#without the imperial oppression/tithing

[phoenixyfriend]

The older I get, the more I understand how much of my take on certain topics (now including Star Wars, particularly the genocide of the Jedi and the many civil wars of the Mandalorians) stems directly from Balkan Cultural Trauma.

Like. There is not a way to really explain my feelings on Mandalorian imperial history and the genocide of the Jedi without getting into things like (and this has links because I do not have the energy in me to explain everything in detail because it's just so much shit, people do entire doctorates on just tiny parts of any given one of these):

five hundred years of Ottoman oppression of the region (especially the blood tithe of devshirme and its role in the Janissary slave army; the English Wikipedia article is significantly kinder about the practice than the Balkans remember it being), and the rise of nationalism in the wake of its dissolution

the attempted genocide of the Serbs in Croatia in WWII (the Nazi regime of Croatia operated the third-largest concentration camp in Europe, and targeted ethnic Serbs more than all other groups combined, resulting in several hundred thousand dead Serbs at the hands of far-right Croats and Bosniaks, with records kept so poorly that estimates range from 200k to 500k, all committed without the use of mass extermination tools due to lack of adequate equipment), which most of the Western world has no idea about but features heavily in my own family's history

the attempted genocide of Croats and Muslims in greater Yugoslavia by the Chetniks in WWII (far-right Serb nationalists and Yugoslav royalists, resulting in the deaths of about 55k-73k Croats and Muslims)

the same shit happening in the 90s, once again on the same religious/ethnic divides (basically the same thing in the Balkans, a large number of conservative parties are of the opinion that a Serb who converts to Catholicism is now ethnically a Croat, and if they convert to Islam they are now ethnically a Bosnian/a Bosniak), resulting in tens of thousands of Bosniaks dead at the hands of Serb nationalists, and upwards of a million displaced. (Bosnian and Croatian forces also engaged in war crimes against each other and Serbs, but to a much smaller degree.)

The entire mess that is Kosovo, where even I can't really start to explain what's going on because it's been going on for so many years in so many directions and it's probably another 'the Ottomans fucked everyone over and then we turned around and went for each others' throats after they were finally gone'

Within that context, you have all this bullshit about propaganda fed to the people by the government, propaganda fed to the outside world to shift over international perception of the events, propaganda used to help the outside world forget about a horrific historic war crime, arguments about which nationalist attitudes were a direct result of Ottoman oppression instead of a later development, which current conflicts can be traced back to Ottoman oppression and who resisted versus who cooperated, who lied about what, who initiated what, which crimes can be attributed to a rogue military and which to the government, which crimes were supported by the population and which were supported only by the wealthy or high ranking, about what even actually happened, about who even actually died, about how many things were initiated by outside forces since there are theories that the CIA helped kick off or at least inflame the many conflicts of the 90s and 00s--

And I was raised in America, and have tried to do independent research every time my parents told me a story about history because I don't want to trust the words of two people on the history of millions, and it's always so much more complicated than you think.

Except for two rules, really, which is that almost everything traces back to the Ottomans fucking us over, and the Rroma always suffered for everyone else's bullshit even though they weren't involved in the conflicts in the first place.

[thevikingwoman]

Couldn't get the thought of Meryta and Tansui having a fling out of my head, so here we are. Stormblood spoilers.

Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV | Words: 2085 | Read on Ao3

After freeing Isari village and Gosetsu, the group decides to stay the night for a celebration in the village. The Warrior of Light; finds brief relief in the arms of kindred spirit Tansui.

Meryta Khatin x Tansui | After MSQ Tide Goes In, Imperials Go Out Rating: Explict. Sexual content, outdoors sex, fling, au ra scale sensitivity headcanons, slight timeline divergence, ode to Tansui's hair I guess

Under Familiar Stars

Someone has lit a bonfire at the beach, and there are plenty of people drinking and bragging, a release after the dread of oppression. Kicking the Empire out of their waters, and Isari, feels good, and she suspects especially for the Confederacy to feel at home in their own waters again. The wounded taken care of, and the fighters resting, many have chosen to remain here for the evening rather than return to Onokoro.

Their gambit worked, and it’s not as if she’s surprised – it had to work, but that it worked so well is very good. It would have been better had they captured the viceroy, but all in all the outcome is as good as she can hope for.

She walks through the people on the beach, young pirates and villagers sitting in the sand. Someone has pulled out a Shamisen and plays a happy tune, someone else is singing along.

Neither Lyse, Alisaie, or Gostetsu are with them, and perhaps they’ve already made their way to the beds the innkeep offered. They’re setting out early next morning; it was only on Alisaie’s insistence Gotsetsu relented to take a night’s rest.

She checks the porch in front of the inn, and she doesn’t find them there, and not many other people. Most have joined the revelry at the beach. She does find Tansui, leaning against the railing, an empty cup in his hands.

“Meryta,” he says.

“Tansui.”

She comes to stand next to him.

“So, things did work out for you. Mark you, I’m glad it did, you and the little Miss’s plan.”

“It had to work,” Meryta replies. “And you all did your part, too.”

“Only after –” he pauses, and looks directly at her. “Is that how things are for you? Just…” He snaps his fingers and gestures vaguely.

She thinks over the question. She does impossible things, with the crystal’s blessing and all that comes with it, whether she understands it or not. Another day and another primal dispersed. But not just that, and she thinks of Aymeric drawing his bow against Estinien possessed without a pause, about Papalymo telling her to leave, Ysayle falling from the sky. The dead bodies at Rhaelgar’s Reach and the blood in her mouth as Zenos rounded on her. (She doesn’t think of Haruchefant, dead on walkway, the fading light in his eyes)

“Not at all,” she says. But the truth is; they’ve won enough, whether in the crystals light or by the whim of an old dragon. “Sometimes. Often enough,” she amends.

“I can’t believe it. Glad am I you came here.”

The wind blows freshly from the seas. Tansui’s braid has loosened, the purple strands whipping about his nape. She tied her own hair back again earlier, a mess after the storms called by the Lord of Revel. She has the sudden desire to unravel his more, to see it falling loosely around his face, to run her fingers through it.

“Walk with me,” she says on impulse. She’ll miss him, and the boldness of his convictions.

They descend the stairs from the inn together, and walk away from the village and the people. The air smells like sea and salt. They reach the shore, the sea lapping at their feet.

“The Ruby Seas are yours,” Meryta says, gesturing to the dark waves. It’s incidental to why they’re here, but she’s happy it turned out this way. Despite their initial distance, she finds she likes the Confederacy pirates. The Ruby Tithe seems a way to maintain a balance here, but mostly they are just a comfortable and uncomplicated group.

“At least until the Empire turns it’s gaze upon us again.”

“Hopefully not too soon. We need security at our backs for what we need to do.”

Hopefully the Empire and the Viceroy will never gain a foothold here again, and they’ll succeed in all they need to do. For Lyse. For Raubahn. For Yugiri and her people.

“Did you bring me here to demand more from us?”

“No, just for a walk. I’m but thankful for all you did, and I’m glad you were here.”

“Were you now,” Tansui says, and he smiles. Meryta looks away.

Together they make it up from the beach towards the grass and trees. They talk quietly about the Confederacy and the delicate balance of nations around the Ruby Seas, and how the Garleans disturbed it, scorching all in their path. They meander their way past the fishing huts and up in the hills behind.  She tells a little of Eorzea and her adventures, but mostly she turns the conversation to the Ruby Seas and the rhythm of the land and sea.

Mertya looks up and the stars are familiar, constellations in sky aligned in well-known positions from her childhood. The constellations are the same, but their placements in the sky are different half a world away. They’ve fallen silent now, Tansui follows her gaze up at the heavens.

She can’t help looking back at him, her eyes roaming down his neck and his chest, his haori sliding to reveal more of it. There’s a thin line of blood with a bruise blooming around it which she didn’t notice before. It’s likely the nick of sword.

“You’re injured,” she murmurs. Unbidden, she reaches for him. She doesn’t have much aether left from all the ordeals today, but perhaps she has enough, reaching for those stars above –

“Nothing serious.” Tansui smiles at her, his dark eyes tender in the moonlight. “There’s no need, unless - is that an excuse to touch me?”

She places her whole hand on his chest.

“Perhaps.”

The crisp air stills, and they’re alone, far from everyone else and Tansui’s hands land on her hips. He bends his head as she reaches up, both of them drawn to the spark between them. His lips are chapped, tasting like sea salt and battle, his beard delightfully rough against her skin. She groans and draws him closer, slipping her hands around his neck. They kiss hungrily, deeper, and she buries her hands in his hair, her desire to unravel it still in her mind.

Panting, they lean their foreheads against each other. She toys with hairs at his nape and leans in again, kissing him slower this time, savoring the taste of him. She brings her lips to his jaw, his beard scratching her lips, and she groans when his fingers carefully slide along her horns.

“Meryta, come. Let us celebrate our victory beneath the stars.”

There’s a question in his eyes, and when she nods, he leads them a little further uphill, then spreads his haoki on the ground, and pulls her down with him for a lazy kiss on the ground.

He has her undressed shortly, where they lay, and his hands are on her, tracing her scales across her hips and her belly. His touch is firm and bold, and she can’t help the sigh that escapes her as she reaches for him. His chest is firm and warm, old scars and new bruises. She makes short work of his pants too, the sea air embracing them.

She kisses him, and puts her fingers through his hair, finally unraveling it completely. Tansui’s hands wander back around her waist, and she gasps when one of them finds the base of her tail and strokes. He grins and does it again, his other hand cupping her sex.

“You do like that, hm?”

“Yes,” she hisses, hands roaming his body without focus. All she can feel is him, stroking the sensitive scales at the base of tail, now gripping the top of it, letting go. His other hand is busy too, finding the wetness between her legs. She gasps and she wants, grateful for a lover who’s been with an auri before, someone without shyness or questions.

He slides one finger between her slit, finding her clit. Another adds pressure, and she bucks her hips towards him. Her own hands slide lower, through the coarse hair on Tansui’s belly, following its trail lower still. Her fingers brush against his cock and it’s his turn to groan. Pleased, she takes him in hand, pushing herself towards him once more. She almost let go of him when he slides one finger into her, and his other hand down and up her tail.

“Please, Tansui,” she gasps, her hips tilting, seeking his hand, his fingers inside of her.

Instead of granting her what she wants, he grasps her tail firmly around the base, his hand almost wide enough to circle it, and he holds her in place as his other hand withdraws, featherlight strokes to tease her. She whines in frustration and claws at his hips, trying to pull him closer.

“Tell me, what do you want, Meryta?” he smirks, his breath thankfully still a bit strained.

Her cunt clenches around nothing, the fire of need building in her. Frantic, manic, and suddenly her ears are ringing, filled with the laughter of the Lord of Revel. She summoned him, and slayed him, all within today, and she needs and she wants and she’s here on their clothes spread beneath the stars.

She wrenches herself free, and moves them, putting Tansui on his back with her above him. He looks dazed and flushed.

“I want you, Tansui.”  He lets out a little laugh at that, and she hovers above him, letting her slick coat his cock. “Do you want me?”

He nods, his hands on her waist now, but he doesn’t pull her down, waiting on her, letting her tease him now. Her impatience burns in her though, and she lowers herself on him, only a bit careful to adjust to him, letting him fill her, relishing in the fullness inside of her.

She moves slowly, at the pace she wants, drawing gasps from him. His hair is fanned out beneath him, almost evenly dark in the moonlight, the purple only a tone of grey. Tansui puts his hands between them, grinning as he finds her clit again.

Meryta rides him faster, his dark eyes never leaving hers. Even like this, his fingers are skilled and confident, his other hand caressing the sensitive scales on her hip. She tries to hold on a little longer, but she can’t, her orgasm washes over her, inevitable like the ocean far behind them.

“Beautiful,” Tansui whispers, “no, don’t close them!”

Meryta manages to keep her eyes open, but she sways and slumps in the aftershocks. Tansui’s strong arms catch her, and suddenly she’s on the ground beneath him, staring up at him, his hair in a curtain around his face.

“May I go on?” he asks, his voice rough. He accentuates with a small thrust of his hips. She gasps and nods and it’s enough for him as he moves faster, his eyes hungry. She sighs as he moves into her, swollen and sensitive, a pleasant feeling with no urgency. She’s free to observe him, how his veins strain in his neck, how he gasps and – unfairly, squeezes his eyes shut when as he comes, collapsing on top of her with her name on his lips.

They kiss, and Tansui rolls off her, cleaning them both with a scrap of fabric found somewhere, his calloused hands gentle and careful.

Without need for words, they curl into each other, and fall asleep beneath the stars.

     --

It’s a short walk back to the village the next morning – much shorter than she expected and she’s thankful an early riser didn’t stumble upon them.

“There you are,” Alisaie says when she sees her, buckling her pack. “I was afraid we’d have to send out a search party.”

Meryta’s cheeks heat, and she ducks her head. “The inn was too crowded.”

Alisaie eyes narrows, focusing on the pirate behind Meryta, and then she smiles, far too innocent.

“I normally leave diplomacy and it’s intricacies to my brother, but I’m certainly glad we could arrive at a mutual beneficial conclusion.”

Meryta sputters and busies herself finding her travelling coat and packing her gear. She’s saved from further discussion when Gosetsu bellows from below, his rightful impatience showing. They all hurry outside for their final goodbyes.

“As Rasho said, our fates are intertwined. I do hope our future cooperations will be fruitful.”

Tansui addresses them all, but his gaze lingers on her, and when they get on their way, his hand brushes against her arm. She winks at him, one more levity before they return to their journey and grave task ahead.

[jadelotusflower]

I loved your tags in that Merlin history (?) post and OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT. I mean, makes sense since you've got dragons and magic, but I was still trying to place it in our own timeline. Which... I'm still doing. Curious... why you think it was without the Roman occupation? Lack of Christianity? Just lack of any reference in the show?

Ahhhhhhh, thank you for this ask and giving me the excuse to gush on this topic! Full disclosure, I’m not an expert in this time period so this headcanon is based on very general knowledge of British history and basic research.

Other than the presence of magic and dragons etc, the main reason I think the show is set in an alternate history/universe either (a) before Roman occupation or (b) where Roman invasion/occupation was never successful, is the very basic fact that they call the country Albion and not Britain, although of course this is not in and of itself conclusive seeing as the Roman name Brittania was probably based on the Common Brittonic Pritanī - but does imo indicate a shift from our own history particularly if we’re looking at a 5th/6th Century time period (although I suppose it could still work as a BC/BCE or early AD/CE setting).

The lack of Christianity is another reason - I suppose this was a showrunner choice to avoid the storytelling difficulties inherent in a Christian/Pagan conflict that they obviously weren’t interested in, although it always struck me as lazy strange that there was no “New Religion” (whatever it was) to counter the suppression of the Old Religion (which I’ve personally handwaved/headcanoned as Uther and other kings embracing secularisation for self-aggrandisement, and not a wee bit of misogyny given the matriarchal nature of the old religion). Which again, this works in a pre-Roman Britain, but not in a post-Roman Britain - even though Christianity may not have been the dominant religion in terms of practice, the complete lack of it doesn’t seem to square with our history/timeline.  

Also, it’s just the vibe I get from the show, it doesn’t seem like a society that has had a history of foreign occupation? The show is soooo insular, iirc there’s no indication that the people of Camelot are aware of the rest of the world other than the kingdoms of Albion? There’s no reference to the Roman Empire, to Gaul, not even to Caledonia/Scotland. I suppose we can assume there is some kind of foreign trade (vaguely referenced in The Castle of Fyrien), and of course there’s the Saxons as an invading force, but other than that Camelot and its surrounding kingdoms seem very occupied with one another, and not at all occupied with the world outside their borders that one would assume from a society that has been very recently garrisoned by a foreign power for several centuries. 

Having said that, I have always wondered about Camelot prior to Uther’s conquest - it’s not a crown he was born to, but one he seized. Who from? Where are the vestiges of the prior king/kingdom/culture that existed only a generation before Arthur’s time? The argument could be made that Uther took advantage of the power vacuum following Roman withdrawal and successfully purged it’s influence...which actually could work. Hmmm. 

Would love to know your thoughts!

[midnight-blue766]

Warhammer 40000 Fanlore: The Imperial Feudal System

DISCLAIMER: This is fanfiction of Warhammer: 40000 owned by Games Workshop. Nevertheless, this is more of an attempt to rebuild Imperial lore bottom up rather than attempt to slot something into existing canon. You have been warned.

The Imperial feudal system (or feudalism) was a system of intra-Imperial relations which developed due to the failure of central administration in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy. It was adopted as its de-facto (if not de jure) internal organisation after the Age of Apostasy and officially abolished by Roboute Guilliman in early M42; though the practice continued widely in areas beyond his nominal reach such as the Imperium Nihilus. The basic structure of the feudal system was that of one planet (the overlord), pledging to protect a second planet (the vassal) in exchange for tribute (the tithe) and the recognising of the overlord as being the formal ruler and master of the vassal, typically in highly ceremonialised rituals of homage. This relationship was known as fealty, with the vassal’s territory formally being known as a fief given to them by their overlord in exchange for goods and services. In addition to payments in kind (during the early phases of feudalism’s development) or in cash (in later stages of its development) the vassal was also obligated to provide military support in the form of Astra Militarum regiments and Imperial Navy fleets to any military ventures the overlord may be involved in.

In addition to the concepts of fealty and tithing, a tertiary element key to understanding the workings of the feudal system was its fractal structure. On one end of the scale, it was how Terra exerted nominal control of the rest of the Imperium of Man. The Lord Commanders of Segmenta Pacificus, Tempestus, Obscurus and Ultima formally owed fealty to Terra; in turn, the Lord Commanders were the overlords of de facto subdivisions known as “Hegemonies” centred on major worlds such as Cadia. (Space Marine worlds such as Fenris and multiworld confederacies such as Ultramar were considered exempt from any other overlords apart from the Emperor) Hegemony Lords were the overlords of Sector Lords, who are in turn the overlords of Subsector Lords; with individual planets being the lowest unit of the galactic feudal system. From the point of view of an overlord, the fractal structure of feudalism liberated the Administratum from ruling too large of an empire. One may only be concerned with an immediate demesme (which may be an individual planet on one end of the scale or the size of a sector on the other), knowing that they may easily draw upon the resources and support of numerous other worlds in the event of war without having to interfere in their affairs.

Feudalism also served as a form of “peer pressure”. Governors who seceded from the Imperium would not only be at the mercy of their rivals, who would take the treason as carte blanche to settle scores with impunity. They would also be forced to deal with their own ambitious underlings, who may have resented the feudal dues they owed and used the secession as an excuse to overthrow them and install themselves as the heads of the local space. In the long-term, secession of major overlords from the Imperium served to destabilise the entire area that they formerly ruled. Upon the defeat of a rebellious overlord, the power vacuum created by their destruction would inevitably result in the disbanding of the alliance to defeat them and multiple wars of dominance as each local power strived for regional dominance, serving as another deterrent to secession.¹

On a galactic scale, feudalsim enabled rapid response to local threats and the abolition of central administration which impeded the same. Upon the ascension of the Emperor to the Golden Throne and the deaths or incapacitation of the surviving Primarchs, administering the Imperium of Man became increasingly difficult. Bureaucracy played an increasing role in government, which effectively ossified galaxy-wide administration and rendered the requisitioning of resources to protect the Imperium as a galactic entity impossible. The last nail in the coffin was the secession of Segmentum Pacifica in M34 under the Ur-Council of Nova Terra, a direct response to Terra [Vetus]’s increasing inability to handle threats to the security of the region. 

Although the Ur-Council was formally defeated, the Adeptus Administratum was effectively discredited as rulers of the Imperium. The Ecclesiarchy, which attempted to assert its dominance in the aftermath of the Administratum’s fall from grace, proved little better at administering a galaxy-wide empire, and Goge Vandire’s violent but ultimately unsuccessful purges of anti-Ecclesiarchal dissidents and the ensuing civil war, known as the Age of Apostasy. In the years after the Age of Apostasy, feudalism seemed like a highly attractive alternative to both rule by the Administratum and rule by the Ecclesiarchy for the reasons outlined above. As no real contender for a centralised governor of the Imperium arose, much of the galaxy began to be partitioned into feudal fiefdoms dominated by local lords and military commanders.

Nevertheless, Feudalism also had many disadvantages. While it enabled the Imperials to respond to local threats effectively, it led to the increasing fragmentation of the Imperium of Man as a whole, with the High Lords of Terra only being able to directly command a small demesme around Terra itself, though they retained the right to call Imperium-wide crusades and extracting psychers to sacrifice to the Emperor. (Lord Commanders of Segmenta were also limited to their own demesmes in practice and effectively irrelevant on the galactic stage.) This was exacerbated by two principles of feudalism which developed over the millennium.  First, feudal entities in the Imperium acted on a principle of primus inter pares. An overlord, while being the formal ruler of a wide region of Imperial space, was in practice forced to interact with its vassals as equals outside of feudal obligations. An overlord was prohibited from interfering in the internal affairs of a vassal; in addition, feudal terms be revised except after heavy periods of negotiation which neither party would always be willing to engage in. This often led to theoretical vassals accumulating far more power and wealth than its nominal overlord, which resulted in violence as such ambitious vassals attempted to assert independence and power from their nominal rulers. The second principle was summarised by the maxim “The vassal of my vassal is not my vassal.” An overlord’s feudal rights only extended as far as its own immediate vassals, and not to any vassals they may in turn possess. They could not exact tribute or levies from such sub-vassals except through their own vassals, and in all respects were required to interact with each other as equals. An overlord who wished to acquire resources directly from a sub-vassal was required to do so via trade agreements, while military aid between two such worlds were formally alliances between two otherwise sovereign, independent planets. The practical effect of the feudal system was the complete disintegration of Imperium as a galaxy-wide entity by the end of M41, with hegemonies, sectors, sub-sectors and even individual planets operating as de facto independent nations, who waged war and conducted agreements as such. Finally, the feudal system required the conversion of military worlds into administrative centres. While a governor of a world such as Armageddon could conduct business as a politician on one hand and a general on the other, a Chapter Master was now forced to act as a bureaucrat and administrator in addition to being a warrior. As their minds were far superior to their “baseline” human counterparts through biological and cybernetic augmentation, such Chapter Masters to employ his subordinate Space Marines as bureaucrats to run his mini-empire and rely on levies and hired mercenaries to defend their fiefdoms. By the end of M41, the Emperor’s worst fears were realised as the majority of Space Marines outside of fleet-based chapters had essentially become a class of nobles who ruled over their baseline counterparts as petty lords. The extreme fragmentation of the Imperium of Man as a result of the feudal system may have led to its complete destruction after the success of the 13th Black Crusade and the creation of the Cicatrix Maledictum were it not for the sudden return of Roboute Guilliman. Guilliman’s return and his (re-)ascension to Regent of the Imperium signalled the end of feudalism as a legal institution and the return to centralised rule under himself. Fealty was officially abolished, and the tithe became a formal system of government tribute centred on Terra once again. However, these reforms greatly angered many across the rump Imperium, who resented their loss of power and wealth. Arguing that Guilliman’s orders were somehow contravened by treacherous middlemen (or that the entire return of Guilliman was a hoax or delusion perpetrated by “fanatics” and/or “cultists”), many feudal lords violently resisted the restructuring of the Imperium. They refused to cooperate with new orders, arguing that it was a tyrannical and oppressive system, and pledged their allegiance to none other but the Emperor himself. Although the First and Second Founding Space Marine chapters were happy to join Guilliman, many newer Space Marine chapters rose up in revolt, forcing Guilliman to deploy hundreds of new “Primaris” units against their Firstborn kin. The ongoing Indomitus Crusade, originally intended to reunify the Imperium after its feudal disintegration and the horrors of the Blackening, has become the largest Imperial civil war since the Age of Apostasy, and the largest inter-Space Marine conflict since the Horus Heresy in practice.

¹ Even if the former overlord were to rejoin the Imperium and assert dominance over its former vassals, the consequences could be disastrous. After several centuries of civil wars, the planet Krieg was forced to utilise “Vitae Womb” technology to generate enough troops to fend off its former vassals, who were still fighting for dominance over its former hegemony. In turn, Krieg proceeded to bomb its formal vassals from orbit, converting them into replicas of itself that existed solely to generate troops and equipment. The Second Krieger Hegemony used these resources to wage war on its neighbours, who were alarmed by the newfound fanaticism of the Kriegers and jointly declared war on them. After decades of warfare, the High Lords of Terra were ultimately forced to intervene, successfully negotiating the destruction of all Vitae Wombs except for those on Krieg itself in return for the redeployment of billions of its clone troopers in the Macharian Crusade.

[dailybiblelessons]

Thursday: Preparation for the Second Sunday in Advent

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Hebrew Scripture from the Twelve Prophets: Malachi 3:5-12

Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished. Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, “How shall we return?”

Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, “How are we robbing you?” In your tithes and offerings! You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. I will rebuke the locust for you, so that it will not destroy the produce of your soil; and your vine in the field shall not be barren, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will count you happy, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

Canticle from the New Testament: Luke 1:68-79

[Then John the Baptist's father was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:]

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,  for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us  in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,  that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,  and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,  to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness  before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;  for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people  by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God,  the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,  to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

New Testament Epistle Lesson: Philippians 1:12-18a

I want you to know, beloved that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ; and most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.

Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. These proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment. What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.

Year C Advent 2 Thursday

Selections from Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings copyright © 1995 by the Consultation on Common Texts. Unless otherwise indicated, Bible text is from Holy Bible New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All right reserved. Image credit: The Prophet Malachi by Francesco Rosselli, Prophets and Sibyls, via Wikimedia Commons.

[daughter-of-the-prophet]

Ancient Age

Pre-Tevinter Imperium

-7,599 Ancient: The legendary elven city of Arlathan is founded nearly three thousand years before the arrival of humans on the continent. 

-4,600 Ancient: Approximately at this time the elves make the first contact with the dwarves.

-3,100 Ancient: Records claim humanity arrives in Thedas around this date from the north in a single tribe known as Neromenian. This is disputed by scholars, who ask where humans came from and why they left.

-2,850 Ancient: Elves first notice the quickening, which puts an end to their immortality and forces them to withdraw from human contact. This is thought to be mere legend.

-2,800 Ancient: The Old Gods begin whispering to humanity from the Golden City. They teach the Dreamers of the Neromenian tribes magic. These Dreamers become the priests and rulers of their people.

-2,415 Ancient: The Alamarri tribes cross the Frostback Mountains and settle in the lands that will eventually become known as Ferelden. Alamarri tribal legends say they were fleeing a “shadow goddess”, but modern scholars believe they were escaping a sort of natural disaster.

-1,815 Ancient: The Alamarri living near what is known today as Lake Calenhad break away, becoming known as the Avvars. The two tribes fight with each other for several centuries, though they unite when the need arises. 

-1,700 Ancient: The Neromenian tribes split and form four ancient kingdoms: Tevinter, Neromenian, Barindur, and Qarinus.

-1,610 Ancient: The entire kingdom of Barindur vanishes under mysterious circumstances. It appears to be destroyed by a volcanic eruption.

-1,595 Ancient: Thalsian, also known as the First Priest of Dumat, is the first known person to wield blood magic and the first magister. The Archon claims to learn this art after personally communicating with the Old God. The power he gained from blood magic allowed him to spark the birth of a future empire under his rule.

-1,415 Ancient: The Chasind people break away from the Alamarri tribes and settle in the wild and unexplored Korcari Wilds.

-1,207 Ancient: Darinius, the High King of Neromenian, takes control of the Tevinter throne, uniting the kingdoms of Neromenian and Tevinter under his rule.

-1,200 Ancient: Darinius of Tevinter forges an alliance with the dwarves.

          The dwarven contests known as Provings become popular among the noble class of the Tevinter. A Grand Proving Arena is built in Minrathous.

Pre-Ages

-1195 Ancient: Darinius unites the kingdoms Tevinter and Qarinus, forming the mighty Tevinter Imperium. He declares himself the first Archon. Prior to this event, only scattered fragments are known. It is believed that elves existed in the land first and that humans came from elsewhere - though there are many theories about from where that might be, and few historians agree. Some suggest that humans came from across the ocean as the Qunari did, but if so, there is no record from such a time. Humans spread across Thedas - as various tribes of people known as the Hacian and the Alamarri, and those started other tribes such as Ciriane and the Planacene - but it is the Tevinters, centered on the port city of Minrathous, who became ascendant. 

          History records that elves and humanity were hostile toward each other and that Tevinter led the way in aggressive retaliation against the elven city of Arlathan. The elves responded by retreating from human contact, and Tevinter thus flourished and spread. The first "dreamers" learned the use of lyrium to enter the Fade from elven captives, and these dreamers later became the first of the Imperium's ruling magisters. 

-1170 Ancient: Under the rulership of the Paragons King Endrin Stonehammer and King Orseck Garal, the capital of the Dwarven Empire is moved from Kal-Sharok to Orzammar, as trade with the surface becomes more and more vital for the prosperity of the dwarves.

          Stonehammer orders the construction of the legendary Stonehammer Hall in Orzammar.

          The Orzammar Proving Grounds are expanded for the Grand Provings, previously held in Kal-Sharok. The winners of these Provings become the first of Orzammar's Paragons. Endrin Stonehammer builds of a hall to house huge statues constructed in their honor. 

-1160 Ancient: Taxes collected by Orzammar from Kal-Sharok's trade profits become onerous.

-1131 Ancient: King Endrin Stonehammer is made a Paragon on his deathbed and becomes known as the "First Paragon" presumably for his vast accomplishments.

-981 Ancient: The hostility that festered between the Tevinter Imperium and the elves finally turned into open war. Armies of the Imperium surrounded the fabled elven city of Arlathan. 

-975 Ancient: The Magisters resorted to a horrifying blood ritual that sank Arlathan into the earth, destroying it utterly and deciding the war in their favor. The conquest of the elven kingdom was complete: All those who did not perish with their city were enslaved, their spirit crushed and their ancient culture destroyed forever. 

-895 Ancient: The Tevinter Imperium expands rapidly, bolstered by its new elven slaves. The Imperium takes nearly all of northern Thedas and begins the conquest of lands across the Waking Sea.

-880 Ancient: The Tevinter Imperium settles the island of Estwatch and fortifies its bay. The port is built for repairing warships.

-760 Ancient: Archon Almadrius ascends to the throne of the Tevinter Imperium.

-715 Ancient: The Tevinter Imperium begins several campaigns to subjugate the barbarous Alamarri tribes in the Fereldan Valley. After many near losses, they manage to hold the central area for a time and pave the Imperial Highway across the Frostbacks to the fortress of Ostagar.

-712 Ancient: The First Tevinter expedition against the Avvars in the Frostback Mountains.

-695 Ancient: The western part of the Tevinter rebels to form the Anderfels, mainly populated by the Yothandi people. 

-692 Ancient: Archon Almadrius is assassinated. His apprentice Tidarion inherits the throne. Civil wars break out in the Tevinter Imperium.

-640 Ancient: Archon Tidarion dies without an heir. The civil war continues, and the magisters fight for power.

-620 Ancient: Emerius, the last of the great Imperial cities, is founded in the distant south of the Imperium by the powerful magister, Emerius Krayvan. Elven slaves were brought in by the thousands to work the stone quarries and suffered hardships that would give the city a dark and bloody reputation. In the time it became known as the "City of Chains," the center of the Imperial slave market and the destination of all those captured by the spread of arcane rule. 

          Archon Parthenius claims the throne of the Tevinter Imperium. The end of the civil war in the Imperium.

     -575 to -555 Ancient: The largest civil war of the Tevinter is usually cited as when it began to decline markedly from its golden age. The magisters of the various noble houses wield terrible power but still seek more; their competition with each other leads to human sacrifice, and demon summoning becomes a regular occurrence. When two of the largest Tevinter houses battle to claim the Archon's throne, the Imperium is almost split in two. The resulting war left ruins and battlefields where the magical taint continues to be felt to this day. Peace is brokered in the Senate to prevent the dissolution of the Imperium, but the nobility continues its oppression of the masses in an effort to achieve supremacy.

-535 Ancient: After generations of independence, the Anderfels are reconquered by the Tevinter Imperium.

-410 Ancient: A group of kossith is believed to land in the southern Korcari Wilds, establishing a colony. They are likely killed off in the First Blight, giving rise to the first appearance of ogres on the continent.

-395 Ancient: According to the Chantry lore, the most powerful magister lords, seeking more power, open a gate to the Golden City at the heart of the Fade. The result is catastrophic: The Golden City becomes tainted, and the magisters bring the taint into the world, creating the first darkspawn. 

           The Old God Dumat is freed and transformed into the first archdemon. The First Blight begins. The darkspawn attack en masse, concentrating at first on the underground Deep Roads of the dwarven kingdoms. As the dwarven kingdoms begin to fall by -380 Ancient, the darkspawn use the Deep Roads to appear throughout the continent. All of the Imperium is under siege and in a state of chaos. Finally, the nations of the Imperium begin to settle in for a long war as they become accustomed to the surges of the darkspawn. Communication becomes difficult across the Imperium, but cooperation is paramount. The people of Tevinter pray to the remaining Old Gods for help against Dumat, but they receive only silence. With the people's faith waning, unrest sees many temples destroyed as the Imperial people begin to turn from the Old Gods, believing themselves betrayed. The dark period lasts for over 200 years, extending post Blight. 

        -355 Ancient: The Blight has yet to reach the Alamarri. They are instead caught up in a war with the Avvar. In the Battle of Red Falls, Alamarri warrior Luthias Dwarfson fights Morrighan'nan, Avvar warrior queen. Both die in the battle. The Order of Ash Warriors is founded in Dwarfson's honor.

-305 Ancient: The Grey Wardens are founded at Weisshaupt Fortress in the Anderfels, dedicated to wiping out the darkspawn wherever they should rise. The organization is formed primarily of veterans from the countless battles against the darkspawn. They maintain communications within the Imperium and strike quickly wherever the darkspawn appear, quickly erecting fortresses everywhere and receiving tithes and supplies from all lands.

-255 Ancient: The dwarven Paragon Caridin creates the first golem from the Anvil of the Void to battle the darkspawn terrorizing the Deep Roads. The dwarves begin to retake lost thaigs and reclaim parts of the Deep Roads.

-248 Ancient: Caridin disappears along with the secret to creating golems, and the dwarven kingdoms continue their descent into oblivion.

-203 Ancient: The Grey Wardens gather the forces of humans and confront Dumat at the colossal Battle of the Silent Plains in the southern reaches of Tevinter. Dumat is ultimately destroyed by the Grey Wardens and the darkspawn forces routed. Though the darkspawn are still large in their numbers and still battle mankind, they are no longer directed by Dumat's power and become scattered. The contracts ensuring the powers and rights of the Grey Wardens date from this year.

          The prophet Andraste is born in the Alamarri lands. The exact year of her birth is hotly contested by scholars.

  -195 Ancient: Slowly, the last of the darkspawn hordes are defeated. They are forced into the Far Steppes, west of the Anderfels, and into the Deep Roads. For the dwarves, the war continues underground, but for humanity, the battle is believed to be over. After centuries of fighting, the once mighty Imperium is now weak.

          As the Deep Roads close, communication lines falter between the surviving dwarven kingdoms. Each thaig elects its own king while maintaining allegiance to a high king in Orzammar.

        -191 Ancient: The Grey Wardens discover a number of intelligent darkspawn who can control portions of the horde even after Dumat's death. Warden Sashamiri arranges a trap to restrain and study one of these creatures, Corypheus, believed to be one of the Tevinter magisters who entered the Golden City and was corrupted into the first darkspawn two centuries prior. Corypheus is successfully imprisoned under the Vimmark Mountains in the southern Tevinter Imperium.

-187 Ancient: Andraste marries Maferath, an Alamarri chieftain.

-186 Ancient: Andraste preaches of a new creator, whom she calls the Maker. The more she says, the more her following grows. Maferath uses her teachings to unite the Alamarri clans under his authority.

-184 Ancient: The Tevinter Imperium's influence recedes in southern Thedas as Minrathous rebuilds.

          The Chasind claim the fortress of Ostagar.

        -181 Ancient: Warden-Commander Daneken realizes the futility of the Wardens' attempts to control or kill Corypheus and proposes instead to seal the prison off from the rest of the world and keep its very existence secret forever.

-180 Ancient: A massive horde of Alamarri cross the Waking Sea from the south led by the warlord Maferath and Andraste. Some records claim the barbarians were driven north by the darkspawn, others that Andraste was bringing freedom to the people of the Imperium who had been long oppressed by the depravities of the magisters. Regardless of the reason, the press of the barbarians in the south is accompanied by massive rebellions that welcome their progress. The invading army frees the elves, enslaved for centuries by the Tevinters. At the same time, the elven slave Shartan starts a massive slave rebellion, and the Tevinter magisters are forced to unite to combat the incoming threat.

          The Tevinter Imperium abandons the island of Estwatch to focus on mainland troubles. The island remains largely uninhabited for ages.

     -171 Ancient: Outside of Minrathous, the Battle of Valarian Fields is fought between the Alamarri and the Tevinter Imperium. Maferath is victorious. At that battle, the elven slave Shartan takes Maferath's side and leads other elves in the fight against their Tevinter oppressors. He later converts and is made a disciple, only to have his writings suppressed following the Exalted March of the Dales.

          The Alamarri army led by Maferath and Andraste lay siege in Minrathous. However, they fail to conquer the capital of the Imperium.

          According to the Chantry lore, Maferath's jealousy overwhelms him. Wanting to bring an end to hostilities and tighten his grip on conquered territories, he makes a pact with Archon Hessarian of the Tevinter Imperium.

        -170 Ancient: Andraste is betrayed by her husband at the city of Nevarra, one of their strongholds, and taken to Minrathous. She is burned alive and then killed by Archon Hessarian.

          Disciple Havard, loyal to Andraste, collects her ashes and carries them back to the Avvar lands in the Frostback Mountains.

        -165 Ancient: After of the death of Andraste, the barbarian army disperses. Maferath is granted the lands south of Emerius. He takes Fereldan Valley for himself while dividing what will become Orlais, the nation of Nevarra, and several Marcher cities between his sons.

         The southern Tevinter Imperium breaks away, forming a collection of independent city-states. Maferath's sons unify several scattered tribes neighboring Alamarri lands; the tribes of Ciriane turns into the Kingdom of the Ciriane and the Planasene tribes into the Kingdom of the Planasene. Both of these last less than a century - the Ciriane soon become the land of Orlais, while the Planasene become a part of the loose confederation across the plains called the Free Marches.

       The land between the Waking Sea and the Frostbacks is given to the freed elves by Maferath as a homeland and is called the Dales. The Long Walk begins as elves from across the Imperium begin traveling to the Dales largely on foot and are preyed upon by disease and robbers, causing massive chaos. 

. -160 Ancient: A cult devoted to Andraste's teachings spreads rapidly in the south but is largely disorganized and is very unpopular with the temples of the Old Gods. However, Archon Hessarian converts from revering the Old Gods to the Cult of the Maker and reveals Maferath's treachery. The Alamarri abandon Maferath, and southern Thedas collapses into anarchy. Back in the lands of the barbarians, groups which are claiming to be the Disciples of Andraste are formed, and the new religion begins to grow, referred to collectively as "the cults of the Maker." 

          Archon Hessarian converts the Tevinter Imperium to Andrastianism, beginning the Transfiguration.

        -155 Ancient: The Ciriane in present-day Orlais unite in a moment known as the Grand Unification.

-135 Ancient: The Alamarri in Fereldan Valley fall into a long series of internal wars as various warlords attempt to replace Maferath. 

         Andraste's ashes disappear, revealed ages later to have been stored away at the Ruined Temple by the Disciples of Andraste.

     -130 Ancient: The Chant of Light is created by Andraste's disciples, collecting her story and her teachings into hymns. Numerous versions of the Chant are written over time, with different interpretations of what Andraste taught about the Maker, each prevalent in different regions.

-125 Ancient: Archon Hessarian dies in his sleep. Many in the eastern and southern provinces of the Tevinter Imperium push for secession, fearing his successor, Archon Orentius will restore the Old Gods and their clergy.

-100 Ancient: The Inquisition is founded around this time. The loose association of Andrastian hard-liners hunts heretics and mages in the name of the Maker.

-90 to -50 Ancient: Rebellion begins in the east as the Rivaini attempt to split off from the Imperium. The resulting campaigns to stop the rebellion distract the Imperium from its attempts to reconquer the Free Marches and allow the south to gather its strength. Many of the eastern cities in the Free Marches intervene on the behalf of the Rivaini, and after several losses that culminated in the disastrous Battle of Temerin, the Imperium finally abandons the east.

-44 Ancient: The Kingdom of Rivain is formed.

-40 Ancient: The dwarves of Orzammar seal the Deep Roads that lead to Kal-Sharok, Gundaar and Hormak by order of High King Threestone. Within ten years, the kingdoms of Hormak and Gundaar fall to the darkspawn. 

-36 Ancient: Castana Drakon, mother of Kordillus Drakon, is named gothi of the tribes of the Ciriane. 

-30 Ancient: The city-state of Antiva expands and becomes a nation.

-25 Ancient: As the borders of the Imperium recede, Emerius becomes one of their lone outposts within a distant and violent frontier. The city is surrounded by the Kingdom of Ciriane, the barbarian Free Marches, the Alamarri, as well as the new elven homeland of the Dales. Despite its isolation, the city fought off many invading armies and did not fall until the slaves within the city finally rebelled, executing their Tevinter rulers in an orgy of violence. Possession of the fortress city remained contested for centuries to come, but it would never again rejoin the Imperium. No longer under Tevinter rule, the city changed its name to Kirkwall and became part of the Free Marches.

-15 Ancient: The last of the Deep Roads are sealed, cutting off Kal-Sharok which is presumed lost to the horde. However, the dwarves of Kal-Sharok survive but never forgive the dwarves of Orzammar.

-11 Ancient: The cults of the Maker spread quickly in the southern lands, resulting in the commencement of construction of the first great temple in Val Royeaux which becomes the center of worship for the new faith. One of its most fervent followers is the young king of Orlais, Kordillus Drakon. Drakon begins a series of holy wars in the name of the Maker, quickly proving himself to be one of the greatest generals in history.

-3 Ancient: Having conquered several neighboring city-states and forced others to submit to his overlordship, Kordillus Drakon is crowned emperor of the new Orlesian Empire in Val Royeaux. His ambitions to spread farther north into the Free Marches are confounded by constant pressures from the Dales to the east. 

         The Chantry is formed by Emperor Drakon as he formalizes the Maker's cult an official religion. 

        The emperor commands that missionaries be sent forth into the other lands, thus spreading the Chantry's teachings.

[salmagundimagazine]

THE PRIEST, THE COMMISSAR, AND THE DONALD by Steve Fraser

from Salmagundi, Summer 2017

The year 2017 seems filled with portents, omens, and forebodings.  In an eerie coincidence, it is the occasion of a double anniversary:  the 500th of the Protestant Reformation, the 100th of the Bolshevik Revolution.  In October of 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg.  In October of 1917, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, proclaimed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  In January of 2017, a Moloch became the most powerful human on earth. Is this year one of a new Dark Age?

Moloch was a Biblical-age god of the Canaanites, often depicted with a goat’s head wearing a royal crown.   He devoured children offered as sacrifices. He makes an appearance in John Milton’s Paradise Lost where he’s saturated in a mother’s tears and children’s blood. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl invokes his image: “Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows,” the “nightmare of Moloch, Moloch the loveless.”  

There is a kind of thunder in the name Trump which echoes that menace.  The point, however, is not to raise up horrific premonitions or melodramatically exaggerate what is imminent. Year one, after all, may not even last a year.  Something else is worth pondering: Just how, on the double anniversary of these seminal moments in western civilization, did we get here, here being the lower depths. Is there some winding passage that leads from visions of sacred liberation to secular emancipation and from there to hell-on-earth (speaking metaphorically)?

Whatever else might be said about the Reformation and the Russian Revolution, they bracket a span in Western history during which dreams of a “new mankind” abide.  At first blush this sounds Pollyannaish at best.  Those centuries also embrace mayhem, bloody misery, some of it tied directly to those watershed moments.

Still, when we think of the making of the modern world these moments (and others) stand out as emblematic.  No matter their messier, ground level reality, they lent a distinctive meaning to the human experience, a narrative logic that had something to do with freedom, with throwing off shackles, doing away with inner and outer forms of subordination, with enlightenment, with creating heavenly and earth-bound utopias.  Even now they might be viewed as promissory notes, never redeemed.

In contrast, the age of the Moloch invites nihilism. Trump comes on the scene as some grotesque variation of capitalism as moral idiot. He is the offspring not of an ideology (even if now and then he bowdlerizes a conservative one for effect).  He believes in nothing beyond his own self-interest as he pathologically pursues it.  He is an empty vessel into which has poured all the toxins produced by decades of callous indifference and social anomie, the cynicism corroding all conviction, the brute wisdom of winner-take-all jungle ethics.  This is the spirit of a political economy that has, in Moloch fashion, cannibalized its innards, like so many sacrifices to a deity of destruction.

Trump stares into the abyss and the abyss smiles back at him.  His ascension punctuates the looming end of a long era in which belief in something more edifying, more socially capacious and liberating, has grown increasingly anemic.

The Double Anniversary

Often mortal enemies, the Reformation and Socialism nonetheless imparted a profound significance and trajectory to everyday life that has long since become next to impossible to take seriously.  They laid down a challenge to hierarchy in human affairs.

Beginning with Luther’s audacity and ending with Lenin’s trip to the Finland station, one compelling way to tell the story of “the West” has been to recount it as a struggle for liberation.  Uglier tales about imperialism for example, or about racial oppression, or about the intertwined relations between freedom and slavery, are equally germane in characterizing the rise of the “West.”  Arguably, there would be no story of liberation without the counter-story of domination.  Still, this double anniversary coincides with the rise to power of something inimical to what might be considered the best inherent in those historic moments.  That makes it worthwhile to emphasize their promise. Doing so can be a measure of how far we’ve come. It might, as well, inspire an alternate future.

Luther’s reputation as a liberator usually attaches to the spiritual realm.  By criticizing, ridiculing, even damning the ecclesiastical authority of the Catholic Church, he made possible a direct relationship between the worshipping individual and his/her God.  Stripped of their role as intercessors in that sacred encounter, the spiritual raison d’etre of priestly hierarchs was called into question.

More was at stake, however.  The Church exerted enormous secular power.  All were tithed to support its operations and physical infrastructure.  It was a continental land owner, land speculator, and rent collector.  It relied on the sale of indulgences – promoted as pass-ways to absolution and heavenly rest - and even high offices to the wealthier laity. So, it was impossible to separate the spiritual and social dimensions of the institution’s over-lordship.  And Martin Luther did not try.

Even while the Wittenberg theologian and priest enunciated his vision of an intimate, direct relationship to God that dispensed with officially sanctioned go-betweens, he denounced that same hierarchy as corrupt.  It had turned its spiritual coup d’etat into a lucrative business. Indulgences were traded like commodities.   Church potentates, often in collaboration with secular authorities – kings and princes and feudal lords - battened onto the populace like an incubus, indulging their own appetites while plundering those they were supposed to safeguard.  

Spiritual rebellion could, therefore, spill over into social upheaval.  It was bound to, whatever Luther might have desired.  And so it did in 16th century Germany and elsewhere.  Thousands of irate peasants, urban guild members, even impoverished aristocrats and others enlisted in the “Peasant’s War” of 1525 and other uprisings against the powers-that-be of the Holy Roman Empire. Their aims were as much directed at social levelling as they were calls for sacral freedom.

Thomas Munster, a well-educated pastor from a family of burghers, led an uprising of miners and others against the upper classes of Mulhausen.  He called on “the inner light,” available to everyman, not Scripture, to justify what they were doing.  Common people were instruments of God and their lack of property left them pure in intent.  The “Twelve Points of the Memmingen Charter” establishing an “eternal council” called for the abolition of serfdom, the end of feudal dues, and the preservation of the commons.  Ten years after the Mulhausen revolt, a Dutch tailor’s apprentice in the town of Munster led an insurgency of Anabaptists that established a commune and waited for the Day of Judgment.

Luther, who had been excommunicated by the Pope, was nonetheless appalled and denounced the Mullhausen rising and similar upheavals elsewhere.  “Gospel does not make goods common.”  Peasant rebels were “insane” in their “raging.”  He called for their ruthless suppression. Brutally suppressed they were: the leaders were tortured to death and many thousands were slaughtered.

The cat was out of the bag, however.  From this time forward one version of the story of the West would connect the struggle for inner freedom and self-determination to the quest for social emancipation.  The great liberal and democratic revolutions that midwifed the modern West would subscribe to this belief. The English Revolution of the 17th century drew on the springs of radical Protestantism to rationalize regicide.  Moreover, its notions of democracy and equality and civil liberties nurtured then and given further sustenance by the American Revolution became the foundation stones of the West’s civil religion.  The Enlightenment and the French Revolution it helped inspire a century and half later had no patience either for the obscurantism or for the political and social privileges of the Church.

Religious toleration became an essential component of the liberal tradition.  So too did the separation of Church and State even though Luther himself ended his life deferring to secular authority, settling into a political quietism characteristic of the denomination for a long time to come.  All through the 19th century recalling Luther’s 95 Theses was part of ritual celebrations of the victory over absolutism in both the secular and sacred realms.  

Socialism and the “Sigh of the Oppressed”

Socialism too recognized a kinship.  Marx’s famous aphorisms about the social role of religion anticipate that bond.  In the same literary breath in which Marx described religion as the “opium of the people” (for which he has been forever condemned), he likened it to the “sigh of the oppressed creature,” “the soul of soulless conditions,” as “the “sentiment of a heartless world.”  For Marx, “religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.”  A sigh, a protest, a utopia; we might call it a yearning to breathe free, expressed as the collective dream of the species.

Marx, his acolytes, and his disciples to follow acknowledged the genetic link between what Luther had set afoot and what Socialism promised to finish. Marx valued Luther’s critique of usury as a precursor of his own criticism of capital as a threat to the commonweal.  For Luther, as for Marx, capital accumulation was first of all the accumulation of power in the hands of a grasping few; the soul, in Luther’s mind, society in Marx’s, was in jeopardy for that reason.

Both Marx and Engels interpreted the Reformation, and in particular the social upheavals it provoked as premonitions auguring the fateful transition from feudal society to capitalism. As a spiritual undertaking, it was half way there: “Germany’s revolution,” Marx concluded, “is theoretical, it is the Reformation…But if Protestantism was not the true solution it was at least the true setting of the problem.” Loosening “the shackles of the medieval church” was a vital development in that larger story.  Luther and Marx belong to a fraternity of transcendence, share an apocalyptic promise of transfiguration and redemption.

However, the great consequence of Luther’s revolt was not social emancipation, but the creation of the self-disciplined, self-motivated individual as a universal possibility rather than the prerogative of a privileged caste. That was a profoundly liberating accomplishment…but one that carried with it a new kind of enslavement.

Unlocking “the shackles of the medieval church” also liberated the animal appetites of self-interest.  The pursuit of individual advantage became the characterological undercarriage of capitalism.  It became the new normal; mastering what might be called “the art of the deal,” to coin a phrase.  Those  who became masters, however, tethered the individual to a regime in which he/she had no choice but to live at the sufferance of those in possession of the means of life.

Whether Protestantism gave rise to capitalism or the other way around is still debated. In either case, the ‘new man’ that the Reformation helped create was simultaneously free and self-possessed, yet subjected to a system of capital accumulation that undermined that apparent freedom.  Socialism offered an ascent from individual to social emancipation.  The individual freedom promised by the Reformation would remain illusory so long as Capital retained its power to dictate.

Moloch in the Modern World

Martin Luther of course knew of Moloch as well as Mammon. Mammon, like Moloch, played a central role in church dramaturgy of evil, often identified as one of the seven princes of Hell.  For Luther, Moloch belonged in that company, a dreadful version of the sin built into the spiritual DNA of mankind.  Citing Jeremiah, Luther recalled how the sinful “builded the high places of Baal and burned their sons and daughters to Moloch.” For the father of the Reformation, Moloch captured the venality of the self-indulgence and parasitism of the Church: “The worshipping of idols was in Popedom very frequent in my time.”

Marx too invoked the ancient god, but not to indict greed.  Rather the opposite; he was after the chilling logic of accumulation that both prized the rationalism of individual self-denial and kept hidden its social enslavement.  He described capitalism as the religion of daily life and capital as “a Moloch that requires the whole world as a due sacrifice.”  Capitalism turned progress into a “monstrous pagan god that only wanted to drink the nectar in the skulls of the dead.”

For Marx, Moloch’s ravenous appetite functioned as a metaphor for capitalism.  It is at the very least suggestive that what many scientists now date as the onset of the Anthropocene – when mankind became a material cause of climate and environmental change thanks to the advent of capitalism and eventually the industrial revolution – roughly coincides with the Reformation. To stay alive, the new world needed to ingest its human and natural surroundings, its cravings insatiable.

That was both a moral judgment and a social science one in Marx’s view.  Capital must conform to a logic of endless expansion, no matter in whom or in what (the family enterprise or the impersonal corporation) it may be embodied, or else die. It is demonic in that modern sense, not immoral, but amoral.

The Moloch of capitalism is as deadly and merciless as its Canaanite ancestor.  But its altars are everywhere, virtually invisible yet part of the warp and woof of everyday life, at one moment prayed to on Wall Street, at another in the inner recesses of everyman as economic man.

By liberating the individual from feudal restraints Luther’s Reformation had helped make capitalism possible.  But critics of capitalism, socialists especially, saw that new way of life as a finely reticulated system of production without social coherence or purpose. The Enlightenment honored Luther for helping free people from mental enslavement. Socialism vowed to do something greater; take the truth of religion as a protest against real suffering and translate its yearnings into real life.  Abolishing capitalism would in that sense redeem the mission enunciated by Luther.  In this grand historical narrative, Luther midwifed capitalism which would midwife socialism.

Lenin and all the authors of the socialist movement from Marx’s death until the summa of the Russian Revolution (and past that time as well) would inherit this view.  Karl Kautsky, “the Pope of Marxism” and leader of the German Social Democratic Party in the early decades of the 20th century, penned an appreciation of the Reformation in the spirit first enunciated by Marx and Engels. He cogently noted that the most popular part of the Bible at the time of the Reformation was the Apocalypse, the Fifth Monarchy prophesized by Daniel with its forecasting of the downfall of the existing order of things.

It is customary to depict religion and socialism as irreconcilable; one believes, the other doesn’t.  No one could doubt the atheism of the socialist movement and of the October Revolution, so relentlessly were they stigmatized with that transgression and so often did they embrace it.  But the atheism implicit in the normal operations of a society given over to worship of the commodity has been unmentionable. Capitalism’s fealty to God was a charade, its supplications more in the nature of a call for a heavenly gendarme when social turmoil threatened to get out of hand.

If socialism gave up faith in God, it nonetheless carried the torch for what one social commentator called the “secular sacred.”   So, for example, Rosa Luxembourg, like Lenin, took on the Church but not the religious instinct; a true Christian was a premature socialist in her view.  Antonio Gramsci, the imprisoned leader of the Italian Communist Party under Mussolini, characterized religion as “the most gigantic utopia, that is the most gigantic metaphysics that history has ever known…and is therefore the brother of other men, equal to other men.”  The Reformation might function as “a model of moral and intellectual reform.”

None of this was to be.  No need to rehearse the failures and appalling denouement of the Russian Revolution or the more profound dying away of the socialist moment.  The proletarian metaphysic that was supposed to redeem the promissory note issued by the Reformation and the secular revolutions that followed remains unredeemed. The fable of emancipation entertained for centuries lacks credibility.  Because of that Moloch grows more fearsome.

The Clown Prince of Darkness

Is Donald Trump a fitting avatar of Moloch?  In some sense, no; he’s too ridiculous.  If he wasn’t himself so humorless, he might have borrowed this apt Marxism (not Karl’s, but the brothers’): “Who do you believe, me or your lying eyes?” Yet his presence is nonetheless spectral.  There is about him an essential brute narcissism and cruelty of sensibility that conduces to despair.  In his mouth, everything turns to ash, including five hundred years of dreams deferred.

“The Donald” is not the author of that destruction, but rather its outcome.  A pervasive atmosphere of cynicism is his oxygen. Everything is a lie, a put-on, a false front, a way of getting over. Trump didn’t invent that conviction about a world without convictions.  That’s a Wall Street state of mind.  That’s the moral refuse of a world given over to the Capitalist Moloch. Decades of dispossession, of fixes in the highest sanctums of political and economic power, of intellectual genuflections at the altar of the bottom line, of death as collateral damage, bred Trumpism in the bone and sinew of American life.  He’s not Doctor Frankenstein, he’s the good doctor’s experiment gone awry.

Trump is also the vessel of soured fantasies.  Invest enough psychological and emotional energy exalting the businessman as an übermensch – an ardently held element of our civic faith for many years now – and you get a facsimile to run things.  Only a facsimile, however.

“The Donald” comports himself like a mafiaso don and as matter of fact has maintained close relations with that criminal underground, as Sidney Blumenthal’s essay in the London Review of Books has recently reminded us. His multiple real estate deals, construction projects, casinos, and hotels have left his retinue populated with “made men.” What could be more fitting to our age when all gods are dead; even Moloch reappears as a warped burgher cum Tony Soprano.  Nonetheless, the titan of finance as Napoleonic strongman has lived in the American imagination since robber baron days.  Trump passes as its latest incarnation.  

Another fantasy powers “the Donald’s” ascendancy.  Two generations have lived under the reign of a capitalism less and less encumbered by social restraint, more and more tone deaf to its social responsibilities.  Consequently, so much resentment of the political class and the business elite has piled up over the last half century.  It was bound to find an outlet or several outlets.

Trump was one.  His utter fecklessness, his capricious relationship with his own social surroundings, allowed Trump to step forward not only as a generalissimo, but as a Hero of the People, its knight errant against the “establishment.”  Here the point is not that he doesn’t mean it.  In a sense, he doesn’t mean anything.  What’s important is that the capitalism of the “postindustrial” era has devoured, Moloch-like, the lives of so many, and left them angry and vengeful. A savage savior with a taste for blood beckoned.

Trump is Moloch’s messenger.  What is the message?  That dreams transported from Wittenberg to St. Petersburg are dead.  There are no human universals, only bloodlines. There is no enlightenment, only nightmares.  There is no truth or seeking after truth, only alternative facts. There is no transcendence, only vengeance. There is no mother earth, only a slag heap. There is no story-line, just an impromptu moment to moment.

It’s not so much what Trump stands for that is to be feared, but that he stands for nothing. He ad libs and wildly oscillates, not so much because he changes his mind but rather his mood. He latches onto and discards political positions at will, moves hither and yon driven by the whimsies of polls, his adolescent temper, and an insatiable craving for adulation.

Whatever works:  Xenophobic today, sentimentalizing “the Dreamers” tomorrow; the billionaire’s buddy in one tweet, godfather of the working stiff in the next. This is not merely garden-variety political hypocrisy, always in plentiful supply. It is that, but also more.  His incoherence expresses the hidden logic of what works and what works in the land of Capital is inherently ephemeral.  

Is there then no there there?  First, last, and always a dynastic businessman, Trump’s government is peopled with similar types, family capitalists writ large.  If there is a center of gravity to his administration that’s it. Dynasts who have come of age running their own affairs, Wall Street sea-dog speculators not accustomed to accommodating the views or interests of others, anti-bureaucrats, men and women of imperial will for whom the state is an annoyance and impediment, something they are not familiar with and don’t care to be.   Policy in these circles roughly approximates the raw desires of men (and women) on the make, especially those who’ve already made it.

A bull-dog provocateur, Trump seems to bite himself in the ass with remarkable frequency.  While this might be diagnosed as a form of political stupidity, it’s more than that.  It is a learned instinct. This inbred authoritarian willfulness is a social character trait that belongs to the genus capitalist patriarch.  In Trump’s case and for many of the dynastic capitalists that now occupy Cabinet posts, it’s a trait that has metastasized, invaded other elements of the social organism, and attempts to trample over a strange terrain full of political obstacles. They are maddened by the encounter.

Rumors to the contrary, Trump is not a fascist, even if in the course of his mental perambulations he stumbles or ventures onto terrain littered with fascist incendiaries. But to be that real McCoy takes some thought, more commitment, and at least a normal attention span which “the Donald” has in very short supply. While he performs the politics of fear, Trump has never been inclined to do the gritty work of organizing a movement; when he makes gestures in that direction the turnout of his troops is pathetic. He hasn’t done the spade work. All is theater.

Moreover, his haplessness as a manager and commander of a complex bureaucracy produces disarray so massive as to undo or paralyze the regime, harassed by opposition from within and from without. His rump government is furthermore undermined by the “hidden state”; it already has been in the realm of foreign affairs where the national security state deploys its polished black arts to thwart his most parochial, self-interested impulses.

Damage has been and will be done more without regard to Trump than because of him.  What is most alarming on this double anniversary of the West’s best hopes of the last half millennium, is that there is abroad in the world the spirit of Moloch luridly lighting up the abyss out of which Trump has emerged.

What is most heartening is the remarkable, massive, and largely spontaneous eruptions responding to the threat.  Trump may not last long.  Moloch will, however.  Recovering the capacity to dream again of social emancipation and to undertake the ground-level work to make that into flesh and blood has become the urgent task of today and tomorrow.