Alberico Gentili’s ‘Silete theologi in munere alieno’: The Full Quote
JHIL
Wijffels, A. (2025). Alberico Gentili’s ‘Silete theologi in munere alieno’: The Full Quote. Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d'histoire du droit international, 27(4), 443-470.
- Abstract
Alberico Gentili wrote addenda and corrigenda to his De iure belli libri tres (ed. pr. 1598), which were not included in the later, posthumous, editions of that work. The additions the author directed to be inserted after his exhortation ‘Remain silent, theologians, on an issue which is not your responsibility’ (Book 1, Ch. 12) suggest that he intended to emphasise the illegitimacy of wars on religious grounds, especially in international relations with the Ottomans, who in any event provided sufficient other grounds for waging war against them. Gentili’s remark did not preclude the use of theological literature in jurisprudence, although he considered that jurists had a specific competence for scholarship on the governance of human relations.
- Keywords: religious war; jurisprudence and theology; jurisprudence and political governance; pluri-normativity in international relations