The Primacy of the Spiritual: On the Things That Are Not Caesar’s

by Jacques Maritain

The Primacy of the Spiritual is a study of the problem of power in its two fundamental the temporal and the spiritual. Approaching his subject with an intensely illuminating insight and utterance, Maritain sets forth the relation between politics and doctrine, elaborating the objective preeminence of the spiritual and demonstrating the essential principles of civilization, the providential identity and mission of the Church, and the responsibility of the Christian within secular society. Originally published in English as The Things That Are Not Caesar’s , amid the aftermath of the Action Française scandal, The Primacy of the Spiritual has proven eminently superior to time and circumstance in its explication of the relationship between the spiritual and temporal orders, a relationship which dwells restlessly at the heart of culture.

Genres: Philosophy

254 pages, Hardcover

Published June 19, 2023

About the author

T. S. Eliot once called Jacques Maritain "the most conspicuous figure and probably the most powerful force in contemporary philosophy." His wife and devoted intellectual companion, Raissa Maritain, was of Jewish descent but joined the Catholic church with him in 1906. Maritain studied under Henri Bergson but was dissatisfied with his teacher's philosophy, eventually finding certainty in the system of St. Thomas Aquinas. He lectured widely in Europe and in North and South America, and lived and taught in New York during World War II. Appointed French ambassador to the Vatican in 1945, he resigned in 1948 to teach philosophy at Princeton University, where he remained until his retirement in 1953. He was prominent in the Catholic intellectual resurgence, with a keen perception of modern French literature. Although Maritain regarded metaphysics as central to civilization and metaphysically his position was Thomism, he took full measure of the intellectual currents of his time and articulated a resilient and vital Thomism, applying the principles of scholasticism to contemporary issues. In 1963, Maritain was honored by the French literary world with the national Grand Prize for letters. He learned of the award at his retreat in a small monastery near Toulouse where he had been living in ascetic retirement for some years. In 1967, the publication of "The Peasant of the Garonne" disturbed the French Roman Catholic world. In it, Maritain attacked the "neo-modernism" that he had seen developing in the church in recent decades, especially since the Second Vatican Council. According to Jaroslav Pelikan, writing in the Saturday Review of Literature, "He laments that in avant-garde Roman Catholic theology today he can 'read nothing about the redeeming sacrifice or the merits of the Passion.' In his interpretation, the whole of the Christian tradition has identified redemption with the sacrifice of the cross. But now, all of that is being discarded, along with the idea of hell, the doctrine of creation out of nothing, the infancy narratives of the Gospels, and belief in the immortality of the human soul." Maritain's wife, Raissa, also distinguished herself as a philosophical author and poet. The project of publishing Oeuvres Completes of Jacques and Raissa Maritain has been in progress since 1982, with seven volumes now in print.

Reviews

[Aaron Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The control of the senses by reason and of reason itself by God is the essential condition of order and peace in the human being, and this can only be achieved through faith and supernatural love…. The error of the modern world and the modern mind consists in the claim to ensure the domination of nature by reason while at the same time refusing the domination of reason by supernature.”

Subordination of politics to ethics.
Subordination of the State to God.

“The peculiar end of civil society, therefore, is not only to secure respect for the individual liberties and rights of every citizen, or to ensure material comfort, but also to pure procure the truly human and therefore moral good of the social body.”

“The truth is that Europe has forgotten even the subordination of political to spiritual ends.”