Sacralized imperial power frames law itself as a snare that weakens authority

Evidence

Pobyedonostzev in his Reflections of a Russian Statesman, London, 1898: “Power exists not for itself alone but for the love of God. It is a service to which men are dedicated. Thence comes the limitless, terrible strength of power and its limitless and terrible burden” (p. 254). Or: “The law becomes a snare not only to the people, but …to the very authorities engaged in its administration …if at every step the executor of the law finds in the law itself restrictive prescriptions …then all authority is lost in doubt, weakened by the law …and crushed by the fear of responsibility” (p. 88). — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2449

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Russian autocratic conception of power as divinely mandated service, and the corresponding rejection of legal restraint as undermining that power.
• XREF: Connects to Arendt’s broader scaffolding on how totalitarianism rejects the rule of law — this is the Russian imperial precursor to the Nazi ‘protective custody’ in paragraph 2450. — connects to: Law turned from a multiplier of royal power into its subtractor. — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 161; Legalism paradoxically disables the power it aims to secure — Chuck Missler, The Kingdom, Power and Glory: The…, 1228; Elite power over the imperial matrix is not absolute