The Student as Broker: Friedrich Wilhelm Roloff and the Translation of Early Modern Biblical Scholarship

Translation supplied early modern students with a first output for their academic career, while introducing them to the workings of the printing trade. This article shows that through translation students could also become information brokers in the Republic of Letters. I focus on Friedrich Wilhelm Roloff (1714–1741) in Berlin, who translated a single chapter from the Histoire critique de Manichée et de manichéisme (1734) by the Huguenot theologian Isaac de Beausobre (1659–1738). Highlighting the paratexts of Roloff’s publication, I argue that print enabled students to play the role of mediators in theological disputes. Translating Beausobre’s chapter into the material format of a printed dissertation, Roloff dedicated his book to Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten (1706–1757), commemorating Baumgarten’s appointment as professor at Halle. As the translation and its collaborative production formed part of a larger network of Wolffianism, my article reveals that Roloff was made into a broker by accident.