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REASSESSING THE POLISH BRETHREN ON MAGISTRACY, PACIFISM, AND WARFARE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2020

FRANCESCO QUATRINI Open the ORCID record for FRANCESCO QUATRINI [Opens in a new window]
FRANCESCO QUATRINI*
Affiliation:
Queen's University Belfast
*
Queen's University Belfast, University Road, Belfast, BT7 1NN F.Quatrini@qub.ac.uk
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Abstract

The Polish Brethren, usually known as Socinians, were perhaps the most infamous Christian sect belonging to the so-called ‘Radical Reformation’. Renowned for their anti-Trinitarian beliefs and their rationalistic approach towards religion, the Brethren also discussed theological-political concepts such as the legitimacy of magistracy and warfare. Relevant literature on the Brethren's socio-political views underestimates their participation in contemporary debates on the ius belli, describing them as pacifists who generally opposed politics and violence until the 1650s, when some of them began defending a more conventional approach towards magistracy and warfare. This article proves that this shift toward a more standard Protestant position occurred as early as the 1620s, when Johannes Crell and Jonas Szlichtyng, two of the most prominent spokespersons among the Brethren, reconciled politics and the Brethren's faith in their writings. The article highlights how the historical situation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth urged them to revise their views on magistracy and warfare, and it argues that they were assisted in this by their education in European universities, especially the Lutheran Academy of Altdorf near Nuremberg, which provided them with different perspectives on the legitimacy of defensive warfare.

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Article
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The Historical Journal , Volume 64 , Issue 4 , September 2021 , pp. 891 - 911
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were deeply marked by religious warfare. Almost permanent conflict with the Ottoman empire, colonial attacks against the heathens and idolaters of non-European countries, and strife among Christian sects kept alive a doctrine of holy war that could mobilize large numbers of believers. At the same time, this gradually enabled the development of a common and inter-confessional ideology of just war.Footnote 1 Indeed, these centuries witnessed the development of a large literature on ius belli, ‘the right of war’, which included discussions on ius ad bellum – legitimate reasons to wage a war – and ius in bello – legitimate ways to fight a war. While many rejected the use of force and war to impose religious beliefs on others, justifications of the use of force to defend oneself, one's goods, or one's country were quite common among all European intellectuals, regardless of their confession of faith. These justifications were mostly based on the Roman law of self-defence, vim vi repellere, which means ‘to repel force through force’ and was generally regarded as a natural law. This natural law was also the main basis upon which resistance to tyrants or sovereigns who were not regarded as legitimate for either religious or political reasons could be justified.Footnote 2

Nevertheless, some Christian minorities – such as the Dutch Mennonites and the Anabaptist Moravian Brethren – did not adopt this mainstream approach toward self-defence and warfare. Believing that the natural law vim vi repellere was contrary to Christ's teaching, they completely rejected any use of force and denied the legitimacy of warfare, embracing an all-encompassing pacifism instead. Pacifism can be broadly defined as a practical and intellectual devotion to peace and opposition to war, which includes ‘a variety of commitments on a continuum from an absolute adherence to nonviolence in all actions to a more focused or minimal sort of anti-warism’.Footnote 3 The Polish Brethren – whom scholars in the field refer to as Socinians, from the name of the Italian scholar Fausto Sozzini (Faustus Socinus, 1539–1604) – were among these minorities.Footnote 4

In this article, I examine the development of the Brethren's views when addressing three essential questions. First, is it legitimate for a Christian to hold a public office such as lesser or supreme magistrate? If so, is it legitimate for a Christian magistrate to condemn someone to the death penalty and to wage wars against other nations? Finally, is it legitimate for private Christians to participate in wars? In describing the Brethren's answers to these questions, the main goal of this article is to reassess precisely when it was that the Brethren reconsidered their pacifist approach to magistracy and warfare.

It is usually accepted that the Brethren discarded their original pacifist ideas in the late 1640s or 1650s, thanks to the works of Jonas Szlichtyng (or Schlichting, 1592–1661) and Samuel Przypkowski (1592–1670). Janusz Tazbir, for instance, described the Brethren's ‘socio-political programme’ as ‘marked by an unfriendly or even hostile attitude to the state and to all forms of violence and oppression, including war’. Referring to Szlichtyng's treatise published against the Lutheran theologian Balthasar Meisner, Tazbir then asserted that, in 1636, Szlichtyng was still maintaining ‘that even though the state had the power to punish people by death and to conduct wars, a true Christian should have nothing to do with this’. Tazbir relied on Stanislas Kot's foundational study of the Brethren's socio-political views, which indeed argued that Szlichtyng turned away from the early pacifism of his church only in the late 1640s, a conclusion shared by Peter Brock.Footnote 5

It being well established that the Brethren changed their socio-political views in the course of the seventeenth century, it then becomes essential to know precisely in what sense they changed these views and when this occurred. The analysis of primary sources offered in this article is intended to answer these questions. It demonstrates that Szlichtyng had developed different views by the time he replied to Meisner in 1636, allowing Christian magistrates to wage defensive wars and private Christians to participate in them. Moreover, Szlichtyng was assisted in this by his friend and mentor, Johannes Crell (1590–1633), who had developed a much more standard position on magistracy and Christianity by 1623.Footnote 6 The Brethren were thus beginning to abandon their pacifism twenty years earlier than historians have previously noted.

A thorough examination of the reasons that pushed Crell and Szlichtyng to change their views on magistracy and warfare is beyond the scope of this article. In the following, however, I will suggest two likely causes: first, the active participation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in several wars from the early seventeenth century onwards; and second, the growing openness of the second generation of Brethren towards the intellectual European milieu. From the early 1600s onwards, young Brethren went abroad to attend famous academies and universities, especially the Lutheran Academy of Altdorf near Nuremberg. This provided them with new and different perspectives on philosophical, theological, and political matters. In this article, I will particularly focus on Altdorf. As Sarah Mortimer has highlighted, the second generation of Socinians educated at that institution played a fundamental role in reshaping the Brethren's theology in the seventeenth century.Footnote 7 In Altdorf, these same Brethren met scholars holding and teaching ideas on magistracy and warfare quite different from those defended by Socinus and the Brethren forefathers, and this certainly made the young Brethren aware of the broader inter-confessional European debates on ius belli, in which they would take active part from the 1620s onwards.

I

The Polish Brethren were members of the Minor Reformed Church of Poland, which flourished in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1658. This church originated around 1563, when the Polish Reformed Church split into two groups because of the anti-Trinitarian views embraced by some of its adherents.Footnote 8 The Brethren are renowned today for their anti-Trinitarian beliefs, their principle of applying natural reason to interpret the scriptures and religious dogmas, and their advocacy of freedom of religion and toleration.Footnote 9 Mortimer has also rightly emphasized that the ‘insistence upon the role of human beings in their own salvation’ and the ‘commitment to Christianity as a religion of supernatural rewards and stringent ethics’ were other common beliefs among the Brethren.Footnote 10 These were the same doctrines that made them increasingly (in)famous throughout sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.

However, it can hardly be said that they were a homogenous group. Differences about other theological beliefs and socio-political views arose as soon as the Minor Church was established.Footnote 11 For instance, they often debated whether Christ should be adored as divine, even if he was only a human being, or whether Adam was mortal before the fall.Footnote 12 The relationship between politics and the Christian religion was one of the most controversial. The controversies concerned two main inter-related subjects. The first of these was the relationship between private Christianity and secular power, which included discussions on whether Christians could hold civil offices as sovereign or as lesser magistrates, whether Christians could exercise the right to inflict corporal punishments and the death penalty (or ius gladii, ‘the right of the sword’) when holding these offices, and whether Christians could appeal to magistrates for justice. The second was the relationship between the Christian religion and the natural law vim vi repellere, which included disputes on the legitimacy of private self-defence and of warfare to defend one's country.

It is possible to distinguish two main parties involved in these controversies. On the one hand, there were those who denied that Christians could actively participate in civil life. As the Christian religion is not of this world, true believers should not hold public offices or take part in wars, even defensive ones. Rejecting the law vim vi repellere as contrary to the Christian religion, they also argued that true Christians should not defend themselves when attacked, but rather should run away or endure the assault, even accepting death. On the other hand, there were those who held a more standard position on the relationship between Christian religion and politics, allowing the existence of Christian magistrates and participation in defensive wars. They also allowed private self-defence, even if some of them stressed that one should at least try not to kill one's attacker. These discussions on magistracy and warfare were particularly relevant for the Brethren. From its very beginnings, the Minor Church succeeded in gaining the support of some noblemen and members of the gentry who had a legal duty to join the army personally in case of war. If they failed to do so and disobeyed the order of the king without a justifiable excuse, their property would be confiscated and they would be deprived of the privileges connected with their noble status.Footnote 13

It should be emphasized that the pacifist Brethren did not deny political authority per se, as many of their opponents accused them of doing. They rather denied that those holding civil offices – be they sovereigns or lesser magistrates – could be true Christians. They believed in a (perhaps utopian) complete separation from all that belonged to ordinary civil and political life. Over the sixteenth century, support among the Brethren gradually shifted towards the pacifist party. Faustus Socinus contributed much to their success.Footnote 14 In his last years, Socinus slightly modified his views, allowing Christians to hold public office and to bear arms. At the same time, he continued to argue that Christians must absolutely refrain from killing anyone, be they private citizens or public magistrates. Moreover, he carefully avoided examining whether a Christian magistrate could justly wage a war to defend his or her country.Footnote 15

In 1614, Valentin Schmalz (or Smalcius, 1572–1622) made his views on these questions much clearer, when replying to the Lutheran Wolfgang Franz.Footnote 16 According to Smalcius, Christians were allowed to hold public offices and a Christian magistrate had the same ius gladii that non-Christian magistrates had, but they should use this right with moderation, avoiding the most severe punishments whenever possible. Moreover, a Christian magistrate could never sentence someone to death, because ‘it is not legitimate for the Christian magistrate to shed blood’. Smalcius continued that this did not detract from the power of the magistrate, as ‘it is legitimate for the magistrate to repress criminals through other means that are perhaps more severe than the shedding of blood’.Footnote 17 This unconditional prohibition of killing other human beings naturally affected Smalcius's views on wars. Casting aside Socinus's ambiguities, he wrote that ‘we deny that it is legitimate to wage war and we affirm earnestly that it is unworthy of Christian piety’.Footnote 18 He did not even allow wars to defend one's country: he argued that there were means to avoid a war; when it was impossible to prevent war, the sovereign should rather opt for a spontanea deditio, ‘a voluntary surrender’.Footnote 19

Although Smalcius still limited the rights of Christian magistrates and denied the legitimacy of defensive wars, the intellectual atmosphere in Raków was probably changing. Two reasons can be suggested for this. First, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was almost continuously at war in the first three decades of the seventeenth century.Footnote 20 This included severe attacks from the Ottoman empire and Muscovy, as well as the war against Sweden (1626–9) and the Smoleńsk War (1632–4).Footnote 21 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the commonwealth also had to face the Zebrzydowski rebellion (1606–9), a brief civil war prompted by members of the Polish gentry who saw their political liberties threatened by King Sigismund III Vasa.Footnote 22 The Brethren did not remain indifferent to such conflicts, as their pacifist attitude would have required them to do. Jakub Sienieński, patron and protector of Raków, joined the Zebrzydowski rebellion.Footnote 23 Moreover, Brethren belonging to the nobility or the gentry actively participated in the aforementioned and subsequent wars, distinguishing themselves in battle. For instance, prominent Brethren families such as the Moskorzowski and Przypkowksi fought on King Władysław IV's side at Smoleńsk.Footnote 24 The Brethren's synods at Raków in 1604 and 1605 even passed specific resolutions allowing resistance against the Tatars who had invaded Podolia.Footnote 25

This demonstrates that there was a clear dichotomy between the pacifist doctrines as defended by leaders such as Socinus and Smalcius and the practical historical situation the Brethren had to face. A reconciliation between their ideas on warfare, their need to defend themselves, and their duty to participate in the Polish wars was therefore required. The fact that the second generation of Brethren showed themselves much more keen to participate in wider European debates favoured such a reconciliation, and this is the second reason why the Brethren adopted a new approach to politics and warfare. Indeed, when developing more conventional ideas on these subjects, Brethren such as Crell and Szlichtyng came closer to the standard Protestant thinking on politics and religion, a tradition that they first encountered personally at the Academy of Altdorf during their formative years.

II

The Lutheran Academy of Altdorf near Nuremberg, known as the Academia Norica, was the main centre in the German territories from where the Brethren views spread at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Established as a humanist gymnasium (an institution for higher education that included the study of Latin and Greek) by Philipp Melanchthon in 1526 in Nuremberg, it was moved to Altdorf in 1575 and reorganized according to the model of the Hochschule in Strasburg. Three years later, Emperor Rudolph II promoted the school to the status of a semi-universitas, and it finally received university privileges in 1622, except for the Faculty of Theology, which received the same privileges only in 1692.Footnote 26 After 1575, students came from all the Lutheran territories of the empire, as well as from nearby countries, such as Hapsburg Bohemia and Silesia, and, more importantly for the purposes of this article, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.Footnote 27 However, it was not the Polish students who introduced the Brethren's ideas into the Academy, but rather one of its professors, Ernst Soner.

Ernst Soner (1572–1612) was the son of a Lutheran merchant in Nuremberg, and he studied philosophy and medicine at the Academia Norica. After completing his studies, he started a long academic journey that eventually brought him into contact with Andrzej Wojdowski (1565–1622) and Christopher Ostorodt (c. 1560–1611) in 1598, two Brethren missionaries. Their preaching and the books they were carrying with them succeeded in persuading Soner to embrace anti-Trinitarian beliefs. Soner went back to Altdorf in 1605 to lecture in philosophy and medicine at the Academia Norica. From that year to his death, he became the leading intellectual promoting anti-Trinitarian views in Germany. While in Altdorf, he established a circle of crypto-Socinians, which would be discovered only after his death, and converted two of the most famous non-Polish Brethren, that is, Crell and Marcin (or Martin) Ruar (1589–1657).Footnote 28 The presence of an anti-Trinitarian group of students in Altdorf became publicly known in 1615 and 1616. The students Johannes Vogel and Joachim Peuschel were condemned as the leading figures of the anti-Trinitarian circle in Altdorf and many of Soner's books and manuscripts were publicly burned.Footnote 29

The significance of Soner's role in the development of Brethren views is unquestionable. At the same time, there is no doubt that the young Brethren came into contact with other scholars teaching at Altdorf. For instance, this is what Crell's biographer emphasized when recalling Crell's time at the Academia Norica, mentioning several famous intellectuals who had a decisive role in his education:

Altdorf was then blessed by a number of men renowned for their doctrine … Who does not know those great names of the Republic of Letters, Taurellus the philosopher, Scipione Gentili the jurist, Rittershausen the philologist? Who does not know Piccart the logician, Praetorius the mathematician and friend of the noble Dudith, Soner the most excellent natural philosopher and physician, Virdungus the poet, Queccius the professor of ethics?Footnote 30

For the purpose of this article, Scipione Gentili (1563–1613), Konrad Rittershausen (1560–1613), and Michael Piccart (1574–1620) deserve special attention. Besides their expertise in law, Rittershausen and Gentili were renowned philologists, something that might have attracted students like Crell, who studied philology and ancient languages (Greek and Hebrew) in Altdorf. Gentili particularly applied philology to the study of the corpus iuris.Footnote 31 Moreover, he never discussed theological matters and never subscribed to a confession of faith, something that might hint at latitudinarian views in religion that the anti-Trinitarians would have certainly appreciated.Footnote 32 This is probably the reason why the German philologist Thomas Crenius suggested Gentili's alleged heterodoxy, reminding his readers that Gentili taught at Altdorf exactly when Socinianism was spreading.Footnote 33 A few years later, the Lutheran theologian Gustav Georg Zeltner claimed that these accusations were unfounded, but one of Gentili's students, Johann Gerard Frauenburger, did indeed belong to the anti-Trinitarian circle in Altdorf.Footnote 34 Frauenburger became professor of law at Altdorf in 1618 and published a disputation on warfare in 1630.Footnote 35 Finally, Piccart's interest in Aristotelianism was shared by the circle of people around Soner. In 1609, Soner began giving private lectures on Aristotle's metaphysics to some students, and many anti-Trinitarian students participated in these lectures.Footnote 36 Therefore, it is not surprising that ‘in the writings of Crell can be seen a blend of Socinianism, Protestant Aristotelianism and concepts derived from Roman law’.Footnote 37

In Altdorf, Gentili, Rittershausen, and Piccart also discussed ius belli. Gentili and Piccart published two disputations on the legitimacy of warfare in 1599 and 1618, while Rittershausen published a disputation in 1611 on ius civilis that also included some theses on ius belli. Lectures and disputations were the two principal modes of instruction in the early modern university. Disputations were formal debates in which students sustained, attacked, or defended a question set by the professor, using the resources provided for them by the professor's lectures. They were ‘used as part of the regular curriculum, taking place weekly and in some cases even daily’.Footnote 38 Therefore, these disputations on ius belli were well known among the students, including the anti-Trinitarians and young Brethren enrolled in the Academia Norica in those years. In the following, I focus only on Gentili and Rittershausen, as Piccart's disputation is almost identical in structure and content to Gentili's.Footnote 39

In the ‘Disputation on the law of war’, Gentili defines a war as a just fight between two equals.Footnote 40 Therefore, there can be a war only between sovereigns or between free nations, which should be waged only when there is no other way of resolving disputes. Only necessity can bring forth a war.Footnote 41 Moreover, a war is just only if its causes and the way in which is waged and carried out are just.Footnote 42 ‘A most just cause of war is defence’, Gentili writes, ‘and this is threefold, necessary, useful, and honest.’Footnote 43 Defence is necessary when people are assailed or a war is declared and prepared by enemies. Defence is useful when someone fears being oppressed by another. Furthermore, not only is it honourable when someone without any fear of danger helps someone else because of the natural fellowship among people, but everyone is also bound to defend one another, especially a neighbour or an ally.Footnote 44 This means that it is legitimate to help the subjects of another country against their ruler, ‘and it is more legitimate, if they, friends or neighbours, are forced by a tyrannical power’.Footnote 45 As for religious wars, Gentili regards as unjust those wars waged to compel a nation or group of people to a religion, even if it is one of the most just causes of war to defend religion against the impious.Footnote 46 Gentili never mentions the natural law vim vi repellere, but there is no doubt that his emphasis on defence as a just cause of war relies on it. In one of the ‘Annotations on Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata’, he writes that ‘no law is more holy than that of nature, which orders us to defend our well-being and faculties from the force and wrongdoing of enemies’.Footnote 47

Gentili's assertions on the legitimacy of intervening in defence of other countries seem to allow people to resist their ruler, especially if she or he is a tyrant. This is how, for instance, Cornel Zwierlein has interpreted these statements.Footnote 48 On the other hand, in his examination of Gentili's ‘Annotations’, Alberto Clerici has argued that Gentili seemed to favour a third way between those defending absolute obedience to a ruler and those defending the right to resist a tyrant: it is not legitimate to take arms against a sovereign, but it is legitimate to ask for help from foreign sovereigns in order to overthrow a tyrant.Footnote 49 Gentili's ‘Disputation’ strengthens this interpretation and places him in a broader European debate on the right of states to intervene in one another's affairs.Footnote 50 Indeed, he openly writes that private people cannot ‘make war or peace without a public decree’, reinforcing the idea that this is akin to lese-majesty, while regarding as legitimate the defence of other nations and people against a tyrant.Footnote 51

Rittershausen did not openly discuss the ius belli, but there are some references on the topic of warfare and its legitimacy in his ‘Theses on civil law’, discussed in the academy and published in 1611.Footnote 52 According to him, there are supreme and lesser magistrates, the former having the supreme power in the commonwealth, the latter holding less important offices.Footnote 53 The supreme magistrate has the right to declare and put an end to wars, among other prerogatives.Footnote 54 In this thesis, Rittershausen briefly discusses the topic of warfare, without entering into much detail and merely quoting a series of scholars who treated this topic more thoroughly, including Alberico Gentili.Footnote 55 He then proceeds to answer a question that was particularly relevant for the Brethren: ‘whether all who have been summoned by the sovereign are bound to go to war’. ‘According to the Roman law’, Rittershausen writes, ‘almost all people … were compelled to military service and it was regarded as a major crime to refuse the duty of military service.’ As for the present time, however, he distinguishes two cases: when ‘a realm is invaded and there are not enough soldiers’ and when, on the contrary, soldiers are sufficient to defend the country. In the first case, ‘all who are suitable can be compelled to military service’; in the other case, ‘only the nobles and those who have a knight's fee are obliged to this service’. All other citizens can pay taxes and tributes to avoid going to war.Footnote 56 For the Brethren reading this thesis, this meant that at least the members of the gentry had a legal duty to defend their country when invaded. As for religious wars, Rittershausen rejects the very idea of religious warfare, as Gentili did.Footnote 57

When considering the broader sixteenth- and seventeenth-century debate on ius belli or ius gladii, it is clear that neither Gentili's position nor Rittershausen's was particularly original. Rather, they defended views on the legitimacy of warfare and of religious defensive wars consistent with the standard Lutheran approach to these topics as developed, for instance, by Melanchthon.Footnote 58 While not particularly innovative from a Protestant point of view, Gentili's and Rittershausen's ideas were nevertheless original for the young Brethren studying in Altdorf. Crell, Przypkowksi, and Szlichtyng stayed in the German academy during different periods between 1606 and 1616. Szlichtyng spent only a few months in Altdorf, arriving in 1616 when the ‘Socinian scandal’ was reaching its peak, but Crell, his friend and mentor, stayed there from 1606 to 1613. In 1616, Szlichtyng and Przypkowski, who had been at the academy since 1614, moved to Leiden, before returning to Poland.Footnote 59 The new generation of Brethren thus certainly knew the views of Gentili and Rittershausen. The ideas on magistracy and warfare that Crell, Szlichtyng, and Przypkowski personally encountered at Altdorf undoubtedly gave them a new awareness of the debates on ius belli and ius gladii, which certainly contributed to a revision of the Brethren approach to politics and religion.

III

By the late 1610s and early 1620s, many of the original spokespersons among the Brethren were dead: Socinus died in 1604, Ostorodt in 1611, Smalcius in 1622, Moskorowski in 1625. A new generation of scholars was ready to take over the leadership of the Minor Church. Crell was one of those leading figures in the 1620s. After leaving Altdorf in November 1613, he moved to Poland and reached Raków, where he stayed until he died in 1633. In 1616, he became the rector of the Racovian Academy.Footnote 60

Crell had developed a different attitude towards the secular magistrate and the duties of Christians as citizens by 1623, when he published his reply to the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius, who had attacked Socinus's opinions on the doctrine of Christ's satisfaction.Footnote 61 According to Sarah Mortimer, Crell ‘needed also to reassure his readers that Socinus's views did not undermine civil government’, and thus he ‘included a lengthy explanation of the origins of legitimate government’.Footnote 62 He argued that each individual has a natural desire based on their anger to harm those who have harmed them, which gives rise to a natural and individual ius gladii.Footnote 63 This right does not compel one to act in a specific way, because rights are instruments, not duties, to be used as the owner sees fit.Footnote 64 As long as the punishment does not exceed the injury received, ius gladii is ‘in itself neither good nor bad but rather a tool which could be used rightly or wrongly’.Footnote 65 The law of proportion between injury and punishment is thus fundamental in Crell's thinking. Crell then proceeded to argue that men and women chose to yield their right of punishment and to live under a ruler, believing that a settled government would be in their own best interests. In other words, ‘government was set up on utilitarian grounds, based upon an act of consent’.Footnote 66 This also means that the magistrate's ius gladii originates from the natural right of each person living inside the community and, therefore, he or she is allowed to use it as they see fit, as long as the punishment does not exceed the crime.Footnote 67

Crell defended this conclusion in his lectures on Romans delivered during his time at Raków.Footnote 68 Lecturing on Romans 13:1, he put forward three ideas: all people (be they Christian or not) must obey ‘those who have the authority or the right to govern others’; obedience must be absolute, as long as the civil authorities do not command something against God's order, in which case ‘one should obey God rather than the magistrate’; magistrates receive their authority from God, because ‘all authority comes from God’.Footnote 69 Reading Romans 13:4, Crell again emphasizes an unconditional obedience toward the magistrate: the magistrate ‘is God's minister for you in good. Therefore, you must submit to the authority … no-one is appointed as God's minister if not by God's authority and will.’Footnote 70 On the other hand, if secular authority comes from God, Christians can then hold public offices as well. Indeed, in his own commentary to Romans, written in the last years of his life, Szlichtyng openly rejects the arguments of those stating that Christians cannot hold public offices and writes that, on the contrary, no-one is better suited to be a ruler: ‘Who will keep Christians from this duty’, he asks rhetorically, ‘and will not rather ask through prayers either that all kings become Christian or all Christians become kings?’Footnote 71

Revising the more moderate views of those Brethren who allowed Christian magistrates so long as they refrained from killing or severely wounding anyone, Crell argues for a ius gladii that includes all kinds of punishments, even the death penalty:

[The magistrate] does not bear the sword in vain. Not at leisure, without purpose, without deliberation, and in vain. The sword is the means of punishment, and the death penalty is the most common means. Therefore, according to jurists and common speech, the right or authority of the sword is understood as the authority to inflict the death penalty … all kinds of punishments are tacitly included under the sword … these words of the Apostle wanted wrongdoers and those who are refractory to the magistrates to fear the punishment. And he added: [the magistrate] is God's minister, so that no-one would think that the magistrate inflicts this [punishment] by his own authority or even the consent of people.Footnote 72

Interpreting the same passage, Szlichtyng agrees with Crell and writes that ‘the magistrate has also the right and authority of punishing through the sword, that is, of killing criminals’, because the sword ‘is the means to behead and kill a man’. And the magistrate could not accomplish his office ‘without the right and authority of the sword’.Footnote 73 Szlichtyng had already developed these ideas in his reply to the German theologian Balthasar Meisner in 1636.Footnote 74 Without denying that Christ's precepts are universal and thus bind all Christians, he argues that the status of a magistrate, either supreme or lesser, differs from that of private Christians, as the magistrate receives his office from God, including ius gladii, which is entrusted to the magistrate by God together with the office. Therefore, the magistrate is still bound to follow Christ's precept to love both one's neighbour and one's enemy; this does not mean that he cannot exercise his ius gladii, but rather that he should use moderation in his duties.Footnote 75 However, the magistrate's office and duties include defending the innocent and punishing those who are dishonest; consequently he must punish criminals, even with the death penalty, as long as the punishment does not exceed the crime.Footnote 76

Neither Crell nor Szlichtyng restrained the rights and duties of civil offices within a commonwealth. Szlichtyng goes even further by examining whether Christians go against God's laws when participating in defensive wars. Dividing necessary defence into private and public, the latter being the war waged by the legitimate magistrate, he states that Socinus did not disapprove warfare broadly conceived, but only those wars waged by private persons:

Although he [Socinus] indeed disapproves war, that is, the repelling of enemies connected with their death, and he says that it is contrary to Christ's precepts, he does not speak, however, of the war or slaughter of invading enemies that the magistrate carries through to preserve the commonwealth, after hiring soldiers for this matter; but [he speaks of the war] that Christians begin spontaneously, allowing themselves to be hired for and employed in such a war voluntarily.Footnote 77

Socinus actually condemned warfare broadly conceived, but Szlichtyng uses Socinus's name to put forward his own ideas as if they had always been the Brethren's mainstream opinion on defensive wars. If Socinus/Szlichtyng believes that wars waged by the magistrates to preserve the commonwealth are not contrary to Christ's precepts, it is clear that Christian magistrates can wage such defensive necessary wars. Szlichtyng rejects almost all causes of just war listed by Meisner, especially those related to religion.Footnote 78 After all, the Christian magistrate is bound to love even his enemies and thus he should avoid waging war as much as he can.Footnote 79 However, if the very existence of the commonwealth is at stake, then even the Christian magistrate is allowed to wage a defensive war. Mentioning ‘the repelling of servitude and violence, the preservation of freedom, life, and public peace’ as goals that should be pursued through a war, Szlichtyng does not deny them, ‘because we Brethren do not dispute the war begun by the magistrate for public security because of a pressing necessity’.Footnote 80 Arguing that even non-Christian authors allowed fewer just causes of war than Meisner did, as they usually regarded only the repelling of force and the defence of oneself and one's relatives, the reclaiming of stolen goods, and revenge for offences as just causes of war, Szlichtyng urges Christians merely to act with moderation and to try to avoid war as much as possible.Footnote 81

If Christian magistrates are allowed to wage war in certain circumstances, private Christians can participate in these same wars as long as they do not do so voluntarily. As stated in the passage quoted above, Socinus/Szlichtyng only rejected those wars that ‘Christians begin spontaneously, allowing themselves to be hired for and employed in such a war voluntarily’. The Latin words sponte and ultro, ‘spontaneously’ and ‘voluntarily’, are the conditions that make this participation illegitimate. Indeed, when discussing Meisner's argument for necessary defensive warfare based on the natural law vim vi repellere, Szlichtyng writes that ‘we Brethren do not argue anything against this argument’, if it is used to argue for ‘the war undertaken by the magistrate against a public enemy’. He only denies that this natural law can be used to defend those wars that ‘private persons join spontaneously and voluntarily’.Footnote 82 Again, discussing Meisner's arguments based on the evidence from the church fathers, Szlichtyng states that those passages ‘are by no means contrary to us, because they treat the wars begun by the magistrate for the public safety’. He continues: ‘We blame those who, while being Christians, enlist voluntarily in military service and devote their effort to the killing of enemies.’Footnote 83 It can therefore be assumed that Christians are allowed to go to war when following the legitimate magistrate's command. Indeed, since all people must always obey their magistrate, they must follow her or him in war when ordered to do so.

Szlichtyng does not expand on his theory of legitimate warfare in Quaestiones duae, but it seems that the divine office of magistracy provides such a legitimacy. All Christians are bound to follow Christ's precept to love one's enemy, but it is nevertheless licit for Christian magistrates to wage defensive war, because they have received their office from God and this includes the protection of the commonwealth. Even if private Christians are bound to the same love, they are also bound by divine law to an absolute obedience towards the magistrate and this allows them to participate in defensive wars. Magistracy and obedience to magistracy create an exception to that divine law prescribing universal love, rather than contradicting it, and thus they provide legitimacy to necessary defensive warfare.Footnote 84

Despite Crell's and Szlichting's far-reaching attempts to revise the history of the Brethren's approach to magistracy and warfare, the pacifist wing of the Minor Church continued to attract adherents, as demonstrated by the controversy in the late 1640s between Szlichtyng and Johann Ludwig von Wolzogen (1599–1661), an Austrian nobleman and member of the Brethren who restated the original pacifist views of the Minor Church. However, the pacifist wing gradually became the minority among the Brethren. The last edition of the Racovian catechism provides evidence of this.Footnote 85 The text of this edition is the same as that published in 1665 (which included revisions made by Crell, Szlichtyng, and probably others), but, in 1684, the editors added some notes to explain passages of the Catechism. In one of the passages emphasizing the legitimacy of magistracy, Benedykt Wiszowaty (c. 1650–c. 1704), great-grandson of Socinus and sharing the pacifism of his great-grandfather, added a note explaining that the first leaders of the Minor Church held quite different views on magistracy and that for Christians it would be better ‘to relinquish civil magistracy to the men of this world’ and ‘to refrain from usurping for themselves the right of exercising authority over others, and much more of shedding human blood’.Footnote 86 Wiszowaty was aware, however, that the pacifists had been a minority for a long time, stating that Szlichtyng ‘with many of his contemporaries, members of these churches, was of a contrary opinion’.Footnote 87

IV

In conclusion, solid evidence proves that Crell and Szlichtyng had changed their views on politics and religion before the mid-seventeenth century. Answering the three questions raised at the beginning of this article, they would have replied that: it is legitimate for Christians to hold public office, because in doing so they fulfil God's will; it is legitimate for Christian magistrates to make use of their ius gladii, even by inflicting the death penalty, as long as they use Christian moderation and the punishment is in proportion to the crime; it is also legitimate for Christian magistrates to wage defensive war when the safety of the commonwealth and its people is at stake, as long as there is no other means to avoid this war and to save one's country; finally, it is legitimate for private Christians to participate in defensive wars, as long as they do not do so voluntarily, but are compelled by their lawful sovereign and necessity. When examining the controversy between Szlichtyng and Wolzogen in the late 1640s and 1650s, Kot showed that Szlichtyng defended these same ideas.Footnote 88 However, he failed to notice that Crell and Szlichtyng had already developed them in the years between 1623 and 1636, during the Thirty Years War, not afterwards.Footnote 89

I have suggested two reasons that can explain why Crell and Szlichtyng moved away from the original pacifism of the Minor Church. The first is the almost continuous warfare that characterized the history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the first decades of the seventeenth century. As citizens of the commonwealth and active members of the king's court, noblemen and gentry belonging to the Minor Church strived to defend their estates and their country, and thus they wished to reconcile their faith with the holding of public office and participation in war. This was all the more necessary because Polish Catholics attacked the Brethren for their socio-political ideas, as well as for their theological beliefs. Therefore, I agree with Kot and Tazbir in seeing the historical wars fought by the commonwealth as one of the reasons behind the Brethren's changed view. However, rather than the Cossack invasions of the early 1650s, I regard the much earlier attacks by the Tatars and the Turks, and the wars against Sweden and Muscovy in the 1620s and 1630s as the events pushing the Brethren to more lenient views on magistracy and warfare.Footnote 90

The second reason is the openness of the second generation of Brethren towards the European intellectual world, as young Brethren began studying in different universities and academies across Europe. I have focused on the Lutheran Academy of Altdorf, as it was the most famous institution where young Brethren carried out their higher education until the mid-1610s. Relevant literature on the history of the Brethren stressed the significance of this academy mainly because of the leading German anti-Trinitarian teaching in Altdorf, Ernst Soner. I have further shown that other intellectuals lecturing at the Academia Norica had a likely impact on the young Brethren's education as well, focusing on Gentili's and Rittershausen's disputations on ius belli and ius gladii. These were not particularly innovative within the Protestant tradition, but they undoubtedly made Brethren such as Crell and Szlichtyng aware of the European debates on magistracy and warfare in a critical period when they were facing a range of practical political and military issues, and needed to reach for ideas different from those of their church. Crell and Szlichtyng would then take active part in such debates. Indeed, Crell began reshaping his ideas on magistracy when defending Socinus from Grotius's criticisms, while Szlichtyng took a different stand on warfare when replying to Balthasar Meisner.

This clearly proves that their education outside Poland and the very debates held with intellectuals belonging to other confessions gradually led the Brethren to revise the doctrines on magistracy and warfare advocated by their forefathers, and to reach a position that cannot be defined as standard among Protestants, but that was certainly closer to the mainstream Protestant approach to politics and warfare than the pacifism of the first Brethren. For instance, Szlichtying's views on the legitimacy of defensive wars and of the non-voluntary participation of private Christians in them are somewhat similar to those developed by intellectuals such as Lambert Daneau, Gulielmus Becanus, Johann Alsted, Hugo Grotius, and Johannes Hoornbeeck. Indeed, his assertions seem related to the doctrine of absolute obedience to sovereign authority that characterized Protestant thinking on warfare.Footnote 91 The concept of non-voluntary participation in wars seems to have been part of the debates on the use of mercenary service as well.Footnote 92

A comparative analysis of Szlichtyng's and other Brethen's views with the broader European debates on ius belli and ius gladii is beyond the scope of this article. Such an analysis, however, would undoubtedly have valuable outcomes. Kot and Tazbir, for instance, thought that Szlichtyng's arguments against mercenary service were a result of the aftermath of the Thirty Years War, but I have revealed that he had developed the central core of such ideas during the Thirty Years War. Thus, an examination of how European intellectuals reacted to Crell's and Szlichtyng's new ideas on magistracy and warfare in this crucial period for European history would undoubtedly be beneficial. More broadly, such an examination might also contribute to contemporary debates on just war theory. Recent developments include the ideas that defensive war is not morally distinctive from individual self-defence and that it is morally wrong to fight in a war that is unjust.Footnote 93 Although there are profound differences between the past and present discussions on ius belli, Szlichtyng would certainly agree with such views and he would add that it is also morally wrong to voluntarily fight in a war that is just. Indeed, as early as the 1620s and 1630s, Crell and Szlichtyng developed and disseminated a position between the legitimacy of warfare and pacifism that can be regarded as a form of what today is called ‘contingent pacifism’.Footnote 94 Recovering these debates from a not-so-distant past might provide contemporary scholars with new food for thought.

Footnotes

The research upon which this article is based was conducted as part of the research project ‘War and the supernatural in early modern Europe', funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement number no. 677490). I would like to thank Ian Campbell, Crawford Gribben, Floris Verhaart, and the two journal reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

References

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4 In the following, I will rarely refer to the Brethren as Socinians, as this was the name given them by opponents outside the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. For the role of Socinus, see Stanislas Kot, Socinianism in Poland: the social and political ideas of the Polish antitrinitarians, trans. Earl Morse Wilbur (Boston, MA, 1957), pp. xix, 82–96; Caccamo, Domenico, Eretici italiani in Moravia, Polonia, Transilvania (1558–1611) (Florence, 1999), pp. 153–73Google Scholar; Mortimer, Sarah, Reason and religion in the English revolution: the challenge of Socinianism (Oxford, 2010), pp. 2–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 13–22. For the use of the names Brethren and Socinians, see Williams, George Hunston, ‘Introduction’, in Lubieniecki, Stanislas, History of the Polish Reformation and nine related documents, trans. Williams, George Hunston (Minneapolis, MN, 1995), pp. 1–74Google Scholar, at p. 11; Wilczek, Piotr, Polonia reformata: essays on the Polish Reformation (Göttingen, 2016), p. 39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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9 Kot, Socinianism in Poland, p. xxxiii; Wilczek, Polonia reformata, pp. 45–55.

10 Mortimer, Reason and religion, p. 38.

11 Magdalena Luszczynska, for instance, has described three main and somewhat opposing groups in the early years of the Minor Church. Magdalena Luszczynska, Politics of polemics: Marcin Czechowic on the Jews (Berlin, 2018), pp. 5–6.

12 Mihály Balázs, Early Transylvanian antitrinitarianism (1566–1571): from Servet to Palaeologus (Baden-Baden, 1996).

13 Tazbir, Janusz, ‘Polish defenders of political and religious peace in the 16th and 17th centuries’, Dialectics and Humanism, 9 (1983), pp. 257–76Google Scholar, at p. 258. See also Kot, Socinianism in Poland, p. 52; Mortimer, ‘Human liberty’, p. 195.

14 For detailed accounts of Socinus's ideas about politics and warfare, see Kot, Socinianism in Poland, pp. 82–96; Cantimori, Eretici italiani, pp. 407–13.

15 Kot, Socinianism in Poland, pp. 112–15.

16 Valentin Smalcius, Refutatio thesium D. Wolfgangi Frantzii, Theologiae Doctoris et Professoris publici in Academia Witebergensi, quas ibidem De praecipuis christianae religionis capitibus anno 1609 et 1610 disputandas proposuit (Rákow, 1614).

17 ‘Et ne quis statuat, hac ratione aliquid detrahi magistratui, sciendum est, nos, qui credimus, non licere magistratui christiano sanguinem humanum fundere, ut hodie fit, credere, quod aliis modis, qui fortassis sunt severiores, quam sanguinis fusio, in officio continere liceat magistratui homines facinorosos, modo ne vita priventur.’ Ibid., p. 389.

18 ‘In quarta sectione directe nos petit, et bella gerere, licere affirmat, quod nos negamus et indignum Christiana pietate esse contendimus.’ Ibid., p. 93.

19 Ibid., p. 394. Christopher Ostorodt, another prominent member of the Minor Church at the time, put forward the same ideas. Kot, Socinianism in Poland, pp. 124–6; Tazbir, ‘Pacifism’, p. 213.

20 Robert I. Frost, The northern wars: war, state, and society in northeastern Europe, 1558–1721 (Harlow, 2000), pp. 74, 77, 91, 150.

21 Ibid., pp. 104–14, 142–7.

22 Ibid., pp. 89–90. Joanna Kostylo has highlighted how the anti-royalist faction drew on Venetian republican ideologies to justify their resistance against their sovereign: Joanna Kostylo, ‘Commonwealth of all faiths: republican myth and the Italian diaspora in sixteenth-century Poland–Lithuania’, in Karin Friedrich and Barbara M. Pendzich, eds., Citizenship and identity in a multinational commonwealth: Poland–Lithuania in context, 1550–1772 (Leiden, 2009), pp. 172–7.

23 Frost, Northern wars, pp. 203–4.

24 Kot, Socinianism in Poland, pp. 138–9.

25 Tazbir, ‘Pacifism’, p. 214.

26 Schmeisser, Martin and Birnstiel, Klaus, ‘Gelehrtenkultur und antitrinitarische Häresie an der Nürnberger Akademie zu Altdorf’, Daphnis, 39 (2010), pp. 221–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 229–32. For a detailed history of the Academia Norica between 1575 and 1623, see Wolfgang Mährle, Academia Norica. Wissenschaft und Bildung an der Nürnberger Hohen Schule in Altdorf (1575–1623) (Stuttgart, 2000).

27 Mährle, Academia Norica, pp. 86–7.

28 The term ‘crypto-Socinianism’ is taken from Gustav Georg Zeltner, who wrote the first account of the spread of the Brethren's views in Altdorf. Gustav Georg Zeltner, Historia crypto-socinismi Altorfinae quondam academiae infesti arcana (Leipzig, 1729). More recent studies include Siegfried Wollgast, Philosophie in Deutschland zwischen Reformation und Aufklärung 1550–1650 (Berlin, 1988), pp. 346–422; Bröer, Ralf, ‘Antiparacelsismus und radikale Reformation: Ernst Soner (1573–1612) und der Sozinianismus in Altdorf’, Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce 48 (2004), pp. 117–47Google Scholar; Bröer, Ralf, ‘Antiparacelsismus und Dreienigkeit: medizinischer Antitrinitarismus von Thomas Erastus (1524–1583) bis Ernst Soner (1572–1605)’, Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 29 (2006), pp. 137–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schmeisser, ‘Gelehrtenkultur und antitrinitarische Häresie’, pp. 222–85; Schmeisser, Martin, Sozinianische Bekenntnisschriften. Der Rakówer Katechismus des Valentin Schmalz (1608) und der sogenannte Soner-Katechismus (Berlin, 2012), pp. 57–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Soner's students managed to save some of his manuscripts, including a catechism similar in both structure and content to the famous Racovian Catechism. See Schmeisser, ‘Gelehrtenkultur und antitrinitarische Häresie’, pp. 236–53; Mährle, Wolfgang, ‘Eine Hochburg des “Kryptocalvinismus” und des “Kryptosozinianismus”? Heterodoxie an der Nürnberger Hochscule in Altdorf um 1600’, Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg, 97 (2010), pp. 117–50Google Scholar. Martin Schmeisser has recently transcribed and published Soner's catechism. Schmeisser, Sozinianische Bekenntnisschriften, pp. 215–360.

30 ‘Vita Joannis Crellii Franci a J. P. M. D.’, in Joannis Crellii Franci opera omnia exegetica. Sive ejus in plerosque Novi Testamenti libros commentarii. Maximam partem hactenus inediti (4 vols., Eleutheropoli [Amsterdam], 1656), ii, fo. *1v: ‘Beatum tunc erat Altorfium virorum doctrina celebrium proventu … quis ignorat magna illa Reipublicae literariae nomina, Taurellum philosophum, Scipionem Gentilem juris consultum, Rittershusium philologum? Quis Piccartum logicum, Praetorium mathematicum, et magni illius Dudithii familiarem, quis Sonerum physicum et medicum praestantissimum, Wirdingum poëtam, Queccium ethicae professorem?’

31 ‘Vita Joannis Crellii Franci’, fo. *1v. In Altdorf, Gentili was appointed in 1590 to explain the Institutes of Justinian and, in 1591, he began lecturing on the Codex Justinianus. Rittershausen began teaching in Altdorf in 1591, having been appointed to lecture on Justinian's Digest and Institutes. They were the two most prominent jurists in Altdorf. Mährle, Academia Norica, pp. 445–50, 429–37, 443–4, 463. For Gentili's background in literature, and his interest in poetics and philology applied to the study of law, see Ferretti, Francesco, ‘“Picenus hospes”: Scipione Gentili interprete europeo della “Gerusalemme liberata”’, in Lavenia, Vincenzo, ed., Alberico e Scipione Gentili nell'Europa di ieri e di oggi. Reti di relazioni e cultura politica (Macerata, 2018), pp. 17–48Google Scholar, at pp. 20, 27, 38–9; Cornel Zwierlein, ‘Scipione and Alberico Gentili on conspiracies around 1600: Tacitean views on the “crimen laesae majestatis”’, in ibid., pp. 49–89, at pp. 55–6, 64–6. For Gentili's biography, see Alberto Clerici, ‘“Maxima quaestio”: Scipione Gentili, Alberico Gentili e la rivolta dei Paesi Bassi (1582–1587)’, in ibid., pp. 91–126, at pp. 100–5; Lucia Bianchin, ‘Gentili, Scipione’, in Italo Birocchi et al., eds., Dizionario biografico dei giuristi italiani, pp. 969–70. For more information on Rittershausen, see Mährle, Academia Norica, pp. 451–60; Thomas Duve, ‘Rittershausen, Konrad’, in Neue Deutsche Biographie 21 (2003), pp. 670–1, https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd104288639.html#ndbcontent.

32 Zwierlein, ‘Scipione and Alberico Gentili’, pp. 53–4.

33 Thomas Crenius, Animadversiones philologicae et historicae (19 vols., Leiden, 1697–1720), xvi, pp. 340–1.

34 Zeltner, Historia crypto-socinismi Altofinae, p. 71; Zwierlein, ‘Scipione and Alberico Gentili’, p. 70.

35 Johann Gerhard Frauenburger, Theses politicae de bello (Altdorf, 1630). For Frauenburger's teaching at Altdorf, see Mährle, Academia Norica, pp. 474–6.

36 Mährle, Academia Norica, p. 385.

37 Mortimer, ‘Human liberty’, p. 205. For an account of Soner's Aristotelianism and its significance for the development of theological and metaphysical concepts among the Brethren, see Wollgast, Philosophie in Deutschland, pp. 381–407.

38 Kenneth G. Appold, ‘Academic life and teaching in post-Reformation Lutheranism’, in Robert Kolb, ed., Lutheran ecclesiastical culture 1550–1675 (Leiden, 2008), pp. 65–115, at p. 104, also pp. 82, 84–5.

39 Michael Piccart, Disputatio de iure belli (Altdorf, 1618). For more information on Piccart, see Mährle, Academia Norica, ch. 5, passim; S. Heßbrüggen-Walter, ‘Piccart, Michael’, in M. Sgarbi, ed., Encyclopedia of Renaissance philosophy (Cham, 2016), pp. 566–71, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_566-1.

40 Scipione Gentili, ‘Disputatio de jure belli’, in Scipionis Gentilis jurisconsulti et antecessoris Norici opera omnia in plures tomos distributa (8 vols., Naples, 1763–9), i, p. 324.

41 Ibid.

42 Here I will focus only on the just causes of war. For the just way to wage and carry out a war, see ibid., pp. 328–33, theses 50–105.

43 ‘Justissima causa belli est defensio, eaque triplex, necessaria, utilis, et honesta.’ Ibid., p. 325. In theses 30–35 (ibid., pp. 326–7), Gentili lists other just causes of war, such as the prohibition of seagoing trade.

44 Ibid, pp. 325–6.

45 ‘An subditos adversus principem eorum defendere liceat quaeritur? Et magis est licere, si illi praesertim necessarii, aut vicini, impotenti imperio nimium praemantur, quamvis injusti ipsi et injustam causam habeant.’ Ibid., p. 326.

46 Ibid., p. 325.

47 ‘Perchè niuna legge è più santa di quella de la Natura, la quale ci comanda a difendere la salute e le facoltà nostre dalla forza e ingiuria de’ nemici.’ Here quoted from Clerici, ‘Maxima quaestio’, p. 107.

48 Zwierlein, ‘Scipione and Alberico Gentili’, p. 85.

49 Clerici, ‘Maxima quaestio’, p. 110, also pp. 106–9.

50 Tuck, Richard, ‘Grotius, Hobbes, and Pufendorf on humanitarian intervention’, in Recchia, Stefano and Welsh, Jennifer, eds., Just and unjust military intervention: European thinkers from Vitoria to Mill (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 96–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 ‘Privatus si bellum, pacemve fecerit, sine publico scitu, capitale esse Plato voluit. Romani eum majestatis teneri. Rectissime.’ Gentili, ‘Disputatio’, p. 324.

52 Konrad Rittershausen, Theses de iure publico (Altdorf, 1611).

53 Ibid., fo. A3r.

54 Ibid., fo. A4r.

55 Ibid., fo. B1r.

56 ‘Num omnes evocati a principe ad bellum ire teneantur? Et quidem jure romano fere omnes … coacti fuerunt ad militiam, et pro gravi delicto habitum detrectare munus militiae … sed hodie distinguendum est: aut enim invaditur principatus, nec militum copia haberi potest: aut non. Priori casu omnes idonei cogi possunt ad militiam. Posteriori casu, nobiles tantum et habentes feuda militaria, obnoxia huic muneri: reliqui, principi vectigalia et indictiones solvunt, ut ab hoc munere subleventur.’ Ibid., fo. B1v.

57 Ibid., fo. B2v.

58 Becker, Kriegsrecht im frühneuzeitlichen Protestantismus, pp. 74–6, 106–7, 373–6, 386–7. Further research on Gentili and Rittershausen might cast more light on if and how their views relate to the historical and political situation of Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

59 Wallace, Antitrinitarian biography, iii, pp. 20, 46–7; Schmeisser, Sozinianische Bekenntnisschriften, pp. 44, 48.

60 ‘Vita Joannis Crellii Franci’, fo. *2r; Mortimer, ‘Human liberty’, p. 205.

61 Johannes Crell, Ad librum Hugonis Grotii, quem De satisfactione Christi adversus Faustum Socinum Senensem scripsit, responsio (Raków, 1623).

62 Mortimer, ‘Human liberty’, p. 206.

63 Ibid.

64 On the legal tradition regarding ius as a subjective right, see Annabel Brett, Liberty, right, and nature: individual rights in later scholastic thought (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 123–204.

65 Mortimer, ‘Human liberty’, p. 207.

66 Ibid., p. 207.

67 Ibid., pp. 207–8.

68 Johannes Crell, ‘Commentarius in epistolam Pauli Apostoli ad romanos. Ex praelectionibus Johannis Crellii Franci, conscriptus a Jona de Bukowiec Schlichtingio, non tamen revisus a Crellio, praeterquam initium commentarii istius antehac editum, usque ad versum 4 capitis quarti’, in Joannis Crellii Franci opera omnia exegetica, i, pp. 65–246. One might wonder whether commenting on biblical passages led to the development of new ideas, or whether biblical commentaries were used to introduce concepts previously conceived. I suggest the latter. Indeed, both Crell and Szlichtying put forward views in their commentaries that were already developed in preceding treatises. Moreover, although neither Socinus nor Smalcius wrote a commentary on Romans 13, both referred to the same passages discussed by Crell and Szlichtyng to defend ideas opposed to Crell's and Szlichtyng's.

69 ‘Subijciatur. Hic docet, in quo officium Christianorum erga magistratum contineatur; nempe ut magitratui sint dicto audientes, et illi in omnibus obtemperent, quae divinis mandatis contraria non sunt. Nam alioqui Deus potius quam magistratus audiendus est … Non enim est potestas nisi a Deo.’ Ibid., p. 179, emphasis in original.

70 ‘Dei enim minister est tibi in bonum. Ideo te subjicere debes potestati, quia Dei minister est … nemo enim Dei minister constituitur nisi Dei arbitrio et voluntate’. Ibid., p. 180, emphasis in original. Crell put forward similar assertions in his ‘Ethica christiana seu explicatio virtutum et vitiorum, quorum in Sacris Literis fit mentio’, in Johannis Crellii Franci operum tomus quartus scripta ejusdem didactica et polemica complectens (Irenopolis [Amsterdam], post 1656), pp. 435–6.

71 ‘Quis ab hoc munere Christianos arcebit, et non potius omnibus votis expetet, ut aut reges omnes fiant christiani, aut non alii quam christiani reges fiant?’ Jonas Szlichtyng, ‘Commentarius in epistolam Pauli Apostoli ad romanos’, in Jonae Slichtingii a Bukowiek commentaria posthuma, in plerosque Novi Testamenti libros (2 vols., Irenopoli [Amsterdam], post 1656), i, p. 302.

72 ‘Non frustra enim gladium gestat. Non otiose, nullo fine, nullo consilio ac frustra. Gladius est instrumentum poenae, et quidem capitalis, est instrumentum maxime usitatum. Unde jus vel potestas gladii apud iurisconsultos, imo et in vulgari sermone accipitur pro potestate capitali supplicio afficiendi … sub gladio tacite comprehenduntur omnia suppliciorum genera. Quare verba apostoli id volunt, poenam esse metuendam legum transgressoribus, et magistratus refractariis. Et ne quis putaret, magistratum hoc sibi propria auctoritate, aut etiam hominum consensu sumere, subjungit: Dei enim minister est.’ Crell, ‘Commentarius’, p. 180, emphasis in original. This last statement does not contradict Crell's arguments in his reply to Grotius, when writing that the magistrate's right of punishment and the commonwealth itself derive from the consent of people. Crell explains that magistrates are appointed by God's will and authority only in the sense that they are appointed and led to their duties according to a divine plan. This does not remove the need of other people's consent to form the commonwealth and give the magistrate ius gladii.

73 ‘Non frustra. Id est habet jus et potestatem etiam gladio feriendi, id est vita privandi maleficos, quorum scilicet maleficia poenam hanc mereantur. Nam, si jus et potestatem hanc magistratus non haberet, frustra omnino gladium gereret, qui instrumentum est capitis detruncandi, et hominem vita privandi. Unde autem hoc jus et potestatem habet nisi ab ipso Deo cujus minister est, praesertim cum tale ministerium gerat, quod sine gladii jure ac potestate obiri non possit.’ Szlichtyng, ‘Commentarius’, p. 301.

74 Jonas Szlichtyng, Quaestiones duae: una num in evangelicorum religione dogmata habeantur quae vix ullo modo permittant, ut qui eas amplectatur, nullo in peccato perseveret? Altera num in eadem religione concedantur Christi legibus inconcessa? Contra Balthasarem Meisnerum, S. theologiae doctorem et in academia Witterbergensi professorem publicum (Raków, 1636).

75 Ibid., pp. 427, 433, 436–7.

76 Ibid., pp. 392–4, 440, 444–5; also pp. 425–6, 434.

77 ‘Licet enim bellum, seu hostium propulsationem cum ipsorum nece conjunctam improbet, et Christi praeceptis contrariam esse dicat; non loquitur tamen de bello, seu hostium invadentium caede, quam magistratus ipse, conductis eam in rem militibus conservandae reipublicae causa peragit; sed quam christiani homines sua sponte suscipiunt, aut ad eam sese conduci vel adhiberi ultro sinunt.’ Ibid., pp. 358–9.

78 Ibid., pp. 396–9 and 407–9.

79 Ibid., pp. 400–1.

80 ‘De reliquis finibus a te hic recensitis, qualis est depulsio servitutis ac violentiae, conservatio libertatis … conservatio vitae et tranquillitatis publicae, de his, inquam, finibus non est quod agamus, quandoquidem de bello, a magistratu pro publica salute urgente necessitate, suscepto non disputamus.’ Ibid., p. 409, emphasis in original. See also ibid., pp. 399 and 426.

81 Ibid., pp. 409–10.

82 ‘Argumentum a lege naturae, vim vi repellendam esse in casu necessitatis … respondeo hoc argumentum, si concludit de bello contra publicum hostem ab ipso magistratu suscepto, nihil adversum nos concludere: si de bello, cui sese privati homines ultro et sua sponte immiscent, nihil prorsus concludere.’ Ibid., pp. 375–6.

83 ‘Quaquam quae affert testimonia ex Basilio, Cyrillo, Synesio, ea nobis minime sunt contraria, quippe quae de bellis agunt ab ipso magistratu pro communi salute susceptis. Nos vero nunc reprehendimos eos, qui, christiani cum sint, in militiam sponte se dant, et operam suam occidendis hostibus addicunt.’ Ibid., p. 421. See also ibid., pp. 359 and 403.

84 Szlichtyng might have had in mind Conradus Koellin's distinction between licere and oportere. See Brett, Liberty, right, and nature, pp. 113–15.

85 Catechesis ecclesiarum polonicarum … editio novissima (Spauropoli [Amsterdam], 1684). I will quote from Thomas Rees's English translation: The Racovian catechism, with notes and illustrations, translated from the Latin (London, 1818).

86 Rees, Racovian catechism, p. 178.

87 Ibid.

88 Kot, Socinianism in Poland, pp. 172–81.

89 Brock seemed to notice this, but he shared Kot's conclusion. Brock, ‘Dilemmas of a Socinian pacifist’, pp. 195–9.

90 Kot, Socinianism in Poland, p. 181; Tazbir, ‘Pacifism’, pp. 216, 218.

91 Becker, Kriegsrecht im frühneuzeitlichen Protestantismus, pp. 377–9.

92 Ibid., pp. 95–8, 381–2.

93 See, for instance, McMahan, Jeff, Killing in war (Oxford, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frowe, Helen, Defensive killing (Oxford, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94 Fiala, ‘Pacifism’.