Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John

Isaac Newton — from the first edition, London 1733, by way of Project Gutenberg.

Newton spent more of his life on prophecy and chronology than on optics, and left this unpublished at his death; his nephew Benjamin Smith saw it through the press in 1733. It is not a work of enthusiasm but of scholarship in Newton’s own manner — the prophetic images treated as a language with fixed meanings, the text of Daniel dated from the compilers of the Old Testament canon, the seventy weeks computed, and the eleventh horn of the fourth beast identified with the Church of Rome. The second part does the same for the Apocalypse, and argues that it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem.

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Contents (18)

1. The Dedication
2. Part 1, Chapter 1. Introduction concerning, the Compilers of the Books of the Old Testament
3. Part 1, Chapter 2. Of the Prophetic Language
4. Part 1, Chapter 3. Of the vision of the Image composed of four Metals
5. Part 1, Chapter 4. Of the vision of the four Beasts
6. Part 1, Chapter 5. Of the Kingdoms represented by the feet of the Image composed of iron and clay
7. Part 1, Chapter 6. Of the ten Kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the fourth Beast
8. Part 1, Chapter 7. Of the eleventh horn of Daniel’s fourth Beast
9. Part 1, Chapter 8. Of the power of the eleventh horn of Daniel’s fourth Beast, to change times and laws
10. Part 1, Chapter 9. Of the Kingdoms represented in Daniel by the Ram and He-Goat
11. Part 1, Chapter 10. Of the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks
12. Part 1, Chapter 11. Of the Times of the Birth and Passion of Christ
13. Part 1, Chapter 12. Of the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth
14. Part 1, Chapter 13. Of the King who did according to his will, and magnified himself above every God, and honoured Mahuzzims, and regarded not the desire of women
15. Part 1, Chapter 14. Of the Mahuzzims, honoured by the King who doth according to his will
16. Part 2, Chapter 1. Introduction, concerning the time when the Apocalypse was written
17. Part 2, Chapter 2. Of the relation which the Apocalypse of John hath to the Book of the Law of Moses, and to the worship of God in the Temple
18. Part 2, Chapter 3. Of the relation which the Prophecy of John hath to those of Daniel; and of the Subject of the Prophecy