costa limborch (2 Ergebnisse)

Hardcover. Zustand: Fine. First edition. Three parts, quarto. [asterisk]-[2 asterisk]4 A-3A4 3B (= 197 leaves; K2 signed H2). [16], 364, [14, index]pp. Title in red and black, printed marginalia, woodcut tailpieces. Contemporary paneled calf (expertly rebacked to style), gilt lettering piece. Occasional touch of mild foxing, else a fine, crisp, amply-margined copy. First edition of this remarkable collection, modeled on a work of Hugo Grotius with the same title, including the transcription of an epistolary debate between the Dutch theologian, Phillip van Limborch (1633-1712) and the Jewish scholar, Isaac Orobio de Castro (ca.1617-1687). Jonathan Israel views the work as "a key exemplum of the new 'enlightened' method of upholding Christianity." Limborch was a leading Dutch theologian aligned with the Arminians, and professor in the Seminary of the Remonstrants at Amsterdam. Orobio de Castro had been Professor of Theology at Salamanca who was imprisoned by the Inquisition on account of his sympathy with the Jews of Spain. He fled the country, going first to France and then to Holland, where he abjured Christianity, and became deeply involved in the philosophico-religious controversies in the Low Countries. In the present work, Limborch publishes three letters written by Orobio de Castro, along with his own detailed responses. In arguing against the "truth" of the Christian religion "Orobio retorted that the advent of Christ has done nothing to render mankind less sinful or to lessen suffering, that the rise of Christianity, far from being unparalleled, was surpassed by the expansion of Islam. and that far from being unchallengeable, Christ's miracles had not been performed publicly, like the miracle at Mount Sinai, but virtually in secret, a circumstance which renders them entirely dubious. These responses and his further claims that the New Testament is unreliable, providing no basis for trust in Christ's miracles, since the text exists only in Greek, a language neither Jesus nor the Apostles had the slightest knowledge of. made no impact on Limborch, Le Clerc, or Locke, who were convinced of their triumph over Orobio. Nevertheless, Orobio's arguments were fully and objectively reported in the text, and subsequently widely read across Europe, and some of those who read it were not so sure that Orobio was 'vanquished'. Boulainvilliers, who meticulously examined the text, concluded that Limborch's arguments were less securely grounded on reason than he and his allies supposed and that, even without their realizing it, it was Orobio who won the contest, a verdict echoed in other anti-Christian clandestine philosophical literature of the early eighteenth century" (Israel). Edited from a manuscript formerly in the possession of the Leiden professor of theology, Simon Episcopius, and now in the University Library Amsterdam, the Exemplar Humanae Vitae is the autobiography of the Portuguese Jew, Uriel da Costa (ca.1585-1640), who was excommunicated from the Sephardi Jewish community of Hamburg in 1618 after addressing a polemical broadside to the leaders of the Sephardi congregation of Venice, in which he criticized rabbinic Judaism as incompatible with the Torah. He later settled in Amsterdam where he submitted to a public recantation of his views before the Portuguese Jewish congregation, and committed suicide shortly thereafter. A radical freethinker who here makes an imposing plea against dogmatics, da Costa may be viewed as a forerunner of Spinoza. An English translation was published at London in 1740; a complete edition of his (few) works was edited in 1922 by Carl Gebhardt (Schriften des Uriel da Costa), and published as the second volume of the Bibliotheca Spinozana. At the conclusion, Limborch offers his refutation of da Costa's challenge to revealed religion. References: Bamberger, no. 67. Fürst 1:17. De Graaf, Cat. 70: Spiritualists, Nonconformists & Dissenters, no. 360. J. Israel, Radical Enlightenment (OUP, 2001), esp. pp. 464-466. Oscott Catalogues: Recusant Books (part 2), no. 2286; The Old Library (part 2: Bible Collections), no. 895. For Da Costa's Exemplar, cf. Roth B18.30, citing the English version of 1740. The work was already scarce and much sought after in the early modern era, as evidenced by: DeBure (Theology), no. 583: "ouvrage estime & recherche, les exemplaires en sont peu communs" and Osmont, Dictionnaire, vol. 1, p.406: "rare et estimé." In his 1694 catalogue of Christian Hebraic works, Bibliotheca Latino-Hebraica, Carlo Imbonati offers a surprisingly long discussion of De Veritate on pp. 201-209.

Goudae, Justum ab Hoeve [Gouda, Justus van der Hoeve], 1687. In-4 (232 x 185 mm), plein vélin ivoire rigide de l'époque, dos titré à la plume, (16), 364, (14) p. Edition princeps de la célèbre autobiographie testamentaire d'Uriel da Costa: "Exemplar humanae vitae" ("Une vie humaine"), composée à la veille de son suicide en 1640 et publiée "presque par hasard" (Daniel Lacerda) quarante-sept années après sa mort. Elle est insérée dans un recueil qu'un ministre calviniste arminien, Philip Van Limborch professeur à Amsterdam (1633-1712), consacre à la défense de la "vérité de la religion chrétienne", en discussion avec un Juif érudit, Isaac Orobio de Castro (c.1617-1687), lui-même réfugié du Portugal à Amsterdam. Né au sein d'une famille portugaise marrane, Uriel Da Costa (1585-1640) s'installa à Amsterdam en 1617 et retourna au judaïsme, mais il entra bientôt en conflit avec la synagogue. Soumis à une humiliante pénitence publique, il se suicida. "Cette autobiographie écrite par Uriel da Costa en 1640 avant de se suicider, reflète toute la culture et toutes les interrogations religieuses de cet esprit qui passa du christianisme-marranisme au judaïsme puis au sadducéisme, enfin au déisme vénérant la Nature. Juif portugais d'Amsterdam, Gabriel, devenu Uriel da Costa, reflète - lui et toute sa famille, affiliée à celle de Spinoza - les recherches de cette société des nouveaux convertis du Portugal et des pays occidentaux au XVII° siècle" (Béatrice Leroy). Éditée d'après un manuscrit et peut-être révisée, 'Une vie humaine' est suivie de sa réfutation par Limborch. Ce document demeurait l'unique seule source d'informations sur Uriel da Costa jusqu'à la découverture récente (1990), à la bibliothèque d'Amsterdam, d'un exemplaire unique d'un autre de ses textes que l'on croyait perdu ("Exame das tradições fariseas") et qui le place aux côtés de Spinoza, dix années avant la condamnation de celui-ci, parmi les victimes du durcissement doctrinaire des autorités juives d'Amsterdam. Cf. I.S. Revah, H. Méchoulan et coll., 'Des Marranes à Spinoza', Vrin, 1995, passim. (Bamberger, 'The printed literature of Spinozism', n° 67. Fürst, 'Bibliotheca judaica', I, p. 17). Quelques rousseurs éparses. Petite trace de restauration de vélin au dos. Très bon exemplaire, très bien conservé dans sa première reliure hollandaise de vélin rigide.