Characters who have faith in fiction are either shown in a subtle light, or in a heavy-handed way. Growing up, I observed movies such as Prince of Egypt and Joseph King of Dreams with a great deal of satisfaction, the latter in particular as I always loved the story of Joseph. I also observed with disdain as Hercules Legendary Journeys railroaded itself with faith-based storylines that made no sense, as Sorbo went a little nuts on his faith. Since then he’s cooled off and even become pretty inspirational.
The thing about faith is that, it is something that must be tried and that requires baptisms in fire, to survive. Otherwise you lose it, due to apathy. That said, I’m not saying seek out adversity, it also requires validation every once in awhile but the best source of that is in the reading of the Bible. It also requires learning, and more books to expand yourself.
One thing to be observed is that some knowledge such as that of the Occult to my mind will cause you to lose your mind as Christopher Lee has said. But this doesn’t mean you must abjure learning such as linguistics, literature and mythology. I observed when young that those children of parents who did not allow such things were developmentally stunted and likelier to be afraid, and thus incapable of proving themselves chivalrous.
Faith is not fear. They are opposites. Faith in God does not require one to fear him as one might the Devil, rather the opposite. What fanatics forget is that God is loving, though that said to fear his displeasure should also be natural but not to an obscene level.
How does this relate to Chivalry? It is everything. One must have faith in not only God, but one’s own inner self to endure the trials of the world, to endure doubt. If Alex Dumas, or reading about the struggles of the Romans, or reading the history of the Bronze Age, or reading the Labours of Heracles are enough to cause you to lose faith, then you never truly believed at all. Faith requires tempering.
Literature and mythology offer a window to God. They are music and language through which he communicates or so Tolkien believed, and if one man would know about faith it is him.
What Faith is also about is others. You must have faith in humanity, in your brothers and sisters in arms and in your nation. What is more is that Faith is empty without love. To have faith in God is to love him. To have faith in humanity is to love it. To have faith in brothers and sisters is to love them.
To love one’s brothers in chivalry is an act of giving, you are placing them above yourself, and it is something that the Romans’ well understood. Though, they came before Chivalry you must understand that the Legions or Legios had it. Every Legion had pride in their designation, their standard and in the history of their Legion, they knew that history intimately because they were interwoven into its fabric. They needed it, just as it needed every individual legate and Centurion.
Thus, they had faith in one another to honour the Legion, to stand tall and side by side against the forces arrayed against them. It is this faith in one another, in their commanders that saw Rome’s legions grow from a backwater army, to the conquerors of Carthage in the fields of Zama when they out-strategized and utterly outmanoeuvred the overrated Hannibal Barca, out-performed the Germanic hordes in the fields and forests of Gaul, and conquered the province of Britannia, in the west and Parthia in the east.
This required faith. Faith in oneself, faith in one’s brothers, and faith also in their wives to stay true to them for years on end or to protect their children should they bring them to the barracks near the field.
In regards to the women, it required them to have faith in their men, to believe that their men would come home, would cover themselves in glory and would die before they let anything happen to them.
You want to talk about a love to rival that of Paris and Helen’s, look no further than the love of the common-soldier for his wife, his dog, or his brothers-in-arms. This was true chivalry on display and no other army was to display so true a demonstration of chivalry.
Faith in one’s nation is also an act of love, and men ought to love their nations. The nation is the tribe, is the cultural group to which one belongs. To we the French of the world (ou les Français) no matter where we go, we have a mother; France. No matter if our physical parents are toxic, our father is God and our mother is France. This we all know, whether we are from Franco-Afrique, Québec, Mini-Québec (Northern Ontario), France or Franco-Asie; we are the sons and daughters of France.
For other nations such as England, Scotland, Ireland, Japan and so many others, there is good reason to learn one’s national history, to love one’s nation. Because so long as you carry your nation in your heart, you do right by her and contribute to her in some capacity you bring honour to her. To honour her, is to live a good life and to live by God’s commandment to ‘Love one’s neighbour as one would oneself’.
The nation has been the bedrock of all civilisations. To have faith in her, is to believe in oneself, in one’s family and one’s friends. Every nation has a history, has a destiny and has a mission, to have faith in this is to love all that makes men men and women women.
A man who does not love his nation or culture, is a man adrift. A man lost in the world. That said, if a man is adrift from his nation let us say Canada, or the US, but finds himself in France and adopts French as a language, he has become French and so has her for a mother. If he loves her and believes in her, there is no greater honour. Same goes for say a Spaniard, who traverses the seas to become Japanese.
Nations can be adopted, just as parents can be so long as you carry with you the lessons and pains of birth, and use them to honour the new nation and people. You must love these new people, pray for them daily and help them every day. Why? Because you have lost, you are an orphan of the world and have now discovered love and faith therefore you must struggle to belong.
Belonging is what all men and women want. We all know this. We all need this. We are human. That is what chivalry is about, it isn’t simply lifting one’s eyes to the stars and praying to the father who created them. It is about having faith in ourselves to overcome the day, it is about conquering the day, conquering ourselves. But also doing it with others, with our brothers and sisters in chivalry, it is about waving the flag of our ancestors or our children up-high and raising the war-cry against evil in the name of that flag.
If this article pleased you, do feel free to purchase a copy of my new ebook (printed edition to be out in a few days will post it here and all over once it does come out); it involves a knight who has temporarily lost his faith trying to rediscover it and battling against the forces of darkness and evil; https://books2read.com/u/mdPdPl