ong those who wish this work destroyed, says he, I am
astonished and grieved to see Vossius. Whence could he have this idea?
I imagine somebody has told him, that it would injure the fortune of his
children if he approved of such books; and that, on the contrary, he
would find favour by hurting me. We must, therefore, have recourse to
Corcellius or Corvinus." He elsewhere complains of the too great
timidity of this old friend[530], who at bottom approved of Grotius's
sentiments, but durst not own them publicly because he was not so
independent as Grotius.

The treatise on Antichrist made much noise among all the declared
enemies of the Romish Church[531]. Michael Gettichius wrote to Ruarus,
that he had only glanced over Grotius's book on Antichrist; but as far
as he could judge by the first reading, that learned man, who was
possessed of such an excellent genius, and such singular erudition, had
no other intention than to engage the Learned in a further enquiry
concerning Antichrist; and to determine them to attack with greater
strength the Romish Antichrist; or, if he wrote seriously, he wanted to
cut out a path for going over, without dishonour, to the Papists. Ruarus
answers this letter, Dec. 16, 1642, from Dantzic. "I have always, he
says, looked on Grotius as a very honest, and at the same time a very
learned man. I am persuaded that love of peace engaged him in this work.
I don't deny but he has gone too far; the love of antiquity perhaps
seduced him: no Remonstrant, that I know of, has as yet answered him;
but he has been confuted by some learned Calvinists, particularly
Desmarets, Minister of Boisleduc, who has written against him with much
bitterness."

Grotius's work was printed in 1640, with this title: _Commentatio ad
loca quaedam Novi Testamenti, quae de Antichristo agunt aut agere
putantur, expendenda, eruditis._

It contains an explanation of the second chapter of the second epistle
of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, in which he undertakes to prove, that
the Man of Sin, there mentioned, is the Emperor Caius Caligula, who
wanted to place his statue in the temple of Jerusalem, as may be seen in
Philo; and was desirous to be thought a God, as Philo and Josephus
relate. He afterwards explains the eighteenth verse of the second
chapter of the first epistle of St. John. _You know that Antichrist is
come, and that there are many Antichrists._ He thinks the Antichrist
already come was Barchochebas, and that the