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In his review of Larzer Ziff's The Career of John Cotton, Everett H. Emerson remarks that "a comparable study of Cotton Mather is now the most needed addition to our knowledge of Puritanism in colonial New England."[1] Whether Barrett Wendell's life of Cotton Mather: The Puritan Priest [2] needs replacement is perhaps less certain than Mr. Emerson suggests, but one matter is beyond dispute. Whoever undertakes to rewrite Mather's life must use as his primary sources the autobiographical records left to posterity by the highly self-conscious Boston minister.
Of these, the heretofore unpublished, "lost" Diary of 1712 has recently been published by the University Press of Virginia;[3] whereas Worthington Chauncey Ford's two-volume edition of the Diary of Cotton Mather [4] has long since made easily available all other Mather diaries presently known to exist. In addition to these obvious sources of biographical information there remains the little known and never published autobiography which Mather wrote for his son and to which he gave the highly characteristic title of "Paterna." Surprisingly enough, however, for a variety of reasons, our hypothetical biographer
One primary reason is the kind of material Mather saw fit to record. An early allusion to "Paterna," his Diary entry of Feb. 16, 1712, conveniently defines this for us. "7.G.D. That I may the more Effectually Remember my many Projections, to improve in Piety, I would hasten to Cull the Chief of them, out of my Memorials, and insert them in my Paterna; that I may often peruse them, and by the perusal thereof imprint them on my memory." "Paterna" consists, then, not of newly written autobiographical material but almost entirely of passages selected and copied from what he delighted to term his "Reserved Memorials"—the diaries; so that the autobiography is itself little other than a version of the diaries edited by Mather himself. But the passages selected for inclusion are precisely those that above all others are least provided with factual information.
It was Mather's custom each morning to ask himself the "Grand Question, What Good may I do?"[6] His answers to this question he recorded in the diaries under the heading "G.D." or "Good Devised." On Saturday morning the particular question asked was "What more have I to do, for the Interests of God, in my own Heart and Life?" In very large part his method in "Paterna" was simply to copy selected answers to this question, the seventh "G.D." of each week. As he says in "Paterna," "You are sensible, My Son, That Very much of the Book now in your Hands, is but an Answer to this Question" (p. 269).
His answers take the form of prayers or of itemized systems for spending his time or for setting aside special days for various forms of worship. In short, "Paterna" is considerably more a manual of devotion than a typical Puritan spiritual history; far more a record of pious exercises intended and/or accomplished than autobiography in the
Mather did not begin until 1711 to organize his diary entries in terms of the answers to different questions asked on each day of the week. In subsequent diaries, however, he continued the practice with minor variations in the numbering of entries. But the earlier diaries also contain numerous proposals and descriptions of methods of prayer, fasting, and self-examination and for the conduct of days set aside for vigils or other devotions. These entries are identical in kind with the later answers to his question for the seventh day, and it is from them that he invariably draws materials for "Paterna." Once having arrived at 1711, Mather relies almost exclusively on his answers to this question when using the diaries as a source. Of the approximately thirty-one
A further cause of "Paterna's" relative worthlessness as a source of historical fact is, simultaneously, one of its most fascinating features. Somewhat improbably, its author determined to write his autobiography in such a manner as to conceal his identity from the reader. "Because I know not what Hands, besides Yours," he tells his son, "this Work may fall into, I Will be careful to insert not One word, that shall discover unto any One man Living, who I am" (p. 2). And the "First Part" opens with the somewhat less than hopeful statement that "Being desirous to Discover myself unto None, but You, My SON, I Must here leave Unmentioned, When and Where (as well as, of Whom) I was born, Lest the mention thereof should afford some Light unto the Discovery, against which I Would be Cautious" (p. 3). As a consequence of this perverse decision, whatever is specific, detailed, or concrete is expunged from passages copied into "Paterna." Since the diaries are themselves annoyingly generalized and since "Paterna" is in large part transcribed from them the result is a document almost incredibly abstract and vague.
Time and again he seems about to let slip some pertinent bit of information but remembers at the last moment and declines to impart it. He is admitted to "a College," which of course cannot be named (p. 5); he cannot divulge at what age he became a minister (p. 15) lest he "be discovered." For the same reason, he can reveal neither the names nor the number of books he has written (pp. 24, 46, 112, 115, 129, 219); nor his "Experiences . . . [and] . . . Contrivances to glorify ye Lord Jesus Christ" (p. 117); nor the various "Public Circumstances" of his life (p. 127); nor the "Marvellous and Amazing Answers, ye Strange Providence of Heaven, hath given to these Prayers of a Vile Sinner before the Lord" (p. 141). Only once does he forget and that while quoting from a letter written him by "an Holy Servant of that glorious LORD": "You'l Pardon my Troubling You, with a Line or two, to Thank you for your Maschil" (p. 203). Here Mather marks the identifying word and writes in the margin, "The Title of a Book, which I had Published."
It might be argued that the pursuit of anonymity is justified by Mather's proper sense of Christian humility. This argument, however, is nullified by the fact that, in spite of his protestations to the contrary, Mather was anything but a humble man, something that "Paterna"
But anonymity and absence of particulars do not really conflict with the book's intended function as a guide to holy living. The punning title has reference both to matters paternal and to the concept of an imitable pattern as well.[10]
Neither a sense of humility nor the nature of his subject dictated to Mather the intention to keep his identity secret. The only explanation he vouchsafes is that he does not know into whose hands besides those of his son the document might fall. The suggestion is of course that darkly mysterious plots are afoot, that machinations by the forces of Satan are at work, that what he elsewhere calls his "contemptible Enemies" are anxiously waiting to get their hands on the autobiography in order to use it against him and against others who serve the Lord. The effect is to exaggerate for Mather and by intention for the reader too the importance of the work and of the man whose "life" it records. The pitiful thing is that there is nothing in "Paterna" that could conceivably be used against anybody in any conceivable circumstance. Its contents are blandly innocuous. Moreover it contains virtually nothing not already present—and in more detailed, and hence more incriminating, form—either in the "Reserved Memorials," which he clearly hoped would one day be published, or in works which he himself saw into print. Perhaps most pitiful of all in this respect is his frequent advice that the son consult the diaries for more specific information on various matters at which "Paterna" only hints.
The intention of secrecy clearly reflects, on the one hand, Mather's marked sense of his own importance and, on the other, what is itself a reflection of the same sense, his persecution complex. His rather large enjoyment of the game of cat and mouse he plays is obvious; he loved the curious, the unusual, and equally too, the oblique, the indirect, the hidden and secret. To create a mystery where none existed before was his delight. The pleasure he derived from making, in Bonifacius, a veiled and deliberately misleading allusion to "Paterna" is perfectly transparent: "But some have chosen the way of PASTORAL VISITS. And from the Memorials of One who long since did so, and then left his PATERNA, to his Son upon it, I will transcribe the Ensuing Passages."[11] Then follows a passage taken directly from "Paterna"
That "Paterna" is a redaction of other of his writings is thoroughly characteristic both of the man and of his methods, as is the fact that he sometimes reversed the procedure by copying from "Paterna" into other works. His penchant for copying and recopying his own words was as marked as was his practice of reading and rereading them for personal guidance. As W. C. Ford remarks, "there is no way of telling how often he went over his writings, and how many times he saw fit to recast . . . them. . . . That a man should so carefully work over these attempts to express what is passing in his religious experience offers good evidence of his self-absorption and morbid conception of his own importance."[12] But again, these facts, like others revealed by "Paterna," though often curious, tell us nothing of Cotton Mather that we did not know before. They are entirely in accordance with the known peculiarities of his strange personality.
That he left conflicting accounts of the person for whose benefit his autobiography was written is also characteristic. We have seen his express statement that he intended "Paterna" for his own use, that, as he put it in 1712, he might "improve in Piety" by perusing its various "Projections." That he continued to consider its usefulness to himself as its purpose is suggested elsewhere. The Diary entry for Feb. 26, 1721 reads, "I am collecting into my Paterna several Methods of conversing with my Admirable SAVIOUR . . . that so having them together before me, for a frequent Perusal, I may keep in the lively Exercise of them" (II, 603). But there is no hint of this purpose in "Paterna" itself in which Mather insists again and again that he is writing entirely for the benefit of his son.[13] Obviously the book might have served both functions equally well, but when Mather describes the one he does so in terms that exclude the other—for what reason it would be difficult to say.
"Paterna" exhibits yet another curiosity of the sort Worthington C. Ford had in mind when he warned Thomas James Holmes to keep
Although he apostrophizes his "Son" over and over again in "Paterna," Mather never once identifies by name the son he has in mind. In spite of this and even though it does not contain really demonstrative evidence, I believe that anyone who read the work with care would be convinced that Mather originally intended it for Increase. The long unpublished "missing" Diary of 1712 presents conclusive testimony. The entry for Feb. 25 reads explicitly: "My Son Increase, I will now have to sit by me, especially on the Lords-day Evenings; and Read over to me, first the Paterna I have written for him; and Such other things as may be most Suitable to him; and make them the Arguments of my most Winning Discourses with him." But the intractable "Cressy" who died at sea in 1724, continued to resist all efforts at reform.
"Paterna's" account of "Cressy's" birth (pp. 186-187) was not originally composed for that document at all but was copied with minor changes and deletions from the Diary entry for July 5, 1699 (I, 307). As usual, the "Paterna" version is the less informative. It omits such mundane particulars as the date of birth and the name given the infant, while concentrating on the father's condition of soul and identifying by reference and quotation the Biblical texts from which he drew the "Meditation" and the "Doctrine" with which he "Entertained" his "Family" before and after the happy event. Following Increase's death, Mather returned to the autobiography to make the newly necessitated revisions. He crossed out one passage of six lines and another of about a line and a half. What the latter originally said
After adding that this lad, for whom he always held a very special place in his heart, "was Buried in the Atlantick Ocean," Mather reassigned "Paterna" to the altogether more hopeful, if less inspiring, Samuel—without of course identifying him by name. "And You, my only Son, Surviving, are the person for whom these Memorials are intended & reserved." Several other minor revisions were made elsewhere in the document at about this time evidently in an effort to give the impression that it had all along been written for Samuel. The book's prevailing vagueness, combined with the fact that the "Son" is neither individuated nor named, made this misleading impression all the easier for Mather to convey. It is impossible to say whether or not Samuel was aware that "Paterna" was written for Increase. It is also impossible to prove that Cotton intended to deceive Samuel into thinking he had written it for him; although I believe he did so intend. Whether intentionally deceptive in this respect or not, the book was sufficiently ambiguous to convince Barrett Wendell and Thomas James Holmes that the younger, duller Mather was the object of his father's paternal ministrations.
The passage concerning Cressy's death must have been entered in or after 1724, a fact which raises the problem of dating the manuscript. Typically, Mather's own assertions tend to confuse the issue. The earliest known reference to "Paterna" occurs in Bonifacius, a book Mather published in 1710. Here, in the curious passage previously quoted in this study, Mather implies that "Paterna" is not only a finished work but that it was written many years before by a man no longer alive. Having befuddled matters to his satisfaction he then proceeds to quote from pages 96-98 of "Paterna." This is sufficient proof that as early as 1710, Mather, then in his forty-eighth year, was well along with the autobiography. Since neither the Diary for 1709 nor any of the earlier diaries mentions it, we may assume with some
As did Bonifacius, the Diary entries for May 1, 1711, and for Feb. 25, 1712, speak of "Paterna" as if it were already finished. Other, and in some instances, later, Diary entries, however, allude to it as to a work which Mather is still engaged in writing. The latest of these, dated Feb. 26, 1721 states, "I am collecting into my Paterna, several Methods of conversing with my Admirable SAVIOUR . . . that . . . I may keep in the lively Exercise of them, and may not lose them in my feeble and broken Conversation" (II, 603). This, the last Diary entry to mention "Paterna" by name, refers, I believe, to a lengthy passage in that work (pp. 337-350) describing "Some Very Singular Methods . . . [for maintaining] . . . Life by ye Faith of ye SON of GOD," a passage which is largely a discussion of the complex nature of the "GOD - MAN . . . who has the Fulness of the Godhead Personally dwelling in Him." The entire passage ultimately found its way, and virtually without change, into Samuel's Life (pp. 90-101). Subsequent to this particular passage only five more pages of "Paterna" remain. We can conclude, therefore, that the manuscript was in a continual process of composition—as Mather laid it aside, occasionally thinking of it as a finished work and even referring to it as such, and then again picked it up for additions—over the period of better than ten years between 1710 and 1721.
Characteristically, the last Diary entry to name "Paterna" is not the last Diary reference to that work. This final allusion provides yet another illustration of Mather's taste for vagueness, of his unwillingness to identify in specific terms the object he has in mind. On the twenty-third of July, 1721, he proposes to himself a "Question" which few human beings other than Cotton Mather would ever have entertained. "What would be my Dispositions; what my Exercises . . . if I were fastened unto a CROSS, and under all the Circumstances of a Crucifixion?" (II, 633). To this he subsequently adds, "My Answer to it, is written down on a separate Paper" (II, 633). Since "Paterna" puts the same question in the same words and then provides two pages (352-354)[17] by way of answer, we may assume that it is the "separate Paper"
Of some interest too is the fact that Mather continued to use the manuscript as a source of materials to be incorporated and on one occasion at least to be copied directly into later works. Pages 199-200 of "Paterna," for instance, constitute a kind of précis of pages 15-21 of Signatus, a sermon preached and published in 1727. Pages 47-48 of Baptismal Piety, also published in 1727, are identical with pages 207-209 of "Paterna." Thus, once again, we find "Paterna" to exemplify characteristics of Mather's methodology which, though perhaps interesting in themselves, have long since been recognized and more than adequately confirmed.
Before its acquisition in 1952 by the McGregor Library of the University of Virginia's Alderman Library, the "Paterna" manuscript had had a number of different owners. First was Cotton Mather himself who, as we have seen, was still using it in the conduct of his ministry as late as 1727. Next came Samuel, for whom it served as a primary source for his father's Life. The title page bears the inscription "Samuel Mather's" with the date "1727" written just below. Although this would seem to show that Cotton presented the document to his son in the year preceding his death, the conclusion is not necessary. It was Cotton Mather's practice to use the legal year instead of the calendar year as the basis of his dates. According to this system, March is the first month of the year and February, accordingly, the last. Since Mather died on February 13, the year of his death could be considered 1727 or 1728 depending on the system used. It is perfectly possible that Samuel signed the document between the time of his father's death and the end of February, in which case the inscribed "1727" would represent the legal rather than the calendar year which would of course be 1728.
On Samuel's death in 1785 the manuscript became the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Hannah (Mather) Crocker, who later gave it to
The "Paterna" manuscript is an octavo volume with leaves 17.2 cm. long and 11.3 cm. wide. The leaves vary in length between about 17.15 and 17.3 cm., but the width remains almost constant. Its make-up is as follows: a single leaf (unwatermarked); 2 conjugate leaves, with the binding thread evident in the fold; stubs of about 11 torn-out leaves; 12 8-leaf gatherings; a single leaf (unwatermarked); a single leaf (unwatermarked); 9 8-leaf gatherings; an 8-leaf gathering in which the bottom part of the seventh leaf has been torn out and the eighth leaf is missing; stubs of about 33 torn-out leaves; a single leaf showing part of a watermark. Thus, an appropriate collational formula for the volume is: [unsigned: 11 22 3-148 151 161 17-258 268 (-268) 271].
The manuscript contains 181 leaves, and the pages are numbered, in Mather's hand, as follows: the first six pages and the last three are unnumbered; the rest are numbered consecutively from 1 through 355 except that pp. 7 and 60 lack numbers and the numbering skips from 161 to 164. Thus, an appropriate formula for the pagination is: pp. [6] 1-6 7 8-59 60 61-161 164-355 356-358 [=356].
The paper is laid watermarked paper all of one lot. The watermark —a horn—is most similar to numbers 2724 and 2725 (and possibly 2738) in Edward Heawood's Watermarks, plates 347 and 349; these watermarks occur in books dated respectively 1671, 1668, and n.d. Precise identification of the "Paterna" watermark is rendered impossible, however, by the smallness of the octavo format. Furthermore,
The manuscript is bound in old calf, with gilt ornamentation around the edges of the front and back covers. On the spine there are eight sets of gilt double rules and the handwritten title "C. MATHER'S / PATERNA', / MS.". The mark after "PATERNA'" may be a period rather than a comma. On the inside front cover a slip of nineteenth-century (?) wove paper is pasted-in with the note "Cotton Mather's Life in his own handwriting written / for his son—".[19]
One matter—that of the approximately 33 missing leaves at the end of the document—demands further comment. So many torn-out pages here suggest that at one time the book extended beyond page 355 and that, quite possibly, Mather continued adding to it after the year 1721, which I have taken for the terminal date of composition. Moreover, the verso of the single unnumbered leaf which follows the stubs of missing leaves at the very end of the book contains Mather's epigraph. This might seem to show that the intervening pages which Mather tore out also had writing on them. On the contrary, however, though I cannot prove my point, I am convinced that, except for this final leaf, "Paterna" never did extend beyond page 355 and that the pages torn out were entirely, or for the most part, blank.
About two-thirds of the last page of text (p. 355) has been carefully cut away. The other side of the sheet is both unnumbered and blank. In view of "Paterna's" other blank pages this is not demonstrative, but it does raise the possibility that following pages were also blank.[20] Moreover, the nature and tone of the concluding pages as they now stand distinctly support this view. They have the ring of finality.
There is an Illustration of the Glorious TRINITY in the Eternal GODHEAD, which apprehends GOD propounding to Himself an Infinite Satisfaction; And here is GOD the FATHER. Then, GOD Reflected on Himself, that so He may have that Satisfaction; And here is GOD the SON.
Now, I sett before me my Admirable SAVIOUR, that I may See GOD in Him, and Live. From this View of GOD in my SAVIOUR, my Soul is filled with Love to Him, with Joy in Him, with an Incomparable Satisfaction from Him. What a Communion with the Glorious GOD, and the Three Subsistences in Him, is Dust & Ashes herein raised unto! What a Demonstration will this Exercise of Piety give of ones having the Holy SPIRIT of GOD filling and acting of Him! Yea, what Prelibation here have I of that Final Blessedness wherein all the Gracious Designs of my SAVIOUR for me terminate!
Nor is the epigraph on the last leaf difficult to conjure with. It is precisely the kind of thing to appeal to Mather's every instinct—whether he ran across it in his multifarious reading or drew upon his own vast fund of learning in order to write it himself. "Plancus being told, that Asinius Pollio had written certain Invective Orations against him, that should not be published until after Plancus's Death, to ye end they might not be answered by him. There is none, saith he, but Ghosts & Goblins, that fight with ye Dead!" No compelling reason exists to assume that because this passage is written where it is there must have been writing on the preceding pages. My belief is that Mather, delighted with it, simply inscribed it in the appropriate place in the manuscript sometime during the course of composition. He might even have placed it where it stands before beginning actually to write the autobiography. Such little practices—a goad here for him to keep at the autobiography and by filling the empty pages to make it large—were by no means untypical of him. "Paterna" is then, I believe, complete in its present form.
In the first 184 pages, which carry the account of his "Poor Pilgrimage" through its thirty-fifth year (1697) and which constitute the first part of "Paterna," Mather adheres, with a few unannounced violations, to a chronological organization. Although in accordance with his design of secrecy he includes not a single date, he does specify
In "The SECOND Part" (pp. 185-355) Mather drops both the chronological order and the division into lustres. He presents his reasons for doing so in words which delightfully propose a complete renunciation of system.
One source of interest in "Paterna" is that it contains materials—and fairly extensive materials at that—from missing diaries that may well never turn up. It is possible to identify these by year in those portions of "Paterna" in which Mather informs us of his age. The following chart, in addition to providing a kind of chronological index to "Paterna," indicates the diaries from which the passages cited were originally taken.
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