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Arguing with the Heathens: The Further Reformation and the Ethnohistory of Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617–1666)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2015

Jos Gommans  and
Ineke Loots
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Abstract

Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617–1666) was a Dutch Protestant theologian, generally regarded as a member of the so-called Further Reformation in the Netherlands. He wrote a number of theological works in Latin and in Dutch. Most of his works have a polemical character, defending his orthodox protestant stance against a variety of heretical views. In De conversione Indorum et gentilium, based on disputations with students and published posthumously, he enters into a discussion with the ‘heathens’. To this end he carefully combines biblical and classical scholarship and also reflects on the latest ethnographical information collected by both Protestant and Catholic travellers and missionaries. The book is characterised by great erudition and by an openness for other people’s opinions that necessitates the constant appraisal of one’s own point of view. We argue that such an open engagement with heretical views ultimately carries the danger of a sceptical view of one’s own religion.

Keywords

HoornbeeckFurther ReformationMissionRadical EnlightenmentWorld History
Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , April 2015 , pp. 45 - 68
Copyright
© 2015 Research Institute for History, Leiden University 

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Footnotes

*

Jos Gommans is Professor of Colonial and Global History at Leiden University; Ineke Loots is an independent scholar. The gist of this of this article was delivered as a lecture at the European Institute in Florence. We would like to thank a very stimulating audience, in particular Jorge Flores, Regina Grafe and Ann Thomson. We are also grateful to professors Hans van de Ven (Cambridge) and Wim Boot (Leiden) for sharing their thoughts with us on respectively the Chinese and Japanese sections of De conversione. The same goes for an anonymous referee for some critical but fruitful comments.

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