Superstitionis Malleus: John Toland,Cicero, and the War on Priestcraft in Early Enlightenment England

Summary

This paper explores the role of the Ciceronian tradition in the radical religious discourse of John Toland (1670–1722). Toland produced numerous works seeking to challenge the authority of the clergy, condemning their ‘priestcraft’ as a significant threat to the integrity of the Commonwealth. Throughout these anticlerical writings, Toland repeatedly invoked Cicero as an enemy to superstition and as a religious sceptic, particularly citing the theological dialogues De Natura Deorum and De Divinatione. This paper argues that Toland adapted the Ciceronian tradition so that it could function as an active influence on the construction of his radical discourse. First, it shows that Toland championed a particular interpretation of Cicero's works which legitimised his use of Cicero in this rational context. Then, it shows the practical manifestations of this interpretation, examining the ramifications for how Toland formed three important facets of his campaign against priestcraft: his identification of priestcraft as a superstition; his argument for a rational religion in which priestcraft could play no role; and his portrayal of anticlericalism as a service to the Commonwealth.     

Law,Principle, and the Theologico-Political History of Sovereignty

Abstract

This article takes it cue from the debate between Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson regarding the possibility of political theology within Christianity, and in response, offers a conceptual-historical portrait of sovereignty and its juridical dimensions. Beginning with the introduction of Roman law into the medieval Church, the article traces the logic of “legal principle” as the basis of sovereign decision and how the form of legal distinctions adopted into canon law translate the Romanitas of law into the theory of papal sovereignty. By the Romanitas of law, that is to say the principle of sovereignty in law. The article then seeks to describe the conceptual translations of Roman politics and Stoic metaphysics into theological form and the logic of this translation into medieval natural law. The article concludes by evaluating how the civic theology of Rome is conceptually inherited by the politics and legal framework of sovereignty and returns to Peterson’s critique of Schmitt, arguing that political theology can be understood as a dynamic where politics is theologized, assuming that in the history of religion, theology and politics are never fully distinct to begin with.     

Two AHA Sessions: The Revolutionary Mr. Kuhn and the Evolutionary Mr. Bertalanffy

Abstract

Quantitative methods of content analysis have become established in most subfields of political science, but remain relatively unutilized in studies of political theory, despite the exclusive focus of that subfield on textual sources. This article develops a variation of content analysis—termed usage analysis—and employs it to resolve a standing debate in scholarship on Cicero's political theory regarding the synonymy of the major Latin terms for the state (civitas and res publica). The resulting distinction between these concepts then informs an exposition of Cicero's ideal state not as the Roman Republic itself or the mixed constitution alone, but as a universal, everlasting political society supported by justice, a mixed constitution, and active citizenship.     

Ancient and Non-Western International Thought

Summary

In early and prehistoric times, human groups cooperated among themselves and competed viciously with other groups. Concepts of international relations, notably universal hegemony and exclusive nationalism, go back to the earliest recorded history. Only the ancient Greeks experienced inter-state relations somewhat analogous to those of modern Europe; and the first reflections on these may be found in Thucydides. The Greeks, and later the Romans, above all Cicero, developed a notion of cosmopolitanism. During the Latin Middle Ages, the papacy perpetuated the idea of universal hegemony. The principle of state sovereignty was also formulated. The pre-modern Chinese empire was held to rule ‘all-under-Heaven’; Confucian ethics contributes the notion of humanity (ren) as the fundamental category. Muslims deepened the us–them distinction by claiming sole legitimacy for their religious community under the Caliph (Deputy of Muhammad). Today, Muslims veer between this and a more Western approach to international relations.     

Eine Neue Quelle des Vulgärlateins

The article analyses how Cicero uses the term memoria at the end of his consulship and in the years immediately following. The main focus is on the Catilinarian Speeches (especially the perorationes of the third and the fourth) and the Pro Sulla. I argue that Cicero explicitly reflects on the existence of a shared memory within Roman society and that he investigates the possibilities of how he, the future object of public memory, can also act as the subject of such collective memory by paving the way for his future renown.     

John Toland's Conjecture on the First Invention of Typographic Printing as Inspired by Cicero: Text and Context

This is a translation of a short text in Latin by John Toland (1670–1722), with an introduction and annotations. Toland's text is a conjecture on the influence of a passage from Cicero on modern printing. The translator's introduction discusses the theories mentioned by Toland, and sketches the background of the text. It discusses Toland's interest in Cicero and the context of the text's publication in 1722 by Michel Maittaire, and Toland's and Maittaire's intertwined circles of literary patronage.     

The Ethics of Philanthropy

Abstract

This essay considers the ancient antecedents to the “new field” of the ethics of philanthropy, arguing that key questions such as “to whom should we give our money?” have already been explored by ancient authors and that the answers they give to these questions can be quite different to the answers given by contemporary scholars. By analysing the treatment of giving in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Cicero’s De Officiis, and Seneca’s De Beneficiis, I argue that the focus of ancient thinkers upon giving within one’s own community can be viewed as a possible response to a number of issues that have been raised by modern scholars, including the “problem of acting at a distance” and the “problem of accountability.” Moreover, these ancient thinkers have additional, positive reasons for thinking that philanthropy should take place within one’s own community, based upon their ideas of man’s natural duty to his political community, and the social benefits that can be derived from local philanthropy. The integration of ancient perspectives, then, into these modern debates, can serve to complement and broaden research in this emerging field.     

The growth of secure inheritance in Anglo-Norman England

The following paper traces the crystallization of inheritance custom in England from 1086 to 1154. Inheritance of baronial estates has long been considered by historians to have been tenuous in the reigns of William the Conqueror and his sons, but by dating instances of forfeiture, escheat and other forms of disinheritance, and by comparing these dates with those of political turmoil, it can be shown that the custom became fairly secure and regular in the latter half of the reign of Henry I, only to be disrupted in the civil wars of Stephen's reign.     

The Presentation of the Speaker of the Commons in Tudor Parliaments: Pageantry,Persuasion and Management*†

This article analyses the presentation of the Commons’ Speaker in the Tudor age. It traces the medieval origins of this ceremony, arguing that it served not only as an opportunity for flamboyant rhetoric, but also as a politically significant event designed to impress upon the Commons its inferiority in the parliamentary hierarchy. The article also suggests that Elizabethan Speakers used their orations as a means of presenting counsel to the queen herself.