On reflection my last
post is unsatisfactory as a work of troll history, since it relies
almost entirely on dubious chains of 'what-might-have-beens', rather
than on looking at what actually happened with a different eye. It
does not seriously attempt to explore all the plausible
counter-factuals, so neither I nor you can take it very seriously.
For example, without the stimulus of the American Revolution it is
probable that all the dark monstrosities embryo in the writings of
Rousseau and Voltaire might just have gestated longer, erupting a
generation or two later and plunging Europe into an even uglier
paroxysm. Perhaps this would have been the utopian revolution that set the Americas aflame, with even worse consequences for
freedom and prosperity there; perhaps a greater Napoleon would have
arisen, one who had more success in conquering Europe; perhaps he
would have established an Empire as iconoclastic, inhuman, and
enduring as the Soviet Empire; and the last round of the 'Napoleonic
Wars' might have been fought with the weapons of the 20th century.
This post might
possibly be considered another bite at the cherry of troll history.
But it is a thesis that I take a great deal more seriously and have
thought about much longer. I have mentioned it before a couple of
times in throwaway lines. It is probably of less interest to the two
of you who remain my gentle readers: but it is the post that kept me
awake composing itself in my head all night, so here it is.
I've read three books
of relatively late Chesterton essays (from the 20s and 30s) in the
past two days, and taking them in such a concentrated dose I can
sympathise with Orwell's celebrated 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians'
observation. I
fear Chesterton became far too Bellocised at the end. His recurrent
theme is 'All roads lead to Rome' and he constantly hammers Belloc's
theme of 'The Faith is Europe, and Europe is the Faith'.
Chesterton (and Belloc)
point to the Catholic Church as this thing that is attacked now from
one side, now from another, remaining the same and defending the same
sane centre from attack by different sorts of heretics who spin off
and blaze furiously for a few generations before fading away to
nothing. It is the rock that stands firm, the foundation of
Christendom, and without it we lose the good of the intellect and
drift off into moods and fads that drag us ineluctably towards the
pit. See, for instance, this quote here about the various avenues of
Protestant attack on the Catholic Church over the past few hundred
years:
What was the meaning of
the feud, so constant and so inconsistent? That question took a long
time to answer and would now take much too long a time to record. But
it led me at last to the only logical answer, which every fact of
life now confirms; that the thing is hated, as nothing else is hated,
simply because it is, in the exact sense of the popular phrase, like
nothing on earth.
Now, when I was in
Devil Bunny City, still trying to be a Catholic, I attended an event
held by one of the Catholic student societies at Devil Bunny City
University that was a sort of meet-and-greet/question-and-answer with
the Coptic student society. The Copts are Monophysites. That means
they are of the minority party in a theological dispute of the 5th
century. They haven't had anything to do with Rome for over 1500
years. They believe in the Sacraments, the Mass, Apostolic
Succession, the veneration of Saints, prayers for the dead, are
devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and maintain a dead language for
liturgical purposes. The Coptic students would no more have dreamed
of kicking out their Pope Shenouda III and relying on private
interpretation of the Bible to guide their way than we would have
dreamed of kicking out Pope John Paul II. They had no interest in
ordaining female or homosexual priests. They were much more like us
than any sort of Protestant.
What these very
articulate and polite Coptic students asked probing and well-informed
questions about at this meeting were the novel doctrines introduced
in the Catholic Church in recent centuries. Papal Infallibility
bugged them. The Immaculate Conception bugged them. From their point
of view, we were the radical wing of Christianity: we were the ones
spinning out crazy new ideas and adding them to the ancient truths of
Christianity, from the filioque clause through the imposition
of the discipline of clerical celibacy, the dogmatic definition of
the Immaculate Conception, the megalomania of Pastor Aeturnus,
to the acceptance of periodic abstinence in Humanae Vitae.
And the Copts are not
the only ones. From the East, that is what the Catholic Church looks
like. The Churches of the East are the conservative
wing of Christianity. Whether they are Serbian Orthodox or Syriac
Orthodox, they are with the Copts on all these things. Their
liturgies and practices are instantly recognisable to Catholics as
'Catholic'; they do the things Catholics used to do. It was only my
Serbian Orthodox colleague who gave up meat for Lent. It was only my
Syriac Orthodox colleague who went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
And these Churches are united, no matter how long they have been
separated politically from Rome or from each other, in rejecting the
innovations that had come from Rome and sticking with the faith they
had been left by the Apostles. These small autocephalous Churches,
without claiming universal jurisdiction, have been more like rocks
than the Roman Catholic Church of Western Christendom. Clearly,
whatever it is that God wants to see preserved through the
vicissitudes of history has been equally well-preserved. if not
better preserved, in the East. Not all roads lead to Rome: there is
obviously a road to Cairo, a road to Belgrade, a road to Antioch,
etc...
Chesterton and Belloc
are like hypothetical young Labor Party organisers who have spent
their entire career in Marrickville, having to campaign against a
motley collection of incoherent Trotskyite moonbats, sugar pixies,
and hippy-dippy freakazoids. They are the Conservative party in their
patch of space and time, and you can imagine them (with enough mental
agility) not even realising that elsewhere, their party is the
Radical one. Compared to the whole expanse of Christianity in space
and time, Western Europe in the early 20th century looms about as
large as Marrickville does in New South Wales. Chesterton and Belloc
were the Conservative party in their patch of space and time: but
they are part of the Radical wing of Christianity, not the
Conservative one.
My take home message
from this was that political unity is not important to God. He
doesn't want us all in one Church with one leader.
Another dispiriting
feature of the Chesterton's Bellocisation is the anti-semitism that
creeps into a lot of his later essays. I feel very strongly that if
you are going to cleave to Christendom, if you are going to extoll
Christendom and work for the triumph of Christendom, you have a
special responsibility to be on guard against and excoriate in
yourself the particular sins and failings that Christendom is
susceptible to: and the greatest of these is Jew-hatred. It seems to
me that the exact same quote of Chesterton's could be applied to with
equal justice to that other religious group, which has been
persecuted for some hundreds of years longer than Christianity has
existed, and has somehow stayed firm like a rock through all the
vicissitudes of history - without ever having the support of powerful
states; without ever claiming universal jurisdiction; without
promising the Golden Carrots of the Hesperides or wielding the stick
of Eternal Damnation:
What was the meaning of
the feud, so constant and so inconsistent? That question took a long
time to answer and would now take much too long a time to record. But
it led me at last to the only logical answer, which every fact of
life now confirms; that the thing is hated, as nothing else is hated,
simply because it is, in the exact sense of the popular phrase, like
nothing on earth.
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