Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History General Editor Han van Ruler (Erasmus University Rotterdam) Founded by Arjo Vanderjagt Editorial Board C.S. Celenza ( Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore) M. Colish (Yale University) J.I. Israel (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) A. Koba (University of Tokyo) M. Mugnai (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa) W. Otten (University of Chicago) VOLUME 237 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bsih Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) Classicist, Hebraist, Enlightenment Radical in Disguise By Ulrich Groetsch LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration and frontispiece: Portrait of Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) by Gerloff Hiddinga, 1749. Private collection. Photo by Sascha Fuis, Cologne 2004. Courtesy of Hinrich Sieveking, Munich. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Groetsch, Ulrich. Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) : classicist, hebraist, enlightenment radical in disguise / by Ulrich Groetsch. pages cm. — (Brill’s studies in intellectual history, ISSN 0920-8607 ; VOLUME 237) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-27299-6 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-27298-9 (e-book) 1. Reimarus, Hermann Samuel, 1694–1768. I. Title. B2699.R44G76 2015 193—dc23 2014048585 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0920-8607 isbn 978-90-04-27299-6 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-27298-9 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. 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Petronius, Satyricon 61 Contents Acknowledgments ix List of Illustrations xiii Note to the Reader and List of Abbreviations xiv Introduction 1 1 From Protégé to Peer Reimarus at the Hamburg School of Polyhistors 20 2 Among Pagans and Hebrews Teaching Jewish Antiquities in Eighteenth-Century Hamburg 62 3 Jean Le Clerc’s Faithful Pupil Reimarus Encounters the Profane 116 4 Reimarus, the Cardinal, and the Remaking of Cassius Dio’s Roman History 177 5 How Reimarus Read His Bible 224 6 The Miraculous Crossing of the Red Sea What Lessing and His Opponents during the Fragmentenstreit Did Not See 285 Afterthoughts 310 Bibliography 317 Manuscripts 317 Printed Primary Sources 319 Secondary Literature 334 General Index 362 Scriptural Index 375 Acknowledgments In his poem Ithaca, Constantine Cavafy encourages his readers to wish for a long journey, with many summer mornings, full of adventures and pleasures. Looking back, the journey completing this book was, by my own standards, everything I could have hoped for and seeing Ithaca itself seems just as anticli- mactic as Cavafy warned his readers it might be. Admittedly, I did meet some Laestrygonians and Cyclopes along the way, but the riches I accumulated far outweigh these unpleasant encounters.1 The journey began as a humble dissertation at Rutgers University where I met Donald R. Kelley, my first dissertation advisor, who was tremendously helpful in fostering the idea for this project. He put me in touch with scholars and savants who undoubtedly know more about several aspects of this field than I probably ever will. On numerous occasions, both Tony Grafton and Jonathan Israel have been generous with their time and support. While the radiant light of their scholarly accomplishments speaks for itself, their kind- ness makes them extraordinary ambassadors of humanity in the academic world. Don Kelley also put me in touch with Martin Mulsow, who would take over as my advisor shortly after Don’s retirement. Martin has been a source of inspiration ever since. He has been instrumental in helping me shape this proj- ect and he has been a dear friend whenever I needed one. I am most grateful to him for his friendship, inspiration, and sense of humor—I genuinely miss our excursions to the Met! I also would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Karin, Theresa, Nicola, and Jonathan for having taken up their family time with my queries. I am most thankful for their generosity and for the many times they have welcomed me to their home. While I was at Rutgers University, I was able to benefit from the advice of an outstanding group of scholars and friends in the Tri-State Area, especially Elisheva Carlebach, Lowell Edmunds, Elizabeth Hyde, Robin Ladrach, Stefan Schorn (now Catholic University in Leuven), Nancy Sinkoff, Cornelia Wilhelm (now Emory), and Azzan Yadin. Gary Rendsburg, who had then only recently moved from Cornell to Rutgers, spent his first summer in New Jersey going with me over the intricacies of the book of Job. I am tremendously grateful for his time and his willingness to join my dissertation committee at that stage of my journey. 1 Constantine P. Cavafy, The Complete Poems of Cavafy, trans. Rae Dalven and intr. W.H. Auden (San Diego, 1976), 36. x acknowledgments On several occasions I was able to present parts of this work to an academic audience, which helped me rethink some of the questions I tried to answer. A Reimarus conference in 2006 at Rutgers University and the conference “Cultural Crossovers: The Bible and the Profane,” also held at Rutgers in 2007, provided a welcome platform to discuss aspects of my work to an outstanding group of scholars from a number of disciplines related to my own. I would like to mention specifically Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann and Dietrich Klein, whose earlier scholarship on Reimarus opened up new avenues for my own project. Constantin Fasolt made it possible for me to present my work at the early mod- ern workshop at the University of Chicago. To him and the participants I am much indebted for many useful comments and suggestions. A post-doctoral fellowship at the Gotha Research Centre of Erfurt University provided me with world-class resources and fantastic conditions to rework parts of my manu- script. While at Erfurt I also had the pleasure of working with Asaph Ben-Tov, Andrew McKenzie-McHarg, and Guido Naschert, who have become more than just academic colleagues. Their company once again proved to me that lively scholarly discourse does not eliminate opportunities to discuss film, fishing, food, gossip, literature, music, politics, soccer, or travel. Christoph Bultmann of the Martin Luther Institute at the University of Erfurt warmly welcomed me upon my arrival. I am grateful for his willingness to discuss my project with me and help clarify some of the theological implications of Reimarus’s work. While I was working on this project, I was fortunate to draw on the resources and help of a number of exquisite institutions and individuals, without which the completion of this project on this side of the Atlantic would have been virtually impossible. I would like to thank especially Kenneth Henke and Kate Skrebutenas at Princeton Theological Seminary for making my trips to Princeton so rewarding, the staff at Rutgers University Library, Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Collier Library at the University of North Alabama, Gardner A. Sage Library of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New York Public Library, the Firestone Library at Princeton University, Columbia University Library, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. During my stay at Nashotah House Theological Seminary, David Sherwood, director of the Frances Donaldson Library—some of us would call it endearingly “Sherwood’s Forest”—granted me generous access to the institution’s resources. I am grateful for his generosity and his friendship. A research grant at my current institution, the University of North Alabama, allowed me to thoroughly rework the finished book manuscript throughout the summer break. I am grateful to Sharon Herson for her willing- ness to take on this project and for her tireless efforts to render this work more readable. Leon Wash (Chicago) and Charles Loder (Rutgers) graciously took acknowledgments xi on the tedious task of checking my translations. I am tremendously grateful to them for doing this on such a short notice. My new colleagues at the University of North Alabama have been supportive from the moment of my arrival in Florence. I would like to thank in particular Martha Frances Graham for her unwavering administrative support and sense of humor; Chris Maynard, the department chair and now associate dean, whose advice I greatly cherish and who always had an open ear for the needs of new faculty members; Leigh Thompson who, on more than one occasion, saved the day. Naturally, many of my resources came from libraries overseas. When I began my project, digitization was still in its infancy and frequent trips to Europe on a graduate student budget were financially