topic 7 - st. augustine

The Emergence of the Christian Political world

• St. Augustine

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INTRODUCTION

• Doctrine of Christianity• Subordinated the

temporal to the spiritual• Commitment to the faith

over reason • Believed that the Greeco-

Roman institutions had failed

• Impact:• Next world was far more

important than this• Temporal affairs,

including government, less important

• Divine government under the fatherhood of God

• Secular government was both unnecessary and undesirable

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The Rise of Christianity• The period of Cristianity

development was considered as one of hardship for the Christian.

• Refusal to worship the gods of the state was considered as treason.

• Christians were deprived of property and citizenship, and their churches were destroyed.

• Emperor Theodosious (379-395): made Christianity the official religion of the state.

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WINXP

from the time of Christ and his apostles until the reign of Galerius some three hundreds years later.

The Rise of Christianity• Church had grown large

and powerful.• Church had developed

considerable strength and prestige among such people outside of Italy.

• Church became unifying force with Christianity become a common religion

• Christianity warned against the evil of revolution

• The increase in membership of the Church created annoying problems.

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WINXP

Difficult to maintain the purity of the doctrine against the heresies who were not always willing converts.Church leaders were forced to rely on secular assistance.Churches were soon deeply involved in politics.

The Rise of Christianity

• Circumstances soon conspired to change the situation.

• The organization of the Church was developing in size and in the effectiveness of its administration.

• Implication: the issue of divided loyalty.

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WINXP

From the period of Constantine until the fall of Rome, 150 years, the power of Church increased.Why?1. A series of emperors lacked of administrative capacity and qualities of leadership.2. Church leaders possessed those attributes and qualities.3.Christianity offered solace and hope to a generation that sorely needed them.4. the invading barbarians, who brought the Rome to her knees and devastated her secular institutions, spared the Church as well as its property.

WINXP

The early church was decentralized controlled by the localities. When they become an official adjunct of the state they change to centralization. Rome become the center of a new and powerful empire.

WINXP

For most Christians, the problem of conflicting church-state loyalty did not arise but situations were bound to arise in which the jurisdictional lines between Church and state were hazy/ not clear.for the Christians, they may obeyed more the church, which was considerd as more consequential. Thus the church grew stronger

The Early Fathers of the Church

• Spheres of jurisdiction: example in Church property.

• No well-developed theory.

• St. Ambrose (340-397), Bishop of Milan attempted to supply a theory.

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WINXP

Can the state tax it or use it?what properly was Caesar's? What was God's?

WINXP

State is divinely ordained and the civil ruler must be obeyed, although he may very possibly rule unjustly not following God's will.The civil ruler should by no means interfere in ecclesiastical matters. In spiritual affairs the secular ruler is only a Church member like all others.

Rome and Christianity

• 4th Century:– Rome become Christian

government.– Church and state

merged, reconcile itself with political power

– Church became part of political establishment

• How to accommodate church and state authority in a way that recognized the altered social and political context of both.?

• Christians: to articulate a doctrine defending the need for political authority and insist on the true Christian Commonwealth.

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The Early Fathers of the Church

• St. Augustine• The most influential of the early fathers• A student of St. Ambrose• His most important work is City of God• Purpose: to defense the Church against the charge leveled

against its enemies that Christianity was responsible for the fall of Rome to Alaric and the Visigoths. (first ten books)

• His views of man and the society (12 books)• How to reconcile the religious doctrine and political

authority

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WINXP

Born in Tagaste in North Africa in 354.Mother was a Christian, his father was a pagan.At 35, he converted to Christianity.At 42, was appointed as Bishop of Hippo, in Africa.

St. Augustine

• Nature of Human Beings– Because of the fall from

grace, humans are not naturally sociable

– They are self-interested and need the state to compel order, obedience, and social cooperation

– Without state, anarchy would result.

– The original sin : emerges the creation and separation of two cities, each with its own political and moral values and loves that hold them together.

– State: the origin is located at a certain point in God’s plan for the universe.

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St. Augustine

• Theory of the two communities:• (1)The heavenly city and the earthly city

• Like Stoicism: reason was the common tie which make men able to live together and to understand universal natural law.

• For Augustine: the force for mutually was belief in and obedience to God.

• The cities are not heaven and earth, nor church and state, rather they are the forces of good and evil.

• They are the kingdoms of God and of Satan.• History is the struggle between the forces of the earthly city

and heavenly city which would eventually culminate in the establishment of a Christian Commonwealth.

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St. Augustine

• (2) Basis of the two Cities: earthly city– Dominated by the principle of self-love– It devotees are those to whom material interests

are more important than spiritual.

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St. Augustine

• (2) Basis of the cities: The heavenly city:• Dominated by the principle of love of God.• Its inhabitants are those to whom spiritual things are

paramount.• Agencies are provided by God to help achieve

salvation: Church and the state.

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St. Augustine• (3) Functions of each institution :

• State should had a proper function. He suggested a definition of a good commonwealth.

• Commonwealth: an assemblage of a reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love.

• Whether it is good or bad it depend on the object of the people’s love.

• It must bring justice to its people.• Justice to be found in the word of God.• It must be a Christian commonwealth: provide the

advancement of God’s cause• Justice is impossible if people did not know the true God.

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St. Augustine(3)Functions; continue• The primary function of a state( Christian or non-

Christian) is to maintain peace and order.• Those of the earthly city wish peace in order to better

enjoy the objects of their love, that is material things, the goods of this world.• Those of the heavenly city wish peace so they can

devote themselves to the worship of God

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St. Augustine

• (4) Justice• The past states lacked justice because they do not

have the Church and Christian doctrine.• All pagan empires must fall in the course of history.• What is important is to learn how to live in the ways

prescribed by God through his church.• Man is born in sin, and life is not supposed to be easy.• Problems man faced can never be solved because the

human mentality is limited.• If God is obeyed perfection will be achieved, and it will

last forever.

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WINXP

Thus true citizenship, that found only in the city of God, may be achieved.

St. Augustine

• (5) Concept of men sinfulness• If man were not sinful he would not be disorderly.• Thus government is needed by man’s sinfulness.• Men’s sin led to an inequality manifested by slavery,

government, and private property.• God himself gave them to men to enable them to live

in a world in which equality was no longer possible and peace no longer normal.• Evil and brutal king is imposed upon people as

punishment for their sins, and still he must be obeyed: doctrine of passive obedience

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St. Augustine

• (4)Concept of men sinfulness; continue• 4 reasons for the development of the doctrine:

» To combat tendencies for anarchism» New Testament writing which suggested all power from

God» The Old testament represent the King as the anointed of

God» The new Christian church was anxious to allay the fears

that the empire had developed concerning the Church as subversive organization.

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St. Augustine

• (5)Function of government:• Not merely to secure and preserve the rights• It is to enforce order• Thus a stable tyranny is better than a disorderly

democracy.• Equality, justice and freedom are goals to be attained

only in in the heavenly city.• In the interest of maintaining order society is and must

be based upon the authoritarian principle.

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St. Augustine

• (6) On slavery:• It is necessitated by human sinfulness

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Conclusion

• The doctrine of two swords may serve as a summary of the development of political thought in the period extending from Christ to the sixth century.

• However, the doctrine failed to provide solution to the problem of relationship between the state and the church.

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topic 7 - st. augustine

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