In Wessex England, sometime in the late seventh century, a group of boys gathered on the grass after church. While the rest of the villagers enjoyed their church’s fellowship meal, the boys were being led by one young man in his favorite sport – throwing boulders at one another.
The young man would be known to history by the name he would later adopt: Boniface. As this young man grew, he quickly distinguished himself as the roughest, toughest boy in the village.
Not only did Boniface excel in the virtues of strength, courage and manliness, but he also had a reputation for his aptitude in academics. This may be one of the reasons why, from an early age, he was attracted to the monastic way of life. In those days, the priests were the custodians of knowledge and it was in the monasteries that the great libraries were housed.
The Restless Monk
Still a young man, Boniface entered the monastic life of the Benedictines, where he remained until he was around forty years old, caring for the sick, ministering to the poor and discipling younger monks. He also gained a reputation through his scholastic endeavors, teaching theology and compiling the first Latin grammar ever to be written. Being sensitive to beauty and the arts, he also found time to write poetry.
Because of his devotion to the saints, his reputation in piety and his unequalled intellect, everyone assumed that Boniface would eventually become a bishop. However, Boniface was restless and had other plans. He is quoted as saying:
I yearn to go forth where the dangers are, not because I particular enjoy those dangers, but because I know it is there that the battle rages for the soul of men and nations. God set me before the front lines. Let me not end my days in comfort and complacency.
The restless monk began studying the missionary endeavors taking place throughout the world. He was particularly attracted to the most difficult mission fields, such as the land we now call Germany, where the Teutonic and Saxons tribes were so savage that few missionaries had dared to venture there, while those who did met with extremely limited success. One of the missionaries who had attempted to reach these lands had described them being fields of iron where a man would broken trying to plough them. That was all the prompting Boniface needed. Rejecting the opportunity to become a bishop and live a life of ease, Boniface sailed to the continent and into danger.
Before he could get started, Boniface needed to go to Rome to give the Pope an opportunity to examine him. Impressed with the middle-aged man, Pope Gregory II blessed Boniface in 719 and sent him forward.
Once among the wild Germanic tribes, Boniface encountered a sparse population of believers who had been reached by the efforts of previous missionaries. These Christians were scattered, discouraged and disorganized. Whenever Boniface entered a new area, his first task would be to bring these scattered Christians together, organize them and form missionary cells. When he later left the region, the missionary cells he had begun would continue the work of reaching the lost.
The fierce Norsemen who had settled along the Danish and German coast lived in constant fear of their pagan gods. To pacify the powers of the forest, they engaged in human mutilation, vestal sacrifices, and other brutal practices.
The priests who made their living worshiping these false gods were venomously opposed to the gospel. Boniface knew that every time he opened his mouth to tell people about Jesus he was taking his life in his hands. Yet Boniface unflinchingly proclaimed the truth regardless of consequences. This courageous attitude was demonstrated in the famous the Oak of Thor incident in 723.
The Oak of Thor
Near the present-day town of Fritzlar in northern Hesse (west-central Germany), Boniface had been ministering to the pagans with little success. Being a stronghold for the worship of the Norse god Thor (known among the West Germanic tribes as Donar), Boniface was convinced that reaching this area with the gospel would pave the way for the entire region to follow.
Outside the town stood Mount Gudenberg. At the top of this mountain was a sacred grove which marked the main point of veneration in the Thor cult. In the centre of the grove stood a mighty oak tree, known as the Oak of Thor. Pilgrims would walk for many miles in order to stand before this sacred tree and worship the god of thunder.
As Boniface was staying with the Hessians, it happened that a great ceremony was scheduled to take place in the sacred grove. Boniface spread word that during the ceremony he would be challenging Thor.
When the evening for the ceremony arrived, villagers came from miles around, some to worship Thor, other to see what this monk was up to. As Boniface marched with the procession up to the sacred grove, no one noticed the axe hidden in the folds of his priestly garments.
No sooner had the worshipers formed a circle around the sacred tree than Boniface stood up. Interrupting the chanting of the druid priest, he defiantly marched over to the holy tree and pulled out his axe.
In stunned silence, the worshipers looked on as Boniface began doing the unthinkable: he began hacking at Thor’s sacred tree!
“Stop!” yelled one of the chiefs. “Thor will strike you dead if you do that!” But Boniface, paying no attention, continued to cut.
The crowd, now stricken dumb with horror, expected Thor to intervene at any moment to strike the insolent Christian to the ground. But the fierce red-haired god, known for riding through the sky with a gigantic hammer, did not arrive.
Boniface continued to hack.
As he worked, sweat pouring down the rippling muscles of the middle-aged man, Boniface no doubt thought of Elijah on Mount Carmel. Boniface called upon Thor to strike him with his hammer. But Thor did not arrive. He did not even wield the lightning and thunderbolts with which he was traditionally associated.
Suddenly a great wind arose and the already weakened oak blew to the ground. But Boniface was still standing. Thor had not defended his property.
Realizing that their gods were powerless to protect their own sacred places, the crowd was now ready to listen to Boniface’s message.
In the days that followed, all the villagers were baptized and helped Boniface to build a chapel from the wood of the toppled tree.
A Once and For All Sacrifice
As the pilgrims who had come to watch the ceremony returned to their own villages, they not only took with them the story of what had happened, but they also took with them the good news of Jesus Christ. They told how a monk named Boniface had told them of a God of love who was stronger than the gods of the forest. As word spread, entire villages of Hessians converted en masse. This was a gradual process in those days when news could only travel as fast as a person. Thus, only three evenings after the incident, a young boy rushed into Boniface’s camp from a neighboring village with a report that his 15-year old sister was about to be offered as a vestal sacrifice to the gods of the forest.
Boniface and a small band of disciples wasted no time. They quickly followed the boy back to the site where the terrible event was about to take place. Not a moment too early, they entered the grove just in time to see the witch doctor raising his stone knife.
As the blade began its downwards descent towards the breasts of the young maiden, Boniface hurled himself forward, simultaneously knocking over the priest and receiving on himself the blow of the knife. Providentially, the knife embedded itself in a small wooden cross that Boniface was wearing, piercing it in two but preserving the missionary’s life.
Even as the stunned witch doctor shrieked at the monk, Boniface told of an ultimate sacrifice that had already been offered. Using the druid’s knife to cut down fur boughs, Boniface preached to the crowd about Christ’s finished work on the cross of Cavalry, explaining that because of this there was no longer any need for additional sacrifices. He urged the onlookers to take the branches home as a memorial of the provision achieved by Christ. Legend has it that this occurred on the first Sunday in Advent and that this was the origin of Advent wreaths.
Death
At the age of 73, Boniface decided to sail down the Rhine and preach to the pagan tribes in Fresia (modern day Holland), where he had begun his work many years earlier. While visiting a former mission station, a local warlord slaughtered Boniface and all his companions, thinking they were carrying gold. The distressed villagers found him laying face down in the snow with his head cudgeled.
For many years Boniface had been prepared for his death. “I know I shall die,” he once said, “and I shall die on time. Therefore, I must make the most of the moments between here and there. And the way I can make most of these moments is to live them in terms of that which I know to be absolutely true and unchanging. I will not be swayed from this conviction though my moments be short, though my moments be long.”
Lesson from the Life of Boniface
Boniface was not without his faults. Believing that only a strong centralized church could triumph over the warring pagan tribes, he refused to work alongside Celtic missionaries who would not acknowledge the authority of the Pope and who allowed their clergy to marry. Yet despite his problems there are a number of lessons we can draw from Boniface’s amazing life. In particular, the following four aspects stand out.
First, evangelism for Boniface was not about simply getting someone to pray the sinner’s prayer, securing them a place in heaven and then moving on to the next person. Like the apostle Paul, Boniface realized that evangelism needed to also include discipleship. Thus, wherever Boniface brought the gospel, he also established churches and equipped the saints to continue in the faith. Like the apostle Paul, he would always endeavor to return and visit these churches to see how they were doing and to encourage them to persevere in the faith.
The second lesson we learn from Boniface is the importance of having a generational focus. He believed that the success of his mission should be judged in terms of generations and centuries, not merely the fruit produced during one lifetime. Thus, he put mechanisms in place to assist the progress of the gospel after he was gone. This included planting schools to increase literacy so that the young could be more easily discipled and become strong in the Word.
Third, Boniface helps us to appreciate that the triumph of the gospel results, not simply in saved individuals, but in the total transformation of culture. He worked to bring civilization to the barbaric tribes, introducing them to the arts, to music, to poetry and to learning. He established libraries and put men to work copying manuscripts so that the next generation would have access, not only to the Bible, but to other great works of literature. The gospel was not only about transformed lives, but a transformed culture.
The fourth lesson that Boniface teaches us is the importance of spiritual warfare. When Boniface went into action, there was no doubt that he was waging war against principalities and powers in high places. In the raw paganism of the Germanic tribes, the power of the occult was very strong, but Boniface knew that the power of Christ was stronger. Not only was Boniface unafraid to challenge these powers head-on, knowing that Christ had defeated them through His death and resurrection, but he excitedly rushed towards the battle, always eager for a chance to demonstrate the power of Christ. He said:
Let us stand fast in what is right and prepare our souls for trial. Let us neither be dogs that do not bark nor silent onlookers, nor paid servants who run away before the wolf. Instead, where the battle rages, let us find ourselves. Run towards the roar of the lion! Run towards the roar of battle! That is where Christ’s most glorious victories shall be won.
The above article first appeared in Christian Voice’s May 2010 newsletter. Each month our newsletter has a biography of a different Christian hero, only interrupted occasionally to tell the story of a bad guy. Those who join Christian voice receive our monthly newsletter. Instructions on how to join are given below:
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