Blom Hans W. (ed.). Sacred Polities, Natural Law and the Law of Nations in the 16th-17th Centuries. Brill,2022. — 361 p.. 2022

A fresh look at the importance of natural and international law in the religious politics at the heartlands of the Reformation, from the Low Countries, the German principalities up to Transylvania; from Niels Hemmingsen to Gian Battista Vico; from religious reasons for the universalist claims of natural law to political arguments for the sacred polity, their tension and creative potential.

<< | >>

↑

Contents

Acknowledgements

Notes on Contributors

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

Hans W. Blom

In the political competition between the religions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the laws of nature and of nations played a crucial role.

Summary of the Chapters

Select Bibliography

PART 1 Humanist Inroads into Natural Law

CHAPTER 2 Natural Law and National Polity

The Leiden Discourse on State and Church (1575-1625)

Arthur Eyffinger

The birth-pangs of the Dutch Republic and its so-called Remonstrant Troubles generated innovative thought of wider European impact on matters of State and Church.

The Perimeters

On State and Church: Junius, Grotius and Cunaeus

Select Bibliography

CHAPTER 3 �?Without Prophetic and Apostolic Voices'

Niels Hemmingsen’s On the Law of Nature According to a Demonstrative Method

Mads LangballeJensen

Introduction

Hemmingsen and the Political Thought of the Lutheran Reformation

Hemmingsen as Student of Melanchthon

Hemmingsen’s Philosophical Account of Natural Law

De lege Naturae as a Philosophical Defence of Confessional Political Thought

Conclusion

Select Bibliography

CHAPTER 4 Between Scripture and Stoicism

CHAPTER 5 Separating the Universal and Natural from the Particular in the Mosaic Legislation

The Humanist and Calvinist Context of Franciscus Junius’s De politiae Mosis observatione (1593)

Markus M. Totzeck

Franciscus Junius (Frangois du Jon, 1545-1602) is one of the key figures in the formation of a Calvinist theological tradition following the great reformers John Calvin (1509-1564) and Theodore Beza (1519-1605).

The Humanist Context of Junius’s De politiae Mosis observatione: The Early-Modern Politia-Judaica Literature

The Uniqueness and Model of the Mosaic Legislation and Political Laws

The Calvinist Context of Junius’s De politiae Mosis observatione

Striving towards Consensus in the Debates on the Political Relevance of the Mosaic Laws among Calvinists

Separating the Universal and Natural from the Particular: The Mosaic Polity in Junius’s Legal Theory

A Sacred Polity as a Political Argument: Junius's Answer on the Debates on Church and State at His Time

Select Bibliography

CHAPTER 6 Challenges of Universalism

Theologico-Philosophical Considerations of Natural Law by Transylvanian Antitrinitarians in the Late Sixteenth Century (Jacobus Palaeologus and Christian Francken)

JozsefSimon

Introduction

Jacobus Palaeologus: The Concept of Nature in the De Tribus Gentibus (1572)

Christian Francken: Natural Law in the Critique of Theism

Conclusion

Select Bibliography

CHAPTER 7 Natural Law, Contingency and History in the Legal Thought of Francisco Suarez

Dominique Bauer

Introduction

Inner Necessity and the Definition of Law

Necessity, Coherence and Self-Sufficiency

The Binding Nature of Law