St. Thomas Aquinas & St Augustine

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how the Hebrew Scriptures were produced from the traditions of the ancient Israeli people, and that these scriptures fused moral, along with political injunctions as to how the state should create a just as well as a holy society, and defined the responsibilities of the leaders in relation to the people, as well as defined the citizen's relationship to the state. The paper goes on to say that Christianity, which is derived from Judaism, was spawned during a different political and historical point in Israeli history. The paper reviews how both the theologians St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, when examining the responsibilities of the state, the ruler and the ruled in the Christian world, would also offer two different portraits of this judicial relationship, in attempting to reconcile scriptural prescriptions about correct behavior.

From the Paper:

"However, in the Gospel According to St. Matthew, Jesus says: "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21) In other words, the purpose of religion is not to concern itself with the worldly affairs of the here and now, but the world to come. Jesus frequently implies that there is a dichotomy between the morals and values of the ruling state and the true values of a very different world above. The second beatitude of the "Sermon on the Mount" is one of Jesus' most famous: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." (Matthew 5:4) The meek that do not rule on earth will rule later on, and the rules that govern the world will be forever altered after the Day of Judgment. St. Paul reinforces this flesh and spirit divide in his Epistle to the Galatians: "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." (Galatians 5:14) In other words, the true law of the land is spiritual, not the formally codified laws pertaining to ruling a state found in the Hebrew Bible. This is why Paul preaches against Christians observing the rules that Jews were bound by, such as circumcision. Christ had supplanted such old, physical laws. The laws of the world were of less concern than the inner laws of one's spiritual life."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Aquinas. Thomas. The Political Ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas. New York: Free Press, 1997.
• Augustine. Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
• The New Oxford Annotated Student Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 20031.

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