141 Summary Johannes Schefferus and Natural Law BY DOCENT ROLF LINDBORG This paper deals with the works on natural lawwhich were writtenby Johannes Schefferus (1621 —79), who Politics, and later in natural and international law {Jus naturae et gentium) at Uppsala University. Schefferus, born in Strasbourg, was one of the learned foreigners invited to this country by Queen Christina in order to assist the young Swedish great power in achieving a certain intellectual culture; the most well-known of these invited foreigners was, of course, Descartes. In the first section the author discusses the question of the genesis of the concept of natural lawin Hellenistic and Roman times. Natural law originated, above all, in the teachings of the Stoics, and Cicero became the most important authority in antiquity for those who promoted natural law. In the section that follows thereafter the renaissance of natural law in more recent times is dealt with. Amongother things, the author makes a comparisonbetween the »natural laws» which determine morals and the idea which arose nearly simultaneously of the »laws of nature» within physics (the term»natural law» used as a concept within the natural sciences comes from Cartesianism). Even in the areas of religion and theology there simultaneously arose during the seventeenth century trends in thought where reference was made to mankind’s »natural insight» into the divine in a manner which bears great similarity to the concepts possessed by the authors who wrote on natural law concerning the eternally valid moral laws whose truth mankind perceives »by nature». The most comprehensive work of Johannes Schefferus on the topic of natural lawexists only in manuscript form. It is entitled SciagraphiaJuris Naturae, (A Sketch of Natural Law), and there are several versions in existence, none of which is the work of Schefferus’ own hand. The preserved manuscripts were presumably completed from notes taken at Schefferus’ lectures in Uppsala; academic education at that time still consisted of dictations. The investigation Professor Skytteanus, that is. Professor of was
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=