LEST WE RETURN: The Rulers--Part I and II.

With the rise of the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt (between c. 5000 and 4000 BCE), men’s social groupings expanded.

Previously, the social groupings of prehistoric man had slowly developed from family to clan to tribe. The advent of the Neolithic Revolution---the invention of farming and animal husbandry---saw a different kind of grouping and a different kind of living arrangement. The building of the first city (Jericho c. 8000 BCE) indicates that the new way of producing and keeping food required closer proximity of men to their farms and animals. Tribes may have started to live together side by side.

In any case, by the time King Menes united the tribes of Egypt (around 3200 BCE) individuals in both Egypt and Mesopotamia were regarded as members of one of two classes: the rulers and the ruled.

Among rulers arose two distinct types that often vied for predominance: those who sought dominion over men’s physical being, the kings, and those who sought dominion over men’s spiritual being, the priests. (The concept "spiritual" is here used throughout as synonymous with "consciousness" unless otherwise noted.)

The kings were those who ruled by might. They were the men of muscle, the men who made others do their biding through cunning and brute physical strength, aided by men of like kind who were promised riches in exchange for their allegiance to the head muscle-man.

The priests, like priests today, were those who ruled through fear and ignorance of nature. They were the equivalent of what other tribal societies came to call witch doctor. But instead of involving themselves with attempting to heal the wounded, they devised cosmologies---myths and fantasies---purporting to explain various natural phenomena.

Among the ruled were all those who produced material goods. These were the thinkers , the producers: the farmers, weavers and builders, including the artist/artisan/craftsman. It was these who kept the rulers alive. They did not know it. They did not know the importance of their work---or its moral meaning .

Part II.

Rulers did not accumulate riches through trade, invention and improvements. They accumulated riches through plunder, annexation and war. Whereupon the ruler declared that he owned all the land under his purview, that his power was absolute, that it was divinely ordained and that therefore he was above the law (This is the source of the notion of today's "eminent domain"). He pronounced himself the final and unquestionable authority on all matters. In effect, he held the power of life and death over every individual within his reach.

Rulers of both church and state dressed in the finest of fabrics---woven and sewn by weavers and seamtresses, i.e. the producers. Their skin was rosy and glowing from much good food---raised and harvested by the producedrs, farmers and livestock folk. They drank from cups in-laid with precious metals and stones, fashioned by skilled artisans, the producers. They commanded and the producers built magnificent tombs, pyramids, ships, chariots, palaces, grand cathedrals and country retreats with artfully landscaped gardens and fountains. Their domiciles were furnished with the finest furniture, decorated with rich tapestries crafted by artisans, the producers. Paintings of exquisite beauty adorned ceilings and walls. Sculptures graced walkways and lined the edges of scented pools of pristine water.

Both kinds of rulers postured before the populace, powerful only by dint of his willingness to destroy and his entourage to obey his commands. He gripped tight a mass of workers who had no idea of individual rights or property, their ignorance held in stasis by means of force.

The money to pay for the materials and to keep the craftsmen/artists alive long enough to do the work is said to have come from the munificence of the princes of church and state. Did it?

In the tribal states of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia everything that was, belonged to the ruler---no matter where it was made, who made it or what effort it cost the maker.

This remained the practice up to around 500 BCE when during the Ancient Greece period an implicit understanding of individualism began to develop, which held sway through much of the rule of Ancient Rome's Republic. During the Medieval Ages, however, the idea of individualism was lost and ownership of everything reverted back once again to the ruler, with the church muscling in for a share of the loot.

In the feudal culture that dominated Europe from the ninth century AD to the middle of the seventeenth century, the king confiscated around thirty-eight percent of every peasant's crop and of every subject's product. On top of that, the church took one-tenth of every individual's annual income.

Centuries later it could be stated with certainty that the rulers needed the art and the craftsmanship---and the nature of that "need" was not simply material comfort. They needed it "to impress themselves and foreigners alike with illusions of power which had little basis in reality."1 Rulers were not merely keen to have fine architecture, paintings and sculpture. They were obsessed with having it. No matter what it cost the peasants they ruled.

"Is there not the story of how Nicomedes, King of Lycia, yearned for a statue of Praxiteles, and exhausted almost all the resources of his people in acquiring it? And did not Attalus believe in the same way being prepared to spend over six thousand sesterces for a painting of Bacchus by Aristides?"2

". . . I must also add that some time later in the year 1060 the circular church of San Giovanni was built on the very same square, opposite the cathedral. It is an amazing thing, and almost unbelievable, that it took two weeks and no more to erect and complete the columns, pilasters, and vaulting of this church, as is recorded in an ancient document in the cathedral's office of works. In the same record, which anyone may consult, it is written that a tax of a penny on every hearth was imposed to raise funds for building the church, although it does not say whether this means a gold or copper coin. And at that time, the record also tells us, there were thirty-four thousand hearths in Pisa."3

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The people who actually build a civilization yet accept the unquestioned authority of state and of church, find themselves the fodder of both. Previous to the Enlightenment, with one exception---that of Ancient Greece---the ruling idea that guided men's actions was the notion that the collective was superior to and more important than the individuals who comprised it. This idea was then and is now dependent upon faith and force.

Civilizations advance by discovering the importance of the individual and by implementing objective law to protect him and his property. Those that never discover the importance of the individual remain ruled by force---such as most of the nations of Africa and Asia. Those that knew it but lose it, revert to savagery---such as those western nations who are every day more tightly embracing collectivism/socialism, including the United States of America.
©2008-2009 Sylvia Bokor. All Rights Reserved.
----------------To be continued
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1. Haskell, Francis, Patrons and Painters, Yale University Press, New Haven/London:1980, p 384. (NB: Haskell refers specifically to the rulers of Baroque Italy but his words are applicable to rulers everywhere.
2. Vasari, Giorgio, Lives of the Artists, Vol. I, Tr: George Bull, Penquin Classics, England: 1965, p 29.
3. Ibid, Vasari, p 43.

End Part I and II
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Separating State and Church

Every human being needs a moral code in order to live. There is no choice about that. Morality is a requirement of man’s life. There is a choice of which moral code you accept. You might accept the moral code identified by a philosopher. Or you might accept the moral code of theologians. You might figure out a moral code of your own. But whatever the case, a moral code is essential to your life. And your actions will be guided by it whether you’re aware of it or not.

A moral code is more important to human beings than food and drink. Because depending on which moral code an individual chooses, it is his moral code that shapes his decision to earn food and drink, or to sacrifice for it, or to kill for it. On some level, to some extent, most Americans understand this.

But some do not. They believe that by blurring together church and state a happier and more loving culture will result, providing them with the subsistence they need. A brief glance at history proves this false.
In every culture on earth there have always been men who wanted only to produce the materials they needed in order to live, and to live peaceably in trade with their fellow men, free of coercion.

And there have always been men who wanted to rule those producers. Such men declared themselves rulers. Some sought to rule men’s actions. Eventually, these became known as the state. Some sought to rule men’s moral conscientiousness. These became known as the church.
Millenniums passed. Despite the presence of such rulers, before monotheism the vast majority of men enjoyed religious freedom. Some cultures were freer than others. People worshipped or not, as they chose.

Then in 313 AD the Emperor of Byzantine issued the Edict of Milan, making Christianity the state religion. It was a period when church and state were indistinguishable from one another. Yet, the ruler of the church squabbled with the ruler of the state. Who was more powerful? Who controlled what? Whose say-so was most important? The church wanted state power. The state wanted church power. Discord arose. Strife grew. Prosperity declined. Men began to fear for their lives.

Always mutually suspicious of one another, state and church sought ways to expand their powers. The most obvious way was to form an alliance with one another. The soldiers ordered into service by the state were commanded to kill with the religious fervor of the church. The Crusades was one result---orgies of murder, rape and mayhem that soaked the earth with human blood.

For one thousand years state and church formed and discarded alliances. Alliances to seize land or goods, to stamp out perceived threats, to slaughter heretics and infidels. They formed alliances to "rid society of witches, warlocks and gypsies," to crush the non-believer, the errant-believer and the other-believer. The Inquisition is an example. It arrested innocent individuals, interrogated and tortured them, tore them apart on the rack, imprisoned, starved and burned them at the stake.

This period is known as the Medieval Ages. It was a time of unimaginable suffering: poverty, disease, slaughter, pillage and hatred. Individual moral conscientiousness was forbidden. Men were told what they must believe. They were terrified, their spirits crushed by lurid tales of damnation if they did not believe. A rage of malice and viciousness swept men’s minds and actions. Violence grew daily among individuals and groups, seemingly without end.

Between 1267-73, the theologian Thomas Aquinas argued for a different approach. He tried to clarify the realms of faith and the realms of reason. Some seventy-five years following the completion of his masterwork, the Italian Renaissance was born. Much of the misery of the Medieval Ages was wiped away.

During the Italian Renaissance, men had a better grasp of how things could be understood and great strides were made. But they were still not free to worship as they chose. The individual continued to suffer restrictions on his own moral conscientiousness. He was crushed between his longing to know greatness on earth and his confusion over church dictates. He remained the helpless victim of church and state.

This state of affairs continued until 1690 when John Locke published his famous Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatise on Government. These works indicated a solution to the dominance of church and state over men. The British Enlightenment spilled into the New World. About a century later came the explicit statement in the U.S. Constitution. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ."

This statement legally separated the powers of church and state. Congress was not the church. The church was not Congress. Signed in September 1787 and ratified in June 1788, men were freed at last from the specter of state and church allied against them. They were freed from demands to believe as the church dictated. They were free to worship as they chose, or not.

This highly truncated glance back in time shows why it is essential to keep church and state separate. It demonstrates why without the separation of church and state we are all in peril, no matter what our belief or absence of same. It shows why the separation of church and state is vitally important to us all. Unless we want to return to Medieval times, we must uphold the freedom of everyone to worship as they choose, or not. Which means we must keep separate church and state.

©2008. Sylvia Bokor. All Rights Reserved.
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Suggested reading:
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand, Philosophy Who Needs It