One Christmas Eve back in the twelfth century, a monk keeping midnight vigil in Lindisfarne priory watched spellbound as two great doors opened all by themselves.
During Viking raids in 793, the monastic community on Lindisfarne hastily exhumed the body of St Cuthbert (?635-687) and fled. After two hundred years of wandering they found a home for him at Durham, and in 1093 the Bishop of Durham re-established the priory on Lindisfarne. In the early days it was staffed by just a couple of Durham monks, but one Christmas, we are told, they received some visitors.
Stephen was the first person to lose his life because he was a follower of Jesus Christ.
In about AD 34, St Stephen became the first person to be executed for his belief in Jesus Christ. Most of what is known about him comes from St Luke in his ‘Acts of the Apostles’, though Eastern tradition adds a little more.
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According to an ancient tradition, the Roman authorities banished St John the Divine to the island of Patmos because they were quite unable to kill him.
In the Revelation of St John, the ‘beloved disciple’ tells us that he spent some time on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. A tradition going back to Tertullian (155-220) says that John was banished there in 92 after frustrating the State’s attempt to execute him for his Christian beliefs. Pioneering English printer William Caxton translated the tale for his edition of The Golden Legend, published in 1483-84.
Sir Guyon lies in an enchanted swoon, but he is not without help.
Sir Guyon, the Knight of Temperance, has been commissioned to help an old man whose land is troubled by a wicked witch. The journey is fraught with dangers, and Sir Guyon has been cast into an endless swoon by Mammon, the money-god, for refusing to be his slave. As the knight slumbers, Spenser reflects on God’s care for the helpless.
The father of computing believed his machine held the key to some of life’s greatest mysteries.
One day, Charles Babbage was in his drawing-room showing off his calculating machine to two friends from Ireland, Dr Lloyd and Dr Robinson. He showed them how the machine automatically flipped back and forth between multiple programs ad infinitum, and remarked that there may be a parallel with the laws governing Evolution. The spark in the eyes of his two visitors made him even bolder.
William Wirt recalls an overpowering sermon from a blind man in a little wooden chapel.
William Wirt, a rising Virginian lawyer, published The Letters of a British Spy in 1803. He took the character of a British tourist (not a secret agent) in the US, and remarked on the habits of the Americans twenty years after the Revolutionary War. This famous passage brings to startling life a blind Christian minister in a roadside chapel in Orange County, as he preaches the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Gregory urged the persecuted Christians of Nazianzus to be the better men.
From 361 to 363, the Roman Empire was ruled by Julian the Apostate, so named because he had been brought up as a Christian but had chosen Roman paganism instead. In 362, Julian began a systematic persecution of Christians, leading to anger and rebellion. Gregory, a priest in the town of Nazianzus, told his parishioners not to play Julian’s game — even when the tables were turning.
St Mark wrote his Gospel as a summary of the preaching of St Peter.
Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea from about 313, tells us here how St Mark’s Gospel came to be written. Drawing on testimony going back to the Apostles themselves, he explains that the Gospel should be heard as an echo of the living voice of St Peter, as he preached the good news in Rome.
David, fresh from another close encounter with Saul’s men, shares his advice for living a charmed life.
Psalm 34 is said to have been written as a thanksgiving by David, when he was on the run from the madness of King Saul. He took refuge with Achish (Achimelech or Abimelech) the King of Gath, and to ensure that news of him did not get about, passed himself off as a harmless lunatic. This extract comes from the elegant translation made in 1535 by Yorkshireman Myles Coverdale.