Harry Jaffa: The American Founding as the Best Regime

Leo Strauss comments in his Natural Right and History that Cicero's embrace of Rome as the Best Regime was ironic, at best. I wonder if the same can be said for Jaffa's embrace of America. A few sections sounded like pod-people talk: some phrases were just ever-so-slightly askew. Take his statement

The laws of Moses regulated all aspects of human life, mental as well as physical, private as well as public. If we think of orthodox Judaism today, we think of freely chosen personal obligations. But in ancient Israel, these laws were inescapable.

The authorial "we" glides over a crucial distinction. To paraphrase Tonto, "Whose 'we', Straussian man?" Only doctrinaire Liberals think of religious adherence as freely chosen and personal. Christians, following John 15:16, see God's choice as paramount.

Further:

Hence Jesus never meant to characterize all political authority as that of Caesar. When he spoke of "Caesar" he was not speaking symbolically; he meant the conqueror of his people, whose regime rested upon force alone. Government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed is no more properly characterized as "Caesar" than is the government of ancient Israel under the laws of Moses. Nevertheless, it was the transformation of the Rome of the Caesars into the Holy Roman Empire that ended the ancient world and created the distinction — and opposition — of church and state.

I can grant that the judges of Israel would not have been considered Caesar, but why should not a republic be categorized as Caesar?

Jaffa also has a throwaway line about Christian salvation being individual, whereas I and, to my knowledge, all Catholics, consider salvation to be literally corporate--we must become part of the Body of Christ, the Church, to be saved. It's not so much the abandonment of all family and human relations as the transfiguration of the family and human relations.

The Declaration of Independence recognizes, as did the medieval church, the divine government of the universe. But this government, while providing a pattern for human government, does not cause any divided allegiance in one's political obligation here on earth.

The Kingdom of Heaven in perfect harmony with human government? Perhaps in paradise, but alas an angel bars our way back there.

Jaffa throws bones to traditional religion throughout the piece, but the differences like those noted above make me wonder just what kind of animal those bones came from. I better understand now why the Straussians have a reputation for equivocation. And I worry about the future of a republic whose conservative thinkers see no dual loyalty between God and Fallen Man.