47489812 Carl Schmitt Roman Catholic Ism and Political Form

8/3/2019 47489812 Carl Schmitt Roman Catholic Ism and Political Form

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The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and

Failure of a Political Symbol GCarl Schmitt

Translated by George Schwab and Erna Hil fstein

GREENWOOD PRESSWestport, Connecticut ~ London


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CONTENTSLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schmitt, Carl, 1888

(Romischer Katholizismus und politische Form. English]Roman Catholicism and political form / Carl Schmitt ; t ranslated

and annotated by G. L. Ulmen. Introduction byG. L UlmenV11

p . cm. (Contributions in political science, ISSN 0147-1066 ;

no. 380. Global perspectives in history and politics) XXXV11Includes bibliographical references and index. Note on the Translation byG. L. UlmenISBN 0-313-30105-0 (alk. paper)1. Cathol ic Church Apologetic works. 2. Representation

Roman Catholicism and Polit ical Form(Philosophy) I . Ulmen, G. L. II . Title. III . Series:

Contributions in political science ; no. 380. IV . Series: by Carl SchmittContributions in poli tical science. Global perspectives in history

and politics.

BX1752.S3813 1996Appendix The Visibility of the Chur ch:

A Scholastic Consideration by Carl Schmitt45

282 dc20 96 -24987

British Li brary Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. 61Index

Copyright 1996 by G. L. Ulmen

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may bereproduced, by any process or technique, withou t t he

express written consent of the publ isher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-24987

ISBN: 0-313-30105-0

ISSN: 0147-1066

First published in 1996

Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881

An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

Printed in t he United States of Ameri ca

The paper used in this book complies with thePermanent Paper Standard issued by the National

Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).

1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


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INTRODUCTION


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Political theory thrives in times of unrest, such as Germanyand Europe experienced between the two world wars when

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) wrote many of his most important

works. The dramat ic changes and upheavals in both East and

West during the closing years of t his century, no less tumul

tuous than those of the interwar years, help explain whySchmitt's works are again becoming relevant.

Schmitt is undeniably the most controversial legal and

political theorist of the tw entieth century. The reason why

has less to do wi th h is ill-fated collaboration w ith the Nazi

regime between 1933 and 1936 than with the fact that many

of his positions and concepts continue to challenge estab

lished mind-sets and academic sinecures with respect to

both past and present political forms and ideological

agenda. His criti que of the dominant persuasion of Western

democracies liberalism as well as that of Eastern despot

ism communism set him apart and made him universal lyproblematic.

Like all important pol itical theorists, Schmitt was con

cerned fundamentally with the nature and meaning of

politics, w hich he came to define in terms of "the political." r

Widely known, discussed, and debated in Europe,z only

recently has his thinking been given critical attention in the

English-speaking world.s Not onl y have t hree major books

on Schmitt been published i n English,4 but tr anslations of


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INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION

some of his most important works have appeared and others political form. The medieval Church was the only instit u

are in progress.s Nevertheless, more justification is needed tion that ever rivaled the authority of the state, which it

to explain the reason for a translation of Romischer Katholiz actually preceded. However, given that the European sov

ismusund politische Eorm, a seemingly o bscure essay first ereign state was in decline and that its form was becoming

pub lished in 1923. If it is nothing more than a religious tract, questionable even as its r adius of powerwas becomingdirected to the debate on "political Catholicism,"< what broader, Schmitt would soon assert that the institutional

possible interest might it have today? If it is only of interest basis of poli tics had given way to the existential basis of "the

to Schmitt scholars, only some sort of i ntellectual curiosity, political," that is, the friend-enemy grouping. Although the

distinction between the institutional and the existential inthis would hardly be sufficient cause. What then is itsRoman Catholicism and Political Eormis stil l a dumbratedconcrete significance?

Roman Catholicism and Political Formpresupposesalong the lines of Catholic theology, the transition is evi

dent how the concrete ambi t o f p oli tics gives way to aSchmitt's seminal interpretation of the modern age and

conceptual argument for the political that speaks directlyprovides a means of confronting its culmination. I n his

to present problems and concerns. To apprehend this tranview, the European sovereign state that originated in t he

sition is at once to appreciate the essay's relevance andsixteenth an d seventeenth centuries and constituted t he

significance.core of the ius publicum E uropaeumand a E urocentricinternational law began to decline at the end of the nine

teenth century. T his state was the principal agent of secu

larization and the supreme accomplishment of occidental THE THEOLOGICAL GROUND OFrationali sm. As long as it possessed the monopoly of poli SECULARIZATIONtics as long as there was a clear dist inct ion b etween state

and society the equation state - p oliticsexpressed a con Roman Catholicism and Political Formis Schmitt's mostcrete reality. But once state and society began to penetrate systematic treatment of the Catholic Church. But it containseach other, which began after 1848 and reached its conclu neither his first nor his last thoughts on the theologicalsion in Germany wit h the democratic revolution of 1918, significance and historical place of the Church in Europeanthis equation became "erroneous and deceptive."7 The ques history. In his later works, he elaborated various aspects oftion for Schmitt then was not only what "political form" the themes int roduced i n thi s 1923 essay.9 In an ear liermight replace the sovereign state and what kind of nomos essay, "The Visibility o f t he Church," wr itten in 1917, he(order) might be established thereon, but even more how to presented the ro le of the Church as a wor ld ly inst i tu t ion or,

u nd erstand poli tics in this new hi st orical context . more precisely, a spiritual instit ut ion manifest in a mundane

Schmitt's approach is found in his assertion that "all "visible" form. Visibility is understood in the sense of

s ign if ican t concepts o f the modern theory of the state are concrete man ifestat ion in hi story, o f external izat ion o f the

secular ized theo logical concepts."s A Catho li c by b ir th and idea , o f rea li za tion in the publ i c sphere. Since Schmi t t

persuasion, Schmitt found p arallels between the Church character ized his 1917 essay as a "scholastic" considerat ion

and the state. Both embodied political ideas that required and his 1923 essay as "anything but ," ' I they do not consti


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INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION X l l l

tu te a un iform argument. Never theless, a compari son and which i s why "mediat ion" i s the essence o f the Church .

con tras t between these two essays i s useful not only to Even as "mediat ion" is the core concep t i n Schmi tt 's 1917

understand the development of Schmitt 's thinking but also, essay, "representation" is the core concept in his 1923 essay.

and more importan tly, because his 1923 essay presupposes Already in the transference of emphasis from "mediation"

the theological argument i n his 1917 essay. For this reason, to "representation," one can see the process of secularizait is pub lished as an appendix to t his volume. tion at work in the Church and in Schmitt's thinking.

Whereas Roman Catholicismand Political Formtakes the The brunt of Schmitt's argument is directed against

Church on its own terms, "The Visibility of the Church" is inwar dness against t his Protestant imp ulse that was pre

intent upon revealing the "truth " of Catholic dogma. One sumably affecting Catholics as well . Essentially, it is an

strategy is to combat interpretations that reduce this "truth" argument against abandoning the world. Since the Church,

to subject ive experience and h uman conduct those sys as the unseen body of Christ, became visible, "no visible

man should leave the visible world to its own devices.">stems of thought that reinterpret theology in either Freudian

or Marxian terms. Another strategy is to combat the influ This assertion is a justification of the institution of theChurch in the world and in history. Schmitt describes the

ence of Darwinism and all other such "scientific" arguments"visible" Church as a collective-singular institution com

against the incarnation of Christ and the institution of the

posed of many subsidiary institu tions. As such, it presentsChurch. One such argument was that of sociology, whichitself in a hierarchy of me diations consolidated and conse

Schmitt had already addressed in 1914. But since "truth "crated as "legal relations.">9 He even speaks of "the li mit a

is principally a matter of concern to Christians, Schmitttions of the pneumatic in the juridical," which means that

chastises those Catholics who have abandoned the Chur ch ,the incarnation belongs "to another reality," that is, to the

a fundamentally publicinstitution, and a re content wi thlegality of the visible world . Since "the devil has his own

their own privatespirituality. In e ffect, he upbraids themlegality," Catholics must guard against mistaking the visible

for succumbing to the unintended consequences of theChurch for a Church of the visible, that is, a religion of

wor ld created by the Protestant ethic in general and Pietisticmaterial evidence, which ult imately leads to "the official

asceticism in particular, which was causing them to withrejection of the offi cial.">o The intense and i ntended irony

draw into inwardness. ~4 This counterargument is even more of th is last statement is already a portent of Schmitt 's crit icalclearly framed in Schmi tt' s 1923 essay in response to Max

distance from the Church, which he would achieve throughWeber's investigation of the consequences of the Protestant the wr it ing of his 1923 essay.ethic.>s

Just as Schmitt, in 1914, examined the signif icance of the

individual in relation to the state,~~ so, in 1917, he focused

on the distinction between the sociological understanding POLITICAL THEOLOGY

of indi vidualism and t he theological understanding of the

individual vis-a-visthe community. Both in the sociological Roman Catholicism and Political Formis concerned with

and th e theological sense, man is a communal bei ng. The the politicalconsequences of P rotestant in wardness and

community of believing Christians is the body of Christ, worldly asceticism, for which Schmitt finds an antidote in


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the "political idea" of Catholicism. This essay makes the analytical frame w ithin which Roman Catholicism and Politi

reader privy to his thinking as it emerges from the referen cal Formis understood.

tial system o f t he Catholic Church and becomes manifest If Schmitt's 1917 essay seeks to find a modusvivendi

in the analogical structure of political theology. In fact, between the Catholic layman and the modern wor ld, his

Roman Catholicism and Political Formwas written in con 1923 essay seeks to find a modusvivendi between the Vaticanand the modern, even postmodern world. Both recognizejunction w ith Political Theology, wh ich has been describedas "a necessary complement to The Concept of the Political the given antithesis, which is only one of many Schmit t

mentions in his elaboration of the complexio oppositorumin explaining Schmitt's understanding of state, sovereignty,

(complex of opposites) he finds characteristic of the "visand politics." The key to the relation between Roman

ible" Church. It is also characteristic of his essay, whichCatholicism and Political Formand Political Theologyis found

embraces the Church and the state, the theological and th ein Schmitt's later assertion that political theology as such

juridical, papal infallibility and political decision, the pope"is not concerned with any theological dogma but with a

and Hobbes. Years later, Schmitt prov ided a commentaryscholarly-theoretical and conceptual-historical problem:

on the themes introduced here:the structural identity of concepts, of theological and juridi

cal argumentation and cognition"; it "does not proceed in

some diffuse metaphysics, but concerns the classical case The most importan t statement of Thomas Hobbesof a reoccupation w ith the help of specific concepts devel remains: Jesus is the Christ. Such a statement

oped in the systematic thinking of both the most highly retains its power even when it is relegated to the

developed and most perfectly formed historical examples margins of an intellectual construct, even when

of 'occidental rationalism,' namely, the Catholic Church, it appears to have been banished to the outer

with its completely juridical rationality, and the state of the reaches of the conceptual system. This expulsion

ius publicum Europaeum." is analogous to the domestication of Christ under

Once the state began to lose its monopoly of polit ics, taken by Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor. Hobbes

Schmitt looked to what he considered the other side of the gave voice to and provided a scientif ic reason for

occidental equation in order to find an answer to the what the Grand In quisitor is to make Christ' s

question of the form of the political. He explored the nature impact harmless in the social and political

of sovereignty in te rms of a "sociology of juri dical concepts," spheres, to dispel the anarchistic nature of Chris

which presupposes a "radical ideology" a "radical concep tianity whil e leaving it a certain legitimating ef

tualization," whereby f irst an idea or mode of think ing is fect, if onl y in the background; at any rate, not to

traced to its roots in metaphysics and theology and then its abandon it . A clever tactician does not abandon

conceptual structure is compared with the conceptual anythi ng, unless it is completely useless. This was

elaboration of the social structure of a parti cular epoch. It not yet the case with Christianity. Hence the

demonstrates the structural identitybetween " the meta question: Is Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor

physical image of the world a particular age creates" and closer to the Roman Ch urch or to th e sovereign

"the form of a political organization."z4 This then i s the of Thomas Hobbes? Reformation and Counter


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INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XV11

Reformation point in the same direction. Tell me The pope is not the Prophet bu t the Vicar of

who is your enemy and I wil l tel l you who you Christ. Such a ceremonial function precludes all

are. Hobbes and the Roman Chur ch: the question t he fanatical excesses of an unbridled prophetism .of the enemy is our own.zs The fact that the author is made independent of

charisma signifies that the p riest upholds a posiSchmitt had discov ered the theologian of the state, whose t io n w hi ch appears t o b e compl et el y ap ar t f rom"mortal God" was transcendent only in a juridical sense. To his concrete personality. . . . In contradistinction

Schmitt, the self-styled "theologian of jurisprudence,"z6 to the modern official, his position is not imper

Hobbes's state was at once a product of the reli gious civil sonal because his office is part of an unbroken

war between Catholicism and Protestantism as well as the chain li nked wit h the personal mandate and con

instr ument of it s detheologization its neutralization and crete person of Christ.

secularization, which i n Schmitt's view spelled a juridi fica

tion analogous to the institutionalization of Christianity inThe ground of decisionism is always a "political idea," be it

the Roman Church the realization o f l aw.zs Hobbes's sig theological or ju ridic al. There is always the presuppositionnificance lay not only in his conception of the state, whi ch of an original ideology: "To the political belongs the idea,marked a "decisive metaphysical step," but also in his because there is no politics wi thout author ity and no authordiscovery of a conceptually systemati c and politically con ity without an ethos of belief."sistent alternative t o the Catholic Chur ch's monopoly of In Schmit t's sequel to PotiticaE Theology, he tells us that

decision whereby, as Schmitt later would argue, he had Roman Catholicismand Political Form"supports a unique

"completed" the Reformat ion.z9 From the standpoint of the pol it ica l form o f the Roman Church . . . publ icl y man ifest :

Middle Ages, the ius reformandiwas decisive. From t he as aesthetic form in great art, as juridical form in the

standpoint of the European sovereign state that had arisen development of its canonical law, and as the magnificent

thereby, it was already a right of sovereignty.so world-historical form of its power."34 This "great trinity of

Schmit t's de fin iti on of sovereignty "Sovereign is he whoform" is equated with the "political for m" of Roman Catholi

decides on the state of exception" reflects Hobbes's discism, which can only have reference to the idea of thepolit ical and forms of its representation. It is a unity-in-plu

tinction of a j uridical personalism. The question of "w ho rality, w hich clearly has both a metaphysical structure anddecides?" is not one of truth but of authority. Personal

a concrete significance. The forms of this uni que structureauthority understood in terms of representation is the

are not universal archetypes or ideal patterns, since Schmittlogical counterpart of the "political idea" of Catholicism.

sees them as guaranteeing all the higher categories ofThe Church provided Schmitt with the perfect analogy, European civilization. With respect to the content of repreespecially after the First Vatican Council {Vaticanum) of sentation, he gives a decisive place to juridical form, which1869-1870 asserted the doctrine of papal infalli bil ity. Her e is already an indication that he would soon see not thewas an authoritative instance at once representative and Roman Church but the model of Roman law and the

personalistic: vocation of jurisprudence as guaranteeing the higher cate


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X V l l l INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION

gories of European civilization. Later, he formulated the turning point, Schmitt's counterargument has become even

matter more clearly: "Form is the essence of law. Is form more to the point.not the essence of ev ery matt er? It is t he la w itself its

visibility, its externality, its publicity."The link between representation and personal authority

introduces Schmitt's critique of the modern worl d and it s THE PRIMACY OF THE POLITICALconsummate materialism. A lready at the time of Karl Marx,

s ai d Sch mi tt , bo urgeoi s soci et y ha d los t i ts capacit y f or Schmit t j uxt aposes a ju ri di ca l int erpret atio n o f re li gi on

representat ion and succumbed to the fateful dual ism whose or iented to the pol it ical sphere to Weber's sociological

l ogical outcome was the class concept of the p roletar ia t. He interpretat ion o rien ted to the economic sphere.ss Bu tcredit s Mar x wit h recognizing that economic thi nkin g in Schmitt's essay is not essentially a criti que of Weber's main

heren tl y r ej ect s ev ery r ep resent at io n, an d h e c ri ti cizes t hesis , w h ic h po si ts a r el at io n be tw ee n Cal vi ni sm a n dAuguste Comte for attempting to compare "representat ive" capitalism; rather, i t is a metacri t ica l ant i type, which pre

types of bourgeois society wi th those of the Middle Ages: sents Weber 's t reat ise wi th a Catholic complement.s9 L ike

Weber, Schmitt is fundamentally concerned with the course

The savant was only r epresentative in the transiof modern European culture and civilization. Whereas for

tional period of the struggle with the Church; t heWeber this is primarily a question of modern capitalism, for

merchant, only as a Puritan individualist. . .. TheSchmitt it is primarily a question of the modern state. Since,in Schmitt's view, the modern capitalism of Western Europe

savant and the merchant have become supplier swas aligned with intellectual and other forces of liberal

or supervisors. The merchant sits in his office; theb ourgeois society against t he state, hi s essay i s also a

savant, in his study or laborat ory. If they are reallycritique of the liberal-bourgeois-capitalist age that ulti

modern, both serve a factory; both are anonymately achieved a kind of intellectual self-consciousness in

mous. It is senseless to claim they representWeber's treatise. It is at once an intellectual exercise and a

something. They are either priv ate indiv iduals orpolit ical tract . Some of Schmitt 's assertions about Catholi

exponents; not representatives.s7cism are stylized to correspond to Weber's assertions about

Protestantism, but this does not detract from the seriousWhereas the value of a commodity only r eflects the market ness of his intention.at any given time, Schmitt argues that the true repre Schmitt's focus is not on an ind ivi dual ethic but a collecsentative of a "noble value" cannot be without a correspond tive authority, not on private initiative but a public instituing value. Again, the formulation is contraposed to the tion, not on a formative spirit but a substantive form, notargument in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, on an economic correlation but a political manifestation. Towhich demonstrates the polemical i ntent of Schmit t's essay. Weber's concept of "calling," he opposes the concept ofSince what he opposed early in this century is even stronger "representation." Whereas the one leads to economic acqui

at its end, and since the relation betw een economic thin ki ng sition, the other leads to politi cal decision. The appositionand poli tical t hin king has reached a crisis in the sense of a alone is enough to demonstrate that Schmitt di d not follow


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his liberal-bourgeois opponent into the economic sphere, cal idea. The modern state appears to have actually become

onto the economic battlefield, nor did he allow him to what Max Weber saw in it: a giant business enterprise."4z

choose the weapons of combat. From his starting point in Even though Schmitt's opponent in Roman Catholicism

the juridical sphere, he draws his opponent into the political and Political Eormis the libe ral bou rgeois Weber, at least for

sphere, onto the political battlefield, and there challenges the purposes of intellectual debate, his main argument ishim wit h weapons of his own choosing. It is no accident directed at "the economic thin king of our time," that is, the

that Schmitt f ound the prototype for his antitype in Weber'sthinking of the liberal bourgeoisie, which he interprets as

writings. In his sequel to Political Theology, dedicated t o"the st ruggle against the poli tical" the struggle directed

Hans Barion, he observed that th is canonist and constitu"against politi cians and juri sts." This is clear in h is assertion

tional jurist had seen "in the Codex Juris Canonician 'alreadythat "the political idea of Catholicism . . . contradicts every

thing synonymous with objectivity, integrity, and rationalexemplary approach to divine Church law in the inner order

ity in economic thinking." He affirms that "economicof the Church's legal institution,' " and went on to say that

rationalism has accustomed itself to deal only w ith certainit was "sufficient to cite a typical remark of Max Weber,

needs, and to acknowledge only those it can 'satisfy,' " butwhich carne to my mind when I m entioned his name in my

hastens to add that this rationalization of modern economy

1923 essay on Roman Catholicism. Max Weber remem conforms to an irrational consumption. On the one hand,bered that the law of the Roman Church had created ' a

Schmitt recognizes that economic thinking has its ownrational orderlike no other holy law,' wh ich even Roman law reason and veracity precisely in its materialism; on thedid not approximate."40 Even so, canon law did find in other, he is aware that once it claims to be something moreRoman law a secular competitor that had achieved a formal than t his, it is obliged to base itself on categories other thanperfection and had in the course of history become univer productio n and consumption. H is key assertion is that "nosal. When Roman law atte mpted to extend its domination , great social antithesis can be solved by economics," whichit met with strong and successful opposition from the is directed against not only Marxist sociologists but alsoeconomic interests of the bourgeoisie. But its rational tradi American financiers and industrial technicians, since, as hetions lived on in the administration of the Church. Not the observed in Political Theology, "all unite in the demand thatleast for Weber wa s that t he c haracter of e cclesiastical the immaterial domination of politics over t he materialitylegislation was influenced by the fact that the Church's of economic life come to an end."4s In line with thisfunctionaries were holders of rationally defined bureau understanding, he observed at the conclusion of The Concratic off ices. "[T]here arose that unique r elationship be cept of the Politicalthat the often quo ted assertion that today

tween sacred and secular law in wh ich canon law became the dest iny i s not pol it ics bu t economics i s a fantasy : "I t

indeed one of the gu ides for secu lar law on the road to would be more exact to say that pol i tics cont inues to remain

rat ional it y. The relat ively decisi ve factor was the unique the dest iny , but what has occur red i s tha t economics has

organization of the Catholic Church as a rational instit u become political and thereby the destiny."44

tion."4~ By contrast, Schmitt wro te: "The dominant type of At every stage of Schmitt's wa y to t he conclusion o f

economic thi nking today can no longer conceive of a politi Roman Catholicism and Political Form, he is not resolving a


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INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XX111

theological dispute but responding to an intellectual chal signal of the oncoming (nineteenth) century in an economic

lenge epitomized in The Protestant Ethic a nd the Spirit o f interpretation of the Queen's bird-catcher, Papageno, the

Capitalism. Nowhere is this more evident than in his final uncorrupted natural man, who is intent upon and disposed

observations, wherein he takes aim at the difficulties and of w ith t he "satisfaction" of his economic needs. But Schmitt

lim its of economic thi nking evidenced in liberalism and the goes further and draws a parallel to Shakespeare's Tempest.Enlightenment. He contrasts the juridical foundation of the Whereas Prospero is a typical conjurer of esoteric tradition,

Catholic Church on the public sphere wit h l iberalism's Caliban embodies "nature without nurture."49 If one recog

foundation on the private sphere, while observing that the nizes, says Schmitt, "how Prospero has become a Masonic

"religi on of privacy" explains "the sociological development priest and Caliban a Papageno," then it is clear why there

of modern European society." The antithesis to the Protes is nothing more horrifying in i ntellectual history than thi s

tant ethic is clearly expressed: "The great betrayal laid to beloved Mozart opera. His point is that Freemasonry was

the Catholic Church is that it does not conceive Christ as a the last real European opponent of Cath olicism, because it

private person; does not conceive Christianity as a private zealously confronted the Church with another idea. As

m atter, something wholly and inwardly spirit ual, but rather . self-assured aristocrats, the philosophers of the eighteenth

has given it form as a visible institution."4s But Schmitt well century represented the idea of humanity, and thereon

knew that the Protestant ethic had long been replaced by based their authority and secret societies. He compares thisthe Enlightenment. Weber had recognized that the religious true opponent with the fiction of economic thinking: "In a

root of m odern economic humanity w as dead, and that the society that no longer has such courage, there can be no

concept of "calling" was a "caput mortuum"[death's head].4s more 'arcana,' no mor e hierarchy, no mor e secret dip lo

He observed at the conclusion of The Protestant Ethic and macy, in fact, no more politics. To every great politics

the Spirit of Capitalismthat victorious capitalism no longer belongs the 'arcanum.' Everything takes place on stage

needed the support o f Protestant asceticism because it now (before an audience of Papagenos)."s> Behind the scenes,

rested on mechanical f oundations: "The rosy disposition of the domination of "capital" is still no form, even though it

its jub ilant heir, the Enlightenment, appears to be finally can undermine an existing form and make it an empty

fading. "47 facade.

Schmitt responded to Weber's conclusion with one of the Schmitt acknowledges that economic thinking appears to

most fascinating passages in his essay his interpretation of have a peculiar understanding of the right type of secrets,

Mozart's The Magic Flute, universally r egarded as a "hymn and that therein may lie the possibility of a new politics.

of the Enlightenment." By stressing particularly the Ma But it is not Roman Catholicism wh ich must accommodate

sonic symbolism, his inter pretation refle cts the earlytwen itself to economic think ing, but rather economic thinki ng

tieth-century r einterpretation of Mozart's intention.4s He which must accommodate itself to the political: "An alliance

clearly equates the Masonic priest with the "priests" of the of the Catholic Church with the present form of industrial

Enlightenment , suggests that the resolution of the antago capitalism is not possible. The alliance of t hrone and altar

nism be tween the High Pr iest (Sarastro) and the Queen of will not be followed by an alliance of office and altar, also

the Night is mechanical rather than existential , and sees a not of factory and altar."szRoman C atholicism cannot


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INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTIONXX1V

correspond to a "consortium of conflict ing interests," but it Jahre 1959 (Abgeschlossen am 1. Mai 1978)," in "Miroir de

will continue to accommodate itself to every political order, Carl Schmitt," a special issue of Cahiers Vi lfredo Pareto:

capitalist or socialist. "If and when economically-based Revue europeenne des sciences sociales16, No. 44 (1978):

power becomes political, that i s, if and whe n capitalists or 187-238; Piet Tommissen, "Erganzungsliste zur Carl

workers who h ave come to powerassume political repre Schmitt-Bibliographic vom Jahre 1959," in Epirrhosis: Festsentation with all its responsibilities, the new sovereign gabe fiir Carl Schmitt, edi ted by H ans Bar ion, Ernst

authori ty w i l l then be compel led to recognize si tuat ions Wolfgang Bocken fo rde, Ernst Forsthof f and Werner Weber

o ther than those concerned only w ith economy and pr ivate (Berl in : Duncker & Humblot , 1968) , Vol . II , pp . 739-778;property."ss This last statement is a formal assertion of Piet Tommissen, "Carl-Schmitt-Bibliographic," in FestSchmitt's thi nking, which both confro nts and goes beyond schrift fiir Carl Schmittzum 70. Geburtstag dargebracht vonWeber's thi nkin g. It arr ives at the political div ide at the end Freunden und Schulern, edited b y H ans Bar ion, Ernstof this century w ith a r udimentar y idea in search of a new Forsthoff and Werner Weber (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot,form. 1959), pp. 273-330.

3. Cf. George Schwab, "Progress of Schmitt St udies in

the English-Speaking W orld," in Complexio Oppositorum:

NOTES Uber Carl Schmitt, pp. 4 47-464; George Schwab, " CarlSchmitt: Through a Glass Darkly ," i n "Schmittiana-I," ed

1. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of t he Political. Transla ited by Piet To mmissen, in Eclectica17, Nos. 71-72 (1988):

tion, introduction, and notes by George Schwab. With70-87; Joseph W. Bendersky, "Carl Schmitt Confronts the

comments on Schmitt 's essay by Leo Strauss (New Br uns English-Speaking World," in Canadian Journal of Political

wick , NJ: Rutgers Univ ersity Press, 1976). and Social Theory1, No. 2 (1978): 149-154. George Schwab,

2. Cf . "Kommentiertes Verzeichnis der Schriften von"Carl Schmitt Hysteria in the US: The Case of Bill Scheuer

Carl Schmitt," in Verortungdes Politischen: Carl Schmitt in man," in Telos, No. 91 (Spring 1991): 99-107.

Plettenberg, compiled by I ngeborg Vill inger (Hagen: v. d. 4. Paul Edward Gottfried, Carl Schmitt: Politics and

Linnepe, 1990), pp. 62-126 ; Piet Tommissen, "Erganzun Theory(Westport, CT: G reenwood Press, 1 990); George

gen meines ersten biographischen Beitrags" (1988), in Schwab, The Challenge of the Exception: An Int roduction to

"Schmittiana-II," edited by Piet Tommissen, in Eclectica the Political Ideas of Carl Schmitt Between1921 and1936,

19, Nos. 79-80 (1990): 148-162; Piet Tom missen, "Bau Second Edition, with a New Introduction (Westport, CT:

steine zu einer wissenschaftlichen Biographic (Periode: Greenwood Pr ess, 1989); Joseph W . Bendersky , Carl

1888-1933)," in Complexio Oppositorum: Uber Carl Schmitt, Schmitt: Theorist for the Reich(Princeton, NJ: Princeton

edited by Hel mut Quaritsch (Berlin: Duncker & Hum blot, University Press, 1985).

1988), pp. 71-100; Alain de Benoist and Giinter Maschke, 5. Political T heology: Four C hapters on the Concept of

"Bibliographic Carl Schmitt ," i n t he special Schmitt issue Sovereignty, translated by George Schwab, Second Printi ng

of Nouvelle Ecole, No. 44 (Spring 1987): 67-86; Piet Tom (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988); The Crisis of Parlia

missen, "Zweite Fortsetzungsliste der C.S.-Bibliographic vom mentary Democracy, translated by E llen Kennedy ( Cam


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X X V I INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XXV11

bridge, MA: MI T Press, 1985); Political Romanticism, trans nary influ ence on such Catholic intel lectuals as the canonist

lated by Guy Oakes (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986). Hans Barion and the journalist Waldemar Gurian.

The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning 7. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p. 22.

and Failure of a Political Symbol, translated by G eorge 8. Schmitt, Political Theology, p. 36.

Schwab and Erna Hilfstein (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 9. Cf. Carl Schmitt, Der Nomos der Erde im Volkerrecht1996). See my own translations of "The Legal World Revolu des Jus Publicum Europaeum(1950), Second Edition (Berlin:

tion," in Telos, No. 72 (Summer 1987): 73-89, "The Plight of Duncker & Humblot, 1974), pp. 25ff.

European Jurisprudence," in Telos, No. 8 3 (Spring 1990): 10. Carl Schmitt, "Die Sichtbarkeit der Kirche: Bine

35-70, and "The Constitutional Theory of Federation," in scholastische Erwagung," in Summa; E ine V iertejlahres

Telos, No. 91 (Spring 1991): 26-56. See also "The Source of schrift(1917), pp. 71-79. For f urther c larification of th is

the Tragic," translated by David Pan, in Telos, No. 72 (Sum essay, see Helmut Quaritsch, Positionen und Begriffe Carl

mer 1987): 133-146 and "The Age of Neutralizations and Schmitts(Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1989), pp. 25ff.

Depoliticizations," translated by Matthias Konzert and John 11. Schmitt, Politische Theologie II: Die Legende von der

P. McCormick, in Telos, No. 96 (Summer 1993): 130-142. Erledigung jeder Politischen Theologie( Berlin: Du ncker &

6. When Roman Catholicism and Political Formfirst ap Humbl ot, 1970), p. 27.

peared, it w as well received in Catholic and non-Catholic 12. Unfortunately, an argument for their consistencycircles in Germany and beyond. Cf. Bendersky, Carl Schmitt: has been made. See the Intro duction t o the Italian edi tion

Theorist for the Reich, pp. 48-52. Not a member of any party, of these two essays, in which the 1917 essay appears as a

Schmitt exhibited religious sympathies and intellectual con subtitle to the 1923 essay: Cattolicesimo romano e forma

cerns were in line wit h those of the Catholic Center Party. politica: La visibilita della Chiesa. Una riflessione scolastica

See Helen Lovel l Evans, The German Center Party1870-1933: (Milan: Guiffre Editore, 1986).

A Study in Political Catholicism(Carbondale, IL: Southern 13. Carl Schmitt, Der Wert des Staates und die Bedeutung

Illinois Press, 1981) and Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Wind des Einzelnen(Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1914), p.horst: A Political Biography(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 81: "As soon as there is a striving for a realization of ideas, for

1981). Even so, a long review in a democratic j ournal gener a visibility and secularization, there appears at the same time

ally hostile to political Catholicism stated: "This lit tle book (together w ith the need for a concrete decision which, abovecontains so many keen observat ions. . . [ that] no one should al l, even at the expense of the ideas, must be determined) a

say a word about the Roman Cathol ic Church who has not str iv ing for an infal lible instance prov ided by th is formulat ion

read i t. " See Fr iedr ich Sternthal , "Uber c ine Apologie der and determined in the same way . Here also , the Cathol ic

romischer Kir che," in Der Neue Merkur, Vol. 7 (1922-1924), Church and its dogma provide a typical example. Since the

p. 768. Also indicative of Schmitt's independent position idea of a visible Church, constitutionally established by a

wi th in the fabric of pol it ical Catho li ci sm in the 1920s was his legal order and thus a ius divinumthat is no ethic but a true

personal and inte llectual associat ion wi th Car l Muth, the law, prevai led, such concrete formulat ions serve doubt fu l

founder and ed ito r o f the in f l uent ia l Ca thol i c j ou rnal cases." The very con traposi ti on of ethic and law immediatel y

Hochland. Schmitt's "litt le book" also exercised an extraordi suggests that Schmit t has not a theological but a secular


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XXVl l l INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION

opponent in view and that he is demonstrating the original as to form a separate sect, its members attempted to live, insource of all secularization, meaning that the very process of this community, a life freed from all the temptations of the"political theology" has a theological paradigm i n both the world and i n all it s details dictated by God's will , and thusincarnation of Ch rist and the visibil ity of the Church. Secu to be made certain of their own rebirth by external signs

larization in this context posits the relation between transcen manifested in their daily conduct. Thus the ecclesiolaof thedence and immanence, but this is as much a historical true converts this was common to all genuinely Pietisticobjective as a hermeneutic-subjective process. The fact that groups wished, by means of intensified asceticism, to enjoy

the Word is made flesh and the Church is made visible is both the blissfulness of community with God in this life" (ibid., p.hermeneu tical an d hist orical the one presupposes th e 130).other because without a historical Chri st and a historical 15. This argument was carried further by Walter Ben

Church there would be no subjective process to be objec jami n; more recently, it has been elaborated in the contin uitytively considered. For an interpretation of this process as between Weber and Benjamin and between Benjamin and

strictly hermeneutic-subjective, see Michele Nicoletti, "Die Schmitt. Exploring "the Baroque ethic and the spirit of

Ursprunge von Carl Schmitts 'Politischer Theologie'," in fascism," Benjamin extended the exploration of the Protes

Complexio Oppositorum: Uber Carl Schmitt, edited by Helmut tant ethic "from Pr otestant or Pietistic inwardness to the

Quaritsch (Berl in: Duncker R Humblot, 1988), pp. 109-128; inwardness of the Protestantism of the Counter-Reformation,and Trascendenza e potere: La teologia politica di Carl Schmitt to nineteenth-century French Catholic inwardness, and to the

(Brescia: Editrice Morcelliana, 199g). inwardness of Jewish modernity. These forms of inwardness

14. Max Weber focused on th e extreme asceticism pro are correlated with the transition from worldly asceticism toduced by Pietism i n response to bourgeois legality w ith its worldly aestheticism(the Baroque ethic of worldly aesthetiexcessive indiv iduali sm. Although ascetic Protestantism was cism persists from the seventeenth century to the twentiethfor him only one of the formative elements that shaped century), and with the transition from the end of politics inmodern culture, he insisted that the attendant ethic in its the spirit of capitalism to aestheticized ethics in the spirit ofCalvinist form was essential to an understanding of the origin fascism." See Gillian Rose, "Walter Benjamin: Out of theand character of that culture because the rejection of the Sources of Modern Judaism," in Rose, Judaism and Modernity:world inherent in this ethic revealed the preconditions and Philosophical Essays(Oxford, UK and Cambridge, MA: Black

consequences of a specific type of rationalism that became a well Publishers, 1993), pp. 175-210. Cf. Norbert Bolz,dominant force when inner-worldly asceticism fused with "Charism und Souveranitat: Car l Schmitt und Walter Benjamin

the capitalist economic system. With a common source in im Schatten Max Webers, "in Der Fiirst dieser Welt: Carl Schmitt

predestination, "it was almost impossible to draw the line und die I'olgen, edited by Jacob Taubes (Munich, Paderborn,

between Pietistic and non-Pietistic Calvinism " (The Protestant Vienna, and Zuri ch: Wilhel m Fink Verlag/Verlag Ferdinand

Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by lhlcott Parsons Schoningh, 1983), pp. 249-262; Carl Schmitt , "On the Bar

[New York: Charles Scr ibner's Sons, 1958] , pp. 128f .) But bar ic Character o f Shakespearean Drama: A Response tomore to the point, Pietism " wished to make the invisible Walter Benjamin on The Origin of German Tragic Drama,"inChurch of the elect visible on this earth. Without going so far Telos, No. 72 (Summer 1987): 146-151.


15/55


16. As Schmitt explains in Der Wert des Staates und die consciousness." See Der Wer t des Staates und die Bedeutung

Bedeutung des Einzelnen, the i ndividual d isappears as an des Einzelnen, p. 6.

empirical entity when considered from the standpoint of 18. Schmitt, "The Visibility of the Church," p. x.

law and the task of the state to realize law. Schmitt asserts 19. Ibid.

that there is an ant ithesis bet ween law and the state not 20. Ibid. Here Schmitt is contrasting impersonal offilaw and the i ndi vidual because positive law is th e uni ty cialism with personal officiality .

of i mpersonal, supra-empirical rule and the state, w hich i s 21. The first edition of Political Theology(1922) contains

also not an inter-i ndivi dual instance but a supra-individual a note indicating that Schmitt's four chapters on the theory

idea. No in divi dual has autonomy in the state because the of sovereignty were written together with an essay titled

state is a servant either of the indiv idual or of law . If there"The Political Idea of Catho licism," whi ch appeared sepa

is autonomy in law , then onl y the state can be the subject rately in 1923 under the title Roman Catholicism and Politi

of ethos in law. As Schmitt indicates, even the subject of cal Form.

autonomy in Kantian ethics is not the empirical but the 22. Cf. George Schwab's Introduction to Schmitt , Politi

rational i ndividual. The Kantian claim that the individual cal Theology, p. xv.

always has a purpose and should never be a means to an23. Schmitt, Polit ische Theologie II, pp. 21f. and 110.

end holds only so long as the precondition of autonom y i s 24. Schmitt, Political T heology, p. 46 ( translat ion a l

fulfi lled, and this means that the i ndividual must constitered).

tute a rational essence. Given that here Schmitt was not25. Schmitt, Glossarium: Aufzeichnungen der Jahre1947

concerned with the individual in a religious or theological1951, edited by Eberhard Freiherr von Medem (Berlin:

sense, he implied no cri tique of the value of the ind ividualDuncker & Hum blot, 1991), [May 23, 1949], p. 243.

as such. On the contrary, in his view t he indiv idual's task26. Ib id. [October 3, 1947], p. 23.

in relation to the state demonstrated the value of the27. Carl Schmitt, "Die vollendete Reformation: Be

individual in an anti-individualistic age.merkungen und Hinweise zu neuen Leviathan-Interpreta

17. In Schmitt's view, neither skepticism nor the exacttionen," in Der Staat, Zeitschrift fur Staatslehre, Offentliches

sciences could provide a foundation for indiv iduali ty. An age Recht und Verfassungsgeschichte, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1965): 65.

that was both skeptical and exacting could not be individu 28. Cf. Schmitt, Glossarium: A ufzeichnungen der Jahre

alistic. No age before had such a tendency to codification, 1947-1951 Ouly 4, 1949), p. 252 .

calculation, and subsumption. This mechanistic age of 29. Cf. Schmitt, "Die vollendete Reformation," in De r

money economy and technology was outspokenly anti-indi Staat, p. 69.

vidua listic. The two symptoms of the age that had particular 30. I bid., p. 65.

relevance for Schmit t w ere sociology as "the new science of 31. Schmitt, Political Theology, p. 5 (translation altered).

factual correlations, w ithout w hich the individual cannot be Schmitt's concept of decisionism developed in and through

conceived and in which he completely disappears," and hi s cri tiqu e of norrnativism a doctrine consistent w it h

contemporary epistemology, "which seeks the epistemologilegal positivism. Simply stated, a norm cannot realize it

cal subject that can only be found in a supra-individual self; it requires an authoritative instance. Schmitt often


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XXX111


repeats Hobbes's question: Quis iudicabit?, which in many here. Schmitt accepts the validity of Weber's thesis con

respects is also a question of quis interpretabitur?because cerning the peculiar rel ation between t he Protestant ethic

every religious, philosophical or political issue requires and the spirit of capitalism, and the lack of such a spirit

interpreta tion as well as decision. Once made, the decision deriving from Roman Catholicism. His critique of Weber's

becomes independent of any need for substantiation and treatise proceeds on a different level. Schmitt could findacquires an autonomous value a value independent of support for his own thesis concerning the relation between

Roman Catholicism and political form in the works ofany norm. Normatively speaking, the decision derivesErnst Troeltsch. For example, Troeltsch wr ote:from nothing but authority itself, and this authority pre

supposes the ability of an individual to establish order,It seems to me a fact of the highest importance that,

peace and security from a chaotic situation as well as his in the transition from the semi-anarchistic feudalresponsibility to safeguard th is concrete stability. Schmit t states and city-federations to the uniform bureaualso subscribes to Hobbes's dictum , auctoritas, non veritas cratic modern sovereign states, the Church was anfacit legem(authority, not truth makes law}, which presup example of the only sovereign institution whichposes that th e sovereign, by vi rtue of his authority, can governed through a vast body of officials, supdemand obedience in exchange for protection. ported by unconditional obedience, and using a

32. Schmitt, Roman Catholicism and Political Form, p.14. formal wr itten law. Indeed, one might even say that33. I bid., p.17. the modern conception of the State, in which the34. Schmitt, Politische Theologie II , pp. 27-28n. will of the individual is united with a collective wil l35. Schmit t di d not escape the widespread confusion in which can be legally represented, which at the

philosophy concerning the concept of form he addressed same time secures the inviolable personal r ights ofin Political T heology, pp. 27ff., where he also criticizes the individual, found its first method of orientationWeber's confusion. in the Corpus rnysticumof the Church and through

36. Schmitt, Glossarium: Aufzeichnungen der Jahre1947 this it is distinguished from the ancient conception1951 (April 25, 1949}, p. 235. of the State, in which the State is abstractly bound

37. Schmitt, Roman Catholicism and Political Form, p. 20. to observe the laws and in which it was impossible38. I t is perhaps unfair to compare and contrast to keep a clear line of demarcation between the

Schmitt's essay with Weber's treatise in any but the widest collective will and the will of the individual. Atpossible implications because Schmitt's essay was obvi least all these modern conceptions of the law of theously w ri tten in haste, whereas Weber's treatise was wri t State have grown out of the elements of a philosoten over the course of two years and in view of critical phy of the State which was bound up with thecomments. Schmit t's essay also lacks the technical appara Church, and directed towards the collective wi ll oftus of Weber's treatise. Thus, only if the limitations of the Corpus mysticum.Schrnitt' s essay are accepted can a comparison wit h W eber's treatise proceed in terms of Schmitt's intenti ons. It is See The Social Teaching of Chr istian Churches, translated by

the argument rather than the apparatus that is at issue Olive Wyon, with an introduction by H . Richard Niebuhr


17/55


(New York: Harper Books, 1960), Vol. 1, p. 325. Troeltsch's Duncker & Humblot, 1959), pp. 1-34; and Barion, "Kircheinsight und oubtedly comes from the fact that he considers oder Partei?: Romischer Katholizismus und politischethe institution of the Church even as he explores its "social Form,' in Der Staat, No. 4 (1965): 131-1 76.ethics." Wh ile disput ing Weber's thesis, Amint ore Fanfani 41. Max Weber, Economy and S ociety: An O utline of

wrote: "Our outline of Catholic social ethics will have made Interpretive Sociology, edited by G uenther Roth and Clausit clear that Catholics, so long as they held closely to the Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978),

social teachings of the Church, could never act i n favor of Vol. 2, p. 829.

capitalism." See Catholicism, Protestantism, and Capitalism 42. Schmitt, Political T heology, p. 6 5 ( translat ion a l(New York : Sheed & Ward , 1955). Schmitt would h ave no tered).argument with this statement. But if one stops there, one 43. Ibid., p. 65.has only negatively grasped the essence of Catholic "social 44. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p. 78.ethics." Troeltsch grasped the posit ive essence that Schmitt 45. Schmitt, Roman Catholicism and Political Form, pp .developed into a thesis to match Weber's own. See also 31-32.

Ernst Troeltsch, Protestantism and P rogress: A H istorical 46. Max Weber, "The Evolution of the Capitalistic

Study of the Relation of Protestantism to the Modern World, Spirit," in W eber, General Economic History, translated by

translated by W. Montgomery (New York: G. P. Putnam's Frank H . Knight (New York: Collier Books, 1961), p. 270.Sons, 1912). For contrary views of the origin of capitalism 47. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalwith particular respect to Catholicism, see Luciano Pelli ism, p. 182 (translation altered).cani, The Genesis of Capitalism and the Origins of Modernity 48. See Jacques Chailley, Mus ique et e soterisme: L a(1988), translated from the Italian by James G. Colbert, Flute enchantee, opera maconnir/ue(Paris : R. L af font,edited by Kerry Milliron (New York: Telos Press, 1995) and 1968); The Magic Flute: Masonic Opera(New York: AlfredMichael Novak, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capital A. Knopf, 1971). Chailley reveals the existence of a conism(New York: The FreePress, 1993). troversy in eighteenth-century Masonic circles over

39. See G . L. U lmen, "Politische Theologie und Politi whether women should be admitted as full memberssche Okonomie: Uber Carl Schmitt und Max Weber," in whether they should be admitted to full enlightenment.Quaritsch, Complexio Oppositorum: Uber Carl Schmitt, pp. (In Freemasonry women represent the emotional, instinc

341-365; see also Chapter II/1 of my book, Politischer tive, unreasoning, "inferior" part of the human psyche.)Mehrwert: Eine Studie tiber Max Weber und Carl Schmitt The regeneration in the person of Pamino becomes the

(Weinheim: VCH Acta humaniora, 1991). focal point of the opera. In the end it is she, fully aw ak40. Schmitt, Polit ische T heologie I I, p. 1 00. Schmitt's ened by her love for Tam ino, wh o leads him in the f inal

reference is to Hans Barion's book, Sakularisation und stage of their jou rney to enlightenment. Thus, the plot isUtopie(Ebrach: Ebracher Stu dien, 1967), p. 190. See also nothing so simple as a struggle between "good" MasonicBarion, "Ordnung und Ortung in Kanonischen Recht," in priests being threatened by the "evi l" Queen of theFestschrift fur Carl Schmittzum 70. Geburtstag, edited by N ight of superst itio n and ignorance because they ar e

Hans Bar ion, Ernst Forstho ff , and Werner Weber (Ber li n : a ll p lay ing the same game. I t i s, rathe r, a j ou rney f rom


18/55

INTRODUCTION

darkness to light that celebrates the possibility of human

progress. The confiict between the Queen of the Night

and Sarastro for control of the Circle of the Sun symbol

izes in Masonic law the dualisms of the inscriptions on

the twin pillars of H iram's Temple of Solomon: Mascu NOTE ON THEl i ne /Femin ine , Sun /Moon, Day /N igh t , F i re /Wate r ,Gold/Silver, and so on. The Queen seeks to perpetuate TRANSLATIONthe conflicts; Sarastro aims to resolve them by creating

with T amino and Pamino "the new pair," that is, the

synthesis of all the antagonisms that will herald a new

Golden Age of peace and freedom. The unity-in-diversity

of the opera's musical style is the analog of the theme of

reconciliation. The Queen and her creatures are not so

much defeated by fo rce as cast off in to the night, becausethey are revealed to be nothing more than phantoms and

memories of former disorder i n the unenlightened soul.49. This is the critic Frank Kermode's characterization.

Caliban is a Noble Savage, modeled on Shakespeare's con

ception of an American Indian but retaining elements of an

Old World mythical figure.50. On Schmitt's irony regarding Papageno and Cali

ban, see Schmitt, Glossarium: A ufzeichnungen der Jah re1947 1951 (October 8, 1947), pp. 28f.

51. Schmitt, Roman Catholicism and Political Form, p. 34.52. Ibid.

53. Ibid.


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his translation is based on the thi rd German edition of

Carl Schmit t's essay, Romischer Katholiz ismus und polit ische

Form, published by Klett-Cotta in Stuttgart in 1984, itself a

reprint of the improved second edition pub lished by Theat

iner-Verlag in Munich in 1925 with the imprimatur: DER

KATHOLISCHE GEDAN KE, Veroffentlichungen des Verbandes der Vereine Katholischer Akadem iker zur Pflege der

Katholischen Weltanschauung, Vol. XIII. The first edition

was published by Jakob Hegner Verlag in Hellerau in 1923.

An unau thorized translation of Schmit t's essay was pub

lished by Sheed & Ward in London in 1931. Long out of

print, it appeared in a series, Essays in Order: No. 5, underthe somewhat misleading tit le: The Necessity of Politics: An

Essay on the Representative Idea in the Church and Modern

Europe. Although no t ranslator is named, the introduction

was written by Christopher Dawson. At the time Dawson,

a Catholic, was Lecturer in th e History of Cult ure at University College, London. Interested prim arily in the relation

between religion and culture, specifically Catholic theology

and Catholic lif e, he quickly recognized the significance of

Schmitt's essay. But his introduction does not evidence a

very clear understanding of Schmitt's thesis, even with

respect to the concrete historical situation of modern Ca

tholicism. More to the point, Dawson's translator was

neither technically nor conceptually fit for the task. The


20/55

NOTE ON THE TRANSLATIONNOTE ON THE TRANSLATION

zone"; and still another, where Schmitt asserts that Romantranslation is so inaccurate, the style so indifferent , that it

Catholics appear to love the soil in a different way thanis w orse than useless because it distor ts Schmitt 's meaning.

Protestants, Codd has "Catholic countries" having a differAnother, more recent unauthorized translation of

ent relation to t he soil than "protestant lands." In the sameSchmitt's essay has been published in mimeograph under

context, Schmitt says that the Huguenot or the Puritan has

the title: The Idea of Representation:A Discussion(Washing a strength and a pride that is often "inh uman," as comparedton, D.C.: Plutarch Press, 1988}. The translator is identified

with the human character of the Catholic concept of nature,only as E. M. Codd, but the editor who int roduces the work ,

which Codd tr anslates as "super-human."Simona Draghici, identifies herself as "a European-Ameri

Much o f Schmit t's meaning in this essay relies on suchcan social scientist wh o among other t hings holds a Ph.D

nuances, which the Codd tr anslation by and l arge misses.in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin." Not

There are, of course, many o ther pr oblems, some of themincidentally, she is also the editor-in-chie f of Plutarch Press.

quite amusing, such as Codd's characterization of Karl M arxShe informs the reader that "her interests in the compara

and Friedrich Engels as "two West Germans," and thetive studies of social insti tu tions have led her more recently

reference to Bakunin i n this same connection, which heto the analysis of the recurrent phenomenon of civiliza

renders thus: "everything in the anarchistic Russian retional [sic] decline." Her in troduction can most generously

volted against the 'German Jew who on top of it all hailedbe described as fanciful, when not factually incorrect. It from Treves [Trier].' " But perhaps the most serious failingseems likely that it was the editor who fabricated the

is the translator's haphazard treatment of the w ord andchapter titles to Codd's translation, since the last and most

concept of form, which play such a significant role ingrotesque, "Whereto Human ity[?]," corresponds to her no

Schmitt's essay.tion of "civilizational decline," although such Spenglerian

Concerning the present translation, a few words are inattributes are far from Schmitt's thinking.

order. While the structure of Schmitt's text remains unAs for the Codd translation, there are fewer inaccuracies

changed, I have taken the liberty of dividing many of histhan in the Dawson volume, although stylistically and

longer paragraphs to clarify the meaning. For this samegrammatically i t reads like the work of someone for whom

reason, and because some of the n ames, events, and docuEnglish is a second language. But the misunderstandings

ments Schmitt mentions are not as familiar today as they noare still sufficient to make the translation more problematic

doubt were earlier in this century, and certainly not asthan useful. A few examples will suffice. At the beginning familiar to American as to European readers, I have addedof Schmitt's essay, Codd translates the word Vaticanumas

some notes of identification. Since Schmitt's writing style issimply "the Vatican," which misses the point entirely, since

characteristically more accessible than much German prose,the term refers to the First Vatican Council of 1869-1870.

there was little need to sacrifice idiom for clarity. Finally, IThis Council changed fundamentally the relation between

have held to Schmitt's practice of uti lizing adjectival nounsChurch and state with the doctrine of papal infallibility, and

the poli tica l, the economic, the religious, and so on becausethis doctrine is essential to an understanding of Schmitt's

such have a specific conceptual distinction: they designateconcept of "polit ical for m." At another place, the philosophi

separate spheres of intellect or practical acti vity.cal category of "indifference point" is translated as "neutral


21/55

ROMAN CATHOLICISMAND POLITICAL FORM

Carl Schmitt


22/55

T here is an anti-Roman temper that has nou rished th estruggle against popery, Jesuitism and clericalism with a

host of religious and political forces, that has impelled

European history for centu ries. Not only fanatic sectarians

but whole generations of pious Protestants and Greek-Or

thodox Christi ans have seen in Rome the Antichrist or theBabylonian whore of the apocalypse. The mythical power

of this image is deeper and stronger than any economic

calculation; its after-effects long endure. Consider Glad

stone, or Bismarck's memoirs,~ wherein a nervous uneasi

ness is evident whenever mysteriously intriguing Jesuits or

prelates appear on the scene. Yet the emotional, one mi ght

even say mythical, arsenal of the Kulturkampf and the whole

struggle against the Vaticanum,2as well a s the F rench

separation of church and state, are harmless by comparison

with Cromwell's demonic rage. Since the eighteenth cen

tury, the argumentation has become ever more rationalisticor humanitarian, util itarian and shallow. Only with an

adherent of Russian orthodoxy, with Dostoyevsky in hisportrayal of the Grand Inquisitor, does the anti-Roman

dread appear once again as a secular f orce.In all these various nuances and gradations there is

always the lingering fear of the incomprehensible political

power of Roman Catholicism. I can well imagine that a

Protestant Anglo-Saxon may find all his antipathies ex


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ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND POLITICAL FORM ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND POLITICAL FORM

pressed in the "papal machine," if he surmises it is a appropriates all freedoms of one's opponent in the name of

monstrous hierarchical apparatus bent on control ling relig the opponent 's princ iples and denies them to him in the name

ious life and directed by men who in principle refuse to of one's own Catholic principles." How often one sees the

have a family; in other words, a celibate bureaucracy. Wit h picture drawn by bourgeois, socialist, and anarchistic paci

his refined domestic sensibility and aversion to every bu fists: High Church dignita ries blessing the guns of all warr ingreaucratic control, that must indeed frighten him . At any nations; or neo-Catholic literati, partly monarchist, partly

rate, it is more an unspoken sentiment . communist; or finally, to cite another sort of sociological

For the whole of the parliamentary and democratic nine impression, the [French] abbe, favored by court ladies, side

teenth century, one most often heard the charge that Catho by side with the Irish Franciscan encouraging strik ing work

l ic pol i tics is noth ing more than a limi t less opportunism. Its ers to stand f irm. One can always point to a new example of

elasticity is really astounding; it unites with opposing move similar contradi ctory figures and associations.

ments and groups. Th ousands of times i t has been accused Some of thi s diversit y and ambigui ty the double face,

of mak ing common cause with various governments and the Janus-head, the hermaphr oditi c natur e (as Byron char

parties in different countries. Critics have demonstrated acterized Rome) can be explained simpl y by pol itical or

how it always pursues political coalitions, whether with sociological analogies. In the tactics of political struggle,

absolute monarchs or monar chomachists; how, during the every party with an established world-view can form coaHoly Al liance, after 1815, it became a center of reaction and litions wit h the most disparate groupings. This is no less

an enemy of all liberal freedoms, and in other countri es an true of orthodox socialism, insofar as it has a radical prin

exponent of these same freedoms, especial ly freedom of the c ip le, than i t is of Cathol ic ism. Given the state of affai rs in

press and freedom of education; how, in European monar partic ular count ries, th e nati onal movemen t has also

chies, it preaches the alliance of thr one and altar, and in the aligned itself at one time with a legitimate monarchy, at

peasant democracies of the Swiss cantons or in North another wit h a democratic republic. From the standpoint of

America it stands wholly on the side of a firm democracy. a world-view, all political f orms and possibilities become

Men of such eminence as Montalembert,s Tocqueville, and nothing more than tools for the realization of an idea. Some

Lacordaire4 represented liberal Catholicism at a time when of wha t appears inconsistent is only the consequence and

many of their fellow Catholics still saw in liberalism the manifestation of a political universalism.

Antichrist or at least his forerunner. Catholic royalists and From al l sides there is a remarkable consensus that the

legitimists appear arm-in-arm wit h Catholic d efenders of Roman Catholic Church as an historical complex and ad

the republic. Some Catholics are tactically aligned wit h a ministrative apparatus has perpetuated the universalism of

socialism others believe to be in league with the devil. They the Roman Empire. French nationalists like Charles Maur

have even parlayed wit h Bolsheviks at a time when bour ras, German racial theorists like H. Stewart Chamberlain ,

geois advocates of the sanctity of private property still saw German professors of li beral pr ovenance like Max Weber,

in them a cabal of cr imin als hors ta loi. a Pan-Slavic poet and seer like Dostoyevsky all base their

With every change in the political situation, all principles interpretations on this continuity of the Catholic Church

appear to change save one: the power of Catholicism. "One and the Roman Empire. To every worldly empire belongs a


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certain relativism with respect to the motley of possible nature of univ ersalism than one can interpret the anti-Ro

views, ruthless disregard of local peculiarities as well as man temper as a national or local reaction against univ er

opportunistic tolerance for things of no central importance. salism and centralism, since it cannot be denied that every

The similarities between the Roman Empire and the British empire in w orld history h as evoked such reactions.

Empire are sufficiently stri king. Every imperialism that is All the same, I believe this temper would have becomemore than j ingoism embraces anti theses conservatism and infinit ely deeper if one had grasped completely the extent

liberalism, tradition and progress, even militarism and to which the Catholic Churc h is a complex of opposites, a

pacifism . I n t he hist ory of English p olit ics from the an complexio oppositorum. There appears to be no antithesis it

tithesis between [Edmund] Burke and Warren Hastings to does not embrace. It has long and proudly claimed to have

that between Lloyd George and [Winston] Churchill or Lord united wi thin itself all forms of state and government; to be

Curzon almost every generation has evidenced such an an autocratic monarchy whose head is elected by the

titheses. aristocracy of cardinals but in whi ch there is nevertheless

Despite the allusion to the peculiarities of universalism, so much democracy that, as Dupanloups put it, even the

the pol itical idea of Catholicism has as yet not been defined . least shepherd of Abruzzi, regardless of his birth and sta

It has only to be menti oned, because the feeling of anxiety tion, has the possibility to become this autocratic sovereign.

with respect to the universal administrative apparatus often Its history knows examples of astounding accommodationarises from a justifiable reaction of national and local as well as stubborn in transigence, the manly abi lit y to resist

movements. Many a national patriot must feel ignored and and woman ly comp liance a curious mi xtu re of ar rogance

cheated in the strongly centralized Roman system. An and humil ity. It is not easily understandable that a rigorous

Irishman, reflecting the embitterment of his Gaelic national philosopher of authoritarian dictatorship, like the Spanish

consciousness, opined that Ireland was just "a pinch of snuff diplomat Donoso Cortes, and a "good Samaritan" of the poor

in the Roman snuffbox" (he would have rather said: A with syndicalist connections, like the Irish r ebel Padraic

chicken the prelate would drop into the caldron which he Pearse, were both staunch Catholics.

was boiling for the cosmopolitan restaurant).s However, But this complexio oppositorumalso holds sway o ver

Catholics in particular (Tyrolers, Spaniards, Poles, Iri sh) everything theological: the Old and New Testament alike

have Catholicism to thank for a large part of their nat ional are scriptural canon; the M arcionit icg either-or is answered

strength of resistance, and certainly not only when the with an as-well-as. Here also, many arrangements are con

oppressor was an enemy of the Church. Cardinal Mer ciers ceivable, because so many elements of God's immanence

of Mechlin as well as Bishop Korumr of Trier have more in the doctrine of the Trinity are attributed to Jewish

imposingly and impressively represented national honor monotheism and its absolute transcendence. French athe

and self-confidence than have trade and industry, and thi s ists and German metaphysicians, who rediscovered poly

in the face of an opponent w ho in no way appeared as an theism in the nineteenth century, praised the Church

enemy of the Church but rather sought an alliance with it. because they believed they had found a sound paganism in

One can no more account for such manifestations with its veneration of saints. The fundamental thesis to which

mere poli tical or sociological explanations derived from the all dogmas of a consistent anarchistic philosophy of state


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and society return, namely, the antithesis of man "by nature lic comptexiointo one of many s yntheses and rashly conevil " and "by nat ure good" this decisive question fo r po clude that he had thereby construed the essence of Catholi

litical theory is in no sense answered by a simple yes or cism. The metaphysicians of speculative post-Kantian

no in the Trident ine Creed. philosophy conceived organic and historical life as an eter

In contrast to the Protestant doctr ine of the total deprav nal process of ant itheses and syn theses, assigning the reity of natural man, this Creed speaks of human nature as spective roles at wi l l. When Goerres~o pictures Catholicism

only wounded, weakened, and troubled, thus permitt ing the as the mascul ine and Protestantism as the feminine princiuse of some gradations and adaptations. The union of ple, he makes of Catholicism nothing more than an antiantitheses extends to the ult imate socio-psychological roots thet ical extreme and sees the synthesis in a "higher thi rd ."of h uman m otives and perceptions. The pope is called the It is obvious that Catholicism could as well be consideredFather; the Church is the Mother of Believers and the Bride the feminine and Protestantism the masculine princi ple. Itof Christ. This is a marvelous union of the patriarchal and is also conceivable that speculative sy stem-builders have atthe matriarchal, able to direct both streams of the most one time or another considered Catholicism the "higherelemental complexes and inst incts respect for the father third."and love for the mother toward Rome. Has there ever been This idea had part icular appeal for Romantics who toyed

a revol t against the mother? Ul timately, most important is with Cathol icism, a lthough they also did not readily re frainthat this l imit less ambiguity combines with the most precise from exhort ing the Church to break free of Jesuitism and

dogmat ism and a wil l to decision as i t cu lminates in the scholasticism in order to create an "organic" higher uni ty

doctrine of papal infallibi lity. out of the schematic externality of formal Catholicism andFrom the standpoint of the political idea of Catholicism, the imperceptible internality of Protestantism. Such is the

the essence of the R oman-Catholic complexio oppositorum basis of the apparently typical misunderstanding. But theselies in a specific, formal superiority over the matter of constructs are still more than fantasies out of the blue.human life such as no other imperium has ever known. It Though it sounds improbable, they are completely in harhas succeeded in const itu ting a sustaining conf igurat ion of mony wi th the spi ri t o f our age because thei r in te llectual

historical and social reality that, despite its formal charac structure accords with a reality. Their point of departure is

ter , reta ins i ts concrete existence at once v i ta l and yet actual ly a real cleavage and d iv is ion: an ant i thesis that cal ls

rational to the nth degree. This formal character of Roman for a synthesis or a polarity that has an "indifference point";Catholicism is based on a strict realization of t he princi ple a condition of problematic disunity and profound indeciof representation, the particular ity of which is most evident sion from which the only escape is self-negation in order toin its antithesis to the economic-technical thinking domi arrive at [positive] positions.nant today. Before proceeding, however, it is s ti ll necessary Every sphere of the contemporary epoch is governed by

to eliminate a misunderstanding. a radical dualism. It will be necessary to refer frequently to

Out o f a sp ir i tual promiscui ty which seeks a Romanti c i ts va rious man ifestat ions as we go along . It s common

or Hegel ian brotherhood wi th Cathol icism, as wi th so many ground is a concept of nature that has found i ts real izat ion

other ideas and individuals, a person could make the Catho in a wor ld transf ormed by techno logy and indust ry. Nature


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10 ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND POLITICAL FORM ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND POLITICAL FORM

appears today as the polar antithesis of the mechanistic of art and enterprise, also not of intellect and feeling or

world of big cities, w hose stone, iron, and glass structures heart; human labor and organic development, nature and

lie on the face of the earth like colossal Cubist configura reason, are one. Viniculture is the most beautiful symbol of

tions. The antithesis of this empire of technology is natur e this union. But the cities that develop out of this type of

untouched by civi lization, wil d and b arbarian a reservaspirit also appear as naturally grown products of the soil,

tion into which "man with his affliction does not set foot." which become part of the landscape and remain true to the

Such a dichotomy between a rationalistic-mechanistic earth. In their essential concept of " urbanity," they have a

world of human labor and a romantic-virginal state of humanity that remains eternally inaccessible to the mecha

nature is totally foreign to the Roman Catholic concept of nistic precisionism of a modern industrial city. Just as the

nature. Tridentine Creed knows little of the Protestant rupture of

It appears that Catholics have a different relation to the nature and grace, so Roman Catholicism understands litt le

soil than Protestants, perhaps because, in contrast to Prot of the dualisms of nature and spirit, nature and intellect,

estants, they are mostly agricult ural peoples who know no nature and art, nature and machine, and their varying

large industry. In any case, this is generally true. Why have pathos. The synthesis of such ant itheses remains as foreign

there been no Catholic migrations, at least none on the as the antithesis of empty form and fo rmless matter.

grand scale of t he H uguenot or the Puritan? There have The Catholic Church is categorically something otherbeen any number of Catholic emigrants: Irish, Poles, Ital than the (in any case, always absent) "higher third" of the

ians, Croats. Probably most emigrants have been Catholic, German philosophy of nature and history. To it belong

because most simple Catholics were by and large poorer neither the despair of an titheses nor the il lusory opti mism

than Protestants. Poverty, peril, and persecution have im of their synthesis. For this reason, a Catholic must consider

pelled them. But they never lose the longing for their it a dubious honor when someone seeks to make his Church

homeland. into th e antagonistic pole of the mechanistic age. It is a

Compared wit h these indigent, dispossessed peoples, the striking contradiction, again demonstrating the curious

Huguenot or t he Puritan has a strength and pr ide that is complexio oppositorum, that one of the strongest Protestant

often inh uman. He is capable of li ving on any soil. But it perceptions finds in Roman Catholicism a debasement and

would be wrong to say he finds roots on every soil. He can misuse of Christianity because it mechanizes religion into

build his industry far and wide, make all soil the servant of a soulless formality, while at the same time Protestantshis skilled labor and "inner-worldly asceticism," and in the return in Romantic flight to the Catholic Church seeking

end have a comfortable home; all this because he makes salvation from the soullessness of a rationalist ic and mecha

himself master of nature and harnesses it to hi s wil l. Hi s nistic age.

type of domination remains inaccessible to the Roman Were the Church to have rested content with being

Catholic concept of n ature. nothing more than the soulful polarity of soullessness, it

Roman Catholic peoples appear to love the soil, mother would have forgotten it s true self; it would have become

earth, in a different way; they all have their own "terrisme" the desired com plement of capitalism a hygienic instit u

[loyalty to the land]. Nature is for them not the antithesis tion for endur ing the rigors of competitio n, a Sunday outing


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1312 ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND POLITICAL FORM ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND POLITICAL FORM

or a summer sojourn of big-city dwellers. Naturally, the the motor impelling the cosmic machine. The chimera of

Church has an important therapeutic function. But the modern big-city dwellers is filled to the last atom with

essence of such an institution must consist in something technological and industrial conceptions, which are pro

more. Rousseauism and Romanticism are able to take pleas jected int o cosmological or m etaphysical realms. In thi s

ure in many things, including Catholicism, as they would naive mechanistic and mathematical my thology, the wor ld

in a magnificent ruin or an authenticated antique; and "in becomes a gigantic dynamo wherein there is even no

the fauteuil of the achievements of 1789," also to make these distinction of classes.

things into consumer goods of a relativi stic bourgeoisie. The world-view of the modern capitalist is the same as

Many Catholics, especially German Catholics, appear to that of the industrial proletarian, as if the one were the twin

be proud of having been discovered by art historians. Their brother of the other. Thus they are of one accord when they

delight, of little note in itself, would not need be mentioned struggle side by side for economic thinking. Insofar as

were it not for the fact that such an original and prolific a socialism has become the religion of the industrial proletar

thinker as Georges Sorel sought the crisis of Catholic iat of big cities, it contraposes a fabulous mechanism to that

thought in the newalliance of the Church with irrational of the capitalist world. The class-conscious proletariat con

ism. In his view, the argumentation of Catholic apologetics siders itself th e legitimate, if only the logically qualified

until the eighteenth century was to demonstrate faith basedmaster of this apparatus, whereas the private property of

on reason, but in the nineteenth century the Church bene the capitalist i s seen as the logically adverse remnant of a

fited fr om i rrationalistic currents. In fact, every conceivable technically backward age. The big industr ialist has no other

type of opposition to the Enlightenment and rationalism ideal than that of L enin an "electrifie d earth ." They dis

reinvigorated Catholicism. Traditionalist, mystical, and Ro agree essentially only on the correct method of electrifica

mantic tendencies made many converts. Today, as far as I tion. American financiers and Russian Bolsheviks find

can judge, Catholics are profoundly dissatisfied with estab themselves in a common struggle for economic thinking,

lished apologetics, which appear to many as sophistry and that is, the struggle against politicians and jurists. Georges

forms without content. But all this misses the essential Sorel also belongs to thi s fraternity. Here then, in the

point, because it identifies rationalism wi th the th inki ng of economic thin king of our t ime, is a fundamental antithesis

the natural sciences and overlooks the fact that Catholic to the pol itical idea of Catholicism , because this idea con

argumentation is based on a particular mode of think ing tradicts everything synonymous with objectivity, integrity,whose method of proof is a specific juridical logic and and rationality in economic thinking.

whose focus of interest is the normat ive guidance of human The rationalism of the Roman Church morally encom

social lif e. passes the psychological and sociological natu re of man and ,

In a lmost every discussion one can observe the extent to unlike industry and technology, is not concerned with the

which the metho

47489812 Carl Schmitt Roman Catholic Ism and Political Form

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