This article examines the controversy surrounding Andreas Hojer, the future professor of natural law, and his youthful work on the non-prohibition of incestuous marriages by divine law that took place in 1719–1720 in Copenhagen. The article discusses manuscript sources from the theological faculty and central government to show how the controversy concerned not just Hojer's allegedly dangerous arguments but also embodied a heated debate about the liberty to discuss such matters in print. The controversy moreover reveals the significant presence of followers of Christian Thomasius in influential positions in Denmark in the decades around 1700. These Thomasians combined natural law with a strong criticism of the authority of orthodox theologians and, arguably the earliest and most radical, arguments for a wide-ranging liberty of thought, libertas philosophandi, in early modern Denmark. This was in turn met by proponents of a more conservative natural law supporting the theological authorities. The article concludes by discussing how Hojer and the controversy surrounding him illustrate the wider significance of Thomasian natural law for the intellectual culture, for freedom of thought, and for religious and legal reform in early eighteenth-century Denmark.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Signe Mellemgaard;
(2021)
“Even in the most insignificant publication, there must be plan and order”: On natural history as a theme and genre in Danish-Norwegian parish topographies of the late eighteenth century
(/isis/citation/CBB495192498/)
Article
Hilde Norrgrén;
(2019)
Hans Egede (1686–1758) and the Alchemical Tradition in Denmark-Norway
(/isis/citation/CBB293570302/)
Article
Brenna, Brita;
(2012)
Natures, Contexts, and Natural History
(/isis/citation/CBB001250231/)
Article
Overskaug, Kristian;
Steffensen, Morten;
(2014)
Communicating Science for 253 Years: The History of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters and Its Museum
(/isis/citation/CBB001421592/)
Article
Brenna, Brita;
(2011)
Clergymen Abiding in the Fields: The Making of the Naturalist Observer in Eighteenth-Century Norwegian Natural History
(/isis/citation/CBB001034612/)
Article
Alm, Torbjørn;
Elvevåg, Brita;
(2013)
Ergotism in Norway. Part 2: The Symptoms and Their Interpretation from the Eighteenth Century Onwards
(/isis/citation/CBB001320326/)
Article
Sundberg, Adam;
(2015)
Claiming the Past: History, Memory, and Innovation Following the Christmas Flood of 1717
(/isis/citation/CBB001422335/)
Article
Ann Thomson;
(2016)
French Eighteenth-Century Materialists and Natural Law
(/isis/citation/CBB914272593/)
Article
Martin Hugh Fitzpatrick;
(2016)
From Natural Law to Natural Rights? Protestant Dissent and Toleration in the Late Eighteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB233484914/)
Article
Christian Maurer;
(2016)
Archibald Campbell and the Committee for Purity of Doctrine on Natural Reason, Natural Religion, and Revelation
(/isis/citation/CBB162756479/)
Article
Olivier Bégin-Caouette;
(2020)
The Perceived Impact of Eight Systemic Factors on Scientific Capital Accumulation
(/isis/citation/CBB340797550/)
Article
Asdal, Kristin;
Gradmann, Christoph;
(2014)
Introduction: Science, Technology, Medicine---and the State: The Science-State Nexus in Scandinavia, 1850--1980
(/isis/citation/CBB001420406/)
Article
May-Brith Ohman Nielsen;
(2023)
Circulating Silence. The Reaction to Rachel Carson’s Book (1962) in Scandinavian Gardening Magazines
(/isis/citation/CBB482620075/)
Book
Sörlin, Sverker;
(2013)
Science, Geopolitics and Culture in the Polar Region: Norden beyond Borders
(/isis/citation/CBB001421143/)
Article
Skålevåg, Svein Atle;
(2006)
The Matter of Forensic Psychiatry: A Historical Enquiry
(/isis/citation/CBB000773950/)
Book
Siegmund-Schultze, Reinhard;
Sørensen, Henrik Kragh;
(2006)
Perspectives on Scandinavian Science in the Early Twentieth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB000775256/)
Article
Suchenko, Ihor;
(2013)
Engineer V. V. Salov on Building and Exploitation of Cheap Railways in the Russian Empire (70th of XIX century)
(/isis/citation/CBB001321264/)
Article
Fink-Jensen, Morten;
(2006)
Medicine, Natural Philosophy, and the Influence of Melanchthon in Reformation Denmark and Norway
(/isis/citation/CBB000830226/)
Article
Johansson, Magnus;
(1999)
Big Blue Gets Beaten
(/isis/citation/CBB000112053/)
Chapter
Myllyntaus, Timo;
(2003)
Discovering Switzerland: Internationalisation among Nordic Students of Technology prior to World War II
(/isis/citation/CBB000330998/)
Be the first to comment!