Page 2811 – Christianity Today (2024)

In the 1670s, Wampanoag Indians waged “King Philip’s War” on Puritans and obliterated a dozen towns.Mary Rowlandson was captured during one raid, as described in these edited excerpts from her Narrative of Captivity and Restoration. Mary Rowlandson’s account of being captured by Indians, printed in 1682, went through nearly a dozen editions in two centuries.

Some in our house were fighting for their lives, others wallowing in their blood, the house on fire over our heads, and the bloody heathen ready to knock us on the head if we stirred out. Now might we hear mothers and children crying out for themselves, and one another, Lord, what shall we do?

Then I took my children (and one of my sisters hers) to go forth and leave the house: but as soon as we came to the door and appeared, the Indians shot so thick, that the bullets rattled against the house, as if one had taken an handful of stones and threw them, so that we were fain to give back. But out we must go, the fire increasing, and coming along behind us, roaring, and the Indians gaping before us with their guns, spears, and hatchets, to devour us.

No sooner were we out of the house, but my brother-in-law (being before wounded, in defending the house, in or near the throat) fell down dead, whereat the Indians scornfully shouted, and hallooed, and were presently upon him, stripping off his clothes.

The bullets flying thick, one went through my side, and the same (as would seem) through the bowels and hand of my dear child in my arms. Indians laid hold of us, pulling me one way, and the children another, and said, “Come, go along with us.” I told them they would kill me. They answered, if I were willing to go along with them, they would not hurt me.

I had often before this said that if the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive; but when it came to the trial, my mind changed; their glittering weapons so daunted my spirit that I chose rather to go along with those (as I may say) ravenous bears, than that moment to end my days.

Hostage’s hopes

Eventually, several men in Boston raised £20 for Mary’s ransom. She describes how, years later, the ordeal still flooded her with joy.

I can remember the time when I used to sleep quietly without working in my thoughts, but now it is otherwise. While all are fast [asleep] about me, my thoughts are upon things past, upon the awful dispensation of the Lord towards us, upon his wonderful power and might in carrying us through so many difficulties, in returning us to safety and suffering none to hurt us.

I remember in the night season, how the other day I was in the midst of thousands of enemies and nothing but death before me. But now we are fed with the finest of the wheat, and with honey out of the rock [Deut. 32:13].

The thoughts of these things, and of the love and goodness of God towards us, make it true of me what David said to himself, Psalm 6:6, I have watered my couch with tears. O the wonderful power of God that mine eyes have seen, affording matter enough for my thoughts to run in, that when others are sleeping, mine eyes are weeping.

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Where there is Love and Wisdom,

there is neither Fear nor Ignorance.

Where there is Patience and Humility,

there is neither Anger nor Annoyance.

Where there is Poverty and Joy,

there is neither Cupidity nor Avarice.

Where there is Peace and Contemplation,

there is neither Care nor Restlessness.

Where there is the Fear of God to guard the dwelling,

there no enemy can enter.

Where there is Mercy and Prudence,

there is neither Excess nor Harshness.

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

Did people speak out against the Crusades? Yes, but as historians Louise and Jonathan Riley-Smith explain,”Criticism of crusading…was much less widespread…than is often believed.” And when objections did arise, they could be forcefully answered, as shown in the following treatise. Humbert of Romans, a former leader of the Dominican Order, wrote this “closely argued tour de force” in about 1272. Here are brief excerpts, translated by the Riley-Smiths:

There are some men given over to leisure who avoid all labor for Christ and are in the habit of condemning the measures the church has undertaken against the Saracens, like people, to use Jerome’s words, who always pass judgments on everything and can think of nothing to do themselves. These people are like those spies who disparaged the task of gaining the Promised Land,and frightened the people, and therefore were destroyed in the desert.

Christ and the saints did not shed blood.

Objection: Some of these critics say it is not in accordance with the Christian religion to shed blood in this way, even that of wicked infidels. For Christ did not act thus; rather, “When he suffered, he threatened not, but delivered himself to him that judged him unjustly,”as Peter says. The saints of old did not teach this either. One should conclude, therefore, that the Christian religion, which ought to adhere to the example and teaching of Christ and the saints, ought not to initiate wars of any kind whatsoever.

Answer: Who is so stupid as to dare to say that, were infidels or evil men to desire to kill every Christian and to wipe out the worship of Christ from the world, one ought not to resist them? It is clear in the teaching of Christ himself, who says, “He that hath no sword, let him sell his coat and buy a sword.” What the Lord said to Peter,”Put up again thy sword,” etc., applied to Peter on that particular occasion. It must be held without doubt that it is not inconsistent with the Christian religion to wage war according to circ*mstances against Saracens, extremely wicked men and particular enemies of Christendom.

We should defend but not attack.

There are those who say that, although we have a duty to defend ourselves against the Saracens when they attack us, it does not seem that we ought to attack their lands or their persons when they leave us in peace. I would reply that the Saracens are so hostile to Christians that they do not spare them whenever they have a chance of defeating them. This is why the Christians attack them on their own territory to weaken their power. If the Christians had not done this, the Saracens would already have overwhelmed almost the whole of Christendom.

It is not against God and apostolic teaching for Saracens to be killed by Christians, because they have a law which forbids them ever to hear Christ spoken of. They are the fig-tree from which there is no hope of bearing fruit. And so, if such a fig-tree ought to be cut down, according to the saying, it is obvious that those people ought to be removed from the world.

But it must be said in addition that the lands the Saracens now hold were in the hands of Christians before the time of Muhammad; they seized the opportunity of taking them away from the Christians, and they never had a just cause to occupy them. So when Christians invade the lands in which they live, they are not invading other people’s territory but rather intending to regain their own.

We don’t attack other groups of unbelievers.

Others say that if we ought to rid the world of the Saracens, why do we not do the same to the Jews, and why do we not treat the Saracens who are our subjects in the same way? Why do we not proceed with the same zeal against any other idolaters who still exist in the world?

As far as the Jews are concerned, it has been prophesied that in the end the remnant of them will be converted; as far as the conversion of the Saracens is concerned, no one has any reason to expect it, according to the judgment of hell, because no man can reach them to preach the gospel to them. They [the Jews] must be tolerated because there is hope that they may be converted, just as one does not immediately cut down a tree from which there is still hope of fruit. The same reasons for forbearance apply to the Saracens who are subject to us. For they, whether they like it or not, can be forced to listen to preaching, by which some are sometimes converted.

Attacks do not convert Muslims but anger them.

Other people are asking, What is the point of this attack on the Saracens? For they are not roused to conversion by it but rather are stirred up against the Christian faith. When we are victorious and have killed them, moreover, we send them to hell, which seems to be against the law of charity.

When we get possession of the lands of the Saracens, the filthy practices of their damnable worship are driven out, and the true veneration of God, the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ, and his saints is introduced in them. And this is spiritually fruitful in three ways: it leads to the honor of God, the salvation of Christians, and the extension of the church in so far as God is more worshipped.

In reply to the point made about sending them to hell, it should be said that it is not the Christians’ intention to do this but to deal with them as is just, like a judge dealing with a thief. May they see for themselves where they are going when they leave this world. Nevertheless, divine providence treats them kindly, because it is better for them to die sooner rather than later on account of their sins, which increase as long as they live.

If the Crusades were God’s will, he would protect us.

Others say that it does not appear to be God’s will that Christians should proceed against Saracens in this way, because of the misfortunes which God has allowed and is still allowing to happen to the Christians engaged in this business. For how could God have allowed Saladin to retake from us, almost at a blow, nearly all the land which had been won with so much Christian blood and toil, if this kind of proceeding had been pleasing to him?

People who speak like this do not understand at all well how God acts. Not only do trials befall good and evil men alike; no, sometimes, what is more extraordinary, they befall more frequently the good rather than the evil. For it is written about the wicked, “They spend their days in wealth,” etc., but about the good it is said, “All that have pleased God passed through many tribulations, remaining faithful.”

Sometimes these misfortunes happen to our men on account of our sins. Sometimes misfortunes occur because we are incautious and rash. And there are other hidden reasons flowing from the vast depths of the judgments of God.But these considerations ought not to give rise to the criticism I mentioned before, but to other good things. For the hammer of this kind of adversity does not usually destroy good men, but instead makes them stand more firmly, as is sung by the psalmist: “All these things have come upon us: yet we have not forgotten thee: And our heart hath not turned back.”

Copyright © 1993 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

A Letter to Sarah written to his goddaughter in 1945. Lewis refers to a 6 week old baby living at his home. During the war, children were often evacuated from London to the country to protect them from German air raids. The Lewis household took in many of these evacuees. Recall that Lewis later began The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with evacuation of the Pevensie children from London to Professor Kirke’s country home.

Magdalen CollegeOxford February 11th, 1945

My dear Sarah—Please excuse me for not writing to you before to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year and to thank you for your nice card which I liked very much; I think you have improved in drawing cats and these were very good, much better than I can do. I can only draw a cat from the back view like this. I think it is rather cheating, don’t you? because it does not show the face which is the difficult part to do. It is a funny thing that faces of people are easier to do than most animals’ faces except perhaps elephants and owls. I wonder why that should be! The reason I have not written before is that we have had a dreadfully busy time with people being ill in the house and visitors and pipes getting frozen in the frost. All the same I liked the frost (did you?): the woods looked really lovely with all the white on the trees, just like a picture to a story. But perhaps you were in London. I suppose it was not so nice there. We now have a Baby, about 6 weeks old, living in the house. It is a very quiet one and does not keep any of us awake at night. It is a boy. We still have our old big dog, he is eight years old. I think this is as much for a dog as 56 is for a man—you find this out by finding what is seven times the dog’s age. So he is getting rather grey and very slow and stately. He is great friends with the two cats, but if he sees a strange cat in the garden he goes for it at once. He seems to know at once whether it is a stranger or one of our own cats even if it is a long way off and looks just like one of them. His name is Bruce. The two cats are called “Kitty-Koo” and “Pushkin”. Kitty-Koo is old and black and very timid and gentle but Pushkin is gray and young and rather fierce. She does not know how to velvet her paws. She is not very nice to the old cat. I wonder how you are all getting on? Are you at school now and how do you like it? It must be about half way through term by now, I should think. Do you keep a “calendar” and cross off the days till the end of term? I am not going to post this till tomorrow because I want to put in a “book-token”. You take it to a book-shop and they give you a book instead of it. This is for a kind of Christmas present, only it is very late. Now I have written you a letter you must write me one—that is, if you like writing letters but not otherwise. I used to like it once but I don’t much now because I have so many to write, but my Brother does some of them for me on his typewriter which is a great help. Have you seen any snow-drops yet this year? I saw some two days ago. Give my love to the others—and to yourself. Your affectionate god-father, C.S. Lewis

The KilnsHeadington Quarry, Oxford19/3/56

Dear Mary,

A line in haste about the bits underlined in your letter (which I enclose for reference). Don’t be too easily convinced that God really wants you to do all sorts of work you needn’t do. Each must do his duty “in that state of life to which God has called him”. Remember that a belief in the virtues of doing for doing’s sake is characteristically feminine, characteristically American, and characteristically modern: so that three veils may divide you from the correct view! There can be intemperance in work just as in drink. What feels like zeal may be only fidgets or even the flattering of one’s self-importance. As MacDonald says “In holy things may be unholy greed”. And by doing what “one’s station and its duties” does not demand, one can make oneself less fit for the duties it does demand and so commit some injustice. Just you give Mary a little chance as well as Martha! Yours, Jack

The KilnsHeadington QuarryOxford, England 17/2/57

Dear Mary,

There is no great mystery about my marriage. I have known the lady a long time: no one can mark the exact moment at which friendship becomes love. You can well understand how illness—the fact that she was facing pain and death and anxiety about the future of her children—would be an extra reason for marrying her or a reason for marrying her sooner. If I write very shortly it is not because I am reticent but because I am tired and busy. My brother is also ill and causes a good deal of anxiety, and of course I lose his secretarial help; so that I have not only much to bear but much to do. I can’t type; you could hardly conceive what hundreds of hours a year I spend coaxing a rheumatic wrist to drive this pen across paper.

What a divine mercy about the last moment money for the rent! Clearly He who feeds the sparrows has you in His care. Never suppose that the amount “on my own plate” shuts up my sympathy for the great troubles you are undergoing. I pray for you every day. Ah well, we shall all be out of it in a comparatively few years. With blessings. Yours, Jack Lewis

The KilnsHeadington Quarry, OxfordOct 20th, 1957

Dear Mary,

We are shocked and distressed at the news in your letter of the 15th. I think I see from what you say that God is already giving you new spiritual strength with which to meet this terrible affliction—just as he did to us in Joy’s worst times. But pain is pain. I wish I could relieve any of it for you—one is so ineffective. The great thing, as you have obviously seen, (both as regards pain and financial worries) is to live from day to day and hour to hour not adding the past or future to the present. As one lived in the Front Line “They’re not shelling us at the moment, and it’s not raining, and the rations have come up, so let’s enjoy ourselves”. In fact, as Our Lord said, “Sufficient unto the day”. You may be sure you will be very much in our prayers. All my news is good, very good up-to-date, tho’ of course we live always under the sword of Damocles. God bless and keep you, dear friend. It’ll be nice when we all wake up from this life which has indeed something like nightmare about it. Yours, Jack

Magdalene College Cambridge 6/5/59

Dear Mary,

I am sorry you have been worried. Actually I was quite unaware that we owed you a letter. But never assume that anything is wrong if I should make the same mistake again. Remember, I don’t type. Also, manlike, I am not naturally a correspondent at all. The daily letter-writing I have to do is very laborious to me.

We are all well. Indeed Joy and I both dig— a thing neither of us expected ever to do again. We also have a Siamese cat. In my heart of hearts I really prefer the great, grey bullet-headed native cat, but the Siamese are delicate and fascinating creatures. Ours adores me because I lift her up by her tail—an operation which I can’t imagine I should like if I were a cat, but she comes back for more and more, purring all the time.

The young priest after whose laying-on-of hands Joy began so miraculously to mend now writes to tell me that his own wife is suffering from cancer. His name is Peter. Will you, of your charity, have him in your prayers?

Joy, if she were here, would join me in all greetings and good wishes. Yours, Jack

Reprinted from Letters to an American Lady, edited by Clyde S. Kilby, Wm. B. Eerdmans. Used by permission.

Copyright © 1985 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

When we study the history of the church in twentieth-century Africa, we come face to face with that most exciting, fluid, and sometimes confusing thing: history in the making. Many of the stories of African Christianity in this period are just now being told—or have yet to be told. That is why the first resource we are recommending in this issue is not a book but a website; the Dictionary of African Christian Biography, at www.gospelcom.net/dacb/. There you will find the stories of many Christian leaders from throughout African history, browsable by country or alphabetically. These are written by scholars, missionaries, and eyewitnesses. An occasionally uneven writing style does not diminish the importance of this record of the lives of Africa’s apostles, nor the fascination of the stories themselves.

Another enjoyable, popular entrée into the stories of these apostles is Frederick Quinn, African Saints: Saints, Martyrs, and Holy People from the Continent of Africa (Crossroad Publishing Company, 2002). Quinn provides a quick portrait for many of the most influential figures in African church history, stretching back to such early North African leaders as Anthony of Egypt and Augustine of Hippo.

Global church histories

Most Western readers have received a significantly “westocentric” view of church history. In recent years, church historians have been working to change this, beginning to produce what will doubtless prove a bountiful crop of global church histories.

This is a new animal—among its few precedents are Kenneth Scott Latourette’s multi-volume History of the Expansion of Christianity, Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, and History of Christianity. For a profile of Latourette, see our issue 72, How We Got Our History.

Here are three of the best recent attempts to bring between two covers the spread of Christianity outside as well as inside the traditional Christian strongholds of the West:

Adrian Hastings, A World History of Christianity (Eerdmans, 2000). Particularly strong on how the church and the many cultures of the world have interacted and conditioned each other, this volume is both scholarly and very readable. This is not surprising, given its editor (see our mention below of Hastings’s The Church in Africa: 1450-1950).

Dale T. Irvin and Scott W. Sunquist, eds., History of the World Christian Movement (Vol. 1): Earliest Christianity to 1453 (Orbis, 2001). This history was written, as most future efforts at global Christian history will have to be written, through a collaborative process. A series of consultations were held that involved scholars from Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, and Europe; from Protestant, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, and Orthodox communions; and experts in the disciplines of history, missiology, theology, and sociology.

Paul R. Spickard and Kevin M. Cragg, A Global History of Christians: How Everyday Believers Experienced Their World (Baker, 1994). More popular in flavor than the previous two volumes mentioned, and well illustrated, this book tackles the daunting task of describing how billions of ordinary Christians through the centuries experienced faith. The authors also pay particular attention to people and movements on Christian orthodoxy’s outskirts.

African church histories

A scholar of great erudition who can write sparkflng narrative when the story turns dramatic—as it so often does in African Christianity—Adrian Hastings has written perhaps the definitive African history in The Church in Africa 1450-1950 (Oxford University Press, 1994). That 500-year period saw African Christianity move from the fringes to the forefront of the continent’s religious scene. Hastings also points out the parallels between the development of Islam and that of Christianity in Africa.

Another serious claimant to the title of “standard reference text on African Christian Churches,” Bengt Sundkler and Christopher Steed’s A History of the Church in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2000) focuses on African initiatives when telling the centuries- long story of Christianity’s development and spread on the continent.

John Baur’s years of lecturing to African theology students have served him, and the readers of his 2000 Years of Christianity in Africa: An African History 62-1992 (Paulines Publications Africa, 1994), well, despite an occasionally turgid writing style. This is a study of the Catholic Church and its missions to the African peoples. The book also addresses some Protestant history, but its greatest usefulness is in filling a void left by other works that covered Catholic issues from an outside perspective.

Elizabeth Isichei, in her A History of Christianity in Africa (Eerdmans, 1995), has provided a fast-paced yet detailed narrative that stands as the most readable comprehensive history of the African church. Isichei places today’s developments in the context necessary for understanding the continent’s needs and projecting its future trajectory.

An earlier paperback contribution that still has merit (and pictures) is Jonathan Hildebrandt, History of the Church in Africa (Africa Christian Press, 1981, 1987, 1990). Hildebrandt emphasizes the continuity of Christian faith in Africa from biblical times until the present and highlights the tremendous contributions of a few special leaders, including some described in this issue of CHRISTIAN HISTORY.

Finally, if the colonial period has captured your imagination and you want to know more, see Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa: The White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912 (Random House, 1991). History has probably never seen such a remarkable land-grab as the scramble for Africa conducted by the European imperial powers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Political intrigue and indigenous reaction boil through the period, the characters are unforgettable, and Pakenham captures it all in compelling prose.

Interpretations

Important “orienteering tools” for the newcomer to African Christian history are several recently published books that offer theological and sociological interpretations of the explosion of faith in the historically “developing” nations.

Two of the best of these are by historian Andrew F. Walls. In his award-winning The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Orbis Books and T&T Clark, 1996), Walls argues that Christianity’s most important question is how the faith will be identified at each stage of its missionary development. Throughout African history this question has been hotly debated among foreign missionaries and indigenous church leaders who held sometimes disparate views about Christian identity in the midst of Africa’s diverse spiritual climate.

In The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History (Orbis Books and T & T Clark, 2002), Walls draws on his long experience as a missions historian who has researched and taught in Africa, to provide readers with a fascinating look at the unintended consequences introduced into that continent by Western missionaries.

Philip Jenkins’s The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford, 2002) lays out a startling diagnosis of Christianity’s present and a prognosis for its global future. This broad overview of Christianity in the developing world has alerted many to the major “axis shift” that has already begun.

Along the way, Jenkins introduces the secularizing West to Africa’s brand of Christianity, which tends to be theologically orthodox, mystical, and evangelical. This relatively small book provides an insightful introduction to contemporary issues while offering a number of projections regarding future Christian expansion and increased violent conflict with Islam.

Kwame Bediako, from Ghana, is one of Africa’s leading Christian interpreters of Africa and African Christianity. A theologian, Bediako presents, in Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Orbis Books and Edinburgh University Press, 1995), a view of African Christianity from the inside out rather than from the outside in. This perspective helps readers understand Africa’s current and potential global impact on Christian theology and social issues.

For a theological assessment of African church history that celebrates the tremendous work of God on that continent, see Mark Shaw, The Kingdom of God in Africa: A Short History of African Christianity (Baker, 1996). Based on a conceptual framework borrowed from H. Richard Niebuhr’s justly famed Kingdom of God in America, Shaw’s book portrays the African church as uniquely blending God’s sovereignty, Christ’s redemption, and a Spirit-led involvement in social justice.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

When I have been sitting in a Room full of People, at a Funeral, where they take not much Liberty for Talk, and where yett much Time is most unreasonably lost, I have usually sett my Witts a work, to contrive agreeable Benedictions, for each Person in the Company.

In passing along the Street, I have sell myself to bless thousands of persons, who never knew that I did it; with secret Wishes, after this manner sent unto Heaven for them. Upon the sight of:

A tall Man: Lord, give that Man, High Attainments in Christianity; lett him fear God, above many.

Children at Play: Lord, lett not these Children always forgett the Work, which they came into the World upon.

A Very little Man: Lord, bestow great Blessings upon that Man, and above all, thy Christ, the greatest of Blessings.

A Man carrying a Burden: Lord, help this Man, to carry a burdened Soul, unto his Lord-Redeemer.

A Man on Horseback: Lord, thy Creatures do serve that man; help him to serve his Maker.

Young People: Lord, help these Persons to remember their Creator in the Dayes of their Youth.

Young Gentlewomen: Lord, make `em wise Virgins, as the polish’d Stones of thy Temple.

A Shop-keeper, busy in the Shop: Lord, lett not the World, cause that Person to neglect the one thing that is needful.

A Man, who going by mee took no Notice of mee: Lord help that Man, to take a due Notice of the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray thee.

—An excerpt from the diary of Cotton Mather, February 1684.

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

It is difficult, when writing about the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, to avoid writing about a stereotype. His very name brings to mind sermons to birds, tamed wolves, simplicity of life, genial friars padding about flower-filled cloisters, and swallows unfailingly returning to the picturesque mission of San Juan Capistrano.

That image, largely inherited from nineteenth-century romanticism, derives from a certain verifiable tradition about Francis. Like all stereotypes, however, it flattens out or erases other aspects of his personality. It is difficult to think of the “Little Poor Man of Assisi” as a center of bitter contention, the source of radical social impulses, or the inspiration for a fierce and unyielding asceticism.

Yet, for many, Francis was one or all of those things in his lifetime and after his death. In fact, beyond the romantic cliches about Saint Francis one discovers a person who, for all of his transparent attractiveness, is complex to the point of enigma.

Failed knight

Francis was born Giovanni Bernardone in either 1181 or 1182 in the Italian hill town of Assisi. His parents, Pietro and Pica, were members of the rather well-to-do merchant class of the town. Pietro Bernardone was away in France when his son was born. On his return, he had the boy’s name changed from Giovanni to Francesco (“The Little Frenchman”—perhaps a tribute to France, a country he loved and from which his wife’s family came).

Of the youth of Francis we know very little. He probably received a bit of rudimentary schooling from the priests of his parish church of San Giorgio. He spoke and sang in French, a language he probably learned at home.

Accounts of his life emphasized his recklessness and frivolity as a youth. “Until he was nearly 25, he squandered his time terribly. Indeed, he outshone all his friends in trivialities, suggested various evils, and was eager for foolishness of every kind,” wrote his first biographer, Thomas of Celano. This is plausible, given his position as the spoiled son of a wealthy mercantile family.

In 1202 Francis marched with the gentlemen soldiers of Assisi to engage the army of the city of Perugia. It was probably one of those bloody skirmishes that the medievals loved to call a war. At any rate, Francis was captured in battle and imprisoned in Perugia. He spent a year there until his father could negotiate the price of his ransom.

For Francis, as it has been for many, incarceration proved to be a turning point. We don’t know what his prison routine was like or how he reacted to it, but when he returned to Assisi he spent a year in convalescence.

Stripping away the past

Francis also began to change as a person. By 1205 he had left his home to take up a life of solitude. He gradually adopted the traditional garb of a hermit (thick shoes, a tunic with a belt) and lived near a tumbledown and nearly abandoned church at the edge of Assisi called San Damiano. In obedience to voices he heard in the church, he began literally to “rebuild the church.” With his own hands, he began to repair the ruined walls of San Damiano.

Between 1206 and 1208, Francis continued to live this marginal existence. The period was also marked by quarrels with his father. Pietro may have been indulgent of Francis’s adolescent high jinks, but he was absolutely livid about this new kind of life. Outraged by the squalor of his life and his prodigal generosity to the poor, his father even tried to imprison him in the cellar of the family home. It was, after all, Pietro’s hard-earned money that Francis was giving to the poor and leprous.

Finally, in an act of desperation, he hauled his recalcitrant son before the local bishop to demand that justice be done. This fateful encounter was drawn in Saint Bonaventure’s Major Life of the saint:

“His father brought Francis before the bishop of the diocese. He wanted Francis to renounce all claims and return his goods. Because of his love for poverty, Francis readily agreed to come before the bishop. With no urging, hesitation, justification, or speech, he took off his clothes and gave them to his father. It was discovered that he had on a hair shirt under his costly robes. He even took off his pants in his zeal so that he stood naked before the bishop.

To his father he said,’Up to today I called you father, but now I can say in all honesty Our Father who art in heaven. He is my patrimony, and I put my faith in him.’

On hearing this, the bishop was dumbstruck at his zeal. He jumped up to embrace Francis while covering him with his own cape. He got his servants to bring him some clothes. They got an old smock which had belonged to a farmer. Francis put it on after drawing a cross on it with a piece of chalk. He judged it a worthy garment for a beggar and follower of the crucified Christ.

Thus, the Most High’s servant was stripped of all possessions; he could now follow his Lover who once hung stripped on the cross…. Free of all earthly bonds, Francis left the town and sought for quiet places where he could be alone in solitude and silence to hear the secrets which God could reveal to him.”

From hermit to itinerant

A couple of years later, on February 24, 1208, Francis was at Mass in the little church of Saint Mary of the Angels when he heard these words from Saint Matthew read out at the proclamation of the Gospel:

“Take no gold or silver or copper in your wallet, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics or sandals or a staff.” This Gospel message gave Francis a new direction. He decided to put aside his life as a hermit to begin an itinerant existence after the command of Christ.

If the period from 1205 can be called the time of his first conversion then this day must be understood as the moment of what William James, in The Varieties of Religious Experience, has called “the second conversion.” Francis saw that his calling was to live in absolute poverty, wandering through the towns and villages preaching the Gospel.

By this time, Francis had attracted some followers who desired to share his life. What was this life to be? Francis had a very simple plan: to live as the great masses of the rural and urban poor lived. To them he would preach the Gospel. This simple plan, however, was not without risk. The medieval church took a dim view of unsupervised bands of evangelical itinerants who identified too closely with the proletarian masses. Too many groups had been stirring up revolutionary expectations.

Francis understood that he needed church approval for his little group. In the spring of 1209, he wrote a rule of life (since lost) and then set off for Rome with his small band of brothers. They finally gained an audience with that most redoubtable of medieval pontiffs, Pope Innocent III.

Although later accounts of the meeting are filled with papal dreams and initial rebuffs, the basic fact is that Francis got his rule approved and found a friend in Cardinal Ugolino of Ostia, who became the band’s protector. Near the end of his life, Francis himself gave a laconic and characteristically self-effacing account of all these events in his Testament:

“When the Lord entrusted brothers to me, nobody told me how tO treat them, but the Most High revealed to me personally that I ought to live according to the norms of the Holy Gospel. I had it all written down in a few simple words, and the lord Pope approved it. And those who wished to embrace the life gave the poor everything they had and contented themselves with a tunic patched inside and out, and a belt and some underclothes. And we did not wish for anything more.”

Peace amid violence

Francis and his first companions then embarked on a life of wandering and preaching. His constant theme was conversion to the values of the gospel. He taught his early friars to greet everyone with the salutation “Peace and good!”To realize how passionately Francis wanted that theme to be preached and accepted, we must recover some sense of the violence and carnage of the age. Blood vendettas, legal mutilations, city strife, incessant war, and murder were part of everyday life. Medieval towns, located on tops of hills, were girded by thick walls and filled with bastions and heavily fortified homes to protect the citizenry in an age when roving bands of mercenaries, rapacious political tyrants, and family brawling were the order of the day.

Until 1220 we hear of Francis wandering all over Italy, and of his visits to Spain with an idea of penetrating the Muslim world as a missionary. He was almost certainly in Rome for the Fourth Lateran Council

In 1219 Francis sailed for Acre and Damietta to make contact with the Muslim world once again. It is a mark of his incredible personality that he was able to cross the Crusader lines and visit the sultan Malikal-Kamil who, despite his admiration for the Christian holy man, did not decide to convert. Visitors to Assisi today can still see the carved ivory horn that the sultan presented to Francis as a memento of his visit.

Soulmate

It was during this eventful decade that Francis received Chiara di Favarone (Clare), a well-to-do young lady of Assisi, into his way of life. She was to be the founder of the “Second Order” of Franciscans, now known as the Poor Clares. On Palm Sunday in 1212, Francis cut off her long blonde tresses (lovingly preserved in Assisi), dressed her in penitential serge, and sent her to live at San Damiano, along with some members of her family who joined her.

The brothers had taken up their residence at the little church of Saint Mary of the Angels (where Francis had heard the Gospel reading about the life of poverty) in the valley below the town of Assisi. Over that little chapel of Saint Mary’s (or the Portiuncula, “Little Portion,” as it is called) now stands a huge late- baroque church. It is a colossal monument to good intentions and execrable taste.

The relationship of Francis and Clare (she was to outlive him by years and become on her own a powerful figure and counselor to popes) is the story of a great spiritual friendship. A wonderful account in The Little Flowers of Saint Francis (the so-called Fioretti) underlines this kinship of spirit:

“When Saint Francis was in Assisi, he often visited Saint Clare in order to give her spiritual counsel. She had a great desire to eat with Saint Francis and had asked him many times, but he never granted her this consolation.

“Some of his companions came to Saint Francis once to talk about the desire of Clare and said to him,’Father, we do not think that this rigidity is in keeping with divine love. You do not want to grant such a little thing as a meal to Sister Clare, a virgin who is so holy and so beloved of God. It was through your preaching that she abandoned the world and her riches, and that should be kept in mind. Even if she were to ask a greater favor, you ought to grant it since she is your spiritual offspring.’

“Saint Francis said,’Do you think then that I should grant her request?’

“His friends said,’Yes, father. She is worthy of this grace.’

“Saint Francis then said,’If it seems good to you, then it seems good to me. It would be better for her to come here to Saint Mary of the Angels, for she has been cloistered so long at San Damiano, and it would be pleasing to her to see again the place where her hair was cut and where she became a bride of Christ. So, in the name of God, we will eat here.’…

“In the meantime, Saint Francis prepared a meal and spread it on the ground, as was his custom. When the hour came, Saint Francis sat with Saint Clare, his companion sat with hers, and the other brothers humbly ringed themselves around the table. With the first plate, Saint Francis began to speak softly and persuasively and wonderfully of God. The grace of God descended on the whole company, and shortly they were all rapt in the contemplation of God. “While they were so rapt with their eyes and hands reaching toward the heavens, the citizens of Assisi and Bettona and the people in the environs of Saint Mary of the Angels saw the church, the land, and the forest around enveloped in fire. The citizens of Assisi ran to the place to put out the blaze, for they were convinced that everything would be lost in a holocaust. When they arrived there, they found nothing burning at all. Entering the place, they found Saint Francis and Saint Clare and all the others rapt in the contemplation of God while seated around a meager meal.

“They understood immediately that the fire they saw was divine and not material. They were sure that God had made the fire appear miraculously so as to illustrate the fire of divine love which burned in the hearts of those holy brothers and nuns. They returned home happy and edified in their hearts.

“After a length of time, Saint Francis and Saint Clare came to their senses, and they were so filled with spiritual food that they had no appetite for the meal before them. So that finished the meal, and Saint Clare, well accompanied, returned to San Damiano.”

Exploding order

Throughout the years of 1210 to 1220, the number of followers of Saint Francis grew at a truly incredible rate. By 1217, we know that small bands of the “little brothers” (fratres minores) lived in Italy, France, Spain, Bohemia, Germany, England, and the Holy Land. By 1219 missionaries had been sent to Hungary and to what is today Morocco and Tunisia. Lay folk who wished to share in the life of the Franciscans were provided with a modified rule of life and were enrolled in what had been called the “Third Order.”

An independent eyewitness testifies to the power of these early friars and the example of their lives. In 1216 a French bishop, Jacques De Vitry, visited the papal court in Perugia. Pope Innocent III had just died (De Vitry records that his body had been stripped of its robes and jewels by thieves who broke into the church while the pope was lying in state—a comment on the times). De Vitry says in a letter that the papal court, with its intrigues, law suits, political squabbles, and money grubbing, “saddened me greatly.”

Amid the depressing sights at the courts, however, he was consoled to find “persons of both sexes, rich and worldly, who have renounced their possessions and, for the love of Christ, turned their backs on the world. They are called’Friars Minor’ and’Little Sisters.’ ” De Vitry went on to observe that they were indifferent to the honors of the world but passionate in their desire to convert people to the following of Christ.

Growth inevitably brought problems. It was one thing for a small group of wandering brothers to subsist by the work of their hands or through begging, but it was quite a different matter when that small band grew into the thousands. The saint could always ask the Father in heaven to “give us this day our daily bread,” but the superiors, good men all but not necessarily saints, had to feed and house large numbers of friars.

There was the further question of education. Francis wanted his friars to live simply and among the poor. How was he to handle the ever- increasing number of educated perSons who begged admittance to his order? He resisted the idea of his friars attending the universities that were then in their first period of growth and expansion. (Indeed, one legend even has Francis cursing a group of friars who had opened a hospice in the university town of Bologna.)

Francis must not have been entirely opposed to learning, however, since in a letter of disputed authenticity he gave Saint Anthony of Padua permission to teach the friars theology, as long as it did not “extinguish the habit of prayer.”

Passion for poverty

Francis was most concerned about any possibility of mitigating his simple but unbending concern for evangelical poverty. We catch a sense of his urgency in the plea he makes in his Testament, which he wrote sometime in the final years of his life:

“This is a testament, a memorial, an exhortation, and a remembrance that I, the little Brother Francis, have made for you, my blessed brothers, so that you will be better able to observe the holy rule that we have promised before the Lord.

“All the brothers clerical and lay are ordered in obedience to make glosses neither on the rule or on these words; neither should they say’This should be interpreted thusly’ rather, as the Lord told me what to say and how to write this rule simply and purely, they are to observe this rule and these words simply and purely and fulfill them right to the end.

“Whoever has observed these things will be filled with the heavenly benediction of the Most High Father and on earth be filled with the blessing of his beloved Son and the most Holy Spirit the Paraclete, and all the heavenly powers and the saints. And I, Brother Francis, your little one and your servant, inasmuch as I can, will strengthen you within and without with this holy blessing. Amen.”

In 1220, Francis resigned as head of the order of friars. Others would now deal with organizing his burgeoning movement. In those final years, however, he was almost plaintive in his desire that the friars not depart from the primitive standards he had set for them in the first years.

Christmas drama

These years, harried as they were by his concern for matters within the order, were also years of great consolation and spiritual creativity. The year 1223, when a definitive rule for the order was finally approved by the pope, found Francis in the town of Greccio for the celebration of Christmas.

In order to intensify and dramatize the real poverty of the first Christmas, Francis decided to celebrate the feast in a setting like that described in the New Testament. He found a cave near the town and attended Mass amid the animals traditionally associated with the feast. This celebration was to mark the beginning of the now almost universal custom of building and adorning manger scenes in churches and homes. At the celebration, Francis read the Gospel and preached (the saint was never ordained to the priesthood, but he was a deacon) to the assembled faithful.

Thomas of Celano’s First Life provides a glowing account of the scene at Greccio:

“The joyful day came with great happiness. The friars came from their different places. Neighborhood people prepared with joy according to their capacity, bringing candles and torches to illumine the night that has been the light for the world through its star. Finally, the saint of God arrived and saw it and was glad. The manger was ready, hay was spread, and the ox and ass led in.

“Thus, simplicity was honored, poverty exalted, humility praised. Greccio was made a new Bethlehem. The night became as day to the joy of men and animals. The people were happy at this great mystery. The forest echoed with the voices of the congregation; the rocks cried out in jubilation. The friars sang their debt of praise to God, and the night echoed with their hymns. The saint of God stood near the manger, overwhelmed with love and swelling with happiness.”

Marks of Christ

The following year, 1224, Saint Francis decided to go into retreat at Mount La Verna, a desolate mountain in Tuscany that had been given over for his use by a noble. On that mountaintop retreat on September 14 (the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross), Francis had a mystical experience that left him with wounds on his hands, feet, and side, similar to those of the crucified Christ.

The impression of these stigmata, widely reported in the lifetime of the saint, was the first instance of this kind reported in the Christian West. The idea of a person actually carrying wounds on his body similar to those of Christ had an immense impact on the medieval imagination. It was a scene painted over and over again. The literary source for these depictions is the brief description in Bonaventure’s Major Life:

“One morning around the Feast of the Holy Cross while he was at prayer on the mountainside, Francis saw a seraph with six flaming wings coming down from heaven. The vision descended speedily and hovered in the air over him. He saw the image of a crucified man in the middle of the wings, with stretched- out hands and feet nailed to a cross. Two of the wings (of the seraph) were pointed above the head; two flew, and two covered his body.

“Francis, struck dumb by the vision, reacted with joy and sorrow:

joy at the gracious look Christ gave him from among the wings of the seraph, and sorrow like a sword thrust that pierced his soul at the sight of the figure affixed to a cross. As the vision receded from sight, it left the saint’s heart ablaze and imprinted upon his own body a miraculous likeness. Right then the marks of the nails began to appear in his body.”

Brother Sun

The intensity of that mystical experience did nothing to improve the already failing health of the saint. Francis suffered from chronic infections of the eyes (contracted, perhaps, during his visits to the Middle East), which had been treated by the excruciating and dubious therapy of cauterizing his temples with white hot irons and piercing his ears with iron needles.

From 1225 until his death on October 3, 1226, he made sporadic journeys (often riding on a donkey because of his weakness) interspersed with rests in Assisi. In the spring of 1225, he collapsed while visiting Saint Clare at her convent of San Damiano. He stayed at a cell there to regain his health. It was in that convent that Francis composed The Canticle of Brother Sun, one of the first poems in the Italian language. The Canticle was probably meant to be sung by the friars as they went about their preaching tours to the villages and cities. Despite its simple lines, it is a highly complex work that echoes the canticles of the Bible [see The Canticle of Brother Sun].

Francis wrote the first seven stanzas at San Damiano. Later in the same year, Saint Francis was able to reconcile the bishop of Assisi and the mayor of the town, who had been feuding. In honor of that reconciliation, Francis added to The Canticle the stanza about “those who endure in peace.”

Francis spent his last days in the care of Bishop Guido of Assisi. At the bishop’s residence Saint Francis added the final verses, about “Sister Bodily Death,” to his poem.

Sister Death

Francis died at the palace of the bishop of Assisi with his brethren in attendance. Tradition has it that they sang The Canticle at his deathbed. Francis himself requested that he be put on the ground, his beloved Mother Earth, so he could wait for Sister Death. The following day, his body was carried to the church of San Giorgio, after a stop was made so that Clare and her nuns could bid him a last farewell.

Two years later—exceedingly fast by Roman standards—Pope Gregory IX (his old friend and protector Cardinal Ugolino) came to Assisi for the canonization proceedings.

In 1230 his body was transferred from the church of San Giorgio to a massive crypt under the Romanesque church of Saint Francis, which had been built by funds raised through the energetic work of Brother Elias of Cortona, the head of the order. Thus, the Little Poor Man of Assisi who, like his master, wished to live without a place to rest his head, now reposed under a great fortress-like church, decorated in the intervening years by masterpieces from such masters as Cimabue, Giotto, Simone de Martini, and other painters of the early Italian Renaissance.

Later generations could not quite imitate Francis fully in his desire for Gospel poverty, but they were able to offer him something that he could have appreciated: the gift of beauty.

DR. LAWRENCE S. CUNNINGHAM is professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author or editor of sixteen books, most recently Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master: The Essential Writings (Paulist, 1992).

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

Though a relatively minor episode of the Crusades, the “Children’s Crusade” starkly reveals the atmosphere of the times. Distinguished historian Steven Runciman, in his three-volume A History of the Crusades, cut through the scholarly debate surrounding this bizarre episode. Here is a condensed version of his account of one branch of the venture.

One day in May 1212, there appeared at St. Denis, where King Philip of France was holding his court, a shepherd boy of about 12 years old called Stephen. He brought with him a letter for the king, which, he said, had been given to him by Christ in person, who had appeared to him as he was tending his sheep and who had bidden him go and preach the crusade. King Philip was not impressed by the child and told him to go home. But Stephen, whose enthusiasm had been fired by his mysterious visitor, saw himself now as an inspired leader who would succeed where his elders had failed. For the past 15 years, preachers had been going around the countryside urging a crusade against the Muslims of the East or of Spain or against the heretics of Languedoc [Albigensians]. It was easy for a hysterical boy to be infected with the idea that he too could be a preacher.

Undismayed by the king’s indifference, he began to preach at the very entrance to the abbey of St. Denis and to announce that he would lead a band of children to rescue Christendom. The seas would dry up before them, and they would pass, like Moses through the Red Sea, safe to the Holy Land. Stephen was gifted with an extraordinary eloquence. Older folk were impressed, and children came flocking to his call. After his first success, he set out to journey around France summoning the children; and many of his converts went further afield to work on his behalf. They were all to meet together at Vendome in about a month’s time and start out from there to the East.

March to the sea

Toward the end of June, the children massed at Vendome. Awed contemporaries spoke of 30,000, not one over 12 years of age. There were certainly several thousand of them, collected from all parts of the country, some of them simple peasants, whose parents in many cases had willingly let them go on their great mission. But there were also boys of noble birth who had slipped away from home to join Stephen and his following of ‘minor prophets,’ as the chroniclers called them.

There were also girls, a few young priests, and a few older pilgrims, some drawn by piety, others, perhaps, from pity, and others certain to share in the gifts showered upon them all. The bands came crowding into the town, each with a leader carrying a copy of the oriflamme [red-orange flag of the abbey of St. Denis]. The town could not contain them all, and they camped in the fields outside.

When the blessing of friendly priests had been given, and when the last sorrowing parents had been pushed aside, the expedition started out southward. Nearly all of them went on foot. But Stephen, as befitted the leader, insisted on having a gaily decorated cart for himself, with a canopy to shade him from the sun. At his side rode boys of noble birth, each rich enough to possess a horse. No one resented the inspired prophet traveling in comfort. On the contrary, he was treated as a saint, and locks of his hair and pieces of his garments were collected as precious relics.

They took the road past Tours and Lyons, making for Marseilles. It was a painful journey. The summer was unusually hot. They depended on charity for their food, and the drought left little to spare in the country, and water was scarce. Many of the children died by the wayside. Others dropped out and tried to wander home. But at last the little crusade reached Marseilles.

The citizens of Marseilles greeted the children kindly. Many found houses in which to lodge. Others camped in the streets. Next morning, the whole expedition rushed down to the harbor to see the sea divide before them.

When the miracle did not take place, there was bitter disappointment. Some of the children turned against Stephen, crying that he had betrayed them, and began to retrace their steps. But most of them stayed on by the seaside, expecting each morning that God would relent.

After a few days, two merchants of Marseilles (called, according to tradition, Hugh the Iron and William the Pig) offered to put ships at their disposal and to carry them free of charge, for the glory of God, to Palestine. Stephen eagerly accepted the kindly offer. Seven vessels were hired by the merchants, and the children were taken aboard and set out to sea. Eighteen years passed before there was any further news of them.…

A priest’s sad tale

In the year 1230, a priest arrived in France from the East with a curious tale to tell. He had been, he said, one of the young priests who had accompanied Stephen to Marseilles and had embarked with them on the ships provided by the merchants. A few days out, they had run into bad weather, and two of the ships were wrecked on the island of San Pietro, and all the passengers were drowned.

The five ships that survived the storm found themselves soon surrounded by a Saracen squadron from Africa, and the passengers learned they had been brought there by arrangement, to be sold into captivity. They were all taken to Bougie, on the Algerian coast. Many of them were bought on their arrival and spent the rest of their lives in captivity. Others, the young priest among them, were shipped on to Egypt, where Frankish slaves fetched a better price. When they arrived at Alexandria, the greater part of the consignment was bought by the governor, to work on his estates.

According to the priest, there were still about 700 of them living. A small company was taken to the slave markets of Baghdad; and there 18 of them were martyred for refusing to accept Islam.

More fortunate were the young priests and the few others that were literate. The governor of Egypt, al-Ail’s son al-Kamil, was interested in Western languages and letters. He bought them and kept them as interpreters, teachers, and secretaries, and made no attempt to convert them to his faith. They stayed on in Cairo in a comfortable captivity; and eventually this one priest was allowed to return to France.

He told the questioning parents of his comrades all that he knew, and then disappeared into obscurity.

Copyright © 1993 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

The Apologists

100- 165 Justin Martyr, born a pagan at Naples, is the first to use Scripture methodically in his writings.

Late 2nd century Theophilus of Antioch is the first to quote primarily from the New Testament as “divine Word.”

The Gnostic Crisis

Ca. 135 The Gnostic Epistle of Barnabas offers a completely spiritualized, figurative interpretation of Old Testament passages. Such Gnostic writings—some of which were discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945— pushed the church to refine its own understanding of the Old Testament.

144 Marcion of Sinope is excommunicated from his church and founds his own. He rejected the Old Testament, creating his own collection of New Testament books with Old Testament references cut out. This pushed the church to re-emphasize the Old Testament and to establish its own canon of New Testament writings.

185 In his detailed attack on the Gnostics, Against Heresies, Irenaeus of Lyons appeals to the apostolic writings to show that the God of Moses is the same as the God and Father of Jesus Christ— thus the Old Testament must be taken as sacred Scripture.

The Alexandrian Tradition

Seeking the deep meanings

Ca. 20 B.C. – A.D. 50 Lifetime of Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish thinker and exegete who pioneered the allegorical method of interpretation to link the Hebrew Scriptures to Greek philosophy. His goal: an effective apologetic for Judaism in the Hellenistic world, with a success not lost on Clement and Origen of Alexandria. Those two Christian teachers picked up the method for the church and passed it on to Ambrose and others.

Late 2nd century Clement of Alexandria (ca. 60-215) responds to Gnostic teachings with a thorough, detailed exegesis of all of Scripture, combining allegorical methods and acute theological insights.

225 Origen publishes On First Principles, the first systematic treatise that provides a theoretical framework for biblical interpretation. This book promotes the allegorical method exemplified by Philo of Alexandria and Origen’s own teacher Clement.

Early 3rd century Origen identifies three levels of spiritual meaning in Scripture: moral, mystical (dealing with the mystery of Christ and the church), and anagogical (leading to heavenly, transcendent reality).

245 After I 5 years of work, Origen completes his Hexapla, a six-column parallel edition of the Old Testament. It compares several Greek versions of the Hebrew Bible with the Hebrew original and its Greek transcription.

4 12-444 While bishop of Alexandria during these years, Cyril of Alexandria fills thousands of pages with verse-by-verse exegesis of Isaiah, the Psalms, the Gospels of John and Matthew, and other books. His eloquent, erudite interpretations of the Scriptures’ spiritual sense enriched both the Western and the Eastern church for many centuries after his death.

The Latin Tradition

Adopting classical learning

Ca. 193 The lawyer Tertullian, raised as a pagan in Carthage, converts and begins to write passionate anti-pagan literature. He expressed his high view of the Bible as divinely inspired in a realistic rather than allegorical interpretive style. His principle was to let Scripture explain itself, by proceeding from clearer to more obscure passages.

Ca. 252 Cyprian of Carthage (ca. 200-258) writes On the Lord’s Prayer, the West’s first exegetical essay. It applies each verse of the Gospels to some aspect of the Christian’s experience.

Early 360s Hilary of Poitiers, bishop from 350 to 367, writes the vast Commentary on the Psalms, written in classical style and applying to the biblical text the thought and style of Latin classical works.

End of 4th century Nesteros, an Egyptian monk, elaborates Ongen’s three senses of Scripture into four: literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical (heavenly). These became foundational categories for Western monastic interpretation.

375-397 In the midst of a very busy life as bishop of Milan, Ambrose (ca. 339-397) writes commentaries on parts of Genesis that joins moral instruction from the allegorical method of Philo and Origen with classical ethical sources.

380s Having discovered the only copy of Origen’s Hexapla at Caesarea of Palestine, Jerome begins work on a Latin text of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew. The resulting “Vulgate” became the Bible most widely used in the West. It introduced a principle still in use today—to understand the original setting and Semitic thinking behind the Scriptures. From 386 onward, Jerome worked from his monastery in Bethlehem.

ca. 430 By this date, Augustine of Hippo (b. 354) completed On Christian Doctrine. It explains how to distinguish passages that should be interpreted literally from those demanding an allegorical reading.

Antiochian and Syrian traditions

Interpretation rooted in history

312 Lucian, martyred in this year, founded the exegetical tradition of Antioch. Favoring literal interpretation and fidelity to Hebrew sources, Lucian made a revision of the Septuagint text more in line with the original Hebrew that was widely adopted by Eastern churches.

324 to 327 During these years Eustathius was bishop of Antioch. He wrote On the Witch of Endor Against Origen (on I Kings 28), criticizing the great Alexandrian exegete for undervaluing the historical nature of Scripture.

390 Diodore of Tarsus dies. The teacher of both John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia, Diodore wrote commentaries on almost all the books of the Bible. He strongly opposed Origen’s allegorical method, instead dedicating himself to close analysis of Scripture’s words and grammatical structures.

392 Diodore’s student Theodore (3 50-428) becomes bishop of Mopsuestia in Asia Minor. In his lifetime, he championed literal exegesis over against Origen’s allegorical method. The Councils of Ephesus (431) and Constantinople (553), however, condemned Theodore’s writings as heretical, and only recently have they enjoyed something of a renaissance.

397 John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) becomes patriarch of Constantinople. His many sermons (the most from any early father that survive to the modern day) are closely and carefully exegetical, and marked by twin concerns for literal meaning and practical application. His series of sermons from AD. 400 on the book of Acts is the only complete commentary on that book surviving from the patristic era.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

In 1517, Luther posted his famous 95 Theses, attacking abuses in the sale of indulgences. A full twenty-five years later, and only four years before he died, Luther wrote against this practice again, this time with wit.

In 1542, a pamphlet entitled New Newspaper from the Rhine appeared in Halle. The anonymous author alerted the public to the transfer of Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz’s collection of relics from Halle to Mainz, where they would be exhibited at St. Martin’s Church and, if solemnly viewed, would grant an indulgence.…

In addition, newly discovered relics would be exhibited, with a special indulgence offered by Pope Paul Ill. The new relics included:

1. A nice section from Moses’ left horn (Exod. 34:29, Vulgate: “his face was horned from the conversation with the Lord”); 2. Three flames from the burning bush on Mount Sinai (Exod. 3:3); 3. Two feathers and an egg from the Holy Spirit;4. A remnant from the flag with which Christ opened hell;5. A large lock of Beelzebub’s beard, stuck on the same flag;6. One-half of the archangel Gabriel’s wing;7. A whole pound of the wind which roared by Elijah in the cave on Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:11);8. Two ells (about ninety inches) of sound from the trumpets on Mount Sinai (Exod. 19:16);9. Thirty blasts from the trumpets on Mount Sinai; 10. A large, heavy piece of the shout with which the children of Israel tumbled the walls of Jericho (Josh. 6:20); 11. Five nice, shiny strings from David’s harp; 12. Three beautiful locks of Absalom’s hair, which got caught in the oak and left him hanging (2 Sam. 18:9).

The author concluded by sharing a tip he had received from a friend in high places: Archbishop Albrecht had willed a trifle of his pious, loyal heart, and a whole section of his truthful tongue to the existing collection. Whoever paid one guilder at the exhibition would receive a papal indulgence remitting all sins committed up to the time of payment and for ten more years, thus giving the people of the Rhineland a unique opportunity to attain a special state of grace.

The author was Martin Luther, of course. He revealed his identity after the pamphlet had been widely circulated. The old issue of indulgences had once more cropped up, and this was his way of annoying Archbishop Albrecht, the most notorious advocate of the indulgences traffic, one more time.

Dr. Eric W. Gritsch is Maryland Synod Professor of Church History at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and director of the Institute for Luther Studies.

Copyright © 1993 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.