Julius Evola: Pagan Imperialism and Prot-Slop Rhetoric
How Fundamental Misunderstandings of Christianity Influence Evola
This is a short article, by no means an in-depth study of “Pagan Imperalism”. I hope to simply highlight the fundamental shortcomings of Evola’s understanding of Christianity.
It is no secret that I am an avid reader and student of Julius Evola, I wish he had a greater influence on the modern world than he currently does; and I hope his influence continues to grow. But as a Christian, Evola must be read with caution, and for that reason he is not suitable for all Christian’s to read. I for my part, do not recommend Evola to just any Christian; only those who have a robust theological education and will not be influenced by his anti-Christian rhetoric. But for those who can follow in the footsteps of St. John of Damascus, Evola is one enemy that we can gather many fruits of salvation from. It is the responsibility of those who have the capacity to do so, to read and digest Evola and other anti-Christian thinkers and synthesize the information and teach it in an explicitly Christian way. We have an obligation to not put stumbling blocks in front of fellow Christians, and in a time when the neo-pagan train is gaining momentum, and the vast majority of American “Christianity” is crumbling; Evola’s arguments for traditionalism can easily sway those without real theological convictions and education away from Christianity.
When we examine one of Evola’s most important works, “Pagan Imperialism” —perhaps second only to “Revolt Against the Modern World”— we find a lot of good, but with the good, there is plenty of bad. The bad is primarily his anti-Christian views, which should come as no surprise when we know the title. But what is surprising is the low IQ arguments against traditional forms of Christianity, they are the same arguments that we have grown accustomed to hearing from James White and our Baptist grandpa’s.
Evola was Italian and obviously born into the Catholic Church. I have heard competing accounts as to whether he died outside of communion with the Catholic Church, I won’t speculate further. What is important is that Evola saw traditional forms of Christianity as a synthesis between Paganism and a new “Christian” religion, and he viewed Protestantism as return to a primitive Christianity:
“Now let us move forward to the Reformation. The Reformation was a return to primitive Christianity against a limit of paganization reached, with humanism, by the Catholic Church. Protestant intransigence ended the Catholic compromise and thus profoundly advanced the anti-empire direction… This direction has rapidly absorbed the Anglo-Saxon countries and today also aims at achieving its own form of ‘catholicity’, antithetical to that of pagan Rome which survived, in a dim form, in the Catholic Church…
In conclusion, the Reformation gave rise to a coherent position that separates from the Christian-pagan core presented by the Catholic countries the Christian aspect…”- Julius Evola, “Pagan Imperisalism”
This synthesis of Paganism and Christianity is what Evola thought made Traditional forms of Christianity superior to Protestantism; more traditional. In one sense it is true that traditional forms of Christianity (Orthodoxy and Traditional Catholicism) are more traditional than Protestantism; but to attribute that traditionalism to a synthesis of Jesus and Paganism is to be just plainly ignorant of Church history and to buy into prot-slop apologetics against traditional Christianity. “Oh you pray to saints? Thats just because you wanted to get the pagans to agree with you, so you adopted some of their practices”- random protestant apologist. If Evola could have read Fr. Stephen DeYoung’s “Religion of the Apostles” perhaps he would have realized his mistake.
This radical misunderstanding of the nature of traditional Christianity undoubtedly leads at least some towards more the more ancient “paganism” of the West. It is concerning that one of the most prominent authors in the Pagan world, and one of their most influential works, critiques Christianity on such sloppish grounds. Now, to give some grace to Evola, he lived in quite an unfortunate time as a Catholic. Born in 1898 and dying in the year 1974, he experienced the immediate effects of Vatican 1 and lived through Vatican 2 (yes, anyone would be hyper critical of Christianity if you lived in Italy during those years). This is not to say Evola is without blame for his paganism, absolutely not; but Catholicism post V1 is just plain garbage, and completely anti-traditional. But it isn’t just Evola who rejected Christianity; Rene Guenon moved to Egypt and became a Sufi, there is a trend among the Traditionalist circles.
Obviously there is high praise due to traditionalists, Alexander Dugin in “Politcal Platonism” highlights many of the pros to the traditionalists. But we do need to be weary of the low IQ arguments against Christianity, that even the best traditionalists such as Evola use. I tend to identify as a Traditionalist, but I am also a Christian and my goal is to show that Christianity is truly “Traditional”. Not as a synthesis of paganism and Jesus, but as the continuation of the ancient religion of Noah and Abraham. I was surprised when I first read “Pagan Imperialism” and encountered the same prot-slop that I had grown accustomed to from “American Christians”, it really is just slop. This is not the place for an apologetic for practices such as Intercession of the saints or icon veneration, but if you are looking for in-depth work on those topics, I recommend Fr. Stephen DeYoung’s “Religion of the Apostles”, or even Jay Dyers YouTube channel perhaps (although I have some issues with it, on some topics he’s simply really good).
Some of Evola’s critiques or modern “Christianity” are spot-on:
“Christianity —note well— is not what survives today as the Christian religion, which is merely a dead stump cut off from its deeper impetus. After dismantiling the structure of Rome, it was Christianity that, through the Reformation, infected the race of the blond Germanic barbarians and then penetrated even further down, tenacious and invisible. Today, Christianity is present in European liberalism and democracy and in all the fruits of the French Revolution —up to anarchism and Bolshevism. Christianity is present today in the very structure of the modern type of society —the Anglo-Saxon— and also in science, in law, and in the illusion of power in technology. In all of this, the leveling will, the will of the masses, the hatred towards hierarchy, quality, and difference, and the impersonal collective bond made of mutual insufficiency, proper to the organization of a race of rebellious slaves equally persists.”- Julius Evola, “Pagan Imperialism”
These critiques of Christianity are the means by which Evola brings Christians to his side. And while they may be correct as far as they go, they are fundamentally wrong and must be opposed where they are wrong. It is natural to have a low view of Christianity when you view modern Christianity as a return to the real primitive Christianity of Jesus Christ; if that were the case than Christianity would suck. But it isn’t the case. Modern Protestantism is a break from Traditional forms of Christianity; traditional Christianity is the religion of Jesus Christ; highlighting that fact has been my goal of this publication.
There is more to say here, but that is for a different article. For now, suffice it to say that Evola’s concept of what Christianity is, is fundamentally wrong. And while he may have vastly read the Church Fathers (he does quote some), he was not an authority of Christian theology. I hope that Evola’s influence grows, but I hope with more fervor that his anti-Christian apologetics are opposed, and that true, traditional Christianity would reign in the West. Further, it should be concerning for pagans that the rhetoric employed by the most influential modern pagan against Christianity misses the mark to such an extent. With that said, I will continue to read and learn from Evola and be a honey bee; taking the good and leaving the bad.
I disagree with Evola on most things and I think he is a brilliant retard, but he said that Protestantism is a break from primitive Christianity, I agree and disagree. Protestantism is an inherently Germanic/Faustian interpretation of early Christianity, it would have been somewhat foreign to early Christians, however, It saw itself as a break from Rome which after 1500 years developed a lot of accretions and tertiary beliefs made dogmas.
I think his main gripe with Protestantism is its break from the Imperial Magesterium. As an Italian, he viewed the Roman Catholic church as the successor to Rome and that it is what civilized the blond germanic barbarians, in my opinion, the Protestant Reformation is a repitition of Roman empire's collapse, as it was a Germanic revolt and the unruly "barbarians" didn't want to be ruled by Italians in the 5th century and 16th century. It directly undermines his narrative of civilization flows from the Mediterranean.
I agree with your assessment on his beliefs about the state of Christianity, but I disagree with most of what Evola says on the matter as most of his criticism, and it seems to be a trend in all major philosophers after Kirkegaard, who believe the institutions of Christianity were collapsing and in decay, it was not so much the beliefs they were critiquing as much as it was the institutional structures that were being attacked. However, with Schopenhauer's existentialism and nihilism critiques became both the beliefs and structure and most schools of modern thought fall into Kirkegaard or Schopenhauer's line of thought, Evola falling into the latter's.
You make broad, generalized states about how Evola is “wrong” but rarely describe why.