secular arm

English

Etymology

Calque of Late Latin bracchium saeculāre with the figurative meaning "lay power", although in actual usage the term arm tends to be interpretable as either "power" or "branch of an organisation".

Noun

secular arm

1. (law, ecclesiastical law, historical) The lay or temporal authority of a secular judge to pronounce punishment (particularly capital punishment) of an offender tried by an ecclesiastical court.

   The secular arm as a means by which lay power intervenes in ecclesiastical cases had two types: sought and unsought by the Church.

   • 1819, "Arm", article in Abraham Rees (editor), The Cyclopædia, Volume 2, unnumbered page,

     The church ſheds no blood; even the judges of the inquiſition, after they have found the perſon guilty, ſurrender him to the ſecular arm.

   • 1812, Gideon Ouseley, A Short Defence of the Old Religion, published 1821, page 239:

     Yet all who reject them are by the Council of Trent and the Papal Church pronounced accursed heretics and excommunicated, and therefore to be given over to the secular arm, as we have just seen that millions have been, to be destroyed or burned;

   • 1870 October, D. D. Whedon, editor, Methodist Quarterly Review, Volume 52 - 4th Series, Volume 22, page 634:

     We also understand that when the secular arm has the power it is requirable by the Church to execute those who entertain views opposed to the Papacy; and that the only reason why the Church does not now require it is that the secular arm is not at the Pope's command.

Usage notes

• Usage tends to be ambiguous as to whether the intended sense of arm is "power" or "branch of an organisation", although it is clear that the secular and ecclesiastical "branches" are of different organisations.

Translations

lay authority of a secular judge to punish an offender tried in an ecclesiastical court

• Finnish: maallinen valta
• French: bras séculier m
• German: weltlicher Arm m
• Italian: braccio secolare m

See also

• two swords

References

• “secular arm”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “secular arm”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• "secular arm" in Catholic Culture: Dictionary
• Elizabeth Knowles, editor (2005), “the secular arm”, in Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 641