Friday, November 22, 2019

The Merchant-Kings vs the Saint-Kings


The merchant, the businessman, has often been looked down upon in communities, whether in the East or the West, whether ancient or modern.  The Ancient Chinese placed merchants in the lowest social strata ‘because they didn’t produce anything and gained profit from other organizations.’


The Ancient Greeks saw a threatening tension between money-making and virtue-making:

And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money.

Likely enough.
And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.

True.
And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured.

Clearly.
And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected.

That is obvious.


Modern writers see in the businessman a weak conformist who will not challenge the currents pushing against him:

No longer independent or self-reliant, the entrepreneur or manager was not an individual but was rather, as at least Lewis portrayed him in Babbitt, a conformist. Unlike the economic giants of the Gilded Age, men such as Babbitt do not command. They follow the crowd. Motivated less by human relationships than by public relations, they shun difference and fear dissent.


And, yet, here and now in the States, many (particularly Evangelical Protestants) are flabbergasted that the corporate heads of Chick-fil-A have decided they will no longer give charitable donations to Christian organizations:

On the Family Research Council's radio program, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee told Tony Perkins he doesn't understand the decision, saying it will have a wider impact on society.

"It's such a disappointment," Huckabee said. "Such a bewildering situation as to why Chick-fil-A after being so successful would decide they are going to surrender to the bullies. And I think the implications of this are far broader than Chick-fil-A and that's what I'm concerned about."


They have no reason to be surprised by this moral cowardice and betrayal, and yet they are.  This is the bitter fruit that Puritanism has begotten, even beyond its borders in New England.  The Puritan doctrine of predestination stated that those who are among God’s elect will be granted worldly prosperity in this life.  It has left in the minds of the peoples of all the cultural regions of the (unnecessary) union the impression that ‘successful’ entrepreneurs are the most praiseworthy people of the earth.  But this is not what Christ taught.  The greatest and best are those who give up everything (life, wealth, family, reputation, etc.) for the sake of acquiring the Kingdom of Heaven.

It is for this reason that wherever the True Faith, the Orthodox Faith, has been preached, believed, and lived, those who hold the highest places of honor in society have been the martyrs and all the other holy saints:

“The sepulchres of those who have served Christ crucified,” says St. Chrysostom, 1 “surpass the palaces of kings, not so much in the greatness and beauty of the buildings (though in this also they go beyond them) as in another thing of more importance, namely, in the multitude of those who, with devotion and joy, repair to them. For the emperor himself, who is clothed in purple, goes to the sepulchres of the saints, and kisses them; and, humbly prostrate on the ground, beseeches the same saints to pray to God for him; and he who wears a royal crown upon his head, holds it for a great favour of God, that a tent-maker and a fisherman, and these dead, should be his protectors and defenders, and this he begs with great earnestness.” And St. Austin, or another ancient father. 2 “Now at the memory of the fisherman the knees of the emperor are bowed, and the precious stones of the imperial crown shine most where the benefits of the fisherman are most felt.”


Today in the States the business owner wears the crown, but it will go ill with the South and the rest of regions/States until the saints gain it back again from those usurpers.

--

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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