Political Theology

ISSN: 1462-317X (Print) 1743-1719 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ypot20

Sacrament and Oath: A Theological-Political

Displacement

Montserrat Herrero

To cite this article: Montserrat Herrero (2017): Sacrament and Oath: A Theological-Political
Displacement, Political Theology, DOI: 10.1080/1462317X.2017.1383549

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1462317X.2017.1383549

Published online: 10 Oct 2017.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 23

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ypot20

Download by: [University of Cambridge] Date: 08 January 2018, At: 23:08

 POLITICAL THEOLOGY, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/1462317X.2017.1383549

Sacrament and Oath: A Theological-Political Displacement

Montserrat Herrero
Department of Philosophy, Biblioteca de Humanidades, Institute for Culture and Society, Universidad de
Navarra, Pamplona, Spain

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article pays attention to the historical displacement of the Sacramentum; sacrament;
meaning of the word sacramentum at the moment in which oath; political-theology; word
theological reflection appropriates the civil meaning. By
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

addressing this historical displacement, the present article reflects

not only on the theological-political character of oaths, but also
on the complex inventive character of political theology. In fact,
that kind of appropriation involves multiple transferences of
meanings from one realm to another – the political and the
religious, what is constitutive of the theological-political approach.
Attempting to grasp the topic, this article first examines the
Biblical meanings of oath, covenant and sacrament; second, it
looks at the meaning of sacramentum in the classical Roman
tradition; and, finally, it recovers the meaning of sacrament in
Tertullian, who is primarily responsible for the coinage of the term
for theological reflection.

Theological-political transferences
This article1 deals with the relationship between the meanings of two words – “sacrament”
– as we understand it in its ecclesiastical use- and “oath” at the moment in which Christian
theological reflection appropriates the civil meaning of sacramentum – as used in Roman
Law. Therein, a deep sacral meaning was always implicit in the civil use since in antiquity
law and religion were not differentiated.
It was only in the second century that the vocabulary of Christian theology appropriated
the meaning of sacramentum, taking it from the juridical realm. In Prodi’s opinion, this
became possible through the confluence of two different traditions, including the biblical
and the classical, and by adopting certain elements of Germanic custom such as Treue (fide-
lity).2 After that appropriation, the oath was completely sacralized by the Church in the
Middle Ages,3 even though oaths had always been related to the sacral realm.

CONTACT Montserrat Herrero mherrero@unav.es Department of Philosophy, Biblioteca de Humanidades, Institute

for Culture and Society, Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona 31009, Spain
1
This article is part of the Project Las formas de representación del poder: ceremonias, juramentos y divisas founded by
MINECO Plan Estatal de Investigación. Proyectos I+D Excelencia. HAR2014-58542-P. 2015–2017.
2
Prodi, Il sacramento del potere, 64. Stefan Esders holds that the custom of pronouncing an oath in front of the political
sovereign once seemed to derive from an ancient German tradition, but today it has been established that it comes
from the military institutions of the Late Roman Empire. Esders, “Les origines militaires du serment dans les royaumes
barbares (V-VII siècles),” 19–27.
3
There were two central trends in the Middle Ages that show this sacralization of oaths by the Church: first, oaths
became regulated by the Church and, second, oaths entered into theological reflection about the sacraments.
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 2 M. HERRERO

This is of interest for a theological-political approach for two reasons: first of all,
because it is a case in which juridical meanings have been transformed into religious
ones, thus inverting the general direction claimed by better-known political theolo-
gies, such as the one put forward by Carl Schmitt.4 Second, because through this
example we discover the inextricable theological-political character of an institution
like the oath.
In fact, Schmitt considers the possibility of a political theology only under the con-
ditions of a secularization process in Early Modernity. Two different assumptions can
be found in Schmitt’s general hypothesis attributed to political theology: one related to
the secularization thesis – all significant concepts of modern theory of the State are
secularized theological concepts5 – and another related to a structural analogy
between both realms – the political and the religious or theological.6 If we assume
that the medieval world represents a sacralised world, we might conclude that, in
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

the Middle Ages, political theology must have existed differently from modern politi-
cal theology in Schmitt’s sense, i.e. as a projection of Christian dogma in politics more
than a complex of “transferences” of meanings. However, a detailed study of
E. H. Kantorowicz’s writings might alter this first perception.7 In Kantorowicz’s
view, the transferences work in both senses for the Middle Ages and not in Schmitt’s
strict sense.8 Jan Assmann’s political-theological thesis contrasts with Schmitt’s thesis

Regarding the first aspect, in the classical past, punishment for perjury was left to divine judgment, but, in the
Middle Ages, the bishops controlled both the formula and the punishment; however, this was always in collabor-
ation with the civil authorities, who wanted to avoid perjury in the trials held in their domains. Even the iuramento
fidelitatis within the Church was an important institution in the early Middle Ages. See Gottlob, Der kirchliche
Amtseid der Bischöfe. Related to theological reflection about the sacraments, in the ninth century Paschasius Rad-
bertus writes on the sacramentum iuris, classifying it as one of the sacraments, together with baptism, the Eucharist
and the chrism. See Radbertus, De Corpore et Sanguine Domini, chapter III, 23–4. However, while the Councils of
Quierzy (858) made a real distinction between the sacrament of the altar and the political sacrament, it was not
until the twelfth century, in Peter Lombard’s Libri Quatuor Sententiarum, that the sacraments were classified to
include seven of them. Finally, Alexander III (1159) divided church structure into a sacramental sphere and a jur-
idical one. He separated the power of orders and the power of jurisdiction. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theo-
logiae clarified that the oath is not a sacrament in the sense that the Church uses the term. Oaths are civil
institutions, while sacraments are ecclesiastical ones. (Thomas Aquinas, Sth III 60, On Sacraments. 1 ad 3.) In any
case, he holds that the Church should preserve the plenitudo potestatis of the Pope relating to oaths: annulation
and dispensation were both reserved for him (Thomas Aquinas, Sth II-II, Q. 89, On Perjury.). It was only in the
second half of the fifteenth century that the oath became merely a civil way to guarantee adherence to the
law, thus giving the law a certain sacred foundation.
4
For an account of the meaning of “political theology” see: Schmitt, Political Theology, and Schmitt, Political Theology II. A
detailed analysis of Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology can be found in Cavanaugh, “The Mystical and the Real,” 43–65;
Herrero, The Political Discourse of Carl Schmitt; and also in Meier, The Lesson of Carl Schmitt. Carl Schmitt’s use of this
phrase “political theology” is similar to Spinoza’s, and is not consistent with the meaning of the term “theology” as
the Catholic Church has usually understood it. Cf. for example Peterson’s essay, ‘What is Theology?’. Also Herrero, “On
Political Theology,” 1164–77.
5
Schmitt, Political Theology, 36. Schmitt refers here to the “secularization thesis” in the form he proposes in “The Age of
Neutralizations and Depolitizations” (1929) in Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, 81–96: Schmitt was convinced that
different moments can be discerned in the development of the European spirit, according to the different ways of con-
ceiving human existence that occurs in each. Schmitt referred to this change as the “stages of changing central domains.”
Displacement has one direction and meaning and is realized in four steps corresponding to four centuries and moves
from theology to humanitarian morality, going through metaphysics until flowing into economics and technique. See
Herrero, The Political Discourse, 158–62.
6
Schmitt, Political Theology, 46.
7
“Laudes Regiae. A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship” (1946); “Pro Patria Mori in Medieval Pol-
itical Thought” (1951); “Deus per naturam, Deus per gratiam: Note on the Political Theology of the Middle Ages” (1952);
“Mysteries of State. An Absolutist Concept and Its Late Medieval Origins” (1953); and The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in
Medieval Political Theology (1956). All these texts work with political-theological analogies.
8
Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, 193: “Infinite cross-relations between Church and State, active in every century of the
Middle Ages, produced hybrids in either camp.”
 POLITICAL THEOLOGY 3

as much as it does with that of Kantorowicz. He affirms that in Antiquity, the process
has gone against the medieval and early modern broader current, since the central
concepts of theology are “theologized political concepts.”9 The example here con-
sidered confirms Assmann’s thesis for the ancient world. If Prodi can point to a secu-
larization of the oath in modernity,10 it is because a prior movement had already taken
place in the contrary direction in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.11 This article inter-
venes in the theological-political discussion by analyzing a concrete example: the
complex transference of meanings between “sacrament” and “oath” at the moment
in which theological reflection appropriates the civil meaning of sacramentum. This
transference is made possible by the dual character, both religious and civil, of
oaths since Antiquity. Even if today we see them as being a merely juridical or
secular source of civil duties, their promise of effectiveness still draws upon the
force of the oath, i.e. the commitment to keeping one’s own word in the presence
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

of some kind of divinity.

Attempting to grasp the significance of the transference of meaning from sacramentum
(as the Romans used it) to “sacrament” (as the Church uses it), this article first analyses the
Biblical meanings of oath, covenant and sacrament in the Septuagint and the Vulgate;
second, it looks back at the meaning of sacramentum in the classical Roman tradition;
and, finally, it recovers the meaning of sacramentum in Tertullian, who is primarily
responsible for the coinage of the term for theological reflection. This article then ends
with some conclusions. The whole argument herein turns on a concrete case that works
as a case study of a more general thesis relative to political theology. The line of argument
is intricate: it begins by trying to identify the occurrence of the word sacramentum in bib-
lical texts and goes back to the Vulgate for the possible sources of the late occurrence of
said word.

Biblical meanings: oath, covenant and sacramentum

In the Latin Bible, the word sacramentum is not a translation of covenant or oath, but
rather of the word “mystery.” However, both oath and covenant are key realities in the
Christian message and are associated with the sacred realm.
For the Jews of the Old Testament the oath was the most solemn commitment that
anyone could make. It was even an act of cult, a monotheist profession of the faith. To
make an oath to a strange divinity was considered idolatry (Exodus 20:7; Leviticus
19:12; Ezekiel 14:4).12 The idea of oath is mostly present in the Old Testament in the
central idea of covenant (Exodus 33:1; Deuteronomy 6:18; Deuteronomy 7:8; Psalm

9
Assmann, Politische Theologie zwishen Ägypten und Israel, 35. He goes a step further, saying that the spirit of religion has its
birth in the political realm.
10
By the sixteenth century, the administration of oaths had become a prerogative of State sovereignty and not of the
Church. The State became the guarantor and judge of the oath. As we see, what happened in the second century is
of significance for the subsequent medieval development of the concept and practice of the oath.
11
In the same direction I am considering here is Philippe Buc’s chapter on martyrdom. Buc, The Dangers of Ritual, 123.
Specifically he deals with the Christian appropriation, through writing at the very least, of death in the arena. Afterwards
a reverse direction could be found in Middle Ages as the discussed, e.g. in Dubois, “Le serment de paix, adaptation poli-
tique du sacrament de penitence (1398–1406)?,” 471–88.
12
See Guindon, Le Serment. Son histoire, son caractère sacré, 27–8.
 4 M. HERRERO

132:11).13 The various acts and rituals performed in the making of a covenant usually
included an oath (Joshua 9:15, Joshua 9:15, 9:18, Joshua 9:18, 9:20).14 The central and
paradigmatic covenant, constitutive of Israel’s people, is the one they have made with
God. A covenant with God requires a commitment accepted by two sides: God and his
people. It is not merely an agreement, but is instead a commitment to fidelity to a
given Law. God’s revelation must be received and accepted before it is morally binding.
The people have to make a very concrete commitment, and thus the covenant has to be
reinstituted from time to time. We can see this in the Bible: the acceptance of the Torah
(Exodus 19:7–20:18); the Covenant at Sinai (Exodus 24:1, 12–18; the Covenant at Moab
(Deuteronomy 29:1; 30:11–20); the Covenant at Shechem (Joshua 24: 1–28); the Forced
Covenant (Ezekiel 20:1–6, 10–22, 30–38); the Pledging of a Renewed Covenant (Nehemiah
9:1–8, 24–26, 30–37, 10:1–40). These reinstitutions show that the covenant is something
historical. It is not made and sealed once and for all, but demands fidelity throughout time.
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

The promulgation of the Law is embedded in a long-term narrative.15 The covenant is

enacted over and over again through the ethical, ritual and political forms of a community.
In recounting the repeated reformulations of the covenant, Sacred Scripture emphasizes
how central it was for Israel: it provides a structure of mutuality, for placing self and
other in a relationship within a community. It is through the Sinai covenant that the
nation gains its identity and history, both its past as a people redeemed from slavery as
well as its future, which is given by the mandate to minister to the world (Exodus 19:6).
Israel’s constituent moment with the acceptance of the Torah is separated from the begin-
ning of the narrative within which it is embedded, i.e. the account of creation in Genesis,
whose narrative form is also that of an oath – like an aboriginal oath that God makes to his
creation. Israel’s covenant with God includes the provision that all oaths must be pro-
nounced in the name of God, for because of God’s alliance with Israel they are protected
by him. Oath in Hebrew refers always to the future: means a promise. God is the ultimate
force of every oath, because he is the only one who swears in first person. He is the only
one whose word is always effective (Is, 45: 23). Other oaths, those that men can pronounce,
can fail. Only God has the exclusivity of the absolute efficacy of his word.16
In the New Testament God is also often represented as taking an oath (Hebrews 6:13–
18), as did Christ (Matthew 26:64) and as did Paul (Romans 9:1; Galatians 1:20; Phil 1:8).
Jesus’s precept, “Swear not at all,” refers probably to ordinary conversation between man
and man (Matthew 5: 34–37). But if the words are taken as referring to oaths, then their
intention may have been to show that the proper state of Christians requires no oaths:
when evil is expelled from among them, every yea and nay will be as decisive as an
oath, every promise as binding as an oath.17 The Church needed no oaths as its

13
On oaths in the Old Testament see Horst and Wolff, Gottes Recht. As the Holman Bible Dictionary states, the making of
covenants revealed the binding nature of the oath: “The parties made oaths to enforce the awareness that a violator of
the covenant would suffer the same fate as the sacrificed animal.” Draper et al., Holman Bible Dictionary. As we see, the
article mixes oath and vow as identical kind of actions. I will not enter here into the discussion on the historical derivation
of the meaning of vow. See Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, 2, 233–43.
14
Price, “The Oath in Court Procedure in Early Baby-Lonia and the Old Testament,” 22–9, 26.
15
Walzer et al., The Jewish Political Tradition, 24.
16
See Jenni and Westermann, Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament.
17
See Delouis, “Eglise et serment à Byzance: norme et pratique,” 211–46. He points out the contradictions in Byzantium
between the norm and the practice of the oath, given the restrictions the Church placed on making oaths. In any
case he holds that: “l’interdiction du serment par le Christ (…) procède ainsi d’une théologie positive (…) c’est
 POLITICAL THEOLOGY 5

constitutive ground, even if in the Middle Ages the Church also adopted oaths as a guar-
antee of canonical discipline.
In any case, even if oath appears frequently in New Testament, rendered in Greek as: as
ορκους (oath), ομοση (to take an oath). The occurrence of the word sacramentum in the
Latin Vulgate (382CE) comes from the Greek mystery and not from the correspondent
oath. In any case the occurrence of the word sacramentum in the Latin Vulgate is a dis-
puted question. As Foster notes, it is only in 8 passages out of a total of 28 occurrences
in the Septuagint that the word mystery – and not oath or covenant – is rendered as sacra-
mentum in the Latin Vulgate.18 The question is why Jerome made that replacement. To
give an answer, Foster undertakes a study of the old Latin versions of the New Testament,
concluding that Jerome had probably been influenced by one of the New Testament
manuscripts available in African Latin. Additionally, this replacement is also present in
New Testament quotations by Tertullian, Cyprian and Novatian. In Novatian and
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

Cyprian mystery is not present, only sacramentum. Anyhow, the consolidation of the
meaning of sacramentum in Jerome’s Latin Vulgate – together with the various old
ante-Hieronimian versions – was the responsibility of the Church Fathers and especially
of Tertullian.
To summarize, in the Latin Bible the word sacramentum is not a translation of cove-
nant or oath, but of the word mystery instead. However, both oath and covenant are
key realities in the Christian message, and are associated with the sacred realm. Still,
when we look into the origin of the inclusion of “the significant sacrament” into theolo-
gical terminology we find a close relationship between it and “the significant oath,” an
association that stems from classical juridical and literary concepts.

Juridical roman meanings: sacramentum

How did the Roman world make oaths? If we accept the position of Emile Benveniste, who
based himself on Plautus’s and Pliny’s use of the word, iurare consists of repeating a
formula given by the person in front of whom the oath is made, while touching a
sacred object. This sacred object is supposed to have the power to ensure fulfillment of
what is being promised, thus preventing perjury. In this rite, the commitment itself is
called sacramentum – a kind of consecration to the gods through words – and iurare is
just the act of repeating the formula.19
An oath is made by words, but not just any kind – as a simple statement might use – but
those words that point to an act of force carried out by a person and recognized by society
as appropriate. Part of this force derives from Iovis-Iupiter, the god that punishes perjury –
and again we encounter the idea that the definitively effective word is that of a god. The
oath that reassures the efficacy of the word – or the connection of a pronounced word with
invoked power, as Benveniste explains20 – has a close relationship with religion. The force
of oaths has nothing to do with magic, but with confidence in Jupiter (fides deorum). The

vouloir que l’homme qu’il parle aussi vrai que le Verbe, c’est substituer à l’instabilité visible de la raison humaine la sta-
bilité invisible de la parole divine.” 245.
18
Foster, “Mysterium and Sacramentum in the Vulgate and Old Latin Versions,” 402–15.
19
Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, 118: From iurare comes ius iurandum: the formula that fixes
the norm. Sacramentum on the contrary was the act of making a commitment with the gods.
20
See Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, 112: “Le dictionnaire d’Ernout-Meillet allègue une
expression ius iurare qui signifierait ‘prononcer la formule sacré qui engage’, malheureusement sans donner de référence.
 6 M. HERRERO

execratio produced by perjury exposes the wrongdoer to divine vengeance (sacer esto) and
also deprives him or her of civil protection.21
Originally, in the Roman juridical context, sacramentum means the money depos-
ited by the parties to a suit, either because the sum deposited by the losing party was
used for a religious purpose or, more likely, because it was deposited in a sacred place.
It was called sacramentum because to violate what one has solemnly promised is
perfidy, since the money in that context is a sacro, as Mommsen confirms.22 The
word later came to mean any civil suit or process; particularly the vindicatory pro-
cedure of ownership. It is a part of the two kinds of procedural actions (legis actionis):
sacramentum in re, which has the effect of an appropriation of things, and manus iniec-
tio, which has the effect of an appropriation of a debt from one who does not pay. Each
of these procedures was completely typified: the formula is this way and the ius is
that.23
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

But there is another Roman meaning of sacramentum that particularly influenced

Christian vocabulary and theological reflection: in the Roman Empire, sacramentum
also referred to the preliminary oath taken by newly enlisted troops. This latter was volun-
tary until after the Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC), when the military tribune required
it. After the Augustan Age (27 BC to 14 AD), sacramentum will mean just “any oath,
solemn obligation or sacred engagement.”24
As Foster has noted, the idea of sacredness persists in both meanings – the military use
does not supersede the juridical – and the implication throughout is that there is some-
thing like a divine sanction or concern with a person’s actions.25
Thence, the Roman world thought of the oath in relationship to the sacred realm, but
insisted on the civic and juridical consequences. The common meaning became a kind of
consecration – the meaning as military oath and the specifically juridical meaning.

Tertullian: sacrament as military oath and mystery

Indeed, the concept of sacrament appears in early theological reflection as signifying the
sacramentum militiae (oath of allegiance) as it was considered in the Roman-Italic
context.26 This kind of oath transforms the legal state of the person who pronounces it.
The military oath put the soldier under the power of his commander and ties him to

A notre connaissance une telle locution ne se rencontré pas. Nous n’en avons que la forme résiduelle ius iurandum, qui
laisse subsister l’écart entre ius et iuro,” 113.
21
Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, 172: “Sacramentum est un dérivé, non de sacer, mais du
verbe nominative sacrare, ‘déclarer sacer’, ‘déclarer anathème’ celui qui commettent tel délit. Le sacramentum est pro-
prement le fait ou l’objet par lequel on anathématise par avance sa propre personne (sacramentum militaire) ou encore le
gage déposé (dans le sacramentum judiciaire). Dès que la parole est prononcée dans les formes, on est potentiellement
dans l’état de sacer. C’est état devient effective et appelle la vengeance divine si on transgresse l’engagement pris.” See
more in Fiori, Homo sacer.
22
Mommsen, The History of Rome Under the Emperors. I. chap. V.:

The victims needed for the public service of the gods were procured by a tax on actions at law; the defeated party
in an ordinary process paid down to the state a cattle-fine (sacramentum) proportioned to the value of the
object in dispute.
23
d’Ors, Derecho privado romano, § 140. See also Guindon, Le Serment, 64.
24
Foster, “Mysterium and Sacramentum,” 412. Also see Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, 163.
25
Foster, “Mysterium and Sacramentum,” 413.
26
Tondo, “Il ‘sacramentum militiae’ nell’ ambiente culturale romano-italico,” 1–123.
 POLITICAL THEOLOGY 7

military law. Through this ceremony the soldier’s previous ties with other kinds of com-
munities are neutralized. He no longer had civil status.27
How is possible that this kind of relationship could exist between military and Christian
vocabulary, given Jesus’s preaching – recorded in the New Testament – on the duty to
renounce the practice of violence, and his deeds, which showed his rejection of any resist-
ance to evil? How is possible that juridical and military meanings would make their way
into the Christian theological vocabulary? Harnack asked a similar question in his Militia
Christi.28 He explains the transference of meaning from the “military oath” to the
Church’s sacrament by the idea that war is one of life’s basic forms and one where
every human being can easily achieve virtue. The vocabulary of the Church was formed
in the three first centuries CE. As Ghellinck confirms, one of the laws of language says
that the common or usual meaning remains preponderant in the meaning’s subsequent
journey, even after a word is passed on to new generations.
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

In Harnack’s opinion, there are military elements in sacramentum that have transferred
their meaning to the vocabulary of the Roman church. Some examples that Harnack pro-
vides are: the Catechismus ex Decreto SS. Concilii Tridentini ad Parochos: Pii V. Pont. Max.
jussu editus caput 3, 2 affirms that confirmation makes the Christian into a “perfectus
miles Christi”29, even if in caput 1 the Catechismus distinguishes between the sacramen-
tum militiam and the Church’s sacraments30; monks and ascetics were interpreted as
being Christ’s soldiers as we can read in a prayer of the 5th or 6th century that runs:
“In baptismum regeneramur ad vitam, post baptismum confirmamur ad pugnam.”31 Cen-
turies before, however Tertullian had affirmed that baptism excludes the commitment
acquired through a military oath, and in emphasizing this exclusion, he confirms the simi-
larity of the two kinds of commitments.32
This military metaphor has found no home in the Eastern Church, as we can see from
the example of Clement of Alexandria or Origen, but it has been widely disseminated in
the Latin Church ever since Tertullian.33 He is the primary person responsible for the
coinage of sacramentum as a specifically religious word, and of the transference of
meaning from sacramentum as military oath.34 In general, Tertullian was the person prin-
cipally responsible for the development of the theological terminology of the Latin West;35
after him came Cyprian of Carthage and Hilary of Poitiers.

27
Esders, “Les origines militaires du serment dans les royaumes barbares (V-VII siècles),” 19 and 26.
28
von Harnack, Militia Christi.
29
Catechismus ex Decreto SS. Concilii Tridentini ad Parochos: Pii V. Pont. Max. jussu editus: “nisi aliud sacramenti efficientiam
impediat, novae virtutis robore firmior, atque adeo perfectus Christi miles esse incipit.”
30
Catechismus ex Decreto SS. Concilii Tridentini, 96: “sacramentum nihil aliud, nisi rem sacram abditam atque occultam
significare.”
31
von Harnack, Militia Christi, 6.
32
Ibid., 59–60: “Nun, der göttliche und der menschliche Fahneneid, das Feldzeichen Christi und das Feldzeichen des Teufels,
das Lager des Lichts und das Lager des Finsternis sind unverträglich; eine und dieselbe Seele kann nicht Zweien verp-
flichtet sein, Gott und dem Kaiser.“Auch: “Eben deshalb darf kein Christ Soldat, darf kein Soldat Christ werden. Nicht um
den Krieg handelt es sich; nein, auch im Frieden darf kein Christ im Heere stehen.” 60.
33
For the differences between the approach of the Eastern Great Fathers and that of Tertullian regarding the sacramentality
of the Christian life, see Ruffini and Lodi, Mysterion e Sacramentum, 118–19. For the Eastern Fathers “mystery” always
makes reference to history, that is, to an event to come that will reveal the truth, while for Tertullian it is more a
static reality that remains. Indeed the word “mystery” is also used by those Fathers for all those realities that are effective
in the salvific economy related to the covenant.
34
This assertion is also confirmed in de Ghellinck’s, Pour l’histoire du mot “sacramentum.”Les Anténicéans, 45.
35
Houghton, The Latin New Testament, 7. He explains how Tertullian was a pioneer in the development of a Latin Christian
Vocabulary and in appropriating terms by “semantic extension.”
 8 M. HERRERO

In the second century, a broader spectrum of meanings corresponded to the “signifi-

cant” sacramentum.36 Émile Backer studies a total of 134 examples of the use of the
word “sacrament” in Tertullian’s work, 84 of which refer to oath and 50 to mystery.
Neither meaning seem to be derivative, one coming from the other, but they simply
enter into the Christian vocabulary from different sources; in any case, they constitute a
symbolic reality that fuses multiple meanings.
As Hoppe, Zahn and Houghton have asserted, Tertullian does not ordinarily quote
from the various Latin versions of the Bible, but translates directly from a Greek text.37
Nevertheless von Soden, who does not believe that Tertullian had access to any Latin
version of the New Testament, still virtually admits that at least a standard Latin trans-
lation of part of the Gospels was in use in Tertullian’s time.38 The fact is that in the trans-
lations of the Bible prior to Jerome (late fourth-century) the word μνστήριου was already
rendered as sacramentum.39
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

Harnack classifies the meanings of sacramentum we can find in Tertullian’s works into
two broad senses: the first is similar to the Roman idea of procedure, a notion that will also
be recovered in Hugh of Saint Victor: it is a sensible sign for a sacred thing that represents
with similitude. The second sense refers directly to an “military oath.”40 Harnack shows
through Tertullian’s texts, that for the African theologian, Christians have sworn an
oath through their baptism; they have made a commitment to Christ to be his warriors.
This sense is represented in the new disciple’s change of name. Backer adds to Harnack’s
argument that the sense of oath used by Tertullian is embodied in baptism, which is the
initiation rite of the militiam Dei. The one who has been initiated into the mysteries of
Christ becomes a sacratus. The oath expressed in the rite is a means of consecration.
As a result Tertullian can use the word sacramentum to indicate many other realities,
such as: (a) religion, cult or the cult’s objects, e. g. sacred water; (b) the faith or doctrine
itself: the regula veritatis that is not visible to the non-initiated; (c) every channel for the
sacred, as well as the various means of blessing; (d) the sensible rites which entail the pro-
duction of the desired supernatural effects; (e) sacrifice in connection with the Eucharist41;
(f) signaculum: the guarantee that the oath promises, also present in military oaths.42 In
addition, in Cyprian’s works baptism remains the sacramentum, the oath of allegiance;
Christ is the emperor and Christians are his milites.
Interpreters such as Valentine de Gröne, Hans von Soden and Émile Backer assert that
even if sacramentum appears in Tertullian texts with this broader meaning, there is a uni-
fying meaning that comes from the meaning of sacrament in the ancient military oath, as
we see in Harnack’s approach to Tertullian. This is also the case with Valentin de Gröne,

36
Perhaps the most complete study of the theological meaning of the word “sacrament” is that found in de Ghellinck, Pour
l’histoire du mot “sacramentum.” In this book various authors explore the meaning of the word “sacramentum” in the
writings of the Fathers of the Church prior to the Council of Nicaea, i.e. before the year 325.
37
See Hoppe for the Old Testament and Zahn for the New Testament: Hoppe, Syntax und Stil des Tertullians and Zahn,
Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons. See also Houghton, The Latin New Testament, 6: “A more comprehensive expla-
nation is that Tertullian was not working with a fixed form of the Latin Bible but produced his own translations as necess-
ary (…).”
38
von Soden, Das latainische Neue Testament in Afrika zur Zeit Cyprians, 1611.
39
Foster, “Mysterium and Sacramentum,” 413: “the mystery-sense had by that time become firmly attached to
sacramentum.”
40
von Harnack, Militia Christi, 33.
41
Backer, “Tertullien,” 106.
42
Ibid., 114.
 POLITICAL THEOLOGY 9

who sees the origin of the transference in the metaphor of the militia for referring to the
Christian life43: this is the foundation for considering baptism a sacrament. The denomi-
nations of other rites as sacraments are just an extension of this one. He shows how that
metaphor is possible, studying the primitive Roman idea of the sacrare, making sacer, sep-
arate some things as non-appropriable: all the objective elements in which God reveals his
designs are sacraments, that is, the biblical types or the material things and persons. But it
is true that all the objective or subjective elements that refer to God always imply a
mystery. Because of that the Fathers of the Church understand that sacraments are
symbols that outwardly express grace and at the same time communicate it.
Hans von Soden, for his part, also gives priority to the juridical meaning, that of the
military oath.44 If baptism is called a sacrament it is because involves a commitment
and the taking on of an obligation and with this a transformation of the civil position
of the person who takes the baptismal oath. In the case of the ecclesiastical sacrament,
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

the performativity of the symbolic words is crystal clear: they are pronounced in order
to transform the reality of the life of the persons that enter into a new kind of relationship.
It is not something exterior but a quality of the thing or of the person that is at stake, in the
same sense that it was in Roman law – where the sacrament related to the ownership of
material things – , by which the sacrament became sacer.
Émile Backer discusses a third meaning, which should be added to the two emphasized
in Harnack’s reflection: that of mystery.45 The question now is how it is possible that the
juridical and military meaning of sacramentum could take on the meaning of “mystery,”
and thereby becoming immediately related to faith, finally acquiring a strictly religious
meaning? The use of the word mystery came from the mystery religions such as Eleusinian
Mysteries and even before from the oriental mysteries. In any case such words as myster-
ium, mysta, mystagogus, mysticus were quite frequent in Greek, also acquiring a broad
spectrum of meanings. Mystery became a synonym for sacred rites. But the sense of mys-
terium present when Tertullian speaks of sacrament is related to the idea of the future to
come in four ways: (a) As type, figure and allegory: to designate the different persons, rea-
lities or even fictional stories in the Old Testament that are bearers of the name of Christ.
(b) The economy of that which is hidden and will be one day revealed. As Foster says, even
if in the term sacrament there is no immediate connection with “secret,” that is no obstacle
to the assimilation of the two words, but quite the reverse. For according to the New Tes-
tament, the Christian Mysteries, as distinguished from heathen mysteries, are for the many
and because of that seek publicity not concealment.46 (c) The mysterious dispositions
(ordo divinae dispositionis) of the divine will that are in part hidden and in part prean-
nounced by symbolic figures. (d) Prophecy involving something secret and hidden that
has efficacy in history. They show the efficacy of God’s words, their performativity. All
these four possibilities mutually include one another. In sum, a kind of relationship
with the future is what relates oath as sacrament with mystery, like the idea underlying
the promissory oath. In fact, the one who takes an oath puts something that is very valu-
able for him or her at stake, a material thing or even his or her own life. In this sense the

43
de Gröne, "Sacramentum" oder Begriff und Bedeutung von Sakrament in der alten Kirche bis zur Scholastik.
44
von Soden, “Μνστήριου und sacramentum in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten der Kirche,” 188–227.
45
Backer, “Tertullien,” 59–153.
46
Foster, “Mysterium and Sacramentum,” 413.
 10 M. HERRERO

oath can be connected with a sacrifice, but it is always made looking to the horizon of a
future promise.
Backer notes that sacrament and mystery were recognized equivalents in North Africa
even before Tertullian, and were in common usage by Christians as early as the second
century CE. Later theological reflection on sacramentality would add mystery (the only
word that appeared in the Septuagint) to the base meaning of military oath.47 In fact,
as Benveniste points out,48 there are two relevant aspects to an oath: the testimonial
aspect that looks to the past and the present; and the providential aspect (promissory
oath) that looks to the future: it is a relationship between the pronounced word and a
potential future action. Both senses are also implied in the two source meanings attributed
to sacramentum in early theological reflection, i. e. oath and mystery.
Now we can ask what happened with the early juridical (not military) meaning of sacra-
mentum? Ghellinck holds that the early Roman juridical meaning as a particular pro-
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

cedure is not likely to have had any influence on the Christian concept of sacrament,
given that the corresponding legal procedures were suppressed in the time of Augustus,
except for the centumviri court.49 Nevertheless, in Isidore of Seville’s 6th century Etymol-
ogies, sacramentum appears with that precise juridical meaning.50 In fact, as Depreux rati-
fies, in the early Middle Ages the oath is commonly called sacramentum and not
juramentum. In the time of Charles the Great (eighth and ninth centuries) the word to
designate the rite was sacramentum mysterium.51
Even as late as the twelfth century, high Middle Ages, we can hear an echo of this
strictly juridical influence in Hugh of Saint Victor’s theological reflection, expressed in
his monumental work De Sacramentis Christianae Fidei (1134). He defines a sacrament
as: “A corporeal or material element set before the senses without, representing by simi-
litude and signifying by institution and containing by sanctification some invisible and
spiritual grace.”52 Three elements are necessary in order to be in the presence of a sacra-
ment: a sensible sign similar to the real thing that it represents – he says “similitude to the
thing itself of which it is the sacrament”53; a mediating, verbal act of institution; and the
“applied benediction of word or sign.”54
Of particular interest is his description of “the sacrament of faith” (at that time the
number of sacraments had not yet been settled by the Church55); in his De Sacramentis
he makes a comparison to the “military sacraments by which soldiers are obligated by
their promise to preserve faith with their general.”56 In his view any action employed
by the faithful and accepted with faith for the purpose of sanctification is a kind of

47
Ibid., 415.
48
Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, 334.
49
de Ghellinck, Pour l’histoire du mot “sacramentum,” 10.
50
Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive originum, 5, 24[34]: “sacramentum est pignus sponsionis; vocatum autem sacramen-
tum, quia violare, quod quisque promittit, perfidiae est: ea pecunia, quae in judicium venit in litibus, sacramentum a
sacro.”
51
Depreux, “Les carolingiens et le serment,” 63–80, 65.
52
Hugh of Saint Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, I. 1. 10, 180.
53
Ibid.
54
Ibid.
55
It was not until Alexander III (1259) that the structural constitution of the Church began to be divided in into a sacra-
mental sphere (seven sacraments) and a jurisdictional one. Oaths were now considered a matter for the jurisdictional
sphere, not for the sacramental. Hence, as we have seen, Tomas Aquinas could say that sacrament has nothing to do
with oath and perjury.
56
Hugh of Saint Victor, On the Sacraments, I. 1. 10, 180.
 POLITICAL THEOLOGY 11

sacrament. “Faith itself is a sacrament,” means: what is seen in an image is a sacrament,

what is seen in a thing is the matter of the sacrament; and what we see now through
the glass (of faith) darkly is the sacrament of what we will see face to face in manifest con-
templation.57 So all sacraments are a promise of something that is not immediately avail-
able, and instead of which we use a sign that might be water, images or words.58
We can recognize then two characteristics common to both the Roman juridical
meaning and that of Hugh of Saint Victor: the importance of the formula and the relation-
ship with a “thing.” The vindication of the “real thing,” i.e. that which is the cause of the
dispute, has to be present at the trial, or at least symbolically represented.59

Conclusions
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

In order to clarify these two theses (i.e. the complexity of theo-political transferences and
the theo-political character of oaths), this article has analyzed the case of Christian theol-
ogy’s second-century appropriation of the meaning of sacramentum. The study of this case
has lead us to following conclusions:

(i) From the point of view of the political-theological approach we find a clear example
of transference of meaning from the civil realm – which in the roman Antiquity was
at the same time sacred – to a strictly theological-ecclesiastical one, which contradicts
Schmitt’s assumption related to political theology and confirms Assmann’s position.
In any case, this article represents a case study of a general hypothesis: neither
Schmitt nor Assmann’s thesis on political theology can be generalized. There is no
historical moment or period when sacred terms slide into secular ones or visa-
versa; rather, there has always been (and presumably always will be) a continuous
exchange of meanings between both realms. In the case of oaths, Assmann is right
about the thesis of the sacralization of political meanings if we look just at the
second century. However, Schmitt would be right, in some cases, if we look into
the fifteenth century. But the correlation between the period and the direction of
the transference could be to the contrary as, for example, in the case of the transfer-
ence of the ecclesiological idea of the corpus mysticum to the juridical sphere in the
reports of Plowden (1816) in the form of “two bodies of the King,” worked out by
Kantorowicz in The King’s Two Bodies.60 The general thesis throughout the political
theology field is that the profound relationship between the religious and civil realms
is seen in the numerous and continual transferences of words and meanings between
the two realms in both directions – as Kantorowicz considered just for the Middle
Ages.
(ii) Concerning the particular case of the displacement of meaning in second century,
first of all, we can confirm that: (a) in the Latin Bible the word sacramentum is
not directly related to the idea of covenant or oath, but to the word “mystery”
57
Ibid.
58
As Agamben asserts we can already find this relationship between iusiurandum and fides in Cicero, De officis (III 102–3). In
Cicero’s view the vis of oaths is not due to the god’s ire but to confidence, that is a common faith, an institute that regu-
late the relationship between men and civitates. Agamben, Il sacramento del linguaggio, 31–4.
59
de Ors, Derecho privado romano, § 148.
60
Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies.
 12 M. HERRERO

instead. However, both oath and sacrament are key realities in the Christian message,
and are associated with the sacred realm. (b) The concept of sacrament appears in
early theological reflection as signifying the sacramentum militiae in the Roman-
Italic context. To that meaning early theological reflection adds the broad
meaning of mystery. Neither meaning seems to be derivative, one coming from
the other. They simply enter into the Christian vocabulary from different sources;
in either case, they constitute a symbolic reality that fuses multiple meanings
together. (c) These multiple meanings recover the two relevant aspects that would
be attributed to the oath in the Middle Ages: the testimonial aspect that looks to
the past and to the present; and the providential aspect (promissory oath) that
looks to the future.
(iii) This common origin for oath/sacramentum and ecclesiastical-theological sacrament
and their associated multiple analogies and transferences of meaning make us aware
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

of two more general assumptions: First, that in a sense, both communities, the civil
and the ecclesiastical in its sacramental character, are founded on the kind of sym-
bolic form that is grounded in the performativity of the pronounced word. Oaths
have a societal or communal character. Even vows – atypical medieval institution-
make sense in view of the community.

One of the marks of the commonality between religion and ius is the formal character
of both religious and juridical acts: both produce effects because of the use of the proper
form. Not because of the consequences; these acts are not evidential but constituent. Oaths
are guaranteed by the efficacy of that divine action that can be experienced in the conse-
quences expected for perjury. Second, that even if Church and State become different insti-
tutional jurisdictions in Christianity, the constitution of society is at the same time- both
civil and religious; therefore, transferences such as these explored here, are not only poss-
ible, but also inextricable. The oath remains a theo-political locus. Without the archetypi-
cal God’s oath, without the absolute experience of the stability of the word, any human
promise cannot be credible. As Delouis says at the end of his chapter on oaths in Byzan-
tium, oaths are a visible sign for all of the possible irruptions of the divine into the midst of
the established social order61; the divine in the form of the stable word. Bernard Guindon
insists that in every epoch taking an oath has been considered simultaneously a civil and a
religious act.62 Whoever promises do it following the internal logic of the oath, in particu-
lar, that of the God’s oath: the absolute efficacy of the word. What legitimizes a promise is
the veracity of the own life and word and the “extreme” case of that is God’s behavior.
This is so much so that we have seen a concrete transference of meaning from the pre-
ponderant civil sense of sacrament to a theological sense that totally appropriates this
earlier non-theological sense. Later, in Middle Ages, the so call “sacramental aspect” –
the unction – will reinforce the oath, considered again a “civil” institution.
Giorgio Agamben has recovered the notion of oath in recent years in the philosophical
context, in particular in his Homo Sacer II, entitled The Sacrament of Language: An
Archaeology of the Oath.63 In this essay, he relates the two words sacrament and oath,
61
Delouis, “Eglise et serment à Byzance: norme et pratique,” 246.
62
Guindon, Le Serment. By the Jews, by the Assyro-Babylonians, by the Greeks and by the Romans.
63
Agamben, Il sacramento del linguaggio.
 POLITICAL THEOLOGY 13

employing a third word, language. His text also evokes the theological-political transfer-
ences between the religious and the political realms that are made possible by language.
In his view, oaths can help us to understand law and religion together, without imagining
that the “age of the Law” begins when an earlier magic-religious world disappears.64 Here
we have shown how oaths in a particular theological use have made the bridge between the
juridical and theological realms accessible.
In fact, the oath is a phenomenon that is neither merely juridical nor merely religious.
Rituals and symbols mediate forms for the unconditional and the divine. Oaths are a pol-
itical-theological reality that represents this mediation.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

Notes on contributor
Montserrat Herrero is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of
Navarra (Spain). She is the Principal Investigator of a Project on Religion and Civil
Society at the Institute Culture and Society at the same University. She is the editor of
the Journal Anuario Filosófico. In the last years, she has published: Political Theology in
Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Discourses, Rites and Representations (Turnhout,
Brepols, 2017) and The Political Discourse of Carl Schmitt. A Mystic of Order (Lanham,
Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).

References
Agamben, Giorgio. Il sacramento del linguaggio. Archeologia del giuramento. Roma: Editori Laterza,
2008.
Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theologica. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican
Province. New York: Benziger Bros. edition, 1947.
Assmann, Jan. Politische Theologie zwishen Ägypten und Israel. München: Carl Friedrich Siemens
Stiftung, 2006.
Backer, Émile. “Tertullien.” In Pour l’histoire du mot “sacramentum.” Les Anténicéans, edited by
Joseph de Ghellinck, 59–153. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1924.
Benveniste, Emile. Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, 2. Paris: Les editions de Minuit,
1969.
Buc, Philippe. The Dangers of Ritual. Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Pius, V. Catechismus ex Decreto SS. Concilii Tridentini ad Parochos: Pii V. Pont. Max. jussu editus.
Basani, 1833.
Cavanaugh, William T., “The Mystical and the Real: Putting Theology Back into Political
Theology.” In Political Theology in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Discourses, Rites and
Representations, edited by Montserrat Herrero, Jaume Aurell, and Angela C. Miceli, 43–65.
Turnhout: Brepols, 2017.
Delouis, Olivier. “Eglise et serment à Byzance: norme et pratique.” In Oralité et lien social au Moyen
Age (Occident, Byzance, Islam). Parole donnée, foi jurée, serment, edited by Marie-France Auzépy
and Guillaume Saint-Guillain, 211–246. Paris: ACHCByz, 2008.

64
Ibid., 80.
 14 M. HERRERO

Depreux, Philippe. “Les carolingiens et le serment.” In Oralité et lien social au Moyen Age (Occident,
Byzance, Islam). Parole donnée, foi jurée, serment, edited by Marie-France Auzépy and Guillaume
Saint-Guillain, 63–80. Paris: ACHCByz, 2008.
Draper, Charles W., Chad Brand, and Archie England, eds. Holman Bible Dictionary. Nashville,
TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003.
Dubois, Dominique. “Le serment de paix, adaptation politique du sacrament de penitence (1398–
1406)?” In Serment, promesse et engagement, edited by Francois Laurent, 471–488. Montpellier:
Presses Universitaires de la Mediterranèe, 2010.
Esders, Stefan. “Les origines militaires du serment dans les royaumes barbares (V-VII siècles).” In
Oralité et lien social au Moyen Age (Occident, Byzance, Islam). Parole donnée, foi jurée, serment,
edited by Marie-France Auzépy and Guillaume Saint-Guillain, 19–27. Paris: ACHCByz, 2008.
Fiori, Roberto. Homo sacer. la dinámica político-constituzionale di una sanzione giuridico-religiosa.
Jovene Editori: Napoli, 1996.
Foster, Theodore B. “Mysterium and Sacramentum in the Vulgate and Old Latin Versions.” The
American Journal of Theology 19 (1915): 402–415.
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

de Ghellinck, Joseph. Pour l’histoire du mot “sacramentum.”Les Anténicéans. Paris: Honoré

Champion, 1924.
Gottlob, Theodor. Der kirchliche Amtseid der Bischöfe. Bonn: L. Röhrscheid, 1936.
de Gröne, Valentine. “Sacramentum” oder Begriff und Bedeutung von Sakrament in der alten Kirche
bis zur Scholastik. Soest: Nasse in Comm, 1853.
Guindon, Bernard. Le Serment. Son histoire, son caractère sacré. Ottawa, ON: Editions de
l’Université d’Otawa, 1957.
von Harnack, Adolf. Militia Christi. Die Christiliche Religion und der Soldatenstand in den ersten
Drei Jahrhunderten. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1963.
Herrero, Montserrat. “On Political Theology: The Hidden Dialogue Between C. Schmitt and Ernst
H. Kantorowicz in The King’s Two Bodies.” History of European Ideas 41 (2015): 1164–1177.
Herrero, Montserrat. The Political Discourse of Carl Schmitt. A Mystic of Order. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Hoppe, Heinrich. Syntax und Stil des Tertullians. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1903.
Horst, Friedrich, and Hans Walter Wolff. Gottes Recht. Gesammelte Studien zur Recht im Alten
Testament. München: Kaiser, 1961.
Houghton, Hugh A. G. The Latin New Testament. A Guide to Its Early History, Texts, and
Manuscripts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Hugh of Saint Victor. On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, edited by Roy J. Deferrari.
Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1951.
Isidori Hispalensis episcopi. Etymologiarum sive originum. Oxonii: E typographeo Clarendoniano,
2011.
Jenni, Ernst, and Claus Westermann. Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament. Vol. 2. Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson, 1994.
Kantorowicz, Ernst H. “Deus Per Naturam, Deus Per Gratiam: A Note on Mediaeval Political
Theology.” Harvard Theological Review 45, no. 4 (1952): 253–277.
Kantorowicz, Ernst H. “Mysteries of State: An Absolutist Concept and Its Late Mediaeval Origins.”
Harvard Theological Review 48, no. 1 (1955): 65–91.
Kantorowicz, Ernst H. “Pro Patria Mori in Medieval Political Thought.” The American Historical
Review 56, no. 3 (1951): 472–492.
Kantorowicz, Ernst H. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
Kantorowicz, Ernst H. Laudes Regiae. A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler
Worship. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946.
Meier, Heinrich. The Lesson of Carl Schmitt. Four Chapters on the Distinction Between Political
Theology and Political Philosophy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Mommsen, Theodor. The History of Rome Under the Emperors. London: Routledge, 1999.
d’Ors, Álvaro. Derecho Privado Romano. Pamplona: Eunsa, 1997.
 POLITICAL THEOLOGY 15

Peterson, Erik. “What Is Theology?” In Theological Tractates, 1–14. Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2011.
Price, Ira M. “The Oath in Court Procedure in Early Baby-Lonia and the Old Testament.” Journal of
the American Oriental Society 49 (1929): 22–29.
Prodi, Paolo. Il sacramento del potere: il giuramento político nella storia constituzionale dell’
Occidente. Il Mulino: Bolonia, 1992.
Radbertus, Paschasius. De Corpore et Sanguine Domini: cum appendice Epistola ad Fredugardum,
edited by Beda Paulus, Volume XVI of Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis.
Turnhout: Brepols, 1969.
Ruffini, Eliseo, and Enzo Lodi. Mysterion e Sacramentum. La sacramentalità negli scritti dei Padri e
nei testi liturgici primitivi. Bologna: Centro Editoriale Dehoniano, 1987.
Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political. Translated by G. Schwab. Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 2007.
Schmitt, Carl. Political Theology. Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 23:08 08 January 2018

Schmitt, Carl. Political Theology II. The Myth of the Closure of Any Political Theology. Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2008.
von Soden, Hans. Das latainische Neue Testament in Afrika zur Zeit Cyprians. Leipzig:
J. C. Hinrichs, 1909.
von Soden, Hans. “Μνστήριου und sacramentum in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten der Kirche.”
Zeitschrift für den neutestamentarische Wissenschaft 12 (1911): 188–227.
Tondo, Salvatore. “Il ‘sacramentum militiae’ nell’ ambiente culturale romano-italico.” Studia et doc-
umenta historiae iuris 29 (1963): 1–123.
Walzer, Michael, Menachem Lorberbaum, and Noam J. Zohar, eds. The Jewish Political Tradition.
Volume I: Authority. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
Zahn, Theodor. Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1975.