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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
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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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press
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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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’.