Joseph Mede

Joseph Mede , also Joseph Meade or Joseph Mead , (born October 1586 in Berden , Essex , † October 1, 1638 ) was an English scholar (philologist, historian) and theologian.

Life

Joseph Meade went to school in Hoddesdon (Hertfordshire) and Wethersfields (Essex) and studied from 1603 at Christ's College in Cambridge with a Magister Artium degree in 1610. From 1613 to 1618 he was a fellow of his college.

He wrote a book on the Book of Revelation (Clavis Apocalyptica) which was very influential in his day. In it he showed himself to be a millenarian who predicted the end of the world for 1716. Other works were only published posthumously, such as his interpretation of the prophecies of the Book of Daniel .

He also studied science and hieroglyphics. He was a Hebraist and lecturer in Greek.

He believed that demon possession was due to mental illness. His critical approach to interpretation of the Bible was also influential, believing that the Book of Zacharias had multiple authors, which was taken up by Richard Kidder and others. He influenced the theological work of Isaac Newton .

Among his students at Christ's College was the philosopher Henry More (and possibly John Milton , but no evidence was found).

Fonts

• Clavis Apocalyptica. 1627.
  • English translation: Key of the Revelation Searched and Demonstrated. 1643 (with a preface by the theologian William Twisse (1578–1646), who was the speaker of the Westminster Synod ).
• The Apostasy of the latter times. 1641 ( reformedlayman.com ).
• Daniel's Weeks: an interpretation of part of the prophecy of Daniel. London 1643
• Collected Works 1665 (publisher John Worthington )

literature

• Meede, Joseph . In: John Venn , John Archibald Venn (eds.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 1: From the earliest times to 1751 , volume 3 : Kaile-Ryves . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1924, pp. 170 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Bryan W. Ball: Mede, Joseph (1586-1638). In Dictionary of National Biography . 2004.
• Sarah Hutton: Mede, Milton and More: Christ's College Millenarians. In: Juliet Cummins (ed.): Milton and the Ends of Time. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
• Jeffrey K. Jue: Heaven Upon Earth: Joseph Mede (1586-1638) and the Legacy of Millenarianism. In: International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées. Springer 2006.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Reformedlayman.com