Unity of Nations

Patristic perspectives on church and nationalism

Joseph Ratzinger’s potent little book, Unity of Nations, based on what must have been a very long 1962 lecture, is subtitled “a vision of the church fathers.” It’s actually a vision of only two – Origen and Augustine – but, hey, once you’ve dealt with those two, who else is there really?

The unity of humanity is rooted in creation: Of one man God made all the nations of the earth. Greco-Roman culture also had a concept of world unity, but came to it from a very different theological perspective. Among pagans, divinity was “part of the world, and the world had divine status,” so the “unity of mankind could be converted into political reality” (11). The biblical God, of course, is Creator, free in regard to the creation. He imposes the punishment of division at Babel, and His free and independent power alone is capable of reuniting the world. That’s what He’s promised to do, and the Old Testament is filled with visions of the pilgrimage of nations to Zion.