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Did You Know?
Interesting and little-known facts
Protestant Missions in China
The first Protestant missionary to China was Robert Morrison of the London Missionary Society, who arrived in 1807. In order to legally stay in China, he worked as a translator for the East India Company. Morrison baptized his first convert in 1814 and by the time he died had baptized only nine more. But his Chinese dictionary and translation of the Bible laid the groundwork for future missions. Protestant missions in China reached its peak in the mid 1920s, when there were over 8,000 missionaries living there.
No Idle hands for the Devil to Play With
From the beginning, work was an essential element of monasticism. Early monks chanted prayers to the rhythm of their work, so that, as Lucius of Enna put it, "Working with my hands, I pray without ceasing." St. John Cassian recorded a desert fathers' saying, "A busy monk is besieged by a single devil, but an idle one destroyed by spirits innumerable."
You Can't Beat the View
One of the most spectacular examples of a (restored) sixth-century Byzantine monastery in the Holy Land is the Monastery of St. George of Koziba, named for its most famous monk. Nestled against the cliff of Wadi Kelt, it provided hospitality to pilgrims traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. It is still an active community.
Bread and Wine
Like Jan Hus before him, Martin Luther believed that both bread and wine should be offered to the laity for Communion. The tradition of serving only the bread came from early medieval traditions and continued in Luther's day. Therefore, one of Luther's famous worship reforms was to give both elements to the laity.
Dedicated to God
Bach wrote the initials "J.J." (Jesu, juva, "Jesus, help") at the beginning of many of his scores and "S.D.G." (Soli Deo Gloria, "To God alone be glory") at the end.
Bringing Jerusalem Home
Modern street vendors didn't invent the souvenir industry. When Byzantine pilgrims returned from Palestine, they brought back relics, oil from lamps above Christ's tomb, and many other tangible reminders of their visit. Some even tried to recreate the Holy Land in their own hometowns. Santa Stefano in Bologna, Italy, was originally a complex of seven churches representing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other key holy sites in Jerusalem.
Our Land
The first Christian writer to mention the term "holy land" was Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho (c. 160). Justin was trying to show that the land God promised to Abraham would be inherited by Christians when Christ returned and built a new Jerusalem. But according to Robert Louis Wilken, it was the monks living in the Judean desert who claimed this concept as a present, Christian reality. Sixth-century monastic leaders Theodosius and Sabas wrote to the Byzantine emperor calling themselves "the inhabitants of this Holy Land"—meaning not just a collection of pilgrimage sites but a region with spiritual privileges and a living church. Monasticism played a crucial role in Palestine, and Sabas's monastery is still an active Christian community today.
The Way of the Cross
Only in the Holy Land can you celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection in the place where it happened. The fourth-century pilgrim Egeria described the Holy Week services in Jerusalem: "What I admire and value most is that all the hymns and antiphons and readings, and all the prayers that the bishops say, are always relevant to the day which is being observed and the place in which they are used."
Today, much like Egeria's era, thousands of Christians observe Good Friday by following the "Via Dolorosa"—the traditional route Jesus walked on the way to his crucifixion—from the Mount of Olives to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The route and rituals have changed over the centuries, but the devotion has not. Jerusalem Christians' celebration of Easter influenced Christian worship around the world. The practice of following the "stations of the cross" is one example.
Patrick Paradoxes
Patrick, the Catholic patron saint of the Irish, was so designated as a result of popular devotion and long-standing custom, not an official canonization process. (The Roman Catholic church has made official designation of relatively few patrons.)
Also, Patrick wasn't Irish but came to Celtic Ireland as a British missionary. He so loved the Irish, though, by the end of his life, he often made himself one, saying "We have been born in Ireland."
Finally, did Patrick really use the shamrock to explain the Trinity to the Irish? It is impossible to know historically if he did or didn't. From issue issue 60: How the Irish Were Saved
Multiple Easters
For the first seven centuries after the birth of the church, Christians differed about how to determine the date of Easter. Bishop Amobrose of Milan (c.339-397) commented in a letter that in A.D. 387, Easter was celebrated on March 21 in Gaul (modern France), April 18 in Italy, and April 25 in Egypt. Unity in the Mediterranean world came in the fifth century when the churches all began using the Egyptian method of calcuation: Easter was the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.
African Bishop for Life
When Augustine became bishop of Hippo, he was "unalterably fixed there for the rest of his life." The African church had a rule strictly forbidding the transfer of bishops.
Examples to Follow
The high regard for the martyrs as the heroes of the church and the privileges assigned to them led to the cult of the saints.
Christian Atheists?
One of the leading charges against Christians in the Empire was that they were "atheists," that is, they did not worship the pagan deities and so did not participate in the social and civic activities that involved homage to them.
Escape or Truth?
Tolkien always bristled at the charge that his writings were escapist musings bearing no relationship to real life or scientific reason. Fantasy writing, he said, "does not destroy or even insult Reason. … On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured."
Stealth Worship
In the days of American slavery, religious meetings composed only of slaves violated slave holding law in many areas, so blacks had to meet secretly in their quarters or in the woods to worship together.
Speedy Translating
Martin Luther translated Erasmus' Greek New Testament into German at the headlong rate of more than 1,500 words per day.
Instant Classic
Students today may grumble about having to read the Dante's Divine Comedy, but Dante's contemporaries loved it. More than 600 fourteenth-century copies survive, attesting to its wide circulation. At least 12 commentaries had been written about it by 1400. Later it was among the earliest books to be set in movable type. But the poem lost favor with the rise of rationalism, and only three editions were printed in the seventeenth century. The Pre-Raphaelites helped bring the poem back into fashion in the nineteenth century, and its status now seems assured. More than 50 English translations of Inferno were published in the twentieth century alone.
Word-aholic
Thomas Aquinas did not even live to see his fiftieth birthday, but he produced an enormous body of writing: more than 10,000,000 words in some 60 works. Thomas lacked the time to pen so many words, and if he had written them, no one would be able to read them (he had notoriously bad handwriting). Instead, he dictated to secretaries—sometimes several at once. A thirteenth-century source avers that Thomas "used to dictate in his cell to three secretaries, and even occasionally to four, on different subjects at the same time."
Away with the Atheists!
The Romans accused the early Christians of many crimes, including cannibalism (because of a misinterpretation of the Eucharist), incest, (because Christians called each other "brother" and "sister"), causing natural disasters by angering the gods, disloyalty to family, and a lack of patriotism. One accusation that sounds surprising today is the charge of atheism. The Roman world believed in many gods, who were represented by statues. The Christians believed in one invisible God and refused to worship the Roman gods, so the Romans considered them "athiests."
This confusion led to an ironic moment when Polycarp, the elderly bishop of Smyrna, was brought into the arena for questioning. The proconsul commanded him to say, "Away with the atheists"—referring to the Christians. Turning the command on its head, Polycarp pointed at the jeering mom and cried out as instructed, "Away with the atheists!"
Early Christian Writings
The early Christians read and respected other Christian writings which they did not consider Scripture and did not consider these other works on par with the writings of the apostles.
Pro-Judas, Not Pro-Jewish
Because the Gospel of Judas portrays Judas as a hero rather than a villain, some people have given the impression that it is somehow an antidote to historic Christian anti-Semitism. This response is ironic, since much of early Gnosticism was deeply anti-Jewish. Gnostics believed that there were actually two Gods, and that God of the Jews was an evil or ignorant creator who deceived people. One Gnostic text calls the Hebrew patriarchs a "joke"! Because of this, Gnostics interpreted the Jewish Scriptures in ways that seem very strange to us. For example, many believed that Eve was right to take the serpent's advice and eat from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.
The Magi and the Mama
Christian literature's most ancient hymn to Mary, the so-called "Akathist" hymn (late 5th or early 6th century), makes Mary one focus of the Magi's praise: "The children of the Chaldees seeing in the Virgin's hands him whose hands made men, and knowing him as Lord … cried out to her who is blessed: Hail! Mother of the unsetting Star. Hail! Splendor of the Mystic Day. …"
Give Me That Old Time Gospel
Although the Gnostics had their own "gospels," such as the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Truth, they were all written later than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and none of them were ever considered Scripture by the majority of Christians. They are not gospels in the same sense as the canonical gospels: They do not chronicle the life of Jesus and are not primarily concerned with historical events but with spiritual advice, revelations, and explanations of the Gnostic view of the cosmos.
The Divine Spark
Gnostics believed they were the elect, spiritual ones who alone had the "seed" of the divine trapped inside their earthly bodies. Salvation for them meant escape from the material world. Some Gnostics believed in reincarnation for those people who did have a divine spirit within them but had not learned the truth about God and themselves.
No Secrets
The Gnostics sometimes claimed that secret truth had been handed down by one apostle to a select group of insiders. But Christian opponents like Irenaeus argued that the true church represented the teaching of all of the apostles passed on in many locations. This was the original meaning of the word "catholic" as we say it in the Apostles' Creed: according to the whole church.
Medieval Lie
The Donation of Constantine was a medieval document that described how Emperor Constantine gave Pope Sylvester I (314-35) primacy over all other churches, including Constantinople. The papacy employed this document to support its claims of jurisdiction over the entire church. The Eastern church never quite bought it, and for good reason: in the fifteenth century, the document was proved a forgery.
Christ's Birthday
Perhaps as early as the year 273, church decided to celebrate Christs birth on December 25. This day already hosted two pagan festivals: natalis solis invicti (the Roman "birth of the unconquered sun"), and the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian "Sun of Righteousness" whose worship was popular with Roman soldiers. Seeing that pagans were already exalting deities with some parallels to the true deity, church leaders decided to commandeer the date and introduce a new festival.
Puritans had fun
Critic H.L. Mencken once said, wrongly, "Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." On the contrary, Puritans read good books and enjoyed music. They drank beer with meals and rum at weddings. Puritans swam and skated, hunted and fished, and played at archery and bowling (as long as the games were not in a public tavern or on Sunday).
Confessing Sins
Early on as a reformer, Martin Luther publicly concluded that penance (the church sacrament involving confession of sin) wasn't a sacrament at all. Yet he continued to daily confess his sins to another person for most of his life. Martin Luther said that confession is "the one great remedy for afflicted consciences."
The Word "Trinity"
We owe the word "Trinity" to the African theologian and apologist Quintus Septimius Florens Turtullian (c.160-c. 225). Tertullian used the word for the concept that appears everywhere in the Bible but is never explicitly named. He coined it in an argument with a teacher who promoted modalism—the view that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not distinct persons but mere appearances (modes) or roles played by a single God.
Imposing Convert
Roman emperor Constantine had an imposing presence—he was over six feet tall, robust, and athletic. He had strongly marked features, wavy hair, heavy eyebrows, and a firm jaw. His army colleagues called him "Bullneck," perhaps because of his violent temper, which he never mastered.
Saintly Martyrs
The high regard for the martyrs as the heroes of the church and the privileges assigned to them led to the cult of the saints. Martyrs were thought to go directly to the presence of God without having to wait in an intermediate state for the final judgment.
How High Can You Go?
The building of the cathedral was a community affair and a matter of civic pride. Cities competed with each other for which could have the tallest spire. When Notre Dame de Paris soared to 114 feet, Chartres built to 123 feet and Amiens followed with 138 feet. Beauvois tried for 157 feet, but the vault collapsed and the people ran out of money trying to build. Each church had its wealthy patrons, but ordinary citizens too contributed sheep, poultry, cheeses, animal skins and vegetables to the building of their cathedral. While the cathedral was under construction an entire village of workmen would be established at the site. Roads would be constructed to quarries, and even rivers were diverted to provide transportation for the heavy materials.
Experimental Faith
The "Warmed Heart" was just as important for Jonathan Edwards as for his contemporary John Wesley. Both men were influenced by the Puritan tradition of "experimental" (that is, experienced) faith. This tradition celebrated the joyful feelings believers could expect in moments of intimacy with their Lord.
Christian Pilgrims
Christian pilgrims have traditionally traveled to the Holy Land for many reasons. In the fourth century, nobles traveled there in search of the ascetic life (thereby escaping "worldly" burdens). Others later went in expectation of the Last Judgment, prophesied to take place outside the city walls of Jerusalem. Still others went as payment for their sins. … Some pilgrims went simply to meditate on the sacrifice of Christ at the cross.
by Steve Gertz, from A Pilgrim's Tale: Journey to Jerusalem
Lend Me Your Ears
Martin Luther believed so strongly that music and preaching go hand in hand with proclaiming the Word of God that he required all ministers to receive musical training before ordination.
Joy-filled Poverty
Though Francis of Assisi preached and practiced austerity, he forbade moroseness. He instructed his friars to cultivate a joyful spirit and reproved them for outward signs of grief--even if for their sins. "Keep such sadness between yourself and God," he advised.
Raising ministers
Franciscan missionary John of Monte Corvino gained many converts by buying young boys from their non-Christian parents, baptizing them, and then training them for ministry. Starting in 1294, he worked for 11 years in China and baptized more than 6,000 persons.
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large-scale musical setting of a sacred text, usually a dramatic story from the Old Testament. Handel's Messiah is the best-known example. Bach wrote three oratorios, for Christmas, Easter, and Ascension. The typical 18th-century oratorio was devotional concert music, but Bach's oratorios were built around texts taken directly from the Bible and were intended to be played in church on the appropriate feast day. Bach and Handel never met. Bach traveled to Halle with the hope of meeting Handel and invited Handel to visit him in Leipzig, but neither meeting materialized.
From Issue 95: The Gospel According to J.S. Bach
Concerned Evangelicals
The evangelical faith and social concern that so permeated nineteenth-century England led French historian Elie Halevy to say evangelicalism made possible "the extraordinary stability which English society was destined to enjoy throughout a period of revolution and crises."
From Issue 53: William Wilberforce
The family that prays and plays together
The Bach family was a bastion of Lutheran faith, hospitality, and musical talent. The household apparently overflowed with instruments, including eight harpsichords, half a dozen stringed instruments, and a lute, and the family often entertained their constant flow of guests with impromptu concerts. Bachs second wife Anna Magdalena had been a professional singer, and four of his ten surviving children became well-known composers.
From Issue 95: The Gospel According to Bach
Powerful Conquerors
Muslims conquered far larger territories of Christians than vice-versa. As late as 1683, Muslim forces had pushed into central Europe.
The medieval neighborhood parish
By the 1200s, virtually all medieval Christians were members of a geographically defined parish, each with its own pastor. In fifteenth-century England, there were about 9,500 parishes with 3 million people, an average of roughly 300 men, women, and children per parish.
From Issue 49: Everyday Faith in the Middle Ages
The Cathedral of the Hagia Sophia has seen it all
In 537, Byzantine Emperor Justinian dedicated the newly-built Cathedral of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. "O Solomon, I have surpassed thee," he said. Since then, Hagia Sophia has been the site of many important events:
From 398-404, the great preacher John Chrysostom served at Hagia Sophia as Archbishop of Constantinople. On one occasion, he sold the golden chalices in order to give the proceeds to the poor. He declared, "You make golden vessels, but Christ himself is starving. You make golden chalices, but fail to offer cups of cold water to the needy." (from The Starving Body of ChristThe Starving Body of Christ, by Bradley Nassif)
In 987, the emissaries of the pagan Prince Vladimir of Kiev (in modern-day Ukraine) visited Hagia Sophia to evaluate Eastern Christianity. They reported to Vladimir, "We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We know only that God dwells there among men. … " Prince Vladimir was convinced, and he and his people converted to Christianity.
In 1054, a legate of Pope Leo IX walked into Hagia Sophia's afternoon prayer service, went right up to the main altar, and placed on it a parchment that excommunicated the current Patriarch of Constantinople. It was perhaps one of the most definitive moments in the Great Schism between Eastern and Western Christians. (from 1054 The East-West Schismt, by George T. Dennis)
In 1453, the Muslim Turks conquered Constantinople and transformed Hagia Sophia into a mosque.
Today Hagia Sophia is a museum and the Christian and Islamic embellishments coexist awkwardly in a space no faith can claim. (From the Editor: The Cover's Story, by Elesha Coffman)
New England Puritans devised an approach to church membership that prevails in many churches today. By 1640, a person seeking membership was required to testify that he or she had been converted. Consequently, many settlers never became church members, even though only members could vote on civic affairs.
Many Christians lapsed (i.e., compromised their faith by complying with imperial directives or cooperating with government authorities) under the threat of persecution. The numbers of those who fell away produced a crisis for the church in the 250s. Eventually the question of whether to readmit the lapsed produced several schisms.
From Issue 27: Persecution in the Early Church
The American colonies became, in one historian's words, "the most Protestant, Reformed, and Puritan commonwealths in the world." When American colonists declared their independence in 1776, a full 75 percent came from Puritan roots.
By Cassandra Niemczyk, from Issue 41: The American Puritans
Two women played a role in helping to end the "Babylonian Captivity" of the church, the nearly-70-year in which the papacy was exiled at Avignon, France, in the shadow of the French royal power. First, Birgetta (or Bridget) of Sweden strongly urged Pope Clement VI to return the papal see to Rome. Later, Catherine of Siena spent three months in Avignon and successfully persuaded Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome.
By Jeannette L. Angell, from Issue 30: Women in the Medieval Church
A Tradition of Generosity
In a letter to the bishop of Antioch in 251, the bishop of Rome mentioned that "more than 1,500 widows and distressed persons" were in the care of his congregation. These claims concerning Christian charity were confirmed by pagan observers. "The impious Galileans support not only their poor," complained pagan emperor Julian, "but ours as well." The willingness of Christians to care for others was put on dramatic public display when two great plagues swept the empire, one beginning in 165 and the second in 251. Pagans tried to avoid all contact with the afflicted, often casting the still living into the gutters. Christians, on the other hand, nursed the sick even though some believers died doing so.
By Rodney Stark, from Issue 57: Converting The Empire
Booth's bodyguards
The first Salvation Army band was a father and three sons enlisted as bodyguards to protect William Booth against hooligans. Today there are at least 908 brass bands worldwide in addition to numerous smaller musical groups totaling almost 75,000 members.
Made to be Creative
19th-century Christian writer George MacDonald is best known among readers for his own fiction and especially his fantasy. In such work, he muses, it may be that the artist comes closest to God's own mode of creativity as he too makes a world and then works and struggles and suffers with it. It is here that MacDonald's influence on later writers (Chesterton, Lewis, Sayers, Tolkien) is most explicitly apparent. Those who know Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Stories" will find much that is familiar, not least MacDonald's indignant insistence that "for my part, I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five." Devotees of Dorothy Sayers, meanwhile, will readily trace links between MacDonald's argument concerning artistic creation and "law" and that developed in Sayers' The Mind of the Maker.
By Trevor Hart, from Issue 86: George MacDonald
Spiritual Physicians
The Puritans called themselves "physicians of the soul." A physician's business is to check, restore, and maintain the health of those who commit themselves to his care. In the same way, the minister should get to know the people in his church and encourage them to consult him as their soul-doctor. If there is any kind of spiritual problem, uncertainty, bewilderment, or distress, they are to go to the minister and tell him, and the minister needs to know enough to give them health-giving advice.
By J. I. Packer, from Issue 89: Richard Baxter and the English Puritans
Confessions
Augustine of Hippo's journey to faith was a long and tortuous one. He wrote in his Confessions, "You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you."
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