Lazarus Symposium

Ataman Bulak Balakhovich a polish Belarusian freedom fighter with the ranks of his headquarters and personal hundred, November 1918, Estonia

"For the Middle Ages," wrote Gevaert, "the whole universe is a symbol." "It knew that everything on earth is a sign, everything is an image, that the visible is of value only in the measure that it covers the invisible. The medieval period, which consequently was not the dupe of appearances, as we are, studied very closely the science of symbolism, and made it the purveyor and servant of mysticism." — Louis Charbonneau-Lassay, The Bestiary of Christ

Thus we see royalty, in order to 'centralize' and to absorb in itself the powers that belong collectively to all the nobility, enter into a struggle with the nobility and work relentlessly towards the destruction of the very feudal system from which it had itself issued. It can do so, moreover, only by relying on the support of the third-estate, which corresponds to the Vaishyas; and this is why we also see, precisely from the time of Philip the Fair, the kings of France beginning to surround themselves almost continually with the bourgeoisie, especially such kings as Louis XI and Louis XIV, who push the work of 'centralization' the furthest, the bourgeoisie moreover later reaping the benefits of this when it seized power during the Revolution... The modern epoch, which is that of rupture from tradition, could be characterized from a political point of view as the substitution of the national system for the feudal system; and it was in fact during the fourteenth century that 'nations' began to form through the agency of that 'centralization' we just spoke of. It is right to say that the formation of the 'French nation' in particular was the work of its kings, but in doing this they unwittingly prepared their own ruin; and if France was the first European country where the monarchy was abolished, it is because 'nationalization' had started there. Besides, we scarcely need recall how fiercely 'nationalist' and 'centralist' the Revolution was and also what truly revolutionary use was made throughout the nineteenth century of the so-called 'principle of nations'; there is therefore a rather singular contradiction in the 'nationalism' proclaimed today by certain avowed adversaries of the Revolution and its work. — René Guénon, Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power

The author, by studying the relationships that Masonry had with the various governments which succeeded one another in France from Louis XV to the Third Republic, demonstrates a remarkable impartiality, and this quality is all the more more laudable in that it is encountered more rarely when it comes to such a subject, which is generally only treated with a strongly accentuated bias in one direction or the other. He will undoubtedly displease both most Masons and their adversaries, for example when he demolishes the legend that Masonry played a considerable role in the preparation of the Revolution, because, curiously enough, this legend, which owes its birth to anti-Masonic writers such as Abbot Barruel, ended up being adopted, much later, by the Masons themselves. In this regard, it should be noted that, among the figures of the 18th century who are commonly considered to have been attached to Masonry, there are many for whom there is not the slightest serious indication that they really were; this is the case, among others, of the vast majority of Encyclopedists. — René Guénon, review of History of French Freemasonry: Freemasonry in the State by Albert Lantoine

Here, to confine ourselves to a single writer who is worth a host of others, is the theory of the Church expounded by Archbishop Philaret, the able Metropolitan of Moscow, in one of his most important works: 'The true Christian Church includes all the particular Churches which confess Jesus Christ "come in the flesh". The 𝘥𝘰𝘤𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 of all these religious societies is fundamentally the same divine truth; but it may be mingled with the opinions and errors of men. Hence there is in the 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 of these individual Churches a distinction of greater and less purity. The doctrine of the Eastern Church is purer than the rest, indeed it may be recognised as completely pure, since it does not link the divine truth to any human opinion. However as each religious communion makes exactly the same claim to perfect purity of faith and doctrine, it does not behove us to judge others but rather to leave the final judgment to the Spirit of God Who guides the Churches.'... This idea of a 'dead Church' is not merely the logical conclusion which we believe to be implicit in the propositions advanced by our renowned theologian; he has laboured to describe to us the Universal Church as he conceived it under the form of a lifeless body made up of heterogeneous and distinct elements. He has even been inspired to apply to the Church of Christ and to the stages of its historical existence the vision of the great idol recorded in the book of Daniel. The golden head of the idol is the early Christian Church; the chest and arms of silver signify 'the Church growing in strength and extent' (the age of the martyrs); the brazen stomach is 'the Church in prosperity' (the triumph of Christianity and the age of the great doctors). Finally the Church of the present, 'the Church in its divided and fragmentary condition', is represented by the two feet with their toes, in which clay is mingled with iron by the hands of men. — Vladimir Solovyev, Russia and the Universal Church

Illustration for the Index Librorum Prohibitorum depicting the Holy Ghost supplying the book-burning fire.

Man's blind reason, his weak will, and the ridiculous vitality of his carnal longings appeared to him so pitiable that all words in every human language do not suffice to express the complete lowness of this creature. Had God not become man, the reptile that my foot tramples would have been less contemptuous than a human being: "El reptil que piso con mis piés, seria á mis ojos menos despreciable que el hombre." The stupidity of the masses was just as apparent to him as was the silly vanity of their leaders. His awareness of sin was universal; he was even more horrified than a Puritan. No Russian anarchist in asserting that "man is good" expressed a greater degree of elementary conviction than the Spanish Catholic who said: Since God has not said it to him, whence does he know that he is good? "De donde sabe que es noble si Dios se lo ha dicho?" The despair of this man, as can be gathered from his letters to his friend Count Raczyński, often bordered on insanity; according to his philosophy of history, the victory of evil is self-evident and natural, and only a miracle by God can avert it. The pictures in which his impressions of human history were objectified were full of dread and horror: Humanity reels blindly through a labyrinth that we call history, whose entrance, exit, and shape nobody knows; humanity is a boat aimlessly tossed about on the sea and manned by a mutinous, vulgar, forcibly recruited crew that howls and dances until God's rage pushes the rebellious rabble into the sea so that quiet can prevail once more. But the typical picture is a different one: the bloody decisive battle that has flared up today between Catholicism and atheist socialism. According to Donoso Cortés, it was characteristic of bourgeois liberalism not to decide in this battle but instead to begin a discussion. He straightforwardly defined the bourgeoisie as a "discussing class," 𝘶𝘯𝘢 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘥𝘰𝘳𝘢. It has thus been sentenced. This definition contains the class characteristic of wanting to evade the decision. A class that shifts all political activity onto the plane of conversation in the press and in parliament is no match for social conflict. The insecurity and immaturity of the liberal bourgeoisie of the July Monarchy can be recognized everywhere. Its liberal constitutionalism attempted to paralyze the king through parliament but permitted him to remain on the throne, an inconsistency committed by deism when it excluded God from the world but held onto his existence... Dictatorship is the opposite of discussion. It belongs to the decisionism of one like Donoso Cortés to assume the extreme case, to anticipate the Last Judgment. That extremist cast of mind explains why he was contemptuous of the liberals while he respected atheist-anarchist socialism as his deadly foe and endowed it with a diabolical stature. In Proudhon he claimed to see a demon. Proudhon laughed about it, and alluding to the Inquisition as if he were already on the funeral pyre, he called out to Donoso Cortés: Ignite it! The satanism of that period was not an incidental paradox but a powerful intellectual principle. — Carl Schmitt, Political Theology