Commentaria in Deuteronomium
Let princes note this also. The kings of Juda sinned in this matter, and therefore lost their kingdom: whence Helcias, finding Deuteronomy cast away in a corner, brought it to Josias, who received it with great religion, read it and fulfilled it, and so restored the commonwealth of the Hebrews together with religion, as is plain from 4 Kings xxii and following.
On the contrary, Jeroboam, Baasa, Jehu and the other kings of Israel soon lost the empire they had received from God, on account of neglecting the religion of the true God, and did not propagate it beyond the third or fourth heir. So the Emperor Constantine used to say: “The dignity and greatness of the Roman Empire has true piety for its fountain and root.” So reigned happily the pious and religious Christian princes, Theodosius, Marcian, Justin, Justinian and others; but unhappily reigned the unbelieving and impious, Constantius, Julian, Valens and very many others.
Hear what Nicephorus writes of Valens alone, book xi, chap. 1. When Valens was setting out from Constantinople against the Goths, the hermit Isaac ran up, and seizing the bridle of his horse said: “Whither goest thou, O Emperor, who makest war against God, and bringest not his help with thee? He has stirred up the barbarians against thee, because thou hast sharpened the tongues of impious men: restore therefore to the Orthodox the churches which thou hast taken from them, and thou shalt come off victor; if thou wilt not, thou shalt find how hard it is to kick against the goad, and to lift an impotent tongue to heaven; for neither shalt thou thyself return, and thou shalt lose the forces thou leadest with thee.” Valens, boiling with anger, said: “I shall indeed return victor, and take of thee the penalties due to thy rashness, and show thy prediction to be false.” And at once he ordered the man to be seized and kept in custody till he returned. But the hermit, as he was led away, cried out: “Slay me also, if thou findest my words to be lies.” Shortly after Valens perished with his army by a foul death, and he himself, fleeing to the marshes, was burnt in a hut by the Goths.
Moreover David describes the image of a pious and good prince, Psalms lxxi and c. So also Holy Scripture in David, 2 Kings vii, in Solomon, Asa, Josaphat, Ezechias and Josias in the books of Kings. A wonderful saying was that of the Emperor Constantine, who said to the bishops of his age: “You are bishops within the Church; I have been appointed by God bishop outside the Church,” as Eusebius relates, book iv of his Life, chap. xxiv. His father, the Emperor Constantius, made Christians, who had always freely professed the faith, his guards and the keepers of his kingdom, having cast out all apostates and profane persons, saying that such were to be held among his chief and faithful friends, and to be valued above vast treasures. So Eusebius, book i of the Life of Constantine, chap. xi.
Lastly, the Emperor Justin, creating Tiberius Caesar, and investing him with the purple, said to him: “Honour God and his Church, once thy mistress and lady, but now thy mother; know who thou wast before, and who thou hast this day become: love the poor above all, and let alms not fail with thee.” So Nicephorus, book xvii, chap. xi.
Vers. 20. 20. NEITHER LET HIS HEART BE LIFTED UP WITH PRIDE OVER HIS BRETHREN,—that is, over his nation, over the Hebrews; as if to say: The Hebrews, by nation and race, are the brethren of the king: therefore let not the king exalt himself insolently over them, thinking that they are bound by the laws of Deuteronomy while he is above them; whence it follows: “Neither let him turn aside to the right hand or to the left,” namely from the precept, as the Hebrew has it; but let him walk in the right way of the law: and so he shall obtain a reward from God, “that he and his son may reign a long time.” Such a king, and the pattern of kings, was Josaphat, of whom Damascene writes thus in the Life of Barlaam and Josaphat: “This he held for certain, that of all the duties of a king this is the first and chief, to instruct men in the fear of God and the practice of justice; which he himself also did, preparing himself to hold in check the perturbations of the soul, admonishing his subjects, and, like the best of pilots, diligently holding the rudder of justice. For this at last is the law and rule of a true kingdom, namely to command the pleasures and to lord it over them, as he himself also did. For, neither exalting himself in any way on the nobility of his ancestors, nor on the royal glory in which he moved (since we all have a creature of clay as the author of our race, and are poor and rich alike of the same clay), but casting his mind continually into the abyss of humility, and embracing in mind and thought the happiness to come, he counted himself a lodger here: and he held those things to be his own which he should enjoy after the pilgrimage of this life.”
Hear the Gentiles also. Cato said, “that prince is the worst who cannot rule himself.” And Agesilaus boasted that he was surpassed by none in labour, and ruled himself more than his subjects. If ever he wished anything to be quickly done by the soldiers, he was the first to do it in the sight of all. The same, understanding that the Thasians had decreed temples and divine honours to him on account of the benefits conferred on them, asked the envoys whether their city could turn men into gods; when they affirmed it: “Come then,” he said, “first make yourselves gods; that done, I will believe you that I too can be changed by you into a god.” Dying, he commanded that no effigy or monument of him be made: “For if,” he said, “anything has been nobly done by me, that will be my monument; but if not, not even all the statues, which are the works of illiberal men, will win me a name.” So Plutarch in the Laconic Sayings.
Beautifully Seneca, Tragedy 2:
Not riches make a king, nor the colour of the Tyrian robe: he is a king who has laid aside fears and the evils of a cruel heart.
Whom neither unbridled ambition, nor the never-steady favour of the headlong crowd moves; who, set in a safe place, sees all things beneath him.
And Horace, Ode 2, book ii:
Thou shalt reign more widely by subduing a greedy spirit, than if thou shouldst join Libya to remote Gades, and both Carthaginians serve one lord.
A good and holy prince is the image of God, and “the living image of God on earth,” says Menander.
“Vespasian,” says Tacitus, book ii, “was wont keenly to march at the head of the column, to choose the place for the camp, to give counsel night and day, and, if the case required, to withstand the enemy with his own hand, differing scarcely from the common soldier in food taken as it came, in dress and bearing: altogether, had avarice been absent, equal to the ancient commanders.”
“It is a precept of the wise men of the Indians,” says Nicephorus Gregoras, book vi of his History, “that a prince, the loftier he is by nature, the more humane he shows himself to inferiors, will be the dearest to the people.”
Cyrus held that empire becomes no one, unless he be better than his subjects, says Xenophon, book viii of the Cyropaedia. The same said that a good prince and magistrate is a law that sees: for he can discern and punish one who neglects the law.
Let princes note that saying of Seneca, Tragedy 3: “He who wishes to be loved, let him reign with a gentle hand.” Again that of Ammianus Marcellinus, book xxx: “Whoever governs an empire must avoid all excess, like steep rocks.”
Nerva was so good a prince that he said he had done nothing for which he might not, after laying down the empire, live safely as a private man, says Dio.
Hence Solon said: “Command when thou hast first learned to obey. For when thou hast learned to be ruled, thou shalt know how to rule.” Agesilaus, king of the Lacedaemonians, said that he held the principate not for himself but for the commonwealth and its allies and friends. Agathon said: Let the prince remember, first, that he commands men; secondly, that he commands according to the laws; thirdly, that he will not always command.