Church and State as Seen in the Formation of ChristendomAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Church and state; Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Religion and state
In all this God, who cannot be at variance with Himself, made the two
Powers to help each other, conferring upon each distinct offices, which
concern respectively the natural and the supernatural life of man, but
likewise subordinating the natural to the supernatural end in the person
and race of the Second Adam, as He had subordinated it in the person of
the First Adam.
One of the greatest saints and rulers, who shines in the firmament of the
Church with almost unparalleled lustre, has expressed this union under
the image of a human body, seeing the natural light by two eyes, but
directed by one mind, the mind of Christ. He is the one Head of the two
Powers, ruling in temporal sovereignty by the hand of kings, in spiritual
by the Priesthood which He has inaugurated. If we imagine the one mind of
the God-man thus ruling the Christendom which He has made out of Himself
by the two eyes of the kingdom and the priesthood, we reach the divine
ideal of the relation between the two Powers. Thus St. Gregory VII.
observes in his letter to Rodolph, Duke of Suabia, A.D. 1073:[28] "The
sovereign reigns most gloriously, and the Church's vigour is
strengthened, when priesthood and empire are joined in the unity of
concord. There should be no fiction, no dross, in that concord. Let us
then confer together, for as the human body is directed in the natural
light by two eyes, so when these two dignities are united in the harmony
of pure religion, the body of the Church is shown to be ruled and
enlightened with spiritual light. Let us give our best attention to these
matters, so that when you have well entered into what is our wish, if you
approve of our reasons as just, you may agree with us. But if you would
add or subtract anything from the line of conduct which we have marked
out, we shall be ready, if God permit, to consent to your counsels." The
words "if God permit" indicate very gently that subordination, grounded
upon the pre-eminence of the divine law, and the divine Ruler who upbears
it, which, in case of difference, the natural must yield to the
supernatural authority. There is the fullest recognition that to temporal
sovereignty all things belong which concern natural right. In these few
words I think that St. Gregory VII. has summed up the settled view,
policy, and practice of all his predecessors and of all his successors
upon the relation between the two Powers, and the importance of their
agreement for the good of human society. Never has any one of them
denied to human sovereignty the exercise of all those rights which belong
to natural law. Never has any one of them failed to maintain that all
things which belong to natural law are subordinate to those things which
touch the salvation of man, and accordingly that when the two orders of
things come into conflict, the natural must yield to the supernatural. It
is obvious to add how many mixed things there must be, which enter into
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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