Ariel Hessayon

Restoring the Garden of Eden in England’s Green and Pleasant Land: The Diggers and the Fruits of the Earth

On Sunday, 1 or perhaps 8 April 1649—it is difficult to establish the date with certainty—five people went to St. George’s Hill in the parish Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, and began digging the earth. They sowed the ground with parsnips, carrots, and beans, returning the next day in increased numbers. The following day they burned at least 40 roods of heath, which was considered a very great prejudice to the town. By the end of the week between 20 and 30 people were reportedly laboring the entire day at digging. It was said that they intended to plow up the ground and sow it with seed corn. Furthermore, they apparently threatened to pull down and level all park pales and “lay all open,” thereby evoking fears of an anti-enclosure riot (a familiar form of agrarian protest). The acknowledged leaders of these new Levellers or diggers were William Everard (1602?– fl.1651) and Gerrard Winstanley (1609–76). Apprenticed in the Merchant Taylors’ Company, Everard seems to have been a Parliamentarian spy during the English Civil War, was implicated in a plot to kill Charles I, jailed and subsequently cashiered from the army.

The making of Abiezer Coppe

This article seeks to uncover the origins of the ‘Ranters ’ by examining Abiezer Coppe’s early life and social network. It suggests that Coppe’s background, experiences and milieu – particularly his Baptist phase and the associations he made during this period – are crucial to appreciate the genesis of the ‘Ranters ’. As such it should be regarded as a further contribution towards the growing consensus that the origins of ‘radicalism’ in the English Revolution are to be located in the religion of the ‘hotter sort ’ of Protestants lower down the social scale.

Winstanley and Baptist Thought

Of all the enigmas about Gerrard Winstanley, perhaps the greatest is how did a man of unremarkable origins come to articulate one of the most penetrating and damning critiques of his own society in such powerful and crafted prose? The answer to this question has as much to do with Winstanleys spiritual progress and broadening intellectual horizons as with his increased engagement in local and national politics, which became more pronounced after the establishment of the Digger plantation. Accordingly, this essay focuses on an aspect of Winstanleys development, namely his interpretation, adaptation, and articulation of teachings characteristically – albeit not always exclusively – maintained by certain prominent Baptists and their followers. I have suggested elsewhere that the outlines, if not the precise moments, of Winstanleys spiritual journey can be reconstructed with confidence. Beginning in either childhood, adolescence, or some point in adulthood, he was a puritan; then perhaps a separatist; then, it can be inferred, a General Baptist; then he dispensed with the outward observance of gospel ordinances (analogous to a “Seeker”) before falling into a trance. Here, I want to build on my own work together with John Gurneys important recent studies by locating Winstanley within a milieu that makes his beliefs and subsequent practices explicable. For it appears that despite his undoubted gift for original thought, Winstanley did not always give credit where it was due.

Early Modern Communism: The Diggers and Community of Goods

Since their rediscovery in the nineteenth century—first by Liberal, Socialist, and Marxist historians and then by Protestant nonconformists—the English Diggers of 1649–50 have been successively appropriated; their nimage refashioned in the service of new political doctrines that have sought legitimacy partly through emphasizing supposed ideological antecedents. In a previous article I demonstrated that recent attempts to incorporate the Diggers within a constructed Green heritage are unconvincing and that at worst these emerging “Green narratives” are insensitive to historical context. Similarly, here I want to show how, either through lack of understanding the finer points of Protestant theology or deliberate distortion, most explanations of the Diggers’ implementation of the doctrine of community of goods have been misleading. n(Abstract)

Lead’s Life and Times (Part Three): The Philadelphian Society

This chapter covers the period from 1696 to 1704, that is from Lead’s first published message to the Philadelphian Society until her death and burial. It outlines how Lead’s little band of supporters intended to warn and prepare prospective believers of the coming Philadelphian age through a flurry of publications. Yet this coordinated publicity campaign abruptly fractured the Philadelphians’ precursor society, which hitherto had negotiated a path between secrecy and openness. Consequently, only the minority who favoured a public testimony owned the Philadelphian name. Wanting to expose her visions and teachings to public view Lead was given the opportunity to do so through a succession of mainly male patrons and amanuenses. Accordingly, she became synonymous with the Philadelphian Society. At the same time Lead’s principle supporters set about fashioning an image of irenic conformity and social standing for the Philadelphians at large. Hostile observers, however, readily compared Philadelphians with Quakers. Some even incorporated them within a catalogue of innumerable sects or else grouped them with foreign Quietists and Pietists. More damaging still was the allegation that Lead envisaged herself as the woman clothed with the sun (Revelation 12:1), indeed as the grandmother of a new Christ.

Introduction: Jane Lead’s Legacy in Perspective

This brief survey of Lead’s legacy indicates that although Lead’s writings enjoyed a widespread if mixed continental reception in German and Dutch translation, English editions of her work were largely ignored by her contemporaries. During the eighteenth century she initially attracted readers generally interested either in Jacob Boehme or the doctrine of universal salvation. Afterwards she was read by several people attracted to Emanuel Swedenborg’s teachings and subsequently by certain followers of Joanna Southcott. All the same, outside these small circles her prophetic pretensions and obscure style tended to be judged harshly. Such criticism was not new. But it meant that there was greater interest in Lead’s writings among German rather than English speakers—at least until the mid-1970s. Since then, in the wake of Second Wave Feminism Lead’s reputation has undergone a remarkable ascent from the depths of disdain to the peaks of veneration.

Jane Lead and her Transnational Legacy

This book concerns one of early modern England’s most prolific female authors, Jane Lead (1624–1704). Well-researched and clearly written, these essays focus on aspects of Lead’s thought including her attitudes towards Calvinism, mysticism, gender and the apocalypse, her role within the Philadelphian Society, and her transnational legacy - particularly in the German-speaking world and North America. This book suggests that Lead was far more radical than has been supposed. It argues that her religious journey had staging posts, namely an initial Calvinist obsession with sin and predestination wedded to a conventional Protestant understanding of the coming apocalypse, then the introduction of Jacob Boehme’s teachings and accompanying visions of a female personification of divine wisdom and finally, the adoption of the doctrine of the universal restoration of all humanity. It locates Lead within a continuing tradition of puritan pastoral thought, showing how her personalised view of the millennium differed from most of her contemporaries and discussing her influence on Pietists and their conceptions of bodily transmutation. It also discusses strategies available to female authors and manuscript circulation as an alternative to print and examines her initial continental reception, particularly within Pietist and Spiritualist circles. Lastly, it traces her afterlife through the relationship between the Philadelphians and the French Prophets, the interest in Lead among the followers of Joanna Southcott and her successors, and the appropriation of Lead’s prophecies by two twentieth century movements: Mary’s City of David and the Latter Rain movement.

Lead’s Life and Times (Part One): Before Widowhood

Part one: focussing on the period of Lead’s life before she became a widow in 1670, this chapter suggests that Lead was far more radical than has been supposed. Making use of a great many archival discoveries, which form the cornerstone of the painstaking reconstruction presented here, it provides mainly circumstantial but nonetheless cumulatively overwhelming evidence that Lead’s relatively well-known autobiography (printed in German in 1696) conceals almost as much as it reveals. Constructed to reassure its intended audience of continental Spiritualists, Behmenists and Pietists of Lead’s upright character, respectable social status and divinely bestowed gifts this so-called ‘Life of the Author’ adopts a similar strategy to that observable in a number of Philadelphian publications which masked private heterodox beliefs and rituals with public professions of irenic conformity. Accordingly key names, activities and teachings are omitted from Lead’s German biography because in the political, military and religious contexts of the mid-1690s detailing past associations would have damaged Lead’s reputation among her heterogeneous readership. n nPart two: covering the period from 1670 to 1695 – that is from the beginning of Lead’s widowhood until she went blind – this chapter focusses as much on extensive and overlapping domestic and continental networks of assorted millenarians, prophets, theosophists and devotees of mystic and spiritualist authors generally as on Lead herself. It also traces an evolution of Lead’s thought as she came under successive influences and began to develop her own distinctive beliefs. This was a religious journey with staging posts: an initial Calvinist obsession with sin and predestination wedded to a conventional Protestant understanding of the coming apocalypse; then the introduction of Jacob Boehme’s teachings and accompanying visions of a female personification of divine wisdom; finally the adoption, albeit with inconsistencies, of the doctrine of the universal restoration of all humanity. It was the last together with Lead’s apparent dependence upon visions and revelations which repulsed certain former admirers of her writings, turning them into some of Lead’s most vehment critics. n nPart three: this chapter covers the period from 1696 to 1704, that is from Lead’s first published message to the Philadelphian Society until her death and burial. It outlines how Lead’s little band of supporters intended to warn and prepare prospective believers of the coming Philadelphian age through a flurry of publications. Yet this co-ordinated publicity campaign abruptly fractured the Philadelphians’ precursor society, which hitherto had negotiated a path between secrecy and openness. Consequently only the minority who favoured a public testimony owned the Philadelphian name. Wanting to expose her visions and teachings to public view Lead was given the opportunity to do so through a succession of mainly male patrons and amanuenses. Accordingly she became synonymous with the Philadelphian Society. At the same time Lead’s principle supporters set about fashioning an image of irenic conformity and social standing for the Philadelphians at large. Hostile observers, however, readily compared Philadelphians with Quakers. Some even incorporated them within a catalogue of innumerable sects or else grouped them with foreign Quietists and Pietists. More damaging still was the allegation that Lead envisaged herself as the woman clothed with the sun (Revelation 12:1), indeed as the grandmother of a new Christ.

Lead’s Life and Times (Part Two): The Woman in the Wilderness

Covering the period from 1670 to 1695—that is from the beginning of Lead’s widowhood until she went blind—this chapter focusses as much on extensive and overlapping domestic and continental networks of assorted millenarians, prophets, theosophists and devotees of mystic and spiritualist authors generally as on Lead herself. It also traces an evolution of Lead’s thought as she came under successive influences and began to develop her own distinctive beliefs. This was a religious journey with staging posts: an initial Calvinist obsession with sin and predestination wedded to a conventional Protestant understanding of the coming apocalypse; then the introduction of Jacob Boehme’s teachings and accompanying visions of a female personification of divine wisdom; finally, the adoption, albeit with inconsistencies, of the doctrine of the universal restoration of all humanity. It was the last together with Lead’s apparent dependence upon visions and revelations that repulsed certain former admirers of her writings, turning them into some of Lead’s most vehement critics.