'Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above.'"[1] It is not too much to say that mediæval political theory is one branch of the all-embracing theology of the times. Not merely within the circle of imperial ideas, but generally, "the state was held to be an organization willed and created by God."[2] Thus Thomas Aquinas, although he does not greatly appeal to Scripture, regards the political state not as did Augustine as a consequence of the fall, but as a necessary part of the world's life. Law in his estimation was an outflowing of the divine nature.
But the attempt to discover a divine and scriptural basis for the state has been by no means limited to the Middle Ages. There have always been Savonarolas who would make Christ king in their cities, and Cromwells who would establish a kingdom of saints. Throughout the fierce struggles that gave birth to modern Europe and erected in America the United States, armies have repeatedly alternated drill with prayer and fighting with catechizing. One has but to recall such careers as those of Calvin and Zwingli, William of Orange and Winthrop; such extravagances as those at Miinster; such reigns as that of James II. of England; such hereditary hatreds as that between the north and south of Ireland; such legislation as that of Massachusetts Bay, to feel at once that politics have always been profoundly affected by theologies.
But after all, few if any of the theologico-political thinkers of the past have troubled to separate the teaching of Jesus from the general teaching of both Old and New Testaments. It may very well be that in this failure to distinguish, not only between the history of the Jews and the teachings of Christianity, but also between the teaching of Jesus and that of the apostles, men have lost some of the distinction that appears between the aims of Jesus and those of the apostles, as well as between his ideal and their more or less incomplete attempts at realizing such an ideal.
