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Christian History

Today in Christian History

September 16

September 16, 681: The Third Council of Constantinople adjourns, having settled the Monothelite controversy in the Eastern Church. The Council, which proclaimed the orthodox belief of two wills in Christ: divine and human, condemned as heretics, the Monothelites, who believed Christ had only "one will," (see issue 51: Heresy in the Early Church).

September 16, 1498: Tomas de Torquemada, the first Spanish Inquisitor General, dies. He burned over 2,000 victims, tortured thousands more, and in some areas, immolated as many as 40 percent of those accused.

September 16, 1672: Puritan Anne Bradstreet, America's first noteworthy poet, dies (see issue 41: The American Puritans).

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May 4, 1923: Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, editor of the British journal The Expositor (which included articles by many leading scholars) and of a 50-volume Expositor's Bible (published 1888-1905), dies.

May 4, 1493: In the bull "Inter caetera," Pope Alexander VI sets the boundary between Spanish and Portuguese lands in the New World.

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