Inspection Of Medieval Western European Secularism In Political Science

When Jesus said, "Pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar--and God what belongs to God", it opened the tradition of separation of church and state. In the high middle ages, western countries had initiated a series of reforms and they led separation of church and state that occurred outside and inside the church. Outside separation included the separation of political power and religious power, political authority and religious authority, political human and religious human; inside separation meant the separation of power in church.The separation of political power and religious power meant the liberation of religious power from political power, and religious power asked political power to draw a clear line between spiritual realm and secular realm, thus church stood opposite the sovereigns and nobles as a social body; the separation of political authority and religious authority meant the time transited from the divine right of kings to church right of kings. The religious authority that proved the legitimacy of domination of political authority had been deprived so that the political authority began to leave alter and abdicated it to religious authority, religious authority overrode political authority; the separation of political human and religious human led the deification to disenchantment of sovereigns'identity. The sovereign began to be a layman and had no qualification to interfere in the religious affairs. The system of celibacy drew a line between political human and religious human successfully; the distinction of church's resource made by spiritual ministration and gubernatorial ministration established central government of church.Western society of Christianity appeared a distinctive phenomenon of separation of church and state, the difference of the separation advocated by religion reform laid in church separated from state actively in the high middle ages, and church asked for freedom and self-government so that they could get rid of the control of the state, meanwhile, they believed religious authority should override political authority. The separation formed a dualistic model of political structure, in which political power and religious power were separated, independent and balanced. This was the first time of separation in western history, which explored the road of western law tradition, modern liberalism and constitutionalism.