Suchergebnisse

A discussion of selected clandestine philosophical works, including William Lyons's The Infallibility, Dignity and Excellence of Humane Judgment; Being a New Art of Reasoning and Discovering Truth (1719), which was widely circulated in manuscript form in a French translation. As a merciless attack on the articles of the Symbol of St. Athanase, Lyons argued against Catholicism, Calvinism, & Trinitarianism, & proposed a reasonable, demystified Christianity. Because the French text intimates Lyons's indebtedness to John Locke's philosophy, it is considered a prime example of problematic cultural transfer. Clandestine works translated into French of latitudinarian English theologians Francis Hare, Arthur Ashley Sykes, & Thomas Chubb are also reviewed. It is noted that the expatriate contextualized understanding of these works served to support the works of French contemporaries such as Pierre Bayle. In the appendix, the clandestine French translation of Arthur Ashley Sykes's L'Innocence de l'erreur soutenue et justifiee dans une lettre a M. XXX ([The Innocence of the Error Sustained and Justified in a Letter to Mr. XXX] 1714) is reprinted. Arguing that a just God could never smite involuntary faults, Sykes distinguishes strongly between failings of intelligence & failings of the will. He also asserts the incomprehensibility & difficulty of the Scriptures; indicates the heterodoxy of various Christian denominations; & ironically supports the Anglican Church as the one true ecumenism. 1 Appendix. J. Sadler