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An authoritative edition of Cotton Mather's unpublished manuscript "Triparadisus".

Author
Smolinski, Reiner
Physical Description
1,097 pages
Additional Creators
Pennsylvania State University
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Summary
Of all the critical attention Cotton Mather has received as a Puritan historian, biographer, theologian, natural philosopher, and medical scientist, one curious omission stands out: scholars have paid inadequate attention to Mather's lifelong preoccupation with eschatology and its impact on his thought and work. Beginning with Things to be Look'd for (Boston, 1691), Mather published more than forty sermons on the millennium and the events leading up to the cataclysm. In fact, it is hard to read any of Mather's writings without finding some reference to the imminence of Christ's Second Coming. Of his unpublished works on that topic, "Triparadisus" stands out. Begun in 1712 and finished in 1726, "Triparadisus" is Mather's definitive treatment and most comprehensive discussion of eschatology. The manuscript is housed in The American Antiquarian Society and is available to scholars only on microfilm. To make available in print this important document seems long overdue; the present critical edition of "Triparadisus" seeks to amend such neglect.
To be sure, Mather's eschatological view underwent considerable revision throughout his life, but especially during his last 7 years. In his old age, he now openly disagreed with his father Increase--and many of their mutual friends--on such issues as the National Conversion of the Jews, the Conflagration, and the New Jerusalem of the New Heavens and the New Earth. Mather's "Triparadisus" thus marks a decisive break with his earlier, shared beliefs and the millenarian tradition of his tutors. "Triparadisus" must therefore be juxtaposed with his earlier works on the subject, especially his unpublished manuscript essay "Problema Theologicum" (1703) and his compendium to the Bible "Biblia Americana," left unfinished at his death in 1728.
"Triparadisus" also provides important biographical insight into Mather's last years. It sheds new light on his pietist ecumenism, his endeavor to unite all creeds in one Church Universal through his "Maxims of Piety." Moreover, his 387-page manuscript represents an important link between Cotton Mather's pre-millennialism in the decades before the Great Awakening and Jonathan Edwards's post-millennialism in the 1740s and 1750s. A reassessment of Mather's contribution to the millennialist tradition in America is overdue.
Other Subject(s)
Dissertation Note
Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University 1987.
Note
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-04, Section: A, page: 8210.
Adviser: Harrison T. Meserole.
Part Of
Dissertation Abstracts International
49-04A
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