Croese, Gerard

, a protestant divine, and author of a “History of the Quakers,” was born at Amsterdam April | 27, 1642. He was partly educated there, but principally at Leyden, where he studied polite literature under Gronovius and Hornius, and divinity under Cocceius and Hoornbek. He then accompanied the son of admiral de Ruyter to Smyrna, and on his return came to England, and had some intention of residing at Norwich, but preferring his own country, he was appointed chaplain to the garrison of Ypres, and pastor of the church of Alblas near Dort, where he died May 10, 1710. His principal work was his “History of the Quakers,” entitled “Historia Quakeriana,” Amst. 1695, 8vo, and translated into English 1696. It does not appear that this history gave much satisfaction to the sect, and it is certainly very inferior to that of Sewell, who furnished him with some materials, of which, according to Sewell, he did not make a judicious use. It was also answered by a quaker at Amsterdam, in a work entitled “DiluciJationes quasdam valde neces$ariae in Gerardi Croesii Hist.” 1696, 8vo. Croese’s other publication, a singular mixture of misapplied learning and fanciful criticism, is entitled “Homerus Hebraeus, sive Historia Hebraeorum ab Homero, Hebraicis hominibus ac sententiis conscripta, in Odyssea et Iliade, exposita et illustrata,” Dort, 1704. Perizonius, and after him Saxms, conceives that nothing can be imagined more foolish than this book, in which probably our readers will agree, when they are told that his object is to prove that the Odyssey contains the history of the Jews in the patriarchal ages, and the Iliad is an account of the siege and capture of Jericho. Croese left also some dissertations. ¹