Claude Saumaise and the ‘Hairy War’ (1640–1650)

Chapter 6 shows that Claude Saumaise, who as a teenager was also coached by Scaliger by means of letters and who had taken his chair two decades after Scaliger’s death, was also his successor in terms of biblical scholarship. Moreover, Saumaise advertised biblical philology in the context of a violent public debate over public conduct: the question whether the apostle Paul thought that men could not wear long hair. In this highly advertised controversy, biblical scholarship spilled over into the vernacular, hit the pulpits, and impacted on street behaviour. The split ran right through the heart of Calvinist orthodoxy, with Jacob Revius siding with Saumaise against Gisbertus Voetius in defence of the Christian liberty of a man’s right to choose.