Polybius

The historical novel Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman tried to reveal in 900 pages the mysterious process that turned two nations of the twentieth century into perfect savages when Polybius had already told us two centuries before Christ in a few words. The Nazis and Communists, social democrats and New Deal advocates justified replacing the practice of true and fervent charity through what early Christians called "Pure Religion" with the covetous practices of legal charity through socialist schemes.
We have become a divided society and the social bonds that bind a free society have degenerated because, "The masses" justify their appetite for benefits through the "rule of force" instead of charity they always "degenerate again into perfect savages.
"Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion." Richard John Neuhaus.
The early Church and the early Christian community refused to apply to the government of the world for free bread or other benefits offered by Benefactors who exercise authority one over the other because Christ forbid His disciples to do so. Today modern Christians "continue with an appetite for benefits and the habit of receiving them by way of a rule of force and violence" through governments benefaction but who exercise authority one over the other.  "The people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others... institute the rule of violence;" but take the name of "Christ" as Christians in vain.  

Polybius

Polybius was born around 200 BC in Arcadia. He was a Greek deported to Rome as a son of someone who opposed Roman rule in his own country, Macedonia. In Rome Lucius Aemilius Paulus employed him to tutor his two sons.

He eventually placed his allegiance with the Roman Republic and warned the covetous practices of the people that would bring its downfall.

The Roman government and its economy was moving away from some of the principles that had made it a great and just nation.

This was a gradual process at first when it began to move toward the free bread and government dole that corrupted the people and the empowered government.

Polybius as the "Historian of Historians" believed "All democracies fail" stated:

"The masses continue with an appetite for benefits and the habit of receiving them by way of a rule of force and violence. The people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others... institute the rule of violence; and now uniting their forces massacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch."

Polybius saw the downfall of the republic by way of their free bread and welfare a 150 years before the first Emperor of Rome and 175 years before the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ who opposed these same systems of free bread at your neighbor's expense.

The authoritarian State often uses force and violence to become the Benefactors of the people if the covet what is their neighbors'. They make a social contract where one class of citizen is forced to provide for another class through "legal charity" which is not true charity. The writings of the Apostles warned along with countless passages of ancient writings of the prophets including Proverbs 23 which warned them about what Christ forbid which was the covetous practices of socialist forms of government.

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Socialism has not only empowered tyrants for centuries from Nimrod to Sodom and Gomorrah but it has weakened the people of society through a process of dependence enhancement outside the natural family.

Instrumentum regni

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Younger

Instrumentum regni is a Latin phrase that literally means "instrument of monarchy". Therefore it refers to an "instrument of government". It may have been inspired by Tacitus who said, "No better instrument of good government than being good friends".

Proverbs 6 warns us about being a surety for a friend in verse 1 "My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, [if] thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,"The bondage of Egypt was when the people became a surety of Pharaoh because the people ate at his table to provide them with their welfare according to his terms.

Instrumentum regni is used to express the exploitation of religion by State polity as a means of controlling the masses by "legal charity". The Instrumentum regni is the result of dissolving the separation of Church and State which also dissolves the bands which are the social bonds of a free society.

Polybius, in The Histories, VI 56 he states:

"I believe that it is the very thing which among other peoples is an object of reproach, I mean superstition, which maintains the cohesion of the Roman State. These matters are clothed in such pomp and introduced to such an extent into their public and private life that nothing could exceed it, a fact which will surprise many.

My own opinion at least is that they have adopted this course for the sake of the common people. It is a course which perhaps would not have been necessary had it been possible to form a state composed of wise men, but as every multitude is fickle, full of lawless desires, unreasoned passion, and violent anger, the multitude must be held in by invisible terrors and suchlike pageantry. For this reason I think, not that the ancients acted rashly and at haphazard in introducing among the people notions concerning the gods and beliefs in the terrors of hell, but that the moderns are most rash and foolish in banishing such beliefs." — Polybius

Proverbs 1:21 She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, [saying],

For the State to gain power there would be no better way than show the people that you are the "bonos amicos" or good friend of the people by first spreading amongst them "dainties and gratuities". Those dainties of the rulers are the "legal charity" which is a snare.

The early Church and the early Christian community refused to apply to the government of the world, to the Instrumentum regni, for free bread or other benefits offered by rulers who called themselves Benefactors but who exercise authority one over the other because Christ forbid His disciples to do so.

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Today, modern Christians "continue with an appetite for benefits and the habit of receiving them by way of a rule of force and violence" through governments who exercise authority one over the other. "The people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others... institute the rule of violence;" but take the name of Christian in vain. Jesus was not a socialist.

Real Christians of the early Church had actually repented and were diligently seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness by the practices of pure religion according to the perfect law of liberty. Since most modern Christians are under a strong delusion about the reality of their faith in Christ and what it should mean they find themselves back in the bondage of Egypt and often workers of iniquity.

The solution of the early Christian community was to not pray to the Fathers of the earth for their free bread and benefits which are a snare but to set the table of the Lord through the Eucharist of Christ which was a daily ministration established by His Church through faith, hope, charity and the perfect law of liberty in the practice of Pure Religion.

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Polybius was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 264–146 BC in detail.

Polybius

Polybius wrote The Histories which provided a detailed account of Rome's ascent as an empire. It included his eyewitness account of the Sack of Carthage in 146 BC by one of his former pupils.

He helped organize the new governments in Greece after their destruction.

He set the standards for honest historians influencing the early Roman historian like Sempronius Asellio one of the first writers of historiographic work in Latin and a military tribune of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus.

Polybius was widely read by Romans and Greeks alike.

He is quoted extensively by Strabo explaining causes of events rather than just recounting events. He is mentioned by Montesquieu, Cicero and Diodorus, Livy, Plutarch and Arrian.

Polybius gained a following in Italy, with men like Niccolò Machiavelli but also in French, German, Italian and English. His popularity among the learned public with such men as Isaac Casaubon, Jacques Auguste de Thou, William Camden, and Paolo Sarpi.

Polybius' political thoughts inspired republican thinkers like Charles de Montesquieu and the Founding Fathers in America.

John Adams, considered Polybius one of the most important teachers of constitutional theory.

Jose Ortega y Gasset calls Polybius "one of the few great minds that the turbid human species has managed to produce", and says the damage to the Histories is "without question one of the gravest losses that we have suffered in our Greco-Roman heritage".

“There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man.” ― Polybius

“If history is deprived of the Truth, we are left with nothing but an idle, unprofitable tale.”― Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire

Low birth rate

“In our own time the whole of Greece has been subject to a low birth rate and a general decrease of the population, owing to which cities have become deserted and the land has ceased to yield fruit, although there have neither been continuous wars nor epidemics...For as men had fallen into such a state of pretentiousness, avarice, and indolence that they did not wish to marry, or if they married to rear the children born to them, or at most as a rule but one or two of them, so as to leave these in affluence and bring them up to waste their substance, the evil rapidly and insensibly grew.”― Polybius, The Histories, Vol 6: Bks.XXVIII-XXXIX

More quotes

"Again the latter being in the course of nature perverted to oligarchy, and the people passionately avenging the unjust acts of their rulers, democracy comes into existence; which again by its violence and contempt of law becomes sheer mob-rule."

But as soon as a new generation has arisen, and the democracy has descended to their children's children, long association weakens their value for equality and freedom, and some seek to become more powerful than the ordinary citizens; and the most liable to this temptation are the rich... By which means when, in their senseless mania for reputation, they have made the populace ready and greedy to receive bribes, the virtue of democracy is destroyed, and it is transformed into a government of violence and the strong hand. For the mob, habituated to feed at the expense of others, and to have its hopes of a livelihood in the property of its neighbours, as soon as it has got a leader sufficiently ambitious and daring, being excluded by poverty from the sweets of civil honours, produces a reign of mere violence. Then come tumultuous assemblies, massacres, banishments, redivisions of land; until, after losing all trace of civilisation, it has once more found a master and a despot.

This is the regular cycle ..."

"When a commonwealth, after warding off many great dangers, has arrived at a high pitch of prosperity and undisputed power, it is evident that, by the lengthened continuance of great wealth within it, the manner of life of its citizens will become more extravagant; and that the rivalry for office, and in other spheres of activity, will become fiercer than it ought to be. And as this state of things goes on more and more, the desire of office and the shame of losing reputation, as well as the ostentation and extravagance of living, will prove the beginning of a deterioration. And of this change the people will be credited with being the authors, when they become convinced that they are being cheated by some from avarice, and are puffed up with flattery by others from love of office. For when that comes about, in their passionate resentment and acting under the dictates of anger, they will refuse to obey any longer, or to be content with having equal powers with their leaders, but will demand to have all or far the greatest themselves. And when that comes to pass the constitution will receive a new name, which sounds better than any other in the world, liberty or democracy; but, in fact, it will become that worst of all governments, mob-rule." Book VI POLYBIUS

“At the sight of the city utterly perishing amidst the flames Scipio burst into tears, and stood long reflecting on the inevitable change which awaits cities, nations, and dynasties, one and all, as it does every one of us men. This, he thought, had befallen Ilium, once a powerful city, and the once mighty empires of the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, and that of Macedonia lately so splendid. And unintentionally or purposely he quoted---the words perhaps escaping him unconsciously..." ― Polybius

"The day shall be when holy Troy shall fall

And Priam, lord of spears, and Priam's folk." ― Polybius

"And on my asking him boldly (for I had been his tutor) what he meant by these words, he did not name Rome distinctly, but was evidently fearing for her, from this sight of the mutability of human affairs. . . . Another still more remarkable saying of his I may record. . . [When he had given the order for firing the town] he immediately turned round and grasped me by the hand and said: "O Polybius, it is a grand thing, but, I know not how, I feel a terror and dread, lest some one should one day give the same order about my own native city.”― Polybius

“Can any one be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means, and under what kind of polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome, and that too within a period of not quite fifty-three years?”― Polybius, The Histories

“They want the centurions not so much to be venturesome and daredevils, as to be natural leaders, of a steady and reliable spirit. They do not so much want men who will initiate attacks and open the battle, but men who will hold their ground when beaten and hard-pressed, and will be ready to die at their posts.”― Polybius

“From this I conclude that the best education for the situations of actual life consists of the experience we acquire from the study of serious history. For it is history alone which without causing us harm enables us to judge what is the best course in any situation or circumstance.”― Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire

“The order of battle used by the Roman army is very difficult to break through, since it allows every man to fight both individually and collectively; the effect is to offer a formation that can present a front in any direction, since the maniples that are nearest to the point where danger threatens wheels in order to meet it.”― Polybius

“There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible, as the conscious that dwells in the heart of every man.”― Polybius

“The particular aspect of history which both attracts and benefits its readers is the examination of causes and the capacity, which is the reward of this study, to decide in each case the best policy to follow. Now in all political situations we must understand that the principle factor which makes for success or failure is the form of a state's constitution: it is from this source, as if from a fountainhead, that all designs and plans of action not only originate but reach their fulfillment.”― Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire.

The anacyclosis of society

Anacyclosis states that three basic forms of "benign" government (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) are inherently weak and unstable, tending to degenerate rapidly into the three basic forms of "malignant" government (tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy(mob rule)).

"The central problem in anacyclosis, as Polybius characterizes it, is the lack of continuity between successive generations. The justice of the monarch decays to the pride of the tyrant." The Separation of Powers: From Polybius to James Madison

“[A]ll existing things are subject to decay and change is a truth that scarcely needs proof; for the course of nature is sufficient to force this conviction on us.” Polybius and Aristotle believed in the political doctrine of anacyclosis which is that the theory of political evolution is cyclical.

Concerning the "rule by the one, the few, and the many" Democracy is not the rule by the many but rather rule by the majority whereas a true Republic is the rule of the many individuals by the each individual in voluntary cooperation with each other through "Right Reason" or "Divine Will. This is because the leaders of a true Republic are titular and they may only rule over things public that are freely given to them.

It is not "Right Reason" to think you are a product of your own "self-creation". You cannot be a part of society today without due humble recognition of the generations that have gone before. This begins with honoring your Father and Mother but continues from our forgotten ancestral beginnings to the unseen progeny of the eternal future which all reside in the heuristics of a timeless God.

Without that decent and pious respect and reverence of that which existed before us, society will rapidly decay to a corrupted form. Many believe that, like other animals, humans naturally form herds for the purpose of mutual protection but only mankind forms herds by contract. The nature of those contracts, covenants and constitutions will not only transform the herd but man himself.

The evolution of society into "perfect savages" is a "natural transformations" or natural process that occurs when we abandoned basic social rituals and ceremonies for the covetous practices which makes people merchandise and curse children with debt. Before Polybius explained how the people's appetite for benefits at the expense of others would alter them he stated in the context:

5:1 "Perhaps this theory of the natural transformations into each other of the different forms of government is more elaborately set forth by Plato and certain other philosophers; but as the arguments are subtle and are stated at great length, they are beyond the reach of all but a few. 2 I therefore will attempt to give a short summary of the theory, as far as I consider it to apply to the actual history of facts and to appeal to the common intelligence of mankind. 3 For if there appear to be certain omissions in my general exposition of it, the detailed discussion which follows will afford the reader ample compensation for any difficulties now left unsolved."

Not knowing the pain and struggles of history past down from generation to generation the grandchildren of those who won freedom for their descendants will be subject to that "natural transformation" into "perfect savages" who banish freedom and liberty. Polybius warns of this in the preceding context of the original quote concerning the warning to our modern millennials of their inevitable transformation into perfect savages if they do not learn and appreciate their own history:

"But when a new generation arises and the democracy falls into the hands of the grandchildren of its founders, they have become so accustomed to freedom and equality that they no longer value them, and begin to aim at pre-eminence; and it is chiefly those of ample fortune who fall into this error. 6 So when they begin to lust for power and cannot attain it through themselves or their own good qualities, they ruin their estates, tempting and corrupting the people in every possible way. 7 And hence when by their foolish thirst for reputation they have created among the masses an appetite for gifts and the habit of receiving them, democracy in its turn is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence. 8 For the people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others, as soon as they find a leader who is enterprising but is excluded from the houses of office by his penury, institute the rule of violence; 9 and now uniting their forces massacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch."

"10 Such is the cycle of political revolution, the course appointed by nature in which constitutions change, disappear, and finally return to the point from which they started. 11 Anyone who clearly perceives this may indeed in speaking of the future of any state be wrong in his estimate of the time the process will take, but if his judgement is not tainted by animosity or jealousy, he will very seldom be mistaken as to the stage of growth or decline it has reached, and as to the form into which it will change. 12 And especially in the case of the Roman state will this method enable us to arrive at a knowledge of its formation, growth, and greatest perfection, and likewise of the change for the worse which is sure to follow some day. 13 For, as I said, this state, more than any other, has been formed and has grown naturally, and will undergo a natural decline and change to its contrary. 14 The reader will be able to judge of the truth of this from the subsequent parts of this work."

10 1 "At present I will give a brief account of the legislation of Lycurgus, a matter not alien to my present purpose. 2 Lycurgus had perfectly well understood that all the above changes take place (p291) necessarily and naturally, and had taken into consideration that every variety of constitution which is simple and formed on principle is precarious, as it is soon perverted into the corrupt form which is proper to it and naturally follows on it. 3 For just as rust in the case of iron and wood-worms and ship-worms in the case of timber are inbred pests, and these substances, even though they escape all external injury, fall a prey to the evils engendered in them, so each constitution has a vice engendered in it and inseparable from it. In kingship it is despotism, in aristocracy oligarchy, 5 and in democracy the savage rule of violence; and it is impossible, as I said above, that each of these should not in course of time change into this vicious form. 6 Lycurgus, then, foreseeing this, did not make his constitution simple and uniform, but united in it all the good and distinctive features of the best governments, so that none of the principles should grow unduly and be perverted into its allied evil, but that, the force of each being neutralized by that of the others, neither of them should prevail and outbalance another, but that the constitution should remain for long in a state of equilibrium like a well-trimmed boat, kingship being guarded from arrogance by the fear of the commons, who were given a sufficient share in the government, and the commons on the other hand not venturing to treat the kings with contempt from fear of the elders, who being selected from the best citizens would be sure all of them to be always on the side of justice; 10 so that that part of the state which was weakest owing to its subservience p293 to traditional custom, acquired power and weight by the support and influence of the elders. 11 The consequence was that by drawing up his constitution thus he preserved liberty at Sparta for a longer period than is recorded elsewhere.

12 "Lycurgus then, foreseeing, by a process of reasoning, whence and how events naturally happen, constructed his constitution untaught by adversity, 13 but the Romans while they have arrived at the same final result as regards their form of government, 14 have not reached it by any process of reasoning, but by the discipline of many struggles and troubles, and always choosing the best by the light of the experience gained in disaster have thus reached the same result as Lycurgus, that is to say, the best of all existing constitutions."

So why study history?

8 "What chiefly attracts and chiefly benefits students of history is just this — the study of causes and the consequent power of choosing what is best in each case."

• "...his kingdom is from generation to generation:" Daniel 4

"And his mercy [is] on them that fear him from generation to generation." Luke 1:50

Benefits

Altars | Daily ministration | Corban | Welfare |
Dainties | Benefactors | Legal charity | Snare |
Covetous practices | Pure Religion | The Blessed Strategy |
Tens | Tithing | Taxation | Benefactors |
Cain | Nimrod | Constantine | Christian conflict |
Lady Godiva | Isaac Backus | Government and Liberty Described |
Polybius | Masses |
Seek | Votive | World | Fervent Charity |
Denominations | Guru_theories | Cities of refuge | City of blood |
Bible Index | First to do List | Repent |

People of the past
Cain | Nimrod | Melchizedek | Abraham | Pharaoh | Moses |
Buddha | Philo Judaeus‎ | Epicurus | Polybius | Plutarch |
Caesars
Emperators | Caesar | Julius Caesar |
Augustus Caesar | Tiberius |
Caligula | Claudius | Nero |
Galba | Otho | Vitellius | Vespasian |
Titus | Domitian | Trajan |
Hadrian | Antoninus Pius |
Marcus Aurelius | Vespian |
Diocletianic Persecution |
Seneca | Stoic | Marcus Tullius Cicero | Celsus | Tacitus | Suetonius | Ignatius of Antioch |
Philo Judaeus‎ - Philo of Alexandria | Herod | John the Baptist |
Jesus the Christ | Diotrephes | Paul the Apostle |
Justin the Martyr | Hippolytus of Rome (200 AD) |
Theophilus | Origen | Jerome | Augustine of Hippo |
Constantine | Ambrose | Eusebius | Eustathius |
Allocutio ad imperatorem Constantinum |
Athanasius | Athenagoras of Athens |
Augustine of Canterbury | Lady Godiva | Thomas Aquinas | Thomas Moore | John Wycliffe‎ |
James Madison | Thomas Jefferson | Patrick Henry | Isaac Backus |
Henry David Thoreau | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Frederic Bastiat |
Alexis de Tocqueville | David Crockett |
Booker T Washington | George Washington Carver |
Becamp | Charles Guignebert | Friedrich Nietzsche | Emma Goldman | Edward Mandell House | Woodrow Wilson | FDR | LBJ | Friedrich Niemöller | Norman Dodd | Archibald MacLeish | Harry Browne | Admiral Ben Moreell |

Translations

Fragments of Book VI

Footnotes

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