The rise of the modern (idea of the) state

Abstract

Some of the main contours of the development of Western society from ancient Greece and through the medieval era up to the rise of the modern state constitute the substance of this article. In the course of the argumentation the actual history of state formation and the gradual emergence of the idea of the state are accounted for in their mutual intertwinement. It is argued that the transition from the ecclesiastically unified medieval culture to the early starting points for the rise of the modern state is intimately connected to the difference between a kingdom and a republic. But this article stops without entering into a discussion of modern political theories and contemporary political practices—a theme reserved for a different (follow-up) investigation.

Notes

1. Namely, wisdom (sophia), as the virtue of the rational part of the soul; courage (andreia), as the virtue of the spirited part; while temperance as virtue represents—under the rule of the rational part—the union of the thumoeides and the epithumétikon.

2. Cicero, continuing arguments of Aristotle, still defends the institute of slavery. By contrast Seneca did accept the Stoic doctrine of the equality of all people but relativised slavery with his view that it only has an effect on the human body and does not take hold of the human spirit. Seneca envisaged an absolute natural law before the fall into sin with equality for all, communal ownership, and an absence of governmental authority. After the fall, there is only a relative natural law with slavery, private property, and the state.

3. ‘Niemals hat es in der Gescichte der Abendländischen Völker eine Epoche gegeben, in welcher das Individuum mehr zerdrückt worden wäre als in dieser, (Jellinek, 1966, p. 316).

4. Zippelius states this point succinctly: ‘Parts are standing in a proper relation to the whole when one and the same principle rule them’ (Zippelius, 1980, p. 67) [‘Teile stehen aber dann in einem rechten Verhältnis zum Ganzen, wenn ein und dasselbe Prinzip sie regiert’].

5. Thomas's view of the function of the church as a supernatural institution of grace exerted a strong influence on the official position taken later on by the Roman Catholic Church. In the papal encyclical, Quadragesimo anno (15 May 1931), it is still explicitly stated: ‘Surely the church does not only have the task to bring the human person merely to a transient and deficient happiness, for it must carry a person to eternal bliss’ (cf. Schnatz, 1973, p. 403).

6. ‘… daß der Mensch nicht mit seinem ganzen Sein und Haben auf die staatliche Gemeinschaft hingeordnet sei, er stehe auch in der Ordnung der Übernatur’ (von Barion, 1986, p. 50).

7. A part of this conviction is manifest in the incorporation of marriage as a sacrament of the church. The implication is that ‘marriage could only be validly contracted in facie ecclesiae, as indeed was laid down by the Eastern Church’ (Smith, 1964, p. 62).

8. The pope who ‘nach der Offenbarung das Menschengeschlecht zum ewige Leben hinführen soll; und des Kaisers, der nach den Lehren der Philosophie das Menschengeschlecht zu irdische Glück leiten soll’ (Monarchia, III, 16, quoted by Zippelius, 1980b, p. 68).

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

10. He speaks of the ‘Bedeutung’ of Ockham ‘für die Trennung einer natürlichen und übernatürlichen Welt’ (Krüger, 1966, p. 33, note 3).

11. In German, Dutch, and Afrikaans the appropriate designation is ‘magstaat’ (literally, ‘power-state’). For the lack of a better descriptive translational equivalent, we will sometimes employ the phrase ‘power-state’ as the opposite of ‘regstaat’, a term that may be transliterated with the phrase ‘just state’.

12. Since the Renaissance, modern thought has explored various options in this regard—varying from ‘moving body’ (the basic denominator chosen by Hobbes, 17th century), ‘to perceive’ (Berkeley, 18th century), ‘sensations’ (Kant, 18th century), and ‘sense-data’ (Ayer, 20th century)—to mention a few philosophers.

13. The information concerning the emergence of the word ‘state’ is found in Jellinek (1966, pp. 132–135).

14. From the context, it is clear that Oppenheimer actually wants to claim that undifferentiated societies lack any structure of super- and subordination.

15. Governmental authority was therefore a private item, something that could be traded (a res in commercio).