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Freethinking in early eighteenth-century Protestant Germany: Peter Friedrich Arpe and the Traité des trois imposteurs

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Heterodoxy, Spinozism, and Free Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe

Abstract

The name of Peter Friedrich Arpe has often been connected with the treatise on the Three Impostors in both its Latin and its French versions.2 For a long time he was thought to have been the author of the famous Réponse à la dissertation de Mr. la Monnoye;3 he also appears as a distributor of manuscripts of the Latin work or a source of information about its authorship. His actual role in these events has never been clarified, either in regard to his intellectual profile or to his activities in the Netherlands during the momentous years 1712 to 1714.

My warmest thanks to Silvia Berti for numerous stimulating conversations. I am also deeply grateful to Leofranc Holford-Strevens, who was not merely the translator of this article but a sympathetic and stimulating editor.

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References

  1. My warmest thanks to Silvia Berti for numerous stimulating conversations. I am also deeply grateful to Leofranc Holford-Strevens, who was not merely the translator of this article but a sympathetic and stimulating editor.

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  2. For Arpe’s biography see C. G. Jöcher, Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexikon, cont. J. C. Adelung (Leipzig, 175o), I: 1132–3; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (= ADB), I: 608–9; H. Schröder, Lexikon der hamburgischen Schriftsteller (Hamburg, 1851), I: 58; H. Ratjen, `P F. Arpe’, in Schriften der Universität Kiel aus dem Jahre 1858 (Kiel, 1859), 53–62. Ratjen’s article is the fullest account of Arpe’s life, but his conviction that Arpe was the author of the Réponse (p. 57) must today be regarded as superseded, and likewise J. Presser’s comments on the Réponse in Das Buch `De tribus impostoribus’ (Amsterdam, 1926). Reviews of Arpe’s books are listed in Johannes Moller, Cimbria literata, sive scriptorum ducatus utriusque Slesvicensis et Holsatici… historia literaria (Copenhagen, 1744), I: 24–5; for contemporary biographical sources see esp. Johann Fabricius, H.storia Bibliothecae Fabricianae (Wolfenbüttel, 1724), vi: 328–9, Neue Zeitung von Gelehrten Sachen (Leipzig) for 1727, 147, as well as the Hamburger Berichte for 1740 (no. ío,), 874–6 and of 1737 (no. 9 ), 69–70.

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  3. Cf. A.-A. Barbier, Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes, 3rd edn (Paris, 1879, repr. Hildesheim, 1963), 1v: 285, with the comment `C’est une fausseté.’

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  4. See M. Faak, `Die Verbreitung der Handschriften des Buches “De Imposturis Religionum” im i8. Jahrhundert unter Beteiligung von G. W. Leibniz’, Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 18 (197o): 212–28; on the sale of Mayer’s library see E. Krause, Tine Buchauktion in Berlin im Jahre 1716: das abenteuerliche Schicksal der Bibliothek Johann Friedrich Mayer’, Marginalien, 45 (1972): 16–28.

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  5. VIri illustris Godefredi Guil. Leibnitii Epistolae ad diversos, ed. Chr. Kortholt, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 5734-42), 1: 443-4: `Je vous dois remercier de l’information que vous me donnés touchant le livre de imposturis. Vous savés que Monsieur de la Monnoye a adjouté [sic] aux Menagiana une dissertation sur le livre de tribus. Un certain M. Arpe, qui se trouve à Leiden, Allemand je crois, a voulu refuter cette dissertation par une lettre qu’il a fait imprimer, on il appelle à l’expérience, disant qu’il a le livre en main, et en rapportant des particularités.’ For La Croze, see E. Mauthner, Der Atheismus und seine Geschichte im Abendland (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1922), II: 317–32. All dates are New Style.

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  6. La Croze’s letter to Wolf of 7 Apr. 1716 is now in the Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Supellex Epistolica Uffenbachi et Wolfiorum 115, 339–40: `Haec scribebam cum ad me allatae sunt litterae ab M. Leibnitzio, qui scribit eruditum quemdam Germanum Arpe nomine, qui modo Lugduni Batavorum degit Epistolam edidisse contra Bernardum Monetam in qua se librum de tribus impostoribus penes se habere affirmat, variaque eius excerpta profert; quae tarnen vix vera esse crediderim….’ [`I was writing this when I was brought a letter from M. Leibniz, who writes that a German scholar by the name of Arpe, who is currently living at Leiden, has published a letter in reply to Bernard de La Monnoye in which he declares that he has in his possession the Liber de tribus impostoribus, and produces various extracts from it; but I can hardly believe them genuine.’]

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  7. Very probably this student was none other than Mosheim (see his letters below, nn. 14, 19, 25), who from 1716 was a student at Kiel, obtained his master’s degree in 1718, and in 1719 became assessor in the philosophical faculty before his appointment as professor at the University of Helmstedt in 1723. See ADB xxll: 395–9.

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  8. Thesauri Epistolici Lacroziani Tomus I(—III), ex Bibliotheca Jordaniana edidit Io. Ludovicus Uhlius, impr. Jo. Frid. Gleditschii (Leipzig, 1742–6), II: Io6: `Arpium ilium, de quo ill. Leibnitius ad to scribit, novi. Vivit ille Kilonii privata sorte contentus, et matrimonii vinculis legatus. Non defuit ipsi amplissima occasio, turn alias, turn imprimis Hafniae insignem rei litterariae notitiam sibi comparandi; imprimis vero impetu quodam in libros prohibitos, qui vocantur, ferri mihi visus est, unde nec miror, in promptu ipsi quaedam esse, quae ad librum de tribus impostoribus pertineant. Epistolam illam, quam Lugduni Bat. lucem vidisse scribis, certissime scio nondum prodiisse. Ante paucos enim dies studiosus Kiloniensis, Arpio illi perfamiliaris, nunciavit mihi, Arpium Kilonii versari, nec quidquam sibi de his litteris commemorasse. Suspicor itaque, Arpium ipsum consilium de concinnanda hac scriptione susceptum, ad ill. Leibnitium perscripisse. Cl. Monnoye dissert. de illo libro cum voluptate legi, quam mihi multam attulit integra illa Menagianorum continuatio, modo a salibus spurcis saepius et sordidis temperare sibi vir doctus potuisset. Arpio iste debetur Apologia pro Vanino, item Theatrum Fati, ut et dissertatio de Pyrrhonismo historico.’ [Here and elsewhere the prefixes cl., `the most renowned’, ill., `the illustrious’, commonly bestowed at this period by one scholar on another, have been omitted in translation; similarly such phrases as `the learned man’, vir doctus, when they function not as compliments but as pronoun-substitutes, have been rendered by the appropriate form of `he’. L. A. H.-S.]

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  9. Thes. Ep. Lacr., II: IOC: `Ex superioribus litteris tuis intellego, legisse te epistolam ab Arpio illo contra cl. Monetam in Belgio editam. Itaque suspicor, eum instituti huius sui neminem conscium habere voluisse, cum id celarit hominem, de quo nuper scripsi, alioquin ipsi familiarissimum, cui alias testatus est, quod et legerit librum de tribus impostoribus, et varia inde excerpta in commentarios suos retulerit. Equidem Arpii illius, hominis docti et elegantis, vices aliquoties miseratus sum, qui et opera et ingenio suo abuti mihi videtur. Relatum enim mihi est, eundem in societate quadam erudita, quae Kilonii certis per hebdomadem diebus cogi solet ad recensendos libros recens editos, plerumque ea in medium afferre, quae animum eiusmodi rerum percupidum et studiosum ostentent, quarum notitiam alius ne titivilitio quidem emerit. Ita famosum illud Jo. Bodini colloquium Heptaplomeres sibi lectum praesenti mihi ipse ante decennium circiter referebat, in quo aliquot post annis nihil eorum inveniebam, quae nescio quam doctrinae ingeniique praestantiam spirare ipsi videbantur.’ Wolf’s copy of Bodin is now in the Staats-u. Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Cod. Theol. 1221.

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  10. La Croze to Leibniz, 19 May 1716; this and other letters are in the archive of the former Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, now Akademie der Wissenschaften Berlin und Brandenburg, Hschr. 1u; cf. M. Faak (n. 4), 222–33; La Croze tells Leibniz: `C’est un homme qui paroît ne se pas trop emba(r)rasser du “qu’en dira-t-on”, ni des articles de foi.’

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  11. Because of these unsatisfactory circumstances the 25-year-old Mosheim made contact with Sigebert Havercamp, professor of history in Leiden, to arrange for a regular supply of books, by Toland and many others, not obtainable in Germany. See Mosheim’s letters in the Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, MS BPL 751.

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  12. Arpe’s labours at this time are documented in Hamburg, Cod. Theol. 1222, which contains many marginalia and additions to his text. See the letter to Marchand (n. 74) and nn. 142 ff. Arpe seems to have made another attempt to publish the expanded edition in 1734, for this date appears, crossed out, on the title-page.

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  13. i.e. Entretiens sur divers sujets d’histoire, de litterature, de religion et de critique (Cologne: P. Marteau, 1711) and Vindiciae veterum scriptorum contra J. Harduinum (Rotterdam: Reinier Leers, 1708); both published anonymously.

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  14. Thes. Ep. Lacr., I: 273: `Vaninus in Belgio, ut scribis, editus nondum ad nos, quae temporum nostrorum calamitatis est, perlatus est: ut adeo nil de conatu scribere possim. Nosti apologiam illam pro Vanino Latine Cosmopoli (seu potius Roterodami) editam 1712 in 8. Huius auctor vir mihi amicissimus, Petrus Frid. Arpe, novam illius nunc molitur editionem multorum rogatu, pluribus auctam. Is etiam, si quid contra Vaninum adtulerit Durandus ille, uti vocari audio, hominem se castigaturum esse, pollicitus est. Substitui et illi locum tuum, quem ex Petito mecum communicaveras, de Vanino, qui gratissimus ipsi fuit. Si quid habes, quod huic adhuc addi possit de famoso hoc viro, impertias, quaeso, vir summe, non tam ipsi, viro certo non indocto, sed publicis orbis litterati commodis. Desiderat adhuc mecum tuos dialogos et Latinum adversus Harduinum scriptum, quibus invitissimi caremus. Idem Arpius auctor, ut dixi, apologiae pro Vanino (quam, nisi iam possideas, ad to curabo) praeter alia edenda prolixum opus elaboravit, Pyrrhonis sub titulo, quo historicorum veterum fidem et auctoritatem magna conatu vellicat, paucaque in illis certa reperiri probat.’

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  15. La Croze to Mosheim, 12 Feb. 1718 (Thes. Ep. Lacr., III: 205–6 ).

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  16. Durandus in vita Vanini nihil scripsit, quod cl. Arpii famam et eruditionem laederet. Ego ipse in eo errore adhuc fui, ut crederem, virum ilium eruditum Vanini apologiam serio animo non scripsisse; nec enim vanus ille Italus, vir nequam et indoctus, ulla ratione ab atheismi crimine absolvi potest.’

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  17. Even apart from the concealment question, La Croze did not hold Vanini in great esteem, at least in comparison with Bruno: his comprehensive account at, Entretiens, 337–79 begins: `Lucilio Vanini, Compatriote de Brunus et presque son contemporain, lui étoit fort inférieur en esprit et en raisonnement, quoi que dans ses Livres il paroisse le surpasser en orgueil et en présomtion.’ Cf. p. 269: `S’il étoit besoin de le prouver par des exemples, je ne citerois que Lucilio Vanini, qui, avec une science médiocre, et une érudition superficielle, étoit, comme je le ferai bien-tôt voir, un des hommes les plus orgueilleux qu’il y ait jamais eu au Monde. Ce que je dis de Vanini se peut apliquer à tous les autres Athées.’

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  18. Neither did he comply with the two young men’s requests for books. `Dialogorum meorum, tam Latinorum, tam Gallicorum, ne unum quidem exemplar habeo, sublato mihi ab amico unico exemplari, quod in museo meo supererat. Itaque its iam utor, quae in bibliotheca regia olim reposui: illa vero sacrosancta sunt iam inserta in catalogum, neque loco movenda. Si quod tarnen vel in auctionibus, vel alibi nactus fuero, faxo ut ad te ocyus deferatur, nec velim ullam deinceps pretii memoriam iniicias. Pyrrhonium opus cl. Arpii in lucem proditurum spero cum utilitate et fructu omnium eruditorum.’ [`Of my Dialogues, in Latin as well as in French, I no longer have a single copy; a friend has taken the only one left in my library. I therefore use those which I once deposited in the royal library: however, those are sacrosanct since they are already entered in the catalogue and cannot leave the premises. Should I get hold of anything in auctions or elsewhere, I shall have it brought to you straight away, and please do not say another word about the price. Arpe’s work on Pyrrho will I hope soon appear, to the advantage and benefit of all learned men.’]

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  19. Quaeso vero certiorem me facias, an verum sit, quod viri quidam boni et eruditi ohm retulerunt, cl. Arpium auctorem esse scripti illius Gallice editi de nefario libro, quem fama obscura extare tradit, de tribus impostoribus, Scis illius libelli Gallici editionem Lipsiae iteratam exsistimationi et fortunis viri optimi, mihi amicissimi Johannis Gottlieb Krausii, immedicabile vulnus intulisse.’

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  20. Umständliche Bücher-Historie oder Nachrichten und Urtheile von allerhand alten und neuen Schriften (Leipzig, 1716 ), II: 280–96; for the text of the Réponse see pp. 284–96.

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  21. On Krause see A. Kobuch, ‘Aspekte des aufgeklärten bürgerlichen Denkens in Kursachsen in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jh. im Lichte der Bücherzensur’, Jahrbuch für Geschichte,19 (1979): 251–93; cf. too Bayer to La Croze, 3o Apr. 1717: Dixerat Krausius in historia librorum de libro execrabili eiusque capita, quae non ignoras Gallice nuper esse edita, inseruerat. Haec memini ipsum mihi ante aliquot menses narrare, tum enim haec non videbantur esse tanti, ut inspicerem, et nunc omnia exemplaria abolita sunt….. [`Krause had talked in his Bücher-Historie about the accursed book and inserted the chapters of it that as you are well aware have recently been published in French. I remember his telling me in person some months ago; at the time, I did not think them worth looking at, and now all copies have been destroyed’], Thes. Ep. Lacr., 1: 19; see also Ratjen, `Arpe’56–7.

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  22. Ich war erst willens, einen Extract aus dieser Nachricht zu machen; weil aber dieselbe kurz ist, and es mit Recht heißt: dulcius ex ipso fonte, so glaube ich, es werde dem geneigten Leser nicht unangenehm seyn, das Original selbst allhier zu finden’, Umständliche Bücher-Historie, II: 2834. See Prosper Marchand’s comments in his Dictionnaire historique (The Hague, 1758), 1: 323 n. 71 [below, Appendix, p. 505].

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  23. For this phrase cf. Arpe’s account of the Apologia in his Feriae aestivales (Hamburg, 1726), esp. pp. 29–30: `pro veritate… investigationem veritatis’.

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  24. See below, Section v.

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  25. Thes. Ep. Lacr., is 276–7: `De Vanino cum nuper sermones cum cl. Arpio miscerem, tandem post multas tergiversationes confessus mihi est, animi tantum et exercendi ingenii grafia se, quae pro nefario hoc homine scripserat, litteris tradidisse, neque se propterea litern cuiquam intentaturum esse, etiamsi novae libelli editioni notulas subiecturus sit, levissimique ponderis, quaecumque hactenus obiecta sibi sint, esse demonstraturus. Nescio vero, quid viri docti mentem tam subito mutaverit, qui alias eruditis hominibus non semel fuerat professus, se nihil in apologia ills ingenio, nihil ioco, cuncta vero veritati dedisse. Quidquid huius sit, videbimus mox libellum una cum aliis eius opusculis denuo impressum. Nunc typographo idem ille Arpius scriptum commisit, cui titulus: Laicus confessor, quo, regimini et ordini episcopali infensissimus, ex principiis, quibus calculum adiecit, Boehmeri et Thomasii, cl. virorum, pro laicorum circa res sacras, maxime iureconsultorum, iure pugnabit. Faciam, ut illud una cum delineatione Pyrrhonis habeas, modo ipsemet perferendi subministraveris occasionem. Id vero certo sancteque tibi affirmare possum, neutiquam ipsum auctorem esse schedae illius, quae integerrimo amico meo, et tuo quoque, Krausio, cuius ex animo vicem doleo, tantum atulit detrimenti. Id verum est, esse penes ilium, una cum multis aliis huius furfuris, nefarium istud scriptum, quod scheda ista tenebrio, quisquis fuerit, delineavit, lingua Gallica conscriptum. Ipsemet enim non semel illud evolvi: Sed vero, quod auctor idem ille sit recensionis istius in Belgio editae, suspicio est, quae a veritate abhorret quam maxime Sane numquam viderat chartam illam, nec audiendo quidquam de re tota perceperat, priusquam a me perlegendam accepisset; tantum abest, ut ad eum quis spectare credat. Quamquam nec hoc celare te nolim, eundem cl. virum mihi dixisse, se constitutum habuisse, multo plenius illius scripti argumentum enarrare, nisi alter ille Gallus intervenisset, tantasque res ista turbas dedisset.’ On io Jan. 1717 Mosheim had asked Johann Albert Fabricius to send him the Réponse: Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Ms. Fabr. 104–123, 4°: `Num recte conjiciam nescio; attamen quam maxime librum istum, quem Cl. Arpio nominasti, evolvere cupio, ne hac in parte quoque mancum et mutilum nostrum prodeat qualecunque opusculum. Quapropter ea, quae par est, reverentia enixe TE, celeberrime Vìr, oro, ut istum nobis tam ardentibus votis expetitum librum ad pauxillum temporis transmittere velis, cum hoc in loco ne fando quidem quisquam eum inaudiverit. Commodissime ista transmissio fieri poterit cum libris, quos adhuc ad hasce nundinas mittendos curabit Liebezeitius.’ [’Whether my surmise is correct I do not know; but I greatly desire to read that book you mentioned to Arpe, so that even in this respect my work, such as it is, shall not be published wanting and defective. Therefore with all due reverence I earnestly beg you, most renowned sir, kindly to send me for a little while that book which I crave with such ardent prayers, since no one in this place has so much as heard of it. The most convenient way of sending it will be with the books that Liebezeit has still to have sent to the fair here.’]

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  26. See Margaret C. Jacob, The radical Enlightenment: pantheists, Freemasons and republicans (London, 1981), 217 ff. and appendix. For Rousset see too S. Berti, “`La Vie et l’Esprit de Spinosa” (1719) e la prima traduzione francese dell“Ethica”’, Rivista storica italiana, 98 (1986): 5–46, at 27–8.

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  27. Fritsch to Marchand, Leipzig, 7 Nov. 1737, Leiden, Bibl. RU, MS March. 2.

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  28. Thes. Ep. Lacr., III: 208 (16 Aug. 1718): `Cum mihi sancte affirmes, cl. Arpium auctorem non esse schedae illius Gallicae de pestilenti scripto de tribus impostoribus, inique facerem, si aliter de eo nunc arbitrarer, ac tu me arbitrari iubes. Haud tarnen efficiam, quominus illa opinio iam ubique radicata, in animis omnium fere eruditorum perseveret. Favebit auteur illi communi hominum vel suspicioni, vel iudicio, quod scribis, libellum ilium penes cl. Arpium esse. Unde enim, dicet non nemo, scripti illius notitia ad Schedae Gallicae a Krausio editae auctorem pervenit? Unde multipli-citas illa libelli adhuc eruditissimis quibusque viris incogniti? Adde suspicionem hinc auctum iri, quod viro cuivis Gallicae linguae intelligenti statim manifestum sit ex ipsa lectione, schedam hanc a Germano, non a Gallo scriptum esse. Haec vero inter nos dicta velim. De aliis hic loquor: de me vero iam tibi confirmavi, nullum post ea, quae scripsisti, dubium superesse.’

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  29. See S. Berti, “`La Vie et l’Esprit des Spinosa” (1719)’ (n. 26); F. Charles-Daubert, `Les Traités des trois imposteurs et l’Esprit de Spinosa’, Nouvelles de la république des lettres (1988/1): 21—So; M. Jacob, The radical Enlightenment (n. 26), chs. 5–6.

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  30. See Zedlers Universal-Lexikon (Zedler), LIx: 26–3o and Dansk biografisk leksikon (DBL), 3rd edn (Copenhagen 1979–84) XVI: 39–42; Worm was one of the most influential churchmen in Denmark.

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  31. See Zedler, XVI: 1465–7 and DBL, Ix: 86. Lintrup exchanged letters with J. Chr. Wolf, E. S. Cyprian, K. E. Loescher, and others.

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  32. See DBL, VI: 231–2.

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  33. See DBL, XII: 1i7–8: it is to Arpe that Reitzer owes e.g. the MS of Nicolaus Borbonius, with many quotations from Patin, that he used in the Apologia pro Vanino and whose transmission he described in Feriae aestivales, 135 (square brackets indicate changes made by Arpe in his own copy, now in the Staats-and Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Scrin. A 444 i. Exemplar): `Codicem MStum Matthias Wormius, tum in Gallia apud Patinum degens, postea Praeses civitatis Ripensis, Daniae (ut ferunt) intulit, et Gomiti de Greiffenfeld, Principi Consiliorum Regis, ingeniorum aestumatori sagacissimo, sacrum esse voluit. Acerbioribus hunt virum urgentibus fatis, ad Rosencranzium Consiliarium intimum et aerarii Praefectum, pervenit et post eius obitum ad Cl. Arnam Magnum, quo non inmerito Islandia patria et universa septentrionis eruditio gloriari potest. Ab [hoc], cum [] Christianus Reitzerus, tune Professor Hafniensis, nunc Praefectus Regis longe spectatissimus, eique a sanctioribus Consiliis [accepisset], qua est humanitate, sibi autographum servans, benevolam describendi concessit libertatem.’ [The MS was (they say) brought to Denmark by Matthias Worm [1636–1707], who at the time was living in France at Patin’s house, subsequently fersteborgmester [’First Mayor’] of the city of Ribe, as an offering for [Peder Schumacher], Count von Griffenfeld [NB not Greif-: 1635–99] the rigskansler. When he succumbed to bitter fate [condemned for treason in 1676; the death sentence was commuted to perpetual imprisonment, L. A. H.-S.], it passed to [Oluf] Rosenkrantz [1623–85], gehejmerdd and head of the [See opposite page for n. 33 cont. and n. 34] treasury, and after his death to Ami Magntísson, of whom his fatherland Iceland and all the scholarship of Scandinavia may rightly boast. From [him], when [] Christian Reitzer, then professor at Copenhagen, now the king’s minister, respected far and wide, and adviser on religious affairs [member of Frederik V’s inquisition, the bandekommission], [had received it], with his characteristic generosity he kept the original for himself, but granted kind permission to transcribe.]

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  34. See Zedler, xxxvlii: 1519–21 and DBL, XIII: 596–8.

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  35. For Rostgaard see DBL, XII: 404–6 and Kobenhavn Universitet, 1479–1979, vin: Klassisk filologi indtil r800, ed. P. J. Jensen (Copenhagen, 1992), 171–4; for Weghorst see Zedler, Lin: 1917–18 and DBL, xv: 359.

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  36. Feriae aestivales, 28; cf. Arpe’s letter to Fabricius (n. 38).

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  37. Hoc mihi prora et puppis: to mihi Dux et autor es; ingenuitas suppeditavit vires oneri quidem inferiores…’, Apologia pro Vanino, Dedication; cf. further: `Quid memorem ingenium Tuum excellens, summam doctrinam, peritiam non vulgarem Reipublicae, juris bonique longa utilissimaque peregrinatione comparatam, graviora haec semper gratioraque in Te commendant, natalium splendor, at magis incredibilis humanitas tua. Me hic blandiri nemo dicet, qui Te et me noverit, cum et tuis laudibus impar, et ingenio ab adulatione longe sim alienissimo. Omnium scientiarum circularem quasi eruditionem ingenio amplo complexus, tantum in dicendo valebas, ut lassatus interdum, hospes tuns per totum diem subrusticus, numquam exsatiatus discesserim [cf. Juvenal, Satire 6. 130, L. A. H.-S.]. Sic, v OPTIME, modo Te Musis operantem videre, modo in instructissima Bibliotheca, cuius anima et decus es, belle de variis rebus disserentem audire fauste contigit.’

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  38. Arpe to Johann Fabricius, 19 July 1723, Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, MS Thott 1218, 40, fo. 3; in his notes for the new edition of the Apologia (n. 144) Arpe wrote ‘FRANCO à FRANKENAU’ in thick lettering over the initials.

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  39. See DBL, iv: 513–14; Gerhard Ernst was a son of the royal physician Georg Franck von Franckenau (cf. Zedler, Ix: 1669–71) and brother of Georg Friedrich, professor of medicine at Copenhagen; the DBL, after noting his nearly 600 printed books and MSS of sacred music and his historical collections on the Danish nobility, adds: `Som legationssekretær i Madrid havde han samlet et godt bibliotek af spansk litteratur der imidlertid ikke kom hans fa;drelands bogsamlinger til gode, idet det kebtes af lord Sunderland. Om hans interesse for spanske forhold vidner desuden hans to va;rker Sacra Themidis Hispanae arcana (Fremstilling af den spanske retshistorie og den i E. de Es tid gældende retspraksis), 1703, nyere udg. 178o og Bibliotheca Hispanica historico-genealogicoheraldica (en spansk historik bibliografi i form of forfatterleksikon), 1724’ [’As Legation Secretary in Madrid he collected a good library of Spanish literature, which however did not benefit his country’s book-collections, being bought by Charles Spencer, 4th Earl of Sunderland. His interest in Spanish affairs is also evidenced by his two works Sacra Themidis Hispanae arcana, an exposition of Spanish legal history and of contemporary legal practice (1703, new edn. 178o), and Bibliotheca hispanica historico-genealogico-heraldica (a Spanish historical bibliography in the form of a dictionary of authors), published in 1704.’] That his father too had collected manuscripts and been in contact with Johann Friedrich Mayer appears from his letter of 19 Aug. 1700 to the Hebraist Lars Normannus in Uppsala, which I am grateful to Susanna Alterman for sending me from Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm.

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  40. The introduction was addressed to Otto Sperling, which shows that Frankenau too belonged to the Sperling—Reitzer circle.

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  41. The focus of K. Bohnen and S. A. Jorgensen (eds.), Zentren der Aufklärung, Iv: Der dänische Gesamtstaat: Kopenhagen —Kiel —Altona (Wolfenbütteler Studien zur Aufklärung, 18; Tübingen, 1992) is the mid-and later 18th C.

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  42. In his dedication to Frankenau, Arpe expressed gratitude for the encouragement which he derived from these discussions: `VANINI Itali Philosophi existimatio famaque per integrum et quod excurrit saeculum, iniusta sceleris nefandi macula, laboravit et laboraret credo, apud Posteros, nisi TE A U C T O R E, dum alii id facere ambigunt, earn defendere et ab infamia liberare ausus fuissem. Id quo animo faciam, haud mihi constat, dum tantam VA N I N I infamiam, tantam opinionem, in concionibus agitatam, in iudiciis iactatam, tam vetustam atque adeo animis insitam, evellere aggredior. Nisi in TE Tuosque similes magna spes esset, Vos huius innocentiae, in hac calamitosa fama, ut in perniciosissima fiamma et communi incendio subuenturos.’ [The fame and reputation of the Italian philosopher Vanini has suffered for a whole century from being unjustly stained with an inspeakable crime, and would I think suffer among posterity, had I not at your instigation ventured to defend it and free it from dishonour while others hesitated. With what courage I am to do so I do not know, for I am attempting to uproot so great a dishonour attaching to Vanini, so strong an opinion, urged in sermons, bandied about in lawcourts, so old and so deeply rooted in men’s minds, had I not great hopes that you and those like you would assist his innocence in the case of so disastrous a reputation as in that of the most devastating flames and a fire that threatened all.] Quoted after the Göttingen edition of the notes to the Apologia (n. 145 ).

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  43. See below, n. 48.

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  44. Landesbibliothek Hannover, Leibniz-Archiv: LBr 499•

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  45. See e.g. fols. 49–5o ioo ff., my for Franck von Frankenau, 92° for Sperling and Reitzer, passim for Königsmann, Schellhammer, Lintrup, and others.

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  46. Utrum genuinus sit foetus, Petro Bayle aliique maximis viris perperam quaesitus, dicere non ausim. Non desunt tarnen qui de eius antiquitate nescio quid proferunt. Gerardus Ernestus Francus de Frankenau, Heidelberga Palatinus, Secretarius quondam Regius Danicae in Hispaniam ablegationis, et Ehrencronii in hac profectione comes coram me Hafniae docebat, schedas quae habentur in Christian Wormii Seelandiae Episcopi et Prof. Theol. primar. Hafniensis petitas esse e Bibliotheca Mayeriana’: fol. IO2r Kortholt had already sent the same information to Leibniz the day before: `Librum de tribus impostoribus haberi penes Christianum Wormium…’ (10or).

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  47. For Palthenius and the so-called `Palthenius Letter’ to Worm frequently included in copies of the treatise (Gericke’s MS group B) see W. Gericke, `Die handschriftliche Überlieferung des Buches von den drei Betrügern (de tribus impostoribus)’, Studien zum Buch and Bibliothekswesen (Leipzig, 1986), 5–28, at 12–13.

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  48. For Mayer see M. Faak, `Die Verbreitung der Handschriften’ (n. 4), 215 ff. Sebastian Kortholt wrote to Leibniz in Nov. 1715 that Worm possessed part of the Three impostors (see Faak, 219, and above, n. 46); he was the son of Christian Kortholt, the author of De tribus impostoribus magnis liber, Cherbury, Thom. Hobbes et Ben. Spinozae oppositus (1st edn 168o; 2nd edn Hamburg, 1700). In Kiel, there were discussions among theologians, philosophers, and scholars about these `atheistic’ books. Besides Pasch and Kortholt (but Mayer too was a professor of theology in Kiel) we may instance the philosopher Königsmann, a friend of Arpe’s, who in his Kiel lectures from 1780 to 1713 conducted a constant debate with Spinoza; see Geschichte der Chr. Albrechts-Universität Kiel (Neumünster, 1969), v/I: 17. Arpe wished to use notes of Königsmann’s lecture in his re-edition of the Vanini book (n. 144). Nor did the debate about Lord Herbert of Cherbury pass him by: on 21 Oct. 1709 he wrote to G. Schrödter (see n. 55) that he was studying Cherbury’s works: `Transmisit ille mihi Herbertum de ventate et errorum causis…, quern his diebus libenter studioseque perlegi, ut incorruptius de eius sententia judicium ferrem.’ [He sent me Herbert De ventate et errorum causis…, whom these last few days I have read with pleasure and attention, so that I might judge the more impartially of his opinion.’]

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  49. Arpe to Conrad Zacharias von Uffenbach, 13 July 1728 at Uffenbach, Commercii epistolaris Uffenbachiani selecta, ed. J. G. Schellhorn (Ulm and Memmingen, 1753 ), II: 446: `Concesserat Palthenio amico, is Christiano Wormio, Episcopo Sialandiae, cuius beneficio ad me pervenit, ut epistola operi praefixa testatur’ [’Mayer had granted liberty to copy to his friend Palthenius, and he to Christen Worm, bishop of Sja:lland, by whose kindness it reached me, as the prefatory letter of my work testifies’]; for Worm see too ibid., 469). J. Chr. Wolf too had surmised in his letter to La Croze (n. 8) that Arpe might have known the Three impostors from his time in Copenhagen.

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  50. Further proof for the early date of Arpe’s copy is the watermark of the paper (n. 121).

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  51. For this `Staphorst misinformation’ see Gericke, `Die handschriftliche Überlieferung’ (n. 47), 13–14 and id., `Die Wahrheit über das Buch von den drei Betrügern’, in Theologische Versuche (Berlin, 1972), Iv: 89–114; Gericke records the group of MSS containing this information and therefore derived from Arpe’s copy as BI, comprising MSS Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek N 81 b/1; N 81 ba/I; N 14o/I; Hamburg, Cod. theol. 2152/2; add Kiel, Universitätsbibliothek K.B. 89.

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  52. See Berlin, MS Diez C 4° 37 and Kiel K.B. 89: `Harem schedarum verurn auctorem mihi ex ore ipsius rendit max. reverendus Nicol. Staphorst ad D. Joannis aedem pastor Hamb. Cum Jo. Mullerus in atheismo devicto mentionem nefandi libri de tribus impostoribus ita fecisset ac si legisset et ipsi copia illius suppeteret, Jo. Fried. Mayerus th.D., vir polymathestatus, ex nepote pessimum sed rariss. ingenii humani foetum investigabat, qui non plane quaesita illustris viri et tunc in civitate potentis abnuebat. Moliebatur tunc forte comitia Thaboritica s. diss. de tribus tabernaculis eique praemittebatur epistola in qua de hoc libro facta mentione Joh. Joach. Mulle-rum J.U.D. et postea actuarium Hamburg. eo consilio ad opponendum provocabat, ut de hoc libro hactenus ignoto suam sententiam propalaret. Accipit conditionem—partum infausta Lucina editum exhibet, a quo sub titulo de tribus impostoribus acceperunt reliqui.’ [The true origin of these pages the most reverend Nikolaus Staphorst, pastor of the Johanniskirche in Hamburg, told me with his own lips. Johann Müller having mentioned in his Atheismus devictus that infamous book on the Three Impostors in terms implying that he had read it and had access to a copy, Johann Friedrich Mayer, Th.D., a thorough polymath, enquired after that abominable but very rare production of the human mind from Müller’s grandson, who did not utterly refuse a request from a man of renown who at that time had power in the city. He [Mayer] happened to be working on his Comitia Thaboritica [resp. Justus Stemann, (Hamburg), 1688], that is to say his dissertation on the three tabernacles, and prefixed to it a letter in which, having mentioned this book, he challenged Johann Joachim Müller, Doctor of Both Laws and afterwards Registrar at Hamburg, to oppose him with the intention that he should state his opinion of this hitherto unknown book. He accepted the condition, and exhibited a baby born when Lucina was impropitious, received from him by the rest under the title De tribus impostoribus.’] On Johann Joachim Müller and his grandfather Johann Müller, the author of Atheismus devictus (Hamburg, 1672; znd edn Frankfurt, 1685) see Gericke, opp. citt., amd E. Niewöhner, Veritas sive Varietas: Lessings Toleranzparabel and das Buch von den drei Betrügern (Heidelberg, 1988), esp. 353 ff., 392 ff.A basic comment must be made regarding the language used to speak of the Three Impostors. It is clear that scholars at the time were in the habit of calling such a book `unfortunate’, `damned’, `pestilential’, and so forth even in private correspondence; in the present case, even if one was highly interested in the treatise, the necessary cautious terms had taken on an automatic quality; a remnant of caution was retained. 53 For Ahl(e)feld(t) (1656–1720) see DBL, I: 91–2; on his diplomatic career: `Hans diplomatiske karriere indledtes med at han 1683–84 sendtes til Dresden og 1689–91 til London i særlige missioner; ferst da han 1698 udnævntes til gesandt i Berlin blev hans diplomattjeneste of varighed. Han tilbagekaldtes herfra 1707, blev atter 1710 minister i Haag, men rappelleredes 1714. Bide i Preussen og i Nederlandene havde A. virket under vanskelige politiske forhold og opniede heller ikke stone resultater…. Efter rappellen fra Haag trak han sig tilbage til Holsten, fik 1716 side i overamtsretten og boede dels i Hamburg, dels pi Seestermühe som han havde kebt ca. 1684.’ [’His diplomatic career began with his being sent on special missions to Dresden in 1683–4 and to London in 1689–91; not till his appointment as ambassador to Berlin in 1698 did he become a career diplomat. Recalled from Berlin in 1707, he received a new posting as Minister in The

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  53. Hague in 17ío, but was recalled in 1714. Both in Prussia and in the Netherlands A. worked in difficult political circumstances and failed to achieve significant results…. After his recall from The Hague he withdrew to Holstein; in 1716 he obtained a position in the Overamtsret (supreme court of the amt or county), and lived partly in Hamburg, partly at Seestermühe, which he had bought c. 1684. 1

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  54. Probably following Johann Fabricius, Hist. Bibl., vi: 329: ‘Inde cum nobilissimae prosapiae iuvene, fidei suae commisso, perrexit in Belgium’ [’then he travelled to the Netherlands with a youth of the most noble lineage entrusted to his care’]. Arpe had been somewhat ambiguous in his letter to Fabricius; he had accompanied a young von Ahlefeld on his way to the cadet school (Ritterakademie) in Wolfenbüttel, from where, when the diplomat Johann Heinrich von Ahlefeld went to the Netherlands, he evidently followed him with the young man.

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  55. He had contact with this family as early as 1709, for he wrote a letter from Seestermühe, a small village between Hamburg and Glückstadt and the Ahlefeld family seat, to the Hamburgborn Gustav Schrödter, a chaplain at the Danish embassy in Paris, on 21 Oct. 1709 (London, British Library, Add. MS 2877, fol. 259; I thank Justin Champion for the transcript).

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  56. Bibliotbeca fatidica sive Musaeum scriptorum de divinatione; Arpe wrote to Wolfenbüttel again in 1726 and 1727 to exchange information with the librarian Lorenz Hertel; the two letters are in the Herzog-August-Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Cod. guelf. 239. Io Extray., fols. 81r-84r.

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  57. Arpe to Johann Fabricius, 19 July 1723 (n. 38), fol. 4: `… cum ad Batavos cum illustr. juvene fidei meae commisso, in familia Generosiss. de A. Equitis et legati Regis Daniae splendissime concessissem.’

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  58. Feriae aestivales, 21: `Magnam partem culti orbis transeundo videram. Hagae Comitis in familia illustrissimi viri haerebam. Ultrajecti cum ad pacis conditiones sanciendas, tonus Europae consiliorum Principes convenissent, ex parvis causis res maximas evenire intelligebam, Anceps semper magisque dubius, quid Fatum dicendum, quidve in nostra potestate sit.’

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  59. Johann Henrico ab Ahlfeld/Domino in Seestermuhe;/ordinis Dannenbrogici/equiti splendissimo,/Regiae Majestati Daniae/ab intimis et sanctioribus consiliis,/ad summos et praepot./Belgii ordines legato,/patriae patri/in/saeculi/decus et emolumentum/nato/hoc Theatrum Fan/ob summa in se merita/L. M. Q./D.D.D./Autor.’

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  60. Professor of Law in Leiden since 1686.

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  61. See Zedler, xLix: 113–14: a renowned professor of law in Leiden.

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  62. Professor in Leiden since 1693, additionally professor of Dutch history since 1701.

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  63. A pastor in The Hague since 1709: see Zedler, u1: 622–4; E. A. Mailhet, J. Basnage, théologien, controversiste, diplomate d7 historien: sa vie et ses écrits (Geneva, 188o); G. Cerny, Theology, politics and letters at the crossroads of European civilization: Jacques Basnage (1653–1723) and the Baylean Huguenot refugees in the Dutch Republic (Dordrecht, 1987).

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  64. Arpe to Johann Fabricius, 19 July 1723 (n. 38), fo. 4.

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  65. Ibid.: ‘Ex quorum numero, cum quidam forte inter Schedas meas Apologiam pro Jul. Caesare Vanino Neapolitano, de cuius fama et salute conclamatum erat conspexisset, autor mihi suasorque fuit, ut foetum ilium ingenii tineis blattisque eriperem et ampliorem eo eruditis dicendi et disquirendi materiam suppeditarem. Invitus parui, prodibat tam libellus, sed sine nomine autoris, urbis, typographi, ut Apelles instar post tabulam latentis, publicum iudicium experirer.’

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  66. See previous n.

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  67. Histoire des ouvrages des savans (Amsterdam, 1687–1709); see the entry in the National Union Catalog: `In addition to collective title-pages for the volumes, many numbers have special title-pages with imprint: Amsterdam, Michel Charles Le Cène; Rotterdam, Reinier Leers, Gaspar Fritsch; Rotterdam, Gaspar Fritsch and Michael Böhm.’ It was published by Reinier Leers from 1687 to Mar. 1709; one month after the sale of his enterprise to Fritsch and Böhm in May 1709, Basnage ceased to work on the journal. Fritsch and Böhm published only the issue for Apr. June 1709. In 1721 the journal was revived by Le Cène in Amsterdam.

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  68. His publications include: Histoire de l’ancien and du nouveau Testament (Amsterdam, 1703); Histoire des juifs (Rotterdam, 1706, and subsequent edns); Sermon sur divers sujets de morale, de theologie b de l’histoire (Rotterdam, 1709); his Annales des Provinces-Unies were published at The Hague in 1719–26 by Charles Levier.

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  69. See n. 14.

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  70. For his biography see L. Bianchi, Tradizione libertina e critica storica: da Naudé a Bayle (Milan, 1988), 185–6; cf. literature there cited.

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  71. Even though it was not published until 1717, see Durand’s foreword.

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  72. See M. C. Jacob, The radical Enlightenment (n. 26); but cf. Ch. Berkvens-Stevelinck, `Les Chevaliers de la Jubilation: maçonnerie ou libertinage?’, Quaerendo, 13 (1983), 50-73, 124-48.

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  73. Arpe to Marchand; see following n.

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  74. Arpe to Marchand, no date, Leiden, MS March. 2; unlike Jacob, I date this letter 1717 (or at the latest 1718 ) because of the publications discussed and the reference to the Reformation bicentenary, 1517–1717: `Eundem animorum cultum et studiorum genus, firmissimam conciliare amicitiam, Tuum me exemplum docet Vir celeberrime, quem ob summam humanitatem et doctrinam, cum in Belgio versarer, vix cognitum amplecti et amare coepi. Neque unquam me huius facti coepit poenitentia, quin potius quoties amici Te optime de Literis mereri, editionem Bayle urgere, de aeruscatoribus nugivendulis adversariis Tuis triumphare, mihi retulerunt, toties magnopere gavisus sum. Macte virtute et ingenio; ea vis est veritatis ut premi non opprimi possit, et invitis locutulejis et blatteronibus, elegantioribus literis Tuum constabit decus.’

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  75. journal des savans (Mar. 1713): 319–26; the reviewer gives a long extract from Arpe’s comments on the Liber—or rather a consolidated translation that does not faithfully reproduce the sense but makes them an unambiguous confirmation of La Monnoye: ‘Il y a bien de l’apparence que le livre des trois imposteurs est une pure chimere’ (p. 323).

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  76. M. Jacob, The radical Enlightenment (n. 26), 202: ‘he [Rousset] also signed his letter [the Réponse] in the name of Marchand’s correspondent—Peter Friedrich Arpe—an obvious ruse’. Jacob also mistakenly assumes (pp. 195, 228) that Arpe was the author of the Latin Liber de tribus impostoribus; she also confused the MS headed `Vanini’ and `Tractatus de tribus impostoribus’ in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague (132 D 30), which in fact contains the Meditationes of Theodor Lau, with Arpe’s book on Vanini (p 228); Arpe’s letter to Marchand, which she misdates to 1710–11 (see above, n. 74) she merely describes as `extremely laudatory’ (p. 195).

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  77. I have attempted in vain to determine from the correspondence between Leibniz and Prince Eugene’s general Bonneval, whether Leibniz had learnt about Arpe via Hohendorf and Prince Eugene. The terminus ante quem is 31 Mar. 1716, when Leibniz wrote to La Croze about him.

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  78. Fol. 33°: `Aen d’Heer Pieter de Naevius in de Ridderschap Straat tot Utrecht’.

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  79. Arpe therefore includes it in his Bibliotheca curiosa (cf. n. 166) between the Latin and the French text of the Three impostors.

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  80. Apologia pro Vanino, 43.

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  81. For information on Naevius I am much obliged to Rienk H. Vermij, who examined the documents in the Utrecht city archives; it was he too who discovered the information on Catharina Beverland. On the freethinker Adriaan (Hadrianus) Beverland (c.165o-1716) see A. J. van der Aa, Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden, 11/2: 491–4; R. de Smet, Hadrianus Beverlandus (1650–1716), Non unus e multis peccator: studie over bet leven en werk van Adriaan Beverland (Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Letteren, 50/126; Brussels, 1988); E. J. Dingwall, Very peculiar people: portrait studies in the queer, the abnormal and the uncanny (London, 1950), 145–77.

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  82. N. van der Monde, Geschied-en oudheidkundige Beschrjving van de pleinen, straten, stegen, waterleidingen, wedden, putten en pompen der stad Utrecht, i (Utrecht, 1844 ), 201: `Het huis, door Godert, Graf van Athlone, Baron van Rheede and Aghrim, en Vrijheer van Amerongen, omstreeks het einde der XVII eeuw gesticht, heeft deze straat merkwaardig gemacht door de vredeshandelingen, in 1712 en 1713 aldaat gehouden, en de verdragen, tusschen Engeland, Frankrijk en Savoye, op den 11 April 1713, in hetzelve gesloten. Dit huis werd in dat tijdperk bewoond door den eersten Plenipotentiaris van Engeland, Mylord Joannis Robinson’ [’The house built about the end of the 17th c. by Godard van Reede, Earl of Athlone, Baron of Reede, Ginkel, and Aghrim, Vrijheer van Amerongen [1644–1703], has drawn attention to this street through the peace-negotiations conducted there in 1712 and 1713, and the treaties concluded in it on 11 Apr. 1713 between Great Britain, France, and Savoy. At that time this house was inhabited by the British First Minister Plenipotentiary, John Robinson, bishop of Bristol, later of London.’]

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  83. See M. Braubach, `Ein Vertrauter des Prinzen Eugen: der Generaladjutant Hohendorff, in id., Geschichte und Abenteuer: Gestalten um den Prinzen Eugen (Munich, 1950), 126–62; for the wider context of Eugene’s policy see Braubach, Prinz Eugen von Savoyen: Eine Biographie, 5 vols. (Vienna, 1963–5), esp. Vol. III; the most important contemporary biography is L. D. Volprecht, `Das Leben Georg Wilhelm v. Hohendorfs, eines, so gelehrt, als tapfern Preußischen Cavaliers’, in Acta Borussica ecclesiastica, civilia, literaria oder Sorgfältige Sammlung allerhand zur Geschichte des Landes Preussen gehöriger Nachrichten, Uhrkunden, Schriffien und Documenten (Königsberg and Leipzig, 1731), 11/3: 441–58.

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  84. Braubach, `Ein Vertrauter’ (n. 83), 129: `Im Frühjahr 1711 wird er von Eugenii bei Ehrenbreit-stein und Düsseldorf nach dem Haag und in das Feldlager Marlboroughs vorausgeschickt… Als dann im Sommer der Prinz sich von Belgien wieder nach Deutschland zurückbegab, ließ er den Generaladjutanten auf dem Kriegsschauplatz im Nordwesten zurück’ [’In the spring of 1711 he was sent on ahead by Eugene by way of Ehrenbreitstein and Düsseldorf to The Hague and to Marlborough’s camp… When in summer the Prince returned from Belgium to Germany, he left his adjutant-general behind in the theatre of war]; 130: `Mittelpunkt jener zu den großen Friedensverträgen führenden Verhandlungen war Holland, waren der Haag und Utrecht, und so wird es wohl bei diesen Gelegenheiten gewesen sein, daß Hohendorff Beziehungen zu vornehmen holländischen Familien aufnahm.’ [’The centre of those negotiations, which led to the great peace-treaties, was the Netherlands, in particular The Hague and Utrecht, so that it was probably on these occasions that H. became connected with distinguished Dutch families.] Cf. pp. 136 ff.: Hohendorf went in June 1712 to London, in Aug. 1713 and Dec. 1715 to Paris.

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  85. Braubach, Tin Vertrauter’ (n. 83), 13o.

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  86. On the early history of Bergen op Zoom see Zedler, III: 1259–60; it was a 16th-c. margraviate in Brabant. It belonged until 1710 to Lt.-Gen. François-Egon de La Tour d’Auvergne; it is not clear what relationship he bore to Frau von Hohendorf’s forebear (`Elter-Vater’), Vrijheer van Tuyll, `Admiral-Lieutenant von Bergen op Zoom’ (Volprecht, Das Leben’ (n. 83), 456), next to whom Hohendorf himself was buried.

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  87. The catalogue of this library, now in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, was published after Hohendorf’s death: Bibliotheca Hohendorfiana ou Catalogue des livres de la bibliotheque de feu Monsieur George Guillaume Baron de Hohendorf, 3 vols. (The Hague, 172o). K. O. Brechler, Die Büchersammlung des Freiherrn von Hohendorf, Generaladjutanten des Prinzen Eugen von Savoyen (Vienna, 1928 ), is only a few pages long and not very helpful; for an alphabetical index of the collection see Österreich. Nationalbibl., Cod. 13966.

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  88. In Paris the Duke of Saint-Simon recorded his impressions of von Hohendorf: Mémoires, xxx: 278-9 353-9 372. See too the report of 9 Sept. 1713 by Hohendorf’s companion in Paris, Dufay (Paris, Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Autriche, Correspondance politique 92); Du Luc to Huxelles, 5 Sept. 1716 (ibid., 109); and Prince Eugene’s letters to Hohendorf regarding purchases, now in Vienna (references from Braubach, Tin Vertrauter’ (n. 83), 161).

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  89. Antoine Henri de Sallengre, Mémoires de litterature, ed. H. Sauzet (The Hague 1715–17), 1/2: 282.

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  90. Ibid., 283.

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  91. For Toland’s letter to Hohendorf see Jacob (n. 26), 152–3

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  92. In the Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden there are, under the signature March. 2, three letters of Hohendorf’s to Marchand. The first two, occasioned by Marchand’s edition of the Cymbalum mundi, were still dated from Vienna, on 28 Jan. and in Mar. 1711. The third, of 20 Dec. 1712, was written in The Hague and also dealt with editions and purchases of books for Prince Eugene’s library: `Je ne vous dis autre chose connaissant votre habitude, et le plaisir que vous aurez de servir un Prince qui ne manquera pas de reconnaissance pour vous.’

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  93. M. Jacob, The radical Enlightenment (n. 26), 147; she continues: `At the heart of the early years of the Radical Enlightenment on the Continent lay the entourage of Eugène of Savoy at The Hague. It attracted radical Whigs and French Protestants, and indeed if ever they had access to European power politics, prior to the Orangist revival in the Netherlands during the 174os, it was in those heady days after Eugene’s brilliant military victories in the War of the Spanish Succession.’

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  94. By permission of the Lord Baron von Hohendorf I copied this manuscript from the original in the Library of the most serene Prince Eugene of Savoy, in the year…’. For these notes see E. Charles-Daubert, `Les Traités des trois imposteurs et l’Esprit de Spinosa’ (n. 29 ), 22–3.

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  95. Ibid. Mme Charles-Daubert does not list Kiel K.B. 89, which contains the same remarks about the additions from Charron and Naudé as Munich, Cod. Gall. 415; see the description in the Appendix.

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  96. Op. cit. (n. 29), 41; for the booksellers in The Hague see E. E Kossmann, De Boekhandel te ‘s-Gravenhage tot het eind van de 18de eeuw (The Hague, 1937 ).

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  97. Bibliotheca Hohendorfiana (n. 87), III: 8° loo; 8° 98 is Vanini’s De admirandis, 8° 99 the Amphitheatrum.

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  98. Information kindly supplied by M. Hadraba of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna; the book now has the shelfmark 7.Y.3.

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  99. Arpe to J. A. Fabricius, Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliothek, Ms. Fabr. 104–123, 4°.

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  100. Apologia pro Vanino, 43; Neque tarnen librum de tribus impostoribus plane negaverim.

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  101. Ibid.: `At quas fabulosa hydra turbas ciet!’

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  102. Apologia pro Vanino, 42, cf. J. Deutsche, Dissertatio posterior de Vanini scriptis et opinionibus (Jena, 1708; repr. 1713), 13, citing ‘p. 203’ of Rosset; the only edition to contain the story is that of 1619, Les Histoires mémorables et tragiques de ce temps, published by Pierre Chevalier at Paris. In the re-edition by A. de Vaucher Gravili (Paris, 1994), 165, the passage runs: `Mais pour perdre mieux ceux qui ne bouchaient point les oreilles à cette sirène tromperesse, il fit revivre sourdement ce méchant et abominable livre, de qui l’on ne peut parler qu’avec horreur et que l’on intitule Les trois imposteurs. Je ne veux point insérer ici les raisons contenues dans ce pernicieux et détestable livre que l’on imprime à la vue et au grand scandale des chrétiens.’ From the same page of Rosset, Deutsche, 11 n. q, quotes: `Vann composa un livre des causes naturelles, il donnait à la nature, ce qui n’appertient [sic] proprement, qu’au Createur de l’univers et de la nature mesme’; cf. ed. cit. 168 `Il composa un livre des causes naturelles… Dans ce livre il avait inséré mille blasphèmes et mille impiétés, comme celui qui donnait à la nature ce qui n’appartient proprement qu’au Créateur de l’univers et de la nature même.’ See J. S. Spink, French free-thought from Gassendi to Voltaire (London, 1960), 33; F. P. Raimondi, `Vanini e il “De tribus impostoribus”’, in Ethos e cultura: studi in onore di Ezio Riondato (Padua, 1991 ), 265–90.

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  103. Sic plerique minimis inventiunculis gaudent, quae excussae risum movent, inventae facie ingenii blandiuntur’: Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, 8. 5. 22.

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  104. Apologia pro Vanino, 44: `Liber irte machina hac subdola, Equi instar Trojani est. Ex hoc Equo ferunt nobilissimis Trojanis ortum exitium; ex hoc libro doctissimis, qui profaniore aliquantulum Brant ingenio, infamia suborta est.’

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  105. Staatsarchiv Dresden, Geheimes Konsilium, Loc. 7209, ‘Konfiskation and Zensur einiger Bücher’, i (1714–172o), fols. 243 ff., cit. A. Kobuch, ’Aspekte des aufgeklärten bürgerlichen Denkens in Kursachsen’ (n. 21 ), 263.

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  106. Ibid., 264 ff.

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  107. See n. 52.

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  108. The Latin word naenia literally means `lamentation’, but is used more generally for ‘nonsense’: in the preface to the Apologia Arpe applied it to his own work.

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  109. Commercii epistolaris Uffenbachiani selecta (n. 49), II: 446: `Gallici MS. infausta Lucina editi mihi quoque exemplum est, et quae sunt huius farinae bellaria, potius ad movendam sitim, quam magnum, quem praestant, usum apta, caeterum suis in repagulis servanda. Nec cibus iste juvat morsu fraudatus aceti; Nec grata est facies, cui Gelasinus abest. Constitueram, indicem mittere naeniarum minus forte obviarum, nisi temporis praecluderet angustia, vestraque me abuti patientia censerem, qui tam longa fastidiosaque epistola vos compel-lare ausim, gravioribus rebus occupatos.’ The verses are from Martial, Epigrams, 7. 25. 5–6, on poems that are all polish and no point.

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  110. History purged of fables’ was Arpe’s conception of critical historiography. See the Göttingen edition of Arpe’s annotated Apologia (n. 145), I: n.

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  111. Apologia, 43 nn.: `Pessimus hic liber de tribus impostoribus eximium praebet curiositatis nostri saeculi exemplum, dum viri doctissimi et magni nominis, antequam extare norint, tanta de eo cura quaerunt. Quae de eo moliebatur Dan. Georg Morhofius, interierunt. Bernardus de la Monnoye, Quintilius ille Horatianus [cf. Ars Poetica 438], ad trutinam dicta Scriptorum vocavit, et nunquam typis exscriptum pronuntiavit. Aliter quam visum Burckardo Godofr. Struvio, qui in dissertatione de doctis impostoribus Jena 1706.4. calculum adjicere detrectavit. Edidit mox Anonymus epistolam: [three words deleted] de ipsius existentia non esse dubitandum asserens, quam cum responsione Dni. de la Monnoye in Illustr. Salengre Memoires de Literat. Tom.1.P.m.376 inserit. Cuius me autorem, ut quidam volunt, publice dif iteor; etsi mihi [two words deleted] utriusque codicis hoc nomine venit [word deleted] Ms. copia sit. Alter ex biblioth. Jo. Frid. Mayen, latina lingua conscriptus, alter gallica, cuius recensio in der umbständl. Bücher Historie, fascic.ii p.z8o tantam invidiam movit, Cl. Crausio. De Schedis quae ex Mayen musaeo evolarunt, non possum non viri fide dignissimi adscribere relatum. Nuperum esse Jo. Joach. Mullen [these words evidently deleted and then rewritten above] partum, quem ingenii emendandi gratia ad disputandum provoca-tus, conscripserit, cum ipsius avus, [some words, presumably the grandfather’s name, deleted] libelli mentione facta, eius esse possessorem, non pernegasset, ideoque communicationem Mayerus amicorum coriphaeus ardentissimis precibus flagitaret. Extare et circumferri infelices huius modi chartulas facile concedo et largior, sed nec eius esse aetatis, ut volunt, nec istorum virorum, nec unquam impressas, firmissime mihi persuasum est. De isto Tenzelius in recensione Scriptor. in 4. fach des i. Repositorii der curieus. biblioth. 1704. Simon lettres choisies xvi p.142. Placcius in theatr. Anon. p.184. Observationes Hallenses. Quicquid impietatis notam inter libros fert hoc nomine vulgo venire solet, cuius exemplum apud Menagium in anis Tom.1.P.357.’ The text shows that Arpe initially continued his research on the Three impostors even though he says little about the French Traité. These words were obviously written hesitantly, as is shown by the deleted passages. For Müller see n. 52.

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  112. Observe the deletions in the text (previous n.).

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  113. Das Buch `De tribus impostoribus’ (n. 2).

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  114. Die Verbreitung der Handschriften des Buches “De tribus impostoribus”’ (n. 4).

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  115. Die Wahrheit über das Buch von den drei Betrügern’ (n. 51).

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  116. See F. Charles-Daubert (n. 29); S. Beni (n. 26).

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  117. Fols. 42r-980

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  118. He who speaks harsh words against the immortal gods [Pseudo-Tibullus, 3. 10. 14 (L. A. H.-S.)] will cause the reader to be damned if he does not damn and curse its author.’ In the Universitätsbibliothek Kiel there is a MS (K.B. 89) with the same title as Arpe’s copy, Damnatus liber de tribus impostoribus, and containing the same addition ‘Qui dicit…’ etc.; this work is divided only into six chapters but it may still be a copy of Arpe’s MS, since the chapters, unnumbered in his copy, are here so articulated that the sections `De la politique’ and `De la morale de Jesus Christ’ are subsumed in the third chapter (`Ce que signifie…’). The MS bears the note: `Msc. Latine, quod ex B. Mayeriana in apparatum librarium sereniss. Princ. Eugenii magno aere redemptum transiit cuiusque principium: Deum esse eum colendum esse quod etiam exhibetur a Baumgartenio in der Hall. biblioth. Vol., inscriptum de imposturis religionum, Jo. Aymonius Gallice transtulit ac cum pluribus communicavit. Aliud vero eiusdem farinae prostat ordiens: Quamvis omnium hominum intersit nosse veritatem sive idem illud, quod hic Gallice exhibetur a Lud. Meyero med. ni fallor compositum, in capp. 8 divisum memorat Wolf in bibi. hebr. Vol 4. p. 796. Scriptum aliquod eiusdem frontis Jo. Bidle Anglice convertisse tradit Jac. Heath in hist. belli civ. 1654.’ [`MS in Latin, which was bought at a high price from Mayer’s library and crossed into that of the most serene Prince Eugene, and beginning: “That God ought to be worshipped”, which is also presented by Baumgarten in the Hall. Biblioth. The volume, entitled De imposturis religionum, was translated into French by Jean Aymon, who made it available to several persons. Another work of

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  119. Curieuse Historie der Gelährten (Frankfurt, 1718 ), 8°, Libr. n1 Part 6, cap. 3, p. 487: `Daß Spinosa einen bösen und giftigen Saamen in seinem Herzen gehabt habe, darin hat innig das Ms. beßstärckt, welches Mr. Lucas, welcher auch der Autor des Lebens Spinosae und der den Tracta-turn Theol. politicum aus der franßö. Sprache in die lateinische gebracht, unter diesem Titel geschrieben.

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  120. MS Diez C 40 37, fol. 420.

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  121. That Arpe copied the text during his stay in the Netherlands appears to be established by the paper, which to judge by the watermark originated in Amsterdam c.171o. See the forthcoming catalogue of the Diez C MSS in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz; I thank Herr Teitge for making an advance copy available to me.

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  122. Fol. 42°: `P. M. gab die Nachricht Mr. Rousset im Haag hatte die Fabel de tribus Impostori-bus, gegen Mr de la Monnoye zu behaupten sich gefallen laßen. Ea occasione hätte der H. Vroese conseiller de la cour de Braband daselbst folgende Schrift aufgesetzt, welche unter jetzt erwähn-tern Titel [L’Esprit de Spinosa] weiter ausgeführet, da ihr sogar eigene Capittel aus Charron de la sagesse und Naudee coup d’Etat inseriret, worden.’ La Croze also left a statement on the Traité des trois imposteurs, to be found at the end of MS Diez C 4° 28, fol. io3r-°; it is followed by the note `Notabene: dieses ist Ms. de la Croze Nachricht.’ The heading runs ‘Historische Nachricht von dem gottlosen Buch in der französischen Sprache De tribus impostoribus.’ The report cannot be earlier than 1725.

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  123. Marchand, Dictionnaire historique, Art. `Impostoribus’, 1: 325 [below, p. 508].

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  124. See the important study by H. M. Barth, Atheismus and Orthodoxie: Analysen and Modelle christlicher Apologetik im 17. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 197,), esp. 172 ff.

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  125. On whom see Hermann Samuel Reimarus: ein ‘bekannter Unbekannter’ der deutschen Aufklärung. Vorträge gehalten auf der Tagung der Joachim Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften Hamburg am 12. and 13. Oktober 1972 (Göttingen, 1973).

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  126. Reimarus probably owned a copy of La Vie et l’Esprit de Mr Benoit de Spinosa, possibly also a Latin text derived from Arpe’s copy. Kiel K.B. 89 was bought at the auction of goods belonging to his son Professor J. A. H. Reimarus, who presumably found it in his father’s papers. Lessing’s correspondences include letters about Reimarus’ MSS on the Three Impostors: Gesammelte Werke (Rilla), 2nd edn, 1x: 356; cf. M. Fontius (n. 147), 259. The MS in question is probably identical with the Kiel manuscript: the copy of De imposturis religionum bound with the latter carries the note (fol. 189): `Descripsi ex apographo Domini Arpe consiliarii Guelferbytani, qui suo exemplari notam sequentem adscripserat’ [`I copied this text from the transcript of Herr Arpe, counsellor of Wolfenbüttel, who had written the following note on his copy’]. The transcript must have been made between 1729 and 1731 when Arpe was Legationsrat to the House of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel at Hamburg, under the protection of Minister Wedderkopp. Reimarus was at that time professor of oriental languages at the Akademisches Gymnasium in Hamburg. That the two were acquainted is uncertain but probable. Documents on Arpe’s time as Legationsrat are contained in the Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel, shelfmark 2 Alt 2,02–2,06 (reports from Arpe in Hamburg, his appointment, salary, letters of accreditation, and rescripts addressed to him, 5 vols. covering 1728 June 1731) and 83 Alt 1 (Duke August Wilhelm’s instructions to Arpe of 8 June 173o concerning an affair in Altona).

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  127. Es ist auffallend, daß die Gelehrten and Literaten, die in Konflikt mit den Zensurinstanzen gerieten, relativ jung waren and in späteren Jahren keine Kontroversen mehr nachweisbar sind. Daher verdichtet sich die Vermutung, daß die bürgerlichen Aufkärer weitreichende Konsequenzen aus ihren Verhören gezogen haben: entweder Verlassen des Landes oder—teils mehr, teils weniger—Anpassen an die Verhältnisse im Interesse der beruflichen Karriere’: A. Kobuch, ‘Aspekte des aufgeklärten bürgerlichen Denkens’ (n. 21), 293; for the additional problem of intellectual overproduction in Germany because of the excessive student numbers in the period 1690–1710 —Arpe’s generation—and its consequences see R. Chartier, `Time to understand: the “frustrated intellectuals”’, in id., Cultural history: between practices and representations, tr. Lydia G. Cochrane (Cambridge, 1988), 127–50, and W. Frijhoff, `Surplus ou déficit? Hypothèses sur le nombre réel des étudiants en Allemagne à l’époque moderne (1576–1815)’, Francia, 7 (1979): 173–218.

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  128. For Arpe’s relationship with Johann Albert Fabricius see their correspondence, now in Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen: five letters 1715–26: Fabr. 104–123, 40; Fabricius (born 1668), the main founder of the history of classical literature, came to Hamburg in 1694 and lived in the house of Johann Friedrich Mayer—the owner of the MS De imposturis religionum—who was pastor at St. Jacobi in Hamburg as well as professor of theology in Kiel, worked for a time with Mayer, and then became professor for rhetoric in Hamburg in 1699. Arpe certainly knew his imposing library of 20,000 volumes. Hermann Samuel Reimanis became Fabricius’ son-in-law. Arpe also had contacts with another Fabricius, who must not be confused with the former: Johann Fabricius (1644–1729), from the old theological family in Nuremberg. There are three letters in Copenhagen from 1723 to 1725: Thott 1218, 40. This Fabricius became professor of theology in Helmstedt in 1697, a post he lost in 1709; he too had a highly interesting library. For his comments on Arpe see his Historia Bibliothecae Fabricianae, v1: 328–9.

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  129. Cf. Paul Hazard, La Crise de la conscience européenne (Paris, 1935), ch. 2; L. Bianchi, Tradizione (n. 70); C. Borghero, La certezza e la storia: cartesianesimo, pirronismo e coscienza storica (Milano, 1983); M. Völkel, Pyrrhonismus historicus’ und `fides historica’: die Entwicklung der deutschen historischen Methodologie unter dem Gesichtspunkt der historischen Skepsis (Frankfurt, 1987 ).

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  130. See e.g. the description by M. L. Bianchi, Signatura rerum (Rome, 1987 ).

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  131. As suggested by his description in M. Jacob, The radical Enlightenment (n. 26 ), 195.

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  132. Herbert of Cherbury, De religione laici (London, 1645).

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  133. Charles Blount, Religio laici (London, 1683).

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  134. e.g., Des Freyherrn von Pufendorffpolitische Betrachtung der geistlichen Monarchie des Stuhls zu Rom mit Anmerckungen (Halle, 1714), 35; Einleitung zur Vernunft-Lehre (1691), 202 et saepe, Dissertatio ad Petri Poireti libros de eruditione solida, superficiaria et falsa’ (1694, in Programmata Thomasiana (Halle and Leipzig, 1724); cf. W. Schneiders, Naturrecht und Liebesethik (Hildesheim, 1971), 52; also Arpe’s review, Eines Anonymi Gutachten über die Frage: ob die Geistlichen in Mecklenburg genugsamen Grund haben… Verordnungen zu verweigern, printed in 1793 (Wissenschaftliche Allgemeinbibliothek des Bezirkes Schwerin, Mid i 2280) must have been associated with this trend.

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  135. For Boehmer (1674–1749), professor in Halle, see Jöcher (n. i), I: 1173–7.

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  136. nach dem Muster der von Naudaeo herausgegebenen Schrift’: S. J. Baumgarten, Geschichte der Religionspartheyen (Halle, 1766 ), 31.

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  137. See the letter to Marchand (n. 74), fo. 4.

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  138. For the following discussion on Vanini see J. S. Spink, French free-thought (n. 102), 32–42; L. Bianchi, Tradizione libertina e critica storica (n. 70), 177–212, esp. 584–5: `È interessante notare come, nello sforzo di Arpe di delineare un Vanini ortodosso—che contrasta con tutto quanto si era venuto scrivendo su questo autore in quasi cento anni—il Bayle delle Pensées diverses non sia mai citato. Così, mentre Arpe mostra una sensibilità e un’informazione storica più che ampia—le citazioni spaziano, per ricordarne alcune, dal Gramond a Garasse, da Pomponazzi a Wier, da Naudé a Patin, da Mersenne a Balzac, fino al Dictionnaire di Bayle—l’ipotesi bayliana dell’ateo virtuoso non viene mai direttamente presa in considerazione, anche se di fatto viene rifiutata dal più generale assunto dell’opera. Comunque quella di Bayle e quella di Arpe sono in qualche modo due tesi estreme, seppure tra di loro molto lontane—un Vanini ateo virtuoso e un Vanini intimamente cristiano—che permettono in ogni caso di verificare la distanza che ormai esiste rispetto a letture come quelle di Garasse.’ [`It is interesting to note that, in Arpe’s effort to depict an orthodox Vanini—in contrast with everything people had been writing about him for nearly a hundred years—the Bayle of the Pensées diverses is never cited. Thus, while the historical insight and information Arpe displays are more than ample — the quotations run, to mention but a few, from Gramond to Garasse, from Pomponazzi to Wier, from Naudé to Patin, from Mersenne to Balzac, right down to Bayle’s Dictionnaire—Bayle’s hypothesis of the virtuous atheist is never directly taken into consideration, even if in fact it is contradicted by the overall theme of the book. However, Bayle’s thesis and Arpe’s are in some ways two extremes, even if very far apart—a virtuous atheist Vanini and a Vanini Christian through and through—that in any case allow us to confirm the distance now existing in respect to readings such as those of Garasse.’]

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  139. Pierre Bayle, Pensées diverses sur la comète, ch. clxxiv; see also ch. clxxxii

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  140. Zedler, XLVI: 524: `die merckwürdigste; Von welchen [Olearius and Arpe] der letztere sonderlich alles sehr sinnreich zusammen getragen, was zu dessen Entschuldigung dienen, oder auch nur wahrscheinlich gesagt werden kan.’ This passage contains a very good account of the controversial writings on Vanini.

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  141. See n. 54.

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  142. For Arpe’s announcement of the new material see the letter to Marchand, the letter from Mosheim to La Croze of 3o Nov. 1718 (Thes. Ep. Lacr., 1: 282), and Arpe’s report in the Feriae aestivales, 3o ff.

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  143. Gottfried Arnold, Unpartheyische Kirchen-and Ketzer-Historie (Frankfurt, 1699–1700).

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  144. Staats-and Universitätsbibl Hamburg, Cod. theol. 1222; Arpe seems to have continued annotating the original text until the 173os, since his notices of new publications extend to that time; his hesitation about publishing his entire wealth of notes and the importance he simultaneously attached to doing so, are revealed by a note beneath the dedication: `Fatis committo libellum, dum e manu evolat, nec amplius meae est potestatis. Jacta est alea.’ [`I entrust my little book to the fates; it flies from my hands, and is no longer in my power. The die is cast.’]

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  145. Arpe, Apologia pro Vanino, Universitätsprogramm zu Pfingsten (Göttingen, 1802 and 1803). There is also a copy in the Herzog-August-Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel.

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  146. A short bibliography: F. Kopitzsch, Grundzüge einer Sozialgeschichte der Aufklärung in Hamburg and Altona (Hamburg, 1982); H.-G. Kemper, Norddeutsche Frühaufklärung: Poesie als Medium einer natürlichen Religion’, in K. Gründer and K.H. Rengstorf (eds.), Religionskritik and Religiosität in der deutschen Aufklärung (Heidelberg, 1989), 79–99; Uwe K. Ketelsen, Die Naturpoesie der norddeutschen Frühaufklärung (Stuttgart, 1974); W. Gordon Marigold, Der Hamburger Klerus gegen Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts: Gedanken zum Brauch und Mißbrauch der Gelehrsamkeit’, in S. Neumeister and C. Wiedemann (eds.), Res publica literaria: die Institutionen der Gelehrsamkeit in der friihen Neuzeit, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1987), 11: 485–96; E. Fischer, Patrioten und Ketzermacher: zum Verhältnis von Aufklärung und lutherischer Orthodoxie in Hamburg am Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts’, in W. Frühwald and A. Martino (eds.), Zwischen Aufklärung und Restauration: sozialer Wandel in der deutschen Literatur (170o-1848). Festschrift für Wolfgang Martens zum 65. Geburtstag (Tübingen, 1989), 17-47.

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  147. M. Fontius, `Littérature clandestine et pensée allemande’, in O. Bloch (ed.), Le Matérialisme du XVIIIe siècle et la littérature clandestine (Paris, 1982), 251–62, at 255.

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  148. Thus in 1733 he translated Ralph Cudworth’s True intellectual system of the universe into Latin and so made possible its European influence; see esp. M. Maurer, Aufklärung und Anglophilie in Deutschland (Göttingen, 1987 ). For Mosheim as the founder of church historiography see K. Heussi, Johann Lorenz Mosheim (Tübingen, 1906 ).

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  149. See his letters to La Croze (in Thes. Ep. Lacr.) and to Haverkamp.

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  150. For illumination it may be necessary to analyse Mosheim’s book orders to Haverkamp in more detail, as when he orders a whole series of copies of Toland for delivery to Germany (see n. ii).

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  151. For Mosheim’s interest in Servetus see n. 149, and cf. the list of Servetus’ writings, probably by Arpe, in MS Berlin Diez C 4° 37, fol. 278°, where it is also reported that La Croze had a copy of Christianismi restitutio; Mosheim’s transcript of this copy is today in the Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen. Some of his papers are in the Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel.

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  152. See his letters of 1716 to La Croze in Thes. Ep. Lacr. (n. 8 ).

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  153. See his letters to La Croze in Thes. Ep. Lacr. (n. 8) or that to Leibniz of 16 Sept. 1716; Leibniz drafted an answer: Landesbibliothek Hannover, Leibniz-Archiv; cf. too Mosheim’s letter to Haverkamp (n. u).

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  154. Mosheim to Wolf, i Dec. 1716, Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Supellex Epistolica Uffenbachi et Wolfiorum 119, 229: `Ab aliquo tempore Historiae Librorum combustorum, non levi opera,…, sed adcurata industria conscribenda intentus fui.’

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  155. See n. 157.

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  156. Fol. 277.

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  157. Comm. Ep. Uff. (n. 49), n: 447–8: `Quodsi commentarios more recepto ad rogum damnas-

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  158. Arpe, Feriae aestivates, copy in Staats-and Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Scrin. A 4441. Exemplar, after p. 100: `De his spectabile opus moliebatur Ernestus Joach. Westphalus ob elegantiam ingenii commendandus cui simbolam conferet doctiss. Jo. Henr. Heubelius in Bibliotheca Vulcani. Si in fatis est, ut pensum absolvat.’

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  159. See H. Ratjen, ‘J. H. Heubel’, Schriften der Universität Kiel aus dem Jahre 1858 (n. 2), 62 ff.

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  160. For Ernst Joachim von Westphalen (1700–59) see ADB, xi11: 218 ff.

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  161. The personal relationships between Westphalen, Heubel, and Arpe remain to be studied. Between 1728 and 1730 Westphalen, like Arpe and Heubel, lived in Hamburg; like Arpe, he concentrated on the legal history of Mecklenburg and Schleswig-Holstein. But while Arpe’s collections were never edited, Westphalen’s were published to great acclaim: Monumenta inedita rerum Germanicarum, praecipue Cimbricarum et Megapolensium, e codicibus manuscriptis membranes, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1739–45). It would be interesting to know whether Arpe’s collections contributed to the work.

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  162. See n. 2.

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  163. eine merkwürdige Sammlung von seltenen und verbotenen Büchern’: Schröder (n. 2), no. 122.

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  164. Cod. alchim. 780 [a]: `Salomo: Clavicula Salomonis, traduit de la langue hebraïque en Italien, per Abraham Calorno. Hoc exemplar ex Apographo Cl. Frid. Pet. Arpe eo modo descripsit J. Ch. Wolf’; I thank Eva Horvath of the Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg for the information.

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  165. eine Sammlung merckwürd. zerstreuter Schriften von Anfang des Jahrhunderts bis 1721’: Ratjen, ‘Arpe’, 61, citing Neue Zeitung von gelehrten Sachen auf 1727 (Leipzig), 147. The title `Antiquarius’ would have been in the style of the time. Other pupils of Johann Albert Fabricius also published `antiquarian’ collections then: Christian Schöttgen, Curiöses Antiquitäten-Lexicon (Leipzig, 1719 ), with a foreword by Fabricius himself; Christian Rhode, Cimbrisch-Holsteinisches Antiquitäten-Remarques (Hamburg, 1720 ).

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  166. The MS consists in all of 28o pages; for the individual works see the index by M. Benitez, `Liste et localisation des traités clandestins’, in O. Bloch (ed.), Le Matérialisme du XVIHe siècle (n. 147), 17–25; for the German authors see F. Mauthner, Der Atheismus und seine Geschichte im Abendlande, 4 vols. (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1920–3, repr. 1989); for the pasted-in copy of Beverland’s little pamphlet cf. two other MSS: Hamburg, Cod. theol. 2156, in Gericke’s category Bi, hence a transcript of Arpe’s copy, also followed by Beverland (fols. 47 ff.), the copy of De imposturis religionum in Kiel K.B. 86, has on its front cover the lines `… etiam Perini del Vago epistolium ad Batavum (Hadr. Beverlandum) de tribus impostoribus cum Batavi responsione, Londini c. notis Msc. Ard. Beverland…’; extracts from Beverland also appear in Kiel K.B. 89, but here only hastily written headings (fols. 158 ff.).

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  167. He also left historical satires: Das verwirrte Cimbrien (MS Kiel S.H. 74) appears to be largely his work, and likewise the printed polemic Bombastus Cyriacus Gelindemannus in umbra lycei, quod Lutkenburgi latet, philos. moralis Prof crypticus et sophronisterii, quod ibi floret, director (1727).

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  168. Er hatte 12 bis 16 sauber und zum Theil mit eigener Hand geschriebene Bände in Folio gesammelt, enthaltend Manuscripta inedita historiam danicam et holsaticam interiorem spectantia, die aber schon bei seinem Leben in andere Hände kamen.’ Schröder, Lexikon (n. 2).

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  169. There is furthermore in the Wissenschaftliche Allgemeinbibliothek Schwerin—the town where Arpe spent his last seven years — a printed Sammlung einiger Mecklenburgischer Landesgesetze und Verfassungen, 1709–1740 with the shelfmark Mid i 110–113. I thank G. Grewolls for this information.

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  170. Hamburg, 1737 ). Themis Cimbrica, 272: ‘Erit fortasse aliquando aliquis, qui et studio acriore quam nos sumus atque fuimus, et otio et facultate dicendi maiore et maturiore, atque labore et industria superiore: novas agendi et vivendi regulas adsuat, ac quae nobis in commentariolis nostris inchoata et rudia exciderunt, aliquid iisdem de rebus politius perfectiusque proferat. Huic auf his partes meas lubentissime trado nihil magis expetens, quam ut mihi cupienti et optanti datum sit, quod reliquum est aevi, honesto in otio transigere. been, more leisure and a greater and riper command of language, and a superior capacity for hard work, shall devise new rules to act and live by, and treat more elegantly and completely things that in my small notes have turned out unfinished and unformed. To him or them I most happily assign my role, seeking nothing more than to be granted that for which I wish and crave, to spend the remnant of my life in honest ease. “For the swift flower of youth hastens to run its course, the briefest portion of our short and wretched life.” (Juvenal, Satire 9.,z6–8: L. A. H.-S.)1’

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  171. I thank Leofranc Holford-Strevens and Cindy Myers for the translation. This essay was written in 1990/I. Since then I have continued to work on topics related to Arpe in some shorter studies: ‘Appunti sulla fortuna di Gabriel Naudé nella Germania del primo illuminismo’, in Studi filosofici 14–15 (1991–2): 145–56; ’Bibliotheca Vulcani: Das Projekt einer Geschichte der verbrannten Bücher bei Johann Lorenz Mosheim and Johann Heinrich Heubel’, Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert,,8/1 (1994); Naturrecht, Rechtsgeschichte and germanische Philologie im frühen 18. Jahrhundert. Recherchen über Johann Heinrich Heubel and andere freie Geister’, forthcoming, probably in Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der Literatur; `L’Edition de “La vie de Spinosa”, “Hambourg” 1735’, forthcoming, probably in Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century; furthermore I am preparing an edition of the notes to the Apologia pro Vanino: M. Mulsow, Clandestine erudition and early Enlightenment in Germany: Peter Friedrich Arpe. With an edition of the unpublished enlarged version of the `Apologia pro Vanino’ (1712) (forthcoming).

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  1. University of Munich, Germany

    Martin Mulsow

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    Silvia Berti

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    Richard H. Popkin

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Mulsow, M. (1996). Freethinking in early eighteenth-century Protestant Germany: Peter Friedrich Arpe and the Traité des trois imposteurs . In: Berti, S., Charles-Daubert, F., Popkin, R.H. (eds) Heterodoxy, Spinozism, and Free Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées, vol 148. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8735-8_5

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