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Chapter 6 - An Atheist Text by Archibald Pitcairne

Introduction to Pitcairneana.*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2023

Michael Hunter
Michael Hunter
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
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Summary

Chapter 6 provides the background to Archibald Pitcairne’s overtly atheist treatise, Pitcairneana, which is published in full in Chapter 7. It surveys Pitcairne’s career, including his meeting with Isaac Newton in 1692, his medical practice and influence, his passionate Episcopalianism and Jacobitism and his hostility to Presbyterianism, his circle of friends, his library and reading, and his Latin versification. Particular attention is given to his religious views, including the heterodox tract that he circulated in print, Epistola Archimedis, which voiced a deeply subversive view of Christian doctrine, and to Pitcairneana, of which the history of the manuscript and its content is given careful scrutiny.

Keywords

EdinburghScotlandNewton (Isaac)medicineLatin verseEpiscopalianismJacobitismPresbyterianism‘Three Impostors’Berkeley (George)
Type
Chapter
Information
Atheists and Atheism before the Enlightenment
The English and Scottish Experience
 , pp. 123 - 143
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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