The Hebrew Republic, also “De Republica Hebraeorum”, and also “Respublica Hebraeorum”, is an early modern concept in political theory in which Christian scholars regarded the Hebrew Bible as a political constitution framing a perfect and republican government designed by God for the children of Israel.Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government, 1572-1651, Cambridge, 1993, p. 167Lea Campos Boralevi, Classical Foundational Myths of European Republicanism: The Jewish Commonwealth, in Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 258
In 1582, Carlo Sigonio published a text entitled De Republica Hebraeorum. It used the format of the De repubblica Athenensium manual. The question of the political structure in ancient Israel had already been addressed before, but Sigonio was the first to adopt a systematic approach. However, he did not know Hebrew and so used the translation of the Septuagint, giving rise to not a few problems.
Among the most notable works in the genre are “De Republica Hebraeorum” by Petrus Cunaeus Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government, 1572-1651, Cambridge, 1993, p. 167Lea Campos Boralevi, Classical Foundational Myths of European Republicanism: The Jewish Commonwealth, in Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, Cambridge University Press, 2002 , p. 258 and Eric Nelson's "The Hebrew Republic".Eric Nelson, “The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought” (Harvard University Press, 2010) A Catholic contributor to the respublica Hebraeorum genre was the Jesuit Giovanni Stefano Menochio, who published his own De republica Hebraeorum in 1648.
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Further reading
Lea Campos Boralevi, Classical Foundational Myths of European Republicanism: The Jewish Commonwealth, in Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 258.