With the coming of Christianity to Rome, the character of Graeco-Roman political thought began to change. Christianity introduced a whole series of questions which were largely alien to classical thought, most obviously for our purposes here the whole question of the justice of the use of force as such. At the same time, the political collapse of the Western half of the Roman empire in the second half of the fifth century ce, together with the political and military longevity of the East – which was to survive as a vibrant political force at least until at least the shattering Byzantine defeat at the battle of Manzikert in 1071 and to survive as a presence until 1453, when Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks – led to ever-increasing plurality in political thought and practice. This was coupled, of course, with the rise and spread of new political and religious movements such as Islam (after the seventh century) which provided a very different context for political thought than the mix of Greek, Roman, and Christian ideas dominant in Western and Eastern Europe. However, classical – especially Greek – thought remained influential on all the major traditions – Christian, Jewish, and Islamic – of Europe and Asia Minor during this period (Lerner and Mahdi, 1963; Burns, 1988).

This chapter will principally focus on the Christian and Islamic worlds, for the interpenetrating and intellectual crossover at this time was very strong and because these two faiths were dominant – though by no means, of course, monolithic – and we shall also refer to Judaic thinking from time to time (an excerpt from Maimonides' Logic is included to show how Judaic political thinking was classified at the time – see pp. 111–14 below).

AUGUSTINE was born into a lower middle class family at Thagaste in North Africa in 354 ce, the son of a pagan father and a Christian mother. Brought up as a Christian, he was educated locally and then at the age of sixteen went to the great North African metropolis of Carthage to complete his education, where he gradually lost his traditional Christian faith, becoming instead a Manichee (a follower of the heretic Mani). On completion of his studies, Augustine decided upon a teaching career and moved to Rome. In 383 he founded his own school of rhetoric at Rome and shortly thereafter he moved to teach rhetoric at Milan. By this point he had a mistress (whose name we do not know) who had borne him a son, Adeodatus, to whom Augustine was devoted. However, Adeodatus died young and Augustine and his mistress separated. Then, in 386, Augustine came under the spell of the powerful and charismatic Christian bishop of Milan, Ambrose, as well as intellectually becoming part of the Neoplatonic group in Milan. This swiftly undermined his Manicheanism and led him to become a Platonist. However, his mind and spirit gradually pulled him back to the church and he was baptized as a Christian in 387. He returned to Africa, where his mother, overjoyed at his return to the faith, finally died in 388. He was ordained as a priest in 391 and lived in a religious community until 395 when he was consecrated bishop of Hippo.

BERNARD BOSANQUET (1848–1923), English Idealist (i.e. Hegelian) philosopher, highly influential, along with his colleagues T. H. Green and F. H. Bradley, in the last quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth century, author of The Philosophical Theory of the State (1899), the most important work of Hegelian political philosophy published in English. With the outbreak of war in 1914, German philosophy came to be suspect in England, with Hegelianism seen as supportive of German militarism. Bosanquet's “Patriotism in the perfect state” (printed below) offers another point of view; in the process, Bosanquet provides one of the best brief introductions to Hegelian political philosophy available.

“Patriotism in the perfect state”

The quality of patriotism is determined by what we desire for our country, as the quality of friendship is determined by what we desire for our friend. And this question – the question what it is that we desire for our country – is of supreme moment to-day, because in the answer given to it, whether by practice or in principle, are rooted the permanent underlying conditions of war and peace.

Assuming then that what is true of principles is true of the corresponding practice, whether or no the actors understand what they are doing, I will ask you to consider with me three typical ideas expressive of what men desire for their country, each of them bearing a distinctive relation to the causes and customs of war, and to the permanent basis of peace.

DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265–1321), Italian poet and author of the Divine Comedy. Dante served his native city, Florence, as a councilor and ambassador until he ended up on the wrong side in the turbulent civil conflicts of the period. Exiled from Florence, he abandoned politics for poetry, supported by patrons in Verona, Ravenna, and other Italian cities. In his Monarchy (c. 1320), Dante defends the medieval ideal of a single authority for the entire world. Only such an authority, he argues, can guarantee the universal peace and liberty that is required if human beings are to fulfill their potential.

From Monarchy

Firstly therefore we must see what is meant by ‘temporal monarchy’, in broad terms and as it is generally understood. Temporal monarchy, then, which men call ‘empire’, is a single sovereign authority set over all others in time, that is to say over all authorities which operate in those things and over those things which are measured by time. Now there are three main points of inquiry which have given rise to perplexity on this subject: first, is it necessary to the well-being of the world? second, did the Roman people take on the office of the monarch by right? and third, does the monarch's authority derive directly from God or from someone else (his minister or vicar)?

HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE (1834–96) was the leading historian and political scientist of Imperial Germany in the late nineteenth century. An apologist for force and an ardent anti-Semite, he is the supreme exponent of “power politics” and (unlike Hegel) can reasonably be seen as a forerunner of German militarism and National Socialism in the twentieth century. The following extracts are taken from his Politics, which was translated in Britain in the middle of the First World War in order to elucidate the roots of German “frightfulness.”

From Politics

International law and international intercourse

When we ask, does an international law exist at all? we are met by two extreme and contradictory conceptions, both alike untenable, of the international life of States. The first, the naturalistic, whose chief champion we already know to be Machiavelli, starts from the principle that the State is absolute power, and may do anything which serves its ends, consequently it can bind itself by no law in its relations with other States, which are determined by purely mechanical considerations of proportionate strength. This is an idea which can only be disproved by its own arguments. We must admit that the State is absolute physical power, but if it insists upon being that, and nothing else, unrestrained by conscience or reason, it will no longer be able to maintain itself in a position of security.

FRANÇOIS DE SALIGNAC DE LA MOTHE FÉNELON (1651–1715), French bishop and author of works of popular philosophy, rhetoric, and education. A passionate enemy of repression, Fénelon attacked the abuses of absolute monarchy, among them Louis XIV's recurrent wars of national aggrandizement, and may be counted as a feminist of sorts for his denunciation of the inferior education open to women in his day. For Fénelon, not only are kings subject to the moral law but there can be no real conflict between morality and policy. His brief “On the Necessity of Forming Alliances” (1700), which explains the true principles of the balance of power, was appended to an essay intended to instruct a future Louis XV on the duties of kingship. The translation, by Susan Rosa, appears for the first time in this volume.

“On the Necessity of Forming Alliances”

An Examination of Conscience on the Duties of Kingship, composed for the instruction of Louis de France, Duc de Bourgogne, supplement I: on the necessity of forming alliances, both offensive and defensive, against a foreign power that manifestly aspires to universal monarchy

Neighboring states are obliged not only to treat one another according to the rules of justice and good faith, but must also, both for the sake of their own security and the common interest, create for themselves a kind of society and general republic.

CHRISTIAN VON WOLFF (1679–1754), German mathematician, philosopher, and, after 1740, professor of law at the University of Halle. Inspired in part by Leibniz, Wolff gradually developed a comprehensive, and thoroughly rationalist, philosophical system. In ethics, he held that moral laws depend not on God's will but are part of the natural world and can therefore be known by natural reason. His ideas about international law, which are imbued by this rationalist spirit, constitute but a tiny part of his philosophical system.

From The Law of Nations Treated According to a Scientific Method

Prolegomena

Definition of the Law of Nations

By the Law of Nations we understand the science of that Law which nations or peoples use in their relations with each other and of the obligations corresponding thereto.

How nations are to be regarded

Nations are regarded as individual free persons living in a state of nature. For they consist of a multitude of men united into a state.

THOMAS HOBBES (1588–1679), English philosopher and author of Leviathan (1651), a work acknowledged to be a masterpiece of political theorizing even by those who abominate its conclusions. Central to its argument is a metaphor, the state of nature, to which Hobbes contrasts the civil state. Unlike the state of nature, the civil state is a condition in which human beings are associated on the basis of a common body of laws. Law, Hobbes argued, can only exist where there are agreed procedures for enacting rules and resolving disputes about their proper interpretation. Sovereigns, being outside civil society, must be regarded as being in a state of nature with respect to one another. And the state of nature is a state of war. It is not easy to refute this Skepticism regarding the claims of international law, and for that reason Hobbes' writings continue to provoke thought about the character and conditions of justice in international relations.

From Leviathan

Of the natural condition of mankind, as concerning their felicity, and misery

Nature has made men so equal, in the faculties of body, and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind then another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he.

From The Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles through the Twelve Apostles or The Didache

The two ways

THE WAY OF LIFE

1. There are two Ways: a Way of Life and a Way of Death, and the difference between these two Ways is great.

The Way of Life is this: Thou shalt love first the Lord thy Creator, and secondly thy neighbour as thyself; and thou shalt do nothing to any man that thou wouldst not wish to be done to thyself.

What you may learn from those words is to bless them that curse you, to pray for your enemies, and to fast for your persecutors. For where is the merit in loving only those who return your love? Even the heathens do as much as that. But if you love those who hate you, you will have nobody to be your enemy.

Beware of the carnal appetites of the body. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other one to him as well, and perfection will be yours. Should anyone compel you to go a mile, go another one with him. If someone takes away your coat, let him have your shirt too. If someone seizes anything belonging to you, do not ask for it back again (you could not get it, anyway). Give to everyone that asks, without looking for any repayment, for it is the Father's pleasure that we should share His gracious bounty with all men.

CONSTANTINE was born in September 905 ce, the son of the Byzantine emperor, Leo, and his mistress (later wife), Zoe. Since there was no other son, an accommodation was reached with the church and the baby was proclaimed a prince on 6 January 906, though his position was not secure for some time. However, he soon became known as “born to the purple” (hence the Greek nickname Porphryrogenitus). Technically, Constantine became emperor in 912 at the age of seven, following the deaths of his father and uncle. His early life was surrounded by the internecine court intrigues for which Byzantium had already become famous and he was lucky to survive. Eventually, however, in 945 he became full and unchallenged emperor. He had himself always been primarily a scholar and his period as emperor – largely uneventful in terms of wars or major crises – was noted for its dedication to the arts and to scholarship in all fields. Constantine himself wrote three major works; the first an encyclopedia of Byzantine ritual (De Ceremoniis Aulae Byzantinae), the second a geographical and historical description of the Imperial provinces (De Thematibus), and the third, excerpted here, the political treatise known to us as De Administrando Imperio. In fact, Constantine himself simply entitled this “Constantine to his son Romanus” and clearly intended it as a kind of practical textbook of statecraft. He died in 959, his twenty-year-old son Romanus becoming emperor after him.

IMMANUEL KANT was born on 22 April 1724 in Königsberg, then in East Prussia, the son of a harness maker. He thus came from a poor family, though one marked by exceptional religious belief. Both his parents died early (his mother when he was fourteen) but his precocious intellectual gifts were swiftly recognized and he entered the University of Königsberg, where he had a brilliant undergraduate career. In 1755, after the fashion of German universities of the time, Kant was granted the right to lecture as a privatdozent, that is, an unsalaried lecturer who depended on his lecture fees for his income. Kant thus lectured frequently and on a wide variety of topics, merely to earn a living. That same year he began his scholarly career with a treatise on The General History of Nature and Theory of the Heavens, and for a while his main interests were in the theory and philosophy of science. Kant remained a privatdozent until 1770 when at last he won the coveted position of ordinariius, or full-tenured professor, at Königsberg. Kant was, by all accounts a lively, provocative, and powerful lecturer, a fact recognized by the university (even before his growing scholarly fame outshone it) by raising his stipend. Kant was also a very popular figure and became rector of the university (the highest position in the German university system) on several occasions.

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU was born in Geneva in 1712. He was orphaned at the age of ten and left Geneva in 1728, embarking on a lifelong career of wandering through Europe. In Turin he briefly converted to Catholicism and traveled through France and Switzerland as footman and servant, seminarist, music teacher, and private tutor. For eight years, between 1732 and 1740, he was (more or less) settled at Chambery, the country home of Madame de Warens, with whom Rousseau had an odd – though clearly sexual – liaison. In 1741 he moved to Paris where he was commissioned by Denis Diderot, editor-in-chief of the great “Encyclopedia,” to write articles on music. He also embarked on a lifelong (and also very odd) relationship with Therese Levasseur, who bore him five children, all of whom were abandoned to foundling homes. His major works were written in the 1750s and 1760s and, as far as politics and international relations are concerned, these consisted principally of his Abstract of the Abbé De St Pierre's Project for Perpetual Peace (1761), the novel Emile and the treatise The Social Contract (both published in 1762), and then the Considerations on the Government of Poland (1772). Other essays (for example, the Discourse on Political Economy) are, of course, also important, especially an essay, The State of War, probably written in the 1750s but not published until 1896. Rousseau clearly saw all politics as being connected.

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO was born on 3 January 106 bce into a wealthy family in Arpinum. As a young man he went to Rome to study and by the year 70 bce had established himself as the leading advocate in Rome. At the same time he launched himself on a political career, being elected praetor for 66, and finally – the highest honor the Roman republic could bestow – consul for 63. He was, both at the time and since, recognized as the most brilliant orator of his day and his forensic attack on the Senate rebel Cataline remains a masterpiece of political invective. He was unusually principled for a Roman politician of the time, a key weakness in the struggles that saw the younger, equally brilliant but much more ruthless Gaius Julius Caesar eventually defeat Cicero's friend and ally Pompey and overthrow the republic, creating what would become the Roman empire. Always a man with intellectual interests, in the last few years of his life he wrote a number of treatises of moral and political topics (most especially On Duties, excerpted here) as well as publishing his speeches, all of which show the range of his classical learning and the range of influences upon him. He also left a collection of 900 letters which were published after his death, which means we know more about him that about almost any other comparable figure in antiquity.

EMMERICH DE VATTEL (1714–67), Swiss jurist and diplomat. A disciple of Wolff, Vattel was inspired to restate the famous philosopher's theory of international law for a wider and more practically minded audience. The result of this effort, The Law of Nations (1758), became an instant classic. Though often called the first really modern work of international law, Vattel's book remains firmly in the tradition of natural law and for that reason might equally be seen as one of the last specimens of a moribund genre. Its fame rests not on its theoretical power but on Vattel's impressive practical grasp of international affairs and his skill in balancing moral and prudential considerations in a way suited to the prejudices of his day.

From The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law

The Dignity and Equality of Nations. Titles and Other Marks of Honor

Every Nation, every sovereign and independent State, is deserving of honor and respect as having a recognized position in the great society of the human race, as being independent of any power on earth, and as possessing, by reason of its numbers, a greater importance than belongs to the individual. The sovereign represents the entire Nation of which he is head, and unites in his person the attributes which belong to the Nation.

In recent years there has been a revival of interest in the classical theory of international relations, or, as we will call it here, “international political theory.” We define international political theory as that aspect of the discourse of International Relations which addresses explicitly issues concerning norms, interpretation, and the ontological foundations of the discipline; it could be argued that all theories of International Relations necessarily address this agenda, but international political theory does so explicitly (Neufeld, 1995; Frost, 1996). One way of looking at this revival is in terms of a renewed engagement between “International Relations” and “Political Theory,” two modes of thinking about the world that, for much of this century, have developed in isolation – “renewed” because, as will be demonstrated in the rest of this book, there have been many periods in the past when the idea of a clear-cut distinction between the “international” and the “domestic” has not existed. Part of this renewed engagement has involved a re-examination of the classics of the field, but this re-examination has been hampered by the fact that many of the texts which might be thought of as central to the emergence of a historical approach to international political theory have not been available, or at least not in convenient, accessible editions or translations. It should also be added that there is little in the way of consensus as to which, actually, are the most important texts in international political theory, precisely because of the lack of a clear-cut distinction between the international and the domestic referred to above.

ABU ALI AL HUSAYN IBN SINA, to give him his proper name, was born in Afshana near Bukhara (in modern Uzbekistan) where his father was the Saminid governor, in the year 980 ce. Avicenna was trained there initially, chiefly as a physician, and was enrolled in the service of the Sultan Nuh Ibn Mansur. After the collapse of the Saminid kingdom of Persia in 999, the young Avicenna traveled throughout the warring principalities of Persia serving first one then another. Eventually, in the early to mid 1020s, he settled in the city of Isfahan where he befriended the prince and became his advisor and wrote the treatises for which he became famous. In eastern Islam, Avicenna replaced al-Farabi as the leading thinker, though al-Farabi's influence remained central in the West. Avicenna died in Isfahan in 1037.

From The Healing

Concerning the caliph and the imam: the necessity of obeying them. Remarks on politics, transactions, and morals

Next, the legislator must impose as a duty obedience to whosoever succeeds him. He must also prescribe that designation of the successor can only be made by himself or by the consensus of the elders. The latter should verify openly to the public that the man of their choice can hold sole political authority, that he is of independent judgment, that he is endowed with the noble qualities of courage, temperance, and good governance, and that he knows the law to a degree unsurpassed by anyone else.

MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS was born in 121 ce, born into a family which had ruled Rome for generations. As a young man he became fascinated by philosophy and rhetoric, being tutored by a range of Greek and Roman thinkers, before coming under the spell of the most influential philosophy of the day, Stoicism. On becoming emperor in 161, at the age of forty, Marcus realized that the empire was besieged from both within and without. Much of his time as emperor was spent on campaign against barbarian threats to the empire and it was during these campaigns that he began what amounted to a philosophical diary “to myself” as he called it: a collection of philosophical maxims, judgements, and reflections written in Greek and ranging across an astonishingly wide range of concerns. Marcus was a remarkably honest man, both in his writings (which were not intended for publication) and in his dealings as emperor. He has been seen, since the publication of his “meditations,” as his reflections have become known, as the very paradigm of the Stoic sage, yet he was also an extremely skilled warrior and diplomat with a true vision for his empire that was largely in tune with the Stoic philosophy he had developed. He never, however, had the chance to develop it. On campaign as usual in 180 ce he fell ill and was dead within days.

From Meditations

17. Of the life of man the duration is but a point, its substance streaming away, its perception dim, the fabric of the entire body prone to decay, and the soul a vortex, and fortune incalculable, and fame uncertain.