The Right To Rule

“Peoples did not in the first instance originate from rulers, but whatever peoples desired to be ruled by a single monarch or by chief men elected by them were anterior to their rulers. Hence it follows that peoples were not created for the sake of rulers, but on the contrary the rulers for the sake of the people.” – Theodore Beza, 16th century French Calvinist Protestant.

An excerpt from, “Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France: 1572 – 1598″ By Scott M. Manetsch, 2000, Brill, Pg. 158-62:

But despite concerns of Catholic subversion, Beza did not entirely abandon the doctrine of constitutional resistance against tyrannical rulers. In his Sermons sur l’histoire de la passion… de nostre Seigneur Iésus Christ (1592), the reformer spelled out explicitly the uses and abuses of political power, as well as the grounds for legitimate resistance. Examining the Gospel account in which Peter cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26), Beza drew the following lessons: God has given to magistrates the power of the sword to administer justice against criminals and heretics. Those rulers who practice injustice and become tyrants lose the divine right to wield the sword. Nonetheless, it is not for private persons to resist wicked magistrates with force of arms. As godly subjects, they must employ “the true weapons of a Christian, namely prayers and patience, which are the victory of the saints.” Having said this, Beza made an important exception: when the laws of the kingdom provide legal remedy against a legitimate ruler who has become at tyrant, the people can and should employ it.” Indeed, when public law grants to individuals (particuliers) the right to wield the sword, they do so as from God. While Beza did not explicitly identify these ‘individuals’ as lesser magistrates, they were probably what he had in mind. Rulers are subject to law and can be deposed by pub- lic officials who have been given a constitutional mandate to restrain injustice and tyranny.

Beza returned to the theme of political resistance in a sermon on Jesus’ trial before Pilate. Here again, the primary emphasis was on civil obedience: the example of Jesus “demonstrates to us the duty that subjects owe to their superiors, even if they are unbelievers or torturers, as long as in obeying them we are not forgetting to give God the honor that we owe him.” Because magistrates have been placed in their offices by God, it is mutinous and seditious for pri- vate persons to attempt to snatch the scepter from them. Nonetheless, God sometimes chooses to use extraordinary means or “the laws and governments of kingdoms and other political states” to remove wicked rulers. Although Beza again refrained from stating what form these legal restraints might take, one thing was clear: when laws existed that limited political power, they could be applied to oppose an oppressive magistrate.

Beza’s Annotationes provides additional evidence that the reformer never completely abandoned his doctrine of political resistance. Beza labored over this Latin translation of the New Testament for more than forty years; in five separate editions between 1556 and 1598, the reformer supplemented and amended the copious exegetical notes or “annotations’ accompanying each scriptural passage. In the edi- tions before 1598, Beza’s annotations on Romans 13 the classicus locus for civil obedience were traditional: all citizens must obey their magistrates, given that these rulers have received political power from God. In the 1598 edition, Beza repeated this traditional formula, but made several important additions in his textual notes. First, in his annotations on Romans 13.1, the reformer stated more explic- itly the responsibility of citizens to obey their rulers even wicked rulers as long as they were established by legitimate means:

It is not by chance that the Apostle used this figure of speech here [i.e. 'powers'], but so that we might know that this obedience ought to be given to those rulers, even if they are unworthy. Hence Christ was obedient to Caiaphas and Pilate, and Paul appealed his case to Nero. But he makes this proviso: that the ruler has been raised up according to the law of God and in keeping with every law human or divine, not established seditiously or tyrannically in violation of the Word of God or against the political laws.”

To this general principle, however, Beza added an important excep- tion in his comments on Romans 13.5: Legitimate magistrates who become tyrants can be opposed by legal means. “The power of the magistrate is not undercut when, in a manner holy and necessary, a person employs remedies that are opposed to manifest tyranny and ratified by the public authority of that particular civil state.” Thus, once again Beza recognized limits to political authority. When sanc- tioned by law, citizens can oppose a king-turned-tyrant. As in his Du droit des magistrats, the Genevan reformer continued to teach that political authority was not ‘absolute,’ but was subject to legal con- straints. Although the prospect of Navarre’s accession after 1584 prompted Beza to moderate his tone, nonetheless he remained for the rest of his life suspicious of investing absolute political authority in a single individual.

An excerpt from, “Heart of Flesh: Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men” by Joan Chittister, an American Benedictine nun, 1998, Pg. 85-86:

Nonviolent resistance is the weapon of those who need no weapons to be effective. It breeds questions that do not go away until governments lose the right to rule because they have lost the hearts and minds of the people.

What the world fails to understand rises to haunt it as struggle after struggle solves nothing and simply breeds the next one. In our own time, World War I, “the war to end all wars,” bred World War II. The ruthless sup- pression of national states by Russia led in the long run to genocide in Bosnia, revolt in Chechnya, rejection in the Ukraine. The obvious has escaped us: Violence never solves anything; it simply opens wounds that fes- ter in wait for centuries until the tables turn and the guns are bigger and the damage is beyond repair.

The idea that weapons defend a people is bogus at every level – phys- ical, social, and psychological. To resist an enemy unarmed is no guarantee of success, true. But to go into conflict armed is no guarantee of success either. Witness the body bags in every armory of the world.

More than that, armed nations fall in brutal and pitiless ways. Weapons are no surety that a nation will not fall to external pressure. They are also no guarantee that the nation will not deteriorate from within while it stockpiles weapons but neglects roads and medical care and education and housing and employment and internal investment. The United States concentrated on defense after World War II while countries we disarmed, thanks to our insis- tence, concentrated on making computer chips and cars, electronic periph- erals and consumer goods. Now we have new problems, not because other countries are better armed than we are but because they are internally more nonviolent or educationally superior, financially more balanced or morally more defined, while we ourselves are still attempting to recover from the mil- itarism spawned by World War II and its effects on the soul of this nation. The question of the most militarized generation in the history of humankind after two world wars is not who won the wars but who won the peace.

Armed individuals, too, are killed despite their weapons, or, armed to the teeth, suspicious of everyone and everything, they destroy their own inner peace and openness. They make themselves targets for other people’s fear. Witness the gurneys at every gang fight in the United States. Witness the eternal damage done in every family, in every relationship that relies for resolution of conflict on force. Just as the damage to human development is a high price to pay for military victory, so, too, the surrender of human seren- ity and personal growth are an exorbitant price to pay for enmity.

A feminist spirituality based on the Jesus who challenged the law and contended with Pilate asks no one to submit to wrong. Christian feminism asks everyone to resist evil in ways that make the world a better place instead of simply more of the same kind of place with someone new in charge.

The fundamental question of spirituality today is whether or not the spirit that rises in our hearts and overflows into our daily routine rids the world of one more beaten child, leads to a lower military budget, insists on an equality that is based more on genuine respect than on tokenism, demands a hearing for the voiceless, refuses to do harm whatever the glory of the cause, reaches out instead of striking out, and pledges to resist evil whatever the cost without doing evil ourselves.

An excerpt from, “John Lydus’ Political Message and the Byzantine Image of the Ideal Ruler” Medievalists.net, 2012:

Paper by Sviatoslav Dmitriev

Paper given at Thirty-Eighth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference, held at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Boston, Massachusetts on November 2, 2012

What makes a great emperor? This was one of the questions addressed by John Lydus, a 6th century Byzantine administrator and writer, whose work On Powers examined the rule of previous Roman emperors.

. . .

Dmitriev also notes that this image of the ideal ruler also placed certain restrictions on his rule, for in the view of Lydus and other writers it was the personal qualities that entitled someone to rule, not just their right of succession. Those who failed to live up to these ideals could be branded a tyrant, and could even lose the right to rule, or at least be advised or admonished.

Video Title: Tyrants lose the right to rule. Source: The Story of Liberty. Date Published: July 4, 2012.