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Jacques Basnage and the History of the Jews: Polemic and Allegory in the Republic of Letters

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Jacques Basnage and the History of the Jews: Polemic and Allegory in the Republic of Letters Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Faculty Scholarship 1992 Jacques Basnage and the History of the Jews: Polemic and Allegory in the Republic of Letters Jonathan Elukin Trinity College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/facpub Part of the History Commons Jacques Basnage and the History of the Jews: Anti-Catholic Polemic and Historical Allegory in the Republic of Letters Author(s): Jonathan M. Elukin Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1992), pp. 603-630 Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709940 . Accessed: 22/07/2013 11:43 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the History of Ideas. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 157.252.133.51 on Mon, 22 Jul 2013 11:43:47 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Jacques Basnage and the Historyof the Jews: Anti-CatholicPolemic and HistoricalAllegory in the Republic of Letters JonathanM. Elukin Sincethe first Christian communities sought to distancethemselves fromJudaism, Jews and their religion have haunted Christians. The medi- evalChristian exegetical tradition tried to exorcisethe ghost of Judaism by "appropriating"the Hebrew Bible. Christians transformed it into a bookthat predicted the coming of Christ and God's rejection of the Jews. ' Bythus neutralizing the internal validity of Judaism, Christians could take advantageof the rabbinical tradition as an aidin interpreting Christianized Scripture.2For Christian exegetes of the Middle Ages from Andrew of St. Victorto Nicholas of Lyra, the rabbis and their commentaries increasingly becamea repositoryofinformation that could assist in understanding the heavenlylanguage of Moses. Their knowledge of Hebrew, however, did notgenerally deter Christian scholars from reading Christian sensibilities intothe Hebrew Bible. Medieval exegetes were uniformly concerned that theJews had corruptedthe original Hebrew of the Old Testamenteither by ignoranceor throughself-conscious attempts to distortpredictions aboutthe Messiah.3 Humanist scholars of the Renaissance and Reforma- tioncontinued to harpon thecorrupted nature of the Hebrew text, but theadvantages to be reapedfrom exploiting Jewish sources were too great 1 JaroslavPelikan, The ChristianTradition: A Historyof theDevelopment of Doctrine. The Emergenceof theCatholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago, 1971), 16-20. 2 GilbertDahan, Les Intellectuelschretiens et lesjuifs au Moyen-Age(Paris, 1990), 121. 3 Amos Funkenstein,"Theological Interpretations of the Holocaust,"in Unanswered Questions,ed. FrangoisFuret (New York, 1989),287. Cf. JeremyCohen, The Friarsand theJews (Ithaca, 1982). 603 Copyright 1992 by JOURNALOF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS, INC. This content downloaded from 157.252.133.51 on Mon, 22 Jul 2013 11:43:47 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 604 JonathanM Elukin to ignore.Lorenzo Valla, for example, wanted to establishan accurate translationof the psalms not just as a scholarlyexercise but in orderto perfecthis own devotion.4 Luther, Erasmus, and others expressed unease at theenthusiasm for Hebrew, but the study of Hebrew sources became oneobsession of the scholarly world of the Renaissance and Reformation, althoughHebrew never quite achieved equality with Latin and Greek.5 In thepolemical conflicts of post-Reformation Christianity, scholars ofboth confessions looked to theHebrew Bible and Israelitehistory to justifytheir religious history. Catholic scholars like Cardinal Baronius, BishopBossuet, and the Abbe Fleury searched the Israelite tradition for precedentsto provethe antiquityand thusthe legitimacyof Church institutions.This was a traditionthat went back to Eusebius'sidentifica- tionof Jewish ascetic groups such as theEssenes and thetherapeutae as Christianmonks.6 Dutch Calvinists and English Puritans also seized upon theimage of theearly Israelites for their own purposes.The Israelite experienceof being freed from slavery and calledto theworship of the trueGod mirroredtheir own identity and experience.7One scholarhas recentlynoted the intense identification ofScottish reformers with Jews and theirhistory.8 Specific battles of contemporaryEuropean political andintellectual life, such as theseparation of secular and religious powers inReformed states, were fought out in termsof precedents from Israelite 4See Pelikan,Christian Tradition, 20, and Don CameronAllen, The Legendof Noah: RenaissanceRationalism in Art,Science, and Letters(Urbana, 1949), 50, n. 40. On Valla, see Heiko A. Oberman,"Discovery of Hebrewand Discriminationagainst the Jews: The VeritasHebraica as Double-EdgedSword in Renaissanceand Reformation,"Andrew C. Fix and Susan C. Karant-Nunn(eds.), GermaniaIllustrata (Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies,XVIII [1992]), 22. 5There is a large bibliography:Jerome Friedman, The Most Ancient Testimony (Athens,Oh., 1983); Richard H. Popkin,Isaac La Peyrere(1590-1676) (Leiden, 1987); PeterT. Van Rooden, Theology,Biblical Scholarship and RabbinicalStudies in theSeven- teenthCentury (Leiden, 1989); Aaron L. Katchen,Christian Hebraists and DutchRabbis (Cambridge,1984); and Oberman,"Discovery of Hebrew,"23-24. 6 FrankE. Manuel,"Israel and theEnlightenment," Daedalus, 111 (1982), 34. For an extensivesurvey of Christianscholarship on Judaism,see Manuel's The BrokenStaff: Judaismthrough Christian Eyes (Cambridge,1992), althoughhe treatsBasnage onlyin passingas a popularizer. I SimonSchama, The Embarrassmentof Riches(New York, 1988), 93-123.See also, Robert M. Healey, "The Jews in SeventeenthCentury Protestant Thought," Church History,46 (1977), 63-79. 8 ArthurWilliamson, "Scots, Jews, and Indians:The BritishImperial Impulse and the Discourseof Cultural Difference," paper presented to theDavis Centerseminar, Princeton University,5 April 1991. See also his "LatterDay Judah,Latter Day Israel:The Millen- nium,the Jews, and theBritish Future," Klaus Deppermann(ed.), Pietismusund Neuzeit: Chiliasmusin Deutschlandund England im 17. Jahrhundert(G6ttingen, 1988), 149- 65; and his "The JewishDimension of the ScottishApocalypse," Yosef Kaplan, Henry Mechoulan,and RichardH. Popkin(eds.), MenassehBen Israel and His World(Leiden, 1989), 7-31. This content downloaded from 157.252.133.51 on Mon, 22 Jul 2013 11:43:47 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JacquesBasnage and JewishHistory 605 history.9In thispaper I willstudy how post-biblical Jewish history was assimilatedinto the confessional polemics of Protestants and Catholics. To complicatematters, by the middleof the seventeenthcentury, scholarsfrom both confessions were living in a worldwhose intellectual climatehad radically changed since the fifteenth century. Humanists like Valla and Erasmushad appliedthe philological tools they had usedto editclassical texts in orderto recoverthe original version of Scripture.10 The textualanalysis of the Bibleopened the way formore sustained attackson the divinecharacter of Scripture,which occasionally broke downalong confessional lines as inthe debate over the authenticity ofthe bookof the Maccabees." In theseventeenth century more fundamental attackson the holiness of the Bible were being launched all acrossEurope. Isaac La Peyrere,for example, had challengedthe Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuchas did Hobbesand a fewothers.12 The greatCatholic scholarRichard Simon explained the evolution of the text as thelegacy of imperfect,albeit inspired, scribes. For Simon,however, the sacred integrityof the Bible was guaranteedby thetraditions of the Church.'3 The harshestblows were struck by Spinoza.Laboring in theshadow of Descartesand the skeptical tradition, he was thought to have undermined thesanctity of the Bible by displacing it fromthe center of man's search fortruth.'4 JacquesBasnage (1653-1723) was deeplyinvolved in theconfessional 9 Petrus Cunaeus's De Republica Hebraeorum(1617) was in part a plea for such unificationbecause he believedthe theocracyof ancientIsrael was the moststable and peacefulform of government.See Manuel,Broken Staff, 115-28; and Katchen,Christian Hebraists,37ff. Cf. Schama,Riches, 118-22. I am gratefulto ProfessorPierre Lurbe of the Universityof Caen forsending me a copy of his article,"John Toland et l'utilisationde l'histoirejuive: entrel'histoire et le mythe,"forthcoming in a volumeof essayson "The Jewsin the RepublicOf Letters,"from a 1990 Sorbonneconference. 10Jerry H. Bentley,Humanists and Holy Writ:New TestamentScholarship in the Renaissance(Princeton, 1983). 11See Elias Bikerman,"Une questiond'authenticite: Les privilegesjuifs," Annuaire de l'Institutde Philologieet d'Histoire Orientales de l'UniversiteLibre de Bruxelles,13 (1953), 12. 12 See Popkin,Isaac La Peyrere. 3 On Simon,see amongother works, Paul Hazard, The EuropeanMind (1680-1715), tr.J. Lewis May (Cleveland,1963); and Paul Auvray,Richard Simon (1638-1712)(Paris, 1974); and the insightfulreview by B. Schwarzbach,"At last, Paul Auvray'sRichard
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