Criticism and Confession

The Bible in the Seventeenth Century Republic of Letters

Nicholas Hardy

Oxford-Warburg Studies

Presents a new history of seventeenth-century biblical criticism
Critiques modern scholarly assumptions about the relationships between erudition, humanistic culture, political activism, and religious identity
Addresses multiple confessional and national contexts
Offers major revisionist treatments of canonical figures in the history of scholarship, such as Joseph Scaliger, Isaac Casaubon, John Selden, Hugo Grotius, and Louis Cappel

Criticism and Confession

The Bible in the Seventeenth Century Republic of Letters

Nicholas Hardy

Description

The period between the late Renaissance and the early Enlightenment has long been regarded as the zenith of the 'republic of letters', a pan-European community of like-minded scholars and intellectuals who fostered critical approaches to the study of the Bible and other ancient texts, while renouncing the brutal religio-political disputes that were tearing their continent apart at the same time. Criticism and Confession offers an unprecedentedly comprehensive challenge to this account. Throughout this period, all forms of biblical scholarship were intended to contribute to theological debates, rather than defusing or transcending them, and meaningful collaboration between scholars of different confessions was an exception, rather than the norm. 'Neutrality' was a fiction that obscured the ways in which scholarship served the interests of ecclesiastical and political institutions. Scholarly practices varied from one confessional context to another, and the progress of 'criticism' was never straightforward.

The study demonstrates this by placing scholarly works in dialogue with works of dogmatic theology, and comparing examples from multiple confessional and national contexts. It offers major revisionist treatments of canonical figures in the history of scholarship, such as Joseph Scaliger, Isaac Casaubon, John Selden, Hugo Grotius, and Louis Cappel, based on unstudied archival as well as printed sources; and it places those figures alongside their more marginal, overlooked counterparts. It also contextualizes scholarly correspondence and other forms of intellectual exchange by considering them alongside the records of political and ecclesiastical bodies. Throughout, the study combines the methods of the history of scholarship with techniques drawn from other fields, including literary, political, and religious history. As well as presenting a new history of seventeenth-century biblical criticism, it also critiques modern scholarly assumptions about the relationships between erudition, humanistic culture, political activism, and religious identity.

Criticism and Confession

The Bible in the Seventeenth Century Republic of Letters

Nicholas Hardy

Oxford-Warburg Studies

Introduction
Prelude: The discourse of critica in the late Renaissance
PART I: Debating sacred history in England and the continent
The 'Theological Vortex'? Isaac Casaubon in England, 1610-1614
Philology divided: the controversy over John Selden's Historie of Tithes (1618)
PART II: Commenting on the New Testament
New Testament scholarship after Scaliger
Hugo Grotius: 'historical criticism' in its generic and controversial contexts
Conclusion: the myth of 'critical exegesis'
PART III: Criticizing the Old Testament
Anti-Protestant controversy and the 'ecclesiastical' versions of the Old Testament: the case of Jean Morin
Protestants and the Septuagint: the failed edition of Patrick Young
Critical judgement and theological exegesis: the case of Louis Cappel
Cappel's Critica sacra in the confessional republic of letters
The London Polyglot Bible: synthesis, retrospective, or another controversial intervention?
Conclusion: from humanistic exegesis to sacred criticism
Coda. From Critica sacra to Enlightened critique?
Critica criticorum: the case of Richard Simon
Making the ars critica 'more philosophical': the case of Jean Le Clerc
Conclusion: the generalization of criticism?
Bibliography

Criticism and Confession

The Bible in the Seventeenth Century Republic of Letters

Nicholas Hardy

Oxford-Warburg Studies

Author Information

Nicholas Hardy, Research Fellow, University Library and Darwin College, Cambridge; Cambridge Faculty of English

Nicholas Hardy is currently Munby Research Fellow in Bibliography at the University Library and Darwin College, Cambridge. His research interests cover early modern humanism, intellectual history, classical reception studies, and the history of the book. He took a BA (2008) in Classics and English at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and then an MSt (2009) and DPhil (2012) in English, also at Oxford, before joining Trinity College, Cambridge to take up a four-year Research Fellowship in 2012. He has also held visiting fellowships at the Scaliger Institute, Leiden University Library, and the Folger Institute in Washington, DC.

Criticism and Confession

The Bible in the Seventeenth Century Republic of Letters

Nicholas Hardy

Oxford-Warburg Studies

Reviews and Awards

Received an Honorable Mention for the 2019 Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize, awarded by The Renaissance Society of America

"Criticism and Confession ranges widely and provides a densely referenced treatment of its subjects" - Lisa Al-Faradzh, The Seventeenth Century

"A great strength of the book is Hardy's detailed knowledge of the networks of the scholars he covers, which enables him to relate their letters and manuscripts to their interventions in the printed debate. As befits an Oxford- Warburg study, the book delves deeply into the scholarly controversies of the period and explains clearly but precisely how academics went about resolving those controversies - as least in so far as this could be done through erudition, discovery and the operation of patronage. It is a richly textured (and impressively footnoted) account of a complex, intricate and often rather tense world." - Grotiana 39

"guides the reader through a series of fascinating debates... Hardy's achievement is not only to draw our attention to the confessional biases in early modern biblical criticism, but to tease out how those biases operated." - Grotiana

"Nicholas Hardy's brilliant book is destined for a long life thanks to its intensive research and bold revisionist argument . . . Hardy's uncompromising and rigorous account will come as a salutary challenge to anyone who wants to discuss these subjects and as an enormous illumination to those who have not studied the primary material ( . . . ) this book is the most forceful achievement so far of the new movement toward early modern scholarship and religion." - Kristine Haugen, History of Humanities

"[T]his is an ambitious work that helps us to better understand the 17th-century Republic of Letters and especially those figures whom historians have previously been eager to place in a heterodox camp and interpret as part of the gradual secularization of modern scholarship. Hardy's work directs us to the importance of contextualizing early modern scholars with an eye toward their social circles, lines of patronage, and intended audiences. He broadens the scope of evidence by analyzing published works alongside incomplete drafts, suppressed manuscripts, and correspondence, and engages in close readings that show a sensitivity to the theological dimensions of these scholarly works of criticism." - Katrina Jennie-Lou Wheeler, Reading Religion

"Criticism and Confession is a learned, stimulating and original study in which Nicholas Hardy prompts a profound reconsideration of traditional views." - Alastair Hamilton, Times Literary Supplement

"powerful and controversial ... an ambitious work that covers an entire century. It has no rival." - Scott Mandelbrote, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge

"resurrects the unity of a whole intellectual culture, which was characterized by a dynamic engagement with ancient texts ... very well-researched ... excellent command of sources in Latin and Greek" - Jean-Louis Quantin, École Pratique des Hautes Études