Daily prayers in the Kingdom Season with USPG: (25) 29 November 2023

Christ the King is at the centre of Charles Eamer Kempe’s window, ‘The Tree of the Church’ (1895), in the south transept in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

In this time between All Saints’ Day and Advent Sunday, we are in the Kingdom Season in the Calendar of the Church of England. This week began with the Feast of Christ the King and the Sunday next before Advent (26 November 2023).

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship designates today (29 November) as a ‘Day of Intercession and Thanksgiving for the Missionary Work of the Church.’

Later this afternoon, I plan to attend the funeral of a friend in Lichfield Cathedral. But, before today begins, I am taking some time for prayer and reflection early this morning.

Throughout this week, I am reflecting on Christ the King, as seen in churches and cathedrals I know or I have visited. My reflections are following this pattern:

1, A reflection on Christ the King;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The mediaeval carving of Christ in Glory in the canopy over the doorway at the West Door in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Christ the King: images in Lichfield:

Today’s funeral in Lichfield Cathedral brings to mind images of Christ the King in the cathedral and in some other churches in Lichfield.

The most magnificent window by Charles Eamer Kempe in Lichfield Cathedral is ‘The Tree of the Church’ (1895) in the south transept. This was the first important work of Kempe’s new draughtsman, John Lisle, introduced to Kempe as a 16-year-old student at the Lambeth School of Art.

Adrian Barlow in Espying Heaven describes the window as ‘one of the finest achievements not simply of the [Kempe] Studio but of nineteenth-century stained glass as a whole.’

This huge window was installed in 1890, replacing a window made in 1819 by Betton & Evans of Shrewsbury, most of which was recycled in the adjoining clerestory windows.

The central figure in the upper part of Kempe’s window is Christ in Glory surrounded by four angels – there is a total of eight angels in the window. The saints depicted include Saint Chad holding a model of Lichfield Cathedral, with Saint Columba and Saint Aidan on either side of him. Below Saint Chad is Saint Augustine of Canterbury, flanked by Saint Wilfred of Worcester and Saint Hugh of Lincoln. These and the other saints all have their identifying symbols and garb, and many heraldic symbols that typify Kempe’s approach to design.

High in the tracery are Kempe’s trademark wheatsheaves and the monogram of his master glazier, Alfred Tombleson (1852-1943).

The window was given by Bishop John Lonsdale’s nephew, Arthur Pemberton Heywood-Lonsdale (1835-1897), a son of the Revd Henry Gylby Lonsdale (1791-1851) Vicar of Saint Mary’s, Lichfield (1830-1851), who lived at Lyncroft House, now the Hedgehog Vintage Inn, Lichfield, and a nephew of John Lonsdale (1788-1867), Bishop of Lichfield (1843-1867).

Lichfield Cathedral is also known for the carved figures that fill the west front, with a remarkable number of ornate carved figures of kings, queens, apostles, evangelists, prophets, saints and angels. Almost all the 113 figures on the west front were replaced during the restoration of the cathedral by the Gothic revival architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878).

The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner dates the statues to 1876-1884, ‘replacing cement or stucco statues of 1820-2’. Most of the statues were produced nearby in the Bridgeman workshop on Quonian’s Lane.

The only exceptions are a likeness of Queen Victoria on the main façade, by her daughter the sculptor daughter Princess Louise, those around the central doorway by Mary Grant (1831-1908), and a mediaeval carving of Christ in Glory in the canopy over the doorway.

In the centre of the door stands Mary Grant’s sculpture of the Virgin Mary gently holding the Christ Child who has one arm raised in blessing. Next to them, on the viewer's left, stands Saint Mary Magdalene, holding ointment, with the ‘Other Mary’ to the right. The mediaeval carving of Christ in Glory remains in place in the canopy over the doorway.

The figure of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, with the two women who visit the grave at Easter morning placed behind them, and the mediaeval figure of Christ the King above, link the Incarnation and the Resurrection, Christmas and Easter, and the Advent hope of the Second Coming.

While he was living at Lyncroft House, Henry Lonsdale proposed rebuilding Saint Mary’s Church in the centre of Lichfield in a Victorian Gothic style. A church stood on this site on the south side of the Market Square since at least 1150.

The new church would serve as Henry Lonsdale’s memorial, and when he died at Lyncroft House on 31 January 1851 he was buried beneath the west tower of Saint Mary’s.

The bishop’s son, Canon John Gylby Lonsdale (1818-1907), later became Vicar of Saint Mary’s (1866-1878), and oversaw the completion of the building programme. He was the father of Sophia Lonsdale, one of Lichfield’s great Victorian social reformers. In the 1880s, she declared that Lichfield’s slums were worse than anything she had seen in London. She was active in demands for poor law reforms and her outspoken criticism eventually led to a slum clearance programme in Lichfield from the 1890s on.

The reredos and oak panelling in the chancel were the gift of Sir Richard Ashmole Cooper (1874-1946) and his family. Cooper also donated the site of the Friary to the City of Lichfield in 1921.

The upper panel of the reredos depicts Christ as the King of Kings, the lower panel in the represents the Christ Child in the care of his mother. Below the reredos, the three mosaic panels in the altar depict the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Presentation in the Temple.

Saint Mary’s is a Grade II* listed building, beside the Samuel Johnson Birthplace and Museum. In recent years, it has found new life as a library and arts centre, the Hub at Saint Mary’s. The refurbishment has retained the High Altar and reredos and has incorporated many of the church’s original features, including the High Altar and reredos, 19th century columns, choir stalls, pews, the organ and monuments, including one to Bishop Lonsdale, and the Dyott family memorials in the Dyott Chapel, and the stained-glass windows, including one illustrating today’s reflection.

The East Window in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, is filled with John Piper’s magnificent interpretation of ‘Christ in Majesty’ in stained glass, which was installed in 1984.

John Piper (1903-1992) is best-known for his Baptistry window in Coventry Cathedral. He worked closely with Patrick Reyntiens (1925-2021) in designing the stained glass windows in the new Coventry Cathedral as well as the East Window in Saint John’s, Lichfield.

John Piper’s work can also be seen in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Liverpool (see 26 November 2023), Chichester Cathedral, Hereford Cathedral, the chapels of Robinson College, Cambridge, and Magdalen College, Oxford, the Old Chapel in Ripon College Cuddesdon, and the chapel of Eton College. As a set designer, he designed many of the premiere productions of Benjamin Britten’s operas at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Royal Opera House, La Fenice and the Aldeburgh Festival. The Tate Collection holds 180 of his works.

John Piper’s East Window is the main attraction for many visitors to the chapel in Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield. It was his last major undertaking, and was executed by Patrick Reyntiens in 1984. Piper’s inspiration for the window came from his drawings and paintings of Romanesque sculptures in the Dordogne and Saintogne areas of western French during his many visits between 1955 and 1975.

The window shows Christ in Majesty, dressed in royal purple and flanked by angels within a mandorla surrounded by the symbols of the Four Evangelists: Matthew (angel), Mark (lion), Luke (ox) and John (eagle). They appear aged, perhaps because Piper had in mind the residents of Saint John’s Hospital who pray daily in this chapel.

The window provides a splash of deep, vibrant colour above the altar in the chapel. But it is also a window of great solemnity power. Look closely and you can also see behind Christ that the cross is in the shape of the Mercian cross, which also features on the coat-of-arms of the Diocese of Lichfield.

John Piper’s ‘Christ in Majesty’ … the East Window in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 21: 12-19 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 12 ‘But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. 13 This will give you an opportunity to testify. 14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; 15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 You will be hated by all because of my name. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your souls.’

Christ the King in the reredos in the former Saint Mary’s Church in the centre of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 29 November 2023):

Common Worship designates today (29 November) as a ‘Day of Intercession and Thanksgiving for the Missionary Work of the Church.’ In John 1, Andrew is listed as one of the disciples of John the Baptist. When Jesus walked by, Andrew followed him and then went and found his brother, Simon, saying, ‘We have found the Messiah!’ So Andrew is seen as the first missionary, and the vigil of his feast day is an appropriate time for intercession and thanksgiving for the missionary work of the Church.

Today we give thanks for all those who have worked to bring the Good News to areas where it was previously unknown, in both historic and more recent times, and we respond in faith to God’s call to the Church in our own day to spread the gospel and proclaim his kingdom in the world.

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Preventing Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (29 November 2023) invites us to pray in these words:

Let us pray for those researching the spread of infectious diseases. May their learning and discovery bear fruit for the good of all.

‘Crown him with many crowns’ … three crowns in a window in the former Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect:

Eternal Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:
keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of peace,
and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people;
that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works,
may by you be plenteously rewarded;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This Post Communion Prayer may be used as the Collect at Morning and Evening Prayer during this week.

Additional Collect

God the Father,
help us to hear the call of Christ the King
and to follow in his service,
whose kingdom has no end;
for he reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, one glory.

Collect on the Eve of Andrew:

Almighty God,
who gave such grace to your apostle Saint Andrew
that he readily obeyed the call of your Son Jesus Christ
and brought his brother with him:
call us by your holy word,
and give us grace to follow you without delay
and to tell the good news of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflection (Christ the King Church, Turner’s Cross, Cork)

Continued Tomorrow (a window in Saint Peter’s Church, Berkhamsted)

The reredos in the former Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield, was donated by Sir Richard Cooper (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Saint Andrew among the apostles on the west front of Lichfield Cathedral … today is designated a ‘Day of Intercession and Thanksgiving for the Missionary Work of the Church’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and parallels in the story of a sleeping philosopher in Crete

The caves of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I was writing last week about the seven cities or places that have given their names to nine of the Pauline letters in the New Testament: Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae and Thessaloniki. I have visited many of these place, including Rome, Corinth, Ephesus and Thessaloniki.

As I was writing about Ephesus last week (22 November), I was reminded how many times I had visited the classical ruins of Ephesus, the present day Turkish city of Selçuk, and some of the sites clustered together in the this area, including the Temple of Artemis, the Library of Celsius, the Basilica of Saint John, the Isa Bey Kami, which mut be unusual as a mosque for having a name that honours Jesus, the supposed ‘House of Mary’, and the Tomb of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.

I sometimes wondered how many of the tourists who make their way from Kusadasi to Ephesus know of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus or notice the site of the cave. Yet, their story was so popular in the early Church that it is referred to even in an early Irish monastic manuscript associated with the monks of Tallaght, they were celebrated as martyrs throughout the early church, they inspired great works of literature in mediaeval Europe, and they are even discussed in one chapter of the Quran.

Tradition says the Seven Sleepers (επτά κοιμώμενοι) were a group of young men in the third century who hid inside a cave outside Ephesus (Selçuk) ca 250 CE to escape persecution and who emerged many year later – if not hundreds of years later.

In the traditional telling of this story, the seven young men were trying to escape one of the many persecutions of Christians in the Roman Empire and they awoke some 300 years later.

The earliest known version of the story is told in the writings of the Jacob of Serugh (ca 450-521), a Syriac bishop who relied on an earlier, now lost Greek source. An outline of this story appears in the writings of Gregory of Tours (538-594) and in the History of the Lombards by Paul the Deacon (720-799). The best-known Western version of the story appears in Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend (1259-1266).

The story is told in up to a dozen mediaeval languages and found in over 200 manuscripts, from the ninth to the 13th centuries. These include 104 Latin manuscripts, 40 Greek, 33 Arabic, 17 Syriac, six Ethiopic, five Coptic, two Armenian, and one each in Old French, Old English and Middle Irish.

The ninth-century Irish calendar Félire Óengusso or Martyrology of Óengus, attributed to Saint Óengus of Tallaght, commemorates the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus on 7 August. The Roman Martyrology commemorates them on 27 July, the Byzantine calendar commemorates them on 4 August and 22 October, while Syriac Orthodox calendars give various dates: 21 April, 2 August, 13 August, 23 October and 24 October.

Early versions of the story do not agree on or even specify the number of sleepers. Many accounts say there were seven sleepers along with a dog named Viricanus.

The number of years the sleepers slept also varies in the accounts. The highest number, given by Gregory of Tours, was 373 years; some accounts say 372; Jacobus de Voragine calculated 196 years – from 252 CE to 448 CE; other accounts suggest 195 years. Islamic accounts, including the Qur'an, suggest a sleep of 309 years: these are presumably lunar years, making it 300 solar years.

The lists include at least seven different sets of names for the sleepers, mainly variations on the names Maximian, Martinian, Dionisius, John, Constantine, Malchus and Serapion, although Gregory of Tours names them as Achillides, Probatus, Stephanus, Sambatus, Quiriacus and Diogenus.

According to the story, during the persecutions by the Roman emperor Decius ca 250 CE, seven young men were arrested as Christians. They were given time to recant their faith, but they refused to bow to Roman idols. Instead, they chose to give their worldly goods to the poor and they retired to a mountain cave to pray, where they fell asleep. The Emperor then ordered the mouth of the cave to be sealed.

Decius died in 251, and as the years passed Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. At some later time in the reign of Theodosius II (408-450), there were heated discussions about the resurrection of the body and life after death. At that time, a farmer decided to open up the sealed cave to use it as a cattle pen. But when he opened the cave, he found the sleepers inside. They woke up, imagining that had slept for only a day, and sent one of their number to Ephesus with a saucer of silver coins to buy ‘pure food’ in the bazaar.

When he arrived in Ephesus, the former sleeper was astounded to find buildings with crosses on them. The people of Ephesus, for their part, were astounded to find a man trying to use old coins from the reign of Decius to buy food. The bishop was summoned to interview the sleepers. They told him their story, and died praising God.

A pilgrim account written between 518 and 531, De situ terrae sanctae, records the existence of a church dedicated to the sleepers in Ephesus. The story spread rapidly throughout the Christian world.

The story was popularised in the West in the late sixth century by Gregory of Tours in his De gloria martyrum (Glory of the Martyrs). He claimed to have heard the story from ‘a certain Syrian interpreter’ (Syro quidam interpretante), although this could refer to a Syriac speaker or even a Greek speaker from the Levant.

The story of the sleepers is also referred to in the Quran (18: 9-26). But the surah does not speculate about the number of the sleepers nor about the years they slept in the cave: ‘My Sustainer knows best how many they were.’

As the earliest versions of the legend spread from Ephesus, an early Christian catacomb there came to be associated with the story and attracted pilgrims. During the Crusades, bones from Ephesus, claimed as relics of the Seven Sleepers, were brought to France in a large stone coffin and displayed in the Abbey of Saint Victor in Marseille.

The Seven Sleepers were included in the Golden Legend, the most popular book of the later Middle Ages.

The grotto of the Seven Sleepers is on the slopes of Mount Pion (Mount Coelian) near Ephesus (present-day Selçuk), with ruins of the religious site built over it. It was excavated in 1926-1928, when several hundred graves dated to the fifth and sixth centuries were found, with inscriptions dedicated to the Seven Sleepers on the walls and in the graves.

The account remained popular, even after the Reformation. The poet John Donne asks in ‘The Good Morrow’:

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

Although their story lost popular currency at the Enlightenment, Edward Gibbon gives different accounts of the story in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Their story was revived with the coming of Romanticism. The Golden Legend may have been the source for retellings of the Seven Sleepers in Thomas de Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, in a poem by Goethe. It has many echoes in Washington Irving’s Rip van Winkle and in HG Wells’s The Sleeper Awakes.

Later, John Buchan refers to the Seven Sleepers in The Three Hostages, where Richard Hannay surmises that his wife Mary, who is a sound sleeper, is descended from one of the seven who has married one of the Foolish Virgins.

The Three Sleepers are characters in CS Lewis novel The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Several languages have idioms related to the Seven Sleepers to describe someone who is a late riser or oversleeps, including Hungarian, Norwegian, Swedish and Welsh, and there is a phrase in Irish, na seacht gcodlatáin, that refers to hibernating animals.

In Germany, Seven Sleepers’ Day (Siebenschläfertag) on 27 June recalls the legend of the Seven Sleepers and is part of traditional weather lore, with the notion that the weather that day are supposed predicts the weather for the next seven weeks.

Epimenides, the sleeping philosopher in a cave in Crete, gives his name to a street in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

There are earlier stories and legends in classical literature that provide similar myths if not the origin for the story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. Epimenides of Knossos, or Epimenides of Crete (Ἐπιμενίδης) was a Greek philosopher-poet from Knossos or Phaistos who lived in the seventh or sixth centuries BCE. While Epimenides was tending his father’s sheep, it is said, he fell asleep in a cave in Crete that was sacred to Zeus, and awoke after 57 years with the gift of prophecy.

Aristotle and Plutarch say Epimenides purified Athens after the pollution brought by the Alcmaeonidae, a powerful noble family who negotiated an alliance with the Persians during the Persian Wars. Pericles and Alcibiades also belonged to the Alcmaeonidae, and during the Peloponnesian War the Spartans referred to the family’s curse in an attempt to discredit Pericles.

It is said that the expertise Epimenides showed in sacrifices and the reform of funeral practices were of great help to Solon in reforming the Athenian state. But the only reward he would accept was a branch of the sacred olive, and the promise of perpetual friendship between Athens and Knossos. He is also said to have prophesied at Sparta on military matters.

He died in Crete at an advanced age, and legends say he lived until he was almost 300 years old – another parallel with the story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.

Several prose and poetic works have been attributed to Epimenides. But all of his works are now lost, and we only know of them through quotations by other authors. In a fragment of one of his poems, citied in the Hymn to Zeus of Callimachus, Minos of Knossos addresses Zeus:

Τύμβον ἐτεκτήναντο σέθεν, κύδιστε μέγιστε,
Κρῆτες, ἀεὶ ψευδεῖς, κακὰ θηρία, γαστέρες ἀργαί.
Ἀλλὰ σὺ γ᾽ οὐ θνῇσκεις, ἕστηκας γὰρ ζοὸς αίεί,
Ἐν γὰρ σοὶ ζῶμεν καὶ κινύμεθ᾽ ἠδὲ καὶ ἐσμέν.

They fashioned a tomb for you, holy and high one,
Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies.
But you are not dead: you live and abide forever,
For in you we live and move and have our being.

It is yet another parallel with the story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.

Epimenides is also remembered today because he is quoted twice in the New Testament.

While speaking to a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in front of the Areopagus in Athens (see Acts 17: 22-34), the Apostle Paul quotes from Epimenides’ Cretica: ‘For “In him we live and move and have our being”.’

In this address in Athens, Saint Paul is citing the fourth line in the Hymn to Zeus of Callimachus, with its reference to one of ‘your own poets’ (Acts 17: 28). Saint Paul goes on to quote from Aratus’ Phaenomena: ‘For we too are his offspring’ (see verse 28).

When Saint Paul spoke to Saint Titus concerning his mission in Crete, he committed a logical fallacy by quoting Epimenides: ‘It was one of them, their very own prophet, who said, “Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.” That testimony is true’ (Titus 1: 12-13a).

The ‘lie’ of the Cretans is that Zeus was mortal, for Epimenides believed that Zeus is dead. The logical inconsistency of a Cretan asserting all Cretans are always liars may not have occurred to Epimenides, nor to Callimachus, who both used the phrase to emphasise their point, without irony.

However, Saint Paul must have thought long about the idea of a dead god and the dead god’s tomb as he sought to preach the Resurrection in Crete.

Epimenides is first identified as the ‘prophet’ in Titus 1: 12 by Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 1, 14). Clement mentions that ‘some say’ Epimenes should be counted among the seven wisest philosophers. But he does not indicate that the concept of logical paradox is an issue.

Saint John Chrysostom (Homily 3 on Titus) gives an alternative fragment:

For even a tomb, King, of you
They made, who never died, but ever shall be.

However, it is not clear when Epimenides became associated with the Epimenides paradox, a variation of the liar paradox. Saint Augustine restates the liar paradox in Against the Academicians (III.13.29), but does so without mentioning Epimenides.

In the Middle Ages, many forms of the liar paradox were studied under the heading of insolubilia, but they were not associated with Epimenides.

Paradoxically, I have to say I have found most if not all Cretans to be truthful and honest.

Many years ago, back in the 1980s, as I entrusted someone on the beach in Rethymnon with my wallet and valuables as I went for a swim, I was advised that it was tourists and foreigners I needed to be wary of.

Epimenides also gives his name to a street in Iraklion in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)