At the Origins of Historical Imagology: Isaac Newton’s Nature-Philosophical Mythography. Translation and Commentaries

Abstract

The paper explores Isaac Newton’s understanding of the origins of historical imagology. In his study of imagology as practice, Newton proved to be not only a historian and natural philosopher, but also as a mythographer. He attempted a comprehensive taxonomic and chronological analysis of the pagan (gentile) deities of the ancient Mediterranean peoples. From Newton’s point of view, pagan religions, myths and poetry associated with them, were the foundations of historical imagology as a practice of interpreting the images of “foreign peoples” in the ancient world. The paper contains commented fragments of the author’s translation from Latin into Russian of a number of Newton’s archival works on mythography and the origins of imagology. The translation from Latin into Russian is made for the first time. The author declares no conflicts of interests.