Andrews Norton, Harvard’s Dexter lecturer in Biblical Criticism since 1813, represents the Unitarians' positive effort to prove by rational historical methods the authority of scripture; his eventual work on the subject was Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels (1837). Unitarianism is indebted to eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinking and highlighted the rational and scientific nature of its religious doctrines, therefore promoting free inquiry, and borrowing from German higher criticism to interpret scripture. Unitarians balanced the potentially irreligious liberality of their rational religion with an emphasis on the importance of revealed religion, or documented evidence of Christianity in the Bible, such as Jesus’s death, resurrection, virgin birth, and miracles.

Natural religion is a theological doctrine positing teleological “argument from design,” i.e., that order in nature reflects divine intention and proves the existence of the designer. Mary Moody Emerson suggests that studies of nature’s design must also consider “revealed religion” (see note an001) as documented in the Judeo-Christian Bible. Nineteenth-century interpretations of natural religion moved beyond Isaac Newton’s mechanistic description of a universe ordered and controlled by natural laws; in its place, European scientists and philosophers, from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and German Naturphilosophen to Louis Agassiz and Charles Lyell, proposed organic explanations of nature’s design, broadly conceived as spirit manifesting itself in matter.

From Job 9:21 : “Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life.”

Annotation in process to identify this common term in nineteenth-century theology, meaning the sin that we most often commit or cannot avoid committing.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) was a Roman statesman, orator, and writer; he authoritatively summarized Roman theology in De Natura Deorum (45 BCE). Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) had been minister of the Hanover Church in Boston since 1826 and from there was leading a new school of Calvinism in opposition to Unitarian doctrine. Mary Moody Emerson is quoting from Beecher’s February 1825 response in the Christian Spectator to an adversarial January 1824 Christian Examiner review of his 15 October 1823 sermon, The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints. The reviewer charged Beecher with being “unsound in his orthodoxy” and characterized Beecher as more of a Unitarian than a true Calvinist (Christian Examiner and Theological Review [January/February 1824]: 50) . In the sermon’s discussion of human depravity and free agency, Beecher had refuted aspersions of Calvinism by asserting that “God governs the moral world by such irresistible influence, that crimes are as much a matter of physical necessity, as rain and sunshine” (Sermons Delivered on Various Occasions [Boston, 1828], 226) . In his lengthy reply to the Christian Examinerreviewer, Beecher defends the terms and beliefs expressed in his sermon: “That man is a free agent, in the possession of such powers as lays a foundation for moral government;—that original sin is not a physical property of the soul, but voluntary and accountable” (327). Later in this response, Beecher cites Cicero’s De Natura Deorum as analogous of early Christians’ imperfect understanding: “The darkness of the world before the Sun of Righteousness arose, is affectingly illustrated by Cicero in his treatise De Natura Deorum, in which he himself and all the philosophers, have the appearance of children, attempting in vain to ascertain what there is above the skies” (352).

Annotation in process to identify “one of the early calvinists.”

Mary Moody Emerson quotes from German Enlightenment scholar and religious historian Johann Lorenz Mosheim (1693-1755), whose An Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern (1755) was published and translated in multiple British and American editions in the nineteenth century: “Its mystic theology’s first promoters proceeded from that known doctrine of the Platonic school, which also was adopted by Origen and his disciples, that the divine nature was diffused through all human souls; or, in other words, that the faculty of reason, from which proceeds the health and vigour of the mind, was an emanation from God into the human soul, and comprehended in it the principles and elements of all truth, human and divine” (An Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern, from the Birth of Christ, to the Beginning of the Present Century, trans. Archibald Maclaine, D.D., 4 vols. [New York, 1824], 1:215) . In this work, Mosheim explicates mystic theology and its roots in the teachings of Plato (429-347 BCE) and Origen Adamantius (c. 185-c. 254), the greatest adaptor of Plato’s ideas. Note: Mary Moody Emerson often neglects to include either open or close quotation marks to indicate the extent of her quoted material. In an effort to preserve the authentic quality of this manuscript, editors do not supply such quotation marks when the full text of Mary Moody Emerson’s source, as above, is provided in the Annotation.

Annotation in process.

See Mosheim, An Ecclesiastical History ( note an007), 1:215: Mystic theologians “denied that men could, by labour or study, excite this celestial flame in their breasts; and therefore, they disapproved highly of the attempts of those who, by … profound speculations, endeavoured to form distinct notions of truth, and to discover its hidden nature. On the contrary, they maintained, that silence, tranquility, repose, and solitude … were the means by which the hidden and internal word was excited to produce its latent virtues, and to instruct men in the knowledge of divine things.”

Possibly, the two uncancelled instances of “W” are false starts for Waterford.

Mary Moody Emerson paraphrases Cicero’s speech Pro Rabirio perduellionis reo (63 BCE) on behalf of Gaius Rabirius, as quoted by Conyers Middleton in The Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, 3 vols. (Boston: Wells and Lilly, 1818), 1:174: “There is not one of us who exerts himself with praise and virtue in the dangers of the republick, but is induced to it by the expectation of a futurity. As the minds of men therefore seem to be divine and immortal for many other reasons, so especially for this, that, in all the best and wisest, there is so strong a sense of something hereafter, that they seem to relish nothing but what is eternal.”

Catiline (Lucius Sergius Catilina) (c. 108-62 BCE) was a Roman nobleman and conspirator. In 63 and 62 BCE, he was defeated for the consulship by Cicero; in response, he planned an uprising that was suppressed. His fellow conspirators were executed, and he died in battle in Etruria. Cicero was hailed as savior of Rome but was open to the charge of having executed citizens without trial.

Pompeius Magnus, Gnaeus, Pompey (also Pompey the Great) (106-48 BCE) was a Roman general and statesman who was assassinated in Egypt after pitting himself against Caesar. Mary Moody Emerson refers to Julius Caesar, Gaius (100-44 BCE), a Roman military and political leader who eventually became dictator of the entire Roman world. He was assassinated on 15 March 44 BCE by a group of senators led by his friend Marcus Junius Brutus (85-42 BCE), who hoped to restore the Republic to its former condition.

The Eleusinian Mysteries were secret initiation ceremonies into the cult of Demeter and Persephone, originating at Eleusis in Greecearound 600 BCE and continuing for approximately 2,000 years. Worshippers were believed to unite with the gods during these rites. The festivities were held primarily in the spring to symbolize Persephone’s return from the Underworld, and those involved described sublime experiences or visions of the afterlife. As Mary Moody Emerson understood from her reading, in Germany, Germaine de Staël uses the Eleusinian Mysteries to suggest that “there were, perhaps, of old, more intimate relations between man and nature than now exist. The mysteries of Eleusis … are vestiges of some curious attraction which united man with the universe” (Germany; by the Baroness Staël Holstein, 3 vols., [New York, 1814], 2:199). See Mary Moody Emerson to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 18 January 1821, where she refers to De Staël’s explanation of the mysteries of Eleusis (The Selected Letters of Mary Moody Emerson, ed. Nancy Craig Simmons [Athens: U of Georgia P, 1993], 139).

See note an005 for identification of Cicero, who served as consul of Rome from 63-62 BCE, elected at age 42, the youngest age permitted.

See note an013 for identification of Caesar and his assassination.

George Washington (1732-1799) was an American general and statesman who served two terms as the first president of the United States (1789-1797). Washington was honored for his leadership during the War of Independence with parades and other ceremonies. Despite this public praise and support, and in part because of his advanced age, Washington set the example for future presidents by stepping down from office in order to avoid monarchical tendencies, a decision he explained in his Farewell Address in 1796. The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1947, states that no one may be elected to the executive office more than twice.

Plato’s last dialogue is entitled Laws. Mary Moody Emerson refers to and quotes from Middleton’s Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero ( note an011), 2:166-67: “Cicero chose to deliver his political sentiments in the same method; not by translating Plato, but imitating his manner in the explication of them. … In the first of these, he lays open “the origin of law and the source of obligation; which he derives from the universal nature of things, or, as he explains it, from the consummate reason or will of the supreme God.””

Middleton (see note an011) refers broadly to Greeks as “heathens” throughout his volumes, as in Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero 1:xxviii. See note an005 for identification of Cicero, who was elected an augur in 52 BCE. Augurs were counselors and priests who controlled the observation of auspices, or divine portents. As Middleton suggests, they held the power to guide political leaders by responding to questions of the senate or magistrates based on the omens or signs they witnessed; moreover, they controlled the governing power to postpone an assembly or report its results invalid because of negative auspices. Middleton, Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, 2:29: “It was … unlawful … to convene an assembly, while the magistrate was in the act of observing the heavens.” Middleton references numerous examples of the political abuse of augurs’ power; see Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, 1:305; 2:27-28, 422.

Archimedes (c. 287-c. 212-11 BCE) was a Greek mathematician and inventor. His tomb in Syracuse depicted a cylinder circumscribing a sphere, with the ratio 3:2 that he discovered between them. According to Middleton (see note an011), Cicero visited the tomb and found the cylinder years later (Middleton, Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, 1:68).

Quoted from Velleius Paterculus’s Compendium of Roman History concerning the death of Cicero, as quoted in Middleton’s Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero (see note an011): “He lives and will live in the memory of all ages; and as long as this system of nature, whether by chance or providence, or what way soever formed, which he alone, of all the Romans, comprehended in his mind, and illustrated by his eloquence, shall remain entire” (3:289).

Quoted from Cicero’s speech Pro Marcello (51 BC) on behalf of Marcus Claudius Marcellus, in Middleton’s The Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero (see note an011): “True glory, then, according to his own definition of it, is “a wide and illustrious fame of many and great benefits conferred upon our friends, our country, or the whole race of mankind: it is not, (he says,) the empty blast of popular favour, or the applause of a giddy multitude”” (3:308).

Mary Moody Emerson wrote “con” as the last word of preceding page, and a poorly formed “convinced” at the start of this page.

Annotation in process. Mary Moody Emerson refers to Cicero as Tully, a common abbreviation for him.

Annotation in process.

Mary Moody Emerson variously quotes and paraphrases from Middleton, Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero (see note an011), 3:353-54, who is quoting Cicero, De Legibus (On the Laws [52 BCE]): “ “The true law,” says he, “is right reason, conformable to the nature of things; constant, eternal, diffused through all; which calls us to duty by commanding, deters us from sin by forbidding; which never loses its influence with the good; nor ever preserves it with the wicked. This cannot possibly be overruled by any other law; nor abrogated in the whole or in part: nor can we be absolved from it either by the senate or the people: nor are we to seek any other comment or interpreter of it, but itself: nor can there be one law at Rome, another at Athens; one now, another hereafter; but the same eternal, immutable law, comprehends all nations, at all times, under one common Master and Governour of all, God. He is the inventor, propounder, enacter of this law: and whosoever will not obey it, must first renounce himself, and throw off the nature of man: by doing which, he will suffer the greatest punishment, though he should escape all the other torments which are commonly believed to be prepared for the wicked.””

“In another place, he tells us, that the study of this law was the only important thing which could teach us that most important of all lessons, said to be prescribed by the Pythian Oracle, to know ourselves; that is, to know our true nature and rank in the universal system; the relation that we bear to all other beings; and the purposes for which we were sent into the world. “When a man,” says he, “has attentively surveyed the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all things in them; observed whence they sprung, and whither they all tend; when and how they are to end; what part is mortal and perishable, what divine and eternal: when he has almost reached and touched, as it were, the governour and ruler of them all, and discovered himself not to be confined to the walls of any certain place, but a citizen of the world, as of one common city; in this magnificent view of things; in this enlarged prospect and knowledge of nature; good Gods, how will he learn to know himself? How will he contemn, despise, and set at ought all those things, which the vulgar esteem the most splendid and glorious?””

In 1813 Mary Moody Emerson had purchased a farm in the foothills of the White Mountains in South Waterford, Maine, calling it Elm Vale or Vale. She sold it in 1850 when she could no longer pay taxes on the property.

From Matthew 13:13 : “Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.”

Mary Moody Emerson is quoting from Middleton’s Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero ( note an011): “In his Book of Laws, he pursued the same argument, and deduced the origin of law from the will of the Supreme God” (3:355).

Arcesilas (316/5 - 242/1 BCE) was a Greek philosopher who headed the Academy (the philosophical school founded by Plato) from c. 268 BCE. He is credited with founding the New Academy because he introduced skepticism into Plato’s school. His thesis that “nothing can be grasped” argued against the Stoics’ belief that truth could be certainly achieved through sense impressions. Mary Moody Emerson paraphrases Cicero’s De Natura Deorum (45 BCE), as quoted by Middleton in Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero (see note an011): “Again; we do not pretend to say, that there is no such thing as truth; but that all truths have some falsehoods annexed to them, of so near a resemblance and similitude, as to afford no certain note of distinction” (3:332).

Annotation in process.

Mary Moody Emerson was born 25 August 1774 in Concord, Massachusetts. Here, she refers to her 53rd birthday.

Mary Moody Emerson is misquoting the last stanza of The Mariner by Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky (1783-1852), a poem she’d likely read in Specimens of Russian Poets, with Preliminary Remarks and Biographical Notices (trans. John Bowring [London, 1821], 75). Zhukovsky is widely recognized as the father of Russian Romanticism and is most famous for his translation of the Odyssey from German into Russian. The last stanza of The Mariner reads as follows:

O unutterable joy!

In Thy light to breathe, to be;

Strength and heart and soul employ,

Oh my God, in loving Thee.

Though my path were dark and drear,

Holiest visions round me rise;

Stars of hope are smiling there,

Smiling down from Paradise.

For Caesar’s assassination, see note an013