In 1686, during the Anglican controversy with Roman Catholicism, two anonymously published recusant tracts employed Socinian arguments to contend that Protestants' reliance on Scripture as sufficient for salvation led to the denial of not only transubstantiation but also Trinity as unscriptural and irrational. They emphasized the necessity to refer to sacred tradition, as preserved by the Roman Catholic Church, in order to define Christian doctrine and salvage the Trinity. Anglican clergymen Thomas Tenison, Richard Kidder, William Sherlock, and Edward Stillingfleet replied that the Trinity was a thing "above reason" revealed in Scripture. However, this solution, implying that the Trinity was not plainly comprehensible to reason, led to further doubt about authority in biblical exegesis, since recusant polemicists denounced the shortcomings of free interpretation while Anglican divines argued that Church Councils were not exempt from mistakes. Relying on Scripture but rejecting tradition, Stephen Nye and other Unitarians promptly exposed the fallacies of the claim that the Trinity was a revealed thing above reason, thereby eliciting different responses from Trinitarian apologists who attempted, ineffectively, to explain the Trinity in philosophical terms. Thus, the dispute of 1686-1687 on transubstantiation and Trinity contributed to triggering the Trinitarian controversy of the late seventeenth century.

In Nazarenus: Or, Jewish, Gentile, and Mahometan Christianity, written in 1709–10 but published in 1718, the Irish-born freethinker and republican John Toland (1670–1722) provided a novel, heterodox account of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which he described as the three phases or manifestations of the same monotheistic tradition. Toland wrote Nazarenus after examining, in Amsterdam, an Italian manuscript that was believed to be a translation of a “Gospel of the Mahometans.” Identifying this text with the apocryphal Gospel of Barnabas, Toland argued that this gospel contained the beliefs of the Ebionites or Nazarenes, whom he regarded as the first Christians. Drawing on this manuscript and on several canonical and noncanonical sources, as well as the works of modern Hebraists, Orientalists, and biblical scholars, Toland described Mosaic Judaism, primitive Christianity, and early Islam as grounded in the law of nature. Accordingly, he maintained that the core of these three religions, and of “true religion” in general, was natural morality, which he considered to be universal, eternal, accessible to natural reason, and restored by Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Thus, he added that the ancient Israelites, the first Christians, and the early Muslims practiced toleration of all those who respected the Noachic precepts, which he deemed consistent with the law of nature. Toland’s argument for religious toleration in Nazarenus has been defined as a “historical argument.” Toland indeed buttressed his stance on toleration with his reinterpretation of canonical material and Judeo-Christian and Islamic apocryphal sources, which he appropriated to his philosophical and political agenda. However, Toland’s argument for toleration in Nazarenus is essentially a deistic argument, because it is based on a deistic view of “true religion” as natural religion, which is fundamentally a moral religion and which, according to Toland, is at the origin and core of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

In John Locke’s An Essay concerning Human Understanding, madness is described as “the association of ideas,” which consists in (mistakenly) associating ideas not inherently connected to each other. When criticizing religious enthusiasts for relying exclusively on “immediate inspiration,” Locke blamed them for engaging in the “association of ideas.” Thus, he considered enthusiasm as a sort of madness. This essay examines Locke’s analysis of madness against the backdrop of his “way of ideas,” thereby highlighting the specificity of his “ideational” account of madness in light of his theory of knowledge, his concept of faith as “assent,” and his notions of reason and revelation, which he regarded as complementing and assisting each other. The essay then concentrates on Locke’s view of enthusiasm as a form of madness and, thus, as divergent from “strict Reasoning,” which is employed for the purpose of using our understanding properly and directing our conduct appropriately.

The philosophers and the Bible. The debate on sacred Scripture in early modern thought. Edited by Antonella Del Prete, Anna Lisa Schino and Pina Totaro. (Studies in Intellectual History, 333.) Pp. xiv + 303 incl. 4 colour and black-and-white ills. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2022. €124. 978 90 04 41863 9; 0920 8607 - Volume 74 Issue 2

The quest to save the Old Testament. Mathematics, hieroglyphics, and providence in enlightenment England. By David Ney (foreword Wesley Hill; afterword Ephraim Radner). (Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology.) Pp. xii + 235 incl. 1 ill. Bellingham, Wa: Lexham Academic, 2022. $29.99 (paper). 978 1 68359 626 4 - Volume 74 Issue 3

After the publication of The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), several critics depicted Locke as a follower of the anti-Trinitarian and anti-Calvinist theologian Faustus Socinus and his disciples, the Polish Brethren. The relation between Locke and Socinianism is still being debated. Locke’s religion indeed presents many similarities with the Socinians’ moralist soteriology, non-Trinitarian Christology, and mortalism. Nevertheless, Locke’s theological ideas diverge from Socinianism in various regards. Furthermore, there are significant differences between the Socinians’ and Locke’s views on the natural and revealed law. Socinian authors thought that Christ’s Gospel had superseded both the Law of Nature and the Mosaic Law. Therefore, they endeavored to follow the Christian imperative of non-violence and favored pacifism. Moreover, they maintained the divine origin of political authority and asserted absolute obedience to the magistrate, thereby rejecting the right to resistance and revolution to the political power. Conversely, Locke argued that first the Law of Moses and then the Christian Law of Faith had restated the God-given, eternally valid, and universally binding Law of Nature, which Christ had complemented with revealed truths concerning the afterlife and divine mercy. Thus, according to Locke, under the Christian covenant the protection of the self ’s and others’ natural rights from abusive individuals or oppressive rulers is still a right and a duty to the Divine Creator and Legislator.

The Racovian catechism is a famous summary treatise of Socinian thought. It was written in the early seventeenth century by several members of the Minor Reformed Church of Poland. It is a common misconception that, upon reading the Latin edition of the Racovian catechism, which was dedicated to him, King James VI & I consigned it to the flames in 1614. Indeed, a comprehensive list of scholars who have repeated this mistake would take up too much space. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is first and foremost to demonstrate that the Racovian catechism was not burnt in England in 1614. This historiographical myth originated and was transmitted because of a series of misunderstandings occurring since the 1670s, whereas not one primary source testifies to the burning of the catechism in England during James's reign. In the process, we will provide essential context, examining relevant developments not only in the British Isles, but also in the Dutch Republic and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Moreover, we will argue that there is no evidence to support the claim that an edition of the Racovian catechism was secretly printed in England shortly after the supposed burning of 1614, although some subsequent editions of the catechism bore a false imprint and had a connected publishing history. Finally, we will explain how these erroneous assumptions entered the historical record together with their subsequent transmission. Our conclusion is that the early history of anti-Trinitarianism and Socinianism in England must be rewritten.

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Locke was a mortalist, as he argued that the soul dies with the body. He thought that the resurrection of the dead will take place by divine miracle on Judgment Day, when the saved will be admitted to eternal beatitude while the wicked will experience a second, final death. He was also agnostic about the ontological constitution of thinking substances or souls. Moreover, he questioned the resurrection of the body, since he argued that our corruptible, mortal bodies will be changed into incorruptible, spiritual bodies at resurrection. Locke’s position on the soul and the resurrection of the dead implies that personal identity is neither in the soul, nor in the body, nor in a union of soul and body. In "Essay" II.xxvii (1694, 2nd ed.), he argued that consciousness alone makes personal identity. To Locke, the same self exists diachronically, in this life and beyond it, “by the same consciousness.” However, Locke’s “annexing” of punishment to personality, and of personality to consciousness, does not contradict his notion of repentance, for he saw repentance as necessary but not sufficient to salvation and, emphasizing faith, he believed in God’s forgiveness of the repentant faithful.