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DYNAMIC ENERGETIC
HEALING®
DYNAMIC ENERGETIC
HEALING®
INTEGRATING CORE SHAMANIC
PRACTICES WITH ENERGY PSYCHOLOGY
APPLICATIONS AND PROCESSWORK PRINCIPLES

HOWARD BROCKMAN, LCSW

Columbia Press, LLC
1620 Commercial St. SE
Salem, Oregon 97302

Copyright © 2006 by Howard Brockman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, utilized, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
any-information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Dynamic Energetic Healing® and are registered trademarks of Howard Brockman and
The Heart Center Incorporated (an Oregon corporation).

Callahan Techniques and Thought Field Therapy are registered trademarks of Dr. Roger Callahan.

Editor: Linda Jenkins

Cover image: Willow Arlenea
Illustrations: Andrea Carlson
Cover and book design: Jerry Soga
Composition: William H. Brunson Typography Services
Proofreader: Marvin Moore

This downloadable version has the following ISBN numbers:

ISBN 10 0-9766469-1-9
ISBN 13 978-0-9766469-1-4

Library of Congress Control Number 2005903096

 D i s c l a i m e r

Shamanic healing methods, energy psychology techniques, and other

described methods presented in this book should not be considered an exclu-
sive approach for confronting psychological and/or medical problems.
This book is intended as an informational guide only. The remedies,
approaches, and techniques described herein are meant to supplement, and
not to be a substitute for, professional medical care or treatment. Proper use of
the methods described in this book requires a thorough understanding, proper
analysis, and supervised training. They should not be used to treat a serious
ailment without prior consultation with a qualified healthcare professional.
All matters regarding your health require medical supervision.
Neither the author nor anyone else who has been involved in the creation,
production, or support of the book shall be liable for any direct, incidental,
economic, non-economic, punitive, or consequential damages.

v
 D e d i c a t i o n

To my parents, whose support in all kinds of ways

they can never know of enabled me to get to
where I am today and write this book
 C o n t e n t s

List of Illustrations xv

Preface xvii

Acknowledgments xxi

Introduction xxiii

Part 1:
The Strands That Weave Dynamic Energetic Healing ® Together

Chapter 1 Beginnings 3

Chapter 2 Antecedents of Dynamic Energetic Healing® 27

Chapter 3 My Role within the Context of Dynamic

Energetic Healing® 41

Chapter 4 Therapeutic Presence 47

Chapter 5 Integrating the Second Attention into Dynamic Energetic

Healing®: Acknowledging the Dreamingbody 53

Chapter 6 The Compassionate Spirits: Moving into the

Dreamtime Experience 61

Chapter 7 Collaborating with the Compassionate Spirits:

Embracing a New Paradigm 67

Chapter 8 Living Life Intentionally 71

Chapter 9 The Mysterious Phenomenon of Psychoenergetic

Reversal 83

ix
 Contents

Chapter 10 Understanding Trauma within Dynamic

Energetic Healing® 91

Chapter 11 Soul Loss 107

Chapter 12 Energetic Practice 119

Chapter 13 Energetic Origins from a Hypnotic Perspective 133

Chapter 14 Energetic Boundaries 139

Chapter 15 Working with Supernatural Energies 145

Chapter 16 Intrusions 157

Chapter 17 Creating a Sacred Space 167

Chapter 18 Living Life Free of Trauma 171

Part 2:
The Dynamic Energetic Healing® Interventions

Introduction to Part 2 177

Chapter 19 Tapas Acupressure Technique 183

Chapter 20 Emotional Freedom Techniques, Modified 187

Chapter 21 Tapping the Temporal Curve 195

Chapter 22 The Chakra Interventions 199

Chapter 23 Negative Affect Erasing Method 215

Chapter 24 Frontal Occipital (F/O) Holding 219

Chapter 25 Sound as Vibrational Healing 227

x
 Contents

Chapter 26 Shamanic Healing Approaches 239

Chapter 27 Focused Prayer 249

Conclusion to Part 2 251

Part 3:
The Dynamic Energetic Healing® Protocol

Introduction to Part 3 255

Chapter 28 Preparing to Work on a Specific Intention 257

Chapter 29 Establishing a Clear Intention 265

Chapter 30 Working at the Energetic Origin 271

Chapter 31 Dealing with Trauma 289

Chapter 32 Integration and Completion 301

Conclusion to Part 3 309

Part 4:
Case Histories

Introduction to Part 4 313

Case 1 Eliminating Panic Attacks Related to the Fear of

Having a Colonoscopy: Clearing an Intrusion 315

Case 2 Metamorphizing Post-Surgical Depression: Conscious

Applications of Circulating Chi 319

Case 3 Resolving Depression, Insomnia, and Suicidal Thoughts:

Healing the Aftermath of Childhood Abuse and Trauma 323

xi
 Contents

Case 4 Neutralizing Present-Day Allergy Symptoms: Learning

Psychopomp Work in a Past-Life Origin 329

Case 5 Healing the Roots of Melanoma Skin Cancer:

Disidentifying from Two Negative Archetypes 333

Case 6 Transforming the Fear of Bulimic Purging:

Shamanic Spirit Releasement 341

Case 7 Transmuting the Trauma of Early Sexual Abuse:

Correcting a Lifetime of Disembodiment 345

Case 8 Relieving Acid Reflux and Preparing for Labor and

Delivery: Energetic Boundary Work and Past-Life
Regression 351

Case 9 Alleviating the Loss and Guilt of Giving a Baby Up for

Adoption: Finding Power through Past-Life Regression 357

Case 10 Releasing Old Trauma and Alleviating Symptoms of

Fatigue: Allergy Antidoting Techniques 371

Case 11 Shifting Lifelong Persistent Despair: Dreamtime

and Frontal Occipital Holding 375

Case 12 Overcoming Compulsive Overeating: Healing the

Wounded Inner Child 379

Case 13 Restoring Healthy Immune Function: Establishing

Energetic Boundaries with an Ancestral
Earthbound Spirit 387

Case 14 Confronting Psychic Attack: Reestablishing the

Reliability of Muscle Testing 391

Case 15 Mitigating Depression: Uncovering an Energetic

Origin Outside of Worldly Time 399

xii
 Contents

Case 16 Validating Empirically the Existence of Past Lives:

Recovering Power and Terminating Therapy 403

Case 17 Treating Long-Term Panic Disorder: Resolving

Recurrent Spirit Intrusion and Learning to
Honor All Parts of the Self 409

Conclusion to Part 4 427

Final Thoughts 431

Appendix 1 Concerns Regarding the Pharmacological Model 433

Appendix 2 DSM-IV Descriptions of Dissociative Disorders 441

Appendix 3 Dynamic Energetic Healing® Protocol Checklist 443

Bibliography 445

Index 453

xiii
 I l l u s t r a t i o n s

Figure 1 Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT) (Ch. 19) 184

Figures 2a, 2b Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) (Ch. 20) 188, 189

Figure 3 Summary of EFT Treatment Points (Ch. 20) 191

Figure 4 Tapping the Temporal Curve (Ch. 21) 196

Figure 5 The Chakras (Ch. 22) 200

Figure 6 Negative Affect Erasing Method (NAEM) (Ch. 23) 216

Figure 7 Frontal Occipital Holding (F/O Holding) (Ch. 24) 220

Figure 8 Kirtan Kriya Meditation (Ch. 25) 229

Figure 9 Manual Muscle Testing (Ch. 28) 260

xv
 P r e f a c e

I have gone through many changes over the years, both personally and
professionally. These changes, and the accompanying paradigm shifts, are
described in chapter 1, “Beginnings.” As a model for psychotherapeutic
change, Dynamic Energetic Healing® is as innovative and distinctive as it is
remarkably effective. This book has been written for healthcare professionals
and those who are interested in finding reliable ways to make long-lasting,
positive changes in their lives.
As explained in chapter 1, I have learned many spiritual practices in my
pursuit of heightened awareness and expanding consciousness. By integrat-
ing these insights and experiences, the Dynamic Energetic Healing® model
helps people to change and extricate themselves from the binding effects of
past trauma.
As a clinician and psychotherapist, I am a licensed clinical social worker
in private practice in the state of Oregon. As such, I abide by the regulations
and ethical guidelines imposed on all social workers by the governing state
licensing board. In this book I discuss the theory and underlying principles
of the three primary models for change that I have integrated into Dynamic
Energetic Healing®—energy psychology, process-oriented psychology, and
core shamanism. Each of these models expresses very different views and
assumptions of the world from what is considered mainstream or consensus
thinking in the field of psychology. Much of energy psychology derives from
the underlying principles of traditional Chinese medicine, which are said to be
over five thousand years old. Process-oriented psychology incorporates prin-
ciples of ancient Taoism, Jungian psychology, and modern quantum physics.
Core shamanism is said to be at least thirty thousand years old and has always
had strong ties to the natural world. The combination and integration of these
three distinctive paradigms makes a unique and highly effective model for
change that lies at the foundation of my successful clinical practice.
It is important to state that clinicians who apply Dynamic Energetic
Healing® in their practice must abide by the regulations governing their area
of practice. For example, since I am not a certified Chinese medical doctor,
I cannot prescribe medicines to my clients; neither can I use acupuncture

xvii
 Preface

needles with them. But I can and do apply various principles derived from
Chinese medicine, such as directing my clients in tapping on acupressure
points. When issues of deeply held personal values or spiritual orientation
come up in a therapy session, I realize I need to be sensitive and open without
imposing any of my personal beliefs about what is appropriate for the client.
One definition (from the Random House Websterʼs College Dictionary)
of psychology is “the science of the mind or of mental states and processes,”
but psychology is anything but scientific. It is presumptuous for Westerners
to impose our beliefs on and try to define reality for others. We have a long
and unfortunate history of ethnocentrism—European explorers coming to the
Americas, enslaving, and almost wiping out native populations who they con-
sidered to be savages is just one example.
Fortunately, ethnocultural awareness is being taught more and more in
graduate programs. These programs attempt to counteract the deeply embed-
ded ethnocentrism that devalues people from cultures which are unfamiliar to
us. I believe that multicultural awareness must be brought into modern psy-
chology so that the proscriptions of those operating in a biased cultural frame-
work do not limit our repertoire of possible psychotherapeutic solutions.
Individuals perceive their experiences uniquely and construct their own
conceptual models for how and why things work in the world, so “mind and
mental states” (which are amorphous concepts and slippery to define) defy
singular analysis. As a result, each client requires a unique approach to com-
ing back to wholeness within the psychotherapeutic context. For example,
because people donʼt all think the same way, a cognitive behavioral approach
is not appropriate for treating every client. Some clients just need someone to
listen to them; others need support for difficult feeling states (such as anger or
sadness) so these states can be acknowledged and expressed.
Mainstream psychology has often tried to separate itself from religious
and spiritual issues. But for some clients, the spiritual dimension of their
being needs to be addressed in order to alleviate their pain and suffering. This
occurs when their mental processes or states cannot provide the understand-
ing and support they need in order to reconcile the paradox of living in the
modern world and feeling the strong stirrings of an ancient soul. The ancient
principles of shamanic practices are sometimes effective in these cases. We
like to believe we are modern people in the twenty-first century, but we have
soul and ancestral memories that go back thousands of years and press upon
us in our present-day experience. All of us, regardless of our current religious

xviii
 Preface

or spiritual beliefs, have ancestral roots that reach back to a time—it could be
a recent time, or a time countless generations ago—when shamanic practices
were integrated into the fabric of culture. Like Jungʼs archetypes, these prin-
ciples and practices are part of the human psyche and experience.
Many people find it difficult to accept shamanic concepts because they
challenge our very identities—identities that are supported by the dominant
culture that defines what is “true.” Nevertheless, our ethical imperative is to
bring forth and offer, with sensitivity and integrity, everything that we have
available to assist our clients while honoring the dictum “do no harm.” We
must always orient to the best interest of and highest good for our clients.
As a seasoned clinician, I know the importance of helping my clients to
identify and embrace the internal resources they already possess. The healing
that occurs in our sessions helps clients to expand their consideration of what
is possible, become empowered, and stay strong in the face of great chal-
lenges. Clientsʼ internal resources are things such as a positive memory of
winning a race, a mental image of being with their children, a flowing river
that becomes a symbol of transformation from the collective unconscious,
or the vision of Jesus Christ that results from time in church or at prayer.
Whatever these internal resources are, it is the personʼs subjective experience
and personal strengths that are accessed and affirmed to facilitate change at
multiple levels of their being. This reflects the Great Mystery and provides the
magic that is part of the psychotherapeutic process.
My images or visions of what I call the compassionate spirits are just
some of my many internal resources that help me support my clients. I-be-
lieve it is important to share these images often with clients. By doing so, I
help clients trust their own multisensory creativity and uncover and develop
their internal resources, which helps to empower them. After many years of
practicing Kundalini yoga and meditation, I can now “see” my own and oth-
ersʼ chakras. This can be very helpful in a therapy session. Because I have
spent many years practicing psychotherapy, I can feel the disowned emotions
of clients that they are frequently unaware of. This too is very helpful in a
therapy session. I bring all my experience and sensitivity to therapy to be
helpful to my clients.
Sensitivity is both an innate quality and something that can be cultivated
over time. This is true in many contexts. For example, painters train them-
selves to notice subtle distinctions of color and shading in order to bring out a
dimension often not perceived by the rest of us. My wife, Anita, a professor of

xix
 Preface

music and concert pianist, exemplifies the cultivation of sensitivity in another

context. Through many years of practice and training, she has developed an
ear for the subtleties of sound that I am completely unaware of. When we go
to concerts together, what I find enjoyable may give Anita a headache. You
might say that she has developed a nuanced perception of sound that many
others do not have. This doesnʼt mean that I couldnʼt acquire this ability, but
it would probably take a large commitment and a substantial period of time
for me to cultivate this heightened ability to discriminate sound. But after
many years of training and using spiritual practices, I do perceive energetic
phenomena. Feeling the affective states of the disowned parts of my clients,
seeing chakras that are congested, having visions of guardian angels—itʼs
really all about sensitivity. Developing and cultivating your second attention
in order to become more sensitive to field phenomena when you are working
with clients comes up again and again in this book. It is an important and even
pervasive theme in Dynamic Energetic Healing®.
For readers who are interested in energy psychology, process-oriented
psychology, and core shamanism, I have included some relevant refer-
ences in-the bibliography. I have also listed various resources on my web-
site (www.DynamicEnergeticHealing.com) that you may be interested in
investigating.
Dynamic Energetic Healing® is many things, but at its essence it is an
integrative model for practicing psychotherapy in a psychotherapeutic con-
text. I am delighted to share this new healing model; I hope it will make you
feel more comfortable in uncovering and accessing your spiritual resources in
order to help others. The truth is, there is great power in the universe. Whether
you call it prana or chi, archetypes or compassionate spirits, this power is all
an expression of love.

xx
 A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

I feel indebted to many people for their support, encouragement, and help.
Though I spent a long time compiling the initial manuscript, its culmination
into this book could not have happened without the help and sincere interest
of a number of people.
First and foremost, I am most grateful to have found my wonderful editor,
Linda Jenkins. Her skill and facility with crafting language helped me to more
clearly define what I was trying to express. Additionally, I appreciated her
challenging me to articulate certain ideas more definitively. Most importantly
though, I feel blessed to have found such an expert editor who supported my
work without reservations. I felt deeply appreciated as a writer and encour-
aged to express myself completely, in spite of my initial hesitancy to describe
some things that might be considered to fall outside most peopleʼs normative
experience. As a first-time author, it was affirming to be taken seriously; Lin-
daʼs patience and reassurance fueled in me the drive I needed to push through
my occasional resistance, keep up, and persist through the many months of
hard and arduous work. She is a real gem.
I am grateful to my friend and colleague Robin Gress, who took time out
of her busy schedule to read through the manuscript and offer many helpful
suggestions, particularly on shamanism. I also want to thank other readers
who critiqued my manuscript and offered very helpful constructive criti-
cism that resulted in significant tightening of the text. These readers include
Geraldine Brooks, Pam Clark, and Brigid OʼHagan.
My dear friend Michelle Stringham first introduced me to the practice of
shamanism and was for many years my mentor and teacher. For this and for
her heartfelt support in all matters, I am deeply grateful.
I appreciate the energy, enthusiasm, and support of my friend and col-
league Mary Hammond-Newman. During the initial development of Dynamic
Energetic Healing®, Maryʼs input and help was invaluable as we put together
our initial training manual. Writing various segments of our manual was to
some degree a catalyst that inspired me to write more about my own synthe-
sis of Dynamic Energetic Healing®. I also want to acknowledge my friend
and-colleague Nancy Gordon who, with Mary, contributed her ideas and

xxi
 Acknowledgments

enthusiasm in our initial study group as Dynamic Energetic Healing® was in

its formative stage.
I consider myself a lifelong student. I am always curious to learn more
about healing from a variety of theoretical models. I know I will continue to
study with new teachers and familiar teachers, for this is my way. I am deeply
grateful to all the teachers I have had over the years, the work of many of
whom is described in this book. This includes my current living teachers as
well as those who have passed on and can be accessed in nonordinary reality.
A special note of appreciation goes to Dr. Judith Swack for her innovative
ideas. They led to my own creative stirrings to retrieve the behavioral kine-
siology applications of manual muscle testing, which I first began using in
the 1980s. Her energy psychology model provided much of the stimulus and
inspiration for what has emerged as Dynamic Energetic Healing®.
It is important to acknowledge my clients, for without them I would never
have discovered the unfolding healing possibilities that Dynamic Energetic
Healing® has to offer. I am regularly learning from my clients, and for them
I am grateful.
I want to express my deep gratitude to my wife, Anita. She is a model for
me of living oneʼs passion. Because of her own commitment to following her
passion, she both inspires and enables me to live and pursue mine. She comes
from a place of deep integrity and strong convictions. A better partner I could
not ask for.

xxii
 I n t r o d u c t i o n

Dynamic Energetic Healing® is a new psychotherapy model that fits under

the-umbrella of energy psychology. Mary Hammond-Newman and I, the
co-founders of Dynamic Energetic Healing®, drew on over forty years of
combined clinical experience to develop the initial conception of this new
approach. Energy psychology has proliferated over the last ten years, and
in its present form Dynamic Energetic Healing® is only eight years old. It
was developed after Mary, our colleague Nancy Gordon, and I took initial
trainings in innovative energy psychology methods. These methods included
Thought Field Therapy, emotional freedom techniques, and healing from the
body level up, among others. Mary and I created a series of unique protocols
and a comprehensive training program for those interested in applying these
methods. After further developing and expanding on some of these ideas in
my own clinical practice, I have decided to share my findings and experiences
by writing this book.
Dynamic Energetic Healing ® has proven successful in addressing
depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders, anxiety
and panic disorder, addictions, dissociative disorders, the emotional/mental
underpinnings of physical illness, and the spiritual and developmental issues
that surface in midlife. Mary and I use this approach successfully with our
respective marital and group therapy clients.
Dynamic Energetic Healing® integrates well with established therapies.
Consequently, we often incorporate more widely used and accepted therapies
such as hypnosis, cognitive-behavioral therapy, neurolinguistic programming
(NLP), processwork, and play therapy into our work with clients.
Dynamic Energetic Healing® emerged over a two-year period during
which Mary, Nancy, and I met regularly. This was a time of great alchemical
change for us, a time of personal, professional, and deep spiritual growth.
We were tremendously excited to discover new clinical applications for the
energy psychology methods we were learning. Since these energy psychology
strategies involved an entirely new paradigm for us, we needed each otherʼs
skills and insights. All seasoned clinicians, we formed a study group and
worked on each other. We made astounding discoveries, both personally and

xxiii
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
life, childishly, perhaps, but still ingeniously imitated, or, rather,
anticipated! And how lasting an influence does this frequently make on
their little society! What various but lasting traces does it often leave on
their minds, more perhaps than many hours of study, especially if in the
latter the usual system of overloading the young mind defeats its own end.
Play, indeed, must not become the mere pastime of idleness, for it is only by
its alternation with labor and the sternness of discipline that it continues to
be a recreation and a pleasure.
And, indeed, the earnestness, the labor, and the sterner part in this whole
business and matter of education, as mixed and composed of two opposite
elements, of the serious and the sportive, is highly capable of receiving so
spiritual a reference and vital a significance. And if all education be nothing
else than a preparation for the future, and the state of this preparation, then
it must be self-evident that too many or enough of such vivid references and
spiritual allusions to a future life, either generally or to any particular phase
of it that may chiefly be had in view, can not be introduced into education
and its serious and sportive elements and pursuits. For it is only by this
method that the susceptibilities of youth and the youthful fancy can be
vividly excited and thoroughly impressed with the fundamental design and
significance of the whole of life—a result which no mere dry definition of
the future state, or generally of any “destination of man” on the dusty road
of logic, will ever attain to.
It is nowise singular if this symbolical property and disposition of human
nature announces itself as distinctly in the earliest development and in the
most perfect of the productions of artistic genius, whether we take into
consideration the whole existing state of mankind, or his original and
essential constitution relatively to the world and to God. We have already
remarked, on more than one occasion, that man, as soon as he was deprived
of those higher faculties which he had abused to his ruin, fell thereby more
entirely than would seem originally to have been the case, under the
dominion of figurative fancy, and that, consequently, his whole nature and
consciousness became greatly changed from what it was at the beginning. If
man did at the very first possess the faculty and the power to communicate
his thoughts to others inwardly by a mere operation of his will, and without
having recourse to the external medium of words, he no longer enjoys this
privilege; and if any wonderful phenomena in any way resembling thereto
be now found, they only form so many remarkable exceptions, instead of
making the rule of human life and consciousness as they now are. As at
present constituted, man feels that his state is pre-eminently symbolical: he
sees in symbolism a necessary requirement for his earthly pursuits—a
substitute for those immediate powers of cogitation which he has lost. And
all this is true, independently of any use he may freely choose to make of
symbols for the higher purposes of spiritual life.
Man, at the beginning, was placed on this earth as its first-born son, in
the midst of the telluric universe, or, in other words, in the center of a
planetary world akin to and similar to his own. Now, whatever may be the
case, or whatever it may be allowable to think of any other of the starry
spheres—though in the invisible world of spirits all perhaps is more
immediately full of and instinct with essence, and is not veiled in material
emblems, this is not the case with this earth. Terrestial nature, in all its
organic productions and warring elements of life, is throughout symbolical.
Man, therefore, viewed from this position of his earthly habitation, is
surrounded by a symbolical world of sensuous emblems. And if we can, or,
rather, if we will, believe the grand intimation with which revelation opens,
the first and highest destination of man is even symbolical—to be the
Divine image.
If, now, all the natural wants and properties of man are symbolical—if
such be his present state in the midst of creation—his whole position in the
mundane system, and his high and heavenly destination, can we, or, rather,
ought we, to wonder if even religion presents itself for the most part clothed
in a symbolical garb? For this is the case, not merely with that which was
the wild upgrowth of a poetical and purely imaginative heathenism, but also
the old, original, and pure religion of nature—as the first love devoting
itself for sacrifice—the second revelation of God. And so we find it to have
been in the old world, or, as it is otherwise called, the old covenant. Here
the first twilight of faith was yet studded with all the starry splendor of the
whole symbolical creation, as it were with the brilliant diadem of nature’s
most glorious images. And even the new era of the ascending and
brightening dawn still bears on its front the glittering morning-star of art.
But now, if still retaining the same figure, or, rather, borrowing from it a
contrast, we proceed to designate art in and by itself, we may justly
compare it to the moon, which illumines with its vague but marvelous half-
light the domain of night and the dark realms of creative fancy. Even here it
is but a borrowed splendor from the true sun, a reflection from another and
a higher luminary, that lights up the darkness. And while all the wonderful
starry types of the spiritual world, which retire in the full day, come out in
this magical twilight, so also deceptive phantoms, airy forms of gigantic
magnitude, may mingle with the hovering and misty troop of shadows to
which the earth-born vapors alone give birth and shape. And yet,
notwithstanding this earthly intermixture, the art of the beautiful, whenever
it retains its true nature, is in its essence directed to the divine.
Consequently it not only lends an external charm to religion, but in its
origin, in all times and peoples, it was intimately related to it, and bound to
it by the strictest ties of affinity and association. And this is not the less true,
even though to the eye of a severe criticism most of its productions, in the
ages of its decline, may appear utterly remote from its first source and aim,
and perfectly vain, worthless, and sensual.
The divine origin of art is easily proved by its history every where, and
indeed is so manifest that it can not well be doubted. High art, indeed, can
not and never will surrender its claim to a divine power and sanctity: it must
insist upon the recognition of this its high sanction. If we could conceive an
age or country where religion should entirely cease and be forgotten—
where not only all positive faith and revelation, but even the universal belief
in a Divinity above them, should die away and perish among men—the
light of all higher and heaven-directed thoughts and aims should become
extinct—that echo of eternity and of eternal love which the inmost feelings
of the human soul spontaneously gives back, should be hushed forever—
then and there at the self-same moment would all high art be withdrawn and
disappear.
In our own age the state of things is the direct contrary to that which we
have been supposing. While from the universal prevalence of freethinking
in politics—a natural consequence of the reign of religious skepticism—the
whole of life, and especially public life, has ceased to be regarded and
understood in its symbolical character and dignity; while the little of
religious sentiment that still survives is more or less distracted and
secularized by sectarian controversy, and scarcely one inviolable sanctuary
is left for a simple and undoubting faith to shelter in—art and the beautiful
are for a certain portion of the educated classes the only fresh oasis of
divinity amid the surrounding desert of worldliness. It is the last treasure
left to them, and, indeed, prized by them as such, and regarded as the true
palladium of a higher intrinsic life; but this, in its isolated state and by
itself, it never can be.
In this respect the present age may be likened to a noble house, fallen
from its primitive wealth and magnificence into decay and ruin. Its
revenues dissipated by misfortunes, mismanagement and extravagance; its
mansion and domains mortgaged or encumbered with debt, nothing remains
to it but the family jewels. These time-honored heirlooms of better days are
all that it still retains of its former opulence. And even in these many a false
stone has been introduced among the old genuine diamonds; much spurious
metal has been substituted for the sterling gold of antiquity. Apparently,
however, the whole are still preserved as the last relic of a former splendor,
and of a wealth which once seemed inexhaustible. In the same way the
present generation supports its inner and higher life on the mere external
treasures of art, while the great capital of ancient faith, to which among
other excellent fruits that ornament of beauty owed its existence, has by the
great majority been long squandered on the “spirit of the age.”
But the symbolical dress that religion every where assumes constitutes
but one half of its external form. The other consists in the vital and intrinsic
union of all the members and professors of the common faith. Religion can
not by any means be isolated and solitary. It is impossible to think of it as
existing only for the individual. In a word, there is no such thing as religion
in a proper sense without a community. Two or three must at least be united
in a common faith, that its power and efficacy may be visible among them.
And this association is one vital throughout—an inmost bond binding souls
together by a spiritual attraction, and, as it were, enchainment of the several
members.
As the electrical shock traverses instantaneously the entire chain of the
connected links, and the spark which enters at one extremity flashes the
next moment at the other—as a single loadstone will by contact convert any
number of needles into magnets, and elevate them into a new and higher
relation to the whole globe—so is it also in religion. A living
communication from the first origin runs through the whole community. As
in the voltaic pile, composed of alternate layers of two different metals, one
chemical element of the telluric energy or of the vital principle of the air or
atmosphere is emitted or set free on one side and the other on the opposite;
so is it here also in the spiritual chain of faith and in its living reciprocal
action of the different members of this soul-chain—between those who are
active ministers and conductors, or instruments by which it works, and the
others, who in a somewhat passive relation only imbibe the invisible life.
By the one the divine blessing of sanctification and holiness is set in action
and brought to light—developed and confirmed; while by the others grace
is received as the effectual power and gift of salvation.
One remark, however, seems particularly called for in this place. It
appears, from what has been already said, that even revelation and the true
religion itself invariably puts on and is invested with that symbolical garb
which is so consonant and agreeable to the state and nature of humanity.
This being the case, it becomes extremely difficult to form a general
standard by which we may unfalteringly determine what symbols are not
essential, as only serving for the external garb of religion and an intelligible
vehicle of its communications. For this, it is evident, must be governed by
the diversity of individual wants and peculiarities, and must consequently
assume a variable and personal character. If, however, a symbol proceeds
immediately from God, then it must necessarily be essential. It is not only a
type, but an actual substance. To suppose otherwise would be even almost
parallel to presuming to regard the eternal Logos, who is the source of light
and life, of all knowledge and of all being, as a word merely, without innate
energy and substance.
Most natural, therefore, is it (that is to say, most consistent with the
nature of the thing, which however in itself is supernatural,
incomprehensible, and surpasses all conception), that the highest symbol of
the faith, that which forms the principle of communion and the living center
of unity of all Christendom, should have such a character as to be at once a
symbol and also the veritable reality of the thing itself. For inasmuch as on
the altar of this religion of divine love, since the one oblation has long ago
been perfected, no other fire shall again be kindled but the flame of prayer
and of a will directed to and in unison with God; therefore, the act by means
of which that communion of souls which constitutes the essence of all
religion, is maintained and carried on, consists simply in this, that the
essential substance of the divine power and of God’s love to man is given
and received as the wonderful seal of union with Him.[52]
As to the altar itself, how rich or how simple its ornaments ought to be,
is a question which I have already remarked, does not easily admit of any
general solution. If, however, we should attempt to think of Christianity
without an altar, or desire and attempt to establish such a scheme—what
indeed among the vast variety of human conceits and religious theories has
only occurred to a very limited number, and never has and never will
exercise any lasting and decided influence—a Christianity thus divested of
symbols and mysteries would be degraded into a mere philosophical view
and opinion—or at the very best, a school of the kind—any thing, in short,
rather than religion. Even the study of the Bible, if in spite of so sad a state
of things it should still survive, would sink into a mere matter of erudition,
on a level with any other favorite pursuit of antiquarian lore and research.
And if, on the other hand, rising perhaps somewhat higher than a mere
philosophical opinion or the favorite pursuits of erudition, a religious
community, having no altar at all, should pretend to rest entirely on prayer
and spiritual teaching or preaching, such a scheme must presuppose an
immediate inspiration, communicable to all and continuous throughout
time. But such an hypothesis invariably proves the easy and natural
transition to the most frightful fanaticism, of whose pernicious and evil
effects those only who are acquainted with the domestic history of
Mohammedism, among whose modern and ancient sects this idea is
rampant, can form a clear and adequate conception.
In religion, therefore, and that entire union of the inner man and soul
with God which it demands, or at least hopes and desires to bring about as
essential and necessary, and which the higher philosophy of antiquity, no
less than revealed religion, strove and longed to attain, there lies a
something inconceivably sublime and beautiful. Nay, we might almost call
it an impossible result, similar in some degree to that which is involved in
the higher and more intricate of algebraic equations for which there is no
solution, or which, at least, appear to have none till it is actually discovered.
Now this finite, changeable, and in all respects incomplete and in no one
point satisfactorily, or at least not perfectly defined (a) of our own
individual self, with which we are wont to commence the whole of our
thought and life, is to be brought into communion with, or, in other words,
to be equaled to the wholly incomprehensible (x) of the incommunicable
Godhead. How is this possible? By what means is it to be accomplished?
Properly, indeed, our Ego is no such (a), and can not be defined as such
in the wonderful algebraic equation of our inmost life and highest pursuit.
For nowhere does man feel himself to be a first; all things prove him to be
secondary and derivative, wherever it may be that he is to take or seek his
beginning. And not only does the alphabet of our life carry us beyond itself
and toward its end in this incomprehensible (x), but it is also defective at its
commencement, and wants a beginning and the first (a), which ought to
form its very opening. And even the (b) (could this satisfy us) is nowhere
distinctly and clearly to be found such as it is in and by itself, or such even
as it was originally. It is invariably mixed and involved with something else
equally unknown. We have, therefore, in this equation of our life, to do with
two wholly unknown magnitudes—with the incomprehensible (x), and with
the (y). For by the latter sign we will at present designate that which every
where meets and opposes us. For the fact of such an inborn and connatural
obstacle every one will admit, even though he may refuse to explain it by
the evil principle and may be unwilling to receive the explanation which
revelation gives of it.
How, now, is this our (b) to be carried back to its original (a)? How is it
to be set free from this evil (y), and brought into union with the highest (x)?
The answer and solution to this apparently insoluble equation can only be
obtained by one method. In attempting it, we must keep steadily in view the
principle so recently advanced, that the essence of religion consists in the
effectual communication of a higher and living power, which, emanating
from the first and original point, traverses the whole spiritual chain to its
farthest link. But, in order to illustrate completely this principle, and the
idea which arises from it, of a satisfactory solution of this problem, I will
indulge myself in a brief but episodical explanation of the Egyptian
hieroglyphics, as furnishing the most suitable example for my purpose. For,
inasmuch as the symbolical nature and constitution of the human, and,
indeed, of all mortal existence, was the main subject which opened, and has
occupied our present consideration, it may be regarded as the natural
complement and keystone to the whole discussion, if, in addition to what
has preceded, we go on briefly to examine how and in what sense the oldest
writing and earliest method employed by men for the communication of
their ideas was symbolical.
Of the languages of Western Asia, at least, and of the alphabets derived
therefrom, the Hebrew, viz., the Phœnician and the Greek, it may without
hesitation be asserted, that they were derived from hieroglyphics, and are,
without exception, of hieroglyphic origin. This can not be asserted as
decidedly of the Indian alphabet, which differs so totally from all those
previously mentioned. Still I shall not allow myself, simply on this account,
to come over hastily to any conclusion as to the comparative antiquity of
the Hindoo and the Egyptian modes of writing.
Now, according to all that we know of the hieroglyphical mode of
indicating objects, it rests on a very simple principle. The discovery which
was in so remarkable a manner reserved to our own age, is not indeed
complete, and leaves much still to be explained. The fundamental principle,
nevertheless, is well established. From this it appears that the hieroglyphic
system of Egypt, although entirely symbolical, contains, notwithstanding,
the germ of alphabetical writing. As the principle of hieroglyphical writing
is equally applicable to modern languages as to the Egyptian, a German
word will serve us as well for an example, and for the purposes of our
illustration, as any other. Preliminary, however, it is necessary to observe,
that in this mode of notation the leading characters and essential elements
of the radical sound are alone indicated; such vowels and consonants as are
quiescent, or servile, are omitted, and being without any special signs are
left to be mentally supplied.
To take, then, a German word for our example. The word Leben (life)
would be signified by its three principal characters. Now, the first letter
would be indicated by Licht (a flaming light), because this word also begins
with L, Baum (a tree) would stand for B, while N would be represented by
any kind of Nass (fluid), by a rapid waterfall, for instance, or by a waving
line, as a type of its moving and undulating surface. A light, then, a tree, and
an undulating surface, will, by means of the initial letters of our German
terms for them (Licht, Baum, Nass), stand for the word Leben, i.e., life.
Now, from this example, which I have purposely chosen, it will appear
that this hieroglyphical mode of notation and writing, while it was
fundamentally alphabetical, had, nevertheless, at the same time, a
symbolical significance. For a light, or light-giving flame, the tree with its
growth, as well as the flowing stream with its waves or ripples, aptly
express and typify the intrinsic character of life, with its several
characteristics and elements. And it is even this addition of symbolical
coloring and signification which in the otherwise equivocal, and,
consequently, inconvenient, representation of objects by an hieroglyphical
alphabet, constitutes the peculiar difficulty, but, at the same time the mental
attraction of this kind of writing.
 This mode of hieroglyphical representation is not, however, the most
difficult to be understood. Another, so far as it has as yet been found out,
and as progress has been made toward deciphering it, appears to be far
more abstruse and enigmatical. For to understand or to interpret the latter in
any degree, it is almost indispensable to know beforehand what is the object
indicated or intended. In this mode of hieroglyphical notation the image of
an object is made to stand for any other whose name begins with the same
letter, as the word does that designates the former. Thus, to employ the
same instance as before, the picture of a flaming light would by itself stand
for the word and idea of life. This is, if we may so say, a bold play with
algebraic equations, between enigmatical emblems, which are at most but
imperfectly indicated, and which nothing but the intelligence of one well
versed in the system can ever hope to comprehend. Any other, even with the
greatest pains, will scarcely be able to decipher it with any degree of
certainty. And this leads me back again to our former and still unsolved
equation, involving the riddle of human life, and which this simile of the
hieroglyphics was intended to help us to solve.
The hieroglyphical mode of writing is, according to the explanation we
have given of it, a symbolical representation by means of the initial letters
of words. In it and through it even that which is the most ordinary and
common assumes a mystical character, and passes into this wonderful,
imaginative, and emblematical sphere. Now the solution of this general
problem lies even in this: that this (x)—this incomprehensible (x)—as the
eternal Logos of the incommensurable Godhead, became also (a) (that is to
say, took on Him a human life and nature), and is even now fully and really
such. For thus the beginning and the initial letter of the whole alphabet of
human existence, which was so long wanting, although from the very first it
was implied in and was the foundation of the (b), was given anew to it by
God. And now this (b), and every other of the following letters, can attach
themselves in due order and connection, be united with it and even be
equated to it, and being thus equalized, inasmuch as x=a, it also becomes
capable of apprehending the otherwise unattainable (x). And at the same
time it can be entirely set free, at once and forever, from the restlessly
opposing and destructive (-y); since this (y), as opposed to the (x), is merely
a negative quantity, and as such vanishes.
But however we may attempt by means of this or any other scientific or
figurative illustrations to apprehend or to express the ineffable, the fact, and
above all, a living faith in that great verity, that the divine (x) has become a
human (a)—that the eternal Logos actually and really took upon Him the
nature of man, and still retains it, is the point from which a new and higher
life commences. It is the ring which holds together the whole human family
—the first link in the chain of spiritual life, to which all must be referred
and from which all is to proceed.
Thus, then, beginning with the emblematical representations of the fine
arts, and developing the idea through several other spheres of its
manifestation, I have carried the symbolical significance of human life up
to the highest hieroglyphic of all existence. And as in the three previous
Lectures I have considered the eternal Word, simply and principally in a
scientific point of view, as the fundamental law of truth, it now remains for
me to exhibit it as the word which shall solve all difficulties in the problem
of human existence, and shall prove an unerring guide in the conflict of life
and in all its most important relations and perplexities. And to this subject
the three last and concluding Lectures will be devoted. And in these we
shall consider all this in its reference to the external and public life of man
in society and the state. For not only does it hold true of the higher pursuits
and inmost being of individuals, but it has also a universal application; for
this highest of all hieroglyphics, which is the beginning of a new life, forms
also the foundation of the state in its sacred character.
And because the application of Christian truth and of the fundamental
idea of Christianity is in general so greatly mistaken, I have thought it
necessary to remount somewhat higher in my investigations, to draw from a
deeper source, and to connect them with a higher principle, in order to
arrive more steadily and more certainly at the result which I had in view.
And this result may be thus summed up: The Christian state is nothing less
than symbolical, and even thereby historically sanctified—whereas the
mere polity of nature or that of reason, which, however artistical and
consummate in its constitution, remains all the while false and unsanctified,
is either purely dynamical or else absolute.
In human life and society there are three species of power, which possess
a symbolical significance and a sacred character as resting on a divine
foundation. And these are parental authority, the spiritual or priestly power,
and the kingly or whatever may be the supreme authority in the state. The
affectionate care and anxiety of an earthly parent possesses but a faint
analogy to the goodness and providence of the omniscient and eternal
Father of all, and is scarcely more than a type of it. Moreover, the parental
authority and a father’s rights over his children, founded on his relation as
the loving and affectionate author of their being, admits not of being set
forth and comprised in any exact and positive formularies. And even if the
social community occasionally steps in to determine by legislation the
limits, and in certain points gives its sanction to the domestic rights and
authority of a father, as founded on love and feeling, this is only done,
nevertheless, with a view to guard against and to remedy the possible abuse
of so natural a right and relation. When, however, as was the principle of
the old Roman law, power over the life and death of his offspring is
conceded to the father, we feel at once that this is an undue extension of the
paternal authority, and that the provinces of the three different powers are
not kept duly distinct and separate. A parent who should avail himself of
such a privilege would but prove himself devoid of the ordinary feelings of
nature. On the other hand, by a natural sentiment, common to the savage
and barbarian, as well as to the most refined and civilized nations, respect
for and reverence of parents is held to be something more than an ordinary
and conventional duty and obligation. It is universally regarded in the light
of a duty in every sense sacred and holy. And the divine moral law of the
Old Testament completely agrees with the universal feeling of man’s nature
in this ascription to it of holiness. But, on the other hand, the rights of the
Christian limit the parent’s authority on the side of the spiritual domain,
wherever it would trench upon the freedom of belief and liberty of
conscience. Special circumstances, again, such as the dotage of old age,
mental weakness, faults of character, or offenses against society, may, in
certain cases, tend greatly to limit and control, or otherwise modify, the
parental dignity and authority. But still, in the very worst case, the most
respectful behavior and the tenderest delicacy, on all points connected with
this relationship, remains forever an immutable law of duty to the child,
which, as it is deeply founded in the moral sense of man, makes itself heard
throughout the whole habitable world. The mutual tie of parental love and
filial duty has, it is plain, its foundations deep in nature itself, and out of it
proceeds the sanctity of the very notion of domestic life, and of all its
relations, as well as of the peculiar authority of a father and a parent.
As for the spiritual and priestly power: wherever religion recognizes the
priest in his true character—i.e., not simply as the preacher and
promulgator, but also as the living channel for dispensing and
communicating the divine grace, he is, in so far as his office is concerned,
and in the discharge of his sacerdotal functions, a vicegerent of God—not
so much, perhaps, of the everlasting Father, the Creator and Lawgiver of
nature, as of the Son who came down into the world to ransom and redeem
the human race. The priestly or spiritual power, therefore, has a divine
foundation on which it ultimately rests. But inasmuch as that bond of
communion which unites our souls with God must be sought and attained
by faith and in the spirit of faith, so this authority, however holy in itself, is,
nevertheless, by its very nature, confined to the province of spirituals.
The judicial function, also, where it is recognized as dogmatic, is at least
subordinate to that other character whose office it is to carry out the work of
redemption, to dispense the divine grace, and to bless. For an arbitrary
judicial power, where internal caprice is the rule of judgment, and where the
execution of its decrees depends on the individual, does not in strict truth
deserve this appellation. With as much reason might the anointed head of
the state claim, by virtue of this consecrating and anointing, to exercise the
functions of the spiritual office.
Further, we may observe, all these sacred offices possess a certain
analogy and affinity one with the other. This fact, however, does not in any
way militate against the essential and necessary duty of preserving a precise
and accurate separation of their several functions. The privacy of home, the
family circle, and the relations of domestic life, are by the laws of most
nations regarded as a sanctuary which the external power of the state ought
not lightly and without grave necessity to violate or profane. On the other
hand, in ordinary language paternal titles are ascribed to the other two
powers. But as regards spiritual personages, this is a mere mark of respect,
while, as applied to the head of the state, it serves to indicate a special
character of goodness and clemency in the government. It is not by any
means applicable generally to the functions of government as marking its
specific nature and essence. For it may not be, nay, perhaps, we should
rather say it can not in all cases be simply and purely paternal.
Strict impartiality, for instance, is a primary requisition in the judge, but
is it possible, nay, would it properly be just, to require this in every case of a
father? The judicial character, however, is the predominant element of
political government, and the supreme judicial function is its essential
aspect, with which all the other distinctive characteristics or exclusive
prerogatives of sovereign power are most intimately connected. And on this
account, while the paternal authority rests primarily on that tie of souls
which consists in the reciprocal affection of parents and children, and while
the priestly power is limited to the sacerdotal and spiritual domain, the
supreme judicial and sovereign power in the state, which is responsible to
God alone, as the highest and paramount of these three sacred and
venerated powers, embraces the complete whole, if I may so say, the bodily
reality of man’s public life. And in this sphere of historical reality it will be
my endeavor to trace the further development of these three ideas as they
manifest themselves in the busy conflict of life and the age. And to this
subject I propose to devote the three following Lectures.
In concluding our present disquisition I will only add one remark. All
these three powers, as founded on nature, on divine revelation, and on
historical rights, are alike holy and sacred. The good, that is to say, the
prudent and affectionate father, the pious priest, and the righteous king, are
each and all, though in different ways and degrees, and with different
powers and rights, visible and acting vicegerents on earth of the invisible
God. The last, in truth, is not merely the representative but the unlimited
dispenser of divine justice. And this divine foundation of these powers,
which claim and present an inviolable character of sanctity, forms the
practical part of that symbolical signification of life which in its highest
phase has formed the theme of the present Lecture.

LECTURE XIII.

OF THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND LIFE IN ITS APPLICATION TO POLITICS, OR

OF THE CHRISTIAN CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE AND THE CHRISTIAN
IDEA OF JURISPRUDENCE.

THE Asiatic custom of deifying their earthly rulers by addressing them as

King of Kings, Lord or Spanner [Umspanner] of Creation, the Effulgence
of the Deity, and the like, have ever been and very naturally most repugnant
to the moral sense of Christian Europe. The Christian notion and axiom,
that all power is of God, is founded on a very definite idea and well-
considered principle. And this principle is nothing less than this, that the
supreme head of the state has to dispense the divine justice. And while this
constitutes the peculiar dignity of his office, he is, in the exercise of this his
highest function and authority, responsible to God alone. If, however, we
should any where meet, either in the present times or the history of the past,
with a state in which, by the principle of its constitutions, the nominal
possessor of supreme authority and the executive is responsible to another
body, then is the latter in fact the sovereign power, and not the former,
which really is subordinate to the other. The Spartan constitution will serve
to illustrate my meaning. Here, to judge by that strict definition of the
sovereign authority and its peculiar character and distinctive criteria, it
evidently lay in the Ephori rather than in the possessors of supreme
executive power, who were called kings, and whose office was hereditary.
The very fact that two kings reigned conjointly is of itself subversive of the
very notion of sovereign power. But still more fatally was this undermined
by their responsibility in certain cases to the censorship of the other Spartan
magistracy. To the other ancient republics, whose constitution was based
naturally enough on a very artificial division of powers, and the
maintenance of a certain antagonism and accurate balance between them,
our notion of a supreme and sovereign political authority is scarcely
applicable. It is found far more fully expressed in a special character of
inviolable sanctity and dignity attaching to certain judicial functions and
magistracies, such as that of the Areopagus in Athens and of the censorship
at Rome in the days of the Republic, than to the transitory tenure of the
executive power, over which those judicial authorities possessed and
exercised in certain cases a control.
The proper and de facto, or personal division of power, is essentially a
republican principle. In notion, however, or in idea, it is perfectly legitimate
to make a distinction between the several functions and elements of the
whole sovereign authority. Now, in such a case, the judicial power—the
supreme judicial power we would emphatically say—is pre-eminently the
characteristic sign and specific distinction of sovereignty, from which all its
other prerogatives and properties are originally derived or flow from it as its
necessary and natural consequences. The noble prerogative of pardon and
mercy, for instance, is, as it were, the natural attribute of the supreme
judicial power.
With respect to legislation, however, and the legislative authority, an
important co-ordinate power may, according to the existing constitution of a
particular state, be vested in the other correlative members of the body
politic. The preliminary deliberation, the first sketch or the initiation of a
law, may not, perhaps, proceed in every case from the supreme head of the
community. In other states, again, the law must emanate from the free
choice and individual will of the monarch, or at least the introduction of it,
since he can not of himself alone make and carry out the whole. This is a
point, consequently, on which it is extremely difficult to draw the boundary
line, which must in no case be transgressed or deviated from—in so far, that
is, and so long as there is no question about any thing more than a simple
co-operation or co-ordinate deliberation upon the proposed laws. But still in
every case the final sanction, by which a law becomes properly the law, or
by which it is annulled or repealed, must be reserved to the royal
prerogative, otherwise the monarch ceases at once to be supreme.
Even the prerogative of proclaiming war and of concluding peace is, if
perhaps we may be allowed so to say, a judicial function on a large scale,
and applied to the external relations of states. It is, in short, nothing less
than a judicial act. And in this light it will appear to every one who does not
regard it as a mere act of arbitrary caprice. This, however, it never ought to
be. For it is, as it were, a verdict on the existing relations of right and wrong
between two neighboring states. But in as much as both parties, in point of
right and law, are in so far equal, that they refuse to recognize in common
any higher judge, an absolute state of violence necessarily ensues, a
struggle of power follows, until at last, in the change of circumstances, the
relations of justice are restored by mutual consent. The party that first
proclaims war becomes, in this process of trial by battle, the judge of its
own cause. And if by the fearful issue of the combat it is taught to see its
own injustice, then must it either make due concessions, or, at very best, by
calling in the mediation of a third and neutral state, it must constitute it the
judge by whose decision it is ready and willing to abide.
The usual insignia of the kingly dignity, the scepter and the throne, are
only the signs of judicial power, as it were, promoted one degree higher,
and can be historically traced up to the judge’s bench and staff. The crown
alone remains as the peculiar and exclusive symbol of the highest earthly
dignity. And rightly is it called a splendid burden. For while it exalts him
who is called to wear it above all earthly dependence and responsibility, and
exempts him from all the ordinary relations of human life, the heavy weight
of this splendid ornament reminds the wearer of the grave reckoning and
the strict account he will have to render to God, as the Supreme Judge of all
—who is the source and sum of all justice and righteousness. For this
serious and solemn responsibility is received from God, together and at the
very same time with the crown.
Quite different in signification was the symbolical ensign of the old
emperors in the middle ages—a sword pointing to the four winds or
cardinal points of heaven. It alluded to the peculiar idea and the peculiar
constitution of that dignity. For in this respect it was not simply a
distinction of power, of rank, or of title, between the imperial and the kingly
dignities. It involved a total and essential difference between the ideas and
objects of these sacred and anointed potentates—between the elective
emperor and the hereditary king, duke, or prince, although it was from these
alone that the former could be duly and regularly elected. For the emperor
was looked upon as armed with the sword of all Christendom to be the
defender of the whole system of European states. Accordingly, as the
representative of the union of several states, he bore this ensign of his
imperial office.
To this ancient idea of a Christian empire we shall again have occasion
to revert in the further examination of the idea of a political state and its
Christian community. We shall meet with it once more in that section of our
inquiry which will be occupied with the ruling principle of right and polity
in a system of states as a body, and also in the mutual relations of its several
members. In this section we shall also show that this principle must be
either absolute, that is, one where one or more of the several members of
the union exercises a superior and preponderating influence, or one
artificially constituted and dynamical, i.e., a system of the so-called balance
of power. And here will naturally arise the question whether, for such a
confederacy of moral and civilized societies and nations, a less imperfect
and higher, but common principle of Christian justice might not be found
and established? For any system of mutual confederation, whether absolute
or founded on the artificial relations of the strength of its respective
members, is in any case defective and imperfect, whatever may be the
ground of union, whether founded on the internal constitution of the states,
or derived from the physical consideration of their geographical position
and neighborhood.
According, then, to that divine principle and Christian foundation of the
state which I have attempted to derive from the symbolical signification of
life and the symbolical destiny of man in his relation to God, the highest
authority of the state—the king, or generally the monarch, as well as the
spiritual functionary, or the priest—are the vicegerents of a highest and
divine power, whom they represent on earth. The only difference between
them is, that the latter has chiefly to represent and to set forth God as
teaching men, but at the same time as warning and commanding them in
this revelation of His will, and as promising and as livingly dispensing to
them His grace, while the former is the representative of the Omnipotent
Lawgiver and Judge, who governs the world with justice, and will by no
means clear the guilty. According, therefore, to the true Christian notion of
these two powers, both of them—the civil no less than the spiritual—
possess a representative character, which, however, deviates very widely
from the ordinary notion of the representation and a representative
constitution, or, rather, forms a decided contrast to them.
And what contrast can, in fact, be more decided than that which such a
representative power and dignity as belongs to the ministering of the divine
grace to the soul and spirit, or the dispensing of divine justice to the whole
earthly life, forms with that thing of horrible memory,[53] which has been
called a representation of the people, or the systems which have been
similarly designated? But even if it could be satisfactorily proved that a
people, like the invisible essence of the Deity, could be represented, it is
open to very grave doubt whether this is really possible in the method
usually adopted. According to the principle of this kind of popular
representation, where the whole adult population are entitled individually to
vote, the election becomes, as it were, a lottery, and even the political
winners thus determined, or the ballotted members, become so many
influential units in one branch of the legislative body and for a limited
period. In respect, however, to the principles and sentiments, the
predominant character and spirit of a people, those who are thus chosen are
the representatives not so much of the whole nation as of the reigning
passion of the moment, or the spirit of the times in its restless agitation. For
when thus resolved into its constituent atoms and numbered off in
succession, a nation is reduced to an elementary mass. But like all that is
thus elementary, when thus decomposed, and fermenting in its process of
dissolution, it assumes a destructive tendency and turn. At least it ceases to
form an organic whole, an individual. It is only when a state or a nation
historically lives on, further develops and vitally maintains itself in its
organic members, i.e., in its several estates or essential corporations, that it
can be said to form a living whole, and to be, as it were, one great
individual.
It is only in this sense that there can be true representatives of a people,
who, if the expression is allowable, are its true historical men. It is in them
that the spirit and character, the general leaning tendency, the peculiar style
of feeling, sentiment, and thought of a nation, in any definite period or
periods, finds its most decided and loudest expression. Rarely, however, is
this attained in a system of elective deputies or representatives, which is
liable to many passing and accidental influences, and, indeed, in and by
itself has no connection with it. Scipio and Cato would be representatives of
the Roman character and spirit, even if they had never been invested with
public authority and had lived their whole lives in exile. And in the same
manner purely intellectual natures may often stand for such historical
characters and representatives. Horace and Tacitus most assuredly occupy
the same relation to their respective ages as the two former did to theirs, and
this, in truth, quite independently of any subordinate rank or political
dignity and influence which either the one or the other possessed in peace
or war. Cicero, indeed, would have been all this in an equal degree, and,
perhaps, still more so, if, keeping entirely aloof from the civil contentions
of his day, for which he was little suited, he had devoted himself to the
acquisition of a purely intellectual and literary influence.
However, it is not every famous author or every brilliant political
speaker that can in this sense be justly regarded as historical characters.
Besides that energy of talent which creates an epoch, and which is, indeed,
the primary and essential condition, certain other properties of character are
required, certain sentiments and principles vividly carried out and realized
in life and action. But this is a combination which is rarely found. A
peculiar sphere of practical influence does not form an immediate, nor,
indeed, a necessary qualification of such a character. Still it is evident that a
writer who truly merits such an appellation must be something more than a
mere man of letters or an artist. The effects he produces on the minds of
men must be both truly national and historical. Such alone are truly and
properly the historical representatives of a people—the men of their nation.
As for those other elective representatives already mentioned, it is only
when they belong to a particular estate and corporation, and represent it,
that they can promote the permanent interests of this organically constituted
whole. For it is out of such organic members that the national existence
gains its true, i.e., its historical development. But this is impossible
whenever they are chosen by the individual votes of the entire population.
Such a splitting of the whole political body, as it were, into its constituent
atoms, is either in itself an elementary decomposition or must eventually
lead to it. Even a republican constitution, if it be well and wisely ordered,
will be based principally on corporations or organic division of estates,
rather than on any principle of numerical majority and equality, which,
taken as a general element, invariably proves, as history testifies, sooner or
later, a positive source of anarchy.
Not only would it be an exaggeration, but even a gross error, were we to
regard the republican polity as excluded from the Christian principle, that
all sovereignty is of God, or as irreconcilable with it and even as directly
contradicting its spirit. On the contrary, the duty of obedience and the actual
dependence on the existing and de facto head of the state, is not less binding
on all who, through the accident of birth or their own free choice and
voluntary obligation, belong to such a community, than on the subjects of
an hereditary monarchy. The utmost that can be safely asserted is, that the
Christian state principally inclines to the latter form of polity, without,
however, formally rejecting, or unconditionally excluding the former.
Historical experience has shown this, and the whole of modern history will
furnish abundant testimony to its truth. When the responsibility of the
supreme political authority is in an endless circle shifted from point to point
of a mere human sphere, then the sacred character of the divine foundation
of the state exhibits itself with least distinctness. It is more immediately
manifest in an hereditary monarchy, where, by a single point, as the first
link which holds together the whole community, this responsibility is
attached immediately to God and the divine justice, before whose tribunal it
has alone to answer. And this more immediate manifestation forms the
ground of that preponderating tendency and preference of the monarchical
constitution by the Christian principle.
But in another respect, also, is it easier to give a religious meaning to
political life in an hereditary monarchy, and to discharge its duties and to
maintain it in a religious spirit, than in a republic. Since all that is human is
subject to change, fluctuation, and imperfection, it would be something
wonderful if the case were different with political matters, and if the state
were to form a singular exception from the general rule. Such an
expectation would, indeed, be strange, and contrary to the nature of things,
as well as to reason and common sense. For, to take an instance from that
people whom God so specially and immediately led and directed; after a
wise Solomon has long and peacefully occupied the throne, with prosperity
at home and splendor and renown abroad, the reins of government may fall
into the weak hands of a minor, when, even without any personal
culpability, all hostile elements come to an outbreak, and lead to the most
fearful political consequences. And even Solomon, with a wisdom which, in
many respects, was more than human, was not secure from all mistakes and
errors. For inasmuch as, after receiving this illumination from above, this
wisdom lent to him from God, he still remained a free agent, he might, as
he actually did, pervert it to an evil use. Like every thing else that is good, it
was liable to abuse by man. Generally it does not lie in the nature of things
that in long succession and change of times one reign should be equally
mild and paternal as another—equally prosperous and splendid—and
equally wise and successful.
This, indeed, is a matter which does not depend invariably and
exclusively on the personal qualities of the sovereign. It is governed much
more by the peculiar circumstances of the age, and the general relations of
the political world. We should err greatly if we were to suppose, or feel
inclined to assert, that this change, from happy and prosperous to adverse or
less fortunate times, is less frequent in republican states, or that the latter
are entirely exempted from such fluctuations. History furnishes numerous
instances to refute so absurd an idea. On the contrary, such changes are far
more generally the rule in republican states, and their ruin advances with a
more rapid and certain progress. For the growth of a republic in external
power and influence, and the consequent multiplication of its relations with
foreign powers, is invariably accompanied with great internal agitation,
leading to sudden and violent changes. The greatest and most important
difference, however, lies in this, that in an hereditary monarchy the change
from a distinguished to an unfortunate and less prosperous reign is distinct,
and has an assignable cause, which, by a natural and just sentiment, is
received as a divine visitation, and wherever any sense of religion still
survives and prevails in men’s views of life, will be patiently endured as
such. Accordingly, besides its mere legal sense, the maxim that all authority
is of God now assumes the further significance of a divine dispensation.
And it is clearly manifest that this Christian maxim and principle was
intended to convey this second meaning, and that it embraces such a
religious view and estimate of political matters and events.
Now, it is true that the providence of God extends to all events and
circumstances of the world. Every permission, therefore, of evil, whether in
a greater or less degree, every misfortune and calamity that happens to us,
must, from this point of view, be regarded either as a well-merited
punishment or as a severe trial, as a wholesome pang and conflict or as a
painful transition to a higher degree of perfection. This, at least, will be our
feeling, in proportion as we entertain and faithfully follow a religious view
and estimate of our own life and fortunes, as well as of all mundane events,
in a firm and unshaken faith in the Divine Omnipotence and Wisdom. Even
for the preservation and health of his physical life, man stands in need of
pain and privation, but still more so for his moral improvement.
Now, notwithstanding that this principle of a divine providence is
equally applicable in every case, still, even the religious estimate, not to say
a simply human mode of judging of political events and relations, is in
republics subject to the following important and essential modification. In
such a constitution, all hangs, or is made dependent, on the choice or the
caprice of men, or, if such terms be preferred, their merit and intelligence.
Consequently, the entire blame of every error or miscarriage in government,
whether real or imaginary, and however great or little, is forthwith ascribed
to its human administrators. But an injury at the hands of man invariably
provokes bitterness, revenge, and opposition. On the contrary, a misfortune
which overtakes us from God, and which, as being unable to impute the
blame of it to any human individual, we feel and recognize to be a divine
visitation, awakens in us wholesome and salutary reflection. Thus it is
founded on the very nature of things, and on a right and sound state of
human feeling, that a change from a year of plenty to one of want and
barrenness should be borne with patience and resignation. But if, on the
other hand, a general scarcity and dearth, or any similar affliction and
disproportion between the supply and demand of the necessaries of life,
should occur among a trading or manufacturing population, of which the
source should really or apparently lie in some erroneous measure or selfish
policy of those on whom the administration of the state devolved, all minds
would immediately be in a state of excitement and uproar. And, in fact, the
words of the pious king in Holy Writ: “Let us fall now into the hands of the
Lord, for His mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of
man,”[54] are quite in unison with the general feelings of human nature.
Accordingly, throughout the sacred history of the old world, and in all
times where religious sentiment is not quite dead, such calamities, and even
an unfortunate, not to say a wicked reign, are looked upon as the deserved
visitation of God’s wrath, and as a time of heavy trial. And the chastisement
of Heaven will be borne, by all right-thinking persons, not out of fear of
man, but as is fitting, in reverent submission to the divine will, with manly
patience and resignation. On the other hand, innumerable instances of a
contrary course might be produced from republican times and histories.
How often, in such states, has a false step in government, trifling, indeed, in
itself, but still in fact and in truth, a blunder in one party, been the occasion
of an opposition and resistance of another, and of a general feeling of
discontent and a violent reaction, which have proved a hundred times more
fatal and pernicious than the first occasion of popular murmurs. How often
has a merely human oversight, trivial enough in itself, and running counter
to public opinion in some little trifle, led to the most fearful catastrophes,
amid which the first exciting cause is lost sight of and entirely forgotten,
and finally all is involved in one general ruin.
In this respect, and in this degree, it may safely be affirmed that the
Christian principle of the state is more favorable to an hereditary monarchy
than to a republican constitution. But at this point the proposition must be
left purposely indeterminate. For a rigorous exclusion of all republican
states, as if, properly, they could never be right and legitimate, would most
assuredly not be accordant with the Christian principle of a state and the
fundamental religious conception of all political relations and events. On
the contrary, it would, undoubtedly, go directly counter to all proper
feelings and ideas on the subject. For the Christian principle of justice
respects all that has an historical existence, and leaves even the imperfect in
the undisturbed possession of its rights. In this respect it is entirely opposed
to the revolutionary spirit. For the latter, in its inmost essence, is anti-
historical; its first step being the refusal to recognize the value and the
claims of all that comes down from, and has been established by, the past.
And, moreover, the Christian idea of justice, with all its strict rigor, involves
a principle of equity. For, in truth, every Christian sentiment embraces the
whole of life, and its several relations, with a loving mildness, and pays a
due regard to all really existent though subordinate circumstances. And it is
this exactly that constitutes the very notion of equity. Lastly, the doctrine of
Christianity, and the idea of human life which it gives rise to, is highly
favorable to true liberty. But, then, it is liberty, in a large and exalted sense
of the term, in which, first and before all, a spiritual and moral freedom is
meant as necessary to be firmly established within men before the external
liberty in social and political life can be hoped for. For most true is the
sublime declaration, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free
indeed.”[55] To every one for whom this sentiment possesses a meaning and
significance it would be superfluous to add, what, indeed, is so palpably
evident, that the Son makes no one free except in the way that He Himself
was, viz., by obedience—a perfect obedience which brings the whole man,
with all its passions and affections, as a free-will offering to the Father.
The predominant tendency of modern Christendom to a monarchical
constitution, as most accordant with the Christian principle of the state, is
abundantly evinced in history. The fact is so generally admitted, that it is
almost a work of supererogation to adduce instances of it. Not only within
the memory of living men, but also two centuries ago, a great Christian
monarchy, fanatically possessed and inflamed with the idea of absolute
liberty and equality, lapsed for a while into a republic. But in both cases this
passing fever of fanaticism soon worked itself out by its very violence, and
the foreign and diseased matter was thrown off by the political body. It was
out of this crisis, however, that the much-lauded constitution of England
arose, with its dynamical theory of the division and nicely-adjusted balance
of power, which has reached at present so great a height of practical
excellence. Moreover, it is almost superfluous to notice the fact how a
second-rate maritime power, which in its very origin was entirely
republican, gradually approximated to, and has at last entirely adopted, a
monarchical polity.[56] Another state, monarchical indeed, but which, from
the fact that its sovereigns were elective, deserves rather to be called a
republic, and in some respects was really so, amid the anarchy of party and
the feuds which arose out of the elections, soon lost its ancient greatness
and splendor, and even its existence as an independent nation. In short, in
the whole of Christian Europe, but a few small and uninfluential
communities have retained a republican form. As for the republics which
have sprung up out of the colonial states in the New World, the very oldest
of them are of too recent an origin to allow us to pass upon them any
judgment which could be justly and truly called historical. On the other
hand, however, the modern Christian era furnishes one remarkable
phenomenon of a republican state on a large scale, and of a wholly peculiar
kind. And we may adduce this instance as a proof that such a constitution is
by no means excluded from the spirit of a Christian polity or its legitimate
and historical principle.
 I am alluding to the ancient German, or the Christian Roman Empire of
the middle ages, during a period of many centuries, and in the time of its
vigor and splendor, when it led, not to say, formed, the great political world.
[57] As an elective empire, but still monarchical in the unity of the whole, it
possessed so far a republican tendency and shape. And this it preserved
even long afterward, when, by a long succession of emperors of the same
house, the imperial crown had in fact become almost the hereditary right of
a single family; for the solemn sanction of an election was still
indispensable, and this gave rise to more than one exception or interruption
to the otherwise historically confirmed law of succession. Moreover, this
great system or confederation of states embraced many smaller and
principally republican states; at least in its members were comprised every
possible form of political constitution. The four great dukedoms, who in the
imperial diet were the original representatives, together with the other
hereditary powers which subsequently attained to the electoral dignity,
formed, as it were, the monarchical element in the whole body, retaining,
however, at the same time, its national and popular character. Alongside of
these the spiritual princes, as entirely dependent on choice and election for
their dignities, formed an aristocracy, not only of birth, but of science and
the intellectual culture of the age—in short, an aristocracy of merit. Lastly,
the trading and manufacturing free towns, with their imperial privileges and
charters, formed, among the other members of the Empire, a true
democratical element, in the highest and noblest sense of the term. For we
must not understand thereby any mere universal equality, leading to the
usual popular anarchy, but corporations, with well-defined rights, of the
burgher classes, as they attained to historical importance and influence. The
very name of the Hanse Towns is sufficient to remind us of the vast and
important part which the latter played, even in the declining times of the
Empire.
Thus free and republican in its spirit was the old Christian monarchy of
the German Kaisers. It had no doubt to undergo many convulsions from
domestic faction, and, finally sunk beneath them. Still this political
constitution of the middle ages, in their best days, must forever remain a
remarkable and singular phenomenon. Its full and deep significance and
grandeur are little recognized, and still less perfectly understood, by the
modern science of politics. Peculiarly Christian in principle, in its kingly
administration as vigorous and successful as any other state in the most
brilliant eras of the history of the world, while in the internal development
of its republican members and constituents it was more rich and varied, and,
in truth, much freer than even the most lauded among the mixed
constitutions of modern times. For historical experience, that great teacher
of political science, distinctly proves that in those dynamical states, which
are based on the principle of the division and nicely-adjusted balance of
power, the ministry and the opposition usurp between them all the functions
of authority, while the sacred cipher of an hereditary monarch is nothing
more than a mere shadow, beneath which they can sit at ease to carry on
their endless disputes.
The Christian view, then, of the world, and of the state, as we have
already remarked, does not exclude or reject any form of political existence.
On the contrary, it recognizes whatever possesses an historical cause and
foundation, and allows it to stand in its proper place, and in its true and
original significance and rights. Accordingly, it admits the validity as such
even of the dynamical form of polity, even though it feels it impossible to
agree with partial and enthusiastic admirers in considering it as perfect.
Nay, it does not reject even an absolute despotism, notwithstanding that it
sees clearly enough all its imperfections and great inferiority. It is only by a
complete view of history that their existence can be explained and
understood. And in this they will appear either as a necessary evil in its
mildest form, i.e., as the less pernicious and dangerous, under existing
circumstances, or as a remedy for some more fearful disorder, by which
alone the social frame can be restored to a more healthy condition.
The usual transition and natural issue of popular anarchy, when it has
lasted long enough to exhaust its own fearful violence, is a perpetual
dictatorship or despotism in some shape or other, but devoid of a higher and
diviner sanction. This form of government, or (since, strictly speaking, it is
not a form) this political condition, must be carefully distinguished from a
long-established, legitimate, and hereditary monarchy, with which its whole
character has nothing in common. No doubt when the revolutionary evil has
reached its greatest height, and when a successful and prudent usurper, like
the much-lauded Augustus in ancient Rome, without being personally
answerable for the overthrow of the previous constitution, appears pre-
eminently in the character of mediator between parties and a general
pacificator, the world is ready to accord to him its applause. Gradually his
authority is more and more widely acknowledged. Although at first he is
recognized conditionally only and relatively, nevertheless, if he remains
faithful to his better tendencies, and continues to the last to confer important
benefits on his people, he may often give a permanent and historical
foundation to his dynasty. But if, on the contrary, under his usurped power,
revolution, phenix-like, only renews itself out of its own ashes, and the old
anarchy from below revives in another form from above, as a merely
military despotism, which, in its resistless and annihilating lust of conquest,
honors nothing, but throws the whole world into confusion, then is the
second evil worse than the first, which it promised to remedy. By such a
course it loses its only moral foundation, inasmuch as it was to the better
promise it held out that it owed its temporary and conditional recognition.
Such an instance has been brought closely enough before our eyes in the
history of very recent times, to enable us at once intuitively to understand
its whole character. More slowly, and in a more organized method, and,
consequently, with more lasting and historical results, did such transitions
shape themselves in the ancient world, and especially in the Roman
constitution. The ancient development, therefore, of this phenomenon, and
its special form, is highly instructive and pre-eminently calculated to throw
a clear light on our whole theory.
Modern history at no period presents to us such a vast system of
republican states as we meet with in the annals of antiquity, which exhibit
this under the most various forms, as the predominant constitution of the
whole civilized world, not only in its infant, but in its maturest and most
flourishing development. Not only the Grecian communities, Carthage,
Rome, and the Italian municipalities, but also all the independent nations of
central and northern Europe, possessed a more or less perfect form of
republican polity. This portion, therefore, of ancient history furnishes to
political science a phenomenon which in the highest degree demands its
attention. However greatly its freedom of inquiry and high intellectual
culture, its splendid examples of patriotism and its noble characters and
heroic deeds, may prepossess us in its favor, on the whole we are forced to
confess that experience has decided against such a system. This great
teacher shows it to us as utterly impracticable, and ill adapted to promote
the real progress of human development, inasmuch as with whatever of
brightest promise it may begin, it invariably terminates in barbarism and
disorder. In all of these states we trace early enough the same evil tendency
to political license and anarchy, which, developing itself with ceaseless
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