Julius Evola- The Sufi of Rome

by Frank Gelli

  The stranger of Wells’ tale stood for Evola himself. The Sufi of Rome. Someone who had become an alien to his own people, who had made himself into an outsider. Who appeared, to both left-wing and right-wing establishments, an outrageously deluded man. A pariah, a man beyond the pale, an intellectually untouchable figure. The sinister operation, the evil surgery Evola had refused was to conform. To follow the crowd. To accept the false ideologies, the myths of the 20th century. He had opted instead to uphold the path of tradition and transcendence. On the height of his mountain cliff Evola was alone, yes, but he was true to himself. Free. Like Borges, he had not let his physical impairment embitter him. He had borne his sufferings with stoic resignation. Nor had he allowed the ostracism to which his person and works had been subjected to stunt him psychologically. No, from his inner mountain heights he, like the stranger, could look down on the blind, deluded folks below with a smile of contempt on his lips. Aware that, unlike them, he had not surrendered. In his own way, through his chosen self-martyrdom,he had refused to be blind to the light.

  THE SOLITARY

  ‘There will be no monasticism in Islam.’ That is well-known hadith, a saying of the Prophet. Therefore there are no Muslim monks. There cannot be. Those books written by orientalist scholars in which you read of dervish convents, monasteries and the like are misleading. It is sloppy language. A monk takes vows of chastity. That is against the teaching of Islam. Nor is poverty necessarily a virtue to Muslims. Ali, the Imam of the Shia, once said, “If poverty was a human person, I would kill him”. The only monastic vow that is acceptable to Islam is obedience. Eminently so in the relationship between murshid and murid, master and disciple...Still, I suppose I could evoke the spirit of that fine Sufi teacher of Andalusia, Ibn Bajja of Zaragoza. Not only was he a prolific Aristotelian commentator, he also wrote a treatise, “The Solitary’s Way of Life”. Remember that “monk” comes from the Greek word monos, meaning alone. Solitary, in other words. Ibn Bajja’s solitary however is not a monkish figure. It means a person who follows the way of oneness, unity. Key category in Islam. It is the way to the supreme Identity, the One the multitudes call God. “Solitary” in Arabic comes from a root meaning “one”. Ibn Bajja’s book consists of studied, regulated actions, aimed at a specific goal. The way of the solitary requires great mental strength and concentration. Only the person who is inwardly alone – unencumbered from the cares and prejudices of the world – can properly pursue the way to the One. It is significant that for the Andalusian Sufi the way of the solitary mirrors the political arrangement of the perfect state, the model social polity. Be careful, though – this ideal begins with a prior reforming and transforming of your mind, your mores and your attitudes. What Islam calls the lesser, inner jihad. So the solitary in order to change the world must first and foremost change himself. Until society has achieved the degree of virtue personified in the life of the servant of the supreme identity, the solitaries will remain strangers. The people will treat them as outsiders...Plato would have found Ibn Bajja a man after his own heart, I am sure.’

  Again, I felt obscurely that by speaking of the solitary he was being self-referential – the solitary was himself.

  COUNTER-GOSPEL

  ‘The Greeks would have considered the Gospel precept “Love your enemy” totally incomprehensible. Absurd, actually. Something mad, irrational, suicidal. Like cutting off both your arms. “Love your friend” and “Hurt your enemy” was their natural ethics. Another way of saying “Treat your enemy the way he would treat you” – assuming of course that your enemy is not a masochist!’

  ‘The Romans knew how to deal with their enemies with strict justice. Aulus Gellius makes that clear in relating the story of the hero and martyr Attilius Regulus. The Carthaginians had subjected their Roman prisoner to the most exquisite tortures. Eventually they deprived Regulus of sleep until he died. They even stitched his eyelids open, so that he could never shut his eyes to sleep. When the Romans learnt of Regulus’ manner of death, the Senate decreed that the Carthaginians prisoners should be handed over to Regulus’ relatives. They put the prisoners to death exactly in the same way their people had treated Regulus.’

  ‘Christian writers have implicitly recognised that the command to love your enemy at bottom is irrational. That is why they have invoked all sorts of dubious distinctions, such that it was not really at all a command but an invitation, a piece of advice. That will not do. They do not realise by saying that they actually diminish, devalue the figure of their Saviour. Would you expect the ruler of cosmos to have bothered to come down to earth just to hand out mere invitations, like a showman at a fairground? What nonsense!’

  ‘Nor will St Augustine’s way out work. He said that loving your enemy means stopping him from doing evil. Huh! So it is all right, it is a loving act to shoot a robber or an aggressor. A funny kind of loving! When Christian apologists have to resort to such sleight of hand, it simply shows how desperate they are. It would be more honest if they decided that the precept is untenable. Islam is much more sensible. It does not expect human beings to behave like angels. Instead it legislates for man in society in a much more acceptable way...’

  I could not quite agree with him. The distinctions drawn by sharp theologians like Augustine are not quibbles - they important and make sense. Evola seems to have overlooked the different senses of the word “love” in the Greek of the New Testament. But I did not say that to him. Instead, I asked him whether it was not the case that most men just tend to engage in self-deception. They like to think of themselves as altruistic and selfless, not as selfish and ruthless. A politician who went about preaching like that would not do too well. He would be considered too brutal and so he would not receive popular backing. So perhaps the Gospel injunctions not only fitted a more idealised humanity but also made allowances for the human, all too human tendency of human beings to revel in self-delusion, to imagine they are better than they actually are.

  ‘There is something in that but the point is that we must strip the masks of self-deception away. That is what philosophers like Nietzsche relentlessly did. He exposed the real nature of Christian ethics. But you are aware of that already...At any rate, you know what I think. My motto is: ‘Do to your enemy what he would do to you, only make sure you don’t wait too long to strike, or it will be too late!’

  POPE JULIUS: A DREAM

  One morning the Baron looked tired but exhilarated. He seldom would speak of his dreams but the latest had been so droll, he had to tell me about it.

  ‘I had been elected Pope. I wanted to take up the name of Julius IV but the Cardinals told me it was customary for a new Pope to pick a name other than his own. So I chose the name Hermes. They did not like the idea of the Pope having the name of a pagan god and tried to make me change my mind but I stood firm. “I am the Pope. You must obey me!” Half-heartedly, they agreed. However, they pointed out I was not ordained and insisted I should be made a priest before I could take up the post. That annoyed me a great deal so I started beating them over the head with my pastoral staff and they submitted. As the Cardinals were prostrating themselves before me, kissing my feet, I noticed they gnashed their teeth in an unpleasant way, so I had two or three thrown into the Vatican dungeons where the rats ate them alive.’

  ‘I was happy to be the Supreme Pontiff. That had been the title of the chief of the religion of ancient Rome so I determined to restore paganism. I did not like the idea of having a wife but I took up various concubines. Also, I ordered the statues of saints in St Peter’s to be removed and those to Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Venus and myself to be put up instead. To my chagrin, however, the stone saints returned, overthrew the gods and installed themselves back onto their pedestals. Shocking! And there was nothing I, Pope Hermes, could do about it. I felt very frustrated...’

  ‘I then decided that Pope and his lovers must visit Moscow but the puritanical communists would not allow me to get a visa, so I proclaimed a holy war against the Soviet Union. Italy an
d England would not take part but Germany, Finland and Turkey did. We stormed and took Moscow. I blessed the victorious armies and preached that they must not love their enemies, so they started butchering and impaling all the prisoners. I felt that was going too far – the Pope must temper justice with mercy, Grazia e Giustizia - and told them to stop but they laughed at me, shouting, “How many divisions has the Pope?” In anger, I excommunicated them all and went back to Rome. When I got there, I found it full of Turks. However, they all fell down and worshipped me as the awaited Mahdi, the restorer of the faith. That pleased me very much. I felt I must go to Mecca and tell the joyful news to the Saudi king. The Turkish chieftains then demanded that I should first be circumcised. I refused point-blank and they bowed and started slaughtering each other. Before I could set off for Mecca, unfortunately, I woke up. Pity, because I was really enjoying being Pope!’

  The Baron’s neo-paganism was bizarre. Although I, like many teenagers, had rebelled against the Catholic Church and at times enjoyed crudely boasting of my unbelief, it never occurred to me to consider myself a pagan. A word that conjured up images of dilapidated statues and childish notions about human, all too human deities. There is no question that at a certain stage Evola had proclaimed himself a pagan, although in his own, special sense. However, I am convinced that later he used the label chiefly as a way of epater le bourgeois, to shock and stagger the middle class establishment he was up against. I sometimes like to think that, had he thought it sufficiently opprobrious, he might have declared himself even a communist or an anarchist. A possibility he would have repudiated outright, I am sure, but...I just stick to my guns here. He was that kind of man.

  THE ANTI-ITALIAN

  A figure much mocked in Italian culture is that of the cuckold. A husband whose wife betrays him with another man. It is something bound up with a certain notion of male honour, typical of Mediterranean peoples. A man feels himself mortally slighted when he discovers his wife sleeping with another man. Often, he ends up killing the wife’s lover or sometimes even both. The cuckold’s fury arises largely from the fear that the people would consider him an object of fun. So, to be called cornuto is a bloody insult that can get you stabbed or killed. A popular film, Divorce, Italian Style, illustrated the situation. Evola considered that idea of honour linked to sex a bourgeois one. One totally misguided and absurd: ‘It would be like feeling your personal honour injured, outraged if someone stole your car. Very annoying, sure, but hardly something that touches your reputation, your deepest self-respect as a man. Unless you equated having a wife with the ownership of your car. But a wife is not another piece of property...’ Words that I remember very distinctly because, in a sense, so un-Italian. His ancestral roots were from the South of Italy, where that idea of honour was paramount but, he repeatedly assured me, always felt like a stranger fallen into the midst of an alien people...

  In the calendar of the Catholic Church one day it was the feast day of St Maria Goretti. A peasant girl who had been killed defending her virginity from a would-be rapist. Virginity was another concept he criticised at length. That led him to speak of the Madonna, the common Italian word for the Virgin Mary. ‘Madonna’ means “my woman”. So, psychologically, whether people realise it or not, Mary stands for all women. But her virginity is a theological thing...She just has to be, in order to be the mother of the Son of God. Even the Qur’an, though not accepting the divinity of Jesus, affirms Mary’s virginity. However, the Catholic Church insists that she also stayed a virgin while giving birth – and that she remained a virgin throughout her life. Semper Virgo, always a virgin, the dogma has it. Of course, miracles apart, it is not absolutely, physically impossible for an organism to procreate without insemination. The natural world affords us examples of parthenogenesis... But no reasonable person can accept that she kept her virginity still while giving birth. Muslims are of that opinion. An example of that can be found in the life of St Ignatius of Loyola. He was riding on a mule on his way to the great Marian shrine of Montserrat when a Moor came up, so they rode along together. That being the “Age of Faith”, the two fell to discussing theology. Indeed, they spoke about Mary. Ignatius defended the standard church view and the Moor the Qur’anic one. He gave reasons, of a graphic, strict anatomical character, why it would be impossible for a woman to preserve her virginity while giving birth to a baby. St Ignatius strove to persuade the Moor but the adversary would not budge. The saint then thought of killing him because “he had insulted the Madonna’s honour” but, thanks to what he took to be a heavenly sign, he did not. You see here a wonderful conjunction of theology with popular notions of virginity. But I must not be unfair to the holy man. He was a nobleman and his code of chivalry was clear: a knight does not allow his damsel to be offended. A far cry from the obtuse Mediterranean moron who feels himself slighted if he discovers his wife to be is not a virgin...’

  THE SONG OF THE BIRD

  When I arrived chez Evola one morning I found that a little bird had flown its way into his flat. He gently coaxed the tiny creature out. That induced him to quote that passage in the Qur’an where Jesus creates real live creatures from birds of clay. (Surah 5,110).

  ‘Birds are spies from the world above. Charming messengers from Heaven. The Golden Legend, a medieval collection of tales about saints’ lives, tells of a robin that, moved by the sight of Jesus’ sufferings on the Cross, flew down and drew out a thorn from the cruel crown hurting his forehead. The story cannot quite be squared with the Islamic view of ‘Isa, as Jesus is called in the Qur’an. The actual crucifixion never took place, as Allah saved Jesus, replacing him with an impostor. Mind you, that did not prevent Moussa Aminou, one of the many Africans aspiring to Mahdi status, from speaking about the bird on Golgotha. Aminou kept an incomparable journal, a supernatural diary of visions and dreams. There he records that the Angel Gabriel himself had shown him the very robin. It was held in the Angel’s right hand, wrapped in golden light, “like a small sun”. “The same bird it was that helped Jesus on Assalib, the Cross.” Well, mystical liberties, I suppose.’

  ‘That minor black Mahdi also favoured divination. I wonder whether he also went in for “auspicia”. The name the Romans gave to the ceremonial observation of birds. The Roman – the most religious of nations, as Greek Polybius calls them – believed it obligatory to study the flight of bird to scrutinise messages from the gods. They had a special college of priests, the augurs. Fellows who took the auspices and interpreted the omens – a complex art. A completely quiet, clear sky and an absence of wind were required. The slightest noise would invalidate the operation – unless indeed omens of terror caused the disturbance. If the report was aves admittunt, the birds allow it, the desired action would go ahead. Otherwise it was postponed and the Roman senate was strictly bound to obey. Needless to say, the Christians damned the whole thing as idolatry. Odd, considering that our feathered friends get a special commendation from the Gospel itself. You read in the Sermon on the Mount: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them”. But then the Church has always given the Scriptures the interpretations it suited her best...’

  ‘St Francis of Assisi is the obvious example to bring up here...Some say Francis wanted to convey a message, that he was fed up with preaching to people who would not listen to him and so preached to the birds to express his disgust. Actually, I disagree. Francis was exactly the kind of mystic who would speak to animals. There are plenty of other examples...Pasolini’s film, Uccellacci e Uccellini, I am told, gives the tale a twist. The hawks, the birds of prey only take a short break from killing little birds, then they resume their natural inclinations. It makes sense – a hawk’s nature is to hunt and kill. A pacifist hawk is no hawk. Not even St Francis could accomplish that miracle. A healthy shot of cynicism but you would expect that from Pasolini, wouldn’t you?’

  I had actually met Pasolini through a friend, a boy who rendered him certain services. I found
Pier Paolo a man of huge charm and of amazing intelligence. I did not care for his later writings – too “hermetic”, as he himself admitted – but films like Edipus Rex had bowled me over. Evola, however, disliked him intensely and so I refrained from telling him.

  An aside. Once, when I lived in Turkey, I was chatting with a friend, Halit, near the great Kojatepe Mosque. For no reason at all, I related to him the legend of the little robin. As he was a pious Muslim, I expected him to point out how unorthodox the tale was, according to the Qur’an. But he said nothing. Then, of all a sudden he spoke up: “Listen, there is bird singing. Can you hear it?” He looked at me, smiling. Dear Halit! Of course I could hear it! I can hear it now. I hope I’ll never be deaf to that song of hope and love. Halit taught me to hear the bird’s silent music. Anybody can hear it, if only they listened...

  He denied St Francis was really tolerant, in the sense in which modern sentimentalists conceive. ‘If you look up Canto XI in Dante’s Paradiso you will find reported a meeting between St Francis and the Sultan of Egypt. A real historical event, a meeting that took place during the fifth crusade. Giotto painted it...I forget where it is... After crossing the Saracen lines, the Saint was arrested and taken into the presence of the Sultan. Malik al-Kamil, a nephew of the great Saladin, was a cultured ruler, fond of music, falsafa and poetry. I imagine he would have thought Francis the Christian equivalent of dervish. Anyway, he treated him kindly. Franciscan chroniclers like St Bonaventure say that Francis sought to convert the Sultan but the latter refused. Little wonder! No way a Muslim ruler would have done that. (Besides, had the Sultan been crazy enough to accept baptism, both he and Francis would have been put to death.) Francis challenged the Sultan’s holy men to an ordeal through fire but the fellows knew better than that! Of the two – the Christian and the Muslim - the Sultan is the one who perhaps comes out best – if you believe tolerance is a virtue, that is. He could have ordered his prisoner’s head chopped off. But Islam recognises and tolerates the religions of the Book, Judaism and Christianity. Hence there was no essential reason why al-Kamil should have killed the Christian, even while being engaged in fighting the crusaders. For his part, St Francis was zealous for his religion. Note that he never condemned crusading. For him, it was a window of opportunity. A chance to go to the Holy Land to try and convert the infidel. What’s ‘tolerant’, in our debased, modern sense, about that?’