Johannes Althusius’ Politica: The Culmination of Calvin's Right of Resistance

Abstract

Jean Calvin's writings on the resistance to a tyrannical ruler appear as an addendum to his Institutes of the Christian Religion, but despite their limited discussion, his followers based their own writings on his original discussion of resistance. The most celebrated of these Calvinist tracts on resistance was the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos written as a result of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. This article argues that, whilst the Vindiciae is an important example of Calvinist resistance, an even more significant, but forgotten, Calvinist resistance theory can be found in Johannes Althusius’ Politica Methodice Digesta, Atque Exemplis Sacris Et Profanis Illustrata. Furthermore, the similarities in the social, political and religious position of both Althusius and Calvin, as well as their geographical location in Emden and Geneva respectively, allows Althusius’ work to be seen as the natural culmination of Calvin's original work on the right of resistance.

Notes

NOTES

1. John Neville Figgis, Studies of Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius.

2. J. Wayne Baker, “The Covenantal Basis for the Development of Swiss Political Federalism, 1291–1848,” PUBLIUS: The Journal of Federalism 23.1 (1993).

3. Politics Methodically Set Forth, and Illustrated with Sacred and Profane Examples.

4. Defence of Liberty Against Tyrants. The present discussion will use the version of the Vindiciae that appears in Julian Franklin, ed., Constitutionalism and Resistance in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Pegasus, 1969).

5. Robert v. Friedeburg, “‘Self-Defence’ and Sovereignty: The Reception and Application of German Political Thought in England and Scotland, 1628–69,” History of Political Thought 23.2 (2002): n. 81. In support of Carney, and a glaringly obvious point that Friedeburg appears to overlook, is that in the modern age, there are limited scholars who read Latin competently enough to read Politica in its original version. Whilst this fact does not remove the problems with Carney's translations, it does put it into some kind of perspective. If contemporary non-Latin reading scholars were not meant to read Politica, then Althusius’ work would remain largely unknown. However, and despite the translation problems, if the aim of Carney's work was to re-introduce Althusius into political debate, by translating Politica he widens the scope of involvement. One of the authors who Carney has enabled to join the Althusian debate is the “Doyen of Modern Federalism,” Daniel Elazar, who in the introduction to the 1995 edition of Politica, openly admits he lacks a sufficient command of Latin. Daniel Elazar, “Althusius’ Grand Design for a Federal Commonwealth,” in Johannes Althusius, Politics Methodically Set Forth, and Illustrated with Sacred and Profane Examples [1614], trans. Frederick Carney (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1995), xlix. In this respect, we owe Carney a great debt for providing the English-reading public with the opportunity to read Althusius’ magnum opus in translation and not to have to rely on assessments of the Latin text by others (xlvi). Subsequent references to Politica are cited in the text.

6. Julian Franklin, introduction to Jean Bodin, On Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), xxiii.

7. Richard Bonny, The European Dynastic States, 1494–1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 312.

8. Carl Friedrich, introduction to Politica Methodice Digests of Johannes Althusius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932), xv.

9. Robert Kingdon, “Calvinism and Resistance Theory, 1550–1580,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450–1700, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 200.

10. The possibility of a right of resistance being used in an unrestricted manner by any individual is a concern evident in both the writings of Luther and Calvin.

11. Kingdon, “Calvinism and Resistance Theory,” 200.

12. G. R. Elton, Reformation Europe, 1517–1559 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 104.

13. Kingdon, “Calvinism and Resistance Theory,” 201.

14. Ibid., 208.

15. R. H. Murray, The History of Political Science from Plato to the Present (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1929), 151.

16. Kingdon, “Calvinism and Resistance Theory,” 211.

17. H. A. L. Fisher, A History of Europe (London: Edward Arnold, 1936), 560.

18. Carney, “Translator's Introduction,” xxix.

19. Jean Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion [1560], trans. H. Beveridge (London: Calvin Translation Society, 1846), 657; subsequent references to Institutes are cited in the text.

20. Winthrop Hudson, “Democratic Freedom and the Religious Faith in the Reformed Tradition,” Church History 15 (1946): 188.

21. Carney, “Translator's Introduction,” xxii, xxv.

22. J. H. M. Salmon, “Catholic Resistance Theory, Ultramontanism, and the Royalist Response, 1580–1620,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, ed. Burns, 241.

23. Calvin, Institutes, 675.

24. Stephanus Junius Brutus, Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos [1579], in Constitutionalism and Resistance in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Julian Franklin (New York: Pegasus, 1969), 151; subsequent references to Vindiciae are cited in the text.

25. Carney, “Translator's Introduction,” xxiii.

26. Ibid., xxi.

27. Ibid., xvi.

28. Daniel Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1991), 139.

29. Carney, “Translator's Introduction,” xii; Friedrich, “Introduction,” xxix–xxx.

30. Graeme Murdock, Beyond Calvin: The Intellectual, Political and Cultural World of Europe's Reformed Churches, c.1540–1620 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004), 73.

31. Friedrich, “Introduction,” xxxiv.

32. Baker, “The Covenantal Basis for the Development of Swiss Political Federalism,” 34.

33. Carney, “Translator's Introduction,” 191, n. 1.

34. Ibid., xii.

35. Ibid., xi.

36. John McNeil, The History and Character of Calvinism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), 259.

37. Andrew Pettegree, Emden and the Dutch Revolt: Exile and the Development of Reformed Protestantism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 24.

38. Thomas Hueglin, “Johannes Althusius and the Modern Concept of Civil Society,” in Civil Society, Political Society and Democracy, ed. Adolf Bibič and Graziano Gigi Graziano (Ljubljana: Slovene Political Science Association, 1994), 78.

39. Thomas Hueglin, “Johannes Althusius: Medieval Constitutionalist or Modern Federalist?” PUBLIUS: The Journal of Federalism 9.1 (1979): 17.

40. Thomas Hueglin, Early Modern Concepts for a Late Modern World: Althusius on Community and Federalism (Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1999), 15.

41. Hueglin, “Johannes Althusius: Medieval Constitutionalist or Modern Federalist?”, 9.