Apart from names mentioned in chapters, many names of individuals mentioned in this lexicon are not further listed in the indexes. Titles of articles and books mentioned are not all listed in this study’s bibliography.
Aeltsz (or Aeltsen), Herman (1620/21–1696): Amsterdam compositor and printer (1656–1681), member of the Amsterdam guild of booksellers, printers, and bookbinders (since 11 September 1662); workshop (1663): Kalverstraat, close to the Dam; business partner of Jan Rieuwertsz* père; printer of Spinoza’s Renatus des Cartes Beginzelen der wysbegeerte, I en II Deel; Overnatuurkundige gedachten (1664) and a clandestinely-published anti-religious dictionary of loan words in the vernacular by Adriaan Koerbagh*, bearing in mind Spinoza’s KV: Een bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet geplant door Vreederijk Waarmond, ondersoeker der waarheyd (Leiden [Amsterdam]: 1668).
References: Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, p. 14; Jagersma and Dijkstra, ‘Uncovering Spinoza’s Printers’; Lane, ‘The Printing Office’.
Almeloveen, Theodorus Jansonius ab (1657–1712): Dutch physician and polyhistor; studied theology in Utrecht (1676) and medicine in Leiden; took out a doctoral degree in Utrecht (1681); practised in Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Gouda; professor of Greek, history and rhetoric, and professor of medicine (1702) at Harderwijk; renowned for his works on philology and bibliography, such as the 1692 Bibliotheca promissa et latens; relative of the Amsterdam printer Johannes Janssonius van Waesberge (1600–1683), who turned out several writings of the Voetius family and of Descartes’s Opera philosophica (1656–1658).
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 6, cols 31–32; Ben de Graaf, ‘Theodorus Janssonius ab Almeloveen (1657–1712). Life, Writings, Bibliographical Activities’, in Ton R.A. Croiset van Uchelen, etc. (eds.), Theatrum Orbis Librorum. Liber Amicorum Presented to Nico Israel on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (Utrecht: HES, 1989), pp. 179–192, 1989; Saskia Stegeman, Patronage and Services in the Republic of Letters: The Network of Theodorus Janssonius van Almeloveen (1657–1712) (Amsterdam: APA-Holland University Press, 2005).
Alting, Jacob (1618–1679): Dutch philologist and theologian; chair of oriental languages (1641) at Groningen University and theology (1667); crossed swords with the Groningen theologian Samuel Maresius (1599–1673) on issues of biblical exegesis after the latter had accused him (1668) of heterodoxy; asked (1670) by the Utrecht Cartesian network to refute the Tractatus theologico-politicus but turned down the offer; drew up arguments (early 1672) from the Bible books of Ezra and Nehemia for the Cartesian theologian Antonius Perizonius (1626–1672), who prepared a refutation (never published) of the ‘Theological-Political Treatise’; Johannes Melchioris*, author of Epistola ad amicum (1671), the first Dutch retort of Spinoza’s treatise, studied theology under Alting.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 1, cols 96–97; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 18–19; Wout J. van Bekkum, ‘Die Hebraistik in den nördlichen Niederlanden: Jacobus Alting (1618–1679) in Groningen’, Aschkenas. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der Juden, 14 (2004), pp. 447–468; Touber, ‘Philosophy and Theology’, pp. 481–490; Gootjes, The First Orchestrated Attack on Spinoza’, passim.
Ames, William (fl.1649–1662): English Quaker preacher; learned Dutch at an early age which proved to be helpful when he went to live temporarily (1656) in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Gouda on a Quaker mission to convert Jews and promote Quaker notions; initially, Ames had strong sympathies for the Mennonite movement, but later became its fierce adversary.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 9, cols 23–24; Gillispie and Holmes (eds.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 1, pp. 133–135; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. For Spinoza’s (alleged) relation with Quakers: Richard H. Popkin, The Third Force in the Seventeenth-Century Thought (Leiden: Brill 1992), pp. 120–134.
Amya, David (fl.1678–1711): Reformed minister in Harderwijk and The Hague (1670); signed (1682) the Schriftuur- en- rede-lijcke bedenkingen over de huiden-daagsche comedien, ende het bywoonen der selve to protest against contemporary theatre; being a Reformed minister in The Hague, Amya notified the provincial High Court of Holland about Spinoza’s posthumous writings in early 1675.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 8, cols 26–27; Knuttel [ed.], Acta der particuliere synoden, vol. 5, p. 87.
Andrade Velosino, Isaac Jacques (Jacob) de (1657–1701): medical doctor, Hebraist philosopher, author, alleged detractor of the Tractatus theologico-politicus; born in Dutch Brazil; lived for a good part of his life in Amsterdam and possibly also in Antwerp; passed away in The Hague; held a public oration on the occasion of the opening (2 August 1675) of the new Portuguese-Israelite synagogue in Amsterdam: Sermoēs que pregaraō os doctos ingenious do K.K. de Talmud Torah, desta cidade de Amsterdam, … (1675), pp. 101–129 (sermon 6); translated a work of Amsterdam rabbi Saul Levi Morteira (c.1596–1660), on Mosaic law, into Portuguese; wrote a defence of Judaism (unpublished) in reply to a work by rational theologian and Walloon minister Isaac Jacquelot (1647–1708): Dissertations sur le Messie, …, que Jesus-Christ est le Messie promis et predit dans l’Ancien Testament (The Hague: 1699); allegedly wrote a phantom refutation of the Tractatus theologico-politicus: ‘Religioso contra el Theologó Politico de B. de Espinosa’; owned copies of the Opera posthuma and the Tractatus theologico-politicus, as well as several of the latter treatise’s contemporary refutations.
References: Catalogus … d. Isaaci d’Andrada, Velosinos; Kaiserling, ‘Jacob de Andrade Velosino’, pp. 12–13; id. (ed.), Biblioteca Española-Portugueza-Judaica; Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 8, col. 28.
Annesley, Arthur (1614–1686): 1st Earl of Anglesey, FRS, vice-treasurer and receiver-general of Ireland; after the ‘Popish Plot’ Annesley sided (1680) with a minority to exclude the Duke of York (the heir-apparent James II, the King’s brother) from the King’s counsels; also accused the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the powerful Marquess of Ormond James Butler, of betraying Protestant interest in Ireland (1681); after the death of Henry Oldenburg* Annesley bought the latter’s private library containing three copies of the Tractatus theologico-politicus.
References: Malcolm, ‘The Library of Henry Oldenburg’; Justin Begley, ‘Arthur Annesley, Margaret Cavendish, and Neo-Latin History’, The Review of English Studies, 69 (2018), pp. 855–873; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. For the Popish Plot, the framed Roman Catholic conspiracy against the throne of Charles II: Steenbakkers, Touber, and Van de Ven, ‘A Clandestine Notebook’, pp. 327–328, 343–344.
Arentsz, Pieter (fl.1633–1688): printer in Amsterdam from German extraction; specialized in the production and selling of Mennonite works; published a range of books in cooperation with Jan Rieuwertsz* père from 1669 onwards.
Reference: Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, p. 15.
Aubrey, John (1626–1697): antiquary and biographer, FRS; befriended men like Hobbes*, Robert Hooke, James Pell, and Christopher Wren amongst many others; author of the archaeological anthology ‘Monumenta Britannica, or, A Miscellanie of British Antiquities’ (Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. top. gen. c.24 and 25); interests in astronomy, navigation, and applied mathematics; earned a reputation for his gossipy biographical works (Brief Lives); regarding the Tractatus theologico-politicus, Aubrey wrote in Brief Lives Hobbes would have stated Spinoza ‘had out throwne him a barre length, for he durst not write so boldly’.
References: Michael C.W. Hunter, John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning (New York, NY: Science History Publications, 1975); Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Bakkamude (or Baccamude), Daniel (fl.1661–1685): Amsterdam printer, member (since 4 September 1662) of the Amsterdam guild of booksellers, printers, and bookbinders; printing shop (between 1669 and 1680): ‘op ’t Rokkin, naast de drie groene Papegayen’ (at the Rokin, alongside the three green Parrots), early 1680s: Nieuwezijds Achterburgwal (‘op de Hoek van de Huyszitten-steeg’); affiliated with the Collegiant movement; printer of a work by Johannes Bredenburg*, called Wiskunstige demonstratie, dat alle verstandelijke werking noodtzaakelijk is (Amsterdam: 1684); for Rieuwertsz* père, Bakkamude produced Spinoza’s Renati des Cartes Principiorum philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata metaphysica; printer of the Socinian venture Bibliotheca fratrum Polonorum (1665–8), in collaboration with Frans Kuyper*; set in type books by Dutch poet and playwright Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679) and worked for the Amsterdam firm of Johannes Janssonius van Waesberge.
Reference: Jagersma and Dijkstra, ‘Uncovering Spinoza’s Printers’, esp. p. 301 and passim.
Balling, Pieter Cornelisz (fl.1647–1664): Dutch merchant and business agent, pietist author hailing from Harlingen, Spinoza’s friend and correspondent; member of the Flemish Mennonite Church (‘Vlaamse Gemeente’) in Amsterdam, named by ’t Lam (‘at the Lamb’); author of the clandestinely-issued Het licht op den kandelaar; translator of an early version of E1 and E2; supplied Simon Joosten de *Vries and his Amsterdam study group with his translation of an early instalment, or a portion of it, of E1 (see: De Vries* to Spinoza, 1663.02.24, Ep 8); translator (‘P. B.’) of Renatus Des Cartes Beginzelen der wysbegeerte, I en II Deel; Overnatuurkundige gedachten (1664); Balling’s first letter to Spinoza: 1664.[06].[26]*, reply: 1664.07.20, Ep 17; died on 20 December 1664 and was buried three days later at the Kartuizer Kerkhof in Amsterdam.
References: Carl Gebhardt, ‘Pieter Ballings Het licht op den kandelaar’, Chronicon Spinozanum, 4 (1924–1926), pp. 187–201; Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 4, pp. 24–25; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 45–47.
Batelier (or Watelier), Jacobus Johannes (1593–1672): Dutch Walloon minister and theologian, critic of Spinoza; formally deposed from his Kralingen ministry (1619) by the South Holland Synod; preacher in The Hague (1633–66); invited by the Remonstrant Brotherhood to take part as a commentator in the general revision of the 1637 Dutch ‘Statenbijbel’ issued in 1657; crossed swords with Gisbertus Voetius and the latter’s protégé Martin Schoock (1614–1669) on Remonstrant theology; author of Vindiciae miraculorum (1673), a defence of Christianity and a theological retort to Tractatus theologico-politicus.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 6, cols 78–80; Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 4, pp. 25–26; Van Bunge, ‘On the Early Dutch Reception of the Tractatus theologico-politicus’, p. 227; id., ‘Van Velthuysen, Batelier and Bredenburg on Spinoza’s Interpretation of the Scriptures’, in Christofolini (ed.), The Spinozistic Heresy, pp. 49–65.
Baxter, Richard (1615–1691): Puritan English church leader, controversialist, prolific writer and letter writer; ordained a deacon in Worcester (1638); preacher (1641) at Kidderminster; prominent member of the Worcestershire Voluntary Association of Ministers and respected ‘lecturer’; licenced as ‘a Nonconforming Minister’ in 1672; Baxter, although considered chiefly a Presbyterian, had sympathy for a modified Episcopalianism; strong advocate of the ‘Toleration Act’ (1689), accepting nonconformists within the Church of England; assailed Spinoza’s theory of a corporeal, single and self-active God in The Second Part of the Nonconformists Plea for Peace (London: 1680); referred briefly to the implications of Spinoza’s and Hobbes’s mechanical philosophies in Catholick Theologie Plain, Pure, Peaceable, for Pacification of the Dogmatical Word-Warriours (1675) and in A Treatise of Knowledge and Love (1689); in the latter work, Spinoza is dubbed the second brother of the French mechanical priest-philosopher Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655).
References: Neil H. Keeble, Richard Baxter, Puritan Man of Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; David S. Sytsma, Richard Baxter and the Mechanical Philosophers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
Bayle, Pierre (1647–1706): French Huguenot writer and philosopher, founder of the journal Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres (1684–1687); professor of philosophy (1675) at the Protestant Academy of Sedan (suppressed by Louis XIV in 1681); lectured history and philosophy at the Illustrious School of Rotterdam from 1681 onward; Bayle in the second edition of his Pensées diverses sur la comète (1682) mentioned Spinoza for the first time; author of a well-known entry on Spinoza in his 1697 Dictionaire historique et critique (vol. 2, pp. 1083–1100), portrays the latter as a reclusive grinder of lenses and positions him both as a virtuous thinker, developing an atheist system (‘athée de système’), and as the author of horrible and confused doctrines; made some conjectures in the same lengthy entry about the octavo editions of the Tractatus theologico-politicus and was the first who brought up the identity of Gabriel de Saint Glen, its French translator; Bayle too is the source for putting forward the view Jelles* and Meyer* were involved in the preparations of Spinoza’s posthumous works.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 1, cols 256–261; Elisabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, du pays de Foix à la cité d’Erasmus (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1963); Gianluca Mori, ‘Baruch de Spinoza: Athée vertueux, athée de système’, in Hans Bots (ed.), Critique, savoir et érudition à la veille de Lumières: Le Dictionaire historique et critique de Pierre Bayle (1647–1706): Critical Spirit, Wisdom and Erudition on the Eve of the Enlightenment: The Dictionaire historique et critique of Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) (Amsterdam: APA-Holland University Press, 1998), pp. 341–35898; Wiep van Bunge and Hans Bots (eds.), Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), le philosophe de Rotterdam: Philosophy, Religion and Reception. Selected Papers of the Tercentenary Conference Held at Rotterdam, 7–8 December 2008 (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Anthony McKenna, ‘Spinoza et les “athées vertueux” dans un manuscrit clandestin au XVIIIe siècle’, in Olivier Bloch (ed.), Spinoza au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Méridiens Klincksieck, 1990), pp. 85–92; Hubert Bost, Un ‘Intellectuel’ avant la lettre: Le journaliste Pierre Bayle (1647–1706). L’actualité religieuse dans les Nouvelles de la République des Lettres (1684–1687) (Amsterdam and Maarssen: APA-Holland University Press, 1994); Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 61–65; Vermeir, ‘The Dustbin of the Republic of Letters’ (on Bayle’s Dictionaire); Alain Billecoq, Spinoza ou l’ ‘athée vertueux’, 2016. For Bayle’s entry on Spinoza: Van Bunge, etc. [eds.], The Continuum Companion to Spinoza, pp. 85–106.
Beaumont, Simon van (1641–1726): Dutch legal scholar; studied law (1659) at Leiden University; secretary of the States of Holland and a clerk of the Gecommitteerde Raden of Holland in het Zuiderkwartier (1673–1726); earned some reputation as a fervent collector and cultivator of foreign plants at great expense; in his capacity as a judge’s secretary, Van Beaumont signed the official placard (25 July 1678) proscribing Spinoza’s posthumous works in the States of Holland, Zeeland, and West-Friesland.
Reference: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 1, cols 265–266.
Blijenbergh, Willem van (1613/22/32–1696): Dordrecht grain retailer, correspondent (‘W. v. B.’) and critic of Spinoza; administrator of the Dordrecht Veertigraad; admirer of the early geometrical Spinoza; between December 1664 and June 1665, Van Blijenbergh shared eleven letters on issues in Spinoza’s reworking of Descartes’s ‘Principles of Philosophy’, primarily on first principles and the status of good and evil; had a personal encounter with Spinoza in mid-March 1665; assailed Spinoza in: De waerheyt van de christelijcke godts-dienst en de autoriteyt der H. Schriften … een wederlegginge van dat godt-lasterlijcke boeck, genoemt Tractatus theologico-politicus (Leiden: 1674) and Wederlegging van de Ethica of Zede-Kunst van Benedictus de Spinosa: voornamentlijk omtrent het wesen ende de natuur van God en van onse ziel (Dordrecht: 1682); the Dutch Cartesian philosopher Johannes de Raey (1622–1702) dedicated his Miscellanea philosophica (Amsterdam: 1685) to Van Blijenbergh, on body-soul dualism (an ordinary disputation’s by his student Joachim Targier), attacking in thesis 8 (p. 10) followers of Spinoza’s philosophy for degenerating the fruits of Cartesianism; exchanged letters with Willem Deurhoff* to discuss topics in Balthasar Bekker’s controversial De betoverde weereld (Leeuwarden: 1691).
References: J.L. van Dalen (alias of Jan van de Maas), ‘Willem Laurentsz. van Blijenbergh’, De tijdspiegel, 2 (1908), pp. 344–371; A.J. Paulus, ‘Een brief van Willem van Blijenbergh aan zijn neef en vriend Samuel van Hoogstraten’, Chronicon Spinozanum, 3 (1923), pp. 337–340; Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 4, cols 170–172; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 110–112; Sangiacomo, ‘Before the Conatus Doctrine’.
Blok, Ameldonk (1651/2–1702): Amsterdam silk merchant and amateur philosopher; moved in intellectual ‘circles’ in Amsterdam, including Spinoza’s friends and admirers Georg Hermann Schuller*, Jarig Jelles*, Rieuwertsz* père, and Pieter van Gent*; composed Geneesmiddel der ziele (1687), a translation of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus’s Medicina mentis (1687).
References: Reinhardt, Briefe an Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus; Vermij, ‘De Nederlandse vriendenkring’; Steenbakkers, Spinoza’s Ethica, p. 36.
Blount, Charles (1654–1693): freethinker, eclectic pamphleteer, and hack journalist; son of Henry Blount, FRS, friend of Hobbes*; published in 1679 (under the alias of Junius Brutus) An Appeal from the Country to the City to defend the reality of the ‘Popish Plot’; earned a reputation for analysing and vilifying all irrational elements of religion; identified frequently with Epicurus and accused of plagiarism by some; clandestinely issued Miracles, No Violations of the Laws of Nature (London: 1683), a translation of the sixth chapter of the Tractatus theologico-politicus; presumably, Blount was also responsible for editing A Treatise Partly Theological, and Partly Political (London: 1689), the first full English edition of Spinoza’s treatise.
References: J.A. Redwood, ‘Charles Blount (1654–94), Deism and English Free Thought’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 35 (1974), pp. 490–498; Simonutti, ‘Spinoza and the English Thinkers’, 1996; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Blount, Thomas (1618–1679): English archivist and lexicographer; student of law at the London Inner Temple; had a keen interest in legal history, historical research, and literature; published A Catalogue of the Lords, Knights and Gentlemen, of the Catholick Religion (1653), a clandestine work stressing the English Catholics’ royalism in the time preceding the Restoration of Charles II; mentioned the ‘Theological-Political Treatise’ in one of his letters.
References: The Correspondence of Thomas Blount, pp. 1–96; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Boineburg, Johann Christian Freiherr (Count) von (1622–1677): politician, polymath, collector, and patron of Leibniz*; made an impressive career at the Court of the Elector of Mainz; converted (1653) to Roman Catholicism (causing his temporary arrest in 1664); lived alternately in Frankfurt and Mainz; owned one of the largest private libraries in seventeenth-century Europe; commissioned Leibniz to catalogue his books; got hold of Leibniz’s copy of the Tractatus theologico-politicus to which he appended his own notes on its upcoming refutations and on the identity of Spinoza (Erfurt/Gotha, Universitätsbibliothek- und Forschungsbibliothek, Pol. 4o 00072(01), T.1).
References: Eva Ultsch, Johann Christian von Boineburg: Ein Beitrag zur Geistesgeschichte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Würzburg: Becker, 1936); Margherita Palumbo, ‘Johann Christian von Boineburg’, Il Bibliotecario, 7 (1990), pp. 181–218; Paasch, Die Bibliothek.
Bontekoe, Cornelis (c.1644–1685): town physician in The Hague, personal physician (1683) to the ‘Great Elector’, Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg; received his formal education as a town surgeon and enrolled (1665) at Leiden University; studied medicine under De le Boe Sylvius*; best known for his plea of using tea as medication for a healthy and fruitful life; was ridiculed in Dialogue van een groote thee en tobacq-suyper (1680), issued during a clash over the Cartesian reform of medicine (1680–1681); put forth a warning against Spinoza by putting to press the ethical system of Arnold Geulincx*: Ethica: Gnôthi seauton, sive Ethica (1675); was ordered on 22 January 1675 to refrain from any public opposition to Leiden disputations or taking part in other academic exercises over Cartesianism; finally expelled (18 December) from the university; author of Brief aan Johan Frederik Swetzer, gesegt Dr Helvetius (1680), suggesting Spinoza taught Cartesian philosophy to Leiden students; Bontekoe and Spinoza both lived in The Hague, but relations are unrecorded.
References: Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands Cartesianisme, esp. pp. 226–337 and 342–343; Lothar Noack and Jürgen Splett, Brandenburgische Gelehrte der Frühen Neuzeit. Berlin – Cölln 1644–1680 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997), pp. 65–72; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 128–132; Christoph Schweikardt, ‘More than just a Propagandist for Tea: Religious Argument and Advice on a Healthy Life in the Work of the Dutch Physician Cornelis Bontekoe (1647–85)’, Medical History, 47 (2003), pp. 357–368; Israel, ‘Spinoza as an Expounder’, pp. 9–15.
Bontemantel, Hans (1613–1688): Amsterdam magistrate and merchant, republican Vroedschap member, bailiff, among other in the town’s civic administration; sat in the States of Holland for Amsterdam; removed from office (10 September 1672) by William* III at the onset of the Third Anglo-Dutch War; like Johannes Hudde*, a member of municipal committee criminalizing the writings of Adriaan Koerbagh*; author of a report about a meeting (25 September 1670) of the States of Holland, first discussing the prohibition of the Tractatus theologico-politicus.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 8, cols 175–179; Smit (ed.), Notulen gehouden ter vergadering.
Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso (1608–1679): Italian physicist- mathematician who met Galileo; professor of mathematics in Messina; applied mathematics and mechanics in astronomy and animal physiology; one of the first astronomers who jumped to the conclusion planets are moving in elliptical orbits like stones tied on a string; in order to fathom Spinoza’s notions of the nature of definition, axiom, and postulate, a group of the latter’s following (De Vries* to Spinoza, 1663.02.24, Ep 8) in Amsterdam studied Borelli’s Euclides restitutus (Pisa: 1658), in his reply, Spinoza dissociated himself from Borelli’s geometrical method because he ‘confuses all these things completely’ (> 1663.02.24, Ep 9).
References: Luciano Boschiero, Experiment and Natural Philosophy in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), pp. 59–92; id., 2008 (Borelli on comets); Alberto M. Ghisalberti, etc. (eds.) Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960 ff); Gillispie and Holmes (eds.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 2, pp. 306–314.
Bouwmeester, Johannes (1630/4–1680): medical doctor from Amsterdam, Spinoza’s trusted confidant and correspondent (‘J. B.’); enrolled (30 March 1651) in Leiden: ‘Johannes Baumeester, Amstelodamensis. 20, P’ (Du Rieu (ed.), Album studiosorum Academiae Lugduno-Batavae, col. 411), ‘Iohannes Baumeester, Amstelodamensis, ann. 20, studiosus Philosophiae, habitat op de delftse vliet by Willem Cornelis Cleermaker’ (Leiden, UL, ms. ASF, vol. 10, p. 268); took out his doctoral degree (27 May 1658) in Medicine from Leiden University; director of the Amsterdam city theatre (1677) and member of the literary and artistic society Nil volentibus arduum; Meyer’s Neo-Latin poem ‘Ad librum.’ (‘I.B.M.D.’) was added to Renati des Cartes Principiorum philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata metaphysica and its Dutch rendition; acted as an intermediary to pass an invitation and letter of safe conduct to Spinoza in regard to his visit to the French army headquarters in Utrecht (summer 1673); Meyer is a candidate for being the editor who, before 17 February 1671, revised the Dutch Glazemaker* translation of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, first published in 1693 (De rechtzinnige theologant); involved in the preparations of the 1677 posthumous works; Bouwmeester was perhaps the recipient of a letter written by Spinoza after the death of Pieter Balling* in which he asked the unknown addressee to translate for him Part 3 of the Ethica (< 1665.[06].[13], Ep 28).
References: Steenbakkers and Bordoli, ‘Lodewijk Meijer’s Tribute’; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 144–146; Frank Mertens, ‘Johannes Koerbagh’s Lost Album Amicorum Seen through the Eyes of Pieter de la Ruë’, Lias. Journal of Early Modern Intellectual Culture and its Sources, 38 (2011), pp. 59–127, at pp. 122–123; Van de Ven, ‘“Crastinâ die loquar cum Celsissimo principe de Spinosa”’; Gootjes, ‘Sources inédites sur Spinoza’; id., ‘Spinoza between French Libertines and Dutch Cartesians’.
Boyle, Robert (1627–1691): British natural philosopher and physicist, FRS, best known for the Boyle – Mariotte Law; Boyle’s mechanical philosophy deals with (1) the phenomena of nature, (2) the ‘two catholic principles’ (inert) matter and (local) motion, (3) which need to be explained on the micro-level (4) regarding their properties such as size, motion, and mass; his experimental programme aimed at unifying atomists (like Pierre Gassendi) and atomism adversaries (Descartes*); started (1659) experiments with a self-built air-pump into the effects of reducing air pressure (New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air [1660]); historical evidence now proves the existence of at least two now-lost letters exchanged with Spinoza; Boyle asked Spinoza through Oldenburg* to give his judgement 1662.[01–06].00, Ep 6) about his Certain Physiological Essays (1661), an account of chemical tests into the mechanical properties of nitre and the cohesion force of smooth singular bodies in vacuo; Spinoza, pace Boyle, holds nature abhorred a vacuum and maintained deduction by experiment will never decide any unique hypothesis about the material-energetic universe; Boyle read the Tractatus theologico-politicus and was deeply offended by the book’s contents.
References: Alfred Rupert Hall, ‘Philosophy and Natural Philosophy: Boyle and Spinoza’, in René Taton and Fernand Braudel (eds.), Mélanges Alexandre Koyré (Paris: Hermann, 1964), vol. 2, pp. 241–256; Michael C.W. Hunter (ed.), Robert Boyle Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Jaumann, Handbuch Gelehrtenkultur, pp. 125–127; Simon Duffy, ‘The Difference between Science and Philosophy: The Spinoza-Boyle Controversy Revisited’, Paragraph, 29 (2006), pp. 115–138; Hunter, Boyle: Between God and Science; Filip Buyse, ‘Spinoza and Robert Boyle’s Definition of Mechanical Philosophy’, Historia philosophica. An International Journal, 8 (2010), pp. 73–89; id., ‘Spinoza, Boyle, Galileo: Was Spinoza a Strict Mechanical Philosopher?’, Intellectual History Review, 22 (2012), pp. 1–20; id., ‘Boyle, Spinoza and the Hartlib Circle: The Correspondence that Never Took Place’, Society and Politics, 7 (2013), pp. 34–53; Gillispie and Holmes (eds.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 2, pp. 377–382; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Bredenburg, Johannes (1641–1691): Rotterdam wine merchant and amateur philosopher; protagonist in Collegiant disputes who maintained reason and revelation were separate sources of religious knowledge; accused in pamphlets of being one of Spinoza’s disciples; author of the Verhandeling, van de oorsprong van de kennisse Gods en van deselfs dienst (1684), a work perhaps influenced by the ‘Theological-Political Treatise’, and of Enervatio Tractatus theologico-politici (Rotterdam: 1675), a five-part retort of the treatise; Bredenburg may have had access to a Dutch translation of a copy of an early instalment of the Ethica and of the Korte verhandeling.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 4, cols 292–293; Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 3, pp. 56–58; Wiep van Bunge, ‘Johannes Bredenburg and the Korte Verhandeling’, Studia Spinozana, 4 (1988), pp. 321–328; id., Johannes Bredenburg (1643–1691): Een Rotterdamse collegiant in de ban van Spinoza (1990); id., ‘Van Velthuysen, Batelier and Bredenburg’; id., etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 155–159.
Bronchorst, Hendrik van: Cartesian physician in Amsterdam (from 1658 onwards); took sides in the ‘Lammerenkrijg’ with Waerschouwinge voor het soo-genaemde oog-water (Amsterdam: 1664) to defend Verdediging van de regering der doopsgezinde gemeente … binnen Amsterdam (Amsterdam: 1663), a work by Pieter Balling*; Van Bronchorst signed (‘H.v. Bronchorst, M.D.’) a Dutch poem (‘Aan den leezer.’) annexed to Renatus Des Cartes Beginzelen der wysbegeerte, I en II deel; Overnatuurkundige gedachten; went bankrupt in 1675 (Jarig Jelles* was one of his estate’s creditors).
References: Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands Cartesianisme, p. 314; Frank Mertens, ‘Spinoza’s Amsterdamse vriendenkring: studievriendschappen, zakenrelaties en familiebanden’, in Cis van Heertum (ed.), Libertas philosophandi. Spinoza als gids voor een vrije wereld (Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 2008), pp. 69–81, at pp. 74–75.
Burgersdijck, Franco Petri (1590–1635): Dutch neo- Aristotelian logician; studied in Leiden (1610) and Saumur (1614); held the Leiden chair of logic (1619) and also taught ethics (1620–1628) and physics (1628–1635); Burgerdijck’s eclecticism is particularly shown in efforts to combine the Peripatetic philosophy with the humanist tenets of scholars, such as the French logician and reformer Petrus Ramus (1515–1672); his reputation especially rests upon Institutionum logicarum libri duo (1626) and on Institutionum metaphysicarum libri duo (1640), by then standard reading material (logic, moral philosophy, politics) for students; Spinoza studied both.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 7, cols 229–230; Van Bunge, etc. [eds.], The Continuum Companion to Spinoza, pp. 60–62; Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands Cartesianisme, passim; Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 181–190; Arthur Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism, pp. 31–32.
Burgh, Albert Coenraedz (1648/50–1708): son from an influential wealthy patrician family in Amsterdam, early disciple of Spinoza, correspondent and critic; converted (1673) in Florence after a mental crisis to Roman Catholicism (under the supervision of Niels Stensen*) which caused a scandal in Amsterdam; entered the Franciscan order (30 December 1677) under the moniker Franciscus de Hollandia; took holy orders in 1682; reproached Spinoza in a letter (1675.09.03/11, Ep 67) for his offensive philosophical and moral notions and invited him to embrace Roman Catholic Church’s theological doctrines; Spinoza replied to Burgh and countered his glorifying arguments on Roman Catholic theology and tradition by simply claiming ‘that holiness of life is not peculiar to the Roman Church, but is common to all’ ([1675/76].00.00, Ep 76).
References: Andreas Räss, Die Convertiten seit der Reformation, nach ihrem Leben und aus ihren Schriften dargestellt (13 vols., Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1866–80), vol. 12, pp. 271–283; Aquilinus Emmen, ‘P. Franciscus de Hollandia, O.F.M., 1650–1708 in saeculo Albertus Burgh. Nova documenta biobibliographica’, Archivum Franciscanum historicum, 37 (1944), pp. 202–306; Pieter A.M. Geurts, ‘Niels Stensen en Albert Burgh’, Archief voor de Katholieke Kerk in Nederland, 2 (1960), pp. 139–152; Troels Kardel and Paul Maquet (eds.), Nicolaus Steno. Biography and Original Papers of a 17th Century Scientist (Heidelberg: Springer, 2013), pp. 334–336; Friedrich W. Bautz (ed.), Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (Hamm, Westfalen: Bautz, 1975 ff), vol. 17, cols 208–209.
Burman (I) père, Frans (1628–1679): Dutch Cocceian theologian, supporter of Cartesianism, father of Covenant theology; student (1643) of the Leiden Collegium Theologicum or Statencollege; is claimed to have been the interviewer of Descartes* brought up in the ‘Conversation with Burman’ on 16 April 1648 (AT V, 144–179); held the chair (1661) of theology at Utrecht University and became its rector; leading member of the Collegie der Scavanten, the Utrecht Cartesian network; supervised with other Utrecht Cartesians (Graevius* in particular) Johannes Melchioris* in preparing the first theological rejoinder (Epistola ad amicum [Utrecht: 1671]) to the Tractatus theologico-politicus; may have been instrumental to invite Spinoza to Utrecht in summer 1673; accused by Philippus van Limborch* in Theologia christiana (1686) of having raised sympathies for Spinoza’s philosophy in Synopsis theologiae (1671–2) and was defended by Frans Burman* fils in Burmannorum pietas (1700); mentioned in a clandestine notebook on Spinoza, Beverland, politics, the Bible, and sex (1678–9), accusing Burman of being a disguised follower of Spinoza: ‘Burman drew his entire doctrine from Spinoza, and in his speeches he has nothing but scholastic and academic maxims, as the wise know only too well’.
References: Jan P. de Bie, etc. (eds.), Biographisch woordenboek van protestantsche godgeleerden in Nederland (6 vols., The Hague: Nijhoff, 1907–49), vol. 1, pp. 703–711; Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 4, cols 351–352; Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 2, pp. 111–113; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, p. 190–191; Steenbakkers, Touber, and Van de Ven, ‘A Clandestine Notebook’, p. 287; Gootjes, ‘Le Réseau Cartésien d’Utrecht’; id., ‘Sources inédites sur Spinoza’; id., ‘The First Orchestrated Attack on Spinoza’; id., ‘Spinoza between French Libertines and Dutch Cartesians’; id., ‘The Collegie der sçavanten’.
Burman (II) fils, Frans (1671–1719): Dutch Reformed theologian, son of Burman* (I); studied philosophy and mathematics in Leiden; Reformed minister in Koudum (1695), Brielle (1698), Enkhuizen (1703), and Amsterdam (1705); accompanied (1702) a deputy of the Dutch States General to England (for Queen Anne’s crowning) and made on this occasion the acquaintance of Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727); professor of theology (1715) in Utrecht; author of Burmannorum pietas (1700) to defend his father in reply to Philippus van Limborch* who in his two-volume Synopsis theologiae (1671–2) had accused Burman (I) of having voiced sympathies for Spinoza’s philosophy; author of ’t Hoogste goed der spinozisten (1704), a rebuttal of De hemel op aarden (1703), containing elements of Spinoza’s philosophy, in which the Reformed minister Frederik van Leenhof (1647–1715) rejects a transcendental, personal God.
References: John E.B. Mayor (ed.), Cambridge under Queen Anne. Illustrated by Memoir of Ambrose Brunswicke and Diaries of Francis Burman and Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach (Cambridge and London: Bell and Sons, 1911), p. 314; De Bie, etc. (eds.), Biographisch woordenboek, 1919–1949, vol. 1, pp. 711–714; Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 4, cols 352–353; Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 5, pp. 101–102; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, p. 191–193.
Casearius (monicker of: Caescoper), Johannes (1644–1677): Spinoza’s pupil in Rijnsburg, Reformed minister-botanist; possibly, he received his formal education at the Latin School of Franciscus van den Enden* in Amsterdam; matriculated (12 September 1659) as a philosophy student at Leiden University; enrolled (under the name ‘Johannes Casear’) as a theology student (21 May 1661) in Leiden; roomed for a short period of time in Rijnsburg with Spinoza, who taught him selections from Parts 2 and 3 of Descartes’s ‘Principles of Philosophy’; matriculated at Utrecht University (1665, discipline unknown); defended in 1665 an ordinary disputation on theology (Disputationum theologicarum de Sacra Coena) under theologian Frans Burman* and a philosophical disputation (Positiones philosophiae miscellanea) on Cartesian philosophy under the supervision of Johannes de Bruyn (1620–1675), professor of physics and mathematics; Reformed minister (1668) in Cochin (Kerala, India); edited with Hendrik Adriaan van Reede tot Drakenstein (1636–1691) Hortus Indicus Malabaricus (1678–1703), a botanical encyclopaedia.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 5, cols 106–107; Meijer, ‘Johannes Casearius’; Frank Mertens, ‘All in the Family: Verwantschap en vriendschap in de kring rond Spinoza’, in Henri Krop (ed.), Spinoza en zijn kring. Een balans van veertig jaar onderzoek (Rijnsburg: Uitgeverij Spinozahuis, 2019 [Mededelingen vanwege het Spinozahuis, no. 116]), pp. 44–62, there pp. 53–54, n. 23.
Cave, William (1637–1713): English divine, patristic scholar, and author; royal chaplain to Charles II; provided polymath Vincent Placcius* with information about Spinoza’s life and writings which the former published in Theatrum anonymorum et pseudonymorum (Hamburg:1708).
Reference: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Cavendish, William (1617–1684): 3rd Earl of Devonshire, politician, FRS; educated by Hobbes* who accompanied the young nobleman on the occasional Grand Tour in Europe; royalist supporter in the House of Lords (briefly expelled in 1642); received a copy of the Tractatus theologico-politicus from poet Edmund Waller (1606–1687) which, apparently, he showed to his old tutor and client who, in the words of John Aubrey (Brief Lives), allegedly responded thus: ‘Mr. Hobbes told his lordship [Cavendish]: “Ne judicate ne judicemini”. He told me that he [Spinoza] had out throwne him [Hobbes] a barre’s length, for he durst not write so boldly’.
Reference: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Clefman, Jacob Statius (c.1648–1715): studied law (1676) in Leiden; worked as private secretary (Geheim Sekretär) and as secretary (Rath und Hofgerichtssekretär) to the Supreme Court of Prussia in the service of Ernst Bogislaw (1620–1684), Duke of Croÿ (the last heir to the house of Greifen, the dynasty ruling Pomeriana in the east-Prussian town of Königsberg [now Kaliningrad, Russia]); Bogislaw in his will (1684) charged Clefman to see over his ‘Privatschriften und poetische Gedichten’; from Bogislaw he received the sum of 1,000 Reichstaler for his long-time services; when he enrolled at Leiden University, he paid a visit to Spinoza in The Hague who presented him with a copy (T.1, now kept in Haifa) of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, fitted with a dedication note (25 July 1676) and five handwritten Adnotationes.
References: Julius Mueller, ‘Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kunst und ihrer Denkmäler in Pommern’, Baltische Studien, 28 (1878), pp. 149–182, there pp. 162 and 170; Theo van der Werf, ‘Klefmann’s Copy of Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus’, Studia Rosenthaliana, 38/39 (2006), pp. 274–253.
Coccejus, Johannes (1603–1669): German theologian, prominent exponent of federal theology, relative by marriage of Henry Oldenburg*; held the chairs of Hebrew and theology (from 1643) at Franeker University as well as the Leiden chair of theology (1650); author of the Opera omnia (Amsterdam: 1673–9); Coccejus’s private book collection (auctioned on 14 April 1671) included a copy of the Philosophia S. Scripturae interpres (1666), a work printed together in one volume in the T.3 octavo edition (1673) of the Tractatus theologico-politicus.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 1, cols 616–618; Bautz (ed.), Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, vol. 1, col. 1072; Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 4, pp. 92–98; Walter Kaspar, etc. (eds.), Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche (11 vols., Freiburg: Herder, 1993–2001), vol. 2, col. 242; Willem J. van Asselt, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius (1603–1669) (Leiden: Brill, 2001); Feil, Religio. Dritter Band, pp. 33–44, there at pp. 22–33.
Cohen, Jacob (fl.1677–1712): New Christian agent and bookkeeper; born in Recife, Dutch Brazil; ‘Opper-reecken Meester’ (20 August 1677) of Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen (1604–1679), former governor of Dutch Brazil for the West India Company; in contact with Hudde* because of credit dealings with Amsterdam; from 1671 to 1695, paid to the Talmud Torah congregation of Amsterdam the bi-annual communal payments (the obligatory fintas or impostas); lived (1677) in the ‘Mauritshuis’ at The Hague, the residence of his master Johan Maurits, and later in German Cleves; fervent book collector who had copies of the Tractatus theologico-politicus and De rechtzinnige theologant.
Reference: Arnhem, Gelders Archief, 2003: ‘Oud Rechterlijk Archief’, inv. no. 570, no. 4 (‘Huishoudelijke zaken’), 22.
Colerus (Köhler), Johannes Nicolaus (1647–1707): Lutheran minister and Spinoza’s first biographer; pastor in Mühlheim, Weesp (1678), Amsterdam (1679), and The Hague (1693); there, Colerus took his lodgings (1703) at the south side of the Stille Veerkade, in the same house where Spinoza had also roomed for a while; delivered an Easter sermon to defend the dogma of Christ’s resurrection as a principal contradiction to Spinoza’s philosophy; the latter sermon was published (1705) in Amsterdam together with a biography of the Dutch philosopher in Korte, dog waarachtige levensbeschryving van Benedictus de Spinosa, uit autentique stukken en mondeling getuigenis van nog levende personen, opgestelt.
References: Johannes Colerus: La Vérité de la résurrection de Jésus Christ, défendue contre B. de Spinosa, et ses sectateurs. Avec la vie de B. de Spinosa, tirée des écrits de ce fameux philosophe, et du témoignage de plusieurs personnes dignes de foi, qui l’ont connu particulièrement (The Hague: 1706); id., The Life of Benedict de Spinosa (London: 1706); id., Das Leben des Bened. von Spinoza (Frankfurt and Leipzig: 1733); Johannes E.B. Blase, Johannes Colerus en de groote twisten in de Nederlandsche Luthersche kerk zijner dagen (Amsterdam: Ten Brink – De Vries, 1920); Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 7, col. 310; Hubertus G. Hubbeling, ‘Johannes Colerus, Verteidiger der christlichen Wahrheit und ehrlicher Bekämpfer Spinozas’, in Gerhard Kurz (ed.), Düsseldorf in der deutschen Geistesgeschichte (1750–1850) (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1984), pp. 67–77; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 221–222; W/Cz, vol. 1, pp. 6–171, no. 6 (text of the Korte, dog waarachtige levensbeschryving with a translation in German).
Craanen, Theodorus (1620–1690): Dutch Cartesian professor of philosophy; studied medicine in Utrecht (1651), philosophy and theology in Leiden (1655), and medicine in Duisburg (1656); held the chair of philosophy (1671–1673) at Leiden University; established a ‘mechanical-philosophical’ school based on Cartesian concepts; with respect to anatomy, Craanen explained human physiology in mechanistic terms as defined by Descartes* and the philosopher and mathematician Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655); responded briefly to the Tractatus theologico-politicus in a short note addressed to Leibniz*; Craanen is a serious candidate for being the unidentified professor (name suppressed) who would have personally informed Spinoza that a Dutch translation of his treatise was put to press soon (1671.02.17, Ep 44, G 4/227–229).
References: Antonie M. Luyendijk-Elshout, ‘Oeconomia Animalis, Pores and Particles. The Rise and Fall of the Mechanical Philosophical School of Theodoor Craanen (1621–1690)’, in Theodoor H. Lunsingh Scheurleur and Guillaume H.M. Posthumus Meyjes (eds.), Leiden University in the Seventeenth Century. An Exchange of Learning (Leiden: Universitaire Pers and Brill, 1975), pp. 295–307; Noack and Splett, Brandenburgische Gelehrte der Frühen Neuzeit, pp. 95–98; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 227–228.
Crampricht (Kramprich) von Kronefeld, Johann Daniel (1622–1693): Danish diplomat (‘resident’/‘envoyé’) at The Hague representing (1667–1693) the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (1640–1705) and the Archbishop of Trier; dispatched (4 April 1672) a letter from The Hague to Koblenz to Leibniz’s friend and correspondent Johann Lincker* (also: Lyncker) von Lützenwick to inform him he had, on his request, delivered a letter (now lost) to Spinoza (< 1672.03.25*, possibly one by Leibniz*, written before 25 March) in The Hague: ‘I am, like you, delighted about your happy return to the court, about which you provided me with novelties in your [letter] of 25 March, when sending me at the same time a letter for [mister] the scientist Spinoza. I have forwarded it to him and [I am] awaiting other duties to serve you.’ (letter enclosed by Lincker in a now-lost letter of 25 March 1672).
References: Otto Schutte, Repertorium der buitenlandse vertegenwoordigers, residerende in Nederland 1584–1810 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1983), p. 145, no. 124, and p. 222; Paul Ritter, etc. (eds.), Catalogue critique des manuscrits de Leibniz, vol. 2, p. 2, nos. 14–15 and p. 3, no. 33: Fascicule II (Mars 1672–Novembre 1676) (Hildesheim, Zürich, and New York: G. Olms Verlag, 1986); Volker Jarren, ‘Europäische Diplomatie im Zeitalter Ludwigs XIV. Das Beispiel Johann Daniel Kramprichs von Kronenfeld (1622–1693)’, Jahrbuch für Europäische Geschichte, 3 (2002), pp. 101–132.
Cudworth, Ralph (1617–1688): Cambridge divine, classicist, and theorist of the Cambridge Neoplatonist ‘school’; FRS and Regius Professor of Hebrew (1645–1688), Master of Clare Hall (1645–1654), and Master of Christ’s College (1654–1688) at Cambridge University; was profoundly influenced by Benjamin Whichcote (1609–1683), the father of the Neoplatonist movement; clashed with his fellow Neoplatonist Henry More* on ethical matters; owned a copy of the 1663 Renati Des Cartes Principiorum philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata metaphysica; Cudworth in The True Intellectual System of the Universe (London, 1678) attacked the Tractatus theologico-politicus.
References: Charles E. Lowrey, The Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth: A Study of the True Intellectual System of the Universe (New York, NY, and Cincinnati, OH: Phillips & Hunt/Cranston & Stowe, 1884); Joel M. Rodney, ‘A Godly Atomist in Seventeenth Century England: Ralph Cudworth’, The Historian, 32 (1970), pp. 243–249; Bautz (ed.), Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, vol. 16, cols 352–362; Simonutti, ‘Liberté et vérité: Politique et morale dans la correspondance hollandaise de More et de Cudworth’, in Rogers, etc. (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists, pp. 17–37; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Dale, Antonius van (fl.1638–1708): Mennonite physician, itinerant radical, antitrinitarian, disciple of Spinoza; studied theology in Leiden; practised in Haarlem; wrote mainly against superstition and pagan predictions in the Bible; drew the attention of the consistory of The Hague for ‘implanting godless sentiments into the minds of people and pulling them away from our religion’; exchanged letters about classical history and antiquities with Theodorus Jansonius ab Almeloveen*; radical Dutch freethinker and Spinoza disciple Hendrik Wyermars in Den ingebeelde chaos (1710) claims Van Dale* was involved in the publication of both the 1693 De rechtzinnige theologant and the 1694 Een rechtsinnige theologant.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 7, col. 351; Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 5, pp. 127–129; Michiel Wielema, ‘Spinoza in Zeeland. The Growth and Suppression of “Popular Spinozism” (c. 1700–1720)’, in Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), Disguised and Overt Spinozism, pp. 103–115, at p. 110; id., The March of the Libertines. Spinozists and the Dutch Reformed Church (Hilversum: Verloren, 2004); Israel, Radical Enlightenment, passim; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 242–244.
Deckherr von Wallhorn, Johann (1650–1694/1708): German jurist from Straatsburg, lawyer (1673) and procurator (1675) at the Reichskammergericht in Speyer; Deckherr in the third edition of De scriptis adespotis, pseud-epigraphis, et supposititiis conjecturae cum additionibus variorum (Amsterdam: 1686) included a letter by Pierre Bayle* to Theodorus Jansonius ab Almeloveen*, in which the former was the first to mention Jarig Jelles* and Lodewijk Meyer* as the author and the translator of the Preface to the Opera posthuma, respectively.
References: Heinrich Gehrke, Die privatrechtliche Entscheidungsliteratur Deutschlands (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1974), pp. 80–81, no. 4; Jaumann, Handbuch Gelehrtenkultur, pp. 24–25.
Descartes, René (1596–1650): natural philosopher and mathematician of the first order; when Spinoza gravitated to Descartes is not known, but a letter from Henry Oldenburg* to Spinoza (1661.08.26, Ep 1) proves however during a personal meeting in Rijnsburg they discussed Cartesian and Baconian philosophy; Spinoza’s division and catalogue of the passions of the ‘Short Treatise’ corresponds to those discussed by Descartes; the constitution of Spinoza’s physical laws of motion and rest in the portion following E2p13, i.e. ‘De natura corporum’ (‘Concerning the Nature of Bodies’), mainly builds on Descartes’s Principia philosophiae (1644), although critically (Spinoza denied the existence of atoms); Spinoza taught portions from Parts 2 and 3 of Descartes’s ‘Principles of Philosophy’ to his pupil Johannes Casearius* (to De Vries*, > 1663.02.24, Ep 9); Spinoza published (editor: Lodewijk Meyer*) a geometrically demonstrated critical digest of ‘the Principles’ in 1663: Renati des Cartes Principiorum philosophiae pars I et II, together with his own Cogitata metaphysica on issues left aside by Descartes* and on topics he disagreed with him (substance theory and human free will); Spinoza too published an expanded rendition of the work in Dutch: Renatus des Cartes Beginzelen der wysbegeerte, I en II Deel; Overnatuurkundige gedachten (1664); Spinoza owned books by Descartes and exchanged letters about topics in Cartesian philosophy; Descartes’s philosophical notions can be found everywhere in Spinoza’s writings, such as for example the epistemological principles in his Tractatus intellectus de emendatione and in portions of the Ethica (E3praef, E5praef).
References: Gillispie and Holmes (eds.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 4, pp. 51–65 and vol. 6, pp. 58–60; Curley, ‘Spinoza as an Expositor of Descartes’; Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch; Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes. An Intellectual Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Bordoli, Ragione e Scrittura; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 254–260; Descartes, Correspondence 1643, Verbeek, etc.; Michelle Beyssade, ‘Deux latinistes: Spinoza et Descartes’, in Akkerman and Steenbakkers, Spinoza to the Letter, pp. 55–67; Desmond M. Clarke, Descartes, A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Israel, ‘Spinoza as an Expounder’; Van Bunge, etc. [eds.], The Continuum Companion to Spinoza, pp. 63–68 and 345–347; Antonella del Prete, ‘La Bible en question, ou comment réfuter Spinoza en défendant Descartes: Lambert van Velthuysen’, Bulletin annuel de l’Institut d’Histoire de la Réformation, 36 (2015), pp. 37–48. For an edition of Descartes’s works and correspondence: AT. A new edition of the correspondence is: Erik-Jan Bos, Theo Verbeek, and Roger Ariew (eds.), The Correspondence of René Descartes: A Critical Edition with Complete English Translation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
Desmaizeaux, Pierre (1666?–1745): French cultural translator, correspondent working for scholarly Franco-Dutch periodicals; spent time in England where he edited the works of John Locke*; translator of the works of Bayle* and Charles de Marguetel de Saint Denis de Saint-Évremond (1616–1703) into English; source of alleged contacts between Spinoza and Saint-Évremond (‘Vie de Mr. De St.-Evremond’, issued in the first volume of Saint-Évremond’s 1688 Œuvres meslées); Desmaizeaux published (1706) accounts about Spinoza’s 1673 visit to Utrecht in a review of the French translation (1706) of the Spinoza biography by Colerus*, which were reported to him by Henriquez Morales* and the French physician Paul Buissière (c.1655–1739).
Reference: Joseph Almagor, Pierre Desmaizeaux (1673–1745): Journalist and English Correspondent for Franco-Dutch Periodicals, 1700–20 (Amsterdam: APA-Holland University Press, 1989).
Deurhoff, Willem (1650–1717): eclectic autodidact philosopher from Amsterdam; nephew of the extraordinary Leiden professor of philosophy Wolferdus Senguerdius (1646–1724); wrote mainly on the necessity of God’s workings, Cartesian dualism, and about Christology; put forward the stance that Christ was God’s first creation act; Deurhoff was accused of being a Socinian and a follower of Spinoza, a doubtful classification since Deurhoff believed in miracles and God’s free will; distanced himself from Spinoza by defending the position that Creator and creation were different notions.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 8, cols 381–382; Henri Krop, ‘Radical Cartesianism in Holland: Spinoza and Deurhoff’, in Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), Disguised and Overt Spinozism, pp. 55–81; Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 4, pp. 116–117; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 260–265.
Doiley, Oliver (fl.1671–1694): Cambridge Neoplatonist; received his formal education at Eton; studied law in Cambridge where he took out his doctoral degree in Law; vice-provost and Senior Fellow of King’s College; rector of Cambridge University; received a copy of the ‘Theological-Political Treatise’ in early 1671 through the intermediary of the Dutch Arminian theologian Philippus van Limborch*, who informed him Spinoza composed the treatise; in 1675, Doiley wrote in a letter to Henry Jenkes* the remark that Spinoza had been disappointed when he learned his treatise had become the object of general condemnation by English scholars.
Reference: De Boer, ‘Spinoza in Engeland’.
Dorp, Frederik van (1612–1679): Lord of Maasdam, adviser to the Supreme Court of Holland, first curator of Leiden University (1669–1679), bailiff of Rijnland; studied law at Leiden University; Van Dorp and Johannes van Thilt*, in the capacity as curators of the board of Leiden University, wrote (16 June 1678) to the Leiden magistracy about the ‘godless and heterodox notions and conclusions’ expounded in Spinoza’s posthumous works, they demanded their prohibition and requested all copies were to be burnt.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 1, cols 745–746; Frederik Nagtglas, Levensberichten van Zeeuwen zijnde een vervolg op P. de la Rue, ‘Geletterd, staatkundig en heldhaftig Zeeland’ (2 vols., Middelburg: Altoffer, 1888–93), vol. 1, p. 165.
Dürr, Johann Conrad (1625–1677): German theologian, philosopher, and polyhistor; professor of moral philosophy (1654) and theology (1657) at Altdorf University; published in Enchiridion theologiae moralis (Nuremberg: 1662) the first independent ethical system in the Lutheran Church; combated the liberty to philosophize advocated in the Tractatus theologico-politicus in a harangue (30 June/10 July 1671), which was published in Actus panegyricus impositae merentibus anno MDCLXXI. mense Junio (1672); the latter work also contained the first recorded public attack on the Tractatus theologico-politicus, i.e., the printed academic oration (8/18 May 1670) by Jacob Thomasius* ‘Adversus anonymum, de libertate philosophandi’ (‘Programma, quo d. 8 Maji a. 1671’), who labelled the book’s disguised author as an outright atheist.
Reference: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (56 vols., Berlin: Duncker/Humblot, 1967–71).
Duijkerius, Johannes (1661/2–1702): Dutch author, follower of Spinoza; perhaps trained as a pastor, but probably never admitted to the Reformed ministry; schoolmaster in the Amsterdam Aalmoezeniersweeshuis (Prinsengracht); author of Het leven van Philopater (1691) and accused of having composed also its sequel, Vervolg van ’t leven van Philopater (1697), two clandestinely-published romans à clef describing the development of ‘Philopater’, from Reformed orthodoxy to Cartesianism, and finally to Spinoza’s metaphysical doctrines; Vervolg contains several remarks about Spinoza’s posthumous works, the Tractatus theologico-politicus, its Dutch translator Jan Hendriksz Glazemaker*, and the book’s publication history.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 8, col. 439; Duijkerius, Het leven van Philopater; Wielema, The March of the Libertines; Jo Spaans, ‘Between the Catechism and the Microscope: The World of Johannes Duijkerius’, in id. and Jetze Touber (eds.), Enlightened Religion: From Confessional Churches to Polite Piety in the Dutch Republic (Leiden: Brill, 2019), pp. 316–345.
Elzevier, Daniel (1638–1680): Amsterdam bookseller, printer and publisher from the famous Elzevier family (1,600 seventeenth-century titles), a Dutch publishing company originally founded in Leiden, with branches in The Hague, Utrecht, and Amsterdam; published several translations of Descartes* into Dutch, first published by Lodewijk (III) Elzevier (1604–1670); sold in his bookshop (1681) copies of Renati Des Cartes Principiorum philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata metaphysica and the Opera posthuma.
References: Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel, 1960–1978, vol. 3, pp. 111–122; Berry P.M. Dongelmans, etc. (eds.), Boekverkopers van Europa. Het 17de-eeuwse Nederlandse uitgevershuis Elzevier (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2000); Descartes, Correspondence 1643, Verbeek, etc., p. 263.
Enden, Franciscus Affinius van den (1602–1674): teacher of Latin, libertine- philosopher, pioneer of democratic principles; entered the Jesuit order in 1617, but was dismissed or broke away in 1633; left Antwerp around 1645 and founded an art shop in Amsterdam and (after a bankruptcy) a Latin School; moved to Paris in 1671, or thereabouts, where he also ran a Latin School, called ‘l’Hôtel des Muses’; was hanged (27 November 1674) at the gallows at the Bastille for his part as one of the conspirators in the republican ‘Rohan plot’ against Louis XIV; published his political views in Kort Verhael van Nieuw-Nederlands gelegentheit (n. pl.: 1662), an imaginary project on an utopian Dutch settlement in North America, and in Vrye politijke stellingen, en consideratien van staat (Amsterdam: 1665); was perhaps affiliated (1657/1658) with Spinoza in Amsterdam, but if any their relations are in any case not documented; it is assumed, Spinoza played in Latin performances of Terence’s audience favourite Eunuchus, led by Van den Enden, and there is speculation that at Van den Enden’s Latin school the Dutch philosopher taught Hebrew (Stolle/‘Hallmann’, 1703) and would have helped him ‘out temporarily in the teaching of his pupils when he was capable of doing so’ (Colerus, 1705).
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 6, cols 480–481; Jan V. Meininger and Guido van Suchtelen, Liever met wercken, als met woorden. De levensreis van doctor Franciscus van den Enden, leermeester van Spinoza, complotteur tegen Lodewijk de Veertiende (Weesp: Heureka, 1980); Willem G. van der Tak, ‘Van den Enden and Kerckrinck’, 1982; Marc Bedjai, ‘Metaphysique, éthique et politique dans l’œuvre du docteur Franciscus van den Enden (1602–1674). Contribution à l’étude des sources des écrits de B. de Spinoza’, Studia Spinozana, 6 (1990), pp. 291–301; id., ‘Le Docteur Franciscus van den Enden, son cercle et l’alchimie dans les Provinces Unies du XVIIe siècle’, Nouvelles de la République, 2 (1991), pp. 19–50; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 254–260; Frank Mertens, ‘Van den Enden and Religion’, 2007; id.; Franciscus van den Enden’s Brief Account, 2008; id., ‘Spinoza’s Amsterdamse vriendenkring’; Van Bunge, etc. [eds.], The Continuum Companion to Spinoza, pp. 68–71.
Fagel, Gaspar (1634–1688): Grand Pensionary of Holland (1672–1688); took out a doctoral degree in Law (1653) at Utrecht University; Pensionary of Haarlem (1664–1670); judge’s clerk for the States General (1670–1672); interested in botany and gardening, designed (1676–1688) the gardens of Leeuwenhorst, his manor; Fagel’s exotic plant collection was purchased by Stadholder William* III and transferred to Hampton Court Palace (East Molesey, Greater London); the Leiden Kerkenraad informed Fagel on 8 December 1674 about the discovery of copies of the Latin octavo edition (T.3) of the Tractatus theologico-politicus; in the capacity of Grand Pensionary, Fagel has been crucially involved in the provincial prohibition (25 July 1678) of Spinoza’s posthumous works.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 3, col. 382; Elizabeth Edwards, ‘An Unknown Statesman? Gaspar Fagel in the Service of William III and the Dutch Republic’, History. Journal of the Historical Association, 87 (2002), pp. 353–371; Elizabeth den Hartog and Carla Teune, ‘Gaspar Fagel (1633–88): His Garden and Plant Collection at Leeuwenhorst’, Journal of the Garden History Society, 30 (2003), pp. 191–205.
Finch, Anne (1631–1679), Viscountess Conway: rationalist English woman philosopher and Cambridge Neoplatonist; received a carefully planned upbringing and mastered Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; criticized Spinoza in book 9 of ‘Principia philosophiae antiquissimae & recentissimae de deo, Christo, & creatura’ (1690) for his Hobbesian material pantheism and his substance theory.
References: Sarah Hutton, ‘Reason and Revelation in the Cambridge Platonists, and Their Reception of Spinoza’, in Karlfried Gründer and Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggeman (eds.), Spinoza in der Frühzeit seiner Religiösen Wirkung (Heidelberg: Schneider, 1984), pp. 181–200; id., Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); id., ‘Platonism and the Trinity. Anne Conway, Henry More and Christoph Sand’, in Martin Mulsow and Jan Rohls (eds.), Socinianism and Arminianism. Antitrinitarians, Calvinists, and Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 209–224; Carol W. White, The Legacy of Anne Conway (1631–1679). Reverberations from a Mystical Naturalism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008); Jonathan Head, The Philosophy of Anne Conway. God, Creation and the Nature of Time (London: Bloomsbury, 2020); Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Fonteyn, Thomas Jaspersz (fl.1630–1661): Mennonite Haarlem bookseller, printer at the Amsterdam Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal (‘in de gekroonde druckerije’) from 1653 onward; business partner of Spinoza’s publisher, Jan Rieuwertsz* père in the late 1640s and 1650s; publisher of a large number of books on various subjects, ranging from religion and poetry to songbooks and mathematics; Fonteyn, like Rieuwertsz, used the large yoke ornament and its reduced version on several title-pages of the books produced by him.
Reference: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 2, cols 453–454.
Gent, Pieter van (fl.1640–1693/94): Dutch Latinist, professional Amsterdam scribe, correspondent and friend of Spinoza (Georg Hermann Schuller* to Spinoza, 1675.07.25, Ep 63: ‘D.a. Gent officiosè salutat una cum J. Riew.’); studied medicine in Leiden (1668); produced a copy of the Ethica (ms. V, rediscovered in 2010) on the behest of Spinoza’s correspondent Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus* between late 1674 and early January 1675; editor of Tschirnhaus’s Medicina mentis (Amsterdam: 1686), translator of the German original of Tschirnhaus’s Medicina corporis into Latin; involved in the editorial preparations of the posthumous works, selected letters for the correspondence section, and made copies of original autographs and/or apographs; Van Gent, by his own account (1679), had copied out ‘Spinoza’s works for the most part’ on the behest of Schuller*.
References: Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring; Reinhardt, Briefe an Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus; Steenbakkers, Spinoza’s Ethica; Proietti and Licata, Il carteggio Van Gent – Tschirnhaus.
Geulincx, Arnold (1624–1669): lecturer in logic in Leiden (1662); possibly as an antidote against the metaphysics of Spinoza, Cornelis Bontekoe* edited Geulincx’s Gnôthi seauton, sive Arnoldi Geulincs … Ethica (Leiden: 1675), a work sitting in for the ‘pagan’ morale provisoire offered by Descartes*; there is speculation Geulincx and Spinoza knew each other personally, but historical evidence confirming their relations is not known; many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century authors aligned Geulincx with Spinoza and even accused him of atheism, but there is no proof Spinoza influenced him.
References: Victor vander Haeghen, Geulincx. Étude sur sa vie, sa philosophie et ses ouvrages (Ghent: Librarie générale de A. Hosten, 1886); Arnoldus Geulincx, Opera philosophica, Jan P.N. Land (ed.) (3 vols., The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1891–3); Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 10, cols 282–283; Han van Ruler, ‘Geulincx and Spinoza: Books, Backgrounds and Biographies’, Studia Spinozana, 15 (1999), pp. 89–106; Mark J.H. Aalderink, ‘Spinoza and Geulincx on the Human Condition, Passions, and Love’, Studia Spinozana, 15 (1999), pp. 67–88; Bernard Rousset, Geulincx entre Descartes et Spinoza (Paris: Vrin, 1999); Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 322–331; Mark J.H. Aalderink, Philosophy, Scientific Knowledge and Concept Formation in Geulincx and Descartes (Utrecht: Zeno, 2010).
Glazemaker, Jan Hendriksz (1619/20–1682): professional translator in Amsterdam, translated French and Latin works into Dutch, such as the writings of Descartes* (Discours de la methode, Meditationes, Les Passions de l’âme, Musicae compendium, and Querela apologetica) and Spinoza’s Opera posthuma among others; member of the Flemish Mennonite Church in Amsterdam; Glazemaker was accused (3 and 7 April 1662) of being a Cartesian atheist (‘Esse hîc atheos, eosque potissimum Cartesianos, ut van der Enden, Glasemaker, etc:’) in a diary kept by the Danish anatomist Ole Borch (1626–1690); translator of the Tractatus theologico-politicus (De rechtzinnige theologant, of godgeleerde staatkundige verhandelinge, 1693); composed the Dutch translation (Zedekunst) of E3, E 4, and E5 (Parts 1 and 2 were translated by Balling*).
References: C. Louise Thijssen-Schoute, ‘Jan Hendrik Glazemaker. De zeventiende-eeuwse aartsvertaler’, in id., De Republiek der Letteren (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1967), pp. 207–261; Crapulli, ‘Le Note marginali latine’; Akkerman, Studies, pp. 101–126; id., ‘J.H. Glazemaker, an Early Translator of Spinoza’, in De Deugd (ed.), Spinoza’s Political and Theological Thought, pp. 23–28, there at pp. 24–27 (Glazemaker’s idiomatic translating principles); Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 331–334; Akkerman, ‘Tractatus theologico-politicus’.
Graevius, Johannes Georgius (1632–1703): historian and classicist, expert networker, voluminous letter writer; successor (1658) of Johannes Fredericus Gronovius (1611–1671) as professor of rhetoric in Deventer; professor of rhetoric, politics, and history in Utrecht (from 1661 to 1703); editor of Cicero’s writings; member of the Collegie der scavanten and central actor in monitoring and putting to press the Epistola ad amicum (1671), the first theological retort of the Tractatus theologico-politicus by Johannes Melchioris*; Graevius informed (22 April 1671) Leibniz* that Spinoza was the treatise’s disguised author; his friends included Johannes Bouwmeester* and the Cartesian Leiden philosophy professor Burchard de Volder (1643–1709); forwarded an invitation and a letter of safe conduct (through Bouwmeester) to Spinoza requesting him to visit the Utrecht headquarters of the French army (summer 1673); met Spinoza during the latter’s Utrecht jaunt; Spinoza asked Graevius by letter (1673.12.14, Ep 49) to return to him an account on the death of Descartes*; Graevius together with Burman (I) edited Adversus anonymum theologico-politicum liber, …: opus posthumum (1674), a rebuttal of the Tractatus theologico-politicus by Regnerus van Mansveld*.
References: Gustave Masson, ‘Graevius et le Duc de Montausier d’après des lettres inédites’, Le Cabinet historique, 13 (1867), pp. 217–238; A.C. Clark, ‘The Library of J.G. Graevius’, The Classical Review, 5 (1891), pp. 365–372; Willem Meijer, Vervielfältigung eines eigenhändigen Briefes des Benedictus Despinoza an Joh. Georg. Graevius (aufbewahrt in der Kgl. Bibliothek zu Kopenhagen) (n. pl. [Berlin]): (1900); Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 4, cols 669–670; Richard Maber, Publishing in the Republic of Letters. The Ménage-Graevius-Wetstein Correspondence 1679–1692 (New York, NY, and Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi b.v., 2005); Van de Ven, ‘“Crastinâ die loquar cum Celsissimo principe de Spinosa”’; Gootjes, ‘Sources inédites sur Spinoza’; id., ‘Spinoza between French Libertines and Dutch Cartesians’.
Guenellon (or Quenillon, Guenelon), Pieter (1650–1722): medical doctor and translator from Amsterdam; studied medicine in Leiden and Padua; in 1678, he met the British philosopher John Locke*, his close friend and correspondent, and introduced him to his neighbour Philippus van Limborch* at the Amsterdam Keizersgracht; befriended the Dutch Spinoza-enthusiast Frederik van Leenhof with whom he also exchanged letters.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 1, c0ols 1002–1003; C. Louise Thijssen- Schoute, ‘De Nederlandse vriendenkring van John Locke’, in id., De Republiek der Letteren, pp. 90–103.
Heereboord, Adriaan (1614–1661): neo-scholastic Cartesian logician; read theology and philosophy in Leiden (1629); chair of ethics (1644); intervened in the Leiden row (1647) about Cartesian philosophy and provided Descartes* with all the necessary information to write to the university senate (AT V, 1–15, 22–23; 29–31, 35–39 [board of university governors to Descartes]) to ask justice for a series of damaging disputations on Descartes’s philosophy by the Leiden church historian Jacobus Revius (1586–1658) and the theologian Jacobus Trigland (1583–1654), who had accused Descartes of being a Pelagian and a blasphemer; author of the Meletemata philosophica (Leiden: 1654); Spinoza in his Cogitata metaphysica (2.12 [G 1/279]) quotes from Heereboord’s ‘Collegium ethicum’ (1.10) to refute his theory of free will: ‘Haec sunt ipsissima verba Heereboordii Professoris Leidensis’ (These are the very words of professor Heereboord, professor of Leiden).
References: Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch, passim; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 395–397; id., etc. [eds.], The Continuum Companion to Spinoza, pp. 70–74.
Heinsius the Elder, Nicolaas (1620–1681): classicist, poet, expert in textual criticism (Ovid and the like); intelligencer and collector of manuscripts and books in the service of Christina Wasa, Queen of Sweden; diplomat in Stockholm (1654, 1660), Moscow (1669), East Friesland, and Bremen (1672); son of Leiden humanist and classicist Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655), the name of whom was used to turn the T.3h octavo issue of the Tractatus theologico-politicus into a red herring; upon his return from Utrecht, Spinoza went in The Hague to see Heinsius (24 August 1673) on behalf of Graevius* for reasons further unknown (Heinsius to Graevius, 23 August 1673; Leiden, University Library, ms. ‘Brieven van Nicolaas Heinsius aan Johannes Georgius Graevius; 1653–81’, BUR Q 17, fol. 89r).
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 2, cols 560–563; Blok, Isaac Vossius and his Circle, passim; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 407–408.
Helmont, Franciscus Mercurius van (1614–1699): natural philosopher, kabbalist, Quaker convert; son of the iatrochemical physician Jan Baptista van Helmont (1580–1644); personal physician to Anne Finch*, Viscountess Conway; Van Helmont’s friends included among others John Locke*, Henry More*, Robert Boyle*, and Leibniz*.
References: Bautz (ed.), Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, vol. 25, cols 586–597; Allison P. Coudert, The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century. The Life and Thought of Francis Mercury van Helmont (1614–98) (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 408–412.
Herbert, Edward (1582?–1648): 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury (or: Chirbury), English deist, and historian; brother of British priest poet George Herbert (1593–1633); studied in Oxford and embarked upon a military career; diplomat at the French court; being a restless character, Cherbury travelled extensively and met many nobles and intellectuals, including the French humanist Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614); rationalistic defender of comparative theology; several scholars aligned in their retorts of the Tractatus theologico-politicus the latter treatise with that of Cherbury’s De religione gentilium, errorumque apud eos causis (1663).
References: Ronald D. Bedford, The Defence of Truth: Herbert of Cherbury and the Seventeenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1979); Julia D. Griffin, Studies in the Literary Life of Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1993); Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679): English political philosopher, best known for his masterpieces De Cive (Paris: 1642) and Leviathan (London: 1651), in which social contract theory is propounded; educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, holding further several offices as personal tutor and instructor to men such as for example William Cavendish (1617–1684), 3rd Earl of Devonshire, and young Charles II of England; since Hobbes in the Leviathan puts forward the same Ezran theory also upheld in the Tractatus theologico-politicus, Spinoza may have been familiar with the former work; Spinoza in a letter to Jarig Jelles* (1674.06.02, Ep 50) writes about the Hobbesian view of contractarian methodology (covenants) or the transference of one’s natural right:
As far as Politics is concerned, the difference you ask about, between Hobbes and me, is this: I always preserve natural Right unimpaired, and I maintain that in each State the Supreme Magistrate has no more right over its subjects than it has greater power over them. This is always the case in the state of Nature.
Aubrey* in Brief Lives wrote, in regard to the Tractatus theologico-politicus, Hobbes would have stated Spinoza ‘had out throwne him a barre length, for he durst not write so boldly’.
References: Jakob Hühnerfeld, ‘Die Stellung Spinozas und Hobbes zur Medizin, insbesondere zur Physiologie ihrer Zeit’, Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin, 23 (1930), pp. 113–134; Gillispie and Holmes (eds.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 6, pp. 444–451; Christian Lazzéri, ‘L.A. Constans entre Hobbes et Spinoza’, in Lucius Antistius Constans, Du droit des ecclésiastiques/Lucius Antistius Constans, V. Butori, etc. (transl. and eds.) (Caen: Centre de philosophie politique et juridique [URA-CNRS], Université de Caen, 1991), pp. xiii–xli; Pacchi, ‘Leviathan and Spinoza’s Tractatus’; Schumann, Hobbes une chronique; Aloysius P. Martinich, Thomas Hobbes: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Curley, ‘The State of Nature and its Law’; Alexandre Matheron, ‘The Theoretical Function of Democracy in Spinoza and Hobbes’, in Lloyd (ed.), Spinoza: Critical Assessments. Vol. 3: The Political Writings, pp. 112–121; Jeffrey R. Collins, The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); S.A. Loyd (ed.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Hobbes (London: Continuum, 2013).
Hoorn, Jan Claesz ten (fl.1671–1714): Amsterdam bookseller, publisher, and printer, brother of Timotheus ten Hoorn*; trained as a bookbinder; ran a bookshop and, quite probably, also a printing firm (‘over het Oude Herenlogement’) in a house called ‘in de Historieschrijver’, located in ‘het Gebed zonder End’ in the Amsterdam Nes quarter; was commissioned (1687) by an unidentified individual from Delft to print a Dutch translation of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, but burnt the manuscript when he was reprimanded by the Amsterdam church council.
References: Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, p. 163; Peeters, ‘Jan Claesz ten Hoorn’.
Hoorn, Timotheus (or Tymen) ten (1644–1715): Amsterdam bookseller, publisher, and printer, business partner of Jan Claesz ten Hoorn*, his brother; trained as a bookbinder; ran a bookshop (‘in ’t Sinnebeelt’) in the Nes quarter between 1682 and 1715; was ridiculed in the anonymously-issued Relaas van de beroertens op Parnassus. Ontstaan over het drukken van de Beginselen van de wijsbegeerte van den heer Renatus Descartes (Amsterdam: 1690) by the God Apollo for having put to press an illegal edition of the ‘Principles of Philosophy’; publisher of the Europische Mercurius (1690–1701); reprimanded in 1697 for illegally selling a copy of the De nagelate schriften.
References: Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, p. 163; Peeters, ‘Timotheus ten Hoorn’; id., ‘Leven en bedrijf van Timotheus ten Hoorn (1644–1715)’, Mededelingen van de Stichting Jacob Campo Weyerman, 25 (2002), pp. 20–29.
Houthaak (or Houthaeck), Tymon (Thijmen Dircksz, 1625–1664): Amsterdam compositor, printer, publisher (1647–1664), actor and singer; addresses: Nieuwezijds Kolk, next to the ‘Boogh van Weesp’ (1648–1651), corner of the Nieuwezijds Kolk (1650–1652), Pottebakkersstraat, opposite of the Nieuwezijds Kolk (1659–61), Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal (1652–1657), Deventer Houtmarkt, next to ‘de Vogel Grijp’ (1661–64); shop sign (1658–1661): ‘in de Vogel struis’ (‘In the Ostrich’); printed for Rieuwertsz* père Epiktetus redenen (1658), a work translated into Dutch by Glazemaker*; the floral vignette decorating the title-page of Epiktetus redenen also graces the 1673 ‘Villacorta’ octavo issue (T.3v) of the Tractatus theologico-politicus; the ‘reduced’ yoke ornament, favoured by Rieuwertsz, terminates Epiktetus redenen’s main text as well.
Hudde, Johannes (1628–1704): Burgomaster of Amsterdam, mathematician, optician, instrument maker, correspondent of Spinoza; studied law (1644) and mathematics (1654) in Leiden; contributed to the second edition (Leiden: 1659) of the Geometria of Descartes* (with ‘Epistola prima de reductione’ and ‘Epistola secunda de maximis et minimis, De reductione aequationum’); like Hans Bontemantel* also member of the Amsterdam interrogation committee criminalizing the writings of Adriaan Koerbagh*; author of Specilla circularia (n. pl. [Amsterdam]: 1656), a rare booklet on spherical aberration to which Spinoza refers to in a letter to Hudde (1666.[06].[00], Ep 36); Hudde met Spinoza in 1665, or thereabouts; apart from optics they exchanged a series of nine letters (from early 1666 onwards) centring around the ontological proof for God’s existence and necessary existence; together, they ground (1667) supersized lenses to be fitted in a large refracting 40-foot aerial refractor telescope.
References: Johan E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam, 1578–1795 (2 vols., Haarlem: Loosjes, 1903–5; repr, Amsterdam: N. Israel, 1963), vol. 1, pp. 528–529, no. 197; Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 1, cols 1172–1176; Johannes Mac Lean, ‘De nagelaten papieren van Johannes Hudde’, Scientiarum historia: driemaandelijks tijdschrift voor de geschiedenis van de geneeskunde, wiskunde en natuurwetenschappen, 13 (1971), pp. 144–162; Gillispie and Holmes (eds.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 6, pp. 536–538; Robert Raymond Buss, Newton’s use of Hudde’s Rule in his Development of the Calculus. PhD thesis Saint Louis University, MI, 1979; Albertus W. Grootendorst, ‘De tweede brief van Johan Hudde’, in id., Grepen uit de geschiedenis van de wiskunde (Delft: Delftsche Uitgevers Mij., 1988), pp. 77–106; Rienk Vermij, ‘Bijdrage tot de bio-bibliografie van Johannes Hudde’, Gewina. Tijdschrift voor de geschiedenis der geneeskunde, natuurwetenschappen en techniek, 18 (1995), pp. 25–35; Vermij and Atzema, ‘Specilla Circularia’; Klaas van Berkel, etc. (eds.), A History of Science in the Netherlands. Survey, Themes and Reference (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 476–478; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 460–461; Hendrik L. Houtzager, ‘Johannes Hudde en zijn vergrotende glazen bolletjes’, Scientiarium historia, 31 (2005), pp. 155–162; Giuliana di Biase, ‘John Locke on Monotheism. A Dispute with Johannes Hudde’, Archivio di Filosofia, 82 (2014), pp. 317–329; Rienk Vermij, ‘Huddes Specilla circularia’, Studium. Tijdschrift voor wetenschaps- en universiteitsgeschiedenis, 11 (2018), pp. 96–103; Tiemen Cocquyt, etc., ‘Hudde en zijn gesmolten microscooplensjes’, Studium, 11 (2018), pp. 78–66; Wiep van Bunge, ‘Hudde en Spinoza: waarom er maar één God is’, Studium, 11 (2018), pp. 55–61; Marvin Bolt, etc., ‘Johannes Hudde and His Flameworked Microscope Lenses’, Journal of Glass Studies, 60 (2018), pp. 207–222.
Jane, William (1645–1707): Church of England clergyman; commoner of Christ Church (1660); doctor of divinity and lecturer of Carfax Church, Oxford (1674); Bishop of London (1678); Regius professor of divinity in Oxford; chancellor of Exeter Cathedral (1703); signed a grant of imprimatur (8 February 1677) for the printing of A Letter to a Deist, the first British retort of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, by Edward Stillingfleet*.
References: Robert T. Carroll, The Common-Sense Philosophy of Religion of Bishop Edward Stillingfleet, 1635–1699 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1975); Hutton, ‘Edward Stillingfleet and Spinoza’; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Jelles, Jarig (1619/20–1683): Amsterdam entrepreneur (1647–1659), friend and correspondent (‘J. J.’) of Spinoza; retired ‘to practice himself in the knowledge of truth, which is focused on godliness, and to obtain wisdom’; exchanged letters with Spinoza on Descartes*, spherical aberration (1667.03.03, Ep 39; 1667.03.25, Ep 40), fluid dynamics (1669.09.05, Ep 41), and on God’s uniqueness (1674.06.02, Ep 50); Spinoza instructed Jelles by letter (1671.02.17, Ep 44) to prevent the printing of a Dutch translation of the Tractatus theologico-politicus; Jelles composed the pietist apology Belydenisse des algemeenen en christelijcken geloofs, vervattet in een brief aan N.N. (1684), a work reminiscent of Spinoza’s philosophy; its ‘Opdragt-brief’ and its closing sections (on the ‘Gretchen-Frage’) are written in the form of a letter addressed to Spinoza (< 1673.04.19, Ep 48A); Jelles was a member of the editorial team preparing Spinoza’s posthumous works (1677): he wrote the Preface to De nagelate schriften, translated into Latin and revised by Lodewijk Meyer* for the Opera posthuma; Jelles, it has been rumoured, financed the printing of the Renati Des Cartes Principiorum philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata metaphysica; the brief prologue to the (unfinished) Tractatus politicus may concern a reply to a letter by Jelles.
References: Twee-en-vijftigste jaarverslag. Verslag omtrent de lotgevallen der Vereeniging ‘Het Spinozahuis’ MCMXLVIII–MCMXLIX (Leiden: Brill, 1949); Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 9, col. 459; Willem G. van der Tak, ‘I. Jarich Jellesz’ herkomst’, Verslag omtrent de lotgevallen der Vereeniging Het Spinozahuis van 31 mei 1947 tot 29 mei 1948 (Leiden: Brill, 1948), pp. 14–19; id., ‘II. Jellesz’ leven en bedrijf’, Verslag omtrent de lotgevallen der Vereeniging Het Spinozahuis van 29 mei 1948 tot 28 mei 1949 (Leiden: Brill, 1949), pp. 12–20; Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 4, p. 232; Willem G. van der Tak, Jarich Jelles’ Origins: Jellesz Life and Business (Delft: Eburon, 1989 [Mededelingen vanwege het Spinozahuis, no. 59]); Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 492–494.
Jenkes, Henry (c.1630–1697): Neoplatonist, professor of rhetoric at Gresham College, FRS (1674); Fellow of Gonville and Caius College (Cambridge); befriended the Dutch Remonstrant theologian Philippus van Limborch*; Jenkes exchanged two letters (January/March 1675) with Oliver Doiley* commenting on the general vituperation of the Tractatus theologico-politicus.
Reference: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Koerbagh, Adriaan (1633–1669): Dutch freethinker and monist; took out doctoral degrees in Medicine (1659) and Law (1661) from Leiden University; Koerbagh and his younger brother Johannes were in the late 1650s and early 1660s in contact with the coterie around Van den Enden* and Spinoza; cloaked author (‘Vreederijk Waarmond, ondersoeker der waarheyd’) of Een bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet (printed in 1668 by Herman Aeltsz*), an anti-religious vocabulary of loanwords in the vernacular reminiscent of Spinoza’s philosophical notions on substance theory and politics; author of Een ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen, another explosive rationalist treatise on theological and mainly political issues, portions were processed by an Utrecht printer, but halfway its printing the book was cancelled and copies seized; Koerbagh was arrested (18 July 1668) and sentenced (27 July) to ten years of forced labour in the Willige Rasphuis in Amsterdam for blasphemy and died soon thereafter; Koerbagh’s contacts with Spinoza are confirmed in a deposition the former made on 20 July before a commission of inquiry of Amsterdam committee of magistrates, including Hudde* and Bontemantel*: ‘[And he] says he had been in contact with Spinoza, and [says that he] visited him several times’.
References: A. de Jager, ‘Procedures tegen Adriaan Koerbach, over zijn woordenboek’, in id., Archief voor Nederlandsche taalkunde, 4 (1853–1854), pp. 81–102; Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 7, cols 719–721; Bossers, ‘Nil volentibus arduum’; Hubert VandenBossche, Adriaan Koerbagh en Spinoza (Leiden: Brill, 1978 [Mededelingen vanwege het Spinozahuis, no. 39]); Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 571–574; Michiel Wielema, ‘Adriaan Koerbagh: Biblical Criticism and Enlightenment’, in Wiep van Bunge (ed.), The Early Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic, 1650–1750 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2003), pp. 61–80; Cis van Heertum, ‘Reading the Career of Johannes Koerbagh: The Auction Catalogue of his Library as a Reflection of his Life’, Lias, 38 (2011), pp. 1–57; Adriaan Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Illuminate on the Main Questions of Theology and Religion, Michiel Wielema (ed.) (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Frank Mertens, ‘Johannes Koerbagh’s Lost Album Amicorum Seen through the Eyes of Pieter de la Ruë’, Lias, 38 (2011), pp. 59–127, there pp. 125–126; Cis van Heertum, ‘A not so Harmless Drudge. The survival of Koerbagh’s Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd (1668)’, Quaerendo, 50 (2020), pp. 395–426.
Kuyper, Frans (1629–1691): Collegiant pamphleteer and detractor of Spinoza; studied theology at the Remonstrant Seminarium in Amsterdam; removed in 1653 from his ministry in Vlaardingen because of his rejection of infant baptism; ran (1663–1673) a printing shop at the Brouwersgracht and primarily issued Socinian works; driving force behind the printing and clandestine distribution of the Socinian anthology Bibliotheca fratrum Polonorum; participant in the ‘Bredenburg disputes’; assaulted Spinoza in Arcana atheismi revelata, philosophice & paradoxe refutata, examine Tractatus theologico-politici (1676), a work revised and translated as De diepten des satans, of geheymenissen der atheisterij (1677); Kuyper probably had access to a manuscript copy of Spinoza’s Korte verhandeling and to unpublished contemporary ripostes dealing with the equation God–nature.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 4, cols 868–869; Wiep van Bunge, Johannes Bredenburg (1643–1691), pp. 90–98; Piet Visser, Godtslasterlijck ende pernicieus. De rol van boekdrukkers en boekverkopers in de verspreiding van dissidente religieuze en filosofische denkbeelden in Nederland in de tweede helft van de zeventiende eeuw (1995). For background: Fix, Prophecy and Reason; Emanuela Scribano, ‘Johannes Bredenburg (1643–1691) confutatore di Spinoza?’, in Christofolini (ed.), The Spinozistic Heresy, pp. 66–76; Israel, ‘Philosophy, Commerce and the Synagogue’, p. 344.
Le Boe Sylvius (or Du Bois), Frans de (1614–1672): Leiden anatomist and medical practitioner, supporter of Descartes*; studied medicine in Leiden, Wittenberg, Jena, and Basle; specialized in cerebral anatomy; at least one of De le Boe Sylvius’s early private Leiden lessons on the lymphatic system (1640) was attended by Descartes; attracted students like Stensen*, Meyer*, Bouwmeester*, and Koerbagh*; Spinoza in his Rijnsburg period may have followed private lessons in medicine or anatomy and surgery by De le Boe Sylvius; as the latter died in 1672, his name was misused to cloak the disguised octavo issue T.3s of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, this time entitled Totius medicinae idea nova (Amsterdam, 1673), thus purporting it was the alleged second edition of the medical writings of the deceased Leiden professor.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 8, cols 1290–1294; Klaas van Berkel, etc. (eds.), A History of Science, pp. 577–579; Gillispie and Holmes (eds.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 13, pp. 222–223; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 973–975.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646–1716): German legal scholar, counsellor, philosopher, mathematician, expert networker and voluminous letter writer; had an explicit curiosity for openness to original thought and became paradoxically obsessed with Spinoza’s erudition; Leibniz entered a brief correspondence with Spinoza (1671.10.05, Ep 45; 1671.11.09, Ep 46) on optics with the objective of drawing him in a discussion on the Tractatus theologico-politicus, a copy of which he first inspected at the Frankfurt book fair (October 1670); during his stay in Paris (1672–1676), he made the acquaintance of Van den Enden* and Tschirnhaus*; the latter, through his exchange with Schuller*, asked (1675.11.14, Ep 70) Spinoza for his permission to allow Leibniz to read his manuscript copy of the Ethica (ms. V); the philosopher however instructed Schuller (1675.11.18, Ep 72) to keep silent about the work; Leibniz had a personal meeting with Spinoza in The Hague in late November 1676 and discussed with him the classical ontological proof (E1p14) in favour for God’s existence; he inspected portions of Spinoza’s own manuscript of the ‘Ethics’; Leibniz also drew up his own ontological demonstration: ‘Quod ens perfectissimum existit’.
References: Friedrich A. Trendelenburg, ‘Ist Leibniz in seiner Entwicklung einmal Spinozist oder Cartesianer gewesen und was bedeutet dafür die Schrift “de vita beata”?’, Monatsberichte der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1847, pp. 372–386; Stein, Leibniz und Spinoza; Gillispie and Holmes (eds.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 8, pp. 149–168; Georges Friedmann, Leibniz et Spinoza (Paris: Gallimard 1975); George H.R. Parkinson, ‘Leibniz’s Paris Writings in Relation to Spinoza’, in Leibniz à Paris (1672–1676). Symposion de la G.W. Leibniz-Gesellschaft (Hannover) et du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris) à Chantilly (France) du 14 au 18 novembre 1976 (2 vols., Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978), vol. 2, pp. 73–89; Wolfgang Bartuschat, ‘Spinoza in der Philosophie von Leibniz’, in Cramer, etc. (eds.), Spinozas Ethik under ihre frühe Wirkung, pp. 51–66; Edwin Curley, ‘“Homo audax”: Leibniz, Oldenburg and the TTP’, in Ingrid Marchleiwitz and Albert Heinekamp (eds.), Studia Leibnitiana supplementa. Leibniz Auseinandersetzung mit Vorgängern und Zeitgenossen (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1990), pp. 68–103; Jacqueline Lagrée, ‘Leibniz et Spinoza’, in Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), Disguised and Overt Spinozism, pp. 137–155; Goldenbaum, ‘Die Commentatiuncula de judice’; Mark Kulstad, ‘Leibniz, Spinoza and Tschirnhaus: Multiple Worlds, Possible Worlds’, in Stuart Brown (ed.), The Young Leibniz and his Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999), pp. 243–262; Ursula Goldenbaum, ‘Zwischen Bewunderung und Entsetzen. Leibniz’ frühe Faszination durch Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus (Delft: Eburon, 2001); Mark Kulstad, ‘Leibniz, Spinoza and Tschirnhaus. Metaphysics à Trois, 1675–1676’, in Olli Koistinen and John Biro (eds.), Metaphysical Themes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 182–209; Noel Malcolm, ‘Leibniz, Oldenburg, and Spinoza, in the Light of Leibniz’s Letter to Oldenburg of 18/28 November 1676’, Studia Leibnitiana, 35 (2003), pp. 225–243; Goldenbaum, ‘Spinozas Papageienargument’; id., ‘Why shouldn’t Leibniz have studied Spinoza? The Rise of the Claim of Continuity in Leibniz’ Philosophy Out of the Ideological Rejection of Spinoza’s Impact on Leibniz’, The Leibniz Review, 17 (2007), pp. 107–138; Lærke, Leibniz lecteur de Spinoza; Antognazza, Leibniz; Mogens Lærke, ‘A Conjecture about a Textual Mystery: Leibniz, Tschirnhaus and Spinoza’s Korte Verhandeling’, The Leibniz Review, 21 (2011), pp. 33–68; Goldenbaum, ‘Leibniz’s Fascination with Spinoza’; Brandon C. Look (ed.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Leibniz (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).
Limborch, Philippus van (1633–1712): Dutch Remonstrant theologian, prolific writer, historian; studied theology in Amsterdam and Utrecht (1653); appointed (1668) to the chair of theology at the Amsterdam Remonstrant Seminarium; sent over a copy of the ‘Theological-Political Treatise’ in 1671 to Oliver Doiley*, rector of Cambridge University; Van Limborch in Theologia christiana (1686) accused Utrecht theologian Frans Burman* (I) of having raised sympathies for Spinoza’s philosophy in the latter’s Synopsis theologiae.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 9, col. 608; Pieter J. Barnouw, Philippus van Limborch (The Hague, Mouton, 1963); Simonutti, ‘Reason and Toleration’, 1990; Bautz (ed.), Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, vol. 5, cols 69–71; Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 4, pp. 314–315; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 615–617.
Lincker (Lyncker) von Lützenwick, Johann (1615–1698): privy counsellor (‘Kur-Trierische Geheimrat’) to the Archbishop of Trier; friend and correspondent of Leibniz* and of Leibniz’s patron Johann Christian von Boineburg*; received in Koblenz a letter (4 April 1672) from the The Hague-based diplomat Johann Daniel Crampricht* von Kronefeld, informing him he had passed on his request a letter to Spinoza ((< 1672.03.25*), which possibly was composed by Leibniz); Lincker had it enclosed in a now-lost letter of 25 March 1672 (cf. Catalogue critique, vol. 2, p. 2, nos. 14–15 and p. 3, no. 33), reading in it the following:
I am, like you, delighted about your happy return to the court, about which you provided me with novelties in your [letter] of 25 March, when sending me at the same time a letter for [mister] the scientist Spinoza. I have forwarded it to him and [I am] awaiting other duties to serve you.
Locke, John (1632–1704): Baconian empiricist philosopher, physician, and FRS (1668); personal secretary and household physician (1666) of the courtier Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621–83); went into exile for his role in the anti-royalist ‘Rye House Plot’ (1683), a plan to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother the heir-presumptive James (1633–1701), Duke of York; Locke earned a reputation for his seminal concepts of religious tolerance and political liberalism, and for his influential, pioneering ideas on education, epistemology, and the philosophy of science, especially logics; completed his key works during his Rotterdam exile (1683–1689): Epistola de tolerantia (1689) and An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (1690 [1689]); Locke had an avid interest in Spinoza, but he also acknowledged the following: ‘I am not so well read in Hobbes or Spinosa, as to be able to say, what were their Opinions in this Matter’; Locke rejected Spinoza’s ideas about the liberty to philosophize and the freedom of thought; owned several copies of the Dutch philosopher’s writings.
References: Harrison and Laslett, The Library of John Locke; Yolton, John Locke: A Descriptive Bibliography; Parker, et al., The Biblical Politics of John Locke; John Marshal, John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Israel, Enlightenment Contested, pp. 135–163; Roger Woolhouse, Locke: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), esp. pp. 409–410; John Milton, ‘Pierre Coste, John Locke, and the Third Earl of Shaftesbury’, in Sarah Hutton and Paul Schuurman (eds.), Studies on Locke: Sources, Contemporaries and Legacy (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008), pp. 195–223; Sami J. Savonius-Wroth, etc. (eds.), The Continuum Companion to Locke (London: Continuum, 2010); Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Mansveld, Regnerus van (1639–1671): Dutch Cartesian philosopher, detractor of Spinoza; relative of the Utrecht magistrate Johan van Mansveld (1621–1673) and member of the city’s patrician class; appointed in 1660 as professor of logics and metaphysics at Utrecht University; being a member of the Utrecht Collegie der Scavanten, Van Mansveld was crucially involved in the making of the Epistola ad amicum (1671), the first Dutch theological attack in print on the Tractatus theologico-politicus by Johannes Melchioris*; Van Mansveld was the author of Adversus anonymum theologo-politicum liber singularis (1671), a bulky refutation of Spinoza’s 1670 treatise posthumously published (1674) in Amsterdam by Graevius* and Burman* (I); Spinoza in a letter to Jarig Jelles* (1674.06.02, Ep 50) denounced Van Mansveld’s retort and judged it unworthy of reading or responding to the book.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 9, cols 646–647; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 672–674; Gootjes, ‘Le Réseau Cartésien d’Utrecht’; id., ‘The First Orchestrated Attack on Spinoza’; id., ‘Spinoza between French Libertines and Dutch Cartesians’; id., ‘The Collegie der sçavanten’.
Marchand, Prosper (1678–1756): Huguenot bibliographer, editor, librarian, bookseller, and literary intelligencer in Paris; forced to flee to the Netherlands (1709) and settled in The Hague; went to Rotterdam where he earned a living as a corrector (1713–1723); edited many works and was one of the principle editors of the Journal littéraire de La Haye; a manuscript made by Marchand in about 1711 contains thirty-six Adnotationes (lacking notes 15, 20, 27, and 37) which he transcribed from an annotated now-lost copy of the Tractatus theologico-politicus in Spinoza’s own handwriting.
References: Christiane Berkvens-Stevelinck, Prosper Marchand: La vie et l’œuvre (1678–1756) (Leiden: Brill, 1987); id., ‘Un Cabinet de livres européen en Hollande: La Bibliothèque de Prosper Marchand’, in Berkvens-Stevelinck, etc. (eds.), Le Magasin de l’univers, 1992, pp. 11–22.
Melchioris, Johannes (1646–1689): German Calvinist pastor in Frechen (near Cologne), first public detractor of the Tractatus theologico-politicus in print; studied theology in Groningen under the supervision of Samuel Maresius (1599–1673) and Jacob Alting*, and in Leiden under Johannes Coccejus*; promoted (1682) to the chair of theology at Herborn University; between 1 July and 23 September 1670, Melchioris exchanged letters with Graevius* to launch the Epistola ad amicum (1671) under the semi-anonymous monogram ‘J.M. V.D.M.’; a second edition, with Melchioris’s full name, was issued in 1672 under the title Religio ejusque natura et principium (Utrecht: 1672).
References: Johann H. Steubing, Geschichte der Hochschule Herborn (Hadamar: 1823); Gootjes, ‘Le Réseau Cartésien d’Utrecht’; id., ‘The First Orchestrated Attack on Spinoza’; id., ‘Spinoza between French Libertines and Dutch Cartesians’; id., ‘The Collegie der sçavanten’.
Meyer, Lodewijk (1629/30–1681): Amsterdam physician Neo- Latinist, founding member of the Amsterdam literary and artistic society Nil volentibus arduum, close friend and correspondent of Spinoza, editor of his first book and translator of the Preface by Jelles* to the Opera posthuma; took out his doctoral degree in Philosophy and in Medicine (1660) at Leiden University; Meyer, according to the ‘voix publique’, was the disguised author of the 1666 Philosophia, a work promoting philosophy as the chief instrument for the interpretation of Scripture; recipient of Spinoza’s noted ‘Letter on the Infinite’ (1663.04.20, Ep 12), discussing the indivisibility of infinite extension; Meyer edited Renati des Cartes Principiorum philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata metaphysica, Spinoza’s reworking of the ‘Principles of Philosophy’ of Descartes*, in compliance with the philosopher’s explicit directions (< 1663.07.25*; 1663.07.26, Ep 12A; < 1663.08.03*; 1663.08.03, Ep 15); he wrote the book’s prologue and made all the cross references and captions in the Cogitata metaphysica; Meyer’s name is suppressed in the posthumous works thus: ‘L. M. P. M. Q. D.’ (Opera posthuma); ‘L. M.’ (De nagelate schriften).
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 5, cols 342–345; Bossers, ‘Nil volentibus arduum’; Offenberg, Brief van Spinoza aan Lodewijk Meijer; Steenbakkers and Bordoli, ‘Lodewijk Meijer’s Tribute’; Michael Albrecht, ‘Einengung und Befreiung als Wirkungen des Cartesianismus am Beispiel Lodewijk Meyers’, in Verbeek (ed.), Johannes Clauberg (1622–1665), pp. 161–180; Ike van Hardeveld-Kooi, Lodewijk Meijer (1629–1681) als lexicograaf (2000); Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 694–699.
Minutoli, Vincent (1649–1709): Protestant minister and Labadist; studied theology in Geneva, Leiden and Groningen; Walloon minister in Antwerp (1663) and Middelburg (1664–1667); removed (1667) from his ministry by the Synod of Amsterdam for his disorderly lifestyle, but reinstated by the Delft Synod; professor of classical literature and history at the Académie de Genève (1678); publisher of the Swiss journal Les Dépèches du Parnasse ou Gazette des Savants; personal friend of French pietist Jean de Labadie (1610–1674) and Pierre Bayle*; received a letter (26 May 1679) by Bayle, holding a remark about chapter 19 of the Traitté des ceremonies superstitieuses des juifs tant anciens que modernes, a work Bayle wrote to Minutoli, ‘makes me think that the author is the famous Spinoza, who has composed similar thoughts in his “Tractatus theologico-politicus”’.
References: Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 2, p. 333; Vincent Minutoli, Storia del ritorno dei Valdesi nella loro patria dopo un esilio di tre anni e mezzo (1698), Enea Henri Balmas, etc. (eds.) (Torino: Claudiana, 1998), pp. 123–175.
Monnikhoff, Johannes (1707–1787): town herniotomist, medical author, and president of the Amsterdam surgeon’s guild; based on a late-seventeenth-century manuscript copy (ms. 175 G 15; codex A), Monnikhoff compiled (1743–1763) a manuscript which includes a text version of the Korte verhandeling and ‘Aantekeningen bij het Godgeleerd-Staatkundig Vertoog’ (The Hague, KB, ms. 175 G 16 [codex B]); to the latter work Monnikhoff added a ‘Kritische voorrede’, attacking several of Spinoza’s metaphysical notions, which also includes a short biography of the Dutch philosopher.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 8, cols 1170–1171; Johannes Monnikhoff, ‘Beschrijving van Spinoza’s leven’, Chronicon Spinozanum, 4 (1926), pp. 201–219; Mark, ‘A Unique Copy of Spinoza’s Nagelate Schriften’; Lotte Jensen, ‘Johannes Monnikhoff. Bewonderaar en bestrijder van Spinoza’, Geschiedenis van de wijsbegeerte in Nederland, 8 (1997), pp. 5–32; Gerrit A. Lindeboom, Dutch Medical Biography. A Biographical Dictionary of Dutch Physicians and Surgeons 1475–1975 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1984), cols 1362–1363; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 707–709.
Morales (or Morelli), Henriquez (fl.1673–1715): Dutch- Sephardic physician practising in Amsterdam and a convert to Roman Catholicism; Morales provided Huguenot editor Pierre Desmaizeaux* with his account on Spinoza’s vexed trip to Utrecht, published in the former’s review (May 1706) in the Mémoires du Trevoux dealing with the French 1706 translation of Colerus’s Spinoza biography; Morales too has been the source of the claim the French translation of the ‘Theological-Political Treatise’ was produced by Gabriel de Saint Glen.
References: Bayle, Lettres, vol. 1, p. 243; Saint-Évremond, Œuvres meslées, vol. 5, pp. 283–286; Van de Ven, ‘“Crastinâ die loquar cum Celsissimo principe de Spinosa”’.
More, Henry (1614–1687): Cambridge Neoplatonist, FRS, and correspondent of Descartes*; initially a promotor of the Cartesian philosophy; credited for having introduced the word ‘Cartesianism’ into English; More later criticized Descartes’s physics and the latter’s claim void space was impossible; supporter of the mechanist philosophy which helped him mature his own metaphysical doctrines of immaterial substance and the ‘Spirit of Nature’; author of Enchiridion metaphysicum (1671); More informed Boyle* in a letter of 4/14 December 1671 that Spinoza wrote the Tractatus theologico-politicus; he composed two critical essays against the latter treatise: ‘Ad V.C. epistola altera’ (against Spinoza’s claim miracles were impossible) and the anti-atheist ‘Demonstrationis duarum propositionum’ (or: Confutatio); the latter work was translated into Dutch by Frans Kuyper* in Korte en bondige weederlegging, van het wiskunstig bewijs van B.D. Spinosa (1687).
References: Colie, ‘Spinoza and the Early English Deists’; Schütt, ‘Zu Henry Mores Widerlegung des Spinozismus’; Gabbey, ‘Philosophia Cartesiana triumphata’; id., ‘Henry More and the Limits of Mechanism’; Alfred Rupert Hall, Henry More and the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Hutton, Henry More (1614–1687); Simonutti, ‘Reason and Toleration’; Alexander Jacob, Henry More’s Refutation of Spinoza (Hildesheim and New York, NY: G. Olms Verlag, 1991); Nicholson and Hutton (eds.), The Conway Letters; Richard Ward, The Life of Henry More. Parts 1 and 2, Sarah Hutton, etc. (eds.) (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000); Robert Crocker, Henry More, 1614–1687: A Biography of the Cambridge Platonist (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003); Hutton, ‘Platonism and the Trinity. Anne Conway, Henry More and Christoph Sand’, in Mulsow and Rohls (eds.), Socinianism and Arminianism, pp. 209–224; Van Bunge, etc. [eds.], The Continuum Companion to Spinoza, pp. 115–118; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Reid, The Metaphysics of Henry More.
Murr, Christoph Gottlieb von (1733–1811): German legal scholar, bibliographer, polyhistor, and editor of the Journal zur Kunstgeschichte und allgemeinen Litteratur (1775–1789); owned copies of Spinoza’s printed works and had many refutations critiquing his philosophical doctrines; Von Murr obtained in 1755 a copy of the Tractatus theologico-politicus with Spinoza’s own supplementary notes from one of the heirs of Jan Rieuwertsz* fils, a copy used to issue his Adnotationes ad Tractatum theologico politicum (1802).
References: Catalogus librorum quos V.C. Christophorus Theophilus de Murr … collegerat, … (Nuremberg: 1811), pp. 268–269 and 292; Verzeichnis des Restes v. Murr’schen Bibliothek welcher am 19ten September 1814. und folgenden Tägen zu Nürnberg öffentlich versteigert werden soll (Nuremberg: 1814), p. 16, nos. 236–237; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie.
Neercassel, Johannes Baptista van (1626–1686): Dutch Oratorian, vicar apostolic (1663) of the underground Roman Catholic ‘Holland Mission’; passed in July 1673 to the Roman Cardinal Giovanni Bona (1609–1674) a manuscript copy by Jean Baptiste Stouppe* of the latter’s still unpublished La Religion des Hollandois (Paris: 1673; Cologne: 1673 [pirated edition]), indicting the religious identity and tolerance of the Dutch Calvinist authorities, mainly towards the Tractatus theologico-politicus; led an orchestrated campaign in the Dutch Republic to collect information about Spinoza’s life and the dissemination of his writings; passed copies of both the Tractatus theologico-politicus and the Opera posthuma to curia officials; (Van Neercassel submitted on 9 September 1678) a report on Spinoza to the Roman Holy Office of the Inquisition.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 4, cols 1019–1023; Lodewijk J. Rogier, Geschiedenis van het katholicisme in Noord-Nederland in de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw (2 vols., Amsterdam: Urbi et Orbi, 1945–6), vol. 2, pp. 195–221; id., ‘Neercassel en het vaderland’, in Verslag van de algemene vergadering der leden van het Historisch Genootschap gehouden te Utrecht 31 October 1949 (Utrecht: Kemink, 1950), pp. 7–58; Bautz (ed.), Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, vol. 16, cols 112–117; Miquel Benitez, ‘Le Jeu de tolerance: Édition de la lettre À Madame de … sur les différentes religions d’Hollande’, in Guido Canziani (ed.), Filosofia e religione nella letteratura clandestine, Secoli XVII e XVIII (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1994), pp. 427–468; Gebhard C.P. Voorvelt, ‘Enkele minder bekende facetten van het leven van de apostolisch vicaris Johannes van Neercassel (1663–1686)’, Trajecta. Tijdschrift voor de geschiedenis van het katholiek leven in de Nederlanden, 5 (1996), pp. 44–55; Gian Ackermans, Herders en huurlingen. Bisschoppen en priesters in de Republiek (1663–1705) (Amsterdam: Bakker, 2003), pp. 405–406, no. 0402.
Oldenburg, Henry (c.1619–1677): German expert editor, translator, secretary, publisher, and intelligencer, Founder Fellow and secretary of the London Royal Society, correspondent of Spinoza; editor of the Philosophical Transactions and of Boyle’s printed writings; Oldenburg was hired by Boyle’s sister, Lady Ranelagh (1614–1691), to tutor her son Richard Jones (1641–1712), who is the character ‘Pyrophilus’ in Boyle’s Certain Physiological Essays (1661); visited Spinoza in summer 1661 in Rijnsburg where they discussed God, extension and thought and their specific differences, body and mind, and the Cartesian and Baconian philosophies; entered into a ‘philosophical’ exchange with Spinoza, started on 26 August 1661 (interrupted in early December 1665 for an interval of about ten years); their friendship by correspondence ranged from short messages and letters to lengthy accounts and scholarly reports from the private to the public, including enclosures with sketches, drafts and printed material; Oldenburg too acted as a mouthpiece for Boyle* in his discussion with Spinoza about his Certain Physiological Essays and the nature of experiment; the exchange between Oldenburg and Spinoza became tensed when they started discussing topics in the Tractatus theologico-politicus, such as necessity and moral responsibility, miracles and ignorance, and the death, burial, and Jesus’s resurrection.
References: Jakob Stern, ‘Ueber einen bisher unbeachteten Brief Spinoza’s und die Korrespondenz Spinoza’s und Oldenburg im Jahre 1665’, Nachrichten von der Königliche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften und der Georg-Augusts-Universität zu Göttingen, 9 (1872), pp. 523–537; Gillispie and Holmes (eds.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 10, pp. 200–203; McKie, ‘The Arrest and the Imprisonment’; Alfred Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall, ‘Some Hitherto Unknown Facts about the Private Career of Henry Oldenburg’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 18 (1963), pp. 94–103; Curley, ‘“Homo audax”’; Sarah Hutton, ‘Henry Oldenburg (1617/20–1677) and Spinoza’, in Christofolini (ed.), The Spinozistic Heresy, pp. 106–119; Iordan Avramow, ‘Letter Writing and the Management of Scientific Controversy: The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg (1661–1677)’, in Toon van Houdt, etc. (eds.), Self-Presentation and Social Identification. The Rhetoric and Pragmatics of Letter Writing in Early Modern Times (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002), pp. 337–366; Marie Boas Hall, Henry Oldenburg. Shaping the Royal Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Malcolm, ‘Leibniz, Oldenburg, and Spinoza, in the Light of Leibniz’s Letter to Oldenburg of 18/28 November 1676’, Studia Leibnitiana, 35 (2003), pp. 225–243; Philip Beeley, ‘A Philosophical Apprenticeship. Leibniz’s Correspondence with the Secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg’, in Paul Lodge (ed.), Leibniz and his Correspondents (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 46–73; Malcolm, ‘The Library’; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Maurizio Gotti, ‘Scientific Interaction within Henry Oldenburg’s Letter Network’, Journal of Early Modern Studies, 3 (2014), pp. 151–171.
Ostens, Jacob (c.1630–1678): Rotterdam surgeon, fervent Mennonite polemicist, Spinoza’s correspondent (‘J. O.’); translator of medical textbooks by Jean François Fernel (1497–1558), Bartholomy Cabrol (1529–1603), and Hieronymus Fabricius (1537–1619): Hieronimi Fabritii ab Aquapendente Heelkonstige handwerkingen, Bartolomaei Cabrolii A, B, C, der ontledinge: en Ioannis Fernelii boek der natuurkunde (1661); Ostens’s scepticism in matters theological is reflected in his quarrels with the Flemish Mennonite Church (‘Vlaamse Gemeente’) in Rotterdam and the traces he left in the ‘Lammerenkrijg’; passed a copy or minute to Spinoza (1671.02.03, Ep 42) of a cutting retort of the Tractatus theologico-politicus by Lambertus van Velthuysen*; Spinoza wrote back (1671.02.4-17, Ep 43) to Ostens to debunk Van Velthuysen’s rigid accusation of atheism.
References: Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, vol. 3, pp. 288–289; Wiep van Bunge, ‘Een trage idealist: Jacob Ostens (1630–1678)’, Studia Spinozana, 4 (1988), pp. 263–279; id., ‘De Rotterdamse collegiant Jacob Ostens (1630–1678)’, De zeventiende eeuw, 6 (1990), pp. 65–81; id., etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 761–764; id., ‘De bibliotheek van Jacob Ostens: Spinozana en sociniana’, Doopsgezinde bijdragen, 30 (2004), pp. 125–140.
Paull, Israel Abrahamsz de (1630–1680): Amsterdam printer; trained (1657) as a compositor; became a member of the Amsterdam guild of booksellers, printers, and book binders on 16 July 1650; started (1661) a printing office operating for at least about fifty years (owning about three presses until its closure) in the ‘Oude-Nieuwstraet’; De Paull took charge of the latter printing firm (then located in the ‘Tuyn-straat, by de Baen-graft’) after the death of his partner, Gerrit Harmansz van Riemsdijck (1630–1666); collaborated with Jan Rieuwertsz* père and printed the Tractatus theologico-politicus (Latin quartos, octavos, and possibly also the French duodecimos), the Opera posthuma, and De nagelate schriften; De Paull was buried at the Amsterdam ‘Karthuizer kerkhof’ on 28 August 1680; Elisabeth Wiaer (1640–1709), continued her late husband’s printing office.
References: 5001: ‘Inventaris van het Archief van de Burgerlijke Stand: doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken van Amsterdam (retroacta van de Burgerlijke Stand)’, inv. no. 1163, pp. 426, and 427; Jagersma and Dijkstra, ‘Uncovering Spinoza’s Printers’; Lane, ‘The Printing Office’.
Pauw fils, Adriaan (1622–1697): Lord of Bennebroek, son of the Amsterdam Pensionary Adriaan Pauw (1585–1653), councillor and (1652) president of the provincial High Court of Holland; delivered on 25 September 1670 an account of the proceedings of the North Holland Synod, informing the States of Holland the last Synod meeting had discussed the printing of licentious books and had asked for the prohibition of the Tractatus theologico-politicus.
Reference: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 9, cols 760–761.
Placcius, Vincent (1642–1699): reader in law in Helmstadt, Leipzig, and Orléans, polymath; held the chair of moral philosophy and eloquence at the Hamburg Gymnasium (1675); close friend of the anti-Cartesian Leipzig professor of rhetoric and dialectic Jacob Thomasius*, who appreciated him as an authoritative figure on pseudonymous and anonymous writings; author of Theatrum anonymorum et pseudonymorum (Hamburg: 1708) which work holds a substantial entry on Spinoza’s life and writings.
References: Friedrich L. Hoffmann, ‘Vincent Placcius. Seine Leistungen auf dem Gebiete der Bibliographie der anonymen und pseudonymen Schriften nebst einem kurzen Abrisse seines Lebens und Nachweis über seinen gelehrten Briefwechsel’, in id., Essai d’une liste chronologique des ouvrages et dissertations concernant l’histoire de l’imprimerie en Belgique et en Hollande (Brussels: Heussner, 1859), pp. 1–16; Mulsow, ‘Practices of Unmasking’.
Rappolt, Friedrich (1615–1676): professor of dialectics (1651), professor of poetry (1656), and theology (1670), detractor of the Tractatus theologico-politicus; dean of the Leipzig theology faculty and university rector; member of the Collegium Gellianum (founded in 1641), a learned society of Leipzig scholars focusing on the writings of ancient authors; Rappolt attacked Spinoza’s treatise in the inaugural lecture ‘Programma ad audiendam orationem inauguralem, professioni theologiae ordinariae praemittendam, invitatorium’ (29 May 1670); accused Spinoza of overt naturalism and libertinism, of downgrading Christian religion, and of promoting the political concept of the commonwealth; launched another attack on Spinoza in the augmented version of his inaugural lecture, renamed ‘Oratio contra naturalistas’, aligning the Dutch philosopher with Cherbury*.
References: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie; Claudia Tietz, Johann Winckler (1642–1705). Anfänge eines lutherischen Pietisten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2008), p. 51.
Rieuwertsz fils, Jan (1651/2–1723): bookseller and printer in Amsterdam (from 1682 onwards), member of the Amsterdam guild of booksellers, printers, and bookbinders (since 15 October 1685); bookshop: ‘in ’t Martelaers-boeck’, Beurssteeg (no. 4); appointed (15 October 1685) official city printer of Amsterdam; Rieuwertsz fils took over the firm of his father on 18 June 1686; he was subpoenaed on 3 May 1695 together with publisher (and admirer of Spinoza’s philosophy) Aart Wolsgryn (c.1657–1697) for the illegal sale of copies of Spinoza’s writings; Rieuwertsz fils was visited in June 1703 by the German travellers Stolle* and ‘Hallmann’ and told them many particulars about Spinoza’s life and writings; invited ‘Hallmann’ to his house to copy several Adnotationes in Spinoza’s handwriting from a copy of the Tractatus theologico-politicus; owned a considerable part of the surviving manuscripts and books annotated by Spinoza inherited from Rieuwertsz père; was in all likelihood the disguised publisher of De rechtzinnige theologant, of godgeleerde staatkundige verhandeling (1693), the first Dutch Glazemaker redaction of the Tractatus theologico-politicus.
Reference: Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 4, pp. 64–66.
Rieuwertsz père, Jan (c.1617–1687): Mennonite bookseller in Amsterdam, publisher of Spinoza’s writings (whether he published the Tractatus theologico-politicus is not supported by historical evidence); worked as a bookbinder and was member of the Lucas guild (from 25 October 1640 onward); continued this particular business up to 1669 when he was also first reported in Amsterdam city archives as an independent bookseller; bookshop: ‘in ’t Martelaers-boeck’ in the ‘Dirck van Assensteech’ (1649–78), (nowadays Dirk van Hasseltsteeg, close to the Nieuwe Kerk), Beursstraat or Beurssteeg no. 4 (1678–85); ridiculed as ‘Ian de Martelaar in de Dirck van Assensteegh’ in the anonymous pamphlet De tweede onschult (1678); one of the most productive publishers (about 230 titles) of his time, publishing those of Descartes* in Dutch, the writings of Spinoza, and other controversial works by authors from both liberal and unorthodox factions, for example the Socinian venture Bibliotheca fratrum Polonorum; Rieuwertsz published many other works, ranging from travel books to works in the field of rhetoric and literature, both under his own name as well as in cooperation with other booksellers, such as Pieter Arentsz*; official city printer (1675) of Amsterdam; his contacts with Spinoza first emerged in 1663 during pre-press preparations of Renati des Cartes Principiorum philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata metaphysica (printed by Bakkamude*); putative mastermind behind the Tractatus theologico-politicus’s cleverly-masked Latin quarto and octavo editions, their variant issues, and possibly also the French duodecimos; published Spinoza’s clandestinely-issued 1677 posthumous writings (printed by De Paull*) after the receipt of Spinoza’s writing desk holding a portion of his papers and letters (dispatched between 21 February and 25 March 1677 to Amsterdam by Van der Spijck*, Spinoza’s landlord); intermediary of a letter of Georg Hermann Schuller* to Spinoza which proves the latter exchanged at least two letters with Rieuwertsz (cf. Spinoza to Schuller, > 1674.10.08, Ep 58); buried in the Nieuwe Kerk/Engelse Kerk on 22 December 1687; Rieuwertsz* fils had already taken over his father’s business in 1682.
References: 5001: Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, ‘Inventaris van het Archief van de Burgerlijke Stand: doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken van Amsterdam (retroacta van de Burgerlijke Stand)’, inv. no. 1056, p. 336; Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 2, col. 1211; Willem F.H. Oldewelt, ‘Eenige posten uit de thesauriers-memorialen van Amsterdam van 1664 tot 1764’, Oud-Holland, 51 (1934), pp. 69–72, at p. 71; Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 4, pp. 63–64; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 841–845.
Rijnsdijk, Henricus (1628–1689): Reformed minister in Amsterdam (from 1667 onwards); headed a meeting (9 January 1687) of the Amsterdam Kerkenraad during which it was reported the printer Jan Claesz ten Hoorn* was processing a manuscript of a (now lost) Dutch translation of the Tractatus theologico-politicus (which Ten Hoorn later claimed to have burnt); the consistory reprimanded (23 January1687) Ten Hoorn for his lies.
Scheltus, Jacobus (1640–1712): bookseller-printer at the Binnenhof (1670–1689) in The Hague and ‘Landts Drucker’ (official printer of the States Holland, Zeeland, and West-Friesland, 1669–1695); regular printer (1672–1690) of the Prince of Orange; printer of the Provincial States’ placard prohibiting Spinoza’s posthumous writings: Placaet van de Heeren Staten van Hollandt ende West-Vrieslant, tegens het Boeck geintituleert B.D. Spinosa Opera Posthum. In date den vijff-en-twintighsten Junij 1678.
Schuller, Georg Hermann (1650/51–1679): Amsterdam physician-alchemist, knowledge broker, friend and correspondent of Spinoza; took out his doctoral degree (1672) in Medicine with a disputation on headache disorders; set up practice (1674) in the Kalverstraat; Schuller’s contacts with Spinoza probably emerged after he enrolled (5 May 1671) in Leiden; exchanged letters in Latin with Spinoza between autumn 1674 and mid-November 1675; Schuller disclosed, according to a letter of Van Gent* (to Tschirnhaus*, 23 March 1679), metaphysical doctrines related to Spinoza’s philosophy to an alchemist called ‘Vieroort’; intermediary for Spinoza’s correspondence with Tschirnhaus on particularly metaphysical issues in the Ethica; on the behest of Schuller, Van Gent copied out ‘Spinoza’s works for the most part’ after Spinoza’s death; on 6 February 1677, Schuller directed a text version of E1p5dem to Leibniz*; offered him the opportunity to buy the Ethica’s holograph and kept him informed about Spinoza’s fatal disease and the editing and printing process of the posthumous writings.
References: Willem Meijer, ‘Dr. Schuller en B. de Spinoza’, De navorscher, 47 (1897), pp. 605–608; Steenbakkers, Spinoza’s Ethica, esp. pp. 50–52.
Smith, Samuel (fl.1681–1703): London bookseller working at ‘the Princes Arms in St Pauls Church-Yard’, ‘Latin Trader’; dealer of books to the Royal Society, printer of its Philosophical Transactions; publisher of the writings of Isaac Newton (1643–1727) and Boyle; corresponded with booksellers on the continent and sent them copies of the printed works of Boyle*, and vice-versa; publisher of Miracles Work’s Above and Contrary to Nature, Thomas Browne’s 1683 rejoinder to Miracles, No Violations of the Laws of Nature by Charles Blount*; Smith’s correspondence with international booksellers is preserved in: Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Rawlinson Letters 114 (incoming letters).
References: Henry R. Plomer, Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers Who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667 (London: The Bibliographical Society, 1922), p. 276; Hoftijzer, Engelse boekverkopers bij de Beurs; Marja Smolenaars and Ann Veenhoff, ‘Samuel Smith “an Honest Enough Man, for a Bookseller”’, Antiquarian Book Monthly, 1997, pp. 36–39; Rudolf M. Dekker, Family, Culture and Society in the Diary of Constantijn Huygens Jr, Secretary to Stadholder-King William of Orange (Leiden: Brill, 2013), p. 92.
Sollers, Robert (fl.1677–1699): London book dealer working at ‘the King’s arms and Bible’ (St Paul’s Church-yard), dealer of plays, novels, poems, and of works treating of issues dealing with divinity; bookshop (1677, 1679–1683): Sollers’s first appearance as a bookseller is recorded in the Term Catalogue in Easter 1677; publisher of Miracles, No Violations of the Laws of Nature (1683), the English translation of chapter 6 of the Tractatus theologico-politicus.
Reference: Plomer, Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers, pp. 276–277.
Someren, Johannes van (1632–1678): Reformed printer in Amsterdam, member of a venture of Amsterdam printers turning out Bibles and other religious works; used the favourite large yoke ornament of Jan Rieuwertsz* père, printed on title-pages of the Tractatus theologico-politicus and of Spinoza’s posthumous writings, on the title-pages of Pieter de Huybert’s Verdediging van de oude Hollantsche regeringh, Johannes Coccejus’s Opera omnia theologica, and Lambert van den Bosch’s Toneel des oorlogs.
Reference: Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 4, pp. 128–131.
Spizel, Gottlieb (1639–1691): pietist Augsburg theologian, prolific writer and fervent book collector; studied theology and philosophy in Leipzig under Jacob Thomasius*; Spizel kept a vast correspondence with Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680), Leibniz*, Johann Christian von Boineburg*, and Philip Jakob Spener (1635–1705), the founder of Lutheran pietism; Von Boineburg informed Spizel in a letter of [3 October] 1670 about the Tractatus theologico-politicus and told him he had seen a copy of the work on the Frankfurt bookfair; Leibniz, in a letter of 8 March 1672, urged Spizel to write a refutation of Spinoza’s treatise; Spizel commented on the Tractatus theologico-politicus in Felix literatus ex infelicium periculis et casibus (1676) only in passing.
References: Jaumann, Handbuch Gelehrtenkultur, p. 630; Feil, Religio. Dritter Band, pp. 67–68.
Spijck, Hendrick van der (fl.1667–1736): decoration painter (‘camerverver’) in The Hague; rented the house (Paviljoensgracht, nos. 72–74) where Spinoza lodged and died from his father, painter Jacob Aelbrechtsz Van der Spijck (fl.1644–1687); Leibniz* met Spinoza there between mid-November and Saturday 21 November 1676 and discussed the Ethica among other subjects; Van der Spijck made arrangements for Spinoza’s burial in the Nieuwe Kerk and paid his debts and funeral, the reimbursement of which was the issue of a legal affair involving Spinoza’s sister Rebecca (fl.1632–1695) and her stepson Daniel de Caceres (alias of Daniel de Castro, 1651–1695); between 21 February and 25 March 1677, Van der Spijck shipped off Spinoza’s writing desk with a large portion of his papers and correspondence to Rieuwertsz* père for printing; Colerus* interviewed Van der Spijck and his wife about Spinoza’s death and quotes from the invoices and their receipts concerning Spinoza’s death and funeral; Van der Spijck, it is claimed in the preface to the second edition (1700) of Christian Kortholt’s De tribus impostoribus magnis liber (Kiel: 1680), made a portrait of Spinoza: (‘atque hospite H. van der S … viro fide dignissimo, & pictore perquam artificioso, qui vultum etiam Athei expresserat.’); except for a now lost a sketchbook with drawings by Spinoza in ink and charcoal, the philosopher’s estate was publicly sold on 4 November 1677 at Van der Spijck’s house at the Paviljoensgracht.
References: W/Cz; Abraham Bredius, Künstlerinventare. Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIsten, XVIIsten und XVIIIsten Jahrhunderts (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1919), pp. 2189–2206.
Staveren, Petrus van (1632–1683): Reformed minister in Middelie (1657), Maassluis (1661), and Leiden (1664); prolific writer of Protestant religious works; in his capacity as president of the Leiden consistory, Van Staveren was the first Reformed minister who condemned Spinoza’s posthumous writings (4 February 1678); he was charged to warn (11 February 1678) the Leiden Burgomasters about their pernicious contents which led to the official prohibition of the posthumous writings by the States of Holland, Zeeland, and West-Friesland on 25 July 1678.
Reference: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol, 1, col. 963.
Stensen, Niels (1638–1686): Danish naturalist-anatomist, Roman Catholic convert (1667), vicar apostolic in the northern mission fields (1677), former disciple of Spinoza; matriculated as student of medicine at Leiden University on 27 July 1660; earned a reputation for his discovery of the duct of the parotid salivary gland in animals (ductus Stenionanus) and the excretory duct of the parotid gland in sheep; made Spinoza’s acquaintance in either Rijnsburg or in Leiden in the early 1660s, perhaps around the date (August 1662) of the publication of De homine, Florentius Schuyl’s Latin translation of Descartes’s Traité de l’homme; Spinoza attended the dissections of brains in different animal species in Leiden conducted by Stensen who wanted to discover ‘the seat where movement begins and sensation ends’; the latter wrote a printed ‘open’ letter (< 1671.11.02, Ep 67A) to Spinoza, defending his conversion and critiquing him for the Tractatus theologico-politicus’s contents, which was published in an anthology of religious reflections (Florence: 1675) under the title ‘Nicolai Stenonis ad novae philosophiae reformatorem de vera philosophia epistola’; on 4 September 1677, Stensen handed in a frontal attack on Spinoza and his philosophy in a report, called ‘Libri prohibiti circa la nuova filosofia dello Spinosa’, to the Roman Holy Office of the Inquisition and an apograph of the Ethica (the Vatican codex V, made by Van Gent*) which he had pilfered from the belongings of a ‘Lutheran foreigner’ who was without doubt Tschirnhaus*, by then residing in Rome; the latter manuscript copy was booked in by a clerk of the Holy Office on 23 September 1677.
References: Niels Stensen, Ad virum eruditum, cum quo in unitate S.R.E. desiderat aeternam amicitiam inire…. (Florence: 1675); Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 7, cols 138–139; Pieter A.M. Geurts, ‘Niels Stensen en Albert Burgh’, Archief voor de Katholieke Kerk in Nederland, 2 (1960), pp. 139–152; Pina Totaro, ‘Niels Stensen (1638–1686) e la prima diffusione della filosofia di Spinoza nella Firenze di Cosimo III’, in Cristofolini (ed.), The Spinozistic Heresy, pp. 147–168; Troels Kardel, ‘Stensen’s Myology in Historical Perspective’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 84 (1994), pp. 1–59; Pina Totaro, ‘“Ho certi amici in Ollandia”: Stensen and Spinoza – Science Verso Faith’, in Karen Ascani, etc. (eds.), Niccolò Stenone (1638–1686): Anatomista, geologo, vescovo. Atti della seminario organizatto da Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso e l’Academia di Danimarci, lunedì 23 ottobre 2000 (Rome: ‘L’Erna’ di Bretschneider, 2002), pp. 27–38; Frank Sobiech, Herr, Gott, Kreuz. Die Spiritualität des Anatomen, Geologen und Bischofs Dr. med. Niels Stensen (1638–86) (Münster: Asschendorff, 2004); Paolo Christofolini, ‘La Lettera di Stensen: Un falso autore’, Historia philosophica, 6 (2008), pp. 141–144; Stefano Miniati, Nicholas Steno’s Challenge for Truth. Reconciling Science and Faith (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2009); Paolo Perrini, etc., ‘Niels Stensen (1638–86): Scientist, Neuroanatomist, and Saint’, Neurosurgery, 67 (2010), pp. 3–9; Spruit and Totaro, The Vatican Manuscript; Kardel and Maquet (eds.), Nicolaus Steno; Eric Jorink, ‘Modus Politicus Vivendi’.
Stillingfleet, Edward (1635–1699): Anglican author and London archdeacon, major representative of the Latitudinarian milieux, anti-atheist; dean of St Paul’s Cathedral (1678); Bishop of Worcester (1689); earned a reputation for his sermons on doctrinal, historical, pastoral, and political issues; author of The Unreasonableness of Separation (London: 1681); proponent of Newtonianism; criticized Spinoza’s doctrines in A Letter to a Deist (London: 1677), the first published British work attacking the Tractatus theologico-politicus, bracketing the atheism of Hobbes and Spinoza with philosophical deism; Stillingfleet owned copies of all of Spinoza’s writings and had several refutations of the Tractatus theologico-politicus.
References: Robert T. Carroll, The Common-Sense Philosophy of Religion of Bishop Edward Stillingfleet, 1635–1699 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1975); Hutton, ‘Edward Stillingfleet and Spinoza’; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Stolle, Gottlieb (1673–1744): German legal scholar; studied law and politics in Leipzig; journeyed (24 April 1703–Eastern 1704) with two travel companions, ‘Hallmann’ (very likely Johann Ferdinand von Halmenfeld [fl.1680–1704]) and the latter’s relative (‘Herr von H***’) to the northern parts of Germany and to the United Provinces; between 28 August and 2 September 1703, they visited the Amsterdam bookshop of Rieuwertsz* fils to make queries about Spinoza’s life and times; Rieuwertsz fils showed them a handwritten copy of the Korte verhandeling, a Dutch translation of the ‘Theological-Political Treatise’ (virtually certain by Glazemaker*), and a draft or the autograph of a letter of Spinoza to Jelles* (1673.04.19, Ep 48B); ‘Hallmann’ inspected an annotated copy of the Tractatus theologico-politicus owned by Rieuwertsz fils, also including ‘short marginal manuscript notes’ by Spinoza (quite likely the Adnotationes), which were copied by ‘Hallmann’; Stolle planned to publish an account of their journey, but details about their tour are only known through the existence of three surviving only partly-issued manuscripts (A, B, and C) containing their joint travel diaries.
References: Gottlieb Stolle, Anleitung zur Historie der juristischen Gelahrheit, nebst einer ausführlichen Nachricht, von des. seel. Verfassers Leben und Schrifften, … (Jena: 1745), pp. 38–44 (‘Leben des Verfassers’); Günther E. Guhrauer, ‘Beiträge zur Kenntnis des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts aus den handschriftlichen Aufzeichnungen Gottlieb Stolles’, Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Geschichte, 7 (1847), pp. 385–436 and 481–531 (portions of the travel diaries, also in: W/Cz, vol. 1, pp. 82–96); Martin Mulsow, ‘The Itinerary of a Young Intellectual in Early Enlightenment Germany’, in Martin Fitzpatrick, etc. (eds.), The Enlightenment World (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004), pp. 117–133.
Stouppe (or Stoupe, Stoppa, or Stuppa), Jean Baptiste (1624–1692/1700): libertine, Swiss Lieutenant Colonel from Chiavenna (Grisons) and owner a Swiss mercenary regiment (1677); trained in London as a Reformed minister; worked as a spy (1653–1654) in the service of Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658); during the French occupation (1672–1673), chief of one of the five cantons dividing Utrecht; clandestine author of La Religion des Hollandois (Paris: 1673; Cologne: 1673, pirated ‘Pierre Marteaux’ edition), a work commissioned by Louis XIV, justifying the occupation and indicting the religious identity and toleration by Dutch magistrates of religious dissenters, especially their lax attitude towards a work like the Tractatus theologico-politicus; Stouppe was an intermediary, through Graevius* and Bouwmeester*, in the plan to bring Spinoza to the French headquarters during the late summer of 1673, quite likely on the request of members of the Utrecht Cartesian network; arranged a passport for Spinoza signed by Louis II de Bourbon (‘le Grand Condé’ or ‘le Héros’) and met him in Utrecht.
References: Feer, ‘Un Pamphlet contre les Hollandois’; Benitez, ‘Le Jeu de tolerance’; Popkin, ‘The First Published Reaction to Spinoza’s Tractatus’; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Van de Ven, ‘“Crastinâ die loquar cum Celsissimo principe de Spinosa”’; Gootjes, ‘Sources inédites sur Spinoza’; id., ‘Spinoza between French Libertines and Dutch Cartesians’.
Thilt, Johannes van (fl.1662–1679): Burgomaster of Haarlem, deputy of the Raad van State, second curator of Leiden University (1662–1679); with Frederik van Dorp*, Van Thilt informed (16 June 1678) members of the Leiden magistracy that the administrators of the university board were appalled by the ‘godless and heterodox propositions and conclusions’ of Spinoza’s posthumous works; asked for the prohibition (25 June 1678) of the Opera posthuma and De nagelate schriften as they were also convinced copies had to be burned and those who owned these works punished.
Reference: Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden, 1852–1878, vol. 18, pp. 104–105.
Thomasius, Jacob (1622–1684): father of legal reformer Christian Thomasius (1655–1728) and detractor of Spinoza; studied in Leipzig; succeeded (1653) his father as Leipzig professor of philosophy; professor of dialectic (1656), rhetoric (1659) and moral philosophy; first tutor and correspondent (1663–1672) of Leibniz*; Thomasius’s writings were of major importance for German historiography and theology; his academic harangue ‘Adversus anonymum, de libertate philosophandi’ (or ‘Programma’, 8/18 May 1670), was the first public printed retort of Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus.
References: Jacob Thomasius, ‘Programma, quo d. 8 Maji a. 1671’, in Johann C. Dürr, Actus panegyricus impositae merentibus anno MDCLXXI. mense Junio, … Orationem de praepostera et impia libertate philosophandi, …, oppositam Tractatui theologico- politico scriptoris lucifugae haud ita pridem vulgate (Jena: 1672), sigs E4–F4 (title mentions the wrong year of the ‘Programma’); Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. 38, pp. 107–112; Bautz (ed.), Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, vol. 11, cols 1433–1434; Jaumann, Handbuch Gelehrtenkultur, p. 655.
Tschirnhaus, Ehrenfried Walther von (1651–1708): Lord of Kislingwalde and Stoltzenberg, mathematician-philosopher, educational reformer, correspondent of both Spinoza and Leibniz*; earned a reputation for the invention of hard durable porcelain technology; enrolled on 8 June 1669 at Leiden University as a law student; volunteer in the military States’ regiment of the German Freiherr von Nylandt (Nuland), Franz Wilhelm (fl.1669–1688), allegedly an accomplished lens grinder who wrote a work about the danger of Cartesianism (Elementa physica, sive nova philosophiae principia [The Hague: 1669, copy owned by Spinoza]); Tschirnhaus was the author of Medicina mentis (Amsterdam: 1687), edited by Van Gent*, and Medicina corporis (Amsterdam: 1686); between late 1674 and early 1675, commissioned Van Gent to make for him a copy (Vatican codex V) of the Ethica, which was pilfered by Stensen* and booked in by a Roman Holy Office of the Inquisition’s clerk on 23 September 1677; Tschirnhaus owned an edited version of Spinoza’s letter to Meyer* on eternity (1663.04.20, Ep 12); he exchanged letters with Spinoza, through the intermediary of Schuller*, on the human intellect, the definition and the problem of human free will, philosophical method, the theory of attributes, as well as on flagging topics in the Ethica.
References: Lebens- und Todes-Geschichte des Weltberühmten Ritters und Herrn Herrn Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhauss, auff Kiesslings-Wald und Stoltzenberg, Königlichen und Churfürstl. Sächsischen Raths (Görlitz: 1709); Caspar Gotsschling, Lebens-Beschreibung IV. gelehrter und geschickter Edelleute … Ehrenfried Walthers von Tschirnhaus, … (Brandenburg: 1722); Reinhardt, Briefe an Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus; Edward Winter, ‘Der Bahnbrecher der deutschen Frühaufklärung. E.W. von Tschirnhaus und die Frühaufklärung im Mittel- und Ost-Europa’, in id. (ed.), E.W. von Tschirnhaus und die Frühaufklärung im Mittel- und Ost-Europa (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1960), pp. 1–82; id., Der Freund B. Spinozas E.W. von Tschirnhaus: Die Einheit von Theorie und Praxis (Berlin: Akademieverlag, 1977); Vermij, ‘De Nederlandse vriendenkring’; Kulstad, ‘Leibniz, Spinoza and Tschirnhaus’; Uwe Mayer, Zwischen Brennpunkt und Peripherie – Der sächsische Mathematiker, Techniker und Philosoph Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651–1708) (2001); Lærke, ‘A Conjecture about a Textual Mystery’; Jacob Adler, ‘The Education of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651–1708)’, Journal of Medical Biography, 2013; Proietti and Licata, Il carteggio Van Gent – Tschirnhaus.
Velthuysen, Lambertus van (1621/22–1685): Cartesian Utrecht physician and republican town councillor (1667–74), director of the Dutch West India Company, correspondent of Spinoza and Leibniz*; key figure in a pamphlet war (1650s) for and against Descartes*; member of the Collegie der Scavanten, the Utrecht Cartesian network arranging the first attack (early 1670s) on the Tractatus theologico-politicus; removed from office after the disbandment of the city’s old magistracy by the States General in the new ‘Regeringsreglement’ (27 April 1674); wrote a cutting critique of the Tractatus theologico-politicus in a letter (1671.02.03, Ep 42) to Jacob Ostens* and accused Spinoza of atheism (Ostens passed a manuscript copy of it to Spinoza who sent Ostens a cynical rejoinder (1671.02.4–17, Ep 43)); Spinoza wrote a letter (1675.[09–11].00, Ep 69) to Van Velthuysen to invalidate a rumour he was about to reply to opponents of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, asking the latter to point out to him his objections against his treatise; Van Velthuysen composed a rejoinder to Spinoza’s posthumous works in Opera omnia …: Alter de cultu naturali oppositus tractatibus Bened. Spinosae (1680), claiming (p. 2) to have frequently spoken to the philosopher; Van Velthuysen’s name in his letter to Ostens is suppressed in the Opera posthuma (‘L. d. V. m. dr.’) and De nagelate schriften (‘L. v. V’)
References: Hendrik W. Tydeman, ‘Brief van Bened. de Spinoza aan Dr. Lamb. van Velthuysen (Met facsimile)’, Utrechtsche volksalmanak, 1844, pp. 160–193; D.J. Roorda, ‘William III and the Utrecht “Government Regulation”: Background, Events and Problems’, The Low Countries History Yearbook, 13 (1979), pp. 85–109; Isolde Hein and Albert Heinekamp, ‘Ein neu gefundener Brief von Leibniz an Lambert van Velthuysen’, Studia Leibnitiana, 22 (1990), pp. 151–162; Wiep van Bunge, ‘Van Velthuysen, Batelier and Bredenburg’; Tammy Nyden-Bullock, ‘Radical Cartesian Politics: Van Velthuysen, De la Court, and Spinoza’, Studia Spinozana, 15 (1999), pp. 35–65; Corinna Vermeulen, ‘Convenimus in praecipuis. The Letters, 1648–1657, by Etienne de Courcelles (1586–1589) to Lambert van Velthuysen (1622–1685)’, Lias, 26 (1999), pp. 157–185; Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 1017–1020; Henri Krop, ‘Spinoza en het calvinistisch cartesianisme van Lambert van Velthuysen’, 2004; Antonella del Prete, ‘La Bible en question’; Gootjes, ‘The First Orchestrated Attack on Spinoza’; id., ‘Spinoza between French Libertines and Dutch Cartesians’; id., ‘The Collegie der Sçavanten’.
Vries, Simon/Sijmon Joosten (Joostz very likely) de (1633/4–1667): Mennonite merchant from Amsterdam, friend and correspondent of Spinoza; because De Vries was Latinate (Spinoza mentioned him explicitly as a candidate-translator of E3) he probably was privately educated or attended a local Latin School; De Vries was a man of considerable wealth who probably may have well been in the position to act as Spinoza’s patron as Colerus* has suggested: he owned shares of several houses, in Amsterdam at the Singel, called ‘De Vries’, and at the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, as well as at Oud-Mathenesse (east of Schiedam), as well as land, at Overschie and also at Oud-Mathenesse; during winter 1664/5, Spinoza went to stay in the ambacht of Oud-Mathenesse (close to Schiedam), at a homestead called ‘Langen bogert’, the residence of Alewijn Jacobsz Gijse (fl.1627–1683) and his wife Trijntje Joosten (fl.1631–1701), who was De Vries’s sister; De Vries died on 17 September 1667 and was buried on 26 September in a family vault (no. 87) in the Noorderkerk; De Vries headed an Amsterdam group (Opera posthuma: ‘Collegium’) who studied an early instalment in progress of Part 1 of the Ethica (to Spinoza, 1663.02.24, Ep 8) translated into Dutch and imparted to De Vries ‘by P. Balling’; De Vries in any case owned a Latin manuscript copy of E1 since he quotes E1def3 (now: E1def3, on substance, and E1def4, on attribute) from a Latin text (1663.02.24, Ep 8); three letters in the Opera posthuma are published with De Vries’s full name, who in De nagelate schriften is cloaked with the monogram ‘S. d. V.’
References: Aad van der Tang, ‘Spinoza and Schiedam’, Scyedam, 10 (1984), pp. 159–184; Abraham M. Vaz Dias, Spinoza and Simon Joosten de Vries (Delf: Eburon, 1989 [Mededelingen vanwege het Spinozahuis, no. 59]).
William III of Orange (1650–1702): Dutch Stadholder (1672–1702), King of England (1689–1702), Ireland, and Scotland (known as William II); son of Dutch Stadholder William II (1626) and Mary Stuart, the oldest daughter of Charles I of England; raised under the supervision of Johan de Witt*; in 1666 declared ‘Child of the State’ (ward of the republican Dutch government) to reduce his chances to come to power as Stadholder; in the wake of the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678/9) appointed Field Marshall (‘capitein- en admirael-generael over de Unie’) on 26 February 1672 and promoted as Stadholder of Holland (4 July) and Zeeland (16 July); the Prince of Orange’s rule turned him into a virtual dictator, disbanding old town magistracies and replacing them with regents loyal to the House of Orange and the Dutch Reformed Church; in his capacity as Dutch Stadholder, William III was involved in organizing or facilitating the murder of the De Witt brothers; Bouwmeester* writes in a letter (5 July 1673) to Graevius* that when making arrangements for a trip to Utrecht, Spinoza had told him thus: ‘At last he responded he has decided to go to you [pl.], if a letter of safe conduct can be obtained from the Prince of Orange. But if not, I hardly think it will be possible to move him to go.’
References: Stephen Baxter, William III and the Defense of European Liberty, 1650–1702 (New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966); Rowen, The Princes of Orange; Tony Claydon, William III. Profiles in Power (Harlow: Routledge, 2002); Troost, William III; Mijers and Onnekink (eds.), Redefining William III; Simon Groenveld, ‘William III as Stadholder’; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Gootjes, ‘Spinoza between French Libertines and Dutch Cartesians’, p. 6 (Bouwmeester’s letter of 5 July 1673).
Witt, Johan de (1625–1672): Lord of Zuid- and Noord-Linschoten, Snelrewaard, Hekendorp, and IJsselveere; studied law (1641–1645) in Leiden and took out his doctoral degree in Law at Angers (1645); Grand Pensionary (Secretary-General) of Holland (1653–1672); De Witt’s policy of the ‘ware vrijheid’ (‘true liberty’) was to ensure commercial and political interests of Holland were safeguarded without any interference of a supra-provincial monarch; he took a keen interest in Cartesian mathematics and appended his ‘Elementa curvarum linearum’ to the second edition of Descartes’s Geometria (1661) edited by Frans van Schooten (1615–1660); on 20 August 1672, an Orangist mob brutally murdered De Witt and his brother Cornelis in The Hague, among others a subject discussed by Spinoza and Leibniz* (in late November 1676); in a note found among Leibniz’s papers it is claimed that, in order to condemn the political murder, Spinoza went to the execution place ‘Groene Zoodje’ in The Hague where he allegedly put up a piece of paper reading the text ‘ultimi barbarorum’.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 3, cols 1459–1488; Herbert H. Rowen, John de Witt, Grand Pensionary of Holland, 1625–1672 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978); Van Otegem, A Bibliography, vol. 1, pp. 124 and 128; Panhuysen, De ware vrijheid; Steenbakkers, Touber, and Van de Ven, ‘A Clandestine Notebook’, p. 315.
Wittich, Christoph (1625–1687): Cartesian theologian and mathematician, prolific writer on Cartesian subjects; author of Anti-Spinoza sive examen ethices Benedicti de Spinoza, et commentarius de Deo et ejus attributis (Amsterdam: 1690), a work focusing on concepts of God’s will and understanding, in which Wittich qualifies Spinoza’s philosophical system as a confused aberration; Wittich in a letter of 12 August 1680 to Johannes de Raey (1622–1702) claimed Spinoza’s star especially rose after the publication of the 1666 Philosophia S. Scripturae interpres, attributed to Lodewijk Meyer*.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 10, cols 1233–1234; Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands Cartesianisme; Christiane Hubert, Les Premières réfutations de Spinoza. Aubert de Versé, Wittich, Lamy (Paris: Presses Paris Sorbonne, 1994); Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 1083–1086; Theo Verbeek, ‘Wittich’s Critique of Spinoza’, in Tad M. Schmaltz (ed.), Receptions of Descartes: Cartesianism and Anti-Cartesianism in Early Modern Europe (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 113–127.
Wolfgank, Abraham (1632–1694): Amsterdam bookseller, printer, and publisher (1658–1694); shop sign: ‘in ’t Geloof’ (‘In the Faith’); worked for or in collaboration with Rieuwertsz* père; according to a letter of the Dutch biologist and microscopist Jan Swammerdam (1637–1680) to the French author-polyhistor Melchisedec Thévenot (1620–1692) of 30 March 1678, Wolfgank sold copies of the Opera posthuma; the latter was the publisher of Regnerus van Mansveld’s Adversus anonymum theologico-politicum liber, …: opus posthumum (Amsterdam: 1674), edited by Graevius* and Burman* (I) père.
References: Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 4, pp. 182–185; Lindeboom (ed.), The Letters of Jan Swammerdam, p. 96.
Wolzogen, Ludovicus (1633–1690): Walloon minister at Utrecht, Cartesian theologian, professor of church history (1664) at Utrecht University and at the Amsterdam Athenaeum Illustre (1670); crossed swords with the pietist Jean de Labadie (1610–1674); Wolzogen’s De scripturarum interprete adversus exercitatorem paradoxum (1668) was directed against the 1666 Philosophia, allegedly by Meyer*; Wolzogen was member of the Collegie der Scavanten, the republican Utrecht Cartesian network which supervised and helped Johannes Melchioris* in publishing Epistola ad amicum, the latter’s theological rejoinder to the Tractatus theologico-politicus which was published in Utrecht in 1671 and reprinted in 1672 under the title Religio ejusque natura et principium.
References: Molhuysen, etc. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 10, cols 1235–1236; Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands Cartesianisme, pp. 446–447; Israel, ‘Philosophy, Commerce and the Synagogue’, pp. 205–208 (on Wolzogen’s disputes rescuing Cartesian principles for adaptation in biblical exegesis); Van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 1091–1093; Gootjes, ‘The Collegie der sçavanten’.
Wood, Anthony (1632–1695): Oxford antiquarian and author; Wood’s reputation primarily rests upon a work called Athenae Oxonienses; owner of a vast private reference library containing copies of Miracles, no Violations of the Laws of Nature (London: 1683), the first English translation of chapter 6 of the Tractatus theologico-politicus attributed to Blount*, and of Miracles Work’s Above and Contrary to Nature (London: 1683), a retort of Spinoza’s treatise by an obscure Anglican divine named Thomas Browne.
References: Anthony Wood, The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, Antiquary, of Oxford, 1632–95, Described by Himself, Andrew Clark (ed.) (5 vols., Oxford: Oxford Historical Society, 1891–1900); Redwood, ‘Charles Blount (1654–94)’; Simonutti, ‘Spinoza and the English Thinkers’, pp. 198–204; Nicolas K. Kiessling, The Library of Anthony Wood (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 2002), pp. 66–68, nos. 1159 and 6003; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.