Sword and Staff: Debates on the Christian State in Early European Modernity

Materials of the National Scientific-Practical Conference «V Justinian Readings» (MDA, 27 November 2024)

Abstract

This article, based on a report at the Fifth Justinian Readings at the Moscow Theological Academy, explores the transition from the concept of the «ideal city» in the European Proto‑Renaissance to the image of a state claiming both temporal (the sword) and spiritual (the staff) authority. The political idea of the Christian state serves as a bridge between the late medieval concept of a universal monarchy under the scepter of a single ruler and the political utopias of the modern ideal state. Placing the religious staff into hands already wielding the sword of state power eventually obviated the need for the new sovereign to uphold the former, allowing for a singular focus on the power of the sword. While the concept of the Christian state remained a subject of reflection in the Early Modern period, in the modern era it emerged in Europe as a «pseudomorphosis» — a form whose original content has been substituted.