Solomon’s Temple, Stonehenge, and Divine Architecture in the English Enlightenment

Abstract

Isaac Newton had a long running interest in Solomon’s Temple. For Newton the plan of the Temple was a successor of the ancient Prytanæum, a temple where a sacred fire was kept burning. The plan of the Prytanæum was ‘the frame of the world as the true Temple of the great God’ and it was the antecedent to all other temples. Newton mentioned in an unpublished manuscript that it would appear that Stonehenge was an ancient Prytanæum and as such the architectural style of Stonehenge was an antecedent of Solomon’s Temple. He only mentioned it once but the connection between Solomon’s Temple and Stonehenge was made by other significant figures of the English Enlightenment including Inigo Jones, William Stukeley, and John Wood the Elder. This connection was turned into something particularly English.

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