§ 1. No state can exist without an order of commanding and obeying, just as a human being will not exist unless the members are joined to one another in their natural order, are fitted to one another, and sustain one another by reciprocal assistance and influence. Therefore, without a magistrate the law is, as I have said, inanimate; but that man spoke truly:
Ἰσχυρὸς ὁ νόμος, ἢν ἄρχοντ᾽ ἔχῃ.
The law is strong if it has a ruler.
For the whole mass of laws, without this bond and, as it were, cement, is nothing but a ruin. Domestic examples show us this. If the master’s stern countenance is absent from the school, if the little servants know that the father of the household has departed from the house, if neither a censor nor a steward acts as his deputy, everything is changed; the insolence of one man, suppressed by reverence, immediately puts itself forth. What, then, happens in a kingdom, where not merely many but very often most, and sometimes all, are bad? Therefore Aristotle truly says in book 6 of the Politics, chapter 8, ἄνευ τῶν ἀναγκαίων ἀρχῶν ἀδύνατον οἰκεῖσθαι πόλεις—without the necessary offices, it is impossible for cities to be inhabited—and Cicero in book 3 of On the Laws says that there is need of magistrates, because without them a city cannot be rightly constituted. This is so true that those who wage war upon the magistracy can in no way do so without another magistracy. The plebeian Romans refuse the authority of the consuls and nobility and withdraw to the Aventine Hill, but they can do nothing without a new magistracy
against the old one: they create tribunes and impose laws upon the Fathers. So necessary, indeed, is a magistrate in the state that it is better for there to be a bad one than none.
§ 2. Although this is so, there are nevertheless not lacking in our age—into which all accursed things have flowed—those who have attempted to oppose so evident a light of nature and experience, and to overthrow the entire order of things by a criminal opinion. In former times the Donatists, although they had previously appealed from the Church to the emperors, afterwards rejected every authority of the magistrate. Now the Libertines and Anabaptists introduce all the confusion of anarchy. The Libertines do so because they deny every law and every sin, for they assert that everything is done by God. The Anabaptists invent the claim that the magistracy is opposed to Christian liberty.
But Holy Scripture refutes them, for it commands every soul to be subject to the higher powers, which it would not command unless it willed powers to exist. It calls them διακόνους, ministers of God, and λειτουργοὺς θεοῦ, servants of God, Romans 13:4, 6—indeed, gods. Then, in Matthew 22:21, Christ the Lord commands obedience to Caesar’s laws, although Caesar was impious; Paul at Titus 3:1 and Peter in his First Epistle, chapter 2, verse 13, proclaimed what they had received from the Lord’s mouth. Hence magistrates and kings are called the Church’s nursing fathers and defenders. God sends them as his servants and ministers: Moses, Joshua, Jephthah, Samson, Samuel, David, Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and the Maccabees. For Psalms 2:11, Isaiah 60:3, Proverbs 8:15, Isaiah 10:5, Jeremiah 27:6, and Daniel 2:34 bear witness to these things for us. He also commands us to pray for them, 1 Timothy 2:2. Many theologians and jurisconsults have disputed against the Libertines, and the whole world opposes them. Yet those who deny that laws bind the consciences of subjects secretly defend them, as I taught in the book on laws.
§ 3. This is also consonant with natural reason; for unless there is a magistrate, no one will have care of the whole state at once, but its parts here and there will be administered only piecemeal for the advantage of a few. But because haters of magistrates—and therefore of all order and good—disturbers of peace and patrons of robberies, creep up upon the simple and attempt to overthrow the state by sophistries, their frauds must be laid open. For even today there are not lacking those who urge country people, agitated by some commotion, to turn their weapons against their lords. Nor would they act more timidly than Müntzer if only a hope of success appeared. But what can be brought forward for so remarkable a paradox?
§ 4. First, they assail kings in this manner: Christ alone is king in the New Testament; therefore it is unworthy that a human being be joined to God as a colleague. Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη· εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω. “The rule of many is not good; let there be one lord.” Εἷς βασιλεύς, “one king.”
But if the power of kings must be eliminated by that argument, nothing prevents children from also fleeing the honor owed to parents and servants the services owed to masters. For one God is said to be Father and Lord. Christ is king, but a king μέγας, κράτιστος, great and most powerful, the King of kings and Lord of those who exercise lordship; all pious kings obey him, and by him all impious kings will be condemned. He is the priest, and yet he did not remove the offices of other priests who serve him. This argument has been taken from the foul cesspools of the Calvinists, who reason thus: Christ is the one pontiff, the sole mediator; therefore there is no other pontiff or mediator. For it is transferred from those claims to these others on an exactly equal basis of reasoning. But if they distinguished between him who is king by nature, the supreme pontiff in office and dignity, and the mediator who has perfectly reconciled us and paid the price, and those who, inferior in infinitely many ways, are called pontiffs and mediators, there would long ago have been no dispute.
§ 5. They say that in Genesis 49:10 political kingship was to endure until Christ, and therefore was taken away at his coming. For Christ fled when a kingdom was offered to him, John 6; and when he was asked to judge between brothers, he rejected the jurisdiction, Luke 12:14. Indeed, he expressly denied that his kingdom was of this world, and, not without just rebuke, denied secular power to the disciples when they ambitiously sought it.
These things too were fashioned from the same mud. For sayings originally uttered by the leading sectarians against the power of ecclesiastics were twisted by their disciples against secular power. Both groups acted impiously and seditiously. For all the deeds of Christ have not necessarily been proposed for all to imitate. Christ lived a celibate and poor life, yet neither the Libertines nor the Anabaptists judged that by Christ’s example a law of poverty or celibacy had been imposed upon them.
§ 6. They also deny that any pious man can undertake or govern a state, for in Judges 9 the olive tree refused to leave its fatness and the vine its sweet wine in order to be promoted among the trees, but the bramble accepted the kingdom. Hence Satan is the prince of the world, John 12:3 and 16:11.
This is a great injury to pious kings: to impose upon all magistrates the things which were said concerning a rebellious and impious people and a most cruel tyrant, a killer of his brothers. Nor is Satan king of any kingdom; rather, he is king over all the children of pride, king of the world—that is, of the body of the impious. No right over anyone and no power has been given to the devil; instead, by persuading to evil and dissuading from good he usurps a right for himself. This fruit too has sprouted from the bastard shoot of the new heresy. Luther said many things against princes. Aretius the Calvinist pronounced that the ornaments of empire were affixed by the devil. He said that persecution extends as widely as the Roman Empire.
§ 7. Finally, they put forward liberty. The human being was created free by God; why, therefore, is he oppressed by servitude to a king? First Corinthians 7:23: “Do not become servants of human beings.” And Romans 13:8: “Owe nothing to anyone.” A magistrate was imposed upon the imperfect Jews because they were children needing a pedagogue, but an anointing teaches Christians all things. Therefore the magistrate must not be obeyed. All these arguments tend toward this: that each person may live by his own choice and that there may be neither coercion of the harmful nor vengeance for injuries—as though the highest liberty were not to obey a lawful magistrate, that is, the divine ordinance.
And these were the beginnings of Europe’s disturbance by civil wars and discords. For we have seen men learned in letters, who boasted that they were advocates of piety and justice, teach in public writings—a thing belonging to savage nations—that hands could be laid upon magistrates. How much more prudently, and how much more agreeably to peace, reason, and the laws of God, Aristotle judged that the man who cursed a magistrate should be heavily fined, because he was held to have offended not so much against the magistrate as against the state. Right must therefore be heard, and it must be held as certain that the magistrate is sacrosanct and must be obeyed, and that every injury inflicted upon him is graver. For the laws rightly call every injury inflicted upon a magistrate atrocious. Π, book 47, title 10, law 7, Atrocem autem iniuriam: “Labeo says that an injury becomes atrocious either because of the person, the time, or the thing itself. Because of the person, an injury becomes more atrocious when it is done to a magistrate, a parent, or a patron. Because of time, if an injury was done at the games and in public view, or in solitude.
He says that it makes a great difference because one done in public view is more atrocious. Because of the thing, Labeo says an injury is held atrocious, for example, if a wound was inflicted or someone’s face was struck.”
The reason is taken from natural law, because all owe singular honor to a magistrate; then, because he is the minister of justice and must therefore undergo the hostility of many, for which reason the state has armed him with a bodyguard; finally, because when his authority is violated the public safety is endangered.
I do not see, therefore, how anyone can rise against magistrates—unless he seeks his own safety from confusion—when he sees that in the Old Testament priest succeeded priest and king succeeded king, and that now each has been transferred into another priesthood and kingship. Among other nations the right of magistrates has rested upon that common law which they call the law of nations. Yet God sometimes establishes a presiding magistrate immediately by himself, and sometimes through an assembly and the public meetings of princes or peoples. Irenaeus speaks truly in book 5, chapter 24: “By the command of him by whose command human beings are born, kings also are established who are suited to those who are governed by them at that time.”
And these things are against the despisers of magistrates and of the divine ordinance. No less must the flatterers of magistrates be restrained: they grant kings some things which are owed to them, but other things that are ὑπέρογκα, over-swollen and too exalted. True reverence is owed to them, as is a testimony of love and honorable opinion. For the king’s reputation and honor are necessary for protecting the state. Yet the misdeeds of an impious king must not be approved. For Samuel honored Saul before the people only when induced by great entreaties. The king’s dignity and power demand this, and therefore an attack by a curse upon the prince’s majesty is avenged by death. Next, kings must be obeyed unless they command crimes. Assistance also is owed to the king, not only when he needs money and a soldier but also when he is in danger. Indeed, one’s life must be laid down for the person of the prince if that person is endangered to the public harm. It belongs here that they should not inflict loss upon him and should not aid his enemies, either in deed or counsel. These things, and matters connected with them, are truly owed to the prince.
Flattery has invented other things: that whatever the king commands is right and lawful; that all things belong to the king; that the government of one—namely, monarchy—is the sole form arising from nature, whereas in all the others human beings have deviated from the straight path of nature; and that those who introduced the rule of aristocrats or of the people in human affairs erred no less than those who introduced presbyterianism in divine affairs. Thus says that new-fledged petty parasite William Barrett in book 1 of The Right of the King, chapter 1. Although this error may appear speculative, if it is accepted it will disturb every kingdom; for wherever there is another form of government, the state is accused of having departed from natural law.
§ 8. But he surpassed the talents of all sycophants when he permitted an unrestricted tyranny to kings, whom alone he allows to be rulers by natural law. For he judges that the right of the king which Samuel sets forth in 1 Kings, chapter 8, is a true right. Thus in book 1, chapter 1: “The right of the king is set down expressly and deliberately by Samuel in 1 Kings, chapter 8, where kingship itself is instituted and inaugurated. Nor does the man of God instruct a tyrant or an unjust king, as Becanus rashly holds with Calvin; for in the following chapter he intimates to Saul himself that the very things which he recounts fully and explicitly in that same chapter as to be exacted by the king and endured by the people can be arrogated and appropriated to himself by the king through princely right: ‘And to whom will all the best things of Israel belong? Will they not belong to you?’ and so forth. Yet to say or think that the Prophet wished or endeavored to entice him toward tyranny is sacrilege. Nor does Becanus appear to have paid sufficient attention to the king’s right or dignity when he denies to the king the things granted by the Prophet, especially since it is not doubtful, by almost the common consent of theologians as well as jurisconsults, that all these things belong to the prince, and, among them, the best things mentioned by the Prophet, provided that what is just and equitable is observed; nor do they savor of tyranny unless the burden is immoderate.
“For who denies to the king horsemen, tribunes, centurions, and servants of different kinds, noble as well as plebeian, and that they should be maintained at the expense of the subjects, at least in a new principate? Likewise, that he can impose tributes and taxes under the name of tithes, by which his dignity is sustained and public expenditures are discharged? But when Samuel predicts that the Jews will earnestly pray to be freed from these things, this is the meaning: when you perceive that the royal pomp will be burdensome to you because of the aforesaid charges—as is fitting to its rank—whereas I administered the governorship without ostentation—as befits a priest—and without expense, and did not inconvenience you even in the smallest matter, then you will cry to God, but he will not hear you. The reason is that you asked for a king, who must be supported in keeping with his dignity.
“But let us examine briefly, if you please, the things here called royal rights, and compare them with those which in empires and kingdoms of the Christian faith are imposed and exacted from the nobility without the calumny of tyranny. First, that the king should have a royal retinue: nothing is more becoming or more honorable to the attendants themselves. Hence arises the origin of secular dignities, their subordination, and the distinction of their names.
“Second—which is especially exposed to calumny—‘he will give your fields,’ and so forth, ‘to his servants.’ That the king’s servants should be maintained and supported is just and equitable. But where nothing is masterless and a kingdom must be founded by a new right, a despotic right must necessarily yield to the royal right, unless the subjects themselves voluntarily confer what is just. Third, ‘he will tithe your crops.’ In place of this, landed dues are paid under the name of tribute; and in another form, according to the differing condition of the kingdom, princes who were not avaricious have decreed not a tenth but an eighth: the law Praestatione, Code, On Taxes. In some places, even in our own times, a tenth itself is imposed, namely upon things sold and exchanged and also upon provisions; elsewhere another tax, but one no smaller, is imposed according to the variety of kingdoms, as are customs duties, tolls, and other things of this kind, while the right of the fisc remains unimpaired.
“Fourth, ‘he will put your servants and asses to his work,’ and so forth, ‘and you will be his servants.’ The kinds of these are the burdens which we call public services, and in accordance with the divine concession they are threefold: real, personal, and mixed. Real services are those rendered to the prince by means of the subjects’ property, as by draught animals, wagons, and so forth. Personal services are those furnished by the persons themselves, as to serve at court or elsewhere at certain times. Mixed services consist of both, as when someone serves or accompanies the prince at his own expense upon a journey or to war, and so forth.
“Tyranny can therefore be avoided and equity observed in these things—and it will always be observed—if these four things are not wanting in royal impositions: if there is a just cause for imposing them; if the burden is proportionate to the tax; if the payment is adjusted to each person’s means, so that the poor are not compelled to contribute by lot more than those who are richer; and if it is not prolonged beyond necessity. Nor do the theologians dissent. Although all these things, therefore, have been decreed by human law, they are nevertheless owed by divine right, because by the same right the power is ordained. Hence the divine writings say: ‘Give the census to Caesar’; ‘Render tribute to whom tribute is owed, and taxes to whom taxes are owed.’”
But many things teach, and many persons—not only Becanus and Calvin—maintain, that this supposed right of the king is not equitable and not granted, but usurped. Let us draw back for a little while that royal dog, that new Aristippus creeping into courts.
§ 9. First, the words themselves show that it is not a lawful right but a depraved one, for they are of such a kind as to display tyrannical rapacity. For although our translator has rendered it most excellently “the right of the king,” and τὸ δικαίωμα,
nevertheless the Prophet did not judge it true right and equity but that which the king would employ. For משפט signifies not only right, judgment, power, and norm, but also custom, state, condition, manner, example, crime, and punishment. But let us hear the words, verse 11: וזה יהיה משפט המלך.
And he said: This will be the right, state, and condition of the king who will rule over you. He will take your sons and place them in his chariots, and he will make horsemen for himself and forerunners of his four-horse chariots. He will appoint for himself tribunes and centurions, plowmen of his fields, reapers of his crops, and makers of his weapons and chariots. He will also make your daughters his perfumers, cooks, and bakers. He will likewise take your fields, vineyards, and best olive groves and give them to his servants. He will also tithe your crops and the revenues of your vineyards, to give them to his eunuchs and servants. He will also take away your servants, handmaids, best young men, and asses and put them to his work. He will likewise tithe your flocks, and you will be his servants. And on that day you will cry out from before your king, whom you chose for yourselves; and the Lord will not hear you on that day, because you asked for a king for yourselves.
God clearly taught us that this is not a lawful right, for he prescribed a different one in Deuteronomy 17:
When you have entered the land which the Lord your God will give you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, “I shall set a king over me, as all the nations round about have,” you shall set up the man whom the Lord your God chooses from among your brothers. You shall not be able to make a man of another nation king, one who is not your brother. And when he has been appointed, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor lead the people back into Egypt, supported by the number of his cavalry, especially since the Lord commanded you never again to return by the same road. He shall not have very many wives who entice his mind, nor immense weights of silver and gold. But after he has sat upon the throne of his kingdom, he shall copy out for himself the Deuteronomy of this law in a volume, receiving the exemplar from the priests of the Levitical tribe; and he shall have it with him and read it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and to guard his words and ceremonies which have been commanded in the law. Nor shall his heart be raised in pride above his brothers, nor shall he turn aside to the right or left, so that he himself and his son may reign for a long time over Israel.
He shall not multiply horses for himself, for that pomp must greatly burden the people, just as happens also when kings indulge the treasury too greatly. Then he is not to multiply numerous wives, for the multitude and intolerable luxury of queens is burdensome to subjects. Finally, he shall read and observe the book of the law; but thrift and brotherly charity are prescribed in it, and acts of plunder are forbidden, however just and specious the names for plundering which they receive.
Certain words indicate open tyranny, verse 17: “And you will be his servants. And on that day you will cry out from before your king, whom you chose for yourselves; and the Lord will not hear you on that day.” The cry of oppressed subjects—oppressed not by war but by the king’s rapacity—signifies not a just and paternal prince who, with a good affection, takes counsel for subjects as for children, but a harsh exactor who makes slaves from free persons and rules with the tears of many of his people. Servitude is the ultimate evil; but your kings will use you as servants, while you, voluntarily, though you are free, bring a master upon yourselves. When necessity was throwing Pompey into the power of the boy-king and the hand of the half-man, he did not forget himself, but complained that the very meeting was a compact of servitude. Whoever enters a tyrant’s palace is his servant, even if he came free. No one doubts that this is tyrannical. Nor does he speak according to the common usage by which some eastern peoples called themselves servants, but concerning that harsh servitude which they bore unwillingly.
Yet the flatterer excuses that right: horsemen, tribunes, centurions, and attendants must be maintained. We do not deny that this is so. But these things were also necessary in an aristocracy and in popular government if war had to be waged, and in peace, so that they might be prepared for wars. Here, however, the Prophet speaks about pomp which is superfluous and burdensome to peoples. Moderate pomp is not condemned—pomp suited to majesty and protection which cannot burden the people, for what suffices for moderation can generally be collected from many light tolls.
He offers no excuse concerning the daughters, although to take freeborn virgins as servants of royal luxuries is contrary to right. Let the king use the service of freeborn women if any wish, for pay or in hope of favor, to expend their labor. Therefore, he is speaking about injury; otherwise it is not tyranny, nor even harshness, that persons who voluntarily offer themselves for service at courts and seek rewards should be employed there. Experience teaches that very many aspire to such service even today. Here, however, freeborn women are taken like slaves as perfumers, cooks, and bakers, and with such bitterness that they and their parents cry out from before the king.
He says it is equitable that the king’s servants be supported; but where nothing is masterless and a kingdom must be founded by a new right, a despotic right must necessarily yield to the royal right.
Right reason, and indeed justice, counsels that the royal household be supported. But let the household be moderate, not excessively large, not clothed too expensively, and not nourished delicately. Let no fields, olive groves, or best vineyards be given to it, but an honorable wage; or, in turn, let its members guard the king without pay.
But if subjects are unwilling to contribute for the protection and dignity of the king, he will nevertheless not be able to seize the fields or vineyards of private persons. Then, if so great a door is opened to the supreme power, there will be no end to plundering. Who doubts that Ahab was punished because he took Naboth’s vineyard against its owner’s will? But we are disputing about the meaning of Scripture. The Prophet Samuel by no means threatens that, if the subjects refuse to give what is just, the king will procure it for himself. For when the Jews sought a king according to the custom of neighboring nations, they did not deny him his just ornaments. Rather, this is the punishment—so that the flatterers, informers, calumniators, and inventors of pleasures belonging to the king may know that they are to be enriched from the resources of the provincials.
Fourth, he also asserts that tithes are lawful, indeed that certain princes took eighths, and that this is a right of the kingdom. But the right of tithes is another dispute. It is not a sin, but altogether just and according to nature, that people contribute tithes and other aids. Here, however, the tithes are given to the most wicked of human beings, eunuchs—and tithes from so fertile a kingdom! Malevolent and avaricious eunuchs, when they attained favor with princes, were a certain plague of the state; among so many myriads scarcely ten were good. Castrated men were prohibited in Judaea, and so the foreigners who were fattened by tithes were eunuchs.
Nor is it relevant that he proposes four things in these matters for avoiding tyranny: (1) that there be a just cause for imposing; (2) that the burden be proportionate to the tax; (3) that payment be adjusted to means; and (4) that it not be prolonged beyond necessity. Those things are most true, but the Holy Spirit speaks of the things on account of which they will cry to God and will be servants. Yet no one will cry out if tributes are to be given justly, proportionately, according to means, and for a necessary cause. For this is the safety of a well-constituted state. Nor could anyone have been burdened if Judaea had sustained a moderate court for the king,
since it had previously supported very many kings. Moreover, the things which had to be done in time of war ought no less to have been exacted by the commanders and judges. Justice and equity demonstrate how narrowly the power of kings has in truth been confined.