THE DEVIL IS THE APE OF GOD, and he mimes God's good through a Wordless caricature. It would be sort of funny, perhaps, like the flat joke of bad comedian who is out of his league, were we insulated from the Devil's antics. But the Devil's foolish and vain antics are invariably violent, bloody, and spell death for all who come near. So the humor of the Devil is one enveloped in horror. The Satanic Comedy is not funny, but tragic.
The Devil apes the communion of Church. Christ's blood draws all men into communion with God: baptized by water and into his blood, Christians become members of the Church, bound by the Holy Spirit of Love into a communion of Love. The Devil has his counterfeit, his anti-Churches. Whereas Christ, in the High Priestly Prayer, prayed that his flock may all be one, even as the Father and he were one, the Devil, in his Declaration of Rebellion, prays that the flock may be splintered, may be legion. And so the Devil spawns not a Church, but a bunch of splintered anti-churches. And these are founded not in a human blood hypostatically united to the Divine Person, but in a human blood entirely untied from God.
Hitler had a handle on it, and called it Blutkitt, "blood cement." It is the notion that one can bond through shared atrocities, horrible experiences, participation in mass murder, in a common sin. But Blutkitt is not something only found among the Schutzstaffel, Himler's SS, or among the followers of Genghis Khan, from where Hitler is said to have borrowed the concept. For the blutkitt that arises from the death of conscience serves equally as well as that arising from the death of men. Therefore, this false communion of "blood cement" is found among all those who break from the natural law and do not suffer remorse, repentance, and experience atonement. It is the natural response to what Budziszewski identifies as the Fury of Reconciliation. If we will not be reconciled to God, to the Church, to our fellow man, then we will be reconciled with those who share our common flaw. "Nothing bonds the group like mortal sin." It is a "guilty solidarity." Budziszewski (2003), 153, 154. Even at his nadir, man is not a beast--though he claims to be one and attempts to act like one. Nor is man a god--though he claims to be one and to claim God's throne. Man cannot suffer alone, and he must have community. And if it is not a community that leads to virtue, whether in the cosmopolis or the ecclesia, he must needs find it in a community that leads to vice, to an anti-polis, and anti-ecclesia, which pit themselves against human society, against the Church. Thus, "Thieves seek thieves for company; drunks seek drunks; molesters seek molesters. Just because these bonds are counterfeit, they cannot satisfy the need for reconciliation, so it presses us harder still." Budzeszewski (2003), 152.
Sin beckons to a false communion
So hard does the imbalance press, that these ersatz communions "kakangelize" their bad news, their badspel, their κακαγγέλιον or kakangelion. That is perhaps why, as Budziszewski observes, "movements for disordered sexuality--homosexual, pederastic, sadomasochistic--cannot be satisfied with toleration, but must propagandize, recruit, and convert." Here we may likewise place the Islamist jihadist, though his methods though equally insidious are more brutal. Perversely, those joined together by Blutkitt instead of the Blood of Christ feel the sense of being under the burden of an anti-Commission. Rather than reconciling with greater, normal society, they demand that greater, normal society reconcile with them.
Budziszewski (2003),153.
When man says Non serviam, the world gets turned on its head, and it leads to the impossible refrain: Fiat iniustitia, ruat caelum! Not, " render to each man his due," but, rather, "render to each man what he's not due" or "do not render to each man what he's due."
The Devil apes the communion of Church. Christ's blood draws all men into communion with God: baptized by water and into his blood, Christians become members of the Church, bound by the Holy Spirit of Love into a communion of Love. The Devil has his counterfeit, his anti-Churches. Whereas Christ, in the High Priestly Prayer, prayed that his flock may all be one, even as the Father and he were one, the Devil, in his Declaration of Rebellion, prays that the flock may be splintered, may be legion. And so the Devil spawns not a Church, but a bunch of splintered anti-churches. And these are founded not in a human blood hypostatically united to the Divine Person, but in a human blood entirely untied from God.
Hitler had a handle on it, and called it Blutkitt, "blood cement." It is the notion that one can bond through shared atrocities, horrible experiences, participation in mass murder, in a common sin. But Blutkitt is not something only found among the Schutzstaffel, Himler's SS, or among the followers of Genghis Khan, from where Hitler is said to have borrowed the concept. For the blutkitt that arises from the death of conscience serves equally as well as that arising from the death of men. Therefore, this false communion of "blood cement" is found among all those who break from the natural law and do not suffer remorse, repentance, and experience atonement. It is the natural response to what Budziszewski identifies as the Fury of Reconciliation. If we will not be reconciled to God, to the Church, to our fellow man, then we will be reconciled with those who share our common flaw. "Nothing bonds the group like mortal sin." It is a "guilty solidarity." Budziszewski (2003), 153, 154. Even at his nadir, man is not a beast--though he claims to be one and attempts to act like one. Nor is man a god--though he claims to be one and to claim God's throne. Man cannot suffer alone, and he must have community. And if it is not a community that leads to virtue, whether in the cosmopolis or the ecclesia, he must needs find it in a community that leads to vice, to an anti-polis, and anti-ecclesia, which pit themselves against human society, against the Church. Thus, "Thieves seek thieves for company; drunks seek drunks; molesters seek molesters. Just because these bonds are counterfeit, they cannot satisfy the need for reconciliation, so it presses us harder still." Budzeszewski (2003), 152.
Sin beckons to a false communion
So hard does the imbalance press, that these ersatz communions "kakangelize" their bad news, their badspel, their κακαγγέλιον or kakangelion. That is perhaps why, as Budziszewski observes, "movements for disordered sexuality--homosexual, pederastic, sadomasochistic--cannot be satisfied with toleration, but must propagandize, recruit, and convert." Here we may likewise place the Islamist jihadist, though his methods though equally insidious are more brutal. Perversely, those joined together by Blutkitt instead of the Blood of Christ feel the sense of being under the burden of an anti-Commission. Rather than reconciling with greater, normal society, they demand that greater, normal society reconcile with them.
They suffer from social deprivation, because they are cut off from the everyday bonds of life. They want to belong; they want to belong as thy are; there can be only one solution. Society must reconcile with them. The shape of human life must be transformed. All of the assumptions of normal sexuality must be dissolved: marriage, family, innocence, purity, childhood--all must be called into question, even if it means pulling down the world around their ears.
Budziszewski (2003),153.
When man says Non serviam, the world gets turned on its head, and it leads to the impossible refrain: Fiat iniustitia, ruat caelum! Not, " render to each man his due," but, rather, "render to each man what he's not due" or "do not render to each man what he's due."
