Ruling with the Gods
Living with the Gods
BBC
4.7 • 616 Ratings
🗓️ 27 November 2017
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Neil MacGregor continues his series on shared beliefs with a focus on earthly rulers and the gods.
Queens and kings may be priests of the gods, or their representatives. They may be incarnations - or even gods themselves. Or the relationship may be so close that to divide spiritual from temporal power at all would simply make no sense.
Neil examines these ideas, with the help of objects including a bronze staff belonging to the Oba of Benin, and a bronze vessel from China, whose inscription suggests that its dynastic leaders enjoyed a mandate from heaven.
Producer Paul Kobrak
The series is produced in partnership with the British Museum, with the assistance of Dr Christopher Harding, University of Edinburgh. Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If our descendants oppress the people, if our descendants don't know how to maintain good political system, then heaven will replace us and give the mandate to somebody else. |
| 0:11.7 | Hello, I'm Neil McGregor, and in this series of podcasts, I'm looking at objects to see how shared beliefs help shape societies. |
| 0:21.0 | In this final set of programmes, |
| 0:22.9 | we explore the relationship between faith and the political sphere. |
| 0:27.4 | And we begin with the mandate of heaven, |
| 0:30.9 | those that rule with the authority of the gods. |
| 0:34.4 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:40.2 | And as Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, |
| 0:47.5 | so be thou anointed, blessed and consecrated queen over the peoples, |
| 0:53.4 | whom the Lord thy God hath given thee to rule and govern, |
| 0:57.7 | in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. |
| 1:06.2 | The 2nd of June, 1953. |
| 1:16.1 | The Archbishop of Canterbury |
| 1:17.9 | pours holy oil over Elizabeth II |
| 1:20.5 | during her coronation service at Westminster Abbey. |
| 1:25.2 | Like the biblical kings of Israel, but unique among European monarchs, she is now the |
| 1:31.4 | anointed of the Lord. The choir sings, handles Zadok the priest. But the archbishop also |
| 1:41.2 | mentioned Nathan, the prophet who had publicly rebuked and humiliated |
| 1:45.6 | the great King David, calling him to repentance for not ruling justly. |
| 1:51.7 | To be a leader in the eyes of your people, you've needed, for most of history, to be a leader |
| 1:56.4 | in the eyes of their God. But the exercise of this kind of power is rarely simple. It usually |
| 2:02.5 | comes with a divinely sanctioned duty of care to your people. And as the word sanction implies, |
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