Jean Bodin and The Authorship of The Colloquium

Jean Bodin and the Authorship of the "Colloquium Heptaplomeres"
Author(s): Noel Malcolm

Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 69 (2006), pp. 95-150
Published by: The Warburg Institute
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JEAN BODIN AND THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE
COLLOQUIUM HEPTAPLOMERES
Noel Malcolm
Colloquium heptaplomeres attributed to Jean Bodin is one of the strangest

and most fascinating texts written in early modern Europe. A substantial
work, in six books., it presents a discussion between seven speakers: a Catholic, a
Lutheran, a Calvinist, a Jew, a Muslim, and two non-confessional figures of
whom one is usually described as a 'Deist' and the other as a sceptical naturalist.
The first three books concentrate on the nature of demons, angels and the human
soul; in the last three, the religious positions of the speakers are contested in a
complex debate, during which it gradually becomes clear that the most auth-
oritative views are those of the 'Deist' and the Jew. The tone of the discussion
is courteous and reasonable, and a strong case is made for religious toleration
(that is, toleration of those who hold religious beliefs - atheists are not included).
However, the fact that some of the central dogmas of Christianity are directly
criticised by the non-Christian speakers means that this moderate and reasonable
text is, at the same time, capable of being read in a powerfully subversive way; it
was for this reason that it became one of the most frequently copied manuscripts
circulating in the 'radical Enlightenment' of the late seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
There was no printed edition of the Colloquium until the nineteenth century.
In 1 84 1 Georg Guhrauer produced a partial edition; the full text was published
by Ludwig Noack in 1857.1 Although Noack based his edition on the work of an
earlier scholar, Heinrich Christian von Senckenberg, who had collated six manu-
script copies, and although Noack made some further collations of his own, what
he produced could hardly be described as a critical edition; and, what is more, it
was marred by a large number of typographical errors.2 A proper critical edition,
Note: the following abbreviated titles, etc., are used 2. On von Senckenberg's work see E. G. Vogel,
in the notes to this article. They are listed here in 'Zur Geschichte des ungedruckten Werks: Colloquium
alphabetical order, with a reference, in each case, heptaplomeres
to s[ive] de abditis rerum sublimium arcanis ,
the note in which the full details are presented. verfasst von dem Franzosen Jean Bodin', Serapeum:
'BnF': n. 18. 'Ceard': n. 7. 'Dem. 1580': n. 81. 'Dem. Zeitschrift fur Bibliothekwissenschaft, Handschriftenkunde
1587': n. 81. 'De republica': n. 87. 'Faltenbacher 1988', und dltere Literatur, 1, 1840 (in three parts, 1.8-1.10), pp.
'Faltenbacher 1993', 'Faltenbacher 2002': n. 6. 1 13-16, 132-38 and 152-55 (154). For a very negative
'Kuntz': n. 3. 'McRae': n. 80. 'Noack': n. 1. 'Rep. judgement on Noack's text, see Jean Bodin, Colloque
1576': n. 139. 'Theatrum': n. 14. 'Wootton': n. 7. des secrets cachez des choses sublimes, ed. R. Chauvire,
1. Jean Bodin, Das Heptaplomeres. Zur Geschichte Paris 1 9 14, pp. 9-10, 13; for a defence of its general
reliability, see the Letter to the Editors by M. L. Kuntz
der Cultur und Literatur im Jahrhundert der Reformation,
ed. G. E. Guhrauer, Berlin 1841; idem, Colloquium in The NewYork Review of Books, XXIV.3, 1977.
heptaplomeres de rerum sublimium arcanis abditis, ed. L.
Noack, Schwerin 1857 [hereafter 'Noack'].
95
JOURNAL OF THE WARBURG AND COURTAULD INSTITUTES, LXIX, 2OO6
96 NOEL MALCOLM
based on a thorough study of th

to this day. Faute de mieux, Noa
must refer; but they now have acc
a modern English translation., and
In each of these, the apparatus
manuscripts. The French version
precisely dated, but the scholarly
translator) at some time in the sev
All the editors just mentioned
the philosopher and political theo
credited with this text, and the att
period of its reception in seventeen
matter was the fact that many p
sometimes word-for-word - to p
late work (traditionally dated to
Colloquium thus seemed to funct
final religious credo, but also as a s
of history, politics, demonology an
Recently, however, this consen
1988 the German scholar Karl Fa
which he argued that Bodin could n
elaborated his argument in a pam
his case further in a book of essa
Three of the essays in that volu
Wootton, have expressed varyin
the most outspoken of these, the o
believe that I have almost conclusiv
by Bodin.'7 These writers have d
3. Jean Bodin, Colloquium of inthe

le Colloquium heptaplomeres\ Seven
Magie, Religion und about
Secrets of the Sublime, Wissenschaften ed. and
im 'Colloquium tr.Ergebnisse
heptaplomeres': M. L. D. K
Princeton, NJ 1975 [hereafter
der Tagungen 'Kuntz';
in Paris 1994 und in der Villa Vigoni 1999, quota
from this translation are Darmstadt
ed. K. F. Faltenbacher, in several 2002, pp. 1 13-41 cases s
emended]; Jean Bodin, (133-34)- Colloque entre sept scav
sont de differens sentimens 5. Chauvire . (as .
in n.
. 2), p. 13m., called it the
(manuscrit frangais
la Bibliotheque nationale 'resume de sade science Paris),
& cime de sa pensee'.
ed. F. Berrio
Geneva 1984. (Chauvire, ed. [as
6. K. F. Faltenbacher, in Hepta-
Das Colloquium n. 2] was a
edition of this translation.) The
plomeres, ein Religions gesprdch French
zwischen Scholastik und transla
of some limited textual Aufkldrung:significance,
Untersuchungen zur Thematik undas zur it appe
have been based on a Latin MS different in some Frage der Autorschaft, Frankfurt am Main 1988
small ways from the ones collated by Noack. [hereafter 'Faltenbacher 1988']; Das Colloquium
4. The possibility that Bodin was responsible for
Heptaplomeres und das neue Weltbild Galileis: zur
this translation was decisively rejected by Chauvire Datierung, Autorschaft und Thematik des Siebener-
(as in n. 2), pp. 19-21, who pointed out that the gesprdchs, Mainz 1993 [hereafter 'Faltenbacher 1993'];
translator was guilty of many errors and confusions 'Uberlegung zur Rezeptionsgeschichte des Colloquium
(and was also ignorant of Hebrew). For a specific heptaplomeres', and 'Stand der Forschung', in idem,
example of the French translation obscuring, through ed. (as in n. 4), pp. 1-52 [hereafter 'Faltenbacher
incomprehension, the meaning of the original, see 2002'].
E. Knobloch, 'Cosmologie et mathematiques dans
JEAN BODIN AND THE COLLOQUIUM HEPTAPLOMERES 97
himself has sought to identify incongruities (discrepancies in style and

between the Colloquium and Bodin's attested works) and anachronisms
ences to events, or to other books, that post-date Bodin's death); and W
has added some more pieces of evidence in these categories. But in add
both Wootton and Ceard have taken the Colloquium's undeniable borrowin
Bodin's published works and have used them to construct an argument
opposite to the one traditionally based on them: the argument is that th
of these borrowings (which, it is alleged, are often mechanical and som
inept) demonstrates that the borrower could not have been Bodin himse
The reaction to Faltenbacher's claims consisted, in some quarters at l
hostility mingled with disdain. It is true that some of the evidence he put f
was faulty.9 Yet the central claim advanced by Faltenbacher, Ceard and
is clearly not something that can or should be dismissed out of hand. A
to be intimidated by the weight of 'received opinion', and a willingness
afresh at beliefs that have long remained unchallenged, have often led
advances in the critical study of history; for that fearlessness, and that wil
Faltenbacher deserves our respect and (if his argument is correct) our t
But our final judgement must rest on the nature of the evidence itself
follows is an attempt to investigate that evidence a little more fully.
If there were documents from Bodin's lifetime containing any clear references
to the composition of the Colloquium, that would of course constitute strong
evidence of Bodin's authorship; but no such references can be found. This
in itself is not very surprising, however, as the documentation of Bodin's life
is extremely sparse. Just three scraps of evidence have survived that might
conceivably be related to the writing of the Colloquium. In June 1587 Bodin was
reported to the authorities in Laon for writing a suspect book; ten witnesses,
including two Catholic priests, testified on his behalf, and the charge was
dropped. When Jacques-Frangois-Louis Devisme first drew attention to this
episode, in 1801, he suggested that the book in question was the Colloquium^ this
claim was supported by E. G. Vogel in 1840, but later Bodin scholars have been
7. J. Ceard, 'Du Theatre de la nature universelle et son "Colloquium Heptaplomeres" manuscrit

a l'Heptaplomeres', in Faltenbacher, ed. (as in n. 4), (I593)53 m Les Dissidents du XVIe siecle entre
pp. 53-68 [hereafter 'Ceard']; I. Pantin, 'L'Ordre Vhumanisme et le catholicisme, ed. M. Lienhard, Baden-
du monde naturel dans le Colloquium Heptaplomeres^ Baden 1983, pp. 227-42 (228). However, no detailed
ibid., pp. 163-74; D. Wootton, 'Pseudo-Bodin's textual comparisons had been made before the work
Colloquium heptaplomeres and Bodin's Demonomanie' ofWootton
, and Ceard.
ibid., pp. 175-225 [hereafter 'Wootton'] (203). 9. See G. Roellenbleck, review of Faltenbacher
8. For examples of earlier scholars using these 1988 in Romanistisches Jahrbuch, xxxix, 1988, pp.
borrowings as proof of Bodinian authorship, see F. 219-22; and J. Letrouit, 'Jean Bodin, auteur du
von Bezold, 'Jean Bodins Colloquium HeptaplomeresColloquium heptaplomeres', La Lettre clandestine: bulletin
und der Atheismus des 16. Jahrhunderts', Historisched 'information sur la litterature philosophique clandestine
Zeitschrift, cxm, 1914, pp. 260-315, and cxiv, 1915,de I'dge classique, IV, 1995, pp. 38-45 (a response to
pp. 237-301 (cxm, 266-67); F- Berriot, 'Jean BodinFaltenbacher 1993).
98 NOEL MALCOLM
sceptical.10 Georg Guhrauer dis

many of the manuscripts appea
Bodin was sixty-three (hence
because it must seem very unli
anyone, least of all to two Cath
noted that some of the manuscr
out that the source cited by De
claimed actually to have read
evidence is a passage in a letter w
cIt is true that I would like to
whom I can communicate the fine and remarkable discourses which I should
like to share with you, and a work which you must see before it is published.3
The 'work' referred to here has been identified with Bodin's Universae naturae
theatrum; this is plausible, given that (as Ann Blair and Jean Ceard have pointed
out) two passages in that text refer to 1590 as 'this year'.14 The identity of the
'discourses' is more uncertain; Friedrich von Bezold suggested that this was a
reference to the short philosophical text later published as the Paradoxon (which
is in dialogue form).15 But the possibility that Bodin was referring to a draft
of the Colloquium, or some part thereof, cannot be excluded; in contrast to the
'work', the 'discourses' were not described as being prepared for publication.
Finally, the third piece of evidence is a comment made by Bodin in a letter of
early 1595 to his patron Roland Bignon: 'I am sorry that I cannot have the book
printed in order to present it to you'.16 Some scholars have suggested that this
might refer to the Colloquium.17 However, without knowing the reason why Bodin
was unable to get the work in question printed (perhaps a practical or financial
10. J.-F.-L. Devisme, 'Notice historique et critique communiquer les beaux & notables discours dont ie
sur Bodin; auteur celebre, qui fleurissoit, a Laon, desire vous faire part: & vn oeuure qu'il faut que
dans le XVIIe siecle', in Magasin encyclopedique, ou vous voyez au parauant qu'il soit publie.' On this
journal des sciences, des lettres et des arts, ed. A. L. letter, which was published in several French cities in
Millin, year VII, 1801, vol. IV, pp. 42-59; Vogel (as in 1590, see Rose's comments on pp. xii-xiii.
n. 2), pp. 1 14-15. The source of Devisme's infor- 14. For the identification see von Bezold (as in n.
mation is not clearly stated; most of the details in his 8), cxm, p. 265; and R. Chauvire, Jean Bodin, auteur
article are drawn from the memoirs of the laonnais de la cRepublique\ Paris 19 14, p. 93. For the passages
official Antoine Richart, but those memoirs, which see A. Blair, The Theater of Nature: Jean Bodin and
have since been published, begin only in January Renaissance Science, Princeton, NJ 1997, p. 11; and
1589 (see A. Richart, Memoires sur la Ligue dansCeard, le p. 54. C. Vasoli, 'Note sul "Theatrum naturae"
Laonnois, Laon 1869). Devisme cites a dated depo- di Jean Bodin', in idem, Civitas mundi: studi sulla
sition by the ten witnesses, of 3 June 1587; possibly cultura del cinquecento, Rome 1996, pp. 345-400 (374),
he had seen the document itself. has written that one passage in the Theatrum refers
11. Guhrauer (as in n. 1), pp. lxix-lxxiv; to an astronomical observation of 1593, but this is
Guhrauer's argument was endorsed by von Bezold an error: the reference is to 1573 (see Jean Bodin,
(as in n. 8), cxm, p. 266. Universae naturae theatrum, Lyon 1596 [hereafter
12. Vogel (as in n. 2), p. H5n., cited three MSS ' Theatrum'], p. 218).
giving '1588', and this dating has also been supported 15. Von Bezold (as in n. 8), cxm, p. 265.
by Kuntz. 16. Chauvire (as in n. 14), p. 534: 'II me deplaist
13. Jean Bodin, Selected Writings on Philosophy, que je ne puis faire imprimer le libvre pour en faire
Religion and Politics, ed. P. L. Rose, Geneva 1980, p. present a [vous]'.
87: 'Vray est que ie voudrois deuant, iouyr de vostre 17. Ibid., p. 534n.; Berriot (as in n. 8), p. 228.
presence; n'y aiant personne par deca a qui ie puisse
problem, rather than radical unsuitability for publication) it is impossib

whether this refers to that work or to one of the other writings by Bo
were unpublished at that time.
As has already been mentioned, 1593 is the year to which the Colloqu
traditionally been dated. The reason for this is that many of the manuscrip
with a version of the following inscription: 'H. E. J. B. A. S. A. fc. LXII
is taken to stand for 'Haec ego Johannes Bodinus Andegavensis scripsi
aetatis LXIIF ('I, Jean Bodin, from Angers, wrote these things in my six
year').18 However, Bodin's 'sixty-third year' was the year between his sixty-
and sixty-third birthdays; and since he was born in either the second half o
or the first half of 1530, this yields a date of composition of 1591, 1592 or
Nor can we necessarily conclude that the entire work was written in th
third year; the inscription may refer to the date of completion, or it migh
have been chosen by Bodin for its numerological significance (seven an
were the numbers that produced 'climacteric' years) out of a range of years
which the composition took place.20 If it is true that the inscription referr
to completion, then those who attribute the Colloquium to Bodin will
terminus ad quern, but a precise terminus a quo will still be hard to find. Jea
has argued that the author of the Colloquium had a more or less finis
of the Theatrum to work from, and has dated that text (as mentioned
1590; yet although it is true that the Colloquium shares much material w
Theatrum, the order of priority between them cannot be demonstrat
absolute certainty, and it could perhaps be argued that Bodin was working,
in both cases, from a common stock of drafts and notebook-entries.21 Similar
problems might arise with regard to the Paradoxon, another text from which
apparent borrowings occur in the Colloquium: the Paradoxon itself was completed,
according to a note by Bodin at the end of the published text, in August 1591.22
There is, however, one other piece of biographical evidence which tends to
suggest that the composition of the Colloquium took place after January 1590. In
18. One of the 17th-century manuscripts, the d'apres des lettres inedites', Humanisme et Renais-
one that belonged to the French Chancellor Pierre sance, 11, 1935, pp. 422-40 (429). Cf. also Chauvire
Seguier, gives both the initials and, underneath them, (as in n. 14), pp. 85-86. For a mass of information
the full wording: Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de about the classical theories about climacteric years
France [hereafter 'BnF'] MS lat. 12976, fol. i64v. see Claudius Salmasius (Claude de Saumaise), De
19. Bodin's date of birth is inferred from his will annis climactericis et antiqua astrologia diatribae, Leiden
(no longer extant, but seen by Gilles Menage), which, 1648; Salmasius's book was in fact prompted by a
dated 7 June 1596, stated that he had passed the age discussion of the death of the Prince of Orange at the
of 66: Gilles Menage, Vitae Petri Aerodii quaesitoris age of 63 (see J. B. Michault, Melanges historiques et
andegavensis, et Guillelmi Menagii advocati regii ande- philologiques, 2 vols, Paris 1754, 11, pp. 130-31).
gavensis, Paris 1675, p. 147. 21. Ceard notes that the Colloquium is often fuller
20. Bodin's main discussion of the significance of than the Theatrum (he puts this in terms of the
such 'climacteric' years was in the Republique, book Colloquium's 'amplifications' of the Theatrum out-
iv, ch. 2. In a letter written in 1589 he declared that numbering the 'resumes': p. 58); he does offer some
the 63rd year was 'just as climacteric for monarchies apparent proofs of the Theatrum's priority, but these,
as it is for the lives of individuals' ('aussy bien as we shall see, are not entirely certain.
climaterique aux monarchies comme a la vie des 22. Bodin, Selected Writings (as in n. 13), p. vii.
particuliers'): J. Moreau-Reibel, 'Bodin et la Ligue
ioo NOEL MALCOLM
that month, Bodin was denou

and his house was carefully
duly burnt, but Bodin defen
any other penalty.23 It is hard
the search had uncovered any
hand, there is also the eviden
for writing a book about reli
manuscripts; and there is th
January 1590. Those who att
while the evidence points pr
composition, the issue mus
attribute it to him will not fin
anything to persuade them o
II
Jean Bodin died in the summ

of the Theatrum on 1 March
According to Gilles Menage, he
before his death; but these we
earlier period of his life.24 T
have not been able to say wit
that text, and there is indeed
of it until thirty-one years a
the Parisian clergy were bitt
speculated that this outbreak o
of the existence and nature of
no trace of that knowledge w
Naude and Mersenne until 16
and although some of the ear
to the sixteenth century - mea
and handwriting permits no
The first dated witness consists of the inscription in one of the early
manuscript copies, recording that it was given to the physician Gui Patin by his
friend Charles Guillemeau (a physician and surgeon) in 1627.26 Although David
23. J.-F.-L. Devisme, Histoire de la ville de Laon, 2 Bezold (as in n. 8), cxm, p. 280, suggests that this
vols, Laon 1822, 11, pp. 84-85. related to a revival of the old accusation of Protest-
24. Menage (as in n. 19), p. 143, referring to antism. It may also be significant that in 1607 an
treatises 'de Imperio, & Jurisdiction, & Legis action-expurgatory Index was published by the Holy Office
ibus, & Decretis, & Judiciis'; cf. Chauvire (as in n. in Rome, containing detailed instructions for the
14), pp. 93-95. Margherita Isnardi Parente dates these elimination of passages from Bodin's Methodus: see
works to the 1550s: see her 'Nota biografica' in JeanR. Crahay, 'J^an Bodin devant la censure: la con-
Bodin, / set libri dello stato, ed. and tr. M. Isnardi demnation de la "Republique"', in La c Republique } di
Parente, 3 vols, Turin 1964-97, 1, pp. 101-07 (103) • Jean Bodin: atti del convegno di Perugia, 14-1$ novembre
25. Pierre Bayle, Dictionaire historique et critique, 1980, Florence 1981 (= II pensiero politico, 1981, no. 1),
3rd edn, 4 vols, Rotterdam 1720, I, p. 586n.; von pp. 154-72 (167).
Wootton has written that this date 'may (or may not) be authentic'., th
be no doubt that this is an authentic inscription in Patin's own hand; it
matches the inscription (also dated 1627) in another item from Patin's
also preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.27 There is other
too, to suggest that the text of the Colloquium was becoming known at
this time. When Gabriel Naude discussed Bodin in his Apologie of
showed no knowledge of the existence of the Colloquium. Two years later, h
as Faltenbacher has pointed out, Naude did refer to the unpublished w
Bodin and others, 'whose manuscripts are found quite often in privat
viduals' studies, or in booksellers' shops'; discussing the factors that p
such authors from publishing their works, he included 'fear of various
and judgements'.28 Naude seems to have been the first person to refe
Colloquium in print when he mentioned, in his Bibliographia politica of
view of religion expressed by 'Jean Bodin in the huge volume which he com
but which has not yet been published (and may it never be published)
the secrets of sublime things [de rerum sublimium arcanis]'.29 Three ye
discussing Gassendi's work-in-progress on Epicurus in a letter to his friend
Peiresc (who was also a close friend of Gassendi), Naude suggested that Gassendi
write up his findings in such a way that 'one may have it transcribed, as is done
all the time to Bodin's work de rerum sublimium arcanis^ which also cannot be
printed'.30 Since Naude had been in Italy since 1631, having left Paris in the spring
of that year, it seems reasonable to assume that he had acquainted himself with
the contents of the Colloquium before his departure from the French capital.31
One of Naude's friends in Paris, the theologian, mathematician and Minim
friar Marin Mersenne, also seems to have been unaware of the Colloquium until
some time after the mid-i62os. Mersenne alluded briefly to the Latin version
of Bodin's best-known work, the Republique, in one of his earliest publications,
published in 1623. 32 He also referred to both the Theatrum and the Republique in
26. BnF MS lat. 6566, first blank leaf, recto: 30. PTamizey de Larroque, Les Correspondants de
'Guido Patinus, Bellovacus, Doctor Medicus Paris- Peiresc, 2 vols, Geneva 1972, 11, p. 56: 'on la peut
iensis. 1627. Ex dono Dom. Caroli Guillemeau, Regis descripre comme on fait tous les jours celle de Bodin
Christianissimi medici ordinarij'. de rerum sublimium arcanis, laquelle aussi ne se peut
27. Wootton, p. 178; BnF MS fr. 18264, fols 1-10, imprimer'.This letter is dated 29 Mar. 1636; it is not
an exemplum of the printed pamphlet Discours de clear why Francois Berriot has dated it to 'peu avant
Monsieur le Chancelier de V Hospital a ses amis, tourne1630' in his essay (as in n. 8), p. 228, or to 'peu apres
du latin, Poitiers 1601 (here fol. ir: 'Guido Patinus, 1630' in his Introduction to Bodin, Colloque (as in n.
Bellovacus, Doctor Medicus Parisiensis. 1627'). 3), P- 24.
28. Gabriel Naude, Advis pour dresser une biblio- 31. Naude left Paris with his patron Cardinal
theque, Paris 1627, p. 119 ('les Manuscripts desquels Giovanni Francesco dei Conti Guidi di Bagno at
se rencontrent assez souuent dans les Estudes des the beginning of April 1631: see J. A. Clarke, Gabriel
particuliers, ou en la boutique des Libraires'), Naude,cited1600-1653, Hamden, CT 1970, p. 35.
(but with a different pagination) in Faltenbacher 32. Marin Mersenne, Observationes et emendationes
2002, p. 8. ad Francisci Georgii veneti problemata, Paris 1623
29. Gabriel Naude, Bibliographia politica,(appended Venice to his Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim,
1633, p. 48: 'Ioannes Bodinus composito sed Paris nondum 1623), col. 424. There is no justification for the
edito (atque vtinam nunquam edatur) de rerum claim, made by Mersenne's modern biographer, that
sublimium arcanis ingenti volumine'. he treats Bodin here as an astrologer and an atheist
102 NOEL MALCOLM
his La Verite des sciences of 1

treatise against 'Deism', Ulm
show any sign whatsoever o
of the most important spea
that had some affinities to
Mersenne did become aware
certainly before 1641, when
manuscripts made for his fri
Another early reader of th
in Paris after his escape fro
autumn of 163 1 Grotius ret
career there; but he was exp
then to Frankfurt. In Febru
to the scholarly priest Jean
Paris, exchanging news and
one of those questions was 'I
Evidently Grotius had hear
copy, but had not yet read it
persuaded Descordes to entr
seller Sebastien Cramoisy, wh
manuscript was delivered by
he read it and sent Descorde
on the work.36 In reply, Jean
script via Cramoisy unless
received this letter, however,
ing the countryside betwee
the manuscript back to Cram
probably remained in Grotiu
1635. 39 Some scholars have
(R. Lenoble, Mersenne, 36. Ibid., p. 127a (19ou la

Sep. 1634); naissance
for the judgement d
Paris 1943, p. 58011.); see below, n. 122. Grotius's
the comments also indicate
reference to
neutral. the reason why he had asked Descordes to send him
33. Marin Mersenne, La Verite des sciences contre the Colloquium: he was preparing a new edition of his
les sceptiques ou pyrrhoniens, ed. D. Descotes, ParisDe veritate religionis christianae, and wanted to check
2003, pp. 204, 479, 480. whether there were any anti-Christian arguments in
34. Marin Mersenne, Correspondance, ed. C. de the Colloquium to which he should prepare a response.
Waard et al., 17 vols, Paris 1933-88, x, p. 727 37. Insignium virorum epistolae selectae ...ex biblio-
(Theodore Haak and Joachim Hiibner to Mersenne, theca Jani Guilielmi Meelii J.C., Amsterdam 1701,
29 Aug. i64i).This episode, which seems not to have p. 27. This is dated 11 Oct. 1634, but Grotius's reply
been noticed by previous writers on the transmission refers to it as a letter of 2 Oct.; clearly there has been
of the Colloquium, may perhaps account for the copysome confusion involving the Roman numeral 'II'.
later owned by Samuel Hartlib (on which see R. 38. Grotius (as in n. 35), p. 129a (30 Oct. 1634).
H. Popkin, 'The Dispersion of Bodin's Dialogues in 39. Gui Patin recorded a conversation with
England, Holland, and Germany', Journal of the Grotius in 1643 in which the latter said that he had
History of Ideas, XLix, 1988, pp. 157-60 [158]). once seen the manuscript of Bodin's work, and that
35. Hugo Grotius, Epistolae quotquot reperiri 'the late M. Descordes had lent it to me' ('Feu Mr
potuerunt, Amsterdam 1687, p. 106b: 'Bodini opus Descordes me l'avoit preste': R. Pintard, La Mothe le
supremum estne ut lucem speret?' Vayer, Gassendi, Guy Patin: etudes de bibliographic et de
the Bibliotheque Nationale de France is a transcript made or commission

Grotius; but Grotius died in 1645, and this copy was evidently made som
after 1662. 4° While it is not known whether Grotius ever had a copy m
does seem that Descordes would have raised no objection; he was famously
generous in such matters, and was later reported to have allowed his manuscript
of the Colloquium to be copied by the mathematician and Arabic scholar Claude
Hardy.41 (It might also be suspected that a leading bookseller such as Cramoisy
would not have let slip the opportunity to make a transcript himself, while it was
in his possession.)
What happened to Descordes's manuscript after his death in 1643 is also
unclear. After his library had been catalogued by his close friend Gabriel Naude,
the whole collection was acquired (on Naude's recommendation) by Cardinal
Mazarin, becoming the nucleus of the original Mazarin library.42 However, the
printed catalogue of Descordes's library listed only books, not manuscripts, and
it is not known whether the copy of the Colloquium passed to Mazarin or not, even
though Mazarin's collection did eventually include at least one manuscript of
the work.43 When the Parisian scholar Claude Sarrau was hunting for a copy in
1 65 1 he reported that Descordes's manuscript had been taken off to the Limoges
district by one of Descordes's nephews, and that its subsequent fate was
unknown. Sarrau also described it as the original manuscript in Bodin's own
hand; but what warrant he had for that statement is quite unclear.44
In this early phase of the manuscript transmission of the Colloquium, one
other name stands out: that of the prominent lawyer and book-collector Henri
de Mesmes, the president of the Parlement of Paris. One of the earliest surviving
manuscripts, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, evidently belonged
critique suivies de textes inedits de Guy Patin, Paris n.d.Grotii', with the consequence that those two words
[1943?], p. 81). This seems to imply that Grotius had stand like a heading at the very top of the page. It
returned it. seems that the title on the spine was simply copied
40. BnF MS lat. 16139. Chauvire, ed. (as in n. from those opening words - perhaps by an uncom-
2)i PP- 5> 7no notes that it is neither the original MS prehending binder, or perhaps by an owner who
in Bodin's hand nor even (given its many corrup- wished to camouflage the true identity of the work.
tions) a copy of it, yet he still assumes that it had 41. Paul Colomies, Opera, ed. Johann Albert
some connection with Grotius; Berriot describes it as Fabricius, Hamburg 1709, p. 86. Cf. Naude's com-
Grotius's own copy (Bodin, Colloque, as in n. 3, p. li). ments on Descordes's liberality towards users of
The only reason for any such assumption is that title his library in Gabriel Naude, Bibliothecae cordesianae
label on the spine bears the wording 'Hugonis Grotii'. catalogus, Paris 1643, sig. eir"v. However, the nature
Fol. ir of the MS, which is in the same hand as the of Grotius's comments on the Colloquium (see below,
text of the Colloquium (which starts on fol. 2r), repro-n. 122) must make one doubt whether he would have
duces Grotius's comment in his letter to Descordes, bothered to copy this lengthy work.
quoting it from the Leiden 1650 edition of Grotius's 42. See Naude, Catalogus (as in n. 41); and A.
Epistolae ad Gallos; it also gives information about a Franklin, Histoire de la Bibliotheque Mazarine et du
copy of the Colloquium lent by Jean-Baptiste Hantin Palais de Vlnstitut, 2nd edn, Paris 1901, pp. 9-13.
to Queen Christina of Sweden and returned by 43. Mazarin's copy is now BnF MS lat. 6565.
her in June 1662 (this narrative is reproduced in The Bibliotheque Mazarine also possesses two copies
Chauvire, ed., as in n. 2, p. 6n.). The comment by that are thought to date from the first half of the
Grotius, at the head of the page, is introduced with 17th century, MSS 3529 and 3530; but their dates of
the words 'Judicium H. G. de hoc opere...', and acquisition are unknown.
above 'H. G.' the same scribe has added 'Hugonis 44. Colomies (as in n. 41), pp. 86-87.
104 NOEL MALCOLM
to de Mesmes, as it has his coat of a

seventeenth century it was recor
case heard by the president de M
they had lent the original manus
this story was a manuscript whic
by Gabriel Naude, but which has
true, the latest date at which it c
in December of that year).47 But
Descordes had the authorial manu
script must have been made befo
indicating that the manuscript w
here are compounded by the fact
rather corrupted text: either the
'original' manuscript - if it me
different from an authorial fair co
Nevertheless, there are three re
a copy of the Colloquium by de Mes
that, if this story did derive from
placed source, since Naude had h
librarian. He started work in c. 1
service in order to go and study in
to Paris and resumed his former em
(in 1627) that manuscripts by Bo
treatise on bibliography and the o
Henri de Mesmes.49 If we can ass
Naude had only recently becom
the Colloquium^ then it is tempt
acquired by de Mesmes during N
The second reason (not mention
the story about a link between d
seriously is that Bodin himself ha
father, Jean-Jacques de Mesmes
by marriage: Jean-Jacques de Me
mother-in-law, and on the stren
social standing was much higher
Bodin as cy°ur affectionate rela
45. BnF MS lat. 6564; 48. R. for

Pintard, Le Libertinage
the erudit dans la
identification s
Letrouit (as in n. 9),premiere p. 38. moitie du XVIF siecle, 2nd edn, Geneva 1983,
46. See Johann Diecmann, De naturalismo cum p. 156; Clarke (as in n. 31), pp. 7-8, 13-16.
aliorum, turn maxime Io. Bodini, ex opere ejus MSCto . . . 49. See above, n. 28.
de abditis rerum sublimium arcanis, Kiel 1683, p. 9; and 50. A. Ponthieux, 'Quelques documents inedits
Bodin, Colloque (as in n. 3), pp. xxv-xxvii. sur Jean Bodin', Revue du seizieme siecle, xv, 1928, pp.
47. See Gui Patin, Lettres, ed. J. H. Reveille-Parise, 56-99 (92-95) (letters to Bodin of June 1592, Oct.
3 vols, Paris 1846, 11, p. 66. 1594 and Dec. 1594).
reported (allegedly) by Naude may have contained an element of embroider

when it said that Bodin's heirs happened to appear before Henri de Mesmes
as litigants; a simpler explanation might be that they wanted to re-establis
connection with the powerful de Mesmes family and, knowing of Henri's pass
for collecting books and manuscripts, offered him a copy of the Colloquium
would have been a particularly well-judged gift, as it not only fed the preside
appetite for bibliographical rarities but also served to remind him directly
Bodin himself, through whom the connection was claimed.
The third reason (which has also been curiously neglected in previou
studies) is that the de Mesmes manuscript contains a copy of another text, a lette
from Bodin to his nephew, entitled 'Epistre de Jean Baudin touchant l'institut
de ses enfans a son nepueu' and signed 'de laon ce 9 Nouembre 1686. [sic - f
'1586.'] vostre affectionne & oncle & ami J. Bodin'.51 The authenticity of this tex
has never been challenged, even by those who regard the Colloquium as a forgery
and, on the other hand, those who deny the authenticity of the Colloquium h
never explained how it came to be conjoined, in this early manuscript, with
genuine Bodin letter. The story of Bodin's heirs lending or otherwise offerin
the text to de Mesmes would provide a simple explanation - namely, that tho
heirs included the nephew to whom the letter was written (or a descendant
that nephew, into whose possession the letter had come). Unfortunately, th
nephew is not named, and his identity cannot be established.52 Nevertheless, t
letter must be counted as a piece of circumstantial evidence in favour of the
authenticity of the Colloquium.
Although the various fragments of evidence that can thus be assembled about
the early ownership of manuscript copies of the Colloquium are frustratin
incomplete, they are not mutually inconsistent; indeed, they appear to form som
sort of pattern. The earliest evidence falls in the period between 1627 and 16
and it relates to a small number of people in Paris, most or all of whom had some
connection with Gabriel Naude. Not only was Naude under the patronage of
Mesmes; he was also a close friend of Descordes (though the beginning of t
friendship cannot be dated with any accuracy); and since his years as a medic
student in Paris in the early 1620s he had also been a close friend of Gui Pat
That he also knew Charles Guillemeau (the surgeon who gave Patin a copy o
the Colloquium in 1627) may be presumed: Patin would later recall that he
Guillemeau graduated together, and that they had been close acquaintances si
1624. 53 On the basis of Naude's connections with all of these people, it might
tempting to construct a simple scenario in which Naude first found the new
51. BnF MS lat. 6564, pp. 483-1486]; this is thesein thetwo sides of Bodin's family see Ponthieux (as
same scribal hand as the rest of the MS. The text isin n. 50); E. Pasquier, 'La Famille de Jean Bodin',
printed in Guhrauer, ed. (as in n. 1), pp. 254-56,Revue
and d'histoire de Veglise de France, xix, 1933, pp.
in Bodin, Selected Writings (as in n. 13), pp. 3-4. 457-62; and J. Levron, Jean Bodin et sa famille: textes
52. The nephew may have been either a son et ofdocuments, Angers 1950.
one of Bodin's siblings (of whom there were six), or 53.a Patin (as in n. 47), 11, p. 271.
son of a sibling of his wife; for what little is known of
io6 NOEL MALCOLM
acquired transcript of the C

to Paris in the summer of 1
Guillemeau, and later made
friend Descordes. Certainly
work was being transcribed
and perhaps involved in, the
scenario, however, is that the
in many small ways from that
differences indicates that th
indeed, the whole pattern of
that have been studied so fa
makes it seem very unlikely th
It appears that the original m
manuscript was copied) did gi
transcription - perhaps whil
identification of his manuscr
central role in this story may,
that he went out of his way to
For those who deny that Bod
hand, the apparent centralit
David Wootton has argued th
after 1624', by a well-read an
with Peiresc; he does not sug
of travel, before 1627, consiste
tion would fit someone in Na
second treatment of this iss
Jean-Jacques Bouchard, who
evidence for this identification
Colloquium had a lively and ele
but apparently similar to th
words in the text of the Co
inserting Greek words (or, a
his own French texts; that a
attempt to transport a mum
mation supplied by Peiresc w
collection; that the inscriptio
the end of the French manus
abbe, Clericus Consistorii'; an
cAd N. T.', might be a corrup
54. See above, n. 30. when he asserted that de Mesmes's

manuscripts
55. See the discussion copy was the 'prototypein sansChauvire,
doute de toutes les ed.
2), pp. 11-16; and that
copies' by
(Libertinage, as in n. 48, Katharine
p. 166). Dav
Colloque (as in n. 56. 3), pp.
Wootton, lxi-lxvi. Rene P
pp. 203-04.
not to have considered the differences between the 57. Faltenbacher 1993, pp. 20-21.
Fabri [de Peiresc]'.58 Against these arguments it must be observed that t

stylistic comparison has not been made in any detail and seems, as it stands.
both subjective and slight; that the use of Greek words in the Colloquium follo
standard humanistic practice, and has nothing in common with Bouchard
habit of transliterating French obscenities into Greek; and that the argument
drawn from the inscriptions are hardly compelling, given that the second o
them requires the inscription to be altered and the first is based not on the
original Latin ('H. E. J. B. A. S. A. iE. LXIIF - this excludes the Latin phra
'Clericus Consistorii') but on the French translation of it.59 These explications
the inscriptions seem in any case to clash with Wootton's assumption that th
whole text was artfully devised to look like an authentic text by Bodin (in whi
case one would expect the 'J- B.' of the inscription to stand for Jean Bodin). Th
attribution to Bouchard also seems chronologically implausible: we know tha
the text of the Colloquium was in existence by 1627, when Bouchard was onl
twenty or twenty-one years old, yet his visit to Peiresc (at which he was shown th
mummies) took place in November 1630, when Bouchard was en route to Ital
and his acquaintance with Naude began only after the latter's arrival in Rome i
May 1631.60 Moreover, the breadth of learning displayed by the author of th
Colloquium (including a knowledge of Hebrew, which Bouchard seems never
have possessed) goes far beyond that of Bouchard himself, who was little mor
than a young roue with intellectual interests. Perhaps with some of these con
siderations in mind, Faltenbacher has omitted Bouchard's name from his most
recent treatment of the issue, merely stating that the Colloquium was written in
1625, arguing that the false attribution to Bodin had arisen in the circle of Naude,
Patin and Guillemeau, and suggesting that Naude and Patin knew a little more
about the origin of the text than they were prepared to say.61 Nevertheless, it
would seem to follow from the cases made by Wootton and Faltenbacher that the
text was written by a member of Naude's circle of so-called 'libertins erudits';
and if we assume this, we can also conclude that its subsequent circulation as a
subversive 'clandestine' text accurately reflected the intentions of the person who
wrote it.
If the term 'libertin erudit' has any value, it can surely be applied to Naude
and Patin; and it would probably also fit the case of Charles Guillemeau, whom
Patin himself portrayed as a rather cynical and unprincipled character.62 Naude
might have enjoyed the intellectual antics involved in the forgery of a major work
by Bodin; but it must be wondered whether, had he been in the know, he would
have allowed either his eminent patron Henri de Mesmes or his friend Jean
58. Ibid., pp. 20-21, 24, 26, 34. 60. See E. KancefFs 'Introduction' to his edn of
59. The French translator presumably converted Jean-Jacques Bouchard, Oeuvres, 2 vols, Turin 1976-
the Latin's first-person construction ('I, Jean Bodin . . . 77, 1, pp. xxxv-xxxvi; also 1, p. 68.
wrote these things') into the third person: 'Jean Bodin, 61. Faltenbacher 2002, pp. 12, 14, 47. The reasons
angevin, composa ce livre age de LXIII ans' (or for this dating are discussed below.
possibly '...composa cette lettre...', given that the 62. See Patin (as in n. 47), 11, p. 256. On the term
work begins as a letter to 'N. T.') . The 'L' in the French 'libertin erudit' see Pintard, Libertinage (as in n. 48).
inscription was not explicated by Faltenbacher.
io8 NOEL MALCOLM
Descordes to be deceived. What

not recorded; but it is clear fr
he, at least, regarded the text
certainly not be described as a
papal only insofar as he was a
irenic Erasmian theologian G
forged only a few years before
have been unusually skilful
appearance of age, for his man
One other point also needs to
had been composed by a friend
been supplied, thanks to Naud
period before 1632, one might
easily traceable to a single tex
early manuscripts (as mention
been more complicated than tha
created in the second half of t
that the forger went to extra
complex history of manuscript
about such transmissions and t
in its infancy.
To conclude: the available evid
at all conclusive. Those who d
any witnesses to the existence
death is significant; this might
that there are many attested
uncirculated for quite long perio
as we have seen, there are some
might find hard to account f
between Bodin and the de Mes
Bodin to his nephew) which c
On balance, this evidence seems
short of any proper standards
consider the text of the Colloqu
Ill
One simple way to show that the Colloquium was not written by Bodin would be
to demonstrate that it contains references to events, or to published works, that
post-dated Bodin's death. Of course, any individual anachronism of this sort
63. See the tributes to Descordes printed in theGeorge Cassander, Opera quae reperiri potuerunt
omnia, Paris 1616, which does not bear Descordes's
prefatory materials to Naude, Catalogus (as in n. 41),
and the comments in Colomies (as in n. 41), pp. name.)
458-59. (Colomies notes there his responsibility for
could in principle be explained away as a later interpolation; but such an

explanation would not be plausible if the anachronisms were frequent and if the
passages in which they occurred did not seem in any way extraneous to the text.
Several such anachronisms have in fact been put forward by Faltenbacher and
Wootton.
In two cases Faltenbacher has identified anachronistic references to published

works. In bookvi of the Colloquium, Curtius (the Calvinist) declares:
I see that the aim of Salomon [the Jew] and Toralba [the 'Deist'] is to pursue the nature
of God and the mysteries of the Trinity by reasons and proofs. Faith is needed. If you
apply reason and proof to the things which depend on faith alone, you will accomplish no
more than if you wish to be mad with reason ... Wherefore I cannot approve the writings of
Eusebius, Galatino, and Agostino Steuco of Gubbio from which de Mornay tries to draw
out evangelical proofs.64
In a footnote to this passage., Marion Kuntz identified the work by Philippe de

Mornay as his De V Institution;, usage et doctrine du sainct sacrement de Ueucharistie,
en Veglise ancienne; she did not give its date of publication, and it was left to
Faltenbacher to point out, in his first study, that this book was published in
1598, two years after Bodin's death.65 Reviewing Faltenbacher's work, Georg
Roellenbleck argued that the allusion was in fact to a different book by de
Mornay, De la Verite de la religion chrestienne, published in 158 1 (and issued in
Latin in 1583); but in his next publication Faltenbacher still insisted (on the basis
of the account of de Mornay given in a nineteenth-century reference work) that
the allusion must be to the 1598 De V Institution.66 Roellenbleck's argument was
then reiterated and reinforced by Jean Letrouit, who pointed out that the passage
in the Colloquium was part of a discussion of the Trinity - a topic treated at length
in de Mornay's earlier book but not handled in the later one.67 A closer study of
de Mornay's earlier publication confirms that Roellenbleck and Letrouit were
right. Chapter 6 of that work assembles evidence to show that the doctrine of
the Trinity can be deduced from pre-Christian and non-Christian sources; de
Mornay makes a great show of classical and rabbinical learning, but a careful
comparison with the writings on the same subject by Pietro Galatino {De arcanis
catholicae veritatis in hebraicis libris, praesertim in Talmud, inventis, Ortona 15 18)
and Agostino Steuco (De perenni philosophia libri X3 Basel 1542) shows that de
Mornay has lifted much of his evidence from those earlier writers.68 In his latest
64. Kuntz, p. 354. Noack, pp. 269-70: 'Salomonis 65. Kuntz, p. 355n.; Faltenbacher 1988, p. iO4n.
et Toralbae hunc video scopum esse, ut Dei naturam 66. Roellenbleck (as in n. 9), p. 220; Faltenbacher
ac trinitatis arcana rationibus et argumentis asse- 1993, p. 29.
quantur, fide opus est: ad ea, quae sola fide nituntur,67. Letrouit (as in n. 9), pp. 44-45. The identi-
si rationem aut demonstrationem adhibeas, nihilo fication with the earlier book has also been accepted
plus efficies, quam si cum ratione insanire velis by Wootton (p. 185).
... Quare nee probare possum Eusebii, Galatini, 68. Examples are referenced here to the Latin
Augustini, Eugubini scripta, e quibus Mornaeus edition of de Mornay: De veritate religionis christianae
demonstrationes evangelicas promere conatur.' The liber, Antwerp 1583. On p. 95 de Mornay cites a
comma after 'Augustini' is evidently a scribal error. passage from the Hermetic text 'Asclepius'; the same
no NOEL MALCOLM
study, Faltenbacher seems ta

Mornay's book; yet he continu
that de Mornay is referred to
his famous public theologic
taken place.69 The basis for
Faltenbacher's first study, i
known to a general public onl
pointed out, is belied by the p
1580s and 1590s, from which it
The conclusion here must be t
is entirely compatible with Bod
Faltenbacher's other example
concerned the Deipnosophistae
the Colloquium; in his second
Latin edition of this work to
Casaubon in 1597.71 Here too t
out, the Greek text was publish
Natale Conti) was published in
Latin translation was publish
Letrouit also notes that Athenaeus is cited in Bodin's Theatrum.72 To this one
might add that Bodin showed a detailed knowledge of Athenaeus in his early
commentary on Oppian, published in 1555; all calculations about the publication
dates of Latin translations are thus superfluous, as it is clear that Bodin was fully
conversant with the Greek text.73
Another apparent anachronism noted by Faltenbacher comes in book 11
of the Colloquium, in a discussion of necromancy and the transmission of
information by angels or demons across huge distances. Curtius declares: 'I
remember that when Petrus Corsus was seeking auxiliaries from the king of the
Turks along with the French legate Vinea, he had a mirror in which he saw, from
Constantinople, his wife making love with adulterers at Marseille.'74 Faltenbacher
text is cited in Steuco, p. 106 (misprinted '126'). On 72. Letrouit (as in n. 9), p. 41. In his latest
p. 96 de Mornay cites Damascius Platonicus on the study, Faltenbacher concedes that the reference to
triple invocation of God by the ancient Egyptians; Athenaeus was not in itself anachronistic, but he
the same reference is made in Steuco, pp. 1 14-15. On continues to argue that Isaac Casaubon had a special
p. 101 de Mornay cites a passage from the Zohar; the significance because of his involvement in de
same passage is in Galatino, fol. 3Or"v. On p. 101 de Mornay's theological debate of 1600 (Faltenbacher
Mornay cites Rabbi Simeon ben Iohai on the triple 2002, pp. 24-25). Yet the idea that the Colloquium
invocation 'Holy, holy, holy'; the same citation is must post-date that debate remains a mere suppo-
given in Galatino, fol. 3ir. Since these borrowings by sition by Faltenbacher, unsupported by any textual
de Mornay were unacknowledged, the comment in evidence.
the Colloquium appears to have been a pointed one. 73. Oppian, De venatione libri IIII loan. Bodino
69. Faltenbacher 2002, pp. 14-15. andegavensi interpreter Paris 1555, e.g. fols 45V, 461".
70. Faltenbacher 1988, p. 104 ('Stellt man weiter 74. Kuntz, p. 19 (emended). Noack, pp. 12-13:
fest, dass ein gewisser Bekanntheitsgrad Mornays 'Memini Petrum Corsum, cum auxiliares copias una
erst seit 1600 anzunehmen ist...'); Roellenbleck (as cum Vinea Francorum legato peteret a rege Turcarum,
in n. 9), p. 220. speculum habuisse, in quo quidem uxorem Massiliae
71. Faltenbacher 1993, p. 18. cum adulteris ex urbe Constantinopoli moechantem
JEAN BODIN AND THE COLLOQUIUM HEPTAPLOMERES 1 1 1
has claimed that the 'Vinea' referred to here must be the French dip
'Du Vignau' who, according to the Biographie universelle, lived in the seven
century.75 Were this identification correct, it would be inconsistent with ever
that is known about the existence and transmission of the Colloquium i
seventeenth century, as the sieur des Joanots du Vignau was resident in C
tinople in the 1670s and 1680s., publishing his Etat present de la puissance ott
in 1687 and his Le Secretaire turc in 1688.76 A much more plausible identi
can in fact be made: the reference is surely to the sieur de la Vigne who w
by Henri 11 as ambassador to Constantinople in 15563 serving there (wi
interruption) until 1559^ when he ended his mission and died in Ragusa
his way back to France.77 The Tetrus Corsus' of Curtius's story can also
identified: this was the Corsican adventurer and military commander kn
Sampietro (or Sampiero) Corso, who travelled to Constantinople in 1562 t
military and financial help from the Turks (for joint Franco-Turkish ope
against the Genoese). During his absence his famously beautiful wife, V
made preparations to abandon the family home in Marseille and move to
she was apprehended at his command, and, soon after his return in 1563, kille
(The story soon developed that her death was a punishment for adultery,
has sometimes been supposed that this story was the inspiration for Sh
speare's Othello.)79 The account given by Curtius in the Colloquium thus c
a chronological inaccuracy, as Sampietro 's visit to Constantinople did n
incide with de la Vigne's embassy there; but it does not contain any anach
that would count against the attribution to Bodin.80
Both Faltenbacher and Wootton have drawn attention to another alle
anachronism, involving an apparent reference to the Thirty Years 'War (16
The passage in question in the Colloquium takes its material from a pass
Bodin's Demonomanie3 but makes what appears to be a significant alterat
In that earlier work by Bodin, the wording is as follows: 'Melanchthon writes
in Saxony he saw a demoniac woman, who could neither read nor write;
yet she spoke Greek and Latin, and predicted the cruel war in Saxony...
videbat.' (The confusing word-order here has led Republique, commenting in book I, ch. 4, on the fact
Kuntz to translate as '...making love with adulterers that he was murdered by one of his cousins: Jean
from Constantinople'.) Bodin, The Six Bookes of a Commonweale, tr. Richard
75. Faltenbacher 1988, p. 35. Knolles [London 1606], facsimile ed. K. D. McRae,
76. Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, ed. J. Cambridge, MA 1962 [hereafter 'McRae'], p. 27B.
F. Michaud, 2nd edn, 45 vols, Paris 1845-66, xliii, 81. Jean Bodin, De la Demonomanie des sorciers,
PP- 377-78 (where '1618' is a misprint for '1688'). Paris 1580, fol. I54r: 'Melanchthon escript qu'il a veu
77. See Negotiations de la France dans le Levant, en Saxe vne femme demoniaque, qui ne scauoit ny
ed. E. Charriere, 4 vols, Paris 1848-60, II, pp. 374n., lire, ny escrire: Et neantmoins elle parloit Grec &
377, 405, 603, 605. Latin, & predict la guerre cruelle de Saxe . . .' Citations
78. See M. Verge-Franceschi and A.-M. Graziani, from this work will be given from the 1580 edition
Sampiero Corso (1498-1567) : un mercenaire europeen au [hereafter 'Dem. 1580']; references will also be given to
XVIe siecle, Ajaccio 2000, esp. pp. 352-79, 395. the 1587 edition [hereafter 'Dem. 1587'], which seems
79. A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: Othello, to have been the one primarily used by the author of
ed. H. H. Furness, Philadelphia 1886, pp. 375-76. the Colloquium heptaplomeres. (In some cases, the cited
80. It may be added that Bodin showed some material occurs only in Dem. 1587: see below, at n.
interest in the story of Sampietro Corso in the 232.) This passage is in Dem. 1587, fol. I72r.
ii2 NOEL MALCOLM
Colloquium, however, has the

little woman, when she was t
Greek and had uttered a warn
all of Germany.'82 The sugges
War was originally made by
taken up by Wootton, who co
has been transformed into a p
Germany. It is hard to imagin
of the Thirty Years' War.'83 L
to have missed the point of t
passage from Melanchthon (as
century texts that cited it, w
to regard the phrase 'almost a
Faltenbacher has quoted the
('which subsequently devastate
the Colloquium, and has argue
what beside the point, both b
because the implication that t
in the past tense of the verb
might have been found in th
given the confessional nature
phrase could just mean 'accur
'bellum saevum' ('ferocious w
Demonomanie's 'la guerre crue
The nub of the argument re
to 'almost all of Germany'. It
cause devastation to many par
as Wootton seems to imply, t
'outbreak' of the conflict. Fo
Years' War was quite localised,
ficant scale only in Bohemia
Upper and Lower Palatinate (1
Dutch border (1623), and in s
of northern Germany (1625-2
the war in 1630, and particul
begin to speak of a war in 'alm
32 for the Colloquium is scarcel
transmission of the manuscr
c. 1625 - put forward by Falt
82. Kuntz, p. 46. Noack, p. 34: 'Et Philippus 83. Faltenbacher 1993, p. 33; Wootton, p. 196.
Melanchthon tradit, mulierculam quandam, cum a 84. Letrouit (as in n. 9), p. 42.
daemone cruciaretur, graece loqui solitam ac bellum 85. Faltenbacher 2002, p. 25 ('wichtig ist das
sacrum, quo Germania pene tota deflagravit ... "depuis"'); for the Latin see above, n. 82.
denunciasse . . .'
JEAN BODIN AND THE COLLOQUIUM HEPTAPLOMERES 1 13
explanation - that the author of the Colloquium was referring to some earlier
conflict or conflicts that had taken place in Germany. If we turn to Bodin's
Methodus, published in 15663 we find the following: 'who has not seen Germany
terribly devastated by the armies of the Turks and the Swiss, the Spanish and
the French, then of the Italians, and finally of their own citizens...?'86 Though the
language here may be somewhat hyperbolic, Bodin does appear to have thought
that Germany had been devastated by war. He made a similar point in a passage
which he added to the Latin version of the Republique (published in 1586):
Wherefore seeing that disputations of religion bring ... the ruine and destruction of
Commonweales also; it behooueth them to be by most strait lawes forbidden: which after
long ciuill war [diuturna bella ciuilia] was by the estates and princes of the Germane
empire prouided for, and a decree made, that the princes should with mutuall consent
defend both the Romane and Saxon religion: whereunto that was also ioyned,That no man
should vpon paine of death dispute of the religions. Which seuere punishments, after that
the Germane magistrates had inflicted vpon diuers, all Germany was afterwards at good
quiet & rest...87
Bodin thus thought that long-lasting civil wars had taken place, the settlement of
which had finally brought peace to 'all Germany'. The primary reference of this
second passage seems to have been to the Schmalkaldic Wars, which began in
1546 and were eventually settled by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555; these had
begun with conflict across a wide stretch of southern Germany, and had gone on
to include fighting in Bohemia and one major campaign in Saxony. The quantity
of fighting was not huge, but in some sense the war had involved almost all of
Germany: virtually every Protestant city capitulated to the Habsburgs (even
though the capitulation was prompted in most cases by the threat, not the reality,
of military action) . It may be that, taking a longer view, Bodin was also including
in his 'long civil war' the earlier Peasants' War of 1524-25: that conflict had rapidly
taken hold across a very large swathe of the central and southern German lands,
stretching from Goslar in the north-east to Bern in the south-west, and also
including much of Alsace, Switzerland and the Tyrol. But whatever he may have
had in mind, the essential fact is that Bodin believed that there had been large-
scale warfare (including a civil war fought on religious grounds - a 'bellum
sacrum') in Germany. It is thus perfectly possible to suppose that he wrote the
passage in question in the Colloquium, and unnecessary to imagine that it must
refer to the Thirty Years 'War.
86. Jean Bodin, Method for the Easy Comprehension Rerumpublicarum euersionem afferant, eas profecto
of History, tr. B. Reynolds, New York 1945, p. sanctissimis
279; legibus prohiberi oportet. Quod ab
Jean Bodin, Oeuvres philosophiques, ed. P. Mesnard, Imperij Germanici ordinibus post diuturna bella
Paris 195 1, p. 219a ('quis autem non vidit ciuilia cautum est, vt Romanam & Saxonicam
Germaniam, Turcarum, Helvetiorum, Hispanorum, religionem mutua concordia principes tuerentur:
Gallorum denique & Italorum, postremo suorum illud etiam subrogatum, ne de religionibus capitali
civium armis foedissime vastari') . poena indicta, disputaretur: quam poenam German-
87. McRae, p. 536L Jean Bodin, De republica libri orum magistratus ... cum a nonnullis exegissent,
sex, Lyon 1586 [hereafter 'De republica''], p. 482: vniuersa Germania conquieuit.'
'Cum igitur de rebus diuinis disputationes ...
ii4 NOEL MALCOLM
Two lesser cases of possible an

Faltenbacher.The first relates to th
I of the Colloquium about an attem
from Egypt to Italy; a terrible stor
threw the mummy into the sea, a
porting of mummies was, for that
Egyptians'.88 Faltenbacher has sugg
made by Peiresc to get mummies s
that mariners refused to take such
suggestion has also been taken up
of the Colloquium was someone 'wh
to ship a Mummy out of Egypt to
the striking story with which the
transporting mummies provoked
by travellers in the sixteenth centu
people who was evidently familiar
Theatrum: 'if a corpse dug up from
elsewhere by ship, the most violen
that it sinks, unless the corpse is thr
the transportation of mummies w
'the nautical laws of the Egyptians
these details, but it may be relevan
by him in his Demonomanie incl
Egypt.93
The other possible anachronism hinted at by Faltenbacher relates to the
details given in the Colloquium of an otherwise rather mysterious historical
episode: the printing of an Arabic Koran in Venice in the late 1530s. That such a
book had been printed was known from one publicly available source, Teseo
Ambrogio degli Albonesi's Introductio in chaldaicam linguam (1539); this source
identified the printer (Alessandro Paganini, son of a well-known printer from
Brescia), but it neither specified the place of publication nor explained what had
caused the apparently total disappearance of the printed books (of which just
one exemplum, that which had belonged to Ambrogio degli Albonesi himself,
was eventually discovered in 1987). 94 In the Colloquium more detailed information
88. Kuntz, pp. 10-14. Noack, pp. 6-10 (p. 10: violentissimae tempestates tandiu nauim iactant quo-
'nauticis Aegyptiorum legibus'). usque demergatur, aut cadauer in mare proiiciatur
89. Faltenbacher 1993, p. 26. ...'), 173 ('legibus nauticis Aegyptiorum'). Several
90. Wootton, p. 204. other relevant details in the description of the mummy
91. See the journal of Reinhold Lubenau, in in the Colloquium (e.g., the presence within it of an
Voyages en Egypte des annees 1587-1588, ed. S. image from the cult of Isis) are also given in the
Sauneron, Cairo 1972, pp. 209-10; and the comments Theatrum (p. 173; cf. also p. 70).
in S. H. Aufrere, La Momie et la tempete: Nicolas- 93. Dem. 1580, fol. ioor (Or ll ny a nen plus
Claude Fabri de Peiresc et la curiosite egyptienne en frequent en Egypte a ce que disent nos marchans
Provence au debut du XVIIe siecle, Avignon 1990, p. 56. ...'); Dem. 1587, fols nov-inr.
92. Theatrum, pp. 172 ('si cadauer ex Aegypt- 94. Teseo Ambrogio degli Albonesi, Introductio in
iorum sepulchris erutum nauibus alio transuehatur, chaldaicam linguam, syriacum atque armenicam et decem
is supplied: the printer took the books to Constantinople, where he was promp
sentenced to death by the authorities, both because all such printing of the
Koran was forbidden and because this particular edition was full of errors. On
thanks to the intervention of the Venetian envoy was the sentence commuted
the amputation of the printer's right hand; and the books were all consigned
the flames.95 Commenting on this, Faltenbacher has suggested that the author
the Colloquium may have derived his information from a later source, a work
Thomas Erpenius published in 1620.96 However, most of the details given in
Colloquium were not in fact supplied in that work: Erpenius stated only that t
Arabic Koran was printed in c. 1530 and that 'all the copies were burnt'.97 T
only plausible theory about the account given in the Colloquium is that its aut
had obtained his information privately, either in correspondence or in conve
sation. Hartmut Bobzin has suggested that Bodin derived the information fro
Guillaume Postel, who is indeed known to have been in contact with Ambrog
degli Albonesi about the Arabic type used by Paganini.98 Other possibilit
should also be considered, however, in view of Bodin's known contacts with at
least one senior Venetian diplomat, a French diplomat in Venice and a Frenc
diplomat in Constantinople.99 Of these contacts, one in particular stands out
a likely candidate: Arnaud du Ferrier, the French diplomat who had been a la
professor at Toulouse and may have been one of Bodin's teachers. It is perha
significant that in 1577 du Ferrier was trying to assist Joseph Justus Scaliger
his search for Arabic materials, and had sent to Constantinople on his behal
for a copy of a polyglot Pentateuch printed (in Hebrew, Aramaic, Persian an
Arabic - all in the Hebrew alphabet) in Ottoman Salonica.100
Two other possible anachronisms have been put forward by Wootton. On
consists of a reference to the English (or, possibly, the 'Anglicans') and the
Puritans. In book iv of the Colloquium, Coronaeus (the Catholic) observes: 'It
has been the practice of the Roman church since the time of Pope Pelagius
alias linguas, Pavia 1539, fols nr, 83V-85V, 2oov.99. For

Some of Bodin's information about Venice
the history see M. C. Ludwig (under J. M. Langius, came from the Venetian envoy Michele Suriano (see
praes.), Dissertatio historico-philologico-theologica Mesnard,
de ed., as in n. 86, pp. 216b, 415a). On his
Alcorani prima inter Europaeos editione arabica, connection with Arnaud du Ferrier, French ambas-
Altdorf 1703, and A. Nuovo, 'A Lost Arabic Koran sador to Venice, see McRae, pp. 151C, A114. For his
Rediscovered', The Library, ser. 6, xn, 1990, pp. 273- acquaintance with the sieur de Nogelles, French
92. ambassador in Constantinople, see Dem. 1580, fol.
95. Kuntz, p. 294; Noack, p. 225. 7iv. At one stage in his career Bodin was particularly
96. Faltenbacher 2002, p. 30. well placed to acquire information from diplomatic
97. Thomas Erpenius, Rudimenta linguae arabicae, sources: the English envoy William Wade, who had
Leiden 1620, sig. P4V: 'Alcoranus Arabice circa 'familiar conversation' with Bodin in early 1576,
annum 1530. literis Arabicis: sed Exemplaria omnia reported that 'one of the secretaries has imparted to
cremata sunt.' him all such affairs as have passed between France
98. H. Bobzin, 'Islamkundliche Quellen in Jean and other countries' (Calendar of State Papers, Foreign
Bodins Heptaplomeres\ in Jean Bodins Colloquium Series, 1575-1577, ed. A. J. Crosby, London 1880, p.
Heptaplomeres, ed. G. Gawlick and F. Niewohner, 508).
Wiesbaden 1996, pp. 41-57 (57); see also H. Bobzin, 100. See the letter from Scaliger to Claude du Puy
'Jean Bodin iiber den Venezianer Korandruck von of 12 Feb. 1577 cited in J. Balagna-Coustou, Arabe et
1537/38', Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgen- humanisme dans la France des derniers Valois, Paris
landes, lxxxi, 1991, pp. 95-105. 1989, p. 98.
n6 NOEL MALCOLM
worship God with praises se

the Lutherans and the Zwing
(I except the English [Anglos
they allow prayers to be off
Commenting on this passage, W
that there developed an un
between "those English who
followers of Laud) and tho
continental Reformation. Her
are (perhaps) apparent'.102 S
interpretation of this passag
is merely distinguishing the
Lutherans and Zwinglians, us
might seem the natural readin
were it not for the fact that
way. But if we assume that
English sense, and that 'Angl
meaning of 'segregati' ('separ
and practice'; but the Purit
England, so they could not b
the other hand, there had
attracted considerable attent
Browne and Robert Harrison
several of their followers in
separatists, John Greenwood
in 1586; manifestoes by them
of the Church, were publish
followed before they were h
'separatists' from the 'Purit
certainly shared the latter's ba
not gone far enough); but co
sources of information, may
these uncertainties, one can
written at some time in the la
on the traditional account, th
The other possible anachr
resemblance between the views expressed by Toralba (the 'Deist') in the
Colloquium and those put forward in Edward Herbert's treatise De veritate, which
was printed in Paris in 1624. Wootton notes that there are three possibilities here:
101. Kuntz, p. 209. Noack, p. 161: 'Ecclesiae nee Zwingliani, qui sacra publica ita circumciderunt
Romanae mos jam inde a Pelagio, pontifice maximo, (excipio Anglos, segregatos a Puritanis), ut bis tantum
usitatus est, septies singulis diebus Deum laudibustota
. . .hebdomade preces publicae fieri patiantur.'
colere . . . quod nee Judaei faciunt, nee Lutherani, 102. Wootton, pp. 195-96.
'First, the two works are entirely independent of each other, although
share a common cultural and intellectual environment: on the conventional
dating of the Colloquium this would seem the most likely possibility. Or, sec
we can imagine that Herbert was the earliest known reader of the Colloquium
view which is unsupported by any evidence. Finally, there is the possibility
the Colloquium is an attempt to think through the implications of the de Verita
and that Toralba is intended to represent Herbert's views. This is the only h
thesis which makes Toralba a representative figure in the same sense as the o
six participants in the discussion.'103 That there are some real similarities betwe
the positions of Toralba and Herbert is clear; but the match is far from per
Wootton himself has noted that Herbert's five 'Common Notions' of religio
(perhaps the best-known feature of his work) are nowhere listed in the Colloquiu
and that Herbert's distinction between possibility and probability finds no
there either.104 Herbert's whole approach to revelation, which devalues the claim
of any historic corpus of revelation and puts all the emphasis instead on t
noetic experiences of individuals, seems also quite alien to the mental wor
the Colloquium, in which the authenticity and importance of the Hebrew B
are axiomatic. The Colloquium's key distinction between man's final end and
highest good is also contradicted by Herbert.105 Thus far, the evidence se
fully compatible with the first of Wootton's three possibilities. The one thing t
appears to strengthen his case for the third possibility is his claim that Tor
can thereby be seen as a 'representative figure', one who represents Herber
Deism in the same way that the others represent Judaism, Calvinism and so
Against this claim, it must be said that the other non-confessional figure in
Colloquium, Senamus, does not 'represent' an easily identifiable or clear
'-ism', whether of the 1590s or of the 1620s. Wootton writes that Senamu
'expresses views that are reminiscent of those of a sceptical Roman, but mi
perhaps be those of a disciple of Montaigne or Charron'.106 But althou
Senamus is sometimes 'sceptical' in the broad sense of the term where the sp
claims of religions are involved, he never puts forward any of the tropes of clas
scepticism; at one point he voices the standard Aristotelian anti-sceptical pos
on sense-perception, and on some occasions he is used as a mouthpiece f
Aristotelian naturalism or scholastic metaphysics.107 If, as appears to be the
Senamus does not represent a single clearly defined '-ism', the argument t
Toralba must represent Herbertian Deism must seem a little weaker. But the
a more important reason for doubting that argument. Although the identificatio
of early 'Deism' with Edward Herbert is well established in the minds of mo
103. Wootton, p. 202. 107. Kuntz, p. 233 ('I learned from Aristotle that
104. Ibid., p. 203. the senses were never deceived, but the mind of man
105. Cf. Kuntz, pp. 246-48 (Noack, pp. 188-89)was'); Noack, p. 178 ('Didiceram ab Aristotele, sensus
nunquam, sed mentem saepe falli'). For Senamus as
(where the distinction is propounded by Toralba)
with E. Herbert, De veritate, tr. M. H. Carre, aBristol
representative of scholastic metaphysics, see Kuntz,
I9373 PP- 142-44. pp. 52-54; Noack, pp. 39-41. For his Aristotelian
106. Wootton, p. 198. naturalism, see Kuntz, pp. 75-77; Noack, pp. 59-61.
n8 NOEL MALCOLM
historians of ideas, it did no

century readers until long af
first edition of De veritate wa
circulated in the manner of a
little public impact until aft
Even then, readers did not qu
some sort of alternative to C
reputation as an anti-Christ
Richard Serjeantson has date
1 680s.109 If Wootton's assum
16208 is granted, then of co
studied Herbert's work and
apparent to other early read
such an author would then h
a recognisable position. No s
Finally, one other passage s
category of apparent chrono
the Colloquium was written i
of the Egyptian mummy in bo
in place of its heart there wa
He continues: 'The sacred rite
the Great, if I am not mista
possibly two or three thousa
Constantine's measures again
would imply that Octavius's wo
author of the Colloquium had
tine's reign (the battle of th
313), this would still give a d
that 1,300 is a very round num
to the nearest hundred, this w
in the 1590s. Besides, as Jean
attitude towards dates and num
of Jean Bodin.112 But perhap
ment on this point is the one
108. R. W. Serjeantson, 'Herbert of Cherbury From the so-called 'deistes' of Lyon (1564) to Voltaire's
before Deism: The Early Reception of the De veritate\ 'Lettres philosophiques' (1734), The Hague 1984, p. 27).
The Seventeenth Century, XVI, 2001, pp. 217-38 (219). no. Kuntz, pp. 8-9. Noack, p. 5: 'Sacra Isidis
109. Ibid., p. 228; D. P.Walker, The Ancient Theology,abrogata sunt, ni fallor, Constantini Magni dominatu,
London 1972, p. 164. Cf. also the comment of C. J. ex quo constat, cadaver illud ante MCCC annos
Betts on the description of Herbert as the father of conditum fuisse, et fieri potest, ut ante annorum duo
Deism: 'this is not how it appeared in 1624, nor for triave millia sepultum merit.'
many years afterwards. Despite some quite serious in. Faltenbacher 1993, p. 10; Faltenbacher 2002,
reservations, those who are known to have read pp. 5-6.
Herbert during his lifetime did not consider his views112. Letrouit (as in n. 9), p. 43. For other examples
to be dangerous to orthodoxy' (Early Deism in France: see Chauvire, ed. (as in n. 2), pp. 13m., 14m.
borrowings from Bodin's works that are to be found scattered throughout the
Colloquium, the only way of sustaining the argument that Bodin was not the
author is to suppose that it was written by someone who was prepared to go to
extraordinary lengths to make it look like a text by Jean Bodin. In which case, it
is hardly credible that the same author would also have written a passage intended
to inform the reader, with arithmetical precision, that the work was written many
years after Bodin's death.
To sum up: in this long and complex text, there does not seem to be a single
definite reference to a publication, person or event that post-dates the death of
Jean Bodin; and the one passage in which the author appears to imply that he is
writing in the early seventeenth century is susceptible of other explanations. This
overall impression is confirmed by the work of two scholars who have studied
the Colloquium's comments on mathematics, cosmology and the natural sciences.
Andreas Kleinert notes that the Colloquium shows no knowledge of William
Gilbert's highly influential work, De magnete (published in 1600); the discussion
of 'action at a distance' in the Colloquium confines itself to topics presented in
earlier publications such as Girolamo Fracastoro's De sympathia et antipathia
rerum of 1546. II3 Kleinert also observes that the discussion of tides in the
Colloquium is pre-Galilean, and that the account of the mathematical problem
of doubling the cube refers only to mathematicians whose relevant works were
published in the 1540s and 1550s.114 Eberhard Knobloch reaches a similar con-
clusion where the Colloquium's knowledge of mathematical works is concerned; he
also confirms that the account of tides presented there is thoroughly traditional,
attributing them only to the occult influence of the moon and showing no
knowledge of the modern theory that they were caused by motions of the earth.
(That modern theory was first presented in a treatise by Andrea Cesalpino in
1569; it became better known when versions of it were publicised by Otto
Casmann in 1596 and Giovanni Costeo in 1598. )115 The claim, made by Falten-
bacher, that there is a connection between the Colloquium and the 'world-picture
of Galileo has thus found little favour with specialists in the history of science.116
Nor is there any convincing reason to connect the Colloquium with the two other
thinkers from the early seventeenth century put forward by Faltenbacher as
belonging in some ways to the same mental world as its author - Paolo Sarpi and
Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc.II?The most detailed recent comparison between
Sarpi's thought and the theories of the Colloquium, by Jaska Kainulainen, finds
'radical differences' between them; and a study of the Colloquium by a Peiresc
113. A. Kleinert, 'Les Sciences dans le Colloquium than Venus; but in the Theatrum Bodin did show
Heptaplomeres\ in Faltenbacher, ed. (as in n. 4), pp.
knowledge of such claims, and firmly rejected them,
79-88 (81-82). insisting that 'the doctrine of parallaxes is fallacious'
114. Ibid., pp. 83-87. Kleinert also argues (p. 85) (p. 218: 'doctrina parallaxium fallax est').
that the traditional depiction of comets as sublunary 115. Knobloch (as in n. 4).
phenomena in the Colloquium could not have post- 116. Faltenbacher 1993, pp. 35-43.
dated Tycho Brahe's work (published in 1588) which 117. Ibid., pp. 10-15; cf. Faltenbacher 2002, pp.
showed that comets were more distant from the Earth 15,22.
120 NOEL MALCOLM
specialist, Agnes Bresson, con

in outlook, expresses a differen
IV
There is nothing in the Colloquium, then, that forces us to suppose that it was
written after Bodin's death. But does it contain any material that might force
us to conclude that Bodin could not have composed it, on the grounds that
that material differs so much from what he did write elsewhere? According to
Faltenbacher and Wootton, there are several aspects of the Colloquium that set
it apart from Bodin's writings - either general features of style and method, or
specific points on which the author of the Colloquium has (perhaps inadvertently)
contradicted the known views of Jean Bodin.
First, some very general issues. Faltenbacher has declared (as noted above)
that the style of the Colloquium is more lively and vivid than that of Bodin's
writings.119 If this is in any way true - contrary to the findings of Georg Roellen-
bleck, who has made a more detailed stylistic study of the text - it may have a
simple explanation: the Colloquium belongs to a different genre from Bodin's other
works, as it is a dialogue with speakers who are presented as distinct characters
and interact, to some extent, psychologically one with another.120 Bodin's printed
works, on the other hand, are either straightforward treatises (Methodus, Repub-
lique, Demonomanie) or simple didactic dialogues {Paradoxon, Theatrum) in which
a teacher imparts knowledge to a pupil. This difference in genre would certainly
make the Colloquium a unique work in Bodin's output; but there is no reason to
believe that it would make it a work that he was incapable of writing.121 As for the
stylistic characteristics of the Colloquium's prose, there seems to be nothing that
distinguishes it from Bodin's other Latin writings; indeed, Hugo Grotius, who, as
a noted Latin stylist, may be assumed to have been a competent judge of Neo-
Latin prose, concluded that the Colloquium had all the hallmarks both of Bodin's
style and of his erudition. As he put it in his letter to Descordes:
In that work sent to me I have recognised Bodin as I have always considered him: a man
more devoted to things than to words, using Latin which is not completely polished,,
boyishly unskilled in metrics, barely instructed in Greek, whose adequate knowledge of
Hebrew customs and opinions stems not from a deep understanding of that language but
from the friendship which he cultivated with the most learned of the Jews ...I22
118. J. Kainulainen, 'Paolo Sarpi and the Colloquium occasional psychological tensions that arise between
heptaplomeres of Jean Bodin', Storia diVenezia (online the characters.
publication), 2003; A. Bresson, 'Le "Colloquium 121. Faltenbacher has noted that the Colloquium
Heptaplomeres" ou l'anti-Peiresc', in Faltenbacher, differs in kind from the didactic dialogue of the
ed. (as in n. 4), pp. 69-78. Theatrum and that it allows (unlike the Methodus) the
119. See above, at n. 58. presentation of conflicting views (Faltenbacher 1988,
120. G. Roellenbleck, Offenbarung, Natur und PP- 35? 43); ne offers these points as reasons for not
jiidische Uberlieferung bet Jean Bodin: eine Interpretation ascribing it to Bodin.
des Heptaplomeres, Giitersloh 1964, pp. 37-41; 122. Kuntz, p. lxviii n. Grotius (as in n. 35), p.
although he finds the style generally rather flat and127a: 'Bodinum in illo misso ad me opere agnovi,
colourless, Roellenbleck does comment on the qualem existimavi semper, hominem rerum quam
A few other general considerations have also been put forward. Falten
has noted that there is a greater variation between the lengths of the books o
Colloquium than there is between those of the Theatrum; but as Roellenbl
pointed out, it is the Theatrum which is unusual here, as the degree of va
in chapter lengths in the Methodus and Republique is entirely consistent with
pattern in the Colloquium.123 In his comparison between the Colloquium a
DemonomanieWootton has argued that 'the two authors have different in
Bodin is preoccupied with witchcraft, and endlessly reports the cases of w
who have been burned alive. The author of the Colloquium mentions witc
in passing, and only once refers to a witch being executed.'124 While ther
related topic in which both texts take a strong interest (demons), this observ
is generally correct. But it would be equally correct to observe that the Repub
shows little interest in witchcraft, while the Demonomanie says nothing
constitutional theory; an author may write different books on different topi
Wootton has also commented that when recent events are narrated or
referred to in the Colloquium there is often 'a quite puzzling lack of specific
when it comes to questions of time': thus phrases such as 'in the memory of o
fathers' are used for events of the fifteenth century, and 'I remember' is used by
one speaker for something which is datable to 1548. Wootton adds: 'This vagu
ness about dates is matched by an equal vagueness about witnesses and publish
authorities. Marginal annotations guide one to the works of Aristotle and Dun
Scotus; but no authority is quoted to authenticate the story of Petrus Corsus
the legate who attended a sabbat' And he concludes: 'Either the Colloquium's
author is much less interested in the testing of evidence than the author of t
Demonomanie, or he is afraid that if he refers to dates and books he will sl
up, and mention something that has happened since 1596.'125 This last claim
somewhat puzzling; one might expect, on the contrary, that an author nervo
about referring to anything later than 1596 would have been more punctiliou
about recording dates while composing his text, since any mention of a date after
1596 would have made visible (and, therefore, removable) an otherwise hidden
anachronism. Where references to books are concerned, the general level of su
referencing (given in the margins of the early manuscripts) is comparable to that
in the Theatrum', the difference noted by Wootton arises only in the case of som
recent events, for which references to published authorities are not given. T
simple explanation for this is, surely, that it is a reflection of the semi-fictio
genre to which the Colloquium belongs: the speakers are characters who tell storie
they have heard about events in their own (or their fathers') lifetimes, and i
verborum studiosiorem, Latinitate utentem haud 'si est' for 'num sit') see Chauvire, ed. (as in n. 2),
plene nitida, metricarum legum pueriliter imper- pp. 4m., I22n.
itum, Graecis literis vix imbutum, Hebraicorum 123. Faltenbacher 1988, pp. 20-1; Roellenbleck,
morum ac sententiarum satis gnarum, non ex review (as in n. 9), p. 219.
interiore linguae illius cognitione, sed ex amicitia 124. Wootton, p. 185.
quam coluit cum doctissimis Hebraeorum . . .' For 125. Ibid., p. 184.
examples of unpolished Latin ('num' for 'nonne';
122 NOEL MALCOLM
would tend to undermine the

written authorities.126 As for
ness in presenting the relation
the time at which those thing
also be a consequence of the se
almost every way a finished te
The work begins as a letter to
person who describes his vis
goes on to give a mostly imp
first person) of the discussion
the outer 'frame' of the fictio
narrator (and of N. T.) and the
story. It is possible that, if Bo
intended to add an outer frame
period: for instance, he migh
sent to his brother-in-law an
Without additional evidence, the
but, equally, there can be little
as firm evidence for the case
On a handful of more spec
Colloquium expresses a very dif
published works. According to
has tried hard to 'assume the
when presenting his account
there is in the scriptures 'a m
physicists - namely, the aqueo
vault of heaven as the ocean is from the concave arch of this same heaven'; the
waters that covered the earth during the Flood must have come from that
'aqueous heaven', and not from within the earth itself . Wootton comments: 'This
marvelous secret was certainly hidden from Bodin in 1580, for his cosmology is
quite different'; and he goes on to quote a passage from the Demonomanie which
describes the inhabited earth as swimming on a great mass of water.128 However,
Wootton has not noticed that the Colloquium's theory about the distant aqueous
heaven also appears in the Theatrum, where Bodin asks rhetorically 'whence,
126. It is of course true that the marginal or that of the printed Koran) it may be that no
references to Aristotle, etc. (including references printed
to source was involved.
contemporary works on, for example, the Indies or 127. On Trouillart see Ponthieux (as in n. 50),
pp. 60-61: after his death, Bodin succeeded to his
Ethiopia), also form a 'paratext' which qualifies the
fiction; but whereas one can imagine a learned man office as 'procureur du Roi' at Laon, and also became
of this period incorporating such information in guardian
his of his sister's son. Trouillart's epitaph,
conversation ('As Aristotle says in his De anima . .written
.', by Bodin, is printed in Devisme, 'Notice' (as
etc.)., it is less likely that recent anecdotage drawn
in n. 10), p. 57n.
from within a person's own social and political world 128. Wootton, pp. 177, 186-87 (quoting Kuntz, p.
would have been referenced to specific sources. And 120; Noack, p. 93; and Dem. 1580, fol. 48V [Dem.
in some cases (the Petrus Corsus story, for example,I587,fols52v-53r]).
indeed, come those monstrous outpourings of waters ...if not from supra-celest
waters?', and observes that 'the Jewish philosophers assert that that aqueous
sphere ... is at the same distance from the highest heaven as our ocean is from
that same heaven'.129 The Theatrum also states (drawing directly on the passa
Wootton cites from the Demonomanie) that the earth swims on a mass of water.130
Clearly, then, Bodin did not see these two theories as incompatible when he wrote
the Theatrum in c. 1590; the aqueous heaven and the swimming earth were par
of one and the same cosmology. The difficulty in reconciling them arises only
from one remark made by Salomon in the Colloquium, when he says that if t
whole ocean had been turned to vapours and clouds, scarcely a thousandth pa
of the Flood would have resulted. How this claim might be reconciled with th
statement in the Theatrum that the waters are greater in volume than the earth is
not clear; possibly it was an unconsidered rhetorical flourish. Wootton is right
sense an apparent inconsistency here, but wrong to suppose that the Colloquium
theory is, in itself, radically un-Bodinian.
Another point on which Wootton believes that the Colloquium differs from
Bodin 's published works is its 'willingness to concede that there is some difficulty
in classifying demons as either good or bad'; this, he writes, is 'sharply at odd
with Bodin's views in the Demonomanie'.131 The passages to which he refers,
however, do not seem to justify such a statement. In the Colloquium, the speakers
agree that there are evil demons, on the one hand, and angels, on the other; th
discussion undergoes some variations in terminology (Empedocles is quoted as
referring to good and bad demons; a comment by Maimonides about good an
bad angels is also cited), but the distinction between the two sorts is assumed
to be clear. When Coronaeus (the Catholic) asks whether that distinction arises
from a difference 'in essence and sensible quality' or only from a difference i
good and evil, Fridericus (the Lutheran) cites Philo to the effect that they hav
the same essence and differ only insofar as demons are evil and angels are
good.132 If there is any divergence between this and the view put forward in the
Demonomanie, it is, rather, that the difficulty of telling the difference betwee
good and bad demons is taken more seriously in the latter work: there Bodin
admits that while some people associate with angels and others with demons, i
may be difficult to tell which are which, because the same actions (prayers,
fasting, etc.) may be undertaken at the prompting of either sort. Only at the end
of the chapter entitled 'The difference which exists between good and bad
spirits' does he offer a definite criterion: the actions of those who are guided b
129. Theatrum, pp. 213 ('Vnde vero immanesthe illae

background to this argument see F. Lestringant,
aquarum eluuiones . . . nisi ab aquis supracoelestibus
'Jean Bodin et le savoir cosmographique dans le
effusae?'), 627 ('Hebraeorum Philosophi asseuerant Theatre de la Nature universelle\ in Bodinus polymeres:
aqueum ilium orbem ... tantum a supremo coelo neue Studien zu Jean Bodins Spdtwerk, ed. R. Hafner,
distare, quantum noster Occeanus distat ab eodem Wiesbaden 1999, pp. 79-97 (87-88).
coelo'). 131. Wootton, p. 201.
130. Ibid., pp. 183-90: the sentences echoing the 132. Kuntz, pp. 38-41; Noack, pp. 28-30 (p. 29:
Demonomanie are on pp. 183, 184, 185, 187. On 'essentia et qualitate sensibili').
124 NOEL MALCOLM
evil spirits are essentially idolatrou

worship of the Creator.133 This dis
Colloquium, but it does not seem to co
One very specific discrepancy has
connection with a theme which is gi
execution by Suleiman the Magnifice
this in the Republique, he wrote that
l'auoir fait estrangler'); but in the C
method of killing is described as de
translation of the Colloquium ('auoi
this indicates a 'clear difference' bet
Bodin.134 But the idea of decapitatio
Latin original merely describes the v
gula'); this is entirely consistent with
no doubt, referred to garrotting, th
Ottomans.135
Finally, Faltenbacher has also drawn attention to the difference between
the image of Venice in Bodin's printed works and the portrayal of that city in the
Colloquium. In a famous passage in the Methodus Bodin declared that Venice was
a classic example of a badly constituted state; he went on to say that it was easily
conquered by its enemies, that its citizens had killed or expelled no fewer than
eighteen doges, and that it had frequently suffered from civil wars.136 In the very
first paragraph of the Colloquium, on the other hand, Venice is praised as almost
the only place in the world that offers freedom from civil wars, fear of tyrants,
harsh taxes, or 'the most annoying inquiries into one's activities'. 'This', declares
the anonymous narrator, 'is the reason why people come here from everywhere,
wishing to spend their lives in the greatest freedom and tranquillity of spirit.'137
Faltenbacher has suggested that this discrepancy must count against the attribu-
tion of the Colloquium to Bodin.138 That there is a difference between the Methodus
(1566) and the Colloquium (putatively 1590-93) on this issue is undoubtedly true;
but the contrast becomes much less stark if Bodin's treatment of Venice in the
Republique (1576) is also taken into account. In the Methodus Bodin was polemi-
cising against theories of the 'mixed' constitution; a particular target was the
famous description of the Venetian constitution by Gasparo Contarini, which
argued that it was 'mixed' rather than merely aristocratic, and that it therefore
enjoyed greater stability. Bodin's response was to insist both that Venice was an
aristocratic state, and that its stability had been exaggerated. In the Republique, on
133. Dem. 1580, fols 8V, 20v {Dem. 1587, fols 9™, 22™).137. Kuntz, p. 3. Noack, p. 1: 'studiorum cujusque
134. Rep. 1576, p. 696; Faltenbacher 1988, p. 80 molestissimae inquisitiones'; 'Quo fit, ut illuc undi-
('eine Ware DirTerenz')3 citing Bodin, Colloque (as in que confluant, qui summa cum libertate ac tranquil-
n. 3), p. 281. litate vitam agere decreverunt.'
135. Noack, p. 178. 138. Faltenbacher 1988, pp. 1-2, 44.
136. Mesnard, ed. (as in n. 86), pp. 2i8a-2i9a
(Bodin, Method^ as in n. 86, pp. 276-78).
the other hand, while continuing his campaign against theories of mixed' const
tutions, he did make significant concessions to the Venetian case. He admitte
that Venice had been more stable than most aristocracies., thanks to a number
of clever adaptations: it gave state offices to non-aristocrats, it allowed everyo
freedom to engage in industry and trade, and it made great efforts to prevent the
development of 'partialities and hatred' among its ruling elite.139 The state offices
that were available to the 'common people' included some of the most honou
able posts in the government; 'Yea moreouer an iniurie done by a Venetia
gentleman vnto the least inhabitant of the citie, is ... corrected and punished: and
so a great sweetnesse and libertie of life giuen vnto all.' Bodin concluded tha
ca man may well say, that the estate of that Seignorie is pure and simply Arist
cratique, and yet somewhat gouerned by Proportion Harmonicall, which hath
made this Commonwealth so faire [fort belle] and flourishing.'140 The step fro
this account of Venice's 'great sweetnesse and libertie of life' to the one given
the Colloquium is hardly a large one.141
Most people's views, on some subjects at least, change over time. On some
topics - for instance, Machiavelli, who is treated admiringly in the Methodus b
bitterly denounced in the Republique - there are, within the printed oeuvre of Jea
Bodin, changes of outlook which are perhaps greater than any of the differenc
that can be found between the Colloquium and Bodin's late works.142 What degree
of change or contrast would count as significant evidence that the Colloquiu
was not written by Bodin is hard to specify a priori. But what can be stated
posteriori is that many scholars who have studied the Colloquium have found, i
their particular areas of concern, that while its arguments differ in some way
from those in Bodin's printed works, they can always be understood as develo
ments growing out of those earlier positions: thus Paul Lawrence Rose finds t
theology and ethics of the Colloquium a further development of the position
taken in the Theatrum and the Paradoxon, and Gary Remer sees the Colloquium
theory of religious toleration as a new development that draws on the argumen
presented in the Republique.143 Both these and other scholars have, of course, been
proceeding on the assumption that the Colloquium was a genuine work by Bodi
But their detailed studies of the arguments have not yielded any evidence tha
obliged them to challenge that assumption.
139. McRae, p. 711D-E; Jean Bodin, Les Six Livres Venice, ed. J. R. Hale, London 1973, pp. 431-44
de la republique, Paris 1576 [hereafter 'Rep. 1576'] p. see also G. Roellenbleck, Venezia scena
(440-41);
687 ('les partialitez, & haynes'). dell} 'ultimo } dialogo umanista: V 'Heptaplomeres ' di Jean
140. McRae, p. 785C. Rep. 1576, p. 751: '& au Bodin (ca. 1590) (Centro tedesco di studi veneziani,
surplus l'iniure faite au moindre habitant par les quaderni, xxix), Venice 1984, esp. pp. 16-19.
gentils-hommes Venitiens est puni, & chastie: & vne142. See G. Cardascia, 'Machiavel et Jean Bodin',
grande douceur, & liberte de vie donnee a tous . . Bibliotheque
. d}humanisme et Renaissance, III, 1943, pp.
on peut dire que l'estat est Aristocratique, & conduit
129-67.
par proportion Harmonique: qui a rendu ceste 143. P. L. Rose, Bodin and the Great God of Nature,
Republique la fort belle & florissante.' Geneva 1980, esp. pp. 134-48; G. Remer, Humanism
141. For a valuable summary of the development ofand the Rhetoric of Toleration, University Park, PA 1996,
esp. pp. 211-27. Cf. also the comments of M. Isnardi
Bodin's attitude to Venice see M. Gilmore, 'Myth and
Reality in Venetian Political Theory', in Renaissance
Parente, 'II volontarismo di Jean Bodin: Maimonide
126 NOEL MALCOLM
Perhaps the most interesting evidence put forward by those who deny Bodin's
authorship of the Colloquium consists of passages in that work which are borrowed
or adapted from known works by Bodin. Such evidence has been adduced by
David Wootton and Jean Ceard, and their interpretation has been endorsed
by Isabelle Pantin. In Wootton's view, indeed, the most conclusive reasons for
de-attributing the Colloquium belong in this category. Even if he is wrong,
however, an analysis of this type of evidence can still be of interest, because it
may shed considerable light on Bodin's authorial processes of recapitulation and
self-adaptation.
Wootton has put forward a number of instances where the nature of the
borrowing from Bodin's Demonomanie appears to show that the person doing the
borrowing cannot have been Bodin himself. These pieces of evidence are not of
equal strength; but three of them are, in Wootton's view, so powerful that he calls
them 'the strongest possible evidence that someone other than Bodin wrote the
Colloquium'.1^ One of the three passages concerns the allegorical interpretation
of the Bible. In the Demonomanie Bodin wrote that a verse in Ecclesiastes (10.20:
'Curse not the king... for a bird of the air shall carry the voice...') used 'bird'
to mean an angel or other being endowed by God with special powers, and com-
mented: 'The Chaldean paraphrast [sc. the Targum] says that the angel Raziel
makes himself understood throughout the world, and that the high priest Elias
has revealed to all the inhabitants of the world the things that were concealed.'145
The equivalent passage in the Colloquium, however, says: 'The Chaldaean para-
phrast interpreted these words of Solomon about the angels Raziel and Elias [de
angelis Raziele et Elia] who, he said, revealed all very secret crimes.'146 Wootton
comments: 'Now one can scarcely imagine Bodin mistaking the High Priest Elias
for an angel, nor is it easy to see how a simple scribal error would have resulted
in angelis in the plural . . .This appears to be an error introduced by the author
of the Colloquium through a misunderstanding of his own notes . . . Bodin (who
was preoccupied with the interpretation of the Old Testament) would not have
forgotten the true identity of Elias.'147
The problem with this argument is that what it says about Bodin must surely
also apply to the author of the Colloquium, who was no less preoccupied with the
interpretation of the Old Testament, constantly referring to it and demonstrating
a well-nigh comprehensive knowledge of its major and minor books.148 The
o Duns Scoto?', II pensiero politico, IV, 1971, pp. 21- 146. Kuntz p. 99. Noack p. 77: 'Chaldaeus para-
45, who sees a shift in attitude towards scholastic phrastes haec Salomonis verba interpretabatur de
authorities between Bodin's earlier works and the angelis Raziele et Elia, quos occultissima quaeque
Colloquium, with the central arguments remaining scelera the
patefacere scribit.'
same. 147. Wootton, pp. 194-95.
144. Wootton, p. 195. 148. For a useful (but incomplete) guide, see the
145. Dem. 1587, fol. 69V: 'L'interprete entries given under 'Bible,
Caldean, diet,citations from Old Testa-
que l'Ange Raziel se faict entendrement' parintoutthe index to Kuntz (pp. 478-79), listing at
le monde,
et le sacrificateur Elia a descouvert a tous les habi- least 500 citations.
tans de la terre, les choses qui se sont a couvert.'
author of the Colloquium was well acquainted with what the Bible says about E
(Elijah): he mentioned him fifteen times and included quite a detailed discuss
of his contest with the priests of Baal and his relations with King Ahab.149
addition to this., we must also bear in mind that the author of the Colloquiu
had a wide-ranging knowledge of Jewish writings, from the Mishnaic treatises to
rabbinical commentators and philosophical writers such as Maimonides. (Th
range of texts here corresponds closely to the range of items referred to in Bodi
printed works; but the passages cited in the Colloquium are not confined to o
cited elsewhere by Bodin.)150 It is simply not credible that someone equipp
with such quantities of Biblical and Hebraic learning would genuinely h
confused Elijah with an angel. If the author of the Colloquium really did write 'de
angelis Raziele et Elia', it is surely necessary to suppose that this was a slip of
pen - a supposition that could be made just as well about Bodin. But a more
plausible explanation would be that this slip was made by a copyist; althoug
Wootton says it is not easy to see how this could have arisen from a scribal error
the explanation would not be difficult if we assumed that what the copyist
was a manuscript containing some contractions and abbreviations., and that t
passage in question gave 'de angel. Raziele et Elia' or 'de ang. Raziele et El
Much of the modern discussion of the Colloquium seems to have assumed t
the starting-point for the history of its transmission was some sort of fair-c
manuscript produced by Bodin; but there is no firm basis for such an assumption
If the tradition recorded by Jean Chapelain in 1673 was correct, which relat
that the work was only 'found after his [sc. Bodin's] death in his study'., the man
script may well have been something more like a rough draft for Bodin's ey
only.151 Bodin was capable of writing in a legible fair hand; but if the cramp
eye-straining annotations in a book from his library have been attributed to h
correctly, he was also capable of generating, for his own benefit, manuscri
material that others would have real difficulty in deciphering.152 The poor qualit
of the putatively 'original' manuscript lent to de Mesmes, and the many dist
tions of proper names that occur in the early manuscript versions, might well be
attributed to the efforts of a provincial scribe in Laon who had been entrust
by Bodin's heirs with the task of producing a fair copy from a barely legib
manuscript, the author of which was no longer available to supervise the work
149. For the 15 references see ibid., p. 486; notes for written by Bodin was later edited and com-
the detailed discussion, ibid., pp. 172-73 (Noack, pp.
pleted by another hand (Ceard, p. 68); the rationale
132-33). for this compromise will be removed, however, if it
150. See J. Guttmann, Jean Bodin in seinenturns Bezie-
out that the Colloquium contains no substantive
hungen zum Judentum, Breslau 1906; see alsopassages the - as opposed to artefacts of a copyist - that
further details given below, at n. 227. could not have been written by Bodin.
151. Jean Chapelain, Lettres, ed. P. Tamizey de 152. For the fair hand see the reproduction of a
Larroque, 2 vols, Paris 1880-83, n> P- 809, Chapelain letter in Bodin, Sei libri (as in n. 24), m, p. 545; for
to Hermann Conring, 30 Jan. 1673: 'qui fut trouve the barely legible hand see Oxford, Bodleian Library,
apres sa mort dans son cabinet'. It is with this sort pressmark Byw.T.4.25 (4), M. T. Ciceronis Defato liber,
of scenario in mind that Jean Ceard has offered a Petri Rami praelectionibus explicatus, Paris 1550, e.g.,
possible compromise between the attributionist and sigs a2v, a3r, a4r"v, a5r, and for the identification see
de-attributionist positions, suggesting that a set of G. Barber, 'Haec a Joanne Bodino lecta', Bibliotheque
128 NOEL MALCOLM
The second ofWootton's thre

the Colloquium by Fridericus (
demonic dogs, which 'report
victories, and misfortunes t
Weyer and Paolo Giovio wrote
its master died, a large crowd
Rhone river.5153 Wootton comm
at odds with this, for Bodin tel
story - the dog was a perfectl
What has happened here? . . .
working from notes [on the D
one can scarcely imagine Bodin
for he knew very well that the
manie comes in the appendix t
Johann Weyer' - a scathing at
argued against the existence of
cases merely suffering from '
that anyone who denied the e
protect the interests of witches
Devil. Weyer was, in his view,
mind that Bodin wrote as foll
Furthermore, one would do well to

Agrippa, the greatest sorcerer that
was also his valet and servant - d
he admits, after Agrippa had rep
others have written that as soon
black dog, which he called 'Mons
everyone, and was never seen again
since he used to lead it on a leash
Agrippa and him. And when he s
of happy memory' or 'my vener
judgement who does not agree, hav
sorcerers in the world.156
d'humanisme et Renaissance, d'Agrippa, le plus grand Sorcier qui XXV,

fut oncques 1963,
(364). de son aage, & non seulement il estoit son disciple,
153. Kuntz, pp. 17-18. Noack, p. 12: 'qui omnia ains aussi son valet & seruiteur, beuuant, mangeant,
dicta, facta, gesta, victorias, offensiones denunciant & couchant auec luy: comme il confesse, apres que
humano sermone, qualem habuisse Cornelium Agrippa eut repudie sa femme. Et sur ce que Paul
Agrippam Wierus discipulus ac Paulus Jovius scrip- Ioue, & plusieurs autres ont escript que le chien noir
sere, quem etiam hero mortuo frequens hominumd'Agrippa, qu'il appelloit Monsieur, si tost que
multitudo in flumen Rhodanum nulla vi adactum Agrippa fut mort en l'hospital de Grenoble, s'alla
demergi vidit.' getter en la riuiere deuant dout le monde, & que
154. Wootton, p. 194. depuis ne fut iamais veu: Wier diet que ce n'estoit
155. Dem. 1580, fols 2i8r-252r: 'Refutation des pas Sathan en guise de chien, ains que il le menoit
opinions de JeanWier' {Dem. 1587, fols 238V-276V). apres Agrippa en lesse, & que le chien couchoit entre
156. Dem. 1580, fols 2i9v-22Or: 'D'auantage il fait Agrippa, & luy. Et quand il parle de son maistre
bien a noter que Wier confessa qu'il estoit disciple Sorcier il dit: Felicis memoriae Agrippa, ou bien
One thing that becomes very clear to the reader of the 'refutation' of Weyer is th
Bodin felt under no obligation to treat his opponent fairly. This passage conta
a striking example of that approach: where Weyer had in fact written about t
dog that Agrippa 'sometimes allowed him in bed with him under the covers a
night, after he had repudiated his wife . . . And in the library . . . this dog would
always lie between us on the table that Agrippa and I shared in our studies',
Bodin claimed that it was Weyer who went to bed with Agrippa 'after he h
repudiated his wife' (the transparent implication being that Weyer was now
supplying sexual services to his master), and then added the detail about the d
sleeping between them in such a way as to make the reader think that all three of
them shared the same bed.157 When, in this passage in the Demonomanie, Bod
went out of his way to record Weyer's claim that the dog was an ordinary do
(contrary to Giovio's assertion), his aim was not to distance him from the scenario
painted by Giovio, but rather the opposite: Weyer's denial of this notorious fa
was presented as further proof of his complicity with his Satanist master. A
Bodin evidently felt that the very details given by Weyer in his attempted dispro
were worth recording because they were self-condemnatory: Agrippa and Wey
slept with the dog just as witches sleep with familiars or incubilsuccubi, and the fac
that Weyer had led the dog on a lead was surely a further proof, since the De
would never have submitted to such treatment unless it were by one of his own.
Seen in this light, the statement by Fridericus in the Colloquium ('His pup
Weyer and Paolo Giovio wrote that Cornelius Agrippa had such a dog...') does
not look so un-Bodinian after all. From Bodin's point of view, the one essenti
thing in Weyer's account was his admission that Agrippa did have a black dog;
the denials added by Weyer were to be discounted as Satanic falsehoods - or,
put it another way, counted as further evidence that the story of the demon
dog was true. If Fridericus had said 'Paolo Giovio wrote that Cornelius Agrip
had such a dog; Weyer explicitly confirmed that he had a dog, and implicitl
confirmed that it was such a dog', that wording would have expressed Bodin
view more precisely; but the contracted version spoken by Fridericus in the te
did supply the gist of what Bodin thought.158
On the subject of the treatment of Weyer in the Colloquium, one other small
but significant piece of evidence should also be mentioned. At the end of th
passage relating Melanchthon's account of the possessed woman who spoke
in Greek and Latin and predicted war in Germany, the Colloquium adds the
Venerandi praeceptoris mei Agrrippae: [sic] Et neant- ('quern admodum & in eodem simul lecto sub lodice
moins il n'y a homme de sain iugement, qui ne noctu pateretur, ubi coniugem . . . repudiasset ... & in
confesse apres auoir leu les liures d'Aggrippa [sic], musaeo ... in eius mensa Agrippae & mihi in studijs
que e'estoit l'vn des plus grands Sorciers du monde' communi, inter utrunque semper iaceret hie canis').
(Dem. 1587, fol. 240™). Weyer's book was first published in 1563; this passage
I57- Witches, Devils, and Doctors in the Renaissance:was added in the 1577 edn.
Johann Weyer, De praestigiis daemonum, ed. G. Mora 158. As for the claim about the dog diving into
et al., Binghamton, NY 1991, p. 113 (book II, ch. 5); the river: Weyer had made no comment on it. In the
Johann Weyer, De praestigiis daemonum, & incan- Colloquium the claim was attributed neither to Weyer
tationibus ac veneficiis libri sex, Basle 1583, col. 165nor to Giovio, being offered simply as a historical fact.
130 NOEL MALCOLM
following comment: 'While physicia

opinions about this matter, a certain d
in order not to seem ignorant, said
by melancholy, but he was openly
looks very much like a dig at the ph
but the failure to name Weyer make
an almost obsessional vendetta. Bod
sentence; whereas a forger, going t
polemics against Weyer, would surely
rendering the allusion unintelligible to
Wootton's third strong instance co
hidden treasures. In the Demonoman
Philip Melanchthon tells a rather similar s

killed by the collapse of a tower, while th
had told them about. And George Agricola
at Aneberg, in the mine called 'Rose-cro
men - with the effect that it forced peopl
which the sorcerers had found with Satan
In the Colloquium, however, these stor
Philip Melanchthon wrote that while tw

treasure, they were buried beneath a tower
at Rosa [or: 'of the Rose'] had been kille
many stories of this kind . . . l62
Wootton notes the various changes h

Agricola, is now attributed to Mela
dropped; there is no mention of the sp
twelve has been transferred from t
159. Kuntz, p. 46. Noack, p. 34: 'Qua de re cum 161. Dem. 1580, fol. I35V: 'Philippe Melanchthon
inter theologos ac medicos varie disputaretur, sciolus recite vne histoire quasi semblable: qu'il y eust dix
quidam medicus, ne nihil ignorasse videretur, a personnes a Maidebourg tuez de la ruine d'vne tour,
melancholia peregrinam linguam excitari posse lors qu'ils fossoyoyent pour trouuer les thresors que
contendebat, sed non sine risu ac sibilo palam Sathan leur auoit enseignez. Et Georges Agricola au
explosus est.' liure qu'il a fait des Esprits subterrains, escript que
160. It should be added that the treatment of Weyer a Aneberg en la mine nommee Couronne de roze,
here is rather unfair. When Weyer did discuss, in vn esprit en forme de cheual tua douze hommes:
book iv, ch. 17, a case of a young nobleman producing tellement qu'il fit quitter la mine pleine d'argent, que
strange utterances in Latin and Greek, he argued that les Sorciers auoient trouue a l'ayde de Sathan' {Dem.
it was a genuine case of demonic possession (Mora et 1587, fols i5Ov-i5ir).
al., eds, as in n. 157, p. 328). (Weyer disbelieved only 162. Kuntz, p. 85. Noack, p. 67: 'Scribit enim
in witchcraft, not in demons.) But a later chapter, Philippus Melanchthon, Magdeburgi duodecim
which argued that some melancholies were thought sortilegos thesaurum effodientes casu turris obrutos
to be possessed, and some genuinely possessed people et in argentifodina Rosae plerosque a daemonibus
were thought to be melancholies (book iv, ch. 25: subterraneis caesos fuisse. Plenus est Georgius
pp. 346-47) did refer back to ch. 17; and in any case, Agricola historiarum ejusmodi narrationibus . . .'
as we have seen, fairness to Weyer was not one of
Bodin's concerns.
Wootton writes, 'if the author of the Colloquium was working, not directly from
the text of the Demonomanie but from notes he had made earlier, notes which he
then misinterpreted.' And he adds: 'In any case, one can scarcely imagine Bod
making so many errors in such a simple story.'163
That last statement is, however, open to question. As Ann Blair has note
Bodin's writings contain 'all kinds of errors of detail, in proper names a
references especially'. Quite how he compiled his material is not clear. Blair
suggests that he kept a commonplace book, 'but entered and retrieved his material
sloppily and in haste'; as an alternative, she proposes that he may have 'worke
mostly from memory, keeping only mental notes in the style of the commonplac
book'.164 While Blair's study of the Theatrum amply confirms that the underlyin
methods for the organisation of knowledge were modelled on commonplace-bo
techniques, the nature of many of Bodin's errors does suggest that he was ope
ating to a large extent from memory. The best available resource for the study of
Bodin's handling of his sources is the apparatus to the modern Italian translat
of the Republique; taking just a representative sample of the errors identified the
we find Bodin citing Cassiodorus wrongly, running two events together, refe
ring to Dio Cassius when he should have said Cicero, confusing the Council o
Basel with the Council of Constance, referring to Plutarch when he should ha
said Herodotus, confusing Thessalians with Thessalonicans, naming the wron
emperor in a reference to Suetonius, quoting Cicero wrongly, citing Sen
when he should have said Dio Cassius, saying Pope Urban when he meant Pop
Leo I, giving inaccurate references to Livy and Maimonides, confusing Alexand
Severus with Antoninus Pius, and citing a remark about judges in Persia and
attributing it to Xenophon when he should have said judges in Egypt and attr
buted it to Diodorus.165 Bodin also gave inaccurate quotations from, and fal
references to, Roman Law texts throughout the work.166 Here, it seems, w
someone who was in the habit of trusting his memory, and whose memory
was not in fact very reliable.
If we look again at the errors in the passage just cited from the Colloquium, w
may find that they consist of the sort of corruptions and confusions that cou
easily creep into a person's memory over the course of a period which may ha
amounted, in this case, to more than a decade. The two stories had (on this
explanation) been kept in tandem, but a little mutual contamination had tak
place: both had become associated with Melanchthon, and the number twelve
had drifted from one to the other. (Bodin's insouciance with numbers has alrea
been mentioned.) The omissions of Aneberg and of the detail about the horse
were simply omissions, not errors; and the contraction of 'Rose-crown'
('Couronne de roze', i.e. 'Corona rosae') into 'Rose' ('Rosae') was a minor error
163. Wootton, p. 193. 166. Ibid., e.g., I, pp. 238, 492; 11, pp. 319, 320; in,
164. Blair (as in n. 14), p. 74. PP- 133, 596, 617.
165. Bodin, Set libri (as in n. 24), 1, pp. 175, 249,
277, 441, 571; 11, pp. 154, 228, 276, 538, 578; in, pp.
220, 304, 394, 616.
132 NOEL MALCOLM
which could have been produced either

process of textual transmission (if, for e
given 'c. rosae' and the scribe, not kn
ignored it). In short, there are no erro
by Bodin himself, or by a textual tran
this passage as 'the strongest possible
wrote the Colloquium' seems unwarran
The four other instances put forwar
much less compelling than these three
by the person who did the French trans
of no real relevance to the question of t
a small change which, as Wootton corr
difference you might expect between tw
the same author'.168 The fourth conc
Suquet ('Suquetus', mistranscribed as
early manuscripts of the Colloquium),
In the Demonomanie the account ends wit
seen again; Bodin then compares this
but adds that in the latter case 'it is beli
had vowed his child to Satan'.169 In th
Suquet's son (just as it appears in the
'What if the father had vowed his son to demons from the womb? For this is the
wont of witches, and it is for this reason that divine law condemns with the most
severe curses those who dedicated their children to the god Moloch.'170 Wootton
comments that 'the Colloquium uses the story of the son of Anthoine Huguet . . .
to suggest that the father may have dedicated his child to the devil; but it is not
this story, but another one, which the Demonomanie suggests can be interpreted
in this way - the author of the Colloquium seems to be trying to make one story
do the work Bodin thought only two could do. Bodin seems to have been slightly
misrepresented by someone seeking to express his views in a compressed space.'171
Given that the notion of the child being dedicated to Satan is raised not by
Fridericus as part of the story he tells, but by Salomon in a question that leads
into a more general comment about such practices, it is not clear that the author
of this passage is really making one story do the work of two: the work is done
first by a story and then by a separate question. But something more interesting
is in fact going on in this passage - something which, as we shall see, is not
untypical of the compositional methods at work in the Colloquium. While one
passage in the Demonomanie (fols i6iv-i62r in the 1580 edition) has supplied the
167. Wootton, pp. 191-93. 170. Kuntz, pp. 44-45. Noack, p. 33: 'Quid si pater
168. Ibid., p. 191. filium ab utero voverat daemonibus, id enim sortilegis
169. Dem. 1580, fols i6iv-i62r (fol. i62r: 'on tient fere consuetum est, ac propterea divina lex
que le pere estoit Sorrier, qui auoit voiie son enfant a execratione gravissima detestatur eos, qui liberos
Sathan') {Dem. 1587, fol. i8ir). voverint deo Molocho.'
171. Wootton, p. 191.
story of Suquet's son and may also (as Wootton suggests) have supplied a prom
for the comment about children being dedicated to demons from the womb, t
further comment also draws on a different section of the Demonomanie (fols IO7V
io8r), in which the topic of such child-dedication is discussed in more detail. T
Colloquium's phrase 'from the womb' ('ab utero') corresponds to the Demono
manie's 'des le ventre' in that section (which appears twice in that section., bu
not at all in the discussion of the case from Lorraine), and Salomon's comm
about Moloch also corresponds to a statement made there: cAnd perhaps tha
passage in the law of God which says, "Cursed be he who gives his seed t
Moloch", may be understood about these people...'172 If we assume that the
author of the Colloquium was someone other than Bodin who was trying to repro-
duce material from the Demonomanie, then we cannot interpret this passage
the former as an instance of hasty misrepresentation of the latter; rather, we mu
assume that the author was making an extraordinarily thorough job of pickin
out related elements from different parts of the Demonomanie and weaving them
together. But a simpler hypothesis is available: namely, that Bodin was also th
author of the Colloquium, and that such details came together in that text because
they were present, and naturally associated, in his mind.
Jean Ceard has put forward a number of other passages which, he believes
suggest that the author of the Colloquium was copying somewhat mechanicall
from Bodin's Theatrum. His initial purpose in making such comparisons was
to establish the order of priority between the two texts. Thus, for example, in
discussion of Aristotle's theory of the soul,Toralba says that 'in our previous d
cussions of the nature of the soul we have sufficiently refuted Aristotle's opinion
that a human being's active intellect and passive intellect are the same thing';
such earlier discussions appear in the Colloquium, but the equivalent passage
in the Theatrum does point back to a previous consideration of the issue in th
work.173 This may mean, as Ceard infers, that the author of the Colloquium had a
finished text of the Theatrum in front of him. That inference is plausible, but no
strictly necessary; if the author of the Colloquium was Bodin, he could have made
a mental note that his argument here about the soul needed to be preceded
some argumentation refuting Aristotle's identification of the active and passi
intellects, and then acted accordingly when treating these matters more fully
the Theatrum. If the author of the Colloquium was not Bodin, then of course that
person must have had the Theatrum, and other works by Bodin, in front of him.
But the failure to include in the text of the Colloquium the 'previous discussio
mentioned here is not an error that requires this hypothesis to explain it: t
conventions of the fiction make it quite possible for characters to refer to oth
conversations which have not been reported in the text of the Colloquium itself.
172. Dem. 1580, fol. io8r: 'Et peut estre que le 173. Kuntz, p. 124; Noack, p. 96 ('satis enim
passage de la loy de Dieu qui diet, Mauduit soit superioribus demonstrationibus de animorum natura
celuy, qui donnera de sa semence a Moloch, se peut rejecta est Aristotelis opinio, qui hominis intellectum,
entendre de ceux cy' (Dem. 1587, fol. i20r). actuosum et patibilem eundem esse putavit'); Ceard,
P- 55-
134 NOEL MALCOLM
Another example given by Ceard

handling of the Theatrum by the au
to the philosopher Alexander of Aph
Avicenna is given a marginal note w
Aphrodisias (the latter reference be
on Aristotle's Metaphysics). In the Co
is followed by a further comment b
quotes the French translation of th
Alexandre' ('as that same Alexande
reader: Alexander of Aphrodisias ha
has been caused only by the French
Alexander confitetur' ('as Alexander
marginal reference to book xn of Alex
this time to book XL, and comments:
that the second demonstration was to
of the same work'.176 However, th
Noack have only the reference to bo
'checked', since the demonstration
in book xi, but in the book which w
11. 177 There are too many uncertaint
evidence either for the 'priority' thesi
Theatrum was adapted in the Colloqu
A further case raised by Ceard is
Theatrum gives a list of authors who h
of demons, supplying in the margi
written by some of them; the Colloqui
names in a slightly different order, an
also different, in ways that Ceard tak
The issue is in one way less complic
transcription from the Theatrum th
here between that work and the Co
174. Ceard, p. 56: 'Surprise Duodecimus': p. 282);dupossibly this was the origin
lecteur: of
Alexandre
d'Aphrodise n'a pas encore the xi/xii confusion.
ete allegue.'
175. Kuntz, p. 35; Noack, 178. Ceard,p. p. 6726.
(Noack, p. 37).
176. Ceard, p. 56: 'on 179. dirait
The Theatrum qu'il est
(p. 511) cites alle
Apuleius, verifier
'In aureo
et a constate que la deuxieme demonstration se asino', and Augustine, 'In libr. de spiritu & anima' (a
trouvait, non aii livre XII ... mais au livre XI du work traditionally ascribed to Augustine, now known
meme ouvrage'. to be by Alcher of Clairvaux); Ceard gives this as
177. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Commentaria in Apuleius, 'In lib. de spiritu et anima', and Augustine,
'in Homeliis' (a reference which belongs to 'Basilius'
duodecim Aristotelis libros de prima philosophia, tr. J. G.
Sepulveda, Venice 1561, pp. 48, 51. The work had in the following sentence); the Latin Colloquium
two different book-numberings, arising from the fact (Noack, p. 37) has Apuleius, 'In asino aureo', and
that the first two books were counted as 'A' and 'a' gives no reference for Augustine; the French version
in Greek, but T and 'IF in Latin. Both numberings (Bodin, Colloque, as in n. 3, p. 61) has Apuleius, 'In
were given in this, the standard Latin translation Asino', and Augustine, 'Lib. De anima'.
(thus book xi was entitled 'Liber Vndecimus, Latinis
complicated: Ceard cites the Colloquium only in the French translation, and
marginal notes given there differ significantly from those in the Latin manuscr
collated by Noack.l8° Furthermore, some of the references given in the Theatrum
were, in any case, faulty: if the passage in the Colloquium was derived from
Theatrum, the changes made in it did not simply consist (as Ceard supposes)
uncomprehending errors, but also included one knowledgeable improvement.
There are so many variables here that it is impossible to make any clear dedu
tions from this evidence; possibly a combination of factors was at work, includin
faulty memory (working, it seems, not so much on direct textual knowledge
on references culled from other secondary works) and errors by a - or by m
than one - copyist. Some of the mistakes could have arisen if the original copy
of the Colloquium had been working from a rough draft in which the titles
been jotted down in a disorderly way; and the differences between the Latin
French versions suggest that some jumbling did take place during the proc
of manuscript transmission. The only thing that can be said with confidence
that the idea that the author of the Colloquium was mechanically copying fr
the Theatrum actually makes this case harder to account for: on that basis, th
would have been no need either to re-order the names, or to change any of t
references.
In one other case, the evidence adduced by Ceard may be most easily
explained by attributing it to the inattention of a copyist. The Theatrum at one
point cites both cIo. Picus Mirandulae princeps' and 'Scotus' (i.e. Duns Scotus),
while the corresponding passage in the Colloquium cites 'Jbh. Scotus'.182 This
looks like a simple case of Augensprung on the copyist's part.183 (The alternative
explanation would be a momentary brainstorm on the part of the author. At one
point in the Latin version of Bodin's Republique one finds a marginal reference to
'Franciscus Machiavelli': this, similarly, might be attributed either to an error by
the compositor, or to a momentary authorial lapse.)184
1 80. The Latin (Noack, p. 37) refers to Psellus, refer to his De anima celebres opiniones, but the refer-
'In libro de anima et daemonibus', Plotinus, 'Contra ence should have been to his De operatione daemonum,
Alexandrum Aphrodisiam', Philoponus, 'Contra in which the corporeality of demons is asserted (see
Alexandrum Aphrod.', and Ammonius, 'In libro de Patrologia graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne, CXXll, col. 835); the
anima'; the French (Bodin, Colloque, as in n. 3, p. 61) (Latin) Colloquium's 'de anima et daemonibus' here
refers to Psellus, 'Lib. De anima', Plotinus, 'Lib. De was thus an improvement, not a corruption (even
anima', Philoponus, 'Lib. de anima et daem.', and though its wording also suggests a possible confusion
Ammonius, 'Contra Alexandr.'. See also n. 179. with Proclus's De anima et daemone).
181. The Theatrum (p. 511) cites Philoponus as 182. Ceard, p. 66 (Noack, p. 38).
'Philopo. aduersus Alex.' and refers to Ammonius's 183. 'Johannes' was indeed the first name of Duns
'comment, de anima'; neither reference corresponds Scotus, so the reference is technically correct. But he
to a known text. (Philoponus wrote a Contra Proclum, was not commonly referred to as Johannes Scotus
an Adversus Aristotelem, and a commentary on the De (by Bodin or anyone else); and the impression that
anima; Ammonius wrote commentaries on other the two names have been run together is confirmed
works by Aristotle. On the title page of the Venice by the French translation of the Colloquium, which
1535 edition of his Contra Proclum, Philoponus was (drawing apparently on a Latin manuscript that
called 'Philoponus Alexandrinus': possibly 'Philopo. differed from the ones collated by Noack: see n. 3)
aduersus Alex.' was a garbling - in a secondary work also gives here the reference to Pico's work (Bodin,
consulted by Bodin - of 'Philopo. Alex, aduersus Colloque, as in n. 3, p. 62).
Procl.') The reference to Psellus, 'de mente', might
136 NOEL MALCOLM
In Ceard's view, however, the m

attribution of the Colloquium to Bodin
error-free - passages in which that
the Theatrum, without making any
same substance into different words. Ceard notes that Bodin did sometimes use
material from the Republique in the Demonomanie, or from either or both of those
in the Theatrum; but he also claims (giving two examples of this process) that
whereas the material was added to or varied in those cases, it seems to have
undergone no such re-wording or re-thinking between the Theatrum and the
Colloquium. The latter work thus exhibits, he believes, a type of 'sheer repetition'
or 'flat self-plagiarism' highly uncharacteristic of Bodin.185
This might be a powerful argument, if it could be substantiated by a
systematic study of the whole pattern of borrowings in the Colloquium and in
those other works by Bodin. But Ceard gives only two examples, and in each
case the conclusion he draws is open to question. His first concerns the dis-
cussion in the Colloquium's opening pages of the 'pantotheca', a cabinet in which
Coronaeus displayed the order of the natural world in a series of specimens.
Here, as elsewhere in Bodin's works, there is a discussion of the chain of being,
emphasising that there are intermediate entities bridging the gaps between all
the major categories of natural thing.186 As the narrator of the Colloquium puts it:
. . . between earth and stones he had placed clay and chalk, which share the nature of each;
between water and diamonds, crystal; between stones and metals, pyrites (in other words, a
type of marcasite); between stones and plant, coral; between animals and plants, the things
that are called zoophytes; between aquatic and terrestrial animals, amphibians; between
aquatic animals and birds, flying fish, that is, the flying gurnard and squid; and between
birds and terrestrial animals, the bat.l8?
Ceard compares this with the equivalent passage in the Theatrum, which gives a
longer version of the same list, with some different wordings and with the addition
of several extra clauses; he also cites the equivalent paragraphs of the Republique
and the Demonomanie. The degree of variation in content between those three
published works by Bodin is not very great in these cases: the Republique (unlike
the Demonomanie and the Theatrum) mentions 'loadstone' ('calamite') together
with marcasite; both it and the Demonomanie give specific examples of amphibia
(omitted from the Theatrum)', the Theatrum mentions crystal, between water and
diamonds (as in the Colloquium, but unlike the Republique and the Demonomanie),
184. See Bodin, Sei libri (as in n. 24), 1, p. 345 187. Kuntz, p. 5. Noack, p. 2: 'terram inter et lapides
(where the editors suggest that it was a slip of the argillam et cretam utriusque naturae media collo-
pen; the surname should have been 'Guicciardini'). carat, inter aquam et adamantes crystallum, inter
185. Ceard, pp. 62-66 (p. 65: 'pures repetitions' ... lapides et metalla pyritem sive marcasitharum genus,
'se plagier si platement lui-meme'). inter lapides et plantas corallium, inter animantes et
186. For a full discussion of this theme see Blair stirpes ea quae zoophyta dicuntur, inter animantes
(as in n. 14), pp. 126-35 (pointing out that Bodin's aquatiles et terrestres amphibia, inter aquatilia et
'chain' here involves a web of interrelations, not a volatilia pisces volatiles, milvum inquam et loliginem,
unilinear progression) . inter volatilia et terrestria bruta verspertilionem.'
and so on. One other text, not considered by Ceard, is Bodin's De republica (t
Latin version of the Republique, published in 15863 a decade after the Frenc
original) , which makes several other small changes (beginning with earth a
tufa ('tophus'), not earth and stone, omitting the loadstone, and also omittin
the list of amphibia).188 The differences between the version of this passage in th
Colloquium and that in the Theatrum are in fact comparable, both quantitativ
and qualitatively, to those between the other cases in Bodin's published works: the
Colloquium gives 'clay and chalk' where the Theatrum had only clay; omits on
example completely (mercury, which is between water and metals); omits descrip-
tive clauses about corals, zoophytes, amphibia and flying fish; omits anothe
example (hermaphrodites, between males and females); adds the two specific
examples of flying fish; and describes bats as lying between birds and terrestr
creatures, where the Theatrum specifies birds and reptiles. This is not - as Ce
puts it - flat self-plagiarism, but an abbreviated re-working of the material w
some significant changes. Ceard himself notes the addition of chalk to the lis
and the two named types of flying fish, and he argues that the relevant info
mation here could also have been drawn from the Theatrum: in other sections
of that book, chalk is distinguished from earth and stones, and the two types of
flying fish are mentioned.189 He seems not to have noticed that the process
implied by this argument is something very different from a mechanical one of
'sheer repetition'. As we saw in the case of the story of the child-snatching witch,
the author of the Colloquium has put together here material that appears in
different parts of one of Bodin's published works, in a way that must imply either
a very careful study of the contents of that work, or a more direct familiarity with
the contents of Bodin's mind. One other detail may also be relevant here. The
notion that chalk was different from earth and stone was to be found not only
elsewhere in the Theatrum3 but also in the equivalent discussion of the chain of
being in the De republican where the listing begins with 'clay and chalk' as the
intermediaries between earth and tufa.190 If we assume that the Colloquium was
not written by Bodin, we must also assume that the author was cleverly weaving
in such details from either the Theatrum or the De republican but if we assume that
Bodin did write the Colloquium, we can easily understand that he might have had
chalk and clay together in his mind, as he had already put them together, in
precisely this context, in another of his published works.
Ceard's second example is a much simpler case, concerning a discussion
of Roman theories about the three types of thunderbolt possessed by Jupiter - of
which one was used as a warning, one to inflict minor harm and one to kill. Bodin
treated this topic in both the Republique and the Theatrum', and the treatment
given in the Colloquium is, in substance though not in precise wording, virtually
the same as that in the Theatrum. However, there is one significant difference. In
188. De republica, p. 778. 190. De republica, p. 778 ('argillae & cretae').

189. Ceard, p. 63 (the main passage here is
Theatrum, pp. 226-27; chalk is mentioned on p. 236,
and the flying fish on p. 329).
138 NOEL MALCOLM
the Theatrum it is stated that the seco

Jupiter in cooperation with the 'less
with the 'higher gods'; in the Collo
gods, that is, planets lower than Ju
stars'.191 If a direct textual source is t
found in the equivalent passage in the
to 'the low planets, which they [sc.
planets and the fixed stars, which t
someone other than Bodin wrote the
mechanical transcription from the Th
to identify the equivalent passage in
significant details. It is surely simpler
and that the extra details came easily
mind.
Ceard's general claim that the Colloquium engages in a flat repetition of

passages in the Theatrum is thus not supported by the two detailed examples he
presents. Some examples could indeed be found of passages where the corre-
spondence between those two works is close enough to justify such a description;
for instance, a lengthy discussion of the finitude and corporeality of demons,
angels and separated souls in the Colloquium sticks very closely to the argument
(and, to a large extent, the wording) of the equivalent section of the Theatrum.193
But there are many other passages in which the material from Bodin's published
works is only loosely paraphrased (an example would be a further part of the
discussion of corporeality, a few pages later, which thoroughly re-words the
equivalent material in the Theatrum), or is re-written with significant alterations
and additions.194 Isabelle Pantin, following Ceard, writes that the Colloquium
exhibits a relationship to Bodin's published works that consists only of straight
repetition, and concludes: 'If the author of the Colloquium is Bodin, then he has
embarked for the first time, in his last work, on a new method of self-quotation.'195
But this judgement is doubly mistaken: on the one hand, straight 'self-quotation'
is not the only method used in the Colloquium, and on the other hand, it is a
method sometimes on display in the published works of Jean Bodin. For example,
in 1578, when Bodin published a second, enlarged edition of his La Response...
au paradoxe de Monsieur de Malestroict (under the new title Discours ... sur le
191. Theatrum, p. 208 (Ceard, p. 65) ('minorum . . . pianettes, & aux estoiles fixes, qu'ils appelloyent les
deorum'; 'superiorum deorum'); Kuntz, p. 84; Noack,hauts Dieux, qui tue, destruit, & ruine'. Ceard cites
p. 66 ('Deos minores, i.e. inferiores Jove planetas'; the 1583 edition (on p. 65).
'Deos superiores, i.e. superiores Stellas'). 193. Kuntz, pp. 51-54; Noack, pp. 38-41; Theatrum,
192. Rep. 1576, p. 489 had given this as 'aux bassespp. 513-21.
pianettes, que ils appelloyent les dieux inferieurs'; 194. Kuntz, pp. 60-61; Noack, p. 46; Theatrum, pp.
'aux deux hautes pianettes, qui tue destruit, & ruine:522-23.
qu'ils appelloyent les hauts dieux'; in the revised 195. Pantin (as in n. 7), p. 167: 'si l'auteur du
edition of the Republique, Paris 1583 [hereafter 'Rep. Colloquium est Bodin, alors il a inaugure, dans
J^^'L p. 625, the first phrase was retained unaltered, son dernier travail, une methode nouvelle d'auto-
but the second phrase was changed to 'aux hautes citation'.
rehausement et diminution des monnoyes), he incorporated in it virtually the entire

text of book VI, chapter 3 of the Republique - a 'sheer repetition' of more than
8,000 words.196
When the author of the Colloquium presents material from the printed
works of Bodin in a re-worked version, he does not simply paraphrase, nor do
his specific changes consist only of abbreviations and omissions. Often he adds
new details. In some cases these seem to amount to little more than authorial
embroideries (or the products of a faulty memory), unwarranted by the source
on which Bodin had originally drawn.197 But in quite a few cases additions are
made in a way that suggests that the author of the Colloquium has a fuller knowl-
edge of the sources (whether textual, oral or experiential) on which the printed
account was based. For example, the Latin version of the Republique includes the
statement: 'Alexander Seuerus the emperor in his priuat sacrifices worshipped
Abraham, Orpheus, Hercules^ and Christ.'19* In the Colloquium this becomes:
'Alexander Severus ...worshipped Abraham, Orpheus, Hercules and Christ in the
shrine of the Lares in place of the Penates, and indeed in good faith, since in
the opinion of all writers he obtained the highest praise for integrity'; both the
detail about the Lares and Penates, and the comment about his reputation, have
been added.199 In the Demonomanie the story is told of 'Guerin, royal advocate in
Provence, who had promised his wife that he would come and tell her if he died:
as soon as he was hanged in Paris, his wife, who was in Provence, perceived his
image vividly imprinted on her hand - something that was seen by innumerable
people. And the truth of this was avowed in the presence of King Henri II.'200
In the Colloquium the same story is told, but with a number of extra details: it
happened in Aix, Guerin ('Guarinus') was an advocate-fiscal, his conversation
with his wife took place before he left for Paris to defend himself on a capital
charge, the image appeared in his wife's right hand, and the fact was avowed to
Henri II by a certain Grignan, who was president of Provence.201 The Theatrum
includes a discussion of the swarming of fishes and birds at particular times and
places, in which a brief reference is made to the huge number of ring-doves that
fly from over the ocean into the countryside round Rouen.202 In the Colloquium^
196. Compare Jean Bodin, Response to the Paradoxes 199. Kuntz p. 159. Noack, p. 122: 'Alexander
of Malestroit, ed. and tr. H.Tudor and R. W. Dyson, Severus ... Abrahamum, Orpheum, Herculem,
Bristol 1997, pp. 102-23, with McRae, pp. 687-700; Christum in Larario pro Diis Penatibus colebat et
and see the comments by McRae on p. A161. quidem bona fide, cum summam integritatis laudem
197. For example, the De republica mentions a omnium scriptorum judicio tulerit.'
Roman soldier who desecrated the Temple in 200. Dem. 1587, fol. 79r: 'Guerin Advocat du Roy
Jerusalem merely by exposing himself (p. 484); the en Provence, qui avoit promis a sa femme qu'il la
Colloquium adds that he uttered verbal insults (Kuntz,
viendroit advertir s'il mouroit: si tost qu'il fut pendu
p. 470; Noack, p. 357), but this is not warranted bya Paris, sa femme estant en Provence, apperceut en
the source from which this story must have beensa main sa figure vivement imprimee que une infinite
derived (Josephus, Antiquities, XX. 5. 3). de personnes ont veu: & la chose fut averee en
198. McRae, p. 538K. De republica, p. 484: 'Alex- presence du Roy Henry second.'
ander vero Seuerus Imperator in sacris familiaribus201. Kuntz, p. 19; Noack, p. 13.
Abrahamum, Orpheum Herculem & Christum sibi 202. Theatrum, p. 326: 'Palumbarum legiones . . . ab
proposuit ad colendum'. (This passage is not in the Occeano Celtico in agrum Rhotomagensem'.
French text.)
140 NOEL MALCOLM
this information is presented (by Cu

details, in a way that may suggest t
own experience: 'When I was in France
light hunted with no effort many tho
the ocean to the shore of Rouen. When I asked him what the reason was for
such a quantity of doves, he answered that they fly there only in those years when
the beech nuts are plentiful for them to feed upon.'203 A little later in the same
discussion in the Theatrum, there is a comment about fishing for quails (which
fall from exhaustion into the sea) 'on the coasts of Italy'; in the Colloquium the
more specific reference is given to 'the Neapolitan coast'.204
The natural conclusion to be drawn from all such cases is that the same
person was the author both of Bodin's printed works and of the Colloquium. David
Wootton has noticed a few such examples (for instance: a discussion in the
Demonomanie of the condemnation of Bishop Virgilius mentions the source of
the information, Aventinus, but not the date of the condemnation; the equivalent
discussion in the Colloquium gives both the source and the date, 745 ad), but has
drawn a very different conclusion. 'Thus we may note', he writes, 'that occasion-
ally our author adds material which is not to be found in the Demonomanie,
material which tells us about his own reading rather than Bodin's . . . On such
topics he is able to draw on his own sources of information to supplement or
complete Bodin's account.'205 Yet what such evidence shows is that the author's
'own' sources of information were, again and again, the sources of Bodin's
information too.
Reference has already been made to Bodin's commonplace-book techniques;
most of his published writings exhibit the basic tendency of such a method, which
was to collect - and set down in an additive sequence on the page - instances or
references that fell under the same heading. Sometimes in the Colloquium we find
one or two extra items added to what was present in a previous printed version.
In the De republica Bodin wrote that in the time of Tertullian and Epiphanius
there existed, according to those authors, roughly 120 religious sects; in the
Colloquium this information was repeated, with the additional statement that
Themistius counted more than 250. 2o6 Another example arises in a list of rulers
who oppressed their Jewish subjects: the Republique specifies the French kings
Dagobert, Philippe Auguste, Philippe le Long and the Aragonese King Ferdi-
nand; the De republica gives that list with the addition of the Portuguese King
Emmanuel; and the Colloquium, while omitting Philippe le Long and transferring
Emmanuel to a slightly earlier discussion, adds yet another monarch - Louis,
203. Kuntz, p. 69. Noack, p. 54: 'Cum agerem in 204. Theatrum, p. 328 ('in littoribus Italiae'); Kuntz,
Gallia, callidus quidam auceps noctu facibus accensis p. 69; Noack, p. 54 ('in littore Neapolitana') .
palumborum multa millia, quae ab oceano in littus 205. Wootton, p. 188.
Rhotomagum versus advolaverant, nullo negotio 206. De republican p. 486; Kuntz, pp. 150-51
venabatur. Cum ab illo percontarer, unde tanta vis (emending '250' to '300'); Noack, p. 117.
palumborum? illud reposuit, illis tantum annis ad-
volare, quibus abundaret fagina glans, qua pascantur.'
King of Hungary.207 In the Demonomanie a very negative account of the ancient

Sibyls ends with a brief criticism of 'Lactantius, and those who make so much of
the Sibylline oracles'; in the Colloquium this is expanded into a criticism of 'Justin,
Eusebius, Lactantius and Porphyry', and a quotation from Justin, illustrating his
gullibility, is added for good measure.208 In Bodin's little ethical-theological work
Paradoxon (published in 1596 but completed in the summer of 1591) there is a
discussion of the way in which God has granted a vision of Himself to a handful
of prophets; while the version of this material in the Colloquium sticks quite closely
to the wording of the Paradoxon, it also adds two confirmatory biblical quotations
(from Isaiah and Ezekiel) that are not found in that work.209 None of these small
changes, of course, was an alteration that could have been made only by Bodin;
their significance lies merely in the fact that they involved the addition of new
information (contrary to the notion that the author of the Colloquium was engaged
in 'sheer repetition'), and that the underlying method of accumulating examples
or references was very much the method of Bodin's other works.
But there are some additions found in the Colloquium that could scarcely have
been made by anyone other than Bodin. In a few cases, the Colloquium identifies
the sources of information that was presented, unsourced, in Bodin's published
works. Jean Ceard himself has drawn attention to the following example. In a
discussion of the longevity of fishes in the Theatrum, the story is told of a pike
that was tagged with a ring in 1230 and caught again in the same lake in 1497.210
No source-reference is given there for the story; but when it is told in the
Colloquium, a marginal note supplies the details: 'Munsterus in descript. Gall, de
aequalit. et Conr. Gesnerus cap. de Lucio'.211 Ceard's comment on this seems
somewhat perverse: he suggests that the author of the Colloquium added those
source-references in order to disguise the true origin of his information - in other
words, that he wanted to hide the fact that he had simply borrowed this story
from Bodin's Theatrum.212 Why there should have been this sudden coyness
about the Bodinian nature of the work when, ifWootton's thesis is correct, the
Colloquium was filled with Bodinian material precisely in order to give readers
the impression that it was a work by Bodin, is not apparent. It would surely be
simpler to suppose that the fact that a story not sourced in the Theatrum was
correctly sourced in the Colloquium suggests that Bodin was the author of both.
Another such example comes in a discussion of demons which, when provoked
in certain ways, cause storms and thunder. In the Theatrum it is simply stated -
without reference to any source - that when the 'Cyrenaic rock' was touched, or
when a stone was thrown into the 'Dalmatian cave', storms would quickly follow,
207. Rep. 1576, p. 398; De republican p. 345; Kuntz,

209. Jean Bodin, Paradoxon, quod nee virtutis ulla
pp. 469-70; Noack, p. 357. in mediocritate, nee summum bonum in virtutis actione
208. Dem. 1580, fol. 74r ('Lactance, & ceux qui consistere
font possit, Paris 1596, pp. 33-34; Kuntz, p. 248;
tant de cas des Oracles Sybillins') {Dem. 1587, fol.
Noack, pp. 189-90.
8iv); Kuntz, pp. 176-77; Noack, p. 135 ('Justinus, 210. Theatrum, p. 394.
inquam, Eusebius, Lactantius, Porphyrius'). 211. Kuntz, p. 316; Noack, p. 241.
212. Ceard, p. 67.
142 NOEL MALCOLM
accompanied by hail, thunder and li

hand, the sources are given: 'Pliny
when the Cyrenaic rock was touche
cave, the sky became disturbed with s
No full study of the sources of the C
would it be an easy thing to accomp
attested practice of early modern a
citations from other secondary works
between the Colloquium and the publis
that there is a huge overlap in the
of reading displayed by the author
with its heavy dependence on the O
Maimonides), Philo, Augustine and O
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Iamblich
and its enthusiasm for sixteenth-cen
by authors such as Leo Africanus and
craft and demonology, Wootton ov
Bodin 'constantly cites' (in the Demo
such as Jakob Sprenger, Johannes N
makes 'only a passing reference to S
demonologists'.216 The Colloquium r
and it also refers to accounts of aeri
Grillando, Sylvester Prierias (i.e., S
Muller).2I7The list of authorities on
names given in this connection in the
of the Colloquium was doing more th
the writer referred to as 'Vlrich le Monnier' or 'Vlrich le Meusnier' in the
Demonomanie was the writer known in Latin as 'Molitor' (or 'Molitoris').218
Very many of the sources cited in Bodin's works are also cited in the
Colloquium', but it should be emphasised that they are not cited merely in relation
to the same material. While there are of course such direct duplications, where
specific passages and favourite themes are concerned, there are also many cases
where the Colloquium cites the same authors but refers to passages in their
writings not previously quoted by Bodin.
213. Theatrum, p. 172: 'rupe Cyrenaica . . . antrumGreek and Latin Texts, ed. J. N. Grant, New York 1989,
Dalmaticum'. pp. 163-86 (180-84); D. Quaglioni, / limiti delta
214. Kuntz, p. 87; Noack, p. 69 ('Consimile sovranitd:
est id, il pensiero di Jean Bodin nella cultura politica
quod Plinius et Strabo narrant, tacta rupe Cyrenaica e giuridica delVetd moderna, Padua 1992, pp. 82-89;
aut lapide in antrum Dalmaticum injecto, coelum Blair (as in n. 14), pp. 76-77.
nivibus ac fulminibus conturbari'). 2 1 6. Wootton, p. 185.
215. See the comments in M. Reulos, 'Les Sources 217. Kuntz, pp. 18, 103, 106 (Noack, pp. 12, 80,
juridiques de Bodin: textes, auteurs, pratique', in 82).
Jean Bodin: Verhandlungen der internationalen Bodin 218. Dem. 1580, fols 86r (Grillando, Prierias,
Tagung in Munchen, ed. H. Denzer, Munich 1973, pp. Sprenger) 89r (le Monnier), 97V (le Meusnier) {Dem.
187-94; A. Grafton, 'Editing Technical Neo-Latin 1587, fols 94V, 98V, io8r).
Texts: Two Cases and their Implications', in Editing
A few examples may serve to illustrate this point. In the Republique Bodin
showed particular interest in the story of 'Atabalipa' (Atahualpa), the Inca kin
who was captured and executed by Francisco Pizarro: he referred to him fo
times there, and also incorporated one of those references in the second edit
of his Response ...au paradoxe de Monsieur de Malestroict.219 In the Colloquium
further detail about Atabalipa is added, an account of his refusal to convert fr
sun-worship to Christianity on the grounds that the sun was eternal, wherea
man who died on a cross was evidently mortal.220 Another detail given the
about the conquest of Peru, also absent from Bodin's earlier works, is that t
Peruvians were shocked when the Spaniards, in their search for gold, threw t
bones out of Peruvian tombs (thus, in their opinion, preventing the resurrecti
of the dead).221 The source of these stories is not given; but it was probably t
Historia general de las Indias of Francisco Lopez de Gomara, from which Bodi
information about the conquest of Peru seems mainly to have been derived.22
Another source on which Bodin drew quite heavily (and, in some cases, explic
ly) was Francisco Alvarez's account of the early sixteenth-century Portugue
mission to Ethiopia. The Republique includes at least five pieces of informatio
derived from this work.223 In the Colloquium some of the same information
given, but some other details are also added - for example, the fact (which ha
caught the eye of the 'Judaising' author of the Colloquium) that the Ethiop
Christians practised circumcision.224 Of particular interest is the discussion o
the fasts of the Ethiopians in the Republique and the Colloquium. The former wor
merely states that 'Aluarez reports . . . the incredible fasts and deuotion of t
people of Ethiopia'; the Colloquium, on the other hand, asserts that 'the most
religious . . . spend the day of the fast in water up to their necks to keep th
more alert and drive sleep away . . . Francisco Alvarez writes that the same thi
was customary for Ethiopian Christians, and especially on the sixth day for
expiation.'225 These extra details are indeed drawn from Alvarez's text - thoug
rather typically, two separate statements, about fasting in water and about
venerating Saturday as a holy day (another point of interest to a 'Jiidaiser'), ha
been run together.226
But the Colloquium's familiarity with Bodinian sources is perhaps most
striking where some of the most recondite source-material is concerned. Jak
Guttmann's detailed study of Bodin's Judaic learning shows, for example, tha
219. McRae, pp. 557B, 63iv, 667B, 735C; Bodin, 225. McRae, p. 560H (Rep. 1576, p. 534: 'Aluarez
Response (as in n. 196), p. 64. racompte bien choses plus estranges ... des ieunes
220. Kuntz, p. 336; Noack, p. 256. incroyables, & deuotion du peuple d'Aethiopie');
221. Kuntz, p. 138; Noack, p. 107. Kuntz, pp. 316-17; Noack, p. 242 ('religiosissimi . . .
222. F. Lopez de Gomara, Primera y segunda pane etiam collo tenus in aquis diem jejunii peragunt,
ut accuratius vigilando somnus coerceatur. Idem
de la historia general de las Indias, Saragossa 1553, fols
64r, 69r. Aethiopibus Christianis consuetum esse, Franciscus
223. McRae, pp. 147C, 507A-B, 549E, 560H-I, 597A. Alvaresius scribit, ac potissimum die sexto
224. Kuntz, p. 213; Noack, p. 164. The source of expiationis ...')•
this information (not cited here) is Francisco Alvarez, 226. Alvarez (as in n. 224), fols I2r, I9r (Saturday);
Historia de las cosas de Etiopia, tr. T. de Padilla, I43r"v (fasting in water).
Antwerp 1557, fols 271", I24r.
I44 NOEL MALCOLM
the Talmudic treatise 'Sanhedrin' is ci

Republique and the Colloquium; the
cited in the Demonomanie and the
(both the Guide to the Perplexed an
Men of Marseille') are cited on diff
manie, the Theatrum and the Colloq
someone other than Bodin., it can
mechanical repetition and transcrip
Wootton does, that he was going t
might look like a genuine and orig
being, in this case, extremely high.
Finally, no account of the Colloquium
without some consideration of the w
spondences to, Bodin's printed work
or to which it closely corresponds, ca
Republique (and De republicd), Demo
the description of the 'pantotheca',
multiples of six ('The square num
small boxes. He had chosen the num
all of nature ... in all of nature ther
colours, six simple tastes . . .') corre
his nephew ('the six primary qualities
the six perfect bodies').228 And the
heptaplomeres (which, while referrin
more sacred number seven) may pe
de Rene Herpin pour la Republique d
of the Republique from 1581 onwa
commentary on the Timaeus procla
ary - septenary in its parts, septenar
and refers to a lost work by Marcus
Greeks and Latins' according to C
227. Guttmann (as in n. 150),

corroboration pp.
should consist only 51, 52,
of this rather 53-65.
minor
228. Kuntz, p. 4. Noack, passage about
p. the number
2 ('ex six. quadrato trigin
sex in se ducto conficiebat 229. Jean Bodin,capsulas
Apologie de Rene Herpin1296. pour la Senariu
autem selegerat, quod is numerus ... latissime in Republique de J. Bodin, appended to Rep. 1583, here
universa natura pateret ... in tota natura sex corpora fol. 37V: Tame de ce monde est septenaire, en ses
tantum sint perfecta, sex tantum colores simplices, parties septenaire, en ses proportions septenaire, en
sex sapores simplices...'); Bodin, Selected Writings ses cercles septenaire' ... 'le plus docte de tous les
(as in n. 13), p. 3 ('les six premieres qualites ... les six Grecs & Latins'. One of the words translated here
saveurs ... les six couleurs simples ... les six corps as 'septenaire' was c£7n;d|i£pr|c;'. For the passage cited
parfaits'). Presumably, the theory that the Colloquium here see Proclus, Commentaire sur le Timee, tr. A. J.
was written by someone other than Bodin must Festugiere, 5 vols, Paris 1966-68, m, p. 250 (ill. 203.
entail that that person also wrote this letter, which 2-4). The source of Bodin's information about the
first appeared in a manuscript together with the lost work by Varro was Aulus Gellius, Nodes atticae,
Colloquium. Yet if the writer was thus manufacturing in. 10. 1.
corroborating evidence, it must seem odd that the
Berriot has also claimed that links can be found with several other minor works
by Bodin; those connections, however, seem more tenuous.230
If the Colloquium was written by someone trying to make it look like a
Bodinian composition, that person certainly acted with extraordinary thorough-
ness in extracting passages and themes from such a wide range of published
works. Yet the pattern of borrowing is of interest not only for its range, but also
for some more particular reasons. In the case of the Demonomanie, modern
research has established that out of the thirteen editions published up to 161 6 just
one incorporated significant additions by Bodin: the seventh edition, published
in 1587. 231 David Wootton's comparison between the Colloquium and the Demono-
manie shows that many of the passages drawn on in the Colloquium appear only
in the 1587 edition.232 This is noteworthy, both because the unique nature of the
1587 edition was not widely appreciated (few people would have guessed that all
the later editions reverted to the text published between 1580 and 1586), and
because a recent survey of copies in more than 500 libraries has produced a total
of twenty-four copies of the 1587 edition and 251 of the other editions.233 The
likelihood of a forger lighting on this particular edition by chance thus seems to
stand at less than one in ten. Wootton suggests: 'Since the edition of 1587 was
comparatively rare, and superior to all others, we may suspect him of being a
bibliophile.'234 A simpler hypothesis would be that the author of the Colloquium
knew there was extra material in the 1587 edition because he was its author too.
There is another feature of this evidence that deserves notice. The passages
from the Demonomanie identified by Wootton as sources for the Colloquium
include a disproportionate number of passages that were added in the 1587
edition: out of the forty-four passages he lists, twelve consist, in whole or in part,
of such new material. That is a proportion of more than a quarter, while, as
Wootton notes, the 1587 edition contains only 'approximately 10% of additional
material'.235 It looks as if the things which (in relation to that text) had been
most recently on Bodin's mind were also more likely to be on the mind of the
author of the Colloquium. A strikingly similar pattern emerges when we consider
the material drawn from the Republique. When Bodin turned that work into Latin
(probably in the period 1583-86) he made many small additions and alterations
to sentences as he translated them; frequently, the material in the Colloquium
includes elements contained only in the Latin version.236 Thus, for example, a
reference to the murder of the Emperor Thomas in Constantinople in the French
version merely says that he was 'killed by the people'; the Latin adds that they
killed him cin the church of S. Sophia itself; and the Colloquium repeats that
precise phrase.237 While the Colloquium mainly follows the Latin, however, it does
230. Berriot (as in n. 8), p. 241 n. 26. 234. Wootton, p. 188.

231. R. Crahay et al., Bibliographie critique des 235. Ibid., p. 187.
editions anciennes de Jean Bodin, Gembloux 1992, pp. 236. For the dating of Bodin's work on this trans-
223-56. lation see Quaglioni (as in n. 215), pp. 131, 174.
232. Wootton, pp. 187-88, 205-25. 237. Rep. 1576, p. 397 ('tue par le peuple'); De
233. Crahay et al. (as in n. 231), pp. 223-56. republica, p. 344 ('in ipso Sophiae templo'); Kuntz, p.
146 NOEL MALCOLM
also sometimes incorporate element

manner similar to the cases previously
to assume that the forger was skilfu
drawn from other Bodinian texts). F
Roman Senate banning Bacchanalian
Republique that they were banned 'thr
Latin version, but reappears in the Col
the Colloquium was Bodin, the appar
falls away: he may sometimes have c
turned to out of preference, primar
of his views, but also because it was
he may have repeated from memory t
could easily have slipped in other d
which are supplied to the reader only
interest here is that the Latin version
sections that have no equivalent in t
seems to draw disproportionately on t
7, he added a long discussion of religio
religious belief, and the danger of th
was much worse than superstition).
through parts of books IV and vi of th
passages in the former and two in the
Of course it might be argued th
republica was transferred to the Col
the themes (the need for religious tole
are central to that work. But this is
that grew in importance for Bodin
distinctive in his latest additions to
importance, becoming more distinct
say, the same line continuing upwa
exhibits what could be called a gradi
Bodin are concerned. The material taken from his earliest major work, the
Methodus, is slight and patchy; usually it consists of matter that has also been put
to use in the Republique or the Theatrum.240 This suggests that there was little
154; Noack, p. 119 ('in ipso Sophiae templo'). This 239. The passages are most easily identified using
story, referring to the usurper Thomas, seems to be a the page-numbers and positional letters of McRae's
confused reminiscence of a different story told in edition: pp. 538F (Kuntz, p. 155; Noack, p. 119); 538F
Zonaras's Epitome, xv. 22-23 (see Bodin, Set libri, as (Kuntz, p. 467; Noack, p. 355); 538G-H (Kuntz, p.
in n. 24, 1, p. 451 n.); it is also possible that there has 153; Noack, p. 118); 53 81 (Kuntz, p. 470; Noack, p.
been a scribal confusion between 'Thomas' and 357); 538K (Kuntz, p. 159; Noack, p. 122); 539E
'Phocas' (cf. Kuntz, p. 467; Noack, p. 355). (Kuntz, p. 162; Noack, p. 124).
238. Rep. 1576, p. 396 ('par toute l'ltalie'); De 240. See, for example, the material on the left-right
republica, p. 343; Kuntz, p. 467; Noack, p. 355 ('in alignment of the world, and of human beings: Bodin,
tota Italia'). Method (as in n. 86), pp. 1 17-19; Theatrum, pp. 624-
27; Kuntz, pp. 215-17; Noack, pp. 165-66.
independent consultation of the Methodus: the material that had, in Bodin's mind
been reinforced by repetition was the material in the mind of the author of
Colloquium. Continuing up the gradient, we find that while the Colloquium shows
knowledge of the original version of the Republique, it sticks more closely to
later Latin version, making particular use of matter that was added only at t
stage. The borrowings from the Republique/De republica are also quantitative
greater overall - though seldom longer than a few sentences at a time. With
Demonomanie3 we again find that the Colloquium uses the version that expres
Bodin's final authorial intentions, and we also find that the use made of the
material in the 1587 edition is disproportionately high. The borrowings tend
be more substantial here than in the case of the Republique/De republica. Fina
at the upper end of the scale, we find that the Theatrum (a draft of which was o
Bodin's desk from 1590 onwards) contains the largest quantity of material th
appears in the Colloquium in an almost identical form, and that the correspo
dences to the Paradoxon (the other work that was on Bodin's desk, in this
from the summer of 1591), while on a smaller scale, also tend to be more or
verbatim.
Until a systematic survey of all the borrowings in the Colloquium has been
undertaken, all such descriptions are, admittedly, impressionistic. But the pattern
that seems to emerge here is, it can be said, entirely consistent with the notion
that the Colloquium was one of the last works of Jean Bodin. If we suppose that it
was created by a forger, we must also suppose that that person acted with extra-
ordinary sensitivity and skill when he placed the handling of Bodinian sources
on that gradient of citation. The degree of inwardness with Bodin's thought-
processes is, in any case, remarkably high. Again and again, themes and topics
spring up in the Colloquium which represent the most particular preoccupations
of Jean Bodin: the nature of the 'active intellect', for example, which had been
a special concern of his as early as the 1550s (he referred to his work on it in his
commentary on Oppian), or the murder by Suleiman the Magnificent of his sons
(discussed in the Methodus and the Republique) , or the special importance
attributed to the singing of psalms (the only form of religious worship engaged
in by all the Colloquium^ participants), or, for that matter, the swarming offish -
not the most obvious choice of topic for inclusion in a religious-philosophical
treatise, but one of special interest to Bodin, who discussed it in two of his
published works.241
If, then, the Colloquium was forged, it was produced by someone who had
steeped himself in Bodin's published oeuvre and had gone to unusual lengths to
create the sort of text that might have been produced by Bodin himself. Yet the
241. On the active intellect (a topic also discussedpsalm-singing see C. R. Baxter, 'Jean Bodin's
at great length in the Theatrum) see Bodin's commen- Daemon and his Conversion to Judaism', in Denzer,
tary on Oppian (as in n. 73), fol. 54r; on Suleiman ed. (as in n. 215), pp. 1-21 (6), and Rose (as in n.
(cf. the opening sections of books IV and v of the I43)? P- 58 (citing a minor work by Bodin, Consilium
Colloquium) see Bodin, Method (as in n. 86), pp. 272,
de institutione principis); on the fish see Bodin, Response
286 and McRae, p. 718K; on the significance of (as in n. 196), p. 92, and Theatrum, pp. 85-86.
148 NOEL MALCOLM
forger's task involved much more th

there are Bodinian borrowings and
emphasised that the Colloquium is not a
of new material. Here, we are asked to b
and active intellectual interests of m
DavidWootton puts it, to 'assume the i
answer is that 'in the world of irrelig
author than to hide behind the name of
he cites the example of works publish
Andre Naigeon which were attributed
Boulanger. Bodin 'had an existing rep
a convenient screen behind which a l
Wootton thus sees the Colloquium as a
irreligious work; and he concludes that h
number of other clandestine texts - the T
example - which are similarly effectivel
These claims require some qualificati
'underground' texts of the seventeen
works of Giulio CesareVanini) contain
range of other authors in scissors-and
follow that pattern: its borrowings are f
a very untypical work when placed ag
able example, which Wootton also menti
Pupil attributed to Edward Herbert - w
no scholarly consensus on its origins o
then it was presumably put together
dangerous anti-Christian 'naturalist' h
1620s, when Wootton and Faltenbach
written, Bodin was nothing like a sy
Christian belief; his 'reputation for b
story, which seems to have circulated
from Christianity to Judaism towards t
Bodin's reputation is very mixed: on t
him a highly respected figure throug
acquired critics and enemies in the
eventually to his major works being p
criticisms of him concerned such matt
writers and his defence of a politique
never formally accused of fundamental
242. Wootton, p. 177. Crahay emphasises (p. 168) tha

243. Ibid., pp. 180-81. edict of 1566, only the Sorbonne (not the Holy
244. For this story seeOffice)
Baylehad the power
(as toin maken.formal prohibitions,
25), 1, p. 586.
and that it never
245. See the valuable study by took action
Crahay against Bodin's
(as works.
in n. 25).
when clandestine texts were attributed or linked to famous writers., the pers
so chosen was either a figure of solid respectability (for example, the schol
Johannes Meursius, whose name was given as the 'translator' of Nicolas Chorie
pornographic work Satyra sotadica - either for camouflage purposes, or out
sheer devilment), or a figure of notorious heterodoxy (for example, Spinoza,
whose name the initial version of the Traite des trots imposteurs was attached; or
Hobbes, to whom the clandestine treatise 'La Foi anneantie' was attribute
Bodin fell, awkwardly, half-way between those two positions: during the first th
or four decades after his death, he was too respectable to serve as an iconic an
Christian, but not quite respectable enough to act as a facade of orthodoxy. O
from the mid-seventeenth century onwards, as a consequence of the selecti
reading of the Colloquium by people who approached it with a particular set
concerns (people such as Queen Christina, who hunted for a copy with the sam
eagerness, and the same expectations, as she hunted for the legendary treatise
tribus impostoribus), did Bodin begin to join the pantheon of radical irreligion.246
This, the final qualification, is perhaps the most important. In turning th
Colloquium into a typical (though early) example of the clandestine irreligio
literature of the seventeenth century, Wootton is aligning the work with its sub-
sequent history, but putting it out of alignment with its own essential nature. Fo
the Colloquium does in fact inhabit a mental world deeply at odds with that of th
'libertins erudits', those sophisticated thinkers who boasted of being 'deniaise
(emancipated from silly prejudices) and who regarded most aspects of religion
things to be explained away in terms of human psychology, mere products
ignorance and fear. Notwithstanding the literary conventions of its dialogu
which places statements of belief in the mouths of characters, it is clear that the
Colloquium expresses, overall, an ardent belief in the existence of God, in His
active intervention in the world, in the unquestionable validity of His revelat
(the Hebrew Bible), and in the vital necessity of turning the human soul towar
Him. The passionate demonology of the work is an intrinsic part of that set
religious beliefs: angels and demons are attested to in the Scriptures, and the
activities are further instances - at one remove, so to speak - of God's interve
tion in the world. These are the essential beliefs of the Colloquium^, and they
consistent with everything else that is known about the beliefs of Jean Bodin
the latter part of his life.247 For a simple illustration of the gulf that separat
these beliefs from those of the 'libertins erudits' of the seventeenth century, one
has only to turn to a letter written by Gui Patin to his friend Charles Spon i
1643, in which Patin declared: 'Jean Bodin's Demonomanie des sorciers is utte
worthless. He did not even believe in it himself; he wrote that book only in order
to make people think he believed in it - inasmuch as, given that he had som
246. On Christina's interest in this text see S. 247. The best studies of the religious beliefs of the
Akerman, 'Christina Alexandra's Search for Clan-Colloquium, setting them in the context of Bodin's
destine Manuscripts', in Gawlick and Niewohner, other writings, are Roellenbleck, Offenbarung (as in
eds (as in n. 98), pp. 153-64. n. 120); Baxter (as in n. 241); and Rose (as in n. 143).
150 NOEL MALCOLM
slightly free-thinking opinions, he wa

the Huguenots.5248 In order to enlist
runner in even a minor or partial way
opinions')., it thus seemed necessa
someone from Patin's mental world
irreligious text would, therefore, scar
the demonology (and all the other a
centrally in his work. The 'forgery
writer who chose to hide his own id
one reads the Colloquium, there seems
views of the writer from the views ex
of the 'camouflage' is the nature of th
or even anti-Christian on some key
eucharist), is not, in any proper sen
heptaplomeres is a Bodinian work thro
only Jean Bodin could have written it
are, in the end, no convincing reasons
All Souls College, Oxford
qu'afin
248. Patin (as in n. 47), I, pp. qu'on
303-04 crut qu'il 1643
(16 Nov. y cr
quelques
'La Demonomanie des sorciers deopinions
J. Bodin un
ne peu
vautlib
r
du tout: il n'y croyoit d'atheisme, puisqu'il
point lui meme; il ne favorisa
fit ce li

Jean Bodin and The Authorship of The Colloquium

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Jean Bodin and the Authorship of the "Colloquium Heptaplomeres"

Author(s): Noel Malcolm

Colloquium heptaplomeres attributed to Jean Bodin is one of the strangest

JOURNAL OF THE WARBURG AND COURTAULD INSTITUTES, LXIX, 2OO6

based on a thorough study of th

3. Jean Bodin, Colloquium of inthe

himself has sought to identify incongruities (discrepancies in style and

7. J. Ceard, 'Du Theatre de la nature universelle et son "Colloquium Heptaplomeres" manuscrit

sceptical.10 Georg Guhrauer dis

problem, rather than radical unsuitability for publication) it is impossib

that month, Bodin was denou

Jean Bodin died in the summ

his La Verite des sciences of 1

(R. Lenoble, Mersenne, 36. Ibid., p. 127a (19ou la

the Bibliotheque Nationale de France is a transcript made or commission

to de Mesmes, as it has his coat of a

45. BnF MS lat. 6564; 48. R. for

reported (allegedly) by Naude may have contained an element of embroider

acquired transcript of the C

54. See above, n. 30. when he asserted that de Mesmes's

Fabri [de Peiresc]'.58 Against these arguments it must be observed that t

Descordes to be deceived. What

could in principle be explained away as a later interpolation; but such an

In two cases Faltenbacher has identified anachronistic references to published

In a footnote to this passage., Marion Kuntz identified the work by Philippe de

study, Faltenbacher seems ta

Colloquium, however, has the

Two lesser cases of possible an

alias linguas, Pavia 1539, fols nr, 83V-85V, 2oov.99. For

worship God with praises se

historians of ideas, it did no

specialist, Agnes Bresson, con

would tend to undermine the

129. Theatrum, pp. 213 ('Vnde vero immanesthe illae

evil spirits are essentially idolatrou

The second ofWootton's thre

Furthermore, one would do well to

d'humanisme et Renaissance, d'Agrippa, le plus grand Sorcier qui XXV,

following comment: 'While physicia

Philip Melanchthon tells a rather similar s

In the Colloquium, however, these stor

Philip Melanchthon wrote that while tw

Wootton notes the various changes h

which could have been produced either

Another example given by Ceard

In Ceard's view, however, the m

188. De republica, p. 778. 190. De republica, p. 778 ('argillae & cretae').

the Theatrum it is stated that the seco

Ceard's general claim that the Colloquium engages in a flat repetition of

rehausement et diminution des monnoyes), he incorporated in it virtually the entire

this information is presented (by Cu

King of Hungary.207 In the Demonomanie a very negative account of the ancient

207. Rep. 1576, p. 398; De republican p. 345; Kuntz,

accompanied by hail, thunder and li

the Talmudic treatise 'Sanhedrin' is ci

227. Guttmann (as in n. 150),

230. Berriot (as in n. 8), p. 241 n. 26. 234. Wootton, p. 188.

also sometimes incorporate element

forger's task involved much more th

242. Wootton, p. 177. Crahay emphasises (p. 168) tha

slightly free-thinking opinions, he wa

All Souls College, Oxford

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