Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Young Leibniz and his Philosophy (1646–76) pp 169–198Cite as

Leibniz and Millenarianism

  • Chapter

Abstract

Whether Leibniz would have been pleased by intensive scholarly scrutiny of his juvenilia is open to question. The pride inspired in youthful authors by their first publications is often purchased at a considerable price in later embarrassment. Even a prodigy such as Leibniz was not altogether immune to this effect: if the reprinting of perhaps his finest early publication caused him discomfort,1 one can only imagine his reaction to the posthumous publication of his entire archive of private papers.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the support of the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, during a research fellowship at which most of the research for this paper was undertaken.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Reference

  1. E. J. Aiton, Leibniz: A Biography (Bristol and Boston: Hilger, 1985), p. 17, on the Dissertatio de arte combinatoria.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Cf. the conclusions of the chief study of this work to date: P. Ritter, Leibniz’ ägyptischer Plan (Darmstadt: Reichl, 1930).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Justa dissertatio (1671–2, A IV i 347–82, here 379–80).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, ed. H. Lietzmann et al. (4th ed., Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959): Die Augsburgische Konfession, article xvii, p. 72. Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche, ed. E. F. K. Müller (Leipzig: Deichert, 1903): Forty-Two Articles, article lxi, p. 521.3035; Confessio helvetica posterior, article xi, p. 185. 3–7.

    Google Scholar 

  5. B. S. Capp, The Fifth Monarchy Men (London: Faber & Faber, 1972); idem, ‘Radical Chiliasm in the English Revolution’, Pietismus und Neuzeit 14 (1988): 12533, esp. p. 131; and Tai Liu, Discord in Zion: The Puritan Divines and the Puritan Revolution, 1640–1660 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973), esp. chs 3–4.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Leibniz, Mars christianissimus (1683; A IV ii 480; cf. 457 and R 128); Leibniz to Sophie, Duchess of Hanover, 23 Oct. 1691 (A I vii 36–7).

    Google Scholar 

  7. See for instance B. W. Ball, A Great Expectation: Eschatological Thought in English Protestantism to 1660 (Leiden: Brill, 1975), pp. 169–70; J. W. Davidson, The Logic of Millennial Thought: Eighteenth-Century New England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 260–80.

    Google Scholar 

  8. P. C. Almond, ‘Henry More and the Apocalypse’, Journal of the History of Ideas 54 (1993): 189–200; S. Hutton, ‘Henry More and the Apocalypse’, in Michael Wilks (ed.), Prophecy and Eschatology [Studies in Church History, Subsidia 10] (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 131–40.

    Google Scholar 

  9. E. L. Tuveson, Millennium and Utopia: A Study in the Background of the Idea of Progress (1949; New York: Harper & Row, 1964), ch. 3; M.C. Jacob and W.A. Lockwood, ‘Political Millenarianism and Burnet’s Sacred Theory, ’ Science Studies, 2 (1972): 265–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. F. E. Manuel, The Religion of Isaac Newton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), ch. 4; idem, A Portrait of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1980), pp. 361–80; J.E. Force and R.H. Popkin (eds.), Essays in the Context, Nature and Influence of Isaac Newton’s Theology(Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990); eidem (eds.), The Books of Nature and Scripture (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994). Cf. M. C. Jacob, The Newtonians and the English Revolution 1689–1720 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1976), pp. 100–42.

    Google Scholar 

  11. On Whiston’s millenarianism, see E. Duffy, “‘Whiston Affair”: The Trials of a Primitive Christian’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 27 (1976): 129–50; J. E. Force, William Whiston: Honest Newtonian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), and G. S. Rousseau, “‘Wicked Whiston” and the Scriblerians: Another Ancients-Modern Controversy’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 17 (1987): 17–44. Leibniz was informed of Whiston’s main millenarian treatise the year it was published: cf. J. F. Feller (ed.), Otium Hanoveranum… (Leipzig, 1718), p. 31; and G III 313.

    Google Scholar 

  12. On Spener’s millenarianism, see for instance Johannes Wallmann, Philipp Jakob Spener und die Anfänge des Pietismus (1970; 2nd rev. ed. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr/Paul Siebeck, 1986), esp. pp. 324–54; and D. Blaufuss, ‘Zu Ph.J. Speners Chiliasmus und seinen Kritikern’, Pietismus & Neuzeit 14 (1988): 85–108. Leibniz’s references to it include A I vii 75, 103, 319, 323, 695–6; A I viii 616.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Van Helmont’s most obviously millenarian work is Seder Olam, sive ordo seculorum. Historica enarratio doctrinae (n. pl. 1693). Leibniz’s two critiques of it are published in A. Foucher de Careil, Leibniz: La Philosophie Juive et la Cabale (Paris: Durand, 1861), ‘Remarques inédits de Leibniz sur le Seder Olam’, pp. 47–54. Other references to the author’s millenarianism include G. H. Pertz (ed.), Leibnizens gesammelte Werke aus den Handscriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Hannover (Hannover: Im Verlage der Hanschen Hof-Buchhandlung, 1843–7), IV, 191, 193, 198; Leibniz to Lorenz Hertel, 8/18 Jan. 1695 (A I xi 22–3); Allison Coudert, Leibniz and the Kabbalah (Dordrecht, Boston and London: Kluwer Academic, 1995), pp. 58–63.

    Google Scholar 

  14. On Alsted’s millenarianism, see R. G. Clouse, ‘Johann Heinrich Alsted and English Millenarianism’, Harvard Theological Review 62 (1969): 189–207; idem, ‘The Rebirth of Millenarianism’, in Puritans, the Millennium and the Future of Israel, ed. P. Toon, (Cambridge and London: Clarke, 1970), pp. 42–56; W. SchmidtBiggemann, ‘Apokalyptische Universalwissenschaft: Johann Heinrich Alsteds Diatribe de mille annis apocalypticis’, in Pietismus & Neuzeit 14 (1988): 51–71; Howard Hotson, ‘Johann Heinrich Alsted: Encyclopaedism, Millenarianism and the Second Reformation in Germany’ (unpublished D. Phil. dissertation, Oxford, 1991), ch. 7. Leibniz’s awareness of Alsted’s millenarianism is demonstrated by the underlining and marginalia in his copy of Alsted’s Diatribe de mille annis apocalypticis (Herborn, 1627): Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek shelf-mark T-A 150.

    Google Scholar 

  15. On Comenius’s millenarianism, see most recently Radim Palous, ‘Comenius the Chiliast’, Czechoslovak and Central European Journal 10 (1991): 1–12; J. M. Lochman, ‘Comenius as Theologian’, Acta Comeniana 10 (1993): 35–47; and M. E. H. N. Mout, ‘Chiliastic Prophecy and Revolt in the Habsburg Monarchy during the Seventeenth Century’, in Prophecy and Eschatology, ed. Wilks, pp. 93–109. For Leibniz’s knowledge of Comenius’ millenarianism from 1671 onwards, cf. A I i 174; A II i 201; A IV i 373.

    Google Scholar 

  16. A more complete discussion will be found in Alsted and Leibniz on God, the Magistrate and the Millennium, edited with introductions and commentary by Maria Rosa Antognazza and Howard Hotson [Wolfenbütteler Arbeiten zur Barockforschung] (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999), pp. 127–215. The present paper is a much abridged version of one of the main lines of argument of that section.

    Google Scholar 

  17. As suggested in D. J. Cook, ‘Leibniz and Millenarianism’, in Leibniz und Europa I (1994): 135–42; here p. 139. Cf. idem, ‘Leibniz: Biblical Historian and Exegete’, in I. Marchlewitz and A. Heinekamp (eds.), Leibniz’ Auseinandersetzung mit Vorgängern und Zeitgenossen (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1990), pp. 267–76; here p. 275.

    Google Scholar 

  18. First published in Oeuvres de Leibniz par A. Foucher de Careil (7 vols., Paris: Firmin-Didot frères, fils et cie, 1859–75), II, 497–506; reprinted in VE 2065–73.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Summaria Apocalypseos explicatio (VE 2065): “Nuper in Apocalypsin meditatus,”

    Google Scholar 

  20. A good introduction is G. Seebass, ‘Antichrist IV: Reformations-und Neuzeit’, Theologische Realenzyklopädie, III (Berlin: Gruyter, 1978): 28–43. For Germany, see also H. Preuss, Die Vorstellungen vom Antichrist im späteren Mittelalter, bei Luther und in der konfessionellen Polemik (Leipzig: J. L. Hinrichs, 1906); R. W. Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 148–89; H.-J. Schönstädt, ‘Das Reformationsjubiläum 1717. Beiträge zur Geschichte seiner Entstehung um Spiegel landesherrlicher Verordnungen’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 93 (1982): 58–118. For the English case, see C. Hill, Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), which however underestimates the perseverance of the tradition into the latter seventeenth century, and D. Brady, The Contribution of British Writers between 1560 and 1830 to the Interpretation of Revelation 13.16–18 (The Number of the Beast) (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr/Paul Siebeck, 1983). An important phase in the Dutch tradition is examined in E. G. E. van der Wall, “‘Antichrist stormed”: the Glorious Revolution and the Dutch Prophetic Tradition’, in The World of William and Mary, ed. D. Hoak and M. Feingold (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), pp. 152–64.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, pp. 234, 239–40, 246, 300, 364, 424, 430; cf. pp. 484–9, 488–9. Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche, ed. Müller, pp. 263.38–264.38, 536.31, 599.11; cf. pp. 32.16, 290.15, 666.7. [Jean] Aymon, Tous les synodes nationaux des eglises reformées de France (2 vols., The Hague, 1710), I, pp. 258–9.

    Google Scholar 

  22. It features, for instance, in Leibniz’s correspondence with Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels (A I iv 358, 405–6, 425; A I vii 184–5, 203, 222, 232; and the following note), Paul Pellisson-Fontanier (A I vi 118, 147), Christoph de Rojas y Spinola (A I x 157), and Marie de Brinon (Gr 209; A I xi 381–2, 439).

    Google Scholar 

  23. /18 Jan. 1692 (A I vii 252); repeated in more detail A I viii 169, 190–91. Cf. Leibniz’s response A I vii 257.

    Google Scholar 

  24. The leading surveys of the English wing of this tradition are Ball, A Great Expectation; R. Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse: Sixteenth Century Apocalypticism, Millenarianism and the English Reformation (Oxford: Sutton Courtenay, 1978); P. Christianson, Reformers and Babylon: English Apocalyptic Visions from the Reformation to the Eve of the Civil War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978); and K. R. Firth, The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). A start in surveying central European expectations has been made in R. B. Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988).

    Google Scholar 

  25. [First half of March], 1684 (A I iv 324–5).

    Google Scholar 

  26. Leibniz, Sonderbare Erklärung der Offenbarung (VE 2064): “Weil ich sehe daß viel gottesfürchtige und wohmeinende Leute sich durch falsche oder doch sehr ungewiße erclärungen der offenbahrung Johannis verführen laßen, so gar daß auch empöhrungen, meutereyen und allerhand weit aussehende anschläge, daher entstanden; auch einige unterm schein göttlichen befehls sich erkühnet Königen und Fürsten vorzuschreiben was sie thun soften, und auf den weigerungsfall oder sonst die gemeine gegen sie zu erregen. So will ich eine sonderbare erclärung der offenbahrung alhier mit wenigen beybringen, welche diesen gefahrlichen gedancken auf einmahl alle gelegenheit abschneidet. Nicht daß ich diese erclärung vor die gewiBeste und beste halte; sondern damit man sehe wie so gar leicht sey, wenn man belesen, und hurtige einfalle hat, etwas artliches aus dem text und historien zusammen zu reimen.” The final, extraordinary statement is discussed in section III below.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Cf. for instance Leibniz’s letters to Hermann von der Hardt, 10 (?) July) 1691 (A I vi 548) and to Daniel Larroque, 12 July 1691 (A I vi 588).

    Google Scholar 

  28. Luis de Alcazar, Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi (Seville, 1604; Antwerp, 1614, 1619). F. Contreras, ‘Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi (1614). Presentación, estudio y comentarios’, Archivo Teologico Granadino 52 (1989): 51168. In general see I. T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John: Studies in Introduction (New York, 1919; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1967), pp. 330–33; R. H. Charles, Studies in the Apocalypse (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1913), pp. 36–42.

    Google Scholar 

  29. On Grotius’ irenicism, see Dieter Wolf, Die Irenik des Hugo Grotius nach ihren Prinzipien und biographisch-geistesgeschichtlichen Perspektiven (Marburg, 1969; Hildesheim, 1972); G. H. M. Posthumus Meyjes, ‘Hugo Grotius as Irenicist’, in The World of Hugo Grotius (1583–1645). Proceedings of the International Colloquium Organized by the Grotius Committee of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Rotterdam 6–9 April 1983 (Rotterdam: Holland University Press, 1984), pp. 43–64.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Grotius, Commentario ad loca quaedam N. Testamenti de Antichristo (Amsterdam 1640); reprinted in his Annotationes in libros Evangelicorum (Amsterdam, 1641), I, pp. 1032–42.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Grotius, Annotationum in Novum Testamentum pars tertia ac ultima (Paris, 1650), on the Apocalypse, pp. 125–286. On Grotius’s debt to de Alcázar, see Wilhelm Bousset, Die Offenbarung Johannis (1859, 6th rev. ed. 1906, facsimile ed. Göttingen, 1966), p. 98.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Cf. Grotius, Commentario de Antichristo in his Annotationes in libros Evangeli-corum, pp. 1032–60, with his Annotationum in Novum Testamentum pars tertia ac ultima, pp. 74–5, 200–8, 210–12, 215–22, 244–5. For the reception of these works, see the contributions by J. K. Cameron, J. van den Berg, and Ernestine van der Wall to H. J. M. Nellen and E. Rabbie (eds.), Hugo Grotius, Theologian: Essays in Honour of G. H. M. Posthumus Meyjes (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp. 159–68, 169–84, 195–215. Leibniz alludes to these attacks at A I vi 549. 17–18.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Summaria Apocalypseos explicatio, VE 2068, 2069, 2070.28–71. 12, 2071. 2772. 14.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Grotius, Annotationum in Novum Testamentum pars tertia ac ultima, pp. 264–8.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Summaria Apocalypseos explicatio (VE 2073).

    Google Scholar 

  36. E.g., A 1 iv 358, 405–6; A I vi 548; A I ix 228.

    Google Scholar 

  37. The interpretation of 666 as the emperor Trajan became perhaps his favorite aspect of Grotius’ exegesis (cf. VE 2069–70; A I iv 358; A I vi 549, 553–4; A I ix 228); but cf. the more purely mathematical solutions proposed in A I vi 549; Commercii epistolici Leibnitiani typis nondum vulgati selecta specimina, ed. J. G. H. Feder (Hanover: Sumptibus Fratrum Hahn, 1805), p. 245; and Leibniz’s notes on Valentin Weigel, SuperApocalypsin (Frankfurt, 1619), pp. 6–7 (VE 2088).

    Google Scholar 

  38. G III 303; A I ii 429, 437, 448, 481 concern a copy of Grotius’ Annotationes supposedly corrected, altered and expanded in a great number of places by the author’s own hand.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Cf. Bossuet, L’Apocalypse, avec une explication (Paris, 1689), preface, pp. 61ff, Advertissement’, cap. I, pp. 305–6; and A I vi 588; A I vii 184–5, 203, 222; A I ix 227–9.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Smith’s Septem Asiae ecclesiarum et Constantinopoles notitia (London, 1676; 2nd ed. Utrecht, 1694) provides a wealth of historical and topographical information useful for a straightforward historical treatment of the first three chapters of the Apocalypse. Cf. A I xiv 709–10 (1697); VE 2066.8–9; DNB, XVIII. 539–41.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Leibniz, Sonderbare Erklärung der Offenbarung (VE 2064.15–18; quoted above, note 26).

    Google Scholar 

  42. Summaria Apocalypseos explicatio (VE 2065): “Nuper in Apocalypsin meditatus, hoc interpretationis fundamentum ponendum putavi: V e r i s i m i le e s t o m n i a q u oa d ej u s f I e r i p o t e n t d e r e b u s J o h a n n i c o n t e m p o r a n e i s i n t e l I i g i d e b e r e.” Cf. Sonderbare Erkläng der Offenbarung (VE 2064): “Ich seze demnach zum fundament das was man füglich von denen zeiten so Johanni am nästen verstehen kan cuff die dinge nicht zu ziehen so sehr weit davon entfernet.”

    Google Scholar 

  43. Cf. for instance the passages listed in 36 above.

    Google Scholar 

  44. A I iv 358, 405–6; A I vii 203; A I ix 228. Occasional glimpses of this qualification of a consistently praeterist position can be found in a letter to Daniel Larroque of 21 (31) July 1691 (A I vi 588.20–23). Cf. also the Essais de Theodicé, § 274 (G VI 280).

    Google Scholar 

  45. Leibniz to Landgraf Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels, 7 Dec. 1691 (A I vii 203).

    Google Scholar 

  46. Leibniz to Landgraf Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels, 14 Mar. 1685 (A I iv 358).

    Google Scholar 

  47. Cf. for instance the literature cited in notes 5, 7–15, 20 and 24 above.

    Google Scholar 

  48. Leibniz to Landgraf Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels, 12 Aug 1686 (A I iv 405–6).

    Google Scholar 

  49. Leibniz to Gerhard Meier, 10 Jan. 1693 (A I ix 228).

    Google Scholar 

  50. For a brief overview, see Ernst A. Scherling, ‘Johann Wilhelm and Johanna Eleonora Petersen’, in Martin Greschat (ed.), Gestalten der Kirchengeschichte, vol. VII (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1982), pp. 225–39. A definitive study of the early phase of their career is Markus Matthias, Johann Wilhelm und Johanna Eleonora Petersen. Eine Biographie bis zum Amtsenthebung Petersens im Jahre 1692 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993). A fuller joint biography, but one based largely on the couple’s autobiographical writings, is Stefan Luft, Leben und Schreiben fü den Pietismus. Der Kampf des pietistischen Ehepaares Johanna Eleonora und Johann Wilhelm Petersen gegen die lutherische Orthodoxie (Herzberg: Traugott Bautz, 1994). On their eschatology, see Walter Nordmann, ‘Die Eschatologie des Ehepaares Petersen, ihre Entwicklung und Auflösung’, Zeitschrift des Vereins füur Kirchengeschichte der Provinz Sachsen 26 (1930): 83108; 27 (1931), 1–19; D.P. Walker, The Decline of Hell (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964), pp. 231–44; Friedhelm Groth, Die ‘Wiederbringung aller Dinge’ im württembergischen Pietismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), esp. pp. 38–51.

    Google Scholar 

  51. Cf. esp. A I vii 29–52, 74–9, 100–108, 190–91; D V 278–9; G III 274–5, 283; Gu II, 342–7; Essais de Theodicé, § 17 (G VI 111–12, 202–3). See also Leibniz, De l’Horizon de la Doctrine Humaine — ‘Apokat£sasij p£ntwn (La Restitution Universelle), ed. Michel Fichant (Paris: Vrin, 1991), pp. 16–28, 94–7, 119–24, 172–3; Coudert, Leibniz and the Kabbalah, pp. 111, 115–17, 120.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Leibniz to Fabricius, 14 Oct. 1706 (D V 278–9).

    Google Scholar 

  53. Leibniz to Petersen, 15 Oct. 1706 (Del’ Gorizon, ed. Fichant, p. 25). Translation adapted from Coudert, Leibniz and the Kabbalah, pp. 115–16.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Leibniz to Johannes Fabricius, 3 Sept. 1711 (D V 293–4).

    Google Scholar 

  55. Cf. Leibniz to Fabricius, 8 Dec. 1711 and 28 Jan. 1712 (D V 295, 296–7); and Leibniz to des Bosses, 6 January 1712 (G II 428).

    Google Scholar 

  56. Leibniz to Fabricius, 28 Jan. 1712 (D V 296–7).

    Google Scholar 

  57. Leibniz to Fabricius, 26 Feb. 1712 (D V 297).

    Google Scholar 

  58. Leibniz to Fabricius, 10 Mar. and 17 Mar. 1712 (D V 297, 299); BH 366; Niedersachsische Landesbibliothek, Hanover: Leibniz-Handshriften XXXIX 18 B1. 39–53: ‘Leibn.’s Verbesserungen zu den Gedichte des J.W. Petersen: “Uranias,?...”.’

    Google Scholar 

  59. Leibniz to Fabricius, 22 Jan. 1715 (D V 301).

    Google Scholar 

  60. Leibniz to Fabricius, 6 July 1716 (D V 301).

    Google Scholar 

  61. Petersen, Uranias qua opera Dei magna omnibus retro seculis et oeconomiis transactis usque ad apocatastasin seculorum omnium? carmine heroico celebrantur (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1722).

    Google Scholar 

  62. Leibniz, De l’Horizon de la Doctrine Humaine, ed. Fichant, pp. 66–77; cf. pp. 86–93, 111–119, 172–3. Cf. the first edition and German translation in Max Ettlinger, Leibniz als Geschichtsphilosoph (Munich: Josef Kösel and Friedrich Pustet, 1921); and Michel Fichant, ‘Ewige Widerkehr oder unendlicher Fortschritt: Die Apokatastasisfrage bei Leibniz’, SL 23/2 (1991): 133–50.

    Google Scholar 

  63. Feller (ed., Otium Hanoveranum, p. 225: ‘La traduction de l’Apocalypse par Martin Luther a des expressions fortes; Et le livre en luy même est ecrit d’un stile beau, fleuri, et poëque.’

    Google Scholar 

  64. Leibniz, Sonderbare Erkläng der Offenbarung (VE 2064): “Es sey aber dieses buch von wem es wolle, so ists auf eine herrliche und ganz entzückende weise geschrieben;?...”.

    Google Scholar 

  65. Summaria Apocalypseos explicatio (VE 2065–6): “Alterum est quod noto Apocalypsin e s s e s c r i p t u m i n t e r a r t i f I c i o s i s s i m a c e n s e n d u m, q u a e n o b is e x o m n i a n t i q u i t a t e r e l i q u a s i n t. Ea in illo est simplicitas sermonis, et verborum proprietas, et sententiarum majestas, et lumina orationis, ut sine admiratione quadam atque intima animorum convnotione legi attente non possit. Qualis dicendi ratio est Platonis cujus Phaedo de animae immortalitate, aliquibus mortem voluntariam persuasit; et Virgilii cujus de Marcelli morte versus Livia sine lacrymis legere non potuit.”

    Google Scholar 

  66. In a variant formulation, it was applied to the period between the Resurrection of Christ and the rise of Antichrist, three and one-half years before the Second Coming. See Augustine, De civitate Dei, xx, 7–9, 11, 13.

    Google Scholar 

  67. The best-known instance is Thomas Brightman, Apocalypsis apocalypseos, id est, Apocalypsis D. Joannis analysis et scholiis illustrata (Frankfurt, 1609); translated as A Revelation of the Revelation (Amsterdam, 1611, 1615), pp. 838–61, esp. 848–53. Others include Matthieu Cottière (alias Cotterius), Apocalypseos Domini nostri Jesu Christi exposito (Saumur, 1615); and James Durham, A Commentarie upon the Book of Revelation, ed. John Carstairs (London, 1658).

    Google Scholar 

  68. In addition to the works cited above, notes 3–8, see especially Charles Webster, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform, 1626–1660 (London: Duckworth, 1975), esp. ch. 1; and idem, From Paracelsus to Newton: Magic and the Making of Modern Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), ch. 2.

    Google Scholar 

  69. Leibniz, Summaria Apocaypseos explcatio (VE 2065; quoted above, note 42).

    Google Scholar 

  70. This assumption on his part is in striking contrast to his position eleven years later, as manifested by his satirical broadside against Louis XIV, the Mars Christianissimus of 1683, where he portrayed the grandious pretensions and farfetched biblical justifications of French policy as millenarian precisely in order to ridicule them (A IV ii 480; cf. 457; R 128).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Howard Hotson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Open University, UK

    Stuart Brown

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Hotson, H. (1999). Leibniz and Millenarianism. In: Brown, S. (eds) The Young Leibniz and his Philosophy (1646–76). International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées, vol 166. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3507-0_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3507-0_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5332-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-3507-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation