lewrockwell--2020-05-14--Why Xi Won’t Repeat Ming Dynasty Mistakes

With hybrid warfare 2.0 against China reaching fever pitch , the New Silk Roads , or Belt and Road Initiative , will continue to be demonized 24/7 as the proverbial evil communist plot for economic and geopolitical domination of the “ free ” world , boosted by a sinister disinformation campaign .
It ’ s idle to discuss with simpletons .
In the interest of an informed debate , what matters is to find the deeper roots of Beijing ’ s strategy – what the Chinese learned from their own rich history and how they are applying these lessons as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 21st century .
Let ’ s start with how East and West used to position themselves at the center of the world .
The first Chinese historic-geographic encyclopedia , the 2nd century B.C .
Classic of the Mountains and the Seas , tells us the world was what was under the sun ( tienhia ) .
Composed of “ mountains and seas ” ( shanhai ) , the world was laid out between “ four seas ” ( shihai ) .
There ’ s only one thing that does not change : the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Middle Kingdom ” ( Zhongguo ) , that is , China .
Of course , the Europeans , in the 16th century , discovering that the earth was round , turned Chinese centrality upside down .
But actually not that much ( see , for instance , this 21st century Sinocentric map published in 2013 ) .
The principle of a huge continent surrounded by seas , the “ exterior ocean , ” seems to have derived from Buddhist cosmology , in which the world is described as a “ four-petal lotus.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to discard and prevail over every cosmogony that might have contradicted it , such as the Buddhist , which placed India at the center .
The Man Who Loved Chin ... Winchester , Simon Best Price : $ 1.49 Buy New $ 5.99 Now compare Ancient Greece .
Its center , based on reconstituted maps by Hippocrates and Herodotus , is a composite in the Aegean Sea , featuring the Delphi-Delos-Ionia triad .
The major split between East and West goes back to the Roman empire in the 3rd century .
And it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all about geopolitics .
Here ’ s the sequence : In 293 , he installs a tetrarchy , with two Augustuses and two Caesars , and four prefectures .
Maximian Augustus is charged to defend the West ( Occidens ) , with the “ prefecture of Italy ” having Milan as capital .
Diocletian charges himself to defend the East ( Oriens ) , with the “ prefecture of Orient ” having Nicomedia as capital .
Political religion is added to this new politico-military complex .
Diocletian starts the Christian dioceses ( dioikesis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , twelve in total .
There is already a diocese of the Orient – basically the Levant and northern Egypt .
There ’ s no diocese of the Occident .
But there is a diocese of Asia : basically the Western part of Mediterranean Turkey nowadays , heir to the ancient Roman provinces in Asia .
That ’ s quite interesting : the Orient is placed east of Asia .
The historical center , Rome , is just a symbol .
There ’ s no more center ; in fact , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nicomedia , Diocletian ’ s capital , is quickly replaced by neighbor Byzantium under Constantine and rechristened as Constantinople : he wants to turn it into “ the new Rome.
” When the Western Roman empire falls in 476 , the empire of the Orient remains .
Officially , it will become the Byzantine empire only in the year 732 , while the Holy Roman Empire – which , as we know , was neither holy , nor Roman , nor an empire – resurrects with Charlemagne in 800 .
From Charlemagne onwards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Europe , ” and vice-versa : the historical center and the engine of this vast geographical space , which will eventually reach and incorporate the Americas .
The Silk Road : A Capti ... History , Captivating Best Price : $ 15.76 Buy New $ 13.34 We ’ re still immersed in a – literally – oceanic debate among historians about the myriad reasons and the context that led everyone and his neighbor to frenetically take to the seas starting in the late 15th century – from Columbus and Vasco da Gama to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the true pioneer : iconic Admiral Zheng He , original name Ma He , a eunuch and Muslim Hui from Yunnan province .
His father and grandfather had been pilgrims to Mecca .
Zheng He grew up speaking Mandarin and Arabic and learning a lot about geography .
When he was 13 , he was placed in the house of a Ming prince , Zhu Di , member of the new dynasty that came to power in 1387 .
Educated as a diplomat and warrior , Zheng He converted to Buddhism under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remained faithful to Islam .
After all , as I saw for myself when I visited Hui communities in 1997 when branching out from the Silk Road , on my way to Labrang monastery in Xiahe , Hui Islam is a fascinating syncretism incorporating Buddhism , the Tao and Confucianism .
Zhu Di brought down the Emperor in 1402 and took the name Yong Le .
A year later he had already commissioned Zheng He as admiral , and ordered him to supervise the construction of a large fleet to explore the seas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more precise , the “ Occidental ocean ” ( Xiyang ) : that is , the Indian Ocean .
Thus from 1405 to 1433 , roughly three decades , Zheng He led seven expeditions across the seas all the way to Arabia and Eastern Africa , leaving from Nanjing in the Yangtze and benefiting from monsoon winds .
They hit Champa , Borneo , Java , Malacca , Sumatra , Ceylon , Calicut , Hormuz , Aden , Jeddah/Mecca , Mogadiscio and the Eastern African coast south of the Equator .
Those were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ships , including the 72 main ones , carrying as many as 30,000 men and vast amounts of precious merchandise for trade : silk , porcelain , silver , cotton , leather products , iron utensils .
The leading vessel of the first expedition , with Zheng He as captain , was 140 meters long , 50 meters wide and carrying over 500 men .
This was the original Maritime Silk Road , now revived in the 21st century .
And it was coupled with another extension of the overland Silk Road : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retreat , there were new allies all the way to Transoxiana , the Chinese managed to strike a peace deal with the successor of Tamerlane .
So the Silk Roads were booming again .
The Ming court sent diplomats all over Asia – Tibet , Nepal , Bengal , even Japan .
The main objective of pioneering Chinese seafaring has always puzzled Western historians .
Essentially , it was a diplomatic , commercial and military mix .
It was important to have Chinese suzerainty recognized – and materialized via the payment of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was about trade ; no wonder the ships had special cabins for merchants .
The Roman Empire and t ... McLaughlin , Raoul Buy New $ 26.95 The armada was designated as the Treasury Fleet – but denoting more a prestige operation than a vehicle for capturing riches .
Yong Le was strong on soft power and economics – as he took control of overseas trade by imposing an imperial monopoly over all transactions .
So in the end this was a clever , comprehensive application of the Chinese tributary system – in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Yong Le was in fact following the instructions of his predecessor Hongwu , the founder of the Ming ( “ Lights ” ) dynasty .
Legend rules that Hongwu ordered that one billion trees should be planted in the Nanjing region to supply the building of a navy .
Then there was the transfer of the capital from Nanjing to Beijing in 1421 , and the construction of the Forbidden City .
That cost a lot of money .
As much as the naval expeditions were expensive , their profits , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wanted to establish Chinese – and pan-Asian – stability via a true Pax Sinica .
That was not imposed by force but rather by diplomacy , coupled with a subtle demonstration of power .
The Armada was the aircraft carrier of the time , with cannons on sight – but rarely used – and practicing “ freedom of navigation ” .
What the emperor wanted was allied local rulers , and for that he used intrigue and commerce rather than shock and awe via battles and massacres .
For instance , Zheng He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Ceylon .
He privileged equitable commerce .
So this was never a colonization process .
On the contrary : before each expedition , as its planning proceeded , emissaries from countries to be visited were invited to the Ming court and treated , well , royally .
Now compare that with the European colonization led a decade later by the Portuguese across these same lands and these same seas .
Between ( a little ) carrot and ( a lot of ) stick , the Europeans drove commerce mostly via massacres and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turned into forts and military installations , something that Zheng He ’ s expeditions never attempted .
The New Silk Roads : Th ... Frankopan , Peter Best Price : $ 13.24 Buy New $ 9.99 In fact Zheng He left so many good memories that he was divinized under his Chinese name , San Bao , which means “ Three Treasures , ” in such places in Southeast Asia as Malacca and Siam ’ s Ayutthaya .
What can only be described as Judeo-Christian sadomasochism focused on imposing suffering as virtue , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Zheng He would never have considered that his sailors – and the populations he made contact with – had to pay this price .
So why did it all end , and so suddenly ?
Essentially Yong Le run out of money because of his grandiose imperial adventures .
The Grand Canal – linking the Yellow River and the Yangtze basins – cost a fortune .
Same for building the Forbidden City .
The revenue from the expeditions was not enough .
And just as the Forbidden City was inaugurated , it caught @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
According to tradition , this means disharmony between Heaven and the sovereign , a development outside of the astral norm .
Confucians used it to blame the eunuch councilors , very close to the merchants and the cosmopolitan elites around the emperor .
On top of it , the southern borders were restless and the Mongol threat never really went away .
The new Ming emperor , Zhu Gaozhi , laid down the law : “ China ’ s territory produces all goods in abundance ; so why should we buy abroad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ successor Zhu Zanji was even more radical .
Up to 1452 , a series of imperial edicts prohibited foreign trade and overseas travel .
Every infraction was considered piracy punished by death .
Worse , studying foreign languages was banished , as was the teaching of Chinese to foreigners .
Zheng He died ( in early 1433 ?
1435 ? )
in true character , in the middle of the sea , north of Java , as he was returning from the seventh , and last , expedition .
The documents and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as well as the ships .
So the Ming ditched naval power and re-embraced old agrarian Confucianism , which privileges agriculture over trade , the earth over the seas , and the center over foreign lands .
The takeaway is that the formidable naval tributary system put in place by Yong Le and Zheng He was a victim of excess – too much state spending , peasant turbulence – as well as its own success .
In less than a century , from the Zheng He expeditions to the Ming retreat , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ game changer in history and geopolitics , prefiguring what would happen immediately afterwards in the long 16th century : the era when Europe started and eventually managed to rule the world .
One image is stark .
While Zheng He ’ s lieutenants were sailing the eastern coast of Africa all the way to the south , in 1433 , the Portuguese expeditions were just starting their adventures in the Atlantic , also sailing south , little by little , along the Western coast of Africa .
The mythical Cape Bojador was conquered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expeditions crisscrossed Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean from 1403 for nearly three decades , only half a century later Bartolomeu Dias would conquer the Cape of Good Hope , in 1488 , and Vasco da Gama would arrive in Goa in 1498 .
Imagine a historical “ what if ?
” : the Chinese and the Portuguese bumping into each other in Swahili land .
After all , in 1417 it was the turn of Hong Bao , the Muslim eunuch who was Zheng He ’ s lieutenant ; and in 1498 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turn , guided by the “ Lion of the Sea ” Ibn Majid , his legendary Arab master navigator .
The Ming were not obsessed with gold and spices .
For them , trade should be based on equitable exchange , under the framework of the tribute .
As Joseph Needham conclusively proved in works such as Science and Civilization in China , the Europeans wanted Asian products way more than Orientals wanted European products , “ and the only way to pay for them was gold.
” For the Portuguese , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ colonization territory .
And for that the few colonizers needed slaves .
For the Chinese , slavery amounted to domestic chores at best .
For the Europeans , it was all about the massive exploitation of a workforce in the fields and in mines , especially concerning black populations in Africa .
In Asia , in contrast to Chinese diplomacy , the Europeans went for massacre .
Via torture and mutilations , Vasco da Gama and other Portuguese colonizers deployed a real war of terror against civilian populations .
This absolutely major structural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world- system and the geo-historical organization of our world , as analyzed by crack geographers such as Christian Grataloup and Paul Pelletier .
Asian nations did not have to manage – or to suffer – the painful repercussions of slavery .
So in the space of only a few decades the Chinese abdicated from closer relations with Southeast Asia , India and Eastern Africa .
The Ming fleet was destroyed .
China abandoned overseas trade and retreated unto itself to focus on agriculture .
Once again : the direct connection between the Chinese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is capable of explaining the development process of the two “ worlds ” – the West and the Chinese center – since the 15th century .
At the end of the 15th century , there were no Chinese architects left capable of building large ships .
Development of weaponry also had been abandoned .
In just a few decades , crucially , the Sinified world lost its vast technological advance over the West .
It got weaker .
And later it would pay a huge price , symbolized in the Chinese unconsciousness by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the above explains quite a few things .
How Xi Jinping and the current leadership did their homework .
Why China won ’ t pull a Ming remix and retreat again .
Why and how the overland Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road are being revived .
How there won ’ t be any more humiliations .
And most of all , why the West – especially the American empire – absolutely refuses to admit the new course of history .

With hybrid warfare 2.0 against China reaching fever pitch, the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative, will continue to be demonized 24/7 as the proverbial evil communist plot for economic and geopolitical domination of the “free” world, boosted by a sinister disinformation campaign.
It’s idle to discuss with simpletons. In the interest of an informed debate, what matters is to find the deeper roots of Beijing’s strategy – what the Chinese learned from their own rich history and how they are applying these lessons as a re-emerging major power in the young 21st century.
Let’s start with how East and West used to position themselves at the center of the world.
The first Chinese historic-geographic encyclopedia, the 2nd century B.C. Classic of the Mountains and the Seas, tells us the world was what was under the sun (tienhia). Composed of “mountains and seas” (shanhai), the world was laid out between “four seas” (shihai). There’s only one thing that does not change: the center. And its name is “Middle Kingdom” (Zhongguo), that is, China.
Of course, the Europeans, in the 16th century, discovering that the earth was round, turned Chinese centrality upside down. But actually not that much (see, for instance, this 21st century Sinocentric map published in 2013).
The principle of a huge continent surrounded by seas, the “exterior ocean,” seems to have derived from Buddhist cosmology, in which the world is described as a “four-petal lotus.” But the Sinocentric spirit was powerful enough to discard and prevail over every cosmogony that might have contradicted it, such as the Buddhist, which placed India at the center. The Man Who Loved Chin... Winchester, Simon Best Price: $1.49 Buy New $5.99 (as of 03:00 UTC - Details)
Now compare Ancient Greece. Its center, based on reconstituted maps by Hippocrates and Herodotus, is a composite in the Aegean Sea, featuring the Delphi-Delos-Ionia triad. The major split between East and West goes back to the Roman empire in the 3rd century. And it starts with Diocletian, who made it all about geopolitics.
Here’s the sequence: In 293, he installs a tetrarchy, with two Augustuses and two Caesars, and four prefectures. Maximian Augustus is charged to defend the West (Occidens), with the “prefecture of Italy” having Milan as capital. Diocletian charges himself to defend the East (Oriens), with the “prefecture of Orient” having Nicomedia as capital.
Political religion is added to this new politico-military complex. Diocletian starts the Christian dioceses (dioikesis, in Greek, after his name), twelve in total. There is already a diocese of the Orient – basically the Levant and northern Egypt.
There’s no diocese of the Occident. But there is a diocese of Asia: basically the Western part of Mediterranean Turkey nowadays, heir to the ancient Roman provinces in Asia. That’s quite interesting: the Orient is placed east of Asia.
The historical center, Rome, is just a symbol. There’s no more center; in fact, the center is slouching towards the Orient. Nicomedia, Diocletian’s capital, is quickly replaced by neighbor Byzantium under Constantine and rechristened as Constantinople: he wants to turn it into “the new Rome.”
When the Western Roman empire falls in 476, the empire of the Orient remains.
Officially, it will become the Byzantine empire only in the year 732, while the Holy Roman Empire – which, as we know, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire – resurrects with Charlemagne in 800. From Charlemagne onwards, the Occident regards itself as “Europe,” and vice-versa: the historical center and the engine of this vast geographical space, which will eventually reach and incorporate the Americas.
Superstar admiral
The Silk Road: A Capti... History, Captivating Best Price: $15.76 Buy New $13.34 (as of 03:00 UTC - Details) We’re still immersed in a – literally – oceanic debate among historians about the myriad reasons and the context that led everyone and his neighbor to frenetically take to the seas starting in the late 15th century – from Columbus and Vasco da Gama to Magellan.
But the West usually forgets about the true pioneer: iconic Admiral Zheng He, original name Ma He, a eunuch and Muslim Hui from Yunnan province.
His father and grandfather had been pilgrims to Mecca. Zheng He grew up speaking Mandarin and Arabic and learning a lot about geography. When he was 13, he was placed in the house of a Ming prince, Zhu Di, member of the new dynasty that came to power in 1387.
Educated as a diplomat and warrior, Zheng He converted to Buddhism under his new name, although he always remained faithful to Islam. After all, as I saw for myself when I visited Hui communities in 1997 when branching out from the Silk Road, on my way to Labrang monastery in Xiahe, Hui Islam is a fascinating syncretism incorporating Buddhism, the Tao and Confucianism.
Zhu Di brought down the Emperor in 1402 and took the name Yong Le. A year later he had already commissioned Zheng He as admiral, and ordered him to supervise the construction of a large fleet to explore the seas around China. Or, to be more precise, the “Occidental ocean” (Xiyang): that is, the Indian Ocean.
Thus from 1405 to 1433, roughly three decades, Zheng He led seven expeditions across the seas all the way to Arabia and Eastern Africa, leaving from Nanjing in the Yangtze and benefiting from monsoon winds. They hit Champa, Borneo, Java, Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, Calicut, Hormuz, Aden, Jeddah/Mecca, Mogadiscio and the Eastern African coast south of the Equator.
Those were real armadas, sometimes with over 200 ships, including the 72 main ones, carrying as many as 30,000 men and vast amounts of precious merchandise for trade: silk, porcelain, silver, cotton, leather products, iron utensils. The leading vessel of the first expedition, with Zheng He as captain, was 140 meters long, 50 meters wide and carrying over 500 men.
This was the original Maritime Silk Road, now revived in the 21st century. And it was coupled with another extension of the overland Silk Road: after all the dreaded Mongols were in retreat, there were new allies all the way to Transoxiana, the Chinese managed to strike a peace deal with the successor of Tamerlane. So the Silk Roads were booming again. The Ming court sent diplomats all over Asia – Tibet, Nepal, Bengal, even Japan.
The main objective of pioneering Chinese seafaring has always puzzled Western historians. Essentially, it was a diplomatic, commercial and military mix. It was important to have Chinese suzerainty recognized – and materialized via the payment of a tribute. But most of all this was about trade; no wonder the ships had special cabins for merchants. The Roman Empire and t... McLaughlin, Raoul Buy New $26.95 (as of 03:00 UTC - Details)
The armada was designated as the Treasury Fleet – but denoting more a prestige operation than a vehicle for capturing riches. Yong Le was strong on soft power and economics – as he took control of overseas trade by imposing an imperial monopoly over all transactions. So in the end this was a clever, comprehensive application of the Chinese tributary system – in the commercial, diplomatic and cultural spheres.
Yong Le was in fact following the instructions of his predecessor Hongwu, the founder of the Ming (“Lights”) dynasty. Legend rules that Hongwu ordered that one billion trees should be planted in the Nanjing region to supply the building of a navy.
Then there was the transfer of the capital from Nanjing to Beijing in 1421, and the construction of the Forbidden City. That cost a lot of money. As much as the naval expeditions were expensive, their profits, of course, were useful.
Yong Le wanted to establish Chinese – and pan-Asian – stability via a true Pax Sinica. That was not imposed by force but rather by diplomacy, coupled with a subtle demonstration of power. The Armada was the aircraft carrier of the time, with cannons on sight – but rarely used – and practicing “freedom of navigation”.
What the emperor wanted was allied local rulers, and for that he used intrigue and commerce rather than shock and awe via battles and massacres. For instance, Zheng He proclaimed Chinese suzerainty over Sumatra, Cochin and Ceylon. He privileged equitable commerce. So this was never a colonization process.
On the contrary: before each expedition, as its planning proceeded, emissaries from countries to be visited were invited to the Ming court and treated, well, royally.
Plundering Europeans
Now compare that with the European colonization led a decade later by the Portuguese across these same lands and these same seas. Between (a little) carrot and (a lot of) stick, the Europeans drove commerce mostly via massacres and forced conversions. Trading posts were soon turned into forts and military installations, something that Zheng He’s expeditions never attempted. The New Silk Roads: Th... Frankopan, Peter Best Price: $13.24 Buy New $9.99 (as of 03:00 UTC - Details)
In fact Zheng He left so many good memories that he was divinized under his Chinese name, San Bao, which means “Three Treasures,” in such places in Southeast Asia as Malacca and Siam’s Ayutthaya.
What can only be described as Judeo-Christian sadomasochism focused on imposing suffering as virtue, the only path to reach Paradise. Zheng He would never have considered that his sailors – and the populations he made contact with – had to pay this price.
So why did it all end, and so suddenly? Essentially Yong Le run out of money because of his grandiose imperial adventures. The Grand Canal – linking the Yellow River and the Yangtze basins – cost a fortune. Same for building the Forbidden City. The revenue from the expeditions was not enough.
And just as the Forbidden City was inaugurated, it caught fire in May 1421. Bad omen. According to tradition, this means disharmony between Heaven and the sovereign, a development outside of the astral norm. Confucians used it to blame the eunuch councilors, very close to the merchants and the cosmopolitan elites around the emperor. On top of it, the southern borders were restless and the Mongol threat never really went away.
The new Ming emperor, Zhu Gaozhi, laid down the law: “China’s territory produces all goods in abundance; so why should we buy abroad trinkets without any interest?”
His successor Zhu Zanji was even more radical. Up to 1452, a series of imperial edicts prohibited foreign trade and overseas travel. Every infraction was considered piracy punished by death. Worse, studying foreign languages was banished, as was the teaching of Chinese to foreigners.
Zheng He died (in early 1433? 1435?) in true character, in the middle of the sea, north of Java, as he was returning from the seventh, and last, expedition. The documents and the charts used for the expeditions were destroyed, as well as the ships.
So the Ming ditched naval power and re-embraced old agrarian Confucianism, which privileges agriculture over trade, the earth over the seas, and the center over foreign lands.
No more naval retreat
The takeaway is that the formidable naval tributary system put in place by Yong Le and Zheng He was a victim of excess – too much state spending, peasant turbulence – as well as its own success.
In less than a century, from the Zheng He expeditions to the Ming retreat, this turned out to be a massive game changer in history and geopolitics, prefiguring what would happen immediately afterwards in the long 16th century: the era when Europe started and eventually managed to rule the world.
One image is stark. While Zheng He’s lieutenants were sailing the eastern coast of Africa all the way to the south, in 1433, the Portuguese expeditions were just starting their adventures in the Atlantic, also sailing south, little by little, along the Western coast of Africa. The mythical Cape Bojador was conquered in 1434.
After the seven Ming expeditions crisscrossed Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean from 1403 for nearly three decades, only half a century later Bartolomeu Dias would conquer the Cape of Good Hope, in 1488, and Vasco da Gama would arrive in Goa in 1498.
Imagine a historical “what if?”: the Chinese and the Portuguese bumping into each other in Swahili land. After all, in 1417 it was the turn of Hong Bao, the Muslim eunuch who was Zheng He’s lieutenant; and in 1498 it was Vasco da Gama’s turn, guided by the “Lion of the Sea” Ibn Majid, his legendary Arab master navigator.
The Ming were not obsessed with gold and spices. For them, trade should be based on equitable exchange, under the framework of the tribute. As Joseph Needham conclusively proved in works such as Science and Civilization in China, the Europeans wanted Asian products way more than Orientals wanted European products, “and the only way to pay for them was gold.”
For the Portuguese, the “discovered” lands were all potential colonization territory. And for that the few colonizers needed slaves. For the Chinese, slavery amounted to domestic chores at best. For the Europeans, it was all about the massive exploitation of a workforce in the fields and in mines, especially concerning black populations in Africa.
In Asia, in contrast to Chinese diplomacy, the Europeans went for massacre. Via torture and mutilations, Vasco da Gama and other Portuguese colonizers deployed a real war of terror against civilian populations.
This absolutely major structural difference is at the root of the world- system and the geo-historical organization of our world, as analyzed by crack geographers such as Christian Grataloup and Paul Pelletier. Asian nations did not have to manage – or to suffer – the painful repercussions of slavery.
So in the space of only a few decades the Chinese abdicated from closer relations with Southeast Asia, India and Eastern Africa. The Ming fleet was destroyed. China abandoned overseas trade and retreated unto itself to focus on agriculture.
Once again: the direct connection between the Chinese naval retreat and the European colonial expansion is capable of explaining the development process of the two “worlds” – the West and the Chinese center – since the 15th century.
At the end of the 15th century, there were no Chinese architects left capable of building large ships. Development of weaponry also had been abandoned. In just a few decades, crucially, the Sinified world lost its vast technological advance over the West. It got weaker. And later it would pay a huge price, symbolized in the Chinese unconsciousness by the “century of humiliation.”
All of the above explains quite a few things. How Xi Jinping and the current leadership did their homework. Why China won’t pull a Ming remix and retreat again. Why and how the overland Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road are being revived. How there won’t be any more humiliations. And most of all, why the West – especially the American empire – absolutely refuses to admit the new course of history.
Reprinted with the author’s permission.


Racial Revenge?

Last Friday , the day after two whites in Georgia were arrested in the vastly publicized killing of the black jogger/prowler Ahmaud Arbery , a young black gunman murdered two octogenarian whites , Paul and Lidia Marino , while they were visiting their son ’ s grave at a veterans ’ cemetery in Delaware .
After a six-hour firefight with the police , the shooter , a 29-year-old black man , was dead—whether at police hands or his own remains unknown .
In contrast to Arbery ’ s killing , this second interracial killing case has gotten virtually zero national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though it ’ s fairly spectacular in scale and quite curious in motive .
For example , an eyewitness speculated that the killer appeared to have brought extra ammunition for his planned shoot-out to the death with the police .
The cops don ’ t have an explanation for the killer ’ s actions yet .
It wasn ’ t a robbery .
It doesn ’ t sound like a contract killing .
( I can ’ t rule that out , but I did check if the victims , a retired lithographer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of any mafioso of the same surname , but found zero connections . )
It could be some kind of personal beef , but nobody has found a connection between the killer and the killed at this point .
The Madness of Crowds : ... Murray , Douglas Best Price : $ 15.44 Buy New $ 13.99 No confession note , social media , or interviews with the shooter ’ s family have yet emerged to explain his motivations .
Although , to be frank , the press doesn ’ t seem to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bottom of this seemingly random slaughter .
There isn ’ t even much talk about what kind of weapon the killer used , in contrast to the gun porn after similar mass shootings .
Imagine that the circumstances were reversed and if on Friday a young white man had hunted down an elderly black couple visiting their son ’ s grave at a veterans ’ cemetery .
The national media would be in full cry over this racist atrocity .
President Trump would attend the funeral .
The prestige press would demand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opinion the gunman had followed should be , First Amendment or not , permanently exterminated .
But what happens when it ’ s The Megaphone itself that may have egged on the killer ?
For example , a search of the New York Times archives finds 104 articles mentioning the name of Ahmaud Arbery so far just in the month of May .
That ’ s even more saturation coverage than the Times normally devotes to late-breaking developments in the Emmett Till case .
The possibility that the cemetery killer was inspired to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media hoopla over the still-ambiguous death of Arbery is not something that the prestige press is rushing to look into .
We are never supposed to consider whether The Establishment getting all hyped up over the shooting of blacks by whites ( or by nonwhites in the case of Trayvon Martin and Philando Castile ) might inspire other blacks to shoot whites .
Hate Crime Hoax : How t ... Reilly , Wilfred Best Price : $ 11.58 Buy New $ 17.27 Taboo : 10 Facts You Ca ... Reilly , Wilfred Best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 20.40

Last Friday, the day after two whites in Georgia were arrested in the vastly publicized killing of the black jogger/prowler Ahmaud Arbery, a young black gunman murdered two octogenarian whites, Paul and Lidia Marino, while they were visiting their son’s grave at a veterans’ cemetery in Delaware. After a six-hour firefight with the police, the shooter, a 29-year-old black man, was dead—whether at police hands or his own remains unknown.
In contrast to Arbery’s killing, this second interracial killing case has gotten virtually zero national media attention through Tuesday morning, even though it’s fairly spectacular in scale and quite curious in motive. For example, an eyewitness speculated that the killer appeared to have brought extra ammunition for his planned shoot-out to the death with the police.
The cops don’t have an explanation for the killer’s actions yet. It wasn’t a robbery. It doesn’t sound like a contract killing. (I can’t rule that out, but I did check if the victims, a retired lithographer and a housewife, were close relatives of any mafioso of the same surname, but found zero connections.) It could be some kind of personal beef, but nobody has found a connection between the killer and the killed at this point. The Madness of Crowds:... Murray, Douglas Best Price: $15.44 Buy New $13.99 (as of 03:02 UTC - Details)
No confession note, social media, or interviews with the shooter’s family have yet emerged to explain his motivations. Although, to be frank, the press doesn’t seem to be all that motivated to get to the bottom of this seemingly random slaughter. There isn’t even much talk about what kind of weapon the killer used, in contrast to the gun porn after similar mass shootings.
Imagine that the circumstances were reversed and if on Friday a young white man had hunted down an elderly black couple visiting their son’s grave at a veterans’ cemetery.
The national media would be in full cry over this racist atrocity. President Trump would attend the funeral. The prestige press would demand that whatever web sources of information and opinion the gunman had followed should be, First Amendment or not, permanently exterminated.
But what happens when it’s The Megaphone itself that may have egged on the killer? For example, a search of the New York Times archives finds 104 articles mentioning the name of Ahmaud Arbery so far just in the month of May. That’s even more saturation coverage than the Times normally devotes to late-breaking developments in the Emmett Till case.
The possibility that the cemetery killer was inspired to shoot some random whites by the enormous media hoopla over the still-ambiguous death of Arbery is not something that the prestige press is rushing to look into. We are never supposed to consider whether The Establishment getting all hyped up over the shooting of blacks by whites (or by nonwhites in the case of Trayvon Martin and Philando Castile) might inspire other blacks to shoot whites.
Read the Whole Article
Hate Crime Hoax: How t... Reilly, Wilfred Best Price: $11.58 Buy New $17.27 (as of 07:00 UTC - Details) Taboo: 10 Facts You Ca... Reilly, Wilfred Best Price: $16.01 Buy New $20.40 (as of 03:01 UTC - Details)


lewrockwell--2020-05-15--‘Private, Hold Him Down. Corporal, Inject Him.’

President Donald Trump said in an interview Thursday he is already mobilizing the military to help distribute a coronavirus vaccine @ @ @ @ @ developed .
“ Our military is now being mobilized so at the end of the @ @ @ @ @ to be able to give it to a lot of people very , very rapidly @ @ @ @ @ in an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo , which aired on Thursday morning @ @ @ @ @ distributing the vaccine would be a “ massive job ” and that he would move @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Unless you ’ re mobilized and ready , you ’ re not going @ @ @ @ @ it for a long time .
So we ’ re starting now , ” he @ @

President Donald Trump said in an interview Thursday he is already mobilizing the military to help distribute a coronavirus vaccine as soon as it is developed.
“Our military is now being mobilized so at the end of the year we’re going to be able to give it to a lot of people very, very rapidly,” the president said in an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, which aired on Thursday morning.
The president said that distributing the vaccine would be a “massive job” and that he would move quickly to get it distributed.
“Unless you’re mobilized and ready, you’re not going to be able to do it for a long time. So we’re starting now,” he said.
President Trump predicted a vaccine would become available by the end of 2020, and manufacturers are already mobilizing the production of millions of doses of potential vaccine candidates while they are tested.
The president has also set an “Operation Warp Speed “task force goal of getting 100 million vaccine doses available in the fall, with 300 million doses by January.


lewrockwell--2020-05-15--Ron Paul: Don’t Let The MSM & Gov’t Fear Mongers Drive You Nuts

Ginning up fear and terror was the key to getting hold of the country , tossing millions of Americans out of work , and setting fire to the Constitution .
A nation ruled by fear is a nation that falls into tyranny , said Dr. Ron Paul in his latest Liberty Report .
We know the elitists have been using the mainstream media to instill fear into the public .
Fearful people are easy to control and more likely to obey the commands of tyrants .
Most people operate only to obey others and don ’ t take the time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in this case , the disinformation presented .
Dr. Paul and Daniel McAdams begin the Liberty Report discussing the problems with government regulations , and how they have led to many more deaths than would have happened had the government done nothing .
Dr. Paul then discusses how the media is complicit in scaring the public so politicians can expand their violent rule and domination of other human begins .
“ There ’ s an element of fear , scare the people into it !
But that might be the way all incremental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thing people need to realize is that the “ role of government isn ’ t to make us safe and secure.
” And the more people give up rights to be safe and secure , the more enslaved they become .
We have a nation full of people who literally think like slaves and not like the free human beings they were born as .
“ Hopefully , this will wake people up !
” McAdams added that this fear-mongering by government and the mainstream media is a “ form of terrorism.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the word terrorism , it ’ s to “ terrorize people for a political goal.
” In this case , the goal in tyrannical takeover and enslavement of every human being on this planet .
They [ the mainstream media on behalf of the ruling class ] always resort to fear .
As we continue to say , the coronavirus DID NOT cause an economic recession , the people who obeyed the commands of tyrants did .
The coronavirus DID NOT cause food shortages , farmers who obeyed the commands of tyrants did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the cops who followed orders to exact tyranny on the public did .
This all comes down to obeying .
The masters barked orders , and the slaves obeyed to their own detriment .
If we ever hope to be free , we have to reject the slave mindset they have brainwashed all of us into .
Dr. Ron Paul On Coronavirus Panic : The Real Danger “ Is The Government ’ s Overreaction ” If you have any questions about what the government wants , check out H.R .
6666 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ up .
The government is not your friend .
The good news is that the truth is getting out , and people all over the planet are waking up .
The elitists are losing control as the public becomes aware of what governments are doing .
McAdams pointed out that the longer this goes on , the more blame Donald Trump will get .
As Dr. Paul said , it ’ s important to get people to NOT be fearful , but understand what ’ s going on .
“ We have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s an easier answer to all of this , ” says Dr. Paul .
ANd it ’ s freedom .
But most slaves don ’ t know how to handle freedom and can ’ t even envision a life that isn ’ t beholden to someone else claiming to own them .
The Best of Mac Slavo

Ginning up fear and terror was the key to getting hold of the country, tossing millions of Americans out of work, and setting fire to the Constitution. A nation ruled by fear is a nation that falls into tyranny, said Dr. Ron Paul in his latest Liberty Report.
We know the elitists have been using the mainstream media to instill fear into the public. Fearful people are easy to control and more likely to obey the commands of tyrants. Most people operate only to obey others and don’t take the time to think critically about the information or in this case, the disinformation presented.
Dr. Paul and Daniel McAdams begin the Liberty Report discussing the problems with government regulations, and how they have led to many more deaths than would have happened had the government done nothing.

Dr. Paul then discusses how the media is complicit in scaring the public so politicians can expand their violent rule and domination of other human begins. “There’s an element of fear, scare the people into it! But that might be the way all incremental socialism and fascism works.” False Alarm: The Truth... Siegel, Marc Best Price: $12.95 Buy New $12.70 (as of 11:29 UTC - Details)
The biggest thing people need to realize is that the “role of government isn’t to make us safe and secure.” And the more people give up rights to be safe and secure, the more enslaved they become. We have a nation full of people who literally think like slaves and not like the free human beings they were born as. “Hopefully, this will wake people up!”
McAdams added that this fear-mongering by government and the mainstream media is a “form of terrorism.” When you look at the definition of the word terrorism, it’s to “terrorize people for a political goal.” In this case, the goal in tyrannical takeover and enslavement of every human being on this planet. They [the mainstream media on behalf of the ruling class] always resort to fear.
As we continue to say, the coronavirus DID NOT cause an economic recession, the people who obeyed the commands of tyrants did. The coronavirus DID NOT cause food shortages, farmers who obeyed the commands of tyrants did. The coronavirus DID NOT cause tyranny, the cops who followed orders to exact tyranny on the public did. This all comes down to obeying. The masters barked orders, and the slaves obeyed to their own detriment. If we ever hope to be free, we have to reject the slave mindset they have brainwashed all of us into.
Dr. Ron Paul On Coronavirus Panic: The Real Danger “Is The Government’s Overreaction”
Plague of Corruption: ... Mikovits, Judy Buy New $16.51 (as of 02:59 UTC - Details) If you have any questions about what the government wants, check out H.R. 6666. This is the TRACE act. Wake up. The government is not your friend.
The good news is that the truth is getting out, and people all over the planet are waking up. The elitists are losing control as the public becomes aware of what governments are doing. McAdams pointed out that the longer this goes on, the more blame Donald Trump will get.
As Dr. Paul said, it’s important to get people to NOT be fearful, but understand what’s going on. “We have a growing number of people that know there’s an easier answer to all of this,” says Dr. Paul. ANd it’s freedom. But most slaves don’t know how to handle freedom and can’t even envision a life that isn’t beholden to someone else claiming to own them.
Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.
The Best of Mac Slavo


lewrockwell--2020-05-15--The Wisdom and Humility of C.S. Lewis

The Wisdom and Humility of C.S. Lewis

I recently read a truly profound book , which is available from both Amazon and the publisher , SVS Press ’ s website , On The Incarnation by Saint Athanasius .
I confess that in attitude and knowledge until relatively recently , my understanding of Christianity was essentially shaped by modern commentaries , including the writing of C.S .
Lewis .
What attracted me to this work was the preface he wrote , in which I believe Lewis provided advice with a significant measure of wisdom and humility .
Before I get to what I learned , I realize—and have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for some purchasing books is a luxury that is not currently practical .
I did further research and found an excellent Catholic Internet resource , The New Advent , which has posted numerous writings of The Church Fathers .
Therefore , readers can find a good translation of On The Incarnation at the site at this link .
In addition , C.S .
Lewis ’ s Preface and the specific translation he praised ( which is good but perhaps not equal to the more recent one by John Behr with his introduction that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this link , but I don ’ t know for how long .
The Value of Ancient Books What Lewis wrote is compelling : “ There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals , and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books .
Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism , the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and read the Symposium .
He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long , all about ‘ isms ’ and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said .
The error is rather an amiable one , for it springs from humility .
The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face .
He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him .
But if he only knew , the great man , just because of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than his modern commentator .
The simplest student will be able to understand , if not all , yet a very great deal of what Plato said ; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism .
It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than secondhand knowledge , but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.
” To me , Lewis ’ s reasoning about the value of ancient texts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ good teacher , especially if he has written a work referencing the original texts , might help the reader in understanding Plato , for example ; but if the reader never reads an actual text , he will not , as an editor and translator for one of the Focus Philosophical Library English translations of Plato noted , engage in a “ dialog ” and debate the tenets offered by Plato , which has much value ; tangentially , we often think Plato ’ s writing is meant as dogma , but it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I find the same reservations in reading recent commentaries on Scripture .
Modern commentary is all well and good , but it often comes—unfortunately—with at best a secular perspective or ignorance , even bias , as I ’ ve noted in some of my writings on LewRockwell.com .
And here C.S .
Lewis makes his core thesis : “ This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology .
Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ studying not St. Luke or St. Paul or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler , but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or M. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself .
“ Now this seems to me topsy-turvy .
Naturally , since I myself am a writer , I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books .
But if he must read only the new or only the old , I would advise him to read the old .
And I would give him this advice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet .
A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it .
It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages , and all its hidden implications ( often unsuspected by the author himself ) have to be brought to light .
Often it can not be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books .
If you join @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said .
Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why—the reason , of course , being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point .
In the same way sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed at some other book ; in this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safety is to have a standard of plain , central Christianity ( ‘ mere Christianity ’ as Baxter called it ) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective .
Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books .
It is a good rule , after reading a new book , never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between .
If that is too much for you , you should at least read one old one to every three @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Christians Despite Irreconcilable Differences between Denominations Lewis also makes an excellent observation on the divisions within the Christian faith ( by that , I ’ d consider many core beliefs of Protestants versus Roman Catholics versus Orthodox Christians ) : “ We are all rightly distressed , and ashamed also , at the divisions of Christendom .
But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them .
They are bad , but such people do not know what it looks like from without .
Seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ despite all the divisions , still appears ( as it truly is ) an immensely formidable unity [ emphasis added ] .
I know , for I saw it ; and well our enemies know it .
That unity any of us can find by going out of his own age .
It is not enough , but it is more than you had thought till then .
Once you are well soaked in it , if you then venture to speak , you will have an amusing experience .
You will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reproducing Bunyan , a Pantheist when you are quoting Aquinas , and so forth .
For you have now got on to the great level viaduct which crosses the ages and which looks so high from the valleys , so low from the mountains , so narrow compared with the swamps , and so broad compared with the sheep-tracks.
” And now let me reveal what C.S .
Lewis to his delight discovered about this ancient text , On The Incarnation : “ When I first opened…De Incarnatione I soon discovered by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a masterpiece .
I knew very little Christian Greek except that of the New Testament and I had expected difficulties .
To my astonishment I found it almost as easy as Xenophon ; and only a master mind could , in the fourth century , have written so deeply on such a subject with such classical simplicity .
Every page I read confirmed this impression .
His approach to the Miracles is badly needed today , for it is the final answer to those who object to them as ‘ arbitrary and meaningless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They are here shown to be rather the re-telling in capital letters of the same message which Nature writes in her crabbed cursive hand ; the very operations one would expect of Him who was so full of life that when He wished to die He had to ‘ borrow death from others.
’ The whole book , indeed , is a picture of the Tree of Life—a sappy and golden book , full of buoyancy and confidence .
We can not , I admit , appropriate all its confidence today .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Christian living and the gay , almost mocking courage of Christian martyrdom , as a proof of our doctrines with quite that assurance which Athanasius takes as a matter of course .
But whoever may be to blame for that it is not Athanasius.
” How C.S .
Lewis Came to Write the Preface to On The Incarnation The story behind Lewis writing the preface is discussed on his official website .
The translator and friend of the English language translation of On The Incarnation that included his preface was “ Ruth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1890 and had entered the ( Anglican ) convent of the Community of Saint Mary the Virgin ( at Wantage , near Oxford ) in 1912 .
Sister Penelope studied theology and church history , and expressed her practical delight in Greek and Latin by translating numerous works from the early church fathers.
” Although out of print , I am pleased that her work is still available ( one never knows for how long ) on the Internet I previously provided .
Quoting what I believe is an essential perspective of Saint @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the last chapter that , because death and corruption were gaining ever firmer hold on them , the human race was in process of destruction .
Man , who was created in God ’ s image and in his possession of reason reflected the very Word Himself , was disappearing , and the work of God was being undone .
The law of death , which followed from the Transgression , prevailed upon us , and from it there was no escape .
The thing that was happening was in truth both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of course , have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man , having transgressed , should not die ; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption .
It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil ; and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or through the deceit of evil spirits .
As , then , the creatures whom He had created reasonable , like the Word , were in fact perishing , and such noble works were on the road to ruin , what then was God , being Good , to do ?
Was He to let corruption and death have their way with them ?
In that case , what was the use of having made them in the beginning ?
Surely it would have been better never to have been created at all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be neglected and perish ; and , besides that , such indifference to the ruin of His own work before His very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation , and that far more than if He had never created men at all .
It was impossible , therefore , that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption , because it would be unfitting and unworthy of Himself .
( 7 ) Yet , true though this is , it is not the whole matter .
As we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that God , the Father of Truth , should go back upon His word regarding death in order to ensure our continued existence .
He could not falsify Himself ; what , then , was God to do ?
Was He to demand repentance from men for their transgression ?
You might say that that was worthy of God , and argue further that , as through the Transgression they became subject to corruption , so through repentance they might return to incorruption again .
But repentance would not guard the Divine consistency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hold dominion over men , God would still remain untrue .
Nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature ; all that it does is to make them cease from sinning .
Had it been a case of a trespass only , and not of a subsequent corruption , repentance would have been well enough ; but when once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the Image @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not meet the case .
What—or rather Who was it that was needed for such grace and such recall as we required ?
Who , save the Word of God Himself , Who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing ?
His part it was , and His alone , both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all .
For He alone , being Word of the Father and above all , was in consequence both able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father .
( 8 ) For this purpose , then , the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God entered our world .
In one sense , indeed , He was not far from it before , for no part of creation had ever been without Him Who , while ever abiding in union with the Father , yet fills all things that are .
But now He entered the world in a new way , stooping to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to us .
He saw the reasonable race , the race of men that , like Himself , expressed the Father ’ s Mind , wasting out of existence , and death reigning over all in corruption .
He saw that corruption held us all the closer , because it was the penalty for the Transgression ; He saw , too , how unthinkable it would be for the law to be repealed before it was fulfilled .
He saw how unseemly it was that the very things of which He Himself was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saw how the surpassing wickedness of men was mounting up against them ; He saw also their universal liability to death .
All this He saw and , pitying our race , moved with compassion for our limitation , unable to endure that death should have the mastery , rather than that His creatures should perish and the work of His Father for us men come to nought , He took to Himself a body , a human body even as our own .
Nor did He will merely to become embodied or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so , He could have revealed His divine majesty in some other and better way .
No , He took our body , and not only so , but He took it directly from a spotless , stainless virgin , without the agency of human father—a pure body , untainted by intercourse with man .
He , the Mighty One , the Artificer of all , Himself prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself , and took it for His very own , as the instrument through which He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Thus , taking a body like our own , because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death , He surrendered His body to death instead of all , and offered it to the Father .
This He did out of sheer love for us , so that in His death all might die , and the law of death thereby be abolished because , having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed , it was thereafter voided of its power for men .
This He did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ men who had turned back to corruption , and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of His resurrection .
Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire .
( 9 ) The Word perceived that corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death ; yet He Himself , as the Word , being immortal and the Father ’ s Son , was such as could not die .
For this reason , therefore , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in order that it , through belonging to the Word Who is above all , might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all , and , itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling , might thereafter put an end to corruption for all others as well , by the grace of the resurrection .
It was by surrendering to death the body which He had taken , as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain , that He forthwith abolished death for His human brethren by the offering of the equivalent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of God was above all , when He offered His own temple and bodily instrument as a substitute for the life of all , He fulfilled in death all that was required .
Naturally also , through this union of the immortal Son of God with our human nature , all men were clothed with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection .
For the solidarity of mankind is such that , by virtue of the Word ’ s indwelling in a single human body , the corruption which goes with death has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses ; because of his dwelling in that single house , the whole city is honored , and enemies and robbers cease to molest it .
Even so is it with the King of all ; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many , and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death , which formerly held them in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be .
For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all , the Son of God , come among us to put an end to death .
( 10 ) This great work was , indeed , supremely worthy of the goodness of God .
A king who has founded a city , so far from neglecting it when through the carelessness of the inhabitants it is attacked by robbers , avenges it and saves it from destruction , having regard rather to his own honor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Much more , then , the Word of the All-good Father was not unmindful of the human race that He had called to be ; but rather , by the offering of His own body He abolished the death which they had incurred , and corrected their neglect by His own teaching .
Thus by His own power He restored the whole nature of man… No single essay can do justice to the richness of the thought expressed in On the Incarnation ; I do hope everyone who finds what I write @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work ; no matter what English translation one chooses to read , the power of its truth will be revealed .
If nothing else , one obtains confirmation , as a believing Christian , in the infinite power of God ’ s perfect love for us .
Like Lewis , I humbly hope readers become acquainted with this text .
The Parable of the Prodigal Son : More Relevant than Ever Today I would also like to recommend another book , The Parable of the Prodigal Son : A Commentary in the Light @ @ @ @ @ @ @ publisher , New Rome Press .
An Adobe Acrobat excerpt is available via this link .
Citing St. Gregory of Nysssa , the author , Hieromonk Gregorios writes using ancient sources to confirm his commentary , quoting the Saint : “ The purpose of creating the world and man , was to make him a communicant of divine love .
Because ‘ the light should not remain unseen , the divine glory undeclared , nor the divine kindness unenjoyed .
Nor should the other divine goods remain unengaged , without someone to become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of man ’ s creation was that he become a communicant of divine goodness , he ‘ was adorned by God with life , logos , wisdom and all the divine goods , so that by means of any of them he would aspire to the corresponding divine good.
’ All such goods are collectively expressed by the phrase : in the image of God.
” What both the Parable of the Prodigal Son and On the Incarnation have in common is revealing the infinite depth of love God has for his suffering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ former , we understand the loving and forgiving father is Jesus Christ himself .
Reading Gary D. Barnett on LewRockwell.com , we realize , “ Everything that has happened has been long-planned , and none of this was due to any natural occurrence of disease .
The real pandemic is simply fear , and those perpetrating this fraud understand that any society that has been dumbed down to this level , and has become dependent and weak would be an easy target for this false flag coronavirus event .
The plan was brilliant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the average American citizen was the key element in being able to not only achieve the goal of having an entire country ’ s population voluntarily place themselves in home prisons without resistance , but to destroy their own livelihoods , eliminate travel , isolate from family and society , and to distance and wear masks .
They are now expected to accept long-term isolation , mandatory vaccination with poisons , complete restriction of travel , constant surveillance and tracing , and forcible removal and imprisonment of so-called infected family members , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If so many in the world were not Prodigal children who strayed so far from God into the fallen world and love it more than our Creator , perhaps we would not have been so easily deceived and ruled by fear .
For as Hieromonk Gregorios wrote in his commentary : “ Despair is the devil ’ s most potent weapon .
The tragedy is not falling into sin , but rather being unable to arise from our fall .
The Prophet Jeremiah inquires : Shall he that falls arise ?
Or he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turn back again ?
( Jer .
8:4 ) .
” Quoting Saint John Chrysostom On Repentance 1,4 , he writes also on repentance , “ The prodigal son makes the decision to return to his father after realizing , based on his experience , what he had lost by departing far away from Him .
The benevolent father allowed his child to ‘ move away to a foreign country so that he could learn , by experience , the magnitude of his kindness , which he had formerly received by staying at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ great evil it is to be deprived of one ’ s paternal love , he returned .
“ Man ’ s decision to return to his Paternal Home is a decision to return to the land of spiritual comfort : Return to your rest , O my soul .
Ps .
114:7.
” For as Hieromonk Seraphim Rose , who has written of the primacy of the Church Fathers ’ teachings , wrote in his God ’ s Revelation to the Human Heart , “ …the process of revelation occurs in a very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need , he suffers , and then somehow the other world opens up .
The more you are in sufferings and difficulties and are ‘ desperate ’ for God , the more He is going to come to your aid , reveal Who He is and show you the way to get out.
” I hope that as more and more people return “ Home ” they will find within the strength neither to hate nor to fear and also to remember what it is to be free ; for I have faith @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
For the Ancient books can help us as road maps to return to our true Home .
The Best of Yvonne Lorenzo

I recently read a truly profound book, which is available from both Amazon and the publisher, SVS Press’s website, On The Incarnation by Saint Athanasius. I confess that in attitude and knowledge until relatively recently, my understanding of Christianity was essentially shaped by modern commentaries, including the writing of C.S. Lewis. What attracted me to this work was the preface he wrote, in which I believe Lewis provided advice with a significant measure of wisdom and humility.
Before I get to what I learned, I realize—and have had recent email correspondence to this effect—that for some purchasing books is a luxury that is not currently practical. I did further research and found an excellent Catholic Internet resource, The New Advent, which has posted numerous writings of The Church Fathers. Therefore, readers can find a good translation of On The Incarnation at the site at this link. In addition, C.S. Lewis’s Preface and the specific translation he praised (which is good but perhaps not equal to the more recent one by John Behr with his introduction that SVS published) currently is available at this link, but I don’t know for how long.
The Value of Ancient Books
On the Incarnation: Sa... Saint Athanasius Best Price: $10.34 Buy New $11.72 (as of 11:30 UTC - Details) What Lewis wrote is compelling: “There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about ‘isms’ and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than secondhand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.”
To me, Lewis’s reasoning about the value of ancient texts is sheer common sense; certainly a good teacher, especially if he has written a work referencing the original texts, might help the reader in understanding Plato, for example; but if the reader never reads an actual text, he will not, as an editor and translator for one of the Focus Philosophical Library English translations of Plato noted, engage in a “dialog” and debate the tenets offered by Plato, which has much value; tangentially, we often think Plato’s writing is meant as dogma, but it is nothing of the kind. Similarly, I find the same reservations in reading recent commentaries on Scripture. Modern commentary is all well and good, but it often comes—unfortunately—with at best a secular perspective or ignorance, even bias, as I’ve noted in some of my writings on LewRockwell.com.
And here C.S. Lewis makes his core thesis:
“This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or M. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself.
“Now this seems to me topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light. Often it cannot be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why—the reason, of course, being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point. In the same way sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed at some other book; in this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you knew its real significance. The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity (‘mere Christianity’ as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.” Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis Best Price: $2.00 Buy New $9.13 (as of 09:05 UTC - Details)
How Jesus Christ Unites Christians Despite Irreconcilable Differences between Denominations
Lewis also makes an excellent observation on the divisions within the Christian faith (by that, I’d consider many core beliefs of Protestants versus Roman Catholics versus Orthodox Christians):
“We are all rightly distressed, and ashamed also, at the divisions of Christendom. But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them. They are bad, but such people do not know what it looks like from without. Seen from there, what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity [emphasis added]. I know, for I saw it; and well our enemies know it. That unity any of us can find by going out of his own age. It is not enough, but it is more than you had thought till then. Once you are well soaked in it, if you then venture to speak, you will have an amusing experience. You will be thought a Papist when you are actually reproducing Bunyan, a Pantheist when you are quoting Aquinas, and so forth. For you have now got on to the great level viaduct which crosses the ages and which looks so high from the valleys, so low from the mountains, so narrow compared with the swamps, and so broad compared with the sheep-tracks.”
And now let me reveal what C.S. Lewis to his delight discovered about this ancient text, On The Incarnation:
“When I first opened…De Incarnatione I soon discovered by a very simple test that I was reading a masterpiece. I knew very little Christian Greek except that of the New Testament and I had expected difficulties. To my astonishment I found it almost as easy as Xenophon; and only a master mind could, in the fourth century, have written so deeply on such a subject with such classical simplicity. Every page I read confirmed this impression. His approach to the Miracles is badly needed today, for it is the final answer to those who object to them as ‘arbitrary and meaningless violations of the laws of Nature.’ They are here shown to be rather the re-telling in capital letters of the same message which Nature writes in her crabbed cursive hand; the very operations one would expect of Him who was so full of life that when He wished to die He had to ‘borrow death from others.’ The whole book, indeed, is a picture of the Tree of Life—a sappy and golden book, full of buoyancy and confidence. We cannot, I admit, appropriate all its confidence today. We cannot point to the high virtue of Christian living and the gay, almost mocking courage of Christian martyrdom, as a proof of our doctrines with quite that assurance which Athanasius takes as a matter of course. But whoever may be to blame for that it is not Athanasius.”
How C.S. Lewis Came to Write the Preface to On The Incarnation
The story behind Lewis writing the preface is discussed on his official website. The translator and friend of the English language translation of On The Incarnation that included his preface was “Ruth Penelope Lawson, who was born in 1890 and had entered the (Anglican) convent of the Community of Saint Mary the Virgin (at Wantage, near Oxford) in 1912. Sister Penelope studied theology and church history, and expressed her practical delight in Greek and Latin by translating numerous works from the early church fathers.” Although out of print, I am pleased that her work is still available (one never knows for how long) on the Internet I previously provided. Quoting what I believe is an essential perspective of Saint Athanasius from her translation: The C. S. Lewis Signat... Lewis, C. S. Best Price: $53.15 Buy New $39.49 (as of 05:00 UTC - Details)
We saw in the last chapter that, because death and corruption were gaining ever firmer hold on them, the human race was in process of destruction. Man, who was created in God’s image and in his possession of reason reflected the very Word Himself, was disappearing, and the work of God was being undone. The law of death, which followed from the Transgression, prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape. The thing that was happening was in truth both monstrous and unfitting. It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man, having transgressed, should not die; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption. It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil; and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear, either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits. As, then, the creatures whom He had created reasonable, like the Word, were in fact perishing, and such noble works were on the road to ruin, what then was God, being Good, to do? Was He to let corruption and death have their way with them? In that case, what was the use of having made them in the beginning? Surely it would have been better never to have been created at all than, having been created, to be neglected and perish; and, besides that, such indifference to the ruin of His own work before His very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation, and that far more than if He had never created men at all. It was impossible, therefore, that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of Himself. (7) Yet, true though this is, it is not the whole matter. As we have already noted, it was unthinkable that God, the Father of Truth, should go back upon His word regarding death in order to ensure our continued existence. He could not falsify Himself; what, then, was God to do? Was He to demand repentance from men for their transgression? You might say that that was worthy of God, and argue further that, as through the Transgression they became subject to corruption, so through repentance they might return to incorruption again. But repentance would not guard the Divine consistency, for, if death did not hold dominion over men, God would still remain untrue. Nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature; all that it does is to make them cease from sinning. Had it been a case of a trespass only, and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough; but when once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the Image of God. No, repentance could not meet the case. What—or rather Who was it that was needed for such grace and such recall as we required? Who, save the Word of God Himself, Who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing? His part it was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father. The Parable of the Pro... Gregorios, Hieromonk Best Price: $13.06 Buy New $17.95 (as of 11:30 UTC - Details) (8) For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God entered our world. In one sense, indeed, He was not far from it before, for no part of creation had ever been without Him Who, while ever abiding in union with the Father, yet fills all things that are. But now He entered the world in a new way, stooping to our level in His love and Self-revealing to us. He saw the reasonable race, the race of men that, like Himself, expressed the Father’s Mind, wasting out of existence, and death reigning over all in corruption. He saw that corruption held us all the closer, because it was the penalty for the Transgression; He saw, too, how unthinkable it would be for the law to be repealed before it was fulfilled. He saw how unseemly it was that the very things of which He Himself was the Artificer should be disappearing. He saw how the surpassing wickedness of men was mounting up against them; He saw also their universal liability to death. All this He saw and, pitying our race, moved with compassion for our limitation, unable to endure that death should have the mastery, rather than that His creatures should perish and the work of His Father for us men come to nought, He took to Himself a body, a human body even as our own. Nor did He will merely to become embodied or merely to appear; had that been so, He could have revealed His divine majesty in some other and better way. No, He took our body, and not only so, but He took it directly from a spotless, stainless virgin, without the agency of human father—a pure body, untainted by intercourse with man. He, the Mighty One, the Artificer of all, Himself prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself, and took it for His very own, as the instrument through which He was known and in which He dwelt. Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of His resurrection. Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire. (9) The Word perceived that corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and the Father’s Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, through belonging to the Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all, and, itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling, might thereafter put an end to corruption for all others as well, by the grace of the resurrection. It was by surrendering to death the body which He had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, that He forthwith abolished death for His human brethren by the offering of the equivalent. For naturally, since the Word of God was above all, when He offered His own temple and bodily instrument as a substitute for the life of all, He fulfilled in death all that was required. Naturally also, through this union of the immortal Son of God with our human nature, all men were clothed with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection. For the solidarity of mankind is such that, by virtue of the Word’s indwelling in a single human body, the corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all. You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honored, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death. Feel the Fear . . . an... Jeffers, Susan Best Price: $1.99 Buy New $10.60 (as of 11:30 UTC - Details) (10) This great work was, indeed, supremely worthy of the goodness of God. A king who has founded a city, so far from neglecting it when through the carelessness of the inhabitants it is attacked by robbers, avenges it and saves it from destruction, having regard rather to his own honor than to the people’s neglect. Much more, then, the Word of the All-good Father was not unmindful of the human race that He had called to be; but rather, by the offering of His own body He abolished the death which they had incurred, and corrected their neglect by His own teaching. Thus by His own power He restored the whole nature of man…
No single essay can do justice to the richness of the thought expressed in On the Incarnation; I do hope everyone who finds what I write now of interest seeks out the full work; no matter what English translation one chooses to read, the power of its truth will be revealed. If nothing else, one obtains confirmation, as a believing Christian, in the infinite power of God’s perfect love for us. Like Lewis, I humbly hope readers become acquainted with this text.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son: More Relevant than Ever Today
I would also like to recommend another book, The Parable of the Prodigal Son: A Commentary in the Light of the Fathers also available from its publisher, New Rome Press. An Adobe Acrobat excerpt is available via this link. Citing St. Gregory of Nysssa, the author, Hieromonk Gregorios writes using ancient sources to confirm his commentary, quoting the Saint:
“The purpose of creating the world and man, was to make him a communicant of divine love. Because ‘the light should not remain unseen, the divine glory undeclared, nor the divine kindness unenjoyed. Nor should the other divine goods remain unengaged, without someone to become their communicant.’
“Since the purpose of man’s creation was that he become a communicant of divine goodness, he ‘was adorned by God with life, logos, wisdom and all the divine goods, so that by means of any of them he would aspire to the corresponding divine good.’ All such goods are collectively expressed by the phrase: in the image of God.”
What both the Parable of the Prodigal Son and On the Incarnation have in common is revealing the infinite depth of love God has for his suffering creations, human beings. From the former, we understand the loving and forgiving father is Jesus Christ himself. Reading Gary D. Barnett on LewRockwell.com, we realize, “Everything that has happened has been long-planned, and none of this was due to any natural occurrence of disease. The real pandemic is simply fear, and those perpetrating this fraud understand that any society that has been dumbed down to this level, and has become dependent and weak would be an easy target for this false flag coronavirus event. The plan was brilliant in that understanding the pathetic nature of the average American citizen was the key element in being able to not only achieve the goal of having an entire country’s population voluntarily place themselves in home prisons without resistance, but to destroy their own livelihoods, eliminate travel, isolate from family and society, and to distance and wear masks. They are now expected to accept long-term isolation, mandatory vaccination with poisons, complete restriction of travel, constant surveillance and tracing, and forcible removal and imprisonment of so-called infected family members, including children by agents of the state.” Your Thoughts are Kill... Wuenschel, Marybeth Best Price: $20.58 Buy New $13.01 (as of 11:30 UTC - Details)
If so many in the world were not Prodigal children who strayed so far from God into the fallen world and love it more than our Creator, perhaps we would not have been so easily deceived and ruled by fear. For as Hieromonk Gregorios wrote in his commentary:
“Despair is the devil’s most potent weapon. The tragedy is not falling into sin, but rather being unable to arise from our fall. The Prophet Jeremiah inquires: Shall he that falls arise? Or he that turns away, shall he not turn back again? (Jer. 8:4).” Quoting Saint John Chrysostom On Repentance 1,4, he writes also on repentance, “The prodigal son makes the decision to return to his father after realizing, based on his experience, what he had lost by departing far away from Him. The benevolent father allowed his child to ‘move away to a foreign country so that he could learn, by experience, the magnitude of his kindness, which he had formerly received by staying at home…after the prodigal son learned what a great evil it is to be deprived of one’s paternal love, he returned.
“Man’s decision to return to his Paternal Home is a decision to return to the land of spiritual comfort: Return to your rest, O my soul. Ps. 114:7.” For as Hieromonk Seraphim Rose, who has written of the primacy of the Church Fathers’ teachings, wrote in his God’s Revelation to the Human Heart, “…the process of revelation occurs in a very simple way; a person is in need, he suffers, and then somehow the other world opens up. The more you are in sufferings and difficulties and are ‘desperate’ for God, the more He is going to come to your aid, reveal Who He is and show you the way to get out.”
I hope that as more and more people return “Home” they will find within the strength neither to hate nor to fear and also to remember what it is to be free; for I have faith Jesus Christ will show us the Way. For the Ancient books can help us as road maps to return to our true Home.
Machiavelli: The Art o... Boucheron, Patrick Best Price: $6.19 Buy New $5.99 (as of 03:30 UTC - Details) God’s Revelation... Fr. Seraphim Rose Best Price: $2.00 Buy New $5.00 (as of 02:42 UTC - Details)
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