Abstract
Over recent decades a new chapter in the book of John Locke’s intellectual path has been opened. For a long period only his works about natural law, politics, tolerance and, above all, epistemology were widely known. Recently, however, the religious interests, which had been alive since his early youth but found full expression in print only in his old age, have received their deserved attention.
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Notes
- 1.
Early outlines already from 1670 to 1671; see: An Early Draft of Locke’s Essay together with Excerpts from his Journals, ed. Richard I. Aaron, Jocelyn Gibb (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936) [Draft A]; An Essay concerning the Understanding, Knowledge, Opinion, and Assent, ed. Benjamin Rand (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1931) [Draft B].
- 2.
Ed. Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).
- 3.
Ed. John C. Higgins-Biddle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999).
- 4.
Ed. Arthur W. Wainwright (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).
- 5.
Norberto Bobbio, Introduction to Thomas Hobbes, Opere politiche, vol. I (Turin: Utet, 1959), 150–51, stresses that the task of demonstrating morality is the main aim of Locke’s epistemological investigations in the Essay. See also Gerhart A. Rauche, Die praktischen Aspekte von Lockes Philosophie. Die Bedingtheit der negativen Kritik Lockes durch den ethischen Charakter des Essay (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1958).
- 6.
Ed. Wolfgang von Leyden (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), numerous reprints.
- 7.
Locke, Essay, ed. Nidditch, book IV, chap. III, par. 18, 549.
- 8.
Ibid., 549–50.
- 9.
“The Idea of a supreme Being […] whose Workmanship we are, and on whom we depend; and the Idea of ourselves, as understanding, rational Beings,” ibid., 549.
- 10.
On this movement and its most prominent representatives in Locke’s lifetime see the present author’s The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World (London: SCM Press, 1984), 223–85.
- 11.
This accusation was raised by John Edwards against Locke’s The Reasonableness of Christianity, see below.
- 12.
John C. Higgins-Biddle, Preface to Locke, Reasonableness, VIII, adopts this scheme for structuring the Introduction to his edition of the work.
- 13.
Locke, Essay, ed. Nidditch, book IV, chap. III, par. 22–31; book IV, chaps. XVI and XVII, par. 9–24.
- 14.
David G. James, The Life of Reason: Hobbes , Locke, Bolingbroke (London: Longmans, Green, 1949), 92.
- 15.
He writes in a letter to Molyneux in 1692 (The Correspondence, 8 vols., ed. Esmond S. de Beer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976–89), vol. IV, Letters 1242–1701, Letter 1538, 523): “I thought I saw that morality might be demonstratively made out; yet whether I am able to make it out, is another question.”
- 16.
Locke, Essay, ed. Nidditch, book IV, chap. XVI, par. 14.
- 17.
Ibid., chap. XVIII, par. 9.
- 18.
Ibid., chap. XIX, par. 13.
- 19.
Inserted in the “Preface to the Reader” of his work A Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity, in Works (London 1823. Reprint Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1963), vol. VII, 185–89 (186).
- 20.
Locke, Reasonableness, ed. Higgins-Biddle, 186–87.
- 21.
For the contents see also the introduction by the editor Higgins-Biddle, ibid., XV–CXV.
- 22.
Ibid., chaps. I–II, 5–16.
- 23.
Ibid., chap. III, 17–22. His statement about the difference between the Law of Works and of Faith is characteristic: “The difference between the Law of Works and the Law of Faith is only this; that the Law of Works makes no allowance for failing on any occasion…. But by the Law of Faith, Faith is allowed to supplement the defect of full Obedience.”
- 24.
Ibid., 187.
- 25.
Reasonableness, ed. Higgins-Biddle, 23.
- 26.
Ibid., 164.
- 27.
See ibid., 25–26.106.164.
- 28.
Ibid., 168.
- 29.
Ibid., chap. XV, 164–71.
- 30.
Ibid., 164ff.
- 31.
Ibid.,165.
- 32.
Ibid.,166.
- 33.
Ibid.
- 34.
Ibid.
- 35.
Ibid., 167.
- 36.
On the work see, besides the detailed Introduction by the editor Arthur W. Wainwright in the Clarendon edition (1: 1–88) and the titles listed in his Bibliography (89–99), Maria-Cristina Pitassi, Le Philosophe et l’Écriture. John Locke exégète de Saint Paul (Geneva, Lausanne, Neuchâtel: Cahiers de la Revue de théologie et de philosophie, 1990); Pitassi, “John Locke lecteur de Saint Paul ou l’histoire d’une rencontre presque oubliée: un siècle d’études,” Annali di storia dell’esegesi, 17/1 (2000): 265–73.
- 37.
See Wainwright, Introduction to Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, 5ff.
- 38.
This was the title of the draft preserved in Locke’s papers in the Lovelace collection, published by Mario Sina, “Testi teologico-filosofici lockiani dal MS. Locke c. 27 [but see also article Pitassi] della Lovelace Collection,” Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica, 64 (1972): 419–24. See the facsimile of the title page of the original opposite the modern title page.
- 39.
Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, ed. Wainwright, 110.
- 40.
Wainwright , Introduction to Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, 20: “The extent to which he read the Epistles without paying attention to commentators may be debated.” Wainwright (ibid, 12) indicates as writers who were influential on Locke and whose publications he had studied: (1) Daniel Whitby (1638–1726), author of A Paraphrase and Commentary on all the Epistles of the New Testament (London, 1700), later part of his Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament (London, 1703); (2) Henry Hammond (1605–60), author of A Paraphrase and Annotations upon all the Books of the New Testament (London, 1653), whom Locke consulted in linguistic matters. Both were adherents of the Arminian school; (3) John Lightfoot (1602–75), expert in the relationship between the New Testament and rabbinic writings, was helpful for explaining words and phrases and for the Jewish background. For additional authors see Wainwright, Introduction to Locke, Paraphrase and Notes.
- 41.
See the list ibid., 22.
- 42.
Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, “Preface,” 103.
- 43.
In the draft (see supra, note 38), fol. 218 (421), Locke had included even lengthier reflections about the date of Paul’s Epistles.
- 44.
Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, 105.
- 45.
The system of chapters was introduced for the Vulgata by archbishop Stephen Langton (1155/56–1228) and that of verses by Robert Étienne (Stephanus; 1503–59), printer in Paris.
- 46.
Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, 105ff.
- 47.
Ibid., 105.
- 48.
“Postscript,” in A Letter to the Right Reverend Edward [Stillingfleet], Lord Bishop of Worcester, concerning some passages relating to Mr. Locke’s Essay of Human Understanding, in A Late Discourse of his Lordship’s, in Vindication of the Trinity, in Works, vol. IV, 96.
- 49.
See, among others, Pitassi, Le Philosophe et l’Écriture, 21–29.
- 50.
Clericus later also wrote a Defence (Amsterdam, 1685) and a two-volume work Ars Critica (Amsterdam, 1697). Locke had both works in his private library (Harrison and Laslett, nos. 755 and 769).
- 51.
Leclerc, Sentiments, letter 1, 6.
- 52.
Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, “Preface,” 111. See also ibid., 112: “For he had Light from Heaven, it was God himself furnishing him.”
- 53.
Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, note to Rom. 2:26∗f–j. Wainwright (Introduction, ibid., 30), criticizes this argument as circular, because Locke takes as proof miracles that are mentioned nowhere else except in Scripture itself.
- 54.
Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, “Preface,” 105.
- 55.
Ibid., 106.
- 56.
With a few concomitant articles to be believed, see supra, note 26.
- 57.
See “If the reading and study of the Scripture were more pressed than it is, and men were fairly sent to the Bible to find their religion; and not the Bible put into their hands only to find the opinions of their peculiar sect or party; Christendom would have more Christians, and those that are would be more knowing and more in the right than they are now,” Second Vindication, 294. At the same time a similar project was implemented within German Pietism by Phillip J. Spener (1635–1705) and others.
- 58.
Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, 110.
- 59.
Notes to 2 Cor. 5:3; Rom. 13:11–12.
- 60.
Paraphrases to Rom. 10:9; Gal. 3:7.
- 61.
See above, note 26.
- 62.
Locke also uses the term “salvation,” although the word is not identical with “justification.”
- 63.
Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, “Preface,” 116. The eudemonistic aspect of ethics was familiar to Locke—he wrote in a pre-Kantian period.
- 64.
Paraphrase of Eph. 2:11–22, note p to Eph. 2:15 (see Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, ed. Wainwright, 635).
- 65.
Note ∗ to Rom. 1:17: “It is God that justifieth,” with reference to Rom. 3:21–24.26.30; 8:33 and quotation of Phil. 3:9. Cf. also note † “the righteousness of which he is the author.” Reference to Gal. 3:11 “which clears this interpretation.”
- 66.
“On the way” should be stressed, because he had not yet developed a completely new approach.
- 67.
Wainwright , Introduction to Locke, Paraphrase and Notes, 41.
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Reventlow, H.G. (2019). The Religious Way of John Locke from the Essay to the Paraphrase (1690–1704). In: Simonutti, L. (eds) Locke and Biblical Hermeneutics. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 226. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19903-6_2
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