We are men of the middle ages, not only because that is our destiny, the fatality of history, but also because we will it. You, you are still men of modern times, because you refuse to choose. ~ Nicolas Berdyaev
the greatest miracle of Christianity was succeeding in asserting itself among the European peoples, even taking account the decadence into which numerous traditions of these peoples had plunged. … Medieval civilisation would be inconceivable, without phenomena such as the appearance of the great Knightly orders, Thomism, a certain mysticism of a high level (e.g., Meister Eckhart), the spirit of the Crusades, etc. ~ Julius Evola, A Justified Pessimism
At that time, Rome was ruled by two co-equal Augusti and two subordinate Caesars. That system was unwieldly, as would be expected, since the power hungry competed with each other. A hierarchy must have a single head. That is an analytically true statement and it is modelled on the God-centred cosmic hierarchy.
When Constantine’s father — who was the Augustus of the West — died, Constantine was declared Augustus by his troops. But he was not the sole claimant. When Maxentius subsequently claimed to be the Augustus, a war with Constantine became inevitable. Eventually, their respective armies were to do battle at Rome although Constantine was greatly outnumbered. Before the battle, there appeared in the sky a large cross of light above the Sun bearing the inscription, “In Hoc Signo Vinces” (“with this sign, you will conquer”). This was a public event, witnessed not only by Constantine, but also by his army.
This public sign was followed by a private apparition of Lord Jesus to Constantine in a dream. Christ explained to him how to prevail in the battle. He also ordered Constantine to construct a laborum with the letters Chi Rho affixed. This sign was also placed on the shields and arms of the soldiers.
As prophesied, Maxentius was defeated. Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which did not make Christianity the state religion, but rather established freedom of religion; this ended three centuries of Christian persecution. Pagan gods would be worshiped at the Triumphal Arch built to commemorate Constantine’s victory. In this way, Christianity eventually prevailed in the Empire due to its superiority over paganism, which had fallen into decadence. Constantine himself was not baptized until several years later.
So you are left with a choice. You can pretend none of this happened and that there was nothing but natural events. That is the position of scholars and most moderns. However, that does not explain the laborum, which has not secular source; it was not a Roman or pagan symbol.
Or you can accept that Providence works in human events and that Christ intervened in to assure Constantine’s victory. There is the greater holy war within oneself; but there is also the lesser holy war, which is also fought on the material plane in the name of Christ. The Christian state and the holy war are legitimate manifestations in Christendom. Any denial of this is actually some other religion. Hence, there is no Christian pacifism. The existence of Knightly orders, the Templars, Crusades attest to that. It makes no sense to assert that the first 12 centuries of Christianity was not Christian. If doctrine is “up for grabs”, i.e., not more than personal opinion, it would hardly be worth following.
Sophisticates have tried to impugn Constantine’s character, some 17 centuries after the fact. But consider how varied are the judgments of contemporary public figures and you will never again take such speculations across the centuries seriously. Moreover, the mindset of that time is opaque to most of our contemporaries.
Speaking what is good is better than silence, and silence is better than speaking evil.
To clarify my previous comment which might have been slightly unclear, I must point out that Lessing was something of the opposite of a Protestant. Not in the sense of an orthodox Catholic, but in the sense that he rejects the ground on which protestantism is built. Above all, he has a firm grasp of the difference between oral tradition and bibliolatry, or the idolatry of the written word. Scripture belongs among the earliest written records of a faith that far predates it, and Tradition subsequently does not solely depend on it. In this respect, Catholicism certainly acknowledges how vital Divine Tradition is for the rule of faith (Regula Fidei).
It could be noted in passing that the northern-european renaissance/reformation seems to have been of a more Judaic-Kabbalistic inspiration, and its southern-european counterpart more Greek-Platonic. In part this is explained through actual movements of people; Byzantines, Conversos. Christendom unfortunately began to fracture in its constituents. Kabbalism and Platonism combined becomes Neoplatonism.
Now to return to the topic at hand, Constantine did not precisely convert because he read the bible. Neither did he convert because clever apologetics and arguments won him over. As indicated in the text, making contact with spiritual reality provides the answer. Historical study only gives us the bare fact of a faith’s persuasiveness and success at a certain time. To know why, we would have to approach it in another way. We should also appreciate the fact that during the middle ages, literacy was rare. The population were instructed through the spoken word and the arts.
“The writings of the apostles were not even regarded, in the first centuries, as an authentic commentary on the entire regula fidei.
And that was precisely why the earliest Church would never allow the heretics to appeal to Scripture. That was precisely why they would on no account dispute with a heretic on the basis of Scripture.” -Lessing
Tradition has the right and obligation to interpret Scripture, not the other way around. Anti-tradition has no legitimate claims on Scripture whatsoever. We will not even engage in discussion on its terms. Lessing makes use of a metaphor of legislation. Law is just because its legislators and interpreters possesses a sense of justice.
“The writings of the New Testament, as contained in our present canon, were unknown to the first Christians, and the individual items which they did happen to know were never held by them in that esteem which they have enjoyed among some of us since the time of Luther.
The laity of the early Church were not even allowed to read these individual items – not, at least, without the presbyter who was in charge of them.” -Lessing
The enduring miracle of Christianity consists in its presence. How it came to be is not directly accessible to modern historical studies. Christendom has been battered by bad apologists, zealously advancing poor proofs and justifications, thereby making it appear as though the whole edifice were erected on unsound foundations. Then a country’s intellectual life gradually comes to be dominated by smallishness.
“How strange that people are so rarely satisfied with what they have before them! – The religion which triumphed over the pagan and Jewish religions through the message of the risen Christ is there. And are we to suppose that this message was not credible enough at the time when it triumphed? Am I to believe that it was not considered credible enough then, because I can no longer prove its complete credibility now? –
It is much the same with the miracles through which Christ and his disciples propagated their religion. – However dubious and suspect the present accounts of them may be, they were not performed for us Christians who live today. It is enough that they had the power of conviction they required, and the proof that they had is the enduring miracle of the religion itself.” -Lessing
Leo Strauss was supposedly introduced to esotericism by the writings of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing – one of the major figures of German enlightenment, and a participant in the controversies surrounding religious debate at the time. Their lesson for posterity is that debates are not won. No enlightenment whatsoever issued from the enlightenment.
“If I say that all mercury evaporates over a flame, must I satisfy someone who takes exception to the generality of my assertion by bringing together all the mercury throughout nature and evaporating it before his eyes? Until I am in a position to do so, I would rather simply reply: ‘Dear friend, all the mercury I have so far held above a flame really did evaporate. If you know of some which does not evaporate, do bring it here so that I can examine it, and I shall be most grateful.’
To examine closely all the countless works, large and small, which have been written even since the beginning of this century to demonstrate the truth of Christianity – what an imposition! If the Pastor really meant it seriously, and did not merely wish to make fun of me and rejoice at my embarrassment at having either to retract my claim or submit to an endless task, very well – let him prove it by a trifling gesture which will cost him only a word.
Simply this: let him name the work with which I am to make my first experiment in evaporation. He need only name it, for I am ready. If it is one with which I am already familiar, I have nothing to fear. If it is one I do not know and my experiment fails, so much the better: I am happy to accept a minor humiliation in exchange for a major lesson.
But I must make one prior condition. He must not assume that a person who doubts certain proofs of something also doubts the thing itself. The least suggestion to that effect is murderous. How can I help it if attempts have been made in recent times to elevate secondary proofs to a level of certainty and self-evidence of which they are absolutely incapable?” -Lessing
Something along these lines is common enough:
1. Bad arguments are advanced by idiots.
2. Bad arguments are exposed by those who know.
3. Idiots believe that refuting the argument refutes the thing fellow idiots argued for.
4. Blind led by the blind results.
What has come to be known as “Lessing’s Ditch” means that historical truths cannot be used to prove metaphysical truths. The objection is much more serious than what those critics believe who interprets the ditch as only indicating the temporal distance between us and past biblical or historical events. Having thus come before this putrid swamp of a ditch, beholding mad dogs bark at the Moon, we also face the Tarot Arcanum of the same name. The same theme as Lessing’s was taken up again by Kierkegaard with his famous “leap”, concerning that between which there is no common measure.
What has been called “Proof of the Spirit and of Power” by Origen, is of the same order as what the Chinese refers to as “Mandate of Heaven”. It could prove a dangerous principle since those who live by the sword die by the sword. If the greatest merit of Christianity was that it conquered, it must be nearly indistinguishable from the paganism that it vanquished. When that fundamental affinity is denied, one cannot at the same time continue to credibly rely on the proof of power to support the cause. It is important to remember that the proof of power is supposed to be empirically verifiable, and not a speculative theory. Moderns tend to forget that early Christianity was verifiable by faith. Modernism further indicates the belief that the exoteric/esoteric divide could be dispensed with.
“religion is not true because the evangelists and apostles taught it; but they taught it because it is true” -Lessing
History, as officially taught, limits itself to exterior events, which are only the effects of something deeper; and it sets these events forth in a tendentious manner under the influence of all the modern prejudices. And further, there is a veritable monopoly on historical studies in the interest of parties, both political and religious. ~ Rene Guenon
See The Truth is far from Suspected.
If one does not believe in chance, one is forced to admit the existence of some kind of equivalent of an established plan, but one which evidently does not need to be formulated in any document.
The same way you moderate and censor comments that are unappealing to you, “official history” has been moderated, censored and mangled extensively to suit the views and desires of many diverse groups that have been in power for centuries if not millennia. Isn’t it funny that you prove this point by acting the way you do, old man? LMFAO! But since you fancy yourself a hermetist, being a trickster is part of your nature, so you can’t exactly be faulted there now can you?
How much of “official history” is real anyways? Who knows, am I right? At least with symbolic history, time loses its relevance.
Mate, I think this refers to the Spirit of Crusades being sacred, not necessarily everything that happened on a material plane.
“History is meaningful only to the degree it follows Myth.”
Mate: One thing people must keep in mind regarding the Crusades (despite occasional unfortunate episodes within them) is that they originated as defensive actions to defend Christians after centuries on persistent aggression from Muslims aggression and Muslim imperialism. It is only in the past 100 years or so that self-hating Westerners have imbibed the anti-Christian, anti-Crusade notion that they were simply a manifestations of Christian, European “imperialism”, “colonialism,” etc. (insert the evil du jour the PC crowd denouncing). The First Crusade especially was an entirely justified Christian Holy War. Thomas Madden is perhaps the best modern historian of the Crusades who has set the record straight.
I fail to see how the described miracle of Constantine and the christian turn that it moved him towards connects to the Crusades being legitimate ‘holy wars’. Ironically if we look at the 4th one it sacked the city of Constantine and made a bloodbath among its people.