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Saturday, June 21, 2008 - 9:56pmSanction this postReply
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In the Article, "Liberty and Hard Cases" by Dr. Tibor Machan, the professor offered a gloss: "... just as was believed in the thousands of years when monarchies ruled virtually everywhere because the king was thought to be God’s representative on earth."

The matter is somewhat more complicated and anyone interested in changing the world can benefit from a deeper study of the anthropology of govenment.  To begin in the middle, the concept "divine right of kings" was an invention of James VI of Scotland James I of England.  A philosopher in his own right, James Charles Stuart outlined his theory of government in A SPEACH TO THE  LORDS AND COMMONS OF THE PARLIAMENT AT WHITE-HALL, ON WEDNESDAY THE XXI. OF MARCH. ANNO 1609, which can be found in many places, including here.  The ideas expressed there would have been strange to King Richard the Lionhearted, radical perhaps even to Mary Stuart. 

The link between divinity and the king is known from Egypt's pharoahs.  Realize, however, that "pharoah" referred literally to the house, not the man.  In China's long history "divine" rulers are rare.  Far more often they were more realistically identified with a "mandate" from heaven, which they could lose.  Some ancient kings were deified; most later ones were not. 

Alexander the Great had an apotheosis and it was likely a factor in the assassination plots against him.

In Rome, the emperor was always just the first citizen.  Even when generals strongarmed the senate, the formalities were kept.  Some emperors were deified after their deaths.  Only Domitian declared himself a living god. 

The case of Alexander highlights the complexities in the matter.  The ruling family of Macedon descended from Herakles according to their own mythology.  Herakles of course was a son of Zeus, thus a demi-god.  Heroic founders often have divine descent in the stories told long after their lives. 

Investigations into others peoples, times, and places will reveal the same pattern: event-points in which some successful leader claims divinity separated by long periods -- centuries; millennia -- when they did not.  From the end of the Roman Empire in the West, the Germanic kings certainly did not claim divinity.  With their conversion to Christianity, such a claim would have been anathema.  That applies, also, to the emperors in the East the Romaions of Constantinople (mistakenly still called "Byzantine" by many). 

The case of Paul's book to the Romans is a curious exception in Christian political theory. 
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. Romans 13:1 NIV.
It is difficult because it contradicts most of the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament on the question of obedience to mundane authority.  In the OT, the judges were God's representatives on Earth and the kings held only temporal rule.  Obviously, to the Jews, following God's laws was important for all, the king included, and the fall of Solomon and the greater fall of David are lessons.  The position of the Christians vis a vis the Roman Empire is too well known to bear much citation.  It reminds me of one of my favorite New Yorker cartoons: the king is standing at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter is saying, "Yes, but you were the defender of the wrong faith."

The tradition of "heavenly mandate" continues in America today.  In God We Trust appears on the money of the federal government.  "God Bless America" and other patriotic songs allude to the divine blessing that validates political activities.  In a wider, context, however, for those who "praise the Lord anyway" divine blessings for good government are no different than the same grace for good harvests, good traffic signals, and good curve balls over the plate.  God rules everything.  So, God's sanction would be expected for the government.  That said, IGWT only appeared on federal coinage as the North was not winning against the South.  It was added to paper money 100 years later.  This means, that the opposite is also a tradition: there was no such appeal for many years before those prayers.

The converse case also has a long history.  For perhaps a million years, no human claimed a divine right to rule.  The story of Oedipus Tyrannos (mistakenly called Oedipus "Rex") presents this conflict between "church" and state.  It is an old story.  During the Italian Renaissance many cities had populist governments.  The worst excess -- Savonarola -- only served to separate church and state once the mania abated.

Governments are not alone in claiming to be God's actors.  Part of the essence of the Protestant ethic as a contributor to the rise of capitalism is that those individuals saw themselves as acting out God's will -- including merchants who worked hard and saved their money.


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