Justus Lipsius

Works

• 1584On Constancy

  Dialogue set during the war in the Low Countries: the author flees his homeland but learns from his friend Langius that the remedy for public evils is not travel but constancy – a mind steadied by reason that accepts providence and necessity.

• 1589Six Books of Politics

  A handbook for rulers composed largely of quotations from ancient authors, above all Tacitus: virtue and prudence, a disciplined army, a single public religion, and in Book IV a “mixed prudence” that admits some deceit for the sake of the state.

Position

Lipsius is on the map as the founder of Neostoicism, the revival of Stoic philosophy that shaped European ethics and political thought around 1600. “On Constancy” (1584), written amid war, persecution and exile in the Low Countries, presents in dialogue form a Stoicism compatible with Christianity: constancy is a strength of mind grounded in reason, not in opinion; public evils are borne by recognising providence and necessity, not escaped by flight. In the “Manuductio” and “Physiologia Stoicorum” (both 1604) he gave the first systematic modern account of Stoic ethics and physics. His “Six Books of Politics” (1589), composed largely of ancient quotations, advised rulers to join virtue with prudence, to maintain a disciplined army and to preserve one public religion; in Book IV he admitted a “mixed prudence” with some deceit in the interest of the state, in dialogue with Tacitus and Machiavelli. The book was translated into many languages and influenced the theory of the early modern state; his demand for religious unity was attacked by Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert as a licence for persecution. Historians such as Gerhard Oestreich have linked Neostoicism with military discipline and the formation of the modern state.

Life & context

Justus Lipsius (Joost Lips) was born on 18 October 1547 in Overijse near Brussels. He was educated by the Jesuits in Cologne and at the University of Leuven, and then spent two years in Rome as Latin secretary to Cardinal Granvelle, studying inscriptions and manuscripts. During the Dutch Revolt and the wars of religion he moved between confessions and universities: Jena (1572–74, Lutheran), Leiden (1578–91, Calvinist), where he was one of the leading professors of the young university, and from 1592 Leuven again, where he returned to the Catholic church and held the chair of Latin and history until his death. His editions of Tacitus (1574) and Seneca (1605) set new standards, and his letters made him a centre of the European republic of letters. He died in Leuven on 23 March 1606.

Further main works

• C. Cornelii Taciti opera (ed., 1574)
• De constantia libri duo (1584)
• Politicorum sive civilis doctrinae libri sex (1589)
• Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam (1604)
• Physiologia Stoicorum (1604)
• L. Annaei Senecae opera (ed., 1605)