The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Translator’s Introduction
• Note On the Liberty Fund Edition
• Preface to the First Edition (1603)
• Preface to the Third Edition (1614)
• I: The General Elements of Politics
• Ii-iii: the Family
• Ii
• Iii
• IV: The Collegium
• V-vi: the City
• V
• Vi
• Vii-viii: the Province
• Vii
• Viii
• IX: Political Sovereignty and Ecclesiastical Communication
• X–xvii: Secular Communication
• X
• Xi
• Xii
• Xiii
• Xiv
• Xv
• Xvi
• Xvii
• XVIII: The Ephors and Their Duties
• Xix–xx: the Constituting of the Supreme Magistrate
• Xix
• Xx
• Xxi–xxvii: Political Prudence In the Administration of the Commonwealth
• Xxi
• Xxii
• Xxiii
• Xxiv
• Xxv
• Xxvi
• Xxvii
• XXVIII: Ecclesiastical Administration
• Xxix–xxxvii: Secular Administration
• Xxix
• Xxx
• Xxxi
• Xxxii
• Xxxiii
• Xxxiv
• Xxxv
• Xxxvi
• Xxxvii
• XXXVIII: Tyranny and Its Remedies
• XXXIX: Types of Supreme Magistrate
• Collation of This Translation With the 1614 Edition
• The Writings of Johannes Althusius

XXII

§ 3From these things45 it follows that the magistrate is obligated in the administration of the commonwealth to the proper law of Moses so far as moral equity or common law are expressed therein. This is to say, he is required to conform to everything therein that is in harmony with common law. But he is by no means required to conform in those things in which the proper law of Moses, in order to be accommodated to the polity of the Jews, differs from common law.

§ 4For if the magistrate should establish as absolutely necessary these proper Jewish laws, which by their nature are either changeable or obsolete, he would destroy Christian liberty, which has been given for edification to him and to others, and would entangle himself and others in the yoke of slavery. Thereby he would make a necessity of something free, and impede consciences by a grievous and dangerous snare. He would obtrude mortal laws, which were promulgated in former times only for the Jewish people and are by their nature subject to change for a variety of reasons, as if they were immortal. And unless proper laws are changed with the changing circumstances because of which they broadly exist, they become wicked and attain neither to the equity of the second table of the Decalogue nor the piety of the first. Thus they cease to contain the common foundation of right reason. Accordingly, the magistrate who makes the proper law of Moses compulsory in his commonwealth sins grievously. For those particular circumstances and considerations because of which the Jewish proper law was promulgated should bear no weight in his commonwealth. …

[45 ] [Althusius returns here (Chapter XXII) to the matters he was discussing prior to his raising of the controversy over the theological and political uses of the Decalogue.]