Abstract
In studies of Newton’s religious and theological views, he is usually placed in the tradition of Joseph Mede, the Cambridge scholar of the early 17th century who proposed a calculus for interpreting the symbolism in Daniel and Revelation.2 Mede was the teacher of Isaac Barrow and Henry More, both of whom obviously influenced Newton. As noted in other essays in this volume, Newton was working with More on interpreting the Book of Revelation in 1680 when they had a falling out concerning how to interpret the opening chapter. Newton’s theology has been seen almost completely in terms of the Christian, or, often, the heretical Christian, exegetical context. Many of his views have been related to, or compared with, those of ancient and modern Christian exegetes while his heretical anti-Trinitarianism has been compared with that of the Socinians and even the deists.
Maimonides was born ca. 1133 and died in 1204. My first comments on “Newton and Maimonides” appear in A Straight Path. Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Culture. Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman, ed. Ruth Link-Salinger, et al. (Washington, D. C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988), pp. 216–29.
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Notes
Maimonides was born ca. 1133 and died in 1204. My first comments on “Newton and Maimonides” appear in A Straight Path. Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Culture. Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman, ed. Ruth Link-Salinger, et al. (Washington, D. C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988), pp. 216–29.
On Mede see Katherine R. Firth, The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain 1530–1645 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), chap, vii;
Richard H. Popkin, “The Third Force in Seventeenth-Century Thought: Skepticism, Science and Millenarianism,” in The Prism of Science. The Israel Colloquium: Studies in the History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science, ed. E. Ullmann-Margalit (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1986), Vol. II, pp. 21–50.
John Maynard Keynes, “Newton the Man,” in Essays in Biography (London: Macmillan, 1961), pp. 310–23. The quotation is on p. 316.
Yahuda letters to Professor G. F. Shiras, Yahuda MS 1.42, box 1.
Yahuda MS 13.2, Var. 1.
This is being done by Dr. Jacob I. Dienstag who has already published “Christian Translators of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah into Latin: A Bio-Biographical Survey,” in Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday, ed. Saul Lieberman and Arthur Hyman, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1974); Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1974), 1:287–309.
Jerome Friedman, The Most Ancient Testimony: Sixteenth-Century Christian-Hebraica in the Age of Renaissance Nostalgia (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1983.)
Isaac Newton, “A 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,” in Miscellaneous Works of John Greaves, ed. Thomas Birch (London, 1737), Vol. II, pp. 405–33.
See Judah Leon Templo’s dedication of his work to Charles II in A Relation of the most memorable thinges in the Tabernacle of Moses, and the Temple of Solomon, according to the text of Scripture (London, 1675.)
On this, see A. K. Offenberg, “Jacob Jehuda Leon (1602–1675) and his Model of the Temple,” in Jewish-Christian Relations in the Seventeenth Century, ed. J. Van der Berg and E. Van der Wall (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988), pp. 95–115.
The title page states, “Ex Hebraeo Latinum fecit, et notis illustravit L. de C. de Veil.”
Dionysius Vossius’ annotated edition of Maimonides’ De Idolatria was bound with the work of his father, Gerard Johannes Vossius, De Theologia Gentili, 3 vols., which is in part a commentary on the Maimonidean work. De Idolatria was also published independently from G. J. Vossius’ work. I own such a copy dated 1668.
This work deals with Abarbenel’s commentary on Leviticus and some of Maimonides’ tractates, translated from Hebrew into Latin with notes by “L. de C. de Veil.”
This work was translated and edited by J. H. Majus, filius. The date of the work indicates that Newton’s interest in Maimonides’ writings continued until late in his life.
This work was edited by Edward Pococke, the famous Oxford Orientalist, and was one of the first works published by the Oxford “Arabic” press.
On de Veil, see Louis I. Bredvold, The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1934), p. 102n, and Dienstag, “Christian Translators of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah,” pp. 302–4.
Yahuda MS 13.2, Var. 1.
I have examined the copy which is in Trinity College, Cambridge. They only have the first volume of Vossius’ work. I have listed all the pages that Newton seems to have marked and will compare them with Newton’s manuscript notes on gentile theology in a future study.
Sir Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and his System of the World, Translated into English by Andrew Motte in 1729, the translations revised by Florian Cajori, 2 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1934), 2:544.
Sir Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and his System of the World, Translated into English by Andrew Motte in 1729, the translations revised by Florian Cajori, 2 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1934), 2:544
Sir Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and his System of the World, Translated into English by Andrew Motte in 1729, the translations revised by Florian Cajori, 2 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1934), p. 545.
Sir Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and his System of the World, Translated into English by Andrew Motte in 1729, the translations revised by Florian Cajori, 2 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1934), p. 546
Friedrich Schelling, Darstellung des philosophisches Empirismus, in Friedrich Wilhelm Josoph von Schellings Samtliche Werke, 14 vols. (Stuttgart, Augsburg, 1856–61), 10:261. The translation is by Professor Fritz Marti who kindly brought the text to my attention.
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Popkin, R.H. (1990). Some Further Comments on Newton and Maimonides. In: Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton’s Theology. Archives Internationales D’Histoire Des Idées/International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 129. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1944-0_1
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