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John Locke and the Jews

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Extract

In 1813, a century after the death of John Locke, an anonymous pamphleteer in London, writing under the pseudonym of ‘Abraham, saac and Jacob’, complained about the restrictions which were placed on the Jews. In The Lamentations of the Children of Israel representing the Hardships they suffer from the Penal Laws, the author recalled John Locke as a defender of the Jews, and quoted one of the philosopher's favourable comparisons between Jews and Gentiles. The author evidently felt that Locke's advocacy of toleration for dissenters in the second half of the seventeenth century could be applied to the Jews of nineteenth–century England: having argued in defence of non–Anglicans, Locke was believed to have argued for non–Christians too.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

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2 For a study and an edition of Locke's text, see Two Tracts on Government, ed. Philip Abrams, , Cambridge 1967.Google Scholar

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64 See Bodl. Lib., MS Locke c. 27, fos 25gv–26or.Google ScholarSeder Olam was first published in Latin and was translated by J., Clark in London 1694: Seder Olam: or the Order, Series, or Succession of all the Ages, Periods, and Times of the Whole World. Locke was taking his notes directly from the English version.Google Scholar

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76 Menassah Ben, Israel, The Hope of Israel, London 1655.Google ScholarFor Locke's familiarity with Ben Israel's work, see the reference in a letter by Nicholas Toinard to Locke in Correspondence, ii. 277.Google Scholar

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