AbstractsPolitical Science

In his contribution to the volume entitled The Social and Political Ideas of Some Great Medieval Thinkers, A. J. Carlyle treats of the place of St. Augustine in the history of political thought. In general he regards Augustine as a typical representative of Patristic thought, and finds his significance in the history of political ideas to lie in his re-statement of the traditional view of the Stoics and the Christian Fathers. On only one point does Carlyle find Augustine differing from the Stoic-Patristic tradition. It is the question of the relation of the state to justice. Augustine had quoted Cicero's definition of a people: "A people is not every rabblement of the multitude, but a society gathered together in one consent of law, and in one participation of profit." According to Carlyle, Augustine interpreted Cicero correctly as meaning that there can be no state where there is no justice, because there can be no law where there is no justice. But Augustine, unable to allow that a pagan state was just, found it impossible to apply Cicero's definition, and searched about for another which would not make justice an essential part of the state.[...] It shall be the purpose of this thesis, then, to examine once more Augustine's teaching respecting the nature of the state with a view to discovering whether he really meant that justice is not an essential element in its constitution, and, if not, what he proposed the bond of society to be. [...]