¹ A detailed discussion of the problems raised in this essay, especially of the influence of Martin Butzer and Strassburg on Calvin's political thought, will be given later under the title Calvinist Republicanism. Its Origin ana Place in. History. For other particulars, see the author's previous publications, on Calvins Staatsanschauung und das Konfessionelle Zeitalter (München, 1924)Google Scholar; “Christ liches Naturrecht und Ewiges Recht” in Historische Zeitschrift (133, 1926)Google Scholar; and “Religion and Politics in the German Imperial Cities during the Reformation” in English Historical Review (52, 1937).Google Scholar

² As, following many other scholars, Hyma, Albert, “Calvinism and Capitalism in the Netherlands, 1555–1700,” in The Journal of Modern History (10, 1938)Google Scholar, Strohl, H., “Le droit à la résistance d'après les conceptions protestantes,” in Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses (10, 1930)Google Scholar, and Chenevière, Marc-Edouard, La Pensée Politique de Calvin (Genève, 1937)Google Scholar, have recently again pointed out.

³ Wilhelm Pauck, at the end of his article on “Calvin and Butzer” in The Journal of Religion (9, 1929), 256.Google Scholar

⁴ By Klingenburg, Georg, Das Verhältnis Calvins au Butzer auf Grund der wirtschaftsethischen Bedeutung beider Reformatoren (Bonn, 1912)Google Scholar. The result of Klingenburg's research is overlooked in the fine book by Tawney, R. H. on Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London, 1926 and 1937).Google Scholar

⁵ P. Imbart de la Tour, in his Origines de la Réforme.

⁶ As von Bezold, Friedrich, “Die Lehre von der Volkssouveränetät während des Mittelalters” in Historische Zeitschrift (36, 1876)Google Scholar, (reprinted in Bezold, 's Aus Mittelalter und Renaissance, München, 1918Google Scholar), and von Gierke, Otto, Johannes Althusius (3. ed., 1913), have shown.Google Scholar

⁷ Machiavelli, , Arte delia Guerra, in Opere (Italia, 1813), IV, 271.Google Scholar

⁸ This has been pointed out with emphasis by August Lang in his study on Die Reformation und das Naturrecht (1909)Google Scholar, and by Karl Holl in his Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte, I: Luther (2. and 3. ed., 1923)Google Scholar. Of. also my article on “Christliches Naturrecht und Ewiges Recht,” quoted above, 418 ff.

⁹ For the following section cf. particulars in my papera on “Religion and Politics,” quoted above, 426 f. and 614 ff.Google Scholar

¹⁰ This discussion of the right and obligation to resist encroachments of the “superior authority,” is still completely missing in the first edition of the In Evangelium Matthaei Enarrationes in 1527, but is inserted in the edition of 1530, on fol. 57a–58b, and repeated in the edition of 1536, 143–146.

^11–12 “… ne, munita tyrannidi via, cum libertate externa iacturam populus faciat pietatis.” “Illae (viz. all the existing authorities, comprising those which are subject to a superior monarch), utcunque emerserunt, quo iure, qua iniuria, quia sunt, a Deo sunt; nulli igitur earum quicquam derogandum est, sed potius monendi qui illas gerant, ut eas ex praescripto Dei gerant, et quisque Spartam quam nactus est pro virili sua portione exornet.” Ed. 1530, fol. 57b.

¹³ “Nihil quidem foret Monarchia optabilius, si quisquam esset qui unus posset sapere pro tam multis, hoc est, si quis Deo similis Princeps posset haberi. Sedquot quaeso saltem tolerabiles Monarchas vel apud Dei populum fuisse? Imo quis unquam Monarcha, non irato Deo, ac ideo ingenti malo generis humani, Monarchiam invasit? Certe adeo non probat apud mortales Monarchiam Deus, ut etiam eum, qui suo iuditio primus a populo electus fuit, Shaulem testetur se dedisse illis Regem in ira sua. Etenim Mosche etsi primas in populo tenuerit, nequaquam tamen Monarcha fuit, tot sibi succenturiatis iudicibus, et fratre etiam praelato, quorum consilio et opera Rempublicam Israelis gubernabat, magis omnium minister quam Princeps. Talis et sequentium iudicum potestas extitit.” Ed. 1530, fol. 57b–58a.

¹⁴ “Ubi absoluta potestas Principi traditur, quae nulli potestati et correctioni sit subiecta: ibi derogatur gloriae et dominio Dei, et absoluta potestas, quae solius Dei est, et a populo Deo debet esse delata, homini peccatis obnoxio addicitur. Ergo vitium est dare absolutam potestatem Principi qui non cogatur reddere rationem administrati regni. Nam quum natura homo sit ad malum propensus, facile et fere fit ut, quum plurima liceant, libeant etiam quae mala sunt.…. Idcirco dicit Dominus: In furore meo dedi eu regem.… Sed hodie multae regiones habent tales Principes absoluta potestate, ideoque tarn male res eorum nabent: unde apparet id esse irae Dei.” In Librum Judicum Enarrationes, ed. Geneva 1554, 488.

¹⁵ In Librum Judicum, 473.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Cf. note 14 above, and In Evangelium Matthaei, ed. 1530Google Scholar, fol. 58a: “Satis quoque haec Dei ordinatio mundo prodita est, dum consentientibus piis Begibus constitutum pridem sit, ut qui regia potestate funguntur ad certas leges se Principibus et Rebus publicis suis obstringant, aeque ut hi illis.”

¹⁷ The offer of the throne, Butzer says, to Gideon, who had rescued the people, was justified, but the intention of constituting the royal power; as a hereditary right in Gideon's family “exedebat aequitatem” and was “vitiosum et impium.” For the Jews “nesciebant quales futuri essent filii Gideonis. Saepe enim heroum filii noxii: et in electione maxime spectandum est quos Deus velit praefici, et quibus Spiritum sapientiae conferat, non quis haeres patris sit.” “Sunt ergo quaedam dominia contra Deum, quando si vel institutio vel gubernatio Principis non directe valet ad gloriam Dei, et non ad verbum Dei derigitur et examinatur: ut si contra praeceptum Dei singulari generi defertur successio principatus, ut hic factum est.” “Nam dum regnum defertur ei qui nondum est natus, aut adhuc infans, ut nescias qualis futurus sit, praeoccupatur iudicium Dei.” In Librum Judicum, ed. 1554, p. 488.Google Scholar

¹⁸ “Optima ergo species Respublica est, quando unus quidem praeest, vel pauci, sed ii Divinitus rogati, et constituto ordine legitimo Divinitus praescripto: et ei absoluta potestas non tradatur.” In Librum Judicum, loc. cit. — In the light of all these unequivocal statements of Butzer it is evident that the fact of his writing a book of advice for the English king—De Regno Christi—in 1550, cannot be regarded as proof of his “monarchism,” as Wilhelm Pauck, in his book Das Reich Gottes auf Erden. Utopie und Wirklichkeit. Butzer's “De regno Christi” und aie englische Staatskirche des 16Google Scholar. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1928)Google Scholar, supposed. If the old man in his exile in England, where he had been driven through the temporary triumph of the emperor, tried to point out the best way for the advancement of Protestantism within the framework of the English monarchy, this practical adaptation to the English conditions had nothing to do with his personal political convictions formed on the basis of the Bible and his religious thought—as little as his former fruitful collaboration with Landgrave Philip of Hesse for the cause of the Reformation in Germany had had. H. Strohl, in Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses (10, 1930), 571Google Scholar f., was therefore completely right in objecting to this mistake in Pauck's suggestive book.

¹⁹ Cf. my book on Calving Staatsanschauung, quoted above, 63 ff.Google Scholar

²⁰ Calvins Staatsanschauung, 70ff., 78ff.Google Scholar

²¹ Described as No. 23d in F. Mentz, “Bibliographische Zusammenstellung der gedruckten Schriften Butzer's”, in the symposium Zur 400jährigen Geburtstagsfeier Martin Butzer's (Strassburg, 1891).Google Scholar

²² The Sermons sur le Deutéronome and the Homiliae in Librum Samuelis, both of which contain the most unreserved anti-monarchic statements of Calvin, were written in 1555/1556 and 1563. The outspoken, final version of the Institutio Christiana appeared in 1559.

²³ These results of our study make the basie error evident, which detracts from the value of M. E. Chenevière's recent analysis of Calvin's political thought (La Pensée Politique de Calvin, quoted above, cf. especially pp. 11 f., 182, 226 ff., 324 ff., 334 ff., 348 f.). Chenevière does not limit himself to refuting the idea that Calvin's leaning towards popular freedom on an aristocratic basis should have been identical with democratic modern conceptions of sovereignty of the people—a confusion found in E. Doumergue's well-known work on Calvin. He also tries to attenuate the historical importance of Calvinist antimonarchism and appreciation for magistratus populares, by claiming that a definite republican tendency, adopted from non-religious sources, slipped into Calvinism only after Calvin. The facts which we have ascertained are also opposed to the reinterpretation of Calvin's political theories given by Josef Bohatec (Calvin und das Recht, Wien, 1934Google Scholar, and Calvins Lehre von Staat und Kirche, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Organismusgedankens, Breslau, 1937Google Scholar)—although these books as well as that of Chenevière contain important observations in many details. Taking the political conditions of Geneva and France into special consideration, Bohatec tries, partly in opposition to my previous analysis in Calvins Staatsanschauung und das Konfessionelle Zeitalter, to find a new clue for the appreciation of Calvin's political thought in his alleged vital dependence on ancient philosophy, particularly on an Aristotelian “organic pneumato-cratical principle.” Actually, the determining factors of Calvin's thought have no need of any complicated reinterpretation, as soon as Butzer's teachings are restored to their place in history. In the same decisive years, 1529/1530, in which the German Lutherans formed their permanent views on the problem of resistance to the Catholic emperor, the attitude taken up by the Strassburg citizens and their leading theologian revealed all the maxims and motifs which were to become characteristic of Calvinism. On the one hand, the existing monarchies were recognized, but interpreted as constitutional governments which legally guaranteed a half republican self-administration for the cities and estates. On the other hand, this interpretation was based on three religious claims: that God must remain the only absolute ruler on earth; that the place at the helm of the state must be accessible to those who should be elected by God; and that the free political institutions of the early Jewish state must be the model for all later times. It is this very sequence of ideas which I described as basic for the political thought of Calvin, in my book fourteen years ago. The same trend of thought has now been proved in the chronological sense as well to be the basis of Calvinist political theories—the heritage which Strassburg and Butzer had left to Calvin, and Geneva.

²⁴ Ample evidence in Otto von Gierke, Johannes Althusius (3rd ed., 1913)Google Scholar, Wolzendorff, Kurt, Staatsrecht una Naturrecht in der Lehre vom Widerstandsrecht des Volkes (1916)Google Scholar, and Holl, Karl, Gesammelte Aufsätze sur Kirchengeschichte, I, 492Google Scholar ff. Certain qualifications, suggested by H. Strohl, “Le droit à la résistance d'après les conceptions protestantes,” quoted above, 133 ff., do not seem to me to be always plausible.

²⁵ Cf. von Gierke, , op. cit., 310.Google Scholar