A Jewel of the Papacy

[Evola As He Is]

What matters for J. Evola in history is less causes, facts, events and visible leaders than « the dimension of depth, or the `subterranean' dimension in which forces and influences often act in a decisive manner, and which, more often not than not, cannot be reduced to what is merely human, whether at an individual or a collective level." (MATR) As it is, very few studies of historical figures can be found in his work. Charlemagne is mentioned a few times in Revolt against the Modern World, a few times in The Mystery of the Grail, once in L'Arco e la Clava and still once in Fascismo e Terzo Reich, without any direct assessment being made of him and his political role and work. It is however worth pointing out right now that in Osservazioni critiche sul razzismo Nazionalsocialista (La Vita Italiana, November 1933), allusion is made spitefully to the fact that « ... in Germany he is no longer called Charlemagne, but Charles the Frank, and he is made responsible for all the greatest ills that affect Germany, when he was the one who actually assumed the principle of Roman universality… Rosenberg once said that the National-Socialist `Third Reich`'s model is by no means the tradition of the Sacrum Imperium, but that of all those who rebelled against the [Christian] Roman and imperial principle, starting with the Saxon Duke Widukind, a proud enemy of Charlemagne, who died in the ninth century, but is now supposed to come back to life triumphantly in the figure of A. Hitler. »

Charlemagne's racial pedigree has been the subject of some attention and, in any case, of far more attention than other kings', long before so-called `conspiracy theory' started to hold sway. Charlemagne's pro-Jewish policy is no longer at issue (see, for example, Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe, Bernard S. Bachrach). What is at issue is the lineage of the Carolingians and, more specifically, their possible Jewish or Semitic ancestry. The Carolingian male ancestry is usually considered to go back to Arnulf, Bishop of Metz (582-640), who was later canonised (1), and whose ancestry is debated. « Under the Merovingians in about 591 [the Syrians] had sufficient influence at Paris to have one of their number elected bishop and to gain possession of ALL ecclesiastical offices. » (2) Were they influential in the diocese of Metz at that time ? To date, no study has been produced on the ethnic composition of the contemporary Metz clergy. As a general rule, the racial context is almost entirely excluded from genealogical studies.

Very few filiations of the period are proved for many generations ; for lack of comprehensive primary sources and because of their often conflicting content, actual genealogists acknowledge that they are often reduced to using guesses, the most convincing of which are often based on onomastics, in reconstructing the family tree of the Carolingians. The argument advanced by Zuckerman in his well-known `A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France, 768-900' is that the Jewish king of Narbonne who is mentioned in the sefer ha-Kabbalah (The Book of Tradition), a fourteen century work, was a vassal of the Carolingians, and that the first prince of this Jewish dynasty and exilarch, Natronai, was settled by Charles in Narbonne, where he took on the name Makhir and married Alda, the daughter of Pippin the short. However, « The literal truth of the Sefer ha-Kaballah gloss, » on which this thesis rests, « that Charlemagne (or his father [or possibly his grand-father, Clarles Martel ! – indeed, the title `Martel' was added later, and so was `magnus', so that it is impossible to figure out which Charles this Jewish medieval chronicle refers to]) imported a true Davidic exilarch to found Jewish dynasty in Narbonne, » « is unverifiable » (3) and so is, thereby, the claim that the Carolingian lineage was impacted by Jewish blood under Pippin. Could the mother of Charles, who is not known with any certainty, be of Jewish blood ? Did he took from her or from his father, or even from both, the physical peculiarities which tend to show a Mongoloid or at least Eastern racial descent ? Unknown in the ancient Teutonic world, the great cruelty he proved capable of is a trait of character which is certainly more closely reminiscent of the kind of pleasures Mongoloid populations are known to revel in.

In an attempt to get out of the dead end of the genealogical research process, `When Scotland was Jewish : DNA evidence, archeology, analysis of migrations' shifts the focus on the « cultural signs of Judaism already present in the Carolingian dynasty. » On an even higher level, F.J. Los points at various features of Charlemagne's character that are either hardly Germanic or clearly non- or even anti-Germanic, such as his obsession with women and his legendary lustfulness, which he shared with the late Merovingians, most of the kings of the Carolingian dynasty, and, for that matter, with most Valois and most Bourbons ; in the eyes of most historians, who portray him « as an almost prototype of the `genuine' Teuton » because they « start out, in their outlook, with a vague and most cloud like idea of what they understand by a genuine Teuton » and, by implication, because their own forma mentis prevents them from grasping what is typically Germanic, Charlemagne's `sexual unbridledness' and ability to love truly are unmistakable signs of his `greatness' and, by implication - as well as, so to speak, by proxy - of the said historians'. Charles' well-known hospitality may be ascribed either to the adherence to a Germanic custom Tacitus once prized, a custom which, however, remained a custom and never degenerated into a rationalised and intellectualised socially oriented practice, a socialisation device, as it did later in Europe as a result of Christianisation, or to the observance of a Christian virtue closely linked to the humanitarian ideal of misericordia and caritas, to the theological duty to invite the poor and needy, the outcast, to Chrysostom's view of hospitality as a lever for the creation of a cosmopolitan humanity. « When we read of the many pilgrims from Great Britain and Ireland who, on their Journey to Rome, passed through the Frankish kingdom, and who placed a heavy burden on the state coffers, so that action had to be taken against the misuse that the pilgrims made thereof, » it is hard to avoid the impression that these were the pioneers of charity-business.

Charles' deep interest in pan-Germanic Grammar should also be put in perspective, insofar as it would appear that it was not more genuine than the revival of the ideals of ancient Rome during the so-called Carolingian Renaissance. All the evidence suggests that it met the practical need to create a standard Germanic language in order to make it the medium of Christian ideas. Likewise, the reason for Charles' insistence that the oaths of loyalty he imposed were administered in the vernacular of each region was merely one of practicality, since it meant that those who took them could never claim that they had not understood what was said on that occasion.

In fact, almost anything that was taken up from ancient Rome in those days was inflected in a Christian direction, to start with the concept of `fides', which had remained almost unaltered, as good faith in personal and international relations within a hierarchical society, down to the Merovingians : « the evangelising Carolingian church "preached lordship, using the same language for political and religious obligation. `Faith' (fides) meant both Christian belief and the bond between lord and man. The Book of Psalms, the text-book of Carolingian spirituality, could be read as a manifesto of divine Lordship. Christ was presented as lord of a warrior-retinue. Fidelity in political contexts acquired strong Christian overtones. In addressing his documents, Pippin identified his own faithful men with God's : fideles dei et regis. Charlemagne hammered the point home when he imposed faithfulness in both kinds on the conquered Saxons. » (4) « The virile sense of medieval fides » thus became diluted into « the pietistic sense that has prevailed in the theistic idea of `devotion' » long before J. Evola assumes it to have undergone this weakening, so that it would be more accurate to say, reversing the terms of his proposition as follows, that « During this stage [the following stage, « the cycle of the great European monarchies »], the fides cementing the state no longer had a warrior character, but only a religious [and political] one. » (5) While, in imperial Rome, the Christians refused to perform the very act, « consisting of a ritual and sacrificial offering made before the imperial symbol », that was required to demonstrate « a superordained fides in reference to the principle 'from above' embodied in the representative of the empire, namely, the `Augustus' » (6), it was in the name of the same word, stripped of its Roman meaning, and of a principle which, if it is indeed `from above', is still lower than the Roman one, that, a few centuries later, all free men in the Frankish kingdom were required to take an oath of fidelity to a very Christian king, who - this is the height of hypocrisy - was to be given the title of `Augustus' by the pope !

A closer look at the oath in question, on its content, its meaning and the procedures by which it was sworn, is particularly instructive on this point : « The theocratic attitude which Charles fostered towards his kingly office comes out in the oath of allegiance which he craved from his subjects. In this oath, they were not only called upon to pledge trueness and obedience, but also compliance with the Jewish Ten Commandments. Not content with that, this genuine `Teuton' so changed the oath formula after his crowning as emperor, that a still greater emphasis was placed on the moral and religious duties of his underlings. » (7) Besides, « ... by the beginning of Charlemagne's reign such oaths were only sworn by important members of local elites who were personal recipients of the ruler's goodwill and, therefore, `faithful men' of the king. In 789 Charlemagne moved to extend the practice to all free men, who were to swear loyalty, on holy relics, to the king in the person of his local representative. This move was a reaction to perhaps the most serious revolt of the reign, in 785-86, by a group of magnates from the provinces east of the Rhine. They had formed a conspiracy which aimed at murdering the king if he entered their region again, and this had been cemented by swearing oaths of mutual solidarity. Charlemagne punished the ringleaders with blinding and the confiscation of lands, and made them swear loyalty to him on holy relics », (8) on which perhaps they had not sworn to murder him. In any case, Charles gladly took advantage of this to outlaw « the swearing of mutual oaths of group solidarity, mindful of their use in conspiracies : associations or gilds for a variety of purposes were to be allowed, but without the swearing of oaths. Although Charlemagne encouraged the development of relationships of lordship and personal dependence for the purposes of social cohesion, sworn armed followings (trustees) were outlawed... » (9) This did not prevent Pepin the Hunchback, one of Charles' illegitimate sons, from devising another plot a few years later, nor Charles from intensifying even further the oath's implementation. « The envoys, each of whom was responsible for a large area had to arrange personally for oaths to be taken by bishops, abbots, counts, royal vassals, archdeacons, canons, and other ecclesiastical dignitaries. Every count was required to organize under the supervision of the royal envoys the swearing of allegiance by all the inhabitants of his county over the age of twelve, starting with holders of public office and priests and then continuing with other free men. It did not stop there : freed slaves and slaves who worked on lands belonging either to the crown or to the church were also included, as were even slaves belonging to private individuals, if they had been entrusted with duties of some importance or were part of their owner's armed retinue. » (10) The envoys, who had first of all to « explain with reference to ancient customs the reasons why these oaths are necessary » would have been at a loss to do so, since this went far beyond anything in the past ; « only the most humble of rural slaves who toiled on the vast estates of private landowners escaped the watchful eye of the king. All other man who lived in that immense kingdom, even when not free in legal terms, had to undertake to obey his authority » (11) ; « obedience to a sovereign was no longer simply a question of belonging to his people or living in his kingdom ; it had been reinforced by a personal religious commitment that brought into play the state of one's soul in the next life. » (12). The oath, which, by then, had become a parody, was still renewed twice before Charles' death. To crown it all, the unhealthy character of the whole thing backfired on Charles, who, overwhelmed by paranoid fears, ordered his envoys to make sure that those who had taken the habit of swearing on the life of the king and of his sons should no longer use such formula when taking an oath. (13)

The story by Notker the Stammerer of a visit Charles made to St Gall's monastic school in 883 reveals what is perhaps the most markedly un-Germanic personality trait of the latter : « Charles promised the poor but industrious boys, as a reward for their keenness, later positions of office and authority, whereas he gave the more noble-blooded but lazy boys to understand that he cared little for "their nobility" or their "smart looks" and that they need expect nothing from Charles. » (14) « Is this not eloquent, F.J. Los legitimately wonders, of a bastard's hate towards the noble, and perhaps also the aversion of an alien towards the Nordic race, which in that very nobility found its purest embodiment ? » Notker's Life of Charlemagne may indeed have been scorn by a few academics, but this anecdote is entirely consistent with Charles' unfailing piety and the Judeo-Christian prophecy that « the last will be the first and the first shall be the last. »

This is hardly surprising for a man who is described as having « cherished with the greatest fervor and devotion the principles of the Christian religion, which had been instilled into him from infancy. » (15), an infancy Einhard, when writing these words, seemed to have forgotten he previously stressed « It would be folly, I think, to write a word » about, « for nothing has ever been written on the subject » ... Charles produced a considerable amount of religious legislation, in which, unsurprisingly, a strong emphasis was put on Christian virtues such as chastity, humility, modesty, charity, compassion, and abstinence from marital sex on Sunday. « He regulated Sunday rest, the assiduity of the faithful in attending to offices, the obligation of prayer, religious feasts, baptism, penitence, communion and so on. » (16) A further sign of un-Germanic character is his great interest in theology, especially in issues such as the nature of Christ and iconoclasm, the incarnation and the resurrection, not to mention « his habit, closely linked therewith, of delving into dogmatic quibbles and niceties » (17). His models were Biblical figures. There is nothing anecdotal about the fact that David was the nickname he took as a member of the academy he had founded at the instigation of Alcuin - while, for example, Bezaleel, Moses' nephew, was Einhard's. Charles was often referred as the "new David" by contemporary literary figures in his service. Up to Charles' death, Alcuin, who was not afraid to call Aachen the New Jerusalem, continued to call him David : « what is being recognised in him is no less than the sacred office and functions and qualities of the Hebrew king. Among these qualities the Abbot of Saint Martin de Tours mentions especially mercy, good will, a steady pity and godliness, and above all wisdom » (18). The choice of the Old Testament Kings of Israel as a model for Carolingian kingship goes back to Clothaire II, the first Frankish king to be compared to David. While it is not known whether Clothaire II assumed this comparison, it is clear that Charles self-consciously and enthusiastically compared himself to king Josiah in his Admonitio Generalis, the General Warning of 782, going so far as quoting 2 Chronicles 34:30, a passage about the promulgation by the king of Judah of the rediscovered Book of the Law to the people of Israel ; in fact, the General Warning is littered with citations from early Church councils, from papal decretals, as well as from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, presented as royal law. As pointed out by J.L. Nelson, (19) « The naming and listing that were fundamental uses of the written word in Carolingian government recall the name-lists used for political purposes in liturgical commemoration : Memorial Books, also called Books of life, contained the names of the saved. God read them. The ruler too wanted name-lists, signifying his power over those named, and their claims to his concern. Such lists were inspired by the Old Testament. The Book of Numbers set out the work-method of Israel ; the Book of Kings showed these methods into practice ; in enjoining that surveys be made, that lists be drawn up and kept, Carolingian rulers followed the path of Moses and Solomon. At the same time, their agents, and those they ruled, inscribed themselves as their collaborators : a new Israel. »

The Jewish aura of the Carolingian rule is even more apparent in the development of Frankish royal ritual. While, under the Merovingians, it consisted, as in imperial Rome, in a military ceremony, from Pippin's coronation, it came to be modelled on the anointing of the kings of Israel by priests and prophets. « ... it had been a Roman principle since times of yore that the army conferred the title of emperor. This 'imperatorem facit exercitus' ran abreast the concept of the king's election which had formerly held among all Indogermanic folkdoms - old Romans and old Teutons alike. Now that the Pope had crowned the emperor, this office took on that same theocratic character which had been imposed on the Frankish kingship previously by the anointment ceremony. » In « a new prologue added to the Lex Salica, the law code of the Franks, late in Pippin's reign, » the Franks are declared « (in language taken directly from Deuteronomy) to be a chosen people, `beloved of Christ'. A contemporary recording Pippin's inauguration in 751 presented the `bishops' consecration' and `the princes' recognition' as parallel, complementary rituals, just as in the Old Testament, king-makings were depicted as the collective act of the priests and the people of Israel. » (20) As early as the seventh century, « a form of prayer for the prince contained in the Mass quotes as examples for his imitation [the people's] Abraham, Moses, Joshua and David, thus comparing the Frankish people to Israel » (22). « The model of Christian rulership elaborated in `Mirrors of princes' was projected mainly for kings themselves » and kings fully recognised themselves into it, yet the model of Christian rulership was in turn modelled on Jewish kingship. Just as the king in ancient Israel was only the representative of Yahweh, so the Carolingian ruler was God's representative on earth, and, so to speak, Yahweh's agent in the `Middle Ages'. It is entirely in accord with the Israelite conception that the king's humility is also emphasised in the title of a royal blessing-prayer which was incorporated into the rite of royal consecration early in the Carolingian period and thence passed into general use in the kingdoms of the Latin west, providing « an epitome of Frankish expectations of their king in the time of Charlemagne » and also setting out « ideas of kingship which were to remain standard throughout the Middle Ages and beyond » (23) : 'Prospice' : 'Look down'. Just as it is the king's duty to sustain the humble and the oppressed, so he must himself be humble and meek. Besides, « The repeated use of the terms potentia and potestas here shows that the invocation of divine omnipotence to sustain royal potency is no mere liturgical cliche but conveys the central political idea of the Carolingian period : power came from God. The king acted as his deputy in securing justice and peace for the Christian people » (24), to the extent that he « believed his power to depend on the Church's preservation of the Faith. » How "strikingly original" (25) Otto III's conception of the "renewal of the Roman Empire" was is showed by the fact that this emperor called himself, as St Paul had done, `the slave of Jesus Christ' ; by the same token, Henry III - called the Black or the Pious - took the title of `king of the Romans'. The ancient Romans' support for their kings is well-known.

The bottom line is that there is no evidence that Charlemagne intended to renew the Rome of the early Caesars, nor is there any evidence that he had a policy to promote the cohesive program of a Roman restoration, far from it. In a new prologue for the Frankish law code that had been drawn up under Pippin, it was asserted that the Franks, as God's chosen people, had vanquished the impious Romans, who had persecuted the early Christians. (26) - Rhabanus and Notker did not see Charlemagne as the legitimate heir of the Roman empire, but as God's chosen successor to the Christian Roman empire. As suggestively put by H. Schutz, « The emphasis on Israel and the Old Testament contributes a distinguishing accent to the Carolingian reconfiguration as being something other than just an attempted 'Renaissance' of a pagan Classical antiquity. » (27). Needless to say, Charles' and his entourage's judeophilia has never troubled the vast majority of academic medievalists, who, because of a mix of short-sightedness, of intellectual laziness and conformism, and of lack of knowledge of the culture of ancient patrician Rome, which makes them lump ancient Rome and the medieval Roman Catholic Church into the same pot and assume the latter be the upholder of the former's tradition, do not wonder why « a German chieftain was transformed into the Lord's anointed » (E. Gibbon) with the magic wand of a Jewish rite. They acknowledge for some of them that it was the non-Franks in Charlemagne's entourage who were responsible of the most explicit articulations of the idea of the Franks as God's chosen people and refer to the part that may have been played by his "foreign courtiers" in its genesis, but do not venture further on this ground, on which they are ill-equipped to tread. For Alcuin as well as for the group of ecclesiastics surrounding Charles, « the Christian Church, and not the Roman empire, was the most majestic institution ever to have appeared in Europe. » (28). It may well be that « The notion of an imperial crowning arose... from the fact that these learneds, for whom the mind world of old Teutondom no longer existed, saw in Charles no more the king of the Franks but the leader of Christendom - « rectorem populi christiani », as Alkwin names him in one of his letters. A greater slump in Teutonic world-outlook and tradition cannot be imagined. » (29)

« These men, to whom among others Petrus of Pisa, a grammar-teacher from Italy ; Paulus Diaconus, the writer of Langobard history ; Paulinus, later patriarch of Aquileia ; Theodulf, a Spanish Visigoth, being not only Charles' best poet at court, but also a learned theologian, belonged, as well as Dungal, an Irish man, whose bardly gift did not stop him from withdrawing later into a monastery ; and abbot Angilbert, whom we have already heard of in connection with Charles' family life, and Alkwin (Alcuin), an Anglo-Saxon, who trod forth as Charles' foremost counsellor in cultural matters ; all these men were, it is true, for the most part Teutons, but the culture, which they brought, was no less ungermanic in character. What
they revived at Charles' court and what they sought to impose on the folkdoms of his kingdom-Germanic and Romanic alike – was the outlived and Christian-coloured sham culture of the late Roman race-chaos, which here underwent its renaissance. Just as their princely protector had his churches and palaces built on Roman and Byzantine models, so these poets and learneds wrote Latin tracts and verses, being in form and content nothing more than apings of antique patterns. The cultural victory of a dying Rome over its Teutonic vanquishers... was already at this court an accomplished fact. » (30) This process of acculturation took place in arts, too : « Instead of continuing the … ornamental northern intertwine of abstract, curvilinear, vegetative and animal complexes of surface covering and space-filling ornamentation, already found on some Roman military metal work, Germanic personal ornaments and portable art, the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and other Germanic Styles found use on the largely `private art' of Christian vessels and in the exquisitely illuminated gospels containing the continuous texts of the evangelists, and sacramentaries containing the texts of prayers and ritual directives of the mass. The so-called Carolingian recapitulation blurred the contours of the component northern, Christian and Classical elements till there developed comprehensible, often original, creative summarizing emphases on the imaging principles of representational art for educational purposes. These, however, were not on behalf of learning for Learning's sake, but on behalf of learning for the sake of the Christian People, for Christianity's sake. » (31) As emphasised by H. Schutz, « To demonstrate imperial continuity and hence the legitimacy and divine authority of the Carolingian dynasty, this transformation saw the Carolingians, leaning on a Rome - and Ravenna/ Byzantine- related symbolism representing the power of the state. This was most overtly demonstrated ideologically in some architecture, inspired by Christian Rome, supported by less obvious literature, secular and such religious art as manuscripts and newly carved ivories, and a general body of ideas related to classical, Christian models. » (32) In the field of letters, a comparison between various contemporary works show that what was often employed to write them was « a technique of linguistic accommodation in seeking vernacular equivalents for biblical concepts (e.g. describing Christ as the leader of a chosen few in terms suggesting that they were members of a Germanic war-band). What appears to be a Christian concession to the Germanic past, however, is far from amounting to a Germanization of Christianity, but is in effect a `Christianisierung des Germanentums`. Here, too, the Christian message imposes itself upon Germanic tradition. » (33) The whole Germanic tradition was twisted and assimilated into a Christian world-view, by the act of euhemerisation and by the use of various literary devices : « Various aspects of the Christian faith were expressed in secular and heroic images to make them familiar to the Anglo-Saxon aristocratic warrior audience. There were however features in pre-Christian beliefs that could not be accepted, such as the existence of more than one god. The Church attempted to reconcile existing gods with its doctrine. One of the ways to deal with pagan deities was to render them inoffensive by showing how they were actually only human. They were maybe heroes, who were mistakenly considered gods (euhemeristic approach). The success of this approach is shown by the presence of Woden in royal genealogies as a tribal hero rather than as a powerful god. » (34)

Charles' favourite book was Augustine's De civitate Dei, in which the hatred of Rome has apocalyptic overtones. As stated by F.J. Los, « it was under the influence of this book that Charles drew nearer and nearer to the vision of a Christian world-kingdom, `Imperium Christianum', over which he, as King of the Franks and 'defender of the Church' was called to govern, a calling which at the same time constrained him to subject by violence the heathens into his empire… The enforced conversion of these heathens even became the main task to which Charles applied the might of his empire… The ideas, by which Charles came under the sway of Augustine, have been thumbnailed by Dahn as follows : « Long before the year 801, his conception of a ruler's duty was a theocratic one : law, morality and religion were not distinguished in any way from one another. Law is simply the means to the end set by morality. All morality is religious. The Church, as the bearer of revelation, determines the morality. The King (or Emperor) has the duty of shielding the Church. God's kingdom on earth is the Church : Church and state forming a onehood. They form nothing more than a sphere, the upper half (spiritual) and the lower half (worldly) make together - `Christendom'. Charles' kingdom is fitted not only to be a community in law, but a community of the moral Christian life. » The proposition that Charles misinterpreted Augustine's views on the conflicting relation between the city of God and the earthly city and that his use of force in an attempt to subordinate the latter to the former betrayed Augustine's views is a catch-all argument that does not withstand scrutiny. Erasmus did not know to what extent he had himself on his mind when stating : « `Dulce bellum inexpertis [War is sweet to those who know nothing about it]' : `Every bad thing either finds its way into human life by imperceptible degrees, or else insinuates itself under the pretext of good'. Elsewhere in the same text he put it slightly differently : `The greatest evils have always found their way into the life of men under the semblance of good'. Although Erasmus was seeking to account for the long descent from the manifestly pacificistic teachings of Christ to the war-addicted Christian Europe of Pope Julius II, this observation has tremendous power and persuasiveness as an explanatory model of many historical phenomena… Erasmus was absolutely right in emphasizing "imperceptible degrees" in the slow linking of Christianity and force, and that, as often as not, "force" in the spread of Christianity came about as an inadvertent consequence of decisions taken in the pursuit of other "goods," especially divinely prescribed ones. Finally… a good of pressure to apply force in the spreading of Christianity came from churchmen, especially bishops and including some popes. » (35)

These "imperceptible degrees" are those of a process which can be traced back to some books of the Old Testament : « It was by the application of various levels of force, as well as by miracle and gifts, that Yahweh eventually converted His chosen people into exclusive monotheists obedient to His will. Furthermore, in some books of the Old Testament, God is recorded as having led His people in righteous wars, even to the extent of ordering the priests into battle, setting precedents which would be invoked repeatedly by various kinds of later crusaders. » (36) Calls to violence are echoed in the New Testament, in Matthew 3:7-10 as well as in Matthew 10:34-39 and in a lesser known passage of this gospel : « The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity ; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. (13:41-42 ; see also 18:34-35) The sheer violence of the prophetic concept of a just God is seen throughout chapter 23, which culminates in the climactic moment of the anti-Roman Book of Revelation 19. Tertulian, in the third century, exulted in the sufferings in store for the Gentiles : « What a city in the new Jerusalem ! For it will not be without its games ; it will have the final and eternal day of judgment, which the Gentiles now treat with unbelief and scorn, when so vast a series of ages, with all their productions, will be hurled into one absorbing fire. How magnificent the scale of that game ! With what admiration, what laughter, what glee, what triumph shall I perceive so many mighty monarchs, who had been given out as received into the skies, even Jove himself and his votaries, moaning in unfathomable gloom. The governors too, persecutors of the Christian name, cast into fiercer torments than they had devised against the faithful, and liquefying amid shooting spires of flame! And those sage philosophers, who had deprived the Deity of his offices, and questioned the existence of a soul, or denied its future union with the body, meeting again with their disciples only to blush before them in those ruddy fires ! Not to forget the poets, trembling, not before the tribunal of Rhadamanthus or Minos, but at the unexpected bar of Christ ! Then is the time to hear tragedians, doubly pathetic now that they bewail their own agonies; to observe the actors, released by the fierce elements from all restraint upon their gestures ; to admire the charioteer, glowing all over on the car of torture ; to watch the wrestlers, thrust into the struggles, not of the gymnasium, but of the Flames. » (37) A decisive step was taken in this respect with the conversion of Constantine to Christianity, not because, as a result of the emperor's belief that he owed his victory at Milvian bridge to the « heavenly sign », usually taken to mean the Chi Rho monogram, he had had delineated on the sheds of his soldiers, religion became « associated in a fateful way not only with the realm of politics but with the ultimate battle of force, the battlefield », (38) but because an exotic and proselyte religion became associated in a fateful way not only with the realm of Roman politics but with the battlefield - there is a difference between the two ! This move was the result of a radical change that had begun in the second century in the status of the Church. From an oppressed structure and a dissident minority the Church became a powerful and influential entity which « came to identify with the social order and make use of and express itself through the institutions of the social order. Rather than posing a contrast or a challenge to the social order, church officials could now use imperial structures as allies if political authorities sided with the particular officials on the issue in question. » (39) As a consequence of this, the Church was able to show its true colours with impunity, accommodating violence as easily as it had previously preached peace unilaterally. Indeed, as pointed out by J. Denny Weaver in his enlightening essay, « Its abstract, ahistorical, a-ethical formula permits one to claim Jesus' saving work while wielding the sword that Jesus had forbidden. Similarly, James Cone, founder of the black theology movement, notes how the abstract formulas allowed slave owners to preach a salvation to slaves that preserved intact the master-slave Relationship. » Once the institutionalised Christian church had potentially at its disposal the mighty and coercive power of the State, the temptation was bound to arise to use it, as did Augustine in his struggle against the Donatists, to settle disputes within the Church, and, one thing leading to another, to deal with all the enemies of the Church, by the sword if need be. More generally, Augustine for a time « shrank from, and even condemned, persecution ; but he soon perceived in it the necessary consequence of his principles. He recanted his condemnation ; he flung his whole genius into the cause ; he recurred to it again and again, and he became the framer and the representative of the theology of intolerance. The arguments by which Augustine supported persecution… were drawn from the doctrine of exclusive salvation, and others from the precedents of the Old Testament. It was merciful, he contended, to punish heretics, even by death, if this could save them or others from the eternal suffering that awaited the unconverted. Heresy was described in Scripture as a kind of adultery ; it was the worst species of murder, being the murder of souls ; it was a form of blasphemy, and on all these grounds might justly be punished… had not Elijah slaughtered with his own hand the prophets of Baal ? Did not Hezekiah and Josiah, the king of Nineveh, and Nebuchadnezzar, after his conversion, destroy by force idolatry within their dominions, and were they not expressly commended for this piety ? St. Augustine seems to have originated the application of the words 'Compel them to come in' to religious persecution. » (40)

Meanwhile, orthodoxy was regulated by imperial edicts ; Theodosius, whose edict against the mos maiorum was issued a few months after Ambrose, who had excommunicated him, readmitted him to the Church, was a pawn in the bishop of Milan's game ; in the first Origenist crisis, an imperial edict was obtained forbidding all monks to read Origen ; « popular fury was deliberately excited » against the Origenist monks of Nitria ; « ignorant deserters from the persecuted party were made to swear that in a certain dark cavern they had seen Origen tormented in hell fire » ; Origen's followers were « driven from Egypt, Syria, and Cyrprus ; and inhuman attempts made to deprive them of shelter and hospitality in their flight. All this Jerome not only sanctioned, but instigated. » (41) In a letter of his to Theophilus, whose existence Jerome's biographers seem to have mislaid, this defender of the weak and oppressed boasts about the fact that he was the hidden hand behind the persecution of the Origenists : « The rescripts of the emperors, which order the expulsion of the Origenists from Alexandria and Egypt, were issued at my suggestion ; that the Roman bishop detests them with so intense an aversion, is the effect of my advice ; that the whole world has recently been in a blaze of hatred against Origen, who was once read with perfect composure, is the work of my pen. » (42) The following passage gives a flavour of what the practice of Christian virtues could potentially led to, when expressed by the sword rather than by the pen : « Though your little nephew hang on your neck, though your mother with dishevelled and torn raiment show you the breasts that gave you suck, though your father fling himself upon the threshold, trample your father underfoot and go your way, fly with tearless eyes to the standard of the Cross. In these matters, to be cruel is a son's duty. » (Jerome, Ad heliodorum) Putting it quite bluntly, « With the advent of a Christian emperor, Constantine the Great… and the gradual transformation of the Roman Empire into a Christian Empire, the impiety of the Christians became the new « piety » of the Roman world. » (43) The process of transvaluation of all values prompted by Christianity can be seen at work in the lives of many celebrated Egyptian ascetics and notorious bands of Egyptian and Syrian monks, as well as in the career of « a collection of « beggars, fugitives, vagabonds, slaves, day laborers, peasants, mechanics, of the lowest sort, thieves and highwaymen, » who found that « by becoming monks, they became gentlemen and a sort of saints » (44), starting with Georgius of Cappadocia, who came to be recognised as the patron saint of the English monarchy under King Edward III : « George of Cappadocia, born at Epiphanin, in Cilicia, was a low parasite, who got a lucrative contract to supply the army with bacon. A rogue and informer, he got rich, and was forced to run from justice. He saved his money, embraced Arianism, collected a library, and got promoted by a faction to the Episcopal throne of Alexandria. When Julian came, A.D. 361, George was dragged to prison ; the prison was burst open by the mob, and George was lynched, as he deserved. And this precious knave became, in good time, Saint George of England, patron of chivalry, emblem of victory and civility, and the pride of the best blood of the modern world. » (45) It is worthwhile reminding that George had been placed in his position by military force.

The statement of Boniface VIII that « The spiritual sword is to be used by the Church, the temporal for the Church » reverberates with Paul's that the State « does not bear the sword in vain » but is « God's servant for your good » (Rom. 13:4) « Long before Constantine, the Christian Church had employed all its resources against heretics. It possessed no power of punishing them by fines, torture or death, but it threatened them with hell in the next world and excommunicates them in this. « Heretics, says Dr. Gieseler, were universally hated as men wholly corrupt and lost, » and the Church pronounced against them her sharpest penalties. These were indeed merely spiritual, but they were transformed into temporal punishments as soon as Christianity was able to effect the change. » (46). Before the Church was able to effect it, it used two potent coercive instrument in its fight for supremacy : the sacrament of penance and excommunication. Whether or not the Scriptural bases for this sacrament can be found in Matthew 9:2-8 and in 1 Corinthians 11:27, as argued by some Christians, the claim, made by others, that the practice of auricular confession is based on pre-Christian European religious principles cannot be accepted without discrimination, first of all because the notion of `sin` was unknown to the Roman spirit and to the Greek spirit of that time. Public or private confession existed, but it was not presented as a sacrament of divine institution, nor did it require the ministry of a priest, let alone that it was not compulsory. « ... the avowal of one's transgression or misdeeds towards individuals or society was an act of justice and reparation, and a proof of repentance to which man returning from his errors and wanderings, thought he ought to submit, either to fulfil the duty dictated by his conscience, or to recover the esteem and consideration he had lost. » (47). Sacerdotal confession « was introduced among the Greeks, who had, doubtless, derived this custom from Egypt or the East. Empedocles and Pythagoras seem to have been the first who recommended it to their disciples as a means of expiating their sins », (48) the confession of sins being « a condition of being admitted into the mysteries », several of which had passed from the East. A passage in Plutarch, confirmed by a passage in Plato, « proves to us that confession was a kind of superstition, the use of which the priests had managed to introduce in the lower classes, for the purpose of holding them in subjection. » (49) Likewise, the sacrament of penance, which was introduced by Leo, aimed, on the material and external plane, at giving the Church possession of domestic secrets and most intimate thoughts and to place the communicants and their relatives at the mercy of the priests, while initiating « an unprecedented movement toward introspection », (50) with far-reaching consequences, whose close link with the development of both rationalism and irrationalism, as well as of psycho-analysis, was missed by R. Guenon in his review of the various stages of anti-traditional action : « While the confessional provided parishioners with redemption, it also spurred their development of personal conscience and an increased sensitivity to private intentions [as opposed to the contemporary honor culture which encouraged a heightened sensitivity to public perceptions of character]. In short, developing notions of penance and sin as well as burgeoning anxiety over salvation helped to turn parishioners attention away from just the consequence of their actions on temporal things, like personal repute, toward the effect of their actions upon spiritual matters, such as their state of grace » (51). Not to get away from our present study by examining how the process of introspection and self-examination set by the Church played an important in the shaping of the modern mentality, the point is that the psychological pressure applied by the Church on its flock through the introspective and inquisitive practice of auricular confession and the concept of venial and mortal sins, of evil thoughts, of eternal damnation, and so on, the breeding ground for the emergence of a culture of guilt, had a traumatising effect on `hearts and minds'. It is thus clear that, contrary to what J. Delumeau asserts, the process of confession and penitence was not the antidote the Church organised against the fear which stemmed from its frightful doctrines of sin and damnation, but a vicious circle. It cannot be stressed enough that this fear-mongering policy was implemented spontaneously by individuals who were themselves possessed and driven by fear, as noted by P. Brown : « Their ambition was to make sure that a respected Christian past got on the move again... But, if they failed, then God might again turn his face from them. We should not underestimate the anxiety that was the permanent shadow of the Carolingian program of correction [correcting, shaping up, getting things in order again]. In this, Charlemagne and his court were very like their near-contemporaries, the Iconoclast emperors of Byzantium. Both believed sincerely that it was possible for the Christian people to err and to incur the wrath of God. Both believed that the imperial power existed such as to correct these errors. But, if the emperors failed in their duty, then God's wrath would be made plain in the decline of the kingdom... » (52)

Needless to say, auricular confession of sins has been admitted among the Jews at all times. « Another potent instrument in the fight for supremacy was the assumption of the power of excommunication, and afterwards of interdict. The excommunicate thus shed around him a contagion, which cut him off from all human society, and left him to perish in misery and starvation. This was no mere theoretical infliction, but a law enforced with all the power of the Church, and applied so liberally that it became almost impossible for the innocent to escape its effects. Popes granted, as a special privilege, the right not to be excommunicated without cause. When a crime had been committed against the Church, for which no satisfaction could be obtained on account of the power of some haughty offender, or for any other reason, then the bishop put the whole place in which the offender lived, or the whole district to which that place belonged under an interdict - that is to say, he caused all offices of public worship to cease or be suspended. All the churches of that place were closed, and all relics which they contained were withdrawn from public view ; all crucifixes and images of saints were shrouded; no bells were rung ; no sacraments were administered ; no corpse was buried in consecrated ground ; and notice had been given that this state of things would be continued until the demands of the Church should have been fully satisfied, and the alleged injury repaired. By this means such a ferment was raised in a whole population, that even the most powerful were at length obliged to yield. » (53)

« The church as a visible organization never had greater power over the minds of men. She controlled all departments of life from the cradle to the grave. She monopolized all the learning and made sciences and arts tributary to her. She took the lead in every progressive movement. She founded universities, built lofty cathedrals, stirred up the crusades, made and unmade kings, dispensed blessings and curses to whole nations. The mediaeval hierarchy centering in Rome re-enacted the Jewish theocracy on a more comprehensive scale. » (54) By coercion, the Church aimed at influencing and conditioning emotions, motives, reasoning, attitudes and behaviours in order to achieve social and political objectives.

The slow linking of Christianity and force is characterised not only by "imperceptible degrees", ranking from theological violence to psychological intimidation, from mental warfare to physical violence, but also by doublespeak. The art of talking out of both sides of the mouth was perfected by Gregory, who, some time after having urged king Aethelbert to « watch carefully over the grace you have received from God and hasten to extend the Christian faith among the people who are subject to you. Increase your righteous zeal for their conversion ; suppress the worship of idols ; overthrow their buildings and shrines ; strengthen the morals of your subjects by outstanding purity of life, by exhorting them, terrifying, enticing, and correcting them, and by showing them an example of good Works », wrote to Mellitus, a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons, to reverse the order for destruction of the temples. Against this background, it is hardly surprising that « a bit over a century later the Anglo-Saxon monk Boniface (680-754), working on the Continent among the Germanic peoples and destined to be remembered as the `Apostle to the Germans', followed Pope Gregory's advice to King Ethelbert, not to Archbishop Augustine. Both before and after his consecration as bishop by the pope, Boniface destroyed sacred trees and shrines during his missions among the Frisians » (55) and that « that Charlemagne a few decades later heeded the advice sent to Ethelbert. » Nor is it surprising that the reason why Charlemagne attacked the temple at Irminsul is not illuminated by the official Annals at this point or by reference to earlier entries. Leaving aside that the thesaurisation of precious metals, which was a distinctive feature of contemporary western Church, was not foreign to the decision to smash and destroy such sites, at which large quantities of votive treasures were deposited - Charlemagne is recorded as having carried off the gold and silver after destroying the Irminsul and Liudger, a missionary among the Frisians, as having looted Frisian shrines (56) - the fact that the cutting down of the Irminsul is not mentioned once in the various studies an author such as R. Guenon dedicated to the symbolism of the tree as axis mundi, as a point of connection between sky and earth, is symptomatic of a bias against European traditional culture ; from a European standpoint, such act is the most obvious example of anti-traditional action, and Charles cannot but appear, in this respect as well as in some others, as an agent of anti-tradition.

Violence was used to deal with the most recalcitrant ones, as in the case of the Saxons « ... by 785 the Frankish king Charlemagne stipulated for the Saxons a policy of forcible conversion to Christianity, with infractions punishable by death : "If there is anyone of the Saxon people lurking among them unbaptized, and if he scorns to come to baptism and wishes to absent himself and stay a pagan, let him die." » (57) Even earlier, the reviser of the Royal Frankish Annals entered the following sentence under the year 775 : « While the king spent the winter at the villa of Quierzy, he decided to attack the treacherous and treaty-breaking tribe of the Saxons and to persist in this war until they were either defeated and forced to accept the Christian religion or entirely exterminate. » (58) « This "may he die the death" ("morte moriatur") recurs again and again with dull sameness at the end of almost all the chapters to follow » (59) of the Capitulatio de partibus saxoniae (60), a call to mass murder reminiscent of Biblical passages such as 1 Samuel 15:2-3.

While establishing the ancient Saxon customs and statutes, the law eliminated anything that was contrary to the Christian belief-system, such as cremation. It had another fateful consequence for the Saxons, for, if « ... according to Walther Frank - the legacy of Widukind, leader of the Saxons, met with the imperial tradition, which was modelled on Rome and which with Charles the Great, by iron and blood, as with any great upheaval in the history of the world, bound together for the first time the divided and scattered world of the Germanic stocks » (61), this political unification was pursued at the expense of the organic unity of the Saxon tripartite social structure. While the frilingi, the second caste, and the lassi, the third caste, were supposed to participate in the political life at the time of the Saxon autonomy, it seems that the nobles (the edhilingui) monopolised political power following the Carolingian conquest, causing latent insatisfaction among the lower two of the three Saxon non-slave castes, which the political crisis that followed the death of Louis the Pious allowed to erupt in the uprising, or rather in the conspiracy - since, according to Nithard, it was instigated by Lothair, who, if we still are to believe the Frankish historian, had offered them their old ways back if they gave him backing - known as the Stellinga's. Typically, Gerward, the author of the Annals of Xanten, calls the frilingi and the lassi « slaves » in revolt. « … there was the slow destruction of the freeman class, the empowering of the noble class, and the class mobility in the later years as examples of where the class traditions died. It can also be pointed out that although the laws of the Saxons were written down, many new laws were added to the traditional ones with the soul purpose of promoting the Frank government and the Christian church. The Freeman class slowly disintegrated, those strong freemen who were wealthy or otherwise capable, became nobles, while those who were not able to surmount the difficulty were forced into the serf class. » (62) Louis II contributed largely to the establishment of a two-tier Saxon society, made up of rich and of poor, by confiscating the lands of the freemen. « In 1075, both Saxon and Thuringian peasants revolted as they were in danger of losing their freedom since every other region in the Germanic lands there were no longer any remaining freemen as they had all become serfs. From this it can be determined that the central social structure of the class had lost its strength and declined. With the co-opting of the noble class by the Franks, the other major pillar of the Saxon class social structure was removed, no longer was politics based upon what was best for all three groups, instead the noble class obtained the power while the other two classes lost their power. This resulted in the beginning of a feudal society in Saxony although admittedly it did take a long while for feudalism to eventually hold sway over the entire population... Class mobility in the later years is a tremendous blow to the traditions of the Saxons as one of their primary unwritten laws concerns the intermarriage between classes. The old law was enforced by a death penalty, and made any mobilization between classes nearly imposable. In the later years after the conquest, many of the freemen moved up into the noble class, becoming a new sort of class, the ministerials, who were special assistants to the king and rewarded with land and other holdings. According to the article on German Feudalism, the movement of men from freemen or even serfs took place so often and so much that it was nearly the same as a social revolution. Many of those in political power in the tenth and eleventh centuries were forced to find men such as bailiffs, administrators and warriors from the freeman class, as the noble class were unwilling to perform such duty, and as a result these people moved up in the social structure. » (63) But the most decisive blow to the traditions and the social order of the Saxons was the decimation by Charles of the best part of their aristocracy in Verden in 782. Those who were spared were for most of them necessarily more or less accommodating to the Church and to its protector, when they did not simply side with the Frankish cause. Along the same lines, « The Carolingians had no scruples to annihilate the hereditary Alemanic nobility, among whom there had been criticism earlier of the Carolingians, or find grounds to remove even their relative, Duke Tassilo of Bavaria, and to replace them with Franks of lesser origin who, as an emerging service nobility, aware of its vulnerability but anticipating rewards and a rise in status, could be of greater service to their families as well as to the crown. » (64). « Serviceability provider new groups of aristocrats with the opportunities for enrichment and the rise to status… » (65) Besides, a new group of persons came to the fore as a result of Charles' insistence that the Christian law should be applied correctly throughout the empire : « Charlemagne's reforms created an empire-wide `nobility of the pen', drawn from monasteries and from the clergy. This nobility of the pen was recruited largely from the Frankish aristocracy and from those who depended on the aristocracy, as distant relatives and as clients. » (66) Marriage could offer a quicker social improvement than service. Frankish sources placed birth as the basis of nobility and showed contempt for those who had risen from below to hold the highest positions, yet it can be felt that the time was drawing close where one of Jerome's mottos, « noble by birth, but in Christ nobler still », would become a topos. Class mobility, which seems to have been non-existent in the pre-Christian Saxon society, was possible among the Franks, whose nobility was not a closed elite. K.F. Werner has showed that Carolingian families were of mixed origin, with Frankish, Burgundian, and Gallo-Roman ancestors.

The assertion, made, among others, by J. Evola, « that Charles, in all his conquests, had been driven by the wish to unite as many Teutons as possible within his empire, envisaging thereby the foundation of a Germanic-Christian imperial unity » is challenged by F.J. Los on two grounds. « The facts give the lie to all this ! Among all the lands overrun by Charles, only the Saxonland had a well-nigh pure Germanic folkhood. In a long and most bitterly waged war, this folkdom was not only thinned-out in a most frightful fashion, but wilfully mongrelised, for Charles resorted to deporting great sections of the population, whose places were then taken, partly by Franks, but mainly by Slavs. Whereas the Germanic element held way in Bavaria, it formed but a thin upper-layer in Italy and the Spanish March, being almost wholly lacking in the lands of the Slavs and Avars. This summary justifies the theory that Charles' conquests alienised rather than teutonised his empire, and relatively weakened the Teuton-ness of his Frankish state. And this must have been all the more the case when he succeeded in bringing his plans of conquest in Spain to complete fruition. The borders, which he gave his empire, bore no relationship to the lifeland of the Teutons but were, in their independence of folk-boundaries, a looking-glass reflecting clearly the cosmopolitan nature of his kingdom, » (67) which, admittedly, was a legacy of the late Roman empire. Then, there is the issue of the partitioning of the empire : « It is hard to link up the idea of the `God-state' - which can scarcely be thought of otherwise than as lasting, at least inasfar as the said term can be speak any validity on earth - with this temporal emperorhood. Even more incompatible is the fact that Charles, in the year 806, divided his empire among his three sons, Charles, Ludovic and Pepin, in order to forestall after his death any strife resulting from the said division. The setting of a `God-state' on to an equal footing with a private possession, which after the owner's death is to be shared out among the heirs, is impossible to our way of thinking. Yet it is a fact that the early death of two of the three lawful sons prevented Charles' empire from falling in bits after his death ; for as the office of emperor was destined initially to die out again, there would have been no single bond left in that case to hold the three parts of the empire together. The image of an indivisible state authority was just as foreign to Charles, it seems, as it was to his Merovingian and Arnulfingian foregoers. » (68) And so was it, apparently, to his successor, Louis the Pious, Charles' sole surviving son, who entrusted his eldest son, Lothair I, with the imperial title and with full authority over the empire, while dividing it into three dependent kingdoms, one for each of his sons. The treaty of Verdun marked the end of the Frankish empire, even though Lothair I kept the title of emperor. Ironically enough, the treaty of Verdun, long before the rise of nationalism in Europe, paved the way to it, by dividing the empire into political units which foreshadowed the boundaries of modern Europe.

In terms of internal organisation, no matter the soundness of K.F. Werner's thesis of the institutional continuity from imperial Rome to the Carolingian period, it should be qualified. Charles was a bit more innovative in this area than the German historian, together with F.J. Los, understands. The issue is not, as the latter points out, that « the new features, taken on by the apparatus of government under his rod… had been loaned moreover from the Church », since the governmental and administrative structure of the Church was in turn modelled after the Roman imperial government ; the issue is that, whereas in imperial Rome the lowest-ranking officials had only one master to serve, the Church personnel the Carolingian administration heavily depended on for the governmental penetration of the kingdom was always tempted, by nature, to render unto the king what is the king's and to render unto the Church what is the Church's. « The government of the whole Empire was largely ecclesiastical, for the bishop shared equally with the count in the local administration of the 300 countries into which the empire was divided, while the central government was mainly in the hands of the chancery and of the royal chapel… The control and supervision of the local institution was ensured by the characteristic Carolingian constitution of the Missi Dominici », (69) whose prototype, rather than « in the legati and legatarii, whom the Merovingian kings were in the habit of sending upon commissions, and who ceased to have authority when the particular duty assigned had been discharged » (70), is to be found, as pointed out by F.J. Los, in the bishops' visits customary in the Church. Their authority was entrusted to bishops and abbots, and, when the institution fell into decline, it was the Church that demanded their re-establishment. Charles' trust in the very individuals he had enjoined to exact the oath of fidelity from all subjects is shown by his « care to avoid having the missatica [the areas for which missi dominici were appointed] coincide with the dioceses of his empire », in order « to prevent ecclesiastical authority from too easily securing secular sway » (71).

Then, several main features of the Carolingian government were derived from Germanic political traditions ; such was the annual governing assembly, at which all freemen landowners traditionally met to hear about the ordinances about which the king had reflected and to discuss matters. This assembly was called the Marchfield. At the time of Charlemagne, the nature of the assembly had changed in various respects. It was no longer exclusively for warriors, and the increasing presence of bishops at it meant that it was inconvenient to hold it in a period approaching the Holy Week, so that it was moved to May, as a result of which its name was changed to `Mayfield'. « An even more important change was that not all the Franks could take part in the meetings. Now that the name no longer signified the actual ethnic descendants of the invaders, but more generally all the free men living in the kingdom, the presence of every Frank would be unthinkable. The assembly now gathered together the ecclesiastical and lay magnates - bishops, abbots, and counts… Another innovation introduced by Charlemagne was the frequent duplication of the assembly. Apart from the Spring assembly... it was not uncommon to hold a second meeting some time in the autumn. In this case, the king did not convene all his warriors or even all the lay and ecclesiastical magnates, but only those to whom he wished to give precise instructions, such as royal envoys or missi dominici charged with implementing some new provision or bishops called upon to discuss some theological or liturgical problem. In the latter case, the assembly was difficult to distinguish from a Council, and no one », that is, none of those whose view on the matter has come down to us through contemporary sources, which, need we add, are ecclesiastical ones, « found it surprising that a king convened and presided over a meeting of prelates » (72) « The two ways in which royal power was legitimized, divine will and the consent of the Franks, coexisted not without ambiguity. Charles himself appears to have tried to find a remedy, albeit in a rather confused manner. First, the king's direct contact with God made it increasingly unacceptable that he should be subject to the judgment of men. Hence the gradual dissipation of the functions of the assembly, whose task was by Charles's time simply one of applauding, and the tendency to turn it into into a religious occasion by taking the opportunity of this annual gathering to bring together a council of bishops as well. Second, the king's responsibility to the whole of Christendom meant that the consent of just the Franks was no longer sufficient to legitimize his actions. » (73) Now that the name (Franks) no longer signified the ethnic descendants of the invaders, but more generally all the free men living in the kingdom, « obedience to a sovereign was no longer simply a question of belonging to his people or living in his kingdom ; it had been reinforced by a personal religious commitment that brought into play the state of one's soul in the next life » (74) Once again, it should be borne in mind that « ... Charles' striving towards the extinction of all folkly and racial barriers… flowed quite logically from his religious and churchly ideals. »

The thesis of the permanence of the political representations and ideas from imperial Rome to the Carolingian times, which is deduced from the presence of the key Roman concepts of potestas, regnum, imperium, dignitas, res publica, etc., in the Frankish political thought, is based on the wrong assumption that these concepts had the same content in both contexts, even though it is true that they were already somehow altered in Imperial Rome under the influence of Christian and Stoic teachings. `Imperium`, as theorised by Alcuin, means one of the manifestations of God's power on his creatures. `Potestas', as the principle of the 'regnum', is still used in the legal sense, yet with clear teleological and eschatological overtones. (76) It is pointed out that a strict separation is made between the auctoritas pontificum and the regalis potestas among Carolingian authors, and it is rightly so, even though this separation would have been best formulated as « The priestly power and the royal power are divided » than as « The priestly and the royal power are divided« , (Epistola, CCLV), by Alcuin, who chose his words. » More than a separation, what statements like this convey, in a thinly disguised manner, is the subordination of the potestas regali to the auctoritas pontificum : « The former bears in its tongue the key of the heavenly kingdom, the latter bears the sword of revenge upon evildoers » (ibid.). The former is the Church. The latter is the empire. The former`s function and dignities are set out as essential, spiritual ones. The latter's function as a temporal and instrumental, coercive one. Roman 13, which is unanimously considered as a charter of Christian obedience to the Roman authorities, is instead an overwhelming blow against the maior potestas, in so far as « non est potestas, nisi a Deo » (Roman 13:2) ; Paul commands the Christians to submit to civil authority only to the extent that God has appointed that authority ; J. Evola failed to notice this subtle difference, and, as a result, assumed Paul`s statement to mirror the Roman and traditional view on the interaction between human institutions and supernatural order, « a hierarchical view that saw the leaders as representatives of a power from above », the consequence of which « was to confer a spiritual and religious value upon every loyalty and every political discipline » (77) : not only, according to the Italian author's own views, not to mention R. Guenon's, there is nothing purely spiritual about a theistic religion such as Christianity, in which the personal God (Gott) is the beginning already of relativity, but Christianity, as a religion addressed to all men, accessible to all, systematically rejecting no class or race, was in every single respect the exact opposite of the mos maiorum, a purely domestic and ethnic religion. While hundreds of years of exegesis and tons of ink have successfully managed to render Paul's crystal-clear message ambiguous to those who cannot prevent themselves from counting how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, the ambiguity in most of the formulations of political ecclesiology is yet to be brought to light. Gelasius's Duo sunt is symptomatic of this ambiguity : « In one reading, potestas implied real power supported by physical force, while auctoritas only signfied a moral authority. Another interpretation takes the auctoritas to signify the right to govern and the potestas only to be a delegated authority. Yet a different reading considers the two terms to mean the same. » (78) In a letter to Charles, Alcuin suggested that his potestas also required more fervent evangelist zeal. (79) He did not need to. As implied by Augustine himself, « the Christian emperor will make the empire recede into the Church, and later Western rulers, in particular Charlemagne, read the City of God in just this light, and saw themselves as exercising a particular pastoral office… Augustine also, as in his attitude to the coercion of the Donatists, opens up almost unlimited possibilities for interpreting coercion as 'pastoral` coercion. So that later, a ruler like Charlemagne comes to see himself, without incongruity, as a kind of bishop with a sword, and his court theologians no longer talk, like Pope Gelasius, of two powers, imperial potestas and ecclesial auctoritas within one mundus, but of potestas and auctoritas within the single ecclesia » (80), ruling over the « human race » - an expression that was first used in a Roman context by Cicero, avowedly under the influence of Stoicism.

In conclusion, it is not without reason that in National-Socialist Germany Charlemagne was no longer called Charlemagne, but Charles the Frank, and he was made responsible for all the greatest ills that affected Germany ; it is clear that the principle he assumed was not that of Roman universality, but that of the Church internationalism ; it is also clear that the weak and shord-lived Sacrum Romanorum Imperium Nationis Germanicae was not in any way the bearer of the Roman tradition, but a Christian creature, or rather an entity with a Roman body, a Germanic soul, and a Judeo-Christian spirit : even though Otton I managed to merge the Empire and the Sacerdoce, the spiritual and the temporal power, this merger was defined exclusively by Christian values ; Dante himself acknowledged that the imperium and the sacerdotium were both established by God - we may return to this point, which is absolutely essential to understand why the Ghibelline project was doomed from the outset, in a critical review of the chapter of `Men among the Ruins` called `Tradition - Catholicism - Ghibellinism ' ; if it is easy to see why the Church regarded a patriot like Widukind as a 'rebel', especially as it seems he had in mind to unite under a single banner against papal-Frankish prevarications the Germanic tribes which refused to convert to Christianity, J. Evola's use of the same term to call the Saxon Duke does him no credit.

In 800, to quote O. Spengler, it was the sun of the Arabian Civilisation passing on from the world-cities of the East to the countryside of the West. If it is true that « In theory, the Western world accepted Christianity but for all practical purposes it remained pagan », at least until the sixteenth century, when post-Tridentine Catholicism tried to reassert its dominion, it is also true that the process of Christianisation of the society and of the souls, as part of a larger process of Easternisation, accelerated dramatically under Charlemagne, the first Frankish king to have adhered fully and self-consciously to Judeo-Christian values and to have promoted them aggressively, the first Frankish ruler whose court was controlled by men of the Church, whose influence persuaded him that the best way to advance the Christian way of life was through education. For centuries, most of the cultural and intellectual expressions derived from Christian ideas and values remained for the elite and had little meaning for most laymen, who, however, were familiar with and attuned to a few core concepts, starting with the dogma of the equality of all human beings before God and its correlate idea of the equality of all people before the law. Having made headway into people's minds, they crystallised spontaneously in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and, as MASS communication and the expansion of education acted as a sounding board for them from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, they showed their true colours in the rise of the concept of `social justice', which finds it source in the Old Testament and was later enthusiastically brandished by Basil and Chrysostom. The values millions of young Europeans were confronted with at school in the late nineteenth century were directly derived from the Christian world-outlook. Long before the aristocratic concepts of liberty, equality, and fraternity were secularised and democratised by humanism, the Judeo-Christian teachings had corrupted and prostituted them by bringing them within everyone`s reach. Just as priests of the lower clergy were the first ideologues of the Revolution, so it was not for nothing that, as showed by F. Engels, the lower clergy supplied the ideologues of the Reformation and of the revolutionary peasant movement. Very few revolutionaries, including rabid anti-Christian ones, were aware that the revolutionary programme implemented in many respects the hidden agenda which is contained in the Old Testament. Nor were Christian counter-revolutionaries aware of it. Despite the fact that Republicans replaced progressively priests as teachers all over Europe, the notions and values pushed on the young minds within a school system run by Free-masons remained the same in substance. As a formal de-Christianisation, that is, the decline in the influence of Christianity, both as a religion and as a cultural phenomenon, and maybe also the weakening of religious feeling and the curtailment of religious practice, was under way, there ensued a process of hyper-Christianisation of the souls, which was to be all the more effective that it was not consciously felt within a completely secularised framework. In their self-hatred and in their humanitarian values, the dumb-witted European masses, on which the « cultural parasite » more than ever in office in occupied European countries relies to carry on importing smoothly as many coloured people as possible into Europe in order to turn it into a Third-World region, are Judeo-Christianised, Easternised, to the core. While the academic staff are increasingly unsure that they can prove for good that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fake before the pension they might get is dramatically reduced, it is not without interest that we have noted that the Gnostic owner of a well-known Italian website dedicated to esotericism, coming down from his ivory tower with the speed of a falling share, has posted onto the related forum a message about the current 'financial crisis' in Western countries, and, more specifically, about the Jesuit who has just been parachuted as figurehead of the ECB by superiors unknown.

The time is gone when it was fun to be ironic about « the imaginary terror of the `yellow peril'. »

(1) D.H. Kelley, A New Consideration of the Carolingians, New England Hist. and Gen. Reg. Vol. CI, 1947, pp 109-112 ; A. Wagner, English Genealogy, pp 31-32.
(2) www.cephas-library.com/catholic_race_change_pt_4.html.
(3) www.nltaylor.net/pdfs/a_Makhir.pdf.
(4) J.H. Burns, The Cambridge history of medieval political thought c. 350-c. 1450, p. 221.
(5) J. Evola, Revolt against the Modern World, p. 327.
(6) Ibid. p. 282-283.
(7) F.J. Los, The Franks, p. 60.
(8) J. Story, Charlemagne : Empire and Society, p. 80.
(9) Ibid.
(10) A. Barbero, Charlemagne, p. 149.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Ibid., p. 150.
(13) Ibid, p. 151.
(14) F.J. Los, op. cit. p. 50.; see www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/stgall-charlemagne.asp.
(15) www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/einhard.asp#Piety.
(16) P. Riche, La vie quotidienne dans l'Empire Carolingien, p. 230.
(17) F.J. Los, op. cit. p. 55.
(18) R. Folz, The Coronation Of Charlemagne, p. 98.
(19) J.L. Nelson, 'Literacy in Carolingian Government', in R. McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word', p. 296.
(20) F.J. Los, op. cit. p. 64.
(21) J. Nelson, The Frankish World, 750-900, p. 169.
(22) R. Folz, op. cit., p. 19.
(23) J. H. Burns, The Cambridge history of medieval political thought c. 350-c. 1450, p. 217.
(24) R. McKitterick, Carolingian Culture : Emulation and Innovation, p. 58.
(25) J. H. Burns, op; cit., p. 245.
(26) Y. Hen, M. Innes, The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, p. 235.
(27) H. Schutz, The Carolingians in Central Europe, p. 37.
(28) P. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom : Triumph and Diversity, p. 439.
(29) F.J. Los, op. cit. p. 63.
(30) Ibid., p. 64.
(31) H. Schutz, op. cit., p. 6.
(32) Ibid., p. 8.
(33) D. H. Green, F. Siegmund, Continental Saxons from the Migration Period to the Tenth Century. p. 5-6.
(34) Inscriptions and Communication in Anglo-Saxon England, docs.exdat.com/docs/index-74224.html.
(35) J. Muldoon, Varieties of Religious Conversion in the Middle Ages, p. 51.
(36) Ibid., p. 52.
(37) G.W. Foote, J.M. Wheeler, Crimes of Christianity, www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c1.htm.
(38) J. Muldoon, op. cit., p. 53.
(39) J.D. Weaver, Violence in Christian Theology, www.crosscurrents.org/weaver0701.htm.
(40) W.E.H. Lecky, History of Rationalism in Europe, vol. 2, in www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c1.htm.
(41) J. Martineau, The rationale of religious enquiry, or, The question stated of reason, the Bible, and the Church ; in six lectures, p. 220, www.archive.org/stream/rationalereligi00whitgoog.
(42) Ibid.
(43) Dr. Robert L. Wilken, from Christian History magazine no. 27, www.chinstitute.org/index.php/chm/first-century/persecution/.
(44) www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c1.htm.
(45) English Traits, R. W. Emerson ; see also www.jesusneverexisted.com/george.html.
(46) www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c1.htm.
(47) C. Lasteyrie, The History of Auricular Confession, religiously, morally, and politically, p. 49, ia600308.us.archive.org/21/items/a589775001lastuoft/a589775001lastuoft.pdf.
(48) Ibid., p. 56-57.
(49) Ibid., p. 57.
(50) J. Delumeau, Sin and Fear : the Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture. 13th-18th Century, p. 1, in D. Thiery, Polluting the sacred: violence, faith, and the 'civilizing' of parishioners, p. 8.
(51) Ibid., p.9.
(52) P. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, 2nd edition, p. 440.
(53) G.W. Foote, J.M. Wheeler, op. cit.
(54) P. Schaff, History of the Christian church, Volume 5, Part 1.
(55) L.G. Duggan, 'For Force is not of God ?' Compulsion and Conversion from Yahweh to Charlemagne, in Varieties of religious conversion in the Middle Ages, J. Muldoon, p. 57.
(56) D. H. Green, F. Siegmund, op. cit., 302-303.
(57) L.G. Duggan, op. cit., p. 49.
(58) in B.W. Scholz, Carolingian chronicles : Royal Frankish annals and Nithard's Histories, p. 51.
(59) F.J. Los, op.cit., p. 75.
(60) www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/carol-saxony.asp.
(61) J. Evola, L'Arco e la Clava, 3rd ed., p. 149.
(62) www.branmyson.com/history_papers/saxon_paper.php.
(63) Ibid.
(64) H. Schutz, op. cit., p. 22.
(65) Ibid., p. 27.
(66) P. Brown, op. cit., p. 442.
(67) F.J. Los, op. cit., p. 55.
(68) Ibid., p. 64.
(69) In H.J. Berman, Law and Revolution : the Formation of the Western Legal Tradition, Volume 2, p. 569.
(70) www.third-millennium-library.com/PDF/Medieval-History/decline-of-missi-dominici-in%20Frankish-Gaul.pdf/ p. 4.
(71) Ibid., p. 12.
(72) A. Barbero, op. cit., p. 144-145.
(73) Ibid. p. 143.
(74) Ibid. 50.
(75) F.J. Los, op. cit., p. 66.
(76) documents.irevues.inist.fr/bitstream/handle/2042/34646/AUGUST_2003_49_323.pdf?sequence=1.
(77) J. Evola, Men among the Ruins, p. 208.
(78) L. Melve, Inventing the Public Sphere : the Public Debate during the Investiture, p. 258.
(79) V. Serralda, La philosophie de la personne chez Alcuin, p. 466.
(80) J. Millbank, Theology and Social Theory : beyond Secular Reason, p. 425.