Rome, the Church and St. Thomas Aquinas

1. Rome as a republic

Rome expelled its last king in 509 BCE (traditional date) and became a republic. Power was shared between two annually elected consuls (the executive), the Senate (the aristocratic council, which controlled finance and foreign affairs) and the popular assemblies, with tribunes who could veto acts harmful to the plebeians. The struggle of the orders between patricians and plebeians produced the Twelve Tables (c. 450 BCE), the first written Roman law, displayed publicly so that all could know it.

Polybius, a Greek historian living in Rome, explained Roman success by its mixed constitution: the consuls were the monarchical element, the Senate the aristocratic, the assemblies the democratic. Each checked the others, and the mixture escaped the cycle of decay that Aristotle had described. This is an early version of checks and balances.

Cicero (106–43 BCE), in De Re Publica and De Legibus, defined the commonwealth as the affair of the people, a people being an assembly united by agreement on law and by community of interest. He took from the Stoics the idea of a natural law, “right reason in agreement with nature”, binding on all men, under which all men are equal. This passed to the Church and to medieval thought.

2. Rome as an empire

After the civil wars, Augustus became the first emperor (27 BCE). The Republic’s forms survived but power lay with the emperor. The empire contributed:

• the idea of a universal State ruling many peoples under one law;
• citizenship as a legal status that could be extended (by the Edict of Caracalla, 212 CE, to almost all free inhabitants);
• the doctrine that the emperor’s power came from the people by the lex regia, so that “what pleases the prince has the force of law”. Medieval writers used this text both for absolutism and for popular sovereignty;
• an efficient administrative system of provinces, governors and officials.

3. The Roman legal system

• Jus civile: the law applying to Roman citizens.
• Jus gentium: the law of nations, applied by the praetor to disputes involving foreigners; built from principles common to many peoples. It later contributed to international law.
• Jus naturale: natural law, the ideal standard of reason and justice.

The jurists (Gaius, Papinian, Ulpian) developed concepts still in use: legal personality, contract, ownership and possession, the distinction between public and private law. Ulpian’s definition of justice as “the constant and perpetual will to give each his due” opens Justinian’s Institutes. Emperor Justinian (in Constantinople) codified the law in the Corpus Juris Civilis (529–534 CE): the Code, the Digest, the Institutes and the Novels. Its revival at Bologna in the eleventh century made Roman law the basis of the civil law systems of continental Europe.

Contributions of Rome, in a list: law as the bond of the State; the State as a legal person; the separation of public and private law; sovereignty located in the people (in theory); the mixed constitution; citizenship; natural law and equality; and the practical art of administering a large State.

4. The rise of Christianity: its tenets

• Equality of all men before God, whatever their status.
• The dual allegiance: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Man has a duty to the State and a higher duty to God.
• Obedience to authority: St. Paul, “the powers that be are ordained of God”, so resistance to rulers was generally condemned.
• Brotherhood, charity and the dignity of the individual soul.

Persecuted at first, Christianity was tolerated by the Edict of Milan (313 CE) under Constantine and became the official religion under Theodosius (380 CE). St. Augustine, in The City of God (written after the sack of Rome in 410), contrasted the earthly city built on self-love with the heavenly city built on love of God; the State is needed because of sin, and is just only if it serves Christian ends.

5. The Church and the papacy: religion versus politics

Pope Gelasius I (494 CE) stated the theory of the two swords: the world is ruled by the sacred authority of the priests and the royal power, each supreme in its sphere, with the spiritual of greater dignity. The quarrel was about where the line lay.

• Investiture contest: Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henry IV fought over who could appoint bishops. Henry was excommunicated and did penance at Canossa (1077). The Concordat of Worms (1122) settled the issue by compromise.
• Papal claims reached their height with Innocent III and with Boniface VIII, whose bull Unam Sanctam (1302) declared that both swords belong to the Church and that submission to the Pope is necessary for salvation.
• Anti-papal writers: Dante (De Monarchia), Marsilius of Padua (Defensor Pacis, 1324), who placed authority in the people and made the Church subordinate to the State, and William of Ockham.

The outcome, through the Conciliar movement and the Reformation, was the victory of the secular State, the basis for the modern sovereign State and for secularism.

6. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)

A Dominican friar from Italy, author of Summa Theologica and On Kingship. His aim was to reconcile the newly recovered works of Aristotle with Christian faith: reason and revelation do not contradict, and grace perfects nature.

Four kinds of law

1. Eternal law: God’s reason governing the whole universe.
2. Natural law: the part of eternal law that man can know by reason (preserve life, raise children, seek truth, live in society).
3. Divine law: revealed in Scripture, guiding man to his supernatural end.
4. Human law: made by rulers for the common good, derived from natural law. A human law contrary to natural law is not law but a perversion of law.

The State and government

• Following Aristotle, the State is natural, not merely a result of sin (a departure from Augustine).
• Its end is the common good: peace, material sufficiency and a virtuous life.
• Monarchy is the best form, as unity is best secured by one, but it should be limited and mixed with aristocratic and popular elements.
• Tyranny may be resisted, through public authority rather than private action.
• The State is supreme in temporal matters; the Church is superior in spiritual matters, and the ruler is subject to the Pope in what concerns salvation.

Contribution. Aquinas gave the medieval world its most complete synthesis, made natural law the measure of human law (an idea that runs to modern human rights), and revived Aristotle’s view of the State as a natural institution aiming at the good life.

How this is examined

The recent papers have not set this cluster as an essay. The August 2024 paper asked for a short note on the “Roman legal system” (6 marks), and this is the likeliest form. Prepare each section above as a 6- to 8-mark note: Roman law with its three divisions and Justinian; the two swords and the investiture contest; Aquinas with the four kinds of law. If a 16-mark question on Aquinas comes, combine his classification of law with his views on the State and on Church and State.