Item #1001 The French Prophets, The History of a Millenarian Group in Eighteenth-Century England. Hillel Schwartz.

The French Prophets, The History of a Millenarian Group in Eighteenth-Century England

Berkeley: University of California Press, (1980). 0520038150. First Edition. 8vo. Brown marbled paper covered boards with Grey cloth spine stamped in gold. 382 pp. including index. Book is fine. / Fine dust jacket. Item #1001
ISBN: 0520038150

In 1706 three prophets appeared in London. They were Huguenots from southeastern France, heirs to a prophetic tradition which had taken root among French Protestants during their persecution by Louis XIV. The three men first prophesied to French refugees but soon found support and new prophets in English audiences. English followers, however, brought with them culturally distinct millenarian visions and patterns of religious behavior. As the group grew - and became known collectively as the French Prophets - it was transformed by those it attracted. Later, reaching out to Scotland and the continent, missionaries from the group made enduring contact with quietists and pietists, whose ideas about inspiration affected the outlook of the prophets themselves. By the 1730s, in their waning years, the French Prophets wer akin to the Moravians, Methodists, and Shakers who inaugurated the evangelical revival in eighteenth-century England.

Using archival materials from seven countries, the author reconstructs the internal history of the French Prophets, tracing social, sexual, and cultural tensions. He describes the interplay of four kinds of millenarian ethos in prophecy and ritual, and he follows the process by which the French Prophets lost vitality and coherence. Alert to subtle relationships between prophecy and group dynamics, the author integrates the work of anthropologists, social psychologists, sociologists, and historians of religion. Paying special attention to women's roles, he proposes new approaches to the study of female prophets and leaders within a partriarchal, commercial society.

Price: $50.00