Rediscovering John Selden

Reviewed by Steven Grosby

Renaissance England’s Chief Rabbi: John Selden
by Jason P. Rosenblatt
Oxford University Press, 2006, 314 pages

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The main subject of Rosenblatt’s Renaissance England’s Chief Rabbi is “the cultural influence of rabbinic and especially talmudic scholarship on some early modern British poets and intellectuals as mediated principally by Selden.” Rosenblatt, a professor of seventeenth-century English literature, and particularly Milton, accordingly devotes the first half of the book to an examination of the unappreciated place of biblical and rabbinic scholarship in the thematic development of the literature of that time. The first chapter begins with an appropriate re-casting of the conflict in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet between Prince Hamlet and Claudius through the lens of a choice of biblical laws: Leviticus 18:16, “Do not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife,” which would render Claudius’ marriage to Gertrude illegitimate; or Deuteronomy 25:5, the rule of Levirate marriage, which would sanction Claudius’ and Gertrude’s union and nullify Hamlet’s claim to the throne. Rosenblatt rightly reminds us that this “apparent conflict between Leviticus and Deuteronomy” had arisen earlier in the dispute over Henry VIII’s divorce of Catherine of Aragon and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn. Such a re-casting is most interesting, as is Rosenblatt’s discussion of the influence of Selden’s Hebraic scholarship on Ben Jonson’s Epicoene: Or, the Silent Woman. Rosenblatt continues in chapter three by discussing the influence of Selden’s The Fabulous Gods on Milton’s naming of the pagan gods in Paradise Lost; and in chapter four he describes Selden’s influence on Milton’s Samson Agoniste. Consequently, a reader who picks up this work hoping to find an explication of Selden’s contribution to the theory of natural law and the history and character of the Sanhedrin must be patient, as the discussion of these matters does not appear until the last half of the book.

On the subject of natural law, Selden was no rationalist; he rejected the idea of innate rational principles that are intuitively obvious. For Selden, all law, as law, had to be positive—that is, pronounced by the sovereign, however understood, with the expectation that, if violated, punishment would ensue. Thus, his understanding of natural law differed from that of Grotius, who drew a distinction between the reasonable law of nature and (divine) positive law, and also from that of the Cambridge Platonist, Nathaniel Culverwel, discussed by Rosenblatt in chapter nine. Selden attempted to surmount the problem of a natural law that must be positive, yet also universal, by identifying it as those laws, enumerated in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 56a-b), which were stipulated by God in the covenant with Noah (Genesis 9). The reality of those laws, for Selden, consists in the fact that they were and had to be historical; thus, their violation results in punishment by the civil order, for example, the Sanhedrin.

It seems to me that the argument that the law of nature can be known only in its historical expression is key for Selden; he was historical, but no historicist. In its historical expression, the Noahide law of nature exists as a part of a more extensive, developing national law code. For the Israelites, the addition of the Decalogue and other laws; for England, as a part of the common law, which, in Rosenblatt’s summary of Selden’s view, can be understood “as a limited law of nature” and “from which there is no appeal.” Just as the Sanhedrin was understood by Selden to be legally supreme, so, too, was Parliament for England.

As noted earlier, Manuel argued that the “third culture,” the Hebraic, deserves a more prominent place in the history of Western thought. He was right to do so. It would, nevertheless, be mistaken to view that place as merely a concern of intellectual history. There is more to be said about Hebraic culture and its influence.

Rosenblatt observes that "most Christians of the early modern period contrasted the 'Hebrew Myth' (Hebraica veritas) of the Bible with the rabbinical fables of the Talmud," thereby denigrating Jewish tradition. "Selden, however, throughout his writing contrasted the severity of the literal text of the Hebrew Bible with the humaness of rabbinic interpretation of the text and of rabbinical law," thereby elevating Jewish tradition. It may be that Rosenblatt is right about this; but here, too, there is more to be said.

The real question is whether the Christian Hebraism of the early modern period represents a noteworthy, but secondary, current in the history of Western thought, or rather a conceptual development of broader, more profound significance in the organization of human affairs. We can propose several answers to this question.

First, the attention paid by the Christian Hebraists to the non-biblical, rabbinic Noahide laws—the seven stipulations of the humane, universalistic biblical covenant between God and Noah that were understood by the rabbis to be incumbent upon all of humanity—was in the service of fostering a conception of a natural law, variously understood. Such a natural law, if acknowledged, could act to restrain often violent religious sectarianism by asserting, for example, the prohibition against wanton murder and the command to establish a legal system, which would make possible a relatively stable, civil political order under the rule of law. The question is whether or not such a civil, political order and the toleration it assumes presuppose the framework of a national tradition. It appears that Selden thought they did, even though doing so gives rise to a conceptually paradoxical combination: A humane universalism borne by and refracted through the history of a particular nation.

Second, this difficult paradoxical combination is, in fact, characteristic of the Hebraic tradition. This fact is expressed succinctly in, for example, Exodus 19:5-6 and Deuteronomy 10:14-15. Once this paradoxical combination is recognized for what it is, we can understand its particular appeal during the period from the thirteenth through eighteenth centuries: It offered a means of legitimating the consolidation of national states within doctrinally universal Christendom. A fine balance was sought, one that would: (i) Legitimate the freedom of the nation to determine its own affairs; (ii) establish a legal basis for toleration and civil peace within a religiously diverse nation; and (iii) provide considerations by which to judge relations between nations. Such was the burden of the Christian appropriation of the rabbinic Noahide laws and the Hebraic tradition.

An indication of this Hebraic tradition can be seen in Selden’s understanding of natural law as a law that is natural, yet historical; universal, yet posited and borne by a particular nation. Such an understanding opens up the complicated task of bridging the gap between timeless universal and historical convention. As Rosenblatt observes, it allowed Selden to balance “a belief in a divine, universal law of minimal obligation with a commitment to an evolving native English common law….” Thus, the national law, insofar as it conforms to such Noahide precepts as establishing judges and legal authorities in every district, is inviolable. However, at the same time, national variations are recognized as legitimate; they are to be free “from coercion by external authorities enforcing uniformity.” We can get an idea of the practical effect of what Selden meant by natural law from his discussion of contracts in Table Talk: “Keep your contracts, so far a divine goes, but how to make our contracts is left to ourselves.”

Steven Grosby is Contributing Editor of Azure. He is the author of Nationalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2005), and Biblical Ideas of Nationality: Ancient and Modern (Eisenbrans, 2002).