A Christian Miscellany: Terrible Jokes, Curious Facts, and Memorable Quotes from the Garden of Eden to Armageddon

By Tim Dowley

You might be familiar with the Serenity Prayer. But are you familiar with the Anti-serenity Prayer? 

Perhaps you can recite the Apostle’s Creed. But can you recite the Five Points of Calvinism? 

You probably know Psalm 23. But do you know about Shakespeare’s odd connections to Psalm 46? 

Maybe you’ve memorized the names of the twelve apostles. But what about the nine orders of angels? 

Perhaps you even know how many animals Moses brought with him on the ark. (Trick question! None!) But do you know how Noah illuminated the ark? (With floodlights!) 

A Christian Miscellany is the perfect companion to those who like piously showing off (boasting in the Lord!) and to those looking for some wit and wisdom to quote during the awkward silences between the blessing and the meal. Packed with fascinating lists, amusing anecdotes, inspiring poetry, and more, this little book will fit right into in any quirky Christian’s library—although coffee tables, nightstands, glove compartments, and toilet tank topper baskets will make fine places for it too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Jan 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781467463485

Tim Dowley

Dr Tim Dowley is a historian and a prolific author and editor of Bible resources for adults and children. He holds a bachelor's degree in History and a doctorate in Church History, both from the University of Manchester, England. He has written a number of children's stories and books on biblical subjects and the history of Christianity, as well as works on music and literature. Tim has traveled extensively, particularly in Israel, Turkey and other biblical lands. He lives in South London with his wife and family.

Book preview

ON LOVE

He who loves not lives not.

—Raymond Llull (c. 1232–c. 1315), mathematician and mystic

There is nothing so difficult, and no stronghold so impregnable, that it cannot be broken down—and you built up—by love.

—Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), mystical author

… love is oure lordes mening. And I saw fulle sekerly [with certainty] in this and in alle, that or [ere] God made us he loved us, which love was never sleked [lessened], ne never shalle. And in this love he hath done all his werkes, and in this love he hath made alle things profitable to us.

—Julian of Norwich (1343–c. 1416), mystical writer

Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

—from The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881), Russian novelist

He said Love … as I have loved you. We cannot love too much.

—Amy Carmichael (1867–1951), missionary

The root of the matter (if we want a stable world) is a very simple and old-fashioned thing…. The thing I mean … is love, Christian love, or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide in action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.

—from The Impact of Science on Society, Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), philosopher

Love is strong as death; but nothing else is as strong as either; and both, love and death, met in Christ. How strong and powerful upon you, then, should that instruction be, that comes to you from both these, the love and death of Jesus Christ!

—from Sermons, John Donne (1572–1631), English writer

ST. PATRICK’S BREASTPLATE

I bind unto myself today

the power of God to hold and lead,

God’s eye to watch, God’s might to stay,

God’s ear to hearken to my need,

the wisdom of my God to teach,

God’s hand to guide, God’s shield to ward,

the word of God to give me speech,

God’s heavenly host to be my guard.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,

Christ behind me, Christ before me,

Christ beside me, Christ to win me,

Christ to comfort and restore me.

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,

Christ in hearts of all that love me,

Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

—extract from a version adapted as a hymn by Cecil Frances Alexander (1818–1895). The original is attributed to St. Patrick of Ireland (c. 390–460).

SOME MEMORABLE EPITAPHS

Nature, and Nature’s laws lay hid in night,

God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

—by Alexander Pope (1688–1744), intended for Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727)

Response

It did not last: the Devil howling "Ho!

Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo.

—J. C. Squire (1884–1958)

Here lies the body of Jonathan Swift, of this Cathedral Church, Dean, where savage indignation can no longer lacerate his heart. Traveller, go, imitate if you can his strenuous vindication of human liberty.

—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), author of Gulliver’s Travels, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin; translated from the Latin

Lector si monumentum requiris circumspice.

(Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.)

—Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723), St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, of which he was the architect

Here lyes HENRY PURCELL, Esqr. who left this life and is gone to that blessed place where only his harmony can be exceeded.

—Henry Purcell (1659–1695), Westminster Abbey, London, where he was organist

Men must endure their going hence.

—C. S. Lewis (1898–1963), Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, Oxford. From William Shakespeare: King Lear, act 5, scene 2

Free at last, Free at last,

Thank God Almighty

I’m Free at last.

—Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), Atlanta, Georgia

AVE MARIA

Ave Maria, gratia plena,

Dominus tecum.

Benedicta tu in mulieribus,

et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,

ora pro nobis peccatoribus,

nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.

Amen.

Hail Mary, full of Grace,

the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou amongst women,

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

pray for us sinners,

now and at the hour of death.

Amen.

—basis of the Roman Catholic Rosary and Angelus prayers, incorporating two greetings to Mary in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 1:28, 42)

ON DEATH

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so …

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

—from Death Be Not Proud, John Donne (1572–1631), English writer

Be near me, Lord, when dying,

O part not thou from me!

And to my succour flying,

Come, Lord, and set me free!

And when my heart must languish

In death’s last awful throe,

Release me from mine anguish

By thine own pain and woe.

—from St. Matthew Passion, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), composer

COLLECT FOR PURITY

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

—translation by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) from the tenth-century Latin Sacramentarium Fuldense

TRADITIONS OF THE MAGI

Numerous myths and legends have arisen around the wise men of Matthew 2. By tradition known as the Magi, they are also referred to as Three Wise Men and Three Kings, bringing gifts to the baby Jesus and alerting King Herod to his birth.

Magi is the plural of magus, a member of a Persian priestly caste.

The Bible never names the Magi, nor does it say how many there were. Matthew’s Gospel lists three gifts—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—so it’s frequently assumed there were three Magi.

The Magi are often named as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. Other names include Larvandad, Hormisdad, and Gushnasaph.

The Eastern Church claims there were twelve Magi.

Western Christian art depicts two, three, four—and as many as eight Magi.

The gifts of the Magi are interpreted symbolically: gold representing Christ’s kingship; frankincense—the purest incense—his divinity; myrrh—a medicine—his humanity.

The Magi followed the Star of Bethlehem to find Jesus. Some believe this to have been a comet; others, a conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn.

In the 1270s, the Venetian traveler Marco Polo claimed to have visited the tombs of the Magi: In Persia is the city of Saba, from which the three Magi set out, and in this city they are buried, in three very large and beautiful monuments, side by side…. The bodies are still intact, with hair and beard remaining.

Cologne Cathedral, Germany, claims to preserve the bones of the Magi in the Shrine of the Three Kings.

THE CROSS

The cross is the way of the lost.

The cross is the staff of the lame.

The cross is the guide of the blind.

The cross is the strength of the weak.

The cross is the hope of the hopeless.

The cross is the freedom of slaves.

The cross is the water of seeds.

The cross is the cloth of the naked.

The cross is the peace of the church.

—St. Yared (505–571), Ethiopian composer (adapted)

THE FUNDAMENTALS

In 1895, at the Niagara Bible Conference, Ontario, Canada, a group of Christians listed what they defined as five fundamentals of the faith—from which the term fundamentalism arose. These fundamentals are often listed as

ART AND NATURE

The world is a work of art, set before all for contemplation, so that through it the wisdom of him who created it should be known.

—from Exegetical Works, On the Hexameron, Basil of Caesarea (St. Basil the Great, 330–379), Orthodox theologian

True painting is only the image of the perfection of God, a shadow of the pencil with which he paints, a melody, a striving after harmony.

—Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), Italian artist

Painting is saying Ta to God.

—Stanley Spencer (1891–1959), English painter, quoted in a letter from Spencer’s daughter Shirin to the Observer, February 7, 1988

TREES

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

—Trees, Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918), American poet, killed fighting in World War I

DEATH IS NOTHING AT ALL

Henry Scott-Holland (1847–1918), canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral, delivered a memorable sermon on death entitled The King of Terrors on Whitsunday 1910, while the body of Edward VII was lying in state at Westminster. It includes this passage, written as if by the departed loved one:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just