Who was Isaac Newton? This question defies easy answers, in part because of the many historical misconceptions surrounding the great English scholar. Rob Iliffe has responded to this problem by providing such a thoroughly researched and carefully constructed account of Newton's life and work that certain propositions can hardly be doubted. In Priest of nature, Iliffe makes it inescapably clear that Newton was not the scientist whose exposition of the machine-like operations of nature ensured that it was no longer necessary to refer to God in matters of science. In fact, Iliffe demonstrates that Newton was not really a ‘scientist’ at all, if the word implies that the study of nature is one's main intellectual interest. Instead, Iliffe shows us that Newton's passion and creativity were usually focused on religion, chiefly church history and the interpretation of prophecy. This reordering of Newton's priorities constitutes a radical historiographical departure.
Priest of nature is primarily an intellectual biography of Newton that pushes his religious interests to the foreground. In addition, though, as the book's subtitle suggests, Iliffe explores the various social and textual ‘worlds’ which Newton inhabited, and which shaped his idiosyncratic approach to religious subjects. Some of these religious worlds were those of Newton's present, including the puritanical environment of his youth in Lancashire and his network of biblical scholars. Others were religious worlds of Newton's past, particularly the Church of the fourth century when, he believed, the conspiracy to corrupt Christian theology with the pernicious doctrine of the Trinity was established. Two threads run through Newton's engagement with these various religious worlds: a puritanical seriousness toward religion and prodigious skill in humanistic historical study.
These factors shaped Newton's genius which, according to Iliffe, was only occasionally expressed in the realms of mathematics and natural philosophy. For Iliffe, Newton's brilliant scientific works, including the Principia mathematica itself, were only elements of a broader devotional scheme. Alongside his religious pursuits, Newton's scientific studies helped him to develop his ‘understanding’, an intellectual virtue that guided him toward the true religion which had been buried under centuries-worth of Trinitarian machinations and Roman Catholic distortions. Yet Iliffe explains that, although science was useful to Newton, he viewed it as, at best, an occasional diversion from his more serious work or, at worst, a harmful distraction, which is why he focused on natural philosophy and mathematics for only brief periods. As Iliffe explains in his introduction, Newton's ‘deep Christian faith was the most important aspect of his life’ (p. 4). Accordingly, the book provides a patient exposition of Newton's manuscripts on church history and biblical exegesis, highlighting connections with his science only when they arise organically. Despite the book's title, then, Newton presumably would not have thought of himself primarily as a ‘priest of nature’, the study of nature being ancillary to spiritual matters in his mind.
Following the introduction, the first three chapters of the book trace the religious experiences of Newton's youth, including his education by Puritans in Lincolnshire during the 1650s and his student days at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the early 1660s. Chapter iv examines the growing independence of Newton's theological thinking during the 1670s as he concluded, mainly from his own original research, that the doctrine of the Trinity was a corruption of the original Christian theology, foisted upon the Church by Athanasius and his followers.
Having established this context, Iliffe then turns to particular subjects in Newton's erudite religious studies. For instance, chapter v provides an engaging account of Newton's hostility toward Roman Catholics both past and present, with Jesuits and monks taking the brunt of his criticism. Chapters vii–ix lay out in great detail Newton's interpretation of prophetic Bible books, which was perhaps his most enduring passion. For Newton, the reader learns, all of Christian history can be mapped onto the trumpets, vials and seals of the Book of Revelation, but this can only be done properly by a rigorous and dedicated scholar in possession of the right rules of interpretation – such as Newton himself. In chapter xii, Iliffe outlines Newton's use of textual analysis to refute common Trinitarian proof texts, especially the contentious ‘Johannine comma’ which, Newton believed, had been surreptitiously added to the First Epistle of John by Trinitarians in the fourth century. On the whole, Iliffe's account is so detailed that the book could be used as a reference text for any aspect of Newton's religious views.
A reader mainly interested in how ‘science and religion’ are related in Newton's works will sometimes be disappointed by Iliffe's coyness on this point. The introduction notes that earlier attempts to connect Newton's scientific and religious works have been impeded by ‘outdated historiographical categories’ (p. 22), but Iliffe stops short of explicitly identifying those categories. The book repeatedly points out certain methodological similarities in Newton's natural philosophy and theology, but Iliffe also claims that Newton's religious writings belong to ‘a parallel intellectual universe’ (p. 22, my emphasis) to his scientific works, which suggests that the two did not normally cross – at least not in the ways that one might expect. The book suggests that it is misguided even to ask how Newton's ‘science’ interacted with his ‘religion’ since, for Newton himself, works of natural philosophy were mere bricks in the larger religious wall that he built over his long career. With such considerations in mind, one gets the sense that Iliffe intentionally avoided explicit discussions of ‘science and religion’, which would have elevated natural philosophy to the same level as religious subjects, contrary to Newton's own intellectual priorities.
Iliffe seems to anticipate objections to his novel approach when he argues that Newton's theological manuscripts ‘would merit careful study even if they had not been composed by the author of the Principia’ (p. 11). This claim appears to reply to an implicit question: Why study Newton's religious writings at all, except those parts that are intimately connected to his science? On the same page, Iliffe makes a counterfactual claim about Newton: if he had revealed his heretical anti-Trinitarian views to the public, Newton would have lost his position at Trinity College, which means he ‘would never have had the chance to write the Principia or the Opticks, and much, if not all, of his pioneering work on the calculus might have been lost’ (p. 11). Thus, Newton's successful scientific career required him to suppress his religious views. This claim encourages further counterfactual speculation about Newton. For instance, if he had established himself as a radical religious scholar and published his works on prophecy and the early Church, would he have made such a significant impact on the intellectual world? Would anyone but specialists in ecclesiastical history know Newton today?
These questions are probably impossible to answer. Iliffe's monumental historiographical achievement notwithstanding, it is hard to think of Newton without laws of motion, calculus and prism experiments. Whether Newton's religion was indeed the ‘most important aspect of his life’ is a matter of perspective, but the book clearly demonstrates that it was most important to Newton himself. The character and intellectual abilities that made Newton's scientific achievements possible were directed toward religious subjects for the majority of his life. Iliffe's book ensures that few Newton scholars, if any, will overlook his overriding religious motivations in the future.
