Abstract
Newton’s study of the apocalypse is, arguably, a point of intersection for his apparently diverse interests, be these mathematics or alchemy, astronomy or ancient religions, chronology or bible-study. Indeed the techniques he uses in his investigation of prophecies—the sorting and collation of a vast accumulation of data—is not dissimilar to the way he organises other areas of enquiry, whether scientific, historical or theological. The claim that Newton’s apocalypticism is central to his theology and religious beliefs is nothing new. Through his writings on prophecy, scholars have gauged his anti-Catholicism, his anti-Trinitarianism, his providential view of history.1
And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end... and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
Dan. 12:9–10
The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Rev. 19:10
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References
James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin, Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton’s Theology (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990); Frank E. Manuel, The Religion of Isaac Newton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), chap. 4; Richard H. Popkin, “Newton’s Biblical Theology and his Theological Physics,” in P. B. Scheurer and G. Debrock, eds., Newton’s Scientific and Philosophical Legacy (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988), pp. 81–97; Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988; first published 1980), p. 13. See also S. Hutton, “More, Newton and the Language of Biblical Prophecy” and R.Iliffe, “’Making a Shew’: Apocalyptic Hermeneutics and the Sociology of Christian Idolatry in the Work of Isaac Newton and Henry More”, in James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin, The Books of Nature and Scripture. Recent Essays on Natural Philosophy, Theology,and Biblical Criticism in the Netherlands of Spinoza’s Time and the British Isles of Newton’s Time (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), pp. 39–53, and 54–88. For Newton’s study of history, see Frank E. Manuel, Isaac Newton,Historian (Cambridge, Mass: Yale University Press, 1963).
Cambridge, King’s College Library, Keynes Newton MS 3, fol. 43. Quotations from the Keynes MSS are made by kind permission of the Provost and Fellows of King’s College, Cambridge.
Quoted from 1. Newton, Trattato.sull’ Apocalisse, ed. with Italian translation by M. Mamiani (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1994), p. 4. This work is translated from a manuscript in the possession of the Jewish National Library, Jerusalem: Yahuda Newton MS. 1.1. This and other quotations from the Yahuda MSS are quoted by kind permission of the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem.
Yahuda Newton MS 1.1, fol. 1r., in Mamiani, p. 2.
Isaac Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and St. John (London, 1733), quoted from Sir Isaac Newton’s Daniel and Apocalypse with an Introductory Study of the Nature and the Cause of Unbelief of Miracles and Prophecy (London, 1922), p. 308.
Ibid., p. 306.
Ibid. 8 Ibid.
S. Hutton
Yahuda Newton MS 1, fol. 2v-3r, in Mamiani, pp. 4–6
Yahuda Newton MS 1, fol. 4r, in Mamiani, p.10.
Newton to Locke, 7 February, 1691, in The Correspondence of John Locke, ed. E. S. de Beer, 8 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 4: 197. The references are to Daniel 7:9—“And I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels as burning fire”; Rev. 19:1115—`And I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war./His eyes were as a flame of fire,Chwr(133)/And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of GodChwr(133)/And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod or iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God“; Rev. 12:5—”And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.“
Newton to Locke, 30 June, 1691, in Locke, Correspondence, 4:288.
Dated 14 November 1690, this letter is printed in The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, 7 vols., ed. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall, and Laura Tilling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 3: 83–122. The treatise was not actually published until 1754. On the publication history, see Newton, Correspondence, 3: 123, note 1. This letter is not included in de Beer’s edition of Locke’s correspondence, presumably because the adressee is not named. The content, which links it with the published version, helps identify the recipient as Locke.
Newton writes, “Concerning the Ancient of days Dan.7, there seems to be a mistake in my last letter or in your’s because you wrote in your former letter that the Ancient of Days is Christ, and in my last I either did or should have asked you how you knew that.” Newton to Locke, 30 June, 1691, in Locke, Correspondence, 4: 288.
“And again in Apoc. 1. 11 the words of the son of Man, I am Alpha and Omega the first & the last, have crept erroneously into some few greek MSS out of one of wch Erasmus printed it & into the ArabickChwr(133)God is called ye first & ye last to signify not his eternity but that it is he who sits upon the throne in the beginning and end of the prophesy: wch some not understanding have applied here to Christ to prove his Eternity.” Newton, Correspondence, 3: 140. Turnbull heads this letter, “Newton to a Friend [?John Locke]” and suggests November 1690 as a date. Newton, Correspondence, 3: 140. Again, this letter is not included in the De Beer edition. But, as a follow-up to Newton’s letter of 14 November 1690, it must be addressed to Locke. If these letters are to Locke, the Turnbull (et al.) edition of Newton’s correspondence contains considerably more Newton-Locke correspondence than the De Beer edition of Locke’s correspondence, and shows that bible interpretation was a major subject of discussion between Locke and Newton.
This is preserved in the Lovelace collection of Locke MSS at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Locke MS c.27, fol. 88r, and reproduced by kind permission of the Bodleian Library.
Yahuda MS 8.5. One of these is reproduced in Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 322. The headings refer to Rev. 1:12–14—“And I turned to see the voice that spake with meChwr(133) I sawChwr(133)/one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle/His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire.”
Keynes Newton MS 5.
On Mede, see J. van den Berg, “Continuity within a Changing Context: Henry More’s Millenarianism Seen Against the Background of the Millenarian Concepts of Joseph Mede,” Pietismus und Neuzeit 14 (1988), pp. 185–202; Katherine Firth, The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain, 1530–1640 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979); S. Hutton, “More, Newton, and the Language of Biblical Prophecy”.
See B. W. Ball, A Great Expectation: Eschatological Thought in English Protestanitsm to 1660 (Leiden: Brill, 1975); T. Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse: Sixteenth Century Apocalypticism, Millenarianism and the English Refórmation from John Bale to John Fox (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); P. Christiansson, Reformers and Babylon: English Apocalyptic Visions from the Reformation to the Eve of the Civil War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978); C. Hill, Antichrist in Seventeenth-century England (London: Oxford University Press, 1971.)
See Hutton, “More, Newton and the Language of Biblical Prophecy” for an outline of the differences between Mede and Newton.
Newton, Observations, p. 334.
Yahuda Newton MS 1, p.15
I have argued that the divergent treatments of prophetic language by More and Newton were not “merely ornamental” but indicate fundamental theological differences between the two men. See Hutton, “More, Newton and the Lanuage of Biblical Prophecy.”
Irenicum, Keynes MS 3, fol. 35. Compare Yahuda MS 15.5, fol. 97v: “We must believe that he is the father Almighty, or first author of things by the almighty power of his will, that we may thank and worship him & him alone for our being and for all the blessings of this life.” Quoted in Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 823.
On voluntarism, see F. Oakley, Omnipotence, Covenant, & Order: An excursion in the History of Ideas from Abelard to Leibniz (Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1986); A. Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). On Newton see, James E. Force, “Newton’s God of Dominion: The Unity of Newton’s Theological, Scientific, and Political Thought,” in James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin, Essays on the Context,Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton’s Theology (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), pp. 75–90.
According to More, “all the Orders of the Creation in the whole Universe” derive not from God’s Will and Omnipotence, but from His “infinite Goodness, Wisdome and Power,” Henry More, Divine Dialogues (London, 1668), vol. 2, pp. 24–5.
Yahuda MS 15.3, fol. 46v. Quoted in Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 827.
Yahuda MS 14, fol. 25, as quoted in James E. Force, “Newton’s God of Dominion,” in Force and Popkin, Essays,p. 79.
See Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 820ff. for an account of the Irenicum.
Ibid., fol. 33.
Ibid., fol.14. Cf. Yahuda Newton MS 3, fo1.2, “Introductio. Continens Apocalypseos rationem generalem”: “Voluit igitur Christo, qua mystice loquitur, passiones corporis mystici per passiones membrorum exprimere, figurate accipiendo partem pro toto, ut Rhetoricis mos est.”
Keynes MS 3, fol. 14.
Ibid., fol. 48.
Ibid.
Newton, Observations, p. 308.
Ibid., p. 306 and Yahuda Newton MS I, fol. 3r.
Of the Church, 40r, as quoted by Matt Goldish, “Newton’s Of the Church: Its Contexts and Implications,” pp. 147–66, infra.
Yahuda Newton MS 15.3, fol. 46. Quoted in Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 823–4.
Yahuda Newton MS 1.3, Prop. IV, fol. cr, in Mamiani, p. 110.
Ibid., Prop.I1I, fol.5, in Mamiani, p. 122
Ibid., fol. 4r in Mamiani, p. 120.
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Hutton, S. (1999). The Seven Trumpets and the Seven Vials: Apocalypticism and Christology in Newton’s Theological Writings. In: Force, J.E., Popkin, R.H. (eds) Newton and Religion. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idées, vol 161. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2426-5_8
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