SOURCE: "The Counter-Renaissance and the Repeal of Universal Law," in The Counter-Renaissance, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, pp. 131-75.

[Here, Haydn briefly discusses Agrippa's repudiation of reason and the Law of Nature in On the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences.]

Agrippa, as does Montaigne after him, assails the divine origin of law and its universal application [in his Vanitie and Uncertaintie]. He refers to the determination of "aunciente Lawe makers" to bolster the authority of their laws by persuading ignorant people "that they did as they were taught by the Gods." This same device has served Emperor and Pope alike:

For this cause Leo the Pope straightly commaunded all Christain people, that noman in the Church of God should presume to iudge any thinge, nor any man, to iustifie nor to discusse any matter: but by the Authoritee of the holy Counsailes, Canons, and Decretals, whose heade is the Pope….

Similarly,

The like lawe the Emperoure pretendeth to have in Philosophie, Phisicke, and other Sciences, graunting no authoritee to any knowledge, but so much as is geven them by the Skilfulnes of the Lawe….

"Beholde nowe," he declares,

Yee perceive howe this knowledge of the Lawe presumeth to beare swaye over all other Artes, and exerciseth tyrannie, and howe preferringe it selfe before all other disciplines as it were the firste begotten of the Gods doth despise them as vile and vaine, although it be altogeather made of nothinge els but of fraile and very weake inventions and opinions of men, which things be of all other the weakest….

Thus far, Agrippa's and Montaigne's versions tally substantially, except that Montaigne, a loyal if not devout Catholic, forbears, for the most part, from attacking the Mother Church and does not discuss the Canon Law. But at this point in his argument, Agrippa, with the fideistic accent which runs so strongly through the Vanitie and Uncertaintie, relates the Law of Nature to the Fall of Man. This "Lawe," he continues, actually

is altered at every chaunge of time, of the state, and of the Prince, whiche tooke the firste beginninge of the sinne of our firste parent, whiche was cause of all our miseries, from whence the first Lawe of corrupt nature proceeded which they tearme the Lawe of nature….

Thus he, and the leaders of the Reformation after him, invalidate not only man's reason and knowledge on the premise of original sin, but also that Law of Nature which is at the heart of man's moral and political life, of all goodness and justice. Listing the "notable decrees" of the "first Lawe of corrupt Nature," he scornfully sets forth a category of the "tooth for a tooth" rights of man, and concludes,

Finally the Lawe of Nature is that wee shoulde not dye for thirste, for hunger, for colde, and not to hurt our selves with watchinges, and laboure. Whiche abandoning all the repentaunce of Religion, and the workes of repentaunce, dothe appointe the pleasure of the Epicure for the chiefest felicitie.

In short, the true Law of Nature which Agrippa (and many others of the Counter-Renaissance with him) recognizes is that of an individualistic, indolent and hedonistic state of nature, wholly remote from the concepts of Thomas Aquinas and the Renaissance Christian humanists. Nor does he spare those other laws, traditionally derived from the Law of Nature:

Afterwarde the Lawe of Nations arose from whence warre, murder, bondage were derived, & dominions separated. After this came the Civil or Popular Lawe, whiche any people maketh peculiare to himselfe: from whence have growen so many debates among menne, that as the lawes doo witnes, there have ben made more businesses, then there be names of things.

Yet, adopting the early medieval attitude of the Fathers and the Canon Lawyers, that the establishment of civil institutions was necessary, both as a result of, and the remedy for, the vicious desires of corrupt man, Agrippa continues,

For whereas men were prone and enclined to discorde, the publishinge of iustice whiche was to be observed by meanes of the Lawes was a necessarie thinge: to the end that the boldness of naughty men might in suche wise be bridled: and emong the wicked innocencie might be salfe, and the honest might live quietly emonge the dishoneste.

"And," he comments, "these be that so notable beginninges of the Lawe, wherin have benne almost innumerable Lawemakers…. "

Yet it must be noted that although Agrippa adopts the patristic and Canonist attitude about the need for coercive government and civil laws to restrain the corrupt natures of men, he omits the one most important emphasis of that attitude. He does not, as did the medievalists, see the establishment of civil society as a measure taken by God. He retains the theological premise of original sin, but he does not attribute the origin of the state and laws to God. On the contrary, he concludes,

Hereof then we know that al the knowledge of the Civill Lawe dependeth upon the onely opinion and will of menne, without any other reason urginge and enforcinge to be so, then either the honestie of manners, or commoditie of livinge, or the authoritie of the Prince or the force of armes, whiche if it be the preserveresse of good menne, and the revengeresse of wicked men, it is good discipline, finally it is a most wicked thinge for the naughtinesse which is done when the Magistrate or the Prince neglecteth it, suffereth it, or alloweth it.

With the state and its laws stripped of their divine origin, it is but a step to the denial of the universal interdependence of law and justice. Whereas the "universal-lawists" saw justice as the purpose and the child of civil law, in its turn ultimately dependent upon the great objective verities of natural law and God, Agrippa writes,

It is not then sufficiently declared by this alone, that all the force of the Law & Justice doth not so much depend upon the Lawes as upon the honestie and equitie of the Judge.

Here, in the "science" of natural and political law, is a position parallel to that held by Montaigne in the "science" of man. Just as Montaigne deserts and denies the efficacy of the study of universal man, so Agrippa deserts and denies that of universal law. Just as Montaigne rests his "wavering" knowledge of man upon the study of a particular one, so Agrippa finds that "the force of Law & Justice" depends upon the honesty and fairness of any particular given judge. The same completely decentralizing, individuating and relativizing process has taken place.

There is one more aspect of the repeal of universal law in which an analysis of Agrippa's work supplements that of Montaigne's-with regard to the Canon Law. "From the Civill Lawe," he explains,

proceeded the Canon of the Popes Law, which to many may appeare most holy, so wittily it doth shadow the precepts of covetousnes, and manners of robbinge under the coloure of godlines.

He devotes many of his most scorching pronouncements to the task of excoriating the Canon Law, the Pope, and the church's pretensions to temporal authority. And in conclusion he makes the forthright assertion which we have been awaiting, that

these Lawes and Canons come not from God, not be addressed to God: but are derived from the corrupt nature and witte of men and are invented for gaine and covetousnesse.

Agrippa includes among his alternative sanctions, "urginge and enforcinge" the Civil Law, "the authoritee of the Prince" and "the force of armes."…