Ritual , Secrecy , and Civil Society
Comparative Theology and Prisca Theologia
The same turns of phrase , perhaps
stemming from recollections of conversations with Fénelon , can be found in Ramsay ’ s posthumous work , which is often considered to be the most personal expression of his thinking . By now , the influences explicitly cited by Ramsay in his work no longer included Fénelon . He had joined the movement for comparative theology sketched out by James Garden ( brother of George Garden , leader of the small Aberdeen mystic group which Ramsay frequented ) in a polemical oration delivered in Latin at King ’ s College , which from 1702 onwards Poiret placed at the beginning of every new edition of his extensive compilation of mystic theology . However , the best known of these influences 26 were the orientalist Athanasius
Kircher , who tried to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs by comparing them with Chinese characters on the assumption that these earliest examples of human writing must have had a common origin ; 27 and Pierre-Daniel Huet , who attempted to prove in his Demonstratio Evangelica that all the great figures in the various religions and mythologies were in fact projections of Moses , remembered only faintly by the different pagan peoples . 28 Comparatist research like this was clearly the start of a religious controversy , this time centering on the Jesuits . This was the question at the heart of Figurism : was it possible to find , among the pagan heroes , figures or types that corresponded to those that could be found in the revealed religion ? This would suggest a fraternity not only between peoples but also between cultures . On this issue , Ramsay ’ s response was one of the most original .
26 Also Ralph Cudworth and his friend William Warburton . A valuable source on this subject is Pierre Lurbe , “ Les hiéroglyphes selon Warburton ” in L ’ Égypte imaginaire de la Renaissance à Champollion , Colloque en Sorbonne , edited by Chantal Grell ( Paris : Presses de l ’ Université de Paris-Sorbonne , 2001 ), pp . 49-57 . In the same work , see also Jean-Michel Racault , “ L ’ Égypte romanesque au début du xviiie siècle ,” pp . 59-79 , in which the author retraces the sources of the eighteenth century vision of Egypt as it appears in Ramsay ’ s Travels of Cyrus , Terrasson ’ s Life of Sethos , etc . For the influence of the Jesuit milieu on the imagined world of Cyrus , see Bernard Barthet , Science , Histoire et Thématiques ésotériques chez les Jésuites en France ( 1680-1764 ) ( Bordeaux : Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux , 2012 ).
27 Athanasius Kircher , China monumentis illustrata ( Amsterdam : Janssonius van Waesberge , 1667 ). English edition , trans . Charles D . Van Tuyl ( Bloomington , Indiana : Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies , 1987 ). Also by Kircher , Oedipus Aegyptiacus , 3 vols . ( Rome : Mascardi , 1652-1654 ), available in Latin on the Gallica ( BNF ) website . Joseph Spence testifies to the critical distance that Ramsay maintained in relation to Kircher ’ s theses in his Observations , Anecdotes , and Characters of Books and Men Collected from Conversation of Mr . Pope , and Other Eminent Persons of his Time , ed . James M . Osborn ( Oxford : Clarendon Press , 1966 ), anecdotes 1286 and 1287 . Incidentally , Ramsay had told Spence about the hoax that had been perpetrated on Kircher , which had led him to compose a scholarly work on fantastical hieroglyphs on a stone allegedly discovered in Rome .
28 Pierre-Daniel Huet , Demonstratio evangelica , expanded edition ( Amsterdam : Janssonius van Waesberge , 1680 ). See Alphonse Dupront , Pierre-Daniel Huet et l ’ exégèse comparatiste au xviie siècle ( Paris : Leroux , 1930 ).
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