{"id":1386,"date":"2016-03-03T05:05:47","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T05:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thejosias.net\/?p=1386"},"modified":"2019-05-25T13:52:50","modified_gmt":"2019-05-25T13:52:50","slug":"integralism-and-gelasian-dyarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejosias.net\/2016\/03\/03\/integralism-and-gelasian-dyarchy\/","title":{"rendered":"Integralism and Gelasian Dyarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"
(Note: I have revised the central section of this essay since its original posting in the light of constructive criticism.[1]<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/sup><\/em>A printable version can be found here<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n Political philosophy or politics, according to Aristotle, has an architectonic role in the practical order because it is concerned with the highest good.[2]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> All other practical sciences and arts are ordered to it, because their goals are sought for the sake of the goal of politics, but the goal of politics is sought only for its own sake. Politics is concerned with the final end, and hence it is the final judge of good and bad, of what is to be sought and of what is to be shunned. It is politics that judges something to be good without qualification, and not only in some respect.[3]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Aristotle sees this as following from the very notion of the good as a final cause. In order to desire anything at all, one must see it as tending toward one\u2019s end, one\u2019s perfection. Most goods are desired for the sake of something else; food, for example, is desired for the sake of preserving life, and the preservation of life is desired for the sake of other activities such as festivity and philosophy. But such a chain of ends cannot go on forever. There must be some final<\/em> end that is desired for its own sake. If there were no such final end nothing could be desired at all; human desire would make no sense. Nor can there be more than one final end, since in that case there would be no rational way of choosing between different goods\u2014the human will would be radically split and turned against itself.[4]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n And this final end, which Aristotle calls eudaimonia <\/em>(blessedness), is not only the goal of man merely considered as an individual, but even more his goal as a part of political society: \u201cFor even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> That is to say, the final end of man is a common good, a good that is shared in by all without being divided or diminished.[6]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> And Aristotle sees this common good as being the good of the city-state, which he thinks of as a \u201cperfect society\u201d (to borrow a later term): a society whose end is man\u2019s complete good, and which includes all other societies (such as the family, the village, and voluntary associations) as its parts. Thus politics has the role of ordering and integrating all of human life, both individual and corporate, by guiding it toward its final goal. Politics is not a violent imposition of power, but a legitimate and binding authority that aids human persons in the achievement of their true end.[7]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Aristotle\u2019s marvelously simple account of politics and the good seems to be challenged, or at least complicated, by Christianity. \u201cDuo\u2026 sunt:<\/em>\u201d there are two by which the world is chiefly ruled, Pope St. Gelasius wrote in his classic letter to the Emperor Anastasius, which was to be endlessly cited and interpreted by subsequent popes:<\/p>\n There are two, august Emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled, namely, the sacred authority (auctoritas sacrata<\/em>) of the priests and the royal power (regalis potestas<\/em>). Of these, that of the priests is weightier, since they have to render an account for even the kings of men in the divine judgment. You are also aware, most clement son, that while you are permitted honorably to rule over human kind, yet in divine matters you bend your neck devotedly to the bishops and await from them the means of your salvation. In the reception and proper disposition of the heavenly sacraments you recognize that you should be subordinate rather than superior to the religious order, and that in these things you depend on their judgment rather than wish to bend them to your will. If the ministers of religion, recognizing the supremacy granted you from heaven in matters affecting the public order, obey your laws, lest otherwise they might obstruct the course of secular affairs by irrelevant considerations, with what readiness should you not yield them obedience to whom is assigned the dispensing of the sacred mysteries of religion?[8]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n The so-called \u201cGelasian dyarchy\u201d of pontifical authority and imperial power, of spiritual and temporal power, was deeply rooted in Scripture and tradition.[9]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> From the beginning Christianity did not deny the legitimacy of the existing political order, it recognized therein an authority founded in God\u2019s creation and granted by His providence. But like any part of creation it saw the political as wounded by sin and in need of healing in the present, and in the eschatological future of elevation, fulfillment, and transcendence by a higher form of communal life. The order of creation was seen as a good, but temporary and preliminary order\u2014a sign of a yet better order to come. The Lord\u2019s famous dictum according to which one must render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar\u2019s, but unto God the things that are God\u2019s (Mt 22:21) did not at all conform to expectations about the Messiah. The Messiah was expected to end Roman rule and re-establish the rule of God. But our Lord does not immediately destroy the existing order; instead He plants the Kingdom of God as a seed that is to grow in the midst of that existing order. Only at His triumphant return at the end of time will He replace earthly powers with the New Jerusalem.<\/p>\n There are many different ways of understanding the Gelasian dyarchy. I will discuss only three of them: Augustinian radicalism, integralism, and Whig Thomism. My main focus will be on what I term integralism<\/em>, which I will argue is the only adequate understanding of Gelasian dyarchy. Integralism reads Gelasius in the light of the unfolding of his teaching in the magisterium of the popes of the High Middle Ages\u2014from St. Gregory VII to Boniface VIII\u2014\u00a0and in the light of the opposition to modern liberalism in the popes of the 19th<\/sup> and 20th<\/sup> centuries. Integralism sees the two distinct powers as being harmonized by the explicit subordination of the temporal to the spiritual.<\/p>\n Integralism has fallen out of fashion since the teaching Church ostensibly abandoned it at Vatican II, and opinion is now divided among various alternative positions. I shall argue, however, that Vatican II did not and could not abandon the essence of integralism. Nevertheless, I shall unfold chiefly by considering two of the many alternate understandings of dyarchy. The two that I consider are not necessarily the most important, but I consider them because they formulate clarifying objections to integralism, and because they contain important insights that have to be integrated into integralism.<\/p>\n What (for lack of a better term) I call Augustinian radicalism <\/em>comes close to abandoning the idea of dyarchy altogether. It takes a highly pessimistic view of earthly power, which it associates with Augustine\u2019s city of man, it emphasizes the temporal, <\/em>passing nature of such power, and sees a quasi-inevitable conflict between it and the Church. The Church on this account should reject the coercive means used by earthly power, and by already living in an anticipatory fashion the peace of the heavenly Jerusalem, serve as a sign of contradiction to the powers that are passing away. This position comes in many forms and degrees. The writers of whom I am thinking in particular are Stanley Hauerwas, Michael Baxter, John Milbank, and William T. Cavanaugh as well as Dorothy Day, whose practical example serves as an inspiration to many of the others.<\/p>\n Whig Thomism<\/em> on the other hand, takes a much more positive view of temporal power. The Whig Thomists emphasize the distinction between the two powers. Welcoming a certain form of the separation of Church and state, they reject any juridical subordination of the state to the Church, and hold that the influence of the Church on the state should come only through the Church\u2019s influence on the consciences of individual citizens. By far the most eloquent and insightful expositor of Whig Thomism was John Courtney Murray, S.J.<\/p>\n The question of the relation of spiritual to temporal power is intimately connected to the question of the relation nature and grace. Christianity is able to distinguish between the two powers, because it is a religion of grace, which does not destroy the order of nature, but presupposes, elevates, and perfects it. I shall argue that Augustinian radicalism tends to exaggerate towards a monism of grace, in which the natural loses all standing. Whig Thomism, on the other hand, tends to exaggerate the distinction, not sufficiently understanding that nature is for the sake of grace. Only integralism fits well with a fully satisfactory account of the elevation and perfection of natural teleology in grace.<\/p>\n The question of dyarchy is not, however, reducible to the problem of nature and grace. Insofar the relation of the two powers is a political question, it depends on an account of the common good. Augustinian radicalism\u2019s theology of grace leads to an inability to see the transcendence of the natural common good of political life, and thus to a misunderstanding of what it means for political authority to be derived from God. Hence its excessively negative judgment on all coercive power, a judgment that is ultimately irreconcilable with magisterial teaching on political authority. Whig Thomism adopts a \u201cpersonalist\u201d account of the good, reducing the common good to a mere instrumental\/useful good, and adopting a liberal misunderstanding of the role of political authority. This misunderstanding is at the root of the Whig Thomists\u2019 erroneous notion that the indirect influence of the Church on the temporal order through the consciences of individual citizens is enough to fulfill the demands of the Social Kingship of Christ.<\/p>\n The establishment by Christianity of an authority distinct from earthly power without the immediate destruction of earthly power can be seen as necessarily causing a violent conflict.[10]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> I have called the position that tends in that direction \u201cAugustinian radicalism.\u201d The term \u201cradicalism\u201d is meant to suggest that it sees Christianity as challenging the roots of earthly power, and as having revolutionary social implications. \u201cRadicalism\u201d is also meant to suggest affinities with certain \u201cradical\u201d secular political movements such as anarcho-syndicalism, with which Augustinian radicalism often shares an approach to concrete social problems, but Augustinian radicalism is itself thoroughly anti-secular.<\/p>\n A figure often held up as an example by Augustinian radicals is the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Dorothy Day. Michael Baxter, describes Day\u2019s movement as follows:<\/p>\n The ethos of the Catholic Worker may be summed up as a commitment to embodying the lesson in the parable of the last judgment. In that parable, the Son of man is identified as a king and the virtuous enter eternal life by putting into practice the works enumerated by the king: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and caring for prisoners. Thus, performing these practices is what it means to live under the Kingship of Christ. [\u2026] Thus the concrete embodiment of this christologically-formed politics has ranged widely over the years: fighting for housing rights for the poor; supporting labor, such as striking sailors and farm workers; setting up work camps for conscientious objectors during World War II; protesting against nuclear weapons; organizing resistance to the draft and the Vietnam War; harboring Central American refugees; and so on. [\u2026] [T]he Catholic Worker takes Rerum Novarum <\/em>and Quadragesimo Anno<\/em> in a distributist or decentralist direction, which results in a \u201clocalist politics\u201d that provides an alternative to the depersonalizing bureaucracy of the modern liberal nation-state.[11]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Dorothy Day was deeply mistrustful of the nation-state. She often quoted St. Hilary as saying \u201cthe less you have of Caesar\u2019s the less you have to give him.\u201d[12]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> That is, she wanted to accept as little as possible from the state so as not to be in a relation of dependence on it. If one accepts coins from Caesar, one must render taxes to Caesar, but if one makes no use of money, then one is not bound to pay taxes. Day wanted to begin living another kind of society within the \u201cshell\u201d of the old society: a new kind of cooperative society that would live entirely without coercion, applying the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount as literally as possible. The hope was that this new society would slowly begin to replace the old, violent, coercive, acquisitive society. As she put it:<\/p>\n But, and I cannot stress this enough, we must never forget our objective, which is to build that kind of society \u201cwhere it is easier for people to be good.\u201d [\u2026] We must keep in mind the fact that we are active pacifists and anarchists. Or peacemaker personalists. Or libertarians, pluralists, decentralists \u2013 whatever you want to call it. It certainly needs to be presented in many lights, this teaching of revolution, non-violent social change. We begin now within the shell of the old to rebuild society.[13]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n The new society that is growing within the old is a sort of anticipation of the eternal city; the old is passing away. It is not clear whether the old society will pass away entirely before the Second Coming. Baxter and the Protestant theologian Stanley Hauerwas, in a notable paper that the co-authored, write that the old society will to some extent endure till the \u1f14\u03c3\u03c7\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd, and that therefore the tension between the societies will societies will remain. Significantly, Baxter and Hauerwas identify the new society with the Church herself, which they describe as a form of political life. Therefore, they can describe the enduring tension as a tension between Church and state:<\/p>\n Christians are called first and foremost not to resolve the tension between church and state, but to acknowledge the Kingship of Christ in their lives, which means leaving church\u2013state relations profoundly unresolved, until the day when He comes again in glory.[14]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n I have called Augustinian radicalism \u201cAugustinian\u201d because its proponents often use St. Augustine\u2019s City of God <\/em>to describe the relation between the old and the new. The \u201cshell of the old society\u201d is identified with the city of man, while the new society that is being built by the practice of the Gospel is identified with the City of God. Thus the Anglican Augustinian radical John Milbank writes:<\/p>\n In Augustine, there is, disconcertingly, nothing recognizable as a \u2018theory of Church and State\u2019, no delineation of their respective natural spheres of operation. The civitas terrena<\/em> is not regarded by him as a \u2018state\u2019 in the modern sense of a sphere of sovereignty, preoccupied with the business of government. Instead this civitas<\/em>, as Augustine finds it in the present, is the vestigial remains of an entire pagan mode of practice, stretching back to Babylon. There is no set of positive objectives that are its own peculiar business, and the city of God makes a usus<\/em> of exactly the same range of finite goods, although for different ends[.][15]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n It is hard to see how such a reading that identifies earthly power as such with the civitas terrena, <\/em>and thus sets up an inevitably antagonistic relation between the Church and earthly power is reconcilable with the Gelasian duo sunt. <\/em>Of course, as an Anglican, Milbank need not scruple at rejecting the Gelasian teaching. Catholic Augustinian radicals, however, ought to do so. Surprisingly, however, Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh seems to argue that there is an opposition between the Augustinian and Gelasian positions, and that the Augustinian position is the correct one:<\/p>\n The problem can be seen in considering the difference between Augustine\u2019s \u201cTwo cities have been formed by two loves\u201d and Pope Gelasius I\u2019s famous and influential dictum \u201cTwo there are…by which this world is ruled.\u201d For Augustine church and coercive government represent two cities, two distinct societies which represent two distinct moments of salvation history. There is not one society in which there is a division of labour. In Gelasius\u2019 words half a century later, there is one city with two rulers, \u201cthe consecrated authority of priests and the royal power.\u201d The eschatological reference is not absent; for Gelasius, the distribution of power between priest and king is a sign that Christ\u2019s coming has put a check on human pride. Nevertheless, the element of time has been flattened out into space. The one city is now divided into \u201cspheres,\u201d and, as Gelasius says, \u201ceach sphere has a specially qualified and trained profession.\u201d[16]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n There is an important element of truth in what Cavanaugh is saying, as well as a subtle misreading of Gelasius (to both of which I will return), but first it is important to note his identification of \u201ccoercive government\u201d with the city of man.<\/p>\n Although there are many differences between different proponents of Augustinian radicalism, they all share a profoundly negative view of coercion. Stanley Hauerwas is of course a pacifist. Following the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, he claims that Christian theological justifications of coercive power are all betrayals of the Gospel aimed at making Christianity acceptable to rulers.[17]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> John Milbank\u2019s view is more subtle. He notes that St. Augustine sees coercion as an effect of the fall, but that St. Augustine also teaches that the City of God makes \u201cuse\u201d of the peace established by earthly coercion, ordering that superficial peace to the peace of the Heavenly City, and that she can even make a \u201cpastoral\u201d use of coercion herself.[18]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> But Milbank sees this position as the \u201cmost problematic\u201d element of Augustine\u2019s social thought.[19]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Milbank argues that given Augustine\u2019s own principles even a \u201cpastoral\u201d use of coercion cannot escape the taint of sin:<\/p>\n The revolutionary aspect of [Augustine\u2019s] social thought was to deny any ontological purchase to dominium<\/em>, or power for its own sake: absolute imperium<\/em>, absolute property rights, market exchange purely for profit, are all seen by him a sinful and violent, which means as privations of Being. But his account of a legitimate, non-sinful, \u2018pedagogic\u2019 coercion partially violates this ontology, insofar as it makes some punishment positive, and ascribes it to the action of divine will. This is inconsistent, because in any act of coercion, however mild and benignly motivated, there is still present a moment of \u2018pure\u2019 violence, externally and arbitrarily related to the end one has in mind, just as the school-master\u2019s beating with canes has no intrinsic connection with the lesson he seeks to teach. [\u2026] Because punishment must, by definition, inflict some harm, however temporary, it has an inherently negative, privative relationship to Being, and cannot therefore, by Augustine\u2019s own lights, escape the taint of sin.[20]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n The position that we see emerging from the Augustinian radicals is of an insoluble conflict between the City of God and any coercive earthly authority. All earthly powers belong to a tragic drama of sin that is passing away. The role of the City of God is to enact on the same stage a comic drama, through a practice of entirely non-coercive social life generously giving without expectation of repayment, and suffering evil without murmur or retaliation. In an evocative and amusing comparison, Cavanaugh compares the city of man to Ariadne in Richard Strauss\u2019s opera Ariadne auf Naxos, <\/em>and the city of God\u00a0to Zerbinetta, disrupting Ariadne\u2019s opera seria<\/em> with an improvised opera buffa<\/em>.[21]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n There is much truth in Augustinian radicalism. It is quite right to emphasize that there is no third city between the City of God and the city of man.[22]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> I can even agree with Milbank\u2019s words: \u201cinsofar as imperium<\/em> lies outside ecclesia<\/em>, it is an essentially tragic reality.\u201d[23]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Augustinian radicalism is right to resist an exaggerated distinction between nature and grace (as the discussion of Whig Thomism below will demonstrate). Its own account of the relation of nature and grace, however, goes too far in the opposite direction. In following Henri de Lubac\u2019s teaching on natural desire for the supernatural, Augustinian radicals tend to evacuate the theonomic structure of natural teleology.[24]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Grace elevates and perfects nature, but does not replace it. Divine charity does not invalidate the demands of natural justice. The supernatural end of the City of God is indeed the absolutely final end to which all other ends must be in some way subordinate; but it does not do-away with a common good of temporal life that is final in its own order. And crucially, it does not do away with the coercive methods of natural political authority, even while it subordinates them (in some sense) to a higher authority.<\/p>\n The coercive authority of temporal rule derives from the primacy of the common good, from the fact that the common good is more divine than any good of an individual as an individual. Human persons are not parts of a community the way that parts of a body are parts. Nevertheless, they do relate to the common good in a way similar to the way parts relate to a whole. The participate <\/em>(share in a partial way) in that good, as a good which is for them better than any private good of their own. The common good is really the good of <\/em>the citizens (they are the subjects who attain to it), but it is not ordered to them as its end. Rather they are ordered to it as their end. Created perfection is a participation <\/em>in the perfection of God, who is the most universal common good. That is, a creature\u2019s own good <\/em>is found more in God than in itself, and all creatures by nature<\/em> (not only by grace) tend more toward God than toward themselves. But God is not the only common good. In the order of nature, God\u2019s perfection is participated in most fully by the universe as a whole. Thus the order of the universe is for any creature a better <\/em>good than its own private good, a better good for which it can give up any private good. <\/em>And, again in the natural order, the highest created common good attainable by human action is the common good of a perfect human society, which is a microcosm of the common good of the universe, and a higher good than any good belonging to individual men as individuals.[25]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Thus Hauerwas is completely wrong to suppose that the Catholic tradition\u2019s acceptance of political uses of coercion (including capital punishment) is a watering down of Christian ethics to make them acceptable to rulers. Rather that tradition is a recognition of the fact that even the temporal common good transcends all individual goods. The use of the sword by temporal rulers is therefore not violence done by one individual against another, but rather the exercise of an authority granted by God (cf. Rom 13) through the common good, which is \u201cmore divine\u201d than any private good. Similarly, Milbank is wrong to suggest that any punishment must be sinful, since its violence is only extrinsically related to the good to which it is trying to lead the sinner. In view of the common good, the authoritative use of the sword is really like a surgeon cutting the body for the sake of health\u2014the violence, though a physical evil, is a moral good because it is intrinsically demanded by justice.<\/p>\n Cavanaugh writes: \u201cthe Church is not a merely particular association, but participates in the life of the triune God, who is the only good that can be common to all.\u201d[26]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> This amounts to saying that God as directly attained to by grace <\/em>(\u201clife of the triune God\u201d) is the only <\/em>common good. This is an unacceptable monism of grace, totally un-reconcilable with the Catholic tradition (as re-iterated for instance in Gaudium et Spes[27]<\/sup><\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em>). Nevertheless, Cavanaugh\u2019s position has a certain plausibility derived from his critique of the modern, liberal state, which he argues is not really ordered to any common good, and does not see itself as so ordered.[28]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Cavanaugh\u2019s portrait of the modern, liberal nation state is highly persuasive, and it raises serious questions about the legitimacy of the political authority exercised by such states. Questions similar to those raised by Augustine in his critique of the Roman Empire as being ordered to a false illusion of justice. To the extent that political authorities do not subordinate the temporal common good to the eternal common good they almost inevitably are sucked into the sinful dynamic of the city of man. All of earthly reality must be subjected to the Kingship of Christ.<\/p>\n But how does such subordination take place? Not by replacing natural coercive power with a Christian anarcho-syndicalism, but rather with a (moderate version) of what Henri-Xavier Arquilli\u00e8re controversially called \u201cpolitical Augustinianism.\u201d[29]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Political Augustinianism differs from Augustinian radicalism in that it recognizes the legitimacy of coercive political power, but sees the need of integrating that power into the Church. Political authority thus integrated is not a separate city opposed to the City of God, but rather a particular order within that city<\/em>, one in which the laity rather than the clergy exercise authority, an authority that they receive through the natural law and the temporal common good (at least on the moderate interpretation of the theory[30]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a>), but which they must exercise to serve the eternal common good that is under the authority of the clergy. But that, simply put, is integralism. And it is the interpretation that the Church has always given to the dyarchy of powers.<\/p>\n Catholic integralism (not to be confused with secular movements such as integral nationalism) was a name first applied in the 19th<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> centuries to Catholics who defended the anti-liberal and anti-modernist teachings of the popes.[31]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Particularly integralism came to be associated with a defense of pontifical teachings against the separation of Church and state, and the claim that Social Kingship of Christ demands an explicit subordination of all areas of human social and political life to God through His Church.[32]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> But the roots of the Catholic Social teaching that integralism defends reach much further back than the anti-liberal teachings of the 19th<\/sup> century popes. They reach back to the counter-reformation political theology to which those popes appealed, and even further to the development of Gelasian dyarchy in the teaching of the medieval popes.<\/p>\n In his classic study of the relation of lay and clerical power in the Middle Ages, Walter Ullmann argues that the medieval papacy\u2019s claims to authority show \u201ca unity of themes and a consistency of principles\u201d that were detectable even in late antiquity, before the name \u201cpope\u201d began to be used.[33]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> And the most fundamental theme of these claims was the theme of the Church.[34]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> The Church was understood not as a purely invisible, spiritual community, but as a visible society:<\/p>\n The Church designates the corporate union of all believers in Christ, as it was so manifestly made clear in Pauline doctrine. But this doctrine also makes it clear that this body, the unum corpus<\/em>, is not merely a pneumatic or sacramental or spiritual body, but also an organic, concrete and earthy society. This dual nature of the corpus Christi<\/em> is of fundamental importance: the element, however, which brings this concrete body into existence, which makes the union a corporate entity, is the spiritual element of the Christian faith: this element alone gives this body its complexion. As a body the corpus Christi<\/em> is in need of direction and orientation: although the many constitute this unum corpus<\/em>, not all have the same functions within it. There are gradations of functions within this body[.][35]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Given this account of the visible Church, Papal authority had political arguments, and Ullmann shows the arguments for Papal authority can be understood as political arguments along the following lines:<\/p>\n In the realm of government the teleological principle upon which any society must needs rest, operates through the principle of functional qualification. For society and its government are two complementary concepts. The latter directs the former in accordance with its underlying purpose or aim, its \u201cfinis\u201d or \u201ctelos,\u201d Only those who are qualified, claim to be entitled to govern; and the qualification depends upon the nature and purpose of society. The function of rulership presupposes the fulfilment of certain qualifications. He who is qualified to translate the purpose for which society exists, into concrete terms and measures, acts in the capacity of a ruler: he functions as a ruler, because he is appropriately qualified. This principle of functional qualification is operative in any society. The form of rulership or government, whether monarchic or oligarchic or aristocratic and so forth, may vary, but this does not affect the general principle.[36]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Membership in the Church was conferred by baptism, but membership did not of itself grant the necessary qualification for governing the Church:<\/p>\n Another element, namely ordination, was needed to secure, according to Papal views, the right to direct the Church. The distinction between ordained and unordained members of the Church, between clerics and laymen, was the distinction which was not only to give medieval society its peculiar imprint, but also to make the problems of this society, that is, of Latin Christendom, accessible to understanding. The distinction\u2014not between Church and State, but between clergy and laity as parts of one and the same unit\u2014is a thread that runs throughout the medieval period.[37]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n The one qualified to rule the whole Church on earth was the bishop of Rome, as was already clearly expressed by Leo the Great:<\/p>\n When Pope Leo I spoke of himself as functioning on behalf of St Peter\u2014\u201ccuius vice fungimur\u201d<\/em>\u2014he succinctly expressed the principle of functional qualification in monarchic form. By virtue of succeeding to the chair of St Peter, Leo claimed that he alone was functionally qualified to rule the universal Church, that is, to rule it on the monarchic principle. This designation by Leo of the Pope as \u201cVicar of St Peter\u201d was new; the idea which it embodied was not. The formula chosen by Leo was the dress in which the idea of the principatus<\/em> of the Roman Church was clothed. The idea embodied in the term principatus<\/em> belongs to the realm of government. And government concerned the direction and orientation of the body of Christians, that is, of the universal Church.[38]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n The conception of the Church that Ullmann lays out here seems to be monarchical rather than dyarchical; it seems to be a Christian, universalist version of the Aristotelian theory of the polis<\/em>. And yet, Ullmann sees the basic lines of this theory as being already taught by St. Gelasius in the very locus classicus<\/em> of dyarchy:<\/p>\n Since the Pope alone has the principatus<\/em> over the Christian body, the emperor, according to Gelasius, must be directed by the sacerdotium<\/em>. The secular power has not only no right to issue decrees fixing the faith, since the emperor is no bishop, but he also must carry out his government according to the directions given to him by the priesthood. [\u2026] Again, considering the nature and character of [the] Christian corpus<\/em>, Gelasius’s claim that the priesthood must direct royal power, is self-evident[\u2026] Consequently, in this Christian world, in the \u201cmundus,\u201d the secular power has a mere \u201cpotestas,\u201d whilst the principatus<\/em> of the pope expresses itself in the Pontifical auctoritas<\/em>. And this auctoritas<\/em> being divinely conferred for the purpose of governing the Christian body corporate, is logically enough sacrata<\/em>, whilst the emperor’s power is a simple \u201cregalis potestas\u201d. This is a thoroughly juristic terminology employed by Gelasius. Auctoritas<\/em> is the faculty of shaping things creatively and in a binding manner, whilst potestas<\/em> is the power to execute what the auctoritas<\/em> has laid down. The Roman senate had auctoritas<\/em>, the Roman magistrate had potestas<\/em>. [\u2026] Whilst, however, this fundamental difference between the pontifical auctoritas<\/em> and the imperial potestas<\/em> was clear to anyone versed in Roman juristic terminology and ideology, Gelasius superimposed a typical Christian argument upon it: in a Roman-Christian world, the sacred Pontifical auctoritas<\/em> is all the greater, as it has to render an account even for the doings of the kings themselves on the Day of Judgment. [\u2026] And since rulership comes from God [\u2026] God’s priests are particularly concerned with the emperor’s exercise of the (divinely conferred) rulership: and since in a Christian society, of which the emperor through baptism is a member, every human action has a definite purpose and in so far has an essential religious ingredient, the emperors should submit their governmental actions to the ecclesiastical superiors and should not order the latter about, since they alone know what is, and what is not, divine and therefore Christian: they alone have auctoritas<\/em> within a Christian body corporate.[39]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Ullmann\u2019s reading of the auctoritas \u2013 potestas <\/em>distinction has been criticized from an historical-critical perspective, with critics arguing that he anachronistically reads Gelasius in the light of the popes of the High Middle Ages.[40]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> I think that Ullmann makes a fairly strong case for his reading even on historical-critical grounds. But, in any case, a theological reading of a magisterial text has to go beyond mere historical criticism and interpret the teaching in the light of other Church teachings.<\/p>\n In his interpretation of another important Gelasian text, Tractate IV, <\/em>Ullmann gives a reading of the task of the imperial power that makes it seem similar to the to the task given to the deacons in Acts 6:[41]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n According to Gelasius, Christian emperorship originates in Christ Himself. Christ was the last Rex et Pontifex<\/em>, the last Melchisedek, and by \u201ca marvellous dispensation\u201d He had discerned between the functions of the royal and of the sacerdotal power. Since the time of Christ no emperor had arrogated to himself the title of a Pontiff and no pontiff had claimed the height of royal power, although the pontiffs were actually, through Christ’s generosity and in a very special sense, both royal and priestly. But Christ, \u201cmindful of human fragility\u201d had discerned between the functions of each power: \u201cdiscrevit officia potestatis utriusque.\u201d His reason for so doing was two fold. On the one hand, it is written that no one warring for God should be entangled with secular things. The raison d’\u00eatre<\/em> of the royal power was to relieve the clerics of the burden of having to care for their carnal and material wants. For the temporal necessities the pontiffs indeed need the emperors, so that they can devote themselves to their functions properly and are not distracted by the pursuit of these carnal matters, but the emperors, Christian as they are, need the pontiffs for the achievement of eternal salvation. On the other hand, Gelasius introduces the very important and fruitful principle of functional order operating within society. To each part of an organic whole is assigned a special function and each member should adhere to the scope of functions allotted to him: then there will be order, or as Gelasius put it, human haughtiness\u2014humana superbia<\/em>\u2014will be prevented from coming into its own again. This principle of functional order is a principle which is necessitated by the manifold functions which a body has to perform in order to be an integrated whole: it is a principle which will play a major part in the fully developed hierocratic ideology.[42]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n An important point that emerges from Tractate IV is that the functional dyarchy of powers arises from \u201chuman pride,\u201d that is from sin. Without the effects of sin, temporal matters would not be a distraction from sacred matters, and there would be no need to distinguish them. Because, however, we live in a fallen world, it is necessary for the spiritual power to be freed of care for earthly matters. This \u201cdiaconal\u201d or \u201cministerial\u201d understanding of the temporal power was to be taught very explicitly by Gregory the Great. In a letter to the Byzantine Emperor Maurice, Gregory writes: \u201cPower over all people has been conceded from on high to the one who governs, such that the earthly kingdom would be a service which subordinates itself to the heavenly kingdom.\u201d[43]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Gregory was certainly influenced by Augustine in this (Cf. eg. Civ. Dei <\/em>V,24 and XIX,17), and, like Augustine, he sees the necessity of temporal power particularly for curbing sin. As Arquilli\u00e8re puts it:<\/p>\n [Gregory the Great] speaks of the pontiff who, with the help of princes, is concentrated on the restriction of the reign of sin and the promotion of the action of grace. The mission of the religious king had, by its very nature, become paramount in a Christianized society. It captures, from the beginning, the confusion of powers which would mark the Middle Ages, the essentially spiritual character of pontifical intervention. [\u2026] [By] inculcating the duty of kings with the discipline of the Church, Gregory opened an unlimited opening for the interventions of the Holy See.[44]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Arquilli\u00e8re\u2019s reference to \u201cconfusion of powers\u201d points to his main thesis: that the political Augustinianism of the medieval popes absorbed the temporal order too much into the spiritual order, thus destroying the legitimate autonomy of earthly authority. Douglas Kries, commenting on Arquilli\u00e8re\u2019s thesis, claims that Augustine\u2019s \u201cobfuscation of the boundary between the natural and the supernatural\u201d did provide the premises for the strictly monarchical view of spiritual power developed by consistent medieval hierocrats.[45]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> This is very similar to my critique of Augustinian radicalism above. But the tradition political theory of the medieval popes is not quite so simplistic.<\/p>\n In Ullmann\u2019s portrayal, the medieval papal theory seems monarchical, not dyarchical. There is one body of Christians ordered to the end of eternal life. The ruler of this body is the pope. Temporal rulers are ministers of the pope with care of mundane matters. And yet the dyarchical element, derived from Gelasius, was always preserved: on account of human pride, God has established two powers. At times, the medieval popes seem to deny the Gelasian teaching by saying that the temporal power is derived not immediately from God, but rather mediately through <\/em>the spiritual power. A careful reading, however, shows that this is not the case. The temporal power is derived from God, however, it can only have legitimacy if it submits itself to the spiritual power, which has care of the final end. That is, the temporal power inevitably serves the city of man if it is detached the spiritual power, but if it is subordinates itself to the spiritual power it can play a helpful role in the city of God.<\/p>\n Innocent III in one text compares spiritual and temporal power to the sun and moon:<\/p>\n Just as God, founder of the universe, has constituted two large luminaries in the firmament of Heaven, a major one to dominate the day and a minor one to dominate the night, so he has established in the firmament of the Universal Church, which is signified by the name of Heaven, two great dignities, a major one to preside\u2014so to speak\u2014over the days of the souls, and a minor one to preside over the nights of the bodies. They are the Pontifical authority and the royal power. Thus, as the moon receives its light from the sun and for this very reason is minor both in quantity and in quality, in its size and in its effect, so the royal power derives from the Pontifical authority the splendour of its dignity, the more of which is inherent in it, the less is the light with which it is adorned, whereas the more it is distant from its reach, the more it benefits in splendour.1. Introduction: Three Theories<\/h1>\n
2. Augustinian Radicalism<\/h1>\n
2.1 The Two Cities<\/h2>\n
2.2 An Integralist Critique of Augustinian Radicalism<\/h2>\n
3. The Integralist Reading of Gelasian Dyarchy<\/h1>\n