Historical Writings

Pope Boniface VIII issues the bull Clericis laicos forbidding the clergy to pay taxes to secular rulers without papal consent.

Gentle Anabaptist leader Jacob Hutter (from whom the Hutterites take their name) is hunted down and burned to death in Austria after being tortured, whipped, and immersed in freezing water to mock baptismal practices.

Elizabeth I of England was excommunicated by Pope Pius V for her severe persecution of Roman Catholics in England. (It was the last such judgment made against a reigning monarch by any pope.)

English revivalist George Whitefield wrote in a letter: 'God, I find, has a people everywhere; Christ has a flock, though but a little flock, in all places.'

Death in New London, Connecticut, of Samuel Seabury, first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America.

The Baptist General Tract Society was organized in Washington, D.C. In 1826 the society was moved to Philadelphia, and by 1840, the organization had issued over 3.5 million copies of 162 different tracts.

Death at Hackney, London, of Andrew Reed, a popular Independent minister who founded the London Orphan Asylum, the Asylum for Fatherless Children, the Asylum for Idiots, the Infant Orphan Asylum, and the Hospital for Incurables. He also wrote hymns, such as "Holy Ghost, with light divine" and "Spirit Divine, attend our prayer."

Death of Johann Blumhardt, leader of revival in Germany and founder of Bad Böll, a spa for people with mental, spiritual, and physical ailments.

Birth of Oscar Cullmann, German New Testament scholar. Best known for pioneering a "salvation history" view of the NT, Cullmann's two best-known publications were "Christ and Time" (1946) and "Christology of the New Testament" (1959).

Pioneer missionary Eduard L. Arndt first arrived in Shanghai, China, 10 months after having founded the Evangelical Lutheran Missions for China. He afterward established missions and schools in the Hankow territory, and translated hymns and sermons into Chinese. (In 1917 the Missouri Synod took over the ELMS mission.)

Death in Egersund, Rogaland, Norway, of Lutheran deaconness Elizabeth Fedde who had established a great medical and ministerial work in New York before returning to her homeland.

An article by Stanley Frodsham in Pentecostal Evangel pays tribute to Swiss-born Paul Bettex, a zealous international missionary who had been assassinated and secretly buried in China fourteen years earlier.

Sir Leonard Woolley ends his archaeological dig at Ur, having uncovered much information that would help Christians understand the ancient texts of Scripture.

Death in Palo Alto, California, of Mary Mills Patrick, who had been an educational missionary to Turkey. She had turned a girl’s school into the Constantinople Women’s College and kept it open through two wars and a revolution. Courses she had offered included dentistry and medicine.

Samandar Singh, misled by anti-Christian propaganda, stabs Sister Rani Maria repeatedly in Indore, India. He will convert to Christianity while in prison for her murder.