Het Boek. Serie 2. Jaargang 30

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Sebastian Castellio and the British American tradition

The ideas of Sebastian Castellio on religious liberty are commonly supposed to have exercised no direct influence whatever on the Anglo-Saxon world. He was known, to be sure, for his translation of the Bible and was widely used in schools for the learning of Latin through his Sacred Dialogues. But the treatise Concerning Heretics was an unknown book. John Knox indeed referred to it merely by way of condemnation and thereafter it was lost to view. In so far as Castellio may be said to have had any influence at all it was only indirectly through his following in the Low Countries or through successors like Acontius, who though familiar with his writings made no acknowledgment. Not until Rufus Jones treated of Castellio in his Spiritual Reformers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries did he come to the attention of the British and American public.

In view of this prevailing opinion the discovery is not without interest that one of the most influential among the philosophers of liberty in England and the United States was familiar with the works of Castellio. John Locke, highly esteemed in Britain and the most revered and followed of all philosophers in America, during his exile in Holland, became acquainted with the works of his precursor. In the year 1693 a correspondence took place between John Locke then in England and Philip Limborch the Remonstrant and the author of a history of the Inquisition, relative to an edition of the works of Castellio. On November 10 of that year Limborch wrote from Amsterdam to Locke in these words: ‘Praesertim cum responsum tuum ad duo flagitaverim: de editione Bibliorum Castellionis quam hic elegantem et plenam meditantur bibliopolae quidam’¹⁾.

Evidently there had been a previous inquiry because Locke replied on the very same day from London as follows:

1) Lord King, The Life of John Locke (Ld., 1830), II, 336.

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‘Bibliorum Castellionis editionem, qualem tu narras, apud vos designari valde laetor, et viris literatis apud nos gratum acceptumque fore opus, non dubito: Post diuturnam rusticationem, nuperus meus in urbem reditus nondum mihi concessit plurimorum doctorum colloquia; prout datur occasio, alios consulam, quamvis vix credi potest elegantem editionem, tam elegantis versionis, notis etiam aliisque scriptis eo spectantibus tam docti viri ornatam, non omnibus placituram’.

A second reference in the letters of Locke is to be found on January 13, 1694 in which he said: ‘Editionem illam Castellionis, quam meditantur elegantem, libens viderem, et nostratibus gratam fore, nullus dubito’¹⁾.

Thus we see the very project which is now contemplated for the anniversary of the De Haeretics in 1954 was envisaged in 1694 and unhappily and for what reason we do not know was abandoned. And John Locke knew all about it and entered his hearty approval which he could scarcely have done had he not read the books.

This is highly interesting because so far as I know Castellio and Locke are the only two persons in the history of the struggle for religious liberty who wrote treatises both on the problem of liberty and on the problem of knowledge and brought the two into relation with each other. One is tempted to wonder whether by any chance Locke may have been acquinted not only with the printed works of Castellio but with the manuscript De Arte Dubitandi et Sciendi. Fragments of this work were published in Holland in 1751 by J.J. Wettstein, but in the year of the correspondence of Locke and Limborch in 1693 this Wettstein was only just born at Basel. However, he had an older second cousin, John Henry Wettstein, who migrated to Amsterdam in 1668 and there became a publisher. It was he who brought out Limborch's History of the Inquisition²⁾ and he may very well have been one of those bibliopolae to whom Limborch referred as desirous of bringing out the works of Castellio. Now, Locke knew well this Wettstein and in fact for a period called every day at his house to collect his letters³⁾. John Henry Wettstein may already have brought the manuscript from Basel.

1) John Locke, Works (10th ad., Ld., 1801) III, 34-35.

2) C.L. Hulbert-Powell, John James Wettstein, 1693-1754 (Ld., 1937).

3) H.R. Fox-Bourne, The Life of John Locke (Ld., 1876), II, 63.

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In any case he was in touch with his relatives in the Swiss city. And that Locke through him may already have known the manuscript is by no means incredible.

Still one cannot press the point, and he did know the other works of Castellio. Of that we can be sure. Their influence upon him cannot have been decisive because he had already worked out the main lines of his position both on religious liberty and on the problem of knowledge before ever coming to Holland. He must have received reenforcement from the discovery of a kindred spirit and certain emphases in his thinking may well have received a sharper turn through the study of Castellio. A comparison of their ideas is interesting. In the area of epistemology they are both essentially Stoic, positing as the source of knowledge sense experience and revelation corrected by reason. A pure empiricism this could never be, otherwise reason could never surmount the data of sense. Castellio on this point was less sophisticated than Locke but more coherent, for Locke denied innate ideas and then posited intuitive moods of apprehension which amount well nigh to the same thing. Castellio more than Locke related the problem of knowledge to the problem of liberty. For this there was a very good reason, because persecution in Castellio's day was on behalf of truth, but in Locke's day in England only on behalf of good order. For the Anglican Church made no pretense of being the custodian of infallibility.

Among the arguments for liberty employed by Locke all had corne to be so much common coin by this day that to discover in them any specific influence of Castellio would be precarious. Perhaps the most significant, though the most elusive, is a/tone never absent from Castellio but only occasionally breaking through in Locke, of impassioned indignation against persecution. We cannot go so far as to make Castellio a direct progenitor of the English declarations of indulgence or acts of toleration. All we can say is this, that across the years one spirit may kindle another, and Locke certainly warmed his hands before the fire of Castellio.

Yale University,

New Haven, Conn., U.S.A.

Roland H. Bainton.