ABSTRACT
Johann Moriaen promptly associated himself with the leading printers in Amsterdam, Willem Jansz Blaeu, Johann Jansson and Lodewijk Elsevier. Moriaen also cultivated contacts with Amsterdam’s substantial Jewish community. Moriaen became involved with all the Christian figures who loomed largest in the plans for the College of Jewish Studies. Through Samuel Hartlib, Moriaen tried to arrange a secret patronage deal with James Ussher, Bishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. Presumably Hartlib had met him in England and suggested he visit Moriaen, for Moriaen expressed his effusive thanks to God and Hartlib in roughly equal proportions. This is characteristic of their providential view of things: Moriaen could, with the utmost seriousness, see the encounter as a clear indication that God was guiding his affairs and also view Hartlib as God’s chosen instrument. In the philosophical terms of the day, Hartlib was a ‘secondary cause’, and amply deserved recognition as such, but the prime mover in all matters was God.
