Before Church and State
"Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX explores the “problem of Church and State” in thirteenth century France by taking a detailed look at the lives of two men, Gui Foucois (Pope Clement IV) and Louis IX and the institutions they helped build. It argues that the “problem” of Church and State did not exist in the thirteenth century. The spiritual and temporal powers existed, to be sure, but these were not parallel structures attempting to govern the same social space in a contest over sovereignty. Rather, the spiritual and the temporal powers were wrapped up together in a differentiated and sacramental world, and both included the other as aspects of their very identity. “Government” happened through networks of consilium et auxilium that cut across lay/clerical lines. These networks necessarily included both spiritual and temporal powers.^ During the reign of Louis IX the king’s network expanded to encompass the majority of the social space. This network had integral to it both the papal “fullness of power” and the royal “fullness of power” without any contradiction. The book reconstructs how such government actually happened and not simply the arguments that intellectuals had about how it ought to happen. This reconstruction is, furthermore, presented as a response to how modern historians and scholars of politics often suppose government to have happened.
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- Quiz: who said, “all politics is, at bottom, theological?” St. John Henry Newman, or Proudhon? Trick question! Both! This is radically different from the Marxian/Nietzschian maxim, that all theology is, at bottom, politics. I don’t think anarchism is actually a complete, proper atheism; it tends to propose itself to a kind of negative theology (no false gods). Therefore dialogue is possible, unlike the Marxist, Nietzschian case, where atheism is complete and postulatory.
One area of commonality is that we both believe that society is natural. I’ve already mentioned Book II of Suarez’ Against the Errors of the Anglican Sect in this thread. Anarchists who read it will find it, in turns, dazzlingly profound and infuriating, yet astonishingly satisfying as a whole (just as I do with Graeber).
A second area of commonality is that we both believe in a horizon beyond politics. Graeber is especially good about this. For him, anarchism is an interior disposition — a mode of being — prior to any political program. He therefore avoids the infallible symptom of political atheism, the absolutization of politics. His books are about human life, and in particular about how politics can take place within life, rather than life taking place within politics. The intellectually fearless anarchist can read Andrew Willard Jones’ Before Church and State, and see the commonalities.
As for substantive content of dialogue, the anarchist can help the Catholic to see instances where the Church has, in practice, confused the eternal, Divine order for a particular, temporal order (see Pope Benedict XVI’s discourse on the temptations of Christ and the Kingdom of God in Jesus of Nazareth, Volune I for how to approach this with orthodoxy and openness). This will help the Church more authentically pursue its mission.
In turn, the Catholic can help the anarchist to resolve the power-authority distinction, which lies at the heart of the anarchists’ inability to sustain any positive ideal (see various 19th Century failures, Occupy Wall Street, and the more recent corporate co-optation of radical culture). From there, it is not hard to offer the highest authority, the Lord who stands in judgement of all Lords; sin as the universal oppressor, and oneness in the body of Christ as true freedom.
Some other texts I think we would all like:
St Cyprian of Carthage: On Almsgiving
St. Thomas Aquinas on the Universal Destination of Goods (Summa Theologica)
St. Thomas Aquinas on Distributive Justice (Summa Theologica)
Pope Francis’ Laudito Si
Anything by or about Bl. Oscar Romero
St. Augustine’s City of God
Most of Pope Benedict XVI’s scholarly work, Jesus of Nazareth already mentioned as a highlight.
- Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX
