Papal Authority vs. Imperial Authority
In Monarchia, Dante addresses three questions concerning monarchy:
1. Whether universal monarchy is necessary to the well-being of the world
2. Whether the Roman people took on Empire by right
3. Whether imperial authority comes from God directly or from Papal authority
1. The Priest and King Argument
Argument for Papal Authority: From 1 Kings, they take the creation and deposition of Saul, and say that Samuel, acting as God’s vicar by His command, placed King Saul on the throne and removed him from it. Just as he, as God’s vicar, had the authority to give and take away temporal power and transfer it to someone else, so now too God’s vicar, the head of the universal church, has the authority to give and to take away and even to transfer the sceptre of temporal power; from which it follows that imperial authority is dependent on papal authority.
Refutation: Samuel acted on that occasion not as vicar but as a special emissary for a particular purpose, viz. as a messenger bearing God’s express command. This is clear because he did and reported only what God told him to. It is one thing to be a vicar, and quite another to be a messenger or minister; just as it is one thing to be a writer and another to be an interpreter. For a vicar is a person who, within the jurisdiction entrusted to him, take action by applying the law or using his own discretion. But a messenger cannot do this, who is entirely dependent on the will of the person who sends him.
2. The Perfect Man Argument
Argument for Papal Authority: Adopting a principle from Metaphysics Book X, they say that all things belonging to a single species are referred to one thing which is the measure for all. Therefore all men are to be referred to one man as their common measure and rule. He is the perfect man, the model of what is most unified in his species, as described at the end of the Ethics.
Since the supreme Pontiff and the Emperor are men, it must be possible to refer them to a single man. Since the Pope must not be referred to any other, the Emperor and all others must be referred to him.
Refutation: Pope and Emperor are what they are by virtue of certain relationships, which are respectively “paternity” and “lordship”. They must be assigned to the category of relationship, and consequently be referred to something within that category. There is one measure to which they are to be referred as men, and another as Pope and Emperor.
Insofar as they express a relationship, we must refer them either to one another, or to some third entity as a common unity. And this will either be God himself, in whom all principles form an absolute unity, or else some entity lower than God, in which the principle of authority, derived from the absolute principle and differentiating itself from it, becomes distinctive and individual.
References:
- “Princeton Dante Project – Minor Works: Monarchia” Princeton University. Accessed July 4, 2015. http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/monarchia.html.