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The Supernatural Calm
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

The author defines the 'imperator pacificus' not as a political peacemaker, but as a figure of inner, supernatural calm and spiritual perfection.

...ext, and which sustains them in a supernatural way. Moreover, the "Olympian" attribute and the attribute of "peace" are connected to the condition of "stability" in the esoteric sense of the word. Kings "who derive their power from the supreme god and who have received victory at his hands," are "lighthouses of peace in the storm." After "glory," centrality ("polarity"), and stability, peace is one of the fundamental attributes of regality that has been preserved until relatively recent times.
Dante talked about the imperator pacificus, a title previously bestowed on Charlemagne. Obviously, this is not the profane and social peace pursued by a political government—a kind of peace that is at most an external consequence—but rather an inner and positive peace, which should not be divorced from the "triumphal" element. This peace does not convey the notion of cessation, but rather that of the highest degree of perfection of a pure, inner and withdrawn activity. It is a calm that reveals the supernatural.
According to Confucius a man destined to be a ruler (the "virtuous"), unlike ordinary men, "rests in rectitude and is stable and unperturbed"; "the men of affairs enjoy life, but the virtuous prolongs it." Hence that great calm that conveys the feeling of an irresistible superiority and terrifies and disarms the adversary without a fight. This greatness immediately evokes the feeling of a transcendent force that is already mastered and ready to spring forward; or the marvelous and yet frightfu...
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Julius Evola

Revolt Against the Modern World

Inner Triumphal Peace

This excerpt directly repeats the parent's distinction between profane and inner peace, and extends it with a Confucian example of the virtuous ruler's calm, reinforcing the idea of inner peace as a sign of supernatural superiority.

...and the attribute of "peace" are connected to the condition of "stability" in the esoteric sense of the word. Kings "who derive their power from the supreme god and who have received victory at his hands," are "lighthouses of peace in the storm." After "glory," centrality ("polarity"), and stability, peace is one of the fundamental attributes of regality that has been preserved until relatively recent times. Dante talked about the imperator pacificus, a title previously bestowed on Charlemagne.
Obviously, this is not the profane and social peace pursued by a political government—a kind of peace that is at most an external consequence—but rather an inner and positive peace, which should not be divorced from the "triumphal" element. This peace does not convey the notion of cessation, but rather that of the highest degree of perfection of a pure, inner and withdrawn activity. It is a calm that reveals the supernatural. According to Confucius a man destined to be a ruler (the "virtuous"), unlike ordinary men, "rests in rectitude and is stable and unperturbed"; "the men of affairs enjoy l...
This greatness immediately evokes the feeling of a transcendent force that is already mastered and ready to spring forward; or the marvelous and yet frightful sense of the numen. The pax romana et augusta , which is connected to the transcendent sense of the imperium , may be considered one of the several expressions of these meanings in the context of a universal historical realization. Conversely, the ethos of superiority over the world, of dominating calm and of imperturbability combined wit...

Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus Spake Zarathustra

Peace as War's Means

Nietzsche advocates for peace only as a means to new wars and values victory over peace, directly opposing the parent's conception of peace as an inner, positive, and triumphal perfection.

...warriors. They are the companions and forerunners of such saintship. I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors! “Uniform” one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide! Ye shall be those whose eyes ever seek for an enemy—for YOUR enemy. And with some of you there is hatred at first sight. Your enemy shall ye seek; your war shall ye wage, and for the sake of your thoughts! And if your thoughts succumb, your uprightness shall still shout triumph thereby!
Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars—and the short peace more than the long. You I advise not to work, but to fight. You I advise not to peace, but to victory. Let your work be a fight, let your peace be a victory! One can only be silent and sit peacefully when one hath arrow and bow; otherwise one prateth and quarrelleth.
Let your peace be a victory! Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto you: it is the good war which halloweth every cause. War and courage have done more great things than charity. Not your sympathy, but your bravery hath hitherto saved the victims. “What is good?” ye ask. To be brave is good. Let the little girls say: “To be good is what is pretty, and at the same time touching.” They call you heartless: but your heart is true, and I love the bashfulness of your goo...

Julius Evola

Revolt Against the Modern World

War Against Inner Enemies

This excerpt explains that the inner peace described in the parent is achieved through the 'greater holy war'—the struggle against inner enemies like desires and impulses—thus providing the causal process behind such peace.

...rder to understand the heroic asceticism or "path of action," it is necessary to recognize the situation in which the two paths merge, "the lesser holy war" becoming the means through which "a greater holy war" is carried out, and vice versa: the "little holy war," or the external one, becomes almost a ritual action that expresses and gives witness to the reality of the first. Originally, orthodox Islam conceived a unitary form of asceticism: that which is connected to the jihad or "holy war."
The "greater holy war" is man's struggle against the enemies he carries within. More exactly, it is the struggle of man's higher principle against everything that is merely human in him, against his inferior nature and against chaotic impulses and all sorts of material attachments. This is expressly outlined in a text of Aryan warrior wisdom: "Know Him therefore who is above reason; and let his peace give thee peace. Be a warrior and kill desire, the powerful enemy of the soul." The "enemy" who resists us and the "infidel" within ourselves must be subdued and put in chains. This enemy is the a...
In the world of traditional warrior asceticism the "lesser holy war," namely, the external war, is indicated and even prescribed as the means to wage this "greater holy war"; thus in Islam the expressions "holy war" ( jihad ) and "Allah's way" are often used interchangeably. In this order of ideas action exercises the rigorous function and task of a sacrificial and purifying ritual. The external vicissitudes experienced during a military campaign cause the inner "enemy" to emerge and to put up...

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince

The Divine Principality

Machiavelli suggests that some principalities are upheld by divine power and that discussing them would be presumptuous, thereby questioning the limits of human reason in analyzing supernatural political concepts, which relates to the parent's supernatural peace.

...rt and defend them. CHAPTER XI. CONCERNING ECCLESIASTICAL PRINCIPALITIES It only remains now to speak of ecclesiastical principalities, touching which all difficulties are prior to getting possession, because they are acquired either by capacity or good fortune, and they can be held without either; for they are sustained by the ancient ordinances of religion, which are so all-powerful, and of such a character that the principalities may be held no matter how their princes behave and live.
These princes alone have states and do not defend them; and they have subjects and do not rule them; and the states, although unguarded, are not taken from them, and the subjects, although not ruled, do not care, and they have neither the desire nor the ability to alienate themselves. Such principalities only are secure and happy. But being upheld by powers, to which the human mind cannot reach, I shall speak no more of them, because, being exalted and maintained by God, it would be the act of a presumptuous and rash man to discuss them.
Nevertheless, if any one should ask of me how comes it that the Church has attained such greatness in temporal power, seeing that from Alexander backwards the Italian potentates (not only those who have been called potentates, but every baron and lord, though the smallest) have valued the temporal power very slightly—yet now a king of France trembles before it, and it has been able to drive him from Italy, and to ruin the Venetians—although this may be very manifest, it does not appear to me s...