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Calvin and the Duty of Guardians to Resist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

H. A. Lloyd
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Extract

Calvin's teaching on the authority of magistrates to resist a tyrannical ruler has been much debated. The main ground of debate has been his discussion of the source of that authority, in the penultimate paragraph of the Institutes. Some commentators have stressed that for Calvin magisterial ‘authority comes from God and not from the people’. Others have insisted that on this question his thought has ‘democratic aspects’, and have argued that these influenced his immediate protestant successors.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , January 1981 , pp. 65 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 For example, Chenevière, M.-E., La Pensée politique de Calvin, Geneva 1937, 335Google Scholar; Mesnard, P., L'Essor de la philosophie polilique au XVIe siécle, Paris 1936, 290–4Google Scholar.

2 Baron, H., ‘Calvinist republicanism and its historical roots’. Church History, viii (1939), 38–41Google Scholar; Hudson, W. H., ‘Democratic freedom and religious faith in the reformed tradition’, Church History, xv (1946), 187–8Google Scholar; McNeill, J. T., ‘The democratic element in Calvin's thought’, Church History, xviii (1949), 163–3Google Scholar; Strohl, H., ‘Le Droit a la resistance d'apres les conceptions protestantes’, Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses, x (1930)Google Scholar.

3 Skinner, Q., The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Cambridge 1978, ii. 232–3Google Scholar, q.v. for the quotations that follow.

4 Calvin, Opera, eds Baumrta, G. et al. , Brunswick 1864, ii. 1116Google Scholar.

5 Skinner, loc. cit.; Calvin, Institutes, ed. J. T. McNeill, London 1961, ii. 1518, note_54_.

6 Zwingli, The Ymage of Bothe Pastoures, trans. J. Veron, London 1550, Sig. G.ii. The possibility is noted by McNeill, loc. cit.

7 Greenidge, A. H. J., Infamia: its place in Roman public and private law, Oxford 1894, 67, 131–2Google Scholar.

8 Digest, 26. 10. 7. 1.

9 Digest, 26. 7. 5. 10; 26. 7. 6.

10 Digest, 27. 3. 9. 4.

11 Digest, 26. 2. 7.

12 Digest, 26. 1. 6. 2.

13 Kingdon, R. M., Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 1564–1572, Geneva 1967, 103Google Scholar; Wendel, F., Calvin, trans. Mairet, P., London 1965, 304Google Scholar.

14 Cf. the remarks by Wendel, op. cit., 126, and the commentators instanced there.