Anton van Dale

Who was Anton van Dale?

Anton van Dale was a Dutch Mennonite preacher, physician and writer on religious subjects, described by the contemporary theologian Jean Le Clerc as an enemy of superstition. He was a critic of witch-hunting.

His De oraculis veterum ethnicorum dissertationes was an influential work on oracles, which he argued against the supernatural and the role of the Devil in the pagan oracular tradition. In this he was followed two decades later by Fontenelle, who wrote his Histoire des oracles as an adaptation and popularized version of van Dale's work.