James Nayler and the Quest for Historic Quaker Identity

An exploration of Quaker origins and historiographical traditions concerning James Nayler, this study advances significant new theses regarding this radical religious group and its import to wider historical practice.

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Scholars continue to dispute the foundations of Quakerism. James Nayler, his prophetic Bristol 'sign' of 1656, and George Fox's relation to him have been of especial interest in defining the movement's identity. Conventionally, historians and theologians have taken either a 'traditional' approach, which assesses Nayler by the standards of orthodoxy, or a 'revisionist' one, which absolves him by the standards of early Quaker relativism and Christology. This study by Euan David McArthur mediates between these positions, finding that Nayler and Fox developed an ambiguous theology, but adopted a consistent approach to Quaker performances. The latter dissuaded against performances such as Nayler's 'sign'; Nayler is argued, instead, to have diverged from other Quaker leaders following disputations between 1655 and 1656. The lessons his person and actions hold for us are concluded to be complex, but worthy of study for a wide range of historians and thinkers.