c. AD 30–45
Greek
On Abraham
De Abrahamo
Philo of Alexandria · c. 20 BC – c. AD 50
Abraham presented to a Greek readership as a living law — a man who kept the Torah before it was given, because he had read it off the order of the world.
1–100
The First Century
1 work
1101–1200
The Twelfth Century
1 work
c. 1157–1164
Latin
Summa on the Decretum
Rufinus of Bologna · 12th century
The first full commentary on Gratian, defining natural law and working out where custom, papal decree, and conscience each hold.
Western · Canon law
1201–1300
The Thirteenth Century
1 work
c. 1271, within the Summa
Latin
The Treatise on Law
Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
Law defined as an ordinance of reason for the common good, in four kinds — eternal, natural, human, and divine — with unjust laws described as a kind of violence.
Scholastic · Political theory
1601–1700
The Seventeenth Century
2 works
1625
Latin
On the Law of War and Peace
De Iure Belli ac Pacis
Hugo Grotius · 1583–1645
A law of nations grounded in a natural law that would hold, he says, even if we granted that there is no God — with rules on just cause, prisoners, and non-combatants.
Reformed · Law
1672
Latin
On the Laws of Nature
De Legibus Naturae
Richard Cumberland · 1631–1718
An answer to Hobbes arguing that the natural law is the pursuit of the common good of all rational beings, discoverable from the constitution of the world.
Anglican · Ethics