In the description of this website, the Basilica editors state:

Another weakness of popular history of the Reformation is the failure to take note of the idea of the commonwealth and the role of the civil magistrate in ecclesiastical development. While the doctrine of the “Two Kingdoms” is an authentic feature of all Reformational theologians, the common modern understanding of “separation between Church and State” is quite different. Without a proper understanding of the old doctrines of the Christian commonwealth and the godly prince, one will not understand the character and unity of the Reformation churches, and in fact one will likely not understand the Reformation doctrine of the church at all, given that the concepts of the commonwealth and the magistrate are bound up with one of the crucial points of evangelical doctrine, the distinction between Law and Gospel.

In what follows, we would like to elaborate on the Reformation doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, examining some of its historical development. In so doing, it is our hope that a number of contemporary political theologies will be shown to rely on a fundamental misunderstanding of history and the proper definitions of “Church” and “State.” Indeed, this discussion will attempt to examine basic theological commitments, showing the way in which use of theological language can bear significant implications. The editors do not intend their historical investigations to imply an unqualified recommendation for contemporary politics, though we do believe the principles themselves to be quite valuable. It is our conviction that a proper understanding of the Reformation doctrine may only be arrived at by evaluating it in its own historical and political context. After this sort of understanding is achieved, contemporary application may be attempted, but with much care, and this will require subsequent essays to adequately address.

The Reformation did hold to a theory known as the “Two Kingdoms.” They taught that one kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and the other is a temporal kingdom. There were different rulers for each kingdom, and different social institutions fitted for their various administration. This was essentially a development of Augustine’s “two cities” and the medieval discussion of the “two swords.” The doctrine of the two kingdoms can be found in Calvin’s Institutes 3.19.15 and 4.20.1. Martin Luther is well-known for advocating this theory as well, most notably in his Address to the German Nobility and Temporal Authority. That the Reformers held to this is mostly uncontroversial. The exact understanding of the Two Kingdoms, however, is more difficult.

In order to most clearly grasp the Reformation’s proposal, it will be helpful to briefly investigate the historical precursors in political thought. The early church portrait is varied, with both monastic resignation and bishops wielding civil authority (particularly in North Africa), in addition to the more normative understanding of a Christian’s dual citizenship. One of the earliest pieces of writing among the “Apostolic Fathers” is the “Letter to Diognetus” (sometimes attributed to “Mathetes” and at other times considered simply anonymous). The Letter to Diognetus expounds something that could be called a predecessor to the Two Kingdoms view, notably in the 4^th chapter:

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.[1]

Notice that the Christians are not their own political country, they do not have a singular language, nor do they possess distinctive customs. They are free to adopt the various customs of the lands in which they live, tending to modify only the issues of morality.

Alongside the Letter to Diognetus, Justin Martyr writes:

And when you hear that we look for a kingdom, you suppose, without making any inquiry, that we speak of a human kingdom; whereas we speak of that which is with God, as appears also from the confession of their faith made by those who are charged with being Christians, though they know that death is the punishment awarded to him who so confesses. For if we looked for a human kingdom, we should also deny our Christ, that we might not be slain; and we should strive to escape detection, that we might obtain what we expect. But since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men cut us off; since also death is a debt which must at all events be paid.[2]

In the next chapter Martyr adds, “And more than all other men are we your helpers and allies in promoting peace.” Interestingly enough, he goes on to say that the view that civil government merely exists to punish evil is the view of “public executioners, but not of good princes.” Martyr believes that the civil government has a positive good and the Christians are allies in that cause.

The Church father whose political thought stands atop all others is St. Augustine of Hippo. He is also, however, infamously ambiguous at key points, with the result being that all Western Christians would attempt to call on him for support of their various views. Without devoting space for an exhaustive treatment of Augustine’s political views, we can point out Tim Enloe’s helpful comments on the City of God, as well as John von Heyking’s excellent Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World for a balanced perspective. One passage from City of God brings out Augustine’s fundamental continuity with Justin Martyr and the author of the Epistle to Diognetus:

This heavenly city, then, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gathers together a society of pilgrims of all languages, not scrupling about diversities in the manners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly peace is secured and maintained, but recognizing that, however various these are, they all tend to one and the same end of earthly peace.  It therefore is so far from rescinding and abolishing these diversities, that it even preserves and adopts them, so long only as no hindrance to the worship of the one supreme and true God is thus introduced.[3]

Here we again see that the heavenly city does not claim any one particular manifestation of language, manners, laws, or judicial institutions. The Church is not an earthly political institution.

This patristic background is fundamental to the Reformational view of the Church. During the course of the Middle Ages, key shifts would take place from Gelasius to Gregory VII, culminating in the most explicit statement of Boniface VIII’s Unam Sanctam in 1302. Through a number of key controversies and influential clerical leaders, the ministerium of the Church began claiming, not just certain civil powers, but indeed the very foundation of all civil power and authority. Gelasius explained that there were two swords, united under God, yet distinct in time, but by the time of Unam Sanctam, both swords were wielded by the bishops, with the civil magistrate being a subordinate functionary. The civil sword is owned properly by the ministers of the church, and it is they who then hand this sword to the princes and knights. The Church had become a political body.

Unam Sanctam, while a highlight of sorts, was a long time in the making. In the background lay the conflicts between Thomas Becket and Henry II and the Investiture Controversy between Pope Gregory VII and Henry IV. These incidents exposed the struggle of power between the two swords. It is important here to add that this is not the equivalent of the modern discussion of “Church” and “State.” Though there are certainly parallels, there was no notion of a “State” as such, and indeed, the civil magistrates often saw themselves as ministers of the Christ’s Church, only in a different role. Augustine had said that the emperors ought to “make their power the handmaid of His majesty by using it for the greatest possible extension of His worship.”[4] Though not members of the clergy, it is clear that both Constantine and Charlemagne saw themselves in a special relationship to the Church. Constantine says, as recorded in Eusebius’ The Life of Constantine:

I myself, then, was the instrument whose services He chose, and esteemed suited for the accomplishment of his will…. through the aid of the divine power I banished and utterly removed every form of evil which prevailed, in the hope that the human race, enlightened through my instrumentality, might be recalled to a due observance of the holy laws of God, and at the same time our most blessed faith might prosper under the guidance of his almighty hand.[5]

Constantine goes on to say that “this most excellent service” was given to him as a “special gift” by God.[6] Constantine called, enforced, and at times annulled ecclesiastical councils.[7]

Charlemagne also considered himself to be a special officer of God’s service. He compared himself to Josiah, stating that he was “ruler of the Christian people.”[8] Charlemagne also called councils, even going so far as to disagree with other “church councils.” At the Council of Frankfurt, under Charlemagne’s authority, the Western Church rejected the rulings of the Second Council of Nicaea.[9]

The positions of subsequent Christian princes must be understood in the context of a Christian empire, already influenced by leaders such as Constantine and Charlemagne. The controversies between Henry II and Thomas Beckett, Henry IV and Gregory VII, and Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII, should not be understood as conflicts between “Church and State,” but rather two powers within the corpus Christianum. The ministers of the church and the civil magistrates were distinct offices, but neither was properly “the Church.” Indeed, the conciliar tradition would emphasize that “the Church” included all Christians, regardless of vocation.

The papalist tradition, beginning around Gelasius I and growing under Gregory VII, came to full expression in Boniface VIII’s Unam Sanctam. “The Church” was properly the bishops serving under the vicar of Christ, the Roman pontiff. All other “human creatures,” were to be “subject” to the bishop. Indeed, the papalist tradition would argue that the civil government was a product of the fall and in a sense inherently evil, or at least in need of sacramental mediation through the clergy. In this respect the various Christian emperors were all under the rule of the bishops and finally the pope.

Against this arose the conciliar tradition which would lay claim to the earlier Christian teaching that the civil sword was its own legitimate power. Both were empowered by God, as taught by Romans 13, and in an ideal society both worked towards the same ends, however, neither was dependent on the other for validity. Oliver and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan have provided a helpful collection of conciliarist writers in their From Irenaeus to Grotius.[10] Notable among these thinkers are John of Paris, Dante Alighieri, Marsilius of Padua, William of Ockham, John Wyclif, Jean Gerson, and Nicholas of Cusa. Aquinas’ earlier appropriation of Aristotle had popularized the concept of man as “political animal,” and thus the civic order was seen to be natural and not purely a result of sin. Tim Enloe has biographical sketches of John of Paris and Nicholas of Cusa, and Marsilius of Padua, as well as an excellent series on Dante and Marsilius (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8).[11] It is from the legacy of both Aquinas’s use of Aristotle and the conciliarist theologians that the Reformation political theology emerged.

A significant part of Martin Luther’s theology depended on the groundwork laid by the conciliarists. There could have been no Protestant Reformation without the aid of the godly rulers, and Luther saw this clearly. Of Luther’s theology of the Two Kingdoms, Paul Avis writes:

Luther’s view of the relation between the Church and the magistrate represents a reinterpretation of medieval ideas in the light of Reformation principles. The great dream of the middle ages had been of a Christian civilization, a corpus Christianum, in which there were two complementary sources of authority, the emperor to rule men’s bodies and the pope to rule their souls. The emperor wielded the power of the sword, the pope the power of the keys: the one could bestow temporal benefits, the other eternal life. According to this ideal, there was no question of a clash between Church and state: there was not yet any such thing as the state considered in abstraction from the Church. There was only the one Christian commonwealth, ruled by the magistrate and the priest.[12]

With this background, Martin Luther’s Address to the Nobility of the German Nation becomes immediately understandable.[13] Luther locates three walls of which the Romanists support their position. He says:

Firstly, if pressed by the temporal power, they have affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but, on the contrary, that the spiritual power is above the temporal.

Secondly, if it were proposed to admonish them with the Scriptures, they objected that no one may interpret the Scriptures but the Pope.

Thirdly, if they are threatened with a council, they pretend that no one may call a council but the Pope.[14]

Luther goes on to say that baptism makes all Christians priests. This universalizes the Church, thus allowing for an equality of believers with a distinction only of order. Luther also ends his treatise with twenty-seven articles for the reformation of the Christian estate. The third of these articles calls for a return to the principles of the Council of Nicaea respecting the confirmation of bishops. In the fourth articles Luther writes, “Let it be decreed that no temporal matter shall be submitted to Rome, but all shall be left to the jurisdiction of the temporal authorities.” The ninth article states:

The Pope should have no power over the Emperor, except to anoint and crown him at the altar, as a bishop crowns a king; nor should that devilish pomp be allowed that the Emperor should kiss the Pope’s feet or sit at his feet, or, as it is said, hold his stirrup or the reins of his mule, when he mounts to ride; much less should he pay homage to the Pope, or swear allegiance, as is impudently demanded by the popes, as if they had a right to it.

The tenth article also concerns the pope’s role in civil authority. The relationship between the two swords is clearly of central concern for Luther. In the preface Luther had written:

The distress and misery that oppress all the Christian estates, more especially in Germany, have led not only myself, but every one else, to cry aloud and to ask for help, and have now forced me too to cry out and to ask if God would give His Spirit to any one to reach a hand to His wretched people… God has given us a young and noble sovereign, and by this has roused great hopes in many hearts; now it is right that we too should do what we can, and make good use of time and grace.

In many ways, Luther’s appeal was to the godly prince against the pope. He was continuing the conciliar-style movement of Dante, Marsilius, Wycliffe, etc. Later in his life, however, Luther also wrote a tract limiting the powers of the civil government. In On Secular Authority, Luther explains that the magistrate has no power over spiritual matters, and thus many find what they perceive to be the familiar “separation” of Church and State. This difficulty is alleviated by a reminder of the traditional two powers doctrine. For Luther, as well as the majority of the Reformation theologians, the civil magistrate has power over all things external and temporal, but not inward. The civil magistrate may not coerce belief, but he may suppress schism, just as he may defend the visible church from the attacks of foreign prelates. This distinction closely parallels the relationship between law and gospel, as the civil magistrate is entrusted with the law, which only possesses an external jurisdiction. The sacramental order is the realm of gospel, and thus this power is reserved for the Word of God and His ministers. Both powers exist within a united Christendom.

John Calvin closely follows Martin Luther in this teaching. The final chapter of the Institutes repeats the external/internal or temporal/eternal distinctions. Calvin writes:

But he who knows to distinguish between the body and the soul, between the present fleeting life and that which is future and eternal, will have no difficulty in understanding that the spiritual kingdom of Christ and civil government are things very widely separated. Seeing, therefore, it is a Jewish vanity to seek and include the kingdom of Christ under the elements of this world, let us, considering, as Scripture clearly teaches, that the blessings which we derive from Christ are spiritual, remember to confine the liberty which is promised and offered to us in him within its proper limits.[15]

Notice that Calvin says that the spiritual kingdom of Christ is eternal, while the civil governments of this world are temporal. To attempt to “include the kingdom of Christ under the elements of this world” is a “Jewish” error.[16] The civil government is not wholly separated from the kingdom of God, though. Calvin writes that it “in some measure, begins the heavenly kingdom in us” by its ability “to foster and maintain the external worship of God, to defend sound doctrine and the condition of the Church, to adapt our conduct to human society, to form our manners to civil justice, to conciliate us to each other, to cherish common peace and tranquillity.”[17] So we see for Calvin that the Two Swords are distinct but not opposed. They ought to work together. Calvin addressed his Institutes to the king of France, and he cultivated a relationship with England’s King Edward VI wherein he advised him to protect the visible church.

The Church of England is known to have called upon the civil magistrate to defend the visible church, even proclaiming him to be the earthly head. This is not usually explained properly within the Reformational context, however. The king’s headship of the church was actually one of civil order, as the more basic principle at work in the Church of England was the priesthood of all believers. Speaking of Richard Hooker’s thought, Avis writes:

“Now the question is,” he says, “whether the clergy alone so assembled ought to have the whole power of making ecclesiastical laws, or else consent of the laity may thereunto be made necessary…” Until either papists or puritans are able to prove “that some special law of Christ hath for ever annexed unto the clergy alone the power to make ecclesiastical laws, we are to hold it a thing most consonant with equity and reason, that no ecclesiastical law be made in a Christian commonwealth without consent as well of the laity as of the clergy…” (HW 3.399). The mind of the laity is expressed through Parliament which is not, in Hooker’s view, a purely secular body concerned only with temporal and material affairs: it should take counsel for the spiritual well-being of the nation and ideally work in cooperation with the Convocation of the clergy.[18]

The English Reformation was consistent with the German and Swiss expressions, and its emphasis on the godly prince was actually an example of the priesthood of all believers enacted within an ordered society. The king was a sort of chief laymen who had been entrusted with the corporate power of the people of the land. Avis’s discussion of the Royal Supremacy is to be commended here (The Church in the Theology of the Reformers p 151-163), as is Philip Edgcumbe Hughes’s Theology of the English Reformers chapter 7, p 223-262. For more on the discussion of the magistrate and the English Reformation, we recommend two W J Torrance Kirby articles in Animus which can be found here and here.

That the various Reformed bodies were in essential agreement on this issue ought to be evident simply by the title “magisterial Reformation” which is often applied to them. Zwingli’s reforms in Switzerland were in basic continuity with what has already been outlined, and this is understood best by his Swiss Anabaptist critics. Of John Howard Yoder, Neal Blough writes, “Yoder came to the conclusion that the cause of division [between Anabaptist and Reformed] was not the question of baptism, but a difference in the understanding of the church, and more specifically in the question of the visibility of the church and her capacity to act and come to independent decisions.”[19] Yoder himself notes that Zwingli taught, “A ‘shepherd’ should preach the truth, relentlessly and without fear; but it did not suit his pastoral office for him to decide matters. This belonged, by rights, to the governing power of the civil authority.”[20] The Anabaptists could not remain allied with the Reformed in Switzerland precisely because of the Reformed policy to look to the magistrate for temporal and civil “decisions.” The virtually unanimous consensus of all Reformation churches can clearly be seen in their various confessional statements.

In explaining the Reformation position on the Two Kingdoms, its two opponents are also seen. The papal position, as expressed in Unam Sanctam, claims that the clergy have primacy over the princes. Both swords belong to the ministerium of the visible church, and the clergy hand the temporal sword to the princes, thus implying that the princes must be subject to the clergy. The papal position would also stress that the civil order was inherently sinful and in need of sacerdotal mediation and redemption. The Anabaptists, on the other hand, called for the visible church to separate wholly from the “worldly” government, but in so doing, they called for the creation of a new “community” and a new holy polity. It should not be forgotten that before the popularity of Menno Simons, the various Anabaptists had made several attempts at establishing their new “cities” in Europe. It is these sorts of Anabaptists who Calvin calls madmen and fanatics, who wish to serve as their own civil body or reestablish a mosaic polity on earth.[21]

Indeed, both papalist and Anabaptist positions commit the same error. They confuse the Two Swords, making the eternal power into an earthly one. With both Romanists and Anabaptists, “the Church” becomes an earthly kingdom which attempts to subordinate competing realms. The Romanist position is explicit in this regard, but the Anabaptists arrive at the same end when their “spiritual” community defies temporal kingdoms and establishes its own law. Again, Neal Blough writes, “For the Anabaptists the church was to be a visible community, in contrast to the ‘invisible Church’ of the Reformers.”[22] In doing this, however, the Anabaptists ensured that there could be no unified commonwealth. The “Church” would have to be separate from the rest of human society, and in most cases, it was seen to be in direct conflict with that society. In contrast to both of these is Luther’s invisible church which insists that “human polities are bound to a certain succession; they have their laws and power to interpret their laws… the Church is not such a polity.”[23] This does not create a bare separation between the kingdoms, as we have seen, but rather allows for a Church that can cooperate with a commonwealth. The spiritual kingdom can exist in, under, and around (if we may be so permitted to speak) the temporal kingdom. It is only with this understanding that a true Christendom may exist.

In this perspective the Reformation teaching on the Two Kingdoms becomes clear. It called for a strict distinction in power, defining clearly the role of each kingdom, yet it was not establishing the modern notion of “separation of Church and State.” Nor was it calling for the privatization of the Church. The contrary was the case, as it fell to Christian magistrates to defend the Church at times, as defending the Church was a way of defending the commonwealth. The Church was not limited to the clergy, nor to a group of the pure; rather it was the case that all of the baptized could claim the title Church. This allowed for the doctrine of vocation, wherein secular matters were just as much a part of “Church” as the sacramental, not needing further validation or mediation. Within this framework, both kingdoms supported one another, each carrying out its appropriate role towards the common goal of the kingdom of God.

It must be said that the Reformation doctrine is not wholly free of problems, particularly in our modern setting. The understanding of the Two Kingdoms developed into different schools of thought. Too often, the magistrate’s role in defending the church began to mean that the magistrate sided with one ecclesiastical party (what we might now refer to as a “denomination”) and suppressed others, at times violently. This difficulty did not go unchallenged, and King James I of England was at least one powerful monarch who almost achieved a sort of concord within a differentiated Christendom, stating that only the Puritans and Jesuits represented intolerable positions. This was because both of these parties confounded the two kingdoms and effectually advocated sedition.[24]

Other thinkers may provide some help on the question of religion and pluralism. As early as Girolamo Zanchi, there was a notion of tolerance. Zanchi writes:

But seing (to say something brieflie of the other duetie of a prince concerning religion) there be diverse kinds of mene which a prince may have under his government, namely either mere infidels, or such as indeede professe Christ, but yet are also open idolaters or in manie things apostates from the apostolicall church, or in some article of the faith manifest heretikes, or else erre upon simplicitie, or such as are rightly persuaded in all matters, we doe certainly hold that a prince ought not to use one kinde of measure towards all these sorts. For some of them are to be loved, cherished and honored; some to bee winked at; some not to be suffred; other to be quite cut off. And none must be permitted to blaspheme Christ or to worship idols or retaine ungodly ceremonies.[25]

Zanchi knew that any society would need to carefully reckon with the issue of diversity and toleration. Later thinkers would go farther. Of these we can recommend the writings of Grotius, Pufendorf, Thomasius, and Boehmer. Unfamiliar names to many, Basilica intends to write more on these men in the future, as it is our conviction that they have much to offer the modern situation. Thankfully, some of Pufendorf’s writings can be accessed for free online. The challenge will then be to build upon these authors’ works and seek to find an appropriate expression in our own day. To this task we must devote future essays.

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[1] Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. 1, ed. Philip Schaff: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iii.ii.v.html

[2] First Apology chapt. 11

[3] City of God 19.17

[4] ibid 5.24

[5] 2.28

[6] ibid 2.29

[7] see Timothy Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius p 229, 240

[8] Pierre Riché, The Carolingians: A Family who Forged Europe p 117, 119

[9] ibid 119

[10] see part 4 “Political Community, Spiritual Church, Individual Right, and Dominium” p 389-548

[11] see also Enloe’s biographical sketch of Marsilius

[12] The Church in the Theology of the Reformers p 144

[13] G. R. Evans, Problems of Authority in the Reformation Debates p 205-215; Ernst Troeltsch writes, “It is the duty of all Christians, and especially of Christian rulers (in whom alone, indeed, at first Christendom is rightly represented), to render the Word accessible to everyone, to arrange for its regular proclamation, and thus, at least in external matters, to do what is necessary to ensure the establishment of the supremacy of the Word, in order that everywhere the Church may arise out of the Word ‘in Spirit and in truth.’” (The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches Vol. II p 480)

[14] http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/luther-nobility.html

[15] Institutes 4.20.1

[16] This language reflects Calvin’s understanding of New Testament Pharasaism and is not shared by the editors of Basilica.

[17] 4.20.2

[18] Avis p 136-137

[19] Yoder, Anabaptism and Reformation in Switzerland p xlv

[20] ibid p 6

[21] Institutes IV. 20. 2, 14, 16

[22] Yoder p xlvi

[23] quotes in Evans p 205

[24] for the “Puritans” and civil disobedience see Paul Avis, “Moses and the Magistrate: a Study in the Rise of Protestant Legalism” in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. XXVI, No. 2, April 1975; for Jesuit political thought see Harro Hopfl Jesuit political thought: the Society of Jesus and the state, c. 1540-1630, Cambridge 2004; W. B. Patterson King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom, Cambridge 1997, p 75-123; also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot

[25] De religione christiana fide. 26.VII