CHURCH FATHERS: City of God, Book IV (St. Augustine)
"Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention.
If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues peoples, it then openly arrogates to itself the title of kingdom, which is conferred on it in the eyes of the world, not by the renouncing of aggression but by the attainment of impunity.
For it was a witty and truthful rejoinder which was given by a captured pirate to Alexander the Great. The king asked the fellow, “What is your idea, in infesting the sea?” And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, “The same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I’m called a pirate; because you have a mighty navy, you’re called an emperor"...
To crush and subdue more remote peoples without provocation and solely from the thirst for dominion—what is one to call this but brigandage on the grand scale?".
"Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention.
If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues peoples, it then openly arrogates to itself the title of kingdom, which is conferred on it in the eyes of the world, not by the renouncing of aggression but by the attainment of impunity.
For it was a witty and truthful rejoinder which was given by a captured pirate to Alexander the Great. The king asked the fellow, “What is your idea, in infesting the sea?” And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, “The same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I’m called a pirate; because you have a mighty navy, you’re called an emperor"...
To crush and subdue more remote peoples without provocation and solely from the thirst for dominion—what is one to call this but brigandage on the grand scale?".
St. Augustine (354-430), Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans (H. Bettenson, Tr.), Book IV, Ch. 4
Discuss.
Do you agree or disagree with St. Augustine's argument that the presence of justice is the only thing that could distinguish a sovereign state from a criminal gang? What do you think of the little fable he uses to explain this, about Alexander the Great's dressing-down by a witty pirate?
St. Augustine successfully uprooted the classical understanding of a “commonwealth” as a society of men (always men, of course) who band together based around an accord about justice:
"… if there is no justice in such a man, then it is beyond doubt that there is no justice in a collection of men consisting of persons of this kind"( XIX.21)
This line of thought was of pivotal significance to Augustine’s critique of pagan Rome’s claim to be a divinely ordained and upheld social order "without end". In Augustine's estimation, imperial regimes - precisely because they "crush and subdue more remote peoples" - cannot be truly just and so they are really nothing but huge criminal gangs, no better than highway robbers; with the only distinction being one of scale and manpower of the demoralised masses.
The key issue raised by St. Augustine is how to distinguish legitimate governments from illegitimate, justice from tyranny, noting, “If we were to examine the conduct of states by the test of justice, as you propose, we should probably make this astounding discovery, that very few nations, if they restored what they have usurped, would possess any country at all” (De re pub. 3).
Augustine finds that,
“there never was a Roman republic; for he briefly defines a republic as the weal of the people. And if this definition be true, there never was a Roman republic, for the people’s weal was never attained among the Romans...
Where there is not true justice there can be no assemblage of men associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and therefore there can be no people, as defined by Scipio or Cicero; and if no people, then no weal of the people, but only of some promiscuous multitude unworthy of the name of people.
Consequently, if the republic is the weal of the people, and there is no people if it be not associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and if there is no right where there is no justice, then most certainly it follows that there is no republic where there is no justice.”(De civ. Dei 4.19.21).
Where there is not true justice there can be no assemblage of men associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and therefore there can be no people, as defined by Scipio or Cicero; and if no people, then no weal of the people, but only of some promiscuous multitude unworthy of the name of people.
Consequently, if the republic is the weal of the people, and there is no people if it be not associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and if there is no right where there is no justice, then most certainly it follows that there is no republic where there is no justice.”(De civ. Dei 4.19.21).
See:
The City of God and the City | Nicholas Sagovsky
Justice is the means to an end which all human beings really desire, and that end is peace. In a famous phrase, Augustine asks, "If you take away justice, what are nations but massive gangs of thieves?" Where there is no justice, he adds, there is no "commonwealth". His word for commonwealth is res publica, public realm. Without justice, there is no public realm – because everything is up for grabs, everything becomes material for personal gain. The lack of justice is what ultimately destroys the proper sense of the social, of society.
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