SOURCE: Peterson, Luther D. “Melanchthon on Resisting the Emperor: The Von der Notwehr Unterricht of 1547.” In Regnum, Religio et Ratio: Essays Presented to Robert M. Kingdon, edited by Jerome Friedman, pp. 133-144. Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1987.

In the following essay, Peterson shows how in his treatise Instruction Concerning Self-Defense Melanchthon finds justifications for resistance by lower magistrates and subjects against the tyranny of higher political authority.

From his earliest publications, Professor Robert M. Kingdon has drawn the attention of Reformation scholars to the problem of political resistance: whether a right or perhaps even an obligation exists to resist political authority, and, if so, by whom may this be done and under what circumstances.* In examining the sources of Huguenot resistance theory, Kingdon demonstrated that Theodore Beza had espoused resistance in the early 1550s, much earlier than had been previously thought, and that he was deeply influenced...