WHAT then is S. Augustine's view of the place of the Church in relation to civil society? This is part of the topic of the last lecture. Only to-day we look at the matter from a different angle. Here too, a caveat must be entered. We must beware of treating anything said of the Civitas Dei as though it could be applied to the existing ecclesiastical system. Much of it can. Yet the Civitas Dei in its strict sense is not the Visible Church. It is the communio sanctorum, the body of the elect, many of whom are to be found in pre-Christian times or in heathen peoples--while from this body many among the baptised will be excluded.[1] This communio sanctorum is the true recipient of the promises to David and of the gifts of eternal peace and beatitude, those promises which Augustine sets forth with moving eloquence in Book XX. The Visible Militant Church is never more than a part of either--nor does it ever attain. Its peace and beatitude are in hope. It is always in via. It is but the symbolic and inadequate representative of the Civitas Dei,but it uses the peace provided by the earthly State.[2] Still we must beware of laying too much stress on this. Reuter overstrains it. Augustine, it appears to be proved, is the first of the fathers to declare that the Church is the Kingdom of God on earth. The most important of the passages is that in XX. 9. There Augustine is arguing for the identification of the Church with the millennial kingdom (as against the Chiliasts) and for the rulers of the Church sitting on thrones. He says explicitly:
'Ergo ecclesia et nunc est regnum Christi regnumque caelorum.' [3]
Other passages also state this identification of the Church with the Civitas Dei. Reuter will have it that all these are to be understood of the Church only as communio sanctorum.[4] Therefore we must rule out every inference that might be drawn from the application of the idea of the Kingdom to the actual Church Militant. This interpretation cannot be proved. There is little doubt, from the context, that Augustine was thinking, as Scholz and Seidel say, of the Church as a visible, comprehensible body, hierarchically organised.
Dr. Cunningham's Hulsean Lectures afford us an instance of the opposite view (p. 116).
'For S. Austin the Kingdom of God was not a mere hope, but a present reality; not a mere name for a divine idea, but an institution, duly organised among men, subsisting from one generation to another; closely inter-connected with earthly rule, with definite guidance to give, and a definite part to take, in all the affairs of actual life. To him the Kingdom of God was an actual Polity, just as the Roman Empire was a Polity too; it was "visible" in just the same way in the earthly State, for it was a real institution with a definite organisation, with a recognised constitution, with a code of laws and means of enforcing them, with property for its uses and officers to direct it.'
Here then are the two opposing views. I take another Point. Both Reuter and Troeltsch argue that while Augustine accepted the authority of the Church and had no wish to change it--they were the presuppositions of his life as a Christian--yet he meant little by them:
that his emphasis upon predestination makes against any high view of ecclesiastical order. Repeatedly in his writings, e.g. in the 'De Catechizandis Rudibus,' Augustine lays stress on the fact that the elect will include men of all nations and every age. At the beginning of the 'De Civitate' he declares that the Civitas Dei began with the beginning of the world. Reuter (who is a Protestant) goes so far as to say, that of all early Catholic writers hardly any is so little hierarchically minded as Augustine. It is true that Augustine takes little interest in hierarchical topics. Never, so far as I know, does he develop the theory of the episcopate in the way in which S. Cyprian did. When he thinks of the Church, it is of the whole body of the faithful. It is the bigness of it that appeals to him, and to which he appeals. Whatever his views in favour of small States, in regard to the Church he is imperialist enough; he is opposed to all particularism. It is to this sense of universality, rather than to that of the episcopate, that he appeals. Still, it is of the Church as an organised body, hierarchically governed, that he thinks in his controversy with the Donatists. His strong views of the predestination of individuals no more upset his scheme of a visible Church than did those of Calvin. Calvin threw over the ancient system, and rejected both the Papacy and the Episcopacy; but no less strongly than S. Augustine did he hold to a doctrine of a Visible Church and its authority. So did the Jansenists. It seems little short of ridiculous to deny that the notion of the Church loomed large to Augustine's imagination, much larger than it did to that of Origen and the earlier apologists; or that, along with the doctrine of original sin, it was the pivot of his system.[5] It had been to the Catholic Church that he had been converted after trying many experiments.
Rightly has it been pointed out by Schmidt[6] and Weinand[7] that it was the Donatist schism that aroused the Church as a society to full self-consciousness. All the earlier heresies concerned high doctrine. Certain statements about our Lord or the Trinity were, or were alleged to be, false. In opposition to them, the Church is primarily a teacher. But the Donatists were not heretics in the ordinary sense. Or rather their heresy was on the topic of the Church. Augustine was faced with (a) a doctrine of the sacraments which reduced religion to personal influence and is, in our modern phrase, radically Protestant; and (b) with the claim of the Donatist schism to be the true Church of Africa. Against these claims he was forced to develop the idea of the Church as being something more than a company of believers, as the sphere of God's work, the Civitas Dei; and of the sacraments as God's work done by human agents, the character of whom no more affected their validity than does that of an officer in the army the validity of his orders. Further, the Church as a universal world-wide polity is opposed to all particularist, nationalist tendencies. In the early years of the fifth century it looked as though Donatism was to be the national religion of Africa. This contest was a conflict between Catholicity in its very idea, and conceptions which were its antithesis.
These ideas of S. Augustine need not have been new. It is not their novelty which makes the difference, but the emphasis with which they are stressed. Further, the term Civitas Dei is itself significant. This is not new. It can be seen in the New Testament, in Hebrews, and the Apocalypse. The vogue given to these words now caused more and more assimilation of the Church to a State. All the qualifications were left out of account. This process led to a political habit of treating the Church. By the mere use of the terms civitas and regnum in a work of such momentous influence, Augustine prepared the way for the later development of the doctrine that the Church is a societas perfecta, and must have the powers necessary to any self-sufficing community. The conception of the Church as a social entity wielding governing powers owes much to S. Augustine. He did much to strengthen the Church as an imperial force.
If we take two nineteenth-century writers, one in the East and one in the West, who thought much about the Church, Khomiakoff and Newman, what a wide gulf there is between them! Newman's sermons, in the volume of the famous fifteen on the Church as an imperial power, show how far the West has gone in this political way of thinking about the Church. Augustine may be said to have been one of the great forces which began this development. Meanwhile the East remained as it had been, preserving the view that the laity form a real part of the organisation.
Ritschl thought that Augustine's emphasis on the Church was the necessary corollary of the doctrine of original sin--the setting up of the society of grace. I cannot see this. Grace might be conceived as acting merely on the individual; and all importance be denied to the Church. Some even have based such a doctrine on S. Augustine.
But he did think that the Church, the Visible Church, recruited by baptism, nourished by sacraments, governed by bishops, was the one true family of God ; and that Christianity meant belonging to that family. The actual expression extra ecclesiam nulla salus is not his. But the principle he definitely states. When you add to this the view that the Church was the regnum Dei, and that the millennial kingdom of Christ was exercised by the rulers of the Church, you can see how much was latent in S. Augustine of the political aspect of Christianity.
More momentous is Augustine's treatment of the Church as the apocalyptic kingdom. This doctrine he develops against the Chiliasts, scouting their notion of an earthly physical reign of our Lord visible on earth. The opposing party was important at that time, and some alternative interpretation of the biblical passages was needed. Augustine seems to have taken the doctrine from Tyconius. This Tyconius was a Donatist with whom Augustine stood on friendly terms. Moreover, he had quarrelled with those of the more extreme tendencies. Augustine indeed wonders why he did not become a Catholic. In the 'Rules of Tyconius' we have found (as I said earlier) Augustine's doctrine of the two Cities, and the conception of the bipartite character of the City of God, i.e. consisting of the elect and the foredoomed. Above all, Augustine's interpretation of the Apocalypse is found to be derived from Tyconius, who wrote a treatise on the Apocalypse, which now has been lost, but has been partly restored by conjecture.
The point of this exposition is that the millennial kingdom is already in existence. It is a reign, therefore, that does not involve the physical presence of Christ. In other words, the Second Coming is the Church. The First Resurrection has already taken place in the conversion of sinners and in their baptism. It is a spiritual act, not a physical resurrection. In his interpretation of Scripture Augustine oscillates between extreme literalism and a remarkable freedom. The martyrs are those who reign with Christ. The thrones belong to the rulers of the Church. This kingdom has been in existence ever since Christianity spread beyond Judaea. It has nothing to do with the peace of the Church and the cessation of persecution, still less with the legal establishment of Christianity. Neither persecution nor any other earthly act affects this.
The ground for rejecting Chiliasm is that it postulates an absence of earthly trials in this life--a thing which Augustine declares to be no less impossible for saints than anyone else: and for that reason the promises that there shall be no more sorrow nor crying can apply only to the Church Triumphant. Now this argument cuts two ways. If the Church be the Kingdom of God, it may, it is held, justify claims to paramount supremacy, and lead to a great Church-State. A more natural interpretation points the other way. If Christ has been reigning on earth, through the Church, ever since the days of Antioch, then he was reigning all through the period of persecution. Therefore for the Church to exercise any political supremacy, or even secure any recognition of its existence, are shown to be things indifferent. The royalty of the Church, 'the peculiar people, the holy nation, the royal priesthood,' the power on earth of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, is of the same nature as that of which Christ spoke when He answered Pilate's satirical question--'Art thou a King then 'with' My Kingdom is not of this world.' The Kingdom of God cometh not by observation, and its authority is in the souls of men, not in any outward political structure. It was regal in her days of security, regal when she was a distinct society in the second century, regal when she was assailed by the whole might of Rome under Diocletian, regal when having conquered by stooping she enjoyed a guaranteed security, regal when under Julian that security was threatened once more, or when under Arians, like Constantius or Valens, it was undermined from within, regal no more and no less than it had been previously now that after the laws of Gratian and Theodosius she had become not merely tolerated but established, not merely established but the exclusive official religion of the Empire.
The Church is a kingdom not of this world. Augustine goes out of his way to say that kings and princes cannot make the City of God, which comes by the calling of souls. Once more it must be said that Augustine was not thinking how to build Jerusalem in Afric's bright and sunny land, but how to wean men from 'crying "peace, peace" when there was no peace,' from seeking in any earthly refuge that abiding home which remaineth for the people of God. Richard Baxter's great book, 'The Saints' Everlasting Rest,' reflects the aim and many of the ideas of S. Augustine or the famous poem of Bernard of Murles, from which is taken the hymn 'Jerusalem the Golden.' This non-political interpretation of the symbolic kingdom is seen to be that which is in accordance with the mind of S. Augustine, if we take the book as a whole. It is what he meant to mean; whether it is always what his words did mean, is another question.
But evidence that tells on the other side is not to be neglected. First, it is obviously possible to put a clericalist interpretation upon the passages about justice. Next, it must be remembered that he speaks of the good that has been done to the Church by Christian kings. In reply to Petilian he says that he does not give unreserved trust to the State, but makes use of it. He admits the change which had come over the Empire since Constantine. He says that, since ruling is the métier of princes, they, if they come over to the Church, must forward her interests by laws in her favour. In other places he speaks of the duty of the civil governor to do what the Church requires in her interests. Now one commentator thinks that all this amounts to not much less than the comparison of Church and State to sun and moon, which was first found, I think, in Hildebrand,[8] and became so dear to the Middle Ages. But I confess that I can see nothing here that in any sense approaches to the doctrine of the two swords, or even to the famous argument of Gelasius.
The Church was not yet in a condition even of parity with the civil power. Augustine does not think of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities as two co-ordinate Powers occupied in governing. Even in dream he had not the great vision of mediæval imagination, the one commonwealth of Catholic Christians, with its twin heads of Pope and Emperor; though he does say that there is one respublica of all Christians. It is doubtful whether he hoped to convert the heathen by force, though he asks the Donatists whether they did not agree with him in approving the imperial laws against heathen sacrifice. Augustine appeals to the unity of the Church, the Civitas Dei alike in morals and thought and sets this against the intellectual and moral anarchy of the terrene State; yet he is not at that moment thinking of an imperial Christ-state, but pointing to actual phenomena as a modern Roman Catholic in England or the United States might do. Yet it is not doubtful that it was possible in later times, and indeed natural, to press all this into the service of the hierarchical organisation of the world.
Most of Augustine's writing is not in the tone of a ruling Church, but rather of a body officially predominant, though everywhere attacked. His attitude to Count Boniface is not like that of the mediæval popes.
It is the other world with which he is concerned. He might have called his book 'The Gospel of the Resurrection.' The 'De Civitate Dei' is chargeable with whatever plaints can be made against a tendency to other-world lines. The strongest passage on this point is not to be found there, but in the 'De Bono Conjugali.' Answering the objection that if his views were correct, and if enough people became converted to the celibate life, the world could not go on being peopled, for no children would be born, he replies: 'That would be a blessing. It would mean that the number of the elect would be filled up, and the kingdom of God accomplished'--in the language of our Burial Service. This presumably alludes to the theory that the world need only go on until the number of elect required to fill up the vacancies caused by the falling of the angels had been made up. That was the object of the creation--to fill up the gaps in heaven. The rest do not matter. God would not keep the factory of the world running for the sake of the waste-products. You may fairly urge against S. Augustine the kind of reproaches that figure in the Pagan's Lament in Swinburne's poem:
'Thou hast conquered, O pale
Galilean, and the world has
grown grey
with Thy breath;
We have drunken of things Lethean,
and fed on the kisses
of death.'
But it is a different charge to make him 'the only begetter' of the Bull, Unam sanctam.
That is not to deny that there are weighty considerations in favour of such a view. Were there not, we could never have such strong words as those of Kattenbusch, who speaks of him as the Father of the Papacy. Geirke holds that the logical development of the Augustinian doctrine involves the complete subjection of the State to the Church.[9] Similar are the views of Dorner, Schmidt, Eicken and many more.[10] Their views are stronger evidence of what Augustine meant, than is the constant use that was made of him by mediæval thinkers. The mediæval habit of taking tags as text-proofs, apart from the general purpose of the writer, discounts their value as evidence. Besides this there was an immediate polemical interest at stake.
For this purpose we must go further. The 'De Civitate Dei' needs for its interpretation the writings against the Donatists. In that conflict Augustine was led to accept the assistance of the civil power. So far as I can make out, he was never very happy about this proceeding, and felt that it needed apology. Partly, this feeling was due to the fact that his action indicated a definite change of mind. In early days, and in regard to the controversy with the Manichæans, Augustine had forgone all such things, and argued in favour of freedom of opinion. This was a change, and one which he had to explain. So far as the Donatists were concerned, he had an easy task. From them indeed any objection to the employment of force was little short of an impertinence. They had themselves appealed to the civil power. Only when the appeal was rejected had they turned round and cried 'hands off' to the State. Besides the violence of the Circumcellions, if not precisely authorised, was largely used by them. Much of what was done on the side of the Church was only an attempt often ineffectual, to secure that the peace should be kept. This attempt had been largely frustrated through the intimacy between Optatus and the Count Gildo.
Augustine did not confine his defence to these limits. He produced a definite argument in favour of force in religious matters. Most of it he bases on the verse 'Compel them to come in.' He does not want opinion forced. He thinks that penalty is useful, because it makes a man reflect, and often give up his view as erroneous. It is, in fact, educational, and, in his view, precisely similar to the use of the rod. It is persecution for the soul's good. Augustine's conception of the office of the State is largely that of an educator.
Out of this acceptance of persecution it is easy to develop a theory of civil domination. The State is to use force. That is its duty. It is to extend the province of the Kingdom of God on earth. Remember, it is not, as it was later on, conceived as being the 'secular arm' of the Church. If the civil Governor is to persecute heresy, who is to advise him? He cannot do so on his own motion. Obviously, the Church, organised through its governors, will advise him. The moment you accept persecution as a policy, you tend to a religious tyranny. The State may still be conceived as having self-identity of its own--as it was in the Presbyterian doctrine of the two kingdoms. But if it be bound to take orders from the Church in regard to religious matters, it will not be long before there will be a claim to direct the State in regard to any policy that may have a religious, or a moral, or an ecclesiastical bearing. How much will be left out?
Add to this the inferences that may be drawn from justice (as Augustine defines it) as being needful to a perfect commonwealth. If the only true commonwealth be that in which Christ is King, and if that is to mean that the worship of God in Christ is not merely to be allowed, but to be enjoined by law, then you must have a theocratic State. It depends merely on what form of organisation the Church has, as to who shall have the last word. In a democratic system you might have the whole body of the faithful. In a hierarchical Church you might have either a General Assembly as in Scotland, or a General Council of bishops--or the Pope. As we saw last time, that notion of justice is not at all S. Augustine's own doctrine of the State. But it was sufficiently near it for men to take it apart from the rest; and, together with other indications, to make it serve the ends of the clericalism of the later Middle Ages.
Even more is this true with regard to the conception of the Church as the apocalyptic kingdom. If the Church be, here and now, in enjoyment of its millennial glory, then the largest terms of supremacy that can be brought out of the Apocalypse may be interpreted literally. Its earthly head will be King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
All these elements together--(a) the doctrine of a religion using the force of a compelle intrare, which must give to the Church some claim to dictate what shall be persecuted as heresy; (b) the doctrine of justice as necessary to a State, together with S. Augustine's glosses, leading to a control of all law for spiritual ends; (c) the doctrine of the Church as a polity, as the millennial Kingdom of Christ, implying a reigning authority-- will tend to develop a state of mind which will picture the Civitas Dei as a christianised Church-State, from which unbelievers are excluded, and which would claim, directly or indirectly, the supreme power in that State for the leaders of the hierarchy. If we add to this the effects of the Church's long continuance in a concentration upon earthly activities, the development of vast administrative machinery, the fact that she became to the conquering barbarians the symbol and the source of all culture, we are well on our way to such a conception of church-power as was represented by Innocent III.
Notes to Lecture IV
[1] Reuter, p. 151.
'Die Libri de Civitate Dei haben nicht den direkten Zweck, die Frage nach "dem Verhältnis der christlichen Kirche zum Staate," im Sinne des heutigen Sprachgebrauchs zu beantworten, sondern sind prinzipiell zum Zwecke der Verteidigung der Christentums (der christlichen Kirche) gegen das Heidentum abgefasst.
'Die Civitas terrena bedeutet erstens den heidnischen Staat, zweitens, die bis zum Ende der Welt, also auch in der christlichen Zeit bestehende societas improborum.
'Die Civitas Dei ist erstens die historische sichtbare Kirche-- zweitens die communio sanctorum (electorum).'
[2] De Civitate, xix. 17.
'Haec ergo coelestis civitas dum peregrinatur in terra, ex omnibus gentibus cives evocat, adque in omnibus linguis peregrinam colligit societatem, non curans quidquid in moribus legibus institutisque diversum est, quibus pax terrena vel conquiritur vel tenetur, nihil eorum rescindens vel destruens, immo etiam servans ac sequens; quod licet diversum sit in diversis nationibus, ad unum tamen eundemque finem terrenae pacis intenditur, si religionem qua unus summus et verus Deus colendus docetur, non impedit.
'Utitur ergo etiam coelestis civitas, in hac sua peregrinatione, pace terrena, et de rebus ad mortalem hominum naturam pertinentibus, humanarum voluntatum compositionem, quantum salva pietate ac religione conceditur, tuetur adque adpetit, eamque terrenam pacem refert ad coelestem pacem; quae vere ita pax est, ut rationalis dumtaxat creaturae sola pax habenda adque dicenda sit, ordinatissima scilicet et concordissima societas fruendi Deo et invicem in Deo; quo cum ventum fuerit, non erit vita mortalis, sed plane certeque vitalis; nee corpus animale quod dum corrumpitur aggravat animam, sed spiritale sine ulla indigentia ex omni parte subditum voluntati. Hanc pacem, dum peregrinatur in fide, habet, adque ex hac fide juste vivit, cum ad illam pacem adipiscendam refert quidquid bonarum actionum gerit erga Deum et proximum, quoniam vita civitatis utique socialis est.'
[3] F. Kattenbusch, Kritische Studien zur Symbolik, p. 200.
'In dem Augustinischen Kirchenbegriff wird gewöhnlich ein Gedanke übersehen, der aber doch von der höchsten Tragweite ist. Das ist der dass die Kirche das tausendjährige Reich und in so fern bereits das Reich Gottes darstellt.'
[4] Reuter, p. 150.
'Die Formel, "die Kirche ist das Reich Gottes" ist prinzipiell nicht von der verfassungsmässig organisierten, von den Bischöfen regierten Kirche ausgesagt, sondern von derjenigen, welche als communio sanctorum vorgestellt wird, bestimmter von dem Teile derselben --denn der Grundbestandtheil gehört dem Himmel an--welcher hier auf Erden sich befindet.'
Cf. also Schmidt (Jahrbücher, vi. 238)--Die Kirche ist in erster Linie Leib Christi als Communio Sanctorum.
Scholz, Glaube und Unglaube, 119. Criticises Reuter's view of regnum Dei as equivalent to communio sanctorum, and points to Augustine's use of Tyconius.
[5] Reuter, p. 499.
'Durch Augustin ist die Idee der Kirche in einer Weise, die dem Orient fremd geblieben, die Zentralmacht in der religiösen Stimmung, in dem kirchlichen Handeln des Abendlandes geworden. Sein eigenes Denken war allerding beherrscht worden dutch jene andere, welche wir oben (S. 97) nachgewiesen haben; aber die Formel "die Kirche ist das Reich Gottes," schon von ihm nicht immer in dem genuinen Sinne gebraucht, früh von anderen in Widerspruch mit der ursprünglichen Intention des Verfassers verstanden, ist thatsächlich wider seine Absicht das Fundament der Ansprüche der römischen Hierarchic, "das Programm jener römisch-katholischen Weltherrschaft," an welche Augustin nie gedacht hatte--die Schwungkraft des Gregorianismus geworden.'
[6] Schmidt, H., Des Augustinus Lehre von der Kirche, in Jahrbücher für Deutsche Theologie, vi. p. 198.
'Das Selbstbewusstsein der Kirche konnte sich vollständiger nur entwickeln, wenn es sich nicht allein der Härese, sondern auch dem Schisma gegenüber auszusprechen hatte.'
This situation was produced by the Donatist controversy: and this helped to mould the Church into a State-religion.
[7] Weinand, pp. 109, no.
'(Augustin hat) den Kreis der Kirche weit über den Rahmen der sichtbaren Gemeinde erweitert. Wie weitherzig das zeigt die Grundauffassung der Civitas Dei, die Kirche sei so alt wie die Welt. Res ipsa quae nunc Christiana religio nuncupatur erat apud antiques, nee defuit ab initio generis humani.'
[8] Kattenbusch, p. 197.
'In so fern ist doch Augustin der Vater auch des Papsttums,' p. 201. 'Wir haben in jenem Gedanken Augustins den eigentlichen Rechtstitel und das leitende Motiv für die Politik, welche die Päpste bis auf die Gegenwart festhalten. Diese Politik ist eben nichts anderes, als die rücksichtslose kühne, wenn man will, grossartige und imposante Durchführung der Idee, dass die Kirche als das Reich Gottes die berufene Herrin aller Verhältnisse sei.'
Ritschl, i. 166.
'Daran sind in der Lehre von der obersten Auctorität der Kirche die Ideen nachzuweisen, auf Grund deren der römische Primat sich über den Episkopat erhob und die Stellvertretung Gottes in sich zu concentriren unternahm. Ist auch Augustin kein absichtlicher Urheber dieser Entwickelung, so war sie doch durch seine Ansicht, dass die Kirche die Civitas Dei sei, veranlasst. Und diesen Primat an Gottes Statt haben ja die mittelaltrigen Vertreter desselben in Praxis und Theorie an einem Verhältniss zwischen Kirche und Staat durchzu-führen gesucht, dessen Bestimmung direkt von den Grundsätzen Augustin's abstammt, und, wie die Gegenwart bestätigt, dogmatischen Werth hat, also auch in der Dogmengeschichte vorgetragen werden muss.'
[9] Gierke, Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, iii. 124.
'In der konsequenten Ausgestaltung, die sie durch Augustinus erfuhr, erkannte diese Theorie ausschliesslich den unmittelbar von Gott gestifteten und geleiteten Verband der universellen und einheitlichen Kirche, den " Staat dessen König Christus ist," als Ausdruck der sittlichen Weltordnung an. Sie liess daher den weltlichen Staat mit alien seinen Gliederungen und Einrichtungen nur gelten insofern derselbe sich dem in der Kirche realisirten göttlichen Staat, als dienender Bestandtheil ein- und unterordnete. Sie postulirte den Christlichen Staat und verstand unter dem Christlichen Staat einen Staat, welcher ausschliesslich in der Kirche die Quelle und das Ziel seiner Existenz erblickte.'
[10] Dorner, p. 303.
'Mit einem Worte, nur der der Kirche dienende Staat, welcher die wahre Gottesverehrung schützt, entspricht seinem Begriff, und vermag in seiner Sphäre etwas Erspriessliches zu leisten. Dass der Staat ein eigenes in sich werthvolles Princip, eine göttliche Idee seinerseits vertrete, erkennt Augustin nicht. Seine Ansicht vom Staate ist nicht weit von dem Satze entfernt, dass er der Mond sei, welcher von der Sonne seinen Glanz empfange.'