Abstract

This paper investigates the later seventeenth reception of Grotius De Veritate, contextualising the presentation of editions with the various theological attempts to identify and defend a ‘reasonable’ religion. In particular it focuses on the intellectual relationships between the projects for a ‘non-mysterious’ Christianity advanced by John Toland, and the more sincere ambitions of the most learned editor of Grotius in the eighteenth century, Jean Leclerc. The major themes context the theological arguments and reception to changing conceptions of the power and function of the established Church.