In Two Natures, Without Confusion, Without Change, Without Division, Without Separation: Christology and the Constitutional Ordering of Authority

Throughout human history it has been commonplace for kings and emperors to adopt the titles and trappings of divinity to bolster their authority, claiming to be mediators between heaven and earth. But once the emperors of Rome became Christian, the question was whether they would continue to do so. The church confessed that Jesus Christ is the ‘one mediator between God and men’ and understood that Christ's divine and human natures were essential to his mediatorial role. While affirming the need to submit to legitimate political authority, several church fathers rejected and even mocked the attribution of divinity to the emperors and denied their capacity to act as mediators and saviours. Rulers were accordingly divested of the prerogatives of deity, their salvific claims being reduced, in principle, to ministerial judgment in accordance with law. This paper explores the implications the church's understanding of Christ's two natures for the constitutional ordering of states. It argues that this theological principle was a profoundly consequential presupposition which determined the manner in which political authority would be de-divinised and subjected to legal bounds, leaving an indelible mark on the ostensibly de-sacralised presuppositions of modern constitutionalism, in which the ‘sovereign people’ must be both the subject and the object of ultimate political authority.