Such a
discussion must remain fruitless unless it is reframed. To keep the debate
focused solely on the question of Catholic vs Heathen is to remain of the
corporeal level, while the truth can only be found on the level of Spirit.
The race of the spirit is the foundation and
everything else is manifested from it. In Sintesi, Evola mentions the three
great Aryan civilisations: (1) the Oriental (presumably the civilisation that
gave rise to the Vedanta and Buddhism), (2) ancient
However, we can also do the same to ancient, heathen
Before Christianity, Stoicism, also with a universalistic
ethics based on the Logos, had taken hold among the Roman aristocracy. This
often led to the freeing of slaves, turning them into citizens, in the name of
universalism and the virtue of “magnanimousness”. Paganism was
hardly what the re-enactors attempt to make of it. First of all, educated Greeks
and Romans did not really believe in the myths. They did, however, see its
value in social control and, therefore, the virtue of piety – that is,
worship of the gods of one’s fathers – was important. Even
Socrates, despite his rationalism, saw piety as a virtue and used it to defend
himself against the charges of corrupting the youths of
Even its so-called polytheism is overrated. Platonism,
Aristotelianism, and Stoicism were monotheistic and were followed by upper
classes. The more intellectual or mystical were attracted to Neoplatonism,
again ultimately monotheistic.
As Evola has often pointed out, there are no pure
races – this is not intended to be a biological observation, but a
spiritual one, since there is an admixture of spiritual elements, which were
manifested as the contradictions that existed both in ancient Rome, as well as
in the Middle Ages, though in different ways.
So, now that we have outlined the faults of ancient
In an essay included in the February, 1939 issue of
“La Vita Italiana”, Evola explicitly addresses the
“solarity” of Christianity:
“Solar elements are without doubt present in
Christianity, particularly in Roman Catholicism … in spite its subversive
and universalistic aspects. These [solar] elements … are fragments of the
great primordial solar tradition”
Evola goes on to draw out the practical consequences. “There
is the possibility of its contributing to a future spiritual reconstruction to
the susceptibility, from the solar elements present in it, to integrate itself
into the vaster order of the primordial, solar traditional. And in this order,
without doubt, there can be ensured an essential convergence of the positive
element of Christianity with that of the great, virile, Olympian elements
possessed both by the authentic Romanity and the greatest forms of the common
Indo-European and Aryan civilisations.”
That is why Evola could recognize the solar spiritual
elements in a man like Codreanu and not be misled by the outward form his piety
took. It is an exercise for the reader to determine exactly what these solar
elements are in Roman Catholicism and why the german-roman middle ages represent
a
The way forward is to bring together all the solar
elements into a new synthesis, whatever their source, which task can only be
accomplished through knowledge and understanding.