Hugo Grotius: deconstructing Antichrist exegesis as papacy in 1640

 

Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; Thd)

 

Hugo Grotius was called a papist by his peers in his own time due to his stance of tolerance for the Catholic Church he took and more than that, for his specific deconstruction attempts of biblical exegesis on the identification of the Antichrist as the papacy.

Grotius tried to convince the king that the he should put out a law prohibiting people to call the papacy the antichrist. Grotius' Appendix de Antichristo (BG nos. 1128-1129).

The passage is at the beginning of the Appendix by Grotius:

 ‘Hoc autem aequius est me aliquid condonare insanientibus, quod ista maledictorum licentia regem Christianissimum Galliae vel maxime petit; qui cum prudentissimorum virorum usus consilio interdixerit ne quis Papam Antichristum vocet ... ’. (ed. Opera omnia theologica III (BG no. 919), p. 475 r. 28 A). Op. cit.Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius. Deel 13 (1990)?Hugo de Groot Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis 's Gravenhage, 1990.

It is worthwhile to cite more information on this trend in Grotius:

The Hague pastor Andre Rivet was not the only theologian that reacted to Grotius' publication in favor of church unity [protestants and catholics]. Also the Bossche professor Samuel Desmarets (Maresius) was a great opponent.

The start of the dispute in writing was in 1640 when Desmarets in his Dissertation of the Antichrist (BsG no. 299) took a position against Grotius' interpretation of the biblical passages wherein the Antichrist is mentioned (Commentatio de Antichristo (BG no. 1100)).

This orthodox Geneve criticism Grotius reduplicate in 1641 with his Appendix de Antichristo (BG nos. 1128-1129) in which he made a uncommon sharp attack on theologians that wants to identify the papacy with the Antichrist blindly.

 The counteraction of this misgiving was for Grotius so important that he let the tractate be placed also in his publication Annotationes in libros Evangeliorum (BG no. 1135).

Grotius attack surprised also his friend, the Amsterdam professor Vossius. Vossius was specifically taken back by the passages wherein the author challenged the Amsterdam pastors and accused them of trying to encourage religious disputes. 

 From different sides he heard that it was just this very accusation that the Amsterdam pastors levied against Grotius and his printer of the Appendix.

In March of 1642 the brother of Hugo Grotius, Willem de Groot said that the burning on the 20th of January of one of Blaeu published socian works was an Amsterdam revenge against the publisher (Letter no. 5629).

Grotius also detected some problem because in February he suddenly insisted to his family for the publication of one "authentic piece" ‘Autentycque stucken’ (BG [letter of Hugo] no. 889) that concerns his arrest and conviction in the years 1618-1619 (no. 5582).

Willem de Groot sent a letter on the 24th of February to the unsettled Amsterdam pastors. They were informed that an Amsterdam pastor Jacob Laurentius was preparing a writing calling Hugo Grotius a papist [Hugo Grotius papizans, hoc est notae ad quaedam loca in Hugonis Grotii Appendice de Antichristo (BsG no. 306). It promised to be an investigation into the way Grotius handled the topic of the Antichrist in the Appendix.

The Cambridge Platonist Henry More (1614-1687) defended the traditional view of the Antichrist and was against the view of Grotius and Hammond. He was a pupil of Mede.

More wanted to vindicate Mede's method and said it "is really the rescuing of the Book itself into that Power and Use it ought to have in the Church: For it is standing light to all the Ages thereof..." (Henry More, "Mystery of Godliness," Theological Works, page 138).

More's fiercest attack on Grotius occurs in his commentary on Daniel (1681); there he declared that Grotius had excused the Pope from being the Antichrist partly, because of his distaste for the Reformed Church of Holland "for their usage of him," partly to "curry favour with the Pontifician party".

H. More, (1681). A Plain and Continued Exposition of the several Prophecies or Divine Visions of the Prophet Daniel , pp. XXXVIIf.

Hugo Grotius, Theologian: Essays in Honour of G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes. Edites Guillaume Henri Mare Posthumus Meyjes, Henk J. M. Nellen, Edwin Rabbie.

Two systems of interpretation were operational in the 17th century: Mede, More et al (presenting the truth unashamed of the papacy as Antichrist) and Grotius and Hammond et al (covering up the papacy as antichrist for apologetic purposes).

Anglicanism was transformed by Henry Hammond 1643-1660.

The 17th century was known as the century of syncretism in religious events in Europe. A dictionary on syncretism said: "Syncretism refers in particular, to the irenic movement arising from an effort within the Lutheran Church in the seventeenth century toward interconfessional union, the sole final result of which was the moderation of the theological spirit Syncretistic controversies is a phrase summing up the conflict waged between the partizans and opponents of the movement." The word irenic is one that was leveled against Grotius and one can include also Hammond. Syncretism in Antichrist terms, means that whereas the Reformation period called the Antichrist as the papacy, in the Seventeenth century Protestantism a movement started to try to remove the papacy as Antichrist and substitute it with preteristic own time scenarios. 

Orthodox Lutherans objected to Grotius' exegesis as Abraham Calovius indicated in his "nugae Grotii de Caio" in his Biblia Illustrata (1676).A. Calovius, Biblia Novi Testamenti Illustrata II, Dresdae et Lipsiae 1719, pp. 901-918; cf. 1616ff, 1624, 1841-96. In his criticism of Grotius, Calovius follows Maresius [mentioned by Johannes van den Berg, "Grotius' views on Antichrist and Apocalyptic Thought in England," in Hugo Grotius, Theologian: Essays in Honour of G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes. Edites Guillaume Henri Mare Posthumus Meyjes, Henk J. M. Nellen, Edwin Rabbie, pp. 170-182, page 175].  (There is also Preuss, Die Vorstellungen vom Antichrist, page 265).

The Remonstrants did not follow Grotius. Pilippus of Limborch in his Theologia Christiana defended the Reformers view: "per Antichristum designari Pontificem Romanum".

There is also later a back-out of hardcore reaction against the papacy by Richard Baxter. He was a man with an independent mind and it was said that he rarely agreed wholly with anyone" [Van den Berg 180]. In Richard Baxter's work The Grotian Religion Discovered. 1658 he objected to Grotius' irenicist attitude towards the Church of Rome. He warned that Grotius had turned Papist and that "Popery was indeed his religion" [Van den Berg 181 op. cit. Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, London 1696, part I, p. 280; cf. Nutall, "Richard Baxter," page 249). Baxter felt that Cassander's way would inevitably lead to Rome. "Cassandrian Papists...levelling all their doctrines to the advancement of the Papall interest" [Baxter, Christian Concord (1653) quoted by Nutall,"Richard Baxter 246).

John Maitland the earl of Lauderdaill agreed with Baxter in a letter dated 20th of September 1658 where he said: "I was in Paris acquainted with Grotius... and though I was then very yong yet some visits past among us. My discours with him was only in Humanities. But I remember well he was then esteemed such a Papist as you call Cassandrian" N. H. Keeble - Geoffrey F. Nuttall, Calendar of the Correspondence of Richard Baxter I, Oxford 1991. 500.

Van den Berg pointed out that even though Baxter was a critic of Grotius about his papist tendencies, he independently shared with Grotius the view that the papacy is the Antichrist (Van den Berg, 181). He read Brightman, Mede, More, Grotius and Hammond but the disparate interpretations brought him to confusion "I confess despair" (Van den Berg, 181). He called the prophecy of the Antichrist "the dread of a dark and controverted prophecie" (Baxter, A Paraphrase of the New Testament...With an Advertisement of Diffficulties in the Revelations. London 1685, Q rv; R 2v; 3r,v; 4r). 

More accused Baxter of a sceptical attitude with regard to the "explanation of prophecy" (More, Some cursory reflexions impartially made upon Mr. Richard Baxter his way of writing notes on the Apocalypse, published in London in 1685 under the pseudeonym Phililicrinis Parrhesiastes; see op. cit. Van den Berg 181 footnote 55).

Drue Cressener wrote about the dealing of the Antichrist by Hugo Grotius: "But when I came to be acquainted with Mr. Mede's Demonstrations and had compared them with the monstrous evasions, and absurd strains of wit, that Grotius and others were fain to flye to, to turn off the force of them, I gave over all thoughts of the comprehending way"

Drue Cressener, A Demonstration of the First Principles of the Protestant Applications of the Apocalypse, London 1690, p. XIII.

Hugo Grotius argued that not the papacy is the antichrist of the Bible but Simon Magus just like Henry Hammond. The beast of Revelation 13:1 was for Hammond heathen worship of imperial Rome (Henry Hammond A Paraphrase and Annotations upon all the books of the New Testament [1653], Works III, pp. 678-83, 825-29, 911-15, 927-31).

 

 

Sources:

 

H. de Groot, (1649). Des hoog-geleerden, en wijt-vermaerden Heere, Hugo de Groot, Uytlegginge van eenige plaetsen des Nieuwen Testaments, handelende van den Anti-Christ, den geleerden voorgestelt om te overwegen; / door D.H. en I.B. ..Uytlegginge van eenige plaetsen des Nieuwen Testaments. Rotterdam: Joannes Naeranus.

H. de Groot, (1642). Annotationis in librum evangeliorum hugonis grotii appendix ad interpretationem locorum n. testamenti quae de antichristo agunt Concordia discors & Antichristus revelatus. Id est ill. viri Hugonis Grotii apologia pro papa & papismo: quam praetextu concordiae inter christianos farciendae, exhibet illius appendix ad interpretationem locorum Novi Testamenti de Antichristo, modeste refutata duobus libris, per Samuelem Maresium... Liber primus [-secundus] / Amstelodami apud Joannem & Jodocum Janssonios anno aerae Christ. MDCXLII [1642].

Samuelle Maresio, (1640). Dissertatio de Antichristo qua... expenditur et refutatur nupera... commentatio... ad illustriora ea de re Novi Testamenti loca II.V. Hugonis Grotii credita; simulque Ecclesiarum reformatarum sententia de Antichristo romano defenditur... authore Samuele Maresio... / Amstelrodami : apud J. Janssonium , 1640. See http://www.sudoc.fr/099806185 

H. More, (1681). A Plain and Continued Exposition of the several Prophecies or Divine Visions of the Prophet Daniel , pp. XXXVIIf.

Hugo Grotius, Theologian: Essays in Honour of G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes. Edites Guillaume Henri Mare Posthumus Meyjes, Henk J. M. Nellen, Edwin Rabbie.

Henry Hammond A Paraphrase and Annotations upon all the books of the New Testament [1653], Works III, pp. 678-83, 825-29, 911-15, 927-31).

http://www.sudoc.fr/099806142

Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius. Deel 13 (1990)? Hugo de Groot Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis 's Gravenhage, 1990. Antichrist XV, 87, 102, 265, 268, 305, 309, 319, 327, 338, 349, 359.

Drue Cressener, A Demonstration of the First Principles of the Protestant Applications of the Apocalypse, London 1690, p. XIII.