The Rationalist: Cicero and Toland’s War on Priestcraft

Abstract

Of great significance to Toland’s thought was his deep distrust and disdain for the clergy. This hostility to what he deemed as tyranny over the population of the English Commonwealth drove numerous political and philosophical texts as he waged his war against priestcraft. Cicero became a vital weapon in this campaign, in particular his theological dialogues De Natura Deorum and De Divinatione. Toland’s reading of these texts is examined, and the difficulties involved in that reading as represented in the contemporary discourse, particularly in the works of Richard Bentley and Anthony Collins. The chapter then establishes how Toland used Cicero to first deconstruct the authority of the clergy, before reconstructing a civil religion in their place.