1st Edition
Protestant Politics Beyond Calvin Reformed Theologians on War in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
The Reformed (or Calvinist) universities of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe hosted rich, Latin-language conversations on the nature of politics, the powers of kings and magistrates, resistance, revolution, and religious warfare. Nevertheless, it is too often assumed that Reformed political thought did not develop beyond John Calvin’s Institutes of 1559. This book remedies this problem, presenting extracts from major Reformed theologians and intellectuals (including Peter Martyr Vermigli, Guillaume de Buc, David Pareus, Lambert Daneau, and Bartholomäus Keckermann) which demonstrate both continuity and change in Reformed political argument. These men taught in France, the Holy Roman Empire, the Low Countries, and England, between the 1540s and 1660s, but they were read in universities throughout the North Atlantic world into the eighteenth century. Should all political action be subject to God’s direct command? Were humans capable of using their own God-given reason to tell right from wrong? Was it ever just to resist tyrants? Was religious difference enough by itself to justify war? Their political doctrines often aroused the greatest controversy in their own time; this is generally the first time that these extracts from their works have been translated into English. These texts and translations are accompanied by an introduction placing these authors in the context of the great European religious wars, advice on further reading, and a full bibliography.
Part 1 - Ian Campbell
Introduction: Calvinism, Warfare, and the Politics of Duty
Part 2 - Floris Verhaart
Editorial Note
Chapter 1: Peter Martyr Vermigli and his Commentary on Genesis
Chapter 2: Lambert Daneau on Ethics, Politics, and the Anti-Christ
Chapter 3: Bartholomäus Keckermann, Aristotelianism, and the Holy Roman Empire after the Peace of Augsburg
Chapter 4: Guillaume du Buc and the Institutiones Theologicae
Chapter 5: David Pareus and his Commentary on Romans
Chapter 6: Johann Heinrich Alsted on Interaction with non-Christians and War against Blasphemers
Chapter 7: Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf on Religious Intervention in Foreign States
Chapter 8: Venceslaus Clemens’ Gustavis and the Thirty Years’ War as a Religious Conflict
Chapter 9: Dudley Fenner, Puritanism, and Reformed Resistance Theory
Chapter 10: Gisbertus Voetius, the Dutch Revolt, and Religious Toleration in the United Provinces
Chapter 11: Johannes Hoornbeeck and the Reformed against Holy War
Index
Biography
Ian Campbell is Senior Lecturer in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests include early modern British and Irish history; political thought and intellectual history; and the history of race.
Floris Verhaart is a Government of Ireland Research Fellow in the School of History at University College Cork. His research interests are the intellectual and religious history of Europe, especially the Dutch Republic, Britain, and France.
This collection will serve to clarify the nature of Reformed political thought by successfully demonstrating that, despite some differences, its approach is in line with the just war tradition. In sum, this work will be a valuable resource for the post-Reformation era historian and the student of war and its ethical implications. -- Thomas Haviland-Pabst
