Noyes, John Humphrey

Childhood and Youth

John Humphrey Noyes was born on September 3, 1811 in Brattleboro , Wyndham County, Vermont , USA . Father - John Noyes ( English John Noyes ) (1764-1841), an American politician and public figure who at different years of his life worked as a teacher, minister, member of the US House of Representatives , and also ran his own business ^[3] . Mother - Polly Hayes Noyes ( born Polly Hayes Noyes ), the aunt of the nineteenth US President Rutherford Hayes ^[4] .

At the age of twenty, John Humphrey Noyes seriously turned to religion and decided to devote himself to it ^[5] . Then he described his experiences: “A millennial kingdom settled in my heart, and I decided to live or die for it” ( English My heart was fixed on the millennium, and I resolved to live or die for it ) ^[5] . Soon after, Noyes graduated from Dartmouth College , but did not study law, as he had planned before, and instead entered the Andover Theological Seminary , wanting to become a Christian clergyman ^[6] .

By the end of 1832, Noyes transferred from Andover to Yale seminary, where he could devote more time to studying the Bible ^[7] . In addition to studying the Bible, attending regular lectures and preaching, Noyes also found time for social and political activities: he participated in the creation of the New Haven organization, one of the first public organizations opposing slavery ^[7] .

In his second year at Yale Theological Seminary, Noyes did what he himself considered an important theological discovery. Trying to calculate the date of the second coming of Jesus Christ , Noyes came to the conclusion that it had already taken place in the year 70 AD, and therefore "humanity is already living in a new era" ^[8] .

After this, Noyes was greatly puzzled by the problems of salvation from sin and the perfection of man. He began to discuss with colleagues on the issue that if a person cannot be truly free from sin, then the Christian dogma is lying, because only perfect and free from sin people can be considered true Christians. This internal religious crisis led John Noyes to a new “religious transformation”, after which he began to declare that “he did not commit sin” ^[8] .

Religious Perfectionism

These and other thoughts led John Noyes to accept the ideas of Christian religious perfectionism, according to which any person can be completely freed from the power of sin during this lifetime. Friends and colleagues at the seminary did not accept such ideas and considered Noyes a mentally unstable person, and professors called him a heretic . From the moment of “transfiguration”, John Noyes believed that he had handed over his will to God and that now all that he would choose and do would be perfect, because his choice was made “from a perfect heart” ( English came from a perfect heart ) ^[8] . John Noyes’s theological theory was based on the assertion that, by the command of God, man has an independent will, but this independent will comes from God, and therefore it must be regarded as divine. And the only way to influence a person’s independent will is to give him spiritual direction. Noyes proclaimed that “the Church cannot force a person to abide by the Law of God and cannot betray the eternal damnation of those who fail to do it” ^[9] , and that “his new relationship with God cancels his obligation to obey the traditional moral standards or ordinary laws of society " ^{[10] [8]} . As a result, he began to act more impulsively, by his own intuition , rather than by sound reasoning about the acts and consequences. Finally, on February 20, 1834, John Noyes declared himself perfect and free from sin. Such a statement shocked his colleagues. Noyes was expelled from the seminary and deprived of a preacher license recently issued to him.

After being expelled from Yale Theological Seminary and deprived of a pastoral license, Noyes returned to Putney , where he continued to preach, stating: “I lost their license to sin, and they continue to commit sin; they have taken away my preaching license, but I continue to preach. ” ^[11] Thus began the creation of a community of followers of Noyes in Putney. At first it was the “Putney Bible School” ( English Putney Bible School ), in 1844 it became a formal social organization. In it already then there was a group marriage, a saved sexual intercourse and a desire for perfection.

Personal life

In 1838, Noyes married Harriet Holton . For a long time they lived in a traditional Christian marriage. During the first six years of marriage, Harriet gave birth five times. Her birth was very difficult, traumatic, and four times they led to the death of newborns; only one child survived. Such a tragic life experience prompted John Noyes to seriously study the issue of intimate relationships in marriage.

In 1844, he decided to live separately with his wife and refrain from intimate relationships. John noted that it brought him and his wife such relief and satisfaction as they had never known before. However, complete abstinence seemed to him not quite the right decision, and for the next few years he studied and developed the ideas of male preserved sex ^[12] . John and Harriet began to practice preserved sexual intercourse to prevent conception, resulting in such a difficult and dangerous birth ^[13] . They preferred this method of birth control as the most natural, safe for health and preferred for the development of intimate relationships ^[14] .

Onayda Commune

In 1848, John Noyes founded the Onayd religious community ^[12] .

Exile

In June 1879, one of Noyes's close followers warned him of the threat of arrest for child molestation. In the middle of the night, Noyes fled from Onayda to Canada ( Ontario ) - there was a communal factory there. In August of that year, he wrote a letter from there to Onaidu, in which he stated that it was time to leave the group marriage and lead a more traditional way of life.

The Onayda commune officially ceased to exist on January 1, 1881, when it was transformed into a joint-stock company .

John Noyes never returned to the United States, but he did not lose influence on his followers. Some of them left Onaidu and moved to Noyes in Niagara Falls . One young woman, who was offered two men, in a letter to Noyes asked for his advice. He advised rejecting both proposals and marrying Myron Kinsley, the one who warned Noyes of an imminent arrest, giving him the opportunity to escape to Canada and avoid punishment for molestation. The woman obeyed the advice, although Miron Kinsley was twenty years older than her.

Death and Heritage

John Humphrey Noyes died April 13, 1886 in the city of Niagara Falls (Ontario, Canada). His body was transported to Onayda and buried in the Onayda Public Cemetery ( English Oneida Community Cemetery ), next to his previous followers ^[15] .

In the early decades of the 20th century, Pierrepont Noyes , the son of John Humphrey Noyes, consolidated the commercial industrial enterprises formerly owned by Onayda and decided to focus on the production of silverware in . This company - Oneida Limited - has become widely known and has been one of the world's largest manufacturers of cutlery for most of the twentieth century.

The brick building belonging to the Onayda municipality with a total area of ​​about 8600 m ² , called the " Manor ", has survived to this day. Now its premises house a museum, residential apartments, a dormitory, guest rooms, rooms for meetings and banquets.

• Free love
• Onpide Culture

• John Humphrey Noyes. History of American Socialisms (1870)