Item #19135 Perfectionist, Volume III, Numbers 1 and 2 (February 15 and March 1, 1843). UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES RELIGION, J. H. Noyes.

Perfectionist, Volume III, Numbers 1 and 2 (February 15 and March 1, 1843)

Putney, VT: 1843.

Two issues of this early John Humphrey Noyes newspaper, pre-dating the establishment of the Oneida Community. Each issue is 4 pp, 11.5 x 15.75 inches. Disbound from a larger volume with small holes at spine from removal, horizontal center fold, else fine. Having had his newly granted ministerial license revoked (for declaring that he had reached a perfect state of sinlessness), John Humphrey Noyes moved to Putney, Vermont in 1836. There he founded a society of "Bible communists" who lived communally and began to experiment with complex marriage, male continence, mutual criticism, and other practices that would become the hallmarks of the better known Oneida Community. Noyes used The Perfectionist to publicize and expound on his understanding of perfection as "the ability, through Christ's grace, to attain perfect holiness of intent, or perfection of the spirit, that rendered perfect obedience to the outward letter of the law a matter of secondary importance" (Wayland-Smith, Oneida, p. 29). The paper also carried news of the doings of other religious movements and correspondence from followers who lived elsewhere.

Item #19135

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