William Whiston (1667-1752)
William Whiston (December 9, 1667 - August 22, 1752), was as English
theologian, historian, and mathematician. He is probably best known for his translation of the Antiquities of the Jews and other works by Josephus, his
A New Theory of the Earth, and his Arianism.
Early life and career
Whiston was born to Josiah Whiston and Katherine Rosse at Norton, near Twycross, in Leicestershire, of which village his father was
rector. He was educated privately, partly on account of the delicacy of his health, and partly
that he might act as amanuensis to his father, who had lost his sight. He was studied at Tamworth Grammar School. After his father's death, he entered at Clare College, Cambridge as a sizar in 1686, where he applied
himself to mathematical study, where he qualified as B.A. (1690), and M.A. (1695), and
was elected Fellow in 1691 and in 1693. William Lloyd ordained Whiston at Lichfield in 1695 and he married Ruth
Antrobus in 1699. He next became chaplain to John Moore (1646-1714), the bishop of Norwich, from whom he received the vicarship of
Lowestoft in 1698.
A portrait of Whiston with a diagram demonstrating his theories of cometary catastrophism best described in
A New Theory of the Earth
His A New Theory of the Earth from its Original to the Consummation of All
Things (1696), an articulation of creationism and
flood geology which held that the global flood
of Noah had been caused by a comet, obtained the
praise of both Newton and Locke, the latter of whom
classed the author among those who, if not adding much to our knowledge, "At least bring some new things to our thoughts." 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 1701 he resigned his vicarship to become deputy at Cambridge to Sir
Isaac Newton, whom two years later he succeeded as Lucasian professor of mathematics. Here he engaged in joint research with his junior
colleague Roger Cotes, appointed with Whiston's patronage to the Plumian professorship in 1706.
Arianism and later career
In 1707 he was Boyle lecturer. For several years Whiston
continued to write and preach both on mathematical and theological subjects with considerable success; but his study of the
Apostolic Constitutions had convinced him that Arianism was the creed of the early church. For Whiston, to form an opinion and to publish it were things
almost simultaneous. His heterodoxy soon became notorious, and in 1710 he was deprived of his
professorship and expelled from the university after a well-publicized hearing. The rest of
his life was spent in incessant controversy — theological, mathematical, chronological, and miscellaneous. Because of his Arianism, Whiston was never invited to be a member of the
Royal Society, due probably to Newton's feelings about him after he published his
unorthodox views. Whiston was permitted, however, to lecture to the Society frequently.
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, and soon afterwards founded a society for
promoting primitive Christianity, lecturing in support of his theories in halls and coffee-houses at London, Bath, and Royal Tunbridge Wells. In 1714, Whiston was
instrumental in the establishment of the Board of Longitude and for the next forty
years made persevering efforts to solve the longitude problem. He gave courses of
demonstration lectures on astronomical and physical phenomena and engaged in many religious controversies. Whiston produced one
of the first isoclinic maps of southern England in 1719 and 1721. One of the most
valuable of his books, the Life of Samuel Clarke, appeared in 1730.
While considered heretical on many points, he was a firm believer in supernatural
Christianity, and frequently took the field in defense of prophecy and miracle, including anointing
the sick and touching for the king's evil. His dislike of rationalism in religion also made him one of the numerous opponents of Benjamin Hoadly's Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament. He held that
Song of Solomon was apocryphal and that the
Book of Baruch was not. He was fervent in his views of ecclesiastical government and
discipline, derived from the Apostolical Constitutions, on the ecclesiastical authorities. He challenged the teachings of
Athanasius. He challenged Sir Isaac Newton's Biblical chronological
system with success; but he himself lost not only time but money in an endeavour to solve the problem of longitude. In 1736 he caused widespread anxiety among London's citizen when he
predicted the world would end on October 16th of that year because a comet would
hit the earth; the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, had to officially deny this prediction to ease the public.
Of all his singular opinions the best known is his advocacy of clerical monogamy,
immortalized in The Vicar of Wakefield. Of all his labours the most useful
is his translation of the works of Josephus (1737), with notes
and dissertations, still often reprinted to the present day. His last "famous discovery, or rather revival of Dr Giles Fletcher, the Elder's," which he mentions in his autobiography with infinite
complacency, was the identification of the Tatars with the lost
tribes of Israel. In 1745 he published his Primitive New Testament. About the same
time (1747) he finally left the Anglican communion for
the Baptist, leaving the church literally as well as figuratively by quitting it as the
clergyman began to read the Athanasian creed. He had a happy family life and died in Lyndon Hall, Rutland, at the home of his son-in-law, Samuel Barker on August 22, 1752. He was
survived by his children Sarah, William, George, and John. Whiston left a memoir (3 vols., 1749-1750) which deserves more attention than it has received, both for its
characteristic individuality and as a storehouse of curious anecdotes and illustrations of the religious and moral tendencies of
the age. It does not, however, contain any account of the proceedings taken against him at Cambridge for his antitrinitarianism, these having been published separately at the time.
Whiston's bibliography
See also
References and sources
Books
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia
Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public
domain.
- Farrell, Maureen (1981). William Whiston. New
York: Arno Press.
- Force, James E. (2002). William Whiston: Honest
Newtonian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
External links
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