The Dutch Legacy: Radical Thinkers of the 17th Century and the Enlightenment [1 ed.] 9789004332089, 9789004332072

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The Dutch Legacy: Radical Thinkers of the 17th Century and the Enlightenment

The Dutch Legacy Radical Thinkers of the 17th Century and the Enlightenment

Edited by

Sonja Lavaert and Winfried Schröder

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Sonja Lavaert, Ricercar 1. (private collection). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lavaert, Sonja, 1958– editor. Title: The Dutch legacy : radical thinkers of the 17th century and the  Enlightenment / edited by Sonja Lavaert and Winfried Schroder. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2017. | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016034424 (print) | LCCN 2016039215 (ebook) | ISBN  9789004332072 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004332089 (E-book) Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy, Dutch—17th century. | Political  science—Philosophy—History—17th century. | Philosophers—Netherlands. |  Enlightenment—Netherlands. | Political science—Philosophy—History—18th  century. Classification: LCC B3871 .D88 2016 (print) | LCC B3871 (ebook) | DDC  199/.492—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016034424

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. isbn 978-90-04-33207-2 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-33208-9 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Introduction 1 Sonja Lavaert and Winfried Schröder ‘Concordia Res Parvae Crescunt’: The Context of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Radicalism 16 Wiep van Bunge Dutch Golden Age Politics and the Rise of the Radical En­lightenment: An Overview 35 Jonathan Israel Van den Enden and Religion 62 Frank Mertens The Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres between Humanist Scholarship and Cartesian Science: Lodewijk Meyer and the Emancipatory Power of Philology 90 Henri Krop The Monopoly of Social Affluence: The Jus circa sacra around Spinoza 121 Roberto Bordoli ‘Lieutenants’ of the Commonwealth: A Political Reading of De jure ecclesiasticorum 150 Sonja Lavaert Socinian Headaches: Adriaan Koerbagh and the Antitrinitarians 165 Sascha Salatowsky Abraham van Berkel’s Translations as Contributions to the Dutch Radical Enlightenment 204 Michiel Wielema Between Machiavelli and Hobbes: The Republican Ideology of Johan and Pieter De la Court 227 Stefano Visentin

vi Index of Names 249 Index of Anonymous Texts 255 Index of Subjects 256

contents

Introduction Sonja Lavaert and Winfried Schröder If we examine the available research on the intellectual sources of the Enlightenment with a view to understanding the process in which the traditional views of religion, politics, law and society were overcome, we find ourselves faced with diverging interpretations. To be sure, there is widespread consensus on the inspiring role of the French libertinage érudit and the sceptical tradition, of Italian late Renaissance naturalism, English deism, and dissident religious movements such as Socinianism. However, the emphases often differ and in some cases the perspectives are also narrowed. Concerning the Dutch philosophy of the 17th century in particular, it appears that although its impact, especially on the Radical Enlightenment, has been increasingly acknowledged by recent scholarship,1 the attention has remained restricted primarily to the contributions of one figure: Spinoza. The great Amsterdam philosopher has overshadowed several 17th century Dutch thinkers who were active before the publication of his Tractatus theologico-politicus: Franciscus van den Enden (Vrye Politijke Stellingen, 1665), Johan/Pieter de la Court (Consideratien van Staet, 1660, Politike discoursen, 1662), Lodewijk Meyer (Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, 1666); the anonymous author of De jure ecclesiasticorum (1665), and Adriaan Koerbagh (Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd, 1668, Een Ligt schynende in duystere plaatsen, 1668). As early as 1896 Koenraad Oege Meinsma devoted his seminal Spinoza en zijn kring to these mid-17th-century thinkers.2 Since then, the material basis has been considerably broadened through discoveries of hitherto unknown texts (such as van den Enden’s Vrye Politijke Stellingen), editions, detailed studies, and translations. But Meinsma’s comprehensive study of the Dutch protoEnlighteners has found no successor to date. The present volume aims to fill this gap by giving increased visibility to these authors. Unlike Meinsma’s book, the following articles will deal with them as thinkers in their own right, and not primarily as predecessors of Spinoza, but at the same time, correspon­ ding to Meinsma’s project, the contributions to this volume are designed to amount to a synoptic view of the proto-Enlightenment currents of the Dutch Golden Age. 1  Israel, Radical Enlightenment; Van Bunge (ed.), The Early Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic. 2  Meinsma’s Spinoza en zijn kring from 1896 was re-edited in 1980. The French translation from 1896 (Spinoza et son cercle) was republished in an expanded version in 1983.

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The topics addressed in the writings of Van den Enden, Meyer, De la Court, and Koerbagh as well as in the anonymous De jure ecclesiasticorum—topics such as religious toleration and the liberty of philosophizing—are central to the Enlightenment. Principles of a rationalist biblical hermeneutics were established, and some of these authors went so far as to challenge or even to reject the authority of the Bible. In metaphysics, materialist theories were developed, and even tendencies towards atheism can be observed. Other issues are republicanism and the secularization of politics. These matters are discussed in a way which prompted a contemporary observer of the Dutch intellectual scene to label the Netherlands une Afrique des libertins. In spite of its small size and population, he saw the Dutch Republic as a huge ‘continent’ inhabited by freethinkers. Just as Africa was home to wild beasts and savages, the Netherlands was the homeland of intellectual monstrosities of the worst kind: “comme l’Afrique, le séjour de plusieurs monstres, tels que sont les libertins.”3 This remark may sound somewhat exaggerated, but a brief preliminary survey will make it clear that essential features of the Enlightenment freethought were indeed anticipated by these early Dutch radicals. An important but largely neglected example of Dutch radicalism is the treatise De jure ecclesiasticorum, which was published in 1665 under the mysterious pseudonym Lucius Antistius Constans.4 The De jure offers a mate­rialistic interpretation of religion and develops an uncompromisingly anticlerical programme aiming at the abolishment of all clerical privileges. The political consequences of De jure’s broadside against ecclesiastical institutions and ultimately against religion itself are extremely radical and subversive. Its point of departure is the principle of natural right, which holds that all humans are equal; all humans are free; and this natural right and power are inalienable and cannot be derogated. Although natural right and power should be transferred to a civilian power because of the mala in the natural state, the natural equality of all people does not disappear in the civilian state. Inequality is always due to political authority. The power transferred to the civilian state is merely corporeal power, leaving the natural freedom of thoughts intact. One wonders who this Lucius Antistius Constans was, who so clearly expounded the bold theses of the De jure. Some scholars and writers, such

3  Budde, Traité de l’athéisme et de la superstition, 86. (Theses theologicae de atheismo et superstitione, 102). 4  An English translation is not available; a French translation (Du droit des ecclésiastiques) was published by Hans Blom, Véronique Butori, Jaqueline Lagrée, and Christian Lazzeri.

Introduction

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as Pierre Bayle and Jacob Friedrich Reimmann, thought it was Spinoza5 who wrote this “Gottlose Schrift”,6 while others, like Johannes Colerus,7 suspected that Meyer was its author.8 Still others attributed the treatise to one of the brothers De la Court,9 a view which has prevailed amongst the majority of scholars right up to the present day. With a humorous turn of mind we can perhaps add to the series of presumed authors the names of the other two Dutch radicals from Spinoza’s circle, namely Van den Enden and Koerbagh. Regarding Franciscus Van den Enden, who was Spinoza’s Latin teacher, this—admittedly speculative—conjecture would marvellously complement the subversive radicalness of his Kort verhael van Nieuw Nederlants gelegenheyt (1662).10 In this work he proposes a draft constitution for the Dutch colonists in the North American Delaware, basing it on the model of the autochthonous Indian community and on the principle of the equality and “natural equal freedom [natuirlijcke evengelijke-vryheit]”11 of all people. Van den Enden’s anticlerical views are as bold as those expressed in De jure ecclesiasticorum. Preachers, he argues, should be forbidden to join the new state because his constitutional design is meant for a society of people with a plurality of feelings and ideas. Van den Enden describes the proven disadvantages of the Christianization of the Indians and proposes the advantages of an Indianization of the Dutch colo­nists and society. In the treatise Vrije Politijke Stellingen of Consideratien van Staat (1665)12 he carefully elaborates and generalizes these concrete ideas into a systematic political theory. 5  Bayle, Article ‘Spinoza’, (L), in Écrits sur Spinoza, 54–55; Reimmann, Versuch einer Einleitung in die Historie der Theologie insgemein und der jüdischen insbesondere, 642; Vogt, Catalogus historico-criticus librorum rariorum, 214. 6  Trinius, Freydenker-Lexicon, 314; Baumgarten, Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek, vol. 3, 25–35. 7  Colerus, Korte, dog waaragtige Levens-Beschryving, 42–45. 8  Cf. Bordoli, Ragione e Scrittura tra Descartes e Spinoza, 29–34. 9  Cf. Leibniz, Essais de théodicée, § 375; Freytag, Analecta litteraria de libris rarioribus, 268– 269; Trinius, Freydenker-Lexicon, 314–15; Masch, Verzeichnis der erheblichsten freidenke­ rischen Schriften, 89. 10  A selection from the Kort Verhael is available in Klever’s English translation of the Vrije Politijke Stellingen (see below, 84–129). 11  Van den Enden, Kort Verhael van Nieuw-Nederlants Gelegentheit, Deughden, Natuerlijke Voorrechten, en byzondere bequaemheidt ter Bevolkingh, 30. 12  Wim Klever edited the Vrije Politijke Stellingen in 1992, after it had been rediscovered by Marc Bedjaï in 1990; an English translation (Free Political Propositions and Considerations of State) followed in 2007. However, it was Klaus Malettke who in 1976 wrote about Van den Enden’s interrogation at the Rohan Process in Paris 1674 in which he declared having written a text with this title. In fact in the judicial records at the Archives Nationales we

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And what about Adriaan Koerbagh, who was a friend of Spinoza’s? Could he be the author? On the one hand, there is no philological evidence which could attest to his authorship. On the other hand, the uncompromising radicalness of the substance of his two works, Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet and Een ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen,13 both from 1668, and the irony especially in the Bloemhof might warrant this experimental idea. Een Bloemhof is a general dictionary of words of foreign origin—“bastard words”—but also a subversive text in which Koerbagh criticizes obscurant language that conceals oppression and propagates a radical immanentist philosophy that was regarded as atheistic by his contemporaries.14 In Een ligt Koerbagh elaborates the same critical ideas on religion, language, and metaphysics in a systematic way. Reading the Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Politike Weeg-schaal (1661) or the Politike discoursen (1662),15 one wonders whether its author, most probably Johan de la Court, might be a plausible candidate for the De jure authorship. The two texts rely on the revolutionary thought of Machiavelli, who is

read: “A repondu que ces mots, vrije politique Stellingen en consideratien van Staat, ne sont pas des nottes sur ce qui est contenu dans cet escrit, mais que le Sr Latreaumont demandant a luy repondant ou estoit imprime la premiere partie de ce livre du politique, le repondant escrivit sur le papier que tenoit ledit Sr Latreaumont, ces mots, vrije politique &c qui est le titre dud. livre [. . .]” (94v). This information did not easily reach the desks of historians of philosophy or researchers focusing on Spinoza’s Latin teacher although the conspiracy against Louis XIV and subsequent process against Van den Enden were publically known from the moment of the events and were written about for a larger public at least since 1837, for instance by Eugène Sue in his novel Latréaumont, or, later in 1886 by Alfred Maury in the Revue des deux mondes. Cf. Malettke, Opposition und Konspiration unter Ludwig XIV, 142–223; 335–343; Procès Rohan, Archives Nationales V/4/1474, 93r–95v. 13  Cf. the English translation, A Light Shining in Dark Places, ed. by Wiep van Bunge and Michiel Wielema as well as the modernized Dutch version arranged by Michiel Wielema in 2014. 14  Cf. Wagner, Examen atheismi speculativi, 75; Müller, Atheismus devictus, 186, about Koerbagh’s—Müller only knows his pseudonym Vreederyk Waarmond—Bloemhof: “Friederich Wahrmund in seinem Atheistischen Büchlein Blumenhoff genandt”. 15  The Consideratien van Staat ofte Polityke Weeg-schaal was first published in 1660 under the title Consideratien en exempelen van staat, omtrent de fundamenten van allerley rege­ ringe. In 1661 a second and slightly modified edition followed, now under the known title, and another six and elaborated editions were published in 1662. In that same year, 1662, the first edition of the Politike discoursen appeared, followed by again a slightly modified second edition in 1663. Cf. Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age, 50–57.

Introduction

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manifestly present and extensively quoted.16 Furthermore, they both start out from the naturalism of Hobbes, exactly as the De jure text. They also similarly develop these naturalistic premises into a radically opposed political programme, namely that of a republic. However, this programme presents itself in a less radical form than Van den Enden’s plea for democratic freedom or Koerbagh’s critique of power abuse by the ecclesiastical institutions. The question is of course: Are de la Court’s political ideas really less radical? The fourth and final candidate for the De jure authorship is Lodewijk Meyer. At first sight his Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres/Philosophie d’uytlegster der h. Schrifture (1666/67)17 does not present a bold political radicalism. However, the analogies with De jure are legion. The two texts do not especially differ from each other in language and style, so it is not impossible that they are from the same hand. Furthermore, both texts are all about the role of philosophy and assert its hegemony in religious and theological matters. According to Meyer, philosophy consists in “a solemn rejection of all prejudices, a diligent contemplation of the things themselves, and as a result a true knowledge of those same things”.18 But if philosophy is the norm for interpretation of the Holy Writings, “the Holy Writings themselves appear to be useless, written and transmitted to us in vain”.19 Meyer offers—or pretends to offer—an answer to this objection and a way to rescue Scripture, although radically minimalizing its meaning: just like other books which “inspire the reader to think and [. . .] urge him towards ideas which he already possesses in his mind in clear and

16  Cf. Morfino, Il tempo e l’occasione. L’incontro Spinoza Machiavelli, 260–261. 17  A modern English translation (Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture) by Samuel Shirley, with introduction and notes by Lee C. Rice and Francis Pastijn was published in 2005. 18  Meyer, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, 239; Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, P2v: “seria [. . .] praejudiciorum abdicatione, & attenta rerum ipsarum contemplatione, ac ex his emergente vera earundem cognitione”; Philosophie d’uytlegster der h. Schrifture, 138: “een ernstige verwerpingh der vooroordelen, en naerstige opmerc­kingh der dingen selven, en der selfder ware kennis, die hier uyt spruyt, en die de Philosophie is.” 19  Meyer, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, 235; Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, P1r: “Est autem ille [scrupulus], quod, si eo, quo statuimus, modo Philosophia sit S. Literas interpretandi norma, ipsae Literae inutiles, & frustra exaratae atque ad nos transmissae videantur”; Philosophie d’uytlegster der h. Schrifture, 135: “dese swarigheyt is, dat, indien op die wyse, geljck wy gestelt hebben, de Philosophie de Regelmaet van de Heylige Schrift te verklaren en uyt te leggen is, de Heylige Schrift self onnut, en vergeefs uytgeschreven, en tot ons overgevoert sal schynen.”

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distinct form”, so too the Scripture serves “only to rouse its readers and to impel them to think about the matters set out therein.”20 Although the boldness of the philosophical messages of these mid-17thcentury authors is obvious, the concepts Radicalism and Enlightenment require some clarification. In particular the latter might cause some reservations or scepticism, if it is applied to the authors dealt with in this volume. Can we take for granted that Koerbagh, Meyer and the other authors were part of the Enlightenment movement? It has often been complained (and with good reason) that the concept Enlightenment is sometimes employed in a very vague and far too liberal, not to say woolly, manner. Thinkers of all ages have in fact been tagged as ‘enlightened’. By contrast, what historians specializing in the Age of the Enlightenment focus upon is normally a clear-cut period: the timeframe from the late 17th to the end of the 18th century, i.e., the period from Fontenelle to Condorcet; from Thomasius to Kant; or from Locke to Thomas Paine. Our four authors, however, were active considerably earlier. All of their texts date from the 1660s. So, is it justifiable to label them as protagonists of the Enlightenment? Or would this be just one more example of a misuse of the concept? Beyond this chronological issue it might be asked whether there are sufficient substantial, content-related reasons to classify the four Dutchmen as belonging to the Enlightenment. To address these questions, a brief look at other philosophical currents of this era might be helpful. Outside of the Netherlands some French freethinkers in particular should attract our attention, namely those early- and mid-17th century authors often regarded as forerunners of the Enlightenment, who are usually referred to as libertins érudits. These authors were obviously radical in the sense that they challenged and questioned the roots, the very foundations of traditional philosophy and religion. Some of them even went beyond 20  Meyer, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, 238; Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, P2r: “libri [. . .] summam [. . .] praebere queunt ulitilitatem [. . .], quod Lectori cogitationem injiciant, eumque excitent ad ideas, quas [. . .] jam in mente efformatas habet claras atque distinctas [. . .]. nulla vero ratione intellectum in veram rerum cognitionem ex aut per se posse deducere; multo minus menti ideas claras distinctasque, si antea infusae, inditaeque non fuerint, indere, aut infundere, aut imprimere, aut alio aliquo modo ingenerare”; Philosophie d’uytlegster der h. Schrifture, 137: “boecken [. . .] dat de grootste en hoogste nuttigheydt [. . .] dat sy in de Leser gedachten veroorsaecken, en hem opwecken tot de denkbeelden, die hy alreê in de geest klarelijck en onderscheydelijck van de dingen gevormt heeft [. . .]; de Heylige Schrift [. . .], alleenlijck dienstigh is om haer Lesers op te wecken, en aen te prickelen tot die dingen, van de welcken daer in gesproken wort, te dencken, ondersoeck daer op te doen, en t’overwegen of ’t daer meê soodanigh gelegen is, als het voorgestelt wort.”

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attacking Christianity or disputing the authority of the Bible by overtly denying the existence of God, among them the anonymous author of the notorious Theophrastus redivivus, the first known atheistic text. The person who wrote this book in 1659 is unknown. But he or she was French and a member of (or an intellectual close to) the libertinage érudit circles. Particularly illuminating is a comparison with Koerbagh’s Een ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen. Some parallels between these two texts are conspicuous. Both authors reject the authority of the bible, central Christian dogmas (salvation, trinity etc.), and the very idea of a personal God. More importantly, however, by placing the Theophrastus redivivus (as a specimen of the libertinage érudit) and Koerbagh’s book side by side, an essential difference comes to light: the libertins érudits made no attempt to enlighten the public. They did not address it and, what is more, they emphatically recommended the control and moral guidance of the common people through religion. Remarkably enough, the atheist author of the Theophrastus redivivus clearly supports this functionalist theory of religion: “It is useful that everybody [except the enlightened élite] is convinced that God exists, although this conviction is not true.”21 He agrees with “those legislators and philosophers [who] think that some religion . . . is necessary in a society [legislatores et philosophi [qui] aliquam [scil. religionem] . . . necessariam esse arbitrantur]”.22 It is a privilege of the happy few—the libertins érudits—to get rid of religious illusions, which however are and will remain indispensable for the common people. In stark contrast to the elitist libertinage érudit, Koerbagh and the other three Dutchmen attached great value to addressing themselves to the broader, non-academic public who did not master Latin. In Koerbagh’s words: “it is necessary to use well-known and intelligible words, or else it would be altogether pointless and for naught, of no use or benefit to anyone. [. . .] we have chosen to use [. . .] the language that is known [. . .] to all of the people. The reason is that the questions we shall address, for the benefit of people and country [. . .] concern the entire people.”23 21  Anonymus, Theophrastus redivivus, 56: “Utile sane est id [scil. Deum esse] omnibus persuaderi, sed non verum est quod persuadetur.” Cf. Bianchi, “Sapiente e popolo nel ‘Theophrastus redivivus’ ”; Paganini, “ ‘Legislatores et impostores’. Le Theophrastus redivivus et la thèse de l’imposture des religions au milieu du XVIIe siècle”. 22  Anonymus, Theophrastus redivivus, 541: “legislatores et philosophi aliquam [scil. religionem] [. . .] necessariam esse arbitrantur.” 23  Koerbagh: Een ligt / A Light, 56: “[Het is] nootsaakelijk, dat wy bekende en verstaanbare woorden moeten gebruyken, of anders ist allemaal vrugteloos en vergeefsche moeyten, waar uyt nimant nut of voordeel kan trekken. [. . .] so hebben wij voorgenomen, die taal, welk by al ’t volk bekend is [. . .], te gebruyken, ter oorsaak dat de saaken, die wy tot nut des volks en staat [. . .] sullen verhandelen, raakende sijn den gantschen volke.”

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This emphasis on communicating their ideas to a broader readership is by no means an outward or superficial feature of the four Dutchmen. It reminds us of what Enlightenment philosophers and intellectuals understood as an essential element of their project—in the words of the author of an incunabulum of the radical Enlightenment, the Traité des trois imposteurs: “The ordinary people are not as incapable of reasoning as the ruling elite wants them to believe themselves to be. Those who seek to instruct the people must take care to rectify their errors and eradicate their prejudices”24—an idea which was later echoed by d’Holbach.25 Or as Immanuel Kant would have it: The key difference between Enlightenment philosophers and earlier critics of Christianity or religion in general such as the libertins érudits is to be found in the concept of Öffentlichkeit, the public sphere: the public sphere and its recognition not only as a forum, but as the indispensible medium of rationalisation and modernisation. For Kant and many of his contemporaries such as e.g. d’Holbach, Enlightenment stood not merely for criticizing and overcoming traditional views in religion and politics, but the public critical discussion of these issues. Enlightenment was not regarded as just an academic enterprise, but as a process aimed at transforming society, politics, legislation, and culture. Therefore—and this is of course not only Kant and d’Holbach’s view— Enlightenment is essentially located in the public sphere. In this respect the texts under focus in this volume may in fact be regarded as very early manifestations of the Enlightenment—of the Enlightenment not in a vague and woolly sense, but in a strict sense, i.e. free public critical examination of traditions in the theoretical and the normative—moral and political—sphere. Another aspect which links the four Dutchmen with the European Enlightenment is very simple indeed, but by no means unimportant: their influence outside the Netherlands. The reception of these texts in Germany, France, and England needs and deserves further investigation and a systematic documentation, a project which promises remarkable discoveries. To be sure, before their rediscovery in the late 20th century, Van den Enden’s writings had fallen entirely into oblivion.26 But several of de la Court’s books were translated into French, English, and German during his lifetime and afterwards. 24  Anonymus, Traité des trois imposteurs, I.3, 8: “[. . .] si le peuple n’est pas aussi incapable de raisonner qu’on tâche de le persuader, il faut que ceux qui cherchent à l’instruire s’appliquent à rectifier ses faux raisonnemens, & à détruire ses préjugés.” 25  d’Holbach, Essai sur les préjugés, 44–72: “Chapitre III. Le Peuple est-il susceptible d’instruction? Est-il dangereux de l’éclairer? Des maux qui résultent de l’ignorance des Peuples.” 26  Cf. above, n. 10.

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Koerbagh’s Bloemhof left many traces, e.g. in Germany.27 Lodewijk Meyer’s book on biblical hermeneutics was among the most vividly discussed from the 1660s onwards.28 It was even reprinted at the peak of the Enlightenment in 1776 and thereby introduced into the German philosophical and theological discussion by Johann Salomo Semler.29 Even a text like the anonymous De jure ecclesiasticorum (which is commonly neglected nowadays) did not escape the attention of the European readership during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was attentively read from the early Enlightenment when Christian Thomasius discussed it at length in his lectures on the struggle between state and church30 until the time of the French Revolution and its aftermath. The French abbé Mathieu Mathurin Tarabaud wrote a retrospective book on the Enlightenment (which he polemically called “philosophisme”). In this book, Enlightenment philosophy, namely political philosophy and its anticlerical tendency, is made responsible for having precipitated the French Revolution. Among the most dangerous texts the abbé mentions is De jure ecclesiasticorum, which he attributes to Lodewijk Meyer. “His theory”, Tarabaud complains, “ultimately assigns to the people and even to each individual the right to cast off the yoke of the most legitimate authority and brings about anarchy”.31 The last words of this statement may sound exaggerated, for the author of De jure certainly did not advocate anarchism. To determine the nature and scope of the radicalism which manifests itself in the abovementioned treatise as well as in the texts of the other Dutchmen 27  Cf. above n. 11 and: Knutzen, Amicus Amicis Amica, 35; cf. also 20 and 60; Anonymus, Unschuldige Nachrichten von alten und neuen theologischen Sachen (1714), 231ff.; Colberg, Disputatio de tolerantia librorum noxiorum politica, B3r Jahn, Verzeichnis der Bücher, 1958–1973; Edelmann: Abgenöthigtes Jedoch Andern nicht wieder aufgenöthigtes GlaubensBekentnis, vol. 9, 288; Uffenbach, Bibliothecae Uffenbachianae tomus I, 769; Id., Letter to Valentin Ernst Löscher (14.7.1714) 152–153; Schwindel, Theophili Sinceri Nachrichten Von lauter alten und raren Büchern, 80–82. 28   Cf. the bibliographical references in Trinius, Freydenker-Lexikon, 360–361; Masch, Verzeichnis, 114–115. 29  Meyer, Philosophia Scripturae Interpres, exercitatio paradoxa tertium edita et appendice I. Camerarii aucta cum notis variis et praefatione I.S. Semler. Cf. Bordoli, L’Illuminismo di Dio: alle origini della mentalità liberale: religione teologia filosofia e storia in Johann Salomo Semler. 30  Cf. Thomasius, Historia contentionis inter imperium et sacerdotium, 406–410. 31  Tarabaud, Histoire critique du philosophisme anglois, 3: “Sa [i. e. Meyer’s] théorie sur l’établissement des sociétés [. . .] et les conséquences qu’il en tire [. . .] tendent à investir le peuple, et même chaque individu, du droit de secouer le joug de l’autorité la plus légitime, et à ériger l’anarchie en principe.”

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and to explore to what extent they contributed to the European Enlightenment, the authors of this volume were invited to a conference entitled The Dutch Legacy. Radical Thinkers of the 17th Century and the Enlightenment, which took place with the financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at Marburg University in September 2014. The articles included in this volume are revised and augmented versions of the papers delivered on that occasion. Bibliography

Primary Sources

Anonymus, Theophrastus redivivus. Edizione prima e critica a cura di Guido Canziani e Gianni Paganini, Florence, La Nuova Italia, 1981. Anonymus [pseud.: Constans, Lucius Antistius], De jure ecclesiasticorum, liber singularis. Quo docetur: quodcunque divini humanique iuris ecclesiasticis tribuitur, vel ipsi sibi tribuunt, hoc, aut falso impieque illis tribui, aut non aliunde, quam a suis, hoc est, ejus Reipublicae sive Civitatis Prodiis, in qua sunt constituti, accepisse, Alethopoli [Amsterdam], apud Cajum Valerium Pennatum, 1665. Anonymus [pseud.: Constans, Lucius Antistius], De jure ecclesiasticorum, liber singularis. Quo docetur: quodcunque divini humanique iuris ecclesiasticis tribuitur, vel ipsi sibi tribuunt, hoc, aut falso impieque illis tribui, aut non aliunde, quam a suis, hoc est, ejus Reipublicae sive Civitatis Prodiis, in qua sunt constituti, accepisse, in Riedel, Carl (ed.), Renati des Cartes et Benedicti de Spinoza, Leipzig, Hermann Hartung, 1843, 228–290. Anonymus [pseud.: Constans, Lucius Antistius], Du Droit des Ecclésiastiques, ed. Hans Blom, Véronique Butori, Jacqueline Lagrée, Pierre-François Moreau, Christian Lazzeri, Caen, Université de Caen, 1991. Anonymus, Traktat von den drei Betrügern. Traité des trois imposteurs, ed. Winfried Schröder, Hamburg, Meiner, 1992. Anonymus, Unschuldige Nachrichten von alten und neuen theologischen Sachen &c., Leipzig, 1714, 231–253. Baumgarten, Siegmund Jakob, Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek, vol. 3, Halle, Gebauer, 1749. Bayle, Pierre, Dictionnaire historique et critique, Amsterdam et al., Pierre Brunel et al., 5me éd., 1740. Bayle, Pierre, Écrits sur Spinoza, Textes choisis et présentés par Françoise CharlesDaubert et Pierre-François Moreau, Paris, Berg International Editeurs, 1983. Budde, Johann Franz, Theses theologicae de atheismo et superstitione, Jena, Bielcke, 1717.

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Budde, Johann Franz, Traité de l’athéisme et de la superstition, Amsterdam, J. Schreuder & P. Mortier, 1756. Colberg, Ehregott Daniel (praeses) / Engelholm, Nicolaus (respondens), Disputationem de tolerantia librorum noxiorum politica &c. Eruditorum Censurae exponit, Greifswald, Daniel Benjamin Starck, 1693. Colerus, Johannes, Korte, dog waarachtige Levens-Beschryving van Benedictus de Spinoza, Amsterdam, Jacob Lindenberg, 1705. Colerus, Johannes, Korte, dog waarachtige Levens-Beschryving van Benedictus de Spinoza, in Freudenthal, Jakob (ed.), Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza’s, Leipzig, Veit, 1899, 35–104. Court, Johan/Pieter de la, Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Politike Weeg-Schaal beschreven door VH., Amsterdam, Iacob Volckerts, 1661. Court, Johan/Pieter de la, Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Politike Weeg-Schaal, Waar in met veele Reedenen, Omstandigheden, Exempelen en Fabulen werd ooverwoogen; Welke forme der Regeeringe, in speculatie gehoud op de practijk, onder de menschen de beste zy. Beschreven door V.H. In deese derde editie naawkeurig ooversien, merkelik vermeerdert, en in veelen klaarder gestelt, Amsterdam, Dirk Dirksz, 1662. Court, Johan/Pieter de la, Politike discoursen, handelnde in ses onderscheide boeken van Steeden, Landen, Oorlogen, Kerken, Regeeringen en Zeeden. Beschreven door D.C., Leiden, Pieter Hakius, 1662. Court, Johan/Pieter de la, Consideratien van Staat: Oder politische Waag Schale mit welcher die allgemeine Staats-Angelegenheiten, Haupt-Gründe und Mängel aller Republiken und zugleich die beständigste, nützlichste auch beste Art und Form einer freien politischen Regierung in gleicher Gegenhaltung erwogen wird / Aus dem Holländischen übersetzet von Christophoro Kormarten, Leipzig-Halle, n. pr., 1669. Court, Johan/Pieter de la, Consideratien en exempelen van staat, Omtrent De Fundamenten van allerley regeringe. Beschreven door V.H., Amsterdam, Ian Iacobsz Dommekracht, 1660. Edelmann, Johann Christian, Abgenöthigtes Glaubens-Bekentniß. 1746, in Sämtliche Werke, ed. Walter Grossmann, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, Frommann-Holzboog, 1969ff., vol. 9. Enden, Franciscus van den, Kort Verhael van Nieuw-Nederlants Gelegentheit, Deughden, Natuerlijke Voorrechten, en byzondere bequaemheidt ter Bevolkingh, Amsterdam, n. pr., 1662. Enden, Franciscus van den, Vrye Politijke Stellingen, en Consideratien van Staat, Gedaen naar der ware Christenens Even gelijke vryheits gronden, Amsterdam, Jacob Venckel, 1665. Enden, Franciscus van den, Vrije Politijke Stellingen. Met een inleiding van Wim Klever, Amsterdam, Wereldbibliotheek, 1992.

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Enden, Franciscus van den, Philedonius. Présentation, traduction, établissement du texte, notes et Spinozana, index et iconographie de Marc Bedjai, Paris, Éditions Kimé, 1994. Enden, Franciscus van den, Free Political Propositions and Considerations of State (1655). Text in Translation, the Relevant Biographical Documents and a Selection from Kort Verhael. Introduced, translated and commented on by Wim Klever, ‘Vrijstad’, 2007. Freytag, Friedrich Gotthilf, Analecta litteraria de libris rarioribus, Leipzig, Weidermann, 1750. d’Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry, Essai sur les préjugés, ‘Londres’, n. pr., 1770. Jahn, Johann Christian Gottfried, Verzeichnis der Bücher so gesamlet Johann Christian Gottfried Jahn, Frankfurt-Leipzig, Johann Samuel Heinsius, 1757. Knutzen, Matthias, Amicus Amicis Amica, in Schriften und Materialien, ed. Winfried Schröder, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, Frommann-Holzboog, 2010, 35–38. Koerbagh, Adriaan, Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet, geplant door Vreederyk Waarmond [. . .]: Of Een vertaaling en uytlegging van al de Hebreusche, Griecksche, Latijnse, Franse, en andere vreemde bastaart-woorden en wijsen van spree­ken, die (’t welk te beklaagen is) soo inde Godsgeleertheyd, regtsgeleertheyd, geneeskonst, als in andere konsten en weetenschappen, en ook in het dagelijks gebruyk van spreeken, inde Nederduytse taal gebruykt worden, Amsterdam, n. pr., 1668. Koerbagh, Adriaan, Een ligt schynende in Duystere Plaatsen: Om te verligten de voornaamste saaken der Gods geleertheyd en Gods dienst, Amsterdam, n. pr., 1668. Koerbagh, Adriaan, Een ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen, ed. Hubert Vandenbossche, Brussels, Vrije Univeriteit Brussel, 1974. Koerbagh, Adriaan, A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion, eds. Michiel Wielema / Wiep van Bunge, Leiden, Brill, 2011. Koerbagh, Adriaan, Een licht dat schijnt in duistere plaatsen. Een verheldering van de voornaamste theorieën van theologie en godsdienst, edited by Michiel Wielema, Nijmegen, Vantilt, 2014. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Essais de théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal. 1710. Chronologie et introduction par J. Brunschwig, Paris, Garnier-Flammarion, 1969. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Essais de théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal. 1710, ed. C.I. Gebhardt, I–VII, Berlin 1875–1890, vol. VI, Hildesheim-New York, Olms, 1978. Masch, Andreas Gottlieb, Verzeichnis der erheblichsten freidenkerischen Schriften, in Abhandlung von der Religion der Heiden und der Christen, Halle, Bauer, 1753. Meyer, Lodewijk, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, Exercitatio paradoxa, in qua, veram philosophiam infallibilem S. literas interpretandi normam esse, apodictic­è

Introduction

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demonstratur, et discrepantes ab hac sententiae expenduntur, ac refelluntur, Eleutheropoli (=Amsterdam), n. pr., 1666. Meyer, Lodewijk. De philosophie d’uytleghster der h. Schrifture. [. . .]. Uyt het Latijn vertaelt, Vrystadt (=Amsterdam), n. pr., 1667. Meyer, Lodewijk, Philosophia Scripturae Interpres, exercitatio paradoxa tertium edita et appendice I. Camerarii aucta cum notis variis et praefatione I.S. Semler, Halle, J. Ch. Hendel, 1776. Meyer, Lodewijk, La philosophie interprète de l’écriture Sainte. Traduction du latin, notes et présentation par Jacqueline Lagrée et Pierre-François Moreau, Caen, Centre de philosophie politique et juridique, Université de Caen, 1988. Meyer, Lodewijk, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture (1666); translated by Samuel Shirley, with introduction and notes by Lee C. Rice & Francis Pastijn, Milwaukee, Wis, 2005. Müller, Johannes, Atheismus devictus Das ist Ausführlicher Bericht Von Atheisten / Gottesverächtern / Schrifftschändern / Religionsspöttern / Epicureern / Ecebolisten / Kirchen und Prediger Feinden / Gewissenlosen Eydbrüchigen Leuten / und Verfolgern der Recht-Gläubigen Christen, Hamburg, Johann Naumann und Georg Wolff, 1672. Procès Rohan, Paris, Archives Nationales, V/4/1474. Reimmann, Jakob Friedrich, Versuch einer Einleitung in die Historie der Theologie insgemein und der jüdischen insbesondere, Magdeburg-Leipzig, Bauer, 1717. Reimmann, Jakob Friedrich, Historia universalis atheismi et atheorum falso et merito suspectorum (1725), ed. Winfried Schröder, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, FrommannHolzboog, 1992. Schwindel, Georg, Theophili Sinceri Nachrichten Von lauter alten und raren Büchern, Frankfurt-Leipzig, n. pr., 1731. Sue, Eugene, Latréaumont (1837), Paris, Garnier, 1979. Tarabaud, Mathieu Mathurin, Histoire critique du philosophisme anglois, Paris, DupratDuverger, 1806. Thomasius, Christian, Historia contentionis inter imperium et sacerdotium breviter delineata &c. in usum auditorii Thomasiani, Halle, Renger, 1722. Trinius, Johann Anton, Freydenker-Lexicon, Leipzig-Bernburg, Christoph Gottfried Cörner, 1759; Reprint, ed. Franco Venturi, Turin, 1966. Uffenbach, Zacharias Konrad von, Bibliothecae Uffenbachianae tomus I [II, III], Frankfurt am Main, Andreae, 1729–1730. Uffenbach, Zacharias Konrad von, “Letter to Valentin Ernst Löscher, 14.7.1714”, in Commercii epistolaris Uffenbachiani selecta, ed. J.G. Schelhorn, Ulm-Memmingen, 1753, 152f. Vogt, Johann, Catalogus historico-criticus librorum rariorum, Hamburg, Herold, 1753. Wagner, Tobias, Examen elencticum atheismi speculativi, Tubingen, Reisius, 1677.

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Secondary Literature

Bedjaï, Marc, “F. Van den Enden, maitre spirituel de Spinoza”, Revue de l’histoire des religions, 3, 1990, 289–31. Bedjaï, Marc, Métaphysique, éthique et politique dans l’œuvre du docteur Franciscus van den Enden (1602–1674). Thèse de doctorat (sous la direction de A. Matheron), Paris 1 BU Pierre Mendès-France, 1990. Bedjaï, Marc, “Métaphysique, éthique et politique dans l’œuvre du docteur Franciscus van den Enden (1602–1674). Contribution à l’étude des sources des écrits de B. de Spinoza”, Studia Spinozana, 6, 1990, 291–313. Bianchi, Lorenzo, “Sapiente e popolo nel ‘Theophrastus redivivus’ ”, Studi storici, 24, 1983, 137–164. Bordoli, Roberto, Ragione e scrittura tra Descartes e Spinoza, Milan, FrancoAngeli, 1997. Bordoli, Roberto, L’Illuminismo di Dio: alle origini della mentalità liberale: religione teologia filosofia e storia in Johann Salomo Semler (1725–1791): contributo per lo studio delle fonti teologiche, cartesiane e spinoziane dell’Aufklärung, Florence, Olschki, 2004. Bunge, Wiep van (ed.), The Early Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic 1650–1750: Selected Papers of a Conference Held at the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, 22–23 March 2001, Leiden, Brill, 2003. Freudenthal, Jakob, Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza’s in Quellenschriften, Urkunden und nichtamtlichen Nachrichten, Leipzig, Veit, 1899. Freudenthal, Jakob, Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas, 1899. Mit einer Bibliographie herausgegeben von Manfred Walther unter Mitarbeit von Michael Czelinski. Band 1: Lebensbeschreibungen und Dokumente; Band 2: Kommentar, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, Frommann-Holzboog, 2006. Klever, Wim, “Proto-Spinoza Franciscus van den Enden”, Studia Spinozana, 6, 1990, 281–288. Klever, Wim, “A New Source of Spinozism: Franciscus Van den Enden”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 29, 1991, 613–631. Malettke, Klaus, Opposition und Konspiration unter Ludwig XIV. Studien zu Kritik und Widerstand gegen System und Politik des französischen Königs während der ersten Hälfte seiner persönlichen Regierung, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976. Maury, Alfred, “Une conspiration républicaine sous Louis XIV—Le Complot du Chevalier de Rohan et de Latréaumont”, Revue des deux mondes, 76, 1886, 376–406. Meinsma, Koenraad Oege, Spinoza en zijn kring. Historisch-kritische studiën over Hollandse vrijgeesten, Utrecht, Hes Publishers, 1980 (1896). Meinsma, Koenraad Oege, Spinoza et son cercle, Paris, 1983. Meinsma, Koenraad Oege, Spinoza und sein Kreis: historisch-kritische Studien über ­holländische Freigeister, Berlin, 1909.

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Mertens, Frank, Franciscus van den Enden’s Brief Account, 2 vols., PhD-diss., Ghent University, 2006. Morfino, Vittorio, Il tempo e l’occasione. L’incontro Spinoza Machiavelli, Milan, LED Edizioni, 2002. Paganini, Gianni, “ ‘Legislatores et impostores’. Le Theophrastus redivivus et la thèse de l’imposture des religions au milieu du XVIIe siècle”, in: Sources antiques de l’irreligion moderne: le relais italien XVe–XVIIe siècles, ed. Didier Foucault / Jean-Pierre Cavaillé, Toulouse, 2001, 181–218. Weststeijn, Arthur, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age. The Political Thought of Johan & Pieter de la Court, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2012.

‘Concordia Res Parvae Crescunt ’ 

The Context of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Radicalism Wiep van Bunge Any attempt to construct a context for the emergence of a particular idea or a ‘philosophy’, let alone a philosophical ‘movement’, requires both geographical and chronological boundaries, defining the phenomenon in question as clearly as possible. In the case of the Radical Enlightenment, ‘the Dutch Republic’ and ‘the latter half of the seventeenth century’ just won’t do, but fortunately it is easy to be more precise: the first emergence of the Dutch Radical Enlightenment can be situated in the city of Amsterdam during the decade stretching from Spinoza’s ban from the Jewish community in 1656 to the anony­mous appearance of Lodewijk Meyer’s Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres in 1666. By then all the relevant characters in Spinoza’s ‘circle’ had made their mark. Socinian theology was officially banned by the States of Holland as early as 1653, but we have no evidence of any philosophical radicalism develo­ping in Amsterdam—or for that matter in the Dutch Republic—prior to 1656. Before the first dissemination of the radical Enlightenment, for instance, no philosophical texts fell under any kind of official censorship.1 By the 1650s the introduction of Descartes’s philosophy was becoming increasingly successful, as evident in the appointments at several Dutch universities of professors who were sympathetic to this philosophia nova, and even Hobbes’s views were beginning to reach a Dutch audience, but until the appearance of Spinoza’s circle there is no evidence of any kind of ‘radicalism’ comparable to that of the young Spinoza and his friends.2 To be sure, the Utrecht professor of Theoretical Medicine and Botany and one-time ally of Descartes, Henricus Regius, did develop a highly unorthodox epistemology and natural philosophy as early as the 1640s, but it would seem he remained an isolated, essentially academic figu­re, whose influence, moreover, remained largely restricted to medical circles.3

1  Van Bunge, Spinoza Past and Present, Chapter 9. 2  Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch, Chapter 5; Israel, The Dutch Republic, Chapter 34; Van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza, Chapters 3 and 4; Van Velthuysen, A Letter on the Principles of Justness and Decency, Containing a Defence of the Treatise De Cive of the Learned Mr. Hobbes. 3  See Desmond’s Clarke’s entry in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato .stanford.edu/entries/henricus-regius/.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004332089_003

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By 1666, on the other hand, Spinoza had written both the (incomplete) Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione and the Korte Verhandeling, half of the Ethics, and he had started working on the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. What is more, he had published the Principia Philosophiae Cartesianae/Cogitata Metaphysica, and although he had left Amsterdam and was living in Voorburg, the Amsterdam circle, including Franciscus van den Enden, Jarig Jelles, the Koerbagh brothers and Lodewijk Meyer was probably still largely intact. Pieter Balling had died in 1664, but Simon de Vries, Jelles and Meyer were still exchanging letters with Spinoza, who visited Amsterdam on a regular basis, as is evident from his correspondence.4 In addition, by 1666 Van den Enden had published both his pamphlets Kort Verhael (1662) and the Vrye Politijke Stellingen (1665), Balling had published his Ligt (1662), Verdediging (1663) and Nader Verdediging (1664), and Adriaan Koerbagh, whose brother Johannes was closely monitored by the Amsterdam church council, had issued his Nieuw Woordenboek der Regten (1664) as well as his Samen-Spraeck (1664)—if, indeed this text was penned by Adriaan.5 It seems very likely that he had also started working on the Bloemhof (1668), possibly even on Een Ligt. Meyer’s Interpres, incidentally, was probably written during the early 1660s, so although in 1666 there was still much to follow from Spinoza’s circle, I feel we can safely conclude that the decade from 1656 to 1666 saw the first emergence of the Dutch Radical Enlightenment.6 Let’s take a closer look at the dates involved. In 1656 in Amsterdam, Rembrandt was declared bankrupt; in Haarlem the first issue of De Weeckelijke Courante van Europa appeared, while Christiaan Huygens, in The Hague, invented the pendulum clock. Vermeer, in Delft, painted his The Procuress, the States-General issued a decree stipulating that philosophical theses—that is to say: Cartesian propositions—were not to harm the authority of Theology. In Oxford, John Locke was made a Bachelor of Arts; in Leipzig, a precocious ten-year old by the name of Leibniz was astounding his teachers at the local Latin School. In France, Cardinal Mazarin was still firmly in place as Prime Minister and Antoine Arnauld was expelled from the theological faculty of the University of Paris. In London, Oliver Cromwell was instrumental in the readmission of the Jews. Only eight years after the Treaty of Westphalia, Western Europe seemed relatively peaceful and the young Dutch Republic was not facing any major military threats. Abroad, both the British Civil Wars and the French resurrections of the Fronde were over and done with, but in Northern 4  Spinoza, The Letters. 5  See, however, Koerbagh, Een licht dat schijnt in duistere plaatsen, 262, note 10. 6  Nadler, Spinoza. A Life, Chapters 7–9; Israel, Radical Enlightenment, Chapters 8–11.

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Europe the Second Northern War started, involving Sweden, Brandenburg, Poland, and the Baltic states. In 1656 the only major battle involving Dutch troops took place on the isle of Ceylon, where the Dutch seized the capital Colombo from the Portuguese. Perhaps the most fundamental shift taking place in the Dutch position among the European nations concerned a general shift of relevance and attention—a shift from East to West and from South to North: to the Dutch, Britain became much more important than the German Empire, while the French started taking precedence over Spain.7 Ten years later, Rembrandt was still active, painting Lucretia, while Vermeer, still in Delft, completed The Art of Painting. In Paris, Huygens, aged 37, was installed as founding President of the Académie des Sciences, while in his native village of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Newton, age 23, was living his annus mirabilis, discovering the universal law of gravitation and inventing the calculus. Recall that the University of Cambridge was temporarily closed on account of the plague, which also hit London and was only halted by the Great Fire. In Oxford Locke, who was mainly preoccupied with medical research, was first introduced to the future Earl of Shaftesbury, and in Leipzig Leibniz published his first book, De Arte Combinatoria. In Istanbul Sabbatai Zevi was arrested by the grand vizier and forced to renounce all claims of being the Messiah.8 Ten years after Spinoza’s herem, Johan de Witt was still serving as grand pensionary of the States of Holland, but his regime was no longer able to avoid war: in 1666 the Second Anglo-Dutch War was still being fought out. The narrow victory, achieved the next year, was to be followed by the secret Treaty of Dover, aligning the British to the much more dangerous French. In the long run, the greatest peril facing the Republic was Louis XIV’s coming of age: having decided not to appoint a successor to Mazarin, who had died in 1661, the King of France was about to embark on the aggressive foreign policies which would herald the end of the Republic’s Golden Age: the French invasion of 1672 was the logical outcome of the War of Devolution, started in 1667. And ‘1672’ was, of course, only the start of a series of extremely expensive wars with France, which would only come to an end in 1713.9 Indeed, the absence of armed hostilities on Dutch soil in 1656 was very relative, for as a host of experts have argued, by 1650 war was still ever present 7  Frijhoff and Spies, 1650. Hard-Won Unity, Chapter 2, esp. 69. See also Israel, The Dutch Republic, Chapter 30. 8  See on the lives of Leibniz, Newton, Locke, and Sabbatai Zevi: Antognazza, Leibniz. An Intellectual Biography, Westfall, Never at Rest. A Biography of Isaac Newton, Woolhouse, Locke. A Biography, and Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi. The Mystical Messiah. 9  See most recently Haks, Vaderland en vrede 1673–1713.

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in the Dutch mindset: the fleet was still fully armed and financing the armed forces would remain the primary objective of Dutch taxation.10 What is more, the Treaty of Westphalia was not applauded by all Dutchmen: in Zeeland and among militant Calvinists it was regarded as a triumph of the liberal elites from the province of Holland.11 Indeed, the religious and political divisions within the Republic would continue to threaten its stability, and the sudden absence of the common Spanish foe only added to the tensions. These centripetal forces could become as dangerous as they were perceived to be as the result of the chaotic history to which the Republic owed its very existence: a loose confederation of highly autonomous provinces, which from the 1520s onwards had been hit by three consecutive waves of Reformatory movements. Following the Lutheran and Anabaptist or Mennonite Reformation of the 1520s and 1540s, from the 1560s onwards Calvinists had tried to hijack the Dutch Reformation and soon started claiming moral and theological authorship of the Revolt itself.12 The Nederduitsch gereformeerde kerk had itself experienced a major schismatic crisis at the Synod of Dordrecht (1619), and from the 1660s onward it was harrowed by the controversies between Voetians and Coccejans. Although it was recognized as the ‘privileged’ church, it would never be recognized as a State Church. The Dutch Republic neither adopted the cujus regio, ejus religiosolution reached by the Holy Roman Empire nor the establishment of anything like a Church of England, let alone anything resembling La France toute catholique. The nature of public authority exercised in the Dutch Republic simply precluded any of the solutions adopted in the neighboring countries. No specific government body was able to enforce religious conformity and on the whole, the ruling elites never really wanted to do so, which resulted in a stunning confessional diversity. By the middle of the century, only the inhabitants of the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe and the isles of Zeeland were predominantly, that is 85 to 95%, Protestant. But in Overijssel, Gelderland, Utrecht and North Holland some 45 to 55% of the population still adhered to Catholicism, as did 30% of the population of South Holland.13 10  Frijhoff and Spies, 1650. Hard-Won Unity, 33–34. See also, for instance, Lademacher and Groenveld (eds.), Krieg und Kultur, and Jensen and Geerdink (eds.), Oorlogsliteratuur in de vroegmoderne tijd. 11  Ibid., 42–50. 12  Israel, The Dutch Republic, Chapter 5; Van Eijnatten and Van Lieburg, Nederlandse religie­ geschiedenis, Chapter 6. 13  Frijhoff and Spies, 1650. Hard-Won Unity, 354. See more in general Knippenberg, De religieuze kaart van Nederland, Chapter 2; Israel, The Dutch Republic, Chapter 27.

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Perhaps the real ‘miracle’ of the Dutch Golden Age was its ability to accommodate members of so many different faiths on a daily basis, all living and working together, mainly in the cities that made up the power base of the not so Unites Provinces. Foreign commentators were stunned. As early as 1640, Peter Mundy, from Penry in Cornwall (who had seen most of Europe and travelled to India, China and Japan), visiting Amsterdam, noted: “This City is not divided into parishes as with us, butt every one goes to what church hee pleases, there being only 8 or 9 publicke churches besides the English, French, Lutherans, Anabaptists, etts., and Jewish Sinagogues.”14 Several decades later, another British traveler, the physician Ellis Veryard from Plymtree in East Devon, commented, again on Amsterdam: “that it is very ordinary to find the man of the house of one opinion, his wife of another, his children of a third and his servant of one different from them all; and yet they live without the least jangling of dissension.”15 Until well into the eighteenth century, however, the Dutch themselves rarely considered this lack of religious uniformity, which by some more recent observers has been hailed as ‘modern’, an asset.16 Pieter de la Court’s assessment, put forward in his Interest van Holland of 1662, that it was good for business to allow complete religious freedom was hardly a popular view.17 As Joris van Eijnatten put it: “The existence of various religious subcultures was regarded at best as an unforeseen and unfortunate result of the Reformation and the Dutch Revolt.”18 Writing about the second half of the seventeenth century, Jonathan Israel also stressed “(I)t would be wrong to suppose that toleration was now widely accepted in Dutch society”.19 More specifically focusing on the 1640s and 1650s, Willem Frijhoff and Marijke Spies have turned the quest for political concordia into the crucial element of mid-seventeenth-century Dutch political vocabulary: No wonder that the need for concordia, for cooperation and ‘friendship’ was hammered in by the government and responsible citizens on every 14  Quoted in Bergsma, “Church, State and People”, 196. 15  Quoted in Pollmann, “The Bond of Christian Piety. The Individual Practice of Tolerance and Intolerance in the Dutch Republic”, 56. 16  See, for instance, Méchoulan, Amsterdam au temps de Spinoza. Argent et liberté. Price also forcefully argued that the lack of centralized power worked much in the favour of the Republic: Holland and the Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth-Century. 17   De la Court, Interest van Holland ofte Gronden van Hollands-Welvaren, 35–38. See Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age, Chapter 5. 18  Van Eijnatten, Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces, 3. 19  Israel, The Dutch Republic, 637.

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possible occasion: in speeches and texts, in poems and songs, in invitations to days of fasting or prayer for the needs of the country, in intellectual life, as a political project, in mottoes, and on government buildings. Rembrandt had made his own contribution to the ‘Concord of the Land’. In an allegorical painting with this title produced around 1640, the struggle to free the chained lion (the state) takes place in a landscape filled with symbols of civic virtue, prosperity, power, and justice. The visual call to harmony is unmistakable: the coats of arms of the most important cities of Holland are grouped around Amsterdam and linked by clasped hands. What Rembrandt portrayed here for the ‘land’ of Holland also applied to the collaboration of the seven ‘lands’, the Republic as a whole. Concordia would lift the nation above all forms of divisiveness and party struggles, making it a country for everyone.20 Now the quest for concordia had, of course, haunted the history of political thought ever since Cicero, according to whom concordia and aequitas were the highest goals of any political order and ever since Eramus’s Querela Pacis (1521) educated Europeans had been conscious of the religious ramifications of Cicero’s comments.21 The early Dutch protagonists of the Radical Enlightenment were particularly concerned to overcome the theological causes of political strife, and jointly appear to have adopted Sallust’s ubiquitous phrase, which to this day adorns the entrance of the States-General: Concordia res parvae crescunt. Let’s start with Spinoza, with the Preface to the Tractatus theologico-politicus. In the context of a ‘genealogy’ of superstition and a first plea in favor of freedom for the individual citizen, Spinoza first made a crucial distinction between the Church as ‘temple’ and as ‘theatre’: as the light of reason was gradually extinguished, “of the old religion nothing is left but the outward form”:22 and when I saw that the disputes of philosophers are raging with violent passion in Church and Court and are breeding bitter hatred and faction

20  Frijhoff and Spies, 1650. Hard-Won Unity, 34. See also Cornelissen, De eendracht van het land and Van Gelderen, “The Low Countries: The Quest for Concord”. 21  Sallustius, Bellum Jugurthinum X. See Syme, Sallust, Chapter 10; Temelini, Cicero’s Concordia, and most recently: Zarecki, Cicero’s Ideal Statesman in Ideal and Practice. On Erasmus and Ciceronian concord: Tracy, Erasmus. The Growth of a Mind, esp. Chapter 3. 22  Spinoza, Tractatus theologico-politicus, 52.

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which readily turn men to sedition, together with ills too numerous to recount here, I deliberately resolved to examine Scripture afresh . . .23 After having demonstrated, in Chapters 18 and 19, how dangerous it is to allow theologians to meddle with affairs of state, Spinoza’s closing Chapter 20 returned to the subject of theological disputes. Having established that anyone who seeks to deprive the sovereign of ‘the right and authority over religion’ is actually “attempting to divide the sovereignty”,24 Spinoza insists on the wisdom of “the city of Amsterdam”, which refuses to enforce any religious point of view. This, Spinoza suggested, is the lesson to be learned from the Synod of Dordrecht, when politicians began to intervene in a religious controversy, resulting in a division of the Church.25 Here, Spinoza does not link theological conflict to political instability explicitly, but he had done so already in Chapter 18, commenting on the commonwealth of the Hebrews: after Moses’ death, religious divisions and the ultimate downfall of the Hebrew nation emerged as a result of the decision to include priests in government affairs. As a consequence, or so Spinoza argued, “religion degenerated into pernicious superstition”, and what is more: once the people’s sovereignty was replaced by a monarchy, ‘there was practically no end to civil wars.’26 In the Dutch Republic, Spinoza concluded, sovereignty “was always vested in the Estates”, who as a consequence have the sole right to command in matters of religion.27 Among Spinoza’s Amsterdam friends the connection between theological polemics and political disintegration appears to have been a foregone conclusion. Adriaan Koerbagh, in his Preface to A Light Shining in Dark Places, paraphrased Sallust’s motto, to the effect that ‘eendragt maakt magt’: For harmony makes power. And by harmony a country must be supported. From this it is sufficiently clear that the inhabitants of a country or city, however varied their beliefs, all need each other and therefore must be united and honest toward each other in all things reasonable.28

23  Ibid., 53. 24  Ibid., 286. 25  Ibid., 298. 26  Ibid., 273. 27  Ibid., 279. 28  Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, 54. See also 277, where the phrase is quoted literally.

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This observation is further elaborated in the sixth chapter, in which Koerbagh denounced the desperately fragmented nature of Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church cannot possibly claim to be the universal Church, for over the centuries it has been wrecked by schisms: Therefore, there is no longer a universal community or Church, but there are some divided congregations, and each thinks it is the oldest and closest to Scripture, and the most in agreement with the teachings of the Saviour. Each claims the predicate ‘universal’, but none of them can have that predicate exclusively since they all claim to be Saved or Christians, and therefore no community in particular can be universal, although all the Saved together could make up the universal community if only there was great and strong enough love and the one did not wish to dominate the others too much [. . .]29 In the obvious absence of this love unity cannot be achieved: “and where there is no unity, there cannot be a stable state, and where there is no stable state people live in constant fear of each other, and where people live in constant fear of each other they are constantly in a state of unhappiness.”30 Koerbagh’s solution is based on the notion of a reasonable religion, for according to him, “it is true and clear that there is one true, reasonable God, and that as a consequence, there is also one true, reasonable religion, which does not require force to be protected.”31 In the final pages, Koerbagh’s trust in divine reason is summarized eloquently as he repeated his claim that Reason, “being the divine and the infinite, eternal, immutable, true and universal word of God, cannot be excluded from matters pertaining to God but must be followed and adhered to in all things.”32 Lines such as these are obviously reminiscent of Lodewijk Meyer’s ‘paradoxical’ Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, in which, again, “a Christendom that is divided and at odds” serves as point of departure.33 “Dogmatic theologians”, Meyer argued, “are very much divided”, and inevitably, “the Christian world is torn and rent into pieces as if into separate Churches, and its inhabitants are not merely at variance in mind and morals but in some cases have become

29  Ibid., 245. 30  Ibid., 275. 31  Ibid., 275, note k. 32  Ibid., 495. 33  Meyer, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture (1666), 22.

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mort­al enemies.”34 Enters Cartesianism as the obvious solution to the sorry plight of Theology due to its proven ability to remove doubt and build secure foundations, in this particular case for the interpretation of Scripture.35 For Meyer, or so he tells us, longed “to reunite the scattered limbs of Christianity”.36 Much like Koerbagh, Meyer refused to acknowledge any genuine opposition between Theology and Philosophy, “for truth is always one and the same”, and “what is true or false in theology is also true and false in true philosophy.”37 Having set forth the details of his hermeneutics, Meyer, in the Epilogue to the Interpres once more reminded his readers of the many advantages held by his proposal, the first of which will be: “peace restored and established forever throughout the Christian world.”38 Meyer’s final, well-known, carefully anony­ mized reference to the work being done by the young Spinoza, by which “the boundaries of philosophy will be extended far and wide”, is phrased as the ultimate perfection of a common project “whereby the Church of Christ, hitherto divided, and torn by continual dissensions, will come together in sweet friendship.”39 Echoes of Meyer’s proposal are to be found in Van den Enden’s Kort Verhael van Nieuw Nederlandt,40 and the latter’s remarks on the rational nature of Christianity closely resemble Koerbagh’s: in the final chapter of his Vrye Politijke Stellingen Van den Enden also emphasized the unifying potential of reason, as opposed to the inherently divisive nature of superstition: I consider it to be a matter of the greatest urgency for the Dutch people not only to reduce but to utterly destroy the sects and divisions in Holland, and I feel the only way to accomplish this is by (teaching) infallible, divine reason. This will be the surest way to bring the people to realize the interest of State.41 34  Ibid., 24. 35  Ibid., 25–26. 36  Ibid., 33. 37  Ibid., 136–37. Like Koerbagh in A Light Shining in Dark Places, 499, Meyer, Philosophy as Interpreter of Holy Scripture, 122 ff. specifically singles out Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians in order to demonstrate that the apostle was no fideist. 38  Ibid., 230. 39  Ibid., 240–41. 40  Van den Enden, Kort Verhael van Nieuw-Nederlants Gelegenheit, Deughden, Natuerlijcke Voorrechten, en byzondere bequaemheidt ter bevolkingh, 27–29. 41  Van den Enden, Vrye Politijke Stellingen en Consideratien van Staat (Amsterdam, 1665), 43: “Secteryen, en Verdeeltheeden aengaende hoe deze in Hollant niet alleen te verminderen; maer ook gheheel, en al te vernietighen zijn; om alzo Hollants volk in tijdt, en wijle op ’t

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Clearly, the members of Spinoza’s Amsterdam circle shared their concerns over the delapidated state of Christendom with the local Collegiants, and we know that the brothers Koerbagh and of course Balling, Jelles and De Vries were regular visitors of Amsterdam ‘colleges’, where Abrahamsz. Galenus de Haan had first introduced his concerns over the “visible Church” of Christ.42 Pieter Balling’s A Light upon the Candlestick served as a first announcement of the rationalist solution to the “Church Unholy” that Spinoza’s friends were brooding on.43 Spinoza was no Christian, not even a Collegiant, and his admirers were not ‘merely’ Spinozists. Balling, Van den Enden, Meyer, Koerbagh and Spinoza were all individual thinkers who each in their own way tried to come to terms with the world as they saw it and with authors such as Descartes and Hobbes whom they appear to have read jointly. Occasionally they contradicted each other explicitly: witness the way in which Van den Enden and Koerbagh put down Machiavelli as a pretty nasty cynic with Spinoza’s praise for the “acutissimus florentinus”.44 Spinoza and his friends were no petty ‘nationalists’ either, mainly out to secure a stable future for their own native country—although both Meyer’s and Koerbagh’s efforts in the promotion of the Dutch language surely imply some form of patriotism. In the context of the Dutch Republic, however, a shared concern over theological discordia, including its possibly disastrous political consequences, and a joint trust in the potentially healing effects of reason appears to have constituted a crucial element in the shared self-assessment of the early Radical Enlightenment. A closer look at the way in which this affected Spinoza’s philosophy leads us into the heart of the Ethics, for the theme of concordia plays a vital role, in particular in Ethics IV, where it is presented as the outcome of reason: IV, prop. 34: “Insofar as men are torn by affects which are passions, they can be contrary to one another”, and 35: “Only insofar as men live according to the guidance

veilighst, en zeekerst tot een ghevoelen en interest van Staat te brenghen, zulx verstaen ik ook een poinct van hooghster aengelegentheit voor Hollants volk te zijn, en dat dit door geen ander middel, als door de onfeilbare Goddelijke reeden, en onderwijzingh des zelfs, zal konnen geschieden.” On the rational nature of Christianity, see 28–29. 42  See Fix, Prophecy and Reason, Chapter 4. 43  Balling, Het Licht op den Kandelaar. An anonymous English translation was produced by Benjamin Furly: The Light Upon the Candlestick (London, 1663). 44  Van den Enden, Vrye Politijke Stellingen, 6, 11, 13, 17, 23–26, 40; Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, 275, note k; Spinoza, Tractatus politicus, Chapter 10. See Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise, 378.

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of reason, must they always agree in nature.”45 The term occurs several times in the Ethics, most prominently in the Appendix to Ethics IV, Chapter 15, and Edwin Curley renders it as ‘harmony’: The things which beget harmony (Quae concordiam gignunt) are those which are related to justice, fairness, and being honorable. For men find it difficult to bear, not only what is unjust and unfair, but also what is thought dishonorable, or that someone rejects the accepted practices of the state. But especially necessary to bring people together in love, are the things which concern religion and morality. To be sure, the perspective of the Ethics is not defined by the political community but by the individual, but as Alexandre Matheron’s brilliant Individu et communauté demonstrated, now nearly half a century ago, the two are intimately connected as Spinoza regarded politics as the natural outcome of man’s affective constitution.46 According to Ethics IV the behavior of an individual human being can be more or less harmonious, which can be the result of true or false motives. Chapter 21 warns us, as “Flattery also gives rise to harmony, but by the foul crime of bondage or by treachery”, just as—Chapter 23—shame can do, although shame “contributes to harmony only in those things which cannot be hidden”. But neither flattery nor shame, Spinoza continued, belong to “the exercise of reason”. The way in which reason promotes harmony among men becomes evident most of all in Spinoza’s recurring comments on the natural friendship between free men living by the guidance of reason, for men, Spinoza argued, are the only beings with whom friendship is possible (E IV, app. 26). Again: reason unifies, while the passions divide, and the members of the Amsterdam circle of Spinoza’s friends were jointly looking for remedies able to promote “eendragt”.47 Despite their shared confidence in the ability of reason to establish unity, an additional element to their commitment to concord may well have been provided by their dissatisfaction over the fragmented nature of the history of philosophy. Lodewijk Meyer in particular lamented this state of affairs.48 The 45  I have used the translation supplied in A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works, trans. Curley. 46  Matheron, Individu et communauté chez Spinoza. See also Balibar, Spinoza et la politique, and Bove, La Stratégie du Conatus: Affirmation et résistance chez Spinoza. 47  See my “Spinoza’s Friendships” (forthcoming). 48  Meyer, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, 23–25.

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eclecticism rampant at most universities of the time may well have further stimulated the desire to put an end to the endless divisions between countless philosophical ‘sects’. In view of the special status mathematics was acquiring in the natural sciences, it should come as no surprise that a philosophy set out ordine geometrico had a particular appeal to Spinoza’s first admirers: perhaps, or so Meyer appears to have thought, both the conceptual transparence offered by mathematics and its indubitable conclusions could put an end to the endless disputes raging among adherents of the philosophia vetus. The immense prestige mathematics held among seventeenth-century philosophers is well documented and in view of its triumphant ascent in the natural sciences, proponents of the Dutch radical Enlightenment may well have wondered what it could achieve in the mucky waters of theology and politics?49 Recently, the Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh has launched a major effort to discredit the idea that the Enlightenment was essentially a response to the religious violence wrecking Europe ever since the Reformation, and the best-selling author Karen Armstrong has gratefully integrated his findin­gs in her Fields of Blood.50 According to Cavanaugh’s The Myth of Religious Violence, published in 2009, “there is no transhistorical and transcultural essence of religion”, and “(w)hat counts as religious or secular is a function of different configurations of power.”51 Cavanaugh feels that the entire notion of religion as a cause of violence is a foundational part of a myth aimed at justifying the liberal, secular nation state. In his post-modern outlook, however, ‘religion’, ‘politics’, and ‘the West’ are all ‘narratives’ or ‘constructs’. Once he targets the common ‘narrative’ of the early modern European wars of religion, the shortcomings of this particular way of analyzing the violence, say from the German Peasants’ War (1524–1525) to the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), only become too apparent, for the only way in which he is able to account for the fact that contemporary observers such as Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, and a host of eighteenthcentury authors jointly identified religious and theological quarrels as a cause of political strife is by arguing that this myth had early modern origins.52 To put it differently: Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, and the ‘philosophes’ were wrong, just as J.G.A. Pocock, Quentin Skinner, Judith Shklar, John Rawls, and most other historians of political thought, including I suppose Jonathan Israel, were wrong.

49  Van Bunge, Spinoza Past and Present, Chapter 3. 50  Armstrong, Fields of Blood. Religion and the History of Violence, esp. Chapter 9. 51  Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict, 3–4. 52  Ibid., 129.

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Drawing on the more recent emphasis on the importance of early modern European confessionalism by such historians as Ronnie Po-chia Hsia and Heinz Schilling, Cavanaugh next attempts to ‘deconstruct’ the religious nature of inter-confessional violence, by turning the Reformation and its seventeenthcentury aftermath into a “religious movement [. . .] inextricable from broader social and political movements”, and more in particular “from the larger trend toward the concentration of state power”.53 Being a historian of philosophy I am in no position to add much to the ongoing debate among historians of religion on the nature and consequences of early modern confessionalisation, but being a contextualist of sorts, I am at a loss once Cavanaugh continues by arguing that Hobbes and Locke misunderstood the English Civil War: most historians today see it not as the final gasp of religious fanaticism to which the state provided the answer, but as one example of a general European phenomenon of resistance to the ambitions of state-building elites by those who had the most to lose.54 Cavanaugh’s real target appears to be recent US foreign policies vis-à-vis the Muslim world, including such commentators as Bernard Lewis, Christopher Hitchens and Paul Berman. He hardly deals with any primary early modern sources, which allows him to carefully select from the huge secondary literature whatever fits his essentially political project. Clearly, Cavanaugh is not really interested in early modern texts, and of course, even the greatest early modern philosophers made serious mistakes. Hobbes’s attempts to square the circle spring to mind and his furious polemic with John Wallis, but pace Hobbes, mathematics and politics are difficult to compare, and intellectual historians should be very careful telling past authors that they were wrong.55 Yet Cavanaugh’s intervention may help to remind us what we are actually doing when we try to reconstruct a context from which the Radical Enlightenment emerged. While it is a truism to state that intellectual historians are interested in the meaning of texts rather than in their truth, it is equally uncontroversial to relate meaning to context, and one of the crucial demands of any contextual reading of past authors surely involves the exigency to deliver an interpretation of their texts capturing the way in which they situated themselves. As Quentin Skinner put it: ‘no agent can eventually 53  Ibid., 169. 54  Ibid., 172. 55  Jesseph, Squaring the Circle: The War Between Hobbes and Wallis. See also Malcolm, Aspects of Hobbes, Chapter 10.

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be said to have meant or done something which he could never have been brought to accept as a correct description of what he had meant or done.’56 I share Mogens Laerke’s reservations concerning Skinner’s views on the rela­ tionship between the meaning of texts and the intentions of their authors but I don’t think we need to assume that reconstructing a context will lead us to the discovery of what actually went on in the minds of the authors in question.57 As far as I’m concerned, we have gained a lot already when we are in a position to assess the appeal Spinoza’s ideas may have held to his friends, if only since the large majority of Spinoza’s early readers were appalled by his views. As I have argued in the past and have tried to demonstrate once more, pace Cavanaugh, one of the common and recurring characteristics of the texts involved is a shared concern over the political and religious stability of the body politic.58 To Spinoza and his friends the dangers of religious violence were all too real, and what is more: they did not at all fear the expansion of state power. Instead, they fought the power of the Church. Needless to say, the pro­ ject of the Radical Enlightenment far transcended the borders of the Republic, and its aims were truly universal—just read the Ethics. Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus was also much more than a party-political pamphlet, as it addressed the nature of Theology and Politics as such. To modern academics its patriotic overtones may well have become alien, but as Skinner put it, alien views are precisely what we encounter in studying the history of philosophy. So we should not be taken aback when we find Spinoza arguing in the Tractatus: “There can be no doubt that devotion to one’s country is the highest form of devotion that can be shown.”59 The Dutch quest for concordia continued to be highly relevant during the eighteenth century, but soon after the turn of the century both the religious and the political tensions between the different factions within the Dutch Republic appear to have diminished considerably. The second stadholder­ less era (1702–1746) did not produce the kind of political radicalism the first stadholderless era had witnessed and the theological disputes which had been 56  Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas”, 28. 57  Laerke, “The Anthropological Analogy and the Constitution of Historical Perspectivism”, 7–29. 58  They shared this concern not only with a painter such as Rembrandt, but also with no less a poet than Joost van den Vondel. See for instance Sierhuis, “Controversy and Reconciliation: Grotius, Vondel and the Debate on Religious Peace in the Dutch Republic”, 139–62. Vondel’s one time friend, the Arminian poet Jacob Westerbaen, in 1663 published a bitterly ironic poem Op de Spreuke Concordia res Parvae crescent, commemorating the Synod of Dordt: Den herstelden Apollos harp, 118–20. 59  Spinoza, Tractatus theologico-politicus, 283.

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raging in the Dutch Reformed Church also quieted down, or so it would seem— in particular the debates between Voetians and Coccejans started to give way to a more inclusive notion of a national Reformed Church.60 Once the first generation of Dutch Newtonians started its offensive against the Spinozists’ views on mathematics in particular, the Radical Enlightenment soon lost much of the appeal it once held to its first Dutch supporters.61 By the early 1700s, the Radical Enlightenment turned into an essentially Francophone affair and Jonathan Israel is surely right to insist on the singular importance of Pierre Bayle who by the early 1700s was widely regarded the ‘president’ of the European Republic of Letters. Surely the sorry plight of the Dutch Refuge played a crucial role in this transition, as its members were easily infected by radical tendencies in its new surroundings, and as they came to realize that a return to a more tolerant France grew increasingly hypothetical. But the question as to the continuity between the Dutch and the French Radical Enlightenments, is quite another story.62 Bibliography

Primary Sources

Balling, Pieter, Het Licht op den Kandelaar, Amsterdam, 1662. Balling, Pieter, The Light Upon the Candlestick, translated by Benjamin Furly, London, 1663. Court, Pieter de la, Interest van Holland ofte Gronden van Hollands-Welvaren, Amsterdam, 1662. Enden, Franciscus van den, Kort Verhael van Nieuw-Nederlants Gelegenheit, Deughden, Natuerlijcke Voorrechten, en byzondere bequaemheidt ter bevolkingh, Amsterdam, 1662.

60  Velema, Republicans: Essays on Eighteenth-Century Dutch Political Thought, Chapters 3 and 4. Jo Spaans is preparing a monograph on the emergence of a broad Reformed Church during the early eighteenth-century. See my “The Waning of the Radical Enlightenment”. 61  Vermij, “The Formation of the Newtonian Philosophy. The Case of the Amsterdam Mathematical Amateurs”, 183–200; Jorink, “Honouring Sir Isaac or Exorcising the Ghost of Spinoza”, 23–34; Newton and the Netherlands. How Isaac Newton was Fashioned in the Netherlands, ed. Jorink and Maas. 62  Israel, Radical Enlightenment, Chapters 31 and 32. See on the Dutch Refuge Van der Linden, Experiencing Exile. Huguenot Refugees in the Dutch Republic, 1680–1700. The issue of the continuity between the Dutch and the French Radical Enlightenments is discussed in several of the papers collected in Qu’est-ce que les Lumières “radicales”?, ed. Secrétan, Dagron, and Bove.

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Enden, Franciscus, van den, Vrye Politijke Stellingen en Consideratien van Staat, Amsterdam, 1665. Koerbagh, Adriaan, A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion, edited and translated by Michiel Wielema. With an Introduction by Wiep van Bunge, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2012. Koerbagh, Adriaan, Een licht dat schijnt in duistere plaatsen. Een verheldering van de voornaamste theorieën van theologie en godsdienst, edited by Michiel Wielema, Nijmegen, Vantilt, 2014. Meyer, Lodewijk, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture (1666), translated by Samuel Shirley. With Introduction and Notes by Lee C. Rice and Francis Pastijn, Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 2005. Spinoza, Benedict de, A Spinoza Reader. The Ethics and Other Works, ed. Curley, Edwin Princeton N.J., Princeton University Press, 1994. Spinoza, Benedict de, A Theologico-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise, translated from the Latin with an Introduction by R.H.M. Elwes, New York, Dover, 1951 (1883). Spinoza, Benedict de, Tractatus theologico-politicus, translated by Samuel Shirley. With an Introduction by Brad S. Gregory, Leiden, Brill, 1989. Spinoza, Benedict de, The Letters, translated by Samuel Shirley. Introduction and Notes by Steven Barbone, Lee Rice and Jacob Adler, Indianapolis, Hackett, 1995. Velthuysen, Lambert van, A Letter on the Principles of Justness and Decency, Containing a Defence of the Treatise De Cive of the Learned Mr. Hobbes, edited and translated by Malcolm de Mowbray. With an Introduction by Catherine Secrétan, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2013.



Secondary Literature

Antognazza, Maria Rosa, Leibniz. An Intellectual Biography, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011. Balibar, Étienne, Spinoza et la politique, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1985. Bergsma, Wiebe, “Church, State and People”, in Davids, Karel and Lucassen, Jan (eds.), A Miracle Mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European Perspective, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, 196–228. Bove, Laurent, La Stratégie du Conatus. Affirmation et résistance chez Spinoza, Paris, Vrin, 1996. Bunge, Wiep van, From Stevin to Spinoza. An Essay on Philosophy in the SeventeenthCentury Dutch Republic, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2001. Bunge, Wiep van, Spinoza Past and Present. Essays on Spinoza, Spinozism and Spinoza Scholarship, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2012. Bunge, Wiep van, “Spinoza’s Friendships” (forthcoming).

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Bunge, Wiep van, “The Waning of the Radical Enlightenment”, in Ducheyne, Steffen (ed.), Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment, London, Routledge, forthcoming. Cavanaugh, William T., The Myth of Religious Violence. Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009. Clarke, Desmond, “Henricus Regius”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), URL = . Cornelissen, J.D.M., De eendracht van het land. Cultuurhistorische studies over Nederland in de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw, Amsterdam, De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1987 (1938). Eijnatten, Joris van, Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces. Religious Toleration and the Public in the Eighteenth-Century Netherlands, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2003. Eijnatten, Joris van, and (van) Lieburg, Fred, Nederlandse religiegeschiedenis, Hilversum, Verloren, 2005. Fix, Andrew C., Prophecy and Reason. The Collegiants in the Early Enlightenment, Princeton N.J., Princeton University Press, 1991. Frijhoff, Willem and Spies, Marijke, 1650. Hard-Won Unity. Dutch Culture in a European Perspective, Assen, Van Gorcum, 2004. Gelderen, Martin van, “The Low Countries: The Quest for Concord”, in Burgess, Glenn, Lloyd, Howell and Hodson, Simon (eds.), European Political Thought, 1450–1700. Religion, Law and Philosophy, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007, 376–415. Haks, Donald, Vaderland en vrede 1673–1713. Publiciteit over de Nederlandse Republiek in oorlog, Hilversum, Verloren, 2013. Israel, Jonathan I., Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001. Israel, Jonathan I., The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995. Jensen, Lotte and Geerdink, Nina (eds.), Oorlogsliteratuur in de vroegmoderne tijd. Vorm, identiteit en herinnering, Hilversum, Verloren, 2013. Jesseph, Douglas M., Squaring the Circle. The War Between Hobbes and Wallis, Chicago, University Press of Chicago, 1999. Jorink, Eric and Maas, Ad (eds.), Newton and the Netherlands. How Isaac Newton was Fashioned in the Netherlands, Amsterdam, Leiden University Press, 2012. Jorink, Eric, “Honouring Sir Isaac or Exorcising the Ghost of Spinoza. Some Remarks on the Success of Newton in the Dutch Republic”, in Ducheyne, Steffen (ed.), Future Perspectives on Newton Scholarship and the Newtonian Legacy in EighteenthCentury Science and Philosophy, Brussels, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, 2009, 23–34. Knippenberg, Hans, De religieuze kaart van Nederland. Omvang en geografische spreiding van de godsdienstige gezindten vanaf de Reformatie tot heden, Assen, Van Gorcum, 1992.

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Lademacher, Horst and Groenveld, Simon (eds.), Krieg und Kultur. Die Rezeption von Krieg und Frieden in der niederländischen Republik und im Deutschen Reich 1568– 1648, Münster, Waxmann, 1998. Laerke, Mogens, “The Anthropological Analogy and the Constitution of Historical Perspectivism”, in Laerke, Mogens, Smith, Justin H. and Schliesser, Eric (eds.), Philosophy and Its History. Aims and Methods in the Study of Early Modern Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, 7–29. Linden, David van der, Experiencing Exile. Huguenot Refugees in the Dutch Republic, 1680–1700, Farnham, Ashgate, 2015. Malcolm, Noel, Aspects of Hobbes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002. Matheron, Alexandre, Individu et communauté chez Spinoza, Paris, Les Éditions de Minuit, 1988 (1969). Méchoulan, Henry, Amsterdam au temps de Spinoza. Argent et liberté, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1990. Nadler, Steven, Spinoza. A Life. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pollmann, Judith, “The Bond of Christian Piety. The Individual Practice of Tolerance and Intolerance in the Dutch Republic”, in Hsia, Ronnie Po-chia and Nierop, Henk van (eds.), Calvinism and Religious Toleration, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, 53–71. Price, John L., Holland and the Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth-Century. The Politics of Particularism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994. Scholem, Gershom, Sabbatai Sevi. The Mystical Messiah, 1626–1676, Princeton N.J., Princeton University Press, 1973. Secrétan, Catherine, Dagron, Tristan and Bove, Laurent (eds.), Qu’est-ce que les Lumières “radicales”? Libertinage, athéisme et spinozisme dans le tournant philosophique de l’âge classique, Paris, Éditions Amsterdam, 2007. Sierhuis, Freya, “Controversy and Reconciliation. Grotius, Vondel and the Debate on Religious Peace in the Dutch Republic”, in Karreman, Isabel and Groote, Inga Mai, Forgetting Faith? Negotiating Confessional Conflict in Early Modern Europe, BerlinBoston, De Gruyter, 2012, 139–162. Skinner, Quentin, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas”, History and Theory, 8, 1969, 3–53. Syme, Ronald, Sallust, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1964. Temelini, Mark, Cicero’s Concordia: The Promotion of a Political Concept in the Late Roman Republic, PhD thesis McGill, 2001. Tracy, James D., Erasmus. The Growth of a Mind, Geneva, Droz, 1972. Velema, Wyger R.E., Republicans. Essays on Eighteenth-Century Dutch Political Thought, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2007. Verbeek, Theo, Descartes and the Dutch. Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy, 1637– 1650, Carbondale-Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press, 1992.

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Vermij, Rienk, “The Formation of the Newtonian Philosophy. The Case of the Amsterdam Mathematical Amateurs”, The British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 2003, 183–200. Westerbaen, Jakob, Den herstelden Apollos Harp, n. pl., n. pr. 1663. Westfall, Richard S., Never at Rest. A Biography of Isaac Newton, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980. Weststeijn, Arthur, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age. The Political Thought of Johan and Pieter de la Court, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2012. Woolhouse, Roger, Locke: A Biography, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007. Zarecki, Jonathan, Cicero’s Ideal Statesman in Ideal and Practice, London-New York, Bloomsbury, 2014.

Dutch Golden Age Politics and the Rise of the Radical Enlightenment An Overview

Jonathan Israel If it is accepted that the group that we refer to as ‘Spinoza’s circle’ did indeed play an intellectually crucial pioneering role, during the 1650s and 1660s, in a way that no other milieu in the Netherlands, or Europe, did in laying Radical Enlightenment’s foundations, it becomes necessary to study this phenomenon historically as well as philosophically as the outcome, in considerable part, of a specific and highly distinctive local context. Wiep Van Bunge’s remarks in his March 2010 inaugural lecture at the Brussels Vrije Universiteit designating the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic ‘de kraamkamer van Spinoza’s filosofie en de radicale Verlichting’ [the delivery-room of Spinoza’s philosophy and the Radical Enlightenment] are undoubtedly justified.1 The circle that gathered around Van den Enden, the Koerbaghs, Lodewijk Meyer and Spinoza for the first time forged the basic philosophical format and typology that was from then on to characterize the entire Radical Enlightenment tendency in Western trans-Atlantic society and politics down to the 1848 revolutions.2 Certainly, there were appreciable differences in ideas between these various individuals which should not be underestimated; but there is little doubt today that the group were all enthusiastic disciples of a radical version of the ‘new philosophy’ aiming not just to thoroughly revolu­ tionize philosophy and our view of the world, in the manner of the Cartesians, but our conception of society, morality, education and politics.3 Especially formative was the philosophical step that arguably proved the most characte­ ristic and fundamental feature of the Radical Enlightenment stream down to the mid-nineteenth century: these writers tied their systematic assault on all 1  Van Bunge, De Nederlandse Republiek, Spinoza en de Radicale Verlichting, 31. 2  Den Boer finds it an objectionable “anachronism” to employ the term “radical” in the social, political and moral sense that Bentham and Ledru-Rollin employed it during the first half of the nineteenth century. Disagreeing, I argue that the radicalism of Bentham and LedruRollin was the last phase of precisely the same radical tradition commencing in Holland in the 1650s. Anachronism may by the ‘sin of sins’ of historians, but it is an equally gross error not to recognize genuine continuities and derivations, see Den Boer, “Le Dictionnaire libertin d’Adriaen Koerbagh”, 105. 3  Krop, Spinoza. Een paradoxale icoon van Nederland, 73–76. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004332089_004

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religious authority, and priesthoods with the first comprehensive theories of modern democratic republicanism, doing so purposely and systematically— thereby initiating a revived and broadened “True Freedom” to use Johan de Witt’s telling phrase, a modern philosophy that went beyond Cartesianism, Hobbesianism or Lockean empiricism in being socially reformist as well as more comprehensively politically engaged. Linking the broadest possible attack on religious authority to democratic republican political theory remained the Radical Enlightenment’s most essential defining feature. It was a linkage stressed very often and heavily by Condorcet, Cérutti, Desmoulins, Brissot and all the theorists and publicists of the democratic republican wing of the French Revolution, and by the Paineite tradition—represented by Paine, Young, Barlow, Freneau, Palmer, and Jefferson himself infusing the radical (democratic) wing of the American Revolution. While the centrality of this linkage has indeed been denied by several notable critics of the Radical Enlightenment thesis such as Siep Stuurman and Helena Rosenblatt who see no particular connection between the push for equality and denial of religious authority, such denial hardly seems a tenable or logical position. Rather, it has become more or less obvious in recent years that only through denying divine governance of human affairs, and ruling out Revelation and miracles, could the moral and legal order, and hence the social system, be conceived as being not God-given or legitimately sanctioned and ordained by ecclesiastical authority. Equally, only by ruling out a conscious divine providence could one block philosophies embracing Locke’s ‘supra rationem’. Far from being a connection hard to fathom as numerous critics maintain, there is actually no other way to construct a full equality of interest and opinions in society. Only by rejecting revelation and theological doctrines in toto leaving reason and social utility as the sole criteria of legitimacy can a divinely sanctioned world order buttressing value systems according priority of interest and opinions to the royal, aristocratic, ecclesiastical and select, based on priestly intervention, be repudiated. Awareness of just how momentous and great a break this represented infused the Radical Enlightenment itself from its first stirrings in the 1650s down to its final defeat during and after the 1848 revolutions. Eliminating the ‘supra rationem’ and every conceivable ground for reconciliation between theology and philosophy and doing so uncompromisingly, a step later taken by John Toland in the wake of Spinoza, specifically to counter Locke,4 was the sole and exclusive strategy capable of establishing full equality of interests, participation, expression, and representation in society and politics. 4  Leask, “The Undivulged Event in Toland’s Christianity not Mysterious”, 63–80.

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The Radical Enlightenment’s linkage of democratic republicanism with eliminating religious authority then is simultaneously an undeniable historical fact in that the democratic republicans of the American and French Revolutions with Condorcet and Paine at their head, like their seventeenthand eighteenth-century predecessors, were mostly atheists or else radical deists, and, simultaneously, a perfectly logical philosophical procedure. Total rejection of theology and priesthood was the defining absolute sine qua non for a comprehensively and purely naturalistic politics and social theory. What has aptly been called the ‘radicalization of the freedom to philosophize’ by Spinoza, was doubtless in one sense an outcome of the Cartesian philosophy; but it was ultimately a consequence of an uncompromising separation of philosophy and theology enabling Spinoza and his circle to integrate the social and political dimensions of their thought to their naturalistic metaphysics in a revolutionary new manner. In Spinoza, as Vicente Serrano recently expressed it, “knowledge is not a mere operation isolated from the rest of the life of individuals, but it is rather the life of individuals and their very will”.5 Radical Enlightenment is about revolutionizing all politics, society, morality and education by decisively and irrevocably changing the relationship between the individual and authority, learning and ‘ignorance’, and between theologians and social reality. The central philosophical step, arguably, was manifest, indeed crystal clear, from the outset. In the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza, he explains in his preface, has two connected main aims: to emancipate philosophy from being shackled and ‘enslaved’ to theology and to priesthoods, and to help free men from lay despotism and tyrannical potentates, in other words from all political authorities using divine sanction, priestly sanction and revelation to buttress the laws and compel men to bow down before their appointed religious spokesmen and institutions, the social and educational values priesthoods proclaim. In other words, in Spinoza’s philosophy, linking democratic republicanism to rejecting religious authority philosophically is built in from the start. This feature of Spinoza’s thought, that so decisively sets his political thought apart from that of Hobbes, Locke and all other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century political writers also typified the outlook of the cercle spinoziste as a whole. When seeking an historical explanation for this unique group phenomenon we should, therefore, undoubtedly begin with the uniqueness of the political and religious circumstances of the prosperous and successful but politically precarious Dutch Republic during the First Stadholderless period (1650–72). 5  Serrano, “Freedom of Thought as Radical Freedom in Spinoza’s Critique of Religion”, 27.

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Its peculiar circumstances provided the specific setting in which this complex new phenomenon could germinate and take shape. Practically all modern scholars who study the cercle spinoziste tie the phenomenon, the emergence of the Radical Enlightenment framework in its earliest manifestation, to the fact that the United Provinces were republican and not monarchical, were religiously pluriform not uniform, lacking a strong state church, and a society where censorship was comparatively weak. To this we might add that the ruling oligarchy lacked genuinely aristocratic credentials and were mostly an informal rentier oligarchy. Dutch Golden Age culture was a milieu in which Cartesianism scored a precocious and unparalleled general break-through in intellectual life during the 1650s and 1660s.6 It would be fair to say that there is general agreement about all of this. Nevertheless, there is still a need to emphasize it further especially, I would add, so as to explain more fully why, structurally, the Radical Enlightenment began in Holland in the midseventeenth century rather than elsewhere. Attention needs to be drawn especially to the systemic, persistent vulnerability of seventeenth-century Dutch oligarchic republicanism, the prevailing system forged by Oldenbarnevelt, De Witt and by the town regents. Down to the revolutionary era of the late eighteenth century, the Dutch provinces and cities remained politically markedly less stable than the Swiss patrician republics of Berne, Zurich and Geneva or the Italian aristocratic republics of Venice and Genoa. It is especially important to take into view the implications of the four great Dutch political crises of 1618–19 (Maurits versus Oldenbarnevelt), of 1650 (Willem II versus Amsterdam) and 1672 (Willem III versus the ‘True Freedom’ oligarchs)—as well as, in a later context, of the Dutch political crisis of 1747–8—for creating a practical political as well as theoretical context in which ‘mixed government’ headed by a semimonarchical figure—already a particular object of Van den Enden’s scorn in 1665—was locked in deep, recurring and irresolvable conflict with a republi­ canism too oligarchic and narrowly based to survive intact. The republicanism of the regents, De Witt’s “True Freedom”, was never anything other than weak and insecure reed because it was too narrowly based ever to receive wide support: it was and was seen to be—especially by the Brothers De La Court, Van den Enden, Koerbagh and Spinoza—insufficiently democratic. In each of these four great political crises, the regent oligarchy were overwhelmed for long or shorter intervals by the alliance of a powerful and ambitious prince and a public church rallying the lower orders behind them against the oligarchy chiefly by means of an intolerant and authoritarian confessional orthodoxy. 6  Israel, The Dutch Republic, 581–587, 889–931.

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Unlike Stuurman and several other commentators, another prominent critic of the Radical Enlightenment concept, Antoine Lilti, tries to counter the argument for the European importance of the Dutch background to the Radical Enlightenment, at its inception, not by denying the close linkage between democratic republicanism and eliminating religious authority philosophically but by holding that the Dutch milieu itself was so unusual, peculiar and unique as to seriously inhibit any wider European outreach. Lilti does not deny the special characteristics of the seventeenth-century Dutch context in creating a situation favourable to Spinozism as a system, or that eliminating religious authority while advocating democratic republicanism defined its most specific and essential quality. He argues, rather, that the very uniqueness of the Dutch context must necessarily have prevented Spinoza’s ‘circle’ from exerting a formative impact on Europe more generally. In short, he concedes the point in a limited fashion in order to curtail and cut back its international significance. From the war of 1672–8 between France and the United Provinces, and the restoration of the stadholderate, onwards, he argues, Dutch radical thinking was thrown onto the defensive “face au courant modéré”, the long dominant European moderate Enlightenment. Before long, he suggests, rather like Wijnand Mijnhardt, such philosophical radicalism receded from the Dutch national scenario “avant d’être proprement exclus de la mémoire nationale, jusqu’aux années 1980”. For Lilti, it was precisely the unusual specificities of the Dutch context which explain why “les Lumières hollandaises aient eu très peu d’influence”, as he expresses it, “dans le reste de l’Europe à l’exception de Spinoza, mais celui-ci étant justement coupé de ses racines hollandaises et en quelque sorte « universalisé » pour les besoins de la controverse.”7 It is true that only Spinoza from among the circle spinoziste of the 1650s, 1660s and 1670s, was subsequently remembered and discussed in France and England. However, it is misleading to measure European reaction more generally by this alone. For Lilti’s argument is obviously incorrect with respect to the Netherlands and the German-speaking world where there was lively discussion both during the late seventeenth century and through the eighteenth of Spinoza’s ‘errors’ considered not just with regard to his own books but also as part of a wider clandestine and subversive, specifically Dutch intellectual stream into which Toland and Collins were often (correctly) subsumed as English supplements. Leibniz, during his visit to Holland, in late 1676, met not only Spinoza himself and conferred at length with him but also with Pieter de la Court and Lodewijk Meyer, as well as Jarig Jelles and several of Spinoza’s 7  Lilti, “Comment écrit-on l’histoire intellectuelle des Lumières? Spinozisme, radicalisme et philosophie”, 203.

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other friends, including the ‘diabolical Dr Dick’, the theatre-loving, reputed atheist, Johannes Bouwmeester (1630–80), who is thought to have contributed substantially to Koerbagh’s libertine dictionary and been much concerned with the arguments presented in Meyer’s Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres (1666), the first work of hermeneutics systematically to separate in a given text literal meaning, the ‘true meaning’ intended by the text, from truth of fact— truth itself. Meyer was undoubtedly deeply committed to what he saw as a joint project with the others, especially Spinoza, and linked to Spinoza’s philosophy, even if his own Bible criticism and style of philosophizing, designated by some as ‘Cartesio-Spinozism’, differed in certain respects from Spinoza’s. Of course, he was also one of those chiefly responsible for the major effort involved in the clandestine publication of Spinoza’s Opera Posthuma, in difficult circumstances, in 1677.8 Leibniz fully grasped the importance of the Dutch controversy surrounding the Philosophia and preoccupied himself with it not only during and immediately after his visit to Amsterdam and Leiden but even decades later when finalizing his Théodicée published at Amsterdam anonymously, in 1710 (albeit this is a work thought to have originated in a draft sketched as early as 1672–3 several years before he personally encountered “the circle”).9 Leibniz, we should note in passing, was also well aware of the originality and subversive character of Adriaan Koerbagh’s arguments in his libertine dictionary, the Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet (Amsterdam, 1668), recognizing its special feature as being its eschewing common usage and seeking to retrieve the original root meanings of terms and expressions while invariably exploiting this innovative etymological technique to reinterpret the meaning of these roots intentionally and in a popularizing manner—or, as Leibniz put it, “malignement”— so as to propagate the thoroughgoing religious impiety and lack of deference for authority that eventually landed Koerbagh in the prison where he died, the Amsterdam Rasphuis.10 The German debate surrounding Spinoza’s ‘circle’ continued uninterruptedly from the end of the 1660s. In April 1672, a German visitor reported to Leibniz (attributing the information to the medical professor Theodore Craanen) that the widely condemned Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres about which everyone was then talking in Holland was the work of “Jacobus 8  Steenbakkers, Spinoza’s ‘Ethica’ from Manuscript to Print, 126–127. 9  Sleigh, “Leibniz’s First Theodicy”, 488; Laerke, Leibniz lecteur de Spinoza, 279–286, 297– 298, 306–309. 10  Den Boer, “Dictionnaire libertin d’Adriaen Koerbagh”, 116–117; Jongeneelen, “Adriaan Koerbagh, Een voorloper van de Verlichting?”, 27–29, 33.

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Korbach” who had died in the prison where he had been locked up for writing “impious books”—clearly it was Adriaan Koerbagh not the latter’s brother who was meant.11 Later discussion of the several notorious works of ‘the circle’ filled lengthy sections of various major German bibliographical surveys, most notably and comprehensively Siegmund Baumgarten’s Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek (8 vols., 1748–51) where radical thought, Dutch, German and Huguenot (besides also Radicati) receives more coverage than the entirety of English mainstream thought from Hobbes onwards. Meyer’s Philosophia is discussed from every possible angle with everything about the various editions Baumgarten could find being recounted. Among the several ‘Spinozists’ given detailed attention by Baumgarten and described as reaffirming Spinoza’s onesubstance monism was Abraham Johannes Cuffeler (c. 1634–97).12 The circle’s impact extended to, but was not confined to, the Germanspeaking sphere. Bayle, a great European thinker and writer who contributed substantially to the evolution of the Radical Enlightenment especially via his highly subversive arguments for toleration and individual judgment and his separating moral truth from religious authority, and religious authority from the state—was clearly marked and shaped by the specific features and characteristics of the Dutch context. Especially relevant to Bayle, obviously, was Dutch religious plurality and the prominence of Socinianism in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. But we discern too, in many contexts the broad impact of the cercle spinoziste. Bayle, like Leibniz, was in fact deeply engrossed in the controversies precipitated by Meyer’s Philosophia and comments on them extensively in his 1697 Dictionnaire historique et critique.13 While Lodewijk Meyer was rarely cited by name in the late seventeenth century and subsequently, his anonymously published and republished Philosophia long remained well known for its intrinsic importance in Bible criticism and general hermeneutics, albeit this work was often wrongly thought to be yet another text of Spinoza’s owing to the common affinities it was generally supposed to share with the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670) and also because it was reprinted in 1673 and 1674 bound together with the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. How far genuine affinities actually extend, and how far Spinoza is in fact criticizing his friend’s approach to Bible criticism, has been and will doubtless remain a matter of some discussion.14 Outside of the Netherlands, the Philosophia was regularly 11  Laerke, Leibniz lecteur, 281; Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 504–506. 12  Baumgarten, Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek, 141–148; Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 180. 13  Paganini, Skepsis. Le débat des modernes sur le scepticisme, 364–365. 14  Rice, “Introduction” to Meyer, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, 10.

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catalog­ued in European libraries under ‘Spinoza’ and not infrequently cited also in print as being by ‘Spinoza’.15 This common misconception, interestingly, is pointed out by Leibniz in his Théodicée where he says Meyer was a doctor and “a friend” of Spinoza and that this recurring mistake about the author­ ship of his text was commonplace in England, France and Germany but not Holland. It was certainly not a mistake made by either Leibniz or Bayle, both of whom were perfectly aware that the uproar over the book among Reformed theologians actually originated in the work of Lodewijk Meyer, a learned ally, but also forceful interlocutor and editor, of Spinoza.16 By the 1680s the intellectual impact of the ‘cercle spinoziste’ was noticeable in Rotterdam17 and had come to pervade the Dutch Republic more generally. However, the general issue we are concerned with here is less one of influence than of basic social and political structures. When we ask ourselves how far the Dutch context is likely to have been a stimulant to intellectual opposition to royal absolutism and ecclesiastical intolerance, the obvious answer is that it was highly apt to foment a seed-bed for a pan-European movement of clandestine philosophy and subversive political thought not least in France itself. About this Lilti could not have been more profoundly mistaken. This clandestine interconnectedness was indicated early on, in 1674, by Van den Enden’s execution in France due to complicity in political subversion and revolt in Normandy. In the 1670s, the Dutch Republic was indeed politically isolated and confronted politically and militarily by a France that was absolutist, religiously intolerant, and socially heavily hierarchical. Confronting the Dutch Republic, ancien régime France and Britain were indeed very different societies, societies dominated by three great institutions—crown, aristocracy, and politically coopted churches (in Scotland after 1688, the Presbyterian Church). But precisely for these reasons, opposition-minded nobles and heterodox Huguenot refugees (among them Bayle) resisting Louis XIV’s theological absolutism, intolerance, war-mongering and monarchical tyranny and everything buttressing these tendencies were prone to be attracted to the freedoms flaunted in and by the United Provinces. This is equally true of Huguenot political subversion and of a subversive Catholic aristocratic thinker like Henri de Boulainvilliers whose clandestine manuscript, the Essai de métaphysique (c. 1706), Baumgarten 15  Laerke, Leibniz lecteur, 281; Lagrée, “Louis Meyer et la Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres. Projet cartésien, horizon Spinoziste”, 31. 16  Cf. Bayle to Janssen van Almeloveen, Rotterdam, 8 March 1686 in Bayle Correspondance, 317–320; for Lilti’s argument in general and his (mis)reading of Bayle in particular, see Israel, “L’Histoire intellectuelle des Lumières et de la Révolution: une incursion critique”. 17  Wielema, Filosofen aan de Maas, 84–87.

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classifies as a reworking of Spinoza’s Ethics containing the ‘most zealous defense of the grossest errors of Spinoza’ and whose Vie de Mahomed amounts to a full-scale attack on Christianity as a moral and social as well as theological system. For such men, ‘Spinoza’ and Spinozism represented an urban, commercial republican culture which was directly, incisively and passionately directed at rejecting and opposing Louis XIV’s absolutism, his tying the aristocracy to the crown, and his rigidly intolerant religious policy. Opposing royal absolutism together with theology and the ecclesiastical hierarchy became central to the particular political needs and outlook of figures such as Boulainvilliers, Blount, Shaftesbury, Gueudeville, Meslier, Toland, Collins, and Gordon, and to the development of their social and political thought, not due to anyone’s influence but through force of structures.18 Later, the American, Genevan and Dutch democratic movements of the 1770s and 1780s, publicized for all Europe by the great international newspapers of the day, such as the Gazette de Leyde, had well before the onset of the French Revolution familiarized the entire trans-Atlantic world with the new ideological war now rapidly replacing the old conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, namely that between aristocratic and democratic républicanisme, the core conflict within the American Revolution. The great Dutch, Swiss and American internal conflicts of these years abundantly proved the powerful appeal for all Europe of this pre-1789 democratic republicanism with its base in philosophical rejection of aristocracy and religious authority which was now the major subversive intellectual and cultural force of the age. These movements also clearly demonstrate something that is even harder for historiography to accept namely that this major republican democratic subversive intellectual and cultural trend of the late eighteenth century was not principally derived from England or from English thought (though the European democratic republicanism of the 1770s and 1780s did owe a large debt to the democratic Jeffersonian-Paineite dimension of the American Revolution). The radical tendency powerfully operated in the revolutionary context in 1788–9 and was characterized by the now standard conjunction of democratic republicanism with comprehensive rejection of theology and religious authority as we see expressed most typically and tellingly in the writings of Condorcet, Desmoulins, Brissot, Pétion, Robert, Carra, Gorsas, Bancal and other key publicists and journalists of the pre-Montagnard French democratic Revolution as well as in the American radical writings of Paine, Jefferson, Young, Allen, Coram, Freneau, Palmer, Barlow and several late texts of Franklin.19 18  Baumgarten, Nachrichten, vol. 1, 26–33, 132–140. 19  Israel, Revolutionary Ideas, 16–29.

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The widespread notion in some quarters today that the cercle spinoziste was wholly ignored until the 1980s—even in Holland—is no more justifiable than most of the rest of the critique aimed at the thesis that the cercle spinoziste marks the advent of the ‘Radical Enlightenment’. The assumed neglect was merely a relative one compared to the intense interest taken in the topic since the 1980s. Koenraad Oege Meinsma (1865–1929), a village schoolteacher had carried out extensive archival investigation of Spinoza’s circle, publishing detailed and ground-breaking research in his Spinoza en zijn kring as far back as 1896, and was the first to suggest Van den Enden was in some sense the teacher of Spinoza.20 Adriaan Koerbagh was already identified by Madeleine Francès as a key member of the cercle spinoziste in her Spinoza dans les Pays Neerlandais (Paris, 1937). The prolonged delay before a translation of Meinsma’s key work appeared in a language other than Dutch (appearing in French only in 1983, with important additional details added by Henry Méchoulan and PierreFrançois Moreau) helped postpone general appreciation of the significance of his work, but scarcely restricted its impact on Dutch perceptions already much earlier. C. Louise Thijssen-Schoute had also conducted important original research first on Spinoza’s friend and translator, Jan Hendriksz Glazemaker (1620–82), and then others of the circle publishing a considerable amount of additional new material on Meyer, Koerbagh and Cuffeler in her Nederlands Cartesianisme (1954), material again painstakingly gathered from archives.21 The cercle spinoziste emerged no less forcefully as a distinct and indispensable category for historians of European thought in Leszek Kolakowski’s Chrétiens sans Église originally published in Warsaw in 1965 before reappearing in French by Gallimard in 1969.22 In Kolakowski’s eyes, the cercle spinoziste consisted principally of rationalist Socinians such as Balling, Jelles, and Rieuwertsz (Spinoza’s publisher) while also including Meyer and Koerbagh and was connected to the wider Polish and European Antitrinitarian religiously subversive movement. Finally, a Brussels-based research group undertook ground-breaking work on seventeenth-century Dutch clandestine thought in 1973–4, this project culminating in the Woordenboek van Belgische en Nederlandse Vrijdenkers (2 vols., Brussels 1979–82) edited by Hubert Dethier and Hubert Vandenbossche, a survey which summed up a good deal of this extensive early research, including the brochure Adriaan Koerbagh, strijder voor het vrije denken (Amsterdam, 1948) by the Dutch poet and dramatist, 20  Meinsma, Spinoza et son cercle, 184–195. 21  Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands Cartesianisme, 355–360, 362–372, 379–389, 391–405, 407– 414, 422–426, 665–668. 22  Kolakowski, Chrétiens sans Église, 206–225, 749–750.

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P.H. van Moerkerken and an article of 1974 by Vandenbossche drawing attention to Hendrik Wyermars’ ‘Spinozism’. It is true, though, that the full significance of the general picture only began to emerge during the 1980s when a group of mostly if not entirely Dutch and Belgian researchers—most notably Wim Klever, Wiep van Bunge, Michiel Wielema, Henri Krop, Frank Mertens, Fokke Akkerman, Piet Steenbakkers, and Silvia Berti—carried the whole process a step further, adding more detail and drawing more international attention to the importance of the study of Spinoza’s intellectual context and circle. All these scholars became, and have remained, broadly agreed that the Radical Enlightenment phenomenon first arose in the circle around Spinoza in the late 1650s and 1660s, that it was a group effort, a shared undertaking, in which through conversation, letters, editing and translation, several of the lesser figures participated in the production and propagation of Spinoza’s own thought as well as in the separate undertakings of each of the others. Not everyone agreed with the general conclusion. Pim den Boer, a declared cultural historian and historian of mentalités emphatically disagreed with the broad thesis of a Spinozist Radical Enlightenment and wrongly conjectured—and apparently helped mislead Lilti into thinking—that the circulation and propagation of Spinoza’s ideas during the Enlightenment “est restée très limitée”. Den Boer even went so far as to claim Spinoza’s philosophy itself is not “radical”, insisting on the influence of Hobbes rather than Spinoza on Adriaan Koerbagh. But even he nevertheless accepts that the Koerbagh Brothers and Meyer were highly innovative ‘radicals’ of an outstanding caliber and character in the seventeenth-century context.23 According to the rest of these researchers, the ‘cercle spinoziste’ was, as Wim Klever put it, writing in English, intrinsically “Spinozist”, an “Amsterdam network partly originating from Van den Enden—becoming a non-conformist reading and discussion group in the sixties [which was] then also strongly activated by many vital contacts in Rieuwertsz’ unorthodox publishing shop.” It also “counted, certainly from the beginning, the ‘professional’ translator Glazemaker among its participants.”24 Rieuwertsz who, besides Spinoza’s works, also published Meyer’s Philosophia and Cuffeler’s Specimen artis ratiocinandi (1684), was undoubtedly an activist book-seller ready to engage in illicit, clandestine activity who, by strong preference, stocked nothing medieval, no

23  Den Boer, “Dictionnaire libertin d’Adriaen Koerbagh”, 108–109. 24  Klever, “Jan Hendrickz Glasemaker: The Addressee of Letter 84?”, 28; Klever, Mannen rond Spinoza, 10–11; Van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza, 94–108.

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classics, no mainstream theology, and hardly anything in Latin other than cutting-edge philosophy by Spinoza, Meyer, Cuffeler and the like.25 Theirs was a network from which a common pool of ideas emerged; they were not a study circle simply imbibing the ideas of Spinoza, the circle’s leading figure, but rather a creative network active in many spheres of study and the arts. Michiel Wielema has pointed out that Adriaan Koerbagh developed “some Spinozistic notions before they had been published by Spinoza himself” and that at no stage was he simply replicating Spinoza’s ideas; rather, Koerbagh showed considerable originality and when attacking religious authority expressed views “certainly far more outspokenly anti-Christian than anything Spinoza ever dared to write”.26 Similar points need affirming with regard to Van den Enden irrespective of whether or not he did foreshadow Spinoza’s onesubstance philosophical monism. For he was certainly the precursor of the whole group when it came to openly calling for democracy and in propagating the crucial principle that enlightenment and educating the people against ‘superstition’ is the only way to combat political and religious tyranny, two oppressive forces allied and operating together, the central principle Spinoza enunciates in the preface to his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.27 Van den Enden was likewise the first to insist that a social system best organized to encourage everyone to improve their attitude and outlook and conquer ignorance, fanaticism and “superstition” has to be politically organized and can only arise on the basis of democracy allied to republicanism. Democracy, eulogized by Van den Enden as that form of government which is hardest and least likely to be captured by private interest in conflict with the “common good”,28 is here heavily suffused with an uncompromising anti-Orangist politics and an even fiercer hostility to ecclesiastical direction of morality, society and education. Toleration that is full and comprehensive and which respects the views of everyone equally must be fostered and taught while the religious authority that opposes it must be unbendingly fought and overcome; real toleration is not a principle that can simply be declared and safeguarded on the basis of existing institutions but a social benefit that runs directly against the interests of the entire ecclesiastical and monarchical establishment. The thesis that the particular conjunction of philosophical elements making up the original ‘Radical Enlightenment’ of the cercle spinoziste was essentially novel is not incompatible with accepting that some of its key innovations 25  Proietti and Licata (eds.), Il Carteggio Van Ghent-Tschirnhaus, 460–463. 26  Wielema, The March of the Libertines, 15, 85. 27  Van den Enden, Free Political Propositions and Considerations of State, 191, 194. 28  Van den Enden, Free Political Propositions, 156–160.

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had notable precursors. It would certainly seem that strands of pre-1650 libertinage érudit and of late medieval Averroism were subsumed in the culture of clandestinity and radicality cultivated by the ‘circle’, an issue raised recently by Filippo Mignini.29 To a degree one can subscribe to Leo Strauss’s 1920s theory of Radikalaufklärung as an essentially modern phenomenon with timehonoured roots in both medieval Averroism and ancient Epicureanism. Certain strands of continuity are undeniable. Yet, there were also striking and decisive points of divergence. Koerbagh and his associates went far beyond anything in Averroism by way of asserting the supremacy of ‘reason’ over revelation, religious authority and existing law; where Averroists sustain, at least superficially, the absolute validity of the sacred text; for Koerbagh Revelation and Scripture are no acknowledged sacred rule but totally irrational impediments to a better society.30 Where Averroists discreetly if also subversively avoid the question of the miraculous, Koerbagh heavy-handedly rules out miracles forever and absolutely. Where, for Averroists, ‘virtue’ is promoted by religion; for Spinozists ‘virtue’ is promoted always and exclusively by ‘reason’. It also seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that the defining conjunction of elements characterizing the post-1650 Radical Enlightenment, linkage of an unqualified attack on religious authority with democracy, the combining of emancipation of the self with a sweeping political activism, stands apart as inherently and absolutely new and revolutionary in a sense that no ancient or medieval philosophy was. One might even argue that the Radical Enlightenment of the cercle spinoziste arose in some degree in opposition to the Epicurean and Averroist under­ ground traditions, especially the latter’s political passivity and refusal directly to attack preachers, theologians and popular religious allegiance. If Van Bunge and still more Frank Mertens have been quite critical of the idea floated by Marc Bedjai and Wim Klever that Van den Enden was the ‘real’ originator of the Radical Enlightenment,31 nevertheless all the researchers studying the cercle spinoziste since the 1980s—and in my own case since 1992—including those most inclined to minimize Van den Enden’s originality (and in Den Boer’s case Spinoza’s radicality), broadly concur that there was a Dutch Radical Enlightenment originating in the 1650s and 1660s that grew out of shared interests and concerns, and group discussions and activity. What impressed observers like the Danish scientist Ole Borch at the time was the circle’s stri­king presence as a network and group activity in Amsterdam despite 29  See Mignini, “Prefazione” to Licata (ed.), L’Averroismo nell’età moderna, 13. 30  Mignini, “Een Ligt schijnende”, 189, 200. 31  See Mertens, “Franciscus van den Enden: tijd voor een herziening van diens rol in het ontstaan van het Spinozisme?”, 736–737.

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Spinoza’s own move to Rijnsburg. As Van Bunge expresses it: “it would seem that by the late 1650s Van den Enden, Spinoza, Meyer, Bouwmeester, Van Berkel and possibly the Koerbagh brothers had embarked on a common quest”.32 There is no need, I think, to enter here into the continuing disagreement about whether Spinoza was really a disciple of Van den Enden, or whether as the anonymous notebook discovered in the Utrecht University Library expresses it, Koerbagh and Van den Enden “fuerunt praecipui discipuli Spinosae”, were Spinoza’s foremost “disciples”, a perspective which fits better with Mertens’ arguments.33 Whichever of these two interpretations is more correct—and Mertens’ stance that we do not actually know anything for sure about Van den Enden’s ideas before the early 1660s is hard to contradict34—the point remains that Spinoza’s thought was not the product of a lonely process of philosophical isolation and meditation but a group effort evolving from the 1650s until his death in 1677 that was specifically and in its way characteristically Dutch but widely noticed by the foremost European thinkers of following decades both in and outside the Netherlands. Partly in tension with this view, Wiep van Bunge discerns a basic duality within the cercle spinoziste as between Socinian Christians of the kind Kolakowski focused on, on the one hand, and libertine freethinkers, on the others. He has continued to signal a fairly sharp distinction, even disagreement, between what I shall term the ‘Socinian’ and ‘freethinking’ tendencies making up this first stage of the ‘Radical Enlightenment’. Koerbagh’s article on “Democratie” in his Bloemhof is “remarkable”, Van Bunge fully agrees, in that he adopts a Spinozistic monism identifying God and Nature while combining this with another characteristic Radical Enlightenment feature and one unquestionably originating with Van den Enden—his burning ambition to “enlighten the masses” with the subversive new political and moral counter-culture.35 But even though Koerbagh “subscribed to Spinoza’s monism and expressed it print, and the Dutch language, before Spinoza did himself”, Van Bunge nevertheless maintains that Koerbagh rejected Spinoza’s uncompromising “separation of philosophy from theology”.36 This forms part of the wider divergence from 32  Van Bunge, “Introduction”, to Id. and Wielema (eds.), Adriaan Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, 8. 33  Steenbakkers et al., “A Clandestine Notebook (1678–1679) on Spinoza, Beverland, Politics, the Bible and Sex”, 286–287 (note 92); Mertens, “Franciscus van den Enden”, 733–735. 34  Mertens, “Franciscus van den Enden”, 729. 35  Van Bunge, “Introduction” to Id. and Wielema (eds.), Adriaan Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, 27. 36  Van Bunge, “Introduction”, 23, 28.

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the radical Enlightenment thesis that Van Bunge formulated also in his 2010 inaugural lecture in Brussels: “and I think that specifically the ideas of Spinoza’s friends and first Dutch followers fit much better in the Radical Reformation than in an essentially atheistic secularizing offensive”.37 I would dispute this perspective. Secularization is not necessarily driven by atheism as such. Its essence is elimination of miracles, magic, mysteries, supernaturalia, and religious authority, and here skepticism, agnosticism, minimalist deism such as that of Voltaire, and also radical Unitarianism would appear to be all equally powerful contributory motors. Van Bunge contrasts what he sees as the ultimately religious sensibility and motivation of Koerbagh with the unbending philosophical rationalism of Spinoza at the same time conceding ground (which he should not concede) to Den Boer and other critics attacking the thesis that ‘Spinozism’ was the backbone of the Radical Enlightenment by granting that even if Spinozism became the basic format after the 1660s, initially, in the 1650s and 1660s, the inspiration of the Radical Enlightenment was more ‘eclectic’, a force “harbouring a variety of theological and philosophical heterodoxies, including most notably Socinianism and Hobbes’ Leviathan”.38 At one point Van Bunge verges on endorsing Den Boer’s view that Koerbagh was perhaps, after all, not mainly inspired by either Spinoza or the Socinianism of his Amsterdam friends, since the final chapters of Een Ligt schijnende in Duystere Plaatsen (1668) are “clearly inspired” by the last part of the Leviathan, a somewhat questionable argument given that the last part is largely supplementary in character consisting in attacks on ghosts, oracles and magic.39 Especially relevant here is Van Bunge’s refusal to classify Adriaan Koerbagh’s thought as a sweeping, wholesale “rejection of Christianity” as Wielema, for example, does. Besides reminding us that Johannes Koerbagh, Adriaan’s brother, who was “partly responsible for Adriaan’s writings, was a Reformed theologian”, Van Bunge somewhat surprisingly denies that either the Bloemhof or Een Ligt constitute an “attack on religion as such”.40 Koerbagh’s “main aim was to purify religion as he knew it” basing his revisions on Scripture and

37  Van Bunge, Nederlandse Republiek, Spinoza, 73–74: “en ik denk dat met name de ideeën van de vrienden van Spinoza en van zijn eerste Nederlandse volgelingen veeleer passen in de radicale Reformatie dan in een wezenlijk atheïstisch offensief van secularisering”. 38  Van Bunge, “Introduction”, 29. 39  Van Bunge, “Introduction”, 26. 40  Van Bunge, Spinoza Past and Present, 197; Van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza, 104; Den Boer, “Dictionnaire libertin d’Adriaen Koerbagh”, 124.

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quoting hundreds of Scriptural passages in support of his views.41 Yet, Koerbagh expressly denies Scripture is the word of God, contending that the “real word of God, which is unchangeable, eternal and true, is reason, for just as God the Lord is unchangeable, eternal and true, so is reason unchangeable, eternal and true”.42 Insofar as his Christ “saved” mankind from ignorance and instilled “knowledge, wisdom and reason”,43 it seems his Christ differed hardly at all from Spinoza’s Christ—being a “Christ” that is in no way part of any divine scheme. One might perhaps agree that Koerbagh’s insisting that blessedness and salvation, reaching heaven—which he thinks is attained only through knowledge, education and enlightenment—is at bottom a kind of religious impulse; but, if so, it is one without any mystery or theology, a faith without recourse to any supernaturalia, a stance the conventions of the early modern age would in no way recognize as ‘religion’. Koerbagh’s religiosity, if one wishes to call it that, is not of a sort that could seriously disturb the essential unity or continuity of the Radical Enlightenment as a corpus and later as a tradition of thought. It was inherent neither in Spinoza, nor the Radical Enlightenment broadly defined, to reject ‘religion’ when construed as a moral and social stance provided it rigorously excluded religious authority, ecclesiastical hierarchy, theology, spirits separate from bodies, and all supernaturalia of whatever kind from philosophical debate. The typical ‘Spinozist’ position, rather, and also Koerbagh’s,44 was to redefine “religion” as something standing in outright opposition to Revelation and religious authority, as a democratic, egalitarian social and moral attitude coupled with an outright attack on “priestcraft”, a tendency particularly marked in Koerbagh.45 “Social misery” contended Van den Enden, “necessarily betrays a lack of religion or (what is the same) lack of love of our neighbours”.46 As the French revolutionary Camille Desmoulins pointed out in 1789 what distinguishes the philosophique tradition of thought combining democratic republicanism with a powerful anti-ecclesiasticism, such as his, was not ‘atheism’ as such but rather denial of religious authority, refusing any special ‘rights’ and privileges to clergy, rejecting all theology, and, above all, denying that a 41  Van Bunge, Spinoza Past and Present, 197–198; Van Bunge, “Radikalaufklärung neu defi­ niert: eine holländische Perspektive”, 132–133. 42  Wielema (ed.), Koerbagh, A Light Shining, 302–307. 43  Van Bunge, Spinoza Past and Present, 198. 44  Mignini, “ ‘Een Ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen’: Adriaan Koerbagh tra averroismo e libertinismo”, 189. 45  Wielema, “The Two Faces of Adriaan Koerbagh”, 60. 46  Van den Enden, Free Political Propositions, 201.

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knowing benevolent God, through His divine providence, governs the course of history. For radical enlighteners including Koerbagh there can be no proclaiming of any divinely-given moral order by way of Revelation. Exclusion of all divine intervention and providence, denying divine governance of the course of human affairs, underpins the Radical Enlightenment enterprise. Hence Socinians and Unitarians, like John Jebb, Joseph Priestley and Richard Price whose uncompromising Antitrinitarian theology opposed to ‘mysteries’ insisted on ‘reason’ as the sole guide, and who rejected all forms of professional priesthood and religious authority, while embracing democracy and manifesting vehement hostility to the ‘mixed government’ model, should be classified as part of the Radical Enlightenment. One might propose to classify the Koerbaghs among this broad radical ‘Socinian’ category. Yet, in contrast to Price, Koerbagh’s rejection of all supernaturalia and ‘supernatural religion’ is firmly based on a monistic and Spinozistic philosophy.47 When contrasting Spinoza’s firm separation of theology and philosophy with what he takes to be Koerbagh’s and Meyer’s conflation of theology and philosophy, Van Bunge, I would argue, thereby introduces a false and misleading distinction. All three men are equally implying that there is no truth in conventional theology and that the only ‘true’ theology is theology identical to science and philosophy.48 Koerbagh’s reduction of the ‘Holy Ghost’ which he eulogizes almost ecstatically in Een Ligt, tends in precisely this direction. For Koerbagh, the Holy Ghost turns out to be nothing more than philosophical-scientific reason: reason originating in and as the essence of God, whether or not originating ante Spinozam, is a quintessentially Spinozistic idea.49 The heavy stress on equality of status as a precondition for a flourishing democratic republic in Van den Enden, and on the idea that every human has an equal right to pursue his or her own happiness in their own way, which however, for success, depends on mass enlightenment and correctly cultivating body and soul together, brings us to the question of the equal and universal human ‘rights’. Neither Van den Enden, nor the others, speak of ‘rights’; what they do instead is continually insist on advancing what Van den Enden calls the ‘common best’, or alghemeene interest’ which is presented as the only secure way to advance the individual’s “particular best” (“byzondere welstant”)

47  Wielema, March of the Libertines, 86. 48  Wielema, March of the Libertines, 86; Bordoli, Ragione e Scrittura tra Descartes e Spinoza, 147, 149, 411. 49  Vandenbossche, “Adriaan Koerbagh en Spinoza”, 10; Leeuwenburgh, Het noodlot van een Ketter. Adriaan Koerbagh (1633–1669), 186–187.

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or “interest”.50 Van den Enden and all these writers were strongly infused with the idea of the particular or individual welstand consisting in each pursuing their happiness in their own way, as seems best to them, that the pursuit of individual happiness is the inevitable goal of everyone, and is chiefly protected and furthered by government when genuinely committed to the common or general interest. It is this un-Hobbesian, specifically Spinozistic emphasis on the equal necessity and right of everyone to pursue their individual happiness in the best way available, and not the established theories of ‘rights’ prevailing in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, which constitute the true origin of the equal and universal ‘rights’ that first appear on the scene in the early 1770s with the Histoire philosophique (1770), the political books of d’Holbach and Helvétius, and later, by 1776, the texts of Jefferson, Paine, Mason, Young, Allen and other democratic republicans in the American colonies. Theo Verbeek in his critique of the Radical Enlightenment thesis focuses on the relation between ‘naturalism’ (‘atheism’) or, even further back, ‘scientific’ or ‘critical’ thinking, on one hand, and ‘natural rights’ on the other. But he appears to confuse ‘universal and equal human rights’ based on the individual pursuit of ‘happiness’ with the ideas of the Natural Law school in philosophy and the philosophy of John Locke with which modern human rights ought never be confused. The idea that once we decide to ‘think for ourselves’, argues Verbeek, we also affirm natural rights or, inversely, that to affirm natural rights we should have a monist or naturalist philosophy is philosophically and historically naive. Natural rights are not innate ideas but must be cons­ tructed. They were first constructed (on the model of the notion of property) in late medieval theology and philosophy, the theory being further developed by Spanish Scholastics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—a context which is anything but atheist or naturalist. They were reform-related, partly on theological foundations, by Grotius, and developed into a full and comprehensive theory by Locke, whose theory in turn inspired the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme et du citoyen (1789).51 In this passage almost every statement is untenable. Only the claim that universal rights had a ‘revolutionary impact’ is correct. Peter de Bolla with his systematic digital study, based on the entire spread of eighteenth-century English texts, examining the shifts in the way key phrases and terms orbit around other key phrases and terms, firmly separated pre-1776 uses of the term rights in 50  Van den Enden, Vrije Politijke stellingen en Consideratien van staat (1665), 169–173; Klever, “A new Source of Spinozism: Franciscus Van den Enden”, 627. 51  Verbeek, “Spinoza on Natural Rights”, 289.

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English from the sudden emergence of universal and equal human rights in America around 1776. The abruptness of the change in conceptual “entities”, he concludes, was closely linked to the irruption of a revolutionary consciousness in the Western world, conclusively disproving not just the traditional Harringtonian and Lockean historiographical constructs regarding the Declaration of Independence but every generalized explanation of the rise of human rights in modern history in terms of a broad Enlightenment rationalism. Not only is it fallacious to claim that the equality invoked by Paine and Jefferson, in 1776, was “very similar,” as many have tried to argue, to the civil liberties derived from Locke which are based on the protection of property and the idea of contract, but there is no validity whatever to the wider contention that Enlightenment “rationalism” as such—and least of all Spanish natural law principles—shaped and produced the conviction that all men, believers and unbelievers, aristocrats and plebeians, slaves and freemen, churchmen and laymen, possess equal natural and inalienable rights. If the immediate source of ‘universal and equal rights of mankind’ were works such as the Histoire philosophique (1770) and the other naturalistic writings of the 1770s proclaiming natural human rights, such as the political writings of d’Holbach and Helvétius, the ultimate source, as now seems reasonably clear, was Spinozism and our cercle spinoziste. Once we perceive the suddenness of the emergence of universal and equal human rights in America and Britain, in the 1770s, we can also largely set aside the new cultural history’s attempt to explain the invention of human rights in the eighteenth century as a slow and gradual cultural shift driven in particular by reading novels. Lynn Hunt, the best-known exponent of this thesis, does in fact acknowledge that “before 1789, ‘rights of man’ had little cross-over into English” but nevertheless claims that during the eighteenth century the people were gradually transformed into morally and socially more independent agents, less tied to communities and churches than in the past, and that this broad social-cultural process is reflected in the art and especially the epistolary novels of the era. De Bolla rightly dismisses her argument as “wide of the mark”.52 Universal and equal human rights with a revolutionary edge as these emerged in the 1770s had nothing at all to do with either the natural law tradition of Grotius and Pufendorff or protection of property as theorized by Locke, or cultural processes driven by reading novels. They are structurally incompatible with Locke’s contract-based political theory and indeed with all moderate Enlightenment philosophy as vaunted by Verbeek. 52  De Bolla, The Architecture of Concepts. The Historical Formation of Human Rights, 12 n3, 48 n1, 56 n17, 245 n92.

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Verbeek sees that Spinoza “consciously rejects contemporary foundations or theories of natural right”,53 but fails to see that it is precisely this, his denying God is a lawgiver, that makes it imperative to construct both our ethics and ‘the individual interest’ on the basis of a socially constructed system of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ that have no basis in either nature or theology. It is precisely because Spinoza reduces ‘natural rights’ outside the state, in the state of nature, to a brutal chaos where ruthless and powerfully-built men have more rights than women, children, and old men, that under ‘the state’ the collective power of individuals can create a ‘right’ which must now be as nearly as possible equalized. It is because there are no natural rights prior to society that that form of state that most effectively equalizes the individual pursuit of happiness, namely democracy, is the sole means available to construct a social and ethical system of law and ‘natural right’ based on equality. Exactly this logic was adopted by d’Holbach in the 1770s when he argued in his series of four books of political theory that the fundamental inequality of man in the state of nature is what renders equal ‘natural’ rights necessary in a democratic state of society. For this reason, historians need more emphatically than they have to reject the view that Spinoza was not a forefather of ‘modern liberalism’ because he failed to accord an “absolute worth” to the individual.54 The correct formulation is that precisely Spinoza’s concept of man’s natural inequality leads to the pressing need to impose a system of individual equality lending the laws authority and enabling men to derive maximum benefit from society. Although there is a considerable measure of agreement among those working on Spinoza’s circle from the 1650s to the 1670s about the general character, aims and philosophical concerns of the group not much of this has so far rubbed off on the more general discussion about the European and transAtlantic Enlightenment as such. Recent writers on the Enlightenment proceed, just as before, without attributing any importance to the ‘circle’ and mostly without mentioning them. This is true not only of British and American scholars like Anthony Pagden and Matthew Stewart but even of Dutch writers such as Rienk Vermij who in his recent work De Geest uit de fles. De Verlichting en het verval van de confessionele samenleving (Amsterdam, 2014) omits Van den Enden, the Koerbaghs, Meyer, Cuffeler and the others even from his index. In recent British and American work on Spinoza since the start of the new millennium there has been an increased willingness to accept, or at least consider, 53  Verbeek, “Spinoza on Natural Rights”, 264–265; Verbeek, “Liberté, vertu, démocratie”, 366, 368. 54  Krop, Spinoza, 744; see also Van Bunge, “The Modernity of the Radical Enlightenment”, 140–141.

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the idea of Spinoza as a central figure in the Western Enlightenment and revolutionary force, and even an occasional reference to his connection with—and this kind of Enlightenment’s rootedness in—“certain dissident factions in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic” as one scholar put it, but again we usually encounter no mention of Van den Enden, the Koerbaghs, Meyer, Cuffeler or the rest individually or as an active longstanding network.55 It remains the case today that in the United States, Britain and France there is still only a very limited awareness of, and interest in, the cercle spinoziste. Yet, rejecting the thesis common to the specialists on the topic that the circle is the starting-point of the Radical Enlightenment, must now be pivotal, as Lilti’s critique illustrates, for every scholar supporting not just the tradi­ tional and nowadays more widespread than ever insistence (in recent years also in France, as Lilti again vividly illustrates) on the essentially English origins of the Enlightenment but also for supporters of the Anglocentric theories about eighteenth-century trans-Atlantic republicanism promoted by John Pocock, Margaret Jacob and many others. All of these historiographical traditions now rely on denying the centrality of the cercle Spinoziste, in the manner of Lilti. Placing the cercle spinoziste at the center of the story of how the Western Enlightenment evolved continues to be widely resisted by a vast bloc of Anglophone historiography. But the arguments and evidence adduced to justify doing so are so weak as hardly to stand up at all. The thesis cogently challenges and threatens to undermine one of the most internationally widely agreed points about the Western Enlightenment as a whole without there being any cogent defense against it. The thesis concerning the cercle spinoziste renders the entire sequence of development issuing from English Revolution, Hobbes, Harringtonian republicanism, Locke and English and Scottish thought less central than it has almost always been taken to be and in a certain sense renders the English context peripheral instead of pivotal to the emergence of modern democratic republicanism, freedoms and universal and equal human rights alike. This means that the standard historiography has to confront a challenge without even being properly aware of its predicament. The entire longstanding tradition of unremitting emphasis (going back to Voltaire) on the supposed English origins and roots of the Enlightenment including the Radical Enlightenment itself stands at obvious risk of being undermined discredited and set aside. The challenge 55  Cf. Norris, “Spinoza and the Conflict of Interpretations”, 27, and in the same volume, Mack, “Toward an Inclusive Universalism: Spinoza’s Ethics of Sustainability”, 103; Montag, “Interjecting Empty Spaces: Imagination and Interpretation in Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus”, 161–164.

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certainly cannot be answered in the manner of Anthony Pagden’s recent The Enlightenment and Why it still matters (Oxford, 2013) by doggedly paying no attention at all to the Dutch Republic as a seedbed of the Enlightenment, placing far more emphasis on Hobbes than Spinoza and making no mention of Meyer, van den Enden or the Koerbaghs. Ignoring the cercle spinoziste and all discussion of the pre-1720 clandestine philosophical literature in French stemming from it, may be usual and may shore up the Anglocentricity of the standard approach on a superficial level; but on a level of serious discussion this is no answer at all. Such a stance may still be prevalent and generally accepted; but it is also resoundingly hollow, untenable and unjustifiable. Claiming the Dutch radical tendency from the 1650s down to the 1670s was a wholly unique formative phenomenon from a European perspective far from bolstering the counter argument that the cercle spinoziste was not the seedbed of the Radical Enlightenment, as Lilti contends, makes perfect sense as a supportive argument buttressing the Radical Enlightenment thesis. It was precisely because of the highly unusual features of the mid-seventeenth century Dutch context that a major revolutionary new European tendency could begin there. It was due to their conspicuous failure to consider the Dutch and Swiss contexts seriously, their exclusive concentration on the British background, that Pocock and Skinner produced a history of Western republicanism which fails to explain its most striking and important feature: rejection of ancient models such as that of Rome and Sparta after 1770 and the emergence of the battle between representative democratic and aristocratic republicanism as the central republican theme well prior to the onset of the French Revolution. By 1780, everyone reading international papers understood that the most urgent question relating to politics was that of republicanism and especially republicanism’s having become a Europe-wide battle-ground between aristocrates and démocrates. Indubitably, excitement over the democratic Pennsylvania state constitution of 1776 (and that of Vermont) and awareness of the significance of the fight between radicals and moderates in Philadelphia played a not inconsiderable part in this. But there is no evidence that the democratic republican theories of Paine, Young, Allen, Freneau, Barlow, etc. in fact derived from English sources—quite the contrary. In any case, it was developments in Geneva and Holland between 1780 and 1787 which really familiarized the Western trans-Atlantic world with the idea that republicanism was transforming the European frame of politics, that the Western world was locked in a battle between oligarchs trying to exclude most people from the political process and democrats trying to bring representation of the will of all into that process. What counted now was awareness of the uncompromising battle developing between the Anglo-Dutch ‘mixed government’ model to

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which radicals by definition were opposed and representative democracy extending equal rights to all. The logic of this conflict reached back not to mid-seventeenth-century England but to Golden Age republican Holland. There simply was no equivalent, in pre-1688 England or anywhere else, to the democratic, mercantile anti-oligarchic republicanism of Jan and Pieter de la Court, Van den Enden, Koerbagh and Spinoza;56 and however pervasive and significant Hobbes was as influence on the radical tendency—and no-one has denied this—Hobbes was neither a republican nor a democrat, nor a champion of advanced theories of toleration nor a defender of freedom of expression. Above all, in contrast to Spinoza and the Dutch Spinozists, Hobbes did not carry over the freedoms of the state of nature in institutionalized form as embryonic, if not yet formalized, basic human rights into political society. Milton did produce an eloquent theory of press freedom and freedom of expression but not a theory of the ‘general will’, or general utility, linked to representative democracy. The crucial point remains that the individual’s freedom and happiness in Spinoza’s philosophy and the cercle spinoziste generally is heavily dependent on the stability, safety and freedoms afforded by the state, freedoms which the democratic republic alone can extend and maintain to their fullest extent.57 It is worth pondering the significance of all this from the perspective of the later Enlightenment. Memory of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was undoubtedly foundational in the political theoretical debates of the American Revolution (1775–83); but such memory and ‘Revolution principles’ were always used in the American Revolution as a weapon of ‘moderation’, in support of Montesquieu and the British constitutional model based on ‘mixed government’, as a way of resisting democracy and republicanism—never as a support for the radical tendency which nevertheless succeeded in capturing Pennsylvania temporarily (1776–90) and Vermont permanently.58 This renders clearer the full implications of Peter de Bolla’s findings that the “architecture of ideas” buttressing universal human rights in 1776 had only suddenly and abruptly appeared in English thought and general usage, and had no recognizable lineage stemming from Locke, novels, or the early eighteenth century. The rhetoric of ‘universal and equal human rights’ and of democracy did not stem from the early English Enlightenment or cultural milieu, and least of all from slow and gradual cultural processes or social practice; it grew out of the short, 56  Israel, “Monarchy, Orangism, and Republicanism in the Later Dutch Golden Age”, 1–28. 57  Steenbakkers, “Spinoza over vrijheid, dwang en noodzaak”, 121. 58  See my forthcoming study of the world impact of the American Revolution (1775–1848) to appear in 2016.

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sharp dramatic clash of enlightenments on the continent, especially France, during the early 1770s, a drama with its roots in the Dutch and Huguenot intellectual world of the mid- and late seventeenth century. Where modern universal and equal human rights did originate was in the idea that the individual pursuit of happiness is the driving force of each individual’s life and that equalization and maximization of the individual interest is best advanced by a democratic system dedicated to the common best, as already outlined by Van den Enden, in 1665. Such a conception of the universal interest or ‘general will’ as introduced by Diderot (not Rousseau) was in turn conceivable only on the basis of mass enlightenment and weaning the people away from religious authority and all other forms of authoritarianism through knowledge, science and education. Van den Enden’s and Spinoza’s political thought, in sharp contrast to that of Hobbes, has the consequence that the collective power of the state is the greater the more it protects and equalizes the ‘natural rights’ of individuals.59 This was revolutionary new form of political thought which had no English roots and which was also quite distinct from the earlier clandestine philosophical traditions of Epicureanism, Averroism and libertinage érudit which marks the advent of the Radical Enlightenment. Bibliography

Primary Sources

Baumgarten, Siegmund Jakob, Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek, Halle, Gebauer, 1748–51. Bayle, Pierre, Correspondance, McKenna, Antony, et al. (eds.), Oxford, Fondation Voltaire, 1999 ff. Enden, Franciscus van den, Free Political Propositions and Considerations of State, 1665, transl. and ed. Wim Klever, Wim, ‘Vrijstad’, 2007. Enden, Franciscus van den, Vrije Politijke stellingen en Consideratien van staat, 1665, ed. Klever, Wim, Amsterdam, Wereldbibliotheek, 1992. Koerbagh, Adriaan, A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion, eds. Michiel Wielema / Wiep van Bunge, Leiden, Brill, 2011.

59  On this point see also Goldenbaum’s paper “ ‘The People Have the Power’: Spinoza’s Argument for Universal Inalienable Rights”.

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Secondary Literature

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Boer, Pim den, “Le Dictionnaire libertin d’Adriaen Koerbagh”, in Catherine Secrétan, Tristan Dagron and Laurent Bove (eds.), Qu’est-ce que les Lumières “Radicales”, Paris, Éditions Amsterdam, 2007, 104–129. Bordoli, Roberto, Ragione e Scrittura tra Descartes e Spinoza, Milan, Franco Angeli, 1997. Bunge, Wiep van, De Nederlandse Republiek, Spinoza en de Radicale Verlichting, Brussels, VUB Press, 2010. Bunge, Wiep van, From Stevin to Spinoza. An Essay on Philosophy in the seventeenthcentury Dutch Republic, Leiden, Brill, 2001. Bunge, Wiep van, “Introduction”, to Id. and Wielema, Michiel (eds.), Adriaan Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion, Leiden, Brill, 2011, 1–37. Bunge, Wiep van, “Radikalaufklärung neu definiert: eine holländische Perspektive”, in Israel, Jonathan and Mulsow, Martin (eds.), Radikalaufklärung, Berlin, Suhrkamp, 2014, 121–148. Bunge, Wiep van, Spinoza Past and Present. Essays on Spinoza, Spinozism and Spinoza Scholarship, Leiden, Brill, 2012. Bunge, Wiep, “The Modernity of the Radical Enlightenment”, De Achttiende Eeuw, 41, 2009, 137–143. De Bolla, Peter, The Architecture of Concepts. The Historical Formation of Human Rights, New York, Fordham Univ. Press, 2013. Goldenbaum, Ursula, “ ‘The People Have the Power’: Spinoza’s Argument for Universal Inalienable Rights”, given at the International Political Science Association’s annual conference held at Atlanta, Georgia, 29–30 April 2005. Israel, Jonathan, The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995. Israel, Jonathan, Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001. Israel, Jonathan, Democratic Enlightenment. Philosophy, Revolution and Human Rights 1750–1790, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011. Israel, Jonathan, “L’Histoire intellectuelle des Lumières et de la Révolution: une incursion critique”, La Lettre Clandestine, 19, 2011, 173–225. Israel, Jonathan, “Monarchy, Orangism, and Republicanism in the Later Dutch Golden Age”, Second Golden Age Lecture (11 March 2004) of the Amsterdams Centrum voor de Studie van de Gouden Eeuw, Amsterdam, Amsterdams Centrum voor de Studie van de Gouden eeuw, 2004, 1–28. Israel, Jonathan, Revolutionary Ideas. An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2014. Jongeneelen, Gerrit, “Adriaan Koerbagh, Een voorloper van de Verlichting?”, Geschiedenis van de Wijsbegeerte in Nederland, 5, 1994, 27–34.

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Klever, Wim, “A New Source of Spinozism: Franciscus Van den Enden”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 29, 1991, 613–631. Klever, Wim, “Jan Hendrickz Glasemaker: The Addressee of Letter 84?”, NASS (North American Spinoza Society), 13, 2007, 25–31. Klever, Wim, Mannen rond Spinoza (1650–1700). Presentatie van een emanciperende generatie, Hilversum, Verloren, 1997. Kolakowski, Leszek, Chrétiens sans église. La conscience religieuse et le lieu confessionel au XVIIe siècle, 1965; new edn., Paris, Gallimard, 1969. Krop, Henri, Spinoza. Een paradoxale icoon van Nederland, Amsterdam, Prometheus Bakker, 2014. Laerke, Morgens, Leibniz lecteur de Spinoza. La genèse d‘une opposition complexe, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2008. Lagrée, Jacqueline, “Louis Meyer et la Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres. Projet cartésien, horizon Spinoziste”, Revue des Sciences philosophiques et theologiques, 71, 1987, 31–43. Leask, Ian, “The Undivulged Event in Toland’s Christianity not Mysterious”, in Hudson, Wayne, Lucci, Diego and Wigelsworth, J.R. (eds.), Atheism and Deism Revalued. Heterodox Religious Identities in Britain, 1650–1800, Farnham, Surrey, Ashgate 2014, 63–80. Leeuwenburgh, Bart, Het noodlot van een ketter. Adriaan Koerbagh (1633–1669), Nijmegen, Vantilt, 2013. Lilti, Antoine, “Comment écrit-on l’histoire intellectuelle des Lumières? Spinozisme, radicalisme et philosophie”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales, 64, 2009, 171–206. Mack, Michael, “Toward an Inclusive Universalism: Spinoza’s Ethics of Sustainability”, in Vardoulakis, Dimitris (ed.), Spinoza Now, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press 2011, 99–134. Meinsma, Koenraad Oege, Spinoza et son cercle, Paris, Vrin 1983. Mertens, Frank, “Franciscus van den Enden: tijd voor een herziening van diens rol in het ontstaan van het Spinozisme?”, Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, 56, 1994, 717–738. Mignini, Filippo, “ ‘Een Ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen’: Adriaan Koerbagh tra averroismo e libertinismo” in Licata, Giovanni (ed.), L’Averroismo nell’età moderna (1400–1700), Macerata, Edizioni Università di Macerata, 2013, 167–200. Mignini, Filippo, “Prefazione” to Licata, Giovanni (ed.) L’Averroismo nell’età moderna (1400–1700), Macerata, Edizioni Università di Macerata, 2013, 7–14. Montag, Warren, “Interjecting Empty Spaces: Imagination and Interpretation in Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus”, in Vardoulakis, Dimitris (ed.), Spinoza Now, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 2011, 161–177. Norris, Christopher, “Spinoza and the Conflict of Interpretations”, in Vardoulakis, Dimitris (ed.), Spinoza Now, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 2011, 3–37.

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Paganini, Gianni, Skepsis. Le débat des modernes sur le scepticisme, Paris, Vrin, 2008. Proietti, Omero and Licata, Giovanni (eds.), Il carteggio Van Gent-Tschirnhaus (1679–1690). Storia, cronistoria, contesto dell’editio posthuma spinoziana, Macerata, Edizioni Università di Macerata, 2013. Rice, Lee C., “Introduction” to Lodewijk Meyer, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture (1666), Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Marquette University Press, 2005. Serrano, Vicente, “Freedom of Thought as Radical Freedom in Spinoza’s Critique of Religion”, Reformation and Renaissance Review, 14, 2012, 23–39. Sleigh, Robert C., “Leibniz’s First Theodicy”, Philosophical Perspectives, 10, 1996, 481–499. Steenbakkers, Piet, “Spinoza over vrijheid, dwang en noodzaak” in Heertum, Cis van (ed.), Libertas philosophandi. Spinoza als gids voor een vrije wereld, Amsterdam, Pelikaan, 2009, 113–123. Steenbakkers, Piet, Touber, Jetze and Ven, Jeroen van de, “A Clandestine Notebook (1678–1679) on Spinoza, Beverland, Politics, the Bible and Sex”, Lias, 38/2, 2011, 225–236. Steenbakkers, Piet, Spinoza’s Ethica from Manuscript to Print, Assen, van Gorcum, 1994. Thijssen-Schoute, C. Louise, Nederlands Cartesianisme (1954) Utrecht, HES Uitgever, 1989. Vandenbossche, Hubert, “Adriaan Koerbagh en Spinoza”, Mededelingen vanwege het Spinozahuis, Voorschoten, Uitgeverij Spinozahuis, 1978. Verbeek, Theo, “Liberté, vertu, démocratie”, in Catherine Secrétan, Tristan Dagron and Laurent Bove (eds.), Qu’est-ce que les Lumières “Radicales”, Paris, Éditions Amsterdam, 2007, 355–371. Verbeek, Theo, “Spinoza on Natural Rights”, Intellectual History Review, 17, 2007, 257–275. Wielema, Michiel, Filosofen aan de Maas. Kroniek van vijhonderd jaar wijsgerig denken in Rotterdam, Baarn, Ambo, 1991. Wielema, Michiel, The March of the Libertines. Spinozists and the Dutch Reformed Church (1660–1750), Hilversum, Verloren, 2004. Wielema, Michiel, “The two faces of Adriaan Koerbagh”, Geschiedenis van de wijsbegeerte in Nederland, 12, 2001, 57–75.

Van den Enden and Religion Frank Mertens If we rely solely on the biographical information about Franciscus van den Enden, there can be little doubt that throughout his life he presented himself as a Roman Catholic. He was baptized in a Catholic church, was educated in Catholic schools, almost joined the Jesuit order, married in a Catholic Church, had all his children baptized as Catholics (a previously unknown son, Joannes Franciscus, was baptized in Antwerp in 1642).1 He also witnessed the Catholic baptisms of several other children, his eldest daughter married in a Catholic church after her fiancé had converted to the old faith, and finally he died as a Catholic (this last event is sometimes disputed in the literature, but the official records leave little room for doubt).2 One may question whether 1  Most of the relevant documents have been published, but some additions and corrections can be given here. For the baptism of Joannes Franciscus on 29 October 1642, see Stadsarchief Antwerpen (hereafter abbreviated as SAApen), PR# 50, f. 84r. Witnesses were Johannes van Hinxthoven and Maria Westelincx. Following a correction of the year Franciscus van den Enden and Clara Maria Vermeeren married, 1642 (as had been claimed by Meininger and Van Suchtelen), the marriage has traditionally been dated on 11 March 1640 in the literature. The correct date, however, is 11 October 1640. For examples of the ‘corrected’ but still inaccurate date, see i.a. Bedjai, “La découverte de l’édition du Philedonius”, 48n10 and Mertens, Van den Enden en Spinoza, 8n22. For the correct date, see SAApen, PR# 197, f. 123v. The marriage was witnessed by Martinus van den Enden, most likely the brother of the bridegroom, and Johannes Salant. 2  These baptisms are listed on http://users.telenet.be/fvde/index.htm?Sources1. Meininger and Van Suchtelen, for example, strongly suggest that Van den Enden died as an atheist, refusing to make a last confession before his execution, see Meininger and Van Suchtelen, Liever met wercken, als met woorden, 123. Early reports claiming that Van den Enden died as an atheist were indeed circulating not long after the execution, see e.g. [Casteleyn], Hollandtze Mercurius, 247, Bericht Von der Execution Deß Mons. de Rohan, f. 02v, Abelinus and Merian the Elder, Theatrum Europaeum, vol. XI, 631 and Lambert Sylvius, Historien onses tyds, behelzende saken van staat en oorlogh, Derde Deel, Boek XI, 156. These sources, however, all seem to go back to a single source, the Bericht von der Execution, as most of them more or less repeat the words ‘daß er nicht einmal etwas von Gott hat reden hören wollen, weil er die ganze Zeit seines Lebens ein Atheist gewesen, und keinnen Gott geglaubt hat’. The Bericht von der Execution, however, is highly inaccurate and confusing. For example, the order in which the conspirators were executed, a mistake that is also found in the sources that claim Van den Enden died as an atheist (Sylvius gives the correct order, but is incorrect with regard to several other details). The official document describing the execution, on the other hand,

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such outward behaviour, mostly rites of passage, are truly indicative of a person’s inward convictions. There, however, is some evidence that Van den Enden, at least for some time, was a sincere Roman Catholic: he contributed poems to Counter-Reformation publications that left nothing to the imagination, and he did not see any harm in publishing devotional images of Catholic martyrs and saints.3 There seems no reason to doubt that this was his state of mind until at least the early 1650s when his Amsterdam art shop failed and he opened a Latin school in that city. His early involvement in the theatre in that period does not suggest that anything had changed in this respect, and the same is true for the Dutch poem that he wrote to serve as a caption under the engraving De corte leere, ofte gereformeerde Schoole (Short instruction or reformed School).4 Although this poem was directed against Reformed grammar schools, it was

makes no mention whatsoever of Van den Enden refusing to confess, nor do any of the more reliable accounts of the execution, see e.g. the procès-verbal of the execution and the letter from Nicolas-Gabriel de La Reynie to the Marquis de Seignelay, dated 27 November 1674, both found in Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, 479–83 and 485–86. That Van den Enden most likely was assisted by a priest and died as a Roman Catholic is also suggested by the contemporary drawing of the execution, where he is depicted with a cross in his hands, see Bedjai, “Libertins et politiques: le comte de Guiche”, 33. 3  Van den Enden’s poems ‘Almæ Dei Genitrici’ and ‘Caloa’ in printed works by the Spanish Augustinian Bartolomé de los Ríos y Alarcón (c. 1580–1652) promoted the establishment of the ‘Brotherhood of the Blessed Virgin’, see de los Rios y Alarcon, Phoenix Thenensis e cineribus redivivus, 232–35 and De hierarchia Mariana libri sex, xxxiij–xlix. The prints published by Van den Enden include small full-length portraits of Saint Agnes, Saint Barbara and Saint Dorothea, three female martyrs, and were probably meant for private devotion. 4  The plays he staged, the first and part of the second book from Virgil’s Aeneid in 1654, Terence’s Andria in 1657 and his Eunuchus in 1658, and Seneca’s Troades and an unnamed Greek come­dy that same year, were obviously non-Christian. Nevertheless, the plays of Virgil and Seneca were used in Jesuit education, although in expurgated versions. The works of Terence, however, were banned by the ratio studiorum after an attempt by André des Freux SJ to prepare an expurgated edition had failed. In the 1680s Joseph de Jouvancy SJ at last succeeded in providing a successful edition, see the ‘notes to the translation’ of The Jesuit ratio studiorum of 1599, transl. A.P. Farrell, 118. It therefore seems unfounded to consider these performances as an indication that Van den Enden was straying from Christianity. The objections raised by the Amsterdam Reformed consistory against these performances appear to have been directed against the fact that children of members of their congregation were to act on stage. As such, it reflects their general dislike of the theatre, rather than their objection to the contents of these plays, see Stadsarchief Amsterdam (hereafter abbreviated as SAAdam), access no. 376, inv. 9, pp. 189 a 191. For a copy of the engraving De corte leere (405 mm × 535 mm) with the caption, see Rijksmuseum, object no. RP-P-OB-76.883.

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not the Reformed religion or Christian faith that was attacked, but merely the educational methods of such schools.5 All in all, during at least the first fifty years of his life Van den Enden did not in any way show signs of questioning Roman Catholic orthodoxy (except, perhaps, showing some interest in Jansenism, though this remains highly speculative).6 It has been repeatedly claimed in the literature that around 1657 Van den Enden’s radical philosophical views were expressed in the play Philedonius.7 It is unnecessary to recapitulate the widely varying interpretations of this play which modern commentators have given, although it may be useful to point out that some of them considered it to be fully in line with Roman Catholic orthodoxy.8 I have earlier argued that it is difficult to find references to specific Roman Catholic doctrines in the text, or to any other specific Christian creed for that matter, but it is abundantly clear that the play reflects a traditional Christian view on humanity and morality.9 Philedonius, in 5  Van den Enden claimed he was able to teach his pupils to read and write in four or five weeks instead of the equal number of years that were needed to learn these skills in a Reformed school. However absurd the claim may be, there seem to be some indications that Van den Enden was thinking of educational methods similar to those expounded in Janua linguarum reserata (1631), Vestibulum (1633) and Orbis sensualium pictus (1658) by Comenius. 6  I have earlier suggested this possibility, but my hypothesis was disputed in Proietti, Philedonius, 1657: Spinoza, Van den Enden e i classici latini, 26–28. Proietti’s counterarguments, however, do not seem convincing enough to undermine the plausibility of the hypothesis. His elaborate refutation, however, cannot be evaluated in a footnote and will be discussed elsewhere. 7  Klever, for instance, claimed that Spinoza knew Philedonius and that his Ethica was a ‘geometrical systematization’ of this play, which he in a later publication described as “the natural history of human wisdom, the mind as an automatically improving reflector on what goes on in one’s heart (animus) as an effect of the impacts on one’s body”, see van den Enden, Vrije Politijke Stellingen, p. 24, and Klever, The Sphinx. Spinoza Reconsidered in Three Essays, 167. Bedjai appears to support a similar influence of Philedonius on Spinoza’s Ethica, but he considers the Ethica to be “a rigorously formalized and definitive expression of the System of hermetic Nature” and characterizes Philedonius as “ ‘a comedy that refers exoterically to a saying by Jesus ben Sirach while an opposite hermetic-alchemic subtext is developed esoterically”, see Bedjai, “La découverte de l’édition du Philedonius (1657)”, 46 and 40. 8  Examples are the Catholic Sterck, who called it “very pious and of good moral character” and Proietti, who deemed it to be “ ‘a subtle work of crypto-Jesuit and anti-Jansenist apologetics”, see respectively Sterck, Hoofdstukken over Vondel en zijn kring, 70 and Proietti, “Le ‘Philedonius’ de Franciscus van den Enden et la formation rhétorico-littéraire de Spinoza”, 42. 9  Several of the allegorical figures are clearly inspired by Christian theology, for example ‘Hell’, ‘Divine Glory’, ‘Misericordia’ or ‘Mercifulness’, ‘Godliness’, ‘Conversion’ and ‘Fear of God’, see Philedonius, Act I, scene VII (pp. 11–13) and Act III, scene V (pp. 25–27). Elsewhere in the play more religious ideas are found: ‘conscience’ and ‘remorse’ (I, IV, p. 5), ‘Lucifer’ (I, VII,

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other words, does not suggest that by 1657 Van den Enden had lost his Roman Catholic faith, let alone that he had abandoned Christianity altogether. Nevertheless, a few years later there is a first sign that Van den Enden was deviating from the path of Roman Catholicism and traditional Christianity: in the spring of 1662 Ole Borch or Olaus Borrichius reported that Van den Enden and Glazemaker were amongst the Amsterdam Cartesian atheists, adding that Van den Enden “denies all sacred things”, that his religion is “nothing more than sound reason” and that he does not believe in the divinity of Christ.10 A few days later Borch moderated his claims, now stating that these “atheists” are in fact “no atheists”, that they “believe in God, however, in another manner than has so far been perceived, namely, that God is the nature of things and particularly the best in nature—something like a quintessence and perfection of all virtues”.11 As is known, Borch’s statements about the Amsterdam freethinkers should be handled with care as he obtained all his information through hearsay and as he undoubtedly interpreted the obtained information in the light of his own views and ideas.12 We need only recall, for example, that Borch alleged that Spinoza was an atheist, but at the same time claimed twice that he “had left Judaism and had become a Christian”.13

p. 12), the ‘broad way of damnation’ and the ‘narrow way of salvation’ (II, I, p. 14), ‘prayers’ (III, I, p. 20), ‘divine will’ (III, V, p. 27), the ‘eternal fires’ (III, VIII, p. 31), the ‘uninterrupted’, ‘eternal flames’ (III, VIII, p. 33), while in at least two instances explicit mention is made of Christ, see Philedonius, I, VII, p. 12 (reference to Christ and the cross) and III, V, p. 25 (reference to the cross). Moreover, the play was prefaced by a poem by the devout Roman Catholic Joost van den Vondel, who some years later would direct his poetical skills against the Amsterdam freethinkers or ‘ongodisten’, see van den Vondel, Bespiegelingen van Godt en Godtsdienst. tegens d’ongodisten, verlochenaers der Godtheit of goddelijcke voorzienigheit; Mertens, Franciscus van den Enden’s Brief Account, 1: 176 and van Bunge, “Introduction” to Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, 8–10. 10  “Esse hîc atheos, eosqve potissimum Cartesianos, ut van der Enden, Glasemaker etc.” and “Van den Enden negare sacra, negare omnia qvæ in sacris habentur, esse atheum; suam religionem avtem nullam esse aliam qvam sanam rationem, nec credere se Christum fuisse Deum etc.” Borch, Itinerarium 1660–1665, vol. 2, 92 and 94. 11  “[. . .] illos homines credere Deum, nec esse veros Atheos sed credere Deum, alio tamen modo qvam hactenus receptum, nempe Deum esse naturam rerum et optimum qvodqve in naturâ, atqve qvasi qvintam essentiam omnium virtutum et perfectionem [. . .]”, ibid., 97. 12  Borch recorded all these observations about the Amsterdam freethinkers from the mouth of one ‘Joannes Alexandri’, most likely his cousin, Johannes Alexander Borch. 13  To put it more exactly, in both cases he claims that Spinoza left Judaism to become a Christian but now was “nearly an atheist”: “[ . . .] ex judæo Christianum, sed jam pæne

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Another glimpse of Van den Enden’s deviant views on religion is found in a poem by Pieter Rixtel (c. 1644–1673), probably dating from the first half of the 1660s, which opens with the line “the being of God, contained wholly within all”.14 A somewhat similar idea is expressed in a hyperbolic poem by Andreas Frisius dating from the late 1660s: according to Frisius Van den Enden held the view that “God alone is everything that is, was and will ever be”, but also that “the Son, a descendent once of the nurturing Father [. . .] but a God for ever he is joined to God as an inhabitant of our world”.15 However, the latter statement, at least if it is an accurate account of Van den Enden’s ideas rather than a reflection of Frisius’s own thoughts, appears to be in contradiction with what Borch said about Van den Enden’s denial of Christ’s divinity.16 Nevertheless, the texts by Borch, Rixtel and Frisius all more or less agree that Van den Enden in roughly the last twelve years of his life adhered to some sort of naturalistic or pantheistic worldview that is to some degree similar to the views held by Spinoza and the Koerbaghs, views that would be described by most of their contemporaries as “atheistic”.

Atheum [. . .]” and “[. . .] Spinozam ex Judæo Christianum, et jam fere atheum [. . .]” Borch, Itinerarium, vol. 1, 214 and 228. 14  “Godts Wesen, dat sigh selfs geheel in ’t al besluyt”, Rixtel, Mengel-rymen, 40. 15  “Hincque Deum (sunt hæc oracula Hebræi Vatis, quæ cuncti non intellecta loquuntur)” and “sic Filius almi descendens quondam Patris, non deserit astra Cælestesve plagas, verum nostri incola mundi Æternum Deus ipse Deo conjungitur”. Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, Hs. vi A 40, no pagination. This poem, ‘Amplissimo atque Expertissimo Domino D. Francisco vanden Enden Christianissimæ Majestatis Consilario et Medico Carminum, quæ in hac Genealogia leguntur Authori’, is found on one of the first pages of this extremely large folio-sized handwritten genealogy of the Kerckrinck family. 16  Andreas Frisius, who published all of the works by Theodoor Kerckrinck, was most likely born into a Roman Catholic or possibly a Lutheran family. He studied law at Leiden University, where he enrolled on 22 August 1650, see [du Rieu (ed.)], Album studiosorum Academiae Lugduno Batavae 1575–1875, col. 406. From the early 1660s he worked for the bookseller Jan Jacobsz Schipper, who published in 1660 the first edition of Johan de la Court’s Consideratien en exempelen van Staat, under the pseudonym ‘Jan Jacobsz Dommekracht’. That Frisius was well acquainted with Van den Enden and Kerckrinck is also apparent from his preface to Licetus, De Monstris. Ex recensione Gerardi Blasii, *3v–*4r. Frisius also had connections within the Plantin-Moretus publishing house and was furthermore acquainted with Antonio Magliabechi, see Mirto, “Lettere di Andries Fries ad Antonio Magliabechi, 1659–1675”, 61–62. As Magliabechi was appointed librarian to the Grand Duke of Toscany, Cosimo III de’ Medici in 1673, he may perhaps have mediated in securing Kerckrinck the position as the Grand Duke’s agent in Hamburg.

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Most of the biographical sources describing Van den Enden as an atheist, however, date from a later period, when such rumours about Van den Enden were widely circulating, most often in a context referring to Spinoza.17 It is obvious, however, that the authors of these sources had never known Van den Enden personally, nor obtained reliable information about him, but were simply repeating unsubstantiated gossip. There are, however, two exceptions. The book seller and author Willem Goeree in 1705 claimed that he had known Van den Enden personally in the mid-1660s and that “he was very generous to peddle his Ungodly principles to young and old, and to boast that he had freed himself of the Fable of Belief ”.18 Another witness who knew Van den Enden, Jean-Charles Ducause de Nazelle (1647–bef. 1708), offered some more information about Van den Enden’s religious views. Leaving aside the possibility that Ducause de Nazelle’s mémoires might be a clever nineteenth-century forgery or an elaborately edited version of an authentic document, it is necessary to bear in mind that the description only pertains to the last months of Van den Enden’s life and that it was recorded by someone who was not highly educated.19 Nevertheless, we learn several interesting details: Ducause claims that, although Van den Enden acknowledged a “sovereign master of the universe”, he did not believe in rewards or punishments in the afterlife.20 Ducause also alleged that he was “a Catholic among Catholics and a Protestant among Protestants”, and that “if Van den Enden had any religion, it was at best that of the deists”.21 He also added that he displayed “an equal contempt for all

17  Some examples are: Van Til, Het Voor-hof der Heydenen, voor alle ongeloovigen geopent, 5, Colerus, Korte, dog waarachtige Levens-beschryving van Benedictus de Spinoza, 3–5 (though Colerus might have picked up some information from eyewitnesses) and Roukema, Naem-Boek der Beroemde Genees en Heelmeesters van alle eeuwen, 151. 18  “[. . .] als die zeer mild was zijn Ongodistize gronden, aan ryp en groen uyt te venten, en te roemen, Dat hy zig het Fabeltjen van ’t Geloof had quyt gemaakt [. . .]”, Goeree, De Kerklyke en Weereldlyke Historien, 665. 19  That it is possible that Ducause’s memoires are a forgery is argued at length in http:// users.telenet.be/fvde/Sources6.htm. That he was not highly educated can be inferred from his mémoires: he does not seem to have had any formal education after he joined the army at the age of fourteen. 20  “Quant à la religion, il n’en avait proprement aucune. Il ne croyait ni à des peines ni à des récompenses après cette vie, quoique d’ailleurs il reconnût un maître souverain de l’univers.” Du Cause De Nazelle, Mémoires du temps de Louis XIV, 101. 21  “Il était catholique avec les catholiques et protestant avec les protestants. [. . .] On peut dire que si Vanden Enden avait quelque religion, ce n’était tout au plus que celle des déistes.”, ibid., 101–102.

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[religions] without distinction, as if religion was nothing but a product of the human imagination”.22 Taking all this, mainly biographical, evidence into account, there can be little doubt that from the early 1660s onward Van den Enden harboured unorthodox religious views that at least resembled those of Spinoza and the Koerbaghs. Other early sources indicate that Van den Enden was indeed acquainted with them: for example, when the Koerbaghs were on trial they were repeatedly asked whether they kept company with Van den Enden and Spinoza and the anonymous pamphlet De Koeckoecx-zangh (1677) associates him with Bouwmeester and the Koerbaghs.23 These sources, however, do not offer additional information on Van den Enden’s religious views. The existing testimonies that do elaborate on his religious views often appear to differ substantially and thus do not paint a clear picture of Van den Enden’s convictions. Van den Enden himself never wrote a systematic theological or metaphysical treatise that can enlighten us in this respect. We therefore have to resort to the passages on religion in his two political publications, the Brief Account (1662) and the Free Political Proposals (1665). As the second part of the Brief Account is basically a model or plan for an ideal settlement in the New World, it includes a few ideas on the position of religion in that society. However, already in the first part, a description of New Netherland, there are some passages that can help us to understand his religious views. When, for instance, he describes the ‘natural’ religion of the original inhabitants, he is keen to point out that they live “without all superstition, or credulity, and only according to the law of nature” and that they certainly do not worship the devil, “about whom so much is talked in a careless and foolish way by all and sundry, even among Christians” (it may be noted, by the way, that Van den Enden had to manipulate and alter his sources to arrive at this sketch of native religion).24 At the same time he considers it advisable that the Indians be “attracted and nurtured to become true fellow-Christians and Allies”, adding, however: 22  “un égal mépris pour tous sans distinction, comme si la religion n’était qu’une production de l’imagination humaine.”, ibid., 105. 23  SAAdam, access no. 5061, inv. 318, ff. 115v–116r (trial documents), access no. 5059, inv. 39, p. 461 (notes by Bontemantel), and Anonymus, De koeckoecx-zangh van de nachtuylen van het collegie Nil Volentibus Arduum, 10. 24  “[ . . .] aengezien datze gezeidt werden buiten alle superstitie, of overgelovigheyt, en alleen na de wet der naturen te leven” and “Den Duivel aengaende, waer van veel, zo in ’t hondert, van deze en geene, zelfs onder de Christenen, wort gerammelt [. . .]”, [van den Enden], Kort verhael van Nieuw Nederlant, 22 (hereafter abbreviated as KVNN).

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[. . .] which should not at all be done in the common, confused, superstitious manner of the imagined present-day would-be Christians, by presenting some dark, self-invented, and therefore also often incomprehensible, far-fetched articles or propositions of imagined faith; but by a pure clear rational instruction in all necessary, useful, truly-Civil, and moral propositions that lead to the service of God [. . .]25 Although Van den Enden obviously entertained a different idea about the Christian religion than that preached by the churches of his time, the above passage does not clarify how exactly he perceived Christian religion. What is obvious, however, is that he considers most of the traditional Christian teachings to be irrational and superstitious. When Van den Enden tries to explain why preachers should not be allowed to settle in the colony, it becomes clear that he is of the opinion that it is these very preachers, “instigators and strengtheners of private opinions”, who cause “almost unending quarrelling” over the interpretation of the Scriptures because they attempt to explain any disputed Scriptural passage “in terms of yet another disputed Scriptural passage, which in fact is like trying to settle a difference in opinion with a second difference in opinion” (an almost identical idea is found in chapter 11 of Philosophia S. Scripturæ Interpres, where it is questioned whether “the obscure can be explained through the obscure”).26 His solution, therefore, especially 25  “[. . .] tot rechte mede-Christenen, en Bondt-genoten aengelockt, en gefokt te werden, ’t welck gants niet en diende te geschieden, op een gemeene, verwarde, superstitieuse wijz der meest-gewaende, hedendaeghze pretenderende Christenen, met het voordragen van een deel duistere, eigen verzierde, en dien volgende ook veeltijts onverstanelijke, spitsvinnige waan-geloofs articulen, of stellingen; maer door een suyvere klare redensonderwijzingh in alle nodige, nutte, recht-Burgerlijke, en zedelijke ter Godts dienst strekkende stellingen [. . .]”, KVNN, 23. 26  “[ . . .] voeders, en stijvers van ieders particuliere opinie [. . .]” and “[. . .] by na oneindigh knibbelen, en krakeelen over der zelver uitleggingh (die doorgaens, en altoos by den Pedanten met noch een ander in questie staende Schriftuir-plaets, of uitleggingh uit te leggen wort getracht, en ’t welk in der daet niet anders is als ’t verschil door een ander, of tweede verschil te beslechten trachten) [. . .]”, KVNN, 28 and 29. “[. . .] nisi obscurum per obscurum explicari posse statuant [. . .]’ or ‘[. . .] that the obscure can be explained through the obscure [. . .]”, Meyer, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, 168 and Philosophia S. Scripturæ Interpres, 74 (the original publication will hereafter be abbre­ viated into PSSI, and the relevant page(s) in the Shirley translation will be added between brackets). Similar phrases can be found in Spinoza’s works, e.g. in the TTP (“They think it a mark of piety to alter some passages of Scripture to harmonise with others—an absurd piety, in that they adapt clear passages to suit the obscure, the correct to suit the faulty, and they contaminate what is sound with what is corrupt”) and Ep. 75 (“[. . .] because

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in a small society beginning to establish itself, is to renounce preachers and to “always abide by the most peaceable and also the least expensive Preacher, the Holy Scripture”.27 The way in which he thinks this can be done is very similar to the way Collegiant meetings were held in the United Provinces: “every Sunday and Feast-day” the settlers would “just simply read among themselves in turn [. . .] the Holy Scripture, which is the most pure Preacher, and sing Psalms, etc.” and directly after that they would deliberate about common matters.28 What Van den Enden calls “external or public worship” would thus in fact become a prelude to the political meetings, and would in his mind serve as “a firm foundation of common rest, peace, and unity”.29 In this respect it is probably useful to recall that Van den Enden’s settlement project was originally conceived in collaboration with Pieter Cornelisz Plockhoy (c. 1615–bef. 1673). Raised as a Mennonite, he became attracted by Quakerism and Collegiantism and had previously tried to win support from Cromwell to establish similar societies as the one described in Brief and Clear Design (1662), his version of the New Netherland project.30 Although Van den Enden and Plockhoy had initially worked together, the texts suggest that somewhere along the way, the two men parted company. One of the reasons may have been Van den Enden’s desire to continually elaborate on the plan, until he eventually turned it into a completely utopian and unfeasible project. Another reason, however, may have been a difference in opinion about religious matters. Plockhoy seems to have been more traditional in his religious views and his plan appears to have been tailored to suit Mennonite Collegiants.31 Van den Enden’s radical religious views may not only have offended Plockhoy those who endeavour to establish the existence of God and religion from miracles are seeking to prove the obscure through the more obscure [. . .]”), see Spinoza, Complete Works, 496 and 945. 27  “[. . .] als zich alleen, en altoos te houden aen een, den aldervreedzaemste, ook onkoste­ lijkste-Predicant, de H. Schrift.”, KVNN, 29. 28  “[. . .] alle Zonnedagen, en Hooghtijden, enz. by beurten onder zich de H. Schrift, zijnde den alderzuiverste Predicant [. . .] alleen zimpel voor lezen, en Psalmen zingen, enz.”, KVNN 44–45. 29  “[. . .] ten opzicht van den uiterlijken, of openbare Godtsdienst, tot een vast fondament der gemeene rust, vreed, en eendracht [ . . .]”, KVNN 29. 30  Plockhoy van Zierck-zee, Kort en klaer ontwerp. 31  Plockhoy’s more traditional views on religion are e.g. apparent in his The Way to the Peace (1659) in which he talks about the Antichrist (7, 16, 19, 22, 27), miracles (9) and the “primitive saints” (25). When Plockhoy reached an agreement with the Amsterdam authorities, minutes of the city council recorded the agreement as a contract with “some 25 Mennonite families”, see Harder and Harder, Plockhoy from Zurik-zee, 51. Van den Enden

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(Van den Enden, for example, rejects the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, something that even the most liberal Mennonites would find unaccep­table), it is also clear that Van den Enden envisaged a society “of seve­ ral people with conflicting opinions”, although these persons should be “free of all fierce Sectarian conviction in Religious matters”.32 It is probably this last conside­ration that prompted Van den Enden to include a ‘law’ in his projected ‘constitution’ which at first sight appears to be contradictory and intolerant: Because all intractable People, such as obstinate Papists who are too closely committed to the See of Rome, Usurious Jews, stubborn English Quakers, Puritans, and insolent stupid Millenarians, as well as all incorrigible present-day Apocalypse-pretenders, etc. should be carefully excluded from this still fragile Christian-Civil Society, for the preservation of the common peace.33 Van den Enden, however, does not argue that this must be considered a general political axiom, rather that it is a measure to avoid discord in this new and fragile society. Moreover, he does not exclude Roman Catholics, Jews or Quakers as would reduce the privileges for Mennonites in his later revision of the ‘constitution’, e.g. by raising the tax imposed to avoid military service, see KVNN 36, art. 41. 32  “[. . .] van verscheide in gevoelens strijdige menschen [. . .]” and “[. . .] die omtrent Religies zaken vry van alle hevige Sect-gesintheit [. . .] waren [. . .]”, KVNN, 28 and 36. Had Plockhoy been influenced by Quakerism, he might not have minded Van den Enden’s views on these sacraments, as Quakers do not practice them. There are indications that Plockhoy may indeed have been influenced by Quakerism: in 1657 his brother, Cornelis Plockhoy, was cautioned by the Utrecht Mennonite congregation for having held meetings with Quakers and that same year Pieter Cornelisz Plockhoy offended believers in the Dutch Reformed Church in London by keeping on his hat during prayers, a typical Quaker provocation, and again in that same year he wrote some letters to the Dutch Reformed Church in London with questions about the Scriptures and poor relief, endorsed ‘Quaker. Pieter Pluckoi’, see Hajenius, Dopers in de Domstad, 88–89, Grell, “From Persecution to Integration”, 100 and Hessels, Ecclesiae londino-batavae archivvm, 2361. Many years later, on 12 May 1684, the Dutch colonist Gerrit van Sweringen declared to the Maryland authorities that in 1664 ‘the Quakin Society of Plockhoy’ had been plundered “to a very naile” by the English, see Brown, Archives of Maryland, 416–417. 33  “Aengezien alle intractabele Menschen, als daer zijn stijf-koppige, en aen den RoomseStoel-naeuw-verplichte Papisten, Woekerige Joden, Engelze stijf-koppige Quakers, Puriteinen, en driestige domme duizent-jarige Rijks-Gezinden, midtsgaders alle stijfhoofdige hedendaeghse Revelatie pretendeerders, enz. uit deze noch tedere Christburgerlijke Societeit, tot behoudt der gemene rust omzichtelijk moesten werden geweert”, KVNN 52.

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such, but adds qualifiers (‘obstinate’, ‘stubborn’, ‘insolent’, etc.), which suggest that he only intended to target the fanatics among them (with the exception of Puritans, all of whom he may have regarded as fanatical, and ‘usurious Jews’, perhaps a vestige of a prevailing anti-Semitic prejudice).34 The operative adjective in the original Dutch text, ‘stijfkoppig’ or ‘stijfhoofdig’, used no less than three times, means as much as ‘hard-headed’ (or according to the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal “hard to move to change an attitude or opinion or to admit oneself to be in the wrong”), a characteristic that in a religious context is easily associated with zealotism or fanaticism.35 Interpreted this way, it is Van den Enden’s answer to a question that still troubles our presentday societies: should religious tolerance extend to those beliefs that preach intolerance? Van den Enden’s answer to this question is a simple one, at least in a budding society. The restriction seems closely linked to Van den Enden’s exclusion of preachers. He considers them to be “instigators and strengtheners of private opinions” and “a ruinous pest for all peace and unity” because he is convinced that “excessive tyranny” is “aided and consolidated by the deception of Sanctimonious Hypocrites”.36 In his Brief Account Van den Enden merely touched upon the subject, but in the Free Political Proposals (1665) he elaborates on this pious, or “holy deception” as he calls it.37 Although he dedicated several pages on the subject, the clearest discussion of this “holy deception” appears in a long footnote, in which he quotes Polybius and Machiavelli at length.38 Van den Enden, however, does not agree with the praise that Machiavelli and later political 34  That Van den Enden may indeed have considered all puritans as ‘fanatics’ can be inferred from his reference to “an example of Puritan severity” (“een exemplare Puriteinsche gepleeghde strengigheit”) in one of his sources on New Netherland, see KVNN 16. The passage he is referring to can be found in de Vries, Korte Historiael, 150–151. Van den Enden’s inclusion of “stubborn English Quakers” may well have been a dig at Plockhoy, who most likely was influenced by Quakerism and possibly became a Quaker himself, see above, note 33. 35  “moeilijk te bewegen een houding of opvatting te laten varen of ongelijk te bekennen”. 36  “voeders, en stijvers van ieders particuliere opinie [. . .] een onvermijdelijke ruineuxse pest van alle vreed, en eendracht” and “daer heeft ook door ’t betrachten harer schalke, eer- gelt- en heers-suchtige (geholpen, en gestijft door ’t bedroch der schijn-HeiligeHypocrijten) overdadige tyranny aller meest gegrasseert, en stant gegrepen.”, KVNN 28 and 32. 37  The idea of pious is also prominent in Koerbagh’s Een Ligt (1668) and, although not explicitly named as such, in Spinoza’s TTP and in the PSSI, see e.g. Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, 388–391 and Spinoza, Complete Works, 409 and 413–414 and Meyer, PSSI, 149. 38  [van den Enden], Vrye Politijke Stellingen, 25 (hereafter abbreviated VPS).

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theorists bestowed on the political organisation of the Roman Republic, which in his mind was nothing more than a den of thieves where “the common people” were suppressed and “incited to continuous slaughter, war and pillaging” through “all manners of deception” and ‘superstition’.39 Even worse than ‘heathen superstition’ is ‘Papal Hierarchy’, which “through a variety of threats, and additional excessive beautiful and lofty promises with regard to the afterlife” alienates people from “manly bravery and the yearning for liberty”.40 Protestantism may have freed the people from the deceit of the Papacy, but the “manifold Opponents and blind Resisters of Papal Hierarchy” are in his eyes hardly any better: In my judgement they have no more semblance of truth, except that they, one a little more attractive or convincing than the other, are able to point out to some degree the coarse deceits of Papal supporters; but what certainty do we have that, apart from this, they are not just as well blind zealots who, being tempted and deceived, try to likewise tempt and deceive us?41 In brief, Van den Enden, much like the brothers Koerbagh and Spinoza, abhors the tendency of the clergy to justify and support political power, and—even worse—their attempts to influence or usurp this power. The rhetorical development of the argument against superstitious deceit, from paganism via Roman Catholicism to Protestantism is even similar to that which is found in the chapter ‘On religion’ in A Light (1668) by Adriaan Koerbagh, although here Judaism, Islam, Lutheranism and Socinianism are also added to the list.42 39  “[. . .] ook in alle superstitien, afgoderyen, tot walgens toe op het alder sorgvuldigste, [. . .] door alderhande bedriegeryen, en schelmeryen onder te houden, en ter gedurige slachtingh, ten oorlogh, en op roof aen te voeren getracht hebben [. . .]”, VPS 13. 40  “[. . .] door veelderhande dreigingen, met noch bygevoegde bovenmaten schoone, en hooge beloften na dezen leeven, neerslachtigh, en van alle mannelijke dapperheit, en betrachtingh van vryheit is berovende, en op ’t veerst vervreemden doet”, VPS 22. 41  “[. . .] door de meenighvuldige Opposanten, en blinde Tegenstreevers der Pauslijke Hirachye [. . .] Mijns oordeels hebben zylieden gheen meerder schijn van waerheit, als datze, den een wat aerdiger, of glimpiger, als den andre, de groove bedriegeryen, en feilen des Pauslijken aenhanghs tamelijken weeten aen te wijzen; maer wat verzeekertheit hebben wy, van dat deze ook meede voor de rest niet zijn blinde yveraers, verleydt, en be­drooghen zijnde, ons ook meede te verleiden, en bedrieghen trachten”, VPS 26. 42  Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, 222–232. To some degree the intellectual development of the Koerbaghs seems to have run parallel to the theological developments described by them (in this case they probably evolved from orthodox Calvinism via

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Koerbagh’s A Light and Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise, both published several years later than Van den Enden’s Free Political Proposals, were not the only works to attack the political aspirations of the clergy and in fact from 1665 onward a whole series of works with a similar message were published. Van den Enden’s Free Political Proposals was published in the late spring or early summer of 1665. A few months later, in the autumn of 1665, Spinoza informed Henry Oldenburg that he was working on the Theological Political Treatise, and that same year the anonymous De jure ecclesiasticorum (incorrectly attributed to Spinoza, De la Court and now, on unclear grounds, gene­rally attributed to Meyer) was published, likewise an attack on all forms of ‘pious fraud’ and on the political ambitions of preachers.43 Less than a year later, in Coccejanism and Socinianism to a ‘pure’, rational and invisible church), as is suggested by the library catalogue of Johannes Koerbgah, see Van Heertum, “Reading the Career of Johannes Koerbagh: the Auction Catalogue of his Library as a Reflection of his Life”, 1–57. 43  Spinoza, Complete Works, 844 (letter 30) and Constans, De jure eccelsiasticorum. Bayle, referring to Gabriel d’Artis, and Colerus, referring to Bayle, also attributed De jure eccelsiasticorum to Spinoza, but added that “this is mere conjecture” and that it was more likely that Meyer was the author, see Bayle, Art. ‘Spinoza’, Dictionaire historique et critique, 1088, and Colerus, Korte, dog waarachtige Levens-beschryving van Benedictus de Spinoza, 42–43. Leibniz, rather curiously basing himself on the initials L.A.C., claimed that it was written by De la Court, see Leibniz, Essais de théodicée, 574 (§ 375). Recent commen­ tators generally ascribe the work to either De la Court or Meyer, although no additional arguments are given to back this up. Thijssen-Schoute, however, offers a valuable clue by pointing out that, according to the publisher of the work, the author was abroad at the time it was published, see Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands Cartesianisme, 393. This seems to rule out Spinoza and Meyer, who appear to have been in the country in that period: Spinoza’s letters show that in 1665 he first lived at the Langen Bogert estate near Schiedam and later in Voorburg, while that year Meyer had been appointed for the first time to the board of the City Theatre and is unlikely to have left the country for a long period of time, see Spinoza, Complete Works, 807–851 (letters 19–32) and SAAdam, access no. 367a, inv. no. 72, no foliation (see the ‘Extract uijt ’t Register vande Hoofden vande Schouburg’). It is less easy to determine the whereabouts of De la Court, but in 1665 he apparently moved from Leiden to Amsterdam and had a large number of goods, mainly utensils used in cloth manufacturing, auctioned at Leiden on 27 April 1665, see Kernkamp, “Brieven uit de correspondentie van Pieter de la Court en zijn verwanten”, 158n2 and Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken, archive no. 506, inv. no. 984, deed 49. Although De la Court cannot as such be eliminated as a candidate, there is, on the other hand, no evidence that he was indeed the author. Furthermore, it would have been a very unusual work for him to produce, as he always published in Dutch. On top of that, he was generally a rather mild critic of the clergy, even though he liked to see the balance between state and church redressed along the lines of what was advocated by the Remonstrants. Sticking to the usual suspects, it would also be interesting to see whether Bouwmeester was abroad in this period, but

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the summer of 1666 Johannes Koerbagh’s heterodox ideas were first brought to the attention of the Amsterdam consistory, and also in 1666 the anonymous Philosophia S. Scripturæ Interpres (possibly written by Bouwmeester instead of Meyer, as is generally assumed) was brought out.44 The latter work, although unfortunately the sources can tell us little on this score. If Spinoza’s letter of the beginning of June 1655 was indeed written to Bouwmeester, as is arbitrarily stated in almost every recent edition of the correspondence, he must have been in the country, most likely in Amsterdam, around this date, see Spinoza, Complete Works, 840–841 (letter 28). However, the identity of the addressee remains a matter of conjecture and it must be remembered that Meinsma, for one, considered it possible that the letter was addressed to Adriaan Koerbagh, a hypothesis that has recently been repeated by Leeuwenburgh, see Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring, 246n1, and Leeuwenburgh, Het noodlot van een ketter, 117–120. Here it can be added that, if the passage on the “conserve of red roses” and Spinoza’s description of the symptoms of his illness suggest that the addressee was a physician, one should also include as possible addressees Hendrick van Bronckhorst (1636–1678) and Jacobus Vallan (1637–1720), both of whom were personally acquainted with Spinoza. As letter 28 cannot therefore be considered evidence that Bouwmeester was in the country in the summer of 1665, it is possible that he was abroad, the more so because it is known that he undertook long voyages, for instance to Italy in the summer and early autumn of 1667. In conclusion, without additional evidence, it seems impossible to identify the author hiding behind the pseudonym Lucius Antistius Constans, nor may he or she be among the candidates discussed above. 44  The “very heretical and unsound sentiment” (“seer ketters, en ongesont gevoelen”) of Johannes Koerbagh and the “fornication” (“hoererij”) of Adriaan Koerbagh were first mentioned during the meeting of 10 June 1666, see SAAdam, access no. 376, inv. 11, 225. The PSSI was first attributed to, amongst others, Lambert van Velthuysen, Adriaan Koerbagh and Johannes Bouwmeester, see Meyer, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, 14 (Van Velthuysen), Rivaud, Catalogue critique des manuscrits de Leibniz 1672–1676, 2:4 (this attribution to ‘Korbach’ was made in a letter from Friedrich Walter to Leibniz, dated 13 April 1672), Van Lamzweerde, Geluckwenschingh den leden van de vergaderinghe, be­kendt door den zinspreuck Nil volentibus arduum, 18 (Bouwmeester), and Anonymus, De Koeckoecx-sangh, 10 (Bouwmeester). However, in the second half of the 1680s, rumours began to circulate that Meyer might have been the author. On 7 March 1686 Bayle wrote to Theodorus Janssonius ab Almeloveen that Meyer was “the author, as rumour has it, of the paradoxical tract”, see Deckherr, De scriptis adespotis, pseud-epigraphis, et supposititiis conjecturæ, 388. In 1697, in Vervolg van ’t leven van Philopater, there is talk about “the maker L.M. of the Philosophia interpres sacrarum scripturarum [. . .] who indeed may be held to be the principal Author”, see Duijkerius, Het leven van Philopater & Vervolg van ’t leven van Philopater, 126. Colerus in his 1705 biography of Spinoza reported that “many learned men have wanted to assure me that the Author of the wicked Treatise, Philosophia sacrae scripturae interpres [. . .] and the aforementioned writer [i.e. of De jure ecclesiasticorum] were one and the same man, namely L.M., and this is likely”, see Colerus, Korte, dog waarachtige Levens-beschryving van Benedictus de Spinoza, 44–45. Leibniz in

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mainly aimed at undermining so-called ‘orthodox’ interpretations of the Scriptures rather than unmasking superstitious elements in religion (although, in effect, both aims prove to overlap), again reflects the development of the arguments by Van den Enden and the Koerbaghs: after examining the claims of the Roman Catholic church in chapter 9, subsequent chapters are devoted to similar claims made by the Protestant churches, the ‘enthusiasts’ (i.e. Quakers) and the Socinians. This sudden spate of publications was no coincidence. The outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in the spring of 1665 was quickly followed by renewed internal tensions between republicans and Orangists, the latter supported by the strict Calvinists, tensions that at one point even threatened to paralyze the fleet. In the epilogue of his Free Political Proposals, for example, Van den Enden attributed the lack of Dutch military initiative to the tensions between republicans and Orangists, and to “the differences and divisions in Sectarian opinions”.45 A few months later Spinoza, in a letter to Oldenburg, stated that “the people of Overijssel, who are making every effort to try to bring in the Prince of Orange—in order, as many think, to annoy the Hollanders rather than to benefit themselves—have thought up a certain scheme, namely, to send the said Prince to England as mediator”.46 The struggle between Orangists and republicans was not a religious struggle, but in the circle around Van den Enden and Spinoza the tendency of religious leaders to influence the outcome of this struggle was certainly considered a threat. Not only were the interventions by the clergy regarded as undermining political unity, they were also deemed to be a threat to intellectual freedom, which was most apparent in their opposition to Cartesianism, and even to religious freedom, most markedly in their fight against Socinianism and Collegiantism. The threat was real enough: in the spring of 1667, for instance, the Amsterdam classis investigated whether copies of the ‘slanderous treatises’, Philosophia S. Scripturæ Interpres and De jure ecclesiasticorum were still being sold in the city, and when they found out that this was indeed the case, they 1710 finally rejected the attribution to Spinoza and unambiguously named “Louis Meyer Medecin d’Amsterdam” as the culprit, and this claim seems to have become the generally accepted view, see Leibniz, Essais de théodicée, 21 (§14). However, it is obvious that the earlier authors all carefully qualified the attribution to Meyer (“as rumour has it”, “the principal author” and “this is likely”), and that Leibniz’ unequivocal attribution is not backed by any new evidence. In a forthcoming article on Bouwmeester and his library it will be shown that he is just as likely a candidate, either as author or co-author, and that there are even a few indications that he is a more plausible candidate than Meyer. 45  “[. . .] door der Sectens opinieuxze verschillen, en verdeeltheden [. . .]”, VPS, F3v. 46  Spinoza, Complete Works, 850.

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requested the burgomasters to suppress these works.47 A little later they were informed that a Dutch translation of Hobbes’s Leviathan had been released on the market. They lost no time establishing that “a bitter preface” had been added to the translation.48 They did not know, however, that this preface had been written by Abraham van Berkel (1639–1686), who was a friend of the Koerbaghs. The brothers had been under clerical supervision for a while and it is remarkable that the name of the publisher of the Dutch Leviathan, Jacobus Wagenaer (1645–bef. 1678), who was married to a niece of the Koerbaghs never once occurs in the minutes of the Amsterdam consistory or classis, even though his name was mentioned in the imprint.49 As the preachers concluded that this preface “tended to sustain political supremacy to the detriment of ecclesiastical government” and as “the whole book is interwoven with horrible blasphemous errors”, they decided to advise the synod to turn to the supreme authorities.50 The circle of Amsterdam freethinkers will have certainly been alarmed by the relentless exposure of anyone suspected of Collegiantism and Socinianism, and even more the by actions undertaken against their own publications and by the proceedings against the Koerbagh brothers.51 These freethinkers, who 47  This was discussed during the meetings of 25 April 1667 and 26 May 1667, SAAdam, access no. 379, inv. 6, 430 and 431. 48  Meeting of 11 July 1667, SAAdam, access no. 379, inv. 6, 434. 49  “By Jacobus Wagenaer, Boeckverkooper, op de hoeck van de Mol-steegh, in Des-cartes”, Hobbes, Leviathan: of van de Stoffe, Gedaente, ende Magt van de Kerckelycke ende Wereltycke Regeeringe. 50  “[. . .] waer in sy bevonden hebben een bittere voorreden tegen de ordre der predicanten, tenderende maer om de politycke oppermacht te sustineeren tot praejudicie van de kercke­licke regeeringe, gelyck dan voort het geheele boeck doorweven is van afgryselicke godtslasterlicke dwaelingen [. . .]”, SAAdam, access no. 379, inv. 6, 434. 51  That the consistory and classis were relentless in tracking down, exposing and suppressing all forms of heterodox thought can easily be ascertained by examining the minutes of their meetings. In addition to the examples cited, numerous others can be given (here limited to the meetings of the consistory in the years 1663 and 1664): in the spring of 1663, the consistory accused Johannes Klenck, professor of philosophy at the Amsterdam Athenaeum, of organizing disputations about “offensive propositions”; that same spring “a certain Dr Galenus” was first said to “publicly teach and promote Socinian errors” (the meetings of Galenist Mennonites and Collegiants would remain a pressing concern for years to come); in the summer of that year it was decided that the activities of the Remonstrant seminary should be monitored; in the spring of 1664 it was reported that the forbidden German translation of the New Testament by the Socinian Jeremias Felbinger was sold in Frankfurt am Main; a few weeks later the recently printed bible commentaries by the Collegiant Daniel de Breen were found to be full of “gross Socinian

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considered Calvinist orthodoxy to be tainted with superstition, in general seem to have appreciated the Antitrinitarian and rationalistic aspects of Socinianism and to have valued the Collegiants’ anti-hierarchical and antidoctrinal practice of freedom of speech. Typical Socinian influences are not immediately discernible in Van den Enden’s work, although he obviously shares their great respect for human reason, but the influence of Collegiantism is apparent and can be directly associated with his defence of free speech and democracy. It is obvious that by the early sixties Van den Enden rejected the traditio­ nal Christianity that still permeated his Philedonius. Nevertheless, he did not reject Christianity altogether. The political plan of Brief Account, for example, is aimed at a “Christ-burgerlijke Societeit”, a “Christian-Civil Society”, a phrase he uses no less than eleven times throughout the work.52 The question remains, however, what exactly he understood by the word ‘Christian’. When rejecting slavery in the Brief Account he states that “the Christian Religion is a Reasonable Worship”.53 In the Free Political Proposals he argues that, in order to arrive at “the most certain formulation and most infallible improvement of the worthiest and soul-lifting Christian Worship”, it is necessary to abandon the custom of appealing to authority, “in the manner of the present-day Theologians, Jurists and Medics”.54 He concedes that “true Religion (in as far as it is aimed at the most supreme salvation of our souls) is the most worthy and unbreakable bond of a nation or commonwealth”, but adds that religion does not consist “of any external gesture, nor in encouraging idle hope or fear”.55 explanations and errors”; in the summer of that year it was observed that one “Teunis Jansse” had “lapsed into Quakery”; in the autumn Jan Pietersz Beelthouwer (c. 1603– c. 1669) was said to have accused a Reformed minister of being either “delivered to Satan” or of being “a false Prophet”. SAAdam, acces no 376, inv. 11, 4, 5, 19, 75, 76, 90 and 115. If the people involved were members of the Reformed Church, the consistory might try and suppress such heterodox ideas by imposing disciplinary measures. Should these measures have no effect or if the offenders did not belong to the Reformed Church, the ministers turned to the civil authorities. 52   K VNN, 30, 46, 50, 51, 52, 58, 60 and 61. 53  “[. . .] een Redelijken-Godtsdienst [. . .]”, KVNN 26. 54  “[. . .] een alderzeekerste opstellingh, en onfeilbaerste verbeeteringh eenes alderwaerdighste, en zielen verheerlijkende Christen-Godtsdienst [. . .]” and “[. . .] op de wijz der hedendaeghze Theologanten, Iuristen, en Medici [. . .]”, VPS 8. 55  “Ik staen wel toe, dat de ware Religie (voor zo veel ze opsicht heeft tot het opperste heyl onzer zielen) den alderwaerdighste, en onverbreekelijkste Bandt eenes volx, en gemeenebeste is [. . .] in geen het alderminste uiterlijk gebaer, noch voedingh van ydele hoop, en vreeze is bestaende.” VPS 25–6. “[. . .] na afschaffing van allen uiterlijken gebaer, onzen

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He suggests that we should, ‘after abolishing every outward gesture, try to serve and please our God, first of all by the strict pursuit of a Common interest (which also entirely envelops and contains love for our neighbour and without which not the slightest love for one’s neighbour can be found or pursued)’. Van den Enden explicitly defines the “true and soul-saving Christian faith” as being “utterly reasonable” and claims that it “solely consists of a clear and distinct reasonable conviction of that which undoubtedly leads us to knowledge and love of God and one’s Neighbour”.56 Love for one’s neighbour played a central role in Van den Enden’s political theory. According to him, “where a common interest is known and pursued to some degree, there will also be an equal knowledge of Religion, or a love for God and one’s Neighbour”, or, in other words, love for one’s neighbour can be translated politically as the pursuit of common interests.57 Moreover, love for one’s neighbour ideally resulted in a system of solidarity with “the common destitute Citizens”, a social concern he shares with Plockhoy. At the same time he rejects “the vile, superstitious and humiliating giving of Alms”.58 In effect, this measure would also undermine the social control that the existing churches exercised over their members by granting or denying them charity. Nevertheless, love for one’s neighbour is also an essential element of ‘true’ religion, “because the whole sum of the Law and Prophets is to love God above all and one’s Neighbour as oneself”.59 An almost identical idea is expressed in the chapter ‘on religion’ in Koerbagh’s A Light, where it is said that “all the law and the prophets” depend on the two most Godt, en als op voorraet, door een nauwste betrachtingh eens Gemeene-beste (en welk de liefde des naestens oock eenighlijk bevat, en in zich sluit, ja buiten ’t welk ’er geen de minste liefde des naestens kan werden betracht, noch gevonden) pooghden te dienen, en behaghen [. . .]”, VPS 27. 56  “Het Christen geloof, zijnde teenemael reedelijk [. . .] is eenighlijk bestaende in een klare, en onderscheide reedens overtuigingh ter aenneemingh van iet zulx, dat ons ter kennis, en liefde Godts, en des Naestens ontwijffelijk is vorderende [. . .]”, VPS 28. 57  “Want daer een eeniger maten gemeene-beste wert gekent, en betracht, daer heeft ook, na de zelfde gelijkmatigheit, kennisse van Religie, of liefde Godts, en des Naestens plaets”, VPS 4. The idea reappears when Van den Enden equets “liefde Godts, en des Naestens, of Gemeene-bests”, VPS 44. 58  “als mede der gemene 16 nootlijdende Burgeren gebrek, buyten alle vyle superstitieuxze, en smadelijke Aelmoes-gevingen, plichtshalven te vervullen”, KVNN 31. A very similar phrase is found in VPS: “Meede-borgers, en Inwoonders, enz. op een recht vrye, en burgerlijke betamende eerlijke wijz te helpen, en redden; zy zouwen alle der verdeelde Sectens superstitieuxze oeffeningh van vile, en karige aelmoes onderhoudingh, dus loffelijk verbeeterende [. . .]”, VPS 50. 59  “[. . .] want de heele somme der Wet, en Propheeten is, Godt lief te hebben boven al, en den Naesten als sich zelven”, VPS, 28.

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important commandments, the love for God and one’s neighbour.60 In chapter twelve of Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise this double “cardinal precept” in the same vein is called “the basis of the whole structure of religion; if it is removed, the entire fabric crashes to the ground”.61 This double commandment obviously had a scriptural basis—it is mentioned in three of the four gospels—but according to Van den Enden, the Koerbaghs and Spinoza, it was equally a precept dictated by reason.62 One may therefore wonder why they all emphatically maintained that they voiced the key message of the ‘true’ Christian religion, or—in other words,—why did these freethinkers all choose to explicitly place themselves within a Christian tradition? One possibility is that they were all prepared to acknowledge the Scriptures as a valuable source of religious thought, without, however, accepting the traditional interpretations.63 One thing they all seemed to have agreed on is, in the words of Van den Enden, that the “ceremonies, commandments and counsels, as well as the promises, threats and miracles” in the New Testament should be interpreted as a way in which “our Saviour has merely tried to accommodate, adjust and conform himself to the disposition and circumstances of the common Jewish people”.64 They also all seem to have agreed 60  “[. . .] de gantsche wet en de voorseggers [. . .]”, Koerbagh, A Light, 262 and 263. 61  Spinoza, Complete Works, 508–509. 62  Matthew 22:37–40, Mark, 12:30–31 and Luke 10:27. VPS, 28, Koerbagh, A Light, 261–262 and Spinoza, Complete Works, 276–277, 559 and 693. 63  Above all they rejected the literal interpretations by the clergy, who regarded the bible as the absolute and infallible word of god, which should be consulted for answers in every domain of human experience or knowledge. They, on the contrary, emphazised the human provenance of the sacred texts. For example, the idea that the Mosaic books were in fact compiled by the scribe Ezra in the 5th century BC seems to have been common among them, see Mertens, “Radicale Verlichting en Reformatie: de kring rond Spinoza en Van den Enden”, 138. 64  “[. . .] dat alle gepleeghde Ceremonien, beveelen, en aenraedingen, mitsgaders beloften, dreigingen, en wonderteekenen, enz in den Nieuwen Testament vermelt, niet anders moeten geduydt, noch opgenomen werden, als dat onzen Zalighmaker sich hier door alleen heeft getracht te accommoderen, te voegen, en schikken na de geschapenheit, en eisch des gemeene Joodtschen Volx”, VPS 28. Compare this with the quotation from St Augustine’s Confessiones (“that the one God adapted the Holy Writings to the understanding of the many”) in Meyer, PSSI, chap. 4:9, 37 (99) and with Spinoza’s claim that the contents of Scripture “had to be adapted particularly to the understanding of the common people”, see Spinoza, Complete Works, 441. Johannes Koerbagh expressed a somewhat similar thought when he was interrogated by the consistory: “[. . .] dat de heij­ lige schriften bij seeckere gelegenthe[i]d soo nu en dan, van verscheyde godtvruchtige Mannen, soo geleerd als ongeleerden, na hun beste verstandt, van godt verligt, getrouwe-

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that Christ’s message, in particular his double commandment of love, was a universal one, contrary to the message of Moses that had been exclusively meant for the Jews.65 Although as such they were all able to call themselves ‘Christians’, none of them seems to have been convinced of the divinity of Christ, as is most obvious in the strong Antitrinitarian stance of the Koerbaghs.66 Oddly enough, this did not deter them from attributing some special status, conceived as a kind of perfect rational understanding, to Christ. Van den Enden in the Free Political Propositions stated that Moses was “enlightened solely through external revelation”, whereas Jesus possessed an “immediate Divine Nature and wisdom”.67 The Koerbaghs in A Light considered Jesus to be “someone gifted by God, “above any Jew of his time, yes, above all men”, with “wisdom and intellect, knowledge and reason”.68 Spinoza in his Theological Political Treatise claimed that “God revealed himself to Christ, or to Christ’s mind, directly, and not through words and images as in the case of the prophets”.69 lyck sijn geschreven, en tot stichtinge in het licht gegeven” (“[. . .] that the holy scriptures were faithfully recorded on certain occasions and from time to time, by various pious Men, learned as well as unlearned, to the best of their understanding, illuminated by God and divulged for the sake of edification”), see SAAdam, access no. 376, inv. 11, 235. 65  This view, which of course was the traditional Christian position, was expressed by Van den Enden as follows: “De somme des Christelijken Euangeliums, is een blijde, en onbepaelde verbreidingh des zelfs, en dat niet aen eenigh volk alleen; maer aen alle volkeren des Aerdtrijx [. . .]” (“The sum of the Christian Gospel is the glad and unlimited dissemination of this [i.e. the double commandment of love] and this not only among a particular nation, but among all nations of the Earth [. . .]”), see VPS, 28. Similar ideas can be found in i.a. the TTP (“since Christ was sent to teach not only the Jews but the entire human race”) and in A Light (where Koerbagh comes to a similar conclusion when comparing the Old and the New Testament), see Spinoza, Complete Works, 431, and Koerbagh, A Light, 286–289. 66  Koerbagh, A Light, 158–165, and Koerbagh, Bloemhof, 632–633 (entry ‘triniteyt’) and 663– 665 (entry ‘Jesus’). 67  “[. . .] want daer den alleen door uiterlijke openbaringh verlichten Moijses [. . .] daer heeft Christus Jesus, door zijn eigen onmiddellijke Goddelijke Natuur, en wijsheit [. . .]”, VPS 28. 68  “[. . .] dat is, dat hy Behouder is begiftigt geweest van God met wijsheyd en verstand, kennisse en rede, boven eenige Jooden van zijn tijd, ja boven alle menschen”, Koerbagh, A Light, 156–157. 69  Spinoza, Complete Works, 431. The similarity with Van den Enden’s statement is clearest in the Dutch translation, most likely by Glazemaker: ‘En zeker, dat God zich aan Christus, of aan zijn geest onmiddelijk geopenbaard heeft, en niet gelijk aan dandere propheten, door woorden en beelden [. . .]’, see [de Spinoza], De Rechtzinnige Theologant of Godgeleerde Staatkundige Verhandelinge, 77. For a thorough analysis pointing to Glazemaker as the

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In a way Van den Enden and the Amsterdam freethinkers were indeed genuine ‘Christians’.70 Despite their rejection of traditional bible interpretations, ecclesiastical hierarchy, ceremonies, and doctrines, they accepted the ‘true’ and simple message of the Scriptures, and awarded Christ a special status in their rational universe. They considered their ideas to reflect a return to an original, rational religion that had been corrupted in later times, not unlike the Collegiants’ attempts to revive the original Apostolic church. It is in this light that Adriaan Koerbagh could claim that humanity had “fallen from a rational religion to a religion full of superstitions” and that Van den Enden could refer to “the Indians of New Netherland” who lived “without superstition or credulity, and only according to the law of nature”, suggesting that they still held on to the original rational religion.71 At the same time the Amsterdam freethinke­rs translator, see Akkerman, “Tractatus theologico-politicus: texte latin, traductions néer­ landaises et Adnotationes”, 209–236 and 224–227. Notice that Spinoza is more careful than Van den Enden when he speaks of a direct or immediate ‘revelation’ rather than an ‘immediate Divine Nature and wisdom’. The latter formulation is obviously more suggestive with regard to the divinity of Christ. 70  Several more arguments could be added to support the view that these freethinkers considered themselves to be Christians of some sort. For instance, almost all of them maintained that their reforms were meant to abolish the sectarian divisions in Christianity. The author of the PSSI says that his aim is “[. . .] the dissemination of truth, the good of our neighbour, and the reconciliation of a Christendom that is divided and at odds”, see PSSI, *2v (22). Koerbagh stated that if his advice were to be followed “people would gradually come nearer to the truth and a knowledge of God, and would therefore sooner attain harmony and love” and that “all the Saved [i.e. Christians] together could make up the universal community if only there was great and strong enough love”, see Koerbagh, A Light, 55 and 247. Spinoza in the TTP states that he “often wondered that men who make a boast of professing the Christian religion, which is a religion of love, joy, peace, temperance and honest dealing with all men, should quarrel so fiercely and display the bitterest hatred towards one another day by day” and claims that “there can be no doubt that these differences between the Apostles in the grounding of their religion gave rise to many disputes and schisms to vex the Church continually right from the time of the Apostles, and they will assuredly continue to vex the Church until the day comes when religion shall be separated from philosophic speculation and reduced to the few simple doctrines that Christ taught his people”, see Spinoza, Complete Works, 390 and 503. Van den Enden is probably the least outspoken in this respect, as his stated aim was merely “setting aside for the time being all further concerns about the manifold pretended religions and the sects who completely disagree among themselves, which persecute and hate each other to death” (“Voor dees tijt dan alle wijdere bekommernissen der meenighvuldige ghepretendeerde Godts-diensten, en in sich zelve gheheel oneens bevonden secteryen, malkander ter doodt toe hatende, vervolgende, enz. aen een zijde stellende”), VPS 29. 71  “Maar de mensche [. . .] is vervallen van een redelijke Godsdienst tot een Godsdienst vol van bygeloovigheden”, see Koerbagh, A Light, 218–219, and KVNN 22.

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presented their views as part of a long Christian tradition and described their efforts as a continued purification of Christianity, that is, as a form of historical progress. And so Johannes Koerbagh could answer the preachers who were asking him about his views on the preaching of God’s word that he did not intend to “destroy or overthrow it”, but rather, “with the help of god”, wanted to “affirm and purify it more and more”.72 1 Epilogue The scope of this article is wider than its title suggests, as at one point the emphasis shifts from Van den Enden to a larger circle of like-minded freethinkers. It still remains a relevant, though largely unanswerable, question what exactly Van den Enden’s ideas on religion were and which beliefs he precisely professed. Frisius’s poem dating from the late 1660s suggests that at that time and contrary to most other freethinkers in his circle, he still held on to some sort of Trinitarian doctrine or at least acknowledged that God’s son himself was the incarnation of God and as such provided an eternal connection between God and the world. It is possible, as has been suggested above, to argue that these ideas as relayed by Frisius tell us more about Frisius than about Van den Enden and it is also obvious that Van den Enden’s possible acceptance of the doctrine of the incarnation is at odds with Borch’s earlier statement that Van den Enden rejected the divinity of Christ. Nevertheless, as it was Frisius, not Borch, who was personally acquainted with Van den Enden, and as Van den Enden’s own words about the “immediate Divine Nature and wisdom” of Christ are to be taken seriously, this provides a strong indication that Van den Enden was not quite willing to abandon completely this Trinitarian principle that was common to most Christian denominations.73 72  “Op de Vierde vraag Antwoord ick, dat ick niet qualijck, maer wel gesint ben, ontrent de getrouwe en warachtige vercondiginge des goddelijcken woordts, en dat ick dien volgende niet van meijninge ben die te vernietigen, en om verre te werpen, maer met godts hulpe meer en meer, te suijveren en die te bevestigen”, see SAAdam, access no. 376, inv. 11, 235. 73  One should also take into account that Van den Enden in Philedonius still described the trinity in unambiguous traditional terms as “the son of God that descended from his paternal home, who, no less than the father, is God himself” (“nihil paternis sedibus lapsus Dei Natus, deusque non inæqualis patri” or in the Dutch translation by Nicolaes van Vlooswijck “de sone Godts afgedaelt van sijn vaderlijcke woninghe, die Godt Self is, niet minder als de vader”), see Van den Enden, Philedonius (1657), 26, and Van den Enden, Philedonius, transl. Nicolaes van Vlooswijck, Library of the University of Amsterdam (OTM: O 60–4441 (1)), 27.

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As argued above, this does not imply that Van den Enden’s views on religion were or remained traditional in every respect, but at least in this instance he was probably the least ‘radical’ of the Amsterdam freethinkers, who were all staunch Antitrinitarians. On the other hand, it is obvious that Van den Enden also supported the anticlerical and anti-dogmatic ideas typical of the Amsterdam freethinkers. Like Spinoza, the Koerbaghs and the author of Philosophia S. Scripturæ Interpres, he, too, strongly rejected every form of superstition, including many doctrines that were generally considered essential, such as, for example, the belief in the reality of miracles.74 Although they clearly advocated a highly rationalistic view of religion, it has been argued that they were also keen to position themselves within the Christian tradition. As this seems to be one of the most controversial claims to be made about this circle of freethinkers, it should be emphasized that this does not imply they cannot at the same time be considered the ‘fathers’ of a still flourishing tradition of freethought, enlightenment and atheism. In other words, the work of these thinkers can be regarded both as the completion of the Radical Reformation and as the first impulse of the Radical Enlightenment. One might argue that these freethinkers were not ‘real’ Christians. It is, for instance, possible that they only feigned a religious allegiance, as Ducause de Nazelle said about Van den Enden. This is certainly plausible when it came to the daily business of life. They may have decided to conform outwardly by attending baptisms and other Christian rituals.75 This, however, does not explain why the Koerbagh brothers went to such great lengths to remain accepted as members of the Reformed church (they could easily have joined another church or sect, or become ‘neutralists’) and, more importantly, it does not explain why the Amsterdam freethinkers felt the need to ‘dissimulate’ in works that were published anonymously and could therefore not easily be traced to a specific person. One could also argue that they were not ‘real’ Christians in the sense that they did not adhere to central Christian tenets, such as the idea of a personal God, the belief in divine providence or the adherence to 74  A remarkable exception to this is the brothers’ Koerbagh acceptance that Christians should believe in at least one ‘miracle’, namely “that God by his omipotent power has raised the Saviour from death” (“dat God door sijn almogende kragt de Behouder uyt den doode opgewekt heeft”), see Koerbagh, A Light, 192–193. However, it is possible that despite the explicit formulation of this ‘doctrine’, they—like Spinoza—interpreted the resurrection of Christ in a spiritual or allegorical sense, see Spinoza, Complete Works, 946 and 953. 75  Both Van den Enden and Adriaan Koerbagh regularly acted as witnesses to baptisms in Roman Catholic and Reformed churches. For instances in which Koerbagh acted as a witness see e.g. SAA, DTB, source 44, 22 (28 November 1662), source 44, 57 (11 November 1663), source 106, 89 (27 January 1664) and source 44, 149 (12 September 1666).

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the Trinitarian dogma. Most clergymen of the established churches in the seventeenth century would readily agree to such a normative and essentialist definition of Christianity, but this would obviously imply that Socinianism has no place in the Christian tradition. Moreover, judging by these standards, many of the sixteenth-century spiritualists would also have to be excluded from the history of Christianity, and in fact almost the entire tradition of negative theology would have to be discarded on the same grounds. Nevertheless, such objections, however relevant they may be, cannot explain why the Amsterdam freethinkers claimed that they were attempting to reunite Christendom, nor can these objections account for their determination to position themselves within the historical Christian context. There can be little doubt that they felt they were part of a religious tradition that was now approaching some sort of rational completion. Perhaps their expectations can be summed up by referring to an apparently old joke about Unitarians believing in one god at the very most, and a similar humorous statement by the American novelist Peter de Vries, that the evolution from polytheism to monotheism was getting nearer and nearer to the correct figure.76 The Amsterdam freethinkers were certainly following up on earlier attempts to reduce doctrines to the essentials. In so doing, they reached a point where dogmatic theology had almost entirely evaporated, superna­tural phenomena had been thoroughly dispelled from religion and the concept of God had been radically redefined, thus opening the way for a secular and naturalistic world view. Bibliography Sources

Abelinus, Johann Philipp and Matthaeus Merian the Elder, Theatrum Europaeum, vol. XI, Frankfurt, Johann Philipp Andreae, 1682 [published 1707]. Anonymus [pseud.: Constans, Lucius Antistius], De Jure Eccelsiasticorum [. . .], Alethopoli [Amsterdam], Valerius Pennatus, 1665. Anonymus, De koeckoecx-zangh van de nachtuylen van het collegie Nil Volentibus Arduum [. . .], Zwolle [probably a fictitious place of publication]: gedrukt voor den autheur, n. pr. [1677]. Anonymus, Bericht Von der Execution Deß Mons. de Rohan: Auß einem Frantzösischen Schreiben von Pariß den 28. Novembris ins Teutsch übersetzet, n.pl., n.pr., n.d. [1674/5?]. 76  Whether the joke is indeed old, as is often claimed, could not be established, but this is what Hitchens tells us in his Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, 126.

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Bayle, Pierre, Dictionaire historique et critique, Rotterdam, Reinier Leers, 1697. Borch, Olaus, Itinerarium 1660–1665. The Journal of the Danish Polyhistor Ole Borch, edited by H.D. Schepelern (4 vols.), Kopenhagen, The Danish Society of Language and Literature, 1983. Brown, William Hand, ed. Archives of Maryland, vol. V, Baltimore, Maryland Historical Society, 1887. [Casteleyn, Pieter], Hollandtze Mercurius [. . .], Haerlem, Pieter Casteleyn, 1674. Colerus, Johannes, Korte, dog waarachtige Levens-beschryving van Benedictus de Spinoza, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1705 [1880]. Deckherr, Johann, De scriptis adespotis, pseud-epigraphis, et supposititiis conjecturæ, Amsterdam, Ysbrandus Haring, 1686. Du Cause De Nazelle, Jean-Charles, Mémoires du temps de Louis XIV, publiés avec une introduction et des notes par Ernest Daudet, Paris, E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie, 1899. Duijkerius, Johannes, Het leven van Philopater & Vervolg van ’t leven van Philopater, edited by Gerardine Maréchal, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1991. Enden, Franciscus van den, Philedonius, Amsterdam, Kornelis de Bruin, 1657. Enden, Franciscus van den, Philedonius, transl. Nicolaes van Vlooswijck, Library of the University of Amsterdam (OTM: O 60–4441 (1)). [Enden, Franciscus van den], Kort verhael van Nieuw Nederlant [. . .], n.pl. [Amsterdam], n.pr., 1662. [Enden, Franciscus van den], Vrye Politijke Stellingen [. . .], Amsterdam, Pieter Arentsz Raep, 1665. [Enden, Franciscus van den et al.], Untitled manuscript genealogy of the family Kerckrinck, c. 1668, Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, Hs. vi A 40. Enden, Franciscus van den, Vrije Politijke Stellingen, ed. Wim Klever, Amsterdam, Wereldbibliotheek, 1992. Goeree, Willem, De Kerklyke en Weereldlyke Historien, Amsterdam, Gerardus Borstius and Jakobus Borstius, 1705. Hessels, Jan Hendrik, ed. Ecclesiae londino-batavae archivvm, vol. 3, part 2, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1897. Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan: of van de Stoffe, Gedaente, ende Magt van de Kerckelycke ende Wereltycke Regeeringe, Amsterdam, Jacobus Wagenaer, 1667. The Jesuit ratio studiorum of 1599, transl. A.P. Farrell, Washington, Conference of Major Superiors of Jesuits, 1970. Koerbagh, Adriaen, Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet, Amsterdam, [Herman Aeltsz], 1668. Koerbagh, Adriaen, A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion, translated by Michiel Wielema, Leiden-Boston Brill, 2011.

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Lamzweerde, Johannes Baptist van, Geluckwenschingh den leden van de vergaderinghe, bekendt door den zinspreuck Nil volentibus arduum, gedaen over hunne crediteurschap van den desolaten boedel der medicijnen deses tijdts, Amsterdam, Hieronymus Sweerts, 1677. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Essais de théodicée [. . .], Amsterdam, Troyel, 1710. Licetus, Fortunius, De Monstris. Ex recensione Gerardi Blasii [. . .], Amsterdam, Andreas Frisius, 1665. Los Rios y Alarcon, Bartholomeus de, Phoenix Thenensis e cineribus redivivus, Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus, 1637. Los Rios y Alarcon, Bartholomeus de, De hierarchia Mariana libri sex [. . .], Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus, 1641. Meyer, Lodewijk, Philosophia S. Scripturæ Interpres [. . .], Eleutheropoli [Amsterdam], n.pr., 1666. Meyer, Lodewijk, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, translated by Samuel Shirley, Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 2005. Plockhoy, The Way to the Peace and Settlement of these Nations [. . .], London, Daniel White, 1659. Plockhoy van Zierck-zee, Pieter Cornelisz, Kort en klaer ontwerp [. . .], Amsterdam, Otto Barentsz Smient, 1662. Ravaisson, François (ed.), Archives de la Bastille [. . .], vol. VII, Paris, A. Durand & Pedone-Lauriel, 1874. [Rieu, Willem Nicolaas du, ed.], Album studiosorum Academiae Lugduno Batavae 1575– 1875, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1875. Rixtel, Pieter, Mengel-rymen, Haerlem, Vincent Casteleyn, 1669. Roukema, Roelof, Naem-Boek der Beroemde Genees en Heelmeesters van alle eeuwen [. . .], Amsterdam, Jan ten Hoorn, 1706. [Spinoza, Benedictus de], De Rechtzinnige Theologant of Godgeleerde Staatkundige Verhandelinge, Hamburg [Amsterdam], Henricus Koenraad [Jan Rieuwertsz], 1693. Spinoza, Benedictus de, Complete Works, translated by Samuel Shirley, Indianapolis and Cambridge, Hackett, 2002. Sylvius, Lambert, Historien onses tyds, behelzende saken van staat en oorlogh [. . .], Amsterdam, Jan ten Hoorn and Jan Bouman, 1685. Til, Salomon van, Het Voor-hof der Heydenen, voor alle ongeloovigen geopent [. . .], Dordrecht, Dirk Goris, 1694. Vondel, Joost van den, Bespiegelingen van Godt en Godtsdienst. tegens d’ongodisten, verlochenaers der Godtheit of goddelijcke voorzienigheit, Amsterdam, widow of Abraham de Wees, 1662. Vries, David Pietersz de, Korte Historiael [. . .], Hoorn and Alkmaar, Symon Cornelisz Brekegeest, 1655.

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Akkerman, Fokke, “Tractatus theologico-politicus: texte latin, traductions néerlandaises et Adnotationes,” in Spinoza to the Letter: Studies in Words, Texts and Books, edited by Fokke Akkerman and Piet Steenbakkers (eds.), Leiden, Brill, 2005, 209–236. Bedjai, Marc, “Libertins et politiques: le comte de Guiche,” Revue de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 44, 1992, 29–33. Bedjai, Marc, “La découverte de l’édition du Philedonius (1657) à la BN”, Revue de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 49, Automne 1993, 35–52. Grell, Ole Peter, “From Persecution to Integration: The Decline of the Anglo-Dutch Communities in England, 1648–1702”, in From Persecution to Toleration: The Glorious Revolution and Religion in England, edited by Ole Peter Grell, Jonathan I. Israel and Nicholas Tyacke, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1991, 97–127. Hajenius, Angelique Marie Louise, Dopers in de Domstad: geschiedenis van de Doopsgezinde Gemeente Utrecht 1639–1939, Hilversum, Verloren, 2003. Harder, Leland and Marvin Harder, Plockhoy from Zurik-zee: the study of a Dutch reformer in Puritan England and Colonial America, Newton, KS, Board of Education and Publication, 1952. Heertum, Cis van, “Reading the Career of Johannes Koerbagh: the Auction Catalogue of his Library as a Reflection of his Life”, Lias, 38, 2011, 1–57. Hitchens, Christopher, Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, London, Atlantic Books, 2006. Kernkamp, Johannes Herman, “Brieven uit de correspondentie van Pieter de la Court en zijn verwanten (1661–1666)”, Bijdragen en Mededelingen van het Historisch Genootschap, 70, 1956, 82–165. Klever, Wim, The Sphinx. Spinoza Reconsidered in Three Essays, Vrijstad [Rotterdam?], Docvision, 2000. Leeuwenburgh, Bart, Het noodlot van een ketter, Nijmegen, Vantilt, 2013. Meininger, Jan V. and Guido van Suchtelen, Liever met wercken, als met woorden de levensreis van doctor Franciscus van den Enden, leermeester van Spinoza, complotteur tegen Lodewijk de Veertiende, Weesp, Heureka, 1980. Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring: over Hollandse vrijgeesten, Utrecht, H&S, 1980. Mertens, Frank, Franciscus van den Enden’s Brief Account, PhD diss., Ghent University, 2006. Mertens, Frank, Van den Enden en Spinoza, Voorschoten, Spinozahuis, 2012. Mertens, Frank, “Radicale Verlichting en Reformatie: de kring rond Spinoza en Van den Enden”, in Danny Praet, (ed.), Protestantisme: aspecten van de Reformatie tussen Humanisme en Verlichting, Ghent, Academia Press, 2014, 111–48. Mirto, Alfonso, “Lettere di Andries Fries ad Antonio Magliabechi, 1659–1675”, Lias, 14, 1987, 61–100.

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Proietti, Omero, “Le ‘Philedonius’ de Franciscus van den Enden et la formation rhétorico-littéraire de Spinoza (1656–1658)”, Cahiers Spinoza, 6, 1991, 9–82. Proietti, Omero, Philedonius, 1657: Spinoza, Van den Enden e i classici latini, Macerata, EUM, 2010. Rivaud, Albert, Catalogue critique des manuscrits de Leibniz 1672–1676, Hildesheim, Georg Olms, 1986. Sterck, Johannes Franciscus Maria, Hoofdstukken over Vondel en zijn kring, Amsterdam, S.L. van Looy, 1928. Thijssen-Schoute, Caroline Louise, Nederlands Cartesianisme, Utrecht, HES, 1989.

The Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres between Humanist Scholarship and Cartesian Science Lodewijk Meyer and the Emancipatory Power of Philology Henri Krop 1 Introduction 1.1 Meyer’s Interpres in the German Aufklärung In 1776, after more than a century, Johannes Salomo Semler prepared the Philosophia Scripturae interpres for the press.1 The title leaves out the S. of the original title, which might well have been done with intent, because Semler was one of the first theologians who no longer considered the Biblical texts as such to be ‘holy’. In the preface the Halle professor outlined the motives for this remarkable reissue.2 He considered the work a milestone in the history of hermeneutics3 and he put the Interpres on a par with the controversial works of Richard Simon, which he published in a heavily annotated German version.4 In 1781–3 Semler also wrote the preface to the German version of Bekker’s Betooverde Wereld, which he elaborately annotated as well.5 A recent 1  Meyer, Philosophia Scripturae interpres, exercitatio paradoxa tertium edita et appendice I. Camerarii aucta cum notis variis et praefatione I.S. Semler. Recent literature on Semler includes Bordoli, L’Illuminismo di Dio, which deals with this work and Semler’s comments (145–170), and Hornig, Johann Salomo Semler. 2  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres (‘Eleutheropoli’, n. pr., 1666) in quarto. The second edition was in octavo and often printed as an appendix to Spinoza’s TTP with the general title Tractatus theologico-politicus: cui adjunctus est Philosophia S. Scripturæ Interpres (n.pl., n.pr., 1674). Its own title page gives the year 1673. Besides the Dutch translation Semler also mentions a French version, which Bordoli was unable to recover. 3  Meyer, “Praefatio”, Philosophia Scripturae interpres, III: “peritos rei hermeneuticae”. Referring to the outrage the book caused, Semler asked the reader if it is really sensible to denounce and even burn heretical books such as those of Celsus, Julian or Porphyry, which like Meyer’s work a human pen wrote? Persecution of these books is not only in conflict with Christian tolerance, but their study is an incentive to theological self-reflection as well. 4  Semler, Richard Simons kritische Schriften über das Neue Testament. 5  The translator was Semler’s pupil Johann Moritz Schwager. In an open letter preceding his Beytrag zur Geschichte der Intoleranz, oder Leben, Meinungen und Schicksale Balthasar Becker’s, 4–5, he compares Bekker’s and Van der Marck’s trials—the latter was a Groningen professor of natural law, in 1773 relieved from his office due to his radical opinions—with the legal proceedings of the Spanish inquisition, where ‘innocence is of no avail.’

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commentator observed that his interest in the Betooverde Wereld was largely due to Bekker’s scriptural hermeneutics and his liberty in applying the principle that “the Bible is to be examined philologically and without prejudices”.6 However Bekker left the work half-finished and he had only to proceed in the acknowledgment of the historicity of the Bible.7 In the preface of his edition of the Interpres, Semler opposes the disciplines of hermeneutics and dogmatic theology. Denying the historicity of all human thought, dogmatic theology is harmful because it precludes the development of true religious knowledge.8 However, without the ‘science of interpretation’ no preacher is able to use the Bible in order to edify his audience.9 Semler strongly rejects the premise of Meyer’s hermeneutical theory that the Bible is the word of God.10 In large parts of these texts “there is no divine teaching guiding us to faith and morality”.11 These parts are merely of historical interest and useless in order to acquire “a spiritual and more perfect knowledge of religion”. Among the pagans we find pious people and they create inspiring religious “poetry” too.12 The Bible is only one of the texts man uses to acquire religious knowledge. Semler’s criticism shows that Meyer’s answer to the complicated

6  Nooijen, ‘Unserm grossen Bekker ein Denkmal? ’, 414. 7  Nooijen, ‘Unserm grossen Bekker ein Denkmal? ’, 422. 8  Meyer, “Praefatio”, Philosophia Scripturae interpres, VIII: “Ista species—i.e. cognitio dogmatica—non parum nocuit successibus christianae cognitionis, quae continuis incrementis carere non debebat, quia ex aeternis quasi fontibus promanabat, et homines semper alios, aliis certe rerum et studiorum in opportunitatibus versantes occupat”. In view of the ever changing human reality dogmatic theology is of little value. Rhetorically Semler asks if Christians are really exempt from the historical law of “variety, which make human ideas change in accordance with different periods, places, characters and practices” (p. X). 9  Hornig, Johann Salomo Semler, 246–91 and Schmitter, Kritik und Apologetik in der Theologie J.S. Semlers, 46–58. 10  Meyer, Philosophia Scripturae interpres, 181 (“Variae observationes et additiones”): “Dicit, Scripturas novi veterisque testamenti codices ex quo tum fidei tum morum dogmata petantur”. 11  Meyer, Philosophia Scripturae interpres, 181 (“Variae observationes et additiones”): “In multis autem scriptionibus aut earum partibus non est tradita institutio divina ad fidem et mores; itaque non omnes libri pariter idem beneficium lectoribus praestare possunt”. 12  Meyer, Philosophia Scripturae interpres, 181–182 (“Variae observationes et additiones”): “quod eum spirituali et perfectiore cognitione religionis conveniat. [. . .] Aliae gentes per dei sapientem gubernationem aliis utebantur adiumentis tam ad publicam et domesticam religionem, quam ad usum proprium facultatum animi; nec defuerunt alibi homines probi et pii, qui internam religionem et virtutem [. . .] informarunt”.

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relationship between philology and theology in Protestantism is not so radical after all.13 These editorial activities on hermeneutical texts of the preceding century made Semler a direct heir of 17th-century Dutch radicalism at the end of the Enlightenment. He “rehabilitated and praised the heterodox fringe of the past”.14 In his studies of the Interpres, Roberto Bordoli established that at the end of the Aufklärung Semler’s interest in Meyer did not come out of the blue.15 He observed that Meyer’s work did not disappear from the 18th-century theological and philosophical scene. He refers to Baumgarten, Semler’s predecessor at Halle, who in a review of the Interpres concluded that Meyer’s theory ‘in itself is not monstrous, but he exaggerated in its application’.16 Indeed Meyer’s linguistic theory is conventional.17 In this paper the Interpres will be presented as part of the history of hermeneutics. Other perspectives will be largely ignored.18 I regard the author as a humanist scholar, who, when he was confronted with Cartesianism, continued to pursue his ideals of emancipation and enlightenment. In the Interpres he rejected the existing practices of philology on theoretical, but also on practical reasons. The Interpres intervenes in contemporary controversies. The first is the relation between philosophy and philology, which Cartesianism made precarious and the second is the enduring unstable balance within Reformed tradition between Biblical philology of humanist origin and doctrinal theology.

13  Laplanche, “Débats et combats autour de la Bible”, 117–139 and “La Bible chez les Réformés”, 459–480. 14  Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 312. 15  Bordoli, Ragione e Scrittura tra Descartes e Spinoza, 38–39. 16  Baumgarten (ed.), Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek III, 14. Stück, nr. 216, 113–123, 122. Unfortunately, Meyer assumed “seine Erkenntnis als eine richtige”, and used it as the proper “Bestimmungsgrund” of interpretation. In nr. 206 of the same volume, Baumgarten dealt with De jure ecclesiasticorum. Already in the first volume of the Nachrichten all the works of Spinoza were reviewed (nr. 8 PPC) (nr. 9 TTP) and (nr. 16 OP, nr. 17, the German translation), but also Cuffeler’s Specimen artis ratiocinandi was dealt with (nr. 21). 17  Lagrée, “Spinoza et Clauberg”, 31, her “Sens et vérité”, 76–82, and the annotations and appendices in the modern French version of the Interpres, Lagrée and Moreau (eds.), La philosophie interprète de l’écriture sainte. 18  For example Walther, “Biblische Hermeneutik und historische Erklärung. Lodewijk Meyer und Benedikt de Spinoza über Norm, Methode und Ergebnis wissenschaftlicher Bibelauslegung”.

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1.2 Philology and Cartesianism The difference in attitude between Semler and Meyer towards hermeneutics and philology is obvious. It appears that Semler leaned towards reducing theology to a hermeneutics of religious writings. Meyer’s Interpres, however, seems to make philological scholarship irrelevant to a real understanding of the Bible. If we want to know God, philosophy alone can do the job. However, it was obvious to Meyer’s contemporaries that it wasn’t only the philological approach to the Biblical texts that fell short of Meyer’s criterion of truth, namely absolute certainty based on a clear and unambiguous method, but also the so-called higher studies—medicine, theology and jurisprudence—being based as they are on texts. Their fate is sealed by a ‘radical’ Cartesianism, which no longer respected Descartes’s ‘modesty and prudence’ and did not comply with the intrinsic limits of philosophy, as the Leiden and later Amsterdam professor of philosophy Johannes de Raey observed.19 Theo Verbeek drew our attention to the significant topic of the status of the higher studies in Dutch Cartesianism and the efforts to save them from the onslaughts of radical Cartesians.20 In a 1687 disputation De Raey refers to the list of literary studies—“the peritia linguarum needed to understand the writings of the ancients, history, the reading of the bonae litterae, eloquence, poetry”—mentioned in the Discours de la méthode, which suggested that the French philosopher continued to esteem the humanities.21 This is a beautiful hermeneutical argument accounting for hermeneutics and the higher sciences in Cartesianism. The raison d’être of the humanities in the age of Cartesian philosophy is linked by De Raey to another theme, namely the ephemeral distinction between theology and philosophy in Cartesianism, which surfaces again in 1686 when the Franeker professor of theology and philosophy Herman Röell created a new rational theology.22 Meyer’s plea for a theology based on philosophy was basically shared by some other second generation Cartesians. Spinoza, however, went his own way and the Tractatus theologico-politicus 19  De Raey, “Disputatio philosophica; specimen exhibens modestiae et prudentiae in philosophando”, Cogitata de interpretatione, quibus de nature humani sermonis et illius rectus usus tum in communi vita et disciplinis ad usum vitae spectantinus, tum in philosophia. On this topic: Strazzoni, The Foundation of Early Modern Science: Metaphysics Logic and Theology, ch. 3.1. 20  Verbeek, “Les cartésiens face à Spinoza, le cas de Johannes de Raey”, 77–82. 21  De Raey, “Disputatio philosophica; specimen exhibens modestiae et prudentiae in philosophando”, 638. De Raey had his student quoting here the Discours I, sect. 7 and 8. 22  De Raey, “Ad Christophorum Wittichium theologum, epistola familiaris prima”, Cogitata de interpretatione, 660–661 and “Epistola ad virum celeberrimum theologum”, ibid., 661–668.

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reflects his concern of the “ignorants”, that is all those men who are unable to acquire philosophical knowledge. Hence, the Interpres is not only directed against theologians but against all literary scholars. Moreau observed: “En ce sens le livre de Meyer, [. . .] est tout autant dirigé contre les doctes que contre les théologiens”.23 However, Meyer’s critique of theologians and scholars did not originate in Cartesianism, but seems to be part of an older tradition. This program propounded by Meyer to emancipate the layman is shared by Koerbagh, but once again not by Spinoza. 1.3 The ‘Science of Interpretation’ and Protestantism The humanist movement transformed the medieval ars grammatica into an independent ‘scholarly’ discipline.24 In the 17th century the ars interpretandi, became part of logic, because, as Dannhauer observed, it is a “way to know things”.25 This development was favoured by the fact that the concept of ‘interpretatio’ was part of the Aristotelian tradition.26 In the 1662 dictionary of Micraelius, we find the Aristotelian meaning combined with the new one: “to make obscure discourse clear”.27 Hermeneutics required the study of languages such as Greek and Hebrew, but also French, German and Dutch. From the 16th century onwards, all kinds of grammars, dictionaries and concordances were written, and a method to use them was developed. Humanist scholars included the study of the Bible in their activities and the scholastic theologian had to put up with the presence of the grammaticus, who wrote Biblical commentaries adopting the same method as used in

23  Moreau, “Louis Meyer et l’Interpres”, 82–84. He rightly infers from Meyer’s view that it makes textual criticism superfluous: “The oriental languages are no longer needed to establish the best text and best interpretation”. 24  In his introduction to the reprint of Meier’s Versuch einer allgemeinen Auslegungskunst of 1757, Geldsetzer mentions besides Aristotelian and Ramist logic, theology, jurisprudence, humanist text editions and translations of classical authors as causes of the rise of the science of hermeneutics. 25  Dannhauer, Idea boni interpretis, art. 1, 5: “omne scibile habet aliquam respondentem scientiam philosophicam. Modus interpretandi est aliquod scibile. Ergo: modus interpretandi habet aliquam sibi respondentem scientiam philosophicam.” This philosophical science is logic, which a comparable syllogism makes clear. 26  For example Burgersdijk, Institutionum logicarum libri duo, I c. 14, 112: “interpretatio debet esse perspicua, hoc est distincta, propria et usitata”. 27  Micraelius, Lexicon Philosophicum, s.v. Micraelius gave also a third meaning: ‘translating’. An interpretation of the Bible, he adds, is either infallible if it is done by God, or dubious if it is a human undertaking.

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interpreting the secular texts of the Ancients.28 At the Reformed universities this kind of Biblical exegesis was practised and all theologians had to have such hermeneutical techniques at their disposal.29 It should be noted that according to Calvin’s fellow reformer Théodore de Bèze, the Reformation started with the German John Reuchlin, who made knowledge of Hebrew available to the Church. Hence, by divine grace the Christians regained the ability to read the ‘divine secrets’ once again in the languages they were written in.30 This ideal of the Reformation automatically resulted in the development of all kinds of devices, which everyone needed to adequately read the Bible in the original languages. All kinds of hermeneutical practices were developed both to assist the Reformed preacher to become a Verbi divini minister and to give the layman access to the Divine Word.31 These practices mediated between the ideal and the reality of everyday life, which often did not correspond to the humanist ambition to disseminate a full linguistic competence in the three languages to all Christians.32 In the course of time these practices adopted from humanism developed into a sophisticated ‘technical machinery’ required to read the Bible33 as Moreau phrased it: the desire that everyone be able to read the Bible by themselves inevitably resulted in the development of a complicated ‘science technique’, which inevitably only an elite could master.34 An example of the significance of humanist philology in the Reformation is a guide of theological studies written by the Utrecht professor of theology Gysbertus Voetius. In the 1644 Exercitia et Bibliotheca he gives a description of the complicated machinery of interpretation. In the second part Voetius lists the books a student of theology should read. In the fourth chapter he outlines the linguistic instruments required in interpreting the Scriptures,

28  Laplanche, Bible, sciences et pouvoirs au XVIIe siècle, 19. 29  Laplanche, Bible, sciences et pouvoirs, 29–30, underlines the focus on the literal sense of the text due to confessional controversy, which had a ‘philological and historical effect’. In other words: theological controversy led to a reassessment of humanist philology. 30  Laplanche, Bible, sciences et pouvoirs, 11–12, and his fundamental L’écriture, le sacré et l’histoire, 45–47. He refers to De Bèze (?), Histoire écclesiastique des Eglises réformées au Royaume de France, 1–4. 31  Roussel, “Commenter et traduire”. For an outline of the progress made in the ‘technical machinery’ to read the Bible since the Middle Ages due to humanism see the paper of Boudelle, “L’humanisme et la Bible”. 32  Van Rooden, Theology, Biblical Scholarship and Rabbinical Studies in the 17th Century, 63. 33  For the notion of ‘technical machinery’ in the humanities, see Van Rooden, “Spinoza’s bijbeluitleg”, 120–122. 34  Moreau, “Louis Meyer et l’Interpres”, 83.

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i.e. in practising “textual or scriptural theology”.35 This list enables us to assess seventeenth-century hermeneutical scholarship not in terms of their ideals and principles, but by the instruments developed in order to answer the problems it gave rise to. “In order to acquire a full explanation of a text, chapter or a book of Scripture”, Voetius writes, we require “commentators”.36 These do not exist for the Bible as a whole, Voetius observed.37 The third section of this bibliography lists the critical editions. Here the student, according to Voetius, should study the text of the Old Testament with and without vocalisation. This remark substantiates the power of hermeneutical practices, which every academic theologian had to acknowledge. Since the Arcanum punctuationis revelatum of Louis Cappel (1585–1658) published at Leiden, theologians realised the difference between these versions of the Hebrew text. By philological research Cappel concluded that the vocal points in the Hebrew text are not an original part of it, but were inserted in the Bible after the redaction of the Talmud, that is in the 6th century AD. However, in 1645, the Leiden professor of Hebrew, Constantijn l’Empereur, refused his assistance in the preparation of the manuscript of Cappel’s Ars critica for the press. He did not contest its scholarly value, but he feared the theological consequences.38 It undermined the Reformed principle of the perspicuity of Scripture, and in 1675 the Swiss churches included a condemnation of this theory in their confession, the Formula consensus. Although it is quite probable that Voetius was as unhappy as l’Empereur with the theological consequences of Cappel’s philological work, he could not ignore it. The student had to be aware of this distinction and its implications for the text of the Old Testament. The Bibliotheca continues with sections on the ‘oriental versions’, such as the Targums in Aramaic, the Syriac translation of the Old Testament, the

35  Voetius, Exercitia et Bibliotheca studiosi theologiae, II, c. 4, 496–529. 36  Voetius, Exercitia et Bibliotheca studiosi theologiae II, sectio posterior, c. 4, 496. The first section of the bibliotheca outlines the factual knowledge the student of theology should acquire: philosophy, history, chronology, geography. 37  Voetius, Exercitia et Bibliotheca studiosi theologiae II, sectio posterior, c. 4, 497. However, Antonius Possevinus (1533–1611) and Robertus Bellarminus (1542–1621) listed general commentators. Voetius freely uses Roman Catholic scholars. He only criticises them on professional grounds. Due to an insufficient linguistic competence they are a ‘guest’ in biblical philology. 38  Van Rooden, Constantijn l’Empereur, ch. 5, 223, who quotes a letter of Rivet to Sarrau. On Cappel see Laplanche, Bible, sciences et pouvoirs, 44–46 and Id., L’Ecriture. Le sacré et l’histoire. Erudits et politiques devant la Bible en France au xviie siècle, 211–328.

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Septuagint, translations in Latin and in modern languages.39 After these translations, Voetius lists the dictionaries on biblical topics: names, persons, history, morals, geography, chronology and the Hebrew Republic. Voetius’s manual makes clear that the Reformed reading of the Bible was not monolithic. It distinguishes four kinds of theology: the historical, the textual, the controversial and the practical.40 On the one hand there is a linguistic approach, which argues inductively, starting from the particular phrases and is non-confessional. The other uses a principle of interpretation, such as the analogy of Faith, which assumes the Bible to be a whole with one coherent meaning and message. It therefore tries to access the intention of its one and only real author: God. Accordingly, the General Introduction to the study of the Old and New Testament of Leiden’s most important theologian, André Rivet (1571–1651), appointed after the purge of Arminianism, distinguishes two kinds of interpretation: the simple understanding of the words and sentences in Scripture, which he called the “exegetical interpretation” and the insight into the meaning, which the author intended them to convey, which by means of reason may be deduced from the words.41 To understand the true meaning of the words of the Bible, Rivet lists the extensive philological knowledge the interpreter needs. It is obvious that the hermeneutical procedure—ratio investigandi sensum literalem—Rivet developed in seven points is not peculiar to Protestantism, but is common humanist practice. Hence, Meyer’s observation that every theologian should possess “knowledge of oriental languages” and be able to consult the ancient “pious and learned interpreters” is a principle of linguistic research shared by hermeneutical scholars of all confessions.42 It is only after setting out these rules that he discusses the second form of interpretation, which adopts as its basic principle the analogy of Faith and other principles particular to one Church, such as the ‘practice of the Church’ as specific for Roman Catholicism and the ‘Bible as interpreter of itself’ for the Reformation. According to François Laplanche, the writing of humanist commentaries started with Valla and Erasmus, but came to an end in the last years of the 17th century.43 He explains this phenomenon by observing that biblical humanism 39  Voetius, Exercitia et Bibliotheca studiosi theologiae II, sectio posterior, c. 4, 500. 40  Voetius, Exercitia et Bibliotheca studiosi theologiae I, cc. 13–15 and 17. 41  Rivet, Isagoge, seu introductio generalis ad Scripturam sacram Veteris et Novi Testamenti, 210 and 261–262. 42  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres (1666), 39–40: all Christians “who broke away from Roman-Catholicism” maintain that other means to interpret Scripture include “linguarum orientalium cognitio, interpretum piorum ac doctorum auxilium”. 43  Laplanche, Bible, sciences et pouvoirs, 42–3 and 65–8.

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did not fulfil the hope that the study of the literal sense would lead to a clear and uncontroversial understanding of the Bible. Meyer actually drew a corresponding conclusion. Meyer took part in a crusade for linguistic emancipation which started at the end of the sixteenth century. In the Interpres this particular ideal of humanism became separated from the practise of philology by a radical identification of philosophy with theology, which in a more moderate form was not uncommon in Dutch Cartesianism. Therefore, Meyer’s own use of philology was ‘paradoxical’ in the sense that he applied the philological devices developed by humanism in order to overthrow humanism. 2

Emancipation Through the Study of Language

2.1 Life and Intellectual Activities of Lodewijk Meyer Lodewijk Meyer was born in 1629 at Amsterdam.44 His half-brother was the famous translator of scholarly work Allart Kók, who died at the age of 37 in 1653. Between 1654 and 1660 Lodewijk studied at Leiden University, philosophy at first and after 1658, at least officially, also medicine. In 1660 he graduated in both disciplines. His thesis in philosophy on matter and motion gives ample evidence of Cartesian influences.45 After his studies, he returned to Amsterdam, where he began to practise as a physician and became part of the circle of friends of Spinoza. In 1663 he edited the Renati des Cartes Principia philosophiae, to which he added a substantial preface arguing for a radical reformation of philosophical method. His only philosophical work is the Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, which appeared anonymously in 1666 and a year later in a Dutch version, probably compiled by Meyer himself. Afterwards he returned to the literary pursuits of his pre-university days. Notwithstanding the apparent change in the focus of his interests, he retained his relationship with Spinoza. He may have been the physician present at the deathbed of the philosopher and he certainly was involved in preparing the edition of the Opera posthuma. Four years after the philosopher passed away at The Hague, Meyer himself died. Despite the diverse activities of this ‘versatile and many-sided’ man, his

44  Meyer himself wrote his name with an ‘ij’ and not with a ‘y’, as is to be seen from his personal signature at the end of the translator’s preface of the Wendelinus translation. His biography we find in Van Harderveld, Lodewijk Meijer (1629–1681) als lexicograaf, 11–93, and in Bordoli, Etica, arte, scienza tra Descartes e Spinoza. 45  However, Thijssen-Schoute, “Lodewijk Meyer en diens verhouding tot Descartes en Spinoza”, Uit de Republiek der Letteren, 190, saw only “a few Cartesian definitions.”

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work mainly focussed on the emancipation of the Dutch people through the dissemination of knowledge.46 2.2 Motives of Translating Meyer’s first publication is a poem in praise of his half-brother, which preceded the Dutch version of Burgersdijk’s logic.47 Here he outlined the advantages of philosophizing and doing scholarly work in the vernacular for Dutch society. Translating science into Dutch is obviously possible, because “the Dutch communicate in a free and beautiful language”, which is “more clear than Latin, being tainted by Greek”. In the preface of the Nederlandsche Woordenschat he invokes the ‘Batavian myth’, linking political and cultural freedom. In ancient times the Dutch people fearlessly defended their “mother tongue” and liberty. Why should “we Dutch” passively and cowardly watch the depressing spectacle of the inferiority of “our” sciences, he asks rhetorically.48 Already in the last lines of this laudatory poem Meyer refers to the enlightenment of the “Dutch people” as the objective of Kók’s translating activities. There is also a pragmatic argument. Doing science in your own language frees the schools from the onerous duty to teach the pupils “rare and artificial words, which overload their memory”. The learning of the classical languages is an utter waste of time. By education in Dutch the students will be able to stay at home. Both sons and daughters will profit and become “wise” at an early age.49 This argument returned in his main work in the field of linguistics, the Nederlandsche Woordenschat. He urges that these years be available for the exploration of things unknown until now. In particular, young students will be able to study the

46  Steenbakkers, “Meyer”, Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers, 695. 47  Meyer, “Op de oeffening der reden-konst van A.L. Kók”, in Burgersdijk, Logica practica, oft Oeffening der reden-konst, xxx4: “Zo steekt de Batavier met ruime schreden / Den Romer na de Króon der weetenheden, / En stelt, ’t gheen hy met Ghrieksch be-morste taal / Naauw zegghen kan, in duitscher spreek-ghe-praal.” 48  Meyer, “Voorreeden. Den Nederduitschen Taallieveren geluk en voorspoedt”, Nederland­ sche Woordenschat, xv4. 49  Meyer, “Op de oeffening der reden-konst”, xxx4v: “Van ’t Duitsche vólk, dat ghy met spijs voor-ziet, / Waar voetsel in zijn vrye ziel ghe-niet?” and some lines earlier: “De jueghdt behoeft met ver-ghe-zóchte woorden / Haar brein niet meêr en herssen-huis te moórden, / Een Moeder-mondt boet dus met zoeter toónen / De Weet-ghierhedt van Dóchters en van Zoonen.”

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principles of mathematics directly, which will be beneficial to the study of the other sciences.50 The objectives Meyer outlined are anything but new and his half-brother had already formulated them. In the programmatic texts included in the six Dutch versions of Burgersdijk’s philosophical manuals published between 1646 and 1648, Kók addresses all the “true lovers of wisdom” among his copatriots who want to be taught the learned sciences.51 By making the liberal arts speak Dutch, the nation is best served and the fatherland appropriately cultivated. Like Meyer he invokes the Batavian myth, observing that in ancient times “we” shed “the unjust yoke of criminal tyranny by kings”. Recently with the help of God and justice we regained our original liberty and “we” should be able to cultivate the “sciences and the arts in our mother tongue”.52 However, Kók only imitated the example of “honourable men in the last century” who attempted to perfect the Dutch language as an instrument of scholarly work.53 Dibbets observed that Kók is part of a tradition which began at the end of the sixteenth century with Hendrik Spiegel, Simon Stevin, Hugo Grotius and the members of the Amsterdam chamber of rhetoric ‘in liefde bloeyende’. It dedicated the manuals they commissioned to the Leiden University board, inviting the governors to make Dutch the mother tongue of all ‘liberal arts’ and thereby making the university more useful to the fatherland.54 Kók also suggested that he translated on the direct behest of the Dutch public, thus contravening the efforts of scholars to hinder access to the sciences. Such hideous efforts 50  Meyer, “Voorreeden”, xxr: “zoude een lange reeks van jaren, moeiten en onkosten, die men gewoon is te hangen aan het leeren der Latynsche taale [. . .] gespaart en te koste gelegt konden worden, in ’t navorschen van noch onbekende zaken, niet alleen ter vergrooting en opbouwinge der bloote kennisse, maar ook ten gebruike der artseneye en ’t gemeen leven dienende.” 51  In Kók, Ontwerp der Nederduitsche letter-konst, the editor deals with these prefaces on xv–xxi. Large parts of these prefaces on 74–93. 52   Kók, “Op-dracht aan Mijn Heeren de Burgher-meesteren der ver-maarde Stadt Amstelredam”, xxx3: “Want zo wel, als Ghrieken en Romen, hebben wy onze halzen het on-ghe-rechtigh juk en bal-daadighe dwing-landy der koningen ont-trokken, en be-toont dat die aloude ghroot-moedigheidt der Batavieren [. . .] Maar niet zo wel, als zy zien de Weetenschappen en Konsten in onze moederlijke taal voort-ghe-plant, en onze landtghe-nooten daar door als een baak der wijde werelt ten toon ghe-stelt” (edition Dibbets, 83). 53  Kók, “Op-dracht”, 3r: “Dit eenighe hebben in de voorighe en deze eeuw veel grhroótmoedighe mannen be-klaaght en ghe-zócht te boete.” 54  Dibbets, “Koks Burgersdijk vertalingen en de Nederlandse Woordenschat”, 13–35, en Dibbets, “Inleiding”, xxii–xxiii.

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originated in the ill will of the scholars, who consider the Dutch language to be unsuited for scientific discourse, due to envy or avarice.55 In particular Meyer underlines the need for translating scholarly work in two disciplines. Ordinary Dutchmen should be able to consult juridical texts in their own language. By being able to read them in Dutch the common man will become intelligible, which “surely will create much well-being to the commonwealth”.56 In her study of Meyer’s lexicographical activities, Ike van Hardeveld argued that there is a direct link here between Koerbagh’s first lexicon of juridical terms and Meyer’s Nederlandtsche Woordenschat.57 She even considers it very likely that Meyer was involved in the publication of Koerbagh’s 1664 ’t Nieuw Woorden-boek der regten, because both dictionaries were printed by the same printer Jan Hendriksz Boom. The left header of Koerbagh’s lexicon is Nederlandtsche and right header Woordenschat, just like Meyer’s dictionary. Moreover, the first words of Koerbagh’s lexicon read: “Nederlandsche woorden-schat der rechts-geleertheyd en regts-vordering”. She forcefully suggests that “if both books were bound together they would give the impression of forming a unity” and that “Koerbagh’s work is merely the continuation of Meijer’s dictionary”. The second discipline focused on is theology. After Kok’s early death in 1653, Meyer completed the unfinished translation of Wendelinus’ Christian theology by adding a Dutch version of the fourth part.58 In the dedication to “lovers of theology”, Meyer outlined that after translating works on the mechanical arts, he continued by translating treatises in philosophy itself in order to give people access to the most “delightful science”, i.e. theology, which develops the higher faculties. In this manner Meyer explained the link between scholarly works in the vernacular and the ability to pursue one’s own happiness. ‘Arrogant’ scholars stress the impossibility of translating scholarly works into Dutch, but experience refutes their words. Moreover, some theologians object to the translation of theological works for fear of the intellectual emancipation of the common believer. However, if their efforts are successful ‘Popish ignorance’ will drag on. Therefore, their attitude is irreligious, because the apostle Paul himself both urges the Christian to examine all things by himself 55  Kók, “Den ghoedt-hartighen Leezer”, A2r and Dibbets, “Koks Burgersdijk vertalingen en de Nederlandse Woordenschat”, 21. 56  Meyer, “Voorreeden”, x9v: “by den gemeenen volke de boeken en geschriften, inzonderheit van de Rechten en Rechtszaken, daar zy nu byna blint in zyn, verstaanlyker gemaakt konden worden.” 57  Van Hardeveld, Lodewijk Meijer (1629–1681) als lexicograaf, 34–35. 58  Wendelinus, De christlijke ghódt-ghe-leertheidt.

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and to practise charity, which primarily implies the duty to provide for the spiritual needs of our neighbour.59 According to Meyer, theology should be part of the program to make ‘the sciences speak Dutch’ and in 1656 he translated, of his own accord, William Ames’s Marrow of Theology.60 The work is of a perfect orthodoxy, and Meyer approvingly called the Franeker divine the ‘twinkling star of our churches’ and this ‘costly work’ an ‘excellent specimen of our theology’. However, Meyer is not interested in its confessional edge. In the preface he once more underlines the moral importance of all theology, which leads man to his utmost happiness. He calls logic and metaphysics the most sublime sciences, which are like “two wings the mind may use to ascend to the treasures of theology”.61 Meyer called translating Amesius’s Medulla theologiae a difficult job, due to the terse style and the many technical terms in the original, but necessary. It prepared the way for his co-patriots to find their supreme bliss.62 Also the Interpres is translated, because “theology by far surpasses all the other sciences, since it shows the mortals the way to live good and happy lives and is able to guide them to the eternal salvation of the souls, which is of all things the most eminent and the most desirable”.63 The public addressed in all of these translations is “de lief-hebbers”, that is the people without university education interested in enlightenment.64 2.3 Devices for Emancipation Besides the translations of theological works already dealt with, the most important instrument of Meyer’s emancipation program was a lexicon of scientific terms. As early as 1654 he prepared the second edition of Hofman’s Nederlandsche Woorden-schat for the press. In 1658, 1663, and 1668 he expanded the work from 152 pages to nearly one thousand. Since 1668 it was divided into 59  Meyer, “Den Lief-hebbers der Ghódt-ghe-leertheijdt kennis en zaligheid”, xx2r–v: “Het schynt schier, of zy de Paapsche on-wetenheidt, die niet ghe-loóft, dan dat de Kerk gheloóft [. . .] stil-zwijghent weder inghevoert willen hebben.” 60  Meyer, Nederlandsche Woordenschat, De vertaaler an den Leezer, x3: “Flonkelstar onzer kerken’ and ‘puikstaal onder der ghodtgheleerden schriften”. 61  Meyer, Nederlandsche Woordenschat, De vertaaler an den Leezer, x5: “twee vleughelen waar mede men tot de de ghodtgheleerddtheidt, de verheevenste det weetenschappen opsteigert”. 62  Meyer, Nederlandsche Woordenschat, De vertaaler an den Leezer, x3: “Want boven de verdrietigheidt, welke an alle vertaalingen vast is, is hier nóch gheweest een onghewoone stóf, onvertaalde konstwoorden, hooghe zaaken, diep- en scherpzinnighe beghrippen, en die beknóptelijk en duisterlijk uitghedrukt”. 63  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, Prologus, A2v. 64  Bordoli, Ragione e scrittura, 103.

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three sections: loan-words—the Dutch bastaardt-woorden has a highly negative connotation—, technical terms—konstwoorden—and outmoded words. In the prefaces of the different versions that Meyer edited during his lifetime, he not only outlined its relevance to Dutch society, but also explained its more general intellectual relevance. In a humanist manner he underscored the importance of correct language for proper thinking. Speaking is directly linked to reasoning and that is why scholars called the tongue external reason.65 Two obstacles hinder the correct use of our external reason. The first is the use of foreign words, barbarismus, which Meyer suggested to translate as Ontaal, that is dysfunctional language, and the second the violation of linguistic rules, solaecismus, that is bad speech. Both errors destroy the natural beauty of a language, which gives it its adequate emotional force.66 Meyer’s notion of Ontaal is anything but new. Meyer himself refers to Spiegel, Coornhert, Hooft, Grotius, Vondel en Huygens as his predecessors, because they wrote in a pure Dutch without using loan words. They taught the Arts and Sciences to speak Dutch, by creating the necessary means.67 In order to cure the Dutch language of this “cancer” he starts by listing the “foreign words”. These words, taken from other languages, are mostly used in a Dutch form, but in some cases are pure French. They have a general meaning and are primarily current in the fields of jurisprudence, medicine and the art of warfare. In the relevant entry the meaning(s) are given and explained in ordinary—“pure” Dutch. This part of the Woordenschat was written for people without university education. The second part deals with technical terms. It was directed at the scholar who wanted to translate the terminology of his art into Dutch. The word dealt with in an entry is nearly always borrowed from Latin and Greek. The Dutch equivalent often does not belong to ordinary language, and was invented by Meyer or one of his predecessors by virtue of the etymology: for example, wijsbe­gheerte being the Dutch version of ‘philosophy’. The entries distinguish different meanings in particular sciences. Some of the equivalents Meyer gives are not very intelligible or useful for either the general public or the translating scholar

65  Meyer, Nederlandsche Woordenschat, Voorreeden, x3r: “Hierom is ’t dat na ’t genot deeze gaven [of internal and external reason] gestreeft hebben de uitstekende verstanden van alle eeuwen, en daar toe hunnen tydt- en landtsgenooten den weg te baanen gedoelt hebben [. . .]. In ’t opbouwen en optooyen der sprake, die by de geleerden onder den naam van de uitwendige reden verstaan wort”. 66  Meyer, Nederlandsche Woordenschat, Voorreeden, x3. 67  Meyer, Nederlandsche Woordenschat, Voorreeden, x4v: They “hebben de konsten en wetenschappen Duitsch leeren spreken”.

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and never became current in Dutch. In the translations the margin has the original of these technical terms. For example, in the title of chapter 2 of the Dutch version of the Interpres, the word “gelijcknamigheyt” is marked a and in the margin we find homonymia, and ‘stoffelijck voorwerp’ corresponds to the Latin term objectum materiale in the margin. This translation makes clear that Meyer’s linguistic purism and his crusade against “foreign words” are of a pragmatic nature. Intelligibility assessed by the “admission” by “good authors” is the ultimate criterion and Van Hardeveld gives a list of “loan words” the Woordenschat brands as “bastaardt-woorden”.68 The third part of the dictionary added in 1668 lists obsolete and unusual words. Here we find the objective of spreading knowledge in its purest form, because no equivalents are given, but only an explanation. Probably due to the fact that Meyer here could not use any work of predecessors, this part of the Nederlandsche Woordenschat is incomplete and much smaller in comparison to the preceding parts.69 Hence, although “the Radical Enlightenment envisaged by Meyer en Koerbagh failed to make a lasting impact on Dutch culture”, as Wiep van Bunge recently wrote, he also rightly stated that their effort was to democratise scholarly culture.70 Around 1700 Dutch laymen were fully equipped to deal with scholarly issues in their own language. That is why the Nederlandsche Woordenschat remained in print well into the nineteenth century. Meyer’s Dutch version of the Interpres may be his last translation, but other members of Spinoza’s circle such as Balling, Bouwmeester and in particular Glazemaker continued translating scholarly works into Dutch. Akkerman has underlined the exceptional amount of Cartesian works Glazemaker translated. His translations were intended for a reading public which had a taste for scholarship and so did not shun learned books of technical appearance. Jarigh Jelles may well be the prototypical reader that Glazemaker had in mind thanks to the accumulated work of Stevin, Kók and Meyer.71 In the Interpres Meyer bade farewell to hermeneutics and propagated philosophical method instead. However, although the Interpres highly praises Descartes,72 the method adopted in the book is “plus scolastique que cartésienne”, as Lagrée observed—or “humanist”, due to “its accumulation of quo-

68  Van Hardeveld, Lodewijk Meijer, 399. 69  Van Hardeveld, Lodewijk Meijer, 413–416. She lists these words. 70  Van Bunge, “The Use of the Vernacular in Early Modern Philosophy”, 171–173. 71  Akkerman, “J.H. Glazemaker, an Early Translator of Spinoza”, 26–27. 72  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, Prologus, *4r and ch. 5, 42.

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tations and the play of authorities”.73 The so highly recommended apodictic proof by means of the geometrical method is never given. In line with the rules of classical rhetoric, the book is divided into two sections. In the first six chapters Meyer develops his thesis, while in the last part of the book he deals with the objections to this theory presented by the official churches and dissenting sects. A part disproving other principles of interpretation is not included, for reproducing conventional arguments of inter-confessional polemics seemed irrelevant to the argument. 3

Theology without the Bible

3.1 Philosophy as Theology In chapter 5 of the Interpres Meyer defines philosophy in an abbreviated form as follows: “it is certain and true knowledge which reason, freed from prejudices by means of the natural light of the intellect, experience and the use of the things, and by adopting apodictic demonstrations, clearly and distinctly perceived, discovers in the most certain light of Truth”.74 “The light of Truth I have spelled with a capital, because this light is clearly divine.” According to Meyer the source of all knowledge, or in scholastic terms its principal cause, is God. In proof of this notion, in a humanist fashion, no less than five Bible verses are quoted, but also profane authors, such as Plato, Cicero and Lucretius (chapter 5 of De rerum natura). A list of references to more recent literature— the Conimbricenses, Keckermann, Alsted and Timpler—closes the section after a quotation of fifteen lines taken from Melanchthon’s commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians. Hence, the notion that philosophy had a divine origin was traditional and widespread among humanist scholars, well before it became popular with Meyer and the Franeker Cartesian theologians.75 Meyer continues by observing that the human intellect is the secondary, remote, or instrumental cause of philosophical knowledge. Although the Amsterdam man of letters once more speaks the language of scholasticism, he gives it a Cartesian twist. This becomes clear when we take a look at the 73  Lagrée, “Louis Meyer et la Philosophia S. Scripturae interpres”, 35. 74  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, 40. 75  See for example also the Leiden professor of history and eloquence G. Hornius in his Historiae philosophicae libri septem, 7: “Et divinas haec sapientiae [i.e. philosophy] origines etiam Lucretius lib. 5 agnoscit”. Four of the five Bible verses Meyer quoted in order to sustain his argument are also referred to by Hornius. Contrary to Meyer he adds Hebrew authorities to his argument.

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Encyclopaedia of Alsted, which he refers to. The Herborn scholar wrote that God, by communicating his image to man, is the principal cause of philosophy. The secondary efficient cause is either primary or less primary, or instrumental. Right reason or the light or nature and the senses are remote secondary causes, while observation, experience and induction are proximate causes. The instrumental causes of philosophy Alsted mentions are teachers, living or dead, bodily faculties, a proper school and leisure.76 The complex Scholastic scheme is reduced by only focusing on the part reason plays in philosophy. According to Meyer human reason is capable of acquiring full knowledge of the essences of things and all the properties they necessarily imply, if it carefully proceeds from the most simple and best-known truths to the more complicated and less obvious ones in accordance with the true method to guide the intellect. The power of reason, which by establishing the “choir of the mathematical disciplines” is able to penetrate into the essences of things and to know their ensuing propertries, both in physics and metaphysics, is clearly evident.77 A few years before, Meyer had already propagated the notion that mathematics is the example philosophy should adopt in order to become a real science.78 It was a notion shared by Spinoza, who in the appendix of Ethics I wrote: “such a doctrine might well have sufficed to conceal the truth from the human race for all eternity, if mathematics had not furnished another standard of verity in considering solely the essence and properties of figures without regard to their final causes”.79 Moreover, Meyer hints at the notion that true method consists in observing the logical hierarchy between essences. Apparently, it was borrowed from the Tractatus de intellectus emendatione, where, for example in section 38, Spinoza says that the order of two ideas is identical with the order between the “formal essences of those ideas”.80 In order to explain why errors and prejudices arise, the physician Meyer neglects the Cartesian theory of the will, referring instead to viscose humours which impede the functioning of the brain. With these humours purged, philosophy will become in the full sense “the knowledge of all divine and human

76  Alsted, Encyclopaedia septem tomis divisa, I, l. 3, c. 2, 74. 77  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, 41–42: [reason, which] “secundum veram intellectum dirigendi methodum procedat”. 78  Meyer, Renati Des Cartes principiorum philosophiæ pars I, & II, more geometrico demonstratae per Benedictum de Spinoza, Candido lectori, *2r–*3r. 79  Spinoza, Opera posthuma (1677), 38. 80  Spinoza, Opera posthuma (1677), 368.

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things”. Traditional qualifications of this antique definition, such as “as far as is possible to mortal man” are no longer needed!81 Moreover, man knows that he knows, for every clear and distinct perception causes in us the consciousness of it. Hence, God is not only the cause of all knowledge in an objective sense, but in a subjective sense. God causes all our convictions, including Faith, by means of clear and distinct perceptions and our intellect.82 Meyer’s conclusion is that, both as knowledge and as the instrument leading man to Faith, revealed or supernatural theology is superfluous.83 Of these three notions, the idea of conscientia in its double meaning of conscience and consciousness became the most prominent in the secondgeneration Cartesian epistemology. Van Velthuysen, for example, called conscience a gift of God, because it leads virtuous men to ‘tranquility of mind’ and constancy in the face of fate. Moreover, consciousness is a pre-condition of knowledge. All knowledge requires that someone who knows, knows that he knows, the Utrecht scholar observed. In 1689 Andreas Diosi, a Hungarian pupil of Röell, in a philosophical disputation even linked consciousness with God, observing that true knowledge is possible due to the fact that it is in a literal sense knowing with the help of God: con-scientia.84 This idea, of course, reinforces the theocentric conception of philosophy already present. In the next two chapters Meyer argues that philosophy is the criterion of Bible interpretation, giving an argument and citing authoritative texts and referring to normal practice. He adapts the argument of the divine origin of all knowledge to the interpretation of Scripture. He refers to the hermeneutical principle, “often quoted by theologians”, that an author is the best interpreter of his own words. However, this is only true in the case of the absolutely reliable God, since men often lie. They write something, but give their words a different meaning if it suits them. Hence, only if we really know God a correct interpretation of the Bible is possible and it is only by means of philosophy that we know God perfectly.85 Meyer continues by observing that already 81  Isendoorn, Effatorum philosophorum centuria prima, I.4, 8–9. The Harderwijk philosopher observed that this saying is “absolutely” false. Only theology knows God perfectly. 82  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, 43: “quoniam est nulla clara et distincta perceptio, quae non intime sui conscientiam in nobis gignere possit, et cum omnis clarae ac distinctae perceptionis Deus sit causa, etiam hujus intimae conscientiae causa erit, cumque haec conscientia rem preceptam veram esse nobis indubie persuadeat, [. . .] non immerito [. . .] Dei seu Spititus Sancti testimonium [. . .] appellari poterit.” 83  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, 43–44. 84  Diosi, Disputatio philosophica de conscientia, 5. Cf. van Sluis, Herman Alexander Röell, 148–150. 85  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, 45.

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the Fathers of the Church, when they were confronted by difficult verses, used Platonic philosophy to explain the Bible. He presents three examples of this practice. The first is uncontroversial. Thanks to sound philosophy all theologians refrain from taking literally bodily expressions referring to God. The second is taken from confessional controversy. Because of Aristotelian physics, Reformed theologians take Christ’s words establishing the Eucharist literally and criticise the Roman-Catholic and Lutheran interpretations. Even the trinity is by some theologians dealt with on the basis of philosophy. It should be noted that Meyer’s description of the argumentation is fairly caustic. Apparently in line with the Koerbagh brothers he denounces the doctrine of the trinity.86 To substantiate my thesis that the identification of theology and philosophy was a tendency shared by other Cartesians and to assess the nature of Meyer’s restricted Cartesianism, I will briefly discuss the example of Herman Alexander Röell. Rational Religion: The Identification of Philosophy and Theology in Franeker Cartesianism Just like De Raey, Thijssen-Schoute sees a parallel between Meyer’s hermeneutical rationalism and the theological rationalism of the Franeker professor of philosophy and theology, Herman Alexander Röell.87 He merged philosophy and theology and made reason “the unique principle of Christian Truth” and the necessary precondition of interpreting “the divine word”, as his main adversary Ulrich Huber angrily wrote.88 In his inaugural address, delivered on 17 June 1686, Röell defined reason as “the most supreme gift of God”, by which the mind is conscious of itself and all other things. Moreover, reason is the faculty of reasoning, which orders the ideas, representing the various things, in a series of modi cogitandi, which “infers the unknown from the more known, the obscure from the more clear and conclusions from their premises”.89 The geometrical order between all 3.2

86  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, 47: “the defenders of the Trinitarian doctrine, which they could not understand, looked into the most far-off corners of Metaphysics for monstrous and trifling terms and if they could not find them, they invented new ones”. 87  Thijssen-Schoute, “Lodewijk Meyer en diens verhouding tot Descartes en Spinoza”, 187. However, she underlines the difference between Röell’s premise that “the authority of Scripture only relies on reason” and Meyer’s idea that “reason is the infallible rule to interpret Scripture”. 88  Huber, De concursu rationis et sacrae scripturae liber, Praefatio, xx5r and ††4r. The immediate occasion for this pamphlet, which sparked an acrimonious controversy, were disputations in the Fall of 1686 defended by two pupils of Röell’s. 89  Röell, Dissertatio de religione rationali, § 13, 14.

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ideas rests upon common notions which make us discern universal truth in the field of the sciences and of morality. These innate common notions God impresses on the human mind and together they contain “all science, all wisdom and all seeds of virtue”. Without them no knowledge whatsoever is possible.90 So, the mind in principle knows all things and we acquire scientific knowledge by introspection. Here Röell refers to the Pythian oracle: ‘noscite vos ipsos’.91 In Röell’s view, according to Leclerc, God possesses an idea of Himself and of all the ideas of His works. He presents them to the human mind in order to contemplate them. God could not do otherwise, because He wanted man to love Him, know the Truth and do the Good.92 The Cartesian epistemology of Röell clearly influences the status of the Bible. If reason or consciousness is the criterion to assess all knowledge, be it in science or in morality, it implies that consciousness is also conscience, because conscientia contains the norm by which to judge all our actions and reason is able to interpret the divine will.93 If reason knows God and conscience makes man fully religious, that is to say able to act in accordance with the divine law, why is there revelation? The answer of the Franeker theologian is basically: “because individuals and peoples err, due to the corruption of our reason”. Fortunately our reason is complemented by Scripture, which Röell compares to a telescope, helping our eyes to see reality better.94 However, the Bible is only an aid, because reason provided with this device only understands the divine Truths more clearly and distinctly. In itself our reason is sufficient to know God. Röell’s Cartesian epistemology requires that all knowledge, including religious knowledge, basically conforms to human reason. Hence, a pupil of Röell’s wrote: that is the reason why we must know the authentic principle of theology—revelation and Scripture—by means of reason, rational argument and based upon the common notions.95 This implies that if in Genesis 11, 16 it is written that ‘the moon is a great light’, reason convinces us that the stars are much bigger. It should be read as a colloquial phrase without “philosophical exactitude”.96 Just like 90  Röell, Dissertatio de religione rationali, § 26, 23. 91  Röell, Dissertatio de religione rationali, § 25, 22. 92  Leclerc, “XI. Disputes touchant le moien de connoître la divinité de l’Ecriture”, 378. 93  Röell, Dissertatio de religione rationali, § 117. 94  Röell, Dissertatio de religione rationali, § 150, 164: “Verbum Dei est nobis tubus Batavicus”. 95  Brouwer, Disputatio philosophica de principio veritatis cognoscendae, § 13, 11. Leclerc does not deal with this disputation separately, but he refers the reader to Röell’s inaugural address. 96   Bibliothèque universelle et historique 7, 376. Leclerc only refers to this example of Brouwer.

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in the Interpres the adequacy of a reading is determined by reason. Röell is a moderate Enlightenment figure and tries to save basic Christian tenets, such as the trinity and incarnation, from his rationalism97 and, unlike Meyer, he continued to practise Biblical philology.98 This view Huber saw as inconsistent,99 but quite naturally seems to follow from a Cartesian identification of philosophy and theology. 4

The Paradox of Meyer’s Hermeneutics

Returning to the Interpres it should be noted that there are two more features that make Meyer’s book really curious. Unlike Spinoza, Meyer rarely makes use of actual philological practices. In Chapter 7 he deals with some texts which, according to the “theologasters”, seem to denounce philosophy. Here the full philological machinery is used. In his letter to the Romans (2, 14) St. Paul, in the translation commissioned by the States General of the Dutch Republic after the Synod of Dordt, wrote: ‘The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God’. Meyer rejects this translation. For, first, the Greek words anthropos psychikos in the original Bible text cannot be translated as ‘natural man’. For the meaning of psychikos is animal. Second, the apostle does not refer to a philosopher, but to the “stupid and vain man”, blinded by his passions. Meyer establishes this by quoting the opinion of learned commentators, listed in two pages, which starts with Saint Jerome and ends with Zwingli and Erasmus. Those learned commentators confirm his interpretation of the text.100 The second example is Gen 1,1. Here Meyer does not really deal with the text according to the rules of the art and does not supply the original Hebrew or refer to the tradition of commentators, but simply observes that ‘creation’ in the Bible does not “in its initial phase mean producing from nothing”.101 This observation betrays the same ‘demystifying’ attitude towards the Bible by etymology as displayed by Koerbagh in Bloemhof van allerley Lieflijckheyd. An example from this dictionary is archangel, where the word is explained as follows: “a first messenger, or supreme messenger. It is a loan-word from the Greek, which is not translated in the Bible. [. . .] A theologian will say an arch97   Bibliothèque universelle et historique 7, 386. Leclerc gives both a French version and the Latin original. Röell, Dissertatio de religione rationali, § 176, 186–188. 98  Van Sluis, Röell, 131–142. 99  Van Sluis, Röell, 66. 100  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, c. 7,4, 52–54. 101  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, c. 8, 59.

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angel is a spirit, but in the two texts where the word is used it is just a person who communicates a message”.102 The third example is the interpretation of Nehemiah 8,9: “So they read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading” by Scripture itself. The last three words, which are evidence of the Reformed hermeneutical principle, are absent in the King James version, but the Hebrew is translated in this manner in some prevailing Reformed versions and also the Dutch translation of the States General. Meyer observes that the Hebrew original—he does not give—admits other translations. He refers to the Septuagint and the annotations in the margin of the Statenvertaling. He adds a remark on Hebrew custom. The Israelites, “like the Jews nowadays”, had in their temples the Bible in the form of scrolls. Hence, as a philologist, Meyer bases his argumentation upon the old versions, the study of Biblical languages and of the customs of “the peoples of the Book”.103 These are the very few examples of actual philology in this book on Biblical hermeneutics. Second, as Preuss observed, not only theologians but also “textual and historical scholars would not be pleased to read that in the end their work was of marginal importance”.104 Indeed, Meyer’s book not only attacks theologians but philologists as well. In the second chapter of the Interpres, Meyer deals with interpretation and the conceptual devices involved. The particular aspects of his reasoning are traditional, but the conclusion sounded ‘paradoxical’ to Meyer’s contemporaries, as is evident in Maresius’s criticism.105 To explain what interpretation is, Meyer, in accordance with humanist practice, starts by listing the several meanings of the word, which he found ordered in 102  Koerbagh, Een bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet, 58–59. 103  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, c. 12, 77–78. Meyer continues by dealing with 2 Pet. 1,20: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation”. In the Reformed tradition—Meyer refers to Chamier, Polanus and Walaeus— this text is read as indicating a special inspiration by the Holy Ghost, which makes an interpretation “in accordance with Scripture itself possible”. According to Meyer Walaeus himself in his annotations notes that we might have to read instead of the Greek word epilyseos (interpretation or explanation), epeleuseos (which means impetus, instinctus or impulsus). Even if we retain the traditional Greek text, many commentators give other possible translations than the orthodox one. So Meyer concludes his argument that philology does not sustain the Reformed principle of interpretation that ‘Scripture is the interpreter of itself’. 104  Preuss, Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority, 36. 105  In this section I only focus on this opposition. The most penetrating discussion of these chapters is in Bordoli, Ragione e Scrittura, 119–139 and Preuss, chapter 2.

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the entry on ‘interpretation’ in the Thesaurus linguae latinae of the French humanist Robert Estienne.106 The authority of Chamier, Clauberg, Polanus and Dannhauer confirmed the given definition of interpretation as “the art of clarifying obscure discourse”.107 Moreover, Meyer deals with the object of the art and its relation with logic and grammar, applying two scholastic distinctions, that is between objectum proximum and primarium on the one hand and remotum and secundarium on the other and between objectum formale and materiale.108 The outline seems to be uncontroversial, but Maresius—in line with Clauberg’s classic in the field of hermeneutics—observed that although Meyer maintained that in the hermeneutical process we infer the discourse in the mind (sermo internus) from language (sermo externus), the only task of the interpreter is to “clarify the grammatical sense from the structure of discourse and the meaning of the words”.109 The object of hermeneutics is necessarily of a linguistic nature, which implies, that reason as such will never be the instrument of interpretation. Moreover, words always denote things in reality. Due to the intentional nature of language the interpreter examines the truth claims of phrases. He is not interested in an investigation of the mind of the author, but he studies how things are represented in language.110 The gap between the private nature of individual thinking and the public character of speaking is obvious. In agreements and contracts between men, for example, we are not interested in what men think, but in what is said and written.111 The third and far longest chapter continues with an outline of the problems the art of interpretation faces. Meyer starts by defining the meaning of a sentence: it is determined by the words it consists of. His definition is once more conventional, originating in Aristotle’s De Interpretatione. A phrase is clear, if its meaning is immediately obvious to the listener or reader. Maresius comments that discourse may indeed be unclear due to the inability of the 106  The reference in the French translation. 107  Meyer’s definition is based upon Clauberg’s, see Clauberg, “Logica vetus et nova” III, c. 1, 844: “ad verum obscurae orationis sensum”. 108  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, c. 2, 3–6. 109  Maresius, Disputatio theologica tertia refutatoria libelli de Philosophia interprete Scripturae, § 3: “in quibus sufficit sensum grammaticum fideliter referre ex orationis textura et vocabulorum significatione”. 110  Maresius, Disputatio theologica tertia, § 3: “Interpres occupatur non tam in mente scriptoris euenda, ejusque sermone interno per externum explicando, quam in rebus ipsis ut per sermonem externum proponuntur, percipiendis et assequendis”. 111  Maresius, Disputatio theologica tertia, § 4: “neque in contractibus humanis attenditur proprie quid cogitent aut quid concipiant partes intra se, sed quid dicant, aut scribant, unde natum dicterium et boves per sua cornua et homines per sua verba litigari”.

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reader to understand its meaning, but there may be other causes such as inherent obscurity or unclearness caused by the author himself. He underlines that it is the task of the interpreter both in profane and sacred literature to remove those obscurities.112 In his Logica vetus et nova, Clauberg therefore observed that an interpreter in order to understand the meaning of discourse, should investigate the person of the author, its subject matter, the scope, the words by means of all kinds of dictionaries, and the linguistic form.113 According to Meyer’s definition clarity of discourse is always relative to the reader’s intellectual capacity.114 Reformed theologians affirming that the Bible as such is clear seriously err.115 However, notwithstanding the principle of perspicuity, Reformed theologians accepted the fact that the Bible as a written text requires philology in order to remove at least some its obscurities. The Reformed polemicist Daniel Chamier, for example, lists the arguments which substantiate the difficulty of interpreting the Biblical texts. Like Meyer he mentions the difference between the Hebrew Masoretic text and Septuagint, the lack of vocalisation and the ambiguity of Hebrew, giving examples of each. Although the Reformed theologians accept some of the premises of Meyer’s argument, they reject the conclusion that philology is irrelevant.116 Maresius, for example, in order to prove that philology can do the job, wrote that the lack of vocalisation renders the understanding of a phrase’s meaning more difficult, but our daily experience proves that “contemporary Jews write their German language with Hebrew letters without vocals and they perfectly understand each other”.117 112  Maresius, Disputatio theologica tertia, § 8: “nec aliud est officium interpretatoris, quam velum ab oratione removere quo sensus et perspectuitas illius tegabatur en quod impediebat quominus ejus radii ad nos diffunderentur”. 113  Clauberg, “Logica vetus et nova”, III “de vero orationis obscurae sensu investigando”. 114  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, c. 3, 7: “perspectuitatem respicere auditoris, lectorisve intellectum”. 115  He refers—anonymously—to Heidanus, De causa Dei, I, c. 6, 60 and to Chamier, “De stylo scripturae”, I, l. 15, c. 15, § 36, 572. 116  Chamier, “De stylo scripturae”. The arguments of Biblical obscurity were advanced by Roman-Catholic controversialists. Reformed authors replied by observing that the Bible is clear with respect to all that is necessary to Faith. Walaeus in “Disputatio de S. Scripturae perspicuitate et interpretatione”, 323, observed that: “multa in S. Literis narrari ac do­ceri, quae naturali modo ab homine naturali intelliguntur [. . .] et linguarum aliarumque artium instrumentalium adminiculo sit instructus, quum Deus per prophetas et apostolos suos, lingua inter homines usitata et loquendi modos ex medio sumptis, plurimum sit locutus, etiam cum de rebus agit humanum intellectum longe excedentibus”. 117  Maresius, Disputatio theologica tertia, § 36.

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Humanist hermeneutics distinguished between kinds of meaning of discourse. Meyer’s sensus simplex is already in Calvin.118 The leading postDordrecht Leiden theologian Walaeus called the basic meaning of discourse the grammatical or historical sense.119 Chamier distinguishes between the literal or historical sense and the spiritual or mystical sense. In figurative language the meaning the author intends is different from the familiar sense of the words.120 Chamier gives the example of Paul’s advice in his letter to the Romans to “heap coals of fire on the head” of his enemy. Nobody believes that Paul was talking about some glowing coal we had to take from a burning fire.121 In the sections four and seven of this chapter, Meyer lists Biblical texts which according to all interpreters require a metaphorical interpretation. The only exception are the words of Christ ‘take, eat, this is my body’ etc. Roman Catholic interpreters read this text literally, whereas the Reformed claim that a figurative reading is required.122 According to Maresius, by studying the context the interpreter will be able to decide if a text is to be taken literally or figuratively. In this respect there is no difference between a profane work and the Bible.123 It is on hermeneutical and not theological grounds that Maresius concludes that Meyer’s argument here is faulty. The next section of the Interpres deals with philological questions and hardly mentions the Bible. It deals with the causes of the obscurity of the different levels of language: the word, the phrase, the period (that is in logical terms an argument) and a whole book. With respect to the obscurity of the word Meyer pays special attention to the phenomenon of barbarism, the result of the introduction of a foreign word into another language. He refers to one of Gerhard Vossius’s philological manuals, which this with this phenomenon, De vitiis sermonis et glossematis Latino-barbaris libri novem, and—a remarkable exception in the second part of this chapter—to the Bible. In the Bible three phrases are used to denote the act of believing—credere Deo, credere Deum and credere in Deo. Theologians speculated about the differences, but according to Meyer the form credere in Deo is only a Hebraism. So the theological discussion originated in a careless translation. Meyer refers to the Bible ver118  Bordoli, Ragione e Scrittura, 126, note 114. 119  Walaeus, “Disputatio de S. Scripturae perspicuitate et interpretatione”, 326. 120  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, c. 3, 12. 121  Chamier, Panstratiae catholicae, I, l. 15, c. 1. 122  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, c. 3, 9. 123  Maresius, Disputatio theologica tertia, § 12: “vocabula, quae seorsim considerata sunt polysema sed quae tota series contextus et ipsa rei de qua agitur natura, ostendit non proprie sed figurate usurpari”.

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sion of the States General, but Maresius observed that Meyer had the Franeker Hebraist Drusius in mind, the first to make this observation.124 Here once more the materials of Meyer’s argument are not new. According to Meyer, all Biblical scholars, Reformed or not, accepted the obscurity of the Bible and “since the founding of the Christian Church they have written all kinds of philological commentaries” and seen the need for interpretation.125 In profane texts it is investigated “what an author wanted to say in a text” that is its sensus verus. However, an interpreter of the Bible will have to establish its truth as well. This is possible because God is the author of the Bible and He guided the scribes He used on the way to Truth. Moreover, the omniscient God knows in advance what meaning men will attribute to the verses of the Bible and will prevent its ultimate ambiguity.126 Meyer’s view on Biblical interpretation surpasses Reformed doctrine, because orthodoxy tended to reconcile two premises: the clarity of the Bible as such and read with divine help and its obscurity quoad nos, that is to a human reader who relies on normal philological procedures. Preuss noted Meyer’s excessive scriptural exceptionalism, which excluded the Bible from the normal hermeneutical procedures. This implies that Meyer nullified the need to study oriental languages and to write commentaries.127 In the epilogue of the Interpres Meyer stated that by using his method of interpretation the reader of the Bible no longer has to consult the commentaries of all times and of all sects. “Everyone will be able to uncover the divine intentions”. It is an inroad ‘upon the violently guarded domain of the theologians’, who think that God entrusted only them with His word.128 These words in the epilogue of the Interpres recall Meyer’s goal to emancipate the layman. Hence, by radicalising the Reformed doctrine of the Bible, Meyer made it fully incompatible with hermeneutics. He gladly paid this ‘paradoxical’ price in order to make his version of absolute clarity of the Bible an instrument to free society from the repressive dominance of the theologians. 124  Maresius, Disputatio theologica tertia, § 19–20. 125  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, c. 4, 31–32. 126  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, c. 4, 33. 127  Preuss, Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority, 54. 128  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, Epilogus, O3v: “Tertium quod haec nostra methodus compendium sufficiat in eo, quod non necesse fuerit super alicuius loci sensu omnius saeculorum locorumque aut omnium sectarum theologos et Divini Verbi interpretes ac commentatores consulere illorumque sententias expendere. Sed hac a nobis assignata norma instructus quilibet proprio marte Dei mentem vestigare eruereque [. . .] poterit”.

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Rivet, André, Isagoge, seu introductio generalis ad Scripturam sacram Veteris et Novi Testamenti, Leiden, Isaac Commelinus, 1627. Röell, Hermann Alexander, Dissertatio de religione rationali, Franeker, Gyzelaar, 1700. Schwager, Johann Moritz, Beytrag zur Geschichte der Intoleranz, oder Leben, Meinungen und Schicksale Balthasar Becker’s, Leipzig, Weygand, 1780. Semler, Johann Salomo, Richard Simons kritische Schriften über das Neue Testament (3 vol.), Halle, Gebauer, 1776, 1777, 1780. Spinoza, Benedictus de, Renati Des Cartes principiorum philosophiæ pars I, & II, more geometrico demonstratae. Renati Des Cartes principiorum philosophiæ pars I, & II, more geometrico demonstratae. Accesserunt ejusdem Cogitata metaphysica, in quibus difficiliores, quæ [. . .] metaphysices generali [. . .] explicantur, Amsterdam, Johannes Riewertsz, 1663. Voetius, Gijsbert, Exercitia et Bibliotheca studiosi theologiae, Utrecht, Wilhelm Strick, 1644. Walaeus, Antonius, “Disputatio de S. Scripturae perspicuitate et interpretatione”, in Opera Omnia, Leiden, Franciscus Hackius, 1643, 323–326. Wendelinus, Marcus Friedrich, De christlyke ghódt-ghe-leertheidt. In ’t Latyn be-schreeven en nu ten besten van de lief-hebbers der ghódt-ghe-leertheidt ver-taalt door Alhardt L. Kók, Amsterdam, Johannes Ravestein, 1655.



Secondary Literature

Akkerman, Fokke, “J.H. Glazemaker, an Early Translator of Spinoza”, in de Deugd, Cornelis (ed.), Spinoza’s Political and Theological Thought, Amsterdam, North Holland, 1984, 23–29. Bordoli, Roberto, Etica, arte, scienza tra Descartes e Spinoza, Milan, FrancoAngeli, 2001. Bordoli, Roberto, L’Illuminismo di Dio: alle origini della mentalità liberale: religione teologia filosofia e storia in Johann Salomo Semler (1725–1791): contributo per lo studio delle fonti teologiche, cartesiane e spinoziane dell’Aufklärung, Florence, Olschki, 2004. Bordoli, Roberto, Ragione e Scrittura tra Descartes e Spinoza, Milan, FrancoAngeli, 1997. Boudelle, Guy, “L’humanisme et la Bible”, in Bedouelle, Guy and Roussel, Bernard (eds.), Le temps des Réformes et la Bible, Paris, Beauchesne, 1989, 53–121. Bunge, Wiep van et al. (eds.), The Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers, Bristol, Thoemmes, 2003. Bunge, Wiep van, “The Use of the Vernacular in Early Modern Philosophy”, in Bloemendal, Jan (ed.), Bilingual Europe, Latin and Vernacular Cultures. Examples of Bilinguism and Multilingualism c. 1300–1800, Leiden, Brill, 2015, 161–175. Dibbets, Gerardus Rutgerus Wilhelmus, “Koks Burgersdijk vertalingen en de Nederlandse Woordenschat”, Geschiedenis van de wijsbegeerte in Nederland, 2, 1991, 13–35.

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Dibbets, Gerardus Rutgerus Wilhelmus, “Inleiding”, Kók, Ont-werp der Neder-duitsche letter-konst, Uitg., ingeleid en van kommentaar voorzien door G.R.W. Dibbets, Assen, van Gorcum, 1981. Hardeveld, Ike van, Lodewijk Meijer (1629–1681) als lexicograaf, Utrecht, Led, 2000. Hornig, Gottfried, Johann Salomo Semler. Studien zu Leben und Werk des Hallenser Aufklärungstheologen, Tübingen, Niemeyer, 1996. Israel, Jonathan I., Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution and Human Rights 1750–1790, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011. Lagrée, Jacqueline, “Louis Meyer et la Philosophia S. Scripturae interpres”, Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques, 71, 1987, 31–43. Lagrée, Jacqueline, “Sens et vérité”, Studia Spinozana, 4, 1988, 75–92. Lagrée, Jacqueline, “Spinoza et Clauberg, de la logique novantique à la puissance de l’idée vraie”, in Méthode et Metaphysique, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1989, 19–45. Laplanche, François, Bible, sciences et pouvoirs au XVIIe siècle, Naples, Bibliopolis, 1997. Laplanche, François, “Débats et combats autour de la Bible”, in Armogathe, Jean-Robert (ed.), Le Grand Siècle et la Bible, Paris, Beauchesne, 1989, 117–240. Laplanche, François, “La Bible chez les Réformés”, in Belaval, Yvon and Bourel, Dominique (eds.), Le siècle des Lumières et la Bible, Paris, Beauchesne, 1989, 459–480. Laplanche, François, L’Écriture. Le sacré et l’histoire. Érudits et politiques devant la Bible en France au xviie siècle, Amsterdam-Maarsen, APA-Holland University Press, 1986. Moreau, Pierre-François, “Louis Meyer et l’Interpres”, Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques, 76, 1992, 73–84. Nooijen, Annemarie, ‘Unserm grossen Bekker ein Denkmal?’. Balthasar Bekkers Betoverde Weereld in den deutschen Landen zwischen Orthodoxie und Aufklärung, Münster, Waxmann, 2009. Preuss, James Samuel, Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001. Rooden, Peter T. van, “Spinoza’s bijbeluitleg”, Studia Rosenthaliana, 118, 1984, 120–133. Rooden, Peter T. van, Theology, Biblical Scholarship and Rabbinical Studies in the 17th Century. Constantijn L’Empereur (1591–1648), Professor of Hebrew and Theology at Leiden, Leiden, Brill, 1989. Roussel, Bernard, “Commenter et traduire”, in Bedouelle, Guy and Roussel, Bernard (eds.), Le temps des Réformes et la Bible, Paris, Beauchesne, 1989, 427–461. Schmitter, Wolfgang, Kritik und Apologetik in der Theologie J.S. Semlers, Munich, Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1963. Sluis, Jacob van, Herman Alexander Röell, Leeuwarden, Fryske Akademy, 1988. Steenbakkers, Piet, “Meyer”, in Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Dutch Philosophers, Bristol, Thoemmes, 2003, 694–699.

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Strazzoni, Andrea, The Foundation of Early Modern Science: Metaphysics Logic and Theology, Rotterdam, Erasmus University Rotterdam/Ridderprint BV, 2015. Thijssen-Schoute, Caroline Louise, “Lodewijk Meyer en diens verhouding tot Descartes en Spinoza”, in Uit de republiek der letteren, elf studiën op het gebied der ideeëngeschiedenis van de Gouden Eeuw, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1968, 173–92. Thijssen-Schoute, Caroline Louise, Uit de Republiek der Letteren, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1967. Verbeek, Theo, “Les cartésiens face à Spinoza, le cas de Johannes de Raey”, in Christofolini, Paolo (ed.), L’ hérésie spinoziste, Amsterdam, APA, 1997, 77–88. Walther, Manfred, “Biblische Hermeneutik und historische Erklärung. Lodewijk Meyer und Benedikt de Spinoza über Norm, Methode und Ergebnis wissenschaftlicher Bibelauslegung”, Studia Spinozana, 11, 1995, 227–299.

The Monopoly of Social Affluence The Jus circa sacra around Spinoza Roberto Bordoli 1. It is easy to argue that the issue of civil and ecclesiastical power consists of the degree of separation between State and church or churches. However, the State of the 17th century—even more so that in the Seven United Provinces of the Low Countries or Dutch Republic—was not the State of the contemporary world and the churches were not centralized institutions.1 What prevailed instead was the slow formation of centers of power: ideal or real, doctrinal or practical, intellectual or armed, sovereign and coercive. This process involved 1  The separation of some social functions (taken on by the State) occurred gradually and became irreversible only after the French Revolution. As a separate and centralized unitary administration and a distinct government holding sovereignty and the monopoly over violence, the State was formed bit by bit, starting from parts of society which to that point had been divided and independent. In the 17th century there was still talk of civitas, of summa potestas, or assemblies or parliaments or, in the Low Countries, states (états, Stände, staten). One of the first to make a clear distinction, with an eye to the historical changes taking place, was Achenwall, Abriß der neusten Staatswissenschaft der vornehmsten Europäischen Reiche und Republicken, 2, § 2: “Ein Staat ist eine Gesellschaft von Familien, welche zu Beförderung ihrer gemeinsamen Glückseligkeit unter einem Oberhaupte mit einander auf einem bestimm­ten Bezirke des Erdbodens vereiniget leben”. A State encompasses and unifies the foundations of economic power (land and population), the law and the political constitution, government and administration. Schlözer, Theorie der Statistik: nebst Ideen über das Studium der Politik überhaupt, 1. Heft. Einleitung (27–30), in summarizing the post-revolutionary development, singles out three forms of associated human life: “die häusliche Gesellschaft, die bürgerliche Gesellschaft, die Stats-Gesellschaft”. The first is an Ur-Gesellschaft based on the division between the sexes, between parents and offspring, between nobles and men of obscure origins. The second arises when families join forces in order to meet their growing needs (corresponding to the way of life of European peoples after their subjugation by the Romans, based on the principatum and not on the regnum: as can be seen with regard to the Germani in Julius Caesar, De bello gallico VII.4. Lastly, the State comes into being when the size of the population increases and men raise the level of their culture (Cultur). There is then the need for a government (Regi[e]rung) that steers the whole society towards a single goal; everyone in fact aspires to happiness but consensus is lacking as to the means to achieve common welfare. The State takes shape as the union of previously separate social functions: the State is a “societas civilis” “cum imperio”, as Jonathan Carver puts it in an article in Schlözer’s review, entitled “Unterschied zwischen bürgerlicher Gesellschaft und Stat”, 354–358. However, this did not yet hold for the XVII century.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004332089_007

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the whole of society: teachers, professors and priests, believers and citizens, governors and magistrates, philosophers and theologians, publishers, editors, translators and writers. From 1650 to 1672, the so-called Dutch Republic represented the most fecund period of comparison and encounter between the various tendencies shaking Dutch and European society.2 This is why the best standpoint for considering the meaning and extent of the jus circa sacra in the Seven United Provinces is that of the monopoly of human happiness. Who has the task of meeting the material and spiritual needs of men who live together and how do they go about it? An obvious answer is that earthly happiness is the prerogative of the civil commonwealth, while salvation is the preserve of churches. There is, nevertheless, no agreement on the idea that happiness is one thing in this world and another in the hereafter. Furthermore, there is no univocal idea about the functions of a church. Nor can it be denied that there are connections between life on earth and that believed to exist in the hereafter. For example, if a government furthers the material wellbeing of citizens, it also helps towards their salvation. It does so by allowing them more time and the possibility to dedicate themselves to immaterial matters by removing temptations deriving from a condition of poverty and misery and by raising the general level of culture, which thus enables larger numbers to improve themselves morally and intellectually. And if men are more inwardly satisfied, it benefits the wealth of the nation. Civilized life improves men’s ideas and is an inextricable mixture of material well-being and spiritual development. The economic policy of the Republic (discussed by the brothers De La Court) led to a rapid growth in production and the exchange of goods, which undoubtedly had an effect on cultural and spiritual development. But it also caused an increase in competition, thereby weakening those social groups relying on rent, stability, and limited and controlled social dynamism (based on high wages and a small-scale reserve army). Who, then, holds the monopoly on happiness? This is one of the pivotal points in the discussion about ecclesiastical power in the 17th century, one that enables us to identify the links between an apparently solely juridical theme and the entire range of life and impetuous growth of a civilization like that of the Dutch Golden Age. In a work of 1617 (published in 1647), Grotius not only maintains that Holy Scripture contains the principle of the separation of heaven and earth, but also that spiritual life is a function of material life. It says in the Bible: “For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable 2  See Willem Frijhoff and Marijke Spies, 1650. Hard-Won Unity, 49. Dutch edition: 1650: bevochten eendracht, 50.

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unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come”.3 Religion is not only about salvation (eternal life) but also about felicity, about private and public wealth.4 Moreover, it makes men content, patriotic, lovers of law and of their neighbours.5 In this way, religion and theology lose their absoluteness and independence and become a function of community, history, the life of men on earth so that they are used to constantly improve this earthly existence. What we have here is a fundamental idea that, though given diverse expression, resurfaces in all the debates and which points to the relevant Biblical references such as (taking only the New Testament) Romans 13,1;6 1 Peter 2,13–15;7 Titus 3,1;8 1 Timothy 2,1–2.9 2. In the 1660s, many innovative works appeared, including publications and new editions on civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. For example, 1665 saw the publication of De jure ecclesiasticorum, 1666 Philosophia S. Scripturae Inter­ pres, 1669 Instruction (Aanwysing) by Pieter de la Court, and 1670 the Tractatus theologico-politicus. Taking them all into account together with the reactions to them and also the pamphlets, the number of works can be counted in hundreds. Why was there such great agitation? We can turn to Abraham van Berkel, the Dutch translator of Hobbes,10 to help us answer this question. 3  1 Timothy 4,8 (I quote from the King James Bible [1611]). See Grotius, De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra, generally chapters I–VI. Other editions followed: editio tertia (1652); editio quarta (1661); editio novissima (1679). I quote from the 1647 edition. Note that De imperio, written in the midst of the theological-political disputes on the first Dutch Republican experiment and on the synod of Dordrecht, was published on the eve of the Second Dutch Republic. 4  Grotius, De imperio, I.12, reads in this light Matthew 6,33: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” 5  Grotius, De imperio, I.13. The sources used are not only Biblical but also Greek (Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch) and Roman (Cicero, Pliny). 6  “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” 7  “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme.” 8  “Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work.” 9  “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men. For kings and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” 10  Hobbes, Leviathan: of van de stoffe, gedaente, ende magt van de kerckelycke ende wereltlycke regeeringe. At the beginning there is a “Preface to understanding, impartial and kindly disposed reader [Voor-reden, aen den verstandigen, onpartijdigen en goedt-gunstigen leser]”, initialed A.T.A.B. It was attributed to Van Berkel (who had already translated

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What were Van Berkel’s motives for translating Leviathan into Dutch in 1667? There was a favorable climate. The translator commended the importance of scientific knowledge in the political field: it alone makes it possible to understand the need to promote prosperity, and a lack of it leads to the fall of nations.11 As Jewish theocracy (in which God is the only source of sovereignty) teaches, you cannot go very far without this understanding. Hosea (4,6) says: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge [. . .]”.12 The same lesson comes from the history of Rome, and also from the recent history of England, that which inspired Leviathan. This knowledge is of use not only when subjects refuse to obey but also when rulers are too weak to make themselves obeyed. Nevertheless, as the democratic resistance to tyranny in Greece shows (for example Harmodius and Aristogeiton), a commitment to work for the good of the State is not enough. One also has to give one’s reasons and make known the principles behind one’s actions, which also applied to the Dutch Republican government.13 As Sallust said, it is praiseworthy to serve the State, but it is also useful to write and speak well in favor of the common good.14 The reason for translating Hobbes into Dutch was precisely this: to serve the Republic intellectually and politically. It made up for a serious deficiency in the Republic, namely, the lack of public discourse in its support, the lack of an ideology. Is this not why Constans and Spinoza wrote De jure ecclesiasticorum and Tractatus theologico-politicus respectively? This justifies the antityrannical use of the Leviathan. The absolute power of Hobbes—who states however that “the name of tyranny signifieth nothing more nor lesse than the name of soveraignty”15—is paradoxically consistent with the republican and democratic aspirations being bandied around De Witt, whose weakness and lack of involvement in the theological-political debate can be noted. The absence of consensus was already felt to be something dangerous five years

Thomas Browne and Epictetus) by Knuttel, Verboden boeken in de Republik der Vereenigde Nederlanden. 11  Van Berkel says: “Welstant en Ondergang”; Hobbes, Leviathan, voor-reden, 1 [n. p.]). 12  Also cited are Jeremiah (8,7) and Isaiah (5,13). See Hobbes, Leviathan, voor-reden, 2 [n. p.]. The source for Hebrew theocracy are the works of Flavius Josephus. 13  Hobbes, Leviathan, voor-reden, 4 [n. p.]. 14  Sallustius, Bellum Catilinae 3,1: “pulchrum est bene facere rei publicae, etiam bene dicere haud absurdum est”. “Een gantsch heerlijcke saeck is, goede diensten te doen aen het Gemeene-Best; maer oock niet vreemt en is, datmen een goede Reden voerende, spreeckt en schrijft ten dienste van het selve”: Hobbes, Leviathan, voor-reden, 5 [n. p.]. 15  Hobbes, Leviathan, 392.

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after the civil troubles stirred up by the Orangist party. Republican Hobbes would be the Hobbes of absolute civil sovereignty and also the promoter of consensus on it. According to Van Berkel, Hobbes is the father of political science and no-one established and defended the freedom and obligations16 of subjects more than he—this despite the fact that several well-known priests (in England, France, Italy and Holland) were determined to brand him a heretic for what he says about the Christian religion—which included his ascribing no real power to priests. The ensuing condemnation of Hobbes was in Holland a way to hit out against the Republic of De Witt. From his adversaries’ view this Republic stood opposed to the Biblical tradition which tells of Jeremiah (2,22), who, addressing Jerusalem (that is the people, the community), complains that “For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God”. The above considerations reflect the thinking of lay and Republican circles who realized two things during the course of the 1660s. On one hand, the new government was unable to lay the foundations of a unitary political ideology opposed to the more traditional Christian monarchy. On the other hand, priests represented a problem with regard to this lacuna as their action is undertaken principally in the realm of ideas and conscience, passions and emotions, morality and customs, the political use of which is mostly the prerogative of the Orange party.17 Hobbes’ translator hoped that those who agreed with De Witt’s republican experiment would explain its importance to the citizens, perhaps in their own language, starting with absolute civil power and the advancement of happiness. 3. The republican—but also Arminian—interpretation of the Leviathan is also to be found in De jure ecclesiasticorum, a pseudonymous work by

16  “De Vryheyt ende pligt”; Hobbes, Leviathan, voor-reden, 6 [n. p.]. That is to say: rights and duties. But Hobbes (in the interpretation predominant then as now) would put the emphasis on duties and not on rights. 17   Typical of the climate is [Boxhornius], Commentariolus de statu Confoederatarum Provinciarum Belgii (1649), republished in a sixth enlarged edition in 1668. The author defends freedom of conscience and deplores the political function of the office of gubernator (i.e. stadthouder) which shades into that of the tyrant as happens among the barbarians in Africa and India (Boxhornius, Commentariolus, ed. 1668, 19).

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Lucius Antistius Constans18 published in Amsterdam in 1665.19 According to Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek,20 for stylistic and lexical as well as conceptual reasons, the author was neither Meyer21 nor Spinoza, whereas Pierre Bayle22 had attributed it to Spinoza precisely because he considered the opinions of the two authors to be identical. The Nachrichten held it to be very likely (“am warscheinlichsten”) that the author of the work, as unusual as it was impious—“so seltene als gottlose Schrift”—was Van den Hooft, one

18  There are several Roman tribunes and consuls called Lucius Antistius (gens Antistia). Perhaps the anonymous author is playing on the assonance with Latin antistites, from antistes, -is, from the verb antisto, -as (which means: I am superior), through which is rendered Greek proestotes, which at the time of the Apostles designated the person presiding over the assembly (see Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. 1651, XLII, 290: “[. . .] which words signifie the principall person of the Assembly, whose office was to number the votes, and to declare thereby who was chosen [. . .]”; and 1 Timothy 5,17, where the term is rendered by elders-presbiteri). Between the 16th and 17th century, antistes denoted the role of primarius pastor in the Swiss reformed churches in Zurich, Basle, Schaffhausen, St. Gallen, Graubünden, and elsewhere (a role undertaken, among many, by Zwingli, Oecolampadius, and Bullinger). In the early Middle Ages it was also used as a synonym for bishop. In the name Lucius a reference to Lucius Junius Brutus can also be seen, a famous figure who according to tradition expelled the last monarch, Tarquin the Proud, and founded the Republic (Livy, Ab urbe condita I 59). 19  Constans, De jure ecclesiasticorum, liber singularis. “Liber singularis” underlines the author’s intention to be provocative (not infrequent: see exercitatio paradoxa used by Meyer to describe his Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres): “[. . .] quin hic Liber singularis argumenti sui novitate, non modo suspensos et incertos homines effecturus, sed longe plures etiam admiratores quam Veritatis, quae eo traditur, inquisitores inventurus sit”, Constans, De jure, praefatio, 1–2 without number. On De jure ecclesiasticorum see Bordoli, Ragione e Scrittura tra Descartes e Spinoza, 92–97. 20  Vol. III, 1750, 25 ff. On the Nachrichten, which came out in Halle from 1748 to 1751 and are very informative on Dutch theological-philosophical culture in the 17th century, see Bordoli, L’Illuminismo di Dio: alle origini della mentalità liberale, 16, note 16. 21  “Den Lud. Meyer aber mögen wir auch nicht für den Verfasser halten, weil derselbe in seinen Schriften ganz anders schreibt und denkt”; Nachrichten, 26. Bayle had attributed it to Spinoza in note L in the article on the philosopher in the Dictionnaire, taking up the opinion of a contemporary gazette which argued that the theses of De jure ecclesiasticorum and those of the Tractatus theologico-politicus were the same. 22  Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, s.v. Spinoza, note L. Johannes Colerus (chapter XI) mentions the opinion of Bayle, but believes it more likely that the author is Meyer, while in the list of Spinoza’s works at the end of his biography, Lucas states that Spinoza is said to have denied being the author (which accords with Colerus’ opinion): see Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas, ed. Freudenthal / Walther, vol. I, 132; vol. II, 31.

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of the two De la Court brothers or a member of De Witt’s pensionaris party.23 The opinion of the authoritative Halle periodical would be handed down to the present day.24 In De jure it says of Constans that he settled elsewhere far away.25 Like the works of Meyer, Spinoza and Leviathan, De jure was censored by the Dutch States in 1674. It has been said26 that De jure is simply a treatise on the juridical condition of priests so that its perspective is a limited one with no place for philosophy of religion, exegesis or hermeneutics, political or juridical theory. It has also been noted27 that it contains a contrasting dual definition of right in that it derives both from the law of nature and from notions of power. Furthermore, De jure has to be counted among the works against strict Calvinism that proliferated during the Republic. It had also been published one year before Meyer’s Philosophia, together with which it formed, despite many differences, a kind of introduction to the first Treatise of Spinoza. The basic thesis of the work is that whatever ecclesiastical or civil power priests arrogate to themselves, it does not lie with them but with the civil magistrates, called prodii, substitutes for God.28 The preface (like the preface 23   Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek, 28. Leibniz was of this opinion. See Spinoza, Opera quae supersunt omnia, [. . .] curavit [. . .] Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus, vol. II, XXIV and 633, notes ††, with reference to Leibniz, Essais de théodicée, § 375. 24  Blom, “Le contexte historique du De jure ecclesiasticorum”, IX, supposes the anonymous author to be the son of a republican governor influenced by modern philosophy, though he admits he is unable to identify him. 25  He is thought to be “absens [. . .] & in aliis & longinquis terris constitutus & incolens” (Constans, De jure, final note, following the errata [n. p.]). It could be a reference to the North American colonies. On the ethical-political significance of the Dutch colonial ventures in the 17th century and the position of priests towards them, see Stoupe, La Religion des Hollandois, 99–100. Stoupe having asserted that the difference between Holland and Geneva (both Calvinist, like Stoupe himself) is that in the former “Mammon a grand nombre de Devots”, recalls an Italian telling him that a Dutchman, asked by someone from Japan whether they intended to impose their religion in the East, answered “siamo Hollandesi non siamo Christiani [we are Dutch, not Christian]”. This prompted from Stoupe a tirade against the unbelief of the Dutch colonizers, far more concerned with doing business than spreading the verbum Dei. What is interesting is that the criticism strikes out at the priests who were lukewarm about their missionary duties and not at declared atheists or the indifferent. 26  Lazzeri, “L.A. Constans entre Hobbes et Spinoza”, XXIII–XXIV. On the theme of jus circa sacra see Moreau, “Spinoza et le jus circa sacra”, 335–345. 27  Blom, “Le contexte historique”, XI, and Lazzeri, “L.A. Constans”, XXIV–XXIX, on the twofold contrary definition of jus: derived first from the law of nature and then from the notions of power and strength. 28  Constans, De jure, 7.

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by Jelles to Spinoza’s Opera posthuma) supports an impersonal idea of truth and the search for it, so that knowing the name of a work’s author is entirely irrelevant.29 It is much better to read the works and think about what they say. Equally, the question as to the authorities acknowledged by the author and the reasons that induced him to write are false problems. Both should rather derive from the work itself and be closely connected with knowledge of what is true. This is the desire of those who proposed to know divine truth. The treatise is, then, intended for those men who are pii, boni and sapientes, and its author not only stays in the shadows to avoid false accusations but also decides not to respond in any way to them. Constans propounds that the government should appoint the priests in the ecclesiastical administration.30 They deal solely with external worship because internal faith is by its very nature invisible and therefore a private matter. In the natural state all men are equal: they all have enough force for selfpreservation.31 They are also at the same time free (sui juris). Thereafter, due to their force being subjected to a constraint (conventione), men hand over their freedom to other men—the prodii—who thereby have it at their disposal. We have the birth of the civil state. Thus, natura id est Deus—very similar to Deus sive natura—has given men a part of its unlimited power-right. In the passage on the civil state, the weaker put it in the hands of the stronger, who now therefore—just as each individual was before a little god to himself (due to the fact that he had at his disposal a part of the power and right of God)—become vice-gods, pro-dii precisely. The transfer of right and power is absolute and unconditional.32 This means that since the equality existing in the state of nature is maintained in the civil state, and men have not handed their rights/powers over to one another in any case, but rather put them entirely in the hands of the prodii, any form of inequality between individuals (in privatis sive civibus) derives from the prodii, from civil right, from civil government, and not from nature. The first and noblest form of inequality originated by the prodii is that regarding public office (ministerium publicum). The posts are held by private citizens (privatus sive civis) through proxy or tacit consent from the government. Another form has its roots in wealth. The third and final form arises from conceding greater 29  “Et de scriptore operis semper fere inepte quaeritur [. . .]”: Constans, De jure, praefatio, 2 [n. p.]). See also Spinoza, Opera posthuma, praefatio, 3–4 [n. p.]. 30  Constans, De jure, 1 ff. 31  Constans, De jure, 38 ff. This is in chapter III, which was used by Pufendorf in De jure naturae et gentium libri octo., III.2.9, 223 ff. 32  Constans, De jure, 7 ff.

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rights and power to one citizen rather than another. The supremacy of priests derives uniquely from civil government: not from God, or Holy Scripture, or nature. The prerogative of priests is to teach the citizens how to pay homage to God through public worship. It lies in short in a public function (ministerium publicum) such as, for example, religious and ecclesiastical office (ministerium ecclesiasticum). The will of God makes itself known in three ways: Holy Scripture, reason, and revelation. In none of them is privilege envisaged for priests. Of interest is the reasoning in respect of the third type of privileges, those believed to come from the revelation of divine will.33 Even if one were to receive a direct revelation from God, it would still be a private matter until the government authorized it to be made public. Without authorization, it has validity only for the individual and not for civil society. After dealing with the prerogatives from divine right, the question needs to be addressed of the prerogatives from human right.34 Reason teaches us that no privilege of this kind is fitting for priests. The privileges are divided into those coming from 1) foreign law,35 ancient or modern; 2) agreements between foreign rulers and internal government; 3) customs and traditions contrary to the prodii. As to the first kind, any external ancient or modern right (for example, canonic law, the model for which is Roman law) is of value for a civitas in as much as it has been taken over and established or re-established by the prodii of the civitas. Hence, one of the two—ancient or modern external law—has no value in a city or, if it does, it is only due to the current power and right of the prodii of that civitas and not because it is foreign, ancient or modern. The same goes for the second type. The prodii of a civitas cannot be the source of privileges and rights for the citizens of another, not even by virtue of agreements made with the prodii of the other civitas. For the citizens the sole source of right and power are their own prodii. Regarding the third form, no custom and tradition can lay the foundation for a right and power of priests that is not endorsed by the prodii. If this were the case, we would not have a right of priests but right and power being conceded to them by the prodii (it would be a ministerium). Constans concludes that these are natural and rational truths.36 Like Meyer and Spinoza, Constans adopts the method of deduction and the grounding of truth on nature (sive Deus) and right reason. Some of the 33  Constans, De jure, 108 ff. 34  Constans, De jure, 127 ff. 35  “Juris extraneis”: jus extraneum is that which does not derive from the prodii of a civitas, but from the government of a foreign country. 36  Constans, De jure, 154: “[. . .] ipsam meae Sententiae Veritatem ex ipsius Naturae & rectae Rationis Principiis ita demonstravi, & hisce post rationibus & argumentis confirmavi”.

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content reflects the ideas of Adriaan Koerbagh which also overlap with those of Meyer and Spinoza. For example, the need to submit ecclesiastical office to civil power and the distinction between internal faith and public worship; arguments that are also shared by the Arminians, “christiani cordati et ratione valentes”. Hence, the work is not without theological, political and philosophical implications. The basic theme is the precedence of the political over the ecclesiastical sphere, in common with Grotius, Uytenbogaert, and Vossius, but also Hobbes, Spinoza, and the brothers De la Court. It united the friends of the Republic—Christians and non-Christians—setting them in opposition to the Gomarists, according to whom there is no salvation outside the church, and in opposition to the Orangist party, according to whom the priests are propagandists for a policy based on foreign wars, economic protectionism and the preservation of social and cultural hierarchies. A rare work and one that was not discussed at the time—and even less thereafter, as duly underlined in the Nachrichten—De jure has the merit of concentrating on the theme of the community’s political basis and, consequently, on the political basis for the aspiration of free individuals who make up civil society, to happiness and salvation. This means breaking the monopoly over the moral discourse held by priests, who can continue to call for good from their own theological point of view but not stop others from doing the same or claim an exclusive right. The moral discourse of the priests is precisely that, a mere discourse, an exhortation, an invitation and not an activity endowed in itself with value and efficacy: ministry not power, instrument not subject. 4. It was after all a question of applying the basic teachings of the Reformation, which expressed the spirit of the new age. The antecedents of the Dutch debate go back to the synod of Dordrecht and are summed up in the discussion between Uytenbogaert, Walaeus and Episcopius, which took place from 1610 to 1647. The ground was laid by Uytenbogaert37 in 1610, seven years before Grotius’ De imperio. Three opinions were expressed. That of the Roman Catholics, for whom priests stand above civil power. Then there were those who believe there is some cooperation [collateraliteyt] between civil and ecclesiastical commonwealth: the ambiguous thesis put forward by some Protestants, such as the Lutheran Musculus (who helped with the final redaction of the 37  Uytenbogaert, Tractaet van ’t ampt ende authoriteyt eener hooger Chistelijcker overheydt in kerckelijcke saecken. The third edition contains the replies to the numerous objections raised in the meantime. I quote from the 1647 edition, though bearing in mind that of 1610 (written against Franciscus Gomarus). The motto shows Matthew 22,21: “[. . .] Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s”.

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Formula of Concord).38 Lastly, others held that the civil government always has the last word, as happens in the Old Testament (between Moses and Aaron), in the New Testament (Christ and the Apostles) and in John Calvin and Théodore de Bèze. For instance, Acts 5,29—“we ought to obey God rather than men”—from the Apostles is not against Christian government but rather against non-Christian government that for a believer must not be an authority in matters of faith more than Christ.39 Civil power does not belong to the church (as Musculus says) but is, rather, above the church and its controller (opsiender), even though its representative is a member of the church: just as the head controls the body although it is part of it.40 Holy Scripture assigns much higher titles to the civil commonwealth and its representatives than those reserved for priests. That occurs even when those embodying power are pagans. Rejecting the Roman Catholic thesis and that of cooperation, Uytenbogaert thought that according to the word of God, supreme authority, power and

38  Andreas Musculus (1514–1581): the reference is accompanied by the citation of the Formula concordiae or Konkordienformel (X and XII) on which he worked, even though it does not touch on the question of the jus circa sacra. See Andreas Musculus, Loci communes theologici ex Scriptura Sacra et ex orthodoxis Ecclesiae doctoribus collecti, vol. II, Locus IX: Magistratus, art. VI, 66, where it is argued that “magistratum civilem esse intra non supra ecclesiam” and that within the ambit of faith, civil appointments must be subject to the will of the priests. Political constitutions do not have precedence in terms of dignity and importance over ecclesiastical constitutions, but rather back them up (“obsequuntur”). Andreas must not be confused with Wolfgangus Musculus (1497–1563), author of Loci communes theologiae sacrae, who has different ideas. This author asks “An ma­gistratus curandae religionis potestatem habeat” (626–629); “Quousque potestas magistratus in religione valeat” (629–634); “Quousque sit obediendum magistratui” (643–647). According to Wolfgang Musculus, God entrusts to the civil magistrate (and not to priests) the institution and maintenance of religion as demonstrated by Moses and Aaron. The civil magistrate is not only the guardian of religion but also he who governs it (moderator), who makes decisions about it and the laws pertaining to the priests (over whom he therefore exerts jurisdiction). The magistrate controls and determines the life of the church, although the latter is run according to its own rules coming from God. There is of course the classic example of Emperor Constantine who had command over the church and the priests. But there is one area the civil magistrate cannot encroach upon: he cannot decide in matters of religion “citra verbum Dei” (646). A limitation that refers one to the interpretation of the verbum De and so once again, not without controversy, to the civil government. 39  Uytenbogaert, Tractaet, 84. 40  Uytenbogaert, Tractaet, 85.

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jurisdiction over ecclesiastical power lies with the Christian government.41 He maintained,42 using the words of Vedelius43 from 1642, that the civil magistrate is the sovereign ruler and governor and he must consider not only the aims of felicity and welfare on earth, but also the eternal life of his subjects. This is why he decides on the true religion. The power of the civil magistrate covers all aspects of ecclesiastical office. He holds total and coercive power and jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical commonwealth (doctrines, persons, laws, punishments), according to the Old and New Testaments and according to the reformed catechisms. In the Christian church sovereign power, entire and absolute, is at the top and in command. Compared to the church and at the level of external order, the civil magistrate is sovereign (directeur, bestierder). He must consider the goals not only of his subjects’ happiness on earth and their wellbeing (“het tijdelijck geluck ende welvaren”) but also of their eternal bliss (“eeuwige geluck”), and this is why he has to engage in establishing which is the true religion.44 The power of the magistrate reaches all aspects of the 41  “[. . .] den Hoogen Christelijcken Overheyden toegestaen wort de hoochste opsicht authori­ teyt macht ende gebiedt in ’t Kerckelijcke na des Heeren woort”, Uytenbogaert, Tractaet, 89. 42  See his answer to Walaeus’s Het ampt (see below) and, secondarily, in answer to Voetius (Grondige ende pertinente verklaringe over de vrage wien de Kerckelijcke macht toekomt?). These are three disputes which took place and were published in Latin in The Hague in 1640. They are cited by Uytenbogaert translated into Dutch precisely because he was writing in the national language. In their original Latin version, they would be amalgamated into the writings of Voetius on ecclesiastical policy: see below. The reply to Walaeus takes up a large part of the work of 1647 (Uytenbogaert, Tractaet, 197–288) and forms a small volume on its own. Here I follow in particular Uytenbogaert, Tractaet, 280–286. 43  Vedelius, De episcopatu Constantini Magni, seu de potestate magistratuum Reformatorum circa res ecclesiasticas dissertatio, 7–124; there are thirteen quaestiones; XIV is the author’s conclusion regarding Roman Catholics, of no interest to Uytenbogaert so that he does not cite it. 44  Cf. Vedelius, De episcopatu, 19–20: “Magistratus pro fine praecipuo debet habere salutem et felicitatem populi non temporalem solum, sed etiam aeternam; adeoque ad eum pertinet cura vera Religionis, qua ipse per se tenetur sollicitus esse, de ea introducenda ubi nondum exercetur, conservanda ubi in usu est, vindicanda ubi corrumpitur, restauranda ubi collapsa est, et quidem haec omnia secundum praescriptum verbi Dei”. The author refers to Sibrandus Lubbertus (1556–1625), who argues, with Grotius, against Walaeus and the Reformed professions of faith, for example Confessio Belgica and Confessio Helvetica posterior [1562], art. XXX (De magistratu). He also refers to Deuteronomy, 17–20; 2 Kings 18,6; Romans 13,4; 1 Timothy 2,2. Vedelinus attacks Bellarmino (De summo pontifice, 1577), who not only thinks that in matters of religion the magistrate has to carry out what is laid down by the Pope, but also that “Magistratum regere nomine ut nomine sunt, non autem ut Christiani, et pro fine habere temporalem quietem et salutem populi, non autem vitam

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office of priests. Their specific tasks pertain to the summa potestas and it is to this, and the law that it expresses, that they always look in the last resort. Official decisions on religion, faith and the word of God are incumbent not only on teachers and priests but also on the government. The magistrate holds coactive power and jurisdiction in respect of circa sacra, and can censure, punish, and remove ecclesiastics and priests; the office of magistrate involves both maintaining the ecclesiastical discipline set down by Christ and checking that it is not misused in the ecclesiastical assemblies (Kercken-raedt, Synodus, and so on). The civil government has the power to legislate in accordance with the word of God on ecclesiastical matters concerning both things and people. Ecclesiastics can enact constitutions and rules with no legal power and not dealing with people’s conscience, which then, if necessary, become law only where they are confirmed by the government. No man, priest or magistrate, has the power to establish anything at all in ecclesiastical matters as he thinks fit (“na zijn goetduncken”), but always only in his capacity as servant of God and God’s word. Circa sacra, the civil government is in no way subject to the priests and ecclesiastics depend on the magistrates to whom they are subject. In the Christian church, civil government stands at the top. 5. Antonius Walaeus, a rigid theologian, although not to the same extent as Voetius, replied to Uytenbogaert in 1615.45 He declared himself to be against both Anabaptists and Mennonites, who exclude civil power from the church since government is not a religious matter, and against Arminians, who entrust the entire ecclesiastical administration to the government.46 In this last case (the position held by Uytenbogaert) political power expands and—in line with Machiavelli, pagans and Turks—all that is left to citizens is to obey. Contrary to Uytenbogaert (enemy of God’s word, Reformed churches and all of Christianity47), the problem is, according to Walaeus, not so much the need to distinguish between the two powers48 as to establish a balanced relation between them. It is thus certain that the summa potestas carries the image of God as the seal of its power, just as priests dispense the word of God by et felicitatem sempiternam, hunc enim esse finem tantum Episcoporum seu ministrorum Ecclesiae”. 45  Walaeus, Het ampt der kerckendienaren. 46  Walaeus, Het ampt, voorrede, 2 [n. p.]. 47  Walaeus, Het ampt, voorrede, 4 [n. p.]. 48  It is the theme that Walaeus, Het ampt, addresses in chap. I. With respect to the differentiation between the two powers, he in fact follows official Protestant literature, not infrequently Lutheran: Andreas Musculus (see above) and Confessio augustana [1530], XVI (De rebus civilibus), where the duty to obey the magistrates and laws is limited by Acts 5,29: “[. . .] We ought to obey God rather than men.”

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conveying the image of Christ and by the same criterion govern the community through spiritual means.49 According to Walaeus, the civil power has to submit to the word of God as transmitted in the prayers of priests. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical power appeals to the government when the ministers of the church find themselves in difficulty. The civil and ecclesiastical powers can in fact cooperate: “The ecclesiastical power is not submitted to civil government with a spiritual submission, but with a political submission”.50 Moreover, regarding sacraments and sermons, pastors and priests are not at all subject to political authority. The magistrate cannot pronounce on the word of God or on the sacraments that priests administer. Nor can he force the preachers and doctors of the church to change their teaching or administer the sacraments differently.51 6. During the 1660s, in particular between 1663 and 1669, three very important contributions were made which justify labelling it a fecund decade. The first reasserted the rigid orthodox thesis, the second perfected the liberal thesis, and the third formulated the republican thesis. Between 1663 and 1676, straddling republic and restoration, Gijsbert Voet or Voetius—ironically called the Utrecht Pope—published over 4000 pages on ecclesiastical government, a substantial part of which (about 450) touched on the theme of jus circa sacra.52 His opin-

49  Walaeus, Het ampt, voorrede, 2–3 [n. p.]. 50  Walaeus, Het ampt, 142, says: “De politijcke macht moet dan den Woorde Godts dat van de Kerckendienaren ghepredickt wordt onderworpen zijn. Maer wederom soo is de kercke­ licke macht oock de politijcke onderworpen wanneer de dienaers ofte in menschelicke saecken ofte in kerckelicke haer selven qualtck draghen”, since the two powers can assist one another, though in mutual independence. He concludes: “De kerckelicke macht is de Magistraet onderworpen niet met een Gheesteliche subjectie maer met een politicke”. 51  Walaeus, Het ampt, 142. On the same wavelength as Uytenbogaert was Episcopius, Theses theologicae de iure magistratus circa sacra.: “Imperium non circa profana tantum, sed sacra etiam Magistratui Christiano competere [. . .]” (thesis II). The Biblical sources are Romans 12,4; 13; Proverbs 29,4; Timothy 2,2. In thesis V, Episcopius acknowledges that this opinion is forthcoming only if the Roman Catholic one (predominance of priests) and that of cooperation are rejected. In thesis XIV he does not acknowledge that the magistrate, or even ecclesiastics, can force freedom of teaching on others and this is how he reads Acts 4,19. It is not difficult to avoid the consequences of errors (how optimistic!): it only needs the magistrate to support the true religion and try to convince dissenters of its effectiveness. This rests on the (Cartesian) premise that falsehood gives way before revelation of the truth (thesis XV). 52  Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae partis primae libri duo priores. These are the most important places where jus circa sacra is dealt with: vols. I, I, II, 1–7, 114–254; vols. II, I, IV, I, 354–594; vols. IV, III, IV, I, 770–840. It needs to be kept in mind that the work is a collec-

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ion is more radical: the civil magistrate has no ecclesiastical power.53 According to Voetius, the theses should be rejected that are put forward by Anabaptists who proclaimed the church to be free from any civil power and were (perhaps for this reason) wiped out,54 and by Roman Catholics, whose opinions were particularly confused. Sometimes they attribute immunity to priests, at others they attribute some jurisdiction to the secular authorities; but they generally attribute coercive power (coactiva potestas) to the bishops.55 Voetius is however clear about the fact that only Christ is the governor of the church.56 He then deals with some practical issues. For example, the question as to whether it is down to the magistrate to exert control over doctrine and rites.57 This should be the task of the church alone. However, the magistrate, like any other Christian, can exhort and advise the church with a view to public improvement. In contrast, as a political official, the magistrate must only receive the reformist petitions already decided within the church and bring them into effect, bestowing them with legal force.58 The magistrate plays no role in calling for synods or councils.59 Nevertheless, the government has to concede to the Church, to the true church, external liberty and liberty of worship.60 Religious freedom is divided into spiritualis interna and ecclesiastica externa. Also called safety, the latter is to be granted by the State and includes tion of diverse texts written from the 1640s on, many of which are disputationes, arranged by subject. 53  Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. I, 1663, 114–254, especially 124–129. The question is first set out through a practically full review of the sources for Dutch history. Then the substance is addressed with reference to the New Testament and the fathers of the church, before concluding: “Magistratum non habet Potestatem ecclesiasticam [. . .] intrinsecam formaliter et proprie sic dictam [. . .] antecedentem seu directivam; atque adeo supremam sub Christo, supra ecclesiam, ejusque antecessores” (Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. I, 1663, 137). 54  The reference is to Thomas Müntzer: Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. I, 1663, 115. 55  Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. I, 1663, 116. 56  “Ecclesiastica Potestas est ejus sacrum ministeriale a Christo capite Ecclesiae concessum, et ordinario modo applicatum, externe se et sua gubernandi ad mutuam aedificationem et salutem”. Page after page the author contests Remonstrants, Arminians and Lutherans, employing a logic of reason and language typical of scholastic philosophy (as is his wont). 57  Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. I, 1663, 182. 58  Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. I, 1663, 182–183. 59  Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. I, 1663, 184. 60  In Tractatus de Ecclesiae libertate, immunitate, dignitate, Voetius begins clearly: “Libertas est vel civilis seu saecularis, vel sacra. De illa politicis et Jureconsultis agendum relinquimus. Ista ad theologicam tractationem pertinet” (Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. II, 1666, 354–394; especially 354).

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freedom of conscience and freedom of action. The ideal situation is for the civil power to concede all liberty of worship only to the true church, or Reformed Church,61 and this freedom consists in complete ecclesiastical power and complete ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as in Geneva. Liberty is plural: it comes in degrees and different configurations; it depends on the State and the character of the subjects involved: citizens, governors, and ecclesiastics.62 There are seven degrees. The last one is described in these terms (at the historical level, it would refer to the Geneva of Calvin): civil government concedes laws that confirm the total public exercise of freedom by religion alone and solely by the Reformed Church, a freedom consisting in the total power of government and ecclesiastical jurisdiction.63 Having established this, Reformed theologians do not teach resistance to the government by the people.64 However, if anyone argues that the people have some right to resist,65 then that does not depend either on the church or the priests but on the people.66 It was a perspective that on the one hand endorsed the principle of non-subordination of the church to the State, while on the other it foreshadowed daunting outcomes in the event of civil troubles. 7. A pupil of Grotius and victim of Dordrecht, Gerardus Iohannes Vossius wrote during the clashes between Arminians and Gomarists an essay he did not publish in his lifetime. It appeared, based on the autograph, for the first time in 1669 in Amsterdam67 within a theological-political context similar to the republican struggle of Van Oldenbarnevelt and the liberal battle of Grotius. 61  Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. II, 1666, 354: “ecclesiae verae scil. et orthodoxae”. 62  Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. II, 1666, 354: “Libertatis hujus ecclesiasticae concessio et defensio habet suam latitudinem et gradi bus variat: pro vario Reipublicae statu, seu variis ea praevalentium ingeniis”. 63  “[. . .] cum religioni et ecclesiae reformatae publice et quidem soli integra integrae potestatis, politiae, et jurisditionis ecclesiasticae exercendae libertas exercenda, a suprema potestate politica conceditur et externis legibus ac statutis confirmatur”; Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. II, 1666, 356. 64  Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. II, 1666, 365. 65  “[. . .] etiam populo [i.e., not only the magistrate] competere potestatem resistendae in casu necessitatis”; Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. II, 1666, 365. 66  “Quo enim homines populum illum constituentes pariter sunt Christiani, et tanquam membra Ecclesiae ecclesiasticum corpus constituunt, hoc totum est per accidens [. . .]”; Voetius, Politicae ecclesiasticae, vol. II, 1666, 366. 67  Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica de iure magistratus in rebus ecclesiasticis. The publisher, printer, cartographer and regent of Amsterdam Johan Blaeu (1596–1673)—close to the De Witt circle—published in the 1660s works by Grotius, Hobbes, Traiano Boccalini, Thomas Browne, Maimonides, Seneca, Lucan, Herbert of Cherbury.

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Faced with the misfortunes of the Reformation, Vossius said in Lucretian (and pre-Kantian) tones: “Tantum non quidem religio, sed perperus affectus potuit suadere malorum”.68 It was not Vossius’ intention to reject one thesis in favor of another, but to underline the contradictions in the several doctrines that first contest those who justify human opinion as being divine and then reformulate human opinions and sell them as divine. The Reformed fall into the same error that they reproach Roman Catholics with, namely mistake their own convictions for God’s word. He proposes to show that civil sovereign power is the province of ecclesiastical power and, secondly, to reflect upon the cooperativist opinion of Walaeus in the light of reason and Holy Scripture.69 His first thesis rests on both Holy Scripture and ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Roman history and is borne out in the patristic tradition and also in the councils. Essentially, a king who concerns himself with the temporal sphere cannot neglect religion since disdain for it gives rise to many evils, while true worship of God leads to great happiness also on earth.70 Power may be civil or ecclesiastical. Civil power, the State, and government meet men’s earthly needs; they lead them to material happiness. Ecclesiastical power, in contrast, provides spiritual fulfillment, that is heavenly beatitude. It has nonetheless a dual nature. In as far as it deals with inner man, it is the domain of priests, parsons and preachers, who exhort men to do good. But when it comes to man’s external side and public governance of the church, it is the province of civil magistrates and derives therefore from political power and its domain of action.71 68  Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 2. 69  “[. . .] ad trutinam Scripturae et rectae rationis”; Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 10. 70  “Nam si vel temporalia solum curare Reges serio velint, ne sic quidem Religionis cultum negligere debeant, cum cultus divini contemtus ac negligentia fons sit infelicitatis ac multorum malorum: uti contra sincerus Dei cultus in temporalibus quoque magnam adfert felicitatem”; Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 12. In support of his own arguments, Vossius refers to Deuteronomy, 28, where God reminds Moses—political but not theological leader of his people—of the importance of obeying him if he wants his people to stand above all the other nations on earth. 71  “Civilis procurat humanum bonum, uti eudaimonian politiken. Atque hoc respectu societas hominum non Ecclesia sed Resp. vocatur. Potestas vero Ecclesiastica procurat spirituale bonum, uti beatitudinem celestem. Atque eo respectu haec ipsa societas non jam Resp. sed Ecclesiae nomen obtinet. Potestas vero Ecclesiastica est duplex: una interior; altera exterior. Interior versatur in his quatuor, verbi praedicatione, sacramento cum administratione, ordinatione pastorum per impositionem manuum, et usu clavium. Exterior potestas in externa gubernatione consistit, qua Religio publice sancitur, omniaque procurantur quae ad bonum religionis, qua publica est, pertinent. Prior illa potestas propria est Ecclesiastarum: posterior primo et per se competit Magistratui”, Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 27.

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This is what can be seen in the behavior of the emperor Constantine the Great. Together with Grotius, Vossius argues that it is up to the priests to give counsel whereas the magistrates’ task is to command.72 It is therefore true that power of persuasion73 is down to the priests, but this does not detract from the case that it is only magistrates who have coactive power. The restriction that this power is valid in as far as it conforms to the judgment of priests is absurd. Civil government judges with absolute liberty disregardful of other powers (e.g., number of believers, number of atheists, the influence of one church rather than another, etc.). The same confusion is introduced by Walaeus when he speaks of ecclesiastical discipline which, being partly of divine origin and partly of human origin, should however be exercised mainly by a civil magistrate.74 Walaeus believed that when the pastor explains to the unbeliever or to the fanatic that the kingdom of heaven is closed to him, ecclesiastical discipline is inspired by God and that it is human if and when the expression of a penitence is followed by punishment (such as excommunication), which can only be set by the civil magistrate.75 Nevertheless, according to Vossius, also in the first case the magistrate has the duty to make sure that priests act with justice and are not moved by fanatical hatred. On the other hand, Walaeus accepts that magistrates have complete power over church administration though he ends up ascribing the exercise of it to theologians (as a delegate).76 This is what Walaeus says when he theorizes on the “collaterale imperium civilis et ecclesiastica potestatis”. But for Vossius, it is the cooperation between civil and ecclesiastical power that is very dangerous for the Republic.77 As Ezra 7,25 shows,78 priests are not vicars of Christ but servants of the latter and of God, and magistrates do not possess internal and spiritual power but external and corporeal power.79 72  “[. . .] simplex dictio”, Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 130. 73  Technically it is a question of the “judicium directivum seu suasivum” in opposition to the following “judicium imperativum seu coactivum”, Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 30–31. 74  Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 35. 75  Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 35. 76  Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 39. 77  Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 39. 78  This is the famous passage in which Artaxerxes lays down, to the benefit of Ezra, that the Law (Torah) given to Moses by God is the law of the State and therefore has civil and political validity: “And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that know them not”. Vossius’ position also rests on the authority of Théodore de Bèze. 79  Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 40.

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But this is not all. If we distinguish between internal power and external power, it is also because we have to distinguish between that which pertains to the teaching of Gospel and the giving of the sacraments (relating to internal power) and that with respect to the acts concerning ecclesiastical power, which relate not to the Scriptures but to history: place, time, number, ratio.80 These are historical ideas with regard to which the magistrate possesses a competence deriving directly from God, and priests are unreservedly subject to him.81 As for internal power, on the other hand, we need again to distinguish three levels: power considered in itself; power as it is communicated; power as supervising and administering this communication.82 In the first and second sense, the magistrate and priests agree since the jus docendi (right/power of teaching) specific to the church and the jus gubernandi (right to govern) specific to the State both come from Christ, both in themselves and transferred to individuals. In the third sense by contrast—which is that of the effective and determined exercise of internal ecclesiastical power on the historical plane— they disagree, since everything that is public is under the control of those who make up the civil government, so that even the supervision of religious matters, in as far as it is carried out in public, is the concern of the civil magistrate.83 The outcome is equally paradoxical: what pertains to external ecclesiastical power (worship, ordination or the appointing or election of priests and teachers, and so on) does not refer to Holy Scripture or faith or history. Here too, the civil commonwealth has the last word.84 The reason is that, although they concern internal power, those actions are public and involve the life of the community and not only the impulses of the individual conscience (the internal forum). This means that in the last instance, it is always the magistrate that decides.85 80  Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 40–41 (locus, tempus, numerus, modus). 81  Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 41. 82  Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 41. 83  “Cum enim publica omnia, qua publica, ei subsint, qui publicis summo cum imperio praeest, etiam universam Religionis curam, qua publica est, summo Magistratui subjectam esse necesse est” (Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 41). 84  “Eoque respectu fatendum, Ecclesiastas secundum interiora illa, nempe praedicationem Evangelii, administrationem sacramentorum, impositionem manuum, et jus clavium, a Magistratu summo dependere”, Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 41. 85  For example, according to Walaeus if a magistrate identifies false pastors, the church has the right to dismiss them and elect others. But Vossius does not agree: “Sed [Walaeus] confundit Ecclesiam qua talis, et qua publica”, Vossius, Dissertatio epistolica, 45. In fact, in opposition to a heretical emperor, the church could certainly appoint a trusted minister, who would be undoubtedly a minister of the church, but in as far as it is a private

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8. Pieter de la Court approved of De Witt’s Republican government and, at the same time, understood the precarious nature of the new regime—also due to its ideological weakness—when he wrote in 1669: “Let us pray to God that this happy age continues”.86 In his view, liberty and tolerance towards external worship was the most effective way to keep many of the inhabitants in Holland and attract new ones from other countries.87 The French text (in this case chapter IX) summarizes chapters XIV and XV of the Dutch version. It leaves out the too contingent references and dwells on the more general principles and policies: tolerance towards religions, including Roman Catholicism as Catholics are no longer a threat due to their foreign connections (SpainPope); low taxes and special conditions for those who come to live in Holland and bring their wealth with them or set up enterprises—hard luck to the locals who complain about the competition (which among other things offers wages that are among the highest in Europe!). The Dutch version, on the other hand, goes into domestic affairs (chapter XIV). It explains that the best means to counter religious hate lies in absolute sovereignty: “In fact, coercive power is the province solely of those who govern, and each power and right conferred on priests cannot but derive from the civil government, as demonstrated most convincingly by Lucius Antistius Constans in his very recently published De jure ecclesiasticorum”88—one of the few references to this work. association and not one authorized to convey its own beliefs, such a minister would not be (rightly) recognized by public and political power, by a publicly instituted and recognized church. 86  [De la Court], Aanwysing der heilsame politike gronden en maximen van de Republike van Holland en West-Vriesland, voorreeden, 37 [n. p.]: “[. . .] soo verleene de goede God onslang soo gelukkige tijden [. . .]”. The work would be partially translated into French: Memoires de Jean de Wit, Grand Pensionnaire de Hollande. Traduits de l’original en françois. Par M. de ***, préface, 20: “je prie Dieu de nous continuer long-temps ces heureux temps”. The French version does not follow the Dutch text in that it combines chapters, summarizes and changes the order of sections. On Johan and Pieter de la Court see: Wildenberg, Johan en Pieter de la Court (1622–1660 en 1618–1685). And generally: van de Klashorst, Blom and Haitsma Mulier, Bibliography of Dutch Seventeenth-Century Political Thought. 87   “Dat Vryheid ofte Tolerantie omtrent de verschillende uiterlike Gods-diensten, is het kragtigste middle, om in Holland veele Inwoonders te behouden, ende vremde Ingeseetenen uit de omleggende Landen herwaars ter woone te trekken” ([Pieter de la Court], Aanwysing, I, XIV, 59). Chapter XIV of the Dutch version corresponds to chapter IX in the French text (in turn condensing chapters XIV and XV of the versio belgica): “Que la liberté de Religion est le meilleur moyen pour attirer et pour conserver les Etrangers, et pour donner la liberté entière à un chacun de s’établir en Hollande”, [Pieter de la Court], Memoires, 41. 88  “Want Potestas coercendi, die dwingende magt niemande dan den Politiken is gegeeven; Ende van de selve Politike Magt, ook alle magt ende regt op den Kerkeliken, indien sy

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The difference between civil government and Christian ecclesiastical power lies in the fact that the first does not confine itself to teaching and to counselling (“leeren en raaden”), but has to command and oblige (“gebieden en dwingen”) citizens, willing or unwilling, to carry out external acts or punish those who do not carry out certain acts.89 Different is the office of the Christian teachers, namely to teach and to counsel Christian virtues: for example, faith in God and in salvation, the hope of eternal life, and to love God and one’s neighbours (1 Corinthians 13). These virtues reside solely in our internal and invisible faith,90 and they cannot therefore be induced by external coercive power, but only through the good counsel and safe advice of priests. The Kingdom of God is not to be on earth. Priests are servants of Christ and of men, and they must not turn into masters and kings of their neighbours.91 It is this very respect for religious opinions that drew many foreigners to Holland, who in their own countries saw their freedom limited by the inquisition and excommunication, i.e. by some form of material persecution enacted by priests with the complicity of the civil government. 9. Lambert van Velthuysen, republican, correspondent of Spinoza, member of Utrecht city council, medical doctor but great lover of theology and philosophy, considered the question of the jus circa sacra from several angles, but was more interested in the moral and philosophical side. This is why he brings us closer to Spinoza and the conclusion. Civil power is conferred by God both directly92 and through the mediation of history.93 Nature compels no one to obey by force or through violence. Nor do men have to submit to anyone in the name of Christian providence since men are created as rational and reasonable beings.94 Men are by nature equal and nobody has the right to subjugate another person. The laws of nature are for men moral virtues (“moreele eenige hebben, moet neederdalen gelijk dit selfde seer treffelik ende onweederspreekelik is beweesen, door Lucius Antistius Constans, in sijn bouk de Jure Ecclesiasticorum, onlangs gedrukt”, [De la Court], Aanwysing, 61. This reference is only in the Dutch text, not in the French translation. 89  [De la Court], Aanwysing, 61. 90  “[. . .] in onse innerlike gedagten der Ziele”, [De la Court], Aanwysing, 61. 91  [De la Court], Aanwysing, 62. 92  As happens with Moses: see 1 Samuel 12,6. 93  Through time and places (“tijden en plaetsen”). See [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck of de Christelijcke overheydt eenigh quaedt in haer gebiedt mach toe laten, 2. On the agreement between Van Velthuysen and De jure ecclesiasticorum around 1669, see: Klever, Verba et sententiae Spinozae or Lambertus van Velthuysen on Benedictus de Spinoza, 14. 94  “[. . .] met reden en vernuft”, [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 3–4. To be cited here is first of all Romans 13, in particular 13,1: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”

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deughden”) that can be given expression through certain universal means (“alghemeene middelen”). The principle behind these means is the political government of the community, the instrument needed to obtain what is most precious (“’t voorgaende goedt”).95 Holy Scripture teaches that the governors’ jurisdiction extends to both ecclesiastical power and civil commonwealth.96 Social life presupposes both human weakness and liberty, but excludes a commonwealth of masters and slaves. Given that, governors promote different degrees of solidarity (gemeynschap) between citizens on the basis of the criterion of prudence or discretion.97 The fact that morality and virtue are founded on the power and wisdom of God does not imply that one has to embrace a religion but that one must love God. For example, ingratitude is morally bad as it undermines the basis of friendship. It does not follow from this, however, that one should show gratitude for utilitarian purposes.98 The basis for morality (moreelheydt) is necessity: it is not fear of harm but rather love of virtue99 that brings men to adore Christ and at the same time join together with others socially. What brings happiness to men is rational worship.100 The functions of Savior and of Mediator are valid reasons for serving Christ, but they do not form the rational basis of beatitude. In the state of the Hebrews, it was possible to punish a sin relating to morality or religion since religious laws had political validity. This is, however, not so in the republic and in the Christian churches because in matters of conscience neither the State nor the churches can lay claim to obedience and consequently hand out punishments.101 In matters of religion one should not punish but persuade. We need to distinguish a case like that of the republic of the Jews, which as a civil commonwealth could impose a discipline of conscience, from what Christ taught, his Christian republic being spiritual and therefore resting solely on counsel, on love.102 A church is a private association (private Societeyt), which cannot give its own internal rules

95  [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 5–8. See Habakkuk 1,14 (for the notion of state of nature); Numbers 27,16 (for the divine foundation of political power). 96  “[. . .] over de burgerlijcke saecken”, [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 25. 97  [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 44 and 50. 98  [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 52. 99  “[. . .]en is niet de vreese van schade, maer de liefde tot de deucht”, [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 52–53. 100  “[. . .]een redelicke en billicke Godts-dienst”, [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 53. 101  [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 92. See 1 Corinthians 10,29: “[Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other:] for why is my liberty judged of another man’s conscience?”. 102  [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 101.

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(for example, excommunication) the value of civil jurisdiction and of external coercive power.103 Van Velthuysen distinguishes between a moral (natural) action and a positive action; it is moral to obey the political authorities, but a positive action to obey or not a given form of government. The principle is one thing; experience another. Men are bodies that live at a given time in a given place. Natural necessity is tied to certain general moral principles while here and now non-empirical and non-necessary rules are in force. Therefore, it is moral and necessary to obey the government; to obey this government is an action, something positive but not a value. Likewise, obedience as such to the Ten Commandments prescribed by Moses is moral, but the commandments are not moral in their historical content as they depend on an age which the New Testament had now gone beyond.104 As the content of moral law is determined by history, it has to be gauged on the basis of correct reasoning,105 the only kind able to tell if something is good or bad in itself or in relation to certain particular circumstances.106 For example, the first commandment is a universal truth whereas the third, which prescribes observance of the Sabbath, is an historical indication valid only for the difficult situation in which it was formulated. Natural religion teaches us that God’s commandments do not speak of that which is moral or concerns natural laws and that consequently they do not require absolute obedience.107 Turning to the civil and political level, a magistrate can also prohibit something good as it may be mixed with something bad that would be perpetrated. Vice versa, a magistrate may permit something bad in itself if it brings with it something good for the citizens. The premise is political: the origin of every free government is that individual citizens hand over taking care of the common good to the magistrates.108 The consequences involve everyday life and morality as well as religion and the churches. One example is the theatre, which serves to entertain citizens but may also be in bad taste or morally harmful. It is up to the civil government and not the church to decide whether its social 103  [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 106. 104  [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 163–165. 105  “[. . .] af-meten door de gesonde reden”, [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 219. 106  “[. . .] uyt particuliere omstandicheden”, [van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 178. 107  See: Exodus 20,3, together with Deuteronomy 5,7; and Exodus 20,8, together with Deuteronomy 5,12. On the Sabbath, a long-running controversy went on for decades in Dutch theological circles (in Utrecht in particular), see Visser, De geschiedenis van de Sabbatstrijd onder de Gereformeerden in de zeventiende eeuw. 108  “De wesentliche oorsprongh dan van alle vrye regeeringe zijnde, dat de particulieren de Overheyd op-gedragen hebben de sorge van ’t gemeen”, [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 301.

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function is good or bad.109 The raison d’être of the State affects all aspects of the growth of individuals (as public and private persons) and of the community. And it is from this perspective that the jus circa sacra is judged, assimilating it to the right that the citizens confer on the governors to choose the best: “I consider a decent education no less necessary for knowing how to move one’s own body and behave fittingly and knowing how to express oneself through appropriate and elegant speech”.110 10. The debate on the monopoly of satisfaction, and through this on the relation between the ecclesiastical and the civil spheres sets out three theses. Human happiness is the prerogative of the church; it is exclusive to civil government; it is the goal of both and they work together on equal terms. In the first case, the church has supremacy over the civil magistrate; in the second, this situation is reversed and the magistrate is in the ascendancy; in the third case both have equal power (collaterale imperium). The first thesis is embraced, though in different ways, by a part of the rigid Calvinists and the Roman Catholics; the second is shared by the Arminians, Latitudinarians in general and by atheist or non-religious writers; the third by some rigid Calvinists and some Lutherans. This is the background against which Spinoza wrote chapter XIX of Tractatus theologico-politicus, in which he shows that the jus circa sacra is entirely the province of civil government, and that the churches have to contribute to peace within the State.111 But agreement with the Arminian and non-religious thesis also considers the reason: the good of the people is the supreme law to which both human and divine laws must submit.112 In these pages, which Spinoza wrote to provide the republic with the instruments to produce an ideology that was not only anti-feudal but also able to justify the free physical and mental self-expression of all men by fostering social affluence, there are echoes of Grotius and the Arminian tradition, Hobbes and De jure ecclesiasticorum. The common intent of these quite different authors and the quite different currents they represented is to foster the self-government 109  [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 306. 110  “Ick achte tot een eerlicke op-voedingh niet minder noodich te zijn, dat men het lichaem wel en gevoechlick weet te dragen en buygen, als datmen de tonge tot het formeeren van een goede en bevallicke tael wel weet te bestieren”, [Van Velthuysen], Ondersoeck, 307. 111  “Ostenditur, jus circa sacra penes summas potestates omnino esse, et religionis cultum externum Reipublicae paci accommodari debere, si recte Deo obtemperare velimus”, Spinoza, Tractatus theologico-politicus, 604 (title of chapter XIX). 112  “[. . .] sequitur, salutem populi summam esse legem, cui omnes, tam humanae, quam divinae accommodari debent”, Spinoza, Tractatus, 614.

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of a community of free and equal men. It is not a question of the struggle between ancient and modern times, but rather of the conflict, within the modern age, between the advocates of the improvement of ideas and the growth of material wellbeing on the one hand, and on the other the defenders of a community closed to the outside and internally hierarchical, bonded by a national faith that prescribes what is true and good. What ecclesiastics see as their right is the right to impose laws in a way that is not functional to furthering knowledge and what is best, but proceeds rather in the name of particular and local powers that claim jurisdiction over universal aspects of individual and social human life. Instead, the search for happiness is free and only limited by the freedom of others. This is the conclusion reached by Spinoza and Van Velthuysen, but also the result of this present research. In my view, the debate between Arminians and Gomarists and also the support for the Republic of De Witt—coming from both reasonable Christians and non-Christians—were two essential mainsprings of the philosophical and political renewal that, embodied within the works of Constans, Meyer, Spinoza, and Koerbagh, paved the way for the modern process of emancipation. The society that was becoming a State (and later the State) shared with the churches the aim of achieving its own citizens’ fulfillment as human beings and, as a final goal, that of all humanity. The struggle between the ecclesiastical or religious spheres and the political sphere was that for the monopoly of wellbeing and for the extension of happiness. This applies without distinction to both the material and spiritual levels. Not only is this because one conditions the other, but also the one without the other is insufficient. The Arminian theses, heirs of the Reformation, are the ones that at that time best expressed a similar tension by attributing to civil government power in respect of the ecclesiastical domain but without divesting religions and churches of the function of moral stimulation. With the gradual spread of common rationality, the latter were at first concentrated in the State but, with the passage of time, would also be able to do without it: “Auf die Art garantiert die Natur, durch den Mechanism in den menschlichen Neigungen selbst, den ewigen Frieden; freilich mit einer Sicherheit, die nicht hinreichend ist, die Zukunft desselben (theoretisch) zu weissagen, aber doch in praktischer Absicht zulangt, und es zur Pflicht macht, zu diesem (nicht bloß schimärischen) Zwecke hinzuarbeiten”.113

113  Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden (A 65 f.), Gesammelte Schriften, VIII.

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Constans, Spinoza”, in Bostrenghi, Daniela (ed.), Hobbes e Spinoza. Scienza e politica. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Urbino, 14–17 Ottobre, 1988, Naples, Bibliopolis, 1992, 595–621. Lagrée, Jacqueline, Spinoza et le débat religieux, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2004. Lazzeri, Christian, “L.A. Constans entre Hobbes et Spinoza”, in Constans, Lucius Antistius, Du droit des ecclesiastiques, traduction V. Butori revue par J. Lagrée et P.-F. Moreau, Centre de philosophie politique et juridique-Université de Caen, 1991, XXIII–XLI. Malcolm, Noel, Aspects of Hobbes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002. Moreau, Pierre-François, “Spinoza et le jus circa sacra”, Studia Spinozana, 1, 1985, 335–345. Moreau, Pierre-François, Spinoza. État et religion, Lyon, ENS Éditions, 2005. Secrétan, Catherine, ‘Partisans et détracteurs de Hobbes dans les Provinces Unies au temps de Spinoza’, Bulletin de l’Association des Amis de Spinoza, 2, 1979, 2–13. Secrétan, Catherine, “Premières réactions néerlandaises à Hobbes au XVIIe siècle”, Annales d’histoire des Facultés de Droit, 3, 1986, 137–165. Thijssen-Schoute, Louise C., Nederlands Cartesianisme, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland­ sche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1954. Visser, Hugo Bastiaan, De geschiedenis van de Sabbatstrijd onder de Gereformeerden in de zeventiende eeuw, Utrecht, Kemink, 1939. Wildenberg, Ivo W., Johan en Pieter de la Court (1622–1660 en 1618–1685). Bibliographie en receptiegeschiedenis, Amsterdam-Maarssen, Apa-Holland Universiteits Pers, 1986.

‘Lieutenants’ of the Commonwealth A Political Reading of De jure ecclesiasticorum Sonja Lavaert In 1665 the treatise De jure ecclesiasticorum was published under the pseudonym Lucius Antistius Constans in Amsterdam by the fictitious publisher Cajus Valerius Pennatus. The book focuses on the question of who should be entrusted with the care of religion, a question which is already answered in the treatise’s title.1 Rights can only be bestowed to ecclesiastical officials by the government of the republic in which the ecclesiastical offices are instituted. Ecclesiastical officials that bestow rights upon themselves do so without justification. What prompted the anonymous author to write this treatise was the ecclesiastical dignitaries’ excessive ambition, their fraudulent abuses that destroyed all public-religious cults. Because of his intended audience and opponents, the author expected to be defamed after the book’s publication. Still, this is not the principal reason why he or she decided to distribute De jure under a fictitious name. “It is almost always unjustified when people ask questions about the author of a book”, which will certainly happen when power abuse is being unmasked.2 One detracts the attention from the unmasking, from the actual theme, from people’s thoughts which, of course, can only be learned through their works and through asking questions like: what motive and what authority have led the author to write this work? De jure ecclesiasticorum is a political, critical text that covers topics such as the use and abuse of power, law and power, church and state, motives and judgments. The book’s

1  Lucius Antistius Constans De jure ecclesiasticorum. Liber singularis. Quo docetur: quodcunque divini humanique iuris ecclesiasticis tribuitur, vel ipsi sibi tribuunt, hoc, aut falso impieque illis tribui, aut non aliunde, quam a suis, hoc est, eius reipublicae sive civitatis prodiis, in qua sunt constituti, accepisse: “Lucius Antistius Constans on the right of ecclesiastical officials. One book that teaches that all divine and human rights that are assigned to ecclesiastical officials, or that they assign themselves, are either assigned to them wrongly and in an impious way, or are assigned to them exclusively by political lieutenants of the republic where they are appointed.” After the original 1665 publication the treatise appeared in an 1843 (incomplete) collection of works by Descartes and Spinoza, edited by Carl Riedel: Renati des Cartes et Benedicti de Spinoza. Praecipua opera philosophica, 228–290. There is a French translation of De jure available by V. Butori, J. Lagrée and P.-F. Moreau: Du droit des ecclésiastiques, 1991. The English translations used henceforth are my own and references given are to the original Latin text of 1665. The French translation maintains the original Latin pagination. 2  De jure ecclesiasticorum, A2v–A3r. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004332089_008

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motive is the pernicious ambition of ecclesiastical officials; the author’s indignation thereof lends it its authority. Some 350 years later, and devoid of its contemporary political context, the question ‘who hides behind the name Lucius Antistius Constans?’ has regained some importance. The most famous author to whom it has been attributed is Spinoza, but nowadays the consensus is that this is a myth.3 For quite some time the most plausible candidate seemed to be one of the brothers De la Court, and accordingly, in many libraries the treatise is still located next to the Consideratien van staat and the Politike Discoursen.4 Another convincing candidate is Lodewijk Meyer, although there are no other works by this doctor-philosopher, playwright, and friend of Spinoza that explicitly deal with politics.5 Nevertheless, this is no conclusive argument against his authorship. His other works cover the most diverse domains and they do so in cons­ tantly adjusted style. Alongside a philosophical dissertation on matter and a discourse on the passions he wrote and rewrote dictionaries, translated plays, published—anonymously—the Italiaansche spraakkonst and, in the middle of all this, the infamous Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres in 1666, followed by its translation—allegedly from his own hand—Philosophie d’Uytleghster der h. Schrifture in 1667.6 Like Lucius Antistius Constans, Meyer believes that the theologians he criticizes “will even be stirred to anger”.7

3  Bayle is of this opinion. Cf. his article on Spinoza, Dictionnaire historique et critique, note L, vol. 3, 2773 (Écrits sur Spinoza, 23; 54–55). Reimmann, too, thinks Spinoza is the author. See his Einleitung in die Historie der Theologie, 642. Colerus contradicts this view in his Korte, dog waarachtige Levens-Beschryving van Benedictus de Spinoza, 42–45; the same holds for Leibniz in Essais de théodicée, Troisième partie, §375, 339. 4  See Baumgarten, Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek, Band 3, 25–35, who writes that the author of this “ungodly work” (gottlose Schrift) is most likely “Van den Hooft”, viz. one of the brothers De la Court. Lucas suggests the same in his La vie de monsieur Benoît de Spinosa, in Freudenthal, Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza’s, 25. 5  This is suggested by, for instance, Colerus, see n. 3 above. Thijssen-Schoute departs from Colerus’ lines, which she sees as an indication that the authors mentioned, Spinoza, De la Court, and Meyer, did not write the treatise. See Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands Cartesianisme, 393–394. Riedel argues that either Spinoza or one of his friends, for instance Meyer, is the author. See Renati des Cartes et Benedicti de Spinoza, vol. II, IX–X. 6  Disputatio Philosophica Inauguralis, De Materia, in Bouveresse, Spinoza et Leibniz, 295–312; Vande Hartstoghten, in Klever, “Lodewijk Meyer’s Ethics”, 250–259. Samuel Shirley provided an English translation of Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres: Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, 2005. Cf. Bordoli, Ragione e scrittura tra Descartes e Spinoza, 29–34; 92–97. 7  Meyer, Philosophy as the Interpreter, 21; Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, *2r: “Theologos, simulatque oculos suos conjecerint in hujus titulum, nomenque Libelli, non

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Nowadays, the De jure is not very widely known and is rarely written about.8 This was not always the case: from the late 17th century until the early 19th century the treatise may not have elicited as much indignation as Machiavelli’s Il Principe or Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus, but it invariably featured on lists of “blasphemous” books that one would have preferred to see banned.9 Besides this, people perpetually speculated about the true identity behind Lucius Antistius Constans: was it Spinoza, De la Court, or Meyer? Authors like Leibniz, Bayle and Colerus discussed the treatise and made their opinions known regarding its author.10 Christian Thomasius extensively reviewed the treatise during his university lectures.11 Abbé Mathieu Mathurin Tarabaud saw in the political philosophy of the Enlightenment—which he called “philosophism”—the fuse that lit the French Revolution, and in De jure he saw one of the most dangerous examples of the “philosophism” that resulted in the uproar. The treatise defends theories that grant the people, every individual even, the right to shed the yoke of the most legitimate authority and to erect an “anarchy in principle”.12 Tarabaud considers Meyer to be the author of the seditious treatise. In the treatise’s preface the author not only discusses the ineptitude of such speculations, he also reveals that only few people can possibly know the author because, after all, he only wrote this single work. According to the anonymous author, nothing has damaged religion more than the blasphemy, mendacity, and crookedness of ecclesiastical aequo, nec aequali erga illius Autorem animo affectos fore, quin imo quibusdam bilem motum iri, nulli dubitamus.” 8  Recent discussions of De jure ecclesiasticorum mainly occur in the context of discus­sions on Spinoza or on the other putative authors behind the pseudonym Lucius Antistius Constans, viz. Meyer or De la Court. See for instance: Blom, “Le contexte historique du De jure ecclesiasticorum” in Du droit des ecclesiastiques, IX–XXI; Bordoli, Ragione e scrittura, 29–34, 92–97; Gebhardt, “Einleitung zu den beiden Traktaten”, in Spinoza Opera V, 238– 241; Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 201; Lazzeri, “L.A. Constans entre Hobbes et Spinoza”, in Du droit des Ecclésiastiques, XXIIV–XLI; Lagrée, “Du magistre spirituel à la ‘Medicina Mentis’ ”, in Hobbes e Spinoza, 595–621; Moreau, Spinoza. État et religion, 63–70; Nobbs, Theocracy and Toleration, 245–250; Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age, 313. 9  See Baumgarten, Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek, 25; Freytag, Analecta litte­ raria de libris rarioribus, 268–269; Masch, Verzeichnis der erheblichsten freidenkerischen Schriften, 89; Reimmann, Einleitung in die Historie der Theologie, 642; Riedel, Renati des Cartes et Benedict de Spinoza, 228–230; Trinius, Freydenker-Lexicon, 314–315; Vogt, Catalogus librorum rariorum, 214. 10  See note 3. 11  Thomasius, Historia contentionis inter imperium et sacerdotium, 406–410. 12  Tarabaud, Histoire critique du philosophisme anglois II, 3–5.

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officials. He announces that he will write a second book, which will be about the Arcana ecclesiasticorum.13 Such proclamations exclude, in retrospect, the author of the Consideratien van staat and in fact also Meyer, which, in turn, makes Spinoza a plausible candidate. But perhaps we should take seriously the anonymous’s counsel—does he (or she?) not present himself explicitly as an author who does not hide behind the mask of a person, but who speaks directly to readers who use their own reason as their guideline?—and focus our attention on the text itself.14 As is the case with Spinoza’s TTP, much of what takes place in De jure ecclesiasticorum happens through the use or omission of certain words and by means of its language use. The text starts with a clear distinction on which everything else is based: inner and outer religion. People or institutions have no authority regulating inner religion: God’s “prodii”, literally his substitutes, his lieu-tenants, ought to have no say about people’s inner religion. While the first time that the unusual word “prodii” is used, it concerns God’s substitutes, religious and thus ecclesiastical officials, in what follows immediately and in the remainder of the text the word is used in the altered and neutralized meaning of lieutenant, or deputy magistrate for the republic, political government, public good, or commonwealth.15 Moreover, once the shift in meaning has occurred, the ecclesiastical officials turn out not to be lieutenants—insofar as they have nothing to do with inner religion, which concerns no-one but the human being whose inner religion it is—, nor do they regulate outer religion; their legitimate task is solely to teach people who are ignorant about it, which “is not regulation”.16 Educating is not the same as commanding. In the domain of education, issuing commands/doctrines is useless because the one issuing the command/doctrine cannot force its addressee into submission, nor can the commander/teacher ever know for certain whether the command/­doctrine was obeyed or followed. Education only allows for encouragement and advice, since only those who are addressed, the audience—viz. the people—­can judge whether what is taught is the truth. Ecclesiastical officials are those who are charged by the lieutenants, viz. the political authorities, solely with the task of teaching religion, and this is their only privilege. The second chapter immediately brings us to the crux of the matter, namely the “origin and development of the right and power of the lieutenants”, 13   De jure ecclesiasticorum, A6v. 14  Ibid., A3v–A4r. 15  Ibid., 2–5. 16  Ibid., 2–3: “[. . .] non est Procurare [. . .]”.

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i.e. how the political state’s power and law are constituted.17 The lieutenants possess all rights and all power within the republic, whereas citizens possess neither. Thus, the lieutenants are the citizen’s deputies, more so than God’s. Again, and in the second degree, strange textual shifts take place, words alternately illuminate and confuse, so as to eventually propose a radically new message, so radical and new that 350 years later it still has not been digested. The origin and development of the political state’s power is a paradoxical and complex matter. Although the chapter’s title—the lieutenants “have all the right and power of a city or republic and the citizens have none”—suggests that it provides a foundation for absolute power, similar to the way in which Il Principe presents itself to the public as a manual for absolute monarchs, its radical and new message is this: there can be no freedom without equality and no equality without freedom.18 The basis for this claim is the natural law that says that “all people are born in the same conditions and for that reason they are all equal: God did not make one human the master or subject of another, just as he did not make certain animals the masters over others”.19 Here, the definitions are essential. Being free means nothing other than livi­ng under one’s own law and power and not being subjected to another’s law and power. Being equal means nothing other than “possessing one’s own natural right and power and in no way belonging to another”.20 Equality thus does not mean that people do not possess qualities that are specific and that, accordingly, differ from one another. It does mean, 17  Ibid., 7: “Tit. II. De Origine & Progressu Juris & Potestatis Prodeorum: Ut appareat penes eos esse omne Jus & Potestatem Civitatis sive Reip. nihilque Juris aut Potestatis penes Cives esse.” The ‘jus circa sacra’ was at the centre of a public debate with two rough sides—one which holds, like Uytenbogaert, that God has not appointed two kinds of sovereign magistrates, one with spiritual, the other with temporal power, and the other which posits that these two powers are independent, which practically always means ecclesiastical intervention in political matters. See Moreau, État et religion, 66. It is in this debate that one should situate the TTP: I will return to the similarities and differences between Spinoza’s treatise and De jure. My current contention is primarily that De jure in fact deals with a different problem, and that the ‘jus circa sacra’ merely provides the occasion for discussing the formation of political community and power, as well as the freedom of thought and speech that a) is seen as necessary and b) presupposes equality. 18  See n. 17. 19  Ibid., 8: “[. . .] omnes homines pari conditione nascuntur, ac proinde aequales sint, & hujus rei nullam aliam rationem esse, quam quod Deus hominem homini non praefecerit, nec subjecerit alii alium: uti nec caetera animalia aliis alia praeposuit”. 20  Ibid., 9: “Liberum enim esse nihil aliud est, quam sui Juris & Potestatis, nulliusque alterius subjectum Juri & Potestati esse. Et Aequalem esse, naturale illud in se Jus & Potestatem habere & nulla ex parte penes alium esse”.

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however, that if one were to compare two people and to consider them equal, “they would possess the same right and the same power over themselves”.21 By nature, all people are equal and free. They can lose their freedom and equality in three ways: by violence against them, by a greater power that oppresses them, or by collectively agreeing to it. People can make such a mutual agreement in order to confront the mala that characterize the state of nature. Accordingly, they can decide to transfer their natural power to all, to some, or to one person. The amount of power that will be transferred by this agreement should not be decided on by those who convey their power, but by those that receive the power that is being conveyed, viz. the substitute lieutenants. At first glance, the structure of this argument does not differ from that of Hobbes. However, the choice of words and the exact formulation do differ, as does the conclusion. The author makes digressions, and his argumentation results in a position that we also find in Spinoza, one that completely alters the meaning of the whole.22 Whether they are one, a few, or a multitude is quite irrelevant, as long as the amount of power that is conveyed to the lieutenants allows them to guara­ntee the protection and the preservation of the civil body. Nonetheless we must remark that “in case we consider the power and effectiveness of natural right and natural power in the state of nature in which Nature, that is to say God, has placed us, we should see the refusal to use this right and the impotence to appeal to it as equivalent”.23 It requires no argument that the phrase “Nature, 21  Ibid.: “Par enim quisque in se Jus & Potestatem habet.” 22  Our reading of De jure is in line with the hypothesis that between 1660 and 1670 Hobbes was read in Holland from a republican-democratic perspective and that his naturalistic starting point was adopted to underline general equality among people. This hypothesis leads to a decidedly non-Hobbesian perspective on the issue of free thought and speech in, among others, Spinoza. This perspective can be found in the translation of Leviathan by Van Berkel—who was part of the circle of people surrounding Spinoza. In his preface to this translation, Van Berkel draws attention to the meaning of naturalism for a republican-democratic position—naturalism is opposed to widespread superstition, to the authority of the Church, and to revealed religion functioning as a cohesive propaganda machine for the power of ecclesiastical officials. One comes across sentences that can be found almost literally in De jure, stating for instance that ecclesiastical officials have no right to power because there should only be a “Wettelijcke Magt”: see Leviathan of van de stoffe, *6r. See also Bordoli, Ragione e scrittura, 92–97; Lagrée in Hobbes e Spinoza, 608; Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism, 147–157; 337–344. 23   De jure ecclesiasticorum, 19–20: “Illud enim summopere notandum est: in statu Naturali, in quo omnes a natura, id est, a Deo constituti sumus, noluntatem & impotentiam naturali Jure & Potestate utendi, pro eadem re accipi oportere, si illius Juris & Potestatis vim & effectum intueamur”.

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that is to say God” can be reversed. The sentence as a whole implies that, everything taken into consideration, people refuse to use their natural right and transfer it to someone who uses it in their stead, insofar as they do not have the power to use it. In the text we read that once one has left the state of nature and has proceeded to a civil society, one is not expected to keep one’s capacity of judgment and one’s freedom to decide on the use of one’s natural right and power. The wording is surprising: “One is expected to have conveyed them as if they could also have belonged to someone else”.24 However, this cannot in fact happen. In reality one cannot transfer one’s capacity for judgment, hence the hypothetical sentence. One’s “natural powe­rs of this sort cannot be transferred to or taken over by others, they can only disappear”, for example when we die or when we lose them without them havi­ng been transferred to others.25 All internal capacities and especially these two, judgment and free decision, are and remain by their nature peculiar to the human being that was bestowed with them by nature. They cannot be transferred to anyone else. The inner capacities or the capacities of the soul thus remain peculiar to each individual person. God, that is to say Nature, has endowed every person not only with the right and power to protect themselves, to fulfill their needs, and to secure their salvation, but also with reason, which they can employ precisely to organize this right and this power. This inner capacity that, as it were, cannot be distinguished from thought and in which the substance of the soul resides, is distinctively human, so that it can be said that reason coincides with the soul. The inner capacities, which coincide with reason, “are not subject to the right and power of the lieutenants, which by their nature they escape”.26 The author is aware of the anomaly that these ideas present: thus far, few people had put them forward, as they were, after all, completely new. A state in which these ideas are put to practice can scarcely be found, and, for that matter, the origins of political power/a state’s right are usually not known. The phrasing indicates that the “origin and development” (Origo & Progressus Juris & Potestatis) of political power and right should not be understood in 24  Ibid., 20: “Iudicium quoque & Arbitrium naturali Iure & Potestate utendi dicendi quoque sunt in status Naturalis in Civilem commutatione non retinuisse, sed quasi ea quoque alterius fieri possent, transtulisse.” 25  Ibid., 20–21: “Re vera enim ejusmodi facultates naturales transferri non possunt & aliis acquiri, sed desinere tantum possunt maxime cum interitu ejus, cui decedunt, ut tamen aliis non acquirantur.” 26  Ibid., 22: “[. . .] Animae facultates Prodeorum Juri & Potestati non sint suppositae, aut su[a] natura supponi non possint”.

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a concrete historical, chronological, spatial-temporal sense, but in a general, philosophical sense.27 This is confirmed in the last six paragraphs of the second chapter, in which we find a mixture of statements that partially seem to be taken from Il Principe and at the same time quite literally anticipate Spinoza’s Tractatus politicus. The issue remains surprisingly urgent today. Every state and every city knows an explicit or implicit law which prescribes that whoever wants to settle there and wants to enjoy its public benefits—viz. immigrants— must convey their natural right and power to its lieutenants. If an immigrant were to refuse to do so, he or she would be considered an enemy instead of a citizen. The manifest transfer or explicit agreement is a sign of the conveyance of the will and it is “solely by this will and not by words, except insofar as they indicate the will, that right and power are conveyed. These are not less conveyed if they are only conveyed in actions and not in words”.28 Put differently, not only does one retain the natural freedom of thought while conveying one’s natural right and power to the lieutenants—state officials do not think in someone’s stead—but one also retains the freedom of speech—the lieutenants do not speak in someone’s stead. With this, the author decides that he has expounded the general way in which political societies are constituted and preserved over time. Already in its title the next chapter anticipates the boldest statement that Spinoza puts forward in his Tractatus politicus: that the institution of society changes nothing in regard to the natural equality of all people, and accordingly that “all inequality between individuals in a civil state or city is caused by its lieutenants”.29 This twofold proposition has caused political opponents, such as abbé Tarabaud in 1806, to regard the De jure-treatise as a manifest for anarchism.30 Natural equality does not change due to the transition to civic socie­ty but remains entirely intact. Every inequality such as in property, esteem, or privilege is contingent and historically determined by the will of political authorities. The next step in the argument is that the superiority of eccle­ siastical officials, just as the other citizens from whom they do not differ with regard to right and power, is derived solely from the lieutenants. This is once 27  Ibid., 7. 28  Ibid., 35: “[. . .] non verbis, nisi voluntatem significantibus, Jus & Potestas transferantur, non minus Jus & Potestatem transferri dicendum est, quod quaeque non verbis, sed factis transferri significentur.” 29  Ibid., 38: “Aequalitatem omnium hominum Naturalem status Civilis constitutione in Privatis non mutari. Et proptereà omnem Inaequalitatem, quae singulorum hominum est in statu Civili sivè Civitate, à Prodiis descendere & derivari.” 30  Ibid., 38, and see note 12.

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more strongly argued for by repeating what the connection between the words ‘right’ and ‘power’ consists of. If one states that people are equal in the state of nature and unequal in the civil state, then this only concerns their power, to which they have a right in the first case but not in the second. The word ‘right’ is only added to determine whether the use of natural power is legitimate or not. Bare right, without the support of power, has no force or effect.31 In other words, the phrase seems to suggest that bare right does not exist. It is obvious that bodies exercise power and that practices that are governed by ‘inequality right’ (Inaequalitatis Jus), as it is now called in the text, are bodily practices.32 Thus, who could command or forbid someone else to either think or not think something or to adhere to or condemn certain ideas? Or, similarly: who could command to believe in words and propositions that cannot be confirmed by reason, by which one is not convinced and which one doubts severely? We must not forget that there is a fundamental difference between inner and outer religion. The power of governments and/or ecclesiastical officials only covers outer religion, i.e. overt physical practices. “We can be ordered to gather in a specific space, to listen there to someone who educates us, to cover our heads, to bend our knees, to reach with our hands towards the sky, hands opened or closed, to invoke God or something else (!) and honor him/ it with prescribed words, to regulate all of our other physical actions and gestures. To produce a specific sound with our voice and tongue and to do with our bodies what the lieutenants that are in command of the outer religion, viz. the ecclesiastical officials, order or forbid.”33 Here, the critical distinction between inner and outer religion reminds us even more of the motive from which Spinoza’s starts in the Tractatus theologico-politicus—the inconsistency of human emotions that causes them to submit to rituals and pretense, and which causes faith to lapse into superstition. Yet, a similarly radical expression of contempt for belief in God cannot be found in any the works of the contemporary candidate-authors—Spinoza, De la Court, Meyer—that could possibly hide behind the pseudonym Lucius Antistius Constans. Covering or not cove­ ring one’s head, folding or opening one’s hands, producing sounds, moving the

31  Ibid., 54: “nudum Jus sive quod Potestate destitutum est, nullius vis aut momenti [est].” 32  Ibid., 55. 33  Ibid., 57: “Juberi enim possumus, ut unum in locum conveniamus, docentem aliquem audiamus, capita detegamus, genua flectamus [. . .], Deum aliudve aliud praescriptis verbis invocemus & honoremus [. . .] certum linguae vocisque sonum efferamus.”; the French translation “Dieu de telle ou telle façon” for “Deum aliudve aliud” is wrong.

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lips or clacking the tongue, are but gestures with which we invoke or honor “God or something else” (Deum aliudve).34 The privileges of divine right that are normally bestowed upon ecclesiastical officials are legitimized on the basis of the holy scripture, although not a single line can be found on this topic in either the Old or the New Testament. After having exposed superstition, the treatise unmasks prejudice. The author attempts to read the Bible with an open mind that is free of prejudices, searching for reasons and arguments in its text. Again, a connection is forged between critique and political emancipation. If one questions the lieutenants’ power, or rather, if one contends that one should not always obey them, a new question arises, namely: who shall decide on when to obey and when not to obey them? Should this decision be left to each citizen? The surprising answer sounds: “this is in any case more reasonable than to contend that citizens who hold an ecclesiastical office can decide on these matters for all and to maintain— the pinnacle of absurdity—that other citizens should organize their civil lives in function of the decision and judgment of church officials, and that these should be obeyed when they resist the commands of the lieutenants.”35 A citizen who refuses to obey leaves, due to his or her disobedience, civil society and returns to the state of nature. Unlike with Hobbes, this citizen/ human, having returned to the state of nature, does not surrender to the threat of chaos and violence, although, as was said in the beginning, these are the dangers that brought him or her to a social contract in the first place. From the moment citizens refuse to obey, their refusal is just (!) and in accordance with divine or natural reason “as it is his own reason, that is God, which he follows”, rather than public reason or the reason of lieutenants.36 “The lieutenants are considered their equals and not their leaders, that is lieutenants, every time and insofar one refuses to obey them”.37 Therewith of course all privileges of ecclesiastical officials disappear, since, according to divine command, everyone should obey only their own reason and should not obey 34   De jure ecclesiasticorum, 57. 35  Ibid., 75–76: “Quod utique Rationi magis consentaneum est, quam quod Ecclesiastici Cives pro caeteris Civibus hoc discernerent. Et a Ratione quam maxime abhorrens, quod caeteri Cives Ecclesiasticorum arbitrio & judicio vitam Civilem instituerent: illisque jussa Prodeorum dissuadentibus parerent.” 36  Ibid., 77–78: “Et proinde recte, & divinae Rationi convenienter facit, quod Rationi suae, hoc est, Deo magis, quam publicae, hoc est, Prodeorum obsequatur.” 37  Ibid., 78: “Quos utique pro hominibus sibi aequalibus, & neutiquam sibi praepositis, hoc est, pro Prodiis habet, quoties & quatenus illis obedientiam denegat.”

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anyone else’s reason—such as that of ecclesiastical officials. “For everyone is, at all times, justified to doubt” what another expects of him or her.38 “Every time we are in doubt, it is with good reason that we refuse to do whatever we are being asked to do. Since for one who is in doubt it is as if he were being asked to do something that is unlawful and unjust”.39 Someone who listens to his or her soul and consciousness answers to reason, and that is all one can ask of them. It is surprising that Hobbes’ naturalistic position is cited as a source of inspiration by the proponents of a democratic republic from Spinoza’s radical circle, and that this position is used in discourses that defend freedom of expression and claim the freedom not to obey. This immanent, naturalistic perspective can also be found in De jure ecclesiasticorum, where it is connected to radically novel political propositions, to critique of ecclesiastical power, and to synchronous argumentation for exclusively political power, that is, for the radical banishment of religion to the inner, non-civil domain, and to a plea for freedom of thought and expression. It is the same connection that we find with De la Court, Van den Enden, Meyer, Van Berkel, and Koerbagh, though in the De jure it is set out in a systematic, theoretical text that is stripped of all rhetoric and that is not directed to a general audience but to the intellectual community. While De jure clearly connects to political pleas for the republic that circulated in the province of Holland, the treatise’s audience is de facto international. This double transcendence from a contingent to a general and principal level—the theoretically substantiated connection; the language that is used—renders this treatise on the formation of political power even more radical in its rupture with tradition. In flawless philosophical reasoning we read an argument for ‘even-gelijke vrijheid’ (equally-equal liberty) that is similar to the one exhibited by Van den Enden in his political pamphlets—there is no freedom without equality and no equality without freedom; every inequality is (illegitimately) politically determined; every government is by definition susceptible to improvement and, as a consequence, to critique and disobedience. The formation of power is a matter of temporary transfer and creates substitutes—lieu-tenants—who are charged with the realization of the common good. As temporary substitutes the lieutenants are common people, and 38  Ibid., 82: “Nam justam dubitandi causam unusquisque semper habet, a quo homo alius quidquam non suo Jure [. . .], sed alieno & quidem divino desiderat.” 39  Ibid., 82–83: “Quoties igitur quis dubitat, & Iure denegat, quod postulatur: quoniam, quantum ad dubitantem attinet, idem est, ac si indebitum & injustum ab eo postularetur”.

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therefore they exceed their task when they imagine that they can or must think and speak in someone else’s stead. Furthermore, they transgress their tasks if they imagine that they are God’s envoys, or rather when they forget that they, common people, are temporarily and conditionally acting as a deputy for God/ nature/the multitude. Bibliography

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Anonymus [pseud.: Constans, Lucius Antistius], De jure ecclesiasticorum, liber singularis. Quo docetur: quodcunque divini humanique iuris ecclesiasticis tribuitur, vel ipsi sibi tribuunt, hoc, aut falso impieque illis tribui, aut non aliunde, quam a suis, hoc est, ejus Reipublicae sive Civitatis Prodiis, in qua sunt constituti, accepisse, Alethopoli [Amsterdam], apud Cajum Valerium Pennatum, 1665. Anonymus [pseud.: Constans, Lucius Antistius], De jure ecclesiasticorum, liber singularis. Quo docetur: quodcunque divini humanique iuris ecclesiasticis tribuitur, vel ipsi sibi tribuunt, hoc, aut falso impieque illis tribui, aut non aliunde, quam a suis, hoc est, ejus Reipublicae sive Civitatis Prodiis, in qua sunt constituti, accepisse, in Riedel, Carl (ed.), Renati des Cartes et Benedicti de Spinoza, Leipzig, Hermann Hartung, 1843, 228–290. Anonymus [pseud.: Constans, Lucius Antistius], Du droit des ecclésiastiques, ed. H. Blom, V. Butori, J. Lagrée, P.-F. Moreau, C. Lazzeri, Caen, Université de Caen, 1991. Baumgarten, Siegmund Jakob, Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek, vol. 3, Halle, Gebauer, 1749. Bayle, Pierre, Dictionnaire historique et critique, Amsterdam et al., Pierre Brunel et al., 5me éd., 1740. Bayle, Pierre, Écrits sur Spinoza. Textes choisis et présentés par Françoise CharlesDaubert et Pierre-François Moreau, Paris, Berg International Editeurs, 1983. Colerus, Johannes, Korte, dog waarachtige Levens-Beschryving van Benedictus de Spinoza, Amsterdam, Jacob Lindenberg, 1705. Colerus, Johannes, Korte, dog waarachtige Levens-Beschryving van Benedictus de Spinoza, in Freudenthal, Jakob (ed.), Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza’s, Leipzig, Veit, 1899, 35–104. Freytag, Friedrich Gotthilf, Analecta litteraria de libris rarioribus, Leipzig, Weider­ mann, 1750. Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan of van de stoffe, gedaente, ende magt vande kerckelycke ende wereltlycke regeeringe, Amsterdam, Jacobus Wagenaar, 1667.

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Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Essais de théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal. 1710. Chronologie et introduction par J. Brunschwig, Paris, Garnier-Flammarion, 1969. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Essais de théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal. 1710, ed. C.I. Gebhardt, I–VII, Berlin 1875–1890, vol. VI, Hildesheim-New York, Olms, 1978. Lucas, Jean-Maximilien (?), La vie de Spinosa, in La vie et l’esprit de Mr. Benoit de Spinosa, n. pl., n. pr., 1719, 1–44. Lucas, Jean-Maximilien (?), La vie de Spinosa, in Freudenthal, Jakob (ed.), Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza’s, Leipzig, Veit, 1899, 1–25. Masch, Andreas Gottlieb, Verzeichnis der erheblichsten freidenkerischen Schriften, in Abhandlung von der Religion der Heiden und der Christen, Halle, Bauer, 1753. Meyer, Lodewijk, Disputatio Philosophica Inauguralis, De Materia, Ejusque Affectionibus Motu, Et Quiete; Quam Bono Cum Deo, [. . .], Publice habebit Ludovicus Meyer, Amstelaedam. Ad diem XIX. Martii, loco horisque solitis, Lugduni Batavorum, Ex Officina Francisci Hackii. 1660, in Bouveresse, Renée, Spinoza et Leibniz. L’idée d’animisme universel. Étude suivi de la traduction inédite d’un texte de Leibniz sur l’ethique de Spinoza et d’un texte de Louis Meyer, Paris, Vrin, 1992, 295–312. Meyer, Lodewijk, Vande Hartstoghten. 1663, in Klever, Wim, “Lodewijk Meyer’s Ethics”, Studia Spinozana, 7, 1991, 250–259. Meyer, Lodewijk, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres; Exercitatio paradoxa, in qua, veram philosophiam infallibilem S. literas interpretandi normam esse, apodictice demonstratur, et discrepantes ab hac sententiae expenduntur, ac refelluntur, Eleutheropoli (= Amsterdam), 1666. Meyer, Lodewijk, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture (1666); translated by Samuel Shirley, with introduction and notes by Lee C. Rice & Francis Pastijn, Milwaukee, Wis, 2005. Reimmann, Jakob Friedrich, Versuch einer Einleitung in die Historie der Theologie insgemein und der jüdischen insbesondere, Magdeburg-Leipzig, Bauer, 1717. Thomasius, Christian, Historia contentionis inter imperium et sacerdotium breviter delineata &c. in usum auditorii Thomasiani, Halle, Renger, 1722. Tarabaud, Mathieu Mathurin, Histoire critique du philosophisme anglois, Paris, DupratDuverger, 1806. Trinius, Johann Anton, Freydenker-Lexicon, Leipzig-Bernburg, Christoph Gottfried Cörner, 1759; Reprint, ed. Franco Venturi, Turin, 1966. Vogt, Johann, Catalogus historico-criticus librorum rariorum, Hamburg, Herold, 1753.

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Blom, Hans W., “Le contexte historique du De jure ecclesiasticorum”, in Du droit des Ecclésiastiques, ed. H. Blom, V. Butori, J. Lagrée, P.-F. Moreau, C. Lazzeri, Caen, Université de Caen, 1991, IX–XXI. Blom, Hans W., Haitsma Mulier, Eco O.G. and van de Klashorst, Geert O., Bibliography of Dutch Seventeenth Century Political Thought. An Annotated Inventory, 1581–1710, Amsterdam-Maarssen, Apa-Holland University Press, 1986. Bordoli, Roberto, L’Illuminismo di Dio: alle origini della mentalità liberale. Religione teologia filosofia e storia in Johann Salomo Semler (1725–1791). Contributo per lo studio delle fonti teologiche, cartesiane e spinoziane dell’ Aufklärung, Florence, Leo S. Olschki, 2004. Bordoli, Roberto, Ragione e scrittura tra Descartes e Spinoza, Milan, FrancoAngeli, 1997. Francès, Madeleine, Spinoza dans les pays néerlandais de la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle, Paris, Librairie Félix Alcan, 1937. Freudenthal, Jakob, Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza’s in Quellenschriften, Urkunden und nichtamtlichen Nachrichten, Leipzig, Veit, 1899. Freudenthal, Jakob, Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas, 1899. Mit einer Bibliographie herausgegeben von Manfred Walther unter Mitarbeit von Michael Czelinski. Band 1: Lebensbeschreibungen und Dokumente; Band 2: Kommentar, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, Frommann-Holzboog, 2006. Gebhardt, Carl, “Einleitung zu den beiden Traktaten”, in Spinoza, Opera V, Heidelberg, Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1987, 238–241. Israel, Jonathan, Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650– 1750, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001. Lagrée, Jacqueline, “Du magistre spirituel a la ‘Medicina Mentis’: ou du rapport entre le ‘jus circa sacra’, le magistère spirituel et la liberté de penser chez Grotius, Hobbes, Constans, Spinoza”, in Bostrenghi, Daniela (ed.), Hobbes e Spinoza. Scienza e politica. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Urbino, 14–17 ottobre, 1988, Naples, Bibliopolis, 1992, 595–621. Lagrée, Jacqueline, Spinoza et le débat religieux, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2004. Lazzeri, Christian, “L.A. Constans entre Hobbes et Spinoza”, in Du droit des ecclé­ siastiques, éd. H. Blom, V. Butori, J. Lagrée, P.-F. Moreau, C. Lazzeri, Caen, Université de Caen, 1991, XXIIV–XLI. Linde, Antonius van der, Benedictus Spinoza. Bibliografie, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1871. Malcolm, Noel, Aspects of Hobbes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002. Meinsma, Koenraad Oege, Spinoza en zijn kring. Historisch-kritische studiën over Hollandse vrijgeesten, Utrecht, Hes Publishers, 1980 (1896). .

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Moreau, Pierre-François, Spinoza. État et religion, Lyon, ENS Éditions, 2005. Nobbs, Douglas, Theocracy and Toleration: A Study of the Disputes in Dutch Calvinism from 1600 to 1650, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1938. Secrétan, Catherine, “Partisans et détracteurs de Hobbes dans les Provinces Unies au temps de Spinoza”, Bulletin de l’Association des Amis de Spinoza, 2, 1979, 2–13. Secrétan, Catherine, “Premières réactions néerlandaises à Hobbes au XVIIe siècle”, Annales d’histoire des Facultés de Droit, 3, 1986, 137–165. Thijssen-Schoute, Louise C., Nederlands Cartesianisme, Amsterdam, NoordHollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1954. Weststeijn, Arthur, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age. The Political Thought of Johan & Pieter de la Court, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2012.

Socinian Headaches: Adriaan Koerbagh and the Antitrinitarians Sascha Salatowsky In recent years, several new studies on the brothers Adriaan (1632–69) and Johannes Koerbagh (1634–72) and their intellectual settings have appeared. As part of Spinoza’s circle in Amsterdam the Koerbagh brothers take on a particular interest for the research of the early Radical Enlightenment. Along with key figures like Lodewijk Meyer (1629–81), Johannes Bouwmeester (1634–80), Pieter Balling (d. before 1669), Jarig Jelles (1619/20–83), and Abraham van Berkel (1630–88), the Koerbagh brothers present, to quote Wiep van Bunge, “another excellent illustration of the religious impetus behind even the most daring radicals active in Amsterdam during the first stadholderless period”.1 In his monumental book Radical Enlightenment Jonathan Israel has described in detail the “tragic story” of the Koerbagh brothers in the Dutch Republic of the Golden Age. Both of them were brought to trial because of their heterodox views in philosophy and theology. “Their trial may well have been the very first example in Europe of official suppression of the philosophical ‘enlightenment’ of the people, as distinct from traditional suppression of theological heterodoxy, blasphemy, and so forth [. . .].”2 How did this trial come about? Adriaan Koerbagh, who studied medicine and law in both Utrecht and Leiden and acquired a doctorate of medicine in 1659 and of law in 1661, is considered “one of the most radical thinkers of the early Enlightenment”.3 He was arrested in July 1668 because of his two ‘heretical’ books Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet (A Garden of All Kinds of Loveliness without Sorrow),4 published some weeks before his imprisonment, and Een ligt schij­ nende in duytstere plaatsen (A Light Shining in Dark Places),5 which was confiscated directly from the printing machine. For Jonathan Israel, this book is 1  Van Bunge, “Radical Enlightenment: A Dutch Perspective”, in Spinoza Past and Present, 197. This chapter is published also in a German translation in Radikalaufklärung, 121–148, here: 132. 2  Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 185. 3  Wielema, “Koerbagh, Adriaan (1632–69)”, 571. 4  See Koerbagh, Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet. 5  See Koerbagh, Een ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen. I will quote from the English translation by Wielema: A Light Shining in Dark Places.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004332089_009

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“one of the first and, by any reckoning, one of the most far-reaching texts of the European Radical Enlightenment”.6 Adriaan Koerbagh was sentenced to ten years in prison, where he died soon after in October 1669. Johannes, who studied theology in Utrecht and Leiden from 1653 to 1662 and was later a candidate for the ministery of the Reformed church, came under suspicion of holding heretical views for the first time in 1666.7 As a participant of the Collegiant circles in Amsterdam Johannes was well known for his open statements about the trinity and Jesus Christ. In 1668, he was repeatedly interviewed by the church and state authorities, because he was taken to be the author of Een Bloemhof. The trial for Johannes, however, turned out well in the end. Because he confessed his sorrow and regret he was released with the condition that he keep his distance from heretical views.8 One of the main questions in the field of research up till today is where the ideas of the Koerbagh brothers came from. For most of the scholars the answer is clear: It was Spinoza. He was the undisputed genius of the Collegiant circle in Amsterdam. With regard to Een ligt Jonathan Israel maintains that Spinoza was “the prime source of inspiration, though the work also shows obvious traces of Van den Enden, Lodewijk Meyer, Hobbes, and doubtless, in a lesser way, Van Berkel, Bouwmeester, and others among their [sc. the Koerbagh brothers] close intimates as well”.9 The only—in my opinion not very important—question for the scholars seems to be: “Wether it was Adriaan or Johannes [sc. Koerbagh] who took the lead in appropriating Spinozistic conceptions as the basis for their shared critique of Christianity and supernaturalism is hard to tell.”10 I find it very striking that neither Jonathan Israel nor Michiel Wielema has seriously taken into account the philosophy and theology of the Socinians as a further source of inspiration for the radical thinking of the Koerbagh brothers. This is even more astonishing because Wielema emphasizes correctly “an unmistakable religious dimension”11 to Adriaan Koerbagh’s own work. Of course, Wielema has recognized the importance of the Socinians for the Koerbagh brothers: “Among Christian sects it turns out that the Socinians, who were generally regarded as the worst of heretics, are in fact closest to a 6  Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 193. 7  For a detailed biography of Johannes Koerbagh see Heertum, “Reading the Career of Johannes Koerbagh”. 8  The two different trials are described extensively by Meinsma in his Spinoza en zijn kring, 293–319. For the German translation see Spinoza und sein Kreis, 367–392. 9  Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 193. 10  Wielema, “The Two Faces of Adriaan Koerbagh”, 58. 11  Wielema, “Two Faces”, 64. Italics by Wielema.

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Koerbaghian ideal religion.”12 However, Wielema does not describe the precise content of these similarities, and he does not consider the works of the Socinians in his interpretation. To be fair it must be admitted that this was not his intention. His aim was a different one. He wanted to show that Koerbagh was an independent thinker, a deist and a philosophical monist in Spinoza’s sense, going far beyond the Socinians in this respect. But in my opinion, to correctly describe the religious dimension of Adriaan Koerbagh it is important to see the Antitrinitarian and materialistic perspective of his thinking, and to re­cognize that one can find these two elements at this time only in the theological and philosophical writings of the Socinians. The question therefore might be: To what extent were the Koerbagh brothers influenced by the philosophy and theology of the Socinians? In his article Meyer, Koerbagh and the Radical Enlightenment Critique of Socinianism Jonathan Israel has made two important statements which can serve as a starting point for my study: 1. He describes the package of abstract values which characterize the Radical Enlightenment as “a quest for individual freedom, comprehensive toleration, freedom of expression, democracy, and equality”.13 However, contrary to what one would expect in regard to this definition Israel denies completely the function of the heterodox theology in the forming of the Radical Enlightenment. For him, this was the business only of the ‘true’ philosophers in contrast to the theologians. This is clear from his description, which deserves a full quotation: “The question at issue is whether this package of interlocking concepts originated quintessentially, and more or less exclusively, as I [i.e. Jonathan Israel] argue, in a wholly secular philosophical impulse, that is the tendency to monistic and ‘atheistic’ anti-magical naturalistic systems of the type Bayle called ‘Stratonicien’ and of which Spinoza’s philosophy was the fullest and most developed example. Or whether, on the other hand, as others argue, the origins of the Radical Enlightenment were in fact more diverse than that and that besides secular philosophical impulses there was also an important theological dimension—namely the contribution of the extreme rationalist Collegiant Socinians.”14 I vote for the second option because the first option offers an 12  Wielema, “Two Faces”, 68. 13  Israel, “Meyer, Koerbagh and the Radical Enlightenment Critique of Socinianism”, 197. 14  Israel, “Meyer, Koerbagh”, 197. At the end of his study Israel maintained once again, “that it is incorrect to say that from a purely intellectual and philosophical point of view, Socinianism or any other specifically theological heterodox movement within Christianity did or could play a lasting and integral role in the forming of the Radical Enlightenment as I have characterized it.” (ibid., 208).

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extremely narrow understanding of the Radical Enlightenment, which encompasses only Spinoza and his circle.15 It is obvious that the package of values, described by Israel, applies not only to the Spinozistic circle but to many other philosophers and theologians as well. I would like to give here only one example: The philosophical quest for individual freedom and comprehensive toleration was deeply influenced by the theological debates about the freedom of conscience (libertas conscientiae) and the freedom of religion (libertas religionis), which were discussed by the Arminians and Socinians in the early seventeenth century.16 If one understands the forming of the early Enlightenment as a complex process between philosophy and theology with different players on both sides then it seems plausible to count with different influences. In regard to this there can be no doubt that the Socinians played a vital role in this process: Their radical rejection of the core Christian tenets, as the trinity, incarnation, justification, original sin and so forth, their attempt to create a rational religion was one of the crucial starting points for the early Enlightenment, which I would like to show in this paper. Israel’s sharp distinction between the ‘atheistic’ philosophers on the one side and the theologians on the other is far too much an artificial separation and doesn’t quite fit with the historical circumstances of the seventeenth century. It seems much more appropriate to take into account the religious dimension of the early modern period in describing not only the origins of the early Enligthenment, but also the development of the Radical Enlightenment. 2. Israel declares the ‘true’ philosophical liberty (libertas philosophandi) as the main characteristics of Spinoza’s philosophy, and for him this monistic and ‘atheistic’ philosophy is the only reference to evaluate any other kind of philosophy. In his article Meyer, Koerbagh and the Radical Enlightenment Critique of Socinianism, the Socinians come into view only as an intellectually and philosophically very limited movement. Israel describes the Socinians as “amateurs rather than professional scholars” who “mostly practiced a rather unsophisticated style of hermeneutics and often, as with Kuyper and Oudaen, vigorously deprecated ‘philosophy’ [. . .]. The intellectual breadth should by no means be exaggerated.”17 This may be true in regard to the Socinian theologians Christoph Ostorodt (d. 1611), Frans Kuyper (1629–91), Joachim Oudean (1628–92), and Daniel Zwicker (1612–78), who indeed hold a critical and even 15  For a different form of criticism of Israel’s concept of Radical Enlightenment see Schröder, “Radikalaufklärung in philosophiehistorischer Perspektive”. 16  See Salatowsky, “Zwischen Hinrichtung und Duldung. Toleranzdebatten im konfessionellen Zeitalter, 1580–1650”. 17  Israel, “Meyer, Koerbagh and the Radical Enlightenment Critique of Socinianism”, 203.

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disapproving position against philosophy in general. But it would be wrong to give the impression that all or most of the Socinians had an anti-philosophical and pseudo-rationalist stance. And in my opinion, it is not enough to say, as Israel does in his monumental work Enlightenment Contested,18 that some “Socinian Collegiants, no doubt, were seriously interested in philosophy”. It is not enough, because Israel minimizes in the same context the philosophical interest of the Socinians to a mere functional aspect. The efforts of the ‘philosophical’ Socinians were limited to the aim of effecting a concordance between the (Aristotelian) philosophy and their theology. However, from this point of view, it is impossible to see that there was indeed a Socinian philosophy, even a distinct philosophy in its own class. The most convincing argument for the case of a Socinian philosophy comes from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716). In his treatise Ad Christophori Stegmanni Metaphysicam Unitariorum (On the Unitarian Metaphysics of Christoph Stegmann), which must have been written after the middle of 1708, he starts with a very important description of the historical situation at the beginning of the seventeenth century: “It is well known that those who approve the theology of Faustus Socinus and his followers, and attack several mysteries of the Christian faith—particularly the trinity in divine unity and the incar­nation of the divine nature in Christ—have formulated a philosophy of their own. This philosophy is opposed to that which was, and for the most part still is, in use of both Roman Catholic and Protestant universities.”19 What I find most striking is that Leibniz wrote this treatise about 70 years after the manuscript Metaphysica repurgata was written by the Socinian Christoph Stegmann (c. 1598–1646).20 The only explanation for this late refutation is that Leibniz recognized here a starting point for a new, in his eyes extremely dangerous, materialistic philosophy. For him, it needed an antidote because it reduced God himself to the status of creatures and debased our mind to the

18  Israel, Enlightenment Contested, 128. 19  Leibniz, Ad Christophori Stegmanni Metaphysicam Unitariorum, 176: “Constat eos qui Fausti Socini et similium Theologiam probant, et pleraque christianae fidei mysteria, sed maxime Trinitatem in Unitate divina, et incarnationem divinae naturae in Christo impugnant, propriam sibi Philosophiam condidisse; ei oppositam qua Scholae utebantur, et nunc quoque pro magna parte utuntur, non tantum eae quae Romam venerantur, sed etiam quae frequentantur apud Protestantes.” I quote from the English translation of Jolley, Leibniz and Locke, 194. For a discussion of this text see Jolley, “An Unpublished Leibniz MS on Metaphysics”, 161–176. Jolley, “Leibniz on Locke and Socinianism”, 234–250. Antognazza, Leibniz on the Trinity and the Incarnation, 155–158. 20  See Stegmann, Metaphysica repurgata.

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level of matter.21 It is not necessary to explain here in detail the philosophy of the Socinians.22 It is enough to stress that for a full understanding of the development of the Radical Enlightenment one has to take into account the materialistic philosophy of the Socinians together with their Antitrinitarian theology, which was a class of its own in the early modern period as well. The Socinian headaches23 for the Lutheran, Reformed and Catholic Orthodoxy were caused first and foremost by their theology. In this paper, I would like to examine the impact of Socinianism on the Koerbagh brothers. My aim is to show that the Socinians caused some transformation processes which were very important in the formation of the new intellectual setting of the early Enlightenment. In a first step, I will briefly describe the importance of the Socinian writings in the Dutch Republic and their significance for the Koerbagh brothers. Secondly, I will explain the understanding of the relationship between faith and reason given by the Socinians and Adriaan Koerbagh. The redefinition of this relation is arguably the most important theological innovation of the Socinians. It culminated in a ratio­ nal religion, described for the first time by Joachim Stegmann Sr. (1595–1633) in the early 1630s—a long time before Andrzej Wiszowaty’s Religio rationalis was published posthumously in 1685. I will show that Koerbagh’s programme of a public Enlightenment came as a result of how the relationship between reason and faith had been redefined by the Socinians. In a third step, I will explain in detail how Koerbagh described his own theology so that it stands in contrast to the orthodox denominations of the Catholics and Protestants while showing general agreement with the Socinians. There was only one specific case in which Koerbagh did not agree with the Socinian theology, namely the adoration of Christ. Finally, I will give further examples of how Adriaan Koerbagh essentially adopted and elaborated Socinian doctrines in his work. Two orthodox issues will be at the centre: creation out of nothing and belief in miracles.

21  See Leibniz, Ad Christophori Stegmanni Metaphysicam Unitariorum, 177: “Stegmanni opusculum titulo Metaphysicae repurgatae conscriptum nactus olim juvenis discusseram, stricturis quibusdam additis, ut ostenderem viros doctos et acutos, abuti passim acumine suo nec Theologiam tantum, sed et philosophiam quandam extenuatam, nobis dare, in qua vix quicquam egregium et sublime supersit, Deo ipso propemodum in ordinem creaturarum redacto. Mente etiam nostra in materiae naturam degenerante.” 22  See Salatowsky, Die Philosophie der Sozinianer. 23  This was the title of a Socinian pamphlet against the Reformed orthodoxy. See Meinsma, Spinoza, 106.

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The Koerbagh Brothers and Socinianism in the Dutch Republic

The legal basis for the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of Adriaan Koerbagh in 1668 was the 1653 edict (placaet) of the States of Holland against the Socinians. This is important to know because it makes clear that Socinianism was seen at this time as the most radical heresy in the Dutch Republic and had to be destroyed. This edict, as Earl Morse Wilbur has observed, “left in its severity little to be desired”:24 All men were forbidden to import or circulate Socinian books or hold Socinian meetings on pain of banishment for the first offence and of arbitrary punishment for the second. Printers and booksellers were forbidden to print, import or sell Socinian books in any language. All such books were to be delivered to the magistrate at once under oath that none was withheld. A suitable penalty was to be imposed for detractors.25 It seems very likely that all these measures against Socinianism were taken to prevent a serious threat to religious life in the Dutch Republic. Wilbur and Kühler have described in detail the growing influence of Socinianism among the Remonstrants, Mennonites and Collegiants in the early seventeenth century on the one hand and the increased repression by orthodox Calvinists and the authorities of the States on the other.26 The most important books of the Socinians were translated into Dutch, and even more of their books were printed and sold in the Dutch Republic.27 One famous example is the edition of Johannes Völkel’s (1565–1618) De vera religione, which was always printed together with Johann Crell’s (1590–1633) two main works De Deo & eius attributis and De uno Deo Patre.28 Völkel’s book is considered the most complete and best systematic treatment of Socinianism. Crell’s De uno Deo Patre is the most compelling refutation of the doctrine of the trinity. The Latin edition of these three books was published 1642 in Amsterdam, the Dutch Translation 1649 in Rotterdam and once again 1663 in Vrijburg.29 However, the first two editions were burned in 1642 and again in 1649 in some cities of the Dutch Republic.30 A second example for the printing of Socinians texts in 24  Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism, 555. 25  For the Dutch text of the edict see Meinsma, Spinoza, Bijlage IV: Placaet 3–5. 26  See Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism, 535–570. Kühler, Het Socinianisme in Nederland, 144–199. 27  See Visser, Bibliographia Sociniana. 28  See Iohannis Volkelii Misnici De vera religione libri quinque. Quibus praefixus est Iohannis Crellii Franci liber de Deo & eius attributis (Raków 1630). 29  See Visser, Bibliographia Sociniana, 78. 30  See Sand, Bibiotheca antitrinitariorum, 96. Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, vol. IV, 2840. The Dutch edition of Crell’s Beschrijvinghe van Godt en zijne eygenschappen from

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the Dutch Republic is the first Dutch translation of the Racovian Catechism31 in 1659 by the “Socinian Collegiant”32 Jan Cornelisz Knol,33 even if this translation was criticized on account of its interpolations and modifications of the German text by the Socinians Andrzej Wiszowaty (1608–78) and Joachim Stegmann Jr. (1618–78).34 A last example for the great significance of the Dutch book market for the dissemination of the Socinians texts is the celebrated Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, which was published in Amsterdam in eight volumes from 1665 to 1668.35 It included the outstanding theological works of Fausto Sozzini (1539–1604), Johann Crell, Jonas Schlichting (1592–1661) and Johann Ludwig von Wolzogen (1599–1661). For many years the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum was sold more or less openly and bought by many.36 One of the buyers was Johannes Koerbagh, who acquired a copy of this edition for his own library in 1668. In the same year, he purchased also Crell’s Dutch 1649 mentioned in the title that the Scheppens had ordered the Latin edition to be burnt in 1642. 31  See Catechesis Ecclesiarum, quae in Regno Poloniae, & magno Ducato Lithuniae, & aliis ad istud Regnum pertinentibus Provinciis, affirmant, neminem alium, praeter Patrem Domini nostri Jesu Christi, esse illum unum Deum Israelis: Hominem autem illum Jesum Nazarenum, qui ex Virgine natus est, nec alium, praeter aut ante ipsum, Dei Filium unigenitum & agnos­ cunt & confitentur (Raków 1609). 32  Groot, “Die erste niederländische Übersetzung des Rakower Katechismus”, 136. According to Meinsma, Knol was “the most infamous of the Amsterdam Socinians” (Spinoza, 107). 33  See De Rakousche-Catechismus. Uyt het Hoogh-duytsch in het Neder-duytsch vertaelt. 34  See Catechesis Ecclesiarum Polonicarum (ed. 1659), **7r: “Accessit & haec causa Catechesin hanc recudendi, quod nuper nonnemo, forte non malus, sed in rem alienam nimium sibi juris usurpans, eam Belgico idiomate ediderit, interpolatam ac immutatam pro lubitu. Illam proinde testamur, nos pro nostra non agnoscere.” For the mistakes and additions in the translation see Groot, “Übersetzung”, 130–133. 35  See Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant, instructa operibus omnibus Fausti Socini Senensis, Johannis Crellii Franci, Jonae Slichtingii a Bucowietz, Johannis Ludovici Wolzogenii. These works were published with a fictitious publisher’s name, Irenaeus Philalethius. It has been assumed for a long time that Frans Kuyper (1629–91) and Daniel Bakkamude (fl. 1661–81) in Amsterdam were the publishers. See Bock, Historia Antitrinitariorum, maxime Socinianismi et Socinianorum, vol. I, 1, 52. Visser, Bibliographia, 27–28. Many theologians were horrified by the ‘heretical’ content of the works. See for example the statement of the Lutheran theologian Andreas Carolus (1632–1704): “Opus est orco, non prelo dignum; quod utinam suppressum fuisset, non impressum.” The quotation is from Bock, Historia, vol. I, 1, 53. 36  Later, the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum “was proscribed by the States General in 1674 as a blasphemous and soul-destroying work, and its sale was forbidden in pursuance of the decree of 1653” (Wilbur, Unitarianism, 570).

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version of De uno Deo Patre.37 But that is not all. It turns out that Johannes’ library “contains a truly massive amount of Socinian literature”.38 To put it in figures: His library encompassed at the end of his life approximately 400 theological volumes. Almost 10% of them were either Socinian or anti-Socinian, as Cis van Heertum pointed out recently.39 This may not come as a surprise. The Socinians were the only Christian denomination in the early modern period who repudiated the core Christian tenets. From this perspective, it looks at first sight very plausible that Socinianism must have attracted radical thinkers such as the Koerbagh brothers. If we take a closer look at the Koerbagh library we find apart from the above mentioned titles the major dogmatic work of Völkel in a Dutch translation and other writings of Crell. Johannes Koerbagh also owned Conrad Vorstius’s (1569–1622) De Deo, some works of Valentine Smalcius (1572–1622), most of them written against the Jesuit Martin Smiglecius (1562–1618), and different editions of the Racovian Catechism, albeit not the Dutch translation of his friend Knol.40 There are also a lot of important antiSocinian works from the Calvinists Samuel Maresius (1599–1673),41 Johannes Hoornbeek (1617–1666), Sibrandus Lubbertus (1555–1625), Johann Heinrich Bisterfeld (1605–1655) and Johannes Petri Junius (ca. 1587–1635) and from the Lutheran Josua Stegmann (1588–1623) in the Koerbagh library.42 Indeed, an impressive collection of Socinian and anti-Socinian works. 37  See Catalogus variorum & insignium librorum, praecipue Theologicorum & Miscellaneorum Johannis Korbag, printed in van Heertum, “Reading the Career of Johannes Koerbagh”, 38 (no. 42: Bibliotheca fratrum Polonorum), 42 (no. 240: Crell) and 50. 38  Van Bunge, “Radical Enlightenment”, 198. 39  See van Heertum, “Johannes Koerbagh”, 30. 40  See Catalogus Korbag, 40–44: No. 115 and 132: Smalcius, Contra Smiglecium. No. 128: Arnoldi Catechesis Raccoviana. No. 219: Wren Catechesis Raccoviana. No. 225 and 247: Vorstius, De Deo. No. 240: Crell, Van den Eenen Godt den Vader. No. 264: Völkel, Ware Religie. No. 355: Crell, Commentarius ad Thessalonisenses. No. 373: Crell, Ad librum Hugonis Grotii de satis­ factione Christi. 41  Johannes Koerbagh disputed under Maresius De beatorum in coelis cognitione ac scien­ tia (Groningen 1663). For Cis van Heertum, “Johannes Koerbagh”, 1, it is “arguable that [Johannes] Koerbagh remained fairly orthodox at least to the outside world until 1663, as Maresius may not have wanted to publish the disputation had he known or suspected that Koerbagh was a confirmed Socinian”. 42  See Catalogus Korbag, 40–44: No. 119: Hoornbeek, Socinianismi confutati tomus primus – tertius. No. 130: Maresius, Hydra socinianismi expugnata. No. 214: Lubbertus, De Jesu Christo servatore [. . .] contra Faustum Socinum. No. 227: Bisterfeld, De uno Deo, Patre, Filio, ac Spirito Sancto, mysterium pietatis, contra Johannis Crellii. No. 290: Junius, Refutatio praelectionum theologicarum Fausti Socini. No. 317: Stegmann, Photinianismus. No. 353: Lubbertus, Declaratio responsionis D. Conradi Vorstij.

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But one has to be careful at this point. It would be wrong to conclude that the possession of Socinian books indicates a strong influence of Socinian thinking on the Koerbagh brothers. The difficult task is to show in every case where a similarity, identity or difference in the doctrines and in the argumentations of the Koerbagh brothers and the Socinians can be found. In order to be able to do that, however, it is essential to have not only an exact knowledge of the Koerbagh writings but of the Socinian writings as well. Today, many historians are lacking this profound knowledge of the Socinians which was common for the scholars of the early modern period, as Stephan David Snobelen has pointed out recently.43 2

Crell and Stegmann: A New Understanding of Reason

The relationship of faith and reason was one of the most discussed controversial subjects in the early modern period. For the orthodox Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists, there was no doubt that reason is subordinated to faith.44 In matters of religion reason is limited to its function as ancilla theologiae. Especially in the context of the divine mysteries, all of the orthodox theologians emphasized again and again that this is a matter of faith and above reason. However, only some theologians went so far as to say that mysteries are contrary to reason, that reason in religious things is totally corrupted and far from understanding anything. For the Socinians, both doctrines are unacceptable, because they destroy the rational foundation of the Christian religion. Actually, the Socinians did not hesitate to say that even if the doctrine of the trinity or incarnation were stated in the most explicit and formal terms in the Scriptures, they would not admit it, because it is contrary to reason.45 In his 43  See Snobelen, “Socinianism, Heresy and John Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity”, 103: “Precisely because men like Erwards were much more well read in Latin Socinian primary texts than almost any living historian today.” 44  The position of the Lutherans is described in Salatowsky, Philosophie der Sozinianer, 102–124. 45  See Socinus, “De Christi natura disputatio”, printed in his Opera omnia, vol. I, 784b: “[. . .] si aliqua in divinis monumentis loca reperirentur, ubi diserte scriptum extaret, Deum hominem factum fuisse, aut humanam carnem induisse vel assumpsisse, quod tamen, ut diximus, nunquam in eis traditum reperies, non statim ita, ut sonant, verba accipienda essent, cum id divinae majestati prorsus repugnet, sed ea ratione exponi deberent, ut per figuras a loquendi usu non penitus abhorrentes, & aptior sententia nobis constaret, & ipsa natura funditus non everteretur.” Smalcius, Homiliae decem, supra Initium D. Iohannis, 89: “[. . .] quod credimus, etiamsi non semel atque iterum, sed satis crebro & apertissime

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famous book De uno Deo Patre, Crell criticized the orthodox adversaries who scared off the people by declaring a mystery so that a person might not use his reason. For Crell this is ridiculous: “For what Mystery will they produce out of holy Scriptures, which is repugnant to Reason? Mysteries indeed exceed Reason, but do not overthrow it, they do not extinguish the light of it, but perfect it: yea, Reason alone both perceiveth, and embraceth, and defends the Mysteries revealed to it, which it could not of it self find out.”46 There is nothing contrary to reason, because reason and faith cannot be opposing forces. Of course, it is possible to say that mysteries are above reason, but this does not mean that it is impossible to understand them. Mysteries are only secrets as long as they are not revealed. After revelation there is no need to call them mysteries.47 If this was the case, then nearly everything will be called a mystery, because there are so many things which we do not understand. The former Lutheran, and later Socinian, pastor Joachim Stegmann went a step further. He described in two important books the concept of a rational religion. In 1633 his Brevis disquisitio. An & quomodo vulgò dicti Evangelici Pontificios [. . .] solide atque evidenter refutare queant was published posthumously in Amsterdam.48 The English translation of that book was edited in 1653 in London by John Biddle (1615–62),49 the ‘Father of English Unitarianism’, with a new subtitle: A Brief Enquiry Touching a Better Way Then is commonly made use of, to refute Papists, and reduce Protestants to certainty and Unity in Religion.50 Biddle noted at the very beginning of his introduction, “To the scriptum extaret, Deum esse hominem factum, multo satius esse, quia haec res sit absurda, & sanae rationi planè contraria, & in Deum blasphema, modum aliquem dicendi comminisci, quo ista de Deo dici possint, quàm ista simpliciter ita, ut verba sonant, intelligere, & ita sanctissimam Iesu Christi religionem pro turpissima omnibus ridendam exponere.” 46  Crell, The two books [. . .] touching one God the Father. Wherein many things also concerning the Nature of the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit are discoursed of, book I, sect. III, chap. XVI, 245. 47  See Crell, De Deo et eius attributis, reprinted in his Opera omnia, vol. IV, 1–116, here c. XXXII, 114b: “Dicuntur autem decreta Dei, quae aliquando fuerunt a Deo occultata, & humano ingenio absque revelatione divina investigari ac cognosci non possunt, mysteria, seu secreta.” 48  See Anonymus (i.e. Stegmann), Brevis disquisitio. An & quomodo vulgo dicti Evangelici Pontificios, ac nominatim Val.[eriani] Magni de Acatholicorum credendi regula judicium solidè atque evidenter refutare queant. A second edition was printed 1650 in Amsterdam. For a comprehensive description of Stegmann’s position see Salatowsky, Philosophie der Sozinianer, 145–163. 49  See McLachlan, Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England, 163–217. 50  See Anonymus (i.e. Stegmann), Brevis disquisitio: Or, a Brief Enquiry Touching a Better Way Then is commonly made use of, to refute Papists, and reduce Protestants to certainty and Unity in Religion, London, 1653.

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Christian Reader”, that this treatise is “a notable smart piece, little in bulk, but not in vertue”, “because Reason is therein (and that not without evident necessity) much cried up”.51 Stegmann’s work, Herbert John McLachlan emphasized, is devoted to establishing the position “that in matters of religion the ground of authority is not the Church and its traditions nor the Holy Spirit but right reason, the only true ‘judge’ ”.52 Stegmann’s main problem with the Protestant doctrine of the Holy Spirit, to speak only about that, was a logical one. As Interpreter of the Bible and therefore the judge of all controversies the Holy Spirit causes a circular motion. No Christian can prove to another Christian that he is illuminated by the Holy Spirit and understands the Bible correctly. To escape this dilemma, Stegmann took a different path. “We have to realise that the sound reason of the people is enough for anyone to pass a judgement on the importance of the Holy Scriptures.”53 We will see that this was exactly the position of Koerbagh too. Herbert John McLachlan has claimed that Stegmann’s book had “an important influence in Holland and in England”.54 One can say that this was also the case in Germany. At least three polemics were published against Stegmann’s treatise: In 1637 the Examen brevis istius disquisitionis of the German Lutheran Johann Paul Felwinger (1606–81),55 in 1641 the Iudicium de acatholicorum et catholicorum regula credendi of the Italian Capucian Valerianus Magnus (1586–1661),56 and finally in 1650 in Socinianismus confutatus (1650–64) of the Dutch Reformed theologian Johannes Hoornbeek (1617–66).57 It is also

51  Biddle, “To the Christian Reader”, A2r–v. 52  McLachlan, Socinianism, 93. 53  Stegmann, Brevis disquisitio, chap. IV, 9. 54  McLachlan, Socinianism, 74. 55  See Felwinger, Examen brevis istius disquisitionis An & quomodo vulgo dicti Evangelici Pontificios, ac nominatim Val. Magni de Acatholicorum credendi regula judicium solide atque evidenter refutare queant. 56  See Magni, Iudicium de acatholicorum et catholicorum regula credendi. Pars prima. De acatholicorum regula credendi iudicium defensum contra Iohannem Majorem. Iacobum Martini. Iohannem Botsaccum. Anonymum [i.e. Stegmann]. Conradum Bergium. Pars secunda. Iudicium de catholicorum regula credendi ad studia universalia Biblistarum, p. I, l. V, 223–287. Magni printed the whole text of Stegmann’s Brevis disquisitio together with his own refutation. 57  See Hoornbeck, Socinianismi confutati tomus primus, 117–130. He published only the first four chapters of Stegmann’s treatise. For a detailed description of the positions of Felwinger, Magni, and Hoornbeek see Salatowsky, Philosophie der Sozinianer, 141–143; 164–181.

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important to know that John Locke owned a copy of Stegmann’s Brevis disqui­ sitio. It was a gift from the Freethinker Anthony Collins (1676–1729).58 In his second book De iudice et norma controversiarum libri duo, which was published posthumously 1644 in Amsterdam and translated into Dutch in 1668,59 Stegmann confirmed his view that in controversies about reli­gion everyone has the right to judge, because reason is not restricted by insti­tutional bonds. He directly addressed the reader: “You, reader, whoever you are, whether friend or foe, you yourself shall be my judge. Nor do I fear that you use anything but reason, as befits the human being.”60 Stegmann therefore did not hesitate to introduce reason as the sole judge in theological controversies. There is no other instrument to judge whether a doctrine is in accordance with the bible or not. Stegmann called for a general liberty of judging (libertas iudicandi) on all divine and human things. He did not agree with the understanding of the paradoxical structure of faith, as it was described by Tertullian’s famous phrase ‘I believe because it is absurd’. On the contrary, for Stegmann, the doubting Thomas in Joh 20:27–28 is a good example for the demonstration of the right use of the sound reason: Thomas needs a ‘tangible’ experience, which has to feel and see first, in order to be able to believe the ‘incredibilities’ of the Christian faith. According to Stegmann, there is no doubt what has to come first: “It must be understood, what has to be believed.”61 With this formula, Stegmann describes the typical position of the Socinians. Faith should in no way be ‘blind’, but has to be ‘enlightened’ through reason. This reason is the sound reason of every human being. It would be a big mistake to think that God destroyed our reason because of Adam’s fall. It is exactly the other way around: God perfects our reason in its function through his Spirit.62 In marked contrast to the Catholics and Protestants, Stegmann refused to differentiate between ‘contrary to reason’ (contra rationem) and ‘above reason’ 58  See John Harrison and Peter Laslett (eds.): The Library of John Locke, 150. However, Locke attributed the Brevis disquisitio to John Hales (1584–1656). For the influence of the Socinian arguments on Locke see Salatowsky, Philosophie der Sozinianer, 186–194. 59  See Stegmann, Twee boeken, van den Rechter en het Richtsnoer der Geloofsverschillen. 60  Stegmann, De iudice et norma controversiarum fidei libri II, c. I, 17: “Tu ipse, lector, quisquis es, seu amicus seu inimicus, iudex esto. Non refugio, modo sana ratione, uti quidem hominem decet, utaris.” 61  Stegmann, De iudice, c. IV, 42: “Intelligendum ergo est, quod credi debet.” See also ibid., c. III, 35: “Credimus, quae intelligimus quaeque ratio nostra vera esse iudicat.” 62  See Stegmann, De iudice, c. III, 35: “Neque enim Deus rationem nostram per Spiritum suum eliminat, sed eius operationem perficit [. . .].” Very similar is Stegmann’s statement in Brevis disquisitio, chap. IV, 11: “The gift of the Holy Spirit doth not take away Reason, but exalt and enlighten it.”

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(supra rationem). To say that something is contrary to reason makes no sense at all. For Stegmann, the principle of contradiction—a thing cannot be and not be at same time—is the highest law of thinking not only in philosophy, but also in theology.63 Anyone who suggests that the divine things—like the trinity, the incarnation of Christ, the virgin birth of Mary and the transubstantiation— are contrary to reason, because they are mysteries and cannot be understood by reason alone, is fundamentally mistaken. For example, to say that in God, and there is only one God, are three persons and that these tree persons are really distinct from one another contradicts not only our most fundamental principle of logical thinking (‘one is not three’), but also our metaphysical understanding of a person as an individual essence (essentia individua). However, Stegmann did not deny any miracle. As an example he mentioned the virgin birth and the transubstantiation of water in wine at supper. Of course, this does not mean that scripture contradicts reason, because miracles do not happen in a natural, but are wrought in a supernatural way through the power of God. It is therefore possible to say that the Bible is contrary to nature, but not that it is contrary to reason.64 This is the first important result of Stegmann’s investigation. But he even went one step further towards a rational religion. According to him, it also makes no sense to say that something is above reason. If this were true then not only divine but also human and natural things must be called supra rationem, because there are a lot of things which we do not understand. Stegmann was not willing to admit that all of the divine things cannot be recognized or judged by reason without the revelation of the Holy Bible. There are a lot of things which are part of the theologia naturalis and can be recognized from philosophical principles and from the consideration of the natural and human things (God, his wisdom, justice etc.). Only a few things— for example the person of Christ and the resurrection from death—cannot be recognized by reason alone without revelation, but they should be called rather “above nature or philosophy instead of above reason”.65 It would be 63  See Stegmann, De iudice, c. I, 17: “Unde verissima illa [i.e. norma]: quolibet esse vel non esse, adeoque: de quacumque re veram esse vel affirmationem vel negationem, neque ullo fieri modo posse, quin vera sit enuntiatio, cuius contradictoria falsa est, et falsa, cuius contradictoria vera [. . .].” 64  See Stegmann, De iudice, c. V, 55: “Neque enim ea id omne naturaliter, sed supernaturaliter, seu divina virtute, factum esse asserit. Et utut hic illa esset contrarietas, quam nullam esse altero libro fusius docebimus, non esset tamen dicendum contra rationem pugnare scripturam, sed contra naturam aut principia naturalia. Haec autem non sunt ipsa ratio.” 65  Stegmann, De iudice, c. V, 56: “Reliqua, quae sine sacra scriptura sciri nequeunt—qualia sunt, quae de Christo, de resuscitatione a mortuis et id genus aliis theologia revelata tradit—potius supra naturam seu philosophiam quam supra rationem esse dicenda sunt.”

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right to say that the miracles are above reason only when one can prove that they cannot be understood by reason. “Insofar as the scripture has revealed something about the miracles it can be understood.”66 But this is not the case. In accordance with Sozzini and Crell, Stegmann insisted here that the revelation of the miracles implicated their understanding as a consequence. The result is then totally clear: The biblical teachings we are required to recognize are neither above reason nor contrary to reason.67 Stegmann develops here a rational path to religion which was to become important for early Enlightenment figures like John Locke and John Toland. I will soon show that this is also true for Adriaan Koerbagh. But first it is necessary to mention briefly a second aspect that is relevant to Stegmann’s concept of a rational religion. This aspect concerns the understanding of original sin. Stegmann broke with the old view of Augustine that human nature and human reason is more or less totally corrupted due the consequences of Adam’s fall. For Stegmann, this opinion is totally wrong.68 If this were the case, either Adam’s sin must have entailed such a corruption of reason or God, of his own free will, must have set such a punishment for the sin. Both possibilities, however, contradict the truth. It is blasphemous to think that God took revenge for Adam’s first sin through the corruption of the whole

66  Stegmann, De iudice, c. V, 57: “Supra rationem tum demum esse dabimus, quum scripturam supra rationis captum esse demonstratum fuerit. Quantum enim de miraculis scriptura revelavit, tantum intelligi potest.” 67  See Stegmann, De iudice, c. V, 59: “Patet ergo nec supra nec contra rationem esse, quae in sacris litteris nobis cognoscenda proponuntur, ut frustra omnino sint, qui inde probare conantur rationem non posse controversiarum fidei iudicem esse.” One can find the same position in Andrzej Wiszowaty’s Religio rationalis. See Salatowsky, Philosophie der Sozinianer, 216–222. I do not agree with the interpretation of Israel, who describes the position of Wiszowaty as follows: “[. . .] while they (i.e. Wiszowaty and other Socinians), insisting one can only have a meaningful faith in something made clear via one’s reason and not in inexplacable dogmas, firmly repudiated the trinity, incarnation, and other core Christian tenets because they conflict with the dictates of reason, they, unlike Spinoza, Meyer, Bayle, and Collins, but like Le Clerc and Locke, also insisted on the distinction between supra rationem (above reason) and contra rationem (contrary to reason). This was basic to Wiszowaty’s, Aubert de Versé’s, and most Socinians’ theology [. . .].” (Israel, Enlightenment Contested, 125). Antognazza differentiates between Stegmann’s and Wiszowaty’s position, which I do not find convincing. See Antognazza, Leibniz on the Trinity and the Incarnation, 151–152. 68  See Stegmann, De iudice, c. VII, 70: “Sequitur igitur, ut illa sententia de universali corruptione humanae naturae ac rationis ex primo Adami peccato derivata longe sit falsissima.”

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of mankind. God would be very far from being just and merciful, if he were to punish all people indiscriminately.69 The rejection of the dogma of original sin is the other side of the new understanding of the capabilities of the human being, especially the appreciation of human reason, which is the core element of Stegmann’s new philosophy and theology. For the orthodox theologians of the time, this was the main feature of Socinianism, and Stegmann, even at the end of the seventeenth century, was the best example for this position, as the Presbyterian George Ashwell (1612–95) has shown in his work De Socino et Socinianismo.70 The typical response to such a species of rational religion was the charge of atheism. This is evident from a statement of the Lutheran theologian Jacob Friedrich Reimmann (1668–1743), who characterized Stegmann as an “subtle philosopher, sophisticated interpreter of the bible, and paradoxical theologian”.71 This judgement is in a way ambiguous. Nearly one hundred years after the publication of Stegmann’s De iudice et norma controversiarum, the orthodox theologians did not know exactly how to deal with the theology of the Socinians. Of course, they recognized that the Socinian interpretation of the Bible was in most cases convincing, but at

69  See Stegmann, De iudice, c. VII, 70: “Aut insignem ergo Deo iniustitiam adscribant necesse est aut crassam corruptionis illius ignorantiam. At neutrum sine blasphemia consistere potest.” 70  See George Ashwell, De Socino et Socinianismo dissertatio, § 43, 61: “Haec [sc. postulata] autem fere sunt, quae ut plurimum excerpsi ex libello Ioachimi Stegmanni de Judice & Norma Controversiarum Fidei. Viz.: 1. Quod Intellectus humanus Divinorum aeque ac Humanorum rationem postulet. 2. Quod Spiritus Sanctus non tollat Rationem, sed extollat. 3. Quod Ratio humana aeque indeterminata, sive indifferens sit ad Divina, ac ad Humana; licet non aeque apta & idonea. 4. Quod Authoritas omnis, quoad Agnitionem, a Rationis Judicio pendeat. 5. Quod Fides praesupponat & sequatur Iudicium, tum Rationis, tum Sensus. 6. Quod Religio Rationem exigat, & ad Eam appellet. 7. Quod Veritas S. Scripturae, non nisi Rationis Judicio examinetur atque dignoscatur.” 71  Reimmann, Catalogus bibliothecae theologicae, systematico-criticus, c. XIII, 675–676 “Joach. Stegmanni de Judice & norma controversiarum [. . .] Interim ex hoc ungue aestimare possumus Leonem; Adstrictum oratione, & compressione rerum brevem, Philosophum argutum, interpretem SS. callidum, Theologum paradoxum, virum remis velisque in id incumbentem, ut causa inferior acumine ingenii fiat superior, scilicet, Rationem nequaquam esse corruptam [. . .]. Eam esse SS. interpretem [. . .] Judicem Controversariarum Theologicarum, cujus judicio si stare recuses, recta tendas ad Atheismum [. . .].” For Stegmann, it was exactly the other way around: If we do not use our reason in order to come to an end in our endless discussions about the holy things then atheism is coming: “Hic nisi in rationis sanae iudicio acquiescas, ad atheismum recta progredieris.” (De iudice, c. IV, 42).

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the same time they realized the consequences of this kind of interpretation: a rational religion with no or almost no mysteries. 3

Koerbagh’s Concept of a Rational Religion

We do not know whether Adriaan Koerbagh actually read Stegmann’s writings or not. However, his brother Johannes owned a copy of Hoornbeek’s Socinianismus confutatus, in which he, as we have seen, reprinted the first four chapters of the Brevis disquisitio.72 Whatever the case may be, Koerbagh was probably aware that the Socinians had been responsible for a redefinition of the relationship between reason and faith. According to this opinion faith is no longer prior to reason but subordinate to it. Faith merely assents to what reason considers to be true. This was exactly the point which Koerbagh appreciated. “That the Socinians are right is clear enough from the fact that they have no dogmas but those which clearly match the true sense of Holy Scripture and also do not contradict divine reason and because they forbid no one to investigate, but instead command people to investigate so as to be assured of the truth.”73 Koerbagh considered his own concept of a rational religion to be substantially contained within Socinian thought: Dogma rests solely upon things clearly and distinctly stated in the Bible, and does not contradict divine reason. Everyone is invited to read the Bible for himself and to form an opinion of his own on the dogmas. In accordance with Stegmann, Koerbagh answered the old vexed question “Who can be an arbiter between the fighting confessions and religions?” in this way: “There cannot yet be a judgement on the matter unless a reasonable person stood up, freed from all prejudice, who had withdrawn from all kinds of religion focusing on outward appearances, and who sought to propose a rational religion.”74 The question now is: How did Koerbagh explain his concept of a rational religion? And further: In what respect did it differ from the concept of the Socinians? For Michiel Wielema, the answer is clear. He argues that the Socinians did not establish a rational religion in the sense that Koerbagh did. Koerbagh, as Wielema emphasizes, “stops just short of calling Socinianism a rational religion. [. . .] Koerbagh probably means that Socinianism is the purest modern representative of the original teaching of Jesus. But, of course, Socinians are

72  See annotation 57. 73  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 6, no. 55, 281. 74  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 6, no. 5, 223.

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not philosophical monists.”75 I do agree with Wielema that Koerbagh went a step further in the direction of a rational religion without any mysteries. But I do not agree with the explanation. In my opinion, it is not a question of philosophical monism, but a question of the different understanding of religion that makes the difference between Koerbagh and Stegmann. Let me start with an explanation of Koerbagh’s concept of reason, which is in large parts in full agreement with the Socinian position. Koerbagh made a clear distinction between divine reason and human reason. The word of God, which is unchangeable, eternal and true is represented by reason, which thereby becomes unchangeable, eternal and true itself.76 This reason, however, is not the reason of a concrete human being (which is merely the image of reason, much in the same way as man, according to Gen 2,7, is the image of God). It is rather a reason considered at its highest and most perfect level, as it is in God. For Koerbagh, God is in that way the “origin of reason”.77 However, Koerbagh did not describe in detail the concept of human reason. But like the Socinians, he emphasized that all people, none excepted, have the same (sound) reason. They are all able to think for themselves, because reasoning is innate (which makes the function of the clerics and theologians as interpreter of the bible superfluous), and they can attain a natural knowledge of God. Therefore, reason—and this is very familiar from Stegmann’s position— is the only instrument to understand God’s word. Whoever neglects to use his reason sinks into “ignorance and superstition”, from which arises all evil.78 There is a second point, which shows us the great similarities between Koerbagh’s concept of a rational religion and that of the Socinians. As we have seen, the corruption of reason was for the Catholics and Protestants a crucial feature for defending the doctrine of original sin. However, like the Socinians, Koerbagh rejected this doctrine. For him, original sin is “ignorance, or following one’s parents’ evil habits”.79 It is therefore not the result of the immoral actions of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden instigated by the snake. Original sin is rather a personal evil habit—not an innate habit of the whole mankind— caused by the imitation of evil habits of parents, friends and so on. It becomes an actual sin whenever someone puts it into action.80 For Koerbagh, a God 75  Wielema, “Two Faces”, 69. 76  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 7, no. 16, 303. 77  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 6, no. 30, 249. 78  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 1, no. 4, 59; ch. 7, no. 19, 305. 79  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 13, no. 22, 447 (ann.). 80  There is a sentence that gives us a hint that Koerbagh here thought of the Socinians. In answering the question what original sin is, he mentions some people who “have

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who punishes the first transgression of Adam with the death of all succeeding generations and the corruption of reason would be a highly unjust God. Does it really make sense to weaken man’s knowledge in order to limit his understanding of the word of God? The distinction between divine and human reason becomes striking in the difference between the divine and the revealed word in the Bible, too. Since the word of God is eternal, the Bible cannot contain it in its entirety. “So it is clear that divine reason extends infinitely beyond holy scripture.”81 As a result, the Bible becomes a book among books. Koerbagh even went so far as to assert that nowadays (in his time) a much better Bible could be made, one that “would contain clearer, more vigorous and more concise laws”.82 For him, the Bible is not the unchangeable, eternal and true word of God. It is not immediately revealed to the authors by the Holy Spirit. It is rather a human work, changeable, with mistakes, and somehow obscure. With his description, Koerbagh picked up many elements of the hermeneutics of the Socinians. They regarded the Bible as a historical work which contains uncertainties concerning the authors and is not entirely without errors.83 However, the Socinians did not go so far as to claim that a better Bible should be composed. For them, this is not required because the message of the New Testament is clear enough to recognize what is necessary for the salvation of man. What is the principle of human reason, which is regarded as the sole interpreter of the Bible? It may not come as a surprise that there is a complete consensus between Koerbagh and the Socinians on this issue as well. The first principle of reason is the law of contradiction. Like the Socinians, Koerbagh used this principle constantly, resulting in a rejection of most of the doctrines of the orthodox Christian churches. According to these churches, the doctrine of the trinity is not contrary to reason, but it is above reason and cannot sufficiently proved it to be the case, that it is against God, a just judge, and divine reason that a crime committed by one person should make another person punishable”. See A Light, chap. 13, no. 22, 447 (ann.). 81  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 7, no. 17, 305. 82  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 7, no. 10, 295. 83  See for example Socinus, De sacrae scripturae auctoritate. Opusculum temporibus his nos­ tris utilissimum. Quemadmodum intelligi potest ex præcipuis capitibus rerum, quae in ipso continentur. This book was published under the false name Dominicus Lopez S.J. and the fictitious printing place “Hispalis” in 1589. It is part of Socinus’s Opera omnia I, 265–280, see esp. 267b–271b. For the hermeneutics of the Socinians see Salatowsky, “ ‘Nusquam a clarissima Scripturae luce recedere . . .’ Die Koinzidenz von Vernunft, Logik und Exegese bei den Sozinianern”, esp. 310–314. Daugirdas: “The Biblical Hermeneutics of Socinians and Remonstrants in the Seventeenth Century”.

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be grasped by it. Like Stegmann, however, Koerbagh rejected the distinction between “above reason” and “contrary to reason,” and he did so not only in regard to the doctrine of the trinity, which he called “impossible” and “absurd”,84 but also in regard to the doctrine of the double nature of Christ, which is also “impossible”.85 What is against reason cannot be true, for it directly conflicts with the general axioms that reason imparts to us. Once again, Koerbagh called reason the only instrument for examining these things. “No one can forbid me to examine this by using reason. For although it is said that knowledge of the trinity transcends reason and cannot be grasped by it, I must at least consider whether it is incompatible with reason and conflicts with anything clearly grasped by it. Should I come to this conclusion, I shall have every right to judge it to be false.”86 Koerbagh, strikingly, spoke in the first person singular: I, rather than some institution called Church, have to examine and decide for myself whether I consider a doctrine to be reasonable or unreasonable. This I is the bold reader who, according to Stegmann, should be the judge of all religious matters. What could be a more radical way of thinking? Long before John Locke entered the scene, Koerbagh emphasized that a doctrine implied a basic knowledge.87 But what do I know about the trinity if the one unchangeable being of God is supposed to comprise three persons? If we say that it is an incomprehensible mystery that has to be believed, then it amounts to complete randomness, where everything is believed but nothing is known. For Koerbagh, by contrast, faith presupposes a certain knowledge, which can only be attained by reason. A rational religion, which can bear close examination by reason, is the enemy of all fictions and inventions.88 This religion cannot be reconciled with that of the different religions of Christianity, as Koerbagh plainly expounded. “And they have made, and make, use of all kinds 84  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 2, no. 9, 83–85. The argument is equal to that of the Socinians: If the persona of the father is distinct from the persona of the Son, and these from the per­ sona of the Holy Spirit, and “if persona is substance then it necessarily follows that there must be three infinite substances [. . .] and in addition a human substance, substantia [. . .]. Who is there prepared to abandon prejudice who can fail to see the absurdity of this matter?” (ibid., 83–85). 85  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 2, no. 9, 85: “But as the word persona also means a human being, there are not three but four personae, because the man Jesus Christ, consisting of soul and body, is a persona too, as is each of us. It is irrelevant to say that the Godhead of the Son is united with his humanity, so that those two have become one persona. This is said but not proved [. . .]. We say that it is impossible, because it is a self-contradiction.” 86  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 2, no. 13, 89. 87  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 2, no, 15, 95. 88  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 6, no. 8, 225.

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of cruelty and foolishness in religion, and that continues up to this day because nobody takes it upon himself to show mankind a rational, true, and clear religion free of concoctions, fictions, superstitions, cruelty and unreasonableness in which God [. . .] would be worshipped in a reasonable manner.”89 What were the exact allegations against these religions, which Koerbagh made? In order to provide a well-balanced answer, he distinguished between three groups: the Catholics, the Protestants (divided into Calvinists, Lutherans, Mennonites and Arminians), and the Socinians.90 4

The Evaluation of the Christian Denominations

I would like to start with Koerbagh’s criticism of Catholicism, which for him is characterised by three main fallacies: 1. the worship of images; 2. transubstantiation, and 3. trinity.91 For Koerbagh, who did not mention any Catholic writer by name,92 the Catholics introduced a new kind of heathen idolatry and a new cult of the saints, erecting idols and kneeling before them like the heathens and, further, demanding from the believers that they invoke the saints.93 Both contradict the divine and reasonable law that state: “that one may not have 89  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 2, no. 6, no. 1, 219. 90  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 6, no. 9, 225. Koerbagh was convinced that quite a few of the most important Mennonites and Arminians were Socinians in their belief, too. This is quite right if we consider the work of Conrad Vorstius or Simon Episcopius. See van ‘t Spijker, “Heidelberger Gutachten in Sachen Vorstius”, 207–225. Rohls, “Der Fall Vorstius”, 179–198. Salatowsky, “Die Entlastung Gottes. Sozzini, Vorstius und die Folgen ihrer Theologie”. Simonutti, “Resistance, Obedience and Toleration: Przypkowski and Limborch”, 187–205. Hampton, Anti-Arminians: The Anglican Reformed Tradition from Charles II. to George I., 73–75. 91  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 8, no. 8, 315. 92  The library of Johannes Koerbagh included some polemical works of the Catholics and anti-Catholics. See Catalogus Korbag, 40–44: No. 383: Becanus, Manuale controversiarum in V. libros distributum. No. 235: Crocius, Anti-Becanus: id est, controversiarum communium, quas Martinus Becanus catholicis, Lutheri ac Calvini nomine perperam discretis movit, exa­ men ex Scriptura sacra et antiquitate institutum. No. 152: Revius, Suarez repurgatus: sive Syllabus disputationum metaphysicarum. No. 408: Ames, Bellarminus enervatus. 93  For the Catholic position see Becanus, Manuale controversiarum, l. I, c. VII, 189: “Nos docemus cum communi consensu totius Ecclesiae Catholicae, quae errare non potest, Sanctos cum Christo regnantes in caelo, pie & cum fructu a nobis invocari posse. Et hoc confirmat quotidiana experientia, quia quotidie experiuntur fideles prodesse sibi Sanctorum invocationem. Nam alii sanitatem corporis, alii donum castitatis, alii profectum in studiis, alii alia beneficia per Sanctorum intercessionem a Deo petunt, & impetrant.”

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other gods in the face of God: or make any idols to worship in a religious manner [. . .].”94 Of course, God as the highest good must be worshipped and served, but this must be done in a rational way through reason and not in an irrational way by invoking saints or idols.95 Included in this kind of irrationality is the doctrine of transubstantiation, which was strongly defended by Catholics like Becanus.96 For Koerbagh, to maintain that in the Eucharist the bread is turned into the body of Christ without an external sign of transformation is the greatest irrationality—one that not even the heathens could have conceived of. The very idea of eating the consecrated bread and excreting it again in the stool is a horrible thought unparalleled by any other.97 According to Koerbagh, the third fallacy about the trinity is the most important one, because it is the foundation for all the irrationality of the whole Christian religion. The doctrine of trinity “is not so much above as against reason, for it directly conflicts with the true and general axioms that reason imparts to us”.98 Consequently, the refutation of the trinity was one of Koerbagh’s main goals. He started his A Light Shining in Dark Places with the refutation of this doctrine.99 No doubt the Antitrinitarian Koerbagh at this point was strongly influenced by the Socinians. He probably knew Crell’s De Uno Deo Patre—“the most important and notorious of the continental anti-Trinitarian works”100—and used it as a source for his own argumentation. Koerbagh’s argument runs as follows: It is evident that it is not possible for three persons in their substance or independence (substantia sive ipstantia101) to be comprised by one being. Koerbagh considered the person, in the classical sense of Boethius, to be an individual (and thus indivisible), rational substance. But what else is the divine being supposed to be than a substance? 94  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 6, no. 10, 227. 95  See Koerbagh, A Light, pref., no. 9, 53 (ann.). This sentence makes clear that Koerbagh was not an atheist, but a rational theologian in a very similar way as Stegmann. 96  See Becanus, Manuale controversiarum, l. II, c. III, 498: “Affirmant Catholici cum Concilio Tridentino [. . .] ubi expresse definitum est, Christum fieri praesentem in Eucharistia per conversionem totius substantiae panis in corpus, & totius substantiae vini in sanguinem Christi, remanentibus solis accidentibus: & hanc conversionem recte appellari, Transsubstantiationem [. . .]. Eandem conversionem approbarunt antiqui Patres.” 97  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 8, no. 8, 315–316. 98  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 2, no. 15, 95. 99  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 2, no. 9–31, 83–115. The first chapter gives a short description of the concepts of being, Jehova, and the world (ibid., ch. 1, no. 3–12, 57–73). 100  Mortimer, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution, 149. For a detailed discussion of Antitrinitarianism in England see Lim, Mystery Unveiled. 101  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 2, no. 7, 81–82.

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And if God is described by all Christian churches as unique, eternal, infinite, without beginning, omnipresent, independent, immutable, omniscient, allpowerful and absolutely perfect,102 then the question arises as to how a trinity can emerge from this absolute unity and uniqueness. For this to happen, either three individual substances would have to constitute one eternal substance, or one would have to assume the existence of three eternal substances. However, both possibilities cannot be maintained without a contradiction.103 102  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 1, no. 3, 57. 103  One can find exactly the same arguments in Crell, One God the Father, book II, sect. I, chap. I–VII, 248–266. I would like to give only a short impression of Crell’s form of reasoning: “[. . .] it is manifest that the common Doctrine of the three Persons in one God, doth imply a contradiction, and so overthroweth it self, because both one God, and three Gods, to wit, Most High, are there asserted together: One God indeed expresly; but three, if you consider the force of the Opinion. For they say, That there are three Persons really distinct from among themselves, each of which is God. For as much as they are wont to say, and are compelled to say by the force of their Opinion, The Father is God, The Son is God, The holy Spirit is God, but they alwayes speak of the same Most High God. But now where there are three persons, really distinct from among themselves, each of which is the most high God, there are three most high Gods. Reckon up now those Persons, and you will have three most high Gods; for the first will be the Father, the second the Son, the third the holy Spirit. The matter needs no disputation with him, who by reason of a preconceived Opinion concerning God, when there it is treated of him, hath not forget to number three.” (ibid., chap. I, 248) It is worth mentioning that Crell rejected explicitly the opinion that Christ is a mode of being: “Christ also is a substance, not a subsistence; a being, not a mode of being [modus entis]. But he is a person, therefore a person is not a subsistence. Otherwise from the Adversaries opinion we should thus argue. Every person is a subsistence. [. . .] No Man, Angel, nor Christ himself is a subsistence. Wherefore neither a person.” (ibid., chap. IV, 260) The Catholics and Protestants on the other hand defended the concept of modus entis in the context of the trinity. See for example Johann Heinrich Bisterfeld, De uno Deo, Patre, Filio, ac Spiritu Sancto, Mysterium pietatis, contra Johannis Crellii, Francii, De uno Deo patre, libros duos, breviter defensum, l. II, s. I, c. IV, 528: “Nam si accurate loquendum sit, distinguendum est inter personam, & personalitatem. Persona proprie est concretum quid ex essentia intelligente, & personalitate: personali­ tas autem est incommunicabilis naturae subsistentia. Atque hoc discrimen tantum est in creaturis, ut essentia intelligens sine sua personalitate in rerum natura esse queat. Etsi autem in Deo essentia non differat a subsistentia, tamen haec multiplicatur, ipsa vero una manet: & nos qui secundum rationem inter haec duo distinguimus, etiam distincte loquimur. Subsistentia quidem est modus entis, verum substantialis: non fictus, & a sola ratione abstractus. Quare vanissimum est commentum, quod hinc colligit adversarius [sc. Crell], esse non entia; quia sint modi.” The concept of modus entis was originally part of the metaphysical discussion about the concept of the (created) being. See Suárez, Metaphysicarum disputationum tomus posterior, disp. XXXII, 203a. Like Crell, Koerbagh

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Koerbagh was convinced that the Roman Catholics were the worst enemies of a rational religion, abusing their authority and power in order to command the common people what to believe. But he was convinced too that the Protestants did not change the situation very much. In his preface he called on the Reformed to correct the doctrines of the Christian church, because there was nothing to lose. “They could therefore easily tolerate the modification of a number of paradoxical tenets of faith, as a result of which all the ministers of the other persuasions and their followers would join them, which would be a matter of great moment and to the great detriment of Roman clerical power.”104 But in reality the situation was quite different. Neither the Reformed nor the Lutherans were willing to give up the doctrine of the trinity, because for both of them it was at the very core of Christian faith. As a mystery, the trinity is above reason, but at the same time necessary to know and to believe.105 As we have seen, Koerbagh rejected such an explanation which devalues the function of reason to a practically useless level. The result is, then, clear: The

denied the attempt “of the cleverest proponents of the fictitious Trinity” to “take persona for a mode of being in God” (A Light, chap. 2, no. 10, 85). For Koerbagh, everything that really exists outside of me is a being. The modes of being are outside of us in God, therefore, they are beings (ibid., no. 13, 89). Not surprisingly, Koerbagh came to the conclusion that the “Trinity is the product of a foolish metaphysics” (ibid., no. 14, 93). It is well known that he adopted the pantheistic concept of God as a being “all in all” (ibid., chap. 1, no. 3, 59). See Wielema, “Two Faces”, 66. 104  Koerbagh, A Light, pref., no. 6, 51–53. 105  The explanation and defence of the trinity at this time was closely connected with the battle against Socinianism. See for example the introduction of the Lutheran Gerhard to the locus de Trinitate: “Sacrosanctum et augustum trinitatis mysterium ex aeternae et immotae veritatis in verbo revelatae tabulis asserturi ac contra venenatas theomachon Photinianorum linguas propugnaturi divinae gratiae robur intimis gemitibus desiderantes ex Alcuini hymno sic precamur [. . .]. Sit ergo thesis: Mysterium trinitatis salvandis omnibus scitu ac creditu necesarium est.” (Loci theologici, lc. III, 371a–b) For the Reformed position see Maresius, Systema theologicum cum annotationibus, lc. III, 100a: “Postquam de Dei natura egimus, de tribus in illa personis est agendum, atque augustum illud S. Trinitatis Mysterium, rationi inaccessum Philosophis ignotum, Judaeis & Mahumetanis invisum, Scholasticorum tricis implicitum, multorum Haereticorum veterum & recentiorem, ac nominatim hodiernorum Socinianorum, blasphemiis impetitum, juxta normam Verbi Divini asseri & explicari debet.” Johannes Koerbagh owned two works of Gerhard, but not his Loci theologici. See Catalogus Korbag, 41, no. 204 (Confessiones Catholicae) and no. 218 (In Evangelia; this is probably the short title for Annotationes Posthumae in Evangelium D. Matthaei, Apostoli & Evangelistae). He possessed also a copy of Maresius’ work. See Catalogus Korbag, 42, no. 261. See annotation 42.

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Protestants are guilty of idolatry and the transgression of laws, for they not only defend the doctrine of the trinity but also worship Jesus Christ as a God.106 Indeed, for both of them, the Reformed and the Lutherans, the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ is closely connected with that of the trinity.107 According to this doctrine, the one person Jesus Christ has two natures, divine and human, the so called hypostatic union. Jesus Christ is therefore as eternal as his father and is rightly called the mediator between God and the human beings.108 Koerbagh saw these things differently. He called the double nature of Christ a “self-contradiction”, because it is impossible that the “infinite, eternal, immutable, self-existent Being, on which everything depends, [. . .] become one with anything finite, as human beings are”.109 Koerbagh adopted here the standard argument of the Antitrinitarian of this time. For Socinus, to mention just one example, the doctrine of the divine nature of Christ is only a human dream because nobody with a sound reason would say that an infinite substance could be able to merge with a finite substance.110 As a result of this 106  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 6, no. 14, 231. 107  In Gerhard’s Loci theologici the “locus quartus. De persona et officio Christi” follows directly after the “locus tertius. De sanctissimo tes panagias kai hyperarretu triados mysterio” (see 371–608). 108  See Gerhard, Loci theologici, lc. IV, c. IV, § 34, 461b: “Est in Christo naturarum dualitas, quia non homo tantum, et personae unitas, quia unus est Christus, qui constat ex duabus et in duabus naturis, et hae duae naturae personaliter unitae sunt unus Christus. Est in ipso allo kai allo, quia aliud est essentia sive natura divina, aliud essentia sive natura humana, non autem allo kai allo, quia non alius deus, alius homo, sed unus est theanthropos, deus et homo ac proinde persona una.” Maresius, Systema theologicum, lc. IX, nr. VII, 444: “Est autem Jesus Christus Filius Dei aeternus, qui in plenitudine temporum assumta in unitate personae natura nostra humana, in utero B. Virginis ex illius semine per Spiritum Sanctum concepta ac conformata, noster Emanuel & verus theanthropos, adeoque dignus Mediator inter Deum & homines extitit.” However, the Lutherans and Reformed disagreed on the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum (communication of properties). 109  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 2, no. 9, 85: “the man Jesus Christ, consisting of soul and body, is a persona too, as is each of us. It is irrelevant to say that the Godhead of the Son is united with his humanity, so that those two have become one persona. This is said but not proved and they (sc. theologians) should prove that this happened, or could happen. We say that it is impossible, because it is a self-contradiction.” See also Koerbagh’s criticism of the eternal generation of the Son (ibid., chap. 3, no. 29, 159). 110  Socinius, “De Christi natura disputatio”, printed in Socinus: Opera omnia, vol. I, 784a: “Primum, si illud verum est, quod theologi omnes passim affirmant, Deum videlicet esse immensum & substantia infinitum, certe, cum homo materialis & suis dimensionibus constet, & substantia finitus sit, rei autem finitae ad infinitam, ut dicitur nulla sit proportio, nemo non videt Deum cum materiali homine nullo pacto ita conjungi potuisse, ut ex

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criticism of the double nature of Christ it turns out that for both of them, the Socinians and Koerbagh, Jesus Christ was just a human being.111 In a second step, Koerbagh criticized the Protestants for their doctrine of atonement of Christ. For them, this article is at the core of the Christian doctrine too, because the atonement makes possible the forgiving or pardoning of sin in general and original sin in particular through the death and resurrection of Christ. This atonement must be accompanied by the penance of the sinner, who, in his conversion to God, acknowledges the responsibility for his sins, which are attributed to him by the law of God, and recognizes that he will find his salvation according to the new covenant of grace if he believes in Christ. This is what the Protestants called the justification through faith alone.112 utroque unum, ut vocant, suppositum factum fuerit. Oportet enim vel materialem hominem immensum & substantia infinitum evasisse, vel Deum dimensionibus obnoxium & substantia finitum factum fuisse, quae nemo non videt, quam non absurda modo, verum etiam impossibilia sint. Substantiam autem infinitam, & substantiam finitam in unum coaluisse, aut coalescere potuisse, quis sanae mentis unquam dixerit, utraque naturam & proprietatem suam retinente, quae invicem penitus dissident, neque ulla ratione convenire possunt?” For a comprehensive discussion on this issue see Socinus, “De Jesu Christi filii Dei natura sive essentia, nec non de peccatorum per ipsum expiatione disputatio, adversus Andream Volanum”, printed in Socinus: Opera omnia, vol. II, 371–422. Johannes Koerbagh owned a copy of this work. See Catalogus Korbag, no. 329, 43. A full description of the Socinian position gives Fock, Socinianismus, 510–551. 111  To be precise, there is a slight difference here between the Socinians and Koerbagh. For the Socinians, Jesus Christ was a little more than just a human being. See Racovian Catechism, sect. IV, chap. I, 52–54: “Was, then, the Lord Jesus a mere or common man? By no means: because, first, though by nature he was a man, he was nevertheless, at the same time, and even from his earliest origin, the only begotten Son of God. [. . .] Secondly, because, as Christ testifies, of himself, he was sanctified and sent into the world by the father; that is, being in a most remarkable manner separated from all other men, and, besides being distinguished by the perfect holiness of his life, embued with divine wisdom and power, was sent by the father, with supreme authority, on an embassy to mankind.” Of course, this means not an ontological, but only a qualitative difference (not ratione essentiae, but ratione qualitatum). Koerbagh in contrast claimed that Jesus was “a mere human being” (A Light, chap. 3, no. 26, 153). This difference is important, because it makes clear why Koerbagh denied the invocation of Christ. I will return to this question later. 112  See Gerhard, Loci theologici, lc. XV, § 145, 299b: “Vera ac salutaris poenitentia est talis ad Deum conversio, qua peccator per Spiritus sancti gratiam ac ministerium verbi interius movetur, ut agnitis ex lege peccatis suis ac ira Dei adversus illa serio doleat ac fide in Christum ex evangelio concepta sese vicissim erigat, propter ipsum peccata sibi remitti certo statuens, quam fidem melioris vitae propositum ac studium et bona opera tanquam fructus Deo grati et poenitentia digni consequuntur.” Ibid., lc. XVI, § 251, 519b–520a:

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However, according to Koerbagh, it is not reasonable that someone who must die himself be said to save others, or deliver them from death. It seems more suitable to think that to save means “to teach the people so that they leave behind ignorance and attain comprehension, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding and reason, wherein lies the greatest happiness or life eternal”.113 Jesus was first and foremost a teacher of all people. He warned against the official preachers. Like the Socinians,114 Koerbagh emphasized that Jesus’ atonement is incompatible with God’s mercy, because Jesus was not the expromissor for ‘our’ debts “Justificatio est actio Dei Patris, Filii et Spiritus sancti, qua ex mera gratia et misericordia propter Christi mediatoris ac redemtoris obedientiam et satisfactionem homini peccatori vere in Christum credenti gratis sine operibus aut meritis propriis peccata remittit, justitiam Christi imputat, et ad vitam aeternam eum acceptat, ad divini nominis sui gloriam et hominis salutem.” For the position of the Reformed see Maresius, Systema, lc. VII, nr. I, 299: “Quandoquidem ex Lege, ceu officii nostri norma peccatum cognoscitur [. . .].” Ibid., lc. VIII, nr. I, 367: “Post hominis cladem & miseriam, ejus restitutio venit consideranda per Foedus gratiae, quod statim a lapsu propositum homini, promisso semine benedicto contrituro caput serpentis Gen. III, 15. exinde varie a Deo fuit dispensatum donec ultimum quasi suum complementum, Christi incarnatione & Evangelii praedicatione per universum orbem, est consecutum.” Also at this point, the criticism of the Socinians is always present. See for example ibid., lc. XI, nr. XLIII, 628: “Non saniores [sc. than the Catholics] sunt Sociniani & Remonstrantes, qui formam fidei constituunt in obedientia quae Deo ad Christi normam & praescriptum defertur, quo sic operum justitiam, utut tam expresse distinctam a justitia fidei in Scripturis, Pharisaice retineant.” The conviction that obedience to God is an important part of faith is described in the Racovian Catechism as follows: “What is the faith which is by itself followed by salvation? It is such an assent to the doctrine of Christ, that we apply it to its proper object: that is, that we trust in God through Christ, and give ourselves up wholly to obey his will, whereby we obtain his promises; for without this, our trust were vain, and without trust our assent would also be vain.” (Racovian Catechism, sect. VI, chap. IX, 321–322) One can find a similar view in Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 3, no. 44, 183–185; chap. 7, no. 15, 303. It would be of great interest to examine whether Spinoza adopted this position from the Socinians too. 113  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 3, no. 6, 121. 114  See for example Socinus, “De Jesu Christo Servatore, hoc est, cur & qua ratione Jesus Christus noster Servator sit”, printed in Socinus: Opera omnia, vol. II, p. I, c. I, 121a: “Ego vero censeo, & orthodoxam sententiam esse arbitror, Jesum Christum ideo servatorem nostrum esse, quia salutis aeternae viam nobis annunciaverit, confirmaverit, & in sua ipsius persona, cum vitae exemplo, tum ex mortuis resurgendo, manifeste ostenderit, vitamque aeternam nobis ei fidem habentibus ipse daturus sit. Divinae autem justitiae, per quam peccatores damnari mereremur, pro peccatis nostris neque illum satisfecisse, neque, ut satisfierit, opus fuisse, affirmo.” Sozzini finished this work in 1578, but it was published at first in 1594. Bock called this work a “pessimus liber” (Historia Anti-trinitariorum, vol. II, 811).

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and did not pay for ‘us’ by his death.115 For this reason, it is false to worship Jesus Christ as a God. From the three offices of Christ, Koerbagh accepted only the first, because Jesus did not rule the world as a king, nor was he a high priest to sanctify the people. He was just a teacher, who guided ‘us’ toward knowledge, to save ourselves, and for this “we owe it to him to glorify his wisdom and extol his name”.116 If Jesus was not the Son of God from eternity, he can be called Son of God not in an essential way but only by accident. Because of his unknown and lowly father—Joseph—he was “regarded and depicted as a Son of God by the ancient pagan historians”.117 It is, therefore, clear that Koerbagh did not have any sympathy for the Protestants. He condemned their religion like that of the Roman Catholics as idol worship. But what about the Socinians? What did Koerbagh exactly think about this Antitrinitarian movement? No doubt, he did not count the Socinians amongst the Protestants. But his judgement on them is ambiguous. On the one hand Koerbagh emphasized: “Only the Socinians are free of religious fallacies.”118 He highly appreciated that the Socinians not only denied the trinity, the incarnation and atonement of Christ, but also the two other main fallacies of the Catholics, namely worship of images and transubstantiation.119 For this reason, Koerbagh did not hesitate to call only the Socinian church “the restored, or purified, religion”.120 On the other hand he criticized the Socinians, saying that they too “trespass divine law”121 in worshipping a human being. Koerbagh was alluding here to the fact that the Socinians adhered to the In 1617 Hugo Grotius edited his famous Defensio fidei catholicae de satisfactione Christi adversus F. Socinum. Crell answered with his Ad librum Hugonis Grotii, quem de satis­ factione Christi adversus Faustum Socinum Senensem scripsit, responsio (1623). For this discussion see Blom, “Grotius and Socinianism”, 121–147. Mortimer, “Human and Divine Justice in the Works of Grotius and the Socinians”, 75–94. For a full description of the Socinian position see Fock, Socinianismus, 610–639. 115  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 3, no. 16, 137. 116  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 3, no. 26, 153. 117  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 3, no. 34, 167. 118  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 8, no. 13, 323. 119   See for example Ostorodt, Unterrichtung von den vornemsten Hauptpuncten der Christlichen Religion, c. XXXIIX, 334–335: “Denn was kan abschewlichers und schrecklichers gedacht werden/ als eins menschen leib essen und sein blut trincken/ und das solch eins menschen/ welcher unser höchster gutthäter und heiland gewesen/ wie denn Christus gewesen ist.” The Catholic Eucharist is therefore only a “Bäpstisches gauckelwerck” (ibid., 344), which opens the door to a new superstition. For Ostorodt and other Socinians the Last Supper is only a commemorative service. 120  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 8, no. 13, 323. 121  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 6, no. 14, 231.

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doctrine of the invocation and adoration of Christ. Here we are faced with the main theological difference between Koerbagh and the Socinians. In two voluminous disputations with the two Non-Adorants Ferenc Dávid (1510–1579) and Christian Francken (c. 1550–after 1610), Fausto Socinus formulated his point of view. For him, Christ can be worshipped, because the invocation is attributed to him in the Holy Scripture, as clearly from the fact that Paul at the very beginning of all of his letters asks for grace, peace, and mercy “not only from God our father, but also from the Lord Jesus Christ to all of them, to whom he writes”.122 In the Racovian Catechism the question as to wherein the divine honour due to Christ consists is answered as follows: “In adoration and likewise in invocation. For we ought at all times to adore Christ, and may in our necessities address our prayers to him as often as we please: and there are many reasons to induce us to do this freely.”123 Jesus Christ, albeit only a human being, is worshipped and adored because of the supreme and divine might with which he has been endowed by God. This position does not deny the ontological difference between God and his son. There is rather a mere change in the mode of worshipping. God was formerly worshipped without Christ, but is now worshipped through Christ. Christ is, and remains, subordinate to God. The veneration and adoration of other persons, such as the Virgin Mary, is rejected expressly.124 However, Koerbagh did not follow this argumentation of the Socinians. In his view, the adoration of a human being is a violation of the first commandment, 122  Socinus, De Jesu Christi invocatione disputatio, quam Faustus Socinus Senensis per scripta habuit cum Franciso Davidis anno 1578 & 1579 paulo ante ipsius Francisci obitum (1595), reprinted in Socinus, Opera omnia, vol. II, 709–766, here: 713b–714a: “Quod vero ad rem ipsam [. . .] dico, satis apparere, invocatum fuisse Christum, & invocationem, quae cultum, & fiduciam, qua aliquid petitur, complectatur, ei in scriptura sacra fuisse tributam, ex eo, quod Paulum in initio omnium suarum epistolarum, non a Deo patre nostro tantum, sed a Domino quoque Jesu Christo gratiam, pacem, & alicubi misericordiam iis, ad quos scribit, precatur [. . .].” This book was in a way a reaction to the work Defensio Francisci Davidis in negotio, de non invocando Iesus Christo in precibus, which was probably published for the first time in 1580, some months after the death of Dávid in prison (see Balázs, “Introduction”). For the debate between Socinus and Dávid see Williams, “The Christological Issues between Ferenc David and Faustus Socinus during the Disputation on the Invocation of Christ”. The debate between Socinus and Francken is described in Socinus, Disputatio inter Faustum Socinum Senensem, & Christianum Franken, de honore Christi, id est, utrum Christus, cum ipse perfectissima ratione Deus non sit, religiosa tamen adoratione colendus sit nec ne (1618), reprinted in Socinus, Opera omnia, vol. II, 767–797. For an explanation of the historical context of these debates and of the Socinian position in general see Bock, Historia, vol. II, 839–846 and Fock, Socinianismus, 536–547. 123   Racovian Catechism, sect. V, chap. I, 189–190. 124  See Racovian Catechism, sect. V, chap. I, 196–199.

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which says that one may not have other gods in the face of God, and an offence against reason itself. He argued: “one learns from reason that there is only one God or Being [. . .] but you [sc. Socinian] (although endowed by God with reason, which you indicate you wish to follow in all matters) nevertheless worship a human being and kneel before him and honour him as a God.”125 For Koerbagh, the Socinians disregarded in this case their own principle of a rational religion. Therefore, their religion might be called idol worship. Indeed, with this evaluation Koerbagh passed a severe judgement on the Socinians. But it only concerned one singular aspect, and not the entire doctrine. The religion of the Socinians itself was in Koerbagh’s view not yet a rational religion, since it still contained a last remnant of idol worship. But it is also true that Koerbagh adopted a lot of Socinian ideas and radicalised only some of them. In conclusion, I would like to confirm this thesis by referring to two other theological topics. 5

The Concept of Creation and Mysteries

As has been mentioned above, Koerbagh has defined God as a being to which the two main attributes extension and thought are ascribed.126 If God, as Koerbagh claimed once again, is eternal, extension and thought are likewise eternal, and provided that God is the essence and being of all things,127 there is no creation from nothing.128 For there could be no extension in nothing, no thought in nothing, no understanding in nothing, and no truth in nothing. In this respect, Koerbagh’s view is based on the old Aristotelian principle that nothing can come to be from what is not (ex nihilo nihil fit). For Aristotle, this principle led to the notion of the infinity of the world, or to the theory of prime matter, which does not come into being and which has the potential of becoming everything.129 Koerbagh followed this materialistic theory, defending himself against attempts to separate the philosophical theory from the Christian doctrine of creation and to postulate a contrast between philosophical and theological truth. Koerbagh stated: “All that is true in philosophy is and must 125  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 6, no. 15, 233. 126  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 1, no. 8, 63. 127  See annotation 103. 128  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 1, no. 8, 63. 129  For a discussion of Aristotle’s concept of (prime) matter in the Renaissance and in the work of the crypto-Socinian Ernst Soner (1572–1612) see Salatowsky, Philosophie der Sozinianer, 244–291.

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be true in theology as well. For real and true theology and all truth in theology are conceived as philosophy and as part of it since in philosophy is included the perfect knowledge of God.”130 Although all churches have stressed again and again that there is only one truth, theology always used to take precedence over philosophy, or the statements of the Bible over the practical knowledge of the scholars. Therefore, the doctrine of the infinity of the world, or of prime matter, was regarded as a fallacy by almost all orthodox Christian Aristotelians, a fallacy that became obvious in the myth of creation in Genesis. Johann Crell also concurred with this view. In his opinion, the Aristotelian doctrine of infinity contradicts the teleological basic structure of the world.131 However, other Socinians like Johannes Völkel and Christoph Stegmann did not agree with this view. For them, prime matter is just as eternal as God, who made everything from it when it was raw mass. The meaning that must be inferred from Genesis 1:2 is that earth and water are the prime matter from which every sublunary thing is made. In the Letter to the Hebrews 11:3 it is referred to as me phainomena. In literal terms this expression denotes the non-appearing, which does not mean ‘nothing’, but rather an impenetrable darkness that shrouded the earth and water before the creation of light. For Völkel and Stegmann, this interpretation is also consistent with Second Maccabees 7:28, which states that God created heaven, the earth and everything contained within it from nothing.132 This nothing cannot be a nihil nega­ tivum, an absolute nothing, but rather a nihil privativum, that is, that unformed prime matter spoken of in Genesis 1:2 and Hebrews 11:3. It is therefore only in a metaphorical sense that it is referred to as a nothing. Consequently, there is no creation out of nothing, but rather creation from the unformed prime matter.133 130  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 1, no. 9, 65 (ann.). 131  See Crell, De Deo et ejus attributis, c. IV, 10a: “Ita ergo concludimus: Si mundus aliquando non extitit, necesse est eum ab opifice aliquo fuisse productum.” For a description of this position see Salatowsky, Philosophie der Sozinianer, 297–299. 132  See Völkel, De vera religione, l. II, c. IV, 6: “Posterior locus [i.e. Wisdom 11,17] prioris [i.e. 2 Maccabees 7,28] est explicatio. Ideo enim Deus ex nihilo omnia fecisse dicitur, quia ea creârit ex materia informi, hoc est, ejusmodi, quae nec actu, nec naturali aliqua potentia seu inclinatione id fuerit, quod postea ex ea fuit formatum.” 133  See Stegmann, Metaphysica repurgata, p. I, c. II, 12v–13r: “Illa autem materia est prima (ut obiter & tribus verbis etiam hac super re, quanquan heterogena in Metaphysicis mentem nostram explicemus), quae est irresolubilis in aliam superiorem materiam, qualis est materia sive massa illa rudis, ex qua initio Deus omnia condidit. De qua Moses Gen. 1. v. 1. 2. Terra autem erat dissoluta (sive informis) et inanis et tenebrae erant super faciem abyssi (id est super aquas illas profundas, quibus terra tegebatur) & spiritus Domini ferebat super aquas. Terra haec et aqua ex quibus sublunaria omnia facta sunt me phaino­mena

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Koerbagh agreed with this materialistic view of the Socinians, translating Genesis 1:1 as follows: “In the main part the powerful ones have created those yonder waters (or Heaven, if you wish) and the earth.”134 ‘Have created’, in this context, must be understood as ‘have given shape’ or ‘have made’. According to Koerbagh, nowhere does the text of Genesis 1 imply a creation from nothing; rather, “all peoples have posited a primal shapeless matter from which everything was supposed to have come forth.”135 Like the Socinians, Koerbagh here adopted the Aristotelian theory of the infinity of prime matter. The prime matter is the invisible, the non-appearing thing, which only receives shape and form through the separation of light and darkness. For Koerbagh, this separation is effected through motion and rest, each inhering in matter. “When things are shaped, they are transformed from invisible, formless and shapeless objects [i.e. prime matter] into the visible things as we now see them [i.e. secondary matter].”136 The shaping of the shapeless is the so-called act of creation by God, where things are not created from nothing but from prime matter that is already existent. At this point, Koerbagh once again emphasized his pantheistic approach. If the being or “all in all” is infinite, then the world in general cannot be considered finite. If it was finite, the world would have to have an external boundary by something or by nothing. Neither of these possibilities, however, is conceivable. Koerbagh’s Enlightenment programme which he deliberately wrote in his national language, ends with the chapter On Miracles. It takes up and radicalises some arguments of the Socinians against the belief in miracles or mysteries. For Crell, miracles testify the power, strength and efficacy of God. One necessary feature of miracles is that they defy the laws of nature. For what could be a greater offence against nature than the resurrection of the dead? In this context, the belief in the power of God is considered the highest vocantur. Hebr. 11. v. 3. ob tenebras densissimas quibus obruebantur, et prae quibus antequam lux crearetur videri non poterant. De hujus vero terrae et aquae, ut & spiritus aquae incubantis, creatione, nec Moses, nec aliae sacrae literae quidquam docent, unde multi sunt, qui Deo illa ab aeterno coextitisse suspicentur, ut ita quando Deus 2. Machab. 7. v. 28 legitur coelum, terram et omne in iis, hominem ipsum ex nihilo creasse, non intelligendum sit nihil negativum, sed privativum, seu informis et rudis illa materia de qua ante Gen. 1. v. 1. 2. et Hebr. 11. v. 3. audivimus, quod et inde liquet quod 2. Mach. 7. tum de homine tum de aliis etiam dicatur illa ex nihilo esse facta, cum tamen constet hominem & alia plurima ex terra creata esse. Atque ita in dicto loco dicitur Deum omnia ex informi materia creasse.” For a detailed explanation of Völkel’s and Stegmann’s position see Salatowsky, Philosophie der Sozinianer, 292–294; 322–324. 134  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 1, no. 8, 63. 135  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 1, no. 10, 67 (ann.). 136  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 1, no. 11, 69.

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adornment, provided that this belief is grounded on the effects of God’s acts. But this belief in miracles must not be perverted into absurd dogmas. The decisive criterion for the question whether a phenomenon must be regarded as a miracle is for Crell the absolute freedom from contradiction. Nothing that implies a contradiction of this kind can be the object of God’s omnipotence, for this would mean that a thing is and is not at one and the same time.137 Thus, for Crell the assertion that God eats, sleeps or drinks implies a contradiction. If God ate, slept or drank, he would not be God, who is the only one who exists by Himself. He has no needs but he always is what he is. Otherwise, he would be something and not at one and the same time, which is inconceivable. Nor is it possible for God to undo something that happened. If this was possible, nothing could be regarded as certain anymore. The result would be total scepticism and the complete destruction of reason.138 For if everything is doubted (as Descartes would do later), then there is no certainty anymore in divine and earthly things. The omnipotence of God, hence, must not be stretched to the point of assuming that for him everything is possible. It extends only to those things that do not involve a contradiction.139 In Crell’s view, the doctrine do not argue against the belief in miracles as such. However, 137  See Crell, De Deo et eius attributis, c. XXII, 51a: “Objectum potentiae divinae, quod, cum reipsa existit, ejusdem etiam effectum est, quam late pateat, satis significatur, dum dicitur omnia Deum posse. Quomodo autem ea vox sit intelligenda, inter omnes rerum Theologicarum peritos satis constat. Ad omnia enim illa est extendenda, quae seipsa non evertunt, seu, ut in scholis loquuntur, contradictionem non implicant. Quae enim implicant, sub nullam cadunt potentiam, sed sua natura sunt impossibilia. Nam contradictionem illa dicuntur implicare, quae si ponantur, necesse erit idem simul esse, & non esse. Idem autem simul esse & non esse impossibile est.” 138  See Crell, De Deo et eius attributis, c. XXII, 51b: “Quomodo ergo inde colligere poterimus immutabilitatem consilii ipsius [i.e. Dei], & spem in his rebus firmam collocare? Si dicas, Deum, etiamsi id facere possit, facere tamen nolle; unde id tibi constat? Ratione omni destitueris, si contradictoria simul a Deo effici posse dicas. Ad sacrarum literarum auctoritatem, quam hac assertione subvertisti, confugere amplius non potes. Omnium & divinarum & humanarum rerum certitudinem tollis, dum illud ponis.” 139  The doctrine of transubstantiation is expressly counted among these things by Crell. For it is impossible for the host to be at the same time the body of Christ. At this moment, one body would be many bodies all at once. Furthermore, the properties of the host would be visible (namely those of the bread) and invisible (namely those of the body of Christ) at one and the same time. Finally, the body would be close to Man (when he eats the host) and distant from him (since the body of Christ is in Heaven) at the same time, and so forth. The same goes for the doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ in the Eucharist. In this case, too, the body of Christ would be at several places at the same time, which amounts to a contradiction. See Crell, De Deo et eius attributis, c. XXII, 54b.

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it must be mediated in a rational way, and it must not violate the principle of contradiction. For Crell, the ascension of Christ and the resurrection of the dead, for example, do not represent a violation of this kind.140 They do infringe natural laws, but they do not violate the principle of contradiction. In Koerbagh’s view, the Socinians had taken only a first, even though a necessary, step. Long before John Toland, Koerbagh himself consistently took the second step and wrote some kind of Christianity not Mysterious. His concept of God is the basis of his rejection of the traditional belief in miracles. A miracle presupposes a change in the essence of God, which, however, is not possible. For as long as God’s essence is unchangeable, his power is likewise unchangeable.141 Furthermore, the proposition that God’s being is “all in all” leads to the conclusion that God perpetually preserves everything in his essence, so long as its existence is not impeded by any external causes distinct from God and the thing itself. However, such an external cause cannot exist, because it would be outside of nature. “God therefore cannot perform miracles, for to do them he would have to change nature as produced by him [. . .].”142 God, in this case, would be forced to change a thing in such a way that it ceases to exist. He would lose his essence and would no longer be what he previously was. Not even God can violate this invariable and principal law of nature on which the whole of physics and philosophy is based. This concept prefigured a fundamental change in the conception of science: In Koerbagh’s view, physics, which must proceed with as much certainty as mathematics, is the authentic and true theology. In a way that differs completely from Lodewijk Meyer, theology is superseded by physics in its predominant position. And the nature of religion is not found anymore in miracles beyond or against nature, but in the conservation of nature through God. That is, in Koerbagh’s view, the true miracle which must be grasped by reason.143 This closes the circle. Koerbagh started his work A Light Shining in Dark Places with the description of reason just in order to end with reason: “Do you see now, you adversaries and opponents of reason, how clear and true it is that reason must be followed and adhered to in all matters, both spiritual and political as well as natural, and that it can be nowhere be excluded? And do you see that reason must be judge in everything?”144 In this respect, Koerbagh remained faithful to the Socinians: There is nothing that can be argued against reason in 140  See Crell, De Deo et eius attributis, c. XXII, 54a. 141  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 16, no. 3, 481. 142  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 16, no. 4, 483. 143  See Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 16, no. 11, 495. 144  Koerbagh, A Light, chap. 16, no. 13, 497–499.

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religious matters. On the contrary, reason is the sole judge of everything. It is very probable that Koerbagh considered it a lasting merit of the Socinians to have laid the foundation for this concept of (a radical) Enlightenment. Bibliography

Primary Sources

Ashwell, George, De Socino et Socinianismo dissertatio, Oxford, 1680. Bayle, Pierre, Dictionnaire historique et critique, troisième édition, Rotterdam, 1720. Becanus, Martin, Manuale controversiarum in V. Libros distributum, Cologne, 1696. Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant, instructa operibus omnibus Fausti Socini Senensis, Johannis Crellii Franci, Jonae Slichtingii a Bucowietz, Johannis Ludovici Wolzogenii, 8 vol., Irenopoli [i.e. Amsterdam], 1656 [= 1665 to 1668]. Bisterfeld, Johann Heinrich, De uno Deo, Patre, Filio, ac Spiritu Sancto, Mysterium pieta­ tis, contra Johannis Crellii, Francii, De uno Deo patre, libros duos, breviter defensum, Amsterdam, 1659. Bock, Samuel, Historia Antitrinitariorum, maxime Socianismi et Socinianorum. 2 vol., Leipzig, 1774–1784. Reprint Leipzig, 1978. Catechesis Ecclesiarum Polonicarum, Unum Deum Patrem, illiusque Filium unigenitum, una cum Spiritu Sancto ex S. Scriptura confitentium. Anno Christi 1609 in lucem pri­ mum emissa, & post per viros aliquot in eidem Regno correcta. Iterumque interposi­ tis compluribus annis a Johanne Crelli Franco ac nunc tandem a Jona Schlichtingio a Bucowiec recognita, Irenopolis [i.e. Amsterdam], 1659. Crell, Johann, The two books [. . .] touching one God the Father wherein many things also concerning the Nature of the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit are discoursed of, Kosmoburg [i.e. London], 1665. Crell, Johann, Opera omnia, exegetica, didactica et polemica. Magnam partem hactenus inedita. 4 vols., Eleutheropolis [i.e. Amsterdam] 1656 [i.e. 1666–1668]. Dávid, Ferenc, Defensio Francisci Davidis in negotio, de non invocando Iesu Christo in precibus / De Dualitate tractatus Francisci Davidis (Cracoviae) 1582. Introduced by Mihály Balázs. Reprint, Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1983. De Rakousche-Catechismus. Uyt het Hoogh-duytsch in het Neder-duytsch vertaelt, Racoviae, 1659. Felwinger, Johann Paul, Examen brevis istius disquisitionis An & quomodo vulgo dicti Evangelici Pontificios, ac nominatim Val. Magni de Acatholicorum credendi regula judicium solidè atque evidenter refutare queant, Nürnberg, 1637. Gerhard, Johann, Loci theologici cum pro adstruenda veritate tum pro destruenda quo­ rumvis contradicentium falsitate per theses nervose solide et copiose explicati, ed. Eduard Preuss, tomus primus, Berlin, 1863.

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Hoornbeek, Johannes, Socinianismi confutati tomus primus, Utrecht, 1650. Koerbagh, Adriaan, Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet geplant door Vreederijk Waarmond, ondersoeker der waarheyd, tot nut en dienst van al die geen die der nut en dienst uyt trekken wil, Amsterdam, 1668. Koerbagh, Adriaan, Een ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen: Om te verligten de voor­ naamste saaken der Gods geleertheyd en Gods dienst. / A Light Shining in Dark Places to Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion. Edited and translated by Michiel Wielema. With an introduction by Wiep van Bunge, Leiden, Brill, 2011. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Ad Christophori Stegmanni Metaphysicam Unitariorum, in Nicholas Jolley, “An Unpublished Leibniz MS on Metaphysics”, Studia Leibnitiana, 7, 1975, 176–189. Magni, Valerianus, Iudicium de acatholicorum et catholicorum regula credendi. Pars prima. De acatholicorum regula credendi iudicium defensum contra Iohannem Majorem. Iacobum Martini. Iohannem Botsaccum. Anonymum. Conradum Bergium. Pars secunda. Iudicium de catholicorum regula credendi ad studia universalia Biblistarum, Vienna, 1641. Maresius, Samuel, Systema theologicum cum annotationibus, Groningen, 1673. Ostorodt, Christoph, Unterrichtung von den vornemsten Hauptpuncten der Christlichen Religion/ in welcher begriffen ist fast die gantze Confession oder Bekenntnis der Gemeinen im Königreich Polen, Raków, 1604. Reimmann, Jacob Friedrich, Catalogus Bibliothecae Theologicae, systematico-criticus, Hildesheim, 1731. Sand, Christoph Jr., Bibliotheca Anti-Trinitariorum, sive Catalogus Scriptorum, & succincta narratio de vita eorum Auctorum, qui praeterito & hoc seculo, vulgo recep­ tum dogma de tribus in unico Deo per omnia aequalibus personis vel impugnarunt, vel docuerunt solum Patrem D.N.J. Christi esse illum verum seu altissimum Deum, Freistadius [i.e. Amsterdam], 1684. Reprint Warsaw, 1967. Smalcius, Valentinus, Homiliae decem, supra Initium D. Iohannis, habitae & scriptae anno 1605. Quibus addita est Paraphrasis super idem initium Evangelii, Raków, 1615. Socinus, Faustus, Opera omnia in duos tomos distincta. Quorum prior continet ejus Opera Exegetica & didactica. Posterior Opera ejusdem Polemica comprehendit, Irenopolis [Amsterdam], 1656 [i.e. 1666–1668]. Reprint Siena, 2004. Stegmann, Christoph, (Ms.) Metaphysica repurgata, Lögnitz, 1635. Hannover, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek, LH IV I 9, fol. 1–57. Stegmann, Joachim, Brevis disquisitio. An & quomodo vulgo dicti Evangelici Pontificios, ac nominatim Val.[eriani] Magni de Acatholicorum credendi regula judicium solide atque evidenter refutare queant, Eleutheropolis [i.e. Amsterdam], 1633. Stegmann, Joachim, De Iudice et norma controversiarum fidei libri II (Amsterdam, 1644). Edited by Juliusz Domański and Zbigniew Ogonowski, Warsaw, 1963.

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Stegmann, Joachim, Brevis disquisitio: Or, a Brief Enquiry Touching a Better Way Then is commonly made use of, to refute Papists, and reduce Protestants to certainty and Unity in Religion, London, 1653. Suárez, Francisco, Metaphysicarum disputationum tomus posterior, Mainz, 1630. The Racovian Catechism, with notes and illustrations translated from the Latin. By Thomas Rees, London, 1818. Völkel, Johannes, De vera religione libri quinque: Quibus praefixus est Iohannis Crellii Franci liber de Deo & eius attributis, Raków, 1630. Wissowatius, Andreas, Religio rationalis. Editio trilinguis, ed. Zbigniew Ogonowski, Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 1982.



Secondary Literature

Antognazza, Maria Rosa, Leibniz on the Trinity and the Incarnation. Reason and Revelation in the Seventeenth Century, London, Yale University Press, 2007. Balázs, Mihály, “Introduction”, Defensio Francisci Davidis in negotio, de non invocando Iesu Christo in precibus. / De Dualitate tractatus Francisci Davidis (Cracoviae) 1582. Introduced by Mihály Balázs. Reprint, Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1983, VII–XXXVIII. Blom, Hans W., “Grotius and Socinianism”, in Socinianism and Arminianism. Antitrinitarians, Calvinists and Cultural Exchange in Seventeenth-Century Europe, ed. Martin Mulsow and Jan Rohls, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2005, 121–147. Bordoli, Roberto, Ragione e Scrittura tra Descartes e Spinoza. Saggio sulla ‘Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres’ di Lodewijk Meyer e sulla sua recezione, Milan, FrancoAngeli, 1997. Bunge, Wiep van, Spinoza Past and Present. Essays on Spinoza, Spinozism, and Spinoza Scholarship, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2012. Bunge, Wiep van, “Radikalaufklärung neu definiert: eine holländische Perspektive”, in Radikalaufklärung, eds. Jonathan I. Israel, Martin Mulsow, Berlin, Suhrkamp Verlag, 2014, 121–148. Daugirdas, Kęstutis, “The Biblical Hermeneutics of Socinians and Remonstrants in the Seventeenth Century”, in Arminius, Arminianism, and Europe. Jacobus Arminius (1559/60–1609), eds. Th. Marius van Leeuwen, Keith D. Stanglin, Marijke Tolsma, Leiden, Brill 2009, 89–113. Fock, Otto, Der Socinianismus nach seiner Stellung in der Gesamtentwicklung des christ­ lichen Geistes, nach seinem historischen Verlauf und nach seinem Lehrbegriff, Kiel, Carl Schröder & Comp., 1847. Reprint Aalen 1970. Groot, Aart de, “Die erste niederländische Übersetzung des Rakower Catechismus (1659)”, Socinianism and its Role in the Culture of XVIth to XVIIIth Centuries, ed. Lech Szczucki, Warsaw-Lodz, Polish Scientific Publisher, 129–137. Hampton, Stephen, Anti-Arminians: The Anglican Reformed Tradition from Charles II to George I, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008.

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Harrison, John and Laslett, Peter (eds.), The Library of John Locke, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1965. Heertum, Cis van, “Reading the Career of Johannes Koerbagh: The Auction Catalogue of his Library as a Reflection of His Life”, Lias, 38, 2011, 1–57. Israel, Jonathan, Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650– 1750, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001. Israel, Jonathan, “Meyer, Koerbagh and the Radical Enlightenment Critique of Socinianism”, Geschiedenis van de wijsbegeerte Nederland, 14, 2003, 197–208. Israel, Jonathan, Enlightenment Contested. Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man, 1670–1752, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006. Jolley, Nicholas, “An Unpublished Leibniz MS on Metaphysics”, Studia Leibnitiana, 7, 1975, 161–189. Jolley, Nicholas, “Leibniz on Locke and Socinianism”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 39, 1978, 233–250. Jolley, Nicholas, Leibniz and Locke. A Study of the New Essays of Human Understanding, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984. Kühler, Wilhelmus Johannes, Het Socinianisme in Nederland, Leiden, 1912. Reprint Leeuwarden, De Tille BV, 1980. Lim, Paul, Mystery Unveiled. The Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012. McLachlan, Herbert John, Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1951. Meinsma, Koenraad Oege, Spinoza en zijn kring. Historisch-kritische studien over Hollandsche vrijgeesten, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1896. Meinsma, Koenraad Oege, Spinoza und sein Kreis. Historisch-kritische Studien über hol­ ländische Freigeister. Deutsch von Lina Schneider, Berlin, Karl Schnabel Verlag, 1909. Mertens, Frank, “Enden, Franciscus van den (1602–74)”, The Dictionary of SeventeenthCentury Dutch Philosophers, vol. 1 (A–J), eds. Wiep van Bunge et al., Bristol, Thoemmes Press, 2003, 295–298. Mortimer, Sarah, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution. The Challenge of Socinianism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010. Mortimer, Sarah, “Human and Divine Justice in the Works of Grotius and the Socinians”, in The Intellectual Consequences of Religious Heterodoxy 1600–1750, eds. Sarah Mortimer and John Robertson, Leiden-Boston, Brill 2012, 75–94. Rohls, Jan, “Der Fall Vorstius Religioser Nonkonformismus und frühneuzeitliche Gelehrtenkultur, Vorstius”, in ed. Friedrich Vollhardt, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 2013, 179–198. Salatowsky, Sascha, “ ‘Nusquam a clarissima Scripturae luce recedere . . .’ Die Koinzidenz von Vernunft, Logik und Exegese bei den Sozinianern”, in Hermeneutik— Methodenlehre—Exegese, eds. Günter Frank and Stephan Meier-Oeser, StuttgartBad Cannstatt, Frommann-Holzboog, 2011, 305–326.

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Salatowsky, Sascha, “Zwischen Hinrichtung und Duldung. Toleranzdebatten im konfessionellen Zeitalter, 1580–1650”, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philsophie, 63, 2015, 22–57. Salatowsky, Sascha, Die Philosophie der Sozinianer. Transformationen zwischen Renaissance-Aristotelismus und Frühaufklärung, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, FrommannHolzboog, 2015. Salatowsky, Sascha, “Die Entlastung Gottes. Sozzini, Vorstius und die Folgen ihrer Theo­logie”, Um 1600, EDS: Friedrich Vollhardt and Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann (forth­coming). Scholder, Klaus, Ursprünge und Probleme der Bibelkritik im 17. Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zur Entstehung der historisch-kritischen Theologie, Munich, Kaiser, 1966. Schröder, Winfried, “Radikalaufklärung in philosophiehistorischer Perspektive”, in Radikalaufklärung, eds. Jonathan I. Israel, Martin Mulsow, Berlin, Suhrkamp Verlag, 2014, 187–202. Simonutti, Luisa, “Resistance, Obedience and Toleration: Przypkowski and Limborch”, in Socinianism and Arminianism. Antitrinitarians, Calvinists and Cultural Exchange in Seventeenth-Century Europe, eds. Martin Mulsow and Jan Rohls, Leiden, Brill, 2005, 187–205. Snobelen, Stephen David, “Socinianism, Heresy and John Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity”, Enlightenment and Dissent, 20, 2001, 88–125. Spijker, Willem van ‘t, “Heidelberger Gutachten in Sachen Vorstius”, in Späthumanismus und reformierte Konfession. Theologie, Jurisprudenz und Philosophie in Heidelberg an der Wende zum 17. Jahrhundert, eds. Christoph Strohm et al., Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2006, 207–225. Steenbakkers, Piet, “Meyer, Lodewijk (1629–81)”, in The Dictionary of SeventeenthCentury Dutch Philosophers. Vol. 2 (K–Z), eds. Wiep van Bunge et al., Bristol, Thoemmes Press, 2003, 694–699. Visser, Piet (ed.), Bibliographia Sociniana. A Bibliographical Reference Tool for the Study of Dutch Socininianism and Antitrinitarianism. Compiled by Philip Knijff and Sibbe Jan Visser, Amsterdam, Doopsgezinde Historische Kring, 2004. Wielema, Michiel, “The Two Faces of Adriaan Koerbagh”, Geschiedenis van de wijsbe­ geerte Nederland, 12, 2001, 57–75. Wielema, Michiel, “Koerbagh, Adriaan (1632–69)”, in The Dictionary of SeventeenthCentury Dutch Philosophers. Vol. 2 (K–Z), eds. Wiep van Bunge et al., Bristol, Thoemmes Press, 2003, 571–574. Wilbur, Earl Morse, A History of Unitarianism. Socinianism and Its Antecedents. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1946. Williams, George H., “The Christological Issues between Francis David and Faustus Socinus during the Disputation on the Invocation of Christ”, in Antitrinitarianism in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century, ed. Robert Dán and Antal Pirnat, Budapest, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1982, 226–254.

Abraham van Berkel’s Translations as Contributions to the Dutch Radical Enlightenment Michiel Wielema 1 Introduction Abraham van Berkel (1639–1686), who was probably the closest friend and companion of the much more famous Koerbagh brothers, is still a lesser known figure in the history of the Dutch Radical Enlightenment. One indication of this is that, although Van Berkel did make it into the pages of Jonathan Israel’s authoritative survey, his 2001 Radical Enlightenment, he is only mentioned in passing on account of his involvement with the aborted publication of Adriaan Koerbagh’s A Light Shining in Dark Places (1668) and as the translator of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan into Dutch. Though aptly described as a ‘precocious youth and a forceful personality with a quick wit’, Van Berkel’s own efforts as a translator are left unexamined. This is to be regretted, since the two translations that Van Berkel published in 1665 and 1667, the first of Religio Medici by Thomas Browne, the second of Leviathan, can certainly enrich our understanding of the early phase of the Dutch Enlightenment, the decade or so before Spinoza’s work would become the dominant factor. To his Browne translation, Van Berkel added a large number of explanatory and digressive footnotes, expressing his personal opinions on many controversial subjects and showing the wide range of his reading in classical and modern authors, some of whom definitely belonged to the libertine tradition (Vanini, La Peyrère). For his Hobbes translation he wrote an important preface explicitly stating the political aims of publishing his Dutch Leviathan at that particular moment in Dutch history. A close reading of the Dutch text, moreover, brings to light a number of telling deviations from the English version, one of which may well be a deliberate distortion of Hobbes’s meaning, presumably intended to better adapt Hobbesian ideas to a Dutch context. Neither the footnotes to Browne nor the translation of Leviathan have so far been thoroughly examined. 2

Van Berkel’s Footnotes to Religio Medici: Vanini and the Treatise of the Three Impostors

Religio Medici by the medical doctor Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682) from Norwich is a work in English dating back to the 1630s but it was first published © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004332089_010

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in an unauthorized edition in 1642.1 One year later an edition was published by Browne himself and this was soon to become a European bestseller. The book is still being reprinted and is considered as a classic of English literature, one of the latest editions being in a popular New York Review of Books series.2 I cannot go into many details here about the text, except to say that its point of departure is what he poses as a ‘common dictum’ that of every three medical doctors two are atheists (ubi tres medici, duo athei), and that Browne argues that despite various religious doubts, which he discusses frankly and at length, he certainly is no atheist. The translation of Religio Medici by Van Berkel, himself a medical doctor, was published anonymously and with a fake imprint at Leiden in 1665.3 This edition is quite rare, with only four copies being preserved in Dutch public libraries. Van Berkel had taken precautions not to reveal himself as either translator or annotator. This was probably a wise move, particularly as far as the footnotes were concerned, for a number of these would have provoked quite some indignation among members of the Dutch Reformed clergy. These footnotes were noticed by previous researchers such as Rosalie Colie and Cornelis Schoneveld, neither of whom seems to have grasped their importance within the context of the budding Radical Enlightenment.4 Van Berkel’s footnotes compellingly reveal his enormous erudition, at the early age of 25, as well as his intelligence, sense of humour and critical mind.5 1  A recent biography of Browne is Barbour, Sir Thomas Browne. On Religio Medici see Conti, “Religio Medici’s Profession of Faith,” in Sir Thomas Browne, ed. Barbour and Preston, 149–167. 2  Browne, Religio Medici and Urne-Buriall, ed. Greenblatt and Targoff. There are many other editions, such as in volume I of The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, ed. Keynes. In this article references will for convenience be to Part (I or II) and Chapter of the text, for example Religio Medici I.20. 3  Browne, Religio Medici. [. . .] In de Nederlantsche Tale overgeset, en met eenige Aenmerckingen versien, Laege-duynen [= Leiden], 1665. A second edition, which included a translation of Digby’s Observations upon Religio Medici, appeared in 1683: Religio Medici. [. . .] In de Nederlandsche Tale overgeset, en in dese tweede Druck met vele Aanmerckingen over des selfs donckere plaatsen vermeerdert, en doorgaens verbetert. Beneffens de Aanmerkingen van de Heer Kenelm Digby, Ridder, Laegeduynen [= Leiden], 1683. 4  Colie, “Sir Thomas Browne’s ‘Entertainment’ in XVIIth Century Holland”, 1–13. 5  When the Browne translation appeared, probably during the course of March 1665, Van Berkel was only 25 years and a few months old. The translation was certainly on the market by the 27 March 1665, at which date Van Berkel wrote a letter to Thomas Browne identifying himself as the anonymous author of the translation. He would have sent two copies to Browne had it not been for the naval war between England and the Dutch Republic that made the shipping of goods hazerdous. Van Berkel also gave credit to Janus Rampius, the rector of the Leiden Latin school, for providing indispensable assistence with the translation work. Textual evidence suggests that Rampius, not Van Berkel himself, was the author of the

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Born in Leiden in December 1639, he enrolled at the town’s university on no less than four separate occasions, in 1654, 1662, 1664 and 1669.6 The first time, when he was not yet fifteen, was to study theology, when he may already have become friends with his fellow students at Leiden, the Koerbagh brothers.7 His theology professors were the famous Johannes Coccejus (1603–1669) and Johannes Hoornbeek (1617–1666). The latter wrote against Socinianism, Cartesianism and Coccejanism and published a survey of theological controversies that Van Berkel consulted.8 Instead of entering the church, however, after seven years of theological training, Van Berkel in 1662 switched to medicine and took his medical doctorate at Utrecht at the end of that year.9 So like Johannes Koerbagh he was trained as a theologian, and like Adriaan Koerbagh he was now also a doctor of medicine. Still later, in July 1669, when the whole Koerbagh affair had blown over, Van Berkel took up classical languages, immersing himself in scholarly editorial work, initially under the guidance of J.F. Gronovius (1611–1671).10 After working as a classical scholar in Leiden for a decade Van Berkel became headmaster (rector) of the Latin school, first at Harderwijk and finally in Delft, where he died at the early age of 46.11

anonymous Preface: Schoneveld, Intertraffic, 5. Below I will come back to Van Berkel’s important letter to Browne. It was published (in Latin and English) in The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, ed. Keynes, vol. IV, 331–339. 6  The enrollment data and a short biography providing the main facts of his life can be found in Schoneveld, Intertraffic, 130–131. This account, however, does not include a number of important facts which have only recently come to light, such as Van Berkel’s banishment from the town of Delft on 19 March 1666, the censure to which he was subsequently submitted by the Leiden Reformed Church, and the period he spent in jail in Culemborg in the first half of 1668. Van Berkel’s biography, therefore, needs to be written anew. 7  From his days as a theology student stems the following disputation, held on 5 March 1661 under the auspices of Johannes Hoornbeek, Van Berkel’s professor of theology at Leiden University: Disputatio theologica de promissis V.T. Pars quarta. 8  Hoornbeek, Summa controversiarum religionis cum Infidelibus, Haereticis, Schismaticis (1653). Another edition appeared at Frankfurt as late as 1697. 9  The title was De pleuritide (no copy appears to exist). 10  Van Berkel edited texts by Epictetus, Antoninus Liberalis and Stephanus Byzantinus: Epicteti Enchiridium, unà cum Cebetis Thebani tabula Græcè et Latinè. Antonini Liberalis Transformationum congeries. Genuina Stephani Byzantini de urbibus et populis fragmenta. Posthumously appeared, with a preface by Van Berkel’s widow, Johanna van Baersenburgh: Stephani Byzantini Gentilia per epitomen, antehac de urbibus inscripta. 11  On accepting his teaching posts at Harderwijk and Delft Van Berkel delivered the following orations, both of which appeared in print: Oratio inauguralis de causis corruptae Latinitatis and Oratio inauguralis de calamitoso hodiernorum Graecorum statu.

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Van Berkel’s apparently sudden disappointment with theology may either reflect a deep personal crisis (within the space of just over one month he had lost his first wife, two younger brothers and both his parents) or it may be the final result of a growing dissatisfaction with religion and theology altogether. The footnotes to Browne in any case make it clear that by 1665 he had stopped considering himself a theologian, although he still put his theological knowledge to good use. Above all he became a curious, free-thinking intellectual, questioning respected truths and contributing to popular enlightenment by sharing his doubts with a larger Dutch readership, just as Adriaan Koerbagh was to do. Some references to Italy, France and England may suggest that at some point he made a grand tour, but it is unclear how or where he obtained his excellent knowledge of English. Recent archival research has also revealed that his personality may not have been so much forceful but rather reckless, his behaviour leading to several brushes with the Dutch judicial system for trying to evade a number of debts. For some such action he was banished from the town of Delft for six years as well as heavily fined, and later in Culemborg he was put in jail briefly for similar reasons. His stay in Culemborg thus may have had nothing to do with his trying to hide from the authorities because of his translation of Hobbes of 1667, as is sometimes supposed. Although Van Berkel was not the first to annotate Browne’s text (annotations in both Latin and English were already available)12 and although he borrowed some material from the other annotators and many of his notes were merely designed to illuminate Browne’s sometimes cryptic references, he also supplies much additional and typically Dutch material and he certainly goes much further in subverting established religious opinion. We have to bear in mind that Van Berkel never wrote any independent, original treatise, so these footnotes are the closest we can get to finding out what he really thought about controversial matters. The main purpose of the footnotes thus seems to be to provide a safe outlet for Van Berkel’s own ideas and opinions and a means of displaying his familiarity with the libertine literature of his day. This hypothesis receives support from the fact that Van Berkel on some points entirely disagrees with Browne, whose ideas he was supposed to explain but some of whose beliefs were definitely unenlightened. For example, Browne believed in diabolical

12  The German Levinus von Moltke added many notes to a Latin edition (Strasbourg, 1652) while the Englishman Thomas Keck annotated an English edition of 1656, borrowing some material from Moltke. Van Berkel in his turn borrowed material from Keck, but the majority of his notes are either wholly original or creative adaptations of Keck’s notes. Many of Keck’s notes appear moreover not to have interested him.

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witchcraft and sorcery, which Van Berkel treats with great scepticism, stating that even many Reformed theologians have already given up this belief.13 In general one can say that Van Berkel used Browne’s rather hesitant and inoffensive pronouncements as points of departure for his own more sceptical and provocative deliberations. One example of this concerns Mosaic authorship. Where Browne makes the harmless remark that he believes that several authors wrote before Moses’ time, Van Berkel in his footnote is much more outspoken, declaring that “there is no need to doubt that there have been much older writers than Moses, for where would he himself have gotten his Egyptian wisdom from? There are also those who think that the five books that are attributed to Moses were not written by him and that they are consequently not of such an old age as the common man usually imagines”, after which Van Berkel explicitly refers to chapter 33 of Hobbes’s Leviathan, a book he was probably already in the process of translating.14 That Moses was indeed in possession of so-called Egyptian wisdom, or rather that he was an Egyptian magus or magician, is the explicit theme of another footnote dealing with the so-called miracle of the brazen serpent that was said to have been made by Moses at God’s command and to have healing powers (Numbers 21:8–9). But, as Van Berkel points out, in the Bible itself (Acts 7:22) it is clearly stated that Moses was taught Egyptian wisdom even before he became a prophet, the implication being that Moses could only have performed his miraculous works thanks to his exclusive natural knowledge.15 Van Berkel thus rehearses a well-known argument from the French libertine literature (such as the work of Gabriel Naudé) that Moses performed his ‘miracles’ thanks to Egyptian magic. Thomas Browne, on the other hand, chose to hold on to the orthodox belief that these were indeed divine miracles. In his notes Van Berkel (unlike the other annotators) was bold enough to refer his readers to such suspect authors as Socinus, Machiavelli, Isaac la Peyrère and Thomas Hobbes. He seemed to enjoy scandalizing his readers by provoking doubts about the reality of biblical miracles and the credibility of the story of Noah and the Flood. He refers readers to “the author of the 13  Browne, Religio Medici, 139: “Maer datter Toveressen souden zijn, de welcke met den Duyvel medewercken, wort van vele niet aengenomen; ja selfs van veel Gereformeerde Godts-geleerde tegen-gesproken.” 14  Browne, Religio Medici, 110. The statement by Browne that Van Berkel comments on is in Religio Medici I.23: “I beleeve, besides Zoroaster, there were divers that writ before Moses, who notwithstanding have suffered the common fate of time.” 15  Browne, Religio Medici, 81–82. The healing power of the brazen serpent, Van Berkel suggests, may well have been due to some “sympathetic power” that Moses knew about.

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Preadamites” (La Peyrère), for example, for a discussion of the argument that the Flood cannot have been a universal deluge but must have been a local event.16 Van Berkel further comments that many have taken the problems involved in explaining how the Ark could have housed so many animals as a reason to consider Moses’ “sacred writings” to be nothing more than “absurd and ridiculous fables”.17 He also points out, in opposition to Thomas Browne himself, that real atheists have indeed existed and still exist, a recent example having been Lucilio Vanini, who in 1619 was burned at the stake in Toulouse and about whose death he recounts some anecdotes to the effect that Vanini was fearless in his atheism until the very last moments.18 A particularly striking case where Van Berkel deliberately subverts the text he is commenting on concerns what can only be described as a sort of recommended reading list of anti-Christian authors. This long footnote, the longest in the whole book, is provoked by Browne’s admission that “there are in Scripture stories that doe exceed the fables of Poets, and to a captious Reader sound like Gargantua or Bevis” (the latter being a knight of medieval romance).19 For Browne this was no reason to reject these biblical stories, although he does raise some objections, only to conclude that reason is no sure guide in these matters. Van Berkel, however, takes this slight remark as an excuse to present a wholly uncalled-for catalogue of authors who were considered some of the worst mockers and critics of Christianity. He mentions for example the well-known Greek satirist Lucian, the fourth-century Roman administrator Hierocles, who had claimed that the Greek religious reformer Apollonius of Tyana was a far greater miracle worker than Christ, the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate, who had actively persecuted Christians, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, who was claimed to have come up with the idea for the blasphemous treatise De tribus impostoribus, and finally Pope Leo X, who was said to have admitted that the whole story of Christ was made up so that the Church could grow rich.20 But most striking is his reference to Vanini, 16  Browne, Religio Medici, 100. The reference is to Præadamitae book 4, chapters 7–9. 17  Browne, Religio Medici, 101: “en men behoeftse noch tegenwoordig met geen lanteerne te gaen soecken, die om dese reden de H. Schriften van Moses voor sotte en belacchelijke Fabelen komen te agten.” 18  Browne, Religio Medici, 86–87. 19  Browne, Religio Medici, 121. 20  Browne, Religio Medici, 93–5: “Nu en t’allen tijden zijnder sodanige menschen gevonden geweest, die het boeck der Scheppinge van Moses voor soo waeragtig hebben gehouden, als het boeck der Herscheppinge van Ovidius; die de brieven van Seneca soo Canonijck geagt hebben, als die van Paulus; en die geoordeelt hebben, dat de deuntjens van Anacreon, voor het Hoog-liet Salomons niet een hair behoefden te wijcken. Den Apostel

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from whose dialogues De admirandis naturae reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis (1616) he quotes a satirical comment on one of the Beatitudes from Matthew (5:3). Wat sal ick seggen van Vaninus, die in sijne Schriften veel texten wt den Bijbel soo verkeert en verdraeyt heeft, dat ick nauwlijcxs hier een exempel derf by voegen: Lib. 4. Dial. I. [recte: L.] daer leyt hy wt, wie dat Arm van Geest zijn. Propterea quando quis languidè & oscitanter uxori incumbit, hinc fit imbecillis spirituum ad semen concursio, ex quo stupidos nasci contingit liberos atque inertes, & per consequens Christianae religioni, quae pauperibus spiritu beatitudinem pollicetur, suscipiendae satis idoneos. Ick geef den Leser eens te bedencken, of dit met de woorden van onsen Saligmaker Matth. 5:3. niet en is de geck gesteken?21 Petrus in sijn 2. Brief, Cap. 3:3. seyt datter in de laetste dagen Spotters souden komen, maer sy zijnder in sijn tijt oock al geweest. Siet eens hoe dat Lucianus in dat Tractaetje het welck Philopatris genaemt wort, met de scheppinge van de Werelt, met de Drie-eenigheyt, en meer andere gronden van onsen Godsdienst de spot steeckt: Paulus gaet hier oock niet vry, als hy hem voor een Lang-neus en Kael-kop wtschelt. Maer daer is noch een Tractaet daer hy van de doot van Peregrinus handelt, waer in hy bysonderlijck Christus ende de Christenen ellendig heeckelt. Hierocles die en heeft niet minder gedaen, als hy seyt dat Apollonius Tyaneus grooter en meerder mirakelen gedaen heeft dan Christus selfs: hy verheft Philostratus, die het leven van desen Tyaneus beschreven heeft, verre boven Petrus en Paulus, die hy seyt het leven van Christus beschreven te hebben, haer wtfunssende voor Ongeleerde bedriegers en leugenagtige menschen: Siet op het eynde van sijn Fragmenten te Londen gedruckt 1654. [. . .] Den Keyser Julianus, den welcken wy den toenaem van Apostaet geven, heeft niet weynig met de H. Schrift de geck gestoken. Als hy tegen de Persianen Oorlog voeren soude, soo heeft hy de Christenen seer verdruckt, en hooge schattingen doen betalen; over welcke saeck als sy by hem quamen klagen, soo seyde hy: het is billick datmen u verdruckt, want uwen Godt seyt: Zalig zijnse die verdru­ ckinge lijden. Als hy de Kercken en Kercken-dienaers van hare inkomsten berooft hadde, soo syde hy, dat dit gedaen was, op datse soo veel te beter aen den Hemel soude[n] geraken; want daer staet geschreven: Zalig zijn de Arme, want haer is het Koninckrijcke der Hemelen. Keyser Fredrick de II. gelijck als Lipsius lib. I. Monit. Polit. cap. 4. en Matth. Paris verhalen, dat hy geseyt soude hebben, Tres praestigiatores, Moses, Christus & Mahometus, uti Mundo dominarentur, totum populum sibi contemporaneum seduxisse. Dat is: Daer zijn drie bedriegers geweest, de welcke op dat sy hun eer-sugt mogten genoeg doen, het Volck van hun tijden verleyt hebben. Selfs onder de Pausen die heylige Vaders, zijn oock de grootste Spot-vogels geweest: Leo de X. was altijt gewoon dit in sijn mont te hebben: Quantas nobis divitias comparavit ista de Christo fabula. Dat is: Wat heeft ons dat versierde Fabeltje van Christus al gelt verschaft. Men soude hier noch wel eenige staeltjens kunnen by voegen, maer het soude te lang vallen, dewijl ons oogmerck is kort te zijn.” 21  Browne, Religio Medici, 93–4. The Latin quotation is taken from Vanini’s De admirandis, 356.

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Van Berkel must have consulted Vanini’s own work instead of borrowing this quote from some other source such as Gisbertus Voetius’s influential disputations on atheism, which were also known to Van Berkel.22 The particular passage quoted by Van Berkel, however, is not in them. I want to emphasize this point, since it might mean that not only Van Berkel but also Adriaan Koerbagh may have had direct access to Vanini’s work and used it as a source for his ideas. Vanini seems to have fascinated Van Berkel, which is quite striking considering the relative absence of Vanini from the early Dutch Enlightenment or even the European Enlightenment generally. It was only decades later that Vanini would assume a more prominent role in the Enlightenment, when for example portions of De admirandis were incorporated in 1719 into the Esprit de Spinosa, or as it was later called, Traité des trois imposteurs. Even before that, Vanini and Spinoza as well as Hobbes and Koerbagh were treated as like-minded atheists and freethinkers in Adriaan Beverland’s first publication, the notorious Peccatum originale from 1678.23 Van Berkel’s footnote shows however that Vanini was being studied even as early as the 1660s and apparently still independently of any connection with Spinoza, since his notes contain absolutely no hint of any knowledge of Spinoza’s budding ideas. Also, Van Berkel’s choice of quotation from Vanini’s De admirandis clearly anticipates the anti-Christian use that the composer(s) of the Traité were later to make of Vanini’s work, mining his De admirandis for materials that could be used to present Jesus Christ as an impostor. These anti-Christian authors in Van Berkel’s footnote are not presented in the way an apologist would do, in a spirit of fierce indignation and 22  Voetius, Disputationes de atheismo, originally held in 1639 but later included in Disputationes theologicae selectae, vol. 1, 112–226. Voetius gives many quotations from Vanini’s major works, the Amphitheatrum aeternae providentiae (1615) and De admirandis naturae arcanis, both of which he had read. Copies of De admirandis were considered rare and hard to find in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. One copy circulated in Edinburgh in the 1690s and its strong critique of miracles may well have been an influence on Thomas Aikenhead, the student who was hanged for blasphemy in 1697: see Michael Hunter, “Aikenhead the Atheist”. Another copy was in the large private library of the Groningen jurist Gisbert Eding, where it was seen in 1710 by the German traveller and book connoisseur Uffenbach; see his Merkwürdige Reisen durch Niedersachsen Holland und Engelland, vol. 2, 253. Uffenbach commented: “Es wird dieses Buch auch sonsten Vanini Dialogi genennet, weil es als Dialogi geschrieben ist. Es ist viel schlimmer als das Amphitheatrum.” Eding also had a copy of Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus under the fictitious title of Francisci de Henriquez de Villa Corta, Opera chirurgica omnia. 23  [Beverland], Peccatum originale, 3–5. Beverland refers to Vanini’s De admirandis as well as Amphitheatrum, Hobbes’s Leviathan, Koerbagh’s Bloemhof (“Sacer libellus!”) and Spinoza’s Opera posthuma.

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condemnation. Rather, Van Berkel provides bibliographical information and encourages readers to read the texts themselves and form their own opinion. This was one of the things that made the aggressively orthodox Jacobus Koelman, one of the few attentive early readers of the Browne footnotes, highly suspicious of the real intentions of the anonymous annotator, who had evidently taken so much trouble to study the works of blasphemers and atheists. He saw this long footnote as a clear demonstration of the annotator’s obvious delight in recounting the most pernicious blasphemies “just to have a good laugh”.24 Finally, a case must be discussed where Browne’s text did indeed call for the explanatory footnote that Van Berkel provides. This concerns Browne’s reference to “that villain and Secretary of Hell, that composed that miscreant piece of the three Impostors”.25 Browne’s reference here to the legendary work De tribus impostoribus, which may have been the first time Van Berkel heard of it, absolutely fascinated him.26 Browne’s remark from the 1630s came at a time when rumours of the actual existence of the treatise were increasing and people first began to claim to have seen it. Thomas Browne himself also seemed to suggest that he had seen it, but Van Berkel found this hard to believe, since, as he wrote in the accompanying footnote: “People doubt whether this book ever existed. I myself have heard much about it and also taken great pains to get hold of a copy, in order to find out what arguments it might contain against such a confirmed truth. I have also talked to some people who said that in a French library they had been shown the title-page of this book, but that they had been forbidden to read in it.”27 Such was Van Berkel’s obsession with the book that he asked his former theology professor Johannes Hoornbeek if he had ever seen the book and even wrote a letter to Thomas Browne himself in which he presented himself as the translator of his book and straightforwardly 24  Koelman, Wederlegging van B. Bekkers Betoverde Wereldt, 152: “Dus toontmen/ een lust te hebben/ in de snoodste godlasteringen te verhaalen/ en by een te stellen/ om te lacchen.” Koelman mistakenly attributed the translation and the footnotes to the Haarlem writer on oracles, Antonie van Dale. 25  Browne, Religio Medici I.20. 26  As far as I know, Van Berkel’s reference to the treatise in this footnote may well be the first mention of the legendary work in any publication in the Dutch language. 27  “Daer wort aen getwijffelt offer dit Boeck wel oyt soude geweest zijn: Wat my belangt, ick hebber veel van hooren seggen, en oock veel moeyten om gedaen, om eens te sien, wat datter tegen soo een versekerde waerheyt soude kunnen bygebragt worden. Ick heb oock soodanige gesproken, de welcke seyden, dat haer in Vranckrijck, onder andere rariteyten, dieder op een sekere Bibliotheeck te sien waren, den tijtel van dit Boeck vertoont wiert, maer datse in het selve niet en mogten lesen.” Browne, Religio Medici, 88.

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asked him if he had indeed read the book of the Three Impostors: “Wherefore it is not only my own wish but that of many others to hear and know from you if you yourself have seen and read this wicked book, and if it exists in your library, or if you have received it from hearsay only.” Regrettably, Browne’s answer to this letter has never been found. I will now attempt to arrive at some general assessment of the intellectual relevance of the material I have discussed. First, it is obvious that Van Berkel’s footnotes are highly interesting in themselves as the work of a young intellectual writing in the early stages of the Dutch Enlightenment, who tried to widen his horizons, criticize received knowledge and make new developments in biblical criticism and political philosophy more easily accessible to a solely Dutch-speaking readership. More importantly, Van Berkel was closely associated with Adriaan Koerbagh, who at that time (as far as we know) had not yet embarked on his radical career. The two may even have closely cooperated in producing the final version of A Light Shining. Van Berkel’s footnotes antedate Koerbagh’s radical work by three years and contain clear anticipations of it, for example in the critique of oracles and magic and of belief in spirits and miracles. Since Koerbagh himself provides almost no information about the books and authors that influenced him, the Browne footnotes may prove to be an unexpected and much-needed source of information concerning some of the origins of Koerbagh’s radicalism. For there can be no doubt that Koerbagh was familiar with the Browne translation by his close friend, and he may have had access to the same libertine literature that Van Berkel used. In at least one case, material from the Browne footnotes found its way straight into A Light Shining: this concerns a quotation from a travel book by Henry Blount, the father of the better-known deist Charles Blount, in which Henry Blount describes oracles as the work of frauds.28 I conclude this section with some thoughts that in my view merit further elaboration. As has become clear from my account, Van Berkel must be considered to belong squarely to a still pre-Spinozistic radical Enlightenment that has closer ties to English thought and the French-Italian tradition of the libertinage érudit than to developments that were going on around Spinoza. There are no clear indications that Van Berkel was influenced by Spinoza in any way. 28  Browne, Religio Medici, 134–135. Van Berkel may have borrowed this quotation, translated into Dutch, not from Blount’s own book but from the footnote by Keck in his annotated edition of Religio Medici (London, 1656). The same Dutch quotation from Blount’s Voyage into the Levant (London, 1634), although slightly modified, can be found in Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion, ed. and trans. Wielema, 362.

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And of course the same could be said about Van Berkel’s closest friends, the Koerbagh brothers. Their work does indeed betray Spinoza’s influence, but its initial inspiration may well have come from the same sources that Van Berkel used, such as La Peyrère, Hobbes and Vanini and various Socinian authors. Naturalistic notions could be derived from many different sources. For example, even such a Spinozistic-sounding expression (to be found later in the Traité des trois imposteurs) as “Dieu, c’est-à-dire la nature” in fact comes from Vanini’s De admirandis.29 It is tempting to speculate that since he could not get hold of the real thing, Van Berkel turned to a substitute text, namely Vanini’s De admirandis, which in fact states the thesis of the three impostors. In the recent words of Georges Minois, who wrote an elegant history of the early rumours concerning, and the strenuous efforts to find, the elusive De tribus impostoribus, “Vanini might be called the author of the three impostors, even if he never wrote the famous treatise.”30 Van Berkel’s youthful obsession with the theme of religious imposture may well have inspired his older friend Koerbagh to write his own, more moderate version of the treatise, taking up themes that were widely believed to be part of the substance of the legendary work. One of these was apparently the suggestion that Moses had merely invented the story of the six-day creation in order to introduce the practice of Sabbath observance and to bolster his own authority as a divine legislator: as God had rested on the seventh day, so the Jews should rest every seventh day.31 This impostor motif is clearly present in the article ‘Sabbath’ from Koerbagh’s Bloemhof, where the ‘silly and strange’ story of the six-day creation is ridiculed as adapted to the understanding of the slavish and gullible Jews of Moses’ time. By instituting an official day of rest Moses merely intended to bolster his prestige and authority among his people.32 It should also be noted that 29  Anonymus, Traktat über die drei Betrüger / Traité des trois imposteurs, ii.11, ed. Schröder, 146–147. 30  Minois, The Atheist’s Bible, 91. See also the many contributions to Heterodoxy, Spinozism and Free Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe., eds. Berti et al. 31  This was one of the themes that was discussed in an important letter from Henry Oldenburg to Adam Boreel from April 1656 and which Oldenburg saw as causally related to the contemporary decline of religion. Richard Popkin believes that Spinoza’s Tractatus was in part an attempt to give a ‘benign solution’ to the problem of Moses’ religious deception aimed at introducing political laws: see his “Spinoza and the Three Impostors”. Koerbagh for his part is much more outspoken in his critique of Moses; see for example the chapter on oracles in his A Light Shining, 357–403. 32  “De rustdag segt men ingestelt te zijn van God selve, na sijn selfs voorbeeld als hy op den sevenden dag der waereldmaaking rustede van al sijn arbeyd, mogelijk seer moede zijnde van ses dagen en nagten sonder rusten te arbeyden. Het kan ook wel dat de Heer

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the person who betrayed Koerbagh to the authorities claimed that in fact Van Berkel was the real stimulus behind Bloemhof and A Light Shining, in both of which religious imposture is a pervasive theme. It does seem appropriate, therefore, to re-evaluate Van Berkel’s role in the early Radical Enlightenment as an important intermediary and transmitter of ideas that were taken up and greatly elaborated on by others. 3

Van Berkel’s Translation of Leviathan in the Dutch Context

Merely two years after the Dutch Religio Medici, Van Berkel’s Dutch Leviathan appeared.33 It was a complete and, on the whole, relatively accurate translation of Hobbes’s major work. The original was published in London in 1651. The Dutch version came out in 1667 in Amsterdam, just one year before a Latin rendering by Hobbes himself was printed by the Dutch firm of Blaeu, also in Amsterdam. As is well known, on the basis of a materialistic and deterministic view of human nature Hobbes develops an extensive argument for the rationality of obedience to a lawful sovereign. To overcome the insecurities of the state of nature, in which everyone is at war with one another over the necessities of life, people give up their unlimited natural right and institute a commonwealth, a common power designed to secure peace, justice, and national safety. In the commonwealth, the distinction between sovereign and subject is a fundamental one, and accordingly there is no greater vice than disobedience. Hobbes was prompted to develop his absolutist theory of sovereignty by the turmoil of the English Civil War, which caused a major crisis of authority. des nagts mede wat gerust of geslaapen heeft en des morgens vroeg wederom an den arbeyd is gegaan, tot den sevenden dag toe [. . .] Het schijnt my wat klugtig en wonderlijk toe. Dog de schrijver, geloof ik, heeft gedagt, ik schrijf het maar voor een deel domme slaafsche Jooden, die kan men haast wijsmaaken dat alles waar is, en als het die lang genoeg ge­looft hebben, sullen het veel anderen, gelijk het blijkt, ook wel voor waarheyd anneemen. [. . .] De rustdag dan der Jooden is een insetting van Mosche, de welke de selve met dese insigten heeft ingestelt: eerst om sik self geagt en angenaam te maaken by dat slaafsche volk. Want dat heeft groote kragt op een slaafsch volk, die nu moede zijn van langduurige slaaverny, de vryheyd en wat ruste van arbeyd.”, Koerbagh, “Sabbath” in Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet, 577–581. 33  Van Berkel only made himself known by his initials A.T.A.B. (Abrahamus Theodori à Berkel, with Theodorus referring to Dirck van Berkel, his father). On this translation, see Schoneveld, Intertraffic, 46–62, and Gelderblom, “The Publisher of Hobbes’s Dutch Leviathan”.

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Although Leviathan is best known for this abstract political doctrine, the book actually covers a far wider compass. About half of it discusses theological issues, with the particular intent of undermining the metaphysical and theological basis of a separate ecclesiastical power not subject to the power of the civil sovereign. (The chapter on ecclesiastical power is also the longest in the book.) The political power of the churches was mainly upheld by widespread popular conceptions concerning a spiritual realm of invisible entities (like souls and angels) to which only the privileged class of divines and magicians had access. Hobbes regarded many religious ceremonies as forms of magic. In order to transform people into loyal citizens within a rational political society, these imaginary and superstitious conceptions had to be eradicated. This is the guiding thought of parts three and four of Leviathan, which are often disregarded as being of little or no relevance to the political theory. From this arises the fundamental problem of the unity of the book. However, there has been a growing awareness that Leviathan does indeed present an argumentative unity. The balance now even seems to have shifted towards regarding the theological chapters as the main point of the book. Hobbes had already fully developed his political views, as well as his materialistic psychology, in earlier books such as De Cive and The Elements of Law. What was new in Leviathan, however, was the larger polemical framework and design, the grand Hobbesian enterprise of banishing spiritual darkness, the vain philosophy and fabulous traditions that had a powerful hold over the great majority of his contemporaries. In this sense Leviathan is not just a book on politics, but an apology for science and enlightenment. According to David Johnston, for instance, the political aim of transforming the minds of its readers, of laying the cultural foundations for a rational political order, is what gives Leviathan its unity.34 The political and polemical nature of Leviathan also appears to have been one of the main reasons why Van Berkel chose to translate it into Dutch. What was his purpose in presenting the text to the Dutch public at large, and of disseminating Hobbes’s ideas among a non-academic audience? Many of Hobbes’s scientific and political ideas were already well-known among Dutch philosophers prior to the publication of the Dutch text.35 From the publication of De Cive onwards (of which appeared also an edition in Amsterdam in 1647), Hobbes was read with great interest by progressive Dutch intellectuals, who included many Cartesians, such as Lambert van Velthuysen, who in 1651 34  Johnston, The Rhetoric of ‘Leviathan’. 35  For a general survey, see Schoneveld, Intertraffic, 29–46, and Secrétan, “La réception de Hobbes aux Pays-Bas”.

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published a defence of De Cive.36 Since Descartes himself had failed to provide a political philosophy, some Dutch Cartesians welcomed Hobbes’s work as an attempt to develop a modern political theory that could meet the new standards of rationality set by developments in mathematics, the natural sciences, and medicine. In Leviathan, however, Hobbes went well beyond political theorizing, advancing into the more dangerous terrain of biblical criticism and theological heterodoxy in order to subvert the power of the churches and transform Christianity into a civil religion adapted to the needs and commands of the state. This aspect of his work had a particular appeal for those in the Nether­ lands seeking toleration and intellectual freedom, in particular the radical Cartesians and the Spinozists. Like Hobbes they were inspired by the idea that the application of reason and rationality would transform human society and eradicate many of the evils that were inherent in ignorance, superstition and the uncritical acceptance of traditional beliefs and values. They were strongly aware that the moral and social power of the Dutch Reformed Church was one of the major obstacles to effecting such a transformation. Calvinist theologians had not only tried to stop the teaching of Cartesianism at a number of universities (albeit unsuccessfully), they were also doing their utmost to urge the civil authorities to act against any expression of sustained heterodoxy. One of the heresies they particularly sought to eradicate was Socinianism. In 1653, the North and South Holland Synods were successful in encouraging the States of Holland to issue an edict prohibiting Socinian meetings and the dissemination of Antitrinitarian books. In other provinces and towns similar measures were taken. The anti-Socinian laws were subsequently to have a great effect on the banning of freethinking and other anti-Christian books in the Dutch Republic. The confrontation in the Dutch Republic between Cartesian enlightenment and clerical conservatism, which had been mounting since the 1640s, came to a high point in the second half of the 1660s, with radical Cartesians and Spinozists challenging the clerical monopoly on Scriptural interpretation and the Calvinist hold over Dutch society. Lodewijk Meyer, for instance, one of Spinoza’s friends and correspondents, in 1666 openly defied the antiSocinian edicts by publishing a treatise in which he maintained that natural reason and philosophy should be the guides to the interpretation of Scripture.37 36  Van Velthuysen, A Letter on the Principles of Justness and Decency, Containing a Defence of the Treatise De Cive of the Learned Mr Hobbes, ed. and trans. de Mowbray, introd. Secrétan. 37  Meyer, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres. Modern English translation: Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, trans. Shirley.

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He also showed what could be the consequences of this, by denying crucial dogmas such as the trinity and the creation of the world ex nihilo. And in 1668, of course, Adriaan Koerbagh was arrested and tried for having published his offensive Bloemhof, while his A Light Shining was prevented from being printed. Koerbagh died in jail in October 1669. One of the reasons why there was such a swift and stern response in the Koerbagh case was the deliberate use of the Dutch vernacular for the expression of heterodox opinions. Among many Cartesians and Spinozists there was a sustained effort to use the Dutch language as a vehicle for the advancement of learning and enlightenment. Of course, alongside original writings, translations from other languages into Dutch could provide an important channel for the dissemination of science and enlightenment, and it is against this background that the publication of the Dutch Leviathan, sixteen years after its original, makes the most sense. From many of the circumstances surrounding the production of the Dutch text it becomes evident that the translation was published as part of a sustained libertine campaign to undermine clerical authority and transform Dutch society into a truly enlightened community. Both Koerbagh and Van Berkel were supporters, for example, of the policy of the States party, led by Johan de Witt, to minimize the political influence of the church and the House of Orange. In fact, as Van Berkel tells the reader in his translator’s Preface, the main purpose of his translation of Hobbes is to give the Dutch a good political education concerning the fundamentals of sovereignty. Both rulers and subjects should be absolutely clear about what sovereignty entails, and rulers in particular should strongly defend the rights that are lawfully theirs.38 If the concept of sovereign power is in dispute, if people are not clear about who their legal sovereign is, there is a great risk of turmoil and civil war. Van Berkel cites as a particularly embarrassing example the so-called coup against Amsterdam of 1650, when Prince William II of Orange took hostage six Amsterdam regents and sent troops to force the city to comply with his policies. Somewhat naively perhaps, Van Berkel feels that if the soldiers had realised to whom their loyalty and obedience should have been due (the provincial governors and town regents), such an incident would never have occurred. Van Berkel in the Preface also denounces the execution of Charles I, the English’ lawful sovereign King, and the violent usurpation of power by Cromwell. Intriguingly, therefore, Van 38  “Daer en kan in een Staet, ofte Regeeringe geen nootsaeckelijker Kennisse bedagt worden, als dat selfs de onbepaelde Opper-magten wel verstaen, waer in haer Souverayne Regt gelegen is; en dat de Onderdanen van een Staet wel onderrigt zijn, wie sy voor hare Souverayne Regeerders houden moeten.”, Hobbes, Leviathan, trans. van Berkel, Preface.

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Berkel used Leviathan to support both the English royalist cause and at the very same time the Dutch republican cause.39 The States party and the policy of Johan de Witt as supported by Van Berkel’s work was also generally in favour of intellectual freedom and the curtailing of ecclesiastical influence on politics, society and intellectual life. Other States party propagandists, such as Johan de la Court (1622–1660) and his brother Pieter (1618–1685), whom Van Berkel knew through their mutual Leiden friend Janus Rampius,40 had also drawn upon Hobbesian writings to promote republicanism and a liberal climate of religious opinion. They thought that intellectual freedom was best secured by concentrating power in the hands of one absolute civil sovereign, which in this case were the States of Holland, who were to be in full control of public religion. Influence of Hobbesian ideas is demonstrable from the earliest publications of the De la Court brothers onwards, with the first explicit reference to Hobbes in their work added by Pieter de la Court in 1662, five years before Van Berkel’s translation was to appear. It is not unlikely, therefore, that Van Berkel was inspired by the use that Pieter de la Court made of Hobbes’s Leviathan, to make this text fully accessible to the Dutch audience. The elder brother was well versed in English and may well have read the original version of Leviathan; he may even have helped Van Berkel with his translation work. As earlier scholars who studied Van Berkel and other Dutch readers of Hobbes such as the De la Court brothers have stressed, “their reading of Hobbes implies primarily a partisan (and highly partial) appropriation of his political philosophy within the context of Dutch republican politics.”41 Particularly Van Berkel’s Preface to the Dutch Leviathan, in which the English regicides 39  See on this paradox, most recently, Helmers, The Royalist Republic. 40  Janus (or Johannes) Rampius, born in Woerden around 1610, was rector of the Latin school at Dordrecht when he registered at Leiden University on 3 April 1653. The next year he moved to Leiden to become conrector and finally headmaster of the Latin school there. In his letter to Thomas Browne, Van Berkel warmly thanks him for helping to improve his skill in languages and his translation of Religio Medici. Rampius was related to the Leiden magistrate by marriage and was a friend of the De la Courts and their circle: Schoneveld, Intertraffic, 39. In a footnote on page 238 of Religio Medici signed ‘I.R.’ Rampius calls Pieter de la Court his “trusted friend, that well-trained mind” (“Mijn vertrouden Vrient, dat welgeoeffende Verstant [. . .]”). Arthur Weststeijn mistakenly attributes this footnote as well as the Preface to Religio Medici to Van Berkel himself instead of Rampius: Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age., 149. The same mistake in Weststeijn’s De radicale Republiek, 62. It therefore remains unclear how intimately Abraham van Berkel and Pieter de la Court knew each other. 41  Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism, 148.

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are compared to the Dutch Orangists, both parties rebelling against their legal sovereigns, is often cited in this connection. Thus, Van Berkel, as Weststeijn has it, “turned Hobbes into a Dutch anti-Orangist republican”, while also the De la Court brothers were able to appropriate Hobbes’s doctrine of sovereignty since they read it through an Arminian and Grotian lens and within the context of the traditional legitimation of the Dutch Rebellion. Weststeijn continues: “Hobbes’s notion of absolute sovereignty offered the De la Courts a new, powerful source to radicalize this established justification of provincial sovereignty. The result is a sort of republican absolutism, which emphasizes the indivisibility of sovereignty to counter any claims on behalf of the Stadholder for a political or military role, while ardently defending the supreme authority of the States of Holland in all religious and political matters. Thus, like Van Berkel, the brothers De la Court employ Hobbes’s absolutism to reach a conclusion that would probably have horrified Hobbes himself.”42 In publishing his Dutch translation of Leviathan in support of the liberal cause Van Berkel may also have had the further intention of facilitating a favourable reception of the radical, anticlerical opinions that were in the process of being developed by his friend Adriaan Koerbagh, whom he was to assist during the difficult times he encountered whilst attempting to print A Light Shining. Like Hobbes, Koerbagh defended a thoroughgoing Erastianism, emphasizing that ministers of the church were civil servants without any independent powers of their own. The church is governed by the political powers, whose sovereignty is one and undivided. Koerbagh in turn referred to Hobbes to support this position.43 The Dutch Leviathan, on this hypothesis, was not only intended to promote sympathy for Hobbes’s political doctrine in the United Provinces, but also and more particularly to destroy religious control over intellectual life. As Van Berkel stresses in his Preface, in Leviathan Hobbes brutally attacks the divines where they were, according to him, most vulnerable: in their lust for heresy hunting, their pretence and hypocrisy, and above all their clerical power. Hobbes shows that church leaders ought not to have or exercise any power, since there can only be one undivided and lawful exercise of power.44 Thus Van Berkel uses Hobbes to prepare the ground for the free 42  Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism, 155–156. 43  Koerbagh, A Light Shining, 253n: “That the government has such a power [to make religious laws] is also shown by Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan.” 44  Hobbes, Leviathan, trans. van Berkel, Preface: “dat hy haer aentast, daerse aldergevoeligst zijn; hare loose Aenslagen, ondoorgrondelijcke end’ onnaspoorlijcke Geveynstheyt, en bedrieglijcke Schijn-heyligheyt worden hier al te bloot ontmaskert, end’ haer Kerckelijcke Magt, diemen soo weynig mag aenraecken, als den oogappel van sijn Ooge, wort van hem

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reception of libertine, Koerbaghian (and in its wake, Spinozistic) thought that was to find its way to the Dutch public in the years to come. The extent to which Van Berkel in his translation of Leviathan aimed to promote free thought and the freedom to philosophize rather than Hobbesianism as such becomes particularly clear from one striking deviation from the English text. This is where Hobbes, in chapter 46, makes the startling and farreaching Erastian claim that those who proclaim doctrines that are contrary to a country’s established religion may lawfully be punished according to the civil laws of that country. Hobbes makes it clear that his aim is to combat the “suppression of True Philosophy, by such men, as neither by lawfull authority, nor sufficient study, are competent Judges of the truth”, namely, theologians in particular. Religious authorities have for example punished those who merely discussed whether there are antipodes or whether the earth moves. Hobbes then continues: But what reason is there for it? Is it because such opinions are contrary to true Religion? that cannot be, if they be true. Let therefore the truth be first examined by competent Judges, or confuted by them that pretend to know the contrary. Is it because they be contrary to the Religion established? Let them be silenced by the Laws of those to whom the Teachers of them are subject; that is, by the Laws Civill: For disobedience may lawfully be punished in them, that against the Laws teach even true Philosophy.45 This final statement, however, evidently proved too hard to stomach for Van Berkel. If Hobbes were right, this would for example mean that the Dutch authorities would be justified in punishing any discussion or criticism of any dogmas of the established religion, such as the trinity and creatio ex nihilo. But this was exactly what Lodewijk Meyer had already done in 1666 in his Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture and what Adriaan Koerbagh was about to do, in a far more outspoken and aggressive way, in his Bloemhof and A Light Shining. So Van Berkel, instead of faithfully rendering Hobbes’s actual hier vernietigt: en vorders aengewesen, dat sy geen Magt moeten hebben, ofte gebruycken, ter oorsaeck datter maer een Wettelijcke Magt-gebruycking kan en wesen moet.” It was particularly this tirade against the power-hungry dominees that angered the members of the Amsterdam Reformed classis, who discussed the book in the summer of 1667. Their attempts to have this “horror-book” (“grouwelboeck”) banned, however, long remained unsuccesfull. It was not until 1674 that an official ban was released. (Many thanks to Frank Mertens for providing me with the minutes of the meetings of the Amsterdam classis.) 45  Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Malcolm, 1100–1102.

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opinion, apparently deliberately chose to pervert Hobbes’s meaning by substituting false for true philosophy in the last sentence: Maer wat reden kan hier gevonden worden om soo te doen? Is het om dat soodanige gevoelens strijden tegens den waren Godts-dienst? dat en kan niet wesen, soose waeragtig zijn. Laet derhalven de waerheyt eerst door competente Regters geoordeelt, ofte van die gene wederleyt worden, de welcke voor-geven het tegendeel seecker te zijn. Is het, om dat de gevoe­ lens strijden tegens den Godts-dienst, die daer alrede bevestigt is? laetse dan door de Wetten van die gene doen verswegen worden, van de welcke de Leeraers oock Onderdanen zijn, dat is, door de Burgerlijcke Wetten. Want de Ongehoorsaemheyt mag wettelijck in haer gestraft worden, die tegens de Wetten een valsche Philosophie leeren derven.46 Van Berkel thus makes Hobbes say that ‘disobedience may lawfully be punished in them, that against the Laws dare to teach a false Philosophy,’ thus considerably weakening Hobbes’s extreme Erastianism. A full and close comparison of the English and Dutch texts of Leviathan may well produce more examples of such ‘adaptation’ to Dutch needs, but this would be a research topic in itself which must be left to another occasion (and other researchers). 4

A Brief Epilogue

After making such important contributions to the emergence of radical thought in the Dutch Republic, it is a strange sight to see Abraham van Berkel after 1668–69 seemingly make a complete volte-face both politically and intellectually. On 4 April 1672, the former staunch republican and anti-Orangist asked permission from the Senate of the University of Leiden, where he worked as a classical scholar, to deliver an address in praise of the Prince of Orange who had just been made captain-general of the army! After ample deliberations the request was granted, but the address itself has not come down to us. Van Berkel’s overall intellectual alienation from Enlightenment ideas is extensively documented in the footnotes to the second edition of his translation of Browne, which came out in 1683 and now also included a translation of Sir Kenelm Digby’s Observations upon Religio Medici.47 The footnotes to this second edition have almost doubled in number and, as Schoneveld already observed, “some of the added notes went directly against the spirit of the earlier ones and 46  Hobbes, Leviathan, trans. van Berkel, 709. 47  See note 3 above.

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often against Browne’s own opinions” while generally breathing “an air of antirationalism and Roman Catholic obedience”.48 For instance, in direct opposition to the view of Adriaan Koerbagh that theology should be subsumed under philosophy, the annotator now restores philosophy to its traditional status of handmaiden of theology. Theology is not a part of philosophy, as Koerbagh thought, but both disciplines are to be kept strictly separate.49 Philosophy cannot lay the foundations of religion, for religion requires certainty and unity whereas philosophy can only offer a diversity of uncertain opinions.50 We must rather accept everything that the true Church teaches us, whether it agrees with our natural understanding or not.51 Van Berkel thus appears to have completely abandoned his former belief in the authority of reason and philosophy, and although his involvement with this second edition of the Dutch Religio Medici cannot be proven, neither are there any indications that someone else was responsible for the additional notes and the changes made to some of the existing ones, presenting Roman Catholics in a more favourable light.52 In fact, if Van Berkel did the revising himself, he did not do a very good job, leaving intact for example all of the notes discussed above containing informative references to anti-Christian and other suspicious authors such as La Peyrère and Hobbes and even retaining his intimate admission that he had taken great 48  Schoneveld, Intertraffic, 11–12. 49  Browne, Religio Medici, second edition (1683), 24: “Dit is seker waer, dat men de Philosophie van de Theologie wel moet onderscheyden. De Philosophie steunt op de menschlijke reden, maer de Godgeleertheyt en de Religie op de authoriteyt en overleve­ ring van de Kerk; soo als onsen Auteur straks seggen sal.” 50  Browne, Religio Medici, second edition (1683), 60: “Maer nochtans soo blijckt het daer uyt dat de Philosophie tot geen fundament in de religie kan gestelt worden, soo als eenige sotte menschen nu seggen; om dat in de Philosophie geen sekerheyt en enigheyt is te vinden. Dat heeft de ervarentheit altyt geleert. Want daerom zijnder altydt soo veel verscheyde Secten van de Philosophen geweest. Maer de Religie moet eenigheyt en sekerheyt hebben, steunende op de overlevering en op ’t getuygenis van de Catholyke Kerck. Anders is ’er geen sekerheyt.” 51  Browne, Religio Medici, second edition (1683), 66–67: “Dat is, de Philosophie kan de Godlijke dingen niet begrijpen. Ons verstandt brengt ons so ver, dat wy nae alle waerschijnlikheyt sien konnen, welcke de ware Kerck is daer de ware religie geleert wort. Dan moeten wy alles aennemen wat de ware Kerk ons leert, het mach met ons natuerlik verstant over een komen of niet.” 52  One example is the substitution of seggen (say) for swetsen (brag or talk nonsense) in the comment “Van dese overblijfselen der Heyligen weten de Pausgesinden veel te swetsen.” Religio Medici, 130. In the second edition, 166, this becomes: “Van dese overblijfselen der Heyligen weten de Pausgesinden veel te seggen.” (“The Roman Catholics have a lot to say about these remains of the Saints.”) Another example in Schoneveld, Intertraffic, 144, note 60.

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pains to get hold of the treatise De tribus impostoribus—all of the notes and the admission that were to drive the heresy-hunting Jacobus Koelman to fierce indignation.53 To all intents and purposes, therefore, readers of the revised edition of Religio Medici were still being as critically informed about a whole range of anti-Christian and irreligious opinion as readers of the first edition had been. But, for all we know (which is very little), this may still have been Van Berkel’s intention after all. Bibliography

Primary Sources

Anonymus, Traktat über die drei Betrüger / Traité des trois imposteurs, ed. Winfried Schröder, Hamburg, Felix Meiner, 1992. Antoninus Liberalis, Transformationum congeries, interprete Guilielmo Xylandro. Thomas Munckerus recensuit, & notas adjecit, Leiden, 1674; 2nd edn, Leiden, apud Janssonio-Waesbergios, 1676. Berkel, Abraham van, Disputatio theologica de promissis V.T. Pars quarta, Leiden, Johannes Elsevier, 1661. Berkel, Abraham van, Oratio inauguralis de calamitoso hodiernorum Graecorum statu. Habita Delphis in templo Gallo-Belgico AD VII Id. Octob. anno MDC LXXXI, quum ibidem Collegio Theologico & Gymnasio praeficeretur, Delft, 1681. Berkel, Abraham van, Oratio inauguralis de causis corruptae Latinitatis. Habita Hardervici in auditorio Academico majore AD IV. Id. Octob. Anno MDCLXXX, Harderwijk, 1681. [Beverland, Adriaan], Peccatum originale, Leiden, 1678. Blount, Henry, Voyage into the Levant, London, 1634. Browne, Thomas, Religio Medici. Dat is: Noodwendige beschryvinge van Mr. Thomas Browne, vermaert Medicijn-Meester tot Norwich, aengaende sijn Gesindtheyt, datse over-een-komt met de gesuyverde Gods-dienst van Engelandt. In de Nederlantsche Tale overgeset, en met eenige Aenmerckingen versien, Laege-duynen [= Leiden], 1665. Browne, Thomas, Religio Medici. Dat is: Nootwendige beschrijvinge van Mr. Thomas Browne, vermaert Medicijn-Meester tot Norwich. Aengaende sijn Gesintheyt, datse over-een-komt met de gesuyverde Gods-dienst van Engeland. In de Nederlandsche Tale overgeset, en in dese tweede Druck met vele Aanmerckingen over des selfs donckere plaatsen vermeerdert, en doorgaens verbetert. Beneffens de Aanmerkingen van de Heer Kenelm Digby, Ridder, Laegeduynen [= Leiden], 1683. Browne, Thomas, Religio Medici and Urne-Buriall, Greenblatt, Stephen and Targoff, Ramie (eds.), New York, New York Review of Books, 2012. 53  See note 24 above.

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Browne, Thomas, The Works, ed. Keynes, Geoffrey 4 vols, London, Faber & Faber, 1964. Epictetus, Enchiridium, unà cum Cebetis Thebani tabula Græcè & Latinè: ex recensione Abrahami Berkelii, cum ejusdem animadversionibus & notis: quibus accedunt notæ Wolfii, Casauboni, Caselii & aliorum, cum Græca paraphrasi, Leiden-Amsterdam, Daniel van Gaesbeeck 1670; an enlarged edition appeared Delft, de Jager, 1683. Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan: of van de stoffe, gedaente, ende magt van de kerckelyke ende wereltlycke regeeringe, beschreven door Thomas Hobbes van Malmesbury, trans. Abraham van Berkel, Amsterdam, Jacobus Wagenaar, 1667. Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, vol. 3, The Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes, Malcolm, Noel (ed.), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2012. Hoornbeek, Johannes, Summa controversiarum religionis cum Infidelibus, Haereticis, Schismaticis: id est, Gentilibus, Iudæis, Muhammedanis; Papistis, Anabaptistis, Enthusiastis & Libertinis, Socinianis; Remonstrantibus, Lutheranis, Brounistis, Græcis, Utrecht, Johannes à Waesberge, 1653; 2nd, enlarged edn, ibid., 1658. Koelman, Jacobus, Wederlegging van B. Bekkers Betoverde Wereldt, Amsterdam, Boekholt, 1692. Koerbagh, Adriaan, Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet, Amsterdam, 1668. Koerbagh, Adriaan, A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion, ed. and trans. Michiel Wielema, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2011. Meyer, Lodewijk, Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, [Amsterdam], 1666. Meyer, Lodewijk, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, trans. Samuel Shirley, Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 2005. Stephanus Byzantius, Genuina de urbibus et populis fragmenta, Abrahamus Berkelius Latinam interpretationem & animadversiones adjicit, Leiden, Daniel van Gaesbeeck, 1674. Stephanus Byzantius, Gentilia per epitomen, antehac Peri poleon De Urbibus inscripta, / quæ ex mss. codicibus Palatinis ab Cl. Salmasio quondam collatis & ms. Vossiano restituit, supplevit, ac Latina versione & integro commentario illustravit Abrahamus Berkelius, Leiden, Daniel van Gaesbeeck, 1688; 2nd edn, Leiden, Frederik Haaring, 1694. Uffenbach, Zacharias Conrad von, Merkwürdige Reisen durch Niedersachsen Holland und Engelland, vol. 2, Frankfurt-Leipzig, 1753. Vanini, Giulio Cesare, De admirandis naturae reginae deaeque mortalium Arcanis libri quatuor, Paris, Adrien Perier, 1616. Vanini, Giulio Cesare, Amphitheatrum aeternae providentiae divino-magicum, Christiano-physicum, nec non astrologo-catholicum Adversus veteres Philosophos, Atheos, Epicureos, Peripateticos & Stoicos, Lyon, de Harsy, 1615. Velthuysen, Lambert van, A Letter on the Principles of Justness and Decency, Containing a Defence of the Treatise De Cive of the Learned Mr Hobbes, ed. and trans. Malcolm de Mowbray, introd. Catherine Secrétan, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2014.

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Voetius, Gisbertus, “Disputationes de atheismo”, in Disputationes theologicae selectae, vol. 1, Utrecht, Waesberge, 1648, 112–226.



Secondary Literature

Barbour, Reid, Sir Thomas Browne. A Life, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013. Berti, Silvia et al. (eds.), Heterodoxy, Spinozism and Free Thought in Early-EighteenthCentury Europe. Studies on the Traité des Trois Imposteurs, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1996. Colie, Rosalie L., “Sir Thomas Browne’s ‘Entertainment’ in XVIIth Century Holland”, Neophilologus, 36 1952, 162–171. Conti, Brooke, “Religio Medici’s Profession of Faith,” in Barbour, Reid and Preston, Claire (eds.), Sir Thomas Browne: The World Proposed, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, 149–167. Gelderblom, Arie-Jan, “The Publisher of Hobbes’s Dutch Leviathan”, in Susan Roach (ed.), Across the Narrow Seas. Studies Presented to Anna E.C. Simoni, London, The British Library, 1991, 163–166. Helmers, Helmer J., The Royalist Republic. Literature, Politics and Religion in the AngloDutch Public Sphere, 1639–1660, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015. Hunter, Michael, “ ‘Aikenhead the Atheist’: The Context and Consequences of Articulate Irreligion in the Late Seventeenth Century”, in Hunter, Michael and Wootton, David (eds.), Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992, 231–254. Johnston, David, The Rhetoric of Leviathan. Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1986. Minois, Georges, The Atheist’s Bible. The Most Dangerous Book that Never Existed, trans. Lys Ann Weiss, Chicago-London, University of Chicago Press, 2012. Popkin, Richard, “Spinoza and the Three Impostors,” in Curley, Edwin and Moreau, Pierre-François (eds.), Spinoza: Issues and Directions, Leiden, Brill, 1990, 347–358. Schoneveld, Cornelis Willem, Intertraffic of the Mind. Studies in Seventeenth-Century Anglo-Dutch Translation, Leiden, Brill, 1983. Secrétan, Catherine, “La réception de Hobbes aux Pays-Bas,” Studia Spinozana, 3, 1987, 27–46. Weststeijn, Arthur, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age. The Political Thought of Johan & Pieter de la Court, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2012. Weststeijn, Arthur, De radicale Republiek. Johan en Pieter de la Court—Dwarse denkers uit de Gouden Eeuw, Amsterdam, Bert Bakker, 2013.

Between Machiavelli and Hobbes

The Republican Ideology of Johan and Pieter De la Court Stefano Visentin 1

The Many Faces of Republicanism: Some Preliminary Remarks

In this essay I will endeavour to frame the political thought of the brothers De la Court within the material and ideological context of Holland’s Golden Age, to emphasize their importance, within but not exclusive to the Dutch sphere of influence, not only as precursors of some themes of Spinoza’s own political philosophy,1 but above all as thinkers who in their own right can be included in the multifaceted “Dutch Legacy” of 17th and 18th century Europe.2 I hope, in such a way, to offer a useful contribution, not only by re-examining the originality of their political thought, but also by attributing to it the right collocation within the political and economic systems of early modern Holland, which although atypical is at the same time very relevant when considering the historical genesis of the modern political state; and, last but not least, in order to, hopefully, enrich the contemporary debate on the legacy of early modern republicanism with some new theoretical issues. Further to the last point: it is well-known that the concept of republi­canism is a relatively recent discovery of the historiography of political philo­sophy, since it can only be dated to the beginning of the 1970’s; whence, it has received significant attention (which however has been greatly reduced in the last years), due to a specific political conjuncture, being that of the late-twentieth century crisis of Nation-State and, especially, that of the close relationship between democracy and liberalism. More precisely, the discovery (if not the invention) of a modern republican tradition can be related to an attempt to rethink the theoretical fundaments of democracy from both a descriptive and

1  Regarding the consonance between the De la Courts’ and Spinoza’s political thought see Blom, Spinoza en De la Court; Id., “Virtue and Republicanism. Spinoza’s Political Philosophy in the Context of the Dutch Republic”; Prokhovnik, Spinoza and Republicanism; Visentin, “Passioni collettive e leggi politiche nel repubblicanesimo olandese del XVII secolo: dai fratelli De la Court a Spinoza”. 2  For a survey on the European heritage of the De la Courts see Israel, Enlightenment Contested, ch. 10 (The Origins of Modern Democratic Republicanism), 240–263. On the Dutch (and above all spinozistic) philosophical heritage for XVII and XVIII century Europe see Van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza; Israel, Radical Enlightenment, chapters 8, 9, 10. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004332089_011

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prescriptive point of view.3 Fueled by this philosophical and political demand, several scholars tried to trace, within the history of modern political thought, some “alternative paths” to the liberal mainstream; however, originating with the pioneering works of John G.A. Pocock and Quentin Skinner,4 a problematic development arose, namely the historiographical reconstruction of a modern republican stream into a plurality of different, and even opposed, interpretations; therefore Pocock’s original idea of republicanism as the “secret inspiration” of some fundamental events in modern political history (e.g. the American revolution) rapidly turned into a multiplicity of doctrines, which influenced the landscape of modern political thought in a very peculiar and somehow equivocal manner—thus confirming John Adams’ assertion that “There is not a more unintelligible word in the English language than republicanism”.5 As a consequence, the contemporary debate encompasses a vast and varied range of republican theories: from a deliberative republicanism to a contestatory one; from a communitarian and patriotic republican model to a juridical republicanism as a renewed system of checks and balances; and from a republican ideal of the control of rulers by the ruled to a republican anthropology aiming to take individual rights seriously.6

3  Rodgers, “Republicanism: The Career of a Concept”; Spitz, “Le républicanisme, une troisième voie entre libéralisme et communautarisme?”; Podoksik, “One Concept of Liberty: Toward Writing the History of a Political Concept”. 4  Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment; Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism. 5  This awareness is now considered common sense among scholars; see e.g. Blom, “Morality and Causality in Politics. The Rise of Naturalism in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Political Thought”, 219: “Republicanism is a many-sided concept, difficult to discuss outside the political context in which it is deployed”; Geuna, “La tradizione repubblicana e i suoi interpreti: famiglie teoriche e discontinuità concettuali”, 111: “il concetto di repubblicanesimo non sembra più disporre di una univoca definizione”; Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age. The Political Thought of Johan and Pieter De la Court, 5: “Was there ever a single unitary tradition of republican thought in early modern Europe? Whoever considers the recent historiographical debate on the ‘republican heritage’ should hesitate to answer this question in the affirmative”. 6  For a brief summary of these distinctions see Laborde and Maynor, “The Republican Contribution to Contemporary Political Theory”. Taking into account the republican conception of freedom, Nadia Urbinati recently wrote: “freedom as non-domination plays a prominent role not only in political theory and the history of political thought, domains in which it arose in the mid-1980s, but also in the theory of justice, public policy, and economic researches (Ackerman and Alstott 1999; Casassas 2007; Sen 2009, 301–4; White 2011); constitutionalism and human rights studies (Bellamy 2007; Bohman 2008; Laborde 2010; Miller 2007); and studies in globalization governance (Slaughter 2005; Waldemar 2006)” (“Competing for Liberty: The Republican Critique of Democracy”, 607).

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Returning to a historical perspective, we find that even the presumed unifying principle of the different republican traditions, that is, the close involvement of equality and liberty, has itself recently become problematic in an essay on early modern republicanism.7 Steve Pincus has emphasized the birth, in 17th-century England, of a commercial ideology which combined republican and proto-liberal elements, thus differentiating itself from the “classical” republicanism of James Harrington and John Milton.8 As a consequence, the project of an egalitarian society, grounded on a society of land-owners and on the ideal of virtue as an active involvement in the life of the republic in order to reinforce the common good against the threat of particularism—as Pocock described Harrington’s political project9—, did not represent the ideological background of the English republic anymore. On the contrary, as far as the pursuing of his own interest was not considered incompatible with the practice of civic virtue, the notion of interest becomes the active link between the citizen and the republic; a link which was also assumed by several pamphlets published in Holland: among them, one of the most popular, was the Interest van Holland, written in 1662 by

7  “Neither Machiavellian Moment nor Possessive Individualism: Commercial Society and the Defenders of English Commonwealth”. In a similar direction also move Kalyvas and Katznelson, Liberal Beginnings. Making a Republic for the Moderns, who maintain that, during the 18th century, “republican discourse, concepts, and motivations were not abandoned but were adapted” (5), contributing to the genesis of modern constitutional liberalism. For a general survey on the relationship between republicanism and commercial society in 18th century Europe see Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, eds. van Gelderen and Skinner, volume II (The Values of Republicanism in Early Modern Europe), part III (Republicanism and the Rise of Commerce). 8  “The political economy they [i.e. these “new” republicans] defended assumed that wealth, not civic virtue, was the basis of political power. As a result, these defenders of the idea of the commonwealth celebrated merchants as the most useful members of society” (Pincus, “Neither Machiavellian,” 712). As we shall see more in depth, the De la Courts’ political thought has been considered a variation of this commercial republicanism. 9  Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 184: “The republic or polity was [. . .] a structure of virtue: it was a structure in which every citizen’s ability to place the common good before his own was the precondition of every other’s, so that every man’s virtue saved every other’s from that corrupt part of whose time-dimension was fortuna”. For a different interpretation of the relationship between Harrington, Machiavelli and seventeenth-century English political thought see Sullivan, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and the Formation of a Liberal Republicanism in England, ch. 4 (The Distinctive Modern Republicanism of James Harrington).

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the De la Court brothers together with Johan De Witt, at that time the most prominent politician in the country.10 From a different perspective, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri wrote, in their last book Commonwealth (2009), that during the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th century, the idea of a republican government acquired a peculiar twist (after a violent struggle: both theoretical and political), that now combined the principles of just rule with the unquestionable respect of property. Thus John Adams could affirm: “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence”;11 whilst, according to Abbé Sieyès, the propertyless were “an immense crowds of biped instruments, possessing only their miserably paid hands and an absorbed soul”.12 Such a close junction between citizenship and property rights was supported by the claim of the representative nature of a republican govern­ment, which had been declared for the first time by James Madison in Paper 10 of The Federalist. In order to constrain the danger presented by the growth of factions within the rising federation, Madison defined the “republic” as “a government in which the scheme of representation takes place”, which can select a restricted numbers of individuals from amongst the whole population, “whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations”.13 By means of this identification with the notion of representative rule (which Kant would also later confirm),14 the republican principle gradually transformed from an instrument for the implementation of civic virtue into a constitutional model for the selection of the rulers, thus impoverishing the effective participation of common people and introducing a divide within the political body; it is not by chance that, by the end of the 18th century, the union between the ideal of a commercial society and the constitutional development of a representative government propelled a substantial number of republican thinkers to embrace the new capitalistic ideology, and at 10  The influence of Interest van Holland within the English intellectual milieu has been highlighted by Soll, “Accounting for Government: Holland and the Rise of Political Economy in Seventeenth-Century Europe”. 11  Quoted in Hardt and Negri, Commonwealth, 9. 12  Quoted in Hardt and Negri, Commonwealth, 10. 13  Hamilton, Jay, Madison, The Federalist Papers (1787–1788), 45. 14  Kant, Perpetual Peace, 11: “Republicanism is the political principle of severing the executive power of the government from the legislature [. . .]. Every form of government, in fact, which is not representative is really no true constitution at all”.

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the same time to favor the oligarchical version of the republican constitution to the detriment of its democratic elements.15 In comparison to this Anglophone historical paradigm, the debate on republicanism in the 17th-century United Provinces, exhibits unique traits,16 not least because the social and economic conditions were different, but also because, as it will be explained, the political struggle in the Republic of the United Provinces developed within a very peculiar ideological context. In this environment the reflections of the De la Courts stands out for their theoretical radicalism and political realism, as the presence of significant and numerous references to the “damned” authors Machiavelli and Hobbes indicates. Whilst many other authors who influenced their thought can certainly be found, because of its eclectic and non-academic nature,17 I nevertheless believe that focusing on the references to Machiavelli and Hobbes thought is more import in elucidating the real issue at stake in De la Courts’ republicanism.18 2

The Political Form of 17th Century Holland

In his opus magnum on the long 20th century,19 Giovanni Arrighi identified 17th-century Holland as the location for the development of the second systemic cycle of capitalistic accumulation. Arrighi wrote that, in contrast to Genoa, where the first cycle took place, Dutch proto-capitalism also assumed 15   On the dichotomy between oligarchical and democratic republicanism from a Machiavellian perspective see McCormick, Machiavellian Democracy. From a different point of view, Urbinati asserts that the republican ideology challenges not liberalism, but democracy as the main form of government which implements citizens’ political participation (“Competing for Liberty”, 608), thus interpreting republicanism as a theory oligarchical per se. 16  Israel, Enlightenment Contested, ch. X (The Origins of Modern Democratic Republicanism). 17  For reflections regarding other authors whom can be considered as significant sources for the De la Courts (e.g. the quotations of classical writers as Tacitus and Lucan, Lipsius’ Neostoicism and Grotius’ theory of sovereignty, reason of state literature and French moralists’ maxims, and so on), see Blom, “Morality and Casuality”, 161 ff.; Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism, chapters II and III. 18  See Negri, The Savage Anomaly; but already Huizinga in his Dutch Civilisation in the Seventeenth Century highlighted the anomalous character of the Dutch society in the seventeenth century. 19   The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. For a more comprehensive view of the Dutch economical development during the 17th century see The Dutch Economy in the Golden Age, eds. Davids and Noordergraaf.

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a political form, autonomous in nature, both in its management of war and its intensification of colonial expansion on a global scale, due to its competitive standing with other countries in the use and control of military force.20 Therefore, for the first time in Holland, the development of a strategic link between a capitalist economy and a modern political state was tested; a process which in the following century, under the British Empire, would become a fundamental trait of the globalization of capitalism (actually the Republic of Venice had already taken a step in this direction, hence the creation of a “myth of Venice”, as Haitsma-Mulier called it,21 by Dutch republican ideologues). However, it is questionable whether it is possible to define the political organization of Holland, or even of the United Provinces of the Low Countries, as the original model of the modern State. From the Union of Utrecht (1579), an alliance treaty signed by Willem of Orange and the General States of the Northern Provinces against the Empire, till the end of the 16th and the first half of the 17th century, it was almost impossible to define univocally the political organization of the country.22 The primary problem was the absence of an agreement determining the “place” to locate the sovereignty, which could offer a stable constitutional framework. The Union of Utrecht remained an alliance of virtually autonomous political subjects, and the same political fragility was also present within each Provincial State. This was particularly true in Holland, where many cities (especially Amsterdam) were very powerful and consequently enjoyed substantial political autonomy.23 Therefore, the constitutional structure of the United Provinces presented itself as an enigma; moreover, the absence of a unitarian sovereign power fueled a struggle among different political factions. The whole 17th century was a succession of conflicts between two “parties”, the Staatsgezinden party— prevalent in Holland among the commercial aristocracy of the Dutch cities, who supported the autonomy of the Provincial States—and the Prinsgezinden party—the alliance of the supporters of the prince of Orange (above all the country aristocracy and the Calvinist clergy), who held the office of Stadhouder in almost every province. Because there was no constitutional framework which could “discipline” the political competition, the conflict between the two parties was particularly harsh, ensuring an endless reformulation of 20  Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century. Money, Power and the Origin of Our Times, 127–144. 21  Haitsma Mulier, The Myth of Venice and Dutch Republican Thought in the Seventeenth Century. 22  Israel, The Dutch Republic, ch. XIII (The Institutions of the Republic); Blom, “Morality and Causality”, ch. II (Dutch Political Thought and Institutions). 23  Price, Holland and the Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century.

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the relations of power. Thus, in this country, one did not observe the process of construction, slow or complex, of a central power and absolute sovereignty, which are core factors of the genesis of the modern State.24 Although the constitutional disorder caused by the absence of an absolute power existed in tandem with immense social and economic development, nevertheless the political climate was quite unstable, because the risk of political disintegration of the Republic was always present, thus enhancing the possibility of civil war (as happened in 1618 and in 1650) or acting as encouragement to external foes to invade (as happened in 1672). Such a dangerous condition, conversely, offered a large field of opportunity to develop new theories on republicanism. Within the arena of Dutch political debate, however, republican ideas were perceptible in both parties, since the ideological struggle between the States and the Prince of Orange was not based upon an opposition between a classical republicanism and an absolute monarchy, as it was in England, but rather upon two different ways of defining a republican regime: on the one side, the Orangists inclined to a republican mixed constitution, based on the theories of Althusius and the Monarchomachs, while the partisans of the States leaned towards a “republican absolutism”, which was originally based on the Grotian tradition.25 Such a concordance of absolutism and republicanism (which drove Catherine Secrétan to consider absolutism as a “figure of emancipation”),26 renders the thought of the De la Court brothers extremely interesting, since their political vision appears to be irreducible to either the historical genesis of the commercial republicanism, or the republican stream which aims to resist “the apolitical dimension inherent in liberalism”,27 as has been recently observed by a commentator on the contemporary renaissance of republicanism; rather, their vision expresses a tension, or a friction, which is implied in modernity from its origin: a tension between political order and social conflicts, representation and participation, property rights and equality, unity of sovereign power and plurality of political subjects. Thus, the work of the De la Courts seems to confirm the belief of those scholars who, in recent 24  Tracy, The Founding of the Dutch Republic. 25  Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism, 47: “Far from constituting an anti-republican ‘party’, the miscellaneous front of Orangists merely envisaged a republican polity of sorts, a perfectly balanced, mixed regime fulfilled by the figure of the Stadholder. Unlike across the North Sea, the main adversaries in the Dutch political arena did not clash over royalist versus commonwealth rule; instead, the Dutch debate was one between two different republicanisms”. 26  Secrétan, “La démocratie absolue, ou la défi politique des lumières radicales”. 27  Palonen, “Liberty is too precious a concept to be left to the Liberals”, 257.

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years, pointed out the impossibility of giving a univocal definition of modern republicanism, and at the same time stressed the existence of different and sometimes opposite republican traditions within political modernity. 3

Dutch Hobbesians as “Leftist Hobbesians”?

The brothers De la Court, Johan (1622–1660) and Pieter (1618–1685), were sons of the extraordinary economic development of 17th-century Holland.28 Coming from a wealthy family that had migrated from the southern Low Countries to Leiden, where their father became a successful entrepreneur in the textile business, both of them studied at the University of Leiden—the oldest in Holland—, where they took the classes of Adriaan Heereboord and Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, two of the most prominent philosophers of that period.29 If the first played a relevant role in the De la Court’s family life, by marrying their sister, it was the second, professor of history since 1648, who introduced the two brothers to the study of ancient and contemporary politics, through a realistic perspective which was indebted to the doctrine of Neo-Stoicism, as it was originally elaborated by Justus Lipsius, his famous predecessor at the University of Leiden.30 When they came back to Holland after their European “grand tour”, the De la Courts started participating in the political debate, taking sides with the radical wing of the supporters of Johan De Witt (1625–1672), the most important Dutch politician of the middle of that century. As already mentioned, in 1662, with De Witt’s support, Pieter (Johan was already dead) published the Interest van Holland, which enjoyed immediate success as much in his homeland as abroad, and was translated into English in 1702.31 However, notwithstanding their affinity with De Witt’s ideology, the De la Courts never refrained from criticizing his politics, accusing him of fostering the oligarchic tendencies within the city’s governments. Since Johan died young, it was up to his brother Pieter to publish their main works. Their most systematic publications— 28  For a biographical resumé of the two brothers De la Court see Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism, ch. 1 (The Making of an Oeuvre). 29  A survey of the political doctrines taught in Leiden is in Wansink, Politieke wetenschappen aan de Leidse universiteit 1575 ± 1650. 30  See Wansink, Politieke wetenschappen, 93–107; Nieuwstraten, “Why the Wealthy Should Rule: Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn’s Defence of Holland’s Aristocratic Mercantile Regime”. 31   Interest van Holland, ofte gronden van Hollands-welvaren (1662). On the political personality of Johan De Witt see Rowen, John De Witt. Statesman of the “True Freedom”.

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which I will consider here—are the Consideratien van Staat, ofte politike weegschaal (1660) and the Politike Discoursen (1662);32 the Consideratien was more affected by Johan’s democratic spirit, but in the second edition, revised and enlarged by Pieter (1661),33 this spirit was partially diminished. I will limit my analysis to these two volumes (especially to the Consideratien), in order to focus attention specifically on the De la Courts’ political anthropology, which is constructed by means of a dense confrontation with Machiavelli and Hobbes. In fact, although the references to other authors are numerous and eclectic, the presence of these two great philosophers contributes, as we shall see, to the emergence of a specific tonality, which defines the originality of the De la Courts’ republicanism. Such a presence is already visible from a linguistic and methodological perspective. In fact, in the Consideratien the De la Courts refuse any “idealistic” or “utopian” approach to politics: their style is characterized by what can be defined as a “Machiavellian realism”, and by a sharp attention to rhetorical methods (to the use of language) and a wide eclecticism, which contributes to the creation of a “partisan” language, rather than to the development of logical demonstrations, universally valid; this intention to intervene in the Dutch political and ideological struggle is confirmed by the use of vernacular, instead of Latin.34 As such, we could say that the De la Courts’ style is a mixture of passions and rationality, as if they were persuaded, following Machiavelli, that politics is above all a matter of contingency, and that therefore there will always be some events that cannot be entirely foreseen and governed, since, as Machiavelli wrote, “fortune is the arbiter of half of our actions”, even if “she indeed allows us to govern the other half of them, or almost that much”.35 If the De la Courts’ style is influenced by the Florentine secretary, the anthropological roots of their politics are especially (although not exclusively) indebted to the work of Thomas Hobbes. While the English republicans of the 17th century (like James Harrington and Algernon Sidney) considered Hobbes as an enemy of ancient prudence and republican institutions—in particular 32   Politike Discoursen, handelende in Ses onderschiede boeken van Steeden, Landen, Oorlogen, Kerken, Regeeringen en Zeeden (1662). 33   Consideratien van Staat, ofte Polityke Weeg-schaal (1661). I will quote more extensively from the fourth edition (1662) than from its predecessors. 34  On this subject see Weststeijn, “The Power of ‘Pliant Stuff’: Fables and Frankness in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republicanism”. 35  Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. XXV, 117. On the presence of Machiavelli in the Dutch political thought of the 17th century see Haitsma Mulier, “A Controversial Republican: Dutch Views on Machiavelli in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”.

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the principle of mixed government36—, in Holland there were some free thinkers, outside the academic world, who appreciated the Hobbesian realism and naturalism, and tried to apply them within the framework of a republican political theory.37 Among them, the Cartesian philosopher Lambert van Velthuysen (1622–1685) wrote an Epistolica dissertatio de Principiis Justi, et Decori, continens Apologiam pro tractatu clarissimi Hobbaei De Cive (1651), aiming to mitigate the most indigestible elements of the Hobbesian doctrine of self-preservation by combining it with the Grotian principle of sociability.38 In the writings of the De la Courts, the influence of Hobbes emerges, primarily, in the definition of a deterministic and negative anthropology, by which men, in the state of nature, follow their basic interests, being moved much more by passions and imagination than by reason. Even the title of the first chapter of the Consideratien is clearly influenced by the English philosopher: “The troubled natural condition of men living outside the political state”.39 In this chapter occurs the statement that “self-love is the origin of all human actions, both the good ones and the bad ones”,40 and in the Politike Discoursen, specifically the chapter dealing with the harmfulness of monopolies (Book I, Discourse V), this statement is confirmed and expanded by connecting self-love with property, following Grotius and anticipating Locke:41 man is “by nature the master and appreciator of his own goods and labour [. . .] for nature gives him privately the judgment over his property”.42 As a result of this anthropological analysis, a Hobbesian state of nature is depicted, where every man is suspicious of the others, and fears for his own life and goods: “from this self-love must originate a great diffidence and fear, that men may

36  Cotton, “James Harrington and Thomas Hobbes”; Fukuda, Sovereignty and the Sword: Harrington, Hobbes, and Mixed Government in the English Civil Wars. 37  Secrétan, “La réception de Hobbes aux Pays-Bas au XVIIème siècle”. 38  Blom, “Morality and Causality”, ch. IV (Velthuysen on Natural Morality in Politics). 39  “De ellendige naturelike stand der menschen leevende buiten den Politiken Staat” (De la Court, Consideratien, 13). 40  “Eigen liefde is de waaragtige oorsprong van alle menschelike, ’t zy goede, ’t zy quade actien” (De la Court, Consideratien, 14). 41  Le Villaine, “L’Angleterre de la Restauration au miroir de la ‘vraie liberté’ (1660–1672). La rencontre entre républicanismes anglais et hollandais à travers les écrits de Pieter de la Court”. 42  “De mensch van nature meester en waardeerder van sijn eigen goed en arbeid zijnde, dien-volgende vermag daar meede te leeven, en ’t selven soo hoog te agten, als hy wil, sulks de natuur hem privativelik het oordeel over het sijnen geeft” (De la Court, Politike Discoursen, 54).

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effectively rob each other of their lives, their goods and their reputation”.43 The fact that a man is mainly guided by passions and instincts—they affirmed— has been “clearly demonstrated by Thomas Hobbes in his De cive”;44 and the sentence ends with the quotation of the famous Hobbesian maxim: “Homo homini Lupus in Statu naturali”.45 Although the first book of the Consideratien asserts some moral judgments, possibly the influence of Neo-Stoicism philosophy,46 nevertheless the conclusions are apparent: as passions are stronger than reason, it follows that “people would pursue their self-love and passions, also to the detriment and ruin of others [. . .], if they did not moderate their own passions through the fear of any future evil”.47 Therefore, on one hand “all passions in themselves are good, as they drive all children and animals to protect themselves”;48 but on the other hand, their irresistible strength creates a state of general insecurity, which must be abandoned as soon as possible. This realistic description of human nature allows the two brothers to dispense with the Aristotelian politicalphilosophical tradition, still very important in Dutch Universities (for instance in the influential work of Franco Burgersdijk in Leiden), in particular, the doctrine of man as a political animal, and the necessity of virtuous behavior by both rulers and the ruled.49

43  “Zo moet uit deeze eige liefde spruiten een groote diffidentie, en vreeze, dat de een de anderen van lijf, ofte levens-middelen, en eere feitelik berooven zal” (De la Court, Consideratien, 14). 44  “Sie dit alles breeder en de klaarder beweezen by Th. Hobb. Elem. Phil. de Civ.” (De la Court, Consideratien, 17). 45  De la Court, Consideratien, 22. 46  “The imprint of human heart is evil since its childhood (Figmentum cordis malum est, a pueritia ipsius)” (De la Court, Consideratien, 20). As stated previously, the De la Courts would have learned the principles of Neo-Stoicism philosophy through the teachings of Boxhorn in Leiden. 47  “De menschen haare eige liefde en passien, zouden volgen, ook tot naadeel en ondergang van anderen [. . .] ten ware zy door vreeze van eenig toekomend quaad, te zullen lyden oover die begaane daad, haare eigen passien intoomden.” (De la Court, Consideratien, 22). 48  “Alle passien in zig zelven goed zijn, vermits zy alle kinderen en dieren drijven, om haar eigen zelven te bewaaren” (De la Court, Consideratien, 19). 49  In his Idea oeconomicae et politicae doctrinae Burgersdijk wrote: “Falsum tamen est, quod Machiavellus docet, subditos simpliciter esse propter principem; ejus municipia, in quae potest pro libitu dominari. Quin contra magistratus unt (= sunt) propter subditos [But it is false what Machiavelli teaches, i.e. that the ruled simply exist because of the prince; as his free property, which he can dominate as he pleases; since, on the contrary, the rulers exist because of the ruled]” (55). On Burgersdijk’s ethical and political thought see Franco

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The “Machiavellian Turn” in De la Courts’ Thought

According to the De la Courts, a political organization does not arise from human virtues and natural hierarchies among men, but rather from human passions, above all the egoistic interest of every individual, as men are all equal in power and intelligence:50 equality, together with the invincible strength of passions, is the second pillar of De la Courts’ “Hobbesian” anthropology. The title of chapter I, book II, part I of the Consideratien, is eloquent: “In the building of a political state and in the laws-making, it must be presumed that all men are wicked”.51 The principle of effectuality,52 opposed to a hierarchical and moralistic (and thus imaginary) vision of politics, demands the conclusion that no-one instinctively accepts to be ruled by another man, even if he risks living in a constant state of insecurity; therefore, in order to create a stable political community, it is necessary to find a common passion, which can push all the individuals to join together. Such a passion is, as already seen, fear, in particular “the fear of an evil to come”; following Hobbes, the De la Courts state that fear necessitates the creation of “a peace and a mutual pact of each one, in order not to offend other men, but to protect themselves against any violence could come”.53 However, in contrast to the English philosopher, in the Consideratien this pact is limited to a pactum unionis, which is followed neither by a pactum subiectionis, nor by an explicit transfer of rights to the sovereign. As a consequence, the pact does not entirely deprive men of their capacity to act politically, since it does not neutralize their passions, but rather changes the interactions among the passions themselves. The practical consequence of this conclusion is made apparent when the book considers the issue regarding the best and the worst forms of government: the best government is “where the well-being of the rulers is dependent upon the well-being of the ruled; while the worst is where the rulers cannot favor the well-being of the ruled, without damaging themselves, and Burgersdijk (1590–1635). Neoaristotelianism in Leiden, eds. Bos and Krop; Blom, Morality and Causality, ch. III (Burgersdijk on Natural Morality and Political Expediency). 50  “All men must be considered equal in their natural force [Mannen moeten werden geconsidereerd gelijk te zijn in naturelike kragten]” (De la Court, Consideratien, 521). 51  “In het formeren van een politiken staat, ende het maken der Wetten, moetmen praesupponeeren dat alle menschen van nature boos zijn” (De la Court, Consideratien, 172). 52  The implicit reference is again to Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. XV: “it seemed to me more appropriate to go after the effectual truth of the thing than the imagination of it” (87). 53  “Is noodsakelik, dat men met eenige menschen make een Vreede en verbond van malkanderen niet te beschadigen, maar te helpen tegen anderen geweld” (De la Court, Consideratien, 23).

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vice versa can damage the ruled, taking advantage of it”.54 From this perspective, the concept of individual interest remains of fundamental importance within the construct of a political structure, but is required to harmonize itself with the interests of others, within a collective framework produced not only by the choices of the governors, but also by the affective pressure of the governed and by the increase in the number of participants in the process of decision-making.55 In fact, if the rulers act only in consideration of their own interest, which sharply contrasts with those of the subjects, the emotional reactions of the people will inevitably endanger the stability of the regime. For such a reason the best government is a republic, where the political power is held by a wide assembly of citizens, acting through majority decision, after discussing and confronting differing opinions. Here Hobbes leaves the scene, giving way once more to Machiavelli, reminiscent of a baton change between those “damned” authors. Machiavelli is omnipresent in the second part of the Consideratien, not to mention the Politike Discoursen, where entire chapters are inspired by the works of the Florentine.56 Explicitly Machiavellian is the statement that the law can modify human behavior, as it is expressed in a famous sentence from the Discourses on Livy, which the De la Courts quote in Italian: “Le leggi non trouvano [sic] ma fanno gli uomini buoni, e la povertà gli fa industriosi (Laws do not find men good, but make them good, while poverty makes them industrious)”.57 Republican laws perform the task of directing the passions of the collective body, substituting themselves for the lack of rationality and, at the same time, defining the common interest and the freedom of all citizens. The definition of freedom is built upon the distinction between autonomy and servitude, which is a topos of Machiavellian republicanism: a political state of freedom is where “no-one is obliged to live in accordance to other’s desires, but rather he can live in 54  “De beste Regeering is, daar het wel en quaalik vaaren de Regeerders geschaakeld is aan het wel en quaalik vaaren der Onderdaanen, als mede dat het de quaadste forme van Regeering is, daar de Regeerdes het welvaaren der onderdaanen niet konnen vorderen, zonder zig zelven te beschaadigen, en daar zy, ter contrarie, de Onderdaanen konnen beschadigen an plonderen, tot haar eigen voordeel” (De la Court, Consideratien, 33–34). 55  Regarding the notion of self-interest in early modernity see Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph; on the role of this notion in the De la Courts thought see Blom, “Burger en Belang: Pieter de la Court over de politieke betekenis van burgers”. 56  For a comprehensive analysis of the Machiavellian quotations in the Politike Discoursen see Van Heck, “In het Spoor van Machiavelli: de Politike Discoursen van Johan en Pieter de la Court”. 57  De la Court, Consideratien, 172. The quotation is drawn from The Discourses, Book I, ch. 3.

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accordance with the institutions and the laws [“ordini e leggi”, in Machiavelli’s terms], which all inhabitants of a republic are equally subjected to, like they are all subjected to the reason”.58 Thus freedom and equality among citizens are united in a unique principle, that is, the independence of individuals from any singular will by means of universal submission to the same law. Moreover, the universality of the laws depends on a collective process of decision-making, which exhibits the strict interdependence between political institutions and common passions. According to the two brothers, a collective dimension does exist (we would define it as the first embryo of a “social” dimension), which exercises its influence upon governmental decisions, and reduces the distance between the sovereign assembly and the rest of the citizens. In order to clarify this aspect of the De la Courts’ thought, it may be useful to consider the type of government at the opposite end of the spectrum to that of the republic, i.e. monarchy. A monarchical government cannot be distinguished from a tyrannical one, since kings, like all men, submit to their egoistic passions and endeavour to only pursue their own interests, a fact which is not necessarily apparent even to them. Both the Consideratien and the Discoursen state that kings are generally more evil than all other individuals, since their education and the court’s life induce moral corruption and augment the lowest passions; and that also the “Princes of Orange—declare the brothers—are not Angels but Men”. As a consequence, the “best monarchical regime is not as good for the subjects as the worst republican one”,59 because its advantages are only imaginary, whereas its vices are quite concrete. The positive character of a republic emerges even more from its opposition to monarchy; above all, the importance of an ample sovereign assembly becomes clear, owing to the fact that “many people can always hear, see, and know more than one”.60 This happens just because “in an assembly of equally powerful Members, there is always a large variety of passions, which keep each other in check without insight of own benefit. Thus, when it comes to political matters, reason finds always more place in legitimate assemblies than in one

58  “Niemand aldaar verbonden is, te leven naar den wil en zin van een mensch (daar zeel wel op te letten staat,) maar naar de zin van de ordre en Wet, aan welke alle Ingezeetenen van dien Staat, gelijk als aan de Reeden, eenpariglik onderworpen zijn” (De la Court, Consideratien, 311). 59  “De beste Monarchale Regeering, is den Onderdaanen soo goed niet, als de geringste Republikse Regeering” (De la Court, Politike Discoursen, 131). 60  “Veele menschen altijd meer hooren, zien en weeten konnen, als een” (De la Court, Consideratien, 320).

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man, whose judgment is frequently stunned by the passions”.61 The making of laws and creation of institutions should never be conferred to a single person, for otherwise the neutralization of anti-political passions and the elevation of common interests could never take place. Republican laws assuage competing passions, by promoting mediation between the egoisms of individuals; this means that a republican constitution is always a work-in-progress, since the institutions must be continually reshaped, as the histories of Venice and Genoa, extensively referred to by the De la Courts, demonstrate.62 The dynamic nature of republics does not contemplate the existence of other powers and counter-powers outside the rulers’ assembly, as in the classical scheme of mixed constitution, since the assembly holds an absolute power; and it is exactly because sovereignty can only be absolute, that it must be held by a multiplicity of individuals, and not by a single man. The last issue I will consider concerns the question of whether the best republic is an aristocracy or a democracy. We must remember, as a starting point, that democratic government, in the 17th century, was almost universally considered the worst regime, since it was always at risk of degenerating into anarchy, where no differences of status or natural hierarchy were respected.63 However, in the De la Courts’ view, any feudal or “blue blood” aristocracy is rejected, and replaced by an urban and commercial aristocracy, equivalent to the social class of the regenten in the Dutch cities.64 As a consequence, the separation between the members of the aristocratic class and the other citizens of the republic is never too rigid, so as to prevent the co-option of non-aristocratic individuals, and thus allows the extension of the sovereign assembly by the gradual inclusion of new members. This is the reason why the Consideratien concludes that “the best regime is without any doubt an aristocracy

61  “In een vergaderinge van eevenmagtige Leeden, altijd een groote verscheidentheid van passien oopenbaard, die ook, zonder inzigt van eigen baat, malkanderen in den toom houden; zulks de reeden, in wettige vergaaderingen, omtrent politike zaaken, altijds meer plaatse vind als by een mensch, wiens verstand door de passien veeltijds verdoofd werd” (De la Court, Consideratien, 321). 62  See De la Court, Consideratien, part II, books IV (Van de Veneetse Regeering) and V (Van de Republik te Genoa). 63  Regarding the ostracism of the word “democracy” since the beginning of the eighteenth century see Dunn, Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy, ch. II (Democracy’s Second Coming). 64  On the role of the Regenten especially in Amsterdam see Secrétan, “La victoire des régents: argent et liberté”.

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which goes as nearer as possible to a democracy”,65 because it unifies the qualities of these two kinds of government: on the one hand, the tendency of a democratic system to favor the common good; on the other, the capacity of aristocracy to select “all the Inhabitants of the Country who can be presumed to have sufficient power and knowledge to take care of their own welfare”.66 Moreover, such an open assembly can easily prevent the risk of the aristocratic government becoming an “Oligarchy, Dominatio Paucorum, stato da pochi [sic]”:67 a risk which was prevalent in many Dutch cities. In order to produce a virtuous process of “rationalization” of the passions by means of the law, the power must be held by “a legal assembly, composed by common citizens”, but never by “an illegal and tumultuous assembly of the plebs”, since—the text points out—“inter populum et multitudinem differentia permagna est”:68 between the people and the multitude there is the greatest difference. Here the word “multitude” seems to indicate a residual part of citizenship, composed by those whose material dependency is considered a sign of their incapacity to govern themselves, and hence to participate in the government of the community (a sentence added by Pieter states that “Popular Government, being ruled by the majority, is also truly ruled by stupid and ignorant people who have neither eyes nor ears”).69 Once again, it seems that the scales of theoretical influence tip yet again, as the De la Courts demur with Machiavelli (who wrote in his Discourses that “the multitude is more knowing and more constant than is a prince”)70 to side with Hobbes’ De cive, where the multitude is judged unfit to express a unique will, and therefore to act as a political body.71 However, if the criticism of the multitude seems to weigh the 65  “Een Aristokratie, die allernaast aan de Populare komt, gewisselik de beste Regeering is” (De la Court, Consideratien, 661). 66  “Alle de Ingeseetenen des Lands, die gepresumeerd konnen werden magts en kennisse genoeg te hebben, om hun eigen welvaaren te versorgen” (De la Court, Consideratien, 662). 67  De la Court, Consideratien, 348. 68  De la Court, Consideratien, 562. 69  “Een Populare Staat, werdende geregeert van het meestendeel, ook waarelik geregeert werd van domme en onweetende menschen, nog oogen, nog ooren hebbende” (De la Court, Consideratien, 542). 70  Machiavelli, The Discourses, 252. 71  Hobbes, Philosophical Elements of a True Citizen (1642), in The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, vol. II, ch. VI, § 1: “We must consider, first of all, what a multitudei of men, gathering themselves of their own free wills into society, is; namely, that it is not any one body, but many men, whereof each one hath his own will and his peculiar judgement concer­ ning all the things that may be proposed” (72–73).

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De la Courts back in favour of Hobbes, nonetheless their definition of the people (populus) maintains a discordant note with that of the English philosopher: indeed, while Hobbes ascribes to the people a unitarian and representative character,72 the two Dutch brothers confer to it a plurality of voices and passions, which in turn demands its mediation through the dialectic performed in the assembly: which is why the De la Courts could never accept the Hobbesian statement, that in a monarchy “the king is the people”.73 For them the sovereign assembly is not simply a representative institution74 (taken in the Hobbesian sense, i.e. that the subjects are the authors, but only the sovereign is the political actor, whose actions therefore cannot be lawfully contested), but is rather the expression of the whole citizenship, since it contains, on a minor scale, almost the same variety of passions which is also present in the political body. This does not diminish the absolute character of the sovereign power, nevertheless it introduces a dynamic confrontation of ideas and interests within the ruling assembly, thus building a bridge between it and the citizens. 5

Conclusions: The Space of Republicanism

To conclude: De la Courts’ thought develops out of two pillars: property as natural right and citizenship as political right, endeavouring to find a mediation between the safeguard of individual property and the equal participation of everyone in the government of the commonwealth; but the result is the unavoidable exclusion of those who have no property at all, and thus do not possess enough wisdom, being too far from the ideal of a mercator sapiens, a wise merchant, depicted by Caspar Barlaeus in his famous oration.75 At the same time, the De la Courts do not really choose between Hobbes and Machiavelli: although they accept an individualistic and possessive anthropology, they, nonetheless, refuse to apply the Hobbesian apparatus of representation/authorization to the construction of political order; thus they 72  Although already present in the De Cive, Hobbes’s theory of personification and authorization is clearly explained in chapter XVI of the Leviathan, whose title is Of Persons, Authors and Things Personated (The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, vol. III, 147 ff.). 73  Hobbes, Philosophical Elements of a True Citizen, ch. XII, § 8: “In a monarchy, the subjects are the multitude, and (however it seems a paradox) the king is the people” (158). 74  But for a different interpretation see Secrétan, “La démocratie absolue”, especially 350–351. 75  Barlaeus, Mercator sapiens, sive oratio de conjugendis mercatorae et philosophiae. On Barlaeus see Secrétan, “Introduction” to Un éloge du commerce dans la Hollande du Siècle d’Or.

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do not depoliticize the passions and imagination of individuals. The impossibility of transcending the affective dimension of collectivity remains, from beginning to end, an essential element of their republicanism, which remains suspended, floating within a space devoid of a definitive and stable form, i.e. of the form of the modern State. The dynamic character of De la Courts’ republican government is therefore profoundly interrelated with the tumultuous development of the Dutch economy in the Golden Age (the second cycle of capitalistic accumulation, as Arrighi defined it), which, as we have seen, grew in the absence of an absolute sovereign power; their republican ideology expresses the attempt to construct an absolute sovereignty which takes its strength and legitimacy by the infinite and even conflicting variety of the passions and imaginations of the individuals. For this reason the opposing interpretations of Weststeijn (the De la Courts as precursors to the English commercial republicanism of the 18th century, and consequently to liberal ideology) and Israel (the De la Courts as theorists of a democratic republicanism, founded upon a radical egalitarianism and very close to Spinoza’s) only capture a partial aspect of the two brothers’ reflections. In fact, swinging between Hobbes and Machiavelli, the De la Courts’ political philosophy contributes to the creation of a new theoretical space for republicanism, irreducible to either the “classical” republican vision, as it can be found in 17th-century England (or, mutatis mutandis, as found in Althusius and Monarchomach theories), or the new Hobbesian construction of the modern idea of absolute sovereignty as a unitarian and homogeneous space, which brings peace to the State by means of the monopolization of political decision-making. The political space opened by the De la Courts is also an inciting novelty, but in no way homogeneous or pacified. It is, rather, the space of modernity as a place of both philosophical and social-political conflicts, the fertile environment in which, for example, the eccentric republicanism of Spinoza will emerge. Bibliography

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Index of Names Achenwall, Gottfried 121 Adams, John 228, 230 Akkerman, Fokke 45, 82, 104 Allen, Ethan 43, 52, 56 Almeloveen, Theodorus Janssonius van 75 Alsted, Johann Heinrich 105–106 Althusius, Johannes 233, 244 Ames, William 102 Anacreon 209 Antognazza, Maria Rosa 18, 169, 179 Apollonius of Tyana 209–210 Aristogeiton 124 Aristotle 112, 123, 194 Armstrong, Karen 27 Arrighi, Giovanni 231–232, 244 Artaxerxes 138 Ashwell, George 180 Aubert de Versé, Noël 179 Augustine 80, 179 Bakkamude, Daniel 172 Balázs, Mihály 193 Balling, Pieter 17, 25, 30, 44, 104, 165 Bancal, Jean Henri 43 Barbour, Reid 205 Barlaeus, Caspar 243 Barlow, Joel 36, 43, 56 Baumgarten, Siegmund Jakob 3, 41–43, 92, 151–152 Bayle, Pierre  3, 30, 41–42, 74–75, 126, 151–152, 167, 171, 179 Becanus, Martin 185–186 Bedjaï, Marc 3, 47, 62–64 Beelthouwer, Jan Pietersz 78 Bekker, Balthasar 90–91, 212 Bellarmino, Roberto 96, 132, 185 Bentham, Jeremy 35 Bergsma, Wiebe 20 Berkel, Abraham van 48, 77, 123–125, 155, 160, 165–166, 204–224 Berman, Paul 28 Berti, Silvia 45, 214 Beverland, Adriaan 48, 211 Bèze, Théodore de 95, 138 Biddle, John 175–176

Bisterfeld, Johann Heinrich 173, 187 Blom, Hans W. 2, 127, 140, 152, 192, 227–228, 231–232, 236, 238–239 Blount, Charles 43, 213 Blount, Henry 213 Boccalini, Traiano 136 Bock, Samuel 172, 191, 193 Boom, Jan Hendriksz 101 Borch, Johannes Alexander 65 Borch, Ole 47, 65–66, 83 Bordoli, Roberto 2, 9, 51, 90–92, 98, 102, 111, 114, 121–145, 151–152, 155 Boreel, Adam 214 Boulainvilliers, Henri de 42–43 Bouveresse, Renée 151 Bouwmeester, Johannes 40, 48, 68, 74–76, 104, 165–166 Bove, Laurent 26, 30 Boxhornius, Marcus Zuerius 125, 234 Brissot, Jacques 36, 43 Bronckhorst, Hendrick van 75 Brouwer, Didericus 109 Browne, Thomas 124, 204–213, 219, 222–224 Bunge, Wiep van 1, 4, 16–30, 35, 45, 47–51, 54, 65, 104, 165, 173, 227 Burgersdijk, Franco 94, 99–101, 237–238 Butori, Véronique 2, 150 Calvin, Jean 95, 114, 131, 136, 185 Cappel, Louis 96 Carolus, Andreas 172 Carra, Jean‑Louis 43 Carver, Jonathan 121 Cavanaugh, William T. 27–29 Celsus 90 Cérutti, Joseph-Antoine-Joachim 36 Chamier, Daniel 111–114 Charles I, King of England 218 Cicero 21, 123 Clarke, Desmond 16 Clauberg, Johann 112–113 Coccejus, Johannes 206 Colerus, Johannes 3, 67, 74–75, 126, 151–152 Colie, Rosalie 205 Collins, Anthony 39, 43, 179

250 Comenius, Johann Amos 64 Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de 36–37 Constantine (Roman Emperor) 131 Coornhert, Dirck Volkertsz 103 Cornelissen, J.D.M. 21 Cosimo III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany 66 Cotton, James 236 Court, Johan and Pieter de la 1–5, 8, 20, 38–39, 57, 66, 74, 122–123, 127, 130, 140–141, 151–152, 158, 160, 219–220, 227–244 Craanen, Theodor 40 Crell, Johann 171–175, 179, 186–187, 192, 195–198 Cromwell, Oliver 218 Cuffeler, Abraham Johannes 41, 44–46, 54–55, 92 Curley, Edwin 26 Dagron, Tristan 30 Dannhauer, Johann Conrad 94, 112 Daugirdas, Kęstutis 183 Dávid, Ferenc 193 De Bolla, Peter 52–53 De Breen, Daniel 77–78 De Haan, Abrahamsz Galenus 25 De Vries, Simon 17 Deckherr, Johann 75 Den Boer, Pim 35, 40, 45, 47, 49 Des Freux, André 63 Descartes, René 16, 25, 93, 98, 104, 108, 150, 197, 217 Desmoulins, Camille 36, 43, 50 Dethier, Hubert 44 Dibbets, Gerardus Rutgerus Wilhelmus 100–101 Diderot, Denis 58 Digby, Kenelm 222 Diosi, Andreas 107 Drusius [van den Driesche], Johannes 115 Ducause de Nazelle, Jean-Charles 67, 84 Duijkerius, Johannes 75 Dunn, John 241 Eijnatten, Joris van 19–20 l’Empereur, Constantijn 96

Index Of Names Enden, Franciscus van den 1–5, 8, 17, 24–25, 35, 38, 42, 44–58, 62–85, 160, 166 Enden, Martinus van den 62 Epictetus 206 Episcopius, Simon 185 Erasmus of Rotterdam 21, 97, 110 Esra 80, 138 Estienne, Robert 112 Felbinger, Jeremias 77 Felwinger, Johann Paul 176 Fix, Andrew C. 25 Fock 190, 192–193 Francès, Madeleine 44 Francken, Christian 193 Franklin, Benjamin 43 Frederick II (Roman Emperor) 209–210 Freneau, Philip 36, 43, 56 Freudenthal, Jakob 126, 151 Frijhoff, Willem 18–21, 122 Frisius, Andreas 66, 83 Furly, Benjamin 25 Geerdink, Nina 19 Gelderblom, Arie-Jan 215 Gelderen, Martin van 21, 229 Geldsetzer, Lutz 94 Gerhard, Johann 188–189 Gent, Pieter van 46 Geuna, Marco 228 Glazemaker, Jan Hendrickz 44–45, 65, 81, 104 Goeree, Willem 67 Gordon, Thomas 43 Gorsas, Antoine-Joseph 43 Greenblatt, Stephen 205 Grell, Ole P. 71 Groenveld, Simon 19 Gronovius, Johann Friedrich 206 Groot, Aart de 172 Grotius, Hugo 29, 52–53, 100, 103, 122–123, 130, 132, 136, 138, 144, 192, 231, 233, 236 Gueudeville, Nicolas 43 Haitsma Mulier, Eco O.G. 140, 232, 235 Hajenius, Angelique Marie Louise 71 Haks, Donald 18 Hales, John 177

251

Index Of Names Hamilton, Alexander 230 Hampton, Stephen 185 Harder, Leland 70 Harder, Marvin 70 Hardeveld, Ike van 98, 101, 104 Hardt, Michael 230 Harmodius 124 Harrington, James 53, 55, 229, 235–236 Heck, Paul van 239 Heereboord, Adriaan 234 Heertum, Cis van 74, 166, 173 Heidanus, Abraham 113 Helmers, Helmer J. 219 Helvétius, Claude Adrien 52–53 Herbert of Cherbury, Edward 136 Hierocles (Sossianus Hierocles) 209–210 Hitchens, Christopher 28, 85 Hobbes, Thomas 5, 16, 25, 27–28, 36–37, 41, 45, 49, 52, 55–58, 77, 123–130, 136, 144, 152, 155, 159–160, 166, 204, 207–208, 211, 214–223, 227–244 Hofman, Johan 102 d’Holbach, Paul Henri Tiry 8, 52–54 Homer 123 Hoornbeek, Johannes 173, 176, 181, 206, 212 Hornig, Gottfried 91 Hornius, Georg 105 Huber, Ulrich 108, 110 Huizinga, Johan 231 Hunt, Lynn 53 Hunter, Michael 211 Huygens, Christiaan 17–18, 103 Isendoorn, Gijsbert van 107 Israel, Jonathan I. 1, 16–20, 27, 30, 35–58, 92, 111, 152, 165–169, 172, 179, 204, 227, 231–232, 244 Jacob, Margaret 55 Jay, John 230 Jebb, John 51 Jefferson, Thomas 36, 52–53 Jelles, Jarig 17, 25, 39, 44, 104, 128, 165 Jensen, Lotte 19 Jerome (Saint) 110 Jesseph, Douglas M. 28 Jesus 81–83, 166, 181, 184, 189–193 Johnston, David 216

Jolley, Nicholas 169 Jongeneelen, Gerrit 40 Jorink, Eric 30 Jouvancy, Joseph de 63 Julian the Apostate 90, 209–210 Junius, Johannes Petri 173 Kalyvas, Andreas 229 Kant, Immanuel 6, 8, 137, 145, 230 Katznelson, Ira 229 Keck, Thomas 207, 213 Keckermann, Bartholomäus 105 Kerckrinck, Theodoor 66 Keynes, Geoffrey 205–206 Klenck, Johannes 77 Klever, Wim 3, 45, 47, 52, 64, 141, 151 Knippenberg, Hans 19 Knol, Jan Cornelisz 172–173 Koelman, Jacobus 212, 224 Koerbagh, Adriaan 1–9, 17, 22–25, 35, 38, 40–41, 44–51, 54–58, 65–66, 68, 72–84, 94, 101, 104, 108, 110–111, 130, 145, 160, 165–199, 204, 206–207, 211, 213–215, 218, 220–223 Koerbagh, Johannes 49 74–75, 80, 83, 165–166, 172–173, 185, 188, 190, 206 Kók, Allart 98–101, 104 Kolakowski, Leszek 44, 48 Krop, Henri 35, 45, 54, 90–115 Kühler, Wilhelmus Johannes 171 Kuyper, Frans 168, 172 La Peyrère, Isaac 204, 208–209, 214, 223 Laborde, Cécile 228 Lademacher, Horst 19 Laerke, Mogens 29, 40–42 Lagrée, Jacqueline 2, 42, 92, 104–105, 152, 155 Lamzweerde, Johannes Baptist van 75 Laplanche, François 92, 95–97 Latréaumont, Gilles Duhamel de 4 Lavaert, Sonja 1–10, 150–161 Lazzeri, Christian 2, 127 Le Villaine, Charles-Édouard 236 Leask, Ian 36 Leclerc, Jean 109, 179 Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre 35 Leeuwenburg, Bart 51, 75

252 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 3, 17–18, 39–42, 74–76, 127, 151–152, 169–170, 179 Leo X (Pope) 209–210 Lewis, Bernard 28 Licata, Giovanni 46 Lieburg, Fred van 19 Lilti, Antoine 39, 42, 45, 55–56 Lim, Paul 186 Locke, John 17–18, 27–28, 36–38, 52–53, 55–57, 169, 174, 177, 179, 184, 236 Louis XIV 42–43 Lubbertus, Sibrandus 132, 173 Lucan 136 Lucas, Jean Maximilien 126, 151 Lucian of Samosata 209–210 Lucius Junius Brutus 126 Lucretius 105, 137 Machiavelli, Niccolò 4–5, 72, 133, 152, 208, 227–231, 235, 237–244 Madison, James 230 Magliabechi, Antonio 66 Magni, Valerianus 176 Malcolm, Noel 28, 221 Malettke, Klaus 3–4 Maresius, Samuel 111–115, 173, 188–189, 191 Masch, Andreas Gottlieb 3, 9, 152 Mason, George 52 Matheron, Alexandre 26 Maurits, Prince of Orange 38 Maury, Alfred 4 Maynor, John 228 McCormick, John 231 McLachlan 175–176 Méchoulan, Henry 20, 44 Meier, Georg Friedrich 94 Meininger, Jan V. 62 Meinsma, Koenraad Oege 1, 44, 75, 166, 170–172 Melanchthon, Philipp 105 Mertens, Frank 45, 47–48, 62–85, 221 Meslier, Jean 43 Meyer, Lodewijk 1–6, 23–27, 35, 39–42, 44–48, 51, 54–56, 69, 72, 74–76, 80, 90–115, 126–130, 145, 151–153, 158, 160, 165–168, 179, 198, 217, 221 Micraelius, Johann 94 Mignini, Filippo 47, 50 Milton, John 57, 229 Minois, Georges 214

Index Of Names Moerkerken, P.H. van 45 Moltke, Levinus von 207 Montag, Warren 55 Moreau, Pierre-François 44, 92, 94–95, 127, 150, 152, 154 Morfino, Vittorio 5 Mortimer, Sarah 186, 192 Moses 22, 81, 131, 137–138, 141, 143, 195–196, 208–210, 214–215 Müller, Johann 4 Mundy, Peter 20 Musculus, Andreas, 130–131, 133 Musculus, Wolfgangus 131 Nadler, Steven 17 Naudé, Gabriel 208 Negri, Antonio 230–231 Nooijen, Annemarie 91 Norris, Christopher 55 Oldenbarnevelt, Johan van 38, 136 Oldenburg, Henry 74, 76, 214 Ostorodt, Christoph 168, 192 Oudaen, Joachim 168 Paganini, Gianni 41 Pagden, Anthony 56 Paine, Thomas 36–37, 43, 52–53, 56, 85 Palmer, Joseph 36, 43 Palonen, Kari 233 Pastijn, Rice Francis 5 Pétion, Jérôme 43 Pincus, Steve 229 Plato 105, 123 Pliny 123 Plockhoy, Pieter Cornelisz 70–72, 79 Plutarchus 123 Po-chia Hsia, Ronnie 28 Pocock, John G.A. 27, 55–56, 228–229 Podoksik, Efraim 228 Pollmann, Judith 20 Polybius 72 Popkin, Richard 214 Porphyry 90 Possevinus, Antonius 96 Preston, Claire 205 Preuss, James Samuel 111, 115 Price, John L. 20, 232 Price, Richard 51 Priestley, Joseph 51

Index Of Names Proietti, Omero 46, 64 Prokhovnik, Raia 227 Pufendorf, Samuel 53, 128 Radicati, Alberto, Comte de Passeran 41 Raey, Johannes de 93, 108 Rampius, Janus (Johannes) 219 Regius, Henricus 16 Reimmann, Jakob Friedrich 2–3, 151–152, 180 Rice, Lee C. 5, 41 Riedel, Carl 150 Rieuwertsz, Jan 44–45 Ríos y Alarcón, Bartolomé de los 63 Rivaud, Albert 75 Rivet, André 96–97 Rixtel, Pieter 66 Rodgers, Daniel T. 228 Röell, Hermann Alexander 93, 107–110 Rohan, Louis de 3–4, 62 Rohls, Jan 185 Rooden, Peter T. van 95–96 Rosenblatt, Helena 36 Roukema, Roelof 67 Roussel, Bernard 95 Rowen, Herbert H. 234 Sabbatai Zevi 18 Salatowsky, Sascha 165–199 Sallustius 21, 124 Sand, Christopher, Jr. 171 Schipper, Jan Jacobsz 66 Schlichting, Jonas 172 Schlözer, August Ludwig 121 Scholem, Gershom 18 Schoneveld, Cornelis Willem 205–206, 215–216, 219, 222–223 Schröder, Winfried 1–10, 168 Schwager, Johann Moritz 90 Secrétan, Catherine 30, 216–217, 225, 233, 236, 241, 243 Semler, Johann Salomo 9, 90–93 Seneca 63, 136, 208 Serrano, Vicente 37 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of 43 Shirley, Samuel 5, 69, 151, 217 Sidney, Algernon 235 Sierhuis, Freya 29 Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph 230

253 Simon, Richard 90 Simonutti, Luisa 185 Skinner, Quentin 27–29, 56, 228–229 Sleigh, Robert C. 40 Sluis, Jacob van 107, 110 Smalcius, Valentinus 173–174 Snobelen, Stephan David 174 Soll, Jacob 230 Soner, Ernst 194 Sozzini, Fausto 169, 172–174, 179, 183, 185, 189–193 Spaans, Jo 30 Spiegel, Hendrik 100 Spies, Marijke 18–21, 122 Spijker, Willem van ’t 185 Spinoza, Baruch de 1–4, 16–30, 35–58, 62–85, 90–98, 104, 106, 108, 111, 115, 117, 121, 124, 126–141, 144–145, 150–158, 160, 165–168, 179, 191, 204, 211, 213–214, 217, 227, 244 Spitz, Jean Fabien 228 Steenbakkers, Piet 40, 45, 48, 57, 99 Stegmann, Christoph 169–182, 184, 186, 195–196 Stegmann, Joachim, Jr. 172 Stegmann, Joachim, Sr. 170, 173–181 Stegmann, Josua 173 Stephanus Byzantinus 206 Sterck, Johannes Franciscus Maria 64 Stevin, Simon 100 Stoupe, Jean-Baptiste 127 Strazzoni, Andrea 93 Stuurman, Siep 36, 39 Suchtelen, Guido van 62 Suárez, Francisco 185, 187 Sue, Eugène 4 Sullivan, Vickie B. 229 Sweringen, Gerrit van 71 Syme, Ronald 21 Tarabaud, Mathieu Mathurin 9, 152, 157 Targoff, Ramie 205 Temelini, Mark 21 Terence 63 Tertullian 177 Thijssen-Schoute, C. Louise 44, 74, 98, 108, 151 Thomas (Apostle) 177 Thomasius, Christian 9, 152 Til, Salomon van 67 Timpler, Clemens 105

254 Toland, John 36, 39, 43, 179, 198 Tracy, James D. 21, 233 Trinius, Johann Anton 3, 9, 152 Uffenbach, Zacharias Konrad von 9, 211 Urbinati, Nadia 228, 231 Uytenbogaert, Johannes 130–134, 154 Valla, Lorenzo 97 Vallan, Jacobus 75 Vandenbossche, Hubert 44–45, 51 Vanini, Giulio Cesare [Luci­lio] 204, 209–211, 214 Vedelius, Nicolaus 132 Velema, Wyger R.E. 30 Velthuysen, Lambert van 16, 75, 107, 141–145, 216–217, 236 Verbeek, Theo 16, 52–54, 93 Vermeeren, Clara Maria 62 Vermij, Rienk 30, 54 Veryard, Ellis 20 Virgil 63 Visentin, Stefano 227–244 Visser, Hugo Bastiaan 143 Visser, Piet 171–172 Vlooswijck, Nicolaes van 83 Voetius, Gijsbert 95–97, 132–136, 211 Vogt, Johann 3, 152 Völkel, Johannes 171, 173, 195–196 Vondel, Joost van den 29, 64–65, 103 Vorstius, Conrad 171, 173

Index Of Names Vossius, Gerhard Johann 114, 130, 136–138 Vries, David Pietersz de 72 Wagenaer, Jacobus 77 Wagner, Tobias 4 Walaeus, Antonius 111, 113–114, 130, 132–134, 137–139 Walter, Friedrich 75 Walther, Manfred 92, 126 Wansink, Hans 234 Wendelinus, Marcus Friedrich 98, 101 Westerbaen, Jacob 29 Weststeijn, Arthur 4, 20, 152, 155, 219–220, 228, 231, 233–235, 244 Wielema, Michiel 4, 42, 45–46, 48–51, 165–167, 181–182, 188, 204–224 Wilbur, Earl Morse 171–172 Wildenberg, Ivo W. 140 Willem II, Prince of Orange 38, 218 Wiszowaty, Andrzej 170, 172, 179 Witt, Johan de 18, 36, 38, 93, 124–125, 127, 136, 140, 145, 218–220, 230, 234 Wittich, Christoph 93 Wolzogen, Johann Ludwig von 172 Wyermars, Hendrik 45 Young, Thomas 36, 43, 52, 56 Zarecki, Jonathan 21 Zwicker, Daniel 168 Zwingli, Huldrych 110

Index of Anonymous Texts Arcana ecclesiasticorum 153

De tribus impostoribus 209, 212, 214, 224

Bericht Von der Execution Deß Mons. de Rohan 62

Esprit de Spinosa 211

De jure ecclesiasticorum 1–3, 9, 74–76, 92, 123–127, 140–141, 144, 150–161 De Koeckoecx-zangh van de nachtuylen van het collegie Nil Volentibus Arduum 68, 75

Theophrastus redivivus 7 Traité des trois imposteurs 8, 211, 214

Index of Subjects Absolutism  42–43, 215, 220, 233 Adam’s fall 177, 179, 182–183 Amsterdam 20, 22, 232, 241 Anabaptists 13, 19–20, 135 anarchy, anarchism 9, 152, 157, 230, 241 anthropology 228, 235–236, 238, 243 anthropomorphism 197 anticlericalism 2–3, 9, 84, 220 Antitrinitarians 44, 51, 78, 84, 165–169, 217–218 aristocracy 36, 38, 42–43, 53, 56, 232–234, 241–242 Aristotelianism 94, 108, 169, 194–196, 237–238 Arminianism; Arminians 29, 97, 125, 130, 133, 135–136, 144–145, 168, 185, 220 atheism; atheists 2, 4, 7, 37, 40, 49–52, 62, 65–67, 84, 127, 138, 144, 167–168, 180, 186, 205, 209, 211–214 ongodisten 65, 67 atonement 190–192 Averroism 47, 50, 58 Baptism 62, 71, 84 Bible 40–41, 80, 82, 90–115, 159, 176–183, 195 Bible exegesis 95, 97, 127 Mosaic books compiled by Ezra 80 Masoretic text 113 original languages of the Bible 94–95, 97, 111, 115 Septuagint 96, 111, 113 translation of the States General (Statenvertaling) 111 word of God 91, 97, 115, 183 Calvinism 19, 73, 76, 78, 95, 114, 127, 131, 136, 144, 171, 173–174, 185, 217, 232 capitalism 230–232, 239, 244 Cartesianism 17, 24, 35–38, 44, 65, 74, 76, 90–115, 134, 206, 216–218, 236 Cartesio-Spinozism 40 radical Cartesianism 93, 217 Catholicism; Roman Catholics 19, 23, 42–43, 62–66, 71–76, 84, 96–97, 113–114, 130–137, 140, 144, 169–170, 174–177, 182, 185–192, 223

Papists (Papisten) 71 Pauslijke Hirachye 73 ceremonies (Ceremonien) 80, 82, 216 Christianity; Christian religion 23–25, 43, 49, 69, 78, 80, 82–85, 125, 166–167, 174, 184, 186, 217 church; ecclesiastical authority 2, 5, 36, 43, 46, 50, 82, 121–145, 150–161, 216, 219 kerckelicke regeeringe 77 Nederduitsch gereformeerde kerk 19 citizenship 230, 242–243 civil war 17, 22, 28, 215, 218, 233 English Civil War  28, 215, 236 Coccejanism 19, 30, 74, 206 coercion; coercive power (potestas coercendi; dwingende magt) 121, 132, 135, 140–141, 143 Collegiants 25, 70, 76–78, 82, 166–169, 171–172 common good; common best 46, 51, 58, 124, 143, 160, 229, 242 common notions 109, 125, 133, 136, 139, 142, 168 commonwealth 78, 101, 122, 130–133, 139, 142, 150, 153, 215, 229–230, 233, 243 concord (concordia) 21–27, 29; eendracht 21 conscience 107 creation 110, 170, 193–196, 209, 214, 218 creatio ex nihilo 195–196, 218, 221 cujus regio, ejus religio 19 Deism; deists 1, 37, 49, 67, 167, 213 democracy 36–43, 46–58, 78, 124, 155, 160, 167, 227–228, 231, 235, 241–244 Populare Staat 242 determinism 215, 232, 236 Devil 68 doubt 160, 177 Ecclesiastical officials 150–160 egalitarianism 50, 229, 244 Egyptian wisdom 208 Enlightenment 6, 8, 54 Dutch Enlightenment 2, 16–17, 27, 47, 56, 204, 211, 213

Index Of Subjects English Enlightenment 55, 57 French Enlightenment 58 mass enlightenment; popular enlightenment 51, 58, 207 moderate Enlightenment 39, 53, 110 Radical Enlightenment  1, 8, 16–17, 21, 25, 27–30, 35–58, 84, 104, 165–170, 204–205, 213, 215 Epicureanism 47, 58 equality 2–3, 36, 51, 53–58, 128, 145, 154–160, 167, 229, 233, 238, 240, 243 Aequalitas 157 equity (aequitas) 21 Erastianism 220–222 eucharist 71, 108, 186, 192, 197 ex nihilo nihil fit 194 Faith 50, 69, 91, 107, 128, 130–133, 158, 174–177, 181–184, 188, 190–191 analogy of faith 97 faith and reason 170, 174–177, 181 internal faith 128 freedom 21, 37, 57, 99, 125, 128, 136, 145, 154–158, 228, 239–240 free (sui juris) 128, 154 freedom of conscience 125, 136, 142, 168; (libertas conscientiae) 168 freedom of thought / expression 2–3, 57, 78, 134, 157, 160, 217, 219 freedom to philosophize / libertas philosophandi 37, 168, 221 freedom / liberty of worship 135–136 natuirlijcke evengelijke vryheit 3, 160 religious freedom 20, 76, 135, 168; libertas religionis 168 God 7, 23, 51, 70, 84–85, 93, 107, 180, 190, 197–198 God and nature; Deus sive natura 48, 65–66, 128, 155–156, 194 God as a lawgiver 54, 230 his attributes: extension and thought 194 Gomarists 130, 136, 145 government; civil government 46, 51, 121–145, 150, 153, 160, 220, 230–231, 238–244 ecclesiastical government 77, 134 Christian government 131–132

257 Heresy 220 hermeneutics 2, 9, 24, 40–41, 90–115, 127, 168, 183 Hobbesianism 36, 52, 155, 204, 216, 219, 221, 234–238, 243–244 leftist Hobbesians 234–237 Holy Ghost 51, 111 Huguenots 41–42, 58 human nature 179, 215, 237 humanism 90–98, 103–105, 111–114 Idols, idol worship 185–186, 189, 192, 194 afgoderyen 73 imagination 68, 236, 238, 244 imposture 204, 209, 211–215, 224 bedrieghen, bedriegeryen 72, 73, 210, 220 incarnation 83, 110, 168–170, 178–179, 189, 191–192 inequality 54, 128, 157–158, 160 inaequalitas 157 inquisition 91, 141 intolerance 38, 42–43, 71–72, 90 Islam, Muslims 73, 188 Judaism, Jews 17, 20, 65, 71–73, 80–82, 111, 113, 124, 142, 188, 214 anti-Semitism 72 Jus circa sacra 121–145 Language 4–7, 98–105, 235 bastard words (bastaardt-woorden) 4, 103–104 sermo externus 112 vernacular / Dutch 7, 25, 44, 48, 99–104, 196, 218, 235 libertinism; libertines 2, 48, 204 libertinage érudit 1, 7–8, 47, 58, 208, 213 love for one’s neighbour (liefde des Naestens) 79–80, 141 Lutheranism 19–20, 78, 108, 135, 144, 170, 174, 188–189 Materialism 2, 167, 169–170, 189, 194, 196, 215–216 matter (prima materia) 193–196 Mennonites 19, 70–71, 77, 133, 171, 185 metaphysics 2, 4, 37, 68, 102, 106, 108, 169–170, 178, 187–188, 195 Millenarians 71

258 miracles 36, 47, 49, 70, 80, 84, 170, 178–180, 196–198, 208, 211, 213 mixed government 38, 51, 56–57, 236 Monarchomachs 233, 244 monarchy 22, 38, 42, 46, 59, 125, 154, 233, 240, 243–244 monism 41, 46, 44, 48, 51–52, 167–168, 182 multitude 155, 161, 241–243 multitudo—populus 242 mysteries 49–51, 169, 173–175, 178, 181–182, 184, 188–189, 194–198 Natural law 52–53, 143, 154, 198 natural religion 68, 143 naturalism 1, 5, 37, 52–53, 66, 85, 155, 160, 167, 214, 236 Neo-Stoicism 231, 237 New Netherland; Delaware 3, 68, 70, 72, 82 Newtonianism 30 Oligarchy 38, 56–57, 231 omnipotence 84, 197 Orangism 46, 57, 76, 125, 130, 220, 222, 233 original sin 168, 179–180, 182, 190 Pact; contract; agreement 53, 112, 129, 155, 157, 159, 238 pactum unionis / pactum subiectionis 238 pantheism 66, 188, 196 passions 25–26, 110, 125, 151, 235–244 people; common people; populus; peuple 3, 7, 10, 22–26, 46, 53, 56, 58, 71, 73, 80, 82, 101–103, 132, 136, 144, 152–161, 165, 176, 182, 188, 191–192, 196, 216, 218, 230, 237–243 people’s sovereignty 22 persecution 82, 90, 141, 209 philology 90–115 philosophy 5–6, 16, 24, 35–36, 51, 103, 168–169, 221–222 philosophia vetus 27 philosophy and theology 24, 36–37, 48, 51, 93, 98, 105–108, 110, 168, 195 physics 106, 108, 198 Aristotelian physics 108 Platonism 108

Index Of Subjects Populare Staat 242 power 5, 20–22, 27, 29, 54, 58, 73, 121, 124, 127–145, 150, 153–158, 160, 215–220, 229–230, 232–233, 238–244 civil power 125, 127, 130–137, 141 ecclesiastical power 121–122, 127 natural power (potestas naturalis) 2, 155–156, 158 transfer of power 2, 128, 139, 155–157, 160, 238 Preadamites 209 prejudice 5, 8, 105–106, 159, 181, 184 ernstige verwerpingh der vooroordelen 5 priests 51, 125, 127–131, 133–141 priestcraft 50 privileges 2, 50, 129, 154, 159 Procès Rohan 4 prodii (lieutenants) 127–129, 150–151, 153, 155, 157–159 property 52–53, 157, 230, 233, 236–237, 243 prophecy; prophets 78–79, 8, 111, 113, 208 providence 36, 51, 84, 141 public sphere (Öffentlichkeit) 8, 170 Puritans 71–72 Quakerism; Quakers 70–72, 76, 78 Racovian Catechism 172–173, 190–191, 193 radicalism 6, 16 political radicalism 29, 35–39, 43–58, 220, 234, 244 Ramism 94 rationalism 2, 85, 44, 49, 53, 78, 84, 108, 110, 167, 169 reason 8, 21, 23–26, 47, 50–51, 65, 78–81, 97, 103, 105–112, 129, 137, 153, 156, 158–160, 174–199, 209, 217, 223, 236–237, 240 ancilla theologiae 174, 223 contra rationem 36, 177–179 corruption of reason 177, 179 divine reason 23–24 reasoning (raisonner) 8 sana ratio 65 supra rationem 36, 179–178 the most supreme gift of God 108, 182 word of God 23

Index Of Subjects Reformation 19–20, 27–28, 95, 97, 130, 137, 145 radical Reformation 49, 84 religion 2, 7, 22, 49–51, 62, 65–66, 68, 73, 76, 78–85, 92, 123–125, 127, 131–134, 137–145, 152–153, 160, 167–168, 176–179, 198, 217–221, 223 care of religion (cura religionis) 131–132, 139, 150 inner religion (interna religio) 92, 153, 158 outer religion 152, 158 reasonable / rational religion 23, 82, 108–110, 168, 170, 175, 178–185, 188, 194 Redelijke Godtsdienst 78, 82 religious freedom 135, 136; liberté de religion 140; Vryheid omtrent de verschillende Gods-diensten 140 religious violence 27–29 Remonstrants 74, 77, 135, 171, 183, 191 republic; republicanism 2, 5, 16–25, 29–30, 35–57, 76, 130, 134, 142, 144, 150–161, 227–244 commercial republicanism 229, 233, 244 Dutch republic 110, 121–127, 136, 138, 140, 145, 219–220, 227–244 Hebrew republic 97, 142 republic of Genoa 38, 241 republic of Venice 38, 232, 241 Roman republic 73, 126 Swiss republics 38 resurrection of Christ 84, 178, 190 resurrection of the dead 192, 198 revelation; revealed religion 36–37, 47, 50–51, 81–82, 109, 129, 134, 155, 175, 178–179 revolution 25–52 American Revolution 36–37, 43, 57, 228 French Revolution 9, 36–37, 43, 50, 56, 121, 152 Glorious Revolution 57, 180 right; rights 52, 57, 125, 128–129, 150, 154 human rights 51–53, 55, 57–58, 228 ius docendi 139 ius gubernandi 139 natural rights 52–54, 58

259 property rights 230, 233 transfer of rights 2, 128, 139, 155–157, 160, 238 Sabbath 214 saints 63, 70, 185–186, 223 invocation of saints 185–186 salvation 50, 65, 78, 102, 122–123, 130, 141, 156, 183, 190–192 scholasticism 52, 94, 105–106, 112, 135, 188 sects, sectarians 24, 27, 41, 71, 76, 79, 82, 84, 166 self-interest 239 self-love 236–237 Secteryen, en Verdeeltheeden 24 Socinianism 1, 16, 41, 48–51, 73–74, 76–78, 85, 165–199, 206, 214, 217 sorcery 208 Spinozism 25, 30, 37–57, 166, 214, 217–218, 221, 227 spiritualists; spiritualism 85, 135 sovereignty; sovereign power 22, 121, 124–125, 132, 137, 140, 215, 218, 220, 231–233, 241, 243–244 Stadhouder 232 state of nature (status naturalis) 54, 57, 128, 142, 155–156, 158–159, 215, 236–237 substance 184, 186–187, 189 ipstantia 186 supernaturalism, supernaturalia 49–51, 85, 107, 166, 178 superstition 21–24, 46, 68–69, 73, 76–84, 155, 158–159, 182, 185, 192, 216–217 overgelovigheyt 68 Synod of Dordrecht 19, 22, 29, 110, 114, 123, 130, 136 Teaching 24, 122, 129, 133, 139, 141, 153, 191–192, 221 ius docendi 139 theocracy 124 theology (Godgeleertheyt) 17, 24, 27, 29, 36–37, 43, 48, 51, 54, 85, 91–98, 101–110, 123, 165–198, 223 dogmatic theology 91 negative theology 85

260 theology (Godgeleertheyt) (cont.) rational theology 93 scriptural theology 96 toleration; tolerance 2, 20, 40–41, 46, 57, 72, 90, 140, 167–168, 217 Tolerantie omtrent de verschillende uiterlike Gods-diensten 140 translating / translation 7, 25, 44, 48, 99–104, 196, 218, 235 transubstantiation 178, 185–186, 192, 197 Treaty of Westphalia 17, 19 trinity 7, 81, 83–85, 108, 110, 165–199, 221 persona 184, 186–191, 193 personalitas 187 tyranny 72, 100, 124, 230, 240

Index Of Subjects Union of Utrecht 232 Unitarianism 49, 51 Virgin birth 178 Voetians 19, 30 Witchcraft 208 worship 70, 135, 137, 139–140, 186 cultus externus 144 external worship 70, 128–130 of “God or something else” (deum aliudve honorare) 158–159 reasonable worship 78, 142, 183, 185 Redelijken-Godtsdienst 78 uiterlijke, of openbare Godtsdienst 70