killing people and breaking things

[victor steinbok]

As Jon Lighter notes, the simplest version, "Kill all! God will know his
own" goes back to the Albigensian Crusade, or, at least, to stories /about/
it. This is not much of mystery. (Some variants change "kill" to "kill
them", "slay", "strike", "destroy", etc.--including some that have been
adapted for other stories.)  Ah, the good times!

The standard variant, "Kill them all--let God sort them out" does not occur
in GB until 1982, which sounds preposterously late.

The Allah version Wilson cited ("recognize") shows up in at least 1930.
(Ernest R. Trattner. The Autobiography of God: An Interpretation.
Scribner's&Sons, 1930) Except that it doesn't--Trattner has "God" for
"Allah". The only other GB hit /before/ 1982 is also with "God" (1969). At
least, in Trattner's case, Allah shows up in proximity. I have not even
tried newspapers.

Nowhere is Allah in the picture until the last decade, if that. This is not
much of a mystery.

Here's a possible vector for the English version of the Albigensian
story--several later reprints, followed by appearances in English
publications 1801-1822 with some regularity, then really opening up later.


http://goo.gl/h87do
An Essay on Public Happiness: Investigating the State of Human Nature.
Volume 2. [By Marquis François Jean de Chastellux.]
Section III. Chapter II. The Lot of Humanity at the beginning of the French
monarchy, and under the feodal government. p. 79-80.
> This fury became epidemical ; it inflamed even that timid age, the
distinguishing marks of which are gentleness and imbecility: armies of
children abandoned their country, and went also to perish immaturely in the
East, like those swarms of locusts which, driven by the wind propitious to
the labourers, are drowned within the bosom of the waters. But when the
minds of men were once on fire, it was not necessary that the tomb of
/Christ/ should have administered fuel to their zeal. Must we call up the
shocking expedition of /Simon de Montfort/ against the /Albigenses ;/ (sixty
thousand souls slaughtered within one city,(/p/) seven thousand of whom fled
for shelter into the church) and that abominable series of barbarities,
which outstripped the excesses of the other /Crusades/, as every civil war
is more cruel than an exterior war . ...
> [Footnote](p) Beziers ; when the Crusaders began the assault, they asked
the abbot of Citeaux, how they were to distinguish the Catholics from the
heretics? His reply was, "kill all, God will know his own."


The 1982 date for the most recent incarnation actually does not sound /that/
far off--by a few years, at most--as it might have been a sentiment
expressed in some Vietnam memoirs, referring to inability to distinguish
between "friendly" and "unfriendly" Vietnamese (certainly the way this was
portrayed in /later/ accounts).

In the early 1980s, another version of "break and kill" appeared in pop
culture. What seemed like popular shirts circa 1984-9 were "Join the Army.
Go to far-away exotic places. Meet nice, friendly people. AND KILL THEM!!!"
(words might have been somewhat different, but not by much). I remember
looking for the shirts locally (Boston/Cambridge) and not finding any. I saw
them in NYC circa 1986, but "price was wrong". I finally got an iron-on
sheet in Tel Aviv (they came both in color and in black-and-white) that same
year. I still have it--never transfered it--although finding it in my papers
right now would be a major pain. So I am "quoting" from memory.

VS-)



On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 7:37 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ...
> The perhaps-apocryphal "Kill them all! God/Allah will recognize his own!"
>
> and its variants may possibly be an extension, semantically, at least.
>
> --
> -Wilson
>

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