The Mediæval Body Politic
Politics is using philosophy to investigate the origin of goodness in nature and society. The classical body politic took this approach to mend the ailments of society; the Mediæval body politic saw monarchal theocracy as the Grecian goal. Augustine of Hippos and Thomas Aquinas believed Plato and Socrates were limited by the pluralist theocracy of their time. Had they applied philosophy to investigate the nature of theism, they would have been sentenced to death. Plato attributed the condition of the body of people to a body politic, whose disease remained unresolved, ultimately leading to its death and the fall of Ancient Greece (Moots, G.A., p. 52). Plato’s political analysis predicted the nation’s demise, but during its time, raised important questions, facilitating deeper civic engagement in the interests of the state (Ryan, A. p. 170). Pythagoras initiated this investigative philosophical approach, yet the lineage of scholars Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great all utilized these principles with application to governing the body of people with an awareness of its condition (Augustine, p. 2642). Early church fathers preserved this awareness, yet attributed its condition to the obedience of God’s divine order; though their efforts advocated a totalitarian theocratic state, it instituted an objective basis for political theory (Tuininga, M.J., p.227).
Ancient Greece’s great strength resided in the dissent against tyranny and awareness of the state of polity; its weakness was the lack of basis for objectivity in its political analysts. This resulted in the advocation of class division, slavery, and barring women from positions of authority. As Ancient Greece existed before God’s new covenant through the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ leading to the expansion of Christianity, it lacked an objective basis of moral truth. This would come later in the Mediæval Body Politic, whose strength established a proclaimed “divine order;” revolutionizing political theory. But this revelation did not come without the collapse of numerous empires of Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Jerusalem, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Plato defined the Body Politic by diagnosing the populations’ diseases under various forms of authority, declaring each as “recognized political systems with names,” (Waterfield, R., p. 278). In Chapter 11 of “Republic,” Plato scribes an oration contrasting aristocracies; monarchies; diarchies (duarchies), as in the Spartan and Cretan system; oligarchies; and democracies; writing that, “the fourth, the ultimate political disease, which leaves all the rest behind, is noble dictatorship.” Plato did not include a remedy for the diseased body politic, yet noted of its presence. Speaking on Greece’s transition from aristocracy to timocracy Plato wrote that “all political change is due to the actual power-possessing members of society themselves, when conflict arises among them,” (Waterfield, R., p. 280). Plato believed that in a diseased Body Politic “the members of this kind of community will share with people under oligarchies a craving for money…[b]ut because they value money and aren’t open about possessing it, they’ll actually be mean about it—although they’ll be happy to satisfy their craving by spending other people’s money.” (Waterfield, R., p. 283). Plato’s analysis of politics brought imagery to the various transitions of power that had occurred in cycles, continuing to occur to this day.
Aristotle, Plato’s student, believed similarly that government was a conglomerate of political disease. Aristotle defined the term “polity,” writing that “[s]imply speaking, polity is a mixture of oligarchy and democracy,” (Aristotle, p. 173). Aristotle further defined the term polity, stating “[i]t is customary, however, to call polities those sorts that tend toward democracy, and those tending more toward oligarchy, aristocracies, on account of the fact that education and good birth particularly accompany those who are better off,” (Aristotle, p. 173). Contrary to Plato’s weariness of governance and authoritarian control through the manipulation of democracy by demagogues; Aristotle believed that it was “held to be impossible for a city to have good governance if it is run not aristocratically but by the base, and similarly, for one that does not have good governance to be aristocratically run,” (Aristotle, p. 173).
Aristotle then reiterated the evident, clarifying that “good governance does not exist where the laws have been well enacted yet are not obeyed;” he denoted further that the term “good governance” in any form, should be perceivable, and is defined “when the laws are obeyed as enacted,” (Aristotle. pp. 173, 174). King Phillip II of Macedon held such a high regard for Aristotle’s teaching and views of government that the King hired him to mentor his own son, Alexander the Great; his teachings proved to be revolutionary in the faith of Alexander the Great. Aristotle was not concerned with various concentrations of power, but its effect on the population alongside his curiosities of the essence of life itself. Historian Alan Ryan writes, “[p]olitics as a simple struggle for power is not politics as Aristotle conceived it,” (Ryan, A., p. 159). It would not be until centuries later, that the early church fathers presented a cure for Plato’s diseased body politic; divine order.
The early church revolutionized political theory by providing an objective basis of truth unfound in the politics of ancient Greece; previous to this political revelation, there had not been an established divine order outside of ambiguous transitions of power leading to a weakening state. Early Church-Father Augustine of Hippo (354AD – 430AD) believed in the objective authority of God, writing against the apostasies of Manichæism, Donatism, Arianism, Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, (Augustine, p.39). In Augustine’s book, “City of God,” he describes two cities, the earthly city, and the city of God, writing that “we must speak also of the earthly city, which, though it be mistress of the nations, is itself ruled by its lust of rule,” (Augustine, p. 2140). Augustine was not concerned with the transition in politics, but the deviation from absolute authority. Plato and Aristotle were greatly opposed to a diseased body politic, describing transition of government and the vulnerability of democracy. Augustine believed in divine order, viewing government as a theocracy ordained by God.
Augustine’s views have held presiding influence over Europe for centuries; historian Alan Ryan writes, “Augustine’s importance to the subsequent history of Europe is impossible to exaggerate,” (Ryan, A., p. 149). Writing on Greek politics, Augustine wrote that “[t]his lust of sovereignty disturbs and consumes the human race with frightful ills. By this lust Rome was overcome when she triumphed over Alba, and praising her own crime, called it glory,” (Augustine, p.2318). Augustine described politics as a philosophical investigation into the nature of the highest state of goodness (summum bonum); believing Greek philosophers created “politics” to evade persecution from applying philosophical principles of investigation to theology. Augustine wrote that though society hails Socrates as the origin of philosophy, he was merely a reiteration of Pythagoras, writing that Socrates’ consistent investigation into the nature of good, in the physical realm was either due to his concern with unanimous consensus on unestablished ambiguity, or he likely knew that the ancient Greek society would not allow philosophical influence to imply a theologian application, (Augustine, 2642).
Augustine wrote of all prominent Greek philosophers that;
They have seen that whatever is changeable is not the most high God, and therefore they have transcended every soul and all changeable spirits in seeking the supreme. They have seen also that, in every changeable thing, the form which makes it that which it is, whatever be its mode or nature, can only be through Him who truly is, because He is unchangeable, (Augustine, p. 2652).
Augustine was not concerned with politicians, the state, nor diagnosing specific illnesses of the body politic; he viewed politics as a mutation of oppression facilitated by the authority of man apart from God. Conversely, Plato questioned the nature of control and the effects of that control when applied to a population. Political analysis was dismissed by Augustine, who clarified his views on the Grecian philosopher Plato, attesting that “[w]e for our part, indeed, reckon Plato neither a god nor a demigod; we would not even compare him to any of God’s holy angels; nor to the truth-speaking prophets, nor to any of the apostles or martyrs of Christ, nay, not to any faithful Christian man,” (Augustine, p.2248-2249). Augustine then cited the lineage of Plato’s thought, deposing him to be just a reiterative of Socratic theory. Augustine wrote that Thales of Miletus founded a school of philosophy, alongside Pythagoras in Magna Græcia. Thales and Pythagoras established the belief that all things derived from one principle. While Thales claimed that deriving principle to be water, his disciple Anaximander believed the origin of all things to be from a divine mind. Anaximander went on to teach Anaximenes, who believed that origin to be an infinite air; Anaximenes’ pupil Anaxagoras, “perceived that a divine mind was the productive cause of all things which we see.” Augustine went on the write that “Anaxagoras was succeeded by his disciple Archelaus, who also thought that all things consisted of homogeneous particles…Socrates, the master of Plato, is said to have been the disciple of Archelaus,” (Augustine, pp. 2639, 2640). Augustine concluded that “among the disciples of Socrates, Plato was the one who shone with a glory which far excelled that of the others, and who not unjustly eclipsed them all.”
Thomas Aquinas wrote on polity, that politics was the assurance of “the pursuit of a contemplative life;” “the pursuit of an active and civil life;” and “living virtuously.” Similar to Augustine, Aquinas believed the diseased body politic could only be achieved through ascribing to a divine order; deeming it “divine government.” Aquinas believed that experts were the medium whereby others are to be governed by God; writing, “the plan of divine providence requires that other creatures should be governed by rational creatures,” (Aquinas, p. 6769). Augustine’s analysis of Plato and Socrates’ potential view of the body politic opposed that of Aquinas, as the ambiguity of the term “rational” could be appointed to anyone worthy of influencing the ruling class. Aristotle believed that the term “polity” is representative of both oligarchies and democracies, although noted its tendency to be used to define representation over oppression.
Thomas Aquinas acknowledged a divine order, asserting that this order was known of by Greek philosophers; Aquinas wrote of government “[s]ince the preservation of order in creation is a concern of divine providence, and it is a congruous order to descend by steps of due proportion from highest to lowest, divine providence must reach by a certain rule of proportion to the lowest things,” (Aquinas, p. 6769).
Aquinas scribed that “Plato regarded the soul as made up of principles,” attributing his analysis of the body politic to divergence from divine order, (Aquinas p. 2964). Without knowledge of Christ, Plato would likely consider a divine order an oligarchy worthy of public philosophical analysis and dissent. Thomas Aquinas wrote on the classical body politic, “as Aristotle says in his Politics, with whom Solomon is of one mind, saying: The fool shall serve the wise (Prov. xi, 29),” (Aquinas p. 6770). Aquinas added that “the dominion of fools is weak, unless strengthened by the counsel of the wise,” yet acknowledged “a power driven by another under necessity to work is subject to slavery, (Aquinas p. 6770). Thomas Aquinas insisted that all actions are guided by God, including government, therefore he stood opposed to slavery. Aquinas declared, “[n]ow in God there is no slavery or subjection, and authority in him is only in respect of origin,” (Aquinas p. 7675). On political order, Aquinas proclaimed a top-down approach, writing “[t]he higher providence gives rules to the lower providence: even as the politician gives rules and laws to the commander in chief; who gives rules and laws to the captains and generals,” (Aquinas, pp. 9156-9157). Aquinas advocated that the execution of God’s divine providence was carried out by secondary forces, writing, “two things are required for providence, the order and the execution of the order.” Aquinas wrote of two forces “cognitive power” and “operating power,” defining them as inherently inverse in nature; the difference between political analysis and engagement in civic political change. Aquinas described “inferior active powers to execute divine providence,” explaining that, “divine operation does not exclude the operations of secondary causes…since God directs all individual things by Himself, (Aquinas, p. 9159). American Politics include both Aquinas’ cognitive power and operating power; for divine operation exists in secondary causes, should politicians be willing to be guided by God.
Biblically, God founded politics; this occurred through public acknowledgment of the divine order responsible for the general well-being of society and government, starting boldly with Jesus Christ. His Holy Spirit writes in Mark 1:14-15 (NASB), “Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel,’” Christian statesmen, politicians, and legislators must recognize this divine order and represent the authority and actions of God in polity. Romans 13:2 (NASB) reminded us that “whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.” This divine ordinance is based on a personal covenant with the Lord, yet its violations often occur from inside the same government intended to protect and ensure the supremacy of Americans’ natural rights given by God. The political agenda has historically remained responsible for a healthy body politic. Through contemporary federal maleficence, the weaponization of God’s ordained authority results in self-perpetuating condemnation; leading to America’s chronically diseased body politic.
Conclusion
Plato’s classical body politic represented a persistent transitioning state of disease, yet failed to account for a solution. Democracy was preferable to oligarchy, yet represented accumulated vulnerability for a coup d’état; referred to as “transitions” by Plato and Aristotle (Plato, p.900). Aristotle’s remedy to a healthy body politic was “good governance;” this coarsely resolved to ‘any government that resulted in compliance,’ yet did not negate oligarchy (Aristotle, p. 3142). Aristotle believed that polity was contingent on both oligarchy and democracy, whereas Mediæval Theologian and Early Church Father, Thomas Aquinas confided in a monarchal theocracy, seeing deviation from this position as the cause of disorder and a diseased polity. Aquinas produced a different interpretation of politics than Plato and Aristotle, yet held a distinct and clear depiction of the body politic from a position of theocracy; deviation from God, leads to abrupt separation and public disorder, resulting in disparities and atrocities. Plato believed the depletion of public morale through usurping individual sovereignty led to disparity and vulnerability in a nation. The Mediæval body politic was influenced by the fall of Greece, Rome, and Jerusalem; the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; and centuries of government reform. Augustine and Aquinas both believed that Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and the pre-Socratic philosophers had been influenced by a properly organized divine order, yet remained unable to explain this phenomenon as God. By implementing a divine order the Mediæval Body Politic was able to provide a solution to the insistent disease, yet forfeited inclusion in the name of the Lord. The Mediæval Body Politic would certainly result in disparities and political disease if implemented today, yet its significance remains embedded in modern polity, as a basis of objective moral foundation.
–September 11th, 2023
Bibliography
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