BOOK REVIEWS 115

Certainly, no one can blame Blanshard for going to press in advance

of the Judiciary Committee hearings on the 150 proposed constitutional
amendments designed to overturn the prayer and Bible reading decisions.
He Ÿ not clairvoyant; moveover, as he points out, "the controversy is
eternal because the issues are eternal," so that one cutoff date is as good
as another. Ir is nevertheless regrettable that a report of those hearings is
not ineluded in this book. The testimony of the distinguished clergy and

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constitutional authorities would have served nieely to round out his vivid
picture of this important period in our ehurch-state development.
The chapter on " T a x Dollars for Church Sehools," while on the whole
an interesting eoverage of a eomplex subject, is, I think, less than aeeurate
in describing the issue as "99% Catholie." How can any such statement
be made in face of the Protestant performance on the College Aid bill ?
This reader would have weleomed ah explanation of Protestant devotion
to separation on the elementary and seeondary sehool levels (where the
chureh-related schools are overwhelmingly Catholic) as against a diamet-
rically opposite view of tax aid for chureh-related eolleges, which are over-
whelmingly Protestant. To be sure, one might argue in defense of a low
wall for the eolleges. But what possible defense is there for the complete
absenee of Protestant support for a judicial review seetion in the College
Aid bill? That we have already begun to reap the bitter fruits of that
serious breaeh in separation is elearly evident in the 1964 edition of the
National Defense Education Aet.
Blanshard's all-too brief treatment of the role of religion in a public
school, dedieated to the task of fostering critical thinking, seemed to this
reviewer the best pages of the book. If, as eertain of the Justices of the
Supreme Court suggested in Schempp-Murray, the Bible is properly a
souree book for study "about" religion, how shall we advanee critical
thinking in face of Billy Graham's declaration at a 1963 Texas Baptist
Conference: "If the Bible says that Jonah swallowed the whale, let's ac-
cept it and believe ir; or, ir the Bible says that two plus two is five, let's
believe ir . . ." ?
It would seem all-too true, to repeat Blanshard's prudent observation,
that the "eontroversy is eternal beeause the issues are eternal."

Philip Jacobson

Herbert A. Deane. The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine.

New York: Columbia University Press, 1963. 356 pp. $7.50.

St. Augustine is primarily a theologian and polemicist and only secon-

11 £ CHURCH AND STATE

darily a political theorist. His politieal and social concepts are a by-pro-
duet of his theology and must be extracted from the corpus of his writings
and re-assembled if a coherent statement of them is to be achieved. Too
often in the past this has not been done and writers have relied upon an
exegesis of the Civitate Dei as being sufficient to establish Augustine's
political views. This has now been remedied by Professor Deane, who
offers us a systematie study of St. Augustine a s a political and social

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thinker based on a painstaking and scholarly examination of his volumi-
nous writings.
Augustine's doctrine of fallen man is the key to an understanding of
his political ideas. It lies at the root of what Reinhold Niebuhr has called
his Christian realism, and explains his repudiation of the classic tradition
which viewed the polis as the means through which the good life could be
realized by men. For Augustine the vast majority of men are unre-
deemed, only an unknown [ew are by God's grace predestined for salva-
tion. The bulk of mankind, stained by original sin, are doomed to prideful
competition and lusfful desires so that the City of the Earth comes to pre-
figure Hobbes's bellum omnium. Under these circumstances the State
functions as the agency which, by the utilization of force, establishes a
tenuous peace, thus enabling men to live out their lives in relative security
and in the enjoyment of the "material things which they love." Insofar
as the State maintains a minimal order it is in itself a good and embodies
a "partial justice." True justice, however, is to be found only in the
transcendent City of God and can never be a characteristie of the City of
the Earth, whose limited justice is only a faint glimmering of that which
will be enjoyed ultimately by the elect. In discussing Augustine's views
on the relation of Justiee to the State, Professor Deane takes issue with
Professor McIlwain and his school, who contend that Augustine posits
justice as the essential element of a true State. On the weight of the evi-
dente presented Professor Deane seems to have the better of this argument.
Despite its limitations the State is considered by Augustine as necessary
to fallen man, and obediente to it is obligatory on the elect and damned
alike. Hence he preaches a doctrine of obediente to the powers that be "for
they are ordained of God" so long as they do not require acts contrary to
God's commands. Even then, although compliance for the Christian is
not possible, resistance is precluded and the individual must passively sub-
mit to the consequences of his civil disobedience.
On the question as to whether or not the Church should aceept the aid
of the State in the punishment and suppression of heretics, Augustine's
views underwent modifieation. Professor Deane shows that an examina-
tion of Augustine's anti-Donatist writings demonstrates that he initially
opposed the use of state power against the sect. In time he carne to ac-
 BOOK REVIEWS 117

quiesce in its employment to punish individual Donatists for acts of vio-

lence against Catholics, and finally accepted the legitimacy of the utiliza-
tion of the public authority to compel the Donatists to abandon their doc-
trines and return to the Catholic fold. At this point the State becomes
more than the policeman of society and assumes the role of defender and
preserver of Catholic truth.
Professor Deane documents the generally accepted interpretations of

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St. Augustine, which hold that he never intended to identify the City of
God with the visible Church, or that he can be said to have envisioned the
development of the institutionalized Papacy. In fact, his view of church
government seems to have been one of a loose organization of semi-autono-
mous churches within which doctrinal disputes would be settled by coun-
cils of the bishops.
As to Augustine's influence on subsequent political thought, Professor
Deane is correct in suggesting that on the whole it was minimal until the
Reformation. Although Augustine's works were well known to medieval
scholars, little use was made of them in political as opposed to theological
writings. When they were cited in a political context, it was often in a
superficial manner and frequently in a sense contradictory to their original
meaning.
To sum up, Augustine's significance a s a socio-political thinker lies in
his realistic evaluation of the human condition which compelled hito to set
limits to what may be achieved by political means. Professor Deane right-
ly sees in this an important and useful point of departure for an analysis
and understanding of periods of crisis. Just as Augustine's pessimistic
realism was constructively responsive to the fall of Rome, so is it respon-
sive to our present age which is undergoing a similar social and political
upheaval. Recognition of the value of the Augustinian approach need not
lead men to despair but rather to the sober realization of the contingency
of all political solutions, and to the understanding that any attempt to con-
struct a viable social order which is not based on a realistic appraisal of
human nature is foredoomed to frustration and failure. Ir for no other
reason than this, St. Augustine has a significant message for the contem-
porary world.
H. Malcolm Macdonald

Piety and Politics. By Alan F. Geyer. Richmond: John Knox Press,

1963. 173 pp. $2.25 paper.

This volume represents an attempt to build some conceptual bridges be-

tween religion and politics. It concerns the intermediate country between