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Soul Provider
Hilaire Belloc, in all his politically incorrect brilliance.
The Essential Belloc: A Prophet for Our Times
Edited by Scott Bloch, Rev. C. John McCloskey, and Brian
Robertson
(Saint Benedict Press, 270 Pages, $17.95)
As its title suggests, The Essential Belloc: A Prophet for Our Times is a 270-page chrestomathy of Hilaire Belloc’s writings. It is edited by three worthies: Scott Bloch, Rev. C. John McCloskey, and Brian Robertson, and published by the Saint Benedict Press. It pulls from more than threescore works by Belloc and covers almost every subject imaginable with an extraordinary jeu d’esprit, to say nothing of the joie de vivre which underlies it all.
What can one say of a book that advises “Never warm Red wine”? One simply embraces it. One takes it as an authority. One brings it to restaurants to show to misguided sommeliers who serve room-temperature cabernet or zinfandel that curdles in the glass at 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Belloc (1870-1953) was a prophet for our time because he must have sensed this abuse of the grape as a growing threat within the very heart of Western civilization. As a well-balanced man, he also cautioned against over-chilling white wine, as it kills the taste. However, lovers of Champagne will be discomfited by his warning, “Never to drink what has been made and sold since the Reformation.” At least this would get rid of rum colas and other soft-drink pollutions.
There are other gustatory admonitions that deserve consideration: “if you use processed salt you do so at your peril.” Also, do not complain about hard Parmesan “rancid in bottles.” “You think it is hard from birth? You are mistaken. It is the world that hardens the Parmesan.” Or this very human touch: “Be content to remember that those who can make omelettes properly can do nothing else.”
But I am cheating here, succumbing to the temptation to keep quoting from the book because what Belloc says is so delicious. One wants to share it, which is why we should be so grateful to these editors for doing just that. In the preface, Fr. James Schall states that we are ineluctably charmed by Belloc, whom he calls the greatest essayist in the English language, because he delights in existence itself. That includes everything. And it is why everything for him is an adventure-wine, food, people, history, places, travel, God, and, generally, how the world works.
Few have written with such sweep and passion about the thrill of Christian orthodoxy, because it is orthodoxy, Belloc says, that sees things as they are, accepts them for what is. As he wrote, “The Catholic Church is the exponent of Reality.” What’s more, he states that “To-day, in the twentieth century, Catholics are the only organized body consistently appealing to the reason…” Belloc was the poet of reason in Christendom. His orthodoxy sings. In these pages, there is much praise of Christendom, and he energetically defends its defense, including the Crusades.
How ought one to read this book? That depends. I thought I would simply dip into it for occasional refreshment, a bon mot or two, an aperçu here and there, but found myself devouring whole sections at a sitting. This was especially so with the chapter of selections on Islam. In it, Belloc earns the subtitle’s description of him as prophetic. Read: “there are signs enough in the political heavens today of what we may have to expect from the revolt of Islam at some future date perhaps not far distant.”
No one was as prescient in this matter as was Belloc, who also correctly diagnosed the West’s main vulnerability: “Those who direct us and from whom the tone of our policy is taken have no major spiritual interest.… Islam has not suffered this spiritual decline… and [in this] lies our peril.” I could not think of a better description of the Obama administration than this, though I admit failure in this regard is bipartisan. It is, unfortunately, as Belloc feared, a sign of our declining civilization. Islam has preserved its soul. We have not preserved ours.
As a champion of Christendom, Belloc is also wonderfully politically incorrect. Consider his treatment of this touchy topic: “In what measure Islam affected our science and our philosophy is open to debate. Its effect has been, of course, heavily exaggerated, because to exaggerate it was a form of attack upon Catholicism.” Exactly.
Belloc also fights for the faith. One can only lament at the impoverished discourse today between our nouveau atheists and their opponents. Both sides could be vastly improved by Belloc’s rhetoric. Consider what he accomplishes in these few sentences: “For if God is not, then all falsehoods, though each prove the rest false, are each true, and every evil is its own good, and there is confusion everywhere. But if God is, then the world can stand.” How is that for a two-sentence lesson in apologetics?
IN THIS BROAD collection, there is something to delight or irritate just about everyone. I for one would like to send every libertarian I know Belloc’s remark that “A conversion to the Catholic culture is necessary to the restoration of economic freedom because economic freedom was the fruit of that culture in the past.” Are you with me, Ron Paul?
Of course, Belloc was not perfect. He said some kind things about Jean-Jacques Rousseau (though they are not included in this volume) and the French Revolution. Across from my house, the county park is deliberately kept in a state of disrepair, infested with poison ivy and decaying trees, as a tribute to Rousseau’s advancement of the “state of nature” as superior to man’s molestation of it (meaning forestry). Good for organic matter and bugs; bad for man (and my children).
But this is carping in comparison to the genius set forth in this invaluable volume. In closing, I return to the subject of adult beverages and succumb once again to quoting Belloc, who undertook to advise an alcoholic that he should drink only wine and mead. As a consequence, “all went well. He become a merry companion, and began to write odes. His prose clarified and set, that had before been very mixed and cloudy. He slept well; he comprehended divine things.” Alas, this man drank again of post-Reformation spirits, which he had forsworn, and had, as a consequence, to give up all drink. He “became a spectacle and a judgment, whereas if he had kept his exact word he might by this time have been a happy man.” And so will be you if you buy and abide by this book.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (25) | Leave a comment
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JP| 11.16.10 @ 7:52AM
One of my favorite Belloc poems:
I pray good beef and I pray good beer
This holy night of all the year,
But I pray detestable drink to them
That give no honour to Bethlehem.
May all good fellows that here agree
Drink Audit Ale in heaven with me,
And may all my enemies go to hell!
Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!
May all my enemies go to hell!
Noel! Noel!
ENOUGH ROPE| 11.17.10 @ 3:54AM
If one wanted to become a tyrant, it would be a good idea to invent a religion with yourself as the oracle and leader that would appeal to the most powerful and base drives of your culture. If your culture were patriarchal, violent, warlike, illiterate, impoverished, nomadic, disunited by tribalism, jealous, fanatical, highly emotional, backward, polygamous, and at ease with stealing an lying, it would be a good idea to invent a religion that rewarded those qualities. Perhaps someday there will be such a religion--someday?
T1Brit| 11.17.10 @ 12:36PM
Exactly put.
I wonder if that is the simple truth of it.
There is evidence that Christ travelled to the east and met Buddha - there is a tomb that claims to have him buried in Nepal or somewhere.
It' s not a coincidence that the only records that claim to be from both men share great similarities regarding the path to enlightenment - such as compassion and self-realisation etc.
They say similar things because they are both talking about the same reality.
There is no such character in Islam that I have seen. It does indeed resemble a set of nasty little dogmas invented by a clever man who wanted to rule.
Eric Rasmusen| 11.16.10 @ 8:26AM
I haven't read that bit of Belloc, but if he said that distilled spirits are post-Reformation, he's being typically Roman in playing fast-and-loose with history. Much as we Protestants might like to claim credit, whisky and brandy are medieval inventions.
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.16.10 @ 8:39AM
I for one consider mysel a member of the catholic Church. In my lexicon "Church" is the Christian people who commit with Peter that Jesus is the Son of God.
Petronius| 11.16.10 @ 9:01AM
Belloc wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the parish where I grew up. He would have been branded a fag and had his head beaten in. Back then, the measure of a man was how much he made per hour, how much he could drink, and how much ass he could kick. Now, they are all gone and the tough guys in my cohort quit going to church when they got wheels. Today the weenies, mamas boys, and lefties who run the parish councils would castigate Belloc as an apologist for the rich.
Reason, thought, and Catholicism usually collide briefly in the classroom. But they never survive the priest who berates those like me with the rejoinder, "You're not supposed to think. You're supposed to do as you're told!!"
In any case, I'll inquire as to whether Belloc has been having a tipple with H. L. Mencken in the great beyond.
PJ| 11.16.10 @ 10:14AM
Belloc is a hero for the extremely orthodox Catholic.
I read a little from his book, The Great Heresies. It led me the impression that he was a bit anti-semitic. I do know that in the "Catholic world" Belloc is controversial figure.
I don't know what kind of editors Scott Bloch & Brian Roberston are; but, Rev C John McCloskey is very traditional & orthodox, which is not a bad thing. As a result, his editing will slant in favor of Belloc's ideas & one must keep that in mind when reading this book.
Anyway, I think I will read it.
(For anyone who likes trivia: Belloc thought Islam was a Christian heresy.)
Dai Alanye | 11.16.10 @ 11:00AM
Muhammad borrowed from Christianity as well as Judaism in creating his faith—but mainly, I understand, from Kabbalistic Judaism.
TruthWillOut| 11.16.10 @ 6:32PM
Not true. Revealed Kabbalah was only first available as written text in the Early Middle Ages, after Mohammed--the earlier mysticism wouldn't have been available to an Arab who didn't even practice and adhere to the 613 commandments of Torah/Bible Judaism. He especially rejected any commandments that would limit rape, war-time pillage, looting, vengeful murder, etc.
Jeremiah| 11.17.10 @ 12:51AM
I read Belloc's book on the great heresies. His chapter on Islam was one of the rare cases where I found him unpersuasive. It did, however, make a pretty good case that the foundation of Islam was more a nationalistic/ethnic revolt against Christianity than an authentic new religion. It was suggestive that religion was just the path to power of a very ambitious warlord, who probably would have revolted against whatever the ruling order was. It does go a long way toward explaining the hopeless muddle that is Islamic theology.
Dave Williams| 11.16.10 @ 10:21AM
Islam HAS kept its soul, indeed, and what a humor-less, male-chauvinist, barbarous, murderous, totalitarian, life-denying soul it is. However, I wouldn't give up on the West just yet. The spirit of intellectual inquiry, freedom, and enjoyment of the world and all it has to offer is surely being kept alive...by its atheists!
loulou| 11.16.10 @ 10:33AM
YOU haven't given up on the West but the West has given up on the West. Unfortunately.
PJ| 11.16.10 @ 10:59AM
"The spirit of intellectual inquiry, freedom, and enjoyment of the world and all it has to offer is surely being kept alive...by its atheists!"
How very narrow-minded of you! I think you need to read some reputable books on western civilization, specifically European & Christian history. Why don't you try reading something from Rodney Stark, an atheist.
Ray| 11.16.10 @ 12:51PM
"The spirit of intellectual inquiry, freedom, and enjoyment of the world and all it has to offer is surely being kept alive...by its atheists!"
Now that's funny, considering that atheists reject the belief in the possibility of a Creator without the presentation of "proof," a rather egregious rejection of intellectual inquiry.
T1Brit| 11.17.10 @ 12:45PM
If it were not for 'proof'
You would still be lurking about the forest gathering berries.
JP| 11.16.10 @ 12:32PM
"The spirit of intellectual inquiry, freedom, and enjoyment of the world and all it has to offer is surely being kept alive...by its atheists!"
Pleeze, the really interesting and deep athieists died a few years back (Alan Bloom, Lezek Kolowski). And look what happened to Bloom when he published The Closing of the American Mind. Not even being a closet gay could safe him - his apostasy from the Dogma of Leftist, Multiculti, and the Frankfurt School was total. And the Left never forgave him.
The Left hasn't had an original thought in 60 years, and Political Correctness ensures that today's Intellectuals toe the party line.
DaveS| 11.16.10 @ 6:11PM
Finally: a review that doesn't just re-tell the book. However, a pet peeve continues to surface - that of titles with the colon separator to provide definition to the so-called 'main' title. Please, book publishers, stop this practice practiced by all stripes in all non-fictional literary pieces.
c j| 11.17.10 @ 7:08AM
Eric Rasmusen wrote: " I haven't read that bit of Belloc, but if he said that distilled spirits are post-Reformation, he's being typically Roman in playing fast-and-loose with history. Much as we Protestants might like to claim credit, whisky and brandy are medieval inventions."
Your post is exactly like most Protestants responses and arguments, you miss the whole point. You pick and choose small sections (verses in the Bible) to further your belief, but miss the big picture. You have focused on the tree (wine) and missed the forest. You, more than most, should read this book. It might enlighten you to the "fullness" of the Christian faith that you and all Protestants are missing.
May God Bless You!
ENOUGH ROPE| 11.17.10 @ 7:43PM
May we recall and practice in our daily lives the vocal greeting that we exchange with our nearest neighbors at Mass: "Peace be with you." It refers to Christ giving HIS peace to us, and not as the world gives peace to us. If we seek truth with neighborly love, mercy, and forebearance, then when we see the truth, there is a better chance for its acceptance.
mejamom| 11.17.10 @ 11:49AM
I inherited a large collection of Belloc's books from my father, a mathematician with a minor in philosophy from Fordham U. As far back as the 1980's he commented on Belloc's warning of Islam. I haven't read all the books, but especially enjoyed, "The Cruise of the Nona" and "Characters of the Reformation." He wrote some some pretty funny children's poems, too. I think I'll have to get this one.
Derek Leaberry| 11.17.10 @ 2:37PM
Belloc's "The Servile State" is masterful. However, he was as critical of certain aspects of capitalism as he was of socialism.
Tulsa Jack| 11.18.10 @ 2:37PM
Most people would agree that no economic, religious, or social system is or can be perfect. Some are, however, most certainly better than others. Socialism is robbery; Islam is a vicious beast; and aristocracy is tyranny. So let's be capitalists with a small "c," admitting everyone's right to better their lives through work, saving, and investment. Let's be deists, affirming life and love. And let's insist on a genuinely liberal democratic republican government, based on merit, achievement, and individual responsibility, with liberty and justice for all. Sounds "conservative," so what's the alternative? We've been there before. They were called the Dark Ages.