Historical Writings

Emperor Theodosius issues a decree from Heraclea, containing the names of bishops who are to be regarded as orthodox in their respective districts.

Conrad of Marburg, a cruel inquisitor, is murdered on a wooded road in Germany.

The Hussite priest Jan Želivský and his followers, some armed with pikes, swords, and clubs, march to the church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows in Prague from which they have been barred by Catholic authorities. Breaking in, they hold Communion service with both bread and wine. The group proceeds to the town hall where several newly appointed Catholic councilmen are gathered, and demands the release of imprisoned reformers. When the councilmen refuse, the protesters hurl thirteen of them out a window. Those who survive the fall are dispatched by the mob.

Robert Barnes is burned at Smithfield for heresy without a public hearing for his Reformation views.

John Knox is captured by the French. He had become the chaplain of the killers of Cardinal Beaton of St. Andrews. When the French capture their castle, he is sentenced to the galleys. Eventually he will escape the galleys to become a leader of the Scottish Reformation.

The Puritans of Salem, Mass. appointed Francis Higginson as their teacher andSamuel Skelton as their pastor. The church covenant, composed afterward by these two men,allowed into communion only those who could prove a sound doctrinal knowledge and anexperience of grace in their lives.

Execution of David Hackston of Rathillet in Edinburgh. Involved in the murder of Archbishop James Sharp of St. Andrews, he is executed in a particularly grisly fashion, first having his hands cut off, then being hanged until near death, then having his still-beating heart cut from his body.

Death of William Penn, 74, English Quaker and founder of American colony ofPennsylvania. Penn permitted in his colony all forms of public worship compatible withmonotheism and religious liberty.

Lutheran missionary Christian Friedrich Schwartz arrives in Tranquebar, India. He will become one of the most successful missionaries of his century to India.

Fray Francesco Palou, a former schoolmate of Fray Junipero Serra and a brother friar, records the death of his famous predecessor as the last entry of Serra's parish record of all baptisms, marriages, and deaths.

Johann Gossner, a German evangelical, preaches his first Russian sermon to a jammed church in St. Petersburg. Many Russians will be converted through his influence.

Pioneer church founder James Varick, 72, was consecrated the first bishop of theAfrican Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

Death in Overton, Flintshire, England, of hymnwriter Mary Fawler Maude, best known for "Thine Forever! God of Love."

By an act of Congress, signed by President Eisenhower, 'In God We Trust' becamethe official U.S. motto.

Wu Weizun, a staunch Christian of Tianjin, China, who has suffered severely for his faith, is summoned by the police and his house is searched. Because he refuses to say anything during his interrogation, acting on three principles he has established for himself based on God's word (non-resistance, not disputing, and not begging) he is sent to a detention center. He will be treated with great harshness and his wife compelled to divorce him. However, he determines to follow Christ at any cost and will do so with consistency for decades.

Death of Rudolf Bultmann, 92, German Bible scholar and one of the three majorpioneers of modern form 'criticism' (i.e., 'analysis') of the New Testament Gospels.