Cis van Heertum en Frank Mertens over Johannes Koerbagh en zijn omgeving - #spinoza

Het is alweer zeven jaar geleden dat ik in de goed voorziene openbare bibliotheek van Maastricht het eerste nummer van de jg. 2011 van Lias, journal of early modern intellectuel culture and its sources, in handen had. Dat moet in de tweede helft van dat jaar geweest zijn, want in een blog van 2 juni 2011 had ik erover verteld dat ik van de komst ervan op de hoogte was gesteld door zowel Cis van Heertum als Frank Mertens van wie artikelen over Johannes Koerbagh en zijn vrienden en bekenden in dat blad zouden verschijnen. Ik nam er ter plekke zo goed mogelijk kennis van – lopende nummers van tijdschriften werden niet uitgeleend. Nu, zeven jaar later dus zijn deze studies op internet toegankelijk.

Cis van Heertum heeft recent haar uitgebreide artikel, “Reading the career of Johannes Koerbagh: The auction catalogue of his library as a reflection of his life” [In: Lias, 38/1 (2011) 1-57] geüpload naar haar academia.edu-pagina. Graag geef ik dat in dit blog even door. Het abstract ervan neem ik hier over.

Abstract: In Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd (1668), Adriaan Koerbagh (1633-1669) disseminated Spinozistic views in print before Spinoza himself did. Two years earlier, his brother Johannes (1634-1672), a candidate for the ministry since 1660, had been reprimanded by Amsterdam's reformed consistory for 'highly unsound and heretical opinions'. Partly based on previously unpublished archival sources and Johannes Koerbagh's catalogus librorum, this contribution aims to highlight the background of Adriaan Koerbagh's younger brother. It is generally assumed that the Koerbaghs became strongly involved in Amsterdam's heterodox and Spinozistic circles in the early 1660s. However, Johannes Koerbagh's disputation under Maresius, published in 1663, still presents traditional anti-Socinian views. It is arguable that Koerbagh remained fairly orthodox at least to the outside world until 1663, as Maresius may not have wanted to publish the disputation had he known or suspected that Koerbagh was a confirmed Socinian.
    Johannes Koerbagh's shift from more or less orthodox Calvinist candidate for the ministry to outspoken (Socinian or Socinianizing) 'radical' is documented by the auction catalogue of his library, which also reflects his abiding Coccejan and Republican sympathies. The catalogue, which so far has not received any attention in the research on Spinoza's circle, helps to complete the picture of Johannes Koerbagh's academic, theological and 'radical' career.
    A transcription of the catalogue follows after the article (pp. 38-48), accompanied by a chronological index of dated and datable books between 1665 and 1672 (appendix 1, pp. 49-51) and an Index of authors and of anonymous works in the catalogue (appendix 2, pp. 51-57).

Het nog uitgebreidere artikel dat daarop in datzelfde Lias-nummer van januari 2011 volgde, had Frank Mertens al eerder naar zijn academia.edu-pagina gebracht:

Frank Mertens, “Johannes Koerbagh's Lost Album Amicorum Seen through the Eyes of Pieter de la Ruë.” [Lias 38 (1): 59-127]

Abstract: Almost two decades ago Steven Dirk Post in an article on the manuscript notes of Pieter de la Ruë referred to Johannes Koerbagh’s unknown album amicorum, which De la Ruë saw in 1731 and 1739. De la Ruë’s unpublished and largely unexplored manuscript offers important additional information to our knowledge of Johannes Koerbagh (1634-1672), the younger brother of the more well-known Adriaen Koerbagh (1633-1672), more specifically concerning a relatively early stage in his intellectual development. It was Adriaen Koerbagh who gained notoriety as a freethinker, yet Johannes was also suspected of having collaborated in the publication of Adriaen’s Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd (1668) and in the attempt that same year to publish his Een Ligt Schijnende in Duystere Plaatsen. The present contribution, based on De la Ruë’s notes and on a number of previously unknown documents, examines the academic networks in which Johannes Koerbagh, at that time a student of theology and a candidate for the ministry, circulated in the late 1650s and early 1660s. It will be argued that the majority of the entries in his album do not reflect a specific interest in modern, much less Cartesian or Socinian, thought. Nevertheless, the last contributions to the album, by Lodewijk Meyer (1629-1681), Johannes Bouwmeester (1634-1680) and Jacobus Vallan (1637-1720), all acquaintances of Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-1677), seem to foreshadow the future intellectual development of Johannes Koerbagh, who – more than a year before Adriaen – was suspected of harbouring ‘very heretical and unsound opinions’.