Christianity and republicanism : from St. Cyprian to Rousseau
By: BLACK, Antony
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ArticlePublisher: New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, September 1997American Political Science Review 91, 3, p. 647-656Abstract: In the late twentieth century the relationship between republicanism and Christianity may not be problematic. A common view among intellectual historians (notably Pocock 1975, Skinner 1978, Ullmann [1961] 1966, and their followers) is that in Europe not only did republicanism develop separately from and somewhat in opposition to the Christian tradition, but also there was a natural affinity between Christianity and hereditary monarchy, including its absolutist variant. This is supported by a view of the Middle Ages as a period of dogmatic authoritarianism dominated by tradition. Wilks (1963) discovered intrinsic, nonaccidental connections between Christian belief and monarchical, hierarchical principles. Behind this lie the scripts of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, so gloriously stated for historians by Gibbon and Burckhardt: Christianity, with its otherworldly quietism, brought about Rome's decline; the civic spirit revived under the breath of Hellas and antiquity, in the city states of Renaissance Italy.(1) Behind this also stands Machiavelli, whose effect on historiography was as decisive as it was on political thought. Christianity was discredited by the alliance of throne and altar. The tacit assumption is that republicanism is related to secular humanism. Scores of lesser scholars are now sedulously fleshing out this interpretation; a new historiographical orthodoxy has emerged.
In the late twentieth century the relationship between republicanism and Christianity may not be problematic. A common view among intellectual historians (notably Pocock 1975, Skinner 1978, Ullmann [1961] 1966, and their followers) is that in Europe not only did republicanism develop separately from and somewhat in opposition to the Christian tradition, but also there was a natural affinity between Christianity and hereditary monarchy, including its absolutist variant. This is supported by a view of the Middle Ages as a period of dogmatic authoritarianism dominated by tradition. Wilks (1963) discovered intrinsic, nonaccidental connections between Christian belief and monarchical, hierarchical principles. Behind this lie the scripts of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, so gloriously stated for historians by Gibbon and Burckhardt: Christianity, with its otherworldly quietism, brought about Rome's decline; the civic spirit revived under the breath of Hellas and antiquity, in the city states of Renaissance Italy.(1) Behind this also stands Machiavelli, whose effect on historiography was as decisive as it was on political thought. Christianity was discredited by the alliance of throne and altar. The tacit assumption is that republicanism is related to secular humanism. Scores of lesser scholars are now sedulously fleshing out this interpretation; a new historiographical orthodoxy has emerged.
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