John Humphrey Noyes

Male Continence (Dodo Press) John Humphrey Noyes

John Humphrey Noyes (1811-1886) was an American utopian socialist. He founded the Oneida Community in 1848. He coined the term "free love". It was in his second year at Yale that he made his first theological discovery. He was trying to determine the date of the second coming of Christ, and determined it had already occurred. His conclusion was that Christ's second coming had taken place in 70 A. D, and that "mankind was now living in a new age". With this in mind he became increasingly concerned with salvation from sin and with perfection. In 1834, he declared himself perfect and free from sin. This declaration caused an outrage at his college, and his newly-earned license to preach was revoked. Upon his expulsion from Yale and the revocation of his ministerial license, he returned to Putney, Vermont, where he continued to preach. At this time his Putney community began to take shape. It started in 1836 as the Putney Bible School and became a formal communal organization in 1844, practicing complex marriage, male continence and striving for Perfection. His work include: The Berean (1847), Bible Communism (1848), History of American Socialisms (1870) and Mutual Criticism (1876).