Valentinian's Imperial Threesome

Valentinian is the Christian Roman Emperor said to have engaged in Polygamy, below is Copy/Pastes from his Wikipedia Page.

Socrates Scholasticus gives an interesting account in his Historia Ecclesiastica of Valentinian's marriages, that has inspired some to call this emperor polygamous. According to the text: the empress Justina^[53]

became known to Marina Severa, wife of the emperor Valentinian, and had frequent dialogue with the empress, until their intimacy at length grew to such an extent that they were accustomed to bathe together. When Severa saw Justina in the bath she was greatly struck with the beauty of the virgin, and spoke of her to the emperor; saying that the daughter of Justus was so lovely a creature, and possessed of such symmetry of form, that she herself, though a woman, was altogether charmed with her. The emperor, treasuring this description by his wife in his own mind, considered with himself how he could espouse Justina, without repudiating Severa, as she had borne him Gratian, whom he had created Augustus a little while before. He accordingly framed a law, and caused it to be published throughout all the cities, by which any man was permitted to have two lawful wives. The law was promulgated and he married Justina, by whom he had Valentinian the younger.

— Socrates Scholasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica, IV.31

Now Wikipedia goes on about how scholars doubt the veracity of this claim, citing sources from a Century later who instead say Severa was exiled before he married Justina, and referring to the lack of evidence of this Law legalizing Polygamy.

Independent verification of this Law probably vanished because later Emperors expunged it.  What we now know of Roman Law largely comes through the compilations and reforms of Theodosius and Justinian.  

It's also theorized that this comes from someone wanting to smear Justina for her perceived later support of Arianism.  But this is an odd way to go about calling her a Slut.  Also Socrates Scholasticus is known for his lack of interest in demonizing Heretics, he is so kind to the Novatians that many have assumes he was one, but then others point out that he showed the same fairness to the Arians.

What fascinated me here is that this really isn't just an example of standard Patriarchal Polygyny.  It starts with Severa seeing Justina naked and getting turned on in-spite of being a Woman.  This wasn't a strictly Het plural marriage, this was a True Threesome.

Valentinian is also an interesting Emperor for his Domestic Economic Policies as well.  A lot of the negative things said about him are from Senatorial Class historians, who indeed still dominated the writing of Roman Imperial history even during Christianization.  Valentinian made reforms to help the Poor including providing them with Healthcare.  Even though during this era The Church was already starting to lose it's Anarcho-Communist roots, Valentinian was still, if we tried to force modern political terms on the era, at least a Social Democrat.

Scholars also like to doubt the alleged Arianism of Valens because of Valens' closeness to Valentinian who was his brother.  But Valens definitely had a different economic philosophy then his brother being much more fiscally Conservative.  Brothers can disagree on Religion just as easily if not more so then they do Economics.  That forcing an Arian Bishop on the Arabs was the reason for Mavia's revolt is pretty hard to deny.

This also kind of repeats the situation of the children of Constantine.   Now the fact that in both cases the Nicene got the West while the Arian got the East might make one suspect all Four Emperors were just pandering to the popular winds of their populations.  But often popular opinion is influenced by the rulers.   And to me the evidence shows that Arianism wasn't popular with the common people in the east, just among elites in Bithynia.

The Glorious Revolution was neither Glorious or a Revolution

It was a Coup D'etat of Rich Nobles replacing a King they didn't like with a King they did.

Three of the "Immortal Seven" weren't even Whigs but were Tories, they were ideological Conservatives to the right of even Burkean Conservatism, they did not even pretend to care about making society more Equal or Democratic.  They were Monarchists who simply didn't like their current Monarch.

And here is the thing being ignored by modern Centrist History YouTubers who want to see it as part of the lineage of Progressive Revolutions that created the Modern Western Liberal Democratic Status Quo we now take for granted.  The thing James II was trying to do that so deeply offended Parliament, was codify into English Law the right to Freedom of Religion.

Yes James II and the prior Stuart Monarchs did believe in the Divine Right of Kings to wield Absolute Power.  But frankly to me justifying this Coup D'etat as a Revolution agaisnt that is the same as arguing the South seceded over State's Rights.  The "right" Parliament was fighting to keep was the right to persecute Catholics and Baptists.

Now I'm not saying James II didn't do things that modern 21st Century Progressives and Leftists wouldn't see as a good reason to revolt against him.  His Religious Freedom did only conditionally include Scottish Presbyterians and I've seen no evidence it included non Christians.  Meanwhile the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and rise of Plantation Slavery in the Southern North American colonies was going strong (in fact he was heavily involved with it before he became King as head of the Royal African Company).  But none of those things are what offended Parliament or were in any way reversed by the new regime.

The Parliamentarians spoke as if this was Self Defense, as if his reforms were a threat to their Protestant Religious Liberty.  Which makes them exactly like modern Republican voting Evangelicals claiming it violates their freedom of religion to not let them discriminate agaisnt the Gays.  And it's disturbing how many modern Protestants still buy this rhetoric.  I've seen 21st century people refer to these Parliamentarians as "seeing through James deception, that Religious Tolerance for everyone meant tolerance for Catholics" as if that was ever a valid objection.

But James II and his reforms weren't just supported by Catholics, they were also supported for example by Baptists and the Quakers who founded Pennsylvania.

This isn't the only time the conflict between the Jacobite Monarchs and Parliament was driven by their desire to ease restrictions on Catholics, but James II was innovative in extending it to dissenting Protestants.  A lot of people think James I was the one Stuart free of this association with Crypto-Catholicism, many Evangelicals need to since his name is attached to their favorite Bible.  But in fact these same conflicts were already there, many Translation choices of the KJV were driven by his High Church agenda, like saying Bishop and Deacon instead of properly translating those words, and arguably using the word Church itself, Tyndale always translated Ecclesia as Congregation.

This is why the Puritans/Congregationalists were the most anti-Stuart before James II but then became supporters of James II.  Even Puritan leaders in New England expressed support in-spite of their issues with the changes being made to how New England was governed.

It is easy to fall into the trap of looking back on the conflicts between King and Parliament in English history and think Parliament must represent "the people" because it's technically elected representatives.  But the people who had the right to Vote on representation in Parliament were only wealthy land owners, and that remained the case well into the Victorian era.  In fact property requirements were not gone entirely till the same time Women got the vote in 1918.

The house of Commons had a name that is to modern ears misleading.  It represented people who were technically "commoners" in that they were not heirs to a centuries old Feudal title of Nobility.  They were part of what in France at the time would be called the Third Estate.  But they were still the wealthy land owning minority among those "commons", the Bourgeoisie in Marxist terminology.

So when the King and Parliament were in conflict it may very well be neither had the best interests of most of the people in mind.  But in these kinds of conflicts it's very reasonable to suspect that an Individual may be more likely to care about the lower classes then a group, because the people in Parliament were frequently subject to group think, it was easier for the King to allow his personal sense of moral responsibility to override any class allegiance.  But it didn't always or even usually play out that way though, Richard II betrayed the Peasants' Faith in him in 1381.

Webster Tarpley is an FDR Progressive who's view of English history tends to be that even when the King didn't actually care about the poor they were still by default helped by him making things difficult for the Nobles.  That logic however presumes the Peasants were only really hurt by the Nobles when they went out of their way to mess with them.  It ignores how the system itself screwed them over even when no one actively did anything.

I am overall against Monarchy.  But I am willing to consider it preferable to Representative Democracy, especially one that's still operating under Capitalism.

The Sin of Sodom was Capitalism actually

In the past I've put all my eggs in the Hospitality/Immigration argument, and that is still an important symptom of their disease.  But it's verse 49 of Ezekiel's 16th Chapter that gives us the full diagnosis.

"Moreover this was the sin of thy sister Sodom, pride: she and her daughters lived in pleasure, in fullness of bread in abundance: this belonged to her and her daughters, and they helped not the hand of the poor and needy."

There is no getting around that this is a condemnation of Wealth Hording, that the kind of people who talk this way today are Communists and Socialists.

And it's not addressing individual Rich People who don't voluntarily give to the Poor.  It's about Sodom as a society.

References to Sodom in Isaiah and Jeremiah also stress it being tied to their greed and wealth.  I argued on my Prophecy Blog that the Whoredom of Babylon is Capitalism, and Eschatological prophecies of Babylon do evoke Sodom.  

Jude 7 when talking about Sodom uses the word "Pornea" which the KJV translates "Fornication", it's actually a word for Prostitution but that unlike some other Greek words for Prostitution is stressing specifically the economic aspect of it, coming from a root which means "to sell".  Likewise in Ezekiel 16 the three times the KJV refers to "Fornication" it's the exact same words the KJV in this same chapter elsewhere translates whoredom, whore and harlot.  I believe some Biblical references to "whoredom" aren't about sex at all.

And the issue of Sodom being in-hospitable to immigrants is not unrelated, travelers and refuges are also needy and poor.  And Capitalists love to use nativist sentiments to get the poor citizens to blame the immigrants for the problems that are actually Capitalism's fault.

Ironically some Marxists might say I'm being Anachronistic here since we all know Capitalism didn't exist till after the Reformation, at the very soonest.  But the thing is part of why I'm not a Marxist is that I disagree with the Marxist view of history.  I know some Breadtubers love to stress how young Capitalism is in response to Conservatives arguing that it's "Natural", but we can't deny Patriarchy has been a thing for all of Human history.  How about when addressing Conservative Christians we remind them that The Church is supposed to be "contrary to nature" (Para Phusis) according to Romans 11.

Even if I were to concede that Feudalism is distinct from Capitalism, when I look at Ancient Rome ("Republican" Rome at least) it's hard for me not to see it as Capitalist with it's wealthy land owners and the way it's "Democracy" was so thoroughly jerrymandered against the urban poor.  And I see similar Capitalism in Carthage and at least some of the City-States of Greece.

Capitalism has different forms, from Mercantilism to industrial Capitalism, from Classical Liberalism to Neo-Liberalism, from Jeffersonianism to Hamiltonianism.  Some reactionaries claim to hate Capitalism as much as they do Communism while still being called Capitalists by Communists.  

During the Middle Ages I believe Capitalism was continued by Venice and perhaps some other Italian coastal City-States.  Then after the Reformation opened the door for upheavals in some parts of Europe the city of Amsterdam and other northern ports started being influenced by the Venetians they traded with.  And then England started borrowing from both Amsterdam and Venice as it started striving to be a Sea Power under Henry VIII, Elizabeth and the Stuarts.

Some writers have argued Protastantism helped cause Capitalism.  But it's really one major school of Protestantism, the "Reformed Tradition" of Zwingly that later split into Calvinist and Arminian camps.  Luther actually loved Feudalism and wanted to make it stronger rather then weaker.  And the Anabaptists like the Taborite and John Ball before the Reformation were Communists.  But to the point I'm making here, it can be argued that Venetian theologians had an overlooked influence on the early Reformation even though they nominally stayed Catholic through men like Gasparo Continari.

Roman Capitalism came from the Greeks and also Carthage who's Trade networks Rome absorbed as they conquered it.  Carthage and Greece were both influenced by the Phoenicians, a people The Bible refers to as Sidonians who's major cities were first Sidon and later Tyre.  Ezekiel 27 is perhaps just as much a description of Capitalism as Ezekiel 16 is.  The Sidonians were the Canaanites of Lebanon and Sodom is also mentioned when talking about the Canaanites in Genesis 10.  In Ezekiel 16 God's criticism of Jerusalem (which is Sodom's Sin but now worse) also involved Him spiritually calling them Jebusites and Amorites.

Capitalism is the Socio-Economic Vice of the Canaanites, while Feudalism came from Egypt.

I'm not a Libertarian anymore but I'm still willing to vote for one.

I would prefer not to settle for that, I'd rather a Socialist run in the Republican Primary and somehow win.  I made a blog post on how that is plausible then you might assume.

I mean the American definition of libertarianism here, I am a Libertarian-Communist.  I also a wrote a Blog post about why I call myself a Libertarian.

But here is my controversial statement.  If a Libertarian can win the next Republican Primary and thus the two viable options in 2024 are Biden/Harris agaisnt a Libertarian, I'll vote for the Libertarian.

So many Breadtubers when they acknowledge Libertarians only want to focus on the ways they are Economically even worse then the Republicans, which they are, they are arguably the only true pure Economic Liberals.

The thing is Economic Issues aren't the only thing I vote for.  I agree they should be ideally the top priory, but if the furthest left either option is willing go economically is still refusing even Universal Healthcare or a Basic Income, then no one is gonna get my vote for Economic Reasons.

But I do also care about ending our Interventionist foreign policy, and the War on Drugs, and also decriminalizing Sex Work and Gambling.  And guess what Libertarians even have some redeeming qualities Economically, many want to end Copyright/Intellectual Property laws, and they tend to oppose corporate bail outs.

And the thing is the bad things they want to do Economically are things a President would need congressional support for.  While what I like about them are largely things the Executive Branch can act on unilaterally.

I will however only ever again vote for an American Libertarian if they get one of the Major party nominations.  I'm only gonna vote 3rd Party for Socialists ideally, and maybe be willing to settle for Social Democrats or the Green Party.

If the Republican Nominee in 2024 is an Establishment Republican or Trump again or someone like Ted Cruz, I'll maybe go for a 3rd Party Candidate but probably not vote at all.  But a Libertarian I will vote for without hesitation.