This book is the first contextual account of the political philosophy and natural law theory of the German reformer Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560). Mads Langballe Jensen presents Melanchthon as a significant political thinker in his own right and an engaged scholar drawing on the intellectual arsenal of renaissance humanism to develop a new Protestant political philosophy. As such, he also shows how and why natural law theories first became integral to Protestant political thought in response to the political and religious conflicts of the Reformation. This study offers new, contextual studies of a wide range of Melanchthon's works including his early humanist orations, commentaries on Aristotle's ethics and politics, Melanchthon's own textbooks on moral and political philosophy, and polemical works.
Mads Langballe Jensen, Ph.D. (2014), University College London, is post-doctoral research assistant at Royal Holloway University of London. He has published on Protestant political thought from the Reformation to the early eighteenth century. This is his first book.
"[...] wird er neut deutlich, dass ihm eine sorgfältig gearbeitete, stringent argumentierende Studie gelungen ist, die zugleich quellennah vorgeht und Melanchthons Thesen in überzeu gender Weise sowohl in zeitgenössische Debatten wie in politische Konflikte einordnet". Jan-Hendryk de Boer, in Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, 48 (2021), pp. 149-151.
Preface: Melanchthonâs Natural Law as a Combative Concept Acknowledgements
Introduction: Melanchthon, Political Philosopher of the Protestant Reformation
â1 Melanchthon and the Political thought of the Protestant Reformation
â2 Melanchthon:Â a Humanist in the Reformation
â3 Protestant Wittenberg in Imperial Politics
1 Sedition, Tyranny, and Law in the Early 1520s
â1 The Wittenberg Movement and the Split with Karlstadt
â2 Melanchthonâs Humanist Conception of Politics
â3 Melanchthonâs Early Ciceronian Political Thought
â4 Humanists on Law
â5 Melanchthonâs Oratio De Legibus
â6 Conclusion:Â Melanchthonâs Distinctiveness
2 âThe Causes That Lead Us to Institute Government and Obey Rulersâ
â1 Melanchthonâs Turn to Aristotleâs Moral Philosophy:Â the 1529 Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics
â2 The Identifiable Targets of Melanchthonâs Politics
â3 Ockhamists and Radical Preachers:Â âImperium Ex Consensu Populiâ
â4 Rebelling Peasants and Radical Preachers
â5 Melanchthonâs Reassessment:Â Aristotelian Natural Law, State and Government
â6 Property
â7 Forms of Kingship
â8 Wycliffe
â9 Justice and Rule Limited by Law
â10 Conclusion
3 A True and Learned Philosophy according to the Law of God
â1 Cura Religionis, Tertius Usus Legis, and the Law of Nature in the 1530s
â2 Natural Law and the Decalogue in the Philosophiae Moralis Epitome
â3 Political Authority as a Divine Ordination
â4 Justice and the Best Order of the State
â5 Divine Law, Natural Law, the Law of Nations, and Positive Law
â6 The Limits on Political Power
â7 Conclusion
4 Liberty, Tyranny, and Defence of the True Religion
â1 Resistance and Defence, or Rebellion?
â2 The Schmalkaldic War:Â Political Legitimacy and the True Christian Faith
â3 Melanchthonâs Editing of Von der Notwehr Unterricht
â4 Melanchthonâs Philosophical Theory of Resistance in the nuii
â5 The Magdeburg Confession
â6 Conclusion
Conclusion: Melanchthonian Moral Philosophy and the Beginnings of Protestant Natural Law
Bibliography Subject Index Name Index
Historians, political theorists and theologians, academics and students, interested in the Reformation, Philipp Melanchthon, the history of early modern political thought, and natural law theory.