Appendix D: Scientists, Theologians, and the Antichrist Question

From the inventor of logarithms to the discoverer of oxygen, some of history’s greatest scientific minds devoted serious study to biblical prophecy. This appendix collects their views on the central question of this study: What is the antichrist, and does it appear before or after the gathering of believers?

None of these figures held a pre-tribulation rapture. The concept did not appear until the Irvingite-dispensational movement of the 1830s (documented in Baxter 1833; see Appendix F) and its later crystallization in Darby’s mature scheme (~1849-1850) --- after every figure listed here. But their identifications of the antichrist varied dramatically, and their methods of prophetic study reveal how the scientific mind engaged with eschatological questions.

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Jean de Roquetaillade (John of Rupescissa, c. 1310—1366/70)

Scientific contribution: Franciscan friar and early alchemist; pioneered the concept of the quintessence (a distilled substance with near-heavenly perfection) as both medicine and spiritual technology.

Key eschatological works:

• Liber ostensor quod adesse festinant tempora (1356) --- detailed prophetic exegesis
• Vade Mecum in Tribulatione (1356) --- eschatological manual for surviving the tribulation
• Liber de consideratione quintae essentiae omnium rerum (1351—1352) --- alchemical manual explicitly linked to end-times preparation

Antichrist identification: Roquetaillade is unique in predicting two antichrists --- one Eastern and one Western. The Eastern antichrist would appear publicly, performing false signs and wonders. The Western antichrist was linked to corruption within the church itself, possibly the papal court at Avignon (which he called “sinner Avignon”).

The alchemy-eschatology connection: Roquetaillade’s most distinctive contribution was his argument that natural knowledge --- specifically alchemy --- could be used to actively fight the antichrist. His quintessence could heal plague, prolong life, and produce gold to rebuild the impoverished Church after the antichrist’s fall. He envisioned a “small cadre of adepts” who, armed with alchemical substances discovered through divine guidance, would resist the seemingly unstoppable antichrist. This was a radical departure from passive apocalyptic waiting.

Sequence:

1. A thirteen-year period of tribulation (1356—1370), including both antichrists’ reigns
2. Election of a reparator --- a Franciscan pope who would restore the Church
3. Cooperation between the restored papacy and a French-Roman Emperor
4. The Thousand-Year Reign of Christ, beginning around 1370

No separate rapture. The saints survive the tribulation through preparation (including alchemical remedies) and are gathered at Christ’s return.

Primary sources: Critical edition by Matthias Kaup, John of Rupescissa’s VADE MECUM IN TRIBULACIONE (1356) (Routledge, 2014). Scholarly analysis in Leah DeVun, Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time (Columbia University Press, 2009).

The ordering question: Both antichrists appear first. The faithful endure and resist (using natural knowledge). The gathering follows Christ’s return after antichrist’s defeat.

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Michael Servetus (1509/11—1553)

Scientific contribution: Physician; first European to correctly describe pulmonary circulation of the blood.

Key eschatological work: Christianismi Restitutio (The Restoration of Christianity, 1553)

Antichrist identification: Servetus identified the antichrist not merely with the Pope but with Nicene Trinitarianism itself. For Servetus, the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) introduced a “tritheistic” God foreign to Scripture and to the earliest Christians. The great apostasy was the adoption of Trinitarian dogma --- and every church that upheld it, Catholic and Protestant, was perpetuating the antichristian system.

Sequence: Historicist. Servetus applied the 1,260 year-days of Revelation from the Council of Nicaea (~325 AD), arriving at approximately 1585 as the expected end of antichrist’s reign. He expected a restoration of true, non-Trinitarian Christianity as the prelude to Christ’s return. No separate rapture or gathering before the antichrist --- the antichristian system was already present and must be overcome first.

The cost of his conviction: Both Catholics and Protestants wanted Servetus dead --- his identification of antichrist implicated everyone. Calvin had him arrested and burned at the stake in Geneva on October 27, 1553. Christianismi Restitutio was almost entirely destroyed; only three copies survive.

The ordering question: Antichrist (Trinitarian apostasy) already present since 325 AD. Restoration of true faith, then Christ’s return.

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John Napier (1550—1617)

Scientific contribution: Inventor of logarithms; pioneer of computational mathematics.

Key eschatological work: A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of Saint John (1593) --- the first major Scottish work of biblical interpretation. Napier considered it more important than his mathematical work.

Antichrist identification: Napier identified the antichrist squarely with the papacy, employing detailed numerological analysis. He calculated 666 from the Latin title of the Pope and argued that the “two-horned beast” of Revelation 13 represented the papal office with its dual claim to spiritual and temporal authority.

“The Pope is that man of sinne and Antichrist, of whome Paul speaketh.” --- Napier, A Plaine Discovery, Proposition 26

Sequence: Napier laid out a precise chronological scheme:

1. The antichrist’s reign began c. 300—316 AD (the union of church and imperial power under Constantine)
2. Using the 1,260 year-days of Revelation, the fall of the papacy would occur between approximately 1560—1576 (he saw the Reformation as partial fulfillment)
3. The final judgment and end of the world would come between 1688 and 1700

No separate rapture. Antichrist was already present and being overthrown; Christ’s return would follow.

Method: The book is divided into two treatises: 36 propositions about prophetic interpretation, then a verse-by-verse commentary on Revelation. His method was systematic, mathematical, and tabular --- reflecting the same analytical mind that would invent logarithms. The work went through multiple editions and was translated into Dutch, French, and German.

The ordering question: Antichrist (papacy) already present since ~300 AD. Reformation is its overthrow. Christ returns to judge after the antichrist’s fall.

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Johannes Kepler (1571—1630)

Scientific contribution: Astronomer; discovered the laws of planetary motion.

Key works with eschatological content: De Stella Nova in Pede Serpentarii (1606); De Vero Anno (1614)

Antichrist identification: As a Lutheran, Kepler held broadly to the standard Reformation identification of the papacy with antichrist, though he was not polemical about it. His eschatological interests were primarily chronological rather than polemical --- he was more interested in computing dates than in anti-papal rhetoric.

Contributions to eschatological study:

• Chronological correction of Christ’s birth --- Kepler calculated Christ was born around 4—5 BC, which had implications for prophetic timelines based on Daniel 9
• He studied the great conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn as potentially marking prophetic epochs, though he was cautious about over-interpretation
• He explicitly warned against the kind of date-setting that Napier engaged in

Honest assessment: Kepler’s eschatological views are thinly documented compared to the other figures in this appendix. He was primarily an astronomer who occasionally touched on prophetic chronology. He accepted the general historicist framework standard for Reformation-era Lutherans but did not produce a systematic eschatological treatise.

The ordering question: Standard historicist --- antichrist (papacy) already present; Christ returns visibly at the end.

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Robert Boyle (1627—1691)

Scientific contribution: Chemist; formulated Boyle’s Law; pioneer of the experimental method.

Key theological work: Some Physico-Theological Considerations about the Possibility of the Resurrection (1675)

Eschatological engagement: Boyle was deeply pious but notably reticent about eschatological specifics. His major contribution to eschatological discourse was indirect:

• In Physico-Theological Considerations about the Possibility of the Resurrection, he used his chemistry to argue that God could reconstitute bodies even after decomposition --- a scientific defense of bodily resurrection
• He endowed the Boyle Lectures (from 1692, after his death), a scientific lecture series explicitly designed to defend Christianity. William Whiston used this platform in 1707 to argue that fulfilled prophecy was empirical evidence for Christianity

As a member of the Church of England and broadly Reformed, Boyle likely shared the conventional Protestant identification of the papacy with antichrist, but he did not publish systematic prophetic interpretation.

The ordering question: Not systematically articulated. Boyle affirmed Christ’s return, bodily resurrection, and final judgment but avoided detailed prophetic speculation.

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Joseph Mede (1586—1638)

Scientific contribution: Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge; pioneer of systematic biblical chronology.

Key eschatological work: Clavis Apocalyptica (Key of the Revelation, 1627) --- translated into English by Richard More, MP, and published by authorization of the House of Commons in 1643.

Antichrist identification: The papacy, following the standard Reformation position.

The breakthrough: Mede’s method of synchronism --- recognizing that Revelation’s visions are not strictly sequential but describe parallel events from different angles --- was revolutionary. It allowed him to demonstrate that the millennium of Revelation 20 was a future period following the destruction of the antichrist.

This revived the premillennial reading that had been suppressed since Augustine. For over a thousand years, the Western church had taught that the millennium was the present church age. Mede argued it was still to come --- after the antichrist’s defeat, before the final judgment.

Sequence:

1. The antichrist (papacy) reigns during the church age
2. The antichrist is overthrown
3. Christ returns
4. The millennium begins (a future period of peace and righteousness)
5. Final judgment follows

No separate rapture. The gathering of believers occurs at Christ’s visible return, after the antichrist is defeated. Mede was a historicist premillennialist --- post-tribulational in modern terms.

The ordering question: Antichrist first, then Christ’s return and the gathering, then the millennium.

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Isaac Newton (1642—1727)

Scientific contribution: Physicist and mathematician; laws of motion, universal gravitation, calculus.

Key eschatological work: Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (published posthumously, 1733). Newton spent more time on biblical prophecy than on physics.

Antichrist identification: The papacy as a system --- the institutional corruption of Christianity through the union of church and imperial power.

(A “not set up by the sword” quotation long attributed to the Observations appears nowhere in the 1733 text --- checked against the complete Gutenberg transcription and the archive.org scan --- and is treated here as apocryphal. Newton’s identification of the papal power rests on his actual chapters on Daniel’s little horn.)

“The Apostle Paul in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians tells them, that there must first come a falling away, before the day of Christ should come; and that the man of sin must be first revealed, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.” --- Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies

The 2060 calculation: Newton privately calculated that the world would not end before 2060, based on 1,260 years from the rise of papal temporal power (c. 800 AD). In a manuscript note (Yahuda MS 7.3):

“It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner. This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophecies into discredit.”

Sequence: Historicist premillennialist. The antichrist (papacy) is already present; the gathering occurs at Christ’s future visible return; no separate rapture.

The ordering question: Antichrist (papacy) already present. The “man of sin must be first revealed” before Christ’s return and the gathering.

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William Whiston (1667—1752)

Scientific contribution: Mathematician; Newton’s successor as Lucasian Professor at Cambridge.

Key eschatological works:

• An Essay on the Revelation of St. John (1706)
• The Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies (Boyle Lectures, 1707)
• The Literal Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies (1724)

Antichrist identification: Like Servetus and Priestley after him, Whiston went beyond the standard papal identification. As an Arian (believing Christ was divine but subordinate to the Father), he identified the antichristian apostasy specifically with Athanasius and the Nicene party who, in his view, corrupted the original apostolic faith by introducing Trinitarian dogma.

Sequence: Thoroughgoing historicist with precise date calculations:

1. The 1,260 year-days run from approximately 606 AD (establishment of papal universal authority under Boniface III/Phocas) to approximately 1866 AD
2. The restoration of the Jews to Palestine precedes the end
3. The fall of the Ottoman Empire (“drying up of the Euphrates,” Revelation 16) is part of the sequence
4. A literal, physical second coming of Christ

No separate rapture. The gathering and the return are a single event.

The scientific approach to prophecy: Whiston’s Boyle Lectures (1707) are particularly significant because they explicitly argued that fulfilled prophecy was empirical evidence for the truth of Christianity --- treating prophetic fulfillment as a form of scientific demonstration. He was expelled from Cambridge in 1710 for his Arian views.

The ordering question: Antichrist (Nicene corruption / papacy) already present. Christ’s visible return and gathering follow the antichrist’s fall.

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Cotton Mather (1663—1728)

Scientific contribution: Natural philosopher; early advocate of smallpox inoculation; Fellow of the Royal Society.

Key eschatological work: Triparadisus (written c. 1726—1727; manuscript at the American Antiquarian Society, unpublished in his lifetime)

Antichrist identification: The papacy (standard Puritan historicism), but also broader manifestations of antichristian opposition to true religion.

The remarkable shift: Mather’s eschatology changed dramatically over his lifetime:

Early Mather (pre-1710s) --- Postmillennialist:

1. The fall of the papacy (antichrist)
2. The conversion of the Jews
3. A gradual improvement of the world
4. A long millennium of peace
5. Christ’s return at the end of the millennium

Late Mather (1710s—1720s) --- Premillennialist:

1. The world will NOT improve gradually
2. Christ returns before the millennium, in a catastrophic conflagration
3. The earth is destroyed by fire and renewed
4. The saints are raised/changed and reign with Christ on the renewed earth
5. This could happen very soon

In Triparadisus, his mature work, Mather laid out a three-part scheme: Paradise Lost (Eden), Paradise Regained (the church), and Paradise Restored (the millennium after Christ’s fiery return). He used language about the saints being “caught up” --- but this was at Christ’s visible, public return, not a secret prior event.

What drove the shift: Repeated disappointment (he expected 1697, then 1716) and growing pessimism about the state of the world.

The ordering question: Antichrist (papacy) already present. Whether postmill or premill, the gathering occurs at Christ’s visible return --- never before the antichrist.

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Jonathan Edwards (1703—1758)

Scientific contribution: Theologian-philosopher; studied natural philosophy; wrote on spiders, light, and the nature of atoms alongside his theological works.

Key eschatological works:

• A History of the Work of Redemption (preached 1739, published posthumously 1774)
• Notes on the Apocalypse (manuscript notebooks, published in the Yale critical edition)
• An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer (1747)

Antichrist identification: Edwards identified two antichristian powers: the papacy and Islam --- twin enemies of Christ’s kingdom. Both must be overcome before the millennium.

Sequence: Edwards was the most famous and influential postmillennialist in American theology:

1. The antichristian powers (papacy and Islam) are progressively overthrown --- not by cataclysm but by the spread of the gospel
2. A great outpouring of the Spirit follows (Edwards saw the Great Awakening of the 1740s as a possible foretaste)
3. The millennium is a long period of gospel triumph on earth --- true religion flourishing, knowledge increasing, peace prevailing
4. He suggested the millennium might begin around 2000 AD
5. At the end of the millennium, a brief apostasy (Gog and Magog)
6. Christ returns physically for the final judgment

No separate rapture. The resurrection and transformation of saints occurs at Christ’s single, visible return at the END of the millennium.

Edwards described the fall of antichrist as gradual: the papal kingdom “has diminished, and the true church has increased… there is a progress of God’s work against the kingdom of Antichrist.” He explicitly rejected a sudden, catastrophic overthrow, seeing it instead as a progressive historical process.

The ordering question: Antichrist (papacy + Islam) already present and being overcome. The gospel triumphs. Millennium of peace. Then Christ returns and gathers His people at the very end.

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Increase Mather (1639—1723)

Scientific contribution: Natural philosopher; early advocate of empirical observation of comets and natural phenomena; president of Harvard College; Fellow of the Royal Society.

Key eschatological works:

• The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation (1669) --- his first book, arguing for future mass conversion of the Jews
• Heaven’s Alarm to the World (1681) --- comet sermon interpreting celestial events as divine portents
• Kometographia (1683) --- discourse on comets
• New Jerusalem (manuscript, 1687) --- unpublished treatise on millennial life
• A Dissertation Concerning the Future Conversion of the Jewish Nation (1709) --- mature eschatological statement

Antichrist identification: The papacy (standard Puritan/Reformed historicism). He identified the institution, not individual popes, as the antichrist, and believed the 1,260-year prophetic period was drawing to a close.

Sequence: Increase Mather was a committed premillennialist whose eschatological scheme included:

1. Fall and destruction of antichrist (the papacy)
2. Conflagration (fiery judgment on the earth)
3. Saints “caught up” in a pre-conflagration transformation
4. Conversion of all nations
5. Millennial reign of Christ on a renewed earth
6. Second conflagration and final judgment at the end of the millennium

He explicitly taught two conflagrations and two resurrections: “The scripture gives us to understand that there will be Two Conflagrations, as well as Two Resurrections, the first at the Beginning, and the last at the End of the Thousand Years.” This was a precursor to later two-stage return ideas, though Mather’s scheme kept the antichrist before the gathering.

Relationship to Cotton Mather: Both father (Increase) and son (Cotton) were premillennialists who identified the papacy with the antichrist. Cotton’s major work was Triparadisus (c. 1726). Both believed in the future conversion of the Jews and a literal millennium.

The ordering question: Antichrist (papacy) already present and being destroyed. The gathering/transformation of saints occurs at Christ’s visible return, after the antichrist’s fall.

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Thomas Burnet (1635—1715)

Scientific contribution: Theologian and early geologist; developed one of the first naturalistic explanations of Earth’s geological history.

Key work: Telluris Theoria Sacra (The Sacred Theory of the Earth, 1681) --- four books covering Creation, the Flood, the coming Conflagration, and the New Heavens and New Earth.

Antichrist identification: Burnet discussed the antichrist in conventional terms, referencing the “Reign of the Beast” (1,260 years) as a chronological marker preceding the world’s end. His treatment was more concerned with the mechanism of the end (natural causes for the conflagration) than with the identity of the antichrist.

Sequence: Broadly premillennial, with a distinctive naturalistic emphasis:

1. The current world undergoes fiery destruction (conflagration) --- Burnet explained this through natural causes: underground fires, volcanoes, and the earth’s internal heat
2. Christ returns
3. A millennium follows on a renewed, paradisal earth, where the saints live in “Indolency and Plenty”
4. After the millennium, a brief rebellion (Gog and Magog)
5. The earth is “changed into the nature of a Sun, or of a fixt Star” at the final consummation

What makes Burnet distinctive: He was the first to systematically attempt a scientific explanation of eschatological events. The conflagration was not purely miraculous but operated through natural laws set in motion by Providence. This approach --- explaining prophetic fulfillment through natural processes --- anticipated later efforts by Whiston and others.

Note: Burnet’s Book IV (Concerning the New Heavens and New Earth) discusses the inhabitants of the millennial earth, but specific quotations from this section cannot be independently verified from currently accessible online sources.

The ordering question: Antichrist’s reign ends before the conflagration and Christ’s return. The gathering of saints occurs at the return, not before.

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Joseph Priestley (1733—1804)

Scientific contribution: Chemist; discoverer of oxygen; pioneer of electrical science.

Key eschatological works:

• An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782)
• The Present State of Europe Compared with Antient Prophecies (1794)
• An History of Early Opinions Concerning Jesus Christ (1786)

Antichrist identification: Priestley identified the antichrist with all established churches that had departed from what he considered original, unitarian Christianity. He went further than any Protestant historicist: not just the Pope, not just Catholicism, but the Church of England and all Trinitarian orthodoxy were part of the antichristian system. The great apostasy was the introduction of Trinitarian doctrine, the doctrine of the atonement, and clerical hierarchy --- all of which he considered pagan corruptions.

Sequence: Historicist. Priestley interpreted the French Revolution as the beginning of the fall of antichrist --- the destruction of the corrupt church-state system:

1. The fall of papal and monarchical power (underway in the 1790s, he believed)
2. The overthrow of all corrupted Christianity
3. A restored, rational, unitarian faith
4. The return of the Jews to Palestine
5. The millennium --- a period of peace and true religion on earth
6. Christ’s second coming at a later, unspecified point

“The late revolution in France appears to me to be a principal step towards the fulfilment of prophecy… the tenth part of the great antichristian city fell, and many were slain.” --- Priestley, The Present State of Europe Compared with Antient Prophecies (1794)

Priestley identified the “tenth part” of Revelation 11:13 with France as one of the ten kingdoms that had supported the papal system.

The ordering question: Antichrist (corrupt institutional Christianity) already present since Nicaea. The French Revolution is its overthrow. The gathering follows Christ’s future return.

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Summary Table

Figure	Dates	Science	Antichrist =	Sequence	Rapture?
Roquetaillade	c. 1310—1366	Alchemy (quintessence)	Two: Eastern + Western	Tribulation → reparator → millennium	No
Servetus	1509—1553	Pulmonary circulation	Nicene Trinitarianism	Historicist; antichrist since 325 AD	No
Napier	1550—1617	Logarithms	Papacy (numerological proof)	Historicist; end by 1700	No
Kepler	1571—1630	Planetary motion	Papacy (conventional)	Broadly historicist	No
Boyle	1627—1691	Chemistry (Boyle’s Law)	Not documented	Not systematic	N/A
Mede	1586—1638	Biblical chronology	Papacy	Historicist premillennialist	No
Burnet	1635—1715	Early geology	Conventional (Beast)	Naturalistic premillennialist	No
I. Mather	1639—1723	Natural philosophy	Papacy	Premillennialist; two conflagrations	No
Newton	1642—1727	Physics, calculus	Papacy (system)	Historicist premillennialist	No
Whiston	1667—1752	Mathematics (Cambridge)	Nicene corruption	Historicist; papacy falls ~1866	No
C. Mather	1663—1728	Natural philosophy	Papacy + broader	Late: premillennialist	No
Edwards	1703—1758	Natural philosophy	Papacy + Islam	Postmillennialist	No
Priestley	1733—1804	Oxygen, electricity	All state churches	Historicist; French Rev. = fall	No

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Key Observations

1. Unanimous on the Sequence

Not a single scientist-theologian placed the gathering of believers before the antichrist. Whether premillennialist (Mede, Newton, late Mather), postmillennialist (Edwards), or historicist amillennialist, the antichrist always precedes Christ’s return and the gathering. The pre-tribulation rapture concept did not appear until the Irvingite-dispensational movement of the 1830s (documented in Baxter 1833; see Appendix F) and its later crystallization in Darby’s mature scheme (~1849-1850) --- after every figure in this appendix.

2. The Nicaea Boundary Keeps Appearing

Napier dated antichrist’s rise to ~300—316 AD. Servetus pinpointed Nicaea (325 AD). Whiston and Priestley both identified the Nicene/Constantinian settlement as the key turning point. These scientist-theologians independently converged on approximately the same date as eschatologically significant --- the very period the SCAR framework treats as the Antiquity boundary.

3. All Were Historicists

Every figure who articulated a clear position read Revelation as a map of church history unfolding in real time --- not as purely future (futurism) or purely past (preterism). This was the dominant Protestant interpretive method from the Reformation through the 19th century.

4. The Unitarian Thread

Servetus, Whiston, and Priestley form a distinct subgroup who identified antichrist not merely with the Pope but with Trinitarian orthodoxy itself. Each pushed the standard Protestant critique further: if the Pope corrupted Christianity, the corruption began at the doctrinal councils, not merely with medieval papal overreach. There is a clear intellectual lineage: Servetus → Socinianism → English Unitarianism → Priestley.

5. Scientific Method Applied to Prophecy

These figures brought analytical rigor to prophetic interpretation: Napier used mathematical tables, Whiston argued that fulfilled prophecy was empirical evidence (in the Boyle Lectures), Newton spent more time on prophecy than physics, and Edwards constructed a comprehensive providential history. Whether their conclusions were right or wrong, they treated biblical prophecy as a serious subject worthy of systematic study --- not as speculation or enthusiasm.

6. The Gathering Is Never Secret

Even where these figures describe believers being “caught up” (as in late Mather), the event is always public, visible, and at Christ’s return --- never a secret removal before the tribulation. The idea that Christ would come invisibly to take believers away while the world continued unaware was foreign to all of them.