Joseph Mede

Joseph Mede [Joseph Meade, Joseph Mead.] (1586-1639) was an English scholar with a wide range of interests. He was a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge from 1613. He is now remembered as a biblical scholar [ [http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/brimstone/england.html] , [http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/gatt/bible/catalog.asp?CN=3] ] . He was also a naturalist and Egyptologist. He was a Hebraist, and became Lecturer of Greek. ["Concise Dictionary of National Biography", under Joseph Mead.]

Works

His "Clavis Apocalyptica" [ [http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/13/timelines.php Illustration of a timeline from the work] ] (1627 in Latin, English translation 1643 [ [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/mede/key.html online text] ] , "Key of the Revelation Searched and Demonstrated" [Hugh Trevor-Roper, "Religion, the Reformation & Social Change" (1956) says by the MP Richard More (p. 248); also CDNB, giving constituency Bishop's Castle, death in 1643.] ) was a widely influential work on the interpretation of the "Book of Revelation". It projected the end of the world by 1716: possibly in 1654 [Christopher Hill, "Milton and the English Revolution", p. 33.] .

Christopher Hill considers that Mede deliberately refrained from publication ["A Nation of Change and Novelty" (1990), p. 54.] . Posthumously were published interpretation of the "Book of Daniel" [ [http://reformedlayman.com/Medes%2070%20weeks/Daniels%2070%20Weeks%20-web.htm online text] ] , and "The Apostasy of Latter Times" [ [http://www.reformedlayman.com/MedesApostasy/MedesApostasyCover.htm online text] ] . On demons, he took the position that possession was to be explained as mental illness [ Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), p. 585; Mede, "S. Iohn 10.20. He hath a Devill, and is mad", published posthumously; [http://bibleapologetics.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/article-christianity-and-the-witch-hunt-era-810/] ] . His collected "Works" were published in 1665, editor John Worthington.

Influence

Those following Mede in part as a chronologist and interpreter included Thomas Goodwin, Pierre Jurieu, Aaron Kinne, Isaac Newton. [http://www.historicist.com/trumpet_notes.htm] ["Newton developed a method for the interpretation of prophecy based on the writings of the early seventeenth-century Cambridge divine, Joseph Mede. Mede's views were widely accepted and the scheme that Newton propounded to bring consistency to the unravelling of prophetic symbolism was not in itself controversial." [http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Exhibitions/Footprints_of_the_Lion/duty.pdf PDF] ] . As a critical scholar of the Bible, he started the discussion of the possible multiple authorship of the "Book of Zechariah", subsequently taken up by Richard Kidder (1633-1703) and many others [ [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15741b.htm CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Zacharias ] ] .

Richard Popkin [Pimlico/Columbia "History of Western Philosophy" (1998) p. 334.] attributes Mede's interpretation to countering scepticism, which gave it power to convince others, including the Hartlib circle. John Coffey [ [http://www.emanuel.ro/perichoresis/Perichoresis4.2(2006).pdf PDF] , p. 126.] writes:

"The ecumenist Scotsman John Dury, the German scientist Samuel Hartlib, and the Czech educationalist Comenius had each been profoundly influenced by the millenarianism of Alsted and Mede, and seem to have seriously entertained the idea that London was the centre from which human knowledge and divine rule would spread.

Coffey also says, however, that millenarianism was rare in the 1630s, coming in only later as an important force. William Twisse, of the Westminster Assembly, added a preface to the 1643 "Key to the Revelation", a testimonial to its convincing power [Christopher Hill (1993), "The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution", p.304.] .

Among Mede's pupils at Christ's was Henry More. John Milton studied at Christ's in Mede's time, and is considered to have been influenced by his ideas; but scholars have not found evidence that he was a pupil ["Mede, Milton and More: Christ's College Millenarians" by Sarah Hutton, in Milton and the Ends of Time, edited by Juliet Cummins, ISBN-13: 9780521816656, ISBN-10: 0521816653.] .

References

*Jeffrey K. Jue (2006), "Heaven Upon Earth: Joseph Mede (1586-1638) and the Legacy of Millenarianism"

Notes

ee also

*"Vox Piscis"