Rushdoony on Salvian the Presbyter

Salvian says, “Rome is dying, but she continues to laugh.

The early church because it believed in the resurrection faced the world with confidence, it was not afraid of change and decay. Others as they saw Rome fall were filled with horror, to them there was no future, no hope. But men like Salvian the presbyter could see the fall of Rome coming and say it has to come, and let us welcome it.

One of the neglected books of the fall of Rome is Salvian, the governance of God. And what Salvion did when the first major bastion, Trier, fell to the barbarians and he lived there and he saw that very soon Rome would fall because there was no resistance, nobody was ready to fight, and he indicted first of all the Christians. He said that now you are successful and have been for a century, you have picked up all the traits of the Romans, all their moral evils and therefore you are no longer the salt that should preserve the empire but you have become a part of the problem. And this is an aspect of the fall of Rome that we don’t hear about.

Well, on a … the way people react, of course, has a great deal to do with their faith. One of the most memorable books I have ever read was the book by Salvian the Presbyter, S A L V I A N, The Governance of God. It was an account of the fall of the Roman Empire. It is not well known like Augustine’s work, but in some respects it is the greater work as far as a description of what happened is concerned, because Salvian describes the horrors that ensued, the unwillingness of people to face them, how when Trier was destroyed the people were in the coliseum for the games unwilling to defend the city and the survivors petitioned the emperor to rebuild the coliseum to improve their morale.

And Salvian’s whole point was that the horrors, grim as they were—and he was an eye witness to them—were better than the alternative. Rome had to fall, he said. And the judgment on Rome was a demonstration of the grace of God.

The presbyter Salvian wrote in the last days of Rome and before the barbarian invasions saying, “If Rome does not fall then we will know there is no God.” And we can say the same today.

Salvian gives us a grim account of the fall of Trier when he said the cries of the raped and the dying mingled with the cheers of the people who would not leave the arena. And when it was over and the city had been burned to the ground the survivors of the city council met together to petition the emperor. Rebuild the arena to improve the moral of the people. Salvian said, “Rome is dying but it continues to laugh.”

Read Salvian sometime or other, on the governance of God. Salvian welcomes the Fall of Rome. He said it was an evidence of the righteousness and holiness of God that Rome fell. He was a resident, at the time, of the barbarian invasions of Trier in what is now northern France, and he describes what happened as the barbarians took over the city. Most of the people were at the Arena watching the games. They couldn’t be bothered with defending the city, and he said the shouts of the raped and the dying mingled with those of the cheering crowds in the Arena, and after the barbarians passed through and left a burnt out city, the survivors of the city council met and petitioned the Emperor for funds to rebuild the Arena in order to improve the morale of the people, and Salvian described the insanity of man for more and more amusement and said, Rome dies but she continues to laugh as she is dying.” Salvian welcomed the fall of Rome.

In this respect he (Augustine) was a world apart from Salvian the Presbyter. Salvian wrote that, “Because God is, therefore Rome must fall,” and he looked to Rome as a vindication of God and the vindication of the Christian. He knew the habits it would create. He saw it before Augustine ever did, because he was in Treves, right on the border of Germany. When the Barbarians came, Treves was one of the first cities to be burned to the ground, and Salvian saw all the horrors that went with it, but Salvian said, emphatically as he wrote, “After Treves had burned, it is the governance of God, that this was the righteous judgment of God, and had to be welcomed by the believers, and it had to be seen as something that was necessary,”

Salvian gives us a vivid picture of the new morality of his day of the impurities of the theatre and of the circus. William Carol Bark, a Stanford historian, calls attention to Salvian’s observations and he comments: “Few observers of this period of history can have failed to ponder the fact that millions of Romans were vanquished by scores of thousands of Germans. According to Salvian it was not by the natural strength of their bodies that the barbarians conquered nor by the weakness of their nature that the Romans were defeated. It was the Romans’ moral vices that alone that overcame them. Narrow as it is, this judgment by one very close to the events remains respectable. As for the men of more exalted positions, the well educated noble men who fled to the barbarians in order to escape the persecution and injustice that prevailed among the Romans, it is clear that they like their poor compatriots had given up hope of obtaining justice and protection from the Roman state and its law. Their flight confirms the fact that in large areas of the western empire, public spirit and public justice had disappeared and that men were obliged to act privately and locally in matters that had formerly been regulated by central governmental authority.”

Rome died. Why? Rome had become humanistic to the core. This is implicit in a philosophy of Rome from the very beginning. The one basic law in Rome which progressively took action was this: the health or the welfare of the people is the highest law. Now over the centuries this law was implied, was applied more and more systematically. So that the republic gave way to the empire and the empire progressively did that which the republic had not done: catered to the mob. A welfare mob was created. Release was not enough. It had to be bred and serviced. So they were given free housing. Apartment houses were built for them; they were given food and they were given free tickets to the circus so they could go to the arena and see the Christians thrown to the lions. They were given free wine. But of course they always wanted more and Aurelius in 274 AD it gave way to another demand. The mob was becoming concerned it was traumatic for their young people when they became old enough to marry to have to go down on and apply for relief, it really hurt their feelings. And so what was the demand of the mob? They had cradle to grave security, they wanted welfare for their children without application and so Aurelian and the government said that every child born to every welfare family will have welfare as his birthright. He won’t have to apply and answer a lot of nosy questions from our officials. And his children and his children’s children will all have welfare as a birthright. Of course the mob was happy and the coins of that year 274 AD celebrated Aurelian as “our savior and our god.” But the poor man had nothing to deliver the next year so they killed him. All this sounds familiar does it not?

Neo-Orthodox Scholar Affirms that the Scripture’s Authors were Creationists

James Barr, a neo-orthodox scholar who did not necessarily accept what the Scriptures taught, wrote to David C.C. Watson in 1984,

‘… probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:

a. creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience

b. the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story

c. Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.’

Barr seemed certain that what the Scriptures taught, taking them upon their own testimony, was a literal 6-day creation.

James Barr, Oriel Professor of the interpretation of the Holy Scripture, Oxford University, England, in a letter to David C.C. Watson, 23 April 1984. Barr, consistent with his neo-orthodox views, does not believe Genesis, but he understood what the Hebrew so clearly taught. It was only the perceived need to harmonise with the alleged age of the earth which led people to think anything different—it was nothing to do with the text itself.

Presuppositionalism and the Trivium

“The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”

Two children learn the trivium. One is a covenant child who presupposes God in all his thinking. The other is a pagan child who presupposes man in all his thinking. The result are two trivium educated people who couldn’t be anymore different in terms of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. So much so that the second child, though trivium educated, is a fool.

The Trivium by itself is not the means by which wisdom is attained.

Crony Capitalism … Then and Now

“The mainstream (liberal) historians make much of the working class crisis of the 1870’s – 1890’s, saying that during those decades the federal government was obviously being run to satisfy the selfish interests of the Northern capitalists — and the workers subsequently endured cruel working conditions and bare subsistence. Further, the economy was grinding to a halt because workers and farmers weren’t earning enough to buy the vast array of products being manufactured. And all of that is quite true.

But then historians trot out the Progressive movement cited here to prove that the intrusive, unconstitutional, industrially-oriented big government created by Lincoln and the Radical Republicans in the 1860’s had been justified after all, because under Theodore Roosevelt it could and did react to the needs of the country after the turn of the century by haltering the capitalists. Those historians then have gusty editorial sighs of relief: the system worked! Big government did right, and thereby prevented the class warfare revolution of the poor which otherwise would surely have destroyed the United States. Therefore, they argue, the liberal’s socialistic government of today has precedent and is equally necessary and justifiable.

But in fact, those reform measures from 1887 onward were carefully designed to do very little to restrain the capitalists, even though they expanded the power of the federal government considerably. Viewed close up, they were mostly worthwhile-but-token measures…. None of that (what really turned the US economy around during the early progressive era) resulted from the socialist movement, or from big government per se.”

Frank Conner
The South Under Siege; 1830-2000 — pg. 237-238

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A few observations

1.) These united States have been living with Corporatism to one degree or another for over a century and a half now. The “haltering capitalists” that Conner speaks of is the Gilded Age Robber Barons like Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie et. al. These men made their fortunes by being in bed with the Federal Government and manipulating it to pass legislation favorable to them at the expense of any potential competition. In point of fact these men were not “haltering capitalists” but “haltering socialists of the Corporatist variety (Crony Capitalism).

The Corporatism that we have today is merely a continuation of the Corporatism that gripped this Nation as a consequence of the War against the Constitution. This war was funded by Northern Crony Capitalists as they funded Lincoln’s war in order to turn the South into a colonial farm to be milked to the profit of the Crony Capitalists of the Railroad, Textile Mills, and Shipping variety.

2.) Note the pattern. The Feds create the problem. Then they decry the problem blaming the problem they created on Capitalism. Then they offer solutions that will enrich themselves and their Crony Capitalists – Socialists partners. Finally, when the Fed’s solution does not work and only magnifies the problem they again raise a hue and cry about the problem blaming their failed policies that have enhanced and magnified the problem to be the fault of Capitalism, when in point of fact, the fault is that free markets have not been allowed the opportunity to address the problem. This program of blame is being repeated right now with Health Care. Health Care has not failed because of Capitalism. Health Care has failed because the Government involved itself. The solution that the Government has created now (Obama-care) is designed to fail so that the Government can come back and blame somebody in the Capitalist tent with the purpose of finally arriving at the Socialist Single payer program.

Which itself will not work.

3.) Court Historians are epic liars. Our court Historian liars are as responsible for this Corporatist cycle of failure as much if not more than the Feds and the Crony Capitalists. The lying Court Historians keep blowing smoke so that the American public never wake up to the fact that the liberal-progressive-leftist-cultural Marxist-Centralized-Omnipresent Government has never succeeded in “fixing an economy.” Naturally, the court Historians always give credit to the Feds for coming through but the credit inevitably really goes to some free market aspect that survived and flourished despite the repeated attempt by the Feds and the Crony Capitalists – Socialists to choke it out.

4.) All of this suggests that today the people exist, as cattle, for the Government and the Crony Capitalists to milk at their leisure. Those who are not of the Politician and the Elite mega Corporatist class exist as grist to enrich them.

The answer to all this is to smash both Centralized Government and the Elite mega Corporatist class because they are both Marxist to the core in their economics. The failure of the rank and file American is that they tend to see one of the other of these players as the problem instead of understanding that they are both the problem. Consequently, some Americans see the Mega Corporatists as a problem and so they offer the answer of bigger Government to control the Corporatists but these Americans don’t realize that the bigger the Feds are made the better it is for the Corporatists. Similarly, other Americans get ahold of the other end of the stick and suggest that the way to end the problem is to empower the Mega-Corporatists as “Capitalists” and to shrink the Feds. However, empowering the Mega-Corporatists as Capitalists is to, at the same time, empower the FEDS. Both the Mega Corporatists and the FEDS have to be broken at the same time.

Charles Hodge — 19th Century Old Princeton Theologian On the Failure of Government Schools

“As children are bound to honor and obey their parents, so parents have duties no less important in reference to their children” (352).

The “Bible does require that education should be religiously conducted…(Deut.6:6,7 11:19 Ps.78:5-7 Prov.22:6 Eph.6:4)…These are not ceremonial or obsolete laws. They bind the consciences of men just as much as the command, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ If parents themselves conduct the education of their children, these are the principles upon which it must be conducted. If they commit that work to teachers, they are bound, by the law of God, to see that the teachers regard these divine prescriptions…This is an obligation which they cannot escape…Christianity requires that education in all its departments should be conducted religiously” (354,355).

“If a man is not religious, he is irreligious; if he is not a believer, he is an unbeliever. This is as true of organizations and institutions, as it is of individuals. Byron uttered a profound truth when he put into the mouth of Satan the words ‘He that does not bow to God, has bowed to me.’ If you banish light, you are in darkness. If you banish Christianity from the schools, you thereby render them infidel…This controversy, therefore, is a controversy between Christianity and infidelity; between light and darkness; between Christ and Belial” (355,356).

Charles Hodge (1797-1878)
Systematic Theology, James Clarke and Co., 1960, Vol.3, pgs.352-356.

“Children are not to be allowed to grow up without care or control. They are to be instructed, disciplined, and admonished, so that they are brought to knowledge, self control, and obedience. This whole process of education is to be religious, and not only religious, but Christian. It is bring[ing] them up in the training and instruction of the Lord which is the appointed and the only effectual way of attaining the goal of education. Where this means is neglected or any other substituted for it, the result must be disastrous failure. The moral and religious element of our nature is just as essential and as universal as the intellectual. Religion, therefore, is as necessary to the development of the mind as knowledge. And as Christianity is the only true religion, and God in Christ the only true God, the only possible means of profitable education is the nurture and admonition of the Lord…it is infinite folly for men to assume that they are wiser than God or to attempt to accomplish a goal through any means other than those which he has appointed.” (Comments on Eph.6:4).

Charles Hodge (1797 – 1878)
Commentary on Ephesians, The Crossway Classic Commentaries, Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois, 1994, pg.204.

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It needs to be said here that homeschooling is not the magic bullet that cures the failure of Government schools. Homeschooling that is done outside the context of an epistemologically self conscious curriculum and teachers will inevitably result in not being a whit better than the curriculum and teaching that is offered in Government schools.

Further successful homeschooling will require a dearth of modern entertainment forms in the home, at least until such a time as the child is old enough to reinterpret the entertainment through a Biblical gird. (And by that time that takes place there likely will be little desire for modern entertainments.) It will require a extremely careful selection of playmates for one’s children. It will require pain staking care regarding what church is selected. It will require a close monitoring on the worldview that is adopted by one’s children. Most of all it requires casting all upon the mercy of the Lord Christ to have grace upon our children. Even when parents have been as faithful as they know how to be we must all end by admitting that “we are unprofitable servants.”

Too often I fear that people think that homeschooling is a magic bullet that by itself will rescue our children from the evil one. It won’t. It may me a better means of education than Government schools but I’ve seen to much homeschooling to think that by itself it is going to impact the culture.