SOURCE: "Newton's Theological Views," in Annals of Science, Vol. 22, No. 4, December 1966, pp. 277-94.

[In the following essay, Trengove analyzes the content and scope of Newton's Observations on the Prophesies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John. Trengove goes on to discuss the implications of the theological views expressed in the work, and comments on Newton's anti-Trinitarian beliefs.]

There were three great fields to which Newton gave his mind—mechanics, chemistry, and theology—to each of which he gave almost equally intense study. Besides the Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) and Two Letters from Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Le Clerc (1754),' which were published, there have survived his very extensive theological manuscripts. Professor Andrade estimated there are over 1,300,000 words in these manuscripts.² There are also the passages in the Principia and elsewhere where Newton considered God as a corollary of his system of the world. These passages have received much attention, but it is evident that Newton was not an adept in physico-theological reflection. Voltaire was right in thinking these were 'blindfold writings' (Dictionnaire Philosophique, s.v. 'Newton et Descartes'). For Newton, God was the God of revelation, the Lord of history, not the God of the philosophers, and he believed that 'religion and philosophy are to be held distinct'. Newton's biographers have dealt more or less briefly with his theological studies, but, so far as I am aware, none has treated them intheir historical setting against the background of the theological trends in Newton's day. The biographers have been right, however, in thinking that a complete study of this remarkable personality and unrivalled scientific genius must include a consideration of the theology to which he devoted so much of his time and in which he displayed such astonishing learning. The present paper is derived from a much larger study I am making of Newton's theology. I am aware that the subject may not appeal to some historians of science. I have nevertheless submitted this Newtonian study for publication in a periodical concerned with the history of science in the belief that there are many historians who would wish to be better informed on this aspect of the mind of one who still remains the greatest figure in the whole history of science. For this reason I am very grateful to the editors of this journal for accepting my view on this matter and agreeing to publish this paper, in which I am mainly concerned with Newton's Observations on the Prophecies, a work certainly under way soon after the Principia was completed, if not before.³

In Newton's day prophecy and miracles were regarded as the two great pillars of religion,⁴ but most people held that miracles had ceased since Apostolic times. The predictions of prophecy on the other hand were still being fulfilled, a continued witness to Christianity. In the Observations Newton showed how predictions of Daniel and the Apocalypse had been fulfilled in history. That prophecies of Scripture were fulfilled in history, and continued to be fulfilled, was regarded as a fact in his day and there was nothing mystical about it. There is nothing in Newton's writings to support the view that he was a mystic. In fact, what strikes one, apart from his manifest sincerity, is the lack of any sign of mystic experience, or for that matter, of any religious experience at all. To use the word 'mysticism' nowadays is to invite misunderstanding, but Newton was not even a mystic in the sense of being interested in those devices by means of which men have tried to achieve the mystical experience, such as rituals, creative powers of the letters of the alphabet, and, not least, the power of numbers.

Newton, in the introductory chapter to the Observations, dealt with the compilers of the books of the Old Testament. At first sight this seems out of place, but we find that it leads up to the importance of the prophecies of Daniel, who, Newton believed, was the most precise and plainest of the old prophets, and so must be made the key to the rest 'in those things which relate to the last times'.⁵ It has been asserted that Newton's conclusions in this chapter are not so far from the conclusions of modern scholarship,⁶ but actually his treatment is not so much that of a modern critic, as that of the Jewish commentator. This is not surprising, because, before the rise of modern literary and historical criticism, the work of the old Jewish scholars had not been superseded, and, after all, the Old Testament books were Jewish. Most of the points dealt with by Newton had been raised before, something that Young, for example, 'thought it not improper to warn his unlearned Reader of, lest he should take what Sir Isaac had said, from the manner of treating his subject, without any one's having considered the same things before him for a new and important Discovery.¹⁷ The difference was that, unlike such writers as Patrick and Prideaux who had considered these things, Newton usually came down on what might be called the more liberal side.

Newton regarded the books of the Old Testament as having been compiled at various times from books already in existence, the two great compilers being Samuel and Ezra. He thought that Samuel compiled the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges, and probably his own book up to the record of his death—quite a lot for one man to do. Newton was the first to assert that Samuel wrote thePentateuch, though Barrington had ascribed part of it to him.' He was by no means the first to doubt the Mosaic authorship. Spinoza was probably right in thinking that Ibn Ezra in the twelfth century was the first to put forward reasons for doubting that Moses wrote the Pentateuch,⁹ but it was not until the seventeenth century that these doubts were openly expressed and discussed. To Spinoza himself it was clearer than the sun at noonday that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses but by someone who lived long after him. Hobbes, too, thought it sufficiently evident that the Pentateuch was written after the time of Moses, although he maintained that Moses had written all that he is said to have written, in particular the law itself.'" Richard Simon also held that Moses had written the Mosaic law."

Newton believed that the historical part of the Pentateuch was compiled from several sources such as the History of Creation by Moses (Genesis 2: 4) and the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21: 14). Hobbes had already noted the latter as an example of a more ancient book cited by the writer of the Pentateuch, and, when dealing with Kings and Chronicles had said: 'The facts registered were always more ancient than the register; and much more ancient than such books as make mention of, and quote the register; as these books do in divers places, referring the reader to the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, to the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel…,¹¹² Since our Book of Chronicles deals with the Kings of Judah only, Newton thought that the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel was lost—at the time when Antiochus Epiphanes ordered the sacred books of the Jews to be burnt. Afterwards Judas Maccabaeus gathered together all the writings that could be found and reduced them to order. It was at this time that certain dislocations in the text occurred.

In putting forward such conjectures Newton was, however, ahead of his time, and these views were rejected by the orthodox. Arthur Young wrote: 'I wish the inferences which Sir Isaac Newton has made in his first chapter, from the Interpolations in the Books of Moses, and what he has asserted of the Sacred Writings having been lost, were not more prejudicial to Christianity—If these things were to be granted, the Hebrew Bible would no longer be of any Authority."¹³

Newton's division of the Book of Daniel into Chapters 7-12 (prophecies, written by Daniel himself) and 1-6 (a collection of historical papers written by others) has been accepted down to modern times.¹⁴ However, Spinoza had already maintained that Chapters 8-12 contained the undoubted writings of Daniel. His division was on the basis of language, the first seven chapters having been 'written in Chaldean'.¹⁵

For Newton, 'amongst the old prophets, Daniel is most distinct in order of time, and easiest to be understood: and therefore for those things which relate to the last times, he must be made the key to the rest': 'To reject his prophecies is to reject the Christian religion'." Richard Amner was not far wrong when he said that for the great Isaac Newton the prophecies of Daniel were a sacred calendar, a prophetic chronology.¹⁷

After the introductory chapter on the compilers of the books of the Old Testament, Newton turned to the language of prophecy, which he believed to be as definite in meaning as the language of any nation. 'The curse of Babel', the nature of language, and the possibility of devising a universal language were, of course, subjects of great interest in the seventeenth century. Newton never completed the universal language he once embarked upon, but his explanation of the language ofprophecy was more complete than any that had appeared before and, one may say with confidence, more complete than any that came after. As Whiston said: 'If it could be as readily proved, as it is here distinctly set down [it] would be truly estimable."¹⁸

Newton's idea of such a language was not new. Mede had already worked out the principles of prophetic language in his Clavis Apocalyptica (Cambridge, 1627), and there was some general agreement on the subject. For Newton as for Mede, 'the language [of prophecy] is taken from the analogy between the world natural, and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic', and also, 'sacred prophecy … regards not single persons'.¹⁹ But Newton aimed at giving a complete language of prophecy. Like most writers of his time, he thought the Bible was consistent from end to end, and, if a prophetic symbol could be seen to be used in a certain way in one part, one could be sure that it would be used in the same way in any part. As might be expected, the very completeness of Newton's work made the inadequacy of any such system at all the more evident. He had no occasion himself to use the greater part of it, and it was subsequently set aside. On the other hand, the belief of Mede and of Newton that the key to interpretation of prophetic symbols was to be sought in an understanding of hieroglyphics and primitive symbols in general was influential in the eighteenth century.²⁰ Newton did not say very much about this, although a passage in 'The Language of the Prophets' (k.ms.5) shows that he was in general agreement with this line of thought. Also influential in the eighteenth century was Newton's emphasis on the importance of Jewish history (with all the religious customs and rituals) as a fresh source of symbols.

Newton employed his knowledge of Jewish customs and rituals in his exposition of the Apocalypse, and no one before him had used such knowledge to greater advantage. His main source of information on Jewish law was the first Protestant rabbinical scholar, Johannes Buxtorf (1564-1629),²¹ but his knowledge was not derived from any one writer. Further, although Newton's exposition was open to criticism in several places, subsequent work on the Apocalypse might have been done better if more attention had been paid to Newton, especially to his emphasis on the importance of the Feast of Tabernacles.²²

Newton, in common with other seventeenth-century writers on apocalyptic, adopted the year-day theory. This theory may be stated briefly as follows. In symbolic prophecy (prophecy like that of Daniel and Revelation, which makes extensive use of symbols) a day is to be taken as meaning a year. Newton did not consider it necessary to give reasons for this, but merely stated: 'Daniel's days are years'.²³

John Napier (the inventor of logarithms) had identified the 'time, times and half a time' of Revelation 12: 14 with the 1,260 days of Daniel and Revelation, and said that they were really 1,260 years.²⁴ These were the years of Antichrist's reign over Christians, which Napier associated with papal domination. This interpretation was adopted by Mede in his Clavis Apocalyptica and by Newton. Though they each suggested different dates for the beginning of the 1,260 years, it was generally felt that events of apocalyptic significance were taking place in the seventeenth century or would take place in the not too distant future. That seventeenth-century divines should thus be able to understand prophecies the true interpretation of which had eluded all previous scholars would not have given rise to any misgivings in those days, for these men believed themselves to be looking back beyond the cloud of errors of the Roman Church to the uncorrupted primitive church, much asthe men of the Renaissance looked beyond the mists of the Dark Ages to the clear light of the ancient world. Moreover, as Bishop Andrewes pointed out at the beginning of the century, even the early Fathers of the Church, although more gifted and holier, did not know so much about prophecy as writers of his day, for these were seeing prophecy fulfilled before their very eyes—and every prophecy is an enigma until it is fulfilled.²⁵ It is only when it has been fulfilled and you have seen how it has come to pass that you understand it. Newton fully agreed, and said: 'The folly of interpreters hath been to foretell times and things by this prophecy, as if God designed to make them prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought this prophecy also into contempt'.

Newton helped to establish this attitude to prophecy, and his assertion that the end of prophecy is not to make us prophets was much quoted later on—often, it must be admitted, by people who wanted to discount someone else's interpretation of a particular prophecy.

It is true that Newton did not confine himself to such prophecies as he considered to have already been fulfilled. Thus in dealing with the prophecy of Daniel 8 that after 2,300 days the sanctuary would be cleansed, he said that these 2,300 years may be perhaps reckoned from (1) the destruction of the temple by the Romans in the reign of Vespasian, or (2) the pollution of the sanctuary by the worship of Jupiter Olympius, or (3) the desolation of Judea made at the end of the Jewish war by the banishment of all Jews out of their own country, or (4) from some other period which time will discover.26 Newton, therefore, expected the fulfilment of this prophecy to take place in A. D. 2132, 2370, 2436—or, of course, some other date. Some others of this school of interpretation were less cautious. For example, William Miller, from whose movement arose the Seventh Day Adventists, assumed that the 2,300 days of Daniel 8 began at the same time as the 490 days of Daniel 9. He dated this from the decree allowing Ezra to go back to Jerusalem 457 B. C. (Ussher's date). In this way he arrived at A. D. 1843 as the date of the cleansing of the sanctuary, and also, he thought, the time of the second coming of Christ. Miller is supposed to have worked out his calculations using only Bible and concordance, but the fact that he was in the same tradition of apocalyptic interpretation as Newton was recognized even in his own day. George Bush, Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature in New York University, said in a letter published in the Advent Herald for March, 1844:

In taking a day as the prophetical term for a year I believe you are sustained by the soundest exegesis, as well as fortified by the high names of Mede, Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, Kirby, Scott, Keith, and a host of others who have long since come to substantially your conclusions on this head. They all agree that the leading periods mentioned by Daniel and John do actually expire about the age of the world, and it would be strange logic that would convict you of heresy.²⁷

After the day of 'The Great Disappointment', some of Miller's followers believed that Miller had been right in his calculations, but wrong in supposing that Christ was to come to earth to cleanse the sanctuary in 1843. They supposed that what had happened was that Christ had then entered the second apartment of the heavenly sanctuary and that this had been invisible to mortals. Newton believed that Christ would be invisible to mortals when he first returned.

After the publication of Newton's Observations the first event that was thought to have importantapocalyptic significance was the French Revolution. The 1260 days prophecy of Daniel and Revelation was thought to refer to the fate of papal domination and the appearance of Antichrist. The French Revolution seemed to mark the beginning of the end of papal domination, and Antichrist in the French Convention was the title of an anonymous pamphlet published at the time. By adjusting the terminus a quo, it was easy to arrive at the correct date. Thus, reckoning from A. D. 533, the date of Justinian's decree conferring on the Bishop of Rome universal oversight of the Christian Church, we come after 1260 years to 1793 and the Reign of Terror. This 'fulfilment of prophecy' had a great influence on Edward Irving, the originator of the Catholic Apostolic Church, and it has been thought significant that the 1831 edition of Newton's Observations was dedicated to Henry Drummond, one of the founders of that church.²⁸

Ironically enough, it was the rise of Newtonianism more than anything else that led to the general rejection of this kind of apocalyptic interpretation. It has not, however, been entirely abandoned even now. For example, the year-day theory is used in the teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses.²⁹

One of the chief subjects of discussion concerning the book of Daniel has been the identity of the four kingdoms represented by the image of gold, silver, bronze, and iron of Ch. 2, and also by the four beasts, the lion, the bear, the leopard, and the terrible beast with iron teeth of Ch. 7. Especially has speculation centred around the identity of the fourth kingdom. Newton said that 'in this vision of the image composed of four metals the foundation of all Daniel's prophecies is laid. It represents a body of four great nations, which should reign over the earth successively, viz. the people of Babylonia, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans …'. Newton held that the Babylonian and Median empires were contemporary.³⁰ 'In the next vision [Dan. 7] which is of the Four Beasts, the prophecy of the four empires is repeated, with several new additions'.³¹ The Greek Empire referred to is the empire of Alexander the Great. The Roman Empire dates from Caesar Augustus.

Like Mede, Newton believed that these four empires were the empires of which God's people were subjects, and that the fourth empire, the Roman, was still in existence, continuing in the ten nations into which it was supposed to have been divided. In taking the fourth beast to be the Roman Empire, Newton was in line with nearly all writers on the subject until modern times; Luther in his preface to the Book of Daniel had said that 'all the world is unanimous' in this interpretation. Newton was unique, however, in holding that not only the Roman Empire, but also he other three empires still existed—in the nations that had taken their place geographically.³²

It is when Newton considered the meaning of the ten horns of the fourth beast that we see him especially in his role of historian. Dr. Twiss, in his preface to the English translation of Mede's Clavis Apocalyptica, had pointed out that, after the prophetic terms had been interpreted, great skill in history was also required in order to apply the prophecy, and he added: 'I have found that Master Mede's friends, who have been acquainted with the course of his studies, would give him the bell for this as herein out-stripping all others'." Mede was, however, to be surpassed by Newton in this respect. Indeed, Elliott, in his learned Horae Apocalypticae bracketed Newton and Gibbon as authorities on this history of the ten kingdoms that arose after the break-up of the Roman Empire.³⁴ There were no text-books available to Newton to provide him with an easy entry into the subject, yet he was quite at home with his sources, particularly the massive Historia De Regno Italiae of Sigonius.³⁵ True, he did not question the accuracy of his sources very much, but the techniquesrequired for this had not been developed in his day.

Of course, Newton's list of the ten kingdoms is just one among many others put forward before and after his time. Such lists had been forthcoming since the ninth century when Berengaud referred to Jerome,³⁶ and explained that the ten horns were the kingdoms that had already destroyed the Roman imperium. As Maitland justly remarked, if the number mentioned by Daniel had been nine or eleven, the right number would still have been found among the petty kingdoms.³⁷

Tyso certainly showed this when he gave a table of twenty-nine different lists of the ten kingdoms that had been suggested at various times by various writers, containing no less than sixty-five different entries.³⁸ Newton's list of the Kingdoms into which the Roman Empire became divided after the attacks of the barbarians is as follows: the kingdoms of (1) Vandals and Alans in Spain and Africa, (2) Suevians in Spain, (3) Visigoths, (4) Alans in Gallia, (5) Burgundians, (6) Franks, (7) Britains, (8) Hunns, (9) Lombards, (10) Ravenna.³⁹ There was nothing unusual about Newton's list. What was unusual was the great learning with which he dealt with the history of these Kingdoms in the long chapter 6 of the Observations.

Newton dealt also with the vision of the rough goat of Dan. 8, whose horn was broken, and in place of which four others arose. He gave what would still be regarded as the most likely interpretation, taking the four horns to be the four kingdoms of the Diadochi—the kingdoms of Cassander (Macedonia), Lysimachus (Thrace and Asia Minor), Antigonus (Syria), and Ptolemy (Egypt). He recounted the history of the Greek Empire after the death of Alexander the Great, and was well aware that the empire was not simply divided into four. He said: 'the monarchy of the Greeks for want of an heir was broken into several kingdoms, four of which seated to the four winds of heaven, were very eminent. 40 Newton's treatment here is superior to that of most of those commentators before and after him who attempted to make the history fit this prophecy. Indeed, as J. H. Todd remarked in the nineteenth century, the discrepancies and deficiencies of the original historians made it less difficult for commentators to shape their history to their peculiar interpretations of this prophecy, something which Bishop Newton, he claimed, confessed with amusing simplicity when he wrote: 'The prophecy is really more perfect than any history. No historian hath related so many circumstances, and in such exact order as the prophet hath foretold them.⁴¹

On the other hand, Newton's insistence that a symbol like a horn never referred to a single person in prophecy led him astray when he dealt with the little horn that came forth from one of these four horns of the goat. He knew that this little horn was usually taken to be Antiochus Epiphanes,⁴² and he was well aware of the reasons for this choice. Nevertheless, he insisted that a horn always stood for a kingdom,⁴³ and he argued that this horn was Macedonia, and traced the history of that kingdom from the defeat of Perseus, king of Macedonia, by the Romans in 168 B. C., to its domination by the Turks in Newton's own day.⁴⁴ No subsequent commentator adopted this exegesis.

Newton devoted two chapters to the two difficult verses, Dan. 11: 37, 38. The points at issue were the meanings of the phrase 'the desire of women' and of (a] Hebrew word.… Calvin, in the best commentary to come out in Reformation times, said that commentators were all over the place when dealing with these verses.⁴⁶ In the next century, however, Mede put forward the idea that 'the desire of women' meant the desire of wives or the married state, and that Mauzzims (which literally means'strongholds') were the saints and angels in whom the Roman Church trusted for protection. The king here described would thus be opposed to marriage, and on the other hand would honour the Mauzzims.⁴⁷

Newton interpreted these verses as referring to the rise of celibacy and to the worship of saints and relics in the Roman Church. It is perhaps a little surprising that Newton should have devoted a whole chapter to the condemnation of celibacy,⁴⁸ but celibacy was one of the most debated subjects among Protestants after the Reformation. One of the reasons for the rise of sacerdotal celibacy in the first place had doubtless been the Christian reaction against the moral laxity of the pagan world. Protestants did not want to appear more indulgent to the flesh than Catholics, but they would not enforce celibacy, believing it to be unnatural. Newton gives a remarkably good account of the use of celibacy.

Newton next turned to the growth of saint-worship in the Roman Church, and speaking of the festivals of the saints and martyrs said: 'By the pleasures of these festivals the Christians increased much in number, and decreased as much in virtue.¹⁴⁹ Newton's ironic humour, although evident only occasionally, reminds us of Gibbon. His history of the worship of relics is accurate, although it provoked much opposition. Zachary Grey wrote a book of one hundred and fifty pages devoted entirely to refuting this one chapter on the Mahuzzims.⁵⁰ Arthur Young, the father of the famous agriculturist, wrote against it, adding: 'I should not have said anything against in Opposition to the Opinion of this great man, if the emissaries of Rome had not been so very busy at this time in making Converts, that we ought not to allow any of her corruptions an earlier date than in truth belongs to them.¹⁵' He thought, incorrectly, that Newton had put the origins of the worship of relics too early.

This particular part of Newton's Observations was praised, however, by William Whiston, although he was quite critical of the rest of it. Whiston's generally critical attitude might have been due in some measure to the difficulty of succeeding Newton as Lucasian Professor at Cambridge. His approval of the part most people criticized is easy to explain. Grey had pointed out that Newton here put much of the blame on the Athanasians 'to disparage the Orthodox in a covert way'—and Grey was right; this is where Newton's unorthodoxy is revealed in the Observations, and why the Arian Whiston praised this section.⁵² As is well-known, Newton's belief with regard to the Trinity was not orthodox. This was not because he followed Arius, Socinus, or anyone else, and still less because he thought it was 'unscientific'. The Reformation had been followed by a period in which creeds and theological systems multiplied, as did disagreements and condemnations. In England there had been civil war. Newton and others thought that the Apostles' Creed was sufficient, a view which, as a matter of fact, had been condemned as heresy in the consensus repetitus fidei vere Lutheranae of Wittemberg in 1655. Newton considered himself a loyal member of the Church of England, and he held (as the sixth article of religion puts it) that all things necessary to salvation were to be found in Scripture, and anything that could not be clearly proved from Scripture was not required of anyone as an article of faith. He could not prove the doctrine of the Trinity from Scripture. There were, indeed, texts that the orthodox used as proofs, but in 'An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture' he had shown that one of the most well-known of these (1 John, 5: 7) was a corruption, and he showed also for the first time that I Tim. 3: 16 was a corruption by using a historical technique well-developed in his day. Further, while the orthodox in Newton's day andsince have for the most part thought that the whole question had been decided once for all in the fourth century, Newton realized that the history of the period might not have been so simple as is usually supposed. After all, of the sources available for the Arian controversy, the writings of Athanasius himself, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret might be expected to favour the Athanasians. It seemed to Newton that Athanasius was a ringleader in introducing unscriptural beliefs and practices into the Church, and was not above spreading lies to suit his purpose. While it is true that Athanasius does seem to have been one of those people who are to be read and not met, yet Newton certainly failed to appreciate his great ability. Thus, when he mentioned the classic De Incarnatione Verbi, he merely said: 'It relates to the Nestorian Heresy, and so was written by a much later writer than Athanasius.¹⁵³ At the same time, whatever the Christology, if Newton found it in Scripture, he accepted it. Thus, speaking of worship of the beasts and elders in Rev. 7, he said that this was the worship of the primitive Church, the worship of God and the Lamb, worship of God for creating all things, and of the Lamb for redeeming us by his blood.⁵⁴

Newton, in his eleventh chapter, put forward a chronology of Christ's ministry which amounted to a short harmony of the gospels. The usual form of the harmony at this time was a continuous narrative of Christ's life made up from the four evangelists and this was more or less what Newton did. It was later in the eighteenth century that the emphasis was placed on arranging the gospels in four columns for comparison.

Chronology was one of Newton's great interests, and there is no lack of originality in this section. He first noted that the dates of the Christian festivals did not come from the earliest times, but the days were fixed in the Christian calendar by mathematicians. For example, the annunciation of the Virgin Mary was kept on 25 March, the vernal equinox; the feast of John the Baptist on 24 June, the summer solstice; the feast of St. Michael on 29 September, the autumnal equinox; and the birth of Christ on 25 December, the winter solstice. Whiston said: 'This Observation I well remember I heard him [Newton] make about 22 years ago, and it is a very curious and very certain Observation,¹⁵⁵—and, it may be added, one that has been accepted since.

Newton believed that for settling the dates⁵⁶ of Christ's life 'there was nothing in tradition worth considering' and it was best to begin the investigation afresh. He held that the evangelists who were eye-witnesses, Matthew and John, unlike Mark and Luke, record the events in chronological order, and also that 'John is more distinct in the beginning and end; Matthew in the Middle: what either omits, the other supplies',⁵⁷—a happier solution of the problem than any we have today! He maintained that we have 'in the gospels of Matthew and John compared together, the history of Christ's actions in continual order during five passovers'.⁵⁸ Most writers before Newton had reckoned that Christ's ministry lasted through four passovers. Since then there have been various estimates, but it is doubtful if anyone has followed Newton in this respect. In fact Philip Doddridge criticized Newton's scheme soon after in a kindly but very competent way.⁵⁹ It is not difficult to criticize some of Newton's arguments, but discussions of the chronology of Christ's ministry have always proceeded on somewhat similar lines.

Newton began the section on the Apocalypse by considering when it was written. It was written during persecution, and the two candidates for the role of persecuting emperor in the first century were Nero and Domitian. Like others who have favoured a date in Nero's time, Newton had to dealwith the testimony of Irenaus (Adv. Haer, ch. 5) quoted by Eusebius (H.E., iii, 18), 'For it [the Apocalypse presumably as τνvv Aπoκαφιv comes in the clause immediately preceding] was seen not a long time ago, but almost in our generation, towards the end of the reign of Domitian.' He suggested that John put out two editions of the Apocalypse, and that it was the second edition that came out in Domitian's reign. Newton even succeeded in turning the well-known story of St. John and the highwayman⁶⁰ into support for his thesis that the Apocalypse was written in Nero's time. Further, in spite of the fact that the earliest authorities were practically unanimous in their testimony to a date in Domitian's reign, he managed to find a few ancient writers to support his view, a proof of his great learning rather than of what he was trying to prove. Nevertheless, subsequent commentators⁶¹ had to deal with the testimony of these writers if only to show that their testimony could not be accepted. Newton also considered the style of the Apocalypse, remarking that it contained more Hebraisms than John's Gospel, inferring from this that 'it was writ when John was newly come out of Judea, where he had been used to the Syriac tongue; and that he did not write his Gospel till by long converse with the Asiatick Greeks he had left off most of the Hebraisms.¹⁶² Whiston criticized this novel suggestion of Newton's. He said: 'That the Apocalypse is fuller of Hebraisms than John 's Gospel I never heard before. Nor does Dionysius of Alexandria, here I suppose relied on by Sir Isaac Newton, say any such Thing; but only that it has several Solcecisms or Expressions different from the Purity of the Greek Tongue; as has the Gospel also.¹⁶³ Yet Dionysius, who should have known since he was talking about his own language, said that the author of the Fourth Gospel wrote Greek impeccably.… What is noticeable in this chapter again is Newton's rather uncritical acceptance of his authorities, in particular the untrustworthy Epiphanius, and also his tendency to assume that one writer quoted from another, without considering that it might have been the other way round, or that both might have used a common source. Here he suggested that the Apocalypse was alluded to in the epistles of Peter and in the epistle to the Hebrews.

The seventeenth century was a time of renewed interest in the Book of Revelation, and among Protestants we find a new kind of exposition. It is true that the papacy and also individual popes had been identified with Antichrist before, but the deeds of the Inquisition, and such events as the massacre of the Huguenots, the Marian persecutions, and the Gunpowder Plot seemed to make the Apocalypse specially relevant with its predictions of cruel persecution of the faithful. Moreover, a new epoch in the study of this difficult book began with Mede's Clavis Apocalyptica. He seemed to have provided the key to it with his 'synchronisms' by means of which it was possible to arrange the visions in the order in which the events foretold were to occur.⁶⁴ Newton adopted Mede's synchronisms, though he modified them somewhat. He also adopted Mede's division of the prophecy into events that were to take place in the Empire and events that were to take place in the Church.

Among writers who belong to this general tradition, some earlier and some later than Mede, we may note: John Napier, Arthur Dent, Jean Taffin, Richard Bernard, William Cowper, Thomas Brightman, David Pareus, John Forbes, John Cotton, John Tillinghast, William Guild, James Durham, Henry More, Pierre Jurieu, Drue Cressener, Samuel Cradock and Campegius Vitringa.

Newton followed this tradition of apocalyptic interpretation, and he thought that 'amongst the interpreters [of the Apocalypse] of the last age there is scarce one of note who hath not made some discovery worth knowing'.⁶⁵ In fact it was the success of others in this field that had prompted hisown investigation. He did not mention any of the recent persecutions, but agreed with the general trend of seventeenth-century exposition in supposing the plague of locusts introduced by the fifth trumpet to refer to the Saracens. The importance of the Eastern Roman Empire had not been sufficiently recognized in the West, and even its overthrow in 1453 was not given due importance for a long time. By the seventeenth century, however, the significance of these events in the East was being seen more in its true perspective. Mede had put forward the idea that the locusts of Revelation 9 were the Saracens, and the Euphratean horsemen were the Turks.' Thomas Brightman applied the year-day theory to the period of five months during which the locusts were allowed to torture those men who had not the seal of God upon their foreheads. This period of one hundred and fifty prophetic days were years. Newton, without any textual grounds for doing so doubled the period, making the length of Saracen rule three hundred years.⁶⁷ This does fit the history better, but there does not seem to be any other reason for the duplication, and no one has followed Newton in this respect. On the other hand, the reason he gave for the association of the five months with locusts has been accepted ever since. It is the length of a locust's life. It must be added, however, that in all probability he owed this to the great seventeenth-century French scholar, Samuel Bochart.⁶⁸ Newton also pointed out that 'locusts often arise in Arabia Faelix, and from thence infest the neighbouring nations: and so are a very fit type of the numerous armies of Arabians invading the Romans.⁶⁹

Calvin towards the end of his commentary on Daniel confessed: 'In numeris non sum Pythagoricus'.⁷⁰ Newton had no such limitations, and we might have expected him to make much of the numbers to be found in prophecy, particularly the famous number 666 of Rev. 13: 18. It is 'the number of a man' …, a cryptogram. Newton just said that the name is AATEINOE (Latin).⁷¹ In the Keynes MS. he did explain a little more fully; he said that AATEINOE, the name of the Western Empire, was the solution given by Ireneus,⁷² and he also made a suggestion regarding the way in which the number 666 had been derived.⁷³ But it is evident that Newton had no special love for juggling with figures. He might have employed far more complicated types of Gematria in solving this, such as using triangular numbers (taking X, for example, not as 30 but as 465). Without doubt he would have astonished us with the possibilities of 666—had he felt so inclined. But he was no more interested in such devices than were the writers of Scripture, and he was not a mystic even in the sense of being greatly interested in mystic numbers. That could be left to Cabalistical Jews!

Newton was neither a mystic nor a heretic—at least in the sense he is usually thought to have been. He considered that his views on the Trinity accorded with the insistence of the Church of England that belief in a doctrine that could not be proved from Holy Scripture should not be required of anyone. In fact he held that certain Scriptural texts had been corrupted to support the unscriptural doctrine of the Trinity. Moreover, the Church at baptism demanded subscription to the Apostles' Creed only, and Newton believed that this should be a sufficient rule of faith. Like others in his time he was influenced by the fact that the Romish tendencies of Charles II were becoming evident, and he was one of those who wished the Church of England to be a more comprehensive Protestant church than it was. There is no doubt about Newton's great ability in Biblical and historical theology. It is true that his interpretation of the apocalyptic writings seems somewhat weird to us who no longer hold this historicist view of prophecy. There were continental commentators at the time who were more in line with the modern scientific approach to the subject, but in England Newton's approach was the usual one. His views linger on now in the beliefs of sects on the outer fringe of Christianity—a sort of 'anti-scientific' fringe. Nevertheless, to hold such views in the twentiethcentury is a different matter from holding them in seventeenth-century England. Brewster was right in thinking that he would have betrayed the trust committed to him if he 'had not given an account of the theological writings of a man, who was described by one Bishop as 'knowing more of the Scriptures than them all', and by another as having 'the whitest soul' he ever knew.⁷⁴

The author wishes to express his thanks to the Librarian of King's College, Cambridge, for access to the Newtonian manuscripts.

Notes

¹ The full version was published by Horsley, Isaaci Newtoni Opera, London, 1779-1784, vol. v, p. 495, as 'An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture'.

² E. N. da C. Andrade, Isaac Newton, London, 1950, p. 103.

³Ibid., p. 104. Observations upon the Prophecies … published by Benjamin Smith from Newton's manuscripts, and dedicated to Peter Lord King, Baron of Ockham, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (and one of Newton's pall-bearers), 4to London, 1733, reprinted 8vo Dublin, 1733. A Latin version by W. Sudemann, now rare, was published in Amsterdam 1735, and this was translated into German (Leipsig and Leignitz, 1765), with notes by M. C. F. Grohmannen and A. Rosenbergen. In Horsley's Isaaci Newtoni Opera, vol. v, the capitals and italics of the original edition were altered to accord with later usage. In P. Borthwick's edition (London and Cambridge, 1831) the Latin quotations were translated. The last edition of the Observations was by Sir William Whitla, the distinguished Irish physician: Sir Isaac Newton's Daniel and the Apocalypse with an Introductory Study of the nature and the cause of unbelief of miracles and prophecy, London, 1922.

⁴Cf. W. Whiston, The Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies … (Boyle Lectures, 1707), London, 1708.

⁵ODA, p. 305 (15). The quotations are from Horsley's edition of the Observations (referred to as ODA). The corresponding page-number of the 1733 edition is, however, given in brackets afterwards.

⁶ F. Kenyon, The Bible and Archaeology, London, 1940, p. 270. n.

⁷ A. Young, An Historical Dissertation on idolatrous corruptions in religion from the beginning of the world … 2 vols., London, 1734; vol. ii, p. 265.

⁸ John Shute Barrington, An Essay on the several Dispensations of God to Mankind in the order in which they lie in the Bible …, London, 1725, p. 64.

⁹Tractatu s theologico-politicus …, Hamburgi, 1670, ch. 8. Ibn Ezra (1092-1167) was a Spanish Jew.

¹⁰ Hobbes, Leviathan, pt. iii, ch. 33.

¹¹ R. Simon, Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament, Amsterdam, 1685. Cf. Jean Le Clerc, Sentimens de quelques theologiens de Hollande sur I'Histoire critique du Vieux Testament, composee par R. Simon, Amsterdam, 1685, lettre 6.

¹² Hobbes, op. cit., pt. iii, ch. 33.

¹³ A. Young, op. cit., p. 268.

¹⁴ Newton, however, regarded the writer of Dan. 7-12 as the hero of the faith mentioned by Ezekiel, but Anthony Collins in his Literal Scheme of Prophecy Considered (The Hague, 1726: London, 1727) placed the Book of Daniel in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, thus both reviving the idea of Porphyry and setting forth the modern view.

¹⁵ Spinoza, op. cit., ch. 10.

¹⁶ODA, pp. 305, 312: (15, 25). In such an appraisal of Daniel, Newton was, of course, in good company; e.g. Jerome ('Nullam prophetarum tam aperte dixisse de Christo'), Augustine ('Neminem de regni coelorum praemio in Vetere Testamento scripsisse tam diserte'), and Luther ('he above all other prophets, had this special prophecy to give, that is, his work was not only to prophesy of Christ, like the others, but also to count the times and years, determine them, and fix them with certainty').

¹⁷ R. Amner, An Essay towards an Interpretation of the Prophecies of Daniel, London, 1776.

¹⁸ Whiston, Six Dissertations: Reflexions upon Sir Isaac Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, London, 1734, p. 284.

¹⁹ODA, p. 307 (17).

²⁰ Cf. Hurd, op. cit. pp. 166 ff.

²¹ Buxdorfius, Synagoga Judaica, Hanoviae, 1603.

²² Dr. Austin Farrer in 1949 showed how he found that the form that expresses the intelligible progress of the sense in the Apocalypse is thoroughly Rabbinical and not a little gnostical—the last thing he wanted or expected to find: 'St. John does not see the Scriptures in what seems to be their own pattern, he sees them artificially arranged in the Jewish sacred calendar with its feasts and lessons' (A. Farrer, A Rebirth of Images, The Making of St. John's Apocalypse, London, 1949, p. 8).

²³ODA, p. 369 (122). At the end of the twelfth century Joachim of Flora (1132-1202) in his Expositio in Apocalypsin (printed in Venice, 1537) said that the epoch of the Spirit would begin A. D. 1260. He did not arrive at this date by interpreting the 1,260 days of prophecy as years, but his calculation must have contributed to the rise of the theory, which was accepted by the Magdeburg Centuries in the sixteenth century.

²⁴ John Napier, A Plaine Discovery of the whole Revelation of John …, 1594.

²⁵ 'Verissimum autem verbum est, aenigma esse prophetiam omnem cum nondum completa est' (L. Andrewes, Tortura Torti: siue at Matthaei Torti librum responsio …, Londini, 1609, p. 186). Cf Boyle, 'And though the mysterious temple and city described in Ezekiel as also much of the Apocalypse, and divers other passages of holy writ, do yet seem abstruse to us; yet they will not appear so to those, to whom their completion (the best expositor of dark prophecies) shall have unfolded them' (Some considerations touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures, Works, 1744, vol. ii, p. 100).

²⁶ODA, p. 369 (122).

²⁷ James White, Sketches of the Christian Life and Public Labors of William Miller, Battle Creek, 1875, p. 8.

²⁸Cf McLachlan, The Religious Opinions of Milton, Locke and Newton, Manchester, 1941, p. 130. The dedication was appropriate, but Irving himself derived his views on prophecy from J. H. Frere, A Combined view of the Prophecies of Daniel, Esdras and S. John, showing that all the prophetic writings are formed upon one plan …, London 1815.

²⁹Cf Let God be True, Watchtower Publication, 1952, p. 252.

³⁰ODA, p. 312, (25). Chronology of the Antient Kingdoms amended, pp. 212-235. On the difficulty that Darius the Mede is not mentioned outside Scripture, Newton said: 'The last king of the Medes is by Xenophon called Cyaxeres; and by Herodotus, Astyages, the father of Mandane. But these kings were dead before; and Daniel lets us know that Darius was the true name of the last king.' He added that the Daries coined by the last king testify that his name was Darius (ibid., p. 234). This is incorrect.

³¹Ibid., p. 313, (28).

³²Ibid., p. 315, (21). This suggestion met with an unfavourable reception, but it seems almost as plausible as saying that the Roman Empire continues in the nations of Western Europe.

³³ Joseph Mede, The Key to the Revelation, translated by Richard More, London, 1643, preface (not paginated).

³⁴ E. B. Elliott, Horae Apocalypticae, 4th edn., London, 1851, vol. iii, p. 129n. Gibbon himself wrote to Joseph Warton: 'I should think myself inexcusable, if I neglected any opportunity of availing myself of the researches and reflections of Sir Isaac Newton on any subject to which he applied the powers of his understanding' (Letters of Edward Gibbon, ed. J. E. Norton, 3 vols., London, 1956, vol. ii, p. 244).

³⁵ C. Sigonii, Historiarum de regno Italiae libri viginti …, Francofurti, 1591; Caroli Sigonii Opera Omnia …, Mediolani, 1732, vol. ii.

³⁶ Jerome had written: 'In consummatione mundi, quando regnum destruendum est Romanorum decem futuros reges qui orbem Romanorum inter se dividant …' (Migne, Patrologiae, vol. xxv, p. 531). Compare, for example, the curious passage in Gibbon's Decline and Fall: 'The nine kings of the Latin world might disclaim their new associate [Roger, first king of Italy, A. D. 1130], unless he were consecrated by the authority of the supreme pontiff (op. cit., London, 1815, vol. x, p. 310).

³⁷ S. R. Maitland, A second inquiry into the grounds on which the Prophetic period of Daniel and St. John has been supposed to consist of 1,260years, London, 1829, p. 35.

³⁸ Joseph Tyso, An Elucidation of the Prophecies being an exposition of the Books of Daniel and the Revelation …, London, 1838, p. 100.

³⁹ Newton says that seven of these kingdoms are mentioned by Sigonius: 'Add the Franks Britains, and Lombards, and you have the ten, for these arose about the same time as the seven.'

⁴⁰ODA, p. 400, (172).

⁴¹ J. H. Todd, Discourses on the Prophecies relating to antichrist in the Writings of Daniel and St. Paul, Dublin, 1840, p. 176n (quoting T. Newton, Dissertations on the Prophecies …, Dissert. xvi). Cf. Bishop Newton's dictum: 'What is Prophecy, but History anticipated; what History but Prophecy fulfilled' (Notes on Popery and the Prophecies …, p. 47).

⁴² Even Jerome, writing against Prophyry's assertion that Daniel was a Jew living in Maccabaean times and that the little horn in Dan. 7 was Antiochus Epiphanes, nevertheless thought that the horn in Dan. 8 was Antiochus (Migne, Patrologiae, vol. xxv …, p. 536f).

⁴³ So emphatic was Newton on this point that, when explaining Dan. 8: 21 where the rough goat is said to represent the king of Graecia, he altered 'king' to 'kingdom', even although it was the angel Gabriel's interpretation he was changing!

⁴⁴ODA, 368, 369 (120, 122). In A. D. 1357 it was reduced by the Sultan Bajazet, and passed into the hands of the Turks.

⁴⁵ Most of the confusion arose because the word was merely transliterated in the Septuagint … and Vulgate (Maozim). Newton, unlike Mede, transliterated the ayin as 'h', but, like Mede, took the word as singular in meaning although plural in form.

⁴⁶ loannis Calvini Praelectiones in librum prophetiarum Danielis, Genevae, 1591, p. 159: 'Locus ille … male expositus fuit. Neque enim caelum, neque terram attingunt interpretes …'.

⁴⁷ Mede, Works, p. 668. Horsley thought this prophecy of the ruler opposed to marriage was fulfilled in his own day, when in France the deputies of 1792 authorized divorce by mutual consent (Brit. Mag., 1834, 5, 134: in a letter, not dated, but probably of 1797).

⁴⁸Cf Voltaire: 'Dans le cours d'une si longue vie, il [Newton] n'a eu ni passion, ni faiblesse, il n'ajamais approche d'aucune femme; c'est ce que m'a ete confirme par le medicin et le chirurgien entre les bras de qui il est mort' (Lettres Philosophiques, lettre 14).

⁴⁹ODA, p. 419, (205).

⁵⁰ Z. Grey, An examination of the fourteenth Chapter of Sir Isaac Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel in which that Author's Notion of the Rise and Causes of Saint-Worship in the Christian Churches is carefully consider'd and disprov'd, London, 1736.

⁵¹ A. Young, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 265.

⁵² Whiston said: 'This is, generally speaking, a most remarkable Chapter, and discovers the true early Origin of Popery among the first Athanasians, beyond contradiction … Sir Isaac Newton … has fully discovered the nakedness of these pretended Athanasian Fathers, but really of these Athanasian, or rather Antichristian Hereticks, in the latter half of the fourth and former part of the fifth Century; which indeed he has done to the great satisfaction of such as love true Primitive Christianity, and to the utter confusion of those who still support Athanasianism and Popery among us' (Six Dissertations: Reflexions upon Sir Isaac Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, London, 1734, p. 320).

⁵³ 'An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture,' Horsley, op. cit vol. v, p. 549.

⁵⁴ODA, p. 455, (262).

⁵⁵Ibid., p. 385, (145). Whiston, op. cit., p. 308.

⁵⁶ Newton used the Julian period (invented by Joseph Scaliger) for dates before Christ, As he said, Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century invented the method of dating events A.C. (ab Christo). At least Dionysius popularized it in the West. Dates B. C., however, were not adopted until later in the eighteenth century.

⁵⁷ODA, p. 391, (156).

⁵⁸Ibid.

⁵⁹The Works of the Rev. P. Doddridge, D.D., in Ten Volumes, London, 1903, vol. iv, p. 155: 'A dissertation on Sir Isaac Newton's Scheme for Reducing the several histories contained in the evangelists to their Proper Order.' Doddridge said of Newton: 'According to his usual method, he has done it [the chronology of our Lord's history] concisely, only marking out some of the outlines; and after having endeavoured to establish some of the chief principles, by arguments which he judged to be conclusive, he leaves it to his readers to apply those principles to several other particulars; which being deducible from them he did not think it necessary to enter into. Such is the method he has also taken in his chronology of the ancient kingdoms, and it was more suitable to that great genius which bore him with such amazing velocity through so vast a circle of various literature.'

⁶⁰ Clement of Alexandria, Quis Dives Salvetur?, ch. 42. Quoted by Eusebius, H.E., iii, 23.

⁶¹ E.g., E. B. Elliott, op. cit., vol. i, p. 31ff.

⁶²ODA, p. 441, (238).

⁶³ Whiston, op. cit., p. 327.

⁶⁴Cf. Richard Hurd, An Introduction to the study of the Prophecies concerning the Christian Church. … London, 1839, pp. 327 ff. Mede, Newton, and others were really dealing with dislocations in the text.

⁶⁵ODA, p. 450, (253).

⁶⁶Works, p. 816. Brightman held that after wasting the East the locusts devoured the West, the Western locusts being 'the Monks, Fryars, a huge company of Religious orders, Cardinals, with the whole Popish Hierarchy' (Thomas Brightman, The Revelation of Saint John … together with a most comfortable Exposition of the last and most difficult part of the Prophecy of Daniel, Amsterdam, 1644, p. 93). Newton ignored this particular anti-Roman exegesis.

⁶⁷ A. D. 637 (beginning of reign of Saracens at Damascus) to 936 (surrender of the Caliph of Baghdad to Mohomet, son of Rajici). ODA, p. 480, (305).

⁶⁸ S. Bochart, Hierozoicon sive de Animalibus Scripturae sanctae, Londini, 1663, bk, iv, ch, 8: 'Ita quod [Rev. 9] versu 5 & 10 nocent hominibus per quinque menses, videtur ideo dici quia locustae vere natae sub fines aestatis obeunt, nec supra quinque menses vivere solent.' Richard Simon criticized Bochart's Biblical writings in his Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament, Amsterdam, 1685, p. 481, a work known to Newton, while Le Clere referred to Simon's 'injuste mepris de M. Bochart' (Bibliotheque Universelle et Historique 1692, 23, 273).

⁶⁹ODA, p. 480, (304).

⁷⁰ Calvin, op. cit., p. 157.

⁷¹ Using ordinary Greek alphabetic numerals we have (30 + 1 + 300 + 5 + 10 + 50 + 70 + 100) = 666.

⁷² Irenaeus, Contra Haereses, ch. 28, 40. Actually Irenaeus did not claim the authority of John for AATEINO2, but put it forward as his own conjecture and gave two other possible solutions.

⁷³ K. ms. 5, p. 32.

⁷⁴ D. Brewster, Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, London, 1855, vol. ii, p. 525.