Robert Bellarmine, On Temporal and Spiritual Authority

As I was reminded when I taught it this past semester in a 1L elective, Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan--part scientific treatise on human nature, part philosophy of law, part theological commentary, part just plain weirdness--is the greatest work in English-speaking political philosophy. Interestingly, the only contemporaneous figure whom Hobbes engages at length in Leviathan (in chapter xlii, "Of Power Ecclesiastical") is Saint Robert Bellarmine, the great Jesuit cardinal of the Catholic Reformation most famous for his role in the Galileo affair but also an important figure in seventeenth century political theory and the defense of papal authority. The Liberty Fund has just published an edition of Bellarmine's On Temporal and Spiritual Authority, treatises that have been difficult to find in reliable translations or critical editions until now. Bellarmine is a vital resource for any account of religious institutions possessing real authority (not merely by concession of the state, see Rob's post below), and so those of us working in Catholic legal theory should be especially grateful to the Liberty Fund for this publication.