Solomon's Secret Arts
Page 24
Perhaps the most enthusiastic of Newton's interpreters was the French Huguenot exile, Anglican clergyman and preparer of experiments for the Royal Society Jean-Théophile Desaguliers. In 1728, Desaguliers published a gushing poetic tribute to his recently deceased mentor, in which he demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the Newtonian system was not just the best explanation of the universe, but “The Best Form of Government.” Newton appears in the poem as a “tow'ring Genius” who “shews th'Almighty Architect's unalter'd Laws.” These divine laws apply to political as well as celestial affairs:
By Newton's help, 'tis evidently seen
Attraction governs all the World's Machine.
The same principle of attraction underlies the “perfect Model” of government, one in which mutual love and respect for law keep both the king (i.e. the sun) and his subjects (i.e. the planets) in harmony.3
Newton's “perfect Model” seemed to leave no room for supernatural explanations. Indeed, the triumph of the Newtonians might be interpreted as a death knell for the occult. Despite his long-lasting addiction to alchemy, Newton had never publicly espoused any intellectual position that could be tied to occult thinking. Limiting himself to mathematical proofs and empirical observations, he kept aloof from the hypotheses of Hermetic philosophers and speculations of Behmenists. “Inchanters, Magicians, Sorcerers, Necromancers & Witches,” he wrote about ancient magic, “signified deceivers & cheats who … pretended to supernatural powers.”4 He reviled both “Popish superstition” and popular gullibility.
Of course, to depict Newton as a foe of the occult meant suppressing the evidence of his private alchemical writings. Accordingly, when his devoted acolyte the antiquarian William Stukeley penned a memoir of Newton in 1752, he glossed over the problem of the master's hidden fixations with a baldly disingenuous claim: “as to chymistry in general, we may very well presume, Sr. Isaac from his long, & constant application to that pyrotechnical amusement, had made very important discoverys, in this branch of philosophy, w[hic]h. had need enough of his masterly skill, to rescue it from Superstition, from vanity, & imposture; from the fond inquiry of alchymy, & transmutation.”5 Stukeley, who had access to Newton's manuscripts, must have known these words to be untrue, but their veracity remained unchallenged for nearly two centuries. The unpublished but frequently cited memoir further characterized Newton's religious views as thoroughly conformist. Stukeley asserted that, while “those of Arrian principles, have taken great pains to inlist Sr. Isaac into th[e]ir party,” they did so in vain, because “the ch[urch]. of England intirely claims him as her Son, in faith, & in practise.”6 As a young man, Newton would probably have been deeply disturbed by this statement, but the older Newton might well have nodded his grey head in assent. An office-holder and pillar of respectability, he had no wish to be known as a heretic. Indeed, he had suppressed the publication of two anti-Trinitarian letters that he had written to John Locke.7
Despite Stukeley's obfuscations, however, Newton's heirs did not wholly obliterate these embarrassing aspects of his legacy—nor did they actually wish to do so. Like their mentor, they too felt the attraction of occult thinking, but they imitated his reticence and did not publicize their desire for hidden knowledge. Instead, they disguised what was not fully respectable in the garb of observations on antiquity, philosophy, religion and cosmology. Scouring learned accounts in search of hidden connections, they attempted to rewrite occult thinking as a historical artifact that retained meaning and power in the present. Desaguliers himself provides an example. His poem on the Newtonian system linked the harmony of the universe with the Pythagorean “Music of the Spheres,” describing the planets as circling the sun “in Mystick Dance.”8 The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, noted for his idea of the transmigration of souls as well as for heliocentrism, had fascinated occult writers from Ficino to Fludd, and his theory of music had drawn Newton's interest.9 Stukeley would later echo Desaguliers on the “Music of the Spheres” and the “Mystick Dance.”10 Was this meant as a metaphor or as a more literal description of a supernatural process?
The answer was not straightforward. The Newtonians insisted on natural explanations for any phenomenon that could not be classified as a divine sign, but this left a great deal of space for speculation. For them, the mythology of the Egyptians, the cosmologies of the Greeks and the healing powers of pagan priests provided fragmentary evidence of God's plan for the universe. Understanding them or, better still, reconciling them with scriptural revelation could lead to personal insight, which might elevate its possessor to a higher plane. Stukeley called those who held such insight Druids. As he imagined the ancient British holy men to be cousins of the Zoroastrian priesthood of Persia, he did not object to referring to them as “Magi,” although he would have insisted that the term had nothing to do with conjuring. At the same time, their divine wisdom was not purely natural, because it illuminated the mind and intentions of God.
While he did not put his more unconventional ideas into print, Stukeley did not keep them to himself either. He spread them to like-minded friends through his membership of a host of clubs and societies. Unlike Sir Isaac, who was notably reclusive, the Newtonian Magi were eminently sociable beings. Leaders of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries, they flocked to Freemasonry after 1717, when the creation of the Grand Lodge of England conferred a new social status on what had previously been a shadowy, quasi-plebeian movement.11 Desaguliers served in 1719–20 as Master of the Grand Lodge, and Stukeley was a devoted Brother. As Freemasons, the Newtonians added layers of mythic significance to the rites and history of what initiates called the “Craft.” In particular, they were captivated by the notion that Masonry was descended from the mystery cults of ancient Greece and Egypt.
Few outside observers recognized the significance of these endeavours, although one who did was the satirist Jonathan Swift. A biting portrait of the Newtonian Magi appears in the third book of Gulliver's Travels (1726). The wandering hero Lemuel Gulliver travels upwards to the floating island of Laputa, which is kept airborne by the occult power of a “Loadstone” or magnet. Its inhabitants are slant-headed astronomers and mathematicians whose minds “are so taken up with intense Speculations, that they neither can speak, nor attend to the Discourse of others, without being roused by some external Taction [touching] upon the Organs of Speech and Hearing.” To Gulliver's amazement, the astronomers of Laputa “have great faith in judicial Astrology, although they are ashamed to own it publickly.”12 Descending back to the surface of the earth, Gulliver visits Balnibarbi, where the king has set up “an Academy of PROJECTORS” (the Royal Society) made up of those who have returned from the floating island “full of Volatile Spirits acquired in that Airy Region.”13 Alas, their various schemes have all proven disastrous. In a later chapter, the ghost of the French philosopher and scientist Gassendi is summoned and predicts that “Attraction, whereof the present Learned are such zealous Asserters,” will soon be exploded.14 This strange episode takes place on Glubbdubdrib, “the Island of Sorcerers or Magicians,” where the king is served by the spirits of the dead. The classical literary reference is to Aeneas's descent into the underworld, but the contemporary cultural reference is to Freemasonry. Swift throws another barb at Masonry in the final chapter of book three, in which Gulliver enters a kingdom where certain individuals live forever, although they become old, infirm and senile.15
The third book of Gulliver's Travels is, among other things, a sustained attack on the influence of the Newtonian Magi. It ridicules them as impractical speculators, their minds floating in the air like windy Neoplatonists. It depicts them as heirs to astrology, and suggests that their basic principle, gravitational attraction, is no more than a fantasy. Swift also mocks the Freemasons, with whom Newton's disciples were closely associated, for their fixation with ancient mysteries and their pursuit of immortality.16 In sum, Gulliver's Travels links the Newtonians with occult thinking in ways that they would not have relished, but which may n
onetheless be surprisingly accurate.
Newton and the Argonauts
Any discussion of the Newtonian attitude towards the occult has to begin with the great man himself. Master of the Mint from 1699, president of the Royal Society from 1703 and knighted in 1705, Newton had achieved greater rewards from the state than any contemporary scientist.17 He had abandoned alchemical experiments, but he was increasingly absorbed by questions of prophecy. These were not in themselves occult issues; rather, they were of concern to every Christian. On two particular subjects, however, Newton was drawn back to occult writings, which he reworked according to his own peculiar understanding of God's intentions. These were the biblical Temple of Solomon and the mythical voyage of the Argonauts. Newton's attempts to hunt down the meaning of these phenomena led him towards a reconsideration of the relationship between the natural world and the divine.
The Temple of Solomon was an intellectual playground for those who entertained occult notions. The idea that it provided a kind of encyclopaedia of universal knowledge had a long history.18 The scriptural reasons for believing this seemed abundant to anyone who was determined to seek them. Like the heavens, the Temple was designed by God; it was the first such structure built in the world, and the only true one; it provided the foundation for sacred architecture and was thought to reflect cosmic verities. The Temple harboured the Ark of the Covenant, the particular abode of God, just as the universe was the Almighty's general residence (or “sensorium,” to use Newton's phrase). The measurements of the Temple invited mathematical speculations about the dimensions of the universe and prophecies of future events. The Temple was the place of sacrifice for the ancient Jews, prefiguring Christ's later sacrifice of himself. The prophet Ezekiel's vision of the Temple implied that the building was tied up with the destiny of the world. Added to all this, the builder of the Temple, King Solomon, was thought to have understood every aspect of natural philosophy. As a result, his great work of construction became the focus for an extraordinary variety of interpretations.
The height of occult speculation about the Temple was reached with the publication in 1605 of the Spanish Jesuit J.B. Villalpando's massive study of the building as it was described in Ezekiel's vision. In the measurements of Solomon's Temple, Villalpando perceived the harmony of the heavens and of the musical scale. In its proportions, he envisioned the dimensions of the human body and, more particularly, the body of Christ. In its stylistic features, he recognized the origins of the three classical orders of ancient architecture. In short, it was a microcosm of divine creation, a universal map whose features could be read like the letters of a prophetic text or the night sky. Its interpretation was a kind of astrology, an occult science aimed at entering God's mind.19 English Protestant commentators were quick to reject Villalpando's work. His transposition of the physical features of the body of Christ onto the layout of the Temple, according to the Reverend Samuel Lee, writing in 1659, was “not a little strained and forced, savouring more of the sharpness and subtlety of human wit, then of the solid wisdom and teachings of the holy Spirit.”20 Puritans like Lee regarded each feature of Solomon's building as a “Type”: that is, “an Arbitrary sign, representing future and spiritual matters by divine institution.”21 Individual types might indicate later events, but they did not collectively incorporate the entirety of the divine plan.
Nevertheless, some Protestant writers saw Solomon's Temple as providing a model for the perfection of nature. Utopian versions of the Temple were found in Johann Valentin Andreæ's Christianopolis and Francis Bacon's New Atlantis. In Christianopolis (1619), Andreæ, a German Lutheran theologian and chief author of the early Rosicrucian manifestos, conceived of a city at whose centre lay a perfectly square temple. It contained a college with a chemical laboratory as well as facilities for studying anatomy, natural history, astronomy, mathematics and the “mystic numbers” by which “the Supreme Architect” measured out the harmony of the world.22 Francis Bacon may have been inspired by Christianopolis when he wrote New Atlantis, published posthumously in English in 1627. Bacon imagined a secretive college of fellows named “Solomon's House,” located on an island in the Pacific with the strangely biblical name of Bensalem. “Solomon's House” was founded by a mythical king, Solamona, and was “dedicated to the Study of the Works and Creatures of God.”23 The image of the utopian Temple was later picked up by the German polymath Samuel Hartlib, who assisted a colleague in writing a scheme for the reformation of English economic life. Like Bacon, they envisioned an ideal society based in an island kingdom, named “Macaria” or the Blessed Isles. Hartlib was also curious about Villalpando's work, although we do not know what he thought of it.24
The Temple did not inspire everybody. Neither its occult nor its utopian aspects meant much to the celebrated architect Christopher Wren, in spite of his connections with the Hartlib circle. Believing that little could be known about the structure's appearance, Wren dismissed Villalpando's reconstruction as an “imaginary Scheme,” a “fine romantick Piece” that amounted to “mere Fancy.”25 His coolness towards Solomonic architecture persisted even as Wren designed and constructed a modern temple, St Paul's Cathedral. Yet in 1675 he became involved in importing Solomon's Temple into England, in the form of a model brought from Amsterdam by Rabbi Jacob Judah Leon. Leon died before the model could be presented to the Royal Society, but Wren was sufficiently interested to discuss it with the Society's curator of experiments, Robert Hooke.26 Apparently, he learned little from it. If the pediment façade and triple tiers of columns on Rabbi Leon's model were reflected in the façade and double tiers of columns of St Paul's, Wren never said so. In spite of the plausible claim that he served as Grand Master of London Freemasons between 1685 and 1717, Wren seems to have been unimpressed by the Temple, which came to hold a central place in Masonic lore.27
As a strict Anglican, what Wren may have feared in the image of the Temple was heterodoxy. Who knew what the minds of religious enthusiasts could read into it? Newton, on the other hand, was unconstrained by orthodoxy, at least in his private thinking. He chose not to regard the Temple as a natural or utopian scheme, turning back instead towards its most occult expositor, Villalpando. Newton's extended inquiry into the meaning of the Temple, in a manuscript entitled “Treatise or Remarks on Solomon's Temple,” may have been written as early as the 1690s or as late as 1725–7, just before his death. The latter date might be preferred for one simple reason: the Temple was much more discussed in the decades after 1714 than it had been in the preceding post-Revolution period. This was due to a number of factors, including the spread of Freemasonry and the frequent comparison of the Hanoverian dynasty to the House of David, which had divine approval but no hereditary right to the throne.28 In an expanding economy, moreover, the riches of Solomon were an intriguing subject. George Renolds, “Professor of the Mathematicks” at Bristol (probably an astrologer), even published a work in which the value of the king of Israel's treasure was calculated very precisely at £1,217,170,828.9s. 1d.—well in excess of the £400 million valuation of the whole kingdom of Great Britain.29
Public fascination with the Temple of Solomon reached its apogee with the exhibition in London of a huge model of the building, designed by Gerhard Schott, proprietor of the Hamburg Opera House. This was 20 feet square by 12 feet high and contained 2,000 chambers, 7,000 pillars and 300 figures. Finished between 1693 and 1698 at a staggering cost, it was sold to an English buyer after Schott's death. The model displayed every well-known detail of the celebrated building, from the “Table of Shew-bread” to the cherubim guarding the Ark of the Covenant. The publicity pamphlet issued in connection with its first London exhibition in 1724–5 boasted that more could be learned from the model “than out of all the Books and Writings of Vitruvius, Vignola, Scamotzius [Scammozi], and all other noted architects,” because the Temple was “to be built not after the Invention of Man, but after the Pattern which the Lord himself had given.”30 Judging by the plans attached to the pamphlet, the mod
el drew heavily on Villalpando's reconstruction. A great success with the public, it was displayed again in 1729–30 at the Royal Exchange, the hub of British finance. Evidently, Solomon was a figure of interest to the moneyed men of the capital.
It would be pleasing to think that Newton wrote his treatise on the Temple while Schott's model was on display in London, but there is no proof of this, and the great man had already been contemplating the subject for many years. His main source was Villalpando, on whose writings he made extensive and careful notes.31 The Jesuit's argument that the Temple reflected the body of Christ may have reminded Newton of William Yworth's comparison of Christ with the Philosopher's Stone. Like Christ or the Stone, the building was a perfect creation of God. Evidence derived from the historian Josephus and other sources, however, led Newton to disagree with Villalpando's measurement of the “sacred cubit,” which he reduced from two and a half Roman feet to just over two.32 This made Newton's Temple smaller than Villalpando's, although it was no less universal in its implications.
Like Villalpando, Newton focused on the prophetic significance of the Temple as revealed to Ezekiel. The first senteces of Newton's treatise underline the point:
That the future is represented in the legal constructions [legalibus constitionibus: i.e. worldly structures built by divine command] is acknowledged by all … Hence it happens that these constructions were more suitable than the natural world as a system of things from which the prophets might choose types, and as the Apocalypse abounds to the maximum extent in this kind of types, so these constitutions and the Apocalypse are as it were twins of the same prophetic things, they explain themselves mutually nor can they be exactly understood separately.33