Graag
signaleer ik hier het artikel dat Gootjes vorige maand publiceerde over de
eerste aanval op de TTP van
J.M. V.D.M. [Johannes Melchior], Epistola ad amicum, continens censuram libri, cui titulus: Tractatus
theologico-politicus. C. Noenaert,
1671 - 48 blz.
[pas op 27 april 2016 door books.google gedigitaliseerd exemplaar uit de Biblioteca Angelica te Rome]
[pas op 27 april 2016 door books.google gedigitaliseerd exemplaar uit de Biblioteca Angelica te Rome]
Albert
Gootjes, “The First Orchestrated Attack on Spinoza: Johannes Melchioris and the
Cartesian Network in Utrecht.” In: Journal
of the History of Ideas, Volume 79, Number 1, January 2018, pp. 23-43 [muse.jhu.edu]
This article examines the immediate Dutch reception of
the Tractatus theologico-politicus. Using newfound archival sources it
demonstrates that the anti-Spinoza activity of the Cartesians in Utrecht
extends far beyond the well-known writings of Lambertus van Velthuysen and
Regnerus van Mansveld. Their Cartesian network not only produced the very first
public refutation to appear, but also formed a center for coordinating much of
the Dutch response to Spinoza. This engagement, it is argued in closing, must
be accounted for in Spinoza reception history, and forms the background to the
mysterious visit Spinoza paid to Utrecht in the summer of 1673.
Albert
Gootjes (cf.)
zette slechts 3 pagina’s van zijn stuk op academia.edu. Dat het ook anders kan laat ik hieronder bij
Eric Jorink zien, die hele boeken uploadt.
Gootjes laat behoorlijk geloofwaardig zien dat er vanuit Cartesianen in Utrecht, samenwerkend in het Collegie der Scavanten en onder regie van de filoloog en historicus Johannes Georgius Graevius (1632–1703) een stevige aanval op Spinoza’s TTP werd opgezet. Niet wordt de belofte ingelost over “the background to the mysterious visit Spinoza paid to Utrecht in the summer of 1673”. Dit is enigszins misleidend, want daarover komt helemaal niets aan de orde.
Gootjes laat behoorlijk geloofwaardig zien dat er vanuit Cartesianen in Utrecht, samenwerkend in het Collegie der Scavanten en onder regie van de filoloog en historicus Johannes Georgius Graevius (1632–1703) een stevige aanval op Spinoza’s TTP werd opgezet. Niet wordt de belofte ingelost over “the background to the mysterious visit Spinoza paid to Utrecht in the summer of 1673”. Dit is enigszins misleidend, want daarover komt helemaal niets aan de orde.
Ik
citeer voor de achtergrond waartegen het artikel te lezen is, een passage uit:
Wiep van Bunge, From
Stevin to Spinoza. An Essay on Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic.
BRILL, 2001 - 218 pagína’s – books.google
- issuu
In
1671, the same year in which Van Velthuysen quarreled with Spinoza, the
Calvinist theologian Johannes Melchior (1646-1689) published a short Epistola against Spinoza. Both the
Remonstrants and the Cartesians were well under way in preparing their
own—fiercely critical—commentaries on the Tractatus
Iheologico-politicus. Curiously, both the Remonstrant minister Jacobus
Batelier (1593-1672) from The Hague and the Cartesian Professor Regnerus van
Mansvelt from Utrecht died before they could see their efforts through the
press. Yet both Batelier's and Van Mansvelt's books were published: Batelier's Vindiciae Miraculorum in 1673, Van
Mansvelt's Adversus in 1674. That
very same year, moreover, Spinoza's old ac-quaintance Willem van Blyenbergh
issued his refutation of the Tractatus
theologico-politicus, after which the Collegiant Johannes Bredenburg
(1643-1691) and the Socinian Frans Kuyper— the editor of the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum— completed
the extremely hostile Dutch reception of Spinoza's first original publication
by adding two more refutations of what was held to be Spinoza's 'atheism'.
Spinoza's
atheism was deduced mainly from his comments in the Tractatus theologico-politicus on the identity of God's will and
intellect, and from his identification of the power of God and the power of
Nature. Van Velthuysen had already suggested that according to Spinoza
'Universum ipsum Deum esse'. Melchior wondered anxiously whether Spinoza was
really of the opinion that apart from God, nothing else existed. Next, Batelier
put the—rhetorical—question whether this 'new Philosopher' had indeed
substituted God for Nature, after which Van Mansvelt boldly declared that the
entire contents of the Tractatus theologico-politicus were the logical outcome
'ex absurdissimo illo quod fovet Mysterio, de Deo corporeo ab universo non
distincto'. By the time Bredenburg had added a special section to his Enervatio in which he sought to show
'Naturam non Esse Deum', it must have been generally agreed that Spinoza was in
fact an atheist. An atheist, that is, who had covered up his feelings, which
consequently had to be revealed as swiftly as possible. The very title of
Kuyper's contribution to the debate put it in a nutshell: Arcana Atheismi Revelata.
Hierna
na nog een stukje uit
Jonathan Israel, “The Early Dutch and German Reaction to
the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus: Foreshadowing the Enlightenment’s More
General Spinoza Reception?” [In: Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Michael A. Rosenthal
(Eds.), Spinoza's 'Theological-Political
Treatise': A Critical Guide. Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp 72-100 – books.google]
Early
in 1671, a theologian trained at Groningen under Maresius, Johannes Melchior
(1646-89) seems actually to have been the first adversary of the TTP to publicly name and condemn its
author, though owing either to a printing error or someone's confusion, his
published rebuttal, namely J.M.V.D.M., Epistola
ad amicum, continens censuram libri cui titulus: Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus (Utrecht, 1671)
utterly mangled Spinoza's name rendering it "Xinospa." Mcichior's Epistola focuses especially on Spinoza's
refusal to regard the wording of Scripture as the word of God and his interpreting
innumerable phrases and notions as only vague approximations to reality
adjusted to the ideas of the common
people or as products of the "imagination" of the prophets. The
effect of Spinoza's sophismata, held
Melchior, is to question the very reality of miracles, thereby usurping the
will and decree of God, and misleading people into imagining that every-thing
necessary for human salvation can be provided by natural reason and intellect
alone. Behind Spinoza's Bible criticism, Melchior grasped, lurked an entire
philosophy sustaining a purely secular conception of the universe and human
life and one which leaves no room for supernatural agency, theology, or
ecclesiastical authority. For Spinoza, he concluded, the will of God "is
nothing other than the power of nature" [non aliam esse quam naturae potentiam]. Consequently, Spinoza's
"false and absurd hypotheses"
were far more likely, in his opinion, to destroy rather than stabilize the
foundations of religion and the republic.
Over “Johannes Graevius en het Collegie der Scavanten” konden en kunnen we uitgebreid lezen in het 3e hoofdstuk “Kometen: Het debat over de ‘wonder-tekenen in den hemel’” in Eric Jorink, Het ‘Boeck der Natuere’. Nederlandse geleerden en de wonderen van Gods schepping 1575-1715 [Primavera Pers, Leiden 2006 [te lezen bij DBNL en zelfs door Jorink geüpload naar academia.edu; ook de bij Brill in 2010 verschenen Engelse vertaling]
Over “Johannes Graevius en het Collegie der Scavanten” konden en kunnen we uitgebreid lezen in het 3e hoofdstuk “Kometen: Het debat over de ‘wonder-tekenen in den hemel’” in Eric Jorink, Het ‘Boeck der Natuere’. Nederlandse geleerden en de wonderen van Gods schepping 1575-1715 [Primavera Pers, Leiden 2006 [te lezen bij DBNL en zelfs door Jorink geüpload naar academia.edu; ook de bij Brill in 2010 verschenen Engelse vertaling]
In Hans Willem Blom, Causaliy and Morality in Politics. The Rise of Naturalism in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Political Thought [Rotterdam, 1995 - PDF] kunnen we vanaf p. 244 lezen over het weinige dat Johannes Melchior als het ware in een PS schrijft over de vijf laatste, politieke hoofdstukken van de TTP.
20-03-2012
had ik het blog: "Joannes Georgius Graevius (1632-1703) Hoe
bevriend met Spinoza zal hij geweest zijn?" Dit artikel van Albert Gootjes
maakt het nog flink wat ongeloofwaardiger dat Spinoza zijn brief aan Graevius
(Brief 49) echt oprecht eindigde met: "Vaarwel, edelachtbare heer, en
blijf mij, uw vriend, gedenken, die ben met alle genegenheid en sympathie uw
Benedictus despinoza".
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