The Right of resistance and tyrannicide in calvinism

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the developments and the radicalization of the Protestant Reformation in the context of so-called religious wars, especially in the French environment. The episode known as Night of St. Bartholomew further intensified tempers between Protestants and Catholics and in this context, among Calvinists, appear several supporters of the magistrate resistance of law and the possibility of tyrannicide practice. Three works are highlighted and analyzed in this work. These works can be defined as true treaties dating back to the general history of resistance theory. These treaties are: Francogallia, François Hotman (jurist, historian and theologian), Du droit des Magistrats of Théodore de Bèze (theologian and successor of Calvin in Geneva), and Vindiciae against Tyrants, most commonly attributed to Philippe du Plessis-Mornay. From a philosophical and political analysis, one can see that the aforementioned treaties, can be defined as true pillars, even if still incipient, of a new political order. It appears also that treaties have a common source, which is the polysemic thought of John Calvin. It is noteworthy that this is seen by some as a solid foundation of democratic theories of government, and is seen by others as an unscrupulous tyrant who acted with an iron hand in Geneva. Anyway, there is no doubt that the possibility of resistance to the Magistrate and the contractarian notion of government are important innovations for the European political scene of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There is also no doubt that these activists, called Monarchomaques, guided the discussion of the construction of political relations at the beginning of modernity. The French case is just one example of how the thought of Calvin and the Calvinists, flourished in Europe and then in America. English Puritanism and the American republican thought are good examples of Calvinist thought power in the Western world.