Thomas Woolston , William Trapnell (review)

Abstract

MLR, ioo.i, 2005 211 undertake the revision of Mongredien and Robert's Dictionnaire biographique to take on board all this fascinating new material. University of Durham Jan Clarke Six discours sur les miracles de Notre Sauveur: deux traductionsmanuscrites du XVIIF siecle dont une de Mme Du Chdtelet. By Thomas Woolston. Ed. by William Trapnell. Paris: Champion. 2001. 394 pp. ?63. ISBN 2-7453-0504-2. This volume is a further fascinating addition to our knowledge of the clandestine manuscripts that circulated in France during the Enlightenment, and William Trap? nell is particularly well placed to edit them, having already published a biography of Thomas Woolston. Woolston is a fascinating and enigmatic figure,an Anglican cler? gyman and Fellow of Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge, whose very personal esteem for the Fathers of the Church, and in particular Origen, led him to take an extreme position regarding the literal truth of the Scriptures. For Woolston, the miracles of the Bible were true in a figurative, not a literal, sense, and he devoted much effortto preaching and spreading this belief. The inevitable clash with the authorities actually led to him being incarcerated forseveral years as a madman. The six discourses edited here were produced several years afterWoolston's release, and they represent one as? pect of a complex debate over the literal truth of Scripture and the various possible ways of interpreting miracles 'reasonably'. Woolston used these intensely polemical writings?in part at least?as a way of avenging himself, goading his various ecclesiastical dedicatees mercilessly. Although probably regarded as 'ephemera' at the time of their publication (1727-29), the discourses?which Woolston had published privately in London?soldwell, and he appears to have had a considerable following. One purchaser was Voltaire, who was clearly impressed and who, for example, included Woolston as one of the unorthodox 'heroes' of his Lettres a Mgr le Prince (1767). Trapnell's edition has an exemplary introduction, which considers with admirable clarity every aspect ofthe history,composition, and diffusion ofthe original Discourses and which also contains much useful technical information about their French trans? lations. However, forthis reviewer the main interest ofthe Discourses (and of this edi? tion) lies in their content, in the beliefs ofthe author, and in Voltaire's interpretation of him. Trapnell feels that Voltaire later traduced Woolston's real position by mak? ing him out?inaccurately?to be a deist (cf. pp. 38-41: 'Voltaire devait savoir qu'il trahissait Woolston' (p. 41)). Yet, as one reads these extraordinary pieces, with their shockingly direct and violent attacks on Christ as portrayed in the New Testament, at the very least one has to wonder. A considerable part ofthe sixth discourse, on Christ's resurrection, consists of the reflections of a Jewish Rabbi, one of Woolston's 'friends'. According to him, the claimed miracle ofthe Resurrection was Timposture la plus manifeste et la plus effronteequi aitjamais ete executee a la face de tout le Genre humain' (p. 302). God allowed this imposture to 'humilier les hommes a cause de l'orgueuil qu'ils avoient de croire posseder la sagesse et les sciences' (ibid.). One ofhis aims was to warn men 'de la necessite qu'ils ont de se procurer la Liberte dans leurs pensees et dans leurs discours sur la religion pour se corriger de leurs erreurs et pour parvenir a la de? couverte de la verite' (p. 303); another was to 'ramener les hommes, lorsqu'ils auroient acquis une maturite convenable pour cet effet,a cette Religion Naturelle qui regnoit dans le siecle d'or et qui, selon le temoignage de nos plus anciens cabalistes et de votre Jesus, sera la finde la Loy et des Prophetes' (p. 303). Not only here, but throughout the discourses, Jesus's miracles and conduct are satirized in terms so violent and so scathing that they would cause offence among many believers even in the twenty-first century. Can someone so dismissive of Christ's motives and actions really believe that 212 Reviews this charlatan and impostor, whose resurrection was an impertinent deceit, is none the less a model forall of mankind, and whose farcical and demonstrably false miracles are intended to contain a moral message? While...