Eleusis and Enlightenment: The Problem of the Mysteries in Eighteenth-century Thought (Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, 351) 9004547541, 9789004547544

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Eleusis and Enlightenment

Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History General Editor Han van Ruler (Erasmus University Rotterdam) Founded by Arjo Vanderjagt Editorial Board C.S. Celenza ( Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore) M.L. Colish (Yale University, New Haven) J.I. Israel (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) A. Koba (University of Tokyo) M. Mugnai (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa) W. Otten (University of Chicago)

Volume 351

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bsih

Eleusis and Enlightenment The Problem of the Mysteries in Eighteenth-Century Thought

By

Ferdinand Saumarez Smith

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Plaque of Ceres from Campania, Italy. Second half of the first century BC–first half of the first century AD. Location: Paris, Musée du Louvre. Photo courtesy RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Stéphane Maréchalle. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at https://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024002754

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0920-8607 isbn 978-90-04-54754-4 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-69230-5 (e-book) DOI 10.1163/9789004692305 Copyright 2024 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. 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. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Acknowledgments vii List of Figures viii Introduction The Age of the Mysteries 1 1 Freemasonry and Enlightenment 17 2 Summary of Chapters 22 1 The Word Mystery 30 1 Christianity not Mysterious: John Toland 33 2 The Trinitarian Controversy 40 3 Toland not Deist 45 4 ‘Unfolding Nature’s Mysteries, and discoursing on Religion’ 49 2 The Religion of the Patriarchs 55 1 William Stukeley: The Antiquarian Freemason 60 2 On the Mysterys 65 3 The Egyptian Society 79 4 True Noachida: James Anderson 83 5 Chance Rays of the Hebrews: Andrew Michael Ramsay 87 3 Law, Agriculture, and the Afterlife 94 1 William Warburton and the Ancient Legislators 97 2 Agriculture after the Deluge: Noël-Antoine Pluche 108 3 The Origin and the End of Society: Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger 117 4 The Common Temple of the World 126 1 The Venemous Cure: Voltaire and Warburton 130 2 The Festival of Universal Liberty: Antoine Court de Gébelin 135 3 Illuminating the Heathen World: Johann August Starck 147 4 The Essence of Religion: Nicolas-Marie Leclerc de Sept-Chênes 154 5 Christianity Revealed 164 1 St John the Egyptian: Christian Ernst Wünsch 168 2 The Elysium of Reason: Charles-François Dupuis 177

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Contents

Conclusion Divided Testaments 189 Bibliography 197 Manuscripts 197 Printed Primary Literature 197 Secondary Literature 207 Index 228

Acknowledgments I first came across the Eleusinian mysteries as an impressionable teenager in Robert Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, and Carl A.P. Ruck’s cult book The Road to Eleusis (1977).1 Since then, my own road to Eleusis has been a long one, but I am grateful to the subject for compelling me to the history of ideas and for the many people I have encountered along the way. The majority of the research for this book was undertaken during a London Arts and Humanities Partnership-funded PhD at King’s College London, where I am thankful for the support of Clare Brant and Elizabeth Eger. Special thanks are due to my doctoral ‘hierophants’ Daniel Orrells and James Vigus, as well as to Sanja Perović, Miriam Leonard, and Katherine Harloe. I have also been fortunate to receive the expertise of James Campbell, Helen Dorey, Diane Clements, Martin Cherry, Susan Snell, and the sadly-deceased Ian Jenkins. In the process of turning the doctoral thesis into a book, I was given valuable advice by Florian Ebeling, Colin Kidd, Matthew Leigh, Han van Ruler, and Brill’s anonymous reviewers. I have also greatly benefited from the close reading and suggestions of Lucian Robinson and Max Norman. Thanks too to Ivo Romein at Brill for his friendly guidance through the process of preparing the manuscript for publication. I would also like to thank the British Library, the Warburg Institute, the Bodleian Library, the Society of Antiquaries, the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, the Wellcome Collection, and above all the London Library, where the majority of this book was written. My perspective on the research for this book has been immeasurably enriched by my concurrent work with Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation: I have been able to think about Moses the Egyptian whilst in the Valley of the Kings; Joseph-François Lafitau in the Xingu Indigenous Territory in Brazil; and the Eleusinian mysteries alongside the Ékpè leopard society in Cross River State, Nigeria. For those experiences and the opportunity to work with wonderful people around the world, I am deeply indebted to Adam Lowe – and to Arthur Prior for the introduction. Finally, thank you to my family: now you know why I wanted to make a detour through the suburbs of Athens to Elefsina. This book is dedicated to Dani Trew. 1 Robert Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann & Carl A.P. Ruck, The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries (New York, N.Y.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977).

Figures 2.1

Engraving of the Bembine Tablet (with reverse orientation) copied from: Bernard de Montfaucon, L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures, 5 vols (Paris, 1719), 2:332–333. Folded and pasted at the end of: William Stukeley, “Palaeographia Sacra or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients, being an explanation of the Table of Isis, or Bembine Table” [1744], MS.4725, Wellcome Collection, London 68 2.2 William Stukeley’s Neo-Platonic interpretation of the plan of the Bembine Tablet. William Stukeley, “Palaeographia Sacra or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients, being an explanation of the Table of Isis, or Bembine Table” [1744], MS.4725, fol. 2r, Wellcome Collection, London 70 2.3 William Stukeley’s design of the porch of the temple of the ‘Mysterys’, representing the material world. William Stukeley, “Palaeographica Sacra, or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients in an explication of that famous piece of antiquity, the table of Isis” [ca. 1735–1740], MS.4722, fol. 29r, Wellcome Collection, London 75 2.4 An engraving of William Stukeley’s sketch of ‘An Egyptian Sistrum in Possession of Sr. Hans Sloan 21. Jan. 1741–2.’ William Stukeley, “Palaeographia Sacra or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients, being an explanation of the Table of Isis, or Bembine Table” [1744], MS.4725, fol. 0v, Wellcome Collection, London 82

Introduction

The Age of the Mysteries

In the western outskirts of Athens lies a modest but picturesque archaeological site. The ruins, which in spring are covered with wild flowers and grasses, are clustered around the base of a rocky promontory, topped by a small museum containing excavated discoveries. From the entrance to the building there is a view out west across a bay dominated by a cement plant and a port with the container ships that serve it, and to the east there is a small Orthodox church dedicated to St George. Because it lacks any intact structure, only retaining the foundations of a large temple, it is a less visited place than the Acropolis. But over the centuries travellers have made their way to it and recorded their observations of the remains. On Shrove Tuesday 1676, two young men on the hunt for antiquity, George Wheler and Jacob Spon, made the journey on horseback and found the place deserted, ‘crushed down’ by ‘hard Fortune.’1 The most tangible record of its former glory was a colossal statue, apparently of a goddess with a basket balanced on her head decorated with ears of wheat and poppies. In the middle of the following century another traveller, Richard Pococke, on the second of his Grand Tours that encompassed Greece and the Near East, was not detained there long; he reported on the topographical details, noted the statue’s disfigured face, and commented on the poor and scarcely inhabited adjacent village.2 In 1766, Richard Chandler, travelling with the architect Nicholas Revett, noted a curious living tradition about this statue believed by the local inhabitants: that its removal would lead to the infertility of the land.3 This did not deter another visitor, Edward Daniel Clarke, who purchased it from the Ottomans at the beginning of the nineteenth century and donated it to the University of Cambridge, whilst complaining about ‘the ravages of the Goths’ and the ‘mistaken zeal of the teachers of the Gospel’ which had destroyed the place.4 A few years later, on an archaeological mission sponsored by that club of gentlemen connoisseurs the Society of Dilettanti, the dimensions of the temple’s foundations were carefully measured and sketched, and 1 George Wheler, A Journey into Greece (London, 1682), 425–431; 427. See also: Jacob Spon, Voyage d’Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grèce et du Levant, fait aux années 1675–1676 (Lyon, 1678). 2 Richard Pococke, A Description of the East, 2 vols (London, 1743–1745), 2:170–173. 3 Richard Chandler, Travels in Asia Minor and Greece, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1825), 2:237. 4 Edward Daniel Clarke, Testimonies of Different Authors, Respecting the Colossal Statue of Ceres (Cambridge, 1803), 4.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004692305_002

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Introduction

were later used by an accompanying draughtsman named John Peter Gandy as the basis of a speculative reconstruction of the temple exhibited at the Royal Academy.5 His older brother Joseph Michael, known for his atmospheric renderings of the neoclassical architect Sir John Soane’s designs, produced his own romanticised version in a watercolour that still hangs in Soane’s Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London.6 It is perhaps fitting that the remains of Eleusis are so meagre, because it is a place associated above all with secrecy – and secrecy invites the imagination. The town was famous in the ancient world for hosting the Eleusinian mysteries, an initiatory cult structured around the myth of Demeter and Persephone, participants in which were sworn to silence on pain of death.7 In the myth, Persephone is abducted to the underworld by Hades, prompting the distraught Demeter to search for her lost daughter, a trail that takes her to Eleusis where the inhabitants console her for her loss. In gratitude she bestows her sacred mysteries and the knowledge of agriculture upon the town. When she discovers her daughter’s whereabouts, Demeter petitions Zeus to intercede, threatening to lay waste to the earth if her wish is not granted. But because Persephone has eaten the seed of a pomegranate a deal is brokered in which she is destined to spend part of the year in the underworld and part with her mother. The earliest version of the myth is in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, a text only discovered in 1777, but the contours of the narrative were familiar before through summaries such as Apollodorus’ Library and lengthier renditions in verse such as Claudian’s The Rape of Proserpine.8 Because the Eleusinian mys5 Society of Dilettanti, The Unedited Antiquities of Attica (London, 1817). 6 Brian Lukacher, Joseph Gandy: An Architectural Visionary in Georgian England (London: Thames & Hudson, 2006), 98–99. 7 On the pagan mysteries see: Jan N. Bremmer, Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014); Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults in the Ancient World (London: Thames and Hudson, 2010); and Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987). Archaeologically-based studies of the Eleusinian mysteries include: George E. Mylonas, Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961); and Michael B. Cosmopoulos, Bronze Age Eleusis and the Origins of the Eleusinian Mysteries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). For a general account of the place of religion in Attica, see: Robert Parker, Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); and with a specific focus on Eleusis: Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 327–368. On Eleusinian material culture, see: Kevin Clinton, “Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries” Skrifter Utgivna Av Svenska Institutet I Athen 11 (1992): 7–209. 8 Apollodorus, Library 1.5.1–3. The Hymn to Demeter is thought to date from between the second half of the seventh century to the first half of the sixth century BC. On the dating of the text see: N.J. Richardson, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 5–12. On the discovery of the Hymn to Demeter by the Thuringian philologist Christian

Introduction

3

teries were both a direct product of the myth and a means of celebrating it, an understanding of the human institution is bound up with the interpretation of the mythic narrative. The mysteries stubbornly resist a conclusive explanation because the myth is endlessly interpretable. But that multitude of interpretations also has its own history. For many of those who looked back across the centuries to solve the problem of the mysteries, they represented not just a curious part of paganism, but insight into its very essence. The two groups of sources about them, assiduously compiled by the Dutch humanist Johannes Meursius and published as Eleusinia (1619), both presented difficulties.9 The first were those written by the ancient pagan authors who praised them: for Plato, initiates in the mysteries would ‘dwell with the gods’; Aristotle called them ‘the most honoured of all religious festivals’; and for Cicero they were ‘holy and awe inspiring’.10 But they remained opaque because of the oath of secrecy not to divulge the proceedings.11 The second group were those written by early Christian Church Fathers such as Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Eusebius who claimed to reveal the proceedings but did so in an extremely biased manner, as is particularly evident in the recurrent idea that the secrecy was a ruse to conceal sexual debauchery.12 By combining the statements of the former group who Friedrich Matthaei in a stable in Moscow in a manuscript dated to the early fifteenth century see: O. von Gebhardt, “Christian Friedrich Matthaei und seine Sammlung griechischer Handschriften,” Zentralblatt für Bibliothekwesen 15 (1898): 393–420; and Marinus A. Wes, Classics in Russia 1700–1855: Between Two Bronze Horsemen (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 77. On the early dissemination of the text in Germany see: Andreas Schwab, “The Reception of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter in Romantic Heidelberg,” in Andrew Faulkner, Athanassios Vergados, Andreas Schwab (eds.), The Reception of the Homeric Hymns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 345–366. An early textual reference to the myth, though not the mysteries, is contained in Hesiod’s Theogony, see: Hesiod, Theogony 912. 9 Johannes Meursius, Eleusinia; sive, de Cereris Eleusinae sacro ac festo (Leiden, 1619). Eleusinia was republished in Meursius’ collected works with Latin translations of Greek passages, see: Johannes Lamius (ed.), Ioan. Meursi. Opera Omnia, 12 vols (Florence, 1741–1763), 2: 457–547. On Meursius’s Eleusinia see: Asaph Ben-Tov, “The Eleusinian Mysteries in the Age of Reason,” in Martin Mulsow & Asaph Ben-Tov (eds.), Knowledge and Profanation: Transgressing the Boundaries of Religion in Premodern Scholarship (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 197–227. On Meursius’ career, see: Karen Skovgaard-Petersen, Historiography at the Court of Christian IV (1588–1648): Studies in the Latin histories of Denmark by Johannes Pontanus and Johannes Meursius (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002). 10 Plato, Phaedo 69.C; Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.24.2; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.119. 11 On the secrecy enforced upon the participants see the cases of Alcibiades and Andocides: Plutarch, Life of Alcibiades 22.3–4; Lysias, Against Andocides 6.50–53; and Andocides, On the Mysteries 1.25–26. 12 See, for example: Tertullian, Against the Valentinians 1; Clement, Exhortation 2; Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 2.3.

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Introduction

sought to promote the value of the mysteries without revealing their rituals, with those of the latter group who sought to denigrate their value by revealing their rituals, the sources provided a platform to debate both what might have happened, and what it might have meant to the participants and for their society. But Meursius, who did so much to answer the first question, was resoundingly silent when it came to the second; it would fall to his successors in the following century to venture answers.13 Speculation into the form and significance of the rituals attempted to project light into the dark recesses of Demeter’s temple, the Telesterion.14 But instead of the secrets of the goddess, the generations of thinkers that attempted to reveal the mysteries revealed rather more about themselves. Like a Rorschach inkblot, interpretations of the Eleusinian mysteries manifest the deepest concerns of a culture. This was never more so than in the era in which western Europeans began to travel to Eleusis: the Enlightenment. Between the visits of George Wheler and Jacob Spon in the latter half of the seventeenth century and John Peter Gandy and the Dilettanti in the early nineteenth (a stretch of time that can be thought of as the long eighteenth century) a profound transformation in the way in which Eleusis and the mysteries were understood occurred. The age of Enlightenment – the so-called age of reason – was also, paradoxically, the age of the mysteries. It is the aim of this book to explain why. The Eleusinian were just one among many varieties of mysteries – Samothracian, Cabiric, Isiac, Dionysiac, Mithraic – understood to have existed in the ancient world. But for early modern thinkers searching for a unified explanation of paganism, both pagan and Christian sources gave grounds to suspect an essential identity behind this variety. Pagan authors such as Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch, for example, wrote of the transference of Egyptian rites to Eleusis by Erechtheus and Orpheus.15 Eleusis was also praised by the 13 14 15

In the eighteenth century, the view of Meursius as a compiler rather than an interpreter is held by William Warburton, see: Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses, 2 vols (London, 1738–1741), 1:133–134. As Robert Parker points out, the Telesterion was unique among ancient Greek temples in its being designed to hold people rather than a statue of a god, see: Parker, Polytheism and Society, 351. On the etymology of the name, see: Burkert, Mystery Cults, 9. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 1.29. Plutarch, Moralia. Other Fragments 212. See also the comparison between Isis’ search for Osiris and Demeter’s for Persephone in: Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.21. The idea that the Greek mysteries originated in Egypt was discredited in the nineteenth century by Christian August Lobeck, see: Bremmer, Initiation, ix. On eighteenth-century ideas about the Egyptian mysteries see: Jan Assman & Florian Ebeling, Ägyptische Mysterien: Reisen in die Unterwelt in Aufklärung und Romantik (München: C.H. Beck, 2011); and Ebeling & Christian E. Loeben (eds.), O Isis und Osiris: Ägyptens Mysterien und die Freimaurerei (Rahden/Westfallen: Verlag Marie Leidorf, 2017).

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Greek orator Aelius Aristides as a ‘common temple of the world’, indicating the value of its cultural currency far beyond the walls of the sacred precinct.16 From a more negative perspective, Christian authors such as Gregory of Nazianzus wasted little time in distinguishing between the various forms of the mysteries, lumping them all together as the ‘dark invention of demons.’17 Precedents such as these gave the license to interpret other forms of the mysteries through the Eleusinian and vice versa; in the words of arguably the most significant eighteenth-century contributor to the debate, ‘in Discoursing then of the Mysteries in general, we must be forced to take our Ideas of them, chiefly from what we find practised in [the Eleusinian].’18 It was only in the second half of the eighteenth century, particularly in the work of the Baron de Sainte-Croix, that the knot of mysteries started to be untangled and each form began to be recognised for its unique characteristics.19 But Eleusis’ reach was not just into the sanctuaries of other gods and goddesses. Through the analogies drawn between initiation into the mysteries and philosophical wisdom or the understanding of nature or God, their solution promised transcendent knowledge: Plato compared initiates to those who ‘practiced philosophy in the right way’; Dio Chrysostom viewed the mysteries as symbolising ‘complete and truly perfect initiation’ in knowledge of the universe; and for Proclus they led souls up from the realm of matter to the gods, to participate in the divine.20 They also contained a potentially more troubling legacy: through the shared death and resurrection motif perceived to lie at their centre, the mysteries seemed to offer a pagan version of Christian salvation.21 Through these features, the mysteries in general and the Eleusinian mysteries in particular came to symbolise 16 17 18 19

Aristides, Orations 27.2. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations 39.3–4. Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:137. Baron de Sainte-Croix, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la religion secrète des anciens peuples, ou Recherches historiques et critiques sur les mystères du paganisme (Paris, 1784). On Sainte-Croix, see: M.P. Widemann, “Mystère et superstition dans le paganisme antique selon le Baron de Ste Croix,” in Francis Schmidt (ed.), L’Impensable polythéisme: Études d’historiographie religieuse (Paris: Éditions des archives contemporaires, 1988), 203–220. 20 Plato, Phaedo 69.D; Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 12.34; Proclus, Platonic Theology 1.3.1–18; Proclus, Commentary Republic 6.75.5. See also Seneca’s use of the language of initiation in describing progress in natural-philosophical knowledge: Seneca, Epistles 90.28–29; and Seneca, Natural Questions 7.30.6. 21 The idea of mystery cults as ‘religions of salvation’ was influential in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; however, in the second half of the twentieth century, Walter Burkert’s work undermined the idea that the mysteries offered a promise for the afterlife and emphasised their temporal benefits, see: Burkert, Mystery Cults, 3. See also: Theodora Suk & Fong Jim, “Salvation (Soteria) and Ancient Mystery Cults,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 18–19, no. 1 (2017): 255–282.

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Introduction

the relationship between Christianity and paganism for the eighteenth century and beyond. What makes a historical era? From our contemporary perspective, in an era labelled the Anthropocene because of the defining impact of human activity on the natural world, it is challenging to think back beyond the Industrial Revolution to the Christian worldview when eras were measured not by technology, but by categories drawn from the Bible. Laying claim to a new era entails definition in opposition to what came before, and in biblical terms this was primarily conceived through the antagonistic relationship between true and false faiths – Jew and gentile, Christian and pagan – and the fluctuations of their respective dominance over history. For the Calvinist Spon or the soon-to-be Anglican priest Wheler contemplating the ruins of Eleusis, the great pivot in world history at the forefront of their minds would have been the birth of Jesus Christ that caused the slow demise of the pagan world, leading to the extinction of the Eleusinian mysteries towards the end of the fourth century AD.22 But the other great pivot of more recent history, one which would have been present in their previous travels through Catholic Italy, was also conceivable through the dynamic between Christianity and paganism: Martin Luther’s movement of reform that sought to return the Christian faith to its textual origins by ridding it of the ‘pagan’ accretions of the papacy. As they scrambled over the ruins, faithfully transcribing inscriptions, Spon and Wheler would have had no idea that Eleusis, the flaming torch of paganism that had been extinguished by Christianity, would smoulder and ignite once again in the century that followed, ushering in a new era in the process. But to understand what was new about it, it is first necessary to look back to late antiquity to see how pagan mysteries were replaced by Christian ones. For an early Christian Church Father such as Tertullian in Latin North Africa, the fundamental principle on which religious truth rested was historical priority: ‘Whatever is earliest is true and whatever is later is counterfeit.’23 22 Parker, Polytheism and Society, 327. 23 Tertullian, Against Praxeas 2. This statement specifically refers to Christian heresy, but was subsequently applied more generally. On the late antique contest for priority among religions see: John North, “The Development of Religious Pluralism,” in Judith Lieu, John North, Tessa Rajak (eds.), The Jews Among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (London: Routledge, 1992), 174–193. On Tertullian in this context see: Guy Stroumsa, “Tertullian on idolatry and the limits of tolerance,” in Graham N. Stanton & Guy Stroumsa (eds.), Tolerance and Intolerance in early Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 173–184. See also: Arnaldo Momigliano, “Time in Ancient Historiography,” History and Theory 6 (1966): 1–23; Martin Wallraff (ed.), Julius Africanus. Chronographiae. The Extant Fragments (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007), xx–xxxi; and William Adler, Time Immemorial: Archaic History and its Sources in Christian Chronography from Julius

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If Christianity was the true religion then so too must it be the first; likewise if paganism and Judaism were not the first religions then this confirmed their falsehood. The early Church Fathers mounted a two-pronged attack to secure that originary status, arguing that paganism was a corrupted form of Judaism that had been diffused around the world and that the Old Testament typologically, that is symbolically, predicted the New.24 The first argument put Bacchus behind Noah, the second transformed Adam into Christ. But from the seventeenth century onwards, the inverse formulation of Tertullian’s logic began to arise as a possibility: if Christianity was not the first religion, was its status as the true religion at risk?25 It is in the precise sense of engagement with this question in European thought, specifically that of three contexts particularly touched by the Reformation, Britain, France, and the German-speaking mosaic of duchies and principalities of the Holy Roman Empire, that this Africanus to George Syncellus (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1989), 1–35. 24 Typology is an interpretative technique particularly associated with the early Church Father Origen, see: Joseph W. Trigg, Origen (London: Routledge, 1998), 32–35. Eusebius is another notable example of the use of Jewish prophecy in Christian apologetics, see: Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel, 1.1. On the influence of typology on the thought of the Renaissance see: Don Cameron Allen, Mysteriously Meant: The Rediscovery of Pagan Symbolism and Allegorical Interpretation in the Renaissance (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1970); and in the early modern period: Paul J. Korshin, Typologies in England, 1650–1820 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982); and Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974). 25 On the development of comparative approaches to religion and the emergence of the history of religion as a field of study see: Renaud Gagné, Simon Goldhill, & Geoffrey E.R. Lloyd (eds.), Regimes of Comparatism: Frameworks of Comparison in History, Religion and Anthropology (Leiden: Brill, 2019); David Allen Harvey, “The Rise of Modern Paganism? French Enlightenment Perspectives on Polytheism and the History of Religions,” Historical Reflections 40, no. 2 (2014): 34–55; Dmitri Levitin, “From Sacred History to the History of Religion: Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity in European historiography from Reformation to ‘Enlightenment’,” The Historical Journal 55, no. 4 (2012): 1117–1160; Guy Stroumsa, A New Science: The Discovery of Religion in the Age of Reason (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010); Martin Mulsow, “Antiquarianism and Idolatry: The Historia of Religions in the Seventeenth Century,” in Gianna Pomata & Nancy G. Siraisi (eds.): Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2005), 181–210; Chantal Grell, “Le Dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquité en France,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 331, no. 2 (1995): 882–976; Peter Harrison, ‘Religion’ and the Religions in the English Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); François Laplanche (ed.), Les religions du paganisme antique dans l’Europe chrétienne: XVIe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1988); and David A. Pailin, Attitudes to other Religions: Comparative Religion in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984).

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book will use the term ‘Enlightenment’.26 This definition is not claimed either as exhaustive or definitive; it is identified as just one means of investigating a period in which many aspects of thought, culture, and society were transformed. Neither was the process by which the question came to be answered in the affirmative universal; by no means everyone accepted it. But the fact that the position that Christianity was not the first religion was articulated is of fundamental importance for understanding the period. Even if the question “who came first?” is a somewhat blunt instrument, it cannot be overestimated how much rested upon the outcome of this contest for historical priority. At stake were the very foundations of religious and political authority in Christian Europe, as well as its position in a context of competing world cultures.27 The roots of Enlightenment as defined by the critical engagement with Christianity’s chronological priority can be traced to many of the most troubling debates of the seventeenth century: How to explain the inhabitants of the Americas as the offspring of Noah?28 Why did the Chinese have historical records that stretched far beyond even the most generous tally of the years of the generations that had elapsed since the biblical deluge?29 What to do with the troublesome dynastic lists of the ancient Egyptians in Manetho and the Babylonians in Berossus extending beyond the date of creation derived from the Old Testament?30 For present purposes, the emphasis is on how 26

27 28

29

30

On the impact of religious confessions on scholarly life in the seventeenth century, see: Nicholas Hardy & Dmitri Levitin (eds.), Confessionalisation and Erudition in Early Modern Europe: An Episode in the History of the Humanities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). On the threat posed to Europe by the Islamic Ottoman Empire in the early modern period see: Noel Malcom, Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). Hugo Grotius, De origine gentium Americanarum (Paris, 1642); Lee Eldridge Huddleston, Origins of the American Indians: European Concepts, 1492–1729 (Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 1967). Isaac La Peyrère, Prae-Adamitae (Amsterdam, 1655); Richard H. Popkin, Isaac La Peyrère: His Life, Work, and Influence (Leiden: Brill, 1987). See also: Anthony Grafton, New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992); Margaret T. Hodgen, Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1964). Martino Martini, Sinicae historiae (Münich, 1658); Roman Malek & Arnold Zingerle (eds.), Martino Martini S.J. (1614–1661) und die Chinamission im 17. Jahrhundert (Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2000); Liam Matthew Brockey, Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579–1724 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007). On the importance of these sources in chronological debates see: Adler, Time Immemorial, 23; 35; 106. On early modern chronology see: Anthony Grafton, Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, vol. 2: Historical Chronology (Oxford: OxfordWarburg Studies, 1993); Grafton, “Dating History: The Renaissance & the Reformation of

Introduction

9

these chronological problems catalysed changes in ideas about the origin of religion and the order of the development of religions: in particular, the genealogical relationship between paganism, Judaism, and Christianity. In this context, the seventeenth-century English chronologer Sir John Marsham and the Hebrew-scholar John Spencer may usefully be thought of as starting points.31 Both raised the question personified in Moses – that child of the pharaonic court – of Egyptian influence on Judaism: Marsham through his detailed tabulation of ancient records and Spencer through comparative study between features of Egyptian and Judaic ritual.32 This placement, as well as these figures, superficially concur with aspects of the French intellectual historian Paul Hazard’s view of a late seventeenth-century ‘crisis of the European mind’ in his book of that name, as well as more recent commentators who have argued for the decisiveness of an early Enlightenment.33 But the cycle Chronology,” Daedalus 132, no. 2 (2003): 74–85; and Grafton, “Isaac Vossius, Chronologer,” in Eric Jorink & Dirk van Miert (eds.), Isaac Vossius (1618–1689) between Science and Scholarship (Leiden: Brill, 2012). On the date of creation derived from the Old Testament, see: James Ussher, Annales Veteris Testamenti. (London, 1650). On Ussher, see: Alan Ford, James Ussher: Theology, History, and Politics in Early-Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 31 John Marsham, Chronicus canon Aegypticaus, Ebraicus, Graecus, et disquisitiones (London, 1672); John Spencer, De legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus, et earum rationibus (Cambridge, 1683–1685). There were ancient precedents to this argument: Diodorus Siculus, for example, writes that the practice of circumcision was carried over from Egypt to the Jews, see: Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 1.55. On Marsham and Spencer see: Dmitri Levitin, Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science: Histories of Philosophy in England, c.1640–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 156–168; and on Marsham: Derrick Edward Mosley, Sir John Marsham (1602–1683) and the History of Scholarship (Doctoral Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2022). See also the discussion of Spencer as a turning point in the history of religion in: Martin Mulsow, Enlightenment Underground: Radical Germany, 1680–1720 (Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Press, 2015), 65–66. 32 Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997). See also: Simonetta Bassi, “Images of Moses in the Renaissance,” in Antonella del Prete, Anna Lisa Schino, & Pina Totaro (eds.), The Philosophers and the Bible: The Debate on Sacred Scripture in Early Modern Thought (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 13–31. 33 Paul Hazard, La crise de la conscience européenne: 1680–1715, 3 vols (Paris: Boivin & cie, 1935). In more recent years, Hazard’s viewpoint has been adapted by Jonathan Israel in a narrative that places Spinoza’s philosophy as the primary cause of what he characterises as a “Radical Enlightenment” in his series of that name: Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man, 1670–1752 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Israel, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750–1790 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). On the influence of the series see: Steffen Ducheyne (ed.), Reassessing the Radical

10

Introduction

that placed Christianity at the end of a developmental process and not the beginning required the course of the eighteenth century to be completed. Even if that endpoint appears implicit to modern eyes in works of the seventeenth century, the gradual stages by which it became explicit must be followed to comprehend the wider cultural shift. The ‘crisis’ in fact unfolded at a less dramatic pace, passing through many intermediate positions that attempted in various ways to reconcile Christianity and paganism. Furthermore, it emerged not from the instantaneous rejection of the Christian religion by a renewed pagan philosophy, but from an internal process within Christian thought as it encountered paganism both ancient and modern.34 What role, then, did Eleusis have in this slow reversal in the pre-history of religion? It is something of a trope of modern anthropology to distil the origins of civilisation into three key ingredients. For the British-Czech philosopher and social anthropologist Ernest Gellner, the decisive developments in the ancient Near East that led to civilised life – defined as complex hierarchical societies – were the plough, the sword, and the book.35 For the American geographer Jared Diamond, the world dominance of the western European brand of civilisation was due to a deadly combination of guns, germs, and steel.36 The reception of the Eleusinian mysteries in the eighteenth century offered up a predecessor to this kind of tripartite account. Demeter’s role at Eleusis in the myth seemed to connect to three aspects of life that were recognised as prerequisites for civilisation in the early modern mind: agriculture, law, and an afterlife.37 As Enlightenment (London & New York: Routledge, 2017). For criticism of Israel’s approach, see: Antoine Lilti, “Comment écrit-on l’histoire intellectuelle des Lumières: Spinozisme, radicalisme et philosophie,” Annales 64, no. 1 (2009): 171–206; and Anthony J. La Vopa, “A New Intellectual History? Jonathan Israel’s Enlightenment,” The Historical Journal 52, no. 3 (2009): 717–738. 34 See J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999–2015), 1:8: ‘repudiation of theology … is intimately related with the theology it repudiates.’ On the unintentional process by which religious debate led to Enlightenment see: S.J. Barnett, Idol Temples and Crafty Priests: The Origins of Enlightenment Anticlericalism (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1999), xii. 35 Ernest Gellner, Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History (London: Collins Harvill, 1988). 36 Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (London: Jonathan Cape, 1997). 37 On the concept of civilisation in the eighteenth century see: Antoine Lilti & Céline Spector (eds.), Penser l’Europe au XVIIIe siècle: commerce, civilisation, empire (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2014); Bertrand Binoche (ed.), Les équivoques de la civilisation (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2005); Jean Starobinski, “The Word Civilization,” in Starobinski, Blessings in Disguise; or, The Morality of Evil (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), 1–35; Jörg Fisch, “Zivilisation, Kultur,” in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, & Reinhart Koselleck (eds.), Geschichtliche

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to the first, after having laid waste to it in distress at the loss of her daughter, Demeter makes the earth fertile again upon their reconciliation, giving agriculture to the Eleusinians in reward for their assistance in her search, which in some versions of the myth is then spread further afield by the Eleusinian prince Triptolemus.38 Demeter was also called ‘Thesmophoros’ by the ancient Greeks, a name which acknowledged her as a lawgiver.39 These two roles were related because from agriculture, which requires the division of land, came first ownership, and then laws to maintain the right of property.40 In turn, the cycle of sowing and reaping resonated with Persephone’s descent to and return from the underworld in the myth, thereby connecting agriculture to the belief in an afterlife, the promises and terrors of which were recognised as necessary for maintaining order in society.41 One, two, or all of these meanings may have been imparted to the initiates when, according to a late antique Christian source, the hierophant – the high priest whose name meant to show or reveal the holy – silently displayed an ear of wheat at the summit of the rituals.42 Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, 8 vols (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1972–1997), 7:679–774; and Lucien Febvre, “Civilisation: évolution d’un mot et d’un groupe d’idées,” in Lucien Febvre, Pour une histoire à part entiére (Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1962). 38 On the agricultural theme see: Callimachus, Hymn 6 to Demeter 1–23; Apollodorus, The Library 1.5.2; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 1.14; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.66–67; Apuleius, Metamorphoses 11.2; Augustine, City of God 7.20. For Triptolemus’ role, see also: Hyginus, The Myths 147. 39 Although they were also addressed to Demeter and Persephone, the festival of the Thesmophoria was celebrated exclusively by women, see: Helene P. Foley (ed.), The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 72–73. The chief ancient sources for the festival are: Aristophanes, Women at the Thesmophoria; and the scholiast to Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans. 40 In the seventeenth century, see: William Lewis (trans.), Edward Herbert. The Ancient Religion of the Gentiles (London, 1705), 228; and the comparable argument in: William King, An Historical Account of the Heathen Gods and Heroes (London, 1711), 43–44. See also: Roger D. Masters & Christopher Kelly (eds.), Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (Second Discourse), Polemics, and Political Economy (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1992), 51. In the late medieval context see Christine de Pizan’s view of Ceres’ civilising role: Sophie Bourgault & Rebecca Kingston (eds.), Christine de Pizan: The Book of the City of Ladies and Other Writings (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 2018), 79–82. On sacred history’s influence on ideas of the origins of civil society, see: John Robertson, “Sacred History and Political Thought: Neapolitan responses to the problem of sociability after Hobbes,” The Historical Journal 56, no. 1 (2013): 1–29. 41 Isocrates, Panegyricus 28–29. 42 Hippolytus, Refutation of all heresies 5.3. See: Parker, Polytheism and Society, 357; and Cosmopoulos, Bronze Age Eleusis, 36. The Eleusinian hierophants were drawn from the genos (family or clan) of the Eumolpids. On the relationship between the gene and priesthoods, see: Parker, Athenian Religion, 56–66; and on the wider Eleusinian priesthood:

12

Introduction

Where the word had once been interchangeable with fable and falsehood, a new direction in mythographic interpretation began to investigate myths as the cultural records of pre-literate peoples.43 This was a rethinking of the tradition of interpretation known as Euhemerism, named after the ancient Greek (fourth century BC) mythographer Euhemerus, which saw the gods as mortals deified, in particular for their contributions to civilisation.44 Demeter, who bestowed the knowledge of agriculture upon the Eleusinians, was a particularly suggestive example for this theory.45 Viewing the myth in this way revealed a more practical account of the origins of human society than could be found in the Bible, where God’s actions were the driving force behind history. The Eleusinian mysteries, by which the myth of Demeter and Persephone was embodied in ancient Greek society, thus presented a more sophisticated impression of paganism than could be absorbed by simplistic Christian invective against idolatry, which had characterised pagans as worshipping even

Kevin Clinton, “The Sacred Officials of the Eleusinian Mysteries,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 64, no. 3 (1974): 3–143. 43 The classic study of myth in the eighteenth century is: Frank Manuel, The Eighteenth Century Confronts the Gods (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959). On British contributions to the debate, see: Colin Kidd, The World of Mr Casaubon: Britain’s Wars of Mythography, 1700–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). See also: Jean Starobinski, “Le mythe au XVIIIe siècle,” Critique 33 (1977): 975–997. For studies of myth in earlier periods see: Jane Chance, Medieval Mythography: From Roman North Africa to the School of Chartres, A.D. 433–1177 (Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 1994); Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art (New York, N.Y.: Harper Torchbooks, 1961); and reaching to the chronology of the present book: Anna-Maria Hartmann, English Mythography in its European Context, 1500–1650 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 44 On the theory of Euhemerism and its reception see: Syrithe Pugh, Euhemerism and Its Uses: The Mortal Gods (London: Routledge, 2021); Nickolas Roubekas, An Ancient Theory of Religion: Euhemerism from Antiquity to the Present (London: Routledge, 2016); Marek Winiarczyk, The “Sacred History” of Euhemerus of Messene (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013); and Paul Alphandéry, “L’Évhémérisme et les débuts de l’histoire des religions au moyen âge,” Revue de l’histoire des religions 109 (1934): 5–27. See also: Peter G. Bietenholz, Historia and Fabula: Myths and Legends in Historical Thought from Antiquity to the Modern Age (Leiden: Brill, 1994). 45 See, for example, Julius Firmicus Maternus’ euhemerist interpretation of the myth: Maternus, Errors 7.1–6; and in the early modern period: Henry Dodwell, Two Letters of Advice (London, 1691), 50: ‘For this was generally the design of the Heathen Mysteries, to commemorate some memorable Action of their Deity.’ On Dodwell, see: Jean-Louis Quantin, “Anglican Scholarship Gone Mad? Henry Dodwell (1641–1711) and Christian Antiquity,” in Christopher Ligota & Jean-Louis Quantin (eds.), History of Scholarship. A Selection of Papers from the Seminar on the History of Scholarship Held Annually at the Warburg Institute (Oxford: Oxford-Warburg Studies, 2006), 305–356.

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the leeks and onions in their gardens.46 Ironically, this turned the tables back on the early Church Fathers who had found Euhemerism a valuable polemical tool to use against pagans, since it had made them into worshippers of mere mortals. Simultaneous to this reconsideration of the origins of civilisation, came the reassessment of another set of origins: those of the practices and beliefs of Christianity. The ritualistic and experiential aspects of the mysteries, as well as the structure of initiation and sworn secrecy, bore uncomfortable resemblances to some of the practices of the early Christian Church, which had admitted the faithful in stages and concealed the meaning of ceremonies from strangers.47 The mysteries were also defined by their relationship to two philosophical theologies: first, a tacit monotheism that raised the question of whether even pagans worshipped the true God. Second, that of Plato and his 46

The reference is to Juvenal’s fifteenth satire, see: Juvenal, Satires 15.9–11. On the reception of this passage in the early modern period see: Tom T. Tashiro, “English Poets, Egyptian Onions, and the Protestant View of the Eucharist,” Journal of the History of Ideas 30, no. 4 (1969): 563–578; 563. On early modern approaches to idolatry see: Carmen Bernand & Serge Gruzinski, De l’idolâtrie: une archéologie des sciences religieuses (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1988); Francis Schmidt, “La discussion sur l’origine de l’idolâtrie aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles,” in L’idolâtrie. Rencontres de l’Ecole du Louvre (Paris: La documentation française, 1990), 53–68; Carlos M.N. Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 54–104; Martin Mulsow, “Idolatry and Science: Against Nature Worship from Boyle to Rüdiger, 1680–1720,” Journal of the History of Ideas 72, no. 4 (2006): 697–712; and Jonathan Sheehan, “Introduction: Thinking about Idols in Early Modern Europe,” Journal of the History of Ideas 67, no. 4 (2006): 561–570. On the shift in usage from ‘idolatry’ to ‘polytheism’ see: Francis Schmidt, “Naissance des polythéismes (1624–1757),” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 59, no. 1 (1985): 77–90; and Schmidt, L’impensable polythéisme: Études d’historiographie religieuse (Paris: Éditions des Archives contemporaines, 1988). 47 This kind of analogy had roots in the Church Fathers, see: Clement, Exhortation 12. In the early modern period, see: William Cave, Primitive Christianity: or, the Religion of the ancient Christians in the first Ages of the Gospel (London, 1673), 210–219; and Claude Fleury, An Historical Account of the Manners and Behaviour of the Christians: And the Practices of Christianity Throughout the Several Ages of the Church (London, 1698), 168–169. See also Henry More who uses the categories of initiates in the pagan mysteries as an analogy of progression in the knowledge of Christianity: More, An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness (London, 1660), 1–3. In the eighteenth century, see Johann Lorenz von Mosheim on the adoption of ritual from the pagan mysteries by the primitive Christians: Mosheim, De rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum Magnum commentarii (Helmstadt, 1753), 10. On Mosheim’s treatment of Platonism, see: Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, “Platonismus, Kirchen- und Ketzergeschichte: Mosheims dogmatisch-historische Kategorien,” in Martin Mulsow, Ralph Häfner, Florian Neumann, & Helmut Zedelmaier (eds.), Johann Lorenz Mosheim (1693–1755): Theologie im Spannungsfeld von Philosophie, Philologie und Geschichte (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1997), 193–210.

14

Introduction

successors the Neo-Platonists, which raised the controversial question of the pagan influence on Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the afterlife.48 These two features, the role of the mysteries in the debate on the origins of civilisation and their role in a self-reflective process by which Christianity explored its origins in paganism, combined to create the problem of the mysteries for the eighteenth century. In these respects, whilst adapting the name, the problem of the mysteries fundamentally differs from an earlier ‘problem of paganism’ as defined through the issue of the salvation of virtuous pagans.49 Through this new set of concerns, the mysteries opened up a space into which a radically different history of the origin, development, and nature of religion could be written. The age of Enlightenment has long been thought of through the relationship between paganism and Christianity, yet its exploration through the reception of the Eleusinian mysteries has been surprisingly neglected. In the second half of the twentieth century, Peter Gay’s classic The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (1967–1970) conceived of this relationship as a struggle between a civic, worldly paganism and a supernatural, theocratic Christianity, arguing that a relatively small group of French philosophes of the mid-eighteenth century – Diderot, d’Alembert, d’Holbach, and above all Voltaire – drew upon the legacy of paganism so-conceived in their successful contemporary battle with Christianity.50 Summarised in the words of Gay’s subtitle their collective efforts amounted to ‘the rise of modern paganism’. Two of the most significant ancient authors for these philosophes were Lucretius, whose poem On the Nature of Things set forth an Epicurean system of materialism based on chance in which the gods were relegated to a self-regarding and ineffectual sphere, and the Roman statesman and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero, who represented an ideal of cultured virtue through the combination in his life of moral reflection and public activity; taken together they constructed an enlightened modernity in

48 See, for example: Jacques Souverain, Le Platonisme dévoilé (Cologne, 1700), 51–56. On the role of the Neo-Platonist Church Fathers in inserting the ‘pagan’ doctrine of the afterlife into Christianity see: William Coward, Second Thoughts Concerning Human Soul (London, 1704), 254. See also Henry More’s arguments against the Neo-Platonic influence on the doctrine of the Trinity: More, Grand Mystery, 7–9. 49 John Marenbon, Pagans and Philosophers: The Problem of Paganism from Augustine to Leibniz (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2015). See also: Peter von Moos, Heiden im Himmel? Geschichte einer Aporie zwischen Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Heidelberg: Winter, 2014). 50 Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 vols (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967–1970).

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contrast to a superstitious Christian pre-modernity.51 But with regard to the Eleusinian mysteries, Cicero is a more conflicted source, consideration of which points to a different historiographical model of the Enlightenment to that presented by Gay. In February 45 BC, Cicero’s daughter Tullia died during childbirth. This has been interpreted as a watershed moment in his life, testament to which can be found in the different attitudes to religion – including the Eleusinian mysteries – found in his writing before and after the event. As Arnaldo Momigliano pointed out, his response was not an increase in religiosity as might be expected, but appears to have been its opposite: increased scepticism.52 In book one of Tusculan Disputations, a rather one-sided dialogue written soon after her loss in which Cicero sets forth his views on the soul’s survival after death, he comments on the practice of deifying mortals, posing the question: ‘is not almost the whole of heaven … filled with gods of mortal origin?’ This is held to include even the ‘gods of first enrolment’ who likewise went ‘on their heavenly pilgrimage by this road.’ After this statement comes an intriguing recommendation in which the connection between Euhemerism and the mysteries is made explicit: ‘Inquire whose tombs are pointed out in Greece; recall, as you have been initiated, the lore imparted to you in the mysteries: then indeed you will realise how far this belief extends.’53 In On the Nature of the Gods, composed in the same year, Cicero (in the guise of Gaius Cotta, the character who most closely represents his own academic scepticism) mentions the mysteries after a discussion of Euhemerism, then proceeds to counter the approach of Tusculan Disputations by stating that ‘if we explain and rationalise these rituals, we gain more knowledge of natural philosophy [‘rerum natura’] than of gods.’54 These allusive statements greatly contrast with the earlier Cicero’s view of the Eleusinian mysteries. In On the Laws of 52 BC, a dialogue between 51

On Cicero’s eighteenth-century reception see: Matthew Fox, “Cicero during the Enlightenment,” in Catherine Steel (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Cicero (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 318–336; and on his influence on eighteenth-century British moral philosophy see: Tim Stuart-Buttle, From Moral Theology to Moral Philosophy: Cicero and Visions of Humanity from Locke to Hume (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). On eighteenth-century engagement with Epicureanism, see: Neven Leddy & Avi Lifschitz, Epicurus in the Enlightenment (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2009). 52 Arnaldo Momigliano, On Pagans, Jews and Christians (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1987), 65–71. 53 Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.29. Although Cicero does not specify the Eleusinian mysteries, this was inferred by early modern thinkers such as Jean Le Clerc and William Warburton, see: Chapter 3, pages 100; 106–107. Lactantius used this passage as an argument against paganism, see: Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.15. 54 Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.119.

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Introduction

himself, his brother Quintus, and his great friend Atticus, he had written in the voice of his own character: For among the many excellent and indeed divine institutions which your Athens has brought forth and contributed to human life, none, in my opinion, is better than those mysteries. For by their means we have been brought out of our barbarous and savage mode of life and educated and refined to a state of civilisation; and as the rites are called “initiations,” so in very truth we have learned from them the beginnings of life, and have gained the power not only to live happily, but also to die with a better hope.55 Cicero’s differing statements reveal the multiplicity of approaches to the mysteries: did they undermine public religion through a restricted revelation about the human or natural origins of the gods, or did they reinforce it by embodying ideas about the origin of civilisation and imparting knowledge of the afterlife? The later Cicero may be identified as the precursor to the model of Enlightenment set out by Gay in which sceptical philosophy discarded religion and the gods were unmasked, whether as deified mortals or natural principles. But the legacy of the Cicero of On the Laws demonstrates the centrality of the question of religion’s place in human society – as well as its role in having formed it – in Enlightenment thought.56 Both were ways of interrogating the power of religion, whether negatively or positively construed. The 55 Cicero, Laws 2.36. 56 On the English context of the debate on civic religion see: Ashley Walsh, Civil Religion and the Enlightenment in England, 1707–1800 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2020). On the religious Enlightenment or Enlightenments, see: Brian W. Young, Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century England: Theological Debate from Locke to Burke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998); S.J. Barnett, The Enlightenment and Religion: The Myths of Modernity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004); Jonathan Sheehan, “Enlightenment, Religion, and the Enigma of Secularization: A Review Essay,” The American Historical Review 108, no. 4 (2003): 1061–1080; David Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008); Ulrich L. Lehner, The Catholic Enlightenment: The Forgotten History of a Global Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); William J. Bulman & Robert G. Ingram (eds.), God in the Enlightenment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); and William J. Bulman, Anglican Enlightenment: Orientalism, Religion and Politics in England and its Empire, 1648–1715 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). For a contrasting view, see: Margaret C. Jacob, The Secular Enlightenment (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2019); and a balance between the two: Anna Tomaszewska (ed.), Between Secularization and Reform: Religion in the Enlightenment (Leiden: Brill, 2022).

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tension between these two aspects will be explored in the works of a variety of thinkers who responded to the problem of the mysteries. But the narrative that emerges from this exercise is one in which the reconstruction of ancient Christianity played as important a role as the emergence of a modern paganism. By looking back to an imagined Christian antiquity represented in the mysteries, eighteenth-century thinkers paradoxically contributed to the creation of a pagan future. And in so doing they helped to articulate the modern concept of religion as a human cultural phenomenon separate from either Christianity or paganism.57 1

Freemasonry and Enlightenment

On its surface, the subject of the Eleusinian mysteries may seem like the archetypally arcane debate, the preserve of dusty, study-bound scholars with little interest for the world beyond the academy. But the ancient precedent of the mysteries also helps to explain the meaning of a secret society whose origins were seen as reaching deep into the past, but whose widespread popularity was a phenomenon that coincided with the eighteenth century: freemasonry.58 It should not come as a surprise that a century which underwent a deep chronological transformation of the kind described above also saw the remarkable expansion of freemasonry, the legendary histories of which occupy a grey area between pagan, Judaic, and Christian traditions. Early freemasons of the 57 On the development of ‘religion’ as a doctrinal rather than virtue-based concept, see: Peter Harrison, The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press, 2015). See also on the changing concept of religion: Ernst Feil, “Religion,” in Joachim Ritter & Karlfried Gründer, Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, 13 vols (Basel: Schwabe & Co. Ag. Verlag, 1992), 8:631–727; and specific to the early modern period: Henri Krop, “From Religion in the Singular to Religions in the Plural: 1700, a Faultline in the Conceptual History of Religion,” in Joke Spaans & Jetze Touber, Enlightened Religion: From Confessional Churches to Polite Piety in the Dutch Republic (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 21–59. 58 I have followed Andreas Önnerfors in not capitalising ‘freemasonry’ on the basis of the argument that ‘Freemasonry’ gives a misleading impression of a monolithic institution with one set of values, relationship to politics, religion, etc. See: Önnerfors, Freemasonry: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 1. Caution must be exercised with the large literature on freemasonry. Useful starting points are the introductions to: Robert Péter (ed.), British Freemasonry, 1717–1813, 5 vols (London: Routledge, 2016); and Henrik Bogdan & Jan A.M. Snoek (eds.), Handbook of Freemasonry (Leiden: Brill, 2014). On the origins of the society see: David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century, 1590–1710 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); and Stevenson, The First Freemasons: Scotland’s Early Lodges and Their Members (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988).

18

Introduction

second half of the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth centuries found in its foundational texts, the so-called ‘Old Charges’, a compelling narrative for the transmission of knowledge from the ancient world to their contemporary one.59 In the two oldest of these, the Regius and Cooke manuscripts which are thought to date to the second quarter of the fifteenth century, the roots of masonry are traced through Euclid as well as Enoch, and Hermes as well as Abraham; a syncretic jumble that ensured wide appeal among later readers with varying religious outlooks. The degree to which freemasons took the narrative seriously as an actual historical account is difficult to determine; here will be observed a general shift from the claim of a direct link in the first half of the century to a broader analogy in the second. But even if it was only taken as emblematic, it certainly served as a powerful story through which to organise the society, both across Europe and wherever Europeans settled. It is against this backdrop that the unique identification which freemasons developed with the mysteries should be considered. Although different stages of the transmission history could be and were emphasised in the masonic tradition, as can be seen in their fascination with the Temple of Solomon or the Knights Templar, the mysteries help to define freemasonry’s relationship to religion through their position close to the supposed source of masonic knowledge.60 Numerous freemasons shaped the discourse on the mysteries and changing ideas about the mysteries reveal much about the development of freemasonry across the century. Even if these texts are lacking in unambiguous statements about what freemasonry actually is, they provide the means by which the question of what it meant to people may be approached. Therefore, the method employed here rejects a unitary history of the idea of freemasonry, seeking instead to write a history of ideas about freemasonry. Rather than falling into the same trap as those eighteenth-century authors who confidently believed they could reveal what really happened in the mysteries, freemasonry is treated at one remove through a history of interpretations. Nevertheless, it will be shown that the contributions of freemasons to the debate provide a 59 On the Old Charges see: Andrew Prescott, “The Old Charges,” in Bogdan & Snoek, Handbook of Freemasonry, 33–49. Earlier studies include: Douglas Knoop, G.P. Jones, & Douglas Hamer (eds.), The Two Earliest Masonic MSS (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1938); Wilhelm Begemann, Vorgeschichte und Anfänge der Freimaurerei in England (Berlin: E.S. Mittler und Sohn, 1909); and William James Hughan, The Old Charges of British Freemasons (London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., 1872). 60 Alex Horne, King Solomon’s Temple in the Masonic Tradition (London: The Aquarian Press, 1971). On the masonic context of the Knights Templar see: James Van Horn Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 299–307.

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historiographical corrective to the place of freemasonry in the Enlightenment, one that blurs the impression of a simple battle between pagan philosophy and Christian theology. The casual visitor to a public house in London’s Holborn area is likely to encounter a group of ageing men in pin-striped trousers, holding square briefcases in one hand and pints of ale in the other. Upon enquiring about the identity of a group such as this, the visitor might well be surprised to learn that their forebears were the inventors of a pagan-inspired religion of nature or were responsible for fomenting revolution in late eighteenth-century Europe. Freemasonry, like any other institution, is of course subject to change. Indeed, as an institution based around shared rituals whose meaning is only obliquely revealed, it is perhaps subject to more change than most. Its amorphousness has lent itself to a wide variety of interpretations among historians seeking to explain intellectual and cultural change in the era in which it became fully established and widespread. In the postwar period, the freemasonry of the Enlightenment has been elevated by some historians to a kind of religion, one that concealed either pantheism, the idea that God and nature are one, or deism, that reason not revelation should be the foundation of religion.61 This space removed from the mainstream of society in which heterodox religious views could be expressed has been characterised as an eighteenth-century reinvention of the idea of the religio duplex; that alongside their public teachings, ancient philosophers privately taught quite different ones to select pupils.62 61

The idea that freemasonry represented an invented religion with a pantheistic creed was the thesis of Margaret C. Jacob and was based on her reading of the works of the Irish freethinker John Toland, see: Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans (London: Allen and Unwin, 1981), 23. See also the critique of her interpretation of a specific text in Toland’s papers: W. Fielding & Christiane Berkvens-Stevelinck, “Les Chevaliers de la Jubilation: Maçonnerie ou libertinage? A propos de quelques publications de Margaret C. Jacob,” Quaerendo 13, no. 1 (1983): 50–73; and the response: Margaret C. Jacob, “The Knights of Jubilation: Masonic and Libertine,” Quaerendo 14, no. 1 (1984): 63–75. Jacob’s other works on freemasonry include: Jacob, Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Jacob, The Origins of Freemasonry: Facts and Fictions (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). For Jacob’s more recent appraisal of the subject see: Jacob, “The Radical Enlightenment and Freemasonry: Where we are now,’” REHMLAC 5.1 (2012): 11–24. 62 Jan Assmann, Religio Duplex: Ägyptische Mysterien und europäische Aufklärung (Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen, 2010). See also: Monika Neugebauer-Wölk, Esoterische Bünde und bürgerliche Gesellschaft: Entwicklungslinien zur modernen Welt im Geheimbundwesen des 18. Jahrhunderts (Wolfenbüttel: Lessing-Akademie, 1995); and Neugebauer-Wölk, Renko Geffarth & Markus Meumann (eds.), Aufklärung und Esoterik: Wege in die Moderne (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013).

20

Introduction

As well as a religiously oriented place, the masonic lodge has also been identified as a crucible of democratic participation, as well as a society in which social structures were levelled.63 Others, though, remain unconvinced, seeing the aristocratic organisational structure of many of the lodges as proof that the language of equality employed within them is just so much empty rhetoric, and that consequently with regard to the Enlightenment, freemasonry is best ignored.64 A closer look at the discourse on the mysteries in the eighteenth century provides a more nuanced picture, one that reflects the many phases of negotiation between the monolithic religious traditions in the broader chronological transformation described here. Of particular importance is the way in which the mysteries were perceived by freemasons in the first half of the century to contain traces of a prior form of ‘Christianity’ practised by biblical patriarchs such as Noah, demonstrating the influence in the masonic sphere of the diffusionist model of the history of religion, which accounted for paganism through the corruption of the Hebrew tradition. Before freemasons identified with the pagan mysteries as a deist or pantheist heritage, they saw themselves as participating in a society that could claim access to a more ancient and therefore universal source of Christianity. Although terms such as ‘prisca theologia’ (ancient theology) or ‘philosophia perennis’ (perennial philosophy) could be used to describe this idea, the phrases ‘patriarchal religion’ and ‘patriarchal Christianity’ are preferable in the context of the eighteenth century as they emphasise its precise origins in a prior revelation to Adam.65 This definition corrects the idea of a continuum of ‘pagan’ radicalism linking Renaissance Neo-Platonists, characterised as rediscovering a naturalistic version of the 63 Reinhart Koselleck, Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1988), 62; Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1991), 35. On freemasonry’s social role see also: Melton, Rise of the Public, 252–307. 64 Israel, Enlightenment Contested, 865. See also: Israel, “The Radical Enlightenment’s Critique of Freemasonry: Lessing to Mirabeau,” Lumières 22, no. 2 (2013): 23–32. 65 Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Philosophia Perennis: Historical Outlines of Western Spirituality in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought (Dordrecht: Springer, 2004), xviii. See also the classic study of the idea of the prisca theologia: D.P. Walker, The Ancient Theology: Studies in Christian Platonism from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London: Duckworth, 1972); Charles B. Schmitt, “Perennial Philosophy: From Agostino Steuco to Leibniz,” Journal of the History of Ideas 27, no. 4 (1966): 505–532; and Martin Mulsow, “Ambiguities of the Prisca Sapientia in Late Renaissance Humanism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 65, no. 1 (2004): 1–13. For a valuable discussion of the term in the context of the Jesuit mission to China see: Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 4:104–105. See also the comments warning against non-specific use of these terms: Levitin, Ancient Wisdom, 8–9.

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ancient theology, with pantheistic freemasons of the early eighteenth century who are seen as having disseminated it.66 How this universalising trend in Christian history related to the new universal ‘religion’ of deism, and whether the relationship should be conceived of as causal or antagonistic, is a question that shall be posed. If the biblical patriarchs had practised a prior form of revealed religion – a Christianity before Christ – that was consonant with natural religion, was there an intermediate ground upon which deism and Christianity could be reconciled?67 Another position, one held by freemasons in the second half of the century, was the acceptance of the premise that Christianity’s roots were in the pagan mysteries, specifically those of Eleusis – but for those freemasons, far from destroying Christianity, the pagan heritage strengthened it by demonstrating it to be the highest point of an evolutionary process. If the Eleusinian mysteries contained doctrines that were effectively the same as those held by Christians, could paganism and Christianity be reconciled? Although there were undoubtedly more anti-Christian identifications with the pagan precedent of the mysteries in the second half of the century, these must be balanced by the contemporary freemasons who Christianised them, albeit in a different way to their predecessors. But as the roots of European civilisation were redirected towards an ideal of ancient Greece there were two consequences. One was to distance Christianity from its roots in Judaism: where the biblical patriarchs had once been held up as paragons of wisdom, they now became devalued as simple nomads, with what was seen as little more cultural sophistication than the Bedouin roaming the Holy Land.68 Additionally, although the new developmental history of religion displaced the dichotomy of Christian versus idolator, it seamlessly replaced it with a new form of discrimination against non-European cultures based on a restricted idea of civilisation. Both these aspects remind us to interrogate the degree to which the enlightened rhetoric of universalism – whether more or less religiously expressed, and whether inside the confines of the lodge or not – was truly inclusive or tolerant. The result of these complicating factors is that neither can freemasonry act as a vessel for all manner of progressive religious or political ideas, nor can it be dismissed 66 Jacob, Radical Enlightenment, 33–35. 67 For the identification of patriarchal with natural religion see, for example: John Evelyn, The History of Religion, 2 vols (London: Henry Colburn, 1850), 2:14–23. On the multiple interpretations of natural religion see: Pailin, Attitudes, 23. 68 This shift is perhaps mirrored in the limited acceptance of Jews in the early English masonic context followed by continental backlashes later in the century, see: Jacob Katz, Jews and Freemasons in Europe, 1723–1939 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), 1–25.

22

Introduction

outright as having nothing whatsoever to do with the Enlightenment. Even if freemasonry did indeed become associated with a pagan-inspired radicalism in the second half of the century in mainland Europe, this picture needs to be qualified with those contemporaries as well as their predecessors who took a different approach.69 Thinking about the reception of the mysteries through a concept such as typology, the system of symbolic biblical interpretation, reveals a story that connects freemasonry to the conventional God of the Fathers rather than that of the philosophers as indicated by the religio duplex. 2

Summary of Chapters

Tracing the development of contributions to the debate on the Eleusinian mysteries across the longue durée of a century and through three national contexts raises a number of difficulties in terms of scope.70 The treatment of each national debate in parallel has been rejected in favour of a sequential approach that focuses on Britain in the first half of the eighteenth century, before moving to France and Germany in the second.71 The cast includes better-known figures whose ideas on the mysteries have been overlooked, and lesser-known figures who – along with their ideas on the mysteries – have been largely ignored. To emphasise a sense of cohesion between them, this book is organised to as great a degree as possible by direct connections, whether personal or textual. On the 12th of May 1729, for example, two volumes by the subject of the first chapter, John Toland, were given to the chief subject of the second chapter, William Stukeley, by one of the subjects of the third chapter, his friend William Warburton.72 Warburton’s The Divine Legation of Moses (1738–1741), which responded to both Toland and Stukeley, has been described by Colin Kidd as

69 On the question of freemasonry’s radicalism in the eighteenth century see: Cécile Révauger, “English Freemasonry during the Enlightenment: How Radical?” Lumières 22, no. 2 (2013): 33–48. 70 On the use of the longue durée in the history of ideas see: David Armitage, “What’s the Big Idea? Intellectual History and the Longue Durée,” History of European Ideas 38, no. 4 (2012): 493–507. 71 On the difference between national contexts in the Enlightenment see: Roy Porter & Mikuláš Teich (eds.), The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); and on transnational approaches more generally see: Edward Baring, “Ideas on the Move: Context in Transnational Intellectual History,” Journal of the History of Ideas 77, no. 4 (2016): 567–587. 72 William Stukeley, “Memoirs” [n.d.], Bod. MS. Eng. misc. e. 121, fol. 77r, Bodleian Library, Oxford. This likely refers to: John Toland, A Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. John Toland, 2 vols (London, 1726).

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causing ‘the biggest intellectual controversy in eighteenth-century England.’73 Although undoubtedly significant in its impact there, in terms of the mysteries the debate stultified in the dry technical responses to the work made by English divines.74 Examples such as Edward Gibbon’s anonymously published Critical Observations on the Design of the Sixth Book of the Aeneid (1770) are of interest on account of its author; however, like the many other English responders he deconstructs Warburton’s approach to the mysteries without constructing a theory in its place.75 The legacy of this is evident in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1789) in which the Eleusinian mysteries are simply dismissed by their association with the fanatic Neo-Platonism of the late antique Roman emperor Julian the Apostate.76 In eighteenth-century France, by contrast, Warburton’s book catalysed new developments in the debate by responders who freely theorised about their significance and criticised Christianity in a more combative manner. In turn, these new French ideas about the mysteries were influential in Germany, where there were also thinkers who drew both positive and negative conclusions from the idea of an evolution of Christianity from the pagan mysteries.77 Warburton’s Divine Legation is, therefore, the pivotal book in the shift of the debate from Britain in the first half of the eighteenth century to continental Europe in the second.78 73 William Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses, 2 vols (London, 1738–1741). Kidd, Mr Casaubon, 102. 74 Arthur Ashley Sykes, An Examination of Mr. Warburton’s Account of the Conduct of the Antient Legislators, of the Double Doctrine of the Old philosophers, of the Theocracy of the Jews, and of Sir Isaac Newton’s Chronology (London, 1744); Anon. [John Towne], A Critical Inquiry into the Opinions and Practice of the Ancient Philosophers, concerning the nature of the Soul and a Future State, And their Method of teaching by the Double Doctrine (London, 1747); John Leland, The Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation Shewn from the State of Religion in the Antient Heathen World (London, 1764); and John Towne, A Dissertation on the Ancient Pagan Mysteries: wherein the opinions of Bishop Warburton and Dr Leland on this subject are particularly considered (London, 1766). 75 Edward Gibbon, “Critical Observations on the Design of the Sixth Book of the Aeneid,” in The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, 5 vols (London: John Murray, 1814), 4:467–514. In fact, Gibbon’s argument had already been made by the Church historian John Jortin, see: Jortin, Six Dissertations upon Different Subjects (London, 1755), 310. For Gibbon’s acknowledgment of this, see: Gibbon, Works, 4:510. 76 For Gibbon’s view of Julian the Apostate see: Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols (London, 1776–1789), 4:61. J.G.A. Pocock observes that Gibbon bypasses the problem of the pagan mystery cults, see: Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 5:281. Thomas Taylor interpreted the Eleusinian mysteries through Neo-Platonism, see: Taylor, The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, A Dissertation (Amsterdam, 1790). 77 On Franco-German intellectual exchange see: Michel Espagne, Les transferts culturels franco-allemands (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1999). 78 Other late points of interest in the English debate are the impact of the discovery of Hinduism, see: Francis Wilford, “Remarks on the Names of the Cabirian Deities and on

24

Introduction

Each of the chapters focuses on a thinker or set of thinkers who reframed the relationship between paganism, Judaism, and Christianity in ways that move the model of the Enlightenment beyond a simplistic battle between pagan philosophy and Christian superstition. Chapter one presents a strict separation between paganism and a very specific conception of Christianity in John Toland’s thought, which entailed the rejection of the ‘pagan’ doctrine of the Trinity and sources of the Old Testament in favour of the man Jesus, who had a unique intuitive insight into the ‘mind’ of God. This is explored through his engagement with the pagan mysteries (broadly and polemically conceived) in his first major work Christianity not Mysterious (1696).79 There they have two roles, both positive and negative: first, they presented a structural analogy of Christ’s revelation as only externally mysterious but internally reasonable; second, they were the historical means by which the simple and reasonable revelation of primitive Christianity was first corrupted, leading ultimately to the ‘idolatry’ and superstition of the contemporary Catholic church. In parallel, Toland rejected the diffusionist model of the history of religion that relied on the Old Testament, and acknowledged Egyptian priority in the ancient world; an argument which looms behind the eighteenth-century debate on the Eleusinian mysteries. It didn’t matter to Toland whether the customs of Judaism had been influenced by the pagans of ancient Egypt through Moses, all that mattered was preserving the rational message of Christ – the man and not the God – from the corruption of paganism, whether ancient or modern. Chapter two, which explores the response to the threat represented by Toland’s position in William Stukeley’s thought, shows how paganism could be absorbed within a Christian framework through a diffusionist interpretation of the Hebrew tradition. Stukeley emphasised the importance not of primitive, but patriarchal Christianity, by using an adaptation of typology, the branch of symbolic biblical interpretation that attempted to write the New Testament into the Old. As is revealed in his little-known manuscript A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients in an explication of that famous piece of antiquity, the table of Isis (c.1735–1738), to him the pagan mysteries were also a corrupted form of Christianity, but not of the gospel after Christ, rather of that prior

79

some words Used in the Mysteries of Eleusis,” in Asiatic Researches 5 (1799): 297–302. See also references by John Zepheniah Holwell, Nathaniel Brassey Halhead, and Reuben Burrow in: P.J. Marshall, The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 62–63; 146–147; 487. Erasmus Darwin, who was a freemason, is noteworthy for his Eleusinian interpretation of the Portland Vase in: Darwin, The Botanic Garden (London, 1791), 53–59; as well as his reference to Eleusis in: Darwin, The Temple of Nature; or, The Origin of Society (London, 1803), 12. John Toland, Christianity not Mysterious (London, 1696).

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revelation of ‘Christianity’ given to Adam and practised by Noah and the biblical patriarchs.80 In this model paganism was to be investigated for the traces of that proto-Christian religion. Where in Toland’s approach the entire hierarchical apparatus of the church was junked as a relic of paganism – including, it should not be forgotten, the income of clerics such as Stukeley and Warburton – in Stukeley’s the highly specific character of early eighteenth-century Anglicanism was legitimised through the model of the most ancient form of religion. And so too was freemasonry, the rituals of which he believed to contain traces of that ‘pagan’ (or rather patriarchal Christian) religion. By placing these ideas within their aristocratic social context, it will be argued that far from it being the avant-garde of a radical Enlightenment, it is the antiquarian Stukeley who is the representative of freemasonry’s religious and intellectual character in the first half of the eighteenth century. It will also be suggested through the example of the Scottish-born Catholic-convert Andrew Michael Ramsay that this identity was transplanted into France as well, although along with the transformation of ideas about ancient history it subsequently grew into a quite different institution in that soil. It is relevant for the justification of the shift in attention to continental Europe that later references to the mysteries by British freemasons are simply paraphrases of Ramsay’s most famous masonic text.81 In chapter three, Warburton attempts to stage a brilliant coup between the positions of Toland and Stukeley, relating the mysteries to the debate on the origins of civilisation. He acknowledged aspects of the argument of pagan priority held by Toland, thus allowing him to sneer at the credulous Christian diffusionism of Stukeley, whilst making the counter-attack that the Jews could be proved to have been divinely chosen on the basis of the absence of the doctrine that he believed (on the evidence of the lesser mysteries) was essential to all societies: a future state of rewards and punishments. He failed spectacularly, spending the rest of his career responding to a multitude of authors who pointed out the contradictions in his argument. But for anti-Christian critics his failure was fruitful. By adapting a political theory into the debate, 80 William Stukeley, “Palaeographica Sacra, or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients in an explication of that famous piece of antiquity, the table of Isis” [ca. 1735–1740], MS.4722, Wellcome Collection, London; Stukeley, “Palaeographia Sacra or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients, being an explanation of the Table of Isis, or Bembine Table” [1744], MS.4725, Wellcome Collection, London. 81 For example, see: John Codrington, “On the Design of Masonry (1770),” in George Oliver (ed.), The Golden Remains of the Early Masonic Writers, 5 vols (London, 1847–1850), 1:212–213; and Anon. [Robert Trewman], “The Principles of Free-Masonry Delineated (1777),” in Péter, British Freemasonry, 1:203.

26

Introduction

Warburton accelerated a process that would eventually be used against Christianity. This role as an unintended catalyst is reflected in Histoire du ciel (1739) by the Jansenist Noël-Antoine Pluche, who was accused of plagiarising Divine Legation by a French ally of Warburton, Étienne de Silhouette, but whose approach was in fact very different.82 In many ways it was the same diffusionism of Stukeley and Ramsay, but he also introduced another element into play. Pluche linked the origin of the Eleusinian mysteries to the biblical deluge by associating them with the subsequent emergence of agriculture. Although this was intended as a defence of the narrative of Genesis, by linking this practical concern to the history of religion, like Warburton he unwittingly provided ammunition for more antagonistic approaches to Christianity. L’Antiquité dévoilée (1766) by Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, a favourite of philosophes such as the Baron d’Holbach, developed Pluche’s argument through the idea of the deluge as a primal trauma from which all religious customs were developed in response, including the lesser mysteries which were instituted to celebrate the discovery of agriculture. This was a new iteration of the ancient fear-theory of the origin of religion, epitomised by the Roman poet Publius Papinius Statius in the Thebaid in the phrase ‘fear first made gods in the world’, which shaped Boulanger’s own theory of the greater mysteries: that they revealed the knowledge of the future destruction of the world in an Apocalypse.83 It was this that was concealed with such care in the greater mysteries, not the doctrine of the unity of God as argued by Warburton, since the knowledge of impending doom was antithetical to the settling of a society. In chapter four, which explores the slippery border between deism – religion based on reason – and approaches to Christianity that emphasised its rationality, responses to the chronological reversal will be considered in a variety of French and German texts by freemasons of the latter half of the eighteenth century: La philosophie de l’histoire (1765) by Voltaire, who was initiated only at the end of his life; in Monde primitif (1773–1782) by the physiocrat and freemason Antoine Court de Gébelin; in Hephästion (1775) by the 82 Noël-Antoine Pluche, Histoire du ciel considéré selon les idées des poétes, des philosophes et de Moïse, 2 vols (Paris, 1739). 83 Statius, Thebaid 3.661. On the figure of Capaneus who proclaims this phrase, see: Matthew Leigh, “Statius and the Sublimity of Capaneus,” in M.J. Clarke, B.G.F. Currie, and R.O.A.M. Lyne (eds.), Epic Interactions: Perspectives on Homer, Virgil, and the Epic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 217–241. On ancient atheism more generally, see: Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World (London: Faber & Faber, 2016). A notable early modern user of the idea was Thomas Hobbes, who applied it as an explanation of ‘the many Gods of the Gentiles’, see: Hobbes, Leviathan, or, The Matter, Form, and Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiastical and Civil (London, 1651), 52–53.

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historian of religion and freemason Johann August Starck; and in Essai sur la religion des anciens Grecs (1787) by Nicolas-Marie Leclerc de Sept-Chênes, the secretary of the cabinet of Louis XVI, who it will be suggested on the basis of a reference paraphrasing Ramsay in his book was probably a freemason also.84 Both Voltaire and Court de Gébelin responded to Warburton’s view that the Eleusinian mysteries taught the unity of God by repurposing the idea in a history of religion that began with primitive deism. But Court de Gébelin also believed that they had fulfilled social and political roles that were directly comparable to French Protestantism, and that both were rational in so far as they promoted the naturally religious sociability of humankind. In the cases of Starck and Sept-Chênes, although the diffusionism of earlier freemasons such as Ramsay and Stukeley remained an important background, they found a very different way to Christianise the pagan mysteries. Instead of seeing them as a corruption of a prior form of patriarchal Christianity, they argued that paganism itself contained an essence which was fundamentally Christian, and which had developed into Christianity over time. Over the century, the Eleusinian mysteries came to challenge Christianity as an alternative account of the origins of civilisation; by the end of it, some thinkers argued that Christianity itself was inimical to civilisation. In the final chapter, which explores this concluding point through the impact of astronomy on the history of religion, the negative approach to the idea that Christianity’s roots were in the pagan mysteries is shown in the works of more combative anti-Christian thinkers. In both Horus (1783), by the astronomer and freemason Christian Ernst Wünsch, and Origine de tous les cultes. Ou, religion universelle (1795) by Charles-François Dupuis, also an astronomer as well as a member of the Council of Five Hundred in revolutionary France, a division was enacted in the mysteries based on their relationship to nature.85 In Wünsch’s case, the Eleusinian mysteries were rooted in astronomy, true mathematical observations of nature that gave rise to deism, whereas Christianity’s origins were in the mysteries of ancient Egypt and the Near East, which were 84 Voltaire, La philosophie de l’histoire (Geneva, 1765); Johann August Starck, Hephästion (Königsberg, 1775); Antoine Court de Gébelin, Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne, considéré dans son génie allégorique et dans les allégories auxquelles conduisit ce génie; précédé du plan general, 9 vols (Paris, 1773–1782); Nicolas-Marie Leclerc de Sept-Chênes, Essai sur la religion des anciens Grecs (Geneva, 1787). 85 Christian Ernst Wünsch, Horus oder Astrognostisches Endurtheil über die Offenbarung Johannis und über die Weissagungen auf den Messias wie auch über Jesum und seine Jünger. Mit einem Anhang von Europens neuern Aufklärung und von der Bestimmung des Menschen durch Gott. Ein Lesebuch zur Erholung für die Gelehrten und ein Denkzeddel für Freimaurer (Ebenezer: Vernunfthaus, 1783) [Halle: Gebauer, 1783]; Charles-François Dupuis, Origine de tous les cultes. Ou, religion universelle, 7 vols (Paris, 1795).

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based on the false science of astrology, exemplified by the Jewish prophets and the figure of John the Evangelist. For Dupuis, the division was temporal not geographical: at their origin the mysteries had contributed to the civilisation of humankind through the empirical recognition of nature as God, but with the abstraction of spirit from matter the institution was corrupted, and its doctrine of the afterlife became manipulated for material gain in a process that eventually led to Christianity. The distance of these figures from Toland must be emphasised: there was no role for Christ the messenger in their arguments, who was unmasked by Wünsch as a canny political operator who manipulated the Jewish expectation of a worldly Messiah, and by Dupuis as a pagan solar deity. It will not be argued that in the closing decades of the century the anti-Christian paganism of Wünsch was representative of freemasonry and the Christianised paganism of Starck and Sept-Chênes was not (as argued in the early English context), but that both the more and the less radical tendencies existed in the movement. The distinction is one recognised by, for example, the Jesuit abbé Augustin de Barruel who had no quarrel with the English freemasons but railed against their continental counterparts for having sparked off the French Revolution; an argument also made by Starck, who eventually turned against freemasonry.86 Under the new evolutionary model of the history of Christianity rooted in ancient Greece, whether positively or negatively conceived, the religion that lost prestige was Judaism. Therefore, the debate on the Eleusinian mysteries represents a fork in the road that points to the dual development of nineteenth-century philhellenism and antisemitism.87 The mysteries caused a fundamental split in Christianity, that strange hybrid of Judaic and Greek 86

87

Augustin de Barruel, Memoirs, Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, 4 vols (London, 1798), 2:263. On Barruel see: Michel Riquet, Augustin de Barruel: un Jésuite face aux Jacobins franc-maçons (Paris: Beauchesne, 1989); and Sylva Schaeper-Wimmer, Augustin Barruel, S.J. (1741–1820): Studien zu Biographie und Werk (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1985). On the origins of the theory of a masonic influence on the French Revolution see: Claus Oberhauser, Die verschwörungs-theoretische Trias: Barruel-Robinson-Starck (Innsbruck, Wien, Bozen: Studien Verlag, 2013). Miriam Leonard, Socrates and the Jews: Hellenism and Hebraism from Moses Mendelssohn to Sigmund Freud (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2012). On the development of German philhellenism see: Suzanne Marchand, Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996); and William J. McGrath, German Freedom and the Greek Ideal: The Cultural Legacy from Goethe to Mann (New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). See also on Christian approaches to Judaism: Adam Suttcliffe, Judaism and Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); and Frank Manuel, The Broken Staff: Judaism through Christian Eyes (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992).

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culture, reorienting it away from its roots in the former to the idealisation of the latter. The developmental arguments made in the later stages of the debate reveal why even though the eighteenth century articulated the pagan origins of Christianity, there remained ways to justify Christianity through the Eleusinian mysteries which would continue to sustain thinkers, including F.W.J. Schelling and G.W.F. Hegel, long into the nineteenth century. Revelation was no longer bestowed by God at certain moments of history, it emerged through the historical process itself, in which the Eleusinian mysteries played a pivotal role as a preparation for the gospel.

Chapter 1

The Word Mystery to understand aright what the word Mystery imports, we must trace the Original of it as far back as the Theology of the antient Gentiles, whereof it was a considerable Term.1

∵ The Enlightenment is often defined through a series of dichotomies: the triumph of reason over religion, science – or more accurately natural philosophy – over superstition, measurement over mystery; light, ultimately, over darkness. On first glance, then, it seems counter-intuitive that a period supposedly dedicated to ridding the world of mystery should have been so captivated by pagan mysteries. To understand why this was in fact the case, it is necessary to begin not with paganism, but with the meaning of mystery in the context of Christianity. How could simple bread and wine once ingested become the body and blood of Christ? How could a man be born the son of a virgin? Or die and come back to life? And how could that man be both in time and as the Word or Logos beyond it? Hard-to-answer questions such as these tended to point to the presence of a Christian mystery. Towards the end of the seventeenth century in Britain, one of the most prevalent of these questions addressed arguably the central tension in Christianity: how could God be a supreme unity and as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the same time be made up of three distinct but co-eternal persons? The explanation given by those who sought to defend the Trinity was simple: this was a mystery, something belonging with God far above human reason, so not to be pried into. But for others, human reason was God-given and could not, therefore, accept a self-evident impossibility. The debate between those who thought three could be one, trinitarians, and those who did not, unitarians, was also conceived by the latter group in terms of the division between Jew and gentile, or paganism and Christianity. Believing that God could be three persons was effectively polytheism, making believers in this trio of gods no better than pagans. Furthermore, the consequence of there being only one God was that Jesus Christ must therefore have been a man, 1 John Toland, Christianity not Mysterious (London, 1696), 68.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004692305_003

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even if he was a very special kind of man who had brought the true knowledge of that one God to the world. The pagan mysteries took on significance in the context of the late seventeenth-century debate on the Trinity both as a conceptual means of exploring the relationship between reason and mystery, and as a historical explanation of how the man Jesus was elevated to the status of God. This may be seen in a text which has long been recognised as part of the early-Enlightenment canon for its putative role in the deist controversy, the debate on the foundations of religion in reason rather than revelation, but in which the fundamental importance of the pagan mysteries has been surprisingly overlooked: John Toland’s Christianity not Mysterious (1696). A key component of the book is a philological investigation of the meaning of the word ‘mystery’, which traces the term back to its usage in both ancient pagan and early Christian sources, following the Protestant Isaac Casaubon’s treatment of the subject in a response to the Catholic Cardinal Baronius.2 In particular, Toland attempts to establish the influence of paganism on Christianity through the infiltration of the primitive Christianity of the man Jesus by the pagan mysteries in late antiquity, an idea that would prove to be extremely significant in the eighteenth century.3 This opening chapter has two aims: first, in the context of the wider narrative of a chronological reversal addressed in this book, it seeks to show how Toland’s view of the pagan mysteries set the terms for subsequent contributors to the debate. Second, it argues that the pagan mysteries provide an interpretative framework by which to reach an integrated portrait of Toland’s thought, which has been divided up in various ways by scholars since the 1980s.4 2 Isaac Casaubon, De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI. Ad Cardinalis Baronii prolegomena in Annales (London, 1614); Caesar Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, 12 vols (Rome, 1593–1607). On Casaubon’s criticism see: Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 55–59. 3 See: Smith, Drudgery Divine, 13–19; and Walther Glawe, Die Hellenisierung des Christentums in der Geschichte der Theologie von Luther bis auf die Gegenwart (Berlin: Trowitzsch & Sohn, 1912). 4 Based on his Pantheisticon (1720), Toland was identified as a pantheist and freemason in: Margaret C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans (London: George, Allen and Unwin, 1981), 23. Robert E. Sullivan emphasised the unitarian influence on his thought, see: Sullivan, John Toland and the Deist Controversy: A Study in Adaptations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), 82–140; 173–204. Chiara Giuntini saw Toland as having evolved from relative moderate to radical, see: Giuntini, Panteismo e ideologia repubblicana: John Toland (1670–1722) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1979). In more recent years, the deist identification has been questioned, see: Wayne Hudson, The English Deists: Studies in Early Enlightenment (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2009), 85; and

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Toland’s treatment of the pagan mysteries would logically be expected to conform with his interest in the religio duplex or double-doctrine, the co-existing public and private religious teachings of the philosophers of the ancient world, thereby strengthening the interpretation of him as a thinker who adapted his true radical views to society.5 But the double-doctrine model has in fact obscured the importance of a concept drawn from Christian thought which plays a central role in Christianity not Mysterious and has its own dynamics of dualism: typology.6 This branch of biblical interpretation saw figures and events from the Hebrew bible as symbolical ‘types’ that presaged the Christian religion. The structure of typology as a concealed truth informs Toland’s view of the pagan mysteries as a means of communication analogous to revelation; it is through this analogy that he is able to claim the conformity of Christ’s teaching to reason. Toland’s historical understanding of the mysteries builds on this conceptual approach by providing an explanation of why the reasonableness of the gospel was obscured over the course of time: he believed that their practices had infiltrated and corrupted that original rational revelation. Toland’s approach is not that of a humanist such as Johannes Meursius, whose Eleusinia (1619) collected and organised all the known classical references to the mysteries.7 As a heterodox polemicist, he freely used the concept of the mysteries to build a case against paganism and its residual traces in Christianity. The emphasis on Christ’s message as located in a specific historical time and person allowed Toland to detach Christianity from its roots in the Old Testament, and acknowledge Egyptian priority in the ancient world. In Origines Judaicae (1709), the detachment was formulated in an attack on the rather more orthodox way of using typology exemplified by Pierre-Daniel Huet’s Demonstratio Evangelica (1679), which identified the pagan gods as corrupted versions of Moses and his wife Zipporah.8 It also led to the characterisation of Moses as a sophisticated political figure who adapted the pantheistic natural

5 6 7 8

Jonathan S. Marko, Measuring the Distance between Locke and Toland: Reason, Revelation, and Rejection during the Locke-Stillingfleet Debate (Oregon, Wash.: Pickwick Publications, 2017). See in particular ‘Clidophorus; or of the Exoteric and Esoteric Philosophy’ in: John Toland, Tetradymus (London, 1720). See also: Jan Assmann, Religio Duplex: Ägyptische Mysterien und europäische Aufklärung (Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen, 2010). On typology and its reception see: Introduction, note 24. Johannes Meursius, Eleusinia; sive, de Cereris Eleusinae sacro ac festo (Leiden, 1619). John Toland, Adeisdaemon et Origines Judaicae (The Hague, 1709). On Toland’s text, see: Ian Leask, “Speaking for Spinoza? Notes on John Toland’s Origines Judaicae,” in Steffen Ducheyne (ed.), Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 2017), 143–159. Pierre-Daniel Huet, Demonstratio Evangelica (Paris, 1679). On Huet’s thought see: April G. Shelford, Transforming the Republic of Letters: Pierre-Daniel Huet and European Intellectual Life, 1650–1720 (Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2007).

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philosophy of the Egyptians in the account of Genesis. Contrasting with Moses is Christ, who revealed the knowledge required for salvation to all, which was in no way dependent on correct philosophising. The stances on the pagan infiltration of Christianity in late antiquity and ancient Egyptian priority combine to make the case for Toland’s radicalism. But they should not negate the third element of typology, which provided the model for Toland’s view of Christ’s rational gospel, and is a feature of his thought from its beginning in Christianity not Mysterious through to Nazarenus (1718).9 Toland may be seen as using the structure of typology against its traditional purpose, which was to bind the Old and the New Testaments together. His own aim was to separate the New Testament both from the Old and from later pagan accretions; certainly, this could be (and was) interpreted as undermining the entirety of Christianity, but a closer look at his works shows that there was a specific role for Christ in his scheme of the history of religion, one that his ideas on the pagan mysteries reveal, and which unifies the divided portrait of his thought that has developed in modern scholarship. 1

Christianity not Mysterious: John Toland

John Toland was born in 1670 in the provincial surroundings of the Inishowen Peninsula, a strongly Catholic and Gaelic-speaking area of Donegal in the north of Ireland. The first step of many he was to take in the field of religious controversy occurred at the age of sixteen when he became a Protestant, a change from the ‘Superstition and Idolatry’ of Catholicism which he accounts for by the use of his God-given reason.10 This first enabled him to study theology in Glasgow on a scholarship, after which he transferred to the University of Edinburgh, receiving his masters in 1690. Subsequently, he spent time in London as a tutor to a Presbyterian household, then secured support for further study at the universities of Leiden and Utrecht, in which period he became acquainted with significant continental figures such as the Arminian biblical scholar Jean Le Clerc, who in turn led to an introduction to John Locke.11 He concluded his studies at Oxford, where he maintained his reputation for 9 John Toland, Nazarenus: or, Jewish, Gentile and Mahometan Christianity (London, 1718). 10 Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, ix. 11 John Toland, A Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. John Toland, 2 vols (London, 1726), 1:xi. Le Clerc would distance himself from Toland on account of his deteriorating reputation, see: Henning Graf Reventlow, History of Biblical Interpretation: from the Enlightenment to the Twentieth Century, 4 vols (Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), 4:67. On the relationship between Le Clerc, Locke, and Toland see: Sarah Hutton (ed.), Benjamin

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engaging in political and theological controversies in coffee-houses and taverns, and where some commentators believe he wrote Two Essays Sent in a Letter from Oxford, to a Nobleman in London (1695).12 The second edition of Christianity not Mysterious, which was published in his own name, was condemned both in England and Ireland, and forced him to hastily retreat from a visit to Dublin to avoid prosecution. In subsequent years, he was instrumental in the revival of English republican writers of the mid-seventeenth century, such as James Harrington and John Milton.13 Toland’s biography of the latter argued against King Charles I’s authorship of Eikon Basilike (1648), the controversy of which was compounded in his framing it against the dispute on the canonicity of the books of the Bible by including a long list of apocryphal gospels in Amyntor (1699), his defence of the biography.14 His interest in the history of English republicanism was, though, tempered by his public avowal for the Hanoverian succession in Anglia Libera (1701), which led to his inclusion on a delegation to Sophia the Electress of Hanover.15 This was followed by a visit to Prussia where he ingratiated himself with her daughter the Queen Consort, Sophie Charlotte, to whom his Letters to Serena (1704) was dedicated.16 It was through these connections that he also met the philosopher and court historian Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who viewed him with suspicion, but with whom he corresponded and debated.17 Toland’s later years would see him fluc-

12

13

14 15 16 17

Furly 1646–1714: A Quaker Merchant and His Milieu (Firenze: Leo S. Olschmi Editore, 2007), 54–58. [Anon.], Two Essays sent in a letter from Oxford, to a Nobleman in London (1695). See: Giancarlo Carabelli, Tolandiana: materiali bibliografici per lo studio dell’opera e della fortuna di John Toland (1670–1722) (Ferrara: G. Carabelli, 1976), 20–21. For the argument against the attribution see: Rhoda Rappaport, “Questions of Evidence: An Anonymous Tract Attributed to John Toland,” Journal of the History of Ideas 58, no. 2 (1997): 339–348. John Toland, The Oceana of James Harrington, and his other works (London, 1700); Toland, The Life of John Milton (London, 1699). See also: Michael Brown, A Political Biography of John Toland (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2012); and Justin Champion, Republican Learning: John Toland and the crisis of Christian culture, 1696–1722 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003). [Anon.], Eikon Basilike: The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings (1648). John Toland, Amyntor: Or, A Defence of Milton’s Life (London, 1699). John Toland, Anglia Libera (London, 1701). See also: Toland, An Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover (London, 1705). John Toland, Letters to Serena (London, 1704). For their correspondence, see: Toland, A Collection, 2:383–402. On Leibniz and Toland’s debates see: Tristan Dagron, Toland et Leibniz: l’invention du néo-spinozisme (Paris: J. Vrin, 2009); and Giancarlo Carabelli (ed.), John Toland e G.W. Leibniz: otto lettere (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1974). On Leibniz’s relationship with the Electress and Queen Consort see: Lloyd Strickland, Leibniz and the Two Sophies: The Philosophical Correspondence (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011).

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tuating between London and the Continent, making himself by turns useful and a nuisance to figures such as Robert Harley, the Earl of Oxford, and publishing on a wide range of religious, philosophical, and political subjects up until his impoverished death in Putney in 1722. In the nineteenth century, Leslie Stephen’s History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1876) argued that the beginning of the deist controversy should be marked from the publication of John Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity (1695) and then Christianity not Mysterious the year after; this subsequently became identified as a key moment in the development of the Enlightenment.18 Stephen emphasised the dual roles of these texts by positioning Toland’s as a response to Locke’s, albeit one that was unwanted and rejected by the more prominent author. The connection between the two is particularly evident in the first section which adopts several elements from Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), such as the distinction between intuition and demonstration, and between nominal and real essences.19 Following Locke, Toland viewed intuition as grasping self-evident axioms and as precluding reason, which was the means of confirming propositions that could not immediately be recognised as true.20 As will be seen below, the distinction between intuition and reason is the foundation upon which Toland’s religious and philosophical views can be integrated, as exemplified through their application to the figures of Christ and Moses respectively. But the key to the argument about the pagan mysteries in Christianity not Mysterious is founded on another distinction: between knowledge and the means by which it is received. Of the latter Toland specifies four types: that which comes through the senses; that of the experience of the mind; that taken on human testimony; and finally divine revelation, with this category defined as ‘the Manifestation of Truth by Truth it self’, connecting it to intuition.21 In section two he identifies his main target, which is the encroachment of the third category of communication into the realm of the fourth. For this power-grab he blames priests both ancient and modern: by asserting doctrines contrary to 18 John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, as delivered in the Scriptures (London, 1695). Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols (London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1876), 1:93; and following Stephen: F.H. Heinemann, “John Toland and the Age of Enlightenment,” Review of English Studies 20 (1944): 125–146; Gerald R. Cragg, The Church and the Age of Reason, 1648–1789 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1962), 77–78; Frederick Beiser, The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early English Enlightenment (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 230. 19 Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 11–12; 83. Compare with: John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (London, 1690 [1689]), 267; 297. 20 Locke, Essay, 264. 21 Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 16.

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reason and introducing empty ceremony into religion they placed the people in a situation of dependency for explanations, which since they did not exist could not be divulged. This robbed (and continues to rob) the laity of the use of their independent faculties of judgement for assessment and enables priests to profit from ignorance. The true authority of scripture is derived from the positive moral effects of its contents as arrived at through a process of reasoned examination; it can never be founded on the claims of the thoroughly human institution that is the Church. Since historical tradition is effectively a chain of human testimony it is fallible, so reason is the only possible guide to revelation. Christ’s revelation is founded on the category of intuition, and although its contents are rational, it is a separate method of access to reason, which is applied in situations where knowledge is not directly accessible. Having established his Lockean epistemological principles in abstract in sections one and two, Toland sets up the pagan mysteries as a point of reference in section three in his definition of ‘mystery’, of which he identifies two forms: First, It denotes a thing intelligible of it self, but so cover’d by figurative Words, Types and Ceremonies, that Reason cannot penetrate the Vail [sic], nor see what is under it ’til it be removed. Secondly, It is made to signify a thing of its own Nature inconceivable, and not to be judg’d of by our ordinary Faculties and Ideas, tho’ it be never so clearly reveal’d.22 The ambiguity arises from the fact that both the first kind of mystery and the second appear identical from the outside – they seem mysterious. But the crucial difference in the first definition is that the mysterious exterior conceals a reasonable interior, whereas the second defies reason through and through, and is thus nonsensical. With this distinction made, Toland proceeds to argue that it is in the first sense of the word, ‘that of the Gentiles viz. for things naturally very intelligible, but so cover’d by figurative Words or Rites, that Reason could not discover them without special Revelation’ that the Christian ‘mysteries’ of the New Testament are to be understood.23 They appear mysterious prior to revelation but are proved to be rational upon their communication. Under this model the role of Christ might be thought of as analogous to the high priest or ‘hierophant’ of the Eleusinian mysteries, the figure whose name means to ‘show’ or ‘reveal’ the ‘holy’. Toland’s position is supported with an array of references to the early Church Fathers who conceived of the word under its pagan signification. He mentions the fifth book of Clement of Alexandria’s Stromata, 22 Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 67. 23 Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 73–74.

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which develops an analogy between pagan and Christian mysteries, stating ‘he tells us, that the Christian Discipline was call’d Illumination, because it brought hidden things to light, the Master (CHRIST) alone removing the Cover of the Ark, that is, the Mosaick Vail.’24 He also turns to Tertullian for evidence that the Christian mysteries were understood in the pagan sense of ‘secret Practices … and not incomprehensible Doctrines …’25 After establishing the pagan derivation of the word mystery in the Christian context, he goes on to assert that the structure of concealed reason lies at the very heart of Christianity’s relationship to sacred history in general, in the typological sense that ‘it was a future Dispensation totally hid from the Gentiles, and but very imperfectly known to the Jews’, but that with the gospel ‘this Vail is wholly remov’d.’26 God’s revelation through Christ represents the gift of knowledge ‘which no Man left to himself could ever imagine’, but once revealed proves itself as ‘Divine Wisdom’ through its moral worth as interpreted by reason.27 To recapitulate: the argument is that the mysteries of Christianity – analogous to the pagan mysteries – were only superficially and temporally so. Once the mysterious veil was removed with the coming of Christ they were proved to be reasonable. Toland draws the conclusion from this that Christ’s teaching cannot be considered mysterious under the second form of the word, that is beyond or above reason, but only in terms of its prior concealment. As will be seen, though, this does not mean that Toland believed the pagan mysteries themselves had some kind of rational content; in fact the opposite was the case. In this first part of his argument it was only their structure that was useful in articulating the rationality of the Christian religion. But reason had its own limitations, which are clarified when he outlines the system of metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls, which was developed by philosophers ‘who had only Fancy to guide them’, whereas ‘the thing is now no Mystery to us that have the Mind of Christ.’ Where the gentiles had to rely only on reason to arrive at their knowledge of the afterlife, a situation which led to all manner of strange doctrines, the Jews had only a partial revelation ‘vail’d … by various Typical Representations, Ceremonies, and figurative Expressions.’28 The advantage of Christians above both groups is in their having the revelation of Christ, and what can be seen as the Christian faculty of reason used to confirm simple truths, as opposed to the pagan faculty of reason which all too often 24 25 26 27 28

Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 118–119. Clement, Stromata 5.10. Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 120–121. His reference is to: Tertullian, Apology 7. Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 97. Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 41. Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 95.

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leads to the unreason of scholasticism when applied in the religious sphere. The form of reason that Toland is fighting for in the text is a stamp of moral verification, not a tool to carve out doctrines independent of revelation. The limitations of reason are further explored through Toland’s engagement with Locke’s epistemology, in which he finds a deep resonance with the religious-historical conception of mystery. Lockean empiricism, which makes a distinction between the nominal characteristics of an object, its effects, and its true essence or substance (access to which ‘we neither have nor can have by sensation or reflection’) presents to him a far-reaching analogy with the structure of Christian revelation.29 This operates in two ways: in one sense, the revelation of Christ represents the substance that was concealed in the Old Testament where it was accessible only at a remove as effects, or types and symbols. In another, whether speaking of everyday objects of experience or the attributes of God, we only have access to effects and not the substance. To argue that we must have faith in religious doctrines because we do not have an adequate rational idea (access to the substance) of, say, eternity, is ridiculous because neither do we have one of anything else in the world. The conclusion is that religion should be looked to in so far as it is comprehensible and useful. This epistemological stance informs the politically controversial potential of the text, which arises from Toland’s assertion that the gulf between substance and effect has been amplified throughout the ages by priests for self-interested reasons, who pretend knowledge of the substance and regulate access to it, when in fact anyone has the ability and the right to judge religion from its effects. The political use of religion deeply shapes Toland’s negative view of the historical role of the pagan mysteries, which are to him one of the primary means by which ‘cunning Priests’ first established their power. This is evident in his reference to Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, where it is written that those who were not initiated were condemned to ‘wallow … in infernal Mire’, whereas those who were ‘dwelt with the Gods.’30 Toland outlines the idea that the simple moral precepts of Christ were insufficiently persuasive for the institution of public religion, resulting in the adoption of ostentatious ritual from paganism. The negative comparison drawn between Catholicism and paganism was, of course, a standard criticism among Protestant authors, and dated back to

29 Locke, Essay, 33. Toland remarks on Locke’s influence, stating that ‘I distinguish, after an excellent modern Philosopher, the Nominal from the Real Essence of a thing’, see: Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 83. 30 Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 70. Plato, Phaedo 69.C.

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the early years of the Reformation.31 But in Toland’s text the formulation of this argument takes on a new historical dimension in the specific use of the mysteries as the agent of infiltration. He states that in the early years of Christianity the influx of ‘Gentiles’ were ‘not a little scandaliz’d at the plain Dress of the Gospel’, being used as they were to the ‘pompous Worship and secret Mysteries of Deities without Number.’ The early Christians who desired to spread the gospel ‘were careful to remove all Obstacles lying in the way of the Gentiles’, and so compromised the original simplicity of their faith by importing rituals borrowed from the ‘Pagan Mystick Rites.’32 The case for this allegation is laid out in detail, with Toland observing that their practices corresponded in language, since both the early Christian Church and the pagan mysteries used words such as ‘initiating and perfecting’ and looked ‘upon Initiation as a kind of deifying’, as well as their shared ceremonies of ‘lustrations’, the oath of secrecy, the five stages of initiation, etc. Thus ‘Christianity was put upon an equal Level with the Mysteries of Ceres, or the Orgies of Bacchus.’33 Just under a century later in An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782), Joseph Priestley, a notable unitarian of a later generation, would come to a similar conclusion: ‘by the maxims of heathen philosophy … christianity was brought to a state little better than paganism.’34 In summary, Christ reveals the knowledge of salvation which is rational but was not discovered by reason, because intuition precludes reason. This knowledge was corrupted by the political manipulation of pagan priests, who introduced polytheism into primitive Christianity, meaning that the only way for moderns to return to the original bequest is the critical use of reason as applied to scripture. Christ intuited the rational truth, then pagan priests corrupted it with their mysteries, so those living in the world after Christ must use reason to get back to that intuited revelation. Therefore, although they have a different function, revelation (as based on intuition) and reason are dependent on each other. This argument is articulated through two uses of the pagan mysteries: a positive one that applies the structure of the mysteries to explain the reasonableness of Christ’s revelation, and a negative one that blames their purveyors for corrupting it.

31 Carina L. Johnson, “Idolatrous Cultures and the Practice of Religion,” Journal of the History of Ideas 67, no. 4 (2006): 597–622; 607. 32 Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 159–160. 33 Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 164; 160. 34 Joseph Priestley, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, 2 vols (Birmingham, 1782), 10.

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The Trinitarian Controversy

With the dual role of the pagan mysteries in Christianity not Mysterious in place, the wider context of the Trinitarian controversy may now be provided, in which precursors to both aspects of Toland’s argument are found. Although it dated back beyond the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the chaos of the English Civil War provided opportunities for freedom of expression among those who either asserted the subordination of the Son to the Father, named Arians after the early Christian theologian Arius, or the Son’s divinity altogether, named unitarians or Socinians after the sixteenth-century Italian theologian Fausto Sozzini.35 Against this context, the pagan mysteries developed over the seventeenth century as a key point of reference in arguments over the meaning of the word ‘mystery’, and thereby the mystery of the Trinity. The Cambridge Platonist Henry More’s An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness (1660), for example, drew the analogy between progression in Christian knowledge and the pagan mysteries, mapping the concept through Greek terms relating to initiation such as ‘myesis’, ‘epopteia’, and ‘teletes’.36 The risk in making a comparison like this was that it raised the question of the influence of ancient Greek paganism on early Christianity, a problem recognised by More, who argued against the idea that doctrines such as the Trinity had been inserted into the faith by Platonist Church Fathers, and emphasised its differences from Platonic triads.37 The most systematic and extensive comparison between the two was made by another of the Cambridge Platonists, Ralph Cudworth, whose The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678) hoped to make the ‘Choak-Pear’ of Christianity more palatable by the recognition of various trinities by the ‘Freest Wits’ and ‘Best Philosophers’ among the pagans.38 Although Cudworth, like More, qualified the comparison by stating that the Christian Trinity was more reasonable than the Platonic, this did not stop Socinians from using the evidence he produced to denigrate the doctrine through its pagan

35 On the mid-seventeenth century debate on the Trinity see: Paul Lim, Mystery Unveiled: The Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 36 Henry More, An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness (London, 1660), 2. See also: William Cave, Primitive Christianity: or, the Religion of the ancient Christians in the first Ages of the Gospel (London, 1672), 211–212. 37 More, Grand Mystery, 7–11. 38 Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe (London, 1678). See also: Jan Rohls, “Cudworth and the English Debate on the Trinity,” in Douglas Hedley & David Leech (eds.), Revisioning Cambridge Platonism: Sources and Legacy (Cham: Springer, 2019), 101–115.

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origins.39 What was at stake in this debate was more than just an abstruse point of theology: accepting a doctrine either above or contrary to reason on the basis of human authority had major ramifications for human liberty. These were spelled out with reference to the pagan mysteries by the accused Socinian Arthur Bury in The Naked Gospel (1690): those who enforce ‘implicit Faith in the Church, speaketh the language of a Pagan Mystagogue’, contradicting what he believed to be the public and accessible character of the New Testament.40 The debate on the Trinity was particularly active in the period between the loosening of censorship after the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689 and the Blasphemy Act of 1697. From the literature generated in these years, key aspects of Toland’s argument concerning the pagan mysteries are already formulated in Stephen Nye’s An Impartial Account Of the Word Mystery, As it is taken in the Holy Scripture (1691).41 Stephen Nye was the life-long rector of Little Hormead in Hertfordshire, but his rather modest and static career as a churchman belied his activity as a religious controversialist. Of Puritan heritage and Socinian conviction, his anti-trinitarian pamphleteering was supported by the mercer and philanthropist Thomas Firmin, who commissioned him to write A Brief History of the Unitarians, called also Socinians (1687).42 Nye’s text contains both a critique of priestcraft in the context of pagan authors, and a structural analogy to prove the reasonableness of Christian revelation in the context of the early Church Fathers. In terms of the former, he states that the function of the priest’s selective initiation in ‘the Mysteries of Ceres, and the little Mysteries of her Daughter Proserpina’ was to conceal their debauchery and the secret of the mortal origins of the gods; in the latter case, this is a demonstration of awareness of Cicero’s use of Euhemerism in reference to the mysteries in Tusculan Disputations.43 Nye is explicit in linking the claim of knowledge of religious 39 Cudworth, True Intellectual System, 191. Anon. [Stephen Nye], A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation (London, 1691?), 15–17. 40 Arthur Bury, The Naked Gospel (1690), 57. 41 Stephen Nye, An Impartial Account Of the Word Mystery, As it is taken in the Holy Scripture (London, 1691). On Nye see: Sarah Mortimer, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution: The Challenge of Socinianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 6. On Sozzini see: Martin Mulsow & Jan Rohls (eds.), Socinianism and Arminianism: Antitrinitarians, Calvinists, and Cultural Exchange in Seventeenth-Century Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 23. 42 Stephen Nye, A Brief History of the Unitarians, called also Socinians (London, 1687). On Firmin see: H.J. McLachlan, Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951), 294. 43 Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.29. See also on Euhemerism: Introduction, note 44. On Toland’s use of Cicero see: Katherine A. East, Superstitionis Malleus: John Toland, Cicero, and the War on Priestcraft in Early Enlightenment England,” History of European Ideas 40, no. 7 (2014): 965–983.

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mysteries with the negative results for society when submission to such irrational doctrines is enforced, writing that ‘Mystery makes up the Premises, and Persecution the Consequence or the Conclusion.’ As to the credulous ancient public, he draws an analogy with their equivalents in the present day, disparaging both for ‘admiring what they do not understand … in reverencing the very Silence of any thing that goes under the Name of Mystery.’44 Finally, as to the consequences for those ‘indiscreet Men’ who revealed the content of the pagan mysteries in antiquity, so too in his day are people excommunicated ‘who pay no respect to mysteries.’45 Toland’s other argument is expressed in the following passage, which as it speaks for itself will be quoted at length: This I desire you to observe, that you may perceive at first sight, that the Scripture does never call Mystery, a Thing incomprehensible in it self, tho never so much revealed. This Notion of a Mystery is unknown to all sorts of Authors, both Sacred and Profane. A Mystery is called so by the former, only in respect of certain Circumstances of Time, Persons, the manner of the Revelation, &c. Take your Concordance, and see all the places of the New Testament, wherein that word is made use of, you will be amaz’d to meet with none that excites in the Mind the Idea of a Truth inconsistent with the Natural Lights of Sense and Reason.46 This passage contains the other core principle on which Christianity not Mysterious is built: the distinction between a temporary mystery that is proved to be reasonable upon revelation and one that is entirely unintelligible. In fact, Toland has arguably done little more than follow Nye’s advice in examining all the uses of the word in the New Testament, writing his book on the results of that investigation. Nye’s conclusion ‘that the Gospel is so far from being a Mystery and a Secret, that it is the most evident and the clearest of all Revelations’, shows that although Toland’s voice was louder and made more of an impact, it drew upon a previous Socinian argument.47 Sir Robert Howard’s The History of Religion as Managed by Priestcraft (1694), another text accused of Socinianism, also provides evidence both for Toland’s structural conception of a reasonable revelation and his historical use of the

44 45 46 47

Nye, Word Mystery, 3. Nye, Word Mystery, 4. Nye, Word Mystery, 4–5. Nye, Word Mystery, 13.

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pagan mysteries.48 In terms of the former, he writes with reference to St Paul that a statement such as ‘I will shew you a Mystery’ is explicable when sequence is taken into account: but once declared, mystery becomes revelation.49 In terms of the latter, Howard criticises the Eleusinian, Egyptian, and Cretan mysteries in which gentile priests ‘sheltered all Abuses imposed on the Credulity of the People.’50 These references come in the context of the more general connection that he draws (following Nye) between mystery and persecution: ‘by Mystery, to prevent the use of Understanding; and by Persecution, to punish any that should attempt to break out of the Brutal Pound, and use their Reason.’51 Rather than getting lost in the ‘dark Places’ of the Book of Revelations, which have been manipulated into mysterious doctrines, Howard recommends attending to the ‘general, plain, and easily intelligible Current of the Gospels’, in particular the Sermon on the Mount, as all that is needed for salvation.52 As with Toland, therefore, Howard combines a view of the reasonable character of Christ’s revelation with the idea that its corruption began almost immediately. To give definition to these arguments, it is valuable to consider the trinitarian side of the debate represented by the defender of Anglican orthodoxy, the Bishop of Worcester Edward Stillingfleet, whose sermon The Mysteries of the Christian Faith (1691) was written in direct response to Nye’s text, and from which he quotes the lines: ‘But the Scripture never calls that a Mystery which is Incomprehensible in it self, though never so much revealed.’53 Whilst partially acknowledging Nye’s argument on the nature of mystery as ‘things before hidden, but now revealed’, he reserves a space for doctrines that are above reason: 48 Robert Howard, The History of Religion as Managed by Priestcraft (London, 1694). On Howard see: H.J. Oliver, Sir Robert Howard, 1626–1698: A Critical Biography (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1963); and Gian Carlo Roscioni, “Sir Robert Howard’s “Sceptical Curiosity”,” Modern Philology 65, no. 1 (1967): 53–59. For the accusation of Socinianism, see: Charles Leslie, The Charge of Socinianism Against Dr. Tillotson Considered (Edinburgh, 1695), 27. 49 Howard, History of Religion, 60. 50 Howard, History of Religion, 54–55. 51 Howard, History of Religion, v–vi. 52 Howard, History of Religion, 59. 53 Edward Stillingfleet, The Mysteries of the Christian Faith (London, 1691), 13. On Stillingfleet’s thought and career see: Robert Todd Carroll, The Common-Sense Philosophy of Religion of Bishop Edward Stillingfleet, 1635–1699 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975). Stillingfleet cites the text as ‘Discourse of the Word Mystery &c. p. 5.’ Curiously, the text immediately preceding this sentence, does not precede it in Nye’s text, see: Stillingfleet, The Mysteries, 13. Stillingfleet would subsequently respond to Christianity not Mysterious, including its use of the pagan mysteries, in: Stillingfleet, A Discourse In Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity (London, 1697), 263.

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‘which being revealed, hath yet something in it which our understandings cannot reach to.’54 Stillingfleet characterises his opponents who criticise specific ‘Mysteries in Religion’ as being at risk of helping those he believes to have adopted this position as a subterfuge by which to ‘overthrow all Religion.’55 The logic of this claim is spelled out in the following passage, which is placed in quotation marks but is not given attribution: For, say they, Religion is a Mystery in its own Nature; not this or that, or the other Religion; but they are all alike, all is Mystery; and that is but another Name for Fraud and Imposture. What were the Heathen Mysteries but tricks of Priest-Craft; and such are maintained and kept up in all kinds of Religion. If therefore these men, who talk against Mysteries understand themselves, they must in pursuance of their Principles reject one God, as well as three Persons. For, as long as they believe an Infinite and Incomprehensible Being, it is Nonsense to reject any other Doctrine, which relates to an Infinite Being, because it is Incomprehensible.56 Early in the passage the argument that was used by Nye and would again be used by Howard is highlighted: that the corruptions of the Christian religion are comparable to the trickery of the pagan mysteries. An earlier response to this can be found in his Origines Sacrae (1662), the book upon which Stillingfleet’s reputation was made, in which the secretiveness of the pagan mysteries is contrasted with the power of the gospel as based on in its public and universal communication.57 The above passage also points towards Toland’s argument about mystery as expressed through Locke’s epistemology: since all substances are finally unknowable, God included, they must be approached from their practical effects. For Stillingfleet, God, the ultimate substance, is also finally unknowable because of the attribute of infinity. But in responding to the Socinian case he believes that to dispense with God’s triune nature on the basis of incomprehensibility is a venture that risks being applied to the very being of God. In a debate as charged as this, there was very little room for compromise between the accusations thrown by trinitarians at Socinian ‘atheists’, and Socinians at trinitarian ‘polytheists’. Taken together, these three texts provide 54 55 56 57

Stillingfleet, The Mysteries, 14–15. Stillingfleet, The Mysteries, 22. Stillingfleet, The Mysteries, 23. I have been unable to find where this passage is cited from, and the quotation marks may be a typographical error. Edward Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae, or a Rational Account of the Grounds of Christian Faith, as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures, and the matters therein contained, 5th ed. (London, 1680), 325.

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a more precise set of prompts for Toland’s book than Robert South’s 1694 sermon Christianity Mysterious and the Wisdom of God in Making it So, as has been argued by some commentators.58 3

Toland not Deist

The context of the Trinitarian controversy of the 1690s raises serious questions about the role of Christianity not Mysterious in a supposed deist controversy, and thereby broader narratives of the Enlightenment that rest upon it. Can its author legitimately be called a deist, as the ‘vast literature’ that Wayne Hudson points to claims?59 To be a deist in the precise sense of the word, Toland would have to believe in reason’s independence from revelation, and its ability to arrive at religious doctrines through a logical process. This is clearly not the case in Christianity not Mysterious, in which reason is the means of verifying Christ’s revelation. If J.G.A. Pocock’s valuable definition of deism as the point at which ‘philosophical theology became independent of Christ and Christianity’ is adopted, the early Toland does not qualify.60 Instead, Pocock’s definition of a Socinian as someone ‘who affirmed that Christ was a being divine in mission but not in nature’ fits best.61 On account of Toland having written in an early defense of his faith at Oxford in 1694 that ‘I could as soon digest a wooden, or breaden Deity, as adore a created spirit or a dignified man’, his association with Socinianism has been disregarded, and more extreme positions have been attributed to him.62 In Christianity not Mysterious, he also expresses antipathy towards the Socinians and Arians for ‘their Notions of a dignifi’d and Creature-God capable of Divine Worship’, which is put on a level with the unreason of the Trinity.63 But these statements are not a problem for the categorisation of Toland as a Socinian in Pocock’s sense, if it is recognised that the emphasis is put upon Christ as the messenger of knowledge that is in some sense divine, in so far as it is required for salvation, even if his person does not require worship. This interpretation has the advantage of corresponding with 58 Robert South, Twelve Sermons preached upon several occasions (London, 1692). Diego Lucci, Scripture and Deism: the Biblical Criticism of the Eighteenth-Century British Deists (Bern: Peter Lang, 2008), 70; Beiser, Sovereignty, 237. 59 Hudson, English Deists, 85. 60 J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999–2015), 1:68. 61 Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 1: 26. See also: Beiser, Sovereignty, 249. 62 Toland, A Collection, 2:307. 63 Toland, Christianity not Mysterious, 25.

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the views of the text of Toland’s contemporaries, who had ‘the persistent conviction … that it was Socinian.’64 The above presentation of Christianity not Mysterious finds further support in Toland’s short text Socinianism truly Stated (1705), which contains a translation of a short ‘digression’ by Jean Le Clerc on the subject.65 In the introduction Toland distinguishes between the followers of Fausto Sozzini and other unitarians who ‘render no religious Adoration to Jesus Christ’; in which latter category the present argument claims he should be placed.66 He also makes use of the term ‘pantheist’, though not with reference to a specific form of physics or metaphysics, but as a way of referring to people ‘intirely unconcern’d in all Disputes’, among whom he counts himself.67 This stance is supported by the content of Le Clerc’s digression, which distinguishes between opinions of religion, on which salvation depends, and controversial points of theology, in particular the Trinity, on which it does not.68 Le Clerc strikes an ecumenical tone that resonates with the chief concerns of Christianity not Mysterious, posing the question: ‘whether it be just to damn People, that agree with us in those Articles of Religion which we have specify’d, merely for the sake of their Opinions of Controversy about difficult and obscure Subjects.’69 The focus is on what the core of Christ’s revelation is that is required for salvation, in other words, with the divinity of the message not quibbles about the divine status of its deliverer. To grasp how Toland might have conceived of Christ’s role as messenger and its foundation in the category of intuition, it is useful to consider Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), which provides a possible model.70 In chapter one, which constructs an argument about prophecy as founded on the faculty of the imagination, Spinoza uses the contrasting example of the unique status of the mind of Christ: 64 Sullivan, John Toland, 109. 65 John Toland, Socinianism truly Stated; being An Example of fair Dealing in all Theological Controversys. To which is prefixt, Indifference in Disputes: Recommended by a PANTHEIST to an Orthodox Friend (London, 1705). 66 Toland, Socinianism, 9–10. 67 Toland, Socinianism, 7. 68 Compare with: Michiel Wielema (ed.), Adriaan Koerbagh: A Light Shining in Dark Places, To Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 189–191. On Koerbagh see: Sascha Salatowsky, “Socinian Headaches: Adriaan Koerbagh and the Antitrinitarians,” in Sonja Lavaert & Winfried Schröder (eds.), The Dutch Legacy: Radical Thinkers of the 17th Century and the Enlightenment (Brill: Leiden, 2017), 165–203. 69 Toland, Socinianism, 14–15. 70 Edwin M. Curley (trans.), The Collected Works of Spinoza, 2 vols (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985–2016), 2:80.

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Nevertheless, for a man to perceive by the mind alone things which aren’t contained in the first foundations of our knowledge, and can’t be deduced from them, his mind would necessarily have to be more excellent than, and far superior to, the human mind. So I do not believe that anyone else has reached such perfection, surpassing all others, except Christ, to whom the decisions of God, which lead men to salvation, were revealed immediately – without words or visions … But I must warn here that I’m not speaking in any way about the things some of the Churches maintain about Christ. Not that I deny them. For I readily confess that I don’t grasp them.71 This passage contains the idea that in so far as it directly intuited the moral knowledge required for salvation, Christ’s mind acted as a kind of portal to divine truth, an idea that resonates with much of Toland’s language in Christianity not Mysterious, for example, the above-cited: ‘the thing is now no Mystery to us that have the Mind of Christ.’ Of particular significance is that Spinoza distinguishes between this direct intuition and the process of reasoned deduction which, as seen with regard to Toland, had certain limitations with regard to the afterlife. Furthermore, as is alluded to in the final sentence, Spinoza is also careful to distinguish this intellectual form of ‘divinity’ from divine personhood, which he dismisses as a logical contradiction in terms, a simple category error. This distinction helps to explain how Toland might have viewed his stated fourth category of knowledge (‘the Manifestation of Truth by Truth it self’) as represented by Christ, echoing Spinoza’s statement that Christ ‘communicated with God mind to mind.’72 This concept might be labelled as ‘intuitive revelation’. A model of the history of religion that places central importance on the intuitive revelation of the historical figure of Christ would logically attribute the greatest degree of truth to the religion of those with the closest proximity to his lifetime. This is borne out in Toland’s Nazarenus, an account of the form of Christianity practiced by the Nazarenes or Ebionites, the first generation of Christians who were drawn from the Jewish population and whose views agree 71 Spinoza, Collected Works, 2:84. See also Letter 71 in which Spinoza expands on these comments: Spinoza, Collected Works, 2:468. On Spinoza’s connection to the Socinian Collegiants, see: Steven Nadler, Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 140–141; and Jonathan Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man, 1670–1752 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 122–123. See also: K.O. Meinsma, Spinoza et son cercle: étude critique historique sur les hétérodoxes hollandais (Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 2006). 72 Spinoza, Collected Works, 2:85.

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‘in every thing almost with the scheme of our modern Unitarians.’73 Later in the text Toland states that, particularly on account of it being the original name for Christian, he has ‘less exception to the name of NAZAREN than to any other.’74 Following the Nazarenes were those converts drawn from the gentile population, exemplified through the figure of St Paul, who they represented as ‘an intruder on the genuin Christianity.’75 This continues the theme in Christianity not Mysterious of the pagan infiltration into primitive Christianity, and again the ‘mysteries of Heathenism’ are a point of reference in that process.76 Toland expands on this by mentioning the Socinian argument that the gentile converts introduced ‘their former polytheism and deifying of dead men’ into primitive Christianity, but calls out their hypocrisy in being ‘guilty of as palpable absurdities and contradictions’, a statement which indicates that he viewed the Socinian worship of the man Christ as a kind of idolatry comparable with Euhemerism.77 It is, therefore, not a problem for the categorisation of Toland as a specific type of Socinian that did not worship Christ the man, but only ‘worshipped’ his mind. It is true that in this scheme of Toland’s thought Christianity is stripped down to a core that would have ended up looking like something that blended into deism to his contemporaries (not to mention contemporary commentators). If Toland was effectively a ‘deist’ in terms of the content of his beliefs, but not in the means by which the content was arrived at, then this would go some way towards explaining the divergent claims that have been laid on his religious views. But no matter how great an emphasis is put upon reason, the place of Christ as a messenger in his complex epistemology cannot be ignored: he is necessary to reveal the knowledge of salvation, even if he is not literally God, and that revelation is based on intuition and not reason. Whether that salvation is an earthly form of blessedness, as was Spinoza’s view, or a more 73 74 75 76 77

Toland, Nazarenus, 17; 28. Toland, Nazarenus, 72. Toland, Nazarenus, 29. Toland, Nazarenus, 77. Toland, Nazarenus, 77. The idea that the Socinian worship of Christ amounted to idolatry is advanced by Adriaan Koerbagh, see: Wielema, Koerbagh, 233; 245: ‘Because of this, your religion (to the extent that you worship a man and bestow divine honour on him and kneel before him) is condemned as idol worship after the laws that only God may be worshipped … But in the event that you, O! Socinians, honour the Saviour more like a human being, as an excellent and just man deserves, and use him as an example of virtue to be followed, then this is not a judgement against you.’ ‘Thus, you see from what we have said, O! Socinians, that you do not yet fully use reason in everything, even though you use it to reject the Trinity. Therefore, your religion is also rightly condemned as idol worship because praying to a human is idol worship.’

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metaphysically-conceived afterlife is not made clear; as is the case with the doctrine of the Trinity, what was important was not philosophical speculation but practical morality. People should be at liberty to speculate on such matters precisely because salvation does not depend upon it. For two of the authors under discussion in the subsequent chapters, William Stukeley and William Warburton, such niceties about whether Toland retained some stripped down version of rational Christianity communicated by someone called Christ would be to miss the point: his main message was the extremely threatening one that almost the entire Church tradition could be dispatched on account of its infiltration by paganism, and that anyone could judge the worth of what was left on the basis of their reason. But before turning to these authors who mounted two very different defences of Christian history through the pagan mysteries, there remain some further themes from Toland’s later works that they also engaged with, as well as the question of how his specific form of Socinianism based on intuitive revelation can be integrated with his references to pantheism. 4

‘Unfolding Nature’s Mysteries, and discoursing on Religion’

Having set out the interpretation and context of John Toland’s Christianity not Mysterious, it remains to be seen how the themes arising from his treatment of the pagan mysteries, particularly those that informed the eighteenth-century debate, manifested in his later works. Letters to Serena (1704) contains three texts that expand on Toland’s view of paganism. In the second, ‘The History of the Soul’s Immortality among the Heathens’, Toland raises the question of how pagans arrived at the doctrine of a future state independently of revelation, which is ‘the best, the clearest Demonstration of it.’78 In dismissing the explanation that this occurred through a diffusion from Judaism to paganism, Toland raises the problem that would become central in William Warburton’s The Divine Legation of Moses (1738–1741): that even if this were true in general, it is impossible in the case of a future state as the doctrine is notable by its absence in the Old Testament.79 He also adds that neither is there any evidence for it among the biblical patriarchs, who were illiterate and not the great sages they were presented as by some.80 Countering this model he puts forward the 78 Toland, Serena, 19. 79 Toland, Serena, 20. William Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses, 2 vols (London, 1738–1741). 80 Toland, Serena, 39. In responding to a letter from Leibniz on Serena, Toland positions himself with John Spencer on the influence of neighbouring nations on the ceremonies

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ancient Egyptians as the true source of the doctrine of the afterlife. As to how it developed in Egypt, his solution is a natural one: it arose from their elaborate burial practices.81 What of the double-doctrine? Toland uses it in the text to argue that the public’s notion of the afterlife was enforced through the fables of poets, whereas pagan philosophers such as Pythagoras did not really believe in a future state, an argument which would also be developed by Warburton.82 All this certainly could be interpreted as being directed against the Christian belief in the afterlife. But with the argument of Christianity not Mysterious in mind, Toland’s division between ancient pagans left to their limited reason and Christians with the advantage of Christ’s intuitive revelation can be taken at face value. As he himself puts it, those living in the world after revelation ‘ought humbly to acquiesce in the Authority of our Savior JESUS CHRIST, who brought Life and Immortality to Light.’83 The third letter, ‘The Origins of Idolatry, and the Reasons of Heathenism’, develops the argument of the second by introducing the theory of Euhemerism, claiming that idolatry began with the ‘Worship of the Dead’ and ‘Funeral Rites’, particularly those of important Kings and benefactors.84 To make these monuments more lasting their names were connected to the stars. Picking up the idea of the double-doctrine from the previous letter, Toland states that the earthly origin of the gods was revealed in the Eleusinian mysteries, as is indicated by Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations; another central element of Divine Legation.85 This political use of the mysteries conforms with the last chapter of Christianity not Mysterious, and should be interpreted against Toland’s argument there that paganism infiltrated primitive Christianity, and not that the entirety of Christianity is just as false as the mysteries. Confirmation of this reading is found in the conclusion of the letter, in which he remarks that almost all of the pagan doctrines that it has outlined have been ‘reviv’d by many Christians in our Western Parts of the Wor[l]d [sic], and by all the Oriental Sects.’86 By worshipping saints, contemporary Catholics were no better than the ancient pagans whose prayers were addressed to deified mortals. This view

81 82 83 84 85 86

and customs of Judaism, and against the diffusionism of Pierre-Daniel Huet. See: Toland, A Collection, 2:392–393. Toland, Serena, 48. Toland, Serena, 57. Toland, Serena, 56. Toland’s reference is to 2 Timothy 1:10 (KJV). Toland, Serena, 72–74. Toland, Serena, 84. Cicero is mentioned in the discussion of the ‘double doctrine’ in: Toland, Tetradymus, 77. Toland, Serena, 127.

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coheres with Toland’s dismissal of the Socinian worship of the man Christ as a form of idolatry comparable to the deification of mortals in Euhemerism. In The Primitive Constitution of the Christian Church (1705), the advantages of Christianity are formulated in the familiar terms of Christianity not Mysterious: it consisted of a more complete revelation than Judaism, it improved upon the ‘abstruse doctrines’ of the philosophers, who could be led to uphold strange beliefs through their sole reliance on reason, and it prevented the manipulation by priests that the ‘secret mysteries of the Heathens’ structurally enabled.87 The manipulative potential of the pagan mysteries is expanded upon in ‘Clidophorus’ of 1720 in a way that also remains consisent with his earlier thought. In treating the ‘original and genuin Institution of  JESUS’, Toland asks whether ‘such ordinary actions as eating bread, drinking wine, and dipping in water, or washing with it’ were really communicated as ‘tremendous and inutterable Mysteries’?88 That they did become such is something he blames on early pagan converts who imported the reverence of mystery into the new faith ‘lest the Heathens, or others … might scorn and despise their simplicity.’89 It is only with the raising up of mystery in religion, either as pagan fables before Christ or mysterious pagan doctrines after, that philosophers are forced to practise the double-doctrine and to philosophise in private. Contrasting with what he calls ‘this Heathen distinction’ is the religion ‘of him who is TRUTH it self’; language which supports the above reading of Toland’s concept of intuitive revelation.90 The running theme in Toland’s thought of the various ways that Christianity has been corrupted should not obscure that he believed there was something positive to be recovered from those corruptions. The foregoing summary has attempted to show the continuity of the themes arising from Toland’s treatment of the pagan mysteries from Christianity not Mysterious through his career, and how it contributes to the case for his being a specific type of Socinian. But it has not provided an account of his treatment of pantheism, on which the case for his radicalism rests. To conclude, it is necessary to show how Toland’s view of Christ’s intuitive revelation was compatible with an interest in the physical system of pantheism, presented as the doctrine of the secret society described in Pantheisticon, whose members are described using Eleusinian terminology as ‘Mysts and Hierophants of Nature.’91 First, it is valuable to consider the forms in which the theme appears in his thought 87 88 89 90 91

John Toland, “The Primitive Constitution of the Christian Church,” in Toland, The Miscellaneous Works of John Toland, 2 vols (London, 1747), 2:132. Toland, Tetradymus, 79. Toland, Tetradymus, 80. Toland, Tetradymus, 66. Toland, Pantheisticon, 95.

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prior to this point. As mentioned above, in Socinianism truly Stated his use of the word pantheist implies someone who avoids controversy on questions not directly related to salvation. It is in Letters to Serena that Toland engages with the seventeenth-century thinker primarily associated with pantheism: Spinoza, who was, though, at pains to distinguish his philosophy from the idea ‘that God is one and the same as Nature’, if taken to mean a ‘certain mass, or corporeal matter.’92 Toland’s engagement is highly critical and is based on the lack of an account of motion in Spinoza’s system, which he attempts to rectify with the idea that motion is inherent to matter; this recurs in Pantheisticon, where he writes that everything is in constant motion and that ‘rest’ is in fact a ‘motion of resistance.’93 It is in the third example, which appears in his Origines Judaicae of 1709, that Toland’s interest in pantheism can be integrated with his specific form of Socinianism through the contrasting roles of Christ and Moses, which map onto the categories of intuition and reason.94 The text was an attack on Huet’s Demonstratio Evangelica, which saw the varied gods and traditions of the pagan world as corruptions of Moses and his wife Zipporah. Toland reverses the order of influence, showing how the ancient Egyptian pagans preceded and influenced Judaism, in this respect following the seventeenth-century chronologer John Marsham and the Hebraist John Spencer.95 Toland undermines the unique status of Moses by emphasising his similarity with other lawgivers of the pagan world, but he also claims that his understanding of God (like so many of the sophisticated ancient philosophers) was pantheistic.96 This opinion connects to Pantheisticon, where Moses is described as ‘the most illustrious Lawgiver of the Jews’, contrasting with ‘all the other Prophets, with their eternal types and allegories.’97 Moses also had a superior natural philosophical knowledge ‘with regard to the Origin of Things,

92 Spinoza, Collected Works, 2:467. 93 Toland, Pantheisticon, 21. 94 John Toland, Adeisidaemon et Origines Judaicae (The Hague, 1709). References are from the Italian translation: Alfredo Sabetti (trans.), John Toland: Adeisidaemon e Origines Judaicae (Napoli: Liguori Editore, 1984). 95 John Marsham, Chronicus canon Aegypticaus, Ebraicus, Graecus, et disquisitiones (London, 1672); John Spencer, De legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus, et earum rationibus (Cambridge, 1683–1685). 96 On the idea that the majority of seventeenth-century thinkers saw paganism as essentially pantheistic, see: Dmitri Levitin, The Kingdom of Darkness: Bayle, Newton, and the Emancipation of the European Mind from Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 167. 97 Toland, Pantheisticon, 78.

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and the general Flood’ as well as the ‘the Rise, Fall, and intermediate Vicissitudes of Things’, explicable through his being an ‘Aegyptian Philosopher.’98 If the truth of Christianity is defined through its dependence upon the foundations of the Old Testament, then it would indeed be hard to see Toland as any kind of Christian. But Toland makes it clear that an attack on Huet, who anchored the Christian faith in the history contained in it, ‘does not harm the Christian religion’; this is because the value of the New Testament was seen by Toland as entirely separate.99 In Toland’s scheme of the history of religion all the importance is placed upon Christ, who directly intuited the knowledge required for salvation and revealed it to all, contrasting with the speculative knowledge of natural philosophy as represented by Moses, which was adapted to the Jews and then corrupted in its subsequent transmission. Moses, in so far as his upbringing in the pharaonic court made him part of the tradition of ancient pagan philosophy, employed reason to theorise about the physical world, leading to pantheistic ideas such as a corporeal God. Christ, by contrast, although just as much of a man as Moses, had the power of intuition which directly accessed the truth of salvation. Christ is not a philosopher and the New Testament does not contain philosophy; Moses was a philosopher, and even though the Old Testament does contain a corrupted form of natural philosophy in Genesis, the doctrine of an afterlife is entirely absent from it. There is, therefore, a strict separation between religion and philosophy in Toland’s thought, one pointed to in the concluding words of the preface of Pantheisticon, where he states that there is a wide difference between: ‘unfolding Nature’s Mysteries, and discoursing on Religion.’100 The two were different because of the difference between reason and intuition in Toland’s epistemology; reason could be used to confirm Christ’s intuition, but could not have discovered its contents. The use of the double-doctrine to create a division between Toland’s ‘true’ pantheistic views and his ‘adapted’ ideas on Christianity is thus highly misleading. The portrait of him that has developed in modern scholarship rests on the misunderstanding of the relationship between intuition and reason in his thought, and the fallacy that when he is talking about paganism he is trying to attack the entirety of Christianity, rather than just its corruptions. Without recognition of this distinction the author who called himself ‘Janus Junius Eoganesius’ will continue to be misunderstood by contemporary commentators who look at only one or the other side of his face.101 98 Toland, Pantheisticon, 47. 99 Toland, Origines Judaicae, 94. 100 Toland, Pantheisticon, 7. 101 For the explanation of Toland’s use of this name see: Toland, Pantheisticon, 3.

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The next chapter turns to William Stukeley, an author who is mostly known for his association with the ancient megalithic monuments of Britain and those original pagans he believed to have worshipped in them: the druids. As opposed to Toland’s model of primitive Christianity, he advances a nominally similar, but in fact fundamentally different idea: patriarchal Christianity. This extends the boundaries of the gospel backwards in time from the appearance of Christ to the biblical origin of the world. Although this was targeted against the argument of Egyptian priority used by Toland, it was also meant to redress the problem of Huet’s scheme, which suggested that before the time of Moses the world was without religion. Where for Toland, in concordance with his strongly held anti-paganism, the history of the druids was ‘the complete History of Priestcraft’, for Stukeley their history was the pre-history of Christianity.102 And where for Toland the reliance on the role of Christ as a simple moral teacher was deeply anti-trinitarian, for Stukeley evidence of the Trinity could be detected throughout pagan antiquity. Likewise, these fundamental differences play out in his approach to the mysteries, which Stukeley believed to contain traces of that patriarchal religion, which had in turn been preserved in the rituals of freemasonry. It is Stukeley’s ideas which provide insight into the character of English freemasonry in the first half of the eighteenth century, not Toland’s Pantheisticon. Taken together these reinterpretations undermine the idea of a radical Enlightenment, either one located in Spinoza and disseminated by figures such as Toland, or one propagated through the institution of early English freemasonry. 102 Toland, Miscellaneous Works, 1:8.

Chapter 2

The Religion of the Patriarchs The law and life of our Saviour Jesus Christ shows itself to be such, being a renewal of the ancient pre-Mosaic religion, in which Abraham, the friend of God, and his forefathers are shown to have lived.1

∵ If the ancient world before the coming of Christ was divided between pagans and Jews, what was the religious identity of those figures of the Old Testament such as Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Job who had preceded Moses? Was it possible to see them as pagans? Certainly not: for as the Bible records, they were in direct conversation with God and were therefore monotheists not polytheists. What about Jews? This was also impossible because if Judaism was to be defined as the observation of the laws given to Moses, those who came before self-evidently could not be Jews. What were they then? For the early Church Father Eusebius the answer to this question was a surprising one: they were essentially Christians.2 This answer reflected the status of Christianity as a newcomer in what has been described as the ‘market-place of religions’ of late antiquity.3 Since the gospel was a recent phenomenon, early Christians were forced to look back to the Old Testament to try and establish its historical roots. If the ancient Hebrews had practised a religion that was effectively Christianity and which had been revealed by God to Adam before being corrupted into paganism and diffused around the world, then Christianity’s 1 Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel 1.5. A version of this chapter was published as: Ferdinand Saumarez Smith, “Pagans or Patriarchs? William Stukeley’s “on the Mysterys of the Antients”, the Bembine Tablet, and the religious culture of early English Freemasonry,” Aegyptiaca. Journal of the History of Reception of Ancient Egypt 6 (2022): 3–43. 2 Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel 1.2. On this argument see: Aaron P. Johnson, Eusebius (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 65–67; and Johnson: Ethnicity and Argument in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 94–125. On the place of Demonstratio Evangelica in Eusebius’ wider thought see: James Corke-Webster, Eusebius and Empire: Constructing Church and Rome in the Ecclesiastical History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 42–43. 3 For accounts of the chronological contest in late antiquity see: Introduction, note 23.

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position as the first and therefore the true religion could be upheld. The usurpation of the Hebrew Bible also involved the development of an interpretative strategy known as typology, which read figures and events from the Old Testament as ‘types’ that symbolically predicted the New.4 Both these strategies were essential to preserve the priority of Christianity. In the seventeenth century, the status of the religion of the biblical patriarchs prior to Moses was a highly contested question.5 The Catholic Pierre-Daniel Huet adopted one of Eusebius’ titles in his own Demonstratio Evangelica (1679), which traced the pagan gods back to half-remembered stories of Moses and his wife Zipporah.6 Although their confessional differences necessitated a clandestine scholarly relationship, in this respect he followed the model of the Protestant scholar Samuel Bochart’s Geographia sacra (1646), which sought to explain the similarity between features of the Judaic tradition and paganism through the agency of the sea-faring Phoenicians.7 Huet, who later became a Jesuit, was criticised for his approach by the Jansenist theologian 4 On typology see: Introduction, note 24. 5 For a sixteenth-century precedent see: Heinrich Bullinger, The olde fayth an euident probacion out of the holy scripture, that the christen fayth (whiche is the right, true, old and vndoubted fayth) hath endured sens the beginnyng of the worlde. Herein hast thou also a short summe of the whole Byble, and a probacion, that al vertuous men haue pleased God, and wer saued through the Christen fayth (1547): ‘though they had not the name of Chrysten men … Yet as pertaynyng to relygyon and substaunce, they were all Chrysten’ [unpaginated]. 6 Pierre-Daniel Huet, Demonstratio Evangelica (Paris, 1679). On Huet’s work see: April G. Shelford, Transforming the Republic of Letters: Pierre-Daniel Huet and European Intellectual Life, 1650–1720 (Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2007); Martin Mulsow, “The Seventeenth Century Confronts the Gods: Bishop Huet, Moses, and the Dangers of Comparison,” in Asaph Ben-Tov & Martin Mulsow, Knowledge and Profanation: Transgressing the Boundaries of Religion in Premodern Scholarship (Brill: Leiden, 2019), 165–188; and Elena Rapetti, Pierre-Daniel Huet: erudizione, filosofia, apologetica (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1999). In the English context, see the equivalent argument in: Theophilus Gale, The Court of the Gentiles: Or, a Discourse touching the Original of Human Literature, both Philologie, and Philosophie, from the Scriptures, and Jewish Church (Oxford, 1669). On Gale, see: Stephen Pigney, “Theophilus Gale and Historiography of Philosophy,” in G.A.J. Rogers, Tom Sorell, & Jill Kraye (eds.), Insiders and Outsiders in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (Oxford & New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2010), 76–98. 7 Samuel Bochart, Geographia sacra (Caen, 1646), 1. On the relationship between the Catholic Huet and the Calvinist Bochart see: Shelford, Transforming the Republic of Letters, 27–28; and John Aikin (trans.), Memoirs of The Life of Peter Daniel Huet, Bishop of Avranches, 2 vols (London, 1810), 1:36–37. On Bochart’s use of Tertullian see: Guy Stroumsa, “Noah’s sons and the religious conquest of the earth: Samuel Bochart and his followers,” in Martin Mulsow & Jan Assmann (eds.), Sintflut und Gedächtnis: Erinnern und Vergessen des Ursprungs (Pader­ born: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2006), 313–314; and on the role played by the Phoenicians in his thought: Zur Shalev, Sacred Words and Worlds: Geography, Religion, and Scholarship, 1550–1700 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 141–204.

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Antoine Arnauld, who argued that his work provided dangerous ammunition to ‘the budding free-thinker [‘jeunes libertins’]’ in support of the view ‘that, although one ought to have a religion, it did not greatly matter which, seeing there was good in all of them, and that even Paganism could stand comparison with Christianity.’8 Although Catholic, Jansenists shared the Calvinist belief based on Augustine that only a select predestined portion of humanity were to be saved, which tended towards a harder line on the value of pagan wisdom than the Jesuits, who had engaged with many world religions in the course of missionary activity. Considering his choice of title, it is perhaps slightly ironic that Huet exposed himself to an argument which was provided for in the scheme of Eusebius. This was outlined by another Jesuit in the following century, the French missionary Joseph-François Lafitau in Moeurs des sauvages Ameriquains comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps (1724): ‘For, if it is true that all religions have copied Moses, if he himself is the type of all their divinities and the subject of all the stories of mythology, it follows that, before Moses, all pagan peoples were without religion or gods.’9 The implications of this were extremely serious: religion could hardly be held as essential to human life if generations of humans had lived without it. Such a conclusion would support Pierre Bayle’s argument in Pensées diverses (1683) that a virtuous society of atheists was possible and that therefore religion was not necessary for the order of society.10 Lafitau’s Moeurs des sauvages redressed the problem of Huet’s work by tracing features of indigenous customs and beliefs that he encountered among the Iroquois (in what is now Canada) back ‘far beyond the time of Moses … 8

Antoine Arnauld, Lettres de messire Antoine Arnauld, Docteur de la Maison et Société de Sorbonne, 4 vols (Paris, 1775), 3:400–401. The translated quotation is drawn from: Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680–1715 (London: Hollis & Carter, 1953), 46. 9 Joseph-François Lafitau, Moeurs des sauvages Ameriquains comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps (Paris, 1724). Quotations are drawn from the English translation: W.N. Fenton & E.L. Moore (trans.), Customs of the American Indians Compared with the Customs of Primitive Times (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1974), 32. On Lafitau’s engagement with Huet, see: Chantal Grell, “Le Dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquité en France,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 331, no. 2 (1995): 896; and on Lafitau generally: Andreas Motsch, Lafitau et l’émergence du discours ethnographique (Sillery: Septentrion, 2001); and Carl F. Starkloff, Common Testimony. Ethnology and Theology in the “Customs” of Joseph Lafitau (St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sciences, 2002). 10 Pierre Bayle, Pensées diverses, écrites à un docteur de Sorbonne, a l’occasion de la comête qui parut au mois de décembre 1680, 2 vols (Rotterdam, 1683), 2:525–529. On this work see: Eric Jorink, “Comets In Context. Some Thoughts on Bayle’s Pensées Diverses,” in Wiep van Bunge & Hans Bots (eds.), Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), le philosophe de Rotterdam: Philosophy, Religion and Reception (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 51–67.

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to our first ancestors, Adam and Eve.’11 To Lafitau, Demeter, the benefactor of agriculture, was ‘perfectly suitable to that Eve, mother of Cain, whom the Scriptures call a ploughman’, from which he deduced that both ancient and contemporary paganism preserved traces of that ‘Christianity’ pre-Christ which had first been revealed by God to Adam.12 Although Lafitau had risked life and limb in the New World to supply proof for this argument by proselytising to contemporary ‘pagans’, it was one for which evidence could also be found in the comfort and safety of one’s own country. In the case of the physician, antiquarian, and eventually Anglican priest William Stukeley this was England: once the home of pagan druids, now all that was left was the visible record of their presence in the form of megalithic monuments at sites such as Stonehenge and Avebury.13 But the gulf between antiquity and the eighteenth century was also bridged by a living monument in which Stukeley was deeply involved: freemasonry.14 On the basis of the narratives of its medieval ‘Old Charges’, manuscripts which traced the origins of masonry through biblical as well as pagan figures, freemasonry had a remarkable claim to a connection with that ancient world, and with the pagan mysteries in particular.15 In this chapter, Stukeley’s application of the Christian diffusionist model of the history of religion to the pagan mysteries will first be explored through his differences on the question of Egyptian priority with his old friend William Warburton, who, unusually for an Anglican priest, followed John Toland on this matter, though for very different reasons. Then the way in which his interest in patriarchal Christianity maps onto his view of freemasonry will be investigated through his little-known manuscript A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients in an explication of that famous piece of antiquity, the table of Isis (c.1735–1738), which traces freemasonry back through a hybrid of Egyptian and Eleusinian mysteries to the religion of the patriarchs.16 Its masonic relevance 11 12

Lafitau, Customs, 33. Lafitau, Customs, 160. Evidence for a connection between Eve and the Bacchic mysteries could be identified in Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation 2, who wrote of the initiates ‘crowned with snakes, shrieking out the name of that Eva by whom error came into the world.’ 13 William Stukeley has been the subject of two modern biographical studies: Stuart Piggott, William Stukeley: An Eighteenth-Century Antiquary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950) and David Boyd Haycock, William Stukeley: Science, Religion, and Archaeology in EighteenthCentury England (Woodbrige: Boydell Press, 2002). 14 For the introductory literature to freemasonry see: Introduction, note 58. 15 For the literature on the Old Charges see: Introduction, note 59. 16 William Stukeley, “Palaeographica Sacra, or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients in an explication of that famous piece of antiquity, the table of Isis” [ca. 1735–1740],

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was correctly identified by Stukeley’s second modern biographer, David Boyd Haycock; however, he did not provide a full account of the text or mention a crucial piece of evidence: its description of the ancient initiations may be verified with catechism from the first ‘exposure’ of masonic ritual, Samuel Prichard’s Masonry Dissected (1730).17 This represents an important discovery for the understanding of freemasonry in this period, demonstrating the reliability of the ritual contents of this genre of texts and providing a means of investigating its historical and religious self-conception. In turn, with this new information in hand, the place of freemasonry in Stukeley’s wider antiquarian work on the ‘Druidical Temples’ in Stonehenge (1740) and Abury (1743) may be better elucidated.18 The text reveals that Stukeley’s conception of the mysteries, that they partially preserved vestiges of a prior revelation of a distinctly trinitarian form of Christianity, extended to freemasonry, which he likewise believed to contain traces of that patriarchal religion in its ritual. MS.4722, Wellcome Collection, London; Stukeley, “Palaeographia Sacra or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients, being an explanation of the Table of Isis, or Bembine Table” [1744], MS.4725, Wellcome Collection, London. Stukeley’s diaries make it clear that the majority of the work on the subject was done in 1738, see: Stukeley, “Interleaved copy of printed almanacs, with diary entries, personal accounts and antiquarian notes” [1730], Bod. MS. Eng. misc. d. 719/8, 19v, 23v, 25v, 27v, Bodleian Library, Oxford. Two shorter manuscripts on the subject of the mysteries also exist: Stukeley, “Explication of the Table of ISIS; to the right hon. the Countess of Pomfret” [1761], MS. Eng. misc. d. 454, Bodleian Library, Oxford; and “On the Mysterys of the Antients” [n.d.], MS. Eng. misc. e. 553, Bodleian Library, Oxford. I am grateful to Matthew Leigh for not writing further on the text in: Leigh, The Masons and the Mysteries in 18th Century Drama (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019) on account of his awareness of my work. 17 David Boyd Haycock, “Stukeley and the Mysteries,” Freemasonry Today 6 (1998): 22–25. See also the discussion of Stukeley’s involvement with freemasonry in: Haycock, William Stukeley, 174–180. Samuel Prichard, Masonry Dissected (London, 1730). On Prichard’s text see: Harry Carr, “An introduction to Prichard’s Masonry Dissected,” AQC 94 (1981): 107–137. Although texts such as this were long believed to be genuine exposures of the inner workings of the order, it is now thought they were published by freemasons as an aid for memorising the sequence of ritual, see: Péter, British Freemasonry, 2:ix. 18 William Stukeley, Stonehenge (London, 1740); and Stukeley, Abury, a temple of the British druids, with some others, described. (London, 1743). Elias Ashmole, who became a freemason in 1646, wrote of the sources of ‘Hermetique Learning’ in the ‘famous and mysterious Druydae’ as well as the biblical patriarchs ‘Adam (with the Fathers before the Flood, and since).’ See: Ashmole, Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum. Containing Severall Poeticall Pieces of our Famous English Philosophers, who have written the Hermetique Mysteries in their owne Ancient Language. Faithfully Collected into one Volume, with Annotations thereon (London, 1652), prolegomena. On Ashmole’s involvement with freemasonry see: Norman Rogers, “The Lodge of Elias Ashmole, 1646,” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 45 (1953): 35–53.

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Finally, these ideas will be located within a series of contexts which suggest that Stukeley was representative of early English freemasonry in general: the deferential social world of London clubs, in particular the short-lived Egyptian Society, with which freemasonry blended; contemporary masonic literature which shared the interest in patriarchal Christianity; and the example of the Scottish Catholic-convert Andrew Michael Ramsay, an important figure in the transference of freemasonry to France, who used a similar set of arguments about a prior revelation of ‘Christianity’ in both his religious and masonic writings. In contrast to Toland’s use of the pagan mysteries to separate primitive Christianity from ‘pagan’ corruptions such as the Trinity, Stukeley and Ramsay attempted to construct a universal Christianity through which the Trinity radiated. Based on a prior revelation to Adam, it could be traced in the pagan mysteries, but it found its contemporary expression in freemasonry. 1

William Stukeley: The Antiquarian Freemason

On the 11th May 1738, the rector of the village of Brant Broughton William Warburton paid a call on his fellow cleric and county neighbour William Stukeley at his home in Stamford, Lincolnshire. First acquainted in 1718 they had soon ‘enter’d into the most intimate friendship’, one that played out in letters as well as in periodic personal visits.19 On this particular occasion, Stukeley’s diary records that he observed to the future Bishop of Gloucester ‘that our modern Free-Masonry ceremonys are derivd from the antient initiations of the Mysterys, or descent into hell.’20 The timing of Stukeley’s remark was significant in that it coincided with the year of the publication of the first volume of William Warburton’s The Divine Legation of Moses (1738–1741).21 Stukeley was well aware of its contents, having been entrusted with its idiosyncratic argument some seven years before it was published ‘under great injunction of secrecy, for fear some body should steal his notion & publish it for their own.’22 In the book, Warburton attempted to beat the deists and freethinkers at their own game: by conceding that the Jews had not had the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, he hoped to prove God’s direct theocratic rule of his chosen people, since he argued (against Pierre Bayle) 19 William Stukeley, The Commentarys, Diary & Common-Place Book of William Stukeley & Selected Letters (London: Doppler Press, 1980), 116. 20 William Stukeley, “Memoirs” [n.d.], Bod. MS. Eng. misc. d. 719/8, fol. 17v, Bodleian Library, Oxford. 21 William Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses, 2 vols (London, 1738–1741). 22 Stukeley, Commentarys, 116.

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that it was essential for the functioning of society. To emphasise the cultural uniqueness of the Jews he also turned to the Eleusinian mysteries as evidence that an afterlife had otherwise been universally taught in the ancient world. Warburton’s literary aspirations were displayed in his interpretation of ‘the Descent of Aeneas into Hell’ in the sixth book of Virgil’s Aeneid as ‘an enigmatical Representation of his Initiation into the Mysteries.’23 Stukeley’s On the Mysterys is identified as a companion piece to this ‘noble illustration’ by his ‘learned & most valuable friend’; though where Divine Legation was a ‘picture in words’, his is ‘strictly a picture.’24 However, Warburton’s chosen confidant thoroughly disagreed with him on what the implications of this picture were for the history of religion. The differences between the two on the subject of the mysteries are evident in the somewhat backhanded retrospective comments they made about each other’s character and thought; friends of nearly fifty years can evidently know each other a little too well. The first passage, drawn from Stukeley’s commonplace book, casts a retrospective glance on their friendship and contains a number of valuable clues that help delineate the disagreement that brought about the waning of their once very close relations: We had very many & warm disputes about his notions of the Egyptian antiquitys, that he heigthend [sic] ‘em too much, that they were borrowed from the hebrew. In short we never could agree in our notions about them, about the hieroglyphics, the mysterys, or of antiquitys in general. Tho’ this difference had not the least influence upon my friendship towards him, for I admir’d him as a fine genius, yet I found evidently he coold toward me on that account. He wrote a treatise against Mr. Popes essay on man, to prove it to be atheism, spinosaism, deism, hobbism, fatalism, materialism, & what not. In that my sentiments fully coincided. On a sudden he alter’d his style, & wrote a comment to prove the sublimity of that work. This did his business effectually … He certainly has great parts & equal industry, & a pride equal to both. But the greatest men, Camden & Selden, Boyl, Newton, Usher, &c., were as remarkable for candor & modesty as for their incomparable genius’s. Warburton got his legation notion from lord Shaftsburys characteristics; his mysterys from Sir Jo. Marsham, many more notions from Spencer, & other such kind of writers. We may thence gather his internal principles.25 23 Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:189. 24 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 3r. 25 Stukeley, Commentarys, 116–117.

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In the second, taken from a letter of March 1765 following Stukeley’s death and addressed to one of his supporters, the Bishop of Worcester Richard Hurd, Warburton has the last word. He condescendingly dismisses his ideas and – for good measure – also throws in a jibe about opportunism: You say true, I have a tenderness in my temper which will make me miss poor Stukeley; for, not to say that he was one of my oldest acquaintance, there was in him such a mixture of simplicity, drollery, absurdity, ingenuity, superstition, and antiquarianism, that he often afforded me that kind of well-seasoned repast, which the French call an Ambigu, I suppose, from a compound of things never meant to meet together. I have often heard him laughed at by fools, who had neither his sense, his knowledge, nor his honesty; though it must be confessed, that in him they were all strangely travestied. Not a week before his death he walked from Bloomsbury to Grosvenor-Square, to pay me a visit: was cheerful as usual, and as full of literary projects. But his business was (as he heard Geekie was not likely to continue long) to desire I would give him the earliest notice of his death, for that he intended to solicit for his Prebend of Canterbury, by Lord Chancellor and Lord Cardigan. “For,” added he, “one never dies the sooner, you know, for seeking preferment.”26 The first passage makes clear that the intellectual discord between the two men essentially turned upon a problem of chronology: specifically, that of the origins of Jewish law and ritual. For Warburton, following the seventeenthcentury works of the chronologer John Marsham and the Hebraist John Spencer, their customs had been shaped during the captivity in Egypt (‘he heigthend ’em too much’).27 But for Stukeley the reverse was the case: the Hebrew patriarchs were the ultimate source for the religion of Egypt and, for that matter, all other nations (‘they were borrowed from the hebrew’). To him 26 William Warburton, Letters from a Late Eminent Prelate to One of his Friends, 2nd ed. (London, 1809), 358–359. 27 John Marsham, Chronicus canon Aegypticaus, Ebraicus, Graecus, et disquisitiones (London, 1672); John Spencer, De legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus, et earum rationibus (Cambridge, 1683–1685). On Spencer’s influence on Warburton see: Dmitri Levitin, “John Spencer’s De Legibus Hebraeorum (1683–85) and ‘Enlightened’ Sacred History: A New Interpretation,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 76 (2013): 49–92. On Spencer’s use of the theory of ‘divine accommodation’, which also influenced Warburton, see: Daniel Stolzenberg, “John Spencer and the Perils of Sacred Philology,” Past & Present 214, no. 1 (2012): 129–163; and Stephen D. Benin, The Footprints of God: Divine Accommodation in Jewish and Christian Thought (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1993), xix–xx.

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it seemed absurd that Moses, who was sent to draw the Jews away from Egypt, could have at the same time copied their idolatrous customs. The true reason that Egypt had been credited with the birth of idolatry and the mysteries was the imbalance of material testimony, as their monuments remained standing. This chronological perspective deeply shaped Stukeley’s view of the history and religious character of freemasonry. Stukeley had been ‘made a Free Mason at the Salutation Tav., Tavistock Street’ on the 6th of January 1721.28 Freemasonry represented a new arena of sociability for the young Lincolnshire doctor set on establishing himself in the capital and it followed his membership of the newly founded Society of Antiquaries in January 1718, for which he was appointed secretary, and his becoming a fellow of the Royal Society a few months after. In a short biography of Stukeley in The History of Corpus Christi (1753), his alma mater, written by Robert Masters though with the evident input of its subject, it is recorded that ‘his Curiosity led him to be initiated into the Mysteries of Masonry; imagining them to be the Remains of the famous Mysteries of the Antients.’ Immediately after, in a reference to On the Mysterys, Masters writes that it was this ‘he tells us’ which ‘enabled him to write more fully thereupon than had been hitherto done, although this Work hath not yet been published.’29 This evidence helpfully indicates that freemasonry primarily appealed to Stukeley the antiquarian, though his diary also proves that his desire to seek favour with the nobility – the trait ridiculed by Warburton – would have been handsomely fulfilled by the association. Both aspects are evident in the next entry relating to freemasonry in Stukeley’s diary, which records the inauguration of the first aristocratic Grand Master on June 24th: The Masons had a dinner at Stationers Hall, present, Duke of Montague, Lord Herbert, Lord Stanhope, Sir And. Fountain, &c. Dr. Desaguliers pronounc’d an oration. The Gd. Mr. [Grand Master] Mr. Pain produc’d an old MS of the Constitutions which he got in the West of England, 500 years old. He read over a new sett of articles to be observ’d. The Duke of Montague chose Gd. Mr. next year. Dr. Beal, Deputy.30 28 Stukeley, Commentarys, 54. 29 Robert Masters, The History of the College of Corpus Christi and the B. Virgin Mary (Cambridge, 1753), 382. 30 Stukeley, Commentarys, 56. In recent years, this event has been put forward by Andrew Prescott and Susan Sommers as an alternative beginning point to the traditional date of the foundation of the Premier Grand Lodge in 1717, which is absent in the first edition of: James Anderson, The Constitutions of the Free-Masons (London, 1723). See: Andrew Prescott & Susan Sommers, “Searching for the apple tree: revisiting the earliest years of

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The manuscript produced on this occasion by George Payne is thought to have been the Cooke, which along with the Regius is one of the two oldest of the Old Charges.31 That it was shown on this occasion points to the simple conclusion that one of the main attractions of freemasonry was its striking history.32 Although this may have the ring of a tautology, it is a premise that helpfully ties the development of the society to textual foundations and provides a neutral ground upon which more particularised views of, for example, the political alignments of masonic lodges can be built.33 James Anderson’s The New Book of Constitutions of the Antient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons (1738) puts some flesh on the diary entry, stating that the dinner was preceded by a meeting of the Grand Lodge at the King’s-Arms tavern in the churchyard of St Paul’s that brought together ‘the Masters and Wardens of 12 Lodges’ and at which, among others, Philip Stanhope the fourth Earl of Chesterfield was made a new brother.34 From there the assembled freemasons ‘marched on Foot’ the short distance to Stationer’s Hall, where they were ‘joyfully receiv’d by about 150 true and faithful, all clothed’ and sat down ‘in the antient Manner of Masons to a very elegant Feast.’ Following this refreshment, the former Grand Master George Payne invested Montagu ‘with the Ensigns and Badges of his Office and Authority, install’d him in Solomon’s organised freemasonry,” in John S. Wade (ed.), Reflections on 300 Years of Freemasonry: Papers Delivered to the Quatuor Coronati Lodge Tercentenary Conference on the History of Freemasonry (London: Lewis Masonic, 2017), 681–704. Although the resolution of such chronological questions is important, the intention here is to take a longer view on the religious, intellectual, and social character of early English freemasonry in the 1717–1721 period and the two decades which followed it. 31 Prescott and Sommers, “Apple Tree,” 694. See also: Prescott, “Some literary contexts of the Regius and Cooke manuscripts,” in Trevor Stewart (ed.), Freemasonry in Music and Literature (London: Canonbury Masonic Research Centre, 2005), 44; and G.P. Speth, “The Stukeley-Payne-Cooke MS,” AQC 4 (1891): 171–172. 32 In the seventeenth century, Robert Plot accounted for the attraction of ‘persons of the most eminent quality’ to freemasonry by the ‘Antiquity and honor, that is pretended in a large parchment volum they have amongst them, containing the History and Rules of the craft of masonry.’ See: Plot, Natural History of Staffordshire (Oxford, 1686), 316. It may be conjectured that Elias Ashmole, one of the earliest known non-stonemason freemasons, was the source for Plot’s description of freemasonry, as he notes in his diary that ‘Dr Plot presented me with his Natural History of Staffordshire.’ See: Elias Ashmole, Memoirs of the Life of that Learned Antiquary, Elias Ashmole, Esq.; drawn up by himself by way of Diary (London, 1717), 78. 33 On the political affiliations of the early English lodges see: Ric Berman, Foundations of Modern Freemasonry (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2014). 34 James Anderson, The New Book of Constitutions of the Antient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons (London, 1738), 112–113.

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Chair and sat down on his Right Hand’; Montagu then proclaimed Dr John Beal as his deputy and Payne invested him and ‘install’d him in Hiram Abbiff’s Chair on the Grand Master’s Left Hand.’ The mood of the occasion is described as celebratory, in light of the ‘Revival of the Prosperity of Masonry’, a phrase which illustrates the balance between the novelty of the eighteenth-century coinage of the society and the recognition of its deep history. Alongside the Duke of Montagu (on whose relationship with Stukeley more below) and Lord Stanhope, the third noble in attendance was Lord Henry Herbert, the ninth Earl of Pembroke and sixth Earl of Montgomery, a keen Palladian and antiquarian who commissioned the also-mentioned Sir Andrew Fountaine to catalogue his collection of antiquities. A few months after this grand affair on the 27th of December, the Deputy Grand Master Dr Beal consented to a new lodge at the Fountain Tavern on the Strand, for which Stukeley was chosen as master; a lodge which was graced the following year with the presence of a number of other aristocratic freemasons. Stukeley’s active commitment to freemasonry also survived his self-imposed exile to Grantham in 1726, where he founded a lodge. On the Mysterys and the reference in The History of Corpus Christi likewise proves that his engagement with the subject continued long into his life. Stukeley has long been recognised as a valuable eyewitness to the events of the early years of the Grand Lodge, but the role freemasonry played in his antiquarian thought also provides a window into its intellectual and religious culture, a subject which has all too often remained opaque. 2

On the Mysterys

William Warburton’s above-cited comment that the aged Stukeley was ‘as usual … full of literary projects’ is testified in abundance by the richly illustrated manuscript collection he left behind, now distributed across a large number of libraries. These varied writings demonstrate that his most well-known publications on the ‘Temples of the Druids’ were very much the tip of an iceberg. Fortunately, Stukeley left a map by which to navigate these disparate texts in the preface to Stonehenge, making it possible to piece together an outline of his lifetime’s project: a history in seven discourses reaching back from the visible antiquities of Britain to the biblical origins of the world. The first part was to set out a system of chronology that used astronomical proofs to support the narrative of the Old Testament. In this respect he followed Isaac Newton’s The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728), a book which though widely derided upon its posthumous publication remained important for Stukeley,

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Newton’s first biographer, in its attestation of the primacy of the Hebrews.35 The second, ‘Melchisedec’, was an attempt to determine the features of the ‘first and patriarchal religion’ from the evidence of the Bible and ‘ancient heathen customs’ which were seen as the ‘remains of that religion.’36 One of the central motivations of this was to establish the Trinity as numbering among the beliefs of the patriarchs, which places Stukeley in the tradition of figures such as the seventeenth-century Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth.37 The third part was to be On the Mysterys, in which they are conceived of in a paradoxical manner: both negatively as the first ‘deviation’ from patriarchal Christianity, but also positively in their proximity to the ‘true religion’ of which they offer the best hope of reconstructing.38 In the introductory pages of one of the manuscripts, Stukeley clarifies this point by remarking that the books of Moses which treat of the ‘jewish polity & religion’ are deficient in providing ‘any regular account of the first & patriarchal religion’, and therefore the seeker after religion’s ‘purest streams’ must necessarily search through the ‘dross’ and ‘corruption’ of ‘heathen antiquity.’39 The next was ‘A discourse on the hieroglyphic learning of the ancients, and of the origin of the alphabet of letters’, affirming Hebrew letters as the ‘primitive idea’ from which ‘all others are deriv’d’; this was another point of contrast with Warburton, who advocated a progressive development from pictorial hieroglyphs to abstract characters in his own account of the origin of written language.40 Part five then marks the shift from the study of antiquity in general towards a specific connection with Britain, relating the druids to the patriarchal religion of Abraham via Bochart’s Phoenicians, who had set up a colony in England whilst trading in Cornish tin.

35

36 37

38 39 40

Isaac Newton, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (London, 1728). For Stukeley’s brief account of his discussion with Newton on Hebrew primacy and the Temple of Solomon, see: Stukeley, Commentarys, 69. On Newton’s ideas of ancient history see: Jed Z. Buchwald & Mordechai Feingold, Newton and the Origin of Civilization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013). This updates the earlier study: Frank Manuel, Isaac Newton, Historian (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963). Stukeley, Stonehenge, i. Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe (London, 1678). See also: Jan Rohls, “Cudworth and the English Debate on the Trinity,” in Douglas Hedley & David Leech (eds.), Revisioning Cambridge Platonism: Sources and Legacy (Cham: Springer, 2019), 101–115. Stukeley, Stonehenge, i. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 5r; fol. 1r. Stukeley, Stonehenge, ii. On Warburton’s interpretation of hieroglyphs see: Annette Graczyk, Die Hieroglyphe im 18. Jahrhundert: Theorien zwischen Aufklärung und Esoterik (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 45–70.

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Finally, this ambitious endeavour concluded with the only two parts that were actually published: Abury and Stonehenge. An important model for both Stukeley’s broader religious concerns as well as his specific programme of works on the temples of the druids was the polymathic Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, who in Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652–1654) had sought to identify prior traces of ‘Christianity’ behind the material remains of the ancient Egyptians scattered across Rome.41 Kircher is particularly present in On the Mysterys, which follows the attempt in Oedipus Aegyptiacus to divine the meaning of hieroglyphics from the Bembine tablet.42 At the time of writing Stukeley believed this singular antiquity to be in ‘a lumber room over the King of Sardinias library’ in Turin, where it had been seen ‘a good while ago’ by the physician and freemason Richard Mead, under whom Stukeley had studied ‘the practical part’ of medicine and on whose recommendation he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.43 However, elsewhere he confusingly writes that it was first discovered there in 1696 by the above-mentioned Sir Andrew Fountaine.44 In this latter respect he seems to have misremembered, since the discovery was indeed made by Mead and not Fountaine, though in 1695.45 Today, this remarkable object is unattractively displayed in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Turin and is understood to originate from the first century AD rather than ancient Egypt, with its ‘hieroglyphs’ serving decorative rather than textual purposes. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though, long before Champollion’s decipherment of the Rosetta Stone, no such distinction was possible and its meaning was widely speculated upon. 41 Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus, 3 vols (Rome, 1652–1654). On this text see: Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, “Hermes Trismegistos, Isis und Osiris in Athanasius Kirchers “Oedipus Aegyptiacus”,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 3 (2001): 67–88. On Kircher’s use of the ‘plagiarism thesis’ see: Daniel Stolzenberg, Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity (Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press, 2013), 65; and on his interpretation of hieroglyphs see: John Edward Fletcher, A Study of the Life and Works of Athanasius Kircher, ‘Germanus Incredibilis’ (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 68–87. Kircher influenced Stukeley’s trinitarian interpretation of the ground-plan of Avebury: Stukeley, Abury, 9. 42 Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus, 3:79–160. On Kircher’s interpretation of the Bembine Tablet see: Stolzenberg, Egyptian Oedipus, 143–146. For a useful summary of other works on the object, see: Enrica Leospo, La Mensa Isiaca di Torino (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 1–28. 43 Masters, Corpus Christi, 382. 44 Stukeley conferred with Fountaine on the subject of Roman antiquities, see: William Stukeley, The Family Memoirs of the Rev. William Stukeley, M.D. And the Antiquarian and other Correspondence of William Stukeley, Roger & Samuel Gale, etc., 3 vols (London, 1887), 3:28. 45 Richard Mead, The Medical Works of Richard Mead (London, 1762), iv. Fountaine was, though, also on a Grand Tour around the turn of the century.

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Figure 2.1 Engraving of the Bembine Tablet (with reverse orientation) copied from: Bernard de Montfaucon, L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures, 5 vols (Paris, 1719), 2:332–333. Folded and pasted at the end of: William Stukeley, “Palaeographia Sacra or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients, being an explanation of the Table of Isis, or Bembine Table” [1744], MS.4725, Wellcome Collection, London. Reproduced by permission of the Wellcome Collection

In his own speculations Stukeley claims to have gone beyond Kircher in the comprehension of ‘the whole & main design of it’ and even chastises him for his ‘too great confidence’ in delivering judgement ‘on matters so abstruse.’46 As will be seen, Stukeley is lacking self-awareness when he makes this criticism. The interest in the Bembine tablet in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries illustrates the increasing attention paid to material culture as a body of evidence that could anchor textually based interpretations of antiquity. One of the most useful publications in this context was Bernard de Montfaucon’s L’Antiquité expliquée et representée en figures (1719–1724), which addresses the tablet, describing it as a ‘most significant [‘plus considerables’] monument’ that in its representation of a ‘large number of religious acts’ can be taken as 46 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 14r.

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a ‘general table’ of the ‘religion and superstitions’ of the ancient Egyptians, specifically the ‘mysteries of Isis.’47 Montfaucon’s own exposition of its various compartments is largely descriptive, though he does make reference to both the guarded views of Lorenzo Pignoria and those of the ‘more daring [‘plus hardi’]’ Kircher.48 For Stukeley, one of whose manuscripts includes an engraving of the tablet copied from Montfaucon, the tripartite plan has two primary meanings. First, he sees it as a representation of ancient Egyptian cosmography, showing the universe to be ‘an expansion from the first cause’; second, it relates to the mysteries by depicting a temple ‘in plano’ with the ‘whole doctrin of initiation delineated therein.’49 In terms of this second aspect, Stukeley’s chronological outlook must be remembered, which followed Newton in affirming that the ‘Mosaic tabernacle was not made from imitation of any Egyptian temple’, but that all Egyptian temples were ‘built in imitation of Solomons.’50 The cosmographic aspect is linked to the initiatory insofar as each of the three areas of the temple are representative of stages in a Neo-Platonically ordered universe. The ‘court or vestible’ represents ‘the sublunary world’, the ‘sanctum or holy part in the south’ with ‘the golden candlestick, wherein were seven lamps always burning’ is ‘a fit resemblance of the sun & planets’, and finally the ‘adytum or sancti sanctorum’ is a ‘representation of divine things & invisible, by material.’51 On the tablet itself the bottom portion represents the ‘terrestrial’ or the ‘earthly globe’, the upper ‘the sidereal’ or ‘planetary’, and the central the ‘archetypal’ world and ‘the residence of the deity.’52 Finally, its border ‘composd of a great variety of symbolical & sacred figures’ is labelled the ‘ideal world’, or ‘the chain of the exemplars of things’, which proceeds from the mind of the deity to bind the whole together.’53 Through this metaphysical structure circulate human souls, an opinion in which Stukeley is influenced by Homer’s cave of the nymphs with its two gates, one facing north through which men

47 Bernard de Montfaucon, L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures, 5 vols (Paris, 1719), 2:331. On early modern antiquarianism, see: Arnaldo Momigliano, “Ancient History and the Antiquarian,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 13, no. 3–4 (1950): 285–315. 48 Montfaucon, Antiquité expliquée, 2:340. Lorenzo Pignoria, Mensa Isiaca (Amsterdam, 1669). 49 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 15r. 50 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 5v. 51 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 28r. 52 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 29r. 53 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 95r. On Stukeley’s metaphysical ideas see also: Stukeley, “Disquisitio de Deo, Or an Enquiry into the Nature of the Deity” [1732], Bod. MS. Eng. misc. e. 650, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

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Figure 2.2 William Stukeley’s Neo-Platonic interpretation of the plan of the Bembine Tablet. William Stukeley, “Palaeographia Sacra or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients, being an explanation of the Table of Isis, or Bembine Table” [1744], MS.4725, fol. 2r, Wellcome Collection, London. Reproduced by permission of the Wellcome Collection

descend, the other facing south which is reserved for the gods.54 In Porphyry’s interpretation, though, the southern is the gate through which immortal souls ascend to the gods.55 In the associations drawn between the sections of the temple and these symbolic realms, Stukeley is influenced by Clement of Alexandria’s interpretation of the Temple of Solomon in book five of his Stromata: 54 Homer, Odyssey 13.102–112. 55 Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs 11.

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In the midst of the covering and veil, where the priests were allowed to enter, was situated the altar of incense, the symbol of the earth placed in the middle of this universe … and that place intermediate between the inner veil, where the high priest alone, on prescribed days, was permitted to enter, and the external court which surrounded it – free to all the Hebrews – was, they say, the middlemost point of heaven and earth. But others say it was the symbol of the intellectual world, and that of sense.56 As a result of Stukeley’s chronological outlook, when he interprets the Egyptian figures there is always a Hebrew referent: the central representation of the seated Isis is an imitation of the Mercy Seat of Jehovah above the Ark of the Covenant and the adjacent figure of Mercury is likewise viewed as an ‘imitation’ of the ‘sacred cherubim’ that flanked the ark.57 So too are the three sections of the table linked to a doctrine of rather less certain presence in the Old Testament, the Trinity, indicating that behind the Hebrew referent lies an ultimately patriarchal Christian source. The trinitarian theme also plays out in the interpretation of the Egyptian pantheon: in the empyrean world Osiris is ‘a person of the deity’, in the planetary world he is the ‘genius of the sun’, and then in the terrestrial world ‘he is Horus the delegated Osiris, the genius that acts by his power.’58 With the broader context of Stukeley’s interpretation of the Bembine tablet and how it relates pagan and Jewish traditions and theology to Christianity having been outlined, the initiate may now be followed into the temple to experience some of the proceedings of the mysteries. It is at this point that the masonic theme begins to emerge more clearly. The following account will weave together a narrative from Stukeley’s manuscripts with corresponding sections of catechism from Prichard’s Masonry Dissected. It will attempt both to impose a sequential order and to define Stukeley’s view of the separate identities of the roles of the hierophants and the gods they represent, since so many confusingly coincide in their meanings. It is helpful to begin not at the beginning of either of the manuscripts, but with Stukeley’s informing the reader that the mysteries had ‘three degrees, or different stages’: both ‘mystae’ and 56 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 27r. Clement, Stromata 5.6. See also Josephus, Jewish Antiquites 3.7: ‘For if one reflects on the construction of the tabernacle … every one of these objects is intended to recall and represent the universe …’ Proceeding from this tradition see also Isaac Newton, who used the analogy between temple and universe in his own history of religion: Buchwald & Feingold, Newton and Civilisation, 152–155. 57 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 36r. On the cultural reception of Isis (in particular visual), see: Jurgis Baltrušaitis, La quête d’Isis: Essai sur la légende d’un mythe (Paris: Flammarion, 1985). 58 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 66r.

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‘epoptae’, though with the latter category split into lesser and higher orders.59 In this respect Stukeley imposes Eleusinian terminology onto the Egyptian mysteries, and by splitting them into three degrees, those of ‘learners, brothers, the other masters’, he imposes masonic categories too.60 Each is related to a specific area of the temple, with that of the learner – in Prichard the ‘Enter’d Prentice’ – being the porch. In MS.4725, Stukeley writes that the door to the temple had a knocker on it in the form of a dog’s head, ‘3 knocks of which gave the mythologists the notion of cerberus the three headed dog of hell.’61 In Prichard we find this reflected by the exchange: Q. How got you Admittance? A. By three great Knocks.62 Having announced himself, the high-priest of the temple representing Horus or the ‘rex sacrorum’ greets the initiate at the entrance where he ‘regarded with a full face, the sun rising, but then he himself stood in the western end of the temple.’63 Stukeley elsewhere states that if an initiated person was ‘askd, by any of his brethren, where stood the rex sacrorum or king, he would answer, in the east, or regarding the sun rising’; these comments identify the high priest as a symbol of the sun, a motif that will develop as the mysteries progress.64 Turning to the evidence from the near contemporary Masonry Dissected, this corresponds to the following section of catechism: Q. Where stands your Master? A. In the East. Q. Why so? A. As the Sun rises in the East and opens the Day, so the Master stands in the East … to open the Lodge and to set his Men at Work.65 The role of Horus is played by the hierophant, who admits ‘descending souls into the world’, in which capacity he represents the ‘parent of the human race’ and the ‘genius who presides over … renascence.’66 In this capacity Horus is 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 100r. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 100r. Stukeley, MS.4725, fol. 30v. Prichard, Masonry Dissected, 10. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 16r. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 68r. The same question comes up in: Stukeley, MS.4725, fol. 14v. Prichard, Masonry Dissected, 15. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 66r; fol. 77r.

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represented as a swaddled infant, connecting him to the Eleusinian ‘Iacchus puer’, the infant form of Dionysus.67 In the mysteries the association with birth is evident in the initiate’s being clothed in a garment ‘somewhat like Horus’s, or someway resembling the clothing of an infant’; a link between the skirt-like ancient Egyptian shendyt and the masonic apron.68 Like a masonic apron this was an item ‘they were to keep all their life after, as a memorial of this their regeneration.’69 The hierophant then introduces the initiate into the temple ‘one at a time’ and ‘with a certain number of steps, to intimate their descent into this new world.’70 In Masonry Dissected this corresponds with the ‘Enter’d Prentice’s Degree’: Q. What did the Senior Warden do with you? A. He presented me, and shew’d me how to walk up (by three Steps) to the Master.71 As for other matters of their appearance, the Egyptian figures on the Bembine tablet demonstrate that the ‘initiated had their legs & feet bare’, so if ‘asked in what habit he enterd? he would answer neither cloathd nor naked.’72 In Prichard there is a similar formulation in the following section of catechism: Q. How did he bring you? A. Neither naked nor cloathed, bare-foot nor shod, deprived of all Metal and in a right moving Posture.73 With these contextual details established, Stukeley elsewhere elaborates on what exactly transpired in this first part of the mysteries, treated in the following passage: here they were introduced & prepared for the greater solemnity of proper initiation. they were made acquainted with somewhat of the nature & perfection of the institution, which they were going to be admitted into. their passions were raisd to a high degree, & the sense of an extraordinary event, presented its self, with a good deal of surprize: their minds were 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 79r; Stukeley, MS.4725, fol. 14v. See also: Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.15–20. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 86r. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 86r. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 86r. Prichard, Masonry Dissected, 11. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 87r. Prichard, Masonry Dissected, 10.

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astonishd, with the symbolical furniture of the place, which was explaind to ’em, in some such manner as we have already handled. that they were to look upon themselves as in a state of regeneration, toward a new life, a life of greater perfection. they were ordered to have pure minds, pure hands as people ready to approach the divinity.74 Before entering the temple proper, the initiate crosses the threshold of the porch ‘pav’d with squares’ which ‘were chequered black & white’ (just as the carpets of masonic lodges are today) to represent the ‘material world’, referred to by Prichard as the ‘Mosaick Pavement’.75 Also on the floor were found ‘mathematical & symbolical figures’ relating ‘to the oath the initiated were to take, as well as the matter of instruction’; a feature that points to the devices known as tracing boards, the illustrations used as prompts for the various symbols and the order of masonic rituals.76 Then behind the initiate ‘a guard was set before the door with a sword drawn in his hand, to hinder all profane persons from approaching’; this corresponds to the role of the ‘tyler’, who stood guard at the door of the lodge room in the early years of eighteenth-century freemasonry when lodges were held in taverns.77 Following this first degree, the mysteries progress in the following year with the initiate proceeding from the eastern end of the temple, associated with Horus, birth, and the terrestrial world, to the north, the first area that connects with the planetary, but through which ‘the sun never transgresses.’78 In Prichard there is the same association with the northern section of the lodge: Q. Why are there no Lights in the North? A. Because the Sun darts no Rays from thence.79 This northern area is presided over by a ‘triad’ of figures among whom Isis is dominant and represents the Tropic of Cancer; the association with winter and the absence of light also connects her to the Greek goddess Persephone, in that she is ‘the watchful guardian of the seeds of things during that season.’80 In this area the ‘probationers’ gather together to listen to a lecture ‘concerning 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 101r. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 98v; Prichard, Masonry Dissected, 13. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 105r. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 10r. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 87r. Prichard, Masonry Dissected, 15. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 89r. Stukeley’s symbolic view of the Tropics is informed by: Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs 10–13.

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Figure 2.3 William Stukeley’s design of the porch of the temple of the ‘Mysterys’, representing the material world. William Stukeley, “Palaeographica Sacra, or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients in an explication of that famous piece of antiquity, the table of Isis” [ca. 1735–1740], MS.4722, fol. 29r, Wellcome Collection, London. Reproduced by permission of the Wellcome Collection

the punishments in a future state’ and the ‘principles of the sublime & perfect religion they were now accepted in.’81 Next, on the opposite side in the southern area is the ‘hawk-headed deity’ or ‘the genius of the sun’, who is representative of the Tropic of Capricorn.82 Here Stukeley interprets the seasonal associations with the theme of initiation as symbolising the life-cycle, which 81 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 102v; fol. 109r. 82 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 88r.

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begins with birth in the east, then proceeds to the care of ‘our nurses & tutors’ in the ‘northern trias’, before reaching the south which illustrates ‘the state of manhood.’83 The initiate then comes to the symbolic end of life at the ‘great western gate of the world, which all must pass, as surely as they enter’, whose presiding figure is the ancient Greek goddess Hecate, another version of the Isis or Persephone goddess, who is ‘the keeper of the gate of Hades’, and stands behind ‘as it were’ a ‘dead corpse.’84 This ‘dead corpse’ perhaps refers to the events of the third degree, with its narrative of the murder and resurrection of the legendary architect of the Temple of Solomon, Hiram Abiff. But as Stukeley does not explicitly make this connection, its discussion will be left to another text below which does. Thus, in accordance with the solar symbolism, the initiate undergoes birth in the east where the sun is at its lowest point in the sky, proceeds to the north where he grows through winter, reaches maturity in the summer of the south, before declining in the west, representative of the end of life. But as with the multi-layered meanings of mythology, the life-cycle theme can equally be conceived of as the afterlife-cycle experienced by the soul, with Stukeley elsewhere describing the gate of Horus as ‘the verge of death.’85 Finally, if they passed through the gate of Hecate, the initiate would enter into the ‘adytum’ where they would be confronted by the other ‘three principal agents or hierophants’ dressed ‘in order to represent the three persons of the deity … Isis, Osiris & Mercury’, and called ‘symbolically the three great lights’ which illuminate the ‘mystic temple’ or universe of which it was a representation.86 In the latter respect, Stukeley is influenced by the classical analogy drawn between temple and universe by figures such as Seneca, who wrote of ‘wisdom’s rites of initiation, by means of which is unlocked, not a village shrine, but the vast temple of all the gods – the universe itself, whose true apparitions and true aspects she offers to the gaze of our minds.’87 In the former respect, Stukeley is influenced by a passage from Porphyry preserved in Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel, which describes the symbolic functions of the officials of the Eleusinian mysteries as the sun, moon, and sacred herald.88 In Masonry Dissected this is reflected in the catechism:

83 84 85 86 87 88

Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 90r. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 91r; fol. 103r. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 112r. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 118r. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 102r. Seneca, Epistles 90.28–29. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 119r. Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 3.12.

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Q. Have you any Lights in your Lodge? A. Yes, Three. Q. What do they represent? A. Sun, Moon and Master-Mason.89 On the Mysterys may appear to have progressed in decidedly non-Christian directions, but the conclusion of the initiation comes full circle to the theme of patriarchal Christianity. This becomes clear when Stukeley writes that the key part of the ceremony relating to this final section of the temple was the ‘bringing of a young infant out of it’, which occurred at the ‘winter solstice, our christmas time’; that is, in terms of the cyclical solar organisation of the temple, when the sun is at its lowest point before its ‘rebirth’.90 This child was ‘the divine person, expected by all the world, who was to be born at that time’, and whose coming was revealed to the patriarchs.91 In a section that links this aspect of On the Mysterys to his ideas on the druids, Stukeley runs through a logical chain which begins with the golden bough that helps Aeneas through the underworld in book six of the Aeneid, which following Virgil he identifies as mistletoe, a plant that uniquely blossoms in midwinter and was held sacred in druidical religion.92 Then with reference to the Venerable Bede he writes that the Saxons celebrated a great festivity on the 8th of the Kalends of January, which they called ‘madrenacht’, or the ‘night of the matrons.’93 But Stukeley argues that Bede missed the true significance of this word, which in his mind in fact refers to the god Mithras, who was born on the day ‘Invicti Natalis’, the 25th of December; a connection with Christ’s nativity only explicable in his view by the ‘antient notices of a divine infant at that time to be born.’94

89 90 91 92

Prichard, Masonry Dissected, 14. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 113r; fol. 113ar. Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 23r. Stukeley, MS.4725, fol. 31; and Stukeley, MS.4722, fols. 20r–22r. For Virgil’s comparison of the golden bough to mistletoe, see: Virgil, Aeneid 6.205–207. On the significance of mistletoe in the Aeneid and its connection to northern European pagan religion, see: Eduard Norden, P. Vergilius Maro Aeneis Buch VI (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1903), 162–165. See also the critique of this approach in: Nicholas Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 6 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 154. The connection between mistletoe and the ‘golden branch’ of Virgil’s Aeneid is also made by John Toland, see: Toland, A Critical History of the Celtic Religion, and Learning: Containing an Account of the Druids (London, 1814), 108; a work shared with Stukeley by Warburton on the 12th May 1729, see: Stukeley, “Memoirs” [n.d.], Bod. MS. Eng. misc. e. 121, fol. 77r, Bodleian Library, Oxford. 93 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 22r. 94 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 22r; 113ar.

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The classical author who shapes Stukeley’s stance on this aspect of the mysteries is Macrobius, whose Saturnalia provides the evidence of a child having been brought out of a temple in an ancient Egyptian religious ceremony, and which also helps our understanding of the motif of the sun’s ascent and descent as the birth and death of a god: They observe the holy mystery in the rites by calling the sun Apollo when it is in the upper (that is, daytime) hemisphere; when it is in the lower (that is, night-time) hemisphere, it is considered Dionysus, who is Liber. Similarly, some images of father Liber are fashioned in the form of a boy, others of a young man, sometimes also bearded, or even elderly, like the image of the one the Greeks call Bassareus, and also the one they call Briseus, and like the one the people of Naples in Campania worship under the name Hêbôn. But the different ages are to be understood with reference to the sun. It is very small at the winter solstice, like the image the Egyptians bring out from its shrine on a fixed date, with the appearance of a small infant, since it’s the shortest day. Then, as the days become progressively longer, by the vernal equinox it resembles a vigorous young man and is given the form of a youth. Later, full maturity at the summer solstice is represented by a beard, by which point it has grown as much as it will grow. Thereafter, as the days become ever shorter, the god is rendered in the fourth shape, like a man growing old.95 This passage enables a better understanding of the conflation of identities and roles in the mysteries, with the hierophant or master mason first playing Horus, then the other deities as the initiate moves through the temple and the theme of the life-cycle or revolution of the sun develops. Furthermore, as with there being an aspect relating to the Christian nativity in the greatest ceremony of the mysteries, so too did they commemorate Christ’s passion under the guise of a pagan deity: In another part of their ceremonys, great grief & wailing was practisd for the god Atys, Adonis being dead: & Julius Firmicus tells us, once in the year they cut down a pine tree & the image of a man is fastened upon it, & carryd into the temple in a sacred procession, & the priests had mourning garments on. further this same god after death they bury’d in a grave or sepulcher, adds Julius Firmicus, & some time after they proclaimd, that he was arisen to life again, & then made extravagant rejoycings.96 95 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 82r. Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.18.7–10. 96 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 113br. Julius Firmicus Maternus, Errors 3.2; 27.1.

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In Stukeley’s scheme of the history of religion, therefore, whether proceeding from Egypt, Greece, Judea, or Britain, all the similarities between the varied pantheon of deities and the diverse ceremonies instituted to celebrate them are ultimately explained by reference to a prior revelation of Christianity. Although his Christianised masonic version of the pagan mysteries seems primarily to look backwards to the diffusionism of the seventeenth century, it is worth noting that well into the mid-nineteenth century the German philosopher F.W.J. Schelling made the same claim that the highest object of the Eleusinian mysteries was none other than precisely this ‘coming of God’ in Philosophie der Offenbarung (1841–42).97 But this would make use of a very different model of the history of religion to Stukeley, based not on diffusion from the Hebrew patriarchs, but evolution from the Eleusinian mysteries. 3

The Egyptian Society

The shorter version of On the Mysterys contains a note which states that in the years 1741–1743, on the 11th December (‘the day of the winter solstice’), Stukeley was instrumental in having ‘the Festum Isiacum’ celebrated at the Egyptian Society: where this book was exhibited, & portions of my MS. treatise, explaining it, was read; likewise at the Duke of Montagues request, I harangued on the Egyptian Sistrum. this was the foundation of that great respect, the Duke, ever after, show’d to me.98 This information presents a valuable means of considering the aristocratic social atmosphere in which Stukeley’s ideas circulated and raises the question of the wider currency of his Christian-masonic interpretation of the pagan mysteries. The relatively short-lived Egyptian Society was founded in the course of a dinner held on December 11th 1741 at the Lebeck’s Head Tavern, Chandos Street, Charing Cross, by a group of travellers and scholars who had either been to Egypt or had an interest in its antiquities, and a number of whom were prominent freemasons.99 The first president was the fourth Earl of 97

Karl Friedrich August Schelling (ed.), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schellings Sämmtliche Werke. Zweite Abtheilung. Dritter Band (Stuttgart & Augsburg: J.G. Cotta’scher Verlag, 1858), 519. On the context of this identification see: Manfred Frank, Der kommende Gott: Vorlesungen über die Neue Mythologie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2015), 295. 98 Stukeley, MS.4725, fol. 39v. See also: Stukeley, MS.454, fol. 3r. 99 On The Egyptian Society see: M. Anis, “The First Egyptian Society in London (1741–1743),” Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archaeologie du Caire 50 (1952): 99–105; and Anna Marie

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Sandwich who shared the name John Montagu with the first aristocratic Grand Master, the second Duke of Montagu, another member of the Egyptian Society. In his memoirs Stukeley writes that he was first introduced to Sandwich in 1741 by James Torkington, the rector of Little Stukeley in Huntingdonshire, which meeting led to his becoming ‘one of the founders of the Egyptian Society.’100 At their first encounter the Earl of Sandwich had dressed up in oriental clothing and at the Egyptian Society he was styled the ‘Sheikh’. Another founding member was Richard Pococke, later bishop of Ossory, who travelled to Egypt and the Near East between 1737–1740 and whose account is referenced by Stukeley in On the Mysterys as evidence of the temple/universe symbolism: that ‘temples were design’d to represent heaven … those of Egypt, were painted in the ceilings with stars.’101 Pococke had, without realising it, been passed by on the Nile by another founding member, Frederik Ludwig Norden, a captain of the Danish navy whose interest in ancient Egypt had been kindled in Florence by the Prussian antiquarian, spy, and freemason Baron von Stosch.102 Another noble freemason and member of the Egyptian Society was Charles Lennox, the second Duke of Richmond, who served as Grand Master in 1724, and who occasionally visited Stukeley.103 Lennox’s Deputy Grand Master was the antiquary Martin Folkes, another member of the Egyptian Society who was appointed President of the Royal Society in 1741, and whom Stukeley later wrote of as an ‘errant infidel.’104 On the basis of this comment Folkes would seem to be evidence of the spectrum of religious views among freemasons; Roos, Martin Folkes (1690–1754): Newtonian, Antiquary, Connoisseur (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 208–236. 100 William Stukeley, “Memoirs” [n.d.], Bod. MS. Eng. misc. e. 121, fol. 96r, Bodleian Library, Oxford. 101 Stukeley, MS.4725, fol. 3r. The account of his travels was subsequently published, see: Richard Pococke, A Description of the East, 2 vols (London, 1743–1745). On this publication see: Rachel Finnegan, Richard Pococke’s Letters from the East (1737–1740) (Leiden: Brill, 2021); and Finnegan, English Explorers in the East (1738–1745): The Travels of Thomas Shaw, Charles Perry and Richard Pococke (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 181–269. On Pococke’s involvement in The Egyptian Society see: Finnegan (ed.), Letters from Abroad: The Grand Tour Correspondence of Richard Pococke & Jeremiah Milles, 3 vols (Piltown: Pococke Press, 2011–2013), 3:9–12. 102 Frederik Ludwig Norden, Travels in Egypt and Nubia, 2 vols (London, 1757). On Baron von Stosch see: Lesley Lewis, Connoisseurs and Secret Agents in Eighteenth Century Rome (London: Chatto & Windus, 1961). 103 William Stukeley, “Interleaved copy of printed almanacs, with diary entries, personal accounts and antiquarian notes” [1730], Bod. MS. Eng. misc. d. 719/1, fol. 26r, Bodleian Library, Oxford. 104 Stukeley, Family Memoirs, 1:100. Stukeley also notes that he dined with Sandwich on two occasions in the company of Martin Folkes: Stukeley, Family Memoirs, 3:235; 3:274.

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however, it did not stop Stukeley sharing his ‘MS of mystery with him’ on the 15th November 1738.105 Folkes’ correspondence with Lennox provides further evidence of the consistency of an interest in the history of freemasonry among early freemasons, specifically through the Old Charges.106 How should the Egyptian Society be understood: a space in which antiquarians and freemasons, scholarship and amateur dramatics overlapped? On the one hand it seems compelling that Stukeley’s ideas on the mysteries were shared in a context where they were met with approval by the first aristocratic Grand Master. Regarding the impression made on Montagu by his interpretation of the sistrum, a nineteenth-century commentator highlighted a letter from Stukeley to Maurice Johnson, the founder of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society and in 1718 of the Society of Antiquaries, which states that its purpose was to drive away scavenging birds during sacrifices in hot climates.107 Although this is indeed part of the explanation, On the Mysterys clarifies that he also believed it was an instrument similar to a child’s rattle, which during the ‘nocturnal ceremonys’ of the mysteries was sounded with ‘great vehemence’ by the priests; in this he is probably influenced by Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, where one is used in connection with the mysteries of Isis.108 Yet, it might be countered that the fact these ideas needed explaining at all points towards the individuality of his perspective. Turning to the notes on the lecture, written in Stukeley’s hand on a folded loose leaf of paper in the minute book of the Egyptian Society held at the British Library, it appears that the contents of On the Mysterys were adapted to their context and the masonic substratum was removed.109 So, although it is tempting to speculate on whether the annual ‘Festum Isiacum’ celebrated in the Egyptian Society might also have involved an enactment of the masonic ritual described by Stukeley, there is insufficient evidence to prove it. 105 William Stukeley, “Interleaved copy of printed almanacs, with diary entries, personal accounts and antiquarian notes” [1738], Bod. MS. Eng. misc. d. 719/8, fol. 29r, Bodleian Library, Oxford. On Folkes’ religious views, see: Roos, Folkes, 124–139. 106 Anne Marie Roos, “Taking Newton on tour: the scientific travels of Martin Folkes, 1733–1735,” British Society for the History of Science 50, no. 4 (2017): 569–601; 575. 107 The letter is transcribed in: T. J. Pettigrew, “Contributions towards a history of the Society of Antiquaries,” The Journal of the British Archaeological Association 7 (1852): 143–295; 151. See also: Anis, “The First Egyptian Society”, 103. 108 Stukeley, MS.4722, fol. 94r. See Apuleius, Metamorphoses 11.6. Stukeley’s views are contained in an extended interpretation published in memory of Montagu, see: Stukeley, The Medallic History of Marcus Aurelius Valerius Carausius, Emperor in Brittain (London, 1757), vii–xviii. 109 Jeremiah Milles & Richard Pococke, “Minute-Book of the Egyptian Society,” Add. MS.52362, fols. 7–8, The British Library, London.

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Figure 2.4 An engraving of William Stukeley’s sketch of ‘An Egyptian Sistrum in Possession of Sr. Hans Sloan 21. Jan. 1741–2.’ William Stukeley, “Palaeographia Sacra or Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity that relate to Sacred History. Number II. A Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients, being an explanation of the Table of Isis, or Bembine Table” [1744], MS.4725, fol. 0v, Wellcome Collection, London. Reproduced by permission of the Wellcome Collection

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Nevertheless, it is certain that his interpretation of the sistrum was of considerable value to Stukeley in terms of social and actual capital, leading as it did first to invitations to Montagu’s country house Boughton, then in 1747 the offer of the living of St George in Queen’s Square.110 The circulation of Stukeley’s text in the context of the Egyptian Society, which although not a masonic organisation included significant freemasons, is a reminder to balance the sincerity of the ideals evident in masonic literature with a more grounded appreciation of its features as a club. It demonstrates the difficulty of incorporating a social identity centred around the ‘pagan’ pleasures of the table with a ‘patriarchal’ religious one, both because these identities could remain quite separate and on account of their constantly being renegotiated in this period. Finally, it indicates that the leading figures of early English freemasonry were not radicals but nobles, who exerted their powers of patronage on those further down the social ladder. With these points in mind, consideration of Stukeley’s text with reference to near contemporary masonic literature provides a more illuminating insight into its intellectual and religious context. 4

True Noachida: James Anderson

The two editions of the masonic constitutions by the Scottish Presbyterian minister James Anderson provide further evidence of the intellectual context of the dual concerns of the religion of the patriarchs and the pagan mysteries in Stukeley’s text.111 Although other examples could be cited, such as the pseudonymous Eugene Philalethes’ Long Livers (1722), which invokes the freemasons as ‘primitive Christian brethren’ and was dedicated to Montagu, Anderson has the advantage of his official capacity.112 In the first edition of the Constitutions of the Free-Masons, although recognisably inhabiting the chronological tradition of the Old Charges, the gloss of Palladianism is far more prevalent than patriarchal religion. It is the technical building capabilities of characters from the Old Testament, first with the Ark, then the Tabernacle, and finally the Temple of Solomon that are given the most visible attention. It is the section 110 Masters, Corpus Christi, 385. 111 On Anderson’s life (which ended in Fleet debtors Prison) and works (which failed to provide the means to keep him out of it) see: Susan Mitchell Sommers & Andrew Prescott, “New Light on the Life of James Anderson,” in Wade, 300 Years of Freemasonry, 641–654. 112 Eugenius Philalethes, Long Livers: A Curious History of Such Persons of both Sexes who have liv’d several Ages, and grown Young again … (London, 1722), iii.

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‘Concerning GOD and RELIGION’ that appears to set out the institutional position on the issue of freemasonry’s relationship to religion: A Mason is oblig’d, by his Tenure, to obey the moral Law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid atheist, nor an irreligious Libertine. But though in ancient Times Masons were charg’d in every Country to be of the Religion of that Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet ’tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion in which all Men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to themselves; that is, to be good Men and true, or Men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever Denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguish’d; whereby Masonry becomes the Center of Union, and the Means of conciliating true Friendship among Persons that must have remain’d at a perpetual Distance.113 This charge can be seen as pointing in two directions: on the one hand it makes clear that freemasonry is incompatible with atheism, therefore it must logically bear some relation to religion. But the latter part might seem to indicate that whatever that relation may be, it does not matter a great deal and that freemasons should be primarily focused on the evasion of sectarian quarrels and finding a unifying moral code independent of confessional identity. This is reinforced a few pages later with the entreaty to avoid ‘private Piques or Quarrels’ particularly ‘about Religion, or Nations, or State Policy, we being only, as Masons, of the Catholick Religion above-mention’d’, a policy pursued since the time of the Reformation in Britain.114 Although the reference to ‘Catholick Religion’ could be read as pointing towards the theme of the religion of the patriarchs, in this precise case it is ambiguous since ‘above-mention’d’ seems to refer to the charge a few pages earlier ‘Concerning GOD and RELIGION’ with its more religiously neutral aspects. Fortunately, the ambiguity of the first edition is cleared up in the 1738 edition, which claims to provide the text ‘Approved by the Grand Lodge’ that was ‘order’d to be printed in the first Edition of the Book of Constitutions’, but which diverges from the above cited passage in a manner decisive for the present argument:

113 Anderson, Constitutions of the Free-Masons, 50. 114 Anderson, Constitutions of the Free-Masons, 54.

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A MASON is obliged by his Tenure to observe the Moral Law, as a true Noachida; and if he rightly understands the Craft, he will never be a Stupid Atheist, nor an Irreligious Libertin, nor act against Conscience. In antient Times the Christian Masons were charged to comply with the Christian Usages of each Country where they travell’d or work’d: But Masonry being found in all Nations, even of divers Religions, they are now only charged to adhere to that Religion in which all Men agree (leaving each Brother to his own particular Opinions) that is, to be Good Men and True, Men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever Names, Religions or Persuasions they may be distinguish’d: For they all agree in the 3 great Articles of NOAH, enough to preserve the Cement of the Lodge. Thus Masonry is the Center of their Union and the happy Means of conciliating Persons that otherwise must have remain’d at perpetual Distance.115 It may reasonably be wondered whether this rewriting of the Constitutions of the Free-Masons in a manner that emphasised its patriarchal Christian character, with the references to ‘true Noachida’, ‘Christian Masons’, and the ‘3 great Articles of NOAH’, was provoked precisely by the ambiguity of the 1723 edition, which had made room for the claim that freemasons had an indifferent relationship towards Christianity.116 It also suggests that the religiously tolerant sentiments expressed in the passage in the first edition, which might seem to be justified through secular or civic values, were anchored in a tradition of Christian universalism. There are two more pieces of evidence in the 1738 edition which have a bearing on Stukeley’s thought. The first is in the body of the text and connects to the aspect of the foretelling of Christ to the patriarchs, with Anderson writing that the progeny of Noah ‘in their own peculiar Family preserved the good old Religion of the promised Messiah pure, and also [the] Royal Art [freemasonry], till the Flood.’117 This view expressed in a masonic context is also found in Anderson’s religious writings, in the trinitarian apology Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity (1733).118 Here he questions how it was that the authors of the apocryphal 115 Anderson, New Book of Constitutions, 143–144. 116 Charles Porset and Cécile Révauger raise the question as to whether this was a reaction to the first anti-masonic Papal Bull in 1738. See: Porset & Révauger, Franc-maçonnerie et religions dans l’Europe des Lumières (Paris: Honoré Champion Éditeur, 1998), 31. 117 Anderson, New Book of Constitutions, 4. The copy I consulted in the British Library had a typographical blank space before ‘Royal Art’. 118 James Anderson, Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, A Dissertation Shewing, Against Idolaters, modern Jews, and Anti-Trinitarians, How the Unity of God is evinc’d, with an

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books of the Old Testament had ‘far better Notions of the promised Messiah than the modern Jews?’, answering that it was because ‘they had adhered to the Accounts of the Messiah in the Old Testament, and to the Commentaries of their Forefathers …’119 Similarly to Stukeley’s interest in patriarchal religion, Anderson uses the argument that the apparent vestiges of the doctrine in the writings of the ‘Heathen Sages’ were not arrived at through reason, but were accountable as ‘the Remains of the Noachical Religion.’120 The second example is an anonymous text in the appendix titled A Defence of Masonry, first ‘publish’d A.D. 1730’ and ‘Occasion’d by a Pamphlet call’d Masonry Dissected.’121 This defence against Prichard’s text is thought to have been written by Martin Clare, a member of the Old King’s Arms lodge and founder of the Soho Academy, a commercial school for vocational training.122 It contains further evidence of the connection made in Stukeley’s On the Mysterys between freemasonry and the pagan mysteries: The Accident, by which the Body of Master HIRAM was found after his Death, seems to allude, in some Circumstances, to a beautiful Passage in the 6th Book of Virgil’s Aeneid … ANCHISES, the great Preserver of the Trojan Name, could not have been discover’d but by the Help of a Bough, which was pluck’d with great Ease from the Tree; nor, it seems, could HIRAM, the Grand MASTER of MASONRY, have been found but by the Direction of a Shrub, which (says the Dissector) came easily up.123 Although Stukeley did not refer explicitly to Hiram Abiff and the ritual of the third degree in On the Mysterys, his text proves that it was entirely possible to subsume such ‘pagan’ features within a patriarchal ‘Christian’ framework. This is confirmed at the conclusion of A Defence of Masonry, where the author affirms that ‘Masons are true NOACHIDAE’, and that even if a ‘Lodge account of Polytheism, Antient and Modern (London, 1733). For a brief summary of this text which comments on its relationship to the 1738 New Book of Constitutions see: Sommers & Prescott, “James Anderson”, 654. 119 Anderson, Unity in Trinity, 27. 120 Anderson, Unity in Trinity, 13. 121 Anderson, New Book of Constitutions, 216–226. See also the facsimile reprint of the 1730 edition: John T. Thorp (ed.), Masonic Reprints. Reproductions of Masonic Manuscripts, Books and Pamphlets (Leicester: J. Johnson, 1907), 33–55. 122 Nicholas Hans, New Trends in Education in the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1951), 87–90. On Martin Clare see: Andrew Prescott, “Clare, Martin,” in Charles Porset & Cécile Revauger, Le monde maçonnique des Lumières: Europe-Amériques & Colonies, Dictionnaire prosopographique, 3 vols (Paris: Editions Champions, 2013), 1:808–816. 123 Anderson, New Book of Constitutions, 224–225.

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is not a School of Divinity, the Brethren are taught the great Lessons of their old Religion, Morality, Humanity, and Friendship …’124 This near contemporary masonic literature provides the English context to Stukeley’s manuscript. But to conclude it is valuable to consider how these ideas were transmitted in Europe, specifically in the context of French freemasonry through the figure of Andrew Michael Ramsay. 5

Chance Rays of the Hebrews: Andrew Michael Ramsay

The connection between Andrew Michael Ramsay’s involvement in freemasonry and his religious ideas was made by D.P. Walker in his classic study The Ancient Theology (1972), in which he wrote that this ‘other great interest in the last decade of his life was I belive, closely linked with his Ancient theology.’125 Following on from Walker, Ramsay’s most recent biographer Georg Eckert comments on Ramsay’s use of the ‘hermeneutic of the Prisca Theologia’ in Discours prononcé à la reception des Francs Maçons (1736–1737); however, the previous discussion of Stukeley’s masonic conception of patriarchal religion and the pagan mysteries prompts a reconsideration of exactly what that means.126 This may be explored through a comparison of Ramsay’s Discours with his two principal works on the history of religion: The Travels of Cyrus (1727) and The Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, Unfolded in a Geometrical Order (1748–1749).127 These texts confirm that like Stukeley, Ramsay’s view of freemasonry was deeply connected to his conception of that prior form of Christianity he believed to lie beneath the surface of pagan religion. 124 Anderson, New Book of Constitutions, 227. 125 D.P. Walker, The Ancient Theology: Studies in Christian Platonism from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1972), 239. See also: G.D. Henderson, Chevalier Ramsay (London: Nelson, 1952), 166–177. 126 Georg Eckert, ‘True, Noble, Christian, Freethinking’: Leben und Werk Michael Ramsays (1686–1743) (Munster: Aschendorff, 2009), 568. The following discussion will reference the English translations of the two chief versions of the Discours, that of the Town Library of Épernay en Champagne (MS 124) and that of Toulouse Municipal Library (MS 1213), both included in: Georges Lamoine, “Le Chevalier de Ramsay’s Oration, 1736–7: Early Masonry in France,” AQC 114 (2001): 226–237. 127 Andrew Michael Ramsay, Les Voyages de Cyrus, avec un discours sur la mythologie, 2 vols (Paris, 1727). Quotations will be drawn from the English second edition: Ramsay, The Travels of Cyrus. To which is annex’d a discourse upon the Theology & Mythology of the Antients, 2 vols (London, 1728). Ramsay, The Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, Unfolded in a Geometrical Order, 2 vols (Glasgow, 1748–1749).

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Andrew Michael Ramsay had a humble beginning in Scotland born as the son of a baker in Ayr, probably in 1686, but was to change his religion, find literary fame, and enter the nobility as the Chevalier Ramsay in France. His youth was characterised by a phase of religious experimentalism that first drew him to the mysticism of quietism, which he discovered through the community surrounding James and George Garden in Aberdeenshire. Quietism, a religious movement which encouraged contemplation and promised spiritual union with God through devotional prayer, had arisen to prominence through the writings of Miguel de Molinos in the 1670s and 1680s.128 It was this approach to spirituality, which seemed to suggest that experience of God could be gained without his grace and without institutional intercession, that led to its controversial status within the Catholic Church. From his first encounter with this circle in Scotland, Ramsay eventually travelled to Rijnsburg in the Netherlands in 1710 to meet the chief continental exponent of quietism (though she herself did not identify with the term) Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, known as Madame Guyon.129 Ramsay’s meeting with Madame Guyon led to the other great encounter that was to shape his life: the Archbishop of Cambrai François Fénelon, who converted Ramsay to Roman Catholicism the same year.130 Ramsay spent some of the first half of the decade in Fénelon’s household, in the years preceding his death in 1715. Then between 1714 and 1716, he became Madame Guyon’s secretary before she too died in 1717. Ramsay’s association with Fénelon also led to a position as tutor to the children of the Comte de Sassenage and some years later, though only for a brief period in 1723, he taught the young Bonnie Prince Charlie at the exiled Jacobite court in Rome. Ramsay gave written testament to Fénelon’s patronage directly in his biography of the bishop, Vie de Fénelon (1727), and indirectly in Cyrus, the book which made his name internationally famous.131 Ramsay’s Cyrus was in part an homage to Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, but it also bore the more recent hallmark of the didactic model employed by Fénelon in Les aventures de Télémaque 128 On quietism see: Thomas M. Lennon, Sacrifice and Self-interest in Seventeenth-Century France: Quietism, Jansenism, and Cartesianism (Leiden: Brill, 2019). 129 On Madame Guyon see: Marie-Louise Gondal, Madame Guyon (1648–1717): un nouveau visage (Paris: Beauchesne, 1989); and Nancy Carol James, The Conflict Over the Heresy of “Pure Love” in Seventeenth-Century France: The Tumult Over the Mysticism of Madame Guyon (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008). 130 On Fénelon see: Ély Carcassonne, Fénelon, l’homme et l’oeuvre (Paris: Boivin, 1946); Jeanne-Lydie Goré, L’itinéraire de Fénelon: humanisme et spiritualité (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1957); Louis Cognet, Crépuscule des mystiques. Le conflit FénelonBossuet (Paris: Desclée, 1958); and Henri Gouhier, Fénelon philosophe (Paris: J. Vrin, 1977). 131 Andrew Michael Ramsay, Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de Messire François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, archvesque duc du Cambray (Amsterdam, 1727).

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(1689), which expanded on the educationally formative travels of the son of Odysseus.132 Ramsay’s fictional account of the early years of the historical monarch Cyrus the Great likewise follows him on a journey to gather wisdom from the great religious teachers and philosophers of antiquity. This is the literary structure by which Ramsay is able to enter in detail into the religious knowledge of pagan peoples of the ancient world. Cyrus is initiated into the ‘Mysteries of the Eastern Wisdom’ by Zoroaster, he reads the ‘Books of Hermes Trismegistus’, and learns from Pythagoras.133 Through these encounters Cyrus discovers that ‘the great Men of all Times, and of all Places, had the same Ideas of the Divinity, and of Morality.’134 The universalism that is evident here is in no way relativised, but is rooted in the Old Testament, as may be seen in Cyrus’ recognition that the discoveries made by ‘Zoroaster, Hermes, Orpheus, Pythagoras’ were but ‘imperfect Traces and chance Rays of the Hebrews.’135 Ramsay recognised the problem of Pierre-Daniel Huet’s Demonstratio Evangelica that if pagan learning was entirely a corruption from the Mosaic type then the existence of religion prior to Moses was called into question. The discourse appended to The Travels of Cyrus, ‘Of the Theology of the Antients’, also makes it clear that Ramsay was familiar with the objection associated with John Marsham that the Jews were too obscure a people to have had such an all-encompassing influence on antiquity. The solution that he reaches for to solve these problems is the familiar one of tracing the ‘Footsteps of natural and reveal’d Religion which we see in the Heathen Poets and Philosophers’ back to the patriarchs.136 Ramsay’s initiation into English freemasonry is datable by a newspaper report in the London Evening Post from 17th March 1730, which records that ‘On Monday night last at the Horn Lodge in the Palace Yard Westminster (whereof his Grace the Duke of Richmond is Master) there was a numerous Appearance of Persons of Distinction … the Chevalier Ramsey [sic]… [was] admitted Member of the ancient Society of Free and accepted Masons.’137 Eckert considers it plausible that this adoption into an English lodge reflected prior involvement with freemasonry on Ramsay’s part, which in turn might explain references to the pagan mysteries in the The Travels of Cyrus.138 If this 132 François Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, Les Aventures de Télémaque (Paris, 1689). 133 Ramsay, Travels of Cyrus, 1:89; 137. 134 Ramsay, Travels of Cyrus, 1:86. 135 Ramsay, Travels of Cyrus, 2:193. 136 Ramsay, Travels of Cyrus, 2:143. 137 C.N. Batham, “The Grand Lodge of England (1717) and its Founding Lodges,” AQC 103 (1990): 22–52; 31. 138 Eckert, Ramsay, 561.

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could be proved, it would take precedence over the connection made between the mysteries and freemasonry in Martin Clare’s Defence of 1730. But in the absence of hard evidence, a more tentative approach must be taken that notes the affinity of Ramsay’s ideas about ancient religion in The Travels of Cyrus with freemasonry, but does not go so far as to claim it as a masonic text. It is also noteworthy that Ramsay was elected a member of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, which William Stukeley was a member of.139 But due to geographical limitations, Ramsay’s engagement seems to have been minimal and his election honorary.140 It is, of course, not necessary to explain the similarity of their approaches through direct conversation between the two: their conformity is explicable through their reaching for the same answer to the same problem. In the definitely masonic text for which Ramsay is known, Discours prononcé à la reception des Francs Maçons, these preoccupations with the status of the religion of the patriarchs play out in his description of the history of freemasonry. Ramsay calls the ‘mysteries’ of the society ‘very old hieroglyphics’ which ‘make up a language, now dumb, now very eloquent’, the meaning of which is revealed only to the initiated.141 This is linked to the practices of the wise men of ancient nations who likewise ‘concealed their dogmas behind figures, symbols and hieroglyphics.’142 From the outside these present an incomprehensible jumble, but from the inside they reveal sublime truths. Ramsay then references the famous ‘festivals’ or ‘feasts’ of Ceres at Eleusis as precedents of freemasonry, and in the version of the oration held at the Toulouse Municipal Library states that they ‘concealed many vestiges of the ancient religion of Noah and the Patriarchs.’143 Therefore, Stukeley the Anglican, Anderson the Presbyterian, and Ramsay the Catholic convert, three men with broadly similar antiquarian interests, reached across the confessional divide in their view of the role of freemasonry as preserving the vestiges of patriarchal Christianity. This historical basis for freemasonry provides religious justification for the masonic emphasis on tolerance, since under this model of transmission the differences between various religions could be explained as corruptions of a common source. In Ramsay’s posthumously published Philosophical Principles, the theme of patriarchal Christianity is developed on a more ambitious plan than its 139 Stukeley recognised Ramsay as a ‘concise’ summariser of the seventeenth century diffusionist tradition of interpretation, see: Stukeley, MS.4722, 45. 140 D.M. Owen & S.W. Woodward, The Minute-Books of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, 1712–1755 (Lincoln: Lincoln Record Society, 1981). 141 Lamoine, “Ramsay”, 227. 142 Lamoine, “Ramsay”, 227. 143 Lamoine, “Ramsay”, 231.

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predecessor. The reference to the geometrical method of deduction in the title points to the philosopher to whom the work was chiefly addressed, Spinoza, whose Ethics (1677) famously employed it.144 In the first volume, Ramsay attempts to subvert the heterodox purposes of Spinoza’s use of this form of philosophical demonstration to establish both the principles of natural religion and the conformity of revealed religion to reason. This endeavour is addressed to such deists and free-thinkers as take the view that some doctrines of the Christian faith ‘destroy all the moral attributes of God.’145 It is the second volume that represents the summation of Ramsay’s interest in the religion of antiquity, encountered both in The Travels of Cyrus and the masonic oration. It is addressed to those unbelievers who criticise Christianity from the perspective of the novelty of its dogmas; subverting the title of Matthew Tindal’s notorious book which threatened to undermine the importance of revelation through the sufficiency of natural religion, Ramsay’s aim is to show that ‘Christianity is as old as the creation.’146 Writing of The Travels of Cyrus in the preface to volume two, Ramsay states that it was an attempt to digest in popular form the works of seventeenth-century paganologists such as Bochart, Huet, Kircher, and Gale, but that he did not ‘push his discoveries so far as he might have done.’147 The programme of the Philosophical Principles enlarges The Travels of Cyrus to comprehend the religious views of the ancient Hebrews, Chinese, Indians, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all of which had the same patriarchal source. To reduce the already considerable size of this task, Ramsay clarifies that his discussion is confined to the ‘sublimer’ doctrines of the ancients, relating to the mind, their systems of God and the universe, and their moral sentiments. Ramsay’s rhetoric may seem to point towards a dilution of Christian truths, but this is deceptive: like Stukeley and Anderson he argues that the religion of the patriarchs included the prefiguration of Christ, stating that after God banished Adam from paradise he revealed to him the ‘sacrifice, sufferings, and triumphs of the Messiah.’148 The importance of this future event was passed down to Noah, who preserved the knowledge by setting it down in hieroglyphs. In reference to the story of Seth’s two pillars in Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities, a 144 In adopting Spinoza’s geometric method as a means of combatting him, Ramsay follows Huet’s example in Demonstratio Evangelica. See: Shelford, Huet, 154. 145 Ramsay, Philosophical Principles, 1:iv. 146 Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation, or, the Gospel, a republication of the Religion of Nature (London, 1730). On Tindal see: Stephen Lalor, Matthew Tindal, Freethinker: An Eighteenth-Century Assault on Religion (London: Continuum, 2006). 147 Ramsay, Philosophical Principles, 2:iv. 148 Ramsay, Philosophical Principles, 2:8.

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narrative employed in the masonic Old Charges, he states that this was the most ancient form of writing.149 But over time the knowledge contained in the symbols was lost as men became attached to ‘the letter, and the signs, without understanding the spirit and the thing signified’; in this respect he is perhaps influenced by the work of the abbé Noël-Antoine Pluche, as shall be addressed in the next chapter.150 In the case of the knowledge of the coming of Christ, the absence of grammatical tenses in hieroglyphs meant that the ancient traditions that referred to ‘our Saviour’s pre-existent, suffering and triumphant state were confounded into one, and interpreted of imaginary heroes, or conquerors’; a kind of Christianised Euhemerism.151 It is important to note that Ramsay’s view of the corruption of the patriarchal tradition is not exclusively restricted to the gentile nations of antiquity. The Jews, for example, were guilty of excessive literalism in their misinterpretation of these ancient traditions, taking all the ‘metaphorical descriptions of the divine nature and attributes in a literal sense, and form’d to themselves the idea of a partial, fantastic, furious, wrathful God who loved one nation only and hated all the rest.’152 Thus the improvement of the fortunes of the ancient ‘Christian’ patriarchs was bound up with the devaluation of the Jews. It is plain to modern eyes that the problem with both Stukeley and Ramsay’s approach to the history of religion is that they make the facts fit a predetermined conclusion. Both stubbornly held on to an argument which had been widely used in the middle of the previous century, although it had deeper roots among the early Church Fathers. It had some advantages of elasticity, but all too often the manifest differences between religions were stretched so far that they lost all individuality. Contrasting with Toland’s view of reason as the means to return to the revelation of the historical figure of Jesus, thinkers such as Stukeley and Ramsay attempted to anchor the Christian faith in an ancient historical tradition with universal scope. The fact that both identified freemasonry with this patriarchal religion and that neither were strangers to the complex system of noble patronage should dissuade us from applying the theory of a masonic radical Enlightenment to the first half of the century: freemasonry was all about tradition and hierarchy, whether in religion or society. On the face of it, therefore, this de-radicalisation of early English freemasonry appears to side with Jonathan Israel’s outright rejection of the masonic influence on the Enlightenment, which he describes as a ‘peripheral phenomenon 149 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1.69–71. 150 Ramsay, Philosophical Principles, 2:14–15. See: Chapter 3, page 112. 151 Ramsay, Philosophical Principles, 2:16. 152 Ramsay, Philosophical Principles, 2:20–21.

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and not the significant key some [i.e. Margaret Jacob] have represented it as being.’153 But that would be to go too far. By associating freemasonry with an underlying Christian unity derived from a revelation pre-Christ, there was (perhaps counterintuitively) a forward-facing aspect to the movement. Through this historical perspective which reached towards the universal foundations of religion can be identified both a qualified form of religious tolerance, and a precursor to the deist universalism which eventually came to supplant its Christian counterpart, particularly in the context of continental freemasonry. By Christianising paganism, early freemasons also indirectly contributed to the reappraisal of the pagan mysteries in a way that moved beyond the simplistic label of idolatry. But for the mysteries to be reinvented in the masonic context in the later decades of the century, a fundamental shift in the understanding of their role in the history of religion was required, a shift that will be explored in the next chapter. 153 Jonathan Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man, 1670–1752 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 865. See also: “Interview with J. Israel and M. Jacob,” Lumières 13.1 (2009): 163–85.

Chapter 3

Law, Agriculture, and the Afterlife two gifts, the greatest in the world – the fruits of the earth, which have enabled us to rise above the life of the beasts, and the holy rite which inspires in those who partake of it sweeter hopes regarding both the end of life and all eternity1

∵ What does it mean to be civilised? There are, of course, many possible responses to this question. A simple answer, one that has the advantage of connecting to the term’s etymological origins in the Latin word ‘civis’ or citizen, is that to be civilised is to live in a city. But if living in a city makes you civilised, does that mean living in the countryside makes you uncivilised? For the ancient Greeks, whose poleis or city states encompassed an urban centre as well as an agricultural hinterland, it certainly did not. They had another answer to the question: to be civilised was to speak Greek, contrasting with those barbarians whose name echoed the incomprehensibility of their languages that did not. One thing that living in the country might make you, at least in the medieval Christian mind, was a pagan, since the word was derived from the Latin ‘paganus’, referring to a villager, or all things relating to rural life. Adding an extra distinction within this category, the Old English word ‘heathen’, or a dweller on the heath, specifically identified non-Christians with uncultivated ground. The association of pagans and heathens with the land, whether as agrarians or pastoralists, was a natural way of emphasising urban cultural sophistication with Christianity. This represents something of a surprising turn of events since the very first Christians – that is, the Apostles – were largely a rustic and unsophisticated bunch, being primarily fishermen. Only Matthew, the tax collector, would have been versed in the kind of skills that allowed an individual to successfully navigate the Roman world, but he rejected these profane advantages for the otherworldly ones offered by Jesus Christ. Roman intolerance of Christianity was in part based on its novelty, which contrasted with other religious traditions with respectably deep cultural roots. But it was also 1 Isocrates, Panegyricus 28–29.

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the refusal of its believers to participate in the force behind the empire, the army, that made them objects of suspicion. Later on, this division was inverted by Christians, as may be seen in another possible root of the word pagan in the idea of a ‘non-combatant’ in the army of Christ. Conceptual transformations such as these provide a window into the changing ways what it has meant to be civilised has mapped onto city and agricultural life, paganism and Christianity. From these competing ideas, the eighteenth century gave birth to a new abstracted concept: civilisation.2 For the ancient Greek rhetorician Isocrates cited at the outset of this chapter, Demeter’s role as a civilising force was symbolised in her bestowal of two gifts to the Eleusinians for their assistance in her search for Persephone. By the first, the cultivation of the earth, humankind is distinguished from the beasts that only forage from it.3 To Jean-Jacques Rousseau and other early moderns before him, this connected to the idea of Demeter as a lawgiver (‘Thesmophoros’) because agriculture, with its parcelling up of land, led first to ownership, and then laws to uphold the right of private property.4 But the second gift of the mysteries, associated with the knowledge of the afterlife, also related to the origins of civilisation: for William Warburton in The Divine Legation of Moses (1738–1741), it was an essential feature of society since it provided the incentive of a system of rewards and punishments, extending the reach of the law into individual conscience.5 In the interlocking benefits of law, agriculture, and the afterlife, therefore, the Eleusinian mysteries offered up an explanation of the origins of civilisation, in which religion played a central role alongside more practical concerns. As Rousseau himself observed with reference to Warburton in Du contrat social (1762), at ‘the origin of nations’ politics and religion served as instruments of each other.6 2 On the concept of civilisation in the eighteenth century see: Introduction, note 37. 3 For other examples of the agricultural theme, see: Introduction, note 38. 4 Roger D. Masters & Christopher Kelly (eds.), Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (Second Discourse), Polemics, and Political Economy (Hanover: Dartmouth College, 1992), 51. Prior to Rousseau, see: William Lewis (trans.), Edward Herbert. The Antient Religion of the Gentiles (London, 1705), 228; and the comparable argument in William King, An Historical Account of the Heathen Gods and Heroes (London, 1711), 43–44. In the late medieval context see also Christine de Pizan’s view of Ceres’ civilising role: Sophie Bourgault & Rebecca Kingston (eds.), Christine de Pizan: The Book of the City of Ladies and Other Writings (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 2018), 79–82. On sacred history’s influence on ideas of the origins of civil society, see: John Robertson, “Sacred History and Political Thought: Neapolitan responses to the problem of sociability after Hobbes,” The Historical Journal 56, no. 1 (2013): 1–29. 5 William Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses, 2 vols (London, 1738–1741). 6 Rousseau, Du contrat social, 103.

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In the present chapter, the place of the Eleusinian mysteries in Warburton’s Divine Legation will be addressed, before showing how in spite of his apologetic aim a number of ideas came to fruition in the work that were eventually used in arguments targeted against Christianity. Alongside the works of other modern commentators who have partially resurrected Warburton’s legacy, it is hoped that this will continue to redress the negative view of his intellectual contribution bequeathed by his own century as well as the one that followed, which dismissed his chief book as a ‘colossus … built of rubbish.’7 Warburton’s importance will be investigated through his reception in France, where as Brian Young points out the critical responses of Voltaire as well as Rousseau are ‘a sufficient demonstration’ of his high profile.’8 In its treatment of the Eleusinian mysteries, Divine Legation is fruitfully compared with the Jansenist abbé Noël-Antoine Pluche’s Histoire du ciel (1739), which likewise represents the transitional phase between the legacy of sacred history and the turn towards more practical concerns in explaining the origins of civilisation.9 The connection between the two men is manifest in the accusation by a French ally of Warburton, Étienne de Silhouette, that Pluche plagiarised Divine Legation.10 Finally, in L’Antiquité dévoilée (1766) by Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, a favourite of Parisian philosophes such as the Baron d’Holbach, Warburton and Pluche’s apologetic uses of the Eleusinian mysteries are synthesised and inverted into 7

Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols (London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1876), 1:353. 8 Brian W. Young, Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century England: Theological Debate from Locke to Burke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 170. José-Michel Moureaux (ed.), Les oeuvres complètes de Voltaire 64: La défense de mon oncle; A Warburton (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1984). Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (Cambridge, 1997), 71–72. On Voltaire’s treatment of Warburton, see: Chapter four, 132–135. See also Condillac’s treatment of Warburton’s ideas on hieroglyphs and the origins of language: Hans Aarsleff (trans.), Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge: Etienne Bonnot de Condillac (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 178. On Warburton’s interpretation of hieroglyphics see: Annette Graczyk, Die Hieroglyphe im 18. Jahrhundert: Theorien zwischen Aufklärung und Esoterik (Berlin: De Grutyer, 2015), 45–70; and Jacques Derrida, “Scribble (Writing Power),” Yale French Studies 58 (1979): 117–147. The section of Divine Legation on hieroglyphs was translated into French, see: Warburton, Essai sur les hiéroglyphes des Égyptiens (Paris, 1744). 9 Noël-Antoine Pluche, Histoire du ciel considéré selon les idées des poétes, des philosophes et de Moïse, 2 vols (Paris, 1739). Quotations are drawn from the English translation: Noël-Antoine Pluche, The History of the Heavens, considered according to the notions of the poets and philosophers, compared with the doctrines of Moses, 2 vols (London, 1740). On this work see: Chantal Grell, “Le Dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquité en France,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 331, no. 2 (1995): 914–922. 10 Étienne de Silhouette (trans.), Dissertations sur l’union de la religion, de la morale et de la politique, tirées d’un ouvrage de M. Warburton, 2 vols (London, 1742).

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an attack on religion in general.11 That their works inadvertently catalysed developments quite contrary to their aims shows the importance of recognising the exchange of ideas between defenders and attackers of Christianity in describing the process of Enlightenment.12 Contrasting with the transformation of the fortunes of Divine Legation in France, its responders in Britain were primarily clergymen who used their biblical erudition to undermine its claims but didn’t attempt to construct alternative theories.13 It is at this point, therefore, that the narrative of this book will permanently shift to mainland Europe. 1

William Warburton and the Ancient Legislators

William Warburton had received five years of legal training and then spent another five years practising the law in the town of his birth, Newark in Nottinghamshire, before he was ordained as a deacon of the Church of England in 1723.14 His legal background was carried into his religious writings both as an intellectual concern and in the combative style of his argumentation. In the former respect, his robust support of the Test Act (conformity to the state religion as a requirement for public office) on the basis of ‘the infinite Service this Institution [the Church] is of to Civil Society’ in his book The Alliance between Church and State (1736), won him some favours and helped his advancement.15 But the latter tendency created numerous enemies and had by the time of Edward Gibbon’s anonymously published Critical Observations on the Design of the Sixth Book of the Aeneid (1770) secured his reputation as the tyrant of eighteenth-century letters.16 Warburton’s irascibility in print can perhaps be 11 Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, L’Antiquité dévoilée par ses usages, 3 vols (Amsterdam, 1766). Quotations are drawn from the collected works: Boulanger, Oeuvres de Boulanger, 6 vols (Amsterdam, 1794). On Boulanger’s use of Pluche, see: Grell, “L’antiquité en France,” 892. 12 Pluche’s inadvertent contribution to the work of Antoine Court de Gébelin and CharlesFrançois Dupuis is commented on in: Anne-Marie Mercier-Favire, “Les métamorphoses du soleil,” in Françoise Gevrey, Julie Boch, Jean-Louis Haquette (eds.), Écrire la nature au XVIIIe siècle: autour de l’abbé Pluche (Paris: Pups, 2006), 376. 13 See: Introduction, note 74. 14 On Warburton’s life see: J.S. Watson, The Life of William Warburton, Lord Bishop of Gloucester from 1760 to 1779: with remarks on his works (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1863); Robert M. Ryley, William Warburton (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984). 15 William Warburton, The Alliance between Church and State, or, the necessity and equity of an Established Religion and a Test-Law demonstrated … (London, 1736). 16 Edward Gibbon, “Critical Observations on the Design of the Sixth Book of the Aeneid,” in The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, 5 vols (London: John Murray, 1814), 4:467–514.

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understood as insecurity: coming to the Church after the practice of provincial law rather than through the conventional Oxbridge route would have placed him as something of an outsider, one who had to work doubly hard to make his name. In this respect, as indicated in the comments of William Stukeley cited in the previous chapter, the adaptability of Warburton’s pen ‘did his business effectually’; having anonymously attacked Alexander Pope in print in 1728, he then made a volte-face regarding what for Stukeley was the theologically suspect An Essay on Man (1734–1735), positioning it within the tradition of Newtonian natural theology.17 Through William Murray, the influential barrister and first Earl of Mansfield who was to procure him the preachership of Lincoln’s Inn in 1746, Warburton met Pope, with whom he cultivated a long-lasting friendship that resulted in his acting as the poet’s literary executor. In turn, Pope led to the acquaintance of Ralph Allen, whose reforms to the postal system had generated a fortune that Warburton benefited from by marrying his favourite niece, eventually inheriting his estate of Prior Park just outside Bath, both of which were built of stone from Allen’s quarries. Such favourable conditions and powerful allies helped his career in the Church of England, in which he eventually rose to become the Bishop of Gloucester in 1759. The decade that followed William Warburton’s receiving his second post, the living of Brant Broughton, was employed in the laborious study that resulted in the two weighty volumes of Divine Legation, the planned concluding part of which ultimately never appeared. The massive body of learning they contained was built upon an apparently simple, though paradoxical, formulation: that from the omission of the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments in the laws and religion given by Moses to the Jews – used by deists and freethinkers to question the veracity of the ‘Jewish Dispensation’ – was in fact to be found a divine origin.18 The logic for this assertion was that the doctrine was absolutely necessary as incentive and prohibition to the functioning of society, therefore its unique absence demonstrated God’s special providence, which had substituted temporal civil governance with direct heavenly rule. The importance of this argument, which Warburton flattered himself as being ‘very little short of mathematical Certainty’, was that it anchored the Christian faith firmly in the Old Testament.19 In this respect he answered those such as the Socinians who believed its truths were independent; people such as John 17 See: Chapter 2, page 61. Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (London, 1734–1735). 18 On the precedents of this argument, see: Michelle Pfeffer, “The Pentateuch and Immortality in England and the Dutch Republic: The Confessionalization of a Claim,” in Dmitri Levitin & Ian Maclean, The Worlds of Knowledge and the Classical Tradition in the Early Modern Age: Comparative Approaches (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 142–176. 19 Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:7.

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Toland. The cornerstone of the argument led Warburton in the first book to criticise both Pierre Bayle, whose Pensées diverses (1683) explored the notion of a virtuous society of atheists, and Bernard Mandeville, whose The Fable of the Bees (1714) argued that the private vice of luxury produced public benefits; in other words, each author offered a model of the functioning of society independent of religion or morality, thereby threatening the premise of Divine Legation.20 In the second book of the first volume, Warburton begins to lay the foundations for the historical support of his contention with the insistence that all those legislators of antiquity who had drawn up humankind from the state of nature had established religion alongside their laws, pretending divine revelation as their sanction.21 That ‘such Care and Pains’ were taken to establish religion, by which Warburton believes the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments was ‘principally’ meant, proves its ‘Utility to the State.’22 And since it had been taught by all but Moses, this in one sense elevated the chosen status of the Jews in ancient history, indicating God’s assumption of judicial robes in their special case, whilst in another it denigrated Judaism through the necessity of that condescension.23 The Eleusinian mysteries fitted into the context of this part political and part theological argument as evidence that ancient legislators had popularly inculcated the doctrine of a future state at the foundation of civil society, emphasising the distance between Jew and gentile, and proving the unique circumstances of the former. But how to reconcile the seeming contradiction that a doctrine of public benefit was taught in secret?24 To resolve this problem, Warburton utilised the division of the Eleusinian mysteries into lesser and greater varieties: the lesser were kept nominally secret to stimulate 20 Pierre Bayle, Pensées diverses, écrites à un docteur de Sorbonne, a l’occasion de la comête qui parut au mois de décembre 1680, 2 vols (Rotterdam, 1683), 2:525–529; on which see: Eric Jorink, “Comets In Context. Some Thoughts on Bayle’s Pensées Diverses,” in Wiep van Bunge & Hans Bots (eds.), Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), le philosophe de Rotterdam: Philosophy, Religion and Reception (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 51–67. Bernard Mandeville The Fable of the Bees: or, Private vices, publick benefits (London, 1714); on which see: E.G. Hundert, The Enlightenment’s Fable: Bernard Mandeville and the Discovery of Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 21 This point was contested by Arthur Ashley Sykes, see: Sykes, An Examination, 54. See also: Jean-Louis Quantin, “Le mythe du législateur au XVIIIe siècle: état des recherches,” in Chantal Grell & Christian Michel (eds.), Primitivisme et mythes des origines dans la France des Lumières, 1680–1820 (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1989), 153–164. 22 Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:88–89. 23 On John Spencer’s adaptation of Maimonides’ theory of divine accommodation, which influenced Warburton, see: Daniel Stolzenberg, “John Spencer and the Perils of Sacred Philology,” Past & Present 214, no. 1 (2012): 129–163. 24 This problem was raised in: Sykes, An Examination, 55.

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‘Man’s curiosity’, but in practice they were open to all and taught the doctrine of a future state in a manner ‘framed to strike most forcibly and deep into the Minds and Imaginations of the people.’25 As an illustration of this, he argued that Aeneas’ journey through Tartarus and Elysium in the sixth book of Virgil’s Aeneid was a veiled account of initiation in the Eleusinian mysteries. For Warburton, Aeneas’ descent to the underworld represents the trials of initiation, where he encounters the various forms of punishments in the afterlife: ‘a Representation of the History of Ceres afforded the Opportunity of bringing the Scenes of Heaven, Hell, Elysium, Purgatory, and all that related to the future State of Men and Heroes.’26 Aeneas finally reaches Elysium, which is described using the evidence of Stobaeus’ Florilegium as ‘shining plains and flowery meadows’ where initiates ‘are entertained with Hymns and Chorus’s, with the sublime doctrines of sacred Knowledge, and with reverend and holy visions.’27 Where Homer’s epic expressed simple but noble morality, for Warburton Virgil’s more polished version of the tradition represented the sphere of politics, in which Aeneas was a model legislator, whose ‘Character and Function’ was ‘sanctified’ by initiation into the mysteries.28 The political characterisation of the sixth book of the Aeneid also pointed to the altogether different import of the greater mysteries, which did indeed contain teachings ‘not expedient for others to know’, and were reserved for leaders of men such as Aeneas: following Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations they taught the mortal origins of the pagan gods, but this was in preparation for the revelation of the doctrine of the unity of God.29 Warburton saw the poor example of the ‘whole Rabble of licentious Deities’ of paganism as an impediment to ‘a Life of Purity and Holiness.’30 This was redressed in the greater mysteries by the revelation to a select few in pagan societies that in the process of apotheosis for the benefits that the original legislators had furnished to civil society, the record of their human vices had likewise been immortalised. From the realisation that good governance resulted in deification, initiates of the greater mysteries were to infer that they too could become worshipped by posterity if they provided like services to society. But does the above problem of why a beneficial teaching should be restricted to so few still not apply here? Warburton countered this potential criticism by arguing that since the error of polytheism was so entrenched, its 25 26 27 28 29 30

Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:143; 133. Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:193. Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:225–226. Stobaeus, Florilegium 119. Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:189. Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:144. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.29. Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:148–149.

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sudden removal for the entire population would threaten the stability of society, so it had to remain as a necessary fiction. In summary: the legislators of antiquity had instituted polytheism as a means of encouraging ‘Veneration for their Laws’, whilst at the same time creating in the form of the mysteries an institution which revealed to future legislators its falsity, circuitously ensuring the good governance of society and the place of religion in it. The lesser mysteries supported this equilibrium from below by keeping the people in line with the terrors and promises of a future state, while the greater supported it from above through moral instruction and the incentive that the knowledge of the euhemerist ‘truth’ was supposed to impart to future legislators. The evidence suggests that this argument was just as peculiar to eighteenth-century eyes as it is to modern ones. In the idea that the disclosure of the mortal origins of the gods in the Eleusinian mysteries was intended to clear the way for the recognition of ‘the supreme Cause of all things’, it might be argued that Warburton approached a version of the position held by Stukeley, in that the mysteries are seen to contain teachings that bear some relationship to Christian beliefs.31 But the process by which their conclusions were reached was very different: where Stukeley saw the similarity as explicable through the mechanism of a prior revelation and emphasised their trinitarian aspect, Warburton considered them under the light of their societal utility and emphasised a monotheistic teaching, whilst maintaining a strict separation between paganism and Christianity. The distance between the two men was further accentuated in book three of the first volume of Divine Legation, which sought to demonstrate that although the ‘ancient Theistical Philosophers’ had publicly espoused a belief in the doctrine of a future state, in actuality they did not subscribe to it, and had instead philosophised ‘in private on other Principles’ such as metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls.32 As was seen in chapter one, Warburton’s argument draws on Toland, but it is directed against those authors that seek to find pagan teachings of the afterlife as ‘conformable and favourable to the Christian Doctrine of a future State’; in other words, those such as Stukeley.33 Writing in the introduction to a 1747 publication by his supporter John Towne, Warburton clarified his disregard of the value of ancient pagan wisdom by stating that in Divine Legation he did not think himself ‘at all concerned to manage the Reputation of a Set of Men, who, on the first Appearance of Christianity, most violently opposed it by all the Arts of Sophistry and 31 Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:149. 32 Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:303–304. 33 Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:304. See: Chapter 1, page 50.

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Injustice.’34 The double doctrine or religio duplex, the idea that ancient philosophers taught their true views in secret, was proof of the duplicity of all Greek philosophers apart from Socrates, who alone had truly believed in a future state – although, as it happens, he was famous for not having been initiated into the mysteries.35 By casting aside the potential assistance of the universal tradition of paganism in confirming Christian truth, conceding that the religion of the Jews did not contain a doctrine generally thought of as essential to religion, and by introducing political ideas about the role of religion into his discussion of paganism, Warburton left himself dangerously exposed. In his self-assurance he believed that the argument of Divine Legation was strong enough to dispense with pagans and Jews, and to dispose of both ‘deists’ such as Toland and diffusionists such as Stukeley; however, few were convinced. In respect of the omission of the doctrine of a future state, an early response in a sermon by the evangelical divine William Romaine goes so far as to suggest that Warburton and his followers ‘cannot be ignorant that they are labouring to set one Testament against the other, thereby to overthrow the Authority of both.’36 Another reply by the Hebraist Julius Bate concurs with this view, pointing out that ‘it would be no hard Matter for the Deist to turn the Argument upon us, and use it to destroy the Authority of both Testaments.’37 This, as it turns out, was a prescient observation. In spite of the assertion that his intentions were apologetic, the innovative aspects of Warburton’s thought unfortunately succeeded in provoking a large swathe of Christian opinion in England against him, and arguably did much of the work of the critics of religion for them by giving oxygen to their ideas. Having outlined the argument of Divine Legation and the role of the Eleusinian mysteries in it, and with Stukeley also reintroduced into the discussion, it is now possible to assess the claims of plagiarism made in his commonplace book, referenced in the previous chapter.38 These rest upon Warburton’s alleged use of three authors: Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, from whose Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711) he supposedly ‘got his legation notion’; Sir John Marsham who provided him with 34 Towne, Critical Inquiry, iv. 35 Jan Assmann, Religio Duplex: Ägyptische Mysterien und europäische Aufklärung (Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen, 2010). 36 William Romaine, A Sermon Preached before the University of Oxford at St. Mary’s, March 4. 1739 (London, 1739), 24. 37 Julius Bate, An Essay towards explaining the Third Chapter of Genesis, and the spiritual sense of the law. In which the third proposition of the Divine Legation, and what the author hath brought to support it, are consider’d (London, 1741), 64. 38 See: Chapter 2, page 61.

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his ‘mysterys’; John Spencer who furnished ‘many more notions’; and finally Jean Le Clerc, from whom Stukeley writes Warburton ‘took his notion of the jews not knowing of a future state.’39 Robert M. Ryley addressed the first and last of these allegations in his study of Warburton, dismissing the idea that the ‘legation notion’, if meaning the proof of divine providence through the omission of the doctrine of a future state, could have been derived from Shaftesbury, whilst acknowledging that if it only referred to the omission then it was ‘plausible’. But then, as he points out, if that was the case, why would Stukeley write that he took this idea from Le Clerc?40 The text ‘Sensus Communis’ in Characteristics sheds light on this conundrum. In reference to the relative virtues of the Hebrew kings Saul and David, Shaftesbury writes that: the heroic virtue of these persons had only the common reward of praise attributed to it and could not claim a future recompense under a religion which taught no future state nor exhibited any rewards or punishments, besides such as were temporal and had respect to the written law. And thus the Jews as well as heathens were left to their philosophy, to be instructed in the sublime part of virtue and induced by reason to that which was never enjoined them by command. No premium or penalty being enforced in these cases, the disinterested part subsisted, the virtue was a free choice, and the magnanimity of the act was left entire.41 This passage contains the idea that Jewish religion did not comprehend the doctrine of a future state, but the use to which it is put was quite different to that of Divine Legation: Shaftesbury claimed that its absence allowed for the free exercise of ethical judgement independent of the compunction of religious law, an opinion corresponding with his wider writings on morality’s independence from revelation. Even though he doesn’t spell out that this absence is proof of the falsity of Judaism and therefore Christianity, if combined with Toland’s Letters to Serena which also refers to the absence, a broad sense of who Warburton was thinking of in the address of his book to the ‘freethinkers’ may be found. Characteristics also contains a possible clue as to Stukeley’s allegation of Warburton’s plagiarism from Spencer. In ‘Miscellany II’, which develops the 39 William Stukeley, The Commentarys, Diary & Common-Place Book of William Stukeley & Selected Letters (London: Doppler Press, 1980), 118. 40 Ryley, Warburton, 8. 41 Lawrence E. Klein (ed.), Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 47–48.

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theme of the opening text ‘A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm’, Shaftesbury comments on the peculiar condescension of divine providence in indulging ‘the stubborn habit and stupid humour of this people [the Jews]’ who kept on reverting to the Egyptian customs and beliefs that they were supposed to be led away from. He references Spencer in this context, quoting a passage from De legibus Hebraeorum in a footnote: When therefore God had to deal with a people so barbarous and so heavily committed to superstition, it was almost necessary that he do something for their infirmity and bind them to himself by some guile (not arguments). No animal is more morose than the superstitious, and especially the naively so, or needing to be handled by a greater art.42 Although in the absence of specification by Stukeley it is hard to prove, it seems possible that one of the notions he was thinking of was Spencer’s idea of God’s necessary ‘political’ adaptation to the Jews, a key feature of the argument of Divine Legation.43 Otherwise it may more straightforwardly be attributed to Warburton’s acknowledgment of Spencer’s arguments about the Egyptian influence on Judaism, in which respect the section on hieroglyphics in Divine Legation was intended to provide ‘internal Evidence’ since Egyptian pictorial characters preceded the more abstracted Hebrew ones.44 What then did Stukeley mean by the assertion that Warburton had taken his ‘mysterys’ from Sir John Marsham? To assess this claim, the chapter ‘Eleusinia’ in Marsham’s Chronicus canon Aegyptiacus, Ebraicus, Graecus, et disquisitiones (1672) may be considered.45 His account of the origins of the mysteries makes use of Euhemerism and the historical narrative he employs relies primarily on the first book of Diodorus Siculus’ Library of History, from which he quotes liberally.46 In the course of a famine which affected the crops of all the world apart from Egypt, Erechtheus, an Athenian of Egyptian origin, imported a great

42 Shaftesbury, Characteristics, 363. 43 On the patristic and medieval precursors to Spencer’s use of divine accommodation see: Stephen D. Benin, “The ‘Cunning of God’ and Divine Accommodation,” Journal of the History of Ideas 45, no. 2 (1984): 179–191; and Benin, The Footprints of God: Divine Accommodation in Christian and Jewish Thought (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1993). 44 Warburton, Divine Legation, 2:66. 45 John Marsham, Chronicus canon Aegyptiacus, Ebraicus, Graecus, et disquisitiones (London, 1672). 46 On the theory of Euhemerism and its reception see: Introduction, note 44.

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quantity of grain to save the city.47 To celebrate this the mysteries were instituted, which like the imported cereal were ‘transferred from Egypt.’48 Marsham also considers another conduit, likewise mentioned in the Library of History, by which Egyptian influence was exercised on Greece: Orpheus, another of the legendary founders of the mysteries, learned there of ‘initiations and theology, as much as poetry and melody’, providing further evidence that the initiations of Bacchus were none other than those of Osiris, and that those of Ceres originally belonged to Isis, with ‘the names only differing.’49 Although Marsham is a logical attribution on the basis of his treating the mysteries within a chronology that ascribes precedence to the ancient Egyptians, the other key element of Warburton’s presentation of the Eleusinian mysteries, the revelation of the mortality of the gods, can be traced through another author mentioned by Stukeley: Jean Le Clerc. In an article titled ‘Explication historique de la fable de Ceres’, which was published in the journal that Le Clerc founded and for which he was the long-serving editor, Bibliotheque universelle et historique, Demeter is identified as Dio, the queen of Sicily, a land which as a result of its extreme fertility was the first to have discovered agriculture.50 Pherephatta, the daughter of the queen, is stolen from Sicily by Aïdoneus, King of the Molossians, a people who occupied the mountainous land of Epirus ‘where they applied themselves to drawing metal from the bowels of the earth’, in this way explaining the 47 Marsham, Chronicus canon, 248: ‘frugum pernicies’. On this aspect of Marsham’s book, see: Derrick Edward Mosley, Sir John Marsham (1602–1683) and the History of Scholarship (Doctoral Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2022), 208–211. 48 Marsham, Chronicus canon, 248: ‘ritibus ex Aegypto translatis’. 49 Marsham, Chronicus canon, 253: ‘Orpheus in Aegyptum profectus, multa ibi didicit: ita ut tam Initationibus & Theologiâ, quàm Poesi & Melodiâ’; ‘nominibus tantùm differentibus’. 50 Jean Le Clerc, “Explication historique de la fable de Ceres,” in Bibliotheque universelle et historique de l’année M.D.C. LXXXVII. tome sixième (Amsterdam, 1687), 55–127. On Le Clerc’s life and works see: Annie Barnes, Jean Le Clerc (1657–1736) et la République des lettres (Paris: E. Droz, 1938); and Maria-Cristina Pitassi, Entre croire et savoir: le problème de la méthode critique chez Jean Le Clerc (Leiden: Brill, 1987). On his treatment of myth see: Pitassi, “Histoire de dieux, histoire d’hommes: l’interprétation de la mythologie païenne chez Jean Le Clerc,” in François Laplanche et al. (eds.), Les Religions du paganisme antique dans l’Europe chrétienne: XVIe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1988), 129–135; and Gianfranco Cantelli, “Mito e Storia in J. Leclerc, Tournemine e Fontenelle,” Rivista critica di storia della filosofia 27, no. 3 & no. 4 (1972): 269–286; 385–400. The association of Demeter with Sicily is found in: Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5.2. Philological evidence is also provided: ‘Dio, signifies abundance, and Dimitir […] the mother of abundance.’ Le Clerc, Fable de Ceres, 63. On the abduction ritual of marriage in ancient Greece, see: Ian Jenkins, “Is there Life after Marriage? A Study of the Abduction Motif in Vase Paintings of the Athenian Wedding Ceremony,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 30 (1983): 137–145.

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association with the underworld in the myth.51 Dio travels throughout Sicily searching for her daughter and then embarks for Greece, where she discovers her whereabouts and agrees with Aïdoneus that Pherephatta will spend part of the year with her and part with her husband. Dio’s voyage also took her to Eleusis, where as a reward for their help she teaches the Eleusinians ‘her laws and agriculture.’52 Therefore, in Le Clerc’s version of the myth the mysteries were instituted primarily ‘to preserve the memory, and to instruct the furthest posterity’ in this useful discovery.53 As well as using Euhemerism to explain the myth in general terms as relating to the benefactions of society, Le Clerc also applies the theory to the specific content of the mysteries. One of the laws of Dio taught in them was that the ills man suffers in this life are punishment for sins committed in a previous one, and that alongside this teaching went the hope for a future state. But the greatest secret of the mysteries was something altogether different: One learned the truth of the history of Dio, not only through the mystical representations, but also through the instruction of the priests, who taught clearly to the initiates that Dio and Pherephatta, who passed as goddesses of the first order, had only been mortals … That it was neither the ceremonies, nor the laws of Dio, nor the hope that the initiates had of being happy after death, which was hidden with such care, but this last truth, which would have slighted the public religion, if it had been known by everyone.54 For Le Clerc, the Eleusinian mysteries concealed the mortal identity of the ‘goddess’ that instituted them, a revelation that he believed would have had a profoundly damaging effect on the fabric of polytheistic Greek society had it been widely known. This was the reason that initiation into the greater mysteries was delayed for five years: it aimed to dissuade those impatient 51 Le Clerc, Fable de Ceres, 66. The transformation of the archaic name ‘Pherephatta’ to ‘Persephone’ is commented on in Plato, Cratylus 404.C. Aïdoneus, the King of the Molossians, is also known as King Ades, which connects him to the god of the underworld, see: Francis Gouldman, A Copious Dictionary (Cambridge, 1678): ‘Ades vel Hades: The god of hell; called also Dis: also a king of the Molossians’. On the connection between Aïdoneus and the myth of Demeter and Persephone see also: Plutarch, Lives. Theseus 31; and Leonard Digges (trans.), ‘The Historical Sense or meaning of the Storie’ in Digges, The Rape of Proserpine. Translated out of Claudian in Latine, into English Verse (London, 1617). See also Julius Firmicus Maternus’ euhemerist version of the myth: Maternus, Errors 7.1–6. 52 Le Clerc, Fable de Ceres, 71. 53 Le Clerc, Fable de Ceres, 72. 54 Le Clerc, Fable de Ceres, 79–80.

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people who were not capable of guarding a secret. Antoine Banier, the chief eighteenth-century proponent of Euhemerism, confirms that in this opinion Le Clerc followed ‘some of the Antients’, in particular Cicero, who in Tusculan Disputations ‘insinuates that it was the Humanity of Ceres and her Daughter, their Places of Interment, and several other Things of that Nature, that they concealed with so much Care.’55 Therefore, although the ultimate source of Warburton’s view of the revelation of the mortality of the gods was Cicero, there was a more recent Francophone tradition that he likely drew upon in Divine Legation, though without acknowledgment. The foregoing discussion shows that Stukeley is generally useful in his gesturing towards some of Warburton’s sources, particularly the influence of authors who might be considered as suspect to more traditional defenders of the faith. Even if the ideas of earlier authors did flow into the composition of Divine Legation, it seems hard to contest that the manner in which they were combined in Warburton’s thought was new – although the novelty outweighed its power to convince. Stukeley’s passage is telling on account of the ambiguity of his censure: it invites criticism both of the act of what he saw as plagiarism and the sources from which he plagiarised. The reference to Warburton’s ‘internal principles’ indicates both the unorthodoxy of his religious perspective, described by Stukeley in his commonplace book as his being ‘very apt to have scruples about our religion’, and his lack of shame in furtively borrowing from other authors in a book whose ‘Advertisement to the Reader’ claims that its author ‘is not conscious of borrowing a single Thought from any one, which he has not fairly acknowledged.’56 Although from the use of works by Marsham, Spencer, Toland, Shaftesbury, and Le Clerc it should not be concluded with William Romaine and Julius Bate that Warburton was himself bent upon secretly undermining the Christian faith, he should be recognised for his engagement with the grave problems they had raised. Divine Legation aimed to assimilate aspects of the historical critique of these authors whilst mounting a supposedly invincible counter-attack. If Warburton ultimately failed in this endeavour then it should not be ignored that he was a hugely significant contributor to the debate on the mysteries, anchoring the comprehension of the subject in the question of the political role they played in society. His argument raised questions that many later authors felt impelled to address, as is testified by the engagement with his interpretation of the Eleusinian mysteries by many in the second half of the eighteenth century, including the remaining 55 Antoine Banier, The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients, Explain’d from History, 4 vols (London, 1739–1740), 3:67. 56 Stukeley, Commentarys, 118.

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authors of this and the following chapter. In the next section, abbé Pluche’s Histoire du ciel will provide a comparable example through its emphasis on the importance of agriculture; not, following Le Clerc, as an indication of the Sicilian nationality of Queen Dio, but in a manner which like the significance attributed to the law by Warburton reflects the deepening recognition of practical concerns in understanding the origins of society. 2

Agriculture after the Deluge: Noël-Antoine Pluche

Noël-Antoine Pluche was a very different character to William Warburton. Born in Rheims in 1688, his father died when he was just twelve years old, so he was set on the path of theology by his mother, studying with the Jansenist theologian Nicolas le Gros at the city’s seminary.57 His diligence at this institution was rewarded with a professorship in 1710, and then two years later as he took holy orders he received the Chair of Rhetoric. Pluche was next offered a position at the Collège of Laon in 1717, but he only remained there for five years as pressure to subscribe to the anti-Jansenist Papal Bull Unigenitus, which had been issued a few years earlier in 1713, made his position untenable. Rumours that a lettre de cachet (an order of incarceration from the ecclesiastical authorities) had been sent led to his moving to Rouen. There he became acquainted with William Stafford Howard of the great English Catholic dynasty, whose son he gave lessons in natural philosophy, encouraging him to learn English and enabling him, if Étienne de Silhouette is to be believed, to read Divine Legation soon after its publication.58 His tutouring provided the didactic and 57 For Pluche’s biography see Robert Estienne’s ‘l’Éloge historique de Monsieur l’Abbé Pluche’ in: Benoît de Baere, Trois introductions à l’Abbé Pluche: sa vie, son monde, ses livres (Genève: Droz, 2001). 58 For the early transmission of Warburton’s Divine Legation in France in the Huguenot Bibliotheque Britannique, see: [Anon.], “Mr. Guillaume Warburton: La Divinité de la Mission de Moïse, démontrée suivant les Principes d’un Déïste Religieux, par la consideration, que sous l’Economie Judaïque il n’est point fait mentions des Recompenses & des Paines dans une Vie à venir,” in Bibliotheque britannique, ou Histoire des ouvrages des savans de la Grande-Bretagne pour les mois d’Avril, Mai et Juin. Tome onzieme, premiere partie (The Hague, 1738), 75–128; [Anon.], “La Divinité de la Mission de Moïse … Second Extrait,” in Bibliotheque britannique, ou Histoire des ouvrages des savans de la Grande-Bretagne pour les mois de Juillet, Aout et Septembre. Tome onzieme, seconde partie (The Hague, 1738), 268–307; [Anon.], “Dissertation sur l’initiation aux Mystères Eleusiniens,” in Bibliotheque britannique, ou Histoire des ouvrages des savans de la Grande-Bretagne pour les mois d’Octob, Novemb. et Decemb. Tome douzieme, premiere partie (The Hague, 1738), 1–70. On the Bibliotheque britannique, which transmitted English republican literature to the continent, see: Rachel Hammersley, The English Republican Tradition and Eighteenth-Century

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dialogic model for his most famous work Le Spectacle de la nature (1732–50), which he completed in Paris and which met with immediate success, resulting in translations into multiple languages.59 Histoire du ciel (1739) was conceived as ‘a kind of sequel’ to the history of physics in the fourth volume of Spectacle.60 Later in life, Pluche’s increasing deafness left him uncomfortable in the sociable Parisian world and so he embarked upon a quiet retirement at Varenne-Saint-Maur, where he died in 1761. In short: unlike Warburton he was not a man to actively seek out scholarly controversy.61 To understand the place of the Eleusinian mysteries in his thought, it is necessary to first build up a broader picture of his system of ancient history and his explanation of paganism. Where Spectacle sought to direct attention to the marvels of the ‘exterior Decoration of the World’, Histoire du ciel is a work of natural history at one remove, being a history of ideas ‘concerning the origine of the heavens, and their relations to the earth.’62 Pluche is clear from the outset exactly which peoples constitute worthy objects of study in relation to this question. Only those ‘among whom the thread of the ancient history may have been preserved intire [sic]’, who ‘may have communicated to each other and continued some part of the primitive knowledge to our time’ are deemed worthy of attention; ‘savages’ such as the inhabitants of Greenland who have been too long distant from this source, are not.63 Pluche situates his work in the context of the all-important debate between the majority of learned authors who argued ‘that false religions only copied and mimicked the true’, and those exemplified by John Marsham who either ‘insinuated’ or ‘openly taught’ that ‘the laws and the ceremonies of the Hebrews were an imitation of the customs of Egypt and of the neighbouring nations, but adapted to the worship of one God.’64 Like

59 60 61 62 63 64

France: Between the Ancients and the Moderns (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010), 35–37; and F. Beckwith, “The Bibliothèque Britannique, 1733–47,” The Library 12, no. 4 (1931): 75–82. See also the French translation of the section on hieroglyphs: Marc-Antoine Léonard Des Malpeines (trans.), Essai sur les hiéroglyphes des Égyptiens, où l’on voit l’origine & le progrès du langage & de l’écriture, l’antiquité des sciences en Égypte, & l’origine du culte des animaux. Traduit de l’anglois de M. Waburton (Paris, 1744). Noël-Antoine Pluche, Le Spectacle de la nature, 8 vols (Paris, 1732–1750). Quotations are drawn from the English translation: Pluche, Spectacle de la nature: Or, Nature Display’d (London, 1740). Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:ix. Noël-Antoine Pluche responded to criticism of his work with rather more grace than Warburton was capable of: Pluche, Supplement a l’Histoire du ciel (The Hague, 1741), 3–4. Pluche, Spectacle, iv; Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:i. Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:ii. Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:5.

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Stukeley, Pluche believes that this latter position is invalidated by Moses’ strict exhortation to avoid ‘the conversation and customs’ of other nations, which to him makes it impossible that the Jews could have been borrowers.65 But he is still left with the problem of how to account for the superficial similarities of religious practice. His answer, that this was the result of their mutually preserving ‘several innocent customs borrowed from the remotest antiquity, even from Noah’s family, from whom they all took their original’, aligns him with the familiar approach already encountered in Lafitau, Stukeley, and Ramsay.66 Like those other antiquarian apologists, Pluche believed that tracing Christianity back to the religion of the patriarchs was the most effective way of combatting the threat from freethinkers, deists, and atheists. But unlike the Jesuit Lafitau, he would not have expected to find evidence of it among those he considered as the ‘savage’ Iroquois. From the fact that Pluche addresses the problem of idolatry in the context of a work on ancient ideas about the heavens, it might be inferred that he would be a proponent of the explanation of Sabaism, that the origin of the gods was in the deification of heavenly bodies, which was familiar to early modern thinkers through the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides.67 But although his interpretation bears some relationship to this position, it differs from it in a key respect. For Pluche, ‘the spectacle of the universe never corrupted mankind’, instead strictly speaking idolatry began with ‘the abuse of the language of astronomy, and of the figures of the ancient writing.’68 Written language developed as a means for the patriarchs both to record their experiences of the natural world and as an aid for agriculture to control it. Pluche introduces his argument through the problem of the extended ages of the patriarchs, which he tries to solve by adopting a theory in the physico-theological tradition of Thomas Burnet’s Telluris theoria sacra (1681).69 In the course of 65 Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:5. 66 Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:6. See: Chapter 2. 67 Maimonides’ commentary on the Avodah Zarah of the Talmud, which dealt with gentile worship, was translated by Dionysius Vossius, see: Vossius (trans.), R. Mosis Maimonidae. De idolatria (Amsterdam, 1642). See also: Jonathan Elukin, “Maimonides and the Rise and Fall of the Sabians: Explaining Mosaic Laws and the Limits of Scholarship,” Journal of the History of Ideas 63, no. 4 (2002): 619–637. On later eighteenth-century engagement, see: Suzanne Marchand, “Where Does History Begin? J.G. Herder and the Problem of Near Eastern Chronology in the Age of Enlightenment,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 47, no. 2 (2014): 157–175. 68 Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:89; 2. 69 Thomas Burnet, Telluris theoria sacra (London, 1681). Quotations are drawn from: Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the Earth, 2 vols (London, 1738). Burnet’s book was contested by, among others, John Woodward in: Woodward, An Essay toward a Natural History of the

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seeking an explanation for the huge quantities of water needed for the biblical deluge, Burnet had hypothesised that the paradisiacal surface of the earth was smooth and contained the oceans inside. When this surface was cracked by the heat of the sun – precisely timed by the ‘All-wise Providence’ – it at once released the waters contained within the earth, resulting in a ‘ruined’ landscape of mountains, valleys, and seas.70 Following Burnet, Pluche argues that prior to the deluge the sun did not leave the equator, the effect of which was a uniform temperature that produced the uninterrupted fruitfulness of the earth, in turn allowing for much greater ages to be reached by its inhabitants, who benefited from the pleasant climate and better diets. This was a natural-historical explanation of paradise and the effect it had on the well-being of its inhabitants.71 The post-diluvian beginning of seasonal change, resulting from the tilting of the earth’s axis after the displacement of the massive quantities of water it held, meant that in the absence of the former state of plenty human beings were forced to develop agriculture to provide for themselves. One of the most useful guides for this practice was found in the heavens where ‘the twelve portions’ were ‘a prodigious help towards regulating the beginnings of sowing, mowing and harvest-time’; for the sake of utility, these were symbolically associated with the animals, humans, and other objects that made up the zodiac.72 For Pluche, the corroboration of the progression of the signs of the zodiac with the schedule of sowing, harvesting, hunting, and fishing in the temperate zones points towards Noah and the plains of Shinar for their origin.73 Then the step from this association of symbols with a shared practical signification to their being set down as ‘rough draughts’ on ‘slate or stones’ was but a small one.74 He does, though, concede that it was principally in Egypt that this system was enlarged. There the very earliest symbols of the script bore the memory of their agricultural origin, with that which later became worshipped as ‘Osiris’ representing the power of the sun, ‘Isis’ signifying the earth, and ‘Horus’ the product of the two: agricultural labour. It is vital for Pluche’s argument that in their original iteration these characters were not deified, they were simply ‘the letters of an ancient alphabet … whereby it had been agreed on to inform the

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Earth (London, 1695). See also: Paolo Rossi, The Dark Abyss of Time: The History of the Earth & The History of Nations from Hooke to Vico (Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press, 1984). Burnet, Sacred Theory, 1:96. Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:8. Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:15. Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:14. Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:15.

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people of the state of the heaven, of the order of the feasts, and of the whole series of their annual works.’75 The early form of pictorial writing was to be radically altered by the discovery of the alphabet, which for Pluche was the true catalyst of idolatry. In this hypothesis he flatters himself with the status of a discoverer, ‘no mythologist, that I know of, ever having derived the birth of idolatry from this original.’76 The advantages of the phonetic efficiency of the alphabet above the use of the older symbolic system was obvious to the Egyptians, whose discovery was popularised throughout the ancient world by commerce with the far-travelling Phoenicians.77 But its adoption did not entirely eradicate the use of the earlier symbolic writing, which in Egypt was exemplified by the hieroglyphs that continued to be applied ‘in the places and instruments designed for religious worship, and in the instruction of masters to their disciples … at feasts, upon tombs and public monuments.’78 With the loss of their popular use and the understanding of their original signification, the images that made up the system gradually began to take on a more mysterious appearance, eventually resulting in the deification of a number of the principal figures. In Pluche’s view this cannot be ascribed as the fault of language itself, but firmly remains that of its users, in whom the loss of the symbolic comprehension entailed the practice of empty ritual. The pagan gods thus become (looking forward to Max Müller) partly an epiphenomenon of language and (reflecting Pluche’s Jansenism) partly the result of human depravity.79 Pluche links the Eleusinian mysteries to the development of writing as an aid for agricultural production in the age after the deluge. The institution of the feasts and celebrations of the mysteries combined a dual role: on the one hand, they involved a lamentation for the former state of antediluvian plenty; on the other, the sadness at this loss gave way to a celebration of the discovery of agriculture, which had once again provided the means of subsistence for human beings. Therefore, alongside the use of symbols in guiding its cycle, the embryonic form of the mysteries also had a quasi-linguistic function in their preservation of the ancient history of agriculture, giving them the name 75 76 77 78 79

Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:72. Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:89. Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:108. Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:92. See: Lourens P. van den Bosch, Friedrich Max Müller: A Life Devoted to the Humanities (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 260. On Warburton’s comparable argument see: Jan Assmann, “Pictures versus Letters: William Warburton’s Theory of Grammatological Iconoclasm,” in Jan Assmann & Albert I. Baumgarten (eds.), Representation in Religion: Studies in Honor of Moshe Barasch (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 297–311.

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of Thesmophoria (‘the feast of the regulations’); in Pluche’s words they were ‘dramatick ceremonies, wherein the objects and the names of the actors were significant, and served to recall the memory of things passed.’80 This historical role also had the moral function of a reminder that the deluge was caused by God’s wrath at humankind’s sinfulness. In this sense, then, the Eleusinian mysteries were both a memento of the defining event of human prehistory and a vestige of the original religion of humankind. This was a monotheistic faith distinguished by valuing work and justice, which set its hopes on a future state, and was ‘the same with that of Job and Jethro in Arabia; with that of Melchisedec in Chanaan, that of Abimelec in Palestine … in short the religion of Noah and of the patriarchs his children, the founders of the first colonies.’81 As may be seen in the following passage, the positive view of the proximity of the mysteries to the patriarchal religion is also combined with a negative conception of their degradation. This is expressed in Pluche’s mind through the split the symbolic writing underwent with the introduction of the alphabet, which was also mirrored in the Eleusinian mysteries in the division between the lesser and the greater: It is credible, that in the beginning the priests who had as yet the key of the ancient writing forewarned the people of the falsehood of these interpretations, and recalled them to the unity of one God author of all their good. The priests at first retained a part of the primitive explications. Thence comes the mixture of great and little in the Egyptian theology, and in the Eleusinian which was the same. In these more than any where remained the ancient footsteps of the truths, which constituted the principal ground-work of the religion of the patriarchs.82 This part positive and part negative view of the mysteries aligns Pluche with Stukeley, and the idea that the doctrine of monotheism was preserved in the greater mysteries aligns him with Warburton. But the aspect of his account that relates them to the deluge has a major impact on the presentation of the details of the ceremonies and their connection to the myth. In the context of the Eleusinian mysteries, Isis, whose original signification in the symbolicagricultural writing was the earth, is transformed after the deluge into Demeter, whose Latin name ‘Ceres’ Pluche sees as connecting to the idea of ‘ruin’ or 80 Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:283; 78. Pluche here conflates the Thesmophoria with the Eleusinian mysteries. On the Thesmophoria, see: Introduction, note 39. 81 Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:261. 82 Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:264.

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‘fracture.’83 Demeter mourns the loss of her daughter, who represents the antediluvian fecundity that was destroyed by the ‘waters proceeding from the bowels of the earth.’84 In the barren years after the flood the men that repopulated the earth were exposed to the elements and had to rely on torches to keep themselves warm, which eventually became connected with the nocturnal celebration of the mysteries in commemorating the search for Persephone. Other objects connecting to the rites, such as acorns, pomegranates, and poppies, bore the memory of primitive humankind’s reliance on foraging. The discovery of the cultivation of grain is then expressed in the myth through Demeter’s recovery of Persephone, with the division of her time between the world and the underworld pointing to the post-diluvian fluctuation of the seasons. Other figures are likewise explained through this practical narrative: Triptolemus represents the plough; Baubo, who reveals her genitals to Demeter to amuse the goddess, is rather prudishly interpreted as comforting her with her ‘lap full of provisions.’85 Connecting with Le Clerc, the agricultural aspect of the narrative indicates the reason why the Eleusinian version of the mysteries emerged in Sicily rather than closer to the equator in Egypt, where winter remained short since the tilt in the earth’s axis was least pronounced. For Pluche, the sign of Virgo in the zodiac which symbolises the harvest, ‘did not at all agree with the time when the Egyptians gather their crops’, demonstrating that they had received and not invented these figures.86 But even though the feasts that were the original form of celebrating the mysteries were imbued with the religious spirit of their patriarchal institutors, following the idea of a degradation of the understanding of the symbolism outlined above, that which was signified in 83 Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:275. Pluche etymologically derives ‘Ceres’ from the Hebrew word ‘qarats’, or as he spells it ‘cerets’, meaning ‘to nip, or pinch’. Jeremiah 46:20 of the New International translation reads: ‘Egypt is a beautiful heifer, but a gadfly is coming against her from the north’, with ‘qarats’ translated as ‘gadfly’. In the King James Bible this same passage is translated: ‘Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north’, with ‘qarats’ translated as ‘destruction.’ Another possible influence on this interpretation is Robert Hooke’s ‘A Discourse on Earthquakes’, which views the Ovidian rendition of the myth as an allegorised account of a Sicilian earthquake, although Proserpine represents the town (as the daughter of civilisation) that is swallowed up by Pluto. See: Robert Hooke, The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke (London, 1705), 402–403. On the use of Ovid by Hooke and his contemporaries see: William Poole, The World Makers: Scientists of the Restoration and the Search for the Origins of the Earth (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010), 106–107; and Rhoda Rappaport, “Hooke on Earthquakes: Lectures, Strategy, and Audience,” The British Journal for the History of Science 19, no. 2 (1986): 129–146. 84 Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:275. 85 Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:277. 86 Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:22.

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the celebrations was eventually mistaken for the signifier, and the Eleusinian mysteries were transformed into ‘the skeleton of ancient religion.’87 Histoire du ciel may be seen as a hybrid of two tendencies in the eighteenthcentury discourse on the mysteries encountered in Stukeley and Warburton: the use of the universal patriarchal tradition to affirm the primacy of Hebrew religion, and the practical focus on the origins of society, though in Pluche’s case through the establishment of agriculture. The former aspect distinguishes Pluche from Warburton, and the importance attributed to agriculture and use of a physico-theological explanation makes his position distinct from both. In contrast to Stukeley, Pluche had little time for anything that sounded like the Platonists and their ‘unintelligible system of metaphysicks’: in reference to the Bembine tablet, he wrote that their ‘sublime nonsense’ had led them to mistake ‘in a figure of Isis exposed in the middle of an assembly of husbandmen … the archetype of the world, the intellectual world, and the sensible world …’88 This is, of course, a reference to Athanasius Kircher rather than to Stukeley’s unpublished On the Mysterys, and in such criticism can be identified the background of intellectual animosity between Jesuits, who sought a form of reconciliation between pagan and Christian traditions, and Jansenists who maintained a strict separation.89 The profound differences of Warburton and Pluche’s approaches to the Eleusinian mysteries were emphasised by Warburton’s ‘translator’ and ‘friend’ Étienne de Silhouette.90 The two men knew each other from the period starting in 1731 that Silhouette spent in the service of the French ambassador in London, where he also became friends with Bolingbroke, translating his work as well as Pope’s Essay on Man, which caused considerable controversy in France.91 In a footnote to the title Silhouette observes that the ‘majority of these observations’ are derived from the second volume of Divine Legation and 87 88 89 90 91

Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:280. Pluche, Histoire du ciel, 1:31; 285. See: Chapter Two, page 67. Silhouette, Dissertations, 25. On Silhouette’s life see: Pierre Clément & Alfred Lemoine, M. de Silhouette; Bouret; les derniers fermiers généraux, études sur les financiers du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Didier, 1872); and Thierry Maugenest, Étienne de Silhouette (1709–1767): le ministre banni de l’histoire de France (Paris: la Découverte, 2018). Silhouette translated Bolingbroke’s A Dissertation on Parties into French in 1739, see: Isaac Kramnick, Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992), 275. Alexander Pope, Essai sur l’homme, par M. Pope, traduit de l’anglais en français, par M.D.S*** (London; Amsterdam, 1736). On Silhouette’s translations see: Maugenest, Silhouette, 66–69; and on the controversy see: Alessandro Zanconato, La dispute du fatalisme en France, 1730–1760 (Fasano: Schena Editore, 2004).

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from ‘some special remarks which this savant communicated to me’; behind Silhouette, therefore, may be recognised the profile of Warburton securing the legacy of his work in France.92 The central point of contention between the two was on the role of Euhemerism in the Eleusinian mysteries, with Pluche’s emphasis on their agricultural significance and his downplaying of their secret character threatening Warburton’s argument. The ancient author through whom this dispute is conducted is Cicero, with Silhouette arguing that the evidence of the passage from Tusculan Disputations trumps that cited by Pluche from On the Nature of the Gods, which states that when viewed rationally the mysteries relate to natural philosophy [‘rerum natura’] rather than the the nature of the gods.93 As well as criticising the divergence with Warburton along euhemerist lines, Silhouette also accuses Pluche of having borrowed a source without acknowledgement from Divine Legation in the second edition of Histoire du ciel. This refers to a hymn in the writings of Clement of Alexandria not included in Johannes Meursius’ supposedly comprehensive collection of references to the mysteries, which Warburton claimed as the text read aloud in the greater mysteries that revealed the unity of God.94 Silhouette finds it extraordinary that Pluche could acknowledge that the unity of God was taught in the mysteries, but not extrapolate from this that so too was the falsity of the pagan pantheon, and so agree with Divine Legation. But there is no serious engagement with Pluche’s key premise that all could be explained if the mysteries were seen as vestiges of the religion of the patriarchs. Silhouette’s final line of attack is methodological, with the proposition that the falsity of Pluche’s system is largely on account of his sharing in the discredited seventeenth-century reliance on etymologies drawn from oriental languages.95 Arguably, though, Pluche looked forward to the subsequent developments in the eighteenth-century debate. As will be seen in the discussion of the physiocrat and freemason Antoine Court de Gébelin in the next chapter, what Silhouette calls Pluche’s ‘chimera’ that ‘all the civil and religious customs of antiquity came from agriculture; & that the gods & goddesses themselves come from this fertile harvest’ was to prove remarkably persuasive as a unified explanation of the religious systems of antiquity.96 Furthermore, as will be explored in the final section of this chapter, the bold physico-theological hypothesis at the heart of Histoire du ciel was to inspire a work celebrated by 92 93 94 95 96

Silhouette, Dissertations, 227. Silhouette, Dissertations, 229–230. See: Introduction, page 15. Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:154. Silhouette, Dissertations, 231–232. Silhouette, Dissertations, 252. Silhouette, Dissertations, 250.

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the philosophes: Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger’s L’Antiquité dévoilée. Therefore, although Silhouette and Warburton attempted to lump Pluche together with the mythographers of the previous generation, his attempt to reduce the gods of antiquity to a system of agriculture ultimately proved to be the more influential, whereas the paradoxes of Divine Legation became increasingly unpalatable to authors of the second half of the eighteenth century. 3

The Origin and the End of Society: Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger

Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, who was born in Paris in 1722, was a child of a very different generation to William Warburton and Noël-Antoine Pluche.97 His father was a paper merchant and he received his early education in the Collège de Beauvais, one of the leading schools in France. At the age of seventeen he directed his attention to the study of mathematics and architecture, disciplines that later furnished him with work as an engineer during the war of the Austrian Succession. He then followed this wartime experience with civil engineering projects in the Corps des ponts et chaussées. But his career was unfortunately blighted by the ill health that was to cause his premature death at the age of thirty-seven in 1759. His professional role was one that allowed for first-hand familiarisation with a part of the natural world that opened up vast prospects of time and that was to play a key role in his thought: geology.98 L’Antiquité dévoilée is primarily occupied with the question of the impact of the catastrophic natural revolutions evident in the substrata of the earth on its human inhabitants.99 The ‘Précis sur la vie’ in the 1794 collected edition of his works relates how in pursuit of this goal he improved the Latin he had apparently been so poorly taught by the abbés of his school, before turning to Greek and then the languages of the Near East. His time in Paris also led to acquaintance with the philosophes and engagement in the Encyclopédie, to which he supplied articles on the deluge among other subjects. Through the figure of the prominent Parisian atheist the Baron d’Holbach this circle was 97 On Boulanger’s life and thought see: Paul Sadrin, Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger (1722–1759): ou Avant nous le déluge (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1986); John R. Hampton, NicolasAntoine Boulanger et la science de son temps (Genève: E. Droz, 1955); and Franco Venturi, L’Antichità svelata e l’idea del progresso in N.A. Boulanger (1722–1759) (Bari: G. Laterza, 1947). 98 Kenneth L. Taylor, The Earth Sciences in the Enlightenment: Studies on the Early Development of Geology (London: Routledge, 2008). 99 Anne-Marie Mercier-Faivre & Chantal Thomas, L’invention de la catastrophe au XVIIIe siècle: du châtiment divin au désastre naturel (Geneva: Droz, 2008).

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instrumental in ensuring the posthumous publication of his works: he acted as editor for L’Antiquité dévoilée, and used Boulanger’s name and imitated his title in the publication Christianisme dévoilé (1767).100 In turn, d’Holbach’s house was jokingly referred to as ‘la grande boulangerie’ by the Italian economist Ferdinando Galiani.101 Interest in the book beyond France is demonstrated in a German translation by the librarian of the Universitätsbibliothek in Greifswald Johann Carl Dähnert, published just one year after its original publication in 1767.102 Dähnert was also a freemason who was initiated in 1761 into a Swedish army-lodge at the time of Sweden’s occupation of Pomerania.103 As will be seen in the final chapter, alongside Adam Weishaupt’s partial translation of the first volume of Antoine Court de Gébelin’s Monde primitif (1773–1782), Dähnert represents evidence of German masonic interest in French mythological works that treated the mysteries.104 Boulanger made an impression on another prominent German freemason, Johann August Starck, as is documented in a letter

100 Baron d’Holbach, Le Christianisme dévoilé; ou Examen des principes et des effets de la religion chrétienne, par feu M. Boulanger (London, 1756). On d’Holbach’s publication of Boulanger’s works see: Mark Curran, Atheism, Religion and Enlightenment in preRevolutionary Europe (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2012), 27–28. 101 W.H. Wickwar, Baron d’Holbach: A Prelude to the French Revolution (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1935), 57. On Boulanger’s influence on d’Holbach see: Pierre Naville, Paul Thiry d’Holbach et la philosophie scientifique au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1943), 177–181. See also Alan Charles Kors who questions the extent of the involvement of Boulanger in d’Holbach’s circle: Kors, D’Holbach’s Coterie: An Enlightenment in Paris (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), 38–39. 102 Johann Carl Dähnert (trans.), Das durch seine Gebräuche Aufgedeckte Alterthum, oder, Critische Untersuchung der vornehmsten Meynungen, Ceremonien und Einrichtungen der verschiedenen Völker des Erdbodens in Religions und Bürgerlichen Sachen, aus dem Fränzosischen des Herrn Nicol. Ant. Boulanger übersetzt, und mit Anmerkungen von Johann Carl Dähnert (Greifswald, 1767). Another of Boulanger’s works, Recherches sur l’origine du despotisme oriental (Geneva, 1761) was translated by the freemason Baron von Knigge, see: Knigge (trans.), Ueber den Ursprung des Despotismus, besonders in den Morgenländern (1794). 103 On Dähnert, see: Ivo Asmus, Heiko Droste, Jens E. Olsen (eds.), Gemeinsame Bekannte. Schweden und Deutschland in der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin: Publikationen des Lehrstuhls für Nördische Geschichte, 2003). 104 Adam Weishaupt (trans.), Saturn, Mercur, und Hercules, drey morgenländische Allegorien, aus dem Französischen des Herrn Court de Gebelin mit einer Vorrede begleitet von Adam Weishaupt, Herzoglich Sachsen Gothaischen Hofrath (Regensburg, 1789). Antoine Court de Gébelin, Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne, considéré dans son génie allégorique et dans les allégories auxquelles conduisit ce génie; précédé du plan general, 9 vols (Paris, 1773–1782).

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from Johann Georg Hamann to Johann Gottfried Herder, also to be discussed in the next chapter.105 In L’Antiquité dévoilée, Boulanger begins with the recognition of a central feature in the ancient traditions of numerous peoples of the world: a natural disaster, whether by water or by fire. With regard to the deluge, this held an uneasy relationship with biblical authority: on the one hand it suggested the document’s foundation in actual natural historical events; on the other, the existence of a plurality of witnesses pointed to the falsehood of the narrative that Noah and his family were the unique survivors. This balance marks him out from other contemporaries who, in Paul Sadrin’s view, ridiculed ancient history as no more than a pack of lies, as well as those rationalists who believed that on account of its many gaps reason is the best guide to the past.106 Whilst acknowledging that the evidence from antiquity is often obscure and contradictory and therefore cannot provide certain knowledge, Boulanger did not conclude from the defects of its records that ancient history was to be rejected outright. To him the various traditions of a flood scattered around the globe led to the conclusion that at some indeterminate point there was indeed a time when the earth underwent one or more radical physical revolutions, which had in turn ‘given rise to renewals in human societies.’107 In his interest in climate and its decisive influence on human character and the societies that regulate it, Boulanger shares a core concern of Montesquieu’s De l’esprit des loix (1748).108 But he expands the purview of the relationship to consider the effect of environmental disruption on humans and their societies; a question relevant for our current age of climate crisis. The principal effect on primitive humankind that he derives from the ancient convulsions of the earth was the psychological programming of fear, evident in particular in the development of religion. The fear theory of the origin of the gods had a long pedigree, stretching back to Statius, and was notoriously revived in the seventeenth century in Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651).109 But it was ill-equipped to provide details of exactly how this transformation came about. In the form of the deluge, Boulanger found a universal event that could be used as an all-encompassing explanation of what first provoked the profound terror that led to religion’s development. It has been suggested that in addressing the formative role of 105 Martin Seils (ed.), Johan Georg Hamanns Hauptschriften Erklärt: Mysterienschriften (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1962), 20. See: Chapter 4, note 94. 106 Sadrin, Boulanger, 23. 107 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:11. 108 Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller, & Harold Samuel Stone (trans.), The Spirit of the Laws (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 109 Statius, Thebaid 3.661. See: Introduction, note 83.

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humankind’s upheaval and tracing it throughout the subsequent evolution of society, L’Antiquité dévoilée looks forward to the psychoanalytical works of Freud.110 This observation is also relevant in the conclusion that Boulanger draws from these origins: it is only by coming to terms with the almost pathological character of historical experience that humankind will find the means of escaping the grasp of the errors that profound primitive fear caused in both religion and in politics. The first two books of L’Antiquité dévoilée are dedicated to establishing what Boulanger names the ‘commemorative’ and the ‘funereal’ character of the customs of antiquity, developed in response to the deluge. In book three he follows the direction of Cicero’s On the Laws in seeking to understand the miraculous transformation of humankind from ‘the state of nature’ into society through the institution of the Eleusinian mysteries, which are characterised as providing a glimpse within the ‘chaos of paganism’ of ‘a universal character, a common spirit, for almost all peoples.’111 The universality of the mysteries as effect likewise intimates a universal cause, that of transmitting the memory of the past disruption caused by the inundation of the deluge. In Boulanger’s making an essential connection between the mysteries and the development of civilisation, he is required to create a division between nations that have developed complex civil societies and those whose inhabitants have remained in what he perceives to be a barbaric condition. In his mind although ‘all the civilised ancient nations have had the mysteries’, there are no such analogous institutions among the nomadic peoples of North America.112 Where earlier figures such as the Jesuit Joseph-François Lafitau had in a sense raised up the indigenous religious customs of the Iroquois by comparing them to Christianity through the pagan mysteries, Boulanger simultaneously idealised ancient paganism through their civilising role and denied civilisation to contemporary ‘pagans’.113 Boulanger saw the lesser mysteries as fulfilling three interrelated roles: first, they commemorated the history of the exploits of the gods, who were seen as benefactors of society and through the death and resurrection motif in some of their myths promised immortality to the initiates. This aspect had no essential difference from the public cult other than the enigmatic and dramatic form of 110 Martin Mulsow, “Sintflut und Gedächtnis: Hermann von der Hardt und Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger,” in Martin Mulsow & Jan Assmann (eds.), Sintflut und Gedächtnis: Erinnern und Vergessen des Ursprungs (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2006), 131–166. 111 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:270. For the full passage see: Introduction, page 16. 112 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:270–271. 113 W.N. Fenton & E.L. Moore (trans.), Customs of the American Indians Compared with the Customs of Primitive Times, 2 vols (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1974).

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presentation, and the people believed these stories literally, not allegorically. Second, following Pluche, they had a special connection to the discovery of agriculture, which gave the festivities an atmosphere part joyful and part solemn; the latter in light of their connection to the memory of the deluge. Third, connecting to Warburton, they commemorated the establishment of society through the laws which the gods were believed to have bestowed; contrasting with Pluche, Boulanger interprets the word ‘Thesmophoria’ as meaning the festival of ‘legislation’ rather than ‘regulation.’114 These three elements (the stories of the gods, agriculture, and law) were ‘united inseparably’; agriculture recalled law and vice versa in the myths. In this respect a form of reconciliation between Divine Legation and Histoire du ciel may be identified. But in a departure from both, Boulanger illustrates the mutual dependance of law and agriculture with reference to the Jews, whose Pentecost (Shavuot) commemorates both the harvest and Moses’ reception of the divine laws on Mount Sinai.115 This is one of a number of indications that Boulanger did not hesitate to place either the Jewish or, as will be seen, the Christian religion on a level with the various cults of paganism. All were subsumed as effects to the natural cause of the deluge. Turning to the problem of the secret part of the greater mysteries, Boulanger begins by mentioning both the theories encountered in this chapter thus far, though without explicitly naming their authors: Warburton’s idea that they concealed the knowledge that the ‘gods were nothing but false gods’, and Pluche’s that they ‘concealed the fatal catastrophe of the deluge.’ Of the latter, he comments that although the ‘opinion of the ancients and the moderns seem to favour this supposition’, this should not lead us to suppose that this was the secret content of the greater mysteries, for how could this be when it was ‘an event known to the vulgar’?116 As to the former, Boulanger cannot understand how such a revelation could not undermine the important role the Eleusinian mysteries serve in society: would not the revelation that some gods were apotheosised risk the conclusion that there were no divinities at all? Furthermore, although the unity of God was ‘not preached in the religion of the pagans’, it couldn’t have been the secret revealed as it was ‘universally, but tacitly recognised.’117 Here may be recognised the shift between the earlier tradition that had accounted for the monotheistic aspects of paganism through an original ‘Christian’ revelation, and something closer to the deist view that 114 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:274. 115 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:275. 116 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:276. 117 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:277.

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a first cause had been acknowledged throughout the ages by virtue of its logical necessity. Continuing with his review of past opinions of the Eleusinian mysteries, Boulanger then turns to consider the idea that they concealed ‘impure spectacles’, ‘shameless images’, and ‘disgraceful symbols’, as claimed in the attacks of the early Church Fathers.118 Although he acknowledges that sexual symbols were indeed made use of, this cannot have necessitated secrecy, since the annals of antiquity contain a multitude of examples in the public practice of religion where such obscenities were tolerated. Boulanger then turns to the testimonies of the ancient authors in whose writings the mysteries’ relationship to the doctrine of the afterlife seem so widely attested as to be incontrovertible. This was a significant theme in many eighteenth-century accounts, but the way it is conceived in L’Antiquité dévoilée provides a clear demonstration of the shift of the balance in the history of the development of religions. For Boulanger, that which was taught to a select group of initiates in secret in the pagan era ‘the Christian religion publishes aloud, and has openly proclaimed in all parts of the earth.’119 That a moral philosophy which was to all intents and purposes Christianity avant la lettre was being taught centuries before the birth of Christ, subjects the actual emergence of Christianity to the strictures of historical necessity. If it wasn’t Christianity, then sooner or later some kind of ‘revolution in pagan religion’ would have occurred.120 Although in Boulanger’s work this was an argument directed against Christianity, the next chapter will show that such a chronological reversal could still be absorbed within a framework that sought to defend a certain conception of it. Nevertheless, even if the greater mysteries were related to the doctrine of a future state, that still does not explain to Boulanger why such extreme trials over the course of several grades of initiations had to be endured before receiving it, when it was freely available in the philosophical and poetic works of the ancients.121 Having reviewed these varied hypotheses about the Eleusinian mysteries, in the subsequent chapter Boulanger reconsiders the precarious situation 118 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:278. 119 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:284. 120 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:285. 121 In referencing the trials of several grades of initiation, Boulanger is perhaps influenced by the abbé Terrasson’s fictional account of the Egyptian mysteries, see in English translation: Terrasson, The Life of Sethos. Taken from Private Memoirs of the Ancient Egyptians, 2 vols (London, 1732), 1:174–175. See also on the Egyptian mysteries: Jan Assman & Florian Ebeling, Ägyptische Mysterien: Reisen in die Unterwelt in Aufklärung und Romantik (München: C.H. Beck, 2011); and Ebeling & Christian E. Loeben (eds.), O Isis und Osiris: Ägyptens Mysterien und die Freimaurerei (Rahden/Westfallen: Verlag Marie Leidorf, 2017).

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of humanity in the age after the deluge in more detail. The religious life of post-diluvian humankind was preoccupied with gloomy obsessions and ‘the deepest melancholy’, which were conceptual obstacles to the development of society.122 At some point in time, humankind’s miserable condition was improved through the introduction of agriculture, by which means humans were weaned off the primitive life of the foraging nomad and its correspondingly limited mental horizons. Through attachment to the land, primitive humans were able to develop a more positive forward-looking culture and, as a consequence enabled by this development, ‘religion’ was able to split off from the rest of daily life where it was deposited with ‘some men who were more particularly responsible for it.’123 This was the beginning of the priesthood. With religion branched off as a separate estate, priests were able to reinforce the political power of the state by directing cult practices in ‘a manner the most useful or the most suitable for the needs of society.’124 This continues a key theme of Divine Legation; however, Boulanger gives a very different answer from Warburton on the problem of why the greater mysteries were kept secret. The fact that they were communicated only to ‘some chosen men’ hints at the religious character of the secrecy, but the restriction must mean that the message they contained was dangerous for society at large.125 Boulanger attempts to resolve the problem by claiming that where the lesser mysteries related to the future state of the individual soul, the purport of the greater was to inform a select few of the destiny of the universe: the secret of its ultimate destruction. The mysteries connected not only to the unhappy events of times past, allegorised as a war between the gods and the giants, but also of events to come, which would see the renewal of this ancient conflict. Since humankind had been able to free itself from the state of post-diluvian melancholy only through the coming of agriculture, which had allowed for the creation of the wonders of society, the foreknowledge of the future destruction of the world would by the same logic have profoundly damaged its continuing progress. In the years after the deluge it was precisely this fear of another cataclysm that prevented primitive humans from settling and building a society. At that time the doctrine of a future state of the individual that was so beneficial when joined with the coming of law and agriculture was ‘united inseparably’ with an ‘apocalyptic system’ which ‘daily menaced people with the end of the universe and the

122 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:290. 123 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:291. 124 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:292. 125 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:294.

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descent of a God who was to come and judge them.’126 The Eleusinian mysteries were beneficial both as a means of showing humankind the way to civilisation through practical means, and in their having concealed the knowledge of the world’s future destruction, thereby sustaining civilisation. For Boulanger, this argument provides an explanation of Warburton’s central point about the absence of the doctrine of a future state among the Jews. If in the most ancient times this teaching was bound up with notions of the apocalypse, then it is no wonder it was concealed with such care by Moses, a legislator who was engaged in the task of settling the Jews in the customs of sedentary society. Therefore, whilst clearly influenced by Waburton’s political conception of religion, his conclusions challenge those of Divine Legation. As with the above comments about Passover, Boulanger relativises all religions by comparing the role that the promised land played for the Jews as a people with the promise of a future state for the individual in the Christian religion. In another indication of Boulanger’s belief in the continuity between gentiles and Jews, Moses’ description of Canaan as a land of milk and honey reveals itself to be nothing other than a version of the golden age or ‘the future reign of Saturn’, as encountered in the mythology of the pagans.127 Further proof for his ideas on the secrecy of the mysteries and their relationship to Judaism is the absence of apocalyptic texts in the Pentateuch contrasting with their existence in the New Testament. Where the earlier books of the Bible sought to console humankind, as with God’s reassurance to Noah that never again would the world be destroyed by a deluge, the later instilled the fear of future destruction, in particular in St John’s Apocalypse. Boulanger briefly indicates the inadequacy of Warburton’s claim that the secret doctrine of the greater mysteries was the unity of God in his first chapter on the mysteries, though without naming him. Following the completion of the presentation of his own system, Boulanger explicitly compares his position with Warburton’s: whilst acknowledging that he follows him in the view that the lesser mysteries related to the future state, he states that everything else he has said decisively points to the idea that it was ‘less the nature of the gods than the nature of the universe and its future fate’ that was imparted in the greater.128 In this he sides with Pluche, following the Cicero of On the Nature of the Gods in the idea that the mysteries related to the nature of things themselves, rather than being directly about the gods as indicated by the Cicero of Tusculan Disputations. Finally, he develops the position that his system 126 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:297. 127 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:322. 128 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:314.

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provides an answer to the problem that was at the heart of Divine Legation: the absence of the doctrine of a future state among the Jews. Whilst in deep conversation with the works of both Warburton and Pluche, in L’Antiquité dévoilée Boulanger arrived at conclusions that represent a radical departure. The final remarks of his second chapter on the mysteries leave no question as to the anti-Christian motivation of his arguments, comparing as he does the ancient mysteries with the modern ones of Christianity. Where in ancient times religion was mysterious to the people but not the hierophant, today the preacher ‘believes with simplicity the mysteries which he does not understand and which are beyond his comprehension as much as beyond that of the people to whom he announces them.’129 In his claim that belief in an apocalypse was prohibitive to the development of early society, the idea is implied that the morbid aspects of Christianity too, contained in the book of Revelations, are an obstacle to progress. The final chapter will explore the way in which Boulanger’s use of the mysteries to critique Christianity was reformulated by Christian Ernst Wünsch and Charles François Dupuis, both of whom made the argument that the Christian religion developed out of the apocalyptic and otherworldly aspects of the mysteries, making it fundamentally opposed to civilisation. So too will the concluding words of Boulanger’s introduction, that since the people are ‘slaves to their customs’ it has always been easier for ‘political and religious legislators to change the reasons [‘motifs’] for the festivals than to change or extinguish the festivals themselves’, become explicit in these authors.130 Both would claim the fundamental continuity between paganism and Christianity, not in the imposition of ritual or doctrine, but at the heart of the religion itself. But before reaching that point, the next chapter will explore how the practical turn to the role of law and agriculture and the reversal in the chronology of religion played out in the context of continental freemasonry, where a number of figures repurposed Warburton’s account of the mysteries in a deist model of the history of religion, but some continued to Christianise the pagan mysteries. 129 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:325. 130 Boulanger, Oeuvres, 1:32.

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The Common Temple of the World Such, then, are the Common Notions of which the true Catholic or universal church is built. For the church which is built of clay or stone or living rock or even marble cannot be claimed to be the infallible Church … The only Catholic and uniform Church is the doctrine of Common Notions which comprehends all places and all men.1

∵ There are thousands of religions in the world, but is there such a thing as religion? The Latin roots of the word point in opposite directions: ‘relegere’, a verb meaning to go over or to go through again reaches towards the particular and the practice-based aspects of religion; repeated actions, customs, observances, rituals, and ceremonies. By contrast, ‘religare’, another verb that means to bind fast, reaches outwards to the universal and the bonds that connect human beings both together and to the gods or God.2 The rapidly expanding geographic horizons of early modern western Europeans enabled interaction with vastly more peoples worldwide, and with them their religions. These presented a panoply of different ways to worship. But was there some foundational content that joined up this archipelago beneath the waters? And, perhaps more importantly, was Christianity also built upon that bedrock? These were questions that occupied the mind of one of the most dashing figures of the first half of seventeenth-century England: the courtier, soldier, diplomat, philosopher, and – as is suggested in a languorously reclining portrait miniature – renowned lover Edward Herbert, later Baron Herbert of Cherbury.3 Herbert’s interest in 1 Meyrick H. Carré (trans.), De Veritate by Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (Bristol: University of Bristol, 1937), 303. 2 In Divine Institutes 4.28, Lactantius advances ‘religare’, a ‘bond’ or ‘chain’ of piety between man and God, as the true etymology of ‘religio’ against Cicero, who in On the Nature of the Gods 2.72 used ‘relegere’ to criticise an excess of prayer and sacrifice as superstitious. See also: Robert Maltby, A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1991), 522–523. 3 John Butler, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1582–1648): An Intellectual Biography (Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen press, 1990).

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religion encompassed both its particular forms and its universal definition. He documented the variety of religious customs in the posthumously-published De religione Gentilium (1663) and sought to establish what united them in De veritate (1624).4 This was based upon what he called ‘common notions’, ideas located in the faculty of reason that were therefore accessible to humankind in general. When applied to religion they consisted of the following: that there is a supreme God; that this God should be worshipped; that the way to worship is through virtue and piety; that vices and crimes should be repented; and that there is an afterlife of rewards and punishments. For his drastically pared down conception of the essence of religion, Herbert subsequently earned himself the title the ‘godfather of English deism’; that is, religion based on reason. Many figures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been associated with this amorphous concept, sometimes through self-identification though more often by slander, and the lack of definition has lent it to certain secularisation narratives of the Enlightenment, where it plays the role of a seemingly inevitable bridge between faith and atheism.5 But it is important not to put the cart before the horse. Herbert’s motivation came from a problem of Christian theology: why, if the supreme God was a benevolent deity, would He have created a world in which only a select portion of humankind had access to the knowledge of salvation?6 Reason, with its content of common notions, was the only way of ensuring that all could, in theory, be saved, since it made people accountable for their own actions. Echoing Acts 7:48 (‘the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands’) in the quotation cited at the outset of this chapter, Herbert saw this community of consciences as the true universal Church.7 But if this reasonable religion existed in potential in the human mind, could traces of it also be found in history? For Herbert, whose application of reason to religion was not intended to replace Christianity but to make it reasonable, the Ten Commandments were, for example, entirely in conformity with his five common notions, but so too was it possible to find them buried under the ritualism of paganism.8 4 Edward Herbert, De veritate (Paris, 1624); Herbert, De religione Gentilium (Amsterdam, 1663). 5 See the problematising of the concept of deism in: Wayne Hudson, The English Deists (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2009). 6 On the long history of this problem, see: John Marenbon, Pagans and Philosophers: The Problem of Paganism from Augustine to Leibniz (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2015); and Peter von Moos, Heiden im Himmel? Geschichte einer Aporie zwischen Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Heidelberg: Winter, 2014). 7 Acts 7:48 (KJV). 8 Carré, De veritate, 312. See also: Charles Blount, The Oracles of Reason (1693), 92: ‘The Heathens, notwithstanding their particular and Topical Deities, acknowledged one Supream God.’

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It is a strange twist in the history of ideas that William Warburton’s account of the Eleusinian mysteries in The Divine Legation of Moses (1738–1741), a book vocally targeted against deism, was so conformable to Herbert’s deist conception of the essence of religion: they revealed the falsity of polytheism as a preparation for the doctrine of the one God, and they encouraged virtue and discouraged vice through a future state of rewards and punishments.9 In this chapter, the unintended legacy of Warburton’s treatment of the mysteries will be explored in works by French and German freemasons of the second half of the eighteenth century, who followed the ancient Greek orator Publius Aelius Aristides in characterising Eleusis as a ‘common temple of the world’, but re-styled it as one based on reason.10 Voltaire, the foremost French deist, exploited Warburton’s idea that the greater mysteries taught the unity of God in chapter thirty-seven of his La philosophie de l’histoire (1765), repurposing it in a deist model of the history of religion, and contrasting it with what he characterises as ‘idolatrous’ contemporary Catholicism.11 Voltaire was very publicly initiated into freemasonry in 1778 at the end of his life in a grand ceremony at the Neuf Soeurs masonic lodge in Paris. His initiation raises the question as to what degree he was representative of the institution in the second half of the eighteenth century. Did most other freemasons conceive of Eleusis as a temple of deism? And can it be extrapolated from this that freemasonry was somehow institutionally deistic in this period? As is the case with Herbert of Cherbury in the seventeenth century, drawing a strict separation between deism and rational conceptions of Christianity in the eighteenth is not so easy. In the context of freemasonry, furthermore, it is important not to assume that secrecy implies intellectual conformity, or that an interest in the history of paganism necessarily precluded adherence to specific ideas of Christianity. That Voltaire was not straightforwardly representative of continental freemasonry as a whole will be suggested through a number of other masonic figures: first, Antoine Court de Gébelin, a portion of whose Monde primitif (1773–1782) was read to Voltaire at his initiation.12 9 William Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses, 2 vols (London, 1738–1741). 10 Aristides, Orations 27.2. 11 Voltaire, La philosophie de l’histoire (Geneva, 1765). Quotations are drawn from the English translation: Voltaire, The Philosophy of History (Glasgow, 1766). See also: Jerome Rosenthal, “Voltaire’s Philosophy of History,” Journal of the History of Ideas 16, no. 2 (1955): 151–178; and Jacques Sole, “Voltaire et les mythes des origines dans La philosophie de l’histoire,” in Chantal Grell & Christian Michel (eds.), Primitivisme et mythes des origines dans la France des Lumières, 1680–1820 (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1989), 129–134. 12 Antoine Court de Gébelin, Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne, considéré dans son génie allégorique et dans les allégories auxquelles conduisit ce génie; précédé du plan general, 9 vols (Paris, 1773–1782), 4:306–353.

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Then the German historian of religion and freemason Johann August Starck, who addressed the subject of the mysteries in a number of works, including Hephästion (1775) and Ueber die alten und neuen Mysterien (1782), the latter of which responded to a text by another member of the Neuf Soeurs, Recherches sur les initiations anciennes et modernes (1779) by the abbé Jean-Baptiste-Claude Robin.13 Finally, the secretary to the cabinet of Louis XVI, Nicolas-Marie Leclerc de Sept-Chênes, whose Essai sur la religion des anciens Grecs (1787) contains a reference to Andrew Michael Ramsay that suggests masonic involvement on the part of its author.14 These three authors may be placed on a spectrum that proceeds from Voltaire’s deism to mediate with Christianity in various ways. Court de Gébelin has been identified by Dan Edelstein as a proponent of a ‘Masonic counter-mythology’ of the ‘myth of an original deist society’, which was aimed at undermining revelation.15 However, as will be seen, although he did indeed share in Voltaire’s belief in the primitive deism of the pagan world, he saw the Eleusinian mysteries as having taught the unity of God, Providence, Creation, and a future state, as well as finding a place for Christ in so far as he too had transmitted these universally recognised truths. Both Christ and the Eleusinian mysteries promoted natural religiosity and sociability as based on reason. Court de Gébelin also understood the political, economic, and social functions of the mysteries through the analogy of the status of Protestantism in Catholic France in the eighteenth century. It is in the ultimately social purpose of religion that the probable meaning of freemasonry for him may be found, as well as its relationship to his idealised views of ancient paganism and contemporary (Reformed) Christianity.16 Where for Court de Gébelin the gulf between the eighteenth century and antiquity was in a sense instantly bridgeable on account of the unchanging nature of civilisation and the social role of religion in it, Starck and Sept-Chênes used a model of historical transmission rather than functional comparison: both argued that there was a Christian seed in the Eleusinian mysteries that had grown into Christianity over time. Although superficially similar in so far as they placed Christianity in the pagan world 13 Johann August Starck, Hephästion (Königsberg, 1775); Starck, Ueber die alten und neuen Mysterien (Berlin, 1782). Jean-Baptiste-Claude Robin, Recherches sur les initiations anciennes et modernes (Amsterdam; Paris, 1779). On Starck’s response to Robin, see: Starck, Ueber die Mysterien, ii. 14 Nicolas-Marie Leclerc de Sept-Chênes, Essai sur la religion des anciens Grecs (Geneva, 1787). 15 Dan Edelstein (ed.), The Super-Enlightenment: Daring to Know Too Much (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2010), 12–13. 16 See Court de Gébelin’s defense of his association with freemasonry to a Genevan Protestant in a letter that highlights its social character: Paul Schmidt, Court de Gébelin à Paris (1763–1784) (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 2011), 154.

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before Christ, this model is in fact very different from the diffusionist mechanism of patriarchal religion as based on a prior revelation of Christianity that had been used by an earlier generation of English freemasons such as William Stukeley and Andrew Michael Ramsay. Rather than placing the origins of religion in the specific lineage of the Old Testament, they acknowledged its evolution through the civilisations of the ancient world, claiming that the process reached its fulfillment in Christianity. In spite of their acceptance of the premise that Christianity’s roots were in the mysteries (characterised by Starck as deism and Sept-Chênes as an intellectual theology) they did not concede in accordance with the logic of Tertullian and the early Church Fathers that this would mean the Christian religion was false. Figures such as these, therefore, dissolve the boundaries between the apparently oppositional concepts of paganism and Christianity, demonstrating the various ways in which the relationship between the two could be conceived in the eighteenth century. The ambiguous lineage of freemasonry set down in the Old Charges, which drew upon pagan, Judaic, and Christian traditions provided a sympathetic context for these kinds of renegotiations in the understanding of the history of religion to take place. 1

The Venemous Cure: Voltaire and Warburton

On April 11th 1778, just over a month and a half before his death on May 30th, Voltaire was initiated with great fanfare into the Neuf Soeurs in Paris.17 Named after the nine muses of Greek mythology, it was the most illustrious masonic lodge of pre-revolutionary France, and was founded with the aim of bringing together the most significant intellectual and artistic figures of the day. It was envisaged by the empiricist philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius who had been a freemason since the late 1740s and had founded a forerunner in the form of the Loge des Sciences around 1766.18 Unfortunately, Helvétius did 17 On the history of the lodge, see: Louis Amiable, Une Loge maçonnique d’avant 1789: la R. L. les Neuf Soeurs (Paris: F. Alcan, 1897); and on Voltaire’s initiation, see: Charles Porset, Voltaire franc-maçon (La Rochelle: Rumeur des âges, 1995). For eighteenth-century accounts of the initiation, see: Barthélémy-François-Joseph Moufle d’Angerville, Mémoires secrets pour servir à l’histoire de la république des lettres en France, depuis MDCCLXII jusqu’a nos jours; ou, Journal d’un observateur, tome onzième (London, 1779), 205–206; and Friedrich Melchior Grimm & Denis Diderot, Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique de Grimm et de Diderot depuis 1753 jusqu’en 1790, Tome dixième, 1778–1781 (Paris, 1830), 124–128. 18 Gordon R. Silber, “In search of Helvétius’ Early Career as a Freemason,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 15, no. 4 (1982): 421–441.

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not live to see the realisation of his plan so it fell to a fellow-member, the astronomer Jérôme Lalande, to bring it about.19 Lalande was a member of the general assembly of the Grand Lodge of France at the time of its transformation into the Grand Orient of France, which occurred after the death of the Grand Master Louis de Bourbon, the Comte de Clermont, who was replaced by his cousin Louis-Philippe-Joseph d’Orléans, the Duc de Chartres and then Duc d’Orléans; in other words, the leaders of French freemasonry in the second half of the eighteenth century were as aristocratic as their counterparts in England in the first half.20 Under the auspices of Lalande, the Neuf Soeurs was recognised by the Grand Orient on 9th July 1776, after which it quickly expanded, attracting influential members such as the American ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin, who succeeded Lalande as the vénérable (master) of the lodge in 1779. Lalande’s success in persuading ‘the most celebrated man in France’ to join the masonic brotherhood was a considerable coup and the opportunity for its celebration was seized with enthusiasm. The ‘illustrious neophyte’ was serenaded by an orchestra of brother-musicians, crowned with a laurel wreath, and presented with the apron of the deceased Helvétius, which had been preserved by his widow and would be passed onto Franklin after Voltaire’s own death. Lalande’s address praised Voltaire as the citizen who had best served his country ‘in rendering fanaticism odious and superstition ridiculous, by recalling taste to its true rules, history to its true end, and laws to their first integrity.’21 But one account suggests that the great man found the ceremony somewhat ridiculous, and describes him as appearing ‘stunned by the pompous silliness of the spectacle.’22 Afterwards, another prominent member of the Neuf Soeurs, its secretary Antoine Court de Gébelin, presented a new volume of his history of the ancient world Monde primitif, reading ‘a part … which concerns the ancient Eleusinian mysteries, an object very similar 19 On Lalande’s life and career see: Simone Dumont, Un astronome des Lumières: Jérôme Lalande (Paris: Vuibert, 2007); and Hélène Monod-Cassidy, “Un astronome-philosophe: Jérôme Lalande,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 56 (1967): 907–930. On his involvement with freemasonry see: Charles Porset, “Siderus Latomorum: Lalande franc-maçon,” in Guy Boistel, Jérôme Lamy, & Colette Le Lay, Jérôme Lalande (1732–1807): Une trajectoire scientifique (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010), 195–222. See also the older study: Louis Amiable, Le franc-maçon Jérôme Lalande (Paris: Charavay frères, 1889); and his masonic writings: Michel Chomarat (ed.), Jérôme Lalande: Écrits sur la Franc-maçonnerie (Lyon: Centre culturel de Buenc, 1982). 20 On this period of French masonic history, see: Alain Le Bihan, Francs-maçons et ateliers parisiens de la Grande Loge de France au XVIIIe siècle (1760–1795) (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1973). 21 Grimm & Diderot, Correspondance littéraire, 126. 22 Angerville, Mémoires secrets, 206.

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[‘tres analogue’] to the mysteries of the Royal Art [freemasonry].’23 The whole affair was rounded off with a banquet and more music. Voltaire had treated the Eleusinian mysteries himself in chapter thirty-seven of Philosophie de l’histoire, which preceded two savage attacks on William Warburton: La défense de mon oncle (1767) and A Warburton of the same year.24 These three texts may be organised by the tone of aggression of their author, which mounts from the controlled irony of Philosophie de l’histoire to the crescendo of A Warburton. The last, although effectively a republication of the material from its immediate predecessor, added further insults which were occasioned by Warburton having addressed Voltaire’s thoughts on religious persecution in Le siècle de Louis XIV (1751) in a note in the second volume of the fifth edition of Divine Legation, published in 1766.25 Philosophie de l’histoire emerged as an expansion of the first section of the 1756 Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations that was dedicated to the ancient history of Eastern nations, but was eventually subsumed into later editions of that work.26 It distilled Voltaire’s life-long accumulation of biblical and classical knowledge, as well as more recently discovered information from the Indian subcontinent and China, into a wide-ranging attack on Christian sacred history as represented in France by Bishop Bossuet’s Discours sur l’histoire universelle (1681).27 Over the course of a series of short chapters on various peoples of the ancient world, Voltaire undermines the uniqueness of the Judaeo-Christian tradition by indicating the many tributaries of earlier religious customs that had flowed into it.28 Divine Legation first appears in chapter twenty-five, ‘Of the Greek Legislators’, in which Voltaire outlines its argument that since ‘the Pentateuch makes no mention of the immortality of the soul’ Warburton supposed ‘that this dogma was not necessary in a theocracy.’29 Voltaire raises objections to this claim: if the doctrine was otherwise universally held in the ancient world, the Jews too might also be reasonably thought to have believed it, but if Moses had not 23 Grimm & Diderot, Correspondance littéraire, 127. See: Court de Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:306–353. 24 José-Michel Moureaux (ed.), Les oeuvres complètes de Voltaire 64: La défense de mon oncle; A Warburton (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1984). 25 William Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated. The Fifth Edition, 2 vols (London, 1766), 2:49–50. For a full account of the spat, see the introduction to A Warburton in: Moureaux, Voltaire, 64:453–462. See also J. H. Brumfitt, Voltaire and Warburton (Geneva: Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1961). 26 Voltaire, Essai sur l’histoire generale, et sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations (Geneva, 1756). 27 Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Discours sur l’histoire universelle (Paris, 1681). 28 Bertram E. Schwarzbach, Voltaire’s Old Testament Criticism (Geneva: Librairie E. Droz, 1971). 29 Voltaire, Philosophie de l’histoire, 120.

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included it within his laws this must either indicate ignorance or concealment; in either case, grounds for his unworthiness as a legislator.30 His presentation of Warburton’s attempted resolution, that God had ‘deigned to level himself to the meanest of the Jew’s capacity’, is left to stand or fall on its own merit, with Voltaire ironically commenting that his task is only to examine ‘the history of men’ and to leave alone ‘every thing that is divine.’31 In chapter thirty-seven on the Eleusinian mysteries, Voltaire responds more directly to the central pillar of Warburton’s argument by stating that ‘every religion has suggested a garden for the abode of the just’, including the Jewish sects the Essenes and the Pharisees, the parallel of which in the context of the mysteries was the Elysian Fields.32 The relativisation between Jews and pagans on this doctrine also encompasses Christianity: Christ ‘conformed himself to the language of all men’ in his promise of a garden of the afterlife, so there is nothing unique about the Christian doctrine of a future state.33 As well as countering this premise of Divine Legation, Voltaire also draws on the well-established critical Protestant analogy between ancient polytheism and Catholic worship of ‘the virgin, St Joseph, and the other saints’, remarking that with Christians brought up in such a way it would, as with the Eleusinian mysteries, ‘at first be prudent to reveal only to the most moderate and rational the infinite distance there is between God and his creatures.’34 Voltaire sardonically enlists ‘the learned bishop Warburton’ in making this case, stating that although he was ‘very unjust in many of his bold decisions’ he ‘gives great strength to all that I have been saying of the necessity of concealing the dogma of God’s unity to a people headstrong with polytheism.’35 This puts Catholic veneration on a level with the idolatry of paganism. Nevertheless, in spite of these attacks the central features of the mysteries in Divine Legation, if not their meaning, are adopted by Voltaire. In an earlier chapter, ‘Of Aegypt’, he follows Warburton in the idea that the mysteries taught ‘the unity of God, the immortality of the soul, [and] rewards and punishments after death’, which is simply attributed to ‘all the Greek and Latin authors.’36 At least in the case of the 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

On Voltaire’s negative views of Judaism, see: Harvey Mitchell, Voltaire’s Jews and Modern Jewish Identity: Rethinking the Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 2012). Voltaire, Philosophie de l’histoire, 120. Voltaire, Philosophie de l’histoire, 176. On the ideas of the afterlife of the various Jewish sects see: James Murdock & Henry Soames (trans.), John Laurence von Mosheim: Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern, 4 vols (London, 1850), 1:44. Voltaire, Philosophie de l’histoire, 176. Voltaire, Philosophie de l’histoire, 176–177. Voltaire, Philosophie de l’histoire, 177. Voltaire, Philosophie de l’histoire, 110.

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unity of God this manipulates the evidence; it was an extrapolation by later commentators, not an explicit part of the classical references. Warburton’s broad description of the content of the Eleusinian mysteries, if not his conclusions, have therefore by this point reached enough of a consensus status to be accepted semi-unconsciously even by an avowed enemy. But in Voltaire’s hands the doctrine of the unity of God is repurposed in a very different sense as the deistic essence of religion, with the mysteries pointing to the existence in the ancient world of a ‘very pure religion’ consisting ‘in acknowledging the existence of a supreme God, his providence and justice.’37 The combination of criticism against established religion in its eighteenthcentury Catholic form and advocacy of the worship of a deistic Supreme Being by select philosophers of ancient history is consistent with Voltaire’s other writings on religion. In the article ‘Théiste’ (‘deist’ in his lexicon, rather than ‘theist’) in Dictionnaire philosophique, he states that ‘the simple adoration of a God has preceded all the systems of the world.’38 There is, of course, the issue that the mysteries instructed by myth and fable rather than reason, but this problem is avoided by the paradox that they were instituted ‘to bring men back to reason’ from the state of barbarous superstition by using superstition itself; as he vividly expresses it, in this respect they were like ‘the heart of a viper … applied to cure its bite.’39 Voltaire’s use of Divine Legation, which adopted certain parts of its material whilst transforming their conclusions, may perhaps be thought of in a similar manner. The irony at play in the situation between the two is reflected on by John Gascoigne: Warburton accepted features of the critical arguments of the English deists whilst claiming that they in fact supported Christianity; Voltaire, the foremost French deist, accepted features of Divine Legation but repurposed them within his own attack on Christianity.40 These are the kinds of exchanges that have characterised many of the relationships between the authors treated in this book and they are essential to an understanding of the means by which the process of Enlightenment advanced. In the next section, Court de Gébelin’s views of the Eleusinian mysteries similarly build upon the essential features of Warburton’s Divine Legation, but he strongly disagrees with the political framework in which Warburton positions 37 Voltaire, Philosophie de l’histoire, 179. 38 Christiane Mervaud (ed.), Les oeuvres complètes de Voltaire 35–36: Le dictionnaire philosophique de Voltaire (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1994), 547. On Voltaire and religion, see: René Pomeau, La Religion de Voltaire (Paris: Nizet, 1956). 39 Voltaire, Philosophie de l’histoire, 174. 40 John Gascoigne, “The Wisdom of the Egyptians and Secularisation,” in Stephen Gaukroger, The Uses of Antiquity: The Scientific Revolution and the Classical Tradition (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991), 203.

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them and makes a more positive comparison between them and Protestant Christianity through their social roles. 2

The Festival of Universal Liberty: Antoine Court de Gébelin

In May 1784, Antoine Court de Gébelin was discovered dead, electrocuted in his bathtub as an accidental martyr to Franz Anton Mesmer’s pseudo-science of animal magnetism, of which he was an ill-fated proselyte.41 This ignominious end cut short his already voluminious Monde primitif (1773–1782), a work that immodestly announced itself as providing ‘the key to all ages and all human knowledge’; such overconfidence in his powers to fathom the depths of antiquity can perhaps serve as an explanation of his failure to recognise dangers of a more immediate sort.42 In comparison to Voltaire’s Neuf Soeurs initiation and the lodge ceremony of ‘apotheosis’ that followed his death, Court de Gébelin’s own memorial was a more modest affair and the grand claims for his ideas have not resulted in lasting fame.43 The two men had first come into literary contact through their contributions to the case of Jean Calas, a Protestant merchant in Toulouse who was tortured to death on the false grounds of having murdered his son.44 Whereas Voltaire’s Pièces originales concernant la mort des Srs Calas et le jugement rendu à Toulouse (1763) used the incident as a prompt to plead for general religious tolerance, Court de Gébelin’s Les Toulousaines of the same year comprehended a more general history of Huguenot persecution in the region, as well as a defence of the place of the Reformed Church in France.45 But upon receiving notice of the work, Voltaire had requested for the 41 Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the end of the Enlightenment in France (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968), 117. Claude-Camille-François d’Albon, Éloge de Court de Gébelin (Amsterdam, 1785). 42 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 1:7. 43 Nicolas Bricaire de La Dixmerie, the orator of the lodge, made the elogy: Dixmerie, Éloge de Voltaire, prononcé dans la L … maçonique des Neuf-Soeurs, don’t il avait été Membre (Geneva, 1779). See also his text on the Neuf Soeurs: Dixmerie, Mémoire pour la loge des Neuf-Soeurs (Paris, 1779). 44 On the case of Jean Calas see: Geoffrey Adams, The Huguenots and French Opinion, 1685–1787: The Enlightenment Debate on Toleration (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1991), 211–230. 45 Voltaire, Pièces originales concernant la mort des Srs Calas et le jugement rendu à Toulouse (1763); Antoine Court de Gébelin, Les Toulousaines, ou Lettres historiques et apologétiques en faveur de la religion reformée et de divers protestans condamnés dans ces derniers tems par le Parlement de Toulouse, ou dans le Haut Languedoc (Edinburgh, 1763). Voltaire’s contributions to the controversy are surveyed in the final letter of the book: Gébelin, Toulousaines, 452–456.

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postponement of the publication, believing it to be injurious to the clearing of Calas’ name.46 At the Neuf Soeurs ceremony, Voltaire reminded Court de Gébelin that he had always been a friend of the Huguenot cause in France.47 In his role as French Protestant champion, Court de Gébelin adopted the mantle as well as the name of his father Antoine Court, who was renowned as the ‘restorer of Protestantism in France’ and had used ‘Gébelin’ when travelling incognito in southern France.48 From 1715 onwards, Antoine Court senior was instrumental in the early development of the ‘Church of the Desert’, convocations of faithful Huguenots who in the absence of an official place of worship gathered together in the countryside; as will be seen below, this pastoral religiosity and freedom to worship influenced his son’s view of the Eleusinian mysteries as the ‘festival of universal liberty’.49 After his exile to Lausanne, he continued to promote Protestantism by the establishment of a seminary which supplied France with ministers and potential martyrs, since preaching the Reformed faith carried the death penalty. It was at this institution that Court de Gébelin received his early education, following which he moved to the Académie de Lausanne, eventually becoming confirmed as a pastor in 1754. Three years after his father’s death and following the controversy caused by Les Toulousaines, the son made for Paris where although he continued to play an active role in the fate of the Huguenots, he also pursued other diverse interests: in ancient history, philology, and the theories of the physiocrats, as well as freemasonry and mesmerism. Both his upbringing and his adult interests combine in his view of the Eleusinian mysteries. Court de Gébelin’s Monde primitif sets out to establish a totalising interpretation of antiquity informed by the economic theories of the physiocrat François Quesnay, who viewed national wealth as based solely in agriculture.50 46 Athanase-Josué Coquerel, Jean Calas et sa famille (Paris: J. Cherbuliez, 1869), 245–246. 47 Anne-Marie Mercier-Faivre, Un supplément à l’Encyclopédie: le Monde primitif d’Antoine Court de Gébelin (Paris: H. Champion, 1999), 60. 48 Pierre Charles Weiss, History of the French Protestant Refugees, 2 vols (New York: Stringer & Townsend, 1854), 2:215; 2:222. Gébelin was the maiden-name of his paternal grandmother. 49 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:307. Weiss, French Protestant Refugees, 2:217–218. On Antoine Court senior see: Otto H. Selles (ed.), Antoine Court: le patriote Français et impartial (Paris: H. Champion, 2002). 50 On physiocracy see: Liana Vardi, The Physiocrats and the World of the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); and Michael Sonenscher, Before the Deluge: Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), 189–198. Quesnay recognised Court de Gébelin as a ‘disciple bien aimé’, see: Ronald Grimsley, “Court de Gébelin and Le Monde primitif ” in Alfred J. Bingham & Virgil W. Topazio, Enlightenment studies in honour of Lester G. Crocker (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1979), 133.

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In the introduction to the general plan of the work he presents himself as the discoverer of the motive force by which all the varied remnants of antiquity can be explained and understood: a universal principle ‘inherent in the human species’ where it was placed by Providence, and which is applicable ‘for all times, for all climates, for all peoples.’51 It is a simple principle: necessity. Throughout history, in eighteenth-century AD Paris as much as fifth-century BC Athens, human beings have had the same ‘constitution’ and so have developed and maintained the means of subsistence to satisfy their needs.52 The principle of necessity as grounded in the human body ties in with his linguistic theory, to which a large amount of the work is devoted, which rests on a similarly static idea of the human vocal system combined with the view of language as a tool utilised in procuring the means of subsistence.53 This leads to the conclusion that language is universally determined as, in the words of one eighteenth-century commentator, a ‘faithful mirror’ of nature.54 It also means that the most ancient language of humankind is in a sense recoverable, in so far as it is still present in contemporary language through continuing function. This kind of collapsing of temporal distance will be significant in Court de Gébelin’s comparison between the social purpose of Protestantism and the Eleusinian mysteries. In Monde primitif, the principle of necessity has three important implications: first, the physical order of nature essentially corresponds to the moral one represented by civilisation; this point provides the space in which the practical arena of life can be brought into accord with the religious. Second, if human institutions grew out of universal human needs, the modern world may be seen as nothing more than the ‘perfection’ of the ancient.55 Third, a negative view of humankind’s first condition is implied, with society initially developing as a result of the inability of individuals to protect and provide for 51 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 1:3. 52 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 1:3. For an overview of the physical aspect of Gébelin’s argument, see the account in: D’Albon, Éloge, 15. 53 On Court de Gébelin’s linguistic ideas see: Claudette Maes, Les théories étymologiques de Court de Gébelin (Ghent: Verhandeling Rijksuniversität, 1968); and Daniel Droixhe, La linguistique et l’appel de l’histoire (1600–1800) (Geneva: Droz, 1978), 369–374. On eighteenth-century debates on the origin of language, see: Avi Lifschitz, Language and Enlightenment: The Berlin Debates of the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Downing A. Thomas, Music and the origins of language: theories from the French Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); and Paul Kuehner, Theories on the Origin and Formation of Language in the eighteenth century in France (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania, 1944). 54 D’Albon, Éloge, 16. 55 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 1: 4.

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themselves.56 The consequence of the first point is that an account of the origin of civilisation should be sought for in practical arenas such as agriculture; in this respect he combines the principles of physiocracy with some of the concerns of the abbé Noël-Antoine Pluche treated in the previous chapter. The second point suggests that contemporary societies may be looked at to understand ancient ones; as he tortuously puts it: ‘that which we suppose we would do, is precisely that which they did, because they did what we would do necessarily.’57 Even if the amount of wealth societies have accumulated has led to the increase of their extent, the mechanism by which that accumulation has been procured remains the same. Regarding the third point, Court de Gébelin received critical attention in comparison to another author of Swiss upbringing, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on the basis of their both representing ‘the first men in the state of brutishness [‘stupidité’].’58 In seeing individuals as entering into society from the position of their original weakness, the narrative of Monde primitif might appear to be entirely deterministic, begging the question of how to explain progress and cultural variety. Court de Gébelin explains the former by the fact that each need gives birth to further ones, and the latter in the idea that nature’s abundance gives ample space for a variety of choices as to how human societies can satisfy their needs. Studying the different ways in which needs were met in the ancient world provides an insight into the particular genius of each people. If necessity is the motive force in Court de Gébelin’s system, then allegory is the way in which it is expressed in society: a feature which is evident in all the products of antiquity. Allegory was the cultural language of primitive humankind, but although it was ‘clear and intelligible’ at its inception, time rendered it ‘an inexhaustible source of enigmas.’59 At the origins of society myth was a ‘sacred or respectable discourse’ through which the first legislators presented to humankind ‘the most essential lessons and the most beneficial doctrines.’ They allegorised the development and order of the natural world, the arts, and the happiness of a society regulated in accordance with the laws of justice. At this early time idolatry strictly speaking did not exist: the people of the primitive world did not take their fables, traditions, or ceremonies literally any more than they ‘took stones and the vilest animals for august divinities.’ But neither had they fallen prey to the opposite excess of metaphysical 56 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 1:4. 57 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 1: 4. 58 Jean-Charles-François Le Gros, Examen des systêmes de J. J. Rousseau de Geneve, et de M. Court de Gebelin, auteur de Monde primitif (Geneva, 1785), 95. 59 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 1:66.

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speculation; connecting with his view of physical necessity as the sole engine of civilisation, he sketches a correspondingly simple religion that admits only of ‘a creation’ and a ‘single master of the universe’, known by the name of ‘Iou’, meaning ‘I, the one who is.’60 This condition of original religious simplicity eventually gave way to the adoption of further gods as represented in the twelve constellations. Finally, allegorical themes were metamorphosed into real beings and ‘the august names of the divinity’ were connected with the names of men who had been placed in the ranks of the gods.61 Therefore, although in the early stages of history his allegorical system relates to the euhemerist idea of worshipping the benefactors of society, Court de Gébelin also deliberately positions it against the corrupting force of Euhemerism in its other aspect as relating to the deification of historical figures. Following the general plan of the first volume, Court de Gébelin provides support for his claims with evidence drawn from mythology, specifically the interpretation of how three myths – of Saturn, Mercury, and Hercules – relate to the development of civilisation in the ancient world. Respectively, these three narratives are seen as allegories of the discovery of agriculture, astronomy, and engineering; in the final case, for example, in the creation of infrastructure for controlling the flow of water, or draining swamps to turn into fields.62 The subjects of these allegories are related: astronomy was developed as a companion for the regulation of agriculture, and controlling natural resources such as water was necessary to feed the growth of crops in the field. This interconnectedness is reflected in the close relationships between the mythical figures who ‘are linked in nature as they are in fable’; with Hercules, for example, represented as ‘the general of Osiris or of Saturn, and the companion of Thoth

60 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 1:68. 61 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 1:69. 62 In connecting the mythological figure of Hercules to hydro-engineering, Court de Gébelin follows Diodorus Siculus, who interprets the slaying of the eagle that tormented Prometheus in the eleventh labour as an allegory of controlling the waters of the Nile, see: Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 1.19. Likewise, Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger interprets the word ‘Lerne’ in the name of the Lernaean Hydra of the second labour of Hercules as relating to a ‘river’ or ‘swamp’, see: Boulanger, Oeuvres de Boulanger, 6 vols (Amsterdam, 1794), 1:150. Another eighteenth-century French work that interprets the gods as various accounts of water control is: Nicolas Bergier, L’Origine des dieux du paganisme et le sens des fables: découvert par une explication suivie de quelques poësies d’Hésiode, 2 vols (Paris, 1767). On this tradition more broadly, see: Jean Alexis Bayet, Les Origines de l’Hercule romain (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1926), 203–236; and Del A. Maticic, “Hercules, Cacus, and the Poetics of Drains in Aeneid 8 and Propertius 4.9,” in Marietta Horster & Nikolas Hächler (eds.), The Impact of the Roman Empire on Landscapes (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 339–352.

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or of Mercury.’63 Since the myth of Saturn as an allegory of agriculture bears the greatest significance to the subject of the Eleusinian mysteries, it serves as the most instructive example in the present context. The source from which the myth is drawn is a fragment of the Phoenician Sanchoniathon, preserved in the works of Eusebius, and believed by Court de Gébelin to be an authentic text of the greatest antiquity.64 In his interpretation, the story of Saturn first generating and then devouring his children originates in the agricultural cycles of sowing and harvest, though he acknowledges that it subsequently transformed into an allegory about time. How then did the more familiar mythological figures from the Eleusinian mysteries relate to agriculture? Under the scheme of Monde primitif, Persephone is explained through philological means, with her name connecting to an oriental word that signifies ‘hidden fruit.’65 The goddess represents the fructifying power within the seed that remains hidden in winter, as allegorised in her abduction by Pluto, but returns from the underworld in spring in the form of crops. It was proceeding from this association that ‘the festival of the abduction of Persephone’ was celebrated on the second of October, ‘the festival of sowing.’66 Also connecting to this physical allegory of agriculture was another teaching ‘purely moral’: the grain hidden in the earth became the symbol of a corpse interred in the ground, and ‘the new life’ of the grain became ‘a happy omen of the future life’ of man.67 It was this narrative, part practical and part moral, which was at the foundation of the ‘hymns chanted in the mysteries and in the sacred orgies.’68 Because the legislators who had instituted society wanted their instructions to be accessible and durable, these festivals, fables, and myths grew as an allegorical husk around a kernel of practical truth. The presentation of Court de Gébelin’s ideas on the mythological context of the Eleusinian mysteries thus far has been drawn from the introductory first volume of Monde primitif, published in 1773. But the section read out at the initiation of Voltaire was taken from a later volume, the fourth, published in 1776. It is there that Court de Gébelin’s Huguenot background and the experiences of his father, the pastor of the desert, come more clearly to the fore, as do republican themes perhaps associable with his upbringing in Switzerland. 63 Gébelin, Monde primitif: Allégories orientales, 1:169. 64 Gébelin, Monde primitif: Allégories orientales, 1:5–12. Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 1.9–10. 65 Gébelin, Monde primitif: Allégories orientales, 1:56. 66 Gébelin, Monde primitif: Allégories orientales, 1:57. Gébelin clarifies in volume four, that as Persephone represents ‘les semailles’, Demeter ‘la Mere-Dê, ou la Terre-Mere’ symbolises the harvest, see: Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:310. 67 Gébelin, Monde primitif: Allégories orientales, 1:57. 68 Gébelin, Monde primitif: Allégories orientales, 1:86.

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Furthermore, it is here that he engages at length with Warburton’s Divine Legation, disagreeing with the fundamental premise of a division in society based on secrecy. For the author of Monde primitif, the Eleusinian mysteries were no mystery: nothing was ‘more simple and more natural’, and their function in society was not to divide but to unite.69 Developing the interpretation of the myth set out in volume one, Court de Gébelin describes the Eleusinian mysteries as the ‘triumph of agriculture’ and the ‘greatest homage which antiquity has rendered to this art of nourishing the human race.’ But their political significance rested on the recognition that the whole of civilised life, including ‘law, religion, and Empires’, was built on this essential foundation. This was particularly evident in the culture of ancient Greece, whose people ‘served as a torch to the entire universe’.70 Why, then, was it at Eleusis that a form of the pagan mysteries was nurtured that grew into a rallying point for all men? It was because of its proximity and relationship to Athens, a city that was a beacon of liberty in a sea of national tyrannies. This aspect of Monde primitif may be traced back to the ancient Greek orator Publius Aelius Aristides, who wrote of the shared destiny of Athens and Eleusis: the first as the city of civic liberty, the second as a breadbasket and a religious centre he names ‘the common temple of the world.’71 Court de Gébelin combines these two aspects in his view that in the Eleusinian mysteries inhabitants of the civilised world found a space for religious expression ‘against the hindrances and the limits set to the freedom of men and nations, against the egoism of the state …’72 It was this political function that explained why they never had ‘more brilliance’ than at the high point of the Roman Empire, the time when most of the nations of the known world were enslaved under its ‘yoke’. This was also the reason why although they first developed in Egypt, they did not retain their prominence there, since that nation did not conserve any ‘vestige of its ancient liberty’, but submitted entirely to ‘tyrannical masters.’73 Court de Gébelin develops the idea of the joint roles of Athens and Eleusis by reflecting on the different geographical features that led to their co-dependence: where Athens stood upon ‘dry and mountainous’ land suitable only for olive trees, the plains of Eleusis served as the ‘granary’ of Attica.74 Every year after the harvest the citizens of Athens would process to Eleusis to 69 70 71 72 73 74

Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:310. Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:306. Aristides, Orations 27.2. Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:306–307. Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:307. Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:307. For a modern consideration of the relationship between Eleusis and Athens, in particular the question of Eleusis’ independence, see: Robert Parker, Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 25.

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pay homage to the gods who had gifted them the ‘invention of agriculture’, a festival which served to reinstate the ‘ties of brotherhood’ with the labourers and ploughmen of Eleusis, upon whose toil they recognised (being good physiocrats) urban life was ultimately reliant. In turn, this festival encouraged the agricultural workers to take pride in the crucial role they played as the bedrock of society, proving that those who were technically their ‘masters’ were both ‘friends’ and ‘protectors’, which strengthened attachment to the state from below. Proceeding from the idea of limitless abundance afforded by the fertile plains of Eleusis, Court de Gébelin paints a somewhat fanciful picture of rural life, where peasants are unharassed by ‘the tax collector [‘l’Exacteur’]’ and where never was seen a ‘grieving family perish of hunger and misery next to its field.’75 Athenian liberty functioned not only through its system of government by the demos, but also through its valuing the agricultural labourers on whose shoulders society rested. Once again, therefore, the centrality of the core principle of physiocracy is demonstrated: that national wealth is founded solely on agriculture. Court de Gébelin’s striking conception of the Eleusinian mysteries as a festival that engineered societal balance almost seems to predict the People’s Republic of China’s ‘Down to the Countryside Movement’ of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which sought to re-educate the inherent bourgeois prejudices of urban youths by hard rural labour. In eighteenth-century France, the model could have been the grape harvest which, as Mona Ozouf remarks, was a feudal tradition which involved work in common.76 But there was also a classical precedent on which his ideas may have been based. Macrobius’ Saturnalia contains evidence of ancient customs based on a similar recognition of the value of agricultural labour: Philochorus says that Cecrops set up the first altar to Saturn and Ops in Attica, paid them cult as Jupiter and Earth, and established the custom whereby heads of households, after the fruits and grains have been harvested, dine with the slaves with whom they bore labor’s suffering in working the fields. The god (he says) is pleased by the honor given the slaves and by the reflection given to labor.77 75 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:308. On the use of the pastoral genre as an evocation of social equality, see: Sanja Perović, The Calendar in Revolutionary France: Perceptions of Time in Literature, Culture, Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 70–72. 76 Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988), 6. 77 Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.10.22. See also Sylvain Maréchal’s use of the Saturnalian festival as a backdrop to the regicidal events in Le jugement dernier des rois; Perović, Calendar in revolutionary France, 86.

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In the chapter on the Eleusinian mysteries, the agricultural workers are not specifically identified as slaves and the fact that Athenian liberty rested on enforced labour is, unsurprisingly for the eighteenth century, not addressed. Finally, Anne-Marie Mercier-Faivre convincingly points out the resonance of Court de Gébelin’s description of a gathering of the Church of the Desert with his later writings on ‘cults’ in Monde primitif: We are under majestic trees which form august colonnades, the sky is the vault, and the eye has no other limits than an immense horizon. An atmosphere always pure, the voice which nothing stops, a crowd which surprises, and which one sees running from all parts, the chant of the psalms which moves and transports. Everything says that it is the simplest, the most august, the worthiest of God, the most beneficial to the Church.78 For Court de Gébelin, Aristides’ phrase ‘the common temple of the world’ would have been particularly expressive in its combination of ideas of social equality with pastoral religiosity. A letter titled ‘Portrait of the Reformed Religion’ in Les Toulousaines contains further evidence of the way in which Court de Gébelin’s Protestant background was reflected in his singular conception of the Eleusinian mysteries. There he writes that it is the ‘spirit of liberty’ which makes ‘our religion supremely lovable’, a liberty which consists in submitting ‘our conscience to no other spiritual yoke than that of Jesus Christ.’79 Although it is primarily biblical language, the use of the word ‘yoke’ in 1763 and then over ten years later in Monde primitif in reference to the Roman Empire is also an indication that the tension between a tyrannical Rome and a free Eleusis was conceived of as analogous to the dynamic between Catholic and Protestant faiths.80 Christ’s mission is represented as being entirely reasonable: it was not enforced by ‘command’ but through ‘persuasion.’81 Furthermore, the social character of the Reformed faith is particularly emphasised: ‘loving God’ requires ‘sentiments of kindness and humanity towards all men’; if these instructions are followed 78 Mercier-Faivre, Monde primitif, 29. This passage is from a letter also quoted by Daniel Robert, who provides the biographical context of Court de Gébelin’s journey to southern France prior to his arrival in Paris. See: Robert, “Court de Gébelin. Son cours de religion. Les débuts de son séjour en France (1763–1767),” École pratique des hautes études 78 (1969): 31–63; 43. 79 Gébelin, Toulousaines, 337. 80 Matthew 11.29 (KJV): ‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.’ 81 Gébelin, Toulousaines, 337.

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Court de Gébelin anticipates that the Earth will become a paradise ‘where all are free, all brothers, all virtuous.’82 Here can be seen that what might superficially appear to be masonic rhetoric resonated equally in the context of the Protestant struggle in France. The rational, practical, and egalitarian Protestantism evident in Court de Gébelin’s ideas about Eleusis also shapes his critical view of Divine Legation. The key point of contention is with Warburton’s presentation of the mysteries as having been instituted for political purposes. A top-down model in which religion ‘is only an invention of the masters of society’ is an impossibility for Court de Gébelin: for how could such instinctive beliefs have been imposed from above? How could a legislator force the people to dance with ‘joy and pleasure around a field covered with numerous wheatsheaves’?83 This, of course, partly reflects his antipathy to the eighteenth century’s top-down model of religion par excellence, the Catholic church, in the face of whose authority the simple countryside worship of the Protestants of the Languedoc became the model for Eleusinian farmers. But these ideas should not be solely reduced to their Huguenot context. It is the belief that culture naturally emerges from the lives of ordinary people, lives which are in turn embedded in the dictates of nature, that is key to understanding the harmony Court de Gébelin seeks to establish between religion and the practical sphere of agriculture. Everything extraordinary is stripped away from God’s Providence in his account of the origin of civilisation, but a kind of Providence is still there, if only as a system of nature which determines the organisation of human culture in a way that is ‘naturally’ religious. All that the legislator can do is to mould these already existent impulses for the general good of mankind. The importance of this repudiation of Warburton for Court de Gébelin’s wider thought is most visible in the following impassioned passage, which also suggests some further clues as to the signficance of freemasonry in his mediation between ancient paganism and contemporary Protestantism: The mysteries were not established to teach the unity of God, and the dogmas of creation, of Providence, and of a life to come; but in order to transmit these great truths which we have recognised in all times, and that we hold, as Plato said, to be the most ancient testament [‘parole’]. At the same time, they were established as a constant reminder to men, and to provide a meeting point which made them reflect on the inestimable

82 Gébelin, Toulousaines, 329; 340. 83 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:308.

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advantages of society, and which made them feel how miserable we would be without the laws of order, that order which is not arbitrary, which does not depend on the whims of a legislator, and which was established from the moment of creation, without which creation could not have taken place, much less support itself. It is upon this same social spirit that the Christian communion is partially founded, whose goal for this life is to make men into one body and one spirit for the brotherly love which is the basis of Christianity and the necessary effect of the order and the essential quality of man, who was a social being before a reasonable one, his reasonability being only a means to perfect and to fulfill the sociability which is the essence of mankind.84 This passage appears to feature a return to the masonic theme of the transmission of an ancient tradition of wisdom as explored in chapter two, but there is a crucial shift away from the central role of the Bible in providing the source of those truths through a prior revelation, as was key in both William Stukeley and Andrew Michael Ramsay’s thought. Instead, Court de Gébelin locates the core tenets of religion in a universal pagan tradition that is essentially deist and was formed by nature. Through these natural origins, which determine its unchanging social function, ‘true’ religion has effectively remained the same, with Christianity remaining meaningful in so far as it fulfills this role. The second point of contention with Divine Legation is its premise that the Eleusinian mysteries contained a secret teaching that was inimical to the cohesion of society. This is partly seen as originating in the idea associated with the name ‘the mysteries’ that they contained a ‘surprising doctrine’, which was ‘contrary to the views of the vulgar.’85 But it is also accounted for by Warburton having built too much upon the exclusion of foreigners and slaves from the Eleusinian mysteries by their institutors, which he took as evidence of their political function.86 For Court de Gébelin, a top-down model is invalidated by the firm belief that the first political settlement of mankind was none other than a republic, and that therefore the mysteries must reflect this original constitution of human society. The nominally exclusive spirit of the mysteries is only a cultural echo of the isolated condition of primitive humankind, as is 84 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:317. 85 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:311. 86 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:309; Warburton, Divine Legation, 1:179. In fact, slaves and foreigners were admitted, see: Robert Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens (Oxford: University Press, 2005), 342–343; and Jan N. Bremmer, Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 2–3.

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evident in the eighteenth-century world among the indigenous peoples of the Americas as well as the European Jews. It is this spirit of exclusivity that must be overcome by man’s irrepressible drive towards the universal values that are embedded in nature since, in a reference to his contemporary moment, it is ‘the destroyer of the brotherhood which must reign between all peoples for the common benefit, and of which there are only too many traces among the European nations.’87 Here may be seen a classic paradox of the Enlightenment: in reaching towards tolerance and universal brotherhood, minority groups such as the Jews or indigenous peoples are required to abandon their ‘backward’ religious identity; the contemporary issue of laïcité in France has long roots. Court de Gébelin’s criticism of Warburton also reflects the broader struggle at play between the historical system of Euhemerism (in the specific sense of the deification of mortals) and his own favoured allegorism (which nevertheless relates to Euhemerism through the importance placed on agriculture as a gift of the gods). The advantage of allegory in the debate is its ability to resolve the contradictory character of the presentation of the Eleusinian mysteries in Divine Legation, which forced polytheism and monotheism to exist side by side, but without interaction. In Court de Gébelin’s view, had these two inherently opposed positions really existed alongside each other then ‘the same war’ which had occurred between Christianity and paganism would have taken place between the monotheistic initiates of the mysteries and the polytheistic pagan populace at an earlier date.88 But if the gods are taken to be allegorical representations of society’s useful truths there is no contradiction between the mysteries involving a polytheistic pantheon and their preserving the doctrine of the unity of God. The particularising inclination of Euhemerism, taken in the sense of reducing myth to specific narratives of historical figures, cuts off the contemporary interpreter from the universal truths it contains when taken in the other sense of relating to the benefactions of society. The allegorical approach develops this latter meaning and provides myth with continuing significance, revealing the perfections of the primitive world to lie just beneath the surface of the eighteenth-century one. This relationship is expressed in the following passage: We began with days of light; we finished with days of darkness and obscurity: it is up to us to dissipate this darkness: but to believe that all began with darkness, by this chaos which mythology and the origins of all

87 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:309. 88 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:315.

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peoples offers, is to lose oneself, it is to imitate those who see nothing in the ancient fables but the mundane [‘terrestre’] and historical.89 Using the imagery of light and darkness that characterises descriptions of the Eleusinian mysteries as well as so much of Enlightenment rhetoric, Court de Gébelin expresses the agenda for his research into antiquity: the proof that a rational civilisation did exist, but was lost, provides the impetus to recapture it. Society must be able to look backwards to go forwards. Likewise, Court de Gébelin’s intellectual and religious identity combined a number of commitments that to contemporary eyes seem to sit uncomfortably together: a physiocrat who pursued economic principles of necessity onto the unstable ground myth and allegory; and a deist who harmonised Reformed Christianity with the Eleusinian mysteries on the basis of their reasonability and sociability. It is precisely the difficulty of disentangling these features that demonstrates the complex ways Christianity and paganism could be reconciled in eighteenth-century thought. Voltaire and (with some qualifications) Court de Gébelin indicate that the deist characterisation of the Neuf Soeurs is broadly valid. For the next two authors, rather than functional comparison, there is a greater emphasis on how features of Christian doctrine identified within a deistically characterised pagan world were transferred to Christianity. 3

Illuminating the Heathen World: Johann August Starck

On the 2nd April 1774, Johann Georg Hamann, the self-styled ‘Magus im Norden’, wrote a letter to his friend and former student Johann Gottfried Herder about a controversial new colleague on the faculty of theology at the University of Königsberg: Johann August Starck.90 Born the son of a Lutheran pastor in Schwerin, Starck was set on his father’s vocational path, eventually studying under the Prussian biblical scholar Johann David Michaelis at Göttingen from 1760–1763; a city in which he was also introduced to freemasonry. After the conclusion of his studies he taught Oriental languages at the Petrina Academy in Saint Petersburg, which was run by the geographer Anton 89 Gébelin, Monde primitif, 4:331. 90 Friedrich Roth (ed.), Hamann’s Schriften, 8 vols (Berlin, 1821–1843), 5:64–67. For Starck’s biography see: Heiner F. Klemme & Manfred Kuehn (eds.), The Dictionary of EighteenthCentury German Philosophers, 3 vols (London; New York, N.Y.: Continuum, 2010), 3:741–743. See also: Michael Vesper, Aufklärung-Esoterik-Reaktion: Johann August Starck (1741–1816): Geistlicher, Gelehrter und Geheimbündler zur Zeit der deutschen Spätaufklärung (Darmstadt: Verlag der Hessische Kirchengeschichtliche Vereinigung, 2012).

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Friedrich Büsching, until 1765 when he transferred to work at the Royal Library in Paris, a city in which some claimed he converted to Catholicism. In the letter, Hamann began by observing that Herder might already be aware of him as the author of the Apologie des Ordens der Frey Maurer (1770), which was published by the Königsberg bookseller Johann Jacob Kanter, with whom Starck lodged (alongside Immanuel Kant) upon arrival in the city in 1769.91 He went on to recount how on the 24th of March 1774 he had slipped into the university auditorium to hear Starck defend his thesis De tralatitiis ex gentilismo in religionem Christianam for a chair in theology, a work which argued that pagan ritual had been imported into Christianity.92 Hamann had listened with ‘satisfaction’ to the criticism mounted against it by Theodor Christoph Lilienthal, before leaving in frustration at the ‘superficial’ evasions of the defendant when questioned by a second faculty member, Johann Gotthelf Lindner. Conceding him a reasonable capacity for Latin prose, he continued by complaining that Starck had not ‘the slightest understanding of paganism and Christianity’ and that it would be well if a subsequent text that promised to address dogma as well as ritual, and so would treat the Incarnation, Atonement, and the Holy Trinity as relics of paganism too, never appeared.93 Nevertheless, Hamann hoped that he might yet make a ‘proselyte of Luther’ from the upstart he mocked as a ‘Catholic priest’, one who had spoken to him of Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger’s ‘Christianisme développé’ as a ‘singular and noteworthy’ book, and who obsessed about ‘arcane doctrines’ in his masonic apology as well as his theological writings.94 Starck was not to be silenced: the Latin disputation De tralatitiis was developed into Hephästion (1775), which treated the origins of Christian dogma in the Eleusinian mysteries and was published in the vernacular; he then treated the subject again in Geschichte der christlichen Kirche des ersten Jahrhunderts 91 Johann August Starck, Apologie des Ordens der Frey Maurer (Königsberg, 1770). The Apologie was reprinted in 1772 and then expanded and republished in a new edition: Starck, Apologie des Ordens der Frey Maurer, zweiter Ausgabe (Berlin, 1778). 92 Johann August Starck, De tralatitiis ex gentilismo in religionem Christianam (Königsberg, 1774). It was published by Hamann’s own publisher, Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, see: Roth, Hamann’s Schriften, 5:66. 93 Roth, Hamann’s Schriften, 5:66. 94 Hamann’s reference to ‘Christianisme développé’ may refer to what is now known to be: Baron d’Holbach, Christianisme dévoilé (London, 1756) [Paris, 1761], which was published under the name of Boulanger, or it may reference the idea of a developmental history of religion in Boulanger and Starck. In the following year, Hamann responded to Starck in print in the form of his Hierophantische Briefe (1775). See: Martin Seils (ed.), Johan Georg Hamanns Hauptschriften Erklärt: Mysterienschriften (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1962), 20–21.

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(1779–1780).95 Another of his books on the subject, Ueber die alten und neuen Mysterien (1782), connects him to the Neuf Soeurs masonic lodge in Paris. As he relates in the introduction, the impetus behind writing it was his having been commissioned by a friend to translate a new French work that treated both the pagan mysteries and freemasonry: Recherches sur les initiations anciennes et modernes (1779).96 This was by the abbé Jean-Baptiste-Claude Robin, a member of the lodge who, like Court de Gébelin, had shared his ideas on the subject in a lecture to it.97 In addressing the ancient phenomenon, Robin provided a sketch of the corruption of the noble institution that had taught of a ‘supreme intelligence’ and a ‘first cause’ and allowed that Christianity ‘appropriated’ some of the ‘vestiges of enlightenment’ contained in the mysteries.98 Turning to the so-called modern mysteries, he recalls and rejects many of the fanciful theories of the origins of freemasonry: the builders of the Temple of Solomon, the Knights Templar, or the idea that the pagan mysteries somehow filtered into freemasonry, opting instead for an account recognisable from the latter parts of the historical narratives of the Old Charges by connecting freemasonry to the time of Athelstan.99 These medieval roots were particularly manifest to him in freemasonry’s upholding the values and code of chivalry.100 But Starck was not convinced by the performance, finding its contents regarding the ancient mysteries ‘unthorough’ and ‘incorrectly presented’, and the modern ones so alien to his own understanding as to question whether its author was indeed a freemason.101 So he took it upon himself to better what he thought of as the abbé’s poor efforts. On account of its having created the most significant controversy, Hephästion will primarily supply his view of the subject, with some contribution from the first edition of the masonic Apologie 95 Johann August Starck, Geschichte der christlichen Kirche des ersten Jahrhunderts, 3 vols (Berlin; Leipzig, 1779–1780). Starck describes its first section on paganism as an extension of Hephästion. 96 Starck, Ueber die Mysterien, ii. Jean-Baptiste-Claude Robin, Recherches sur les initiations anciennes et modernes (Amsterdam; Paris, 1779). 97 On Jean-Baptiste-Claude Robin, see the entry in: Michel Gaudart de Soulages & Hubert Lamant, Dictionnaire des francs-maçons français (Paris: Editions Albatros, 1980). Robin references Court de Gébelin’s conception of the mysteries as ‘La Fête de l’Egalité’ in his account of their general corruption, see: Robin, Recherches, 62. 98 Robin, Recherches, 70. 99 The idea that freemasonry’s origins were in the Knights Templar was rejected at the 1782 Convent of Wilhelmsbad, see: Helmut Reinalter, Reinhard Markner & Claus Oberhauser (eds.), Aktenedition über den Wilhelmsbader Freimaurer-Konvent 1782, 2 vols (Basel; Berlin: Schwabe Verlag, 2019–2021). 100 Robin, Recherches, 113–114. 101 Starck, Ueber die Mysterien, ii–iii.

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and Ueber die mysterien.102 Finally, it must be noted that Starck’s career was divided into two halves, distinguishable by his split with freemasonry in the mid-1780s, following which the erstwhile proselyte transformed into a vocal antagonist, one who eventually followed the abbé Barruel in claiming that the Illuminatenorden had caused the French Revolution.103 In the present context, though, attention will be restricted to the first half of his life and the youthful association he would later dissociate from.104 Apologie des Ordens der Frey Maurer sought to answer a number of the objections that had been brought against the society in eighteenth-century anti-masonic literature, such as the idea that freemasonry represented a state within a state, but it is prefaced by a section on the mysteries.105 There Starck closely follows Warburton’s Divine Legation in his account of the principal features of the Eleusinian mysteries, which to him represent the essence of pagan religion: the knowledge of the unity of God, the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments.106 On the matter of the discrepancy between the high praise bestowed on the Eleusinian mysteries by figures such as Cicero and the scandalised attacks of the Church Fathers, he comes down firmly on the side of the pagans. The Church Fathers had, for example, mistaken the use of sexual symbolism in the mysteries by taking literally that which was used only to represent the ‘generative and all-inseminating power.’107 So too is the idea rejected that secrecy must necessarily imply nefarious practices, since in its early years the primitive Christians themselves were forced to practise their faith in a clandestine manner. In the following section that compares the mysteries of the ancients with the secrets of the freemasons, Starck, unlike Court de Gébelin, refrains from claiming an ‘exact parallel’ between the two, stating that his own masonic brethren would say ‘with truth’ that the freemasons are of a ‘wholly different foundation’, and their secrets cannot be brought

102 See, for example: Georg Christoph Pisanski, Antihephästion (Danzig, 1776). 103 Starck satirised freemasonry in a novel, see: Starck, Saint-Nicaise (1785). Claus Oberhauser, Die verschwörungs-theoretische Trias: Barruel-Robinson-Starck (Innsbruck, Wien, Bozen: Studien Verlag, 2013). 104 On Starck’s later years see: Erich Donnert, Antirevolutionär-konservative Publizistik in Deutschland am Ausgang des Alten Reiches: Johann August Starck (1741–1816), Ludwig Adolf Christian von Grolman (1741–1809), Friedrich Nicolai (1733–1811) (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 2010). 105 The expanded second edition of Starck’s Apologie, first published in 1772 then again in Berlin in 1778, handled the subject of the mysteries of the ancients ‘more extensively’, though without material difference; see the preface. 106 Starck, Apologie, 30. 107 Starck, Apologie, 35.

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into comparison with those of the mysteries.108 Nevertheless, he does proceed to compare them in their both having transmitted ‘certain noble customs’ from the depths of antiquity, their upholding strict vows of silence, and their shared use of progressive initiation.109 In Hephästion, Starck enters into greater detail about the prior presence of doctrines such as the unity of God and a future state for the history of Christianity. His starting point is the problem that an exclusive revelation to the ‘insignificant’ people that were the Jews creates for the idea of God’s universal benevolence; that is, the theological problem behind Herbert of Cherbury’s deism.110 To be truly universal, divine truth must have poured out everywhere ‘as from a cornucopia’; thus it must be sought in all religions, including paganism.111 That the pagan nations under whom ‘philosophy [Weltweisheit], the arts and sciences’ blossomed could have been at the same time, as the Church Fathers aggressively proclaimed, so entirely lacking when it came to religion, is highly implausible to Starck.112 How exactly did these defenders of the early Church come by such detailed information? Were they themselves initiated? And if there is no evidence that this was the case, how can they be trusted as sources?113 Turning the situation around, he points out that to an outsider the accoutrements of the Greek and Latin forms of Christianity, with their relics of bones, hair, and remnants of fabric, would be every bit as incomprehensible as the Fathers found the dice, mirror and sphere in the Bacchic mysteries, so the pagans themselves should be listened to on the subject of the significance of their rites.114 When Cicero wrote in On the Laws that the Eleusinian mysteries cultivated rough humanity, teaching people to live happily and to be consoled at the prospect of death, he expressed the great aims of religion viewed as a universal category, regardless of origin.115 To account for the discrepancy between the two conflicting sources, Starck draws on the division between the literalism of the public cult as expressed in the fables of the poets and the reasonable core of pagan religion contained in the Eleusinian mysteries.

108 Starck, Apologie, 38. 109 Starck, Apologie, 39. 110 See: Tuska Benes, The Rebirth of Revelation: German Theology in an Age of Reason and History, 1750–1850 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022), 64. 111 Starck, Hephästion, 9. 112 Starck, Hephästion, 15. 113 Starck, Hephästion, 20. 114 Starck, Hephästion, 18–21. 115 Starck, Hephästion, 22; Cicero, Laws 2.36.

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What, then, were the historical origins of these universal religious truths? Although he speculates on origins in the Indian subcontinent, Starck primarily acknowledges an Egyptian stem, from which the pagan mysteries were seeded in a multitude of varieties in the ancient Mediterranean world.116 Following Warburton, these various forms were ‘unified in their fundamentals’ but the greatest example were those of Eleusis, which (although Starck does not name Aelius Aristides) was regarded as the ‘common temple of the whole world’, where all manner of peoples sought initiation.117 All were initiated in the lesser mysteries, which taught the doctrine of a future state not as some great revelation, since it was part of the cultural fabric of the ancient world in the form of poetical descriptions of Elysium and Tartarus, but from a ‘worthier aspect’ more suitable to ‘nature’ and ‘truth.’118 But the mysteries did not just teach an afterlife, their compatibility with Christianity extended even to the doctrines of the Last Judgement, indicated by Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus, the three judges of Hades, and a Resurrection and Atonement, symbolised in the ‘mystic death’ and ‘rebirth’ of initiation.119 Starck’s identification of Christian mysteries in paganism makes a clear division between his position and that of Herbert, who only sought to find a bare minimum in paganism sufficient for Christian salvation. As to the greater, which were reserved for very few beyond the priesthood, Starck again follows the letter of Divine Legation: referencing Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, the gods are revealed to be mortals as a preparation for the teaching of a one true God.120 In spite of the similarity of details in Starck’s account, the general spirit is quite different to Warburton. In Hephästion, the contents of the mysteries are characterised as the essential elements of a religion that is Christianity in all but name, they are: the rays of godly light, which illuminated the heathen world in the most ancient times; and nothing would have been more to be desired than that this light which only appeared in darkness – partly through the temporal agenda of the servants of religion, partly through a false policy of the rulers, and partly through the prevailing taste in ancient times – should have illuminated the whole world and spread over all its blessed and invigorating rays.121 116 The Eastern origins of the mysteries would also become a significant feature of: Georg Friedrich Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, besonders der Griechen: in Vorträgen und Entwürfen, 6 vols (Leipzig und Darmstadt, 1810–1823). 117 Starck, Hephästion, 31. 118 Starck, Hephästion, 33. 119 Starck, Hephästion, 43; 46. 120 Starck, Hephästion, 50–53. 121 Starck, Hephästion, 72.

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What Claus Oberhauser describes as a ‘genetic history of Christianity’, incubated in the Eleusinian mysteries and released by Christ, has the consequence of a negative representation of Judaism.122 In contrast to writers who represented them as ‘the most enlightened’ of all peoples, Starck is closer to the ancient Greeks and Romans he describes as despising the Jews as a ‘miserable’ people.123 The portrait he draws in distinction to the venerable civilisation of Egypt is of a ‘very young people’ differing little from the contemporary Bedouins that wander the Levant, whose pastoral life now as then would have afforded little opportunity to cultivate the mind.124 Following on from this, Starck’s view of the ‘so-called patriarchs’ or ‘forefathers of the Jewish people’ is of central importance in understanding the transformation between the Christianisation of the pagan mysteries in the first and second halves of the eighteenth century: in contrast to the favourable portrait of the teachings of the mysteries, he rules out that their patriarchal religion was ‘ancient and natural.’125 Abraham and his forefathers were idolators who had little conception of the ‘omniscience’ and ‘omnipresence’ of God: their highest god was merely a national god, just one among others.126 Once again touching on Divine Legation, but for very different reasons, proof of its deficiency in comparison to the teachings of the Eleusinian mysteries was precisely the absence ‘in the whole history of the patriarchs’ of the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments.127 To conclude the present discussion of Starck’s views on the Eleusinian mysteries, it is of note that in Ueber die alten und neuen Mysterien he writes that the ‘the original religion of the ancient world was not polytheism, but deism.’128 This statement demonstrates that his understanding of the ‘ancient and natural’ religion of the mysteries, which contained essential features of Christianity, was ‘deist’ in so far as it was reasonable, in particular in its being monotheistic as opposed to polytheistic and in its comprehending the belief in an afterlife. The use of this seemingly incongruous word (if deism is taken, following Pocock, to be defined by the decoupling of theology from Christianity) shows something of the flexibility of Christian history in the Enlightenment 122 Oberhauser, Barruel-Robinson-Starck, 60–61. See also: Benes, Rebirth, 62. 123 Starck, Hephästion, 75. 124 Starck, Hephästion, 77–78. 125 Starck, Hephästion, 78. 126 Starck, Hephästion, 80. 127 Starck, Hephästion, 81. 128 Starck, Ueber die Mysterien, 12. In the introduction to Karl Gotthold Lenz’s translation of the Baron de Sainte-Croix, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la religion secrète des anciens peuples, ou Recherches historiques et critiques sur les mystères du paganisme (Paris, 1784), Starck is described as characterising the mysteries as a ‘school of pure deism’; see: Lenz, Versuch über die Alten Mysterien (Gotha, 1790), 5.

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period.129 Starck achieved a synthesis of paganism and Christianity that was predicated on an evolutionary model of the history of religion. Should Starck be termed a deist or a Christian? The difficulty of answering that question is the main point here: he reconciled the two by finding features of Christianity inside the primitive deism of the mysteries; or, put another way, he saw ancient deism as evolving into Christianity. This complex reconciliation again reflects the hybrid character of freemasonry in the second half of the eighteenth century, which provided a context for the mediation between religious traditions. In the next section, a comparable conception of the history of Christianity will be encountered, one which is likewise anchored in the Eleusinian mysteries and marginalises Judaism, but which unlike those of Court de Gébelin and Starck does not rest upon primitive monotheism. 4

The Essence of Religion: Nicolas-Marie Leclerc de Sept-Chênes

Had he not died just before the onset of the French Revolution, Nicolas-Marie Leclerc de Sept-Chênes is a figure who would perhaps have a higher profile as the secretary of Louis XVI’s chamber and cabinet, positions he inherited from his father in 1771.130 Instead of being remembered for his own book, Essai sur la religion des anciens Grecs (1787), he is chiefly remembered (if at all) as a footnote to the publication history of Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1789), the first part of which he translated.131 One of his roles at the royal court was that of English tutor and it was said that the young king contributed to Sept-Chênes’ first volume of translation as an exercise, only ceasing when he reached the final chapters in which ‘Gibbon attacks the historical foundation of Christianity.’132 In a letter 129 J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999–2015), 1:68. 130 On the death of Sept-Chênes, see: Maurice Tourneux (ed.), Eloge de J.A. Metra, le nouvelliste par Leclerc de Sept-Chenes (Paris: Charavay Frères Editeurs, 1879), vii. 131 Nicolas-Marie Leclerc de Sept-Chênes, Essai sur la religion des anciens Grecs (Geneva, 1787). The French edition was published anonymously. Quotations are drawn from the English translation, which identifies Sept-Chênes as the author: Sept-Chênes, The Religion of the Ancient Greeks (London, 1788). Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols (London, 1776–1789). On the later reception of Decline and Fall in France see: Lucian Robinson, “Accounts of early Christian history in the thought of François Guizot, Benjamin Constant and Madame de Staël 1800-c.1833,” History of European Ideas 43, no. 6 (2017): 628–648. 132 See: [Anon.], The London Quarterly Review: American Edition 94 (1854): 68. The remainder was translated by André-Samuel-Michel Cantwell.

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from Gibbon to Sept-Chênes dated the 10th December 1776, he complimented the translator on his ‘perfect understanding’ of the original, and the ‘faithfulness’ and ‘elegance’ of his translation.133 But this was somewhat disingenuous, since in his Memoirs he describes it as having been ‘faithfully’ but ‘weakly’ translated.134 Gibbon’s true feelings are hinted at in his enquiry as to whether Sept-Chênes intended to translate subsequent volumes and his offer to read proofs in advance if so. Following which he asks: what side will you take with regard to the last two chapters? Even in England they have excited, I do not know why, scandal among our ecclesiastics, and despite all your precautions I can hardly imagine how they could withstand the severe censure of your Church and your police.135 As will be seen from La religion, Sept-Chênes had rather different views on the matter of the historical foundations of Christianity. But there is a certain resemblance to Gibbon’s stylistic disdain in its appendix ‘Remarks, or Observations on some Works relating to Mythology’, in which he poured scorn on his forebears in the field of mythography both ancient and modern, a number of whom have been addressed in the present book thus far.136 Before addressing his book directly, it is instructive to listen to Sept-Chênes’ summary of their works and the wide-ranging forces that had shaped the study of myth in the period – and thereby the understanding of the mysteries. The euhemerists Jean Le Clerc and Antoine Banier, as well as their ancient progenitor Diodorus Siculus, are all dismissed by Sept-Chênes, who writes of the first that ‘his writings shew that it requires more than learning, or even a knowledge of Hebrew, to make a good book’ and of the second that with his theory he ‘found means to villify, to degrade, and distort the most interesting images of the ancient mythology; some of which are uncommonly sublime, while others ravish the imagination with their grandeur and beauty.’137 In other words, by reducing it to a prosaic record, the historical system of Euhemerism did insufficient justice to the aesthetic and intellectual power, as well as universal significance, of ancient myth. As will be seen, this is of central importance to Sept-Chênes’ aim in the book of redefining myth as a body of evidence that represents a specific religion and not just a collection of 133 Rowland E. Prothero (ed.), Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (1753–1794), 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1896), 1:296–298. 134 Edward Gibbon, Mémoires des Gibbon, 2 vols (Paris, 1796), 1:iii. 135 Gibbon, Private Letters, 297. 136 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 283–327. 137 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 292; 286.

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folk-tales and fairy stories. It also shapes his attitude towards the agricultural allegorist Antoine Court de Gébelin, whose Monde primitif is likewise attacked for limiting the conception of the religious beliefs of the ancients: His greatest fault is his endeavour to subject all mythology to agriculture. This art, of such unquestionable utility, and which at first was worthy of all the homage of mankind, was not however the only object of their worship. The allegorical genius of the Ancients took a bolder flight; it embraced all nature, and gave a figurative existence to all the moral and physical attributes of the universe.138 The practical aspects of ancient civilisation are not rejected outright, but in moving towards the idea of myth as an embodiment of a religion, its characteristics must be also explained by reference to higher ideals. Court de Gébelin’s predecessors in the physico-allegorical tradition, Noël-Antoine Pluche and Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, are also addressed. The former is cautiously complimented for his linguistic theory of the origin of idolatry, but is criticised for the astronomical aspect of his system (which is ‘overturned by astronomy itself’); the latter’s theory of religion as based on humankind’s response to the deluge is seen as requiring its author to be ‘obliged to distort many objects.’139 There was one notable exception in his otherwise contemptuous attitude to his contemporaries in the field: Charles-François Dupuis, upon whom he lavishes the high praise that ‘the ideas of a great genius bear at once the characters of grandeur and simplicity.’ The text on which this opinion was based was Mémoire sur l’origine des constellations et sur l’explication de la fable par le moyen de l’astronomie (1781), to be addressed in the next chapter as a preliminary to what Sept-Chênes announces as ‘a more considerable work, which he has promised on this subject.’140 This pointed to the at that point still-in-gestation Origine de tous les cultes. Ou, religion universelle (1795), which would prove to contain very different ideas to Sept-Chênes’ La religion.141 The title of Sept-Chênes’ book states its main aim: that the ancient Greeks were not just pagan idolators, they had a religion. This is identified as an object of ‘much greater importance’ than their mythology, as was the subject of the 138 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 301. 139 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 308; 312. 140 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 309–310. Charles-François Dupuis, Mémoire sur l’origine des constellations et sur l’explication de la fable par le moyen de l’astronomie (Paris, 1781). The text is addressed at greater length in: Sept-Chênes, La religion, 55. 141 Charles-François Dupuis, Origine de tous les cultes. Ou, religion universelle, 7 vols (Paris, 1795).

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earlier works reviewed in the appendix.142 Like Starck, Sept-Chênes finds the idea that pagan antiquity was ‘destitute of a religion’ incredible, and the picture of what passes as such hardly deserving that ‘sacred name.’143 From the seventeenth-century scholars that derived pagan deities from biblical sources, through Warburton’s political view of the institution of the Eleusinian mysteries, and even up to the allegorical system of Court de Gébelin that related the exploits of the gods to the practical sphere of agriculture, the idea that in the form of their myths the ancients possessed a distinct set of theological ideas which amounted to a religion in its own right had often been subsumed by other explanations. In light of this lacuna, Sept-Chênes states that his own task is to ‘restore the Ancient Religion to the enjoyment of its right and to its original dignity’ through investigation of the ancient Greeks, a nation of paramount importance as the pivot between the origin of knowledge in the East and its transmission into the Christian civilisation of Europe.144 In Sept-Chênes’ view, the restoration of this dignity involves a detailed investigation of the mysteries, in particular the Eleusinian variety that ‘eclipsed’ all the rest to become the ‘common temple of the world.’145 Their study enables the recognition that ancient religion ‘inculcated all the principles of a pure morality’ and provided the ‘source of many traditions which have since been held universally sacred.’146 That in its core it did not differ from the Christian religion, sharing throughout its various local forms of expression the same ‘end’, ‘spirit’, and ‘character.’147 But before establishing Sept-Chênes’ ideas on ‘this interesting part of the Ancient Religion, which in reality constitutes its essence’, it is necessary to first take account of his general view of religion’s origins and development with reference to Greece.148 The position of La religion on the birth and progress of religion has some similarity with Monde primitif, in the idea that it mirrors the development of society. But Sept-Chênes differs by including more detail about pre-civilised life in his account, with humankind first having worshipped the objects of subsistence in the age of the hunter-gatherer; deifying, for example, ‘the tree that gave them fruit.’149 Then with the division of individual foragers into competing tribes came the worship of the weapons that secured the dominance of 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149

Sept-Chênes, La religion, iii. Sept-Chênes, La religion, iv. Sept-Chênes, La religion, iv–v. Sept-Chênes, La religion, 180. Sept-Chênes, La religion, v. Sept-Chênes, La religion, v. Sept-Chênes, La religion, 129. Sept-Chênes, La religion, 2.

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one group, manifest in gods of war such as Mars. These were only the limited beliefs of the savage state of humankind in Greece, still recognisable among the ‘scattered hordes in the wilds of America.’150 But Sept-Chênes’ more elevated conception of ancient religion had another source: the observation of the heavens. Without yet possessing the intellectual capacity to arise to the sublime conception of a prime mover, the rhythm of the stars was attributed to various supernatural powers, which were consequently worshipped as a plurality. These rival sources were sustained in the parallel development of religion as ‘Intellectual, Physical and Civil’ theologies, which related respectively to ‘God, Nature and Man’.151 This triad slightly alters the Roman author Marcus Terentius Varro’s idea of three theologies (mythical, physical, and civil) preserved in Augustine’s City of God, reclaiming the mythical for the intellectual through the mysteries rather than rejecting it as fabulous.152 Of the other categories, the lowest ‘confounded civil with religious bondage’ in the notion of God as an all-powerful monarch, issuing ‘decrees’ from his temple as though from a court.153 Although Sept-Chênes does not specify, what was seen by figures such as Voltaire as the primitive and vengeful God of the Old Testament is implied. This becomes apparent in the contrast that is drawn with the religion of those more ‘fortunate countries’ such as Greece ‘where liberty, newly born, allowed the mind to exert its native energy’; an element perhaps influenced by Court de Gébelin.154 Under a government of liberty, humankind thanked its author for the benefits of existence eye to eye, rather than prostrating ‘in vile submission.’155 Exhibiting the influence of Pluche, he continues by charting the dual evolution of agriculture and astronomy with the deification of the figures of the constellations of stars. But rather than acknowledging a primitive monotheism, Sept-Chênes sees humankind’s arrival at this fundamental truth as enabled by the gradual acquisition of knowledge from nature: an intellectual theology based on physical observation. 150 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 2. Sept-Chênes was a reader of Lafitau (135) and his position on non-Christian nations was to pity their not having been ‘favoured with the light of true religion’ (v). 151 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 9. 152 Augustine, City of God 6.5. See also: Peter Van Nuffelen, “Varro’s Divine Antiquities: Roman Religion as an Image of Truth,” Classical Philology 105, no. 2 (2010): 162–188. 153 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 16. 154 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 16. 155 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 16. This language evokes the persistent theme of Oriental despotism in the early modern period, on which see: Noel Malcom, Useful enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger contributed to this debate in: Boulanger, Recherches sur l’origine du despotisme oriental (1761).

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The Eleusinian mysteries fitted into this plan of the development of religion by redressing the negative consequences of the civil theology, evident in the practice of apotheosis among ancient tyrants, which was never ‘so frequent, as when despotism, binding in fetters the faculties of the soul, left men no sentiment but fear.’156 This repressive tendency within paganism was mediated by the Eleusinian mysteries, which represented the force of the intellectual as opposed to the civil theology: But while slaves thus abused [religion’s] sacred name, while she seemed in some sort abandoned to the caprice of the Poets, who disfigured while they thought they embellished her; to that of the philosophers themselves, who endeavoured to bend her to their systems; she inclosed in her bosom an institution which had for its principal object, to preserve her simple doctrines inviolate, and bring back her worship to its primitive dignity. Such was the end proposed by the Mysteries.157 The contrast between the intellectual theology of the Eleusinian mysteries and the civil cult might seem to result in the paradox of Divine Legation: the separate co-existence of monotheism and polytheism. But that is not in fact the case. Writing of Warburton, Sept-Chênes ranks him in the company of those ‘who have taken pleasure in disfiguring mythology’ for his claim that the Eleusinian mysteries revealed the euhemerist knowledge of the mortal origins of the gods as a precursor to instilling ‘purer sentiments’ among the people.158 The implications of his conjecture are ‘the improbable supposition, that the Ancients cultivated two sorts of religion of the opposite tendency, that the one condemned what the other enjoined, that the people were at once impious and idolatrous.’ In place of this contradictory situation, Sept-Chênes sees the mysteries not as the destroyer of polytheism, but as having served to confine it ‘within its true bounds’ as a preliminary to the veneration of the Supreme Being, from which source the gods ‘are all but an emanation.’159 As to the other key aspect of the interpretation of the Eleusinian mysteries in Divine Legation, the ‘dogma of the immortality of the soul’ is acknowledged not for its political necessity, but because ‘in all ages’ the ‘language of true philosophy’ has assured man of immortality.160 As with Starck, the details of this are thor156 157 158 159 160

Sept-Chênes, La religion, 127. Sept-Chênes, La religion, 128. Sept-Chênes, La religion, 140. Sept-Chênes, La religion, 141. Sept-Chênes, La religion, 146.

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oughly conformable with Christianity, with Sept-Chênes emphasising that the mysteries were the pagan version of salvation from original sin.161 The mechanism by which features already present in paganism were transferred into Christianity may be considered in the following passage: The revolution caused by the appearance of Christianity, far from destroying these opinions, tended to confirm them. Many of the fathers of the church were Platonists; and those among them who were most zealous in their enmity to the ancient religion, took advantage of its metaphysical opinions; perhaps from a dread of startling unsettled minds, or rather because, by the particular permission of God, the philosophers had been inspired with the knowledge of truths the most sublime, that they might prepare the way for the Gospel.162 To Sept-Chênes, moral concepts that were implicit in the mythic stage of religion were intellectualised or spiritualised by ancient philosophers, before they were ready to enter as a distilled ancient source into the new religion; a view in which he agrees, though for very different reasons, with Toland. The fundamental point is one of continuity, not of a break at the arrival of Christ; paradoxically, the early Church Fathers both disparaged the mysteries and borrowed some of their ceremonies in the practices of the early Christian Church.163 In its evolutionary model, as well as its scepticism of the reliability of the early Church Fathers, the portrait painted of the mysteries in La religion closely corroborates with Hephästion. This similarity also extends to the devaluation of the Jews, although Sept-Chênes is slightly more reserved than Starck, stating that he is ‘not at liberty to doubt the testimony of the sacred writer; but we must remember, that the traditions of the Jews relate only to an obscure nation confined to Palestine.’164 Following the outline of the doctrinal content of the Eleusinian mysteries, Sept-Chênes traces the evidence for his reading through a presentation of the rituals. At the beginning of initiation into the lesser mysteries, the candidate was brought to a river and ‘plunged into the water as an emblem of regeneration’, an action that Sept-Chênes describes as a symbol of baptism; cleanliness of the body represented a purified soul.165 After a sacrifice and various 161 162 163 164 165

Sept-Chênes, La religion, 184–185. Sept-Chênes, La religion, 123–124. Sept-Chênes, La religion, 201. Sept-Chênes, La religion, 94. Sept-Chênes, La religion, 162.

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preparatory questions, the initiate was then introduced to certain ‘elements of the secret doctrine’, but without the full revelation reserved for the greater mysteries. In these, the meaning of the rituals were communicated in the symbolic roles of the sacred officials: Sept-Chênes adopts the evidence of Porphyry as preserved in Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel, where the hierophant is described as dressed to represent the Demiurge; the daduchos, or torch-bearer, whose office was to purify the initiate, represented the sun; the epibomios, or priest at the altar, the moon; and the sacred herald, whose role was to keep the profane away, Hermes.166 This distribution of offices confirmed Sept-Chênes in his view that as well as teaching a Supreme Being, ‘the Mysteries were intended to represent the system of the world.’167 The mysteries themselves were comprised of a mixture of dangerous trials and, following the evidence of Stobaeus’ Florilegium, a series of theatrical spectacles with accompanying special effects – flashing lights, thunderclaps, and sudden apparitions – before the initiate was finally released into serene meadows of flowers.168 Sept-Chênes also inserts a feature of Mithraic ritual preserved in Tertullian’s De corona into the Eleusinian framework: the initiate ‘was presented with a crown, which he trod under foot, and as soon as the sword was held over his head, he feigned to fall down dead, then seemed again to return to life.’169 Although this in one sense emphasises the Christian content of the mysteries, it is of note that Voltaire used the same passage in the chapter on the Eleusinian mysteries in Philosophie de l’histoire, writing that ‘the free-masons still retain a fragment of this ancient ceremony.’170 A masonic context to Sept-Chênes’ ideas is perhaps likewise evident in his statement, comparable to Stukeley’s analogy between the ancient Egyptian shendyt and the masonic apron, that at the conclusion of the mysteries the initiate received a robe ‘which he ever afterwards wore as an honourable badge.’171 These admittedly subtle masonic hints within Sept-Chênes’ presentation of the ritual of the mysteries are confirmed by more solid evidence later in the chapter. Since, to my knowledge, Sept-Chênes’ identity as a freemason has not been hitherto recognised, the passage which suggests that he probably was demands to be quoted in full:

166 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 164–165. Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 3.12. 167 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 165. 168 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 169–170. Stobaeus, Florilegium 119. 169 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 169. Tertullian, De corona 15. 170 Voltaire, Philosophie de l’histoire, 179. 171 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 169. See: Chapter 2, page 73.

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Thus, the Mysteries of antiquity scarcely changed their form when Christianity became the prevailing religion. At that period the Jews also adopted them, and among these people they were the origin of the Cabala. We may affirm, that afterwards they never ceased to exist. We see them shining in great lustre through the darkness of the middle ages; and whether the traces of them were preserved in spite of the ignorance which then covered the Western World, or whether the age of chivalry brought them from the East, it is certain that our brave chevaliers acquired in that expedition those heroic virtues that have made them so celebrated, of which perhaps it would be difficult at this day to find an example, and which at least console us for the barbarism of those ages that involved the history of the human mind in impenetrable obscurity. At the revival of letters, the Mysteries acquired new lustre. They obtained an influence over the still barbarous manners, which they no doubt contributed to soften by inculcating particularly the principles of a refined morality. The ceremonies with which they are attended prove to this day from whence they drew their origin. They seem to have retained their magnificent decorations and ancient observances, only to demonstrate, that in the midst of revolutions which have swept away so many nations from the face of the earth: men, since the establishment of societies, compose but one great family. Whatever conformity there may exist between the Mysteries of the Moderns and those of the Ancients, the latter are particularly distinguished from the former in having made an essential part of the religion, or rather in having constituted the religion itself.172 Although the last sentence recalls Starck in distinguishing the Eleusinian mysteries from freemasonry on the grounds of having been the substance of ancient religion, the majority of the passage points towards another author: Andrew Michael Ramsay. First, Sept-Chênes covers the historical territory and themes of Ramsay’s masonic Discours prononcé à la reception des Francs Maçons (1736–1737), for example, raising the idea of a rediscovery of the vestiges of the mysteries during the Crusades.173 More specifically, elsewhere in the text Sept-Chênes echoes the Christian universalism of Ramsay’s The Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, unfolded in a geometrical order 172 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 203–204. 173 Georges Lamoine, “The Chevalier de Ramsay’s Oration, 1736–7: Early Masonry in France,” AQC 114 (2001): 226–237. Sept-Chênes favours the ‘Grecian fictions’ which were ‘derived from a sacred source’ to the tales of chivalry, which ‘leave no impression on the mind of the reader that can afford him satisfaction.’ Sept-Chênes, La religion, 161.

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(1748–1749) in his view that there ‘has existed but one religion under different names; which, accomodating itself to circumstances, has appeared under different forms’; without, of course, following him in attributing the origins of that universality to a prior revelation of ‘Christianity’ to the patriarchs.174 Finally, there is the theme of cosmopolitanism, the evocation of mankind as ‘one great family’ which recalls a famous passage in the masonic Discours: ‘The whole world is but a large republic, every nation of which is a family and each individual a child.’175 It is important to determine exactly what this rhetoric of cosmopolitanism and equality means when translated into terms of commitment to actual political liberty. The secretary of Louis XVI adopts a cautious approach. The institutors of the mysteries are described as having been careful to ‘inculcate that original equality after which men so ardently sigh’, which they wanted to believe was his condition in the ‘state of nature’; this is perhaps a response to the idea that the Eleusinian mysteries point to the originally republican political settlement of humankind in Monde primitif. But for Sept-Chênes, since in society ‘each individual is obliged to sacrifice a part of his liberty to the general utility’, true equality can only be found through religion which ‘teaches us, that all are equal, and that there is no real pre-eminence but that which is conferred by virtue.’176 Considering Sept-Chênes alongside Court de Gébelin on the political implications of the mysteries points to the necessity of distinguishing between rhetoric and reality. It demonstrates the importance of not considering freemasonry as a distinct set of beliefs, but rather as a context through which a number of positions with different political and religious implications could be taken. By investigating ideas on the Eleusinian mysteries made by a range of freemasons in the last quarter of the century, the scene of the deist Voltaire being initiated into the masonic lodge of the atheist Lalande proves itself as one in need of significant qualification. It was an institution that presented a shared ground upon which deists, Christians and ‘deist-Christians’ could build a rational ideal of religion through the ancient precedent of the mysteries. But, as shall be seen in the final chapter, this in many ways uneasy reconciliation would not hold. 174 Andrew Michael Ramsay, The Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, unfolded in a geometrical order, 2 vols (Glasgow, 1748–1749). Sept-Chênes, La religion des anciens Grecs, 7. 175 Lamoine, “Ramsay’s Oration”, 227. See also: Sept-Chênes, La religion, 199. 176 Sept-Chênes, La religion, 156.

Chapter 5

Christianity Revealed Let us close the sanctuaries, where all is imposture and illusion; and draw ideas of order and wisdom from the contemplation of the Universe. That is our only temple. Let us study the secrets of nature. They are the only mysteries.1

∵ On the 8th of August 1769, Jérôme Lalande, the astronomer and later founding member of the Neuf Soeurs masonic lodge, observed a faint comet that had appeared in the constellation of Aries.2 The next day he was able to see it without the aid of a telescope and over the following month as it approached the earth, he measured its tail grow to a length of 60° before it diminished and vanished. It was viewed by astronomers all over the world – from Paris to St Petersburg, and from Rome to Pondicherry – but its appearance in the sky had very different effects on those who witnessed it. In the south Pacific, somewhere between the island of Oheteroa and New Zealand, it was spotted on August 30th by the crew of Captain Cook’s HMS Endeavour and prompted Tupai, the polynesian navigator who accompanied their voyage, to cry out that it would cause the people of Bolabola to ‘attack the inhabitants of Ulietea’ (two of the Society Islands).3 On the 8th of June, exactly three months before the comet was first seen, Cook, Joseph Banks, Charles Green, and Daniel Solander had observed the transit of Venus, one of the principal reasons for their voyage. Back in Britain a mathematician and amateur astronomer named Samuel Dunn had alarmed the newspaper-reading public (whose care for the planet had no doubt been stirred by the Endeavour expedition) by his observation that he thought Venus was ‘likely to receive a brush from the Comet’s tail.’4 But 1 Charles-François Dupuis, Origine de tous les cultes. Ou, religion universelle, 7 vols (Paris, 1795), 4:782. 2 [Anon.], “Sur la comète de 1769,” in Histoire de L’Académie Royale des Sciences. Année M.DCCLXIX. (Paris, 1772), 90. 3 Andrew Kippis, The Life of Captain James Cook, 2 vols (Basel, 1788), 1:65. 4 Charles Burney, An Essay Towards a History of the Principal Comets that Have Appeared Since the Year 1742 … With Remarks and Reflections Upon the Present Comet … (London, 1769), 76.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2024 | doi:10.1163/9789004692305_007

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Lalande checked his calculations and dismissed the hypothesis, restoring faith for some in the ‘order that the Supreme Being has established in his works.’5 Lalande though was silent on this matter; years later he would write in a supplement to Sylvain Maréchal’s Dictionnaire des athées (1799) that ‘the spectacle of the sky appears to everyone a proof of the existence of God … I believed it for nineteen years; today I see there only matter and movement.’6 In his Bibliographie astronomique (1803), Lalande recounted a moment of intellectual illumination experienced by his pupil Charles-François Dupuis on the 18th of May 1778.7 In reading of the marriage of Atlas and Hesperis and of their seven daughters the Hesperides ‘he had the happy idea that the generations of mythology were the rising and the setting of the stars’, which ‘became for him the key to all antiquity.’8 For example, the mourning Electra’s dishevelled hair was the reason she was given the surname ‘the comet’ by the ancient Greeks.9 Sabaism, the worship of the heavenly bodies, was a well-established category in the study of idolatry and was named after the Sabians of the ancient Near East, who are mentioned in the Koran but were primarily introduced to European thinkers of the early modern period through the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides.10 Proceeding from this tradition, Dupuis sought to establish a much more precise analytical relationship between mythical narratives and the movements of the heavenly bodies. This was not inherently controversial, but it became explosive when he applied the theory to Christianity as well as paganism, since it turned the life of Jesus Christ into a mythical narrative of the movements of the sun. For an aspiring young astronomer in Leipzig called Christian Ernst Wünsch, though, the comet of 1769 had a more personal significance: it was proof that the ‘highest being, which fills the whole world and rules everything’ wished for him to continue his studies.11 In this final chapter, the impact of astronomy on the writing of the history of religion in the closing decades of the eighteenth century will be explored 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

[Anon.], “Sur la comète de 1769”, 93. Sylvain Maréchal [& Jérôme Lalande], Dictionnaire des athées anciens et modernes (1799); Lalande, Notice sur Sylvain Maréchal, avec des supplémens pour le “Dictionnaire des athées” (Paris, 1803), 26. Jérôme Lalande, Bibliographie astronomique; avec l’histoire de l’astronomie depuis 1781 jusqu’à 1802 (Paris, 1803), 573. For the myth see: Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.27. Dupuis, Origine, 6:96–97. On Maimonides, see: Chapter 3, note 67. Christian Ernst Wünsch, Biographie meiner Jugend, oder der durch den Komet von 1769 in einen Professor verwandelte Webermeister (Frankfurt & Leipzig, 1817), 212. See also the biographical comments in: Wünsch, Esoterika oder Ansichten der Verhältnisse des Menschen zu Gott, 2 vols (Zerbst, 1817).

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in Wünsch’s Horus (1783) and Dupuis’s Origine de tous les cultes. Ou, religion universelle (1795), two books which may be thought of as marking a decisive point in the long process of interaction between the two fields, and in both of which the Eleusinian and other mysteries of the ancient world play a pivotal role.12 Dupuis’ ‘happy idea’ of the astronomical origins of the gods was presented by Lalande as a transformation that we might anachronistically think of using Thomas Kuhn’s terminology as a paradigm shift.13 But, as will be seen below, the argument (if not the conclusions) of the work that first set out his theory, Mémoire sur l’origine des constellations et sur l’explication de la fable par le moyen de l’astronomie (1781), adapted a strategy used long before by the abbé Pluche.14 Wünsch was aware of and referenced the articles that became the Mémoire sur l’origine des constellations in Horus.15 But like the Comte de Volney’s Les ruines (1791), which presented the Christ solar-myth argument before the publication of Origine, Wünsch came before Dupuis in explicitly making the negative argument that the roots of Christianity were in the pagan mysteries.16 He also made a comparable version of the solar-myth argument, although with the life of Christ representing – like the myth of Demeter and Persephone – the natural cycle of the growth, death, and regrowth of a seed.17 But the thoroughness and scope of Dupuis’ work far exceeded either Wünsch or Volney; even its critics, such as the English unitarian Joseph Priestley who described it as the ‘ne plus ultra of infidelity’, conceded the erudition, ingenuity, and labour of its author.18 12 Christian Ernst Wünsch, Horus oder Astrognostisches Endurtheil über die Offenbarung Johannis und über die Weissagungen auf den Messias wie auch über Jesum und seine Jünger. Mit einem Anhang von Europens neuern Aufklärung und von der Bestimmung des Menschen durch Gott. Ein Lesebuch zur Erholung für die Gelehrten und ein Denkzeddel für Freimaurer (Halle, 1783). An overview of Wünsch’s text is provided in: Jürgen von Kempski, “Apokalypse, “Horus” und Wünsch,” in Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 47, no. 4 (1995): 304–319. On Wünsch see also: Christoph Meinel, “Des wunderlichen Wünsch seltsame Reduktion …” Christian Ernst Wünsch, Kleists unzeitgemäßer Zeitgenosse,” in Hans Joachim Kreutzer, Kleist-Jahrbuch 1996 (Stuttgart: Verlag J.B. Metzler, 1996); and Dirk Grathoff, Kleists Geheimnisse: unbekannte Seiten einer Biographie (Opladen: Westdeutschen Verlag, 1993), 33–35. 13 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1963). 14 Charles-François Dupuis, Mémoire sur l’origine des constellations et sur l’explication de la fable par le moyen de l’astronomie (Paris, 1781). 15 See: Wünsch, Horus, 197; and Kempinski, “Apokalypse”, 308–309. 16 Volney, The Ruins; or, a survey of the Revolutions of Empires (London, 1792), 283–296. 17 Wünsch, Horus, 216. 18 Joseph Priestley, The Theological and Miscellaneous Works, 25 vols (London, 1817–31), 17:320–321.

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What was significant about the arguments of Wünsch and Dupuis was the positioning of Christianity against a new concept of civilisation based on true and false relationships to nature, with astronomy serving as a particularly vivid illustration of its rational order.19 In the works of a figure such as Antoine Court de Gébelin, civilisation was premised on a harmonious relationship between culture and nature, in his case through the central role of agriculture in anchoring human society in both spheres. But in the arguments of both Wünsch and Dupuis, Christianity causes a cultural imbalance in human society through the misapprehension of nature. For Wünsch, the heavens have a divided bequest: through mathematical observation they give rise to astronomy, deism, the Eleusinian mysteries, and eventually the enlightened culture of eighteenth-century western Europe. By contrast, astrology leads to superstition, priestcraft, the mysteries of ancient Egypt and the Near East, and then through the negative influence of both Judaism and John the Evangelist, ultimately Christianity.20 Although to Wünsch the New Testament contains some traces of ancient Greece in the form of the Socratic/Platonic ethics that he sees as the core of Jesus’ teachings, these have been largely obscured by the prophetic legacy of the Old Testament, which uses ‘exactly the same language as the ancient astrologers’ of the East, and is most apparent in the New Testament in the Book of Revelations.21 In this respect, the divide Wünsch creates between Eleusinian and other eastern mysteries may be viewed as a fork in the road that points to the development of both philhellenism and antisemitism in their nineteenth-century forms: the association of Judaism with an irrational eastern inheritance would place it beyond the pale of a very narrow concept of civilisation that looked back to an idealised version of ancient Greek aesthetics, politics, and eventually racial purity.22 In Dupuis’ Origine there is another division: not a geographical one between east and west, but one based on chronology. At its roots religion was entirely unified with the observation of nature and the pantheistic identification of nature as God. Out of these empirical and materialist foundations, first the Egyptian and then the Eleusinian and other mysteries were created by legislators to fortify society through the doctrine of an afterlife of rewards and 19 For accounts of the history of the idea of civilisation, see: Introduction, note 37. 20 On the debate on the authorship of Johannine literature, see: Charles E. Hill, The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 449–464. Wünsch conflated the author of the Gospel of John with that of the Apocalypse, see: Wünsch, Horus, 34. 21 Wünsch, Horus, 248. 22 Miriam Leonard, Socrates and the Jews: Hellenism and Hebraism from Moses Mendelssohn to Sigmund Freud (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2012).

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punishments; in this respect Dupuis closely follows William Warburton. But this innovation that was so useful in civilising humankind was eventually corrupted through the introduction of purgatory, which provided the foundations of priestly power. The mysteries also taught a philosophical system of the immortal human soul, and a cosmological one of the structure of the universe, which described the mythical solar narrative at the heart of the mysteries that was also the basis of the ‘myth’ of Jesus Christ. The cognitive shift that saw spirit instead of matter, or Christ instead of the sun, had enormous implications for the history of human culture, leading humankind away from the useful empirical realm to the futile one of mysticism. It is only by taking off Christ’s mask and recognising the materialistic truth about nature that Dupuis believed humankind could be truly civilised. Religion, therefore, has a paradoxical role: through its connection to the development of knowledge it contributed to civilisation, but through its departure from its empiricist grounding it came to constrict the human mind. 1

St John the Egyptian: Christian Ernst Wünsch

The subtitle to Christian Ernst Wünsch’s biography, ‘the master-weaver turned Professor because of the comet of 1769’, indicates the remarkable trajectory of his life. Born in the town of Hohenstein in Saxony to a family of Protestant weavers in 1744, he was just five years old when his father’s death left the family in straitened financial circumstances. The extent of his childhood education was meagre, with three hours of daily lessons squeezed into the morning before work in the family trade alongside his siblings. Religion was very literally beaten into the young schoolboy and his enquiries into the more perplexing points of Christian doctrine were sternly rebuked with the answer that ‘to have love for Jesus would be much better than to know everything’; a response which strengthened his future resolve ‘to ask … no one for explanation’ of ‘mystical writings.’23 The visions of hell which the rector of the school would terrify the pupils became in later life a personal motivation for his critique of the Bible. Nevertheless, alongside this harsh treatment he experienced some ‘quite blissful hours’ at school, in particular whilst reading works of history and geography borrowed from other classmates, since he himself could not afford these extra classes. This led him to idolise the scholar as ‘the noblest, the most complete, the loftiest of all created beings!’24 Between the ages of fifteen 23 Wünsch, Biographie, 30. 24 Wünsch, Biographie, 62; 74.

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and eighteen, Wünsch led the life of a journeyman and travelled between the cities of southeastern Germany, after which he returned to his place of birth and his mother’s expectation that he become a master of the family trade, a citizen of the town, and a married man. But in the time of his absence a master-weaver who was to exercise a decisive influence on Wünsch’s life had settled in Hohenstein. This was Johann Gottlieb Grüpner, who alongside his manual trade also commanded Latin, French, some Greek, and held a number of other interests relating to mathematics and the natural world. Grüpner encouraged Wünsch in his pursuit of mathematical learning, lending him books that opened up new speculative horizons on nature and God. Following the death of his mother and his receiving a small inheritance he attempted to better his financial situation through speculation in business, but after this failed, he sold his possessions and set off with the plan of travelling to the East Indies and making a career at sea.25 Wünsch’s first stop though was Leipzig, where he sustained himself by copying texts, including the Protestant philosopher Christian August Crusius’ ‘mystical elucidations of the Apocalypse’; a subject that would prove central to the development of his ideas on the mysteries and the history of religion.26 With the support of some contacts in the city he was able to matriculate in the university’s medical faculty, having first ruled out jurisprudence and theology, the latter on the basis of his being a self-stated ‘half heretic.’27 After witnessing the comet of 1769 he began to produce wooden planetariums that showed its path; one of these models convinced a benefactor to provide a stipend for the rest of his studies. Wünsch graduated as a Magister in 1775, then in 1777 with the help of a loan of two-hundred Thalers from a benevolent Herrnhuter (a member of the Moravian Protestant denomination), he was able secure his Doktorpromotion. In the years that followed he was employed in Leipzig’s ‘so-called translation factories’, the first result of which was a German translation of Histoire de l’astronomie ancienne (1775) by the French astronomer and (following the storming of the Bastille) first revolutionary mayor of Paris,

25 This plan was inspired by his reading: Ernst Christoph Barchewitz, Allerneueste und wahrhaffte Ost-Indianische Reise-Beschreibung (Chemnitz, 1730). 26 Wünsch, Biographie, 196. Christian August Crusius’ writings on the Apocalypse were published as: Crusius, Hypomnemata ad theologiam propheticam, 3 vols (Leipzig, 1764–1778). On these writings see: Hans-Peter Nowitzki, “… man müste denn schon ein so apocalyptisches Auge haben, wie Bengel: Christian August Crusius ‘finstre Philosophi’” in Frank Grunert, Andree Hahmann, & Gideon Stiening, Christian August Crusius (1715–1775): Philosophy between Reason and Revelation (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021), 371–392. 27 Wünsch, Biographie, 205.

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Jean-Sylvain Bailly.28 This and other such works promoted his name in the republic of letters, contributing to his eventual appointment at Frankfurt in 1784, where he became an active member of one of the city’s masonic lodges ‘Zum aufrichtigen Herzen.’29 One year before he took his seat, Wünsch anonymously published the highly controversial Horus under the imprint of the ‘House of Reason’, which described itself on the title page as a ‘reader for the recreation of the learned’ and a ‘memorandum [‘Denkzeddel’] for freemasons.’ It provoked many responses, including from more conventionally religious freemasons, such as the anonymous author of Etwas das Buch Horus betreffend als ein Denkzetel von einem Verehrer des Schöpfers (1786), published by the ‘Loge der Isis und des Osiris’, who wrote that it aimed at the ‘extermination not only of the whole of revealed religion but even the being of the true God.’30 Another masonic response was Die Mysterien der Ceres von Eleusis: Vertheidigt gegen die Spöttereyen des Verfassers des Horus und in dem Endzwecke ihrer Stiftung verglichen mit dem Endzwecke der Stiftung der Freymäurergesellschaft (1785), which was in fact a German translation of Antoine Court de Gébelin’s account of the Eleusinian mysteries in the fourth book of Monde primitif.31 Wünsch’s introduction to Bailly’s Astronomie ancienne reveals that the key argument on which Horus was to be built had been worked out by him some years before. Writing of St John’s Apocalypse he states that those who do not recognise its divine provenance 28 Wünsch, Esoterika, 27. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, Histoire de l’astronomie ancienne, depuis son origine jusqu’à l’établissement de l’école d’Alexandrie (Paris, 1775); Wünsch (trans.), Des Herrn Bailly Geschichte der Sternkunde des Alterthums, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1777). 29 Wünsch’s affiliation with the lodge Zum Aufrichtigen Herzen is datable from 1786, but the title page of Horus makes it certain that his familiarity with freemasonry predated his appointment at Frankfurt. See: Grathoff, Kleists Geheimnisse, 33–35. 30 [Anon.], Etwas das Buch Horus betreffend als ein Denkzetel von einem Verehrer des Schöpfers (Prague, 1786), 1. Other published responses to Horus are: Salomo Gottlob Unger, Anmerkungen über den Horus (Leipzig, 1784); Johann Balthasar Lüderwald, Vertheidigung Jesu, seiner Wunder und seiner Jünger gegen die harten Beschuldigungen des Horus (Helmstedt, 1784); Michael F. Semler, Die Hauptursachen des schnellen Einsturzes des Horus-apokalyptischen Gebäudes (Dessau, 1784); Joseph Anton Weißenbach, Der letzte Vorboth des neuen Heidenthums Horus! (Basel, 1784); E.W.v.R., Aufklärung durch das Christenthum. Als eine Zurechtweisung für den Verfasser des Horus (Berlin und Breslau, 1784); Aloys Sandbüchler, Des Horus Anmerkungen über die Propheten, Jesum und seine Jünger (Augsburg, 1785). 31 [Anon.] (trans.), Die Mysterien der Ceres von Eleusis. Vertheidigt gegen die Spöttereyen des Verfassers des Horus und in dem Endzwecke ihrer Stiftung verglichen mit dem Endzwecke der Stiftung der Freymäurergesellschaft (1785). Wünsch numbered ‘Court de Gebelain Allégories Orientales’ among his influences see: Wünsch, Horus, xxi. On Monde primitif, see: Chapter 4, pages 135–147.

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‘will perhaps, once they have read through the second volume of the present history, say: St John came across the traditions and hieroglyphics of the Egyptians; these he did not understand and applied to Christian teaching.’32 Following this statement, Wünsch proceeds to outline the various points of comparison between the Apocalypse and ancient ideas of the heavens, though conceding that such speculation should be left to the Gottesgelehrten, and adding that the author himself ‘would very much forbid it, if one wanted to draw the same conclusions out of his hypothesis.’33 This was correct: Bailly’s history of astronomy also comprehended a briefer history of astrology, the fatalism of which he negatively associated with the materialism of Hobbes and Spinoza.34 Wünsch’s own account of astrology, though similarly negative, would be put to very different purposes. Nevertheless, these comments leave no puzzle as to how he was exposed as the author of Horus.35 Horus itself is divided into five sections, the first of which expands the introductory comments in Bailly’s book, exposing the sources of the Apocalypse in the heavenly observations of the religions of ancient Egypt and the Near East. The second takes as its subject the prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament, revealing them as the corrupted teaching of the death and rebirth of Horus, the god of nature. In the third section the role of ancient Greek ethics is explored in the teachings of Jesus who, presenting himself as the Messiah, adapted them for political ends in an attempt to reform Judaism and free the Jewish people from the Romans. The final two sections, ‘Of Europe’s new Enlightenment’ and ‘Thoughts on the determination [‘Bestimmung’] of man through God’, are of a different character and move away from direct textual examination of the Bible. The fourth poses the question ‘has the world, or at least Europe, obtained culture and Enlightenment since the introduction of Christianity?’ and answers it in the negative, seeing developments in trade and technology as the engine of progress instead. Wünsch, who came from Saxony, claims that it was the silver mines of his native land that catalysed first the trade and then the cultural developments of the Italian Renaissance, which led in turn to northern-European Enlightenment. This section contributes to the argument built up in the previous ones that Christianity, with its irrational Eastern inheritances, is opposed to civilisation. In the fifth book a more detailed exposition of Wünsch’s deist viewpoint is outlined that derives the 32 33 34 35

Bailly, Geschichte der Sternkunde, Vorbericht 4–5. Bailly, Geschichte der Sternkunde, Vorbericht 6. Bailly, Astronomie ancienne, 274. The preface mentions Bailly, see: Wünsch, Horus, xxvi. See also the comments on the attribution of ‘everything astronomical’ in the book to Bailly and the rest to the ‘ancient heathens and Spinoza’ in: [Anon.], Horus betreffend, 7.

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characteristics of God from an investigation of nature.36 This likewise feeds into the broader argument about civilisation as the harmony between culture and nature, in so far as this view of religion is rooted in the rational Eleusinian mysteries, rather than their irrational Eastern counterparts. Still, Horus does present itself as a kind of mediation between those who unthinkingly accept age-old ideas and prejudices and others, such as Voltaire, who simply mock them: although the book deconstructs Christianity’s historical foundations, it maintains ideas such as the immortality of the soul. Indeed, Wünsch’s conclusion is not that all religions are false, but that all – whether Abrahamic or pagan – constitute ‘in principle indeed only one single religion’; therefore, he rejects Christian exclusivity rather than all Christian doctrine, adopting another form of the masonic universal religious tradition that encompasses a specific moral conception of Christianity within a deist framework.37 Although the latter two books are of contextual interest, the following discussion will primarily focus on the first three, which develop the idea of two varietes of the pagan mysteries, the irrational Eastern and the rational Eleusinian. Horus begins with an account of the origin of religion through human systems to mark the passing of time: first the days were set down in stone, then the lunar months, and finally the cyclical movement of the solar year was recorded. The establishment of this solar chronology was joined with the simple numerical system provided by the fingers, which led to the marking of time in decades, and then centuries. The interaction between numbers and the human body then gave rise to the development of a pictorial language with, for example, the representation of a decade by two outstretched hands. With the means of setting down more complicated observations of the heavens enabled by these symbols, it became possible to compare the events of different ages, from which arose the recognition of cycles operating on an even larger scale than that of the sun: for example, in the periodical conjunction of planets. For Wünsch, these observations are ‘Astrognosie’, in that they relate to the apparent movement of the stars as the ancients saw it, a word that should not be confused with ‘astronomy’, a science based on mathematical measurements.38 On the basis of the connection made between such cyclical movements and weather patterns, the idea was then arrived at that the heavenly bodies were 36

Kempski observes that Wünsch would not have dared to expose the insecure foundations of Christianity ‘if he could not have shown his readers a new peace of mind [‘Seelenruhe’]. Kempski, Apocalypse, 308. This is confirmed in Esoterika which describes itself in the title as ‘only for the holy governors of God on earth and considerate [‘human denkenden’] scholars, however, in no way for the people.’ 37 Wünsch, Horus, xiii. 38 Wünsch, Horus, xv.

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directed by spirits. These spirits were believed to have an influence on individual lives as well on entire nations, thereby giving birth to a system of astrology (defined as the ‘deceptive art’ of prophesying from the movements of the constellations) as well as a priesthood to regulate it.39 Regarding the fate of society at large, the knowledge of the seven planets was linked to the idea of the ages of the world, which informed the Jewish tradition of the seven days of creation. These two numbers, ten and seven, were then combined in the notion of seven ages lasting a thousand years each. This is a key aspect of Wünsch’s subsequent exposition of the Apocalypse and the other prophetic writings in the Bible, which are to him: ‘nothing, but astrological periods, whose origin is owed in part to certain natural occurrences, in part simply to the fertile imagination of the Chaldeans and Egyptians, and of the Jewish scholars, who were also infected with that plague of divination, for things of great importance, in connection with their nation …’40 The final element of the ‘astrognostical’ origin of religion is the zodiac, the signs of which play an important role in determining the details of the Apocalypse. Following the model of Pluche’s Histoire du ciel and (as will be seen below) Dupuis’ Mémoire sur l’origine des constellations, they connect to practical activities carried out at specific periods of the year.41 These observations of the heavens turned into religion proper with the transformation of the sun and moon, associated with man and woman, and nature, which was conceived of as their son, into the first deities of Egypt: Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Moses, although an inheritor of this original tradition, also had the superior conception of God as a unified spirit, but nevertheless adopted this trio into the narrative of Genesis, with the sun as God’s spirit, the moon as the waters, and ‘the begotten boy, or vegetating [‘vegetirende’] nature, esteemed as the first-born of creation, the beloved [‘holden’] son of the eternal Almighty, that is, for the light.’42 This ancient theogony is identified as the root of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Wünsch then turns to lands further East, where he identifies a form of monotheism growing up around the worship of the sun and of fire. In accordance with the sun’s alternate provision and withdrawal of subsistence, it became characterised as a god who was ‘indeed supremely benevolent, but would be sometimes also furious and wrathful’; the by turns paternal 39 40 41 42

Wünsch, Horus, xv. Wünsch, Horus, 11. See: Chapter 3, page 111. Wünsch, Horus, 21–22. Wünsch also argues that features of ancient heavenly observation and metaphysics, such as the threefold principle and the twelve signs of the zodiac, were adapted by Moses into the ‘three patriarchs’ in the former case, and Jacob’s twelve sons in the latter.

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and vengeful deity recognisable from the Old Testament.43 Since the effects of the sun were felt even in this god’s absence, ideas of his self-sufficiency and invisiblity were then formulated. This simple religion sufficed for those living a nomadic or agricultural life, but with the development of more sophisticated urban societies came the desire for more tangible gods. The priesthood took advantage of this need by deifying not just planets but the various objects of nature; this became the foundation of public polytheism. The celestial referents of the gods were concealed in symbols so as to prevent the priesthood’s deception from being found out, from which dualism arose the institution of the pagan mysteries as a means of regulating admission into true religious knowledge. In the Eastern mysteries the ‘original, wholly reasonable, teaching of the unity of God’ was retained, from which may be inferred that at their origin their content ‘was nothing other than deism.’44 But gradually this rational core was lost among the priesthood, who believed themselves to be elected by the gods to receive supernatural knowledge – analogous in Wünsch’s eyes to the many charlatans that corrupt freemasonry in his own day.45 With the transference of the mysteries to Greece and their institution at Eleusis, the core teaching of monotheism was arrived at through the independent means of philosophy, rather than the worship of the sun as a god. This puts a hierarchy between the various forms of the pagan mysteries: the Egyptian, based on the worship of heavenly bodies, and the Persian (those of the ‘ancient magicians of Babylon’ and the ‘mysteries of Mithras’) in which fire was venerated, are contrasted with the philosopical Eleusinian mysteries.46 His bias dismisses the secret teachings of the Egyptians as for the most part ‘divination and natural magic’, whilst elevating those of Greece as having indisputably concealed ‘natural religion.’47 Although the referents in each form of the mysteries were the objects and events of nature, the extrapolation from these to a conception of natural religion through philosophy was exclusive to the Greeks. Alongside monotheism, the trinitarian ‘being of generation’ was also taught at Eleusis, expressed through the symbols of male and female genitalia and the various fruits of the field, thereby echoing the original three Egyptian deities of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. The mysteries were intimately related to the events and occurrences of the heavens and nature, those ‘great books, wherein 43 Wünsch, Horus, 24. 44 Wünsch, Horus, 28. 45 Wünsch, Horus, 29. In the preface of the text, Wünsch references the scandal caused by Johann Georg Schröpfer, a charlatan who founded his own quasi-masonic lodge in Leipzig to practise séances. 46 Wünsch, Horus, 107. 47 Wünsch, Horus, 112–113.

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all nations clearly read, and are able thereof to abstract corresponding concepts’, but it was the inferior Egyptian and Persian varieties that were absorbed into Christianity through both the Jewish prophets and figures such as John the Evangelist, rather than the rational mysteries of Eleusis.48 Turning to the specifics of the Book of Revelations, Wünsch sets out his argument in a passage by passage interpretation, pointing out the ‘astrognostical’ origin of its many curious details: the Lamb of God who breaks open the book of seven seals is ‘nothing other than the Ram of the Zodiac’; the four horsemen are seen as symbols of the ages of the world; the Holy City is taken as a representation of the sky; the angel Gabriel is revealed as Mercury; and the stream emitted by the dragon at the Woman of the Apocalypse is claimed as the Milky Way.49 Venus, the most distinctive heavenly body after the sun and moon is understood as a kind of sun in miniature, which is conquered by its rays. This narrative was transformed into that of the ‘Angel of Light’, who through his pride was driven from the heavens by the ‘Allmighty’. For Wünsch, this is the root of ‘Sammael’ in the Jewish tradition, ‘Beelzebub’, ‘Satanas’, or the ‘Teufel’ in the orthodox and (in a reference that perhaps points to the intellectual influence of his benevolent Herrnhuter) in the terminology of Jacob Böhme ‘Lucifer’, a name well known to refer to the planet of love, or Venus.50 John the Evangelist drew upon these Eastern influences: as opposed to astronomy, the true mathematical observation of the heavens which leads to philosophical deism and the Eleusinian mysteries, the Book of Revelations was shaped by a mixture of ‘astrognosie’ and astrology, which led to deranged ideas about ‘the future fate of the world’ and ‘the return of his crucified master.’51 From all this evidence Wünsch draws the conclusion that the author of the Apocalypse must have either been initiated in ‘a species of the ancient mysteries’ of the Eastern variety, or was familiar with their ‘mystical form of speech’, but who equally clearly had not understood the ‘true sense’ of a rational understanding of God based on the movements of the heavens.52 The mysteries also play a role in the subsequent sections that treat the Jewish prophecy of a Messiah and its adaptation by Jesus for political purposes. Wünsch’s account of how this prophetic belief developed begins with Moses, who was inspired by the agricultural myth of Horus’ annual reawakening 48 Wünsch, Horus, 31. 49 Wünsch, Horus, 64; 67; 115; xii; 137. 50 Wünsch, Horus, 33. Wünsch also draws an analogy between the Herrnhuter teaching of ‘rebirth’ with the symbolic death and resurrection motif in the mysteries, see: Wünsch, Horus, 44. 51 Wünsch, Horus, 34. 52 Wünsch, Horus, 41.

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from his slumber to make a prediction of a future hero for the Jews; though, importantly this was a worldly king, not one who ruled over the afterlife since (nodding to Warburton’s Divine Legation) this doctrine is absent from the Old Testament. For Wünsch, the Egyptian sources of Judaism cast doubt upon the whole biblical genealogy from Abraham to David. Furthermore, if God’s law in the Old Testament is revealed as a product of human thought, then there is no obstacle to thinking of Jesus as a man; but even without this explanation, reason cannot allow ‘that God could have become man and suffered.’ Wünsch does not go so far as to deny the historical existence of Jesus, though, who he acknowledges as a man of ‘excellent intellectual abilities [‘Geistesfähigkeiten’].’53 But the substance of his moral teachings – barring some of his more contradictory utterances – are identified as having been predominantly drawn from the ethics of Socrates and Plato, which are in accordance with ‘the true natural religion.’54 The background influence of Greek philosophy and the political situation of the Jews’ subjugation led Jesus not just to reform Jewish doctrines, but to present himself as the promised Messiah to harness religiously inspired energy to rebel against the Romans. Similar to his interpretation of John the Evangelist, Wünsch argues that certain statements by Jesus also suggest his knowledge of the astrological traditions rooted in Egypt and Persia, in particular the influence of the Mithraic mysteries. This is particularly evident in the practice of baptism, which corresponds with the ‘secretive teaching’ of the ‘baptism and rebirth of the initiation’ taught in the mysteries of Mithras.55 The division in the category of the pagan mysteries enacted by Wünsch cemented a trend that had been developing over the course of the eighteenth century, one through which the gradual transformation of masonic thought may be traced. Influenced by the diffusionist or corruption model of the history of Christianity inherited ultimately from the early Church Fathers, freemasons of the first half of the eighteenth century such as William Stukeley and Andrew Michael Ramsay had usurped the Judaic tradition prior to Moses with the claim that the Hebrew patriarchs were effectively Christians, the vestiges of whose worship was evident in the mysteries and contemporary masonic ritual. In the second half of the eighteenth century, freemasons such as Starck and Sept-Chênes abandoned this form of Christianisation of the biblical patriarchs, viewing them as culturally primitive, and instead identified a Christian essence within the Eleusinian mysteries that they characterised as ‘deism’ or an ‘intellectual theology’, but which had evolved into Christianity over time. 53 Wünsch, Horus, 246–247. 54 Wünsch, Horus, 260. 55 Wünsch, Horus, 289.

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Others, such as Court de Gébelin, had also acknowledged primitive deism, but aligned (Reformed) Christianity to it through their shared social role. Wünsch adopts aspects of these arguments but advances a new way of separating Christianity from deism: the pagan mysteries of ancient Egypt and the Near East, rooted in ‘astrognosy’ and astrology, influenced first Judaism and then Christianity, and are opposed to civilisation, as defined through the harmony between culture and nature. By contrast, the Greek mysteries of Eleusis were rational and based on astronomy, features which led to philosophical deism and consequently civilisation. Although in some ways Wünsch remained aware of the complex ways that these two strands interacted, for instance in the mixture of Greek ethics and Eastern Mithraism in the intellectual background of Jesus, in broader terms his argument may be viewed as hardening the borders of what became, in Peter Harrison’s phrase, ‘the territories of science and religion’, with astronomy connected to the former and astrology the latter.56 This kind of split would have winners and losers in the nineteenth century: the ancient Greeks and the modern Jews. 2

The Elysium of Reason: Charles-François Dupuis

Like Jérôme Lalande, who as a young man had impressed Frederick the Great when sent to Berlin in 1751 to observe the parallax of the moon, Dupuis was noticed early on in his life for his intellectual capabilities; and, had Frederick the Great not died, he would have taken up a professorial chair in Berlin.57 Born at Trie-Château to the north-east of Paris, he was taught mathematics and surveying by his father, a poor schoolmaster, but received a place at the Collège d’Harcourt on the recommendation of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who recognised his potential when he discovered the boy using trigonometry to measure the height of an old tower.58 In this respect, Dupuis’ biography may be compared with that of Wünsch, whose mathematical knowledge likewise led to a dramatic change in fortune. His progress was such that by 56 Peter Harrison, The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press, 2015), 3. 57 John Watkins, The Universal Biographical Dictionary (London, 1821), 1102. On Lalande’s trip to Berlin see: Hélène Monod-Cassidy, “Un astronome-philosophe, Jérôme Lalande,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 56 (1967): 907–930. See also: Jean-Baptiste Delambre, Histoire de l’astronomie au dix-huitième siècle (Paris: Bachelier, 1827), 547–621. 58 Jed Z. Buchwald & Diane Greco Josefowicz, The Zodiac of Paris: How an Improbable Controversy over an Ancient Egyptian Artifact Provoked a Modern Debate between Religion and Science (Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, 2010), 47.

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the age of twenty-four he secured an appointment as a professor of rhetoric at the Collège de Lisieux. Not content to rest on his academic laurels, he turned to the study of the law and was appointed as a parliamentary advocate in 1770; this background made him useful in the role he played in the French Revolution as a member of the National Convention, and then the Council of Five Hundred.59 Dupuis’ insight into the astronomical origins of myth in the course of his lessons with Lalande was an intellectual turning point in his life, which he developed in a series of essays featured in the Journal des Savans and the Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, before collecting and publishing them as Mémoire sur l’origine des constellations. Lalande thought highly enough of this production to include it in the fourth volume of the expanded 1781 edition of his Astronomie.60 After the publication of Origine de tous les cultes. Ou, religion universelle (1795), Lalande and Dupuis were connected on account of their ‘open profession of atheism’ by the Baron de Sainte-Croix, who also wrote on the subject of the mysteries, sharing with Dupuis an interest in their supposedly Neo-Platonic metaphysical structure.61 If it is not possible to say with certainty that Dupuis was himself a freemason, he was at least a close associate with Lalande, one of the most significant figures in French freemasonry, and made references to freemasonry in Origine.62 In broader terms, though, his thought may be connected to the reinvention of religion under the rubric of reason in the French Revolution, much of which was based around the project of a new republican calendar.63 In the early stages of his intellectual development, Dupuis was influenced by Antoine Court de Gébelin’s physiocratic interpretation of myth as an allegory of agriculture, describing himself as among those ‘who are persuaded that astronomy is born of the needs of man, and that it is related to the work of 59 60 61

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On Dupuis’ connection both to antiquarian studies and the French Revolution see: Dan Edelstein (ed.), The Super-Enlightenment: Daring to Know Too Much (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2010), 227–232. Jérôme Lalande, Astronomie, 4 vols (Paris, 1764–1781). Maria Stefania Montecalvo, Guillaume-Emmanuel-Joseph Guilhem de Clermont-Lodève, baron de Sainte-Croix (1746–1809): carteggio e biografia, 2 vols (Firenze: Edizioni Gonnelli, 2014), 1:218; 1:228. Sainte-Croix, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la religion secrète des anciens peuples, ou Recherches historiques et critiques sur les mystères du paganisme (Paris, 1784). As an analogy with the pagan mysteries on the basis of the attraction of secrecy, see: Dupuis, Origine, 4:388–389; and referring to freemasonry as re-establishing the ‘celestial Jerusalem’ by means of virtue: Dupuis, Origine; 3:301; 3:350. Sanja Perović, The Calendar in Revolutionary France: Perceptions of Time in Literature, Culture, Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988).

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agricultural nations.’64 The connection between the two was also recognised by others: in the introduction to his 1789 translation of a section of Monde primitif, the German head of the Illuminatenorden Adam Weishaupt wrote that it and Mémoire sur l’origine des constellations represented a ‘harmonious whole.’65 For Dupuis, all astronomical systems proceeded from an unknown but common source, consequently his aim was to establish exactly which ancient civilisation gave birth both to astronomy and agriculture. The clue for how to achieve this was a passage in Macrobius’ Saturnalia that he believed made a powerful case for the idea that the signs of the zodiac were ‘a symbol of the march and the effects of the sun’ with, for example, the sideways movement of the crab in the sign of Cancer representative of retrograde motion, and the scales of Libra a clear reference to the balance of day and night on the equinox.66 In addition, he affirmed that agriculture (the ‘practical’ branch of astronomy) could explain other zodiacal figures with, for example, Taurus as an unequivocal sign for the time of ploughing. To discover in which civilisation astronomy had its origins all that was needed was to match the climate and agricultural practices of each nation to the guide provided by the heavens. The answer was to be found in the country where the times of tilling, sowing, and harvesting matched with the order of the zodiac, though allowing for the change rendered by the precession of the equinox. The result of his investigation was clear and pointed directly to ancient Egypt and an age that far exceeded that which was ‘fixed by our chronologists for the creation of the world.’67 Dupuis employed effectively the same argument as Noël-Antoine Pluche, who had used the same logic though without taking the precession of the equinoxes into account, and for whom the answer was to be found on the plains of Shinar and Noah.68 The second part of the Mémoire sur l’origine des constellations used this astronomical tool to expose the fables of the ancient world as poetic embellishments of ‘celestial appearances and the phenomena of nature.’69 The idea that the gods were derived from the heavens remained central to Dupuis’ later thought, but in Origine it was combined with another claim: that 64 Dupuis, Mémoire des constellations, 4. On Dupuis as a follower of Court de Gébelin see: Edelstein, Super-Enlightenment, 223. 65 Adam Weishaupt (trans.), Saturn, Mercur, und Hercules, drey morgenländische Allegorien, aus dem Französischen des Herren Court de Gebelin mit einer Vorrede begleitet von Adam Weishaupt, Herzoglich Sachsen Gothaischen Hofrath (Regensburg, 1789), xvi. 66 Dupuis, Mémoire des constellations, 6. Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.21.23: ‘What else does the Crab [Cancer] represent with its slantwise gait but the path of the sun …’ 67 Dupuis, Mémoire des constellations, 72. For a fuller explanation of Dupuis’ process of reasoning, see: Buchwald & Josefowicz, Zodiac of Paris, 54–62. 68 See: Chapter 3, page 111. 69 Dupuis, Mémoire des constellations, 74–228.

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the gods ‘are the children of men … I believe, with Hesiod, that the earth produced the sky.’70 The view of religion as a product of the human mind would eventually be applied by him to Christianity as well as paganism, but this conclusion would not find expression until many years later, requiring nothing less than the convulsion of the French Revolution to create an atmosphere safe enough for publication. The long period of gestation between the roots of Origine in the late 1770s and its publication in 1795 are manifest in the size of the work: seven volumes each proudly emblazoned with the words ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité’ and with the date inscribed as the third year of the republic. The place of the mysteries in Dupuis’ account has received little attention from modern commentators, but it is pivotal. Following the origins of knowledge in nature, which was allegorised in myth, the transformation of myth into religion occurred through the mysteries in the teaching of the afterlife.71 Dupuis did not distinguish between the varieties of the mysteries on account of their sharing this core content. Although the institution began as beneficial to society, its otherwordly doctrines ultimately became manipulated and corrupted for political gain by the priesthood. Like Wünsch, therefore, Dupuis makes a split in the mysteries, though one based on chronology rather than geography: the mysteries were a transitional phase between the primitive worship of nature and the corrupted form of religion that developed into Christianity. But before proceeding with a detailed examination of Dupuis’ view of the mysteries, it is useful to first hear him on his methodological premises, which are set out in the preface to the first volume. In this introductory text Dupuis presents himself at once as philosopher, historian, and citizen; addressing each of these guises and the relationship between them helps position his overall argument. The philosophical foundations of Origine are unambiguously empirical. Knowledge is derived from the senses, whose ‘empire’ precedes ‘the works of reflection.’72 Just as an investigation into the origins of knowledge in the human mind must be based on this principle, so too must its first historical emergence have been defined by it. This entails the conclusion that primitive humankind must have derived an understanding of nature and God not from ‘metaphysical abstractions’, such as the ontological argument for God’s existence, but from direct observation of the forces of the physical world.73 Dupuis’ empirical stance as a philosopher thus informs his historical ambit. But so too does his 70 Dupuis, Origine, 1:xiii. 71 Jonathan Z. Smith gives a brief overview of this process, see: Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 31–35. 72 Dupuis, Origine, 1:xv. 73 Dupuis, Origine, 1:xv.

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identity as a historian define the boundaries of his philosophical enquiry: it is at the point at which the spirit of abstraction separates ‘the divine, intelligence, and the life of the world’ from the world itself in the creation of metaphysics, in other words, from an object that can be tackled from the perspective of history, that his inquiry finishes.74 One of the outcomes of these principles is that the origins of religion in revelation cannot by definition be true: rather than pointing to reason’s encounter with God-as-nature at the creation, the messy fusion of ideas in religious thought betrays an all-too-human origin, the organic product ‘of curiosity, of ignorance, of interest and imposture.’75 It is only when wearing his Phrygian cap as a citizen of the new French republic that these facets of Dupuis’ thought are united: Is there a God? What is the soul? And, if so, is it immortal? On such questions the author of Origine is silent, stating that this is partly because their answers are perfectly clear to him, and partly because it is not his place as a historian to advance metaphysical opinions, since they would be of no use to his fellow citizens. Instead, he leaves problems of this kind to the council of the general view of mankind, mindful only of the effect of the answers in fortifying ‘moral bonds and the law’ and in rendering ‘man better.’76 In short, religion’s usefulness is defined only by its contribution to civilised society. From the empirical position that ‘all our ideas come to us from the senses’, the origins of knowledge – and thereby religion – are to be found in nature itself, which taken as a totality presents itself as the ‘the great idea of a universal cause or God’: pantheism, an assertion supported through examples drawn from across the globe: in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.77 Then, following humankind’s first pantheistic vision of nature as God, the second most striking ‘spectacle’ was the eternal ‘succession of the days and nights.’78 This division in the universe was comprehended as active and passive forces and expressed itself as a marriage between heaven and earth, from which was born the ‘the genealogy of the gods.’ The parents of the gods – light and dark, heaven and earth – in the course of time transformed into the two principles that form 74 75 76 77

Dupuis, Origine, 1:xxv. Dupuis, Origine, 1:xiii. Dupuis, Origine, 1:xii–xiii. Dupuis, Origine, 1:xviii. In this respect, Dupuis counters David Hume and Charles de Brosses, who both used comparable empirical reasoning to argue for primitive polytheism, see: Hume, Four Dissertations. I. The Natural History of Religion. II. Of the Passions. III. Of Tragedy. IV. Of the Standard of Taste (London, 1757); and de Brosses, Du culte des dieux fétiches ou Parallèle de l’ancienne religion de l’Egypte avec la religion actuelle de Nigritie (Paris, 1760). 78 Dupuis, Origine, 1:xxi.

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‘the basis of all religions’: God and the Devil.79 Building upon these fundamental principles, the theatre of nature as expressed in the heavens gave rise to a multitude of mythological narratives, all of which adapted the movements of celestial bodies into the dramatic exploits of the gods. So, for example, the movement of the sun is expressed variously in the figures of Osiris, Bacchus, Hercules, and Theseus. This is the main thrust of the first three volumes, which cover in minute detail the origins of religion in the apprehension of nature as God, then the creation of myth in the allegorical transformation of nature’s attributes into the gods. It is only in the fourth volume that an account of the historical origins and development of the mysteries is given, which is identified as the moment at which religion in an institutional sense begins, and at which point it departs from empirical knowledge and therefore the grounds of civilisation. On account of their being the pivot in the transformation from the ‘religion’ of nature to the otherworldly religion of Christianity, Origine has a somewhat paradoxical approach to the mysteries that encompasses two tendencies, both positive and negative. Looking backward, they were an institution which promoted virtue, ‘fortifying piety’ and ‘consoling mankind’, thereby having a beneficial effect on early societies.80 But looking forward, this original promotion of virtue became corrupted as the teaching of an afterlife in the mysteries became increasingly manipulated by priests. For Dupuis, the initiates sought to ‘purify their soul from the passions, which harm the happiness of each man in particular, and of society in general, and to develop the germ of all social virtues.’81 Following Warburton, these virtues were instructed through the doctrine of a future state, the ‘fiction of Elysium and Tartarus’, which was envisaged as a means of intimidating vice and encouraging virtue, and thereby placing individual morality as the basis of the laws of society.82 The exact origins of this doctrine are conceded as obscure, with Dupuis vaguely gesturing towards the sanctuaries of ancient mystagogues, but it certainly became more openly taught by poets and philosophers who recognised its value for society at large.83 For example, works such as Plato’s Phaedo and Virgil’s Aeneid contain the motif of two gates, one to Elysium and the other to Tartarus, through which Minos, Aeacus, Rhadamanthus, and the Eleusinian prince Triptolemus

79 80 81 82 83

Dupuis, Origine, 1:xxiv. Dupuis, Origine, 4:12. Dupuis, Origine, 4:429. Dupuis, Origine, 4:477. Dupuis, Origine, 4:430.

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separated and consigned the virtuous and the wicked.84 This tradition was adopted by Christians – those ‘miserable plagiarists’ – in the form of the Last Judgement.85 Like Wünsch, Dupuis highlights the role of John the Evangelist in transferring the doctrines of the afterlife contained in the mysteries to Christianity: This theological fiction of the voyage of the souls, who descend from heaven to the earth, and who afterwards go up from the earth across heaven, was not particular to the philosophers; it was put on show in the sanctuaries, and it made a part of the dogmas of initiation, as we will soon see in the mysteries of Mithras, in the vision of Apuleius, and the autopsy of John, otherwise the Apocalypse. The fiction of Plato, the revelation of Er of Pamphylia, and that of John, or that of a Phrygian hierophant, have the same moral aim, as the apologies of the Phrygian Aesop, that of forming men to the good and to inspire them with the love of virtue and the fear of vice.86 Christianity has no claim to uniqueness: it had the same goal as the mysteries of teaching ‘a great moral truth’ through ‘the veil of a great fable.’87 But in contrast to Wünsch, the doctrine of the afterlife is seen as having extremely dangerous consequences. Maintaining belief in such marvellous and horrific fictions required social engineering from an early age; it was passed on from ‘credulous mothers’ to their children, and was enforced in the cultural context of poetry and philosophy as well as the religious one of the mysteries.88 The faith that was required of the initiates to believe in such fantastical stories leads Dupuis to counter-balance some of his more positive views of their promotion of virtue, stating that their ultimate legacy is one of superstitious fear. Another negative legacy of the afterlife was purgatory, which supplied the theological foundations for the political power of priests. Purgatory provided a gap in which the absolute consequences of moral conduct, which led directly to either Elysium or Tartarus, could be diluted through bargaining with temporal intercessors, whose prayers could be bought to secure a favourable treatment by God. Therefore, although the dogmas of the afterlife taught through ‘the imposture of initiation’ might have remained a harmless fiction had they 84 Dupuis, Origine, 4:439. Triptolemus is included as one of the judges of the afterlife in: Plato, Apology 41A; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.98. 85 Dupuis, Origine, 4:447. 86 Dupuis, Origine, 4:449–450. 87 Dupuis, Origine, 4:451. 88 Dupuis, Origine, 4:455.

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remained directed by virtuous men, in reality they had been abducted by rogues who ‘only sought to acquire power and riches.’89 Transferred into the Christian era, this was the foundation of the immense power and wealth accumulated by the Church.90 The paradoxical relationship developed by Dupuis, which recognises some of the benefits of religious falsehoods in developing society, whilst judging them to have ultimately resulted in mental bondage, is reflected upon in the following passage: If religion has contributed to civilise savage nations, the refinement of religion has contributed to corrupt [‘denature’] civilised nations. If it was by religion that the first societies were formed, then by religion also were formed more anti-social institutions; and man was degraded by the supposed [‘prétendue’] perfection that was thought to result from the means originally used to perfect his nature.91 For Dupuis, it is with precisely the same rope by which humankind pulled itself out of its primitive state that it is now bound, an argument in the tradition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (1755): that the development of society entailed the subjugation of liberty.92 The only way out of this bind is through the exercise of reason: by recognising the illegitimate historical foundations on which the Christian religion is built, humankind is able to pursue intellectual – and thereby actual – emancipation. The birth of religion was the first step away from the arbitrary violence of the ‘savage’ state, but it ultimately involved exchange to a system that abnegates essential human characteristics, prizing unnatural ‘virtues’ such as celibacy and the pointless rumination of prayer found in cloistered life. These Christian values, those of the supposedly ‘refined’ stage of religion, are proved as inherently false on account of their inutility: humankind would have been completely unable to rise out of its natural state had it originally followed such unnatural, life-denying practices. Christianity is, therefore, fundamentally opposed to civilisation. The task of civilised life is to rise to the challenge of living in accordance with the bidding of the rational faculty, to which the fictions of the afterlife are initially necessary, but ultimately 89 90 91 92

Dupuis, Origine, 4:473. Dupuis, Origine, 4:471. Dupuis, Origine, 4:486. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the origins of inequality (second discourse) (Hanover & London: University Press of New England, 1992).

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superfluous externalisations of a fundamental truth: ‘It is up to the conscience of the honest man to recompense his virtues, and to that of the guilty to punish his crimes. There you have it: the true Elysium, the true Tartarus, created by Nature herself.’93 Having established Dupuis’ view of the mysteries from moral, social, and political perspectives, it remains to investigate how he saw them as having also taught a ‘metaphysical’ system of an immortal soul, without which the doctrine of rewards and punishment would have no foundation, as well as a cosmological system of the universe: ‘in a word: man and the universe; there is the great spectacle that was given to the initiates.’94 His account draws on the Neo-Platonic analogy between initiation and the purification and release of the soul from the corrupted realm of matter, following the tradition of figures such as Proclus who wrote in his Commentary on Plato’s Republic: ‘the mysteries and sacred rites lead souls up from the enmattered and mortal form of life and connect them to the gods.’95 But Dupuis put a materialist spin on the ancients’ views of psychology: Metaphysics, if one can call a theory of a material soul metaphysical, found itself related to morality, since morality belongs to the soul; and it was related in turn to the physical, and to the entire universe, since the soul was part of the universal substance, and was its most beautiful portion, the purest, and the most luminous.96 Dupuis adopts the emanationist Neo-Platonic idea of the human soul as being a part of the world-soul of God, but conceives of this in a purely materialistic manner, retaining the relationship only to explain how the moral aspects of human life relate to the universe. The soul was not thought by the ancients to be ‘an abstract being’, rather it was conceived of as ‘a very real and material being’, the seat of activity and the faculty of thought; a substance identified as the driving force in animals and the world in general.97 Alongside this they also acknowledged a lifeless and inert substance, but the dualism set out here is not between spirit and matter, it is rather of active and passive principles 93 Dupuis, Origine, 4:525. See also the use of similar imagery: Dupuis, Origine, 4:431. Compare with: Volney, The Ruins, 15: ‘Man is governed, like the world of which he forms a part, by natural laws, regular in their operation … they act upon the senses, inform the intellect, and annex to every action its punishment and reward.’ 94 Dupuis, Origine, 4:561. 95 Proclus, Commentary on Plato’s Republic 6.75.5. 96 Dupuis, Origine, 4:530. 97 Dupuis, Origine, 4:531–532.

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within the material. According to Dupuis, this was the most widely accepted belief in the ancient world, although drawn ultimately from the mysteries of the East.98 In these contexts, it was interpreted as leading to the doctrine of metempsychosis, which was regarded as a system of rewards and punishments, blending with the mysteries through the notion that the soul could not enter Elysium until it had been embodied in three justly lived lives. Central to Dupuis’ ideas on the cosmological teachings of the mysteries is the symbol of the ‘mystic egg’, which had emerged out of a primitive chaos in which active and passive forces were mixed, shaping itself into the spherical form of the universe with the sun-God at its centre; like an incubating egg, the sun organised the rest of nature through its movement and warmth.99 Transferred from Egypt to Greece by Orpheus, this cosmology was taught by the hierophant to the Eleusinian initiates, explaining Clement of Alexandria’s description of the greater mysteries, in which ‘nothing remains to be learned of the universe, but only to contemplate and comprehend nature and things.’100 The two macrocosmic principles in the universe, active and passive, that were expressed in the movement of this ovate sun were also linked to the microcosm of man: ‘the generative faculty of the great world’ was ‘expressed through the generative organs of the little world, or that of man.’101 This explanation exposes the shortsightedness of the Church Fathers’ view of the licentious impiety of the Eleusinian mysteries: the sexual content in fact had a cosmological significance.102 It was these two struggling principles that were the basis for ‘Ahura Mazda and Ahriman among the Persians, Osiris and Typhon among the Egyptians, God and the Devil among the Jews and Christians’; expressed in the context of the Eleusinian mysteries in the mythic narrative of Persephone’s time split between the world and the underworld, as well as in their rituals in ‘the successive scenes of darkness and light’ described in both a passage contained in Stobaeus’ Florilegium and by Dio Chrysostom.103 This basic celestial narrative, the alternation of light and dark caused by the sun’s movement through the heavens, was transformed in the most sacred part of the mysteries into the allegorical history of the principle of light, in the Greek context in the 98 On the Stoic idea of an immanent corporeal spirit see: Michael J. White, “Stoic Natural Philosophy (Physics and Cosmology),” in Brad Inwood (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 129. 99 Dupuis, Origine, 4:561. 100 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.11. 101 Dupuis, Origine, 4:570. 102 Dupuis, Origine, 4:569. On the Church Fathers’ view of the sexual nature of the Eleusinian mysteries, see: Introduction, note 12. 103 Dupuis, Origine, 4:576–578; 581. Stobaeus, Florilegium 119. Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 12.34.

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person of Bacchus, son of Demeter: ‘in this sanctuary was given the spectacle of the passion, the death and the resurrection of Bacchus, whose infant image was exposed to the eyes of the initiates, at the time of the 25th of December.’104 Dupuis bases this view on the same passage from Macrobius’ Saturnalia that likens the various forms of Bacchus to the sun used by William Stukeley over fifty years before: ‘[Bacchus/the sun] is very small at the winter solstice, like the image the Egyptians bring out from its shrine on a fixed date, with the appearance of a small infant, since it’s the shortest day.’105 Where for Stukeley the deities and solar symbolism in the pagan mysteries were vestiges of the religion of the patriarchs, for Dupuis the reverse was the case: Christianity was a vestige of the solar-religion of paganism. As this and the previous two chapters have shown, the process by which the chronological reversal in the origin and genealogy of religions was brought about was largely enacted by French and German authors, and it is telling that their influence on British thinkers was limited to the exiled revolutionary philosopher Thomas Paine, an associate of Dupuis, who explicitly links the continental discourse back to the context of freemasonry. In the text ‘Origin of Free-Masonry’, Paine writes: The Christian religion and masonry have one and the same common origin, both are derived from the worship of the sun, the difference between their origins is, that the Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the sun …106 As mentioned above, it is not known for certain whether Dupuis was himself a freemason, but Paine’s use of his ideas in a masonic context once again demonstrates the deep correlation between the history of religion and conceptions of freemasonry in the Enlightenment period. In spite of Paine’s nationality, though, his adaptation of Dupuis’ ideas should not be taken as implicating the 104 Dupuis, Origine, 4:597. 105 Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.18.7–10. The connection between Bacchus and the sun is also found in Julius Firmicus Maternus, see: Maternus, Errors 7.7. On Stukeley’s use of this passage, see: Chapter 2, page 78. 106 Thomas Paine, An Essay on the Origin of Freemasonry (London, 1818), 5. On the publication history of the text see: Moncure Daniel Conway (ed.), The Writings of Thomas Paine, 4 vols (London, 1899), 4:290. On the Illuminist influence on this text, in particular that of Nicholas de Bonneville, see: Jack Fruchtman, Jr., Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom (New York, N.Y.: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1994), 379–383.

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entire institution of English freemasonry. The distinction between continental radicalism and English conservatism was acknowledged by even the age’s most vocal critic of the movement, the Jesuit abbé Augustin de Barruel, a proponent of the conspiracy theory that freemasons caused the French Revolution.107 The reception of the Eleusinian mysteries in the eighteenth century has shown that the question of freemasonry’s relationship to the Enlightenment must take into account that even if the basic structure of the institution and its rituals remained a relative constant in the period, their meaning was ambiguous enough to invite radically different interpretations. These mirrored the profound transformations in the understanding of the history of religion that had occurred in the century, in which the framework of a so-called ‘rise of modern paganism’ must be balanced by the project of rewriting the ancient history of Christianity. 107 Abbé Barruel, Memoirs, Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, 4 vols (London, 1797–1798), 2:263. On Barruel see: Michel Riquet, Augustin de Barruel: un jésuite face aux Jacobins franc-maçons: 1741–1820 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1989); and Sylva Schaeper-Wimmer, Augustin de Barruel, S. J. (1741–1820): Studien zu Biographie und Werk (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1985). On the origins of the theory of a masonic influence on the French Revolution see: Claus Oberhauser, Die verschwörungs-theoretische Trias: Barruel-Robinson-Starck (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2013).

Conclusion

Divided Testaments

The Christian conception of history that emerged in late antiquity was the product of the project of binding the New Testament to the Old. This book has explored the ramifications of the loosening of those bonds in eighteenthcentury Britain, France, and Germany, which resulted in the reorientation of the historiography of religion towards an alternative source, the pagan mysteries, in particular those of Eleusis. This, in turn, resulted in the articulation of a reversal in the genealogy of religions. A story that had begun with Christianity, whether through the hermeneutical strategy of typology or through various theories of the diffusion of a prior revelation, now ended with it, and began instead with paganism. Although this transformation may be located in a specific debate of the seventeenth century, that of the Egyptian influence on Judaism, the thinkers addressed in the eighteenth demonstrate the many phases of negotiation that took place between Judaeo-Christian and pagan heritages. Precisely because of their ambiguity, which combined objectionable ritual with uncomfortably familiar points of doctrine, the Eleusinian mysteries catalysed a process of self-reflection in Christian thought upon both practice and belief, and became an increasingly effective weapon in the hands of those who sought to undermine the uniqueness of Christianity. At the end of the seventeenth century, the pagan mysteries were a key point of reference in the Trinitarian controversy as the vehicle by which primitive Christianity had been corrupted. They also provided a model through which to understand the grounding of rational religion in the historical figure of Jesus; analogous to the pagan mysteries, revelation contained a reasonable interior. Such an approach represented a radical departure from the trans-historical view of Christ’s significance upheld by trinitarians, allowing for the traditional function of the Old Testament as a historical, cultural, and religious progenitor to be discarded. But the mysteries could also play a more traditional apologetic role: in their combination of abhorrent idolatry and quasi-Christian beliefs, they lent themselves to placement as the point at which the Adamic revelation, passed down through the biblical patriarchs, had been corrupted. It was through this proto-Christian identity that the mysteries took on wider cultural significance in the context of early English freemasonry, providing a historical model on which a circumscribed religious tolerance could be founded. The intellectual culture of freemasonry in the first half of the century did not look forward to a kind of modern paganism based on the pantheistic physical beliefs

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of ancient philosophers, it harked back to an ideal of ancient Christianity. This masonic Christian universalism was all-embracing enough (and, perhaps, ill-defined enough) to attract people from all manner of sectarian backgrounds across Europe. The context of a division between Old and New Testaments is most evident in the pivotal figure of this book, William Warburton, who combined the problem posed for Christianity of the absence of an afterlife in Judaism with an investigation of the political function of religion in the form of the Eleusinian mysteries. But to emerge from the shadow of the Old Testament, it was necessary to reconsider the myth upon which the mysteries of Eleusis were structured. In its relationship to narratives of the origin of civilisation, the myth of Demeter and Persephone offered new perspectives by which to consider the place of religion in ancient society, as well as its role in having formed it. Although these purposes were first conceived by defenders of Christianity, the attempt to make sacred and secular history compatible proved to be an unstable resolution, as authors with quite different intentions repurposed the arguments of the apologists and turned them against them, creating in the process an account of the origin of civilisation based on primitive fear of the natural world. Although the genealogical reversal that resulted in the assertion of the priority of paganism would seem, by the logic of the early Church Fathers, to pose a fundamental problem for the truth of Christianity, this was not necessarily the case in the second half of the eighteenth century. By identifying points of Christian doctrinal and ritual content in the mysteries, a number of authors in the latter half of the century aimed to reconcile paganism and Christianity, arguing that the former contained a seed which had grown into the latter. Significantly, among those who made this argument were numerous freemasons, demonstrating that the characterisation of the masonic lodge in this period as a kind of deist or pantheist temple needs to be qualified with those contemporaries who took a more conciliatory approach. By associating that Christian seed with deism or an intellectual theology based on astronomical observation, a division was created in the category of the mysteries based on their relationship to nature. Consequently, true religion – or true civilisation – was founded on a mathematical or empirical relationship to nature, and false on the anthropomorphisation of its appearances. This split became racialised in the form of the ancient Greeks and the Jews. By commencing with John Toland and the post-revolutionary context of England in the 1690s and ending with Charles-François Dupuis and the postrevolutionary context of France in the 1790s, the trajectory of this book might superficially appear similar to the secularising narratives of the Enlightenment formulated by Peter Gay, Jonathan Israel, and others, which seek

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political consequences to radical ideas. But in describing how the transformation occurred between these two points, the aim has been to undermine the idea of a battle between two separate entities, philosophy and religion in the guise of paganism and Christianity, in which the former somehow defeated the latter. Instead, through their ambiguous relationship to Christianity, the reception of the mysteries demonstrates the instability of such oppositional concepts in the eighteenth century. The fluidity of the borders of these concepts likewise indicates the problem of characterising the Enlightenment through a simplistic division between radicals and moderates, as also argued by Israel. Attention to the variety of approaches to the Eleusinian mysteries has shown the many ways in which Christianity and paganism, religion and philosophy, could be combined, and how an internal process within religious thought resulted, paradoxically, in a secular outcome. These characteristics do not, though, straightforwardly include the present argument among the various religious Enlightenments that have been mapped out in the historiography of the last twenty years. Whilst concurring with this body of scholarship in the recognition of the fundamental importance of an understanding of religion and theology in treating the thought of the period, this book has bypassed the debates about which figures with religious affiliations count as enlightened or not. Instead, it has focused on how a diverse range of thinkers contributed to a profound change in European ideas about the concept and history of religion, one that is a precondition of modernity, and which was expressed through a reconsideration of its social, cultural, and political roles in ancient Greece. Dupuis’ claim that the original pantheistic religion of humankind had corrupted through the Eleusinian mysteries to become Christianity is the concluding point of this book, but it was by no means the end of the debate. Reasons for why it did not prove to be the silver bullet for Christianity that Dupuis might have wished may be considered in two contrasting responses: that of the English unitarians Joseph Priestley and John Prior Estlin, and that of the German Idealist philosophers G.W.F. Hegel and F.W.J. Schelling, for both of whom the Trinity expressed the core philosophical value of Christianity. In ‘Remarks on M. Dupuis’s Origin of All Religions’, Priestley argues that it fails to discriminate between the varieties of Christianity, taking it ‘for granted that all Christians [are] Trinitarians.’1 Likewise, Estlin argues that Dupuis ‘confounds Popery with Christianity’ and ‘so the Christianity which he supposes to be a branch of the worship of the Sun, consists chiefly, if not altogether, of doctrines and of ceremonies, for which there is no foundation in the new 1 Joseph Priestley, The Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Priestley, 25 vols (London, 1817–1831), 17:320–331.

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testament [sic].’2 Where Dupuis sought to establish a pagan pedigree, Priestley attempted in works such as Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit (1777) and An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782) to separate negative pagan influences such as the doctrines of an immaterial soul and the Trinity from what he believed to be Christ’s original teaching, which included a materialist version of a resurrection at the end of days.3 Priestley and Estlin’s strategy was to defend Christianity by creating a division within the category and to argue that Origine only applied to the elements that were not truly Christian anyway. The alternative developed by Hegel and Schelling, contained in Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion (delivered in various versions between 1821– 1831) and Philosophie der Offenbarung (lectures delivered in 1841–1842) respectively, was to subsume pantheism (in the former case) and Sabaism (in the latter) as merely the first stage in an evolutionary history of religion, one which progressed through the pagan mysteries and reached its pinnacle in Christianity.4 In the second part of the 1824 lecture series on ‘Determinate Religion’, Hegel questions the premise of Tertullian’s logic that the priority of a religion confers truth upon it, one shared also by Dupuis, arguing instead that ‘nature religion is the lowest level, the most imperfect and thus the first.’5 With reference to the resurrection theme of the Phoenician festival of Adonis, another instance of the use of Julius Firmicus Maternus as a source, Hegel allows that on one level this signifies ‘a natural process’ as Wünsch and Dupuis had done, but also claims that it should be taken ‘symbolically as denoting a moment of God, as denoting the absolute generally’; in this respect it represents a prefiguration of Christ.6 This becomes clearer in Hegel’s view of the meaning of the myth of Demeter and Persephone, which has both the ‘prosaic’ 2 John Prior Estlin, The Nature and Causes of Atheism … To which are added, Remarks on a Work, entitled Origine de tous les cultes, ou Religion Universelle. Par Dupuis, Citoyen François (Bristol, 1797), 45–46. 3 Joseph Priestley, Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit. To which is added, The History of the Philosophical Doctrine concerning the Origin of the Soul, and the Nature of Matter; with its influence on Christianity, especially with Respect to the Doctrine of the Pre-existence of Christ (London, 1777); Priestley, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, 2 vols (Birmingham, 1782). 4 Peter C. Hodgson (trans.), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, 3 vols (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1984). For Hegel’s reference to Dupuis, see: Hegel, Philosophy of Religion, 2:471. Karl Friedrich August Schelling (ed.), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schellings Sämmtliche Werke. Zweite Abtheilung. Dritter Band (Stuttgart & Augsburg: J.G. Cotta’scher Verlag, 1858). See also the English translation: Klaus Ottmann (trans.), F.W.J. Schelling: Philosophy of Revelation (1841–42) (Putnam, Conn.: Spring Publications, 2020). 5 Hegel, Philosophy of Religion, 2:238. 6 Hegel, Philosophy of Religion, 2:454. Maternus, Errors 3.2.

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significance that the ‘seed must die in order to preserve and bring to life what lies implicit in it’, and the symbolic content of resurrection.7 In the Eleusinian mysteries the initiate had an intuitive experience of this higher spiritual meaning, which involved surrendering to the terror of death as a necessary stage in the self-realisation of ‘the freedom of spirit.’ The mysteries were not secret because of some politically motivated manipulation on the part of the priests as Warburton and Voltaire had argued, they were secret in the same way that the public teachings of the Christian mysteries were secretive: in the mystical sense that they ‘revealed the Godhead.’8 Where Hegel’s account of the process of the coming to self-consciousness of God is articulated through the history of religions, Schelling is more precisely concerned with the details of mythology, in particular the genealogical and familial relationships between the Greek gods, who represent ‘potencies’, moments, or successive personalities in the evolution of the one God.9 In the Hesiodic theogony, Cronos (Saturn) and Uranus represent God in the stage of pure and undifferentiated Being [‘Seyn’], which is reflected in human culture in the Sabaism of the primitive nomads who worshipped the sky; the cultural memory of this initial stage of freedom (albeit the limited freedom of unconsciousness) is preserved in the myth of a golden age associated with Saturn.10 The subsequent pantheon of gods then proceeds out of this original ground of Being through a process of differentiation. This is replicated in various mythological traditions, including those of India and Egypt, but the myth of Demeter and Persephone holds a particularly important place as the fullest expression and turning point in this necessary process. As the wife of Zeus, Demeter represents captured consciousness [‘Bewußtseyn’], from which Persephone 7 8 9

Hegel, Philosophy of Religion, 2:493. Hegel, Philosophy of Religion, 2:491. The Eleusinian mysteries were a significant subject throughout Schelling’s philosophical career, see: Michael G. Vater, F.W.J. Schelling: Bruno, or, On the Natural and Divine Principle of Things (Albany, N.Y.: State of New York University Press, 1984); Klaus Ottmann (trans.), F.W.J. Schelling: Philosophy and Religion (Putnam, Conn.: Spring Publications, 2014); Robert F. Brown, Schelling’s Treatise on “The Deities of Samothrace”: A Translation and an Interpretation (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1977). See also: Louis Dupré, “The Role of Mythology in Schelling’s Late Philosophy,” The Journal of Religion 87, no. 1 (2007): 1–20; Manfred Frank, Der kommende Gott: Vorlesungen über die Neue Mythologie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1982–1988); and Dirk von Petersdorff, Mysterienrede: Zum Selbstverständnis romantischer Intellektueller (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1996). On the role of potencies in the middle period of Schelling’s philosophy (which adapted the ideas of Jacob Böhme) see: S.J. McGrath, The Dark Ground of Spirit: Schelling and the Unconscious (London: Routledge, 2012), 14–16. 10 Schelling, Werke, 2:3:396.

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proceeds as a potency, then is captured by Hades who tries to draw her back into unconscious Being. This process of division and evolution is expressed in the myth as separation and suffering followed by the ‘reconciliation’ that comes with consciousness’ self-recognition. In the Eleusinian mysteries, this process was recapitulated experientially by the initiates, who underwent the fear and terror of a symbolic death followed by a state of the ‘highest beatitude [‘Seligkeit’]’, as they were introduced into the new spiritual understanding of mythology, and were brought into ‘immediate converse [‘Verkehr’]’ with the ‘pure spiritual gods.’11 As well as the myth of Demeter and Persephone, Schelling argues that the mysteries also comprehended the history of Dionysos, the son of Demeter. In his association with ecstasy and frenzy, Dionysos represents the elation that consciousness experiences when it first recognises its freedom; in his dismemberment he represents the transformation of the undifferentiated ground of Being into multiplicity; and as the pressed grape he experiences ‘a kind of death’ which leads to the spiritual life symbolised by wine.12 These attributes are organised as three personalities of the one god Dionysos: Zagreus, Bacchus, and Iacchus, who correspond to the past, present, and future. It was the coming of this future God, Iacchus, who was represented as a child suckling on Demeter’s breast, that was the highest object and greatest secret of the Eleusinian mysteries, a secret whose purport would be revealed only with the coming of Christ.13 Hegel and Schelling’s conceptions of the dynamic principle of Geist or consciousness as the driving force behind the development of religion, a process that reached self-consciousness in Christianity, allows them to reclaim the territory of the history of religion under the new circumstances created by the eighteenth century, and takes the debate beyond the Enlightenment – ‘that vanity of understanding’ and ‘opponent of philosophy’ – into the midst of the age of Romanticism.14 If the Enlightenment was the problem child of Christianity, then Romanticism may be viewed as its prodigal son. One aspect of Hegel and Schelling’s project, understanding the history of Christianity through the mystery religions, became a significant feature of classical and biblical scholarship in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the studies of the German Protestant theologian Gustav Anrich, the French Roman Catholic theologian Alfred Loisy, and others.15 But in Anrich’s 11 12 13 14 15

Schelling, Werke, 2:3:450–453. Schelling, Werke, 2:3:436. Schelling, Werke, 2:3:519. Hegel, Philosophy of Religion, 3:246–247. Gustav Anrich, Das antike Mysterienwesen in seinem Einfluss auf das Christenthum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1894); Georg Wobbermin, Religionsgeschichtliche

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sketch of the historiography of the problem, the earlier Idealist approach was notable by its absence; the study of religion as theogony belonged to a past age. The concern of Hegel and Schelling’s works with spiritual experience and consciousness perhaps finds more fitting descendants in the post-war period of the twentieth century, for example, in Carl Kerényi’s Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter (1967), which probed the psychological dimensions of initiation under the joint influences of Carl Jung and Albert Hofmann; or even Julian Jaynes’ The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1977), which argued that the gods were the mind’s representation of its own powers as it came to self-consciousness.16 Theology played a fundamental role in the prehistory of the discipline of the classics in the eighteenth century, continued to throughout the nineteenth in the period of its formalisation, and arguably remained so well into the twentieth, albeit in ways less connected to specific denominational viewpoints. As has been recently argued, the repression of this long history distorts our present understanding of the subject.17 In the context of this contemporary reassessment of the long narrative of secularisation, the Enlightenment holds a particularly important place as the supposed beginning point of the process, but engagement with the Eleusinian mysteries in the period shows that the so-called ‘rise of modern paganism’ emerged out of and remained deeply entangled in debates about religion and its history.

16

17

Studien zur Frage der Beeinflussung des Urchristenthums durch das antike Mysterienwesen (Berlin: E. Ebering, 1896); Samuel Cheetham, The Mysteries, Pagan and Christian (London: Macmillan and Co., 1897); Alfred Loisy, Les Mystères païens et le mystère Chrétien (Paris: Émile Nourry, 1914); Samuel Angus, The Mystery-Religions and Christianity: A Study in the Religious Background of early Christianity (London: John Murray, 1925). For a full survey of this literature see: Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1990). Carl Kerényi, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter (New York, N.Y.: Bollingen Foundation, 1967). See also: Robert Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, & Carl A.P. Ruck, The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries (New York, N.Y.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977). On the origins of the spiritualist/psychological approach see: Margot K. Louis, Persephone Rises, 1860–1927: Mythography, Gender, and the Creation of a New Spirituality (London: Routledge, 2009). Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1977). Catherine Conybeare & Simon Goldhill, “Philology’s Shadow,” in Conyebeare & Goldhill (eds.), Classical Philology and Theology: Entanglement, Disavowal, and the Godlike Scholar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 1–11; 5–7.

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Index Abiff, Hiram 76, 86 Abraham 18, 55, 66, 153, 172, 176 Abury (William Stukeley) 59, 67 Adam 20, 55, 58, 91 Adonis 78, 192 Aeacus 152, 182 Aelius Aristides 5, 152 Aeneas 77, 100 Aeneid (Virgil) 61, 77, 97, 100, 182 afterlife absence in Judaism 49, 60, 98, 99, 102, 103, 104, 124, 132–133 absence in patriarchal religion 153 Christian 50, 124, 133, 183 as a civilising force 10–11, 16, 95, 98–99, 132, 167–168, 182 pagan 49–50, 100, 101 revelation through mysteries 5n21, 16, 76, 100, 122, 123–124, 129, 151, 152 agriculture allegories of 114, 139–140, 146, 156, 178 and astronomy 139, 158, 178–179 as a civilising force 10–11, 95, 123, 139 origins/discovery of 105, 111, 112, 121, 139, 179 physiocracy 136, 138, 142, 178 Aïdoneus, King of the Molossians 105–106 allegorism 114, 138–140, 146, 156, 178 Allen, Ralph 98 Alliance between Church and State, The (William Warburton) 97 alphabet. See writing, origins of Amyntor (John Toland) 34 Ancient Theology, The (D.P. Walker) 87 Anderson, James 64, 83–85, 83n111, 90 Anglia Libera (John Toland) 34 Anglicanism 25, 43, 58 Anrich, Gustav 194–195 Antiquité dévoilée, L’ (Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger) 96, 117–118, 119–120, 122, 125 Antiquité expliquée et representée en figures, L’ (Bernard de Montfaucon) 68 antisemitism 28, 167 apocalypse 123–124, 170–171 Apollo 78 Apollodorus 2

Apologie des Ordens der Frey Maurer (Johann August Starck) 148, 149, 150 apotheosis. See deification Apuleius 81 Aristides, Publius Aelius 128, 141, 143 Aristotle 3 Arius 40 Arnauld, Antoine 57 Ashmole, Elias 64n32 astrognosy 172, 173, 175, 177 astrology 167, 171, 173, 175, 177 Astronomie (Jérôme Lalande) 178 astronomy and agriculture 139, 158, 178–179 and the apocalypse 171 beliefs around comets 164–165 and idolatry 110–111, 156 and mythology 165 as origin of religion 165–166, 167 origins of 139, 179 and pagan mysteries 177 atheism 26n83, 57, 84, 99, 127, 178 Athens 1, 141 Atys 78 Augustine 57, 158 aventures de Télémaque, Les (François Fénelon) 88–89 A Warburton (Voltaire) 132 Bacchus (Dionysos) 58n12, 73, 78, 105, 151, 187, 187n105, 194 Bailly, Jean-Sylvain 170, 171, 171n35 Banier, Antoine 107, 155 baptism 160, 176 Baronius, Caesar 31 Barruel, Augustin de 28, 150, 188 Bate, Julius 102, 107 Baubo 114 Bayle, Pierre 57, 60, 99 Beal, John 63, 65 Bede 77 Bembine tablet 67–69, 68, 70, 71, 73, 115 Bible. See New Testament; Old Testament biblical patriarchs. See patriarchal religion Bibliographie astronomique (Jérôme Lalande) 165

Index Bochart, Samuel 56, 66 Böhme, Jacob 175 Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne 132 Boulanger, Nicolas-Antoine Antiquité dévoilée, L’ 96, 117–118, 119–120, 122, 125 on the apocalypse 124 biographical details 117–118 criticism of religion 96, 125 on a future state/afterlife 124 on the origin of civilisation 120–121 on the origin of religion 119–120, 123 reception of his work 118n101, 148, 148n94, 156 on the secrecy of Eleusinian mysteries 121–122, 123–124 Bourbon, Louis de Bourbon (Comte de Clermont) 131 Brief History of the Unitarians, called also Socinians, A (Stephen Nye) 41 Britain English republicanism 34 freemasonry 28, 54, 83, 131, 188, 189 religious history of 65–66 Brosses, Charles de 181n77 Burkert, Walter 5n21 Burnet, Thomas 110–111 Bury, Arthur 41 Büsching, Anton Friedrich 147–148 Calas, Jean 135, 136 cardinal directions, symbolism of 72, 74, 75, 76 Casaubon, Isaac 31 Catholicism criticism of 38, 133 and freemasonry 84 and idolatry 33, 50–51, 128, 133 vs. Protestantism 143, 144 and quietism 88 Ceres. See Demeter (Ceres) Chandler, Richard 1 Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (Anthony Ashley Cooper) 102, 103 Charles I, King 34 Christ coming of (the Messiah) 91, 171, 176, 194 as a high priest 36 nativity 77, 78

229 passion 78 revelation of 36–37, 38, 39, 41, 43, 46–47, 48 See also Jesus Christ Christianisme dévoilé (Baron d’Holbach)  118, 148n94 Christianity Christian mysteries 30, 36–37, 42 criticism of 44, 184. See also priests and deism 91, 128, 134, 147, 153–154, 171–172, 176–177 and Enlightenment 14–15, 97, 153, 194 as the first/true religion 6–8, 55–56 and freemasonry 85 and idolatry 48, 48n77 pagan influences on 13–14, 38–39, 40–41, 148, 160, 183 reasonableness of 127 reconciliation with paganism 147 rituals 13, 38–39, 148, 151 roots in Judaism 21, 32 roots in pagan mysteries 21, 23, 79, 122, 129–130, 148, 152 roots in pagan solar-religion 187 roots in patriarchal religion 20, 21, 110, 130 secret practices 13, 150 traces in pagan religions of 58, 67, 121, 127 See also New Testament Christianity Mysterious and the Wisdom of God in Making it So (Robert South) 45 Christianity not Mysterious (John Toland) 31, 32, 34, 42, 45–46, 47, 48, 50 Chronicus canon Aegyptiacus, Ebraicus, Graecus, et disquisitiones (John Marsham) 104 Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, The (Isaac Newton) 65 Church of the Desert 136, 143 Cicero, Marcus Tullius on the Eleusinian mysteries 3, 14–16, 41, 120 on gods 100, 107, 116, 124 On the Laws 15, 16, 120, 151 On the Nature of the Gods 15, 116, 124 on religion 126n2 Tusculan Disputations 15, 41, 50, 100, 107, 116, 124, 152

230 City of God (Augustine) 158 civilisation, definition of 21, 94 civilising forces afterlife 10–11, 16, 95, 98–99, 132, 167–168, 182 agriculture 10–11, 95, 123, 139 deification of mortals 12, 16 law 10–11, 121 nature 167–168, 172 necessity 137–138 paganism 12, 120 pagan mysteries 120, 124 as reflected in Eleusinian mysteries 95, 121, 145 religion 16, 57, 95, 184 tripartite account of 10, 139 Clare, Martin 86, 90 Clarke, Edward Daniel 1 Clement of Alexandria 3, 36, 70–71, 116, 186 Clermont, Comte de. See Bourbon, Louis de Bourbon (Comte de Clermont) Constitutions of the Free-Masons (James Anderson) 83–85 Cooper, Anthony Ashley (Earl of Shaftesbury) 61, 102, 103, 104 cosmography/cosmology 69, 186 cosmopolitanism 163 Court de Gébelin, Antoine on allegories 138–140, 146, 156, 178 on Athens and Eleusis 141–142 biographical details 135–136, 143n78 and deism 128, 129 on the Eleusinian mysteries 140–141, 142–143, 144 on language 137 on liberty and social equality 142–144, 163 Mysterien der Ceres von Eleusis: Vertheidigt gegen die Spöttereyen des Verfassers des Horus und in dem Endzwecke ihrer Stiftung verglichen mit dem Endzwecke der Stiftung der Freymäurergesellschaft, Die 170 on necessity as the origin of civilisation 137–138 at Neuf Soeurs 131, 136, 149 and Pluche 97n12 reception of his work 149n97, 179n64

Index Toulousaines, Les 135, 136, 143 See also Monde primitif (Antoine Court de Gébelin) Critical Observations on the Design of the Sixth Book of the Aeneid (Edward Gibbon) 97 Cronos. See Saturn Crusius, Christian August 169 Cudworth, Ralph 40, 66 Cyropaedia (Xenophon) 88 Dähnert, Johann Carl 118 Darwin, Erasmus 24n78 death, symbolised in mysteries 5, 78, 120, 152, 166, 171, 175n50, 187, 193, 194 See also afterlife debauchery. See sexual content of mysteries De corona (Tertullian) 161 Defence of Masonry, A (Martin Clare) 86, 90 défense de mon oncle, La (Voltaire) 132 deification of Christian saints 13, 50 as a civilising force 12, 16 of fire 173, 174 of heavenly bodies (Sabaism) 110, 158, 165, 173–174, 192, 193 of hieroglyphic figures 111, 112 of Jesus Christ 48, 51 of mortals 15, 41, 100, 101, 106, 139, 146, 159 of objects 12–13, 157–158 revealed in Eleusinian mysteries 50, 106, 121, 128, 152, 159 of the sun 173–174, 187 See also Euhemerism; worship deism and Christianity 91, 128, 134, 147, 153–154, 171–172, 176–177 controversy of 31, 35, 45 definition of 45, 127 and the Eleusinian mysteries 121–122, 128 and Judaism 98, 102, 151 and paganism 145 and universalism 93 De legibus Hebraeorum (John Spencer) 104 De l’esprit des loix (Montesquieu) 120 deluge, biblical 110–111, 113, 117, 119, 121, 123

231

Index Demeter (Ceres) etymology of Ceres 113–114, 114n83 as Eve 58 humanity of 107 as lawgiver 11, 95 in mythology 2, 4n15, 10–11, 12, 105, 192, 193 as a symbol of agriculture 113–114 Telesterion 4, 4n14 Thesmophoria 11n39, 113, 121 Demonstratio Evangelica (Pierre-Daniel Huet) 32, 52, 56, 89 De religione Gentilium (Edward Herbert) 127 despotism 158n155, 159 De tralatitiis ex gentilismo in religionem Christianam (Johann August Starck) 148 De veritate (Edward Herbert) 127 Devil 175, 182, 186 Diamond, Jared 10 Dictionnaire des athées (Sylvain Maréchal) 165 Dictionnaire philosophique (Voltaire) 134 diffusionism (of the history of religion) 20, 50n80, 79, 90n139, 130, 176 Dilettanti. See Society of Dilettanti Dio, Queen of Sicily 105–106 Dio Chrysostom 5, 186 Diodorus Siculus 4, 104, 139n62, 155 Dionysos (Bacchus) 58n12, 73, 78, 105, 151, 187, 187n105, 194 Discours prononcé à la reception des Francs Maçons (Andrew Michael Ramsay) 87, 90, 162, 163 Discours sur l’histoire universelle (Jacques Bénigne Bossuet) 132 Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) 184 Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit (Joseph Priestley) 192 Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients in an explication of that famous piece of antiquity, the table of Isis, A (William Stukeley) 58 Divine Legation of Moses, The (William Warburton) criticism by Boulanger 121, 124

criticism by Court de Gébelin 141, 144, 145, 146 criticism by Gibbon 23 criticism by Sept-Chênes 159 criticism by Starck 150, 152, 153 criticism by Stukeley 60–61, 107 criticism by Voltaire 132–134 plagiarism by Pluche 96, 115–116 plagiarism in 102–105, 107 reception in Britain 22–23, 97, 102 reception in France 23, 97, 108, 108n58, 116 reception in Germany 23 double-doctrine. See religio duplex (double-doctrine) druidism 54, 58, 59, 65, 66, 77 Du contrat social (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)  95 Dupuis, Charles-François on astronomy 165, 178–179 biographical details 177–178 on Christianity 167–168, 184–185, 187 on cosmology 186 on the development of society 184 on the doctrine of the afterlife 182–183 on the Eleusinian mysteries 167–168, 186–187 as a freemason 178 on the immortal soul 185–186 Mémoire sur l’origine des constellations et sur l’explication de la fable par le moyen de l’astronomie 156, 166, 173, 178, 179 on mysteries 180, 182 Origine de tous les cultes. Ou, religion universelle 156, 166, 167, 178, 179, 180 on the origin of religion 180, 181–182 and Pluche 97n12 reception of his work 156 Ebionites (Nazarenes) 47–48 Eckert, Georg 87, 89 Edelstein, Dan 129 Egypt influences on Greece 105, 174, 186 as origin of astronomy 179 Egyptian religion cosmography/cosmology 69, 186 and idolatry 63

232 influences on Judaism 9, 52, 62–63, 104, 109–110, 176, 177 mysteries 71–76, 78, 174, 175 as origin of Eleusinian mysteries 4, 4n15, 104–105, 141, 152 as origin of the doctrine of the afterlife 50 pantheon 71, 173 priority of 32–33 temples 72, 74, 75 traces of Christianity in 67 Egyptian Society 79–81 Eikon Basilike 34 Eleusinia (Johannes Meursius) 3, 32 Eleusinian mysteries as allegory of agriculture 112–113, 140, 146 Christian seeds in 21, 79, 122, 129–130, 148, 152 as a civilising force 120, 124 cosmology in 186 and deism 121–122, 128 and freemasonry 18, 20, 21, 90, 149 historiographical sources of 2–5, 15–16 lesser and greater 99–101, 113, 120–121, 122, 122n121, 123, 152 origins of 104–105, 114, 152, 152n116, 167–168, 174 reasonableness of 151 revealing afterlife/future state 5n21, 16, 76, 100, 122, 123–124, 129, 151, 152 revealing mortal origins of gods 50, 106, 121, 128, 152, 159 revealing origins of civilisation 95, 121, 145 revealing the apocalypse 123–124 revealing the unity of God/ monotheism 13, 128, 129, 133–134, 146, 151, 152, 159, 174 rituals and trials 4, 100, 160–161, 186 roots in Egyptian religion 4, 4n15, 104–105, 141, 152 secrecy of 3, 99–100, 106–107, 121–122, 123–124, 141, 145–146, 150, 193 sexual content of 3, 41, 122, 150, 186 traces of patriarchal religion in 113, 115 trinitarianism in 174

Index Eleusis 1–2, 106, 141–142, 143 Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter (Carl Kerényi) 195 Elysium 100, 133, 152, 182, 183, 185, 186 See also afterlife empiricism. See epistemology engineering (water control) 139, 139n62 England. See Britain Enlightenment causes of 171 and Christianity 14–15, 97, 153, 194 definition of 8–10 and freemasonry 17–18, 92, 187–188 paradoxes of 4, 146 radical 9n33, 54, 92, 191 and secularisation 16, 127, 190, 195 Eoganesius, Janus Junius. See Toland, John epistemology 38, 44, 48, 53 equality, social 142–144, 163 Erechtheus 4, 104 Esoterika (Christian Ernst Wünsch) 172n36 Essai sur la religion des anciens Grecs (Nicolas-Marie Leclerc de SeptChênes) 129, 154, 156, 157, 160 Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations (Voltaire) 132 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, An (John Locke) 35 Essay on Man, An (Alexander Pope) 61, 98, 115 Estlin, John Prior 191, 192 Ethics (Spinoza) 91 Etwas das Buch Horus betreffend als ein Denkzetel von einem Verehrer des Schöpfers (anonymous) 170 etymologies 94, 114n83, 116, 126 Euhemerism Christianised 92 deification of mortals 12–13, 107, 139, 146, 159 and idolatry 48, 50 and mysteries 15, 41, 104, 106, 116 and mythology 155 See also deification Euhemerus 12 Eusebius 3, 55, 56, 57, 76, 140, 161 Eve 58, 58n12

Index Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness, An (Henry More) 40 Explication historique de la fable de Ceres (Jean Le Clerc) 105 Fable of the Bees, The (Bernard Mandeville) 99 Fénelon, François (Archbishop of Cambrai) 88–89 Festum Isiacum 79, 81 Firmin, Thomas 41 flood, biblical. See deluge, biblical Florilegium (Stobaeus) 100, 161, 186 Folkes, Martin 80–81, 80n104 Fountaine, Andrew, Sir 63, 65, 67, 67n45 France freemasonry 28, 60, 128, 130–131, 178 French Revolution 28, 150, 178, 180, 188, 190 Protestantism 7, 129, 135, 136, 144 religious criticism 23, 132, 146 Franklin, Benjamin 131 freemasonry assemblies, description of 63–65 and Christianity 20–21, 85, 128–129, 187 Constitutions of the Free-Masons (James Anderson) 83–85 as continuation of patriarchal religion 86–87, 90, 92, 93 English 28, 54, 83, 131, 188, 189 and Enlightenment 17–18, 92, 187–188 French 28, 60, 128, 130–131, 178 general 17–18, 17n58 German 118, 170 and Judaism 21, 21n68 lodges, masonic 20, 63n30, 65, 74, 130, See also Neuf Soeurs Old Charges 18, 58, 64, 81, 83, 92, 130, 149 origins of 149, 149n99, 187 and pagan mysteries 18, 20, 21, 89–90, 145, 149, 176 and religion (general) 19, 19n61, 83–85, 163, 170 rituals/initiations 59, 71–74, 76–77, 161, 176 secrecy of 150–151, 178 French Revolution 28, 150, 178, 180, 188, 190 Freud, Sigmund 120

233 future state (of rewards or punishments). See afterlife Gandy, John Peter 2, 4 Gandy, Joseph Michael 2 Garden, George 88 Garden, James 88 Gascoigne, John 134 Gay, Peter 14, 15, 16, 190 Gellner, Ernest 10 Geographia sacra (Samuel Bochart) 56 Germany, freemasonry in 118, 170 Geschichte der christlichen Kirche des ersten Jahrhunderts (Johann August Starck) 148–149 Gibbon, Edward 23, 23n75, 97, 154, 155 God of the Old Testament 158, 174 unity of 13, 128, 129, 133–134, 146, 151, 152, 159, 174 gods astronomical origins of 165, 166, 179–180, 181–182 evolution of 193 See also deification Greece borrowing from Egypt 105, 174, 186 religion of 157, 158, 191 as root of civilisation 21, 141 Gregory of Nazianzus 5 Grüpner, Johann Gottlieb 169 Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte 88 Hades (Pluto) 2, 114n83, 140, 152, 194 See also underworld Hamann, Johann Georg 119, 147, 148, 148n94 Harrison, Peter 177 Hartknoch, Johann Friedrich 148n92 Haycock, David Boyd 59 Hazard, Paul 9, 9n33 heathens. See paganism Hebrew Bible. See Old Testament Hebrews. See Judaism Hecate 76 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 191, 192, 193, 194, 195 hell. See underworld

234 Helvétius, Claude Adrien 130, 131 Hephästion (Johann August Starck) 129, 148, 149, 151, 152, 160 Herbert, Edward (Baron Herbert of Cherbury) 126, 127–128, 151, 152 Herbert, Henry, Lord 63, 65 Hercules 139, 139n62 Herder, Johann Gottfried 119, 147, 148 Hermes (Mercury) 71, 76, 139, 140, 161, 175 Hesiod 180 hieroglyphics 66, 67, 90, 91–92, 104, 111–112, 171 hierophants. See priests Hinduism 23n78 Histoire de l’astronomie ancienne (Jean-Sylvain Bailly) 169 Histoire du ciel (Noël-Antoine Pluche) 96, 109, 115–117, 121 historiography, religious. See diffusionism (of the history of religion); primacy History of Corpus Christi, The (Robert Masters) 63, 65 History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (Leslie Stephen) 35 History of Religion as Managed by Priestcraft, The (Sir Robert Howard) 42 History of the Corruptions of Christianity, An (Joseph Priestley) 39, 192 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The (Edward Gibbon) 23, 154 Hobbes, Thomas 26n83, 120, 171 Hofmann, Albert 195 Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry (Baron d’Holbach) 14, 117–118, 118n101, 148n94 Homer 2, 69, 100 Hooke, Robert 114n83 Horus in mysteries 72–73, 74, 76, 78 in mythology 171, 175–176 origins of 111, 173 as part of a Trinity 71, 173, 174 Horus (Christian Ernst Wünsch) 166, 170 Howard, Robert, Sir 42–43 Hudson, Wayne 45 Huet, Pierre-Daniel 32, 50n80, 52, 53, 56, 57, 89, 91n144 Huguenots 135, 136, 140 Hume, David 181n77

Index Hurd, Richard 62 Hymn to Demeter (Homer) 2 Iacchus 73, 194 idolatry Catholic 33, 50–51, 128, 133 Christian 48, 48n77 Egyptian 63 origins of 63, 110, 112, 156 pagan 12, 50–51 patriarchal 153 See also worship Illuminatenorden 150, 179 Impartial Account Of the Word Mystery, As it is taken in the Holy Scripture, An (Stephen Nye) 41 initiations. See mysteries initiations, descriptions of. See rituals intuition 35–36, 39, 47, 53 Ireland 33, 34 Iroquois 57, 110, 120 Isis and Demeter 4n15, 113 in mysteries 76, 105 origins of 111, 173 as part of a Trinity 76, 173, 174 and Persephone 74 Table of Isis (Bembine tablet) 67–69, 68, 70, 71, 73, 115 Isocrates 95 Israel, Jonathan 9n33, 92, 190, 191 Jacob, Margaret C. 19n61, 93 Jansenism 56–57, 112, 115 Jaynes, Julian 195 Jesuits 57, 115 Jesus Christ deification of 48, 51 life of, symbolising solar myth 165, 166, 168, 187 as a man 30–31, 176 See also Christ Jewish Antiquities (Josephus) 91 Jews. See Judaism Johnson, Maurice 81 John the Evangelist 175, 176, 183 Josephus 91

235

Index Judaism absence of a future state 49, 60, 98, 99, 102, 103, 104, 124, 132–133 antisemitism 28, 167 Christian elements in 37, 55, 175–176 criticism of 92, 153, 160, 167 and deism 98, 102, 151 Egyptian influences 9, 52, 62–63, 104, 109–110, 176, 177 and foretelling of the Messiah 175–176 primacy of 66, 89, 115 similarities with paganism 56, 121 as source of other religions 21, 32, 62–63 See also Old Testament Julian the Apostate 23 Jung, Carl 195 Jupiter (Zeus) 2, 142, 193 Kanter, Johann Jacob 148 Kempski, Jürgen von 172n36 Kerényi, Carl 195 Kidd, Colin 22 Kircher, Athanasius 67, 69, 115 Knights Templar 18, 149, 149n99 Koerbagh, Adriaan 48n77 Kuhn, Thomas 166 Lactantius 15n53, 126n2 Lafitau, Joseph-François 57–58, 110, 120 Lalande, Jérôme 131, 164–165, 166, 177, 178 law, as a civilising force 10–11, 121 lawgivers of antiquity 100–101 Demeter 11, 95 Moses 52, 98, 99, 121, 124, 132–133 Le Clerc, Jean 33, 33n11, 46, 103, 105–107, 114, 155 legislators. See lawgivers Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 34, 49n80 Lennox, Charles (Duke of Richmond) 80, 81, 89 Letters to Serena (John Toland) 34, 49, 49n80, 52, 103 Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes) 120 Liber. See Dionysos (Bacchus) liberty 142–144, 158, 163, 184 Library (Apollodorus) 2 Library of History (Diodorus Siculus) 104 life-cycle, symbolised in mysteries 73, 75–76, 78

Lilienthal, Theodor Christoph 148 Lindner, Johann Gotthelf 148 Lobeck, Christian August 4n15 Locke, John 33, 35, 38, 44 lodges, masonic 20, 63n30, 65, 74, 130 See also Neuf Soeurs Loge des Sciences 130 Loisy, Alfred 194 Long Livers (Eugene Philalethes) 83 Lucretius 14 Luther, Martin 6 Macrobius 78, 142, 179, 187 Maimonides 99n23, 110, 165 Mandeville, Bernard 99 Mansfield, Earl of. See Murray, William (Earl of Mansfield) Maréchal, Sylvain 165 Marsham, John, Sir 9, 52, 61, 62, 89, 102, 104–105, 109 masonry. See freemasonry Masonry Dissected (Samuel Prichard) 59, 71, 72, 76, 86 Masters, Robert 63 materialism 14, 61, 171 Maternus, Julius Firmicus 78, 192 Mead, Richard 67 Mémoire sur l’origine des constellations et sur l’explication de la fable par le moyen de l’astronomie (Charles-François Dupuis) 156, 166, 173, 178, 179 Mercier-Faivre, Anne-Marie 143 Mercury (Hermes) 71, 76, 139, 140, 161, 175 Mesmer, Franz Anton 135 mesmerism 135, 136 Messiah, foretelling of 85–86, 91, 92, 171, 175–176 See also Christ Metamorphoses (Apuleius) 81 metempsychosis (transmigration of souls) 37, 101, 186 Meursius, Johannes 3, 4, 4n13, 32, 116 Michaelis, Johann David 147 Minos 152, 182 mistletoe 77, 77n92 Mithras 4, 77, 161, 174, 176, 183 Moeurs des sauvages Ameriquains comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps (JosephFrançois Lafitau) 57 Molinos, Miguel de 88

236 Momigliano, Arnaldo 15 Monde primitif (Antoine Court de Gébelin) contents 136–137, 138, 140–141, 143, 157 criticism of 156 presentation of 128, 131 translation of 170, 179 unfinished 135 monotheism, revealed in Eleusinian mysteries 13, 128, 129, 133–134, 146, 151, 152, 159, 174 Montagu, John (Duke of Montagu) 63, 64–65, 79, 81, 83 Montagu, John (Earl of Sandwich) 79–80, 80n104 Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat  120 Montfaucon, Bernard de 68–69 moon, symbolism of the 76–77 More, Henry 40 Moses and Egyptian religion 9, 63, 110, 173, 175 as lawgiver 98, 99, 121, 124, 132–133 in religious typology 32–33, 52, 56, 57 teachings of 52–53, 66, 173n42 Müller, Max 112 Murray, William (Earl of Mansfield) 98 Mysterien der Ceres von Eleusis: Vertheidigt gegen die Spöttereyen des Verfassers des Horus und in dem Endzwecke ihrer Stiftung verglichen mit dem Endzwecke der Stiftung der Freymäurergesellschaft, Die (Antoine Court de Gébelin) 170 mysteries Christian 30, 36–37, 42 comparison of 37, 174, 177, 180 definition of 36 Egyptian 71–76, 78, 174, 175 Eleusinian. See Eleusinian mysteries masonic 71–74, 76–77 Persian 174, 175 in religious typology 32 Mysteries of the Christian Faith, The (Edward Stillingfleet) 43 mythography 12, 155 mythology. See allegorism; specific gods and goddesses

Index Naked Gospel, The (Arthur Bury) 41 nativity of Christ 77, 78 natural religion 21, 91, 174 nature as a civilising force 167–168, 172 as the origin of religion 180, 181 Nazarenes (Ebionites) 47–48 Nazarenus (John Toland) 47 necessity, as a civilising force 137–138 Neo-Platonism 14, 20, 23, 69, 70, 178, 185 Neuf Soeurs 128, 129, 130, 131, 147, 149, 164 New Book of Constitutions of the Antient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, The (James Anderson) 64 New Testament ancient Greek ethics in 167, 171, 176 astrognostical elements in 175 Book of Revelations 175 mysteries in 36, 42 separation from Old Testament 32, 33, 53, 102, 167, 189, 190 Newton, Isaac 65–66, 69 Noachidae 85, 86 Noah 20, 85, 90, 91, 111, 113, 119, 124 Norden, Frederik Ludwig 80 Nye, Stephen 41, 42, 43 Oberhauser, Claus 153 Oedipus Aegyptiacus (Athanasius Kircher)  67 Old Charges 18, 58, 64, 81, 83, 92, 130, 149 Old Testament absence of a future state in 49, 98 absence of apocalypse in 124 foretelling of the Messiah in 86, 171, 176 and the Old Charges 83 and the primacy of the Hebrews 65–66 in religious typology 7, 56 and the revelation of Christ 38 separation from New Testament/ Christianity 32, 33, 53, 102, 167, 189, 190 Trinity in 71 universalism of 89 vengeful God of 158, 174 On the Laws (Cicero) 15, 16, 120, 151

Index On the Mysterys (William Stukeley) 61, 65, 66, 67, 77, 79, 80, 81, 86, 115 On the Nature of the Gods (Cicero) 15, 116, 124 On the Nature of Things (Lucretius) 14 Ops 142 Origine de tous les cultes. Ou, religion universelle (Charles-François Dupuis) 156, 166, 167, 178, 179, 180 Origines Judaicae (John Toland) 32, 52 Origines Sacrae (Edward Stillingfleet) 44 Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, The (Julian Jaynes) 195 Orléans, Louis-Philippe-Joseph d’ (Duc de Chartres/d’Orléans) 131 Orpheus 4, 105, 186 Osiris and Bacchus 105 in mythology 4n15, 139, 186 origins of 111, 173 as part of a Trinity 71, 76, 173, 174 Ovid 114n83 Ozouf, Mona 142 paganism afterlife 49–50, 100, 101 Christianisation of 5–7, 21 Christian traces in 58, 121, 127 as a civilising force 12, 120 definition of 94–95 and deism 145 and idolatry 12, 50–51 influences on Christianity 13–14, 38–39, 40–41, 148, 160, 183 modern 14, 17, 188, 189, 195 rituals 4, 13, 38–39, 100, 148, 151, 160–161, 186 similarities with Judaism 56, 121 See also Egyptian religion; Eleusinian mysteries Paine, Thomas 187 pantheism 19n61, 51, 181, 192 Pantheisticon (John Toland) 51, 52, 53 pantheon, Egyptian 71, 173 paradise 91, 110–111, 144 patriarchal religion absence of a future state in 153

237 degradation/dilution of 91–92, 113, 114–115 and the foretelling of the Messiah 85–86 and idolatry 153 in religious historiography 56, 115 as root of Christianity 20, 21, 110, 130 as root of freemasonry 86–87, 90, 92, 93 traces in Eleusinian mysteries 113, 115 Payne, George 63–65 Pensées diverses (Pierre Bayle) 57, 99 Pentecost (Shavuot) 121 Persephone and Isis 74 in mysteries 76 in mythology 2, 4n15, 11, 186, 192, 193 symbolising agriculture 114, 140 Persian mysteries 174, 175 Phaedo (Plato) 38, 182 Pherephatta 105–106 See also Persephone Philalethes, Eugene 83 philhellenism 28, 28n87, 167 Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, Unfolded in a Geometrical Order, The (Andrew Michael Ramsay) 87, 90, 91, 162–163 philosophie de l’histoire, La (Voltaire) 128, 132, 161 Philosophie der Offenbarung (F.W.J. Schelling) 79, 192 Phoenicians 56, 66, 112, 192 physiocracy 136, 138, 142, 178 Pièces originales concernant la mort des Srs Calas et le jugement rendu à Toulouse (Voltaire) 135 Pignoria, Lorenzo 69 plagiarism 96, 102–105, 107, 115–116 Plato 3, 5, 13–14, 38, 144, 176, 182 Platonism 40, 115, 160 See also Neo-Platonism Plot, Robert 64n32 Pluche, Noël-Antoine accused of plagiarism 96, 115–116 on astronomy 111, 173, 179 on the Bembine tablet 115 biographical details 108–109 criticism of his work 115–117, 156

238 on the Egyptian origins of Judaism 109–110 on the Eleusinian mysteries 112–113, 116, 121, 125 Histoire du ciel 96, 109, 115–117, 121 on idolatry 110, 112 influence on other authors 97n12 on the origin of writing 110, 111–112 on patriarchal religion 113 Spectacle de la nature, Le 109 Pluto (god). See Hades (Pluto) Pocock, J.G.A. 45 Pococke, Richard 1, 80, 153 polytheism and monotheism 128, 146, 159 origins of 174, 181n77 and politics 100–101, 106 trinitarian 30, 44 Pope, Alexander 61, 98, 115 Porphyry 70, 76, 161 Preparation for the Gospel (Eusebius) 76, 161 Prescott, Andrew 63n30 Prichard, Samuel 59, 71, 72, 73, 74, 86 Priestley, Joseph 39, 166, 191–192 priests Christ as 36 criticism of 35–36, 38, 41, 43, 125, 168, 174, 182, 183–184 roles in initiations 11, 72, 78, 161 primacy of Christianity 6–8, 55–56 of Egyptian religion 32–33 of Judaism 66, 89, 115 Primitive Constitution of the Christian Church, The (John Toland) 51 Proclus 5, 185 Prometheus 139n62 Proserpine 114n83 See also Persephone Protestantism 7, 38, 129, 133, 135, 136, 143–144 purgatory 168, 183 Pythagoras 50, 89 Quesnay, François 136, 136n50 quietism 88 radical Enlightenment 9n33, 54, 92, 191

Index Ramsay, Andrew Michael 87–92, 110, 129, 162–163 Rape of Proserpine, The (Claudian) 2 reason. See deism reasonableness of Eleusinian mysteries 151 of religion 37, 127, 151 revelation through 41, 42–43, 91 Reasonableness of Christianity (John Locke)  35 rebirth 77, 152, 171, 175n50, 176 See also resurrection Recherches sur les initiations anciennes et modernes (Jean-Baptiste-Claude Robin) 129, 149 Reformed Church. See Protestantism religio duplex (double-doctrine) 19, 22, 32, 50, 102 religion and allegory 138–139, 146 as a civilising force 16, 57, 95, 184 etymology of the word 126, 126n2 and freemasonry 19, 19n61, 83–85, 163, 170 historiography of. See diffusionism (of the history of religion); primacy origins of 119–120, 123, 130, 139, 165–166, 167, 172–174, 180, 187 and politics 100–101, 106. See also priests See also Catholicism; Christianity; Egyptian religion; Judaism; natural religion; paganism; patriarchal religion; Protestantism resurrection 5, 76, 120, 152, 175n50, 187, 192–193 See also rebirth revelation of Christ 36, 37, 38, 41, 43 reasonable 41, 42–43, 91 through intuition 35, 36 through mysteries 5n21, 16, 76, 100, 122, 152 Revett, Nicholas 1 Rhadamanthus 152, 182 Richmond, Duke of. See Lennox, Charles (Duke of Richmond) rituals Christian 13, 38–39, 148, 151

Index masonic 59, 71–74, 76–77, 161, 176 pagan 4, 71–75, 100, 151, 160–161, 186, 194 Robert, Daniel 143n78 Robin, Jean-Baptiste-Claude 129, 149 Romaine, William 102, 107 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 95, 96, 138, 184 Royal Society 63, 67, 80 ruines, Les (Comte de Volney) 166 Ryley, Robert M. 103 Sabaism 110, 165, 192, 193 Sadrin, Paul 119 Sainte-Croix, Guillaume-Emmanuel-Joseph Guilhem de Clermont-Lodève (Baron de Sainte-Croix) 5, 178 St John 170–171 St Paul 43, 48 salvation Christian 5, 5n21, 46, 47, 48–49, 53, 127, 152 pagan 14, 160 Sanchoniathon 140 Sandwich, Earl of. See Montagu, John (Earl of Sandwich) Saturn 124, 139–140, 142, 193 Saturnalia (Macrobius) 78, 142, 179, 187 scepticism 15 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph 79, 191, 192, 193–194, 193n9, 195 seasons, symbolism of 74, 75, 76, 77 secrecy of Christian practices 13, 150 of Eleusinian mysteries 3, 99–100, 106–107, 121–122, 123–124, 141, 145–146, 150, 193 of freemasonry 150–151, 178 religio duplex (double-doctrine) 19, 22, 32, 50, 102 secularisation 16, 127, 190, 195 Seneca 5n20, 76 Sept-Chênes, Nicolas-Marie Leclerc de biographical details 154–155 on the Eleusinian mysteries 129, 159, 160–162 Essai sur la religion des anciens Grecs 129, 154, 156, 157, 160 as a freemason 161–162

239 on the history of Christianity 129, 154–155, 160, 162–163 on Judaism 160 on liberty and social equality 163 on the origin of religion 155–158 sexual content of mysteries 3, 41, 122, 150, 186 Shaftesbury, Earl of. See Cooper, Anthony Ashley (Earl of Shaftesbury) Sicily 105–106, 114, 114n83 siècle de Louis XIV, Le (Voltaire) 132 Silhouette, Étienne de 96, 108, 115–116, 117 sistrum 81, 82, 83 society, development of. See civilising forces Society of Antiquaries 63, 81 Society of Dilettanti 1, 4 Socinianism and idolatry 48, 48n77, 51 and the Old Testament 98 and paganism 40–41, 42–43 and pantheism 52 vs. trinitarians 30, 41, 44, 46, 85 Socinianism truly Stated (John Toland) 46, 52 Socrates 102, 176 Solomon’s Temple. See Temple of Solomon Sommers, Susan 63n30 soul, immortal 185 See also salvation South, Robert 45 Sozzini, Fausto 40, 46 Spalding Gentlemen’s Society 81, 90 Spectacle de la nature, Le (Noël-Antoine Pluche) 109 Spencer, John 9, 49n80, 52, 61, 62, 99n23, 103, 104 Spinoza 9n33, 46–47, 48, 52, 91, 91n144, 171 Spon, Jacob 1, 4, 6 Stanhope, Philip 63, 64 Starck, Johann August Apologie des Ordens der Frey Maurer 148, 149, 150 biographical details 147–148, 150 De tralatitiis ex gentilismo in religionem Christianam 148 on Eleusinian mysteries 129, 148–149, 150, 151, 152, 153–154

240 on freemasonry 149–151, 150n103 Geschichte der christlichen Kirche des ersten Jahrhunderts 148–149 Hephästion 129, 148, 149, 151, 152, 160 on Judaism 153, 160 on patriarchal religion 153 Ueber die alten und neuen Mysterien 129, 149, 150, 153 Statius, Publius Papinius 26, 120 Stephen, Leslie 35 Stillingfleet, Edward 43–44 Stobaeus 100, 161, 186 Stonehenge (William Stukeley) 59, 65, 67 Stosch, Philipp von (Baron von Stosch) 80 Stromata (Clement of Alexandria) 36, 70–71 Stukeley, William Abury 59, 67 Dissertation on the Mysterys of the Antients in an explication of that famous piece of antiquity, the table of Isis, A 58 on druids 65, 77 on Egyptian religion 62–63, 69, 71, 110 and the Egyptian Society 79–81, 83 and freemasonry 58, 60, 63, 65, 86, 87, 90 friendship with Warburton 60–62, 98, 102–105, 107 on hieroglyphs/the Bembine tablet 66, 67–69, 70 on Judaism 62–63, 71, 110 on mysteries 60, 71–76, 77–79, 86, 87, 101, 113 On the Mysterys (William Stukeley) 61, 65, 67, 77, 79, 80, 81, 86, 115 on patriarchal Christianity 66, 77–79, 85–86, 90, 92, 101, 113, 187 Stonehenge 59, 65, 67 sun deification of the 173–174, 187 symbolism of the 72, 76–77, 78, 186–187 Sykes, Arthur Ashley 99n21 symbolism agricultural 114 astrognostical 175 cardinal directions 72, 74, 75, 76

Index death 5, 78, 120, 152, 166, 171, 175n50, 187, 193, 194 life-cycle 73, 75–76, 78 moon 76–77 seasons 74, 75, 76, 77 sun 72, 76–77, 78, 186–187 Tartarus 100, 152, 182, 183, 185 See also underworld Telesterion 4, 4n14 Telluris theoria sacra (Thomas Burnet) 110 Temple of Solomon 18, 66n35, 70, 76, 83, 149 temples as analogy of the universe 71n56, 76, 80 of druids 58, 59 Egyptian 72, 74, 75 Telesterion 4, 4n14 Terrasson, Jean 122n121 Tertullian 3, 6–7, 37, 130, 161, 192 Thebaid (Publius Papinius Statius) 26 theogony 173, 193, 195 theology (intellectual, physical, civic) 158, 159 Thesmophoria 11n39, 113, 121 Thesmophoros. See Demeter (Ceres) Tindal, Matthew 91 Toland, John Amyntor 34 Anglia Libera 34 biographical details 33–35 on Christianity and paganism 38–39, 49–51 Christianity not Mysterious 31, 32, 34, 42, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50 and deism 35, 45, 48 as a freemason 31n4 influences on his work 41, 42, 45 Letters to Serena 34, 49, 49n80, 52, 103 on the mistletoe and the golden bough 77n92 Nazarenus 47 Origines Judaicae 32, 52 and pantheism 19n61, 31n4, 51–52 Pantheisticon 51, 52, 53 Primitive Constitution of the Christian Church, The 51 on reasonableness 35–38, 42

Index on the revelation of Christ 35, 46–47, 48, 53, 92 as a Socinian 45–46, 48, 52, 98–99 Socinianism truly Stated 46, 52 Two Essays Sent in a Letter from Oxford, to a Nobleman in London 34 and typology 32–33 Torkington, James 80 Toulousaines, Les (Court de Gébelin) 135, 136, 143 Towne, John 101 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (Spinoza) 46 Travels of Cyrus, The (Andrew Michael Ramsay) 87, 88, 89, 90, 91 trials. See rituals Trinity origins of 14, 40–41, 66, 71, 173 Osiris, Isis, and Horus 71, 76, 173, 174 trinitarians vs. unitarians (Socinians) 30, 41, 44, 46, 85 See also Socinianism Triptolemus 11, 114, 182, 183n84 True Intellectual System of the Universe, The (Ralph Cudworth) 40 Tusculan Disputations (Cicero) 15, 41, 50, 100, 107, 116, 124, 152 Two Essays Sent in a Letter from Oxford, to a Nobleman in London (John Toland) 34 typology, religious 7n24, 32–33, 52, 56, 57 Ueber die alten und neuen Mysterien (Johann August Starck) 129, 149, 150, 153 underworld in mythology 2, 11, 76, 77, 100, 106, 106n51, 114, 140, 186 Tartarus 100, 152, 182, 183, 185 Unigenitus 108 unitarians. See Socinianism; Trinity United Kingdom. See Britain Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity (James Anderson) 85 unity of God 13, 128, 129, 133–134, 146, 151, 152, 159, 174 universalism 89, 93, 120, 146, 151–152, 162–163 Uranus (god) 193

241 Varro, Marcus Terentius 158 Vie de Fénelon (Andrew Michael Ramsay) 88 Virgil 61, 77, 100, 182 Volney, M. de (Comte de Volney) 166 Voltaire 14, 96, 128, 130, 131–134, 135, 161 Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion (G.W.F. Hegel) 192 Walker, D.P. 87 Warburton, William on the absence of a future state in Judaism 49, 60, 98, 103, 124, 125, 132–133 on the absence of Christian revelations in paganism 101–102 accused of plagiarism 102–105, 107 Alliance between Church and State, The 97 biographical details 97–98 and deism 128 on the Eleusinian mysteries 99–101, 113, 116, 121, 123, 144, 145 friendship with Stukeley 60–62 on a future state/afterlife 50, 95, 101, 124 on hieroglyphs 66 on Judaism and Egyptian religion 62 on polytheism 100–101 on religion and civilisation 98–99, 123 See also Divine Legation of Moses, The (William Warburton) Weishaupt, Adam 179 Wheler, George 1, 4, 6 winter solstice 77, 78, 79, 187 See also symbolism worship. See deification writing, origins of 66, 110, 111–112, 113 See also hieroglyphics Wünsch, Christian Ernst on the apocalypse 170–171, 173, 175 on astrognostical elements in the Book of Revelations 175 biographical details 165, 168–170 Esoterika 172n36 as a freemason 170, 170n29 Horus 166, 170

242 on Jesus Christ 176 on Judaism 175–176 on the origins of Christianity 166, 167, 172, 172n36 on the origins of religion 172–174 on pagan mysteries 167, 174, 177 Xenophon 88

Index Young, Brian 96 Zagreus 194 Zeus (Jupiter) 2, 142, 193 Zipporah 32, 52, 56 zodiac 111, 114, 173, 173n42, 175, 179 Zoroaster 89