Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Offsite Post: ‘The Kinsman-Redeemer of the South: St. Alfred as Dixie’s Patron Saint’

 

‘And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family: After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him . . .’ (Leviticus 25:47-49, King James Version (KJV) of The Holy Bible).


‘And Naomi said unto her daughter in law, Blessed be he of the Lord, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said unto her, The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen’ (Ruth 2:20, KJV of The Holy Bible).


‘And the women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel.  And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age . . .’ (Ruth 4:14, 15, KJV of The Holy Bible).

I. The Family and the Nation

A nation is more than an outward union of individuals, tied together superficially by a political or economic system or ideal.  A nation is a family - an extended family, but a family nevertheless:  ‘The family is older than the State. Man, husband, wife, father, son, mother, daughter and the obligations and virtues inherent in these names existed before the family grew into the nation and the State was formed. That is why family life in relation to State life can be figuratively depicted as the root of the tree’ (Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, Sochinenia (Works), 1848 ed., vol. 2, p. 169; quoted in Vladimir Moss, Autocracy, Despotism and Democracy: Part I, 2012, p. 12).

From the divinely established duties and hierarchies of family life come not democracies and republics resting on mythical Lockean contracts but monarchies, i.e., patriarchal societies.  Metropolitan Philaret continues, ‘ . . . from the pure elements of family there should arise similarly pure principles of State life, so that with veneration for one’s father veneration for the tsar [king - W.G.] should be born and grow, and that the love of children for their mother should be a preparation of love for the fatherland, and the simple-hearted obedience of domestics [children - W.G.] should prepare and direct the way to self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness in obedience to the laws and sacred authority of the autocrat…’ (Sochinenia (Works), 1848 ed., vol. 2, p. 169; quoted in Moss, p.12).

‘Again, Bishop Ignaty Brianchaninov wrote: “In blessed Russia, in accordance with the spirit of the pious people, the Tsar and the fatherland constitute one whole, just as in a family the parents and their children constitute one whole’ (Sobranie Pisem (Collected Letters), Moscow, 2000, p. 781; quoted in Moss, p.13).

Louis de Bonald, summing up Bishop Bossuet’s views, goes into more detail of this development of family into kingdom:  ‘Mankind descended from a first family.  Families multiply themselves, are held together by descent and by community of locale and needs, and form tribes in which an elder, under the modest title of judge, settles differences, unites the wills, and directs the powers.  Tribes, eventually joined together through alliances, treaties, and sometimes by conquest, become nations.  In this final stage of society, monarchical government arises as the only government that can preserve the tribes and that retains in this last development of the social body all the independence of the paternal power that existed at the beginning’ (‘On Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux’, Critics of the Enlightenment, 2004, p. 54).

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn adds, ‘Now we have to look at political institutions from the point of view of cultural harmony.  Since the patriarchal relationship dominates in the theological, ecclesiastic and biological sphere, it is psychologically not easy to organize political life along egalitarian and “numeralistic” lines.  . . . there is in our psyche the active and passive desire for “fatherhood”’ (Liberty or Equality, 1993, pgs. 139-40).  Hence, the importance of a king to a nation.

Such thoughts were deeply embedded in the South from her beginnings, being founded by Royalists (king-friends) and admirers of Sir Robert Filmer’s thoughts on the hierarchical family and patriarchy (David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed, 1989, pgs. 212, 274, 279-80).  We will see the importance of recognizing the paternal order of the family and the nation momentarily. 

II. ‘What Is a Nation?’

Though some, perhaps many, will try to deny it, the South is a distinct nation, a separate member in the body of humanity.  Following the definition of the Slavophile Vladimir Osipov, we see that this is undoubtedly true:  ‘What is a nation?  Faith, blood, language and the land’ (Quote from P. Walters, ‘A New Creed for Russians?’, Religion in Communist Lands, vol. 3, no. 4, 1976; quoted in Vladimir Moss, Twelve Lectures on the Theology of Politics, 2009, p. 102).

Her bent towards traditional Christianity; her origins from the people of the old West Saxon (Wessex) English realm; her Old English speechways; and the influence of the weather and land of the southeastern area of North America on the Southern people - all these mark the South as a true nation.

The United States Empire, by contrast, has been merely a mechanical assemblage of such authentic nation-regions (the South, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, Hawai’i, Alaska, etc.) held together by force, their true cultures suppressed by Washington, D.C. - or, rather, those who control its institutions.

 . . .

The rest is at https://identitydixie.com/2023/10/09/the-kinsman-redeemer-of-the-south-st-alfred-as-dixies-patron-saint/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

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