Known among his associates as the Prophet, Lionel G. Curtis was the driving force within the Round Table Group in refining the idea of a world commonwealth, pursuing its realisation with the zeal of a new religion. Tireless in advocating a new federal organisation with the British Empire as its focal point, he authored a series of books and articles, culminating in his Civitas Dei, which he dedicated to Sir Malcolm Steward, 'one whose life has been devoted to the task of creating the Kingdom of God upon Earth.' In this book, Curtis described what he believed to be 'the first and foremost duty of man', the realisation of what he termed the 'Divine Commonwealth'. Drawing his inspiration from Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, he wrote:

My thoughts revert to that scene when He that was born at Bethlehem, despised and rejected of men, was scourged and condemned to the death of a slave and a criminal. From that moment of utter despair there sprang the movement which has gone some way to create, and in the ages before us will bring to fulfilment, the Kingdom of God upon earth, the Divine Commonwealth, a human society based on the laws of God, on the one abiding reality, the infinite duty of men to God, of one to another. Of all the lessons brought to my mind in the long task of framing this narrative the deepest is this, that apparent failure, when faced with courage and examined by reason, is the road to superlative triumph. That, I believe, is the true meaning which underlies all that has happened since the dawn which broke upon Easter Day. The spirit of Christ rose from His grave. It moved and yet moves the souls of men to face and accomplish the task which He set them.

Although published in three successive volumes in 1934-1937, Civitas Dei was actually a revised and expanded version of a much earlier work of Curtis, The Commonwealth of Nations (1916). Combined in one volume in 1938, Civitas Dei was circulated under the title The Commonwealth of God. The original title was a thinly veiled allusion to Augustine's magnus opus, De Civitate Dei. Apparently, Curtis wanted to challenge Augustine's thesis, that the fallen world of this age was fundamentally different from the celestial 'city' of salvation. Repudiating Augustine's theological presuppositions, and intent on reinterpreting the Church Father's spiritual insights, Curtis sought to review the evolution of the commonwealth idea and to show that all of history leads to its fulfilment in the Kingdom of God on earth, which, in his view, was a world state of federalised nations. Moreover, he defined the spiritual essence of the Kingdom as the ethical ideal which Jesus Christ introduced to humankind in the precepts of the two great commandments - to love God and to love one's neighbour as oneself.

Curtis' religious beliefs, convoluted and heterodox as they may have been, nevertheless gripped the imagination of his contemporaries and spurred them on to do their part in expediting the coming of God's kingdom, material and this-worldly, as it was conceived in Civitas Dei. 'Curtis's theology is quite plainly questionable,' writes Gerald Studdert-Kennedy, 'but on the other hand, it was far more widely shared, and its bearing on his political science, though it has since been neglected, was explicit and obvious at the time.' Of those directly associated with him, only Arnold J. Toynbee discounted the book's thesis in favour of Augustine's. Toynbee's daily reading of Augustine's Confessions, and his emotional attachment to it may have been more responsible for this divergence of views than any substantial difference in perspective. Answering Curtis' standard question: 'what is it we are after on this earth?', he responded:

No doubt the answer is the Civitas Dei; but then one comes to identify this object and here, as you know, I personally, with great affection and respect towards you and your Civitas, put my own treasure in St Augustine - which I fancy may seem to you to be in some inaccessible place beyond the horizon.

Curtis asserted that political wisdom and virtue have been developed throughout history by the creation and operation of free institutions and the practice of self-government. Yet in God's mind, the stage of multiple nation-states governing sovereignly their own affairs was only an intermediate phase in the creation of the ultimate world society. This, according to Curtis, was the enlightened understanding about the divine kingdom which Jesus Christ wanted to communicate to his disciples through a variety of spiritual discourses, and especially through the 'Sermon on the Mount'. Christ's injunction to seek first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, supposedly meant that

the organisation of tribal society into sovereign states, a necessary step to that end, will block its final achievement if the sovereignty of national states is regarded, as it now is, by leaders in church and state, as the last word in human development. We have now reached a stage in the growth of civilisation which cannot go further, and is doomed to go back, until we discover the means of passing from the national to the international state, to the state in the truest and fullest sense of that word ... Human nature has made immeasurable strides since our Lord showed in his own person how divine it can be. But it cannot advance further till men learn to think of the scheme of human relations which he [Christ] conceived as one to be brought from the realm of dreams to the earth in which they live, to be made incarnate in the flesh and blood of a living society.

Yet how could such a 'living society' be brought into existence? Curtis assured any doubtful spirit that, in spite of all opposition, the Commonwealth of God would finally be realised, because 'the supreme Creator had brought into being men made in His own likeness, as partners with Himself in the work of creation, and had left them the task of realising the Kingdom of God upon earth.' Thus the task of designing a political system which would meet God's approval, and bringing about its fulfilment, has been placed into the hands of humankind. Curtis emphasised, however, that a special duty would lie on Christians, as they are aware of God's creative purpose. They would need to mobilise the rest of humankind to join hands with them in building the divine kingdom, which, in keeping with Curtis' interpretation, would be a federal world society.

The first practical step toward the formation of such a society would be the union of a small number of now-independent states into one larger state. The most suitable countries to start with would be those with the same language, similar institutions, and long practice in the art of self-government. Curtis' obvious choice fell on Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. France, South Africa, and the United States would also qualify as countries suitable for joining the first national commonwealth. The citizens of these countries would quickly develop and demonstrate loyalty to an entity wider than the nation-state as it now is and lead the nations towards the world-commonwealth of the future.

The initial World Commonwealth would have a joint legislature and executive which would impose and collect taxes for federal purposes, operating always upon the individual citizen. Voting and tax-paying for two generations would engender devotion. The federation would find its first common interest in the maintenance of routes between its units, and in time it might be joined by other countries vitally interested in these routes, such as Egypt, India, and Holland. Later would come Belgium and the Scandinavian countries. In this expansion the most difficult step would be the inclusion of the first non-British state. Progress from that point would be both easier and quicker. Thus the British Commonwealth would complete its work as a stage in the long process of political integration which moves toward universal human community in the Civitas Dei, the Commonwealth of God.

Although expressing his full support for the League of Nations during its formative stage, even participating in drafting its Charter, Curtis soon changed his opinion after it became clear that there was no hope of peace in a mere league of nations which preserves intact the sovereignty of its states members; which acts only by unanimous decision and even then must depend for action upon forces which remain under control of the states; which has no supreme tribunal with compulsory jurisdiction and no legislature competent to adapt the law to changing conditions; which exercises no authority over the individual citizen and makes no appeal to his loyalty. In Civitas Dei he expressed his outright disappointment with the League of Nations due to the diversity of views espoused by its member states. He recommended that the English-speaking nations should withdraw their participation in the League altogether and create their own international organisation. The much-desired admission of the United State and Canada into this organisation would guarantee world peace.

If and when its stability was proved and also its capacity to include other democracies, those even of northern Europe, Canada would, I think, follow suit and by doing so pave the way for its ultimate fusion with the great American Commonwealth. And whenever the people of North America add their strength to an international commonwealth the epoch of world wars in which we are now living will be finally closed.

Again, in his book World War, its Cause and Cure (1946) Curtis proposed the union of the United States and Great Britain, as the cornerstone of world federalism.

Curtis perceived the greatest obstacle in realising his internationalist goals in the concept of national sovereignty. 'The change that is needed,' he postulated, 'is first and foremost a change in men's minds. The work of effecting that change is essentially work for the churches; but they cannot begin it till political thinkers have clearly said what the change should be.' Curtis abhorred the emotional attachment, which he perceived in the majority of the people around him, to their own particular country at the exclusion of all the others. To overcome this problem, he put his faith in propaganda, and the chief instrument of that propaganda, he said, must be the Protestant churches. In the closing paragraph of Civitas Dei he expressed his confidence that the Christians would discharge their duty, as he saw it, to work towards the realisation of a world commonwealth as the ultimate manifestation of the divine Kingdom.

The great difficulty lies in moving from one stage to the next. It consists no longer in physical obstacles but only in human minds. The difficulty of so changing the minds of men, even in commonwealths most advanced, is hard to exaggerate. It is mountainous in size and as such can only be removed by faith. Because I feel that these mountains can only be moved by faith, I look with hope to repositories of faith, to churches which are based upon faith in the real sense of that word. To leave the language of metaphor, I feel that when once the Protestant churches have learned to regard the creation of a world commonwealth as an all-important aspect of their work in realising the Kingdom of God, an international commonwealth would come into being in a few generations. A bridge would be thrown over the gulf in men's minds which now bars our progress to a higher civilisation. My hopes lies with the churches which are not bound by the chain of their past.

Curtis' trust in the churches' ability to propagate the gospel of world federation was based on his conviction that the public needed to be informed about 'a structure of society based on realities, of a world ordered in accordance with the laws of God', before it would accept a merger of national sovereignties into an international state of some kind. This belief motivated him and Lord Lothian to establish close ties with Church leaders and to play a participatory role in formulating the philosophical and procedural basis of the early ecumenical movement. They exercised an enormous influence on the thinking of Joseph Oldham, the Secretary of the International Missionary Council and organizer of the World Conference on Life and Order in Oxford, 1937:

Joseph Oldham used the expression league of churches' because in those days he was profoundly interested in the process whereby the League of Nations had come into being in January 1920. He was in touch with the Round Table' group, in particular with Lionel Curtis and Philip Kerr, later Lord Lothian, both of whom had taken an active part in the elaboration of the plan for a League of Nations, Curtis as a member of the Peace Delegation at Versailles and Kerr as Lloyd George's private secretary. Both men were also in close touch with General Smuts and Lord Robert Cecil. On 20 September 1952, Oldham wrote to me: The Round Table group were my great educators in matters of constitutional principle. They clarified my thinking in these matters. I saw clearly that though the Continuation Committee was an organization of church boards it was in principle an entirely new development in church life and that it might lead in the future to new relations between the churches themselves, though I was at the time much too much occupied with IMC [International Missionary Council] post-war problems to look further ahead.

Curtis believed that Church leaders such as Oldham could influence public opinion to such a degree that initiatives would be launched which would ultimately change the geopolitical landscape of the world from some sixty sovereign States to a politically unified human habitat. As future events proved, he would not be disappointed in the ability of the churches to rally the public in support of a 'divine Commonwealth'.

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© 2005 Martin Erdmann