Pope Clement XIII took time off Popeing today in 1762 to open the magnificent Trevi Fountain in Rome, which had been commissioned 30 years earlier by his predecessor, Pope Clement XII. One of the wonders of Rome, the Baroque fountain receives its water direct from the Acqua Vergine, a 15km acqueduct which pipes pure drinking water from the Alban Hills east of Rome right into the heart of the city.
Charles Darwin wrote a letter to his friend Asa Gray, today in 1860, reflecting on the theological implications of his recently published Origin of Species. ‘I had no intention to write atheistically,’ he says, but adds that he has trouble believing that a loving God would create parasite ichneumonid wasps that lay their eggs in the bodies of caterpillars or spiders, which hatch to devour their hosts while they are still alive.
‘I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I shd wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world… On the other hand I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe & especially the nature of man, & to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.’ Charles Darwin, letter to Asa Gray
The Roman Emperor Constantine the Great died today in the year 337 at the age of 65. Having changed the course of history by converting to Christianity 25 years earlier, he postponed getting baptized until he thought he was dying, so that his baptism would be good for as many sins as possible. He had hoped this to be in the River Jordan, but his final illness came unexpectedly and he was baptized without a moment to spare by Eusebius, the powerful and scheming Arian Bishop of Nicomedia, which became a huge embarrassment to the church.
On this day in 452 Pope Leo I ‘annulled’ Canon 28 of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. Although he was passionately in support of the theology of Christ in the rest of the council’s decrees, this one said the unsayable – that the Church of Constantinople was equal to Rome.
Today is the feast of St Quiteria, crazy saint of the 2nd century. Nothing much is known of her, but an enjoyable Portuguese legend says she was one of nine sisters who formed a gang known as the ‘Nonuplet Sisters’, who fought a guerilla campaign against the Roman Empire. They smashed statues of the Roman gods and broke persecuted Christians out of prison until they were eventually captured. Quiteria was beheaded, but promptly picked up her head and marched off with it up a mountain to the place where she wished to be buried. True story.
Image: Giorgio Galeotti under CC BY-SA 2.0