From the Onion: Modern-Day Martin Luther Nails 95 Comment Cards To IHOP Door
Speaking of Martin Luther (but not of pancakes), The Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts is a great place to bone up on Luther and all 95 of his theses.
Calvinist theologian Petrus de Witte shows us that even the greatest minds of religious scholarship aren't above the occasional pun (from Catechizing Upon The Heidelberg Catechism , 1664).
Question 98. What think you then of the name of Jesuites, e Societate Iesu, that is of the Society of Jesus?
Answ. It is a great presumptuous pride of those people. For the Lord Christ alone is our Saviour; and as he will not give his glory to another; so also can that name not be taken up of any among us without Blasphemy and Sacriledge. Yet nevertheless they will be Socii, or fellows of Jesus, or friends to Jesus. . . Or perhaps they are e Societate Iesu, as one of the Murderers upon the Cross. Otherwise true Esavites from the profane Esau, Hebr. 12. 16. Or Jesu-wides, that is wide from Jesus. Non cum Iesu itis, qui itis cum Iesuitis; said Thomas Tuke.
Well that wasn't very nice. The first pun here isn't very impressive. "Jesuit" sounds kind of like "Jesu-wide," get it? The second one, though, uses Latin to give itself a patina of class. Non cum Iesu itis, qui itis cum Iesuitis translates as "you do not go with Jesus, you who go with the Jesuits." When you divide "Iesuitis" into two words like that, it conveniently means "you go with Jesus," an action which is impossible with those darn Jesuits, at least according to Messers de Witte and Tuke.
Was there a response in this 17th century war of words? That kind of question is why we have the Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation here at Alexander Street Press.
A diagram of the appearance of Andrean crosses (i.e., X-shaped, as the one on which St. Andrew was martyred) that appeared in England on April 23, 1591.
From De Signis Sanctissimae Crucis by Alfonso Chacon, 1591, found in the Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation. This text is particularly interesting, a lively account of visions of the cross seen all over the world, from Spain to India. The first and most famous of these is the one seen by the Roman emperor Constantine just before his battle with the usurper Maxentius, a turning point in the history of Christianity. Constantine had the cross put on the shields of his soldiers, and look what happened to Maxentius:
Constantinus copias militares Maxentii tyranni delevit; & ipse hostis, velut lapis infelix, in profundum Tiberis gurgitem praeceps e ponte Miluio decidit, nusquam amplius ab ullo hominum repertus.
Constantine destroyed the military forces of the tyrant Maxentius, and he, like an unlucky stone, fell headfirst from the Milvian bridge into the depths of the Tiber, never seen again by any man.
