Political theology, tradition and modernity
Oliver O’Donovan
Dated from the Medellín Conference, liberation theology is not yet thirty years old. Political theology, by contrast, has many centuries behind it. To define a High Tradition period 1100-1650 suggests itself: at one end Gregorian Reforms bring conflict between papacy and secular rule to centre of theological discussion; other Moral Science early Enlightenment lifts political theory out purview theology. The dates are especially happy as they coincide with two striking contributions genre. From turn twelfth century anonymous York Tractates argue urgency for sacral character monarchy, discredited new papalism. midpoint seventeenth Hobbes' Leviathan, work considerably more in it than philosophy, seals case, modernity understood it, politics an autonomous theoretical discipline. In lie great peaks scholastic reformed. But itself did spring nothing, but drew on thinkers ideas patristic Carolingian ages. Augustine rightly taken founding figure; before him there were Ambrose, Eusebius Caesarea (notoriously), pre-Constantinian Lactantius. And why mention second-century Letter Diognetus, which, turn, was only building 1 Peter Philippians …?
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