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Patriarchal Innocence

Plinio Corrêa de Oliviera
In the first idea of organic society, there is an idea of a patriarchal spirit, of a patriarchal innocence, so to speak, which makes society naturally and spontaneously move toward what it should attain.

A good spontaneity is one of the fundamental elements of organic society. But for this natural impulse to work well, it is necessary that there be a state of virtue in the society, which in turn requires expiatory victims who are disposed to accept every sacrifice and suffering. Only with this suffering is it possible to redeem the weight of the sins that hover over society and allows organic society to gain some return, some profit on the supernatural sphere. Thus can it receive from God the graces it increasingly needs to maintain and better develop itself.

Maccabees

Patriarchal innocence would require fidelity & militancy; above, the Maccabees

In the Old Testament patriarchal innocence had to engage in a battle, passing through tremendous dangers and running the risk of deterioration and disappearance. How, then, did Divine Providence prepare the anti-toxins for the great fight for fidelity that would come?

Independent of the answer to this question, which we will address another time, what we can see is that the state of patriarchal innocence would pass from one generation to another in the state of fidelity, which requires the states of contemplation and of militancy. These are the stages of patriarchal innocence.

Now, I will raise a hypothesis that we should check in works of good theologians to see if it is correct or not and in agreement with the Catholic doctrine. Depending on the answer, we should confirm or redraft this rough initial notion of patriarchal innocence.

I believe that in the beginning of the Old Testament, man, although tainted by original sin, still retained many good things in his soul. The good that remained in him was much better than the good of today’s innocent man. The innocence of the man of our day is much less splendid than that of the man of patriarchal innocence.

Cain & Abel

Cain & Abel, two different races of men

The model of the patriarchal innocent man is Abel. Today, however, a child who receives Baptism in normal conditions – without considering a special vocation – has an innocence that is much less rich than the innocence of Abel.

How was Abel’s innocence? It was an innocence that still retained much of the paradisiacal. We know that original sin changed the entire nature of man, but the human soul did not deteriorate immediately or completely. Some parts of the soul were less affected, less adulterated, and still maintained certain analogies with the state of innocence in Paradise.

Properly speaking, Cain and Abel were the fathers of two races of men who will continue until the end of the centuries. They represent the Revolution and the Counter-Revolution: Cain the Revolution, and Abel the Counter-Revolution.

The innocence of Abel – Holy Scriptures describes it to us – was admirable and sweet at the same time that it was very strong and rich. Insofar as History decayed, the Abels who were born – in the normal economy of the grace – were each time less good than that original Abel, but the Cains became increasingly worse than the original Cain.

I believe that in the economy of the Latter Times, God will invert this rule, not through the natural law of succession, but by a special intervention of God.

The role of the masters

When an individual has much of Abel within himself – that is, he has this patriarchal innocence we are discussing – he has an understanding and sense of what true virtue and true sanctity are. Abel, illuminated by grace, would be able to discover in his own nature the Law of the Ten Commandments and describe it to others. He would be able to strongly love certain gifts he had and to see them with a great clarity, which would give him the facility to describe them to others. From this discernment and action would come his role of master.

When the Abels had stopped teaching these principles, when the Commandments were no longer inscribed in the human soul, God revealed the Law to Moses. The world no longer produced masters of the old type who could discern the Law in themselves.

Centuries later God would send an Infallible Church to interpret those principles so that the micro-Abels who would be born then could fight valiantly for the Law. But these Abels were no longer able to describe them based on the lights of their own souls. They would need a Revelation to know the full Truth, accept it with enthusiasm, and then enter the fight.

Obviously, Revelation would be necessary even if all the Abels of the Old Testament would have been faithful, since Our Lord came to give us mysteries that were entirely inaccessible to our human intelligence, such as the existence of the Most Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the Transubstantiation in the Eucharist, to mention only a few.

The hegemony of the two races

So then, there is a fundamental phenomenon that exists in History: There are certain epochs when we perceive that there are more Abels or micro-Abels, and this creates an enormous impulse favoring the Counter-Revolution. In other epochs the Abels decrease, and then the Cains acquire strength.

In this interplay of roles, either the predominance of an undefined general mindset favorable to the Revolution or one favorable to the Counter-Revolution appears. The number of micro-Abels increases or decreases according to special circumstances that we will not analyze here.

Two types of innocence

When we speak about Abel’s innocence, or patriarchal innocence, we still need to distinguish two types of innocence among the good.

Abraham

The Patriarchs of old had God’s Law in their hearts

One is the innocence of a man who did not sin against it, but rather loved and conserved it all his life. This man can become a saint.

Another is the innocence proper to the counter-revolutionary. He also did not destroy his innocence and he also loved it. But different from the first type, he hated the enemies who want to destroy innocence and destroy the society related to it – that is, Christendom. He explicitly affirmed that these enemies are affiliated in a movement to reach that goal. He engaged in a full-time fight to raze those enemies and restore a world in which innocence is the victor.

The man of innocence of this latter type is characterized by special counter-revolutionary acumen to not only recognize evil and its malice, but also how to attack it and destroy it. This patriarchal innocence, then, is the true counter-revolutionary.  

Posted August 26, 2024

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