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Hopefully this will be the last post on this blog about Isaac Newton and the Noahide Laws as it is depressing to think that Newton had respect for this system. Newton believed the Noahide Laws, though less perfect than Christianity, could still lead to salvation (here). As was discussed he also believed that corrupted Noahide Law had been the basis for the Egyptian religion (here). Well there is an entire book dedicated to Newton's fascination with Judaism and the Noahide Laws, "Judaism in the Theology of Sir Isaac Newton" by Matt Goldish. In this book we learn that Newton likely learned about the Noahide Laws from British jurist and scholar of Jewish Law John Selden. Just as Newton believed that the Egyptian religion was a corrupt form of Noahidism, he also believed many of the Pagan gods were deified children of Noah. He also believed the Kabbalah was corrupt Noahidism brought up from Babylon and Egypt (the Noahide Laws come from the Talmud, not the Kabbalah). He was also most interested in the command to set up courts of Justice, he gave this one aspect of the law special attention. In the text below some words are misspelled or there are gaps, this is just how it was written in the electronic archive, but the text is still legible.
Judaism in the Theology of Sir Isaac Newton [electronic resource]
by Goldish, Matt, 1998
Newtons likely learned the Noahide Laws from John Selden
There can be no mistaking these commandments, for they correspond with the list known to the Jews as " sheva mizvoth b'ne Noah” the seven Noachide commandments. A reader unfamiliar with rabbinic literature would not be likely to group this particular set of imperatives together under the title of laws which Noah observed. Newton had access to this Jewish view in several places, 9 but the most extensive discussion, and that which most probably attracted his notice, was that in John Selden’s De jure naturali et gentium, juxta disciplinam Ebraeorum (Harrison, #1482) and De Synedriis (Harrison, #1483.) A large portion of these works, particularly the former, is dedicated to the Noachide commandments. It seems particularly likely that Selden was Newton’s source for two other reasons as well: Selden's emphasis on the commandment of righteous law courts, which is the subject of Newton's continued discussion in the Irenicum and in many other places, and his Hebraized spelling of Noah as “Noach” in another discussion of the Noachide laws.
Newton believed Pagan gods were deified Noahides (Children of Noah)
It can be demonstrated that Newton saw Noachide worship and Prytanaea as part of the same religion. As he says in the quotation from MS. Yahuda 41 above, "In Janus its probable they worshipped their common father as the supreme God (Iccco- Noah, or Ia-No) in Vesta the frame of Nature. For Janus has all the characters of Noah...." Furthermore, as he expresses over the following pages, Newton understood Prytanaea to be hieroglyphs of the heliocentric universe. Thus there exists a concrete connection between these two conceptions in Newton's thought: the deity worshipped in corrupted Prytanaea, at least in Italy, was Noah, "The worshipping therefore of these fals Gods & Goddesses [[i.e., heavenly bodies]] in y e Prytanea was jf first & most generall corruption of y e primitive religion: buf y grossest corruption was by introducing y e worship of dead men & statues, & V original of this seems to be as follows." (Yahuda, MS. 41, p. 9r) Newton goes on to explain how Noah and his descendants came to be worshipped in corrupt Prytanaea and how their characteristics came to be identified with particular heavenly bodies. Noah, however, was not simply Noah — he represented the supreme God. One may reasonably assume, then, that when Noah himself and other men with uncorrupted religion worshipped in Prytanaea, their worship was of the true God.A third conception of ancient religion expressed by Newton is that of the worship of Noah and his progeny, both as such and in other forms. This is the theme of MS. Yahuda 16, the Theologiae Gentilis Origines Philosophicae , which is thoroughly explained in Westfall's article. The major aims of this treatise appear to be the proof that gentile theology was in fact designed to carry a body of philosophical (what we would call scientific) knowledge, and the taxonomical tracing of the spread of this philosophical religion in the worship of deified Noachides. The first chapter of the full proposed work set out to show:Newton, following Bochart, believes that each of the major gods derived from the Noachides went under a variety of names. He has thus, using imaginative if not very likely Hebrew derivations, explained an entire group of major Greek and Roman deities based on Noah's grandson Phut.Another major god, Osiris, is also the subject of a Hebrew etymology which seems to be original with Newton. "Osiridis igitur nomen Aegyptium erat tarn Sir vel Sior, pro quo Graeci (in hujus Dei sacris solemnibus, funebres Aegyptiorum planctus et frequentes Exclamationes *1^ O Sar! audiendo,) dixerunt Osiris." (MS. Yahuda 16, p. 3 Or) Similarly Nimrod, one of the principle figures in Newton's Noachide pantheon, has an interesting derivation:The role of Judaism in Newton's competing conceptions of early religion is very widespread. The Jewish conception of Noah and the Flood and the passage of true religion through the patriarchs and Moses, is taken over entirely by Newton, despite his biblical criticism. In each of his four separate depictions of the rise and corruption of early religion, Noah and his sons play a prominent role. Newton generally also accepts the passage of true religion through the patriarchs and Moses. In one conception, that of the Seven Noachide Laws, Newton is heavily indebted to the Hebraist John Selden. Newton's conception of the corruption of this early religion shares certain elements with that of Maimonides, but for the most part he is more interested in the ideas of the Hebraists Bochart and Vossius on the subject. Newton dabbles in Hebraism himself when dealing with the derivations of pagan gods from the Noachites, producing Hebrew etymologies which, if not convincing, show a willingness to attempt original interpretations. Having seen somewhat how Newton understands the role of Judaism in ancient pagan religion, the following step in his history of religious development is to examine his ideas of scriptural prophecy, which was granted to the Jews to restore the corrupted original religion and tell of the apocalyptic future.
Newton was most interested in the Noahide command to set up Noahide courts!
It is interesting that while Newton has little more to say on the matter for the most part, as most of the seven Noachide laws are obvious and commonsensical, he spends a great deal of time in discussing the last of them, the imperative to create courts of judicature. While this matter is discussed in some detail in Chapter 6 below, it is worthwhile to point out the importance of this Noachide law for Newton. A court system is not a matter which the individual conscience would set as a goal for its own morality, but one which only a society or an entire church would be expected to fulfill. The matter of courts is also the most difficult to extract from the events following the Flood in the book of Genesis. Newton was apparently in agreement with the rabbis, who created the idea of the seven Noachide commandments, that the religion of nature calls not only for discipline of the individual but also for institutions which guard the body politic. This may be connected with his avoidance of deeply personal, mystical religion, in preference of membership in the church, even if it is a church which countenances heresy.
Newton believed Kabbalah came from the corrupted Naohide religions of Egypt and Babylon
The latter role of the Jews, as metaphysicist corrupters of right religion, is taken up in more detail in Chapter 7. Newton conceived of these Jewish corrupters as students of the Kabbalah, a spurious form of Judaism which developed out of contacts with Egyptians or Babylonians who practiced bastardized Noachism. The chief error of the kabbalists, like the kindred Gnostic heretics, was a belief that God emanated powers (Sephiroth or Aeons) from himself. Newton learned about Kabbalah from Christian Knorr von Rosenroth's Kabbala denudata , and he probably learned the contemporary criticisms of Kabbalah from Jacques Basnage's History of the Jews , in which considerable space is dedicated to this issue. It is suggested that since much of Leibniz’s philosophical system was based on an emanational cosmogony, Newton undertook these studies at least partially to refute him. Recent claims that kabbalistic ideas were absorbed by Newton and used in his own thought, particularly on the issues of absolute time and space, are discussed. It is concluded that the similarities in ideas are more likely to be the result of reading in Neoplatonist authors, who are sometimes in agreement with kabbalism, than of absorption of ideas from the Kabbalah itself, even through the medium of Henry More.
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