CONSERVATISM RECRUDESCENT
517
to another kingdom. Tertullian, also, declared: "Nothing is more
foreign to us than affairs of state,"S and Augustine would hardly
have agreed with Burke's claim that every state is the creation of
God: some states he saw as closer to the Devil than to God. Thus,
where conservative
pietas
is pagan and monistic, the early Fathers
were dualistic and defended the claims of Christian conscience against
the claims of the state.
Mr. Kirk observes that
"An
Hellenic piety, almost Platonic in
its tone, suffuses Burke's declaration that the state is Divinely or–
dained."
An
Hellenic piety indeed and an Egyptian and Oriental
piety too, but not a Christian or Judaic piety. Furthermore, Mr.
Kirk overlooks the long tradition-and I emphasize tradition, for
conservatives have no monopoly of it--{)f radical Christianity. Cer–
tainly, a conspicuous strain in ante-Nicene Christianity is the re–
current motif of separation from the state, opposition to the
claims
of the state to divinity, and the constant iteration that the Kingdom
of Christ is not of this world.
Mr. Viereck, too, shows that when he invokes religion to sta–
bilize society he is returning to the Roman pantheon. He asks for a
humanist appreciation of
all
religious sentiments regardless of de–
nomination. Mr. Viereck cautions against religion which is carried
away by its own enthusiasms; dogmas, he says, should not be taken
too literally.
As
Gertrude Himmelfarb has pointed out, "Utility,
rather than any sectarian idea of truth, becomes his ultimate re–
ligious principle."4 Thus, religion is devaluated from an ultimate end
to a relative end, or even to a means to the end of social stability.
When he indicates that he supports "religion as a humanist in the
Erasmus tradition, not as a theologian," Mr. Viereck is expressing
the spirit of Roman
pietas.
But piety must be distinguished from religion. Piety is con–
servative, religion is not. Piety in the sense of Roman
pietas
is a
complex of secular loyalties and civic virtues. As a substitute for
religion it is epitomized in the Latin saying: "Pious is he who loves
his country." The failure to distinguish between piety and religion,
however, is a self-destructive weakness in conservatism. Recognizing
3
Apology, 38.
4 "The Prophets of the New Conservatism,"
Commentary,
vol.
IX
(1950),
p. 80.
