Guardians of the Perennial Flame: Christopher Gérard on Classical Memory, Myth, and Metapolitics
Robert Steuckers interviews Christopher Gérard
In this wide-ranging interview, classical philologist and novelist Christopher Gérard speaks with Robert Steuckers about his enduring work «La Source pérenne» (The Perennial Source) and the intellectual mission that has sustained it over 25 years. Gérard defends the relevance of Greco-Latin humanities in the modern world, arguing for their power to inoculate against ideological manipulation and collective amnesia. Drawing on figures like Walter F. Otto, Heraclitus, Socrates, and Plethon, he explores the spiritual and philosophical legacy of the ancient world, situating his own work in that lineage. Gérard also critiques pseudo-pagan revivals while advocating a return to rigorous textual engagement and a global dialogue with other non-dualist traditions, such as Taoism and Hinduism. From Empedocles to Plato, he outlines a vision of European culture rooted in deep memory, poetic myth, and philosophical clarity.
Originally published on Euro-Synergies on June 3rd, 2025.
Translated by Alexander Raynor
Interview with Christopher Gérard on La Source pérenne
Interview conducted by Robert Steuckers
RS: In 25 years, a quarter of a century, your latest book—with its three successive editions—has clearly stood the test of time. Should we attribute this resilience to the mission once taken up by a young classical philologist who refused to let his discipline be confined to museums, to a vulgate ad usum Delphini, or subjected to the mockery of utilitarians trumpeting that the study of ancient languages is “a waste of time”? What is the current state of teaching in the Greco-Latin humanities, those theoretical vehicles—among others—of transmitting (perennial) sources? Isn't their defense a parallel battle just as essential as the literary and poetic evocation of vernacular traditions throughout Europe?
CG: Indeed, during my studies, I perceived a twofold threat to ancient languages: the threat of their announced disappearance in the name of egalitarian nonsense (“bourgeois privilege,” thus to be eliminated outright rather than offered to all); and the threat of their museification, which could lead to the neutralization of our millennia-old heritage through a form of relativism—illustrated by the words of a Celticist who, frightened by the power of the myths he was studying, told me pitifully: “I could just as well have devoted my life to studying Islam.”
Upon reflection, everything has already been said by the Ancients: Thucydides and Marcus Aurelius, Tacitus and Cicero, and so many others have provided an exhaustive picture of the human experience. The force of a Plato or a Seneca immediately pulverizes conventional discourse and the most insidious propaganda, which Greco-Latin studies—by fostering deep understanding of rhetoric—enable us to decode or, to use postmodern jargon, “deconstruct.” Defending this direct access to our heritage, this intellectual formation from an early age, is part of the cultural struggle in the noblest sense. There is no more powerful vaccine against the virus of ideology—of any kind. No better potion against the ravages of collective amnesia. The collapse of reading, the forced-march transformation of education toward ever more extremist leveling, the triumph of the image (authentic or not) and of screens (with the dramatic drop in attention span) all represent major challenges for those upholding a traditional culture. But to paraphrase a certain Provençal poet: despair in metapolitics is sheer folly, as minds—especially European ones—possess an adaptability and creativity that will surprise us.
RS: What is the impact of a work like that of Walter Otto, whom you have often cited but who remains, in my opinion, too little known when it comes to the themes of the “perennial source”?
CG: You're absolutely right—W. F. Otto, like Friedrich Georg Jünger, is far too unknown in the French-speaking world, for lack of translations. I don’t need to point out to you the laziness of the French-language publishing world compared to the intense activity of the Italians or Anglo-Saxons. It was thanks to Marcel Detienne, the Belgian-born anthropologist and historian of religion, that I discovered Otto at the age of nineteen, in my first year! It was through his masterful preface to the French translation of The Homeric Gods, published by Payot, in which Detienne emphasized that this Greek professor, transferred in 1934 to the University of Königsberg by the new regime, professed “his faith in Zeus Olympios.” Otto's contribution—beyond a despairingly vast knowledge of the sources in the purest tradition of Quellenforschung—was his rigorously supported will to understand the ancient world through the eyes of a Greek. Hence his striking portraits of Apollo and Hermes. The same Otto also studied the conflict between the ancient world and Christianity, and the epistemological obstacle posed by the Judeo-Christian habitus, which prevents one from “seeing” these Greek gods. My own dilettante efforts follow in this prestigious lineage.
RS: Would you say your approach is more Heraclitean than Parmenidean or even Socratic?
CG: I resonate more with Heraclitus than with Parmenides, who still remains opaque to me. I’m not giving up; I’m saving that part of Greek thought for retirement. Heraclitus' polemos, his cosmic vision of an eternal universe governed by rhythmic cycles, is pure poetry, nearly divine inspiration. Socrates, on the other hand, remains the father of maieutics and the master of irony—extraordinary discoveries in European thought.
Without Socrates, we would not be as free as we are (potentially). And without the Greeks, we would not exist. Can one even imagine Europe without theater, tragedy, and comedy? Socrates exhorts us to seek truth beyond appearances; he pushes us to continually strive for self-improvement—hallmarks of a true master.
Plato’s account of his voluntary death is gripping; it has profoundly marked all Good Europeans for twenty-five centuries. Alongside Antigone, Ulysses, and Hector, Socrates remains one of the brightest figures in our tradition.
RS: What about the Platonic tradition? Could one dare to cast you in the role of a new Plethon?
CG: What would Europe be without Plato’s great myths, like the cave allegory, which philosopher Jean-François Mattéi studied masterfully? Or the theory of knowledge—the image of the ascent of the winged chariot? The detachment from the sensory world to discover the World of Ideas? What about the influence throughout Europe of a work like The Symposium? And the cosmic visions of the Timaeus, which inspired Heisenberg’s atomic theory? Granted, Nietzsche opposed Plato head-on… but isn’t the real challenge to think Plato and Nietzsche together?
If I may offer a reading suggestion beyond Plato’s own texts, there’s the excellent novel by Romanian writer Vintila Horia, The Seventh Letter.
During my studies at ULB, I discovered in the great Brussels bookstore run by Alain Ferraton—a man you also knew—the monumental biography of the Byzantine philosopher George Gemistos Plethon by François Masai, Plethon and the Platonism of Mistra (Belles Lettres, 1956), a book that captivated me.
Masai, a defrocked Dominican who had taught at my university and led a department at the Royal Library, had worked alongside major Belgian scholars who each studied ancient paganism: Joseph Bidez, biographer and editor of Emperor Julian; Franz Cumont, expert on the Mithras cult; and the Byzantinist Henri Grégoire. Belgium in the first half of the 20th century was a hub for paganism research—at the University of Liège, for instance, in the Pythagorean tradition. A whole generation, freed from Catholic shackles, was able to thrive and carve a deep furrow in a sensitive field of knowledge.
Several of my professors had known Masai well; the man stood out for his vast erudition and also, like many ex-clerics who left the orders, for his clearly pagan-leaning Platonism—which clashed with the die-hard positivists (which I never was).
You’ll understand, then, why in my first novel, The Dream of Empedocles, I made a point of celebrating Plethon and his disciples, gathered in the secret society he founded to defend Hellenism against the Ottomans: The Brotherhood of the Hellenes. A French researcher, Claude Bourrinet—who has written on Jünger and Stendhal (always a good sign)—has just published a study on Plethon, Zoroaster, and Sparta, which I recommend.
RS: Remind us why you are so drawn to the figure of Empedocles.
CG: Empedocles of Agrigentum, a thinker shrouded in mystery, a wandering prophet, had an enormous influence on European thought, notably through his theory of the Four Elements. Nietzsche called him “the most colorful figure of ancient philosophy” and described him as “the agonal man.”
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra owes much to this fascinating figure, whom he dubbed “the tragic philosopher par excellence,” praising his “active, non-quietist pessimism.” Empedocles also influenced Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, and Plotinus, before leaving his mark on Arabic and Persian hermeticism. Later still, Hölderlin and Schopenhauer, Freud and Bachelard walked in his footsteps. Empedocles preferred to create riddles rather than dictate solutions; he was misunderstood and even distorted for centuries, due to the principle of the excluded middle, which demands that a philosopher cannot also be a mystic. Yet in Empedocles, myth and reason harmonize in a quest both inward and outward. More than that: an Empedoclean current mingled with Pythagoreanism to survive far longer than expected in Sufism and among our alchemists. You see—he is one of those subterranean figures of European culture, hidden but essential.
RS: Your position as a classical philologist, who speaks with full authority on Greek paganism, shields you from all the pseudo-pagan kitsch—from American Wicca to tacky neo-Druidism. What message would you give to those who risk falling into that trap?
CG: I have little interest in Wicca, which mainly develops in Anglo-Saxon and Protestant lands, where the carnival tradition is less rooted than in Catholic ones (I speak as a post-Catholic pagan—had I been born Protestant or Orthodox, my discourse would surely differ). Druidism, however, deserves more attention, as it has evolved greatly over the past thirty years. From a distance, I follow one or two new druids and must admit things have matured, and their work now seems serious to me. Of course, many groups still carry Wiccan or neo-Celtic kitsch, complete with tattoos and all that, which horrifies me for its bad taste and for its confused thinking—often paired with performative “correctness.”
My message? Return to the texts, read rigorously, reject all mercantile drift, all delirious confusionism.
RS: Today, in this month of May 2025, what paths are you exploring—or would suggest to your readers?
CG: One path comes to mind, worth exploring in a multipolar world: the Taoist thread, currently enjoying a renaissance in contemporary China, the future hegemonic power. A pagan, polytheistic, and non-dualistic worldview seems to me a promising avenue for dialogue with Taoists and Confucians alike, from whom we have much to learn in terms of long memory. The same goes for Indians and Japanese, for whom not presenting oneself as Christian or “Western” (therefore “superior”) facilitates dialogue. There's a store of goodwill here, a way of entering other systems of thought that seems crucial to me within the framework of a global strategy.
Christopher Gérard
Ixelles, Calends of June, MMXXV