The Transition from Greco-Roman and Medieval to Modern Political Theories

Abstract

The ideal of an all-embracing education of a person in order to become a good citizen—as it was shaped in the Paideia ideal of classical Greek culture— underwent important transformations during the medieval and early modern period. This article starts with the Greco-Roman conceptions of the Stoa, Cicero and Seneca and subsequently focuses on the split present in the development of medieval views—both within the domain of theoretical reflection and the practical relations between church and state. In addition attention is given to the totalitarian position of Machiavelli, Bodin and Hobbes—placed within the context that even the later theories of Locke and Rousseau merely advanced formal theories of the just state without proving material guarantees for such a state.

Notes

1. Compare, in this connection, his work De Republica (Book 3, Chap. 22) as well as his De Officiis.

2. Dooyeweerd describes the nature of the familia as follows: ‘Each familia was a family community, an economic unit, a miniature state, and a community of worship. Above all, it was the embodiment of the religious authority of the household gods, who represented the communion between the living and dead members of the familia. The head of the familia was usually the oldest male member, the pater familias, who wielded the power of life and death over all—over his wife, his children, his slaves, and his so-called clients. He also presided as the priest’ (Dooyeweerd, 2003, p. 24).

3. ‘… me who God called to the kingdom—not having ever called him to the priesthood’ (Ehler and Morrall, 1954, p. 46).

4. The original form-matter dualism acquires an ambiguous form in the thought of Plotinus. On the one hand, he claims that through the process of emanation the One turns into its opposite: matter. At the same time, he holds that the diminishing radiation coming from the One finds in matter its last form (En. V,8,7,22–23).

5. The earthly state is merely a copy of the City of God which is inherently bad—explaining why it is also designated as Babylon and why its monarch is called Diabolus. It should also be kept in mind that the City of God does not coincide with the temporal church institution, for as sacramental institute of grace, the Corpus Christi (Body of Christ) is elevated above all societal institutions and is intended to encompass the entire life of the Christian.

6. This form of justice assigns certain legal duties to a person, such as military service.

7. Since Thomas Aquinas knew the Stoic-Christian tradition of natural law he attempted to adapt the Aristotelian doctrine to it—but this does not mean that in his political philosophy Aristotle himself advocated the idea of human rights, as Trude believes (Trude, 1955, p. 170 ff.).

8. What Aristotle designated as the primary substance refers to something individual and is, therefore, distinct from the universal secondary substance (cf. Aristotle, Categoriae 3 b 10 ff.), Occam thus considered his own position to be a return to the true Aristotelian one.

9. Even the triunity of God was transposed into three independent divinities—the heresy of ‘tri-theism’.

10. Krüger remarks that Machiavelli believed that the ‘oberitalienische Herrschaften des 15. Jahrhundrets’ were states and he quotes Maciavelli saying: ‘[they are] weder Völker noch Stämme, weder Städte noch Reiche, es sind die ersten Staaten der Welt’ (Krüger, 1966, p. 13).

11. Jellinek argues that the antique idea of the state did not introduce the notion of sovereignty because there was no extra-political power that the state had to combat (Jellinek, 1966, pp. 453–454). The opposition between church and state and the eventual increasing differentiation of society did provide the proliferation required for this delimitation of competencies.

12. Krüger gives the following circumscription of the idea of ‘Staatsräson’: ‘Staat und Politik sind für ihn eine Art von natürlichen, ungegenstänlichen Körpern, die nach ihren immanenten, vor allem auf Selbsterhaltung ausgehenden Gesetzen leben’ (Krüger, 1966, p. 41). [In terms of the theory of the ‘reason of state’, ‘State and politics are kinds of bodies without objects—that live according to their immanent laws, proceeding before anything else from their drive to self-maintenance.’]

13. ‘Die volkstem is koningstem’.

14. ‘Die volkstem is Gods stem’.

15. Hobbes holds that nothing ‘done to a man, by his own consent can be Injury’ (Hobbes, 1968, p. 207).

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D.F.M. Strauss

Dean's office, Faculty of the Humanities Office, The University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein 9300, South Africa. Email: [email protected]