Luther and Calvin on secular authority /
| Other Authors / Creators: | Höpfl, Harro. Von weltlicher Obrigkeit. English. 1991. Luther, Martin, 1483-1546. De politica administratione. English. 1991. Calvin, Jean, 1509-1564. |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English German Latin |
| Imprint: | Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1991. |
| Series: | Cambridge texts in the history of political thought.
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| Summary: | Martin Luther and John Calvin were the principal 'magistral' Reformers of the sixteenth-century: they sought to enlist the cooperation of rulers in the work of reforming the Church. However, neither regarded the relationship between Reformed Christians and the secular authorities as comfortable or unproblematic. The two pieces translated here, Luther's On Secular Authority and Calvin's On Civil Government, constitute their most sustained attempts to find the proper balance between these two commitments. Despite their mutual respect, there were wide divergences between them. Luther's On Secular Authority would later be cited en bloc in favour of religious toleration, whereas Calvin envisaged secular authority as an agency for the compulsory establishment of the external conditions of Christian virtue and the suppression of dissent. The introduction, glossary, chronology and bibliography contained in this volume locate the texts in the broader context of the theology and political thinking of their authors. |
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| Item Description: | Translation of: Von weltlicher Oberkeit and De politica administratione, bk. 4, ch. 20 of Institutio Christianae religionis. Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Physical Description: | xlvi, 95 pages ; 22 cm. |
| ISBN: | 0521342082 0521349869 |
| Author Notes: | On his father's death, Calvin returned to Paris, began to study Greek, the language of the New Testament, and decided to devote his life to scholarship. In 1532 he published a commentary on Seneca's De Clementia, but the following year, after experiencing what was considered a sudden conversion, he was forced to flee Paris for his religious views. The next year was given to the study of Hebrew in Basel and to writing the first version of his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion, which he gave to the printer in 1535. The rest of his life-except for a forced exile of three years-he spent in Geneva, where he became chief pastor, without ever being ordained. When he died, the city was solidly on his side, having almost become what one critic called a "theocracy." By then the fourth and much-revised edition of his Institutes had been published in Latin and French, commentaries had appeared on almost the whole Bible, treatises had been written on the Lord's Supper, on the Anabaptists, and on secret Protestants under persecution in France. Thousands of refugees had come to Geneva, and the city-energized by religious fervor-had found room and work for them. Though Calvin was sometimes bitter in his denunciation of those who disagreed with him, intolerant of other points of view, and absolutely sure he was right on the matter of predestination, he was nonetheless one of the great expounders of the faith. From his work the Reformed tradition had its genesis, and from his genius continues to refresh itself. (Bowker Author Biography) |