Spring History & Heritage — #8 (May 7)
This week marks the conclusion of the Spring H&H posts, though there may be a short postscript. We will be tested this Friday (May 11) on posts 5-8.The Spring 2012 H&H Test will follow at the end of May.
Johann Reuchlin — (Almanac,April 24)
This German linguist (1455–1522), uncle to Lutherʼs lieutenant Philipp Melanchthon, advanced Old Testament translation and helped preserve the literature of the Jews? In his day many writings of a Hebraic or Jewish cast, including his own, were threatened with suppression by both church and state. Nonetheless, his scholarly good will prevailed to the delight of those seeking a return “to the sources,” that is to the ancients, including the prophets and apostles, in their original languages.
King Arthur — (Almanac,April 26)
The life and times of this legendary English king were first recorded and brought into Western literature by Welsh chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 1100s? Monmouth, in his Historia Regum Britanniae, sought to make of the collected tales of the kingdom not a biography or a history, but a romance to refresh Anglo-Saxon traditions in the wake of the Norman (French) conquest. To this day all we know for sure of Monmouthʼs royal subject is that he ruled sometime after the Romans left Britain in the 400s.
Pactum Salutis — (Michael Horton, Tabletalk,April 2012)
This Latin title identifies the biblical “covenant of redemption,” in which the three persons of God, from all eternity, mutually pledge to save an elect people, out of a mass of perishing sinners, from their sins? In this covenant, says theologian Michael Horton, “The Father gave the Son a people whom the Spirit would eventually unite to Him in history,” while “the Son signed His death warrant, joyfully assuming the office of Mediator between God and man.”
Church of the Holy Sepulcher — (Almanac, May 3)
Still a prime pilgrimage site in Jerusalem, this sacred structure was raised as a result of a determined search for relics in the 300s AD and was rebuilt by European Crusaders in the 1000s? It was Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine and known herself for acts of piety, who in Palestine in 326 discovered what she believed was the mount of Christʼs crucifixion (Golgotha) as well as remains of His true cross.The mount became the site for the sacred dwelling.
Lachlan Macquarie — (Almanac, May 3)
Born on a small isle in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, this British soldier (1761–1824) is known to history as the “Father of Australia?” Appointed governor of New South Wales, a colony for convicts, in 1810, he preserved its penal status while issuing a call to his fellow Hebrideans and Highlanders to come and settle the “land down under.”As it turned out, Scots soon made up a quarter of the population, setting the stage for an advanced Christian civilization.
Worldʼs Columbian Exposition — (Almanac, May 1)
A year late with its grand opening, this 1893 Chicago extravaganza commemorated the quadricentennial of the first voyage of Columbus to the New World? The mass exhibit venue, “the fairest fair of them all” says author George Grant, revolved around “an imposing courtyard of Babylonian proportions” with buildings, all white and of classical design, that created a resplendent, ethereal, New Jerusalem effect. The fairʼs sponsors sought to prove that Americaʼs cultural sophistication could rival Europeʼs.
Black Hawk War — (America, Vol. 1, p. 242)
This war, named for the prominent chief of the Sac & Fox tribes, erupted on the Illinois frontier in the spring of 1832? The Sac & Fox, removed west of the Mississippi earlier but now starving and chased by hostile Sioux, returned to Illinois where they tangled with state militia (including Abraham Lincoln) and terrorized settlements. Eventually, the tribes were wiped out, their chief managing to escape, only to be dealt with later with mercy by the U.S. militaryʼs Jefferson Davis and President Jackson himself.
Cherokees — (America, Vol. 1, pp. 242-243)
This Indian nation, residing mostly in Georgia, endured an horrific “Trail of Tears” in the 1830s,suffering forcible deportation by the U.S. to Indian Territory (todayʼs Oklahoma)? With U.S. Government and N.E. missionary support, the tribe acquired literacy, learned Christianity, authored a political constitution, and established its own legislature. Tragically, they fell victim to ambiguities of jurisdiction (between the legal authority of the U.S. and that of the States) and finally to a popular Jacksonian Indian removal policy.
Declaration of Independence — (America, Vol. 1, p. 246)
“[The king]. . .has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” Thus wrote Thomas Jefferson in this beloved American political document? Jefferson, ordinarily gracious and generous in his attitude toward Native Americans, even to the point of defending their humanity before skeptical European philosophers, is here constrained to take a different tack.
