A Sacred Polity as a Political Argument: Junius's Answer on the Debates on Church and State at His Time
The preface of Franciscus Junius's De politiae Mosis observatione is dated Leiden, October 11, 1593. Junius dedicated his book to the States of Holland. So, besides the wider contexts of the humanist and Calvinist tradition of the treatise, we, of course, have to consider that the text also belongs to the closer political context of Holland and the ongoing debates on church and state at that time there.
If we were able to go into detail about Junius's own biography, we would also observe a legally trained theologian in the middle of similar debates and confessional controversies elsewhere.[344] [345] We would be able to outÂline his own experiences as a religious refugee in the French Reformed Church and during the time of confessional controversies in Heidelberg and the Palatinate, where Junius served as a university professor and was later in 1578 driven out of Heidelberg to the newly Reformed collegium at Neustadt with other Reformed colleagues, who refused to sign the Lutheran Confession (the Formula of Concord, 1577).88 We would see, how Junius was himself on diploÂmatic missions for the duke of Bouillon in France and Germany and in close contact with the king of France, Henry iv of Navarre, during and at the end of the Huguenot wars.[346] [347] [348] [349] Overall, we would rest convinced that behind Junius's comments on the struggles between church and magistrate, between theologiÂans and jurists, in the preface of his tract De politiae Mosis observatione, stands a long personal experience with the subject.When we ultimately consider the closer context of the Dutch Republic and the Academia Lugdensis Batavorum, the question arises, in how far Junius's treaÂtise could have been an attempt to bring peace to the religious controversies and socio-political struggles of his time.
Does Junius's De politiae Mosis observatione even fit Mark Somos's thesis, that â€?after its memorable foundation in 1575, Leiden university became the hothouse of secularising thought until 1618 to 1619, when the Calvinist purge destroyed this experiment, and exiled or executed the leadÂing figures of Dutch secularisation’?51" Somos has described in detail, how the country fragmented along several fault lines, when it actually required a closer union during the time of the Eighty Years' War against the Habsburg Empire (1568-1648).91 These fault-lines included socio-economic differences, opposition between Catholics and Protestants, between the North and South respectively the southern provinces under Spanish influence and the seven united provinces in the North, known as the Dutch Republic^2 Even here, in the North, Protestants were divided again, especially over the debates on church and state and the docÂtrine of predestination, which in the first decades of the seventeenth century after Junius's death evolved into the well-known conflict between the so-called Remonstrants (Arminians) and Counter-Remonstrants.These conflicts and ongoing debates, of course, affected Junius's own writing and to some extent Junius now continued to refine his concept of politics and law, stemming from the different contexts that he had writÂten in previously. Just before the publication of his treatise De politiae Mosis observatione, Junius addressed the personal dimension of this question with a mirror of princes addressed to Frederick iv, Elector Palatine of the Rhine.[350] [351] [352] [353] His Eirenicum: de pace Ecclesiae Catholicae inter Christianos (1593) printed in the same year as De politiae Mosis observatione became even more famous. Junius's Eirenicum was an attempt to bring peace to the confessional conflicts and religious wars of his time and meant the birth of an Early Modern irenic theology, which endorsed the potential for peace within the Christian religion?4 With the turn to the written law of God (ius scriptum) respectively the Mosaic law and the orientation around the sacred polity of Moses in De politiae Mosis observatione Junius added a new facet to his arguments in the context of the Dutch Republic and the university of Leiden. To the believers he wanted to explain the true nature of God's kingdom, by separating the uniÂversal from the particular in the Israelite state under Moses, only to be able to refrain Christian activists (e.g., the two extreme parties that he mentioned in the preface of his book) from intruding upon the territory of politics. By nature and common law all Christians, and not only theologians, are able to clarify which parts of the Mosaic political laws are to be respected, Junius argued. It is arguable whether the term â€?secularizing' that Mark Somos suggests for the context of the Dutch Republic and the university of Leiden is really fitting in this case. The Christian state that Junius presumes has clear boundaries. The laws of Moses, as argued above, provided for a strict punishment for aposÂtasy in Junius's eyes, for example. But again, even here Junius remained open in his formulations: He did not touch on confessional differences; apostasy was understood as a desertion from the â€?true God to the false gods' against â€?piety and religion'?5 Thus, in Junius's eyes, the turn toward the ancient and sacred polity of Moses could only be useful for a trans-confessional view on the Christian state and its legislation in particular. His book also demonstrates in the best of ways that this trans-confessional view included a distinction and cooperation between an â€?earthly and civil realm' (politia) and the â€?ecclesiastical realm' (ecclesia). In the preface of his treatise, Junius distinguishes clearly between politia as a political entity and ecclesia as an ecclesiastical entity, without ignoring the cooperation between the two entities in society. Here, Junius expressly underlines that both entities are not to be confused (communicatio instead of confusio)!?^ Parallel to the differentiation between the politia and ecclesia as entities, he also contrasts political authorities (magistratus) and the authorities of the church (servus Dei, administer Christi or minister ecclesiastico).[354] The magistrate governs the â€?human society' (societas hominum), whereas the servants of God direct the â€?communion of saints' (communio sanctorum). As a learned legal scholar and professor of theology, Junius could have positioned himself on both sides in this case. But in his treatise, he raises his voice as theologianwι - meanwhile, a theologian who was well trained in legal studies. For Junius, both jurists and theologians contributed in their own way yet jointly to the public interest. So even when Junius positioned himself on the side of the theologians and spoke of the â€?boundaries' that God has placed around his office,102 he was at the same time full of hopes that his treatise would become beneficial for jurists and men in public offices, and not just for theologians.103 And these hopes were definitely fulfilled, when we reconsider Junius's influence, for example, on the polymath, theologian, and jurist Hugo Grotius and the jurist Johannes Althusius. Junius's treatise had its own attraction or even fascination for jurists, because it presented a relatively short, and at the same time highly rational systematisation of Mosaic law that was in accordance with civil law, and espeÂcially the Roman law tradition. It enabled theologians as well as jurists to track down those parts of the Mosaic code that were still valid for common civil law. Especially at this point, prominent jurists like Johannes Althusius, for instance, followed Franciscus Junius's arguments.[361] [362] Junius's legal theory was based on one main argument: all â€?good' laws for humans and communal life derived from the eternal law (lex aeterna) of God. God had left behind exemÂplary imprints from this eternal law in the written form of the Mosaic polity, or as we may say: the Mosaic constitution. In other words, Junius wanted theoÂlogians as well as jurists and political authorities to turn to the source of their arguments: God's written law itself as a kind of blueprint for the right political form. The legislation was key for him to address the public order (primarily jurists and the magistrate) and the conscience of Christians (primarily the office of theologians). At no point did Junius hint at a direct realisation of this blueprint for the formation of the Christian commonwealth. But one may still call Junius's approach a â€?theocratic argument of law' in the ongoing debates on church and state, when we take the legacy of the term â€?theocracy' (Josephus) into account.105 Junius documented the rule of the Mosaic legislation with its common and natural principles binding for Christians. In this respect, his treatise De politiae Mosls observatione was part of a much broader humanist and Calvinist tradition of the politia-judaica literature that influenced Early Modern political and legal thought. So we may conclude, years before Hugo Grotius and Petrus Cunaeus turned to the role model of the Mosaic polity and made use of the term â€?theocracy' in the history of pre-modern political thought, it was Franciscus Junius who paved the way for the idea that the Mosaic polity was a perfect, God-given example of law.[363]