Let There Be Enlightenment: The Religious and Mystical Sources of Rationality

313 Pages·2018·14.19 MB·English

by  Anton M Matytsin

LET THERE BE ENLIGHTENMENT
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LET THERE BE ENLIGHTENMENT
The Religious and Mystical Sources of Rationality
Edited by Anton M. Matytsin and Dan Edelstein
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS Baltimore
© 2018 Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2018
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Matytsin, Anton M., 1985– editor.
Title: Let there be enlightenment : the religious and mystical sources of
rationality / edited by Anton M. Matytsin and Dan Edelstein.
Description: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017051885 | ISBN 9781421426013 (hardcover :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781421426020 (electronic) | ISBN 1421426013
(hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 1421426021 (electronic)
Subjects: LCSH: Enlightenment. | Philosophy and religion. |
Christ iani ty—I nfluence. | Rationalism.
Classification: LCC B802 .L445 2018 | DDC 190.9/033— dc23
LC rec ord available at https://l ccn. l oc. g ov/ 2 017051885
A cata log rec ord for this book is available from the British Library.
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contents
Acknowle dgments vii
Introduction 1
Anton M. Matytsin and Dan Edelstein
part one. Lux
Via Lucis in tenebras: Comenius as Prophet of the Age of Light 23
Howard Hotson
Whose Light Is It Anyway? The Strug gle for Light in the French
Enlightenment 62
Anton M. Matytsin
The “Lights” before the Enlightenment: The Tribunal of Reason and
Public Opinion 86
Céline Spector
Writing the History of Illumination in the Siècle des Lumières:
Enlightenment Narratives of Light 103
Darrin M. McMahon
part two. Veritas
Another Dialogue in the Tractatus: Spinoza on “Christ’s Disciples” and
the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) 131
Jo Van Cauter
A Backward Glance: Light and Darkness in the Medieval Theology
of Power 153
Philippe Buc
Lumen unitivum: The Light of Reason and the Aristotelian Sect in
Early M odern Scholasticism 165
Matthew T. Gaetano
The Aristotelian Enlightenment 187
Dan Edelstein
vi Contents
part three. Tenebrae
Secular Sacerdotalism in the Anglican Enlightenment, 1660–1740 205
William J. Bulman
Refracting the C entury of Lights: Alternate Genealogies of Enlightenment
in Eighteenth- Century Culture 227
Jeffrey D. Burson
Enlightenment in the Shadows: Mysticism, Materialism, and
the Dream State in Eighteenth- Century France 247
Charly Coleman
Light, Truth, and the Counter- Enlightenment’s Enlightenment 268
James Schmidt
Contributors 291
Index 295
acknowle dgments
This volume was conceived from a symposium we or ga nized on 16–17 May 2014
at Stanford University. The editors would like to thank all the participants in the
symposium: Keith M. Baker, Paula Findlen, John V. Fleming, Rebecca Messbarger,
Jessica Riskin, Jonathan Sheehan, Thomas Wallnig, Caroline Winterer, and all
the contributors to this volume. Their papers and comments provided wonderful
intellectual stimulation, and that sunny weekend seemed to bless this volume.
We are also grateful to the following entities at Stanford University for their sup-
port: the Eu rope Center at the Spogli Institute for International Studies, the
Stanford Humanities Center, the France- Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary
Studies, the French Culture Workshop, the Seminar on Enlightenment and
Revolution, the Mellon Fellowship for Scholars in the Humanities, the Depart-
ment of French and Italian, the Department of German Studies, the Department
of History, the Department of Philosophy, and the Department of Religious
Studies.
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anton m. matytsin and dan edelstein
Introduction
Faith in the “Age of Reason”
When inscribing The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth- Century Phi los o phers (1932)
to a friend, Carl Becker famously commented: “This certainly i sn’t history. I hope
it’s philosophy, b ecause if it’s not, it’s prob ably moonshine:—or would you say
the distinction is over subtle?”1 While it is the final quip that makes his aphorism
memorable, the uncertainty expressed in the first part was likely genuine. To
suggest, in 1932, that “ there is more of Christian philosophy in the writings of
the Philosophes than has yet been dreamt of in our histories” was a dizzying
proposition.2
The Age of Voltaire was the Age of Reason, not Faith, and Becker had dared
to suggest that these two poles were not oppositely charged. Until then, few
scholars had called into question the rhe toric of the philosophes and the narra-
tives they related about their own place in history. Seeking to break with the past,
the philosophes had claimed to live in an enlightened age in which the pro gress
of modern science combined with a methodological application of the esprit
philosophique to bring mankind to an unpre ce dented apex of intellectual achieve-
ment.3 Overcoming centuries of ignorance and superstition, they believed human-
ity was fi nally freeing itself from the shackles of po liti cal despotism and religious
fanaticism. If they did have progenitors, they claimed, it was the seventeenth-
century natu ral phi los o phers who had contributed to the broader prog ress of the
human mind. As J. B. Shank observed, the philosophes “defined Enlightenment
by constructing a highly politicized history of modern science as an act of
self- justification.” 4
Becker’s great achievement was to call the philosophes’ bluff. His own
argument— that “the Philosophes demolished the Heavenly City of St. Augustine
only to rebuild it with more up- to- date materials”5— may not persuade many
today. But it opened up a new way of thinking about the Enlightenment that
others have exploited in promising and persuasive ways. Becker’s student, the
great R. R. Palmer, followed in his master’s footsteps with Catholics and Unbelievers
in 18th- Century France (1939). Where Becker had airily surveyed thirteenth- and