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Notorious pamphlet against the spirit of the (nineteenth-) century and the Enlightenment

COSTA, Isaac da.
Bezwaren tegen den geest der eeuw.





Derde druk. Leyden, L. Herdingh en Zoon, 1823. Contemporary wrappers. VIII, 98 pp.

Third, page-for-page, exact re-edition of the first edition (also published in 1823) printed with the same publisher Herdingh at Leiden of Isaac da Costa's controversial and notorious pamphlet Bezwaren tegen den Geest der eeuw (Warning against the spirit of this (nineteenth-) century), directed against the followers of, and believers in the Enlightenment, in which he combated the complacent belief of his contemporaries that the nineteenth century was destined to surpass all that had gone before. As a period of decline in faith, morals, toleration, and humanitarianism, he chose rather to call it the age of slavery, unbelief, superstition, and darkness. It made an urgent appeal to all true believers to return to the God of their fathers and to ministers to bring the Gospel of the cross. Da Costa fulminates against 'tolerance' as an excuse for weakness: freedom of the press, for example, gives journals and journalists only the opportunity to manipulate the people. He also is against the abolishment of slavery! Following his conversion from an orthodox Jew to Christian faith in the early '20s, he immediately asserted himself as a champion of orthodoxy and an assailant of latitudinarianism.  
Isaac da Costa (1798-1860) was an Amsterdam poet and historian, pupil of Willem Bilderdijk and member of 'Het Reveil', behaving as a romantic reactionary and Orangist.
The pamphlet kicked up enormous dust clouds because Da Costa had hit the Achilles' heel of the followers of the Enlightenment and sympathizers of the French revolutionary ideas. The response of the Dutch intelligentsia was entirely negative. The courageous young man was avoided, stigmatized as an obscurantist, and for some time the police had to protect his home against the threats of the mob. Nevertheless, Da Costa followed his call to awaken the Christians of the Netherlands, and he gained friends who were influential in the movement of the Reveil (revival). Da Costa thus became the apologist of the old simple faith and orthodoxy.

Good copy.- (Spine sl. dam.).

Related Subjects: 19th Century  Dutch  Poetry  Topical Publication 

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