Christians Haven’t Always Been Mewling “Judeo-Christian” Pacifists

April 16, 2019 Hunter Wallace Christianity, Ethics, Europe, France, History, Religion 26

As I have repeatedly said on this blog, I am a historicist who likes to skip around and hop through history and current events on any given day, and in light of the destruction of Notre Dame yesterday now is an excellent time to take a look back at the culture that created it. It occurred to me long ago that what used to be Christianity is very different from “Christianity” as it exists today.

The men who built Notre Dame Cathedral in France also fought the Muslims in the Crusades. Bernard of Clairvaux, one of my favorite Catholics, is famous for preaching the Second Crusade. I spent the better part of the last year lost in my books studying this period to understand how morality has changed:

“What may appear today to many Christians and perhaps most non-Christians as an irreconcilable paradox between holy war and the doctrines of peace and forgiveness proclaimed in the Lord’s Prayer, the Sermon on the Mount and many other Gospel passages has not always been so obvious or recognized. This was certainly not the case in educated circles around Urban II at the end of the eleventh century.

As it had developed by the beginning of its second millennium in western Christendom, Christianity was only indirectly a scriptural faith. The foundations texts of the Old and New Testaments were mediated even to the educated through the prism of commentaries by the so-called Church Fathers, theologians such as Origen of Alexandria, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo and Pope Gregory I who, from the third to the sixth centuries, undertook the often tricky task of translating some inapproriate, obscure, incomplete, contradictory or idealistic apophthegms into an intelligible and satisfying system of thought and action within the context of the institutions of an active religion, a temporal church and the daily lives of believers. The Beatitudes had to be reconciled with human civilization, specifically the Graeco-Roman world, or, to put it crudely, ways found around the Sermon on the Mount. Being extravagantly well versed in the highest traditions of classical learning, the Church Fathers did this rather well. Beside these majestic exercises of the intellect, which extended even to manipulating the wording of some inconvenient biblical texts, Scripture attracted apocryphal additions and spawned a massive literature of imitative hagiography often supported by legends surrounding relics of biblical characters or events. The experience of the church over the centuries provided its own corpus of law, tradition, history, legend and saints that reflected neither the idealism nor experiences of the first century A.D.

The church’s teaching on war early reflected the process of interpretation and exegesis. Negatively, the so-called charity texts of the New Testament that preached pacifism and forgiveness, not retaliation, were firmly defined as applying to the beliefs and behavior of the private person. John the Baptist advised soldiers to remain in the army and draw their wages (Luke 3:14). As citizens, Christ told His followers to pay taxes to Caesar, drawing a clear distinction between political and spiritual obligations (Matthew 22:21). St Paul implied the same fundamental dichotomy of obedience in urging his disciple Timothy and his community at Ephesus to pray ‘for kinds and all that are in authority’ (1 Timothy 2:2). This distinction between the public and the private was reinforced by the Bible’s very language. In St. Jerome’s Latin translation of the Scriptures (finished c.405) known as the Vulgate, which became the standard text of the Bible in the medieval West, the word for enemy in the New Testament is invariably imicus, imply a personal enemy. The Latin for a public enemy, hostis, does not appear in the New Testament. From this it coudl be argued that there was no intrinsic contradiction in a doctrine of personal, individual forgiveness condoning certain forms of necessary public violence to ensure the security in which in St. Paul’s phrase, Christians ‘may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty’ (1 Timothy 2:2).

While theoretically, in a perfect world, individual pacifism could be translated into political pacifism, the main thrust of Christian teaching assumed post-lapsarian sin and imperfection”

Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (Harvard University Press, 2006), p.29

Wait, what?

THIS SOUNDS NOTHING LIKE WHAT I WAS TOLD WAS CHRISTIANITY

Carl Schmitt talked about this at length. I read all his books like The Concept of the Political in college.

So, the New Testament was only talking about loving my personal enemies (people like those who I have petty feuds with online but who basically share my ideological beliefs), not public enemies like people who want to come here and kill me like jihadists?

Pope Francis is nothing like Bernard of Clairvaux or Pope Urban II.

Catholicism has evolved across history. This pathetic man Jorge Bergoglio is breaking with the traditions of his own office in order to impress modern day secular liberals. Even as a Lutheran, I understand this as Luther himself made the same point about how the Catholic Church had become corrupted during the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. That’s even more true under Bergoglio.

Bernard of Clairvaux was one of the most famous men of the 12th century. Does he sound anything like your modern American Judeo-Christian Boomer Zionist? No, he sounds like someone who is enraptured by the love of his LORD, not the love of beta orbiting the Jews like Charlie Kirk.

If you are a Catholic, I would encourage you to study Bernard of Clairvaux, the Crusades and the Cistercians like I have done. I can assure you that the faith that powered your ancestors through the Second Crusade and which inspired them to build Notre Dame in Paris or Cîteaux Abbey in Burgundy where they went to reject the world and glorify God is not the faith of Bergoglio or the US Catholic bishops who see no problem with flooding the United States with Muslim immigrants.

Liberalism, “Judeo-Christianity,” political correctness and all this other garbage didn’t exist in their times. Ben Shapiro doesn’t know anything about Western civilization.

Note: Just listen to what Bernard of Clairvaux says about virtue and morality.

About Hunter Wallace 12390 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

26 Comments

  1. There were centuries of inaction, and Muslim abuse before the Roman Catholics Church and the Papacy finally decided to fight back. The Normans & the English, at the time, were punishing the Italians for their inaction too.

  2. To hell with Catholicism, it’s the christianized version of Judaism. Pope’s replace Rabbis, and they trace heritage and geneology like the children of Abraham-except they go back to Peter as their “founder.” And they persecuted the real church just like the Pharisees and Saducees.

    • The real church consisted of the Gnostics and the Essenes. They were persecuted by the Roman church, along with Cathars and followers of Arius and Marcion.

      • @Spahn

        Not sure if you mean Gnostic gospels or Gnostic Christianity like Valentius.

        The Gnostics gospels were fakeries. Designed to confound Christianity. They were written by Jewish anarchists.

          • I believe that Jesus Christ Chrestos, Yeshua Ha-Notsri is the Rex Invictus (the Invincible King) and Rex Infinitus (the Infinite King), the incarnation of The One True God (INRI), Incomprehensible to us, but I trust in His Mercy and Grace.

            I believe that the jews’ Old Testament god YAHWEH is a demon, whose true name is MAMMON .. and (((It))) will live as long as the jews live, which is only until to the end of this Kali Yuga. Therefore, I believe that the jews that You worship are the Kali Yuga incarnate.

            My faith can be summarized in one verse, John 3:16+3 … “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life … even a jew (OR even the jews)”

            PS, the jews’ calendar stands at 5779. The Kali Yuga ends after 6,000 as I heard from Hell (para, Wm.Blake). We live in the End Times.

            PSS, the true number of the Beast is 6e6 (=6E6=six million, “the holy burnt six million, oy vey”

      • Spahn, I have only one word for your claptrap. (forgive me, Lord) F*CK!
        Bullshit. Utter complete bullshit- both you and ‘Professional’ for EITHER of your comments.

        At least HW is willing to let real Catholics speak for themselves, while he acknowledges the reality that, post-Schism, the Church DID change beyond recognition. Books such as authors Michael Hoffman and E. Michael Jones (along with the sedevacantists Davies, etc.) have written, which DEMAND honest inquiry over this subversion, not some garbage statements.

        Books such as “The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome,” and “The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit – and its Impact on World History.”

        I think that Chris Cantwell deserves far more legitimacy for his column here, than either of you could ever manage to accumulate, no matter how much bovine excrement you filled the internet with.
        https://radicalagenda.com/2019/04/16/outlaw-conservative-s01e014-fire/

        • @Fr. John+

          You are a good Catholic, still persecuting Christians. You are truly a good example of historical Catholicism.

    • Prof: Catholicism retained many pagan elements (a good thing). Protestantism represents the semiticizing of Christianity. The OT, the bland churches, like synagogues, the view that our pre-christian history is that of the OT rather than looking toward the Greco-Roman, etc.

      Also, Fr. John + is not a Catholic. He’s Orthodox.

  4. It’s just the result of increased female presence in all areas of public life. It can only lead to effeminacy and pacifism. Of course the Bible itself warns against this.

  5. Christian Zionism has to be fundamentally destroyed and uprooted from every White mind. It is the very definition of a suicide-prone mental illness.

    I can no longer return to my Christian roots. That metaphysical reality doesn’t exist. Those gods don’t exist. That ghostly false hope is an opiate. The cold harsh reality of White genocide and cultural/political/national subversion by J-Supremacists is what exists. Plunging our minds into this freezing ocean to awaken our consciousness is what is necessary.

    Within this genocidal anti-white paradigm there can be no salvation from false hope Messiah’s particularly those thrust upon our Apollonian ancestors from our long time Hebraic enemies.

    Honoring our European-Christian heritage while permanently surgically excising its innate and inherent cancer and syncretizing this revised heritage with our deep pagan roots and modern scientific understanding is the only path forward.

  6. Do you have any recommendations on the age of the book you listed in the link, or another publication? The reason I ask is that many tomes and works have been “sterilized” of anything that might – God forbid – offend the modern reader. As a rule of thumb, most works published in the 1950’s are – more or less – “intact” for want of a better term.

  7. Ben Shapiro doesn’t know anything about Western civilization.

    He’s a Jew. Jews had absolutely nothing to do with the formation of Western, European Civilisation. Had they remained in the Arabian peninsula, European Civilisation would still exist.

  8. Beware the trolls on this site trying to “side” with us, but then twisting things.

    Anyways … we don’t have much time to get Confederacy 2.0 ( our version of Forth Reich )

    https://thecommonsenseshow.com/activism-agenda-21-conspiracy/how-immigration-invasion-will-inevitably-lead-civil-war

    http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=60066

    We’ll need our own banks and currency of course.

    I can see Hunters, Dukes and Hills faces on the $1. $5. and $10. Confederate bills !? 🙂

  10. Someplace out there, Alex Linder is dancing a wee jig.

    The destruction of Notre Dam is about as bad as the felling of the pagan oak.

    At least the TRS guys had a general idea how important it was, thats a start.

  11. Hunter, have you read Lutheran theologian Gerhard Forde? He talks about remaking Lutheranism to what Luther originally wrote. Forde has some unusual ideas (like grace being given before the crucifixion), but you might like him.

    Also, the idea of armed self-defense is promoted by Christ himself. He chased out the moneychangers in the temple with a whip, and told the apostles to buy swords to defend themselves. Violence for its own sake is unchristian, but not self-defense, which is what Anabaptists like the Mennonites and Quakers get horribly wrong.

  12. Since when are Judeo-Christians pacifists? Last I heard they were shilling for endless wars for Israel.

  13. it’s time for a new crusade and, yes, white pagans will need to get the inquisition treatment too. if you’re not Christian then you don’t belong in our countries.

    • Here is your problem….blood comes before belief, which is malleable and non-provable. Blood is real. Race is real. Our people are real. You would rather live with a bunch of Latin and African “Christians”?

  14. At the time of Constantine, the Roman Empire was divided into a tetrarchy. The wars of the tetrarchs were won by Constantine who left a Christian legacy upon the entire Oekoumene which became an empire of Christian nations: east and west. This was the civilisations in which entire nations following their kings and chieftains were baptised and refounded upon the Church as the basis of social order. Roman Law and customary law was configured to the faith and morals of the Church. Of its remnant in the West – the Holy Roman Empire, the atheists and the Jews joke that it was neither holy nor Roman, but if wasn’t and empire – then nothing is an empire. It was inaugurated with the crowning of Charlemagne 800 AD and ended with the defeat of its emperor Francis II by Napolen at Austerlitz. He abdicated and the empire was dissolved 1806. A thousand years.

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