In the long and decorated history of Christianity, there are a few figures that are especially well remembered: Augustine, Calvin, Wesley, Luther, Cranmer, Chrysostom, etc.  These are the names on the “A-tier” of history.   After all, they’re founding figures of whole denominations.  Calvin’s systematic theology holds up Reformed thinking.  Luther’s boldness brought about the advent of Protestantism.  Chrysostom’s liturgy is performed every Sunday in Eastern Orthodox churches.  If you’re from the tradition that these men helped create, there’s no doubt that you’re familiar with their works.

If you dip into the B-tier, the names still hold power, but they certainly haven’t achieved that pop recognition that the A-tier people have.  You have people like Cyril of Alexandria, Antony of Egypt, Origen of Alexandria, Julian of Norwich, and others like them.  Were they major figures in founding a denomination?  No, but they’re influential enough that someone in your congregation has heard of at least one of them.  They may even get their name dropped in a sermon or two.  One more tier down, we have names like Melancthon, Zwingli, and Bucer.  They tend to be viewed as supporting characters in other people’s stories, but specialists and scholars will be generally familiar with their work.  After all, how could they properly tell the full story of Luther without Melancthon or Calvin without Zwingli?  

We could keep going for ages, dipping into increasingly obscure people in the grand tier-system of historical clout, but I have to wonder: how many tiers down is someone like Engelhard of Langheim?

There are no English copies of his works.  He has no Wikipedia page.  He’s from that period of history after Augustine and before Luther that most Protestants treat as a no man’s land (1200 AD).  There’s a single book about him in English, and it’s pretty academic (Cistercian Stories for Nuns and Monks: The Sacramental Imagination of Engelhard of Langheim by Martha Newman).   Nevertheless, I rejoice in this little taste of Engelhard and I hope others will too, because he cared as little about the tier system of history as it seems to have cared about him, and he reminds us Christians to leave no story untold.

Engelhard was a Cistercian monk in what we now know as Germany.  His resume isn’t all that impressive.  He didn’t travel to Rome or do a lecture circuit.  His education was mediocre and based on a model that was quickly losing its legitimacy (his education was in terms of morality and grammar, rather the dialectical and philosophical focus that defined the emerging scholastic movement).  He did what most monks do and lived almost his entire life on the patch of land that was his monastery.  He was almost an abbot (head monk) of a monastery at one point, but the process that saw him get elected seems to have been deemed illegitimate by the Cistercian authorities, so he was deposed after a relatively short time at the helm.  Engelhard wasn’t the sort of person that makes the A-tier of Christian history books, but he was a storyteller.  In an era where churches were plunging into theory and beefing up their theological articulations, Engelhard kept telling stories about people that reflected God’s grace in the world.  People today tend to call his stories and those like them exempla (examples), but Engelhard called them historia (histories) or miracula (miracles).  Personally, I like miracula.  Why shouldn’t a story about God at work be something more than just an example?  Why can’t it be a miracle?

Engelhard’s miracula are incredibly rustic.  He uses the first person to frame them, and when he’s picked up a story from someone else, he’s sure to say so.  It’s almost as though you’re in the room with him, listening as he tells you the latest tales that have trickled down to him through letters and monastic conferences.  He clearly grew up in an oral culture and is dragging it with him into the written world.  He also doesn’t waste time telling stories that have already been told by others.  When someone asked him about his take on a particularly well-covered story, he replied:

I do not write it lest I put my hand into another’s field.  I recount stories that are untouched by others, for there are many; may they be useful!

EB  c. 8, fol. 53r. as cited in Newman, Cistercian Stories, 56. 

When asked to write the story of a particularly famous Cistercian (Bernard of Clairvaux), he showed no interest and protested that Bernard’s story was “already known in writing throughout the world.” (EB c. 28, fol. 70v. as cited in Newman, Cistercian Stories, 56). Old tales would not do for Engelhard.  He wanted to tell stories that had yet to be told, rather than dip into the A-tier of history to rehash what had already been done. God doesn’t just work through big shots; he’s working today in people that many of us have yet to hear of.

Here’s one of Engelhard’s miracula:

A necromancer from Spain tried to speak to a fellow necromancer that had died.  He used an elaborate ritual that he read directly from a book, careful not to speak a word that wasn’t printed on the page.  Sure enough, his friend rose, wearing a cloak that was covered in inky words.  Each of those words were the sins that he committed in life, and underneath the cloak was a fire, continually burning his flesh, and there’s nothing anyone can do to save him from his fate.  A little bit of the fire leaps out of the cloak and hits the hand of the living necromancer.  Terrified, the man asks his friend how he can avoid this fate.  The dead man responds that people from every walk of life were down in Hell, but there seemed to be less Cistercian monks than any other group.  The specter disappeared and the lone necromancer ran to a monastery to became a Cistercian.  

paraphrased from Newman, Cistercian Stories for Nuns and Monks, 57.

Engelhard says he heard this story from an abbot who heard it from the necromancer himself.  You might wonder why on Earth I chose to share a story that’s so dark in tone.  Why not share something chipper?  Who wants to hear weird stuff about necromancers and Hell?  Fair point, but I love how he weaves a critique of written culture into the story. Note how the the written word is inherently tied to death.  To summon a dead friend, you look in a book.  When the dead man arises, he’s bound by the words that defined him in life. It’s explicitly noted that nothing can change his fate. This is a man whose story has been told.  The living man is forced to flee the death of necromancy to find the living spirituality of the Cistercians, and in doing so, he abandons the static world of his books and becomes a storyteller himself.  If taken too simplistically, this merely suggests that writing is bad, which would make for a bizarre theme since Engelhard wrote the thing down himself.  No, I think Engelhard is critiquing the way we write more than the writing itself.  All too often, the written word is impersonal, cold, and concerned with endless retreads of what is considered acceptable. It is the stuff of necromancers, dredging up old specters and refusing to reflect life as we know it. It doesn’t have to be like this. When we write, we can lower our guards. We can drop our facade of impartiality to reveal that we’re just people reaching out to other people. Similarly, we aren’t obligated to dredge up the A-listers if we want credibility.  God works everywhere.  We can tell the stories that we’ve  heard in our own lives.  They’re just as good as those that have already been written down for ages.

I still remember coming across a history book written by one of the congregations I served that was very much in the spirit of Engelhard.  It had been written out on a typewriter and stapled together in days long passed, but it was just a treat to read.  The writers didn’t fall into that trap that so many do when they write out congregational history, focusing on names, dates, and numbers.  No, it was more of a series of miracula than anything else.  There was a tale about someone in the congregation whose prayers were so powerful, they ended a drought by praying for rain and thus saved the crops of the local farmers.  There was a tale about a preacher that gave sermons that were so short that he got a visit from a bishop.  “I tell them everything that I know!” the poor preacher protested.  The bishop responded, “Then we will have to give you more to say,” and gave him a ton of books and a plan to read them all.  By the time he was done with his readings, he became one of the best preachers they’d ever had.  Every story just oozed character.  Nobody could read that booklet without being reminded that God’s work is not far away, locked up in history’s A-tier.  It’s right here. People in the same communities that we occupy have done marvelous things, and we can too.  So why not take a moment today and jot down a miracula that deserves to be remembered?  Remind yourself and someone else of the God that is in our midst today.  As Engelhard would say, “there are many such stories; may they be useful.”