Eleanor Davies and the New Jerusalem

Capern, Amanda L.

Abstract

Eleanor Davies was a great believer in historical moments. In her first work—A Warning to the Dragon and All His Angels of 1625-she told readers that “The Lord is at the Dore.”1 This immanence of God made her watchful and purposeful, reading the signs in her daily life, counting days, weeks, and years because she believed that Christ would come again. His arrival had been predestined from the beginning of the world: “from the going forth of the Commandement, which is the beginning of the Creation to the building of the New Jerusalem, the second comming of Messiah, the Prince the Sonne of God, it shall be Seaven Weekes or Seaven Moneths.”2 For Davies, time was elastic, but history was absolute. What the biblical prophets (in this case Ezekiel) said would come to pass, really would come to pass, but their promises were oracular; they had complete authority but were also elusive. Davies accepted this. She knew that she was living in the latter days, but when it came to God’s final judgment, “the daye and houre knoweth no man.”3 God could not be known as such and what she called knowledge was a spiritual transformation that took place when “He powreth out his Spirit upon his hand-maidens,” like herself.4 This essay uses A Warning to the Dragon and Davies’ works of the 1630s and 1640s to examine her theology.

Citation

Capern, A. L. (2014). Eleanor Davies and the New Jerusalem. In J. A. Chappell, & K. A. Kramer (Eds.), Women during the English Reformations: Renegotiating Gender and Religious Identity (91-114). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137465672_6

• Publication Date: Nov 19, 2014
• Deposit Date: Jun 2, 2017
• Journal: Women during the English reformations
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 91-114
• Book Title: Women during the English Reformations: Renegotiating Gender and Religious Identity
• ISBN: 9781349501595; 9781137465672
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137465672_6
• Keywords: Eleanor Davies, Theology
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/451924
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137465672_6