CHAPTER 4 Between Scripture and Stoicism
The Duty of Intervention in the Calvinist Monarchomachs
Alberto Clerici
In a decisive passage of the second volume of his Foundations of modern political thought, Quentin Skinner famously remarked that the Huguenot Monarchomachs made an �epoch-making move...
from a purely religious theÂory of resistance, depending on the idea of a covenant to uphold the laws of God, to a genuinely political theory of revolution, based on the idea of a conÂtract which gives rise to a moral right (and not merely a religious duty) to resist any ruler who fails in his corresponding obligation to pursue the welfare of the people in all public acts'. And a few pages later, he concludes that the revoluÂtionary Calvinists managed to articulate a â€?fully populist as well as completely secularized theory of the right to resists', whose main arguments were drawn from Roman law, medieval jurisprudence, Canonists and Renaissance and scholastic philosophy.1 Skinner's remarks, directed against Max Weber's thesis about the special nature of Calvinism, revived by Michael Walzer's Revolution of the Saints (1965), bring into the fore the much-debated question of the priÂmacy of politics or religion in the literature of the seventeenth-century Wars of Religion, to which British and especially French historiography has been very sensitive.[183] [184] Naturally, the rise of secularization or, better, the decreasing importance of an exclusively religious framework in Early Modern political discourse and the broadening of arguments and sources in the relevant literÂature, has been a tortuous and non-linear path, that is still controversial and needs further investigation.[185] Following those scholarly outcomes that suggest to resist the temptation to see the political thought framed during the Wars of Religion as completely secularized or, conversely, still dominated by a religious dimension, I will try to trace the coexistence and use of â€?sacred' and â€?secular' - or â€?pagan' - sources in a few texts associated with the group of authors usually known as â€?Calvinist Monarchomachs',[186] in relation to a specific issue, namely the right or, better, the duty of Christian princes (and possibly even private individuals) to â€?render assistance', as the famous Vlndlciae contra tyrannos (1579) put it, â€?to subjects of other princes who are being persecuted on account of pure religion, or oppressed by manifest tyranny'.[187] I will try to elucidate how the problem of what we now call â€?humanitarian intervention',[188] or â€?responsiÂbility to protect',[189] was raised in some of the most influential monarchomach treatises, by the fusion of scriptural and Stoic elements in their treatment of the subject,[190] and hence their specificity in respect to Calvin himself, and their affinity to the later natural law tradition embodied by Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius.[191] [192]My task will thus be to establish a possible link between the Calvinist monarchomach theories of the late sixteenth century, as expressed by the most famous and widespread treatises, and at least a part of the so-called â€?Protestant school of modern natural law' - I call it this way very loosely - from Grotius to Locke and Vattel.
I am especially speaking here not so much of the general history of natural law, but, in particular, of the contribution of the Calvinist Monarchomachs to the development of the Law of Nations. This is a chapter of the history of ius gentium that in my opinion needs to be highlighted more comprehensively, given the fact that - with few exceptions - most histories of international thought simply ignore the Monarchomachs, â€?jumping' directly from the Spanish Scholastics and the debates over the New World to the so- called â€?founders' of modern international law, namely Balthasar Ayala, Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius,[193] notwithstanding the fact that monarchomach thought, best summarized in the famous and widely read pamphlet Vindiciae contra tyrannos of 1579, lies behind and inside those â€?classics', in the sense that they share the same historical context - the international background of the Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt - and the same intellectual environment, as far as political thought is concerned, that is the struggle between absoÂlutism and constitutionalism occasioned by the fall of the medieval ideal of Respublica Christiana.Indeed, regardless of episodic accusation of â€?Biblicism' levelled at the Monarchomachs (especially the â€?Marian exiles' Ponet, Knox and Goodman),11 for them and even more so for the Huguenots, the importance is widely recogÂnized of non-scriptural sources of knowledge and authorities, notably the lanÂguage of natural law. David VanDrunen has rightly spoken of a â€?coordination of natural law and Scripture' in Calvinist resistance treatises, in which â€?natuÂral law supplements and illustrates the arguments from Scripture and even at times shapes the biblical exegesis itself'?2 This should not be surprising, given the fact that these authors were all humanists with an interdisciplinary educaÂtion, starting of course with Calvin himself. Van Drunen's research focuses on the doctrine of the double covenant, unquestionably one of the key features of monarchomach thought, but he has little to say about the role of natural law in conjunction with the law of nations, partially as a result of overlooking the Stoic and Ciceronian influence in Early Modern Calvinism, his main purpose being the analysis of the continuities and discontinuities between reformed natural law and the medieval scholastic notion of natural law.
In the same direction, but again with the same unawareness, John Witte recognized that Early Modern Calvinist theologians contributed to the development of new theoretical frameworks that eventually widened the traditional rights formuÂlations into a set of potentially universal claims?3 Another noteworthy attempt to reconstruct the link between â€?natural law and Calvinist political theory', that of L. S. Koetsier, has the merit of treating the subject in a comprehensive way, even if sometimes not sufficiently sensitive to the conceptual alterations and adaptations in the language of ius naturale, as well as to the differences and nuances between authors broadly defined as â€?Calvinists'. But while Van Drunen referred, as we have seen, to the â€?coordination of natural law and scripture' in the Monarchomachs, Koetsier seems to arrive at a different conclusion, stating [194] [195] [196] that â€?Calvin's emphasis upon the political duties of obedience (based on scripÂture) as well as resistance (based on natural law)... complicates an attempt to define Calvinist political theory',[197] [198] [199] [200] [201] [202] thus missing precisely the main problem of Monarchomachs, that of elaborating a theory of â€?permissible' or â€?lawful' resistÂance without denying the need to obey authorities ordained by God.Naturally, it can be misleading to refer to â€?natural law' and â€?scripture' as two different and opposite traditions, sets of arguments and values for political thinking, as for many Early Modern authors - Protestants as well as Catholics - the ultimate source of both was God, and violations of the Decalogue were often considered infringements of both divine and natural law. The diffiÂculty arises when dealing with the modalities in which Early Modern politiÂcal thought conceived classical, â€?pagan' sources of the law of nature,ι≡ that is the Stoic and Roman notion of ius naturale, which either conceived not God, but reason as the ultimate source or, following the definition of natural law given by Ulpian in the Corpus iuris civilis^ affirmed that natural precepts were shared by men and animals alike?7 And, as far as the law of nations is conÂcerned, a similar difficulty arises from the potentially different outcomes of the universality and applicability of precepts of natural law whether considered, for example, from a â€?Christian' or a Stoic perspective?8 or, as already stated, from the point of view of secularization?9
I will now try to explore this problematic relationship between Scripture, natuÂral law and the law of nations in a few relevant monarchomach texts produced in the hottest phase of the Wars of Religion, by turning to the increasingly discussed issue of intervention on behalf of peoples oppressed in their bodies or their souls by a â€?tyrant, a major theme especially - but not exclusively - in the â€?Calvinist interÂnational’.[203] [204] [205] [206] [207] I would like to show how, in this body of sources, in the justification of such interventions, scriptural sources were gradually coupled with Ciceronian Stoicism and natural law, with a special emphasis on the notion of societas homÂinum, which ultimately introduced an a-confessional and â€?universal’ dimension to their thought, without completely replacing traditional authorities and the Christian viewpoint?1 In his massive study of the doctrine of tyrannicide from antiquity to our days, Mario Turchetti has called this â€?right of interference’ a â€?relatively new prob- lem’,22 but recent scholarship has excavated the remote origins of the debate as a specific part of the just war theory?3 Certainly, as Wilhelm Grewe has argued, the quintessential â€?openness’ of medieval polities assured that intervention was not seen as very problematic at a theoretical level, when a clear separaÂtion of a foreign â€?outside’ from a domestic â€?inside’ was lacking?4 Restraints for entitlement to intervene were thus linked to the just war doctrine, that is to the concepts of just cause and right intention. Indeed, without going too far in the distinction between a â€?Scholastic' and a â€?humanist' approach to the law of nations,26 on the issue of intervention we can reasonably see a difference between the treatment of defensio InnocenÂtium in the writings of, say, Francisco de Vitoria,27 and that of the Calvinist Monarchomachs. This diversity can be described in terms of sources and eduÂcation, but also in terms of the different historical context: the Monarchomachs were first and foremost involved in the European Wars of Religion, and it is not a coincidence that the most relevant texts dealing with the problem of foreign action against â€?tyrants' were published in the aftermath of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day (1572).28 It is generally assumed that the right to resist, in Calvinist monarchomach literature, took the shape of either the â€?private law' theory (based on selfÂdefence) or the â€?constitutional' version focused on the role of â€?inferior magis- trates'.29 Foreign intervention, conceived as another possible form of resistance against tyranny, has been somehow neglected by historians, but it certainly acquired some relevance, and not only in Huguenot propaganda. In reconÂstructing the sources and rhetorical strategies used to justify intervention in a few significant monarchomach pamphlets, it is my intention to reveal a certain discrepancy between Calvin's handling of the question and the more radical treatises of the 1570s, such as the Right of magistrates by Theodore de Beze (1574), the anonymous Alarm Bell of the Frenchmen (1574) and especially the also still anonymous and very influential Vindiciae contra tyrannos (1579). As often noted, Calvin is profoundly reticent about armed resistance, espeÂcially by private persons.[213] [214] [215] Nevertheless, in the fourth book of the Institutes of Christian Religion he does identify three possible agents who might overÂthrow tyrants and deliver oppressed peoples: divinely inspired â€?avengers from among God's servants'; foreign powers and, finally, popular magistrates. Much has been written about the third category, and John Coffey examined the first kind of agent,31 but here I would like to draw the attention to the second type, namely foreign saviors. In Calvin's words, At one time he [God] raises up manifest avengers from among his own servants, and gives them his command to punish accursed tyranny, and deliver his people from calamity when they are unjustly oppressed; at another time he employs, for this purpose, the fury of men who have other thoughts and other aims. Thus he rescued his people Israel from the tyranny of Pharaoh by Moses... Thus he tamed the pride of Tyre by the Egyptians; the insolence of the Egyptians by the Assyrians; the ferocÂity of the Assyrians by the Chaldeans. All these things, however, were not done in the same way. The former class of deliverers being brought forward by the lawful call of God to perform such deeds, when they took up arms against kings, did not at all violate that majesty with which kings are invested by divine appointment, but armed from heaven, they, by a greater power, curbed a less, just as kings may lawfully punish their own satraps. The latter class [that is, the foreign liberators], though they were directed by the hand of God, as seemed to him good, and did his work without knowing it, had nothing but evil in their thoughts^2 So, using only biblical examples, Calvin stresses the fact that foreign liberators are only God's instruments; they do not act either from a religious or moral duty or from a religious or moral right to help oppressed peoples in the name of â€?humankind' or the common Christian family, but simply following their earthly â€?evil' interests, although as part of a greater providential design. It is possible to perceive a marked difference in the later Huguenot texts, published during the Wars of Religion in France and the Netherlands. Indeed, the St. Bartholomew's day massacre, and the harsh repression of the Dutch Revolt by the Duke of Alba, more and more came to be conceived as cases of â€?manifest tyranny' and paved the way to a radicalization of resistance theories and appeal to foreign intervention, in which one can clearly detect an influÂence (as well as an adaptation) of Ciceronian Stoicism^4 This is only one fragÂment of a very broad cultural phenomenon, that is the Early Modern revival of Stoicism,3≡ especially in the texts of Cicero and Seneca, who could provide, in the ethical sphere, a practical guide for living in an age of shaken religious and moral certainties and violent geopolitical changes. One of the most revitalized Stoic principles was the notion of societas hominum, the â€?universal commonÂwealth' of Cicero, formed by men out of their reasonable nature, and irrespecÂtively of race, language or citizenship, leading to the recognition of an organic connection between all human beings, where everyone is bound to observe duties towards his brethren^6 Among these duties, Cicero famously placed also the obligation to aid all who are in need, attacking those â€?who say that account should be taken of other citizens, but deny it in the case of foreigners; such men tear apart the common fellowship of human race’.[220] [221] It is here that Stoic cosmopolitanism meets the ius gentium and the question of intervenÂtion, to foster a somehow neglected form of Early Modern neo-Stoicism, not in the direction of self-mastery, detachment from external events and obedience to existing authorities, but as a call to political engagement, sharing others’ sufferance and actively resisting the â€?enemies of mankind’ (communis hostis omnium).3s While Lutheran political thought had already relied on Cicero’s writings for the justification of resistance^[222] the irruption of Stoic reasonings and sources in Huguenot literature after 1572 was immediately associated with the discussion on the obligation to support the oppressed, as it becomes visible already in one of the most well-known monarchomach pieces, the Rights of magistrates by the humanist-educated Theodore de Beze, Calvin’s successor at Geneva, published in 1574 and frequently reprinted in both the Latin and French editions. Indeed, Beze â€?was well versed in the writings of Cicero’ and â€?Ciceronian-Stoic themes, such as the lex naturae, and the communes notiones, permeates his theological works’.[223] [224] The third quaestio of the treatise deals with the legitimacy of disobedience to commands going against religion or against equity. While employing primarily biblical sources/1 nonetheless Beze also stresses the cogent character of such disobedience speaking of â€?the duties which men owe to their fellowmen both by the law of God and by the law of nature’, quoting the biblical example of Obadiah, who not merely refrained from slaying the prophets of God, but even protected and nourished them in defiance of the command of Ahab and Jezebel, â€?since the Lord bids us, each as far as his calling permits, to bring succor to his brethren in peril’.[225] [226] [227] That means for Beze that the duty to protect and help others must take into account the social position of the agent and in fact, later in the text, he affirms that the possibility for a tyrant-oppressed people to ask for help â€?abroad, and first of all among friends and allies’ resides only in the â€?wisest part’ of the commonwealth (sanior pars). But he also affirms that â€?men are collectively and individually subjected to natural, or divine law, in so far as they are born men’. Finally, we find in the text the link between the law of God, the law of nature and the law of nations, precisely when Beza is countering the objection, well known nowÂadays, that â€?national’ laws should not be judged by â€?supra-national’ principles: If again someone were to raise the objection that public law referring to the constitution of the people or nation... differs widely from the law of nature common to all mankind, I shall concede that this is true indeed in certain matters, but with this limitation that the entire distinction is conÂnected with circumstances which cannot prevent general fairness and equity from so far remaining steadfast and invariable that every polity acting in violation of it - as for example if undisguised impieties, robberÂies and similar crimes both against God and against the law of nations and good morals were to meet with approval - should be utterly conÂdemned and cast off.43 A similar line of reasoning, stressing the mandatory character of resistance against tyranny in the name of natural bonds, appears in one of the most significant pamphlets in Simon Goulart’s Memoires de Γ estat de France sous Charles Neufiesme (1577), that is the dialogue The Politician^ and especially in another evocative albeit unsystematic monarchomach text, the Alarm bell of the Frenchmen (Le Reveille-matin des FranQois),[228] whose international characÂter is clearly visible starting from the anonymous author, who significantly calls himself â€?Eusebius Philadelfo Cosmopolita', that is â€?Pious brother-loving citizen of the world'. From the narrative of especially the second dialogue emerge the different reasons that in a truly Christian perspective require an intervention in defence of the French Huguenots unjustly persecuted: the bond of â€?benevÂolence and charity' that holds all Christians by virtue of their brotherhood in Christ; but also the duty of mutual aid existing between different parts of the Ecclesia Universalis, and the irreversible damage that the weakening of one of them is likely to cause to the whole body.[229] It follows the legitimacy of a true ius ad bellum directed against anyone oppressing and discriminating the folÂlowers of the true faith, regardless of the geographical location of the sovereign power. According to the author of Reveille-Matin, the defence of the Church of God and of the kingdom of Jesus Christ from the dangers of â€?domination â€?and' tyranny' is â€?stretching the length and breadth of the whole earth, without limit', and it is in fact an activity â€?equally and indifferently recommended to all the princes of the earth, so I say that the prince who really cares of his duty, may search, chastise and fight his partner who makes war on God'. Again, like in Beze, this is mainly conceived as a duty not of private individuals, but of legitimate authorities, with a precise warning to the Christian princes: â€?In the absence of action, therefore, each of them will be called by God to give an account of all their brother's blood poured out for lack of help and relief, since they knew the anguish of their brethren, they could remedy it, and they did not'[230] The will of God is not, however, the only normative demand in support of an external aid as the only possibility for a quick return of the kingdom of France to the religious and constitutional normality. Other voices, far more worldly, in fact intervene in the text to reaffirm the duty of European princes to oppose force by force in extreme cases of tyrannical degeneration, and to combat the perpetrators as â€?sworn enemies of mankind'; ancient voices and influential as that of Cicero, who in his book on the Duties says that we cannot and should not associate or have anything to do with the tyrants, but rather that we must take the distance and separate from them; and that it is not against nature to deprive them of their power, if we can also kill them honestly; that all such obnoxious and profanes must be cut off from the community of men, being a very reasonable thing, as you cut the gangrenous limbs from the body, and detach these cruel and ferocious beasts from the human consortium and the common society of men.[231] So, from the scattered remarks of this eschatological piece of propaganda, it is possible to detect a minimal but important shift from a purely religious duty to help the innocents against tyrants, to a moral duty in the name of a neo-Stoic â€?humankind', no longer specifically tied to a Christian cosmos. This expansion and radicalization of Huguenot views, towards an ethics of â€?responÂsibility to protect' men as simple human beings is of course less a complete and mature process of secularization than the tactical juxtaposition and inteÂgration of different rhetorical strategies and philosophical traditions in order to achieve a political goal, as Philip Benedict has rightly emphasized^[232] In fact, in the passionate part of the pamphlet known as the Arrest de Daniel, we can also read a prayer to God in order that he could â€?change the heart' of the tyrant or â€?foster a neighboring prince as the redeemer of this poor afflicted people'.[233] [234] [235] Nevertheless, appeal to Stoic notions such as the â€?brotherhood of man' and â€?humanity' when discussing political resistance were more and more in vogue, as in the extremely â€?Ciceronian' pamphlet Political Discourses, written again in 1574 and reprinted in the second edition of the formidable Memoires of Simon Goulart.51 Skinner rightly emphasized the rather â€?anarchic' nature of this text,52 that - contrary to most Calvinist literature - employs â€?a highly individualistic theory of the ius gladii’ similar to that of George Buchanan's De iure regni apud Scotos (written in the same years but published only in 1579).[236] [237] [238] [239] [240] The issue of foreign intervention in Political Discourses is not treated extensively, but Cicero is the most frequently cited author. For example, quoting from De officiis the anonymous author remarks that since â€?(as the Stoics say) the earth and all it contains is made for the use of men, therefore men are made and engenÂdered for other men' and their mutual utility'. There is, in fact, a â€?sovereign and universal society' that â€?has domination over all the others', such that â€?one could say the world is one city'?4 The pamphlet also displays a rather secular stance, attacking the opinion of â€?some self-styled theologians', that opposition to tyrants â€?does not belong except to persons who have a particular revelation from God and a special command to touch the life of a prince'. And, considerÂing the often-discussed Old Testament case of Ehud and Jehu, he denies that â€?if they had not had a particular revelation, the thing would have been unjust on that account'.55 Finally, in the same vein as Beze, The Politician and the Alarm Bell, Political Discourses defends the idea that resistance to tyranny has to be carried out without limits of sovereignty and jurisdictions, since â€?a citizen and an enemy are not distinguished by the place of their natural habitation, but by disposition and by actions'?6 But the best case in point is naturally the most well-known, widely read and carefully argued of all the monarchomach texts, the notorious Vindiciae contra tyrannos published in 1579 and written by the anonymous lStephanus Iunius Brutus', usually identified with Philippe Duplessis-Mornay and/or Hubert Languet?7 Thanks mainly to David Trim, this text now has a place in the histoÂries of humanitarian intervention, although Trim, in his underestimation of the Stoic elements in Protestant political thought, argues that the Monarchomachs â€?conceived tyranny in narrow confessional terms’.[241] This must be qualified.[242] In the fourth section of the book, specifically devoted to the question of whether neighboring princes may by right or even ought to render assistance to subjects of other princes, when they are persecuted on account of pure reliÂgion or oppressed by manifest tyranny, we see on stage a powerful â€?rhetoric of liberation’ that is a characteristic of the entire work, presented with metaphors (wounds, fire, shipwreck), historical evocations (the emperors as defenders of the faith, the Crusades) and scriptural elements (with quotes and paraphrasÂing); all culminating in the image of Christ’s passion and innocents massacred. As usual in monarchomach literature (and in Early Modern political thought generally speaking), the exempla quoted are first taken from the Scriptures, and subsequently fortified by other sources. But as far as I can see the outcome is far more radical than that of Beze or the Alarm Bell. Primarily, it appears that when Iunius Brutus speaks of the duty of the Christian princes to give aid to peoples suffering from religious or political tyranny he has a very broad idea of Christianity, actually, he believes that â€?kings, princes, and magistrates are obliged to increase, spread, defend and promote the kingdom of Christ anyÂwhere and against anyone so ever’.[243] [244] In this page he refers to â€?the protection of the catholic - or whole - church (universa)’, whereas before he had also spoken of the â€?Roman’ or â€?Papal’ Catholic Church. This extensive definition of Christianity is specified with very evocative words: â€?when all Christian kings are inaugurated, they receive the sword expressly for the protection of the catholic - or whole - church. When they have received it in their hands, they point to all the quarters of the world, and brandish the sword towards the east, west, south, and north, lest any part of the world be considered exempt’^1 To be even more precise, Brutus quotes the biblical example of Josiah, king of Judah, who purged from idolatry â€?not only his own kingdom, but also the Israelite one, which was at that time clearly assigned to the king of the Assyrians’. The conclusion is that â€?without any doubt, where the glory of God and the kingdom of Christ is concerned, no limits (limites), no frontiers (fines), no barriers (canÂcelli), ought to restrict the zeal of pious princes’. After all, in the Gospel Christ said that we should love a neighbour as ourselves, and â€?a Jew is bound, if he wants to fulfil his office, to rescue from a robber not only the neighbor of a Jew, but also a foreigner (peregrinus) and stranger, if he can do so’.[245] [246] [247] [248] [249] [250] At this point Brutus introduces the Stoic theme of the â€?human society and the common nature of all’. Citing a passage from the third book of Cicero’s De officiis, he announces that â€?the nature of all men is one, nature itself prescribes that man desires to show concern for another man, whoever he may be, for this very reason: that he is a man. If this were not so, all human association would, of necessity, dissolve’^3 This moral stance is repeated when the author of the Vindiciae, like Theodore de Beze did before him, counters the objection of the inviolability of borders and jurisdictions, â€?that it is not lawful to thrust a scythe into another’s harvest’, answering again with Cicero quoting Terentius: â€?I am a man. I think that nothÂing human is alien to me’ (nihilhumanum a me alienum puto).64 Again, in line with other monarchomach texts, the mandatory character of princely actions against tyranny is forcefully advocated also in the Vindiciae, either when God and Christianity, or just human nature are concerned. In the first case, having God entrusted the whole Church to individuals, and its indiÂvidual parts to all Christian princes together, â€?if one part of it - the German, perhaps, or the English - is in the charge of the prince of that region, but he abandons and disregards another part which is being oppressed when he could have rendered assistance, he is considered to have deserted the church’^5 Once more Brutus turns to the Holy Scripture, mentioning the case of the tribe of Reuben who, having refused to take up arms against the tyranny of Jabin, was damned by God. In the second case he is more straightforward: â€?[T]o sum up, he who can snatch someone away from death, and fails to do so, is equally liable as one who kills’.66 The very final lines of the tract conjure the mythical figure of Hercules, the punisher of tyrants, and make clear once more that tyranny has not only a strictly religious dimension, being possibly exercised â€?over bodies or souls, over the commonwealth or the church of Christ’^7 (my emphasis). To conclude, I tried to show that on the issue of intervention the Calvinist Monarchomachs tried to integrate and complement a biblical and religious discourse with secular arguments mainly taken from late Roman Stoicism, a sort of â€?alliance' between Christ and Cicero. Facing the dramatic events of the Wars of Religion, they developed an idea of intervention different from that of Calvin, stressing not only the religious duty to help oppressed people, and not yet the â€?natural right' to do so, but also, at least partially, the idea of a moral duty based on a strong notion of tyranny as a regime acting, in Brutus' words, against â€?God, nature, and the customs of nations'. This conception marks a problematic departure from the traditional constitutional constraints of the Calvinist doctrine of resistance, since if the duty to render assistance to those oppressed by manifest tyranny is grounded both in the universal law of God and the universal nature of mankind, then on the one hand, in the absence of a legitimate authority entitled to judge sovereigns (since the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor could no longer hold this role), Christian princes judge by themselves who is a â€?manifest' tyrant, and come very close to those â€?holy avengers' with a special calling from God and no other judges on Earth, and on the other hand the moral duty to protect men against â€?enemies of mankind' leaves room for an individualistic, almost â€?anarchic' approach to foreign interÂvention, precisely because it is partially justified in the name of humanity, and not only on behalf of Christian princes, with the result that, strictly speaking, no single man is exempted from the duty to help the oppressed. This problemÂatic approach to the question of resistance against tyranny has already been noticed in the case of George Buchanan,[251] but it is at least partially visible also in these texts discussed above concerning the issue of foreign intervention^[252] There is indeed a difference between this kind of justification for external help and the Scholastic idea of defensio innocentium, built around the notion of caritas, and I believe that Francisco Suarez was replying precisely to the aboveÂmentioned passages in the Vindiciae, and their Stoic outlook, when in his disÂputation on war inside De triplici virtute theologica he concluded: Wherefore, the assertion made by some writers, that sovereign kings have the power of avenging injuries done in any part of the world, is entirely false, and throws into confusion all the orderly distinctions of jurisdicÂtion; for such power was not [expressly] granted by God and its existence is not to be inferred by any process of reasoning.[253] It is not possible here to trace the influence of the literature so far discussed for the later development of the ius naturae et gentium,[254] [255] [256] but it is interesting to note that even critics of the Monarchomachs such as Jean Bodin and - perÂhaps less surprisingly - the key figure of Early Modern neo-Stoicism,Justus Lipsius, allowed and even praised foreign intervention against tyrants/2 and especially Alberico Gentili's ideas on defensio honesta were clearly indebted to the Calvinist pamphlets/3 It is not surprising that the first English translation of a part of the Vindiciae is precisely a translation of the fourth quaestio, that on foreign intervention, published in 1588 by Gentili's editor and friend, the brilliant publisher John Wolfe.[257] Speaking about Hugo Grotius/5 while it is true that he has less to say on intervention than Gentili, nevertheless what he writes on the subject at the end of the second book of De iure belli ac pacis™ including references to the kings' â€?general responsibility for human society', to Cicero, Seneca, Hercules and wars â€?justly undertaken against those who are inhuman' reveal at least his participaÂtion in a political discourse already brought forward by the Monarchomachs, even though now centered on rights rather than duties/^8 Select Bibliography Primary Literature A shorte apologie for Christian souidiours: wherein is conteined how that we ought both to propagate, and if neede require, to defende by force of armes, the Cathoiike Church of Christ, against the tyrannie of Antichrist and his adherents: penned by Stephanus Iunius Brutus, and translated into English by H.P. for the benefite of the resolution of the Church of England, in the defense of the gospel. s.l., 1588. Beze, Theodore de, Du droit des Magistrats sur leurs subjets: Traitte tres-necessaire en ce temps... [Geneve]: [Jacob Stoer], 1574. Beze, Theodore de, Du droit des Magistrats. Intr., ed. and annot. by R. Kingdon. Geneve : Droz, 1970. Bodin, Jean, Les six livres de la republique, Paris, 1576. Bodin, Jean, On Sovereignty, ed. by J. Franklin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, ed. by H. Hopfl. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. pp. 81-82. Discours politiques des diverses puissances establies de Dieu au monde, du gouerne- ment legitime d'icelles, & du deuoir de ceux qui y sont assuiettis, in Goulart, Memoires de l’ Estat de France, pp. 203r-317v. Gentili, Alberico, De iure belli, Hanau, 1598. Gentili, Alberico, De Iure Belli Libri Tres [1612] (On the Law of War) J. C. Rolfe transl. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1933. Grotius, Hugo, The Rights of War and Peace, edited and with an Introduction by R. Tuck, from the Edition by Jean Barbeyrac. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005. 3 vols. Le Politique, dialogue traittant de la puissance, authorite, et du devoir des Princes., in S. Goulart, Memoires de l’Estat de France sous Charles Neufiesme, 1577, vol. 3. Le Reveille-Matin des Franςais et de leur voisins, compose par Eusebe Philadelphe Cosmopolite, en forme de dialogues, Edimbourg, 1574. Le Reveille-matin des Franςois, ed. by J.-R. Fanlo, M. Lambiase and P.-A. Mellet. Paris : Garnier, 2016. Lipsius, Justus, Politicorum libri sex, Lugduni Batavorum, 1589. Lipsius, Justus, Politica: six books of politics or political instruction; edited with translaÂtion and introduction by J. Waszink. Assen: Van Gorcum, 2004. Suarez, Francisco, Selectionsfrom Three Works: A Treatise on Laws and God the Lawgiver; A Defence of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith; A Work on the Three Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity. Edited and with an Introduction by Thomas Pink. 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