Thread by @SytsmaDavid

🧵 Protestant teaching on #NaturalLaw appears already in Philip Melanchthon’s Loci communes (1521), & his treatment had a much larger impact.

We can illustrate this impact by recurring use of Greek terms from Stoic philosophy: “common notions” & “preconceptions” (προλήψεις). /1

The 1521 Loci communes marginalia highlights 1) the existence and 2) essence of NL (esse legem naturae / quid lex naturae).

1) “Paul teaches in the second chapter to the Romans, in a remarkably fine and clear enthymeme (enthymemate), that there is in us a law of nature.” /2

2) Melanchthon defines natural law as moral “common principles” and “first conclusions”. They are analogous to common principles in theoretical disciplines, called “common notions” (κοιναὶ ἐννοίαι) or “preconceptions” (προλήψεις). /3

e-rara.ch/bau_1/content/…

Prof. Charlotte Methuen has a helpful summary of this passage in her article “Lex Naturae and Ordo Naturae in the Thought of Philip Melanchthon,” Reformation and Renaissance Review 3 (2000): 110-25. /4 doi.org/10.1558/rrr.v0…

Melanchthon often repeats these common principles. In Comm. on Aristotle’s ethics, M relates principles to the eternal wisdom of the divine mind (Antti Raunio, in Lutheran Reformation and the Law [Brill 2006], p50). /5
books.google.com/books?id=PRNYE…

There is development in Melanchthon’s doctrine of natural law in the context of political philosophy, as @LangballeJensen has argued in his book (Brill 2020). But the idea of common principles is a consistent teaching, repeated in the 1535 Loci communes (trans. Methuen, p121): /6

This is important bc, as Richard Muller argues (Unaccommodated Calvin, 128-30), Melanchthon’s 1535 Loci communes was a major source for Calvin’s revision of his own 1539 Institutes—and thus also for his 1540 Romans commentary. /7
books.google.com/books?id=16nmC…

Melanchthon’s use of “principia” is interesting, bc of similarity to the medieval discussion in Aquinas who also has “communia principia” of speculative/ practical reason, & conclusions therefrom (ST I-II.94.4).

But I am concerned here with terms κοιναὶ ἐννοίαι & προλήψεις. /8

Now these “common notions” (κοιναὶ ἐννοίαι) and “preconceptions” (προλήψεις) that Melanchthon equates with common principles of knowledge are Stoic terms, and were also appropriated by Middle Platonists, Neo-Platonists, and early Christians. /9 doi.org/10.1515/978311…

16/17thC authors knew of the Stoic provenance. Although we shouldn’t assume that 16/17thC authors always intended the precise Stoic usage, when they adopt the same terms to explain Romans 2:14-15 it is indicative of Melanchthon’s general impact on later tradition. /10

5 later examples: Calvin, Junius, Zanchi, Polyander, & Hale.

John Calvin: “it is...evident that they have some notions of justice and rectitude, which the Greeks call preconceptions (προλήψεις), and which are implanted by nature in the hearts of men.” (Comm. on Romans 2:14) /11

Franciscus Junius: “The natural law is that which is innate to creatures endowed with reason and informs them with common notions of nature, that is, with principles and conclusions adumbrating the eternal law by a certain participation.” (The Mosaic Polity, tr. Rester, 44) /12

Junius:“Therefore, there are two kinds of common notions (which the ancient philosophers used to call κοινὰς ἐννοίας or προλήψεις):one, regarding the end to which we act by the natural law;the other, regarding those things which pertain to the same end.” (Mosaic Polity, 45) /13

Girolamo Zanchi: “The Stoics do not doubt...that those common notions (κοιναι ἔννοιαι) have been put in our souls by nature just as sparks and seeds of the sciences. The Apostle also seems to confirm this doctrine [in Rom. 2:14-15]...” (Operum theologicorum, [1617-19],3:637) /14

Johannes Polyander: “Natural law is the light and direction of sound reason in the intellect, informing man with common notions (κοιναῖς ἐννοίαις) to distinguish right from wrong, and honorable from shameful” (Synopsis of a Purer Theology, ed. Dolf te Velde, 1:437) /15

Matthew Hale: “generally the Stoicks whose communes notitiae [common notions] and anticipations, are no other then severall Expressions of this Naturall Law of God given to Man and inscribed in his heart [Rom. 2:14–15].” (Of the Law of Nature, ed. David S. Sytsma, 41-42) /16

There are Melanchthon scholars on this bird app:

@keen_ralph, trans. of M’s Comm. on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, bk 1
@ehutchinson1513, trans. of M’s Epitome philosophiae moralis (in process)
@LangballeJensen, author of A Humanist in Reformation Politics (Brill, 2020)

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@SvenssonManfred, writing on Melanchthon & Protestant commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.

If you like Melanchthon, give these scholars a follow!

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