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To: Campion; Bainbridge

The doctrine of "divine right" of kings was actually an English Protestant invention (James I, to be specific), not a Catholic one.

I believe your scholarship is faulty; to wit:
This concept was also found in the Aryan and Egyptian traditions.
Unlike the Chinese concept of the Mandate of Heaven which
legitimized the overthrow of an oppressive or incompetent monarch,
a European king could not lose the Divine Right by misrule,
at least according to most authors. Thomas Aquinas accepted
the overthrow of a king and even regicide when the laws of the king
are untenably unjust, however, and towards the end of the Middle Ages
many philosophers such as Nicholas of Cusa and Francisco Suarez
propounded similar theories.

In addition, the concept of Mandate of Heaven required that the
emperor properly carry out the proper rituals, consult his ministers,
and made it extremely difficult to undo any acts carried out by an ancestor.
Japanese imperial theory based the legitimacy of the Emperor of Japan
on his descent from Amaterasu, however unlike the European case, this
divinity did not usually translate into political power, unless the Emperor
had (as Emperor Meiji did) the military might to back up his claim.

In the western world it came to be associated with Roman Catholicism
and other Christian faiths in the Reformation period.
The notion of divine right of kings was certainly in existence in the medieval period.

from Divine Right of Kings

Blessed are You, O L-rd our G-d, King of the Universe
184 posted on 03/27/2006 11:07:23 AM PST by Uri’el-2012 (Trust in YHvH forever, for the LORD, YHvH is the Rock eternal. (Isaiah 26:4))
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To: XeniaSt
I meant that DRoK in the Christian world was a Protestant idea. In the Far East, and in many ancient monarchies (e.g., Egypt), the King did not just rule by divine right, he was believed to be divine himself. The Emperor of Japan was considered to be divine until 1945!

From your citation:

Thomas Aquinas accepted the overthrow of a king and even regicide when the laws of the king are untenably unjust, however, and towards the end of the Middle Ages many philosophers such as Nicholas of Cusa and Francisco Suarez propounded similar theories.

This affirms what I said.

In general, Wikipedia is not a reliable source, BTW. It's written by volunteers who may or may not have any scholarly credentials, and may or may not have any axes to grind concerning their subject matter.

186 posted on 03/27/2006 11:15:23 AM PST by Campion ("I am so tired of you, liberal church in America" -- Mother Angelica, 1993)
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