Treatise on the Power of the Political Magistrate over Sacred Things

Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
489K words
Chapters
49

Tags

Foreign Language Books ReligionPolitics Political PhilosophyLegal ClassicsPower GameSovereigntyIntellectual EnlightenmentWestern ThoughtMoral DilemmaAcademic MonographReligious AuthorityChurch and State

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Traité du Pouvoir du Magistrat Politique sur les choses sacrées by Hugo GrotiusAuthor: Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645,Language: French, Class: KBR: Law in general, Comparative and uniform law, Jurisprudence: History of canon law, Release Date: Feb 4, 2005

Editor's review

This is Grotius's Latin/French treatise on the relationship between political power and sacred matters, an important text in early modern legal philosophy and the history of canon law. Its value lies in presenting a theoretical division between state sovereignty and ecclesiastical authority, making it suitable for readers studying early modern political thought, the natural law tradition, and church-state relations. The French translation preserves the argumentative structure and terminology, and reading it requires some background knowledge. The electronic edition comes from public-domain resources and is convenient for searching and comparison.

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Reading tips

  1. Read introductory secondary literature first to understand the polemical context in which Grotius wrote before turning to the main text
  2. Make terminology cards chapter by chapter, recording the French expressions for key terms such as sovereignty and ecclesiastical power
  3. Read alongside relevant passages of De Jure Belli ac Pacis to observe continuities and changes in his argumentation

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
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  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
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  37. 37
  38. 38
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  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49

FAQ

What is the main issue discussed in this book? It argues whether political rulers have power over sacred matters, addressing the boundaries between state sovereignty and ecclesiastical authority and the division between secular and religious jurisdiction—core issues in early modern theories of church-state relations.
Can I read it without any French? You can use an English translation or scholarly literature as support, but reading the French original directly requires some language ability. It is advisable to first grasp the basic terminology, then work through the text paragraph by paragraph alongside a translation to understand the argumentative structure.
Is it suitable as an introductory text? Not really. It is a specialized treatise that presupposes some familiarity with natural law, canon law, and early modern political thought, making it more suitable for researchers who already have background knowledge.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645 Author

Hugo Grotius (Grotius, Hugo, 1583–1645) was a scholar of major importance in the history of European thought, though details of his life are limited in this database and in publicly available sources. The database holds three of his works, spanning law, political theology, and Christian apologetics. The Rights of War and Peace systematically discusses the legitimacy of war, natural law, and the law of nations, and is regarded as an important source of modern international legal thought. Traité du Pouvoir du Magistrat Politique sur les choses sacrées focuses on the boundaries between political authority and religious affairs, while Traité de la Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne argues, for apologetic purposes, for the reasonableness of Christian belief. These works show a style that combines legal analysis with theological argument, written with rigor, and they have had a lasting influence on later legal, political, and theological discussion.