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Hugo Grotius |
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Oxford Dictionary of the US Military:
Hugo Grotius |
Grotius, Hugo (1583-1645) a Dutch scholar and jurist who wrote De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625; On the Law of War and Peace), among the earliest works devoted to international law.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:
Hugo Grotius |
The Dutch jurist, statesman, and historian Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) founded the modern school of international law.
Born in Delft on April 10, 1583, Huig de Groot is known by the Latinized form of his name Hugo Grotius. As a boy, he excelled his father, a learned patrician of Delft, Johan Hugo de Groot, by becoming a marvel of scholarly precocity. He wrote Latin poems at the age of 8 and attended Leiden University from 1594 to 1597. He took his doctorate in law at Orléans in 1599, during a stay in France as a member of a diplomatic mission led by Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, Land's Advocate of Holland, his political sponsor for the next 2 decades. He entered the private practice of law in The Hague at the age of 16 and 8 years later was named state's attorney (advocate fiscal) of the Court of Holland. In 1608 he married Maria van Reigersberch, a Zeelander who stiffened his rather soft personality with her own determination and resourcefulness.
In 1604 Grotius wrote a treatise, The Law of Prizes, for the East India Company, which was not published until its discovery in 1864; however, one chapter, which defended Dutch trading and sailing rights, was published in 1609 under the title Mare liberum (The Free Sea). In 1610, in De antiquitate reipublicae Batavae (The Antiquity of the Batavian State), he argued that the province of Holland had been sovereign and independent since the time of the Romans. In 1613, at Oldenbarnevelt's suggestion, Grotius accompanied a delegation sent by the Dutch East India Company to London as juridical counselor to plead its case in a dispute with the English East India Company. Although favoring free trade in Europe, he argued for the monopoly of the Dutch company in the East Indies, as granted by the native princes for the sake of its protection.
When Grotius was named pensionary (legal officer and political representative) of Rotterdam in 1613, he entered the higher ranks of Dutch politics. He represented Rotterdam in the States of Holland and supported the strongly Remonstrant (moderate Calvinist) position of Oldenbarnevelt against the increasing hostility of Prince Maurice of Nassau, the stadholder and captain general. In that same year Grotius published a treatise defending Holland's right to intervene in church affairs, and various theological treatises from his pen appeared from 1613 to 1618 defending the Remonstrant position. He became Oldenbarnevelt's right hand and was arrested with him on Aug. 29, 1618, when Maurice decided to cut short the measures taken by the States of Holland against his military authority. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on May 18, 1619; Oldenbarnevelt received the death penalty. After almost 2 years of imprisonment in Loevestein Castle, Grotius escaped in a book chest brought in by his wife and servant and went to France.
Grotius continued his scholarly publications in Paris. The most notable was his masterpiece, De iure belli ac pacis (1625; The Law of War and Peace), in which he argued for a system of law in the relations between sovereign states, with emphasis upon the notion of "just war." He built his arguments upon the idea of "natural law, " derived from ancient, medieval, and recent (especially Jesuit) authors, as a principle of right deriving from the nature of things rather than from the commandments of either God or lay rulers.
In 1631 Grotius published Introduction to the Jurisprudence of Holland, which profoundly influenced legists in the Netherlands and abroad and continues to be considered part of the constitutional law of South Africa. His religious ideas evolved into a broad ecumenicism, whereby he favored reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics. He lost his certitude that the Protestant revolt against Rome had been justified - without, however, gaining confidence in Rome's infallibility. His De veritate religionis Christianae (1627; The Truth of the Christian Religion) was an attempt with the weapons of legal scholarship to prove the unity of Christendom; it was widely read in his own time and long afterward.
Incurring Cardinal Richelieu's hostility, Grotius returned to Holland in October 1631 and lived quietly; but he would not request pardon and fled in April 1632 to avoid arrest. Taking refuge in Germany, he came into contact with the Swedish authorities and returned to Paris in 1634 as Swedish ambassador. He proved a better scholar than diplomat and was recalled in 1644. On his return from Stockholm, Grotius suffered shipwreck at Rostock, Germany; he was rescued but died 2 days later, on Aug. 28, 1645, from exhaustion. When his identity was discovered, his body was brought home to Delft for burial.
Further Reading
The standard life of Grotius is William S. M. Knight, The Life and Works of Hugo Grotius (1925). Robert W. Lee, Hugo Grotius (1931), is a collection of essays.
Additional Sources
Vreeland, Hamilton, Hugo Grotius:the father of the modern science of international law, Little, Colo.:F.B. Rothman, 1986, 1917.
Oxford Dictionary of Politics:
Hugo Grotius |
(1583-1645) Grotius was born in Delft, South Holland. At the age of 16 he acquired a doctorate of laws and at 24 was advocate-general for Holland and Zeeland and for the rest of his life pursued a career as a diplomat. As a pioneer in international law, his writings have important political implications. His first book, On the Law of Booty (1604) concerned the claim of a Portuguese ship seized by the Dutch East India Company, but the principle of his solution—that the ocean is free to all nations—had wider implications. These were examined in his great work, On the Law of War and Peace (1625). This work is in the Aristotelian tradition. Grotius bases international law (ius gentium) on natural law, which, for him, embraces civil and even divine law. Civil, because, for him, each society naturally chooses its own form of government, but all nations are subject to the same basic or natural law (ius naturale). Divine, because natural law is founded in divine wisdom: they cannot be in conflict (see also Suarez). All this, in Grotius's view, is a product of ratiocination. He believed that the conflict between Protestants and Catholics could be solved by rational discussion.
Grotius also dabbled in theology and poetry. He regarded Christ's death not as expiation for sin, but as retributive or exemplary justice, demonstrating God's hatred of moral (as distinct from physical) evil. This theme, expressed in his poem Adamus Exsul, is said to have influenced Milton in writing Paradise Lost.
— Cyril Barrett
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy:
Hugo Grotius |
Grotius, Hugo (1583-1645) Dutch philosopher of law. Grotius is the father of modern international law, and developed many of the building blocks for subsequent attempts to establish an international order. Born in Delft, he lived through the Thirty Years' War, and in 1625 wrote his masterpiece The Laws of War and Peace (De Jure Belli ac Pacis) after escaping from prison to France. Grotius is a defender of natural law theory, but law as founded on reason rather than on a divine order: ‘natural law is so immutable that it cannot be changed by God himself’ (see Euthyphro dilemma). Grotius converted the actual fact of self-interest and self-preservation into the foundation of morals, a natural right whose service provided the rationale for civil society. In this he was immensely influential on 17th-century political theory, and especially Hobbes. The foundation of relations between the states are that pacta sunt servanda (treaties are to be respected). From this, his Stoic respect for reason, and his experience as a diplomat, Grotius derived a substantial body of precepts and principles. Like Descartes, he caught pneumonia at the court of Kristina Wasa, and died on the way back to Holland.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Hugo Grotius |
Bibliography
See study by E. Durnbauld (1969).
Gale Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World:
Hugo Grotius |
Grotius, Hugo (Huigh de Groot; 1583–1645), Dutch jurist, classical scholar, theologian, and ambassador for Sweden, traditionally known as the father of modern international law. Born in Delft on 10 April 1583, Grotius was the son of Jan de Groot, a burgomaster of Delft, who had studied under Justus Lipsius and was curator of the University of Leiden. After early schooling in Delft, he was taught by Johannes Uyttenbogaert, a preacher and theologian in The Hague. At the age of eleven he entered the University of Leiden, where he studied under the famous classical scholar Joseph Scaliger. At fifteen he accompanied Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, grand pensionary of Holland, on a mission to the court of Henry IV of France, remaining in the country to earn the degree of doctor of laws from the University of Orléans in 1598. In 1599 he returned to Holland and was admitted to the bar in The Hague. In 1601 the Estates of Holland appointed him official historiographer with the request that he write about the Dutch struggle with Spain. This historical work, begun that year and titled the Annales et Historiae de Rebus Belgicis (Annals and histories of Belgian affairs), was not published until after 1657, thirteen years after Grotius's death. On the model of Tacitus's major works, it was organized in two sections, the "Annals," treating 1559–1588, and the "Histories," which covered the period from 1588 to the Twelve Years' Truce of 1609–1621. Grotius's work as a classical scholar included editions of Martianus Capella, Lucan, the Phaenomena of Aratus of Soli, Tacitus, a History of the Goths, Vandals and Lombards, a New Testament commentary, and Latin translations of Theocritus (with Daniel Heinsius) and Euripides' Phoenician Women. His writings of a literary nature included a great deal of Latin verse and a number of well-received plays (Adam in Exile, The Suffering Christ, Joseph at the Court).
In 1604–1605, at the request of the Dutch East India Company, he wrote a treatise On the Law of Prize and Booty, a work he himself knew as On the Indies (De Indis). The treatise defended access to the ocean by all nations against the claims of particular powers to control the seas. One chapter of this work, published anonymously in 1609 under the title Mare Liberum (The Freedom of the seas), was widely influential and frequently reprinted. In 1607 Grotius was appointed advocate general of the fisc of the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland. In 1613 he was named pensionary of Rotterdam. Politically he was closely tied to Oldenbarneveldt, the leader of resistance by the province of Holland against the absolutist ambitions of Prince Maurice of Nassau (1567–1625). Grotius's support for the Estates of Holland against Prince Maurice in the Arminian controversy (involving aspects of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination) resulted in 1618 in a trial in which he was condemned to life imprisonment and sent to the castle of Loevestein. (His patron, Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, was put to death.) In prison he wrote Bewijs van den waren Godsdienst (On the truth of the Christian religion) and began the composition of a work on the law of Holland that was published in 1631. Hiding in a chest of books, Grotius escaped from the castle in 1621 and fled to France, where he was received by Louis XIII (ruled 1610–1643), who gave him a pension that was paid in fits and starts.
In Parisian exile Grotius published his greatest work, De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625; On the law of war and peace). The work was dedicated to the French king in the hope of receiving steady employment; Cardinal Richelieu, however, successfully opposed this. In his book Grotius argued that all laws can be distinguished between primary laws of nature, which express the divine will, and secondary laws, which lie within the realm of human reason. International society, Grotius argued, belongs to this second sphere. Its laws may be scientifically deduced from the rational and social nature of man, without reference to religious beliefs. Grotius was famously criticized by Rousseau in Du contrat social (1762; The social contract) for being a defender of slavery and a flatterer of tyrants. Although there are indeed defenses in particular instances of slavery and absolute rule, Grotius believed that slavery and absolute rule were exceptions and somehow against nature, although under certain circumstances they may be legitimate. As one of the great theorists of religious toleration, Grotius saw in the common principles of the various confessions (belief in the existence and unity of God and God's creation of the world) the basis of natural religion, from which Christianity differentiates itself by other elements that find their justification not in natural reason but only in faith. This is conferred by the mysterious help of God. Hence it is contrary to reason to impose Christianity by arms on those to whom God has not given that help. Grotius is also believed to have established a new basis for ethics, since he affirmed it to be a tenet of natural law that all men are permitted to attempt to preserve themselves against death and harm.
Grotius devoted himself to his writing in Paris until 1631, when, six years after the death of Prince Maurice in 1625, he went home to Holland. Threatened again with imprisonment, he left for Hamburg, where acquaintance with the chancellor of Sweden, Axel Oxenstierna, resulted in his appointment in 1634 by Queen Christina as Swedish ambassador to France. Returning to Paris, Grotius proved personally incompatible both with his old foe, Richelieu, and then with Richelieu's successor, Cardinal Jules Mazarin; all the same, it was on the negotiations of these men that Swedish-French relations depended for ten crucial years of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). Only in 1644 did Queen Christina recall Grotius to Sweden, relieving him of his ambassadorship. Grotius was offered a position in Sweden, but he declined it and decided to return to Paris. On his way back, however, a ship that was carrying him to Lübeck was wrecked on the Pomeranian coast, sixty miles from Rostock. After a journey of two days he arrived in Rostock with a fever and died there on 26 August 1645.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Grotius, Hugo. The Annals and History of the Low-Countrey Warrs. London, 1665. English translation.
——. Briefwisseling. Edited by P. C. Molhuysen. The Hague, 1928–2001. Rich correspondence in several languages.
——. De Dichtwerken. Edited by B. L. Meulenbroek. Assen, 1970–. Latin verse with Dutch translation and commentary.
——. De Iure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres. 2 vols. Translated by Francis W. Kelsey. Oxford, 1925. Latin text and English translation.
——. De Iure Praedae Commentarius: Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty. 2 vols. Trans. Gwladys L. Williams and Walter H. Zeydel. Oxford, 1950. Latin text and English translation of the work Grotius knew as De Indis.
Secondary Sources
Haakonssen, Knud. "Hugo Grotius and the History of Political Thought." Political Theory 13 (1985): 239–265.
——. Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 1996.
Knight, W. S. M. Life and Works of Hugo Grotius. London, 1925. Reprinted New York and London, 1962.
Ter Meulen, Jacob, and P. J. J. Diermanse. Bibliographie des écrits imprimés de Hugo Grotius. The Hague, 1950.
Tuck, Richard. The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant. Oxford and New York, 1999.
—WILLIAM J. CONNELL
West's Encyclopedia of American Law:
Grotius, Hugo |
Hugo Grotius, also known as Huigh de Groot, achieved prominence as a Dutch jurist and statesman and is regarded as the originator of international law.
Grotius was born April 10, 1583, in Delft, Netherlands. A brilliant student, Grotius attended the University of Leiden, received a law degree at the age of fifteen, and was admitted to the bar and began his legal practice at Delft in 1599. It was at this time that he became interested in international law, and, in 1609, wrote a preliminary piece titled Mare Liberum, which advocated freedom of the seas to all countries.
In 1615, Grotius became involved in a religious controversy between two opposing groups, the Remonstrants, Dutch Protestants who abandoned Calvinism to follow the precepts of their leader, Jacobus Arminius, and the Anti-Remonstrants, who adhered to the beliefs of Calvinism. The dispute extended to politics, and when Maurice of Nassau gained control of the government, the Remonstrants lost popular support. Grotius, a supporter of the Remonstrants, was imprisoned in 1619. Two years later he escaped, seeking safety in Paris.
In Paris, Grotius began his legal writing, and, in 1625, produced De jure belli ac pacis, translated as "Concerning the Law of War and Peace." This work is regarded as the first official text of the principles of international law, wherein Grotius maintained that natural law is the basis for legislation for countries as well as individuals. He opposed war in all but extreme cases and advocated respect for life and the ownership of property. The main sources for his theories were the Bible and history.
Grotius spent the remainder of his years in diplomatic and theological endeavors. From 1635 to 1645, he represented Queen Christina of Sweden as her ambassador to France. He pursued his religious interests and wrote several theological works. Grotius died August 28, 1645, in Rostock, Germany.
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Hugo Grotius |
 Hugo Grotius - Portrait by Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt, 1631 |
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| Full name | Hugo Grotius |
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| Born | 10 April 1583 Delft, Holland, Dutch Republic |
| Died | 28 August 1645 Rostock, Swedish Pomerania |
| Era | 17th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Natural law, Social contract, Humanism, Scholasticism |
| Main interests | Philosophy of war, International law, Political philosophy, Theology |
| Notable ideas | Early theorist of natural rights, sought to ground just war principles in natural law, defended principle of pacta sunt servanda |
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Influenced
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Hugo Grotius (10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law. He was also a philosopher, theologian, Christian apologist, playwright, and poet.
Grotius's influence on international law is paramount, and is acknowledged by, for instance, the American Society of International Law, which since 1999 holds an annual series of Grotius Lectures. Additionally, his contributions to Arminian theology provided the seeds for later Arminian-based movements, such as Methodism and Pentecostalism and he is acknowledged as a significant figure in the Arminianism-Calvinism debate.
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Born in Delft during the Dutch Revolt, Hugo was the first child of Jan de Groot and Alida van Overschie. His father was a man of learning, once having studied with the eminent Justus Lipsius at Leiden, as well as of political distinction, and he groomed his son from an early age in a traditional humanist and Aristotelian education. A prodigious learner, Hugo entered the University of Leiden when he was just eleven years old. There he studied with some of the most acclaimed intellectuals in northern Europe, including Franciscus Junius, Joseph Justus Scaliger, and Rudolph Snellius.[1] At age sixteen he published his first book: a scholarly edition of the late antique author Martianus Capella's work on the seven liberal arts, Martiani Minei Felicis Capellæ Carthaginiensis viri proconsularis Satyricon, in quo De nuptiis Philologiæ & Mercurij libri duo, & De septem artibus liberalibus libri singulares. Omnes, & emendati, & Notis, siue Februis Hug. Grotii illustrati.[2]
In Holland, Grotius earned an appointment as advocate to The Hague in 1599 and then as official historiographer for the States of Holland in 1601. His first occasion to write systematically on issues of international justice came in 1604, when he became involved in the legal proceedings following the seizure by Dutch merchants of a Portuguese carrack and its cargo in the Singapore Strait.
The Dutch were at war with Spain and Portugal when the loaded merchant ship Santa Catarina, a Portuguese carrack, was captured by captain Jacob van Heemskerk off present-day Singapore in 1603. Heemskerk was employed with the United Amsterdam Company (part of the Dutch East India Company), and though he did not have authorization from the company or the government to initiate the use of force, many shareholders were eager to accept the riches that he brought back to them. Not only was the legality of keeping the prize questionable under Dutch statute, but a faction of shareholders (mostly Mennonite) in the Company also objected to the forceful seizure on moral grounds, and of course, the Portuguese demanded the return of their cargo. The scandal led to a public judicial hearing and a wider campaign to sway public (and international) opinion. It was in this wider context that representatives of the Company called upon Grotius to draft a polemical defence of the seizure.[3]
The result of Grotius' efforts in 1604-1605 was a long, theory-laden treatise that he provisionally entitled De Indis (On the Indies). Grotius sought to ground his defense of the seizure in terms of the natural principles of justice. In this, he had cast a net much wider than the case at hand; his interest was in the source and ground of war's lawfulness in general. The treatise was never published in full during Grotius' lifetime, perhaps because the court ruling in favor of the Company preempted the need to garner public support. The manuscript was not made public until it was uncovered from Grotius' estate in 1864 and published under the title, De Jure Praedae (On the Right of Capture). The principles that Grotius developed there, however, laid the basis for his mature work on international justice, De jure belli ac pacis, and in fact one chapter of the earlier work did make it to the press in the form of the influential pamphlet, Mare Liberum.
In The Free Sea (Mare Liberum, published 1609) Grotius formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade. Grotius, by claiming 'free seas' (Freedom of the seas), provided suitable ideological justification for the Dutch breaking up of various trade monopolies through its formidable naval power (and then establishing its own monopoly).
England, competing fiercely with the Dutch for domination of world trade, opposed this idea and claimed That the Dominion of the British Sea, or That Which Incompasseth the Isle of Great Britain, is, and Ever Hath Been, a Part or Appendant of the Empire of that Island.[4] William Welwod, a Scottish jurist who was the first to formulate the laws of the sea in the English language, argued against Grotius' Mare Liberum in An Abridgement of All Sea-Lawes (1613), eliciting a response from Grotius around 1615 under the title Defensio capitis quinti Maris Liberi oppugnati a Gulielmo Welwodo ("Defense of chapter five of the 'Free Oceans,' opposed by William Welwod"). In Mare clausum (1635) John Selden endeavoured to prove that the sea was in practice virtually as capable of appropriation as terrestrial territory.
As conflicting claims grew out of the controversy, maritime states came to moderate their demands and base their maritime claims on the principle that it extended seawards from land. A workable formula was found by Cornelius Bynkershoek in his De dominio maris (1702), restricting maritime dominion to the actual distance within which cannon range could effectively protect it. This became universally adopted and developed into the three-mile limit.
The dispute would eventually have important economic implications. The Dutch Republic supported the idea of free trade (even though it imposed a special trade monopoly on nutmeg and cloves in the Moluccas). England adopted the Act of Navigation (1651), forbidding any goods from entering England except on English ships. The Act subsequently led to the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654).
| The Five Articles of Remonstrance |
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| Conditional election |
| Unlimited atonement |
| Total depravity |
| Prevenient grace |
| Conditional preservation |
Aided by his continued association with Van Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius made considerable advances in his political career, being retained as Oldenbarnevelt's resident advisor in 1605, Advocate General of the Fisc of Holland, Zeeland and Friesland in 1607, and then as Pensionary of Rotterdam (the equivalent of a mayoral office) in 1613.[5] In 1608 he married Maria van Reigersbergen, with whom he would have eight children (four surviving beyond youth) and who would be invaluable in helping him and the family to weather the storm to come.
In these years a great theological controversy broke out between the chair of theology at Leiden Jacobus Arminius and his followers (who are called Arminians or Remonstrants) and the strongly Calvinist theologian, Franciscus Gomarus whose supporters are termed Gomarists or Counter-Remonstrants. Leiden University "was under the authority of the States of Holland - they were responsible, among other things, for the policy concerning appointments at this institution, which was governed in their name by a board of Curators - and, in the final instance, the States were responsible for dealing with any cases of heterodoxy among the professors."[6] The domestic dissension resulting over Arminius' professorship was overshadowed by the continuing war with Spain, and the professor died in 1609 on the eve of the Twelve Years' Truce. The new peace would move the people's focus to the controversy and Arminius' followers.
In 1610, several months after the death of their leader, the Arminians issued a 'Remonstrance' declaring their doctrinal differences with the mainstream Reformed doctrines of salvation, most often associated with the Protestant Reformer John Calvin, but also held by most Reformed pastors and theologians throughout Europe. They had particular problems with the Belgic Confession, art. 16, on eternal election and reprobation. The Remonstrants did not reject the doctrines of election or predestination, as is often assumed, but rather redefined them so that the decisive factor in a person's salvation is not God's inscrutable decree, but the individual's faith, which is eternally foreknown by God. According to Arminius and the Remonstrants, God decrees to elect all who meet the condition of faith.
The controversy expanded when the Remonstrant theologian Conrad Vorstius was appointed to replace Jacobus Arminius as the theology chair at Leiden. Vorstius was soon seen by Counter-Remonstrants as moving beyond the teachings of Arminius into Socinianism and accused of teaching irreligion. Leading the call for Vorstius' removal was theology professor Sibrandus Lubbertus. On the other side Johannes Wtenbogaert (a Remonstrant leader) and Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, Grand Pensionary of Holland had strongly promoted the appointment of Vortius and began to defend their actions. Gomarus resigned his professorship at Leyden in protest that Vorstius was not removed. The Counter-Remonstrants were also supported in their opposition by King James I of England "who thundered loudly against the Leyden nomination and gaudily depicted Vorstius as a horrid heretic. He ordered his books to be publicly burnt in London, Cambridge, and Oxford, and he exerted continual pressure through his ambassador in the Hauge, Ralph Winwood, to get the appointment cancelled."[7] James began to shift his confidence from Oldenbarnevt towards Maurice.
Grotius joined the controversy by defending the civil authorities power to appoint (independent of the wishes of religious authorities) whomever they wished to a university's faculty. He did this by writing Ordinum Pietas "a pamphlet...directed against an opponent, the Calvinist Franeker professor Lubbertus; it was ordered by Grotius' masters the States of Holland, and thus written for the occasion - though Grotius may already have had plans for such a book."[8] The work is twenty-seven pages long, is "polemical and acrimonious" and only two-thirds of it speaks directly about ecclesiastical politics (mainly of synods and offices).[8] The work met with a violent reaction from the Counter-Remostrants, and "It might be said that all Grotius' next works until his arrest in 1618 form a vain attempt to repair the damage done by this book."[8] Grotius would later write De Satisfactione aiming "at proving that the Arminians are far from being Socinians."[8]
Led by Oldenbarnevelt, the States of Holland took an official position of religious toleration towards Remostrants and Counter-Remostrants. Grotius, (who acted during the controversy first as Attorney General of Holland, and later as a member of the Committee of Counsellors) was eventually asked to draft an edict to express the policy of toleration.[9] This edict, Decretum pro pace ecclesiarum was completed in late 1613 or early 1614. The edict put into practice a view that Grotius had been developing in his writings on church and state (see Erastianism): that only the basic tenets necessary for undergirding civil order (e.g., the existence of God and His providence) ought to be enforced while differences on obscure theological doctrines should be left to private conscience.[10] The edict "imposing moderation and toleration on the ministry", was backed up by Grotius with "thirty-one pages of quotations, mainly dealing with the Five Remonstrant Articles."[8] In response to Grotius' Ordinum Pietas, Professor Lubbertus published Responsio Ad Pietatem Hugonis Grotii in 1614, later that year Grotius anonymously published Bona Fides Sibrandi Lubberti in response to Lubbertus.[8]
Jacobus Trigland joined Lubberdus in expressing the view that tolerance in matters of doctrine was inadmissible, denouncing Grotius' stance in his 1615 works Den Recht-gematigden Christen: Ofte vande waere Moderatie and Advys Over een Concept van moderatie.[11]
The edict Grotius penned attempting to enforce toleration did not have the intended effect, and hostilities flared throughout the republic. As anger escalated, it appeared ever more likely that a national synod would be called. Grotius wrote emphatically that such could not take place without the consent of the civil authorities, the States of Holland, and that it was they who must appoint attendees. Grotius hoped that by preventing the church authorities from calling their own synod, an international synod would be called by the civil authorities and attending foreigners from Germany and England would have a beneficial influence on the conflict (such as Overall and Georg Lingelsheim (Counsellor to the Elector Palatine in Heidelberg) both familiar with his works).
In late 1615, when Middelburg professor Antonius Walaeus published Het Ampt der Kerckendienaren (a response to Johannes Wtenbogaert's 1610 Tractaet van 't Ampt ende authoriteit eener hoogher Christelijcke overheid in kerckelijkcke zaken) he sent Grotius a copy out of friendship. This was a work "on the relationship between ecclesiastical and secular government" from the moderate counter-remonstrant viewpoint.[8] In early 1616 Grotius also received the 36 page letter championing a remonstrant view Dissertatio epistolica de Iure magistratus in rebus ecclesiasticis from his friend Gerardus Vossius. The letter was "a general introduction on (in)tolerance, mainly on the subject of predestination and the sacrament...[and] an extensive, detailed and generally unfavourable review of Walaeus' Ampt, stuffed with references to ancient and modern authorities."[8] When Grotius wrote asking for some notes "he received a treasure-house of ecclesiastical history. ...offering ammunition to Grotius, who gratefully accepted it".[8] Around this time (April 1616) Grotius went to Amsterdam as part of his official duties, trying to persuade the civil authorities there to join Holland's majority view about church politics.
In early 1617 Grotius debated the question of giving counter-remonstrants the chance to preach in the Kloosterkerk in The Hauge which had been closed. During this time lawsuits where brought against the States of Holland by counter-remonstrant ministers and riots over the controversy broke out in Amsterdam.
As the conflict between civil and religious authorities escalated, in order to maintain civil order Oldenbarnevelt eventually proposed that local authorities be given the power to raise troops (the Sharp Resolution of August 4, 1617). Such a measure putatively undermined the authority of the stadtholder of the republic, Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange. Maurice seized the opportunity to solidify the preeminence of the Gomarists, whom he had supported, and to eliminate the nuisance he perceived in Oldenbarnevelt (the latter had previously brokered the Twelve Years' Truce with Spain in 1609 against Maurice's wishes). During this time Grotius made another attempt to address ecclesiastical politics by completing De Imperio Summarum Potestatum circa Sacra, on "the relations between the religious and secular authorities...Grotius had even cherished hopes that publication of this book would turn the tide and bring back peace to church and state".[8] Due to events De Imperio would not be published until 1647 (two years after Grotius' death). What forestalled the publication was Maurice's ordering the arrest of Oldenbarnevelt and Grotius on 29 August 1618. Ultimately, Oldenbarnevelt was executed, and Grotius was sentenced to life imprisonment in Loevestein castle. In 1618 the Synod of Dort was held ending the Vorstius controversy by declaring him unworthy of the professorship, which was met with the approval of King James' representatives who were in attendance.
From his imprisonment in Loevestein, Grotius made a written justification of his position "as to my views on the power of the Christian [civil] authorities in ecclesiastical matters, I refer to my...booklet De Pietate Ordinum Hollandiae and especially to an unpublished book De Imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra, where I have treated the matter in more detail...I may summerize my feelings thus: that the [civil] authorities should scrutinize God's Word so thoroughly as to be certain to impose nothing which is against it; if they act in this way, they shall in good conscience have control of the public churches and public worship - but without persecuting those who err from the right way."[8] Because this stripped Church officials of any power some of their members (such as Johannes Althusius in a letter to Lubbertus) declared Grotius' ideas diabolical.[8]
In 1621, with the help of his wife and maidservant, Grotius managed to escape the castle in a book chest and fled to Paris. In the Netherlands today, he is mainly famous for this daring escape. Both the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the museum Het Prinsenhof in Delft claim to have the original book chest in their collection.
Grotius was well received in Paris by his former acquaintances and was granted a royal pension under Louis XIII. It was there in France that Grotius completed his most famous philosophical works.
While in Paris, Grotius set about rendering into Latin prose a work which he had compiled in prison, providing rudimentary yet systematic arguments for the truth of Christianity. (Showcasing Grotius' skill as a poet, the earlier Dutch version of the work, Bewijs van den waren Godsdienst (pub. 1622), was written entirely in didactic verse.) The Latin work was first published in 1627 as De veritate religionis Christianae.
It was the first Protestant textbook in Christian apologetics, and was divided into six books. Part of the text dealt with the emerging questions of historical consciousness concerning the authorship and content of the canonical gospels. Other sections of the work addressed pagan religion, Judaism and Islam. What also distinguished this work in the history of Christian apologetics is its precursor role in anticipating the problems expressed in Eighteenth century Deism, and that Grotius represents the first of the practitioners of legal or juridical apologetics in the defence of Christian belief. Hugely popular, the book was translated from Latin into English, Arabic, Persian and Chinese by Edward Pococke for use in missionary work in the East and remained in print until the end of the nineteenth century.
Grotius also developed a particular view of the atonement of Christ known as the "Governmental" or "Moral government" theory. He theorized that Jesus' sacrificial death occurred in order for the Father to forgive while still maintaining his just rule over the universe. This idea, further developed by theologians such as John Miley, became one of the prominent views of the atonement in Methodist Arminianism.
Living in the times of the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands and the Thirty Years' War between Catholic and Protestant European nations (Catholic France being in the otherwise Protestant camp), it is not surprising that Grotius was deeply concerned with matters of conflicts between nations and religions. His most lasting work, begun in prison and published during his exile in Paris, was a monumental effort to restrain such conflicts on the basis of a broad moral consensus. Grotius wrote:
Fully convinced...that there is a common law among nations, which is valid alike for war and in war, I have had many and weighty reasons for undertaking to write upon the subject. Throughout the Christian world I observed a lack of restraint in relation to war, such as even barbarous races should be ashamed of; I observed that men rush to arms for slight causes, or no cause at all, and that when arms have once been taken up there is no longer any respect for law, divine or human; it is as if, in accordance with a general decree, frenzy had openly been let loose for the committing of all crimes.[12]
De jure belli ac pacis libri tres (On the Law of War and Peace: Three books) was first published in 1625, dedicated to Grotius' current patron, Louis XIII. The treatise advances a system of principles of natural law, which are held to be binding on all people and nations regardless of local custom. The work is divided into three books:
The arguments of this work constitute a theory of Just War. Roughly, the second book takes up questions of jus ad bellum (justice in the resort to war) and the third, questions of jus in bello (justice in the conduct of war). The way that Grotius conceived of these matters had, together with Francisco de Vitoria's De potestate civili, a profound influence on the tradition after him and on the later formulation of international law.
Many exiled Remonstrants began to return to the Netherlands after the death of Prince Maurice in 1625 when toleration was granted to them. In 1630 they were allowed complete freedom to build and run churches and schools and to live anywhere in Holland. The Remonstrants guided by Uytenbogaert set up a presbyterial organization. They established a theological seminary at Amsterdam where Grotius came to teach alongside Episcopius, Limborch, Curcellaeus, and Le Clerc.
But unlike many others, Grotius refused to ask for pardon since it would imply an admission of guilt, and was denied repatriation despite his repeated requests. Driven out once again after attempting to return to Rotterdam in October 1631, Grotius fled to Hamburg.
In 1634 Grotius met the opportunity to serve as Sweden's ambassador to France. The recently deceased Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus had been an admirer of Grotius (he was said to have carried a copy of De jure belli ac pacis always in his saddle when leading his troops),[13] and his successor's regent, Axel Oxenstierna, was keen to have Grotius in his employ. Grotius accepted the offer and took up diplomatic residence at Paris, which remained his home until he was released from his post in 1645.
While departing from his last visit to Sweden, Grotius was shipwrecked on his voyage. He washed up on the shore of Rostock, ill and weather-beaten, and on August 28, 1645 he died; his body at last returned to the country of its youth, being laid to rest in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft.
Grotius' personal motto was Ruit hora ("Time is running away"); his last words were "By understanding many things, I have accomplished nothing" (Door veel te begrijpen, heb ik niets bereikt).[14] Significant friends and acquaintances of his included the theologian Franciscus Junius, the poet Daniel Heinsius, the philologist Gerhard Johann Vossius, the historian Johannes Meursius, the engineer Simon Stevin, the historian Jacques Auguste de Thou, and the Arabic scholar Erpinius. He was also friend with the Flemish Jesuit Andreas Schottus.[15]
The Peace Palace Library in The Hague holds the Grotius Collection, which has a large number of books by and about Hugo Grotius. The collection was based on a donation from Martinus Nijhoff of 55 editions of De jure belli ac pacis libri tres.
Works are listed in order of publication, with the exception of works published posthumously or after long delay (estimated composition dates are given).[16] Where an English translation is available, the most recently published translation is listed beneath the title.
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