Lodewijk Meyer

Lodewijk Meyer (baptised 1629, buried 1681) was a Dutch physician, classical scholar, translator, lexicographer and playwright who lived and worked in Amsterdam. He belonged to the radical circle around Baruch Spinoza and is generally regarded as the author of the anonymous Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres, which argued that philosophy is the only reliable standard for interpreting the obscure passages of the Bible. The book was first attributed to Spinoza, stirred anger among preachers and theologians, and was banned by the Court of Holland in 1674 together with Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus; his friend Johannes Bouwmeester may have been co-author. Meyer also wrote the preface to Spinoza's account of Descartes's principles, a dissertation on matter, Dutch plays and a dictionary of foreign and obsolete words.