ABSTRACT
The literal realization of the Christian Society seemed rather to be hindered than hastened when, by the con~ version of Constantine, Christianity came out of prison to rule, and had to deal with a temporal power as wide as her own and professedly under her own banner. As a separation was made between clergy and laity, so the temporal power was separated from the spiritual ;-Rome had two Suns, 1 the Pope and the Emperor. By the separation of clergy from laity, the democratic and com~ munistic element in Christianity ceased to have a univer~ sal application ; the ideal life was no longer for all men, but for the few. And in the separation of the temporal from the spiritual power there was practically a confes~ sion that Christianity could not create a new political and social order. It might only control and guide the exist~ ing order, as the clergy the laity. Still the idea of one universal Christian government was dear to the Church, as an approach to her ideal; and deep was the disappoint~ ment when the temporal power was divided between East and West, when Islam disputed the whole ground, and when later the Carlomanian empire broke up into several kingdoms. Dante (De Monarchia) gave, if not the last, the most perfect expression to the aspiration. By his time the process of decentralizing had been ac~ complished ; and, under the feudal system, the people of his own and of the other countries of continental Europe were exposed to constant wars at the will of petty rulers. As feudalism gave way to strong monarchies under na~ tional rulers, the growth of cities and the extension of production for sale as opposed to production for use made the retention of the principles of the ancient poli~ tical ecenomy impossible. As late as I 3 I I the Council of Vienne threatened usurers with excommunication, and new arguments were invented to buttress up the old pre~ judices. But it was impossible fqr the Church to succeed in resisting the universal practice of men. With the new
monarchies we have the beginnings not only of new political but of new economical principles ; and in the political philosophy of the later writers we find the Greek idea of a law of nature gaining precedence over ideas of a ·purely ecclesiastical system. 1 What an acquaintance with Aristotle had begun, even in the middle ages, was carried further at the Renaissance by an acquaintance with the whole range of classical authors. Even the Church writers had declared supreme power, whether imperial or ecclesiastical, to be limited by "lex divina et lex natural is." 2 When speculation was once devoted to the latter it was carried beyond the ideas of ancient and mediceval political philosophy. 3
