Janus Eoganesius Junius ó Tuathaláin (1670 - 1722) [Gen-007]

The Dictionary of National Biography, Vol.XIX, Oxford University Press has seven columns on Janus Julius under the anglicised version of his name - J. Toland. He is also mentioned in many other similar works: Henry Boylan's Dictionary of National Biography (Gill and Macmillan), Everymen's Dictionary of Literary Biography, English and American, by D.C. Browning and Chamber's Biographical Dictionary (edited by William and J. Liddell Geddie.)

He was born on the 30th November, 1670. His place of birth is given as "in Inishowen", '"near Redcastle, Londonderry" and "Eskaheen in the County of Donegal''. He was a native speaker of Irish.

He was reared as a Catholic but turned Protestant at the age of sixteen years. He intended to become a dissenting minister but later abandoned his intention.

A Master of Arts degree was conferred on him in Edinburgh in 1690 and he also attended Leyden and Oxford Universities.

In 1696 he published "Christianity not Mysterious" which caused great controversy and began the conflict between deists and orthodox believers. (ó Tuathaláin was a deist.) By order of the Irish House of Commons the book was burned in Dublin by the common hangman as atheistical and subversive. He paid a brief visit to Ireland in 1697 but had to run out of the country. His subsequent career is obscure: it seems he made a difficult living as a half-recognised political agent and hack author for men in power, notably Harley and Lord Shaftesbury. He visited Hanover and Berlin in 1701 and was again in Berlin in 1707.

In "Amyntor" (1699) he debated the comparative evidence for the canonical and apocryphal Scriptures. The Hanoverian pamphlet "Anglia Libera" secured him the favour of the Princess Sophia when he accompanied the ambassador to Hanover. His later life as a literary adventurer is set down in D'Israeli's "Calamities of Authors".

He wrote a life of Milton in 1698, an "Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover" (1705), "Adeisidaemon" (1709), "Origines Judaicae" (1709), "Nazarenus"(1718) and "Tetradymus" (1720) (in which he discussed various points of ecclesiastical history), "Pantheisticon" (1720) (in which he outlined the principles of a supposed philosophical society of pantheists). He wrote pamphlets in defence of Herley and Marlborough and against Sacheverell and Jacobitism.

In 1714 he published a pamphlet advocating the granting of civil rights to the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland.

Editor's addition, 2025
R. Huddleston, in his 1814 Edition of Toland's History of the Druids (pp. 9 - 50), provides a detailed account of Toland's life and writings, as well as an assessment of his character.

A good - albeit not complete - collection of Toland's writings, including many of the works mentioned above, can be found in the Internet Archive