Eleusis and Enlightenment

The Problem of the Mysteries in Eighteenth-Century Thought
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-90-04-54754-4
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 351, 244 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 440 g

Reihe: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History

The age of Enlightenment – the so-called age of reason – was also, paradoxically, the age of the Eleusinian mysteries. By attempting to reveal Demeter's secret cult, British, French, and German thinkers and freemasons of the eighteenth century revealed more than they bargained for: the pagan origins of Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the afterlife, and through the mythical gift of law and agriculture to Eleusis an alternative narrative of the origins of civilisation to that found in the Bible.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Saumarez Smith, Ferdinand

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Religionsphilosophie, Philosophische Theologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsphilosophie, Philosophische Theologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Figures

Introduction

The Age of the Mysteries

1 Freemasonry and Enlightenment

2 Summary of Chapters

1 The Word Mystery

1 Christianity not Mysterious: John Toland

2 The Trinitarian Controversy

3 Toland not Deist

4 ‘Unfolding Nature’s Mysteries, and discoursing on Religion’

2 The Religion of the Patriarchs

1 William Stukeley: The Antiquarian Freemason

2 On the Mysterys

3 The Egyptian Society

4 True Noachida: James Anderson

5 Chance Rays of the Hebrews: Andrew Michael Ramsay

3 Law, Agriculture, and the Afterlife

1 William Warburton and the Ancient Legislators

2 Agriculture after the Deluge: Noël-Antoine Pluche

3 The Origin and the End of Society: Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger

4 The Common Temple of the World

1 The Venemous Cure: Voltaire and Warburton

2 The Festival of Universal Liberty: Antoine Court de Gébelin

3 Illuminating the Heathen World: Johann August Starck

4 The Essence of Religion: Nicolas-Marie Leclerc de Sept-Chênes

5 Christianity Revealed

1 St John the Egyptian: Christian Ernst Wünsch

2 The Elysium of Reason: Charles-François Dupuis

Conclusion

Divided Testaments

Bibliography

Manuscripts

Printed Primary Literature

Secondary Literature

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Ferdinand Saumarez Smith, PhD (2022), King's College London, is a historian of ideas and religion. As the director of Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation in the UK he has also curated exhibitions and organised cultural preservation projects worldwide.