Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom. Allies Thomas William

be broken up, on account of which He is named in Scripture, not Priest only, but King. Hence a royal priesthood is derived from Him; and, what is more, all the faithful of Christ, so far forth as they are His members, are called kings and priests. Therefore the ministry of this kingdom, in order that spiritual things might be distinguished from temporal, has been entrusted not to the kings of the earth but to priests, and in the highest degree to the priest who is over all, the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff, to whom all kings of the Christian people are to be subject as to our Lord Jesus Christ himself; for this is in accordance with the principle that those to whom belongs the care of antecedent ends should be subject to him who has the care of the final end, and be directed by his rule.”22

      What we have just said amounts to this, that the whole life of man, whether single or in society, while he lives upon earth, is subject to the life which he hopes for in heaven as its supreme purpose and end; and that being so subject, as there is a society to aid him in attaining the goods of his natural life, so much more is there a society to aid him in attaining that supernatural good to which the natural goods are subordinate. We have next to compare the regimens of these two societies with each other in regard to their completeness.

      The analogy between the Two Powers is full of instruction; but it is to be remembered that as, since the coming of Christ, the Spiritual Power is one in all countries and in all times, whereas the Temporal Power is one only in each country and at each time, the comparison of the two can only take those points which belong to the Temporal Power alike in all countries and times; and this will be found sufficient for our purpose. We have just seen the conception of spiritual jurisdiction as wielding the priesthood and the teaching: it corresponds in this respect to secular sovereignty, under which is ranged on the one hand authority in every degree, as held by all officials in administration, by all councillors in legislating, by all judges in their several tribunals, by all officers in the public force. Whoever in the public service holds a portion of the public authority may be ranged under the general head of magistrate, and stands herein to the sovereign power in the same relation as the priest to the bearer of supreme spiritual jurisdiction. On the other hand, whoever is engaged in the whole circle of human arts and sciences, which comprehends the vast domain of human knowledge as acquired by learning, answers to the spiritual teacher. This triple division runs through every state, at every time, whatever may be its relative advancement in the scale of government. And the comparison as to both Powers is exhaustive with regard to their range, since in both, man, individual or collective, is a being who acts because he first knows and then wills. Sovereignty, presiding in the various kinds of magistracy over all who command, and over all in the various arts and sciences who teach, because they have first learned, covers that triple domain in the one case, and in the other spiritual royalty, which acts through the priest and the teacher. But the society is knit together in a much stricter bond, by a far more perfect interaction of forces, in the spiritual than in the temporal order; and this arises from the fact that all spiritual power in its triple range actually descends from the spiritual head through every degree, which is far from being the fact in temporal sovereignty. That is the pre-eminence of Christ in His spiritual kingdom; and it is the perfection of the Divine Legislator that He exercises His royalty by the indivisible action of His Jurisdiction, Priesthood, and Teaching, communicated to the whole structure at the head of which He stands.

      1

      “Dentro dal monte sta dritto un gran veglio,

      Che tiene volte le spalle inver Damiata,

      E Roma guarda sì, come suo speglio.”

      – Dante, Inferno, 14, 101.

      2

      1 Pet. v. 13; Apocal. xvii. 18, xviii. 2, 20.

      3

      St. Aug. Epist. 137, ad Volusianum, § 15-16. A.D. 412. It is remarkable that Volusian, who held the highest offices in the Roman Empire, and among the rest was Prefect of the City, was not converted either by the genius or the saintliness of Augustine. But more than twenty years after this letter, about A.D. 435, he was sent on an embassy from the Emperor of the West to the Emperor of the East at Constantinople. His niece, St. Melania the younger, left the seclusion of her monastery at Jerusalem, and travelled all the intervening distance to see him. When he met in the garb of humility and poverty the niece whom he remembered at Rome in all the splendour of youth, rank, and beauty at the head of the Roman nobility, he was so impressed by the force of Christian charity which had wrought such a change, that he was converted and baptized by the Patriarch Proclus, and died shortly afterwards. God did by the sight of the nun what he had not done by the learning of the t

1

“Dentro dal monte sta dritto un gran veglio,Che tiene volte le spalle inver Damiata,E Roma guarda sì, come suo speglio.”

– Dante, Inferno, 14, 101.

2

1 Pet. v. 13; Apocal. xvii. 18, xviii. 2, 20.

3

St. Aug. Epist. 137, ad Volusianum, § 15-16. A.D. 412. It is remarkable that Volusian, who held the highest offices in the Roman Empire, and among the rest was Prefect of the City, was not converted either by the genius or the saintliness of Augustine. But more than twenty years after this letter, about A.D. 435, he was sent on an embassy from the Emperor of the West to the Emperor of the East at Constantinople. His niece, St. Melania the younger, left the seclusion of her monastery at Jerusalem, and travelled all the intervening distance to see him. When he met in the garb of humility and poverty the niece whom he remembered at Rome in all the splendour of youth, rank, and beauty at the head of the Roman nobility, he was so impressed by the force of Christian charity which had wrought such a change, that he was converted and baptized by the Patriarch Proclus, and died shortly afterwards. God did by the sight of the nun what he had not done by the learning of the theologian and the philosopher.

4

The words which Cerialis addressed to the Gauls, as recorded by Tacitus, Hist. 4, 74, apply in all their force to the times when the trans-migration of the northern tribes took effect, four hundred years after they were written. “Octingentorum annorum fortuna disciplinaque compages hæc coaluit, quæ convelli sine exitio convellentium non potest.” And every city of the Roman empire could testify to the truth of what he added: “Sed vobis maximum discrimen penes quos aurum et opes, præcipuæ bellorum causæ.”

5

De Civ. Dei, xvi. 28.

6

Ps. lxxxvi. 5.

7

St. Aug. cont. Faustum, 22, 17. Antiqua enim res est prænuntiativa immolatio sanguinis, futuram passionem Mediatoris ab initio generis humani testificans; hanc enim primus Abel obtulisse in sacris litteris invenitur.

8

Leo XIII., in the great Encyclical of June 29, 1881, says: “It is also of great importance that they by whose authority public affairs are administered may be able to command the obedience of citizens, so that their disobedience

22

S. Thos. de Reg. Prin., lib. I. c. 14, translated.