The association of earthly royal power and the divine is so ancient, and its assumptions so deep, it is difficult to determine its origin.
In a way, it seems too obvious to ask after. And yet, it is a question that has obsessed me for years now: why must the divine be a ruler?
In scripture, epic and myth
They prepared for him a lordly chamber,
Before his fathers as prince he took his place. …
O Marduk, thou art cheifest among the great gods, …
We give thee sovereignty over the whole world.
– Enuma Elish, Fourth Tablet, lines 1, 2, 5, and 14. [Translated by King.]
Wherever the Bodhisattva took a step, a lotus sprouted forth. …he took seven steps toward the west and, pausing on the seventh step, he proclaimed these satisfying words in lion-like fashion: “I am the Supreme Being on this earth. This is my last birth, where I shall uproot birth, old age, sickness, and death!” … Finally he took seven steps uphill, lifted his gaze, and said, “All sentient beings will look up to me.”
– Lalitavistara Sūtra (The Play in Full), 7.31. 2013. Translated by Dharmachakra Translation Committee, 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, 2025.
I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.
– The Bible, Isaiah 43:15, ESV.
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face.
– The Bible, John 19:1-3, ESV.
That Emperor who has His kingdom there…
He governs all creation, ruling where
He has his capital and His high throne.
Happy are those he chooses to have there!
– Divine Comedy, Inferno_, Canto I, lines 124, 127-9. Dante, translated by J. G. Nichols. 2012. Alma Classics, third edition, 2024.
Joy to the world; the Lord is come;
Let Earth receive her King; …
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness,
And wonders of his love.
– Joy to the World, Issac Watts.
Praise be to God, Originator of the heavens and the earth… Truly God is Powerful over all things. …
… That is God, your Lord; to Him belongs sovereignty. …
– Qur’an, 35:1,13, Nasr, p. 1056, 1060.
[The Muses] celebrate Zeus, the father of gods and men,
both in the beginning of their song and at its end: how he is the greatest
of the gods, and most mighty in power. …
Zeus, king of gods and men…
– Theogony, Hesiod, lines 40-5 (not exact), and 705. [Translated by Barry B. Powell.]
And I’m not afraid of Zeus’s thunder;
in fact, I don’t think Zeus is a stronger god
than I am. And anyway I don’t care,
and I’ll tell you why I don’t care.
– Cyclops, Euripides, lines 320-4 [Edited by David Grene, et. al.]
Questions
- How did the first kings emerge?
- How was their dominion justified?
- Why are the gods (or a single god) most often royal and ruling?
- Did early (human) kingdoms make conceptualising all reality as ordered by a divine king seem obvious?
- Or, were the first monarchies ordained by divine rule, as adherents and believers have claimed?
- How then does organised spirituality and religion appear in places without such social structures, no less in our own time in the West of social democracy and capitalism?