Vital Nature and Vital Piety
Johann Arndt and the Evangelical Vitalism of Cotton Mather
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3378735 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brett Malcolm Grainger, Brett Grainger (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 81 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 852-872 |
| Publication date | 2012-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Church History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-6407 • E-ISSN: 1755-2613 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0009640712001928 |
| OpenAlex | W1995951278 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 23 |
Despite a surfeit of studies recognizing Cotton Mather's support for a range of alchemical and occult practices, historians have yet to integrate these occult activities with Mather's religious and scientific thought as a whole. I argue that we can bring clarity to Mather's engagement with the occult by refracting it through his reverence for Lutheran Pietist Johann Arndt, whose writings, especiallyVier bucher vom wahren Christentum (Four Books of True Christianity), offer a key to Mather's employment of hermetic materials in his major works of natural philosophy. Through analysis ofThe Christian PhilosopherandThe Angel of Bethesda,as well as Mather's private writings, I suggest that Mather's cosmology was vitalistic in ways not previously acknowledged by historians. This view of creation as dynamic, enchanted, and marked by divine signatures-evidenced most clearly in Mather's concept of thenishmath-chajim-helped Mather reconcile the new science, Puritan covenant theology, and alchemical traditions descending from Paracelsus. By positing a divine, dynamic presence in nature, Mather retained an orthodox view of God as sovereign and transcendent while intimately engaged in a process of cosmic redemption, slowly transmuting the base matter of a fallen creation into a new heaven and new earth
Alchemy · Art · Christianity · Heaven · Literature · Methodism · Occult · Piety · Religious experience · Theology · Vitalism · Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies · History of Science and Natural History · Philosophy · Religious studies · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
Magnalia Christi americana
The New England mind
Early Evangelicalism
The Matter of Revolution
Paracelsus
Ecumenical Relations Between Boston Puritanism and German Pietism
A Secular Age
Formations of the Secular
Cotton Mather, Astrologer
Family Literacy in Early 18th-Century Boston
The American Pietism of Cotton Mather
The Angelical Conjunction
Vindicating the Minister's Medical Role
Cotton Mather, the “Angelical Ministry,” and Inoculation
Pietist And Puritan Sources of Early Protestant World Missions (Cotton Mather and A. H. Francke)
The Age of Atonement
The Hunting of Leviathan
Giants in the Earth
The American Pietism of Cotton Mather
Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment
The New England Mind
The Angelical Conjunction
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2017 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |