THE THEOLOGICO-POLITICAL?originally supported by the image of Christ does not mean that it must abandon that
image when the Christological reference loses its efficacy as a result, in part, of the strategy
of the pope and his exclusive claim to be the Vicar of Christ. Long after the disintegration
of the tenth-century Othonian myth, theTraite ́du sacrewritten for Charles V explicitly
makes him a substitute for Christ, and indeed, as Michelet rightly notes, Louis XVI could
still benefit from that identification. Similarly, the fact that in the age of Frederick II and
Bracton the representation of the king is firmly supported by that of Justice and Right
should not make us forget that a veritable religion of Right was reformulated in the
sixteenth century and that it contains within it elements of a future system in which the
body politic or the kingdom will appear to be the sacred body of the king. Nor should we
forget that when, in hisDe Monarchia, Dante paints a portrait of an emperor who, insofar
as he possesses a universal authority, can represent the One and can therefore represent
the coming together of humanity as a body, despite the multiplicity of its members and
the sequence of generations, his theologico-political vision of humanism cannot be ex-
plained away in terms of contemporary conditions (still less can it be reduced to a nostal-
gic longing for empire). Dante’s vision was prefigured by the lengthy labors of the Italian
jurists, and it will be reactivated in the period of Charles IV, Elizabeth, Francis I and
Henry III. When imperial ambition is combined with a universal language, the ideas of
theDe Monarchiaand the double figure of Augustus and Astra, of might and justice, will
be exploited anew and will be used to promote the edification of a new monarchy and
the conquest of the world. The essentials remain unchanged: the theologico-political is
revealed in the deployment of a system of representations whose terms may be trans-
formed, but whose oppositional principle remains constant.
When royalty is made by the institution of unction and coronation, it is possible for
the king to argue the case for a sovereignty that removes him from the rest of humanity,
that allows him to be a Vicar or minister of Christ, to seem to have been made in his
image, and to have both a natural, mortal body and a supernatural, immortal body. At
the same time, it is possible for the pope, who controls the rite of coronation, to seize the
emblems of the monarchy and to imprint his power on the temporal realm (and this
possibility was later realized through the Gregorian reforms and in the dispute over inves-
titures). When, in an attempt to undo the imbrication of secular and priestly functions
that came about as a result of the sanctification of royalty, the Church acquires the
strength to circumscribe its domain and to become a functional body modeled on the
emergent states, it tries to differentiate itself radically from all other political entities and
to preserve its spiritual mission by claiming to be a mystical body (corpus Ecclesiae mys-
ticum)—the very body of Christ, who also represents its head. At the same time, a reli-
gious vocation is reimprinted on the kingdom, which defines itself as a mystical body
(corpus Republicae mysticum)—the body of the king, who also represents its head. When
the reexploitation of Roman law and of Aristotelianism provides theology and political
theory with a new conceptual framework, the ancient concepts ofimperium,populus,
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