There can be no doubt as to the fact that in his famous work “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, Edward Gibbon refers to introduction of Christianity as one of the major factors that had brought about the fall of Roman Empire. However, it is important to understand that, in his book, he does not idealize this factor, as some historians suggest. The conceptual essence of “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” can be expressed as follows – in 4th and 5th centuries A.D., Roman citizens were being subjected to racial marginalization, which in its turn, was depriving them of idealistic traits of their character. As a logical consequence, Romans were becoming more likely to accept just about any set of religious beliefs, which they thought of as being exotic enough – in other words, it was not the adoption Christianity, which had resulted in spiritual corruption of Roman citizens, but their unhealthy preoccupation with exploring what they referred to as “eastern exotics”: “In the actions of these desperate enthusiasts (Christian martyrs), who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God, and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial philosopher may discover the influence and the last abuse of that inflexible spirit which was originally derived from the character and principals of the Jewish nation” (Gibbon, Ch. 21).
Ever since the strong socio-economic contacts have been established between the Roman Empire and the countries of Orient in 2nd century A.D., Roman patricians have been introduced to the taste of luxury, which eventually resulted in Rome’s elites becoming solely preoccupied with accumulation of material riches, as something that had value in itself. In other words, people that were supposed to stand on the guard of Rome’s traditional spiritual values, associated with the concepts of one’s loyalty to its social duties, military valor and antique aesthetics, were being slowly instilled with Asiatic mentality, which considers individual’s social status (wealth) as such that reflects his or her existential worth: “The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. But when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia” (Gibbon, Ch.17)
As we are all well aware of, the doctrine of Christianity is based on the concept of “redemption of sins”, which in its turn, points out at its unmistakably Eastern origins, because it is only Asians who are being born with genetically predetermined conviction that their misdeeds can be “redeemed” with the mean of monetary donations. Even today, the scale of governmental corruption in many Arab countries remains unsurpassed, simply because Eastern mentality tends to idealize money and family relations as self-sustained categories. It would never occur to Republican Romans that their sins could be “redeemed”, because every sin draws a series of effects, which remain the part of objective reality, regardless of whether the original sin has been “forgiven” or not.
Ever since 3rd century A.D., the continuous influx of racially foreign elements into Roman society has reached amazing proportions – Roman Emperors of the time were simply incapable of preventing the hordes of barbarians from settling within Empire’s borders, where they would begin “celebrating diversity” by corrupting the biological makeup of original founders of great Roman civilization. In his book “The Passing of the Great Race”, Madison Grant says: “The marvelous organization of the Roman state made use of the services of Nordic mercenaries, and kept the Western Empire alive for three centuries after the blood of the ancient Romans had virtually ceased to exist. The date when the population of the Empire had become predominantly of Mediterranean and Oriental blood, due to the introduction of slaves from the east and the wastage of Italian blood in war, coincides with the establishment of the Empire under Augustus, and the last Republican patriots represent the final protest of the old patrician Nordic strain” (Grant, Part II, Ch.9). In other words, the Constantine’s legitimization of Christianity in 313 A.D., was not simply the fluke of history – such his deed corresponded to a fact that by 4th century
A.D., the representatives of Roman elites had been largely deprived of their former existential idealism. The book “March of Titans: A History of White Race”, provides us with the insight on what were the true reason for the decline and fall of Roman Empire: “Once again, as had been the case with every great civilization before it, Rome fell because the original people who created the Empire disappeared: submerged into a mass of foreigners – replaced by immigrants and the descendants of slaves brought in from all over North Africa, the wider Mediterranean and the Middle and Near East” (March of Titans, Ch. 16). Therefore, we do agree with the premise that the introduction of Christianity alone, could not possibly have resulted in undermining Rome’s national integrity; however, in his book Gibbon never refers to the “religion of redemption” as being solely responsible for Roman citizens’ being deprived of the remains of their “existential masculinity”.
He simply suggests that the fact that Constantine had given Christianity an official status, serves as one among many indications that by 4th century A.D., the racial marginalization of Roman society had effectively sealed the fate of an Empire, well before Rome was being sacked by Gothic barbarians in 546 A.D. The very context of “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” implies that such situation became possible due to Romans’ spiritual corruption, which in its turn, came as a result of Roman citizens mixing their Nordic blood with the blood of non-White barbarians. This is the reason why, even though Catholic clergy has condemned Gibbon’s work as “ungodly” and “evil”, Protestants have a different outlook on “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”. In his article “A Further Irony: Apocalyptic Readings of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, Stephen David Snobelen comes up with the suggestion that there is no unity among those who consider themselves Christians, as to what Gibbon really had in mind, when he was pointing out at unsightly role, played by Christianity, within a context of Roman Empire growing ever weaker and eventually collapsing: “When the first volume of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire appeared in 1776, it met with a largely hostile reaction among clergymen and Christian apologists.
Over the succeeding years, however, as the flames of the controversy subsided, new approaches to Gibbon began to appear: strategies of appropriation and Christianization” (Snobelen, p. 390). Author explains this by essentially an overall Protestant sounding of Gibbon’s work: “Gibbon’s attitude towards the corruptions of ecclesiastical institutionalization bear a strong resemblance to the views of Protestant interpreters” (Snobelen, p. 391). The reason for this is simple – Protestantism is nothing but a quasi-religious sublimation of White people’s racial psyche, which appears as being absolutely rationalistic, in its essence. In his book “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”, Max Weber reveals the fact that it is not by pure coincidence that the scientific progress, associated with Industrial Revolution, has been pushed forward by namely the Protestants: “A glance at the occupational statistics of any country of mixed religious composition brings to light with remarkable frequency a fact that that business leaders and owners of capital, as well as the higher grades of skilled labour, and even more the higher technically and commercially trained personnel of modern enterprises, are overwhelmingly Protestant” (Weber, Ch. 1). Moreover, the traditionally Protestant countries have always been the ones with the highest percentage of Nordics, among its populations – Britain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, and Norway.
This is because it is in the very nature of racially pure Nordic individual to actually seek God within itself, as opposed to relying on Semitic religious texts, as such that can provide White people with the insight on the concept of divinity. The emergence of Protestantism in Europe corresponded to the fact that, from 16th century onwards, more and more people in Europe were realising themselves as being fully capable utilising their rationale, as the tool of gaining social prominence, rather then relying on “God’s graces”, as Catholics do. Protestants do not need God as their ultimate benefactor, but rather as some distant authority that does not intervene in their lives actively. Whatever the ironic it might sound, Protestants are not really religious people, in classic context of this word, and the reason for this is that they are overwhelmingly White. In its turn, this explains the fact why even today, Protestants strongly oppose the practice of racial mixing, unlike Catholics.
Moreover, it also explains Protestants’ strongly defined distaste of Roman Empire in time of its decline – apparently, the decadent Rome of 4th-5th centuries A.D., reminds them a contemporary America, which is being invaded by hordes of barbarians from Third World countries (“multiculturalism”), as we speak. In his article “The Second Fall of Rome”, Michael Lind states: “American Protestants thought of the ancient Romans as an evil and dissolute people whose favourite pastime was watching Christians being fed to lions in the Coliseum. In the popular mind, hard-bodied Greeks exercised; fat Romans lay on couches nibbling grapes between orgies. The lesson of Roman history seemed clear: if you have too much fun, you will be wiped out by invading barbarians and exploding volcanoes. In Protestant America, Rome symbolized not only pagan immorality but tyrannical big government” (Lind, p. 50). In its turn, such our suggestion points out to the contextual meaning of “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” as such that does not refer to Christianity as the actual diagnosis of Rome’s downfall, but rather as its symptom.
The reasons why in 456 A.D., Gothic barbarians had simply walked into the Rome and declared it their property, with the last Roman Emperor Romulus Augustulus proving himself absolutely incapable to put up any effective resistance, have been discussed from a variety of different sociological, economical and geopolitical perspectives. For example, many historians firmly believe that it were barbarian invasions, which had brought about Rome’s downfall, without bothering to explain why it was namely in 4th-5th centuries A.D., when these barbarians had acquired a particularly strong taste for crossing Roman borders, whereas few centuries earlier, the mere mentioning of Roman Legion, would strike fear into the hearts of these barbarians.
Other historians point out at economic ineffectiveness of slave labor, as the true reason for Rome’s decline, while suggesting that by 5th century A.D., Rome’s economy could no longer compete with the economies of such highly “civilized” countries as Persia, which utilized slave labor even to a larger extent, as compared to Roman Empire. Apparently, it never occurred to such historians that slave labor cannot not possibly be ineffective, simply because it is free – it has only taken 10 years for Soviet Union (1930-1940), to be transformed from underdeveloped, agrarian country, into second most powerful world’s nation (after U.S.), while solely relying on exploitation of slave labor (GULAG). In other words, the mentioned approaches to explaining what caused the most powerful Empire that ever existed on the face of the Earth to crumble down like a stack of cards, lack universality. Therefore, it is only the application of racially-biological outlook on the history of Roman Empire, which can provide us with the clue as to the innermost reasons why Empire’s collapse became possible, in the first place.
As we have mentioned earlier, by 5th century A.D., Rome’s civil virtues have undergone a dramatic transformation, from such that used to derive out people’s inborn sense of existential idealism, to such that served as simply the extrapolation of these people’s irrational sense of greed. What makes a person an idealist? It is such person’s ability to operate with highly abstract categories and his or her tendency to think of these categories as such that directly relate to its existence. For example, some people do adjust their behaviour to highly idealist notions of “honour” or “nobleness” and some do not. In its turn, one’s sense of perceptional idealism directly relates to person’s inborn intellectual capabilities. For example, as it has been illustrated in Tatu Vanhanen and Richard Lynn’s groundbreaking book “IQ and the Wealth of Nations”, the people’s average rate of IQ in such countries as Equatorial Guinea of Central African Republic, equals 45, which explains why, prior to arrival of European explorers, African Blacks were not able to evolve beyond the Stone Age, while indulging in never-ending tribal war and while practicing cannibalism, as their full-time occupation.
People’s vocabulary in mentioned countries amounts to 300-500 words, with the complete absence of verbal significants that would correspond to the meaning of abstract concepts. This also explains why so-called “Ebonics” language contains twenty differently sounding synonyms for word “cocaine”, and none for such words as “metaphysics”, “spirit” or “idealism”. In other words, people’s inborn sense of idealism, which creates a precondition for the emergence of culture and science, directly relates to their racial affiliation – the more people are being affected by racial mixing, the more their animalistic urges are likely to define these people’s behavior and the less these people are capable of relying on their sense of rationale, while facing life’s challenges. For example, the drop out rate among Hispanic students in America’s high schools reaches 45%. The environmental factors can hardly be blamed for such state of affairs. Hispanic and Black students simply have a lower ability of operating with highly abstract categories, which in its turn, makes them more likely to seek instant gratification, as the very purpose of their lives – the reason these students drop out of school is because they want to pursue the careers of drug dealers. They want to become instantly rich, without having to apply much of an effort.
The situation with racially corrupted Romans in 4th-5th centuries A.D. was virtually the same. Even by the beginning of 4th century A.D., the bulk of Roman citizens consisted of crowds of degenerates, who were solely preoccupied with indulgence in perverse sex and with attendance of “gladiator shows”. These people used to purposelessly roam among Rome’s great buildings, built by their ancestors, without being able to understand how this was possible, in the first place. At this time, there was only one way for Roman Emperors to win public support – by continuing to stage ever-more graphic and bloodier gladiator shows. Only a direct onslaught on citizens’ senses could revitalize them for a while. The degenerate Romans in 5th century A.D., preoccupied with “celebration of diversity”, were simply incapable of paying attention to the news of social or political importance, unless they sensed that such news somehow related to entertainment. “Bread and Entertainment” became the motto of the time: “Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendor of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch.
The arts of luxury were honored; the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the capital of the East. The love of spectacles was the taste, or rather passion, of the Syrians: the most skilful artists were procured form the adjacent cities; a considerable share of the revenue was devoted to the public amusements; and the magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was considered as the happiness, and as the glory” (Gibbon, Ch. 24). Spiritually corrupted Romans were no longer capable of defending their country, which is why they would resort to hiring barbarians as mercenaries, or to simply paying the same barbarians with gold, so that they would leave them alone for a while: “The citizens and subjects had purchased an exemption from the indispensable duty of defending their country, which was supported by the arms of barbarian mercenaries” (Gibbon, Ch. 30). After having served in Roman Army, barbarians were being given Roman citizenship, with Rome’s Emperors naively thinking that the possession of such citizenship, on the part of these barbarians, would automatically turn them into Roman patriots.
They could not possibly be more wrong – non-White barbarians with Roman citizenship used to hate Roman Empire with the same passion as Muslims, with American passports in their pockets, now hate America. The chapter “The Fall of Rome – Triumph of the Slaves”, in the book “March of the Titans”, from which we have already quoted, states: “The ease with which this (sacking of Rome) was accomplished serves as an excellent indicator of how the power of Rome had declined along with its original population. The city, populated by large numbers of mixed race and Middle Eastern types thrown in amongst the remnants of the original Roman people, were either unwilling or simply unable to put up a defense in the tradition of the past glories of Rome. The city of Caesar became a stamping ground for anyone who wanted to try their luck at a bit of looting” (March of the Titans, Ch. 19). Thus, the ultimate reason for the downfall of Roman Empire can be best defined the corruption of Roman citizens’ biological makeup, which deprived them of idealistic traits of their character. The validity of this thesis becomes self-evident when we draw parallels between ancient Rome in time of its decline and contemporary America, which is nothing but the “Roman Empire” of modern times.
The realities of post-industrial era, associated with Western countries being set on the path of becoming “multicultural”, suggest that it is no longer possible to assess America’s current geopolitical might, by resorting to traditional political and military theories. For example, a single American aircraft carrier, such as USS Ronald Reagan, is capable of reducing any middle-sized country into the Stone Age, in the matter of half an hour. At the same time, as recent history shows, it might only take one electric blackout in one of America’s large cities, to trigger the process of this country being plunged into the state of social chaos (diversity makes us stronger!), with majority of “ethnically unique” citizens becoming solemnly preoccupied with looting, as it was the case in New Orleans, in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Today’s America follows the footsteps of corrupt Roman Empire with utter exactness. It relies solely on its superior military technology, as such that allows it to effectively deal with geopolitical challenges, while continuing to grow ever-weaker from within, thanks to the fact that hysterical promoters of neo-Liberalism had succeeded in depriving majority of Americans of spiritual qualities, which allowed their ancestors to build and to maintain a civilization in the New World.
Apparently, history does repeat itself. However, given the fact that nowadays, the rise of informational technologies made it possible for information to be instantly transferred from one corner of the globe to another, it is only natural for the spiral of history to twist ever-tighter. Whereas, it has taken a few centuries for the Roman Empire to be deprived of its national integrity, due to its citizens’ preoccupation with “celebration of diversity”, the process of America loosing the remains of its former might, might be completed within a matter of 20-30 years, if crazed promoters of “multiculturalism” are not being removed from position of power. This is the reason why Gibbon’s book “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” has already been banned from many public libraries in Britain and why it is only the matter of very short time, before it will be banned from public libraries in U.S. – apparently, the hawks of political correctness are well aware of the fact that the reading of this particular book prompt readers to draw parallels between what caused the decline and fall of Roman Empire and what causes the decline of the West, as we speak.
Bibliography
Gibbon, E. [1776] 2001. The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Web.
Lind, M. (2000). The Second Fall of Rome. The Wilson Quarterly. (24)1, 46-59.
Madison, G. [1916] 2003. The Passing of the Great Race. The Church of Israel. Web.
March of Titans: A History of White Race. 2008. Ostara Publications. White History.Com. Web.
Snobelen, S. (1998) A Further Irony: Apocalyptic Readings of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Canadian Journal of History. (33)3, 387-416.
Weber, M. [1905] 2000. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. American Studies at the University of Virginia. Web.
Vanhanen, T. and Lynn, R. (2002). IQ and the Wealth of Nations. London: Praeger Publishers.