Adam Boreel (2 November 1602 in

Middelburg Middelburg may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Europe * Middelburg, Zeeland, the capital city of the province of Zeeland, southwestern Netherlands ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Middelburg, a former Catholic diocese with its see in the Zeeland ...

– 20 June 1665 in

Sloterdijk, Amsterdam Sloterdijk was a village in the Dutch province of North Holland. It now is a part of the municipality of Amsterdam, and lies about 3 km northwest of the city centre.''ANWB Topografische Atlas Nederland'', Topografische Dienst and ANWB, 2005. ...

) was a Dutch

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

scholar. He was one of the founders of the Amsterdam College; the

Collegiants In Christian history, the Collegiants ( la, Collegiani; nl, Collegianten), also called Collegians, were an association, founded in 1619 among the Arminians and Anabaptists in Holland. They were so called because of their colleges (meetings) hel ...

were also often called Boreelists, and regarded as a small sect. Others involved in the Collegiants were Daniel van Breen, Michiel Coomans, Jacob Otto van Halmael and the

Mennonite Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radic ...

Galenus Abrahamsz de Haan.

Biography

Boreel was ordained into the

Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...

, but broke away. In ''Ad legem et testimonium'' (1645), he argued the

sola scriptura , meaning by scripture alone, is a Christian theological doctrine held by most Protestant Christian denominations, in particular the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of Protestantism, that posits the Bible as the sole infallible source of au ...

position that no religious authority other than the Bible should be acknowledged. He was attacked by Johann Hornbeek (''Apologia pro ecclesia Christiana non apostatica'' 1647), and by

Samuel Maresius Samuel Des Marets or Desmarets ( la, Maresius; Oisemont, 1599 – Groningen, 18 May 1673) was a French Protestant theologian.'III. Maréts (Samuel des)' in L.M. Chaudon, ''Dictionnaire Universel, Historique, Critique, et Bibliographique'', 19 Vo ...

. Boreel's associates included

Peter Serrarius Petrus Serrarius (Peter Serrarius, Pieter Serrurier, Pierre Serrurier, Pieter Serrarius, Petro Serario, Petrus Serarius; 1600, London – buried October 1, 1669, Amsterdam) was a millenarian theologian, writer, and also a wealthy merc ...

, a fellow

millenarian Millenarianism or millenarism (from Latin , "containing a thousand") is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming fundamental transformation of society, after which "all things will be changed". Millenariani ...

Baruch Spinoza Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, b ...

, who moved with the Collegiants after exclusion from the Amsterdam Jewish community, and

Henry Oldenburg Henry Oldenburg (also Henry Oldenbourg) FRS (c. 1618 as Heinrich Oldenburg – 5 September 1677), was a German theologian, diplomat, and natural philosopher, known as one of the creators of modern scientific peer review. He was one of the for ...

, a correspondent. Boreel was close also to

John Dury John Dury (1596 in Edinburgh – 1680 in Kassel) was a Scottish Calvinist minister and an intellectual of the English Civil War period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism, hoping to succeed when he moved ...

. They were a fringe group, but are considered important as representative of the 'Third Force', trying to reconcile religious orthodoxy with scientific

scepticism Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...

. In the early 1660s the Collegiants became harder to distinguish from other movements, of

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

anti-Trinitarian Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity—the belief that God is three distinct hypostases or persons who are coeternal, coequal, and indivisibly united in one being, or essence ...

s, and

Socinian Socinianism () is a nontrinitarian belief system deemed heretical by the Catholic Church and other Christian traditions. Named after the Italian theologians Lelio Sozzini (Latin: Laelius Socinus) and Fausto Sozzini (Latin: Faustus Socinus), uncle ...

s. Adam Boreel is reputed to be the author of ''Lucerna Super Candelabrum'' (''

The Light upon the Candlestick ''The Light upon the Candlestick'' is an anonymous mystical tract published in Holland in 1662. Translated into English in 1663, it became a popular text among English Quakers. The tract promotes the idea that the Light of God can be found wit ...

'', 1663), a mystical text accepted by both the Collegiants and the Quakers.

Interest in Judaism

Boreel took a close interest in

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

, working with

Menasseh Ben Israel Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – 20 November 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel (), also known as Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y or MBI, was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, writ ...

and Judah Leon Templo. Among his projects with the latter were a reconstruction of

Solomon's Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (, , ), was the Temple in Jerusalem between the 10th century BC and . According to the Hebrew Bible, it was commissioned by Solomon in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited by th ...

and editions of the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Torah ...

.J. T. Young (1998), ''Faith, Alchemy and Natural Philosophy: Johann Moriaen, Reformed Intelligencer, and the Hartlib Circle'', p.47.

References

Sources

*Ernestine G.E. van der Wall, Without Partilitie Towards All Men': John Durie on the Dutch Hebraist Adam Boreel'', pp. 145–150 in J. van den Berg and E.G.E. van den der Wall, eds., Jewish-Christian Relations in the Seventeenth Century, Leiden: Kluwer, 1988 *Ernestine van der Wall, ''The Dutch Hebraist Adam Boreel and the Mishnah Project'', LIAS 16. (1989) 239–63
online scan
*Robert Iliffe, ''Jesus Nazarenus Legislator: Adam Boreel's defence of Christianity'', in Heterodoxy, Spinozism and Free Thought in Early Eighteenth Century Europe, S. Berti, F. Charles-Daubert and R. Popkin, eds., (Kluwer: Amsterdam) 1996, 375-96 {{DEFAULTSORT:Boreel, Adam 1603 births 1667 deaths Dutch Calvinist and Reformed theologians 17th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians People from Middelburg, Zeeland