The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of
Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century
America by Sean Wilentz
Brilliant!
In the autumn of 1834, New York City was awash with rumors of a strange
religious cult operating nearby, centered around a mysterious, self-styled
prophet named Matthias. It was said that Matthias the Prophet was
stealing money from one of his followers; then came reports of lascivious
sexual relations, based on odd teachings of matched spirits, apostolic
priesthoods, and the inferiority of women. At its climax, the rumors
transformed into legal charges, as the Prophet was arrested for the murder
of a once highly-regarded Christian gentleman who had fallen under his
sway. By the time the story played out, it became one of the nations first
penny-press sensations, casting a peculiar but revealing light on the
sexual and spiritual tensions of the day. In The Kingdom of Matthias, the
distinguishd historians Paul Johnson and Sean Wilentz brilliantly recapture
this forgotten story, imbuing their richly researched account with the

dramatic force of a novel. In this book, the strange tale of Matthias the
Prophet provides a fascinating window into the turbulent movements of the
religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening--movements
which swept up great numbers of evangelical Americans and gave rise to
new sects like the Mormons. Into this teeming environment walked a
down-and-out carpenter named Robert Matthews, who announced himself
as Matthias, prophet of the God of the Jews. His hypnotic spell drew in a
cast of unforgettable characters--the meekly devout businessman Elijah
Pierson, who once tried to raise his late wife from the dead; the young
attractive Christian couple, Benjamin Folger and his wife Ann (who
seduced the woman-hating Prophet); and the shrewd ex-slave Isabella
Van Wagenen, regarded by some as the most wicked of the wicked. None
was more colorful than the Prophet himself, a bearded, thundering tyrant
who gathered his followers into an absolutist household, using their money
to buy an elaborate, eccentric wardrobe, and reordering their marital
relations. By the time the tensions within the kingdom exploded into a
clash with the law, Matthias had become a national scandal. In the hands
of Johnson and Wilentz, the strange tale of the Prophet and his kingdom
comes vividly to life, recalling scenes from recent experiences at
Jonestown and Waco. They also reveal much about a formative period in
American history, showing the connections among rapid economic change,
sex and race relations, politics, popular culture, and the rich varieties of
American religious experience.
Personal Review: The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and
Salvation in 19th-Century America by Sean Wilentz
News! News! Ave is born of Eva! Well, fellow post-Judeochristians, the
good news is that religious frenzy has come and gone in American history
before, and it eventually burns out. The "burnt-over district" of New York
State got its nickname from the fury of its religious frenzy in the
1820s-1840s, during what historians have called the Second Great
Awakening. With any luck, the lesson learned from that episode can be
applied to the current weirdness, when a religious fanatic in Kansas can
shoot a doctor to death in the nave of his own church, all in the name of
Life. The lesson is: stand fast and don't let the bigots ignore their own sins.
The writers of this amusing little tale of 'sex and salvation' are two of
America's finest academic historians. Sean Wilentz is the author of
"Chants Democratic" and other books of social history of the early 19th C,
as well as of "The Age of Reagan." Paul E. Johnson is also a social
historian and the author of "A Shopkeeper's Millennium", concerning the
enormous societal changes in America from the era of guilds and local
trade to the dawning of modern enterprise. Those two books are classics
that I recommend very strongly. "The Kingdom of Matthias" is a bagatelle
by comparison; I'm quite sure Wilentz and Johnson had a lot of fun
researching and writing it. It reads like a jolly novella.
In the 1830s, Robert Matthews of upstate New York was able to persuade
a number of people of his divine inspiration. He was, he announced, the

reborn Matthias, the Spirit of Truth, the Prophet of the God of the Jews.
One of his devotees was a wealthy merchant Elijah Pierson, for whose
murder Matthews would be tried in 1835. The Prophet's co-defendant in
that case was a gaunt, tall woman of color named Isabella Baumfree,
better known to later generations as Sojourner Truth. Ms. Baumfree had
an ambiguous place in the cult of the Kingdom of Matthias, as the servant
of the Prophet. Neither defendant was convicted, but the trial put paid to
Matthews's recruiting efforts in New York. The authors are less convinced
of anyone's innocence. Everything known about Matthews suggests the
typical sociopathic profile of a 19th Century Jim Jones. There was, by the
way, the usual juicy hanky-panky of free-love and consort-swapping in and
around the Kingdom of Matthias. And there were comic opera efforts by
the outraged agents of conventional religiosity to shave the Prophet's
beard! As a spokesman for the Afghan Taliban declared, when asked why
his cohorts all went bearded: "All prophets wear beards!"
Matthews, at one point, traveled west to meet Joseph Smith, the prophet of
another, more successful new revelation, also a scion of the "burnt-over
district." The report is that the two prophets spoke privately at some length,
and then denounced each other as impostors. One has to wonder why
Smith's cult thrived so mightily while Matthews's crashed in scandal, when
there was nearly nothing to separate them in their initial phases. Are we
ready to conclude that Joseph Smith was the real thing?
Among the preachings of Matthias there were some interesting
anathemas; judgment would be cast upon:
- all who say that the first day of the week is the Sabbath
- all who preach to women without their husbands
- all who say that sprinkling is baptism
- all who say the immersion with clothes on is baptism
- all who eat passover in a lower room
- all who buy and sell land
- all lawyers
- all who drink wine from bowls
- all men who wear spectacles
- all who say that the Jews crucified Jesus
- all women who do not keep at home
The restoration of absolute patriarchy was a central tenet of the Kingdom
of Matthias. There are, of course, skeptical humanists who observe that
male fear of women's assertiveness is fundamental to most forms of
fundamentalism.
Was Matthews a con man? A deliberate liar and opportunist fraud? Or a
madman? Or an emissary of Satan? Don't you feel an urge to read this
little book of 170 pages to gather the clues?
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