Between Caesar and God: The Elusive Balance in Heinrich Rommen’s Political Thought

• In Event: Populism and Privilege in the Middle Ages

Abstract

: In this paper I discuss the unjustifiably neglected scholarly contributions of Heinrich Rommen to the study of mediaeval political thought. For Rommen, the mediaeval Catholic tradition is constituted by polar tensions. Within the tradition, individual thinkers pull toward one pole and away from the other. One example of this tendency identified by Rommen concerns the relationship between Caesar and God. Rommen sees Aquinas as a brief moment where the elusive balance is struck. More typical, however, is Augustine and his tradition, which came close to denying man’s natural goodness, and thus the natural goodness of politics, or, Aristotelians after Aquinas, who tend in the opposite direction.

Author

• William A. McCormick, Saint Louis University