Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg Converts the Tamils of India

by 1 Comment

Bartholomew Ziegenbalg died on February 23, 1719.

Born in Saxony in 1682 and raised in the university town of Halle, Germany, Ziegenbalg became a pioneer Protestant missionary to India, and the first to translate the Scriptures into an Indian language … some 80 years before the more famous William Carey.

This young German had been converted at the age of 17, and fired with Christian zeal by the Pietist movement within the Lutheran Church.

It was King Frederick IV of Denmark who saw the need to send missionaries to the fledgling Danish settlement of Tranquebar, on the southeast coast of India (in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu). August Francke, who was the leader of Pietism at the University of Halle, recommended Ziegenbalg as one of two men for the task.

Get a Free Church History Post every day by Subscribing at http://chrisfieldblog.com

On 9 July, 1706, at the age of 22, Ziegenbald arrived at the Coromandel Coast in South East India with Heinrich Plütschau; the pair being the first protestant missionaries to India and encountering opposition both from Roman Catholicism and ungodly merchants. But within eight months Ziegenbalg was able to converse in the native Malabar Tamil tongue, within 10 months of his arrival he was baptising the first five converts, and on 14 June, 1707, he laid the foundation stone of his church “in spite of official jeers and opposition.” By 14 August, 1707, he could write that “63 persons gathered for worship and another to be baptised tomorrow”.

Ziegenbalg took keen interest in the new printing technology emerging in Europe. He preferred the printed word to the spoken sermon. He began writing books on Tamil language, dictionaries and manuals on printing.

After 2 years in India Ziegenbalg had compiled Biblithece Malabarke, a list of 161 Tamil books he had read, describing the content of each book.

However all was not clear sailing for this enterprising and gifted missionary. Militant Hindus opposed the work of the missionaries and the local Danish authorities did not want unrest in their new settlement.

In 1708 opposition reached its height, and Zeigenbalg was imprisoned for four months, charged with encouraging rebellion by converting the natives. But “the converts multiplied.” In October, 1708, free from prison, he commenced his translation of the Tamil New Testament, a task that was completed in three years.

Ziebenbalg found the weather a further challenge, added to the religious and official opposition. He wrote, “My skin was like a red cloth. The heat here is very great, especially during April, May and June, in which season the wind blows from the inland so strongly that it seems as if the heat comes straight out of the oven”.

In 1709 Ziegenbalg asked that a printing press be sent from Denmark and he sent back drawings of Tamil type faces he needed made into printing blocks. When the Tamil type blocks arrived in 1712 they were too large, so Ziegenbalg had locals caste smaller type blocks, from cheese tins.

The first press and paper came through the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SPCK) in London, arriving in 1713, but the printing hand sent with the press ran away. Ziegenbalg then recruited and trained a German soldier to print his first book in India, in Portuguese.

Ziegenbalg was further assisted by Johanne Adler, a printer who arrived in Tamil Nadu in 1713 and who set up a type-making factory near Tranquebar to supply Ziegenbalg’s press. In 1715 a paper mill was set up in the village. And then Adler began making printing ink as well. Ziegenbalg’s printing ambitions were ready to be met, locally.

In 1716, the press produced the first English language book printed in Asia; “A Guide to the English Tongue”. Next year, the press produced a Portuguese ABC book.

Ziegenbalg and Plütschau encouraged the indigenous Indian Christians into positions of leadership. In 1733 they ordained the first Indian pastor, whom they had converted from Hinduism.

When Ziegenbalg died, at the age of 36, he left behind 350 converts, a missionary seminary, a grammar and lexicon of nearly 60,000 Tamil words, and the entire Bible in the Tamil language, along with Luther’s Catechisms, and other works translated into Tamil. We might add that he brought to India a respect for Christian missionaries, and an example for others to follow.

Ziegenbalg is credited for not only printing the first English book in Asia but also writing the first Tamil dictionary.

Ziegenbalg married in 1716 and at the same time official opposition lessened with the arrival of a friendlier governor. He set up a seminary to train the native pastors.

Another contribution from Ziegenbalg is seen in his keenness to reach the marginalised. He reached out to the untouchables and others whose place in the caste system restricted them. He sought to elevate them socially, as equals in the gospel. He also started the first school for girls, so they could be given opportunities previously denied them.

We are told that on his deathbed he shaded his eyes and cried out: “How is it so bright, as if the sun shone in my face …”

Upon his death in 1719 he was buried at The New Jerusalem church in Tranquebar, which he and his associates completed the previous year.

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Henry Martyn the Translator

by Leave a Comment

Henry Martyn was born on February 18, in Cornwall, England in 1781.

In 1791 he started at St John’s College, Cambridge. He was saved in 1800. In 1801 he was the top Mathematics student in his year (called Senior Wrangler) and he also won a Latin prize. He was gifted in languages, as was later revealed in his successful translation work.

When Martyn tackled his translation work on the mission field he mentioned in a letter that he was drawing from grammar books in Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Hebrew, Rabbinical Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Ethiopic, Samaritan, Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit, Bengalee and Hindoostanee and wanted a Celtic grammar as well.

Yet at the end of his studies, all of Martyn’s academic achievements left him wanting. He noted, “I obtained my highest wishes but was surprised to find I had grasped a shadow”. This recognition of the emptiness of human achievement, despite his own excellence, must have undergirded his willingness to serve the Lord sacrificially. He not only gave up his homeland and career opportunities for mission service, he also left behind the one love of his life.

Get a Free Church History Post every day by Subscribing at http://chrisfieldblog.com

After theological studies at Cambridge, Martyn was appointed curate at Holy Trinity to the godly Charles Simeon who was thus his spiritual father or mentor. And from thence he sailed forth to India as chaplain to the East India Company (1805).

He left his heart with Lydia Grenfell in his native Cornwall. She did not follow him to India and he never made it home to see her again.

Henry Martyn made several major contributions through his life of missionary service. His translation work gave the scriptures to the Indian and Persian people. Also his life of personal sacrifice for missions has shone as an example to many. He also promoted ideas about missions which helped to formulate the vision and activities of future mission endeavours.

Within five years in India he had completed his translation of the New Testament in Urdu (known then as Hindoostani). His journal tells of the joy he found in this work – “What a source of perpetual delight have I in the precious Book of God! Oh, that my heart were more spiritual, to keep pace with my understanding…” (Memoirs of H. Martin, compiled by J. Sargent, 1848, page 241).

One of the challenges of these early translators is that many Bible concepts are not readily translatable into cultures where the concepts are not known. Such Bible truths as grace, redemption and hope are not readily known in other tongues and cultures.

CF Note: I once heard a Christian minister tell of a Moslem woman who asked him to help her convert to Christianity. When he asked why she wanted to make this change she told him that the Christian concept of ‘forgiveness’ was not part of Islam. Similarly I learned that some Australian Aboriginal tribes do not have a mechanism to restore people back into their community once they have been banished for bad behaviour. Cultural challenges such as these confronted Henry Martyn’s translation work.

Martyn’s diary notes also make reference to his “beloved Lydia”… although historian Sargent actually suppressed her name in the first edition of his best-seller biography of Henry Martyn, cited earlier. The call of God upon his life meant that he must say “Farewell” to the one he had hoped to wed.

Martyn’s diary also refers to the fellowship he enjoyed with William Carey and Anglican clergyman David Brown (of Jamieson, Fawcett and Brown Commentary fame … and with whom Carey did not enjoy sweet fellowship!) (Carey, by S. Pearce Carey, page 145).

Martyn was an intelligent and sensitive man, who respected the cultures to which he went. Rather than adopting the cultural arrogance which some other missionaries displayed, Martyn wrote, “I learnt that the power of gentleness is irresistible and also that these men are not fools. Clearness of reasoning is not confined to Europe”.

After a decade of evangelical ministry in various parts of India, Henry Martyn proceeded to Persia and there took up the task of translation anew. He also supervised translation of the New Testament into Arabic. By 1812 his Persian New Testament was ready for the printers. But our missionary did not live to see his work in print. On October 16, 1812, in Tokat, Armenia, Asia Minor, on his way home with high hopes of meeting again his Lydia, Henry Martyn died, at the age of 31.

It is interesting to note that Martyn’s Urdu and Arabic translations were not only a help to the Christian missionaries but were well read by the Moslem leaders.

On his return journey toward England, Martyn chose to travel through Persia, Damascus and Arabia, hoping to improve his tuberculosis and find scriptural manuscripts. His friends in Calcutta tried to dissuade him but he set out in 1811. On his way to Constantinople he died, whether from his own sickness or the plague which was raging at the time we do not know.

Thus closed the book on a man who put all else aside, in order to make an investment in the Kingdom of God.

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

John Wycliffe Gives England the Bible

by Leave a Comment

John Wycliffe died on December 31, 1384.

He was born of sturdy Saxon stock in Ipreswell, Yorkshire, England, somewhere around the year 1320 (the date range is from 1320-1330, but 1324 is the date often chosen). It was in an age of spiritual darkness – and 200 years before Luther would shake the church with his reforms.

But Wycliffe saw the apostasy into which the Church of Rome had fallen. “The Church,” he said, “should return to the poverty and simplicity of apostolic times.” The Pope he called “the Anti-Christ, the proud, worldly priest of Rome!” (Church in History, by B. Kuiper, page 143).

He occupies a distinguished place in the history of the Christian Church, first as a scholar and champion of theological reform, but primarily for his translation of the Scripture into the English language. His followers, known as the Lollards, went out two by two, covering England with Protestant teaching. Many of them met fiery deaths.

Wycliffe was a scholar and theologian with a teaching position at Oxford, from which he was ultimately expelled. His Lollardy movement, sending itinerant preachers across the countryside, was also ultimately stamped out.

From his position at Oxford, Wycliffe first saw himself as a reformer, expecting to encourage the church back to its Biblical simplicity. He was first concerned that ecclesiastical leaders (popes, cardinals, church councils, etc) exerted authority over kings and civil governments. He saw this as abuse of power and argued that civil government should be performed by God’s appointed civil leaders in accordance with Biblical instructions. At the time Popes were dictating to kings how they should prosecute people who the church disapproved of.

Wycliffe also opposed the holding of lordly positions by church leaders and the holding of property by church organisations, such as monastic orders. He believed that Christianity was most pure when its servants were poor and simple, not living luxuriously or holding large properties.

He asserted that Christ was the head of the Church and that people did not need a pope or papal appointee to administer their faith. He declared that “Our Pope is Christ”.

He feared that some people appointed as popes and cardinals were not even true members of the Church of Jesus Christ. He had high hopes for Pope Urban VI as a “true” pope, but was ultimately disappointed in him.

As the Church of Rome grew in opposition to him, Wycliffe hardened his position on the Pope and the organised church, ultimately identifying the Pope as the Anti-Christ.

He was motivated to create an English Bible for the common people by his belief that they could establish a strong personal faith through nothing more than the Word of God. His army of Lollard priests fulfilled his vision of poor men whose only interest was the truth delivered to people’s hearts. Thus these Wycliffeites were called “Bible men”.

Wycliffe’s position was complicated by the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, for which he was blamed. This was an uprising against the oppressive nobility, particularly the ecclesiastical nobility. On November 18, 1382 Wycliffe was called to defend himself, but he was weakened by the first of several strokes, which ultimately claimed his life.

Note that Wycliffe’s translation was hand-written. Assistants and the Lollards copied his translation by hand. Thus hundreds of copies of the scripture were made. 150 manuscripts or fragments remain from Wycliffe’s landmark work.

Note also that Wycliffe had to work from the Latin Vulgate version, since that was the only version available to him. So he translated the English from Latin.

Schaff comments: “It becomes evident that in almost every doctrinal particular did this man anticipate the reformers.” History refers to him as the “Morning Star of the Reformation”.

On December 28, 1384 Wycliffe suffered another stroke and died on the last day of the year, 1384. He was buried in the church graveyard at Lutterworth.

Thirty years after his death, May 4, 1415, the Council of Constance declared Wycliffe a heretic, decreeing that his books be burned and his remains be exhumed. In 1428 his body was exhumed and burnt, and the ashes thrown into the nearby Swift River.

This act of desecration, as viewed by the Roman Catholic Church who instigated it, is seen in a different light by many Protestants. To them it was prophetic. For as the river took Wycliffe’s ashes to the sea, so his message spread from shore to shore until the Protestant Faith was firmly established around the world.

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Griffith John Impacts Central China

by Leave a Comment

Griffith John was born in Swansea, Wales on December 14, 1831. His mother died when he was eight months old.

At the age of eight he was admitted to the membership of the Congregationalist Ebenezer Chapel, and by the age of 16 he was known as “the boy preacher”, having first preached at a prayer meeting at age 14, then regularly preaching from age 16.

With a desire to serve the Lord in Madagascar he applied to the London Missionary Society in 1850, and they accepted him – for China!

He was ordained in 1855. That same year he married the daughter of a missionary, Jane Griffith. The couple arrived in Shanghai in September 1855 and from 1861 made their permanent base in Hankow, central China. It was here that John established his reputation as author and translator and as a powerful preacher. He set up schools, hospitals and training colleges. Griffith John’s missionary work in China lasted for 57 years.

He founded the Religious Tract Society in Hankow, and literally millions of copies of the Scriptures were distributed during his lifetime. He was a prolific author and pamphleteer.

“The first Protestant convert in central China was baptized at Hankow in March, 1862” (Griffith John, by C. Irwin, page 19). By 1905 the church membership in that city had grown to 6,500.

Griffith John established a medical work, itinerated thousands of miles to other towns and villages, and translated the New Testament and parts of the Old Testament Scriptures into Mandarin and Wenli.

Many a time he faced bitter opposition, not only from rebel Chinese – “kill the foreign devil!” – but also from the “Times” newspaper in England, which accused missionaries of “provoking the men of this world”. This outburst even led to a Member of Parliament condemning missionary activity, and the London Missionary Society instructed Griffith John to withdraw from central China to one of the ‘treaty ports’, where churches were already established. “Griffith John protested so vigorously the LMS Directors cancelled their instructions!” (page 24).

John also found opposition for his Mandarin Bible, by the man who helped create the Peking Bible. He attacked John’s facility with Greek and Hebrew, but lost out to the intentions of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The Peking Bible had been a collaboration of American and British translators, but since its time the two nations had become competitive in their endeavours, rather than cooperative.

After the death of his first wife, Jane, in 1873, Mr John married the widow of Dr Jenkins in 1874.

With his colleagues he established over 100 mission stations in Hupeh and Hunan. He acquired an intimate knowledge of the Chinese language and literature.

Not only did the Chinese Government hold him in high honour, but the Congregational Union of England and Wales elected him as Chairman in 1888, and the University of Edinburgh conferred upon him a DD degree (1889) in recognition of his work in China. A “Griffith John College” was also established in the Yangtsze valley, for native preachers.

In 1911 his health finally gave way at it was in Swansea, Wales, where he had come to know the Lord as his Saviour that he was laid to rest. He passed into his Saviour’s presence on 25 July, 1912.

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com