In the first part of this series, we looked at Augustine’s epochal work the City of God which was enormously influential on the political thought of the Middle Ages. Of course, Augustine was not the only influence on Christian political thought, nor was the the first to try to formulate a theology of how Christians should interact with the civil power. As one scholar puts it, for the first three centuries of the Faith’s existence, “Christians did not engage in anything that one might recognise as political reflection or activity.” [R.W. Dyson, Normative Theories of Society and Government in Five Medieval Thinkers (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), pg. 71.] Generally speaking, thanks to repeated persecutions and to their own expectation of the imminent return of Christ to judge the world, Christians thought of their relation to the Empire in an adversarial manner. Christianity had literally to fight tooth-and-nail for its mere survival. Her apologists, though great and godly men, were hard pressed to offer defenses against the attacks, and had little, if any, time and energy to construct what we might call a “positive theology” of the state.

Tertullian (160-220), who famously wondered what Jerusalem had to do with Athens, also made it plain that “Nothing is more foreign to us [the Christians] than the State.” [Apologeticus 38.3, as cited by Herbert A. Deane, The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), pg. 10.] Origen (185-254) thought of the Empire as having brought “a milder spirit” without which the spread of the Gospel would have been much more difficult,[Contra Celsum, ii.30.] On the other hand, Cyprian (d. 258), wondered how something that “had originated as a refuge for robbers” could be in any sense eternal.[W.H.C. Frend, “Church and State: Perspective and Problems in the Patristic Era,” in Studia Patristica Vol. XVII, Part One, ed. Elizabeth A. Livingstone (Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), pg. 44.] Later, the apologist Arnobius (d. ca. 330) wrote that the Roman Empire was “a curse to humanity…born for the destruction of the human race.”[Frend, ibid., pg. 42.]

According to George Hunston Williams, the patristic age produced four different theories of the relationship of Church and State: [1] “What has the Emperor to do with the Church?” (the Donatist-monastic view), [2] “The Church is in the Empire” (the Arian subordinationist view), [3] “The Empire is in the Church” (the view of a tradition springing from St. Ambrose), and [4] “The Church and Empire are separate, but cooperative.” [Christology and Church-State Relations in the Fourth Century," in Church History Vol. 20, No. 3, Sept. 1951.]

For the first three centuries, Christians gravitated toward the “Church is in the Empire” position. After Constantine’s legalization of Christianity, however, they began to gravitate towards the opposite position, “The Empire is in the Church.” The most striking example of this is, of course, the confrontation between Bishop Ambrose of Milan and the Emperor Theodosius in 390 A.D., in which the Bishop denied the Emperor access to the Eucharist because of his sins. [See Theodoret, History of the Church 5.17; Sozomen, History of the Church 7.25.316] This incident set a powerful precedent for papalist thinkers of later ages who would teach that the civil power derived its basic legitimacy from and was at all times fully accountable to the Bishop of Rome.

Long before the papalists arose, however, a principle which would allow for substantial resistance to their claims arose in Christian political thought. In the year of the Incarnate Word 494, almost seventy years after Augustine’s death, Gelasius, Bishop of Rome, laid down what many commentators believe to be the most fundamental political principle of the Middle Ages. In his Letter 12 (also called Famuli vestrae pietatis after the opening Latin words of the text) to the Eastern Emperor Anastasius, Gelasius posited that there was a single Christian society (societas Christiana) which had two distinct political focal points. These he called the “holy authority of bishops” (auctoritas sacrata pontificum) and the “royal power” (regalis potestas). Before discussing Gelasius’ views, let us look at some relevant portions of the text:[These are as cited by Dyson, Five Normative Theories, pp. 85-86.]

There are two orders, O August Emperor, by which this world is principally ruled: the consecrated authority of the pontiffs, and royal power [auctoritas sacrata pontificum, et regalis potestas]. But the burden laid upon the priests in this matter is the heavier, for it is they who are to render an account at the Divine judgment even for the kings of men. Know, O most clement Son, that although you take precedence over the human race in dignity, nonetheless you bend your neck in devout submission to those who preside over things Divine, and look to them for the means of your salvation. In partaking of the heavenly sacraments, when they are properly dispensed, you acknowledge that you ought to be subject to the order of religion rather than ruling it…For if the ministers of religion, acknowledging that your rule, insofar as it pertains to the keeping of public discipline, has been given to you by Divine disposition, obey your laws, lest they seem to obstruct the proper course of worldly affairs: with what good will, I pray, ought you to obey those who have been charged with the dispensation of the holy mysteries?

We should also consider some portions of the text as they were cited 600 years later by Gratian of Bologna in his own epochal work, the Concordium of Discordant Canons, better known as the Decretum. A handbook of excerpts of legal principles for use in Christian political theory, the Decretum was highly influential on Medieval political thought, not least in terms of its citations of Gelasius. After quoting the opening words “There are two, August Emperor,” the Decretum goes on to cite these passages: [This is my own translation of the Latin text found in Migne's Patrologia Latina, Volume 187, columns 458D-459B.]

§ 1. Among these things you know that you are to listen attentively to judgments from the priests, and not to those things which are rendered by your own will.

§ 2. Supported by many great customs and a good many authorities the Pontiffs have excommunicated both kings and emperors.

For instance, if a few specific examples of princes are required, [I offer these]. Pope Innocent excommunicated Emperor Arcadius because he had conspired to drive out St. John Chrysostom from his see. Also Ambrose, thought to be holy yet not the bishop of the Universal Church, did not seem to the other priests to be oppressive when he excommunicated Emperor Theodosius the Great for his faults and excluded him from the Church.

Ambrose indeed pointed out in his own writings that because gold is not of such great value if it is mixed with lead, how can the royal power be of higher dignity than the sacerdotal? He wrote this rule around the beginning of his pastorate: Brothers, honor the sublimity of the episcopate for nothing is able to be adequately compared with it. If the king is compared to the flashing of lightning and the prince to preeminence, they will be far inferior, just as if lead is compared to the glitter of gold. Obviously, since you see that the necks of kings and the princes of the nations should be submitted to the priests, and indeed the kings ought to pledge with their mouths that they will believe themselves to be established by the priests’ prayers.

Taken by itself, it is easy to see how Duo sunt could underlie the later Medieval program of the papalists to entirely subordinate the temporal power to the spiritual. Indeed, as Dyson points out, many Medieval thinkers working with this set of ideas tied them to four themes of Augustine’s work. These were: “the intrinsic or metaphysical superiority of the spiritual over the temporal; the association of political power with sin and with all that is ignoble or distasteful in human life; the idea of man’s dependence upon Divine grace bestowed through the Church; and the suggestion that earthly princes should place themselves and their resources at the Church’s disposal.” [Five Normative Theories, pg. 69.]

However, like Augustine himself, Gelasius had more to say on this subject and he was not entirely self-consistent. In the year of grace 496, in the midst of the Acacian schism between Rome and Constantinople, he wrote in his Tractate 4: [This is the translation of R.W. Dyson in Five Normative Theories, pg. 85.]

They [i.e., the civil authorities] fear [formidant] to intervene [in religious matters], knowing that these matters do not belong to the measure of their power, which has been granted to them [permissum est] to judge human things and not to rule things Divine. How, then, can they presume [praesumunt] to judge those by whom Divine things are administered? Before the coming of Christ…certain persons existed who were simultaneously priests and kings, as the sacred history shows in the case of Melchizedek; and the devil initiated this among his own peoples…so that the pagan emperors were also called pontifex maximus. But after the coming of the Truth [i.e., of Christ], Who was Himself both True King and true Pontiff, no subsequent emperor has taken the title of pontiff, and no pontiff has laid claim to royal dignity…For Christ, mindful of human frailty, has…separated both offices according to the different functions and dignity proper to each, wishing that His people should be preserved by a healthy humility, and not again ensnared by human pride; so that Christian emperors should now have need of the pontiffs for their eternal life, and the pontiffs should make use of [uterentur] the resources of the imperial government for the direction of temporal things: to the end that spiritual activity might be removed from carnal distractions, and that the soldier of the Lord might not be at all entangled in secular business; and that one who is entangled in secular business might not be seen to preside over things Divine. In this way He took care that each order should be humble…and that the profession of each might be suited to the special aptitudes of those who practise it.

From these two writings of Gelasius we can derive the following general scheme about the relationship of the two powers that made up the one Christian society. The two powers were both ordained by God for the purpose of governing the world, and although they are independent in their own spheres of activity, where their concerns may overlap they must cooperate with each other and avoid usurping each other’s roles. Further, the assumption of imperial Roman thought (taken up by the Eastern Christians in Constantinople) that the secular ruler has also a sacral character, that is, that the secular ruler is both a priest and a king, must be abjured by Christian rulers. Their role is confined to dealing with outward necessities and public order among the Christian people committed to their care. By the same token, though, ecclesiastical leaders are to have only a minimal presence in the operations of secular sphere.

It is surely of enormous significance that Gelasius ties this “two powers” distinction to orthodox catholic Christological teachings. Notice that in Tractate 4’s rebuke of the Emperor (who resided in the East and by his intervention in the theological matters at stake in the Acacian Schism was acting as both king and priest), Gelasius says that it is the pagans who believe in a single ruler who is both king and priest, but that Christ overthrew that institution and separated the two powers, leaving only Himself as both King and Priest.

On the other hand, the language of Letter 12 is problematic. Gelasius describes the spiritual power with the word auctoritas (authority) and the temporal power with the word potestas (power). In classical Roman political thought, this distinction is extremely important. R.W. Dyson explains:

To the traditional Roman political sensibility, auctoritas is the highest kind of prestige which public life can confer. It is associated with seniority and with long and successful experience of public service. The individual who possesses auctoritas is able to achieve the good of the commonwealth and his own renown by initiating successful public policy…The major seat of auctoritas, its supreme institutionalisation, is the Roman Senate. The Senate’s authority comes from the collective wisdom which it embodies. its function is to deliberate on matters of public importance and to issue an authoritative decision, a consilium, for the magistrates to execute. The magistrates, on the other hand, have potestas, power, conferred upon them by the election of the people: power to carry the decisions of the Senate into effect; but they have no auctoritas of their own. They act, but they do not deliberate, and the counsel or policy upon which they act comes from elsewhere. [Five Normative Theories, pg. 89. Note that an interesting argument for the supreme authority of the Church being vested in a Council rather than the Pope here suggests itself from the different way that auctoritas played out in the Roman Republic as opposed to the Roman Empire.]

The distinction between auctoritas and potestas is what allows Gelasius to say in Letter 12 that “the necks of kings and the princes of the nations should be submitted to the priests, and indeed the kings ought to pledge with their mouths that they will believe themselves to be established by the priests’ prayers” – a position that will be repeated some 600 years later by Pope Gregory VII at the foundation of the sacral kingship (!) known as Papal Monarchy. The background assumption of this language is that the spiritual power is ontologically superior to the temporal, and therefore grants legitimacy to the temporal.

And yet, in Tractate 4 Gelasius also holds that the offices are distinct by the ordination of Christ Himself, and that it is un-Christian for a single man to be both king and priest. When this is combined with his remark in Letter 12 that “the ministers of religion, acknowledging that your rule, insofar as it pertains to the keeping of public discipline, has been given to you by Divine disposition, obey your laws, lest they seem to obstruct the proper course of worldly affairs…”, one can see how the “dualistic” position of Gelasius, built heavily upon that of Augustine in the City of God, left much room for creative interpretation. That is, the temporal power is to submit itself to the spiritual in terms of what is needed for salvation, but at the same time, the temporal power has its own “Divine disposition” with which the spiritual power is not to interfere. Questions such as “from where does the temporal power’s ‘divine disposition’ come – directly from Christ Himself or indirectly from His Church acting in His place on earth?” would lead to Gelasius’ views being developed in several different directions during the Middle Ages, and these developments will be the focus of subsequent posts in this series.