Pierre Jurieu: The Politics of Prophecy

Abstract

In a century in which invective seems to have reached new heights, or depths, it is hard to find a more vicious exchange than that between Pierre Bayle and Pierre Jurieu. Jurieu’s name, his publications, and his views are discussed and fiercely criticized in almost all of Bayle’s writings, especially in the Dictionnaire (1696 f). Indeed, he reserves his final attack for the penultimate article, Zuerius, where he alleges that Jurieu had preached on the subject “thou should hate thy neighbor”² before twelve hundred parishioners, and that nevertheless it proved impossible to find agreement on the matter just three days later.

My thanks to the members of the Clark Library conference on Continental Millenarianism for their helpful comments and criticisms. I am especially grateful to Richard Popkin, who (many years ago) first introduced a young graduate student to Sextus Empiricus, Bayle, and Jurieu. I wish also to thank Walter Rex, Freek Knetsch, John Christian Laursen, and Elly van Gelderen for their generous support and useful comments.