Dark Matter

“Secretive? I don’t know how you deduce that,” I said. “He seemed a very preening sort of fellow to me.”

“When we left, his velvet shoes were quite ruined with mud,” said Newton. “Yet when we arrived they were noticeably clean, with new soles. Since the road in front of his premises is cobbled over, with no mud on it at all, I should suppose that he has a back yard, and that there was something out there that he was most concerned we should not see. Sufficiently concerned to ruin a pair of new velvet shoes.”

“He might easily have got them muddy while fetching these silver tankards,” I said, objecting to Newton’s deduction.

“Really, Ellis, it’s time you paid more attention to your own eyes and ears. He himself said that he fetched the tankards from his cellar. Even the cellars in the Tower are not as muddy as that.”

“But I don’t see what it proves.”

“It proves nothing at all,” said Newton. “Merely what I said: that for all his generosity and apparent outwardness to us, Mister Scroope is a man who carries two swords and has something to hide.”

“Was that the Hebrew language you spoke?” I asked.

“It was Ladino,” said Newton. “The man is a Spanish Marrano. The Marranos were Jews who managed to enter England under the guise of Protestants fleeing from persecution in Spain.”

After which he told me, with much apparent satisfaction, of how well the Jews had done in England.

“Egad, sir,” I said with some exasperation, for then I believed the Jews to have been Christ’s murderers. “You speak of them in such terms that one might think you approved of them.”

“The God we honour and worship is a Hebrew God,” said Newton. “And the Jews are the fathers of our Church. We may learn much from a study of the Jewish religion. Therefore I say to you that not only do I approve of the Jews, I also admire and do honour unto them.

“When you entered my service, my dear Ellis, you asked that I should always correct your ignorance of something and to show you something of the world as I understand it. This hatred people have for the Jews is based on a lie. For it is my opinion that much of modern Christian doctrine is a lie; and that scriptures were corrupted by the opponents of Arius in the Council of Nicea, during the fourth century. It was they who advanced the false doctrine of Athanasius, that the Son is of the same body as the Father, even though that idea is not in scripture. Once this misconception has been disposed of, it may be seen how the Jews are no more to be despised.”

“But, sir,” I breathed, for fear that the coachman might overhear us, “you speak against the Holy Trinity and the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. All this is heresy to our Church.”

“To my mind it is the worship of Christ that is heretical. Jesus was merely the divine mediator between God and man, and to worship him is mere idolatry. Jesus became God’s heir not because of his congenital divinity but because of his death, which earned him the right to be honoured. Just as we honour Moses, Elijah, Solomon, Daniel, and all the other Jewish prophets. Honoured, but nothing more than that.”

Newton had an expert’s knowledge of theology, and I knew he could have disputed doctrine with the Archbishop of Canterbury. And yet I was profoundly shocked to discover just what he believed, or, to put the case more correctly, what he did not believe. The beliefs of Galileo, heretical in the eyes of Rome, were as nothing compared with those of my master, for Newton’s Arianism was, like Roman Catholicism, specifically excluded from the Toleration Act of 1689 that offered religious freedom to all faiths. Even a Jew enjoyed more religious freedom than an Arian.

My astonishment was tempered by the sense of trust that Newton had now put in me. For immediately I saw how Newton’s enemies would have taken delight in the public exposure of his avowed heresy, which would also have destroyed his position in society. I could not imagine how an avowed heretic such as he might have been allowed to remain as the Lucasian Professor at Trinity. At the very least he would have lost his place in the Mint. Possibly he might have suffered an even worse fate. It was only two years since a young man of just eighteen years had been hanged for denying the Holy Trinity in Scotland, despite his having recanted and done penance. Of course the Edinburghclergy, like all the Scots, were the most bigoted opponents of anti-Trinitarianism. But even in England the penalties for dissenting opinions could be severe. Although heresy was not punishable at English Common Law, a man’s blasphemous tongue could be branded with a hot iron, and his person whipped and pilloried. Therefore to be made the trustee of such a grave secret was confirmation indeed of the great faith Newton now placed in me. This pleased me greatly; but I confess I never foresaw how being exposed to Newton’s heretical creed would begin to work upon my own Christian conscience.