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Locke’s Biblical Hermeneutics on Bodily Resurrection

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Locke and Biblical Hermeneutics

Abstract

Not unlike the Catholics, the English Reformed circles—the Church of England—upheld the legitimacy of the Revelation and miracles, recognised the Mosaic account of creation, original sin and the Trinity, the non-corporeal nature of spiritual substance, the eternity of punishment or reward and the primacy of Church over State. And so where did Locke’s hermeneutics fit into this complex panorama in terms of the interpretations of Christian anthropology and the resurrection? As underscored in the early chapters of The Reasonableness of Christianity, Locke does not appear to consider that the sin of Adam has to fall on the whole of posterity, and again there is no positive affirmation of the Trinity in this work which, although it is not named, in effect proves to be incompatible with the definitions of person and individual identity which he provides in the Essay concerning human understanding.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Robert M. Grant, “The Resurrection of the Body”, in The Journal of Religion, vol. 28, no. 2, 1948, 120–130, Ibid., vol. 28, no. 3, 1948, 188–208. See also the book by Enrico Berti, In principio era la meraviglia. Le grandi questioni della filosofia antica (Laterza: Roma–Bari 2007), and the picture portrayed by Lorraine Daston, “Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe”, Critical Inquiry, xviii, 1991, 1, 93–124.

  2. 2.

    Daston , “Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence”, 96.

  3. 3.

    Joannis Calvini, Opera quae supersunt omnia (Brunsvigae, C.A. Schwetschke et filium, 1876), xiii, Epistola no. 1212, 26 June 1549, 307–311 (citation on p. 309). See also Lelio Sozzini, Opere, edited by Antonio Rotondò (Firenze: Olschki, 1986), 139.

  4. 4.

    Jean Calvin, Contre la secte phantastique et furieuse des libertins qui se nomment spirituelz, edited by Mirjam van Veen (Genève: Droz 2005).

  5. 5.

    Jean Calvin, Brieve instruction, pour armer tous bons fideles contre les erreurs de la Secte commune des anabaptistes (Genève: Jehan Girard 1544), 123. See also J. Calvin, Commentarii in secundam Pauli Epistola ad Corinthios, edited by Helmut Feld (Genève: Droz 1994), esp. 78–84. For certain aspects of Calvin’s theology related to this study, see Richard Stauffer, Interprètes de la Bible. Études sur les réformateurs du XVIe siècle (Paris: Éditions Beauchesne), 1980, esp. ch. xi.

  6. 6.

    Joannis Calvini, Opera, xiii, Epistola no. 1212, 26 June 1549, 309. See also Lelio Sozzini, Opere,, 140. For a broader critical reconstruction of the exchange between the two writers and Bullinger see L. Simonutti, “Il sacro e la carne. Calvino versus Lelio Sozzini e i suoi seguaci”, in Giovanni Calvino nel quinto centenario della nascita. Interpretazioni plurali tra dissenso evangelico e critica cattolica, edited by Franco Giacone (Paris: Garnier, 2012), 487–504.

  7. 7.

    See M.R. Miles, “Theology, Anthropology, and the Human Body in Calvin’s ‘Institutes of the Christian Religion’”, The Harvard Theological Review, 74, 1981, 3, 303–323.

  8. 8.

    Joannis Calvini, Opera, xiii, Epistola no. 1212, 26 June 1549, 310. See also Lelio Sozzini, Opere, 141.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., 311. See also Lelio Sozzini, Opere, 142.

  10. 10.

    Jean Calvin, The Institution of the Christian religion: in four books (Glasgow: J. Bryce and A. M’Lean for A. Irvine 1762), esp. book ii, chap. xvii and book iii, chap. ii.

  11. 11.

    Ibid., book iii, chap. xxv, par. 8, 478.

  12. 12.

    Ibid. 479.

  13. 13.

    Joannis Calvini, Opera, xiii, Epistola no. 1231, 25 July 1549, 336–340 (citation on 338). See also Lelio Sozzini, Opere155.

  14. 14.

    Lelio Sozzini, De resurrectione, in Lelio Sozzini, Opere, 77–80 (citation on 78).

  15. 15.

    Ibid., 79.

  16. 16.

    N.T. Wright, Risurrezione (Torino: Claudiana, 2006), esp. 434–437. See also Eric C. Rust, “Interpreting the Resurrection”, Journal of Bible and Religion, xxix, 1961, 1, 25–34 and Markus Vinzent, Christ’s Resurrection in Early Christianity and the Making of the New Testament (Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), particularly ch. 2.

  17. 17.

    Lelio Sozzini, De resurrectione, 78.

  18. 18.

    See Martin Mulsow, “‘Nuove terre’ e ‘nuovi cieli’: la filosofia della natura”, in Cesare Vasoli, Le filosofie del Rinascimento, edited by P.C. Pissavino (Milano: Bruno Mondadori, 2002), 416–433, esp. 416.

  19. 19.

    Timothy Verdon, Il catechismo della carne. Corporeità e arte cristiana (Siena: Edizioni Cantagalli, 2009), esp. 9 and 49. Verdon proposes a review of the complex theme of corporality in the history of Christianity and the post-Tridentine Church. See also Il corpo glorioso. Il riscatto dell’uomo nelle teologie e nelle rappresentazioni della resurrezione, proceedings of the II International Study Symposium (Rome, 6–7 May 2005), edited by C. Bernardi, C. Bino, M. Gagnolati (Pisa: Giardini Editori, 2006). See also the important studies devoted to the question of the resurrection of the bodies from both a religious-philosophical and an iconographic point of view: C. Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); Anne-Sophie Molinié, Corps ressuscitants et corps ressuscités. Les images de la résurrection des corps en Italie centrale et septentrionale du milieu du xve au début du xviie siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2007).

  20. 20.

    For an overview of Antitrinitarianism in the modern age, we refer to the two classic studies by Stanislas Kot, Le mouvement antitrinitaire au XVIe et au XVIIe siècle, in “Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance”, tome 4, 1937, 16–58 and 109–156 and to the essay by Domenico Caccamo, Ricerche sul socinianesimo in Europa, in “Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance”, t. 26, 1964, 573–607. See Luisa Simonutti, “Resistance, obedience and toleration. Przypkowski and Limborch”, in Socinianism and Arminianism. Antitrinitarians, Calvinists and Cultural Exchange in Seventeenth-Century Europe , edited by Martin Mulsow and Jan Rohls (Leiden: Brill 2005), 187–206; Ead., “Fausto Sozzini, gli arminiani e il socinianesimo nell’Olanda del Seicento”, in Faustus Socinus and His Heritage, edited by Lech Szuszki (Kraców: Polska Akademia Umiejetnosci 2006), 251–283.

  21. 21.

    See Neal Blough et al., Jésus-Christ aux marges de la Réforme (Paris: Desclé, 1992), esp. ch. vii. The numerous subjects that emerge in the epistolary exchange between Calvin and Sozzini – and which are echoed in their works – inevitably remain in the background in this article, and the same holds for Calvin’s writings against Giorgio Blandrata, Giovanni Valentino Gentile and Francesco Stancari, which are beyond the scope of the topic addressed in this contribution.

  22. 22.

    See L. Simonutti, “Inquietudine religiosa e relativismo critico l’iconografia di Bernard Picart”, in I filosofi e la società senza religione, edited by Marco Geuna, Giambattista Gori (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2011), 257–300 (with 8 plates). See also Ead., “Un’anomalia sacra: la resurrezione nel pensiero di Locke”, in Anomalie dell’ordine. L’altro, lo straordinario, l’eccezionale nella modernità, edited by Enrico Nuzzo, Manuela Sanna, Luisa Simonutti (Rome: Aracne, 2013), 147–161.

  23. 23.

    See L. Simonutti, “John Locke e il socinianesimo”, in Siena, Fausto Sozzini e la filosofia in Europa, conference proceedings (Siena, 25–27 November 2004), edited by Mariangela Priarolo, Emanuela Scribano (Siena: Accademia senese degli Intronati, 2005), 211–249.

  24. 24.

    See Franck Lessay, Le débat Locke-Filmer (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998), esp. 86–93.

  25. 25.

    It is significant that the volume Common-place Book to the Holy Bible or, the Scripture’s Sufficiency practically Demonstrated, …London 1805 was attributed to Locke, demonstrating that his biblical hermeneutics was just as broadly acknowledged and relevant for his contemporaries.

  26. 26.

    The Preface. An Essay for the understanding of St Paul’s Epistles, by consulting St Paul Himself, in John Locke A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul to the Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians, edited by Arthur W. Wainwright (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1987), 2 vols. vol. I, 103–116, 110.

  27. 27.

    See Kim Ian Parker, The Biblical Politics of John Locke (Waterloo. Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004). See also Victor Nuovo, Christianity, Antiquity, and Enlightenment. Interpretations of Locke (Springer, 2011), ch. 3.

  28. 28.

    See the digital library “Biblioteche dei filosofi” of the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, which makes available online the catalogues of libraries belonging to philosophers, scientists and intellectuals, including the library of Benjamin Furly (http://picus.sns.it/index.php?page=Filosofo&id=89&lang=it)

  29. 29.

    See W.M. Spellman, John Locke (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 55. See also Maria-Cristina Pitassi, “Le Christ lockien à l’épreuve des textes”, in Le Christ entre orthodoxie et Lumières, actes du colloque tenu à Genève en août 1993 (Genève: Droz, 1994), 101–122; Ead., “John Locke lecteur de Saint Paul ou l’histoire d’une rencontre presque oubliée: un siècle d’études”, Annali di storia dell’esegesi, xvii, 2000, 1, 265–273.

  30. 30.

    See Victor Nuovo, Locke’s Theology, 1694–1704, in M.A. Stewart, English Philosophy in the Age of Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 183–215, esp. 203-7 which synthetically describe Locke’s exegetic interests, from the interleaves inserted in the two volumes of Le nouveau testament which appeared in 1673, to his readings and notes on the letters of Saint Paul drafted over the span of 30 years, through to The Reasonableness of Christianity and the posthumously published A discours of miracles.

  31. 31.

    J. Locke, Of the conduct of the understanding, para. 22, p. 66, in Posthumous Works (London: by W.B. for A. and J. Churchill, 1706).

  32. 32.

    See Luisa Simonutti, “Locke traducteur de Nicole: Of the Weaknesse of Man”, in Le masque de l’écriture. Philosophie et traduction de la Renaissance aux Lumière, edited by Charles Le Blanc and Luisa Simonutti (Genève-Rome: Droz- CNR, 2015), 627–639.

  33. 33.

    On these aspects see Jean-Michel Vienne, “Traduction et théorie du langage chez Locke”, in Le masque de l’écriture, 611–625.

  34. 34.

    The Preface. An Essay for the Understanding of St Paul’s Epistles by Consulting Himself, in John Locke A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul, vol. I, p.115.

  35. 35.

    The Correspondence of John Locke, edited by E.S.De Beer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976–1989), 8 vols, vol. 5, letter 1901, 370–371. The chapter of the Theologia Christiana (Amsterdam: Henricum Wetstenium,1695) cited by Locke is entitled: “De Fide in Jesum Christum; ac primo de actu ejus antecedente, Scientiâ”.

  36. 36.

    On the centrality of the Bible in the moral and intellectual life of the 16th and 17th centuries see, within the extensive bibliography, Christopher Hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (London: Allen Lane-Penguin Press 1993), esp. ch. 18, 407–435; Yvonne Sherwood, Biblical Blaspheming. Trials of the Sacred for a Secular Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

  37. 37.

    See Emanuela Prinzivalli, “Il rapporto fra mito protologico e destino escatologico nel cristianesimo antico”, in Cristianesimo nella storia, xxx, 2009, 8, 491–511. See also Lucia Dacome, “Resurrecting by numbers in Eighteenth-Century England”, Past and Present, 193, 2006, 73–110. The complexity of Paul’s language had been underscored by Jean Le Clerc in the review of the posthumous edition of A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul, “Il est certain que les Payens, ou ceux qui ne savoient que la Langue Greque, et qui n’avoient d’autres connoissances, que celles que l’on aqueroit parmi les Grecs, ou par l’étude des Sciences, ou par l’usage ordinare de la vie, n’étoient pas en état d’entendre tous les raisonnemens de S. Paul, et les endroits où il y a des Hebraïsmes trop obscurs; mais on ne peut guere nier, que tout le monde ne pût assez entendre ce qu’il y a d’historique et de moral et même toutes les doctrines importantes, qu’il y a dans le Nouveau Testament, à quelques endroits près”, which appeared in Bibliothèque choisie (Amsterdam: Henri Schelte, 1707), tome XIII, art. II, 37–178: 39; see also ibid., 42–43.

  38. 38.

    See E.P. Sanders, Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 29–31. See also Mauro Pesce, L’esperienza religiosa di Paolo. La conversione, il culto, la politica (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2012).

  39. 39.

    John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul, ed. by A.W. Wainwright (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 2 vols., vol. I, Introduction, 51–56.

  40. 40.

    See Spellman, John Locke, 72.

  41. 41.

    John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul, ii, appendix IV, 672. In the fragment of a possible preface, entitled: An Essay for the understanding St Paul’s Epistles by consulting St Paul himself, Locke wrote: “St Paul’s words are Greek but the phrase is Hebrew and his stile much after the oriental way. The things and thoughts being coherent the connection of words and the ways of deduction used amongst us are often neglected. Where this has happened it has been necessary for me in many places to enlarge the paraphrase and set down the intervening parts of the discourse which had been omitted to make it to consist together with the more force and clearness and be at first sight obvious and intelligible to an English reader.” Ibid., 665.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., vi, i, 254, (note 44∗ to A Paraphrase).

  43. 43.

    Ibid., i, 253, note ver. 42∗ m.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., i, 254–255.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., i, 255, (1 Cor 15, 50).

  46. 46.

    For an overview of the mediaeval interpretation of the glorious body of Christ and the saints, see Tullio Gregory, “Per una fenomenologia del cadavere. Dai mondi dell’immaginario ai paradisi della metafisica”, Micrologus, vii, 1999, 11–42.

  47. 47.

    John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notesi, 254, note ver. 44∗.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., 254, note ver. 42∗ u.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., See also Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/enc), under the heading Personal Identity and Ethics.

  50. 50.

    John Locke, An Essay concerning human understanding, edited with an introduction, critical apparatus and glossary by Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), book II, chap. 27, § 15, 340.

  51. 51.

    Spellman , John Locke, 63.

  52. 52.

    John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes, i, 251–252, note ver. 35∗ u.

  53. 53.

    Locke, An Essay concerning human understanding, book I, chap. IV, § 4, 86.

  54. 54.

    Ibid., book II, chap. I, §§ 11–12, 109–111.

  55. 55.

    Ibid., book II, chap. I, § 11, 110.

  56. 56.

    See John Locke, Identité et différence. An Essay concerning Human Understanding II, xxvii, Of Identity and Diversity. L’invention de la conscience, Présenté, traduit et commenté par Etienne Balibar (Paris: Editions du Seuil 1998); see also Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

  57. 57.

    Locke, An Essay concerning human understanding, book II, chap. 27, § 9, p. 335.

  58. 58.

    See the study by K. Joanna S. Forstrom, John Locke and personal identity (London-New York: Continuum studies in British Philosophy, 2010).

  59. 59.

    Locke, An Essay concerning human understanding, book II, chap. 27, § 6.

  60. 60.

    Ibid., § 9.

  61. 61.

    John Locke, Identité et différence. An Essay concerning Human Understanding II, xxvii, Of Identity and Diversity. L’invention de la conscience, 30.

  62. 62.

    Locke, An Essay concerning human understanding, book II, chap. 27, §15, 340.

  63. 63.

    Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, II, 16.

  64. 64.

    Locke, An Essay concerning human understanding, book II, chap. 27, § 26, 347

  65. 65.

    John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures, edited with an Introduction, Notes, Critical Apparatus and Transcriptions of Related Manuscripts by John C. Higgins-Biddle (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1999).

  66. 66.

    John Edwards, Some Thoughts concerning the Several Causes and Occasions of Atheism (London, 1695).

  67. 67.

    John Locke, A second vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity (London: for A. and J. Churchill, 1697), 304–5. See also John Locke, Vindications of the Reasonableness of Christianity, edited with Introduction, Notes and Critical Apparatus by Victor Nuovo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2012), 161.

  68. 68.

    See “Resurrectio et quae sequuntur”, John Locke: Writings on Religion, edited by Victor Nuovo (Oxford: Clarendon Press 2002), 232–237: 232. See also John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul, vol. II, Appendix VI, 679–684.

  69. 69.

    “Resurrectio et quae sequuntur”, 235. See also John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul, vol. II, 649. See John Locke, A second vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity, 364–369; also in John Locke, Vindications of the Reasonableness of Christianity, (ed. Victor Nuovo), 186–188.

  70. 70.

    Jean Le Clerc, Bibliothèque choisie, 1707, t. XIII, art. II, 74–178, 178.

  71. 71.

    Ibid., pp. 176–177.

  72. 72.

    John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes, i, 51; Chiara Giuntini, “Il corpo immortale: filosofia e teologia nell’ultimo Locke”, Rivista di filosofia, xcvi, 2005, 2, 187–215. See Spellman, John Locke, 78. See also Id., John Locke and the problem of depravity (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1988).

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Simonutti, L. (2019). Locke’s Biblical Hermeneutics on Bodily Resurrection. In: Simonutti, L. (eds) Locke and Biblical Hermeneutics. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 226. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19903-6_4

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