Critical Independence versus Christian Catholicity in Hugo Grotius’s Annotations on Matthew 23:2–3
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Philip Thomas Mohr
Abstract
This article examines the Annotationes in Novum Testamentum of Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) at Matt 23:2–3, both to understand more about Grotius’s exegetical method and to generate additional data for the effects and uses of those verses. The following are general findings from the examination. First, Grotius shows a degree of independence to make text-critical decisions that affect translation. Second, Grotius’s interpretation of Jesus’s command to the scribes and Pharisees “who sit on the chair of Moses” depends upon an understanding of jurisprudence, eschews speculation about divine institution of the teaching office, and cuts off redeployment of Jesus’s command in contemporary polemics among Christians. Third, Grotius puts Jesus’s statements in conversation with the received wisdom from “pagan” antiquity. Fourth, Grotius demonstrates an awareness of options in the history of interpretation and desires, maybe naïvely and with some self-contradiction, to show himself in harmony with ancient Christian traditions.
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Winner of the REFORC Paper Award 2023
- Concerning the Defamation and Execution of the “Radical” Ludwig Hätzer (1500–1529): An Attempt at Using Social Network Analysis on Small Samples
- Research Articles
- Framing Religious Leadership in Dutch Nationalist Confessional Historiography: Anabaptism on the Lower Rhine in the 1540s–1550s
- Hope from the Ashes: Juan Pérez de Pineda’s Mystical Body beyond Neoplatonic Consolation
- True Worship in the Spirit: Martin Chemnitz and the Minor Role of the Body in Worship
- The Duke of Olyka and the Saint: The Meeting between Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł and Pope Pius V (1566)
- The Post-Tridentine Controversies at the Louvain Faculty of Theology: The Correspondence between Judocus Tiletanus and Michael Baius (1568)
- Between Jerusalem and Babylon: Catholic Discourses of Israel and National Identity in Elizabethan and Jacobean England (ca. 1560–1625)
- Enfance, martyre et mission dans L’Histoire des martyrs du Japon de Nicolas Trigault (1624)
- Critical Independence versus Christian Catholicity in Hugo Grotius’s Annotations on Matthew 23:2–3
