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Today in History (November 17):
270 (traditional date) Gregory Thaumaturgus ("The Wonder Worker"), a well-loved bishop in Pontus and the author of the first Christian biography (on Origen), died. A legend from a generation later about the Virgin Mary visiting him is the first account of a Marian apparition.
331 Julian the Apostate, Roman emperor from 361 to 363, was born. A half-brother of Constantine the Great, Julian was raised in a Christian home but turned to Greek and pagan philosophies by age 25. He was sent to Gaul in 355 by Emperor Constantius II to fight German invaders. While there, he won the Roman troops to his cause and in 361 marched into Constantinople as the undisputed new emperor. He reigned only 18 months but set out to reform the government along pagan ideals. By this time Julian hated Christianity and rejected it as mere superstition. During an expedition against hostile Persians in 363 he was mortally wounded in a battle at Ctesiphon, the Persian capital. Julian was the last emperor to attempt establishing pagan religion in the Roman Empire.
1231 Elizabeth of Thuringia, Princess of Hungary, died.
1558 On the death of Roman Catholic monarch Mary Tudor, the Church of England was re-established.
1624 Jakob Boehme, Silesian mystic and theosophist, died (b. 1575). Though he spent his life as an uneducated shoemaker, Boehme experienced several mystical visions beginning in 1600. Two of his books, _The Beginning of Dawn_ (1612) and _The Way to Christ_ (1623), reflect these experiences. His theology shifted much throughout his writings, and no single theory fits all the work. Nevertheless, his life and writings greatly influenced both German and English Pietism.
1753 Gotthilf Henry Ernst Muhlenberg was born in Trappe, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Halle, Germany, and returned to Pennsylvania in 1770. He was ordained by the Pennsylvania Ministerium and served as a pastor in Philadelphia (1774–1779), New Hanover (1779–1780) and Lancaster (1780–1815. He became the first president of Franklin College (Lancaster) in 1787. He was also a botanist. He died 23 May 1815.
1808 David Zeisberger, Moravian missionary to American Indians, died (b. 1721). He emigrated from Saxony to Georgia in 1738 and moved to Pennsylvania in 1740, founding the towns of Bethlehem and Nazareth. In 1743 he began missionary work among the Indians, working among the Delaware, Iroquois and others. His work suffered grievously as a result of wars. Zeisberger at various times founded towns for his Indian flocks, such as Friedenstadt, Schoenbrunn, Gnadenhuetten (Ohio), New Salem (Ohio) and Goshen (Ohio), but almost all were destroyed. He worked among the Indians until 1808.
1849 Otto Daniel August Hoyer was born in Hamburg, Germany. He came to America at age 16 and was educated at Northwestern College (Watertown, Wisconsin) and Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) He served as a Wisconsin Synod pastor at Neenah, Wisconsin, and a Minnesota Synod pastor at Saint Paul, Minnesota. He became professor and director [president] of Dr. Martin Luther College (New Ulm, Minnesota) in 1885, director of Michigan Lutheran Seminary (Saginaw) of the Michigan Synod in 1893 and professor and inspector at Northwestern College (Watertown, Wisconsin) ca. 1896. He died 8 November 1905.
1874 B. H. (Burnet Hillman) Streeter, English New Testament scholar, was born in Croydon, England. He was closely associated with Oxford University from 1899 to 1933 and was canon of Hereford from 1915 to 1934. Streeter sought to correlate theology with science in his writings. He was an active supporter of the Student Christian Movement and later of Frank Buchman's Oxford Group Movement. While Streeter's main interest was in the philosophy of religion, his most significant book is on New Testament textual studies: _The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins_ (1924).
1875 The Theosophical Society of America was founded in New York City by Russian spiritualist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Theosophy regards reality as one basic, eternal principle beyond human understanding yet attainable with help from secret divine wisdom transmitted by "masters" or "mahatmas." Although Theosophy has been influential in popularizing Asian religion in the West, it is regarded by Christian orthodoxy as a heresy akin to the basic beliefs of the ancient heresy Gnosticism.
1885 Gustavus Seyffarth died. He was born in 1796 in Germany. After attending the Fuerstenschule of Saint Afra at Meissen, he entered the University of Leipzig where he was given a position in 1823. After his promotion to head of studies on Egyptian literature, he traveled and gathered Egyptian papyri copies (1826 to 1828) that became the fifteen folio volumes of Biblitheca Aegyptica Manuscripts. In 1830 he became a professor archaeology, a position he held until his resignation in 1854. He emigrated to America in 1856 and accepted a call to Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis). He resigned in the fall of 1859 and moved to New York to continue his studies.
1893 The Augsburg Home for the Aged, Baltimore, Maryland, was dedicated.
1945 John A. L. Riley, hymnist, died.
1961 Charles H. Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ, died. His was the first major denomination to form from the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, where Mason received "the baptism of the Holy Spirit."
1981 Reuben Larson (b. 1897), missions pioneer, died. In 1931 Larson and Clarence W. Jones co-founded the World Radio Fellowship in Lima, Ohio. Headquartered today in Opa Locka, Florida, WRMF is an interdenominational evangelical organization that broadcasts the Gospel in fifteen languages. It is also involved in evangelism, Bible correspondence courses, medicine, and literature distribution.
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From the LCMS World Mission's Pray for Us Monthly Calendar
Pray for:
Missions in France
French is the first language of roughly 120 million people worldwide, of whom 59 million live in France. The Evangelical Lutheran Church—-Synod of France and Belgium supports mission efforts among francophone churches in Central Africa and is involved in leadership training in West Africa. Pray that these partnerships will be “iron sharpening iron” and that their collective commitment to Christ’s Great Commission will provide mutual encouragement to the church membership in these French-speaking countries.
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Previous mailings of "Today in History" are being archived on the Concordia Historical Institute web site at chi.lcms.org/history/todayinhist.asp .
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