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In medieval and early modern Westernpolitical thought, therespublica orres publica Christiana refers to the international community of Christian peoples and states. As aLatin phrase,res publica Christiana combinesChristianity with the originally Roman idea of theres publica ("republic" or "commonwealth") to describe this community and its well-being. A single English word with somewhat comparable meaning isChristendom; it is also translated as "the Christian Commonwealth".[1]
The concept of ares publica Christiana is first attested inAugustine of Hippo, whose early 5th century workThe City of God contrasted the Christian church favourably against the claims of theRoman Empire to constitute ares publica, a republic or commonwealth. He challenged Rome's legitimacy as a state established for the public good on the grounds that its empire had been won by force and not by justice; by contrast, he claimed, the Christian church was a trueres publica, founded for the good of humanity. In another work,De opere monachorum, Augustine stated explicitly that "there is one commonwealth of all Christians" ("omnium enim christianorum una respublica est").[2]
Despite Augustine's distinction, in subsequent usage the imperial and ecclesiasticalres publica blended together. Thus in the late antique and early medieval period, from theByzantine Papacy of the 6th century to the turn of the 11th, the papalchancery used the termres publica Christiana mainly to refer to the Christianempire: first theByzantine Empire in the east, then, from 800, theCarolingian orHoly Roman Empire in the west. The re-establishment of empire in the west subsequently led the popes to use the term in letters of exhortation to Frankish kings who did not necessarily bear the title of emperor themselves,[3] as for examplePope John VIII writing toKing Louis the Stammerer in 878 of the "state of the Christian religion and commonwealth" ("statu Christiane religionis ac rei publicae").[4]
By the 11th century, the term had been generalized through application in different political contexts to mean the totality of Christian states as a community under the leadership of the pope—the primary sense it retained in the Middle Ages from this time on.[5] The unity of the Christian community was a central supposition of medieval European political thought. In the words of the historian of international relationsGarrett Mattingly, medieval Catholic Europe "thought of itself as one society", theres publica Christiana, and though thisres publica was never realized as a unified state, it existed politically as a common body of law shared across the region's various countries and developed by an international community of jurists.[6][7] The term in this sense was closely related to the medieval concept that human society was a universal monarchy governed by the pope or emperor as "lord of the world" (dominus mundi);[8] thus it was used byEmperor Frederick II, for example, to describe his various dominions in the 13th century.[9]
Although it designated a key concept in medieval political thought, until the 15th century the termres publica Christiana itself remained relatively rare compared to alternatives without a specifically political meaning, such asChristianitas. It was only in theRenaissance era that theres publica Christiana took on renewed significance: in papal documents, after a period of disuse beginning in the 13th century, the term was revived in the 15th and early 16th centuries byhumanist popes such asPius II, who invoked it in calling for a crusade following thefall of Constantinople to the forces ofMehmed the Conqueror in 1453, andLeo X, likewise concerned in the 1510s to encourage the rulers of Europe to defend Christendom against theOttoman Turks.[10]
In these cases, the term designated Christian Europe as a political community with a shared secular interest. Thus, for the 16th-century humanist juristAndrea Alciato, different norms of international law applied to non-Christians in Asia and Africa, who were not citizens of theres publica.[11] Equally, the feuds between different European powers were conceived of as internecinecivil wars within the commonwealth, distracting Christians from threats to theres publica as a whole.[12] In its elaboration by other 16th-century theorists such asErasmus andJustus Lipsius, this Renaissance concept of the politicalres publica Christiana was explicitly pluralist, de-emphasizing the specific political leadership of the pope and replacing the medieval idea of a unitary Christian empire.[8]
Modern historians of international relations such asHedley Bull and Cathal J. Nolan have argued that Europe ceased being ares publica Christiana due to the 16th- and 17th-century wars of theReformation andCounter-Reformation and became a "state system" with a sharpseparation of church and state.[8][1] The principle ofcuius regio, eius religio ("whose realm, his religion"), first formulated at thePeace of Augsburg (1555), was confirmed at thePeace of Westphalia (1648), which gave secular states sovereignty over religions, and rejected any supranational religious authority.[1] The last reference to theres publica Christiana in a state document is found in thePeace of Utrecht (1713)—also the first treaty to contain a reference to thebalance of power.[13]
Even as the religious and political unity of Europe disintegrated, however, theres publica Christiana continued to be influential as an alternative model of international relations through the 17th century. Theduc de Sully, chief minister ofHenry IV of France at the turn of the 17th century, and his later successorCardinal Richelieu both sought to realize a form ofres publica Christiana: Sully in the form of a proposal for a federal council of Christian states to resolve conflicts in Europe, Richelieu under the label of the "peace of Christendom" (paix de la chrétienté).[8] As late as 1715, the German polymathGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz appealed to the concept of ares publica Christiana under the leadership of the pope and emperor as afederative model forEuropean political unity.[14]
In Catholic theology theres publica Christiana came to refer primarily to theCatholic Church itself as a self-sufficientsocietas perfecta ("perfect society"), but it retained some of its political currency after the 17th century. One example of subsequent use of the phrase is the 1766encyclical ofPope Clement XIII,Christianae reipublicae salus [de;it] ("The Welfare of the Christian Commonwealth"), which condemned the "desolation" caused to theres publica by the free circulation of anti-Christian writings and urged Catholic rulers to suppress them.[15] Later, in 1849,ultramontanes in Europe describedPope Pius IX as the leader of a revivedres publica Christiana.[16] In his 1890 encyclicalSapientiae christianae [de;it],Pope Leo XIII distinguished the Church as theChristiana respublica—rendered in English as "the kingdom of Christ"—from temporalimperium—"civil government"—stating that it was not the Church's prerogative to adjudicate between the different forms and institutions of secular governments.[17]
The dictionary definition ofrespublica Christiana at Wiktionary
