Heterodoxy, Spinozism, and Free Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe : Studies on the Traité Des Trois Imposteurs

'the oldest biography of Spinoza', La Vie de Mr. Spinosa, which in the manuscript copies is often followed by L'Esprit de M. Spinosa. Margaret Jacob, in her Radical Enlightenment, contended that the Traite was written by a radical group of Freemasons in The Hague in the early eighteenth century. Silvia Berti has offered evidence it was written by Jan Vroesen. Various discussions in the early eighteenth century consider many possi­ ble authors from the Renaissance onwards to whom the work might be attributed. The Trois imposteurs has attracted quite a bit of recent attention as one of the most significant irreligious clandestine writings available in the Enlightenment, which is most important for understanding the develop­ ment of religious scepticism, radical deism, and even atheism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Scholars for the last couple of decades have been trying to assess when the work was actually written or compiled and by whom. In view of the widespread distribution of manu­ scripts of the work all over Europe, they have also been seeking to find out who was influenced by the work, and what it represented for its time. Hitherto unknown manuscripts are being turned up in public and private libraries all over Europe and the United States. Front Matter....Pages i-xix Front Matter....Pages 1-1 L’Esprit de Spinosa : ses origines et sa première édition dans leur contexte spinozien....Pages 3-51 Une Histoire interminable: origines et développement du Traité des trois imposteurs ....Pages 53-74 History and structure of our Traité des trois imposteurs ....Pages 75-129 L’Esprit de Spinosa et les Traités des trois imposteurs : rappel des différentes familles et de leurs principales caractéristiques....Pages 131-189 Front Matter....Pages 191-191 Freethinking in early eighteenth-century Protestant Germany: Peter Friedrich Arpe and the Traité des trois imposteurs ....Pages 193-239 The English Deists and the Traité ....Pages 241-254 Sallengre, La Monnoye, and the Traité des trois imposteurs ....Pages 255-271 The politics of a publishing event: the Marchand milieu and The life and spirit of Spinoza of 1719....Pages 273-296 Impostors and Revolution: on the ‘Philadelphie’ 1796 edition of the Traité des trois imposteurs ....Pages 297-304 Front Matter....Pages 305-305 An eighteenth-century interpretation of the Ethica : Henry de Boulainvilliers’s ‘Essai de métaphysique’....Pages 307-332 Legislators, impostors, and the politic origins of religion: English theories of ‘imposture’ from Stubbe to Toland....Pages 333-356 ‘Behold the fear of the Lord’: The Erastianism of Stillingfleet, Wolseley,and Tillotson....Pages 357-374 ‘Jesus Nazarenus legislator’: Adam Boreel’s defence of Christianity....Pages 375-396 Johan Adler Salvius’ Questions to Baruch de Castro concerning De tribus impostoribus....Pages 397-423 The struggle against unbelief in the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam after Spinoza’s excommunication....Pages 425-437 Worse than the three impostors? towards an interpretation of Theodor Ludwig Lau’s Meditationes philosophicae de Deo, mundo, homine ....Pages 439-474 Back Matter....Pages 475-532

The Traité des Trois Imposteurs, ou l'Esprit de M. Spinosa is a most notorious clandestine work that was circulating throughout Europe in the 18th Century. The work is a pastiche of passages from Hobbes, Naudé, La Mothe Le Vayer, Spinoza and others, contending that Moses, Jesus and Mohammed were imposters who set up their religions for political reasons.
In 1990 a research seminar on the origins, nature, meaning and dispersion of the text was held under the direction of Richard H. Popkin, with the assistance of Silvia Berti and Françoise Charles-Daubert, sponsored by the Foundation for Research in Intellectual History. Advanced students and young professors carried out research projects. Lectures were given by the staff plus visiting scholars including Miguel Benitez and Bertram Schwarzbach.
This volume contains the results of the seminar, including papers by the teachers and students. It breaks much new ground about the Traité, including new data about its possible origins and development, the dispersion of manuscripts of it, and its role in anti-religious Enlightenment thought.

The Traité des Trois Imposteurs, ou l'Esprit de M. Spinosa is a most notorious clandestine work that was circulating throughout Europe in the 18th Century. The work is a pastiche of passages from Hobbes, Naudé, La Mothe Le Vayer, Spinoza and others, contending that Moses, Jesus and Mohammed were imposters who set up their religions for political reasons. In 1990 a research seminar on the origins, nature, meaning and dispersion of the text was held under the direction of Richard H. Popkin, with the assistance of Silvia Berti and Françoise Charles-Daubert, sponsored by the Foundation for Research in Intellectual History. Advanced students and young professors carried out research projects. Lectures were given by the staff plus visiting scholars including Miguel Benitez and Bertram Schwarzbach. This volume contains the results of the seminar, including papers by the teachers and students. It breaks much new ground about the Traité, including new data about its possible origins and development, the dispersion of manuscripts of it, and its role in anti-religious Enlightenment thought