Abstract
Nobody would claim, I think, that the Jewish esoteric tradition known as Kabbalah played more than a minor role in the thought of Sir Issac Newton. Nevertheless, certain claims have been made concerning the impact of Kabbalah on his views, and the recent availability of Newton’s non-scientific manuscripts brings to light the fact that he had some interest in it. It may be instructive for the overall study of Newton’s thought (as well as Christian-Jewish intellectual relations) to examine how he learned about Kabbalah and how he dealt with it in the context of his other theological studies.
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Notes
Serge Hutin, ‘Note sur la création chez trois kabbalistes chrétiens anglais: Robert Fludd, Henry More et Isaac Newton’, Kabbalistes Chrétiens (Paris, 1979), pp. 149–156.
On More’s Kabbalah studies, see: Sarah Hutton (ed.), Henry More (1614–1687) Tercentenary Studies (Dordrecht, 1990), index, “Cabbala.”
That is, whether Newton believed in Zimzum I do not know; but he was definitely familiar with the concept. See note 45 below.
See: James E. Force, ‘Newton’s God of Dominion: The Unity of Newton’s Theological, Scientific, and Political Thought’, in J.E. Force and R.H. Popkin (eds), Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton’s Theology (Dordrecht, 1990), pp. 85–90. It may be that Hutin wants to understand semper in the sense of in aeternum,but as we will shortly see, Newton cannot have meant that.
This passage occurs in the penultimate blessing before the recital of the Shema’,the statement declaring God’s absolute unity, said every day of the year.
See: Force, ‘Newton’s God of Dominion’, pp. 78–90
J.E. McGuire, ‘Space, Infinity and Indivisibility: Newton on the Creation of Matter’, in Zev Bechler (ed), Contemporary Newtonian Research (Dordrecht, 1982), pp. 145–190, especially pp. 146–3 and 173.
See: Frank E. Manuel, The Religion of Isaac Newton (Oxford, 1974), p. 69. Manuel cites Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 108v for this; but the point explained there from which he extrapolates, Newton’s absolute denial of consubstantiality, can be found in dozens of places throughout the various MSS.
Yahuda MS. 15.7 p. 138r.
This is also the conclusion of Manuel. See: The Religion of Isaac Newton,p. 46.
Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of /ssac Newton (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 346–9; idem. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of /ssac Newton (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 346–9; idem, ‘Newton’s Theological Manuscripts’, in Bechler, Comptmmporary Newtonian Research, p. 135; Richard H. Popkin, ‘Newton and Maimonides’, in Ruth Link—Salinger (ed), A Straight Path: Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Culture — Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman (Washington, D.C., 1988), pp. 216–229; Jose Faur, ‘Newton, Maimonides, and Esoteric Knowledge’, Journal of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Winter, 1990 ), pp. 526–538.
This was rather a common practice among scholars since the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, when Hebrew was recognized as the “third classical language,” and biblical studies took on greater importance. It was also done for the purpose of carrying on conversionary polemics, though it’s clear that Newton, who seems to have had no contact with living Jews, did not have this intention. See: Jerome Friedman. The Most Ancient Testimony: Sixteenth-Century Christian—Hebraica in the Age of Renaissance Nostalgia (Athens, Ohio, 1983); Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 8 (Jerusalem, 1971), entry ‘Hebraists, Christian’, columns 9–71; Salo Wittmeyer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Vol. XIII (New York, 1969), pp. 160–167 and notes; Frank Manuel, The Broken Staff: Judaism Through Christian Eyes ( Cambridge, MA, 1992 ). There were a great many English Hebraists in Newton’s day, including some from his own circle.
This according to Manuel, The Religion of Isaac Newton,p. 92 (who does not speak of the specifically Jewish aspects of Newton’s Temple research); Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest. p. 346. Material on the Temple is found in Newton’s published Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (London, 1728), pp. 332–346 and figures following; Babson Institute Library, Wellesley, Mass., MS. #434, Prolegomena ad Lexici Prophetici partem secundam, in quibus agitur De forma Sanctuarii Jucaicichwr(133)Commentarium; Jewish National Library, Jerusalem, Yahuda MS. Var. I. Newton MSS. 2.2, 6, 14.3, 28; and elsewhere. Newton’s ‘Dissertation upon the Sacred Cubit of the Jews and the Cubits of the Several Nations; in which from the Dimensions of the Greatest Pyramid, as taken by Mr. John Greaves, the Antient Cubit of Memphis is Determined’, printed in Thomas Birch (ed.), Miscellaneous Works of John Greaves, Vol. II (London, 1937), pp. 405–33, and his other discussions of the sacred cubit, are also related to the dimensions of the Temple and city discussed in Revelation, as Westfall notes (Never at Rest,p. 348). Richard Popkin adds that Newton was interested in the Temple as a microcosm, and that many Christian millenarians in his day were concerned with the Temple and its worship because they expected its imminent reactivation. See: ‘Some Further Comments on Newton and Maimonides’, in Force and Popkin (eds), Essays on the Context, Nature. and Influence of Issac Newton’s Theology,pp. 2–3. While most of Newton’s calculations conceming the Temple come directly from Scripture, there are certain elements which indicate reference to later Jewish sources as well. See Popkin, ibid.
Newton refers numerous times in the Chronology and throughout his writings to Josephus (whom his student Whiston translated into English), and Philo Judaeus as sources on the history of both the Jews and other nations. It is Richard Westfall who states that “Only one people escaped Newton’s [historiographical] razor: the Israelites, whose written record, the oldest such extant in Newton’s belief, gave their history solidity by which the others’ could be amended.” (Never at Rest,p. 812). Force, Popkin and Westfall explain how Newton’s histories relate to prophecy, as both are intended to demonstrate God’s free will acting in the course of human events. (Force, ‘Newton’s God of Dominion’, p. 81; Richard H. Popkin, ‘Newton as a Bible Scholar’, in Force and Popkin (eds), Essays on the Context. nature. and Influence of Issac Newton’s Theology,p. 112–3; Westfall, Never at Rest,p. 329)
Another example is Newton’s citation of Maimonides’ laws on the Sanctification of the New Month in some draft notes he prepared concerning the rectification of the Julian calendar. See: Yahuda MS. 14E, pp. 1–3. Other material in this manuscript, though not directly cited from Maimonides, clearly came from the same source.
The first volume was published at Sulzbach in 1677, the second at Frankfurt in 1684 (Manuel, The Religion of Isaac Newton,p. 68) Newton did own other books with some kabbalistic content; e.g. Heinrich Comelius Agrippa von Nettesheim’s De occulta, philosophia, tom. III (Cologne, 1533), and Jaques Basnage’s History of the Jews (in both English and French, 1707/8). These had less impact on him. See note 23 below.
The condition of Newton’s copy of Kabbala denudata is described in detail by John B. Harrison, The Library of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1978), p. 171, item 873.
See: Gershom Scholem, Kabhalah (Jerusalem, 1974), pp. 416–9, including bibliography; Allison Coudert, “The Kabbala Denudata: Converting Jews or Seducing Christians?” (Paper delivered at a Clark Library conference on Jewish Christians and Christian Jews, Los Angeles, April 1992); Emst Benz, ‘La Kabbale chretienne en Allemagne, du XVIe au XVIIIe siecle’. Kabbalistes chretiens (Paris, 1979), pp. 103–9. The English translation by S.L. MacGregor Mathers of a large portion of the Kabbala denudata is still republished in our own day, bearing witness to the ongoing popularity of this work.
This can be discemed even from the title page of the second volume, which states that the contents are an “Opus Omnibus genuinae antiquitatus, and sublimiorum Hebraicae gentus dogmatum indacatoribuschwr(133)tempore Christi and Apostolorum usitati, Studiosis, aliisque curiosis utilissimum, and vere Kabbalisticum.”
On him see: Allison Coudert, Francis Mercurius van He/mont (Ph.D dissertation, London University, 1972; now in press).
See: Gershom Scholem, Avraham Cohen Herrera — Ba’al ‘Sha’ar Ha’Shamayim’ (Abraham Cohen Herrera — Author of “The Gate of Heaven”, Jerusalem, 1978); Nissim Yosha, HaParshanut HaPhilosophit shel R. Avraham Cohen Herrera Le’Kahhalat Ha’AR“I (”Abraham Cohen Herrera’s Philosophical Interpretation of Lurianic Kabbalah“; Ph.D dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1991, including English extract).
Kabbala denudata, Vol. 2, table of contents on verso of title page.
Professor Moshe Idel of the Hebrew University has kindly pointed out to me that the very important connection between Kabbalah and Gnosticism, one which would later become important in the thought of Gershom Scholem, was made by H.C. Agrippa von Nettesheim in the early sixteenth century, whence seventeenth and eighteenth century scholars doubtless picked it up. Newton indeed owned one work of Agrippa (see note 16 above), though it is not the one in which the Kabbalah—Gnostic connection is made. Agrippa’s books were widely read, and it is likely that Newton had persused them. See: Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, 1988), pp. 5–6 and notes 36–37 (p. 382). If he did not find the Kabbalah—Gnosticism connection in Agrippa, Newton certainly found it in the discussion of Basnage on Kabbalah, especially pp. 76–7 (English edition, 1708), where the issue of affinity to Gnosticism is dealt with.
See quotation in note 19 above.
Yahuda MS. 15.3, p. 53r; 15.5, p. 97v; 15.7 p. 108v; 15.7 pp. 118, 120r, 127r, 137r — v, 138r — v, 190r; MS. Bodmer, Ch. 4, pp. 1–4.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 137r. (My thanks to the J.N.U.L. and to the Bodmer Foundation, Geneva, for permission to quote the Yahuda and Bodmer MSS.) This passage is quoted in extenso by David Castillejo in his Expanding Force in Newton’s Cosmos (Madrid, 1981), pp. 65–7, where the author is speaking about the structure of Newton’s Of the Church in context of his commentary on the prophecies. See also MS. Bodmer, Ch. 4, pp. 3–4. indicates my interpolations; - indicates pas- sages crossed out by Newton.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 137v.
One of the great advantages of working with drafts and notes rather than a finished product alone, is that one is able to observe how Newton contemplates various ideas and connections, integrating new material as he finds it and modifying his opinions.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 137v; MS. Bodmer, Ch. 4, p. 3.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 138r.
MS. Bodmer, Ch. 4, p. 4. Philo of Alexandria (ca. 20 BCE — ca. 40 CE) was without doubt a “middle” Platonist. Newton’s allusion to a connection between him and the Kabbalah is most striking; this issue is currently under discussion by scholars. See: Harry Austryn Wolfson, “Philo Judaeus,” in idem, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Religion,Vol. I (Cambridge, MA, 1979), pp. 60–70; Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1961), p. 114; R.J.Z. Werblowsky, ‘Philo and the Zohar’, Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. 10 (1959), pp. 25–44, 113–135; Samuel Belkin, ‘Midrah Ha—Ne’elam and its Sources in Early Alexandrian Midrashim’, (Heb.), Sura,Vol. 3 (1958), pp. 25–92; Joshua Finkel. ‘‘The Alexandrian Tradition and the Midrash Ha—N’elam’, Leo Jung Jubilee Volume (New York, 1962), pp. 77–103. My thanks for these references go to my esteemed colleague Dr. Daniel Abrams.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 120r. See also p. 120v, 127r.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 137r.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 138r.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 128r. See also pp. 128v-129r; Bodmer, Ch. 4, p. 5.
Yahuda MS. 15.3, p. 53r.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 110r. See also: MS. Bodmer, Ch. 4, p. 5.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 115r.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 127r.
The latter point is noteworthy, since this symbolism is closely related to various mystico-magical and Neoplatonic traditions with which Newton was familiar, and making these connections would have served his purpose well. For example, Newton owned many books on the Lullian art (see the Harrison catalogue of Newton’s library, #32, 994–1001.) He certainly did not lack the knowledge of Hebrew and mathematics involved, and material was available to him in the Kabbala denudata. David Castillejo demonstrates that Newton did use number symbolism, especially in his discussion of the Temple of Solomon and the Apocalypse, and in the structure of his Opticks. Says Castillejo, “It is likely that this is only the tip of an iceberg revealing the presence of much more complicated meaning, proportion and intent in his work.” (Castillejo, “A Report on the Yahuda Collection of Newton MSS Bequeathed to the Jewish National and University Library at Jerusalem” [typescript located in the Jewish National Library file on the Yahuda Newton papers 1969], p. 8.) In a later work, Castillejo indeed devotes a great deal of effort to proving that a specific symbolism of numbers runs throughout Newton’s writings (Castillejo, Expanding Force,Ch. 6 et passim). This, however, is not kabbalistic number symbolism.
The most glaring of these is found in Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. I23r, where Newton refers to the kabbalists’ “first Sephiroth or Aeon called by them Cochmah the Crown or supreme Sephirothchwr(133)” He obviously menas Kether. This type of slip is rare and does nothing to indicate any lack of understanding, but only of familiarity.
Yahuda MS. 15.2, p. 38r.
Yahuda MS. 15.3 p. 53r; 15.5, p. 88r; 15.7, pp. 109v, I28r, 129r.
Yahuda MS. 15.3, p. 53r.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. I27r. This doctrine, called:irn=um, is better known in the Lubrianic system, but it is indeed spoken of in the Zoharic Idra Rabbah, found in Kabbala denudata. See: S.L. MacGregor Mathers, The Kabbalah Unveiled (New York, 1971 ), p. 114.
Yahuda MS. 15.2, p. 53r: 15.7, p. I27r, et passim.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 108v.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 137v (actually a note to the following page): “Each of the sephiroths they called a man and the first of them they called Adam Kadmon the first man and make him the son of God as Adam is called in Scripturechwr(133)” The mystical identity of Adam and Jesus is a theme which often appears in Christian Kabbalah.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 123r; MS. Bodmer, p. 13v-I4r.
Yahuda MS. 15.3. p. 53r; 15.5, p. 88r; 15.7. p. 129v: MS. Bodmer, p. 14r. In Yahuda p. 109v, Newton goes into a detailed discussion of the first emanation according to different Gnostic schools, who identify it variously as Arche, Ennaea, Nous, and Monagenus and Ialdabaoth.
Yahuda MS. 15.3, p. 53r; 15.7, p. 129r.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 137v.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. I27v. This page and the one preceeding it are dedicated to a detailed parallel of the kabbalistic sephiroth and the Aristotelian heavens. They are also quoted in extenso by Castillejo, Expanding Force,pp. 67–8.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 53r; 15.7, p. 129r.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 137v.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. I29r. The issue of Newton’s parallel between the three uppermost spheres of the later Aristotelians with the three uppermost sephiroth is discussed more below.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 129r-v.
Newton repeatedly stresses the difference between the seven lower sephiroth, collectively called Ze’ir (“Seir”) Anpin, and the upper three, called Arich Anpin. However, the possibility of truncating Arcih Anpin into one sephirah is allowed by some kabbalists, a fact which will shortly be seen to play into Newton’s schema.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 120r. See also I27r.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 127r.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 120v.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. I27r. We see here that Newton believed Kabbalah was born in Aristotle’s age.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, pp. 120r-v, 127r.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. I37r.
He has written that this is the coelum empyreum, but then crossed it out.
This description is based on Yahuda MS. 15.7, pp. 120r and 127r.
Ibid. Newton is somewhat unclear in explaining his understanding of the connection of the various worlds and where the sephiroth/Aeons/Intelligences fit in. See alo, Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 127r; MS. Bodmer, Ch. 4, p. 3.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 137r—v.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. I27v.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. I20v, 137r—v.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. I 20r, quoting from the Kabbala denudata,pp. 116–8.
This particular passage of the Kabbala denudata is discussed by Gershom Scholem, ‘Alchemie and Kabbala’, MGWJ 69 (1925), pp. 96–7.
have not examined Newton’s alchemical papers myself, but in the extensive literature on the subject there is no mention of sephiroth in an alchemical context. See: Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy (Cambridge, 1975); idem, ‘Newton’s Alchemy and his Theory of Matter’, Isis 73 (1982), pp. 511–28; R.S. Westfall, ‘Newton and Alchemy’, in Brian Vickers (ed.), Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 315–335; Piyo M. Rattansi, ‘Newton’s Alchemical Studies’, in A.G. Debus (ed.), Science. Medicine and Society in the Renaissance, Vol. 2 (London, 1972), pp. 167–82; Jan Golinski, ‘The Secret Life of an Alchemist’, in J. Fauvel, R. Flood, M. Shortland and R. Wilson (eds), Let Newton Be.! (Oxford, 1988 ), pp. 146–167.
Yahuda MS. 15.7, p. 127r. See also: 120r—v, where Newton makes a specific reference to the “Chymical Cabbalists.”
Manuel, The Religion of Isaac Newton,p. 75.
As further proof of this, note the following passage: This was in opposition to the heathen Philosophers who coming over to the Christian religion retained their old opinions or invented new ones and endeavoured to spread them in the churches as points of knowledge: whence they were called Gnosticks, and to this head are to be referred all philosophical opinions whether true or false wech were not articles of communion in the Apostles days but have been made articles of communion at any time since by any party what ever. To make it an article of communion that there are or are not Antipodes, that the earth rests or moves about the sun, that there are or are not more worlds that one 〈inhabited〉 that matter is or is not out of nothing, that the souls of men are or are not praexistent, that they are or are not sparks of divine light and would trade not to salvation but to strife faction & schism & therefore would be criminal -a degree of wicked [and might deserve to be accounted a new sort of Gnosticism-chwr(133) (Yahuda MS. 15.5, p. p. 79r) This bears out Manuel’s view quite explicitly. One must note that the particular issues mentioned here, viz., antipodes, other (e.g., parallel!) worlds, heliocentrism, etc., were matters being heatedly debated in Newton’s day, especially in connection with the philosophies of Giordano Bruno and of Leibniz, whereas they had not been particular points of contention in the early Church.
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Goldish, M. (1994). Newton on Kabbalah. In: Force, J.E., Popkin, R.H. (eds) 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. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idées, vol 139. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3249-9_6
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