Melanchthon, Philip | Luther D. Peterson (essay date 1987)
Luther D. Peterson (essay date 1987)
SOURCE: Peterson, Luther D. “Melanchthon on Resisting the Emperor: The Von der Notwehr Unterricht of 1547.” In Regnum, Religio et Ratio: Essays Presented to Robert M. Kingdon, edited by Jerome Friedman, pp. 133-144. Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1987.
[In the following essay, Peterson shows how in his treatise Instruction Concerning Self-Defense Melanchthon finds justifications for resistance by lower magistrates and subjects against the tyranny of higher political authority.]
From his earliest publications, Professor Robert M. Kingdon has drawn the attention of Reformation scholars to the problem of political resistance: whether a right or perhaps even an obligation exists to resist political authority, and, if so, by whom may this be done and under what circumstances.* In examining the sources of Huguenot resistance theory, Kingdon demonstrated that Theodore...
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