William Whiston

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William Whiston
isoclinic maps, work on longitude
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics, theology
InstitutionsClare College, Cambridge
Academic advisorsIsaac Newton
Robert Herne
Notable studentsJames Jurin
Signature

William Whiston (9 December 1667 – 22 August 1752) was an English theologian, historian,

the rewards that it promised) and his important translations of the Antiquities of the Jews and other works by Josephus (which are still in print). He was a prominent exponent of Arianism and wrote A New Theory of the Earth
.

Whiston succeeded his mentor Newton as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. In 1710 he lost the professorship and was expelled from the university as a result of his unorthodox religious views. Whiston rejected the notion of eternal torment in hellfire, which he viewed as absurd, cruel, and an insult to God. What especially pitted him against church authorities was his denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, which he believed had pagan origins.

Early life and career

Whiston was born to Josiah Whiston (1622–1685) and Katherine Rosse (1639–1701) at

Queen Elizabeth Grammar School at Tamworth, Staffordshire. After his father's death, he entered Clare College, Cambridge as a sizar in 1686. He applied himself to mathematical study, was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts (BA) (1690), and AM (1693), and was elected Fellow in 1691 and probationary senior Fellow in 1693.[1][3]

John Moore, the bishop of Norwich, and swapped positions with him. He now divided his time between Norwich, Cambridge and London. In 1698 Moore gave him the living of Lowestoft where he became rector. In 1699 he resigned his Fellowship of Clare College and left to marry.[1]

Whiston first met

Plumian professorship in 1706. Students at the Cotes–Whiston experimental philosophy course included Stephen Hales, William Stukeley, and Joseph Wasse.[4]

Newtonian theologian

A portrait of William Whiston with a diagram demonstrating his theories of cometary catastrophism, described in A New Theory of the Earth

In 1707 Whiston was

Jacobite rebellions.[8]

Whiston supported a qualified biblical literalism: the literal meaning should be the default, unless there was a good reason to think otherwise.[9] This view again went back to Augustine. Newton's attitude to the cosmogony of Thomas Burnet reflected on the language of the Genesis creation narrative; as did Whiston's alternative cosmogony. Moses as author of Genesis was not necessarily writing as a natural philosopher, nor as a law-giver, but for a particular audience.[10] The new cosmogonies of Burnet, Whiston and John Woodward were all criticised for their disregard of the biblical account, by John Arbuthnot, John Edwards and William Nicolson in particular.[11]

The title for Whiston's Boyle lectures was The Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies. Rejecting

demonic possession.[15]

Tensions with Newton

It is no longer assumed that Whiston's Memoirs are completely trustworthy on the matter of his personal relations with Newton. One view is that the relationship was never very close, Bentley being more involved in Whiston's appointment to the Lucasian chair; and that it deteriorated as soon as Whiston began to write on prophecy, publishing Essay on the Revelation of St John (1706).[14] This work proclaimed the millennium for the year 1716.[16]

Whiston's 1707 edition of Newton's Arithmetica Universalis did nothing to improve matters. Newton himself was heavily if covertly involved in the 1722 edition, nominally due to John Machin, making many changes.[17]

In 1708–9 Whiston was engaging

antitrinitarian views, from the 1690s, were finally published in 1754 as An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture
.

Whiston was never a Fellow of the Royal Society. In conversation with Edmond Halley he blamed his reputation as a "heretick". Also, though, he claimed Newton had disliked having an independent-minded disciple; and was unnaturally cautious and suspicious by nature.[19]

Expelled Arian

Whiston's route to rejection of the

Richard Brocklesby.[20] His study of the Apostolic Constitutions then convinced him that Arianism was the creed of the early church.[2]

The

Hanoverian succession of 1714. Their distrust of theological innovation had a direct impact on Whiston, as well as others of similar views. His heterodoxy was notorious.[21] In 1710 he was deprived of his professorship and expelled from the university.[2]

The matter was not allowed to rest there: Whiston tried to get a hearing before

St Andrew's, Holborn, taking place in 1719.[24][25]

"Primitive Christianity"

A portrait of Whiston from 1720

Whiston founded a society for promoting primitive Christianity, lecturing in support of his theories in halls and

Benjamin Hoadley,[29] Arthur Onslow,[29] and Thomas Rundle.[30] There were meetings at Whiston's house from 1715 to 1717; Hoadley avoided coming, as did Samuel Clarke, though invited.[31] A meeting with Clarke, Hoadley, John Craig and Gilbert Burnet the younger had left these leading latitudinarians unconvinced about Whiston's reliance on the Apostolical Constitutions.[32]

king's evil. His dislike of rationalism in religion also made him one of the numerous opponents of Hoadley's Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament. He was fervent in his views of ecclesiastical government and discipline, derived from the Apostolical Constitutions.[2]

Around 1747, when his clergyman began to read the

Baptist.[2]

By the 1720s, some dissenters and early Unitarians viewed Whiston as a role model.[1]

Lecturer and popular author

Whiston began lecturing on natural philosophy in London. He gave regular courses at

Francis Hauksbee the younger worked with him on experimental demonstrations. His passing remarks on religious topics were sometimes objected to, for example by Henry Newman writing to Steele.[35][36]

Solar System chart by William Whiston and John Senex

His lectures were often accompanied by publications. In 1712, he published, with

Old Style in England); Whiston lectured on it at the time, in Covent Garden, and later, as a natural event and as a portent.[38]

By 1715 Whiston had also become adept at newspaper advertising.[39] He frequently lectured to the Royal Society.

Longitude

In 1714, he was instrumental in the passing of the

isoclinic maps of southern England in 1719 and 1721. In 1734, he proposed using the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites.[43]

Broader natural philosophy

Whiston's

global flood of Noah had been caused by a comet. The work obtained the praise of John Locke, who classed the author among those who, if not adding much to our knowledge, "At least bring some new things to our thoughts."[2] He was an early advocate, along with Edmond Halley, of the periodicity of comets; he also held that comets were responsible for past catastrophes in Earth's history. In 1736, he caused widespread anxiety among London's citizens when he predicted the world would end on 16 October that year because a comet would hit the earth.[44] William Wake as Archbishop of Canterbury
officially denied this prediction to calm the public.

There was no consensus within the Newtonians as to how far mechanical causes could be held responsible for key events of sacred history:

Christ's crucifixion. Whiston published The Testimony of Phlegon Vindicated in 1732.[46]

Views

The series of Moyer Lectures often made Whiston's unorthodox views a particular target.[47]

Whiston held that

Song of Solomon was apocryphal and that the Book of Baruch was not.[2] He modified the biblical Ussher chronology, setting the Creation at 4010 BCE.[48] He challenged Newton's system of The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728). Westfall absolves Whiston of the charge that he pushed for the posthumous publication of the Chronology just to attack it, commenting that the heirs were in any case looking to publish manuscripts of Newton, who died in 1727.[49]

Whiston's advocacy of clerical

lost tribes of Israel.[2]

Personal life

Whiston married Ruth, daughter of George Antrobus, his headmaster at Tamworth school. He had a happy family life and died in Lyndon Hall, Rutland, at the home of his son-in-law, Samuel Barker, on 22 August 1752.[1] He was survived by his children Sarah, William, George, and John.[50]

Works

New theory of the Earth, 1696

Whiston's later life was spent in continual controversy: theological, mathematical, chronological, and miscellaneous. He vindicated his estimate of the Apostolical Constitutions and the Arian views he had derived from them in his Primitive Christianity Revived (5 vols., 1711–1712). In 1713 he produced a reformed liturgy. His Life of Samuel Clarke appeared in 1730.[2]

In 1727 he published a two volume work called Authentik Record belonging to the Old and New Testament. This was a collection of translations and essays on various deuterocanonical books, pseudepigrapha and other essays with a translation if relevant.[2]

Whiston translated the complete works of Josephus into English, and published them along with his own notes and dissertations under the title The Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus the Jewish Historian in 1737. This translation was based on the same Greek edition of Josephus' works used by Siwart Haverkamp in his prior translation.[51] The text on which Whiston's translation of Josephus is based is, reputedly, one which had many errors in transcription.[52] In 1745 he published his Primitive New Testament (on the basis of Codex Bezae and Codex Claromontanus).[citation needed]

Whiston left memoirs (3 vols., 1749–1750). These do not contain the account of the proceedings taken against him at Cambridge for his

antitrinitarianism, which was published separately at the time.[2]

Editions

See also

References

  1. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29217. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Whiston, William". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 597.
  3. ^ "Whiston, William (WHSN686W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  4. ISBN 978-0-521-66310-6
    . Retrieved 28 May 2013.
  5. ISBN 978-0-226-74947-1
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  6. ISBN 978-0-300-11272-6
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  7. ^ Andrew Pyle (editor), The Dictionary of Seventeenth Century British Philosophers (2000), Thoemmes Press (two volumes), article Whiston, William, p. 875.
  8. ISBN 978-0-691-00925-4
    . Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  9. ISBN 978-1-139-42572-8
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  10. ISBN 978-1-906165-08-6
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  11. ISBN 978-0-203-46301-7
    . Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  12. ISBN 978-90-04-10000-8
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  13. ^ Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Clagett, Nicholas (1654–1727)" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 10. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  14. ^
    ISBN 978-0-691-15478-7
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  15. ISBN 978-1-4020-1969-2
    . Retrieved 25 May 2013.
  16. ^ Jacob, Margaret C. (1976). The Newtonians and the English Revolution 1689–1720. Harvester Press. pp. 132–33.
  17. ISBN 978-0-521-04584-1
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  18. ISBN 978-1-4020-1969-2
    . Retrieved 25 May 2013.
  19. ISBN 0-7126-6534-X
    .
  20. ISBN 978-0-19-826927-4
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  21. ISBN 978-0-227-67978-4
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  22. ISBN 978-0-7546-3209-2
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  23. ISBN 978-0-203-13462-7
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  24. ^ a b Lee, Sidney, ed. (1900). "Whiston, William" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 61. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  25. ISBN 978-1-4614-2149-8
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  26. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5378. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  27. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8793. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  28. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10292. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  29. ^
    ISBN 978-0-521-52488-9
    . Retrieved 21 May 2013.
  30. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24279. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  31. ISBN 978-0-691-11887-1
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  32. ISBN 978-0-227-67978-4
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  33. ^ Wokenius, Franz (1728). Christianismus primaevus quem Guil. Whistonus modo non-probando restituendum dictitat sed Apostolus Paulus breviter quasi in tabula depinxit ... Retrieved 25 May 2013.
  34. ISBN 978-0-674-03903-2
    . Retrieved 21 May 2013.
  35. ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "London Coffee houses and mathematics", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
  36. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/12619. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  37. ISBN 978-0-387-30400-7
    . Retrieved 25 May 2013.
  38. ISBN 978-0-521-66310-6
    . Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  39. ISBN 978-1-4094-2310-2
    . Retrieved 25 May 2013.
  40. ^ Ditton, William Whiston; Ditton, Humphrey (1714). A New Method for Discovering the Longitude, both at Sea and Land. John Phillips. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
  41. ^ For example, Jonathan Swift's 1714 "Ode, to Musick. On the Longitude", including numerous references to bepissing and beshitting upon both Whiston and Ditton.
  42. ^ S.D. Snobelen, "William Whiston: Natural Philosopher, Prophet, Primitive Christian" (Cambridge Univ. PhD Thesis, 2000)
  43. ^ Mr Whiston's Project for finding the Longitude (MSS/79/130.2), Board of Longitude project, University of Cambridge Digital Library
  44. ^ "This Month in Physics History". Retrieved 16 October 2018.
  45. ISBN 978-1-906165-08-6
    . Retrieved 25 May 2013.
  46. ISBN 978-0-521-26590-4
    . Retrieved 25 May 2013.
  47. ISBN 978-1-4020-1969-2
    . Retrieved 25 May 2013.
  48. ISBN 978-0-8308-2876-0
    . Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  49. ISBN 978-0-521-27435-7
    . Retrieved 25 May 2013.
  50. ^ Farrell, Maureen (1981). William Whiston. New York: Arno Press. pp. 46–47.
  51. ^ "The genuine works of Flavius Josephus the Jewish historian". University of Chicago. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
  52. ISBN 0-8254-2951-X
    .

Further reading

External links
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