Yes, he was an amazing writer and poet, but you would probably never guess that he added over 1,500 words to the English language, ones that you and I use today. Below, I have documented 20 that he coined and added. Ron
William Shakespeare was an incredible writer and poet, but did you know he also single-handedly added more than 1,700 words to the English language?
Shakespeare’s use of language was unmatched 450 years ago with his sonnets and plays frequently debuting new English words he created. It didn’t take long for these terms to be adopted into the language and many of them are still in use today.
Here are 20 words and phrases you didn’t know Shakespeare invented — next time you use them, know you’re following in the footsteps of a true linguistic legend.
1. Addiction
While the concept of addiction has been around for centuries, the word “addiction” itself didn’t exist until Shakespeare coined it in his play, Othello.
2. All the world’s a stage
It means that life is like a performance, and that we all play a different role and was spoken by Jacques in As You Like.
3. Bedazzled
Shakespeare uses the word “bedazzled” to describe someone who is overwhelmed by something that is sparkling or shining in his play, The Taming of the Shrew.
4. Brave new world
This phrase is often used to suggest a sense of wonder and amazement at the possibilities of the future and was spoken by the character Miranda in The Tempest.
5. Critic
Although the concept of a critic had existed for centuries, the word “critic” wasn’t used in its modern sense until Shakespeare used it in his play, Love’s Labour’s Lost.
6. Eventful
In As You Like It, Shakespeare coined the word “eventful” to describe something that is full of events or occurrences.
7. Eyeball
While the concept of an eyeball had obviously existed for centuries, Shakespeare was the first to use the word “eyeball” in his play, The Tempest.
8. Generous
Shakespeare used the word “generous” in its modern sense to describe someone who is kind and giving in his play, Julius Caesar.
9. Good riddance
The phrase “good riddance” is frequently used to suggest relief at the departure of someone or something unpleasant. It is spoken in Troilus and Cressida.
10. In a pickle
This phrase is used to suggest being in a difficult or uncomfortable situation. In The Tempest: This phrase is spoken by the character Alonso in Act V, Scene I.
11. It’s Greek to me
Used to suggest a lack of understanding or confusion about something, this phrase is spoken by the character Casca in Julius Caesar.
12. Lonely
Although the concept of loneliness had existed for centuries, Shakespeare was the first to use the word “lonely” in his play, Coriolanus.
13. Majestic
Shakespeare used the word “majestic” to describe something that is grand and impressive in his play, Henry VIII.
14. Manager
The word “manager” had been used in other languages before Shakespeare’s time, but he was the first to use it in English in his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
15. Radiance
Shakespeare used the word “radiance” to describe something that is shining or glowing in his play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
16. Star-crossed lovers
This saying describes two people who are destined to be together despite the obstacles in their way and was first used in Romeo and Juliet in the Prologue.
17. Swagger
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare used the word “swagger” to describe someone who walks with an arrogant or pompous attitude.
18. Undress
In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare used the word “undress” to describe the act of removing clothing.
19. Wild-goose chase
This one is used to describe a pointless or fruitless pursuit. In Romeo and Juliet: This phrase is spoken by the character Mercutio in Act II, Scene IV.
20. To thine own self be true
Used to suggest the importance of being true to one’s own beliefs and values, this phrase was spoken by Polonius in Hamlet.
There are so many other wonderful words Shakespeare invented or was the first known person to use. Here are some more to inspire you.
On NOVEMBER 21, 1620 (NS), the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact and began their Plymouth Colony. Of the 102 Pilgrims, only 47 survived till Spring. At one point, only a half dozen were healthy enough to care for the rest.
In the Spring of 1621, the Indian Squanto came among them, and showed them how to catch fish, plant corn, trap beaver, and was their interpreter with the other Indian tribes.
Governor William Bradford described Squanto as “a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation.”
“The settlers began to plant their corn, in which service Squanto helped them greatly. In the middle of April plenty of fish would come up the brook and (he) taught them how to catch them.”
Pilgrim Edward Winslow recorded in Mourt’s Relation that in the Fall of 1621: “God be praised we had a good increase. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. These four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others. And although it be not always be so plentiful, as it was at this time, with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”
Bradford described the same event: “And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion.”
Historian Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs explained how Pilgrims thanked God: “Our knowledge of the 1621 Thanksgiving comes from the Pilgrim leaders, Winslow and Bradford. Winslow’s choice of words, understood by his contemporaries, implies to us that the Pilgrims gave thanks to God for their preservation and for the plenty that gave hope for the future. Winslow specifically tells us that the colonists sat down with their native neighbors and enjoyed several days of peaceful rejoicing together. It is a history with potent symbolism, and it needs neither apology nor distortion.”
Bangs added: “When Winslow described the Pilgrims’ intention, ‘after a more special manner to rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labors,’ he was alluding to John 4: 36 and to Psalm 33. The first is, ‘And he that reapeth, receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth, might rejoice together.'”
In 1622, the friendly Indian Chief Massasoit became ill. Pilgrim leader Edward Winslow visited and doctored him. He thankfully regained health, which contributed to a peace which lasted over 50 years.
Edward Winslow was especially grateful, because the Indian tradition was, if a person doctored a chief and the chief died, that person died too.
Ben Franklin wrote of the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving (The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin, editors Mark & Jo Ann Skousen, Regnery, 2006, p. 331): “There is a tradition that in the planting of New England, the first settlers met with many difficulties and hardships, as is generally the case when a civiliz’d people attempt to establish themselves in a wilderness country. Being so piously dispos’d, they sought relief from heaven by laying their wants and distresses before the Lord in frequent set days of fasting and prayer.
Constant meditation and discourse on these subjects kept their minds gloomy and discontented, and like the children of Israel there were many dispos’d to return to the Egypt which persecution had induc’d them to abandon.”
Franklin continued:
“At length, when it was proposed in the Assembly to proclaim another fast, a farmer of plain sense rose and remark’d that the inconveniences they suffer’d, and concerning which they had so often weary’d heaven with their complaints, were not so great as they might have expected, and were diminishing every day as the colony strengthen’d; that the earth began to reward their labour and furnish liberally for their subsistence; that their seas and rivers were full of fish, the air sweet, the climate healthy, and above all, they were in the full enjoyment of liberty, civil and religious. He therefore thought that reflecting and conversing on these subjects would be more comfortable and lead more to make them contented with their situation; and that it would be more becoming the gratitude they ow’d to the divine being, if instead of a fast they should proclaim a thanksgiving.
His advice was taken, and from that day to this, they have in every year observ’d circumstances of public felicity sufficient to furnish employment for a Thanksgiving Day, which is therefore constantly ordered and religiously observed.”
At this time of year we hear a lot about Hanukkah. However, few really know its history or even where it came from. If you would like to know its real story and history, do read the following:
Ron
The origin of lights at this season can be traced back to the Jewish Festival of Lights, or Feast of the Dedication, in Hebrew called “Hanukkah.”
Solomon’s week-long dedication of the First Temple began on the 1st day of the Hebrew month Tishri, in the 10th century B.C., ending on the 8th day of Tishrei. First Kings 8; Second Chronicles 7.
Beginning in 597 B.C., the army of Babylon surrounded Jerusalem, deposed King Jehoiachin, and deported the first group of Jews. Babylonian’s army returned and destroyed the First Temple on the 9th day of the month of Av, circa 587 B.C., and made a second deportation of Jews.
The prophet Jeremiah wrote in chapter 25: “And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord.”
And Jeremiah wrote in chapter 29: “For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.”
The prophet Daniel read Jeremiah’s prophecy and wrote in chapter 9: “In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.”
In 539 B.C., Cyrus of Persia captured Babylon, the ancient world’s largest city. Shortly after, Cyrus let Jews return to Jerusalem after 70 years of captivity.
The Book of Ezra, chapter 6, recorded how Jews built the Second Temple and dedicated it circa 516 B.C.
Around 334 B.C., Alexander the Great invaded from the west and speedily conquered the Medo-Persian Empire.
The prophet Daniel foretold in chapter 8: “The male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground; and the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came up to the ram that had the two horns, which I had seen standing in front of the canal, and rushed at him in his mighty wrath and he struck the ram and shattered his two horns. (Reference to Alexander)
At the height of his power, Alexander the Great suddenly died and his four generals divided up his empire.
Daniel had foretold: “The male goat magnified himself exceedingly. But as soon as he was mighty, the large horn was broken; and in its place there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven.”
The common understanding is that Alexander’s Empire, after numerous “Diadochi” battles, was divided up thus among his four generals:
Lysimachus ruled Thrace & Asia Minor;
Cassander ruled Macedonia and Greece;
Ptolemy ruled Egypt and into the Middle East;
Seleucus ruled the rest of the Middle East, Syria, Babylon, Persia, and parts of India, collectively known as the “Seleucid Empire”.
Daniel wrote further: Around 167 B.C., out of the Seleucid Empire, there arose an aggressive king, Antiochus the Fourth Epiphanes.
And as expressed by Daniel: “Out of one of them came forth a rather small horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the Beautiful Land.”
Antiochus attacked Jerusalem, as reported in 2nd Book of Maccabees 5:11-14: “The king thought that Judea was in revolt. Raging like a wild animal, he set out from Egypt and took Jerusalem by storm. He ordered his soldiers to cut down without mercy those whom they met and to slay those who took refuge in their houses. There was a massacre of young and old, a killing of women and children, a slaughter of virgins and infants. In the space of three days, eighty thousand were lost, forty thousand meeting a violent death, and the same number being sold into slavery.”
The prophet Daniel foretold in chapter 11:22-27: “While returning to his land with great riches, his heart shall be moved against the holy covenant and return in rage against the holy covenant, and do damage. And forces shall be mustered by him, and they shall defile the sanctuary fortress; then they shall take away the daily sacrifices, and place there the abomination of desolation.”
Antiochus the Fourth Epiphanes tried to force the Jews to abandon their beliefs and adopt the Greek culture, as recorded in 2 Maccabees 5:11-14: “Not long after this the king sent an Athenian senator to force the Jews to abandon the customs of their ancestors and live no longer by the laws of God; also to profane the temple in Jerusalem and dedicate it to Olympian Zeus. They also brought into the temple things that were forbidden, so that the altar was covered with abominable offerings prohibited by the laws. A man could not keep the sabbath or celebrate the traditional feasts, nor even admit that he was a Jew.
Women arrested for having circumcised their children were publicly paraded about the city with their babies hanging at their breasts and then thrown down from the top of the city wall. Others, who had assembled in nearby caves to observe the sabbath in secret, were betrayed and all burned to death.”
Though they were persecuted, Daniel prophesied: “But the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.”
Around 167 B.C., Mattathias and his sons began the Maccabean Revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes. Judas Maccabaeus was finally successful in driving the enemy out circa 164 B.C. When the Second Temple was cleansed of all pagan defilement, a week long re-dedication began on the 25th day of Kislev, circa 164 B.C.
There was a problem though, there wasonly found enough holy olive oil to light the golden lamp stand, the menorah, for one day, and it would take a week before more could be made. The decision was made to relight it anyway, and miraculously, the light burned for eight days.
This is celebrated annually as the Feast of Dedication, also known as the Festival of Lights, or HANUKKAH, which is the Hebrew word for “dedication.”
Flavius Josephus wrote in the Jewish Antiquities (12.7.6-7 316-325) that circa 164 BC: “The generals of Antiochus’ armies having been defeated, Judah Maccabee assembled the people and told them that after the many victories which God had given them they ought to go up to Jerusalem and purify the Temple. But when he with the whole multitude came to Jerusalem and found he Temple deserted, its gates burned down, and plants growing in the Temple of their own accord because of the desolation, he and those with him began to lament.”
Josephus continued: “When he had carefully purged it he brought in new vessels, the menorah, the table and the incense altar, which were made of gold. And on the 25th day of the month Kislev, which the Macedonians call Apellaios, they lighted the lights that were on the menorah, and offered incense upon the altar, and laid the loaves upon the table, and offered whole burnt offerings upon the new altar. As it happened, these things took place on the very same day on which, three years before, the divine worship had been reduced to an impure and profane form of worship; for the Temple had remained desolate for three years after being made so by Antiochus.”
Josephus concluded: “And so Judah and his fellow citizens celebrated the festival of the restoration of the sacrifices of the Temple for eight days. They honored God, and delighted themselves with psalms of praise and the playing of harps. Indeed, they were so very glad at the revival of their customs and, after so long a time, having unexpectedly regained their right to worship, that they made it a law for their posterity that they should keep a festival celebrating the restoration of their Temple worship for eight days.”
The New Testament Book of John, chapter 10:22-23, recorded that even Jesus observed the Feast of Dedication: “At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, ‘How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.'”
The many centuries of Hanukkah candles being lit during the winter might have been an inspiration for the Christian tradition of putting lights in tree branches to depict the sky above Bethlehem.
Various U.S. Presidents acknowledged Hanukkah:
Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to Samuel I. Rosenman, President of the Jewish Education Committee in New York, December 16, 1940: “Dear Sam, Please convey my best wishes to your co-workers in the Jewish Education Committee of New York, at the annual Hanukkah Dinner. Our modern democratic way of life has its deepest roots in our great common religious tradition, which for ages past has taught to civilized mankind the dignity of the human being, his equality before God, and his responsibility in the making of a better and fairer world. The world is engaged in a great spiritual struggle to test whether that ancient wisdom is to endure, or whether some few men shall dominate multitudes of others and dictate to them their thinking, their religion, their living. We need the sustaining, buttressing aid of those great ethical religious teachings which are the heritage of our modern civilization. For not upon strength nor upon power, but upon the spirit of God’ shall our democracy be founded.”
President Ronald Reagan stated in his Hanukkah Message, 1983: “Whether we be Americans or Israelis, we are all children of Abraham, children of the same God. The bonds between our two peoples are growing stronger, and they must not and will never be broken.
President George H.W. Bush stated in his Hanukkah Message, 1991: “When Judah Maccabee and his followers prepared to rededicate the Temple in Jerusalem, they found only enough oil to light the menorah for one night. Miraculously, it lasted eight.”
President Donald J. Trump remarked on Hanukkah, December 12, 2017: “The miracle of Hanukkah began more than 2,000 years ago, when the practice of Judaism was made punishable by death. A small band of Jewish patriots rose up and reclaimed their Jewish identity by vanquishing a mighty army. In their pursuit to rededicate their holy temple, the Jewish heroes found only enough oil to light the temple’s menorah for one night. However, a miracle occurred and with God’s grace the oil lasted for eight days. On this holiday, we are proud to stand with the Jewish people who shine as a light to all nations. We also stand with the people of Israel, the Jewish State, which has itself a miraculous history of overcoming the tallest of odds. We hope that those observing the holiday here, in Israel, and around the world have a wonderful holiday.”
The end, and asking Jesus’ blessing on the new year.
St. Nicholas is the most renowned saint in Greek Orthodox tradition.
He was the Bishop of Myra in 4th century in Asia Minor, imprisoned by Romans; preached against immorality and exposure of infants; defended the Trinity; confronted corrupt politicians; and was generous to the poor. But how did Saint Nicholas turn into our Santa Clause? Please read the following and you will know. Ron
St. Nicholas died December 6, 343 AD.
In the 5th century a church was named for him in the city of Myra, modern-day Demre, Turkey. When it was damaged in an earthquake in 529 A.D., Emperor Justinian rebuilt it.
In 988 AD, Vladimir the Great of Russia converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity and adopted Nicholas as the “patron saint” of Russia.
In the 11th century, Islamist Seljuks Turks, invaded Asia Minor, killing Christians. All seven churches mentioned in the Book of Revelation were destroyed. Graves were desecrated.
Islamic Hadith Sahih Muslim (Book 4, No. 2115) stated: “Do not leave an image without obliterating it, or a high grave without leveling it.”
There was concern that the grave of St. Nicholas would be desecrated, as years earlier, in 846 A.D., 10,000 Muslim Saracens sailed up the Tiber River and sacked Rome, desecrating the remains of St. Peter and St. Paul.
In a panic, Christians in Myra, Asia Minor, shipped the remains of St. Nicholas in 1087 to the south east coast of Italy, to the town of Bari.
Pope Urban the Second dedicated the church there, naming it after St. Nicholas — Basilica di San Nicola de Bari.
This officially introduced the Greek St. Nicholas to Western Europe.
Turks intensified their invasion, causing so many Greek Christians to flee that Pope Urban the Second went to the Council of Claremont in 1095 and begged European monarchs to send help. Europe sent help — it was called the First Crusade.
In a backwards sense, Western Europe might not have had St. Nicholas traditions if it had not been for Islamists invading Eastern Europe.
Once St. Nicholas’ remains were in Italy, western Europeans quickly embraced the gift-giving traditions associated with him. By 1223, so much attention was given to gift-giving during the Christmas season that pious St. Francis of Assisi, sort of in protest, created the first creche or nativity scene, with Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus.
He wanted to get back to the real reason for the season: Jesus, the Son of God, was born in a manager. John 1:14 declared: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Isaiah 7:14 foretold: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.” Emmanuel means God with us!
In 1517, Martin Luther began the Reformation.
Luther considered “saints days” a distraction from Christ, so he effectively ended them in Protestant countries, including the popular December 6th “St. Nicholas Day.” Since Germans like the gift-giving, Martin Luther moved the giving to December 25th to emphasize that all gifts come from the Christ Child.
The German pronunciation of Christ Child was “Christkindl,” which over the centuries became pronounced “Kris Kringle.”
Britain used to be a Roman colony since Julius Caesar first invaded in 55 B.C. Saturn was the Roman god of feasting, plenty, and merriment. If you remember the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, the Ghost of Christmas Present is depicted as a big guy with robes, a wreath on his head, and a goblet of wine. Looking at him, you are asking yourself, who is this guy? He sort of looks like Santa, but he also looks like a Roman god. Well, that was Saturn, but they Christianized him and called him Father Christmas. They could not call him St. Nicholas because he was outlawed by England’s Reformation.
During Henry the Eighth’s reign, Christmas in England became a party time, like Mardi Gras. People forget that Mardi Gras originally was a religious day. It was the day before Lent, when people fasted 40 days before Easter to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. But over time Mardi Gras became a lewd party in New Orleans.
Puritans viewed Christmas as having become too worldly. Puritan leader, Rev. Cotton Mather told his congregation, December 25, 1712: “Can you in your conscience think, that our Holy Savior is honored, by Mad Mirth, by long Eating, by hard Drinking, by lewd Gaming, by rude Reveling; by a Mass fit for none but a Saturn or a Bacchus, or the Night of a Mahometan Ramadan? You cannot possibly think so! A Multitude of the Heavenly Host was heard Praising of God. But shall it be said, That at the Birth of our Saviour for which we owe as high Praises to God as they can do, we take the Time to Please the Hellish Legions, and to do Actions that have much more of Hell than of Heaven in them?”
“Puritans took over England in 1642.
Puritans passed an ordinance, December 1643: “Sins of our forefathers have turned this feast of Christ, into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights.
In 1647, Puritans in England outlawed Christmas.
When Pilgrims first disembarked the Mayflower, the ship master Christopher Jones wrote in his log, December 25, 1620:
“At anchor in Plymouth harbor, Christmas Day, but not observed by these colonists, they being opposed to all saints’ days.
A year later, at the end of 1621, Pilgrim Governor William Bradford recorded in Of Plymouth Plantation, of another boatload arriving with more settlers: “Herewith I shall end this year – except to recall one more incident, rather amusing than serious. On Christmas Day the Governor called the people out to work as usual; but most of the new company excused themselves, and said it went against their consciences to work on that day. So the Governor told them, if they made it a matter of conscience, he would spare them till they were better informed.”
Bradford continued: “So he went with the rest, and left them; but on returning from work at noon he found them at play in the street, some pitching the bar, some at stool-ball, and such like sports. So he went to them and took away their games, and told them that it was against his conscience that they should play and others work. If they made the keeping of the day a matter of devotion, let them remain in their houses; but there should be no gaming and reveling in the streets.”
Where Pilgrims, Puritans and most Presbyterians did not celebrate Christmas, other immigrants did celebrate Christmas, such as Germans, French, Swedes, English, Welsh, and especially the Dutch.
When they read……Revelation 19:14, the saint will ride with Him dressed in ” fine linen, clean and white is the righteousness of the saints. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.”
The reasoning went, that since St. Nicholas was a saint, he would certainly be one of multitude riding white horses returning with Jesus.
But since St. Nicholas was such a special saint, the Dutch had him coming back once a year for a mini-judgement day, to check up on the children, to see if they are on the right track before the real Judgement Day.
Over the centuries the story evolved. The Books of Works and the Lamb’s Book of Life were turned into the Book of the Naughty and Nice. The angels turned into elves. Saints came from Heaven, the New Jerusalem, the Celestial City — which turned into the North Pole.
The North Pole is not far from Finnish Lapland near the Arctic Circle in the northern Scandinavian Peninsula. Since there were few horses there, St. Nicholas rode a reindeer, which then became riding in a sleigh.
The Dutch holiday tradition is that St. Nicholas comes once a year to give presents to good children. But the naughty children had something else to look forward to.
Beginning in 1624, Dutch immigrants brought St. Nicholas traditions to New Amsterdam, which became New York in 1664. Dutch called Saint Nicholas – “Sant Nikolaus” or “Sinter Klass,” which became pronounced “Santa Claus.” “Santa Claus” is simply the Dutch pronunciation of Saint Nicholas.
In New York, Washington Irving, considered the Father of American Literature, wrote Legend of Sleepy Hallow and Rip Van Winkle. He coined the name “Gotham” for New York City.” Irving was also a founding member of the St. Nicholas Society of the City of New York, 1835, to celebrate the city’s heritage. In it, he described St. Nicholas visiting once a year, but no longer wearing a bishop’s outfit, but a typical Dutch outfit of long-trunk hose, leather belt, boots, a hat, and a pipe: Washington Irving wrote further: “So we are told, in the sylvan days of New Amsterdam, the good St. Nicholas would often make his appearance in his beloved city, of a holiday afternoon, riding jollily among the treetops, or over the roofs of houses, now and then drawing forth magnificent presents from his breeches pockets, and dropping them down the chimneys of his favorites.
Irving wrote how Dutch settlers continued the tradition of hanging stockings by the fireplace: “At this early period was instituted that pious ceremony, still religiously observed in all our ancient families of the right breed, of hanging up a stocking in the chimney on St. Nicholas Eve; which stocking is always found in the morning miraculously filled; for the good St. Nicholas has ever been a great giver of gifts, particularly to children. Nor was the day of St. Nicholas suffered to pass by without making presents, hanging the stocking in the chimney, and complying with all its other ceremonies.”
Clement Clarke Moore Park is located at the corner of 10th Avenue and 22nd Street. Moore helped Trinity Church establish a new church on Hudson Street – St. Luke in the Fields.
In 1823, Clement Moore wrote a poem for his six children titled “A Visit From St. Nicholas”:
‘TWAS the night before Christmas, when all through the houseNot a creature was stirring,not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that ST. NICHOLAS soon would be there.”
“When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be ST. NICK.”
“So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of Toys, and ST. NICHOLAS too.”
“As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney ST. NICHOLAS came with a bound.”
Clement Moore described St. Nicholas as smaller: “He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.”
Though much has been added on to the story throughout the centuries, underneath it all, there really was a godly, courageous Christian Bishop who lived in 4th century Asia Minor, named Nicholas.
Nicholas was a Christian;
he loved Jesus enough go into the ministry;
he chose being imprisoned by the Romans rather than deny his Christian faith;
he stood for the doctrine of the Trinity;
he preached against sexually immoral pagan temples and the killing of innocent babies;
he confronted corrupt politicians; and
most notably of all, St. Nicholas was very generous, giving away all his money to help the poor in their time of need, and doing it anonymously, as he wanted the credit to go, not to himself, but to God alone!
On Christmas Eve Genaeral Washington’s little army was camped there in the snow by the Deleware river. Congress had not provided them with any provisions, or clothing, or even shoes. Many were barefoot in the snow and leaving blood upon it. It was a desperate situation. A big army of brutal, highly trained Hessians, employed by the British was camped across the river. General Washington got on his knees and asked God what to do……..the answer was “attack or die”. And that is what he told his men. Do read what happened then in the following narrative:
Catherine the Great of Russia, who reigned 1762-1796, rebuffed King George III’s requests and bribes to have Russia side with Britain during the Revolutionary War.
Instead, Russia continued trading with the American colonies, providing much needed supplies. Other countries that helped supply Americans with arms. supplies, and personnel, both overtly and covertly, were France, the Netherlands, and Spain. Courageous individuals, acting in their own private capacity, also came to help America from Ireland, Prussia, Bavaria, Poland-Lithuania, and Hungary.
Russia’s Catherine the Great even attempted to negotiate a peace with France and Britain to bring an early end to the war in America’s favor. Catherine had earlier deposed her husband, Tsar Peter III, in a coup. She then fought the Russo-Turkish War (1768-1774), against the Muslim Ottoman Turkish Empire.
Her General, Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov destroyed the Ottoman navy at the Battle of Chesma, July 5-7, 1770 — it was the worst defeat for Ottoman navy since the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
The same time, 38,000 Russians defeated 80,000 Muslim Tatar cavalry and infantry at the Battle of Larga, July 7, 1770.
Two weeks later, Russia defeated another 175,000 Turks at the Battle of Kagul.
These defeats shocked the Ottoman Empire.
When Sultan Mustfa III (1717-1774), who had given himself the title Cihangir “World Conqueror,” heard the news he reportedly had a heart attack, from which he died.
Russian military leaders began talk of a campaign to emancipate oppressed Christians under Ottoman rule, and free Constantinople, which had been the capital of the Christian world for nearly a thousand years. Their plans, though, were interrupted by the French Revolution.
America’s first minister to the Russian Court of Catherine the Great was Francis Dana, a member of the Continental Congress, being assisted 1781-1783 by the young John Quincy Adams — the future 6th US President.
Back in America, during the Revolutionary War, British troops defeated the Continental Army at the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, August 27, 1776. Thus, General Washington was forced to retreat. The Continental Army was then driven out of New York, across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania.
In the following six months, despite Congress approving the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Army’s ranks dwindled from a high of 20,000 down to just 2,000 as of December of 1776. Most of the remaining soldiers were planning on leaving at the end of year, as they had only volunteered for a six-month enlistment, needing to get back home to care for their neglected farms, shops and families. General Washington rallied his troops to stay by having Thomas Paine’s “The American Crisis” read to them.
It began: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country.”
Philadelphia fell into a panic as fear set in that British troops would invade and occupy the city, which they did later the next year.
Congress’ last instruction to General Washington, December 12, 1776, was: “Until Congress shall otherwise order, General Washington shall be possessed of full power to order and direct all things relative to the operations of the war.”
Washington proposed a daring military operation, but insisted his officers keep it under strictest secrecy, as the British were paying spies in gold for information.
Washington made the password for his operation “Victory or Death.”
This reflected Washington’s General Orders, which he had issued months before on July 2, 1776: “The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore to resolve to conquer or die.”
On Christmas Day evening,1776, Washington’s troops quietly crossed the dangerous, ice-filled Delaware River in a freezing blizzard.
In the iconic painting of the Delaware Crossing, the black soldier rowing next to George Washington is thought to be his bodyguard, freed slave Toby Gilmore. After the War, Toby Gilmore was given a cannon in recognition of his valuable service, which, according to tradition, he kept on his farm in Raynham, Massachusetts, and publicly fired every Fourth of July. Today it is in the Old Colony Historical Society Museum in Taunton, Massachusetts.
After crossing the Delaware, the army trudged through blinding snow in strict silence. Two soldiers froze to death on the march.
Washington’s army attacked the German Hessian troops stationed at Trenton, New Jersey, at daybreak, December 26, 1776.
Though King George III was unsuccessful in getting Russian troops, he arranged to hire the feared, brutal Hessian mercenaries.
One of Washington’s aides-de-camp, the Irish Catholic Colonel John Fitzgerald, made note of his opinion that Hessians might be vulnerable on Christmas Day, as: “They make a great deal of Christmas in Germany, and no doubt the Hessians will drink a great deal of beer and have a dance tonight.”
Hessians were skilled in European warfare where enemies faced off opposite of each other in an open field. They were not prepared for Americans firing from behind trees, walls, and fence posts.
American captain Alexander Hamilton maneuvered his six-pound cannons into position and fired them down King Street, tearing into the Hessian ranks.
Hessian colonel Johann Rall was shot. Without him, the Hessian troops soon surrendered. Americans captured nearly a thousand Hessians in just over an hour.
Of the Americans who were wounded were: William Washington, a cousin of General Washington; and the young Lieutenant James Monroe, the future 5th U.S. President, who was struck by a musket ball in the arm and bleeding badly. Doctor John Riker clamped the artery and saved his life.
Yale President Ezra Stiles stated in an Election Address to the Connecticut General Assembly, May 8, 1783: “In our lowest and most dangerous estate, in 1776 and 1777, we sustained ourselves against the British Army of 60,000 troops commanded by the ablest generals Britain could procure throughout Europe, with a naval force of 22,000 seamen in above 80 men-of-war.
Heaven inspired us with resolution to cut the Gordian knot in the glorious act of Independence sealed and confirmed by God Almighty in the victory of General Washington at Trenton. Who does not see the indubitable interposition and energetic influence of Divine Providence in these great and illustrious events?”
Ezra Stiles continued: “Who but a Washington, inspired by Heaven, could have struck out the great movement and maneuver of Princeton, that Christmas (Day) eve when Washington and his army crossed the Delaware? The United States are under peculiar obligations to become a holy people unto the Lord our God.”
Washington wrote August 20, 1778: “The Hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in the course of the war that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more wicked that has not gratitude to acknowledge his obligations to God”
This is not only a history of the invention and development of Basketball, it shows why Basketball was invented, it shows how Alonso Staggs developed the game of football, and how James Naismith started the NCAA and many other things in the sports that we play today. Most people have no idea that they all came about to bring people to Jesus. Do read this so that you will be informed about the sports that we play today around the world:
Did you know BASKETBALL was invented by an instructor for the Young Men’s Christian Association.
The game was invented by James Naismith, who was born in 1861 in Ontario, Canada.
Both of his parents died of typhoid fever in 1870, when he was just nine years old.
He was taken in by his grandmother who died in 1872, leaving him with his Uncle Peter, who stressed self-reliance and reliability.
James worked farm chores, chopped trees, sawed logs, and drove horses. He walked five miles to and from a small school. Though he struggled academically, he learned honesty, initiative, independence, and ruggedness.
A poor student, he left school at age 15 and worked as a lumberjack. It was then that he had a life-changing encounter with Jesus.
Edwin Brit Wyckoff recorded in the book, The Man who Invented Basketball: James Naismith and His Amazing Game (Enslow Publishers, Inc, Berkeley Heights, NJ, 2008), that Naismith said:
“It was with a firm determination and a great sense of confidence that I was to enter the study for the ministry …”
He continued:
“For several years I had been wondering what I wanted to accomplish. Finally I decided that the only real satisfaction that I would ever derive from life was to help my fellow beings.”
Naismith added:
“I was lying on the bed on Sunday and thought, ‘What is this all about? What is life about? What are you going to do? What are you going to be? What motto will you hold up before you?’ I put up on the wall, not in writing, but in my mind this thought: ‘I want to leave the world a little bit better than I found it.’ This is the motto I had then and it is the motto I have today.”
With the goal of becoming a minister, he entered McGill University in 1883, located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. There he studied Philosophy and Hebrew.
McGill included athletics as part of the college life.
It was at McGill that students organized the very first hockey club in 1877, and wrote the first hockey rule book.
Naismith graduated in 1887, and enrolled to study theology at a McGill-affiliated school, Presbyterian College.
To pay his tuition, he worked at McGill as an instructor in physical education.
At Presbyterian College, he was involved in religious activities, the Missionary Society, the Literary and Philosophical Society, and was a staff member of the Presbyterian College Journal.
He was also an avid athlete.
In addition to gymnastics, he played baseball, field hockey, football, rugby and lacrosse – sometimes referred to as “legalized murder.”
Dr. Ed and Janice Hird wrote in “Dr. James Naismith: An Examination of the Global Impact of the Basketball Founder” (Engage Magazine, 7/2121, engage.lightmagazine.ca) how contact sports resulted in injuries, with Naismith getting a kick to the face, a concussion, temporary memory loss, and permanently swollen cauliflower ears.
As a result, he and his future wife, Maude Shermann, designed one of football’s earliest helmets.
He was counseled by some to leave the evils of the athletic life and only devote himself to studying and Christian duties.
A simple incident, though, gave James direction.
During a rugby game in his senior year in seminary, a teammate uttered profanity.
When he looked up and saw James, he embarrassingly apologized and said “I forgot you were there.”
James began to realize that by combining both athletics and religious ministry, he could use sports to help men build godly Christian character.
At the age of 29, he came to the United States to work as the physical education teacher at the Young Men’s Christian Association department of the School for Christian Workers in Springfield, Massachusetts, renamed the YMCA International Training School.
The YMCA pioneered integrating prayer and Bible study with athletics.
This was part of a 19th century movement known as “Muscular Christianity,” which led to the concept of “good sportsmanship.”
During the harsh New England winter of 1891, the class of young men were bored with calisthenics, sit-ups and marching, so Naismith was asked by Dr. Luther Gulick, Jr., to devise a game which could be played indoors.
Dr. Gulick, who designed the YMCA’s triangle logo—Spirit, Mind, & Body, also founded, with his wife, Charlotte “Lottie” Emily Vetter, the Camp Fire Girls.
Alluding to Book of Ecclesiastes, Dr. Gulick told Naismith: “There is nothing new under the sun. All so-called new things are simply re-combinations of the factors of things that are now in existence.”
James took the initiative, saying: “All that we have to do is to take the factors of our known games and then recombine them, and we will have the new game we are looking for.”
He also wanted a game that would result in fewer concussions and more sportsmanship.
On December 21, 1891, drawing upon a game he played as a boy called “Duck on a Rock,” he created a new game with the goal of lopping a soccer ball into peach basket.
Naismith described in a New York radio interview:
“Something had to be done. One day I had an idea. I called the boys to the gym and divided them into two teams of nine and gave them an old soccer ball.
I showed them two peach baskets I had nailed at each end of the gym, and I told them the idea was to throw the ball into the other team’s peach basket.”
Without rules, brawls would break out on the floor, so Naismith wrote the original 13 rules of basketball, which incorporated aspects of soccer, football and hockey.
With the players not running with the ball, there would be no injuring from tackling as in rugby or football. With the basket up high, there would be less harm near the goal as in hockey.
Michael Zogry, associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas, stated:
“Naismith believed an umpire was essential in basketball. He said an umpire could enforce the rules and remind players how to behave.
Naismith’s hand-written original 13 rules of basketball sold for $4.3 million in 2010. A KU alumnus, David Booth and his wife, Suzanne, purchased the rules as a gift to KU.”
Yale divinity student Amos Alonzo Stagg further developed basketball with five players.
He worked alongside James Naismith at the YMCA’s training center in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Stagg later pioneered coaching and innovations for the game of football.
Naismith’s director, Dr. Gulick, explained his strict standards for players’ behavior in an 1897 article:
“The game must be kept clean. It is a perfect outrage for an institution that stands for Christian work in the community to tolerate not merely ungentlemanly treatment of guests, but slugging and that which violates the elementary principles of morals.
Excuse for the rest of the year any player who is not clean in his play.”
Naismith was an advocate of racial equality, opposing segregation in all its forms.
He believed that good coaching would produce: “initiative, agility, accuracy, alertness, co-operation, skill, reflex judgement, speed, self-confidence, self-sacrifice, self-control, and sportsmanship.”
U of K Professor Michael Zogry, further explained Naismith’s approach to sports and faith:
“His approach was to put Christianity out there in front of people and try to influence them through positive character development, but he reserved his formal preaching for when he was a guest minister at area churches.”
For Naismith, basketball was not simply a game, but an evangelization tool.
Basketball became so popular, that two years later, in 1893, the YMCA began promoting it internationally.
Zogry added:
“YMCAs began to integrate the game into their mission trips and it is recorded that many young people were brought to Christ through these missionaries and the game of basketball.”
YMCA missionaries first took the game to Canada, then overseas to Japan, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and around the globe.
Christian missionaries brought basketball to China through the YMCA, it has become one of the nation’s most popular sports.
YMCA missionary T.D. Patton took basketball to India.
In 1894, Naismith married Maude, and together they had five children.
The next year they moved to Colorado, where James took the position as Physical Education director at the Denver YMCA.
When his brother, Robbie, died suddenly from an infection, James decided to become a doctor.
In 1898, Naismith obtained a medical degree from Gross Medical College, which was merged in 1912 with the University of Colorado Medical School.
He earned four doctorate degrees before the age of 35.
As a minister, coach and medical doctor, was a holistic missionary caring for the whole person–spirit, mind, and body.
Moving to Lawrence, Kansas, he was the assistant gymnasium director, campus chaplain, and basketball coach of the Jayhawks at the University of Kansas.
Professor Michael Zogry stated:
“Naismith arrived at KU in 1898 after he had earned a medical degree while employed by the Denver YMCA.
KU hired him to be the chapel director (daily prayer services were compulsory for students then), campus physician, physical education program director and, yes, the basketball coach.
In addition to basketball and physical fitness, Naismith nurtured the study of religion at KU. In 1921, he was among those founding the Kansas School of Religion just a few steps off the university campus. The Kansas School of Religion was a forerunner of KU’s Department of Religious Studies.”
Professor Zogry wrote of a another famous KU coach:
“Forrest Clare (Phog) Allen was not only known as the father of basketball coaching but is thought to have been Naismith’s student at KU.”
Basketball continued to grow in popularity, being demonstrated at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri.
During the early 1900s, some viewed sports a distraction of the devil.
Dr. Ed and Janice Hird wrote in “Dr. James Naismith: An Examination of the Global Impact of the Basketball Founder” that his sister, Annie, was disappointed James chose sports ministry instead of being the pastor of a congregation.
However, Naismith wrote:
“A few years ago, on a visit to my only sister I asked her if she had ever forgiven me for leaving the ministry. She looked seriously at me, shook her head, and said, ‘No Jim, you put your hand to the plow and then turned back.’
As long as she lived, she never witnessed a basketball game, and I believe that she was a little ashamed to think that I had been the originator of the game.”
Naismith saw sports as a platform to build Christian character, instill good sportsmanship, to love your neighbor, to play by the Golden Rule.
He said he “could best serve God by influencing young men’s characters, being convinced that, “he could better exemplify the Christian life through sports than in the pulpit.”
Naismith wrote:
“Self-control, the subordination of one’s feelings for a purpose. The player who permits his feelings to interfere with his reflexes is not only a hindrance to his team, but he is also occupying a place that might better be filled by another.”
He believed sports provided an opportunity to develop strength to stand in faith to fight life’s battles, strength to live a fulfilled live in accordance with the Bible, and strength to serve others, developing:
“a willingness to place the good of the team above one’s personal ambitions
playing the game vigorously, observing the rules definitely, accepting defeat gracefully, and winning courteously.”
He added:
“I may say in conclusion: Let us all be able to lose gracefully and to win courteously; to accept criticism as well as praise; and last of all, to appreciate the attitude of the other fellow at all times.”
Naismith explained: “There is no place in basketball for the egotist.”
In 1911, Naismith published the book, A Modern College.
When World War I started in 1914, he volunteered at the age of 54.
Being a Canadian, he was able to get official ordination credentials from the Presbyterian Church and be appointed by the governor as an honorary captain and the chaplain of the nascent First Kansas Infantry.
In 1916, he was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, where two years later the Spanish Flu appeared of debated origins.
His unit was transferred to Eagle Pass, Texas, where soldiers served as guards during the Mexican Border War with Pancho Villa.
James Patton wrote in “Remembering a Veteran: Dr. James Naismith, YMCA” (Roads to the Great War, April 2, 2018):
“Naismith took his calling as the chaplain very seriously, approaching the task just like coaching a team of his young players, encouraging them to realize their potential.
He conducted church services, counseled soldiers, and advised his CO as to the spiritual needs of the unit. He was particularly concerned with efforts to keep the troops away from prostitutes, gambling, alcohol, and brawls with the locals.
To this end, and to keep them busy and physically fit, he organized basketball games, baseball games, and boxing matches involving the entire garrison at Eagle Pass.”
Patton explained Naismith’s emphasis on Biblical morality:
“In June 1917 Naismith was accepted as a lecturer on ‘moral conditions and sex education.’ His job was training counselors, inspiring troops and developing programs to improve morale and morality. His experience in this work formed a large part of the material for his book, Essence of a Healthy Life, 1918.
In the fall of 1918, he was sent to France as a YMCA Overseas Secretary, where his work continued as before but now in the shadow of the front. He wrote of this time, ‘I feel that I’m fitted for this work.’ With his breadth of experience, probably no one was a better choice.”
Naismith as a Chaplain in France
James Patton recorded a statement Naismith wrote in France:
“It is a pretty big job to go over and make the camps clean places for the boys to fight. And also get the right spirit into the men.
That involves two things. Educate the men and eliminate the evils from the camps and vicinity. Pershing is very anxious to have this done.
I go without instructions to find out the best thing to do and then get the machinery working. It is no child’s play, especially when it is among the old-fashioned type of soldier and in France where ideals are so different.
The responsibility is great but I am going into it determined. I do wish that you and the family would pray for me, for I have never felt so much in need of help as I do at this present minute.”
Of his 19 months with the YMCA in France, Naismith said he was thankful for “the knowledge that I have tried to help the people of the world to make it a little better, and that I have tried to love my neighbor as myself.”
Returning stateside as a 57-year-old war veteran, he resumed his position as director of physical education at the University of Kansas.
In 1925, he officially became an American citizen.
In 1936, three years before his death, he saw basketball recognized as an official event at the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin.
Though he shunned publicity, he accepted the invitation to throw the first jump ball at the opening ceremony.
Afterwards, he was chosen to hand out the medals: U.S won gold; Canada won silver; and Mexico won bronze.
In 1937, he helped form the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball, renamed National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).
In 1939, just eight months after the birth of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Basketball Championship, Dr. James Naismith died at the age of 78.
He had challenged the NCAA to “use every means to put basketball (as) a factor in the molding of character.”
One of his players remembered: “With him, questions of physical development inevitably led to questions of moral development, and vice versa.”
The Journal of Health and Physical Education praised Naismith as “a physician who encouraged healthful living through participation and through vigorous activities” building “character in the hearts of young men.”
Basketball grew to be one of the biggest sports in North America, with 24 million participating in 2009 according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and played by over 450 million worldwide. Only soccer is more popular.
In 2015 “March Madness” attracted 80.7 million people worldwide who watched the tournament online.
Unlike athletes today, Naismith did not profit from inventing basketball. He even lost two houses to foreclosure.
Jayson Jenks wrote in “The Rules of the Game: Bill Self, Kansas, and basketball history” (March 22, 2012):
“Naismith never cashed in on his creation. He had offers to do commercials and advertisement campaigns, but except for lending his name as endorsement for a Rawlings basketball, he declined.”
Naismith stayed committed to his mission, which was “to win men for the Master (Jesus) through the gym.”
Tuskegee professor George W. Carver wrote to YMCA official Jack Boyd in Denver, March 1, 1927:
“Keep your hand in that of the Master, walk daily by His side, so that you may lead others into the realms of true happiness, where a religion of hate, – which poisons both body and soul – will be unknown, having in its place the ‘Golden Rule’ way, which is the ‘Jesus Way’ of life, will reign supreme.”
Naismith stated:
“I am sure that no man can derive more satisfaction from money or power than I do from seeing a pair of basketball goals in some out of the way place. Deep in the Wisconsin woods, High in the Colorado mountains, halfway across the desert, all are constant reminders that I have at least partially accomplished the objective that I set up.”
Basketball nets adorn garages, walls, barns, schools and YMCAs in communities across the globe. It was the first game requiring gymnasium’s to have high ceilings.
Naismith wrote:
“Whenever I witness games in a church league, I feel that my vision, almost half a century ago, of the time when the Christian people would recognize the true value of athletics, has become a reality.”
Two years after his death, Naismith’s book, Basketball—its Origins and Development, was published in 1941.
Jon Ackerman wrote in the article “Upward Sports is carrying out the vision of the late Dr. James Naismith” (Sports Spectrum Magazine, Winter 2017):
“Dr. James Naismith invented basketball as a way to reach young people for Jesus. That same vision is fueling Upward Sports, the world’s largest Christian youth sports organization.
James Pomeroy Naismith, now 81, is the last living grandson of Dr. Naismith. He was 3 when his famous grandfather passed away.
Speaking of his grandfather, ‘He could see a potential for an outreach, a Christian outreach to young people using competitive sports, and it is perfectly clear that he himself loved competitive sports. If you can take something you love and apply it not only to your life, but through outreach to give others a better life, now that’s a really good vision.”
Naismith is honored in eight Canadian and American Halls of Fame. He is featured on postage stamps in both Canada and the United States.
The U.S. Census Bureau statistics (2009) report that over 24 million Americans play BASKETBALL.
In 1892, William Morgan came to study at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School — Springfield College. There he met Naismith.
William Morgan then became physical education director at the YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
It was there that Morgan invented the game of VOLLEYBALL in 1895.
Morgan wrote the original rules for volleyball and had them printed in the first edition of the Official Handbook of the Athletic League of the Young Men’s Christian Associations of North America (1897).
He needed a ball that was lighter than a basketball, so he asked A.G. Spalding & Bros. of Chicopee, Massachusetts to design one.
Volleyball spread to other countries around the world.
In 1916, the rules of volleyball at the YMCA were shared with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
In 1922, the first official national tournament in the U.S. was held by the National YMCA Physical Education Committee in New York City.
The United States Volleyball Association (USVBA) formed in 1928.
Renamed USA Volleyball (USAV), it organizes major volleyball tournaments nationwide.
The U.S. Census Bureau statistics (2009) report that over 10 million Americans play VOLLEYBALL.
KU Professor Michael Zogry stated:
“Naismith’s goals in life, as he stated on his application to the International YMCA Training School, were to try to help ‘win men for the Master,’ to build character and to be an example for the men.”
Zogry added:
“The story of Naismith’s creation of the game is widely known … Less well-known is that his game also was meant to help build Christian character and to inculcate certain values of the muscular Christian movement.”
Edwin Brit Wyckoff described how Naismith, along with Theodore Roosevelt, was an admirer of British author Thomas Hughes’ popular book, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, 1857:
“Muscular Christianity is Christianity applied to the treatment and use of our bodies. It is an enforcement of the laws of health by the solemn sanctions of the New Testament.”
The YMCA has grown to be the oldest and largest youth charity in the world, with a membership of millions in 124 countries. In many places like in Hong Kong it has its own hotel where I have stayed several times. It even spawned the invention of Basketball and Volleyball. If you would like to read about its founding and amazing growth, I have prepared the following for you:
The founder of the YMCA was George Williams, who was born in 1821 on an English farm in Dulverton, Someset.
Baptized into the Church of England, he described himself growing up to be “a careless, thoughtless, godless, swearing young fellow.”
As a result, his family sent him away to apprentice at a draper’s shop in Bridgwater.
In 1837, Williams converted to Congregationalism and became an active member of the Zion Congregational Church.
He moved to London in 1841, and worked his way up to be a draper shop department manager.
Attending Weigh House Congregational Church, he became active in evangelizing.
Williams was inspired by reading Revival Lectures, published in 1835 by American lawyer-turned preacher Charles Finney.
Finney’s Lectures on Revival also inspired William and Catherine Booth who founded an organization in London to fight child sex-trafficking, preaching the saving Gospel among the poor – The Salvation Army.
Williams was appalled at the immoral conditions surrounding young working men, so he gathered his fellow drapers in London and, on June 6, 1844, founded a place where young men could go and not be tempted into sin.
It was called the YMCA, and pioneered integrating prayer and bible study with athletics.
This was the beginning of the 19th century movement known as “Muscular Christianity,” which led to the concept of “good sportsmanship.”
Williams named this interdenominational Christian organization the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), to be a: “refuge of Bible study and prayer for young men seeking escape from the hazards of life on the streets.”
One of George William’s earliest converts and contributors was his employer, George Hitchcock, whose daughter, Helen, Williams married in 1853.
Concerned with keeping young men from temptation, especially sexual sin and immorality, Sir George Williams stated: “My life-long experience as a business man, and as a Christian worker among young men, has taught me that the only power in this world that can effectually keep one from sin, in all its varied and often attractive forms is that which comes from an intimate knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as a present Savior.”
Williams continued:
“And I can also heartily testify that the safe Guide-Book by which one may be led to Christ is the Bible, the Word of God, which is inspired by the Holy Ghost.”
After 50 years of bringing young men to Christ, Williams was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1894.
YMCA Founder Sir George Williams died November 6, 1905.
He was buried in the historic St. Paul’s Cathedral.
A stained-glass window in his honor was placed in Westminster Abbey.
In Montreal, Canada, the YMCA founded Sir George Williams University. Though later merged into Concordia University, it retained the campus name “Sir George Williams Campus.”
The early 1881 emblem for the YMCA had the names of the five parts of the world: Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa and America.
It has grown to be the oldest and largest youth charity in the world, with a membership of millions in 124 countries.
An early emblem of the YMCA had at the center an open Bible displaying John 17:21, referencing the verse: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”
Underneath the triangle were the letters XP, called the “Chi-Rho,” which were the first two Greek letters of the name of Christ — “Χριστοῦ.”
In 1885, the words “Spirit-Mind-Body” in a triangle were added by Dr. Luther Gulick, Jr., director of the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Dr. Gulick stated: “The triangle stands for the symmetrical man, each part developed with reference to the whole, and not merely with reference to itself. What authority have we for believing that this triangle idea is correct? It is scriptural. Such statements as, “Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all they heart and soul and mind and strength,” indicate the scriptural view that the service of the Lord includes the whole man. The words, which in the Hebrew and Greek are translated “strength,” refer in both cases entirely to physical strength.”
In Switzerland, the Geneva chapter of the YMCA was founded by Henri Dunant in 1852.
Dunant wrote (Martin Gumpert, Dunant, The Story of the Red Cross, NY: Oxford University Press, 1938, p. 22): “A group of Christian young men has met together in Geneva to do reverence and worship to the Lord Jesus whom they wish to serve. They have heard that among you, too, there are brothers in Christ, young like themselves, who love their Redeemer and gather together that under His guidance, and through the reading of the Holy Scriptures, they may instruct themselves further. Being deeply edified thereby, they wish to unite with you in Christian friendship.”
Henri Dunant then founded the International Red Cross in 1863, for which he became the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
During the Civil War, D.L. Moody ministered to soldiers on the battle-lines with the YMCA’s United States Christian Commission. He went on to become an internationally renown evangelist.
When the 1871 Great Chicago Fire destroyed Chicago’s YMCA, D.L. Moody raised funds to rebuild it.
Chicago White Stocking baseball star Billy Sunday began attending YMCA meetings in 1886 before beginning his career as a revival preacher.
YMCA instructor James Naismith, at the behest of Dr. Gulick, invented the game of Basketball in 1891, at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.
YMCA missionaries took Basketball around the world.
In 1892, William Morgan came to study at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School — Springfield College. After meeting James Naismith, Morgan invented the game of Volleyball in 1895, at the YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
Theodore Roosevelt also championed muscular Christianity, addressing the Holy Name Society, August 16, 1903:
“I am not addressing weaklings, or I should not take the trouble to come here. I am addressing strong, vigorous men, who are engaged in the active hard work of life … men who will count for good or for evil who have strength to set a right example to others. You cannot retain your self-respect if you are loose and foul of tongue, that a man who is to lead a clean and honorable life must inevitably suffer if his speech likewise is not clean and honorable.”
“A man must be clean of mouth as well as clean of life — must show by his words as well as by his actions his fealty to the Almighty. We have good Scriptural authority for the statement that it is not what comes into a man’s mouth but what goes out of it that counts.”
He added:
“Every man here knows the temptations that beset all of us in this world. At times any man will slip. I do not expect perfection, but I do expect genuine and sincere effort toward being decent and cleanly in thought, in word, and in deed. I expect you to be strong. I would not respect you if you were not.
I do not want to see Christianity professed only by weaklings; I want to see it a moving spirit among men of strength.”
In the first section on Armenia I related how that country was one of the most Christian in the world. In this section I cronicle how that caused them to become one of the most persecuted countries, ever, by the Musilms. What happened to them is one of the most stupendos atrocities in world history. You must read about it.
Ron
Armenia’s medieval capitol of Ani was called “the city of a 1,001 churches,” with a population of 200,000, rivaling the populations of the largest cities of the era, such as: Constantinople, Baghdad, Damascus, Florence, Rome, Paris, London, and Milan. And it was all Christian.
Islam emerged in the 7th century and quickly conquered throughout north Africa, Egypt and the Middle East.
In 704 AD, Caliph Walid tricked Armenian nobles to meet in St. Gregory’s Church in Naxcawan and Church of Xram on the Araxis River. Once they were all inside, he broke his promise, a practice called “taqiya,” and ordered his soldiers to surround the church, set it on fire, and burn to death everyone inside.
In 1064, Muslim Sultan Alp Arslan and his Seljuk Turkish army invaded Armenia and after a 25-day siege, destroyed the city of Ani.
Arab historian Sibt ibn al-Jawzi recorded: “The city became filled from one end to the other with bodies of the slain. The army entered the city, massacred its inhabitants, pillaged and burned it, leaving it in ruins. Dead bodies were so many that they blocked the streets; one could not go anywhere without stepping over them. And the number of prisoners was not less than 50,000 souls. I was determined to enter city and see the destruction with my own eyes. I tried to find a street in which I would not have to walk over the corpses; but that was impossible.”
Ottoman Turks reduced conquered Christians, Jewish, and non-Muslim populations to a second-class status called “dhimmi,” and required them to annually ransom their lives by paying an exorbitant tax called “jizyah.”
Sultan Murat I (1359-1389) began the practice of “devshirme” — taking away boys from the conquered Armenian and Greek families. These innocentboys were systematically traumatized and indoctrinated into becoming ferocious Muslim warriors called “Janissaries,” similar to Egypt’s “Mamluk” slave soldiers. Janissaries were required to call the Sultan their “father” and were forbidden to marry, giving rise to depraved practices and abhorrent pederasty — “the sodomy of the Turks.”
For centuries Ottomans conquered throughout the Mediterranean, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Spain and North Africa, carrying tens of thousands into slavery.
Beginning in the early 1800s, the Ottoman Empire began to decline. Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania won their independence.
When Armenia’s sentiments leaned toward independence, Sultan Abdul Hamid II put an end to it by massacring 100,000 from 1894-1896.
President Grover Cleveland reported to Congress, December 2, 1895: “Occurrences in Turkey have continued to excite concern. Massacres of Christians in Armenia and the development of a spirit of fanatic hostility to Christian influences have lately shocked civilization.”
The next year, President Cleveland addressed Congress, December 7, 1896: “Disturbed condition in Asiatic Turkey, rage of mad bigotry and cruel fanaticism, wanton destruction of homes and the bloody butchery of men, women, and children, made martyrs to their profession of Christian faith. Outbreaks of blind fury which lead to murder and pillage in Turkey occur suddenly and without notice. It seems hardly possible that the earnest demand of good people throughout the Christian world for its corrective treatment will remain unanswered.”
President William McKinley told Congress, December 5, 1898: “The envoy of the United States to Turkey is charged to press for a just settlement of our claims of the destruction of the property of American missionaries resident in that country during the Armenian troubles of 1895.”
On December 6, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt reported to Congress of: “systematic and long-extended cruelty and oppression of which the Armenians have been the victims, and which have won for them the indignant pity of the civilized world.”
Sultan Abdul Hamid II made a league with Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, trading guns for access to oil.
When Sultan Hamid was deposed in 1908, there was a brief euphoria among the citizens of Turkey, as they naively hoped the country would adopt a constitutional government guaranteeing individual rights and freedoms.
Instead, the government was taken over by the “Young Turks” — three leaders or “pashas”:
Mehmed Talaat Pasha,
Ismail Enver Pasha, and
Ahmed Djemal Pasha.
They acted as if they were planning democratic reforms while they clandestinely planned a genocidal scheme called “Ottomanization,” ridding the country of all who were not Muslims Turks.
In the first step unsuspecting Armenian young men were recruited into the military. Next they made them “non-combatant” soldiers and took away their weapons. Finally, they marched them into the woods and deserts where they were ambushed and massacred.
With the Armenian young men gone, Armenian cities and villages were defenseless. Nearly 2 million old men, women and children were marched into the desert, thrown off cliffs or burned alive.
Armenian cities of Kharpert, Van and Ani were leveled. Entire Armenian populations were deported to the deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia where hundreds of thousands were killed or starved to death.
Theodore Roosevelt recorded the fate of Armenians in his 1916 book Fear God and Take Your Own Part:
“Armenians, who for some centuries have sedulously avoided militarism and war are so suffering precisely and exactly because they have been pacifists whereas their neighbors, the Turks, have been militarists. During the last year and a half. Armenians have been subjected to wrongs far greater than any that have been committed since the close of the Napoleonic Wars. Fearful atrocities. Serbia is at this moment passing under the harrow of torture and mortal anguish.”
Roosevelt continued:
“Armenians have been butchered under circumstances of murder and torture and rape that would have appealed to an old-time Apache Indian. The slaughter of the Armenians must be shared by the neutral powers headed by the United States for their failure to protest when this initial wrong was committed. The crowning outrage has been committed by the Turks on the Armenians. They have suffered atrocities so hideous that it is difficult to name them, atrocities such as those inflicted upon conquered nations by the followers of Attila and of Genghis Khan. It is dreadful to think that these things can be done and that this nation nevertheless remarks ‘neutral not only in deed but in thought,’ between right and the most hideous wrong, neutral between despairing and hunted people — people whose little children are murdered and their women raped — by the victorious and evil wrong-doers. I trust that all Americans worthy of the name feel their deepest indignation and keenest sympathy aroused by the dreadful Armenian atrocities. I trust that they feel that a peace obtained without righting the wrongs of the Armenians would be worse than any war.”
Historian Arnold Toynbee wrote: “Turkish rule is slaughtering or driving from their homes, the Christian population. Only a third of the two million Armenians in Turkey have survived, and that at the price of apostatizing to Islam or else of leaving all they had and fleeing across the frontier.”
Attaturk was the founding father of the Republic of Turkey and served as President from 1924 to 1938, ushering in an era of moderation. He abolished sharia courts, and made Friday a workday, instituting the “weekend” of Saturday and Sunday. He outlawed polygamy and elevated the status of women, appointing the first female judges, and insisting on education of girls. He abolished women wearing of scarves, veils, chadors or burqas – the full-length body dress worn by Muslim women, and requiring women to wear skirts.
Ataturk stated:
“If henceforward the women do not share in the social life of the nation, we shall never attain to our full development. We shall remain irremediably backward, incapable of treating on equal terms with the civilizations of the West.”
Ataturk abolished the position of the Sultan and set up a secular government. He ended the religious Caliphate, thus preventing Muslim religious leaders from controlling government affairs.
In an effort to cut ties with the fundamentalist past, he introduced the western use of last names, replaced Arabic Islamic names with Turkish names, and encouraged the next generation not to take Arabic names but instead ethnic Turkish names. He abolished the use of Arabic and Persian script, and replaced it with the Latin alphabet.
In spite of all that Ataturk did, In some Islamist countries, Christian minorities continue to suffer persecution and even genocide:
Iraqi Chaldean Christians,
Assyrian Christians,
Syriac Christians,
Lebanese Maronite Christians,
Egyptian Coptic Christians,
Aramaic Christians,
Melkite Christians, and
Kurds.
Harvard Professor George Santayana wrote in Reason in Common Sense (Vol. I of The Life of Reason, 1905):
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Similarly, Will and Ariel Durant wrote in The Lessons of History (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1968): “Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew. If the transmission should be interrupted civilization would die, and we should be savages again.”
Most folks dont know about the very old civilization of the Armenians, and its very important part in world history. In fact, it is so important that I thought that you would want to know more about it. Its history is so colossal that I have needed to put it into two parts. Below is the first part that I hope you will read with interest.Ron
One of the oldest civilizations is that of the Armenians. According to ancient tradition, Noah’s Ark rested on Mount Ararat in the Armenian Mountain Range.
Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat is featured on Armenia’s National Coat of Arms.
The ancient Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi (410-490 AD) recounted the tradition that Noah’s son Japheth had a descendant named Hayk.
He refused to submit to Bel (Nimrod), builder of the Tower of Babel in Babylon. Bel (Nimrod) was the first tyrant of the ancient world who centralized government power.
In this legend, Hayk reportedly led his people north to the land near Mount Ararat, but Bel (Nimrod) chased them. In a battle near Lake Van (c.2492 or 2107 BC), Hayk is said to have pulled his powerful long bow and made a nearly impossible shot with an arrow and killed Bel (Nimrod).
Hayk is the origin of “Hayastan,” the Armenian name for Armenia.
Armenia’s major city of Yerevan, founded in 782 BC in the shadow of Mount Ararat, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.
Armenia was mentioned in the Book of Isaiah when King Sennacherib of Assyria invaded Judah around 701 BC. In this national emergency, King Hezekiah and the Prophet Isaiah prayed and Judah was miraculously saved.
Sennacherib returned to Assyria, where he was killed by his sons who then escaped to Armenia: “And it came to pass, as Sennacherib was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Armenia.” (Isaiah 37:38)
Armenia was first mentioned by name in secular records in 520 BC by Darius the Great of Persia in his Behistun inscription, as being one of the countries he sent troops into to put down a revolt.
In 331 BC, Alexander the Great conquered Persia, but never conquered Armenia.
In 67 BC, Roman General Pompey invaded the nearby Kingdom of Pontus on the Black Sea. Its king, Mithridates VI, fled to Armenia, which unfortunately implicated that country in the Mithridatic Wars with Rome.
Adding to the tension, King Tigranes’ son wanted to overthrow his father, so he foolishly invited Pompey to invade Armenia. Pompey let King Tigranes continue to rule in exchange for tribute, but arrested the son and sent him back to Rome as a prisoner.
Then Pompey received word that there was a terrible civil war going on in Judea between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. He decided it was an opportune time to invade Judia.
Though the history of Judea is somewhat complicated, it is nevertheless important. In 539 BC, Cyrus of Persia let Jews return to Israel and build the Second Temple. Ezra led the nation in returning to studying the Scriptures. This was the origin of the Pharisees.
Then 336-323 BC, Alexander the Great conquered from Greece, to Egypt, to Persia, spreading the Greek language and culture all over the world, a process called “Hellenization.”
Pharisees vigorously opposed “Hellenization” as they considered Greek culture sensuous, immoral and pagan. They emphasized a decentralized system where in each village the scriptures were taught by rabbis every Sabbath in a synagogue.
Sadducees were Jews who, in varying degrees, were “Hellenized” in order to have favor with their new Greek rulers.
As a result, they were politically connected, wealthy elites in charge of the centralized priestly system of Temple worship in Jerusalem. The difference between the views of the more liberal Sadducees and more conservative Pharisees is somewhat reflected in the modern differences between Reformed Judaism and Orthodox Judaism.
When Alexander the Great died in 323 BC, four of his generals divided up his empire, with Seleucus I Nicator taking Syria to Persia, founding the Seleucid Empire in 312 BC. This included the land of Israel.
A successor Seleucid king was Antiochus IV Epiphanes. He was so intent on Hellenizing Judea that he tried to completely erase the Jewish religion.
Jews were rallied by Judah Maccabee to rebel in the Maccabean Revolt, 167-160 BC. This is commemorated by the Feast of Hanukkah.
After Judah Maccabee’s death, his brother, Simon Thassi, founded the Hebrew Hasmonean Dynasty, which eventually gained independence for Judea.
Simon Thassi the Hasmonean was assassinated by his son-in-law at a banquet. Afterwards, Simon’s son, John Hyrcanus, served as both the political leader and the High Priest, though he still respected the decentralized authority of “The Assembly of the Jews.”
Hyrcanus was successful in establishing a relationship with the distant Roman Senate, getting it to recognize Judah’s independence.
When John Hyrcanus died, his son, Aristobulus I, seized control, threw his mother in prison, concentrated political power, and reestablished the monarchy. He was the first person in Jewish history to claim the actual titles of both King and High Priest.
Sadducees, who were Hellenized political insiders, had no problem with Aristobulus I having both titles. Pharisees, on the other hand, did have a problem, as they were religious students of the Law and believed that only a descendant of David could be king.
When Aristobulus I died in 103 BC, his widow, Alexandra-Salome, married his brother, Alexander Jannaeus, who also was King and High Priest.
Alexander Jannaeus, a Sadducee, ordered 800 Pharisees to be crucified. When he died, his wife, Alexandra-Salome, ruled Judea, but she switched to align with the Pharisees. She ruled as a monarch and appointed her son, Hyrcanus II, to be High Priest. Judea was noticeably blessed during the reign of Alexandra-Salome.
After her death in 67 BC, her two sons started a civil war which culminated in the end of Judea’s independence. Aristobulus II, was backed by the Sadducees. Hyrcanus II was backed by the Pharisees.
As civil war violence escalated, word of it reached Roman General Pompey who was located north of Judea in the area of Pontus and Armenia. Aristobulus II sent a large golden vine weighing over 1000 lbs. to Pompey requesting his help against his brother, Hyrcanus II. Pompey decided this was the ideal time to invade Judea.
In 63 BC, Pompey left the area of Armenia and marched south toward the city of Jerusalem, which was divided into warring sections due to the civil war. Hyrcanus II and the Pharisees allowed Pompey to enter their section of the city. The Sadducees, though, refused to let Pompey into the Temple complex.
Pompey laid siege, defeated the Sadduccees, and entered the Holy of Holies of the Temple. After seeing Ark of the Covenant, he exited the Temple and forbade his soldiers from desecrating it. The next day, he order the Temple area cleansed of defilement.
Historian Josephus wrote: “Of the Jews there fell twelve thousand and no small enormities were committed about the temple itself, which, in former ages, had been inaccessible, and seen by none; for Pompey went into it, and not a few of those that were with him also, and saw all that which was unlawful for any other men to see, but only for the High Priests. There were in that temple the golden table, the holy candlestick, and the pouring vessels, and a great quantity of spices; and besides these there were among the treasures two thousand talents of sacred money; yet did Pompey touch nothing of all this, on account of his regard to religion; and in this point also he acted in a manner that was worthy of his virtue. The next day he gave order to those that had the charge of the temple to cleanse it, and to bring what offerings the law required to God.”
Pompey ended Judea’s independence by making it a Roman province. He recognized Hyrcanus II as High Priest, but arrested Aristobulus II and sent him back to Rome as a prisoner.
Hyrcanus II was a weak ruler. He had an official named Antipater the Idumaean, who was opportunistic and forceful. Idumaea was the land of Edom, a neighboring kingdom to Judea, where lived the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s brother.
In 49 BC, a civil war broke out in the Roman Empire between Pompey and Julius Caesar. In 47 BC, a key battle took place near Alexandria, Egypt. At a critical moment in the battle, when it looked like Caesar would be defeated, Antipater the Idumaean came to his rescue.
In gratitude for his timely assistance, Caesar appointed Antipater as epitropos (regent) over Judea with the right to collect taxes, and left Hyrcanus II as High Priest. Antipater was the father of Herod the Great.
Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Antipater was poisoned in 43 BC. Another Roman civil war began between Caesar’s general, Mark Anthony, and Caesar’s nephew, Octavian.
Then, in 40 BC, war broke out between the Romans and the Parthians over who would rule Armenia.
The conflict spilled over into Judea.
The son of Aristobulus II, Antigonus Mattathias, sided with the Parthians and with their support, was proclaimed King and High Priest in Judea. He seized his uncle, Hyrcanus II, and, according to Josephus, bit off his ear to disqualify him from being High Priest, and had him taken away captive by the Parthians into Babylonia. In 36 BC, Antigonus was defeated by Antipater’s son, Herod, with help from the Romans. Herod ransomed Hyrcanus II from the Parthians.
Herod then ruled in Judea. He married Mariamme, the granddaughter of both Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, which provided Hasmonean legitimacy to Herod’s rule.
Mariamme pressured Herod to appoint her 17-year-old brother, Aristobulus III, as High Priest. Since Aristobulus III was the last male of the Hasmonean royal line, Herod feared him as a potential rival to the throne. Two years later, Herod ordered Aristobulus III to be assassinated by drowning while bathing in a pool at a party.
At the height of the Roman civil war, the naval Battle of Actium took place in 31 BC, between Octavian and Mark Anthony with Cleopatra VII of Egypt. It is considered one of the most consequential battles in history, as it effectively ended the Roman Republic and began the Roman Empire, with Octavian, the victor, becoming Emperor — the undisputed most powerful man in the world. Octavian changed his name to Augustus Caesar.
And as you have heard, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra committed suicide in Egypt.
Herod met with Augustus Caesar on the Island of Rhodes and pledged his allegiance. In return, Augustus confirmed Herod as King of Judea. Suspicious of plots against him, Herod had the 80-year-old former High Priest Hyrcanus II executed.
Herod the Great supported the Sadducees and funded the reconstruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. When Jesus’ disciples were admiring the Temple, He told them: “Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!” (Matthew 24:2 NLT)
Herod had many wives and children. His sons by Mariamme were Aristobulus and Alexander. Alexander married a Cappadocian Princess Glapyre, and together they had a son, Tigranes V, who became the future King of Armenia.
Herod was paranoid of treason. He divorced, disowned, exiled or executed many of his family, including his wife, Mariamme, and her sons, Alexander and Aristobulus; as well as Antipater, a son by another wife.
His psychotic behavior was displayed when the magi visited from the east to see the new born “King of the Jews,” resulting in Herod massacring all the male children in Bethlehem who were two years old and younger.
Herod was so hated that he feared no one would mourn him when he died, so he ordered that upon his death all the distinguished leaders in Jerusalem would be immediately arrested and executed. Herod’s son, Herod Archelaus, did not carry out this order.
Herod’s young grandson Tigranes V, after Herod had killed his father, Alexander, departed with his Cappadocian mother Glaphyra to Armenia. Glaphyra later married Herod’s son, Herod Archelaus.
Tigranes V was sent to finish his education in Rome, and afterwards he was appointed by Augustus Caesar to be King of Armenia.
Tiberius, the future Emperor, accompanied Tigranes to Armenia’s capital of Artaxata, where he was crowned in 6 AD.
In 52 AD, the King of Parthia installed his brother, Tiridates I as King of Armenia, beginning the Arsacid Dynasty. For the next several centuries, Armenia was caught in the violent middle between Rome in the West and Parthia in the East during the Roman-Parthian Wars,
According to tradition, it was during this time in the 1st century AD, that the Apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus of Edessa went to the area of Armenia and healed Abgar V of Edessa of leprosy. They then founded the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is considered one of the oldest Christian institutions in the world.
Briefly, from 114 to 118 AD, Armenia was once again a Roman province under Emperor Trajan. In the 3rd century AD, Roman Emperor Diocletian betrayed Armenian King Tiridates III and captured large areas of Armenia.
Gregory preached to King Tiridates, and then baptized him in 301 AD.
St. Gregory the Illuminator is credited with turning Armenia from paganism to Christianity.
Armenia is considered the first nation to “officially” adopt Christianity as its state religion when King Tiridates III converted in 301 AD.
In 313 AD, Constantine the Great ended the persecution of Christians throughout the Roman Empire.
Marco Polo traveled with his father and uncle the thousands of miles of the Silk Road by land from Europe all the way to China where Marco stayed for many years. The publication of his life experiences and travels there changed European history. Two hundred years later, even Christopher Columbus used this publication as his inspiration to sail to find the “New World”. Here, I have prepared for you an account of Marco Polo’s journey and adventures:
Between the 7th and 8th Crusades, Venetian traders Niccolo and Matteo Polo settled on the Black Sea in 1259, in an area conquered a few years earlier by Genghis Khan. This was over two centuries before Columbus sailed west.
The Polos traveled east, where, after 5,600 miles, they made it to China. There they were received by the new Mongol ruler, Kublai Khan, 1215–1294, grandson of Genghis Khan. He was Emperor of China, Korea, North India, Persia, Russia and Hungary.
Kublai Khan sent Nicole and Matteo Polo back to the Pope requesting 100 teachers of the Christian faith and a flask of oil from Christ’s empty tomb in Jerusalem.
Upon reaching Rome, they found out that the Pope, Clement the Fourth, had died. The new Pope, Gregory the Tenth, had just been elected and was preoccupied with the wars in Europe.
Due to the unsettled situation, only two preaching Dominican friars accompanied the Polo’s on their return to China in 1271. Niccolo also brought along his 17-year-old son, Marco Polo.
As they crossed a warring area of Turkey, the fearful friars turned back, leaving only speculation as to how history would have been different had they continued the journey and turned China all Christian.
They gave Kublai Khan the flask of oil from Jerusalem. He was so impressed with young Marco Polo that he employed him as an envoy for 17 years. Marco Polo learned several Asian languages.
He requested the Christian Bible be brought to him for Easter and Christmas, which he would kiss. Kublai Khan also honored Saracen-Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist feast days.
When asked why he did this, not understanding the incompatibility of differing beliefs, he responded: “I respect and honor all four great Prophets: Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Moses and Buddha, so that I can appeal to any one of them in heaven.”
Most folks don’t realize that a thriving Nestorian Christian community existed in China throughout Kublai Khan’s Yuan Dynasty, but declined during the subsequent Ming Dynasty when Mongolian and other “foreign influences” were forced out.
During the many years that Marco stayed in China, he occupied many high positions for Kublai Khan. He traveled extensively there and learned very much about the culture and customs of China and the Far East.
In 1291, the Polos accompanied the Mongol princess Kököchin to Persia for Kublai Khan. From there, they travelled to Constantinople and then to Venice, returning home after being gone for 24 years.
Marco was captured during the Battle of Curzola in 1298 and imprisoned in Genoa.
There he recited to his cellmate, Rustichello da Pisa his travels to Persia, China, Mongolia, and India. Upon being published, it became Medieval Europe’s best-seller, The Travels of Marco Polo.
It was nicknamed “Il Milione” or One Million Lies, as it described many things unbelievable to Europeans:
India’s worship of cattle;
homes smeared with cow dung;
naked holy men;
exotic herbs and spices;
indigo blue dye;
fields of cotton cloth being dyed;
China’s spaghetti noodles;
a Chinese compass;
gunpowder;
paper from tree pulp;
printed paper currency;
ice-cream;
eye glasses;
wheelbarrow;
thread from worms – silk;
porcelain dishes – “China”;
burning black stones – coal;
pinatas;
wine from rice;
asbestos from a mineral;
feet-binding of little girls so their feet remain tiny;
arrows shot from a recurve bow; and
an imperial “pony-express” style postal system.
Marco Polo surprised Europeans with the claims that the Magi, who brought gifts to baby Jesus, were buried in Saveh, a town in Persia south of Tehran, Iran.
After a year, Marco Polo was released. He returned to Venice, married, had three children and became a successful merchant. He died in 1324 and was buried in Venice’s San Lorenzo Church.
Marco Polo stated regarding his return to Europe from China: “I believe it was God’s will that we should come back, so that men might know the things that are in the world, since, as we have said in the first chapter of this book, no other man, Christian or Saracen, Mongol or pagan, has explored so much of the world as Messer Marco, son of Messer Niccolo Polo, great and noble citizen of the city of Venice.”
True Texan Tales 