The care of Di Pietro Carlo
PRINCIPAL OF THE GOVERNMENT
• As the book of Proverbs says: «The king's heart is in the hands of God; to everything he wants, He bends it". And the famous great monarch of the East also confesses this, Ciro, King of the Persians, with a public edict. In fact after defeating Babylon, which he had razed to the ground, as the story goes, said these words, as appears at the beginning of the Book of Ezra: «Thus says Cyrus, King of the Persians: – The Lord, the God of heaven, he has given me all the kingdoms of the earth". From this it is evident that all dominion comes from God as from the first lord: something that can be demonstrated, as Aristotle mentions, through three ways, that is, considering it as an entity, as an engine, as an end.
• Under the aspect of an entity: because all the individual entities must be traced back to the first entity, as at the beginning of every entity, just as all heat must be traced back to the heat of fire, according to Aristotle's explanations in the second book of the Metaphysics. So, for the same reason that every entity depends on the first entity, dominion will also depend on him; since it is based on being; and on an even more noble entity, How much, to dominate over men of equal nature, a man is placed before them. But from this one must not draw reason to be proud, but rather to govern his people with humanity, as Seneca says in a letter to Lucilius. This is why it is written in Ecclesiasticus: «They made you boss? Don't show pride: be among them as one of them". Therefore, as every entity depends on the first entity, which is the primary cause, so also every dominion of the creature depends on God as the first dominant and first being.
• Moreover: every plurality proceeds from the one, and is measured with unity, as the tenth book of Aristotle's First Philosophy teaches; therefore in the same way the plurality of dominants also originates from a single dominant, which is God. Precisely as in the royal court we find the respective superintendents for the various tasks, but they all depend on one, that is, by the king. Therefore Aristotle in the twelfth book of First Philosophy says that «God, that is, the first cause, he is to the entire universe as the commander, on which all the multiplicity of camps depends, it's up to the army". Therefore Moses in Exodus also calls God the leader of the people: «In your mercy – dice – you made yourself leader of the people you liberated". Therefore every dominion originates from God.
• Still, on the same topic: virtue is proportionate to the entity to which it belongs and is adequate to it; since virtue springs from the essence of the thing, as is clear from the I and II books of Aristotle's Heaven. So, as the created being is to the uncreated, which is God; thus the virtue of each created entity is related to the uncreated virtue, also God, because everything that is in God is God. But every created entity originates from the uncreated entity. Therefore created virtue originates from uncreated virtue. This fact is then presupposed in the domain, since there is no dominion when there is no power, or virtue; therefore all dominion will derive from uncreated virtue, and this is God, as we have already said. And so we have the same conclusion as before. This is why Saint Paul says (to the Jews), that God "supports all things by the power of his word". And in the Ecclesiasticus we read: «Only one is the most high, the omnipotent creator, the king powerful and terrible beyond measure, who sits on his throne. God the ruler". From these statements it clearly appears who he is from whom each creature receives its being, virtue and operation, and consequently the dominion; and to a much greater extent the king, as we have already demonstrated.
• But that dominion comes from God is not demonstrated only by starting from beings, but also starting from motion. And first of all we must assume Aristotle's argument in the eighth book of Physics: «That is, we start from the fact that everything that moves, it is moved by others. And on the other hand, one cannot go on forever in the series of motives and moved subjects. Therefore we must arrive at a first unmoved mover which is God, that is, to the first cause". Now among all men those who participate most in the movement are kings and princes and all those who are at the head, both in governing, both in judging, both in defending, and in all other functions pertaining to the care of government. Perciò Seneca in his work De Consolatione, addressed to Polybius, to exhort him to despise the world, thus he speaks of Caesar: «When you want to forget everything, think of Cesare. See how much security you owe to the goodness of his life, and how much healing; you will understand that you cannot bend any more than him. If in myths we talk about someone on whose shoulders the world rests, we can also say this about Cesare, to whom everything is permitted; and for the same reason many things are not permitted to him: His vigilance defends everyone's things, his labor is everyone's rest, his activity the pleasures of all. For the fact that Caesar dedicated himself to the whole world, he withdrew from himself; like the stars that, firmer, they always follow their course, and they can never stop or do anything of their own".
• Therefore, if so much motion should be attributed to kings and other lords, it is clear that they cannot accomplish it except through the influence and virtue of the prime mover, that is, of God, like we tried before. Therefore in the book of Wisdom, where the effects of divine virtue through his wisdom are enumerated, the author, wanting to show how all things participate in the influence of divine motion, he immediately adds: «Of everything that moves, wisdom is the most mobile, and it reaches everywhere because of its purity". And he calls the absolute "purity"., superior and pure virtue with which God moves everything in the likeness of the material light which, in this respect, imitates divine light.
• Second, each primary cause influences the effect more than a secondary cause. Now the first cause is God. Therefore if all things move by virtue of the first cause, and they all receive the influence of the first motion, even the movement of those who govern will derive from the virtue of God and from divine motion.
• Third, if there is a subordination in bodily movements, there will be even more in the spiritual ones. This is how we see in bodies, that the inferiors are moved by the superiors, and all can be traced back to the motion of the supreme one, which is the ninth sphere, according to Ptolemy (Almagesto, 1), or the octave according to Aristotle (The sky, 2). So, if all the motions of bodies are regulated by the first, and from the first they receive influence, this will happen much more for spiritual substances due to the greater resemblance they have to each other. Therefore they are more suitable to receive the influence of the first and supreme mover which is God. Saint Dionysius discusses this motion in his books The Divine Names and The Celestial Hierarchy, distinguishing the motions of spiritual substances as those in bodies, in circular motion, straight and oblique. These motions then consist of particular illuminations which they receive from superior substances, to act, as the Doctor himself explains; and to receive these illuminations the disposition of the mind on which this driving influence is expressed is necessary. Ora, of all men who must be most disposed, there are kings, the princes and other rulers of the world, both for the function they have, and for all universal government functions, for which the mind must elevate itself more to divine things, and because they have the duty to dispose themselves to govern the flock, in such a way as to effectively feel the movement imprinted by God on their acts of government, which are superior to them and which exceed the particular nature.
• In fact, this is how King David arranged himself; and for this reason, due to the motion of the aforementioned divine illumination, he deserved in his Psalms a prophetic spirit superior to that of all the kings and prophets, as the experts of the Holy Scripture say. E, for an action contrary to this, the heathen princes, of which the prophet Daniel speaks, such as Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, father and son, they deserved to be darkened. Thus the influence of divine illumination moved their imagination to imaginative visions, as appears from the Book of Daniel, so that they would know what they were to do in governing the kingdom; but because their mind was not disposed, but shrouded in darkness, they were unable to understand them. That's why to Daniele, endowed with prophetic light, was said: “You were given the spirit of understanding to interpret these things”; so that what Solomon says in Proverbs could be verified: «Mine is the advice and the equity, my prudence, the fortress is mine. For me kings reign and legislators decree the right, for me princes dominate and magistrates regulate justice". It therefore remains proven, starting from motion, that all power comes from God.
From Saint Thomas Aquinas, Of the government of the princes to the king of Cyprus, Non-negotiable principles on society and politics, Book III, Chapters I and II, It is considered and demonstrated that all power comes from God, starting from its nature as an entity – The same thing is demonstrated starting from the motion of every created nature.
Source:
https://www.sursumcorda.cloud/articoli/de-regimine-principum/1780-san-tommaso-si-dimostra-per-natura-che-ogni-potere-viene-da-dio.html