Luke Joseph Hooke

Luke Joseph Hooke (* 1716 in Corballis, Donabate ( County Dublin), † April 16, 1796 Saint-Cloud, near Paris ) was an Irish theologian, and librarian at the Bibliothèque Mazarine. He had moved in the late 1720s center of his life in the Paris of the ancien régime.

Life and work

He was one of three children of the English historian Nathaniel Hooke († 1763) and his wife Mary Gore. His siblings were Thomas Hooke a Vicar of Leek, Yorkshire († 1791) and a sister Mary Jane Hooke († 1793). His grandfather was the Judge John Hooke ( 1655-1712 ). Luke Joseph Hooke was about to become a priest with his father, Nathaniel Hooke, to Paris. They were part of the Jacobite diaspora who fled to France in the late 17th and early 18th century. He lived in Paris with his uncle Nathaniel Hooke (1664-1738) a Jacobite and French diplomat and his wife Lady Eleanor McCarthy Reagh (1683-1731) in the rue St Jacques du Haut -Pas. Due to the existing laws, it was not possible to complete a Catholic school education in Ireland and he was sent as a pupil in the St- Nicolas- du- Chardonnet in Paris. There he remained until his licentiate. With his Baccalauréat universitaire then stepped to study in the Sorbonne and received his doctorate in 1736.

In 1742 he was appointed to the chair of theology. Whose tasks it soon, reportedly filled with great success and reputation in the eyes of the students. Hooke was anxious to bring the Newtonian considerations with Catholic beliefs into harmony.

Because of the initial approval of the doctoral thesis of Jean -Martin de Prades he first lost his chair. De Prades had in his extensive dissertation has established a number of theses, which led to a sharp confrontation with representatives of the theological faculty of the University of Paris. Among other things, de Prades had expressed doubts about the temporal sequence of events in the Pentateuch and compared the healing miracles of Jesus with those of the Greek god of healing, Asklepios. Without naming his models to de Prades served long stretches of written by d' Alembert Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné preface to des sciences, des arts et des métiers, the Discours préliminaire, and the Pensées philosophiques by Denis Diderot. With Diderot de Prades was also in personal contact and had several meetings with him to discuss. For the second, published in the January 1752 volume of the Encyclopédie de Prades wrote about a fifteen- page article, the term certainty Certitude.

The article de Prades ' was framed by an introduction and a final word of praise from Denis Diderot. In light of the controversy over his dissertation, theologians expressed now outraged and accused of heresy de Prades. Counter de Prades issued an arrest warrant, he fled to Holland and finally to Berlin. The two already published the first volumes of the Encyclopédie were banned on 7 February 1752 as the outstanding volumes. Chrétien -Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, Oberzensor of Censure royale, grabbed a protective. This led ultimately to the experiment, the appearance of the first two volumes of the Encyclopédie to stop. Because on December 15 stated the Commission dealt with the case of the Paris Faculty of Theology, that the theses expressed in the dissertation and were therefore discard the viva and fall Scripture itself under the censorship laws. Hooke had given his signature when examining the doctoral thesis of de Prades his consent term, that is, the Doktoraldissertation initially completed in compliance. Hooke admitted that he had not read the theses of the promotion and then moved back not only his signature, but even demanded the condemnation of the treatise. Cardinal Pierre Guérin de Tencin suspended on May 3, 1752 due to the existing lettre de cachet Hooke from his chair of theology and forcing him to leave the Sorbonne.

In 1754, was pardoned de Prades by Pope Benedict XIV, whereupon also Hooke turned to also be rehabilitated to the appropriate cardinal and papal secretary. But he could only obtain the recall of the lettre de cachet. The reigning King Louis XV. however, granted him a pension. But in 1762 he was able to resume his teaching career again. He had almost no students who attended his lectures. His teaching was boycotted in favor of a professor employed by the Archbishop of Paris Christophe de Beaumont. In the same year, Hooke was appointed chairman of a committee of his theological faculty used the the order had Rousseau's Émile to judge.

Finally, Hooke gave his theological professorship and took over the chair of Hebrew. Some years later he became curator at the Bibliothèque Mazarine. He retained this position until the year 1791. Later he moved to St. Cloud, where he died.

Works (selection)

• Religionis naturalis principia et revelatæ. Paris ( 1752)
• Lettre à Mgr l' Archevêque de Paris. Paris ( 1763)
• Discours sur l' histoire et Réflexions critiques et le gouvernement de l' ancienne Rome. Paris (1770-1784)
• Mémoires du Maréchal de Berwick. Paris ( 1778)
• Principes sur la nature et l' essence du pouvoir de l' église. Paris ( 1791)