Political Theory: Middle Ages

Origins of Religious -Political Thought

 Medieval Thought
• “Medieval” refers to Europe Medieval philosophy
includes the “pre-scholastic”, “scholastic” and
“late scholastic” periods.
• “Scholasticism” refers to the intellectual culture
characteristic of the medieval schools.
• 12th century schooling became a flourishing
industry in Paris, Bologna and many other places.
By the early 13th century the masters of the
schools in some places had formed corporations
generally called universities.
 University
• A university was a guild (i.e. trade association) of
masters or students in a town. The university was not
itself a teaching institution: teaching was done in the
masters' schools (or later in colleges).
• Schools of higher education had existed among the
Greeks, Jews and Muslims, but a trade association of
teachers or scholars was a new idea.
• Like the ancient schools, the medieval schools taught
by means of textbooks: Aristotle in the Arts faculty,
Averroes and Avicenna in medicine, the Bible and in
theology.
• By medieval political philosophy we understand
the medieval writings on politics that are similar
to the modern writings we classify as political
philosophy.
• Medieval authors were usually academics writing
to be read by university-educated readers, they
drew upon ideas explored in the schools and they
wrote in an academic way. Some wrote
commentaries on Aristotle's Politics and academic
“disputed questions” related to topics of political
philosophy.
• Many of the Fathers were influenced by the
Platonism and Stoicism that every educated
person became acquainted with in the ancient
world.
• Augustine was particularly influenced by
Platonism, in the version modern scholars call
“Neo-Platonism”, i.e., the philosophy of
Plotinus.
• The Church Fathers passed down to the middle
ages the idea that certain key social institutions
were not part of God's original plan for mankind,
namely the institutions of coercive government,
slavery and property.
• The idea found in Seneca and other ancient Stoics
of a Golden Age had a parallel in Christian
thinking, namely the age of innocence in the
Garden of Eden, from which mankind were
expelled because of the sin of Adam and Eve (the
“Fall”).
 Early Middle Age Europe

• Emperor Theodosius adopted Christianity as a state religion for

the Roman Empire.

• Empire was under attack by the foreign invasions (Germanic

tribes, Visigoths and Vandals)and there was internal class
struggles.

• The economic political and military unity of Roman Empire came

to an end.

• Hopes and survival of the Roman Empire was dependent on the

new religion: Christianity
 City of God and City of Evil
• The work of Augustine's most likely to be
known to modern students of political
thought is The City of God.
 St. Augustine
• The common opinion on coercive government
and slavery was expressed by Augustine. God
“did not intend that …[man] should have
lordship over any but irrational creatures: not
man over man, but man over the beasts.
Hence, the first just men were established as
shepherds of flocks, rather than as kings of
men” (City of God, XIX.15, p. 942).
• Two cities, the city of God and the earthly city, are
distinguished by two loves, love of God and
(misdirected) love of self, and by two destinies,
heaven and hell. Augustine's most famous
contribution to theology was the doctrine of
predestination.
• God has decreed from all eternity that to some
he will give the grace needed to attain eternal
salvation, while the rest of mankind (the
majority) will go to eternal damnation.
• Salvation requires the grace of “final
perseverance”, i.e. the grace of being in
friendship with God at the moment of death.
• Some who live well for most of their lives may fall
away at the very end. Thus we cannot tell for
sure who is predestined to salvation. Since the
city of God consists of those predestined to
salvation, we cannot be sure of its membership.
• The city of God is not identical with the Church,
since not all members of the Church will be saved.
The earthly city is not identical with any particular
state, since some members of a state may be
predestined to salvation. A particular state may
include citizens of both cities.
• As a Platonist Augustine thought in terms of a
hierarchy of levels of reality, in which lower levels
imitate or reflect the higher levels.
• Augustine's is not a philosophy of “black and
white”, of stark opposition between the forces of
light and the forces of darkness—this was the
Manichean philosophy, to which Augustine at
one time subscribed, until the reading of certain
works of the Platonists had led him to reject it.
According to Augustine there is no absolute evil.
• Anything evil must be to some extent good, or it
could not exist at all. Its evil consists in disorder or
misdirection, in its failing to attain all the
goodness appropriate to it. “The peace of all
things lies in the tranquillity of order, and order is
the disposition of equal and unequal things in
such a way as to give to each its proper place”
(City of God, p. 938).
• There are many orderings and sub-orderings, and
there are therefore different kinds or levels of
peace, and (for beings capable of moral choice)
different kinds or levels of virtue, justice and
happiness
• Augustine offers to prove that by Cicero's
definition, the Romans never had a republic.
• “I shall attempt to show that no such
commonwealth ever existed, because true
justice was never present in it” (p. 80), since
the Romans did not obey the true God.
• As Augustine says, “There was, of course,
according to a more practicable definition, a
commonwealth of a sort”, It is only by narrow
definition that it can be said that non-Christians
cannot form a commonwealth.
• Motivated by love of honour, the Romans were
able to live together in an approximation to
peace, justice and happiness, though not in “true”
peace, justice and happiness. Justice in some
measure is essential to anything that deserves to
be called a commonwealth.
 • Among medieval Christians there were at least
three views of the goods and evils of
government:
1)Government may be, and should be, rule by
the ideal Christian ruler, whom the Protestants
later called “the godly prince”; such a ruler
would lead his people in obedience to God.
2)Government may be simply a wicked tyranny, an
expression of the “earthly city”.
3)Government exists to organise the cooperation of
“men of good will” i.e., citizens of the two cities
united by an interest in earthly peace and other
earthly goods valued by both Christians and others.
Such a limited view of the goals of government is
found in Marsilius and Ockham.
• All three views could find support in The City of
God.
St. Aquinas
On natural law and other kinds of law Thomas again follows
not Aristotle but the tradition of civil and canon law going
back to the Roman Stoics
He distinguishes divine law (eternal and positive) from human
law, and among human laws he distinguishes natural law from
the law of nations and civil law.
Law is concerned with direction to the common good, which
belongs to the whole people .
All positive human law must be in accordance with natural law,
though its prescriptions will depend upon choice and
circumstances (for example, natural law prescribes that we
must not kill, but human positive law makes additional rules to
prevent killing, rules that may depend on arbitrary choice.
Natural law is in effect morality, and according to Thomas the
human mind, reflecting on and analysing human experience,
can see the truth of various fundamental moral principles,
which are thus “self-evident”, not in need of proof, and too
fundamental to be capable of proof .
On property, Thomas follows the view of the Stoics and the
Fathers that property exists by human positive law. Natural
law permits us to use things but property goes beyond power
to use: it includes a power to exclude others from use, and this
power is conferred by human positive law
Property rights give way to extreme need, so in time of extreme
need using another's property without permission is not theft
The best form of government, according to
Thomas, is a mixed government combining
elements of democracy, aristocracy and kingship
This is reminiscent of Aristotle's preference for
mixed government over either democracy or
oligarchy, but in fact many ancient writers,
including Cicero, advocated mixed government.
On the duty to obey government, Thomas does not adopt the
position that many others found in the New Testament, that
disobedience is never justified. According to Thomas Aquinas,
though there is a general duty to obey the law and the
government, an unjust law is not a law
For Thomas Aquinas, as for Aristotle, doing moral
philosophy is thinking as generally as possible
about what I should choose to do (and not to do),
considering my whole life as a field of
opportunity (or misuse of opportunity).
Thinking as general as this concerns not merely my
own opportunities, but the kinds of good things
that any human being can do and achieve, or be
deprived of.