Notable Theologians “S...-”
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Girolamo Savonarola
b. 9-21-1452; Ferrara, Italy
d. 5-23-1498; execution in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence.

Savonarola, a Dominican priest, is remembered for calling for religious reform, anti-Renaissance preaching, book burning, and destruction of what he considered immoral art - the Bonfire of the Vanities.

Though he is considered as a precursor of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, he remained a Roman Catholic during his whole life.

• Fire in the City: Savonarola in Renaissance Florence

Albert Schweitzer
b. 1-14-1875; Alsace-Lorraine, Germany;
d. 9-4-1965, Lambaréné, Gabon, Africa

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was a theologian, philosopher, and widely acclaimed as an organist for interpreting the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Deciding “man can no longer live his life for himself alone,” he left his career in Europe to finance, build, and equip a hospital in Equatorial Africa.

He articulated a philosophy of ‘reverence for life’ to get beyond an improverished understanding of reality. Insisting nothing comes to pass without inwardness, he proclaimed a “faith in a new humanity, casting it as a torch into the darkness of our age.”

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.
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• more Albert Schweitzer posters

Joseph Smith
b. 12-23-1805; Sharon, Vermont
d. 6-27-1844; Carthage, IL

Joseph Smith, Jr. gathered a religious following known as the Latter Day Saints or Mormonism after announcing that an angel had shown him a set of golden plates describing a visit of Jesus to the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Joseph Smith, and his brother Hyrum, were attacked and killed by a mob while in jail in Carthage, IL, for advocating the destruction of local newspaper that claimed Smith practiced polygamy and was setting himself up as a theocratic king. At the time Smith was the mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois, and running for President of the United States.

• Six Presidents of the Mormons Art Print

Laurence Sterne
b. 11-24-1713; Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland
d. 3-18-1768; London (consumption)

Laurence Sterne, an Irish-born novelist and an Anglican clergyman, is best remembered for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.

Laurence Sterne quotes ~
• “Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us, the height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a cubit to a man's stature as to his happiness.”
• “Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.”
• “I take a simple view of life. It is keep your eyes open and get on with it.”
• “I am persuaded that every time a man smiles - but much more so when he laughs - it adds something to this fragment of life.”
• “I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me.” - opening line of Tristram Shandy
• “In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.”
• “Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.”
• “Men tire themselves in pursuit of rest.”
• “Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, - though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, - the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!”
• “Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.”
• “Sciences may be learned by rote, but wisdom not.”
• “There have been no sects in the Christian world, however absurd, which have not endeavoured to support their opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture.”
• “When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage - that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.”
• “Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.”

Abbot Suger
b. c. 1081; France
d. 1-15-1151

Suger, as the abbot or head of the monestary of Saint-Denis, was a statesman - historian involved in secular affairs which included the rebuilding of St. Denis in the new Gothic style of architecture.

• The Deeds of Louis the Fat, Abbot Suger

Emanuel Swedenborg
b. 1-29-1688; Stockholm, Sweden
d. 3-28-1772; London

Swedenborg was a Swedish philosopher, Christian mystic, and theologian who had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist.

Notable people who were influenced by Swedenborg include William Blake, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Gustav Jung, August Stindberg, Charles Baudelaire, Balzac, William Butler Yeats, John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman, William James, and Helen Keller.

Emanuel Swedenborg quotes ~
• “True charity is the desire to be useful to others with no thought of recompense.”
• “Love consists in desiring to give what is our own to another and feeling his delight as our own.”
• “He who is in evil, is also in the punishment of evil.”

• Collected Works of Emanuel Swedenborg