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Church and State - Pierre Bayle, A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14.23, ‘Compel Them to Come In, That My House May Be Full’ [1686]

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A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14.23, ‘Compel Them to Come In, That My House May Be Full’, edited, with an Introduction by John Kilcullen and Chandran Kukathas (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Church and State

Since the middle ages the Catholic Church had claimed that the rulers of Christian states should come to the aid of the Church when the Church requested it, for example by repressing heresy. The pope claimed the power to remove an unsatisfactory ruler either by directly deposing him, or (this was the more usual doctrine) indirectly, by absolving subjects from their obligation of obedience and calling on them to replace their ruler. Catholic writers also argued that, apart from any dissatisfaction the Church might have with a ruler, the ruler’s subjects might in some circumstances be entitled to disobey or rebel. Almost all (but not quite all) Catholic theologians disapproved of the assassination of a tyrannical ruler, and argued that a rebellion should be carried on by someone with a right to act on behalf of the people. These theories can be traced back to medieval writers such as Thomas Aquinas, John of Paris, and William of Ockham; their chief exponents in the sixteenth century were the Jesuits Francisco Suárez and Robert Bellarmine.10

Protestants usually held that Christians have a duty to obey the “powers that be” no matter how irreligious or tyrannical they may be, but not by doing anything contrary to the commandments of God; if the tyrant commands an immoral act, the Christian must refuse, but still not rebel. This is called the doctrine of “nonresistance” or, sometimes, “passive obedience” (passive in contrast to active—a Christian would not actively obey an immoral command, but would submit to the punishment for not obeying). Protestants denied the pope’s claim to direct and depose rulers and disclaimed such powers for their own religious bodies. But although obedience and nonrebellion were their usual doctrines, some Protestants (notably Pierre Jurieu and John Locke) adopted something like the Catholic doctrine of the subject’s right to rebel, especially when the true religion was being persecuted.11

Among French Catholics there was a tendency, usually called “Gallicanism,” that aimed at protecting the interests of the French monarchy and of the parish clergy and bishops against the pope. This tendency originated during the thirteenth-century controversies at the University of Paris between the secular clergy and the mendicant friars (Franciscans and Dominicans), in the controversy between King Philip and Pope Boniface, and in the attempts to heal the Great Schism that came to fruition in the Council of Constance. The “Gallican Articles” of 1682 affirmed that kings are not subject to the authority of the Church in temporal and civil matters or to deposition by the ecclesiastical power, that their subjects cannot be dispensed by the pope from their allegiance, that a General Council has authority over a pope (as the Council of Constance asserted), and that doctrinal decisions by a pope need the consent of the Church. Gallicans also affirmed that royal officials could not be excommunicated for anything they did officially. The “ultramontanes” rejected Gallicanism, and maintained that the pope’s authority held undiminished “beyond the mountains,” i.e. the Alps, i.e. in France. The historian Maimbourg was a Gallican, and for this reason was expelled from the Jesuit order (which made a special point of obedience to the pope). For a reference to the controversy between Gallicans and Ultramontanes see pp. 541–42.

Bayle adheres to the view common among the Huguenots before Jurieu began to advocate rebellion, namely that a king’s right to rule was not conditional upon his behavior. See, for example, p. 48. He therefore rejects the Catholic doctrines that the pope may depose a ruler for heresy or for failure to repress heresy and that the people may rebel against a tyrant. Like most Christians at the time, Catholic and Protestant, he held that a ruler should foster religion (see p. 202). However, in opposition to Catholics and to many of his Protestant contemporaries, he argues that the ruler must not use coercive measures to favor any religion—this is the thesis of the Philosophical Commentary. Although Catholics of Gallican tendency say that the pope cannot depose a king, Bayle thinks that the Ultramontane claim is a more authentic expression of Catholic doctrine (see pp. 48, 91, 541); and the Gallicans themselves were active persecutors of heretics. Bayle therefore says that Catholics, whether Gallican or Ultramontane, cannot safely be tolerated. But the “nontoleration” he advocates means, not persecuting Catholics, but taking precautions to make sure that they do not acquire the power to overthrow a heretical ruler or to persecute (see pp. 47–48, pp. 192–93, and p. 572).

[10. ]Q. Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).

[11. ]G. Dodge, The Political Theory of the Huguenots of the Dispersion (New York: Columbia, 1947).