By Alex Fogleman
Today the Anglican Churches commemorates Thomas Bray (d. 1730), an English priest, missionary, and energetic bibliophile. He is best known for establishing the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (the SPCK), one of the oldest Christian publishing and charitable organizations in the world, established in 1698. Then, as now, the the SPCK was founded on the conviction that Christian knowledge is transformational, and that such knowledge should be available all over the world.
Bray was born in the mid-1600s, graduating from Oxford in 1678. Over the next two decades he served as curate, chaplain, vicar, and finally rector at various English parishes. In 1696, he published the work that would gain the attention of the bishop of London and propel an illustrious career. What could spark such interest? The first of a proposed multi-volume series of lectures on the catechism, cleverly entitled the Catechetical Lectures.
Partly because of the success of this work, he was appointed as the ecclesiastical commissary to Maryland. He accepted on one condition: that he could start a library.
Bray next published a series of pamphlets promoting the establishment of libraries in the American colonies. His optimism about the prospects of such missionary libraries is evident in the title of a 1697 pamphlet: “An essay towards promoting all necessary and useful knowledge, both divine and human, in all parts of His Majesty’s dominions, both at home and abroad.” He proposes some 63 volumes: 36 on theology, 11 on geography and travel, 6 on Church history, 4 on general history, 4 on the Latin classics, 1 on medicine, and, of course, 1 on gardening. I think that about covers it.
In 1697, he published Bibliotheca Parochialis, which included a larger list of books that he wanted in American pastor’s library. In the introduction to that work, he writes about the religious need for good books:
Belief in Divine Existence and Providence is the Foundation of all Religion—of Revealed as well as Natural. It is very necessary in such an Age as this, wherein the very Foundations of both are tore up, that every Pastor of a Flock should not only be fully persuaded in his own mind of these most important Truths, but should be also very able to give the most convincing Evidence to all others of the same, and in order to that end, that he should be supplied with the Learned Writings of the best Authors, both Philosophers and Divines, upon those points. (lightly edited)
No doubt his proposal, which lists hundreds of books, would have have been daunting for most clergyman in the New World. But his ambitions were nevertheless influential. He is credited with founding around 50 libraries in the Americas and abroad, and around 60 in England.
Amid this work, Bray got some pushback. Why spend so much on libraries abroad when English parishes are so impoverished? Undaunted, Bray published a similar pamphlet entitled Bibliotheca Catechetica, which had a more English audience. It was a more strictly catechetical. He provides two lists—a “catechetica major” and “catechetica minor.” The “major” list contains some 230 volumes, broken into the following subgroups:
~30 volumes on the Holy Scriptures, including history, geography, commentaries, and concordances
~20 volumes of confessional and catechetical documents
~130 volumes on the “Covenant of Grace, or the Baptismal Covenant,” which includes works on justification and the conditions for blessedness, each article of the Creed, and holy living and the Ten Commandments
~30 volumes on Prayer and the Sacraments (baptism, confirmation, and Lord’s Supper)
8 volumes of sermons
12 volumes of ministerial directories (including his own Bibliotheca Parochialis) and Lives of the Saints
The Bibliotheca Catechetica also has a slightly different target audience. Whereas earlier works more aimed more at the mission field, here he is mostly thinking about libraries for the poorest parishes in England. It is essentially a plea for wealthy Christians who have no children to divest their wealth for poor English clergy.
Here’s the pitch:
And this is the sole Occasion of the following Address to such as are piously disposed, especially if they be Rich, and without Children. Such Persons, Providence seems to have designed to be public Benefactors to Mankind; and there is none so Noble, so Compendious, so Immediate, and (in our present Circumstances) a Method of doing good so much wanted, as that of fixing Libraries of necessary Books for such of the Clergy, as cannot possibly Buy them.
Somewhat surprisingly, he considers their circumstances a matter of providence, yet not one without a public burden. These pious childless Christians have a noble task—and there is none so noble, so compendious, as buying books for poor priests. Eternal stakes are in the balance.
When I read this, I couldn’t help but think of the recent skirmish elicited by Pope Francis’ remark that the decision to have pets instead of children was “a form of selfishness.” Obviously these aren’t the same circumstances. But I imagined what Bray might say. If you don’t have kids, don’t buy a dog (it goes without saying one should never buy a cat). Buy books for a poor priest.
Many today, Christians included, will find Bray’s bookish optimism too naive. Do you really think a well-stocked library is going to save the world? Are we not more than “thinking things”? True, true, I’m sure.
Still, I can’t help but think we could use some of the same spirit that inspired Bray to provide institutional supports for catechesis. I especially wonder if there’s some deeper link between the needs of the poor and the need for catechesis. We’re inclined to think that what poor parishes really need are physical resources—clothing, food, medicine, housing, etc. Yes, of course. Far be it from me, etc.
But poor parishes still need books. And not just any books: they need catechetical libraries. Consider the Bibliotheca Catechetica a 300-year precedent for the IRCC, and maybe buy a priest a book today.