Institutes of Divine Jurisprudence
(with Selections from Foundations of the Law of Nature and Nations)
By Colleen A. Sheehan and Gary L. McDowell
$8.70
Publication Date: September 2011
About this book
Natural law, human reason, and Scripture.
Christian Thomasius’s natural jurisprudence is essential to understanding the origins of the Enlightenment in Germany, where his importance was comparable to that of John Locke’s in England.
First published in 1688, Thomasius’s Institutiones jurisprudentiae divinae (Institutes of Divine Jurisprudence) attempted to draw a clear distinction between natural and revealed law and to emphasize that human reason was able to know the precepts of natural law without the aid of Scripture. Thomasius also argued that his orthodox Lutheran opponents had failed to understand this distinction and thereby had confused reason and Scripture.
This volume also contains significant selections from his Fundamenta juris naturae et gentium (Foundations of the Law of Nature and Nations), published in 1705. In Foundations Thomasius significantly revised the theory he had put forward in the Institutes, and much of the Foundations therefore is a paragraph-by-paragraph commentary on his earlier ideas.
Paperback | 690 pages | 6×9 | Published September 2011 | ISBN 978-0-86597-519-4
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
xi
Introduction
xiv
Note on the Text
xxvii
Acknowledgements
1
Introductory Dissertation Addressed to My Audience
41
On Jurisprudence in General
78
On Divine Jurisprudence
114
On the Interpretation of Divine Laws in General and on Practical Principles
168
On the Interpretation of Divine Laws in Particular, That Is, on the First Principles of Natural Law and Positive Universal Law
169
On the Duty of Man Toward Himself
178
On the Duty of Man Toward Others, in Particular on Preserving Equality Among Humans
185
On Avoiding Pride
189
On Not Harming Others and on Compensating for Harm That Has Been Done
199
On the Various Duties of Humanity
207
On the Duty of Persons Forming an Agreement
224
On the Duty of Man Concerning Speech
246
On the Duty of Those Taking an Oath
278
On the Duty Concerning Things and Their Ownership
299
On the Duty Concerning the Prices of Things
312
On the Interpretation of Divine and Human Will Insofar as It Is Expressed in Words
324
On the Duty of Man Toward Fellow Humans in General
367
On the Duty of Man with Regard to Conjugal Society
406
On the Positive Laws Concerning the Duties of Marriage
446
On the Duties of Parents and Children
471
On the Duties of Lords and Servants
486
On the Duties of Those Living in a Commonwealth
490
On the Duties of Citizens in States Concerning Punishments
499
On the Duties of Confederates
544
On Duties Toward Legates
563
On Duties Toward the Dead
566
On the Application of Divine Laws
570
The Reason for This Work
581
On the Moral Nature of Man
607
On the Law of Nature and Nations
613
Bibliography
633
Index
About the Author and Editor
Christian Thomasius (1655–1728) was a German philosopher and legal theorist.
Thomas Ahnert is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh.