Jacques-Benigne Bossuet's Defense of Absolute Monarchy

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704) was a theologian at the court of the French "Sun King" Louis XIV; Bossuet was one of history's most fervent defenders of absolute monarchy. For him, only God stands above the person of the king, and the king's authority cannot be challenged by any other human being.

According to Bossuet's treatise, "On the Nature and Properties of Royal Authority," the greatest crime is to attack the person of the king, since the king is not a mere man, but the representative of God on Earth, whose life individuals must guard above their own so as to obtain the grace of God.

Bossuet quotes biblical figures as stating that obedience to rulers is necessary so that those rulers may have the ability to exercise God's moral judgment on Earth. Though Bossuet claims that kings are responsible to God for using their power to advance the public good, he twists this argument to justify absolute authority for kings, since no man should be able to intervene with the king's ability to pass judgment on matters of good and evil and thus be accountable to God for this judgment.

Because the king is directly accountable to God, according to Bossuet, he cannot be held liable to any man for his judgment. Bossuet also compares a king to a father for his subjects, and thus grounds the belief in absolute authority in the Ten Commandments, which include obedience to one's parents. He justifies a king's immense material power as a gift from God so that the king's attention would not need (in theory) to be occupied with the pursuit of further material gains, thus able to be directed for the public purpose that he was intended to fulfill by God.