John Bunyan, a humble tinker and previously a soldier in Cromwell’s New Model Army, was arrested for illegal preaching today in 1660. He spent the next 12 years almost continually in Bedford Gaol, where he wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress (above), while his wife Elizabeth and their children struggled to survive. The reason he wrote, he said, was that ideas for the book came thick and fast, ‘like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly’. The book has proved popular ever since it was published, and gave rise to popular sayings still used in conversation, such as ‘vanity fair’, ‘the slough of despond’, ‘the house beautiful’ and ‘hanging is too good for him’.
‘Then said Evangelist, pointing with his finger over a very wide field, Do you see yonder wicket-gate? The man said, No. Then said the other, Do you see yonder shining light? He said, I think I do. Then said Evangelist, Keep that light in your eye, and go up directly thereto: so shalt thou see the gate; at which, when thou knockest, it shall be told thee what thou shalt do. So I saw in my dream that the man began to run.’ John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
John Milton, the other great Puritan man of letters, from the opposite end of the social spectrum (that is, the top), was buried in London today in 1674. Following the coffin from his house to the Church of St Giles Cripplegate, where he was laid to rest, was the poet Andrew Marvell and England’s first Poet Laureate, John Dryden.
Juana Inés de la Cruz, the Mexican nun who was a philosopher, poet and dramatist in her lifetime, and is now considered to be a protofeminist, was born near Mexico City today in 1648. As a child, she had access to her grandfather’s library, which was forbidden to girls, and often hid herself in the chapel next door, where she taught herself Latin, learned Greek logic, and started to write poetry. Valuing her freedom to study above marriage, she became a nun, where she was able to study and write.
Theodore the Studite, zealous monk of 8th century Byzantium, has his feast day today. He is especially remembered for energeticaly leading the opposition to the iconoclast Emperor Leo V, who adopted an official policy of destroying the icons of the Eastern Church. Theodore, who was Abbot of the Studios Monastery in Constantinople, staged a protest by getting his monks to carry icons in procession through the monastery vineyard on Palm Sunday while they sang, ‘We reverence your holy image, O blessed one’. Soon after, he was banished to exile in central Asia Minor, where he was flogged by order of the Emperor, but where he also wrote letters and books which helped the Eastern Church develop its theology of the icon.
‘Yes, I beg, I entreat: let us find sweetness in our sufferings for Christ, even though they may be very severe in terms of the flesh. Let us fix our gaze on things to come and which abide. Let us long to mingle our blood with that of the martyrs, our part with that of the confessors, that we may dance with them eternally.’ Theodore the Studite, letter from exile, translated by Archimandrite Ephrem Lash
William Carey, the pioneer Baptist missionary, landed at Hooghly, India, today in 1793, with his wife Dorothy and two of their children. The mission was controversial with his Particular Baptist Church, which could not see the point of evangelism when God – according to Calvinism – had decided who would and would not be saved before the foundation of the Earth. Carey responded by coining a famous saying: ‘Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.’ Dorothy Carey, who had never travelled before, was reluctant to go to India and suffered a mental breakdown there, eventually dying in 1807. Meanwhile, William translated the Bible into five Indian languages, and became known as ‘the father of modern missions’.
Image: The Wellcome Collection