Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politischen Theologie im Imperium romanum (1935 Peterson), book

Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politischen Theologie im Imperium romanum (1935) is a book by Erik Peterson.

Abstract

In this revolutionary treatise on ancient political theology, Peterson demonstrates how ancient writers, whether they were Jews, Christian, or Pagan, legitimated monarchies on earth by drawing a parallel to monotheistic belief in the cosmic rule of one, supreme, divine being in heaven. In order to bolster this point, Peterson begins by showing how Aristole, the pseudo-Aristotelian treaties, "De Mundo," and Philo, all in their own way depict God in a monarchical role in which God enables the entire cosmos to be transformed from disorder into order. God, like an earthly king, is alone permitted to control and rule the universe. The presence of viceroys or other agents does not diminish God's unique power and authority over all. After sufficiently outlining the presence of this pattern in certain pagan and Hellenistic Jewish circles, Peterson traces a similar theme in early Christian apologists such as Justin Martyr, Taitan, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaues, Tertullian, and Eusebius Just as Philo employed the concept of the divine monarchy in a pedagogical fashion in order to make "the idea of Jewish monotheism more accessible to the proselyte," so too the early Christian apologists made a similar move. In the writings of Eusebius, in particular, Peterson finds him making claims that monotheism arose during Greco-Roman times during the monarchy of Augustus. As national sovereignty ceased and the Pax Romana began, the Roman empire, peace, and monotheism became inextricably linked to one another. As Peterson notes, according to Eusebius "In principle, monotheism had begun with the monarchy of Augustus. Monotheism is the metaphysical corollary of the Roman Empire, which dissolved nationalities. But what became in principle under Augustus has become a reality under Constantine" (94). As might be expected, the connection between monotheism and earthly monarchies posited by Eusebius had an enormous effect on the Patristic writers.

A key shift in this Christian line of thinking, however, emerged most saliently in the work of Gregory of Nyssa. For Gregory and other orthodox Trinitarian thinkers like him the conception of triune God, comprised of the co-equal and co-eternal persons of the Father, Son, and Holy God, had no corollary with monarchies in the created order. Consequently, the formulation of a divine monarchy as Eusebius had conceived of it became theologically untenable, as well as the continuity between a divine monarchy and the earthly state of Roman. Christian faith with the rise of orthodox Trinitarian theology, for Peterson, transcended this linkage between earthly state and divine monotheism. Thus as Michael Hollerich has noted, Peterson was asserting "the superiority of the religious to the political: The supranational kinship of Christ admitted of no merely national rival, and genuinely imperial rivals had ceased to exist in the modern world. The Church's claim to exercise a potestas indirecta ("indirect power") in matters political definitively separated a Christian from a pagan conception of politics" (xxvi). And with this Peterson, who lived in Germany between the period of the two World Wars, had crafted a short essay on ancient political theology that tacitly rejected the political connections between the church and the state that were occurring around him with the rise of the Nazi party in Germany.

~Deborah Forger

Editions and translations

Published in Leipzig [Germany]: Hegner, 1935.

Translations

• Peterson's treatise on "Monotheism as a Political Problem" has been translated into English by Michael J. Hollerich in a collection of Peterson's essays entitled Theological Tractates 2011 Peterson/Hollerich, book (English ed.)

External links

• [ Google Books]