INTRODUCTION

A STATE according to St. Thomas is a part of the universal empire of which God is the maker and ruler. Its laws are, or can be made to be, particular determinations of this empire’s eternal code; and the authority which enforces these laws is a power whose origin is also in God. Its goal and justification is to offer to man satisfactory material conditions of life as a basis for a moral and intellectual education which, in turn, must be such as to lend itself to the spiritual edification of the Christian man. For “God … instructs us by means of His law and assists us by His grace.”¹

St. Thomas follows the Aristotelian doctrine that makes of man a “political animal,” but he modifies it in accordance with the exigencies of his Christian philosophy. The fact that man operates, not by instinct, but by reason makes social organization indispensable. This interdependence of reason and sociability is explained by St. Thomas as follows: by endowing man with reason and at the same time depriving him of instinct and of an available ready-made supply of the necessities of life, God decreed that man should be a political animal. For to the beasts nature furnishes food, body covering, weapons of defense and offense (claws, fangs, horns, etc.), means for survival through flight (rapid wings and quick feet), etc. But all this, and much more, man must produce for himself under the direction of reason. What lower animals perform spontaneously and instinctively (i.e., by the exercise of the “estimative” faculty) man achieves as a result of rational processes. Beasts, without instruction, devoid of experience, deprived of models, know immediately what to do and how to act: the newly born lamb at the mere sight of a wolf runs for safety; birds hatched from eggs that have been removed from the nest, when the time comes, build a nest identical to the one from which they came and which they never saw; ailing animals instinctively pick out the herbs that will cure their illnesses. Man, however, is born with a common vague notion in place of this precise and particularized instinct. To that general notion he applies reason and thus is able to take care of himself. He, too, discovers the herbs that cure his diseases, but as the result of a process of reasoning:

Man … has a natural knowledge of the things which are essential for his life only in a general fashion, inasmuch as he is able to attain knowledge of the particular things necessary for human life by reasoning from natural principles.²

But for this there is need of collaborative efforts, and a division of labor is unavoidable.³ Again in the words of St. Thomas:

It is not possible for one man to arrive at a knowledge of all these things by his own individual reason. It is therefore necessary for man to live in a multitude so that each one may assist his fellows, and different men may be occupied in seeking, by their reason, to make different discoveries—one, for example, in medicine, one in this and another in that.⁴

This social process implies collaboration not merely of the members of one generation and of one nation, but of all men at all times. Each coming generation which thrives on what its predecessors bequeathed to it in turn leaves to posterity an intellectual culture perfected by its own contributions. As our author says:

It seems natural to human reason to advance gradually from the imperfect to the perfect. Hence, in speculative sciences, we see that the teaching of the early philosophers was imperfect, and that it was afterward perfected by those who succeeded them. So also in practical matters. Discursive rationality implies progress.⁵

That man was intended to collaborate rationally is proved by the fact that he alone is endowed with the capacity to speak. Speech is the specific communication of rational beings. Lower animals convey to each other only emotions or feelings—fear, desire, hunger, etc.; for such communication all that is needed is sound, e.g., braying or roaring. But man uses words, which are the outward manifestation of concepts, that is, products of a conceiving reason.⁶

The naturally ordained distribution of tasks is described thus: “One man works for many, and many work for one.” A political community is made up of artisans, farmers, soldiers, statesmen, etc. These constituents must do their work with competence, which means that they must be appropriately endowed and properly trained. A state, therefore, can function only if nature produces some men who are physically strong, others who are intellectually keen, and still others who are fearless. St. Thomas, on the authority of Aristotle, assures us that such men will always be forthcoming. Being indispensable to the state, they will be furnished by nature, since the state is “by nature,” and “nature is never found lacking in what is necessary.” The diversification of capacities essential to social collaboration is the unfailing gift of nature.⁷

In St. Thomas, however, the stress is placed on the fact that this “naturality” is but the execution of a decree of providence. Nature is a secondary cause and only an instrument. In his own words,

One man does not suffice to perform all those acts demanded by society, and therefore it is necessary that different persons be occupied in different pursuits. The diversification of men for diverse tasks is the result, primarily, of divine providence, which details the various compartments of man’s life in such a way that nothing necessary to human existence is ever lacking; secondarily, this diversification proceeds from natural causes which bring it about that different men are born with aptitudes and tendencies for the different functions and the various ways of living.⁸

Man cannot satisfy his instinct for social life with the resources offered by the home, nor by those available in an estate, nor even by those furnished by a village. These are not capable of providing the economic basis for “being,” nor the educative one for “well-being.” For man’s nature, over and above mere subsistence, longs for knowledge and virtue. (“All men by nature desire to know”; and “the desire for virtue is inborn in man.”)

Because of these shortcomings, the above-named communities must be integrated into a larger and fuller body. Such is the self-sufficient group which St. Thomas (after Aristotle) calls the “perfect community.” It is the city-state (polis), the civitas, or better still the provincia, and best of all the kingdom.

The difference between the perfect community and the others is not, as Plato thought, one of mere quantity; it is qualitative, as St. Thomas, following Aristotle, teaches. The perfect community is the goal toward which the other natural associations strive and in which they find their fulfillment. And that is one of the reasons why the state is “natural.” For the Christian this naturally instituted process of moral edification which controls and regulates the production of economic goods is in turn subordinate to a third and higher interest: man’s spiritual welfare, or the enjoyment of God, for the attainment of which the bonds of political society are indeed necessary but in no way sufficient.

The promotion of the appropriate conditions of life in both the economic and the cultural sphere is, then, the purpose of the state. Herein lies the common good of man and his highest worldly end. As such it sets in motion our actions and should control our individual aspirations. Its demands justify the employment of all the varied means that are required for its attainment. Reason tells us what these subordinate tasks, these indispensable occupations are; nature furnishes the appropriate workers for them; authority must see to it that the right man is put in the right place. When this is done, we say that “order” has been introduced, which means that multiplicity has been reduced to unity, and that, consequently, action is possible within the sphere affected by the desire for the common end. “Society is obviously nothing else than the unification of men for the purpose of performing some one thing in common,” says St. Thomas.⁹

The divine intention is primarily directed to the order and then to the components unified in it and by it. As St. Thomas says, “If we remove order from created things, we remove the best they have. For though the individual beings are good in themselves; joined, they rise to the highest goodness because of the order of the universe.”¹⁰ Evil, on the authority of St. Augustine, is a condition that obtains when order is removed. An angel is superior to a stone. But a universe of angels and stones is better than one made solely of angels.¹¹ (Or, as one might say, a violin is better than a banjo. Yet an orchestra, with all sorts of instruments including the banjo, is preferable to an ensemble composed solely of violins.) The reason for this is “that the perfection of the universe is obtained essentially through a diversification of natures, which natures, so diversified, fill the various ranks of goodness; it is not obtained through the plurification of the individuals in any of these given natures.”¹² The Angelic Doctor goes so far as to say:

A universe in which there was no evil would not be of so great goodness as our actual one; and this for the reason that there would not be in this assumed universe so many different good natures as there are in this present one, which contains both good natures free from evil as well as some conjoined with evil; and it is better to have the combination of both rather than to have one only.¹³

PUBLIC POWER

The Ruler

Order, then, comes into existence when a multiplicity of individuals are brought together and so arranged that by their united efforts a common end may be attained. But the “ordering” toward an end implies the action of a commanding authority. “In every multitude there must be some governing power,” according to St. Thomas:

For where there are many men together and each one is looking after his own interest, the multitude would be broken up and scattered unless there were also an agency to take care of what appertains to the common weal…. Indeed it is reasonable that this should happen, for what is proper and what is common are not identical. Things differ by what is proper to each; they are united by what they have in common. But diversity of effects is due to diversity of causes. Consequently, there must exist something which impels toward the particular good of each individual. Wherefore also in all things that are ordained toward one end, one thing is found to rule the rest.¹

This applies pre-eminently to the order on whose existence all others depend, viz., the state, which Aristotle taught rests on the necessary relationship of “ruler and ruled.” St. Augustine, too, as St. Thomas reminds us, had taught that men greedy for worldly goods were about to exterminate one another in their bloody competitions when by divine mercy it was permitted that “concord be established by means of a regime of commanding and obeying.”² Today we still hear: “Obedience is the tie of human societies.”³

That this subordination to authority is in accord with the intentions of nature is shown by the fact that some men are born with a capacity for ruling, while others are endowed with aptitudes for performing tasks under the direction of a commanding power. “Among men an order is found to exist, inasmuch as those who are superior by intellect are by nature rulers.”⁴ And the authority of St. Augustine is again adduced: “Ruling power is given by nature to the best.”⁵ This relationship of ruler and ruled is not the result of the Fall. It would have existed in the state of innocence.⁶ Of course, the common goal aimed at by the ruler in the state of innocence would have been different from the actual one; the element of coercion would have been absent. “There would have been no need for protection, there being no hostility either internal or foreign, and no need of correcting transgressions, all men desiring the real good.”⁷ The ruler would not have been expected to guarantee conditions for material subsistence (esse) nor for moral betterment (bene esse). The only use for a ruler would have been “to guide in active life and in the field of studies according as one was wiser and intellectually more enlightened than another.”⁸

Because of the Fall this spontaneous adherence to Order could not be maintained. The regime of concupiscentia, the lex fomitis, made coercion necessary. The authority over spontaneously obedient men was replaced by a power of making laws and of compelling observance through penalties: loss of property, liberty, life. This dread power imposes itself not only because of necessity but also and above all because it is authorized by God. Political power is divinely instituted. St. Paul proclaims this: “All power comes from God.”⁹ His divine commission, which transforms what would otherwise be brute force into just power, creates the public person¹⁰ with unique attributes; to it belongs the exercise of the publica, suprema potestas.¹¹ No one else may inflict major punishment on a human being. The words of St. Augustine admonish us: “He who, without being authorized by the governing power, kills a malefactor shall be adjudged to be a murderer, and this all the more because he did not hesitate to usurp a power that God had not given him.” This text was incorporated in the canon law.¹²

The doctrine of the divine origin of power must not be interpreted to mean that St. Thomas looked upon the state as existing in virtue of divine law. The state is an organization that rests on human law. “Dominium,” he says, “was introduced by ius gentium, which is a human law.”¹³ Power comes from God, but the various political formations which are made possible by the exercise of this power are the result of natural law, for the state is natural. St. Thomas here says that it is by ius gentium, giving to this word the sense which it has elsewhere, viz., of a rational elaboration of the principles of natural law, valid for all humanity and not too far removed from the original proposition.¹⁴

What St. Thomas means when he speaks of this divine origin of power may be clarified by the following. There are, he says, three factors involved in power: first, the manner of acquisition; secondly, the use to which it is put; thirdly, the mode or form.¹⁵ This last one is always blameless. Formally, we are told, all power is good and comes from God, for it consists of a certain order connecting someone who rules with someone who is subject to this rule.¹⁶ Therefore, when we speak absolutely and unrestrictedly, we say that power, as such, is good, because a thing in its unrestricted absoluteness is judged on the basis of what is formal in it.¹⁷ But if we proceed to examine what relationships may affect this absolute goodness, we discover that they proceed from one or the other of the remaining two factors: either the “manner of acquisition” or “the use to which power is put.” This “manner” (the origin) may be bad (and therefore not divine) in two ways: either because of the unworthiness of the ruler or because of the illicit practices (violence, simony, etc.) resorted to in the acquisition of it.¹⁸ The latter vitiates the competence of the ruler so completely that “his power under these circumstances should be disowned as soon as the opportunity for so doing presents itself.”¹⁹ The former does not justify disobedience, “for inasmuch as power formally is always from God and creates the obligation of obedience, subjects are held to obey rulers even though unworthy.” As for the third factor, St. Thomas teaches that the abuse of power is twofold: first, if a command is given “contrary to that for which power was instituted, as when a ruler enjoins practices destructive of those very virtues for the upholding of which power was ordained.”²⁰ Here disobedience is obligatory. Secondly, if a command transcends the sphere of a given authority, in which case neither obedience nor disobedience is required.

Power is given by God to the ruler in order that he may realize justice on earth. In fact, we find that in the Middle Ages people looked upon the king as the person entrusted with “the maintenance of order and peace through justice.”²¹

As custodian of justice, the ruler is or may be the legislator, the executor of the law, or the supreme judge.

a) The extent of the legislative power of the ruler depends naturally on the nature of the political regime. St. Thomas considers the case of “a free multitude which can legislate for itself” in contrast to one which is not free to do so. In the first instance the people (multitudo) as a whole may make laws or they may authorize the sovereign to do so, in which case the latter “has the power of legislating only in so far as he bears the person of the multitude.”²² This representative role of the legislative sovereign may be set forth thus: commands which are essential to the political order are not actions of the sovereign will on the will of the subjects; they are directed to their reason and therefore take the form of rational propositions. These propositions properly formulated are what we call laws and as such are necessary for the “ordering” to the common good. But the ordering of anything toward the common good belongs either to the whole people or to someone who is the vicegerent of the whole people (gerentis vicem totius multitudinis).²³ The ruler is “vicegerent.” But when the definition is narrowed down to the more precise legislative terminology, we find that the representative aspect of the legislating prince is attenuated. Instead of being a vicegerent, we find that the ruler acts as guardian of the community. Says St. Thomas: “The making of a law belongs either to the whole people or to a public person who has care (curam habet) of the whole people.”²⁴ The representative character of the legislator is further obscured in the article that follows (A. 4), where no mention is found of alternate possibilities, law being made to proceed solely from the one who is in charge of the community. And, finally, in the first article of the following Question (91) even the references to the cura are omitted, and law is defined as a “dictate of practical reason emanating from the ruler who governs a perfect community.”

This definition is the one to which St. Thomas normally resorted, so that its formulation cannot be considered merely casual. It is essential to human law, he tells us, that “it be framed by that one who governs the community” (a gubernante civitatis).²⁵

b) The ruler is not only the lawmaker; he is also and above all the judge, the supreme judicial authority.

The person who delivers a judicial sentence interprets the wording of the law by applying this wording to a particular case. But both the interpretation of the law (which is the judicial act) and the making of it pertain to the same person. Therefore just as a law can be made only by a power which is public, so a judicial sentence must be rendered by public authority.²⁶

The significance of the judicial function of the ruler was extended to other phases of jurisdiction:

Judicial orders are not only those which refer to litigations, but also all those that pertain to social relations (ad ordinationem hominum ad invicem), which matter is under the control of the ruler in his quality of supreme judge.²⁷

It was as judge, then, that the ruler exercised that unique and sacred function which might necessitate the destruction of life, limb, and property and the deprivation of liberty whenever such action was deemed necessary to uphold justice. That which for a private person is murder, theft, or extortion becomes in certain circumstances a praiseworthy act when performed by one who, ruling a perfect community, is vested with a public power which, being “perfect,” is “plenary.”²⁸

c) The ruler, who is under the obligation to protect the common good from the assaults of a foreign enemy, has the right and duty to resort to the necessary measures of war. The nature of his power authorizes the destruction of life and property, provided the war is just.²⁹ An offensive war is just when three conditions are complied with. First, it must be declared by the sovereign. Private persons may not wage war, and this for two reasons. In the first place, war is resorted to only when there is no higher authority to which the contestants may submit their conflicting claims. In the case of private persons this does not obtain, for there is over them a superior authority qualified to judge their controversies. Secondly, war demands the levying of a multitude of men, and this can be done only by one who is in charge of the multitude, hence by no private individual.³⁰

The second condition is a just cause. Those who are attacked must, because of some fault of their own, have deserved the aggression. St. Thomas here restates the argument endorsed by St. Augustine:

A just war is usually defined as one by which a wrong is righted, viz., when a state or a nation is attacked because it neglected to punish some crimes committed by one of its members or when it failed to make restitution of something that had been unjustly seized.³¹

The third condition is the maintenance of righteous intentions on the part of those who have declared war, viz., that the purpose of war is to lay the foundations of a better and more lasting peace. For it may well be that a war has a just cause according to the above definition and that it has been declared and is being waged by the supreme political power, which was the other condition set, yet it is made iniquitous by the evil intentions entertained by the attacking power. What these evil intentions are St. Thomas tells us in the words of St. Augustine:

They are a desire to harm the enemy more than the conduct of hostilities demands, a spirit of revenge, implacability, recourse to destructive practices that fit beasts better than men, and finally lust of supremacy.³²

d) It is true, then, that the ruler of a state which is a perfect community has a perfect (complete) power of coercion, and therefore he may inflict irreparable penalties, such as death and mutilation. But neither the slave master nor the pater familias, for the protection of the estate or of the household, can avail himself of the prerogative of public power. The power over slaves and the power over family are determined on the basis of ius dominativum and ius paternum, respectively, both of which are subordinate to the ius politicum by which public power operates. A sentence of death and or confiscation issuing from these subordinate powers is, therefore, plain murder and theft.

A father or a master in charge of a family or of an estate, which are imperfect communities, has an imperfect coercive power. He may inflict lighter penalties which do not carry with them an irreparable harm, such as, for example, whipping.³³

Also:

And just as one may by public power be lawfully deprived of life because of major crimes, so he is liable because of minor crimes to be deprived of limb. This, however, a private person may not do, not even with the consent of the possessor of the limb, because of the harm that thereby results to the community.³⁴

e) The political order is, then, the rule of justice. The prince is expected to govern by laws, and these laws must be just; that is, they cannot be the arbitrary expression of a will, either individual or collective, but rather the rational deduction from principles of justice imparted by God to man; the nature of their content conditions their validity. In view of this, how does St. Thomas deal with the two formulas of Roman law so often invoked in his day which seem to contradict flatly the two conditions above referred to? These two formulas are: first, “Whatever the prince wants [whatever his pleasure may be] has the vigor of law”;³⁵ and, secondly, “The prince is not bound by laws.” (He is above the law.)³⁶

These maxims could not be ignored or waved aside. They had intrigued political writers of all generations. They seemed to lead to an impasse; for, on the one hand, no Christian could deny that in some form or other positive law must derive from natural law and conform to divine law; and, on the other hand, it seemed difficult to repudiate norms which, though pagan in origin, had received the full sanction of Christian jurisprudence. The force of the autocratic formulas was further strengthened by imperial affirmations such as those of Justinian: “God subordinated all laws to the imperial sway (fortuna imperialis) in that He himself sent to mankind the Emperor as a living law.”³⁷ And this animate law, he tells us, was providentially given because of the insufficiency of inanimate legislation. Since human nature constantly varies, he said, rigid legislation would soon become antiquated unless a man divinely prepared were on hand to adapt it to the new circumstances.³⁸

Refusal to accept the doctrine that the ruler is above the law was felt to encounter this dilemma: either the ruler binds himself or he is bound by others. The first is not possible because a man may, indeed, bind himself by a vow or by a pledge, but cannot constrain himself legally. A law, it was pointed out, is the creation or rather the effect of a governing power and, as Aristotle teaches, such a power is the principle of ruling another qua other. A legal injunction presupposes a jurisdiction, and no man can have jurisdiction over himself except in a metaphorical sense. Coercion, implicit in the enforcement of law, demands two distinct parties: one which does the coercing, and one which suffers it; the agent, it was said, must be a different person from the patient. The ruler cannot appear in the double role of sovereign and subject.

The second alternative was not tenable, given the nature of supreme power, which admits of no control.

In facing this problem St. Thomas tried to reconcile the political with the moral side of the question. The supreme power of the ruler is indeed beyond the control of the subjects. They have no way of compelling him to respect the law. But supreme power is not beyond the control of God, who brings the sovereign to a voluntary observance of this (the human) law.

The explanation which he gives ³⁹ is the one that the Church has for a long time made its own. The law, he said, binds the sovereign by its directive, not by its coercive power. And by “coercive,” he means a capacity of compelling obedience by punitive sanctions; and by “directive,” a power which human law derives from eternal law and which makes it capable of creating obligations in the forum of conscience.

Coercion, he tells us, cannot be practiced at the level of sovereignty, because it would result in the last analysis in self-coercion, which, as it was said above, is not possible. From his wording, one gathers that he did not hold, as many did, that a ruler’s exemption from law observance was simply a de facto matter, viz., that the reason why a ruler is not bound by law is merely the fact that there is no one to carry out a sentence delivered against him. On the contrary, for him the exemption is de iure; and the impossibility exists not in the executing of a sentence but in the making of it; for eventually the sovereign, being the supreme judge of the land, would have to judge his own case, and as all know, no man can be a judge in his own cause. Moreover, what could be the sense of a judgment that would forever remain inert?

Another force is therefore needed to make the ruler respect his laws (and those which he has inherited and accepted); a force that tomes into existence when a properly formulated proposition of practical reason acquires that majesty that transforms it into a law. God, by whose authority this transformation is effected, has implanted in us the invincible conviction that the power to coerce, which He gives, implies an obligation on the part of the coercer to respect voluntarily that which he compels others to observe. Hence the power which law has to coerce subjects can never be dissociated from the power it has to make the ruler abide by it.⁴⁰ This latter power is exercised in our conscience by a voluntary submission to God, the author of this power, which, as we said, is called “directive”; and there is no difficulty here, for though a man cannot coerce himself, he is quite capable of directing himself.

The nature of this directive power requires a few words of explanation. The fact that a rational proposition can be made into an instrument whereby one or more individuals can dispose of the life, liberty, and property of their fellow men proves, people thought, that the power to do this—the public power that legislates—has its origin in God. Human law can do all it does because it is an emanation of eternal law. The condition which God imposes on society in bestowing upon it the benefit of law is that all, without distinction, accept the conditions that accompany it. The promulgation of a just law postulates the tacit acceptance of its provisions on the part of everybody. This, it was said, is a basic principle that all men discover in the depths of their conscience, and which lends to law its directive power.

For the greater protection of society, law is furnished with the other power, that of coercing, and this one, as was said, is applicable to all except the sovereign legislator.

It was stated above that this power of creating, in everybody, the directive obligation of law observance is communicated to positive law by eternal law. How is this done? The answer is: just as eternal law imprints itself on human law by the medium of natural law, so it is through natural law that the moral obligation which bids all men observe the human law comes before the tribunal of conscience. The question now is: which one of the precepts that natural reason dictates to man is at the basis of this universal validity?

Caietan, in his commentary to the text of St. Thomas above quoted, says that it is the command to do to others what we would have others do to us, and that therefore a ruler must not impose on others a law which he does not want applied to himself. Suarez thought this was not correct, and suggested the one which, coupled with its correlative, must be postulated for the existence of the political association. This inborn principle of the political animal says to the ruler: “Respect the law you make,” and says to the subject: “The superior must be obeyed.”⁴¹ This is the natural law precept which St. Thomas adduces to show the validity of the directive power of law. He finds confirmation of it in divine law (Matthew 23) and points to its embodiment in canon law. He also hints at the universality of it by quoting the maxim of an old Sage.⁴² Of course this holds only when the matter and the ratio of a law are the same in the ruler and the ruled. Prohibition to carry weapons, therefore, cannot obligate the king. But the law of just price does.

The significance of the natural law precept above stated was shown thus: A law establishes a medium of some virtue as a step toward the common good. So, e.g., the law that regulates the price of goods fixes a means within the sphere of justice. The transgression of this medium is a repudiation of justice and therefore a sin. And sinning is not more tolerable in a ruler than it is in a subject.

The solution we find in St. Thomas was kept alive by subsequent jurists and theologians; Bossuet restates it in this form: “Kings are then, like everybody else, subject to the equity of the laws … but they are not subject to the penalties of the laws, or, to speak the language of theology, their submission is not to their coercive but to their directive power.”⁴³

The following objection might be raised: supposing the sovereign had not made a given law; he would then have been free to act without any consideration of the principle which eventually came to be incorporated in that law. This argument was met thus: eternal law, through its participant, natural law, is constantly acting on human reason so as to improve steadily the quality of legislation (St. Thomas accepts the doctrine of progress in law-making ⁴⁴). Eternal law is then one element; the other is the will of the legislator. The sovereign is not obliged to improve his code, but once he decides to do so and he issues a new law, then by virtue of the conditions above described and which attend to the formation of all laws, he binds himself to accept the directive power of the law he has made.

St. Thomas adds that the sovereign shows that he is above the law by the fact that he can change it. But again in its changed form he is obliged by its directive power to observe it.

The other statement, viz., that the will of the sovereign has the force of law, is explained by St. Thomas with the proviso that the will has this force when it is regulated by reason; which means that in the last resort the legislator, through a process of valid ratiocination based on the principles of natural law, must connect his enactments with eternal law. One must, of course, always recall that for St. Thomas the worst of all laws is preferable to anarchy.

Law

St. Thomas has left us a detailed treatise on law, embodied in those Questions of the First Part of the Second Part of the Summa which are here reprinted.¹ The problem comes up again in the Second Part of the Second Part, the relevant Questions of which are also included in this edition.² A comparison of the two is very illuminating, particularly in view of the disagreements to be found in them. In the first, St. Thomas is interested in deriving morality and legality from eternal law. In the latter, his intention is more juridical. He strives hard to present a theory that will embody Aristotle’s teachings and, at the same time, reconcile some of the well-known contrasts in the field of law, especially natural law.

By demonstrating that a ruler must govern in accordance with laws and that the laws of a state must be derived from natural law, or at least must not go counter to them, St. Thomas proclaims that legality is conditioned by morality and that moral conduct is indeed action regulated by reason, but a reason that is aware that it must, if it will exist, proceed from principles which God has implanted in the soul of man—of every man—viz., the fundamental, inescapable principles of practical reason which constitute what is called natural law.

Natural law is the source of the norms of moral virtues,³ but has a distinct significance for a particular one of them, viz., justice, the social virtue par excellence, the precepts of which, properly formulated and promulgated, constitute the civil codes of the various states.

FORMS OF GOVERNMENT

Political differentiation in states is the outcome of different numerical relationships between ruler and ruled.¹ Of these only three are considered, viz., those relations or ratios of ruler to ruled in which the numerator is one, a few, or many.² The “many” may become “all.” This classification is doubled by introducing a qualitative criterion: goodness—a government being good when it concerns itself with the common good and bad when it aims at private advantages.³ The good government of a single man is called kingship, the bad one tyranny; the good government of the few, aristocracy, the bad, oligarchy; the good government of the many is timocracy or politia,⁴ the bad, democracy (in the special Aristotelian sense).⁵

But the quantitative distinctions named above turn out to be accidental and derived—the outcome of something more fundamental.⁶ What essentially differentiates one state from another is the end or goal toward which a government strives. Of these ends there are three: wealth, virtue, liberty. The wealthy, given the nature of the economic urge, almost always concentrate in a small group; they happen to form usually a numerically insignificant minority. When this group succeeds in gaining power, they form a government which, because of their very aspirations, must be bad (self-seeking) and which, because of the paucity of numbers, is called oligarchy, even though the characteristic feature is economic egoism rather than numbers. The virtuous too are few; because of their very virtue, when they rise to power they concern themselves with the common good as justice demands. If this small minority dwindles down to unity, the regime that comes into existence is called kingship, provided that the ruler is a virtuous man. Otherwise we have a tyranny.

A majority rule, therefore, cannot be the outcome of triumphant zeal for virtue or greed for wealth, but comes into existence when power falls into the hands of those who strive primarily for freedom.⁷ Liberty in a state means self-government, which exists when all subjects in turn may be rulers,⁸ so that the basis of freedom is political equality, implying a control by the poor, who are by far the most numerous. If this popular regime aims at the public good (in which the interests of the wealthy must play a part), then the form of government is timocracy; but if the regime of liberty becomes domination by the populace, then we have what has been called democracy.⁹

On the basis of these three fundamental aspirations, it is possible to establish a standard of value for each regime. As we saw above, the dignity or excellence of a citizen in an aristocracy and in a kingdom is measured by the practice of virtue, in an oligarchy by financial success, in a democracy by devotion to freedom.¹⁰

These types are in no way fixed and immovable. Whatever the qualities of each may be, we find gradations that tend to destroy the rigidity of the type. Tyranny, for example, can be more or less severe; and because of these variations it is possible to say both that it is and that it is not the worst of all regimes.¹¹

The Best Regime

A most important task of the political writers of antiquity and of their disciples in the Middle Ages was to determine the best form of government (the optima civitas). And naturally the question immediately arose: best for whom? St. Thomas was well aware of something that is still often forgotten, viz., that a political regime must be suitable to the cultural or moral level of the people concerned. In S. I-II, Q. 97, A. I, he quotes approvingly this passage from St. Augustine:

If the people have a sense of moderation and responsibility and are most careful guardians of the common weal, it is right to enact a law allowing such a people to choose their own magistrates for the government of the commonwealth. But if, as time goes on, the same people become so corrupt as to sell their votes and entrust the government to scoundrels and criminals, then the right of appointing their public officials is rightly forfeit to such a people, and the choice devolves to a few good men.¹

Circumstances, too, play an important role; a given regime which has been declared inferior to another from an absolute point of view becomes, under certain conditions, superior to it. So oligarchy, which is theoretically better than any kind of tyranny, becomes less desirable when the community is threatened by disruption, because, by its greater unity, the tyrannical rule, with all its vices, is better suited to stave off anarchy, which is the worst possible evil.²

Of this kind of relativism we find many evidences in St. Thomas, for he looks upon human conditions realistically and is convinced that the majority of men are not the material out of which the ideal state can be built. Not reason, but egoistic self-indulgence controls the actions of great numbers of citizens.³

In general, monarchy is the best form of government. The reason for this is stated repeatedly:

The best regime of a community is government by one person, which is made evident if we recall that the end for which a government exists is the maintenance of peace. Peace and unity of subjects is the goal of the ruler. But unity is more congruently the effect of one than of many.⁴

And again:

Now the welfare and safety of a multitude formed into a society lies in the preservation of its unity, which is called peace. If this is removed, the benefit of social life is lost and, moreover, the multitude in its disagreement becomes a burden to itself. The chief concern of the ruler of a multitude, therefore, is to procure the unity of peace…. Now it is manifest that what is itself one can more efficaciously bring about unity than a group of several. … Therefore the rule of one man is more useful than the rule of many.⁵

The state, too, must be one. But its unity is established by order which, because of social exigencies, demands diversities.⁶ These diversities, of course, imply inequalities, as we saw above. In the monarchical rule an essential inequality is to be found in the very great superiority of the king: “A man cannot truly be said to be king if he is not in himself equal to the task of ruling, which means that he must be super-excellent in all good endowments of mind and body and of external belongings.”⁷ Monarchy is a “regime in which one person excels and the others are by nature ⁸ constituted to obey.”⁹ This immense superiority is primarily a moral one. “It is necessary that the king differ naturally from his subjects through the possession of a certain greatness of goodness.”¹⁰ A kingly power would be unjustly exercised if the monarch were not “morally perfect” and if, in the exercise of his virtue, he differed from his subjects only quantitatively.¹¹ The specific kingly virtue is prudence, “which is found both in the ruler and in the subjects. But in the ruler as though in the architect; in the subjects as though in the hand-laborers.”¹²

It is obvious that conditions are not always favorable to this state of affairs. There are, moreover, inherent disadvantages in a monarchical regime:

For it frequently happens that men living under a king strive more sluggishly for the common good, inasmuch as they consider that what they devote to the common good, they do not confer upon themselves but upon another, under whose power they see the common goods to be. But when they see that the common good is not under the power of one man, they do rot attend to it as if it belonged to another, but each one attends to it as if it were his own.¹³

And this argument is strengthened by an example drawn from contemporary life:

Experience thus teaches that one city administered by rulers changing annually is sometimes able to do more than some kings having, perchance, two or three cities; and small services exacted by kings weigh more heavily than great burdens imposed by the community of citizens.¹⁴

A monarchical regime, moreover, fails to satisfy the natural ambition of people: “If a man of high value is the sole ruler, the many people who are deprived of the distinction of power resent it, and this resentment is the cause of dissension.”¹⁵ And dissension was for St. Thomas the worst political evil.

Both the monarchical and the aristocratic regime are defective in that they fail to take advantage of the fact that, good though an elite may be, it is never as good as the whole community which comprises, as one of its parts, the same elite. This fundamental consideration which St. Thomas encountered in commenting on the Politics of Aristotle ¹⁶ was to guide him in his choice of the best practical form of government.

The Mixed Government

The theoretically superior regime of monarchy can be maintained in practice provided certain conditions are met and certain difficulties obviated: first, the aspiration of all people to liberty and equality, which manifests itself in the claim to participate in public life. This is so strong that refusal to satisfy it may bring about dissension, which evil must be avoided at all costs:

In the earthly states … the variety and the abundance of public functions and roles helps to preserve the unity, because through them a great number of people are enabled to take part in public activities.¹

A way must be found, therefore, to make the people feel that they have a stake in the public good. Secondly, the advantages of the kingly rule must not be impaired by the ever-suspended threat of relapse into tyrannical abuses. To avoid this the monarchy must be made “temperate” (temperetur potestas).² The solution was found by instituting a form of government in which the king’s power would be limited and the people’s desire satisfied. That form of government is what is called the “mixed regime.”

The idea of fusing the main governmental forms goes back to classical days. Aristotle speaks of it and mentions the plan of some who deemed that all three forms should be compounded into one, and cited the example of Sparta.³ Polybius further developed the idea,⁴ but it was Cicero who gave it its widest scope. In the first book of De republica, he makes Scipio observe that the three above-named regimes tend regularly to degenerate ⁵ and to follow a cyclical course,⁶ and that therefore, to avoid relapses and recourses, a fourth kind of governmental rule, composed of the said three, should be devised.⁷ He makes Laelius say that the compound form is best, in that it embodies the caritas of the king, the consilium of the aristocracy, and the libertas of the popular regime.⁸ Rome, of course, exemplified this threefold conflatum regime by its consuls, its senate, and its comitia of the people.⁹

It is difficult to say where St. Thomas got the idea of the mixed regime. In substance it is very close to Cicero’s. He claims, however, that it is a generalization of what was formerly put into practice by the Hebrews:

For Moses and his successors governed the people in such a way that each of them was ruler over all, so that there was a kind of kingdom. Moreover, seventy-two men were chosen, who were elders in virtue … so that there was an element of aristocracy. But it was a democratical government in so far as the rulers were chosen from all the people.¹⁰

Tyranny

In treating of tyranny and of the justification of tyrannicide, a question often discussed in antiquity and brought to the fore again by John of Salisbury, St. Thomas moves very cautiously and, as usual, is more concerned with the stability of the state than with the upholding of individual political rights.

In the Commentary to the Sentences he seems to countenance tyrannicide by what might be looked upon as a partial approval of a statement of Cicero. He says:

Cicero here considers the case in which power was seized by an act of violence either against the will of the subjects or with a consent which was wrested by coercion, and in conditions such that no recourse could be had to a higher authority capable of passing judgment on the usurper. In these circumstances he who kills the tyrant in order to free his country is praised and rewarded.¹

But such extreme measures proved to be not to his liking. He could not of course accept the doctrine that rulers are always right, that the king can do no wrong. So when he came to face the problem raised by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans: “Princes are not a terror to good works but to the evil,”² he hesitates between two interpretations: one, aiming at a doctrine that did not acquiesce in extreme resignation, is, from the point of view of the exegesis, somewhat daring. “Princes,” he says, “are not instituted to be a terror, etc.”; and later, “to be a terror to the good is not part of a Prince’s function.”³ Realizing perhaps that this interpretation, though very acceptable from one point of view, was doing violence to the text and was departing from the old tradition, he fell back on the accepted explanation. Bad rulers, for such no doubt exist, cannot terrorize the good, for,

although they at times unjustly persecute the well-doers, yet the latter have no cause to fear, because the harm they suffer, if they will but patiently bear it, will turn out to their advantage, in accordance with the First Epistle of St. Peter: “But if also you suffer anything for justice’s sake, blessed are ye.”⁴ Thus it may be seen why those who resist power bring upon themselves condemnation, whether it is that which is inflicted by rulers upon rebels or that by which God punishes men.⁵

Bad kings, he concludes, come into the world with God’s consent, to punish the wicked and test the good.

When, however, St. Thomas came to discuss the situation from a more political point of view, he suggested measures which are in line with his constant practice of stressing above all the conservation of the state and of discouraging any acts that might result in a revolution. He feared that removal of a tyrant might bring about fatal dissensions among the people and possibly give rise to some worse kind of tyrannical rule. His practical suggestions as to how to deal with the matter are the following:

If tyranny is not too oppressive, the subjects should put up with it for the reasons above stated. For extreme cases some, he tells us, have suggested tyrannicide, that is, execution by private persons. The individual act of one who exposes himself to rid the state of a tyrant has often been admired and was approved by the Old Testament. However, says the Angelic Doctor, the New Testament does not countenance this practice—witness St. Peter, who says: “Be subjects to your masters, not only to the good and gentle but also to the forward.”⁶ And he goes on to say that the attitude of the martyrs, who died but did not rebel, confirmed this doctrine. Sound political prudence likewise condemns tyrannicide, for it would be a great hazard for the people and for the government if individuals, by private presumption, were to attempt to take the life of rulers, tyrannical though they may be; and he warns us that frequently those who are quick to have recourse to violence are inferior elements of society.⁷

Not individual violence, then, but lawful opposition should be resorted to against tyranny: “We must proceed not by private presumption, but by public authority.” And defense against tyranny may take several forms. If the ruler has been elected by the people, he may justly be checked or even deposed for abuse of power. Nor do the people break their contract if they depose a sovereign whom they had elected for life, inasmuch as they are not held to abide by the terms of an agreement which the ruler himself has already voided by his actions.⁸

But if the tyrant wields power by delegation from a higher authority, it is the duty of this superior power to remove him. Finally, if no remedy can be found in human procedures, we must turn to God, the Universal Ruler. He may, if he wishes, change the heart of the tyrant; and those whom he deems unworthy of conversion he removes or degrades. We should have recourse to prayer; but before we request divine intervention against a tyrannical ruler, we must be sure that we deserve to be helped. For frequently God permits tyrants to rule, so that they may chastise the subjects for their sinful conduct.

PLENITUDO POTESTATIS

We can gather from what has already been said that no state can possess absolute power, and we can infer that there is no room in St. Thomas’ theory of government for a lay world-emperor. The Angelic Doctor says explicitly that the ultimate goal of an assembled multitude is not to live in accordance with virtue, but, by means of a virtuous life, to attain divine fruition. If indeed this end could be reached by the virtue of human nature, it would of necessity be in the power of the lay ruler to direct men to this goal. However, since man rises to the possession of God not by human but by divine power, the guidance to that goal must be the task not of a human but of a divine government.¹

In St. Thomas’ own words:

In order that spiritual matters might be kept separate from temporal ones, the ministry of this kingdom was entrusted not to earthly kings, but to priests and especially to the highest of them, the successor of St. Peter, vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff, to whom all kings must be subject just as they are subject to Our Lord Jesus. For, those to whom the care of an intermediate end pertains should be subject to him to whom the care of the ultimate end belongs and be directed by his rule.²

More uncompromising still, even if stated in feudal parlance, is the pronouncement of Quaestiones Quodlibetales xii. 19:

In old Roman days, monarchs opposed Christ. But now kings comprehend, and because of what they have learned, they serve Our Lord Jesus Christ in fear; and, therefore, today kings are vassals of the Church.

Nor is the Pope’s power that of a supreme potentate removed from the actual administration of things and therefore in need of a vicar or an associate to assume his political functions and to act as a universal emperor over all earthly kings and rulers. There can be no lay King of Kings; it is the Pope who is the sovereign of all rulers: “In the Pope the secular power is joined to the spiritual. He holds the apex of both powers, spiritual and secular, by the will of Him who is Priest and King unto eternity, King of Kings and Dominus Dominantium.”³

An indirect power (ratione peccati) over the worldly rulers is exercised by the other princes of the Church:

Secular power is subject to the spiritual power as the body is subject to the soul, and therefore it is not a usurpation of authority if the spiritual prelate interferes in temporal things concerning those matters in which the secular power is subject to him, or concerning those matters the care of which has been entrusted to him by the secular power.⁴

But the authority of the Pope is quite other. For though there is a sphere of authority reserved for political power, the Pope is not excluded from it:

In matters pertaining to salvation of the soul we should obey spiritual rather than temporal authority, but in those which pertain to the political good we should obey the temporal rather than the spiritual, for, as Matthew says, “Give unto Caesar, etc.,” unless when it happens that the spiritual and the civil power are joined in one person as in the case of the Pope, who holds the summit of power both spiritual and secular, because of the will of Him who is both King and Priest, Priest unto Eternity according to the order of Melchisedech.⁵

The uniqueness of the Pope’s authority is explained in the passage that follows:

Sometimes the inferior power emanates in its totality from the superior, in which case the entire potence of the former is founded upon the potence of the latter, so that obedience is due to the higher at all times and without exceptions. Such is the superiority of the Emperor’s power over that of the Proconsul [quoted from St. Augustine]; such that of the Pope over all spiritual powers in the Church, since the ecclesiastical hierarchies are ordained and disposed by him, and his power is in some manner the foundation of the Church as it appears from Matthew 16. Hence we are required in all these things to obey him rather than the bishop or archbishop and to him the monk owes obedience in preference to his abbot. But two powers may be such that both arise from a third and supreme authority, and their relative rank then depends upon the will of this uppermost power. When this is the case, either one of the two subordinate authorities controls the other only in those matters in which its superiority has been recognized by the uppermost power. Of such nature is the authority exercised by rulers, by bishops, archbishops, etc., over their subjects, for all of them have received it from the Pope and with it the conditions and limitations of its use.⁶

St. Thomas could tolerate no other adjustment: “Mankind,” he says, “is considered like one body, which is called the mystic body, whose head is Christ both as to soul and as to body.”⁷ Christ has one vicar, the Pope,⁸ and the Pope is the “head of the republic of Christ.”⁹ The ecclesia includes the res publica.

The law by which the Pope governs is the divine law, which, as we saw above, includes all that natural law teaches and something else besides. Divine law includes natural law but does not abolish it. In other words, if the state remains within the limits set to it by natural law, no interference is justified. No one is allowed to appeal to divine law against the just obligations imposed by the state. According to St. Thomas, the faith of Christ is the principle and cause of justice. Hence the order of justice is not destroyed but rather enhanced by this faith. But the order of justice demands that inferiors obey superiors, for otherwise human society could not exist. Hence men may not invoke their faith in Christ as an excuse for disobeying secular rulers.¹⁰

St. Thomas recognizes the autonomy of the state, and this recognition is utilized in settling important questions such as that of the right of infidel rulers to demand obedience of their Christian subjects: “Infidelity in itself does not destroy the justness of power, because power was instituted by ius gentium, a human law, and the distinction between believers and infidels exists by virtue of divine law, which does not destroy human law.”¹¹ An infidel, like any other ruler, may, of course, lose his power because of sins he commits; and it may well be that such sins, in that case, have some connection with his religion. “It does not pertain to the Church,” he adds, “to punish the infidelity of those who never took up the faith, according to St. Paul’s I Corinthians (v. 12).”¹² However, the situation of heretics is different: The Church “can sententially punish the infidelity of those who had previously accepted the faith ¹³ … and, therefore, as soon as a sentence of excommunication has been delivered against a ruler on account of apostasy from the faith, ipso facto his subjects are released from his control and from their oath of fidelity.”¹⁴

Existing infidel rulers are therefore authorized to continue in existence, but no new infidel formations are to be permitted:

The Church cannot allow that infidels proceed to gain control over believers or that they be in any way placed in a commanding position over them. But we can speak differently about powers or authorities already existing. For, as we have seen, power and authority have been instituted by human law, whereas the distinction between infidels and believers exists in virtue of divine law. But divine law, which comes from Grace, does not destroy human law, which comes from nature.¹⁵

This apparently was a strong statement, for St. Thomas immediately introduced a clause that justified exceptional procedures on the part of the Church, on the basis of its possessing the “authority of God.” It is important, however, to notice that here, as everywhere else, the point that St. Thomas stresses is the stability of the political order. For its sake the Church refrains from going the whole length in imposing this God-given authority. It is because of this fear of political disturbances that St. Thomas decides against the manumission of Christian slaves owned by Jews.

Over the natural state so organized the Pope ordinarily exercises no immediate jurisdiction. He does not wield the two swords. One of them, that of earthly justice, he hands over to the secular ruler, who is to unsheathe it, however, at his beck (ad nutum).¹⁶ It is interesting, nevertheless, to see that in one sphere the Pope exercises direct political authority: The civil authorities, St. Thomas says, have, according to Aristotle, the power to regulate the instruction of the citizens, to decide to what pursuits individual men should dedicate themselves, and how far these should be carried. “And so it is clear that the ordaining of a university pertains to him who is at the head of the state, and especially to the authority of the Apostolic See by which the Universal Church is ruled, the intellectual interests of which are taken care of in the higher institution of learning.”¹⁷

DINO BIGONGIARI

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

April, 1952

*The Introduction that follows is made up of extracts from a book of the editor (not yet published) on the political philosophy of St. Thomas. There is, therefore, no attempt at exhaustiveness or organic consistency. The aim was to facilitate the understanding of the selections from the Summa and the De Regimine Principum here included, by giving a detailed discussion of certain important topics and by introducing material from works of St. Thomas other than those above mentioned.

¹S. I-II, Q. 90, pp. 3 ff.

²R.P. (On Kingship) I, § 6, p. 176.

³Cf. Avicenna, De anima v. I.

⁴R.P. loc. cit. The things which our mind discovers by this process St. Thomas calls “adinventiones” (S. II-II, Q. 55, A. 2).

⁵S. I-II, Q. 97, A. 1, pp. 78 ff.

⁶Cf. Ibid., A. 3, and In Pol. i. I.

⁷Seneca had said: “God gave man two things which transformed him from a dependent into a master: reason and sociability” (De benef. iv. 18). St. Thomas says: “reason through sociability.”

⁸Quodl. vii. 17; cf. C.G. iii. 132 and C.I. v. 27.

⁹C.I. iii.

¹⁰C.G. iii. 69.

¹¹I Sent. 44.1.2.6.

¹²Ibid., 44.1.2.5.

¹³Ibid., 44.12.6.

¹R.P. I, 8-9, pp. 176-7.

²De civ. Dei xix. 17.

³Prevost-Paradol, La France Nouvelle, Ch. 4.

⁴C.G. iii. 81.

⁵Contra lulianum iv. 61.

⁶S. I, Q. 92, Aa. 1, 2; Q. 96, Aa. 3, 4.

⁷II Sent. 44.I.3.

⁸Ibid.

⁹Rom. xiii. I.

¹⁰For public power and public person, cf. S. II-II, Q. 65, A. 1.

¹¹For plenaria potestas of the sovereign, cf. S. II-II, Q. 67, A. 4

¹²Can. quicumque percusserit, causa 23, qu. 8.

¹³Cf. S. II-II, Q. 12, A. 2. That dominion here has to do with political control and not with the rights of a master over his slave is made clear by the context of the passage (subditis fidelibus, etc.).

¹⁴Cf. S. I-II, Q. 94, A. 5 ad 3, pp. 52 f.

¹⁵II Sent. 44.1.2; 44.2.2.

¹⁶Ibid.

¹⁷That is: a man, absolutely speaking, because of his form (the rational soul) is a reasoning animal, which does not mean that he is exempt from irrationality.

¹⁸II Sent., loc. cit.

¹⁹Ibid.

²⁰Ibid.

²¹Cf. Luchaire’s statement that monarchy rested on the belief “that God instituted kingship so that rulers might render justice to men and establish peace, which is their first and most essential duty.” Histoire des Institutions Monarchiques de la France sous les premiers Capétiens. I. 40 (Paris, 1883).

²²S. I-II, Q. 97, A. 3 ad 3, p. 83.

²³Ibid., Q. 90, A. 3, pp. 7-8.

²⁴Ibid.

²⁵S. I-II, Q. 95. A. 4, pp. 62-64.

²⁶S. II-II, Q. 60, A. 6; cf. Q. 67, A. 1.

²⁷S. I-II, Q. 104, A. 1.

²⁸Cf. S. II-II, Q. 65, A. 2; Q. 66, A. 8, pp. 139-41; Q. 67, A. 4.

²⁹Cf. Ibid., Q. 66, A. 8.

³⁰Cf. S. I-II, Q. 40, A. 1.

³¹Quaestio in Heptateuchon, 10.

³²Contra Faust. xxii. 70.

³³S. II-II, Q. 65, A. 2 ad 2.

³⁴Ibid., A. 1 and A. 2 ad 2.

³⁵“Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem” (Digest i.4.1).

³⁶“Princeps legibus solutus” (ibid., i.3.31).

³⁷Novella 105.4.

³⁸Digest, Preface ii.

³⁹S. I-II, Q. 96, A. 5 ad 3, p. 74.

⁴⁰Ibid.

⁴¹De legibus iii. 35. 6. Of course, the directive power of law is entirely different from the vis ostensiva, such power as the Laws of both Plato and Cicero might have.

⁴²Dionysius Cato.

⁴³Politique tirée des propres paroles de l’ Écriture Sainte, Book IV, art. 1, prop. 21.

⁴⁴S. I-II, Q, 97, A. 1, pp. 78 ff.

¹Pp. 3 ff.

²Pp. 92 ff.

³“Virtues perfect us as to the proper prosecution of the natural inclinations which pertain to natural law, and so for every natural inclination there is a properly ordered special virtue” (S. II-II, Q. 108, A. 2).

¹In Pol. iii. 6.

²Ibid., ii. 7; In Eth. viii. 10.

³In Pol. iii. 6.

⁴St. Thomas, following Aristotle, uses this word in two principal senses. One, the generic, means “forms of government.” Our word “regime,” particularly in its broader sense, seems better suited than “constitution,” which is often used as the English equivalent. The “ordo of the civitas” (ibid., iv. 10) which is the relation between ruler and subjects, determines the form of government. So, therefore, politia is also defined as “ordo of the rulers” (ibid., iv. 12) or again as “ordinatio of the civitas in relation to all ruling powers but especially to the principal one,” i.e., the government (ibid., iii. 5). The form of government determines the nature of the entire community: “it is the life of the state” (ibid., iv. 3), so much so that “when the politia is changed, one cannot say that the civitas remains the same” (ibid., iii. 2). The second meaning is that of a particular form of government: the good popular government in contrast with democratia, which is the bad. It was in this sense that, in the thirteenth century, the word “politicus” came to be used as the opposite of “despotic.”

⁵R.P. I, § 11, p. 178.

⁶In Pol. iii. 6; iv. 2.

⁷The difficulty with the regime of freedom is that the citizens, having secured political equality, tend to claim absolute equality. Cf. In Eth. v. 2.

⁸In Pol. i. 10.

⁹R.P. I, § 11, p. 178; In Eth. viii. 10.

¹⁰S. II-II, Q. 61, A. 2.

¹¹R.P. I §§ 21 ff. and 36 ff., pp. 181 ff., 186 ff

¹P. 79 (De lib. arb. i. 6).

²Provided, of course, the tyrant does not completely crush his subjects (ibid.).

³“The majority of people follow the inclinations of sensuous nature rather than the order of reason” (S. I-II, Q. 71, A. 2 ad 3).

“The people for the most part fail to use reason” (In Pol. iv. 13).

“Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue” (S. I-II, Q. 96, A. 2, p. 68).

⁴C.G. iv. 76.

⁵R.P. I, § 17, pp. 179-80.

⁶“Every perfect whole in natural things turns out to be constituted of specifically different parts. Since the state is a perfect whole, it must consist of parts which differ among themselves specifically” (In Pol. ii. I). Therefore, complete unity destroys the state: “If the unity of a state progressed beyond a certain point, the state would become a household; and if the unity of the household proceeded too far, it would turn into one individual” (ibid.).

⁷In Eth. viii. 10.

⁸It must be recalled that nature sees to it that the needed farmers, philosophers, soldiers, etc., be always at hand: “The distribution of these functional aptitudes is done primarily by divine providence, but secondarily by natural causes, in virtue of which one man is better suited for one thing than for another” (C.I. ii. 31).

⁹In Pol. iii. 9.

¹⁰Ibid., i. 10.

¹¹Ibid.

¹²S. II-II, Q. 47, A. 12.

¹³R.P. I, § 31, p. 185.

¹⁴Ibid., § 32; but cf. § 20, pp. 180-81: “This is also evident from experience. For provinces or cities which are not ruled by one person are torn with dissensions and tossed about without peace…. On the other hand, provinces and cities which are ruled under one king enjoy peace, flourish in justice, and delight in prosperity.”

¹⁵In Pol. iii. 8, et passim.

¹⁶Ibid., iii. 14.

¹S. II-II, Q. 183, A. 2.

²R.P. I, Ch. VI, pp. 188 ff. The word “moderatum” is also used. Cf. R.P. II, Ch. VIII, and Cicero, De repub. i. 29 (45): “moderatum et permixtum.” The two attributes, “moderate” and “temperate,” had already been joined by classical authors.

³Pol. ii. 6.

⁴Hist. vi.1.3.3.8.9.

⁵“iter ad finitimum quoddam malum praeceps ac lubricum” (De repub. i. 29).

⁶“orbes et quasi circuitus in rebus publicis commutationum et vicissitudinum” (ibid.).

⁷“moderatum et permixtum tribus” (ibid.).

⁸Ibid., i. 35 (55). How this regime was to be organized we are told in S. I-II, Q. 105, A. 1, pp. 86 ff.

⁹Ibid., i. 32 (56). Venice, too, claimed that its government was a fusion of the three basic forms, with the regal power in the Doge, the aristocratic in the Senate, and the democratic in the greater Council.

¹⁰S. I-II, Q. 105, A. 1, p. 88.

¹II Sent. 2.2.2.5.

²Rom. xiii. 3.

³In Ep. ad Rom. xiii. 1.

⁴I Pet. iii. 14.

⁵In Ep. ad Rom. xiii. 1.

⁶I Pet. ii. 18.

⁷R.P. I, § 47, p. 190.

⁸Ibid.

¹R.P. II, §§ 107-108.

²Ibid.; § 110.

³II Sent. 44 expositio textus.

⁴S. II-II, Q. 60, A. 6. This analogical argumentation is constantly resorted to: “In the Church the Pope holds the place of the head and the major prelates hold the place of the principal limbs” (In Ep. ad Rom. xii. 2).

⁵II Sent. 44 explicatio textus. Some apply this solely to the Pontifical State. But such an interpretation does not seem to be tenable.

⁶Ibid.

⁷S. III, Q. 8, A. 1.

⁸C.G. iv. 76.

⁹Contra errores Graecorum ii. 32.

¹⁰S. II-II, Q. 104, A. 6, pp. 171-2.

¹¹Ibid., Q. 12, A. 2.

¹²Ibid.

¹³Here follows the reason why heresy and not infidelity is punishable.

¹⁴S. II-II, Q. 12, A. 2.

¹⁵Ibid., Q. 10, A. 10.

¹⁶IV Sent. 37 expositio textus; cf. S. II-II, Q. 64, A. 4. ad 3. Cf. St. Bernard, De consideratione iv. 3. 7, and Epist. 236.

¹⁷C.I. i. 8.

↑ Back to top

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION* THE STATE AS A NATURAL ORDER

PUBLIC POWER

The Ruler

Law

FORMS OF GOVERNMENT

The Best Regime

The Mixed Government

Tyranny

PLENITUDO POTESTATIS

INTRODUCTION * THE STATE AS A NATURAL ORDER