Res publica Christiana
In medieval and early modern Western political thought, the respublica or res publica Christiana refers to the international community of Christian peoples and states. As a Latin phrase, res publica Christiana combines Christianity with the originally Roman idea of the res publica ("republic" or "commonwealth") to describe this community and its well-being. A single English word with somewhat comparable meaning is Christendom; it is also translated as "the Christian Commonwealth".[1]
History
Late antique and medieval use
The concept of a res publica Christiana is first attested in Augustine of Hippo, whose early 5th century work The City of God contrasted the Christian church favourably against the claims of the Roman Empire to constitute a res publica, a republic or commonwealth. He challenged Rome's legitimacy as a state established for the public good on the grounds that its empire had been won by force and not by justice; by contrast, he claimed, the Christian church was a true res publica, founded for the good of humanity. In another work, De opere monachorum, Augustine stated explicitly that "there is one commonwealth of all Christians" ("omnium enim christianorum una respublica est").[2]
Despite Augustine's distinction, in subsequent usage the imperial and ecclesiastical res publica blended together. Thus in the late antique and early medieval period, from the Byzantine Papacy of the 6th century to the turn of the 11th, the papal chancery used the term res publica Christiana mainly to refer to the Christian empire: first the Byzantine Empire in the east, then, from 800, the Carolingian or Holy Roman Empire in the west. The re-establishment of empire in the west subsequently led the popes to use the term in letters of exhortation to Frankish kings who did not necessarily bear the title of emperor themselves,[3] as for example Pope John VIII writing to King Louis the Stammerer in 878 of the "state of the Christian religion and commonwealth" ("statu Christiane religionis ac rei publicae").[4]
By the 11th century, the term had been generalized through application in different political contexts to mean the totality of Christian states as a community under the leadership of the pope—the primary sense it retained in the Middle Ages from this time on.
Renaissance reconceptualization
Although it designated a key concept in medieval political thought, until the 15th century the term res publica Christiana itself remained relatively rare compared to alternatives without a specifically political meaning, such as Christianitas. It was only in the
In these cases, the term designated Christian Europe as a political community with a shared secular interest. Thus, for the 16th-century humanist jurist Andrea Alciato, different norms of international law applied to non-Christians in Asia and Africa, who were not citizens of the res publica.[11] Equally, the feuds between different European powers were conceived of as internecine civil wars within the commonwealth, distracting Christians from threats to the res publica as a whole.[12] In its elaboration by other 16th-century theorists such as Erasmus and Justus Lipsius, this Renaissance concept of the political res publica Christiana was explicitly pluralist, de-emphasizing the specific political leadership of the pope and replacing the medieval idea of a unitary Christian empire.[8]
Transition to the modern state system
Modern historians of international relations such as Hedley Bull and Cathal J. Nolan have argued that Europe ceased being a res publica Christiana due to the 16th- and 17th-century wars of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and became a "state system" with a sharp separation of church and state.[8][1] The principle of cuius regio, eius religio ("whose realm, his religion"), first formulated at the Peace of Augsburg (1555), was confirmed at the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which gave secular states sovereignty over religions, and rejected any supranational religious authority.[1] The last reference to the res publica Christiana in a state document is found in the Peace of Utrecht (1713)—also the first treaty to contain a reference to the balance of power.[13]
Even as the religious and political unity of Europe disintegrated, however, the res publica Christiana continued to be influential as an alternative model of international relations through the 17th century. The
Later Catholic use
In Catholic theology the res publica Christiana came to refer primarily to the
See also
References
Footnotes
- ^ a b c Nolan 2006, p. 710.
- ^ Ristuccia 2018, pp. 16–17.
- ^ Ristuccia 2018, p. 17.
- ^ Monumenta 1928, p. 126.
- ^ Ristuccia 2018, pp. 17–18.
- ^ Mattingly 1955, p. 18.
- ^ Bhuta 2017, p. 408.
- ^ a b c d Almeida 2003.
- ^ Cerutti 2017.
- ^ Tuck 1999, pp. 28–29.
- ^ Tuck 1999, p. 27.
- ^ Tuck 1999, p. 29.
- ^ Keens-Soper 1978, p. 27.
- ^ Antognazza 2009, p. 528.
- ^ Holland 2003, pp. 64–65.
- ^ Viaene 2001, p. 506.
- ^ Leo XIII 1890.
Bibliography
- Almeida, João Marques de (2003). "The Peace of Westphalia and the Idea of Respublica Christiana". Lisbon: Instituto Português de Relações Internacionais. Archived from the original on 6 June 2010. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
- Antognazza, Maria Rosa (2009). Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80619-0.
- Bhuta, Nehal (2017). "State Theory, State Order, State System—Jus Gentium and the Constitution of Public Power". In Kadelbach, Stefan; Kleinlein, Thomas; Roth-Isigkeit, David (eds.). System, Order, and International Law: The Early History of International Legal Thought from Machiavelli to Hegel. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 398–417. ISBN 978-0-19-881020-9.
- Cerutti, Furio (2017). Conceptualizing Politics: An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-61494-6.
- Holland, Joe (2003). Modern Catholic Social Teaching: The Popes Confront the Industrial Age, 1740–1958. New York and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. ISBN 0-8091-4225-2.
- Keens-Soper, Maurice (1978). "The Practice of a States-System". In Donelan, Michael (ed.). The Reason of States: A Study in International Political Theory. London: George Allen & Unwin. pp. 25–44. ISBN 0-04-320125-3.
- Leo XIII (1890). "Sapientiae Christianae" (in Latin). The Holy See. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
- Mattingly, Garrett (1955). Renaissance Diplomacy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
- Nolan, Cathal J. (2006). The Age of Wars of Religion, 1000–1650: An Encyclopedia of Global Warfare and Civilization. Vol. 2. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-33734-5.
- Ristuccia, Nathan J. (2018). Christianization and Commonwealth in Early Medieval Europe: A Ritual Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-881020-9.
- Society for the Publication of Sources on Germanic Affairs of the Middle Ages (1928). Monumenta Germaniae Historica (in Latin). Vol. Epistolarum 7. Berlin: Weidmann.
- Tuck, Richard (1999). The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820753-0.
- Viaene, Vincent (2001). Belgium and the Holy See from Gregory XVI to Pius IX (1831–1859): Catholic Revival, Society and Politics in 19th-Century Europe. Leuven University Press. ISBN 90-5867-138-0.
Further reading
- Manselli, Raoul (1965). "La res publica cristiana e l'Islam". In Gabrieli, Francesco; et al. (eds.). L'Occidente e l'Islam nell'alto Medioevo. Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'Alto Medioevo (in Italian). Vol. 12. Spoleto, Italy: Presso la sede del Centro.
- Osiander, Andreas (2007). Before the State: Systemic Political Change in the West from the Greeks to the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-829451-1.
- Vismara, Giulio (1974). Impium foedus: le origini della respublica christiana (in Italian). Milan: A. Giuffrè. OCLC 2715277.
External links
- The dictionary definition of respublica Christiana at Wiktionary