Robert Zimmerman (above), who reinvented himself as Bob Dylan in his early 20s – possibly in homage to the poet Dylan Thomas – was born today in 1941, in the unpromising town of Duluth, Minnesota. He was raised up the road in the equally unpromising mining town of Hibbing, but late at night, listening to the Louisiana radio stations, he discovered the music of Hank Williams, Muddy Waters, Little Richard and Elvis Presley. Dylan has reinvented himself many times since then, including his 1979-81 born again Christian phase (‘Jesus himself only preached for three years,’ he said), but that’s a story for another time.
Today in 1738 saw the ‘conversion’ of John Wesley, the leader of the Great Awakening. It was a strange kind of conversion, as Wesley had been a passionately committed Christian for over a decade, and had even spent two years in America as a missionary and parish priest. But he had become convinced that he was not a true Christian because he lacked absolute assurance of his salvation. He had seen the kind of faith he aspired to among Moravian believers from Germany, and it was at a meeting of theirs that he found it.
‘In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.’ John Wesley, Journal entry for 24 May 1738
Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterians and other non-Anglican, Protestant denominations became permanently legal in Britain today in 1689 when the new King, William III, gave the royal assent to the Toleration Act. Preachers of these groups were no longer thrown in prison (as the Baptist John Bunyan had been, two decades earlier), and they could meet in their own places of worship. However, the new toleration did not extend to Roman Catholics or Unitarians.
Nicolaus Copernicus died today in 1543, in Frombork, Poland. He left behind his snappily-titled, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), which argued the eccentric notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun. A scientific revolution completely failed to follow, because no one gave it another thought.
‘People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon… This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.’ Martin Luther’s put-down of Copernicus in 1539
Today in 1953, Pope Pius XII published Doctor Mellifluus, which sounds like a Broadway musical based on a book by JK Rowling, but is in fact a papal encyclical. Pius writes in praise of the practical spirituality of Bernard of Clairvaux.
‘The Doctor Mellifluus makes his way with care deliberately through the uncertain and unsafe winding paths of reasoning, not trusting in the keenness of his own mind nor depending upon the tedious and artful syllogisms which many of the dialecticians of his time often abused. No! Like an eagle, longing to fix his eyes on the sun, he presses on in swift flight to the summit of truth.’ Pope Pius XII, Doctor Mellifluus
St Vincent of Lérins, a monk from Gaul who died in the 5th century, has his feast day today. He is famous for a one-line comment that has been used to distinguish truth from heresy: ‘All possible care must be taken that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.’
Image: Heinrich Klaffs