ABSTRACT
Affinities between the ideas of nationhood, sovereignty, law and language run very deep in European history. One of the major contributory currents in the development of these was the Hebrew archetype of theocracy, the vision of an anointed messianic figure whose word has divine authority, the figurehead of what Coleridge calls 'the majesty of the nation'. He was convinced that 'a King ever remains as a latent instinct which it requires only a few favourable circumstances to rouse into a desire, an appetite'; a belief which may have been strengthened by the restoration of the French monarchy in 1814. With the final disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire the sovereignty of particular nations became paramount but monarchs were still often portrayed as embodying both national identity and the sovereignty of the people. This perception drew deeply on Judaeo-Christian themes such as that of the King of Israel, a title attributed, until the time of the prophet Samuel's final years, to God alone. Israel then demanded 'a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have'. Finally, according to Christianity's New Covenant, the 'King of Kings' was revealed: Jesus, the Son of David, the Messiah who was to come. With the emergence of the modern nation states and of nationalisms, sovereignty, whether embodied in the aggregate of a people (France), in the spirit of the Volk (Germany) which inspired heroic messianic leaders, or in the Commonwealth symbolized by a King (England), became once more the incarnation of nationhood.
