HKB
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Often appears with: empire and the rule of provinces · tyranny and despotism · the nature and attributes of God · sparta and slavery · religious persecution and toleration · providence and divine governance · one true god · monarchy and royal succession · god grants empire · false gods · eternal kingdom · divine providence
Usually: argument (3) · censure (1) · detachment (1) · reverence (1)
“Surely it is madness to make the fate of thousands depend on the caprice of a weak fellow creature, whose very station sinks him NECESSARILY below the meanest of his subjects!” Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman · insight
She rejects Rousseau’s celebration of “barbarism” and contrasts it with Roman and Spartan examples, then condemns kingship and uncontrolled power as inevitably corrupting and harmful to morality and social liberty.
Rousseau exerts himself to prove, that all WAS right originally: a crowd of authors that all IS now right: and I, that all WILL BE right. But, true to his first position, next to a state of nature, Rousseau celebrates barbarism, and, apostrophizing the shade of Fabricius, he forgets that, in conquering the world, the Romans never dreamed of establishing their own liberty on a firm basis, or of extending the reign of…
Augustine argues that because the false gods are appeased (or rather blamed) by shameful worship, they could not have helped the Romans gain or extend empire, whereas worship of the one true God would yield better rule and lasting kingdom.
it is he to whom the greatest wrong is done by you, because you have thought he ought to be worshipped along with them, and have styled him their king? 28. _Whether the worship of the gods has been of service to the Romans in obtaining and extending the empire._ Therefore such gods, who are propitiated by such honours, or rather are impeached by them (for it is a greater crime to delight in having such …
Augustine claims that God alone grants kingdoms, giving Roman power as well as empires to the pious and impious alike, citing rulers like Marius, Augustus, Nero, Constantine, and Julian.
21. _That the Roman dominion was granted by Him from whom is all power, and by whose providence all things are ruled._ These things being so, we do not attribute the power of giving kingdoms and empires to any save to the true God, who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven to the pious alone, but gives kingly power on earth both to the pious and the impious, as it may please Him, whose good pleasure is always jus…