Was it dangerous to be an Arian in Isaac Newton’s lifetime ? If he had been found out what would have been the consequences? I look forward to your feedback.
davidmich
Do you mean “aryan”?
If you mean Aryan, and if you mean by that a person of northern European descent (which is not precisely correct, but it’s probably what you mean) then no.
I mean those people who followed the religious beliefs of Arianism.
Given that “Isaac Asimov’s lifetime” only ended in 1991, and I don’t recall any mass persecutions of Arians in the '90s…
Newton, not Asimov.
Derp.
So I’d be interested in knowing to what extent Arians were persecuted during Newton’s lifetime (17th-18th century)
Oh.
Never mind, then.
Were they any extant Arian in Newton’s lifetime though? The supposition he suscribed to Arianism comes from later scholars. Any information he would have gotten on Arianism would have been from reading about them and their beliefs. While it is certain that he did read about them, (he read extensively about early the Church), I don’t think that Arianism was even known to any except perhaps the more academic minded of Churchmen. Unitarianism was well known and it has some similarities to Arianism and was infact what Newton is often thought to be
Newton’s religious belief’s probably did not adhere to the standard CoE doctrine. Newton refused to be ordained as a Minister of the CoE which was a requiremet for Cambridge Professors, he got over it by getting an exemption from Charles II.
Or maybe he refused to become a minister because his hated step father had been one, he never forgave his mother for marrying him. Guy had some serious mommy issues.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
If you mean Aryan, and if you mean by that a person of northern European descent (which is not precisely correct, but it’s probably what you mean) then no.
[/QUOTE]
Love it when an otherwise excellent and thoughtful posters tries to be too clever by half.
Was there religious freedom? Which beliefs would not have been tolerated and punished?
davidmich
That’s what I get for not reading carefully enough.
The last person to be executed by fire for heresy in England was Edward Wightman in 1612. The legislation relating to this penalty was in fact only changed in 1677, after which those convicted on a heresy charge would suffer at most excommunication.[7] Accusations of heresy, whether the revival of Late Antique debates such as those over Pelagianism and Arianism or more recent views such as Socinianism in theology and Copernicanism in natural philosophy, continued to play an important part in intellectual life.
At the same time as the judicial pursuit of heresy became less severe, interest in demonology was intense in many European countries. The sceptical arguments against the existence of witchcraft and demonic possession were still contested into the 1680s by theologians. The Gangraena by Thomas Edwards used a framework equating heresy and possession to draw attention to the variety of radical Protestant views current in the 1640s.
Well, Newton does not seem to have hidden his Arianism too assiduously. It led him to refuse to take holy orders in the Church of England as young man, which, if he had not already been recognized within the university to be a mathematical genius, would have prevented him from becoming a professor at Cambridge. The university was a Church of England establishment in those days, and I believe it was actually against the law to appoint someone who was not an ordained C of E minister, to a teaching position within it. I do not know if Newton actually told the university authorities about his Arianism at the time, but his refusal to be ordained, and to take the requisite oaths, even at the strong risk of aborting his academic career, would certainly have alerted them to the fact that he had strong religiously unorthodox views. Of course, the university really wanted him, and I believe they had to make a special petition to Parliament (possibly a special act was passed) in order for him to be able to take up his chair (and this was well before he had announced any of his major discoveries).
Although having unorthodox religious beliefs could certainly have a very adverse effect on your career by Newton’s time, I do not think anyone was at much risk of being burned at the stake or even imprisoned for them. England had had quite enough of that sort of thing in the reigns of Edward VI and Mary Tudor. Even under Elizabeth I there was already a good deal of tolerance of divergent theologies within the Church of England (though you did have to be loyal to the C of E, and being an overt Catholic could certainly be a problem). But Newton’s adulthood came after the English Civil War, during which all sorts of sometimes very radical Protestant sects had flourished, and they did not disappear (indeed, new sects did not cease to appear) with the restoration of the monarchy, although they lost their political influence. Newton’s Arianism probably falls into this sort of category. It was an idiosyncratic form of Protestantism, and certainly not at all Catholic. (Catholics remained politically suspect because most of England’s enemy or rival nations were Catholic. Some forms of radical Protestantism were suspect because they were associated with extreme political radicalism. Newton, however, clearly did not fit into ether of those categories.) He would not have been (and was not) affirmatively persecuted by the authorities for failing to sign on to C of E orthodoxy, but it could certainly have adversely affected his career if he hadn’t been, you know, Newton, and even though he was Newton, he probably found it prudent not to be too much in people’s faces about his heterodox religious views during his earlier career, even if he did not completely hide them.
Mind you, even in his lifetime he published some fairly out-there books on theology and Biblical interpretation, but by the time they appeared he was already a recognized national treasure.
Oh, I thought you were teasing me for falling for an obvious joke.
:smack:
In late Stuart times, eg: 1660-88, Charles II and James II were far more tolerant than their subjects, many of whom who would have punished the slightest lapse from their own individual standards, and dreamt of little else; and very few beliefs would have been publicly punished by government*, apart from atheism — if that. As with most countries of the era, attendance at the state form of church was mandatory, and progressively less as time went by deliberate absence was fined.
There was an overwhelming number of popular religious controversies in 17th century Britain ( and Europe, to say the least ): Arianism was very low on the list. When you are dealing with Muggletonians, or Ranters, or Congregationalists ( Brownists/Independents ), the question of the Christ’s Personhood would be small potatoes.
Plus, the government knew Newton was imbalanced on religion, and barely cared. Like Wren, he was going to cut and run during the Revolution and take office under the traitors, so really they should have not supported him in any way: but men’s oaths meant even less in the 17th century than most times.
- Obviously Scotland was a special case since religion, although the splits were far, far simpler than in England, could lead to war: many Presbyterians were punished, but that was for [del]sport[/del] being Cameronian rebels rather than for religion; those who paid non-attendance to the Church of Scotland ( Anglican in form until 1688, then Presbyterian after the Revolution ) and offered no rebellion would have been fairly free.
http://www.localhistories.org/17thcenturyreligion.html
Charles II (1660-1685) was not particularly religious but as far as he had any religion he secretly leaned to Roman Catholicism.
Meanwhile parliament was determined to crack down on the many independent churches that had sprung up during the interregnum (the period between 1649 and 1660 when England was without a king) and make Anglicanism the state religion again.
They passed a series of acts called the Clarendon code, a series of laws to persecute non-conformists (Protestants who did not belong to the Church of England). The Corporation Act of 1661 said that all officials in towns must be members of the Church of England.
The Act of Uniformity 1662 said that all clergy must use the Book of Common Prayer. About 2,000 clergy who disagreed resigned. Furthermore the Conventicle Act of 1664 forbade unauthorized religious meetings of more than 5 people unless they were all of the same household.
Well, the Code happened because before and during the interregnum, the governing Independents and Presbyterians, who had no love for each other, set up their own version of the state church and kicked out all the regular clergy to go starve in a ditch.
As after WWII the new regime was determined to make sure it didn’t start up again — however persecution is the best way to make something popular; ‘The Blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church’ as Tertullian laughingly said.
Arianism still was not prioritized in the government mind.
Right, having the wrong religious views could be bad for your career - you couldn’t hold certain offices - but in those times it was not going to get you executed, or even imprisoned, unless it was closely connected with political sedition. If you were as talented as Newton, it did not even keep you out of important jobs in government. Newton got to be both an MP, and Warden and Master of the Mint.
The personal religious views of Charles II are not very relevant. After the civil war it was Parliament, not the king, that mattered in this regard. After all, when James II started leaning too far towards Catholicism, Parliament did not find it very difficult to depose him and appoint a new, more reliably Protestant, king and queen, but he did not get executed or even, more than momentarily, imprisoned.