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There is a clearly defined development in St. Thomas’ thought
on gratia operans et coopérais. In the Sentences actual grace
is neither operative nor cooperative. In the De Veritate it is
said to be cooperative. In the Summa it is both operative and
cooperative.
The deficiencies in St. Thomas’s earlier thought are matched
by similar deficiencies in the thought of his immediate prede­
cessors. We are dealing with the development, not of a single
mind, but of the speculative theology of grace itself. The
nature of this general movement was discussed in the first
section. Here certain precise points have come to light: the
great Commentaries on the Sentences reveal a preoccupation
with sanctifying grace ; simultaneously the external graces of
special providence, internal illuminations and inspirations, and
many other things are lumped together under a general rubric
of gratia gratis data. On the latter point there are noteworthy
differences between St. Albert, St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas;
still the general statement remains true. Speculation on habitual
grace is reaching its peak of perfection, but speculation on
actual grace is hardly beyond its preliminary stages.
Though our inquiry is not as yet sufficiently advanced to out­
line St. Thomas’s elaboration of the idea of actual grace, we
have found two points to be of special interest. The category
of gratia gratum faciens is enlarged in the De Veritate to make
room for the divine gift of good thoughts and holy affections;
this enlargement coincides with an advertence to the fact that
St. Augustine’s praeveniens and subsequens must be two graces
really distinct; there follows the affirmation of a divine guid­
ance and aid that is distinct from habitual grace and is termed
gratia coopérant. Further, the actual grace that is operative
in the Summa is explicidy illustrated by conversion; now on
this point St. Thomas’s thought had a long and nuanced his­
tory, as is apparent from a comparison of 2 d.28 q.l a.4;
De Ver q.24 a.15; C. Gent 3: 149, 152; la q.62 a.2 ad 3m:
Quodl 1 a.7 ; De Malo q.6 a.l ad Im ad 21m; la 2ae q.9 a.6 ad
3m; 3a q.85 2.5.
(To be continued)

r

THE INFLUENCE OF ROMANS XIII ON
CHRISTIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
IL AUGUSTINE TO HINCMAR
WILFRID PARSONS, S.J.
Catholic University

Washington, D.C.

I. St. Augustine

N a preceding article,1 the place held by St. Paul’s precepts
on civic obedience in the Thirteenth Chapter of his Epistle
to the Romans was studied in the earliest writings of the Church
before the time of St. Augustine. It was shown that St. Paul
was understood to have taken up and complemented the rev­
olutionary teaching of the Saviour which formally announced
the separate and distinct spheres of the temporal and spiritual
rule of mankind. God and Caesar both have their respective
claims on man’s conscience. St. Paul gives the reason: Caesar’s
power also comes from God; or rather, it is God’s power ex­
ercised by man for man’s good. Caesar is the minister of God.
We also saw, however, that this simple and clear teaching
does not entirely settle and clarify man’s relations with his
secular government. Lacking the Aristotelian doctrine that
man by his nature is a political animal as well as a social animal,
some of the early Fathers failed to make a distinction between
the power, which is from God, and the office itself, which is of
human right. All of them derived political rule from the fact
of sin, just as they did those other social institutions, private
property and slavery. To them that seemed the clear implica­
tion of St. Paul’s teaching in Romans 13. If men had not
sinned, there would have been no political rule, for this rule
was conceived as merely coercive government, a thing which
would have been an idle usurpation in the state of equality
which accompanied the state of innocence. Thus, lacking a
justification in natural law for political rule, they escaped
anarchy by seeking it solely in the decree of God following
man’s fall. St. Paul’s teaching was thus narrowly circumscribed
lTbeologictl Stedin, I. 4 (Dec. 1940), JJ7-564.

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Theological Studies

to a few simple precepts, foremost of which was the duty of
Christian man to show reverence and obedience to his temporal
rulers as a penalty for sin. Moreover, St. Paul remained prac­
tically the sole source of political thinking.
St. Augustine
When we approach St. Augustine, however (354-430 A.D.),
we at once enter into a wider and more comprehensive field.
Political thought is no longer merely an exegesis of Romans 13.
That passage, indeed, still exercises a profound influence, as we
shall see, but greater and more revolutionary considerations
enter into the field. For the first time, in St. Augustine we see
the Church beginning to entertain two definite convictions
concerning this world: 1) that the Church was destined to
remain in this world for a long time; and 2) that the Church
has a temporal mission as well as a spiritual one, a clear calling
to be the creator of a new secular civilization. These two con­
victions seem to me to be the key to all of St. Augustine’s
political thought.
Now, naturally, in a paper devoted to only the one aspect
of political thought, the continuing influence of St. Paul on
it, it cannot be expected to find a detailed and comprehensive
outline of the Augustinian political synthesis. It will be neces­
sary, however, to recall certain high points in it.
St. Augustine’s thought about the temporal world revolves
around four master ideas: Peace, Justice, Order, Law. With
out entering into the rather artificial controversy about which
of these master ideas is the chief one,2 we may say that by the
mere mention of them our minds are lifted on to a vast plane
of contemplation which embraces a new civilization. Thus
we will find that St. Augustine at the same time goes both
before and after St. Paul’s ideas, giving us both a foundation
and an application of them.
St. Augustine, consciously or unconsciously, was led, on the
-Bernheim, Poliiitcbe Begriff des Mittelalters, pp. 1-25 (quoted by
bolds it to be Pax, peace. Arquillière, in L'Augusttnisuee Politique,
Justice, and then Order. This writer at present inclines to the view
idea is Law, which while it is not mentioned so often as the others,
as being at the foundation of them.

Arquillière, cf. infra)
pp. 9-21, chinks it is
that the true guiding
is certainly conceived

Latin Patristic Political Thought

327

occasion of the menace to established order contained in Alaric’s
sack of Rome in A.D. 410, to bend his powerful mind to the
problem of the future fate of mankind if the Roman Empire
fell. It is, I think, quite commonly agreed that his solution
was the fusion of the natural and the supernatural into one
synthesis. To him philosophy and theology were not two sep­
arate sciences, but one law of God. Fear of the frightful abyss
of Manicheism, out of which he providentially escaped, would
naturally lead him to exalt the supernatural, but it did not, as
some have always thought, bring him to absorb the natural in
the supernatural. Dualism remained for his, as for all Christian
thought, the true expression of reality, though many forms of
semi-Christian monism have claimed him as their inspirer if
not their author.
There are two laws, he teaches, the temporal and the eternal.
Both have their origin in God. The greater precepts of justice,
which are the same as charity in its largest sense, were given by
Christ but the lesser precepts also came from God on Sinai.3
This Divine law dictates the natural order, both in man and in
society and bids it be preserved, forbids it to be disturbed?
There are, then, two laws, the eternal and the temporal, and the
temporal is derived from the eternal, bringing order among
men, through justice.5 Man, therefore, finds for the changeable
fortunes of human life an unchangeable rule of action in this
eternal law, and his laws, though varied according to circum­
stances, will always conform to it.*
All of this seems fairly commonplace to us at this late date
in the history of the world, but if we project ourselves into his
age we can see what a tremendous force he is injecting into
society. Followed out, his theory of law, accepted by the
Church, will remake the world and will, in fact, create what
we call Christendom, a politico-religious order designed to unite
mankind, by bending the supernatural to the uses of the tem­
poral state.
*Ο« the Lord’t Sermon on the Monnt, cap. I. ML 54, 12)1.
^Contre Îenstnm, ΧΧΠ, 17. ML 42. 41«.
«Cf. that remarkable passage in the dialogue De Libero Arbitrio, I. 6, ML 52, 1129,
in which changes of government are justified. 9 De Vert Religione, cap. XXXI. ML 34, 14«.

uaansc

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Theological Studies

It was during thirteen years of his life (413-426) that he
worked at that general depository of his thought which we call
the City of God, a sort of scrap book into which he poured his
reflections and conclusions about life. All of these reflections
concern the Two Cities, the City of God, and the Earthly City,
not two separate societies—Church and State—as is some­
times falsely imagined, but two spirits of mind, intermingling
with each other in the secular world, and each in its way de­
termining the actions of the State and its citizens, one triumph­
ing for the time, but the other destined to triumph at the end.
When the City of God is paramount, "the princes and the sub­
jects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the
former take thought for all.”' At the same time, the temporal
goods that are sought by the Earthly City are not evil things.
On the contrary, "they are good things, and without doubt
gifts of God.” Men go wrong only when, in their search for
temporal felicity, "they so inordinately covet these present
goods that they believe them to be the only desirable things,
or love them better than those things which are believed to
be better.”'
When St. Augustine approaches the question of the origin
of political authority, we find him in full agreement with the
Christian thought that preceded him. All men are by nature
created equal. It was sin that introduced into the world the
necessity of subjecting one man to another.
He (God) did not intend that His rational creature, who was
made in His image, should have dominion over anything but the
irrational creation—not man over man, but man over beasts. Hence
the just men in primitive times were made shepherds of cattle rather
than kings of men, God intending thus to teach us what the relative
position of the creature is, and what the desert of sin. ... By nature,
as God first created us, no one is the slave either of man or of sin.9

This fundamental assumption will color all that St. Au­
gustine has to say about the teaching of St. Paul on the source
and aim of political power. His own exegesis is as follows.'1
7De Chitaie Dei, XIX, 28. ML 41, 456.
S/W. XV, 4. .ML 41, 440.
9lbid., XIX, 15. ML 41, 645. Cf. also Quaestiones in Genesim, I, 155. ML 54, 5»0.
19 Expositio Quamndam Propositionum ex Epistola ad Romanos, LXII-LXIV. ML 55,
2083-4,

Latin Patristic Political Thought

329

First of all, he brushes aside all those false conclusions from
the passage, which, as we have seen, introduced a dangerous
anarchism into Christian life and thought. Christian liberty
does not exempt man from obedience to his temporal rulers:
"Man must not imagine that in the pilgrimage of this life,
he may keep his own special order and not be subject to the
higher powers to which the temporary administration of tem­
poral affairs has been entrusted.”
But then he promptly delves deeper than mere externals, and
in the very nature of man, as he is, he finds the real reason why
this is so: "We are made of body and soul and as long as we
are in this temporal life we must use temporal things for the
support of this life. Hence for that part which pertains to this
life, we must be subject to the powers; that is, to the men who
administer human affairs with some position (honore)
In these words St. Augustine has furnished to the Middle
Ages the foundation of the whole grandiose conception of
human unity under the Kingdom and the Priesthood, which,
as we shall see, was the culmination of Christian political
thought. To man, a composite being of body and soul, yet one
being, corresponds a twofold government, the Church ruling
the affairs of the soul and the State ruling the affairs of the
body. Christendom, a social being, and a moral person, is but
a larger reflection of the physical human person.
Moreover, in these same words St. Augustine has furnished
St. Thomas and the Scholastics, when they will have emanicipated themselves from the assumption that man is not by
nature a political animal, with the reason why that assumption
does not hold. The necessity for governments for the affairs
of both body and soul does not proceed from the opposition of
body and soul which befell man as result of the Fall, as St.
Augustine assumed, but dates from creation itself. Man’s
nature itself demands them, not merely man’s fallen nature.
It is obvious, however, that St. Augustine, influenced by his
predecessors, did not see these two conclusions.
It is not, however, necessary for St. Augustine to have re­
course, as did his predecessors, to the words of St. Peter before

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Theological Studies

the Sanhedrin ("We must obey God rather than man.”11) in
order to exempt man from obedience to unjust and sinful com­
mands. He goes on: "But from that part by which we believe
in God and are called to His Kingdom, we must not be subject
to any man who wishes to overturn in us that which God gave
us for eternal life.” Faith and morals are not subject to secular
government, as the soul is not subject to the body.12
The man who thinks that he must also be subject in such a way as
to think that his faith is in the power of him who is exalted to a
position of honor in temporal administrations, he falls into a greater
error [than to think that he may not pay taxes, etc.] For that pro­
portion is to be observed which the Lord Himself prescribed when
He said that we must render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s
and to God the things that are God’s. For although we are called
to that kingdom where there will be an end to all principality and
power, let us endure our condition in the due proportion of human
affairs, doing nothing with mental reservation, and by this very fact
not obeying men so much as God who commands this.

In this last phrase, we are given, as we also saw in St. John
Chrysostom, the fundamental reason for civil obedience. It
is not subjection of man to man, which would be unworthy
of equals, but of man to God. Political allegiance is raised to
the level of a Divine service, and that has always remained
the only rational justification of civil authority.
Moreover, St. Augustine also implies, in this passage on
Romans 13, another consideration which further confirms
the rationality of obedience to temporal rulers, and their sub­
jection, in turn, to the eternal law. He makes a distinction
between the permanent good and the temporal character of
the goods which serve the body in this life. "These things
pass away, and hence that subjection is to be placed not in any
1IActs, s, 29.
12Cf. also Contra Famium, XXII, 17 (ML 42, 418): "To no one is there any doubt
that in the natural order the soul is to come before the body. But in the soul of man
is reason, which is not in the beast. Hence, just as the soul should come before the body,
so by the law of nature, the reason of the soul itself should come before its other paru
which the beast has likewise. And in the reason, which is partly contemplative, partly
active, without doubt the contemplative excels. For in this latter is the image of God by
which we are transformed through faith to sight. Hence the rational action must obey
the rational contemplation.”

Latin Patristic Political Thought

331

kind of permanent goods, but in the necessaries of this life.”
On the other hand, our subjection as to temporary goods is
all-inclusive: "It is necessary that we be subject by reason of
this life, not resisting when they attempt to deprive us of any
of these things over which they have been given power.” Here
again the lesson was not to be lost on the Middle Ages: the
power of the king, while not his own in its origin, is absolute
with regard to the things over which he is placed, subject, of
course, to the moral law.
In another passage which was destined to be often quoted
in the Middle Ages, St. Augustine adds a third consideration
by which human rule is fixed in its proper place in a scheme
designed by divine Providence. He has told his hearers that
they must not obey evil commands:
Are we puffing you up with pride or telling you to be despisers
of well-ordered authority? We do not say this. . . . The Apostle him­
self tells us: 'Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; for
there is no power but from God.’ But what if he commands what
you ought not to do? Here certainly despise the power, fearing the
power. Note the hierarchy of human affairs. If the prefect com­
mands, is it not to be done? But if he commands against the will of
the proconsul, you do not despise the power, but you choose to obey
the higher. Again, if the proconsul commands one thing, and the
Emperor another, can you doubt that the proconsul must be despised
and the Emperor obeyed? Therefore if the Emperor [commands] one
thing and God another, what is your judgment? 'Pay your tribute;
do your obeisance to me.’ 'Right; but not before an idol. He forbids
it in the temple.’ 'Who forbids?’ 'The higher authority. Pardon me;
you threaten prison, He threatens Hell.’u

This ’’hierarchy of human affairs” is the keynote to all that
follows in Christian history. In an organic society, when an
evil command is resisted, there is really no disobedience; there
is merely obedience to the higher powers, as St. Paul enjoined.
There is a unity in all being, from the bottom to the top, and
at the top is God, above the emperor.
This also solves the old problem of the bad king.
t3Senw LXII, ». ML Jt, 420.

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Theological Studies

By bad laws the good are tried and by good laws the evil are cor­
rected. The perverse King Nabuchodonosor passed a savage law that
idols were to be adored; the same king, corrected, passed a severe law
forbidding the true God to be blasphemed.14 For in this, kings, as is
divinely ordained to them, serve God inasmuch as they are kings if in
their kingdom they command what is good, forbid what is bad, not
only in what pertains to human society, but also in what pertains
to Divine religion.”13

Even the king, therefore, has the duty to forward the
interests of the true religion, for he is also a minister of God.
How seriously this was also taken in the Middle Ages, the his­
tory of Charlemagne and his successors testifies. St. Augustine
himself may not have been aware how greatly he was filling
out the whole pattern of the centuries that were to follow,
for in his time there must have seemed very fit tie hope of his
idealistic principles being carried out, but his great genius,
joined to the inspiration of divine providence, seems to have
discerned the outlines of the whole, or nearly the whole, of the
Christian commonwealth.
In this plan, the personal character of the actual ruler
has very little importance. It is the rule of God that must be
discerned in the power even of a tyrant.
He who gave power to Marius gave it also to Caius Caesar; He
who gave it to Augustus, gave it also to Nero; He also who gave it to
the most benignant Emperors, the Vespasians, father and son, gave it
also to the cruel Domitian. And finally, to avoid having to go over
them all, He who gave it to Christian Constantine, gave it also to
Apostate Julian, whose gifted mind was deceived by a sacrilegious and
detestable curiosity, stimulated by the love of power.16

The fullest Christian citizenship, then, in the spirit of St.
Paul, consists of obedience to the utmost to the civil authority,
out of obedience to God. This is summed up in the following:
When by Christ’s command, you serve a man, you do not serve
liDaniel 5, 5-6, 96.
15Contra Cmconrum, III, 51. ML 45, 527.
1HDr Civitate Dei, V, 21. ML 41, 168. Cf. also De Natnra Boni, XXXII (ML 42, 561)
where he tells us that “it is not unjust, that through the wicked (ruler) receiving the
power to hurt, the patience of the just be tried, and the iniquity of the wicked be pun­
ished.” In this passage he had just previously quoted Romant 15, with other similar teats
from the Ο.Έ.

Latin Patristic Political Thought

333

the man, but Him who commanded you. . . . What I have said of
master and slave, understand also to be true of powers and kings, of
all the exalted stations of the world. Sometimes they are good powers
and fear God; sometimes they do not fear God. Julian was an infidel
Emperor, an apostate, a wicked man, an idolator; yet Christian soldiers
served him, an infidel Emperor. When they came to the accusers
of Christ, they acknowledged only Him who was in heaven. If he
called upon them at any time to worship idols, to offer incense, they
preferred God to Him. But whenever he commanded them to fall
into line, to march against this or that nation, they obeyed. They
distinguished their eternal from their temporal master. And yet they
were, for the sake of their eternal Master, subject to thir temporal
master.1 '

Now I have not, as I have said, made an attempt to give
the whole of St. Augustine’s political philosophy in all its
details. My purpose was only to trace out the development
which he contributed to the crucial passages in St. Paul to the
Romans. We can, perhaps, now see both how his doctrine
is rooted in that of his predecessors, and how he has developed
it to a completely practical pattern for the making of a new
civilization under the temporal mission of the Church.”

Popes Leo, Gelasius

and

Gregory (440-604)

When St. Augustine assigned the Church the mission of
building a new civilization, he greatly augmented the au­
thority and influence of the Roman Pontiff. It is not an
accident, therefore, that within ten years after his death in
430, there began that great series of holy and powerful Popes,
beginning with St. Leo the Great in 440, and ending at the
death of St. Gregory the Great in 604. Between them we
find St. Felix II, St. Gelasius I, and St. Symmachus, who
greatly added to the development of the Church’s conception
1Ί» Psalmum 124, 7. ML 37, 16$ J. Other pissages in which Romms IJ is cited on
civil obedience are Sermo ΧΙΠ, 6 (ML 38, 109-110); Sermo CCCII, 12-44 (ML )8,
1)90); Contra Faustum Manicbaeum, XXII, 73 (ML 42, 448).
18I have not quoted the passage in Confessions, ΙΠ, 8 (ML 32, 690), later quoted by
Suarez, Defensio Fidel, De Rons. Pont. Ill, 2) to prove that his contract theory of
authority was also held by St. Augustine: "There is a general agreement (pactum) of
human society that its princes be obeyed.” It seems to me that the context shows that
St. Augustine merely meant to say that all men obey their rulers, without any emphasis
on the pact idea.

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Theological Studies

of the place of the civil power in the divine order. It can
be said that all of the new ideas they contributed found their
origin in the writings of St. Augustine.
From this date also a further change takes place concern­
ing the precise subject of this paper. Where, before, the
Fathers of the Church are constantly quoting St. Paul to
their Christian subjects to exhort them to be obedient to
their temporal lords, from now on the shoe is on the other
foot. The temporal lords are going to quote St. Paul to show
the Popes that their own power also comes from God. This
fact was not denied by the Church, of course, but a new
color is given it by the acknowledgment of the two powers by
which the world is ruled. We will see also that his new
emphasis falls into two separate developments: at first the dual
power exists in the world; later, the circle is closed and it has its
seat in the Church. When that is done, the movement set on
foot by Augustine will be completed.
We can see the first steps in the new way of looking at
political power being taken by St. Leo the Great, who was
Pope from 440 to 461. To him the Empire was the physica1
means for preserving and forwarding the kingdom of God
on earth. With St. Paul he believed that all power comes
from God. Writing to Emperor Leo, he uses these striking
words: "Since the Lord enriched Your Clemency with the
illumination of a great Sacrament, you ought ever to re­
member that the kingly power—the regia potestas—was given
you not only for the government of the world, but especially
for the protection of the church.”19 Thus he was able to
say in one of his sermons: "The highest ornament of kingly
rule is now that the world’s rulers are members of Christ.
They do not so much glory in being bom to the purple as
they rejoice in being reborn in Baptism.”20
Within a few years after that, writing first as Pope St. Felix
Il’s secretary, and later as Pope himself from 492 to 496,
St. Gelasius I was formulating his famous synthesis which
was to influence the current of Christian thought for many
^Etfàtola a<l Ltoitcm Augmturn, CL VI, 3. ML 34, 1130.
-^Sfrmo XXVI, 3. .ML 34, 233.

Latin Patristic Political Thought

335

centuries to our day. The power from God is twofold:
August Emperor, there are two things by which the world is
sovereignly ruled: the sacred authority of the Pontiffs and the royal
power. Of these the weight of the priests is so much the greater that
at the Divine judgment they are to render an account also for the
kings of men.21........... [Hence there is a mutual subjection:]..............
As for what concerns the order of public discipline, if the religious
prelates, knowing that the Empire was conferred on you by ordination
from above, themselves obey your laws, lest in mundane affairs they
should seem to resist the settled decree, with what eagerness should
not you, I beg you, obey them to whom is confided the administration
of the venerable mysteries?

Thus the priests obey the secular laws of the temporal
prince and the prince obeys the priests in the spiritual order,
for each of the two supreme powers in the world comes from
God. It should be noted also, for it is highly important at
this stage, that Gelasius envisions the two powers, each sacred
in its origin, as co-existing side by side in the world, each
supreme in its own sphere and each commanding obedience
in that sphere from the other, and the two spheres separate
one from the other.
In another passage, however, Gelasius interprets this grant
of political and spiritual power in a way that will also have
a profound influence on subsequent thought in imparting a
complete change to this concept. There were times, he says,
"before the coming of Christ, that figuratively yet actually,
there existed men who were kings as well as priests, as the
sacred history relates was Melchisedech.” Then the devil
imitated this among his own, and the Roman Emperor was
also Pontifex Maximus. Now when Christ came, He was
"truly both King and Pontiff.” But He decided to "separate
the two functions of each power into their own proper opera­
tions and distinct dignities.” It is in this new way that he
exhibits the teaching of St. Paul. God gave power to kings
through the medium of the temporal Kingship of Christ, as
nEpntolé XII, 2. Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum, (Ed Thiel, 1868) I, pp. J 50-1.
The worth are quibnt principaliter munJus bic regitur. With moat modern scholan I
hare translated the word Principaliter not "chiefly,” but in a way as to show its original
meaning, which it undoubtedly had in the mind of Gelasius.

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THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

He gave power to the Pontiffs through the sacred Priesthood
of Christ. Then he concludes: "Thus the Christian Emperors
need the Pontiff for their eternal life, and the Pontiffs follow
the commands of the Emperors for the ordering of temporal
matters.”’’ Thus, on the face of it, Gelasius’ doctrine is the
same in the two passages, but from the Kingship of Christ he
has introduced an element which will substantially alter the
whole notion of the source and nature of the temporal power
itself.
This development, however, will not take place for some
centuries. Within a few years after St. Gelasius, we find
Pope Symmachus (498-514) repeating the Gelasian formula
in his own words: "By these two offices [Priesthood and Kingship] the human race is ruled, and there must not be anything
in either of them by which Divinity can be offended, espe­
cially since both dignities are seen to be perpetual and the
interests of the human race are in the hands of both.” In this
same letter to Emperor Anastasius, moreover, Symmachus,
uses a striking expression which summarizes the doctrine. He
seems aware that Romans 13 might be quoted against Papal
claims, for he says:
Perhaps you will say that it is written that we must be subject
to every power. We do indeed accept human authorities in their place,
until they raise their wills against God. Besides, if even' power is from
God, so much the more is that [power] which has charge of the
affairs of God. Do you yield to God in us and we will yield to God in
your3

About this same time we find Fulgentius (468-533) point­
ing out: "in the Church no one is higher (potior) than the
Pontiff, and in the world no one higher than the Emperor
. . . the Christian Empire is better ruled and propagated when
care is taken for the ecclesiastical state all over the world
than when in some part of the world struggles are undertaken
for temporal security.”*4
When we come to St. Gregory the Great (590-604) we
find more than once this same idea expressed that the secular
^Tractatut IV, 11. Thiel. 1, pp. 567-8. ^Epistola 10, contra Anattainm. ML 61, 61,
z*Liber de Veritate Praedntrnationa et Gratiae. II, 8. ML 65, 6+7-8

Latin Patristic Political Thought

337

power exists before all for the purpose of forwarding the in­
terests of Christ’s kingdom, the Church. Thus to the Em­
peror Maurice he says: "For to this purpose was power over
all men given from heaven to my Most Pious Lords, that those
who seek good should be helped, that the way to heaven be
opened more widely, that the earthly kingdom serve the
heavenly one.”25
Gregory, however, must be stressed in this matter for
having impressed on his and succeeding ages the two funda­
mental notions of equality and liberty. "Nature,” he says,
"brought forth all men equal, but as the order of merit varied,
a hidden dispensation subjected some to others. But that very
diversity which came from sin is rightly ordained by the
Divine command, that because every man does not equally
travel the path of life, one should be ruled by another.”26 In
this, of course, he follows closely his predecessors among the
Fathers, who hold that secular authority arose as a result of
sin and thus interpret Romans 13 as teaching that "all power”
was imposed by God for the regulation of fallen human nature.
At the same time, however, the notion of liberty is ad­
vanced to correct the inequality that Adam’s fall occasioned.
Political power was not given for the advantage of the ruler
but of his subjects. They are not merely means to him as
an end, but rather government is a means towards their wel­
fare. The ruler must recall that by nature his subjects are his
equals, and therefore, they are truly free men. "This is the dif­
ference between the kings of the gentiles and the Emperors of
the Commonwealth,” he tells the Emperor Phocas, "that the
kings of the gentiles are lords of slaves, and the Emperors of the
Commonwealth are lords of free men.”27
sEpistoUe, Lib. m. 65. ML 77, 66J.
~*Mortlia in Job, XXI, 22. ML 76,205. Cf. the parallel passage in the Regule Pestorelit, Π, 6. ML 77, 54. These two passages will be cited by Suarez. Def. Fid., De Rant.
Pant., ΓΠ, 2, to prove from natural equality the necessity of the doctrine of power being
derived immediately from the community. He rejects, of course, the doctrine of its being
occasioned by sin.
^Epntolee, Lib. ΧΙΠ, 51. ML 77, 1282. He repeats the same sentence, with a slight
variation, in Epitt., Lib. X, 51. ML 77, 1107.

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Political power, therefore, in the mind of St. Gregory, does
indeed come from God, as St. Paul teaches, but sin caused
it to be brought into the world, not creation. In this he
merely follows the Fathers, as I have said. It is noteworthy,
perhaps, that he does not openly teach the newer formula of
Gelasius.28
Cassiôdorus and Isidore of Seville

The turning point of Christian political thought from
theory to realization comes in the latter part of the sixth
century and the first part of the seventh, with Cassiodorus
and Isidore of Seville. Flavius Marcus Aurelius Cassiodorus
Senator, to give him his full name, "spent the first part of
his life conciliating the Gothic and Roman peoples and the
second part in conciliating the culture of the ancient world
and the culture of the Christian world. Modern civilization
was the outgrowth of the alliance brought about by him.”2’
St. Isidore, with his elder brother, St. Leander, took a bar­
baric people, the Visigothic Kingdom in the Iberian peninsula,
and made of it a Christian commonwealth.
Cassiodorus (479-172) is particularly concerned that the
Pauline precept of civil obedience must have, as its correlative,
justice in the ruler. Writing in his later years as a Benedictine
Abbot, and commenting on Romans 13, he remarks: "He
[St. Paul] says that we are to be subject to all authorities who
command justly, because power is given by God and He is
seen to wish to resist God who strives to go counter to judicial
ordinations.”30 Hence in another place he refuses the name
of king to the tyrant: "The kings of the earth are those that
rule their bodies with the help of Divinity, for he is not a true
king who is shown to be a slave to his vices.”31 This is all the
“I have not accepted the accusation made against Gregory by Carlyle, Medieval Po­
litical Theory in the West, I, 1 52-3, that he held an exaggerated form of the Divine Right
of Kings. The passages quoted on absolute obedience to rulers turn out, upon inspection,
to be rather exhortations to religious obedience by monks to their superiors, a very differ­
ent thing.
^Paul Lejay, S.J., in Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. CassioJorus.
^Complexiones m Epost. ad Rom., 29. ML 70, 1329.
31 Ex positiones in Psalterium, Psalm 13·, 5, ML 70, 981.

■■ d

Latin Patristic Political Thought

339

more important in that the king has no superior on earth to
coerce him. "When the king goes astray, he is guilty only to
God, because he has no man who can call his deeds to judg­
ment. Rightly, therefore, does the king [David] say he has
sinned to God only, since He is the only one who could dis­
cuss his deeds.”32
Throughout his earlier life, acting as a sort of Prime Min­
ister to Theodoric, in dozens of letters to minor official and
subject peoples, Cassiodorus unceasingly rings the changes on
the absolute necessity of justice in government if government
is to justify its origin in God. His letters are filled with such
sayings as these: "What is better than that a people wishes to
live under the precepts of justice, so that a community of
many living under discipline is the unity of wills? For this
is what has brought the peoples together from a barbarous
life to the rule of human intercourse.”33 "This is the source
of reverence for law, so that nothing shall be done by force,
nothing by personal impulse.”14 "What does it profit to have
removed the chaos of barbarism unless life is lived under
law?”
"The good prince is he to whom one can speak for
justice; on the other hand, it is a sign of barbarous tyranny not
to wish to listen to the settled principles of ancient laws.”38 It
can certainly be said of Cassiodorus that in him we behold
mediaeval civilization shaping itself in the flesh.
On the other hand, the writings of St. Isidore (d. 636)
were the actual textbooks of the Middle Ages. Both his
Etymologies and his Sentences together present a whole syn­
thesis of political theory, which, of course, cannot be pre­
sented here. Suffice it to say that his emphasis is rather on
the duties of rulers to their subjects than on those of subjects
to their rulers. Typical of this attitude toward the Pauline
precept is the following:
God gave precedence to princes for the ruling of peoples.

He

Psalm 10, f. ML 70, 360, commenting on David’s words tibi soli peccavi.
ML 69, 630.
"ibid., IV. 10. ML 69, 617.
W»W., ΙΠ, 4J. ML 69, 399.
"ibid. Vin, I J. ML 69, 746.

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wished them to be set above those with whom their lot is equal both
in being born and in dying. Therefore government (principatus) is
for the benefit of peoples, not their harm, nor should it dominate and
oppress, but condescend and assist, so that this mark of power be truly
useful, that they may use this gift of God for the safety of the
members of Christ. For the faithful people are the members of
Christ; when (kings) rule them well by that power which they have
received, they in turn restore to God what He had given them.37

While he freely admits, therefore, that all must acknowl­
edge that political power is from God, nevertheless the prince
must not be puffed up with pride because of that fact.
Every mark of power is not always useful, but only when it is
properly borne. Now it is properly borne when it benefits the sub­
jects over whom it is placed in worldly honor. Power is good which
comes from God who grants it, that it may coerce evil by fear, not
that it may freely commit evil itself. For nothing is worse than
through power to have the liberty of sinning, nothing is more miser­
able than the power of doing evil.38

In the discussion of this restraint upon kingly power, St.
Isidore coins a slogan which will re-echo throughout the
Middle Ages: rex a regendo—a king derives his name from
ruling, and ruling {regendo) is the same as recte agendo.
In the Etymologies he says:
Kings are named from ruling. As priests from sanctifying (sacerdoes a sanctificando) so kings from ruling. For he does not rule who
does not correct (nan regit qui nan corrigit). For the name of king
is derived from right doing, and is lost by sinning. Hence among the
ancients there was a saying: 'you will be a king if you do right; if
y»u do not you will not be.’39

This is repeated with an important variation in the Sen­
tences: "Kings derive their name from right acting, and so
the name of king is held by right actions, is lost by sinning.
. . . For they are rightly called kings who have known by
Sententiarum Lib. HI, cap. 49, 5. ML 8J, 721.
1Aibid, III, 48, S. ML »5, 718.
era si recte facies; si non facies, non eris, attributed to Horace.
Lib. «V. iii, 4. ML 82. 542.

Ely motoriarum.

<· · --

I

>

•

I

Latin Patristic Political Thought

341

ruling rightly to moderate both themselves and their sub• . »H0
jects.
Thus in Isidore the original precept of St. Paul on the
origin of all power from God is turned upon the prince himself: the corollary of that teaching is that all power must
rule justly; and if a king does not use his power justly, he
loses it. The tyrant is no longer king. In one sense, this
dictum had more influence on the Middle Ages than any other
element of political doctrine. Yet in Isidore nothing is said
of how the king is to be deprived of this power. He is still
in the tradition of the Patristic Age when he says: "It is
clear that both good and bad powers are from God; but the
good when He is favorable, the bad when He is angry.”41
As far as the subject is concerned he must simply endure the
bad king as a punishment for his sins. "When God is angry,
the people get such a ruler as they merit for their sins.”42

From Charlemagne to Hincmar

It is in the ninth century, under the reign of Charles the
Great, or, as we know him, Charlemagne, that the whole pre­
ceding political doctrine comes to a sort of fruition. We
even find some startling exaggerations on the part of some
writers. Thus Cathuulfus, writing to Charlemagne about
780 says: "Be mindful, therefore, my King, of God, your
King, in fear and love, that you are in His place above all
(in vice Illius), to keep and rule His members, and to render
an account on the day of judgment, yea, even through you.
And the Bishop is in the second place, only in the place of
Christ.”43
Sedulius Scotus (ca. 820) speaks somewhat in the same
exaggerated manner: "The ruler who is beloved of God, whom
the Divine ordinance has wished to be, as it were, His Vicar
in the government of the Church, and has given him power

,

^Sententier. HI. 4Î, 7. ML. »5, 719.
"ibid., HI, 41, 10. ML «1, 720.
'-ibid., HI, 41, u. ML, «J. 720.
ad Cervlum Regem. Mormmente Hhtorice Germmüce (MGH). Epiittdee,
IV, J02-J.

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over both orders of prelates and subjects, must deal out
justice to each single person, etc.”44 On the other hand,
Abbot Smaragdus (ca. 824) while still going very far, is
more in the tradition of Gelasius: "Do whatever you can,
for the position you occupy, for the name of Christian which
you bear, for the place of Christ which you hold.”15
Yet it must be confessed that Alcuin himself (d. 804),
the preceptor and friend of Charlemagne, could speak in
somewhat the same way. When writing to Ethelred, King of
Northumbria, he could say: "Obey the priests of God. For
they must render an account to God on the way they ad­
monish you, and you, on the way you obey them.”10 Yet
we find him writing to Charlemagne in this grandiloquent
fashion:
There have been up to this time three persons most highly placed:
the apostolic sublimity which is wont to rule the seat of Blessed
Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, by vicarious power. . .. Another is the
imperial dignity, the secular power of the second Rome. . . . The third
is the royal dignity in which the dispensation of Jesus Christ Our
Lord has made you ruler of the Christian people greater (excellentior)
in power than the other aforesaid dignities, more famous in wisdom,
more sublime in ruling power. Lo, upon you the whole safety of the
Churches of Christ reposes.47

In another writer, however writing about the middle of
the ninth century, we find a doctrine more in accord with
the development of the Church’s thought on political power
and its origin from God. Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, writing
about 842, resumes the Gelasian tradition, and at the same
time gives it a subtle, but powerful modification. To Gelasius,
the secular power came from God along with the spiritual,
and the two are in separate spheres and each one subject to
the other in the other’s sphere. But both exist side by side
in the world. To Jonas of Orleans, both powers, including
**De ReciorHnu Cbrùtünà, cap. XIX. ML 103, 329.
t5pro vier Cbritti gua fangerh. VU RegU, cap. XVIII. ML 102, 9ft.
"EphtoUtr, li. MGH. Epist. IV, 44.
«Epht. 174, td Carolum Regem. MGH, Ep. TV, 297-299.

Latin Patristic Political Thought

343

the political, come from Christ, in virtue of the Kingship of
Christ, and are in the Church.
All the faithful should know that the Universal Church is the Body
of Christ and its Head is the same Christ; and in it are two especially
outstanding persons, namely the priestly and the royal, and the priestly
is so much more superior in that it will have to give an account to
God for the kings themselves.48

It is natural, therefore, that to Jonas the teaching of St.
Paul that the temporal power is a ministry49 should be im­
portant:
The ministry of the king lies especially in governing the people of
God in equity and justice and in care that it enjoys peace and concord.
... He ought to know that the cases which by his proper office he
administers are not the cases of men but of God, to Whom he will
have to render an account on the fearful day of last judgment for
the ministry which he has undertaken.50

Later, he thus sums up the whole teaching on the origin of
political rule: "It is clear, therefore, that the earthly kingdom
is conferred not by lust nor by desire nor by the arm of
human force, but by virtue, nay, by an occult judgment, of
the Divine dispensation, and therefore whoever has it com­
mitted to him, should be careful to administer and rule it
according to His will.”’1
This notion of the kingly power as a minister of Christ
will occur more frequently as the centuries proceed. Thus
Hrabanus Maurus (776-856) after quoting the usual Isidorian
slogan, rex a regendo, goes on: "In this world those kingdoms
are laudable which are subject to the true King, the Lord
Christ, who, spreading His Church over the whole earth
among the nations and diverse places, rules and governs it
according to his will.”51 Sedulius Scotus, after quoting Romans
13, says: "The more the good ruler knows that he was or­
dained of God, the more he takes care with pious anxiety
Iiutittrfiofte Rfgie. cap. I. ML 106, 2βί.
«Dr Imt. Rev., TV. ML 10«, 290.
Vn. ML 10«, 292.
^Df Uehvno, LS». XVI, cap. 5. ML 111, 441.

^Rament 1J, 4.

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Theological Studies

to dispose and weigh all things with due order before God and
men according to the path of rectitude. For what are the
rulers of the Christian people but the ministers of the Al­
mighty? So he is an equitable and faithful minister if with
sincere devotion he fulfills what his Lord and Master com­
mands him.”53 In the case of the actual deposition of the
Emperor Louis the Pious, the Bishops noted that this action
was taken "because the said prince had negligently exercised
the ministry committed to him.”54
On the other hand, subjects incur a correlative obligation
towards their rulers. Says Jonas of Orleans:
It is certain that the royal power should look out for the best in­
terests of all its subjects according to the order of equity. For this
reason it is right that all the subjects should obey the same power
faithfully and usefully and obediently, because he who resists a power
established by God, resists the ordinance of God.3J . . . When they do
that, they are clearly proved to fulfill the precept of God and keep due
faith with the king.5*

The correlative obligation of the ruler to his subjects and
of the subjects to their ruler which is implicit in St. Paul’s
teachings is a common enough teaching. Thus Agobard,
Archbishop of Lyons, writing about 830, says: "Every faith­
ful man owes sincerity to every faithful faith, and hence there
can be no doubt but that to the faithful ruler, to whom the
commonwealth has been committed to rule, should be shown
faith by all who are in the faith subjected to the Divine
ordinance, as the Apostle says, 'Let every soul be subject to
the higher powers, etc.’ ”5, This seems also to be the concept
of Wulfadus. Archbishop of Bourges, writing about 866:
"You also, the poor and less powerful, we warn to be sub53De Rectoribus Christianis, I. ML 103, 293.
^Depositio Hlodostsici. MGH. Lege», sect, ii, vol. ii, no. 197. The Capitula Pis tensi»
of 862 (MGH. Leg., ibid., no. 272) have this: "God . . . has wished that the king on
earth should be and be called king and lord for His honor and in His place.”
^Romans 13, 2.
MDr Inst. Reg., VIII. ML 106, 294. Cf. also the same writer’s De Institutione Lascaiii.
Π, 22 (ML 106, 214) with the added notion of the subject’s essential equality with his ruler.
^Epistle 13, to Emperor Louis. MGH, Ep. V, 223.

Latin Patristic Political Thought

345

ject to your lords and serve them faithfully, and give them
their due without fraud and in truth, knowing that they
have been ordained over you by God and that you ought to
be subject to them.’”8
Hincmar of Rheims (806-882) in his day encountered the
Pauline precept in another form, that of the ruler placing
too much reliance on it. In the case of King Lothair’s divorce
from Tetberga, the king’s lawyers had said: "The prince
is a king and is subject to no man’s judgments or laws, but
only to God’s, who set him up in the kingdom which his
father left him. . . . What he does, and how he should be
in his government, depends on God.” Hincmar’s answer to
this is blunt and to the point:
This is not the voice of a Catholic Christian, but of an extreme
blasphemer and one filled with a diabolical spirit. . . . The king is
subject to no man’s laws or judgments save only God’s ... if the king
is as his name implies. For the king is so called from ruling59, and
if he rules himself according to God’s will and directs the good in right
ways, then he is a king and is subject to no one’s laws or judgments,
save only God’s. . . . He who rules himself and others according to
the fruits of the spirit ... he is not subject to the law for 'against
such there is no law.’60 He is subject to the law of Christ alone, by
Whom he will be rewarded.61

Hincmar, in his turn resumes and develops Jonas of Orleans’
development of the Gelasian doctrine:
It is the Christian doctrine, according to the meaning of Holy
Scripture and the preaching of the elders, that by the disposition of
God and Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who alone could be both king and
priest at the same time, at whose name every knee bows in heaven,
on earth, and under the earth, as the Blessed Pope Gelasius said to the
Emperor Anastasius . . . "there are two things by which sovereignly”
along with those who have any special responsibility "this world is ruled,
the sacred authority of the Pontiff and the royal power.’ . . . 62
^Epistola ad Tüoecesim. MGH. Ep. VI, 191.
’■^Ebe rex a regendo of Isidore of Seville.
elDr Divortio Lotbarn et Tetbergae, Quaest. VI.
Romans 15 is constantly quoted in his defense.

259, etc.
°Ad Episcopos Regni, I.

ML, 125, 1007.

ML 125, 756.

WG*/. J, 25.
In Lothairs letters,

Cf. MGH. Ep. VI, 209, 217, 252, 25i,

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Theological Studies

jMBU

i

'

Finally, while all kings have their power from God, good
and bad kings have it in a different way. Here the Patristic
tradition is strong. Everything in the world happens ac
cording to the will of God, but as for kings, "Many reign
by the gift of God, many by His permission.”63 This permis
sion, though "sometimes a hidden judgment, (is) never an
unjust one,” says Hincmar.64 "When, therefore, kings reign
‘from Him,’ it is by His mercy, that the people committed to
them may be saved. But when they do not reign 'from Him,’
but by the permission of His just judgment kings seem to
reign, it is a punishment of the sinning people and a com
pletion of punishment for him who reigns.”65
e3Jonas of Orleans, De Inst. Regia, VII. ML 106, 295.
6iDe Regis Persona et Regio Ministerio, I. ML 121, 834.
Quaest. VI, ML 121, 757.
65Hincmar, Epistola XV, to King Charles. ML 126, 98.

Cf. also De Dit ortio Lotbarn.

THE CHRONOLOGY FROM MARY’S BETROTHAL
TO THE BIRTH OF CHRIST
Paul Gaechter,

S.J.

Papal Seminary
Kandy (Ceylon)
(Formerly, Innsbruck, Tyrol)
(In the February issue)

I. Jewish Marriage Laws and Customs
IL Mary as a Spouse
III. The Annunciation, Lk. 1, 34
IV. The Visitation, Lk. 1, 39-40
V. Mary’s Return to Nazareth, Lk. 1, 56
(In the present issue)

VI. Saint Joseph’s Embarrassment, Mt. 1, 18-25
VII. The Secrecy About the Conception of Christ
VIII. The Season of the Jewish Wedding Feast
IX. The Season of the Census
X. The Journey to Bethlehem
VI. St. Joseph’s Embarrassment, Mt. 1, 18-25
We shall take Mt. 1, 24 as a starting point. Joseph, after
having received the order of the Angel, ’‘rising up from his
sleep, did as the Angel of the Lord had commanded him, and
took unto him his wife.” This last expression refers to the
wedding; it is moulded throughout in terms of Jewish law.
We have already observed (p. 148) that the Jews called the
wedding "the taking” (nissu’in or liqquhin). After her be­
trothal Mary was legally called Joseph’s wife (p. 15 5). There
can, therefore, be no doubt about the meaning of the expression.
The question of time occurs; what is the exact meaning of
"rising up from his sleep (he) did . . . ”? έγερθεις followed
by a finite verb means to rise physically in nearly all the Gospel
passages as άν αστός “ often does. But, the first verb seldom
expresses merely the beginning of a new action; perhaps in
Mt. 9, 19 it is used so. If order and execution are expressed
by it and a finite verb in the identical or nearly identical form,
«Lk. f. 24-25; 11, 7-·.