The clean hands of the Church, the dirty hands of the State
How the popes let the Christian monarchs do the dirty work. But separation of church and state later came to mean something else: a secular government.
An important factor in religious intolerance in Christianity is the traditionally close relationship between church and state. That bond was a bit like yin and yang: intertwined opposites.
In the article on heresy we saw that the church fulfilled the role of prosecutor and judge, but left the executioner's work to the state. In this way the church formally kept its hands clean. In the article on pagans and slavery it was the Church that enjoined the subjugation of pagan nations and legitimised the enslavement of pagans. In the matter of forced conversion, it was the church that guarded the subtle distinction between insistence and coercion.
In that article we also saw that after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Church was drawn to the new kings in and outside Europe like a magnet. Because of its close relationship with Christian Roman emperors, the church was completely adapted to a symbiosis with secular power. When a nation needed to be converted, the Church turned first to the monarch. Once he was converted, the rest of the people followed naturally. It was a successful strategy that condemned the monarch and the church to each other. The monarch derived legitimacy from the church, the church helped keep the people under control, and provided the monarch with a powerful international network. The Church, in turn, was given free reign in the kingdom, could devote itself fully to the conversion of the people, and acquired power and money.
Christian monarchs derived their legitimacy from a papal blessing. Without ecclesiastical influence they would more often have raged like beasts; the ecclesiastical influence had a moderating effect on the monarchs, but at the same time it also legitimised brutal violence that is incomprehensible if you look at Jesus' instructions.
How did it come about, we will examine in this article, how could it have turned out differently, and how did we arrive at the separation between church and state that is now so typical of traditionally Christian countries?
Church and state in other religious cultures
Apart from the major monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), separation of church and state is hardly an issue. To some extent, religions influence every ruler. Rulers are often adherents themselves, and clerics sometimes function as advisers to governments or at court. Of course there are tensions. Clerics and priests are usually in contact with the higher things, and are therefore ideally placed to call the ruler to order. But the need for a special doctrine of separation of church and state is generally not recognised. I wonder why that is.
The ancestors of historian of religion Brent Nongbri are Khasi from northeast India. Young Brent took an interest in religions and spoke a little Khasi. He found out that the language of his ancestors didn't really have a word for religion. The word that came closest was ka niam: habit. This experience may have formed the seed of his later interest in the meaning of religion. In his book Before religion (2013) he describes how our interest in religion is coloured by our own Western Christian religious culture.
Don't forget that our monotheistic tradition is actually an anomaly when you look at 'religious' practices in human history worldwide. Outside the three major monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) you are traditionally looked at with wide eyes when you ask questions about the meaning of religion. Like a Martian asking you what air is, or asking you if you believe in economics. Even in Arabic there is traditionally no word for religion. The most commonly used word dīn traditionally stands for duty, judgement or custom.
Also the idea that you can change religion like changing a coat is an anomaly. If you asked a Hindu a few hundred years ago if he was still a Hindu when he converted to Christianity, he would have stared at you in confusion. Ethnicity and religion coincided.
The same was true in Judaism. Our monotheistic tradition began around the 7th century BC at the time of the Babylonian captivity of the people of Judah. The cause is still speculated upon, but the originally Edomite war god Yahweh no longer tolerated a cult of rival gods. The word Judaism for the religion of the Jews was first used in the 1st century BC. Until then it never occurred to any Jew that they had a religion. There was God, a people and a law, and they coincided.
The relationship between the people of Israel and its royal dynasty has always been tense. There used to be about three good kings: David, Solomon and Josiah. For the rest, the experiences with the royal family were not so good. In the Tanakh, Yahweh himself was referred to as king of his people. God himself was at the controls, so what good is a king on Earth? At best, it was an agent of sorts, but often one who flouted God's instructions, got too big for his britches, or simply messed things up.
The typical extensive role of religious laws may have also played into the separation of church and state. Sin is not acting according to the will of God. Not obeying God’s will and laws is inherent in human behaviour. With so many laws to obey, no wonder that every human is considered a sinner. A ruler is therefore destined to commit sins on a large scale. It makes sense of a Church to distance itself a bit from such inevitably great sinners, in order not to be smeared themselves, to stay on the moral high ground. In Eastern religions for example, sin is not a defining characteristic. Rulers might be ignorant, foolhardy, stupid, maybe even unworthy or jinxed, but sin wouldn’t be the overarching qualification for such behaviour. Besides, spiritual courtiers are just advisers, not accomplices.
Characteristic of the Christian Church was also the hierarchical organisation, with considerable executive power. In order not to encroach on the worldly ruler, it is wise to divide the responsibilities.
Jesus and Paulos hardly cared
The Jewish suspicion of monarchy also prevailed at the time of Jesus. The attitude towards the Herodian dynasty was sceptical. Moreover, they were vassals of the Roman occupying forces, which pulled the strings. To Jesus, kings and emperors were but passers-by. His gaze was fixed on the kingdom of God that would soon arrive.
There is disagreement about the meaning of the quote below. Some theologians think it indicates that Jesus wanted to make a distinction between church and state. Others think that Jesus was speaking here only of the liability of taxes.
Give the Emperor what belongs to him and give God what belongs to God.
— Jesus of Nazareth, quoted in Matthew 22:21
But in any case, Jesus was not concerned with the interaction between state and religion. That was more alive with Paulos:
Obey the rulers who have authority over you. Only God can give authority to anyone, and he puts these rulers in their places of power. People who oppose the authorities are opposing what God has done, and they will be punished. Rulers are a threat to evil people, not to good people. There is no need to be afraid of the authorities. Just do right, and they will praise you for it. After all, they are God's servants, and it is their duty to help you.
If you do something wrong, you ought to be afraid, because these rulers have the right to punish you. They are God's servants who punish criminals to show how angry God is. But you should obey the rulers because you know it is the right thing to do, and not just because of God's anger.
— Paulos of Tarsos, Letter to the Romans 13:1-5
The early Christian communities were close-knit. They were mostly urban communities. Members had their own job, and they often had their own house, but they tended to knock down each other's doors. Meals were shared, prayers were shared and devotional texts were recited, and there were likely faith healings and exorcisms. There was collective ownership; they helped each other. Early Christians helped the sick and the poor nearby. The community was able to support itself quite well.
To the outside world, the Christian communities were scary and sectarian, and conversely, the Christians saw the pagan outside world as appalling. For three centuries, a Christian's life in the Roman Empire was in danger. Unimaginable atrocities were committed against Christians. It made the early Christians even more suspicious of the government: what good could they expect from it? Roman laws were considered binding only insofar as they did not conflict with God's law. This of course caused even more bad blood in Rome.
Christians in power
When Emperor Constantinus around 312 joined the Christian community, it was not all good news. What to do with a Christian emperor, the personification of power from which the community had always kept aloof? It was realised that the Church didn’t have the Emperor dangling on a string; it was rather the other way around. The important jobs were quickly taken by Christians. Bishops were now powerful men who effectively called the shots in their city. Within a hundred years, Christianity was the state religion. The church organisation became more hierarchical; the organisation mirrored itself on the Roman Empire, which was governed like a pyramid. Under those circumstances, how could the church maintain its moral purity?
Once again Augustinus’ opinion surfaced. He had thought deeply about that question, and wrote a thick and complex book on it: De civitate Dei: God's city. Augustinus wrote it between 413 and 426. With our contemporary view, Augustinus’ ideas about the division of responsibility between church and state are hard to understand, especially because Jesus and Paulos were quite clear about the role of the government.
Augustine investigated the origin of the god state and the worldly state and the struggle between the two. The Roman Empire had officially become a Christian Empire in 380, but the mighty empire was rapidly crumbling. Many Romans attributed this decline to the Christians. Augustine thought that the Christians should be less concerned with politics and more with a mystical, heavenly city, the New Jerusalem. Beside the heavenly city (civitas caelestis), Augustine saw the earthly city (civitas terrena), as can also be distinguished between spiritus (spirit), and caro (flesh), as Paulos had already elaborated in Romans 8. The flesh is the nature of man and if one lives according to the flesh, then one lives according to the devil. If one lives according to the spirit, then one lives according to God. Earthly life is not bad in itself, as long as one focuses on the life after this life, through piety and justice. This also applies to those in power:
Without justice, what are states but great bands of robbers?
— Augustinus Hipponensis, De civitate Dei (413-426)
With these insights in mind, it is better to understand how the Christians saw a division of roles between government and church, but at the same time did not see them as opposites. The church did not just represent a mystical idea. It was also a secular organisation with power, with an administrative apparatus, a hierarchy, soldiers, and even its own state. The Church, the ekklesia, was not necessarily a part of the civitas Dei, for the church is a mixed body, a corpus permixtum, and consists of both pure and unclean. Secular government, even in the hands of a Christian sovereign, is by definition intertwined with sin. And even the clergy are not free from sin, as he had to admit towards the Donatists. Only with separation from the world does one have a fair chance of entering the city of God.
The Orthodox Christian Church took inspiration from another theologian: Eusebios (c. 263-339), bishop of Caesarea, now a ruin in present-day Israel. The Christian emperor is God's representative on Earth in whom God himself shines the image of his absolute power. He is the "beloved of God, thrice-blessed" servant of the Supreme Ruler, who "armed with a divine armour cleanses the world from the horde of the wicked, the powerful heralds of undeceiving fear of God", whose beams "penetrate the world.” This description is reminiscent of the ancient Roman image of the emperor as the representative of the gods, the pagan Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun. The Emperor, who also had the role of Pontifex Maximus (high priest), occupied the central position within the church. He presided over the synods of bishops as if he had been ordained bishop by God. An independent leadership of the church could hardly develop next to such a figure. In the Orthodox tradition, the patriarch could therefore never achieve such a position of power as the bishops of Rome had succeeded. And the separation of church and state is less culturally anchored in Orthodox Christian countries. In the Roman Catholic West, the pope would gain much more power, but the Augustinian separation of church and state would also lead to a seizure of power by the bourgeoisie after the Enlightenment. Emperors were constitutionally bound and the pope had to go back in his cage. But more about that later.
A church appears in the village
Until about the 11th century, the ecclesiastical organisation in Europe mainly consisted of scattered dioceses and here and there a monastic order. There was hardly any urbanisation. The vast majority of Europeans lived in rural areas. Even villages as we imagine them now, with a church next to the village square, were rarely seen.
The power of the church was limited and no one cared much about the views of the pope. It was the emperor who pulled the strings: in the first centuries the Roman emperor, and from the eighth century the Carolingians with their feudal system possessed enormous power and income. The raids that the monarchs undertook in their Christianisation of pagan peoples and tribes also yielded a lot. The prelates and monastic orders did not yet have much political influence and the church hardly interfered with the common people. There was also little power and money to be had from the commoners. The church had more to gain from the social elite: princes and nobles. In exchange for official services and prayers for the salvation of their souls, they provided the monasteries and dioceses with money and goods.
In the 11th century, the feudal system gradually began to crumble. Local rulers managed to consolidate their power, at the expense of the kings. The lower nobility had less to fear from their feudal lord and began to treat the peasants in their area as their inalienable property. Free peasants thus increasingly fell into serfdom and were forced to live in settlements. This allowed them to be dealt with more efficiently. The Carolingian Empire had broken up into kingdoms and most areas in Europe had now been Christianised, meaning there was less to plunder. Little by little, cities began to emerge. Cities were also able to adopt a more economically independent position vis-à-vis the feudal lord.
The church saw the erosion of power by the rulers and changed course. Gradually more could be obtained in the rural communities and among the bourgeoisie.
The kings increasingly appointed clergy as vassals. It was an advantage that they could not produce (legal) children, so after their death the fief went back to the king. Many bishops had part-time jobs because of this; for example, they appointed counts or administered large tracts of land themselves. High clergy were also often appointed from noble circles. Many monasteries and abbeys were ruled by aristocrats, who treated them as their personal property.
Because of the 'villagisation', from the eleventh century, a church became more prevalent in villages and a parish priest was appointed. The villagers had to pay the church a biblical tithe of their production. Partly because of this, the church became increasingly wealthy and became increasingly involved with the common people. Rule over the common people gave it more power, and it was a considerable source of income.
Christian rituals therefore also became more aware of everyday life. Marriage as a sacrament and compulsory celibacy for the entire clergy only emerged at that time. Where traditionally priests were hardly distinguishable from normal subjects, they began to distinguish themselves more and more. They also tended to be the most educated men in the community. The church organisation formed an elite, on a platform and behind a fence, separated from the religious crowd. The Eucharist was no longer a communal meal; the flesh and blood was blessed and handed out by the priest. The church also adapted the liturgy of worship so that it made more of an impression on the people. The dramatic raising of chalice and host during the Eucharist was supposed to represent Christ's ultimate sacrifice.
The power of the pope
The growing influence of the Church also boosted the pope's power. Pope Gregorius VII (1020-1085) issued the tract Dictatus Papae, in which he claimed the right to depose emperors and in which he required all monarchs to kiss his feet. This made Gregory the first pope to usurp universal temporal supremacy in addition to spiritual primacy over Christendom. Christian monarchs were invested with temporal power, but in the eyes of the pope they were essentially no more than managers. And the monarchs swallowed it. Not all, however, and certainly not wholeheartedly.
Kings derived their authority from God’s grace. This was in the monarch's interest, as it gave him legitimacy among his subjects. But it was also in the interest of the church, for it was in charge of God's grace. Not for nothing were Carolus Magnus (and most of his successors) crowned emperor by the pope. And if a monarch had messed things up with the pope, he could withhold the sacraments or excommunicate him, which could fatally undermine the monarch's secular authority.
For example, see the Investiture Controversy, on whether the emperor had the right to appoint bishops. Traditionally, that habit had arisen. The pope saw room to take that power to himself. Because of that, in 1075, the German King Henricus IV organised a meeting of bishops, at which Pope Gregorius VII was deposed. Gregorius might have overplayed his hand. In response, however, Gregorius excommunicated the king. This put Henricus in a difficult position, because a number of German bishops believed that the grace of God, and with it the legitimacy, of the king had disappeared. In the end, the king lost out, but the struggle for competence would continue in all kinds of variants for the following centuries.
It was indeed confusing. Bishops, monastic orders and the pope were sovereign in whole parts of the country. Kings and emperors were crowned by the grace of God, but waged wars against the pope. Canonic (ecclesiastical) law was not only about ecclesiastical matters, but also had parts that we would now consider as civil law, constitutional law and criminal law. Theologically it was messy too. In the Old Testament, Yahweh had reluctantly agreed when the people wanted to appoint kings. The prophet Samuel had warned: if the people begin to complain about the king's tyranny, they must not knock on God’s door. Jesus warned his disciples not to pursue worldly power. In the Gospel of John, Satan is called the prince of the world. On the other hand, the kings of Israel were anointed. Few objections were heard from Roman Christians when the emperor converted.
And even to this day the Church of Rome cannot always resist the temptation to informally interfere in the affairs of state. For instance, the role of pope Ioannes Paulus II in the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe is well documented.
Church and state according to the Protestants
What connected Luther and Calvin was that they wanted to do a big cleanup. The church had to go back to basics: the community of Christians as Jesus and Paulos had envisioned. But one of the main points of contention between Luther and Calvin was the separation of church and state. Luther had ears for a state church, Calvin did not. Confusingly, Calvin had no qualms about the state operating as an extension of the church, as we shall see later.
Luther started out as an idealist: he had had enough of the corruption in the Church of Rome and wanted to return to the core: an autonomous, spiritual community of believers. But how that should proceed, practically speaking, he had no clear-cut ideas about that. It was only gradually that he was forced to think about it. Only after the German Peasants’ War (1524-1525) crystallised his views on this, especially in the Augsburg Confession of 1530. Luther had already built up a strong position of power by then, and had several German princes on his side. The church was to be autonomous and sovereign in spiritual matters. Princes had no say in ecclesiastical matters. And clergymen were not allowed to hold secular offices. How he gradually embraced monarchs, allowed them to have a say in ecclesiastical affairs, and made possible the formation of state churches, we shall see later when we discuss the Reformation.
Religious toleration did not thrive in the newly formed German Lutheran state churches. Those who were not Lutheran were severely discriminated against. The German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine was not allowed to become a lawyer until he was baptised Lutheran in 1825. Until 1918, Methodists or Anabaptists in Germany were not allowed to become teachers or officers.
Calvin apparently went further in the separation of church and state. They were two separate bodies, with separate responsibilities, although the state had a duty to support the church. But religion and the state were by no means separate. The church had no formal say over the state, but the state was bound by God's laws. The state had a duty to establish religion, to protect the worship of God, to promote piety, and to defend the position of the Church. He would prefer to see free elections, but the church would absolutely not refrain from interference.
French revolution
In 18th century France, there was absolutely no separation between church and state. Nearly all Frenchmen were Catholic, the state collected church taxes, and the clergy held a third of the seats in the States General. Protestants and Jews were second-class citizens. The Church owned 5 to 10 percent of the entire land, was immensely wealthy, and did not have to pay taxes. The great political influence of the church, the harsh treatment of dissenters and the indolent piety of its servants were particularly disappointing to the philosophes. Voltaire and Diderot were very critical. Above all, the people felt powerless anger.
In the village of Mareuil-sur-Ay, in Champagne-Ardenne, a popular priest was succeeded by a certain Nicolas-Hyacinthe Vernier. In 1770, the faithful publicly complained about this priest. He was lazy, strict, unwilling to care for the poor and sick, impatient, and they accused him of having affairs with several women, including the village schoolmistress. It led to a lawsuit that, to everyone's amazement, was won by the priest. When push came to shove, the faithful had no say against the clique of king, nobility and clergy.
The French Revolution of 1789 was therefore not only directed against the king and his noble retinue. The church was also under scrutiny. In its new composition, the Assemblée Nationale therefore decided to transfer all church property to the state. Priests entered state service and their salary was determined by the state. From Rome this was followed with horror. The pope could not let this happen; he organised active resistance. In response, parliament decided that priests could only retain their positions if they swore an oath to the Constitution. Well over half of the priests did so; the rest lost their jobs and fled abroad if possible. Many priests ended up in prison.
Meanwhile, republican France was at war with Austria and Prussia. It didn't take much imagination to suspect that the pope, the Catholic nobility and priests in exile were actively supporting the hostilities. Fearing a counter-revolution, the mob stormed the Paris prisons in 1792 where two hundred priests were massacred. Because of its undermining of the revolution, hardly anyone trusted the church anymore. In 1793, every priest had to fear for his freedom if he did not resign his office. The churches were closed, worship services banned and all crucifixes removed from the streets.
For many Frenchmen, this went too far. The church may have been hated, but religion itself was not. Lay services were organised, and private religious ceremonies. An attempt by Robespierre to set up a Cult of the Supreme Being came to naught. His fall in 1794 calmed things down a bit. In 1795, parliament decided on a constitutional separation of church and state.
The French government has been religiously neutral ever since, and has remained so to this day. Priests were released, churches reopened. But relations with the Church of Rome remained strained for decades.
A neutral government
Could the church possibly keep aloof from the coercion of religion through the state? That question was raised from the 16th century onwards.. We will go into that in more detail later. Logically, it would follow from the Christian dogma of separate responsibilities for church and state. An early plea for a religiously neutral government can be found at Coornhert, in his Process of killing heretics (1590). The task of the government is to enforce the law of nature. The only religious task of the government is to ensure that all denominations can freely practise their faith, so that peace in the state is guaranteed. It would be a long time before this idea would make headway, although Spinoza was on the same track.
At the same time as the French Revolution, the principle of a religiously neutral government also developed in the newly declared independent United States. The First Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1791, establishing that the federal government would be religiously neutral. In a philosophical sense, this came quite out of the blue: there had hardly been any social debate about it.
It was a pragmatic choice. The United States was religiously dominated by the Calvinist Congregationalists in New England and the Anglican episcopalians in the south. It was obvious to them that their own religion became a state religion, but they did not have that much authority. In response to efforts to do so, minority religions such as the Catholics, quakers, baptists, presbyterians and methodists found that a religiously neutral government would be less bad than a competitor's state religion. Contrary to American political legend, it was not a matter of principle for the founding fathers James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, but a pragmatic one. A bill of rights had to be forged; with a secular government there were no winners, but no losers either.
Once the modern American and French constitutions mandated religiously neutral governments, it was only a matter of time before other countries followed suit. It became the norm in the twentieth century. Several Western countries still have a state religion, but that has now largely become a dead letter.
Conclusion
The history of the Church's power in earthly affairs is full of ironic twists.
The Church originated in a tradition that wanted to keep away from kings and emperors. The dislike was mutual. Then the world's most powerful man converted to the Church, and the Church turned around like a leaf on a tree. Obsessed with power, the Church developed into a symbiotic partner of any Christian ruler. From the 11th century, the pope even saw himself as the ultimate boss of all kings and emperors.
Then, from the Reformation onwards, the bourgeoisie wrestled itself from the stifling grip of the Church and the separation of church and state took on a new shape: the church gradually lost all secular power and was forced to refrain from all (overt) political machinations. In the declaration Dignitas humanae in 1965, the Vatican finally resigned itself to the fait accompli: the Church had no business in secular matters anymore.
Augustinus Hipponensis, De civitate Dei (426), also translated into English
William Mueller, Church and state in Luther and Calvin, a comparative study (1954)
Brian Tierney, The crisis of church and state 1050-1300 (1964)
Thomas Bokenkotter, A concise history of the catholic church (1978/2005)
Louis Dumont, Essays on individualism (1983)
Andreas Buss, The evolution of western individualism, Religion (2000)
Philip Hamburger, Separation of church and state (2002)
David Fergusson, Church, state and civil society (2004)
Gemma Betros, The French revolution and the catholic church, History Review (2010)
Brent Nongbri, Before religion: A history of a modern concept (2013)
This was the seventh newsletter in the series on Toleration and Christianity. The episodes so far are:
Before Christ
Jesus of Nazareth had some exceptionally tolerant ideas. In order to understand them, we need to know more about Jesus's Jewish background: the history of the Jewish people, their god and their law.Where Jesus' tolerant ideas came from
In some ways, Jesus was a tolerant thinker. But he didn't have all his views of his own. About Jesus' simple origins, the halakhic tradition and Hellenic influences.How this contrarian apostle accidentally founded a world religion
About the tragic life and the miraculous survival of Paulos of Tarsos, the orphaned Jesus community in Jerusalem, the mission in the pagan West and the irrelevance of the Jewish Law.No Jewish law for Christians, but what then?
Why Christian law is not in the Bible. About Paulos's selective application of Jesus' instructions, and his remarkable views on sex, women, and men with long hair.With blood on their hands and tears in their eyes
In the 4th century, the Church of Rome gained power and lost its innocence. The unity of the church became the main thing, and heresy a sin. After Augustinus’ struggle, the church got a killer instinct.Christianity, slavery and the conversion of pagans
On conversion of pagans without compulsion. And Christian approval of slavery. About sex slaves, the conversion of a tourist paradise, and exploitation by the village priest.The clean hands of the Church, the dirty hands of the State
How the popes let the Christian monarchs do the dirty work. But separation of church and state later came to mean something else: a secular government.The just war against Islam
A clash between Christianity and Islam was inevitable. Not only because they got into each other's way, but also because they used different justifications for warfare.
The next episode in this series will be about the Christian legitimation of war, in particular against Islam. An article about the anti-Semitism of the Christian church will follow. After that, we’ll dive into the Reformation.
But first, we're going to talk about cultural morality next week in our series on morality and toleration.