gratian many centuries later. It was Gratian that was then to identify the natural law with the Gospel and the Golden Rule adding further confusion into the mix. As Crowe states in his book on the development of the doctrine of the natural law:
The identification of the natural law with the divine law . . . . was to find dramatic expression in Gratian's Decretum and therefore in much of the canon law of the twelfth and following centuries. . . . Gratian's definition of natural law, as what is contained in the law and the Gospel, consecrated this misunderstanding . . . .Crowe, 70. That the distinction between divine law and the natural law should have been better maintained by St. Isidore is, using hindsight, inarguable. As Crowe states it, the divine law and natural law were bound together too tightly by St. Isidore and, if the definition was followed slavishly as his successors tended to do with their respect for the ancients, it led to definitional dead ends. Unless unwound, their tight combination led to the twin evils of voluntarism or pantheism. If the natural law was identified with the divine positive law, then it was as equally positive as the divine law (it could be abrogated just like the Mosaic law could be abrogated), and so could be changed or amended at will. This led to voluntarism in natural law, perhaps the most representative of which is William of Occam. The other route the legal intellect could take was to identify the divine law and natural law even more, so that the natural law (and nature) was virtually deified. Thus we see the extreme expression among the medievals of "nature, that is God," natura id est Deus, which have to be distinguished to be understood in an orthodox fashion. Crowe, 71.
Although, as a preservationist, St. Isidore was a sort of intellectual pack rat, he did exercise some discretion in the selection of his entries on law. "[H]e did make a choice in the question of the natural law, which interests us; and his choice, because of the disproportionate influence of his book as one of the great educators of the Middle ages, was an exceedingly important one." Crowe, 68-69. What was this choice?
St. Isidore accepted, but then radically re-interpreted, the Roman jurist Ulpian's threefold division of law as ius naturale, ius gentium, and ius civile. For Ulpian, the law flowed thus in three great streams: the natural law, the law of nations, and the civil law. This threefold division had been adopted by the Christian emperors of Rome, Theodosius and Justinian, who had adopted it, with only minimal revision, in their respective codes, the Theodosian Code of 438 A.D. and the the Digest and Institutes (the Corpus Juris Civilis) of 529-534 A.D. But St. Isidore did something in his reformulation of this tripartite scheme that has led to criticism by legal scholars ever since.
Though he maintained the tripartite division, he tampered with their boundaries and their substance adding confusion to the mix. For example, while he adopted the term "natural law," he abandoned Ulpian's definition of the natural law. Ulpian, it may be remembered, defined natural law as what “nature teaches all animals,” quod natura omnia animalia docuit. (Ulpian's definition was again and issue between St. Albert the Great and the Decretists: See St. Albert the Great: Against Ulpian and the Decretists.) In lieu of Ulpian's definition of the natural law, as one men shared with animals, St. Isidore replaced it with a Ciceronian, Ulpian, Gaian, even Aristotelian mixture (Crowe, 69) more redolent of the Roman notion of the ius gentium than of the Ulpian ius naturale. Thus, St. Isidore replaced the Ulpian definition of "natural law" with the following:
IV. WHAT NATURAL LAW IS. 1. Law is either natural, or civil, or of nations. Natural law (ius naturale) is common to all nations, and, because it exists everywhere by the instinct of nature, it is not kept by any regulation. Such is the union of a man and woman, the children's inheritance and education, the common possession of everything, a single freedom for all, and the right to acquire whatever is taken from the sky, the earth, and the sea. 2. Also the return of something which was entrusted and of the money which was deposited, and the repulsion of violence by force. Now this, or whatever is similar to it, is never unjust, but is held to be natural and fair.Etym. V, iv.1-2. In St. Isidore's definition of the natural law, nowhere is to be found Ulpian's phrase “nature teaches all animals,” quod natura omnia animalia docuit. It was as if St. Isidore suppressed it, though perhaps his "by the instinct of nature," quod ubique instictu naturae is a nod to it. Crowe, 70. Later, in the rise of the jurists or Decretists, the traditional Ulpian definition was to come in through the back door, and would be referred to as the "jurist's definition" or the "definition of the law." Crowe, 69-70.
IV. QVID SIT IVS NATVRALE. [1] Ius autem naturale [est], aut civile, aut gentium. Ius naturale [est] commune omnium nationum, et quod ubique instinctu naturae, non constitutione aliqua habetur; ut viri et feminae coniunctio, liberorum successio et educatio, communis omnium possessio, et omnium una libertas, adquisitio eorum quae caelo, terra marique capiuntur. [2] Item depositae rei vel commendatae pecuniae restitutio, violentiae per vim repulsio. Nam hoc, aut si quid huic simile est, numquam iniustum [est], sed naturale aequumque habetur.
Isidore's definition of the law of nations, or ius gentium, also departed from the traditional definition found, say, in the Institutes of Justinian. He replaced the traditional Roman notion of ius gentium (which was similar to our notion of the natural law) with something entirely more positive, indeed with what appears to be a relatively tolerable definition for international law.
WHAT THE LAW OF NATIONS IS. 1. The law of nations concerns the occupation of territory, building, fortifications, wars, captivities, enslavements, the right of return, treaties of peace, truces, the pledge not to molest embassies, the prohibition of marriages between different races. And it is called the 'law of nations' because nearly all nations (gentes) use it.Etym., VI.vi.1. The third big division in St. Isidore's definition of the law is his definition of civil law.
VI. QVID SIT IVS GENTIVM. [1] Ius gentium est sedium occupatio, aedificatio, munitio, bella, captivitates, servitutes, postliminia, foedera pacis, indutiae, legatorum non violandorum religio, conubia inter alienigenas prohibita. Et inde ius gentium, quia eo iure omnes fere gentes utuntur.
V. WHAT CIVIL LAW IS. Civil law is that which each individual population or city has established particular to itself, for human or divine reasons.Etym., V.v.1. This is the only definition that has escaped censure.
V. QVID SIT IVS CIVILE. [1] Ius civile est quod quisque populus vel civitas sibi proprium humana divinaque causa constituit.
In assessing the influence of St. Isidore's division of law into divine and natural, and his confusing division of law into three parts--ius naturale, ius gentium, and ius civile--we ought not to be too harsh in our judgments, as judgment by hindsight tends to be. There are several things we ought to consider. Could not the blame be placed equally on those who came after him who followed him slavishly? We are perhaps taught the lesson that what is old, is not by that fact alone, true, nor, by that fact alone, false. (Equally, we may learn the lesson that what is modern, is not by that fact alone, true, nor, by that fact alone, false.) We might also learn how important definitions are, as we reflect on Aristotle's statement that little mistakes that are made in the beginning of the intellectual journey can lead to big mistakes in the end. How many such "little" mistakes is our modern culture based on?
But all judgment aside, we ought to be grateful. We ought to be thankful enough that men of St. Isidore's ilk existed: men who devoted their lives to the preservation of knowledge where they found it; men devoted to keeping the spark of the Gospel aglow so that it could set ablaze in the Europe of the middle ages; men devoted to the difficult and thankless job of sowing seed, just so others could reap.
Let us recall also, before we are too harsh with our saint, that St. Isidore is the (unofficial) patron saint of the Internet, and we may beg his intercession as we use this modern medium of communication in the following prayer:
Almighty and eternal God, who created us in Thy image and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful, especially in the divine person of Thy only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech Thee that, through the intercession of Saint Isidore, bishop and doctor, during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter. Through Christ our Lord.
Amen
(English translations of the Etymologies is taken from Stephen A. Barney, et al., trans., The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (Cambridge 2007))
Statue of St. Isidore of Seville
Wow!, What a wonderful post. Enlightening. You need to expand on all the points here in your blog.
ReplyDeleteI want to commend this wholeheartedly:
"Aristotle's statement that little mistakes that are made in the beginning of the intellectual journey can lead to big mistakes in the end. How many such "little" mistakes is our modern culture based on?"
This is big. Just like building a house, every thing said must be right. Little mistakes led to bigger mistakes. This is why Socrates started off with definitions.
Thanks for pointing out that St. Isidore did not follow Ulpian! This is big! Thanks. (And by the way Ulpian's definition is not """entirely""" right either. It is partially right.)
Thanks for bringing up Isidore's definition of what the "Law of Nations" is as well!
This is a huge post. Thank you. thank you. Thanks for your dedication, hardwork, and exposition!
To help rehabilitate you of the profound illness of Racism, I highly recommend you start studying deeply the Message of Baha'u'llah, the most recent of God's Messengers sent to humanity. Via His Revelation and Vision of 'The Oneness of Humanity', those of us who have been misinformed through blind adherence to literalist interpretations can be freed from the fallacy of "The Inequality of the Races", as posited by that narrow-minded Arthur de Gobineau and his peers.
DeleteYou can start learning of the Baha'i Faith via the website www.bahai.org.
I want to point out a very big point made in the Law of Nations that St. Isidore brings out!!!
ReplyDeletethe prohibition of marriages between different races
I do not believe that this is the "law of nations" but it is the Natural Law! The Law of Nature. All animals, plants practice this. There are many references against miscegenation in the Bible. God even commanded the Israelites to NOT breed different cattle breeds together!!
What does this say?
I wonder why I have lasted so long on this blog. Usually, I am booted off, blocked, censored, pilloried and attacked. I never last long on Catholic forums or blogs---because I always mention Miscegenation and how wrong that is! Here is St. Isidore of Seville mentioning this! as a law of the nations, and yet if I say anything, I am attacked as a "racist"!
What is going on when bishops and priests denounce those that mention miscegenation as racists? Why did Catholics pounce on that Protestant University that prohibited white women and blacks from dancing together? How come there is NO defense using the Law of Nations by Catholics?
Freemasonry is about building a pluralistic global community. International socialism also preaches this. Why is the Catholic Church following the lead of Freemasonry and International Socialism? Why is it participating in Cultural Marxism for?
Is the Law of Nations racist? Is the Law of Nations part of the Old Order? Is not the destruction of the Old Order Nihilism? Is not the law against miscegenation about maintaining the Natural Order? Is not race part of the Natural Order?
So where does the Catholic Church stand? Ever read Catholic Social Justice Doctrine? It stands against the Law of Nations!
The big evil of our day is the attack against the Natural Order and of the maintenance of Race. That is the single biggest evil of our day. Where is the Catholic Church?
W. Lindsay Wheeler:
ReplyDeleteDo you believe that miscegenation is against the natural law to the degree that a marriage between two persons of different races, sacramental or natural, is a mortal sin? That is, do you believe that such a marraige is intrinsically dishonest (intrinsice dishonestum) or intrinsically evil?
Neither. But those that promote miscegenation; those that attack the concept as racist; those that stay silent; those that give aid; those that condone miscegenation; are intrinsically evil.
ReplyDeleteUnder the Old Order, daughters had to get permission from their fathers. It is up to fathers to direct their daughters, and sons, marriages. Those that bucked the system were ostracized. One pays the penalty, like shame and ostracization.
Now, if you say something against interracial marriage, you are visciously attacked, demeaned, called a bigot. This is the New Order.
Furthermore, there is something called "Blessings and Curses". The sons of Ham are cursed. Marrying into and the children produced, then carry the curse.
I refer to the Natural Law: As the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son." (LXX, Ezek. 18.4)
The curse laid upon the Father are passed into the son. The sons of Ishmail, another tribe of the Semitic family, Arabians, are cursed with antagonism. The sons of Cain, the Asians, are cursed with a mark. The sons of Ham are cursed with slavery. With the breaking of their covenant, the sons of Jacob are cursed with "madness" and persecution. The only people NOT cursed in the Bible are the sons of Japeth, the European people.
When a European miscegenates with these people, their curse falls upon their children. What Bishop doesn't shepard his people? Does a Bishop, learned upon the Scriptures, teach and protect his flock? Or does he lead them to the slaughter? a sort of Judas goat.
The curses are REAL. To disbelieve is to disbelieve in the Word of God. What harm is being done, when we allow European people to engage in miscegenation with cursed people? Is that not harm being done? That people who were once free, are now infected? Is this right? Does the Catholic Heirarchy even care? Do they even know? (As it says, "They who handled the law knew me not".)
If it was one or two, here and there, there would be no problem. But it is societal wide! It is pushed and condoned in this modern (Marxist/Masonic) world. A lot of people have commented on the increase of miscegenation. With the attack against racism, you have many more people engaging in miscegenation!
ReplyDeleteMiscegenation, Intrinsically, destroys. It destroys tribal cohesiveness! It destroys families and culture. There is also another thing called "Duty" and Loyalty. Duty is to one's kinsman, to one's forefathers. Miscegenation destroys loyalty and duty to one's kinsmen and forefathers.
Race is under attack. It is attacked everywhere. Miscegenation is an evil when it becomes overwhelmingly prevalent and is being used to destroy the "idea" of race. Which is going on!
The Natural Law, which is common to all peoples, preached "to marry one's own. The Bible condemns miscegenation. There are Two witnesses, the Bible and the Natural Law both agree on this. The Maintenance of one's tribe is a duty laid upon ourselves. America is an ideological country. It is a Novus Ordo. It is about overturning the Old Order. I am about Maintaining the Old Order. All the nations of the world are Racially oriented and based, Except America. and Under liberalism, Europe is turning multicultural as well. International Socialism is an evil.
I refer you to Rosa Luxemberg's "The Nationalities Question". It is the core of Marxism and of Cultural Marxism; the destruction of the nation state. Miscegenation is only one of the tools to destroy race and nation. Therefore, miscegenation used as a tool of nihilism is intrinsically evil.
(I know quite well that Beshiba, Uriah's wife, maybe foreign but Ruth, who was a Moabitess, is in the lineage of Jesus Christ.) Miscegenation is not wrong when it is an exception. When there is proportion.
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In Defense of what I said, Catholic Spain, after their victory over the Moors had a campaign of "Blue Bloods"; of only those of the Spanish Aristocracy that did not miscegenate with Jew or Arab. This was never condemned. Blue Blood is very important! For it is from the Aristocracy, that culture is formed.
Second, the Church had no problem but as well enforced and encouraged the homogamy amongst the royalty and aristocracy. Miscegenation is not allowed to Royal families or Aristocracy, anywhere.
So not only does miscegenation apply to race, it applies to castes as well! Maintenance, Conservatism is the Good. To conserve the Order, that is what is important.
This is the Natural Law: "To every rule there is an exception". Exceptions can be made. Miscegenation here or there is no problem. 1% or 2%of the population or for any other good reason it may increase. Proportion in all things.
ReplyDeleteWhat is going on, is not this! And the Catholic Church schooled in the Will of God is not teaching the complete Truth. is not teaching the complete Natural Law.
The Church is not about being progressive. The Order given in Genesis was "To cultivate and to Keep". That is the order. Cultivate one's kind and to keep it. In the face of overwhelming Marxist propaganda, where is the Church? Is the Church participating in the deracination program of Cultural Marxism, or is it teaching and preaching and defending the Old Order, as God Created it?
This is my concern. And thank God for St. Isidore of Seville who preserved this old Natural Law: the prohibition of intermarriage between the races.
What a demented post Wheeler offers. We see here further evidence of the utter decay of Christianity as an institution. On reading "The Aryan Myth---The History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe", the author cites a quote attributed to Archbishop Isidore of Seville, giving special preference to 'races' descended from among the Vandals who conquered Rome. The Archbishop presumes the right to deem the converted barbarians as preferred by God over other races. And thereby arrogates to himself the right the right to grant 'counsin-ship' to the Iberians of Spain with the Vandals. I perceive the planting of the satanic seed of 'Racism' by Isidore. Christianity was by that time greatly distorted, giving rise to Racialist philosophies in the 18th-19th Centuries in Europe.
DeleteI would say you are swimming against the current.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure one can condemn a reasonable preference for one's people, culture, tribe, or even race. We celebrate "Black History Month" without batting an eye, so in some areas our culture not only tolerates reasonable preference, but actively promotes it. You are guilty of promoting the wrong race, one currently out-of-style, perhaps. But if it is good for some, it is good for all.
I am proud of my heritage (it's actually mixed European and Jewish, so I'm the product of what you would call miscegenation), and, though I come from at least two "tribes," I've never thought of this pride as sinful. But I have not thought myself superior to others because of it. Nor would it provide any basis for being uncharitable or unjust to a person of different culture, etc.
How else can culture or a people survive without some reasonable self-preference? But wouldn't you agree that whether this preference is reasonable or not reasonable would vary with the mores of the times? What may have been reasonable in Spain after the Reconquista is not reasonable within the mores of contemporary America. What was reasonable among the Hebrew tribes may not be reasonable here and now. The Old Order is gone, whoever was at fault for it, and there's nothing we can do to impose it on everyone or anyone even if it was the best thing to do (and certainly no order is without fault, including the Old Order; No human order is divine). Don't customs have something to do with whether something is reasonable or not? It seems to me that, unless an absolute principle of right and wrong is involved, one cannot compare what was done in one era as normative for what was done in another area, either forward or backwards. And you have admitted that what you are dealing here is not, in your view, an absolute right and wrong (This is because you allow for it in small proportions; if it was intrinsically evil you could not allow for it at all. Though you also inconsistently say elsewhere that it is intrinsically evil. I think you have to make up your mind on this one.)
I cannot see how a reasonable preference for one's peoples, one that does not offend against charity or justice, is wrong or racist. I can easily see how an unreasonable preference for one's peoples over others, one that offends justice or charity, is wrong. Nothing: no loyalty to religion, or race, or social standing, or culture allows us to commit an act of injustice or an act against charity against another man or woman.
Didn't our anti-miscegenation laws offend justice or charity or both? Even if you take the position that they didn't, didn't they offend justice because they were impossible to enforce? There are times even obvious evils such as prostitution have to be tolerated, because the evil associated with the enforcement of such laws exceeds any good. It seems to me you have to accept that the antimiscegenation laws, whatever good people thought they had, are simply unreasonable under the assumptions of our current culture.
This preference for those of our own household would carry over into the household of Faith. Would it be wrong for me to prefer that my daughters marry a Catholic, rather than a Muslim? No. Would it be wrong for someone to engage in killing to stop it, as the Muslims do in their honor killings? Clearly yes, because the Muslim exceeds the limits of reasonable preference for those of his own religion or his own tribe. Again, the preference of the Muslim in such an instance has exceeded reasonable limits, by trespassing justice and charity.
This preference is displayed in the Church, even in its current marriage laws, that require a dispensation in the event of disparity of cult or mixed religion.
With respect to your reliance on Scripture, are the Old Testament "blessings and curses" directed to Christians? Or just the Jew before the New Covenant? Did they survive the coming of Christ? Why? Where is the Magisterial authority for that? Are they to be intepreted in a spiritual sense, or in a literal sense? Doesn't the Church's Magisterium guide us in these areas? What does it historically say?
ReplyDeleteYou say miscengation intrinsically destroys. It may destroy one thing, but it also builds another. Isn't this what Alexander the Great recognized when he sought to see the Greeks marry with the Persians? Some of the most beautiful people I know come from mixed marriages. Though it may prejudice the tribe, isn't there some benefit to overcoming parochialism, tribalism, even racism?
To begin to answer your queries, lets start with the last question first:
ReplyDeleteThough it may prejudice the tribe, isn't there some benefit to overcoming parochialism, tribalism, even racism?
There is no benefit. The Bible is there to let us know the Will of God. It is God's communication to us. There is a lot of information in there. I believe in every word of it for Christ remonstrates: "Man lives on EVERY word that proceeds from the mouth of God". Now, the Bible is the Word of God. The whole Old Testament is NOT the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law is the prescriptions of the daily life, ritual, liturgical, and society of the Hebrews. But there is other information there as well. Look, St. Paul uses the Mosaic law of "Don't muzzle the oxen while treading the grain" to pertain to the support of Christian clergy. There is a truth in that Mosaic law that is eternal. That is not abrogated by the New Covenant.
So, I point to the benefit of parochialism, tribalism and racism.
I answer: The Tower of Babel.
This is a specific Story. It is about man congregating, dismissing belonging (tribalism) and volkenhass (racism). God destroyed it and called it Evil. God destroyed the tower, and then he confused the language of man. Race follows language. Right there is the Will of God expressed! God wants man to live in tribes/nations. This is the express will of God. It is clear. It is not abrogated by the New Covenant. The New Covenant or the Old one for that matter, has nothing to do with the Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel is about the Natural Order. It is about God RE-establishing, confirming the Natural Order.
Now, for the Natural Law. The Golden Mean. All truth is in the Golden mean. The mean is between exageration and deficiency. A man who is just an individual, who is clanless is a deficiency. Men congregated into a whole without break is an exageration. It is limitless. God divided man up. He is in a group. Not a large group, nor existing as an individual. Man is part of a group. Race and tribe are the Golden Mean between anarchic individualism and cosmopolitianism/internationalism/pluralism. The Golden Mean is expressed "Nothing too much". The Tower of Babel broke the rules of the Natural Law.
This is the wisdom of God. There is great benefit to this plan of God and there is NO benefit to ending race, racism or racialism or parochialism. For all things have limits. Destroy those and break barriers is about making something limitless. That is intrinsically an evil.
God in his infinite Wisdom divided mankind into tribes and nations and instilled not only a difference of language to prevent their cooperation, he also instilled "belonging" and "volkenhass" in order to maintain racial barriers and limits. (q.v. Johann Herder) One can see that Nature has imbued along with animals, volkenhass and belonging into humans. It is there. It is real. You can not mess with the Natural Order.
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There is another thing to mention here and that is "Tikkun Olam". Tikkun Olam is a Jewish mentality of "fixing the world". That is Jewish. But that is not a European mentality. The European mentality is to accept reality as is. No fixing. European have no concept of "fixing"; it is about accepting. We do not "fix" the world.
Racism in its Oxford definition (20 volume dictionary) only means "the acknowlgement of racial differences".
ReplyDeleteThe question is "Are there such a thing as Racial differences"?
Yes. That is an observable fact. Only later under Marxist hegemony and propaganda does the word "racism" include volkenhass, discrimination and racialism (feelings of racial superiority).
Georges Dumezil did an intensive study of European languages and discovered a trait intrinsic to European thought: Trifunctionality. This is inherent, to greater or lesser degree in the European peoples. Now, in my acquaintance of Father Boniface Lukyx, I learned that Christianity was inculturated with Hellenism and trifunctionality. This Trifunctionality trait gave the impetus for Europeans to see the Trinitarian concept of the Creator Biblical God.
Semitic people do not have this trait. I point to both the Semitic religions of Judiasm and Islam. The strict monotheism of both religions is their racial proclivity.
Second, in the Jewish mentality, there is a gulf between man and God. There is NO inbetween.
In Greek/European thought, there is an abundance of "in-between" creatures, half-man, half-god, such as Achilles and Hercules. When Jesus Christ came, he was an impossibility to behold for Jews but a normal for Greeks and Europeans. The Golden Mean, which Jesus Christ is, Fully God and Fully Man, (Aristotle "Where the extremes meet") is a European thought pattern which is not Semitic.
Not only is there differences in physical features but in the macrocosm/microcosm Law of nature, that there is also differences in sociology and mentally. There is also Mental differences. Aristotle remarks on racial characteristics. He remarks of the Europeans, "their SPIRITED character".
Miscegenation destroys specific racial characteristics. Bastardization retards the full flowering of the patriarchical soul.
Hillair Belloc said, "The Faith is Europe and Europe is the Faith". How right he is. The current agenda is about destroying European races in order to destroy the Christian Faith. Destroy Europe, and you destroy Christianity.
From Fr. Seraphim Rose, Nihilism, The Root of Revolution in the Modern Age.
ReplyDelete"The first and most obvious item in the program of Nihilism is the destruction of the Old Order."
"Effective war against God and His Truth requires the destruction of every element of this Old Order..." (pg 75)
Race is part of the Old Order. Race is part and parcel of the Natural Order. It is to be maintained and that St. Isidore of Seville records for history a common law among nations, a part of the Natural Law, to wit: "the prohibition of intermarriage between the races". Cultural Marxism (google the phrase) is about destroying the Old Order, about destroying among other things, race and that which pertains to race, "belonging" and "volkenhass".
On the point of miscegenation. It is not never intrinsically evil. It only becomes "evil" when it breaks the law of proportion and the law of necessity. Miscegenation becomes telelogically evil but not intrinsically evil when it becomes a program of ideology. It is not a moral wrong. It becomes a moral wrong when it is attached to an ideology of nihilism. It is immoral to attack the foundation of the Natural Order. To unmake What God has done, is thoroughly evil. To purposely plan, advocate and advance deconstructionism of the Natural Order---that is intrinsically evil.
ReplyDeleteNote. In the Old Testament, the word "mamzer" means bastard and they were not allowed in the Temple ever. They were forbidden. What is God telling us here?
I will post again here tomorrow on May 19th, answering the other questions.
As to swimming against the current; St. Maximos the Confessor said, "One man with the Truth is the majority". Our Allegiance is to the Truth, not to popular opinion.
ReplyDeleteThe Definition of the Natural Law is "The principles/maxims/laws that have built and maintain the Natural Order". The Natural Law can not be divorced from the Natural Order.
But wouldn't you agree that whether this preference is reasonable or not reasonable would vary with the mores of the times?
The mores of our times is evil. In 1880 there were over 200 Socialist and Communist organizations in America. Father S. J. Hardon wrote: ""In the light of what we have just seen, can anyone doubt that the United States has been deeply infected by Marxism. However, I believe we can say even more. Our country is a Marxist nation, Dare I say still more? The United States of America is the most powerful Marxist country in the world.""' (From
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Communism/Communism_002.htm )
The "mores of our times" is Marxist; it is a more of social engineering which as good faithful Christians, we must dismiss wholeheartedly. We must be obedient to the dictates of Divine revelation and the Natural Law.
The Old Order is gone
The Old Order is based on the Natural Law. The Natural Law built the Old Order. The Natural Law is the Logos. Plutarch relates the sentiment of the Doric Greeks: "We are not in this world to give the laws but to obey the commands of the gods". Man does NOT have the authority to dissolve the Old Order. We are NOT here to give the Laws! No matter if the whole world dismisses the Old Order, we as Christians are obedient to the Logos. Our job as Christians is to obey the Logos---no matter what. We are to uphold the Logos; i.e. the Old Order. To "love" God, means to Obey. What part of deconstruction of the Old Order is Love? As Christians we are not to move and adopt error! In no way.
and certainly no order is without fault, including the Old Order; No human order is divine)
ReplyDeleteThe Old Order is NOT of human origin! The Old Order is the Natural Order created and moved by God.
It seems to me that, unless an absolute principle of right and wrong is involved, one cannot compare what was done in one era as normative for what was done in another area, either forward or backwards.
Have you heard of Nietzche's "transvaluation of values"? Miscegenation and other such acts of deconstructionism against the Natural Order/Old Order are "unrighteousness". In the Greek it is "adikia". God hates this. God hates adikia. It is not morality but a sense of righteousness or unrighteousness. For instance LXX Psalm 105.3 "Blessed are they that keep judgement, and do righteousness at all times". Scripture says that "righteousness must be done at all times". Righteousness is the same in every generation. Does not Scripture have it "God changes not"? The Natural Law changes not. Xenophon reports "The earth willingly teaches righteousness". Man must be righteous for the wrath of God falls on the unrighteous.
I can easily see how an unreasonable preference for one's peoples over others, one that offends justice or charity, is wrong.
ReplyDeleteJustice or charity has nothing to do with race or the mechanics of race relations. Righteousness does. What does justice or charity have to do with even a "unreasonable preference"? Nothing. Charity is a choice. And Justice? Justice only comes into an account if there has been done a moral crime and/or sin. An unreasonable preference has nothing to do with justice unless you have in mind socialist/Marxist idea of "social justice". There is NO such thing as "social Justice". The natural law states there is always "an authority and a thing in subjection". Something always rules. That is the Natural Law. "Tis meet that Greek rule Barbarian". It is righteousness that the Better should rule the worse. The Aristoi must rule the Kakoi. It is unrighteousness if that is not the case. Order is an element of the Natural Law. Righteousness teaches that the Better should rule the worse. Justice and Charity do not countermand Righteousness.
Didn't our anti-miscegenation laws offend justice or charity or both? Even if you take the position that they didn't, didn't they offend justice because they were impossible to enforce?
Okay. Then we go to Socrates who then asks for the definition of courage that exists in every situation that requires courage. This is the principle of consistency. Socrates would ask, if anti-miscegenation laws offend justice and charity, then one could say the same thing about the anti-miscegenation laws in the Bible offend justice and charity. The Bible is authored by the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit does not know this? If anti-miscegenation laws offend against justice and charity, then does not the Bible countermand itself? Is the House of God divided? In one of the later books of the bible, a prophet ordered the sons and daughters of Israel to put off their foreign spouses. The whole tribe divorced and removed all their foreign spouses. Now, the question is, is that prophet motivated by the Holy Spirit? And if he was did not the Holy Spirit offend justice or charity? NO.
Anti-miscegenation laws are NOT unenforceable! What references do you have for this? It was enforced at the County Clerks' office where marriage licenses were NOT handed out to mixed race couples. It was that easy and it was easily enforced. Not only that but the common population that passed that law, that law that is ordained by Scripture, would have ostracized that couple! If they wanted to continue, they had to leave the area, and probably go North. Anti-miscegenation laws are very easily enforced.
What is the purpose of Law? The purpose of Law is to teach the Good. How can the Good offend Justice and charity? Is the House of Good divided against itself? The Object of justice and charity is not race or miscegenation or anti-misegenation. You are taking something out of context here. You are applying "justice and charity" outside of their formal and final causes, away from their normal activity! Justice and Charity must be applied righteously; to their proper ways.
As for Honor killings. Honor killings have been a staple of Orthodox Greece for the longest time! Cretan men killed their daughters for disobeying them! Let me remind you that in Classical Rome, the father had total power of life and death over his whole family! Honor killings is not an "Islamic" thing. Phineas, the most honored of the Hebrew heros killed a Hebrew fornicating with a foreigner female. Discipline. Have you not read the Scripture? "The Care of Discipline is Love". Justice and charity are fine but they don't countermand the dictates of discipline. See, Islam has discipline, and Christianity is too weak and has no discipline whatsoever. The Christian use of Justice and Charity has nullified discipline and righteousness. Honor killings is not Northern European culture but it is Mediterreanean culture.
ReplyDeleteWhat is going on is that Justice and Charity taken out of context and overpowering other dictates of Divine and Natural Law are making weaklings out of Christians who can not discipline anything. (i.e. The Church Impotent, The Feminization of Christianity by Leon Podles)
In the discussion of situations, Righteousness, Charity, Justice and Discipline must all work together and each have their proper functions and must be used in proper proportion. Proportion in all things even in "Justice and Charity". Nothing too much.
I will comment on the second post tomorrow.
On Miscegenation. Jesus Christ said, "You can't serve two masters". The object of the virtue of Loyalty is one. Is not the Natural Law, "The rule of one is best"? So, then Jesus Christ is right. There is only one master in every case. When a man has a divided heritage, what can he do? Where does his loyalty lie? Because each heritage has claims that may counterdict the other. Heritage makes demands. Which one overrides? With another Natural Law, that of "Blood is thicker than water", where does loyalty lie? You can't serve two masters; that is also another Natural Law. Miscegenation is wrong in so many ways.
ReplyDeleteSecond. Rootlessness. The Modern Age, in which the word "modern" is a code word for "Marxism, is based on creating "rootlessness"; a man divorced from race, from his heritage, from tradition, from custom. Miscegenation is a step in Rootlessness. The third and fourth generations of miscegenation are certainly very very rootless. This is damaging psychologically to humans. Marxism is about producing rootless individuals. God knows this and this is why He Commands homogamy as much as possible. Moreover, custom and tradition are products of race. Destroy Race and custom and tradition that make up culture dies. Isn't that the basis of Liberalism, Libertarianism, Communism, Marxism, Democratic Socialism and Anarchy?
And so I can't believe why the Church doesn't stand up. Where is the sheparding? Where is the teaching? Is there any real investigation going on. Are our Church leaders following God or "conventional belief"?
With respect to your reliance on Scripture, are the Old Testament "blessings and curses" directed to Christians?
ReplyDeleteThe Bible is Divine Revelation. Revelation means "Knowledge". God's Will is expressed in Divine Revelation. The Blessing and curses in the Bible are FACTS of reality. It is where something is changed by Divine Providence. Should not Christians be aware of changes by God? That God is constantly interacting in the world and tweaking things? Does not God operate in physical reality and because it is in Divine Revelation, that God wants us to know about them? Divine Revelation is Knowledge. The blessings and curses are directed to the Natural Order. It is "How things are". In order to understand reality, must we not be aware of what God has done? Whether there are Christians or not, is of no matter; no bearing, blessings and curses are there to show how God is directing creation!
Does it not behoove Christians to "Pay Attention"?
Where is the Magisterial authority for that? Are they to be interpreted in a spiritual sense, or in a literal sense? Doesn't the Church's Magisterium guide us in these areas?
ReplyDeleteMy answer is "Who the hell knows"!?! Where is it? Where is their commentary on blessings and curses? Where is their teaching? I would like to know! Twenty years of active adult Catholic participation, I never heard a sermon on it! Are they keeping it a secret to themselves? But my educated guess is that they are forgotten! They don't care! The only reason I know about them is because I read the damn Bible myself and I listen to Protestant Preachers who know what is in the G^$*($%m Book!
With respect to your reliance on Scripture, are the Old Testament "blessings and curses" directed to Christians? Or just the Jew before the New Covenant? Did they survive the coming of Christ? Why?
Catholics have been constantly referring to those two curses (sweat on the brow and childbirth pain)in the book of Genesis forever all the time throughout history. Where are the others? The third curse is death. The curse of death is only released on Judgement Day. Not here in this life.
I turn again to Socrates. Socrates, the foundation of the scientific spirit and Western Thought. If we use one set of rules for a category, we can't for another situation, change the rules. The rules we use in judgment, must be the same rules across the board. The Principle of consistency.
Do I really need the Magisterium to tell me why women have pain in childbirth? Is that not a fact of life? Does not the Bible say that God put a curse on women that they will have pain in childbirth as a punishment for them being deceived in Genesis? Do I need the Magisterium here? Do I need their imprimatur that this curse is active, alive and well, that it operates irregardless of the Old Covenant, the New Covenant, the Gospel of Love, Justice and Charity? Maybe women shouldn't suffer pain in childbirth. So Socrates would ask, if this curse is not nullified and done away with by the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, that after the coming of the New Covenant, women are still suffering pain in childbirth, are the other curses done away with because of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the institution of the New Covenant? Here, we see that Catholic academics and hierarchy then apply different rules to the curses they do not like. They change the rules. Did not God curse the ground in Genesis so that man has to work by the sweat of his brow, why are we still sweating and groaning to get our work out of the soil then? The curses are no longer valid? They no longer work? They are a myth? They are irrelevant? The New Covenant has done away with them? If a woman is a Christian, that means she will NOT have pain in childbirth? But a Christian woman still suffers pain at childbirth.
If my eyes do not deceive me, irregardless if one is a Jew or a Christian or an Atheist, a woman's pain at childbirth still happens and I don't think I need the Magisterium to tell me that this is true. I don't need a Magisterium imprimatur to know that this is true. If that one curse is still active, doesn't that mean that all the other curses are alive and well? Some operate and others do not? That the coming of Christ did not nullify these two curses, so what in Divine Revelation makes Catholic academics and clergymen preach and teach that curses have been nullified by the coming of Jesus Christ?
These curses are additions on top of the Natural Law; they are add-ons to the operation of the Natural Order. Spiritual add-ons that is not affected by anything else.
ReplyDeleteIs not the Mark of Cain still here? Are not Cain's descendents here? Do they not carry the mark of their Patriarch?
Scripture tells of Hagar and her child Ishmail. This is the Lord talking: (LXX, Genesis 16.12) "He shall be a wild man, his hands against all, and the hands of all against him…" Ishmail is the Patriarch of the Arabian people. Today, is that fact, the spirit of antagonism, born out in the evening news broadcasts? Are not the adherents of Islam violent? Do I need the Magisterium for this? What does the Magisterium have to do with this? It is a fact of Life. It is part of the natural order. It is a curse laid on the Patriarch and as Scripture says: "As the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son." (LXX, Ezek. 18.4) Duh. Do not all the Arabians carry the curse then of their Patriarch? Do not the sons of the Patriarch share in the soul of the Patriarch? And why is the Magisterium blind to this? The Lord God himself cursed Ishmail! Is this curse directed to the Christian or the Jew? Did this curse survive the coming of Christ? Did the curse of the pangs of childbirth survive the coming of Christ? Did the curse of the earth survive the coming of Christ? In all these instances, the curse survived, so that means that the curse upon Ishmail is still true and operates. The coming of Christ did not affect the curses of the Bible! Where is the Magisterium on this most important topic?
And now for the curses directed towards the Hebrew Tribes in Deuteronomy chapter 28. Christ came, the Jews did not heed the Voice of the Lord, and the Coming of Christ triggered Deuteronomy's curses! How are those potatoes. And after surveying the last two thousand years of history, one can safely and confidently say that all those curses, despite the Gospel, have come to fruition. They have been worked out; have come to pass! Just like all the prophecies of Jesus Christ have come to pass! Amazing isn't it! There are many references, many, in the Pre-Vatican II Church that the Church and the old orthodox traditional Magisterium were very aware of the "Curse of the Jews". This was an actual teaching. Yet, somehow, it all disappeared after Vatican II. Truth doesn't disappear, it gets buried, obscured, hidden by blind men.
How is it that Christian say the prophecies which the Bible has, has come true, but then change the rules and say the curses have not come true? The Bible lies? The Word of God is not True, or Trustworthy? To pick and chose what is true and not true in the Bible? Somebody is deceiving somebody.
"You say miscegenation intrinsically destroys. It may destroy one thing, but it also builds another. Isn't this what Alexander the Great recognized when he sought to see the Greeks marry with the Persians?
ReplyDeleteAll megalomanic tyrants seek world power and in order to bring about their global utopia, then, they engineer race-mixing. Many in the Greek army were repelled by this and revolted. This is probably why he was poisoned. All globalists, cosmopolitianists, internationalists seek to race mix, just like the Tower of Babel. Error repeats. People keep on making the same mistake. Race-mixing is the not the Will of God. Look at the Marxists who seek to build a World Government and World society. What do they preach? Political correctness. What does that teach? Racism is wrong and that race-mixing is just fine. They are repeating the error of Alexander the Great.
Race mixing is the agenda of globalists; race-mixing is the agenda of those who wish to destroy the Old Order; race-mixing is about creating rootless individuals who have no loyalty to anything but ideology. Ideology needs rootless individuals.
And this is not just the error of Alexander the Great. Plato in The Laws points out to where if Xerxes or Darius would have succeeded Hellas would have been destroyed thru the race mixing between the Ionians, Dorians and their Persian overlords.
As God condemns globalism in the Tower of Babel, God also condemns race-mixing and St. Isidore of Seville backs this up with the Natural Law which states that races prohibit intermarriage with other races.
Here is the Biblical teaching:
ReplyDelete“And it shall come to pass when all these things shall have come upon thee, the blessing AND THE C-U-R-S-E, which I have set before thy face, and thou shalt call them to mind among the nations, wherein the Lord shall have scattered thee...” LXX, Deut. 30.1
How do we understand History? How do we view events? By whose context do we make judgements on things?
"""In 1942, the Nietra Rebbe went to Archbishop Kametko of Nietra to plead for Catholic intervention against the deportation of the Slovakian Jews. Tiso, the head of the Slovakian government, had been Kametko's secretary for many years, and the rebbe hoped that Kametko could persuade Tiso not to allow the deportations. Since the rebbe did not yet know of the gas chambers, he stressed the dangers of hunger and disease, especially for women, old people, and children. The archbishop replied: "It is not just a matter of deportation. You will not die there of hunger and disease. They will slaughter all of you there, old and young alike, women and children, at once--it is the punishment that you deserve for the death of our Lord and Redeemer, Jesus Christ--you have only one solution. Come over to our religion and I will work to annul this decree.""""
Here is a Christian Bishop telling the truth. Aware of the Curse. Next.
As late as March 1941--admittedly still before the full destruction was unleashed--ArchbishopGrober ( Germany), in a pastoral letter, blamed the Jews for the death of Christ and added that "the self-imposed curse of the Jews, 'His blood be upon us and upon our children' had come true terribly, until the present time, until today."-- 5 Similarly the Vatican responded to an inquiry from the Vichy government about the law of June 2, 1941, which isolated and deprived Jews of rights: "In principle, there is nothing in these measures which the Holy See would find to criticize."
(Quotes taken from Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com
Publication Information: Book Title: Contemporary Jewish Theology: A Reader. Contributors: Elliot N. Dorff - editor, Louis E. Newman - editor. Publisher: Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1999. Page Number: 398)
Here is proof that the Magisterium of the Church was fully aware of the Curse of the Jews and allowed for its carry out. This curse is a conditional curse. For the Bible lays out "IF" you do not hearken, "THEN" this will happen. The Bible prophesied the coming of the Curse and it did come to pass.
Now, In miscegenation, this curse is transmitted. Taking good seed and intermixing it with cursed seed---well is that part of Moral Perfection?
I do not make this up; I do not make up the Laws; I am here to Obey the commandments of the gods.
Miscegenation is a great evil. It makes for rootlessness, destroys societal cohesiveness, it harms children in giving them double loyalty conundrums, it bastardizes the Patriarical soul that forms culture, customs and traditions, and opens up the possibility of poisoning good seed with bad spirit. It can be tolerated in proportion or in the case of necessity. Miscegenation fundamentally is against Righteousness.