The Bible and the Enlightenment: A Case Study - Alexander Geddes (1737-1802) (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 377)

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JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES

377

Editors

David J.A. Clines Philip R. Davies

Executive Editor Andrew Mein

Editorial Board

Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, John Jarick, Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller

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The Bible and the Enlightenment

A Case Study-Dr Alexander Geddes (1737-1802) (The Proceedings of the Bicentenary Geddes Conference held at the University of Aberdeen, 1-4 April 2002)

edited by William Johnstone

T8.T CLARK INTERNATIONAL A Continuum imprint LONDON

•

NEW YORK

Copyright © 2004 T&T Clark International A Continuum imprint Published by T&T Clark International The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 15 East 26th Street, Suite 1703, New York, NY 10010 www.tandtclark.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset and edited for Continuum by Forthcoming Publications Ltd www.forthcomingpublications.com Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall

ISBN 0-8264-6654-0

CONTENTS Preface Abbreviations List of Contributors WILLIAM JOHNSTONE Introduction: The Bible and the Enlightenment

vii ix xiii

1

THOMAS M. DEVINE Alexander Geddes: The Scottish Context

35

CATHARINA F.M. VAN DIJK Alexander Geddes and his Unpublished Papers

44

GERARD CARRUTHERS Scattered Remains: The Literary Career of Alexander Geddes

61

BERTRAM EUGENE SCHWARZBACH Geddes in France

78

CHRISTOPH BULTMANN What do we Mean when we Talk about '(Late) Enlightenment Biblical Criticism'?

119

CHARLES CONROY The Biblical Work of Alexander Geddes against the Background of Contemporary Catholic Biblical Scholarship in Continental Europe

135

JOHN W. ROGERSON Was Geddes a 'Fragmentist'? In Search of the 'Geddes-Vater Hypothesis'

157

vi


JEAN Louis SKA Alexander Geddes between Old and New: Story and History in the Book of Numbers

168

A. GRAEME AULD Alexander Geddes on the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible

181

Cumulative Bibliography Index of References Index of Authors

201 222 227

PREFACE

The articles in this volume include papers read at a conference held in the University of Aberdeen from 1 -4 April 2002 to mark the bicentenary of the death of Alexander Geddes (4 September 1737-26 February 1802). I should like first and foremost to acknowledge the contribution of the international, interdisciplinary and interfaith group of distinguished scholars who so readily accepted the invitation to read papers, so willingly lent their expertise, and so fully co-operated in the production of this volume. It is a pleasure too to acknowledge the financial sponsorship of the British Academy, the Most Reverend Mario Conti, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, the Reverend Dr Reginald C. Fuller, Geddes's modern biographer, and the Right Honourable the Lord Petre, whose ancestors, the ninth and, for Geddes's last year, the tenth, Lord Petre, were for over twenty years the indispensable and generous patrons of his work. But assistance in organizing the conference spread far beyond the financial: I am indebted to Reginald Fuller for introducing me to Gerard Carruthers, who in turn introduced me to Catharina van Dijk; to John Rogerson for proposing the participation of Christoph Bultmann; and to Andre Lemaire for suggesting the name of Bertram Eugene Schwarzbach. I am further indebted to Philip Davies for accepting this volume into the Supplement Series of the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. I should also like to thank the Society for Old Testament Study for associating itself with the conference. Thanks are also due to the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen for hospitality and to the Faculty of Arts and Divinity Research Committee for underwriting the conference. I am most grateful to the University for providing me with office accommodation and facilities for running the conference during this final, 'extra' year, to Ian Pirie and his staff in the conference office and to the secretarial staff in the Divinity and Religious Studies department for their assistance. I am particularly indebted to Mrs Jacqueline Armstrong for supervising the domestic arrangements at the conference. For the task of editing this volume the assistance of the staff in Historic Collections in Aberdeen University Library has been invaluable.

viii


These words are written precisely 40 years to the month since my first arrival in Aberdeen, as Lecturer in Hebrew and Semitic Languages. It is a matter for particular satisfaction to me that the moment of severance of immediate physical association with the University should be marked by a celebration commemorating a notable son of the northeast of Scotland who is one of the University of Aberdeen's distinguished honorary graduates. William Johnstone 1 September 2002 King's College, University of Aberdeen

ABBREVIATIONS General Abbreviations

AB ABD ADB

AID AV

BBKL

BZAW EncJud GNB Hastings DB HAT ICC IDE

JBL JSOTSup KBL

KJV LCL NCBC NDB

NEB NICOT

Anchor Bible David Noel Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992) Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic, hrsg. durch die Historische Kommission bei der konigl. Akademie der Wissenschaften (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1875-1912) Das Alte Testament Deutsch Authorized (King James) Version Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, begriindet und hrsg. von Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz; fortgefuhrt von Traugott Bautz (Herzberg: Verlag Traugott Bautz, 1975-2001) [The articles are also available online, in some cases updated, at www.bautz.de/bbkl] Beihefte zur ZA W Encyclopaedia Judaica Good News Bible James Hastings (ed.), Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1898-1904) Handbuch zum Alten Testament International Critical Commentary George Arthur Buttrick (ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (4 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962) Journal of Biblical Literature Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner (eds.), Hebraisches und Aramdisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967-96, 3rd edn) King James (Authorized) Version Loeb Classical Library New Century Bible Commentary Neue Deutsche Biographic. Hrsg. von der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1953-) New English Bible New International Commentary on the Old Testament

X

NIV OBO OIL RGG TOTC VT VTSup WBC WMANT

ZAW

The Bible and the Enlightenment New International Version Orbis biblicus et orientalis Old Testament Library Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (3rd edn) Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum, Supplements Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Abbreviations of Alexander Geddes 's Principal Works

Bible I

Bible II

CR

GA

Psalms

Proposals

The Holy Bible, or the books accounted sacred by Jews and Christians; otherwise called the books of the Old and New Covenants: faithfully translated from corrected texts of the originals. With various readings, explanatory notes and critical remarks. I. Pentateuch and Joshua (London: printed for the author by J. Davis, and sold by R. Faulder & J. Johnson, 1792) The Holy Bible, or the books accounted sacred by Jews and Christians; otherwise called the books of the Old and New Covenants: faithfully translated from corrected texts of the originals. With various readings, explanatory notes and critical remarks. II. Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ruth, Prayer ofManasseh (London: printed for the author by J. Davis, and sold by R. Faulder & J. Johnson, 1797) Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures: Corresponding with a new translation of the Bible. I. Containing remarks on the Pentateuch (London: printed for the author by J. Davis, and sold by R. Faulder & J. Johnson, 1800) Dr. Geddes's general answer to the queries, counsils and criticisms that have been communicated to him since the publication of his Proposals for printing a New Translation of the Bible (London: printed for the author by J. Davis, and sold by R. Faulder & J. Johnson, 1790) A New Translation of the Psalms (1-118) from corrected texts of the originals, with occasional annotations (ed. J. Disney and C. Butler; London: J. Johnson, 1807) Proposals for printing by subscription a new translation of the Holy Bible from corrected texts of the originals; with various readings, explanatory notes, and critical observations (With specimens of the work) (London: printed for the author by J. Davis, and sold by R. Faulder & J. Johnson, 1788)

Abbreviations Prospectus

Prospectus of a new translation of the Holy Bible from corrected texts of the originals, compared with the ancient versions. With various readings, explanatory notes, and critical observations (Glasgow: printed for the author, and sold by R. Faulder, London; C. Eliot, Edinburgh; Cross, Dublin, 1786)

xi

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS A. Graeme Auld Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament in the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh Christoph Bultmann Professor of Biblical Studies in the University of Erfurt Gerard Carruthers Lecturer in the Department of Scottish Literature in the University of Glasgow Charles Conroy Ordinary Professor of Old Testament Exegesis in the Faculty of Theology, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome Thomas M. Devine University Research Professor in Scottish History and Director of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen Catharina P.M. van Dijk Researcher in the Christian Cultural Heritage Research Programme at the Catholic University, Nijmegen William Johnstone Professor Emeritus of Hebrew and Semitic Languages, University of Aberdeen John W. Rogerson Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield

xiv


Bertram Eugene Schwarzbach Independent scholar, based in Paris, specializing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French cultural studies Jean Louis Ska Ordinary Professor of Old Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome

INTRODUCTION: THE BIBLE AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT William Johnstone

The aim of the following collection of essays is twofold: to appraise the work for which Alexander Geddes is best known in biblical circles, his suggestions about the composition of the Pentateuch; and to try to see that work in perspective by setting it within the wider context of his other writings, his life and his times. Both of these aspects touch matters of continuing interest. The issues raised by Pentateuchal criticism remain unresolved, perhaps inevitably so in the nature of the case. As the following papers make abundantly clear, Geddes's biblical criticism relates to much wider issues arising from the thinking and events of his period, the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, issues, among others, about revelation and authority, the relation between science and religion, and the autonomy of ethics and philosophy, that are still with us. This Introduction, accordingly, falls into two sections: it begins with that biblical criticism with which Geddes is most commonly associated, and then sketches something of that broader Enlightenment framework within which he pursued his biblical studies. 1. 'The Bible...': Initial Assumptions ...to ascertain the true meaning is often as hard as to ascertain the true reading... —Geddes (Prospectus: 61)

In the annals of biblical interpretation it is conventional to ascribe to Alexander Geddes (1737-1802) an honoured, if minor, place amid the constellation of biblical critics as the originator of the 'Fragment Hypothesis' of the composition of the Pentateuch: 'although I am inclined to believe that the Pentateuch was reduced into its present form in the reign of Solomon, I am fully persuaded that it was compiled from ancient documents' (Bible I: xix). This ascription is commonplace in standard

2


'Introductions' to the Old Testament (e.g. Eissfeldt 1965: 162). I myself was first introduced to Geddes, as I imagine most students the world over are, by a passing reference in my first term of 'Old Testament Introduction'.1 Subsequent encounters included the influential discussions in the 'Oxford Hexateuch' (Carpenter and Harford-Battersby 1900,1: 44), with its cross-reference to T.K. Cheyne's Founders of Modern Criticism, and— another 'must' for students of the Old Testament in Glasgow and Aberdeen—in George Adam Smith's Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament (1901: 36), who credits Geddes with providing the conditions for the extension of scientific criticism in the Pentateuch beyond Exodus 6.2 The association of Geddes with the Fragment Hypothesis is reinforced in H.-J. Kraus's standard history of Old Testament interpretation,3 and continues down to the latest Introduction to the Old Testament that I happen to have read.4 It was the awareness of this ascription, coupled with the fact that Geddes was a native of the 'territory' of the University of Aberdeen (he was born at Arradoul, near Buckie, in Banffshire), and was, indeed, an honorary graduate of the University (LLD, conferred by both King's and Marischal Colleges, then separate universities, in 1780 [see Fuller 1984: 129-30]), that led me to cite Geddes, alongside William Robertson Smith, as one of the major pioneering biblical critics native to the North East of Scotland in my inaugural lecture in the University of Aberdeen in 1982.51 felt it my duty then that, if circumstances permitted, I should organize a 1. In John Mauchline's lectures on Old Testament Introduction in Candlemas Term, University of Glasgow, January 1957. 2. See also G.A. Smith in Hastings DB s.v. Joshua. 3. My enthusiasm for that and his other works led to the conferment of the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity on Professor Kraus by the University of Aberdeen and, in turn, to the dedication of the third edition of his Geschichte to the University. Kraus's discussion of Geddes is in Kraus 1982: 155-56. 4. Hughes 2001: 226 n. 19: 'The Fragmentary Hypothesis found advocates in scholars like W.M.L. de Wette, A. Geddes, and J.S. Vater. It argues that, instead of sources or documents, a series of disconnected fragments lay behind the legal section of the Pentateuch in particular.' Given the dates for these scholars—de Wette 17801849, Geddes 1737-1802, Vater 1771-1826—priority in that list should be given to Geddes (for the dates see index volume of RGG, 3rd edn). For the corresponding relative dating of these authors' relevant publications, see Kraus 1982: 155-56. For a discussion of Geddes's 'Place in the History of Biblical Criticism' see, as on so many other aspects of Geddes's career, Fuller 1984: 112-22 (Chapter 7), under that title. 5. Republished in Johnstone 1998: 50-73 (58-61, 70-71).

JOHNSTONE Introduction

3

conference in Aberdeen in the Spring of 2002 to mark the bicentenary of Geddes's death. Given the liveliness of the debate in current biblical scholarship, not least about the processes involved in the composition of the Pentateuch, it is perhaps timely to re-examine the perceptions of one of the pioneers of biblical criticism. Problems are never definitively 'solved'; they have to be thought through again in each generation. It may be that an understanding of the factors that give rise to critical questions and of the responses that an early critic gave to them will be illuminating, perhaps even helpful, to the continuing discussion. There is aprimafacie case that this is so. It is striking that versions of the Fragment Hypothesis have been developed in recent times. Werner H. Schmidt (1990: 79) reaffirms it, with specific citation of the theory 'developed around 1800' for the Pentateuch as a whole, in connection with the laws of the Pentateuch as collections of individual elements of varying antiquity. R.N. Whybray (1987: 222) writes of his own work: 'This approach, which postulates a single authorship for the Pentateuch, is in some respects a new version of the Fragment Hypothesis'. More narrowly, on Genesis, G.A. Rendsburg (1986) has proposed four compilers—or perhaps one—who redacted Genesis in the DavidicSolomonic period. There may be a similarity between the thinking of Geddes and the findings of 'main-line' criticism in the trajectory from Gunkel through Noth to Rendtorff. I have suggested (1998: 59-60) that Geddes's account of how traditions were preserved through association with features of the landscape (Bible I: xix, cited below and in Carpenter and Harford-Battersby 1900,1: 44) is comparable to Gunkel's account of topographical aetiologies (Gunkel 1964). Noth has developed Gunkel's perceptions about the histories of traditions in his affirmation of larger, once independent, orally transmitted 'themes' which provide the building blocks of his postulated 'G', the shared basis for the construction of the T and 'E' documents written in Israel's early to mid-monarchical period (e.g. Noth 1968: 7). In his wide-ranging review of issues in Pentateuchal criticism in his own controversial study, Konrad Schmid (1999: 12, 108) suggests that Rendtorff s account of the growth of the Pentateuch is essentially a restatement in redactio-historical terms of Noth's traditiohistorical division of the Pentateuchal materials into discrete themes.6 There are no 'sources' running through the Pentateuch; there is only the 'redactional' fitting together of large units to which the other units of the

6.

For Rendtorff s own account see, e.g., Rendtorff 1990: 31-42.

4


Pentateuch pay little attention. Schmid concludes (p. 364) that the model of 'sources' is being more and more modified or even replaced by elements of a Fragment or Supplementary Hypothesis. Such a hypothesis must be increasingly plausible the later the first editorial syntheses are placed, whether in a 'Deuteronomic' composition during the exile in the sixth century, as in E. Blum's work (e.g. 1990), or in an early post-exilic Priestly composition, as in the view of Schmid and others. The question of how once-scattered 'fragments' were brought together, developed and edited into their final form still dominates critical discussion of the formation of the Pentateuch. It is thus hardly surprising that in his magisterial overview of the state of Pentateuchal studies during the past 25 years at the conference of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament in Basel in 2001, Thomas Romer heads his §3.2 'Le retour d'une theorie des fragments?' and in his tentative conclusions affirms that a return to some kind of Fragment Hypothesis, 'the gathering together of different legislative codes and of highly diverse narrative traditions', undoubtedly does justice to the nature of the Pentateuch as, what he calls, 'a literature of compromise'.7 If the gathering, whether early or late, of once independent traditions, whether written or oral, does indeed reflect the nature of the processes behind the growth of the Pentateuch, may it be that Alexander Geddes, the old master, has still some lessons to impart to modern exponents of the arts of Pentateuchal criticism? That, I suppose, is the basic question with which I convened the conference: the original subtitle was, 'Old Ideas, New Possibilities'. As several of the following essays will show, the answer can only be in highly qualified terms even as far as the Fragment Hypothesis itself is concerned: John Rogerson engages with the stereotyped attribution head-on; Jean-Louis Ska and Graeme Auld carefully, and sometimes playfully in the best Geddes manner, consider specific sections of Geddes's work on its own terms. It will become clear that the perception that Geddes's is a radical, challenging and innovative voice in the annals of biblical study is a valid one. But whether it is adequate either to the hypothesis or to Geddes himself to link his name so exclusively to the Fragment Hypothesis are questions that are ripe for reappraisal. While not wishing to anticipate or to duplicate material unnecessarily, I find that a certain amount of overlap with the following essays will be unavoidable in this introductory overview. Some of Geddes's more vivid 7. I am most grateful to Professor Romer for sending me an advance copy of his lecture (Romer 2002).


5

'quotable quotes' and outrageous remarks inevitably appeal to more than one contributor; to preserve the integrity of the several contributions some repetition will be tolerated. Preparatory to the analyses in the following studies, I shall allow Geddes to speak as far as possible in his own words (and in his eighteenth-century spelling and punctuation) and at sufficient length, on the assumption that his oeuvre may not be familiar or available to every reader, so that the full force of their liveliness and often controversial, sometimes sharply dismissive and polemical, character may be appreciated. While, then, it might have been appropriate to begin this Introduction with a consideration of the material from Geddes that bears on the scholarly consensus that he is the originator of the Fragment Hypothesis of the composition of the Pentateuch, it seems to me that the way more likely to produce a rounded view of Geddes and his work is to begin from his own declared intention. Geddes's source critical remarks are only incidental to the main task that he set out to accomplish: to produce a modern English translation of the Bible from the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek originals, 'a faithful version of my corrected originals' (CR: iv; compare subtitle of Bible I and II, 'faithfully translated from corrected texts of the originals'; and Bible II: xii-xiii: 'we should get rid of a vast and cumbersome load of useless commentators and biblical criticism would be reduced to one single object; namely, to ascertain the genuine grammatical meaning of a genuine text'). A consideration of Geddes's primary purpose of producing a new translation of the Bible not only displays the extraordinary range and brilliance of his mind and the equally impressive range of his engagement with the primary and secondary sources available, as a bibliography constructed from his works would show. It also makes clear the controversial nature of his undertaking from the start, the controversial character that only intensifies the longer his project continues. His proposal for a new translation already implies a challenge to the supremacy of King James's well-loved Authorized Version (AV) in the English-speaking world. Although familiar with the AV from his childhood (GA: 2), Geddes had only a qualified estimate of its qualities. He compares it unfavourably with Jerome's Latin Vulgate in his account of the earliest stirrings of his ambition in 1762: 'the author of the Vulgate had endeavoured to render his originals, equivalently, into such Latin as was current in his age—"If ever I translate the Bible", said I then, "it must be after this manner"' (GA: 3). To many among the overwhelmingly predominant Protestant community it must

6


have seemed an audacious enterprise by a member of a then tiny minority and disparaged sect. Among Catholics themselves his project was a direct challenge to the existing Douai version; produced by English refugee Catholics (the Old Testament in Flanders in 1610), it is, says Geddes, 'a literal and barbarous translation from the Vulgate...accompanied with acrimonious and injurious annotations' (Prospectus: 110). It was equally a challenge to the moves afoot among the Vicars Apostolic to undertake their own revision of the Challoner Bible (Fuller 1984: 28); as always, Geddes was falling foul of his ecclesiastical superiors. The academic goals of Geddes's plan, to produce 'a faithful version of my corrected originals' (CR: iv), sound uncontroversial enough. But, in the process of evaluating the witnesses to the original text and meaning of the Bible, he has some trenchant, sometimes gratuitously offensive, comments to make on the trustworthiness or otherwise of the Christian and Jewish traditions that have hitherto been relied on. These traditions, in his view, have to be critically, even sceptically, appraised and, if need be, by-passed altogether. But Geddes also hoped by his translation to commend the Bible to the cultured reader of his day. Most controversial of all to his religious contemporaries must have seemed the implications of this appeal to the educated uncommitted outsider. As a man of the Enlightenment hoping ultimately to address an Enlightened audience, Geddes proposes to remove the Bible from its privileged status as revealed Scripture written by inspired individuals and to see it as a human product of the ancient world to be studied no differently from the Classics of Greece and Rome and on an equal footing with them. So read, it is Geddes's belief, the Bible's intrinsic qualities will become clear on their own merits and will be enough to commend it to a fair-minded rational audience; it has no need of special protection. Geddes's credo as figure of the Enlightenment, owing allegiance ultimately to reason, not to any extraneous authority, however long-established and entrenched, is defiantly stated in, for example, CR (pp. iv-vi): I have throughout acted the critic, and occasionally the commentator... In both these characters I have freely used mine own judgment (such as it is) without the smallest deference to inveterate prejudice or domineering authority. The Hebrew scriptures I have examined and appretiated, as I would any other writings of antiquity... I am well aware, that...the cry heresy! infidelity! irreligion! will resound from shore to shore. But my peaceful mind has been long prepared for.. .such harsh Cerberean barkings: and experience has made me (not naturally insensible) callous to every injury, that ignorance and malice may have in store for me... [RJeason,


1

reason only is the ultimate and only sure motive of credibility; the only solid pillar of faith.

Many of these terms resonate with heated eighteenth-century debates, the background against which Geddes worked. The significance of'infidelity', for instance, is vividly conveyed in terms of the equally heated debates in the contemporary established Church of Scotland by Sher (1985 [Sher, incidentally, in his justly acclaimed work, makes no mention of Geddes, little of the Bible, and, apart from the controversies and civil disturbances surrounding relief legislation in the late 1770s, not a great deal about Catholicism]): 'The first major ecclesiastical challenge to the Scottish Enlightenment and the Moderate party [in the Church of Scotland] was the campaign of 1755-1756 to censure the writings of David Hume and Lord Kames [in the General Assembly] for their alleged infidelity'. This move was precipitated by the publication of the first volume of Hume's History of England (1754), 'which indirectly undermined the historical foundations of the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland and boldly proclaimed the "enthusiasm" and "fanaticism" of the Scottish Reformation to be worse than anything that occurred "during the darkest night of papal superstition"'. George Anderson, chaplain to Watson's Hospital, Edinburgh (Mclntosh 1998: 69), published Five days before the opening of the assembly in May [1756]...a short pamphlet with a long and informative title: Infidelity a Proper Object of Censure. Wherein is shewn, The indispensable Obligation that lies upon Church-rulers to exercise the Discipline instituted by Christ, upon such avowed Infidels as have been solemnly initiated Members of the Christian Church by Baptism; and, if irreclaimable, to cast them out of Christian society.

These moves against Hume and Kames came to nothing; Hugh Blair, for instance, minister of St Giles and later also Regius Professor of Rhetoric at Edinburgh University, had published an anonymous pamphlet in 1755 defending, with David Hume in mind, 'freedom of inquiry and debate' (Sher 1985: 65-71) and he and his fellow Moderates carried the day in the General Assembly. But the battle-lines had been clearly drawn and the intensity of the controversy, if in a different denomination, illustrates the provocation of Geddes's vehemence: rational debate vs. entrenched, but threatened, authority. It is within this context of hoped-for appeal to the educated outsider that Geddes's discussion of the question of the authorship of the Pentateuch arises: viewed rationally according to the evidence, the Pentateuch must be the work not of one inspired writer, Moses, but of

8


a compiler of diverse traditional materials, working, according to Geddes's best estimate, probably in the time of Solomon—but the possibility of a much later date is not excluded. To pull out one strand only in Geddes's oeuvre—the question of the authorship of the Pentateuch—is thus to give a distorted picture of his significance even as biblical critic. It is also requires a great deal of inference from the incomplete discussions that Geddes has left. The challenge posed to the writers of the following essays is often like that of Nebuchadnezzar to Daniel: not simply to understand and interpret the vision, but to recreate it in the first place. This is particularly the case for Graeme Auld for whom Geddes left no accompanying Critical Remarks on the 'historical books' of the Old Testament to explain his textual and lexicographical decisions, let alone his views on wider compositional issues. But it is true also, if to a lesser extent, for the other essayists. Geddes never did give a systematic articulation of a coherent, finally considered, critical position on the question of the authorship of the Pentateuch. The General Preface in which he promised to tackle this and other topics was never published, perhaps never even drafted, apart from in his head; at least there was no trace of it in his surviving papers after his death (Fuller 1984: 104). Beginning his serious scholarly biblical work relatively late in life—he was about 45 by the time he got down to single-minded academic work in London, and even then he found plenty of distractions both literary and political—he simply did not have, could never have had, the time-span necessary to accomplish all the plans that his darting, restless mind devised and projected (for the astonishing range of his non-biblical works in the 1790s see the essays of van Dijk and Carruthers, below). In his last years his work was further interrupted by serious illness. He was the eternal optimist about what he might be able to accomplish, the many areas of scholarship that he might tackle in his writings. His first biographer writes: 'To resolve and to execute were with Geddes almost the same thing', and gives an example: 'having precipitately determined upon a literal version of the Iliad in English iambics, the public were presented with a specimen of it comprising the whole of the first book, in the beginning of 1792' (Good 1803: 283); in the Preface, Geddes claims that he can 'with ease cast off a hundred lines in a forenoon'. And there was continual slippage in his timetable. Of the eight volumes he envisaged that his translation of the Bible would require, only two were published in his lifetime—the first, the translation of the Pentateuch and Joshua in 1792, and the second, the historical books of the Old Testament, in 1797. A third volume containing


9

most of his Psalms was published posthumously. But in GA (p. 28) Geddes was envisaging the publication of one volume of his translation (in two 'tomes') already in 1790, with the accompanying Critical Observations being ready by Easter 1791. The latter—assuming it is the same as CR— did not in fact appear until 1800 and, when it did, covered only the Pentateuch. Yet ever and again Geddes envisages further grandiose schemes. In Bible I (p. xviii), he laments that he does not have the leisure to translate J.D. Michaelis's four-volume work, Mosaisches Recht (1775), into English. In his Prospectus of 1786 (34 n.) he writes, 'With five thousand pounds, I would, undertake, in less than three years, to collate every Greek manuscript of the Bible in Europe'; and again (p. 73 n.): 'I formed, many years ago, the plan of a Comparative Grammar of the principal Oriental dialects', which, by way of relaxation from more serious studies, I am now compleating'. That work was never published but still in 1800 in CR (p. 168) on Exod. 3.15 he hopes 'to have yet the means and leisure of giving [it] to the Public'. Again in the Prospectus (pp. 72-73), he states that a most useful work would be a comparative dictionary of the Semitic languages, all in Hebrew characters (cf. his transliteration of Syriac and Arabic into Hebrew characters in CR) in order to aid such comparison: 'Such a work I have long had in contemplation'; he estimates that all its production needs is the work of 'some literary drudge'. On a number of occasions, even as late as in CR (p. 191) on Exod. 8.17 for example, he alludes to his Dissertation on the Samaritan Pentateuch—a work which, again, was never published. Geddes's vision of what is required as scholarly apparatus for the academic task of translation cannot be faulted: besides all these indispensable tools just mentioned, in Prospectus (p. 71 n.) he bemoans the lack of a good concordance, and adds with typical acerbity, and some truth, 'Such a work would be worth all the commentaries that ever have been made'. But he is totally unrealistic about the demands on intellectual energy and time the preparation of such tools would require, and is silent about the necessarily collaborative nature of the various enterprises. To round out the picture of Geddes as biblical scholar, then, his characteristically trenchant comments on the implications of his programme, to produce 'a faithful version of my corrected originals', deserve some elaboration. The task is primarily twofold: lexicographical (to understand the meaning of the words in the original) and text-critical (to establish the soundest text for translation in the first place). These two aspects are interlinked: difficulty of translating may suggest that the text is defective;

10


the resources for repairing the text, especially the evidence from the ancient translations of the Hebrew text, may suggest meanings for Hebrew words that are rare or obscure. The translator's judgment is involved in every decision ('my corrected originals', the possessive adjective should be italicized) and such decisions are inevitably controversial. Geddes compounds the controversy by the vehemence of his expression. To the two aspects a third should be added: a theory of translation, on which Geddes has some remarkably twentieth-century sounding comments to make. Geddes begins to set out his programme succinctly in his Proposals. The first step is to establish the soundest reading of the traditional Hebrew text: 'Among the learned it is no longer a doubt, that the Hebrew scriptures have been transmitted to us in a mutilated and imperfect state; and the erudition of this century has been laudably exerted, to restore them, as nearly as possible, to their primitive integrity'.8 In these words he is thinking of the work of Kennicott and De Rossi who between them collated more than 1100 Hebrew manuscripts. One can imagine the enthusiasm with which Geddes would have welcomed the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the vigour with which he would have wished to pursue the variants to the traditional Hebrew text that they attest. Geddes is aware, nonetheless, of the limitations of the evidence from variations within the Hebrew manuscripts for the restoration of the oldest form of the text: many of these variants have simply arisen in defective copies of earlier, better, texts. Thus in Prospectus (p. 20), he justly comments that the 600 and more manuscripts that Kennicott has collated have all been copied after the fixing of the Masoretic text and are 'for the most part, remodelled by the same exemplar of it'. Of the Masorah itself, the Jewish definitive tradition of the transmitted Hebrew text, and the use made of it as a guide to meaning, Geddes has a low opinion. One may share his Enlightenment scientific goal, to be bound not by any extraneous authority, however exalted, but by the quality of the best evidence available, while regretting the intemperance of his expression. Proposals continues: That these exertions [the collations of Kennicott and De Rossi] were not sooner made, was owing to an unaccountable, but inveterate prejudice: namely, that the Bible...was entire and unpolluted in all its parts—every sentence, word, and letter of it, authentic and divine... Ingenuity was put on 8. The Proposals are unpaginated, but begin with an Address to the Public only six pages long. The quoted sentence is the opening one of this section.


11

the rack to accord inconsistencies, and to fish out a meaning, where no meaning lay: in short, to make sense out of nonsense...

This echoes the assault in Prospectus (p. 63) that translators for these last three hundred years, have voluntarily put out their own eyes, and allowed themselves to be led on by the worst of guides. The same imposing set of men, who had the audacity and art to make the Christian world believe that they had preserved the text of their Scriptures in its original integrity, by a pretended enumeration of every word and letter, found it equally easy to perswade them, that the true reading and meaning had also been preserved by the punctuation of every syllable, and the distinction of every pause. This was a second part of that wonderful MASORA, without which the Hebrew text was supposed to be a mere dead letter, a nose of wax. (The source of the last phrase he cites in a footnote, nasum cereum, from the Preface to the first volume of P. Guarin's Hebrew Grammar [Paris, 1724])

As for the Masoretic vowelling, 'even Christian writers have been led by this imposition' (Prospectus: 66n). He ridicules how, in the year 1679 a special canon was framed at Geneva and adopted by all the Helvetian churches; by which it was decreed that no one should in future be admitted to the sacred ministry, who did not publicly acknowledge the Masoretic text to be divine and authentic; both as to consonants and vowels. (Prospectus: 67)

He gives credit to the Protestant, Louis Cappel, 'a French Calvinist and professor of Hebrew at Saumur' (for whom see Bertram Eugene Schwarzbach's contribution to the present volume) who was instrumental in ushering in the new era of critical research: 'Capellus arose, and destroyed this spell' (Proposals: [ii]) and 'all the rabbinical learning and dialectical skill of the Buxtorfs were not able to ward it' (Prospectus: 67). In a link with his contemporary Scotland, Geddes notes that the last publication in favour of the Masoretic system is to be found in the second edition of the Hebrew grammar in Latin by Dr James Robertson, Professor in Edinburgh, 1783, 'based on the Buxtorfs, Leusden, Schultens, and Guarin', to oppose the view of Wilson of St Andrews, Elements of Hebrew Grammar (1782) (Prospectus: 68). It should be noted that Geddes does, however, also cite Jewish authorities with approval, where he deems appropriate, even if in a backhanded kind of way ('even from the dunghill of the Jerusalem Targum a pearl may be here and there picked up', Prospectus: 42). In CR on Exod. 28.17, for instance, he approves 'the words of a sensible and modest Rabbi', whom

12


he identifies in a note as Abraham Ben David (Portaleone, Dissertatio de vestitu sacerdotum Hebraeorum [1752]). He commends 'Jarhi [Rabbi Salomon Jarchi (Rashi), 1040-1105]' in CR (p. 218) on Exod. 12.37: 'If all the Jewish commentators reasoned in this manner, their comments would be much more valuable than they are', and adds, 'To do justice to a learned Jew of our own time and country, I cannot help adding the sensible note of Delgado [Isaac Delgado, A New Testament of the Pentateuch (London, 1789)]'. Geddes is impartial in his mercilessness, even-handed in his scathing ridicule, on irrationality wherever he finds it, whether in Jewish tradition, in Protestant commitment to verbal inerrancy, or in superstitious belief and practice in his own communion. He is well aware of the contentious nature of his work and that he will inevitably be embroiled in controversy with Protestants and with his own Church. But he sticks resolutely to the task: From the truly learned, I flatter myself, I have not much to fear. They well know what difficulties I have had to encounter, and will appretiate my labours with a degree of indulgence proportionate to the arduousness of my task. But the number of truly learned is wonderfully small, compared with the copious herd of falsely-named critics, who censure for the sake of censuring, and condemn for the pleasure of condemning. To the captiousness and cavils of such, I shall, certainly, pay no regard. (Proposals: [iii])

In view of his fusillades it is a useful corrective to find him writing in Prospectus (p. 100 n.), 'translators should be philologists not controversialists', and later (p. 117 n.): 'The age of polemical scurrility is, or ought to be, now over; and writers of every persuasion will henceforth, we trust, reciprocally assist one another, towards discovering the genuine signification of such texts or terms as admit of ambiguity; without insidiousness or rancour'. That, one must suppose, is reserved for like-minded Enlightened scholars. The means for penetrating behind the tradition of the Masorah to an earlier phase of the transmission of text and, thus, to a sounder access to meaning, is the witness of the ancient versions and, for the Old Testament, comparative Semitic philology—the evidence of the meaning of cognate words in other Semitic languages. These two resources are linked in that many of the ancient versions are Semitic. In this respect the six huge folio volumes of Brian Walton's London Polyglot of 1657, with the Hebrew, Samaritan, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic versions laid out in parallel, with appropriate Latin translations, and including also the Ethiopic and Persian, is Geddes's basic text.


13

By the help of these versions, compared with the original and with one another, and of the various readings of the text itself, collected in the present century from a great number of manuscripts [Kennicott and De Rossi again], a nearly genuine copy of the Pentateuch may, by the rules of a judicious criticism, be at length obtained. (Bible I: xx)

On comparative Semitic philology Geddes writes: 'the true signification of many words, to which the rabbins had affixed a wrong or vague meaning, was discovered or determined, by having recourse to the Arabic and other kindred dialects, and by a more particular attention to the antient versions' (Proposals: [ii]). Geddes avows a particular partiality to the Samaritan version, a plausible position given the closeness of its dialect to Biblical Hebrew and its assumed antiquity (cf. Prospectus: 19); for instance, in CR (p. 251) on Exod. 20.21, where he adopts the long plus in the Samaritan text: 'In no where is the superiority of the Sam. Text more apparent than here... Moses, in his rehearsal of this very transaction, Deut. 5.28-31, refers to this very speech; although he repeats not the whole of it. And indeed, without it, the Text is evidently bald, and ill connected.' The Septuagint is also given an honoured place; for instance, in CR (p. 190) on Exod. 8.17 (on which he makes the Saussurian-like distinction, 'So much for the meaning of D^DD; now for its etymology'): Indeed the authority of the Septuagint alone is to me a stronger proof that not lice, but gnats, OKIVI(|)ES, is the genuine meaning of D"]D, than that of all the rabbinical commentators together, with Josephus at their head; and with the collateral aid of both Arabs, Pers. and Gr. Ven...— Nor of small avail is the testimony of Jerom who.. .follows the Septuagint; and renders Erin sciniphes, or cinifes\ which he would hardly have done, if his Hebrew masters, to whom he sometimes gave too much credit, had told him that the word had a different meaning.

Always Geddes is aware that judgment is involved; thus in a footnote at the end of his discussion of textual and versional variants in CR (p. 290) on Exod. 32.8 he comments: 'The reader will balance the authorities, and judge for himself, as I have done'. In his lexicographical studies Geddes is frequently extremely impressive (his discussion of "H£> in CR on Exod. 6.3 is exemplary). His thoroughness in combing the versions and the other Semitic languages for plausible meanings for Hebrew words anticipates the procedures particularly associated with G.R. Driver in the twentieth century. His discussion of 'hornets' in CR (pp. 258-59) on Exod. 23.28 (33 lines in the text; seven in the footnotes) may be taken as an example:

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The Bible and the Enlightenment I doubt very much of the propriety of this translation ['hornets']. We nowhere read, in the sequel of the history, that hornets.. .were sent among the Chanaanites: hence some interpreters have inferred, that it is a mere metaphorical expression. So Rosenmuller... Bochart.. .contends that the words are to be taken in their proper literal meaning; and has accumulated examples of several other peoples having been chased from their habitations by insects [Geddes's footnote: Hieroz. pars i. lib. iv. c.13]'. Aben-Ezrah: some malady, e.g. leprosy; so Saadias. Delgado corrects our public version [i.e. the AV] thus: I will send the fretting leprosy. I will now risk a new version, drawn, I think, from the primitive signification of I7~1H [Geddes's footnote: see Castell or Golius on the Arabic], which I take to be prostration, consternation, dejection of mind.. .but then we must read...either flETIJl or TIETUI. The former of these readings is authorised by some copies of Sep. [Geddes's footnote: So the Rom. edition: EKJSaAsis: but Aid. Compl. Alex, and the Coptic version, have EK(3aAco. The Glasg. and Canon. MSS. have eKâAei; and so Austin seems to have read in the Old Italic. Bos (I know not on what authority) says, that the Vat. Cod. has EKfiaAEi. The Roman editors only say, In aliis est £K[3aAEi. Such copies, I apprehend, had been corrected on the Hebrew; among which are Glasg. and Canon. MSS. Theodoret, vol. i p. 327, nov. ed. has EôAoSpEuaei, which favours the Heb. text.] and by the Arabic of Saadias [Geddes's footnote: "TIED]; the latter by other copies of Sep. and by Syr. [Geddes's footnote: plinth]. I am inclined to think that either of these readings is preferable to that of the present text: yet there is no variety of lection in the Heb. or Sam. copies.

'Panic' is the rendering to be found in some modern versions (e.g. NEB, GNB), no doubt in ignorance of Geddes's pioneering work.9 Many further examples could be given of Geddes's textual and lexicographical procedure, the demands he makes on his reader by his enthusiastic erudition,10 9. The originator in the modern period is recognized to be L. Koehler (in an article published in ZAW 54; see KBL s.v.). Koehler in his article makes use of the same Arabic cognate as Geddes, apparently independently and without consciousness that he had been anticipated by Geddes 140 years earlier! Graeme Auld, in his contribution to this volume, notes a similarly unacknowledged contribution by Geddes on 2 Kgs 6.33. 10. To follow up the full range of the allusions in the above quotation alone would already present a challenge. Geddes does not help his reader by providing either a bibliography or a list of abbreviations. Fortunately the researcher is now assisted by the incomparable COPAC online catalogues. For Rosenmuller, and Bochart's Hieroz. [oicon], see J.L. Ska's chapter in the present volume, §§3.1 and 3.2. 'Abn Ezra' is Abraham ben Me'ir Ibn Ezra (1092-1167); 'Saadias', Sa'adiah ben Joseph al-Fayyuma, Gaon (882-942). Edmund Castell (1606-85) was a contributor to Walton's London Polyglot and author of Lexicon heptaglotten (Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Samaritan,


15

and his forthright, provocative and sometimes playful manner, which no doubt caused as much offence as it disarmed. To produce 'a faithful version of my corrected originals' needs not simply textual and lexicographical work; it also requires a theory of translation. Geddes's theory of a faithful translation involves his notion of 'equipollency' (GA: 5): my first care had been to restore them [the Hebrew Scriptures] as nearly as possible to their original integrity... The words and sentences of this corrected, unpointed, and undivided text, I then endeavoured to render into equivalent English terms; terms, such as the authors themselves would, in my fancy, have most probably used, if they had written in the language of the translators.

For merely 'to render the peculiar idiotisms of any language into any other language, is not to translate, but to travesty'. His aim is to produce, as he puts it, 'a sentential, not a literal, translation'. As he had already explained in Prospectus (p. 127): 'my translation.. .is neither literal nor verbal; but, if I may use the term, strictly sentential', that is, every sentence of the English corresponds as exactly to the Hebrew, as the difference of the two idioms will permit'. He thus quotes with approval Selden's criticism of the AV (Prospectus: 93): 'It is rather translated into English words, than into English phrase'. On the same grounds he commends Luther's version: 'The idle sneer of F. Simon, "that Luther seemed to have only in view to make the Holy Ghost speak good German", is in reality a great panegyric' (Prospectus: 129). Geddes illustrates what he means by equipollency, transmitting the force of the original by transposing the idioms of the original into those of the receptor language, on the basis of Gen. 29.1. A literal translation would run: 'Jacob lifted up his feet, and went into the land of the sons of the East'. An appropriate translation of this verse 'can be done only by a liberal, but strict, equipollency; and not by a servile imitation'. 'If I were to say to a friend, who had resolved visiting Scotland, "Sir, when do you intend to lift up your feet, and go into the land of the sons of the North?" Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian) (London, 1669); Jacobus Golius (1596-1667) published his Lexicon Arabico-Latinum (Leiden, 1653). Geddes provides information on the editions of the Versions that he used in Prospectus (pp. 23-39 for the Greek), where still further examples of his unrealized publishing ambitions are stated: 'a due account of which [his work in collating the Glasgow Octateuch] shall in due time be given to the public' (p. 38 n.); '[Saadias] will probably be the subject of a separate dissertation' (p. 43 n.). Lambert Bos (1670-1717) published his edition of Codex Vaticanus in 1709.

16


he would certainly think me an idle pedant' (GA: 15). Geddes renders the verse in Bible I as: 'Jacob then, pursuing his journey, came into the eastern country'. Once again Geddes shows himself prescient in his anticipation of twentieth-century discussion. His theory of 'equipollency' is surely little different from the concept of 'dynamic equivalence', later 'formal equivalence', advocated by Eugene Nida (cf. Nida and Taber 1969: 33-55; deWaard and Nida 1986). I suggested at the beginning of this Introduction that the passing attribution to Geddes of the Fragment Hypothesis of the composition of the Pentateuch conventional in standard works on the Old Testament does scant justice to his contribution as biblical critic and that that contribution should be seen within the wider framework of his stated objective: to provide a new translation of the Bible from the original texts. Nonetheless, in view of the importance which Geddes has assumed in connection with the Fragment Hypothesis, this section should conclude with his words on the subject of Pentateuchal authorship quoted above, now set in context (these words are also cited in part by Carpenter and Harford-Battersby 1900, I: 44, in the influential quotation mentioned at the outset, and are again discussed by John Rogerson below). In the Preface to Bible I, which includes both Pentateuch and Joshua, Geddes asks (xviii-xx): Who was the author of so admirable a work?... As the subject will necessarily occupy a considerable place in my General Preface [which was never written], I shall now content myself with giving, in very few words, the result of my own investigation... [FJrom intrinsic evidence, three things to me seem indubitable. 1st, The Pentateuch, in its present form, was not written by Moses. 2dly, It was written in the land of Chanaan, and most probably at Jerusalem. 3dly, It could not be written before the reign of David, nor after that of Hezekiah. The long pacific reign of Solomon (the Augustan age of Judasa) is the period to which I would refer it: yet, I confess, there are some marks of a posterior date, or at least of posterior interpolation. But although I am inclined to believe that the Pentateuch was reduced into its present form in the reign of Solomon, I am fully persuaded that it was compiled from ancient documents, some of which were coeval with Moses, and some even anterior to Moses. Whether all these were written records, or many of them only oral traditions, it would be rash to determine. It is my opinion, that the Hebrews had no written documents before the days of Moses; and that all their history, prior to that period, is derived from monumental indexes, or traditional tales. Some remarkable tree, under which a patriarch had resided; some pillar, which he had erected; some heap, which he had raised; some ford, which he had crossed; some spot,


17

where he had encamped; some field, which he had purchased; the tomb in which he had been laid—all these served as so many links to hand his story down to posterity; and corroborated the oral testimony transmitted, from generation to generation, in simple narratives, or rustic songs. That the marvellous would sometimes creep into these, we may easily conceive: but still the essence, or at least the skeleton, of history, was preserved... Moses.. .most probably was the first Hebrew writer [Geddes uncritically appeals to Acts 7.22 as evidence on Israel's history]... From his journals, a great part of the Pentateuch seems to have been compiled... [It is] more probable, that the latter [the compiler of the Pentateuch, in the reign of Solomon] was the first collector.. .from such documents as he could find, either among his own people, or among the neighbouring nations.

Geddes thus is of the opinion that the Pentateuch was for the most part probably written by a collector/compiler in the time of Solomon. The collector/compiler made use principally of the written memoirs of Moses, the first Israelite to write. He incorporated oral traditions in prose and verse stemming from the pre-Mosaic period transmitted in association with—and corroborated by—physical features in the landscape and also such other Israelite and non-Israelite documents as were available to him. The whole work was, however, subject to later modification or, at least, interpolation. There are here in undeveloped form many hints and intuitions of the later history of Pentateuchal criticism: the use of oral and written source materials; the oldest written edition, a compilation, dated to the early monarchy; subsequent editorial development. Geddes accordingly criticizes Astruc (Conjectures sur les Memoires Originaux, dont ilparoit que Moise s 'est servipour composer la Genese [1753]) and Eichhorn (Einleitung ins Alte Testament [1787]) for advancing a hypothesis that the Pentateuch was composed by Moses from two written documents from the period before Moses: Some modern writers.. .allowing Moses to be the author of the Pentateuch, maintain, that he composed the book of Genesis from two different written documents which they have attempted to distinguish by respective characteristics. Although I really look upon this as the work of fancy, and will elsewhere endeavour to prove it to be so [WJ—this was never done].

'I am not so self sufficient as to imagine', Geddes adds, one cannot but feel with a certain disingenuousness, 'that I may not be in the wrong'. Geddes lists Eichhorn's 'more minute discrimination' according to which two documents emerge roughly equivalent to those later labelled 'P' and T. Eichhorn regards Gen. 2.4-25; 3; 14; perhaps 33.18-34.31; 36; and possibly 49.1-27, as 'interpolations' (Geddes reinforces the point in CR: 29).

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On the one hand, Geddes shows himself more prescient than Astruc and Eichhorn on the question of non-Mosaic authorship. On the other hand, Geddes shows himself less sensitive than Astruc and Eichhorn to the literary compositeness of the final narrative. In CR (pp. 295-96) on Exod. 34.23 Geddes trembles on the edge of recognition that violation of a law, even by approved religious leaders of the community, implies that that law had not yet been promulgated by the time of those leaders (a favourite argument of later critics like Robertson Smith [e.g. 1907: 235]). He cites Josephus (War 6.9.3) on the huge numbers, 2.7 million, present at Passover: at that period the Jews seem to have been stricter observers of their ritual laws than their predecessors before the Captivity. —...I find not a single instance of the observation of this Mosaical precept, not even in the reign of the pious David, or of the wise Solomon: nor, indeed, do we read of the great Phasah itself being kept but once by King Josiah... [I]t is very odd that not one instance of it is recorded in the Hebrew annals, from the entrance of the Israelites into the Land of Chanaan, save once by Joshuah at Gilgal... Is it not strange that Solomon, who offered so many thousands of victims, is never said to have kept either the paschal festival, or any of the other two festivals here mentioned?

The character of the compiler of the Pentateuch as writer emerges more clearly in CR (pp. 179-80) on Exod. 6.3. He is a 'poetical historian'; the very anachronisms suggest unitariness of authorship. It matters not whether these were the very words of Jacob and Isaac, or of the poetical historian who put them in their mouths. The poetical historian must have made them speak something like the language of their age, and use terms that were then known. In short, unless we suppose the Pentateuch to be a compilation of jarring elements assemblaged by different hands, we must allow that the name Jehovah has been put in the mouths of the patriarchs prior to Moses, and in the mouth of God himself, by some posterior copier.

One must assume that Geddes attributes the same date to the book of Joshua as he does to the Pentateuch. 'To the Pentateuch I have joined the book of Joshuah, both because I conceive it to have been compiled by the same author, and because it is a necessary appendix to the history contained in the former books' (Bible I: xxi). For Judges-2 Kings it is a different matter, as the Preface to Bible II (p. xvi) makes clear: who were the authors of those books [Samuel, Kings], and of the preceding book of Judges, is a question of pure conjecture. All that, to me, appears to


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be certain, or highly probable, is that they were compiled, or reduced into their present form, either after, or during, the Babylonish captivity.—

'But I must here again', Geddes frustratingly adds, 'refer to my [unwritten] General Preface'. As far as the composition of the Pentateuch is concerned, it would appear, then, that it is not 'a compilation of jarring elements assemblaged by different hands'. Though it is the work of a writer, later, perhaps much later, than Moses, that writer, a 'poetic historian', has 'assemblaged' materials—'documents', is one of the terms Geddes uses, occasionally 'fragments';11 traditions oral and written, in any event—that have been 11. In the unpublished two-volume version of his thesis submitted in 1968, and which he kindly deposited in Aberdeen University Library (accession date 31 January 1997), Fuller notes (1968, I: 224) that Geddes explicitly uses the term 'fragment' of Gen. 10 (CR: 78; cf. p. 29, on Gen. 2.4-3.24, 'the supposed second fragment'). Geddes's use of the term 'document' (by which he means any of the discrete materials, written or oral, that the final compiler has used) may have given rise to the deep-seated misapprehension that he espoused the two-document theory of the composition of Genesis of Astruc and Eichhorn. In John Mauchline's lectures on Old Testament Introduction, referred to above in n. 1, the statement in the printed hand-out reads, 'Alexander Geddes (floruit c.1800) propounded the Fragment hypothesis'. My matching hand-written lecture notes state that Geddes's view was that the Pentateuch was compiled from fragments in the time of Solomon, by two circles of authors— Elohist and Jahwist. The last phrase, which, looking back, I initially assumed must have been merely a first-year student's mistake in note-taking, in fact repeats the misapprehension that John Rogerson deals with below in the context of his discussion of Kraus 1969 (the same misapprehension recurs in, e.g., Harrison 1970: 14, 500). Mauchline, I have reason to believe, derived it from Eissfeldt (cf. Eissfeldt 1965: 162: 'Geddes pictured the Pentateuch as.. .a collection of fragments. He did assume, making use of Astruc's recognition of the difference in the two divine names and the difference of two sources indicated by this, that the fragments belonged to two different circles, of which the one was accustomed to use Elohim and the other Jehovah...'). Fuller has picked up this point in his hand-written notes (1968,1: 115 verso), commenting on the first edition of Kraus's Geschichte (p. 145), where again it is alleged that, on the basis of Astruc's findings, Geddes proposed two 'series' in which the fragments were ordered before they were combined by the redactor. Fuller can hardly be right in his continuation, however, 'This is developed in Eissfeldt and there Geddes is made to speak of an E circle and a J circle' (citing the ET of 1965). Rather, Kraus is likely to have got the material from Eissfeldt: the first edition of Eissfeldt's Einleitung, in which the same words appear, was published in 1934, more than 20 years before the first edition of Kraus's Geschichte (1956). See further John Rogerson's contribution to the present volume, which is concerned to show that Geddes is not a 'fragmentist' in the sense of the German tradition developed in Vater.

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harmonized with one another, and has produced a unitary work. This is the conception of the authorship of the Pentateuch that seems to be reflected in Geddes's accounts of the law-codes of the Pentateuch. Here above all, later historical-critical study would identify progression, a temporal development in the law-codes, usually from 'B', the Book of the Covenant in Exod. 20.22-23.33, to 'D', the code in Deuteronomy 12-26, to 'H', the Holiness Code in Leviticus 17-26. Such a development is regarded as entirely plausible, intrinsic to the nature of case law as an evolving corpus of precedents. Geddes in his masterly unitary presentation of the content of the Pentateuchal law-codes evinces not a trace of any inconsistency or growth (Bible I: xiii-xviii, unfortunately too voluminous to reproduce here). His account could be read with pleasure and acceptance by any modern-day 'final-form' interpreter for whom genetic questions of origin and development are beside the point. Geddes the defiant radical critic of rabbinic and ecclesiastical tradition turns out to be notably conservative in his harmonistic account of the content of the laws of the Pentateuch. 2. '... and the Enlightenment': Wider Questions .. .the voice of man; speaking, perhaps, through a trumpet... —Geddes (CR, on the theophany in Exod. 20.22)

Geddes's credo as Enlightenment scholar has been touched on above. His acceptance by his contemporaries as a figure of the Enlightenment is beyond question, as his familiar contacts with the literati of the age indicate. Already during his time as local priest at Auchenhalrig in the 1770s, for instance, Geddes met scholars from Aberdeen and Edinburgh through Gordon Castle at Fochabers (Symington 1947: 4). This intimacy must have been of assistance to him in securing the award of an honorary doctorate at Aberdeen in 1780, where his sponsors presumably included George Campbell, Principal of Marischal College, and James Beattie, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic.12 Later, for example, he was a member of the new Society of Antiquaries in Scotland, and translated for the Society's journal in 1792 Virgil's first eclogue into Edinburgh Scots, and the first idyll of Theocritus into Buchan Doric (Good 1803: 58).13 The Enlighten12. Fuller 1984: 25,129-30; for Campbell see Suderman 2001; for Beattie see King 1977. 13. One may cite these parochial contacts with a certain amount of confidence in the light of Herman 2002, even if the subtitle of his work, 'The Scots' Invention of


21

ment provides precisely the ecumenical context for the pursuit of truth that Geddes craves. It is to 'the sons of science and philosophy' that, above all, he wishes to commend his translation of the Bible. But the price is high: if only exaggerated claims for inspiration could be abandoned, the Hebrew Scriptures would be more generally read and studied, even by fashionable scholars... For what deters the sons of science and philosophy from reading the Bible.. .but the stumbling-block of absolute inspiration...? Were the same books presented to them as human compositions, written in a rude age, by rude and unpolished writers, in a poor uncultivated language; I am persuaded that they would soon drop many of their prejudices.. .and become, in many cases, of scoffers, admirers. (Bible II: xiii)

The Bible can stand comparison on its own merits: 'every reader of taste must deem it [the Song of Moses in Exod. 15] a most beautiful composition, and worthy to be put in competition with the best pieces of Greece or Rome; indeed, in my estimation, it surpasses any thing of the kind that Rome or Greece ever produced [Geddes's footnote: esp. v.9]' (CR: 235, on Exod. 15.16). The question of Geddes's relationship to the spirit of his age as expressed in the French and Scottish Enlightenments, therefore, needs now to be further introduced.14 The following essays will develop aspects of the influence of the Enlightenment on Geddes's biblical work (see the contributions by Bertram Eugene Schwarzbach, Christoph Bultmann and Charles Conroy) and will set that work in the context of his life and times (so Thomas Devine and Catherine van Dijk) and of his wider poetic and literary osuvre (so Gerard Carruthers). Byway of introduction, I shall present here some further materials on Geddes's self-understanding, sketch something of the wider Enlightenment culture of his time, and propose examples of how Enlightenment views are discernible in his biblical criticism, in particular in his discussion of the biblical account of creation, and of history and miracle, and raise questions about how far these views are a reflection of his life-story. the Modern World', is somewhat exaggerated; for this was the period when, as Herman puts it, 'Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh were the triple wellsprings of the modern mind' (vii). 14. The interpretation of Geddes as representative of his age may lead to a more rounded appreciation of his work than appears in McKane 1989: e.g. 161-62: 'His rationalism is too narrow to make sense of religion, and he ends up with an intellectual elite in circumstances hardly less absurd than those attaching to any unyielding, dogmatic predestinarianism'.

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The passage from the Preface to Critical Remarks already quoted from in Part I deserves fuller citation. It provides ampler materials on his credo: 'I believe as much as I find sufficient motives of credibility for believing: and without sufficient motives of credibility, there can be no rational belief (p. v). The similarities to, if not the echoes of, David Hume seem unmistakable: 'A wise man... proportions his belief to the evidence' (Of Miracles [1748], quoted in Broadie 1997: 301). Geddes engages in typically forthright manner with the Christian credulity that, he sees, is rife in his time: The vulgar Papist and the vulgar Protestant are here on almost equal terms... The vulgar Papist rests his [faith] on the supposed infallibility of his church... He reads in his catechism, or is told by his catechist, that the church cannot err in what she teaches; and then he is told, that this unerring church is composed only of those who hold communion with the bishop of Rome, and precisely believe as he, and the bishops who are in communion with him, believe. From that moment reason is set aside; authority usurps its place, and implicit faith is the necessary consequence. He dares not even advance to the first step of Des Cartes's logic; he dare not doubt: for in his table of sins, which he is obliged to confess, he finds doubting in matters of faith to be a grievous crime. But, on the other hand, is the faith of the vulgar Protestant better founded? He rests it on a book... [H]e is taught to believe the Bible to be the infallible word of God, before he has read.. .it... His belief.. .is as implicit as that of the vulgar Papist... Both give up their reason.. .the one on the authority of his parents, or of his priest; the other on the authority of his parents, or of his parson... If the parson be asked how he himself knows that the book... is the infallible word of God; he cannot, like the priest, appeal to an unerring church... If he say, that the book manifests its infallibility by its own intrinsic worth, he begs the question... If he affirm,.. .by the working of the Holy Spirit in his heart, he plays the enthusiast: and his enthusiasm can be no rational motive of credibility for any other individual, who feels not the like operations of the same Spirit... Yet.. .the Romanists.. .always reasoned in...a vicious circle; and proved the infallibility of the church from the authority of scripture, and the authority of scripture from the church's infallibility.

Geddes's rejection of external authorities, whether of Church (and Synagogue) or of the Bible itself, and affirmation of reason as the sole ground of belief is thoroughly in line with the definition of Enlightenment proposed by Alexander Broadie, following Kant (Broadie 2001: 15-16): 'Enlightenment' implies 'emergence from darkness', that is, from the 'dead hand of authority, especially political authority and even more especially religious authority' which could be, and often was, quite literally lethal.


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The Enlightenment is 'the extension of the empiricism of Newtonian science to the study of humanity' (Broadie 2001: 54).15 This definition may be amplified by the portrayal of 'the values and principles held in common by European and American philosophes' in Sher(1985:8): a love of learning and virtue; a faith in reason and science; a dedication to humanism and humanitarianism; a style of civilized urbanity and polite cosmopolitanism; a preference for social order and stability; a respect for hard work and material improvement; an attraction to certain types of worldly pleasures and amusement [Sher is thinking particularly of the theatre]; a taste for classical serenity tempered by sentimentalism; a distrust of religious enthusiasm and superstition; an aversion to slavery, torture, and other forms of inhumanity; a commitment to religious tolerance and freedom of expression; and at least a modicum of optimism about the human prospect if people would take the trouble to abide by these principles and cultivate their gardens as best they can. [The last phrase is obviously prompted by Voltaire.]

Helpfully, in view of Geddes's dual background in the Scottish and French Enlightenments, Sher situates the three main generations of the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment in relation to European (and North American) counterparts: [The Scottish Enlightenment] began with the coming of age of Francis Hutcheson's pioneering generation of literati—Lord Kames, Colin Maclaurin, Alexander Monmprimus, George Turnbull, and Robert Wallace, among others—who were born, like Voltaire, in the 1690s. It reached its peak under the leadership of the impressive array of literati born between 1710 and the mid- or late 1720s, including (in order of age) Thomas Reid, William Cullen, David Hume, Lord Monboddo, Hugh Blair, George Campbell, William Robertson, Adam Smith, Alexander Carlyle, John Home, Adam Ferguson, John Gregory, Sir John and Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hailes), James Hutton, Joseph Black, Alexander Gerard, and Robert Adam— who were the contemporaries of Diderot, d' Alembert, d'Holbach, and Kant. And it received its final thrust from a number of literati born after 1735, such as the controversial James Beattie, Henry Mackenzie, John Millar, John Playfair and, at the chronological limits of the Enlightenment, Dugald Stewart (born 1753)—who were roughly the same ages as Gibbon, Beccaria, Condorcet, Jefferson and Goethe. (Sher 1985: 8-9) 15 Compare Sher 1985: 167: 'Hutcheson and Ferguson [of the first generation of the Scottish Enlightenment] were both moral Newtonians of a sort, striving to discover nature's secret laws about man and society in order to reveal the majesty of God's handiwork'.

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Several of these figures—and others besides—are mentioned directly in Geddes's work, especially those of Sher's slightly older second generation to whom above all he defers (Beattie [1735-1803] is almost his exact contemporary). For example, in his Prospectus, having thanked Kennicott for introducing him to Bishop Lowth and Lord Petre as his patron (pp. 143-44), Geddes makes specific mention by name only of'the Bishops of London and Salesbury [sic], Dr. Gosset of London, Principal Robertson of Edinburgh, Drs. Reid and Findlay of Glasgow' (p. 145 n).16 In GA (p. 5) he comments favourably on the theory of translation of Dr George Campbell, Principal of Marischal College, Aberdeen—though that does not prevent him disagreeing with him on occasion.17 There is perhaps an indirect allusion to Thomas Reid's common sense philosophy in GA (p. 24), where Geddes defends himself as a logician; he has read his 'Des Cartes, Locke and Malebranch! And what I value more than all that, God of his goodness has endowed me with a share of common sense' (Geddes's italics). Equally L'Advocat, Geddes's Professor of Hebrew in Paris, is clothed by him in the garb of the eighteenth-century Moderate in his encomium: 'He had a penetrating genius, an astonishing memory, a correct judgment, and an exquisite taste. He was the most universal scholar, the most pleasant teacher, the most benevolent man and the most moderate theologian I ever knew' (Prospectus: 120n.). Two examples of Enlightenment influences on Geddes's thought may be proposed: James Hutton on geology, and David Hume on miracle (though neither is, I think, explicitly mentioned by Geddes by name; these influences are explored further in Christoph Bultmann's contribution to the present volume). Hutton's observations about the agelessness of the earth according to the unceasing processes of erosion, sedimentation, consolidation, elevation, folding, had been confirmed by observations in Glen Tilt near Blair Atholl in 1785 (Broadie 2001: 211-14). Jean Jones (Daiches, Jones and Jones 1996: 116) puts his significance thus: 'Hutton's impact on geology rivals Hume's influence on philosophy, Smith's on economics 16. Findlay, Professor of Theology, did not altogether return the compliment, publishing in 1803 an attack on Geddes 'for denying the absolute and universal inspiration of the Hebrew Scriptures' (Fuller 1984: 102). 17. In CR (p. 421) he quotes his view of the meaning of Deut. 4.4, which Campbell takes as two statements. Suderman argues that Campbell was, theologically, a more conservative figure than Geddes: the former's views on miracle, for instance, would not be able to withstand the growth of the biblical criticism of which the latter was a pioneer (Suderman 2001: e.g. 67, 152).


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and Black's on Chemistry'. She cites from his paper, 'Theory of the Earth', which was delivered to the Royal Society of Edinburgh: 'the result...of our present enquiry is that we find no vestige of a beginning—no prospect of an end' (Transactions oftheRSE, I, i, 1788: 304). These findings could not contrast more sharply with Archbishop Ussher's Annals of the World (1658), calculated on the basis of the biblical evidence and engrossed with seeming canonical authority on the pages of the AV: 'The beginning of time fell upon the entrance of the night preceding the twenty-third day of Octob. in the year 4004 BC'. It is interesting that Geddes includes Ussher's dates in his specimen translation of Genesis 1 in his Proposals1*1 but drops them in Bible I. Geddes shows himself abreast of geological discovery and is unthreatened by it. He dismisses 'Some lynx-eyed Anglo-Flemish divines' who have accused him of 'Prasadamitism' (GA: 25). In Bible I (pp. ii-iii) he writes: this...planet...Earth [may] have rolled in its little orbit for millions and millions of years, and have undergone... millions of revolutions; before it was made the habitation of man... [MJany terrestrial phenomena lead us to suspect that it had been peopled with animals of some kind, long before the commencement of our earliest chronology... [T]he world of the Hebrew cosmologist was a recent world, created out of pre-existing matter... [T]he six days of creation was not an absolute creation but a reduction of unfashioned matter into order and form.

Geddes's awareness of developments in the field of geology are matched in botany: he cites Linnaeus in CR on, for example, Exod. 9.31 (on flax) and 16.14 (on manna). In CR (p. 209) on Exod. 12.8 he comments: 'We sadly yet want a good work on Oriental botany; to which, we hope, some of Buonaparte's literary followers will not fail to pay due attention'. It may be added here how receptive his lively mind was to new discoveries of anthropologists and travellers. In CR (p. 235) on Exod. 15.26 on the divine epithet NB1 ('healer'), he comments: 'It is somewhat remarkable that in the Otaheitean language the word rapaoo denotes ^physician. See Cook's Last Voyage' (cf. Broadie 2001: 70, for the significance in the Enlightenment of reports from Asia and Polynesia). He happily cites comparative anthropological material from Hindus in, for example, CR on Exod. 3.2 and Sikhs on Exod. 3.5. 18. Accompanied by the comment, however, 'it is not necessary to suppose, that even the earth did not at all exist before this period. It may have lain for ages in its primordial state, or have passed through many other states, before it was made a receptacle for man'.

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To return to the implications of the discoveries of geology for the interpretation of Genesis 1-3: if, in the light of geology, Genesis 1 is not a factual, scientific account of the origin of the world, what is it? the Hebrew historiographer invented his Hexahemeron, or six days creation, to inforce more strongly the observance of the Sabbath... [H]is history of the Fall...[is] an excellent mythologue [Gesses's footnote: I have taken the liberty to coin this word...] to account for the origin of human evil... The serpent will then... speak, like the beasts and birds in Pilpay or Esop... Reader! dost thou dislike this mode of interpretation? Embrace any other that pleases thee better... Let the father of Hebrew history be tried by the same rules of criticism as the father of Greek history [Geddes's footnote: ...I constantly set aside the idea of inspiration; and consider the historical part of the Pentateuch as a mere human composition]. (Bible I: xi)

These words provide the transition to the other example of the influence of the Enlightenment on Geddes's thinking: his discussions of miracle. Frequently where miracles are recounted in the Bible, for example, in Exodus, Geddes accepts the underlying historicity of the events (the plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, the revelation at Mt Sinai, for instance; his assumption of historicity allows him to suppose the derivation of some biblical laws from Egyptian sources [Bible I: xiii])—but on each occasion he seeks to provide a naturalistic explanation for the miracle. Two examples may be given.19 First, Geddes's concluding remarks on the plague cycle (CR: 212-13): ... if any unfettered mind can really and literally believe, I will only say that it is far, very far, removed from scepticism. Is the story then entirely without foundation? Perhaps not. While Moses and Aaron were soliciting the Egyptian king...it might very well happen that an extraordinary exundation of the Nile should take place, and be followed with an uncommon brood of frogs, gnats, and other most troublesome animals; a tremendous hail, a prodigious flight of locusts, an unusual darkness, and finally a ravaging pestilence.. .but that those events happened exactly according to the Scripture-relation, it requires great faith, or rather great credulity, to believe... The power of God, for ought I know, may be able to convert water into blood, and dust into flies: but that it did so on any particular occasion...testimonies beyond all exception, and amounting almost to demonstration, would be required to produce a rational belief... [U]ntil this proof be brought forward with all the force of convincing evidence, we may, without the merited imputation of impiety or infidelity, doubt these and many other facts contained in the Hebrew Scriptures; and 19. Examples could be multiplied, for instance, CR on Exod. 7.10, 17; 8.17; 9.18.


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examine into their general veracity or probability, by the same rules and criteria with which we examine the writings of other nations. But [Geddes adds provokingly] this subject will be treated on more at length in its proper place [Geddes's footnote: General Preface, Section 3. On Inspiration (WJ— which was never published)].

The second example is derived from Geddes's discussion of the events at Sinai (CR, on Exod. 20.22): From these expressions, and from Deut. 5.22, it has been inferred, that the words of the whole Decalogue were articulately pronounced by the voice of God; and I doubt not but I shall be deemed an impious unbeliever for calling the thing in question. But I am not apt to be frightened by hard words. I am not, indeed, a great believer: but I am not impious. I sincerely believe in God, and endeavour to worship him in spirit and in truth: but 1 cannot think, that, excellent in most respects as the Decalogue is, every word of it was articulately uttered by the mouth of God. If there was any articulate voice heard on the occasion, I am persuaded it was the voice of man; speaking, perhaps, through a trumpet, during the formidable thunder and lightning which then occasionally took place. But even this is not necessarily implicable from the Text, if we strip it of its highly poetical varnish, and have ever in view the Oriental modes of phraseology...so replete with metaphorical personifications... [l]f persons who had been ear and eye witnesses to all the miracles already performed, doubted of their sufficiency to establish the divine legation of Moses, it may surely be lawful for us, who have neither seen nor heard, to question their veracity, for which we have no other vouchers but an anonymous narrative, composed we know not when nor by whom; for it can never be proved, by any solid satisfactory arguments, to be the composition of Moses. But were it allowed to be, every word of it, the composition of Moses himself, that alone would not be a sufficient reason for implicitly believing all its contents. Reason bids us appreciate the writings of a Moses as we appreciate the writings of a Livy or an Herodotus; and the same or similar motives of credibility or incredibility ought to be the measure of our belief or disbelief in the former as in the latter; for, in this respect, I see no difference between a Hebrew historian and a Greek or Roman historian.

Though no direct reference to it is made, it is difficult not to find in such passages in Geddes echoes of David Hume's essay 'Of Miracles' (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding §10 [Broadie 1997: 300-16]). In that essay Hume argues that the evidence of experience of the regularity of nature is to be preferred by all reasonable people to the testimony of generally primitive peoples to violations of the natural laws required to believe in miracles. The peroration of that essay contains so many ideas and expressions that seem to be reflected in Geddes's wording, even to

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Geddes's characterization of the ancient Israelites as a 'stupid, carnal people', 'sensual, grovelling', 'gross' (Bible I: xii-xiv; cf. CR on Exod. 23.20), that Geddes must have known it. Geddes is perhaps wise to skirt Hume, assuming that he knew his essay.20 He was all too well aware that he would be likely to be regarded as one of 'those dangerous friends or disguised enemies to the Christian Religion, who have undertaken to defend it by the principles of human reason' that Hume identifies. But Geddes would have parted company with Hume that so to argue is to play into the hands of Christianity's enemies. Geddes has no desire to be classed as such. While commending the Bible as the human product of Hebrew genius to be appreciated on a par with the Greek and Roman Classics, and thus depriving it of its status as inspired Scripture, Geddes nonetheless remains a theist, a practising Catholic with, it would appear, a pietist faith in the person of Jesus.21 One may regret that Geddes did not pursue more vigorously his intuitions that the writer of the Pentateuch may be more properly regarded as a poet rather than a historian and did not consider the role and adequacy of imaginative literature in theological discourse. It seems that the basis of Geddes's appeal to the outsider, to 'the sons of science and philosophy', was precisely the fundamental cause of his alienation from his own community. Geddes on his side is unsparing in his onslaught on unenlightened religion. The excerpt from the Preface to Critical Remarks begun above continues (pp. v-viii): [The] religion [of the vulgar Papists and Protestants] is the fruit of unenlightened credulity. A very small number, of curious and learned men only, have thoroughly examined the motives of their religious belief, in any communion.. .the more curious and learned they were, the less they generally believed. Hence.. .the old adage: Ignorance is the mother of devotion. ...\ have been at great pains to examine every system of theology, that has come in my way, in order to fix my religious belief on something like a 20. Geddes was, in any case, in enough trouble with the authorities of his own Church on his own account. It must be remembered that 'By 1761 Hume's reputation had spread sufficiently to earn a place for all his works on the index of prohibited books of the Roman Catholic Church' (Mossner 1980: 228). 21. Compare, e.g., CR, on Exod. 5.3: 'Let us go., &c. This was a mere pretext... The worshipping of God in spirit and truth, was a doctrine not yet known: to our divine legislator, Jesus, it was reserved to promulgate so pure a religious worship; whose followers, however, too soon lost sight of it, and judaized, I might say paganized, even in the first ages of Christianity; or, at least, as soon as Christianity became the established religion of the State'.

JOHNSTONE Introduction sure foundation. I have searched the scriptures; I have studied tradition; I have read ecclesiastical history: and the result of my search.. .has been that reason, reason only, is.. .the only solid pillar of faith... I am conscious that Religion, genuine Religion, is both reasonable, and conducive to human happiness... I have the most ardent desire to promote her injured cause; to exhibit her in her native, divine charms; divested of every vain and useless trapping, and tinsel decoration...and, at the same time, to rescue her.. .from the sacrilegious fangs of gloomy fanaticism, that would clothe her in the sable weeds of forbidding austerity; and expose her as a haggard scare-crow, to deter the liberal and generous part of mankind from her sweet embrace... The gospel of JESUS is my religious code... [Tjhat gospel I would not make my law, if Reason, pure Reason, were not my prompter and preceptress... Christian is my name, and Catholic my surname. Rather than renounce these glorious titles, I would shed my blood... Catholic Christianity I revere wherever I find it...but I...cannot revere metaphysical unintelligible creeds.. .tribunals that enforce orthodoxy by fire and faggot... formulas of faith made the test of loyalty.. .penal laws made the hedge of church-establishments... This I say even of Christian systems: and shall I grant to systematic Judaism what I deny to systematic Christianism? Shall I disbelieve the pretended miracles, the spurious deeds, the forged charters, the lying legends of the one, and give full credit to those of the other? May I... examine the works of the Christian doctors... by the common rules of criticism, explode their sophistry, combat their rash assertions, arraign them of credulity...and yet be obliged to consider every fragment of Hebrew scripture, for a series of 1000 years, from Moses to Malachi.. .as the infallible communications of heaven...? Truly, this is to require too much from credulity itself. In the Hebrew scriptures are many beauties, many excellent precepts, much sound morality... I...would equally admire them in the writings of Plato, Tully, or Marcus Antonius: but there are other things, in great abundance, which I can neither admire nor admit; without renouncing common sense, and superseding reason... It is time.. .full time, that Christianity should learn to walk alone, without Jewish leading-strings or Gentile go-carts. It is time, that the pure spiritual religion of Jesus should throw aside all the taudry cumbersome load of exotic ornaments, borrowed either from Judaism or Paganism...and reclothe herself in the white spotless robes, in which she was originally invested.. .her primitive simplicity... I looked for criticism, I courted it...; my motive in writing was not to enrich myself; but, if possible, to enlighten my fellow creatures; and to eradicate their prejudices.—Even those who will not be enlightened, nor quit their prejudices, ought to be thankful for the service I have done—by illustrating many obscure passages in the Hebrew writings, and giving a more faithful version of them, I presume, than has yet appeared in English.

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For good measure Geddes's forthright comments on Christian theological systems can be appended: he defends himself against the charge of being a better linguist, grammarian and philologist than logician, metaphysician or divine: 'If by Divinity they mean that wretched system of scholastic dogmatism, which is even at this day taught in our universities, I frankly confess that I have for these twenty years past been trying to unlearn as much as I could' (GA: 23). How far is this crusading spirit a reflection of Geddes's own genius and temperament, or a product of his upbringing and circumstances? The temptation to psychologize is irresistible. Geddes's self-confidence and independence must have been encouraged by the prevailing conditions of his early life. He was born and bred in rural Banffshire, in one of the enclaves of native Scottish Catholicism that had endured since before the Reformation. Surrounded by the generally hostile environment of the predominantly Presbyterian Scotland of the eighteenth century,22 Geddes's his parents seem, nonetheless, to have been relaxed in their attitudes to, and relations with, Protestants, as their possession of the AV as one of the few books in their library attests (GA: 2). This relaxed attitude Geddes was to maintain in his later relations with Protestant clergy, to his bishop's displeasure. But one has only to rehearse major events within wider contemporary British history, many involving issues related to the presence and status of Roman Catholics within the community at large, and many of these issues literally coming close to home for Geddes, to imagine their potential impact on his life and career and their formative influence on his character and outlook (see Thomas Devine's essay in the present volume). What must it have been like as a Scottish Catholic child to have lived in Hanoverian Britain through the period leading up to the 1745 rebellion which was aimed at restoring the former Stuart dynasty with its allegiance to the old faith? What must it have been like to have been raised, indeed, less than 50 miles from Culloden where the battle that finally extinguished Jacobite hopes was fought in April 1746? What must have been the effect of isolation on an impressionable youth to spend seven of the most formative years of his life as Geddes did from 1751 to 1758 as a candidate for the priesthood in the necessary seclusion and Spartan regime of the seminary at Scalan in the remotest recesses of the 22. Symington (1947: 1) alludes to the 'many references' in the records of the Church of Scotland Presbytery of Fordyce and the Synod of Aberdeen to the 'crying scandal' of the continued adherence of the majority of the inhabitants of the Enzie (Geddes's native district in western Banffshire) to Roman Catholicism.


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Braes of Glenlivet with a handful of fellow-students and tutors for company? What must have been the impact of study in the Enlightenment and pre-Revolution Paris of 1758-64 on a susceptible young man from such a sequestered background? What in turn must have been the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment on Geddes, if not before, certainly on his return from Paris to take up a variety of pastoral offices as an ordained priest back home in his native Scotland till 1780, while he consorted with nobility and with literati from Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow? Geddes's residence in London in the last two decades of his life coincided with no less fateful events: the questions about Catholic loyalty inevitably raised by the bill for Catholic emancipation in 1780, and the Gordon riots that accompanied it; the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789 and the heady enthusiasm that attended it (as had attended in some quarters the American War of Independence in the 1770s); the disillusionment with Revolution that settled in with the Reign of Terror and the declaration of war by France on Britain in 1793; and the oppressive censorship in Britain that was precipitated by that war, just as Geddes's career as a writer was reaching its peak. Geddes's sympathies are revealed in his Preface to Bible I (p. xv): 'Although he [Moses] makes no formal declaration of the Rights of Man [the title of Thomas Paine's newly published work in support of the French Revolution],23 all his decrees relative to property and personal safety are evidently founded on that principle'. Yet Geddes's problems arose not simply from his being a Catholic in a predominantly non-Catholic society; not the least interesting aspect of his career is the consistent strand of contention with authorities within his own Church. John Mason Good, Geddes's first biographer, provides a thumbnail sketch of Geddes and his character (see Good 1803: 300-304). Good acknowledges Geddes's outstanding genius: 'he was universally known to possess' a 'general information and profound learning,.. .which gave him more promptitude upon every subject that happened to be started than I ever beheld in any other person'. But this ability was clothed in an unprepossessing appearance and accompanied by an over-heated animation and 'irritability' (a description frequently used by Good) that was easily provoked: .. .about five feet five inches high, .. .his figure was lank, his face meagre, his hair black, long and loose... [W]ith one of the best and most benevolent hearts in the world, he was naturally very irritable... Dr. Geddes himself 23. Compare Geddes's reference in CR (p. 422) to Tom Paine's The Age of Reason (1794-96).

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The Bible and the Enlightenment was by no means insensible to this peculiar characteristic of his nature... I have often beheld him endeavoring to stifle it in public, either by abruptly quitting the room, or introducing another subject... No man...was more sensible of his prevailing defect; and no man ever took more pains to remedy it: but it was inherent in his constitution.24

Good later comments: such was the irritability of his nerves, that a slight degree of opposition to his opinions, and especially when advanced by persons whose mental powers did not warrant such opposition, put to flight in a moment the natural character of his countenance and cheerfulness and benevolence were exchanged for exacerbation and tumult... [I]rritability...occasionally hurried him... into a violence of controversy not perfectly consistent with the polished manners of the day. (pp. 529-30)

In similar vein, Good remarks on Geddes's literary style: .. .his language is occasionally unequal, and strongly partakes of the alternations of his own physical constitution; in consequence of which, in the midst of a passage, most exquisitely rendered in the main, we are at times surprised with scholastic and extraneous expressions, or disgusted with intolerable vulgarisms, (p. 358)

Good also notes: 'His style is...extremely variable: he often composed precipitately, and occasionally in a state of high mental irritation... [H]is compositions uniformly partake of the predominant sensation of the moment' (p. 537). 24. Good provides a vivid account of his first encounter with Geddes in 1793: 'He was disputing with one of the company when I entered, and the rapidity with which at this moment he left his chair, and rushed, with an elevated tone of voice and uncourtly dogmatism of manner, towards his opponent, instantaneously persuaded me that the subject upon which the debate turned was of the utmost moment. I listened with all the attention I could command; and in a few minutes learned, to my astonishment, that it related to nothing more than the distance of his own house... from the place of our meeting... The debate being at length concluded, or rather worn out, the doctor took possession of the next chair to that in which I was seated, and united with myself and a friend who sat on my other side in discoursing upon the politics of the day. On this topic we proceeded smoothly and accordantly for some time; till at length disagreeing with us upon some point as trivial as the former, he again rose abruptly from his seat, traversed the room in every direction, with as indeterminate a parallax as that of a comet, loudly and with increase of voice maintaining his position at every step he took. Not wishing to prolong the dispute, we yielded to him without further interruption; and in the course of a few minutes after he had closed his harangue, he again approached, retook possession of his chair, and was all playfulness, good humor, and genuine wit.'


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But Good also chronicles the adverse reaction of the Roman Catholic community, the violent opposition from his own Church indeed, and the devastating effect this had on Geddes: He resisted the torrent of abuse to which he was daily exposed [on the publication of Bible I]... But.. .the calumnies and contumelies.. .sunk heavily upon his heart, and highly exacerbated his irritable system. A fever, the joint offspring of disappointed hope in a favorite pursuit, and of abuse where he expected approbation, was the speedy consequence, and it was nearly a twelvemonth before he recovered from the effects of its severity, (pp. 399-400)

He reports Geddes's own words (Address to the Public [1793]): It was now evident, they said, that my scheme was inimical to catholicity (I suppose they meant popery)... By one friar it was asserted, that I had the intolerable presumption to correct the Holy Ghost! He classed me, indeed, with Houbigant, Kennicott, and Michaelis, for which he has my thanks. Others went about warning the pious faithful not to subscribe to my work, and in this their efforts were certainly not unsuccessful: in the list of my subscribers there are not fifty catholic names!... But the shortest and most effectual way to hurt a work is to blacken its author's character. For this purpose all my steps were watched... Went I to Edinburgh or Glasgow? I had become a disciple of Calvin, and abjured my former faith before the General Assembly!... Thus was I alternately a Churchman, a Presbyterian, an Arian, and an Unitarian, just as it pleased their fancy... It is some wonder, that they never sent me to the Tabernacle to embrace Methodism, nor to the Synagogue to profess myself a Jew! They have sent me to worse places than either, as will hereafter appear. (Good 1803: 408-409)

It has to be recognized that Geddes was an uncompromising character. The Geddes conference in Aberdeen in 2002 ended unusually for an academic gathering with a Requiem Mass. I am most grateful to the Roman Catholic authorities in Aberdeen for arranging the ceremony in recognition that Geddes had spoken truth, had been ahead of his time, and that, after Vatican II, rehabilitation was now overdue. I confess, nonetheless, to a frisson at the ceremony, a fear that, with the best of intentions, we might have somehow been trespassing on Geddes's own sense of defiant integrity. I hope he would have taken it in the spirit in which it was intended and that he would have been pleased to be recognized and accepted, to have been commemorated, appreciated and re-evaluated, as 'polymath and polyglot', as Father Michael McMahon succinctly put it in his sermon on the occasion. Nonetheless Geddes might have regarded the exercise as

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unnecessary and, conscious of having been largely in the right all along, have been impatient with belated recognition. After all, in the hurt of rejection he had testily dismissed ecclesiastical endorsement of his work: 'A bishop's, or even a pope's approbation can give no intrinsic value to my work; and a work that has intrinsic value, needs not their approbation' (GA: 6). Nonetheless, sub specie aeternitatis, he must surely have been happy that his own people were welcoming him home as an honoured, valued and respected son.

ALEXANDER GEDDES: THE SCOTTISH CONTEXT Thomas M. Devine

Scholarly recognition of the work and talent of Alexander Geddes is long overdue. During his lifetime he established a reputation as a biblical scholar of international standing. He was also a prolific writer of excellent verse in both Latin and English. One modern critic has recently claimed that in Scotland he was second only to Robert Burns in the quality of his poetry in the later eighteenth century (Carruthers 1999: 82). A noted political radical, he was very active in the reforming newspaper culture of the 1790s and had close personal links with such illustrious figures of the day as Tom Paine, Richard Price and Joseph Priestley. As a scholar he was something of a polymath with an interest in historical analysis and philological interpretation of the Scots language. Though a Roman Catholic priest, Geddes caused such opposition and alienation with his own Church that he died under ecclesiastical censure, denied even a requiem Mass by his own bishop. Ironically, however, he can now be recognized as the finest priestly intellect produced by the Scottish Catholic Church since the Reformation. Perhaps only his fellow eighteenth-century cleric, Thomas Innes, the great pioneer of historical research, who paved the way to a new understanding of the Dark Ages, comes anywhere near his standing in the world of letters. The task of recovering Geddes from relative obscurity is a challenging and complex one and, thus far, the Scottish context of his life and work has received little attention. Even Reginald Fuller, whose 1984 biography has done much to encourage more interest in Geddes, has little to say about the Scottish background. He contrasts Geddes's place of birth, 'a remote glen' in the Highlands of Scotland, to his training for the priesthood in Paris, 'the centre of culture' (Fuller 1984: 11). The intellectual metropolis is by implication contrasted with the primitiveness of the periphery, the former being suggested as the crucible from which Geddes' genius was nurtured and developed:

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The Bible and the Enlightenment When Geddes reached Paris in 1758 he found a very sharp contrast with his previous environment. From the remote fastness of a Highland glen he now stepped into one of the acknowledged centres of the intellectual life of the civilised world. (Fuller 1984: 15)

There can be little doubt of the importance of a formative experience at the Scots College in Paris during one of its liveliest periods or of the impact of attending lectures under Professor Vicaire at the College de Navarre or Jean Baptiste de L'Advocat at the Sorbonne. Moreover, the lack of focused attention on Geddes's Scottish background is readily understood when it is recalled that he left his native land for London in 1780 at the age of 43. The years afterwards, when he was able to devote himself to scholarship in the capital and the libraries of the English universities, under the patronage of Lord Petre, the English Catholic peer, were easily his most productive. From this period dates Geddes's Idea of a New English Catholic Edition of the Holy Bible for the Use of the Roman Catholics of Great Britain (1782), the Prospectus of a New Translation of the Holy Bible (1786) with the first volume published in 1792, Bible I, together with the remaining historical books of the Old Testament in 1798, as well as most of his poetry, works of political satire and pamphlets arguing for greater toleration of Catholics. This long sojourn in England, of course, was in addition to the six years Geddes had spent outside Scotland as a student in Paris in his twenties. In a sense, however, all this simply confirms Geddes's intrinsic Scottishness. From time immemorial Scottish intellectuals had looked abroad for training, scholarly connections and personal inspiration. Between its foundation and the Reformation, 17 or 18 rectors of the University of Paris were Scots (Ditchburn 2000: 93-128). In the seventeenth century Scottish students and scholars flocked to universities in the Low Countries, France, Germany and elsewhere for instruction in divinity, law, and medicine (Feenstra 1986.). Italy was the Mecca for painters and architects and a Scottish expatriate community of artists flourished there in the eighteenth century. In his French and English associations, Alexander Geddes was following in the footsteps of innumerable Scots who had gone before. Scottish scholars were almost by definition cosmopolitan in outlook and experience. Geddes himself, as well as having command of six ancient languages, was equally at home with French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch and Danish. The Scots College in Paris, where he studied, often played host to those Scots who were passing through, among the visitors being the great David Hume, the most famous philosopher of the age (Fuller 1984: 18).

DEVINE Alexander Geddes: The Scottish Context

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Other aspects of the Scottish context also deserve attention. Geddes's Catholicism derives from the specific locality in which he was born in Scotland. He was the son of Alexander Geddes and Janet Mitchell, Catholic tenant farmers from the parish of Rathven in the northeast county of Banffshire. Rathven was one of only two major strongholds of Catholicism in post-Reformation Scotland—the other was Morar, Arisaig. (There were also some Catholics on the Hebridean islands in the west.) Elsewhere, there were only mere pockets of Catholicism in some parts of Perthshire, Angus, Peebles, Edinburgh and Galloway. Even these were usually centred on the houses and estates of Catholic landowners. The Enzie of Banff, where Geddes's parents had their small farm, was described by protestants, as one contemporary source had it, as 'the Papistical Country' where Catholics were not only more in number than anywhere else but also enjoyed greater freedom of worship (Johnson 1983a: 45). The main reason for this was the local power and authority of the Dukes of Gordon who remained loyal to the old faith until the second Duke's conversion to Episcopalianism in 1728. A particular influence on Geddes in his youth was James Grant, the priest in charge of the Catholics of Rathven, who influenced him to enter the minor seminary of Scalan in the remote Braes ofGlenlivetin 1751. In addition, Geddes's early education reflects distinctive Scottish traditions. Although born into a Catholic family, he was acquainted with the Bible at an early age. Among Presbyterian Scots, even those of humble background, access to the Authorized (or King James) Version was widespread. The Bible was an integral part of family worship when the father would conduct the prayers, lead the singing of psalms and also read out part of the sacred text. It was regular practice too for parents on a Sunday to have their children read passages from the Bible to them. Equally, since the Kirk was the single most significant institutional influence in Scottish schools of the time, children learned to read from biblical extracts as part of their formal education (Anderson 1997: 4-5). Geddes's familiarity with the sacred text from an early age was therefore unsurprising. What was much more unusual was that his personal knowledge developed within a Catholic family. As he recalled: Although my parents were Roman Catholics they were not bigots, and the Bible was the principal book in their scanty library. They taught me to read it with reverence and attention, and before I had reached my eleventh year, I knew all its history by heart. (Good 1803: 2)

This experience of respect for learning amid poverty continued when Geddes, then aged seven, joined a group of sons of other tenants and the

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offspring of small landowners, to start his elementary schooling. His first teacher was James Shearer, tutor to the sons of Gordon, laird of Cairnfield, a student of King's College, Aberdeen. His schooling may have continued sporadically for several years until, aged 14, he became a student in the seminary at Scalan. A glimpse of these school days can be gleaned from the autobiographical notes of his fellow-pupil and cousin, John Geddes, who was later to become a bishop. It is clear from these that the boys went to several schools between 1746 and 1748 during these troubled years after the last Jacobite rebellion of 1745. The teachers included university students and local priests. Study was often interrupted during harsh winters and the harvest months. Equally, instruction was not simply in basic literacy and numeracy. In 1748, for example, the boys were learning some Latin and French. All this fits into the Scottish context of educational history at the time. Several conclusions are apparent from modern research.1 First, schooling in eighteenth-century Scotland was part of community expectations. The desire for literacy, especially reading skills, had strong popular roots even in the households of small farmers, cottars and farm workers. Second, as in the case of Geddes's school experience, there was wide availability of elementary education. In addition to the national system of parish schools administered by the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and financed in large part by local taxation on property, there was also a host of private schools: 'subscription' schools with teachers' salaries paid for by parents, charity schools and 'adventure' schools run by tutors to make money. All this, of course, testified to the popular demand for some form of basic literacy. Third, for older pupils, almost always boys, Latin and modern languages were increasingly available at moderate fees with instruction given by masters who had some university experience. Indeed, boys who embarked on these studies were themselves usually aspiring to go on to university. Fourth, as Donald Withrington's work has clearly shown, schooling in the Highlands, and especially in the parishes bordering the Lowlands, was much better developed than previously suspected (Withrington 1988: 164-71). As one scholar has remarked: Scotland possessed widespread literacy, cheaply available education above the elementary level and universities which were relatively accessible and linked to both parish and burgh schools. (Anderson 1997: 11)

1. Anderson 1997: 4-11; Houston 1985; Houston and Tyson 1991; Withrington 1988.


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This was the world in which Alexander Geddes grew up. It was not one which necessarily generated genius—but it did at least provide the opportunity for boys of merit to rise in society to a much greater extent than most European countries of the era. After Scalan (which he left at 21) and Paris, Geddes returned to Scotland in 1764 where he spent several months ministering in Dundee as a priest before being appointed Chaplain to Traquair House in Peebles, home to one of the leading Scottish Catholic families. It was here that he conceived his plan for a new translation of Scripture. He spent four years at Traquair before, after a further brief interlude in Paris, becoming parish priest at Auchinhalrig, some 50 miles from the city of Aberdeen, where he remained as pastor until departure for London in 1780. Geddes's life in Scotland over these final years is obscure. It is reasonably clear, however, that he developed personal associations with leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, that remarkable period when Scots produced works in subjects as diverse as philosophy, sociology, architecture, poetry, painting, political economy, chemistry and geology. In Voltaire's famous aphorism, 'It is from Scotland we receive the rules of taste in all the Arts'. Geddes's first biographer states that he had 'close connections' with William Robertson, Principal of Edinburgh University and a towering figure in the new historiography, Thomas Reid, the founder of 'commonsense philosophy' and James Beattie, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen. His links with Marischal were especially strong (Good 1803: 37). Of the two colleges in Aberdeen (King's in Old Aberdeen being the other) it was by far the more vibrant, with several scholars of note and much less nepotistic modes of appointments to professorial chairs than its counterpart. Marischal also had the advantage of being in the 'new' town, the commercial heart of Aberdeen, whose merchants, councillors and clergy exerted a powerful influence on its development (Emerson 1987). The relationship with Aberdeen's intellectuals reached its formal climax in 1780 when, after Geddes's publication of The Select Satires of Horace Translated into English Verse (1779), he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University. This was not only a unique honour for a Roman Catholic priest in Presbyterian Scotland, it also begs a much wider question about the Scottish context of Geddes's career. He was able to mix easily with Protestant divines and gain their enthusiastic approbation for his scholarly and literary achievements. But this seems puzzling when considered against the

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broader background of eighteenth-century Scottish society. Geddes was a priest in an underground church when virulent anti-Catholicism remained an important part of Scottish culture at this time. In 1700, the Scottish Parliament had passed the 'Act for Preventing the Growth of Popery'. It offered monetary rewards for the capture of priests and prescribed instant banishment for Catholic clergymen on pain of death should they return to Scotland. The same statute would have closed chapels, deprived Catholics of their land and property and forced Catholic children to be educated as Protestants (Macinnes 1987). In practice, while the actual impact of this legislation was less draconian, it was by no means a dead letter. Daniel Szechi's recent work shows that 23 out of 105 secular priests (22 per cent), were arrested between 1653 and 1755. None suffered the death penalty but all those detained were exiled for life (Szechi 1996). Moreover, though a blind eye could often be turned to Catholic activity, there were also episodes of intense persecution, none more so than after the 1745 rebellion. Catholicism was feared more for its political links to Jacobitism than for any other reason. Despite express proscription of political activity in the Scottish mission, Catholic priests were Jacobite to a man. Bishop Hugh Macdonald famously blessed the Young Pretender's standard at Glenfmnan and appointed chaplains to the clan regiments. In the rebellion, around a third of Prince Charles's army were Catholics from Moidart, Arisaig, Knoydart, Morar, Glengarry and Lochaber. John Gordon, a priest from Geddes's own family neighbourhood of the Enzie, preached the Jacobite cause in his chapel and actively recruited men for the Prince's army. Inevitably, the Catholic Church suffered a terrible retribution after the final defeat at Culloden. In the years 1746-47, when Alexander Geddes was still a schoolboy, Catholic areas were systematically ravaged, chapels destroyed and the little seminary at Scalan burnt out as the State implemented a reign of terror to eradicate disaffection once and for all (Macinnes 1996: 211-17). But it was popular anti-Catholicism rather than the old Jacobite threat which caused the second major crisis of the period. In 1779, attempts in Parliament to introduce a Catholic Relief Bill unleashed a hysterical storm of protest in several towns and cities of Scotland. Just a year before Geddes celebrated the award of his Aberdeen LLD, the Edinburgh mob burnt the house of Bishop Hay, looted the adjacent chapel and pillaged the homes of local Catholics. Hay was forced to take refuge in Edinburgh Castle. Rioting against the bill also broke out in Dundee, Peebles and Glasgow, where the Synod declared a general fast day to atone for 'the


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encouragement given to and growth of Popery' (McMillan 1998: 90-91). Remarkably, though an English Relief Act was passed in 1778, as was similar legislation in Ireland, Scotland's penal laws remained on the statute book until 1793. Why, against this sectarian background, was Geddes, the Catholic priest, able to associate so freely and productively with members of the Scottish Presbyterian clerical and intellectual elite? Some of the explanation might be found in Geddes's own personality and religious perspectives. His many talents and gregarious persona, lively conversation and acerbic wit, were always likely to attract friends and admirers. He himself actively sought out Protestant connections. Around the same time that he was honoured by the University of Aberdeen, Geddes attended an Episcopalian service at the invitation of the Earl of Findlater. For this Bishop Hay demanded his resignation as a parish priest and threatened him with suspension from divine office. Even before this incident, he had developed good relations with both local Episcopalian and Presbyterian ministers (Fuller 1984: 24). Later, in England, Geddes associated with leading Unitarians such as William Smith MP and Joseph Priestley (Aspinwall 1977: 339). But these connections were not simply sociable. Geddes was firmly committed to religious tolerance and had a deep interest in other Christian faiths. He was well in advance of his time in arguing for ecumenism and the adoption of 'rational belief rather than sectarian prejudice: I believe as much as I can find sufficient motives of credibility for believing: and without sufficient motives of credibility there can be no rational belief. The vulgar Papist and vulgar Protestant are here almost on equal terms for few, very few of either class ever think of seriously examining the primary foundations of faith. (CR: v)

Geddes never doubted the essential principals of his faith—'Christian is my name and Catholic my surname'—but he wanted a return to 'Primitive Christianity' (Geddes 1794: ii; Aspinwall 1977: 335-36). In his search for this ideal he was prepared to confess Catholic errors, asserting in particular, and contrary to the claims of some of the Church's apologists, that papal infallibility was not based on Divine Right. Too much power was not only vested in the Pope but also in individual bishops. Geddes was aware that the claims of papal supremacy above all else inflamed protestant phobias, and he set out deliberately to calm these fears by sober analysis (Geddes 1794: 17). Even more controversially from the Catholic perspective, he also opposed clerical celibacy and contended that bishops should be elected rather than be imposed on their flocks, by some higher

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authority (Aspinwall 1977: 338). Geddes's first biographer, J.M. Good, noted that: He could ridicule the infallibility of the Pope and laugh at images of relics, at rosaries, scapulars, Agnus Deis, blessed medals, indulgences, obits and dirges as much as the most inveterate protestant. (Good 1803: 36)

It is perhaps, therefore, scarcely surprising that Geddes's personal relationships were often much better with leading protestants than with the Catholic hierarchy. His Holy Bible, published in 1792, led to his bishop suspending him from holy orders the following year; when he died in 1802, he was still under ecclesiastical censure. But Geddes's personal views are not the whole reason why, in an apparently bigoted world, he was well received by important groups in Presbyterian Scotland. Several other reasons can be adduced which suggest that his scholarly impact as a Catholic priest was but a microcosm of deeper changes in the status of Catholicism in late eighteenth-century Scotland. Attitudes in some quarters were softening because Catholicism by the 1780s was no longer perceived by the State as a major political threat. The defeat of Jacobitism in 1746 was both crushing and comprehensive. Even the Pope withdrew his support from the cause. Charles Edward Stuart himself eventually converted to Protestantism in the vain hope of currying favour with the Church of England and Scottish Presbyterians. The net result, however, was simply to further demoralize his dwindling band of supporters, who now saw clearly that his public Catholicism was but an expedient to advance his political ambitions. During the Seven Years War (1756-63) erstwhile clansmen from the Catholic West Highlands were first recruited in large numbers into the British army. Their sterling service in numerous imperial battlegrounds in North America, the West Indies and India, then during the American War of Independence, ensured that in 1784 annexed Jacobite estates in the Highlands were restored to their hereditary owners (Macinnes 1996: 217). Again, the Scottish hierarchy had worked hard to rehabilitate the Church among the elites in the decades after the Jacobite rebellion. Bishop Hay's approach was to maintain a low profile for Catholics. But Geddes's kinsman, Bishop John Geddes, was much more proactive. He was accepted into Edinburgh's fashionable social circles, dined regularly with the leading judges of the Court of Session (where on one occasion he met the young, aspiring poet, Robert Burns) and counted such figures as William Robertson and Sir William Forbes among his friends. Like his cousin, Alexander, Bishop Geddes (and to a lesser extent Bishop Hay) were


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regarded as peaceable scholar-priests who fitted well into the intellectual community of later eighteenth-century Scotland. Bishop Geddes, for instance, published widely in a variety of fields from history to theology (Johnson 1983a: 24-27). Yet, as the events of 1779 confirmed, popular anti-Catholicism still flourished in Scotland, even in the citadels of higher learning. Thus, to John Anderson, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, repeal of the penal legislation against Catholics would result in disaster. He likened 'the Papists to a Rattle-Snake, harmless when kept under proper restraints: but dangerous like it, when at full liberty; and ready to diffuse a baleful poison around' (quoted in Sher 1995: 342). The truth was that the Church of Scotland was far from monolithic. In the eighteenth century it was rent by internal dispute which resulted in two major secessions in 1740 and 1752. More significant was the emergence of the Moderate Party within the Kirk from the early 1750s, precisely the period when Alexander Geddes was coming to adulthood (Sher 1985). The Moderates, never in a majority in the country, soon dominated the General Assembly and were able to advance to key professorial appointments in the universities. They practised the values of tolerance and reasoned discussion without fear of retribution from either political or ecclesiastical authority. Their great champion was the powerful and influential William Robertson, Moderator of the General Assembly and Principal of the University of Edinburgh and, as noted above, friend of Alexander Geddes. Significantly he and several Moderate ministers favoured measures of Catholic relief. Indeed, when the Edinburgh mob ran amok in early 1779, Robertson, together with Bishop Hay, was forced to take refuge in Edinburgh Castle (Johnson 1983a: 18). It was the milieu of Moderatism and the Enlightenment values professed by the Moderates which enabled the full development of Geddes's scholarly connections in Aberdeen and elsewhere in Scotland. He was a fellow traveller, equally committed to religious tolerance, cosmopolitan ideas, informed argument, and, above all, he possessed the determination to think for himself rather than be hidebound by past authority or present orthodoxy. In sum, Alexander Geddes was a distinguished Catholic member of the Scottish Enlightenment who was nurtured by many of the same historical processes which developed the mindset of some of his better-known fellow countrymen.

ALEXANDER GEDDES AND HIS UNPUBLISHED PAPERS Catharina P.M. van Dijk

Posterity has not been kind to Alexander Geddes, nor particularly fair. Scotland and England have been slow to acknowledge this versatile scholar, possibly for a number of reasons. First, his many-sidedness made it difficult to categorize him, for he was a pioneering Bible critic, a poet, a religious-political pamphleteer, a reviewer, and he was a Catholic priest. As to his versatility, there are two points of view: one may argue that he spread himself too thin and did nothing properly; but one may, with equal right, suggest that he was special exactly because he was able to exert his talents in so many fields. Second, Geddes's individuality, and his ecumenical and multifarious cultural attitude made it difficult for particular groups to call him their own. Geddes socialized with Catholics, Anglicans and Dissenters; among his friends and acquaintance were Scotsmen, Englishmen, Germans, Frenchmen and even Irishmen, against whom he was prejudiced. He embraced all the world, at least that part of it that was intelligent enough to be of interest to him, but he also made fun of all the world, at least of those aspects of religion, culture or society that provoked his mischievous wit. Which brings us to a third point which may have been instrumental in the lack of recognition Geddes experienced—his satirical style of writing. He had a sensitivity to injustice, to hypocrisy, to the silliness of social attitudes, to sectarianism, and to doxa, that pre-verbal taking for granted situated outside the reach of critique. All these things stung him into retaliation, and made him use, as his major weapons, his wit and his reason, often without regard for the sensitivities of others. He analyzed, scrutinized, derided and demolished what others still found satisfactory. And thus he made many enemies. To many Catholics he was a heretic, to many Protestants he was, if not a papist, yet still a Catholic whose biblical criticism threatened the foundations of their Bible. To the Scots he was an Anglo-Saxon, and to the English a Scot. The world of biblical criticism has only fairly recently discovered his merits through Fuller's work (1984), and is still in the process of evaluating his work, and

VAN DlJK Alexander Geddes and his Unpublished Papers

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he seems to have dropped out of the Scottish literary world because he did not fit into the dominant literary, largely Presbyterian frame of the nineteenth century.1 Historians and researchers have more often called him eccentric, whenever his name cropped up, or discarded him as being unrepresentative of any group whatsoever. Yet, to give an objective, scholarly judgment of Alexander Geddes one would have to read all of his work, manuscripts and published material, and conduct a thorough research after biographical facts. And no one has done that so far. There are too many questions left unanswered about Geddes's life, about the period in Paris, his political associations and the exact circle of his acquaintance. One can only try to make a beginning with what is available right now: his correspondence,2 his published and manuscript poems, his pamphlets, his reviews, and the catalogue of his library—projects that each require years of research. Since it is impossible to do everything at once, this paper will make a beginning by concentrating on the correspondence and the manuscript poems from the Essex County Council Archives. The Correspondence The search for manuscript material is still in progress, but the total number of letters written by Alexander Geddes traced so far is 215. The larger part of the correspondence links Geddes to the Scottish mission, and shows his continued involvement with it. Therefore the Scottish mission will be the main focus of the first part of this article, which will explain some of the subjects involved, and give an impression of the letters written to the following correspondents: Bishop George Hay, Vicar Apostolic of the Lowland District,3 John Reid, missionary of Preshome,4 Bishop John Geddes, 1. In David Irving's The Lives of the Scotish Poets (1804) there is a chapter on Alexander Geddes (pp. 353-410), but this chapter was removed from the 1810 edition of Irving's work. 2. I am currently preparing an annotated edition of Geddes's correspondence, comprising over 200 letters covering the period from 1776 to 1801. The letters will be preceded by an introduction on the late eighteenth century, the Catholic mission, the Cisalpine controversy of the 1780s and 1790s, Geddes's biography and the body of his ideas. Unless otherwise mentioned, all the manuscript material used in this paper is preserved in the Scottish Catholic Archives in Edinburgh, and the reference numbers are those of the SCA. 3. George Hay, Bishop of Daulis (1769), Coadjutor to Bishop Grant (1769-88), and later Vicar Apostolic of the Lowland District (1778-1811). 4. John Reid, Scottish missionary in Strathavon (1764-70), and Preshome (17701804).

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cousin of Alexander Geddes and Coadjutor of Bishop Hay,5 and, the only non-Scottish connection here, John Kirk, a member of the Staffordshire clergy.6 The correspondence with Bishop George Hay largely revolves around Geddes's dismissal from the Scottish mission. The whole episode produced no fewer than 60 letters, and is evidence for the almost complete lack of understanding between Geddes and his bishop. The relationship between these two had been tense from the beginning. Bishop Hay, who was a high-principled upholder of orthodoxy, took great offence at Geddes's free manners, and at his social ease in society with women, as well as the Catholic and Protestant nobility alike. Geddes behaved as a man of the world, and this, as well as his ecumenical attitude, was something which Hay found unfitting for a Scottish missionary. On both sides the letters show either a tip-toeing around one another, or a lashing out in fury— bishop and missionary were evidently not able to adopt a middle course. If there is one thing the correspondence makes perfectly clear, it is that Geddes was not so keen to exchange his native Scotland for glamorous London as has often been suggested. What happened? During the vicariate of Bishop Grant—Geddes's childhood teacher and friend who was a tolerant man, and who had a genuine fondness for Geddes7—the differences between Geddes and Bishop Hay did not result in a confrontation. However, once Bishop Hay had succeeded Bishop Grant as Vicar Apostolic, after James Grant's death in December 1778, the days of toleration were over. When Geddes returned from London in September 1779, where he had gone to have his Satires of Horace printed, he found himself replaced as pastor of Auchinhalrig by George Mathison,8 without further notice. During the following 16-month-long wrangle, Bishop Hay argued that Geddes had wanted to leave Scotland to seek his fortune in London, while Geddes consistently maintained nothing conclusive had been agreed upon, and that it had always been his intention to return to Scotland. The socalled 'Banff affair', Geddes's visit to the Protestant chapel at Banff in the 5. John Geddes, Superior at Scalan (1762-67), Superior at Valladolid( 1770-80), Bishop of Morocco (1780), and Coadjutor to Bishop Hay (1781-93). 6. John Kirk, one of the members of the Cisalpine Staffordshire clergy who were engaged in a controversy with the orthodox vicars apostolic during the late 1780s and the 1790s. 7. James Grant, Bishop of Sinitis (1755), Vicar Apostolic ofthe Lowland District (1767-78). 8. George Mathison, Scottish missionary at Auchinhalrig (1779-1828).


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company of the Earl of Findlater's party,9 was obviously not the reason for his dismissal, since this incident occurred only in April 1780, seven months after his removal as parish priest from Auchinhalrig. The incident merely served as a catalyst in the deadlock. A possible explanation of the affair comes to light in a letter of 3 January 178110 in which Geddes relates that the plan of his going to London was first conceived by Mr Cruickshank, Chaplain at Traquair House," and Lady Traquair in 1778.12 The letter gives no information on why the suggestion was made. Geddes discussed the possibility with Hay, but, since Geddes was then already aware of the difficulty of obtaining a place in London, nothing conclusive was decided upon. According to Geddes, Hay told him in a fit of anger, during a quarrel at Preshome in the spring of 1780, that two years earlier he had been taking steps to get rid of Geddes. Finally, after eight more months of controversy, Geddes requested his dimissorials in December 1780, because there was a chance of a chaplaincy at the Imperial Embassy chapel in London. In the meantime he stayed with his friends, the Earl and Lady Traquair until June, before he finally left to take up his new position. This is not the behaviour of a man keen to leave the province to 'hob-nob' with the beau monde of London. What adds to the curious aspect of the affair is that Bishop Hay wrote two narratives in which he explained his view concerning Geddes's dismissal from the mission: the first on 11 April 1780;13 the second, 15 pages long, on 14 March 1781.14 Both narratives 9. James, seventh Earl of Findlater, who came into the title in 1770, was a Protestant nobleman married to a Catholic. The Findlaters instigated the visit to the Protestant chapel to hear a Mr Nichols preach. The first time the Banff affair is mentioned in Geddes's correspondence is in a letter of 12 May 1780 from Alexander Geddes to Bishop Hay (P-AG 6\1\19). In a letter of 6 May 1780 from John Reid to Bishop Hay (P-AG 1 \6\14), Reid mentions another incident that allegedly gave scandal, namely that Geddes had been foxhunting with the Duke of Gordon for seven hours. 10. Alexander Geddes to Bishop Hay, 3 January 1781 (P-AG 6\3\11). 11. Charles Cruickshank, missionary at, successively, Glenlivet, Drummond, Shenval, Edinburgh and Traquair. 12. Mary Ravenscroft, married the seventh Earl of Traquair who had befriended Alexander Geddes during Geddes's chaplaincy in Traquair House from 1764 to 1768. The couple remained friends with Geddes, and there is evidence of great affection between Lady Traquair and Geddes in Mary Traquair's letters from the period May 1781 to December 1783. 13. Bishop Hay's 'Attested narrative' of Alexander Geddes leaving the mission, signed by Matthison and Reid as being the truth, 11 April 1780 (P-AG 6\1\13). 14. 'Narrative of what passed between Mr. Hay & Mr. Alexr Geddes from Summer 1778 to January 1781' by Bishop Hay (P-AG 6\4\15).

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fail to yield any concrete evidence, but are obviously meant to justify Geddes's dismissal. Apart from that, there is also a circular letter from February 1781 in which Bishop Hay consulted the missionaries on the matter of Geddes staying in the mission.15 One of the reasons Bishop Hay may have been uneasy about the affair is that by censuring Geddes on his socializing with the nobility, he had insulted the Earl of Findlater and the Duke of Gordon,16 who had been Geddes's hosts. The Duke of Gordon in particular was a dangerous enemy because he was the most powerful and wealthy nobleman of the region, a patron of the Catholics, and a protector of the Scottish mission. From 1783 onward, Bishop Hay was involved in another controversy, this time with the Principal of the Scots College in Paris, Alexander Gordon.17 At the back of this there was a wider opposition of orthodoxy vs. liberalism and also the question of the college's subjection, or not, to the Scottish hierarchy. Concrete issues involved were the maintenance of Gordon's brother, John, whose mental illness made him a liability,18 and Hay's wish to have Henry Innes, the college procurator, return to the Scottish mission.19 When, as a result of being frustrated in his wishes, Hay refused to send any more students to the Scots College in Paris in 1783, Gordon retaliated by withholding money left in trust to Scalan, as well as the rents on several properties.20 The Principal was legally in the right, but 15. This letter is undated, but the fact that the answers of the missionaries came in after 18 February 1781 places the date of writing somewhere in the first part of February (P-AG 6\4\3). 16. Alexander, fourth Duke of Gordon, married Jane Maxwell with whom he had a family of two sons and five daughters. The Gordons had been Catholics, but had converted to Protestantism to be able to hang on to their estate, which, as Catholics they would have lost because Catholics then could not inherit property. 17. Alexander Gordon, Principal of the Scots College in Paris from 1777 to 1793 when he had to leave because of the French Revolution. 18. John Gordon, brother of Alexander Gordon, was professor at Valladolid from 1775 to 1781; he suffered from a mental illness and had to retire. The quarrel between Bishop Hay and Principal Gordon about the costs of maintenance, to which Hay initially refused to contribute, was resolved by dividing the costs between them. 19. Henry Innes, prefect of studies at the Scots College in Paris from 1771-93. 20. The Scots College in Paris was attached to the University of Paris and, as such, a State institution which fell under the jurisdiction of the Prior of the Carthusians. Neither Rome nor the Scottish vicars apostolic had any legal authority over the college. The Principal of the college, as a French citizen, was the legal representative of the college, and it was only the Principal who could take financial decisions concerning the funds invested.

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unfortunately Hay refused to see his point and reacted with a letter to the Carthusian prior in 1784, blaming the Principal for things he could not have been responsible for—including, for instance, the behaviour of Alexander Geddes. In reply Gordon published a memorial to defend himself which he circulated in Scotland among the clergy and laity. Hay, on his part, then circulated a reply among the clergy, of which he did not inform Gordon. At the time it was suggested that many complaints had been made about 'flagrant abuses' which the Principal was supposed to have introduced—but the problem was that never a shred of evidence to the vague allegations was produced, nor was any concrete 'abuse' mentioned. What is more, Gordon was never informed of the charges made, nor given the chance to defend himself against them. Geddes's correspondence reveals that Abbe Grant of the Scots College in Rome21 informed Geddes in June 1784 that Hay had devoted several passages to Geddes in his letter of complaint to the Carthusian prior. Geddes calls this portrait, sketched by Hay, a 'wanton and unseasonable' attack upon his character.22 What is particularly interesting is that, in that very year, Geddes and Hay had been attempting to establish a reconciliation, and Hay had been writing to Geddes in what Geddes calls 'a friendly manner', denying charges of manipulating against Geddes with regard to his Bible project.23 At the time, Geddes was accused of actively taking the part of Principal Gordon against Hay, but there is no evidence of this in the correspondence. Geddes merely defended his former master against Hay's 'libel', and blamed John Geddes and Hay for declaring 'open war against poor Grisy' (a nickname for the Scots College in Paris).24 In June 1785, Geddes wrote to his cousin John that he did not implicitly approve of Gordon's answer, and that he had advised him to 'expunge' several passages from his memorial to Hay, an advice that Principal Gordon followed.25 Apparently Gordon even blamed Geddes for his neutrality in 1786.26 In that same year 21. Peter Grant (1708-84), Scottish agent at Rome from 1737 to 1784. 22. Alexander Geddes to John Geddes, 22 July 1784 (BL 3\404\20). 23. Alexander Geddes to John Reid, 7 June 1784 (BL 3\404\14); Alexander to John Geddes, 8 June 1784 (BL 3\404\18); Alexander Geddes to Bishop Hay, 24 March 1784 (BL 3\404\8). Other letters from Geddes to Hay are dated 12 and 18 April 1784 (BL 3\404\11-12). 24. Alexander Geddes to John Geddes, 8 June 1784 (BL 3\404\18); Alexander Geddes to John Geddes, 22 July 1784 (BL 3\404\20); and Alexander Geddes to John Geddes, 21 September 1784 (BL 3\405\2). 25. Alexander Geddes to John Geddes, 28 June 1785 (BL 3\438\12). 26. Alexander Geddes to John Reid, 4 December 1786 (BL 3\468\5).

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Bishop Hay threatened to publish letters of Thomas Innes27 and others concerning the allegations of Jansenism against the Scots College in the 1730s to defend his own position.28 So, one could call the affair a faint echo of the Jansenist controversy of the 1730s between the Scottish mission and the Paris college. According to both Brian Halloran (1997: 102-48) and James McMillan(1981:22-33; 1982:23-30; 1988:12-45) the disputes of the 1730s were not purely theological. Then the underlying issue had been a power struggle between the Highland and Lowland vicariate, fed by dissatisfaction about the hard life many missionaries had to lead,29 but other factors underlying matters involved had been the control over the college and money matters, as was also the case in the 1780s. Through the correspondence with John Reid, a fellow missionary of the neighbouring parish of Preshome, and one of the Administrators of the Scottish mission, we catch glimpses of a continuous source of dissatisfaction in the mission, the scarcity of money. One of the objections brought against Geddes, by his superiors, was the fact that he was unable to live within his income. But Geddes was not the only one who had difficulty living on the yearly salary often pounds the mission paid its missionaries. In a letter of 27 February 1784 it becomes clear that John Reid had written a letter of 30 pages to Bishop Hay on the subject of his income.30 In response Geddes wonders if Hay is in a position to augment it, and in a letter of 7 June of the same year we learn that Reid has asked Geddes to speak to the Duke of Gordon about the purchase of six acres of land, obviously for farming purposes.31 For farming was not only an accepted method for country priests to augment their meagre income, it was even expected of them to grow their own foodstuffs, so that the mission could 27. Thomas Innes, prefect of studies in the Scots College in Paris in the periods 1691-98, 1704-27, 1729-33 and 1738-44. 28. Alexander Geddes to John Geddes, 12 September 1786 (BL 3\468\3). 29. According to James McMillan (1988: 12-45) and Brian Halloran, the controversy was instigated by the frustrated ambitions of a group of Highland clergymen who could not substantiate their accusations (Halloran 1997: 118-19), and the report, made on behalf of Rome, was so full of errors as to be useless for evidence (Halloran 1997: 133-34). McMillan also points out that Jansenism is no longer seen as a monolithic phenomenon, but rather as a theological power clash between the Jesuits and the seculars, which was complicated by the political machinations of Richelieu (McMillan 1981: 22-33). Furthermore, the papal bull Unigenitus (1713), enshrining Jesuit doctrines and kindling division, is now regarded by many modern historians as the most misguided of all Roman decrees (McMillan 1982: 23). 30. Alexander Geddes to John Reid, 27 February 1784 (BL 3\404\4). 31. Alexander Geddes to John Reid, 7 June 1784 (BL 3\404\14).


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pay them a lower salary than urban priests. On 24 October 1786, Geddes warns John Reid against farming on a small scale and without capital, claiming it was this that ruined him financially back in the 1770s. John Watts's Scalan: The Forbidden College gives an idea of the hazards of fanning on a small scale, relating that there were a series of severe winters in the early 1770s, which bankrupted many small Highland farmers (Watts 1999: 210). Furthermore, it is useful to look at the income level in the late eighteenth century. Schwarz has shown that the income of working-men in London, two thirds of the population, in that period did not exceed about £60, the level under which no tax was levied. In this category the unskilled and semi-skilled were at the bottom, with an average weekly wage between 12 and 15 shillings (Schwarz 1992: 53; Sheppard 1998: 203, 221). This information puts Geddes and his colleagues firmly at the absolute bottom of their income group, which was itself the lowest income group, and sheds a different light on missionaries not being able to live within their income. Geddes's most important correspondent was Bishop John Geddes, Bishop Hay's Coadjutor; some called him 'the angel of peace'. He was a man much appreciated for his great personal charm, a diplomat of the first order, who was always careful with his words. In a fit of exasperation, his cousin, Alexander Geddes, called this much-celebrated talent of John in 1786 'your mealy and milksop mediation'.32 This illustrates what is interesting about the friendship: their temperaments were diametrically opposed. For although Alexander Geddes could himself be charming and witty, he went in for aggressive argumentation when his temper was roused; by so doing, he made many enemies. This difference, however, did not stand in the way of friendship, since the cousins wrote regularly for over ten years. The correspondence started after John's return from Spain to Scotland in 1781, which coincided with Alexander leaving for London. Subjects covered in the hundred or so letters are, among others, biblical criticism, the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, in which John was involved,33 and theological discussions. The letters invariably end in an exchange of news, and gossip about their mutual acquaintance. Judging from Alexander's reactions throughout the correspondence, John was very much the 'politically

32. Alexander Geddes to John Geddes, 12 September 1786 (BL 3\468\3). 33. John Geddes was elected a corresponding member of the Society of Antiquaries in 1781, and honorary member in 1790. He was secretary for foreign correspondence, and one of the censors, in which capacity he helped see through the press the first volume of the society's Transactions. This volume included articles by John and Alexander Geddes and Principal Alexander Gordon of the Paris College (Goldie 1991: 49).

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correct' eighteenth-century orthodox priest, while Alexander played the part of the rebellious rationalist, trying to argue his friend out of his more dogmatic points of view. The discussions are often heated, sometimes, on Alexander's part, bordering on the brink of insult; yet, happily, friendship always got the better of theological difference. In one case, the Jenison affair, the discussions indeed had an acrimonious character. Because this case is illustrative of the religious-political complexity of the position of the Catholics in the late eighteenth century I will present a brief outline here.34 At the end of 1784, the Episcopalian minister Augustin Jenison left his Protestant wife and three children to return to the Catholic priesthood and his former vow of celibacy. In the correspondence Geddes claims both Bishops Hay and John Geddes advised Jenison to leave his family for a place at St Omer.35 Politically, this conversion came at an inopportune moment, for at the time Catholics were in the process of paving the way to a repeal of the penal laws. One of the sore points between Protestants and Catholics had always been that Catholics were alleged to feel free to break their faith with 'heretics'. And that was exactly what Jenison had done in leaving his wife and children and returning to the priesthood. Thanks to Alexander Geddes's mediation, Mrs Jenison's silence was bought with the promise of a provision for herself and her children, and Geddes managed to procure a warrant from Jenison that gave her access to some of his money.36 As late as May 1786 Bishop James Talbot of London37 sent out a circular to obtain funds for Jenison's family. But Geddes's efforts to procure a financial provision for the abandoned wife and children were crippled by the displeasure of his wealthy friends from the Catholic Committee, who blamed the Scottish bishops for jeopardizing the cause of emancipation, and who initially refused to donate.38 In October 1786 the bond was finally made out to 'the widow'.39 The argument between Alexander and John Geddes seems to have revolved around the canonical 34. In the correspondence the period covering the Jenison affair is from 26 October 1784 (BL 3\405\5) to 3 October 1786 (BL 3\468\4). 35. Copy of a letter of Alexander Geddes without addressee, November 1784 (BL 3\405\16). 36. Alexander Geddes to Mr Jenison, 24 December 1784 (BL 3\405\18), and Alexander Geddes to Mrs Brodie (Mrs Jenison's aunt), 21 January 1785 (BL 3\438\3). 37. James Talbot, Coadjutor of Bishop Challoner, and later Vicar Apostolic of the London District. 38. Alexander Geddes to John Geddes, 1 May 1786 (BL 3\467\11). 39. Alexander Geddes to John Geddes, 3 October 1786 (BL 3\468\4).

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and juridical technicalities of celibacy and marriage. While John stuck to the orthodox position that a prior vow of celibacy makes any future marriage invalid, a stance which shows he did not recognize civil rights, Alexander defended the position that the laws of the country are to be reckoned with, and that the marriage cannot be absolved without the wife's consent.40 The atmosphere in the correspondence with John Kirk is different from that in the letters written to Scottish correspondents. Kirk was one of the members of the Cisalpine Staffordshire clergy41 who, together with their intellectual leader Joseph Berington,42 were engaged in a controversy with the vicars apostolic, especially with Bishop Walmesley of the Western District,43 in the late 1780s and 1790s. This group stood up for the canonical rights of the clergy vis-a-vis the bishops, and those of local bishops vis-a-vis Rome; they recognized civil authority; and did not believe that the pope had any temporal authority over established governments.44 Thus, Kirk was a kindred spirit, and the correspondence reflects this in that Geddes's style of writing is relaxed and friendly; their talk is mainly about scholarly subjects. The last letter written to Kirk, dated 6 December 1798,45 contains the following passage:

40. Alexander Geddes to John Geddes, 16 November 1784 (BL 3\405\10). 41. See Rowlands 1968. The Staffordshire clergy was a group of clergymen of the Midland District who felt that the vicars apostolic were overriding the rights of the clergy and that the odium in which Catholics were held was also due to the exaggerated ideas of the powers of the pope and the bishops attributed to them by nonCatholics. They exerted their influence to do away with this prejudice. 42. Joseph Berington, the most important early Cisalpine theorist and an advocate of Catholic emancipation in the 1780s and 1790s. 43. Charles Walmesley, Vicar Apostolic of the Western District from 1770 to 1797. 44. All British Catholics were faced with the very real problem that the pope's temporal power and the allegiance of the Catholics were incompatible with British citizenship. Orthodox and liberal Catholics were united in their acceptance of a separation of the temporal and religious spheres; they split, however, on the nature of the pope's jurisdiction. The orthodox maintained papal supremacy in theological matters and treated the exercise of an accidental temporal power by the pope as a historical reality. The liberals, or Cisalpines, however, considered temporal political power to be inseparably linked with infallibility in the theological sense. Consequently they argued that, since Pius V had erred by excommunicating Elizabeth I, infallibility had been founded on previous false claims. 45. Alexander Geddes to John Kirk, 6 December 1798 (BAA CIS 12 [Diocesan Archives Birmingham]).

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The Bible and the Enlightenment Is it possible that there exists a species of pretended Christian - Catholics, who hold opinions congenial to those of a Walmesley and a Sharrock?46 I knew well that the English Catholics have always been much, too much, addicted to transalpine doctrines: but I never imagined that they were deeper tinctured with Romish maxims, than even the Romans themselves in the meridian glare of Papacy.

There are plenty of such examples of astounded disbelief at the expressions of orthodoxy in the correspondence. Geddes seems to have been unable to place himself imaginatively in the position of people, Catholics such as Bishops Hay and Walmesley, who clung to the familiar beliefs and doctrines of the old martyr Church, and who were unwilling to adapt to the gradual social and intellectual changes of the late eighteenth century. In that respect it is important to remember that Geddes was very much a Cisalpine. His patron Lord Petre47 had involved him in the Catholic Committee's exploits on behalf of Catholic emancipation in the 1780s and 90s, and he had brought him into contact with a number of leading Cisalpines.48 As Chinnici (1980) has already pointed out, in Cisalpinism religion and politics were intertwined, since Cisalpinism tackled the problems of the relationship between Church and State and the reality of religious pluralism. This attitude stood in striking contrast to the position of orthodox Catholics, who studiously avoided confrontation with their predominantly Protestant environment, and who tried to stay within the safety of their small secluded Catholic circle. This unworldly attitude was increasingly difficult to maintain for large numbers of Catholics who had to make a living in their early industrial eighteenth-century environment, which was predominantly Protestant. The Cisalpines were aware of the need to accommodate their illegal Catholic faith, in some way, to the norms of the established Church in order to gain civil rights. They accepted the French Gallican tradition, drew on the never quite extinct tradition of appeals of 46. Gregory William Sharrock, a Benedictine who was Coadjutor of Walmesley, and succeeded to the vicariate after Walmesley's death in 1797. 47. Robert Edward, the ninth Lord Petre, who financed Geddes's Bible project, was the head of one of the most powerful and wealthy old Catholic families in Britain. He had a leading role in the emancipation movement towards Catholic toleration in the late eighteenth century. 48. The Catholic Committee was a group of influential and wealthy Catholic laymen and a few priests who secured the relief act of 1791, which finally gave Catholics the right to practise their religion, but no full civil rights. Some other leading Cisalpines with whom Geddes must have been in contact were John Throckmorton, the author of the pamphlet on the election of bishops, and Charles Butler, the Committee's secretary, and a lawyer of repute.


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loyalty to the Brittish sovereign which denied the pope's temporal power, and tried to formulate a Catholic theology that was integral with the British Natural Law tradition of Whiggery.49 It was largely thanks to the endeavours of the Catholic Committee that the partial relaxation of the penal laws of 1791 became a fact. Initially, Prime Minister Pitt's main problem with toleration for Catholics was the papal dispensing power. Keen to pacify and convince the government, Lord Petre asked Geddes to write a paper on that particular subject in 1788. This paper of 16 quarto pages was presented to the ministry in March 1789, and served to take away the worst prejudice of the members of Parliament.50 Geddes's paper led to the request for a testimony on the doctrine concerning the papal dispensing power from the foreign Catholic universities on the continent, which, once provided, led to the drawing up and signing of the Protestation of 13 March 1789, with the well-known result of partial relief being granted in June 1791. The Poetry Collection in Essex Among the Petre papers in the Essex County Council Archives there is a manuscript collection consisting of roughly 200 poems and fragments and three treatises from Alexander Geddes's hand, the plan for the Cisalpine Club,51 a biblical, and a historical treatise. Within the poetry collection, 49. For an explanation of the intellectual origins of Cisalpinism, see Chinnici 1980: 33-40. The position of the Cisalpines is best understood if one bears in mind that they, as convinced Whigs, accepted the separation of Church and State and argued from a position of natural rights. Contrary to the anti-Catholicism of the French philosophes, the British exponents of toleration were not anti-Catholic. In Britain the theory of religious toleration was influenced by the Natural Law approach of Locke, the Protestant emphasis on private judgment and a rationalist scepticism with respect to religious truth. These ideas, combined in the theory of religious liberty based on the rights of conscience, which was popularized by the rational dissenters Joseph Priestley and Richard Price, influenced men like Joseph Berington, the Cisalpine theorist, and Alexander Geddes. They felt it was their right to choose their own religion, uncensored by others, and they accepted the movement in support of toleration because of the social pressure that came with being a member of a disenfranchised minority. As such, the Cisalpine view was the result of both political praxis and a philosophical conviction, in which the reality of a pluralistic society was accepted. 50. Alexander Geddes to John Reid, 19 May 1788 (BL 3\520\4), and Alexander Geddes to John Geddes—27 March 1789 (BL 4\4\12). 51. 'Considerations on the present situation of the English Catholics and on the best means of improving it' (D/DP Z57) is in fact the plan for the Cisalpine Club, the society that succeeded the Catholic Committee, after the relief act of 1791.

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one can distinguish, on the one hand, 24 pieces of poetry neatly written out, which appear to be final or near-final productions, meant for publication. On the other, there are some 155 pieces of poetry, the state of which varies from rough, unfinished drafts—some hardly legible—to more or less finished poems. Only a few of these drafts are dated and a number of them are imperfect versions of the 24 pieces of finished poetry. After a rough analysis of the 180 poems, it appears that there are several different versions of a number of poems in the collection, thus leaving a total of some 145 poems. In my unpublished thesis, 'The Wayward Muse of Alexander Geddes' (2000), categories were distinguished on the basis of subject matter, since style and form of Geddes's poetry are too diverse to provide clear literary categories. What makes it difficult to tackle the material from a purely literary point of view is that Geddes wrote in a mixture of styles and modes, and that he does not appear to have reserved a particular technique for a particular poetic genre. A division of political and miscellaneous poetry was an obvious solution to the problem. This last category comprises religious and occasional poetry as well as verse letters. Geddes had a profound knowledge of the classics; he was esteemed in literary circles for his translation of the Satires of Horace and on account of this performance he was presented with an honorary degree by the University of Aberdeen in 1780. The Essex manuscript material shows his love of ancient mythology; many poems abound with mythological scenes and figures and he often invokes the Muse to aid him in his poetic efforts. Of course, imitation of the classics was a normal feature in eighteenthcentury England when the tone was set by Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson; consequently, many of Geddes's poems are written in heroic couplets or rhyming pairs and display a mock-Augustan style. Yet, Geddes does not use intricate metaphors, which are characteristic of much of Pope's and Johnson's poetry; as a result, Geddes's poems are easily accessible to the modern, non-literary, reader. Other favourite techniques of Geddes are the six-line ballad form and the adaptation of existing songs in which he adopts the rhyme schemes and rhythms from the original. Geddes was clearly a poet of his time in that he wrote a number of Scottish poems (see Geddes 1792b), as well as several poems that could be regarded as early romantic poetry. The political poetry forms the bulk of the Essex manuscript material and it comes in an amalgam of styles; there are classical style satires invoking the Muse, popular songs, humorous dialogues and serious or satirical odes. The majority of these poems are satirical, yet the tone and general atmosphere differ greatly. Geddes's humour can be light and playful, mischie-


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vous, or sharp as a razor. Satire was Geddes's natural medium—as he writes to his cousin John Geddes in 1781: 'you would not, it seems, have me "to be satirical". You may as well wish me not breathe—I will be satirical—I must be satirical, when occasions present themselves... '52 It may very well have been this relentless satirical approach to almost all features of social life, religion and culture which made Geddes obnoxious to contemporaries and historians alike. For Geddes's satirical spirit seeped into all of his writings: his letters, his poems, his pamphlets, his reviews, even into his Bible volumes. Another problem was that his contemporaries were not always ready to adopt his alternatives for the ideologies he tried to demolish, as was the case with his biblical criticism and his notions on ecclesiastical and civil democracy. The background against which Geddes evaluated and judged his world was based on, to use his own words, the 'rational principles of liberty and justice', the 'natural equality of men', and the 'unalienable right to choose' according to one's own conscience.53 Consequently, favourite objects for ridicule are authorities like Prime Minister William Pitt, King George III, the Prince of Wales, the aristocracy, the pope, and the bishops of the established Church. Geddes frequently celebrates political reformers, such as the Whig leader Charles Fox, who was in favour of religious toleration, and Fox's left wing fellow Whigs, Grey,54 Sheridan55 and Erskine,56 who warmly supported the radical Corresponding Society and The Friends of the People.51 In several poems there are angry references, veiled and unveiled, to the suspension of Habeas 52. Alexander Geddes to John Geddes, 23 July 1781 (BL 3\341\7). 53. These phrases are taken from 'Considerations on the Present Situation of the English Catholics and on the Best Means of Improving It', the plan for the Cisalpine Club in the Essex collection. 54. Charles Grey, second Earl Grey, Viscount Howick and Baron Grey (17641845), supported the radical societies and was in favour of Parliamentary reform. 55. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, acted as confidential adviser to the Prince of Wales, and was an advocate of Parliamentary reform, and a supporter of the French Revolution until the leaders resorted to violence. 56. Thomas Erskine, first Baron Erskine, a favourite of the Prince of Wales and Charles Fox, who successfully defended the radical leaders arrested for treason in 1794. 57. The Corresponding Society was founded by the shoemaker Thomas Hardy as an association of working-class advocates of universal suffrage. The Friends of the People was a society founded by the radical Whigs Grey, Sheridan and Erskine that advocated parliamentary reform and publicized their news in the form of resolutions in the newspapers. Both societies had many branches in the larger towns of Britain, and made it their business to spread the ideas of Thomas Paine.

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Corpus in 1794-95, and the Treasonable Practices Act and Seditious Meetings Act of 1795-96.58 But whether Geddes himself was really a member of the radical societies, as has been suggested by Bernard Aspinwall (1977), remains uncertain. What is certain is that he had contacts with the radical coterie of Joseph Johnson, the co-founder of thQ Analytical Review for which Geddes acted as reviewer from 1788 to 1793. Johnson assumed unpopular liberal positions on controversial issues such as the abolition of the slave trade, religious toleration and woman's rights, and he published the works of authors like Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft. The occasional poems, the second largest category to be distinguished in the Essex manuscripts, show that Geddes was very much a public poet in that he liked to write poetry for the births, weddings and funerals of the gentry, aristocracy and politicians. These poems are polished and more neutral than the political satires, which often display a great deal of feeling. But Geddes also liked to write for less grand occasions, such as friends' birthdays, New Year's Day, illnesses, or to make up a quarrel with a friend. With Geddes, 'poetising', as he called it, was also sport; he evidently had a great facility in composing poetry in a short period of time, and was able, as the Essex manuscripts prove, to adopt many different voices to address his various acquaintances. Examples from Geddes's personal acquaintance who feature in the Essex manuscripts are the Duchess of Gordon, a patroness of Geddes and society queen in Edinburgh, as well as Tory hostess in London,59 fellow radical Gilbert Wakefield,60 and, of course, his patron Lord Petre. Although purely religious poems are rare in the collection, religion figures in many political and occasional poems, sometimes as a tactical weapon, sometimes to make a moral point. It is striking that the Christian 58. After the suspension of Habeas Corpus in 1794, a number of the radical leaders were arrested. Some of them were acquitted of the charge of high treason, but in Scotland others were sentenced to years of transportation. The following mass agitations so alarmed the government that Pitt secured the passage of the Treason and Sedition acts in 1795 and 1799, which resulted in forcibly suppressing the radical societies that pleaded for male suffrage and better working conditions. 59. Jane Maxwell, wife of the fourth Duke of Gordon, was renowned for her unconventionality and sharp tongue. 60. Gilbert Wakefield, a respected classical scholar who jeopardized his reputation by his Unitarian sympathies and controversial writings. In 1798 he was imprisoned because of an allegedly subversive pamphlet advocating the French Revolution. Like Geddes, he was a Hebrew scholar, who published a translation of the New Testament in 1792 and 1795, which Geddes reviewed in the Analytical Review.

VAN DIJK Alexander Geddes and his Unpublished Papers

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virtues of love and charity are frequently invoked next to the rights of conscience and liberty. Geddes's God is a benevolent God, celebrated as a God of love, and he seems to believe in him with an unquestioning faith. In contrast, Geddes's attitude to Church authority, moral rigidity and bigotry is highly critical,61 and there is even one straightforward denunciation of celibacy in the collection.62 Summarizing one could say that there is, in the Essex manuscript poems, an overall blend of Christianity, humanitarianism, Enlightenment ideas, and political radicalism. Epilogue Alexander Geddes has hardly received the attention he deserves, whether one regards him from an 'orthodox' or an 'enlightened' angle. He was a man of many trades, a pioneering Bible critic, an interesting poet, a reviewer, and a pamphleteer who tried to pave the way towards Catholic emancipation. Although he contributed directly to Catholic emancipation through his work for the Catholic Committee and took great pains to provide the British Catholics with a vernacular Bible translation, Geddes was suspended from his ecclesiastical functions in 1793, and practically ignored by leading Catholic historians. This is understandable if we bear in mind that the period of the power struggle between the Cisalpine intellectual elite, to whom Geddes belonged, and the orthodox clergy was obviously a painful episode in British Catholic history. It is, however, unfortunate, that, as a result, insufficient light has been shed on almost all Cisalpine theorists, pamphleteers and activists. Other reasons for the neglect of Geddes have already been mentioned. It is obvious that Geddes's versatility made it difficult to place him, that his lack of sectarianism made him suspect, and that his sharp pen hurt the feelings of many, especially those who failed to detect the idealism behind his mischievous wit and his aggressive arguing. And, last but not least, there was his irritable personality. In daily life, Alexander Geddes must have been quite a handful. His natural inclination to the anti-authoritarian aspects of Enlightenment thought, and his adherence to the sceptical attitude that reason must investigate all must have been vexing to his superiors. Especially irritating may have been that Geddes was a master in arguing his case, a pedant, 61. In the 29 pages of Not all the muses sing of arms and wars...' (D/DP Z57), Geddes celebrates God and the Christian virtues next to 'Reason' and attacks, among others, 'Bigots', 'Sophists', and the 'Stoic' and 'Jansenian school'. 62. 'To a lady who asked me if ever 1 had been in love...' (D/DP Z57).

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nearly always able to keep up a logical chain of thought no matter how angry he was, and clever at outwitting his opponents by pointing out the flaws in their reasoning. At the same time, Geddes's ready wit must have made him an amusing companion to those who were not so keen to curb the flow of his critical faculty or to subject him to their authority. Perusal of the manuscript material shows us a lively and unconventional spirit, easily provoked into sharp comment by what he perceived as hypocrisy and injustice, and curiously blind to the effect of his razor sharp wit on his environment. Geddes does not seem to have recognized the social, cultural and religious boundaries that were respected by most of his contemporaries, a thing which must have made it difficult for both his environment and historians to come to terms with him. The enigmatic quality of his personality seems a good reason to let him have the last word in defining himself as he did in one of the texts of the Essex poetry collection: Why should the learned lib'ral Geddes name Himself a Papist and himself defame? No Papist here—a Catholic we find A Christian priest, a Priest of all mankind. (MS D/DP Z5)

SCATTERED REMAINS: THE LITERARY CAREER OF ALEXANDER GEDDES* Gerard Carruthers Alexander Geddes is a very tantalizing figure of eighteenth-century culture. He is often glimpsed standing in the shadows, as it were, while contributing to some of the most significant intellectual movements of his day in Scotland, England and Europe. Geddes is also a figure seemingly designed to appeal to modernity. He is one of the most striking figures of the Scottish Enlightenment in his explicit cultural pluralism which is, arguably, to some extent, a product of the fact that he was cradled in the ecumenical life and the Scoto-Latinist tradition of Aberdeenshire, contexts that cultural historians have been slow to appreciate. As with his endeavours as an exegete, Geddes's radical political and cultural involvements seem to resonate down to the present day with increased frequency. More of Geddes's achievements in these spheres have been grasped over the last 40 years than in the preceding century and a half. Written within a year of Geddes's death by a deeply lamenting friend, John Mason Good's Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Geddes (1803) gives a sense of the amplitude of Geddes's cultural presence, not least because there cannot have been too many admiring biographies of Roman Catholic priests written by Protestant dissenters during this period (although, unfortunately, as Reginald Fuller has shown, it is a work crucially unreliable in some of its particulars [see, for instance, the facts surrounding Geddes's deathbed in Fuller 1984: 150]). David Irving, in his The Lives of the Scotish Poets (1804), locates Geddes as the most significant * Research for this essay, undertaken at the Scottish Catholic Archives, Columba House, Edinburgh, and Traquair House, Innerleithen, Peebleshire, was partly enabled by the award of a small grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, which I gratefully acknowledge. I am grateful also to Dr Christine Johnson Keeper of the SCA and Margaret Fox and Catherine Maxwell Stuart of Traquair House, all of whom made the job of perusing Geddes's scattered literary remains much easier than it might otherwise have been.

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Scots language poet of the eighteenth century outwith the holy trinity of Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns. Geddes is treated in an extensive 58 pages in this volume. However, he is dropped from subsequent editions of Irving's book and, in any meaningful sense, from the many nineteenth-century accounts of'vernacular' Scottish literature, being noted very often in only two or three lines as simply the author of one of the earliest Jacobite songs, 'Lewie Gordon', which helped fire Burns's interest in the genre. There is, as I will argue, something culturally significant with regard to this phenomenon of Geddes's poetic disappearance. The long nineteenth-century silence on Geddes's presence as what we might broadly call a 'cultural activist' has only recently begun to be pierced by realizations of how crucial a figure he could be. Jerome McGann's work on Geddes's influence on William Blake's conception of syncretic mythography and of the poetic 'codes' of the Bible has been the most dramatic discovery in this regard (McGann 1986). Elinor Shaffer's pinpointing of Geddes as a primer to the young Samuel Taylor Coleridge's developing theological thinking likewise places Geddes as a key figure of influence in 1790s British literary Romanticism (Shaffer 1975: 26-28,78). Yet Geddes is an individual who has too often been missed, being surprisingly absent even from footnotes, in accounts of the intellectual and artistic ferment of the period. A series of suggestive questions has somewhat belatedly grown over Geddes as a mover and a shaker in the 1790s. Did he persuade his publisher Joseph Johnston to provide employment for Blake? Might he also have urged the understandably nervous Johnston to print the first book of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man! Was Geddes the co-author with Joel Barlow of the clarion call of 1790s British political radicalism, the Address to the National Convention of France! What is the story behind the reading of Geddes's poetry in support of the French Revolution to the Assembly of Deputies as a marker of international intellectual support? (See Aspinwall 1977 for prompts to some of these questions.) These are all areas that require serious and sustained investigation, but in the meantime the surest cultural and intellectual biography of Geddes is to be found in his written work. If this is true in his work as biblical scholar, it is also true of Geddes's endeavours as a poet and writer in other genres. One slight but revealing mention of Alexander Geddes as a poet is to be found in the most celebrated modern work on the Scottish intellectual inheritance. In George Davie's The Democratic Intellect (1961), Geddes features as one of 'the three poets intermediate between Ramsay and Burns—Ross, Fergusson and Geddes', who are characterized as 'university

CARRUTHERS Scattered Remains

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men' (Davie 1961: 212). Davie is involved in a project to argue two broad cultural readings in his book. First, he wishes to assert that the Scottish Enlightenment, as opposed to traditional Anglocentric readings of the milieu, was not simply the product of beneficial new intellectual circumstances following on from the plein air union of Scottish with English parliaments in 1707. In a thesis that has become very celebrated, Davie proposes that the Enlightenment in Scotland ought to be seen as continuous with, and as an extension of, the Scottish Presbyterian insistence upon a 'generalist' metaphysical educational system very different from the 'specialist' educational mentality of England. Second, Davie wishes to suggest that the supposed bifurcation of the two sides of eighteenthcentury Scottish culture, between the Unionist philosophes of Enlightenment and the anti-Unionist Scots language activists of the vernacular poetry project (a split which is so frequently posited by historians and literary critics), is not so marked as is often supposed. This is why Davie points to the university background of the Scots poets, Alexander Ross, Robert Fergusson and Alexander Geddes. Davie's thesis about the integrity of eighteenth-century Scottish culture is both worthy and clever, but part of this cleverness extends to sleight of hand as we see in the case of Geddes. Geddes is certainly a 'university man' but via the provision of the Scots College in Paris, which hardly qualifies as a particular repository of Presbyterian educational ethics. At the same time, however, Davie is right to imply that we might look to Geddes as a bridging exemplar between the 'two sides' of eighteenth-century Scottish culture. We see Geddes's bridging capacity in his Three Scottish Poems with a Previous Dissertation on the Scoto-Saxon Dialect (1792) published in their proceedings by the Society of Scottish Antiquaries. This work deserves to be republished since, as Charles Jones has recently said, it is 'of great interest to the student of historical Scots and historical dialectology and [is] an important source for contemporary Scots pronunciation' (Jones 1995: 16). (Jones's book, A Language Suppressed [1995] represents yet another instance of Geddes resurfacing as a figure of crucial contemporary energy.) Leaving aside Jones's very specialized examination of Geddes's work as a philologist, I want to draw attention to some of the broad cultural contours of this production. Geddes's Dissertation is, first of all, an Enlightenment production in its prosecution of historical and comparative philology. Geddes seeks to demonstrate that the Scots language is as capable as, and sometimes superior to, English in what he calls 'richness, energy and harmony' (Geddes 1792b: 416).

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Geddes argues that the Scots Doric is sometimes as morphologically fluid as Greek, and even surpasses, in some instances, the expressive potential of languages such as Italian through the range of diminutives available to it (Geddes 1792b: 418). Geddes also, in a very deft survey of Celtic, Norse and Anglo-Saxon influences upon the historic linguistic fingerprints of Britain, upbraids Samuel Johnson (a man who had praised Geddes's own Select Satires of Horace [1779]), for lacking the necessary etymological knowledge of 'ancient Saxon and other Teutonic dialects' in the compilation of his great dictionary (Geddes 1792b: 440). At one point Geddes enters into combat with Alexander Pope by comparing two lines from the English poet's translation of Homer and subsequently offering his own supposedly superior version in Scots: Now here, now there, the giddy ships are born; And all the ratt'ling shrouds in fragments form. Headlong the ships are driv'n! Thick thuds of wind In threes and fours the soughand sails rescind. (Geddes 1792b: 425)

Geddes here is being somewhat mischievous in comparing two things unalike. A robust Scots sound energy is here substituted for the metaphorical nicety of Pope, in a typically licentious piece of eighteenth-century 'translation'. What Geddes is doing here, however, is deliberately pushing the issue. Implicitly, he is showing that one can create a forceful argument out of careful selectivity. Geddes does not actually believe in the absolute efficacy of any language or culture, in particular (the burden of much of his dissertation is towards demonstrating this scepticism). He is serious enough though in the Dissertation in defending the Scots language because of that attitude found elsewhere in the Scottish Enlightenment mindset that sought flagrantly to denigrate it. Geddes, the Enlightenment virtuoso, assembles a discussion centred upon a kind of quantification of the capacity of Scots and flies in the face of those 'modernizers' who saw the language as limited and limiting. Geddes is taking up the cudgels against those Enlightenment activists who sought to purge 'Scotticisms' from the Scotsman's rendering of English. (David Hume and James Beattie had notoriously compiled lists of such proscribed words and phrases, primed, as they were by Johnson's proscription of many 'improper' Scots words in his dictionary of 1755 [see Basker 1991: 82].) Geddes responds with a mixture of science and polemic, exacerbating sometimes Anglo-Scottish tension in his Dissertation to counterbalance the overstated case against Scots. This is typical of Geddes, the man whose entire intellectual biography shows his huge empathetic capability to see 'the other side'.


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Paradoxically, where Geddes is at his most explicitly playful, in his 'Epistle to the President, Vice-Presidents and Members of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries', the first of his three poems in Scots published with his dissertation, one feels that this is also where Geddes is at his most culturally trenchant. The 'Epistle' itself has a somewhat interesting publishing and critical history, following the trajectory of Geddes's reputation in general. Disappearing from critical sight more or less after David Irving's consideration of Geddes in 1804, the 'Epistle' reappears in extracted form in The Oxford Book of Scottish Verse in 1966, co-edited by one of the more perceptive commentators on the Scottish eighteenth century, John MacQueen. The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse (1970) prints the same extract and so Geddes has been kept somewhat in the mind of the audience for Scottish poetry through these often republished anthologies. However, it is actually a great shame that Geddes's poem should be so extracted, since it is one of the finest long digressive poems in eighteenth-century Scots and the very length and its subject matter—it is essentially an essay in Scottish intellectual heritage—mark it out as a hidden cultural document of some historical importance. The very extracting of the 'Epistle', arguably, is symptomatic of an overhanging view which had taken root in the eighteenth century, and against which Geddes is implicitly protesting, that poetry in Scots ought to be the vehicle primarily for short, sharp, cameo-like and somewhat comic matter. Robert Burns, for instance, was urged by some of the Scottish Enlightenment literati to turn his hand to a serious long poem in the more suitable medium of English, and one can argue that even in his longest poem, 'Tarn o' Shanter' (for all that it is a great work with very serious things to say about human psychology), Burns, by couching his production so flippantly, adds weight to the idea of Scots as a poetic medium primarily suited to the comedic. Geddes includes in his 'Epistle' an idea he floats in his Dissertation—the typically prescient idea of doing field studies in the Scots language. He urges the collection of Scots specimens: Wi' pains, on Caledonian grund Dig for their roots, 'ere they be dead, Fre Gretna Green to Peterhead; And plant them quick, as soon as got, In ae Lexicographic plot. I trou they'll soon baith live and thrive And gi'e you flours enew belyve. Or, gin si'k labor seem o'wr sterk, There's yet anuther way to werk:

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The Bible and the Enlightenment Collect, wi' judgment, skill an' care, The words an' phrases rich an' rare, That in aid beuks, for ages by, Like herbs in hortis siccis, ly Expose them to the open air; And wash, and clean, and trim, and pare Their wusant parts—I'm fair mistae'n If yet they dinna grow again. (Geddes 1792b: 446)

The organic metaphor here is telling. As in much of his endeavour with Scripture, Geddes is a radical traditionalist wishing to cut away unnecessary accretions, especially those of social attitude that obscure the purity of the original word. Geddes proceeds to rail against the English language: Let braggart England in disdain Ha'd ilka lingo, but her ain: Her ain, we wat, say what she can, Is like her true-born Englishman, A vile promiscuous mungrel seed Of Danish, Dutch an' Norman breed, An' prostituted, since, to a' The jargons on this earthly ba'! Bedek't 'tis true, an' made fu' smart Wi mekil learning, pains an' art; An' taught to baik, an' benge, an' bou As dogs an' dancing masters do. (Geddes 1792b: 447)

The point, of course, is not that Geddes is being genuinely racist; he is indulging in the mock-flyting with English culture that is sometimes found in the Scots language poets of the eighteenth century. The reference to the 'true-born Englishman' represents the lampooning of a phrase associated with Daniel Defoe and taken up subsequently in certain circles as a proud slogan. A predominant theme of Geddes's work in poetry—and we can trace this from his Select Satires of Horace in 1779 down to his translations of the psalms, posthumously published in 1807—is that falsifying refinement obscures the plain (though often multicultured) truth. Geddes assertively opens up a Scottish dialogue with English language and culture: Do bot compare each nation's phrase In Bess's and in Mary's days, Is English prose mair orthodox Than that of Kennedy an' Knox


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Does Melvil's story muddier flow Than those of Holinshed an' Stowe? Are Barclay's rimes mere tight an' terse Than Lindsay's or Montgom'ry's verse? Does Spenser, deathless bard, precel The peerless Bishop o' Dunkel? (Geddes 1792b: 448)

What we see here is a quite astonishing cultural ecumenism where the Catholic Geddes is laying a claim of right to Presbyterian Scottish culture and, in fact, all of Scottish culture. Gavin Douglas, the pre-Reformation poet and Bishop of Dunkeld was virtually a cultural icon for eighteenthcentury Scottish Catholic and Episcopalian culture. But the inclusion here also of Andrew Melville and John Knox makes for a Scottish iconography that could not be expected from a Catholic or even an Episcopalian poet only a few years earlier, such was the strength of standard anti-Calvinism/ Presbyterianism in the mainstream tradition of eighteenth century Scots poetry. Geddes goes on to list a whole canon of recent Scottish intellectual and cultural achievement including the surgeon Archibald Pitcairne, at the centre of a crucial Episcopalian cultural circle from the 1680s to the 1710s which had been the engine for the reinvigoration of writing in Scots as well as representing the centre of European rationalism in Scotland; the mathematician, John Napier, who invented logarithms; James Thomson, the writer who brought a Presbyterian scrupulosity of attention to bear on nature in British poetry; the legal theorist Lord Kames; the philosophers Thomas Reid and James Beattie; and other historians and scientists. He also provides a litany of the canon in Scots language poetry from the mediaeval period down to Burns. Geddes, then, emerges here as ambidextrous a man of both Enlightenment and Scots language sensibilities as Davie could wish for. A standard trope waved at the Scottish eighteenth century by cultural critics is that of'crisis of identity'. Multifarious Geddes's cultural identity as espoused here flies in the face of such an idea of trauma. Geddes, to start with, came from a multicultural background in Aberdeenshire where Catholicism was far from being seen as a simply alien presence by Episcopalian and Presbyterian Christian cousins. One might instance the Protestant tenant-farmers in the Braes of Glenlivet who on more than one occasion in the aftermath of Jacobite agitation advanced warnings to the seminary at Scalan, where Geddes began his seminary education, that redcoat troops were on their way to suppress the establishment (Watts 1999). Among many of these farmers the Protestant principle of freedom of conscience seems to have made for a very clear separation of religion

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and politics. There is a familiar, tolerant, albeit waspish side to religious relations between Catholics and others in the north east of Scotland if the story told by the Episcopalian, Dean Ramsay, about Geddes's successor as parish priest at Auchinhalrig in 1780 is anything to judge by: .. .a worthy Roman Catholic clergyman, well known as 'Priest Matheson', and universally respected in the district, had charge of a mission in Aberdeenshire, and for a long time made his journies on a piebald pony, the priest and his 'pyet shelty' sharing an affectionate recognition wherever they came. On one occasion, however, he made his appearance on a steed of a different description, and passing near a Seceding meeting-house, he foregathered with the minister, who after the usual kindly greetings, missing the familiar pony, said, 'Ou, Priest! Fat's come o' the auld Pyet?' 'He's deid, minister'. 'Weel, he was an auld faithfu' servant, and ye wad nae doot gie him the offices o' the Church?' 'Na, minister', said his friend, not quite liking this allusion to his priestly offices, 'I didna dee that, for ye see he turned Seceder afore he dee'd, an' I buried him like a beast'. (Ramsay 1947: 83-84)

From cosmopolitan Aberdeenshire, Geddes proceeded in his studies to cosmopolitan Paris and returned to find the cosmopolitan Scottish Enlightenment in full swing so that men such as James Beattie could offer the hand of friendship to the talented priest. Beattie was one of those academics who successfully petitioned for the award of a doctorate to Geddes which he received from Aberdeen University in 1780 (Fuller 1984: 25). One might also cite the Church of Scotland minister and Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, Thomas Reid, facilitating Geddes's use of the university library when Geddes wanted to work on the Pentateuch. Reid, sharing Geddes's north east background seems never to have regretted this, though other Presbyterian academic colleagues bitterly attacked Geddes once his impious attacks on the authorship of Moses appeared (Irving 1804: 373). Geddes both in himself (via his literary and linguistic iconoclasm—whether he is dealing with writing in Scots or writing by Moses) and through his relationships demonstrates that the Enlightenment in Scotland was not so conservative as some critics have been wont to suggest. There is a radical Scottish Enlightenment cutting-edge still to be fully grasped by commentators and Geddes is one of the sharpest figures in this respect. This is true not only of Geddes the exegete, or Geddes the very knowing philologist. We catch another glimpse of this truth with regard to history. In the Essex county records among the Petre papers there exists in manuscript a long essay—of more than 50 folio pages—by Geddes on the


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Scottish Wars of Independence during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is unclear as to when precisely Geddes wrote this essay and it is not certain that it was ever published—it may be that the essay speaks particularly of a 1790s provenance in that in it Geddes seems to be especially interested in the concept of 'liberty'. Geddes may have been writing this essay at a time when few other Enlightenment historians of Scotland were interested in anything before the Reformation. But this is not necessarily to imply that Geddes's Catholicism prompts him in this interest. In fact, it is more likely that it is Geddes's association by this time with religiously dissenting Whig traditions of thought that is the spur to his historical essay. In his essay Geddes touches on an iconography of just rebels, such as William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, who oppose tyranny. Robert Burns is dealing with a similar iconography when he writes 'Bruce's March to Bannockburn' ('Scots wha Hae') and English radical thinkers are, at this time, particularly interested in pre-Reformation figures associated with liberty such as King Alfred and those who framed the Magna Carta. Geddes's essay is probably another work worthy of being retrieved and republished for its illumination of this cultural and political context. Given that Geddes derives much tangible support from Scottish Presbyterian friends and culture, it is somewhat sad that he falls victim, it can be inferred, to the construction of a narrow version of Scottish Presbyterian identity. Geddes was 'written out' of histories of eighteenth-century poetry in Scots largely because populist Presbyterian identity in the nineteenth century involves the expunging of the Scoto-Latinist tradition, which had been cradled particularly in the north east of Scotland. Allan Ramsay, the creative reviver of Scots language poetry from around 1715 emerges from the rationalist, Jacobite Edinburgh circle centred around Archibald Pitcairne. Pitcairne had brought Thomas Ruddiman south to Edinburgh from Banffshire as a man of suitable humanist culture appropriate to the role Pitcairne procured for him as Librarian to the Faculty of Advocates. The Pitcairne-Ruddiman-Ramsay circle was essentially Episcopalian in disposition and liked to think of itself as cultured and urbane, encompassing both 'high' culture and folk culture. Implicitly here, the members of this circle are claiming that, unlike puritanical Calvinism, they can enjoy a wide, sensuous range encompassing both aesthetically rich and more 'earthy' expression. The outlook of the circle, then, is strongly organic, encourages demotic 'folk' poetry in Scots and also tends toward seeing Scots as suitable for 'high' literary purposes. We see this latter

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aspect in that the original banner text of the circle is Gavin Douglas's mediaeval version of the Aeneid which Ruddiman published in a very fine edition in 1710. This text's important cultural and intellectual significance to the Scoto-Latinist circle lies in its bringing together of a sustained poetic use of the Scots language and a venerable 'translation' of one of the ancient classics of Western culture. The Scoto-Latinist or Scots Humanist literary heritage, then, becomes the main engine powering the eighteenthcentury revival of poetry in Scots. Despite the location of the creative epicentre of the Scots revival lying in Edinburgh with the work of both Ruddiman and Ramsay, the Scots Humanist predisposition remains particularly strong in the north east of Scotland as we see when we consider George Davie's 'three university men' mentioned earlier—Alexander Ross, Robert Fergusson and Alexander Geddes. Ross produces the longest Scots language poem of the eighteenth century, Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherdess (1768), an often elegantly written piece in Scots according to the conventions of Classical Pastoral. Though himself a Presbyterian, Ross was married to a practising Catholic and he features in his poem folk traditions involving peasants talking of ghosts and telling superstitious stories, which might be thought taboo territory for the strictest of Scottish Presbyterians at this time. Ross is also very much encouraged in the publishing of his poem by James Beattie. This poem is one of the inspirations for Robert Fergusson (an Edinburgh poet but of Buchan ancestry and hugely hostile to Scottish Calvinism) in his poem, 'The Fanner's Ingle' (1773). This features a similarly relaxed peasantry talking of witches and singing songs after a hard day's work. These peasants eat simple, hearty food and eschew enervating 'luxury'. What we have with both Ross and Fergusson is a demotic bucolic scene in keeping with the organic cultural predispositions of eighteenthcentury Scoto-Latinity. Robert Burns picks up on the idea of the Scottish peasant healthy in culture and in diet and adapts this for Presbyterian Ayrshire. The eating of good, unpretentious fare is an idea adopted by Burns in the likes of 'To a Haggis' (1787). More importantly, in 'The Cottar's Saturday Night' (1786), Burns takes as his model Fergusson's 'The Farmer's Ingle' to show a simply contented Presbyterian Ayrshire peasantry gathered around the Bible on a Saturday night after their diurnal labour, a peasantry capable also of telling ghost stories. Burns here shows himself to be very ambidextrous. He also, of course, satirizes the Calvinist mentality—most notoriously in 'Holy Willie's Prayer' (1786)—and this demonstrates him wielding the stereotype of the Presbyterian 'fanatic'


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passed down through the line of Pitcairne, Ramsay and Fergusson. None of these earlier writers would have thought of rehabilitating the Presbyterian/Calvinist figure, though Burns can on occasion. His pluralistic post-Enlightenment mentality allows him to be widely sympathetic in his treatment of Scottish history. He can celebrate in his poetry and songs Covenanters and Jacobites, as well as Mary Queen of Scots and a Presbyterian peasantry for whom, even down to the eighteenth century and well beyond, Catholic Mary's name is anathema. Burns's manoeuvre is, of course, entirely legitimate and no doubt counters a burden of unfair stereotyping of the character of Scottish Presbyterianism in eighteenth-century poetry in Scots. Burns's own ecumenism, ironically, is soon misappropriated through the much narrower mindset of the crass populist cult of Burns during the nineteenth century. Broadly, what happens here is that the idea of the rural, literate, simple-living peasant becomes almost entirely the property of Scottish, especially, lowland Presbyterianism. It is quite clear that in the nineteenth century, the classically cognisant heritage of poetry in Scots becomes somewhat traduced. The Burns cult embodies the notion that Burns is more or less 'the heaven-taught ploughman' whose literary antecedents, either in terms of the north east cradled Scots poetic revival or the ancient pastoral conventions channelled through him, are not much considered. One might also suggest that this crass cultism is pressed into service with increasing potency through the colonial Scot with his virile transplantation of the Burns cult overseas. Scots colonials return home after a hard day of imperial activity and seek self-deluding confirmation of their essentially unsophisticated and straight-dealing Scottish identity, which they find located in the couthy sayings and peasant locus of Burns (Finlay 1997). So the Scoto-Latinist legacy of eighteenth-century poetry in Scots comes eventually to be written out. This is almost certainly why Geddes, a Scoto-Latinist from the north east of Scotland and a Catholic to boot, largely disappears from the story of eighteenth-century Scots poetry during the nineteenth century. Alexander Geddes represents a particularly strong attempt to maintain the classicism of poetry in Scots. Along with his 'Epistle' to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, his 'three poems' attached to his Dissertation include long translations of Virgil and Theocritus into Scots (Geddes 1792b: 457-67). It is somewhat unfortunate, perhaps, that Geddes's scholarly zeal has him employ his own phonetic system of symbols and accents to render his poems and so these have remained inaccessible down to the present

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day. The republication of these transcribed into a more 'standard' Scots notation, would highlight part of the missing story of eighteenth-century poetry in Scots and its classical predilections. Geddes's poetic career had begun with the success of his Select Satires of Horace in 1779. The Select Satires, though largely in English, again speak of the Scots Humanist context outlined already. One of their keynotes is a complaint against false refinement during the eighteenth century. The poems much championed by Presbyterian man of Enlightenment, James Beattie, show the meeting between the two spheres of Enlightenment and Scots Humanism in eighteenth-century Scottish culture. Geddes writes in his Preface that 'Horace.. .is the poet and philosopher of all ages and countries, because he is the poet and philosopher of nature' (Geddes 1779: 3). We glimpse here the somewhat common cause between the two spheres of Enlightenment and north east humanism in that watchword of 'nature'. Common sense philosophy developed by Reid and Beattie at Aberdeen becomes the 'official' philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment and relies substantially upon the idea of 'human nature'. Again, this north east conjunction in eighteenth-century Scottish culture has been inadequately appreciated by cultural historians. Geddes's poems became a matter of pride for the Scottish Enlightenment, as Beattie's admiration shows. Yet Geddes as a minor but telling eighteenth-century literary phenomenon, where his Select Satires are met also with the admiration of Mrs Barbauld as well as Samuel Johnson (Aspinwall 1977: 334), is something not well known to modern Scottish or English literary history. As so often with Geddes's poetic texts, his Select Satires have a certain under-appreciated cultural resonance beyond their relatively minor status as creative literature. This publication, in fact, represents an interesting document in the renewed literary confidence of eighteenth-century Scotland, particularly as this is being driven by a north east impetus. The most frenetic part of Geddes's poetic and literary career, however, belongs to the 1790s, as events took him to turbulent London. His Epistola Macaronica adfratrem, published in 1790, is a long Latin sequence with English translation printed as a pamphlet, and depicts a meeting at a London tavern of Protestant and political dissenters. Geddes begins by observing with ironic, mock-awe that 300 different sects or parties are represented (Geddes 1790c: 5). For anyone with a sense of Geddes's personality, this will not be interpreted as Catholic smugness on the part of the priest. Geddes is a man habitually given to laughing at those who gather to administer or oversee religious groupings. (For instance, his


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prose-burlesque, The Book ofZaknim, not published until it appeared in the Innes Review in 1963, satirizes, in an exuberant parody of the style of the King James Bible, a gathering of the administrators of the Scottish Catholic Church during the 1770s [Geddes 1963].) Geddes is often found satirizing humanity's tendency to builds layers of complexity to smother what should be relatively straightforward practice. As with Catholicism, so too with the gathering of dissenters in London with whom he has such strong cultural sympathy. Geddes's portrayal of the meeting shows petty infighting among the dissenters, and he exacerbates the sense of explosive fragility by wondering why his friend, Joseph Priestley, should have absented himself from the gathering: What kept you, my Priestley, from gracing our dome? A better employment detains you at home: Where you fabricate bolts, and you meditate blows At Horseley, and Home, and Hawkins, and Howes, And tons of sulphurous powder prepare To blow up the church, and churchmen in the air! (Geddes 1790c: 8)

Given that Priestley was a man of sympathy for the French Revolution and under strong suspicion from the British government, one feels, perhaps, that Geddes might not always have been the most helpful of friends to have. Geddes says in a note that he is referring to 'metaphorical powder only' (Geddes 1790b: 8), but given that Priestley was an experimental chemist this is hardly reassuring. We might also remember that in 1791 Priestley's home and laboratory were attacked and destroyed by a progovernment mob, and it is possible that Geddes's poem inadvertently played a part in the incitement of this incident. Geddes's output of political poetry during the 1790s is fairly large, consisting of four individually published pamphlet-pieces and upwards of 70 shorter pieces published and unpublished. Geddes dashes off material in response to the drama of his times, but he also writes more considered productions. One of these latter is Carmen Saeculare (1790) celebrating the French Revolution. The primary Latin text of this works more elegantly as poetry than the English translation, and Geddes seems to have adopted the clever strategy here and elsewhere of resorting to Latin as a badge of culture in the face of common insults of the time against the uncultured,' Whiggish' status of those favouring reform. Geddes, schooled in Scoto-Latinism, is in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to meet such a challenge. Here is one stanza from Carmen Saeculare hailing the 'sound of liberty':

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The Bible and the Enlightenment Let Sov'reigns hear, and tremble! May the sound Reach ev'ry tyrant's ear, from pole to pole: Kings, emp'rors, princes, prelates, popes confound; And fill with terror each despotic soul. (Geddes 1790b: 7)

In Carmen Saeculare a new age of simplicity, love and justice is seen by Geddes to be possible with the principles of the French Revolution. And Geddes seems to have remained steadfast in the articulation of such ideals even as he saw the developing terror of the Revolution and other radicals began to mute their applause for France.1 Among numerous poems in manuscript form in the Scottish Catholic Archives and in Essex county records is Geddes's 'Irish Ca Ira' (perhaps written as the events that to the 1798 Irish rebellion unfolded). It is an interesting document giving a glimpse of the pre-sectarian nationalism of Ireland espoused by the United Irishmen: Oh! it will do, it will do, it will do! No more persecution her banner shall rear Oh! it will do, it will do, it will do! The Gospel-religion shall flourish anew! Each man in his fellow a brother shall view! A Greed that is cruel, can never be true. Oh! it will do, it will do, it will do! If charity binds us together like glue Nor the malice of Hell can our union undo Let odious foolish distortions no longer appear Of Papist or Protestant, Gentile or Jew. Oh! it will do, it will do, it will do. (Stanza 4)

No-one is more outspoken across a series of poems in The Morning Chronicle edited by Geddes's fellow Aberdeenshire man, James Perry, and in other places against British foreign policy: time and again Geddes accuses Pitt of being a war-monger with France; he is alarmed at the threat to the jury system, in his 'Trial by Jury' (Morning Chronicle, 11 February 1795); he writes frequently about the freedom of the Press, in for instance, his 'The Blessings of a Free Press' (proof-sheets for unknown publication in the Essex County Records Office, Chelmsford). One of his best efforts, 1. See numerous poems such as, for instance, the very skilful 'Ode PindaricoSapphico-Macaronica in Celeberrimi et immaculati viri, Gulielmi Pittii' published in the Morning Chronicle, first in Latin and then in English translation on 13 and 30 January 1795. Whether fair or not, this piece represents a piece as outspoken as it is possible to find at this time in its attack on Pitt, British foreign policy and the attitude of the government towards France.


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poetically, is to be found in his Ode to the Honourable Thomas Pelham published as a pamphlet in 1795, written after the politician Pelham had made a speech in the Irish House of Commons saying that Irish Catholics could not enjoy full rights as citizens since this would go against the Protestant constitution of Britain. Geddes is masterful in this poem in exposing the historical compromises and contradictions of the British state hitherto. He is particularly scornful of the idea of a sovereign as 'defender of the faith': Hence wags, of much more wit than grace, Have argued, with imposing face, That England's king should be A monster of a man, possesst Of many heads—of three, at least, To head his churches three. (Geddes 1795: 11)

In this pamphlet we find Geddes speaking up on behalf of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and for the dissenters of England, and daringly yoking the lesser status of these vis-a-vis the Church of England with the plight of Catholics. We can see in this piece also precisely why Geddes made his religious superiors, as well as some dissenters, nervous of him. As so often with Geddes, we find a compelling, blowtorch logic inevitably with the potential to make all sides unhappy: Will you assert, Religion's cause Requires a code of penal laws To hedge her sacred creed?— Then where's the difference 'twixt you, And that inquisitorial crew Of Lisbon, or Madrid? (Geddes 1795: 8)

As if this was not enough, Geddes asserts his ideal of separated polity and religion so as to enable him to fantasize about a Muslim monarch reigning over Britain, saying that nothing would change: Were we (I trust this is no libel) For the Koran to change our Bible, Under a Mufti's care: The State might hence receive no ill; Kings, Lords, and Commons, might be still The very things they are. George would be still, as at this day, In England, Scotland, Corsica, The varied faith's Defender;

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The Bible and the Enlightenment A different Creed no diff rence makes; Unless, indeed, it undertakes To set up a Pretender. (Geddes 1795: 9)

Occasionally, it might be wondered if his views made Geddes almost a bit too strange for any of the various groupings with which he was associated.2 I suspect that Geddes's corpus of (admittedly scattered) poetry provides much more of a window upon the political and cultural turbulence of the 1790s than historians and literary commentators have realized. It is slightly more surprising that Geddes's bitterly ironic and hugely skilful An Apology for Slavery (1792) is not more noticed by students of the period. It is very clear from contemporary accounts that important English radicals such as George Dyer and Gilbert Wakefield were well aware of Geddes's contributions to expressing the most radical thought of the day in his theological and 'cultural' writings (see, for instance, the response to Geddes's work on scripture in Dyer 1792: 152). Yet again, though, Geddes seems somehow to attract less notice from nineteenth- and twentieth-century historians than he ought to. My best hypothesis would be that many of the traces of later eighteenth-century radicalism in Britain are kicked over in the reactionary early 1800s and that Geddes is particularly a victim here. Culturally, Geddes is likewise a figure that British Catholicism under Bishop Douglass in England and Bishop Hay in Scotland is keen to forget. A constricting Scottish identity, an understandably fearful British Roman Catholicism and an increasingly conservative British polity in the nineteenth century all combine to consign Geddes to near oblivion. An Apology for Slavery is one of Geddes's surest pieces of writing. Its narrator attempts by the principles of 'reason' to justify that there is nothing wrong with slavery. Subjecting the case to historical scrutiny, the narrator says that whereas in pagan times there was compassion for black people, Christianity has brought a different dispensation: 'but who, for these fifteen hundred years has seen her [i.e. this type of undiscriminating emotion], or heard her crying, through compassion, on this sublunary globe?' (Geddes 1792a: 16). Geddes here is particularly tilting at Britain since in his narrator looking back to the fourth century we are taken to a 2. There is a telling comment by the north east priest, Alexander Gordon, in a letter of 22 April 1796 to the Countess of Traquair, where he writes, 'Dr Geddes has little influence one way or other & has lost himself much with all parties by some of his publications' (p. 3). From the Correspondence of the Fourth Countess of Traquair quoted here by kind permission of Traquair House Charitable Trust.


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point in time at which institutional Christianity in Britain is pre-dated. Geddes's sly implication, of course, is that Britain has never actually been truly Christian. An Apology for Slavery is a veritable catalogue of jabs undermining Britain's sense of itself as a reasoned, Christian polity. The narrator dismisses the appeal to nature by pro-abolitionists. He says: 'We may fairly say of Nature, what an apostle says of God: "No-one hath ever seen her'" (Geddes 1792a: 10). Typically, Geddes shows his sceptical views toward the expedient nature of the colonizing British constitution which was such a source of pride to contemporary conservative comment when the narrator observes that, 'Liberty shall be dealt out in different unequal parcels to the subjects of Great Britain.. .according to a political balance, of which the original standard is kept at St James's; but exact models of it sent to Dublin, Quebec, and other places concerned' (Geddes 1792a: 35). The heart of the matter in hand arrives as the narrator stumbles between his own crass utilitarianism and unintentionally allowing the sympathies of the reader to become engaged. This happens as he recommends to the reader a trip to the slave ships of Liverpool to see how well the whole business is managed: 'Those portable prisons are so contrived, that four hundred men and women can be more easily stowed in one of them, than could be the same number of dogs or hogs!—but remember, that they are black men and women' (Geddes 1792a: 45). Alexander Geddes is a man comfortable (even as others are made uncomfortable by him) amid a variegated identity which reaches toward the most generous of cosmopolitan and humanitarian heights. He is a Catholic priest nourished by the culture of eighteenth-century Aberdeenshire and the Scottish Enlightenment. He is a figure drawing upon both European ideas and British dissenting culture. He is an individual who dares in the face of all these intersecting contexts to minutely trace the lifeblood of his own cultural context through, as well as biblical exegesis, exploring Scottish history and language and through interrogating the contemporary British political scene. Alexander Geddes is a very special presence who should be brought in from the historical cold.

GEDDES IN FRANCE* Bertram Eugene Schwarzbach

Hebrew Studies in France before and during Geddes 's Student Days Generally, one does not think of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France as a centre for the study of Hebrew or of the Hebrew Bible, probably because the Jewish presence in France—excluding the papal territory around Avignon—was still too modest. It was almost nil between the expulsion in 1394 and the permission granted in 1550 to an indeterminate but certainly very small number of 'marchands portugais et nouveaux Chretiens', that is, crypto-Jews, to reside in the Bordeaux and Bayonne regions in southwestern France, from where they were authorized to pursue their commercial activities throughout the realm, and, in 1564, to a still smaller number of Rhineland families—just three—to reside in Metz and the surrounding area and to pursue their traditional activities of money-lending and the purchase and resale of cattle and horses within that region. Both Jewish populations increased gradually from that nadir by normal demographic expansion and by continued immigration from the Iberian peninsula in the one case and from the Rhineland in the other. The Jews were too socially despised in France for there to have been much intellectual contact with Christian scholars such as had occurred earlier in that century in Italy and particularly in Venice, and which continued to occur there despite the vigorous anti-Jewish policies of the Counter-Reformation popes, and in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Holland. The Bordeaux and Bayonne Jews were not only very discreet—they were to come out of the closet, to use the American expression, only in the mideighteenth century—but had little to offer Christian scholars because, even though they were the descendants of the great Spanish and Portuguese * It is a pleasure to thank Dr A. W. Fairbairn for his assistance in researching this paper, and for correcting several drafts.

SCHWARZBACH Geddes in France

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scholars and men of letters, before finding refuge in France they had been obliged to live as Catholics for several generations, which obviated any retention of the rich cultural heritage of pre-expulsion Sephardi communities. The Jews of Lorraine had more to offer, coming from Germany where there were yeshivoth, rabbinic academies, and remaining in contact with them, but there do not seem to have been any takers for what they had to offer. There had been mediaeval French scholars like Hugh of St Victor in Paris (died in 1141) and Nicolas of Lyra (died after 1349) who knew Hebrew well enough to read Rashi. Hugh was active while there were still Jews in France, in fact during the century of the Tosafists and the great French Bible commentators, while Nicolas was born in Lyre, in Normandy, probably well before 1306, when Philippe le Bel banished Jews from his realm—they were to return only to be banished twice more—so he, too, could have studied with Jews. Beryl Smalley (1964: xvi) supposed that they, like other mediaeval Hebraists, did in fact study with Jews because she had not found evidence for a continuous tradition of Christian Hebraism. But the thrust of an increasing number of canons of mediaeval Church councils was to limit if not totally exclude Christians' contacts with Jews. To compensate for the lack of both qualified and suitable informants—my assumption—Honorius IV 'founded' in 1286 a college in Paris to teach Hebrew and other Oriental languages, but he died before the project could be realized. The eleventh canon of the Council of Vienna (1311) decreed that there be created chairs of Oriental languages in five universities in Christendom, one of which was to be the University of Paris, but that instruction did not incite general literacy in Hebrew among French scholars because the decree does not seem to have been applied in Paris. Yet Charles Jourdain (Jourdain: s.d.} has published scattered evidence of Hebrew instruction at the University of Paris in the thirteenth century, probably dispensed by converted Jews. There were Professors of Hebrew at the University of Paris again in the fifteenth century (Jourdain 1863), that is, between the last expulsion of Jews from the realm and the beginning of their legal reintroduction, which established the principle that one could study the rudiments of Hebrew without Jewish informants but probably not much more, because we know of no good Hebraic scholars produced by the University in that period. By the sixteenth century, however, one sees signs of a thirst for Hebrew touching a wider public than the occasional, conscientious Bible commentator or ambitious missionary to the Jews (Rothschild 1992). We can

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deduce that Hebrew joined Greek and Latin as a source to which French Renaissance scholars wanted to return from the fact that Rabelais knew more than the rudiments of Hebrew and some fairly rare words like 7T13, 'TDD, PIQ^D, ^pn and HiJÊlft, and of course 'la dive bacbuc' turn up, especially in his Quart livre (1552; see Screech 1992: 403, 432, 481-82, 502-503, 582), and that he has Gargantua write a letter of encouragement to his son which shows that by 1532 at least a superficial acquaintance with the language was expected to be a part of the equipment of the learned humanist (see Pantagruel viii and cf, ix, where Panurge manages a little paragraph in Hebrew without too many faults), while the abbaye de Theleme has a 'belle et grande librairie' of Hebrew books (Gargantua liii). In some cases the reason for learning Hebrew was less humanistic than a gnostic desire to have immediate access to the language in which the secrets of salvation and mystical power were coded. There was some rather primitive Hebrew typesetting in Paris—alphabets and manuals for beginners—which suggests that there was a market for instruction in elementary Hebrew, and, eventually, some less primitive work which attests to the presence in Paris of a small community of editors, typesetters and proof-readers who were sufficiently competent in that language, even before Fraôis I established a chair of Hebrew, in his newly created college oflecteurs royaux (1531), to diffuse knowledge of that language. The examples of Hebrew typesetting in Paris before Robert Estienne that I have identified include editions of Ruth and Lamentations published in 1520 by a real pioneer, Bishop Augustin Justinianus (Agostino Justiniani),1 followed in 1534 by Paul Paradisi's De modo legendi hebraicae, and the two editions of Genesis and Exodus published by Christian Wechel in 1535 and 1536. Richard Simon informs us (Simon 1730: 108) that Bishop Justiniani, who had edited the Genoa polyglot Psalter in 1516, taught Hebrew in Paris, for which he received a handsome stipend from Fraôis I, before going to England where he was liberally received by Henry VIII. This would probably have been around 1520, when he also published in Paris the old Latin translation of Maimonides's Moreh Nevukhim,2 which had been known to Thomas Aquinas and other scholastic theologians. It may thus have been Justiniani who introduced Fran9ois Vatable to Hebrew as well as the other, as yet unidentified (Paris: [Gilles de] Gourmont, 1520). Dux sen Director dubitatium (Paris: lodoco Badio Ascensio, [1520]), a faulty reproduction of an older translation by an unidentified author based upon the Judah al-Harizi translation (Hasselhoff 2002: 5). 1. 2.


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Frenchmen who were to edit and compose the Hebrew books that were published in Paris before Robert Estienne began to prepare his in-4° Hebrew Bible and who formed the nucleus of Estienne's staff for Hebrew printing. Apparently the first book published in Paris to show some knowledge of Talmud was Porchetus Salvatici's De Victoria (eius) adversus impios Hebraeos, also in 1520. The first lecteurs royaux in Hebrew, one of whom was a Cantabridgian, Ralph Baynes, were not too competent. Jean Mercier (d. 1570), a generation later, was, on the contrary, highly competent. We know very little about Mercier3 except that he was capable of editing the Five Scrolls (1540) with their massorah parva for Robert Estienne's in-4° Hebrew Bible (1538-43),4 and probably also Estienne's Daniel and Ezra (1540), that he translated the commentaries of Kimhi, Ibn Ezra and Rashi on Hosea5 and that his Aramaic was good enough to translate the targumim.6 From an editorial point of view, Robert Estienne's edition of the Bible broke no new ground and was even a regression with respect to the two great Bomberg folio Bibles (Venice, 1517 and 1524-25), which says much about the sophistication of Hebrew studies in Paris. In Venice Bomberg published the Talmud of Jerusalem (1520), followed by the Babylonian Talmud and many very diverse rabbinic texts in handsome editions, but he had the services, first of a converted Jew, Felix Pratensis, then of Jacob ben Hayyim Ibn Adoniahu, and finally of a grammarian, lexicographer, poet and the first historian of the massorah, Eliyahu Ashkenasi, as his scientific editors, and of the Adelkind family as his compositors. He published dense Hebrew texts for learned Jewish readers, while the vocation 3. See Laplanche preprint. 4. SeeMcLeod 1999: 88. 5. Hoseas propheta... (Leiden: Raphelengis, 1621) (obviously a posthumous edition). 6. Obadiah and Jonah (Chaldaea translatio Abadiae et Jonaeprophetarum [Paris, 1550]), Haggai (Chaldaea translatio Haggaiprophetae [Paris, 1551]), then the complete Twelve Prophets (Chaldaea Jonathan Uzielis filii interpretatio in Duodecim prophetas [Paris, 1556-57]) and Ecclesiastes (Chaldaea interpretatio Ecclesiastae [Paris, 1562]) for the publishers Martin Juvenem, Charles Estienne and Guillaume Morel. In addition, he wrote an Aramaic grammar, HNQKHK "IN PINIED Npllpl *TCh (Tables of Chaldaean or Aramaic Grammar [Paris: Guillaume Morel, 1560]). Also active in Paris were Nicolas Clenard, author of pllplil 1~P v (Tabula in grammaticen hebraeam [Paris: Martin Juvenem, 1564]), and Jean Cinquarbes, author of De re Grammatica Hebraeorum opus (Paris: Martin Juvenem, 1549), De notis Hebraeorum liber (Paris: Marin Juvenem, 1582) andlnstitutiones linguam hebraicum (Paris: Martin Juvenem, 1582).

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of the Paris editors and publishers seems to have been to make more rudimentary Hebrew texts available and legible to Christian readers. Guillaume Postel (1510-81), lecteur royal in Oriental languages, rather than Hebrew alone (1538^3), traveled in the Orient and learned to read Hebrew and Aramaic, in particular, the Zoharic material, cabbalistic texts that first assumed their canonical form in the Mantua 1558 edition, and several other Jewish mystical texts which he integrated into his philosophy (Neveu 1996),7 while a generation later Gilbert Genebrard, lecteur royal in Hebrew (1566-91) and eventually Bishop of Aix, wrote a manual to teach techniques of reading unpointed, that is, rabbinic texts (Genebrard 1587), and translated a number of works.8 Both Postel and Genebrard may have been autodidacts in Hebrew—hypothesis suggested by our ignorance of their biographies and by the relatively large number of Hebrew grammars that had been published in Latin—like most of the other French Hebraists of the time, except Bishop Georges de Selves, who studied with the very gifted Eliyahu Ashkenasi in Rome, because few Jews consented to teach Hebrew to gentiles. (Ashkenasi felt it necessary to offer excuses for his offense; his students were righteous men, and he needed their fees to provide dowries for his daughters.) Gradually the level of Hebrew learning in Paris improved and in the seventeenth century the French were pioneers. Philippe d'Aquin (15751650), a converted Jew from Carpentras and Avignon, taught Hebrew in Paris from 1610 and from 1629 to his death as lecteur royal in Hebrew.9 His son, Louis-Henri d'Aquin, continued the family tradition of making Hebrew texts accessible to aspiring Hebraists. Guy-Michel Le Jay, who, we are discovering, had a library of rabbinic texts, published the great Paris polyglot Bible, Biblia. I. Hebraica, II. Samaritana, III. Chaldaica, IV. Graeca, V. Syriaca, VI. Latina, VII. Arabica (Paris, 1629-42), which contained the first edition, by the Oratorian, Jean Morin, of the Samaritan Pentateuch. 7. He also translated several rabbinic texts into Latin. 8. David Ibn Yahia, De poetica Hebraeorum (Paris, 1563), Eldad ha-Dani, De Judaeis clausis eonimque inAethiopia beatissimo imperio (Paris, 1563), Maimonides, Symbolumfidei Judaeorum (Paris, 1569), as well as the i~Q~l DÎU HID (Chronologia Hebraeorum quae Seder Olam Rabba inscribitur [Paris, 1578]). 9. He translated several rabbinic texts, and taught Gilbert Gaulemin, who was to edit the midrash, HUTO ^D iriTDSl D'Q"1 ""IHI (A History of Moses, Our Teacher, and of His Death [Paris, 1629]), whether from a manuscript or from the 1517 Constantinople edition, and also published a Hebrew and Aramaic/Latin dictionary, Primigeniae voces sue radices breves linguae anctae (Paris, 1620).


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Before taking holy orders, Achille de Harlay de Sancy (1581-1646) was sent by Richelieu as ambassador to Constantinople (1611-19), where he learned Hebrew. He may already have been an avid book collector before his mission to the Sublime Porte; at any rate even during that mission he acquired a remarkable library of Hebrew books which he brought to Paris, together with many rare manuscripts, and left them all to the Oratory of Paris (Richard 1990). Louis Cappel, who taught at the Reformed Academic of Saumur, published two important works on Hebrew: on the modernity of the vowel-points, Arcanum punctationis revelatum (Paris, 1624), and a Critica sacra (Paris, 1650)—Geddes possessed this latter book10— that the late Harry Goshen-Gottstein admired, surely for good reason. There is a fine study of Cappel and Moyse Amyrault at Saumur by Fran9ois Laplanche (Laplanche 1986) but, contrary to what one might imagine form the title of his book, he appraises them as liberal theologians rather than as Bible critics. Laplanche is a theologian and philosopher who was very generous to the Protestants he has studied so assiduously, but he was never very curious about the Bible, nor knowledgeable enough about it to try to define Cappel's critical method, much less identify his contribution to the development of Bible criticism. From what I can make of Cappel's Arcanum punctationis, there is not much if anything in it that was not already in Ashkenasi's miDOn miDQ "ISO (The Book about the Transmission of the Tradition) of 1538, except the tendency to demystify Hebrew and the Jewish contribution to its transmission in order to bring the language and original text of the Old Testament into the Christian fold with as little debt to the Jews as possible, and to show that Hebrew studies among Christians had gained their independence of the Jews. He does not seem to have understood what Ashkenasi was arguing and what Richard Simon was to grasp—that the graphic forms of the vowel-points were new, but that the 'reading' they encoded was much older. (This is GoshenGottstein's formulation and I believe that it is appropriate.) More important is Richard Simon's Histoire critique du vieux testament (Paris, 1678), but that edition is very rare having been censored and burnt 10. This and all other information regarding Geddes's library is based on the 1804 Sotheby's sale catalogue appended to Dr Reginald C. Fuller's 'Dr Alexander Geddes: A Forerunner of Biblical Criticism' (1969), but it is clear from Geddes's Critical Remarks that he read more widely than the list of books he owned at his death suggests. The complete absence of iconoclastic books in so large a library further suggests that they may have been sold or given away in Geddes's lifetime or sold discreetly after his death so as not to tarnish his reputation.

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before sales had begun, with only three exemplars surviving in France, Bishop Huet's annotated exemplar at the Bibliotheque nationale de France, Archbishop Charles-Maurice Le Tellier's, with the decree of censure and destruction of the entire press-run carefully copied onto the fly-leaf, in the Sainte-Genevieve library, and one of indeterminate provenance at the Mazarine Library; there may still be one in England, where a copy was received and translated. (Geddes had a copy of one of the Rotterdam 1685 editions.) I think, but I won't yet assert, because Laplanche has not identified what, in Richard Simon's Bible criticism, was and what was not already in Cappel's Critica sacra, that one difference between them is Simon's access to Hebrew Bible manuscripts and to rabbinic literature in the rich Oratory collection, in the royal library, in the Sorbonne and in the many other private and monastic libraries in Paris, and especially Colbert's.1! There were more than enough books and the collections were sufficiently varied to permit an enterprising student like Simon or, two generations later, Etienne Fourmont to educate himself. A second difference is Simon's gift for synthesis and abstraction. Despite all the authorities and manuscripts that he cites, as well as his tendency to show off a command of arcane details, which distracted his contemporary readers, there are, in his Histoire critique du vieux testament, few applications of his theses. But there is a historical scheme that comprises an (authorized) assembling of the Hebrew Bible from a variety of sources of differing ages and especially of differing degrees of witness and authority, and the vicissitudes of the transmission of this synthesis: change of script, change from a primitive, defective spelling to & plenum spelling, and then a return to a more defective spelling once the vowel-points had been introduced and 11. I have begun an inventory of pre-Revolutionary Hebrew libraries in Paris, and the preliminary results are surprising. For a city with almost no Jews—they needed a passport from their town of legal residence to visit Paris—the library resources were remarkable. Two of the Parisian libraries, that of the Oratory and that of the Sorbonne, contained, at least when their collections were nationalized in 1789, very many Hebrew books: Bibles, mishnayoth, gemaroth and rabbinic texts of all sorts. Without preempting the results of my work in progress, the Hebrew books appear to be mostly sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Italian and Anatolian editions, which suggests that there was a diminution of interest in purchasing Hebrew books already in the late seventeenth century which continued throughout the eighteenth because relatively few Hebrew books published by or for Jews from this period figure in the collections, or, to be more precise, the emphasis in book purchases seems to have shifted to Latin translations of Hebrew texts and (Latin) books about halakhah (Jewish law) and Jewish thought.


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had rendered some of the matres lectiones redundant. A third difference was that Simon was writing when there already was a model for a deduced decomposition of an ancient text into constituent documents. This was first accomplished, as best as I have been able to determine, by the abbe Fran9ois Hedlin d'Aubignac, on the Iliad, at some undetermined date before his death in 1679. His argument, that because several quite different dialects appear in the text in local concentrations, the 'rhapsodies' of which the Iliad is comprised had been written by several authors who spoke different kinds of Greek because they lived in different regions or periods, certainly became publicly known by 1688, when Perrault mentioned his theses (see Schwarzbach 1993: 345-47; 1999b: 589 n. 36), before their formal publication in 1715 as Conjectures academiques, ou Dissertation sur I 'Iliade. Eusebe Renaudot describes having learned from a Jew named Alpen (or more likely, Halphen) in Saumur in 1667, or from Jona Salvador, with whom Simon was also in contact in Paris in the 1670s—Renaudot's syntax is not too clear, so it is not evident which of these Jews was the antecedent of a pronoun—that Rashi's commentary was first published in the form of brochures (DnD~ltOHp) written during his travels, containing translations of difficult biblical words into the language of the land where he was sojourning when he wrote the particular brochure (Schwarzbach 1996), which were eventually edited into a single, continuous text.12 This implies the possibility of identifying and decomposing Rashi's text and any such text into its original constituents. As far as I can recall, Simon never mentions either d'Aubignac's linguistic decomposition of the Iliad or the Rashi D^DHEMp as a model for his own analysis that discovered not linguistic diversity in the Pentateuch—that would be discovered by early nineteenth-century German critics like Johann Gottfried Eichhorn and Karl David Ilgen—but parallel documents, notably the Manna and the Flood Narratives. But the world of learning in Paris was so small that Simon could well have been aware of either or even both theses, and could consciously have adapted it or them to his needs. Or this may be another example, such as those known in mathematics and physics, of nearly simultaneous discovery. A fourth difference is that Simon was very respectful of the rabbis, or rather of some of the rabbis and in particular of the Masoretes—here I am in disagreement with William McKane who sees 'an indubitable anti-Masoretic trend in Simon's work' (McKane 1989: 168)—whom he regarded as sound but not infallible 'critics', who 12. Regarding Rashi's travels, Salvador or Alpen/Halphen was surely wrong, but that does not detract from the value of the analysis that the anecdote suggests.

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produced a text that could be, at best, only marginally improved upon on the basis of evidence of ancient Greek, Latin and Aramaic versions, from the Samaritan, and from pre-Masoretic manuscripts. (Here Simon was quite wrong; he never saw a pre-Masoretic Bible manuscript except for the Samaritan Pentateuch, merely several Masoretic texts that did not conform in all particulars to the Spanish model. We now know that there were several Masoretic subtypes.) But he was very prudent with regard to the Greek, Latin and Samaritan texts, recognizing that their variants often represented emendations rather than pre-Masoretic readings. Simon's respect for the Hebrew text was singular in France where a strong antiJewish current had induced Morin to prefer the Samaritan text of the Pentateuch, Isaac Vossius (who worked in Holland but who was apparently well-known in France since Simon wrote a short book, Disquisitiones criticae... [London, 1684], to refute his theses) had argued that the Greek text was more faithful to revelation than the Hebrew, and, in the early eighteenth century, Jean Hardouin was to argue that the Vulgate was the sole true record of revelation, the Greek and Hebrew texts being forgeries. Without going so far, Canon Francois Masclef of Abbeville was to deny the validity of the traditional Jewish pronunciation of Hebrew in order to deny the validity of the Masoretic text (MT) (1716), and the Oratorian, Charles-Francois Houbigant, was to prefer either the Samaritan text or almost any restitution to the MT. Simon was also an admirer of the Jewish masters of the C3£>S, particularly Abraham Ibn Ezra, David Kimhi and Isaac Abravanel, and, after their example, insisted upon the direct, literal, we would say philological interpretation, even of the Old Testament passages that, since the Gospel according to Matthew, figure in Christian apologetics as prophecies of Jesus' birth, election and Passion (Schwarzbach 1993). (Here we must say that there already was a Christian tradition of literal exegesis, anthologized by Jean de La Haye [1643, 1660], or rather an aspiration to achieve literal biblical interpretation if it would not conflict with Christian doctrine and apologetics.) Simon explained that the New Testament interpretations of those passages were only valid as KTI1 (homiletics and allegory) (1689: 171-79 [Chapter 21], also possessed by Geddes), but I know of no instances where he actually recommended a particular Christian £H"7. (He had a withering scorn for allegories which he equated with 'mystagogies'!) This was a genuine problem for his contemporaries who tried to understand what Simon wanted to do, why he would not join the (apologetic) team, to adapt the scornful expression that President Eisenhower used when he characterized


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such intellectuals as it was his misfortune to encounter, and it remains a problem for us if we want to understand Simon, who always thought of himself, as Geddes was to think of himself a hundred years later, as a faithful son of the Church. What is clear is that, in contrast with Spinoza, who used his Bible criticism as a polemical instrument to sink the Bible's authority in philosophy and politics, Simon imagined his as an apologetic tool that would explain by the history of the composition and transmission of the biblical texts, anachronisms and contradictions that could not be otherwise harmonized. Geddes mentioned Simon several times, rather disparagingly. That is not too surprising. Simon's work had aged, and his hypotheses regarding the composition and the editing of the Old Testament texts were based on analogies and a necessarily inadequate command of ancient history, itself based on Greek and Latin secondary sources and upon the Bible itself, read uncritically as history. Or Geddes may have absorbed the French Church's distrust of the irascible Oratorian. Nevertheless, Simon's influence is visible in Geddes's admission that the books of the Bible were syntheses of older documents. Personally, though not a philosemite by any means, Simon was reasonably well disposed towards Jews, defended them successfully in 1670 from banishment from Metz and the realm, and intervened (unsuccessfully) a year later in the case of a Jewish child in Milan who had been 'baptized'—sprinkled with creek water by some Catholic children—and then abducted to be raised as a Catholic as having been validly baptized, and he had contact with at least two reasonably learned Jews who passed through Paris (Schwarzbach 1996). That may not sound like much, but Dr Fuller's biography does not attribute to Geddes any contacts at all with Jews, in Paris or in London, where they were relatively numerous and sufficiently acculturated for them to be able to present what they knew of the Jewish tradition in terms comprehensible to an Englishman (or Scotsman) of their generation. (It should be remarked that Geddes, despite his favorable attitude to the French Revolution, seems to have had nothing to say about the emancipation of the Jews of France by the National Assembly in 1790 and 1791, even if only by analogy to the disabilities suffered by Catholics in England and Scotland for whose removal he pleaded so vigorously. It could well be that Geddes speaks about the status of Jews in the correspondence or in a work that I have not yet seen, but in absence of such a text it is as though his rethinking of the Bible had no political consequences in their regard, either positive or negative, which is somewhat strange, because Enlightenment thinkers tended to imagine that there were connections between ideas, scholarship and politics.)

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Simon was not the only Parisian Hebraist towards the end of the seventeenth century. There were the future Bishop of Avranche, Pierre-Daniel Huet—Geddes was to acquire his Demonstratio evangelica of 1679— who, in 1652, met Menasseh Ben Israel in Amsterdam (as did many nonHebraist scholars passing through that vivacious city because Menasseh was the 'exhibitioner' and greeter of the Amsterdam Jewish community), as well as the jurists, Claude Hardy and Gilbert Gaulemin.13 Another Oratorian, Bernard Lamy, seems to have known quite a bit of rabbinics and edited an Apparatus biblicus (1684)—Geddes was to acquire another of his works, Harmoniasive Concordia evangelica (Paris, 1701)—which, to judge from Arnold Ages's study (Ages 1989)14 and from my own rather superficial reading, was quite orthodox and not too likely to incite contradiction, but it had the virtue, if it be a virtue, of following Simon in his treatment of the Bible as an object of study; the abbe Eusebe Renaudot (1648-1720) learned some Hebrew at the Oratorian college of Saumur, apparently from the Jew named Alpen or Halphen (Schwarzbach 1996). What could Halphen have been doing in Saumur? How could he have resided there legally? Could he also have taught students in Cappel and Amyrault's Academic as well as in the Oratorian college? I cannot imagine a more isolated Jew in all of Europe, nor any in a more precarious position, unless he astutely played off Catholics against Protestants, each sect aspiring to convert him and his family, if he did not live alone, to its version of Christianity. He is surely worth a novel! Renaudot became something of an Orientalist and power broker among the French Orientalists, possessed some Hebrew books which he left to the Saint-Germain des Pres monastery, but he never contributed anything to Hebrew or biblical studies. Louis Thomassin wrote a monumental Glossarium universale hebraicum (1050 columns, in-folio), published in a handsome edition by the Imprimerie royale in 1697. The standard history of Jewish studies in France holds, in Renan's pithy phrase, that when, in 1678, Bossuet censored Simon's Histoire critique du vieux testament, which led to his expulsion from the Oratory, and, 24 years later, when, as Bishop of Meaux, Bossuet censored and suppressed Simon's 'Version de Trevoux', Le Nouveau Testament de notre Seigneur JesusChrist, traduit sur I 'ancienne edition latine, avec des remarques literales et critiques sur les principales difficultez (Trevoux, 1702), he also repressed French Bible studies for 200 years: 'Richard Simon had no disciples; 13. A list of Hebraists is available in Colomies 1665. 14. See also Laplanche 1999.


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[Augustin] Calmet had one: Voltaire' (Renan 1865). Renan had no good to say about Calmet and not much better about Voltaire, because they were both dogmatists and polemicists, each in his own antipodal fashion, and neither a real scholar. Fortunately Renan was a better scholar, and a much better writer, than a historian of Bible studies, because he was quite wrong here. Bossuet did not succeed in suppressing Simon's work. Simon published freely in Rotterdam, in Basel, in Frankfurt, in Edinburgh, possibly somewhat less freely in Paris, even in Trevoux, with the French Jesuits' publisher, Etienne Ganeau, and even participated (anonymously) in their Dictionnaire universel frangois & latin... (Trevoux: Etienne Ganeau, 1704). He was widely read by respectable Catholics—his books are to be found in libraries assembled by such pious members of the French clergy as Bishop Inguimbert in Carpentras15—by Protestants like Isaac de Beausobre and Jacques Lenfant, who translated the New Testament for the Huguenot diaspora, by Jacques Saurin and his collaborators who composed the luxurious, coffee-table in-folios, Discours historiques, critiques, theologiques et moraux (The Hague, 1720-39), and by numerous anti-religious polemicists. Geddes possessed Simon's most important works in addition to the Histoires critiques just mentioned: Reponse au livre intituleSentimens dequelques theologiens deHollande... (Rotterdam, 1686); Fides ecclesiae orientalis... (1686 [sic for 1674?]); Bibliotheque critique (Paris, 1708-10); Critique de la Bibliotheque ecclesiastique... publiezpar M. Elites Du-Pin (Paris, 1730). Simon had one real and vigorous even if unavowed disciple, Etienne Fourmont. I, and everybody else who has worked in the field, always supposed that French orthodoxy and Simon's Bible criticism were incompatible, that anybody using his methods in public, and especially in French rather than in the decent obscurity of Latin, risked imprisonment if not the stake. This was not the case. Fourmont was the lecteur royal in Arabic, royal librarian and royal interpreter for Oriental languages. His (public) lectures on Bible and on Jewish culture, drafts of which have survived, clearly follow Simon's methods, come to similar conclusions regarding the Bible's composite nature if not the historical mechanism of its composition, and echo Simon's respect for the rabbinic transmission of the Bible and for rabbinic achievement in science, philosophy and exegesis (Schwarzbach 1973: 65-119). His published works criticized both Calmet and the very successful apologist, Claude-Francois-Alexandre Houtteville, as well as a now less well known 15. Mile Valerie Neveu of the Bibliotheque universitaire of Angers has confirmed the results of my sampling (e-mail communication, 12 October 2002).

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'figuriste' apologist, Jacques-Joseph Duguet, with much irony, yet those books appeared with the 'privilege du roi' and the approval of a Sorbonne censor who was either as negligent as are some referees of scholarly articles these days, or our association of early eighteenth-century French orthodoxy with biblical fundamentalism is gratuitous. These are not exclusive hypotheses. (Geddes owned Fourmont's rather extravagant Reflexions critiques sur I'histoire des ancienspeuples [Paris, 1735].) Renan was wrong on another count, too. Simon's historical way of looking at the composition of the Bible had an influence... on Voltaire who, despite his ignorance and the cultural myopia which modern research is now defining, still thought like a historian and in particular rethought the relationship between Judges and Samuel with Pentateuch law and thus with the Pentateuch text. Simon was also widely read in England and, later in the eighteenth century, in Germany (Woodbridge 1988), but that is taking us too far afield from Geddes. Not quite in France, because he was a Genevan who found refuge in Amsterdam, where he taught in the Remonstrant academy, and wrote in French when he did not write in Latin, was Jean Leclerc, who developed the theory of a northern composition of the Pentateuch by the priest sent by Shalmaneser to teach the Samaritans the religion of the land to which they had been exiled (2 Kgs 17.24-28). There is much more that is interesting in the Sentimens de quelques theologiens de Hollande... (1685), if one ignores Leclerc's running sectarian controversy with Simon, which did not bring out the most interesting reflections in either of them, but which has been well studied, by Monod (1916: 46-50) and, more recently by Pitassi (1987: 28-35), because controversists do a critic's work for him, and identify and analyze their adversary's more audacious claims. Geddes did not own this book at his death, but he did own, and used Leclerc's (Latin) commentaries on the Pentateuch, first published in 1696. In sum, had Geddes been born 50 or even 25 years earlier, when Simon, Leclerc and Fourmont were still active, Paris might have been a good choice for a young man who wanted to study Hebrew, but then, before choosing Paris over Rome or Vienna in 1758, Geddes may not have known that he wanted to make a career in Hebrew studies. We must suppose in all prudence that he did not choose Hebrew studies until his university education and preparation for ordination were well launched. What about mid eighteenth-century France? Now the story becomes rather less glorious. Even in research in classical antiquities and ecclesiastical


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history, the really great French scholars like the lexicographer Charles Dufresne Ducange, the Benedictine chronologist, Jean Mabillon, and his brother monk, the great palaeographer, Bernard de Montfaucon, the great ecclesiastical historians, the Jesuit, Jacques Sirmond, and the Dominican, Noel Alexandre, had passed from the scene, and their successors were men—I realize that it is out of style to be gender specific, but I know of no female ecclesiastical scholar in France in that period—of lesser learning or, like the Jesuit, Jean Hardouin, much less sound in their judgment. There were no longer dominant figures in Hebrew studies like Cappel— the more religiously engaged Huguenots had fled the realm after the revocation of the Edit de Nantes (1685), while those who remained as crypto-Protestants were deprived of the educational institutions that might have prepared them to build upon his work—or Simon, but there was the Abbeville canon, Fran£ois Masclef who, to avoid relying upon the Jewish heritage, invented an arbitrary and heuristic technique for reading Hebrew without vowel-points, associating each letter with only one vowel, in fact, the first vowel in its conventional name (Grammatica hebraica apunctis aliisque inventis massorethicis libera [Paris, 1716]). His system could not work because it obscured if it did not deny the phenomenon of DT1D (types of conjugations which alter the meaning of a verb) common to Hebrew and other Semitic languages, the distinctions between persons within conjugations and much else. Hebrew was taught together with Greek in several of the Parisian colleges, though we do not know the names of all the professors nor how advanced their instruction was. Even today, when the French discover a need for persons educated in a given field or trade, they create a school for the purpose. They had been sending young men to the Orient to learn languages, but few returned to the less sybaritic world of the Parisian university, so the 'Ecole des jeunes de langue' or 'Enfants de langue' was created in 1721 and located in the College des Jesuites (now the famous lycee Louis-le-Grand), where Turkish and Arabic but apparently not Hebrew were taught by French masters (Jourdain 1862: 320). This must have been something like today's INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales), except that it was apparently not too successful, even on its own terms, because in 1730 the abbe Guillaume de Villefroy proposed the creation of yet another school of Oriental languages— again excluding Hebrew—in the great Benedectine abbey of Saint-Germain des Pres, to be organized under the supervision of the royal librarians for Oriental languages (Omont 1892), one of whom was Fourmont, a further

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proof that he was not deemed to be heterodox. Since Eliezer Ben Yehuda (1858-1922), we think of Hebrew as a spoken language, one of many Semitic languages, and the nineteenth-century colonial experience taught Europeans that it is an intrinsically good thing to learn exotic languages, but few eighteenth-century French scholars thought of Hebrew that way. Speaking and writing Arabic and Turkish were useful for commerce with the Orient, but Hebrew was only, or, by the lights of the more conservative Churchmen, was not even, necessary for a better understanding of Bible and for missionary activity among Jews, while speaking and writing skills were certainly thought to be above and beyond the call of duty if anyone even thought about them. (Actually, there had been a few manuals with model letters in a pastiche of biblical and rabbinic Hebrew.) In 1765-68, between the end of Geddes's study in Paris and his brief return, Louis de Poix, a Franciscan disciple of Villefroy, proposed the creation of, and actually established, a still more ambitious school of Oriental studies to include an Academic Clementine or 'Societe royale des interpretes du sens litteral de I'Ecriture sainte, suivant les textes originaux et leurs versions orientales, sous la protection du Roi' ('Royal society of interpreters of the literal sense of the Holy Scriptures, according to the original texts of the Oriental translations, under the patronage of the king'). If the title does not tell us enough about the purpose of instruction in Oriental languages and the aspiration of pious Catholics of the time, even of those who, like de Poix himself, in practice, interpreted texts in the most extravagantly allegorical fashion, one of its sections does. It would have been an 'Ecole hebrai'que', among whose functions was to 'faire bien comprendre les absurdites rabbiniques' ('A Hebrew school.. .to demonstrate the absurdities of the rabbis'). Enough said. This school seems to have left no further trace (Omont 1892). It is a reasonably good guess that Geddes began his Hebrew studies with Jean-Baptiste Ladvocat's Grammaire hebrai'que a I'usage des ecoles de Sorbonne (Paris, 1755). It is a very ordinary book, with a fair share of misconceptions. Ladvocat (1709-65) does not think of informing his readers at the beginning—did he, himself, know?—that aleph had, and that he and waw still have, consonantal value in certain words (p. [1]). The best I can say for this grammar is that it did not follow Masclef s system, and would therefore not have proven too great a handicap to a serious student who wanted to learn Hebrew. Ladvocat was the first to hold the Orleans chair in Hebrew (1752) despite the fact that most of his publications were historical and geographical dictionaries, rather than Semitic philology or


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Bible studies (Hadas-Lebel 1985). (Geddes owned Ladvocat's Dictionnaire historique... [Paris, 1777], as well as his Sur les traductions des Pseaumes de M. Pluche, de M. Gratien et de M. Langeois [Paris, 1763], which was more pertinent to his own work.) He did not dictate his courses as was customary in the Sorbonne, because he was obliged by the terms of his appointment to explain Scripture on the basis of the Hebrew text, and to examine his students to determine their level and progress in Hebrew. He was a 'colleur' in the jargon oftheprepas.^6 6 McKane cites Geddes's tribute to Ladvocat's warm and generous personality and has found, in Benjamin Kennicott's papers (McKane 1989: 164), that he collaborated with Kennicott in the collation of Hebrew biblical manuscripts in Parisian collections, so he may have been more competent than my perusal of his grammar suggests. For biblical study Geddes probably used Dom Augustin Calmet's Commentaire litteral sur tons les livres de I 'ancien et du nouveau testament (Paris, 1706-17), which was written in collaboration with his brother monks in the several Benedictine abbeys to which he was successively attached. (Geddes was to own 'Calmet's Bible, 3 parts' and nine volumes of the 1724 edition.) Calmet, because of his solid Patristic erudition, became the oracle of the French Church in the biblical sciences. This was unfortunate because he was fundamentally an apologist who would unscrupulously distort the little Hebrew that he knew and abandon all critical sense to defend the biblical authority for any article of faith. If the Church required him to believe that there had been demons in first-century Palestine for Jesus to exorcise, he could find no good reason to refuse to believe that vampires and ghosts existed as well, especially when they were as well attested as were those of contemporary Hungary and Moravia (Calmet 1746). And, inversely, he vanquished any scruples that might have inhibited him from believing that Balaam's ass and Eve's snake both spoke, when he reflected that Achilles' horse and several other legendary beasts were also said to have spoken.17 He was somewhat reluctant—we must be honest—but finally consented to believe that Jonah was indeed swallowed 16. See the obituary of Ladvocat inAnnee litteraire, II (1766): 282-84. A 'colleur' is an exterior examiner who administers oral examinations that simulate those of the redoubtable 'concours des grandes ecoles', and grades them without the complaisance that may have been established between the students and their regular teachers. The prepas (classes preparatories) are a prestigious alternative to the first two years of university study where students 'prepare', that is, cram, for the admission examinations. 17. Calmet 1706-17 (Nombres: 246 n. b).

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whole and fully clothed by a whale or by some equally fearsome marine beast which then transported him around the Cape of Africa to Nineveh in three days because, if he denied it, he might be induced to deny other biblical miracles, including the most fundamental of all, the resurrection of Jesus, which is compared to Jonah's leaving the whale's stomach alive and even intact.18 He always chose to believe the worst of the Jews: their congenital wickedness, apropos of Mt. 23.25,19 their ritual murders, well poisonings and all the rest, because many chroniclers had ascribed these crimes to them, and 'they could not all have been wrong' (Calmet 1728). He had profound disdain for the 'sterile' Hebrew language, and worse for the perverse 'modern rabbis', that is, the post-Christian commentators who, by using the techniques of the CDIZ®, de-emphasized biblical messianism, and betrayed what he took to be their authentic tradition in order to spite the Christians. There may be an echo of Calmet in Geddes's complaint about the Talmudists and the still more recent Rabbies, those retailers of traditional absurdities' (Bible II: x),20 though he is not referring to their hesitations regarding biblical messianism. Actually, M.Z. Segal (1980: 109) would have agreed that the description fits all of the Jewish Bible commentaries since Abravanel only too well. In general, Calmet deemed the written word, Christian or even pagan but never Jewish, to be accepted uncritically, or rather in proportion to the theological authority of the writer. Calmet became, quite deservedly, the butt of Voltaire's humor, the '[Dom Calmet qui] ne pense point',21 but he also had a more interesting side: where the Church had not decided a question of biblical 18. Calmet 1706-17 (Jonas: xxxvi-xxxvii). 19. Calmet 1706-17 (Mathieu: 127). 20 Cf. his characterization of rabbinical exegesis in CR: 376, 'Onkelos and the other Thargumists give a very different turn to the passage [Num. 12.1]. According to them, Mary and Aaron reproached Moses, not for marrying a Chushite woman, but for repudiating his beautiful wife, Ziphora; who is here called a Chushite, par antiphrasin, from her being the very contrast of a Chushite... But whence infer they that she was beautiful, nay, in the very pink of beauty, if we believe the Jerusalem Thargum [p 'Thus Ziporah, Moses' wife, was handsome, healthy and more adept at her work than all the women in the dwelling']? Why, whence from the same word, Chushite, JT27D [Ethiopian], the letters of which make up the number 736? and so exactly the letters of nK~lQ HST, beautiful to behold [cf. Rashi adloc.]\ Reader! I give thee this as a curious sample of Rabbinical commentatorship: if thoube not satisfied, I cannot help it.') 21. '[Dom Calmet who] does not think at all', Voltaire, Le siecle de Louis XIV, 'Catalogue des auteurs'.


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interpretation or dating, Calmet permitted himself much liberty and even more ingenuity. His literary, documentary analysis of Proverbs—it may not have been his discovery but he adopted it without scruple—is far more advanced than Simon's, and he at least asked the right questions regarding the guiding principles behind the editing of Chronicles and the relation of the sources of those books to those of Samuel and Kings (Schwarzbach 200la and 2002). Everybody read Calmet in snatches, but the only philosophe who seems to have read Calmet really thoroughly was Mme du Chatelet, and even she did not always seize what was most interesting and what might have lent itself most devastatingly to a critique of the inspiration of the Scriptures, because she was not especially interested in text criticism. We do not know whether Geddes's Bible studies in seminary exploited the progressive elements in Calmet's commentary. His masters may have been even more fundamentalist than abbot Calmet. Leclerc's commentaries were probably too Protestant for them to be recommended to Sorbonne students, and they might not have been much more useful than Calmet's because Leclerc had become conservative since the youthful indiscretion of the Sentimens de quelques theologiens de Hollande. And they are in Latin, which was apparently enough to discourage mid-century Sorbonne students, who were supposed to be fluent in that language, but in fact needed a Hebrew grammar in French, if we are to believe Ladvocat. It is not obvious where Geddes acquired his disdain for Patristic exegesis, though it may have been in reaction to Calmet's naivete and obsessive orthodoxy, or it may have been adopted from the otherwise reprehensible Simon, who admired Origen and Jerome as Hebraists and 'critics', and Theodoret as an interpreter, but very few other Fathers. We can assume that the French theological/philological tradition of Morin, Cappel, Masclef and Houbigant that was so hostile to the MT— Simon and Fourmont were the lone dissenters—and, a contrario, the Reformed enthusiasm for that text and for its vowel-points (cf. Consensus Helveticus [1685]) inculcated the strong reserves regarding the Hebrew text that Geddes was to express in the Prospectus. I would not dream of claiming, especially before an audience of specialists, that he was wrong, that the MT is impeccable; I would only say that he exaggerated its weaknesses, construing authentic archaisms as errors—here I am following the analysis of Abraham Tal (2001)—and was much too sanguine about the possibility of correcting it on the basis of the material available to him. Calmet's commentary on Genesis had its critics: Richard Simon, in a posthumously published work, and Fourmont, in an early work, complained about the Benedictine's ignorance of Hebrew and of rabbinic exegesis—

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and they were right, though Calmet had the last word because his orthodoxy was unimpeachable and because he outlived them all. As for Masclef, Fourmont criticized him severely in his manuscripts, while Pierre Guarin, the librarian of the Benedictine monastery of Saint Germain des Pres, showed that Masclef s grammatical system was utterly unworkable. Guarin published a very impressive Grammatica hebraica et chalda'ica (Paris, 1724-25), which Geddes possessed, and a Lexicon hebraicum et chaldaeobiblicum (Paris, 1746). One could describe Guarin's grammar as a Gesenius avant la lettre, except that it has no comparative Semitic lexicography or grammar, even though Johann Hemrich Hottinger had already launched the comparative study of Semitic languages in his Grammatica quatuor linguarum Hebraicae, chaldaicae, syriacae et arabicae harmonica (Heidelberg, 1659).22 Guarin's grammar is not a work for debutants in Hebrew— the only Hebrew grammar of the period that I have seen that shows some pedagogical talent is Eliyahu Ashkenasi's pllplH "ISO (Grammar Book [Basel, 1525])—so Geddes is not too likely to have used it, at least not early in his career, and I did not see any references to it in his Critical Remarks. In another early development, the Oratorian, Jacques Le Long, compiled a useful bibliography of Bibles, including Hebrew Bibles (Bibliotheca sacra [Paris, 1709]), which Geddes also possessed. (Let me remark in passing that Simon, Masclef and Guarin were all Normans, and that each of them at least began his Hebrew study in Normandy. We know who Guarin's teacher was, one Dom Puget at the Ecole de Bonne Nouvelle at Rouen, but we know nothing more about him or about Simon's and Masclef s initiation into Hebrew studies. Houbigant studied with Masclef so he can be reckoned an honorary Norman.) What do we know about advanced Hebrew studies in Paris after Guarin's untimely death in 1729? Not much. Two of his students at Saint Germain des Pres, Brothers Le Tournois and Girardet, were competent enough in Hebrew to complete the Lexicon, probably from his notes, that mortality had interrupted at the letter mem, but they left no other work in Hebrew philology. The Histoire and the Memoires of the Academic royale 22. There were other explicit or implicit comparisons among the then known Semitic languages: Bonaventura Cornelius Bertram, lU^l Comparatio grammaticae hebraicae &aramicae... (s.l. [Geneva], Eustathius Bignon, 1574); Valentin Schindler, Lexicon pentaglotton, hebraicum, chaldaicum, syriacum, talmudico-rabbinicum, et arabicum (Hanover, 1612). Shortly after Hottinger's Grammatica there appeared Edmond Castel's Lexicon heptaglotton hebraicum, chaldaicum, syriacum, samaritanum, aethiopicum, arabicum conjenctim, et persicum separatum (London, 1669).


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des inscriptions et belles-lettres for the period contain some articles on the Cabala, but very little on the Jews and less on the Hebrew language. Very little of what relates to these subjects shows a command of that language or a critical approach to Hebrew texts as historical sources, with Fourmont's misconceived article on the history of the masorah (1744) being an honorable exception. Quite a bit of rabbinic literature had already been translated into Latin, notably by Giulio Bartolocci and Carlo Giuseppe Imbonati in their Bibliotheca magna mbbinica... (Rome, 1675-95, 5 vols., in-folio; see Silvera 1993: n. 6), more became available when Adriaan Reeland's Analecta rabbinica appeared in Utrecht in 1702, and still more when Johann Christophorus Wolfs Bibliotheca hebraea was published in Hamburg and Leipzig in 1715-33. Theologians no longer had to know any Hebrew to get away with Academic des inscriptions articles on Hebrew and the Jews. Nicolas Henry (1723-52), the Professor of Hebrew immediately before Geddes's arrival in Paris, has left hardly a mark on Hebraic studies. The 'affiches' of the lectures of the lecteurs royaux for Hebrew in the period of Geddes's residence in Paris suggest that they were not too enterprising. Claude Sallier lectured on Deuteronomy from 1758 to 1759, and on Ecclesiastes during the November term of 1759; Jean-Jacques Gamier on nothing but the Psalms from 1760 to 1765, when he lectured on Genesis. Simon Lourdet, who probably had decent theological credentials since he was a royal censor, lectured for four years on Leviticus or Deuteronomy until November 1765, when he interpreted the Psalms, and in 1766 he took on Jeremiah. Obviously a great scholar can find no end of original observations on the Psalms or on Job, and the linguistic peculiarities of Jeremiah are worthy of a lecteur royal, but since these royal professors left very faint marks on the world of learning—Sallier yet another (short) Latin manual of Hebrew, Institutiones linguae hebraicae breves (Paris, 1718), and Lourdet a De Mosispraestantia Deuteronomium leges (Paris, 1762)—we may suppose that such was not the case with them. They may, however, have given fair value, since the salaries for their services were deplorably modest. (Fourmont had to eke out a living for himself and his wife with private instruction.) I noticed only one lecture series which promised to be predominantly dogmatic, but the best known of the Professors of Hebrew was Guillaume de Villefroy (1752-77) who had a strong theological engagement and was even something of a guru but left no mark on Hebrew philology or Bible studies.23 Much later Geddes 23. Villefroy accepted the conventional (Jewish) pronunciation of Hebrew, but also had as disciples the 'capucins hebraisants' of the Faubourg St Honore monastery. They

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was to refer to him as the 'flippant French abbe De Villefroi' because 'his ill-natured wit against Kennicott, betrays his own gross ignorance of the subject on which he is treating... What petulant ignorance! The man did not know that ]1^ in the Sam[aritan] dialect is the same as "\d~> ["to them"] in Hebrew... Such is the strength of this critical Hercules!' (CR: 467 and n.). One can only speculate whether such heavy handed irony means that Geddes was settling a score from his student days. I do not recall seeing anything approaching a first-hand knowledge of Hebrew in the principal learned francophone journals of the period, Leclerc's Bibliotheque universelle or the Memoires de Trevoux or the Huguenot Bibliotheque germanique, none of which was published in Paris, though the Memoires de Trevoux were edited there. I admit that the only one of these journals that I have gone through relatively recently and methodically is the Bibliotheque germanique', hence my impression that Hebraica was not well represented in the others should be verified. There were a few exceptions to the relative poverty in Hebrew studies during Guarin's time and later: The Jesuit, Etienne Souciet (1671-1744), who published, with extensive comments, Simon's Critique de la Bibliotheque des auteurs ecclesiastiques et des prolegomenes de la Bible publies par M. Ellies Du-Pin... (Paris, 1730)—to his credit, he does not seem to have censored Simon's text—also published a Recueil critique de dissertations sur les endroits les plus difficiles de I'Ecriture sainte... (Paris, 1715-16), of which the first volume treats Hebraica and demonstrates a decent command of that language. Souciet was fundamentally a traditional apologist. If there is anything original in his Dissertations, it has escaped my notice. Etienne Fourmont was initiated into Hebrew at a very early age in the 'College ou seminaire des Trente-Trois', was expelled for pursuing it on his own further than was thought to be decent,24 and then taught Hebrew very successfully, or so he claimed, at the College d'Harcourt, apparently as a sort of Privatdozent, until Pierre Billet of the College Plessis-Sorbonne and Edmond Pourchot of the College Sainte-Barbe had him expelled for attracting their students. Pourchot taught according to the method of Canon Masclef, while Fourmont invented his own algebraic grammar of Hebrew. It has many eccentricities and does not appreciate the need for left to posterity a 'figurative' translation and commentary on the Psalms which provoked the indignation of Houbigant. 24. See his eloge in the Memoires de I 'Academic royale des inscriptions et belleslettres (1746: 414-15); see also Jourdain 1862: 164 ('piece justificative').


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attestations for the forms and structures it conjectures, but, fundamentally, it is isomorphic to Kimhi's ~Ilp]il nilfl (theory of vocalization), and it could have been only a minor handicap to an enterprising student (Schwarzbach 1992). Fourmont had only two disciples who have been identified: Charles du Molard, a friend of Voltaire who, during a dinner in Brussels in August 1740, showed off his Hebrew before the great man who knew none at all (Leung 1994), and Gaston d'Orleans, the king's brother. Neither ever contributed directly to Hebrew studies, but in 1751 Gaston, who was pious, generous and somewhat mad, left money to create a Chair of Hebrew in the Sorbonne whose occupant should teach 'selon la methode acoutumee des Juifs, et non point selon les nouvelles methodes, ou toutes autres par lesquelles on enseigneroit 1'Hebreu sans se servir de Points...', that is, by any method other than Masclef s, to which Fourmont had been violently opposed.25 A certain Louis Jouard de La Nauze (1696-1773), about whom we have not succeeded in learning much, published a brilliant article, 'Remarques sur 1'antiquite et 1'origine de la cabale', read before the Academic des inscriptions on 7 December 1731 (Memoires de I'Academie royale des inscriptions et belles lettres, IX [1731]: 37-53), where he dates the Zohar to around 1037, which is two centuries too early, but at least denies the traditional attribution to R. Shimon ben Yohai in the first century. La Nauze's grounds for the dating are an attestation to it in the writings of Hai gaon (938-1039), actually a 'fictitious' responsum in the collection Sha 'arei teshuvah.26 He dates the Sefer ha-yezirah around 1220, for lack of earlier attestations in the rabbinic literature known to him. Here he was too late by 700 to 1000 years, but the critical method was sound. We do not know whether La Nauze had a knowledge of rabbinics independent of the Bartolocci-Imbonati, Reeland and Wolf anthologies. He might have been an interesting master, if indeed he took students. The Oratorian Charles-Francois Houbigant (1686-1784) edited a Biblia hebraica sinepunctis, cum notis criticis et versione latina (Paris, 1753, 4 vols., in-folio), which Geddes owned and used intensively. How Houbigant functioned at such a high level despite acquiescing in Masclef s method for reading and understanding Hebrew defies the imagination. His Bible has been studied by Dr Fuller (1984: 34-35) and by my friend, Mme Hadas-Lebel (1986),27 and I trust that neither of them would be offended 25. See Jourdain 1862: 385 and 191 ('piece justificative'). 26. See Scholem 1972. 27. Also see Ardy 1806.

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if I say that there is still more to be said about his method and achievement.28 They both showed that Houbigant was very critical of the MT, and especially of the Tiberian vocalization, which he found limiting, that is, especially with regard to the apologetic possibilities of the Hebrew. He proposed many emendations in the apparatus criticus on the basis of the Samaritan text for the Pentateuch despite Simon's caution that it was an emended text, and on the basis of Christian versions for the rest. Professor Andre Caquot, who reads eighteenth-century Bible studies for the pleasure of reminding himself how misconceived they often were—he has a rather dry sense of humour—once remarked disdainfully that Houbigant never missed an obvious emendation, as though biblical criticism and interpretation were the sport of making sense of the unemended MT. Geddes cites Houbigant's text often, but it is my impression that he was, in general, more critical of the Oratorian's emendations than the Prospectus would have led us to expect, 'Houbigant...often finds corruptions in the Text where they are not... Indeed it [the translation of Gen. 20.16] is altogether unworthy of Houbigant' (CR: 102; cf. p. 460, on Houbigant's transposition of the members of Deut. 32.8-9, and p. 468, on his attempt to extract a messianic meaning from Deut. 33.3). Geddes was to share Houbigant's hostility to the MT, but was to approve some of the Oratorian's corrections, like DHtftZn niftn in 2 Kgs 23.8 as bamoth ha-se'irim, 'Hillchapels of the satyrs' (Bible II: 251), and probably others that I did not spot, but he was also to have the independence to reject Houbigant's Latin translations when they were apologetic, as is that of Lev. 27.29, where Houbigant tried to show that the verse does not imply an authorization of human sacrifice (CR: 358). A.W. Fairbairn has called my attention to an incomplete Bible translation (BnF, FF 24730-32, and there is an autograph copy of the translation of the Psalms, BnF, NAF 2491)—the Prophets are missing, either never having been translated or having become separated from the rest of the text along with some other manuscripts which were part of a collection of Houbigant's works, including a critique of Astruc which must surely have been curious—'attributed' to Houbigant in the BnF manuscript catalogue. It was refused by the censor, Lourdet, to the surprise of Houbigant's 28 John Rogerson has defended many of Houbigant's emendations in 'Charles Fran9ois Houbigant (1696-1783): His Background, Work and Importance for Lowth', an unpublished paper delivered at the conference 'Sacred Conjectures: The Context and Legacy of Robert Lowth and Jean Astruc', held at St Catherine's College, Oxford, 8-19 April 2003.


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biographer, Jean Ardy, because the Oratorian's orthodoxy was never publicly questioned. I have only had time to sample it and I was quite surprised by its fluent, racy style. It is often arbitrary (Lot's wife was metamorphosed into a 'statue de sel metallique'). It proffers translations that rationalize whenever possible (see, for example, D'vTin DD^Hil of Gen. 1.21 which become 'des poissons monstrueux', andDTl^H n DH of Gen. 6.2 who are 'les enfans des Dieux', which is impeccably literal, but are then treated like overweening mortals, while their descendents, the D^BD, are merely 'geants'). He takes liberties with the French language to emphasize particularities of the Hebrew, for example ' Au commencement, quand Dieux [written with the x of the plural] crea...[maintaining the singular agreement of the Hebrew text]' and renders the DTI^N TI of Gen. 2.4, 'Dieu-Dieux'. He does not hesitate to call attention to obviously postMosaic passages ('cette clause ]HND TK ''DUDDm [Gen. 12.6]neparoitpas etre de Moise. Car a quoy bon? Les Cananeens n'estoient-ils pas encore les maistres du terns de Moise?') and sometimes to those that are less than obviously so CpBQ ^133 n ]^l, 'When I was coming from Padan', Gen. 48.7, 'Les interpretes se tourmentent pour trouver la liaison de ce lambeau avec le reste; mais c'est inutilement: ce morceau est tombe de quelque autre endroit, apparemment de la fin du ch. precedent. Ce sont des erreurs des copistes qui ne se donnaient apres cela la peine de raturer parce qu'on n'auroit pas achete leurs manuscripts s'il y avoit eu des ratures', 'The interpreters fret about the connection of this fragment with the rest; but it is hopeless: the fragment comes from some other place [in the text], apparently the end of the preceding chapter. These forms are errors pf the copyists who do not take the trouble to cross out [their errors] because nobody would purchase their manuscripts if they had crossed-out words'). Houbigant does not (always) translate according to the emendations that he proposes in his edition of the Hebrew text. The V ATI "pDQ of Gen. 49.10 is rendered, 'entre ses pieds' ('between his feet'), like the Masoretic reading rather than 'entre ses drapeaux' ('between his banners'), like the Samaritan, which Houbigant usually prefers in his edition of the Bible (Houbigant 1753-54, I: 163). This translation does not insist on the christological interpretation of (all of the) passages cited in the Gospels, which is strange for a scholar as committed to apologetics as Houbigant seems to have been. A more thorough study of this translation will surely prove rewarding, and a careful comparison with Charles Le Gene's 1701 translation, which Geddes owned, with Richard Simon's Pentateuch (shortly to be published by Jacques Lebrun and John Woodbridge), and especially with Geddes's translation would surely be very interesting.

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Houbigant did not teach Hebrew or Bible in the Sorbonne or anywhere else so far as I have been able to determine, so Geddes is not likely to have had formal contact with him, although he may have sought out the deaf Oratorian in his study. Geddes cites Houbigant often enough to suggest some personal contact. That supposition is all the more plausible because Houbigant eventually, that is, certainly before 1768, learned English well enough to translate several English books into French, so Scottish or English students who arrived in Paris without too much French might well have sought contact with him. Finally, the royal doctor and royal Professor of Medicine, Jean Astruc, published in Brussels (actually, Paris, Cuvellier) in 1753 his Conjectures sur les memoires originaux dont ilparoit que Mo'ise s 'est servipour composer le livre de la Genese. I do not suppose that Geddes's professors approved of Astruc's documentary analysis, even though Astruc was at pains to demonstrate, in his Reflexions preliminaries, that Simon and several other, (more) respectable predecessors also applied a documentary analysis in their study of the Bible. (Gabriel Fabricy [1772: 166-80], about whom more later, remarks that Campegius Vitringa [Observationum sacrarum, Jena, 1723,1, Chapters 2 and 4] had also argued that Moses had at his disposition memoirs out of which he composed the Pentateuch.) Another apologist, hard pressed by Voltaire's Bible criticism, ultimately admitted in 1769, even before the worst of Voltaire's Bible criticism, obviously, from his pious point of view, had appeared, that even the systems of Simon and Astruc were preferable to what he had seen of Voltaire's writings on the Bible, mostly in the Dictionnaire philosophique (Guenee 1805: 421 -23). If Geddes read Astruc during his student days, which is not assured—and he did not possess an exemplar of the Conjectures at the time of his death, the doctor's book would have reinforced the type of analysis that he could have learned from Simon and Leclerc. He mentions Astruc several times, usually together with the much more professional Johann Gottfried Eichhorn and his Einleitung in das Alte Testament (1787), and he is rather disdainful of both (Bible I: xix), describing them as authors of 'the work of fancy', without explaining why.29 29. Also see CR: 29, 'I hasten to the second chapter [of Genesis] which is at present, pretty generally supposed to be another cosmogonical fragment, written by a different person, and inserted by Moses in his commentaries as a curious piece of antiquity. I confess that I have never been able to view it in that light: after all the pains that Astruc, Eichhorn and others have taken to prove the diversity, I can find nothing in it but a natural resumption of the subject, by the same pen which wrote the first chapter; and with the same wise, political and religious views.' (This citation supports


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In summary, even though Hebrew studies in the Sorbonne were no longer very interesting in the eighteenth century—Geddes would have done better studying with Albert Schultens in Leiden, or with any of the learned Jews of Berlin or Amsterdam, but of course those were not real options for a young Catholic of modest means or less, preparing for ordination—they still attracted a decent number of students: 77 in 1755 according to Ladvocat, celebrating the success of his method (Ladvocat 1755: iv). One reason for the influx of students seems to have been that the College des Trente-Trois sent its future clergymen to study with Ladvocat rather than provide them with in-house Hebrew instruction (Jourdain 1862: 385). The most interesting scholar (Houbigant) and amateur Hebraists (La Nauze and Astruc) worked outside the institutional structure into which a student like Geddes would have been integrated. Only Fourmont and La Nauze published in the Memoires of the Academic des inscriptions, the other Hebraists shunning it—or else they had been refused election to the Academic and were thus denied the possibility of publishing in its Histoire and Memoires—possibly because for most of them Hebrew was merely an instrument to be used to refute the heretics and the Jews, which, Ladvocat explains at the very beginning of his grammar, is indeed the principal reason to study the language, and because the Academic des inscriptions was a relatively free-thinking fraternity to which Nicolas Freret, Jean Levesque de Burigny and Fourmont had been elected. To judge from the Encyclopedic articles on Bible, which, except for 'Hebrai'que (Langue)', by Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, had all been assigned to respectable churchmen because those articles were, as Walter Rex has shown, the hostages that Diderot and d'Alembert had to offer the ecclesiastical establishment in order to publish their 'advanced' opinions on more important subjects (Rex 1979), orthodoxy regarding the Bible was not fundamentalist, but the encyclopaedists writing on biblical subjects did not avail themselves of all the liberty that Calmet occasionally took in order to deny traditional attributions, dates of composition and the complete integrity of the biblical texts (Schwarzbach 1986a). Fuller remarks quite appropriately that Geddes was in France while the Encyclopedic was being written—there was a hiatus in publication from 1757 to 1765—its still incomplete first edition was almost surely too expensive for a penurious student of theology to buy, and it was probably not what a student preparing for ordination would dare keep in his digs, even if it was published Professor Rogerson's thesis—see his contribution to the present volume—that Geddes is incorrectly characterized as a purveyor of the 'fragmentary hypothesis'.)

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with the 'privilege du roi' and then, after 1765, with a false address and tacit privilege. He may indeed have met some of the more conservative contributors, but it would be gratuitous to suppose that he met any of the more radical contributors. In other respects, the mid-century Sorbonne was not such a bad place in which to study. In the 1750s the Faculty of Arts was emerging from its mediaeval torpor. A Chair in Experimental Physics had been created in the College de Navarre for the Oratorian, Joseph Privat de Molieres (16771742), who taught Newtonian mechanics, and he was succeeded by the abbe Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700-70), who attracted a relatively wide audience to his lectures and public demonstrations (Jourdain 1862: 385-86). After the Jesuits were expelled from France in 1762, it became necessary to replace them as school masters, so the 'concours general' and the 'agregations' were created, something like teachers' certificates in the 'arts', what we would call general education, which implied a new conception of the non-theology curriculum, a measure of state responsibility in defining it, and a certain rigour in its application. France left an indelible mark on Geddes. His literary culture was to remain largely French even though there were few specimens of French belles-lettres in his possession when he died: the poetry of Boileau and Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, the Essais of Montaigne, the Caracteres of La Bruyere and the Lettres persanes of Montesquieu. He had many dictionaries of all sorts in French but almost no French heterodox books, in particular, no Voltaire, no Diderot, no d'Holbach and none of the 'clandestines', but then he had almost none of the British Deists in his library either. He possessed Bayle'sDictionnaire historique et critique (1696) as well as his Pensees diverses sur la comete (1683) and Fontenelle's Histoire des oracles (1687). He did have several rather moderate Catholic books by French authors like Pierre-Francois Le Courrayer, his Defense de la dissertation sur la validite des ordinations angloises (1726) and his posthumous Declaration de mes derniers sentiments sur les dogmes de la religion (London, 1787) as well as the Apologie de M. I'abbe de Prades (Amsterdam and Berlin, 1752) in which Diderot collaborated. Geddes possessed many French translations of the Bible, more than one would expect of someone looking for felicitous English solutions to the practical problems of translation. He even consulted and occasionally approved the Jansenist translation of Isaac Le Maistre de Sacy, for example of Deut. 16.8, Th mUJJ (CR: 433), which no scholar who was not brought up with it would have taken the trouble to study, since de Sacy admittedly based his translation on the Latin rather than on the Hebrew, and aspired


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to edify rather than to produce an impartial and philologically accurate version of the Old Testament. Geddes mentions Mme Anne Dacier, the translator of Homer (Bible II: xii) into French, as well as Henry Holden (Bible II: xi) who, though English, taught in the Sorbonne in the seventeenth century, where he influenced Richard Simon. Geddes evidently kept up with developments on the French scene even after his last visit, to judge from his citation of Gabriel Fabricy's refutation of Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique (1764 or later edition), of Boulanger, of d'Holbach and of the notorious Traite des trois imposteurs (around 1700) in his Des litres primitifs de la revelation (Rome, 1772), which Geddes acquired well after his return from Paris. In fact, he continued to acquire French books until his death. A remark concerning the allegorical interpretation of Genesis seems to imply that Geddes had read several of the French anti-biblical tracts in addition to those of the English Deists which would have been a more natural part of his culture: I here beg leave to remark that the most pointed shafts of ridicule, thrown by modern infidels at the Hebrew scriptures, would fall guiltless to the ground, if they were not fledged by the absurdities of scripture-commentators. See La Bible enfin expliquee [by Voltaire, 1776] and the answers of M. [Philippe] du Contant de la Molette, in the first volume of his Genese expliquee, printed at Paris 1778.

He also knows Canon Pierre Joubert's six-volume L 'eloquence sublime des auteurs sacres dans les cantiques (Paris, 1786-87) (CR: 235), which, to judge from Joubert's other titles, must have been more pious than philological, and one of Constantin-Francois Chasseboeuf de Volney's studies in comparative folklore (either the Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie [ 1787], or Les ruines, ou Meditations sur les revolutions des empires [1791]—CR: 473, he owned both books). Of course Geddes's culture was not exclusively French; as Fuller has shown, Geddes learnt German and referred often to Michaelis and, less often, to the Dutch philologist, Schultens (CR: 258), though it is not always clear to which member of that distinguished family he was referring. He owned several books by the most famous of the Schultens, Albert. It will surely have been noticed that I have had to deduce from his later writings and from the contents of his library in 1804 what Geddes, the young, foreign student of theology, read and may have read in Paris between 1758 and 1764, and what he may have been taught, formally or implicitly, at the university, and that I admitted all the lacunae in the information that I have been able to accumulate about the teaching of

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Hebrew in eighteenth-century Paris. I have also supposed on very slender grounds—one remark which might just as well refer exclusively to the English Deists, and an explicit reference to Voltaire's La Bible enfin expliquee—that he was aware of French freethinking Bible criticism. There is still much to be learnt, but the documents necessary to remedy our ignorance may no longer be available; so, handicapped by our ignorance, I had to defy Newton and make hypotheses, those that I have just proposed, in order to understand the mature Geddes. Geddes 's Assent to French Enlightenment Bible Criticism Here I must once more part company with McKane (1989: 160-62), who claims that 'Geddes appears more in the guise of a founder of a new religion' and that he is an 'elitist'. The argument that I shall propose here is that Geddes was convinced by the radical Bible criticism that he encountered in France, and that McKane took the signs of the painful conflict between Church teaching and Enlightenment values that Geddes endured as willful attempts to found a new religion. What is most tantalizing about Geddes's biography is that he was in France precisely when Voltaire launched his campaign to rehabilitate Jean Galas by attacking the Church and the Bible in the Traite sur la tolerance (1762), and that he returned—here the Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) and Dr Fuller are not in complete agreement, the DNB claiming that Geddes was in France for a year or more, from 1767 or 1768 to 1769, though neither says what he did there—when Voltaire's campaign against the Bible had intensified and grown more original. There had been hostile Bible criticism in France before 1762, even bits and snatches in Voltaire's early published works such as the twenty-fifth of his Lettres philosophiques (1734), but especially in what are now called the 'clandestine manuscripts' (Schwarzbach 1999a), of which few were published until the 1760s and 1770s, but before 1762 the cultivated public knew so little about that Bible criticism (except for Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus, which was both notorious, widely read and dutifully refuted, sometimes in conscientious detail) that an apologist like Guillaume Maleville, writing around 1756, could still take scant notice of it. Maleville knew that there were tracts hostile to the Bible, but he had to imagine what they might contain. That imagining is, of course, historically more precious than precise references would have been (Schwarzbach 2003a)! But after Voltaire's Traite sur la tolerance, which sought to make


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the world safe for religious diversity by destroying all State Churches, one would have had to have been well cloistered to escape the frightening news. We have long sought sophisticated witnesses to, and critics of, Voltaire's and the clandestine philosophers' writings on the Bible—Geddes was well placed to be the one or the other. As a matter of fact, I have only noticed the one reference cited above to Voltaire and to his most interesting and seminal work in Bible criticism, published long after Geddes's student days in France, and Geddes never states which of Voltaire's arguments he can refute. He also mentions Fabricy, who is now hardly known and who wrote before the Bible enfin expliquee appeared, but who mentioned and gave resumes of the arguments of other philosophe-Bible critics. (Rene Pomeau, in his La religion de Voltaire [Pomeau 1956] and in his monumental biography, Voltaire en son temps [Pomeau 1985-94], never mentions Fabricy or du Contant du Molette, to whose refutation of the Bible enfin expliquee, Geddes also refers. I intend to investigate these two conservative adversaries of Voltaire's Bible criticism at some later date.) I need not repeat here the elements of Bible criticism to be found in eighteenth-century French philosophe sources. The best English translation ofphilosophe would be 'iconoclast' but, since that term also has a technical meaning for the theologians, I will continue to use the French word, all the while admitting that not all the philosophes were really impartial seekers of knowledge and wisdom, nor that all philosophers of the period were critics of the established religions. The material is, for the most part, familiar. Some of it can already be encountered in such ancient commentaries as the Mekhilta, where, for example, R. Eliezer explains the miracle of the Jews prevailing in their war against the Amalekites so long as Moses can keep his hands raised (Exod. 17.11) in such a fashion as to deprive his hands of any magic power (K ^D^l .nÊQ .^H^^DQ). This implies that the rabbi's rationalism was offended by a miracle that was hard to distinguish from magic. The difference between the commandment regarding the Sabbath in the Exodus Decalogue (Exod. 20.1-14) and the Deuteronomic text (Deut. 5.6-18), which should have been identical, is also noted by the Mekhilta, a kind of primitive text-criticism, but then harmonized by the claim that both texts were pronounced simultaneously at Sinai (ibid, T nJT). In b. B. Bat. 14b-15a, R. Judah admits that Joshua introduced the last eight verses into the Pentateuch (cf. b. Mak. 1 la), which assumes a rudimentary historical criticism. Here and there, mediaeval Jewish commentaries discovered and admitted that several other verses

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were anachronistic. Ibn Ezra on Deut. 1.2 is the most famous such comment, probably because it inspired the Tractatus theologico-politicus 8, and Richard Simon. Israeli scholars are now seeking, and finding, other elements of proto-Bible criticism in other mediaeval Jewish commentaries.30 The Christian commentators discovered other 'difficulties' in the Old Testament texts, and Calmet anthologized them all, providing the best answers he could find, though occasionally he had to admit an anachronism he could not explain away, in which case he would attribute it to a gloss introduced by Ezra, or to an error in transmission. What I can add to that schema is that the Enlightenment religious critics—Voltaire after 1762, and several of the earlier clandestine texts of 1700 to the 1730s plus Mme du Chatelet's Bible commentary, which dates from the early 1740s and should be published soon for the first time (du Chatelet-Lomond [forthcoming])—anthologized the 'difficulties', less the solutions, presumably because they found them less than convincing, though none of their syntheses was, in my opinion, so powerful as Spinoza's Tractatus. They also produced interesting conjectures regarding the composition of the Pentateuch and, less frequently, of other biblical books which have no counterpart in the Tractatus, as well as regarding the dates and interrelations of the Gospels which have no relation to anything Geddes studied.31 I take this to be a new, historical way of reading the Bible, a way which is usually attributed by historians to Lessing and Herder, who were one and two generations younger than the clandestine philosophes. Discussion of the French contributions will not be found in Kraus (1982) or any of the older, standard histories of Bible studies, which neglect the French developments almost completely, except for brief paragraphs on Simon and Astruc, because they were looking for the sources of nineteenth-century German Bible studies, and those Germans seem to have been unaware of the activity on the French scene a century before their time. In defense of those historians I must admit that the philosophe-Bible criticism which impresses me with its originality and prescience was notably imprecise and unprofessional. Even worse than assailing the authenticity and integrity of the biblical text, the philosophes had the effrontery to judge its truth and its morals. 30. Our 'Sources rabbiniques...de Richard Simon' was one of the early studies looking in this direction. See, in addition, Shapiro 1993; Harris 2000; Sarna 1993; also 1983; Lehman 1979. 31. See Schwarzbach 200 Ib; also 1999b. For French Enlightenment New Testament Criticism, see Cotoni 1984. Also see Schwarzbach 1986b.


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Miracles were automatically considered to be false, inconsistencies with natural science and cosmology were adduced and deplored, and the little that was known about ancient history was invoked as a control on biblical narratives. Their normative criticism of the Bible was not entirely new. Even the most classical and pious commentaries had problems with biblical morals, with David's cruelty and vengefulness, with the god who hardens the heart of his enemies, who tempts the innocent and who punishes children for the sins of their parents. Calmet in particular abandoned hope of defending some episodes in biblical history (Schwarzbach 2002). They also were at pains to show that the Old Testament passages cited in Christian apologetics as prophecies of Jesus' birth, career and Passion were falsely interpreted, were arbitrary distortions of the tD^S. Incidentally, this attests to the great intellectual independence of these philosophes, because, if one reads eighteenth-century apologists such as Calmet and Jacques Abbadie, one discovers that the christological interpretations of Isaiah, of Psalms and of a few verses in Genesis and Numbers were thought to be absolutely obvious.32 What is remarkable about Geddes is that he admits all of these propositions except the general normative condemnation of the Bible whose aesthetic value, morals and sagacity he sometimes defends. He does not try to circumvent any of the others. For Geddes, Psalm 2 is not christological at all. He translates ~Q IpCJ] of v. 12 as 'adore fiercely' rather than the traditional, 'kiss the chosen one' (Psalms: 3). As for Psalm 22, 'The author seems to have been in the deepest distress when he composed it; which must have been during the heat of Saul's persecution. See I Sam. Ch. 13. Several parts of it are in the New Testament applied to Jesus Christ' (Psalms: 30), without further precision and without assuring his reader that such is the literal or esoteric reference of the psalm. And Psalm 110 is addressed to David and does not refer to 32. The only apologist of the period whom I have read who realized that the christological interpretations of Gen. 49, Isa. 7,11 and 53, and Pss. 2,22 and 110 were not so evident as all that, and that the Jews made a good case against those interpretations, is Jacques Basnage, but he had read Jewish sources and knew what he had to refute! Actually, non-Hebraists had no excuse because Jewish refutations of the christological interpretations of the Psalms were available: Rabbi Davidis Kimhi commentarii in Psalmos Davidis (trans. Ambrosius Janvier, Paris, 1661). More general Jewish arguments against Christianity were available in Genebrard'sT?. Joseph Albonis, R. Davidis Kimhi et alius cujusdam Hebraei anonymi argumenti, quibus nonnullosfidei christianae articulos oppugnant (Paris, 1566) and in Johann-Christophorus Wagenseil's Tela ignea satanae (Altdorf, 1681).

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Jesus (Psalms: 210-13). Geddes's problem is rather with the expression in Ps. 110.5-6. According to him, modern critics think the Jehovah here is the antecedent; indeed the context would, at first sight, seem so to point. In this hypothesis then, the torrent out of which he, Jehovah, drinks, is a torrent of blood. This seems harsh (say their opponents), and degradingly unworthy of God. Not more harsh or unworthy (it is replied) than what is elsewhere said of the same Jehovah; or rather what he is made to say of himself; Mine arrows I will make drunk with blood, and with flesh my sword shall be satiated, Deut. xxxii.42! They also urge Ps. Iviii and Ps. lxviii.24, where the righteous is made to bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. . .

Incidentally, Voltaire, too, discovered the domination motif in the Psalms, and their frequent cruelty (Philosophie de I'histoire Chapter 44). Geddes criticizes Kennicott for 'mak[ing] the quotations in the N.T. a criterion of the text of the O.T.; which is contrary to the canons of sound criticism' (CR: 421). Here are Geddes's remarks onrtV'E) NT ^ 1U ('until [subject unspecified] comes to Shilo', or 'until Shilo comes') in Gen. 49.10-11 (Bible I: 93), which give no quarter to the christological interpretations of the verse: Peaceful prosperity. So I render the word Shiloh; and refer it either to the peaceful enjoyment of the land of Chanaan, mentioned in Jos. 1 1.23 and 18.1 when the land rested from war, and the tabernacle was set up at Shiloh (so denominated, probably, from that very circumstance); or to the still more peaceful reign of Solomon, when the government was fully established in the tribe of Judah, and the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with respect to territory, accomplished. The generality of interpreters, however, apply all this to Jesus Christ: though they differ widely about the mode of application, as well as about the meaning of Shiloh; which, in different copies of the original, we find written in three different manners; and which has been rendered by some, the peace-maker; by others, he whose right it is; or, he to whom it is reserved. The Vulg. seems to have read another word, which he renders, he who is to be sent.

Geddes argues against Kennicott and St Paul (Gal. 3.13) that ('For the curse of God is hung', Deut. 21.23) does not refer to Jesus (CR: 441), and that ^03 -[TIKQ "plpO ira ('A prophet from among you, from your brethren, like me') in Deut. 18.15 does not refer to him either, despite Acts 3.22: 'although the writers of the New Testament have accommodated this passage to Jesus Christ; yet the series of Moses's speech cannot be reconciled with such an interpretation; unless in a figurative and mystical meaning' (CR: 437).


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Geddes's rationalism is in the spirit ofthephilosophes. He makes every effort to avoid conflicts with cosmology and natural science by restricting creation by the divine word to an absolute minimum (Bible I: iv), and refuses to deal with the question of the inspiration of the Scriptures (p. v), a deliberate self-limitation, both of which suggest a rationalist's scruples. He interprets miracles rationally where he can, for instance, Lot's wife's metamorphosis into a pillar of salt (Gen. 19.26): 'A saline statue. She was probably struck with lightning, and crusted over with nitre. Some, however, think that the words might be thus rendered: She stuck fast in the brine, or thick salsuginous matter' (Bible 1:31). He dedemonizes Gen. 6.2: The sons of the gods; i. e., the great and powerful; who, after the example of Enos, arrogated to themselves a sort of god-like superiority over the vulgar class of men; whose daughters they ravished at pleasure. The spurious fruit of such connexions became a lawless, hardy race of men, called (v. 4) giants; not so much perhaps from their enormous stature, as from the outrageous violence. (Bible I: 11)

And regarding the mysterious angel of Exod. 33.21, he writes: 'My name is in him. He acteth in my name, and by my authority.' Geddes translates Exod. 24.10, as 'they saw the marks of Divinity' because a literal rendering of ...^tntF 'n^K n» Itm ('And they saw the God of Israel') which implies that God was indeed and even banally visible to Moses, Aaron and the elders, offended his religious and rational sensibilities (CR\ 260). Regarding "fÛft nn^D $h "[H^ft^ ('Your garments did not wear out') of Deut. 8.4, 'credulous Jews, and credulous Christians, believe that, during those forty years, the clothes of the Israelites wore not out! This comes of too literal translations' (CR: 426; Voltaire and Mme du Chatelet both speak about this miracle), which most believers could probably have accepted. But he also considers Eve's loquacious serpent to be a real mythological serpent; [who] will speak like the beasts and birds in Pilpay or Esop... Reader! dost thou dislike this mode of interpretation? Embrace any other that pleases thee better. Be only pleased to observe, that the authority of Scripture is by no means weakened by this interpretation. (Bible I: x-xi; cf. du Chatelet, 1.6-9)

I am afraid that Calmet (1706-17 [Genese]: 88) would not have agreed: La maniere dont MoTse raconte cette histoire de la chute de nos premiers peres, est tout a fait particuliere. 11 se sert d'expressions figuratives et enigmatiques, et cache sous une espece de parabole, le recit d'une chose tresreelle, et d'une histoire la plus serieuse et la plus importante qui fut jamais. II nous represente un serpent, le plus ruse de tous les animaux, qui parle,

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The Bible and the Enlightenment qui raisonne avec Eve, qui la seduit, et qui attire les maledictions de Dieu. II semble que 1'historien sacre ait oublie le demon, qui etoit la premiere cause du mal; et que toute la peine que le serpent invisible meritoit, soit retombee sur un animal, qui n'etoit que 1'instrument dont le demon s'etoit servi. The manner by which Moses narrates the history of the fall of our first fathers, is quite special. He uses figurative and enigmatic expressions and hides, under a kind of parable, the story of a very real thing, and the most serious and important history that ever occurred. He depicts a snake, the most wily of all animals, who speaks, who reasons with Eve, who seduces her, and who attracts to himself God's curses. It seems as though the sacred author had forgotten the demon, who was the prime cause of evil; and all the pain that the invisible snake merited fell upon an animal who was merely the instrument that the demon had used.

I must admit here that other eighteenth-century Christian translators uncorrupted by Voltaire and others, such as the Socinian Huguenot, Charles Le Cene (1741), Bishop Lowth in his translation commentary on Isaiah (1779) and, on occasion, even Calmet, interpreted miracles and mythology rationally. More precisely, they all wanted the Bible to be as rational as theology would permit. To avoid misunderstanding we must recall that a rationalist tendency is already visible in Ibn Ezra's insistence that God appeared to the patriarchs and other biblical heroes in dreams, and performed some of his deeds by the ministry of angels, while Maimonides interpreted metaphorically many passages that offended his rationalism. We do not doubt that the same tendency can be identified in some Christian commentators. Thus the above examples drawn from Geddes are not conclusive proofs of his assent to exclusively philosophe-Bible criticism. However, there is a nuance we should not ignore. The rationalistic interpretations of Ibn Ezra and Maimonides were apologetic. Even an eighteenth-century Bible critic who had not completely broken with the faith, like Reimarus, could write anApologie, while the 'neologue' theologians attempted to formulate a rational recension of Christianity. We do not see in Geddes an analogous impulse to formulate a rational recension of Old Testament religion. One possible explanation is that, like Voltaire, he was content to recognize the Bible's primitive and even deplorable elements as part of its texture. Of course, Voltaire sought them and Geddes could not help but admit them—not quite the same disposition, even if the results hardly differ. I shall not detail Geddes's theories regarding the composition of the Pentateuch because they are treated in detail by Professor Rogerson in his contribution to the present volume. Let me only say that Geddes admits all


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the anachronistic verses discovered by Voltaire et al., and goes even further than Astruc and Voltaire in analyzing the Pentateuch into sourcedocuments, if not quite into 'fragments', but he does not deduce their character and date. On second thoughts, let me give just one example, because it is so Voltairean, though I do not recall that Voltaire ever speaks about this verse. The urn of manna that Aaron was to have placed n DSb Trail, before the testimony(?) (Exod. 16.32-34), is a parachronism, for neither ark nor testimonial tables yet existed. We must therefore refer it to some future period... [O]ne is naturally apt to suspect that the compiler of the Pentateuch, whom I believe not to have been Moses, committed here, as elsewhere, a small oversight... [Jews and Samaritans have not found the manna-urn] but the Christians have been more fortunate: for not a hundred years ago, the manna-urn, at least, was found in three different places—Rome, Paris, and Bourdeaux. (CR\ 240-41)

The discussion regarding the source of the materials for the construction of the desert tabernacle (CR: 261) is hardly less satirical. Still stranger, Geddes insists upon his own moral vision and, when the Pentateuch does not coincide with it, in particular in the treatment Deuteronomy prescribes for the conquered peoples (CR: 422-25), he vehemently imagines that that material was added by Moses because I cannot possibly believe, that ever a just, benevolent Being, such as I conceive my God to be, gave such a sanguinary order to Moses and the Israelites.. . The same inferential arguments were made use of in the Valdensian persecution, and indeed in every persecution for the sake of religion, since persecution began. The supposed divine commission given to the Jews to extirpate the Chanaanites and Amalekites, has ever been, in the mouthes of Judaizing Christians, a positive and plausible plea for committing the most cruel injustices.

This passage irresistibly recalls Voltaire's Traite sur la tolerance, Mme du Chatelet's revolt against the bigoted education given to Christian princesses,33 and her description of the massacre of the men who had taken 33. 'Ainsy en suivant 1'exemple d'Esther toute princesse qui aura du credit, doit exterminer tous ceux qui ne pensent pas comme elle en matiere de religion. Ne sont-ce pas la des principes capables de porter le fer et le feu dans la societe et de replonger 1'univers dans la barbaric?' ('Thus, following the example of Esther, any princess who wants to be esteemed, must exterminate all those who do not think as she does in religious matters. Isn't that a principle capable of bringing iron and fire [that is, sword and devastation] to society and of returning the universe to barbarity?', du Chatelet, 1.438).

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Midianite women (Num. 25.1-9),34 and Fourmont's very dry comment on the assurance of the apologist, Claude-Fran9ois Houtteville, that '"Andre Kester, Calovius et Scherzerus, auteurs tres profonds eux-memes dans la philosophic de 1'ecole, ont ruine sans ressources toutes les faibles defenses du socinianisme; que depuis chaque communion lui a porte des coups mortels." Vous [Houtteville] voulez dire, apparemment, les a extermines' (' "Andre Kester, Calovius and Scherzerus, very deep scholars in scholastic philosophy, have utterly destroyed the weak arguments of Socinianism; and since then every Christian denomination has leveled against it mortal blows". You [Houtteville] mean, apparently, they have exterminated them', Fourmont 1722: 158), not to speak of the English (Locke) and Swiss (the much earlier Sebastian Castallio) literature on tolerance. And The God of Moses is a jealous God, who punisheth the iniquity offathers in their children, unto the third or fourth generation; an irascible and avenging God, who consumeth like a devouring fire', who maketh his arrows drunk with the blood of his enemies, and his sword satiated with their flesh. He is even said to harden, sometimes, the hearts of wicked men, that he might take more flagrant vengeance of them. Indeed, the whole tenor of the Pentateuch convinces me, that the more ancient Hebrews were real anthropomorphites and to this alone, I think, we are to ascribe all those expressions concerning the Deity, that seemingly degrade the Deity. At any rate, all such expressions must be considered as metaphorical imagery, adapted to the ideas of a stupid, carnal people... (Bible I: xii)

This is precisely the material in Geddes to which Samuel Cahen, in his 1830s Bible commentary, could not help but subscribe (Schwarzbach 2003b). In a word, Geddes has assented to the entire repertoire of French Enlightenment Bible criticism. The coincidences are so frequent, for instance the quail incident of Numbers 11 that Professor Ska discusses in his contribution to the present volume (see Mme du Chatelet I: 122-23; cf. Calmet, Commentaire litteral... Nombres: 111, who draws on Bochart, as Geddes was to do), that they suggest that he read Voltaire and maybe some other texts like the Examen de la religion (Cesar Chesneau Dumarsais? c. 1705 [1st edn = 1745, followed by two others around 1749 and several more in the 1760s]), and Diderot's Penseesphilosophiques (1746). Upon his return to Paris he could have read the Examen critique des apologistes de la 34. She describes this as 'une maniere sure de faire egorger la moitie de la population par 1'autre moitie' ('a sure way of inducing half the population to cut the throats of the other half, du Chatelet I: 142 and cf. I: 165-67 and II: 398).


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religion chretienne (Jean Levesque de Burigny?, c. 1733 [1st edn = 1766]) or the Religion chretienne analysee (currently unattributed, after 1732, Paris, 1767). Other iconoclastic tracts that were not principally directed against the Bible were available and could have contributed to his radicalization, but that he actually read any of them is more than I can prove. I have not noticed any quotations from that iconoclastic literature. The above deduction, that Geddes was radicalized in France byphilosophe-Bib\Q criticism, however likely, remains gratuitous. Almost all the 'problems' that he could have discovered in Voltaire, Dumarsais and Burigny and in Mme du Chatelet, had her commentary upon the Bible circulated, were already explicit or, rarely, only implicit in Calmet. That Geddes read Calmet in the seminary has been assumed because everybody else did, apologists and critics of religion alike. Calmet harmonizes where he can, or supposes that passages that offend his ethical sensibilities, like the authorization of divorce and the taking of interest on loans to nonIsraelites, were 'accommodations' to the deplorable Jews' crass intellectual and ethical culture, or he imagines special circumstances in which a scandalous biblical passage might be excusable, because by hypothesis there were no moral and theological defects in the Old Testament. Only in extremis did Calmet admit that a text was inauthentic, or that the morality of a given passage was not evident to fallible, human eyes. Geddes's philosophical formation, like Voltaire's and Mme du Chatelet's, evidently rendered these classical difficulties and objections more cogent than the answers Calmet and other orthodox commentators had proposed, so he assented to the former and ignored the latter, just as Mme du Chatelet had done some 50 years earlier and Voltaire had done some 20 and 30 years before the publication of Geddes's two volumes of Bible translation and of the Critical Remarks designed to justify them. Geddes was surely as capable as any ofthephilosophes of extracting Bible criticism from Calmet and, given his more professional expertise, more capable than any of them of developing it systematically. In my terms, Geddes became, despite himself, I believe, a renegade to his professional formation and to his caste, and that is strange because there were relatively few Frenchmen who followed a similar cursus, from seminary to assent to eighteenth-century Bible criticism. Dumarsais, the cure Etienne Guillaume (Mori 1993), Jean Meslier and Yves de Vallone are the only examples that come to mind, and de Vallone was an apologist for the Bible and religion as he construed both of them. (Diderot was only a master of arts, and never studied theology at a professional level.) There

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was no secular education, so everybody studied with the Jesuits, like Voltaire, or with the Oratorians, like Montesquieu and Dumarsais, even if they did not go on to seminary or the faculty of theology. We may call these philosophes lesser renegades because they only betrayed a more elementary religious education when they found other intellectual values to be higher than that of loyalty to the Church in which they were born and bred. Geddes is both a greater and a lesser renegade, betraying his professional education and caste, but, like Richard Simon, still remaining within his Church as he defined it, even if, viewed from the outside, both were surely seen as converts to the most radical French Enlightenment values. (Simon, avant la lettre, of course.) After having read much of Geddes's two volumes of Bible translation, of his translation of the Psalms and of his Critical Remarks, I cannot help but read his character in that sense. Paul Auvray (Auvray 1974: 170) described Richard Simon as a man who could not square what he knew with what he was supposed to believe. Calmet permitted himself to be as Enlightened as was compatible with the strictest post-Tridentine orthodoxy, while Geddes sought valiantly to be as orthodox as was compatible with the Enlightenment values that he had assimilated, perhaps already in Scotland, but surely in France. Finally, I believe that Geddes is enormously important because he seems to have been the first to face frankly, and to enunciate clearly, the problem of nineteenth-century 'liberal Protestantism', namely, how could the Churches retain authority in doctrine and ethics that derives ultimately from the Bible, once Enlightenment Bible criticism had exposed its many defects and rendered its authenticity and inspiration highly questionable if not completely untenable? (Geddes did not, as Jean Hardouin and other apologists had done earlier in the century, retreat from the dubious claims of the founding documents of his Church to the authority of the Church itself, assumed to be a metaphysical principle. I can only suppose, because Geddes does not address the question in any of the texts that I have read, that his reluctance to rally behind the Church as a replacement for the Bible was due to the three centuries of sectarian polemics synthesized by Isaac de Beausobre, by Voltaire and, most powerfully of all, by Gibbon, which left the Church, too, and with it its claims to authority, in shambles.) Because Enlightenment thought and the religious life were not hermetically sealed from each other, it was inevitable that a figure like Geddes should arise, one who retained some loyalty to the biblical tradition, who could still, unlike Voltaire and Mme du Chatelet, admire the Bible from


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an aesthetic point of view—the heritage of Robert Lowth's rhetorical study of biblical poetry if we must propose a single master—and sometimes from an ethical point of view, but who often could not reconcile it with his secular values, and, in those cases, the latter dominated his loyalties. I have identified premonitions of this crisis in several French apologists, Houtteville, Maleville and even in Calmet, but none of them was so willing as Geddes to admit the consequences of the secular values that he shared with the philosophes and his and their public. Willing may be the wrong word. Here and there, in Geddes's several confessions of real but limited faith (see, e.g., CR: 251), I can almost hear an anguished cry, 'Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen!,' because, unlike Voltaire and several of the philosophes, he does not seem to have had a taste for provocation and betrayal of the religious tradition. I shall pass the task of defining Geddes's solution to the conflict of Enlightenment religious criticism with religious authority to colleagues who are necessarily more qualified in theology than I, and I fervently hope that they will assume the task of comparing Geddes's solution with those proposed in the nineteenth century and even today, by John Barton (1993), James Barr and the other like-minded colleagues Barton cites who have also tried to define a doctrine of inspiration somewhere between fundamentalism and a complete rejection of biblical authority. I hope that they may even suggest an evaluation of the adequacy of Geddes's and his successors' solutions to this fundamental problem. I say that because, following the analysis of Joseph L. Blau (1959), an important dimension of religion, of any religion, and the source of its authority, lies precisely in its connection with the ancestors of the tribe, which, for Christians and Jews, means with the Bible. Judaism and most forms of Christianity are unthinkable without their reference to a Bible that can be respected for its teachings. Let me offer an assurance, so that I am not thought to be so impolite as to have accepted an invitation to a congress of clergymen in order to associate the hero of the congress with the gospel according to such reprehensible creatures as Voltaire, Diderot, Du Marsais, Mme du Chatelet, Jean Meslier and the Baron d'Holbach, that the problem of retaining religious authority while reading the Bible and rabbinic literature CD^53H ''S 7U (according to the direct, literal sense), without renouncing scientific and ethical values, is different but no less difficult for orthodox Judaism than respecting the religious value of the Bible was for Geddes. This is not always obvious because today's orthodox rabbis are generally sufficiently

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ignorant of science, ancient history, comparative religion and philology to convince themselves, and the many docile members of their congregations, who leave their secular culture in the synagogue cloakroom before they enter, like gunslingers in Westerns who left their gun belts at the saloon door before approaching the bar for their drinks, that that conflict does not exist.35

35. Halivni (1997) underestimates the problem for the Pentateuch and proposes a scheme which is at best a partial solution for the Pentateuch but which does not apply to the Prophetic and Hagiographic books, yet without denying that they too are presumed to be revealed.

WHAT DO WE MEAN WHEN WE TALK ABOUT '(LATE) ENLIGHTENMENT BIBLICAL CRITICISM'? Christoph Bultmann

1. Enlightenment—An Attitude Enlightenment thought—whether early or late—can generally be characterized by the famous Latin motto sapere aude ('dare to be wise'). It was in fact characterized in this way by Immanuel Kant in a popular article in the Berlinische Monatsschrift in 1784.1 It is no surprise to find Geddes declare: 'I have long been accustomed to think for myself, on every subject that has come before me'. Accordingly, he writes for readers 'of common sense and sagacity', for persons 'of curiosity and taste', or, again, for people 'who have learned to think for themselves'.2 Thus my first answer to the question raised in the title of my paper is that the notion of Enlightenment biblical criticism describes the work of scholars who had the confidence—and, let me add, the competence—to adopt a rational approach to the philological and exegetical study of the Bible. The reader may feel at this point that for someone to travel from Erfurt to Aberdeen and offer at a scholarly conference the insight that sapere aude was the central tenet of Enlightenment thought is almost a reversal of the story about the folk-tale hero of Erfurt, Till Eulenspiegel, who arranged a big convocation of taylors only to tell them that before you start sewing 1. Kant 1977a: 53; 1996a: 17. The motto is a quote from Horace, Epistles 1.2.40. Besides, Kant was by no means the first to quote Horace. The motto was widely current at the time as can not least be illustrated by the story about Poland's King Stanislaw August who in 1765 presented one of his ministers with a medal inscribed sapere auso (Butterwick 1998: 223). 2. The quotations are taken from, respectively, Bible I: x, ix; CR: vi, vii. Since Geddes didn't live to write the comprehensive monograph on Old Testament criticism which, under the title of General Preface (to his translation and critical remarks) he announces on several occasions, the references in this article are mainly collected from the introductions to his published volumes.

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it is wise to tie the end of your thread into a knot.3 However, if James Banis right in noting a widespread hostility among biblical theologians towards the Enlightenment (1999: 676 n. 30), it may not be entirely superfluous to recall on the occasion of a bicentenary that the term 'Enlightenment' does not just mean a particular period in intellectual history, but also an attitude which found its fitting expression in that Horacian motto. The main point in Kant's article for the Berlinische Monatsschrift is to claim that such an intellectual stance is an appropriate and necessary one to be taken with regard to religious traditions. Whatever the implications are for the precise relationship between philosophy and theology, it does not follow that Enlightenment thought in principle excludes the religious dimension from its understanding of humanity. While I would not hesitate, therefore, to acknowledge the heuristic function of a critique of the Enlightenment for Brevard Childs's attempt to recover a meaningful notion of Scripture beyond mere antiquarianism, it is not obvious whether his critique itself is based on a plausible view of Enlightenment thought. Thus, where Childs states that the Enlightenment's hermeneutic proposal was 'to confine the Bible solely to the arena of human experience' (1993: 9), this statement would need to be qualified by the observation that religious concerns were recognized to be one important aspect of such experience—even if some writers only saw religion oscillate between superstition and enthusiasm.4 The suggested opposition between an understanding of the Bible 'simply as a cultural expression of ancient peoples' and its understanding 'as a testimony pointing beyond itself to a divine reality to which it bears witness'5 may characterize certain strands of Enlightenment thought; however, it is not easy to reconcile with, for example, Kant's distinction between a Religionsglauben ('pure religious faith') and a Kirchenglauben ('ecclesiastical faith'), between a canon and an organon of religion (1977c: 301; 1996c: 262). Kant doesn't altogether deny the possibility that human speech which points 'beyond itself to a divine reality' can be meaningful, but he subjects culturally conditioned forms of such speech, whether historical or contemporary, to the judgment of reason—in accordance with the motto sapere aude.

3. Lindow 1997: 145-47. This particular story about itinerant Till is located in Rostock; for Erfurt see Lindow 1997: 86-88. 4. An outline of David Hume's critique of religion can be found in Bultmann 1999: 86-120; for a philosophical analysis see Byrne 1989: 113-28. 5. Childs 1993: 9; see also Barr's comments on this contrast (1999: 415).

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The opposite to this basic intellectual attitude is again characterized by two familiar key terms, which do of course occur in Geddes's writings, namely, 'prejudice' and 'authority'. Thus Geddes says about his Critical Remarks: 'I have freely used mine own judgment (such as it is) without the smallest deference to inveterate prejudice or domineering authority' (CR: iv). For someone who embarked on the study of the Bible, such authority would have been first of all the authority of an ecclesial tradition and an institutional Church. The issue is not a specifically Roman Catholic one. Geddes sees the 'Lutheran in Leipsic' or the 'Calvinist in Geneva' just as much as anyone else bound to dogmatic systems of previous centuries (cf. CR: vii). And he identifies individual enlightened scholars in all Christian denominations and respects them equally. The philosophical foundation of Geddes's view of prejudice and authority can be found in Descartes. I assume that Geddes has Descartes in mind when he locates the origin of 'most...branches of critical learning' in seventeenth-century France (Prospectus: 119; cf. GA: 24). He describes the ordinary devout member of the Catholic Church as someone who 'does not even advance to the first step of Des Cartes's logic; he dares not doubt'. The Church—so Geddes—prevents its members from 'doubting in matters of faith', which would have included, I assume, the status of the Scriptures as a unified body of divine revelation (CR: v). Instead of addressing Descartes's arguments at this point, it may be more pertinent to show how, nearer the time of Geddes, David Hume presented this French philosopher as a guide to rational thinking. In his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, first published in 1748, Hume draws a distinction between two species of scepticism, the one 'antecedent to all study and philosophy', the other 'consequent to science and enquiry'. The first of these (and only this needs to concern us here), he says, is 'much inculcated by Des Cartes and others, as a sovereign preservative against error and precipitate judgement'. It has the following function: 'It recommends an universal doubt, not only of all our former opinions and principles, but also of our very faculties...' Hume raises objections against this last aspect, the idea that philosophical doubt should extend as far as to include our human rational faculties themselves, but he accepts that 'this species of scepticism, when more moderate.. .is a necessary preparative to the study of philosophy, by preserving a proper impartiality in our judgements, and weaning our mind from all those prejudices, which we may have imbibed from education or rash opinion' (1975: 149-50). Geddes would have had no quarrel with Hume about the force and usefulness of such 'antecedent scepticism' not just in philosophy, but also for the reading

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of the Bible and for any attempt to assign the Bible its proper place within the religious and intellectual culture of his time. 2. Enlightenment—A Period Since it does, of course, remain a convention in scholarship to speak of the Enlightenment as a period in intellectual history, let me suggest a few aspects of a general characterization of the second half of the eighteenth century. In order to do this, I would like to take my cue from pertinent remarks by Andrew Burnett, the curator at the British Museum in charge of the planned new exhibition in the former King's Library on 'Enlightenment: Discovery the World in the Eighteenth Century'. In a recent article in the British Museum Magazine, Burnett registers as a major shift in the overall cultural orientation in the eighteenth century that the classical world came to provide 'both physical [i.e. in architecture] and intellectual models'. An 'adherence to rationality' and a 'rejection of superstition' became the dominant ideals. The new exhibition will be designed to show how the Enlightenment 'was a crucial period in the development of our understanding of past and distant worlds' and how people at the time 'sought to link things up, whether in a progressive development of civilizations or in the search for a universal religion' (2002: 12-13). One could illustrate this concise view point by point with quotations from Geddes's work. He suggests comparisons between classical and biblical literature, paraphrases Horace and translates Homer. He declares that reason was 'the only solid pillar of faith', and he wants to free 'Religion' from 'every vain and useless trapping, and tinsel decoration, in which the busy hand of superstition hath officiously attired her'. He praises the contemporary 'taste for Oriental learning', and obviously considers the ancient Hebrews to be a people in a 'past and distant world', when he suggests—with some simplistic generalizations—to read biblical texts as 'human compositions, within a rude age', 'adapted to the shallow intellects of a rude barbarous nation', and employing an 'Oriental idiom'. What is more, just as authors in antiquity saw a movement of progression from Homer to Herodotus and on to Thucydides, the progressive development of human knowledge and understanding in his own time allows Geddes to classify certain biblical traditions as 'mythology'.6 Finally, I am sure that 6. The quotations in this paragraph are from CR'. vi (cf. Prospectus: 122); Prospectus: 148; Bible II: xiii; CR: 26 (cf. Bible I: xii), 222; Bible I: x; Bible II: xii. On Geddes's work in general see Fuller 1984; McKane 1989.


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if he had had the money to build himself a house, he would have commissioned Robert Adam as his architect!7 However, two qualifications with regard to Burnett's point about a 'universal religion' are called for. First, as far as he is more than a translator and critic, Geddes is an apologetic writer. It is true that he sees Christianity as 'a rational, a most rational religion' (CR: vii). Yet his concern is not so much with the problem of universality as with a response to the critique of Christianity by—predominantly—French philosophers whom he observes turning biblical stories into 'ridicule' (Bible I: ix, cf. xi; Bible II: xiii). Geddes himself aims at recovering 'the pure spiritual religion of Jesus' (CR: vii) which ought not to be obscured by inappropriate representations of God in the Scriptures. Second, an even more basic issue than the question of a 'universal religion' is the general approach which scholars take in the study of religions. Peter Byrne emphasizes in his book Natural Religion and the Nature of Religion, that 'it was the Enlightenment that marked the emergence in modern European culture of detachment from and reflection about inherited and established religious beliefs and practices' (1989: xi). Only where such a stance is taken does it become possible to start a debate about 'universal' or 'natural' religion on an empirical basis, and to develop the position of a naturalism which 'gives a human origin to all thought about the divine' (1989: 9, cf. 11). Geddes clearly reached a position of'detachment' with regard to the Old Testament and saw the historians, legislators, poets, and other scribes of ancient Israel as human writers. In this sense he just shared some of the main ideas about religion in human history current at the time. 3. Enlightenment—A Continuous Tradition Periodization with regard to the history of scholarship is always open to debate. To speak of a 'late Enlightenment' might suggest the idea of a period which was nearing its end. Geddes's writings don't encourage such a view. In a way, he regards himself less as a contemporary of Voltaire, Hume or Kant, than as a scholar in a stable tradition marked by names like those of Erasmus, Castellio, Drusius and others.8 The adjective 'late' 7. Valuable comments on the significance of neo-classicism in a religious context can be found in Harries 1997: 299-301. 8. Prospectus: 117-19; GA: 3-4; on these and other names in the following paragraphs the respective entries in the Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (Hayes 1999) can usefully be consulted.

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should therefore only be taken to indicate that a biblical critic around 1800 could build upon a strong foundation of previous scholarship. Geddes for example admires Louis Cappel as the founder of biblical criticism, and unreservedly presupposes the results of John Spencer's book on the Mosaic legislation when he turns to the ritual law in the Pentateuch. In commenting on the question of the authorship of the Mosaic work he dryly notes, 'there was a time when this would have been an impertinent, nay an impious question' (Bible I: xviii; this is probably an allusion to Richard Simon and his conflict with Bossuet). The sense of continuity as well as change during the late Enlightenment can nicely be illustrated by the work of a contemporary of Geddes who incidentally also produced a translation of the Bible (into Latin). This is Johann August Dathe (1731-91), an orientalist at the University of Leipzig and a colleague of the Classicist and New Testament scholar Johann August Ernesti at that university. When in 1777, 120 years after their original publication, Brian Walton's prolegomena to the London Polyglott were republished in a new edition in Leipzig, Dathe contributed a new introduction in which he elaborated on two major issues, namely, the rules of criticism and the origin of language. Walton, he explains, had taken away the 'empty fear of a danger' which might be seen to arise for the integrity of the text from a collation of manuscripts (1777: xxxviii-xxxix [my translation])9. He then goes on to criticize Walton for his rules for the emendation of texts which he finds 'not sufficiently detailed, nor precisely defined' (containing, that is, too many vague expressions such as ceteris paribus or non temere). He refers the reader to Ernesti's rules for New Testament textual criticism as a great advance in scholarship (see Baird 1992: 108-14). A further objection is directed against Walton's deference to contemporary authorities in the established Church (non esse aliquidin textu mutandum sine Rectorum Ecclesiae consensu ['that nothing in a text ought to be changed without the consent of the leaders of the Church']). Dathe insists that 'criticism does not admit of a judge who pronounces for his authority in matters of criticism. Criticism has its own rules, proposed by right reason and tempered by moderation' (1777: xxxix). Although Dathe even looks back to Erasmus to justify his view, there is a new sense of the independence of scholarly judgment here. Geddes obviously belongs to the same generation of scholars as Dathe. However, his independence of judgment—or his antecedent scepticism— goes much further than Dathe's. My second example from the latter's 9.

Benjamin Kennicott had to do the same again in the 1750s.

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introduction to Walton can demonstrate the difference. Dathe examines Walton's view that in light of the historical information provided by the biblical historia creationis ('history of creation'), it was wrong to claim a human origin for language. He now rejects the idea that human beings had immediately been endowed by God with the faculty of speech. According to Dathe, language was indeed invented by human beings themselves. However, they did so under exceptional circumstances. First, they enjoyed a special divine guidance, and second, the human being was not created as a little child, but in full possession of his intellectual capacities (we learn this from the 'history of creation'). Thus we can assume—or rather, we do in fact know—that the human invention of language occurred almost simultaneously with creation (1777: viii). Whether we call Dathe's solution to the problem a sparkling gem of biblical apologetics or an awkward compromise, it is clear that Geddes again and again rejects this kind of sophistry which he detects abundantly in the writings of scholars such as Dathe, Eichhorn or Rosenmuller. Thus a biblical critic of the late Enlightenment is stimulated by the work of many predecessors and contemporaries who move with a greater or lesser degree of consistency in the same direction as he does. Let me conclude this point about periodization. When we talk about a critic like Geddes we need to be aware of changes of attitude which occur within a long-standing scholarly tradition. Questions of translation and textual criticism, controversial issues of interpretation, and not least the investigation of the ancient cultures which are reflected in the texts had been pursued for more than a century. Thus when Johann Albert Fabricius compiled his Bibliographia antiquaria in 1713, he already refers to a widespread agreement among learned people about the usefulness of a solid knowledge of antiquity for the study of ancient texts.10 Against this background it is hardly correct to ascribe the origin of a historical study of the Bible to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. What did change in the perception of antiquity—as far as the Bible is concerned— was that the scribal and intellectual activities of people in Ancient Israel 10. ' ...erudit\i\ homines, quibus constat quantum usum praebeat, quantoque ad omne scriptorum sacrorum, externorum genus intelligendum sit subsidio dilucida et accuratior cognitio Antiquitatis' ('learned people for whom it is clear how much advantage is provided by a distinct and increasingly exact knowledge about antiquity, and what a great resource it is for understanding any kind of sacred or profane writings', 1760: *3). The first chapter of the bibliography gives a survey of the study of Hebrew antiquities (1.1-9, cf. also 8.1-2 and 11.1).

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became a subject of historical investigation just as their economic, social and ritual activities had been for a long time.11 What is called 'higher criticism' (allegedly invented by Johann Gottfried Eichhorn [ 1752-1827]) has its place within the scholarly tradition of the study of antiquitates Hebmeomm. It is the discovery of an intellectual world in analogy as it were to the earlier discovery of a material and social world. To summarize this outline of some aspects which should be taken into account in an attempt at defining the notion of (late) Enlightenment biblical criticism, it can be stated that, first, Enlightenment biblical criticism is characterized by an attitude of methodical doubt, directed against prejudice and authority. Second, it shares ideals and interests with its contemporary culture in a broader sense, which entails a new 'detachment from and reflection about' religious traditions and a new interest in understanding 'past and distant worlds'. Third, it represents one stage in a continuous tradition of erudition and scholarship which is often acknowledged to have started with Erasmus. 4. Geddes on Old Testament Historians I would like to complement the picture gained so far with three more specific points about Geddes's ideas concerning the 'Hebrew historians'.12 The first of these refers to the relationship between Classics and biblical criticism. Geddes not only calls for 'as perfect and impartial editions and translations of the Hebrew classics, as we already have of the Greek and Latin' (Prospectus: 148). He takes the parallel between the two academic disciplines much further and suggests comparisons between those 'classics' from different cultures in antiquity. In many cases, this remains a merely rhetorical gesture; however, his understanding of the Hebrew historians does in fact depend on the parallel between these and Greek authors (Bible II: xii). It leads to the provocative question: 'Why might not the Hebrews have their mythology, as well as other nations?' (Bible I: x). A comparative view immediately calls up the judgment of Thucydides about historians 11. An important step in this direction was already Richard Simon's Histoire critique du Vieux Testament (1678), part I, chapter 2. 12. Geddes speaks of historians' or 'historiographers' or on occasion even—with an allusion to the reputation of Herodotus—of 'the father of Hebrew history' (e.g. Bible I and Bible II: passim). For the purposes of the present article, this terminology is adopted without any further discussion of the narrative, didactic, kerygmatic, or other character of the biblical texts.

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who produced accounts of the early periods of Greek history.13 Geddes might have agreed with Hume's dictum in which this judgment found a modern echo: 'The first page of Thucydides is...the commencement of real history'. 'All preceding narrations', Hume continues, 'are so intermixed with fable, that philosophers ought to abandon them, in a great measure, to the embellishment of poets and orators' (1987: 422). Here it is, I think, where one finds the background for the recurring motif in Geddes that the Hebrew historians should be read 'like any other' historians (Bible I: v; cf. CR: v), and that consequently we should carry out an examination 'into their general veracity or probability, by the same rules and criteria with which we examine the writings of other nations' (CR: 213; cf. £/6/e I: xii). As a result of adopting such a comparative perspective, Geddes achieves in his scattered remarks a distinctive appreciation of the Hebrew historians. To a certain degree, his work equals Johann David Michaelis's work on the Hebrew legislators (Moses, that is, for the author) in his Mosaisches Recht of 1770-75 and Robert Lowth's work on the Hebrew poets in his De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum of 1753 in that it presents the reader with a significant facet of intellectual life in Ancient Israel. Of particular interest are the resemblance and the difference between the pictures of the historian and the poet. Lowth pursued a kind of criticism which was no longer tied to the doctrine of inspiration, without, however, much touching on it. Instead, he considered the notion of 'sublimity' to be an appropriate basis for a critical and comparative study of Hebrew poetry. His book was widely known,14 and traces of Lowth's investigation of the poetic qualities of Old Testament texts can be found in Geddes's work in many places. For example, Deuteronomy 32 is called 'a very beautiful ode' (CR: 456), Exodus 15 'a most beautiful composition' which is 'worthy to be put in competition with the best pieces of Greece or Rome' (CR: 235). Everything in this composition is 'truly poetical', and, emphatically, 'a better specimen of the simple sublime cannot easily be produced' (Bible I: 127; cf. Bible II: xiii). What Geddes does in his studies of the Hebrew historians is to extend this kind of critical interest in biblical literature from poetry to historiography, despite the consequences such a move would 13. Thucydides 1.20-23; cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thucydides 5-8. 14. On the reception of Lowth in Germany see Smend 1991. Lowth's book was faithfully summarized for a more general audience in Scotland and England in Hugh Blair's immensely popular Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres of 1783; see especially Lecture 41.

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have for the doctrine of inspiration. He now takes the notion of 'veracity' as the basis for a critical and comparative study of the historians, starting from the Pentateuch (Bible I: xi; Bible II: v). This extension of critical analyses of the texts may, perhaps, be the most original contribution he made to biblical criticism.15 A second point about Geddes's 'Hebrew historians' concerns science as an aspect of Enlightenment culture around 1800. Let me just mention the name of the great Scottish geologist James Hutton whose work implied the insight that the time-scale provided by a conventional reading of Genesis has nothing to do with geological time, that is, the time required for those geological processes to take place which one can observe and reconstruct (Hutton 1987; Triimpy 1996). Geddes obviously accepts this development in science when he notes that 'many terrestrial phenomena lead us to suspect that [the earth] had been peopled with animals of some kind, long before the commencement of our earliest chronology' (Bible I: ii). In Geddes's interpretation, therefore, Genesis 1-3 are 'ingenious piece[s] of ancient mythology' (Bible I: vi-xi). He abandons all those uneasy compromises suggested by scholars like Dathe or Eichhorn who wanted to salvage some information of real historical value from these chapters although they were themselves proponents of a mythological interpretation.16 Geddes has no worries about Hebrew historians who include mythological texts into their work, and he doesn't make them interfere with contemporary science. As a third point, the big issue of philosophy and biblical criticism can be illustrated from Geddes's work with two aspects: the judgment of the credibility of a historical tradition and the judgment of the morality of actions or commandments reported by the historian. In both cases Geddes seems to rely heavily on David Hume, if not in a broader sense on earlier criticism raised against the Bible by Shaftesbury and a host of eighteenthcentury deistical writers. The famous chapter 'Of Miracles' in Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding can be read as a chapter on the reading of historiographical 15. For details of Geddes's picture of the historians see McKane 1989: 186-89; Fuller 1984: 38-59. 16. Geddes is not just critical of Bathe's (1781) and Eichhorn's (1787) interpretations of Gen. 1-3, he also dismisses Eichhorn's literary-historical hypothesis about Moses as the author of the Pentateuch as 'fancy' (Bible I: xix)—a term which may not have been in Eichhorn's dictionary, but certainly was in de Wette's (see Bultmann 2001: 51-55).


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works, and Hume in fact applies his conclusions directly to the Bible, particularly the Pentateuch. Hume's argument is that acceptance of a miraculous account can only be justified in a situation where the experience of the reliability of a witness outweighs our regular experience and observation. This, he claims, can never be shown to be the case with human testimony. In addition to this, Hume somewhat simplistically points out that, as far as historiography is concerned, 'supernatural and miraculous relations' are 'observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations', or, if they have become part of the traditions cherished by a 'civilized people', that this was due to the fact that they were 'received.. .from ignorant and barbarous ancestors' and had their status protected by 'that inviolable sanction and authority which always attend received opinions'. His main example of such traditions are 'the first histories of all nations' (1975: 119). The chapter culminates in an examination of the miracles of the Pentateuch, and Hume reaches the conclusion that the Pentateuch resembles 'those fabulous accounts, which every nation gives of its origin' (1975: 130). Geddes's critique of the Hebrew historians corresponds closely to Hume's philosophical argument against believing any accounts of miracles. Thus Geddes insists that sufficient 'motives of credibility' would be required if a reader was to accept biblical stories as genuine accounts of events rather than as texts characterized by certain 'oriental customs' of expression (cf. CR: 183). However, he concludes that the testimony of the Hebrew historians is just not strong enough for this. As an example, let me refer to Geddes's discussion of Exod. 7.14-25 (the turning of the waters of the Nile into blood): 'Here, I have no proof, no motive of credibility, but the sole authority of an anonymous Hebrew writer; whom I find everywhere giving into the marvellous...' (CR: 183). The problem with the Egyptian plagues is not a problem concerning the idea of divine omnipotence, but a problem of historiography: 'testimonies beyond all exception, and amounting almost to demonstration, would be required to produce a rational belief. 'Our faith is always in proportion to the motives of credibility...' (CR: 213)—or, as Hume put it, 'A wise man.. .proportions his belief to the evidence' (1975: 110). If the historian is to be judged 'by the same rules and criteria with which we examine the writings of other nations' (CR: 213), one cannot rely on his account in a case like that of Exodus 7.

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The Bible and the Enlightenment 5. Geddes on Moral Issues in Old Testament Historiography

The truthfulness of historical accounts of events is one thing; another, more important one is the morality of divine actions or commands which are reported in the Bible. In the book of Exodus, the spoiling of the Egyptians (Exod. 11.2) would be a case in question, and Geddes argues that the testimony of the historian is precisely not sufficient to establish the point that it was morally right and had really been ordered by God (CR: 205).17 An even more momentous example is the divine command about the extermination of the Canaanites in Deut. 7.1 -2 (20.16-17). From a philosophical point of view, it must not be conceded that God might overrule the 'one clear, explicit, immutable law of moral equity, implanted by the wise Creator in the human mind'—with which Geddes means the Golden Rule (CR: 423). This philosophical principle must be balanced against the evidence we have for believing that the command in Deuteronomy 7 was a divine command. The result of this enterprise is obvious: 'The bare assertion of an Hebrew historian' is not strong enough, and it is 'infinitely more probable that God never gave such an order, so opposite to the general law of moral equity, than that he dispensed with this law' (CR: 424). Geddes therefore 'fairly and openly' acknowledges that 'the Jewish historians... put in the mouth of the LORD words, which he never spoke, and assign to him views and motives, which he never had' (Bible II: iii).18 The rule of criticism which ought to be applied to all human testimony leads to a clear result here because the credibility of the scriptural tradition can be weighed against an unambiguous moral conviction.19 Only the position at which 17. This and the following examples had already been discussed by Shaftesbury (1999: 159) and others (Tindal 1967: 262-63,271-74); on the kind of criticism of these authors see the relevant sections in Reventlow 1984 and Byrne 1989: 93-110. 18. The reference in this quotation is to Judg. 1-3 and 'many other places'. 19. In the discussion of this paper at the conference the objection was raised that in the light of A. Maclntyre's study of the Scottish Enlightenment (esp. 1988: 209-348) it was implausible to give much credit to Geddes's appeal to an 'immutable law of moral equity'. Any such claim to 'universality' and 'evidentness' would need to be put in a proper perspective with regard to the particularity of a specific intellectual tradition or a specific social and cultural order. As far as Hume is concerned, I am not sure whether Maclntyre (who concentrates on the Treatise) presents the full picture of Hume's moral philosophy when he takes the membership of a particular type of social order as the key to this philosophy (e.g. pp. 320-22). Furthermore, the moral conflict which arises from the question of approbation or disapprobation of the command in Deut. 7.1-2 may be a case where the theoretical concept of particularity reaches its limits. In Shaftesbury, the fundamental argument has the striking rhetorical form:


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Geddes arrives in his critique of that command in the writings of a Hebrew historian could then be taken as a starting-point for a discussion of the concept of the inspiration of the Scriptures. The philosophical foundation of Geddes's concept of an 'immutable law of moral equity, implanted by the wise Creator in the human mind' may be found in the moral philosophy of Kant rather than that of Hume.20 Kant, too, discusses the impossibility of accepting a command which is 'contrary to the moral law' as an utterance of a divine voice (1977c: 333; 1996c: 283). However, I don't want to investigate how far Geddes's view corresponds with Kant's understanding of a moral law here. Instead, I would like to tackle the question of why Geddes should at all bother about the ancient Canaanites, something which Kant, who keeps discussing Genesis 22, doesn't seem to do. The answer to this can again be found, I think, in Hume's writings. In his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals of 1751, Hume establishes 'humanity or a fellow-feeling with others' as the 'principle' which 'accounts, in great part, for the origin of morality' (1975: 219 with n. 1). In the conclusion of the Enquiry, he explains the effects of this principle as follows: 'the sentiments, which arise from humanity, are not only the same in all human creatures, and produce the same approbation or censure; but they also comprehend all human creatures; nor is there any one whose conduct or character is not, by their means, an object to every one of censure or approbation'. Moral sentiments arise immediately, for example, in response to representations of 'a tyrannical, insolent, or barbarous behaviour, in any country or in any age of the world' (1975: 273). Against this background of a philosophical understanding of humanity, it is obvious why Geddes engages with the moral problem of Deuteronomy 7. It is less obvious why he contents himself in a note on 2 Sam. 8.2 with the observation: 'This seems a cruel measure; but it was perfectly agreeable to the laws of war of those times' (Bible II: 113). I am not aware that Geddes mentions Hume anywhere in his writings. However, I find it significant that he does not include him in his elaborate list of six philosophical 'adversaries of religion' (Bible II: xii).21 There is a 'notwithstanding..., notwithstanding..., there will be still found.. .remaining in us...' (1999: 159, cf. also pp. 20-22). 20. See, however, Hume on the 'sentiment of disapprobation, which, by the structure of human nature, we unavoidably feel on the apprehension of barbarity' (1975: 293-94), as well as his discussion of superstition and morality in the Dialogues (1993: 122-25). 21. Geddes speaks of the 'erudition of Freret', the 'sense of Bolingbroke', the 'wit of Voltaire', the 'scurrility of Boulanger', the 'declamations of Diderot', the 'sarcasms

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reason why Geddes should not have made any direct reference to Hume: Hume famously reduced a rational religion to 'one simple.. .proposition' which was 'not capable of extension.. .or more particular explication' and afforded 'no inference that affects human life' (1993: 129). With this he summarized a critique of rational claims in theology which would not lose its force against Geddes's ambitious declaration that 'reason, reason only is the ultimate and only sure motive of credibility, the only solid pillar of faith' (CR: vi).22 However, Geddes wrote one generation after Hume, and he may even have been familiar with Kant's arguments for a rational religion derived from practical reason. Kant himself applied his theory to the teaching of Jesus, in his Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason of 1793.23 Geddes, too, reads the Bible with a distinctive emphasis on the moral teaching of Jesus. The 'pure spiritual religion of Jesus' is the essence of that Christianity which according to Geddes is 'a most rational religion' (CR: vii).24 The ground for it was indeed prepared by the Hebrew Scriptures in which one finds 'a wiser legislation, a sounder theology and a purer morality, than in any other works of antiquity prior to the Christian dispensation' (Bible II: xiii). However, this 'purer morality' needs to be discovered as one aspect of a very diverse historical collection. The philosophy of Hume would not provide a sufficient basis for such an appreciation of either the Old or the New Testament. 6. Conclusion Let me finally spell out a few implications of the picture of Geddes as a biblical critic who accepts Classics, Science and Philosophy as decisive factors of late Enlightenment culture. Approaching the subject with a glance at the polemics in Geddes's time against biblical criticism and against the rejection of the doctrine of inspiration,25 one might ask: 'What is the use of a Bible which as a whole bears of Paine', and, on the other side, the 'vast and cumbersome load of useless commentators'. 22. McKane (1989: 159-62, 189-90) is highly critical of what he calls the 'elitist religion' and the 'programme of reductionism' advocated by Geddes. 23. Kant 1977b: 826-33; 1996b: 179-84; on Kant see Byrne 1989 and 1998. 24. See also the poem at the end of the Critical Remarks (CR: 475). 25. One representative of those polemics is William Van Mildert, who in his Boyle Lectures of 1802-1804 throws 2 Pet. 3.3 at Geddes, while in his Bampton Lectures of 1813 he states that 'nothing may be allowed to impeach [the credit of the Divine Oracles], but irreconcileable contradiction of facts and authorities established upon


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the label "the work of Hebrew historians, legislators, priests, poets, scribes, etc.", which at Genesis 1 and Exodus 14 comes with a tag "historically not valid" and at Deuteronomy 7 with a tag "morally not valid"?' The answer to this would be: 'It remains a resource of religious thought and spiritual understanding'. Geddes's biblical criticism confronts the reader of the Bible with a disillusioned view which one might compare to the achievement of the biblical scribe who, in 1 Kgs 19.11-14, subjected popular ideas about theophany to his critique: God is not in the inspiration of a sacred text, God is not in the inerrancy of a mythological or historical tradition, God is not in the suspension of morality. God is behind human attempts to move from superstition to faith, and the biblical literature is a collection full of witnesses to such an existential transition. Geddes's work thus invites a reading of the biblical literature which is characterized by constructive criticism rather than apologetic anxiety. While the intention of biblical scribes to relate their faith to a scheme of history remains undisputed, the scheme itself has no authority for the reader of the Bible. Constructive criticism, therefore, takes the work of the ancient scribes as a challenge to focus on theological issues such as providence, theodicy or grace. The close link between moral philosophy and religion in some strands of Enlightenment thought should not prevent a biblical critic from engaging with a variety of issues in the interpretation of the Bible. The strong assertions of the rational character of religion which pervade Geddes's work need to be balanced with a view of faith in which the limitations of human language about the divine are acknowledged. To conclude, I would claim that the most significant contribution of late Enlightenment biblical criticism to the reception history of the Bible lies in its refusal to accept an alternative of 'biblical and ecclesial' vs. 'rational and philosophical'. Whereas from an ecclesial orientation more emphasis will be put on celebration of the text, and from a philosophical orientation more emphasis will be put on reflection on the text, there is no reason to assume that the work of the biblical scribes cannot be approached from either side. Where biblical scribes can be seen to be themselves engaged in a search for religious understanding, they become relevant partners in the unending human conversation about God, a conversation which is as much a philosophical concern as it is an ecclesial one. In this sense, I like testimony the most indubitable, nay, which it is impossible to set aside'—without, however, accepting any consequences of this declamation (1808: 391-422; 1815: 159-61; cf. Fuller 1984: 10, also p. 102).

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Geddes's passing remark on the Wisdom of Solomon: '...be its author Solomon or Philo, its author was undoubtedly a learned Jew' (Bible I: iii). It would be stupid, therefore, for us to ignore what the author has to say. If such a principle was applied to the reading of Old Testament texts more generally, interesting debates would ensue, not just about religion and reason, but also about religion and ritual, religion and poetry, or religion and silence. Geddes could then indeed suggest 'New Possibilities' for biblical exegesis today.

THE BIBLICAL WORK OF ALEXANDER GEDDES AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF CONTEMPORARY CATHOLIC BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE Charles Conroy

1. Introduction In the history of biblical scholarship Alexander Geddes stands out for his strong interest in studying the original text and later versions of the Bible, which led to his project of a new English translation of the Bible made directly from the original languages, and for his pioneering openness to critical study of the Bible in Britain. Then, as regards some larger public issues of his day, Geddes was remarkable for his irenic relations with members of other Christian Churches, and for his political radicalism and sympathy with the initial ideals of the French Revolution. This complex of characteristics makes Geddes appear as an almost completely isolated figure in the Roman Catholic community of Scotland and England during his lifetime, but the picture changes somewhat when we look further afield at contemporary Catholic biblical scholarship in Germany, Austria and Italy.1 There we find a number of scholars who, in different degrees, exemplify some of the same characteristics noted above for Geddes. The work of six of these scholars will be presented briefly in this study: three of them were active mainly in the German states (J.L. Isenbiehl, D. von Brentano and T. A. Dereser), one in Austria (J. Jahn), and two in Italy (G. Fabricy and G.B. De Rossi). While the four German and Austrian scholars were not mentioned by Geddes nor did they mention him (barring oversights on my part), the two scholars who were active in Italy are both mentioned by Geddes (several times, in fact) and the second (De Rossi) refers explicitly to various works of Geddes on a number of occasions. 1. Various aspects of the French background of Geddes' s scholarly activities were presented at the Aberdeen Conference by Bertram Eugene Schwarzbach and are to be found in his contribution to the present volume.

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The Bible and the Enlightenment 2. Johann Lorenz Isenbiehl (1744—1818)

Though Geddes does not appear to have mentioned Isenbiehl in his writings, it is probable that he had at least heard the name of the German scholar, who had been at the storm centre of a cause celebre in the late 1770s as a result of his critical study of the Immanuel text in Isaiah 7.2 After theological studies at Mainz, Isenbiehl was ordained priest in 1769 and was appointed pastor of the small Catholic community in Gottingen. With the approval of his Archbishop he also began to study Oriental languages at the local university under the famous Johann David Michaelis, who would later review two works of Geddes (Fuller 1984: 85-87). In 1773, Isenbiehl was recalled to Mainz, where the theological faculty urgently needed new professors as a result of the Papal suppression of the Jesuits in that year, and he was appointed to lecture on both Old and New Testaments. Mainz, it should be added, was a prestigious centre in that period, since its Archbishop was also an Imperial Prince-Elector with the title of Arch-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire. Trouble began very soon for Isenbiehl, when he was denied permission to publish his 140 Theses on the Gospel of Matthew. As a result of this, his Archbishop suspended Isenbiehl from his teaching functions and sent him back to the local seminary for two years in order to engage in more orthodox study of the Scriptures. However, Isenbiehl actually spent his forced sabbatical elaborating his views on Isa. 7.14 and its use in the Gospel of Matthew. His main thesis was that the 'young woman' of the Isaian text had to be a contemporary of Isaiah himself; consequently it is impossible to propose any christological sense, either literal or typical, for the Isaian text, whose use at Mt. 1.22-23 can only be seen as loose application or accommodation.3 Isenbiehl privately circulated a draft of his new text to various Catholic scholars in the period 1775-77'. Among these were the prominent Austrian Benedictine Abbot Stefan Rautenstrauch,4 Franz Oberthur, a well-known Professor of Theology at Wiirzburg,5 and the Auxiliary-Bishop of Trier, Nikolaus von Hontheim, an extremely controversial figure, about whom it 2. The following presentation is indebted to the articles of Reusch (1881), Mathy (1974), and Uecker (1990a), as well as the monumental work of von Pastor (1933). 3. See Montagnini (1966) for further analysis of Isenbiehl's exegesis. 4. For a brief presentation of Rautenstrauch, with further bibliography, see Brandl 1978: 191-92; and Aring 1998. 5. On Oberthur (1745-1831), see Volk 1966; Brandl 1978: 175-76; and Lesch 1993.

CONROY The Biblical Work of Alexander Geddes

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is necessary to note a few details here before returning to the account of Isenbiehl's vicissitudes.6 EXCURSUS ON JOHANN NIKOLAUS VON HONTHEIM (1701-90)7 After juridical and theological studies, Hontheim was ordained priest and then in 1733 was called to the Chair of Roman Law at Trier. Appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Trier in 1748, he was widely respected for his upright lifestyle and loyalty to his Church. Open to the new ideas circulating in German culture in that period and concerned about the scandal of division among the Christian Churches, Hontheim, under the pseudonym of Justinus Febronius, published a Latin treatise in 1763 entitled De statu ecclesiae et legitima potestate Romani pontificis: liber singularis ad reuniendos dissidentes in religione Christianas compositus, in which he proposed that the powers of diocesan bishops should be strengthened and the jurisdictional interventions of the Papal Curia reduced, all this in the hope that the German Catholic Church would appear as more attractive to non-Catholic Christians as well. 'Febronianism', as the doctrine and proposals of the book were soon termed, was a form of episcopalianism, fairly closely related to the Gallican tendencies in the contemporary French Catholic Church, and with roots that went back into the Middle Ages. Though Febronius (Hontheim) recognized the Papal authority and in no way advocated a separation from Rome, the book was severely condemned in Rome in 1764 as a dangerous attack on the Papal primacy and was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. However, it became an immensely popular and influential work in Germany, being translated into German in 1764 and later reissued in various expanded editions. In fact, quite apart from Febronius (Hontheim), the three German Archbishops of the time (Mainz, Trier and Cologne) had long been at loggerheads with the Papal Nuncios, especially because of the claims of the latter to exercise jurisdictional powers in the Pope's name within the territory of the Archbishops. After the publication of an abbreviated and corrected edition of the book in 1777, its author (whom many suspected was Hontheim but without full proof) was very definitely a persona non grata in the eyes of the Papal Curia and the Nuncio. Then in 1778, when further pressure was put on Hontheim's superior, the Archbishop Prince-Elector of Trier, Hontheim finally confessed his authorship and was obliged to make a formal recantation of the ideas contained in what a later Papal Nuncio called the 'infamous book'.8 However, the recantation was formulated in somewhat ambiguous terms and doubts persisted about Hontheim's real stance in view of his later writings on the subject. 6. Von Pastor (1933: 351-54) in particular insisted that the Isenbiehl affair has to be understood within the wider context of the Hontheim controversy. 7. See Bautz (1990b) for a biographical synthesis and much useful bibliography; see also Pitzer (1976) for Hontheim's ecumenical concerns in particular. 8. Pacca (1832: 19) referred sarcastically to 'il celebre monsignor Hontheim autore dell'infame libro pubblicato sotto il nome di Giustino Febronio' ('the renowned Monsignor Hontheim, author of the infamous book published under the name of Justinus Febronius').

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Now back to Isenbiehl. Having already got a supportive reply from Rautenstrauch in Vienna (in April 1775), at least to the extent of encouraging him to publish his ideas on Isaiah 7, Isenbiehl sent his draft to Hontheim in September 1777 and received a reply in November of the same year, in which the Auxiliary-Bishop (now 76 years of age, and with no specific competence in biblical studies) stated that, though he did not agree personally with the basic thesis of the manuscript, he saw no reason to think that it was against fundamental articles of faith and in his view it would be a good idea to publish it, at least to stimulate debate among scholars.9 The same point of view was expressed by two theologians from Trier, and by Oberthiir of Wiirzburg. Encouraged by all this, and undeterred by the fact that the ecclesiastical censor at Vienna had already expressed a strongly negative judgment about the manuscript, Isenbiehl went ahead and published his work (Isenbiehl 1778 [the Preface is dated 27 October 1777]).10 Pandemonium broke out. The book was immediately condemned by the Theological Faculty of Mainz (Isenbiehl's own city), and similar condemnations followed from the Faculties of Strasbourg, Heidelberg, Trier itself (in spite of the imprimatur), Salzburg and Paris (the Sorbonne). The book was banned by the Imperial Council in Vienna in July 1778, and finally Pope Pius VI in a Brief dated 20 September 1779 formally condemned it as well. Meanwhile, already in December 1777, Isenbiehl had been suspended from his priestly functions and incarcerated in the Prince-Episcopal jail in Mainz. Later he was transferred, still in detention, to a monastery outside the city. An unsuccessful attempt to escape resulted in his return to the episcopal jail, from which he was released only after signing a document of self-condemnation in December 1779. Isenbiehl's later career was largely uneventful. He was given a position as Canon with a Church pension, and never published anything in biblical studies again. The Isenbiehl affair had several wider implications and consequences. First, on the Church-political side, it provided the Papal Nuncio Carlo Bellisomi with a golden opportunity to put pressure on Febronius (Hontheim) who had incautiously expressed some measure of support for Isenbiehl's ideas; in fact, as has been noted above, Hontheim had to make his formal recantation in 1778. Second, the affair exacerbated the discussion between 9. Von Pastor (1933: 353) gives a paraphrase of Hontheim's letter. 10. Though the place of publication was not named, the work was produced by a bookseller named Huber at Koblenz, which was the city of residence of the Archbishop of Trier. It was accompanied by the ecclesiastical imprimatur of a Censor in Trier.


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Catholic theologians more open to the spirit of the Enlightenment, such as Oberthiir, and their old-school opponents, several of whom were former Jesuits.11 Third, it is probable that critical study of the Bible in general (and not just of Isa. 7) by Catholic scholars, at least in the area of Germany and Austria, was made more difficult by the whole controversy: the shadow of Isenbiehl's condemnation was an abiding threat (as will be seen below for Johann Jahn). One can only speculate at this point to what extent these controversies would have been known to the Catholic bishops in Britain and whether this may have constituted a factor in the deep misgivings about Geddes's critical ideas which several of them expressed. In view of the international resonance of the affair (the Sorbonne and then Rome), it seems likely enough that the Isenbiehl case would have had some impact on the Catholic community in Britain too. But further research would be needed on this point. 3.Dominikus von Brentano (1740-97) Geddes was not the only Catholic scholar of his day who planned a new translation of the Bible from the original languages. Dominikus von Brentano, Swiss-born but resident for most of his career in the small ecclesiastical territory of Kempten, southwest of Munich, published his translation of the New Testament from the Greek in 1790-91, with second and third editions in the following years.12 This was followed by two volumes of his unfinished Old Testament translation in 1797 and (posthumously) 1798. Like Geddes, Brentano never held a university post, but, unlike Geddes, he appears to have enjoyed the full support of his local ecclesiastical superior, the Prince-Abbot Rupert II of Kempten, and of the imperial authorities in Vienna, the Emperor's official authorization ('Privilegium') being printed on the opening pages of the New Testament and Old Testament volumes. Before his translation work, Brentano, who was Court Chaplain in Kempten, had published anonymously (Brandl 1978: 25) several works on the 11. The so-called Isenbiehlischenstreit went on for a few years; Brandl (1978: 120-21) gives some bibliographical data. On a more general level, Isenbiehl became a symbol of courageous critical study of the Bible. In the leading nineteenth-century history of Old Testament studies, Ludwig Diestel (1869: 651) refers to 'der Katholik Isenbiehl' as a 'martyr' for scholarly exegesis. 12. See Brandl (1978: 26) for bibliographical details.

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question of the relation between the Pope and the bishops, one of the volumes being especially about the controversy concerning the role of the Papal Nuncios in Germany (the ideas of Febronius/Hontheim continued to have their influence!). These works of the 1780s won him some reputation as an enlightened theologian (or as an anti-Papal subversive, depending on the point of view of the commentator).13 The Preface to the New Testament translation clearly shows that Brentano was moved predominantly by pastoral, not critical, motivations in undertaking his work.14 Brentano begins by recalling that for more than 500 years now the Catholic laity had been discouraged from reading the full text of the Bible (he mentions a prescription to that effect approved at a local Synod of Toulouse held in 1229). Happily now, he continues (showing his Enlightenment sympathies), thanks to the renowned measures of the Emperor Joseph II (recently deceased in 1790), changes are coming about, and it seems to be the case that 'our contemporary German princes' want to facilitate access to the whole Bible for all Catholics. In all this, however, Brentano nowhere gives any information about which particular editions of the Greek and Hebrew texts he will use as the basis for his translations (New Testament and Old Testament). One gets the impression that he was simply not equipped to enter the area of text-critical studies. The contrast to the translation project of Geddes, based on 'corrected texts of the originals', is quite evident here. Brentano's translations are accompanied by annotations in the lower part of each page, mainly of a theological and pastoral character, but there are signs here and there of an attempt to present some views of contemporary critical scholarship, with which Brentano evidently had some measure of familiarity. For example, apropos of Gen. 2.4 he notes that a 'new fragment begins here, and continues through Ch. 3'.15 In the Vorrede to his Psalms volume (Brentano 1797b), he says he will try to keep a 'middle-ofthe-road' position in the disputed question of Messianic Psalms, which again seems to be a sign of a moderately critical attitude.

13. On the one hand, Werner (1876: 313) describes Brentano as 'ein aufgeklarter, human denkender Mensch', while, on the other, Hurter (1911: 352) strongly disapproves of the works of the 1780s for their attitude of hostility to the Papal primacy, which (in his view) infected the biblical translation too. 14. The following remarks are from the Vorrede to the New Testament translation of 1791-92, reprinted in (and quoted from) the third edition (Brentano 1798: vii). 15. Brentano (1797a: 7): 'Hier fa'ngt ein neues Fragment an, bis zum 3. Kapitel'.


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In the same Preface to the translation of the Psalms, the last published in his lifetime, Brentano refers to hostile criticisms of his work by 'malicious fault-finders'.16 Whether this hostility was caused directly by his translation options or by his annotations or, perhaps, by memory of his critical views on Papal jurisdictional authority in the works of the 1780s, is not clear. In any case, one recalls the even stronger comments of Geddes about his critics.17 The area where Brentano lived became a war zone from 1794 onwards, as the French revolutionary armies took the offensive. Brentano's health suffered as a result of the privations of those years (Werner 1876: 313), and he died aged only 57 in 1797. His unfinished Old Testament translation was largely completed and then revised by T.A. Dereser (see below) and finally concluded by J.M.A. Scholz in the 1830s. 4. Thaddaus Anton Dereser (1757-1827) Dereser's work as a translator from the Hebrew text is only one aspect of his scholarly and ecclesiastical activity. More of an exegete than Brentano, he was a convinced proponent of the new scholarly approaches to the study of the Bible in the enlightened spirit of the age and, in his political views, he was much attracted to the early ideals of the French Revolution. In these various ways he would appear to offer some interesting analogies to the concerns of Geddes, though no evidence has so far come to light that either scholar was acquainted with the other.18 At an early age Dereser joined the Carmelite Order (as was usual, his baptismal names, Johann Anton, were changed to a name in religion, Thaddaeus [or Thaddaus] a sancto Adamo) and he was sent to do his theologi16. Brentano (1797b) concludes his Vorrede (on two unnumbered pages) with the following words: 'So dankbar ich jede erwartete liebreiche Zurechtweisung nutzen werde, so entschlossen bin ich, das boshafte Geschrey hamischer und unbefugter Tadler, bey dem BewuBtseyn meiner redlichen Absicht, mit Stillschweigen zu uberhoren. Diese Leute wollen nur lastern, nicht zurecht gewiesen werden.' Brandl (1978: 26) gives some bibliographical details about the debate on Brentano's New Testament translations, noting favourable reviews (including one by a Protestant reviewer), criticisms and Brentano's replies. 17. In the Preface to the second volume of his translation, Geddes (Bible II: iv) expects to be the object of 'torrents of illiberal abuse and obloquy' especially for his views on biblical inspiration, and he predicts that 'Protestant will contend with Papist, which shall throw the first stone at me'. 18. The following presentation owes much to Hegel (1975). See also Bautz 1990a.

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cal studies at the Wtirzburg faculty, which in the 1770s was a well-known centre of Catholic theology open to the Enlightenment spirit.19 One of the most popular young professors there was Franz Oberthur, who has been mentioned above in connection with Isenbiehl, and his influence on the young Dereser was considerable. A further period of study, especially of Oriental languages, at Heidelberg completed Dereser's basic formation. In 1777, the Elector Prince-Archbishop of Cologne had founded a higher academy at Bonn, which was his city of residence. It was meant to be a centre for new thinking in the Enlightenment spirit, in contrast to the existing university at Cologne, which remained attached to the old ways in philosophy and theology. In 1783 the Prince-Archbishop asked the Carmelites to appoint (gratis) two of their members as professors. Dereser (aged 26) was chosen for a Chair of Biblical Studies (initially New Testament but later Old Testament studies as well). In 1786, the Prince-Archbishop decided to raise the Bonn Academy to the rank of a university. During the solemn three-day opening ceremony Dereser gave a public lecture on the book of Jonah (Dereser 1786), in which he formulated his ideals for biblical study. He stressed three points: the need for a solid foundation in hermeneutics and knowledge of Oriental languages, critical handling of historical questions and presentation in the spoken language of the people.20 The programmatic importance of this lecture is clear when one considers Dereser's later career and publications. He had already stressed the importance of the study of Hebrew in his Antrittsrede at Cologne (Dereser 1783) and he later published a Hebrew grammar in Latin (1813). Even in the face of opposition from students,21 Dereser continued to insist on the study of Hebrew and Greek as basic requirements for theological study. Second, in various monographs (for example Dereser 1786 and 1789) he 19. On the question of Enlightenment influence on Catholic thought and Bible study in Germany and Austria see Miiller et al. 1970; Swidler 1978; Bourel 1984: 335-36; Gelebart 1986; Klueting 1993; and Gestrich 1996: 407-11, 451-58. 20. On these points see Kleineidam (1961: 27-28) and Hegel (1975:179-85). The latter, on p. 179, quotes the words of Dereser as follows: 'Wenn die Gottesgelehrtheit des Katholiken, diese unserm philosophischen Jahrhunderte so gehassige Wissenschaft, ihren verdienten Wert erhalten soil, so mufi sie auf Hermeneutik gegriindet, mit Geschichte verbunden und in der Volkssprache vorgetragen werden'. One has to note that the term 'Hermeneutik' here does not refer to philosophical hermeneutics but to knowledge of the original languages and the rules of grammatical-historical interpretation. 21. Hegel (1975: 175-76) gives some picturesque details of student demonstrations against Dereser.


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tried to apply a critical historical approach to the study of texts from the Old Testament and New Testament. The third point, about the use of the vernacular in theological lectures, was further exemplified on a wider scale in his most successful non-academic publication, a German translation and adaptation of the official prayer of the Breviary (Liturgy of the Hours), which went through at least eight editions from 1792 to 1821 (Dereser 1792). These Enlightenment-coloured ideals (with which Geddes would surely have been much in sympathy) earned Dereser much opposition among more conservative Church circles. Bartolomeo Pacca, the Papal Nuncio resident at Cologne (from 1786 to 1794), who was not recognized by the local Prince-Archbishop and apparently had not been invited to the inauguration of the nearby University of Bonn, commented very negatively on the whole proceedings and mentioned Dereser as one of the particularly bad influences emanating from the 'chairs of pestilence' of the University of Bonn (Pacca 1832: 46).22 Three years later Dereser presented a Latin dissertation at Cologne on the controversial 'primacy' text in Matthew 16 (Dereser 1789), which was immediately condemned in Rome.23 The topic of the dissertation and its ecclesiological implications constituted an extremely delicate subject in the contemporary context of the Church-political disputes between Rome and its Nuncios on the one hand, and the German Archbishops on the other (Febronianism was still a very live issue). Opposition to Dereser, who was not remarkable for his prudence, increased as a result of the subsequent polemics, and even the Prince-Archbishop seemed less supportive than before. Embittered by these experiences, Dereser decided to leave the increasingly hostile and oppressive atmosphere in which he lived. He resigned his chair at Bonn and crossed the frontier into revolutionary France, hoping to find there a Church that accepted the ideals ofliberte, egalite etfraternite that seemed so painfully absent in Germany.24 Accompanied by some other German clerics, he made his way to Strasbourg where he arrived in November 1791. 22. There are further uncomplimentary references to Dereser in Pacca (1832: 153-54, 160). On p. 154 he is qualified as an 'apostate', which is simply false. 23. The work was put on the Index of Forbidden Books by a Roman Decree of 5 February 1790. This was the only work of Dereser's to be put on the Index (Hegel 1975: 185). 24. Fuller (1984: 146) has noted that one of Geddes's poetical works, the Carmina Saecularia Tria, was written between 1790 and 1793 in praise of the French Revolution: the second of the three poems was also printed in Paris and is said to have been read aloud in French to the Assembly.

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It was a dramatic and tragic time for the Catholic Church in France. In July 1790 the Constituent Assembly at Paris had voted the decree on the 'Civil Constitution of the Clergy'.25 In the closing months of 1790 and early 1791 the State authorities imposed an oath of fidelity on most of the clergy. After months of inaction Pope Pius VI in March-April 1791 denounced the Civil Constitution, especially for its stipulations about the appointment of bishops; he declared that the consecration of new bishops in accordance with the norms of the Constitution was sacrilegious and invalid, and he threatened to suspend from their functions all bishops and priests who had taken the oath of fidelity. The result was a schism in the Catholic Church in France, between bishops and clergy who had taken the oath ('the Constitutional Church') and those who had refused. Many of these recusants emigrated, but some remained at their posts, and much conflict ensued. In the midst of all this, Dereser arrived at Strasbourg and almost immediately took the oath of fidelity to the Civil Constitution on 28 November 1791 (Hegel 1975:167). The Constitutional Bishop of Strasbourg appointed him Professor of Biblical Studies at the local seminary, and then a year later Superior of the seminary. But it was not a time for quiet academic activity. Indeed the seminary was closed two years later, for lack of seminarians, and the professors, Dereser among them, took on the responsibility of pastoral care of parishes. While he was still Superior of the seminary, Dereser had done all he could to alleviate the difficult circumstances of the recusant clergy, some of whom had been confined by the civil authorities in a sort of prison-area of the seminary. As a pastor he was equally dedicated to working for a reconciliation of the divided Church; a sermon of his on tolerance and love of neighbour was much remarked, but did not earn him the gratitude of followers of the Jacobin rigorists (Robespierre and colleagues) who were then in control in Paris. In October 1793 Dereser was arrested and imprisoned at Strasbourg. By then the Revolution had entered the period of the Terror (June 1793-July 1794), and mass executions of enemies, real and imagined, were a common occurrence. Dereser too was under sentence of death, and on two occasions in the following months he was notified of the date of his execution, only to have this postponed both times. Then Robespierre was ousted and guillotined in Paris (July 1794), and soon afterwards Dereser was released from prison. With characteristic courage and obstinacy he demanded a full 25. See Aubert (1971: 13-44) for details on this measure, its background and its consequences.


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juridical rehabilitation, which he received on 3 November 1794 (Hegel 1975: 168). The Constitutional Church wanted him back in its service, but Dereser (not surprisingly) was losing his enthusiasm for French revolutionary ideals as they were developing in practice, and this change was accelerated by the decision of the National Convention in Paris to abolish the Civil Constitution of the clergy in June 1795, thereby removing the juridical basis of the Constitutional Church (Hegel 1975: 168-69). Early in 1796 Dereser quietly returned to Germany. He was accepted back into the Carmelite community at Wiirzburg and was released from the ecclesiastical censures incurred by his taking the oath in France.26 His real vocation for the academic life revived, and he took up teaching positions successively in Heidelberg, Freiburg im Breisgau (after the suppression of the Catholic theological faculty of Heidelberg in 1807), Luzern and finally Breslau at the call of the Prussian government in 1815, where he was to remain until his death in 1827. His post there was as Professor of Dogmatics, but he also lectured on exegetical subjects. Dereser was widely recognized as the most distinguished professor in the Breslau faculty during his lifetime. The future leader of the Catholic School of Tubingen, Johann Adam Mohler, then 26 years old, visited Breslau for three weeks in 1822, and judged Dereser to be by far the most impressive professor in an otherwise mediocre theological faculty.27 In conclusion, some details can be added about Dereser's work on the annotated translation of the Old Testament begun by Brentano (see above). His first volume (Brentano and Dereser 1800), published during the period of his professorship at Heidelberg, contained Proverbs (the manuscript of which had been left by Brentano), Qohelet, Canticles, Wisdom and Sirach. Though the following volumes still bear the name of Brentano on the title page, the translations and notes in fact were entirely the work of Dereser and are duly listed under his name in the Bibliography to the present volume. In the Prefaces to the first two of these volumes (Dereser 180 la and 26. A few years later, in 1802, Dereser left the Carmelites, by Papal dispensation (Hegel 1975: 170), but remained a Catholic priest. It can be added that, though he was a thorn in the side of many people in authority, civil and religious, Dereser was never accused of serious failings in the area of personal morality (testimonies in Hegel 1975: 185). 27. Kleineidam (1961: 26-40,129-31) gives a sketch of Dereser's career with particular reference to the Breslau period. On the visit of J.A. Mohler see pp. 35-37. In that period the Breslau faculty was still thoroughly Enlightenment-oriented, but in the new circumstances of the 1820s bright young theologians like Mohler would have seen this as decidedly old-fashioned.

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180 Ib), which contain the historical books, Dereser acknowledges that his explanation of the various miracle stories, especially in the Elijah-Elisha material, will not be seen as satisfactory, and may indeed be the butt of mockery, by a large number of contemporary biblical scholars. But he justifies his options on the grounds of the pastoral purpose of the Churchapproved translation (Dereser 1801a: iv; 1801b: i-ii). He expresses his stance in a striking formulation, typical of the Enlightenment period, in which he acknowledges that freedom of thought is one of the 'sacred and inviolable human rights' and consequently he respects the views of those who disagree with his interpretation, but at the same time he has his own principles and stands by them.28 Finally, in the Isaiah volume, which appeared in 1808 when Dereser was professor in Freiburg im Breisgau, he defends the Isaian authorship of the whole book (Dereser 1808: 3-6). His cautious annotations on Isa. 7.14 are significant, as revealing that the Isenbiehl controversy was still a live issue (Dereser 1808: 37-38). Dereser begins by proposing the traditional Messianic interpretation (with reference to the virgin birth), but then goes on to present, without any refutation or critique, three other views current among recent scholars, all of which refuse to see in the Isaian text any announcement of a virgin birth of the Messiah. He even notes that at least one of these views can be seen as not necessarily opposed to the New Testament text, in that it can be said that Matthew 'applied' the original historical sense of the text to the birth of Jesus. But it is difficult to see what Dereser's own view was! He was certainly well aware of the critical discussions but it seems that here too the nature of the annotated Bible translation, oriented to practical pastoral use, precluded any expression of critical preferences. And perhaps memories of the fate of Isenbiehl were still too vivid! S.Johann Jahn (1750-1816) Around the turn of the nineteenth century, Vienna, the capital of the Empire, was the scene of the activity of an important figure in Catholic biblical 28. In Dereser's own words (1801b: ii): 'Ich ehre in meinen Mitmenschen die Denkfreyheit, als ein heiliges, unverletzbares Menschenrecht; ich werde daher mit niemanden hadern, der das in meinem Texte nicht finden kann, was ich darin gefunden habe. Aber nach exegetischen Grundsatzen, von deren Richtigkeit ich iiberzeugt bin, konnte ich von solchen Hypothesen, durch die man alle Wunder ohne Miihe aus der Bibel wegerklart, keinen Gebrauch machen.'


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studies, Johann Jahn,29 and for our present purposes his career provides a useful indicator of the reception (partial, at least) of the new critical approach to the study of the Bible in a significant Catholic faculty and of the difficulties that arose in consequence. Jahn, born in Moravia, studied philosophy at Olmiitz (now Olomouc in the Czech Republic) and theology in a school of the Premonstratensian Order to which he belonged. After some years of teaching in a school of the Order and then at Olmiitz, he was called to Vienna in 1789 as Professor of Oriental Languages, Biblical Archaeology, and Introduction to the Old Testament, to which was added the Chair of Dogmatics in 1803 (Hurter 1911: 670). Apart from the last-mentioned discipline Jahn was a remarkably productive scholar in all of his chosen fields.30 He published grammars of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, and a 500-page Arabic-Latin lexicon. His Biblische Archdologie (Jahn 1796-1805) was a pioneering work in the field of biblical realia; it was expanded in a second edition (1807-15), and was also published in a Latin abridgment (1805 and 1814), which was then translated into English and published both in the USA and in Britain, apparently in several editions.31 One of Jahn's most influential works was a massive Einleitung to the books of the Old Testament, whose first edition came out in 1793, followed by the second edition in 18021803; the work also appeared subsequently in an abbreviated Latin edition (1804) as a manual for students. He also produced an edition of the Hebrew Bible in four volumes (Jahn 1806), with selected variant readings. Jahn's difficulties with Church authorities began already with the publication of the first edition of the Einleitung. The Cardinal-Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Anton Graf Migazzi, made a formal complaint to the 29. Useful presentations of the work of Johann Jahn can be found in, among others, Werner 1866: 273-75; Hurter 1911: 669-72; Gray 1923: 159-68; Brandl 1978: 122-23; Uecker 1990b. 30. For the full bibliographical details see Brandl (1978: 122), with indications of reviews of the main works. Brandl notes that various Protestant scholars, J.P. Gabler among them, had a high opinion of Jahn's publications. 31. The bibliographical situation of the English translation appears to be extremely complex, as far as can be judged from records available in the COP AC online catalogue of over 20 major UK academic libraries. The translator of the Latin text of 1814 is unanimously given as Thomas C. Upham, but the title of the translation appears in several forms (e.g. Jahn's Biblical Archaeology, or Biblical Antiquities, orArchaeologia Biblica: A Manual of Biblical Antiquities, or History of the Hebrew Commonwealth}, and there are different publishers also. Since I do not have access to these works at present, no clarification can be attempted here.

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Emperor about the author.32 The accusations were (1) that Jahn consciously refused to follow the views of his predecessors at various points, preferring his own personal opinions; (2) that he declared the books of Job, Jonah, Tobit and Judith to be simply didactic narratives ('bloBe Lehrgedichte'); and (3) that he held that many of the alleged instances of diabolic possession in the New Testament were cases of illness, not possession. A commission, established to judge the question, came to the following (perhaps surprisingly balanced) conclusions: (1) the questions raised by Jahn were not to be excluded as such in scholarly exegesis and hermeneutics; (2) Jahn's views could not be declared heterodox; (3) Jahn, however, was guilty of not having respected the generally held views of German Catholic theologians, of not having avoided tensions with his bishop, and of having caused doubts and questionings on the part of his young students. He was ordered to modify the incriminated views, both in his classes and in future editions of his writings, so that they would appear as simply historical problems. It appears that Jahn did his best to obey these instructions. But the hostility of Migazzi and others continued, and the reasons for this probably go beyond the specific field of biblical criticism. The Archbishop of Vienna, in fact, was in constant tension with the Emperor over the question of State control of Church institutions. The latter tendency had begun already in the reign of the Empress Maria Theresia (1740-80) and accelerated under her son the Emperor Joseph II (sole ruler from 1780 to 1790). Historians often refer to the reforms under the label of 'Josephinism', which is recognized as not being completely accurate since Joseph II was not the initiator of the Staatskirchentum tendency.33 The stress on a national Church with only limited intervention from Rome was much in line with the ideas of Febronius (Hontheim) as well as the Gallican canonists and theologians in the French Church. The most significant feature for our present concerns was the reform of theological studies in the hereditary lands of the Empire, decreed by Maria Theresia and put into practice from 1774 onwards according to a plan elaborated by the Benedictine Abbot Franz Stephan Rautenstrauch, who was known for his openness to Enlightenment thought (and who has been mentioned above in connection with Isenbiehl). This reform aimed at giving Catholic theology a more prominent biblical foundation and above all a more emphatic pastoral 32. For what follows see Werner 1866: 273-74. 33. See, for instance, the valuable contribution of Heribert Raab in Muller 1970: 353-68, 508-30; and Gestrich 1996: 454-58.


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orientation, so that young theologians and future clerics would be better equipped to act in their local communities for the general good of the State. The theological faculty at Vienna was reformed in line with these directives. Jahn therefore held a teaching post in a faculty subject to strong State control, which was not to the liking of the Archbishop.34 A second edition of the Einleitung was published in 1802-1803, in four tomes with over 1600 pages in all. As far as I can see, there is no mention of Geddes anywhere in the work (unfortunately there is no index of authors!). This is somewhat surprising at first sight, since one might have expected a scholar as erudite as Jahn to have known of Geddes's Prospectus (1786 [with a Latin translation produced in Bavaria in 1787]) or the first volume, at least, of Bible I (1792). However, it must be said that Jahn does not give very extensive bibliographies in any case, and English titles in particular are relatively scarce (Kennicott is mentioned often enough, and so too is Walton, especially his Prolegomena to the London Polyglot). The unsettled political scene in continental Europe with the various French wars may have been another factor that impeded knowledge of recent British theological works in Vienna. In any case, reading Jahn's presentation in the Einleitung of the more 'sensitive' areas of critical study (analysis of the Pentateuch and the book of Isaiah, as well as the apocryphal/deutero-canonical books mentioned above), one certainly does not get the impression of a radical theological critic who could be accused (as happened later) of destroying the faith of young students.35 He defends the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch at length, allowing only a few insigificant additions after the time of Moses but granting that Moses could have used various source-documents for the older material. What is characteristic, however, of his approach is that other views (for instance, in this case, the theories of Eichhorn, Gabler and Ilgen) are discussed, often at length, and Jahn gives his reasons for not accepting them. Where Geddes keeps insisting on the demands of 'reason',36 Jahn similarly insists on what he terms the 'laws of hermeneutics' as a reasoned basis for accepting or rejecting critical views. 34. For a brief sketch of Migazzi, born in Innsbruck in 1714 and trained at the German College in Rome, see Brandl 1978: 162, with further bibliography. 35. The accusation of being a 'seductor juventutis' was made in a pamphlet published in Hungary in 1814 with reference to Jahn's views about the gospel texts that speak of demonic possession (Jahn 1821: xii). 36. See, for instance, Geddes invoking 'Reason, pure Reason.. .my prompter and preceptress' (CR: vi).

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In Isaiah, Jahn is quite familiar with recent critical proposals (Doderlein, Eichhorn and others), but he is not convinced by their reasons and so holds to the Isaian authorship for the whole book, though he admits (in the second edition) that he is less sure of this than he had been earlier.37 Again, it is a matter of arguments, not of a dogmatic or traditional position to be maintained unquestioningly for its own sake. Finally, in view of the Isenbiehl controversy some 20 years earlier, it is interesting to note that Jahn very obviously omits discussion of the interpretation of the Immanuel text in Isa. 7.14.38 An explicit discussion of the question had clearly become taboo for Catholic theologians holding official positions in those years. It is curious to note that on at least two occasions in later publications Jahn criticized various aspects of Vater's interpretation of the Pentateuch (Vater 1802-1805), especially the mythological approach to Genesis.39 Now, Vater's Commentar bears the name of Geddes on the title-page and opens with a Foreword in which the young German scholar acknowledges his debt to the recently deceased British scholar in terms of great respect and praise. Jahn therefore must have known something of Geddes, but for whatever reason did not see fit to mention him. Was it that he knew of Geddes's clashes with his ecclesiastical superiors in Scotland and England and, in view of his own delicate position with the Archbishop of Vienna, did not wish to exacerbate matters by an approving mention of a 'dubious personage' from the north? Or was it simply that he did not consider Geddes to be a major critical scholar, seeing that most of what Vater actually took from Geddes consisted of detailed philological notes? One can only speculate. Apart from the Pentateuchal question, the name of Geddes does not appear in either of the sections on text-transmission and text-criticism in the two works mentioned. Though Jahn continued to write almost up to the year of his death in 1816, his academic career had already been terminated in 1806, as a result of pressure from the Archbishop. In that year he was promoted to the position of Cathedral Canon at Vienna, which entailed his leaving the 37. See Jahn 1802-1803, II: 458: 'und ich selbst habe bey dem ofters wiederhohlten Studium dieses Propheten, oft gewankt, glaube aber doch noch immer, daB alle Stiicke von Jesaia sind'. 38. See Jahn 1802-1803, II: 358-59, 387, 440-41, and especially 454, where he mentions Isa. 9.5-6 and 11.1-12 as texts referring to the Messiah, but significantly ignores Isa. 7. 39. See Jahn 1812: 153; 1814: 187, 196-97.


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university.40 In a posthumous collection of various shorter writings (Jahn 1821) some letters of his to a friend reveal how deeply he suffered from his forced resignation and from the condemnation of his Latin school manuals by the Vienna ecclesiastical authorities, which happened without his having any opportunity to defend himself.41 Furthermore Jahn states that he decided not to go ahead with the publication of his planned Hermeneutica generalis, because of the strong opposition of his Archbishop who had made a threatening reference to the fate of Isenbiehl in this connection.42 This explicit mention of Isenbiehl is significant, as showing how much that well-publicized incident affected the course of critical study of the Bible by Catholic scholars in the German-speaking area for decades afterwards.43 Jahn was not only an attentive, and critically receptive, reader of the works of Protestant biblical scholars, but he was also much interested in the reunification of the separated Christian Churches. This is expressed most clearly in a dialogue, entitled 'A Familiar Conversation about the Reunification of the Three Different Churches in Germany', published in the same posthumous work.44 This irenic attitude was typical of Catholic theologians of the time who were open to Enlightenment thought. 6. Gabriel Fabricy (c. 1725-1800) Fabricy was a French Dominican priest who, after his service as Provincial of the order in France, came to Rome around 1760 and spent many years there as one of the theologians officially attached to the famous Casanatense Library. Girolamo Casanate (1620-1700), a Neapolitan cardinal who 40. As Wurzbach (1863: 43) put it: 'nach dem alten Axioma: promoveatur ut amoveatur'. 41. See Jahn (1821: vi, xi-xii). Jahn, who never wavered in his sense of loyalty to his Church, felt the injustice of being treated as 'ein so arger Ketzer und Unglaubiger' (xii). 42. Jahn (1821: x) says of this projected book:'... welche der Ordinarius [Cardinal Migazzi] mit einer beilaufigen Androhung des Schicksals Isenbiehls reprobiert hat'. 43. Several of Jahn's Latin manuals were later put on the Roman Index after his death. For details see Hurter (1911: 670-71), who also notes that one of the reasons was that Jahn favoured the hermeneutical principles of J.A. Ernesti. For a long quotation of Jahn's views on the question of biblical inspiration see Gray 1923: 161-68. 44. 'Ein vertrautes Gesprach iiber die Vereinigung der drey verschiedenen Kirchen in Deutschland' (Jahn 1821: 280-91). For a quotation from a letter written by Jahn in 1811 on the same subject on the same volume, see also pp. x-xi.

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was an avid collector of rare books and manuscripts in many fields of knowledge, willed his library of over 25,000 volumes to the Dominican community at the Church of S. Maria sopra Minerva with instructions that they should set up a public library which he endowed with funds for its future development according to rules which he himself stipulated.45 The Dominicans took over the task and assigned a small international group of their scholars (the 'theologi casanatenses') to the library. Though it is strangely difficult to find much information about Fabricy (no one seems to have discovered the exact year of his birth!), several of his publications had a European reputation in his day. For our present purposes the most significant work (and the one referred to several times by Geddes) is undoubtedly Fabricy (1772).46 Fabricy's focus on the original texts of the Bible and on the ancient versions, as expressed in the long sub-title of the volume, makes it clear why Geddes would have been interested in this work. Fabricy was in correspondence with a collaborator of Benjamin Kennicott, Paul-Jacob Bruns, and had sent him information about Hebrew biblical manuscripts in the Casanatense Library. He was enthusiastic for the project of a new edition of the Hebrew text, for, though he had some reservations about Kennicott's own ideas on the subject, he was convinced that a new scholarly edition would be a most useful basis for the theological task of showing that the biblical text was a completely reliable ancient witness to revelation. This would provide a crucial argument against those sceptics who based their anti-Christian polemics on the supposition that the biblical texts were corrupt. This theological, or rather apologetic, preoccupation was in fact the main theme of the 1772 book, which is divided into four Memoires, preceded by a long Discourspreliminaire. In the Memoires, Fabricy accumulated arguments for the integrity of the Hebrew text from its very beginnings up to the eighteenth century. He displays an enormous erudition and an extensive knowledge of languages. Many Jewish scholars are mentioned and often quoted in Hebrew.47 Geddes's professor of Hebrew at the 45. The library continues its service today, now State-owned, as the Biblioteca Casanatense, and specializes in religious studies. Its old holdings remain intact and are particularly valuable for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies. 46. In the list of booksellers mentioned on the title page, besides several in Rome, there are said to be two in Paris and one in London ('chez Pierre Molini, Libraire de I'Academie Royale'). One could speculate that it was from the latter that Geddes acquired his copy. 47. See especially the second part of the Third Memoire (Fabricy 1772, II: 211-328).


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Sorbonne, Ladvocat,48 is mentioned several times, though Fabricy regrets that he was sympathetic to the text-critical procedures of Charles-Francis Houbigant, the Oratorian biblical scholar famous for his many emendations of the Hebrew text. Houbigant in fact is the object of very severe criticism by Fabricy (1772, II: 372-436), who was a staunch defender of the essential integrity of the Masoretic text, though he was not a believer in the inspiration of all the vowel points. Geddes, it can be remarked in passing, was also an admirer of Houbigant (Fuller 1984: 34-35), and had no scruples about emending the Masoretic text; so it was probably fortunate that his desire to contact Fabricy (Fuller 1984:29) never materialized. Fabricy did not mince his words in expressing his scholarly disagreements and, besides Houbigant, another frequent target of his censures was Richard Simon and his critical investigations. If Fabricy had known of Geddes's work both as a translator and as a critic, it is doubtful that he would have been very sympathetic, already on purely scholarly grounds. Ten years after the litres primitifs, Fabricy returned to the subject of Hebrew biblical manuscripts. The occasion was a work of G.B. De Rossi (1782), for which Fabricy had been appointed the official Roman censor. Fabricy gave his approval without any difficulty to the work of the Parma scholar, and with the consent of De Rossi (who could hardly have refused in the circumstances!) added lengthy considerations of his own after De Rossi's text, under the title Censoris theologi diatribe, qua bibliographiae antiquariae et sacrae critices capita aliquot illustrantur. This 'diatribe', which was not meant as a criticism of De Rossi but of various other scholars, actually turned out to be longer than De Rossi's own text. Fabricy, once more with an impressive display of international erudition (though it is curious to note that most of the scholars, Germans included, whom he quotes, wrote in Latin), discusses various questions about Hebrew biblical manuscripts, especially how to judge their age, and polemicizes against various scholars. It could well be that Geddes was familiar with this work too, which was published under De Rossi's name alone. 7. Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi (1742-1831) The preceding remarks have already brought us to the scholar who, of all those presented in the present paper, is probably the best known to Old Testament specialists today. There can be no question here of an overview 48. See Fuller 1984: 18,131-32. The surname is sometimes given as L'Advocat too (thus Fuller).

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of all the many writings of Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi.49 His European reputation was based above all on his volumes of variant readings in Hebrew biblical manuscripts (De Rossi 1784-88 and 1798), which complement the work of Kennicott published shortly before. Geddes knew and appreciated these works, at least the four volumes of 1784-88. He had expressed a desire to write to De Rossi (Fuller 1984:29), but it would appear that a correspondence never took place, as far as can be concluded from De Rossi's sketch of his 'Literary Correspondence with European Scholars North of the Alps' (De Rossi 1809: 77-78). While many German scholars are mentioned here (J.D. Michaelis of Gottingen in the first place, and with warmth), and several English too (among them Kennicott and Holmes), the name of Geddes does not appear. De Rossi, however, had five titles of Geddes in his famous personal library at Parma, as we learn from his catalogue (De Rossi 1812: 28, 32), among them the Latin translation of the Prospectus (Geddes 1787a) and the first volume of the Old Testament translation (Bible I [ 1792]).50 It is curious that De Rossi did not possess the second volume of the translation (1797), nor the Critical Remarks (1800). The absence of the latter is perhaps less surprising, since De Rossi notoriously had very little interest in historical criticism, being almost completely oriented to philological, textual and bibliographical studies (Parente 1991: 212). War conditions in Europe may help to explain the absence of the second volume of the translation. Though Geddes appears not to be mentioned in De Rossi's Scholia critica (1798),51 his work is given an honourable mention in two later publications of De Rossi. The first of these is a short introductory work (De Rossi 1817), whose purpose was to provide students with useful practical information for their study of the original biblical texts and later versions. One of the points on which De Rossi insisted, for his mainly (or probably almost exclusively) Catholic readers, was that a serious student should use the best commentaries and other scholarly instruments of work, independently of the religious confession of their authors (1817:105-107). 49. For an excellent synthesis with abundant bibliographical information see Parente 1991. 50. The other titles were smaller works of Geddes 1787b, Proposals and GA. 51. As far as I can see, the name of Geddes does not appear in the Added Bibliography of manuscripts and Editions and Studies at the start of the volume (which supplements the Bibliography given in the four volumes of the Variae lectiones of 1784-88), nor in the Notes on texts from Genesis to Deuteronomy, which is where one would expect to find a reference to him.


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To support this point he quotes, on p. 106, 'a modern English [sic] Catholic interpreter', who wisely reflected that it is only from the united efforts of scholars from every nation and religion that the text of the sacred Scriptures will be brought to the highest possible degree of purity and perfection. The scholar of course is Geddes, and the quotation, which De Rossi gives in an endnote, is from the Latin translation of the Prospectus.52 De Rossi adds: 'That learned Englishman then published in 1790 and the following years his new annotated English translation of the whole Bible made from the original texts'.53 De Rossi is a little inexact here, of course, since Geddes never completed his translation of the 'whole Bible'. The second commendatory mention of Geddes in De Rossi's later works is found in a short exposition of the principles of biblical interpretation (De Rossi 1819). In the opening pages he lists a number of works by both Catholic and Protestant authors that he considers to be of fundamental importance for serious students. Among these he includes Fabricy's Des titresprimitifs and Geddes's work on the versions of sacred Scripture (i.e. the Prospectus), as well as Jahn's Einleitung, the Prolegomena of Walton, the Dissertations of Kennicott, and the Einleitungen of Michaelis and Eichhorn.54 It seems clear from these references that the most influential work of Geddes in De Rossi's eyes was his Prospectus. And indeed the very existence of a Latin translation, published just a year after the English original, 52. The Italian in the original orthography reads as follows (1817: 106): 'E riflette saviamente un moderno interprete inglese cattolico, che non e che dagli studj uniti dei dotti d'ogni nazione e religione che si possa aspettare che la sacra Scrittura venga portata a quel grado di purita e di perfezione, di cui e suscettibile, soggiungendo di veder con sommo suo piacere andar ora d'accordo in questo gli eruditi ne' loro sentimenti...' In the following part of the quotation, also given by De Rossi, Geddes mentions various eminent scholars, including De Rossi of Parma. The original English is in Prospectus: 147-48, and the Latin is in Geddes 1787a: 185. 53. De Rossi (1817: 118) wrote: 'Quel dotto inglese pubblico poi nel 1790 e anni seguenti con note la nuova sua traduzione inglese dai testi originali della Bibbia intera'. The first part of the first volume of Geddes's translation was published in 1790; it contained Genesis, Exodus and a part of Leviticus. Hence the date mentioned by De Rossi. The first volume (Genesis-Joshua) was completed in 1792. 54. The original (De Rossi 1819: 8-9) speaks of'...le principali [opere] e quelle che hanno maggior uso e maggior riputazione...' and includes among the Catholic authors '.. .i Titoli primitivi del Fabricy, i Libri del Pasini e del Geddes delle versioni della sacra Scrittura, e 1'Introduzione del lahn...' With regard to Jahn, it is interesting to note in passing that the latter's difficulties with Church authorities in Austria had evidently no effect on De Rossi's positive evaluation of his work here.

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would seem to suggest that this evaluation was shared by other scholars in continental Europe too.55 The translation activity of Geddes would have been seen, naturally enough, as having primarily local British interest, while his critical views seem to have had little real impact on the actual development of critical study in Germany and elsewhere. 8. Conclusion At the start of this paper some striking characteristics of Geddes's work (prescinding, of course, from his literary interests) were mentioned. It is time now to sum up what has been seen, with regard to these points, in the six scholars presented here. Interest in the text and versions of the Bible was clear in the work of Fabricy, De Rossi and Jahn. A translation of the Bible from the original languages was initiated by Brentano and completed (practically) by Dereser.56 Openness to critical study of the Bible can be found in Isenbiehl, Dereser and Jahn. Irenic relations with members of other Christian Churches were clearly shown in Dereser and Jahn, and (at least on the level of scholarly dialogue and openness) also by Isenbiehl and De Rossi. Political radicalism and sympathy with the ideals of the French Revolution were strikingly exemplified in Dereser's career. Thus, while Geddes can appear as an almost completely isolated figure in the Catholic community in Scotland and England during his lifetime, at least as regards his scholarly activities in the area of biblical studies, the picture changes somewhat when the Continental European background is considered. It is only to be expected that further research here will bring to light various other interesting contacts.

55. Apropos of the Prospectus, Fuller (1984: 30) has noted that this work was 'more widely commended by the world of learning than any other of his writings'. The references to Geddes in De Rossi's various publications support this evaluation. 56. De Rossi too published separate translations of several Old Testament books (details in Parente 1991: 211-12), but it does not appear that he ever planned a complete translation.

WAS GEDDES A TRAGMENTIST'? IN SEARCH OF THE 'GEDDES-VATER HYPOTHESIS'" John W. Rogerson In his Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung des Alien Testaments Hans-Joachim Kraus begins a section headed Die Fragmentenhypothese with the following words (in my translation): A new impulse in the criticism of the Pentateuch came at the end of the eighteenth century from England [sic]. The Catholic theologian, Alexander Geddes, produced two books that would influence Protestant biblical scholarship in Germany: The Holy Bible [Kraus gives the full title of the translation] London 1792 and Critical Remarks... London 1800. Geddes was rightly offended by the inconsistency of the older Documentary Hypothesis. Are the two main sources that Astruc presented complete documents when many further, accompanying, sources were presumed on the basis of more or less dubious criteria? Is it not more consistent to give up the idea of documents [Urkunden] and to think in terms of fragments instead? As a result, Geddes gave up the previous idea of main sources or documents, and considered the Pentateuch to have been put together from a number of larger or smaller fragments, fragments which were independent and sometimes contradictory, but which had been united together according to the overall plan of a redactor. The diversity of the divine names, which led Astruc to isolate and identify the two main sources, was explained by Geddes in terms of two series, into which the fragments were organized prior to their final incorporation by the redactor. One series was characterized mainly by the name 'Elohim', the other by the divine name 'Jehovah'. Because the work of Astruc and Ilgen had prepared the ground for this explanation, it immediately found a ready echo.1 (Kraus 1969: 155-56) * I wish to record my thanks to the staff of the Historic Collections section of the Directorate of Information Systems and Services, King's College, Aberdeen, for much help and courtesy in making sources available for the preparation of this study; also to Professor William and Mrs Elizabeth Johnstone for kindnesses during my visits to Aberdeen. 1. The original reads: 'Bin neuer Ansatz zur Pentateuchkritik ging am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts von England aus. Der katholische Theologe Alexander Geddes legte

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Kraus then proceeds to mention the commentary on the Pentateuch by Johann Severin Vater (Vater 1802-1805) which included many references to Geddes's books. Kraus was not the first, or the last, scholar to enlist Geddes for the cause of the Fragmentary Hypothesis. I must confess to being guilty of this myself in both my Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century (Rogerson 1984: 155) and in an article on Vater in The Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation edited by John Hayes (Rogerson 1999: 605). Going backwards in history, the Geddes-Vater hypothesis is mentioned by Thomas Kelly Cheyne in his Founders of Old Testament Criticism published in 1893. However, readers will notice that Cheyne nowhere outlines a Geddes Fragmentary Hypothesis. Cheyne cites passages that contain what he calls 'Geddes's chief critical conclusions' (Cheyne 1893: 7). Nowhere do they mention fragments. They mention 'ancient documents' from which Geddes believed the Pentateuch had been compiled, as well as 'journals' which Moses may have written. Regarding the view that Moses used two different written documents from which to compile the Pentateuch, Cheyne quotes Geddes to the effect that he looks upon this as the work of fancy. In the quotation Geddes adds, with characteristic modesty, that he is not so 'self-sufficient as to imagine that I may not be in the wrong, or that they [the documentary theorists] may not be in the right' (Bible I: xix). Readers are advised by Geddes to consult Astruc or Eichhorn for themselves. zwei Biicher vor, die auf die protestantische Bibelwissenschaft in Deutschland EinfluB gewinnen sollten: The holy Bible... London 1792; und: Critical Remarks..., London 1800. Geddes nahm mit Recht AnstoB an der Inkonsequenz der alteren Urkundenhypothese. Sind die beiden Hauptquellen, die Astruc herausstellte, iiberhaupt noch geschlossene Urkunden, wenn auBerdem—mit mehr oder weniger gewagten Kritierien—noch viele weitere ,,Nebenquellen" angenommen werden? 1st es da nicht konsequenter, die Vorstellung von ,,Urkunden" vollig fallenzulassen und statt dessen an ,,Fragmente" zu denken? Folgerichtig lost Geddes die bisher angenommenen Hauptquellen oder Urkunden auf und betrachtet den Pentateuch als zusammengesetzt aus einer Anzahl von gro'Beren und kleineren Fragmenten, die—voneinander unabhangig und nicht selten sich widersprechend—durch die Konzeption eines Redaktors verbunden worden sind. Die Verschiedenheit des Gottesnames, die bei Astruc AnlaB zur Scheidung und Herausstellung der beiden Haupturkunden gab, erklart Geddes mit der Annahme von zwei ,,Serien", in denen die Fragmente vor dem ZusammenschluB durch den Redaktor geordnet gewesen seien. Die eine ,,Serie" war vorwiegend durch den Namen ,,Elohim", die andere durch den Gottesnamen ,,Jehova" bestimmt.—Weil diese neue Erklarung im Grunde durch Astruc und Ilgen vorbereitet worden war, fand sie sogleich ein lebendiges Echo.'

ROGERSON Was Geddes a 'Fragmentist'?

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There is a large gap between the assertions of Kraus and the passages quoted from Geddes by Cheyne. In what follows, I intend to do two main things: to examine the use made by Vater of Geddes's works and then to see how Geddes himself dealt with key passages in the Bible, especially from Genesis. Vater's Use of Geddes Johann Severin Vater published his commentary on the Pentateuch in three volumes in Halle from 1802 to 1805. The lengthy, and cumbersome, title is worth quoting in full because it may help to explain how the notion of a Geddes-Vater hypothesis arose. In my translation the title reads: Commentary on the Pentateuch, with introductions to the individual sections, a translation of Dr. Alexander Geddes's more important critical and exegetical observations intercalated, and a treatise on Moses and the authors of the Pentateuch. The explicit reference to Geddes in the title is noteworthy; but what does it amount to? Throughout his commentary Vater places sentences or paragraphs in square brackets with the text ending in a capital G. These are the allusions to Geddes. An examination of the allusions quickly indicates why Vater wanted to refer to Geddes's results. The Critical Remarks, published in 1800, contain a wealth of text-critical and philological material arising from Geddes's work on the translation of the Bible. Geddes was heir to the enormous interest in establishing the best possible text of the Old Testament, which had begun with the publication of the great polyglot Bibles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and had continued in the eighteenth century with the collection and collation of Hebrew manuscripts by Benjamin Kennicott and Giovanni de Rossi, the conjectural emendations proposed by Charles Fraôis Houbigant and Robert Lowth, and the publication of works such as Robert Holmes's critical edition of the Septuagint, which began to appear in 1798. Geddes drew exhaustively on these and other sources in his discussions of the text and translation of the Bible, and Vater was happy to use this work as the basis for his commentary. The overwhelming majority of references to Geddes in Vater's commentary are to matters concerning the textual criticism and philological derivation of the Hebrew text. A typical example occurs in Vater's observations on Gen. 1.30 where he uses information from Geddes to the effect that 15 Hebrew manuscripts, the Septuagint, the Arabic versions and some manuscripts of the Targum, add the word 'and' to the traditional

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Hebrew text, although there is no such addition in the Samaritan or the Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion (Vater 1802,1:12; CR: 22). On occasion, Vater quotes Geddes in order to disagree with him. A case in point is Geddes's rendering of Gen. 4.26, where instead of the Authorised Version 'then began men to call upon the name of the LORD', Geddes proposes 'This man [Enos] aspired to be called by the name of the LORD God', following the readings of the Greek and the Vulgate, but not the Hebrew (CR: 60-61). Vater comments that this is 'an uncertain rendering of an even more uncertain reading' ('eine unsichere Deutung einer noch unsicheren Lesarf, Vater 1802,1: 48). However, Vater was also interested in the fact that Geddes did not believe that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch in its final form, and also that Geddes was prepared to rationalize the miraculous and to counter traditional doctrines. Thus, Vater summarizes a long paragraph from Geddes that maintains that, in Gen. 1.1, the Hebrew verb K""O ('to create'), does not imply the creation of the world from absolutely nothing (Vater 1802,1:4-5; CR: 9). The next two examples come from outside of Genesis, and deal with two passages much discussed in the history of pentateuchal criticism, Num. 12.3 and Deut. 34.5. The first passage refers to Moses in the third person, 'Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth'. It had long been held that this third-person observation could not have been written by Moses, and that it was the work of a later editor, such as Ezra.2 Geddes denies that it is an interpolation. The narrative is coherent, which fact proves that Moses could not have been the author of the whole passage: Who can believe that this was written by Moses himself? It is evidently, an interpolation, in the supposition that the rest of the narrative was written by Moses; but comes in naturally enough, if the writer was a different person; which indeed is my belief. (CR: 376)

This observation is approvingly quoted by Vater (1802, II: 57). Deuteronomy 34.5 is the verse describing Moses's death followed, in v. 6, by details of where he was buried and the observation that its location was unknown. Geddes comments: This opinion of Jerom [sic], that it was written by Ezrah [sic], is much more probable; although I would not positively affirm it. It is clear, however, that 2. See, for example, Matthew Poole (1685,1: 286) where the passage is attributed to 'some succeeding prophet'.


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it must have been written after, and some considerable time after, Moses; from this expression [in v. 6] 'unto this day no man knoweth aught of his sepulchre'. (CR\ 473)

Vater quotes this passage, omitting the phrase 'although I would not positively affirm it' (Vater 1802, II: 389). In another instance, that of Genesis 49, Vater ignores the help he might have got from Geddes. Geddes writes of the so-called Blessing of Jacob: I must declare that I do not believe it to be the real composition of Jacob, but of some Hebrew bard, who lived posterior to Joshua, perhaps posterior to David. That Jacob may have blessed his children and accommodated his respective benedictions to the known bent and disposition of each is highly probable: but that he should accord his benedictions to the future situations of the tribes, will not readily be believed by those who have critically and philosophically examined the subject. (CR: 142)

Vater assigns Genesis 49 to an author different from the author of what precedes, but does not quote Geddes here (Vater 1802,1: 313). It will, I hope, have begun to become clear that whatever Vater got from Geddes's researches, it was not ammunition for a fragmentary theory of the composition of the Pentateuch. Mainly, he used Geddes as a source for information about textual criticism and philology. Where it came to literary criticism, Geddes was an ally in denying the Mosaic authorship of parts of the Pentateuch. When Geddes's literary criticism is examined and compared with that of Vater, the differences between the two become striking. For the moment, however, it is pertinent to ask who Vater's fragmentist allies were, if Geddes was not one of them. The answer is simple; they were principally Johann Konrad Christoph Nachtigal (1753-1819), who wrote under the name of Otmar, and Friedrich Carl Fulda (1724-S8).3 These singularly neglected figures in the history of Old Testament criticism (they are not mentioned by Kraus) published a series of articles in the 1790s (Fulda's posthumously) which argued that the Hebrew writings had been produced from a whole range of materials, particularly songs, but also genealogies and inscriptions, and lists of conquered cities. They were, as Vater indicates by his references to them, among Vater's forerunners; and it is significant that I have come across no mention of them in Geddes's writings.

3.

See further Seidel 1993: 138-39, 209-21.

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The Bible and the Enlightenment Geddes 's Literary Criticism

There are a number of obvious test cases that need to be examined if one wants to assess a writer's attitude to literary criticism: Genesis chs. 1-3, the Flood Story in Gen. 6.5-8.22 and the Story of Joseph in Genesis chs. 37^4-5. Each will be dealt with in turn. The striking thing about Gen. 2.4-3.24 in contrast to Genesis 1 is that it uses a different, and unusual, combination of the divine name (Yahweh Elohim), that it appears to repeat the creation of the human race, and that it lacks the formal style of Genesis 1. This had led Jean Astruc and Johann Gottfried Eichhorn to propose that Moses had used two sources in compiling these chapters. Vater's view was that the account in 2.4-3.24 was a Second Fragment ('zweytes Fragment', Vater 1802,1: 74). Geddes's comment is all the more remarkable in view of these facts: I hasten to the second chapter; which is, at present, pretty generally supposed to be another cosmological fragment, written by a different person, and inserted by Moses in his commentaries as a curious piece of antiquity. I confess I have never been able to view it in that light; after all the pains that Astruc, Eichhorn and others have taken to prove the diversity, I can find nothing in it but a natural resumption of the subject, by the same pen which wrote the first chapter, and with the same wise, political and religious views. (CR: 29 [my italics])

Geddes makes no comment on the change of the divine name. His only literary-critical comment is in the first volume of his translation of the Bible, where he says that Genesis 2 should properly begin at v. 7, 'And the LORD God formed man...', with vv. 4-6 being the epilogue to ch. 1 (Bible I: 4). From a modern scholarly viewpoint this is a very unlikely observation. The Story of the Flood had been divided into two sources, Elohim and Jehovah, by Eichhorn in his Einleitung ins Alte Testament of 1780-83.4 The criteria for division were the alternations in the use of the divine name, and repetitions and apparent contradictions within the story. Vater was to reject the source-critical approach, and to propose instead that several fragments had been inserted into an otherwise coherent account. These included 6.5-8,7.1-9 and 8.20-22. These passages did not fit well into their context and they used the 'wrong' divine name, although Vater, perhaps influenced at this point by Geddes, accepted that there were problems with

4.

SeeRogerson 1984: 19-20.


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the alternation of the divine name. He was quite clear that the narrative had not been produced by a compiler combining two similar coherent accounts.5 Geddes makes no observations about the alternation of the divine names, nor about the repetitions, nor about the apparent contradiction between 6.19, where Noah is ordered to take one pair of every living creature into the ark, and 7.2, where he is commanded to take seven pairs of clean living creatures and one pair of unclean creatures. Vater saw a problem here and designated 7.1-9 as an insertion (Vater 1802,1: 61-62). Geddes, on the other hand, may have rendered 6.19-20 as 'pairs of every sort' in order to avoid the possibility of a contradiction with 7.2. His only literary comment is that 'The history of this deluge is minutely written: though still, perhaps, blended with a little of mythology' (Bible I: xi). Geddes's main concern, in fact, is with the variant readings of the divine name in the ancient Versions; which may be why Vater was reluctant to place too much weight on them as criteria for identifying insertions. Thus, at Gen. 7.9 Geddes substitutes Jehovah for the Elohim of the traditional Hebrew text, thereby following the Samaritan, Targum Onqelos, the Vulgate and one Hebrew manuscript (Bible I: 13). At 8.20, Geddes notes that 21 Greek manuscripts, three Arabic and two Armenian manuscripts and the Coptic read Elohim instead of the Jehovah of the Hebrew text. He comments I notice this as a matter of little importance in itself: but merely to shew [sic] that the words mil'' [Jehovah] and DTlbK [Elohim] have often been interchanged by copyists and the one substituted for the other, either by mistake or by caprice.—I shall rarely henceforth remark on such transactions. (CR: 73)

I shall, in fact, come back to the question of the divine names, but not before dealing with the Story of Joseph. In 1798 Karl David Ilgen had published an analysis of the Story of Joseph which divided it into two sources, which he designated as Elohim 1 and Elohim 2.6 The analysis presupposes that two stories had been combined, in one of which Joseph is sold to Midianites and thence to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, and in the other of which Joseph is sold to Ishmaelites and thence to an unnamed Egyptian.7 Vater (1805, III: 697) 5. Vater 1802,1: 61-62: 'Es liegt darin gar nicht, dass ein Sammler zwey ahnlich vortschreitende Erzahlungen Zeile fur Zeile in einander geschaltet hat'. 6. For full details see Seidel 1993. 7. This involves treating the words 'Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard' in 39.1 as a later gloss.

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explicitly rejected Ilgen's view. Whether Geddes knew of it, I have seen no evidence either way. Certainly Geddes saw no difficulty in the duplication of Midianites and Ishmaelites in the narrative, commenting on Gen. 37.28 that Joseph was sold to 'Ishmaelites from Midian' (CR: 70). Vater also noted the duplication and referred to Judg. 8.24 where Midianites are described as Ishmaelites. He saw no grounds for supposing that there were different stories or traditions.8 Geddes's other comments do not touch upon literary criticism. Typical is his verdict on the speech of Judah in Gen. 44.18-34 in which Judah pleads with Joseph not to detain Benjamin, and offers himself as a hostage instead: The speech of Judah, in this and the following verses, is in my opinion the most simple, and at the same time the most persuasive, piece of oratory that ever came from the lips of man. I have been in the habit of admiring it these forty years; yet my admiration increases every time I read it. (CR: 137)

Before I conclude I want to return to textual criticism and the use of the divine name in the Genesis narratives. In Exod. 6.3 God reveals his name as Jehovah and says, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that he was not known to them by that name. This led Geddes to examine all those passages in Genesis where the name Jehovah occurred prior to the time of Moses. Wherever possible, Geddes argued that the traditional Hebrew text was wrong, if it had Jehovah. Thus, at Gen. 4.1, the cry of Eve 'I have gotten a man Jehovah' or 'from Jehovah' should be corrected. The Septuagint, the Vulgate and both Arabic versions have God instead of Jehovah, and Geddes had no doubt that this is the genuine reading (CR: 111}. At Gen. 26.28, where the foreign ruler Abimelech says to Isaac 'We have clearly seen that Jehovah is with thee' and only the Arabic versions have 'God' instead of 'Jehovah', Geddes deemed it to be highly improbable 'that a king of Palestine should use the name Jehovah' (CR: 177). A similar argument was deployed in regard to Gen. 29.32 where Leah says, on the birth of her son Reuben, 'For Jehovah hath given me a son'. *[I]t is barely credible that Lea [sic] would use the name Jehovah' wrote Geddes, noting that both Arabic versions, the Syriac and the Persian have 'God' here. He had to concede, however, that Leah uses Jehovah in v. 33 and again in v. 35. Where, at Gen. 30.18 Leah says 'God [not Jehovah] [sic] hath given me my reward' he noted that Onqelos and the other Targums have Jehovah (CR: 178). Altogether, Geddes considered some 36 passages in which 8. Vater 1802, I: 292: 'Man ersieht also daraus nicht eine Verschiedenheit der Erzahlung oder Tradition'.


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the name 'Jehovah' appeared in the patriarchal narratives. He conceded that they amounted to sufficient evidence that the name Jehovah was known prior to the time of Moses 'if we are sure that they [the Patriarchs from Adam to Jacob] had actually spoken the very words put in their mouths by the compilers, or copiers, of the Pentateuch'. Personally, he doubted this: But who will affirm that this is the case? The number of places where DTlbN [Elohim] and m!T [Jehovah] have been interchanged is very great; and the variety of lection [sic] between the versions and the Text, and between the copies of the Text itself, is astonishing. Need we wonder then, that the word HIPP, once become the peculiar name of the God of the Hebrews, should, by historians posterior to that period, be often substituted for the more antient [sic] and more general name DTI^K, even in addresses to the Deity, or in relations concerning him? (CR: 178)

Geddes further backed up his belief that the name Jehovah was not known prior to the time of Moses, by drawing attention to passages in which the patriarchs addressed God by names other than Jehovah (he noted that Joseph mentions the name of God about 20 times but never uses Jehovah), and he referred to the evidence of proper names such as Methusael, Ishmael, Bethuel which are compounded with the divine name 'El' and with no element of the name Jehovah. His main conclusion was this: Unless we suppose the Pentateuch to be a compilation of jarring elements assemblaged [sic] by different hands, we must allow that the name Jehovah has been put in the mouths of the patriarchs prior to Moses, and in the mouth of God himself, by some posterior copier: for the same person who wrote the third verse of the sixth chapter of Exodus could not have been so inconsistent with himself, as to make the name Jehovah familiar to the patriarchs before that period. (CR: 180)

The importance of this discussion and Geddes's conclusion for our purposes is as follows. Geddes was well aware that the passages in which the name 'Jehovah' occurred in Genesis, and which were prior to Moses in the narrative, were those which Eichhorn had allocated to the Jehovah source. On pp. xix and xx of the Preface to his translation of the Bible (Bible I), Geddes had indicated in full detail which passages in Genesis were allocated to what he called Eichhorn's first document, and which were allocated to his second document. His rejection of Eichhorn's documentary theory did not rest, as in the case of Vater, upon a preference for a fragmentary hypothesis. Geddes believed that the biblical claim that the patriarchs did not know the name Jehovah was historically correct, and

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that the single narrative that ran through Genesis to Exodus consistently reflected this historical truth. The indications to the contrary were the work of later copyists or interpolators, who had proleptically substituted Jehovah for Elohim. In a footnote on p. 178 of the Critical Remarks, Geddes showed how easy, in his opinion, such prolepsis was. 'Who scruples to say that the excellent Prelections on Hebrew Poesy [sic] were written by Bishop Lowth; although we know that he was no bishop when he composed that work?' If, then, as Geddes believed, the Genesis narrative in its original, uncorrupted, form read God (Elohim) in all those passages where the patriarchs encountered, or addressed, or were addressed by, God, one of the main grounds for dividing the narrative into two sources, that is, the alternation of the divine name, became untenable. Indeed, this whole discussion shows what Geddes's main literary critical concerns were, and that they were certainly not bound up with fragmentary theories of composition. On the principle that there is no smoke without fire, it needs to be asked how the view arose that Geddes was a pioneer of the Fragmentary Hypothesis. I make two suggestions. First, some remarks in the Preface to the translation of the Bible could have given the impression that Geddes thought in terms of fragments rather than documents: It is my opinion, that the Hebrews had no written documents before the days of Moses; and that all their history, prior to that period, is derived from monumental indexes, or traditional tales. Some remarkable tree, under which a patriarch resided; some pillar, which he had erected; some heap, which he had raised; some ford, which he had crossed; some spot, where he had encamped; some field, which he had purchased; the tomb in which he had been laid—all these served as so many links to hand his story down to posterity; and corroborated the oral testimony transmitted, from generation to generation, in simple narratives or rustic songs. (Bible I: xix)

The second suggestion is that Vater's use of Geddes's material in his commentary on the Pentateuch created the impression that Vater was drawing upon literary-critical observations in Geddes's books. Of Geddes's own views on the composition of the Pentateuch we have only vague indications, given that he did not live to write his General Preface.99 He inclined to ascribe it to a collector and compiler who lived in the time of Solomon and who used ancient documents, some of which were older than Moses, and some of which may have been written by Moses, along with the other sources of information mentioned in the long 9.

Geddes expressed his intention to write a General Preface in CR: 29.

ROGERSON Was Geddes a Tragmentist'?

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quotation immediately above (Bible I: xviii-xix). A detailed examination of his work shows, however, that he did not translate these views into any details of literary criticism when dealing with the text. Had later scholars bothered to examine Geddes's work more closely, instead of relying on his general remarks and his adoption by Vater, they could not have claimed him as a pioneer of the Fragmentary Hypothesis. They certainly could not have made the ludicrous remarks that appear in the quotation from Kraus, with which I began.10 This does not in any way diminish Geddes's remarkable achievements as a textual critic, philologist and translator, nor detract from his views, radical in their time, on the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the need to rationalize many of its supernatural elements. My aim has been to try to get back to the original Geddes, just as he sought to get back to the original text of the sacred books that he so highly esteemed.

10. A likely source for Kraus's statement that Geddes believed that the fragments had been organized into an Elohim and a Jehovah series is Westphal (1888,1: 143). Westphal comments on the fragments that 'elles forment, si Ton veut, deux series paralleles, suivant qu'elles emanent du milieu qui designait Dieu par le nom d'Elohim ou de celui qui 1'appelait Jehovah'. Westphal is here describing the view of Vater rather than Geddes, and note the words 'si Ton veut' which indicate that Westphal is explaining Vater's position in his own words.

ALEXANDER GEDDES BETWEEN OLD AND NEW: STORY AND HISTORY IN THE BOOK OF NUMBERS Jean Louis Ska

One of the favourite words used by Alexander Geddes in his Critical Remarks (hereafter CR) on the book of Numbers is the word 'credible' or its opposite 'incredible' (CR: 360,362,364,384 etc.). On other pages, the vocabulary is different, but the attitude is identical. Geddes wants to find an agreement between what the text says and the requirement of'common sense'. A first quotation is revelatory of this mentality: 'Six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty men, besides the whole tribe of Levi, all the males under the age of twenty, and all the women of every age, (who must have amounted to twice the former number at least,) encamped together in the desert of Sinai, is a thing hardly credible' (CR: 360 [my italics]).1 The numbers given in the Bible are hardly credible to whom? Surely to Geddes himself and all those who apply the same standards to the biblical text, and these standards are those of human reason. It is not 'reasonable', one would say, to affirm that so many people could live in a desert area for so long a time. Therefore, the numbers given should be explained in a different way, which could be accepted by human reason. This means that the explanation is founded on arguments and not on authority. This way of thinking, as is well known, is sometimes called 'rationalism' and most of Geddes's commentators have underscored its importance in the exegete's work. My purpose is to show how this 'rationalism' worked in several typical cases and to confront Geddes's proposals with other, more recent, attempts to explain the same difficult passages. 1. On the same point, see G.B. Gray (1903: 11-15): 'These numbers must on every ground be regarded as entirely unhistorical and unreal' (p. 11); 'Males over twenty form but very little more than a quarter of a whole population, thus (neglecting the 51,000 odd Levites) the total in c. 1 f. (603,500) represents a total of men, women, and children exceeding 2,000,000. And yet this multitude is represented as spending forty years in the wilderness!' (p. 12).

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1. The Number ofLevites in the Desert (Numbers 3.39) The rabbinical commentaries had already noticed the difficulty in Num. 3.39. The total of the Levites according to this verse is 22,000. But, by adding up the separate numbers of the different families in Num. 3.22,28, 34, one arrives at a total of 22,300. How is this difference to be explained? The ancient rabbinical solution is the following: the 300 Levites not integrated into the census are the firstborn who are not mentioned because, being firstborn, they cannot redeem the firstborn of Israel. The rationale for the argument may look a little far-fetched. According to Num. 3.11-13, the whole tribe of Levi is consecrated to God's exclusive service to 'redeem' all the firstborn of Israel. Reference is made to the slaughter of the firstborn of the Egyptians in Exod. 12.29-34 and to the fact that the Angel of the Lord spared the firstborn of the Israelites that night (Num. 3.13). The text may also refer to the law according to which every firstborn belongs to God (Exod. 22.28-29; 34.19-20; cf. Num. 3.13a). For this reason, the firstborn in every Israelite family must be redeemed and this is the function of the Levites (Exod. 13.13; 34.20; Num. 3.40-41,46-47). But, according to the rabbis, the firstborn of the Levites must themselves be redeemed. Therefore they cannot redeem other firstborn and they are not integrated into the total in Num. 3.11-39. This rabbinical exegesis is adopted by several Christian interpreters mentioned by Geddes (CR: 362).2 A discordant voice is Bonfrerius's (Jacques Bonfrere),3 'who observes that it is incredible, not to say impossible, that 2. Geddes mentions in different occasions the following names: Nicolas de Lyra; Munster (Sebastian Miinster, OFM; Oleaster (Hieronymus; or Jerome de Azambuja); Oleaster depends on Sante Pagnini (Pagnini himself was a disciple of Savonarole, and the first one after Jerome to translate the Bible from the original languages into Latin); Tostatus (Alphonsus); Cajetan (Thomas de Vio, called Cajetan, Latin Caetanus and Italian Gaetano); De Muis (Simeon); Ainsworth (Henry, puritan clergyman); Le Clerc (Jean); Hezel (Wilhelm Friedrich; author, among others, of a manual on Old Testament text criticism); Dathe (Johann August; author of a translation of the entire Old Testament into Latin); E.F.C. Rosenmuller; and Geddes's friend, the famous Christian Hebraist Benjamin Kennicott, who worked most of his life in Oxford. For further details, see, among others, Barthelemy (1982: l*-63*). 3. Jacques Bonfrere was for a long time superior of the Scots College at Douai (France). As an exegete, he was a disciple of Cornelius a Lapide (Cornelis Cornelissen van den Steen); Bonfrere wrote, among other works, a commentary on the Pentateuch (see the Cumulative Bibliography to the present volume).

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in the number of 22,300 persons there should be only 300 first-born' (CR: 362 [my italics]). Geddes prefers a more sensible explanation based on a text-critical operation and proposed first by Houbigant (1753-54) and Michaelis (1787: 2-3). Michaelis does not mention Houbigant, but may have known his work published in Frankfurt in 1777. The proposal is to correct the text of Num. 3.28 and to read 8300 instead of 8600 Kohathites. The correction is minimal, since one should add one letter (y) and read HIKE I2DCE1 (300) instead of PIKD 2KB (600). Thus one arrives at a total not of 22,300, but of 22,000, which is confirmed by Num. 3.40-51 (G.B. Gray 1903: 30).4 This is, according to Geddes, 'far more natural' (CR: 362), and he adds, after discussing other proposals: 'On the whole, I cannot but acquiesce in the opinion of those interpreters who think that, in v. 28, a letter has been dropped out of the text; and that, for O27, we should read vhw. While this text-critical proposal has been accepted by almost all modern commentators, none of them refer either to Houbigant, Michaelis or to Geddes.5 The solution has become a kind of 'common property' of biblical exegesis.6 2. Flocks in the Desert (Numbers 11.4) "Oh! that we had flesh to eat! But how could they want flesh to eat, when they are said, in Exod. 12.38, to have/locks and herds in great abundance?' (CR: 372 [italics in original]).7 The problem had already been noticed by Rashi of Troyes (G.B. Gray 1903: 102). Geddes rejects the solution of those who affirm that the Israelites were forbidden to kill their 4. See especially 3.43,46. The number of firstborn to be redeemed is 22,273, but the Levites can redeem only 22,000 of them. The 273 firstborn who are left must be redeemed in a different way, that is, by paying a sum of money. 5. Cf. Baentsch 1903: 459; Snaith 1967: 125; Noth 1968: 27; Sturdy 1976: 31; Wenham 1981: 71; Noordtzij 1983: 38; Riggans 1983: 32; Budd 1984: 28; Ashley 1993: 84; Levine 1993: 161; Davies 1995: 33. 6. Geddes also criticizes Kennicott's proposal to read 200 instead of 500 (Gershonites) in Num. 3.22 for two main reasons. First, this would reduce too much the number of Gershonites. Second, 'the conjecture is based on an uncertain hypothesis that the Hebrew historian expressed numbers by single letters; and here wrote "I resh instead of or caph final' (CR: 362). 7. Geddes refers to a certain Delgado. This must be Isaac Delgado, a Jewish scholar, author of a translation of the Pentateuch into English; see Lewis 1992: 825; Ruderman2001.


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cattle, except for special sacrifices (Lev. 17.1-7). For him, actually, 'there is no prohibition to kill [cattle] for common eating' (CR: 372).8 The other objection is that the cattle must have increased tremendously if the Israelites could slaughter animals for cultic purposes only. Then Geddes proposes a very personal and original explanation. For him, the word does not mean 'flesh', but 'fish', as in Lev. 11.11. And he gives 'culinary' arguments to buttress his opinion. First, the Hebrews remember the fish they ate in Egypt, and not the flesh (or meat) (Num. 11.5). Second, 'the flesh offish.. .was greatly more relishing than either the beef and mutton of those regions; which, unless when young, is dry and unpalatable' (CR: 372 [italics in original]).9 This ingenious solution did not have much success, according to my research, in spite of its dietary advantages! More recent interpreters, such as G.B. Gray, suggest that 'the present story goes back to a cycle which did not credit the Israelites with flocks in the wilderness' (1903: 103). Snaith (1967: 259) and Budd (1984: 127) follow G.B. Gray. Sturdy, for his part, thinks that the tradition according to which Israel had flocks in the desert is overlooked in Num. 11.4, or that 'perhaps the people are being over-dramatic' (1967: 84).10 Others simply disregard the problem. 3. 'The Lord smote the people with a great mortality' (Numbers 11.33) The plague described in Num. 11.33 is caused by the eating of quails. Numbers 11.31-34 explains that quails brought by the wind suddenly covered the camp of the Israelites. The height of the quails was about 'two cubits above the ground' (11.31b). The people ate the birds, but as the flesh was still in their mouth, the 'Lord smote them with a great mortality' (11.33). Two details in this description attract Geddes's attention: the expression 'two cubits above the ground' (11.31b) and the cause of the mortality (11.33).

8. See also Exod. 17.3; 19.13; Num. 14.33; 32.1; cf. G.B. Gray 1903: 103. 9. Michaelis (1787: 16) is of another opinion: 'Einige Reisende ruhmen zwar den Geschmack der Aegyptischen Fische nicht, aber fur arme Leute, die es nicht besser gewohnt waren, konnen sie gut genug gewesen seyn'. 10. The problem is mentioned by Davies 1995: 105 (who quotes Sturdy and Snaith) and Levine 1993: 312 (who quotes Rashi and Herodotus).

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3.1. 'At the height of about two cubits above the ground' (Numbers 11.31) Geddes sees a difficulty in the common rendering of the Hebrew expresby 'as it were two cubits high sion in 11.31b, upon the face of the earth' (CR: 375). The problem, for our exegete, is practical rather than philological. If there is a layer of quails as high as two cubits, it becomes impossible to gather them. The Targum may suggest that the people 'waded through them up to the navel, and yet were not fatigued', but this is 'absurd' in Geddes's eyes. He logically prefers a more reasonable translation, the one that he finds in Jerome: volabantque in aere, duobus cubitis altitudine super terram—'and [the quails] were flying in the air at the height of [about] two cubits above the ground'. This means that the quails, exhausted after a long migratory journey, flew not very high and could be easily caught. Geddes also excludes on logical grounds Rosenmiiller's11 explanation according to which there were empty spaces between the fallen birds, so that it was possible to walk through and collect them. Geddes adds, with a note of irony: 'This certainly saves them from wading up to the navel: but I fear it would not have saved them from the plague. The putrefaction of bicubital heaps of quails, to the distance of a day's journey round the camp, would certainly have been no pleasant neighbourhood' (CR: 375 [italics in original]). As we can see, a translation must 'make sense' in Geddes's eyes, and for this reason he adopts a text which satisfies his quest for rationality and likelihood. The translation adopted, however, does not correspond exactly to the Hebrew original since the latter does not contain any allusion to the quails 'flying' two cubits above the ground. Logic is more important than exact philology. 3.2. The Plague (Numbers 11.33) The second problem is more interesting. First, Geddes proposes Rosenmiiller's 'natural' explanation, which evidently has his preference. Rosenmiiller himself quotes the famous French Protestant Samuel Bochart according to whom the quails are not edible because they eat hellebore and other poisonous plants (1663, II: 97; 1794, II: 656).12 As usual, it is always 11. As an adversary of the Documentary Hypothesis, he defended the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the literary unity of the book of Genesis. He also affirmed, a hundred years before B. Duhm, the post-exilic origin of Isa. 42.1-7; 49.1-5; 50.4-10; and 52.13-53.12. 12. 'Causa vero subitae illius mortis, sine dubio, naturalis erat: scilicet, jam veteres observarunt coturnices elleboro et aliis herbis veneratis vesci solere; qua de re multa


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useful to consult Bochart whose encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible and ancient authors is indeed amazing. Geddes ends his own reflection with this revelatory remark: '.. .a flight of quails comes opportunely to gratify their desires: these they eat voraciously, and fall victims of their own intemperance. All the rest is, in my conception, oriental imagery and poetical exaggeration' (CR: 375 [my italics]). As we will see, Geddes's proposal is quite interesting and not very far from a more modern explanation of the same type.13 The only difficulty with the reasoning followed by Bochart, Rosenmiiller and Geddes is that the 'miracle of the quails' takes place twice in the Bible, first in Exod. 16.13 and afterwards in Num. 11.31-33. The first time, there is no plague. If the flesh of the quails were toxic, why do people not die in Exod. 16.13? Is it possible to give a natural explanation of this difference?14 As Bochart says, the Ancients knew about the dangers of eating quails. A complete list of these authors can be found either in Bochart (1663, II: 96; 1794: 657) or in Jacques (1968: 256-58). Sometimes, commentators quote a passage from Aristotle's De Plantis (A.5.820b) where it is said that 'hellebore is a poison for humans, but a food for quails'. The passage, however, is perhaps not from Aristotle himself (Jacques 1968: 256 n. 56). But the same affirmation is found in other authorities such as Lucretius, the physician Galen, Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius, and so on (Jacques 1968: 256-57). Pliny the Elder states in his Natural History that quails often feed on seeds of poisonous plants and therefore cautious people prefer to banish them from their tables (10.69 [33] and 10.197 [92]; cf. Jacques 1968: 257 nn. 61 and 62). For several of these authors, in particular for Galen, the flesh of quails is poisonous because these birds feed on hellebore seeds. Other ancient authors usually quoted in commentaries help identify the birds mentioned in Num. 11.31-33 and Exod. 16.13 by the Hebrew word collegit Bochartus. Talibus coturnicibus qui vescebantur Israelitae esu carnium harum insalubrium perierunt.' 13. See also J. Gray (1954: 148-49), who quotes the Arab writer Al-Qazwini (beginning of the fourteenth century). Al-Qazwini refers to seasonal migrations of quails in the region of Al-Arish, southwest of Gaza. The phenomenon has been observed in that area in modern times as well. 14. There are of course several theological explanations. Childs, for instance, would say that there are no punishments in the murmuring episodes preceding the Sinai event. Num. 11, on the other hand, clearly underlines Israel's rebellion and presents the plague as a punishment (1974: 254-64).

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which is most probably a loanword (BDB: 969). According to G.B. Gray, the identification of the biblical bird with the common quail (coturnix communis or coturnix dactylisonans)115 is 'secured by the fact that this bird is still called salwa in Egypt and Syria, that its habits justify the description here given, and that it was certainly so understood by Josephus (Ant. 3.25, 299 6pTu£) if not also by G 'opTuyo|jr|Tpa)' (G.B. Gray 1903: 117). The Greek word used by the LXX means 'corncrake' (rallus crex or crex crex), a bird very similar to the quail and which often migrates with the latter (Snaith 1967: 233). In some languages, the corncrake is called 'king of quails'.16 Aristotle's History of Animals is also mentioned in connection with the fact that quails are migratory birds and can be easily captured during these migrations (597b. 17 and 20; cf. Ashley 1993: 217). But what about the poisonous quails? One very interesting answer to this problem is proposed by X. Jacques who wrote an article on the topic in 1968, a study which remained almost completely ignored by scholars and commentaries, although it contains the most exhaustive treatment of the question.17 Among the many hypotheses, ancient and modern, which are listed and examined in this article, Jacques eventually refers to an article written in 1941 by Edmond Sergent who was born and lived for a long time in Algeria. This physician and biologist studied the cases of poisoning by quails in North Africa and discovered that these cases are limited to certain areas only. After further examination, Sergent established that these areas are regions where the poisonous hemlock grows in abundance. The quails which cause health problems are almost always the so-called 'green quails', namely, gaunt and tired birds coming from the South in the spring. Those who eat these quails suffer from troubles with digestion or some kind of temporary paralysis. Death is very rare, however (Jacques 1968: 265-66). Sergent confirms the hypothesis proposed by ancient authors, namely, that the quails can eat some noxious seeds without being affected themselves; only those who eat a certain quantity of their flesh are. In some cases, in fact, the crop of certain quails contained seeds of several dangerous plants, for instance of hemlock (Conium maculatuni), nightshade (Solanum nigrum) and henbane (Hyoscyamus niger). Sergent proceeded to carry out some experiments on 15. The English word 'quail' comes from the Old German \q)wahtala\ an onomatopoeia imitating the call of the bird. Cf. the Mediaeval Latin 'coacula'. 16. Cf. the Dutch 'kwartelkoning', the German: 'Wachtelkonig', the Italian 're di quaglie', and the Spanish 'rey de codornices' or 'guion de codornices' ('leader of quails'). The Greek word opTuyopfiTpa literally means 'queen of quails'. 17. One of the few exceptions is the French commentary by de Vaulx 1972: 153.


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dogs and quails. He showed that dogs are easily poisoned by hemlock (taking 1.25 grams is enough to cause a slight paralysis of the hind paws). Quails are more resistant, and inurement to the poison seems to be possible. Dogs that eat quails nourished with fresh hemlock seeds are poisoned, but when quails have eaten old seeds, dogs remain unaffected (Jacques 1968: 266). Sergent's conclusion is that the quails eaten by the Israelites in Num. 11.31-33 were migrating in the spring from the south to the north and that they had fed on fresh seeds of toxic plants such as hemlock or other similar ones. There remains only one difficulty—the inquiry was done in North Africa and not in the Sinai Peninsula. It would be important to prove that the quails migrating to this area in the spring absorb toxic seeds, either in this region or in the Nile Valley. But the widespread opinion of Greek and Latin authors is a good argument in favour of the thesis defended by Sergent. There are solid reasons for believing that the phenomenon is not limited to North Africa. Sergent's research had little impact on exegetes. Only the Dutch scholar W.H. Gispen seems to have taken notice of this interesting inquiry (1959: 189), and only indirectly, through a short report by G.A. Lindeboom (1947: 105; see also Bodenheimer 1962: 253, quoted by Jacques 1968: 268).18 One could inversely conclude that the quails eaten by the Israelites in Exod. 16.13 were most probably coming from the north where they had eaten corn (wheat, rye, barley, oat, spelt, etc.) and were therefore a real delicacy. There is however a problem, since the date given in Exod. 16.1 —'the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt'—means that the event takes place in April/May. We are again in the spring, when the quails come from Africa and can be poisonous. We have to conclude either that the Priestly Writer is not accurate, especially concerning matters as specialized as bird migration, or that the text purposely avoids speaking of a plague. Bochart has another, and very intelligent, explanation, namely, that in Exod. 16.3 the Israelites ate quails only for one day, whereas in Num. 11.31-33, they ate for one month (1663,11:97; 1794,11:656). In conclusion, we can say that Geddes was not far from the explanation just given here, although he did not refer to the difference between the spring and the autumn migrations of quails. 18. McCullough, in his article 'Quail' in IDE (1962: 973), does not mention the problem.

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The Bible and the Enlightenment 4. Balaam's Jenny (Numbers 22.21-35)

On the origin of Balaam's story, Geddes proposes an interesting theory. The following sentence is also one of the few utterances that can lead to the conclusion that Geddes held a 'fragmentary theory' about the origin of the Pentateuch: 'I believe, [Num. 22-24] was not written by Moses, but by the compiler of the Pentateuch, from such traditional stories, or scraps of written documents, as he could find. Indeed, it has all the air of a legendary tale' (CR: 392). On the oracles themselves, he proposes, as usual, a rationalistic interpretation: '[Balaam] feigns frequent consultations with God, and delivers his own ideas for divine oracles... These suppositions granted, it is thought that the difficulties attending his history are removed' (CR: 393). The most interesting part of his CR, however, concerns the story of Balaam's jenny. For many commentators, observes Geddes, 'the story of Balaam's ass has often been an object of ridicule' (p. 393). This time, however, our author reacts and affirms that there is 'nothing strange in the story of the ass, but the manner of telling it: and that ceases to be wonderful, when we recollect the oriental way of narrating' (pp. 393-94). To make the story of Balaam's jenny more acceptable or intelligible, Geddes proposes one of his personal experiences which is, in my opinion, worth quoting in full, even if the story is somewhat long: I believe that there are few gentlemen who have not held.. .dialogues with their horses. I have frequently conversed with mine: and indeed, an occurrence once happened to me not unsimilar to what happened to Balaam. I was riding on a favourite little mare, in a very narrow path, which had a high wall on one side and a deep river on the other. All at once my palfrey stopped short, and wanted to wheel about and to return. It was not, however, an angel which she saw—although it had wings: it was a dead crow lying in the path; and which, without alighting, I could not get my mare to pass. I was scarcely on her back again, when, a loose stone falling from the top of the wall about three paces before her nose, she jumped aside with vehemence; and although she did not thrust my leg against the wall, she threw herself and me into the river: and if she had not been an excellent swimmer, we should have both been drowned. It may be readily supposed, that I was angry. Whether, if I had had a sword in my hand, I should have threatened to slay my mare, I know not: but certain it is, that I scolded her egregiously, and would probably have beaten her unmercifully, if this same story of Balaam's ass had not naturally presented itself to my view. (CR: 394)

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Geddes goes on to say that his mare, in this moment, seemed to plead in a humble tone, asking why she should be punished for something she had never done before. She really seemed to be speaking, as if God had opened her mouth. And the impression was so real, that Geddes said 'No' and 'gently lowered the suspended whip' (CR: 394). Geddes proceeds with his reflection and says that he told his experience in a way which is matter-of-fact and does not introduce any marvellous or supernatural element into the narrative. But if the same experience had been narrated 'in a dramatic manner', 'by an oriental historian', the story would have been much closer to what we find in the book of Numbers. It would have been the case, says Geddes, if he had been himself a famous 'prophet or soothsayer', and had been asked 'by the king [of England] or his ministers to curse the French (for example)' (CR: 394). We should remember that Geddes writes these words at a time of great hostility between France and Great Britain. As for Geddes's explanation, we can note that his riding experience makes much sense since it is very close to what people may have experienced for centuries but is unknown to modern travellers. In this case, experience, and not just reason or rationality, helps him understand the biblical story. We are close to an 'exegetical positivism', a way of understanding the Bible on the basis of similar facts that can be observed elsewhere and are known to the writer. This is of course the case when the exegete can refer to his or her own experience. Interpreter and interpretation are united in the same process of reading. On the other hand, for Geddes, the problem of the biblical story of Balaam and his jenny is only a problem of language. Experiences are similar, if not identical. There are just different ways of describing these same experiences. In this regard, Geddes is also very modern. He is not far from the 'literary genres' and some more modern theories about the different types of narrative.19 As can be expected, nobody tried to explain the story of Balaam's jenny in a way similar to Geddes's. G.B. Gray, however, takes a similar line and mentions ancient authors who record examples of speaking animals (1903: 334). He refers to Bochart's Hierozoicon, a work which I already encountered when I discussed the quails.20 G.B. Gray gives examples taken from 19. See, for instance, Jolles 1958; Scholes and Kellogg 1966; as for the Bible, see, among others, Coats 1985. 20. He cites Part 1, book 2, chapter 14 of Bochart's work (that is, pp. 192-98 of the first volume of the 1682 edition).

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the Egyptian Tale of the Two Brothers, from the Latin historian Livy who mentions an ox speaking with a human voice, and from Genesis 3 where we find a speaking serpent. G.B. Gray is also concerned with some exegetes who read the story as a historical one, and try to solve the problem of the 'miracle' by affirming that the whole incident is a 'vision' had by Balaam (1903: 334-35). This was the exegesis proposed by Maimonides in his Guide of the Perplexed (2.42) and taken over by modern exegetes.21 But, as G.B. Gray notes, the text says nothing of a vision. Others, who also consider the story as historical, speak of a 'miracle' and try, for instance, to explain how the vocal organs of the jenny could be adapted so that she could speak with a human voice (1903: 335). The authors and works quoted in the footnote are Josephus, the Pirke Abot, Augustine, Rashi, Calvin, Kurtz and Wobersin. G.B. Gray himself prefers a more simple solution and speaks of a 'piece of folklore utilised for the purpose of the story' (1903: 334). Modern exegetes are more concerned with the purpose of the story. Levine, for instance, asserts that 'The literary function of the Tale of the Jenny was to mock Balaam... The noted clairvoyant cannot see what his jenny saw!' (2000: 154).22 The 'picaresque tale' was integrated into the narrative of Numbers 22 to introduce into the story the negative view about Balaam's personality which appears in several texts (such as Deut. 23.5-6; Josh. 13.22; 24.9-10; Neh. 13.2; cf. Num. 31.16).23 5. The Water Flowing from the Rock (Numbers 20.1-13) Geddes has nothing to say either on this miracle or on the problem of Moses and Aaron's sin (CR: 387).24 He has just a short remark about v. 1 ('This chapter is not at all connected with the preceding one'), he mentions a problem of translation in v. 3 ('He reproached them' instead of 'He 21. Hengstenberg 1842:48-65; Strack 1894:433 ('innerlicher Vorgang'). Several authors refer in this respect to Dillmann 1886: 146 (with bibliography). 22. See, among others, also Alter 1981: 105-106; Milgrom 1990:469; Davies 1995: 248. 23. On the character of Balaam, one could compare G.B. Gray (1903:318-22) with Davies (1995: 240-42). Cf. also the recent study by Schiile 2001. 24. On Moses and Aaron's sin, see, for instance, Budd 1984: 218 (with bibliography); Levine 1993: 490; Davies 1995:205-206 (withbibliography). Kapelrud(1957: 242) makes the interesting statement that the story is deliberately vague; its main purpose is to explain why Moses and Aaron did not lead Israel into the Promised Land without incriminating them too badly.


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reproached Moses'), and in v. 13 ('[the waters] by which the Lord glorified himself). But there is not a single word on the miracle itself. Very few commentaries try to give a 'natural' explanation to this wonder. G.B. Gray (1903: 144-45), in a note to Num. 13.26, cites a naturalist and explorer, Clay Trumbell, who offers a detailed description of a huge cliff at 'Ayn Qudeis, with a stream coming from underneath the ragged spur. The water was collected in several stone wells. The proposed identification of Kadesh Barnea with 'Ayn Qudeis is not sure, however, but another place, not very far from there, and called 'Ain Qudeirat is often suggested (Levine 1993: 489). This still does not explain why waters can come from the rock when Moses hits it with a rod (Num. 20.11). My late brother Philippe once offered me an explanation that could be of some interest. Rocks and cliffs in the desert are sometimes cracked. There is always some humidity in the desert, for instance a little dew, some moisture brought by the wind, and so on. Through condensation this humidity can accumulate in the fissures and remain there because of the physical phenomenon called 'surface tension'. This physical law explains, for instance, why drops can remain attached for a moment on the surface of a glass and do not immediately run down. A shock, and even the sharp sound of a voice, can make these waters flow from the rock. This would explain why God asked Moses to hit the rock in Exod. 17.6 (cf. Num. 20.11) and, apparently, told him just to speak to the cliff in Num. 20.8. The sound of the voice can 'cause' the miracle, just as it can cause an avalanche for similar reasons. 6. Conclusion More examples could be added to those presented in this short article. These are sufficient, it seems to me, to illustrate Geddes's very interesting attitude towards the Bible, especially in the book of Numbers. To conclude, let me quote Geddes himself for the last time in two characteristic instances. First, when it comes to explaining the difficult text in Num. 24.23, our together and author proposes to read the two Hebrew words as referring to the dreadful wind or interpret this word called smum, sumiel, orsimooly ('simoon' in modern English). The effects of this wind are appalling, as Geddes notes in his CR: '[it] is looked upon by the Arabs and other eastern nations as the most pestiferous and destructive that blows; and causing immediate death to those whom it encounters

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unprepared' (CR: 402). After a long discussion, however, he adds this clever note which I submit to your judgment: 'If this explanation be rejected by my brother-critics, I shall patiently wait for a more plausible one' (p. 403). Second, when Geddes comes across God's order in Num. 31.17-18— 'Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves' (KJV)—he makes this very sensible statement: 'Who can read these two verses, without shuddering? But who will dare to say, that such an order could proceed from God?' This is Geddes's question, and one of the many questions that we still have to answer today.25

25. Geddes mentions Le Clerc's explanation, according to which the male children could have remembered they there were born free and attempted, as adults, to overthrow the 'Hebrew republic'. Geddes reacts very sharply and says: 'A very fine reason for justifying such a butchery! Great indeed must the carnage have been, when still remained, unslain, 37,500 virgins, for the service and lust of the Israelites' (CR: 410). Jean Le Clerc, a Swiss theologian and biblical scholar, was an 'Arminian', that is, a disciple of Jakob Arminius, founder of the 'Remonstrants'. Le Clerc (or Clericus) wrote an important work on the Pentateuch (see the Cumulative Bibliography to the present volume).

ALEXANDER GEDDES ON THE HISTORICAL BOOKS OF THE HEBREW BIBLE A. Graeme Auld

Geddes's project was huge: to publish a fresh translation of the whole Bible, accompanied by substantial critical commentary. In fact, it achieved completion only as far as the end of Deuteronomy; and his plans clearly changed as he went along: none of the three large volumes published in 1792,1797 and 1800 corresponded to his earlier published intentions. His Critical Remarks were to have been printed with the translation, section by section. Yet he released his rendering of the books of Genesis to Joshua in 1792 without them: On this occasion, I have deviated from [my primary design] for two reasons. The first is, that I wish to avail myself of Dr. Holmes's Collation of the Manuscripts of the Septuagint, which is in great forwardness;1 and of some valuable works lately published in Germany and other foreign countries, which I have not yet been able to procure. Secondly, as I hope to be able, in the course of next year, to lay before the Public the whole of the remaining historical Books of the Old Covenant; the Critical Remarks on both volumes will form a just volume by themselves...

However, it would be not one but five more years before the second volume of translation followed—and three more again (1800), before the volume of Critical Remarks promised imminently in 1792. Then, although the footnotes on almost every page of both translation volumes had repeatedly directed their readers to 'see C.R.', the 1800 volume of these ended with Deuteronomy, not Joshua; and so did not even correspond to the extent of the 1792 translation. The planning of the second volume (1797) also changed, apparently as it was going along. At the end of the treatment of Judges (p. 46), we are promised that Ruth will follow Samuel, 1. As it happened, the expected publication did not begin till 1798—Holmes 1798-1827 was published over almost 30 years, starting some years later than Geddes had expected.

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Kings and Chronicles; and then Esther, Judith and Tobit. Yet of these we find only Ruth at the end of the volume (pp. 368-73), followed by the unexpected, yet rather significant, Hymn of Manasseh from Isaiah 38. In this discussion, our main focus must be on the 1797 volume together with the portion on Joshua from 1792. In the absence of any of Geddes's Critical Remarks on the historical books, we have to pay all the closer attention to the Introductions to his translations—and to those footnotes which offer more than simply 'see C.R.'. However, we must start with his Prospectus (1786), and his letter to the Bishop of London (1787b), for some account of the aims and objectives against which his unfinished work may be assessed.2 This paper can offer only some samplings from Geddes's work on the historical books. His stated principles and his practice are not always the same. Part of the reason may be development from volume to volume, and part simple human inconsistency. However, I suspect also that he made out that his views were more controversial than was always the case. First Principles At the very beginning of his Prospectus (pp. 2-4), he nails his colours to the mast—and this combative image is entirely justified: The first and principal cause of the imperfection of almost all modern Translations of the Bible is to be sought for in the imperfection and incorrectness of the originals, from which they were made... It is an assertion no less strange than true, that the text of scarcely any profane author of note has been so incorrectly published as that of the Hebrew Scriptures. To restore Demosthenes, Tully, Virgil, Horace, as nearly as possible, to their first integrity, no human pains have been spared: libraries have been ransacked, manuscripts collated, parallel places compared, history, geography, criticism alternately called in to assistance: and happy was the man who, after a length of time, and with immense labour, could fill up the smallest chasm; detect the most insignificant interpolation; rectify a single transposition; alter a single sentence, or change a single letter to the improvement of his favourite author. This sort of labour gave celebrity,

2. These two publications are bound together in New College Library, Edinburgh. Although this volume with the three volumes of Geddes's translation of the Bible (Bible I [ 1792], Bible II [ 1797] and CR [ 1800]) has been in that library since the earliest printed catalogue of 1858, very many of the pages were found uncut in 2002. Only the 1792 volume is included in the 'List of Works etc... With an indication of libraries where copies may be found' in Fuller 1984: 156-59.

AULD Alexander Geddes on the Historical Books

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during the last two centuries, to many persons of real genius and learning; and although, in these days of pretended refinement and philosophy, we are too apt to call them pedants, and to depretiate their studies; yet to them we certainly owe a great part of the pleasure which we find in perusing the works of antiquity. But why were not the same pains taken, and the same means employed, to give a correct edition of the Bible? And how is it, that, of all edited books, it still remains the most incorrect that ever came from the press? Was it accounted of less importance than the rest? Not so: both Jews and Christians, the orthodox and the separatist, equally considered it as the richest treasure they could possess; as a code of laws and a system of morality delivered to them from Heaven; the object of their belief and the rule of their conduct; in short, the Book of books; compared with which, all other compositions are trifling and vain. Were the editors, then, ignorant or careless? Quite the contrary: many of them were men of uncommon erudition; and all of them boasted of the incredible pains they had been at, to give to their several editions, as great a degree of perfection, as can be attained by human industry. This was their uniform language, from Bomberg to Vanderhooght; and it must be allowed that, in some respects, their diligence was, at least, equal to their learning.

This superb opening plea for disinterested textual criticism issues in a ringing condemnation of what had gone before (p. 4): Had they exerted the same talents, and taken the same pains to correct the text, by such helps as yet remained; as they employed to preserve and embellish it, in its state of depravation; we might have, long since, been in the possession of a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, as nearly perfect as, at this distance in time, we can reasonably look for.

Jews, Catholics, a Greek bigot (nameless), and Protestants (especially Calvinists) come in for equal criticism. On printed Hebrew Bibles (pp. 4-5): The editors, or at least the correctors of the press, were generally Jews; entirely devoted to their rabbinical prejudices. By these they appretiated the manuscript that was to serve as an archetype for the impression. The Masora was to those text-torturers the bed of Procrustes, to the exact length and breadth of which every word was to be fitted with the greatest precision; and, this pretended standard being once established as infallible, all posterior editions were judged to be accurate or erroneous, only as far as they agreed or disagreed with it.

On the plan of Pius VI to publish Codex Vaticanus (p. 36): It has been lately proposed to the present Pope, to have the Vatican manuscript republished, exactly as it is; and even in the same form and characters;

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The Bible and the Enlightenment and it is with the greatest pleasure we learn that his Holiness has not only approved of the proposal, but has also taken upon himself the whole cost of the impression. This does great honour to Pius VI, and will contribute more to immortalize his memory, than any other event of his reign: his journey to Vienna not excepted.

Yet to this praise in the main text Geddes had to add an unhappy footnote: We are just now informed, but hope the information is false, that this most laudable design has been traversed by the Roman inquisitors; and that, through the councils of a Greek bigot, the Vatican manuscripts are, in nature, to lie on their dusty shelves, untouched and unexplored. If this be true, Ghosts of Carafa,3 Passionei,4 Spinelli, Assemani,5 arise! and drive these Goths and Vandals from the precincts of your old dominion.

The Calvinist tradition of his Scottish homeland seems to have been attacked only indirectly, via Switzerland and the Netherlands. The inspiration of Hebrew vowel points can serve as illustration (p. 67): what could not be done by skill or learning, was done by dint of authority. In the year 1679 a special canon was framed at Geneva and adopted by all the Helvetian churches; by which it was decreed that no one should in future be admitted to the sacred ministry, who did not publicly acknowledge the Masoretic text to be divine and authentic; both as to consonants and vowels.

Geddes adds mischievously (pp. 67-68): They had only one step further to go; and that was, to decree the mysteries of the cabbala to be of divine origin. Although the Geneva canon, backed by reams of annual theses from the Dutch universities, suspended for a while the fate of the Masoretic Dagon, it could not long prevent its downfall.

His concluding 'What then?' is very important (p. 68): But if we reject the Masoretic points and accents, what shall we substitute in their place? Must we divest the text of everything but the bare elements, and divide and explain it as we please? Not as we please but as we ought.

Geddes's review of the history of Bible translation is authoritative. Jerome's 'learning, whether sacred or profane, was not less extensive than 3. Carafa became Pope Paul IV. 4. Cardinal Domenico Passionei (1682-1761), sometime Prefect of the Vatican Library. 5. Joseph Simon Assemani (1687-1768), Maronite orientalist, sometime Prefect of the Vatican Library.


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Origen's; his judgement and taste were more correct and exquisite' (p. 46). Luther and his German Bible are commended, against Catholics and Calvinists (pp. 82-84). When he turns to English versions, he finds Tyndale's translation unsurpassed, and is sorry to see Thomas More among its detractors (p. 89). He claims that the Bishops' Bible is wrongly criticized for departing 'too much from the original, in favour of the Greek and Latin versions' (p. 91). 'Our public version' (his familiar term for the Authorized, or King James Version) 'is rather translated into English words, than into English phrase' (p. 93).6 The books of the Apocrypha are better translated—'not cramped by the fetters of the Masora' (p. 94). At the end of the Prospectus, he returns to the text-critical issue with which he began, though now from the point of view of the interpreter (p. 117). He conjures up a damning image of commentator as alchemist: [TJhough scarcely two interpreters agreed in their explanations, one thing was common to them all. Instead of endeavouring to free the text from the adventitious rubbish, that time and blundering transcribers had heaped upon it; they applied their whole art and industry, to convert that rubbish into genuine ore; or, at least, into such mixt metal, as was current in their own communities.

Marvellous rhetoric; but we know better now. We can no longer simply correct the Hebrew text by recourse to one or more of its daughter versions: we know that there are parallel families of texts. In the narrative books of Samuel and Kings, for example, the Aramaic Targum, the Syriac, the Latin of the Vulgate belong to the same family as the Hebrew text of the Masora; but the author of the books of Chronicles and Flavius Josephus knew a different text of Samuel-Kings such as we find in Hebrew at Qumran, in Greek in the Lucianic text of the Sepruagint (LXX), in Old Latin fragments. All true—and yet our proper concern to plot inner-family textual relationships, taken with our contemporary tolerance of diversity, is in danger of preventing us recognizing 'adventitious rubbish' as such, on any given page in front of us. 7

6. Here quoting Selden. 7. Long before I had read these words of Geddes, I proposed the image of 'the caked-on casing of candle-grease and saliva, that sedimentation of reverence through the ages, which has made many early Byzantine icons too opaque for ongoing piety' (Auld 1988: 249). Although obviously less insulting than Geddes's 'adventitious rubbish', it still did not much please a Scottish (largely Presbyterian) audience some two centuries later!

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The Bible and the Enlightenment Italics in the Authorized Version and Geddes

I want to draw particular attention to his critique of the policy of King James's translators over italicizing what is not in the Hebrew: In fact, either the words in Italics are virtually8 implied in the Hebrew, or they are not. In the former case they are a real part of the text, and should be printed in the same character: in the latter, they are generally ill assorted and clumsy ekes, that may well be spared; and which often disfigure the narration under pretence of connecting it.

It is not entirely clear to me that his own use of italics evades the second element in his own critique of the Authorized Version (AV): 'ekes that may well be spared; and which often disfigure the narration under pretence of connecting it'. The following examples are, I think, typical: in 1 Sam. 26.19, David complains that people have driven him out of the Lord's land, saying 'Go, serve other gods'; but Geddes—perhaps because David was open to blaming God himself for the pressure on him—cautiously adds 'andseem [to say]'. In 1 Sam. 27.3, Abigail becomes 'late wife of NabaF, and is similarly mentioned in 1 Sam. 30.5, as 'lately Nabal's wife'. When Samuel's death is mentioned in 1 Sam. 28.3a, it is certainly long after the next previous mention of him: Geddes transforms the simple 'Samuel was dead' into 'Samuel had been some time dead'. Later in this same narrative about Saul, Samuel, and the 'witch' at Endor (28.13), Geddes adapts Saul's words to read 'I see a god-likefigure ascending'. Still later (28.20), not content with the report that Saul had not eaten 'all day and all night', he makes the last words more precise: 'and thepreceding night'. A lengthy addition sets the divine word in 1 Kgs 6.11-13 in context: ' While the temple was building, the word of the Lord...' But he omits to tell us that this whole passage is lacking from the LXX. In 1 Kgs 9.2, Geddes expands on the indication in the text that 'the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time' by rendering the next clause: 'as he had formerly appeared to him at Gibeon'. 8. Why not simply 'implied or not'? Murray's English Dictionary defines 'virtual' as follows: ' 1. In respect of essence or effect, apart from actual form or specific manner; as far as essential qualities are concerned. 2. In effect, though not formally or explicitly; practically; to all intents; as good as.' Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is almost identical. 9. Or 'additions'—as in 'an ekename', which has become 'a nickname'.


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In 1 Kgs 22.20b, where lying spirit is very much in context, he adds lying to the report of the spirit presenting himself as volunteer before God.10 And in 2 Kgs 11.19, 'house' has been added to give 'by way of the \ictor-house gate'.'! It may be that the only permissible comment on most of these, and many more, is that one translator's 'clumsy eke' is another's elegant addition. However, when David is being released from Philistine service in 1 Sam. 29.10, and his men are re-presented rather like Abigail as 'the servants of thy former master', I suspect that an important nuance is removed from the words of the Philistine Achish. It is also true that Geddes does not acknowledge all his substantial additions. A case in point is 'Now when David beheld the angel, who was smiting the people, he addressed himself to the LORD...' (2 Sam. 24.17). Joining and Separating In the absence of his Critical Remarks, we have to glean from here and there how Geddes viewed the larger and smaller structures of the biblical material he was presenting. On the presence of Joshua in the 1792 volume, he writes: To the Pentateuch I have joined the book of Joshuah, both because I conceive it to have been compiled by the same author, and because it is a necessary appendix to the history contained in the former books. I have found it more difficult to correct the text of this book than that of the Pentateuch, for reasons given in my Critical Remarks, and to which I must once more refer my reader, although they do not appear with this volume, the cause of which requires to be accounted for.12

As for Judges to Kings, The division of the books of Hebrew Scripture, as well as of the chapters and verses, is arbitrary, and often improper. The book of Judges should have concluded with the seventh chapter of 1 Sam. when the people de10. He adds the following footnote: 'Lying is not in the Original; but there is a letter prefixed to spirit equivalent, for the most part, to our definite article. This is the first example which I clearly find, in the Old Testament, of the personification of spirit. For the rest, this whole representation is to be considered as a mere oriental allegory: at least so to me it appears.' 11. Although not a literal equivalent (the Latin lictor is related to the verb 'bind'), this is Geddes's normal rendering of D^m (strictly 'runners'). 12. And, as already noted, they never were published; and possibly were not even completed in manuscript.

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The Bible and the Enlightenment manded and obtained a king: and the rest, to the end of 2 Kings, should have been called the book or books of Kings: as, indeed, they were originally called: but the celebrity of Samuel induced the later Jews to denote two whole books by his name; although his death is related before the end of the first book.

In similar vein, he notes at 1 Kgs 22.50: Here, with Coverdale and Matthew,131 end the first book of Kings: a much more proper division than the common one, which disjoins a part of the same reign.

And yet there is no similar note over the transition from Samuel to Kings, with David still alive albeit infirm, and Solomon not yet anointed. On smaller divisions within the narrative books, we have no clear statement by Geddes. However, we can perhaps extrapolate from the following: By the Jews, the Pentateuch is subdivided into fifty-four sections; which are denominated, sometimes from their initial words, and sometimes from their subject. As they are entirely arbitrary, I have paid no attention to them in the distribution of mine. (Bible I: xxi)

And yet his practice may have been less cavalier than his words. His divisions of the text in the second volume often contain two or more 'open' (petuchah) sections of the Masoretic text (MT). However, the beginnings of most of his sections do correspond to the starts of Masoretic petuchot. I note the exceptions in full as follows: In Joshua, the several differences relate to divisions within the opening seven chapters only, apart from the placing of the portion 8.30-35: Masorah 1.1-18 2.1-3.8 3.9-4.14 4.15-5.8 5.9-6.11 6.12-25 6.26-7.26 18.1-10 18.11-19.51 (Zpetuchoi)

Geddes 1.1-2.24 3.1-5.1 5.2-15 6.1-26 7.1-26 18.1+8.30-3514 18.2-19.5

13. Thomas Matthew is commonly treated as a pseudonym of John Rogers who edited Tyndale's version. 14. Geddes's preference for the LXX reading Shiloh, rather than Shechem, in 24.1, 26, will be related: 'That this is the true reading, appears to me evident from the context' (Bible I: 404).


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In Joshua 1-7, Geddes follows the medieval chapter divisions more closely, while anticipating many a more recent commentator by pausing after 5.1. The appropriate location of what in MT is 8.30-35 appears to have been controversial since antiquity. In Judges, there is only one difference: Masorah 3.12^.24 5.1-31

Geddes 3.12-31 4.1-5.31

In Ruth also, there is only one difference, with MT marking off the closing genealogy: Masorah 1.1-4.17 4.18-22

Geddes 1.1-4.22

Throughout Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, much more variety is exhibited. 1 Samuel: Masorah 1.1-28 2.1-10 2.11-3.10 3.11-21 5.1-7.1 7.2-17

Geddes 1.1-2.1115 2.12-36 3.1-21 5.1-7.216 7.3-17

13.1-14.35 (5 petuchot) 14.36-15.917 15.10-35

13-14 15

18.6-19.10 19.11-20.42 (4 petuchot) 21.1-5 21.6-24.16 24.17-23

18.6-30 19.1-20.4218 21.1-22.5 22.6-23 23-24

15. 1 Sam. 2.11; 7.2; 1 Kgs 2.11; 3.2; 1 Chron. 16.7; 2 Chron. 10.1; 21.4, are all transitional verses. 16. In fact, 8.2a—the beginning of what Geddes calls v. 3 is in fact v. 2b. 17. Both 14.35 and 15.9 conclude paragraphs in Geddes's translation—but not sections. 18. Geddes's divisions of 1 Samuel are misnumbered from this point—chs. 19-20 comprise div. 14, and 21.1-22.5 is div.16: there is no div. 15.


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25.1-26.9 26.10-28.2 (6petuchot)

25 26.1-28.219

Masorah 2.1-9 (6 petuchot) 2.10-3.5 3.6-39 (4 petuchot)

Geddes 2

13.1-33 (2petuchot) 13.34-14.7 14.8-33 (5 petuchot) 15.1-17.13 (4petuchot) 17.14-19.29 19.30-20.19 20.20-21.14 21.15-22 (3 petuchot) 23.8-39

13.1-37

2 Samuel:

3

13.38-14.33 15.1-19.8 19.9-40 19.41-20.26 21.1-14 21.15-22 + 23.8-39,20

1 and 2 Kings: Masorah 2.1-10 2.11-22 2.23-3.2 3.3-15 3.16-23 3.24-5.1 5.2-25 5.26-32 8.1-11 8.12-53 8.54-9.1 9.222-9 11.1-10 11.11-25 11.26-12.17

Geddes 2.1-11 2.12-3.121 3.2-28

4-5

8

9.1-9 11 12.1-24

19. With MT Geddes has divisions starting at 1 Sam. 18.6 and 28.3. 20. Geddes's final two sections (19 and 20) of 2 Samuel are ch. 24 and 22.1-23.7 (in that order). 21. Geddes includes after 3.1 a verse from one of the LXX Miscellanies. 22. Where divine revelation or initiative is signalled in the text, MT prefers to start a fresh S-section at that point.

AULD Alexander Geddes on the Historical Books 12.18-21 12.22-33 13.1-14.20 (Spetuchoi) 22.41-1.17aa 1.17aj3-18 2.1 -25 (2 petuchof)

22.51-2.25

11.1-12.1 (2 petuchof) 12.2-22 3^we/70

11.1-20 11.21-12.2123

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12.25-14.20 22.41-50

1 Chronicles: Masorah 2.1-3.9 3.1024^.14 4.15-5.10 5.\\-26 (3petuchof) 5.27-6.15 6.16-3426 6.35-66 7.30-8.40 9.1-34 9.35-44

Geddes 2.1-17 2.18-55 3 4.1-23 4.24-43 5.1-26 6.1-1525 6.16-8127 7.30-40 8.1-9.1 9.2-3328

12.1-23 12.24-41

12.1-22 12.23-40

\4.\-\6.1 (5 petuchot)

14

16.8-43 (2 petuchof) 21.1-26(3ê/wc/zoO

15.1-16.6 16.7-43 21.1-22.1

23. Corresponding to 12.1-22 in the Hebrew text. 24. MT makes a fresh start with Solomon, rather than David, in the Judah geneal-

ogy25. In Geddes, as in most English versions, 6.1-15 correspond to 5.27-41 in the Hebrew. 26. That is 6.31 -49 in English versions. 27. That is all of ch. 6 in Hebrew. 28. Geddes removes 9.34-44 from their given place and uses them to replace the very similar genealogy of Gibeon in 8.29-32(40?), as he explains on p. 276: 'I have incorporated the ten last verses of ch. ix which are indeed a mere repetition, with some better various readings, as marked above'.

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The Bible and the Enlightenment 21.27-22.4 22.5-19

22.2-19

2 Chronicles: Masorah 1.1-2.1 2.2-9 2.10-15 2.16-4.18 4.19-5.1 5.2-6.42 7.1-22

Geddes 1

10.1-11.1 II.2-12.16 (3petuchof) 13.1-20 13.21-23 14.1-6 14.7-15.9 15.10-16.14 17.1-21.3 (7 petuchof) 21.4-11 21.12-22.1 22.2-12 23.1-15 23.16-24.14 24.15-27 (2 petuchof) 25.1-24 (4petuchof) 25.25-26.2 26.3-23 34.1-35.24 (4petuchof) 35.25-36.4 36.5-23 (4petuchof)

10 11-12

2 3.1-5.1 5.2-7.10 7.11-22

13.1-14.1 14.2-16.14 17.1-21.4 21.5-22.1 22.2-23.21 24 25 26 34.1-36.1 36.2-2129

The Text-Critic Geddes is prepared to emend or re-order the text on his own initiative, as over the Gibeonite genealogies in 1 Chronicles 8-9, or the altar on Mt Ebal in Joshua. He takes verses of Joshua 3 in the order 5, 7, 8, 6, 9 and rejects 12 as an interpolation: 'Those who think otherwise, may easily restore the 29. The truncation is explained on p. 367: 'The last two verses of this chapter, being the same with the three first verses of Ezra, will be found there in their proper place at the head of volume third'.


193

passages to their former places' (Bible I: 367).30 But more often he has versional support, especially from the LXX. He follows its much shorter text for David and Goliath. As for the long plus after 1 Kgs 12.24, he writes (Bible II: 182): Here, in the Roman and Aldine editions of the Septuagint, there are about 50 verses out of their place, with considerable variations from the present text; the chief of which 1 have marked in their proper places.

Much the same argument can issue in different results. The phrase 'nor in Bethel' (Josh. 8.17) is still printed (Bible I: 376), despite the comment: 'wanting in SEP. and has much the air of an interpolation'. On the other hand, Josh. 10.15 is not printed in the main text (p. 380): 'a manifest interpolation, yet in all the copies and versions, except that of SEP'. However, Geddes is far from consistent: although Josh. 10.43 repeats the information in 10.15 and is equally lacking from LXX, he includes it in his main text without comment. He gleefully notes on 1 Kgs 22.30—'In all the yet known Hebrew copies, there is here a capital corruption. They make Ahab say: Disguise thou thyself, &c. But all the antient versions, except the Vulgate, read aright. SeeC.R.' Some of his emendations have entered critical orthodoxy without his receiving credit, such as "pQ for *]^7Q at the end of 2 Kings 6 (Bible II: 219): 'All the copies and versions have messenger; but it is an evident corruption, to me at least; and the true reading is king'.31 Modern commentaries attribute this correction to Wellhausen or Stade. Geddes as Historian Geddes knew his sources for background information. He knew from Eusebius, for example, that it was twelve miles from Samaria to Dothan (Bible II: 218 n. on v. 19). Josephus he was very often happy to learn from, or agree with, as on Judges 19-21:

30. Somewhat similarly, on the end of 1 Kgs 22: 'The text has here been strangely misarranged. 1 have endeavoured to restore it to what I think must have been the primitive order. I have, however, made no transposition but of whole verses; except a part of ver.43. which I place after ver.46. and of ver.48 which I place after ver.49' (Bible II: 206 n. on v. 50). 31. It is interesting that he has no similar comment to make on the confusion between the same two words in 2 Sam. 11.1 (compare 1 Chron. 20.1).

194

The Bible and the Enlightenment The history here recorded is, in Josephus, placed after the expedition of the Ephraimites to Bethel (recorded c.1.22). It is plain from c.20.28, that it happened while Phinehas was high priest: and therefore is here entirely out of its place. (Bible II: 38)

And, as for the preceding Judges 17 (Bible II: 35), The piece of history, contained in this and the next chapter, is totally out of its place, and must have happened long before; perhaps soon after the death of Joshuah, and his cotemporaries. There is not a word of it in Josephus.

But he could also be scathing about the early Jewish historian (Bible II: ix): It would be endless to quote all the instances of his abandoning the Sacred Text, and inserting his own Livian-like harangues, in lieu of the simple narrative of his originals.

He was interested in realia, such as topography and ancient architecture— two examples first from Joshua. On the south boundary of the children of Joseph (Josh. 16) he sounds entirely modern: it is no easy matter to trace it on the best maps. Several of the names are not known; and some interpreters have imagined that the first seven verses have been misplaced. See C.R. I have followed the present order, and made the best of it I could. (Bible I: 390)

Then, within Joshua 19 (p. 395): The description of the boundaries of Zebulun is hardly intelligible: and our best geographers have been extremely puzzled how to place them. I have ventured to form a new topography. See the map, and C.R.32

What the hammer-wielding hostess in Judges 4 offered Sisera was, according to Geddes (Bible II: 9, 175), Oxygal, or sour camel's milk; which is not only very cooling, but also inebriates. Jael had already premeditated the audacious deed, of murdering her credulous guest.

Sheba, he tells us, is Marib in the most eastern part of Arabia. 'The scorpion', with which Rehoboam threatened Israel at Shechem, 'was a cruel engine of punishment. It was, as we learn from Ephraem, a long bag of leather filled with sand, and stuck full of spikes' (Bible II: 180). 32. Would this have been a map 'within C.R.'?


195

Discussing 'brooks' or 'ravines' in the Elijah story, he compares the clefts in the biblical hill-country with the 'northern parts of this island' (p. 192 n. on v. 233). He compares Elisha's raising of the dead child by stretching himself on him, face to face, with the Humane Society's means: 'warmth and insufflation' (p. 214).34 Another analogy familiar to (at least some of) his readers comes in a remark on the Hall of Pillars in 1 Kgs 7.6: The present Hebrew text is to me unintelligible; and so are all the versions of it that I have seen. By a small alteration, which I trust will appear to be reasonable, I have made sense of it. The porch was probably in the form of a piazza. The pillars were placed at some distance from the wall, either on one side only, or all around; and that space was covered with a thick flooring, to keep out the rain and afford a shady walk. Before those pillars was the open part of the porch; as Covent Garden is before the pillars of the piazza there.

And he adds that we 'still want a good treatise on oriental architecture' (Bible E: 166). When commenting on these narrative books, Geddes is concerned to separate the reportage from the teaching. The extirpation of the Canaanites, for example, was 'neither from God nor Moses, but some posterior Jew' (Bible II: ii). Hebrew historians, like all historians, had written from sources (p. iii). Moses was inspired as legislator, but not as historian (p. iv). The combination of these points suggests to me that not even all the legislation attributed to Moses was inspired—perhaps rather like the Pope's utterances being infallible only in certain circumstances. His note on the contents of the copy of the law of Moses, which Joshua wrote on stones according to Josh. 8.32, may be relevant here: Not of the whole Pentateuch; not even of the whole law, as it lies scattered in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers: but either the whole of Deuteronomy, or sections 20 and 21. The Greek and Arabic translators were clearly of opinion that the whole of Deuteronomy was meant. (Bible I: 393)

33. Geddes adds within this footnote:'I have known them serve for hiding-places in troublesome time'. He will have had in mind the sanctuary provided by the Banffshire mountains and glens of his youth—see the historical essay by T.M. Devine in the present volume. 34. The Royal Humane Society had been recently founded in 1774, 'for the rescue of drowning persons'. 35. Sections 20-21 correspond to chs. 27-28. He would later urge that it was quite possible for the whole of Deuteronomy to have been engraved on a wall of 34 broad stones, one for each chapter (CR: 449).

196


Geddes adds: I beg leave to observe that we have no intrinsic evidence of inspiration or any thing like inspiration, in the Jewish historians. On the contrary, it is impossible, I think, to read them, devoid of any theological prepossessions, not to discover in them evident marks of human fallibility and human error. To do them justice, indeed, they nowhere arrogate to themselves that high privilege which posterior credulity has so generously conferred on them... as uninspired historians, they claim the same indulgence as we grant to other historical writers: we estimate their abilities, genius, style, judgment, and veracity, by the same rules of comparative criticism. (Bible II: v)

Interested in history he is, and also aware of exactly where important problems reside; and yet we now find him much too credulous about biblical information. As we have seen, he relocates Judges 17-21; but does not question their verisimilitude. The reports in 1 Chron. 29.6-9 of clan donations towards the future temple are simple evidence that the Daric coin was current in the time of David (Bible II: 311).36 The mention of Jonah in 2 Kgs 14.25 triggers the comment: 'the same who was sent to Nineve', so dating his mission (p. 234). Commenting on Joshua who, in his farewell speech, has the Lord say 'I made hornets precede you', Geddes observes that this had been promised in Exodus and Deuteronomy: 'Yet we do not read of its having happened in the conquest of Chanaan. It must, however, have happened; or it could not have thus publicly been appealed to' (Bible I: 405 n. on v. 12). The synoptist in myself became excited when I read in the Introduction to the 1797 volume that Geddes had earlier intended to present Kings and Chronicles in parallel—to show 'the history with all its varieties' (p. xvi). Yet Geddes's synoptic interests in these books are very different from my own. He is not concerned to probe the differing reports of Kings and Chronicles for evidence of their gradual divergence: he is a harmonizer. He finds at 2 Kgs 12.16 'a chasm37 here to be filled up from 2 Chr 24.1522' (Bible II: 230). The account of Josiah's passover in 2 Kgs 23.21 is 'more fully related in 2 Chr ch. 25 [sic]'.38 When he comes to the Levitical cities (pp. 270-72), he makes several transpositions and corrections on the basis of Joshua 21. Given his harmonizing tendencies, I find it all the more interesting that he includes the Hymn of Manasseh from Isaiah 38 at the 36. books 37. 38.

He does not observe that this Persian coin is mentioned otherwise only in the of Ezra and Nehemiah. A favourite exaggeration for gaps that are mostly well short of a wide crack. This mistake of 25 for 35 (Bible II: 252) is repeated (p. 253) in a note on v. 29.


197

end of his second volume, but without discussion there or during his presentation of 2 Kings 18-20 of the alternative version in Isaiah 36-39 of the story of Hezekiah, Isaiah, and the deliverance of Jerusalem.39 It was all the more difficult for Geddes, when there was no parallel to appeal to, as on 1 Chron. 6.29-30—'This is a very lame genealogy; nor have we any helps to supply its chasms' (p. 269). Only a few pages earlier (p. 261), he had noted sadly on the sons of Chaleb: If this Chaleb were the brother of Jerahmeel, as he here is called, he must be the same with the Chaleb or Chelubi in verses 9 and 18. In this case, his progeny here mentioned must be by some other wife than either Azuba or Ephratha. But indeed there is so great a confusion in this and some other genealogies, that there is no clearing one's way among them. Origen made the same complaint fifteen hundred years ago.

Sometimes, of course, it is appropriate not to over-emphasize apparent divergences. Geddes is sensible on the opening of the variant versions of the story of David's census. On 2 Samuel 24: He set David against them, &c. In Chronicles, it is Satan (the Adversary) who suggests this idea to David. It comes, however, to the same thing. In the Hebrew theology, God is immediately, or mediately, the author of every event, good or bad. The writer of Chronicles seems only to have softened the expression... For the rest, it is not easy to see in what David's guilt consisted. It is plain, however, from the context, that the measure was unpopular; and disagreeable even to the courtiers themselves.

Then, on 1 Chronicles 21.1: Satan, i.e. the Adversary, In the parallel place, 2 Sam. 24.1. God is said to have tempted David; and this is perfectly consonant with the theology of that time. The writer or compiler of Chronicles, who lived after the Babylonish captivity, seems to have imbibed the doctrine of a good and bad spirit; and makes the latter tempt David.

Translation Decisions Sampled Rahab of Joshua 2 is An harlot; for this, I think, is the true meaning of the Hebrew word: although the Jewish commentators have endeavoured to wrest from it another signification, namely, an inn-keeper; probably lest the royal house of David

39. Just one footnote (on p. 247) does mention 'P. P. Is. of 39.2'.

198

The Bible and the Enlightenment might not appear to be derived from a prostitute: if, indeed, the mother of Booz and the Rahab of Jericho be the same. (Bible I: 365)

His rendering (Bible I: 370) of Josh. 5.2 is a mix of the Hebrew and Greek texts: 'Prepare sharp knives, and circumcise anew the children of Israel'. He notes, 'Some render knives of stone; i.e. of flint' —to my surprise, for that is the Hebrew text. At the other end of the circumcision report he notes: 'The reproach of the Egyptians; i.e. if I rightly understand the passage, the Egyptians (who certainly practised circumcision) can no more reproach you for omitting it. See other interpretations in C.R.' As for Josh. 6.5, his note (p. 371) on the rather free 'When ye shall hear the sound of the jubilee-trumpets lengthened out &c' again takes me aback: 'There is here in the Hebrew a word, which seems to indicate that the trumpets were of horn'. 'Seems to indicate' exhibits curious caution in one normally so decisive, especially when ]"lp does just mean 'horn', in both senses of that term. On the still notorious crux in Josh. 15.18, Geddes writes (Bible I: 389): Alighted from her ass. The meaning of the Hebrew word, here rendered alighted, is not clearly ascertained. Some imagine that it should be translated, she sat still on her ass. She lingered, as if she wanted something. The Greek translators and S. Jerom seem to have read differently: the former make Achsa to cry, and the latter to sigh. The Arab, translator seems to have thought that she only bended her head, without dismounting.

On Josh. 18.6, he comments: Houbigant thinks this verse out of its place; and incorporates it, by parcels, into vv. 4, 5, and 8. The manner I have rendered it, takes away every apparency of confusion: — 'but let the rest of the land be described into seven shares, and let the description be brought hither to me; that here I may cast lots for you, in the presence of the Lord'.

The agent, who in Judg. 2.1 from AV to RSV has 'gone up from Gilgal to Bochim' as 'the angel of the Lord', becomes instead his 'messenger': The Hebrew word signifies either a messenger or an angel. The context here, seems to require the former; and so it is understood by our best modern critics. He was probably some prophet, who resided at Gilgal. (Bible II: 3 n. on 2.1)

Geddes so translates miT " [ K f t only in Judg. 2.1, 4 and 5.23.40 40. It may be worthy of note that Geddes often renders the first instance of m!T ~\$bft within a narrative by 'an angel of the LORD'.


199

As for the place name in Judg. 18.7—'All the copies have Laish; but, as it is written Leshem in Joshuah, I have retained that name, for the sake of uniformity'. In David's capture of Jerusalem according to 2 Samuel 5 he finds Sentinels and patrols. This I take to be the true meaning of the words commonly rendered the blind and the lame. The rest of the passage, which is confessedly very difficult, I have endeavoured to make intelligible, by inserting the necessary supplements from Chronicles, where the same history is told in a clear though more concise manner. (Bible II: 108 second n. on 5.6)

2 Samuel 7.23 'is somewhat perplexed in the original; but all the versions are still more so; and hardly intelligible. Mine I think is clear; and I think expressive of the true meaning' (Bible II: 113). And, defending 'in the land of their captivers' (for DiTÊ pKD) in 1 Kgs 8.47, he writes: 'I have risked this new term, as more expressive of the Hebrew; and as being perfectly analogous to English grammar' (p. 171). He renders Omri's new foundation in 1 Kgs 16.24 (Bible II: 191) as Samaria, from Samar. In the Hebrew, according to the Masoretical punctuation, there is Shomron, from Shemer. But as the town is always called Samaria in the New Testament, and in our public version of the Old, I retain that name; and call its first owner Samar; the better to shew the derivation.

In similar vein, he introduces the great prophet a few verses later (17.1) as Elias. The Hebrew name, according to the Masoretic punctuation, is Eliiau: but I prefer Elias with our first translators, because he is so called in the New Testament.

Here and there Geddes brings the bard into his discussion of military terms, as on 2 Sam. 23.9 where he defends 'broke through' for the word commonly rendered 'slain': 'Shakespeare would have said: "carved out his passage"' (Bible II: 141). Then on 'attack' in 1 Kgs 20.12, he notes 'In Shakespeare's time the word set on was used in this sense; which more nearly approaches the Hebrew word [IQ"1^]' (p. 200). The well-known paragraph which opens the books of Kings can serve nicely to illustrate his mode of translating (Bible II: 151): David was now old, and so far advanced in days, that, although they covered him up in 6eJ-clothes, he got no warmth. His servants, therefore, said to him: 'Let a young woman, a virgin, be sought out for my-lord king: and let her wait upon him, and nurse him, and lie in his bosom; that my-lord king may get warmth'. So they sought for a beautiful young woman, and

200

The Bible and the Enlightenment found Abishag, a Shunamite; whom they brought to the king. She was a most beautiful young woman; and nursed the king, and waited on him: but the king had no carnal commerce with her.

We should note the subordination in the first verse; the passive 'be sought out' for the impersonal l£pT (as in AV); and the way in which 'wait on' is used for two Hebrew expressions, both ''US 7 "TQU and mttf. By use of italics, he admits to only one addition: '6ed-clothes'. We should deduce that Geddes held that 'had no carnal commerce with her' was an actual implicate of the Hebrew 'knew her not'. He is not always so coy about identifications, as over Rahab and the mother of Boaz. Describing Adonijah's later request for Abishag as imprudent, he writes (Bible II: 155): The whole haram of an eastern king was a part of the regal succession. It was treason for a subject to claim any wife or virgin, who had been once in that cloister. Hence Solomon's positive denial of the request, though presented by the queen mother. Besides, the king himself might be in love with Abishag: nay, I am persuaded that she is the Shulamite of his song.

Commenting on 'a double portion [of Elijah's spirit for Elisha]' in 2 Kgs 2.9, he says: As was given to the first-born. Elishah was to succeed Elias as chief of the remaining prophets. I am not sure, however, if the text would not be better rendered: A repetition of thy spirit: a duplicate. See C.R. (Bible II: 209)

The way terms relating to prophecy in the widest sense are rendered is always instructive. The l^Q who anointed Elisha, and was a 'madfellow' in AV (2 Kgs 9.11), becomes a 'fanatic', a term which a century before Geddes had become current for nonconformist or sectary. Then, over against 'our public version', which renders the verbal forms of KDD by 'prophesy' whatever the context, he anticipates current diversity somewhat alarmingly with'[Saul] was phrenzy-struck' (1 Sam. 18.10); 'prophetize' of the bands of prophets whom Saul encountered in 1 Samuel 10 and 19, and Elias in 1 Kings 18; and elsewhere, the familiar 'prophesy' (w. 8,12). Afterword What is most attractive about Geddes's work is its freshness and its clarity. The downside is his willfulness. He complains of the accretion of adventitious rubbish over the ages; yet some of his own efforts at restoration, for all their elegance, do make the history harder—not easier—to see.

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Alter, R. 1981 The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books). Anderson, R.D. Scottish Education Since the Reformation (Studies in Scottish Economic and 1997 Social History, 5; Stirling: Economic and Social History Society of Scotland). Ardy, J.F. 'Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages, tant imprimes que manuscrits, du 1806 P. Houbigant', Magasin encyclopedique (May): 123-49. Aring, P.O. 'Rautenstrauch, Franz Stephan', mBBKL 14: 1399-400. 1998 Armogathe, J.-R. (ed.) 1989 Le Grand siecle et la Bible (Bible de tous les temps, 6; Paris: Beauschesne). Ashley, T.R. The Book of Numbers (N1COT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans). 1993 Aspinwall, B 1977 'The Last Laugh of a Humane Faith: Dr Alexander Geddes 1737-1801 [sic]\ New Blackfriars 58: 333-40. Aubert, R., et al. Die Kirche in der Gegenwart. I. Die Kirche zwischen Revolution und 1971 Restauration (Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, 6/1; Freiburg: Herder) (published in English as Hubert Jedin and John Dolan [eds.], History of the Church. VII. The Church between Revolution and Restoration [London: Burns & Gates, 1980]). Auld, A.G. 'Word of God and Word of Man: Prophets and Canon', in L. Eslinger and 1988 G. Taylor (eds.), Ascribe to the Lord: Biblical and Other Studies in Memory of Peter C. Craigie (JSOTSup, 67; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press): 237-51. Auvray, P. Richard Simon 1638-1712. Etude bio-bibliographique (Paris: Presses uni1974 versitaires de France).

202 Baentsch, B. 1903 Baird, W. 1992

The Bible and the Enlightenment Exodus-Leviticus-Nwneri (HAT, 1.2; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprech History of New Testament Research. I. From Deism to Tubingen (Minneapolis: Fortress Press).

Barr, J. The Concept of Biblical Theology (London: SCM Press). 1999 Barthelemy, D. Critique textuelle de I 'Ancien Testament. I. Josue, Juges, Ruth, Samuel, Rois, 1982 Chroniques, Esdras, Nehemie, Esther (OBO, 50.1; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Freiburg: Universitatsverlag). Barton, J. People of the Book? (London: SPCK). 1993 Basker, J.G. 'Scotticisms and the Problem of Cultural Identity in Eighteenth Century 1991 Britain', in J. Dwyer and R.B. Sher (eds.), Eighteenth Century Life: Sociability and Society in Eighteenth Century Scotland (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press): 81-95. Bautz, F.W. 'Dereser, Thaddaeus a Sancto Adama (Taufname: Anton)', in BBKL 1: 1990a 1263-64. 'Hontheim, Johann Nikolaus v.', in BBKL 2: 1040-42. 1990b Belaval, Y., and D. Bourel (eds.) 1986 Le siecle des Lumieres et la Bible (Bible de tous les temps, 7; Paris: Beauchesne). Blair, H. 1783 Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (London: W. Strahan & T. Cadell). Blau, J.L. 1959 'Tradition and Innovation', in J.L. Blau, A. Hertzberg, P. Friedman and I. Mendelsohn (eds.), Essays on Jewish Life and Thought Presented in Honor ofSalo Wittmayer Baron (New York: Columbia University Press): 95-103. Blum, E. 1990 Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (BZAW, 189; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Bochart, S. 1663 Hierozoicon sive bipertitum opus de Animalibus Sacrae Sripturae 1663 (London: Tho. Roycroft, Joh. Martyn & Jac. Allestry) (subsequent editions in 1675 in Frankfurt [Zunner], in 1692 and 1712 in Leiden [Boutesteyn & Luchtmans] and Utrecht [G. van de Water], and by E.F.K. Rosenmuller in 1793-1796 in Leipzig [3 volumes; Weidman], with notes). Bodenheimer, F.S. 1962 'Fauna', in IDB, II: 246-56. Bonfrere, J. 1625 Pentateuchus Moysis commentario illustratus; praemissis, quae ad totius Scripturae intelligentiam manuducant, praeloquiis perutilibus (Antwerp: Plantin).

Cumulative Bibliography Bourel, D. 1984 Brandl, M. 1978

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'L''Aujklarung de la theologie', Recherche de Science Religieuse 72:333-58. Die deutschen katholischen Theologen der Neuzeit: ein Repertorium. II. Aujklarung (Salzburg: Neugebauer).

Brentano, D. von 1791-92 Die heilige Schrift des Neuen Testaments. II. Theile. Auf Befehl des hochwurdigsten Fursten und Herrn, Herrn Rupert II. Abts des furstlichen Hochstifts Kempten (Frankfurt: Varrentrapp & Wenner) (A third 'vermehrte, verbesserte und mit Kupfern versehene Auflage' with '3 Theile' was published in 1798). 1797a Die heilige Schrift des Alien Testaments. Erster Theil, welcher die fiinf Bticher Mosis enthdlt (Frankfurt: Varrentrapp & Wenner). 1797b Die heilige Schrift des Alien Testaments. Dritten The Us Erster Band, welcher die Psalmen enthdlt (Frankfurt: Varrentrapp & Wenner). Brentano, D. von , and T.A. Dereser 1800 Die heilige Schrift des Allen Testaments. Dritten Theils zweyter Band, welcher die Spriichworter, den Prediger, das hohe Lied, das Buch der Weisheit und Jesus Sirach enthdlt (Frankfurt: Varrentrapp & Wenner). Broadie, A. 2001 The Scottish Enlightenment: The Historical Age of the Historical Nation (Edinburgh: Birlinn) Broadie, A. (ed.) 1997 The Scottish Enlightenment: An Anthology (Canongate Classics, 80: Edinburgh: Canongate). Budd, P.J. 1984 Numbers (WBC, 5; Waco, TX: Word Books). Bultmann, C. Die biblische Urgeschichte in der Aufklarung (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul 1999 Siebeck]). 2001 'Philosophic und Exegese bei W.M.L. de Wette', in H.P. Mathys and K. Seybold (eds.), Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (Basel: Schwabe Verlag): 44-61. Burnett, A. 2002 'Restoring the King's Library: A Glittering Prospect for the Museum's 250th Anniversary', British Museum Magazine 42: 10-14. Butterwick, R. Poland's Last King and English Culture: Stanislaw August Poniatowski. 1998 1732-1798 (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Buxtorf, J. Institutio epistolaris hebraica... (Basel: L. Regis). 1629 Byrne, P. Natural Religion and the Nature of Religion (London: Routledge). 1989 The Moral Interpretation of Religion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University 1998 Press). Calmet, A. Commentaire litteral sur tous les livres de I 'ancien et du nouveau testament 1706-17 (23 vols.; Paris: P. Emery).

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Histoire ecclesiastique et civile de Lorraine (4 vols.; Nancy: J.-B. Cusson). Dissertations sur les apparitions des anges, des demons et des esprits, et sur les revenans et vampires de Hongrie, de Boheme, de Moravie et de Silesie (Paris: De Bure 1'aisne). Carpenter, J.E., and G. Harford-Battersby (eds.) 1900 The Hexateuch According to the Revised Version, Arranged in its Constituent Documents by Members of the Society of Historical Theology, Oxford (London: Longmans, Green & Co.). Carruthers, G. 1999 'Alexander Geddes and the Burns "Lost Poems" Controversy', Studies in Scottish Literature 31:81-85. Chatelet-Lomond, G.-E. de Breteuil, Marquise du forthcoming Examens de la Bible (ed. Bertram Eugene Schwarzbach; Paris: Honore Champion). Cheyne, T.K. 1893 Founders of Old Testament Criticism (London: Methuen & Co.). Childs, B.S. 1974 Exodus: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press). 1993 Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Minneapolis: Fortress Press). Chinnici, J.P. 1980 The English Catholic Enlightenment, John Lingardand'the Cisalpine Movement, 7730-7S50(Shepherdstown: Patmos). Coats, G.W. (ed.) 1985 Saga, Legend, Tale, Novella, Fable: Narrative Forms in Old Testament Literature (JSOTSup, 35; Sheffield: JSOT). Colomies, P. 1665 Gallia orientalis, sive Gallorum qui linguam hebraeam vel alia orientalis ecolurunt vitae (The Hague: A. Ulacq). Cotoni, M.-H. 1984 L'exegese du nouveau testament dans la philosophic francaise du dixhuitieme siecle (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 220; Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation). Daiches, D., P. Jones and J. Jones (eds.) 1996 The Scottish Enlightenment 1730-1790: A Hotbed of Genius (repr., Edinburgh: Saltire Society [1986]). Dathe, J.A. (ed.) 1777 Briani Waltoni in Biblia Polyglotta Prolegomena (Leipzig: Weygand). 1781 Pentateuchus ex recensione textus Hebraici et versionum antiquarum latine versus, notisquephilologicis et criticis illustratus (Halle: Orphanotrophei). 1791 Pentateuchus ex recensione textus hebraei et versionum antiquarum latine versus notisque philologicis et criticis illustratus (Halle: n.p.). Davie, G. 1961 The Democratic Intellect (Edinburgh University Publications: History, Philosophy and Economics, 12; Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). Davies, E.W. 1995 Numbers (NCBC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).

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De Rossi, G.B. 1782 Specimen variarum lectionum sacri textus etchaldaica estheris additamenta cum latina versione ac notis : ex singulari codice privatae bibliothecae Pii VI edidit variisque dissertationibus illustravit loannes Bernardus de Rossi (Rome: Venatii Monaldini). 1784-88 Variae lectiones Veteris Testamenti ex immensa mss. editorumq. codicum congerie haustae (4 vols.; Parma: ex Regio Typographeo). 1798 Scholia critica in V.T. Hbros, seu Supplementa ad varias sacri textus lectiones (Parma: ex Regio Typographeo). 1809 Memorie storiche sugli studj e sulleproduzioni del dottore G. Bernardo DeRossi (Parma: Stamperia Imperiale). 1812 Libri stampati di letteratura sacra ebraica ed orientale delta biblioteca Bernardo De Rossi (Parma: Stamperia Imperiale). 1817 Introduzione alia S. Scrittura che comprende le prenozioni piii importanti relative ai testi originali e alle loro versioni (Parma: Stamperia Ducale). 1819 Sinopsi della ermeneutica sacra o dell 'arte di ben interpretare la sacra scrittura (Parma: Stamperia Ducale). Dereser, T.A. Necessitas linguarum orientalium ad S. Scripturam intelligendam, vindi1783 candam ac dogmatafidei inde probandam (Cologne: n.p.). 1786 Die Sendungsgeschichte des Propheten Jona kritisch untersucht und von Widerspruchen gerettet, von Thadddus von heiligem Adam (Bonn: Universitats Buchdrukerey bei J.F. Abshoven). Commentatio biblica in effatum Christi Matth. 16, 18, 19. Dissertatio 1789 (Cologne: n.p.). 1792 Erbauungsbuch fur katholische Christen auf alle Tage des Kirchenjahrs. Deutsches Brevier fur Stiftsdamen, Klosterfrauen undjeden guten Christen (4 vols.; Augsburg: n.p.). Die heilige Schrift des Alien Testaments. Zweyten Theils erster Band, 1801a welcher die Bucher Josua, Richter, Ruth und Samuels enthdlt (Frankfurt: Varrentrapp & Wenner). Die heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments. Zweyten Theils zweyter Band, 1801b welcher die Bucher der Konige, der Chronik, Esra und Nehemia enthdlt (Frankfurt: Varrentrapp & Wenner). Die heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments. Vierten Theils erster Band, welcher 1808 den Propheten Jesaias enthdlt (Frankfurt: Varrentrapp & Wenner). Grammatica hebraica: cum notis masorethicis ac dictis quibusdam veteris 1813 Testamenti classicis (Frankfurt: Varrentrapp, 2nd edn). Diestel, L. Geschichte des Alten Testamentes in der christlichen Kirche (Jena: Mauke's 1869 Verlag [Hermann Dufft]). Dijk, C.F.M. van 'The Wayward Muse of Alexander Geddes' (unpublished masters disserta2000 tion). Dillmann, A. Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua (Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch 1886 zum Alten Testament; Leipzig: S. Hirsel).

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Cumulative Bibliography Fourmont, M. 1746 Fuller, R.C. 1968

1984 Geddes, A. 1779

1786

1787a

1787b

1788

1790a

1790b 1790c 1792-97

1792a 1792b

1794

207

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Nomenclator literarius recentioris theologiae catholicae theologos exhibens qui inde a Concilia Tridentinofloruerunt aetate, natione, disciplinis distinctos. V.I. Aetas recens: sec. 3um post Cone. Trid., ab anno 1764-1869 ([Innsbruck]: Wagner, 3rd edn, rev. and enlarged). Hutton, J. (with an Introduction by G.Y. Craig) 1987 The 1785 Abstract of James Hutton's Theory of the Earth (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press). Ilgen, K.D. 1798 Die Urkunden des Jerusalemischen Tempelarchivs in ihrer Urgestalt als Beytrag zur Berichtigung der Geschichte der Religion und Politik (Halle: n.p.) Irving, D. 1804 The Lives of the Scotish [sic] Poets, II (Edinburgh: Robertson [New York/ London: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1972]). Isenbiehl, J.L. 1778 Neuer Versuch fiber die Weissagung vom Emmanuel. Erster Theil, von der Weissagung Jesaia. Zweyter Theil, von dem Gebrauche dieser Weissagung in dem Evangelio Matthdi (n.p. [see, however, n. 10 of Conroy's contribution to the present volume]). Jacques, X. 1968 'Les cailles etaient-elles empoisonnees? A propos d'une contribution recente a un probleme deja ancien', Science et Esprit 20: 247-68. Jahn, J. 1793 Einleitung in die gottlichen Schriften des Alien Bundes (Vienna: Wappler). [The second 'ganz umgearbeitete Auflage' was published in two Parts (four tomes) under the title Einleitung in die Gottlichen Bticher des Alien Bundes (Vienna: C.F. Wappler & Beck, 1802-1803). I. The General Introduction (= tome 1 [1802]); II. The Special Introduction (tomes 2-4 [1803]). 1796-1805 Biblische Archdologie (5 vols.; Vienna: Wappler) (the second 'verbesserte, vermehrte und zum Theil umgearbeitete Auflage' was published, also in 5 vols., under the same title [Vienna: Beck, 1807-15]). 1804 Introductio in libros sacros veterisfoederis in compendium redacta (Vienna: Beck) (the second revised edition was: Introductio in libros sacros veteris foederis in epitomen redacta [Vienna: Beck, 1814]). 1805 Archaeologia biblica in compendium redacta (Vienna: Wappler & Beck) (the second revised edition was: Archaeologia biblica in epitomen redacta [Vienna: Heubner & Volke, 1814]). 1806 Biblia hebraica digessit et graviores lectionum varietates adjecit (4 vols.; Vienna: Wappler & Beck).

Cumulative Bibliography 1812 1814 1821

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Jones, C. 1995 Jourdain, C. 1862

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211

Enchiridion hermeneuticae generalis tabularum veteris et novi foederis (Vienna: in libraria Camesinae). Introductio in libros sacros veterisfoederis in compendium redacta (Vienna: Beck) (the 2nd and rev. edn of the 1804 work listed above). Nachtrdge zu seinen theologischen Werken, von ihm anvertraut einem seiner Freunde im Auslande, und nach seinem Tode von diesem herausgegeben, nebst glaubhaftem Zeugnisse uber die Conformitdt dieses A bdrucks mil dem handschriftlichen Original des Verewigten (Tubingen: Heinrich Laupp). Developments in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland 1789-1829 (Edinburgh: Donald). 'Secular Clergy of the Lowland District, 1732-1829', Innes Review (Autumn): 66-87. Chronicles and Exodus: An Analogy and Its Application (JSOTSup, 275; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Einfache Formen. Legende, Sage, Myths, Rdtsel, Spruch, Kasus, Memorabile, Mdrchen, Witz (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2nd edn). A Language Suppressed: The Pronunciation of the Scots Language in the 18th Century (Edinburgh: Donald). Histoire de I'Universite de Paris au XVIIs et au XVIIIs siecle (I; Paris: Hachette). De I'enseignement de I'hebreu dans I'Universite de Paris au XVe siecle (Paris: A. Durand). 'Un college oriental a Paris au treizieme siecle', extract from the Revue des societes savantes (Paris: Paul Dupont) 'Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklarung?' [1784], in W. Weischedel (ed.), WerkeXI (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp): 51-61. 'Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft' [1793], in W. Weischedel (ed.), Werke VIII (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp): 645-879. 'Der Streit der Fakultaten' [1798], in W. Weischedel (ed.), Werke XI (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp): 261-393. 'An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?', in MJ. Gregor (ed.) Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 11-22. 'Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason', in Wood and di Giovanni (eds.), 1996: 39-215. 'The Conflict of the Faculties', in Wood and di Giovanni (eds.), 1996: 233-327.

Kapelrud, A.S. 'How Tradition Failed Moses', JBL 76: 242. 1957 King, E.H. James Beattie (Twayne's English Authors Series, 206; Boston: Twayne 1977 Publishers).

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Kleineidam, E. Die katholisch-theologische Fakultdt der Universitat Breslau, 1811-1945 1961 (Cologne: Wienand-Verlag). Klueting, H. (ed.) 1993 Katholische Aufklarung: Aufklarung im katholischen Deutschland (Studien zum achtzehnten Jahrhundert / hrsg. von d. Deutschen Gesellschaft fur die Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts, 15; Hamburg: Meiner). Kraus, H.-J. Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments 1969 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2nd edn). Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments 1982 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 3rd edn). Kurtz, J.H. 1858-64 Geschichte des Alten Bundes, I-III (Berlin: Wohgemuth, 3rd edn). La Haye, J. de (ed.) 1643 Biblia magna commentariorum literalium (5 vols. in fol.; Paris: Michaelis Soly, Matthaeus Guillemot, Dionysius Bechet, Antonius Bertier) 1660 Biblia maxima versionum, ex linguis orientalibus...et eius expositione literali (9 vols. in fol.; Paris: D. Bechet, L. Guillaume, Antonius Bertier, Simeonis Piget). Ladvocat, J.-B. 1755 Grammaire hebraique a I 'usage des ecoles de Sorbonne (Paris: Vincent). Laplanche, F. 1986 L 'Ecriture, le sacre et I 'histoire. Erudits etpolitiques protestants devant la Bible en France au XVIIIs siecle (Amsterdam and Maarssen: APA-Holland University Press). 1999 'Le developpement de 1''apparatus biblicus et 1'emergence de la critique biblique en France a la fin du XVIP siecle', in Schwarzbach (ed.), 1999: 407-18. preprint 'Jean Mercier, exegete de la Genese'. Le Cene, C. 1741 La Sainte Bible, contenant les livres de I'Ancien et du Nouveau Testament (Amsterdam: Michel Charles Le Cene). Le Clerc, J. 1735 Mosis prophetae libri quinque, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numeri, etDeuteronomium cum ejusdem paraphrasi perpetua, commentario philologico, dissertationibus criticis, et tabulis chronologicis ac geographicis Editio nova auctior et emendatior (Amsterdam: J. Westen & G. Smith). Le Courayer, F. 1787 Declaration de mes derniers sentiments sur les dogmes de la religion (London: n.p.). Lehman, M.R. 1979 'Study of the vavs in the Commentaries (Explicativum)', Sinai 85: 200-10 (Hebrew). Lesch, K.J. 1993 'Oberthiir, Franz', in BBKL 6: 1083-84. Leung, C. 1994 'Voltaire's Jewish Friend—Cardos' (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 319; Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation): 399-401.

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'Thomas Innes and the Bull Unigenitus', Innes Review. 23-30. 'Jansenists and Anti-Jansenists in Eighteenth Century Scotland: The Unigenitus Quarrels on the Scottish Catholic Mission 1732-1746', Innes Review: 12-45. 'Mission Accomplished, The Catholic Underground', in T.M. Devine and J.R. Young (eds.), Eighteenth Century Scotland: New Perspectives (East Linton: Tuckwell): 90-105. Epilogue to the second edition of Friedrich Tuch's Commentar uber die Genesis (Halle: n.p.).

Michaelis, J.D. 1787 Deutsche Uebersetzung des Alien Testaments mit Anmerkungen fur Ungelehrte. III. Das dritte Buch Mose (Gottingen: Johann Christian Dieterich). Milgrom, J. 1990 Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America). Monod, A. 1916 De Pascal a Chateaubriand. Les defenseurs francais du christianisme de 1670 a 1807 (Paris: Alcan). Montagnini, F. 1966 'L'interpretazione di Is. 7,14 di J. L. IsenbiehP, in G. Canfora (ed.), // messianismo. Atti della XVIII Settimana Biblica (Brescia: Paideia): 95-104. Mori, G. 1993 'Un frammento del Traite des trois imposteurs di Etienne Guillaume', Rivista di storia dellafilosofia 48: 359-76. Mossner, B.C. 1980 The Life of David Hume (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2nd edn). Miiller, W., et al. 1970 Die Kirche im Zeitalter des Absolutismus und der Aufkldrung (Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, 5; Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder) (published in English as Hubert Jedin and John Dolan [eds.], History of the Church. VI. The Church in the Age of Absolutism and Enlightenment [London: Burns & Gates, 1980]). Neveu, V. 1996 'De Guillaume Postel a Richard Simon: Zohar et autres sources hebrai'ques de Guillaume Postel dans les collections de la bibliotheque municipale de Rouen', Revue des etudes juives 155.1-2: 75-105. Nida, E., and C.R. Taber 1969 The Theory and Practice of Translation (Helps for Translators, 8; Leiden: EJ. Brill). Noordtzij, A. 1983 Numbers (Bible Student's Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan). Noth, M. 1966 Das vierte Buch Mose. Numeri (ATD, 7; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). 1968 Numbers: A Commentary (trans. J.D. Martin; OTL; London: SCM Press). 1972 A History ofPentateuchal Traditions (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall [1948]).

Cumulative Bibliography Oleaster, H. 1569 Omont, H. 1892 Pacca, B. 1832

Pagnini, S. 1528 Paradisi, P. 1534 Parente, F. 1991

215

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216


Rendsburg, G.A. 1986 The Redaction of Genesis (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns). Rendtorff, R. 1990 The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch (trans. J.J. Scullion; JSOTSup, 89; Sheffield: JSOT Press [1977]). Reusch, F.H. 1881 'Isenbiehl, Johann Lorenz', inADB 14: 618-20. Reventlow, H.G. 1984 The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World (London: SCM Press). Rex, W. 1979 '"Arche de Noe" and Other Religious Articles by Abbe Mallet in the Encyclopedic', Eighteenth-Century Studies 12: 333-52. Richard, F. 1990 'Achille de Harlay de Sancy et ses collections de manuscrits hebreux',Revue des etudes juives 149.4: 417-47. Riggans, W. 1983 Numbers (Daily Study Bible; Edinburgh: St Andrew). Rogerson, J.W. 1984 Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century: England and Germany (London: SPCK). 1999 'Vater, Johann Severin (1771-1826)', in J.H. Hayes (ed.), Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (Nashville: Abingdon Press). Romer, T.C. 2002 ' Le Pentateuque touj ours en question: Bilan et perspectives apres un quart de siecle de debat', in A. Lemaire (ed.), Congress Volume: Basel, 2001 (VTSup, 92; Leiden: E.J. Brill): 343-74. Rosenmuller, E.F.C. 1790 Scholia in Vetus Testamentum, II (Leipzig: J.A.Barth). Rothschild, J.-P. 1992 'Quelles notions le 'grand public' des lettres Chretiens dans la France du XVIe siecle eut-il de 1'hebreu ? Enquete parmi les inventaires de bibliotheques', in I. Zinguer (ed.), L 'hebreu an temps de la Renaissance (Leiden: E.J. Brill): 172-96. Rowlands, M. 1968 'The Staffordshire Clergy, 1688-1803', Recusant History 9.5: 219-41. Ruderman, D.B. 2001 Jewish Enlightenment in an English Key: Anglo-Jewry's Construction of Modern Jewish Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Sarna, N.M. 1983 'The Modern Study of the Bible in the Framework of Jewish Studies', Proceedings of the Eighth Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem): 19-27. 1993 'Abraham Ibn Ezra as an Exegete', in I. Twersky and J.M. Harris (eds.), Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra: Studies in the Writings of a Twelfth-Century Polymath (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press): 1-27. Schmid, K. 1999 Erzvater und Exodus: Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begriindung der Ursprunge Israels innerhalb der Geschichtsbucher des Alien Testament (WMANT, 81; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag).


217

Schmidt, W.H. 1990 Exodus, Sinai und Mose: Erwdgungen zu Ex 1—19 und 24 (Ertrage der Forschung, 191; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft [1983]). Scholem, G. 1972 'Zohar', mEncJud, XVI: 1208. Scholes, R., and R. Kellogg 1966 The Nature of Narrative (New York: Oxford University Press). Schiile, A. 2001 Israels Sohn—Jahwes Prophet. Ein Versuch zum Verhdltnis von kanonischer Theologie und Religionsgeschichte anhand der Bileam-Perikope (Num 22 - 24) (Altes Testament und Moderne, 17; Munster: Lit). Schwarz, L.D. 1992 London in the Age of Industrialisation: Entrepreneurs,Labour Force and Living Conditions, 1700-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Schwarzbach, B .E. 1973 'Etienne Fourmont, philosophe in disguise?' (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 102; Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation): 65-119. 1986a 'L''Encyclopedic de Diderot et de d'Alembert', in Belaval and Bourel (eds.), 1986: 759-77. 1986b 'The Sacred Genealogy of a Voltairean Polemic: The Development of Critical Hypotheses Regarding the Composition of the Canonical and Apocryphal Gospels' (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 245; Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation): 303-49. 1989 'Sources rabbiniques.. .de Richard Simon', in Armogathe (ed.), 1989: 20731. 1992 'L'etude de 1'hebreu en France au XVIII6 siecle : La grammaire d'Etienne Fourmont', Revue des etudes juives 151.1-2: 43-79. 1993 How to Read in the Eighteenth Century... the Bible and Other Books (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 308; Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation): 323-48. 1996 'Le temoignage de Jona Salvador sur les Juifs de Paris au XVIP siecle', Revue des etudes juives 155.3-4: 469-78. 1999a '"There is much to be learnt from a cynical devil...", Critique biblique et religion desphilosophes et clandestins au XVIIIe siecle', Revue de la societe Ernest Renan NS 42: 111 -65. 'La critique biblique dans les Examens de la Bible et dans certains autres 1999b traites clandestins', La lettre clandestine 1-4: 577-612. 200 la 'Dom Augustin Calmet. Man of the Enlightenment Despite Himself ,Archiv fur Religionsgeschichte 3: 135-48. 'Les etudes bibliques a Cirey', in F. de Gandt (ed.), Cirey dans la vie intel200 Ib lectuelle. La reception de Newton en France (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 11; Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation): 26-54. 'Dom Augustin Calmet, Homme des Lumieres malgre lui', Dix-huitieme 2002 siecle 34: 457-63. 'Guillaume Maleville, Homme des Lumieres et homme d'Eglise', Dix2003a huitieme siecle 35: 419-38. 'Samuel Cahen's Bible commentary', in S. Bloom and I. Zinguer (eds.), 2003b Proceedings of the Haifa Conference on Inclusion and Exclusion, March 2001 (Leiden: E.J. Brill): 175-210.

218


Schwarzbach, B.E. (ed.) La Bible imprimee dans I 'Europe moderne (Paris: Bibliotheque nationale de 1999 France). Screech, M. Rabelais (trans. Marie-Anne de Kisch; Paris: nrf-Gallimard). 1992 Segal, M.Z. Biblical Exegesis: A Glance at its History and Development (Jerusalem: 1980 Kiryath Sefer [Hebrew]). Seidel, A. Karl David Ilgen und die Pentateuchforschung im Umkreis der sogenannten 1993 dlteren Urkundenhypothese (BZAW, 213; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Sergent, E. 'Les cailles empoisonneuses dans la Bible—et en Algerie de nos jours. 1941 Aper9u historique et recherches experimentales', Archives de I'lnstitut Pasteur d"Algerie 19.2: 161-92. Shaffer, E.S. 'Kubla Khan' and 'The Fall of Jerusalem': The Mythological School in Bib1975 lical Criticism and Secular Literature, 1770-1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Shaftesbury, A.C., Earl of 1999 Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (ed. L.E. Klein; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [1711]). Shapiro, M.B. 1993 'Maimonides' Thirteen Principles: The Last Word in Jewish Theology?', Torah u-maddah Journal 4: 187-242. Sheppard, F. 1998 London, a History (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Sher, R.B. 1985 Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). 1995 'Commerce, Religion and the Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Glasgow', in T.M. Devine and G. Jackson (eds.), Glasgow. I. Beginnings to 1830 (Manchester: Manchester University Press): 312-59. Silvera, M. 1993 'Rashi et 1'election de peuple juif dans la Bibliotheca magna rabbinica de Giulio Bartolocci', in G. Sed-Rajna (ed.), Rashi 1040-1990. Hommage a Ephra'im E. Urbach (Paris: Editions du Cerf.). Simon, R. 1689 Histoire critique du texte du nouveau testament (Rotterdam: Reinier Leers). 1730 Lettres choisies (Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier). 1967 Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament (reprint of the edition Rotterdam 1685; Frankfurt: Minerva). Smalley, B. 1964 The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press [1st edn = Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941; 2nd edn = Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1952]). Smend, R. 1991 'Lowth in Deutschland', in idem, Epochen der Bibelkritik (Munchen: Chr. Kaiser Verlag): 43-62.

Cumulative Bibliography Smith, G.A. 1901 Smith, W.R. 1907 Snaith, N.H. 1967 Strack, H.L. 1894

219

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220

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Vaulx, J. de 1972 Volk, O. (ed.) 1966

An Inquiry into the General Principles of Scripture-Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Commentar fiber den Pentateuch, mit Einleitungen zu den einzelnen Abschnitten, der eingeschalteten Uebersetzung von Dr Alexander Geddes 's merkwurdigeren critischen und exegetischen Anmerkungen, und einer Abhandlung iiber Moses und die Verfasser des Pentateuchs (3 vols.; Halle: Waisenhaus-Buchhandlung). Les Nombres (Sources bibliques; Paris: J. Gabalda). Professor Franz Oberthur. Personlichkeit und Werk (Quellen und Beitrage zur Geschichte der Universitat Wiirzburg, 2; Neustadt an der Aisch: Verlag Degener).

Voltaire Le siecle de Louis XIV, 'Catalogue des auteurs'. 1751 Waard, J. de, and E.A. Nida 1986 From One Language to Another: Functional Equivalence in Bible Translating (Nashville: Thomas Nelson). Watts, J. Scalan: The Forbidden College, 1716-1799 (East Linton: Tuckwell). 1999 Wenham, G.J. 1981 Numbers: An Introduction and Commentary (TOTC; Downer Groves, IL: Inter-Varsity Press). Werner, K. 1866 Geschichte der katholischen Theologie seit dem Trienter Konzil bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: J.G. Cotta). 1876 'Brentano, Dominikus v.', inADB, III: 313. Westphal, A. 1888-92 Les sources du Pentateuque (2 vols.; Paris: n.p.). Whybray, R.N. 1987 The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study (JSOTSup, 53; Sheffield: JSOT Press). Withrington, D.J. 1988 'Schooling, Literacy and Society', in T.M. Devine and R. Mitchison (eds.), People and Society in Scotland. 1.1760-1830 (Edinburgh: Donald): 163-87. Wobersin, F. 1900 Die Echtheit der Bileamspriiche Num 22-24 (Giitersloh: Guterlsoher Verlag). Wood, A.W., and G. di Giovanni (eds.) 1996 Religion and Rational Theology (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Woodbridge, J. 1988 'German Responses to the Bible Critic Richard Simon: From Leibniz to J.S. Sender', in H.G. Reventlow (ed.), Historiche Kritik und biblischer Kanon in der deutschen Aufkldrung (Wolfenbiitteler Forschungen, 41; Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz): 65-87.


221

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INDEXES INDEX OF REFERENCES

OLD TESTAMENT

Genesis 1-3

1 1.1 1.21 1.30 2 2.4-3.24 2.4-25 2.4-6 2.4 2.7 3 4.1 4.26 6.2 6.4 6.5-8.22 6.5-8 6.19-20 6.19 7.1-9 7.2 7.9 8.20-22 8.20 12.6 14 19.26 20.16 22 26.28

26, 128, 162 26, 133 160 101 159 162 19, 162 17 162 101, 140 162 17, 140, 178 164 160 101, 111 111 162 162 163 163 162, 163 163 163 162 163 101 17 111 100 131 164

29.1 29.32 29.33 29.35 30.18 33.18-34.31 36 37-45 37.28 44.18-34 48.7 49 49.1-27 49.10-11 49.10 Exodus 3.2 3.5 3.15 5.3 6 6.3

7 7.10 7.14-15 7.17 8.17 9.18 9.31 11.2 12.8 12.29-34

15 164 164 164 164 17 17 162 164 164 101 109, 161 17 110 101

25 25 9 28 2 13, 18, 164 129 26 129 26 9, 13,26 26 25 130 25 169

12.37 12.38 13.13 14 15 15.9 15.16 15.26 16.1 16.3 16.13 16.14 16.32-34 17.3 17.6 17.11 19.13 20.1-14 20.21 20.22-23.33 20.22 22.28-29 23.20 23.28 24.10 28.17 32.8 33.21 34.19-20 34.20 34.23

12 170 169 133 21, 127 21 21 25 175 175 173 25 113 171 179 107 171 107 13 20 20,27 169 28 13 111 11 13 111 169 169 18

Leviticus 11.11

171

223

Index of References 17-26 17.1-7 27.29

20 171 100

Numbers

3.11-39 3.11-13 3.13 3.22 3.28 3.34 3.39 3.40-41 3.43 3.46-47 3.46 11 11.4 11.5 11.31-34 11.31-33 11.31 11.33 12.1 12.3 13.26 14.33 20.1-13 20.3 20.8 20.11 20.13 22-24 22.21-35 24.23 25.1-9 31.16 31.17-18 32.1

169 169 169 169, 170 169, 170 169 169 169 170 169 170 173 170,171 171 171 173, 175 171, 172 171, 172 94 160 179 171 178 178 179 179 179 176 176 179 114 178 180 171

Deuteronomy

1.2 4.4 5.6-18 5.22 5.28-31 7

108 24 107 27 13 130, 131, 133

7.1-2 8.4 12-26 16.8 18.15 20.16-17 21.23 23.5-6 27-28 32 32.8-9 32.42 33.3 34.5 34.6

130 111 20 104 110 130 110 178 195 127 100 110 100 160 160, 161

Joshua

1-7 1.1-2.24 1.1-18 2 2.1-3.8 3 3.1-5.1 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9^1.14 3.9 3.12 4.15-5.8 5.1 5.2-15 5.2 5.9-6.11 6.1-26 6.5 6.12-25 6.26-7.26 7.1-26 8.17 8.30-35 8.32 10.15 10.43 11.23 13.22

15.18 16 18.1-10 18.1 18.2-19.51 18.4 18.5 18.6 18.8 18.11-19.51 19 21 24.1 24.9-10 24.16

198 194 188 188 188 198 198 198 198 188 194 196 188 178 188

Judges

189 188 188 197 188 192 188 192 192 192 192 188 192 192 188 189 188 198 188 188 198 188 188 188 193 188, 189 195 193 193 110 178

1-3 2.1 2.4 3.12^.24 3.12-31 4 4.1-5.31 5.1-31 5.23 8.24 17-21 17 18.7 19-21

130 198 198 189 189 194 189 189 198 164 196 194 199 193

Ruth \.\~4.22 1.1-4.17 4.18-22

189 189 189

1 Samuel

1.1-2.11 1.1-28 2.1-10 2.11-3.10 2.11 2.12-36 3.1-21 3.11-21 5.1-7.2 5.1-7.1

189 189 189 189 189 189 189 189 189 189

224


1 Samuel (cont.) 5.3-17 189 7.2-17 189 7.2 189 8.2 189 8.3 189 10 200 13-14 189 13 109 13.1-14.35 189 14.35 189 14.36-15.9 189 15 189 15.9 189 15.10-35 189 18.6-19.10 189 18.6-30 189 18.6 190 18.10 200 19-20 189 19 200 19.1-20.42 189 19.11-20.42 189 21.1-22.5 189 21.1-5 189 21.6-24.16 189 22.6-23 189 23-24 189 24.17-23 189 25 190 25.1-26.9 190 26.1-28.2 190 26.10-28.2 190 27.3 186 28.3 186, 190 28.13 186 28.20 186 29.10 187 30.5 186 2 Samuel

1

2.1-9 2.10-3.5 3 3.6-39 5 5.6

190 190 190 190 190 199 199

7.23 8.2 11.1 13.1-37 13.1-33 13.34-14.7 13.38-14.33 14.8-33 15.1-19.8 15.1-17.13 17.14-19.29 19.9-40 19.41-20.26 20.20-21.14 21.1-14 21.15-22 22.1-23.7 23.8-39 23.9 24 24.1 24.17 29.30-20.19

199 131 193 190 190 190 190 190 190 190 190 190 190 190 190 190 190 190 199 190, 197 197 187 190

1 Kings 2.1-10 2.11-22 2.11 2.12-3.1 2.23-3.2 3.1 3.2-28 3.2 3.3-15 3.16-23 3.24-5.1 4-5 5.2-25 5.26-32 6.11-13 7.6 8 8.1-11 8.12-53 8.47 8.54-9.1 9.1-9 9.2-9

190 190 189, 190 190 190 190 190 189 190 190 190 190 190 190 186 195 190 190 190 199 190 190 190

9.2 11 11.1-10 11.11-25 11.26-12.17 12.1-24 12.18-21 12.22-33 12.24 12.25-14.20 13.1-14.20 16.24 17.1 18 18.8 18.12 19.11-14 20.12 22 22.20 22.30 22.41-50 22.41 22.43 22.46 22.48 22.49 22.50 22.51

186 190 190 190 190 190 191 191 193 191 191 199 199 200 200 200 133 199 193 187 193 191 191 193 193 193 193 188 191

2 Kings 1.17 2.1-25 2.9 2.25 6 6.33 9.11 11.1-12.1 11.1-20 11.19 11.21-12.21 12.1-22 12.2-22 12.16 14.25 17.24-28 18-20

191 191 200 191 193 14 200 191 191 187 191 191 191 196 196 90 197

Index of References 23.8 23.21 23.29

100 196 196

1 Chronicles 2.1-3.9 2.1-17 2.18-55 3 3.10-4.14 4.1-23 4.15-5.10 4.24-43 5.1-26 5.11-26 5.27-6.15 5.27-41 6 6.1-15 6.9 6.16-81 6.16-34 6.18 6.29-30 6.31-49 6.35-66 7.30-8.40 7.30-40 8-9 8.1-9.1 8.29-32 8.40 9.1-34 9.2-33 9.34-44 9.35-44 12.1-23 12.1-22 12.23-40 12.24-41 14 14.1-16.7 15.1-16.6 16.7-43

191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 197 191 191 197 197 191 191 191 191 192 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 191

16.7 16.8-43 20.1 21.1-22.1 21.1-26 21.1 21.27-22.4 22.2-19 22.5-19 29.6-9

189 191 193 191 191 197 192 192 192 196

2 Chronicles 1 1.1-2.1 2 2.2-9 2.10-15 2.16-4.18 3.1-5.1 4.19-5.1 5.2-7.10 5.2-6.42 7.1-22 7.11-22 10 10.1-11.1 10.1 11-12 11.2-12.16 13.1-14.1 13.1-20 13.21-23 14.1-6 14.2-16.14 14.7-15.9 15.10-16.14 17.1-21.4 17.1-21.3 21.4-11 21.4 21.5-22.1 21.12-22.1 22.2-23.21 22.2-12

192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 189 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 192 189 192 192 192 192

225 23.1-15 23.16-24.14 24 24.15-27 24.15-22 25 25.1-24 25.25-26.2 26 26.3-23 34.1-36.1 34.1-35.24 35 35.25-36.4 36.2-21 36.5-23

192 192 192 192 196 192, 196 192 192 192 192 192 192 196 192 192 192

Nehemiah 13.2

178

Psalms 2 2.12 22 68.24 110 110.5-6

109 109 109 110 109 110

Isaiah 1

7.14 11 36-39 38 39.2 42.1-7 49.1-5 50.4-10 52.13-53.12 53

109, 136, 138, 139 136, 146, 150 109 197 182, 196 197 172 172 172 172 109

226

The Bible and the Enlightenment OTHER ANCIENT REFERENCES

New Testament Matthew 136 1.22-23 94 23.25

Josephus Ant. 3.25 3.299

174 174

Acts 3.22 7.22

War 6.9.3

18

Galatians 3.13

110 17

110

Jewish Authors Maimonides Guide to the Perplexed 2.42 178

2 Peter 3.3

132

Talmuds b. B. Bat. 14b-15a

107

Roman and Classical Aristotle History of Animals 597. 17 174 597.20 174

107

De Plantis 5.820

b. Mak.

lla

173

Dionysius of Halicaraassus Thucydides 5-8 127 Pliny the Elder Natural History 10.197 173 10.69 173 Thucydides 1.20-23

127

INDEX OF AUTHORS Ages, A. 88 Alter, R. 178 Anderson, R.D. 37,38 Ardy,J.F. 99 Aring, P.O. 136 Ashley, T.R. 170, 174 Aspinwall, B. 41, 42, 58, 62, 72 Aubert, R. 144 Auld, A.G. 185 Auvray, P. 116 Baentsch, B. 170 Baird, W. 124 Barr, J. 120 Barthelemy, D. 169 Barton, J. 117 Basker, J.G. 64 Bautz, F.W. 137, 141 Blair, H. 127 Blau, J.L. 117 Blum, E. 4 Bochart, S. 172, 173, 175, 177 Bodenheimer, F.S. 175 Bourel, D. 142 Brandl, M. 136, 139, 141, 147, 149 Brentano, D. von 140, 141, 145 Broadie,A. 22-25,27 Budd, P.J. 170, 171, 178 Bultmann, C. 120, 128 Burnett, A. 122 Butterwick, R. 119 Byrne, P. 120, 123, 130, 132 Calmet, A. 93,94, 111, 114 Carpenter, J.E. 2 , 3 , 1 6 Carruthers, G. 35 Chatelet-Lomond, G.-E. de Breteuil, Marquis du 108, 111, 113, 114 Cheyne, T.K. 2, 158

Childs,B.S. 120, 173 Chinnici, J.P. 54,55 Coats, G.W. 177 Colomies, P. 88 Cotoni, M.-H. 108 Daiches, D. 24 Dathe, J.A. 124, 125, 128 Davie, G. 62,63 Davies, E.W. 170, 171, 178 De Rossi, G.B. 153-55 Dereser, T.A. 142, 143, 145, 146 Diestel, L. 139 Dijk, C.F.M. van 56 Dillmann, A. 178 Ditchburn, D. 36 Dyer, G. 76 Eichhorn, J.G. 17, 102, 126, 128 Eissfeldt, O. 2, 19 Emerson, R.L. 39 Fabricius, J.A. 125 Fabricy, G. 102, 152, 153 Feenstra, R. 36 Finlay, R.J. 71 Fourmont, M. 98, 114 Fuller, R.C. 2, 6, 8, 19, 20, 24, 35, 36, 41, 44,61,68,83,99, 122, 128, 133, 136,143,153, 154, 156, 182 Geddes, A. 1, 3, 5, 6, 8-13, 15-19, 21, 22, 24-28, 30-34, 36, 41, 56, 63, 64, 66, 67,71-77,86,98, 100, 102, 104, 105, 109-11, 113, 114, 117, 119, 121-24, 126-30, 132, 134, 141, 149, 154, 155, 158, 160-73, 176-85, 187, 188,193-200 Gelebart, Y.-C. 142

228


Genebrard, G. 82, 109 Gestrich, A. 142, 148 Gispen, W.H. 175 Goldie, M. 51 Good, J.M. 8,20,31-33,37,39,42,61 Gray, E.M. 147, 151 Gray, G.B. 168, 170, 171, 174, 177-79 Gray,J. 173 Guenee, A. 102 Gunkel, H. 3 Hadas-Lebel, M. 99 Halivni,D.W. 118 Halloran, B.M. 50 Harford-Battersby, G. 2, 3, 16 Harries, K. 123 Harris, R. 108 Harrison, R.K. 19 Hasselhoff, O.K. 80 Hayes, J.H. 123 Hegel, E. 141-45 Hengstenberg, E.W. 178 Herman, A. 20,21 Holmes, R. 181 Houbigant, C.F. 101, 170 Houston, R.A. 38 Hughes, P.E. 2 Hume, D. 7, 22, 121, 127, 129, 131, 132 Hurter, H. 140, 147, 151 Hutton, J. 128 Irving, D. 45,61,65,68 Isenbiehl, J.L. 138 Jacques, X. 173-75 Jahn, J. 147, 149-51 Johnson, C. 3,37,43 Johnstone, W. 2 Jolles,A. 177 Jones, C. 63 Jones, J. 24 Jones, P. 24 Jourdain, C. 79, 91, 98, 99, 103, 104 Kant, I. 119, 120, 131, 132 Kapelrud, A.S. 178 Kellogg, R. 177 King, E.H. 20

Kleineidam, E. 142, 145 Klueting, H. 142 Kraus,H.-J. 2, 19, 108, 157 La Haye, J. de 86 Ladvocat, J.-B. 103 Laplanche, F. 83, 88 LeCene,C. 112 Lehman, M.R. 108 Lesch,KJ. 136 Leung, C. 99 Levine, B.A. 170,171,178,179 Lewis, J.P. 170 Lindeboom, G.A. 175 Lindow, W. 120 Lowth, R. 112, 127 Maclntyre, A. 130 Macinnes, A.I. 40, 42 Mathy, H. 136 McCullough, W.S. 175 McGann, J.J. 62 Mclntosh, J.R. 7 McKane, W. 21, 85, 93, 106, 122, 128, 132 McLeod, R. 81 McMillan, J. 41,50 Michaelis, J.D. 9, 170, 171 Milgrom, J. 178 Monod, A. 90 Montagnini, F. 136 Mori, G. 115 Mossner, B.C. 28 Muller, W. 142, 148 Neveu, V. 82 Nida, E. 16 Noordtzij,A. 170 Noth, M. 3, 170 Omont, H. 92 Pacca, B. 137, 143 Paradisi, P. 80 Parente, F. 154, 156 Pastor, L.F. von 136-38 Pitassi, M.C. 90 Pitzer, V. 137

Index of Authors Pomeau, R. 107 Poole, M. 160 Ramsay, D. 68 Rashi 81 Renan, E. 88,89 Rendsburg, G.A. 3 Rendtorff, R. 3 Reusch, F.H. 136 Reventlow, H.G. 130 Rex, W. 103 Richard, F. 83 Riggans, W. 170 Rogerson, J.W. 100,158,162 Romer, T.C. 4 Rothschild, J.-P. 79 Rowlands, M. 53 Ruderman, D.B. 170 Sarna,N.M. 108 Schmid, K. 3,4 Schmidt, W.H. 3 Scholem, G. 99 Scholes,R. 177 Schule,A. 178 Schwarz, L.D. 51 Schwarzbach, B.E. 85-89, 95, 99, 103, 106, 108, 109, 114 Screech, M. 80 Segal, M.Z. 94 Seidel, A. 161, 163 Sergent, E. 174, 175 Shaffer, E.S. 62 Shaftesbury, A.C. Earl of 130, 131 Shapiro, M.B. 108 Sheppard, F. 51 Sher,R.B. 7,23,43

Silvera, M. 97 Simon, R. 80, 83, 86, 126 Smalley, B. 79 Smend, R. 127 Smith, G.A. 2, 18 Smith, W.R. 2 Snaith,N.H. 170, 171, 174 Strack,H.L. 178 Sturdy,J. 170, 171 Suderman, J.M. 20,24 Swidler, L. 142 Symington, J.L. 20,30 Szechi, D. 40 Taber, C.R. 16 Tal,A. 95 Tindal, M. 130 Trumpy, R. 128 Tyson, R.E. 38 Uecker, T. 136, 147 Van Mildert, W. 132, 133 Vater,J.S. 150, 158, 160-64 Vaulx, J. de 174 Volk, O. 136 Voltaire 106, 110 Waard, J. de 16 Watts, J. 51,67 Wenham, G.J. 170 Werner, K. 140, 141, 147, 148 Westphal, A. 167 Whybray, R.N. 3 Withrington, D.J. 38 Woodbridge, J. 90 Wurzbach, C. von 151

229

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES 238 M. Patrick Graham, Kenneth G. Hoglund and Steven L. McKenzie (eds.), The Chronicler as Historian 239 Mark S. Smith, The Pilgrimage Pattern in Exodus 240 Eugene E. Carpenter (ed.), A Biblical Itinerary: In Search of Method, Form and Content. Essays in Honor of George W. Coats 241 Robert Karl Gnuse, No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel 242 K.L. Noll, The Faces of David 243 Henning Graf Reventlow (ed.), Eschatology in the Bible and in Jewish and Christian Tradition 244 Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Urbanism in Antiquity: From Mesopotamia to Crete 245 Lester L. Grabbe (ed.), Can a 'History of Israel' Be Written? 246 Gillian M. Bediako, Primal Religion and the Bible: William Robertson Smith and his Heritage 247 Nathan Klaus, Pivot Patterns in the Former Prophets 248 Etienne Nodet, A Search for the Origins of Judaism: From Joshua to the Mishnah 249 William Paul Griffin, The God of the Prophets: An Analysis of Divine Action 250 Josette Elayi and Jean Sapin, Beyond the River: New Perspectives on Transeuphratene 251 Flemming A. J. Nielsen, The Tragedy in History: Herodotus and the Deuteronomistic History 252 David C. Mitchell, The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological Programme in the Book of Psalms 253 William Johnstone, 1 and2 Chronicles, Volume 1:1 Chronicles 1-2 Chronicles 9: Israel's Place among the Nations 254 William Johnstone, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Volume 2: 2 Chronicles 10-36: Guilt and Atonement 255 Larry L. Lyke, King David with the Wise Woman ofTekoa: The Resonance of Tradition in Parabolic Narrative 256 Roland Meynet, Rhetorical Analysis: An Introduction to Biblical Rhetoric 257 Philip R. Davies and David J.A. Clines (eds.), The World of Genesis: Persons, Places, Perspectives 258 Michael D. Goulder, The Psalms of the Return (Book V, Psalms 107-150): Studies in the Psalter, IV 259 Allen Rosengren Petersen, The Royal God: Enthronement Festivals in Ancient Israel and Ugarit? 260 A.R. Pete Diamond, Kathleen M. O'Connor and Louis Stulman (eds.), Troubling Jeremiah

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