Mysterium Fasces Episode 51 — Monarchy
Episode Stats
Length
2 hours and 6 minutes
Words per Minute
145.8525
Summary
In this episode of Christ is Risen, host Florian Geyer is joined by Fr. Matthew R. Raphael Johnson to discuss the subject of monarchy and its relationship to Hobbesian ideas and theories. They discuss the origins of monarchy, the role of the family, and Hobbes' theory of the natural monarchy.
Transcript
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I'm your host, Florian Geyer. It's a pleasure to your listeners to be joining you once
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again for another exciting episode, Christ is Risen. So today we will be covering the
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subject of monarchy. I have joining me as my guest, Fr. Matthew Raphael Johnson, who
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is a very, very qualified guest to be discussing the subject with. Fr. Johnson, how's it going?
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It's going very well. This is one of my favorite topics of all time.
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Yeah, we've heard a little bit about that before on the program, so we're looking forward
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to it, definitely. I'm also doing very well. Glad to finally have my final exams behind
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me. So I think the best place maybe to begin this discussion of monarchy maybe is to talk
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about the origin of natural monarchy, which is very simple because it's in the family
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and it proceeds from the principle of fatherhood and patriarchy. And a monarch in its very basic
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sense is just a male clan leader, a patriarch. So, I mean, that's a good place to start.
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I mean, Father, I'm sure you, well, you're an expert on this. So why don't you go ahead
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and proceed from that point. We can come back to it a little bit later on.
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Well, I don't want to oversimplify it, but you have two kind of monarchies. When I first
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read Hobbes' Leviathan, I remember the professor at the time referred to him as a monarchist
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and he would have supported the royal cause in the British Civil War. And I said, I don't
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think that's true because this is not a monarchy that has anything to do with any kind of father
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figure. It has nothing to do with the family. It's acultural. It's strictly individualist.
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This man has been elected by desperate people. And that's what the contract is in Hobbes.
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There's no religion. There's no culture. There's no family. In fact, Thomas Hobbes'
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family, it doesn't exist in his theory. That's what made him so revolutionary.
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People were individuals who just pop out of the ground like mushrooms with no upbringing or anything.
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And in fact, the whole state of nature theory rejects the notion of the family. We're all just
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abstract individuals who abstractly were created, fully formed, in a lawless world.
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He was not a monarchist. And people following him would be, you know, like Peter the Great
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and Catherine. These are students of Hobbes. It's a very, very different kind of abstract
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statist monarchy. I mean, the monarchy itself doesn't have to be religious or anything. It's
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a strictly secular political ruler with an enlightenment agenda. Peter the Great was a
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revolutionary because he, and of course, you know, Theophan Prokopovich and all of his followers
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were big fans of Hobbes and the Hobbesian idea. I'm not entirely sure when Hobbes was first
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translated, but British-Russian contacts were substantial at the time. And there's simply
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two, I mean, there were, there were, they, Peter was surrounded by Englishmen anyway. So
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no doubt the theories of Hobbes had reached there. It was a purely revolutionary theory.
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A Bolshevik could take Hobbes as inspiration. The real one, the one that we're talking about
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here is the one that comes from the family. The family is the basic unit of society because
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we as human beings are born totally helpless. Need a mother and father to, to create a baby
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and then take care of one. They, however, have to be enmeshed in a larger family that in turn
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has to be a part of a clan system. So you could have any chance of survival in this world at
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all. That's not our opinion. That's simply how it is. Therefore, because it's objective,
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it comes from natural law. And this is the ground where God and the church automatically
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are a part of the royal, royal idea. It's not an accident that every monarchy, I mean,
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even Peter had, had the trappings of orthodoxy, has been a religious one. Could be, whether it
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be Thailand or Saudi Arabia or Byzantium, monarchs are, uh, religious figures. They're fathers
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of families. They're sort of a priest, so to speak, of a very large parish. But the role
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of the father of the family, according to natural law and common sense, is, um, the protector
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of the family. And this is why it was only, generally speaking, men who were, were crowned
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heads because, um, they had the lead soldiers into battle. If they want to declare war, that's
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fine. Okay, they have to go and fight it now. They can't declare war and send someone else's
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kid, uh, to go and do it. Um, the human, human person is, is wired somehow that whenever there's
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a victorious war over a longstanding enemy, that government then has a legitimacy and
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a power that nothing else can give it. And so a victorious, um, monarch in battle, uh,
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establishes himself. And I mean, this is why Peter the Great had very little, I mean, Peter
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the Great had opposition, lots of it, but it was never really, the old believers were opposed
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to him. But it was never this, you know, there was no coups or anything else because
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he won. He won at great cost. Uh, he destroyed Ukraine, but still he won. And it's really
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hard to argue with a victorious leader like that. And it provides them with legitimacy
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that nothing else can. So you have the three roles, the religious role, the paternal role
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and the military role. And it means that you're talking about a male figure enmeshed in,
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in the culture of, of the, of the people saturated with symbolism. Um, you know, the dress of
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a monarch, I mean, the symbols of the nation or of the various nations, um, that the monarch
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holds together are everywhere. You know, you're literally dripping with them. Um, monarchies
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are national in the sense that you have to speak the same language. Uh, an empire, uh, led
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by an emperor is not a country. It's not a nation. It's a group of nations. You could be
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a nationalist and still believe an empire. Just to say that, you know, several nations
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while remaining nations, uh, have it in their interest to come under a, an emperor. One,
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one figure that's usually, uh, like in the Austrian case held together by the religion.
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Uh, ethnic tensions destroyed that empire. But in the Russian case, for example, um, the
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subject peoples were all completely independent except in foreign policy. They had their own
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culture, their own constitutions, their own everything. Um, the Russian monarchy was
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certainly a national one, but it didn't mean that those who would swear fealty to, to the
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Russian empire, uh, suddenly became Russians. That was never the case. Uh, monarchies have
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to be national, just like the Austrian monarchy was, was certainly German. And the bureaucracy
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in military spoke German. Because can you imagine having a family, no one speaks the same
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language? It's absurd. So it's, it's national, uh, but an empire, uh, it's a collection of
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nations. It's not, um, you can't treat the Austrian empire like, uh, France. It doesn't
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work that way. They aren't countries. And the sure sign of an amateur in this field is when,
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is when they start referring to empires like they're talking about Great Britain. You know,
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um, St. Petersburg didn't relate to Ukraine in the same sense that Washington DC relates to
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North Carolina. Completely different relationships. Uh, they swore fealty to, to the, to the crown,
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and that is it. So, so those are your two very, very different types of monarchy. In fact,
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I want to say that the Hobbesian view isn't monarchy at all. But in every single political
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theory class I've ever taken, Professor speaks of, of Hobbes as this great monarchist. And I
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always recoiled because there was no culture, no religion, no tradition there. He was just a
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dictator. Yeah, well said. I mean, you've really, um, kind of opened up for us the whole belly of the
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subject, I guess. So, I mean, I wanted to come back to the idea of, um, monarchy is about kind
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of being unique from all other political systems, especially in the modern era, which is, um, you
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know, deluged with, you know, ideological superstructures in that, that as we've just gone
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through an extensive detail, it's based on the family. It's, it's based on, on the, you know,
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the patriarchal principle. Um, but I wanted to discuss a little bit about the human being's
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natural inclination to personalize power and maybe the relationship of this with, uh, I mean,
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this is a natural transition into our concepts of Christian monarchy, which are distinctly, um,
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sacral and informed by the Christian cosmology.
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Well, you, you've heard that from me before, um, certainly the notion of personalizing power.
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Mm-hmm. Uh, I don't know of anyone else who, who says that. I, I'm thinking about the American
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Revolution, where, of course, you know, the crown didn't have tons of power at the time. We all know
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parliament and the banks ran everything, but it's really hard to personalize the parliament.
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Um, I mean, the, the natural inclination that we have, the personalized power is something that
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Hegel noted in his philosophy of right. Um, one of the reasons I did my master's thesis on that,
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on that great book, one of the greatest, uh, uh, uh, conservative, uh, works ever, ever, ever written.
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Um, because of the, the, the, the, it's in our DNA, the notion of, of having veneration, the father of
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the family and the father of the father and everything else. Um, there is a, the, the, the
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central notion, and I know this isn't quite what you asked, but this is what I feel like talking
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about. Um, there really is only two options in politics. You either have an oligarchy, which
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could be, you know, a republic, you know, whatever you want to call it. I don't care what the agenda
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is. Uh, and then you, and, and then, um, a monarchy, the monarchy can be a military dictator
00:14:05.180
or, or, you know, you know, like Park Chung-hee in Korea, you know, they have very royal style,
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uh, ways of acting. Um, and in the occult symbolism, the killing of the king ritual is absolutely
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essential. It is the very nature of modernity. They killed the king in Britain as a means of
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sacrificing him and initiating the modern era. Um, you have the sons, so to speak, quite jealous
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of, of the father because of the power and authority that he holds because they don't think
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that they have the, the money and the authority that they deserve. So they get together and decide
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they're going to kill him. And the ancient occult understanding is that the power and authority
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that the father has then flows to them. Uh, that was, you know, you have this reenacted. I did a
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whole show on this many years ago in the city-state of Venice, um, the marriage to the sea, uh, ritual.
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Um, this is deeply involved in, in arcane sciences because the arcana, in essence, is really about
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oligarch, you know. Um, the big, the simple difference between the two is the common good, uh, versus
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the desire of the elites to hold on to power. In Russian history, for example, and you see it in
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Byzantine history too. The war, I mean, politics is essentially one thing. A monarch seeking the
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common good of the population for his own good as well as, as well as, uh, an empire as a whole
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against oligarchies in the provinces, strong men. And that war never quite ended. This is the single
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choice that people have. A republic is when the king has been killed and the money that he was able
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to, you know, symbolically monopolize comes to them. Uh, a republic is, is only this. It's rich guys
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getting together, realizing that they have to cooperate for them to function at all. They can't
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enjoy their money without cooperation. Um, arranging things politically for their own benefit. And that's
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what a republic is. This is why the republic, uh, republican city-states were all run by oligarchies.
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This is not an accident. Um, to recondition people to accept that is why the Medici banking
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plan was obsessed, obsessed with alchemy. And this was the foundation of, uh, of the renaissance.
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Uh, and I think I actually am answering the question because we are talking about, uh, the nature of reality.
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Um, you have, um, uh, St. Phoecius the Great. One of his great arguments against the filioque is that
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when you remove the father from his royal position, you have a republic. And he says, when you have the
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father and the son being the co-creators of the spirit, that is a republican system. And it leads,
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leads toward, uh, to democracy and polyarchy. The monarchical system, the royal system is when the
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father is at the pinnacle of everything. He is both, you know, creative, so to speak, of the,
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of the son and the spirit. Clotius the Great makes that very clear that filioque has a strong political
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component because filioque is, uh, an oligarchical system and the, uh, orthodox way is a royal system.
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Um, yeah, I mean, that is, that's basically what I was going for. Yeah. And I think that that's,
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um, absolutely correct. Um, and this was something that, um, is essential to the orthodox conception of
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the, uh, the Holy Trinity, the monarchy of the father. And I mean, the, um, this is what kind of
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surprised me so much, I guess, is when I, I learned about, you know, that they're the apophatic
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distinctions of the persons of the Holy Trinity are extremely simple in that the, the only
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distinctions to be made in the three persons in terms of their, their qualities is that the son
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is begotten by the father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father, uh, and that they share
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in all other things, one life and one reality. Um, and so the, the very, the essence of the filioque
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is to change the, the God that's worshiped this, the structure of the cosmos and the image of man.
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All of the, um, uh, heresies, the ancient world and heresies we deal with now have political
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origins and political, um, implications. People who don't know will read about like monotheism
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or, or filioque and say, Oh my God, all this fighting over something so minor. Uh, how many
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times did you hear that? Uh, they don't get it. They don't understand how essential it is.
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Um, you know, Chalcedon was about the very nature of man as much as anything else. If you
00:19:07.620
had a, if Chalcedon were rejected, then human autonomy and free will and coming to God would
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have been destroyed. People can't, they don't know how to unpack, uh, a concept. You can't
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just talk about the actual issue that they were fighting over. They at the time knew that
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over time, this is going to recreate how we see the world and how we see God. Uh, Chalcedon,
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I say, and will always say is, is the greatest, single, most important event of, um, uh, of,
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of Western human history because our stress on human freedom and free will comes directly
00:19:42.720
from that. Had that not been, you know, had we been become monophysites, uh, or whatever
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they're calling themselves now. The notion of our free cooperation with God, other than
00:19:53.280
our absorption to him or dominate, whatever it is, um, could never have come into existence.
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So over time, these things have implications that change everything. Though when you just
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read about the heresy itself, it seems very, very picky. How can you kill each other over
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this? Well, the ancients were far more sophisticated than, uh, than, than most of our intellectuals are.
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Um, all the heresies that were supported by the empire, um, first millennium, all were in
00:20:21.940
the interest of the state. I'm not saying that's all they were, but when you separate God and
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man or absorb man to God, either one, the state wins. Uh, because then there is no, you know,
00:20:35.740
the, uh, Nestorianism or Arianism put no, um, checks on the state because then, you know, man
00:20:42.660
doesn't have to, uh, answer to anybody in that case. Um, but when they, they're cooperating,
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then all of a sudden the state then has to, uh, freely cooperate with, with subjects and
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vice versa. You automatically have limitation. This is very hard for some people who aren't
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used to thinking, uh, but when you tease these out over time, you get tremendous political
00:21:08.640
Yeah, absolutely. And I think this comes back to the, um, the original point of discussion,
00:21:14.420
which was the father as the icon of the monarch. And so our anthropology directly informs our
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viewpoint of fatherhood. I mean, and naturally the father is, I mean, from natural law, the icon of
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human flourishing because he's the generator and sustainer in a tribal setting of an extremely
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large and integrated, uh, community, uh, autonomous economic unit in, um, uh, you know, a nomadic or
00:21:42.240
hunter gatherer society. That's the elder patriarch. That's who he is and the ultimate authority and
00:21:47.360
arbiter of that whole people. Um, and we're going to talk on this later. I mean, in he, in that role as
00:21:53.540
the, the elder or the chief, he embodies symbolically all of their characteristics and he
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wields the, the sovereignty, um, as an agent, as kind of the head of the body, whereby all of the
00:22:06.280
freedom and autonomy that's afforded to that household, the extended household by its, um, economic
00:22:12.460
and familial integration, um, he is expressive of, and especially we see this in his conduct and
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leadership of warfare and foreign diplomacy, uh, because he speaks and wields the implement on behalf
00:22:26.020
of the rest of the body. Um, and so, yeah, so to change the filioque, uh, to change the, the, the
00:22:32.640
dynamic of the Holy Trinity whom man is created in the image of, uh, work over time, this basically, this
00:22:37.560
works out to a radical change in the monarchical principle, in the, um, authoritative principle, in what
00:22:43.640
is considered to be just governance. Um, and so, I mean, I think this is, we can see this expressed
00:22:49.700
kind of in, um, kind of degenerate totalitarianism of, as you say, the Hubsian, you know, Leviathan
00:22:57.860
monarchical system. There, there's an old quip that the devil can only count to two. Um, so much of
00:23:06.320
maternity is just based in these, these dual entities. You have, you know, the people versus
00:23:13.540
the government, and there's no third thing. Um, number two is a feminine word. It's the, it's the
00:23:21.520
word of, uh, sorry, number, the number of division, um, separating God from man, which creates, you know,
00:23:28.580
the next one is three, which is a desert. Uh, uh, three is, is the camel, gemel, that you could use to
00:23:36.000
trans, uh, to cross the desert. Um, but I first came across this from, uh, Michael Huffman in the
00:23:43.040
killing of the king ritual. But then I, I, it made, uh, St. Augustine's, uh, di Trinitante made sense
00:23:49.280
because he sees trinities everywhere. Any act of knowledge or communication implies the number three.
00:23:57.960
You have the knower, you have the thing that we're studying, and then, of course, you have this,
00:24:03.740
the, the context, the language, and, and the logic, and everything that we've, we've come to know about
00:24:08.500
the world. Um, when you have just, uh, the number two dominating you, which is, which is a demonic
00:24:15.800
way of thinking, especially the number four, um, which is a square prison cell, uh, you have no
00:24:23.660
synthesis. It's just chaos and, and fighting. Hobbes only sees the number two. He sees people signing a
00:24:30.060
contract and desperation and this dictator, who doesn't have to be a person, uh, that, that then
00:24:37.480
rules them, uh, just so they don't have to fight each other anymore. But there is no three. There is
00:24:42.760
no synthesis. There's no, there's no, um, there's no context even. In the state of nature, there is
00:24:49.480
absolutely no culture, no law, no religion, no language. I don't know how these people can come
00:24:55.020
together and sign a contract without a language. Uh, it's, it's, you know, such a stupid, uh, way of
00:25:01.520
going about things, but it's the absolute foundation of, of modernity. You know, Descartes did it with,
00:25:07.560
you know, ontology, and, uh, Hobbes and Locke did it with, with politics. Somehow, these people had
00:25:15.320
created a civilization such that they knew what a contract was. They knew how to draw it up. They knew
00:25:19.940
how to sign it. Well, according to the natural law of the state of nature theory, that's not
00:25:24.760
possible. Now, I can't imagine that Hobbes didn't notice that, but he doesn't do anything
00:25:31.200
to correct it. I have no idea how the contract could be found, uh, because he is writing about
00:25:37.720
these abstract people, but the notion of abstractions or these isolated individuals, um, which, which is
00:25:44.120
number two is all you can have with isolated individuals. It's a difference between collectivism
00:25:48.240
and community. Um, collectivism is just to grab random people and to shove them into a, a room
00:25:55.920
and make them work in the Soviet or, or, or Chinese model. Um, because the culture had been, you know,
00:26:02.180
sucked out of these people, but a community is, is almost the opposite. Yes, it's a group of people,
00:26:07.160
but it's a group of people who were together for a specific purpose. Um, they have a lot in common.
00:26:12.040
They're, they're following, you know, natural law and virtue only, all of this. So for people to try to,
00:26:17.080
and I, I get this all the time, thinking that communitarianism and collectivism are even remotely
00:26:23.640
similar is ridiculous, but they relate to each other just like traditional monarchy and the
00:26:29.920
Petrine monarchy relate to one another. When you remove religion and you remove, remove the context,
00:26:35.680
um, all you have is a simple, simple number two. Individualism is based on two, not one. Individualism
00:26:43.040
is the individual fighting society, the state, whatever it might be. There is no purpose behind
00:26:48.300
it. There is no goal. It just is. But the Trinity is everything because that provides the context.
00:26:56.080
It provides the essence. It provides the purpose. And, um, you know, it, it, this sort of thing just
00:27:02.520
doesn't fall from, from heaven. It takes a long time to put this all together. Um, but this is
00:27:07.720
absolutely essential to what we're talking about here. Uh, but Hoffman was the first man to teach
00:27:12.080
me about the killing of the King. Uh, he was referring specifically to the murder of, of John F.
00:27:16.920
Kennedy. And he says, it's not an accident that killing of, of the so-called Camelot, you know,
00:27:24.600
um, then created the, the chaos of the sixties. That right after his murder, um, uh, fashions changed,
00:27:34.180
attitudes changed. It was a precursor of what in the late sixties was the, the hippie movement and
00:27:39.160
the revolution. But Camelot had to be killed. Innocence had to be destroyed. And, um, it, it,
00:27:45.660
it just, it absolutely fascinated me. You see, actually I cite my sources, unlike all the people
00:27:49.300
who steal from me, I cite my source. This is, this is the first time I came across this. And then very
00:27:54.960
quickly I saw how it related to the killing of the King everywhere, whether it be in Britain,
00:27:59.300
um, France or Russia. And with the numerality, the number issues, and this is the very ontology
00:28:06.080
of the world here. And all starts making sense. Monarchy has to be based on this very complex
00:28:11.240
ontology, not just as you see in Hobbes, that people are sick of fighting each other. So they
00:28:15.620
elect someone. Yeah. And I would say that that's because true monarchy, um, is personal, uh, and
00:28:21.980
it's based on the harmony of various personal factors within the household. And I mean, this comes
00:28:29.060
back to our understanding of, of the cosmos and the monarchs place within it, right? If
00:28:32.900
we are, for Trinitarians, we believe that the highest echelon of created reality in whose
00:28:37.360
image we are made, whom we can commune with directly and whose structure dictates and fashions
00:28:43.160
the rest of the reality around us, the logos and logo and so on is not just a person, uh,
00:28:48.960
rather than, you know, a monad and most alone and so on, but three persons, a community in
00:28:54.600
a dynamic relationship with one another. Um, but so intimately linked that they share one
00:28:59.720
sovereign life, the perihoresis, there's one action. Uh, there's no division or blemish
00:29:06.500
in the harmony and symphony of existence that they share despite the diversity of persons.
00:29:12.760
And so, um, I mean, again, this is, this is critical. I mean, if how you, if this is what
00:29:18.740
you actually believe, your whole, uh, view of the universe is radically changed. If there's
00:29:23.520
one or three persons in the Godhead, if there's a person at all in the Godhead.
00:29:28.420
So to be a monarchist is to completely reject the modern world in every single respect.
00:29:35.700
It's, it's to change your personality. It's to change everything. Um, it's not an accident
00:29:42.180
that when there's no father in the home, chaos reigns. This is what even liberals have now come
00:29:48.720
to accept the fact that conservatives won this argument. There hasn't been a study in sociology
00:29:54.600
or psychology that rejected the idea that broken homes work. Um, there are very few poor intact
00:30:03.980
families. The poverty rate is, is, is minimal. Domestic violence almost never occurs in intact
00:30:10.660
families. They're always broken homes. Children from broken homes have a huge chance of becoming
00:30:17.060
delinquents in one car. Every single, whether it be lack of education, uh, crime, uh, lack
00:30:21.820
of success in the future, everything is linked very, very robustly with a broken home. And
00:30:27.780
that usually means no father. This is built into the ontology of the world. And even leftists
00:30:33.480
now have been forced to admit that you're right. They don't do anything about it, but you know,
00:30:39.140
psychology and sociology has surrendered. Every single study, when the father is gone, chaos reigns.
00:30:46.620
So when these people are yakking about patriarchy and everything else, it's very easy to destroy
00:30:51.220
them because even their own leadership has to admit that, that this is one of the most common,
00:30:56.060
um, foundations of pathology, mental illness, crime, uh, failure and everything come from
00:31:03.560
broken homes. Intact families, uh, are rarely poor or rarely violent. The poverty rate is, is like
00:31:10.120
four percent, uh, is because of the strength of the father and the cooperation that that's, that
00:31:16.480
strength engenders. You can't do much without security. That's something that Hobbes does say
00:31:22.060
correctly. And he's, you know, you have to take care of basic needs or you could even think about
00:31:27.200
ideals. You have to be, you know, Hobbes' big argument was, um, what is the point of working
00:31:34.180
in a chaotic society when it could be destroyed tomorrow or taken from you tomorrow? So nothing
00:31:39.820
gets done. The father is there to provide that strength, to put his foot down, so to speak.
00:31:45.700
And then everyone knows how things go. And then they have a context in which to work.
00:31:50.560
And they're confident that their labor will, will bear fruit without it. There's no point.
00:31:55.520
Um, and I think you also know, um, the, the book came out, the faith of the fatherless,
00:32:00.860
which I read when it first came out. I loved it. There is no doubt that atheism is linked to the
00:32:07.280
absence of a father figure. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out. Um, you know,
00:32:13.220
when I think of God, I often think of my own father. There's a Psalm. It says like,
00:32:17.540
father has compassion on his sons. So has the Lord compassion on those who fear him.
00:32:21.260
They talk, he talked about the forgiveness of sins in that particular case. When you think of your
00:32:25.220
own father, you're trying to figure out what God wants out of you. You know, that's, that's the
00:32:29.300
right thing to do because the father of the family is a pale image of, of the father in heaven.
00:32:35.060
This isn't just rhetoric. As we know now in every respect, this is built into the DNA of man.
00:32:40.820
And this is built into the ontology and the creation of the planet. There's no question.
00:32:46.680
Yeah. And that's a great point. And I mean, I think the big problem is that you, um,
00:32:51.540
you know, people often ask me, well, what, you know, what is fear of the Lord? And I tell them,
00:32:55.280
well, I mean, it's the fear that you have for your father, if you respect and you love him.
00:32:59.300
Uh, but if you don't have a father, you don't understand what that means.
00:33:03.720
Um, and so, I mean, that's, you know, and the fear of the Lord is the foundation of all wisdom
00:33:07.820
and the foundation of all, all piety. Men who do not fear the Lord, the Psalmist say, you know,
00:33:11.560
are fools. Um, you know, uh, and their counsel is, uh, is wicked. I mean, that's,
00:33:18.140
that's, that's the, the worldview of the Psalmist for sure.
00:33:22.900
Well, we also know, and I know we've spoken about this before is that both male and female
00:33:28.200
homosexuality is linked to the lack of a father figure. Um, of all the variables that have been
00:33:33.660
studied in figuring out why people become freaks like that, the one that stands out is a lack of
00:33:39.940
a strong father figure. And you're constantly searching for male approval because you don't
00:33:44.360
have one or he's a horrible man or something like that doesn't exist, whatever it is. Um,
00:33:49.040
you search for that approval in, in other men. And even, uh, even lesbians are the same way.
00:33:55.080
It's tightly linked, uh, to, um, to female homosexuality in that they no longer trust the
00:34:02.860
idea that a man is going to protect them and that a man could be there to depend on. I mean,
00:34:07.480
this is built into the ontology of everything that exists. There is nothing, uh, that can't be
00:34:13.580
linked to a strong family. And that really means a strong father figure. So the killing of the king
00:34:19.620
ritual, which is deep into the arcana, deep into the occult and the absolute center of the modern
00:34:25.340
world. This is why we're anti-modernists and there's no arguing it. Killing of the king ritual,
00:34:30.240
uh, all revolutions have to kill the king. In America it was, you know, JFK or in France or Russia
00:34:36.380
or England. Murder of the king is absolutely essential. Then the revolution can take over.
00:34:41.400
In other words, the sons, the jealous sons could now try to take the authority, the power,
00:34:48.400
the money, uh, that they think the father has and live it up. And, uh, it never works, but that's
00:34:54.320
what, that's what, uh, a republic is. And so all of this stuff is connected and I don't think it's
00:35:01.960
Uh, no, indeed. Indeed. So maybe we can discuss, um, a little bit more.
00:35:06.380
So the specifically Christian aspects to, um, the monarchy, uh, and the, the conception of,
00:35:12.260
of Christian sacral rule. And so, um, well, for us, this doctrine fundamentally comes from
00:35:18.540
the incarnation of Christ and that because the, uh, Christian is raised to the image of
00:35:24.920
Christ through baptism and especially through the sacrament of, of chrismation of anointing,
00:35:30.440
uh, he participates directly in the reality which Christ possesses, which is that at his,
00:35:35.060
his baptism and his, uh, his anointing, uh, uh, at the theophany, um, Christ was divinized
00:35:42.800
the material world around us and all of human energy and human affairs and received the fullness
00:35:49.520
of the kingdom of God, of the Holy Spirit as a man in symphony with the, the will of the
00:35:56.060
father. This is why the Holy Trinity was manifest over him at the, um, theophany in the river
00:36:01.600
Jordan, which on the Baptist. And so, um, you know, when, according to, you know, the theology
00:36:08.800
of, you know, Maximus, the confessor, the job of, of kings and priests and so on is to
00:36:13.600
guide their household, their, their flock, um, from towards the logos, towards their own
00:36:20.520
implementation of that cosmic order in their lives, the logoi, that people do their jobs,
00:36:25.540
their ends, so to speak, and natural law functions harmoniously.
00:36:30.940
And you understand why removing that is absolutely essential for industrialization,
00:36:36.740
for liberalism, for global, the global economy, everything else. And you also see how that's
00:36:43.140
connected, um, to, to nominalism. You can't have any of this unless you remove all meaning,
00:36:52.540
uh, from the world. You know, nominalism says that there are no universal truths. Um, that
00:37:00.520
universals are our own invention, our own creation, and they're just in our own interest. You know,
00:37:05.460
we, you know, they're, they're just because we find them useful. What people don't seem to grasp
00:37:10.360
here is that that means that our lives are purposeless, that we have no function, um, that we're just
00:37:16.520
adrift. Now, when you remove meaning from creation, well, it doesn't just stay, now you have a vacuum,
00:37:25.460
and now the elite, whether it be the party or, or the captains of industry, then create it.
00:37:30.480
So monarchy is based on the opposite, that you can't just invent a reality, whatever you want.
00:37:36.000
Um, and this is why men, in particular, have the role of keeping the world, children and women,
00:37:41.440
in reality. Women have a tendency to be very flighty, very impressionable. The man is supposed
00:37:48.160
to be the reality principle, um, to bring them down to earth, to show them limits. That's the point.
00:37:59.340
Yeah, indeed. And I mean, it's the, as we, as we just discussed, it's precisely the lack of that
00:38:06.640
that leads to, um, you know, the kind of gynecological anarchy that has been created
00:38:12.200
in the modern world, where the passions totally dominate. And I mean, I think that for people
00:38:16.860
who are, we're going to get onto this later on with some of our Calliator news stories,
00:38:20.560
but people who are from, uh, the younger generations will understand this like acutely
00:38:25.120
and, uh, intimately because it's their life experience. I mean, if you've grown up as a young
00:38:30.420
man in a single mother household, then you know exactly what we're discussing in the,
00:38:35.680
uh, the, the, uh, the incontrovertible reality of these facts. It's, uh, that's how it is.
00:38:43.660
Yeah, there can be no question about it. Um, uh, now the theology, now I've been,
00:38:48.920
in terms of the, I'm changing gears just a little bit, if you don't mind.
00:38:51.560
Certainly. Um, I'm told, and Protestants often say this to me, that, um, in the Old Testament,
00:38:58.900
now, of course, all Christian monarchies, uh, are founded, I mean, beyond the, the natural
00:39:05.980
old ontology that we've been talking about. The other side is, it's, I mean, they're both
00:39:10.800
the same thing, just from two different points of view, is, um, is the Old Testament. I, I'm,
00:39:17.920
I'm at a point now, I don't even like separating the new from the old. It gives people the excuse
00:39:21.660
to ignore the old. It's all one thing. Um, the creation of a king over Israel, um, was not
00:39:30.880
opposed because it was a monarchy. It was opposed for the reason that they wanted it. Obviously,
00:39:37.400
monarchy has been sacralized. I mean, every Christian monarchist talks about David. Uh,
00:39:41.720
there are no exceptions to this ever anywhere. Uh, God wasn't against the monarchy. In fact,
00:39:47.880
he blessed it through Samuel. The problem was that Israel wanted one to create a, what
00:39:54.600
we would call today, you know, a modern enlightened state. Um, what was condemned was Hobbes'
00:40:00.860
view. You want to be, uh, an empire, a commercial empire like the others and enjoy the wealth
00:40:06.540
that they have. But it wasn't, uh, royalism, the royalty that was rejected. Obviously, as, as
00:40:14.060
the prophet Samuel said, it was that they wanted it for the wrong reason and they wanted it to do
00:40:19.320
all the wrong things. And that's, that's why I wanted to get that out of the way because it's
00:40:23.340
all, it's a very common, uh, attack on our position. But, um, the defense of Christian
00:40:29.160
monarchy comes from the old Testament, comes from Israel. And it's one more terrible thing
00:40:32.940
that happens when you reject the old Testament and don't read it and don't understand it like
00:40:35.980
most people do. Um, Christian monarchy is based on David and, uh, prior to that, the
00:40:41.200
blessings of, of, um, the prophet Samuel on him. And of course, the fact that the prophet
00:40:45.320
Samuel had to anoint Saul shows you that, you know, this is, this is a symphony. Uh,
00:40:51.060
the church anoints, uh, the crown to show that this is an aspect of and a part of natural
00:40:58.900
Yeah, indeed. And so for those who are, might not be intimately familiar with the concept
00:41:03.300
of anointing in Christian, uh, theology, um, the word anointing, I mean, is synonymous
00:41:09.100
with, with, with christening with the, uh, to become like Christ. This is the, what it
00:41:13.120
means in Greek Christos is the anointed one. Um, and so the concept of anointing is that
00:41:20.180
it brings the, uh, one who is anointed into contact with a consecrated sacred reality.
00:41:28.300
It elevates them specifically to one telos, to one purpose, to one end, always divine. And
00:41:34.780
the oil, uh, in the symphony of powers between heaven and earth is considered to kind of
00:41:40.320
pneumatize, to spiritualize, to raise and bring closer to heaven, the men and their tasks and
00:41:46.120
the reality of their human energy and operation when it's directed according to the purpose set
00:41:50.660
out in the, in that paradigm, the archetype. And so, um, this is why white priests and kings
00:41:57.980
are, are consecrated with the holy chrism oil in ordination and in the, um, the coronation
00:42:05.080
of a king, uh, and so forth in all of the mysteries. Whenever the chrism oil is used, whether in
00:42:10.000
the sanctification of an altar or the chrismation of, uh, an initiate into the church, um, and so
00:42:16.640
on, it always denotes a mystery. Um, because it's the...
00:42:21.740
But I wanted to mention Samuel because, um, if we didn't, if it didn't come up, I would
00:42:26.700
forget it. So that, that is an extremely important point to make.
00:42:32.040
Yeah, no problem. It's, uh, it's absolutely correct. So anyway, so yeah, that's, that's
00:42:37.520
what anointing means. Um, and so the, uh, again, this is, we came to this, this point in the
00:42:43.400
end of our last episode that the, you know, the whole, um, reason why Christianity is so critical
00:42:49.860
is because it provides the foundation for a discernible teleological universe, that things
00:42:55.020
have meanings and they have ends and they have purposes, uh, that can be articulated because
00:42:59.000
there is a personalized, um, referent, uh, uh, you know, an icon that one can look to, the
00:43:05.160
God, man, and Jesus Christ. Um, the logos upon which the rest of the logo, right, in the universe
00:43:10.660
can, uh, are hinged and operate. And so, um, there's not really any other, um, philosophy or
00:43:17.540
theology that offers you, offers you this. And this is why it's so critical because you can't
00:43:22.820
even make basic philosophical claims of justice or, or engage in, you know, a true and clear
00:43:29.620
relationship with, uh, you know, the vertical, the sacred realm without this enlightenment, without
00:43:38.380
Let me, um, I'm, I'm looking at St. Philaret of Moscow. Um, let me, let me quote him if you
00:43:44.660
don't mind because he's saying exactly what we're saying. I'm, I'm translating as I'm
00:43:49.120
looking at this. So be patient here. It's too important. St. Philaret of Moscow, uh, says
00:43:54.040
this, but as the power of the father was not created by the father himself and was not given
00:43:59.580
to him by the son, but occurred together with the man and the one who created man is revealed
00:44:04.540
that the deepest source and highest beginning of the first, consequently, all subsequent power
00:44:09.320
between the people is in God from him. First, as the apostle speaks, the fatherland and the heavens
00:44:15.100
and the earth is called. Then the sons burst into, uh, the sons, um, immense natural power.
00:44:23.440
The father grows from the family. God gives this power, a new artificial image, uh, a new name,
00:44:28.720
and thus the reign of the King reigns. And further, no matter how many peoples, no matter how the
00:44:34.240
state are changing, always by means of all acting providence owns by the, uh, okay, that didn't,
00:44:40.060
all right. That's, uh, what, what he's trying to say here is that the monarchy is the essence
00:44:45.680
of everything. It is the foundation of everything. Whatever may change in the world, uh, it doesn't
00:44:51.580
get rid of natural law. Um, the deepest source and highest beginning is, is what he's talking
00:44:57.660
about. The beginning of all things and the end of all things and the purpose of all things.
00:45:00.860
Um, uh, God sanctifies the monarch. He sanctifies the monarch, gives him a new name. They talk about
00:45:08.060
Abraham, obviously, gives him a new name because now he is not in sin. He is in, in concert with
00:45:15.960
the law that God created. Um, I used to wear artificial. It's probably the wrong one, but,
00:45:20.400
uh, it's, it's, you know, natural law doesn't really tell us what to do. It gives us a foundation
00:45:26.840
to build, uh, an ethical view on. Um, but because men have, he says the same, because men have forgotten
00:45:33.560
their creator, they care about themselves. They care about passions. Monarchy, as he says here,
00:45:39.160
is not really about power. It's about authority and the two totally different things. Power is just
00:45:45.040
coercion. Authority is a right, uh, to, to coerce. And it's based on the knowledge of God because we say
00:45:52.980
someone's an authority on something, it means they're an expert in something, um, that they
00:45:56.720
have this. So, so there is, there's a foundation of natural law. There's a knowledge of the gospel,
00:46:01.180
knowledge of, of, um, of how this is to be done in a day-to-day level, which of course is always
00:46:05.340
ethnic. You're talking about the customs of the people. Um, and you're talking about it being in
00:46:11.260
contract with natural law and how it functions given the specifics of the society as a whole.
00:46:17.020
Power doesn't mean, sorry, absolute power doesn't mean you can do whatever you want.
00:46:23.380
That was never the case. Absolutism means that you are absolutely responsible for what happens.
00:46:30.080
I mean, even, even in old Russia, when the father of a family died, it was said the whole family died.
00:46:35.200
Which throws off researchers sometimes. That's how important, uh, the father was.
00:46:39.020
So what St. Philard is trying to say here is that societies may change, technology may change,
00:46:46.320
uh, you know, languages even change, but there's one thing that never changes and that is natural
00:46:52.240
law. And the father of the family and the monarch coming from it, uh, manifests that. So in other
00:46:56.940
words, it doesn't matter what situation you're in, uh, or how, you know, topography of the economy
00:47:01.660
or where you are, this doesn't change. Specifics though, they do change. And so we have national
00:47:08.160
monarchies based on different things and languages and of everything else. So St. Philard was one of
00:47:12.740
the great, uh, royalist writers and nationalist writers of 19th century Russia. And it's someone
00:47:18.260
who doesn't get the attention he deserves. Yeah. Excellent point. Well, and so maybe we can
00:47:25.060
kind of go into this, um, and you, you've discussed this ad nauseum, um, on your podcast, but as it's
00:47:30.640
always good to be consolidating and integrated for, uh, this kind of podcast and those of whom
00:47:36.180
who might not be familiar with your work, can we discuss how, um, the nature of monarchy as the
00:47:44.660
theologically correct orthodox position, um, or ideologically correct in a, in a downstream
00:47:50.620
kind of sense, as we've already laid out very clearly, um, you know, invalidates and is
00:47:56.260
incompatible with, um, you know, the, the revolutionary ideologies of classical liberalism and its
00:48:01.660
antecedents, and even we could say, um, degenerated forms of, um, post-schism Western monarchies and so
00:48:09.040
on, or Western forms of government. Ad nauseum? Really? I make you sick? No, the opponents do,
00:48:19.960
indeed. Ad nauseum? Oh my God. Sorry to offend you. It's the opponents. It's, uh, it's tiring,
00:48:28.720
indeed. Um, well, yeah, well, you're right, of course, and I have to say it over and over again
00:48:36.100
because no one listened. Um, Vladimir Moss, who I've had trouble with over the years, um,
00:48:44.360
has an excellent, excellent article called Must a Christian Be a Monarchist? And he's kind of afraid
00:48:52.560
to come out and say, yeah, but he says, yeah. And, you know, given what we've said so far,
00:49:00.240
um, it's, it's the case. You have, and again, monarchy could be a lot of things. It could be
00:49:08.620
like, you know, someone like, uh, Francisco Franco in Spain or something, you know, um, it doesn't have
00:49:12.960
to be an actual, uh, uh, crowned head. You can have something approaching a crowned head. I mean,
00:49:18.060
the Athenite fathers had Vladimir Putin in the, the, um, stall of the emperor. He didn't run to
00:49:26.300
that stall because he wanted to. He was asked to go there. So you could have, well, it's like the
00:49:31.180
Old Testament judges. You know, they were kind of temporary, they were temporarily given, uh,
00:49:35.940
authority and then retired again. Uh, the great Gideon, you know, after the, after the war against
00:49:40.980
Midianites just went back to his farm. Um, so it needn't be an actual crowned head. They could
00:49:46.740
actually just function, uh, you know, a man with great authority, great power. Um, and, and really
00:49:52.380
Putin in Russia is, um, is very, very close, uh, to that because he's doing what a monarch
00:49:59.820
should do. And I want to also remind people that, you know, in, in early 19th century
00:50:05.840
Serbia, the two great royal homes, uh, royal houses, uh, Brenovich and, and Kerry George
00:50:12.260
ovich, they were nothing more than, uh, uh, militia leaders who were successful. They
00:50:19.540
have no great family name. They weren't a part of any, you know, uh, great, uh, you
00:50:25.160
know, any, any, any, any of these other people, they were just soldiers. Um, Kerry George
00:50:30.760
of its first, Kerry George of its was a pig farm. So, you know, you have two royal houses
00:50:37.500
that were just created just a couple hundred years ago. Um, you can have, uh, the, the,
00:50:44.460
the, the hereditary principle did not exist in Byzantine, uh, as a matter of course.
00:50:50.600
So, um, so, you know, you keep that in mind. So, say, monarchy, we're talking about something
00:50:55.980
very, uh, very broad. But what Vladimir Moss does, and I've added to this over time, I mentioned
00:51:01.280
how St. Photius connects it to, to the Filioquic, which frankly, when I first heard it kind of blew
00:51:06.120
my mind. I never thought about it that way before. Um, he cites canon after canon, father
00:51:13.020
after father after father, talking about how essential monarchy is. Great Patrick Anthony
00:51:18.200
of Constantinople wrote to, I, I want to say it, I can't remember who it was, uh, said
00:51:24.520
that there is no church without the crown. There is no crown without the church. You cannot
00:51:30.360
have an ecumenical synod unless a legitimate Orthodox emperor calls it. That's why there hasn't
00:51:35.940
been any. Um, you know, Nicholas II could have called one, but he would have been the last one.
00:51:43.180
Um, and there's a reason for this. Uh, the monarch, I'm sorry, the, the, the crown head,
00:51:49.000
the monarch is called the bishop outside the church. I'm sorry, bishop outside the, the, the country. He,
00:51:54.600
he, um, he's a bishop for those who haven't converted yet. He has a strong liturgical, uh, function.
00:52:00.340
And I'll go so far as to say that the monarch is a religious office, not a political one.
00:52:07.600
Definition of politics back then has nothing in common with what we call it today. Um, no one
00:52:14.160
actually ruled in the sense that it told them what to do. They simply reminded you of what your
00:52:19.040
conscience is already telling you. Natural law is just that. However, today that's a bit naive because
00:52:26.400
I think natural law and people have been so repressed that they wouldn't know it if they
00:52:30.280
came across it. So, you know, I'm going to say that you can't be Orthodox without being a
00:52:36.140
royalist in one matter, in one kind or another. You cannot be a royal, uh, an Orthodox person
00:52:40.820
and believe in liberal democracy or the Republican system, um, uh, in general, you know, like Venice
00:52:47.640
or, or Genoa, any place like that. No, you cannot. And, and I could back that up as Moss has done
00:52:52.500
himself with mountains of material. You just can't. Yeah. I mean, but that is the essence
00:52:59.540
of the kind of Americanizing in, in modernist heresy is that it, um, its primary loyalty is
00:53:06.160
towards the Republic and then it seeks to kind of conform the, uh, the liturgy to suit its needs.
00:53:13.120
Um, okay. Theodosius, the old, um, Metropolitan of the OCA used to talk about your, your, uh,
00:53:22.760
your romance for long dead empires, he used to say. Wow. Wow. Oh man. That's, uh,
00:53:33.580
there's nothing new though. Yeah, truly no comment. Okay. So yeah, we touched on this a
00:53:42.540
little bit, um, you know, before, and I think you, you went into it pretty well. We, the idea of
00:53:46.400
that, I mean, an absolute monarch is absolute because he's absolutely responsible, uh, as the
00:53:51.940
head of the entire nation. And because of this, you know, he wields the scepter of all legitimized
00:53:58.080
sacral political authority within the context of that household. Um, and so, you know, maybe we can
00:54:03.720
talk about, you know, I mean, with Eastern Rome, I mean, this came out of the, you know, the office
00:54:09.060
of the Roman emperors, which, which became sacral as the entire Roman empire was, um, you know,
00:54:15.580
baptized. And so he, this was where the, the, this kind of laid the foundation and the pattern for
00:54:21.200
other conceptions of, um, orthodox monarchical life throughout the, the rest of the Christianized world.
00:54:28.080
Um, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm, I'm reading, uh, I'm reading St. Philaret. I just, my, my big concern
00:54:35.440
here, um, is still, I'm still stuck on the number issue between two and three and how essential
00:54:42.480
that is in connecting the ontology of our created world with the Trinity. And Philaret is saying
00:54:50.620
here that, I mean, he's, he's, he's mocking the notion of freedom in the abstract. And he says,
00:54:56.780
some people under the name of freedom want to understand the ability and unrestraint to do
00:55:01.500
whatever they want. This is a dream. The dream is not just unrealizable and ridiculous. It's illegal
00:55:07.660
and pernicious. And he says, the first person seduced by this dream was Adam. The second person
00:55:13.860
Cain. Um, when you, when you just have this individual anomalous notion based on the number
00:55:21.460
two, the individual against the state or whatever it is. And that, and that's it. Um, you have
00:55:28.900
freedom without purpose. And I was a young man and I would be debating these professors in
00:55:33.260
college. They would refer to human rights and freedom of speech and all this stuff. And I
00:55:38.280
say, that's wonderful, but to do what with? I mean, I don't really care about these in the
00:55:44.280
abstract. I want to know what these people are going to do with it. And that's the third
00:55:48.800
thing that rounds out the Trinity and it rounds out our social life. I never got a good answer
00:55:54.080
to that. It's well, whatever they want. I said, what are you talking about? Uh, whatever
00:55:59.420
they want. What, what is the purpose of this? And why should I care if they're doing something
00:56:04.100
they want? What's so special about them? So this is, you know, this is, this is how modernity
00:56:09.580
has completely destroyed. They can't answer the question, uh, freedom of speech is wonderful
00:56:14.260
for what purpose? They can't even say to come to the knowledge of the truth because
00:56:19.020
they don't believe in that either. Uh, these things just aren't tenable even in theory,
00:56:26.660
Right. Well, I mean, and I think that this kind of goes back to the issue that, um, I mean,
00:56:30.600
this mode of thinking, this nominalism, um, has been in, uh, specifically inflicted upon
00:56:35.700
the people in order to destroy their, their, um, language framework to discuss and to even
00:56:42.140
have a conception of the moral life to begin with. I mean, where the, I, this drew me immediately.
00:56:46.780
I mean, this is, if you read Alistair Crowley's explanation of, um, you know, the tarot and of
00:56:52.740
the Kabbalah in the book of Fath, he goes through, um, a numerological procession of the principles
00:56:59.520
of the universe. And he makes this point explicitly that the, um, there is no reality or understanding
00:57:05.400
of, of anything outside of the number three, because that's the only mathematical form
00:57:11.460
that gives rise to context and to telos and to end and to, um, you know, soft platonic
00:57:17.020
solids. It's no coincidence at all. And he makes this extremely clear and that the, the
00:57:20.620
one and the two, and I think you described this before as the, in the sight of Saturn,
00:57:25.900
the, the, uh, the alienation and the death, because there's only a dialectic between the,
00:57:31.260
the disgruntlement and the, uh, and the struggle that is now and the, the passionate desire of what
00:57:38.480
you want to be. Whereas the, the Orthodox position by, uh, is illuminated. That man is kind of in the
00:57:45.180
middle. He's been alienated from grace, but he's moving towards the eschatological final reality.
00:57:49.980
And that reality is immanentized in Christ, you know, and the church who stands above all of these
00:57:55.040
things outside of time, but in time at the same time. Well, when I, you know, it's extremely
00:58:00.540
interesting to me, and this is why I just became absorbed into it completely at the time, was the
00:58:07.220
Hebrew for three is gemel or camel. And I mentioned this before, when you separate man from God,
00:58:14.300
one and two are separated by the side, as you mentioned, you have a desert. Nothing good can grow
00:58:19.320
there. Um, the camel is what gets you through. You can cross the desert and not die because you have
00:58:28.180
this mode of transportation. In other words, this is a way that you navigate evil. This is a way that
00:58:32.400
you survive in this world, this desert, this, this complete lack of knowledge and truth, because we
00:58:38.960
know what the number three means as, as of course, God himself, as well as, uh, something that's built
00:58:44.620
into the universe. Now, these are people who knew a thing or two about the desert. And number three,
00:58:50.100
even how it's written today, it's two humps of the camel, uh, that this can get you through the worst
00:58:56.160
possible topography. And, um, it'll be hard, but this is, this is how we'll make it. And that's how
00:59:03.280
important it was to both the Egyptians and the Hebrew in the ancient world, that this number three is a camel.
00:59:08.340
Yeah. Very fascinating. Okay. Well, I think this is kind of a natural terminal for the end of our
00:59:16.680
first hour. So, uh, thank you listeners for joining us. We're going to take a short break
00:59:21.440
and then we'll return to, uh, round out our discussion and hit Kali Yuga news. So, uh, stay tuned.
00:59:38.340
The rusted chains of prison moons are shattered by the sun. I walk a road horizon's change,
01:00:08.320
the tournament's begun. The purple piper plays his tune. The choir softly sing. Three lullabies in an ancient
01:09:58.380
who claim to be patristic and following the Father.
01:10:03.160
But the minute something politically incorrect comes up,
01:10:17.960
Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, absolutely essential.
01:10:21.740
He says, the basic principle of kingly authority,
01:10:24.360
the establishment of a single sort of power to which everything is subject,
01:10:28.300
monarchy is superior to every other constitution.
01:10:31.400
For democracy, where everyone competes on equal terms,
01:10:33.860
which of course is never true, is anarchy and discord.
01:10:40.680
Democracy, or polytheism, sorry, polytheism is atheism.
01:10:47.240
Gregory the theologian, there are three ancient opinions.
01:10:51.100
There is atheism, or democracy, polytheism, or oligarchy,
01:10:59.020
The Greeks played with the first two, but let's leave them to their games.
01:11:04.800
Polyarchy implies division, and therefore anarchy and disorder.
01:11:22.580
Theodore the Studite makes a very similar point.
01:11:28.880
Every single principle is, the single principle, sorry,
01:11:37.700
to construct rules of life in accordance with the likeness of God.
01:11:42.960
the origin of the world that comes from the mouth of God,
01:11:46.820
let's create men in accordance with their image and likeness.
01:12:05.140
every once in a while you come across Protestants
01:12:09.600
everything is subject to the power of the state.
01:12:16.660
as if to say that any government, therefore, is from God.
01:12:20.480
Well, we know that the church fathers in the same to the day
01:12:44.720
not just any group of people who happen to take power.
01:12:54.380
you know, we pray for our nation, our own forces.
01:13:04.300
you know, because he was alive when Julian the Apostate was alive.
01:13:07.520
And he prayed publicly for the defeat of Julian
01:13:11.280
So, that line in the liturgy that we all know very well
01:13:15.540
can only be said when you have a legitimate government.
01:13:21.300
So, you cannot pray in church for the victory of the American armed forces?
01:13:37.180
And the new martyrs of Russia say the exact same kinds of things.
01:13:42.560
one form of government in a very general sense,
01:13:47.520
And I could multiply these citations until you're,
01:14:23.200
Natural law doesn't come from the people, does it?
02:05:08.940
Rauf und ran, setzt aufs Klosterdach den roten Garn.
02:05:27.480
Unsere Enkel fechten's besser aus, hei ja oh oh.
02:05:34.640
Spieß voran, rauf und ran, setzt aufs Klosterdach den roten Garn.
02:05:43.600
Spieß voran, rauf und ran, setzt aufs Klosterdach den roten Garn.