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DEMOCRACY TODAY
of the two terms since Aristotle’s time being used mostly as synonyms
(say, both monarchy and aristocracy were described by the philosopher
as ‘right’ forms of government, while oligarchy and democracy having
been declared to be ‘deviant’), their etymological distinction is not casuistic
nor idle philological whimsy. French poet and journalist Charles
Péguy, one of the few thinkers who stated the substantial difference of
the two types of power, a hundred years ago used to construct a whole
conception: power as dominance is the power over somebody, while
power-governance is the power to do something [Péguy, 1987, p.1803].
However, there is a third notion of power not mentioned by Péguy, – it is
‘εξουσία’ – power-ability, which is more than power-governance entitled
to be denoted as power to act and to create something.
By the way, it is the third word that is being used to designate the
notion of power in the Greek text of the New Testament, in the wellknown
words by Apostle Paul: “For there is no power but of God”
(Rom. 13:1). This expression, especially in the 20 th c., has aroused much
bewilderment of interpreters: does any power really originate in God
according to the Christian teaching, even that of Hitler or Stalin? Such
bewilderment is indeed an example of unjustified (both philologically and
philosophically) mixture of different meanings of ‘power”: it is ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ
being used in the original, and neither ‘kratos’ nor ‘archos’, which are
not to be equaled to ‘eksousia’ – as ability to create anything is beyond
all doubts given by God, and that’s what the epistle in question states.
Fig. 2. The three types of power and their connotation