Petrus Cunaeus

Petrus Cunaeus (1586, Vlissingen - 2 December 1638, Leiden) was the pen name of the Dutch Scholar Peter van der Kun.

Cunaeus enrolled at the University of Leyden at the age of fourteenand studied Greek and Hebrew. Following a trip to Englandin 1603, he returned to Leyden to study theology and jurisprudenceand was introduced to Rabbinic studies and Aramaicby Johannes Drusius. By 1612 Cunaeus was Professorof Latin, in 1613 of politics, and in 1615 of jurisprudence, aposition he held until his death. [ Petrus Cunaeus on Theocracy, Jubilee and the Latifundia, by Jonathan R. Ziskind, The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., Vol. 68, No. 4. (Apr., 1978), pp. 235-254.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-6682%28197804%292%3A68%3A4%3C235%3APCOTJA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1 ] Cunaeus book, The Hebrew Republic is considered to have been "the most powerful statement of republican theory in the early years of the Dutch Republic." [ Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government, 1572-1651, Cambridge, 1993, p. 169]

Cunaeus wrote at the peak of Protestant interest in Jewish texts for their political as well as religious authority. He was among the leading Christian scholars of Jewish texts of a generation that included the Frenchman Joseph Scaliger, Hugo Grotius, and Bonaventure Vulcanius in the Netherlands, Johannes Buxtorf, father and son in Germany and; England, John Selden and Daniel Heinsius in England. Cunaeus also corresponded with such contemporary Jewish scholars as Menasseh ben Israel. [ Petrus Cunaeus on Theocracy, Jubilee and the Latifundia, by Jonathan R. Ziskind, The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., Vol. 68, No. 4. (Apr., 1978), pp. 235-254. Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-6682%28197804%292%3A68%3A4%3C235%3APCOTJA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1 ]

The Hebrew Republic

Cunaeus is best remembered for his book “De Republica Hebraeorum”, also written as “Respublica Hebraeorum”, and “The Hebrew Republic (English),” in which he described, and, in the opinion of many scholars, largely imagined, the ancient Hebrew kingdom as a model of republican government. The work was extremely popular. It went through at least seven editions between 1617 and 1700, and was translated into Dutch, French and English. [ Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government, 1572-1651, Cambridge, 1993, p. 167 ] [ Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, Cambridge UniversityPress, 2002 , p. 258 ] There had already been dozen books and essays by other authors with the same title. “ Cunaeus’ effort stood apart, for the first time presenting the Israelite state of the First Temple period, and especially the united monarchy under Saul, David, and Solomon, as a practical model for the newly independent United Provinces.” [ The Jewish Roots of Western Freedom, by Fania Oz-Salzberger, Azure • SUMMER 5762 / 2002, http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:849siopirCsJ:www.jafi.org.il/education/azure/13/13-fania.html+%22Petrus+Cunaeus%22+%22the+hebrew+republic%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us ] For Cunaeus the Bible was a legal and juridical model for the functioning of an independent state. For Cunaeus, who was the leading expert of his era on Josephus, [ Petrus Cunaeus on Theocracy, Jubilee and the Latifundia, by Jonathan R. Ziskind, The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., Vol. 68, No. 4. (Apr., 1978), pp. 235-254.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-6682%28197804%292%3A68%3A4%3C235%3APCOTJA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1 ]
Josephus' Jewish Antiquities and Contra Apion, as well as Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, the Talmud, and the Bible together provided information demonstrating that Hebrew State was of a higher order than the Greek or Roman states. “Because its god was the true God… the Hebrew state could function as an archetype for the ideal republic. Its laws corresponded to natural law, and its social spirit flowed directly from the divine imperative of justice. This state was neither a monarchy nor an oligarchy nor a democracy, but a republic, whose senate—the Sanhedrin—and magistrates, including judges and priests, enforced and executed divinely ordained laws in ordinary civic situations. “ [ The Jewish Roots of Western Freedom, by Fania Oz-Salzberger, Azure • SUMMER 5762 / 2002, http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:849siopirCsJ:www.jafi.org.il/education/azure/13/13-fania.html+%22Petrus+Cunaeus%22+%22the+hebrew+republic%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us ]

Cunaeus’s understanding of the Hebrew State as a federal republic was directly influential on the formation of the government of the Dutch Republic. [ Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government 1572-1651, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp, 167-169) ] [ Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, Cambridge UniversityPress, 2002 , p. 258-60 ] It was not, however, a republic of the common man that Cunaeus wished for the Dutch, but a republic modeled on an imagined ancient Hebrew republic in which the Sanhedrin was composed of "men, not chosen from among the Plebians, but all most noble, commended by their honourable parentage, and the ancient ornaments of their family." The Hebrew kings, were constitutional monarchs, beholden to the legislature, with the special power of holding power over the religious affairs fo the nation. [ Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government, 1572-1651, Cambridge, 1993, p. 169]

Cunaeus was concerned that the Dutch Republic might fall as Athens and Rome had fallen, a decline caused, in his view, by high living and selfish bickering among the leadership. As a model for his nation that would prevent such a calamity, he described a Hebrew republic in which "the counsels of all provided for the safety of all; and the Cities, which were many, did not every one aim at its own dominion, but all used their best endeavors to defned the public Liberty." [ Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government, 1572-1651, Cambridge, 1993, p. 167] The Hebrew Republic, in Cunaeus' description, was a virtuous community of republican small-hold farmers, kept that way by the Biblical law that every fiftieth (Jubilee) year all land transactions become null with the property returning to the family of the original owner. In this way, Cunaeus tells us, "all were equally provided for; which is the prime care of good Governours in every common-wealth," a system that insures that "the wealth of some might not lead to the oppression of the rest; nor the people change their course, and turn their minds form their innocent labors to any new and strange employment." [ Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government, 1572-1651, Cambridge, 1993, p. 168] For Cunaeus, manufacturing and commerce led to moral corruption of all kinds, the collapse of virtuous republican government among them. Virtue was equated with material simplicity, small-hold farmers, and an egalitarian distribution of wealth. [ Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government, 1572-1651, Cambridge, 1993, p. 168-9]

Cunaeus closes the book with an appeal for toleration and sympathy towards contemporary Jews. [ Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government, 1572-1651, Cambridge, 1993, p. 168]

Books

“De republica Hebraeorum”, 1617, The Hebrew Republic by Petrus Cunaeus (Author), Arthur Eyffinger (Introduction), Peter Wyetzner (Translator) Shalem Press, 2005

References