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: 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

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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).

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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 Simon,"in JewishQuarterly Review, 67 (1976-1977),177-81. 14 See thecriticisms of Hazard's interpretationof la criseby MargaretC. Jacob,"The Crisisof the European Mind: Hazard Revisited,"Phyllis Mack and MargaretC. Jacob (eds.),Politics and Culturein EarlyModern Europe: Essays in HonorofH. G. Koenigsberger (New York, 1987),251-71; See also RichardH. Popkin,History of Scepticism from Eras- mus to Descartes(rev. ed.; Assen, 1960), and "Cartesianismand Biblical Criticism," ThomasM. Lennon,John M. Nicholas,and JohnW. Davis (eds.), Problemsof Cartesian- ism (Kingston,Ont., 1982), 61-83. An excellentreview of the importanceof Spinoza's biblicalcriticism is foundin Brad Gregory'sintroduction to Spinoza's TractatusTheolog- ico-Politicus,tr. Samuel Shirley(Leiden, 1989).

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polemicsand the internationalnetwork of scholarsin the seventeenth century.Exiled from France, and servingas a Calvinistminister in Rotter- dam, Basnage was one of the most prolificmembers of the so-called Republicof Letters,which included his morefamous friend Pierre Bayle and his brotherHenri Basnage de Beauval. Basnage, like many other Christianscholars, turned his attentionto Jewishhistory. The Histoirede la religiondes Juifs,depuis Jesus-Christ ]usqu a pre'sent,pour servirde supplementet de continuation'a l'Histoirede Joseph,first published in Rotterdamin 1706-7,won hima reputationas the firsthistorian sympatheticto Jewsand theirhistory.'5 In fact,Basnage used Jewishhistory as a polemicaltool to attackCatholicism in thehighly charged confessional and self-consciouslycritical atmosphere of the seventeenthcentury. Basnage constructedan analogybetween rabbinic Judaism and Ca- tholicism.He saw the way the rabbisseemingly corrupted Scripture and biblical Judaismas an allegoryfor the mannerin which the Catholic Church corruptedthe purityof apostolic Christianity.Other scholars have notedthis relationship in Basnage's work,but theyhave tendedto explainit away as a minoraberration, possibly the result of his antagonism to Catholicism'sand Judaism'scommon materialist failings.'6 Without discountingBasnage's sympathyfor the Jews,I believe that the anti- Catholic allegorydefines the tenorof the workand mustinfluence our assessmentof it. Such an analogybetween rabbinism and Catholicism allowedBasnage to weavea sustainedattack on theCatholic Church into whatwas ostensiblya historyof the Jews.

15 Cited herefrom the Englishtranslation (reviewed and approvedby Basnage), The Historyof theJews from Jesus Christ to The PresentTime, Containing Their Antiquitie, theReligion, Their Rites, the Dispersions of the Ten Tribesin theEast, and thePersecutions ThisNation Has Sufferedin the West,Being a Supplementand Continuationof the History of Josephus,tr. Thomas Taylor (London, 1708), with referencesto the 1716 edition, HistoiredesJuifs, depuisJesus-Christjusqu'apresentpourservirde Continuation a l'Histoire de Joseph.Nouvelle Edition Augmentee (La Haye, 1716). An abridgedversion was published in Paris in 1710 by Louis Ellies Du Pin, Histoiredes Juifs,depuis Jesus-Christ jusqu'a presentcontenant les dogmesJuifs, leurs confessions de Foi, leurs Variations,& I'Histoirede leur Religion,depuis la ruinedu Temple.Pour servirde Supplement& de continuationa l'Histoirede Joseph,in 7 volumes.On thedifferences in theEnglish transla- tion,see LesterA. Segal, "Jacques Basnage de Beauval's l'Histoiredes Juifs:Christian HistoriographicalPerception of Jewryand Judaismon the Eve of the Enlightenment," HebrewUnion College Annual, 54 (1983), 304, n. 5. 16 See MyriamYardeni, "New Conceptsof Post-CommonwealthJewish History in the Early Enlightenment:Bayle and Basnage," in her collectionof essays,Anti-Jewish Mentalitiesin EarlyModern Europe (New York, 1990),213; and GeraldCerny, Theology, Politicsand Lettersat the Crossroadsof EuropeanCivilization: Jacques Basnage and the Baylean HuguenotRefugees in the Dutch Republic(Dordrecht, 1987), 222; and Segal, "Perceptions,"314. There is a growinginterest in Basnage's work. See the articleby FrancisSchmidt in "The Jewsin the Republicof Letters"(see above, n. 9); and Miriam Silvera,"Contribution a l'examendes sourcesde L'Histoiredes Juifsde JacquesBasnage: Las Excelenciasde los Hebreosde Ysaac Cardosa," 25 (1991), 42-53 and 149-62.

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Throughouthis book,Basnage wrote about the Jews as humanbeings whopersevered in theface of great suffering and persecution.This passage is typical:"These firstMisfortunes were attended with so dismalCalam- ities,that even those who thinkit theirDuty to hate the Jews,because theyare notof the same Religion,cannot unconcernedly read theHistory ofso hardand lastinga Misery."While the Church tried to cloak itscruel treatmentof Jewsin euphemisms,we shouldbe honest,Basnage argues, in the languageused to describeJewish suffering. Does the Churchhave the powerto transformpunishment into gentleness?Did the thousands of exiles who were banishedfrom Spain and who died of hungernot suffer?'7 By dedicatingsuch a massivework to thehistory of the Jews, Basnage assertedthat the Jews have a post-biblicalhistory that is worthyof study in and of itself.The sheerscope of Basnage'shistory of theJews remains impressive.Basnage explored the history of the Herodian rulers and Jew- ish sectsof the first century, the destruction of Jerusalem by theRomans, thesubsequent development of rabbinic Judaism, the customs and rituals of Jewishreligious observance, the unwarrantedpersecution of the Jews in the Middle Ages, the scholarlycontributions and legaciesof the great rabbis,and thecondition of contemporary Jewish communities in Europe and theNear East. Basnagedrew upon a widevariety of sources, although his knowledgeof Hebrew appears to have been limitedas he generally relied on translationsof rabbinicmaterial. Enlightenment writers like Voltaireand Diderotwould exploit Basnage's work for information about Judaism,but theywould use it to show thecorruption and mediocrityof Judaismand, by implication,Christianity. In additionthey would parrot Jewishattacks on Christianitythat Basnage also preserved.'8 By theend ofthe eighteenth century Basnage already had a reputation fortolerance in his treatmentof Jews and Jewishhistory.'9 He was widely acknowledgedto be the authoritativesource for Jewishhistory up to the nineteenthcentury. Basnage's work on the Jewswas apparentlyso appealingthat even two Hebrew translations of the work survive. (A study of theseworks, particularly to see how the attackson Catholicismwere rendered,would be quite interesting.)In addition,a Yiddish historyof the Jewswas principallydependent upon Basnage.20

" Basnage,History of theJews (hereafter cited as Basnage) I, i, 2, withreferences to the 1716 Frenchedition in brackets(I [tomeI], i, 8) and Basnage,VII, xi, 640. 18 See ArthurHertzberg, The FrenchEnlightenment and theJews (New York, 1968), and the discussionsby Manuel and Segal citedabove. 19 See theapproving comments in Boissy,Dissertations critiquespourservir d'&claircisse- mensaz l'histoire des Juifsavant et depuisJesus Christ et de supplementa l'Histoirede M. Basnage (Paris, 1785), preface,vii. 20 See Segal, "Perceptions,"321, n. 75. On theYiddish history of theJews, see Mena- hem Mann's She'erit Yisrael(Amsterdam, 1743); and R. G. Fuks-Mansfeld,"Yiddish Historiographyin theTime ofthe Dutch Republic,"Studia Rosenthaliana,15 (1981), 13- 19.

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Gibbon,for example, depended upon Basnage'saccount of earlyJew- ish historyand lavishedpraise upon him as an accurateand impartial historian.2'Basnage's humane tone and interestin Jewishlife earned him the favorof Jewishhistorians of the nineteenthcentury, most notably HeinrichGraetz.22 More recentscholars like Myriam Yardeni and Arthur Hertzberghave also describedhim as particularlysympathetic to theJews and therefore"modern" in outlook.23 I thinkwe risk misunderstandingthe Histoireby emphasizingits sympatheticand modernstance towards the Jews. I am not arguingthat we discountBasnage's largeness of vision towards Jews and Jewishhistory as merelya cynicalpose. I would insist,however, that the polemical motivationsof Basnage's work must complicateour understandingof categoriesroughly described as toleranceand modernity.Basnage's work offersus an intriguingparadox. At thecore of a workcharacterized by a languageof toleranceand human sympathyfor the Jewsis an abiding antipathyfor rabbinism and Catholicism. We can onlybegin to reassessBasnage's workby firstexamining the intellectualand religiouspressures that bore down upon him while he was writingthe historyof the Jews.On one level,which was not modernat all, Basnagewrote the history of the Jews in orderto convertthe remnants of the chosen people beforethe second coming,which he expectedin 1716. He thoughtthe forced conversions of theJews by Christiansin the Middle Ages had been meaningless.Only by provingthe truthof the biblicalprophecies concerning Christ to the Jews-to whichtheir own historyattested-did Basnage hope to convincethem to abandonJudaism and sincerelyembrace Christianity.24 Basnage wroteat a timewhen believers in Christiantruth felt them- selvessurrounded by Spinoza-inspiredatheists.25 To counterthe inroads of atheism,they had to provethat the Bible was indeedthe mostancient and themost accurate account of humanhistory. It could notbe ignored

21 EdwardGibbon, Decline and Fall ofthe Roman Empire(8 vols.;Oxford, 1827), VI, 47. 22 See the referencesto. Graetz's Historyof the Jews,in Segal, "Perceptions,"303, n. 1. 23 See Yardeni,"New Conceptsof Post-CommonwealthJewish History," Anti-Jewish Mentalities,211-25; Hertzberg, in a reviewof Paul Johnson'sA Historyof theJews (New York, 1987) in The New YorkTimes Book Review(April 19, 1987), 11; and RichardH. Popkin,"Jacques Basnage's Histoiredes Juifsand the BibliothecaSarraziana," Studia Rosenthaliana,21 (1987), 161; and a similarsentiment might be foundin MiriamSilvera, "L'ebreo in JacquesBasnage: apologia del cristianesimoe difesadella tolleranza,"Nou- vellesde la Republiquedes Lettres(1987), 103-17. 24 Basnage,VII, xi, 640. 25 On atheismsee Hazard, TheEuropean Mind, and now Alan CharlesKors, Atheism in France 1650-1729,I (Princeton,1990), and R. R. PalmerCatholics and Unbelieversin Eighteenth-CenturyFrance (Princeton,1939); also ErnestineG. E. van der Wall, "The Dutch HebraistAdam Boreel and the Mishna Project,"Lias, 16, pt. 2 (1989), 243.

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in man's searchfor divine truth. The Bible's antiquitywas bolsteredby marshallingsources from all areas of humanknowledge. Isaac Newton, forexample, used astronomyto provethat the Israelites created the most ancientcivilization.26 Behind these efforts, and behindBasnage's, was the sense thatreligious belief could be rationallyproved.27 Establishing the validityof Scripturealso meantdemonstrating that the propheciescon- tainedin the Old Testamenthad been fulfilled.28Again, everypossible piece of evidence,including the habitsof the Indiansof the New World, was exploitedto substantiatethe propheciesforetelling Christ's appear- ance and his imminentreturn.29 It was by assemblingproofs of thiskind that the religiouslyengaged scholars of the seventeenthcentury fought offdoubt and the challengesof both Spinoza and the deists. Basnage's detaileddescription of the dispersionof the Jewswas his attemptto provethat the prophecies contained in theOld Testamenthad been fulfilledin Christianhistory. This certainlywas the understanding of Basnage's Englishtranslator: "Because one of the chiefestDesigns of thisBook, is to lay beforethe Scoffersand Despisersof our Religion,an Argumentof its Truth in a Language theyunderstand."30 Indeed, to Basnage's mind,the continuedsurvival of the Jewswas anotherdemon- strationof God's providence.31 Beforethe Jewswere dispersedthey had to be broughtdown. That fate,too, was containedin the HebrewBible. Basnage triedto explicate thecoded messagein his discussionof Jacob's prophecy to Judah(Genesis 49:10) in whichthe patriarch announced that Judah would lose thescepter-taken to mean politicalpower-when theMessiah had come.32This was a polemicthat went back to theadversosjudaeos texts of theMiddle Ages. By provingthat the Jewshad been abandonedby God, Basnage hopedto convincethe Jews-at leastthose who would read his book-to

26 Frank E. Manuel, The EighteenthCentury Confronts the Gods (Cambridge,1959), 99. 27 AndrewC. Fix, Prophecyand Reason: TheDutch Collegiants in theEarly Enlighten- ment(Princeton, 1991), 13. See Edward Stillingfleet'sOrigines sacrae (1662) and A Ra- tionalAccount of the Groundsof the ProtestantReligion (1665); and JohnLocke, The Reasonablenessof Christianity(1695). See also BarbaraShapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-CenturyEngland (Princeton,1983), 74-118. 28 See Roy Porter,Edward Gibbon:Making History (London, 1988),23. Porter,Gib- bon, 23 on this "evidentialtheology"; also Richard H. Popkin, "The Third Force in 17thCentury Philosophy: Scepticism, Science, and Biblical Prophecy,"Nouvelles de la Republiquedes Lettres(1983), 35-65, "The Lost Tribes,the Caraites and the English Millenarians,"Journal of JewishStudies, 37 (1986), 217; and "The Rise and Fall of the JewishIndian Theory,"Menasseh Ben Israel and His World,63-82. 29 Van der Wall, "Dutch Hebraist,"243. 30 Basnage,preface, iii. 31 Basnage,VI, i, 466. [I (tome I), i, 8]. 32 Basnage,I, iv, 29, and IV, xxi, 345.

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 610 JonathanM. Elukin abandonJudaism and convertto Christianity.33When Basnagedescribes theabject ruins of Jewish political life during the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans,he means to demonstratethat "Judah" had reallylost thescepter-that is politicalpower-because theRomans had conquered Palestine.In facteven before the destruction, Basnage argues, Herod and his familywere not independentprinces. They did not trulyhold the scepter.Unfettered Jewish rule over Palestinewas an illusion.34 Indeed,Basnage argues,the impressionfrom rabbinic literature that theSanhedrin, the great council of rabbis, or theHigh Priesthad indepen- dent power was a mistakendelusion of the rabbis.35The rabbiswrote corruptand unreliablehistory: In a Word,the Rabbins, who are butlittle acquainted with their own History, vendtheir Fables for Matters of Fact. Provided they are believ'dby their own Nation,they do nottrouble their Heads to reconcile their Narratives with foreign Historians,whom they mightily despise. They boldly make Anachronisms, write thegrossest Absurdities in Chronology;and without any scruple of Conscience, corruptthe Truth of History.36

Basnage could show that rabbinichistory was corruptby testingit againstmore reliablesources. For the period of the destructionof the Temple,his primarysource would be the writingsof Flavius Josephus, the Jewishmilitary leader who defectedto the Romans afterthe failure of the revoltin 70 AD. By claimingthat his book was a continuationof Josephus'shistory, Basnage may have been hopingto benefitfrom the persistententhusiasm and respectfor Josephus among a Christianreader- ship. He was counteringcriticism of Josephusby contemporaryscholars likeBaronius.37 He was also offeringa Christian version of Menasseh Ben Israel'sprojected history of the Jews.38 In someways Basnage was hoping to presenthimself as an eyewitnessto Jewishhistory comparable to Jose- phus. Justas Josephuswas a reliableand authoritativeeyewitness for the destructionof the Temple,Basnage would providean "eyewitness" account of the contemporarydecline of European Judaism,which was furtherproof of God's continuedvengeance. They did have similarstyles of historywriting in that they both gatheredand evaluatedevidence relating to Jewishhistory and religion. Basnage explainedthat "I have only, as he hath done, unravell'dthe Religionand Customsof thatNation, and relatedtheir Misfortunes....

33 On conversionistefforts, see David Katz, Philo-Semitismand theReadmission of theJews to England 1603-1655(Oxford, 1982), 128. 34 Basnage,I, ii, 12. 35 Basnage,I, iv, 29-36. 36 Basnage,I, i, 2, [I (tome I), 9-10]. 37 See PeterBurke, "A Surveyof the Popularityof AncientHistorians (1450-1700)" Historyand Theory,5 (1966), 135-52.On Baronius,see Basnage,I, i, 4. 38 Basnage,Histoire, I (tome I), i, 22.

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Theyboth agree in Design and Matter,tho' notin Partsand Skill."39Just as otherscholars were looking to scienceor archaeologyto substantiate sacred history,Basnage reinforcedthe authorityof his own account of Jewishhistory by associatinghimself with Josephus. Basnage knewthat his book could not trulybe comparedwith Josephus's work: "I am sensi- ble, thatthis Title is rash;but my Design is notto pretendto be compar'd with this Historian,whose Genius and Knowledgewere verydifferent frommine."40 There was a fundamentaldifference between them, for Basnagebelieved that "I am destituteof some helps, which this Historian had: His Guides were inspir'dby God." Josephus,however, betrayed theseguides, and Basnage could not "conceivehow he hath sometimes presum'dto deviatefrom them."'41 AlthoughJosephus may have committederrors, he was stillthe most reliablehistorian of the time.Basnage had to admit that "I have been forced,considering the great distance of time, to followJosephus, because we findno better,or moreexact Guide. This Historianhath his defects; but thatcan't be avoided."42Certainly he is betterthan the rabbis:"But when ... nothingbut Conjectures,or uncertainWritings are produc'd againsthim, is it notreasonable to preferhim to theThalmudists, or those who vend theirWhims as downrightMatters of Fact?"43Basnage drew upon the criticaltradition articulated by Bayle and could evaluateto a certainextent the reliability of evidence. However, he had notabandoned a divinelydeterministic model of history.Josephus, he remindsus, could onlybe followedso far.The greathistorian was notable to see or acknowl- edge God's hand in the destructionof Jerusalem.That was left to Basnage."4 Basnagefelt threatened not just by stubbornJews and atheists,but by a genreof Christianscholarship on Judaismthat he thoughtundermined the uniquenessof the Christianrevelation. Christians studied the Jewish mysticaltradition of the kabbala to findhidden evidenceof Christian beliefs.Ever since Pico della Mirandolaembraced the kabbalistictradi- tion,Christians had beentrying to exploreits secrets.45 Johannes Reuchlin popularizedthe kabbala in Latin scholarshipin his De verbomirifico (1492) and De artecabalistica (1517). For Reuchlinthe kabbala allowed Christiansto penetratethe mystical Hebrew letters and confirmthat Jesus was the Messiah foretoldby the Hebrew Bible.46He was followedby

39 Basnage,I, i, 4. [I (tome I), i, 19]. 40 Basnage,I, i, 4. [I (tome I), i, 19-20]. 41 Basnage,I, i, 4. [I (tome I), i, 20]. 42 Basnage,I, i, 4. [I (tome I), i, 24]. 43 Basnage,I, i, 4. [I (tome I), i, 24]. 44 Basnage,VI, i, 467. 45 Chaim Wirszubski,Pico della Mirandola'sEncounter with Jewish Mysticism (Cam- bridge,1988). 46 Oberman,"Discovery of Hebrew,"24.

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 612 JonathanM. Elukin Knorrvon Rosenroth, whose Kabbala Denudata(1677-78) became the standardLatin sourcebook of the kabbala. Rosenroth was trying to search out Christianmysteries and to promotethe conversion of theJews by showingthem the Christian message embedded in thekabbala. Basnage drewupon his work extensively in hislong section on Jewishmysticism, andfurther detailed work on Basnage's selection and diffusion ofkabbalis- ticmaterial is warranted.47 Christianinterest in the kabbalawas partof the generalscholarly endeavorin theseventeenth and eighteenthcenturies to studyhow, ac- cordingto Momigliano,the "paganspreserved [usually by wayof the Phoenicians]elements of therevelation to theJews." The mostfamous examplesof this effort are Samuel Bochardt's Geographia sacra seu Phales et Chanaan(1646), G. J. Vos's De theologiagentili (1674), Theodore Gale's The Courtof the Gentiles(1667-71), and Pierre-DanielHuet's Demonstratioevangelica (1690). In generalthey tried to showthat the pagangods of antiquity were merely adaptations of biblical patriarchs and heroes.By coordinating the chronologies of ancient Egypt with the Bible, theyhoped to showthat Abraham had passedIsraelite culture to the Egyptians.From there it found its way into Greek worship. Gerard Croese arguedin HomerosHebraios (1704), for example, that the Iliad was a reworkingof Joshua's attack on Jericho.Earlier, Edmund Dickinson in Delphisphoenicizantes(1655) saw in the religion of Delphi traditions from theage of the Judges. Jacob Bryant's A NewSystem (1744-46) carried this styleinto the eighteenthcentury. As late as 1786,Guerin du Rocher sallied forthwith Herodote historien du peuple hebreusans le savoir.48 If scholarscould find Israelite religion behind the structures and symbols of paganism,they could also imaginethat the pagans had knownthe doc- trinesof Christianityembedded in the Israelitetraditions and in the mysticalkabbala. One tangentof this effort claimed to findChristianity inthe culture of the newly discovered Indians and the peoples of China.49 To scholarslike Basnage, all theseattempts seemed to make the revelation describedin theNew Testamentsuperfluous. Scholarswho were trying to use historyand philologyto provethe uniquenessof Christianity were particularly threatened by the enthusiasm

47 Brian P. Copenhaver,"Jewish Theologies of Space in the ScientificRevolution: HenryMore, Joseph Raphson, Isaac Newtonand theirPredecessors," Annals of Science, 37 (1980), 507-8;and AllisonCoudert, "A CambridgePlatonist's Kabbalist Nightmare," JHI, 36 (1975), 633-52.Cf. Manuel, The BrokenStaff, 146-47, where he arguesthat by the seventeenthcentury, Christian Hebraists had generallylost interestin the kabbala. 48 FrangoisLaplanche, "Basnage historiendes paganismesantiques ou la crise de l'apologetiquechretienne a l'aubedes lumieres,"Lias, 15 (1988), 174;and ArnaldoMomig- liano, "Historiography:Western Studies," Mircea Eliade (ed.), Encyclopediaof Religion (New York, 1987), VI, 387. 49 See Manuel,Eighteenth Century, 60 and 115, and AnthonyT. Grafton,Defenders of the Text(Cambridge, 1991), 17-19.

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 613 forthe kabbala because Hebrew had an aura of holiness.The Talmud, Basnagerecognized, was a seductivesource for Christians: "And yet there aresome Christians, who in imitation of the Jews, regard the Talmud as an abundantMine from which we may be furnish'dwith infinite Treasures." However,Basnage warned, the rabbinic language was being taken out of context.It onlyseemed to refer to Christianity: "But this method is abus'd; forthe Rabbins are often made to say what they never meant, and at most theseare Wordsonly escap'd unawares, and reduc'dto Christianityby consequencesagainst the Author's design."950 Basnagehad to demonstratethat the "kabbala"found among the Egyptianshad notbeen derived from the Israelitesas enthusiastslike Kircherand Gale argued.Rather, it was a commonfailing of "oriental" cultures.To Basnagethe Jewish mystical tradition was merely an extreme formof the allegorical style of reading by which the rabbis had interpreted theBible according to their own interests. He triedto devalue the religious cachetof thekabbala by arguingthat it was simplya particularstyle of usingsymbols and signsthat the Jews learned from their "oriental" neighbors.5"He notesthat "it mustbe owned,that the sacred writers havefrequently employed metaphors and Allegories;because it was the commonStyle of the Jews and the Eastern People that easily understood them."52The Greekphilosophers, too, had fallenback on allegorical images,which distorted the truth.53 As one historianhas noted,since eighteenth-centuryscholars thought that "allegory was a naturalprimitive languageof communication... [and] . .. an Orientalspeech manner," it was likelythat the chosen people had learnedthis potentially dangerous skillfrom other Eastern peoples like the Greeks and the Egyptians.54 The kabbala,then, deserved no particularrespect. Indeed,reading texts in theallegorical style of the kabbala destroyed theoriginal meaning of Scripture.According to Basnage,the "Cabbala ... rendersNotions unintelligible; Men feedthemselves with words and crudeImaginations, whilst they let go the Substanceof the Mystery, And thosethat are dazzled,still exceed their predecessors taking one Imaginationto another,till they have entirely lost the end theyaimed at."55In Basnage'sview and that of much later scholarship, early Christian heresies,particularly Gnosticism, had their origins in the kabbala that the

50 Basnage, II, vii, 17 [III (tome 5), vi, 177], and VII, xxxiv,753-54 [IX (tome 15), xxxix,1120]. 5l Laplanche,"Basnage Historien,"176-77. Laplanche is incorrectto locatethe source of Basnage'sopposition to theJewish origins of Egyptiankabbala in his greaterattention to chronology(Basnage, III, vii, 177). 52 Basnage,IV, xvi,204 [III (tome 5), v, 134]. 53 Basnage,III, xxi,229. 54 Manuel,Eighteenth Century, 267. 55Basnage, III, vii, 177 [III (tome 6), xxviii,751-52].

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 614 JonathanM. Elukin Jewsimported from the East.56 Basnage's assessment of thekabbalistic influenceon Gnosticismwas complicated by his Protestant-inspired sympathyfor the early heretics. He was at painsto mitigatetheir kabbalistic tendenciesin order to redeem their opposition to the Church: "The Gnos- tickshave not always followed the Cabbalists step by step: They borrowed theirgeneral Ideas ofthem; but at thesame time they diversifyed them; thatthey might be thoughtOriginals." Basnage could not condemn them: "Herebylikewise we learn to cure our prejudices against antient Hereticks. Theyhave been odious to thehighest degree, and theFathers have up- braidedthem, as perhapsthe impurityof theirLives deserved."57He rationalizesthat it is impossibleto assessthe early heresy accurately: "In sucha vastdistance of Ages, and the incapacity we areunder of knowing them,especially since the Writings of these Antient Divines are lost, it is hardto penetrateinto their real Sentiments; but it wouldbe uncharitable tosuspect everything oftheirs to be Criminal,that is obscure."Ultimately, howeverthe kabbala was toodangerous and corruptingto exoneratethe earlyGnostic heretics.58 Basnagefeared that the dangers of the kabbala, imperfectly understood as castingthe world as an extensionof God, had led to theatheism of Spinoza:"However, it be, we findthe grounds of Spinosism in theTheo- logieof the Cabbalists; that Spinosa has only cloathed it with what Carthu- sianism[sic] cou'd furnishhim, to prop up a sinkingbuilding that threat'nedthe ruin of the whole."59 The German orientalist Johann Georg Wachter(1663/73-1757) at thevery end of the seventeenth century identi- fiedthe same apparent kabbalistic influence on Spinoza in Der Spinozismus im Judenthumb(1699). Wachterhad incorrectlythought that Spinoza hadconfused God andworld. While retracting this point in a laterbook on the kabbala,Elucidarius Cabalisticus, Sive ReconditaeHebraeorum PhilosophiaeBrevis et Succincts Recensio (1706), Wachter insisted on Spi- noza'sdependence on thekabbala. Unlike Basnage who felt the kabbala to be a threatto Christiantruth, Wachter believed it to be reconcilable withChristian ideas. He arguedfor its influenceon Spinozain order to makeSpinoza's ideas consistentwith established Christian beliefs.60 Basnage,on theother hand, emphasized the kabbalistic undercurrents in Spinoza'sthought in order to emphasize the dangers of ancient allegorical thinkingas transmittedbythe kabbala. By making Spinoza the culmina- tionof kabbalisticallegorizing, Basnage showed the corrupt"pagan"

56 Gedaliahu Guy Stroumsa,"Gnosis and Judaismin NineteenthCentury Christian Thought,"The Journalof JewishThought and Philosophy,1 (1992), 2. S7Basnage, III, xxvii,254. [III (tome 6), xxviii,750]. 58Ibid. S9 Basnage,IV, vii,296 [IV (tome 7), vii, 144-45]. 1 David Bell, Spinoza in Germanyfrom 1670 to theAge of Goethe(London, 1984), 16-17.

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 615 originsof Spinoza's thoughtwhile at the same timedemonstrating that unrestrictedallegorical thinking about God led to a pantheisticatheism.61 Basnage saw enthusiasmfor the kabbala penetratingthe workof re- spectedscholars. Basnage chastizedthe famousscholar Petrus Cunaeus in his notesto Cunaeus's widelyread De RepublicaHebraeorum. '(1617). Cunaeus,following predominant Christian beliefs about the kabbala, held thatthere were two typesof kabbala: one was the oral law of the rabbis, and thesecond was themystical tradition that had beenembedded in the ceremoniesof the Israelitecult by Moses and passed down to the Chris- tiansand finallyrevealed in the New Testament.62Basnage feltthat Cu- naeus was wrongto cite this second typeof kabbala. The kabbala was only"all theadditions that [the rabbis] have made to thetext of the Law, and themystical and violentexplications that they give for many passages, and whichare authorisedby certainancient Doctors."63 By givingin to the enthusiasmto see Christiantruth in the Hebrewof thekabbala or as a resultof traditions found in theTalmud, Basnage thought that Christians denigratethe unique revelation of theGospel: "What then,could neither our Lord nor his Apostlesimagine any thing,but was dictatedto theni by the Jews?"Jesus was only speakingin the allegoricalstyle current among the Jews.He did not draw Christiantruth from it.64 Criticizing the respectedscholar Cunaeus was no small matter,but the stakeswere veryhigh. Basnage is here followingin the traditionof JosephJustus Scaligerand Isaac Casaubonwho were trying to upholdthe unique revela- tionthey saw preservedin the New Testament.65 Basnage'simpatience with the way enthusiastsof the Kabbala allegorized Hebrewwords into messagesof Christiantruth no doubtdrew on a well of criticaldisdain at the embroideryof religiousbelief that was widespreadin the eighteenthcentury.66 Jean Le Clerc, forexample, attacked allegoricalinterpretations of classical mythsin a reviewof the English scholar John Selden's De Diis Syris (1617).67 Criticalminded scholarswere reluctantto see pagan mythsallegorized into imagesof a ChristianGod or humanvirtue. Bayle was thegreat critic of over-interpre- tingpagan myths.As one scholarhas written,"Bayle deridedallegorism and insistedthat the pagans themselves were completely convinced of the

61 J. G. A. Pocock, "Gibbon and the Idol Fo: Chineseand ChristianHistory in the Enlightenment,"David S. Katz and JonathanI. Israel (eds.), Sceptics,Millenarians and Jews(Leiden, 1990),24. 62 AntiquitezJudaiques, ou Remarquescritiques sur la Republiquedes Hebreux(Am- sterdam,1713). 63 Basnage,Antiquitez, I, 66. See D. P. Walker,"The Prisca Theologia in France," Journalof the Warburgand CourtauldInstitutes, 17 (1954), 204-59. 4 Basnage,III, vi, 171 [III (tome 5), vi, 179]. 65 Grafton,Defenders, 169-72. 66 Manuel,Eighteenth Century, 26. 67 Manuel,Eighteenth Century, 29.

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 616 JonathanM. Elukin literaltruth of every myth."68 This insulated paganism from scholars who wantedto readinto antiquity fundamental Christian doctrines. At thesame time, the eighteenth century was marked by a sympathy with "primitive"cultures. Studying backward peoples gave proto- enlightenedscholars the chance to feelsuperior and freefrom primitive superstitions.69Whatever the motivation for studying other cultures, eighteenth-centuryscholars like Bayle and Fontenelle launched wide-ranging examinationsof entiresocieties in thestyle of Montesquieu's Lettres Per- sanes.70These histoires totales were "attempts to lay bare the anatomy and physiologyof society, [while] showing the secret springs of socio-political growthand decay" in their own cultures.71 The scope of Basnage's project, whilelikely drawing on earlier models like Cunaeus's study of the Israelite commonwealth,owes something to thisenthusiasm for ambitious studies of"foreign" cultures. Ever since the Reformation, scholars on bothsides ofthe confessional divide had looked to other cultures, most usually those ofpagan antiquity, as sourcesfrom which they could draw to attacktheir opponents.We needto understandthe pervasiveness ofthis mentality in orderto appreciateBasnage's use ofJewish history.

Allegoryand History

In thesixteenth century Protestant intellectuals had already begun to attackCatholics by accusing them of preserving rituals from pagan antiquity.What had beenevidence of the antiquity and thus the legitimacy of Catholicismbecame for Protestants signs of the illegitimacy of Catholic ritualsand institutions.Momigliano points to an earlyprototype of this effortby HenriEstienne, the Apologie pour HNrodote (1566). The Magde- burgCenturies (1559-74) by MathiasFlacius Illyricus (and others)was a sustainedrehearsal of the penetrationof paganrituals into Roman Catholicism.This work would prompt the massive response contained in theAnnales of Baronius.72 Protestantcontroversialists attacked on twofronts. They first tried to showthat the Church had beenundermined by theinfluence of pagan philosophers.That is, pagan converts to Christianitywere embarrassed at thecrude formulations ofJesus and the image of a godcrucified, so they importedPlatonic allegories in orderto maketheir new religion more

68 Manuel,Eighteenth Century, 26. 69 Porter,Gibbon, 51. 70 Porter,Gibbon, 51. "' Porter,Gibbon, 69. 72 Momigliano,"Historiography: Western Studies," 387.

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 617 palatable.73Basnage's deprecation of the oriental allegories of the kabbala and his "visiblepleasure" in linkingthe corruptions of paganismwith thoseof Catholicism no doubt reflects this widespread Protestant anxiety. N. Souverain'sLe Platonismedevoile, ou Essai touchantle VerbePlaton- icien(Cologne, 1700) and later work by J. L. Mosheim(1753) emphasized the extentof Neo-Platonicinfluence in corruptingearly Christianity, particularlythat of allegory as thesource of error.74 Protestantscholars also triedto demonstratethat unsophisticated Christianshad importedinto the early Church comforting pagan rituals andhabits (see for example the De reruminventoribus ofPolydorus Vergil [1499 and 1517]).The churchelite, it was thought,then seized upon theseimported rituals and institutionalizedthem. Some of theseworks describingthis "pagano-papism" have rather obvious titles: Heydisches Papstthumand Ethnico-PontificaConformitate. Later efforts are bestrep- resentedby the relativelysophisticated Les Conformitezdes ceireimonies modernesaves les anciennes.Ou il estprouvei par des authoritezincontest- ables que les Cere?moniesde l'EgliseRomaine sont empruntees des payens (1667),by P. Mussard.The bestknown work of thisstyle in English remainsConyers Middleton's A Letterfrom Rome Shewingan Exact Conformitybetween Popery and Paganism (1729)." Some writersdis- pensedwith the pretense of studyingan ancientsubject and wroteas if theywere travellers to theforeign country of theRoman church. "At times,their works are simplyHerodotus-like ethnographies, presenting thecuriosities of the 'popish' church and folkpractice as ifdescribing a foreigntribe." We havegood examplesof thisin Th. Kirchmeir'sDas PapistischReich (1555) or The PopishKingdome or reigneof Antichrist (London,1570) by B. Googe.76Basnage would adopt the style of these pseudo-ethnographicworks as hejourneyed into the foreign territory of theJews, only to findthe practices of Roman Catholics. Notall ofthe attacks on Catholic paganism were so blatant.Some were moresubtle and requiredreaders, who were sensitive to theconfessional antagonism,to decodethe polemics. Guillaume du Choulwrote Discours de la religiondes anciens romains(Lyons, 1556), which was a work "largelyconstructed as a commentaryon a collectionof coins and medal- lions.There are a dozeninstances of brief, parenthetical, comparisons- muchas one findsin travellers'reports-between some 'Roman praxis'

73 JonathanZ. Smith,Drudgery Divine (Chicago, 1990), 22. And see BernardDomp- nier,"L'eglise romaine,conservatoire des religionsantiques. La critiqueprotestante du culte des saintset des imagesau XVIIe siecle," in Les ReligionsDu PaganismeAntique dans L'Europe ChretienneXVIe-XVIIIe siecle: colloquetenu en Sorbonneles 26-27 mai 1987, (Paris, 1987), 51-69. 74 Laplanche,"Basnage Historien,"185. Smith,Divine, 18-19, particularly n. 29. 75 Smith,Divine, 20-21. 76 Smith,Divine, 21, note 36.

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 618 JonathanM. Elukin and Catholicism.""By the seventeenthcentury people had learnedto writeand readcoded historical narratives. In England,one scholarhas argued,history "provided the idiom for politics."78 Every subject, includ- ingexotic ones like the history of Islam, offered opportunities to strike at confessionalopponents. In thisworld "renderings of Islam-favourable orunfavourable-were standardly read as covertanalyses of the Christian Churchitself."79 Just as withthe attacks on Islamor, as we shallsee, on Judaism,these revelations about paganism could be appliedto "Parisian pagans"as well.80Skilled readers could make the connectionbetween corruptpagan practices and similarfailings in Catholicism.8- Catholicsresponded to theseattacks by trying to assertthe antiquity of Churchinstitutions. We haveseen how Baronius and otherstried to connectChurch institutions with the rituals of the Israelites. At thesame timethey tried to discredit the innovations of the reformers. The Catholic BishopBossuet, prompting a fascinating response from the Calvinist Isaac de Beausobre(1659-1738), tried to linkcontemporary Protestantism to thedistasteful and corruptpractices of the Manichees.In his Histoire critiquede Manicheieet du Manicheisme(1734-36), Beausobretried to defendManicheanism against these charges and arguedthat the Mani- cheanposition was reasonable for its time. There is muchin Beausobre's workthat is reminiscentofthe "tolerant" attitude ascribed to Basnage. Theyboth undertook to explorethe customs and practicesof infamous peoplesand rendera reasonedand sympatheticverdict on thenature of thosepractices. Just as Basnagehad written sympathetically ofthe Gnos- tics,Beausobre saw Mani as a "precursorof Luther, fighting against the ecclesiasticalauthorities of his time."82Beausobre was also mildin his viewof heresy, arguing that it was often"honest error, arising from the prevalenceof Pythagorean and Platonist philosophy."83 Atthe same time, thesubject matter allowed Beausobre to attackCatholicism. He citedthe similaritybetween pagans and Catholics to showthat the Manichees had not been the onlygroup to have seeminglyirrational practices: "Les Payenspouvoient se tromper,comme les Catholiquesse sonttrompez uneinfinite de fois,en honorantdes Saintsfabuleux, et quelquefoisdes Schismatiques,des Heretiques,des Brigands,"84In otherwords, "si l'on

" Smith,Divine, 21, note 35. 78 Porter,Gibbon, 18. '9 Porter, Gibbon, 130-32. 80 Manuel, EighteenthCentury, 52. 81 Porter,Gibbon, 51. 82 Stroumsa,"Gnosis and Judaism,"5. 83 Pocock, "Gibbon," 23, n. 22, and see Richard H. Popkin,"Manicheanism in the Enlightenment,"Kurt H. Wolffand BarringtonMoore, Jr. (eds.), The CriticalSpirit: Essays in Honorof HerbertMarcuse (Boston, 1967), 32-34. 84 Beausobre,Histoire, I, ix, 654.

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 619 exceptela differencedes personnes,la PratiquePayenne, et la Pratique Chretiennese ressemblentextremement."85 Basnagewas directly exposed to thisstyle of historical allegory in the workof his friend Bayle (and in theworks of other Protestant scholars). In his PenseiesJiverses sur La Comete,which ostensibly discussed why naturalphenomena cannot be considereddivine warnings, Bayle provided a moresophisticated and subtleversion of theseallegorical blows to Catholicantiquity and legitimacy. Bayle used the pagans to movefrom a philosophicaldiscussion to a theologicalattack on thevalidity of Catholi- cism.He ridiculedthe ceremonies and rituals of Catholicism through their pagancounterparts. In WalterRex's analysis we readthat "not only do Bayle'spagans have pointedlyCatholic features, but the Catholicshe describeslikewise have pagan features. Bayle makes certain that the identi- ficationof pagan and Catholic is firmlyestablished in the reader's mind."86 Bayleused allegory to criticize other targets by drawing upon elements ofJewish history instead of paganism. Because Bayle and Basnagewere suchclose intellectual and personal friends, itmay be thatBasnage wrote aboutthe Jewsunder Bayle's powerful influence. Or theymay have learnedto exploit Judaism simultaneously. In either case Bayle's attitudes help set the stagefor understanding Basnage's treatment of theJews. Bayle'sextended discussion of KingDavid in theDictionnaire Critique, forexample, was an indictmentof PierreJurieu, the Protestant leader whocalled for active resistance to theCatholic King of France.87Cer- tainly,Henri Basnage felt that Bayle had cleverlyhidden his attackon Jurieu.He wroteto Baylethat Jurieu, intent on persecutingBayle, could nottake umbrage at thediscussion of David,because "you have taken careto soften the places where they were able to attackyou. For example, thearticle, 'David.' "88 Basnagecould look to otherspecific linkages that had beendrawn betweenIsraelite history and aspectsof the confessional debate between Catholicsand Protestants. Numerous Protestant scholars drew analogies betweenthe Karaites and reformedChristians. The Karaites,an eighth- centuryJewish sect that rejected the oral law ofthe rabbis and insisted on strictadherence to theprecepts of theOld Testament,seemed the perfecthistorical incarnation ofProtestant ideology.89 They were, as Rich-

85 Beausobre,Histoire, I, ix, 656. 86 WalterRex, Essayson PierreBayle and ReligiousControversy (The Hague, 1965), 46. See Ruth Whelan,"La religiona l'envers:Bayle et l'histoiredu paganismeantique," in Les ReligionsDu PaganismeAntique, 115-29; Manuel, EighteenthCentury, 33; and Smith,Divine, ch. 1. 87 Rex, Bayle, 242. 88 Rex, Bayle,242. 89 J.van den Berg,"Proto-Protestants? The Image of theCatholic-Protestant Contro- versyin the SeventeenthCentury," J. van den Berg and E. G. E. van der Wall (eds.), JewishChristian Relations in theSeventeenth Century (Boston, 1988), 33-51.

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ard Simon,himself a Catholic,called them,pure Jews.90Simon, who in correspondencewith a Protestantfriend often identified himself as "Le Rabbaniste"while addressing his Protestantfriend as "Le Caraite,"did not want to abandon the label of pure Jewsto the reformers.He tried unsuccessfullyto make Karaites into discriminatingCatholics, who rejected onlyspurious traditions.91 Basnage,apparently the last Protestant to employthe analogy, summa- rized the relationshipbetween Protestants and Karaites: "Justas the Reformedare the enemiesof Tradition;because theyreject the Dogmas thathave beenwoven onto those of Jesus Christ, and theydo notwish to submitblindly to its Authority,one shouldrecognize the same aspectof the ancientand modem Caraites,who have preciselythe same Repug- nancefor Traditions."92 He was, as one mightexpect, more absolute than Simonin the Karaites'rejection of tradition.If the Protestantswere new Karaites,then the Catholic Church,with its centuriesof traditionand commentariesbuilt upon Scripture, was thereincarnation of the obscuran- tistPharisees and rabbis.Let us now examinehow Basnage elaborated thisallegory. By doingso, he was able to join thepolemical battle against Catholicism.

Rabbinismand Catholicism:Jewish History Allegorized

The similaritybetween rabbinism and Catholicismhad notgone unno- ticedin theMiddle Ages. The suggestionhas beenmade that the Church's condemnationof the Talmud in the Middle Ages did not strikeat the verynature of the oral law sincethe Catholic tradition itself was founded upongenerations of commentary.93 In Reformation Europe the Protestant JohannesBuxtorf attacked the legitimacyof the Talmudic traditionbe- cause he wantedto convinceJudaizing Protestants not to emulatecontem- poraryJewish practice, which, he thought,did notfollow authentic biblical traditions.Demonstrating that they had deviatedfrom biblical custom would, he hoped, convinceJews to convertby showingthat rabbinic Judaismwas religiouslybankrupt.94 Buxtorf might have been tryingto discreditthe "authorityof the oral law, rabbinicexegesis, and specific Talmudiclegislation-perhaps because he saw in it theanalog of Catholic

90Yosef Kaplan, " 'Karaites'in EarlyEighteenth-Century Amsterdam," Sceptics, Mil- lenariansand Jews,221. 91Kaplan, "'Karaites,' " 228. 92 Basnage,Histoire des Juifs(1716), II (tome 4), xvi, 385, cited in Van den Berg, 44. On the afterlifeof the Karaite metaphor,see Richard H. Popkin,"Les Caraiteset l'emancipationdes Juifs,"Dix-huitieme siecle, 13 (1981), 138. 93 Mark R. Cohen, "Leone de Modena's Riti: a Seventeenth-CenturyPlea forSocial Tolerationof Jews,"Jewish Social Studies,34 (1972), 302. 94 Cohen, "Leone de Modena," 293.

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'distortion'of pristineChristianity."95 His SynagogaIudaica (1603) may have provideda model,then, for Basnage's allegorical treatment of Juda- ism and Catholicism.Certainly his languageabout rabbinicJudaism can be easilyapplied to Catholicism.He also was sympatheticto the Kara- ites.96Still, his comparativecritique of rabbinismand Catholicismre- mainedimplicit. Basnage, as we shall see, makesthe allegoryexplicit. In Basnage'sopinion the rabbis created illegitimate customs and unre- liable history:"The Doctors thathave made theseCollections of Tradi- tions,taking advantage of the Ignoranceof theirNation, have thrown upon thePaper whatevercame intotheir Heads, withouttroubling themselves withreconciling their conjectures with foreign history, to which theywere utterly Strangers."97 Basnage confronts the intimidating reputa- tionof Scaligerwho, Basnagethought, had been takenin by the rabbinic sources: Scaligerdenies this, and laughs at theCredibility ofEusebius, for blindly follow- ingso doubtfulan Authoras Hegesippus.... But Scaligerwas deludedby his Prejudices.It is strange,that a Man,who will believe neither Hegesippus, nor Eusebius,will yet so obsequiouslyfollow the Rabbins, whose Character he ought to haveknown.98

Their interpretationsof Scriptureand historydistorted the truthof the prophecies,preventing the Israelites from recognizing the true Messiah.99 The rabbisdeliberately misinterpreted the propheticverses and blinded the people to the new revelation.In the same way Basnage suggeststhat the distortionsof Catholicismhave hidden the true Reformedchurch fromChristians. The rabbinicconceit of the Oral Law, Basnage thought,gave the rabbislicense to createtheir own religion. Whenever they wanted to invent a new tradition,the rabbissought to anchorit in a versefrom Scripture: "When theyhad formeda project,they considered the firstWord that could be appliedto it,as an Answerfrom Heaven." Indeed,Judaism had

9sCohen, "Leone de Modena," 302. 96 Buxtorf,Synagoga Iudaica, tr.M. HermannusGermbergius (Hanover, 1604),465: "Christianusvero Lector satis ex hisce omnibuspercipiet et intelliget,Judaicam fidem, totamqueillorum religionem, non in Mose, sed in mendaciis,falsis et futilibustraditioni- bus, Rabbinorumet seductorumfabuli fundamentum suum ponere... ." For Buxtorfs sympathyfor the Karaites,see Kaplan, " 'Karaites,'" 227. 97 Basnage,III, vi, 170-71[III (tome 5), vi, 176] Cf. Yardeni,"Jews and Judaismas Viewed Throughthe Worksof PierreBayle," Anti-JewishMentalities, 203, and Arnold Ages, "Les Rabbins et le rabbinismedans le Dictionnairede PierreBayle," Rievuede l'Universited'Ottowa, 37 (1967), 70-79. 98Basnage, I, viii,59 [I, (tome 2), xix, 596]. 9 Basnage,IV, xxvi,371-72.

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 622 JonathanM. Elukin evolvedinto the accretions of rabbinicwhim: "They make God say what theyplease, and give Divine Authorityto theirImaginations."'10 Basnagewove into this story of corruption the parallel account of how Catholictradition corrupted the pristineword of God foundin the New Testament.When Basnage called Jewishrituals and commentariesthe "phantasies"of the rabbis, he alludedto similarfailings in Churchhistory. Justas the rabbiscreated an artificialand untrustworthyhistory, so too did the priestsof the CatholicChurch: TheMiracles [the rabbis] attribute to theirRabbins are bunglingly contrived, but thegreater part of the Christians have nothing to reproachthem with upon that Article.The Legendsare full of Stories, that shew how far the Extravagance of anhuman Understanding may be carried. They have not even spared Jesus Christ; forthey have attributed tohim Miracles which he never did, and which, far from raisinghis Glory, sully it.'0'

Justas therabbis sought out convenientoracles in thetext of the Bible, thishas "sincebeen done [by]a greatnumber of Christians.These latter diptinto a Book, as theGospel of St. John,and thefirst Text theyfound, wentfor a Divine Oracle,which determin'd the good or ill successof their Designs."'02 Beforethe flourishingof the rabbis,Israel's relationto its holybook resembled that of the ideal Reformedchurch. Basnage imagined that "the originalof the Law was, formany Ages, keptin the Holy of Holies,that by theperusal of it, People mightbe themselvesconvinced of itsPrecepts."'03 Over timethe Jews, like the Christians, lost that intimate familiaritywith the sacred text. Basnage admitsthat the Masoretic emen- dationsand vowel pointswere relatively late additionsto the textof the Bible, but he is able to salvage the innateholiness and sanctityof the text.He essentiallyrecapitulates Richard Simon's solutionof inspired transmission.Where there are errorsor inconsistenciesin the text,it is onlyin minormatters. 104 The crucialelement in thecorruption of the text remainsrabbinic commentary. The ignoranceof the people encouraged the rabbis' oriental inclination forallegory and their"violent Propensions to Hyperbole."'05Freed from adherenceto the textby theirexposure to easterncultures, the rabbis beganto fashiontheir own laws and historiesand arbitrarilyfasten them ontoscriptural verses. Basnage's critique of the way the rabbis interpreted the Bible and wrotetheir own historybecame a model,for the attentive

'00 Basnage,III, v, 166 [III, (tome 5), v, 130] and Basnage,III, v, 163 [III (tome 5), v, 112]. 101Basnage, III, vii, 179 [III, (tome 5), vii, 229]. 102 Basnage,III, v, 166 [III (tome 5), v, 130]. 103 Basnage,I, i, 1 [I (tome 1), i, 3]. lO4Basnage, III, ix, 181-83.On thevowel points, see MauriceOlender, The Languages of Paradise,tr. ArthurGoldhammer (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), esp. 21-37. 105Basnage, III, v, 166 [III (tome 5), v, 134].

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reader,of the way Catholicscorrupted the Christianapostolic tradition. Justas the Jewishrabbis interpreted the Hebrew,Basnage wrote,so do "thePreachers of the Church of Rome citetheir Vulgate, and thePassages of the Fathersin Latin,and afterwardsinterpret to thePeople whatthey thinkfit to let'em know."'06The Fathers of the Church,particularly Origen,Jerome, and Augustine,thought in thesame Greek-inspiredalle- goricalway as did the rabbis.Using symbolsand signs,these Catholic exegetesexpanded and distortedthe meaningof Scripturein the same way as the rabbisof the Talmud.'07 When Christianswere in directcontact with the word of God, the religionwas simpleand pure,like that of the patriarchs or earlyIsraelites. It had none of the offensivetrappings of idolatrousCatholicism: Therewere then in primitiveChristianity no Imagesin theTemples, and upon theAltar, no Statuesand Crosses in publick Places, That infinite crowd of Saints was unknownwhich has beenworshipped since. The Christianscould not be confoundedwith the Heathens,till a Worshiplike thatof the Gentileswas introducedamong the Christians.'08

The Church, however,quickly became dependentupon translations, Talmud-likecommentaries, and oral traditions. For Basnage the processwas the same in both Judaismand Chris- tianity: Thusthe Canon Law ofthe Romish and JewishChurch, formed almost in the samemanner. Both of them are made up ofTradition, or what they call the Oral Law,both are full of Canons and Decreesof Fathers that have preceded them; bothabound with insignificant and ridiculousdecisions; both tend to raisethe Gloryof their Church, and the heads of it; both contain contrary decisions, which leavethe Mind in Suspence;both were hatched in thecorruption of Ages, and thedecay of Church and Religion. In Fine,the Romans have their Extravagants likethe Jews and theJews have their extravagants like the Romans.'?9 Basnagelinks the Catholics and rabbinicJews in thesame way thatBayle joined Catholicsand pagans. Basnage could also mimicthe kindof ironicallegory that Bayle used in comparingCatholics to pagans.On theissue of whether the Egyptians took theirreligious ideas fromthe Jews,Basnage contendsthat the fact thatthere are similaritiesbetween two religions does notnecessarily mean thatone grewout ofthe other. Indeed, he asserts,there are religiousideas commonto most nations.This is the way that Basnage respondedto attemptsto make the Indians of the Americasresemble Jews or Chris-

06Basnage, V, xi, 442 [VI (tome 9), xiv,294]. 107 Basnage,III, ix, 184. In the Frenchedition, see III (tome 6), xxv,664ff. 108 Basnage,III, vii, 180 [III (tome 5), vii,234-35]. '09 Basnage,III, vi, 167 [III (tome 5), vi, 139].

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 624 JonathanM Elukin tians."10So far,Basnage's discussionseems quite innocuous.However, just as Cameronand Baylebegan by writing about pagans and thenmoved to Catholicism,Basnage too shiftsquietly to a morepointed level. To prove that the Egyptiansdid not inherittheir religion from the Jews,Basnage gladly cites the more contemporary example of how Chris- tianitydid not necessarilyarise frompaganism: An Examplewill demonstratively prove it. The Church of Rome worships Saints andImages, and the Protestants discover the Origine of this worship in Heathen- ism.And indeedthere are twentyresemblances betwixt them; which can't be denied.In themean time the Christians that pray to Saints,did notadopt the Worshipof the Heathens. They invented it themselves;and on thatrespect there is a conformitybetwixt the two Religions, tho'one was notthe Parent of the other.1I True,Catholics did not take theirapparently "pagan" customsfrom the Romans; theyjust inventedtheir own. Basnage pursuesthe analogyto Catholicismwith quite devastatingresults: Imageswere placed in Templesby way of Ornament; to revivethe Memory of theantient Heroes of Christianity,and to be theBook of theIgnorant. If we comparePopery with Paganism; their Heroes turn'd into Tutelar Gods of every Kingdom,Province, Profession or Family.... Yet whowill venture to saythat theChristians, who first paid their Devotions to Saints,or Imagessought after theBooks of the antient Heathens to formtheir Worship by them, and took so infamousan Idolatryfor a Modelof their own?"'"12 As Basnage cataloguesand deprecatesthe particularitiesof rabbinic Judaism,each notekeys a refraindrawn from the historyof the Church. Basnage describeshow the Jewishchurch had driftedfrom the ideal of the originalrevelation, but in describingthis fall, he is reallyaddressing his remarksto Rome and the Pope: The Church,which should have set a Patternof Obedienceto the Supream Power,of Piety to God,and Respect for his Temple, prophaned it byenormous and continuedSacrileges. The High-Priest,when he boughthis Office, thought of nothingbut gratifying this Ambition ... He neglectedDivine Service, and onlykept the outward Appearances of Religion, that the People might still be underhis Jurisdiction.

The Frenchis even stronger;it has the people "enchainez."113 The failingsof the High Priestand clergyare subjectedto specialscorn and criticism.Referring to the corruptionof the High Priests,Basnage

110 Basnage,VI, iii, 477. On this,see Manuel,Broken Staff, 168-72. "I Basnage,III, xviii,211 [III (tome 6), xviii,442]. 112 Basnage,III, xviii,211 [III (tome 6), xviii,442]. 113 Basnage,I, viii,53 [I (tome 2), xix, 542].

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 625 issuesan indictment,equally true for his visionof thePapacy in Catholic history.The High Priestsin Jerusalem,he wrote, tookup Arms to wrest the High-Priesthood from one another, as ifthey fought for a Dignitythat was purely Temporal.... It is a mostheavy and fatal Judgement of God,when the Clergy disgrace their Profession, and become profligate. Propha- nationand Impertinencynecessarily draw publick and generalCalamities after them.Such was thecondition of the Jewish clergy that begun by Crimes, and endedby the most dreadful Punishment that can be imagined.'14 The resultof such corruptionwas the flourishingof sectsthat weak- enedJudaism, just as contemporaryChristianity was threatenedby violent sectarianconflict. 115 Catholicsshould not claim, Basnage argued,that the successionof bishopsand Popes guaranteedthe antiquity,and thereforethe authority ofthe Church. By comparingthis chain of succession to theone described by the Jewsfor their own highpriests and rabbis,the Catholicsgained nothing:"let us onlyobserve, that we oughtto be cautiousof excess, since theseRites have notalways the Antiquity that is pretended."Indeed, the originsof the Popes and bishops,Basnage concludes,was as fabulousas thatof the rabbis."6 WhereBayle set out to destroythe Church'sclaim to antiquityand legitimacyin his studyof comets, Basnage tried to under- mine what he believedto be Catholic claims (particularlyby Richard Simon) to have investedancient Jewish institutions with a new spirit. Indeed, in Basnage's view,the Churchwas readinginto Jewishhistory evidencethat would support its own presumptions and ambitions.It tried, forexample, to investthe Jewish hierarchy with an aura of infallibilityto justifyits own contemporarydoctrines. Basnage wrotein responsethat the"Sanhedrim was notinfallible, no moreis theCollege of Cardinals." 117 Indeed,the High Priest himself was neverconsidered infallible or powerful enoughto depose a king.The Pope, Basnage wrote,should not presume to overreachthese precedents.118 Basnage also struggledagainst the long tradition,beginning with Eu- sebius,which tried to findthe origins of monasticism in theascetic Essenes and thetherapeutae. Basnage was anxiousto provethat the Essenes were not Christiansas it would depriveCatholics of anotherpiece of evidence forCatholic antiquity.To Basnage,the Essenes wereJews who had ac- quiredparticular habits and superstitionsfrom the Egyptians. Woven into the discussionare passingjibes at Christianmonks. The Essenes were Christiansonly in the degreethat they resembled Christian monks, with

114 Basnage,I, vi, 42 [I (tome 2), xvi,464]. 11 Basnage,I, viii,53, and I, vi, 43-48. 116 Basnage,III, vii, 176, [III, (tome 5), vii,210]. 117 Basnage,III, vii, 176. 118 Basnage,I, v, 36.

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 626 JonathanM. Elukin all of theirsuspect and unpleasantcharacteristics: "Voila, l'Obeissance aveuglepour les Decretsde Pretreset des Statusdes Superieursclairement exprimee."119 Much of the remainderof Basnage's discussionof Jewishreligious historyis devotedto makingcomparisons between Jewish customs and those of Catholicism.To choose only a few centralexamples, Basnage appends an attack on Rome to a discussionof Jewishideas about the afterlife.The Jews,he writes,"get the Souls out of that Place by many Prayers;and it is also by Masses, and by the Suffragesof the Saints,that theRomish Souls come out of theirPurgatory."' 20 If theJewish customs are reprehensible,how much more despicableare the comparabletech- niques among so-calledChristians: "The Jewsare not so Ingenuousas the Romish Priests.... Rome has been cunningenough to prolongthe Punishmentof theDead to wholeCenturies, and sometimesfurther, that theymay stillenjoy the Income."121 Jewishfast days also providea way to satirizeCatholicism: "Some Christiansthat laugh at theseSuperstitious excesses, reflect not perhaps thatthey fall into the like themselves.How rigorouslyare the Feasts of the Saints observed?The Violatorwhereof is foundmiraculously Pun- ished."122 In the parallelstructure of Basnage's work,rabbinic Jews and Catholicsare thoughtof as havingthe same degeneratecharacter. Bas- nage's antipathyto Catholicism-or to any "materialistic"religion-is refractedthrough the prismof rabbinicJudaism. The Jewswho clingto therituals of the Talmud are liketravellers to Rome,who "see theresuch grossSuperstitions, and such a multitudeof silly Ceremonies and comical Sights."'23 The associationbetween Judaism and Catholicismis complete. The two traditionshave become almostindistinguishable. They share a historyof corruptedrevelation.

Conclusion:Polemic, Allegory, and Ambiguity

The attackon Catholicismin the Histoirewas echoed in Basnage's othermore overtly polemical writings. In responseto Bossuet'sindictment of Protestantism,Basnage surveyedCatholic history in variousworks to show that apostolicChristianity was later corruptedby interpretations and superstitions.'24Basnage also triedto strikeat Catholicismusing other metaphorsthat came to hand. A digressioninto the apparent similarities betweenthe rituals of the American Indians and thoseof the Church gave Basnage a chanceto mockthe materialismand idol-worshippingquality

119 Basnage,Histoire, II (tome4), xxiii,656. 120 Basnage,IV, xxxii,390 [V (tome 8), xix, 345]. 121 Basnage,IV, xxxii,390 [V (tome 8), xix, 345]. 122 Basnage,V, xii, 446 [VI, (tome 9), xv, 319-20]. 123 Basnage,III, vii, 173 [III (tome 5), vi, 189-90]. 124 Cerny,Crossroads, 222.

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 627 ofthe Church. 125 Theallegory drawn between rabbinism and Catholicism, then,was notsimply a rhetoricalflourish. It articulatedBasnage's deep antipathyto Catholicism. We cansee the importance of the Catholic allegory to Basnage's work on theJews in his responseto an editedversion of theHistoire. The CatholicLouis ElliesDu Pin,perhaps anxious about his ownstanding withthe papacy, published a versionof the Histoire with all theCatholic referencesexpunged. The advertisementfor this volume read thatthe originalhad been"imprimee en Hollandeavec des Digressionset des Parenthesescontre la Conduiteet la Doctrinede l'EgliseRomaine."'126 In a volumespecifically designed to respondto thepirated Catholic version, Basnagewrote with indignation: "They have stolen the History of the Jews fromme; theyhave erased my name, and aftermaking many changes, theyhave added opinions that I do nothold." 127 In an amusingcomment in thepreface to theFrench edition of 1716Basnage wrote of the honor ofhaving Du Pinpublish his work: "J'aimerois beaucoup mieux etre prive de cetHonneur, que de voirmon Ouvrage dechire." Basnage was certain thathe knewthe reason for the Paris edition's censorship: "La Religion a servide Pretextea ce Rapt."128 Throughouthis rejoinder to theParis edition, Basnage protests that he conductedhimself as a rationaland equitable historian in hisstudy of theJews: "Je lis sans prejuge, sans passion. J'examine un fait."This is, as wehave seen, complicated by Basnage's extended critique of Catholicism. RichardPopkin's discussion of the fanciful 1650 meeting of rabbis, where theydiscussed accepting Christ as theMessiah, has offered another exam- pleof the fluidity in Basnage'scritical ability. Basnage accepted the pub- lishedaccounts of thismeeting and includedthem in his last edition. WhilePopkin argues that it was Basnage'sanxiety for the conversion of theJews that led himto legitimatethe story, the reputed presence at the meetingof Roman Catholic clerics, who needlessly antagonized the Jews andderailed the conversion, may have also madethe story irresistible to Basnage.'29

125 Basnage,VI, iii, 478. 126 See note15. On Du Pin,see J.Gres-Gayer, "Le Gallicanismede Louis ElliesDu Pin (1657-1719),"Lias, 18 (1991), 37-82,esp. 40-41.Barbara de Negronicorrectly identifies the ideologydriving Du Pin's censorshipof Basnage and Basnage's anti-Catholicismin her excellentstudy, "Les ciseauxdu censeur-un decoupageorthodoxe de 1'Histoiredes Juifs de Basnage de Beauval," Revue de synthese,111 (1990), 397-422. 127 Basnage,L'Histoire et la Religiondes JuifsDepuis Jesus-Christjusq'apresent. Re- clamee & Retabliepar son veritableAuteur Mr. Basnage. ContreL'Edition Anonymeet tronquee,qui s'en faite a Paris chex Roullan (Rotterdam,1711). Basnage quoted the advertisementin his prefaceto the 1716 Frenchedition. 128 Basnage,Reclamee, preface, fol. lv, and Histoire(1716), preface,4-5. 129 Basnage,Reclamee, preface, f.7r-v. See RichardH. Popkin,"The FictionalCouncil of 1650: A Great EnglishPipedream," Jewish History, 5 (1991), 12-13.I am gratefulto ProfessorWilliam C. Jordanfor this reference.

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Basnageremained convinced, it seems, that he was notself-consciously tryingto criticizeCatholicism. He has beenattacked only because he was tryingto be honestand thorough.It was inevitablethat some aspectsof Catholicismwould be criticized.130Basnage's rhetoricis here carefully modulated.He does not admitto outragingCatholic sensibilities on pur- pose. If he did say anythingoffensive, it was onlywhat he could notavoid, likeindicting clerical misdeeds or offensesagainst religion. What he wrote about the Catholicsis what any historianwould do: I1 est vraique j'ai faitquelquefois des Reflexions,sur les evenemenset surla conduitedes hommes,comme tous les Historiens,qui ontecrit avant moi, l'ont fait.Si ellessont exactes et justes, il nefalloit pas lesretrancher, car elles peuvent contribuera rendre l'Ouvrage plus utile au Public;et si ellessont mauvaises, on les reconnoitrasans peine.131 It is even harderto believeBasnage's protestsin his prefaceto the last Frenchedition. He was respondingto thecriticisms of his workby Simon and others,particularly on his treatmentof the Karaites. For Basnage,he had done nothingunusual by comparingthe Karaitesto the Protestants: "Les Historienscomparent assez souventles Moeurs, les Rites et les Dogmes des Etrangersavec ceux de leur Nation et de leur tems." He continuedto insistthat his workwas historicaland notpolemical: "Enfin, j'ai compare le systemedes Caraites avec celui des Reformezsur les Traditions;mais, je ne suis entredans aucune Dispute.Je n'ai pas meme nommel'Eglise Romaine;et cetteComparison des Caraites,odieu[se] au restedes Juifs,avec les Reformezne doit fairepeine a personne."Did Basnage reallybelieve this?132 Despite Basnage's protests,the immediatepublication of his Histoire Reclamee,and subsequenteditions containing the anti-Catholic material, suggeststhat it was theallusions to Catholicismthat made hiswork whole and gave it meaning.Other Catholic and Protestantreaders also seemed to have understoodthe subtextof Basnage's work. Richard Simon re- viewedthe Histoire and was verysevere on Basnage'sfactual and philological errors,and his relianceupon faultytranslations. He wrotethat "en un mot,le s9avantMinistre de Rotterdamn'est nullementexact en faitde citations,parce qu'il n'a pu lireles livresdes Rabbinsdans leursource."'133 Simon thoughtthe book was "plutot un tissu de fableset de reveries Juives,qu'une veritablehistoire. " 34 Still,he was gratefulto Basnage for collectingmaterial from contemporary authors whose work was difficult

130 Basnage,Reclamee, I, 5. 131 Basnage,Reclamee, I, 8. 132 Basnage,Histoire (1716), preface,24-26. 133 Richard Simon,Nouvelle Bibliotheque Choisie, II (Amsterdam,1714), 254. The Jesuitsof theMemoires de Trevouxalso reviewedBasnage critically.See Manuel,Broken Staff,227. 134 Simon,Choisie, 254.

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to obtain in France "a cause des guerres,ou parce que l'entreede ces sortesd'ouvrages de contrebandey est entierementfermee. "135 He was certainlyaware of the anti-Catholicmaterial in Basnage's work,and I suspectthis sharpened his critique.The polemicalmaterial interferedwith Basnage's scholarship: I1 seroitneanmoins a souhaiter, que lorsqu'ilparle de la sectedes Juifs Caraites, il ne se futpas jete aveuglementdans une controverse outree, et qui estplutot digned'un Predicant, que d'un Theologien habile. I1 fait venir peu judicieusement dansson discours la controversequi estentre les Catholiqueset les Protestans, sur la matieredes traditions,en quoi il ne faitpas le devoird'un veritable Historien.136 More sympatheticreviewers also recognizedthe thrust of Basnage'swork and occasionallyrecapitulated similar allusions to Catholicism.As a con- tributorto the (1706) Journaldes Sgavans remarked:"II semble que l'Eglise Romaine ait emprunted'eux [sectarianrabbis] des raisonspour defendreses Traditions."137 By concentratingon the polemicalunderpinnings of Basnage's work, I do notmean to discountthe essential tone of compassionwith which he wroteabout Jewsand theirsuffering. I have not concentratedon the originsof this"compassion." Protestant identification with the Jews and Jewishhistory no doubtencouraged it. The relativelytolerant and pluralis- tic atmosphereof the Dutch republicalso facilitatedit. Althoughan orthodoxCalvinist, Basnage may have picked up some of the tolerant attitudesof the Dutch Arminiansand Collegiants.138Basnage and some of his readersmay have been trulychallenged to questiontheir ingrained negativeattitudes towards Jews by his ambitiousstudy of theircustoms and history.As Lionel Gossmanhas writtenabout historiansof the eighteenthcentury, "even among moderatespirits in England and France, however,reflection on early societiessometimes led beyondhistorical relativismand gave riseto genuineself-questioning. "139 Nor do I wishto discountthe toleration towards Jews that existed in partsof the Huguenottradition. The quiet heroismof the villagersof Le Chambon-sur-Lignon,who hid Jewsin the Second World War, is the mostadmirable example of Huguenot sympathy for the people of the Old Testament." I do thinkit is vital,however, to understandthat the atten- tion paid to Jewishcustoms, suffering, and historyin Basnage's work did not arise mainlyfrom a precociousaltruism or "modern"historical

35 Simon,Choisie, 255. 136 Simon,Choisie, 255. 137 Journaldes Sqavans,37 March (1706), art. viii, 116. 138 Fix, Prophecyand Reason, 15. 139 Lionel Gossman,Medievalism and theIdeologies of theEnlightenment: The World and Workof La Curnede Sainte-Palaye(Baltimore, 1968), 338. 'IOSee the documentary,Weapons of theSpirit, by PierreSauvage.

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 630 JonathanM. Elukin sensibility.If we are to give Basnage creditfor undertaking a historyof theJews, we mustunderstand why he did it.141 StudyingBasnage's history ofthe Jews leaves a modernreader wondering how his eighteenth-century audiencereacted. Did theyread theHistoire to learnabout Judaismand providentialhistory or to revelin its attackson Catholicism?They were, we have been taught,used to ambiguityin the scholarlyworks of the eighteenthcentury: Thisquality of openness to manyinterpretations is characteristic ofa largebody ofliterature in theeighteenth century. One of its most concrete manifestations is theliterary mystification, bywhich the reader was madeto takeresponsibility forascribing the authorship or determining the authenticity, indeed the meaning ofa givenwork.142

It is perhapsasking too much to classifyBasnage's work as either historyor polemic.Gossman's opinion about the way readers responded to the ambiguouswork of the eighteenth-centurymedievalist Sainte-Palaye likelydescribes the way contemporaries read Basnage's allegorized Jewish historyas well:"The mostagile reader, however, knew how to adoptboth these attitudesat the same time,so that he experiencedthe ambiguity ... not in successiveand alternatingmoments but simultaneouslyand directly,as its veryessence." 143 Can we allow ourselvesthe same luxury?

PrincetonUniversity.

141 We should not explainaway the allegoriesas JacquesProust does in Diderotet l'Encyclopedie(Paris, 1962), 243. "Emportepar sa verve,Basnage frolesouvent de pres le Christianismelui-meme et il lui fauta chaque instantpreciser que sa critiquedes textes hebraiquesne sauraitatteindre de texteschretiens qui pourtantleur resemble." 142 Gossman,Sainte-Palaye, 347. 143 Gossman,Sainte-Palaye, 348. I wouldlike to thankIsmar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, AnthonyGrafton of PrincetonUniversity, Richard H. Popkin, John Yolton, Guy Stroumsaof HebrewUniversity, and Brad Gregory.

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