Recent work on the early British Enlightenment has concentrated on the broad
philosophical and political dimensions of granting toleration to dissenting British Protestants, but has not fully explored the implications of granting toleration to foreigners, both Protestant and non-Christian, on British politics and culture. Sarah Ellenzweig and Justin Champion have re- centered freethinking and dissent as fundamental forces within the development of
Enlightenment thought and its political manifestation in liberal policies of toleration.143 This essay builds on the work done by these critics to explore the intersections among freethinking Enlightenment philosophy, historiographical narrative, and the naturalization debate of the early eighteenth century. Specifically, I examine John Toland’s treatises in favor of Jewish toleration and naturalization, his 1705 translation of La Créquinière’s The Agreement of the Customs of the East Indians with those of the Jews, and his 1714 original pamphlet, Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews. Toland combines revisionist biblical and nationalist historiography with a sympathetic reading of Asian challenges to the orthodox theological and cultural claims of the Anglican Church in order to argue in favor of Jewish toleration (in The Agreement) and naturalization (in Reasons). Toland’s defense of Jewish naturalization reveals his sympathy for Jews and his devotion to an even-handed application of the philosophical principle of toleration; moreover, his arguments exemplify the intellectually-based principles that informed efforts to pass
naturalization bills in the eighteenth century. By connecting the idea of naturalization and toleration to the study of history and culture, Toland attempts to redirect British culture away from a rigid association of Anglicanism with a supposedly pure form of ancient Christianity,
toward a broader, more cosmopolitan understanding of Britain as part of a larger European—or even global—community.
During his life, Toland was an incredibly controversial figure, who, as Justin Champion puts it, was “beaten up in the street, prosecuted in civil and ecclesiastical courts, and snubbed by prime ministers,” while simultaneously being “entertained by dukes, earls and lords,
collaborat[ing] with leading ministers and flirt[ing] with the potential successor to the British throne.”144 Toland is perhaps best known today for his early work, Christianity Not Mysterious (1696), which argues that theological “mysteries” can be explained by reason, and his Letters to Serena (1704), which develops a historiographical account of the rise of superstition. Although he is often classed as a deist, he himself used the term “pantheism,” to suggest that God, nature, and the universe are one and the same.145 He propounded the belief in an originary, true faith that had been corrupted over time by human failings.146 Toland was not only a heterodox philosopher but also a political reformer, who aimed to shape political discourse and social policy toward a liberal, republican ideal. His political writings are often more circumspect than his philosophical writings in their critique of the intertwining of religion and politics, but the basis of all his writing is the belief that state-imposed religion limits both civil liberty and liberty of conscience.147 The influence of Anglican bishops on civil politics, he contended, was popish in its determination to control the lives of British citizens and, by extension, their minds.148 For Toland, religious toleration was the only way to guarantee a truly free government because it allowed “men…to live as men, making use of their reasoning faculties, and speaking what they think, as they think what they please.”149 To this end, Toland’s writing consistently pushes the limits of both public debate and religious philosophy in an effort to encourage the development
of a more tolerant society. Specifically, Toland uses Jews and Judaism as a test case for toleration because they represented the alien in terms of both religion and race.
Early eighteenth-century discourse in favor of toleration directly responded to
xenophobic fears that toleration would inevitably result in foreigners gaining economic control over British trade, somehow taking over England, and forcing the conversion of Anglicans to other forms of Protestantism, Catholicism, or, worst of all, Judaism. To counter such fears, in both The Agreement and Reasons, Toland describes the development of monotheistic and pagan religions—from Christianity to Judaism to Hinduism to Roman Polytheism—as dialectical. Each of these religions, he argues, responds to and develops in conversation with the others, and although seemingly distinct, they often share fundamental beliefs and traditions. Toland’s argument comes from his radical reassessment of the uses of biblical history in defining Protestantism, and builds on earlier traditions that reframe the Old Testament as a material and cultural history of the Jewish people rather than as the revealed word of God.150 In this way, radical Enlightenment thinkers like Toland created space for a critique not only of the established Church, but also of epistemologies of revealed religion. If the history of the Jewish people and the origins of Christianity were to be re-imagined, so too could the histories of England. Because these texts can be understood as imaginative retellings of historical events, we can and should read them as if they are literary, rather than solely philosophical or historical texts.151 It is important to recognize that whatever truth-claims Toland insists he is making, he also offering a self-consciously literary narrative that is less concerned with truth than it is with relating an understanding of the history of Christianity and Judaism to their practice and reception in Britain’s present. In this way, Toland gives his readers the opportunity to imagine Britain as a diverse and tolerant—a cosmopolitan—nation.
The issue of Jewish toleration in the early eighteenth-century must be understood within the larger context of immigration and naturalization, which in the period of the Restoration and eighteenth century are inextricably tied to commerce and the development of Enlightenment economic theory. During this period, the naturalization of foreigners was hotly debated with those supporting it (mostly Whigs) arguing that it would strengthen Britain’s economy and population, and those against it (mostly Tories) arguing that it would destroy Britain’s culture and take profits from native British merchants.152 Britain was experiencing a decline in
population, which was exacerbated by the emigration of British subjects to the colonies, as well as an economic depression brought on by the country’s involvement in the Nine Years War.153 Many believed that the naturalization of foreign immigrants would prove the answer to these woes by attracting new, skilled laborers and merchants who could repopulate the country and its colonies. This naturalization debate played out both in the presses and in Parliament, where several naturalization bills were proposed, although none passed until Foreign and Protestants Naturalization Act of 1708. In 1712, the act was overturned, following the large-scale German Palatine immigration and a corresponding xenophobic uproar and political bloodletting that resulted in the Whigs’ losing power.
Jews played a lesser part in these debates than did foreign Protestants, as their population was small; however, Jews did begin considering themselves British during this period, and the question of their naturalization was real. As I discussed in chapter one, in 1689, in response to a parliamentary bill that imposed special taxes against Jews—particularly Jewish merchants—a group of Jews petitioned Parliament on the grounds that they should not be subject to special taxation because they were loyal English subjects. They argued that:
The Jews being a Nation that cannot lay claim to any Country do never remove from any part where they are Tollerated, and Protected; and therefore may be lookt upon to be of a greater Advantage to this Kingdom than any other Foreigners, who commonly, so soon as they have got good Estates, return with them into their own Countries.
The Jews based their argument on a conception of national identity that subordinated religious obligation to God to the obligation an individual owed to the state in which s/he resides. Because Jews could claim no other homeland, they relied on the toleration of their host nation. At the heart of this argument lies the claim that because the Jews have no homeland of their own, they cannot owe allegiance to any state other than that in which they reside, especially when their host state grants them protection and toleration. Many of the Jews (or at least, the heads of household) had been granted denization, by which process they were granted most rights of citizenship.154 Although not full citizens, they were as close as they could be without being fully naturalized, which was rare in this period. In this way, the petitioners base their claim solely on national identity.155
Critical participants on the side of naturalization—not only Toland, but also Joseph Addison and East India men such as Josiah Child—felt that Jewish commerce was important to building a strong economy.156 Jews were able to adapt culturally to their environment—a habit borne out of their diasporic history—and they possessed commercial connections throughout Europe, North Africa, Asia, and the colonies.157 For Toland specifically, Jewish naturalization represented the axis of several of his key philosophies: Jewish citizens would strengthen Britain’s economy through their commercial ties, they would necessitate the adoption of more tolerant legal and social practices, and their character—which Toland saw as being intrinsically tied to their ancient past—would revive Britain’s own character as a Mosaic Republic. At the
turn of the eighteenth century, Britain had relaxed some of its Conformity laws, but the authority of the Anglican Church was still deeply entwined with that of the State.158 British national identity hinged on the assumption of Anglican supremacy, despite the growing influence of non- Anglican political activists like Toland, who sought to redefine Britain as a tolerant nation, a vibrant republic characterized by a freethinking and cosmopolitan civil society.159
Before I turn to the texts, it will be useful to clarify how I use the term
“cosmopolitanism,” since it remains such a vexed concept in both literary and cultural studies. Here, I am using the term in the sense that it developed over the course of the eighteenth century to mean “a citizen of the world,” by default, a white, landed gentlemen, who was disinterested, objective and tolerant. This definition serves as an ideal, but generally fails in practice.160 Toland is heavily invested in challenging English nationalistic discourse, but he does not necessarily vacate his own privileged position and especially in his translation of La Créquinière, there is a present a significant tension between the goal of demonstrating the interconnectedness of Indian and Western cultures and the temptation to exoticize Indian culture in order to be entertaining. However, a core assumption of Toland’s philosophy was that religious doctrine and practice are human, rather than divine, creations. In this way, Toland categorizes religion as a form of culture or social structure, and privileges a shared human experience over individual cultural practices. Additionally, heterodox philosophers like Toland often attempted to deprioritize Christianity by demonstrating that not only did it develop through human means, but that it developed out of existing religions and cultures like Judaism. By demonstrating the interconnectedness of multiple cultures and belief systems, Toland demonstrates a flexibility of thinking that exceeds the
common mode of the eighteenth century, even if we could not today call his cosmopolitanism radical or unproblematic.
Simultaneously Ancient and Modern: The Agreement of the Customs of the East-Indians
With Those of the Jews (1705)
Before he wrote Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews, a pivotal text about enlightenment attitudes toward Jews, Toland also translated La Créquinière’s Conformité des coutumes des Indiens orientaux, avec celles des Juifs et des autres peuples de l’antiquité (1704) as The
Agreement of the Customs of the East-Indians With Those of the Jews, and other Ancient People (1705).161 The Agreement’s purported objective is to offer a comparative analysis of
contemporary Indian and ancient Jewish culture, with the intention of using the former to
understand the ancient past. A knowledge of Indian customs, the text claims, will offer a “Literal Explication” of biblical passages previously thought to be interpretable only through allegory (iv). In this, Toland argues that his analysis will decrease the historical distance between the ancient Western past and the Eastern present, and thus by implication connect present European traditions to those of the ancient world.162 This earlier text models many of the ideas in favor of Jewish naturalization that Toland espouses in Reasons, although it presents a far more
speculative revisionist historiography—one that is compromised by the text’s indulgence in exotic stereotypes and a muddy rhetorical framework. Even so,Toland’s decision to translate La Créquinière’s text reflects his burgeoning interest in the problems—political, economic, and conceptual, posed by the Jews. By examining the two texts together, we can come to a fuller understanding of why Toland thought in 1714 that Britain was ready to hear an argument in favor of Jewish naturalization.
The Agreement has perhaps received less attention because it is a translation, and for many years scholars questioned Toland’s authorship since no edition of the text bears Toland’s name. However, modern historians and critics now generally agree that Toland is indeed the
author of the translation.163 The Agreement’s original author, La Créquinière, is something of a mystery—-we only know that he was an officer who spent some time in India at the French commercial enclave, Pondichéry.164 We know little of his politics or theological positions, although the premise of The Agreement suggests that La Créquinière was influenced by several key texts that are recognized as foundational to the development of comparative religious studies out of the study of antiquities: Leo Modena’s detached approach to the practice of Judaism in Historia de gli riti hebraci (History of Judaic Rituals) (1681),165 which was translated into French with a lengthy addendum, Comparison des cérémonies des Juifs et de la discipline de l’Eglise (Comparison between Jewish ceremonies and the Church’s discipline) comparing Jewish and Christian practices by Richard Simon, as well as by the ethnographic approach of Claude Fleury in Les Moeurs des Israëlites (1681).166
While not free from the influence of ideology or politics, French ethnographic and comparative practices stressed detachment and distance as a means of objectivity. Although Catholics like Richard Simon used the unreliability of biblical translation and historical transmission to argue that the best guide to truth was the interpretation of the Church, La Créquinière’s objective approach appears to advocate objective distance from all historical religions, which would have been attractive to Toland, whose pantheism advocated a similar kind of distance. Additionally, radicals like Toland often reversed the Catholic strategy of recognizing the bible’s unreliability to argue in favor the deistic/pantheistic (in Toland’s case) rejection of the authority of organized religion. Toland acknowledges neither the source of the text of his translation, nor that fact that is a translation. Rather than evaluating Toland’s
translation in terms of its adherence to the meaning, spirit, and tone of the original text, it is more useful to understand Toland’s version of The Agreement as a form of rewriting in the way
theorized by Andre Lefevere, who argues that a translator does not simply transmit the original text to readers, but makes interpretive choices based on his or her own ideological beliefs and or goals.167 While La Créquinière may have been hampered by the Catholic Church and the French State—his text ends with an “Extrait du Privilege du Roi” or the state’s imprimatur, Toland had far less need to satisfy any political or religious authority—his text ends with an advertisement for more of the publisher’s travel literature, and so his translation—especially by eliminating all reference to authorial identity—allows the text’s more radical elements to stand on their own. Similarly, by translating the text into English, without attributing authorship to La Créquinière, Toland changes the context of the text’s critique to one that is specifically British.
The text employs a traditionally conservative methodology toward a radical end by inverting the argument that the unreliability of translation necessitates trusting the Church’s interpretation. Toland seems well aware of the power dynamics inherent in both translation and historiography, and uses them to cast doubt on the reliability of translation as a tool for
disseminating knowledge. He “know[s] that these Citations will not relish well with many people,” specifically those who elevate biblical sources over pagan ones, but nevertheless, the only way to get at a full understanding of historical truth, and to undermine faith in superstition and revelation, is to extend one’s study beyond the bible and its many poor translations (vii). In this case, Toland casts doubt not only on biblical translations, but on translation more generally, since he also uses classical histories and chronicles by writers like Pliny and Herodotus. In this way, Toland places biblical and classical history on equal footing.168
Toland uses the unreliability of translation to underscore his critique of scriptural
authority. This is a typical rhetorical move in skeptical texts, which often argue that one must be skeptical of poor or deliberately skewed translations that encourage misinterpretations of biblical
history. Toland offers this standard concern about translation, pointing out that “there are many who are otherwise very Learned, that do not understand the Greek Tongue” (vii). He signals to other skeptical readers that they should read his text as a radical history by arguing that “those who are acquainted with the Matter treated of will rejoice to find that they can judg of them by themselves, without having Recourse to the authors I quote, provided I have given the true Sense of the passages I relate, and rightly inferr’d the Conclusions I have made” (viii). Toland suggests his own translations are more attentive and better informed because he relies both on his own knowledge that his readers can judge for themselves as well as the authority of “the best
Translators” (vii). This claim is ironic given Toland’s obfuscation of his own role in translating The Agreement into English—he knows that some readers will be aware of the original source, but many will not. Those readers who are aware that they are reading a translation are asked to judge Toland’s ability and decide whether or not his translation skills are as strong as he claims, while those not in the know can only take his word that he avoids imparting too strongly his own point of view in the portions of the text he claims to have translated.
The Agreement, however, does not serve simply as a self-aggrandizing platform for Toland’s translation abilities. Its rhetorical function has complex ramifications for the ways in which eighteenth-century British culture understood its own engagement with the rest of Europe and with non-European nations and empires (such as India, China, and the Ottoman Empire) than his claim implies. The Agreement ultimately suggests that Britain has the potential to be a
cosmopolitan nation if only it will examine its cultural identity and practices. By treating the bible as a cultural history, and by not privileging its narrative over other historiographical