Smith: MTS (2a)
Liberty, Dominion, & the Two Swords – Lester Fields
MTS Thesis, Reading 2a - Dr. Warren Smith, October 3, 2012
The concept of constitutional boundaries spoken of in the Lester Fields reading this round stuck in my mind as I proceeded through the text. The term only appears two or three times, but the concept itself seemed thematic. After all, dominion and the distinction between the Spiritual and the Temporal sword is one determined by boundaries that both the Church and the world find to be constitutive.
Earlier in Christian history, there was a sharp divide between the sword itself that the state was ordained to use and its true nature. This polarity occurs twice in Fields; the first is included in the statement "Christian judgment of the sword pertained to its use, not its nature." (46) By this, I take it to mean that the Church took issue not with the fact that the state wielded the sword, but how and for what purpose. It seems that the sword itself was an evil instrument wielded only to restrain like evil. This logic allowed the 'Apostle Paul to hate the sword and still commend martyrs' killed thereby. (ibid, paraphrase)
The second occurrence is a few pages later, another seeming contradiction; "soldiers sinned by virtue of the very sword [God] had ordained for them." (48) Here again, a critical divide, a constitutional boundary, provides the necessary context. Up to this time, Christians were still prohibited from being soldiers – "for no Christian or catechumen could become a soldier." (47, emphasis in original) In each occurrence, the explicit assumption in place was that the Church and the world existed in two very different states of being. The text does not make incredibly clear whether that state of being was defined chronologically or teleologically.
If the imperial sword is evil used against evil despite those who wield it, the spiritual sword is of God and used for the purpose of protecting his Church. God wielded the spiritual sword against heretics and blasphemers who would (even inadvertently) lead flocks astray. "The Lord's holy sword" (51) protected from within, in the form of heretics, and from without, in the form of persecutors. Clergy were instruments of God's incision; ultimately it was Christ who operated, "to cut apostates off from the Church." (52)
This sword of the Spirit was described in one of two ways; scripturally, the spiritual sword is God's word in Christ Jesus, but traditionally, the "spiritual arms of salvation" was the equated with the Eucharist. (53) Therefore, it was priests who were God's "peaceful soldiers" (50) and "Christ's army" (54) who were the line of defense against the spiritual evils of heresy and apostasy, not the imperial soldiers who wield an ordained sword evilly to restrain evil.
Of the two swords, the sword of God is in every way prior to the worldly sword. Things get complicated when God and the world seem to be working in tandem. Even in that case, however, in a nation that assumes its own Christianity, "an emperor in the Church is not above the church." (211) The supposedly "Christian" world, its tools, and its agents are all subordinate to God. Even heretical emperors were in the position "of being outside the church but subject to its discipline." (154) Herein lies the issue at the heart of my overall thesis.
Ambrose plays prominently in the later chapters selected from Fields. Frustratingly, it is hard to pin down whether or not Ambrose held consistently to a single political theology throughout his bishopric or not. During his early service, with Martin, he excommunicated the Spanish bishops advocating for Priscillian's execution. For example, in concord with the theology extrapolated above, he condemned the zealous Bishops from Spain, "not the state's right to inflict [capital punishment]." (201) Far from endorsing Caesar's sword, he simply recognizes constitutional boundaries making each distinct in purpose and execution.
However, Ambrose eventually "predicated a sword's materiality upon its ethical and spiritual use" (209) and thereby "spiritualized the imperial sword." (210) The blurring of the lines between the sword of God and the sword of Caesar troubles the proper distinction earlier proposed.
Questions
The Emperor Maximus' suggestion to Martin regarding Priscillian that "heretics rightly condemned customarily pertain to public judgments rather than the pursuits of priests" (201) is poignant and credible. However, does this betray the nature of excommunication as an invitation to return to the fold? Or, more importantly perhaps, does this eschatology suggest the ekklesia is somehow below or within imperial jurisdiction?
A correlation is made between martyrs and soldiers in Prudentius' concept of sueta virtus. (209) How does this play into my project and how can it be applied to the lived theological statements of soldier saints like Martin?
Relation to other texts in this series
In the back of my mind was Yoder's claim from his Christian Witness to the State that "the Christian church knows why the state exists… better than the state itself." Yoder and Fields' read of history thus seem complimentary;
"the heathens thereby became the inadvertent instruments of [God's] justice" (Fields, 47)
"the bearers of political authority are in spite of themselves agents of the divine economy, being used whether in rebellion or submission as agents of God's purpose," (Yoder, 12)
It would be interesting to leverage Yoder's proposed middle axiom to the political theology represented by Fields as belonging to the early church. Is his concept compatible with Fields' "constitutional boundaries"? Hauerwas suggests Yoder backed away from the use of such language, and Fields similarly uses his phrase very sparingly. What is the reason for this reluctance?
