Ancient Western Political Thought

Western civilization has been described as the synthesis of Jerusalem and Athens. Athens represents the classical influences of the Greek and Roman civilizations. Jerusalem represents the Jewish and Christian influences. Western political thought consequently draws from each of these ancient sources.

Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle provided the vocabulary for talking about different kinds of government. They offered ideas of what justice, virtue, and "the good life" mean, creating criteria by which to judge governments. Perhaps most importantly, they provided an ideal of critical thought, reflection, and self-examination that allowed people to question the institutions around them. Greek leaders were thus able to attempt experiments in government, such as the Athenian democracy or the Spartan military state. The Greek states eventually fell under the control of Rome, which at that time had an innovative form of government itself: the Roman Republic. Even when the Republic became the empire, an idea of the rights and duties of citizenship continued to provide order and stability.

The idea of "covenant" from Jewish thought, transmitted by Jewish thinkers or indirectly through Christian writers, provides another strain of thought which helped develop later ideals of constitutional government. The arrangements of the ancient covenants provided for the supremacy of the Law over the rulers, and consequent limitations on the powers of kings and judges.

The two currents, Athens and Jerusalem, met in Rome. The Roman Empire brought both under one government and provided a common language. But the exact mix of ideas that forged Western civilization was created by Christianity. The Jewish origins of Christianity met the classical world in numerous authors, who either attempted to refute one or the other, or to form some type of synthesis. In political thought, writers such as St. Augustine and St. Gelasius I proposed ideas that became foundational to Western civilization.