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Christians have talked about God’s creation as an inspiration and a responsibility for 2,000 years. All the books, people, and movements won’t fit in this timeline, but here are some highlights from this issue and (at the bottom) some world events for context.

natural philosophers and scientists  mystics and poets  monastics and theologians  famous publications  communal societies  environmental activists and stewards

Selected people, writings, and movements

—Origen (c. 184–254)

—Antony (c. 251–356)

—Pachomius (c. 292–348)

—Gregory of Nazianzus (329–390)

—Basil of Caesarea (c. 330–379)

—Augustine (354–430)

—Rule of Saint Benedict (sixth century)

—John Philoponus (490–570)

—Pseudo-Dionysius (before 532)

—John of Damascus (c. 675–749)

—The Tale of Mac Datho’s Pig (c. 800)

—Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)

—Hugh of St. Victor (1096–1141)

—Cistercian Order established, 1098

—Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)

—Francis of Assisi (1181–1226)

—Bonaventure (1221–1274)

—Bonaventure, The Mind’s Journey into God (1259)

—Meister Eckhart (c. 1260– c. 1328)

—Gregory Palamas (1296–1357)

—Johannes Tauler (1300–1361)

—Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543)

—John Calvin (1509–1564)

—Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564)

—Nicolaus Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543)

—Johannes Kepler (1571–1630)

—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)

—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)

—George Herbert (1593–1633)

—George Herbert,The Temple (1633)

—Robert Boyle (1627–1691)

—Isaac Newton (1642–1727)

—Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758)

—Charles Wesley (1707–1788) 

—Seraphim of Sarov (1754–1833)

—John Wesley, A Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation: or A Compendium of Natural Philosophy (1763)

—Sojourner Truth (c. 1797–1883)

—Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) 

—John Muir (1838–1914)

—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)

—Eberhard Arnold (1883–1935) 

—Emmy Arnold (1884–1980) 

—Thomas Merton (1915–1968) 

—Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918) 

—Arnolds establish community in Sannerz, Germany, that becomes known as Bruderhof, 1920 

—Alexander Schmemann (1921–1983)

—Bruderhof moves to US, 1954

—Wendell Berry (b. 1934) 

—Annie Dillard (b. 1945)

—A Rocha founded, 1983

—Pope Francis, Laudato Si (2015)

 

Selected world events

—Aristotle (384–322 BC)

—Mount Vesuvius erupts, 79

—Galen (c. 129–c. 216) 

—Fall of Rome, 476

—“Little Ice Age” begins, c. 1300 

—Great Famine in Europe, 1315–1317 

—Black Death (bubonic plague) in Europe, 1340s–1360s 

—Fall of Constantinople, 1453

—Scientific Revolution begins, mid-1500s 

—Izaac Walton, The Compleat Angler (1653) 

—John Evelyn, Sylva (1664)

—Industrial Revolution begins, 1760s 

—Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)

—Modern conservation movement begins, mid 1800s

—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) 

—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

—Thoreau, Walden (1854)

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This article is from Christian History magazine #119 The Wonder of Creation. Read it in context here!

By the editor

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