DIVISION V. § 3. CHAPTER XIII. 1-7.
The Christians and the imperial power.
It is possible that the thought of the innocent victim of injustice and wrong waiting upon the divine wrath, brings to St. Paul's mind the idea of the State which exists to represent divine justice in the world, and minister divine wrath on behalf of the innocent. But, whether this particular connexion of thought was really in St. Paul's mind or no, at any rate the previous section has made it plain that the 'love of the brethren' must extend itself to become a right relation to all men, whether Christians or not[[1]]. In particular, therefore, the relation of the Christians to the imperial authority could not fail to be a matter which required attention and apostolic counsel. The Jews, whose theocratic principles made submission to government by 'the uncircumcised' at least a real abandonment of a religious ideal[[2]], had always an instinctive tendency to rebellion; and the Christian church built upon Judaism might easily have inherited this instinct. The catholic church of the new covenant, might have claimed to be a theocracy like that of the old. Especially at Rome, where the Jews were a vast and formidable body who had recently given trouble and been expelled[[3]], the attitude of the Christians, who were identified with them, might easily be misunderstood. Or on the other hand the Jews themselves, at Rome as at Thessalonica[[4]], might represent the Christians as disloyal to Caesar. Moreover, apart from all unjustified slanders, the spirit of the 'fifth monarchy men' has seldom been altogether absent from periods of Christian enthusiasm; and the restless and undisciplined tendencies at Thessalonica[[5]], which the mistaken expectation of the immediate second coming of Christ had encouraged, were a sign that Christians might easily find it difficult to settle down as good citizens in the great empire of the world.
St. Paul therefore, here and elsewhere, would make it quite plain that the catholic church, if it is like the ancient Israel, is like it only as it was in exile—when the children of Israel were bidden to be good citizens of the Babylonian empire, and to seek the peace of the city whither God had caused them to be carried away captive, and to pray unto the Lord for it, for in the peace thereof they should have peace[[6]]. Thus the Church was not a theocracy, but a 'settlement of strangers and exiles[[7]],' waiting for the visible establishment of the kingdom or city of God, and meanwhile maintaining a polity or ordered social life of their own, but on a voluntary and catholic (or non-national) basis. Therefore, so long as God maintains 'the present world,' they must be good citizens of whatever earthly state they happen to live under. On this basis, then, St. Paul reminds each single person of the duty of political loyalty. The earthly state is of God's establishing, as well as the kingdom of Christ, and fulfils a divine purpose with divine authority. It exists to suppress moral outrage and lawlessness[[8]], to maintain justice and right. Its officers are God's ministers (as truly as the officers of the Church, though in a different order), and must be obeyed accordingly, under peril not only of civil punishment for disobedience, but under peril of divine judgement also, and as a matter of conscience. The good man, and therefore the good Christian, has nothing to fear from the empire or its officers. And he will readily, and as a matter of conscience, pay his tribute as a subject, and his taxes as a citizen, to the proper authorities, and give to each imperial officer the respect which is his due.
Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there is no power but of God; and the powers that be are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, withstandeth the ordinance of God: and they that withstand shall receive to themselves judgement. For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. And wouldest thou have no fear of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from the same: for he is a minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause ye pay tribute also; for they are ministers of God's service, attending continually upon this very thing. Render to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.
Our Lord, by His whole bearing towards Jewish nationalism and by His clear prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, as well as by His particular injunction to 'render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's,' had made it evident to His disciples that the sceptre had departed from Judah, and had determined the attitude of Christians towards the empire. They could not indeed be as other inhabitants of the empire, for they were waiting, and praying, and working, for the visible establishment of a city and kingdom of God on earth—little as either the 'times and seasons,' or the character and manner, of that city and kingdom had been revealed to them. Thus the Roman empire could not but be in their eyes a kingdom of this world destined for overthrow. But it was by the methods of meekness, and by purely spiritual weapons, that the kingdom of God was to come, and the great overthrow, whatever it should prove to be, was to be effected. This at least was certain; and meanwhile the Roman empire represented the divine principle of authority and order, and must be obeyed.
St. Paul no doubt had, more than any other apostle, a real feeling for the empire and the city of which he was a citizen. Moreover, he saw in the organization of the empire a great framework and vehicle for the establishment and spread of the catholic church. And hitherto certainly (at least, since the fatal moment of Pilate's weakness) the Church had continually experienced the assistance of the imperial authorities. It was a misused spiritual authority, before which the protest had to be made, 'We must obey God rather than man[[9]].' It was the Jewish authorities who persecuted the Church. It was the Jewish king who put James to death. At Paphos, Thessalonica, Corinth, Ephesus, the imperial authorities had been more or less friendly, and even at Philippi they had been reduced to an attitude of apology by the bare mention of Roman citizenship. St. Paul's experiences, therefore, had prepared him to 'appeal unto Caesar,' and to expect justice and freedom for himself and his cause. Even the beginnings of the experience of imperial hostility and persecution did not quash or even weaken this attitude in St. Peter[[10]]. St. Peter and St. Paul idealize the empire almost as if it could do no wrong, and the righteous had nothing to fear from it. Of course, when this expectation had been rudely shattered—when the imperial authority had come chiefly to mean the persecution of the saints—an opposite sort of idealism takes place, and Rome appears as the great 'beast' of violence in the Apocalypse of John. Both idealizations represent truth—the truth of what the State is meant to be on the one side, and of what it may become on the other. But after considerable experience of persecution, Clement of Rome is still full of admiration for the divine order of the imperial rule, and recognizes the duty of obedience to his 'rulers and governors upon earth,' side by side with the duty of obedience to 'God's almighty and most excellent name'; and as it is God who has given the rulers their authority, he prays for grace to submit to them, and offers rich prayer for their welfare and that of the empire. And the spirit lived on in the Christian church through all the persecutions, and the apologists for Christianity loved to protest their loyalty to the empire, and to think of their church as 'the soul of the world,' maintaining it by prayer and virtue in the midst of impiety and corruption.
In England this passage has often been put to two conspicuously unjustifiable uses. First, it was the stronghold of the maintainers of 'the divine right of kings' and of 'passive obedience.' In reality it asserts the divine right of civil authority, but not of any particular kind of civil authority. Indeed the government of the empire was still nominally a republic in its fundamental forms, though it was becoming a despotism in fact. And supposing the senate and people had—as is of course conceivable—reasserted their authority over their 'emperors,' or military officers, the Christian doctrine of divine right would have afforded no guidance as to which of the claimants to authority had the divine will on its side. What is barely asserted is the divine right of the existing civil authority, democratic or regal. And while our passage exalts the normal duty of obedience, it suggests no answer to the question—Is there not a point where a government so manifestly fails to maintain the divine order in the world, or to represent the will of God and the best interests of the people, that it deserves to be put an end to? At such a point Christianity can only serve to reinforce the natural instincts of justice and right.
And again, the words, 'the powers that be are ordained of God: therefore he that resisteth the power withstandeth the ordinance of God,' have often been used in England to justify a claim on behalf of the State to coerce and govern the Church and the consciences of men in spiritual matters. But such an idea is utterly alien to the mind of the New Testament. In the matters which concern our spiritual salvation, the authority which is to discipline and control us is the binding and loosing, absolving and retaining, authority which is entrusted not to the State, but to the Church. Attempts are recorded in history on the part of the State to crush out the Church, and on the part of the Church to usurp the authority of the State and use its weapons. Such attempts, we trust, belong to past history. An attempt, too, specially identified with England, has been made to identify a national Church and State as only different aspects of the same society, so that the government of the national Church can be more or less fused in that of the State. But whatever may be said of such an attempt in the past, in our modern England the plain facts of the political and religious situation are flatly repugnant to it; and there can evidently be no reasonable religious government in the Church of England till it is conducted again in obedience to the fundamental Christian principle that our national and local Church is part of a great catholic society, which Christ endowed with an independent spiritual authority, and a law and constitution and ministers of its own. The State may need an established national church as much as ever to enable it to fulfil its highest functions, but any 'Establishment' in these days must be consistent with the fullest recognition of the spiritual and political liberties of those members of the State who belong to other religious bodies, and also must be based upon recognition that the Church and State are fundamentally distinct, and relatively independent societies.
But it behoves us Churchmen, not only to assert the spiritual liberties of the Church, but also to realize a great deal more fully than we do, the divine authority of the civil ministers and civil laws in their own department. The State exists to embody and represent in the world the divine justice, which is to be the basis of the government of men. Its ministers—magistrates, legislators, officers of justice—are 'God's ministers': laws which are passed by the State in fulfilment of its divine mission—laws intended to maintain the health and prosperity of the people as a whole—have a divine sanction; and we Churchmen can only be what the Church should be, 'the soul of the world,' if we make it a matter of conscience, a great deal more deliberately than it is at present with most of us, to aid vigorously in the administration of the good laws which already exist, national and municipal, and to promote intelligently and enthusiastically the purposes of civil government by helping towards better laws; so that our government, as a whole, may become a continually completer image of the equitable and impartial righteousness of God.
[[1]] Cf. 2 Pet. i. 7, 'In your love of the brethren supply love,' i.e. let the temper bred inside the closer bond of Christian fellowship extend itself universally.
[[2]] Deut. xvii. 15, 'Thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee, which is not thy brother.'
[[3]] Acts xviii. 2. 'Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome,' cf. Suetonius, Claud. 25. 'The Jews who had been persistently breaking into disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus (Christ?) he expelled from Rome.' We cannot certainly explain these words, but St. Paul knew all about the occurrence from Priscilla and Aquila, whom the expulsion had brought across his path at Corinth.
[[4]] Acts xvii. 7.
[[5]] 1 Thess. iv. 11; v. 14; 2 Thess. iii. 6.
[[6]] Jer. xxix. 7; cf. 1 Tim. ii. 2.
[[7]] 1 Pet. i. 11. The word for such a 'settlement of strangers,' paroecia, has become, by a suggestive history, our 'parish.'
[[8]] Cf. 2 Thess. ii. 6. 'That which restraineth' the outbreak of lawlessness is (almost certainly) the empire, and 'he that restraineth' (ver. 7) the emperor.
[[9]] Acts v. 29.
[[10]] 1 Pet. ii. 13-17.