Conclusion

Abstract

From a twenty-first century perspective, chronology, the interpretation of Biblical prophecy, alchemy and the Temple of Solomon appear to be strange topics for one of the great scientists that history has known to spend his time studying – let alone a great deal of time. Yet these topics were widely studied in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by many of the intellectuals of the day. Newton studied these topics from his early days in Cambridge and clear influences can be seen from, Sanderson, Mede, More, Villalpando, Vossius, Maimonides and many others. Although Newton’s work does reveal these influences, he did not follow any one in particular. He studied the sources closely and questioned them, and this can particularly be seen in the critical comments that Newton wrote in the margins of More’s books and his comments on Villalpando. Keynes considered that Newton was a “Judaic monotheist of the school of Maimonides”⁵⁰⁹; however, although Newton was influenced by Maimonides those influences are not as clear as Keynes suggested nor does that influence stretch very far. This is demonstrated by Newton and Maimonides’ extremely different floor plans of the Temple, among other things. Above all, and throughout his life Newton searched for the truth, and for Newton that truth began and ended with God.