Ezekiel Foxcroft

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Ezekiel Foxcroft (* 1633 in London ; † 1674 ) was a British theosophist and possibly an alchemist.

Foxcroft, son of the London businessman George Foxcroft, attended Eton College and was a Fellow of King's College , Cambridge (began in 1649, Bachelor's degree 1652/53, Magister Artium 1656, Fellow 1652). For a while he taught mathematics at King's College. He belonged to the circle of the Cambridge Platonists : he was friends with Henry More and nephew of the philosopher Benjamin Whichcote (1609–1683), Provost of King's College. Foxcroft was the first translator into English of the Rosicrucian font Chymische Hochzeit (around 1660, but only published posthumously in 1690 as The Hermetick Romance or the Chemical Wedding ).

1675 is the date of death according to the Alumni Cantabrigienses, according to the Eton College Register he died in 1674. This plays a role in the question of whether he can be identified with a Mr. F. , the Newton 1675 alchemical manuscripts (the Manna manuscript) for copying sent, a thesis that Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs represented, but which was criticized by Karin Figala .

His mother Elizabeth Foxcroft (1600–1679, born Whichcote and sister of Benjamin Whichcote) was a theosophist and alchemist who lived with her friend Anne Conway at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire , while her husband George Foxcroft from 1664 to 1672 as an agent for the East India Company in India was ( Fort St. George ). Like Anne Conway, she was interested in the work of Jakob Böhme . Foxcroft was one of those circles at Ragley Hall. This also included the More student Ralph Cudworth and Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont . More turned to Foxcroft as an expert in chemical matters and as a linguist, for example he invited him to attend his meeting with Franciscus Mercurius von Helmont in Cambridge in 1670.

He was a follower and supporter of the Irish healer Valentine Greatrakes , who also impressed Robert Boyle.

His cousin Mary Whichcote married John Worthington , Masters degree from Jesus College , Cambridge, also a philosopher and friend of Henry More.

literature

  • Paul M. Allen, A Christian Rosenkreutz Anthology, Blauvelt: Rudolf Steiner Publications 1968

References and comments

  1. ^ According to the Eton College Register. It is also given in 1675
  2. ^ Dobbs, The foundation of Newton's Alchemy, 112
  3. ↑ Figala, Review of Dobbs The foundations of Newtons Alchemy , Cambridge UP 1975, in History of Science, Volume 15, 1977, p. 103. Your main criticism is the date of death from the Eton College Register, which is a question of reliability and the date convention used is.
  4. ↑ The Newton biographer Richard Westfall , Never at Rest, p. 288, considers the identification to be plausible, although ultimately not provable.
  5. ↑ To her Sarah Hutton, Dictionary of National Biography 2004
  6. ^ Sarah Hutton, Anne Conway, Cambridge UP 2005, p. 66. After Hutton, she made Anne Conway familiar with Quaker ideas and contemporary apocalyptic ideas at an early age.
  7. ^ Sarah Hutton, Anne Conway, Cambridge UP 2004, p. 119
personal data
SURNAME Foxcroft, Ezekiel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British theosophist
DATE OF BIRTH 1633
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH 1674