Abstract

De iure belli ac pacis pursued and renovated at the same time the medieval tradition of jurisprudence as a science of the art of good governance, specifically in the field of international governance. Grotius used the potential and devices of neo-classical studies in order to strengthen the jurist’s expertise in various forms of non-legal normativity, and to channel these into his own jurisprudential discourse. Virtues considered as duties were integrated in that discourse, but at different levels of Grotius’s multi-layered concept of law. Charity could thus be envisaged as a natural norm, both pre-Christian and universal, but also, according to enhanced standards, as a law of the Gospel, and hence as specifically Christian divine law.