The Works of That Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker

From Wythepedia: The George Wythe Encyclopedia
Revision as of 10:36, 18 March 2014 by Lktesar (talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search

by Richard Hooker

The Works of That Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker: in Eight Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
HookerWorks1723.jpg

Title page from The Works of That Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker: in Eight Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, George Wythe Collection, Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary.

Author Richard Hooker
Editor John Gauden, with some corrections by John Strype
Translator {{{trans}}}
Published London: Printed for John Walthoe, George Conyers, James Knapton, Robert Knoplock, J. and B. Sprint . . . [and 9 others]
Date 1723
Edition {{{edition}}}
Language English
Volumes {{{set}}} volume set
Pages [4], lxxxviii, 518 [i.e. 520], [8]
Desc. Folio (40 cm.)
Location [[Shelf {{{shelf}}}]]
  [[Shelf {{{shelf2}}}]]
Frontispiece portrait of Richard Hooker.
Richard Hooker (1554-1600) began his education at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1569,[1] at a time when the Anglican Church was steeped in Calvinist thought.[2] There he received a broadly interdisciplinary education, including classical philosophy and artistic disciplines alongside his primary studies in theology,[3] which would bear heavily upon his most significant scholarly endeavor—The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,[4] an eight-volume opus, the writing of which necessitated resignation from his post as Master of the Temple Church in London in 1591.[5] The first five books of his treatise saw publication during his lifetime, but it is evident that the last three, published posthumously, were not fully completed, and there is even debate as to whether he was the sole author of these final volumes.[6]


The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity was Hooker’s response not only to a rift within Protestantism—between Hooker’s Anglicanism and English Puritans agitating for a reform of church government toward the Calvinist model,[7] characterized by an exclusive fidelity to scripture[8]—but also to what he saw as the Catholic Church’s theological error of elevating "tradition" to the same importance as scripture.[9] Hooker articulated a three-fold theory of ecclesiastical government that emphasized deference to scripture, followed by church tradition, and where those were inadequate, answers were to be sought in human reason.[10]

Unsurprisingly, given this final modification, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity has been lauded as the Enlightenment’s "...first glimmering...dawn,"[11] and profoundly influential upon “...(both directly and through Locke), American political philosophy in the late 1700’s."[12]

Bookplate of Edward Thornton, front pastedown.


Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

Listed in the Jefferson Inventory of Wythe's Library as Hooker’s Ecclesiastical polity. fol. and given by Thomas Jefferson to his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph. We do not have enough information to conclusively identify which edition Wythe owned. George Wythe's Library[13] on LibraryThing indicates this without naming a specific edition. The Brown Bibliography[14] lists the 1723 edition from London based on the copy Jefferson sold to the Library of Congress.[15] The Wolf Law Library followed Brown's suggestion and purchased the London 1723 edition.

Description of the Wolf Law Library's copy

Bound in contemporary Cambridge-style panelled calf, newly rebacked. Signed "F.H. Thornton, Oct. 1912" on the front free endpaper and includes the bookplate of Edward Thornton on the front pastedown. Purchased from Cobnar Books.

View this book in William & Mary's online catalog.

Inscription, front free endpaper.

References

  1. A. S. McGrade “Hooker, Richard (1554–1600),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004- ), accessed October 3, 2013.
  2. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "Richard Hooker," accessed October 3, 2013.
  3. A. S. McGrade, "Hooker, Richard (1554–1600".
  4. James E. Kiefer, "Biographical Sketches of Memorable Christians of the Past: Richard Hooker, Doctor of the Church," Society of Archbishop Justus, accessed October 3, 2013.
  5. A. S. McGrade, "Hooker, Richard (1554–1600".
  6. Ibid.
  7. Kiefer, "Biographical Sketches of Memorable Christians of the Past: Richard Hooker, Doctor of the Church."
  8. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "Richard Hooker."
  9. Ibid.
  10. Ibid.
  11. A. S. McGrade, "Hooker, Richard (1554–1600".
  12. Kiefer, "Biographical Sketches of Memorable Christians of the Past: Richard Hooker, Doctor of the Church."
  13. LibraryThing, s. v. "Member: George Wythe," accessed on November 13, 2013, http://www.librarything.com/profile/GeorgeWythe
  14. Bennie Brown, "The Library of George Wythe of Williamsburg and Richmond," (unpublished manuscript, May, 2012) Microsoft Word file. Earlier edition available at: https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/13433
  15. E. Millicent Sowerby, ""Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson 2nd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983), 3:14-15. [no.2334]

External Links

Read this book in Google Books.