Isaac Newton and the Kabbalistic Noah: Natural Law Between Mediaevalia and the Enlightenment
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aries_f5-91-118 1/25/05 4:34 PM Page 91 ISAAC NEWTON AND THE KABBALISTIC NOAH: NATURAL LAW BETWEEN MEDIAEVALIA AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT GARRY W. T ROMPF Crystallized in Durban, and herewith dedicated to South African Jewry: let righteousness prevail! Insofar as [Sir] Isaac Newton (1642-1727) self-consciously hid much of his research findings, we can talk of him as an esoteric soul at least in some sense of the word1. In any case he believed he was in a position to unravel divine mysteries, and this was a life-quest too sensitive for even his closest friends to share. Nowhere is this esoter[ic]ism more evident than in his covert historical investigations, with draft after redraft put down on paper to sort out problems of Biblical chronology and about the religio-political influences between ancient nations. As I have previously argued in a detailed piece on “Newtonian History”, Newton laboured between ca. 1672 until his death to construct a large secret history running from the time of the Great Flood to the fall of the Western Roman Empire2. The first component of this work carries the title “Theologiae Gentilis Origines Philosophicae” and remains unpublished (the most mature version, largely in Latin, lying within Yahuda MS collection as signature Nos. 16.1-2, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem). It basically concerned the origins and early development of religions outside Israel. The second component was smaller, and was apparently intended to sit within the “Origines”, being titled in English “The Original of Monarchies” and now conveniently published from a Keynes MS (No. 146, University of Cambridge), by Frank Manuel3. Tidied up and made readier for possible publication than its parent manu- script, “The Original” was meant to prove that councils always preceded 1 Readers should be aware that I hold a distinctly open-ended understanding of “the eso- teric”, being affected by the complexities of anthropological and cross-cultural religious materials. Although not so obviously in the case of this article, I tends to give more space in my work to the secretive and secretly initiatic than is conceded by eminent scholars now seeking to recast the image of Western esotericism. Cf. Hanegraaff, ‘Esotericism’. 2 Trompf, ‘On Newtonian History’, 219-234. 3 That this was an intended chapter of the “Origines” is confirmed by Yahuda MS 16.2, fol. 24 with heading on “The Original of Kingdoms”. For its publication, Manuel, Isaac Newton Historian, 198-221. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2005 Aries Vol. 5, no. 1 aries_f5-91-118 1/25/05 4:34 PM Page 92 92 GARRY W. TROMPF monarchs or kings in the establishment of governments among the nations. The impression left is that these two studies end where Newton’s more for- mal chronological efforts begin, ca. 1125 BC, when the Shephered Kings flee from Egypt at the time of Joshua’s incursion into Canaan. Newton’s Chronicle of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (worked on from the 1690s and published posthumously) covers events from Moses to 331 BC, or Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia, and it should be read in con- junction with his Short Chronicle, a pirated copy of which was translated into French by 1725, and which appeared prefixed to the large chronicle as early as 17284. The Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (started as early as the 1670s yet published as late as 1733, by Benjamin Smith) actually read these two Biblical works as his- tory, or the “exact prophecy” of events running from Persian times to the fall of the Western Roman empire, and making up for the fact that Holy Writ lacked straightforward narrative materials about the nations for this period5. To these we might add his secret and more truly apocalyptic projections of the future, including God’s judgments for the errors of the whole past and his hopes for a divinely governed transformation of all things (in 1867)6. On my assessments Newton’s hopes to reconstruct a macro-history (basically of Antiquity as determinative for subsequent centuries) was held together above all by a defensive reference to Jewish traditions. For him Israel pre- served the truth about the origins of religion, knowledge and cultural achieve- ment; Israel produced the first truly great efflorescence of civilization (for Solomon’s temple preceded the building of the pyramids!); and Israel cradled the Messiah, who was in fact too easily misrepresented by the Gentiles who 4 Newton, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, etc., cf. Abrégé de la chronologie de M. le chevalier Isaac Newton, etc. For manuscriptal indications of constant preoccupations with chronological questions, e.g., Landsdowne MS 788 and Sloane MS 3208, fols. 69-71 (both British Library, London), etc. 5 In two parts; with this approach affected by the fact that Puritan-influenced Newton did not accept the Apocryphal 1-2 Maccabees as an authoritative guide (on the Greek period and the Jews’ “Second Commonwealth”), indeed thought them corrupted under Antiochus Epiphanes; see Popkin, ‘Newton as a Bible Scholar’, 106. 6 See esp. Manuel, Religion of Isaac Newton, including the publication of Yahuda MS 1 as “Fragments of a Treatise on Revelation” (pp. 107-125), and of MS 6 as “Of the [World to Come,] Day of Judgement and World to Come” (pp. 126-136). The above-mentioned date, which Yahuda MS 1.1-2 allow us to calculate 1260 days of the Seven Seals of Revelation from the Fall (and extreme religious apostasy) of Rome by 607. Thus contra Jakubowski-Tiessen et al., Jahrhundertwenden: Endzeit- und Zukunftsvorstellungen vom 15. bis zum 20, Jahrhundert [Einführ.], 9, wrongly specifying 2000. The year 1867 has meaning in relation to the fervour surrounding 1666 in Newton’s day..