This book contains 15 essays by philosophers, theologians and historians from the Netherlands, France, Italy, England and the United States on Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), the French Protestant who found refuge in Rotterdam just before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). From the early 1680s onward, Bayle published a series of seminal works, culminating in his Dictionaire historique et critique (1697), that is generally regarded to have served as the "arsenal" of the Enlightenment. Over the last few decades, Bayle has been rediscovered as one of the key authors of the early Enlightenment, but experts have found it extremely difficult to come to any agreement concerning his ultimate position, most notably concerning the relationship between faith and philosophy. In this volume both Bayle's philosophy and his theological views are assessed as well as his impact on the Enlightenment and beyond.

Contributors include: Hubert Bost, Hans Bots, Wiep van Bunge, Justin Champion, Jonathan Israel, Eric Jorink, Lenie van Lieshout, Antony McKenna, Gianni Paganini, Marie-Hélène Quéval, Todd Ryan, Adam Sutcliffe, Rob van der Schoor, Theo Verbeek, and Jan de Vet.