241. THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS
ABSOLUTISM
Most European nations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries accepted the principle of absolutism in government. Absolutism was as popular then as democracy is to-day. The rulers of France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Scandinavia, and other countries, having triumphed over the feudal nobles, proceeded to revive the autocratic traditions of imperial Rome. Like Diocletian, Constantine, and later emperors, they posed as absolute sovereigns, who held their power, not from the choice or consent of their subjects, but from God.
DIVINITY OF KINGS
Royal absolutism formed a natural development of the old belief in the divinity of kings. Many primitive peoples regard their headmen and chiefs as holy and give to them the control of peace and war, of life and death. Oriental rulers in antiquity bore a sacred character. Even in the lifetime of an Egyptian Pharaoh temples were erected to him and offerings were made to his sacred majesty. The Hebrew monarch was the Lord's anointed, and his person was holy. The Hellenistic kings of the East and the Roman emperors received divine honors from their adoring subjects. An element of sanctity also attached to medieval sovereigns, who, at their coronation, were anointed with a magic oil, girt with a sacred sword, and given a supernatural banner. Even Shakespeare could speak of the divinity which "doth hedge a king." [2]
"Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord." [3]
DIVINE RIGHT AFTER THE REFORMATION
The Reformation tended to emphasize the sacred character of kingship. The reformers set up the authority of the State against the authority of the Church, which they rejected and condemned. Providence, they argued, had never sanctioned the Papacy, but Providence had really ordained the State and had placed over it a king whom it was a religious duty to obey. Even those who were not reformers distorted the Christian idea that government has a divine basis to represent kings as God's vicegerents upon earth, as in fact earthly deities.
BOSSUET ON DIVINE RIGHT
The theory of divine right received its fullest expression in a famous book [4] written by Bossuet, a learned French bishop of the seventeenth century. A hereditary monarchy, declared Bossuet, is the most ancient and natural, the strongest and most efficient, of all forms of government. Royal power emanates from God; hence the person of the king is sacred and it is sacrilege to conspire against him. His authority is absolute and autocratic. No man may rightfully resist the king's commands; his subjects owe him obedience in all matters. To the violence of a king the people can oppose only respectful remonstrances and prayers for his conversion. A king, to be sure, ought not to be a tyrant, but he can be one in perfect security. "As in God are united all perfection and every virtue, so all the power of all the individuals in a community is united in the person of the king."