February 8
356 For the third time since the Council of Nicea in 325, Athanasius (ca. 293–373)
went into exile. The defender of orthodoxy was out of favor
as Arianism, a heresy condemned at the council, ran rampant
throughout the Empire. He would be exiled twice more before
he died.
1250
Robert I of Artois, French crusader, was killed in Egypt
during the
Seventh Crusade of his brother,
Louis IX of France (b. 1216).
1587
Mary Queen of Scots (b. 8 December 1542) was beheaded at
Fotheringhay Castle in England.
1692 A doctor in
Salem Village,
Massachusetts Bay Colony suggested that two girls in the
family of the village minister may be suffering from
bewitchment, leading to the
Salem witch trials.
1693 The
College of William and Mary was founded in Williamsburg,
Virginia, under Anglican auspices for the purpose of
educating Anglican clergymen. It is the second oldest (after
Harvard) institution of higher learning in America.
1705 Franz Heinrich Christoph Meyer,
organist and composer, was born in Hanover (d. 1767). His
father and grandfather had been castle church organists, and
he succeeded his father in the position in 1734. His own two
sons followed him in the same capacity. He was commissioned
to provide the new tunes for the enlarged edition of the
Hannoverisches Kirchengesangbuch in 1740.
[The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, comp. W. G.
Polack (Saint Louis: CPH, 1942): 545]
1801
George Dana Boardman Sr., Baptist missionary to India,
was born in Livermore, Maine (d. 11 February 1831).
1833
Johann Heinrich Brockmann, Wisconsin Synod missionary
and member of the Wisconsin Synod Indian Mission Board, was
born in Bergen, near Celle (d. 20 January 1904).
1841 The congregation of
Trinity Lutheran
Church (Saint Louis) called
C.
F. W. Walther
(1811–1887) to succeed his
brother, Otto Herman, as pastor.
1848
Adam Dan, Danish Lutheran pastor and author, was born in
Odense, Denmark (d. 6 May 1931).
1851 James Alexander Haldane (b. 14 July 1768),
Scottish evangelist, died.
1864
William Herman Theodore Dau, theologian on the faculty
of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) and president of
Valparaiso University, was born in Lautenberg, Pomerania (d.
21 April 1944, Berkeley, California).
1865 Lewis Edgar Jones, American YMCA director,
was born in Yates City, Illinois (d. 1 September 1936, Santa
Barbara, California).
1878 Martin Buber, Jewish religious
philosopher, was born in Vienna, Austria (d. 13 June 1965).
1878
Frederick Samuel Wenger, professor at Concordia
Theological Seminary (Springfield, Illinois) was born in
Bern, Switzerland (d. 11 July 1963).
1936
James H. Fillmore (b. 1 June 1849), American clergyman
in the Christian Church, died.
1940
Edwin Heyl Delk, American Lutheran clergyman and author,
died (b. 15 August 1859, Norfolk, Virginia).
1948 The Missouri Synod seminary in
Buenos Aires, Argentina, was dedicated.
1949
Cardinal József Mindszenty (b. 29 March 1892) of Hungary
was sentenced to life imprisonment for treason (d. 6 May
1975).
1958 Rudolph H. C. Meyer died. He was
born in 1881 and graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint
Louis) in 1904. He served parishes in Elmore, Ohio (1904–1909);
Detroit, Michigan (1909–1925); and
Saint Louis, Missouri (1925–1958).
He was the secretary of the Board of Directors of Concordia
Publishing House from 1926 to 1950, chairman of the Church
Extension Board of Michigan from 1915 to 1925, chairman of
the Mission Board of the Western District from 1945 to 1951
and editor of The Lutheran Witness of the Western
District from 1936 to 1956.
