Notable Theologians “M...-N...-O...-”
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Page from the Mishneh Torah systematic code of Jewish law written by Maimonides, in 1180, Giclee Print

Maimonides
b. 3-30-1135; Cordoba, Spain
d. 12-13-1204; Egypt

Moses Maimonides, a rabbi and philosopher, is also considered one of the greatest physicians of his time.

Maimonides quotes ~
• “Anticipate charity by preventing poverty.”
• “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
• “Teach thy tongue to say ‘I do not know,’ and thou shalt progress.”

• book - Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds

Cotton Mather, Giclee Printt

Cotton Mather
b. 2-12-1663; Boston, MA
d. 2-13-1728

Puritan minister Cotton Mather was the son of Increase Mather, also a minister.

Cotton Mather quotes ~
• “The Word of God must be Read and Heard with Diligence that so you may arrive to the Knowledge that is needful for you.”
• “Families are the Nurseries of all Societies; and the First combinations of mankind.”
• “What Must I Do to Be Saved? It is impossible to ask a more weighty Question! It is deplorable that we hear it asked with no more Frequency, with nor more Agony.”

• book - The Life and Times of Cotton Mather

Philipp Melanchthon, Giclee Print, Lucas Cranach Elder

Philipp Melanchthon, née Schwartzerd
b. 2-16-1497; Bretten, near Karlsruhe, Germany
d. 4-19-1560

Philipp Melanchthon was associated with Martin Luther in the Lutheran Reformation.

Melanchthon quote ~
• “In essentials, unity; in differences, liberty; in all things, charity.”

• book - Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther

Thomas Merton
b. 1-31-1915; Prades, France
d. 12-10-1968; Bangkok, Thailand

Poet, teacher, social activist and student of comparative religion Thomas Merton wrote more than 70 books, mostly on spirituality, as well as scores of essays and reviews. As a Trappist monk he became well known for his dialogues with other faiths and his non-violent stand during the race riots and Vietnam War of the 1960s.

As Merton was leaving the stage after delivering a speech at a peace conference in Bangkok his parting remark was “Now I am going to disappear.” A short time later he died from touching a poorly grounded electric fan while stepping out of his bath.

Thomas Merton quotes ~
• “What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.”
• “The least of the work of learning is done in the classroom.”
• “The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.”
• “We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness.”
• “Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments.”
• “If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.”
• “October is a fine and dangerous season in America, a wonderful time to begin anything at all. You go to college, and every course in the catalogue looks wonderful.”
• “Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.”
• “Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.”
• “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.”
• “A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.”
• “In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for “finding himself.” If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence.”
• “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

• The Seven Storey Mountain

Sir Thomas More
b. 2-7-1478; London, England
d. 7-6-1535; Tower Hill, London (beheaded)

As a Catholic Thomas More was an opponent of the Protestant Reformation embodied by Martin Luther, William Tyndale and Henry VIII. His martyrdom is recognized with sainthood.

More's most well-known and controversial work, Utopia, a novel in Latin, was completed and published in 1516. It is considered a “shrewd critique of economic and social exploitation in pre-modern Europe and that More was one of the key intellectual figures in the early development of socialist ideas.”

FYI - More was the great uncle of John Donne's mother, Elizabeth Heywood.

• A Man for All Seasons (movie 1966)

John Henry Newman
b. 2-21-1801; London, England
d. 8-11-1890

John Henry Newman was an influential Anglican vicar in 1843 when he converted to Roman Catholicism from the Church of England, stunning Victorian England. He wrote his autobiography, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (A Defense of One's Life), in response of the attacks. Newman was eventually named a cardinal, and proclaimed ‘Venerable’ in 1991.

Kwame Nkrumah
b. 9-21-1909; Nkroful, Gold Coast
d. 2-27-1972; Bucharest, Romania (skin cancer)

Kwame Nkrumah lead the Gold Coast, the predecessor state of Ghana, and became both the first president and first prime minister of Ghana.

A theologian and teacher, Nkrumah was commitment to Pan-Africanism and founded the Organization of African Unity. He was inspired by the black intellectuals Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, and George Padmore.

In 2000 the listeners of the BBC World Service voted Nkrumah Africa's man of the millennium.

Kwame Nkrumah quote ~
• “We face neither East nor West; We face forward.”

Origen of Alexandria, Giclee Print

Origin of Alexandria
c. 185-254 AD

Origin, a Christian writer and teacher, was one of the Greek Fathers of the Church. He was the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, wrote commentary on all the books of the Bible, was expelled from Alexandria, and died in Caesarea Maritima (a city built by Herod on the Mediterranean coast of what in now of Israel) after being tortured. In the 6th century his views - the hierarchical Trinity, temporality of matter, and preexistence of souls - were declared anathema (banished).

• book - Origin of Alexandria's Interpretation of the Teacher's Function in the Early Christian Hierarchy and Community