Prolegomenon for a Catholic use of the Traditionalist Method

On Tradition and its varying modes

Written in honor of the passing of Charles (Cologero) Salvo this date last year, and to his honorable legacy and life.

Introduction

When the idea or the concept of an authentically Catholic use of “Traditionalism” or Perennialism is brought up, this notion often times stirs up both non-Perennialists and those who are self-professed Perennialists. Both sides look to figures such as Frithjof Schuon and his followers and point to this as evidence of the dogmatically subjectivist view of dogma and religion, and the idea of the Perennialist “transcending” whichever said religion they are a part of due to them seeing exotericism and the outer form of religion as just Maya (i.e. Illusion) and something as a useful fiction poetically conceived to create a stable and moral society for those not on the ins of this philosophic game of belief. But what if I was to tell you that this caricature, while accurately representing the views of Schuon and his Maryamiyya, doesn’t hold justice to the true meaning of Perennialism or the use of the Traditionalist Method, and also that such a Method can be used by those who still see the objective importance of dogma, and of the true differences which exist between varying religions. These differences don’t come from the idea of Traditionalism as such, but rather in how each group views its relation to Primordial Revelation and then additional forms of Revelation (if other religions even accept such a notion). This put’s Christianity, and specifically Catholicism (due to its understanding of Nature/Grace and different modes of Revelation), at being in a unique place for its use of the Traditionalist Method, since standing before us is a way of evaluating other religions and knowing that which is traditional in them (and thus capable of being elevated by the Church due to these “Seeds of Logos” being explained), while also taking into account the degeneration of tradition which takes place and also the Modernizing of religion in different sects with them taking on Subjectivist views of the origin of religion (following the theories of Tyrrell and Loisy). We will begin this discussion then with the idea of Primordial Tradition, then by discussing this the Catholic view of different types of Revelation can be mentioned, and finally the showing of previous forms of “Catholic Perennialism” and where this historic school of thought can be expanded into new areas for a broader understanding.

Primordial Tradition and the Ursprache

According to Tradition when the original man was created, he was made in a state of understanding the world into which he was placed. Man in a period after this time of Creation and the Golden Age, learns through concept-formation and ratiocination. The original man though due to being created in an adult state fully formed and also in a state of relationship with God (due to Adam being created with the gift of infused Justice in his soul), had to have a higher form of knowledge than that which an infant would possess when first born, Adam also would have had to have had a different form of knowledge than just sensism as the animals possess, since the essence of man is by definition that of a “rational mortal animal”. Adam then as being of the human essence would have had to have been created with a gift of extra knowledge in order both that he was of a knowledgeable state above that of both brute and babe, and also due to his dignity as the Vicegerent of God over Creation and being Nature’s hierophant. This is precisely what one finds the Catholic view to be on the matter, here is an excerpt from Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma on the question of Adam’s infused knowledge. (1)

Now that the reality of Adam’s superior knowledge is affirmed, let us examine how this relates to the idea of Primordial Tradition in a broader sense. After the creation of Adam, we are told that God gave Adam the task of naming all creatures. This provides a key into the type of knowledge of Adam, for it wasn’t an arbitrary picking of sounds and the combination of these sounds which were given to the animals as their names. Instead, Adam having a superior knowledge in his act of naming each creature, he also had a deep knowledge of the essence of their kind. Thus, the act of naming was also that of knowing each creature, and this would be where the Rabbinics get the perverse notion of Adam having intercourse with each animal at this time, since they connected the act of knowing with the act of mating (as it is said in the Old Testament to refer to coupling of the husband with wife as them “knowing each other”). Through the error of the Rabbis in this case one can see how what is Tradition gets perverted in the decaying or degeneration of Tradition within a group, since one can instead see Adam’s act of knowing and naming as being the coupling of sense impression with concept in his mind for each creature, along with showing us that in the act of knowing there is the desire and longing of the intellect for knowledge (with “Wisdom coming from wonder over nature” as Aristotle tells us). Adam’s knowledge of all of Creation then would have been contained in this language which he spoke, with each word being the “hieroglyph” which contains the knowledge of the different creatures. This knowledge of Nature (called frequently in the world of Tradition as the “Book of Nature”) would then be the understanding of Natural Revelation, and it would also show the religious nature behind such a Natural Revelation (instead of it being knowledge of an Agnostic or Deistic nature as some deniers of Natural Theology in our time assume), also from the understanding of the different creatures an idea of the Great Chain of Being would have been known.

This beginning of language and the “Ursprache” or Primordial Speech of Adam and his descendants till the time of Babel, would have been involved in the understanding of Creation and Natural Theology. It also would have been something that Adam had a creative role in the shaping of such a language, also due to Adam’s knowledge and original naming of Creation coming from a higher form of knowledge this would be where Giambattista Vico, and from Vico to Johann Hamman and Johann Herder, came the idea of both Language and History as being weapons to use against the Enlightenment and those who reduce man’s knowledge and being to only that of an “autonomous reason” (it would also be from this place that one sees both the Counter-Enlightenment and Romanticist thinkers converge on a lot of points with those who are Traditionalists in the sense of René Guénon, Julius Evola, and Ananda Coomaraswamy). This creative use of language in its origin will also relate to the role of creativity, the imagination, and the will in the spiritual practices associated with Hermeticism in the West and will also relate to myth and the role of the “Theologia Poetica” in Antiquity. One’s views of the origin of language (and if it comes from Primordial Tradition or Infused Knowledge or not) will play a huge role in one’s understanding of man and nature. Such accounts of the origin of language such as one finds in Darwin, Marx, or even the Post-Modernists reveals what is the antithesis of the traditional view of the Ursprache, and this has to do with their major differences with how they view the origin and role of man.

Following the Fall and the end of the Golden Age, this knowledge of the Primordial Tradition along with the Ursprache was passed down to Adam’s sons, with the Patriarchs being seen as the “natural priests” of the tribe and the ones to inherit and pass this knowledge down. Those not of Seth’s line would be those who were the first to introduce idolatry to the world along with acts of depravity. The mixing of these two lines with each other led to all of the sons of Seth leaving behind a life of knowledge and godliness for the ignorance and wickedness of the Cainites. The union of such a mixture resulted in the Giants, those strong men of old whose infamy and acts led to the world being covered in tyranny. A result of such occurrence was that the remaining patriarch of Seth’s line and the sole one to preserve Tradition and virtue, Noah, was then tasked with the building of an ark and the preservation of mankind. If one follows the events which follow there is a judgement of God against the wicked and the flooding of the earth, save for Noah and those on the ark with him, and afterwords with the ending of another age the passing into a new in which both a covenant is made with Noah and the command to spread mankind and the Tradition which Noah preserved over the face of the Earth. Following Noah’s death though, this command wasn’t followed as man tried to build a tower to reach to the heaven’s and to avoid spreading over the face of the Earth, in judgement to such a rebellion God had mankind’s Ursprache mixed up with their now being the introduction of a multitude of languages which took from pieces of the previous one (although some believe that Shem being the successor of Noah preserved the original language and that his great grandson Eber passed on this language and which would eventually be known as Hebrew). With the splitting of the Ursprache into different languages we see the knowledge of the Primordial Tradition and the understanding of Nature and of past events and Ages (such as the Golden Age, the loss of such a State, the time until that of the Giants, and of the Universal destruction). This knowledge and History became differentiated into the different myths and languages of the different races of man, with myth being organically connected to these new languages, and the poietic use of such myth to preserve not just what is Euhemerism or History, and not only that which is Allegorical or Philosophical. But instead with Myth and Language functioning in a manner in which there still existed keys to such a Primordial Tradition and the understanding of Nature. Myth ceases to be seen in such a manner when degeneration or disintegration start to take place when the carriers of such myth forget the meaning of them, or when they become corrupted as a society and then corrupt the myths (either by adding false things to them, or by falsely interpreting them). For how the Catholic could understand the role of myth and its relation to Primordial Tradition here is how Geiselmann explains the view of Josef Pieper on the matter; “As historical forms of sacred tradition, Josef Pieper lists: Christian doctrinal tradition, mythical tradition, which he regards as an echo of primitive revelation, and finally, primitive revelation.” (2). Such an understanding of Myth would also come through in the works of the Inklings like Tolkien, Lewis, Barfield, and Williams with their notion of the “True Myth”, and even in the writings of Valentin Tomberg.

Different forms of Revelation

So far Natural Revelation and Primordial Revelation/Tradition have been discussed, and these would be things shared in common with those outside the Church (the former accessible to all men, and the latter as kept and preserved in Traditional forms). To introduce that which distinguishes the Catholic faith from all others would be the notion of Divine Revelation (sometimes also referred to as Supernatural Revelation). Divine Revelation would be the knowledge which God gave to the Prophets of the Old Testament, and which came to a culmination in the figure of the Incarnate Word (i.e. Christ), and His teachings to His Apostles who He gave the assignment to them of propagating and preserving undefiled (and of which He promised which wouldn’t be lost or corrupted). The Revelation given to the Prophets wouldn’t be identical Natural or Primordial Revelation, but it also wouldn’t be contrary to them. On the other hand, it would instead be a building upon that which was known by these two former types, and it would be the Prophetic preparation of the Community of God for the full unveiling of these Mysteries above natural knowledge which would be fully given with the coming and Incarnation of Christ. Such things like the fact of God being Triune (i.e. of Absolute Simplicity and Unity in His Essence, while being Threefold in Hypostases/Personhood), or that the Second Person of the Godhead (i.e. the Word) would become Incarnate and redeem man and the world. We don’t hold these Mysteries as being known through the light of nature upon reason, since this would lead to the error of Semi-Rationalism condemned at Vatican One. We also wouldn’t reject the possibility and reality of Natural Theology and Reason/Philosophy just because it can’t know these Supernatural Mysteries on its own when unillumined by Divine Faith (as both Fideists and Presuppositionalists hold to with their rejecting of Philosophy). There is debate among Church Fathers and Scholastic Doctors on if the Hebrew Prophets themselves fully understood the Mysteries revealed by Christ to the Church, or if these Prophets instead only had a partial illumination to the ideas while mainly giving prophecies which would point to Christ Himself and thus hold the Jews accountable for accepting Christ as the Messiah when He would come. As Christians we don’t want to hold to the errors of the Jews and Mohammedans of viewing Divine Revelation given to the Prophets as just a “republication” of Primordial Tradition again and again with no new revelatory knowledge which would be revealed in the fullness of time with Christ’s coming. The Jewish view would even reach such an absurdity that one can find in Judah Halevi’s al-Kuzari the view of all prophets being Jews and followers of the Mosaic Law or Torah (this even being seen of Abraham). Other religions such as the Hindus and Buddhists (as the Medieval Historian of religions, al-Shahrastani records) (3), didn’t hold to the idea of prophets, but only accepted the idea of Primordial Revelation or Natural Revelation, with only some conceding that the first Man was a Prophet, but after this period there is only Sages and Enlightened figures. The Catholic use of the Traditionalist Method then for understanding whichever religion they are researching or talking to then, would have to do with looking into if such a group only accepts Primordial/Natural Revelation and how well they have done to preserve such a notion of Natural Religion, while when engaging with Jews, Muslims and other sects which accept the Prophet Abraham, the challenge would be showing these groups how they err in their conception of Divine Revelation (and it would also be for this reason why we can refer to these groups as Christian heresies, since they either reject Christ while having prophecies of Him, such as the Jews, or they would accept the figure of Christ while erring in what they think His message and teaching was, such as Manicheans and Muslims). With such said, we now understand how it is that we can see Primordial Tradition and a common traditional worldview in other forms which haven’t degenerated, and how we can do so in a matter which doesn’t lead to religious indifferentism of an Esoteric kind, while also using the study of religions to be an understanding of the different degrees and forms of revelation.

Catholic uses of the Traditionalist Method

What are some historic examples of Catholics using such a Traditionalist Methodology or “Perennialism” then one may ask? When we go to the earliest of centuries, we see Church Fathers like Sts. Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria holding such a view particularly for Socrates and Plato (with Clement also including the likes of Hermes, Orpheus, and Pythagoras) as being figures who adhered to Natural Religion and who by such means prepared the Gentiles of their regions for the arrival of the Christian Faith (with the view of Pythagoras and Plato learning from the Hebrew Prophets being a common view in this time as well). Even pagans affirmed such a Hebraic connection to Greek Philosophy, with Numenius of Apamea saying “What is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic Greek?” (4), and even Iamblichus in his Life of Pythagoras recording the visit of Pythagoras to Mount Carmel (the mountain of the Prophet Elias and his disciples), and that it was regarded as the holiest of all mountains and access was forbidden to most. The Latin Church Fathers such as Tertullian (before his apostasy), Arnobius, St. Hippolytus, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine among others talked about the Sibylline Oracles, Virgil, Hermes, and Ovid in discussing how Roman Tradition preserved Natural Theology while also prefiguring and preparing the Latins for the reception of Christianity. In the East the Syriac Fathers saw Zoroaster and the Magi as having prophecies of the coming Messiah and Him being foretold by a great star. In both the Middle Ages and Renaissance all of these previously mentioned philosophers and sages were commonly referred to when the idea of a “Prisca Theologia” was discussed, which was the term for that time of what in our current usage call the Primordial Tradition as carried on and preserved in different Forms of Natural Religion in Traditional Societies. In a previous article done on Ficino, it was explained how all of the figures mentioned in Ficino’s concept of this “Prisca Theologia” he was aware of from his reading of the Church Fathers and with the only addition being Zoroaster as Plethon explained as such being the author of the Chaldean Oracles. After Pico Della Mirandola there would be the addition of the idea of a Christian interpretation of the Hebraic Cabala to the already existing Prisca Theologia, there would also be an emphasis on the then newly translated Hermetic writings. This Christian Cabalistic and Hermetic emphasis would continue until the work of Athanasius Kircher, who did the most to explain the Orphic and Hermetic (i.e. Ægyptian) origin of this Prisca Theologia. At the time of Kircher there would also be the opening up of the West to the Far East, and this would allow the likes of Ven. Matteo Ricci to see how Neo-Confucianism connects to the idea of the Prisca Theologia, and Ippolito Desideri would do likewise with his Thomistic analysis of the Mahayana system of thought within Tibetan Buddhism. There were also the travels of the famed Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier and his remarks about the virtue of the Japanese people and likewise for the Brahmin caste of the Indians, although he did make notice of how these Brahmins were fine with allowing the lower castes to remain in ignorance of true religion by leaving them to a popular folk religion different from one which they believed in. At this time in Europe there was a renewed interest in the Prisca Theologia of Ficino and Steuco even from Protestants like the Cambridge Platonists, who used such views to combat the modern philosophies of Descartes and Spinoza, and someone like Leibniz would be influenced both by the idea of a Prisca Theologia, the Natural Theology of the Chinese, and of a modern usage of the Llullist Method.

In more modern times there has been the work of the great linguist, Fr. Wilhelm Schmidt, who used Anthropological data to show the belief in a Primordial Monotheism as being the oldest religion of man (and not a starting point in Animism, and from which religion slowly evolved in different stages till it reached a more philosophical view as the Orientalist Max Müller held). There was even the Jesuit missionary, Fr. Augustus J. Thébaud, who in his Gentilism: Religion Previous to Christianity book showed what Primordial Tradition was in different religions around the world, and how such things like a foreshadowing of the Trinity were found even among the Taoists of China. The Spanish priest, Fr. Miguel Asín Palacios, researched the topic of how Sufism influenced such figures as Dante, St. John of the Cross, and St. Theresa of Ávila, and how these three Christianized and elevated that which they saw true in Sufism. Then finally there was the Calcutta School of Indology led principally by Fr. Pierre Johanns and Fr. Richard de Smet, and which worked on showing how Neo-Thomism could understand and integrate the Vedanta (similar to how J. F. Staal showed the similarities and integration of the Vedanta with Neoplatonism) (5).

Conclusion

The closing thoughts on this long-winded article were just to recap that Traditionalism can be used as a method for understanding both traditional societies of the past, and also other religions and their relation to the concept of Tradition. The use of this method doesn’t have to be Subjectivistic in its view of religious dogma, and it also doesn’t have to mean adherence to Universalism or some type of sappy Ecumenism (such as is promoted by the WCC and King Charles III, who identifies as a Perennialist). Such a Subjectivist interpretation is one which a person could hold (along with an Esoteric Religious Indifferentism), but such an interpretation would also be one which other people using the same Traditionalist Method could critique and point to the differences as coming from how Revelation and Tradition is viewed after the giving of Primordial Tradition). Not everything which could be said either on the topic of Traditionalism, it’s Methodology, or even its relation to Catholicism has been mentioned, and other important topics like how Traditionalism relates to History, Politics, Sociology, and Technology for instance could all very well be addressed (and God willing they can be in future posts). Such a Catholic use of Traditionalism would need to both be fully Catholic (in the sense of adhering to orthodox Catholicism as is defined by its dogmas), while also truly seeking to understand the notion of Primordial Tradition and how this has been preserved in the Traditional Forms and Societies of the past. It would also have to be coming from the perspective of a lived religiosity and application of Tradition to one’s own life (so that this doesn’t become a merely theoretical matter, and one not realized in both contemplation and praxis). This is the vision which Ghost of De Maistre seeks to capture and promote.

Footnotes:

1. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, pages 104-105, by Ludwig Ott

2. The Meaning of Tradition, by Josef Rupert Geiselmann

3. The Book of Sects and Creeds, by al-Shahrastani

4. On the Good, by Numenius of Apamea

5. Advaita and Neoplatonism: A Critical Study in Comparative Philosophy, by J. F. Staal