¹ One might object that Tertullian and Origen did not ascribe these positive functions to government. But even though both taught that Christians could not hold government office, Tertullian claims that the Christian prays for “long life [for Caesar], undisturbed power, security at home, brave armies, a faithful Senate, an upright people, a peaceful world, and everything for which a man or a Caesar prays” because the emperor's power is ordained by God (Apology, trans. Emily Joseph Daly, CSJ, in Tertullian: Apologetical Works, and Minucius Felix: Octavius, trans. Arbesmann, Rudolph, SisterDaly, Emily Joseph, Quain, Edwin A., Fathers of the Church: A New Translation [hereafter FC], vol 10 [New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1950], 30).Google Scholar In answering the question of how the government authorities responsible for the persecution of Christians could be ordained by the Christian God, Origen points out that just as our sense of hearing, our hands, and our minds can be used for good or evil, God has ordained rulers “to punish those who are evil but to praise those who are good,” and individual rulers are responsible for whether they exercise their authority in good or evil ways (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Books 6–10, trans. Scheck, Thomas P., FC 104 [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2002], 26).Google Scholar

² Cavanaugh, William T., “‘A Fire Strong Enough to Consume the House’: The Wars of Religion and the Rise of the State,” Modern Theology 11 (1995): 397–420, at 403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Cavanaugh, William T., The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 69–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ Cavanaugh, William T., Theopolitical Imagination (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2002), 42.Google Scholar

⁵ Cavanaugh, William T., “Killing for the Telephone Company: Why the Nation-State Is Not the Keeper of the Common Good,” Modern Theology 20 (2004): 243–74, at 249–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ Theopolitical Imagination, 15–20.

⁷ Myth of Religious Violence, 208–25.

⁸ Theopolitical Imagination, 44–45.

⁹ Myth of Religious Violence, 174–76.

¹⁰ Cavanaugh, William T., Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ (Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998), 31.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ibid., 56.

¹² Ibid., 30.

¹³ Ibid., 34.

¹⁴ Ibid., 38, 47.

¹⁵ Theopolitical Imagination, 39–40.

¹⁶ Cavanaugh, William T., “From One City to Two: Christian Reimagining of Political Space,” Political Theology 7 (2006): 299–321, at 306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁷ Theopolitical Imagination, 83.

¹⁸ Ibid., 45–46.

¹⁹ “Killing for the Telephone Company,” 266–67.

²⁰ Theopolitical Imagination, 83–84.

²¹ “From One City to Two,” 310.

²² Torture and Eucharist, 251.

²³ Ibid., 206.

²⁴ Ibid., 139–40.

²⁵ Maritain, Jacques, The Person and the Common Good, trans. Fitzgerald, John J. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947), 21.Google Scholar Emphasis in original.

²⁶ Cavanaugh, , Torture and Eucharist, 166–67.Google Scholar

²⁷ Ibid., 172.

²⁸ Ibid., 149.

²⁹ Ibid., 193.

³⁰ “Killing for the Telephone Company,” 259–60.

³¹ Theopolitical Imagination, 75–76 (emphasis in original).

³² Ibid., 45.

³³ “From One City to Two,” 315–19.

³⁴ Augustine, , City of God, trans. Bettenson, Henry (London/New York: Penguin, 1984), 14.28.Google Scholar

³⁵ Ibid., 18.49.

³⁶ Cavanaugh, , Theopolitical Imagination, 83–84.Google Scholar

³⁷ Cavanaugh, , “From One City to Two,” 314.Google Scholar

³⁸ Ibid., 318.

³⁹ Augustine, , City of God, 19.17.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Augustine, , Free Choice of the Will, trans. Russell, Robert P. OSA, FC 59 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1968), 1.15.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Augustine, , City of God, 19.14.Google Scholar

⁴² Augustine, , Free Choice of the Will, 1.15.33.Google Scholar

⁴³ Cavanaugh, , “From One City to Two,” 302.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ibid., 313–14. Likewise Cavanaugh writes, “the temporal was only a temporary necessity for the restraint of vice by vice” (“Separation and Wholeness: Notes on the Unsettling Political Presence of the body of Christ,” in For the Sake of the World: Swedish Ecclesiology in Dialogue with William T. Cavanaugh, ed. Ideström, Jonas [Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010], 7–31, at 18).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Augustine, , City of God, 19.14–5.Google Scholar It might be significant that in this passage Augustine does not specifically mention government as a necessity as a result of sin in his discussion of dominion and servitude, although it is probably implied. Instead, he focuses on war and slavery. Regarding war, he makes his famous statement that even if waging a war is just, and therefore not sinful, it is still the result of sin on the part of the other side. Regarding slavery, I think a modern reader would be less willing to conclude that human sinfulness necessitates slavery in the same way it does coercive government or war.

⁴⁶ Augustine, , Free Choice of the Will, 1.1.1.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Cavanaugh, , Torture and Eucharist, 215–16Google Scholar; idem, “From One City to Two,” 309; idem, “Separation and Wholeness,” 18–19.

⁴⁸ Cavanaugh, , “From One City to Two,” 310.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Ibid., 312.

⁵⁰ Dodaro, Robert, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 33–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵¹ Augustine, , Free Choice of the Will, 1.15.Google Scholar

⁵² Augustine, , City of God, 19.14, 17.Google Scholar

⁵³ Cavanaugh, , Torture and Eucharist, 215Google Scholar; idem, Theopolitical Imagination, 83–84; idem, “From One City to Two,” 310.

⁵⁴ Augustine, , City of God, 19.21–24.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Dodaro, , Christ and the Just Society, 72–114.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Augustine, , City of God, 5.25.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Dodaro, , Christ and the Just Society, 191–95.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Ibid., 55–57.

⁵⁹ Ibid., 208–12.

⁶⁰ Cavanaugh, , “Killing for the Telephone Company,” 266–67.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Ibid., 266.

⁶² Ibid., 263.

⁶³ Long, D. Stephen, “What Makes Theology ‘Political’? ‘Come Let Us Reason Together,’” Political Theology 5 (2004): 393–410, at 395–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁴ Cavanaugh, , “Killing for the Telephone Company,” 268–69.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Cavanaugh, , Torture and Eucharist, 268–69.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Therefore I do not completely agree with Mary Doak's criticism of Cavanaugh and other Radical Orthodox theologians, based on an interpretation of the Second Vatican Council's Gaudium et Spes that construes the “legitimate autonomy” of earthly affairs as independent from humanity's supernatural destiny. See Doak, Mary, “The Politics of Radical Orthodoxy: A Catholic Critique,” Theological Studies 68 (2007): 368–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁷ Aquinas, Thomas, On Kingship, to the King of Cyprus, trans. Phelan, Gerald B. and Eschmann, I. T. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1949), 2.3.60–62, 65–66.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Cavanaugh, William T., Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 27.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Ibid., 15, 32.

⁷⁰ Lacan, Jacques, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan I: Freud's Papers on Technique 1953–1954, ed. Miller, Jacques-Alain, trans. Forrester, John (New York/London: W. W. Norton, 1988), 73–162Google Scholar; Durkheim, Émile, The Rules of Sociological Method, ed. Lukes, Steven, trans. Halls, W. D. (New York: Free Press, 1982), 50–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berger, Peter L. and Luckman, Thomas, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Irvington, 1980).Google Scholar

⁷¹ Cavanaugh, , Theopolitical Imagination, 2.Google Scholar

⁷² Cavanaugh, , “Killing for the Telephone Company,” 260–64.Google Scholar

⁷³ Ibid., 243–4.

⁷⁴ Ibid., 245–6.

⁷⁵ Long, , “What Makes Theology ‘Political’?” 395–96.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Augustine, , Free Choice of the Will, 2.13.Google Scholar