The philosophy of life, and philosophy of language, in a course of lectures

by Friedrich von Schlegel

And because the application of Christian truth and of the fundamental idea of Christianity is in general so greatly mistaken, I have thought it necessary to remount somewhat higher in my investigations, to draw from a deeper source, and to connect them with a higher principle, in order to arrive more steadily and more certainly at the result which I had in view. And this result may be thus summed up: The Christian state is nothing less than symbolical, and even thereby historically sanctified—whereas the mere polity of nature or that of reason, which, however artistical and consummate in its constitution, remains all the while false and unsanctified, is either purely dynamical or else absolute.

In human life and society there are three species of power, which possess a symbolical significance and a sacred character as resting on a divine foundation. And these are parental authority, the spiritual or priestly power, and the kingly or whatever may be the supreme authority in the state. The affectionate care and anxiety of an earthly parent possesses but a faint analogy to the goodness and providence of the omniscient and eternal Father of all, and is scarcely more than a type of it. Moreover, the parental authority and a father’s rights over his children, founded on his relation as the loving and affectionate author of their being, admits not of being set forth and comprised in any exact and positive formularies. And even if the social community occasionally steps in to determine by legislation the limits, and in certain points gives its sanction to the domestic rights and authority of a father, as founded on love and feeling, this is only done, nevertheless, with a view to guard against and to remedy the possible abuse of so natural a right and relation. When, however, as was the principle of the old Roman law, power over the life and death of his offspring is conceded to the father, we feel at once that this is an undue extension of the paternal authority, and that the provinces of the three different powers are not kept duly distinct and separate. A parent who should avail himself of such a privilege would but prove himself devoid of the ordinary feelings of nature. On the other hand, by a natural sentiment, common to the savage and barbarian, as well as to the most refined and civilized nations, respect for and reverence of parents is held to be something more than an ordinary and conventional duty and obligation. It is universally regarded in the light of a duty in every sense sacred and holy. And the divine moral law of the Old Testament completely agrees with the universal feeling of man’s nature in this ascription to it of holiness. But, on the other hand, the rights of the Christian limit the parent’s authority on the side of the spiritual domain, wherever it would trench upon the freedom of belief and liberty of conscience. Special circumstances, again, such as the dotage of old age, mental weakness, faults of character, or offenses against society, may, in certain cases, tend greatly to limit and control, or otherwise modify, the parental dignity and authority. But still, in the very worst case, the most respectful behavior and the tenderest delicacy, on all points connected with this relationship, remains forever an immutable law of duty to the child, which, as it is deeply founded in the moral sense of man, makes itself heard throughout the whole habitable world. The mutual tie of parental love and filial duty has, it is plain, its foundations deep in nature itself, and out of it proceeds the sanctity of the very notion of domestic life, and of all its relations, as well as of the peculiar authority of a father and a parent.

As for the spiritual and priestly power: wherever religion recognizes the priest in his true character—i.e., not simply as the preacher and promulgator, but also as the living channel for dispensing and communicating the divine grace, he is, in so far as his office is concerned, and in the discharge of his sacerdotal functions, a vicegerent of God—not so much, perhaps, of the everlasting Father, the Creator and Lawgiver of nature, as of the Son who came down into the world to ransom and redeem the human race. The priestly or spiritual power, therefore, has a divine foundation on which it ultimately rests. But inasmuch as that bond of communion which unites our souls with God must be sought and attained by faith and in the spirit of faith, so this authority, however holy in itself, is, nevertheless, by its very nature, confined to the province of spirituals.

The judicial function, also, where it is recognized as dogmatic, is at least subordinate to that other character whose office it is to carry out the work of redemption, to dispense the divine grace, and to bless. For an arbitrary judicial power, where internal caprice is the rule of judgment, and where the execution of its decrees depends on the individual, does not in strict truth deserve this appellation. With as much reason might the anointed head of the state claim, by virtue of this consecrating and anointing, to exercise the functions of the spiritual office.

Further, we may observe, all these sacred offices possess a certain analogy and affinity one with the other. This fact, however, does not in any way militate against the essential and necessary duty of preserving a precise and accurate separation of their several functions. The privacy of home, the family circle, and the relations of domestic life, are by the laws of most nations regarded as a sanctuary which the external power of the state ought not lightly and without grave necessity to violate or profane. On the other hand, in ordinary language paternal titles are ascribed to the other two powers. But as regards spiritual personages, this is a mere mark of respect, while, as applied to the head of the state, it serves to indicate a special character of goodness and clemency in the government. It is not by any means applicable generally to the functions of government as marking its specific nature and essence. For it may not be, nay, perhaps, we should rather say it can not in all cases be simply and purely paternal.

Strict impartiality, for instance, is a primary requisition in the judge, but is it possible, nay, would it properly be just, to require this in every case of a father? The judicial character, however, is the predominant element of political government, and the supreme judicial function is its essential aspect, with which all the other distinctive characteristics or exclusive prerogatives of sovereign power are most intimately connected. And on this account, while the paternal authority rests primarily on that tie of souls which consists in the reciprocal affection of parents and children, and while the priestly power is limited to the sacerdotal and spiritual domain, the supreme judicial and sovereign power in the state, which is responsible to God alone, as the highest and paramount of these three sacred and venerated powers, embraces the complete whole, if I may so say, the bodily reality of man’s public life. And in this sphere of historical reality it will be my endeavor to trace the further development of these three ideas as they manifest themselves in the busy conflict of life and the age. And to this subject I propose to devote the three following Lectures.

In concluding our present disquisition I will only add one remark. All these three powers, as founded on nature, on divine revelation, and on historical rights, are alike holy and sacred. The good, that is to say, the prudent and affectionate father, the pious priest, and the righteous king, are each and all, though in different ways and degrees, and with different powers and rights, visible and acting vicegerents on earth of the invisible God. The last, in truth, is not merely the representative but the unlimited dispenser of divine justice. And this divine foundation of these powers, which claim and present an inviolable character of sanctity, forms the practical part of that symbolical signification of life which in its highest phase has formed the theme of the present Lecture.

LECTURE XIII.
OF THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND LIFE IN ITS APPLICATION TO POLITICS, OR OF THE CHRISTIAN CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE AND THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF JURISPRUDENCE.

THE Asiatic custom of deifying their earthly rulers by addressing them as King of Kings, Lord or Spanner [Umspanner] of Creation, the Effulgence of the Deity, and the like, have ever been and very naturally most repugnant to the moral sense of Christian Europe. The Christian notion and axiom, that all power is of God, is founded on a very definite idea and well-considered principle. And this principle is nothing less than this, that the supreme head of the state has to dispense the divine justice. And while this constitutes the peculiar dignity of his office, he is, in the exercise of this his highest function and authority, responsible to God alone. If, however, we should any where meet, either in the present times or the history of the past, with a state in which, by the principle of its constitutions, the nominal possessor of supreme authority and the executive is responsible to another body, then is the latter in fact the sovereign power, and not the former, which really is subordinate to the other. The Spartan constitution will serve to illustrate my meaning. Here, to judge by that strict definition of the sovereign authority and its peculiar character and distinctive criteria, it evidently lay in the Ephori rather than in the possessors of supreme executive power, who were called kings, and whose office was hereditary. The very fact that two kings reigned conjointly is of itself subversive of the very notion of sovereign power. But still more fatally was this undermined by their responsibility in certain cases to the censorship of the other Spartan magistracy. To the other ancient republics, whose constitution was based naturally enough on a very artificial division of powers, and the maintenance of a certain antagonism and accurate balance between them, our notion of a supreme and sovereign political authority is scarcely applicable. It is found far more fully expressed in a special character of inviolable sanctity and dignity attaching to certain judicial functions and magistracies, such as that of the Areopagus in Athens and of the censorship at Rome in the days of the Republic, than to the transitory tenure of the executive power, over which those judicial authorities possessed and exercised in certain cases a control.

The proper and de facto, or personal division of power, is essentially a republican principle. In notion, however, or in idea, it is perfectly legitimate to make a distinction between the several functions and elements of the whole sovereign authority. Now, in such a case, the judicial power—the supreme judicial power we would emphatically say—is pre-eminently the characteristic sign and specific distinction of sovereignty, from which all its other prerogatives and properties are originally derived or flow from it as its necessary and natural consequences. The noble prerogative of pardon and mercy, for instance, is, as it were, the natural attribute of the supreme judicial power.