JANUARY 13
Famous Churchman Hilary of Poitiers Died in Peace (368)
“Meanwhile I am translating the Bible, though I have undertaken a task beyond my strength. The Old Testament I cannot touch unless you lend your aid.”
Schaff, Philip. The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1952.
Thoughts for the anxious
To arrive at a right conclusion in any difficulty, weigh as comprehensively as possible the circumstances in which you s...
Events
533
Death of St. Remigius, apostle of France and the first bishop of Reims. In one of the most famous incidents of his life, he had baptized King Clovis of France on Christmas day, 496.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.715
Muslims in Transjordan martyr Peter of Capitolias, a presbyter ordained by the bishop of Bostra.
Authority for the date: Stephen J. Shoemaker, translator, Three Christian Martyrdoms from Early Islamic Palestine1501
The world’s first hymnbook in a language other than Latin is issued by the Bohemian followers of Jan Hus in Prague. It contains 89 hymns.
Authority for the date: Coffman, Elesha. “Singing the Old, Old Story.” www.christianitytoday.com.1547
The Council of Trent debates the doctrine of justification and anathematizes the fundamental doctrines of the Lutheran Reformation.
Authority for the date: Johnson, Rossiter, ed. The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 9.1599
Death in London, England, of Sir Edmund Spenser, English poet who authored The Faerie Queene.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1681
Don Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora, a lay priest and rector of a hospital in Mexico, issues a pamphlet showing that there is no cause to fear a bright comet which has appeared in the northern hemisphere. A Creole, he will be stung when subsequently called a “dull wit” by an influential Spanish missionary, who says that comets are obviously bad omens.
Authority for the date: Leonard, Irving A. Don Carlos de Sigüenza Y Góngora. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1929.1691
Death in London, England, of George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, or Quakers.
Authority for the date: Fremantle, Anne. The Protestant Mystics. Boston: Little, Brown, 1964.1817
Robert Moffat reaches Cape Town. The London Missionary Society had been reluctant to send him because of his limited education but he will translate the New Testament into Bechwanas within the decade, and demonstrate that Christian missionaries can succeed in Africa by persistence and patience. Many know him as the mentor and father-in-law of David Livingstone.
Authority for the date: Harrison, E. Myers. Heroes of Faith on the Pioneer Trail.1847
Pius IX mounts a pulpit and preaches a sermon, allegedly the first pope to do so in three hundred years.
Authority for the date: Chambers Book of Days, 18631855
Death in Wynberg, South Africa, of John Scudder, Dutch Reformed missionary to Ceylon and India. He was father of John Scudder, also a missionary to India, and, through him, the grandfather of famed medical missionary, Ida Scudder.
Authority for the date: www.lutheranhistory.org.1873
Death at Mortlake, Surrey, England, of Anglican clergyman and missionary statesman Henry Venn.
Authority for the date: Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals.1888
Charles Spurgeon is censured by the Baptist Union because of his stand in the Down-Grade Controversy and his refusal to provide names and supporting evidence against other Baptist ministers.
Authority for the date: Christian History 29 (1991).1889
The first three Lutheran deaconesses in America are consecrated at the Philadelphia motherhouse.
Authority for the date: Bancroft, Jane M. Deaconesses in Europe.1897
Pope Leo XIII pronounces genuine the Bible verse 1 John 5:7, “There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” although the verse is not found in any early manuscripts of the New Testament.
Authority for the date: Schaff, Philip. The Creeds of Christendom.1908
Daniel Opperman claims baptism in the Holy Spirit in Belton, Texas. Already a Pentecostal leader, he will become more prominent, establish schools, and edit The Blessed Truth.
Authority for the date: Burgess, Stanley M. New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. Zondervan, 2002.1915
Death in Nigeria of missionary Mary Slessor, known as the “White Queen to the Cannibals.”
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1919
Death in Miami, Florida, of hymnwriter Margaret Jenkins Harris who had written the popular hymns “He Took My Sins Away,” “I Will Praise Him,” and “I’ve Pitched My Tent in Beulah.”
Authority for the date: hymntime.com.1930
Soviets arrest Orthodox priest Artemius Grigoryevich Zuyev in Taldy-Kurgan province and sentence him to death for anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary propaganda and agitation.
Authority for the date: Moss, Vladimir. Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of the Urals, Siberia and Central Asia.1939
Russell Diebler, after an exhausting trek of many days, arrives to claim West New Guinea's highland people for Christ.
Authority for the date: Darlene Diebler Rose Evidence Not Seen, p. 141964
Pope Paul VI nominates Karol Wojtyla to be Archbishop of Cracow. In 1978 Wojtyla will become Pope John Paul II.
Authority for the date: “Karol Wojtyla” www.legacy.com/obituaries/dayton/obituary.aspx?pid=33758402007
Security forces in Sri Lanka shoot Nallathamby Gnanaseelan in the stomach as he motorcycles to a meeting for prayer and fasting. They complete his murder by shooting him again where he lies in the road. A pastor of the Tamil Mission Church in Jaffna, he was not politically active. The police will concoct various cover stories in an effort to frame him and legitimize their act of persecution.
Authority for the date: Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, Nina Shea. Pers