Today in History (December 27):

Saint John, Apostle信徒 and Evangelist福音传道者

870 Aeneas of Paris, bishop of Paris from 858 to 870, died. He is best known as the author of one of the controversial treatises against the Greeks called forth by the encyclical通谕的，传诵的 letters of Photius. His comprehensive Liber adversus Graecoa deals with the procession队伍，行列 of the Holy Ghost, the marriage of the clergy, fasting, the "consignatio infantium," the clerical tonsure削发，秃顶, the Roman primacy and the elevation海拔，高地 of deacons执事 to the see of Rome. He declares that the accusations控告，指责 brought by the Greeks against the Latins are "superfluous多余的，不必要的 questions having more relation to secular世俗的，长期的 matters than to spiritual."

1555 Johann Arnd(t), devotional虔诚的，信仰的 writer, was born in Edderitz near Ballenstedt am Harz (d. 11 May 1621, Celle). He was the most influential devotional author the Lutheran Church has produced. Educated at the universities of Helmstedt, Wittenberg, Strasbourg and Basel, he became pastor牧师 at Badeborn, Anhalt, in 1583. In 1590 when the territory became Reformed, Arndt was deposed for insisting that he as a Lutheran of the unaltered Augsburg Confession had the right to retain保持，记住 the exorcisms驱魔，驱邪 at Baptism. He then served as pastor in Quedlinburg (where he influenced Johann Gerhard), Brunswick and Eisleben and finally (1611) as general superintendent in Celle. His  Four (later Five and Six) Books on True Christianity and his Little Garden of Paradise have perennial常年的，反复的 and universal appeal. They have rarely been out of print售完，绝版 in the original and have been translated into many languages. Influenced by Luther, he stands solidly in the Lutheran mystical tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages and demonstrates great skill in incorporating what is good from various medieval中世纪 and post-Reformation sources into his thought. Speaking to a situation where "every one is very willing to be a servant of Christ, but no one will consent to be His follower" (True Christianity, I, Preface, 3), he combines theological orthodoxy正统说法，正教 with a profound concern for the practical development of the Christian virtues. In the field of theology he helped to fix the place of the doctrine of the mystical union of the believer with Christ in the Lutheran dogmatic教条的，武断的 tradition.

1719 Joshua von Kocherthal, early Lutheran pastor in New York, died. He was born Joshua Harrsch ca. 1669/70 in or near Bretten, Germany, and was a pastor at Landau, Palatinate. After the French invasion of 1703 he visited London in 1704 to investigate the feasibility可行性 of emigration to America. He reached New York on 31 December 1708 with about fifty followers. He returned to Europe in 1709 and led some ten shiploads of Palatines to America in 1710, settling them along the Hudson River in East Camp and West Camp.

1742 Henry Melchior Muhlenberg was recognized as the duly appointed pastor of the Lutheran churches in America at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Philadelphia. By preaching and faithful pastoral and missionary work, he soon began building churches and establishing congregations集合，圣会 in parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

1784 In Baltimore, Maryland, at the first general conference held in America, Francis Asbury was ordained任命某人为牧师 the first American bishop of the Methodist Church. He took the title of "bishop" against the wishes of John Wesley.

1797 Charles Hodge, the leading American Reformed theologian of the nineteenth century, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Having studied theology under Archibald Alexander, Hodge began teaching at Princeton Seminary in 1820. With the exception of two years (1826-1828), he remained at Princeton the rest of his life. During a half-century of teaching and writing, Hodge instructed over three thousand students. He held a high view of verbal口头的 inspiration and biblical inerrancy无差错，绝对正确. In 1825 he founded the Biblical Repository, later renamed the Princeton Review, and was editor for over forty years. A voluminous多卷的，长篇的 writer, Hodge's most important work was his three-volume Systematic Theology (1872-1873). Before his death in 1878 he was considered by some "the greatest American Calvinist theologian神学者，空头理论家 since Jonathan Edwards."

1800 Sir John Goss, composer, was born at Fareham, Hants, England (d. 10 May 1880, London, England). Goss composed mostly church music. He was organist at Saint Paul’s from 1838 onward. Queen Victoria knighted him in 1872. In 1876 Cambridge University awarded him a Doctor of Music degree. He also held the post of Professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music for almost half a century.#p#分页标题#e#

1809 John Edgar Freedom, Presbyterian长老会的 missionary to India, was born in New York City (d. 13 June 1857). Educated at Princeton College and Seminary, he was sent as a missionary to India by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in 1838. He was at Allahabad till 1849, spent time in the U.S. from 1850 to 1851 and returned to India in 1851. He worked at Mainpuri, then went to Fategarh (Farrukhabad) in 1856. He was killed by Sepoys at Cawnpore.

1835 August Rohrlack, Missouri Synod secretary, was born in Neu-Ruppin, Prussia, Germany (d. 26 November 1913). He joined the Breslau Synod in about 1852, then studied at the Leipzig mission school. J. K. Wilhelm L. He arranged for his coming to America in 1858, and he was an assistant preacher near Detroit, Michigan. Ordained in 1858, he became an itinerant巡回的，流动的 preacher in Wisconsin, then a pastor successively in Portage and Loganville, Wisconsin; an itinerant preacher along Lake Superior; and a pastor at Oshkosh (1865) and Reedsburg (1869–1909), Wisconsin.