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CTbc Minivers U^ of Cbicatjo
Hibrcmes
LIGHTFOOT OF
DURHAM
LONDON
Cambridge University Press
FETTER LANE
NEW YORK TORONTO
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS
Macmillan
TOKYO
Maruzen Company Ltd
All rights reserved
Phot. Russell
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT IN 1879
LIGHTFOOT OF
DURHAM
Memories and Appreciations
Collected and Edited
by
GEORGE R. EDEN, D.D.
M
Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge
formerly Bishop of Wakefield
and
F. C. MACDONALD, M.A., O.B.E.
Honorary Canon of Durham Cathedral
Rector of Ptirleigb
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1933
First edition, September 1932
Reprinted December 1932
February
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
1037999
IN PIAM MEMORIAM
PATRIS IN DEO
HONORATISSIMI AMANTISSIMI DESIDERATISSIMI
SCHEDULAS HAS QUALESCUNQUE
ANNOS POST QUADRAGINTA
FILII QUOS VOCITABAT DOMUS SUAE
IMPAR TRIBUTUM
DD
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT S BOOKPLATE
This shews the Bishop's own coat of arms impaled^
with those of the See, and the Mitre set in a Coronet,
indicating the Palatinate dignity of Durham.
Though the Bookplate is not the Episcopal seal its
shape recalls the following extract from Fuller's Church
History (iv. 103) : 'Dunelmia sola, judicat ense et stola. 5
"The Bishop whereof was a Palatine, or Secular Prince,
and his seal in form resembleth Royalty in the roundness
thereof and is not oval, the badge of plain Episcopacy."
CONTENTS
Preface . . . . . . . page ix
Introduction . . . . . . xiii
Chapter
I. Early Days, Cambridge, and St Paul's . r
II. Consecration as Bishop . . . . 16
AT AUCKLAND CASTLE . 21
III. Sons of the House 22
IV. A Stranger's Impressions . . . 34
V. Personal Recollections .... 42
VI. Saint Peter's Day 49
IN THE DIOCESE . . 55
VII. The Bishop in the Diocese ... 56
VIII. The Bishop and his Clergy ... 76
IX. The Bishop's Thank'orTering ... 89
X. The Closing Days 95
IN THE LEARNED WORLD . 105
XL The Scholar still at Work
(a) Bishop Lightfoot's Literary Work
at Durham. By the Rev. H. E.
Savage io<5
(b) The Bishop in his Study. By
Bishop Harmer . . . 114
viii CONTENTS
Chapter page
XII. The Theological Influence of Bishop
Lightfoot. By the Dean of Wells . 123
XIII. Bishop Lightfoot's place as a Historian.
By the Bishop of Gloucester . . 136
XIV. The Lightfoot Scholarships for Ecclesias/
tical History. By Professor J. P.
Whitney 142
EPILOGUE . . . 147
XV. Sermon by Bishop Eden . . .148
Appendix A. Letters to a Chaplain . . 160
B. The Auckland Brotherhood . 166
C. Dr Lightfoot's Literary Publi/
cations 174
Index 187
ILLUSTRATIONS
Bishop Lightfoot in 1879 . . . . Frontispiece
St Peter's Chapel, Auckland Castle . facing page 49
Bishop Lightfoot in 1889 . . . 95
T;
PREFACE
HERE are many nineteenth century personal!/
ties", wrote a recent reviewer, "whose lives and
characters are nowadays due for a revaluation."
There are few to whom this remark could be more fitly
applied than Bishop Lightfoot, of whom The Tito wrote
on the morrow of his death: "The Church of England
has been too soon deprived of one of the greatest minds
by whom it has been served and adorned not only in this
generation but in its whole history.... He was at once
one of the greatest Theological scholars and an eminent
Bishop. It is scarcely possible to estimate adequately as
yet the influence of his life and work".
It is the object of this book to preserve some knowledge
of the personality of Lightfoot while there yet survive some
of those who knew him intimately both at Durham and
elsewhere. 1
There are happily several chance references to him
in the biographies of his lifelong friends, Archbishop
Benson, and Bishop Westcott his successor, and such
1 Joseph Butler was one of Lightfoot's most illustrious predecessors, yet
only the most meagre traditions of his personal life remain. Bishop Phillpotts
of Exeter, who succeeded him as Rector of Stanhope, after eighty years' interval,
wrote to Archdeacon Goddard of Lincoln on Jan. ijth, 1835 "I earnestly
wish I could supply you with several anecdotes of Bishop Butler. The truth
however is that I have been mortified by almost entire failure. ("Stanhope
Memorials o/Bp. Butler" W. M. Egglestone.)
At Auckland Castle the searcher is little better off. There is a writing table
of cedar wood with "J.B." inlaid in brass given him by the merchants of
Bristol, and a silver coffee pot, and a defective Latin inscription, and a
tradition that he would stroll in "Butler's Walk" or sit in the Chapel to
listen to Father Smith's sweet/toned organ.
x PREFACE
books as Bishop Forrest Browne's Recollections of a Bishop,
and Mr A. C. Benson's Leaves of the Tree. There
are some letters at Auckland Castle. And there is the
most valuable article on Lightfoot in the Dictionary of
National Biography the last thing we have from Dr
Hort's pen. And last but by no means least is the Article
reprinted from the Quarterly Review of Jan. 1893. This
is so masterly in its grasp and arranged so admirably
under the heads of the Inscription 1 on the recumbent
effigy in Durham Cathedral 2 that it must live as the best
contemporary sketch of the great Bishop.
But something more is needed. He who did so much
to direct men's attention to the Northern Saints should
have men's eyes turned on him and his solid saintliness.
His books reveal his learning and his extraordinary dili'
gence: here, we may hope, stories of his daily life and
intercourse may tell something of his character, albeit the
beauty of inner life must remain unseen.
Bishop Westcott once expressed the wish that "there
were some adequate record of his part in University
affairs". This desire is met, at any rate in part, by Bishop
Moule, his old pupil, who was afterwards to succeed him
at Durham.
It is right too, that something should be told of the
1 ]- In Memoriam Joseph! Barber Lightfoot S.T.P. Episcopi Dunelmen/
sis Natus A.D. MDCCCXXVIII, Obiit A.D. MDCCCLXXXIX.
Qualis fuerit antiquitatis investigator evangelii interpres ecclesiae rector
testantur opera ut aequalibus ita posteris profutura -j- Ad majore Dei gloria.
Am. Pon. Cur. -f- M
2 Bishop Westcott was once asked what he thought of this recumbent
effigy as a likeness to his predecessor. He said "I have never seen it." "But,
my Lord," he was answered, ' ' you were there when it was dedicated, and you
could not stand in your Throne without having it straight in front of you,
just below." "I have never allowed myself to look at it" was his reply, revealing
at once his extraordinary strength of will, and his ceaseless devotion to his
friend.
PREFACE xi
origin and growth of the Auckland Brotherhood. Bishop
Westcott wrote: 1
If I may speak from my experience during the last three years, I
believe that his greatest work was the Brotherhood of Clergy whom he
called to labour with him in the Diocese, and bear his spirit to another
generation, greater than his masterpieces of interpretation, greater than
his masterpieces of masculine and passionate eloquence.
These words were written after three years of observation.
Those of us who have been members of the Brotherhood
for more than forty years could find no words to describe
better what our Father in God was, and still is to us.
As years have passed, our <iA.aSe\</>ia has expanded
into ayaTT^, and we are glad to place on record our debt
to what so many have described as "far the greatest
influence in our lives".
The sermon which stands here as " The Epilogue" was
the foundation on which this book has been built. Arch/
bishop Lord Davidson had expressed a wish that it
should be published, and it was considered by us all as so
valuable a review that we agreed that reminiscences
should be gathered to it, and put into book form.
We have thus a mosaic of memories the result of team
work of men bound together in love as Lightfoot's sons.
Among our contributors and helpers not mentioned in
the text, are Dr E. A. Welch, the Bishop of Durham,
the Bishop of Oxford, the Bishop of Southampton, the
Bishop in Argentina, Bishop G. L. King, the Dean of
Windsor, Canon D. S. Boutflower, Canon Alfred Boot,
Rev. H. H. Birley.
Some subjects which claimed his attention we have
deliberately omitted, for our aim is not to attempt a
1 Prefatory Note, Bishop L$tjoot. Macmillan & Co. 1894, p. ix.
xii PREFACE
Biography, but rather to give word pictures from different
points of view of the Bishop as we knew him.
Our pages will also endeavour to shew something of
his mind as revealed in his writings, and the influence of
his utterances on his contemporaries no less than his
contribution to the Theology of his day, his place among
Church leaders, and his lasting value as a Teacher.
We must also place on record our thanks for permission
to quote from books published by Messrs Macmillan,
Messrs Bowes and Bowes, Messrs Constable, Mr J. P.
Jamieson, Mr W. M. Egglestone, The Classical Review.
Ci. R. Ei,
F. C. M.
1932
INTRODUCTION
WHEN Sir Walter Scott visited Auckland
Castle in 1812, riding thither with his son and
daughter, he made the acquaintance of Bishop
Shute Barrington. They were so pleased with each other
that the Bishop ordered his horse, to accompany them,
and Scott observed with admiration its proud curvetting.
"Why yes, Mr Scott", said the gentle and high/spirited
old man, then in his seventh/ninth year, "I. still like to
feel my horse under me." They parted after a ride often
miles with mutual regret. 1 The contrast between the
leisured morning gallop of the venerable eighteenth/
century Prince Bishop, and the ceaseless labours of his
modern successor is no greater than the contrast between
the days of Bishop Lightfoot and to>day. Though the
difficulties he faced were quite as grave and pressing as
the modern problems of unemployment and shortage of
clergy, they were difficulties of a different order.
The grand Northern Palatinate with its leisured and
dignified clergy had been invaded a generation before by
the flood tide of industrial revolution. When the stage
coach disappeared before the railway train, and peaceful
farms had suddenly become pit villages, hardworking
clergy and devoted laymen had alike been unable to
adapt their ways to modern conditions. But an attempt
had begun to be made, and when the new Bishop came
he found the way opened for a great advance, and eager
hearts waiting for a leader.
1 Lockhart's Life of Scott, n, 231.
xiv INTRODUCTION
He thus describes the situation in his opening speech at
his first Diocesan Conference:
The zeal, and devotion, and business capacities and the untiring
energy of my predecessor were fitly expended on the internal work of the
Diocese. In addition to the current duties of the episcopate an ever'
increasing burden in a large and growing Diocese like this it was his
special work to develope the parochial system by the formation of new
districts, by the building of churches and parsonages and by the
increase of the clerical staff. ...
In his last charge, delivered a few months before his resignation,
Bishop Baring expressed his opinion that this particular work, the
formation of new ecclesiastical districts, had almost reached its limits.
This may be so, though as yet I see no signs of flagging. . . . But a Church
is something more than an aggregate of distinct parishes, or isolated
congregations. The idea of a Church involves the conception of a
corporate life. A Church is only a Church in so far as it realises this
conception. To extend the sympathies and motives of common member/
ship beyond the limits of the parish to the limits of the Diocese, is to
make an important stride in the realisation of this idea. 1
To make this important stride was Bishop Lightfoot's
chief endeavour, with results that still bear witness to
what God wrought by his servant.
His episcopate has often been called "The Golden
Age" of Durham, and splendid it assuredly was. He
was a great man, sent to meet a great opportunity.
But it is essential, in estimating his work, to bear in
mind the extraordinary changes that have come over
England since his day. One shrewd observer remarks
that " the interval since Lightfoot has been perhaps the
most revolutionary in our history, with the possible ex/
ception of the Reformation". In every sphere, political,
economic, academic, ecclesiastic, and local, there have
been astonishing changes.
Three Franchise Bills have completely remodelled the
electorate, and " Labour", now such a powerful force in
1 Durham Diocesan Calendar, 1881.
INTRODUCTION xv
England, and especially in Durham, was unheard/of in
the eighties. Times of great depression they certainly had,
coining at regular intervals, but nothing to compare with
the stagnation and unemployment that paralyse industry
to/day. Again, both in his charitable generosity and in
the maintenance of his great position, Lightfoot, were he
now living, would find himself handicapped by the
altered value of money. Rates in his day were very low
Income Tax could be stated in pence; there was no Sur/
tax, and no death duties. He would nowadays have to
pay at least ^1500 a year more in taxes. Wages were low
and commodities such as coal cheap enough.
These and many other changes which have combined
to make the work of the clergy of to/day more difficult
even than it was forty years ago must be continually
borne in mind in the reading of the following pages.
Preaching in Durham Cathedral on the Festival of
Founders and Benefactors on January 28th, 1926, Bishop
Eden of Wakefield took Bishop Lightfoot as his subject.
In the course of his sermon he said:
Words are useless to convey any impression of the new life which
sprang up in all directions under his inspiration and guidance. Vast
schemes of Church extension seemed to grow up like magic; new
Parishes, new Churches, Mission Districts all alike were the fruit of his
unstinted generosity and of the willing support of Churchmen.
It is not too much to say, and as one who knew the Diocese before
he came I dare to affirm it, that Bishop Lightfoot left a mark in the
Diocese, such as few, if any, before him had done.
Thus we are able, by viewing the "Golden Age of
Durham" from behind it, and from afar in front, to see
its great Bishop in his true perspective. Times change and
customs alter, but character remains; and the greatness
and the humility of Bishop Lightfoot will be an abiding
inspiration for generations to come.
Chapter I
EARLY DAYS, CAMBRIDGE & ST PAUL'S
JOSEPH BARBER LIGHTFOOT was the
I younger son of Mr John Jackson Lightfoot, a Liver/
J pool accountant, and was born at his father's house,
84 Duke Street, Liverpool, on April isth, 1828.
His mother was a sister of Mr Joseph Vincent Barber,
a Birmingham artist of considerable repute. Of the three
other children, an elder brother William Barber, six years
older, took his degree at Trinity, Cambridge (Wrangler,
and 2nd Class Classics), and was for many years Head
Master of the Grammar School at Basingstoke, and
later Vicar of Cartmel Priory in the Diocese of
Carlisle.
One sister married the Rev. William Harrison of
Pontesbury. The other, Miss Lightfoot, often visited the
Bishop at Auckland Castle.
The future Bishop was a child of the North. His
father was a Yorkshireman and his mother originally
came from Newcastle, where his great grandfather had a
notable bookseller's shop next St Nicholas' Church the
present Cathedral in Mosley Street.
Speaking at the Guildhall, Newcastle, on July 2nd,
1 88 1, Bishop Lightfoot said:
Whenever he came to Newcastle to preside at a meeting, it was
always a satisfaction to him to recollect that the name by which he was
known in Newcastle Joseph Barber was one he had inherited
through four generations from a worthy citizen of Newcastle.
Shortly after this he restored the tomb of his ancestor in
EM I
2 EARLY DAYS
the graveyard of the Cathedral. A new stone was made
with the old inscription:
Here lieth the body of
JOSEPH BARBER
late of Amen Corner Bookseller
who died July 4th 1781 aged 74 years
and of Eleanor his wife who died
December 2jth 1784 aged 67 years.
The rest of the slab records the names of Mrs Humble
"daughter of the above" and her husband and children.
The discarded stone lay a yard or two away in the grave'
yard. 1
As a child Lightfoot was delicate, and took little part
in games, though in later life he was fond of walking, and
was one of the first to ascend the Jungfrau in Switzerland
from Fiesch in the Rhone Valley, with only a local shoe'
maker as his guide.
His first public education was at the Liverpool Royal
Institution under Dr Iliff. After about two years here, he
lost his father and moved with his family to Birmingham
at the age of fifteen. Even then he was a good scholar
equally proficient in classics and mathematics. He is
described as a boy of immense capacity for work, cheerful
temper, dry humour, and above all of reverent and disci/
plined piety. At King Edward's School, Birmingham,
he formed a lifelong friendship with Edward White
Benson, who was to become Archbishop of Canterbury,
1 Mr R. Thompson, Senior Verger, Newcastle Cathedral, writes, Feb.
I3th, 1931: "The Joseph Barber gravestone is to be found at the East end
of the new Library under the East window. The stone recut by the late
Bishop Lightfoot's instructions is in excellent preservation. The discarded
stone which had laid by the side of the grave has been used as a base for the
pillars of the newer stone, to prevent them sinking into the ground. This was
done in 1926 and will preserve them for many years".
CAMBRIDGE 3
and later at Cambridge with Brooke Foss Westcott, who
was to succeed him in the See of Durham.
All three owed much to one of the greatest teachers
of his day, James Prince Lee, afterwards first Bishop of
Manchester, to whose lessons on the Greek Testament
Lightfoot confessedly traced his enthusiasm for those
studies in which he became pre/erninent.
The reminiscences in Sdpisei 1 give vivid glimpses
of the boy Lightfoot on the threshold of his vast treasure/
house of learning. Later as a young Fellow of Trinity he
writes:
I recollect when I was placed under his care, Prince Lee's advice to
my friends was "Give him the run of the Town Library". We learnt
by experience that any knowledge we might acquire would be brought
out some time or other to illustrate our school work.
When I told him I would take Holy Orders he replied beseeching
me to decide at once, and seek a curacy, or a mastership, or at once to
begin to read and edit or write if I looked to Theology, for he added
"Virtus in agendo constat". 2
At nineteen Lightfoot entered Trinity College, Cam/
bridge, and read Classics with Westcott, who had
preceded him, and of whose goodness and help he wrote
in glowing terms to Benson whom he had left at school
at Birmingham.
He took, as Westcott had done, a double first in
honours in 1851 both as a Wrangler in Mathematics,
and Senior Classic, and first Chancellor's Medallist in
1 Sdpisei. A Memorial Sermon (on i Cor. xv. 52) preached after the
death of J. Prince Lee, first Bishop of Manchester, 2nd Ed., with appendix
containing Memorial Notices of the late Bishop by J. F. Wickenden, etc.
London, 1870.
2 " At school the power and diligence of the future theologian were brought
into view from time to rime. We hear of the boys' astonishment, and their
master's delight at indications of his private reading, e.g. in the Fathers, which
used to come out incidentally in class." "Joseph Barber Lightfoot," The
Cambridge Review, Jan. i6th, 1890.
1/2
4 EARLY DAYS
*- v
Classics. Next year he was elected Fellow of Trinity,
and became a Tutor in 1859. Meanwhile he had been
ordained Deacon by his old headmaster in 1854 and
Priest four years later. In 1861 he was elected Hulsean
Professor of Divinity, but in 1870, when the Regius
Professorship fell vacant, he deliberately stood aside, and
succeeded in calling his friend Westcott back to Canv
bridge "to occupy a place" as Westcott testified long
afterwards "which was his own by right".
In 1875, however, he became Lady Margaret Professor
of Divinity. From his first Professorship in 1861 began
a series of lectures on the New Testament, and especially
on the Epistles of St Paul, unmatched for brilliance,
thoroughness and clearness of exposition, which events
ally burst the bounds of the largest lecture rooms in
Cambridge and had to be delivered in the great hall of
Trinity College, attended by crowds of undergraduates
and many other residents of the University. 1 In these
years, together with Westcott and Hort, he inspired and
fostered a school of Cambridge theology which has not
ceased to influence the religious thought of our day, at
home and abroad.
Bishop Moule, who was to follow him at Durham,
after Bishop Westcott, recalled the days when he was at
Cambridge. In an Inaugural Address to the Durham and
Northumberland Branch of the Classical Association 3
he said:
1 "The late Master of Trinity was not given to enthusiasm, but once he
did wax enthusiastic as he described the passage between the Senate House
and Caius College 'black with the fluttering gowns of students' hurrying to
imbibe in the Professor's classroom a knowledge of the New Testament such
as was not open to their less happy predecessors." Contemporary Review, Feb.
1890, p. 175-
z My Cambridge Classical Teachers, Feb. 22nd, 1913. Durham: Andrews
and Co.
CAMBRIDGE 5
I transport your thoughts backward over some fifty years. It was at
Eastertide in 1864 that I took my degree of bachelor. Three years and a
half before that date in October i860, 1 was entered at Trinity College
as Mr Lightfoot's pupil. . .1 found myself the pupil of men, as I
realised better afterwards than at the time, who were as vigilant of the
sacred letter of Homer or Horace, of Plato or Tacitus, as ever a Bentley
or a Porson could be, but who also saw the immortal authors not only
as consummate embodiments of a perfect grammar, but as men who felt
and thought. . . .My college tutor and first college lecturer was Joseph
Lightfoot, afterwards, as all men know, Bishop of Durham: mighty
master of apostolic and subapostolic literature, strong defender of the
faith, shepherd of the people, admirable friend of his friends, illumi/
native teacher of his young pupils in those distant Cambridge days.
I came first into his presence when in June i860 1 called on him at his
rooms the rooms which had been Isaac Newton's, nearly two cen'
turies before and asked to be entered on his list of freshmen. Desper-
ately shy was I. And he, if I do not mistake, felt a little shy too, for it
was his nature so to be. But though a Cambridge Tutor certainly in
those days could not possibly be intimate with all his pupils, he exer'
cised from the very first a very powerful influence on me by the
magnetism of the good greatness of his personality, and the truehearted
kindness which looked always through his reserve. All through those
years, he was laying the deep foundations of his vast theological know
ledge, chiefly in the vacations, and (during term time) by night. No
man ever loitered so late in the Great Court that he did not see Light'
foot's lamp burning in his study window, though no man either was so
regularly present in morning Chapel at seven o'clock that he did not
find Lightfoot always there with him.
But to us he was not the divine but the tutor whom we consulted
about our questions and troubles and our admirable lecturer in
Herodotus, Euripides and Aeschylus. As later, so then, his strong
points were unfailing thoroughness of knowledge and unsurpassable
clearness of exposition and instruction. He is said to have written his
answers and exercises during the long week of his examination for
degree without making one solitary mistake: and I can well believe it.
A surer mind never worked. And he had withal quite sympathy
enough with our less sure capacities to enable his class to follow him
with conviction in every daylight step of his teaching. With many a
pleasant touch of humour would he gladden our hearts by the way. I
6 EARLY DAYS
hear him still expounding that curious passage in Herodotus' account
of Egypt where he tells us of the Pharaoh who, by isolating new/born
babes from sound of speech, endeavoured to discover the primitive
language Lightfoot illustrated this by narrating a similar experiment
tried, I think, by the royal wisdom of James I. And the result, so he
informed us, in a grave voice all his own, was interesting: "the poor
little children spoke pure Hebrew".
For some of his classical pupils, he arranged a private evening lecture
in his own rooms. The "Agamemnon" was his theme: the Aeschylean
Trilogy, I believe, had long been a special study with him. He spent
some time on those occasions over the text as well as the rendering in
a way striking and suggestive, working out emendations with great
felicity. But I cannot forget how "many lights" in that "upper
chamber" did sometimes bring sleep to my eyelids as to those of
Eutychus of old. My Aeschylus still shows traces of it, in certain
pencil notes of imperfect coherency. But the lights, not the lecturer,
were to blame.
At intervals we were asked in groups to dinner in those same
historic rooms. We had a cheerful and most friendly host: he seemed
much less shy with a large company than when one went to him
alone.
He preached sometimes in chapel. The power of voice and force
of thought always controlled attention. I remember one noble sermon
in which he dwelt on the immortality of our powers, and how the
intellect trained aright in this life would be used for God for ever
amidst boundless interests in the life to come.
A very different environment in which to watch Lightfoot was
the towing/path at the Lent and May races. He often ran with the
boats with amazing energy. No doubt he really cared for the race,
though I do not think he had 'ever rowed. But I remember his
saying later that he frequented the towing-path not least because
"You can get a good run there without being thought a perfect
lunatic".
An excellent story belongs to this period, which re/
veals Lightfoot's chivalry and lightness of touch in dealing
with an erring undergraduate. The culprit tells the story
against himself:
CAMBRIDGE 7
I was an active and rather erratic undergraduate of the College. My
brother was a great racquet player, and I had arranged to go to London
for the day to see him play. The day before I was to go he wrote sug/
gesting that I should dine with him after the match, and stay that night
with him in Town. I knew I should not get leave, so I prepared a
little plot to cover my transgression. I wrote out this telegram to be sent
to my tutor, who happened to be Lightfoot:
"Much regret, have missed the last train am staying with brother".
Arrived at King's Cross in the morning, I gave the telegram to a porter
with strict injunctions to send it off as soon as the last train had started at
On returning to Cambridge next day, I found a message waiting for
me from my tutor. This is what happened when I stood before him.
He began " Mr Nemo you were not in College last night "." No Sir ..."
I began, but Lightfoot held up his hand, saying "One moment Mr
Nemo, before saying any more please look at this telegram and notice
the hour at which it was sent off". It had been despatched at 11.45 a.mM
The wretched porter, having pocketed his tip, had gone straight off
and handed in the telegram at once. Most men would have let me
convict myself up to the hilt, but Lightfoot was too great a gentleman.
I never can forget it.
Meanwhile Professor Lightfoot had been chosen for
other appointments outside the University, being (at
different times) Chaplain to the Prince Consort when
Chancellor of the University, Chaplain to Queen
Victoria, and later Deputy Clerk of the Closet. He was
held in very high regard by King Edward VII (when
Prince of Wales) whose tutor he had been when the
Prince was a member of Trinity College in 1861. He
also found time to act as Examining Chaplain to
Archbishop Tait at both Fulham and Lambeth, and
took such an active and able share in University affairs as
to evoke the well-known contrast by a shrewd observer
between him and his friend and colleague, that "West/
cott ought to have been a mystic of the second century
8 EARLY DAYS
and Lightfoot the Chairman of an English Railway
Company, and I wish I had shares in it!"
In November 1870 Professor Lightfoot transferred the
sum of 4500 to the University to found three University
Scholarships for the encouragement of Ecclesiastical
History. These are known as the Lightfoot Scholar/
ships. (See Chap, xiv.)
One more great task fell to his lot, to act on the Com/
mittee for the Revised Version of the English New
Testament. To him a language was an exact expression
of the life of a country or a period, and he was one of the
first to vindicate the Greek of the New Testament as the
genuine lingua franca of the Graeco/Roman world of that
day, a fact remarkably corroborated since his death by the
discovery of the Egyptian papyri. His convictions, pub/
lished beforehand in a book on the need for such a
revision, and still more his insistence, in common with
Biblical scholars like Westcott and Moulton and Hort,
on the necessity of a thorough examination of the Greek
text, and exact and uniform rendering of the words,
largely influenced the work of the Revisers. The Revised
Version, however, valuable as it is as a more correct
rendering of the original Greek, has never become a
popular version for the English people.
It is impossible to convey in a few words any idea of
the magnitude of Lightfoot's work at Cambridge, as a
theologian, a biblical expositor, a historian, or a teacher.
It is enough to say of his marvellous output of writings
that they arrested the attention of scholars throughout the
world, and yet found their way into thousands of homes
of clergy and ministers of all denominations.
It was within five years from taking his degree that he
first began his work on the Ignatian Epistles, a subject on
CAMBRIDGE 9
which he was closely engaged for nearly thirty years, and
the results of which were published in his edition of St
Ignatius and St Polycarp in June 1885. A second edition
of this was already called for in 1888. This great work,
which reaches about 1850 pages in three volumes, forms
practically a complete repertory of information on the
whole history and circumstances of the sub/apostolic age.
There is scarcely a point in all the Church life of the first
half of the second century that is not dealt with.
/\As an instance of the extraordinary influence of his
learning and authority among scholars may be cited the
effect of his remarkable essays published in the Content'
porary Review between December 1874 and May 1877, in
criticism of an anonymous book entitled Supernatural
Religion. This apparently learned book was a vigorous
attack upon the credibility of the Christian Fathers,
especially those of the second century. A rumour attri/
buting the authorship of this book to a learned Bishop
of the Anglican Church, himself a distinguished his/
torian and scholar, Bishop Thirlwall, together with a
chorus of praise from the critics of its scholarship and
learning, ensured for it a large circulation, and several
editions very quickly appeared. It was vigorously an/
swered by more than one distinguished theologian. But,
Lightfoot's articles revealed so many gross mis-statements,
that the book quickly lost its importance in the learned
world. The Dean of Lichfield, who was closely following
the controversy at the time, writes:
I remember a conversation, in the early eighties, with a well/known
bookseller about Lightfoot's articles and he told me, in his quiet and
judicial way, that they constituted the most remarkable phenomenon in
the publishing trade that he had ever known or heard of. " When the
book Supernatural Religion appeared", he said, "it had an extraordinary
io EARLY DAYS
reception. It was emphatically praised by the Reviewers, and its sale
was so rapid that the publishers could hardly produce it* in its succes/
sive editions, fast enough to meet the demand. But before the series of
Dr Lightfoot's articles was even approaching completion, the book was
already a glut in the second/hand market". /
J
Meanwhile, after declining in 1867 Lord Derby's offer
of the See of Lichfield, he was nominated in 1871 by
Mr Gladstone to be Canon of St Paul's, and the appoint/
ment brought out his great gifts as a preacher. Arch/
bishop Tait was once speaking about him to a friend, and
said, "He did me the honour of being one of my
examining Chaplains, and", he added with some hesi/
tation, "we found him rather heavy. Then he went to
St Paul's, where finding himself associated with Canon
Liddon, the dullness disappeared, and he became the
extraordinarily eloquent preacher that we afterwards
knew".
What this intercourse with Liddon meant is well
pictured in a pretty scene in the last summer of the
Bishop's life. Canon Liddon had come to Auckland to
see him, and as he and the Chaplain approached the
Castle, they saw the Bishop standing by his open study
window. Instantly taking off his hat, Liddon hurried
to the window to grasp the hand of his friend.
What the Bishop thought of the Canon is shewn in the
dedication of his Ignatius:
To Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., to whom God has given special gifts
as a Christian Preacher, and matched the gifts with the opportunities,
assigning to him his place beneath the great dome of St Paul's, the
centre of the world's concourse.
This friendship had great influence on the Church life
of the seventies. It was an anxious decade for church/
men. The climax was reached when the Archbishop of
ST PAUL'S ii
Canterbury in Aprili 874 introduced the Public Worship
Regulation Act, thereby invoking the aid of Parliament
in putting down ritualism by means of prosecutions, and
enforcing a rigid uniformity in the conduct of divine
worship.
One obvious help towards curing the general unrest
was to make the Metropolitan Cathedral a strong centre
of vigorous, consistent and holy Church life. In the
providence of God there came to St Paul's a wonderful
leader in Dean Church, who had weathered the storms
of the Oxford Movement in 1845. Resolute, dauntless
and reserved, he was just the leader needed, and he
found at St Paul's an extraordinary "quaternion of
soldiers".
Canon Scott Holland has described them: 1
They were alive to all the rising demands which the quickened
Church life must make on a Cathedral: they possessed among them a
brilliant combination of the very gifts which could enable them to
respond to these demands. Already the movement of a new activity
was astir.
Gregory and Liddon were already in action and all their activity was
at the immediate disposal of the new Dean. To them had just been
added Lightfoot, with his unrivalled reputation as a critical scholar, his
glowing ardour of speech, his robust sense of equity, his delightful
geniality. There could never be any difficulty in securing his co/
operation in anything that made for the effective utilisation of the great
Church: and the united force of such a body carried along with it the
kindly courtesy of Bishop Claughton who had just been appointed
Archdeacon.
Thus the Dean found himself in the rare position of heading a
Chapter which was ready to act with practical unanimity. It was a
corporate body that was animated by a single purpose. . . .It was to this
unity of purpose and mind that Dr Liddon continually attributed all
that the Chapter succeeded in achieving at St Paul's.
1 Dean Church's Life and Letters, pp. 214 etc.
12 EARLY DAYS
During his residence, Canon Lightfoot gathered round
him young men to whom he specially devoted himself.
The possibility of breaking up such a combination by
losing Canon Lightfoot was overwhelming to the Dean.
He pleaded hard that he should not go to Durham, he
was far too valuable at St Paul's. He writes to Bishop
Benson of Truro:
DEANERY, ST PAUI/S.
K/r j -n- 1 err January 23rd, 187$.
My dear Bishop of Truro,
. . . This most anxious matter touches us both so deeply, and not us
only but greater things. The thought of losing him is dreadful. . . .All
you urge is of the greatest weight.. . .It is the point the Archbishop
urged when Lightfoot saw him yesterday, and with good reason-
though he frightened Lightfoot by expressing anxiety as to who there
would be to take bis own place if he were removed And I am worldly
enough too to feel a great rising of heart at the recognition, with such,
and not inadequate, honour of the first scholar of the English Church.
But yet even for that I do look with distress at the breaking offjust now
of the career he has deliberately designed for himself which he is
filling so nobly and usefully and in which he leaves no successor,
none I mean of the same rare and commanding powers. For he is not
only full of knowledge, he is able to make knowledge live. He is able
to animate it with the sense of its connection with the needs and hopes
of present modern life.. . .
I do not know how he will decide; to/morrow I suppose he will
settle. He is still torn and perplexed. But if he goes to Durham, Bishop
Butler will have a successor worthy of him in the combination of
innocence, simplicity and pure nobleness of thought and purpose with
intellectual forces which make his fellows wonder and admire.
But oh dear! if he leaves St Paul's. . .
Ever yours affectionately
R. W. CHURCH 1
The great Dean's fears were more than dispelled. In
1884, writing to Canon Stubbs, Lightfoot's successor at
1 Dean Chunk's Life and Letters, pp. 271-3.
CAMBRIDGE 13
St Paul's, who was hesitating to accept the Bishopric of
Chester, Dean Church wrote:
I do so deeply sympathise with you in your trial.. . .But Lightfoot's
sacrifice is a great encouragement. He would not be so nobly happy as
he is now, if he had as I wished him shrunk from the call. 1
That happiness is well described by Bishop Moule,
viewing the great scholar's episcopate from the vantage
ground of the same throne, eighteen years later, and
thence reverting once more to Cambridge days.
In his "Commemoration Sermon "* at Trinity Col/
lege, Cambridge, in 1907 he said:
. . .How shall I discourse as I would of Joseph Lightfoot?
Before me now in the daily path of duty and intercourse, his name is
always moving as a great and living force. First in time of the two mighty
men of God, who successively occupied of later years the Chair of
Durham, and who made between them a continuity of combined
mental and spiritual greatness to which it is difficult to find a parallel,
Lightfoot still retains in the hearts of both clergy and people a place not
of honour only, but of love with which not even the splendour of
Westcott's venerated and more recent memory interferes. "Dear
Bishop Lightfoot" is his common designation in the faithful/hearted
North; and men recall his grand humanity, with its gladness and its
tears, even more vividly than his immense knowledge, his masterly
administration, his supreme sanity of judgment, and his literally life/
breaking toil. Then behind his great episcopate lie the times of his
epoch/making activity as student and teacher at Cambridge and St
Paul's. Within those years from 1861 to 1879, step by step, work by
work, as expositor, historian, as consummate defender of the historic
faith, he grew to be a power for good in Christian minds and souls,
unsurpassed if not unrivalled for its magnificent wholeness and sound/
ness of result.
In a leading article issued just after his death, The Times paid a noble
tribute to the astonishing achievement of his literary labours in giving a
1 Letters of William Stalk, Bishop of Chester, p. 253.
2 Wise Men and Sinks is the Title of the "Commemoration Sermon",
1907.
i 4 EARLY DAYS
new trend of thought, a trend towards faith, over vast regions of the
educated world. The panegyric, for such it is throughout without
reserve, dwells upon "the noble character and splendid faculties",
which somehow, and not least I think, by his perfect combination of
wisdom with knowledge, and of modesty with authoritative power, so
found response in the public estimate that (in the words of the writer
of the article) "his virtues were never doubted, his mental eminence
depreciated, or the appropriate rewards withheld".
But to/night I speak of Lightfoot less as the great Bishop and great
Professor than as the Fellow and Tutor of this College, under whom it
was my happiness to enter seven and forty years ago.
Only for one year did we enjoy his guidance for in 1 861 he succeeded
to the Hulsean Chair: but that short year laid an influence for life upon
mind and aims. And how did the influence operate? By no means in
any overt and elaborate fashion. To all but an intimate few of our time
Lightfoot was reserved in individual intercourse.. . .
His sermons happily not infrequent were always uplifting by their
strength of reason, their freshness of insight and application, and an
eloquence only less of form than of soul. But his power upon us was
mainly and continuously exercised through the manifestation of what
he was. To watch his simple but profound devotion day by day in this
Chapel, to see a little of his splendid diligence in toil and duty. . .to
know by a sure instinct, as we talked about him, or heard rumours of
him, that he was always and everywhere the same, the Christian man
using very great gifts wholly for God and for others: all this meant for
us a perpetual moral impression of the sort to tell, just at our time of
life, for the purest and most lasting good. 1 Well may his memory by
us be blessed for ever.
We could not possibly at that period know anything in detail of the
secret inspiration which made such a life possible. . . .But I have come
since to know a little of his sources of patience and of power, and how
1 "His lectures on the Greek Testament were distinguished not only by
their ability, but also by their spiritual power. A pupil who attended one of
the earliest courses remarks: 'I remember well how much the class was
impressed when, after giving us the usual introductory matter Lightfoot
closed the book and said, "After all said and done, the only way to know
the Greek Testament properly is by prayer", and dwelt further on this
thought'." "Joseph Barber Lightfoot," The Cambridge Review, Jan. i6th
and 23rd, 1890.
. CAMBRIDGE 15
they were hidden with Christ in God. His near friend of the latest
years, Dr Watkins, Canon and Archdeacon of Durham, possesses an
engraving of Diirer's " Crucifixion" which always hung beside Light/
foot's simple bedstead at Auckland, brought, I believe, from his
Cambridge rooms. Below the picture runs the legend "ES IST
VOLLBRACHT", the "It is Finished" of the Crucified. To my dear
Tutor, deep within the heart of his most noble life, the Incarnate
Christ of Atonement and Resurrection was all in all salvation, desire,
motive, resource, life, way and end. The magnetism of his influence
upon us rose ultimately, behind all the massive complex of gifts and
acquirements, from HIM who dwelt in his heart by faith.
The Dean of Durham (Bishop Welldon) writes:
How well I remember his farewell sermon in St Mary's Church,
before he left Cambridge for Durham. As I walked to the Church I
saw him coming to the Vestry with his bag containing his robes in his
hand. The University Church was packed to the doors. There was
something in the scene which moved me almost to tears, so strongly did
I realise what had been the value of his influence in the University, and
what would be the loss, when he would be no more seen or heard
except at rare intervals in Cambridge.
I came to stay with him at Auckland Castle soon after his consecra'
tion.
When I think of his recluse life at Cambridge, it is an astonishment
to know how in both Durham and Northumberland he won his way
to the confidence and affection, not only of the Clergy, but of the mine-'
owners and miners, the leaders of industry and territorial magnates.
Never before has there been a more splendid combination of learning,
wisdom, and piety than in Bishop Lightfoot. I can only add as one
who lives in the Diocese over which he presided for ten years that
every year I spend in it increases my admiration for his episcopate.
Chapter II
CONSECRATION AS BISHOP
WHEN it was announced on January 28th,
1879, that Professor Lightfoot had been ap/
pointed Bishop of Durham, the news was
hailed with joy everywhere. Archbishop Tait wrote:
"Lightfoot's appointment to Durham opens a bright
prospect, a man of really humble mind, of great learning,
and perfect scholarship his influence will be like
Cotton's in India". 1
Acting as he always did on Prince Lee's motto,
"Virtus in agendo constat", the new Bishop had within
a week chosen and appointed his two first domestic
Chaplains H. E. Savage (now Dean of Lichfield),
then a resident Fellow of Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge, and G. R. Eden (afterwards Bishop of
Wakefield), a Master at the time at Aysgarth Preparatory
School.
On Easter Tuesday, April I5th, he paid his first visit
to Auckland with these Chaplains. A thorough in/-
spection was made of the Castle and Park, and plans
were discussed, which were already clear in that far/seeing
mind.
On passing the fine Gatehouse at the entrance to the
Park from the marketplace, the Bishop who had lived
all his life alone in College rooms and dreaded the idea
of a domestic establishment looked up and said with
genuine feeling, "Ah if they would only let you and me
1 Life of Archbishop Tait, n, 517.
CONSECRATION AS BISHOP 17
live there ". Little did any of the three realise how wonder/
fully the old promise would be fulfilled, " God setteth the
solitary in families". Truly those rambling corridors and
great rooms in the historic castle held for ten years a
unique family around the "solitary man", himself per/
haps the happiest of the circle of devoted "sons" and
servants.
Four days later Eden found himself installed as secretary
in Lightfoot's rooms at Trinity, Cambridge, Savage
joining them daily from Corpus. One of Lightfoot's
rare traits was the leaving of important correspondence
to his subordinates when once he had learned to trust
them, without afterwards looking at what they had
written. He was a believer in Jethro's advice to Moses,
and by freely delegating work to others he left his mind
free for great problems and deep study.
On April 23rd, St George's Day, taking Eden with
him he left Cambridge for his Consecration in West/
minster Abbey. They stayed at his usual home in Lon/
don, in St 'Paul's Chapter House, a brick building on
the north side of the Cathedral, now occupied by Lloyds
Bank. Here he had lived in simple style during his
residence, almost like life in college, with a housekeeper
who might have been a Cambridge bedmaker.
Next day Dean Church and all the Canons specially
attended Evensong with their colleague for the last time.
And at nine o'clock that evening Dr Westcott conducted
a quiet informal service of prayer for an inner circle of
friends in preparation for the morrow.
St Mark's Day broke fine and glorious, with all the
hope of spring even in London.
Considerable surprise was felt that the Consecration
was held in the Southern Province (for which there
EM 2
18 CONSECRATION AS BISHOP
was no precedent since the Consecration of the great
Bishop Cosin), and that it was not in St Paul's, with
which Dr Lightfoot was connected, which would have
held the hosts of Cambridge and other friends who
wished to be present. It was not in St Paul's because the
Northern Primate did not wish to intrude into the do/
main of the Archbishop of Canterbury. But the space
available in the Abbey was far too small to admit all who
came.
The usual protest was made by the Dean and Chapter,
Westminster Abbey being a "Royal Peculiar"; the
Dean stated that he granted permission in pursuance of
a Mandate from the Queen.
The Archbishop of York was accompanied by the
Bishops of Carlisle, Manchester, Sodor and Man from
the Northern, and the Bishops of London, Winchester,
Ely and Truro from the Southern Province.
The procession from the Jerusalem Chamber included
the whole Chapter of Westminster, the Master and
Fellows of Trinity, and the Members of the Revision
Committee of the New Testament, and it made its way
through serried ranks of clergy in their black gowns.
The Bishops of London and Ely, his former Dio/
cesans, presented the new Bishop. The sermon was by
his lifelong friend Dr Westcott, and the offertory was for
the Endowment of the new See of Newcastle.
Dr Westcott's sermon was remarkable for its concen/
trated power. Choosing as his text "From strength to
strength" (Psa. Ixxxiv. 7), he began by pointing out that
this psalm is the Hymn of Divine Life in all ages. 1 "It
brings before us the grace and glory of sacrifice, of
service, of progress, where God alone, the Lord of hosts,
1 From Strength to Strength, Three Sermons, Macmillan, 1890.
CONSECRATION AS BISHOP 19
is the source and the strength, and the end of effort." The
lesson of the past was all summed up in the phrase
"from strength to strength". In illustration he gave a
rapid sketch of the whole history of "the great Northunv
brian Diocese ... a chequered life, grievously troubled by
passion, yet continuous with a mighty power, and un/
broken by revolutions. The saint, the scholar, the soldier,
the courtier, the statesman, the divine, have added some*'
thing to the episcopal inheritance of the See of Aldhun".
While the glorious past was thus present in imagination,
the unknown future was represented in person to carry on
the tale. Hidden in the Organ loft, unseen by the
preacher, there sat a schoolboy, an interested listener,
who became one of Bishop Lightfoot's examining
Chaplains, and is one of England's ablest Bishops
to/day.
The Bishop spent the evening of that memorable day
at the Chapter House of St Paul's with his Chaplains.
Next day he returned to Cambridge. He was feeling
deeply the severance from St Paul's, and all its associa/
tions, and its goodly fellowship. But that parting was
relieved by an incident which greatly amused him. The
good caretaker, swelling with pride at her master's new
dignity, when all was ready for departure, threw open
the dining room door with a new air, and announced in
loud voice, " Your carriage is at the door, my Lord ". The
Bishop went to the window, and vainly trying to conceal
his laughter, called his Chaplain to see "the Bishop's
carriage". There in pouring rain stood one of the dirtiest
and most dilapidated of London "growlers", with a
driver to match, a sack on his shoulders, and a pipe
upside down in his mouth! It was a good story to tell
the dignified Bishop Benson of Truro (the University
20 CONSECRATION AS BISHOP
preacher of next day) who travelled with them to
Cambridge.
Thus began the Golden Age of Durham. The Bishop
started with a light heart, because of his strong confidence.
He had written on January 27th to Professor Westcott:
At length I have sent my answer "Yes". It seemed to me that to
resist any longer would be deo^a^eiv [to fight against God]. My con/
solation and my hope for the future is that it has cost me the greatest
moral effort, the greatest venture of faith which I ever made. Now that
the answer is sent I intend to have no regrets about the past.
AT AUCKLAND CASTLE
"In the strangely altered circumstances of our time,
much, very much, has changed, and mainly, I fear, not
for the better; but one thing is unchanged and un>
changeable, viz. the affectionate homage which invests the
name of Bishop Lightfoot"
BISHOP OF DURHAM
(Letter inviting "Sons of the
House" to Auckland Castle
for St Peter's Day, 1926)
Chapter III
SONS OF THE HOUSE
ON E day as he was strolling across the quadrangle
at Keble College, Oxford, in the early summer
of 1879, young F. W. Glyn was accosted by the
Warden, Dr Talbot (afterwards Bishop of Winchester),
with the question "Would you like to go to Auckland
Castle?" "Where in the world is that?" was his reply.
"Where the Bishop of Durham lives", said the Warden,
"he has asked me to pick out some young men from
Oxford to go, as the first of a series of men, to be trained
for Holy Orders under the Bishop's own eye."
The invitation was accepted, and thus the Auckland
family began.
Fred Glyn came to the Castle at Michaelmas 1879 to
join Fred Eden and Fred Cope, both from Pembroke Col/
lege, Cambridge; and these under the Rev. George Eden
and the Rev. H. E. Savage became Bishop Lightfoot's
"three mighty men" who started the Brotherhood that has
had such potentinfluenceinDurhamDiocese and beyond.
The following letters give a glimpse of early days at the
Castle, and reveal the Bishop's affection towards his
young men.
To the Warden of Keble.
AUCKLAND CASTLE,
BISHOP AUCKLAND.
, , , TVT j November loth, 1870.
My dear Warden, '*
I am not sitting down to write a formal letter, but I thought you
would be glad to know what satisfaction I have in Glyn in all ways.
SONS OF THE HOUSE 23
I find him a most pleasant inmate of my house and he is taking very
kindly to his work both practical and intellectual. His fellow/students
and he are already most excellent friends and altogether we are a very
happy household.
I have been much away hitherto with Confirmation and other work,
but hope to see more of them now. Any other Keble man like Glyn
whom you recommend will be welcome here so long as I have a place
for him and indeed I would endeavour to make a place. Of all his
fellow/students I can speak in the highest terms.
Very sincerely yours,
J. B. DUNELM.
The Lightfoot generation was necessarily unique. We
were received as "Sons of the House" in a way only
possible to a Bishop who was unmarried, and had no
lady to preside over the domestic arrangements of
Auckland Castle.
Bishop Westcott, who was married, naturally could
not do this and provided other arrangements, billeting
the students in the house at the lodge gates with a Chap/
lain as Dean. This system was carried on more or less
on the same lines by Bishop Moule. Thus in the later
generations the intercourse, though much closer than at
a Theological College, was necessarily not on the same
intimate footing.
This was partly shewn by the fact that as time went on,
at the annual St Peter's Day Reunion of the Brotherhood,
the proportion of Lightfoot men was always greater than
that of those who came subsequently. Yet the senior men,
in the spirit of Lightfoot's own wonderful sympathy,
never allowed any distinction to appear, or to be felt
between different generations of students. And the same
spirit even now animates our triennial meetings, though
24 SONS OF THE HOUSE
the senior men may be in age rather fathers than brothers
to some of the younger generation.
In Bishop Westcott's day the Castle lunch was the
students' midday dinner, when all gathered round the
Bishop's table. But we shared every meal and every
Chapel service with Bishop Lightfoot.
The value of this close intercourse with such a man
was incalculable. One lesson at least it taught us. He was,
as he had always been, a tremendous worker, and we
caught something of his enthusiasm for work. Auckland
Castle was a busy and punctual house. Even during his
early breakfast with us the Bishop would be opening and
piling up his very numerous letters, with his wastes-paper
basket at his side for the envelopes. Then he would
glance through the newspaper, especially the late Mr
Joseph Cowen's clever London Letter in the Newcastle
Chronicle.
After breakfast we went to the Chapel, where Bishop,
Chaplains and choir boys robed. We said shortened
Morning Prayer, with a hymn, the Bishop reading the
Lesson from the Revised Version. Then all separated,
going to our several bedrooms where we read by our/
selves, except when we attended lectures.
After luncheon each of us visited his own district
Bishop Auckland is the centre of a Decapolis of Pit
villages and the two Vicars placed a student in one or
other to help the six curates and to learn parish work.
Their experiences can best be told by two extracts.
The Bishop wrote a long obituary to Chanticleer (Lent
term 1887), the Jesus College, Cambridge, magazine, in
memory of H. R. Banton, who had been a student and
later became his Chaplain. In sending the notice the
Bishop wrote: "I am glad of the opportunity which you
SONS OF THE HOUSE 25
have given me of paying this tribute to the memory of one
whom I loved as a son".
After reviewing his earlier life the Bishop proceeds:
The students at Auckland Castle are told off to different departments
of parochial work and Banton was placed in St Peter's Parish in the
Mission Room District which was largely inhabited at that time by
iron workers, a very rough and unmanageable class of men. The Rev.
F. L. Cope who had himself been an Auckland student was then
curate of the parish. They had known each other at Cambridge, and
from notes with which at my request he supplied me I extract the follow
ing: "At Auckland I notice the beginning of his distinctive method of
working: i.e. fastening himself on one or two at a time and paying
much attention to them. It is difficult to say what guided him in his
choice. Often they were to me the most unattractive and unpromising
specimens."
The Bishop continues:
Knowing his innate sensitiveness and refinement, I can only suppose
him to have acted in the spirit of St Francis of Assisi, lavishing his
attentions on those who would otherwise receive scant attention, and
feeling at the same time that his own fastidious taste needed the stern
discipline of such companionships.
Another vivid picture is given by Arthur F. Sim, the
Trial Eight stroke of Pembroke College, Cambridge, of
whom the Bishop said at his ordination: "There are
depths in Sim that I cannot fathom". "Let him go
where he will, his face will be a sermon in itself." In one
of his letters Sim gives this sketch of the life at Auckland
Castle:
One has an indefinite amount of work to do, so I will give you a
sample of the way we spend the day. Breakfast at 7.45 Chapel 8.15.
Lectures 9 to n Reading n to i Lunch at 1.15. Then in the after/
noon we visit three times a week and read the other three days. I gener/
ally get a game, and sometimes two, of football in the week by way of
exercise. My district is a sort of cosmopolitan one. I visit the parents of
the institute lads. The institute was built by the Bishop and it is a sort
26 SONS OF THE HOUSE
of club for young men and lads from 18 years upwards. There are
about 200 in it, so there is lots to do and I am teaching one of them to
read, a slow process! I have a Bible Class on Sunday and I read the
Lessons in the Parish Church.
Occasionally I have to preach in a schoolroom some three miles out
in the country, but more often in a tiny little room in the town, where
my congregation consists of about four to twelve old women and a lot
of children. The latter are never quiet, and to have one of them squalling
in one's ear is rather disconcerting, though not to the mothers who are
accustomed to it.
After Curacies at Sunderland and West Hartlepool
Sim volunteered for work in Central Africa under
U.M.C.A. Before he went, one of us said: " Peter, it's a
terrible sacrifice going to Africa, giving up all the com/
forts, leaving all the friends and facing an almost certain
death ". He was silent for a minute looking out of the
window. Then he said quietly: "He's worth it all, Mac. "
All his life long he seemed to have been looking up into
the face of God. That was, we felt, what made his face so
beautiful.
One day at Sunderland he jumped straight into the
river and saved a drowning boy. His fellow Curate
living in the same house contradicted the rumour when
he heard it, but found later it was true, though Peter in his
modesty had never even mentioned it to him. When the
Bishop knew he wrote from his sick bed:
BOURNEMOUTH.
,, , _. March I8q.
My dear Sim,
I have heard with very great delight that you have rescued a child
from drowning, a special privilege on which I congratulate you as one
of my Auckland sons. We all feel that the honour is reflected on the
whole body, and we thank you for the lift you have given us.
As yet I have only heard the fact. Write and tell me the particulars.
SONS OF THE HOUSE 27
I hope you will be able to come and pay me a visit here, though you
will find a sick man a very dull host. But you will find livelier com''
panions. However Harmer will shortly write about this.
This is one of the very few letters which I have written since I took
up the pen, after five months: and both pen and brain play me sad
pranks. But I desired to express my thanks to you with my own hand.
Yours affectionately,
J. B. DUNELM.
Most affectionate remembrances to Willink, Lambert, Rolt, and all my
Auckland sons.
The original of this precious letter, which had some
"sad pranks" corrected by the Bishop himself, was taken
out by Sim as a treasure to Kota Kota where he died
after ten days' weary suffering on October 29th, 1895.
This Arthur F. Sim 'Peter Sim" is still one of the
inspirations of Auckland Brethren; as Canon Body said
after his death "he is to me no memory but a felt presence
still".
In 1884 the learned world was aroused by the dis/
covery by Bryennios ofthe"Didache": and on St Peter's
Day, when he had all his sons about him, the Bishop
discussed the new discovery. We all sat in the great
drawing/room and the Bishop stood, or sat, at a spot near
the great door towards the Chapel, and gave a most
learned and vigorous lecture on the subject in the most
outspoken way. 1
But while thus ready to open all his mind to his own
sons it was otherwise with strangers.
That same summer a learned foreign historian came to
luncheon. Two ladies, cousins of the Bishop, were staying
at the Castle and there was a large party. The Bishop took
in one lady and the learned stranger sat opposite beside
1 See Apostolic Fathers, Single vol. pp. 215 etc.
28 SONS OF THE HOUSE
the other. Having engineered his conversation with her
round to the Didache, he suddenly raised his voice, as he
told her his views of the meaning of a debatable passage,
adding, "Don't you think so, my Lord?" across the
table.
We Chaplains and students watched with some amuse/
ment. We knew that the Bishop was not to be drawn.
He seemed to ignore the question. Luncheon was the
immediate business in hand, and his guests must not be
delayed ; so the learned stranger found that though his own
opinion was listened to with courtesy his question received
no reply. His Chaplain said to the Bishop afterwards,
"You didn't give him much satisfaction". His only
answer was "I couldn't think what he was talking about;
he called it the Titt/a/hay!"
A still better example of the same rooted objection to
being forced to give an opinion prematurely on any
question occurred when a certain very well/known pub/
licist asked if he might introduce a prominent newspaper
editor. The Bishop's hospitality welcomed them and they
came, clearly agreed between themselves to extract an
opinion from the Bishop on a very crucial ecclesiastical
issue then causing great anxiety in Church circles. We
watched with interest at luncheon as the Bishop skilfully
parried their many leading questions. Now and then
when escape seemed impossible, quite suddenly he
would turn the conversation.
In despair as they rose from the table the two strangers
followed the Bishop to the window; when one of them
pressed his point, and said, "And what, my Lord, do
you think of the prospects" the Bishop put up his eye/
glass, and looking out said with grave simplicity, "I
always say that it is one of the advantages of my house
SONS OF THE HOUSE 29
that though it is in the town, it is also in the country. It
is a wonderful prospect".,
"It was difficult", says one of his sons, "for a shy man
awed by the Bishop's learning to come into close relation/
ship with him. Yet one felt how much he sought the
affection of those around him: seeking it that they might
share his larger love."
All this led the Bishop to take walks with his men,
sometimes long walks with a number of students and
chaplains, including a railway journey. Another day he
would go with one Chaplain or a student to Parkhead,
or to Binchester, the old Roman camp a mile or two from
the head of the Park, taking his big Saint Bernard dog
whose reckless career he delighted in, regardless of what
it cost in compensation for sheep. At Brancepeth he
would discuss the dates and history of its treasures with
his wide and accurate knowledge. These excursions gave
opportunity for love to grow, and for him to know the
character of his men.
One veteran writes after the lapse of forty years:
The event that sticks in my mind above all else was the great kind/
ness of our father in God, giving up a whole afternoon's walk with me
alone, so that he might hear of a matter in my mind, and advise and
talk to me about it. I was generally terribly shy with him, but that time
I could not be, he was so understanding and sympathetic. What a lot
one learned from his personality!
Sunday night supper was a great occasion, when the
local clergy as well as all students were gathered, and the
tension of a busy Sunday found relaxation in the merry
talk. On one occasion a student who had been preaching
at a distant Mission came in late. He was met by the
Bishop who, with mock anxiety and eyeglass upraised,
said quickly, "How is Eutychus?"
30 SONS OF THE HOUSE
But there came times of a different order, when amid
fewer listeners perhaps the Bishop would linger over
dinner talking more freely of days and persons of the past.
The smaller the company the better the chance of this.
He took the liveliest interest in all his Sons' athletics. It
was his custom to lecture on Saturday mornings, but one
day finding out that one of us was playing football for the
Town he said, "No lecture to/day, so that you can play
football".
Another came north with an All England reputation
and was in great demand all over the county for football,
and the Bishop encouraged his playing. It fell on a day
that he landed at a distant station and found no way of
getting home, so presuming on the Bishop's kindness he
dared to telegraph for the Bishop's dogcart, which was
duly sent. Next week the same thing occurred. On the
telegram being shown to the Bishop he said quietly,
" Send the carriage". When the sportsman turned out of
the train he was astonished to see the Bishop's footman in
livery waiting, and still more surprised when he found
himself taken home in state in the Bishop's carriage and
pair. It did not occur again.
The Bishop greatly enjoyed a visit paid to the Castle by
Dr Farmer, the well known organist of Harrow School,
when he came to conduct a performance of his Oratorio,
"Christ and his Soldiers", in the Town Hall. Dr
Farmer was a sparkling conversationalist, and in the
drawing room gave a humorous musical sketch of his
own after the manner of Corney Grain which delighted
the Bishop. Indeed he would always break away from
his work when a more than usually attractive visitor was
speaking to the students; such as the late Dr Dickinson,
Dean of the Chapel Royal, Dublin, one of the wittiest of
SONS OF THE HOUSE 31
the sons of men, A clever musician, one of the brethren,
writes:
In the last summer of his life when Mr Richmond was at the Castle
painting his portrait, Richmond and I used to play duets on the great
Broadwood Grand Piano in the evenings, chiefly Beethoven's synv
phonies. But the Bishop's taste in music was not classical, and the one
thing he really appreciated was when I did an imitation of a street
piamvorgan playing "Dreamland Faces", a performance which he
insisted on my giving before an audience of many of the grandees of the
county, after a big full dress dinner party.
But the same writer has a more precious memory. "My
most vivid remembrance of him is just before he went on
his last journey to Bournemouth, when each of us went
into his study to say 'Good/bye', and I well remember
kneeling down, as he gave me his blessing."
And here is another letter that may well close our
sketch of life at Auckland:
My dear. . .
Your letter was a great joy and comfort to me. I trust the sense o
Brotherhood will grow ever stronger and stronger with you all as the
years roll on. God has given us an ideal, which we ought to cherish
as a very sacred possession.
It is always a delight to me to hear that my sons are even happier in
the ministerial work than they were at Auckland. This is just what I
pray for. I trust that they may carry away a something which by God's
goodness may be an abiding source of happiness.
You have been much in my thought lately. Your goodness in looking
after me at Oban has often been present to my mind. I do not suppose
you can realise how a father lives on the loyalty and attention of his sons.
Always my own dear son,
Yours affectionately,
J. B. DUNELM.
Such was his treatment of his "Sons of the House".
And here is his review of his scheme;
32 SONS OF THE HOUSE
Preaching to us on St Peter's Day, 1889 which
proved to be his last he said:
. . .In that long wakeful night when the decision was finally made
which transferred me from Cambridge to Durham the idea of the
College first took shape in my brain. It was thus identified with the
work of my episcopate in its origin. It has proved by God's grace, a
very real blessing to myself (may I say to ourselves ?) and, what is far more
important, to this Diocese. It rests with you now that henceforward the
promise of the future shall outstrip the achievements of the past.
The idea was not long delayed in the execution. From the commence/
ment of the October Term after my arrival in the Diocese the College
dates its birth. Like much greater institutions, its growth has been
only the healthier because it arose from small beginnings. It is a great
happiness to note that in to/day's meeting we miss none of those who
were present at its inauguration. . . .For two or three years our numbers
were so few that a periodical gathering did not enter into our thoughts.
At length on St Peter's Day, 1883, our first Commemoration took
place. From that day forward we have had these joyful gatherings
annually. 1
But while thus treating us as his sons, he would have
us no esoteric club.
Whatever other affinities may have drawn man to man during their
residence here. . .the true and ultimate bond of union must be the
participation in a common work and the loving devotion to a common
Master. This is the consecration and the crown of your friendships,
of your brotherhood.
Of your brotherhood. Yes, I delight to place this before you as
the ideal of our fellowship here. A brotherhood in Christ; not an
exclusive association of clique or caste; not a repulsive Pharisaism
which exalts special advantages into special merits; not a centripetal, but
a centrifugal influence or rather centrifugal because it is centripetal,
a force gathering strength at a central fire, but a force diffusing heat,
and light and life far and wide.
. . . The affection of brother to brother is only a stepping/stone to that
larger grace which knows no distinction of man and man which
transcends all external barriers. . . .If it stops short of this it fails of its
1 Ordination Addresses, pp. 196, 197. London: Macmillan, 1890.
SONS OF THE HOUSE 33
true end. It becomes a snare to ourselves, and a stone of offence to the
Church of Christ. Remember therefore the Apostle's precept
yopfj^ffaTe & rfj <j>iKa$e\(j)La rrjv a^airirjv. Let your
8eK<f)ia expand into
"He sought our love that he might pass on his love
through us to others ", writes one " Son". And assuredly
love spread among all ranks of his clergy. "Though not
a 'Son of the House* I feel surely that I was a 'first
Cousin'. His gentleness and sympathy inspired our
affection."
But if as Sons we had these "special advantages" we
were not to expect any special favours:
I am ambitious for you all. But my ambition does not take the
form of wishing to see you in places of emolument or of ease or of
comfort or of popularity. I desire before all things that you should be
fit to do Christ's work, that you should be ready to do it, and that you
should have the scope and opportunity for doing it. I covet for you
not the honour of men, but the honour of GOD. If the alternative lay
before me of offering any of you a place of emolument and dignity on
the one hand, or a place of difficulty and responsibility on the other, be
assured that the emolument and the dignity should go elsewhere, and
the difficulty and responsibility should be laid on your shoulders, if only
I thought them strong enough to bear the burden. I should feel, you
would feel (would you not;) that only too much honour was done to
you, when you were called to bear the brunt of the fight in the van of
God's army, even though your shoulders might wear no epaulettes and
you yourselves received less than a subaltern's pay. This neither more
nor less than this is the meaning of Christ's prediction to St Peter as
applied to yourselves. "Expect toil; expect to spend and be spent,
expect in some form or other a cross but in spite of this, or rather
because of this, 'Follow ME, Follow ME*." 3
1 Ordination Addresses, p. 154.
2 Ibidem, p. 160.
EM
Chapter IV
A STRANGER'S IMPRESSIONS
THE following letters give an interesting picture of
the home/life at Auckland Castle, seen through
the eyes of an observant visitor. The writer, the
Rev. Robert W.Barbour ofBonskeid, near Pitlochry, was
one of the most gifted of a brilliant circle of Free Church
Ministers and Laymen in Scotland at that time. Bishop
Lightfoot had spent a memorable four weeks' holiday in
the late summer of 1880 at the picturesque Killiecrankie
Cottage hard by Bonskeid, and had been greatly charmed
by the kindness and hospitality of the Barbour family.
Feelings of friendship sprang up out of this visit, and
especially so between young Robert Barbour and the
Bishop's Chaplain, now Bishop Eden. Hence Robert
Barbour's visit to Auckland in 1882, so beautifully
described in these letters to his wife.
Robert Barbour's death only nine years later at the age
of thirtysix deprived his Church of one who was
already recognised as likely to be a leader of outstanding
ability and most loveable personality. Scholar, poet,
philosopher, pastor, saint it is hard to say where he most
excelled. The letters are reprinted from a privately pub/
lished Memoir (Glasgow University Press, 1893) by the
kind permission of his son, Dr G. Freeland Barbour, of
Fincastle, Perthshire.
AUCKLAND CASTLE,
April 280), 1882.
I suppose it is the curfew which has just rung, for my watch says
8 o'clock, and I feel as if I were at home, and indeed should be quite
A STRANGER'S IMPRESSIONS 35
content were my wife and wee one only with me. For I think every
true Bethel every house of God, or of a godly man feels like home,
however different the outward form of the life be. And, indeed, the
form here seems to me quite a secondary thing, and quite separable
from the reality. The stone and lime of it is different to ours the choir/
stalls and the palace'chapel but the songs are the same, and the hearts
are one. So I felt at the practising to/night. But to say so is to run on to
the end of my story....
Why should I tell thee of the walk down the "long, unlovely
street" [of Bishop Auckland], the escape from the square through the
archway to the great Castle, with its square masses and little ornament,
except where the chapel takes hold of the heavy Tudor and lifts it
heavenward not a bad likeness in stone of the Bishop himself? Why
should I tell thee what thou knowest? It was good to have been here
with thee, it felt safe ground and hardly strange. The absence of any lady
was another appropriate element in the experience. One does not know
what kind of creature could have sat by the Bishop's side and not have
seemed inappropriate, or detracting, or unworthy in some way.
A cup of tea waited in the small drawing-room. . . .
Then we joined the little party in the Chapel. Some six little boys on
either side sat in the stalls, Eden just beyond at the harmonium, the men
in residence in the back seats. This happens, not every day, but every
second, when the psalms and hymns for morning and evening prayers
are gone over.. . .The singing was sweet and real, though we were a
little rough. I forgot to say that the Bishop had come in while we were
having tea. He received me so warmly, and trotted out and in so
simply. There is an air almost of wistfulness, a dumb kind of devotion
in his face, that gives you an impression of the most downright
honesty. You know the way a Newfoundland or a setter looks at you
when it wants to show you it loves you. Well, it is not unlike that. I
think the cherub with the face of an ox which Ezekiel saw cannot have
been far from the Bishop's. Just as Mozley or Westcott make one
think of the one with the eagle, and Rainy or J. H. Wilson of the lion,
and Livingstone or Dr Stewart or Mr Stalker of the man. After chapel
we went into the tea-room, Dr Lightfoot showing the way with such a
womanly grace. The table was ample, and the table talk easy to a
degree. The talk was about the book John Ingksant, which everybody
had been reading but myself. The Bishop's words were always worth
taking to/day. Such z judgment it is. He always speaks with a pair of
3/2
36 A STRANGER'S IMPRESSIONS
balances in his hand, like Justice, only he is not blindfolded like her.
And yet he looks about after speaking like a child, as if to see whether
he has not made a mistake. "I know the plot", said one man. "There
is plenty of plotting in it, but little plot", rejoined the Bishop, evidently
without any sense that he was using the language of repartee. "A
curious condition of mind to be in," he went on to remark, "to be
scrupulous about honour and to have no regard for the truth." He
spoke, too, of the contrast between the contented life of a country
gentleman and these sudden stirrings of spirit which came to John
Inglesant. "I wonder", he asked, "whether such a state of mind ever
existed to any extent in those days." I thought of saying that it was a
common enough type of character in our own day, and that the writer
had probably carried it thither out of his own time. "But", added Dr
Lightfoot, "I imagine the description of Roman Society is perfectly
correct." Somebody quoted a lecture of Seeley's on Pope Leo the
Atheist versus Luther the Dogmatist. " That is putting it very strongly,"
rejoined the Bishop, "Leo was a sceptic rather." These are just a few
crumbs. Meantime, remarks on tennis, offers and acceptances of
"grilled chicken", "cocoa", "toast", and college stories flew about.
It was not brilliant, but it was very bright. Dr Lightfoot asked after
Cults and Pitlochry, and smiled upon us all.
10.45. The evening worship was very uniting. The servants came
in, and we sang the psalms and hymns, and Dr Lightfoot and a
chaplain read and prayed (from the new version and the prayer book)
in his own voice and with his own devout, simple soul uttering itself
in all. His after talk in the drawing/room was even more charming.
You know how a mastiff will lie down (out of sheer love for the
canine race) and let a crowd of small dogs jump and tumble over him,
and put them off, and egg them on with great pawings and immense
"laps" of his broad tongue. Even so did Dr Lightfoot.
Since then Eden and some of the men have come in from the Boys'
Institute, where they have spent the evening attempting to solve the
impossible how to command the wild, wicked young life of Bishop
Auckland.
It is good for me to be in the midst of so much informal earnestness
and Christian manliness.
A STRANGER'S IMPRESSIONS 37
AUCKLAND CASTLE, BISHOP AUCKLAND,
April 2<)th, 1882.
I write at an open window of the little drawing/room here. I have
so often longed you could have moved about with me through these
rooms and among these men; for it is, I think, altogether the best glimpse
you can get of the English Church both outside and in. Everything
that adds honour to her name is here. There is a good tradition in the
Diocese. The Bishops have not seldom been men of piety and power.
Butler's memory alone is enough to ennoble any place in any Church;
and the history of Auckland Castle both before and after his time is
not out of sympathy with the thoughts you have when you hear his
name. They are thoughts, are they not, of honest bravery in theology, of
a great man doing battle by himself in a quiet corner, until the Church
at length awoke and found he had won her victory.
Then I suppose it is not taking her past out of the hands of time, to
say that Butler's seat is now filled by his nearest successor; a man as great
in his work and in his day as his great namesake (for they both are
written "Joseph Dunelm.") I know not if there be any better test of
true lastingness in any man who is yet living, than when, knowing his
written works, one is able to compare them with his person, and to say
that these correspond. The same judgment which you admire in Dr
Lightfoot's commentaries meets you in his conversation. He seems,
like Justice in her statues, always to give his sentences, holding mean/
time a pair of other scales. Indeed, the analogy might be extended.
Justice is but badly described in stone as being blindfolded in her
decisions. But there is in the Bishop a strong cast of eye which enables
him, when he speaks, to address himself to nobody in particular;
although, immediately after speaking, he turns on you a glance that
conveys an expression of the most absolute impartiality.
It has been an old custom here for a number of students to reside with
the Bishop. The practice is, I believe, a relic of that order of things in
which almost all our pre/Reformation Universities arose; the habit, I
mean, of having a school attached to the church (though that of course
by itself is as old as the synagogue), and of having a separate body of
clergy appointed to teach. There is, or was, such a foundation of teach/
ing canons in connexion with the Parish Church of this place. The
remains of a college still exist behind the Castle. Some Bishop, who was
as much knight as minister, turned these into stables. As it is, Dr
38 A STRANGER'S IMPRESSIONS
Lightfoot has some six or seven young men in residence with him. They
come here from Oxford and Cambridge for a year before ordination.
Some have taken their degree in arts; others (according to the later
custom, which allows one to occupy his undergraduate course entirely
with divinity an arrangement which saves theology at the sacrifice of
general culture) others, I say, are bachelors in divinity. They have an
ordered life in the Castle. Breakfast is at 7.45, and is followed by prayers
in the Chapel at 8.15. Then one of the Chaplains lectures to the men
from 9-10. For instance, this morning a Mr Southwell has been saying
some things upon the genius of Hebrew poetry, previous to reading the
first forty psalms, which is a subject of examination for Orders. Then
follows an interval of two hours which is filled with reading, directed
(by the Chaplain) to the foregoing lecture. Another lecture comes
from 12-1. To/day my friend, Eden, will take introduction to the
ist Epistle of Peter, if his economic duties (for he is purser, caterer,
steward, and I know not what all, to his chief) allow him any time. The
Bishop is to lecture shortly on principles of textual criticism. We dine
at one. The afternoon is taken up with district visiting. Each man has
a little plot of ground to work in the agricultural and mining country
round. One evening a week is, I think, given by each to a cottage
reading. Other nights these men help my friend in evening classes and
recreations at an institute for lads in the town.
This, you will think, is a long, but I assure you it is a needful,
interlude between telling you how beautiful a thing the bishop's house/
hold life is, and saying in so many words wherein its beauty lies.
He calls these lads (and I can imagine worse things than to feel
myself, for the nonce, one of them) his family, and they treat him as
frank, ingenuous English gentlemen's sons would treat their father. He
is accessible to their difficulties and their doubts, if they have any; but,
a thing more remarkable, he is open to all their kittenhood of mirth and
fun. To hear him alone with them is to feel you are on the edge of a
circle, which tempts you almost to stand on tiptoe and look over and
wish you were inside. It is a searching trial of true homeliness, to
observe how it comports itself when there are strangers present. But I
assert my coming in has not bated one jot of all this family joy. Last
evening after prayers, they were poking fun at the Bishop. One man
was asked how he was getting on with Hebrew. The fellow boldly
turned the weapon round by enquiring whether his lordship was
prepared to teach him. Dr Lightfoot was gently demurring, when
A STRANGER'S IMPRESSIONS 39
somebody else burst in, as if with a child's impatience and fear of some
older uncompleted promise: " No, not before we have had these lectures
on botany". Then, assuming the air of someone to whom that study was
even as his necessary food, he went on to report his observations, taken
daily on his walks to and from the district, of two interesting wtds. It
sounded like a clever parody upon Darwin and his climbing plants
trained up the bed'post.
I have written all this in order to show if it is within the power of
words to show a thing which lies more in the feeling of the whole,
than in any enumeration, however complete, of the details how happy
an example one has here of the spirit and the action of the English
Church. Within, you have a home and a beehive both in one; without,
everything is plain, and simple, and strenuous. The Bishop preaches
such sermons as the one I sent you. His Chaplains teach, and visit, and
preach. The students are an earnest and healthy set of men. Nothing
is allowed in the Castle which speaks of pomp or pretension. You go
down morning and evening to prayers in the Chapel; I suppose it is
about the finest palace chapel in Britain. A simple service is held. The
Bishop and a Chaplain read the lessons and lead the prayers. Another
Chaplain has trained a choir of boys from the neighbouring town.
Behind these choristers sit the students; the Bishop's servants (eight I
counted) are in the back seats. One or two from the outside also seem
to attend. The psalms and hymns are simply but sweetly sung. So
anxious is Dr Lightfoot that nothing should lie unused, nothing rest
in an empty name, that I believe he is fitting up the Chapel with seats,
so as to have a service every Sabbath. Much of what I have seen here,
the earnestness and the manliness of the men, the order of the household,
the thoroughness of the instruction, the devoutness of prayers, the
sweetness of the singing, the beauty, the learning, the goodness, the
simplicity make me hang my head for shame both as a man and as
a minister; for my whole heart consents to these things that they are
right.
And yet something within me always rises and says: Thou hast a
better portion in the North than all these things if thou only knewest
.it. Thy God, thy father's God, hath wrought nobler things in Scotland
than any that are here. ...
These thoughts have come to me to/day, since hearing the Bishop's
beautiful prayer added (by his own hand and heart, I believe) to the
morning service. He asked the Lord of the Universal Church merci/
40 A STRANGER'S IMPRESSIONS
fully to direct those who were now charged with the choice of a chief
minister for the county of Northumberland, that they might appoint
one who could set forward God's work in the district and further the
salvation of all men. That was for the new Bishop of Newcastle, a see
to which Dr Lightfoot has parted with a considerable part of his
living....
AUCKLAND CASTLE,
May ist, 1882.
I think my last letter ended on Friday night after service in the little
Chapel at half-past nine. True family worship it was.
At 12 this forenoon I came up to the students' room and took notes
of an oral lecture of Eden's on ist Peter. It was a discussion of the ev
Ba/3yX&w ch. v, based on the Bishop's notes. At i we dined, and at
1.30 ran for the train to Durham, whither Eden had invited me to go
with him for the afternoon.
Thou knowest dost thou not 2 the steep, picturesque little town
that lies on the wooded Wear, the old and thronging bridge, the climb
to the Castle as precipitous, we said, as the ascent to BCilliecrankie
the cottage, the old gateway, the open square, a retreat (like the
Wartburg) from the busy town, with Dean's, Canons', Archdeacons'
houses about. First we went through the cloisters and Cathedral to
the Castle where the college now is. We explored the rooms of the
"Union", saw the dining/hall and the pictures, and the places of state
just vacated by the judges on circuit. Eden shewed me with a kind of
rapture the rooms where the Bishop's party first resided on coming to
Durham. The tapestries and carvings were very fine.
But by far the finest remained. About three we went into the Gather
dral. An enthusiastic but sensible verger, . . . shewed us over it; and we
joined in his praises as he passed from point to point of the history and
the building. . . .
After the service (about 5) it rained heavily. We sought refuge in
Canon Tristram's, whose house is, like himself, a treasury of birds and
beasts. . . . From thence a hand'gallop brought us through the drenching
rain to the station. . . .
t *
Yesterday morning the Bishop and his men all went to early conv
munion in a neighbouring church. I rested till 8, and then joined them
at 8.30 in the Chapel. After breakfast I went with Dr Lightfoot and
A STRANGER'S IMPRESSIONS 41
Mr Eden to one of the town's churches, where we had a simple easy
service, and an earnest popular sermon from the words, " Whence then
cometh wisdom?" The preacher shewed us how even in Job's day
the devout heart felt through and behind all the phenomena of nature,
and the explanations of these offered by men, and reached to an Eternal
Power before which it bowed, and to which it trusted for a life beyond.
It was beautiful to see the chief minister worshipping among his
people, and going in and out before them like a true iroLfirjv \aov.
Both sermons were extempore. It was beautiful to see the supper table
in the evening with Dr Lightfoot. All his ministers and curates and
students gathered about it, after the day's work was done. The evening
worship was full of solemnity. You felt the influence of good men being
all about you. "Verily God is in this place."
Chapter V
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
TH E above vivid picture by the Rev. Robert Barbour
depicts the life at Auckland Castle, as seen by a
visitor, fifty years ago.
The following seven stories written for this book in
recent months record lasting impressions on very different
minds. The writers, of whom two are Bishops and one
a Dean, were all Sons of the House.
With all his simplicity and playful humour, there was an air of
moral grandeur about Bishop Lightfoot such as I never have met with
in the presence of any other man.
The massive rugged vastness of his Cathedral seemed well suited as a
setting for his greatness, and the grave solemnity of his utterance in his
sermons. Never shall I forget hearing him in Auckland Chapel at my
ordination say: "Forget me, forget the service of to-morrow, forget the
human questioner. Transport yourselves in thought from the initial to
the final enquiry. The great day of inquisition, the supreme moment of
revelation is come. The Chief Shepherd, the Universal Bishop of souls
is the questioner. It is no longer a matter of the making of the promises,
but of the fulfilment of the promises. The 'Wilt thou' of the ordination
day is exchanged for 'Hast thou' of the Judgment Day 'Hast thou
been diligent in prayer 2 ' ' Hast thou framed and fashioned thy life l'" 1
And yet in the same Chapel I realised the intense love and humility
of the Bishop. I came back to stay a night with one of the Curates at
the Castle Lodge, and naturally went to Mattins in the Chapel, sitting
alone in one of the stalls. The service ended; the Bishop and his little
choir went out, and I remained for a quiet time on my knees. At
length, as I stole out, I found to my astonishment that the Bishop was
waiting behind the screen. He would not intrude upon a junior Curate
1 Ordination AMresses, pp. 72-3.
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 43
at his prayers, but he would keep the Diocese waiting till he had given
me a cordial handshake and word of good cheer.
We had no doubts that if Lightfoot wished a thing, you must do it.
You didn't argue whether it was right or wrong, you just had to do it
because you could not disappoint his love. He meant you to keep your
own judgment, and his humility would have made him pay the highest
respect to your objections, but somehow you couldn't help feeling that
the highest call was the call to meet his love by your acquiescence.
The other thing that was most noticeable about him was his sinv
plicity. Both in his humour, and appreciation of humour, andin the little
things of daily life, his simplicity came out. I remember a delightful
scene one night at Auckland. An old clergyman of some position in
the county had come over to stay, with his daughter. He was a little
absent minded, and when we came out of Chapel he wanted to go to
bed; and without the least thinking what he was doing, he went and lit
a bedroom candle and handed it to the Bishop, who meekly took it and
went to bed! It was an intensely comic scene, because the old Rector's
daughter was so very conscious of what her father had done. The
Bishop's meek acceptance was not only so delicately courteous, but so
irresistibly droll. His sense of humour was always so perfectly natural,
the frank way in which he accepted a joke that amused him, and that
amazing laugh with which he went off.
I remember now the scene when he saw the soap advertisement
caricature of Gladstone as the baby in the bath reaching out for the
cake of soap; I can see him sitting in the corner of the sofa and going
off in that loud crow of enjoyment. It was absolutely childlike.
I am quite sure that the love of the Diocese for him was the answer to
that love of his.
If ever a man reflected in his character the Divine Love, if ever a man
was great through his simplicity and through the childlike quality of his
character, that man was Lightfoot. And after all, as one's experience of
life goes on, one sees more and more that those are the two greatest
qualities that a man can shew.
44 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
3
Reverence for our great father in God is so strong in all of us that we
shrink from writing any reminiscences of him which are unworthy or
inadequate.
The Bishop, as we all know, did not allow himself any prolonged
inactivity; his rest was chiefly change of occupation resumption of
literary work, which had been laid aside when he became Bishop. But
there were "leisure moments" at Auckland, during which he loved to
chat with his sons, and enjoy our jokes. One afternoon, in a leisure
moment, he strolled over to the stables with his favourite collie,
" Dugald". But trouble awaited him; for collie and mastiff fell out
and fought. The Bishop intervened, and seizing them, apparently by
the jaws, pulled them apart. I saw him pass my windows with face as
white as a sheet. He could not stand the sight of blood. He was a
sorry sight, with apron all torn, and bleeding a good deal from a bitten
hand. The incident serves to illustrate his personal courage.
I Was struck also by his coolness in danger of another sort. When
we were staying with him in Oban, we hired a small open boat, and
sailed round the Island of Kerrera. All went well till we were entering
the Straits, at the south of the Island, when a violent squall struck us.
Had the sheet been fast we should have been swamped, but it was let
go in time, and, tumbling about in the choppy sea, we got the sail down
and reefed it. The picture of the Bishop, with the MS. of his Ignatius in
his hand, quite calm and self/possessed, seemed to me characteristic.
As we rowed up the Fjords in Norway, he would be working at his
Epistle of Clement, every now and then looking up to admire some
waterfall, or other striking feature of the scenery, which he considered
more continuously beautiful than Switzerland.
The latter country he knew well, and must have been a fairly good
climber, for he had done his 12,000 feet. At Oban, in 1883, he enjoyed
some good walks across the mountains, preferring always to find out
the route from the ordnance map rather than ask the way; and keenly
interested in all the little mountain flowers, which he loved.
It was amusing when some frivolous person tried to draw him into
some such discussion as whether ought to shave off his moustache
at his approaching ordination. He would quaintly put up his eye/
glass and call attention to some very ordinary object in the landscape,
and evade the unnecessary reply. Most memorable of all the holidays
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 45
was that time at Braemar, when Archbishop Benson and Dr Westcott
were staying in the same place, and these three great men, old school-
fellows, used to meet at the little Church for daily Service and arrange
expeditions together. Returning from one of these, we met a carriage.
The Bishop was first to recognise in it Queen Victoria, and bade us
step aside with bare heads. She evidently recognised him with pleasure.
Had not those two noble souls many points of spiritual affinity;
4
I was driving the Bishop in a stolkjar along a rough road near the
Romsdal Horn when he wished to cross from one valley to another.
After a few miles the road became so narrow with rocks on one side,
and a sheer drop into the lake on the other, that I said to him, "I wish
you would climb out at the back of the vehicle, there is only about
4 inches to spare on the near side". The Bishop looked down the preci/
pice, and after a moment's pause remarked, " Other stolkjars must have
taken this road. Drive on" and continued to correct proofs which
he had that morning received.
In spite of his sedentary life he was capable of great exertion at times,
thinking nothing of ascending Lochnagar from Braemar when he
must have been nearly 60 years old. I always felt, however, that it was
the long tramp without a proper meal near the Romsdal Horn in
Norway which was the beginning of the break/up of his health.
5
The Bishop's fearlessness was again shewn when in 1885 he visited
Sicily in order to explore certain churches, especially at Trapani. On
his way out he made the ascent of Vesuvius with two of us. The
mountain was uneasy, and throwing up ho,t ashes and lava about every
three or four minutes. The guides on the upper cone refused to take
visitors to the actual edge of the crater, except for an exorbitant fee.
The Bishop, however, would look into the crater. He began to walk
steadily up by himself and we went with him. Seeing his determina/
tion, a guide ultimately accompanied us, and choosing a calm interval
allowed us to look over for a moment into the crater, himself holding
on to the Bishop's coat/tails. Little but smoke and steam could be
seen. But the Bishop lingered and had to be literally dragged away just
46 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
as a peculiarly vicious puff scattered ashes and sticky red hot lava all
around us. The Bishop was quite unmoved.
To explain Lightfoot's attraction for me, and how I came to throw
in my lot with the Auckland Brotherhood, I am afraid I must go
back a little to Cambridge days, and even before. I had been used to a
village Church and a school Chapel where the services were of the
simplest sort, and I shrank from anything the least elaborate; and some/
where in this instinctive shrinking I put Theological Colleges, where
I imagined everyone would be turned out after a pattern, and that one I
should not like.
It was against this background that I heard of Lightfoot, who had no
college such as I dreaded and simply gathered men round him men
of the sort I could take to and sent them to work in his Diocese. So I
wrote to a student at the Castle whom I knew slightly asking if I should
have any chance of being accepted and what I ought to do. Then came
an invitation, visit and interview, and from that day forward I had
neither doubt nor fear my life's course was settled.
Nothing particular happened, as far as I remember; there was nothing
noteworthy about the interview it was just sympathetic and kindly.
But I was captured. The man and his surroundings, i.e. the men and
their spirit, appealed to me tremendously. Specially I remember being
thrilled by the Chapel and compline, and it was borne in upon me once
and for all that here was something well worth belonging to for life
and whatever lay beyond life. . . .
Of course, Lightfoot himself was the central inspiration yet
I do not think I ever felt quite at home with him, or entirely at
ease in his company, though I was with him once in Norway and had
good opportunities perhaps because I was as shy as he was. But the
point is that I never felt this mattered in the least. It was enough to
know he cared and to try to please him. I mostly talked about the other
Auckland men, and their doings of the lighter sort, and that always
interested him. Once I remember, when I told him, how as a monitor
at school, I had caned others, but rather regretted not having had the
experience of being caned myself, he humorously suggested that it was
not too late to make good that defect.
Truly he was a great chief, direct and simple and strong, and he
made us feel that we would go anywhere and do anything (or anyhow
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 47
attempt it) for his sake, for we knew it was for Christ's sake, Christ's
Church in the Diocese of Durham which, as it was his, was our pride
and joy.
7
I went to Auckland Castle in 1887 and was there till the Christmas
of that year. I was rather raw; plenty of good intentions; some brains,
but raw distinctly.
Very well, what did Auckland do?
I should say that Auckland was different from anything else I ever
came across. It was not School there were no lessons few lectures
no Masters or Headmasters. It was not like College Tutors and
Deans were unknown.
I think the most striking thing was that Auckland was Lightfoot,
and Lightfoot was Auckland. For me he permeated and dominated
the whole thing. It was not that he said much, or did much, but he
was IT. With all the camaraderie of the Brotherhood, Auckland was
never to me that same place, even under Westcott.
As is well known, Lightfoot had no beauty efface or form, but he
had a most gorgeous smile, and when this came, it lit up his face like
a glory and made it fine. I used to save up funny stories to tell just
in order to conjure up that smile. It transformed the man.
The next thing I single out is that, with all the love he inspired,
that love involved reverence. Not by thought, word, or deed would I
ever lose respect for him. He would meet me on terms which I knew
were as equal as man could get to man. There was no standing on the
dignity of office, or learning, or personality. It is easy for youth in such
cases to be over'familiar: I like to think that I never overstepped the
mark. I remember that on one occasion a visitor spoke and acted in a
way which we thought was too familiar. We were furious. Then
essentially it was the personality and example of Lightfoot that affected
me. We read, we worked, because Lightfoot was working and reading.
We were no longer undergraduates, rather cocksure, and full of theories,
and panaceas. We learnt humility of the right sort and never forgot it.
Just the right setting of the whole thing were the Compline services
in Auckland Chapel. The silent Chapel with Lightfoot in his place
"The Lord Almighty grant us a quiet night and a perfect end,
Amen" "Brethren be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary, the
devil, walketh about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour:
48 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
whom resist steadfast in the faith" And the hymn "The day Thou
gavest, Lord, is ended".. . .
"So be it, Lord, Thy throne shall never
Like earth's proud empires pass away.
Thy kingdom stands, and grows for ever
Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway."
And so we learnt faith and hope.
For ourselves; I do not know whether it was ever said to me in so
many words, but it is as clear as if it had been spoken:
"The unwritten law of the Brotherhood is this; you go where you
are sent, you work till you drop, the Bishop will shew you no sort
of preference or notice, but. . .you have your place in the Bishop's
prayers "
and it was enough, I asked for no more, I expected less.
When the time came for ordination, I was asked where I would like
to go, and the answer was pat of course, " The Bishop can send me
wherever he likes, but if it is all the same to him, I would prefer a big
town and poor people". I got drafted off to a slum in a town. I was
only there eighteen months. Six months after my ordination to the
priesthood, I was invited to take charge of the Mission in South London
of my old College. I did my best to get out of it. I consulted Canon
Body and others. I could not get anyone to say "Don't go". In
desperation, I went to Lightfoot. He heard me patiently. He said very
little, but he did say, "I think a College has a claim on its members".
I met someone outside who said, " Well, what is the result? " My only
answer was, "I'm going". And so my connexion with the Diocese of
Durham came to an end.
Perhaps I ought to add that, just as I trusted the Bishop, I felt I was
trusted. Others probably will put this side better.
I was ordained Priest by Kennion, then of Adelaide, in 1888 because
Lightfoot was ill. That illness hit me like a knockdown blow.
If by the mercy of God I meet Lightfoot once more, I hope to good>
ness he will not say anything by way of praise. I don't think he is in the
least likely to forget, but I'd like him to smile.
Chapter VI
SAINT PETER'S DAY
"O record of Bishop Lightfoot would be com/
plete without a description of his annual gather/
ing of his "sons" at Auckland Castle on St
Peter's Day.
What he thought of this Brotherhood is clearly ex/
pressed in his letter 1 to Archbishop Benson on January
3ist, 1885, when his name had been mentioned as a
possible successor to Bishop Jackson at London. He
could not possibly have gone, he says,
The wrench of leaving Durham would be even worse than the
wrench that brought me here, for an ideal is gradually forming itself
of which I can only say that I wish I had the grace and power in
any degree to realise it. But it has its centre in the work and men
gathered about me at Auckland Castle; and this would hardly be
possible elsewhere.
And he wrote to one of his "sons":
It is a real joy to me to hear you so appreciated St Peter's Day. To me
it is the great day of the year, and I hope it will grow in value both to
my sons and myself.
The day was always heralded by this letter from the
Bishop some weeks before:
AUCKLAND CASTLE,
T., j BISHOP AUCKLAND.
My dear...
As St Peter's Day is fast approaching, I write to remind you that I
am looking forward to the pleasure of seeing you. I trust that you will
consider this a paramount engagement to which all others will be
postponed, so that we may meet in as large numbers as possible.
1 Life ofEdw. White Benson, Alp., n, 46.
EM 4
50 SAINT PETER'S DAY
Try and be here if you can in time for the evening meal at half past
seven o'clock on Tuesday the 28th. , /. . ,
Yours affectionately,
J. B. DUNELM.
With such a welcome in store, we started from our
various lodgings and meeting one and another en route
we arrived at Auckland, and hastened, as sons of the
house, through the side door and up to the great dining/
room where the Bishop greeted us with an eager grasp of
the hand. One year it happened that two of our brethren
had grown their beards, and by good fortune they met,
each rather embarrassed, in the Bishop's presence. To the
delight of the bystanders he came to their rescue and
introduced them to one another.
The usual programme was as follows:
On the Eve of St Peter's Day :
7.30p.m. Supper.
9.30 Evening Prayer.
O St Peter's Day :
8.0 a.m. Holy Communion.
9.0 Breakfast,
n.o Morning Prayer and Address
by the Bishop.
1.15 p.m. Lunch.
2.0 Photograph.
5.0 Tea on the Lawn.
8.0 Dinner.
9.30 Evening Prayer.
Next Morning:
7.20 a.m. Breakfast for early train.
8.0 Morning Prayer.
A unique feature of the gathering was that large spaces
SAINT PETER'S DAY 51
were purposely arranged for informal intercourse, which
did so much to strengthen bonds of friendship.
The bare outline recalls precious memories of crowded
friendships. Wandering round the terraces in the long
summer night comparing notes with one, you suddenly
met another and another, whom you had not seen for a
year. And then stealing into the glorious Chapel you
found a place and the service began; a Chaplain reading
prayers, and the Bishop in his stall. 1
When prayers were ended, a holy stillness crept over
us as we stayed, with the evening light just enough to
reveal the Saxon saints in the windows, and the row of
later Bishops' names and coats of arms painted along the
North and South Walls.
Coming out quietly one by one, we found the Bishop
chatting to a group in the drawing-room; then saying
"Good/night" he was off to his study. Later in the
Chaplain's room, or the servants' hall (now Library)
there gathered a merry symposium of brethren.
Next morning at 8 o'clock in the Chapel the Bishop
came attended by his Chaplains: Eden, Savage, South/
well, Armitage Robinson, Banton, Harmer, or Welch.
As year after year we knelt there, the mystery and the
glory seemed to increase, and new resolves put new
meaning into the usual offertory hymn:
Holy offerings...
On Thine altar laid we leave them,
Christ present them, God receive them.
1 The Bishop's stall used to have a canopy and curtains of red material,
rather dingy, but at a meeting of the brethren in the drawing/room on St
Peter's Day 1886, it was agreed to subscribe for a new oak canopy to be
given to the Bishop. This is nowa handsome addition to Cosin's Screen, and
bears the inscription:
EX: DONO: FILIORUM: DOMUS:
A: s: M.D.CCC.LXXX.VII:
4/2
52 SAINT PETER'S DAY
Then breakfast, and after it many a talk, and not a
little tobacco on the terrace, or the great lawn, or indoors
till Morning Prayer.
Who that was present can ever forget the Bishop
reading the Lesson? the very sound of his voice comes
back:
So when they had broken their fast, Jesus saith to Simon Peter,
Simon son of John, lovest thou Me?. . .He saith unto him, Feed my
lambs. . . .Follow thou Me.
Then the Sermon, when the Bishop, often with voice
breaking with emotion, seemed to take every individual
in the whole Brotherhood to his heart as he spoke in such
words as:
The touch of Christ, the voice of Christ, the look of Christ, but above
all the prayer of Christ! "I have prayed for thee." What else shall we
need if only we realise this! Christ interceding for me, Christ con'
centrating His prayer on me, Christ individualising His merits for me,
Christ pleading for me His atoning blood before the Eternal Throne! 1
"Fight the good fight, with all thy might", one of our
"Auckland Hymns", would follow. Its four strong
verses form an expansion of the Bishop's chosen motto
dvSpi&a-Be KpaTawva-Oe (l Cor. xvi. 13) and to sing it
in that Chapel filled with brothers after such a Sermon
was an inspiration. Fellowship in Christ seemed vocal
and intensely real. That hymn became a sort of "slogan"
of the Brotherhood, and to sing it in a Bible Class of men
was to pass on the secret of the Chapel to the parish.
The photograph which came after lunch was certainly
one of the events of the year, and grew more and more to
be an outward sign of deepening fellowship.
The Annual Cricket Match became a fixture of in/
creasing importance. In early days it was " Oxford versus
1 Ordination Addresses, p. 135.
SAINT PETER'S DAY 53
Cambridge", then later a more important distinction
developed and the match was between "Married and
Single". And later still, long after Bishop Lightfoot's
day, there came a match of "Bishops against Clergy". As
there were but nine Bishops, two (one of them a Metro/
politan) were allowed a second innings and the result
of the match established the fact that the Priests were
"inferior clergy".
At tea on the lawn, various parish friends came to
meet old students who had worked in their districts.
At length we assembled for Evensong in the Chapel,
and more than once the service was used for the admis'
sion of one or other of the "sons" to a new charge.
Before the Bishop's final blessing, we would sing "The
day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended", a hymn whose
melody is enriched with St Peter's Day associations.
Such was the glorious day. The grand state bedrooms
took on something of the air of school dormitories, and
the lawns the look of college playing fields; and the great
historic dining/room had never seen more festive gather/
ings than when Dr Lightfoot sat down with his "sons"
at meals. The day was one long re/union of his family for
worship, fellowship and play.
And yet, though he thus made us feel that it was for
him "the greatest day of the year", it was actually while
we were all about him that he finished the great book for
which the learned world had for years been waiting,
Nulk dies sine lineal
The Preface to the three volumes of the Apostolic
Fathers is dated "S. Peter's Day, 1885". To read that
Preface, and picture him completing it amid the scenes
we have been describing is most suggestive.
After a rapid review of his thirty and more years' work,
54 SAINT PETER'S DAY
in the course of which he has arrived conclusively at the
opinion of the genuineness of the Seven Epistles of
Ignatius, he proceeds to "express my obligations to many
personal friends and others who have assisted me in this
work":
My thanks are especially due to Dr W. Wright, who has edited the
Syriac and Arabic texts, and whose knowledge has been placed freely
at my disposal, wherever I had occasion to consult him; to Professor
Guidi who, though an entire stranger to me, transcribed for me large
portions of Coptic texts from manuscripts in the Vatican; to Mr P. le
Page Renouf, the well-known Egyptian scholar, who has edited the
Coptic Version of the Ignatian Acts of Martyrdom from Professor
Guidi's transcript; and to Bryennios the Metropolitan of Nicomedia,
whose name has recently gathered fresh lustre through the publication of
the Didache, and to whom I owe a collation of the Pseudo/Ignatian
Epistles from the same manuscript which contains that work. I am also
indebted for important services. . .to Dr Bollig the Sublibrarian of the
Vatican, to Dr Zotenberg the keeper of the Oriental Manuscripts in the
Paris Library, to Professor Wordsworth of Oxford, and to Dr Oscar
von Gebhardt the co/editor of the Patm Apostolici '.
Here is by far the most learned Bishop of his day, the
acknowledged leader among his peers, the great scholars
of Europe, in the act of at last being able to hand to the
world the monumental results of his lifelong labours
and yet! with leisure that very day to devote his whole
heart and mind to his sons in their home which he gave
them at Auckland.
And the Auckland Family shall have their representa/
tive among his learned helpers: "Lastly I have been
relieved of the task of compiling the indices by my
Chaplain the Rev. J. R. Harmer, Fellow of King's
College, Cambridge, to whom my best thanks are due".
IN THE DIOCESE
"One of the greatest prelates who ever held the See
of Durham.
...he did not believe that any diocese could be
pointed out in which there was so much hearty con/
currence of mind and action for religious objects as
there was amongst all his clergy and laity under the
guidance of the late Bishop."
DEAN LAKE OF DURHAM
proposing the restoration of the
Chapter House in memory of
Bishop Lightfoot. Feb. 1 8th, 1890.
Chapter VII
THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE
THE SCHOLAR AS BISHOP
WHEN the new Bishop and his Chaplains first
came to Durham, they were met by Dean Lake
at the North Road Station. Their heavily laden
landau was taken carefully down the winding hill from
the station, and over Framwellgate Bridge. Then sud/
denly, as if by a pre/arranged understanding, the horses
broke into a hand/gallop up the narrow streets to the
South Bailey. Thence through the narrow badly paved
Dun Cow Lane they came at full gallop across Palace
Green to Bishop Cosin's porch of the great hall of the
Castle.
When the Bishop remarked on the risk of such driving,
the Dean reassured him by saying that his coachman was
an old Crimean gunner.
As they alighted, they found all the leading men of
Durham University awaiting their new Visitor in caps
and gowns, as though to assure him that there were
students at Durham as eager to listen to him as at
Cambridge.
But as the Bishop pointed out in a happy speech at the
luncheon after his enthronement, there could not be the
same opportunities in his case for learning now. This
difference he illustrated by the contrast between the coats
of arms of Cambridge and Durham. In both shields
there were four lions, but while those at Cambridge
were passant, those at Durham were rampant. And
THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE 57
there is a book in the centre of the Cambridge shield
"but when I look at the Durham arms, the book is
gone".
Yet Durham was to see the publication of three
volumes of the Bishop's greatest book, on the Apostolic
Fathers. Though not published while he was at Cam/
bridge, the greater part of it had all been in type for ten
years, under constant revision, before it appeared in 1885.
Soon after it came out Bishop Fraser of Manchester got
hold of it. He was dangerously ill, and only allowed to
sit and read. While reading the Epistle of St Ignatius to
the Ephesians, the Rector of his parish came in, "Listen
to this, Rector", said the Bishop, and read aloud,
eanv, (rapKiicbs Kal irvev^ariico^ r <yew?/T09 KOI
ev avdpcdiru) eo5, ev davdrm o>^ a\t)divy, ical etc
K @eov, trp&rov TraOyrbs Kal rare atrad^, 'I^crpO?
XjCUOTO? KvptO? fjlJb&V 1 ,
"Isn't it wonderful", he went on, "to think of Ignatius
centuries ago cheering his friends at Ephesus with the
same triumphant trust in Christ overcoming death that
you and I have ourselves to/day."
Next morning, October i8th, 1885, as he was dressing,
Bishop Fraser suddenly died so one of the first uses of
Lightfoot's Apostolic Fathers was to encourage a brother
Bishop as he entered the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
When he was told the story, Bishop Lightfoot listened
with great interest and suddenly turned aside to hide his
emotion.
The Judge's Rooms in Durham Castle had been
placed at his disposal, and here he and his Chaplains
1 "There is one only physician, of flesh and of spirit, generate and in/
generate, God in man, true Life in death, Son of Mary and Son of God, first
passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord." Epistle of Ignatius to the
Ephesiam, 7 (Lightfoot's translation, n, i, 541).
58 THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE
resided while Auckland Castle was being prepared for
them. Those eight springtide weeks at Durham are full
of pleasant memories. They broughtthe Bishop into happy
relations with the University, and he would frequently
dine in Hall.
A glance at the Agenda of the Diocesan Conference
of 1880 is a revelation of the wide and solid foundations
of Church work and life that Bishop Lightfoot laid in
the first year of his episcopate. That Diocesan Conference
was itself the first gathering of the kind ever called
together in the Diocese of Durham. The membership
was based, as will be seen, on Ruridecanal representation,
with a view to which the Deaneries were remodelled and
Ruridecanal Conferences (as well as Chapters) were
constituted.
All this, as well as the re/arrangements noted elsewhere
of Ordinations and Confirmations and Church building,
was started in the Bishop's first year, during which he
was strenuously visiting his great Diocese of more than
100 miles from north to south.
He at once began preaching in the big towns and
received a cordial welcome everywhere. There was a
touch of distinction about him, which, coupled with the
unique tradition of the Northumbrian Church, in which
he delighted, seemed to give a special significance to the
characteristic northern welcome he received. His absolute
simplicity of manner, without detracting from a natural
dignity of voice and appearance, went straight home
to all those warm/hearted folk. Even the humblest lost
all constraint in approaching him. At Monkwearmouth
Church, for example, there was a typical verger. On the
Bishop's first visit a small new house was pointed out,
which the neighbouring squire, well known as always
THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE 59
having his own way, had built overlooking the Church.
Turning to the verger, the Bishop said, "I wonder you
allowed Sir Hedworth Williamson to build that house
so near". The man instantly replied, "Sir 'Edworth
would ha' built 'is 'ouse on your 'ead, my Lord, if Yd
'ad a mind".
THE SEE OF NEWCASTLE
The first great undertaking to which the Bishop turned
his attention was the division of the Diocese. This was
no sudden proposal. Bishop Baring had submitted the
question to all his Ruridecanal Chapters in 1876. Their
judgment was almost unanimous as to the advisability of
creating a new See. Then in 1877 the late Mr Thomas
Hedley bequeathed the residue of his estate, amounting
to some ^17,000, as the nucleus of the necessary fund.
On March 26th, 1878, the Bishoprics Bill for Liver/
pool, Newcastle, Southwell and Wakefield came up for
the second reading. Bishop Baring supported it, effec/
tively answering Lord Houghton's arguments against it
not without humour and skill. It seems clear as one reads
his speech that the Bishop had only been converted by the
facts of the case, and perhaps against his inclination. He
pointed out that the county of Durham had experienced a
very rapid increase in population in recent years, and now
counted about 1,000,000 inhabitants. 1 The number of
benefices had doubled in the previous fifty years. He
supported the Bill though he personally felt keenly the
separation from Northumberland, where he had received
much kindness. "But", he added, "there was a strong
feeling in the country that the separation was of such
1 " Comprises a million and a quarter/'Bishop Lightfoot's opening speech,
Diocesan Conference, 1880.
60 THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE
importance, and of such lasting benefit to the Church of
England, that he had unwillingly consented to it." 1
So the Act was passed, and the new Bishop from the
first frankly adopted the proposal as already decided:
"When I accepted the See of Durham", he told his first
Diocesan Conference in September 1880, "it was re/
presented to me that the formation of the new See was
imminent, and this expectation weighed greatly with
me". Even before he left Cambridge he secured, in a
personal interview, the generous support of the Duke of
Northumberland for the scheme. And in the summer of
1880 he brought from the South one of his examining
Chaplains, the Rev. H. W. Watkins, then Warden of
St Augustine's College, Canterbury, to be Archdeacon
of Northumberland, and as such to take a prominent
part in the organisation of the appeal to the Diocese, and
"in nine months the work was practically done".
At the Church Congress in Newcastle in 1 8 8 1 , Bishop
Fraser of Manchester expressed the general feeling when
he said in his Sermon in the future Cathedral, "We wait
eagerly to hear what our President has to say to/day".
In his Inaugural Address the President entered into
no details, but showed that the scheme was practically
launched :
"Newcastle is destined before long to assume greater prominence in
the eyes of Churchmen as the See of a new Diocese. At such a moment
the session of the Congress at Newcastle is specially well timed. The
reception of a large Representative Assembly of the Church will fitly
close the history of the ancient Diocese of Durham. The old See will
be fortified by the presence of the Congress for the severance and the
new See will be ushered in amid the happiest auguries. 2 "
1 Hansard, March 26th, 1878, Bishoprics Bill, House of Lords, Second
Reading.
a Church Congress Report, 1881.
THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE 61
A week later came a letter, solving the problem of
where the new Bishop was to live, from Mr J. W. Pease,
a Newcastle banker, and a prominent member of the
Society of Friends. This letter reveals the enthusiasm of
the community for the scheme, and the way in which
Bishop Lightfoot had captured all hearts:
Dear Mr Archdeacon,
So many people tell me that Benwell Tower is the most suitable place
for the new Bishop that I think you ought to have it. Funds do not
come in very quickly, and the purchase of such a house as you require
must, therefore, be a difficulty. This being the case, I have concluded
to hand the place over to the Committee, and as it is not occupied, they
are very welcome to the possession at once, so that any alterations which
may be considered needful, may be made without loss of time, and their
solicitor can communicate with mine as to the conveyance.
Churchmen and Quakers used not to get on very well together, but
those times are past, and I most sincerely trust that the important step
about to be taken may be in every way successful. What I propose to
instruct my solicitor to convey is the Tower, with its garden, old burial
ground, stables and lodge; and as many of the cottages near the stables as
you may require. . . .
Yours very truly
JOHN PEASE
Then there came another 10,000 from Mr Spencer of
Ryton, and a committee of ladies got together a gift of
furniture for Benwell Tower.
So, on St James* Day 1882, three years and a quarter
after his own consecration, the Bishop had the satisfac/
tion of taking part in the consecration, in Durham
Cathedral, of Dr Ernest Roland Wilberforce as the first
Bishop of Newcastle.
62 THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE
REORGANISING "THE BISHOPRICK"
Meanwhile organisations had been rapidly developing
in the county of Durham. The old "Officially" of the
Dean and Chapter, which had exercised archidiaconal
jurisdiction over thirty/six parishes in Durham, was
abolished, and the new Archdeaconry of Auckland
formed.
The seven unwieldy Rural Deaneries revived by
Bishop Longley, twenty/five years before, were remodelled
into twelve more workable centres (there are now four/
teen) to meet the altered conditions of larger populations,
and the access of laymen to the Conferences.
The authoritative document then drawn up by Bishop
Lightfoot, and issued to each Rural Dean on appoint/
ment, setting forth their duties, has been adopted by each
of his successors and is in use to/day.
There was no part of his work that weighed more on
his heart, or had more lively interest for him, than his
Confirmations: "I can honestly say that of all my epis/
copal duties this is the one which gives me the most
happiness". He augmented the number of centres, so
that instead of biennial, or even triennial Confirmations,
often at inconvenient centres, every parish had the chance
of a Confirmation each year within reasonable distance.
His plan which is still working was simplicity itself. He
always gave two addresses to the candidates, dwelling on
the twofold aspect of the Rite.
What a labour it was to him is revealed by the astonish/
ing figures. In his ten years, there were 456 Confirma/
tions. Frequently he held two services a day, and often
with 250 or 300 candidates at each service. But for the aid
of Bishop Parry of Dover in his first year, he faced all this
THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE 63
work single/handed till his last year, when Bishop
Sandford of Tasmania came to his aid, as Rector of
Boldon and assistant Bishop. But still he went on. There
came a great Confirmation Service at Sunderland Parish
Church when the Bishop almost broke down. He had
to rest again and again during the laying/on of hands.
A LAY MINISTRY
One of the most remarkable features of the Bishop's
work in the Diocese was his activity among the Laity.
First he set himself to bring them into closer touch with
the Church by giving them a new and effective voice in
her Councils; and secondly he called into being a trained
body, not only of Lay Readers in the ordinary parochial
sense, but of Lay Preachers with a wider Commission
for the Rural Deanery and Diocese.
i. It must be remembered that in those days the Laity
had but small voice in the Church's consultations. There
were few, if any, Ruridecanal Conferences, apart from
Chapters for Clergy only. Convocation, for the most
part, attracted little interest. Church Congresses were
entirely unofficial. It was then that Bishop Lightfoot, at
his very first Diocesan Conference in 1880, struck a
note which foreshadows the immense developments
familiar to us now in the Lay House of the Church
Assembly. "There are forces operating which render it
more than ever advisable that the Church of England
should habituate herself to corporate action." 1 This ideal
he never ceased to proclaim. Five years later in his charge
to the Clergy, he again said, ' ' There are many among us
I confess that I am one who yearn for the time when the
1 Durham Diocesan Calendar 1881, pp. 93, etc.
64 THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE
Church of England, as a whole, shall have a general
representative Assembly".
He had already set on foot, as a first step, the election of
laymen to serve on the Ruridecanal and Diocesan Con/
ference. Alluding to this he says:
The interest created by this exceeded my best hopes. There was much
discussion whether the electors should be Communicants, or at least
members of the Church of England, or parishioners assembled in
Vestry. The latter course was adopted, and worked well.
All this produced a sympathetic interest in the revival of corporate
life. It is specially interesting to witness the active interest of the Laity.
Without their counsel and support the work of the Clergy would be
maimed and crippled indeed. I will say no more than this They
the Laity must feel that they no less than the Clergy are bound, each
in his vocation and ministry, to promote the knowledge of God's truth,
and the extension of Christ's Kingdom; and it would be little short of
an insult to suggest by words of special commendation that they were
doing some great thing, when they thus claim their share in the respon/
sibilities of active Churchmanship. 1
These ideals for corporate action on the part of the Church
were not reached for nearly forty years. But the Bishop is
here clearly seen as one of the pioneers of the Church
Assembly.
2. Almost simultaneously with this invitation of the
Laity to new consultative functions, as soon as ever the
new See of Newcastle was formed he called them to
more directly spiritual ministrations both as Lay Readers,
and especially in a new way as Lay Evangelists. His
vision of what laymen might do, as sharers in the priest/
hood of all believers, may be seen from his repeated,
utterances on the subject. We select the following.
At his first Diocesan Conference in 1880 he says:
...This leads me to speak of a subject which I regard as supremely
important at this crisis in the history of our Church. I mean the
1 Dice. Calendar, 1881, p. 95.
THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE 65
organisation of lay agency. The subject will come up for discussion
this afternoon, and I trust it will be thoroughly sifted.
Even if the supply of Clergy were largely increased it would still
be unable to meet the growing demand for spiritual ministrations.
Look at the extensive rural parishes of Northumberland ... the thronged
parochial districts of Newcastle with perhaps 15,000 inhabitants. How
is it possible for an Incumbent, with even two or three curates (an
almost ideal staff of clergy) to pierce effectively those densely welded
masses of human beings ? And so again with our colliery parishes,
which stand midway between these extremes, where there is perhaps a
central village or town, as a nucleus, with several outlying colonies of
pitmen. Nothing but lay agency and this on a very large scale will
meet these varied needs. What organisation is necessary for this purpose ?
What orders or offices should be created or revived? What functions
should be assigned to them? What recognition should they receive?
What qualifications should be imposed? What form of admission
should be instituted? These are the questions open for discussion.
Having thus opened the subject he gave the Con/
ference a free hand in debate, placing it second only in
importance to the division of the Diocese. This recog/
nition of a Lay Ministry of preaching was a new and
somewhat startling departure. It was by no means uni/
versally welcomed. "There is need", he said, "of frank/
ness, for it is only by the frank interchange of opinions
that any real progress can be made. But there is need also
of moderation, of forbearance, of sympathy, of the sted/
fast resolve to understand the position, and respect the
motives of those who differ from ourselves." But in spite
of some adverse feeling, he never wavered from his first
conception of the value of this direct ministry of Lay
Preaching. Again and again he returns to the subject in
words of the deepest conviction.
Speaking at the inaugural meeting of a Junior Clergy
Society in the Diocese in 1884 he says:
There is another problem of the day, which I earnestly commend to
EM t
66 THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE
your serious attention. I refer to the employment and organisation of
lay work in the service of Christ. I feel absolutely certain that in this
lies the great hope of the future. We shall only thus secure that strength
and diffusion of ministerial agency which will enable us to reach the
masses: and what is hardly less important, we shall only thus bind to the
Church that large body of men, who at present hang loosely to it, and
will certainly drift elsewhere if the Church fails to find employment for
their spiritual energies. Incorporate them into the life of the Church by
entrusting to them the work of the Church. Then, and then only, will
they feel what they owe to the Church.
Keep this problem ever before you. It must have a solution somehow.
And if the larger aspects of the question require wide experience and
patient waiting, can you not meanwhile do something, each of you, in
your own little sphere? Might not more rapid progress be secured, if
the clergy made a point of fastening upon the more promising boys, and
young men of their flock, of concentrating a larger amount of attention
on these, of gradually introducing them to work, and thus educating
them as fresh centres of evangelisation? If this were done systematically,
a geometric progression would be substituted for an arithmetic in the
spiritual growth of the parish.
Once more, alluding to a large gathering of Lay
Readers and Evangelists at Sunderland in his Charge 1 in
1886 he thus pressed the matter once more upon the
Clergy:
I was deeply impressed by the earnestness and sobriety of tone which
marked the speakers, and I felt that I should incur a grave responsibility
if I did not do all in my power to encourage a movement which seemed
to be the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and which held out hope of so
much spiritual usefulness. . . .But your evangelist, it may be said, bears
a strong likeness to the Wesleyan local preacher. I am not ashamed of
the resemblance, I freely confess my admiration of the marvellous
capacity of organisation which distinguished John Wesley, and which
he has bequeathed to his followers. The truest Churchmen are those
whose minds are most open to the lessons which can be gathered from
all quarters. I believe that the Church of England has a greater power
1 Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Durham, November
25th, 1886,
THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE 67
of utilising the evangelistic zeal of her lay members, than any other
Christian community, though hitherto it has been latent. Certainly
this ought to be the case, for the sense of corporate unity with her, if she
is true to her principles, is built upon a stronger and deeper foundation
than accidental association for religious purposes. Most assuredly she
will be wise to find employment for this zeal, for an untold mine of
missionary power is here, which alone can cope with the spiritual
destitution; and if neglected by her, this noble passion for Christ will
seek relief for its yearnings in other channels. Most earnestly, therefore,
do I recommend this movement. 1
Meanwhile another new departure was set on foot. At
a meeting of his Archdeacons and Rural Deans within
eighteen months of his coming to Durham the Bishop
appointed a committee to collect information on the
1 The same spirit breathes in the short letter below, which was first issued
in 1 8 8 3 to each Lay Agent, and still is printed on their cards of membership :
"Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
It has pleased God to put into your hearts the desire to dedicate your spare
time to the service of the Sanctuary, and to the well/being of the flock of
Christ.
Before all things give Him hearty thanks that He is thus leading you to
realise your privileges as a royal priesthood, as living members of Christ's
body.
Then ask yourselves how the seed thus sown in your hearts shall best bear
fruit to the glory of His great Name.
In the first place, then, be loyal to your Church, and to your Clergy.
'Know them that labour among you, and are over you in the Lord.'
Next strive to work harmoniously one with another, ' Be at peace among
yourselves'.
Thirdly there must be a consecration of the heart and mind, a consecra/
tion of the life to God. Christ, speaking of His disciples and friends, said,
'For their sakes I sanctify myself. He is your pattern, sanctify yourselves
also.
Lastly there can be no true consecration of self where there is not prayer-
prayer for the teaching of the Holy Spirit. 'Be ye therefore sober and watch
unto prayer.'
These are the four pillars of a sound and effective ministration loyalty,
harmony, self/dedication, prayer.
May God give you grace to observe these things.
J. B. DUNELM."
Auckland Castle, 1883.
5'*
68 THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE
subject of Sisterhoods and Deaconesses. His next step
was to appoint the Rev. George Body as Canon
Missioner, and under him the work developed into what
is now known as " The Society of Christ and the Blessed
Mary the Virgin ", an Association of Women for Church
Work in the Diocese of Durham and elsewhere, with the
sanction of the Bishop.
The Lay movement grew and gathered force as the
years went on. Canon A. H. Patterson, who has served
in the Diocese since the days of Bishop Baring, and who
has for many years been the active secretary of the Lay
Helpers' Association, has furnished details of its advance
to the present day. Many commissions were issued for
both Readers and Evangelists. Annual Services and
Conferences for these were held, and were attended also
by the Clergy and other Church workers. Careful ex/
aminations were instituted and Training Lectures given
under a council of supervision in each Deanery. And
every year, as a rule either at Durham or Auckland
Castle, the Readers and Evangelists came into personal
contact with their Bishop at a Conference upon their
work, and enjoyed his hospitality and encouragement.
So securely and wisely were the foundations laid
that the constitution Bishop Lightfoot created for the
Durham Diocesan Lay Helpers' Association has per/
sisted during the more than forty years since his death,
with only such necessary modifications as were required
by the growth of the work, especially by the need of Lay
Ministrations in consecrated buildings owing to the
present shortage of Clergy.
3. No apology is needed for adding to this account
the following story from one of the Bishop's own choir
boys. It illustrates his own characteristic method,
THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE 69
recommended to the junior Clergy of "fastening upon
the most promising boys and young men" for ministerial
training. It illustrates his love of youth, and his confi/
dence in them. It illustrates (though this is not men/
tioned) his generosity towards many who would not
otherwise have achieved their University education. And
it gives one more fresh, almost boyish, picture of a side of
the life at Auckland Castle under his genial rule.
It must be prefaced by a few words of explanation.
As soon as he was settled in the Castle, the Bishop asked
his Chaplain to find some boys for his choir. Mr
Savage visited the Barrington School, where Mr Ham/
mond, the Head Master, took him to the upper standard
and explained to the boys that if they went to the Castle
choir, it meant attending regularly every day, before
breakfast. They would get coffee after service at the
Castle, and then come to school. He then asked for
volunteers. Two boys held up their hands one of them
is now a colonial Bishop and the other, a clergyman, is
the author of the following account:
The Bishop always took a surprising interest in us, and through one
of the Chaplains he expressed his wish to educate us. This offer was in
some cases of course warmly accepted.
From time to time he would stroll in to the choir practices much to
our surprise.
On several occasions he took us into his study. I remember with
what delight he produced Antony Beck's sword and with arm out/-
stretched paced his room and said, " Can you imagine me marching at
the head of my troops?" It was then that I received my first Church
history lessons on St Aidan, " The Apostle of England", he called him.
How thrilled I was with his stories of St Cuthbert.
One morning he was alone for Matins at 8.15 the Chaplains being
away and before the Vestry prayer he confessed to us that he was quite
unable to lead the singing or accompany but he was sure we would do
our best. Bob Hay now Bishop of Tasmania volunteered to lead,
70 THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE
etc., and we all rose to the occasion. Psalms, Hymns and Responses
were very well rendered. It was altogether most impressive. How we
ran off to school afterwards with his praises ringing in our ears!
The memories of those services will never be effaced. The" musical"
students provided the harmony and one read the First Lesson from one
of the lofty Reading Pews, or Pulpits "horse/boxes" we called them.
The Bishop usually read the Second Lesson. We were spellbound as he
translated direct from his Greek Testament. But then said someone,
" Can you wonder; He is the greatest scholar in Europe. Look at his
head!"
After Matins we got coffee in the kitchen and we supposed that it was
on account of our boisterousness that the cook's face betokened her
wrath. At any rate the quality of the coffee deteriorated and this was
our opportunity. We decided to complain and jointly composed a
letter to the Chaplain. This has been preserved I believe, for it caused
immense amusement to His Lordship. An enquiry was instituted
about the "dandelion" coffee we were sure was being served to us! At
any rate we thought we had reformed matters.
We were always overjoyed when we knew there was to be an Insti/
tution Service and the solemnity thereof always impressed us and we
soon learnt what it all meant.
Thevisit of all the Bishops from the Lambeth Conference was an event
of amazing importance and we took part in the Service and intercessions
for the division of the Diocese and the creation of the See of Newcastle.
The Park was our happy hunting ground, but on one occasion the
Bishop called us all to him and in moving words expressed his grief
that the eggs from a blackbird's nest round the lawn had been taken.
Our guilt was undoubted, but we learnt our lesson and felt thoroughly
ashamed of our conduct.
In the evening and on half holidays we spent our time on the cricket
ground in the Park, and games were organised for us. The great match
of the season was always against the Cathedral choir of Durham, and
the Bishop frequently came to watch these struggles.
A terrific gale brought down many of the trees by the Park wall
adjoining the ground. In one particular case the roots brought up a
huge wall of earth with them and in vision we at once conceived the
idea of a hut. Here at last was a good start the hole dug out and the
first wall in situl Operations were at once commenced and our full
strength was commandeered for them.
THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE 71
The structure was in our eyes to be exceeding magnifical and no
detail was to be overlooked. Pit props carried the roofs made of turf
sods, etc., " Of course we must have a fire place", and someone added:
"There's a seam of coal on the cliffs by the river". This was duly
" worked" and an old rusty fireplace put in position and all our labours
were ended. Here was our Club House, which would also be our
study where our "home lessons" would be tackled. The furniture was
of the most primitive description and the accommodation particularly
when the fire smoked can be readily imagined. At the best it was a
dug'out of the roughest kind.
Our first caller was the Bishop, and we trembled when he expressed
his wish to come in. He did so yet not without considerable difficulty
and personal discomfort, for we laughed at his effort to crawl through
the doorway. A vexatious down-draught did its worst and the
atmosphere was appalling.
With the hut rules he was intensely amused, especially with the last
one which stated that "the subscription was id. per week fat any member
who gave more wouU be more thought of!" There were others equally boy/
like. They were preserved in the archives at the Castle for many years.
His Lordship then asked us Hay, Bousfield and myself about our
work at school and at great length made us realise for the first time
what was the purpose of our lessons, to form our characters and fit
ourselves for the great game of life. How he opened our eyes as we hung
on his words! It was a desire to serve that he put into our minds and
from that moment the "call" came. We all won ^60 Theological
Scholarships at Durham University in successive years. Hay and I
were ordained Priests at the Trinity Ordination 1894 at Auckland and
shared the same room at the end of" Scotland" 1 in which Mr Eden had
many years before given us our first Greek Testament Lesson (St John).
Bousfield was not ordained but subsequently became Head Master of
our old school King James I Grammar School, Bishop Auckland.
THE LAMBETH CONFERENCE AND AUCKLAND
He was proud of the historic seat of the Bishops of
Durham at Auckland Castle. In his Charge (Novem>
ber 1 8 86) he thus refers to it :
1 A wing in the Castle.
72 THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE
A large house enables Bishops to do many things conducive to
efficient administration of the Diocese. I speak from experience. More/
over in some cases their residences have a high historical value. The
Bishop's Manor House at Auckland is a notable example of this. It is,
I believe, the oldest of episcopal residences. It has been connected with
the Bishops of Durham from the time of the Conquest. It is associated
with all the noblest memories of the See before and since the Reformat
tion. It is still fresh with the impress of Cosin and Butler. Its Chapel
is the most stately of episcopal Chapels, and it has been the joy and
pride of the present occupant of the See to render the internal decorations
worthy of the noble structure which he has inherited.
When he first took up his residence he had bought
back several heirlooms which had been unwittingly
included in the sale of his predecessor's effects; and after
adding considerably to the gallery of portraits in the large
drawing/room, he made, for preservation, a careful
schedule of the property of the See as distinct from private
ownership. Later on he wrote an illuminating pamphlet
on the history of the place, 1 which established beyond a
doubt, that, after the Restoration, Bishop Cosin had
converted the great baronial hall into the existing Chapel,
and to prove his contention Dr Lightfoot laid bare
temporarily the foundations of the wing destroyed by Sir
Arthur Hazlerigg which had contained the earlier double
chapel.
But the crowning tribute to the love he felt for his
official home was the embellishment of the interior of the
Chapel itself. Here he had the advice of the Cathedral
architect, Mr Hodgson Fowler of Durham, upon whose
judgment he relied. One striking feature in this restora/
tion was the series of historical subjects which Messrs
Burlison and Grylls introduced into the windows,
representing scenes illustrating the evangelisation of the
1 Historical Essays, Macmillan, 1895.
THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE 73
North of England from the time of St Oswald and St
Aidan onwards. The Bishop took a special interest in
selecting the subjects and supervising the details. To some
of the historic figures were given the faces of personal
friends in the Church of his own day.
The Lambeth Conference of 1888 was sitting when
the work was completed, and he invited to the reopening
of the Chapel a distinguished company of Archbishops,
Metropolitans, and other Bishops from all parts of the
Anglican Communion overseas to visit his Diocese and
to rejoice with him. The occasion of this great assemblage
is commemorated by a portrait/window placed later in
the ante/chapel. 1 It is also recorded in the handsomely
bound prayer/books, the gifts of the Bishop's guests,
which adorn the stalls, with a Latin inscription* composed
by his friend Dean Vaughan.
In connexion with this visit of the Bishops to Auck/
land Castle in 1888, it is of special interest to notice the
part taken by Bishop Lightfoot in the Lambeth Con/
ference of that year.
The present Bishop of Durham writes: "I had
occasion to refer to Stubbs' Charges this morning, and
happened to come upon this reference to Bishop Light/
foot's role in the Lambeth Conference, and it occurred to
me that if you had not seen it, you might be glad to see
how one great man impressed another":
Of those Bishops some few, even of the greatest, have been taken from
us during the short time that has intervened: in particular the BISHOP
1 See p. 93.
* Viro admodum Reverendo Josepho B. Lightfoot Episcopo Dunel/
mensi Hoc quantulumcunque sit Studii Amicitiae Amoris Monumentum
DD. DD. Fratres ab Omni Fere Orbis Terrarum Regione in Sacello
Hospitali Nuper Refecto Congregati. Kal. sext. MDCCCLXXXVIII.
EN SQMA KAI EN HNEYMA.
74 THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE
OF DURHAM, who in the leading part which he took in our delibera"
tions, and by the authoritative wisdom, unwearied attention, and
elaborate work which were apparent in every word he said and every
line he indited in connection with the Conference showed himself a
very chief in counsel, pre-eminent in ability and service, as in learning
and devotion. 1
Bishop Stubbs of Chester had special opportunities of
observing what he has described, for he was Chairman
of the Committee on Divorce, of which Bishop Light'
foot was a member.
Our Bishop also was Chairman of the Committee on
Purity. Their Report was entirely his work and was said
to have been unique in having been unanimously
adopted without alteration "as expressing the mind of
the Conference on this great subject".
It is an example of the "authoritative wisdom, mv
wearied attention, and elaborate work" of which Bishop
Stubbs speaks.
The Report differs from all the others in its style, for,
where the others are all for the most part in oblique
narration, the whole of this one is couched in direct
speech, that it might "go forth as the utterance of the
United Conference".
Archbishop Davidson, when he welcomed the Auck/
land Brotherhood to Lambeth in 1923, told us he never
could forget our Bishop's speech introducing that Report
at this Lambeth Conference.
The Archbishop also told us that for weeks beforehand
our Bishop had taken a large share in the preparatory
work. And the wording of the Encyclical Letter was
mainly the work of Lightfoot, Stubbs and himself, when
he was Dean of Windsor, and Secretary of the Con/
1 Bishop Stubbs, Visitation Charges, p. 124.
THE BISHOP IN THE DIOCESE 75
ference. They sat up the best part of two whole nights in
the Lollard's Tower doing it.
Bishop Lightfoot acknowledged that all this had
completely overtaxed his strength:
While I was suffering from overwork and before I understood the
true nature of my complaint, it was the strain both in London and at
home in connection with this Pan/Anglican gathering that broke me
down hopelessly. I did not regret it then. I do not regret it now. I
should not have wished to recall the past even if my illness had been
fatal. For what after all is the individual life in the history of the Church ?
Men may come and men may go individual lives float down like
straws on the surface of the waters till they are lost in the ocean of
eternity, but the broad, mighty rolling stream of the Church itself
the cleansing, purifying, fertilising tide of the River of God, flows on
for ever and ever. 1
To give some idea of the effect of those words, let us
recall the scene. It was at the Diocesan Conference of
1889, held in the large upstairs hall at St Peter's, Bishop
Wearmouth. The hall was crowded. We waited for the
arrival of our President, who had been at death's door.
There was a tense silence that told how all hearts won/
dered how he would bear the great strain of meeting his
Diocese again after his illness.
Suddenly we all rose to our feet. Carried up the stairs
behind us at the back of the Hall, he came slowly
walking up the aisle. The Conference stood listening to
his weary footfall, and at length, lifted on to the platform,
he gave us his Presidential Address, in which he
seemed "dying and behold he lived".
1 Address to the Diocesan Conference, October 1889.
Chapter VIII
THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY
TIME was, when a certain candidate seeking Holy
Orders had to spend a solitary night in a hotel and
go next day to the Ordination in the neighbouring
Cathedral. He arrived at his Curacy after little more than
a glimpse of his Bishop. It was not so in Durham, for
Bishop Lightfoot was among the first to make the change
from the old practice to what has now become the rule.
The examination was always held three weeks or more
before the Embertide, in order that, with minds freed
from anxiety as to the result, the remaining days might be
given to devotion, and further the Bishop invariably
received all the candidates as his own guests for two full
days' quiet spiritual preparation before their ordination.
At the same time, the intellectual standard for candidates
was steadily and continuously raised. For instance,
during the last four years of Bishop Baring's episcopate,
only one/fifth of those ordained were graduates of Oxford
or Cambridge. In the first four years of Bishop Lightfoot's
time, this proportion was increased to one/half, and that
proportion was maintained to his death. Altogether he
ordained 323 Deacons for the Diocese in the ten years of
his episcopate.
Within a few weeks of his appointment, he made it
known that his requirements in the case of non/graduate
candidates for Holy Orders would be stricter than had
hitherto been customary in the Durham Diocese. This
THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY 77
created consternation in certain quarters. The Dean of
Lichfield writes:
I remember very well one morning in Cambridge meeting the Head
of a Theological College who came up to Cambridge on behalf of
several affected by the new rule, to see Dr Lightfoot, and (as he express
sed it) to put him right, for he did not understand the situation. Two
hours later I heard from Dr Lightfoot the account of the interview. It
was his visitor who then understood the situation!
At least once a year the Ordination was held in one of
the large towns of the Diocese. The effect of this policy
may be estimated from a single episode. In September
1884 the Bishop ordained seven Deacons in the ancient
church of St Hilda's, Hartlepool. Thirty years later one of
these seven working in that town chanced to meet a
working man who had been present and who vividly
recalled the scene. He could not forget the intense solenv
nity and awe with which the, Bishop pronounced the
words of the Lord's Commission. "Man alive", he said,
"I can hear him still with his * Take thou authority \ in a
voice that might have come out of a coalpit." This was
rough, but it was true, revealing the deep and lasting
impression made on this listener of the grave reality of
Holy Orders.
Canon R. L. Ottley, Regius Professor of Moral and
Pastoral Theology at Oxford, has kindly contributed the
following recollections:
The short period during which I was one of Bishop Lightfoot's
examining Chaplains came to an end forty/four years ago! My reminis-'
cences, therefore, are no longer so vivid as I could wish. I recollect,
however, that, being very young and inexperienced, I was greatly
encouraged in undertaking so responsible and difficult an office, partly
by the warm welcome I received from my old college friend, Herbert
Southwell, at that time a domestic chaplain at Auckland, and from my
new colleague, the Rev. R. Appleton of Trinity; partly also by a letter
78 THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY
from an honoured friend at Oxford who pointed out the importance
of any step which might lead to a closer connection between Oxford
Churchmen and the great Cambridge school of which Bishop Light'
foot was so conspicuous a representative. The Bishop himself, to whom
I was an entire stranger, wrote with characteristic generosity in reply to
some explanations on doctrinal points which it seemed right to offer
before accepting from him so serious a trust: "I do not see anything in
your further explanations", he said, "to which I should demur, though
possibly I might use other forms of words. . . .1 am quite sure from what
you say, that these subjects, important as they may be in themselves,
will not be allowed an undue prominence in your teaching to the
detriment of the great doctrinal verities and ethical principles of the
Gospel".
The Bishop evidently wished that his Chaplains should freely use
every opportunity during the EmbeMides to give such spiritual help,
guidance and comfort to the Ordinands as they might need at so
solemn a turning point in their lives. All the arrangements at Auckland
Castle were thoughtfully planned and admirably carried out by the
domestic chaplains. The Bishop regarded us all alike, clergy and
candidates, as his " sons", and in spite of his natural shyness and reserve,
he managed to impart to the Embertide gatherings a really homelike
atmosphere, which brought even to those who were troubled with fears
and misgivings a spirit of confidence, hopefulness and quietness of
mind. His own addresses, delivered in the beautiful and stately chapel
on the eve of the Ordination, struck exactly the note of encouragement
most needed by young men in such circumstances. They richlyillustrate
the grave reality, the sympathetic insight, the profound reverence and
simplicity which were so conspicuous in the Bishop's dealings with his
Ordinands. Not to enlarge, however, on the beauty and power of these
unique addresses, I venture to quote one testimony which is perhaps
typical of the spirit in which those ordained by the Bishop entered upon
their difficult duties in the great industrial towns and pit/villages of the
Durham Diocese. The memory of Arthur Eraser Sim, who offered
himself for the work of the Universities' Mission in Central Africa, and
eventually laid down his life in its service, is still cherished by those who
knew and loved him at Cambridge and elsewhere. He wrote as
follows from Sunderland, shortly after his ordination.
"The glamour of those happy days at Auckland, as well as at
Durham, has not passed away yet, and I hope and think it never will.
THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY 79
It seems as if one had been taken into a different atmosphere. One's
work seems so different. Quite a new power of self/surrender seems to
have been given me, and what was drudgery before, seems a joy now.
The only thing that mars the complete joy of the whole life is that one's
powers are so limited. Days and weeks go by, and one seems to get so
little done. And I am sorely tempted to envy certain gifts in others
the power to preach (it does seem to give help to others more almost than
any gift); but above all, the power that some have of communing with
God. . . .You see I need humility to be content to use the few talents,
and not to grumble because God has not given me more."
It should be added that there were occasions when the Bishop formed
his own decided opinion of a man's spiritual capacity and fitness for the
ministry, independently of examination results. "You did quite right
in declining to pass him," he once said; " but I know the man and I
shall ordain him nevertheless." I believe that in that particular case
and there may have been others the Bishop was more than justified in
his action by the man's subsequent career.
Some Oxford men who are still living recall with deep gratitude the
Bishop's kindness in consenting to conduct the annual retreat for
Graduates engaged in University and College work, which was held
at Cuddesdon College. " I am a slow worker," he wrote in reply to our
invitation, "and 'the time is short'. To do what you ask me to do
not well, but as well as I can do it will take some time. If I were left
to my own judgment, I should consider that my spare hours would be
more wisely spent on work I could do better. Nevertheless, if you and
your Oxford friends still desire that I should undertake this office, I feel
that it would be wrong of me to decline again."
The addresses given on this occasion are printed in the volume of
Ordination Addresses published after his death (1890). Those who
attended the retreat can never forget the intense emotion with which the
Bishop identified himself with St Peter's cry of self/abasement, " Depart
from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord". "Depart from me, and yet
not so, O Lord.. . .Not so, Lord, for how can I endure to part from
Thee. In Thy presence only is comfort, is strength, is hope, is light, is
life!" Nor less impressive was the address on Phil. ii. 3, on the evils of
epideia "party spirit, the last infirmity of the religious man, the
devoted and zealous follower of Christ, follower at least (at however
great a distance) in His zeal and self/devotion, but not follower in His
wide sympathy, in His large charity, in His concessive, indulgent
So THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY
moderation, His eVtewceta, which is the direct negation of partisan
zeal".
We who were allowed in any way to share his burden, and were
associated with him in ministering to the spiritual needs of the young
men who received from him their "great commission" have reason
indeed to bless his memory. Our thoughts dwell, not so much on his
intellectual gifts and his massive learning as on the example he gave us
of unsparing and single-hearted devotion to God and to the work of
His Kingdom. Fervent in spirit, great in humility, in zeal, in generosity,
in wisdom, in patience, he so used his manifold gifts as to inspire and
uplift all who came under his influence. Those whom he affectionately
called his "dear sons" can thankfully echo some words of Augustine,
speaking in the Confessions of his intercourse with Ambrose: ad em
dwefar alts TeneMens,utpereum<id Te sciens dmerer. And when we recall
the text of the sermon which the Bishop preached at his enthronement
in Durham Cathedral (Rev. xxii. 4: "They shall see His face") we
cannot but feel that they represent the spirit, purpose and aim of his
whole ministry. To him indeed life was the vision of the Unseen: Vita
hominis visio Dei.
In the "obituary" of his Chaplain, the Rev. H. R.
Banton, mentioned above, the Bishop writes:
I have had placed in my hands some extracts from a private Diary
which he kept. Some of these extracts are too sacred, indeed too
personal for publication, but I give this:
" Sunday. Mattins at 8.15. I felt calm and at peace. The day was a
quiet gray, with a soft intermittent drizzle of rain. Just broke fast and
nothing more. I had no fixed idea about fasting, but thought it better
to err in too literal a following of the Apostles than too free a departure
from them.
The service at South Church [the local name of the Parish Church
of St Andrew, Auckland, where the Ordination was held] was full of a
depth of peace and love to me, such as I have never known. The Vent
Creator began the climax. My heart was full of an overpowering sense
of my own unworthiness and Christ's deep love and trust in one who had
done nothing but what deserved the withdrawal of love and trust; and
at the actual imposition of hands the surge of mingled regrets and
hopes, joys and fears, the sense of being at once infinitely humbled and
THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY 81
exalted broke out in Ucrimas super on swgtntes et defluentesGaudelam,
quia contristc&ar; contristakr, quia gaMam"
"A ministry so supported", comments the Bishop,
"could not be otherwise than fruitful."
At the Ordination at St Andrew's, Auckland, on
December i8th, 1881, Canon Body had preached from
Rev. i. 1 6, "He had in his right hand seven stars". At
lunch, afterwards, the Bishop in most affectionate terms
reminded him that "seven Sons of the House" had been
presented that day.
Another marked feature of the Bishop's interest in all
his Clergy was the annual gathering of the Curates of the
Diocese whom he invited to Auckland. The first invita'
tion was issued in 1882 to those who had been ordained
by the Bishop himself, when we remained at Auckland
for two days. But later on it was extended to all the
Curates, whether ordained by the Bishop himself or not,
and then the pressure of accommodation became so great
that the proceedings were necessarily limited to one day.
What red/letter days those annual gatherings were! To
stand in worship in that glorious Chapel amid some 200
brother clergy, most of us under thirty years of age, with
the Bishop himself among us was an inspiration. We had
brilliant scholars and noted athletes. We had "unlearned
and ignorant men". We were of all schools of thought
with most varied upbringing. We should have differed in
controversy; yet there, kneeling side by side, and receiving
the Body and Blood of the Lord we felt we were one in
Christ. As we spent the day together friendships grew,
and the spirit of living unity and fellowship became as
the air we breathed.
No wonder that ritual controversies were unheard of in
the Diocese. The story goes that at the Newcastle Church
EM 6
82 THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY
Congress, over which the Bishop presided, there came
moments of keen tension, when feeling ran high and
words were strong. Without uttering a word the Bishop
slowly rose from his seat and raised his hand. At once
the strife of tongues ceased. That scene is symbolic
the silent presence of such a Father in God with hand
uplifted sent a thrill of brotherhood through the Con/
gress, and thence this silent uniting influence spread
throughout the Diocese. For example, a senior man,
with Calvinistic traditions, found himself at home
speaking in a parish where the ritual was utterly foreign
to him, while on his side the Ritualist welcomed the
Evangelical as a fellow/labourer.
At these gatherings of Curates we had such preachers
as Canon A. J. Mason of Truro and Canterbury and
two successive Vicars of Leeds: Dr Jayne, later on Bishop
of Chester, and Dr Talbot, Bishop of Rochester and then
of Winchester.
But perhaps the Sermons which made the most lasting
impressions were those of the Bishop himself, preached
to Ordination Candidates and on St Peter's Day Gather/
ings, some of which are fortunately preserved in the
volume, Ordination AUresses, published by the Trustees
of the Lightfoot Fund. To those who actually heard the
addresses, these pages recall the living man. At times as
he spoke his voice wavered and he was overwhelmed.
But on he would go in spite of tears. This was no mere
emotion "sentimentality" was utterly alien to his
character but the great and humble man seemed to
become suddenly conscious that the Living God was
speaking through him to his hearers, and our spirits are
even now revived as we read his words.
Many of the present generation have never heard of the
THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY 83
book and they will welcome extracts. They will see that,
while his teaching fed the soul and strengthened resolve,
his perfect simplicity revealed a new and telling style of
preaching deep truths in simple words, pithy sentences
alive with meaning because they were the manifest
transcript of his own experience, such as "Christ's
crucifixion demands your crucifixion" "Sympathy
cures selfishness" "Hopelessness is faithlessness".
Frequently, like a riveter, he would seize a glowing
thought and with arm uplifted, suiting the action to the
word, he would drive it home again and again.
For example " Depart from me" in the passage referred
to by Canon Ottley:
. . . The marvellous bounty of God's grace dazzles and astounds our
vision, and in our perplexity of heart the despairing, craving, forbid/ 1
ding, yearning cry is wrung from our lips "Depart from me, O Lord,
for I am a sinful man".
" Depart from me, O Lord." I know it all now. I see my sin because
I see Thy goodness. Yes, I have beheld Thy holiness, Thy purity, Thy
truth, Thy grace, Thy power, Thy love, and I have been stunned with
the contrast to self. The brightness of the light has deepened the black-
ness of the shade.
"Depart from me, O Lord." What can I have in common with
Thee! I so selfish, so vile, so sinladen, with Thee so merciful, so
righteous, so holy, so pure! In very deed Thy ways are not as my ways
and Thy thoughts are not as my thoughts!
"Depart from me, O Lord." This fear of the Lord is indeed the
beginning of wisdom. This consciousness of sin is the straight pathway
to heaven. The saintliest of men have ever spoken and felt most strongly
of their own sinfulness. The intensity of their language has provoked
the sneers of the worldling. Has he not evidence here, on their own
confession, that despite all thek pretensions to holiness, they are no
better than he 2 But they know, and he does not know, what sin means,
for they know what God means. And therefore the despairing cry is
wrung from their agony, "Depart from me, O Lord".
"Depart from me"; and yet not so, O Lord. Even while Peter is
6/2
84 THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY
speaking, his gestures belie his words. His lips implore Jesus despair/
ingly to depart, but his eyes and his hands entreat Him to stay. Not so,
Lord, for how can I endure to part from Thee? In Thy presence only
is comfort, is strength, is hope, is light, is life.
"Depart from me 5" Nay: it is for the godless to say "Depart from
us, for we desire not the knowledge of God". It is for the unclean
spirits to rave against Thee, "Let us alone, Thou Jesus of Nazareth,
what have we to do with Thee?" But I, I have everything to do with
Thee. I am created in the image of God. I have a ray of the Divine
Light, a seed of the Divine Word, within me. And like seeks like.
Therefore, I yearn after Thee; therefore I am drawn towards Thee;
therefore I stretch out my hands to Thee over the wide chasm of sin
which yawns between us: Lord to whom shall we go? Thou hast the
words of eternal life. 1
Dr Ottley also "remembers as illustrating all this" the
effect of the last paragraph, "Alas, brothers, I am ashamed
to tell you", in the following passage, in the opening
Address of the Cuddesdon series which discloses one
secret of his influence over us.
And how can I better make my apology before you than by adopting
the words of a true saint of God one who had less far less need of this
line of defence than I am conscious of having?
Thus writes Leighton to the clergy of his synod at Dunblane:
"Is it not brethren an unspeakable advantage beyond all the gainful
and honourable employments of the world, that the whole work of our
particular calling is a kind of living in heaven, and besides its tendency
to the saving the souls of others, is all along so proper and adapted to the
saving of our own?
'But you will possibly say, What does he himself that speaks these
things to us? Alas, I am ashamed to tell you. All I dare say is this.
I think I see the beauty of holiness, and am enamoured of it, though I
attain it not, and howsoever little I attain, would rather live and die in
the pursuit of it than in the pursuit, yea in the possession, and enjoyment,
though unpurified, of all the advantages that this world affords. And I
trust dear brethren you are of the same opinion, and have the same desire
and design, and follow it both more diligently and with better success.'
1 Ordination Addresses, pp. 234-36.
THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY 85
'Alas,' brothers, 'I am ashamed to tell you.' And it is just the
hope that this shame and humiliation, as I look back on the splendid
opportunities of an academic teacher, and reflect on the poor use which
I myself made of them, may give some force and edge to words which
would otherwise be powerless it is just the hope which gives me
courage to address you. Do not press the question home. 'Alas, I am
ashamed to tell you' 'V
When Bishop Sandford of Tasmania came as his
assistant, Bishop Lightfoot was able to tell him that there
were more clergy working without stipend in Durham
than in any Diocese in the country. This was the very
greatest help in developing work. For example in two of
the great towns he was able to place a man capable of
laying the foundation of a future parish, so that the
Church was first in the field instead of being last.
In one of these cases the rich man had offered to go as
voluntary Curate to a town to be near his lifelong friend.
The Bishop tested his self/sacrifice by asking him to go
elsewhere to one of the hardest and most uninviting
posts in the Diocese. A large and beautiful Church and
vigorous parish are the results to/day of work begun by
such selfaacrifice and devotion.
In the other case some older clergy objected to such a
young man being appointed, and one went so far as to
express his protest to the Bishop. "Would you have
gone there", said the Bishop, "I had no stipend to offer;"
The reply was "No," and the grumbling ceased.
Though inexperienced, and often single-handed, a
young Curate so placed felt strong with the backing of
the Bishop at every turn. One still living writes:
He was eager that I should take a post which he was anxious to fill.
There were possible and probable difficulties and after a talk I said "I
am not sure that I should care to go". "You're not going, you're
1 Ibidem, pp. 217-18.
86 THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY
being sent", was his reply. "Then," I said, "when am I to go?"
" Next week", and next week I went.
Another Curate offering himself for some extra/paro/
chial work was being dealt with in a somewhat high/
handed manner by a certain society. He jumped into the
train and took the unpleasant letter to the Bishop.
Suddenly the society found that instead of dealing as they
liked with an unknown Curate, they were face to face with
the Bishop of Durham. They were made to toe the line
in no uncertain way, and the Curate was established in
his new position. The young man, whom the Bishop
thus befriended, did a work later on of similar nature,
in a large and important centre amidst most tremendous
difficulties, which has had far/reaching and lasting
influence.
His absolute trust in his young men was remarkable.
An ex'President of the University Boat Club working in
the Diocese got a letter one day. " Can you find me a job
in Durham, I'm sick of this quiet Country?" He wrote
on the corner of the letter, "He weighs 12 stone and puts
every ounce on his blade when he rows", and sent it to
the Bishop. " Tell him to come ", was the only reply. He
came, and for more than forty years he has rowed his full
weight in some of the roughest water in the Diocese.
But, while it was said (and sometimes with feeling)
that the Bishop "believed in young men", he was
scrupulously loyal to those who had spent their lives in
the Diocese. His first appointments before he was
consecrated were two senior men of opposite schools of
thought whom he asked to serve as Honorary Chaplains,
and it is significant that in the list of Honorary Canons
whom he appointed all were working in the Diocese
before he came, except a younger man who held a
THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY 87
Canonry for a time as a lecturer in Church History in the
three Northern Dioceses.
A Rector told the Bishop he had a promising senior
Curate, who after five years' service had been offered and
refused a living in another Diocese. He suggested him for
a vacant living that he might be kept in Durham. The
Bishop replied that he had senior men whom he must
consider first. He gave the living to a man who had
special reasons for being sent there. The vacancy in a
town thus created was filled by sending a man glad to go
for the sake of his children's education. This vacated a
benefice in the gift of the Rector who had written to the
Bishop, who was thus able himself to promote his man,
keep him in the Diocese, and retain him as a neighbour.
West Hartlepool is often quoted as an illustration of
his masterly skill in marshalling his men. He found it at
a very low ebb with only three churches, in none of
which was an effective ministry. As soon as possible he
put in a group of men who would compare well with
any set of men in any town. And in an astonishingly
short time the whole scene changed and it became a
strong Church centre. Years later it was referred to as
"holy ground " by a clergyman in the south who heard of
the clergy it sent forth as missionaries: F. N. Eden and
H. H. Dobinsonfrom St James to C.M.S. on the Niger;
Arthur F. Sim from St Aidan's to U.M.C.A. at Kota
Kota; E. F. Every from St Paul's to South America; and
W. F. Cosgrave from Christ Church to the Dublin
University Mission in Chota Nagpur.
All these were from Lightfoot's "young men", to
whom he had said:
. . .You must be conscious of a voice within you. . .in some way or
other the prompting must be felt, the voice must be heard. 'Here is a
88 THE BISHOP AND HIS CLERGY
work, God's work, to be done. And God wants me. God summons
me to do it. I know my weakness; I know my inability; I know my
ignorance, my inadequacy, my unworthiness in all respects; but not-
withstanding this sense of feebleness, I will obey the summons. Not'
withstanding it 5 Nay, by reason of it; for is not strength, God's
strength, made perfect in weakness? I cannot bear to think of so many
souls perishing for lack of food. I cannot bear to see so many sons of
God estranged from their Father in Heaven. A ministry of reconcilia/-
tion, of reconciliation why, the very name draws me with an attractive
power which I cannot resist.
Dost thou ask Lord, "whom shall I send? And who will go for
us?" There is only one answer, "Here am I, send me". 1
1 Ordination Addresses, p. 49.
Chapter IX
THE BISHOP'S THANK/OFFERING
ST IGNATIUS THE MARTYR, SUNDERLAND
IN the autumn of 1887 the Bishop wrote to Canon
Mathie, the Rector of Hendon, Sunderland, stating
that at the close of his seven years 5 episcopate he was
desirous to build a Church as a thank/offering, and it was
most fitting that it should be in the most populous parish
in the Diocese with its 30,000 inhabitants, chiefly work/
ing men, who could not be expected to subscribe large
sums.
By the autumn of 1889 the Church was nearing
completion, and the Bishop chose, as its first Vicar, the
Rev. Edgar Boddington, one of his "sons". 10,000
people were allotted to the new parish.
The architect of the new Church was Mr C. Hodgson
Fowler, Cathedral Architect, who designed a handsome
church in Early English style, somewhat severe, but full
of quiet dignity. The pillars in the nave were by the
Bishop's wish reminiscent of clustered columns in the
Chapel at Auckland Castle.
Most appropriately the Church was dedicated to the
memory of St Ignatius the Martyr, and the handsome
stone reredos contains on either side of the Crucifixion
figures of Bishops of East and West Ignatius and
Polycarp for the East, and Cuthbert and Aidan for the
West. A noble Te Deum window above .this reredos
makes the east end the crowning glory of the Church.
The whole of the exterior to the summit of the fine
90 THE BISHOP'S THANK/OFFERING
broach spire is of white ashlar stone brought from
Edmundbyers quarries. There is a fine peal of eight bells,
and Bishop Forrest Browne drew up a complete scheme
for stained windows of historical interest throughout
the Church. Those in the nave were founded on Bede's
Ecclesiastical History, while those in the chancel illus/
trated the life of Ignatius. The west window embodies the
life of the founder from his schooldays under Dr Prince
Lee to his death.
The Bishop, though in failing health, took the liveliest
interest in the work, guiding negotiations of some delicacy
in the early stages of the formation of the new parish. At
a Saturday night Men's Bible Class here an old ex/
Wesleyan offered fervent prayer for the new incumbent.
"Bless, O Lord, the young man, bless him, O Lord, we
think he'll do. We think he'll do." This vastly delighted
the Bishop. He slyly remarked, "I like the record of a
suspended judgment".
In the anxious spring of 1889 it was more than doubt/
ful whether the Bishop's strength would rally. Yet in ill/
ness he could not forget St Ignatius. As compline was
read at his bedside his voice boomed out before the
concluding prayer, "Pray for Boddington". And when
the turn came for the better, the young Vicar received the
following letter in the familiar writing:
My dear Son, I hear on all sides you are overworking yourself. I
charge you, should it even mean putting a notice on the Mission Room
door that services will be discontinued for a time, that you at once take
a brief rest. That you may realise how imperative is this charge, I need
only add this is the first letter I have written "with my own hand"
since my very, very serious illness.
Yours affectionately,
J. B. DUNELM.
THE BISHOP'S THANK/OFFERING 91
By the mercy of God he recovered sufficiently to return
from Bournemouth, which is thus recorded on the hand/
some brass lectern given as a thank-offering:
He was sick nigh unto death, but God had mercy on him, and on
us also.
He was able to consecrate his gift himself on July 2nd,
1889, when he was surrounded in St Ignatius Church
with a great host of surpliced clergy from all over the
Diocese. He was wonderfully sustained to bear the strain
of the very long Service of Consecration.
The preacher, most appropriately, was Dr Westcott.
His text "From weakness were made strong", Heb. xi.
34, was used to gather up the stories of the ages and the
recovery of the Bishop and the lesson of St Ignatius.
Referring to the Bishop he said:
Do you not feel that his influence has extended far beyond the limits
of our own Communion, because he has recognised the breadth of his
obligations and moved among you as the representative of the whole
Diocese ? Do you not feel that the forty/five houses of God, which have
risen in answer to his appeal, the seventy " sons of his house", whom he
has sent to minister to you, witness to a force gathered from old times,
quickened but not created? Do you not feel that that unity, for which
we all are longing, has been brought a little closer to us, when all
Durham looks to him as the natural leader in every movement for
education, for temperance, for social purity? I have a right to use a
personal argument. He who wisely uses the resources of an institution
is the interpreter, and, in some sense, the measure of its power. The
great man is the sign of the great society.
And for us to/day the largest thoughts must take a personal shape. I
have just spoken of this building, most religious in its solemn dignity,
as a memorial of an episcopate rich in abiding fruits, a memorial of
sacrifices offered and blessed, of prayers made and answered. And it
is in a true sense a living memorial. For there is, indeed (would that we
did not forget it), between a gift and a bequest the whole difference of
life. The benefactor lives in his gift. He himself works through it, and
92 THE BISHOP'S THANK-OFFERING
he enjoys the fruits of its working. This Church of Ignatius places its
giver's long-chosen literary labours, which he postponed to his ap-
pointed charge, in connexion with your services to Christ, in which he
will find his great reward. It offers to you, by its unique dedication,
the inspiring example of a new Saint. It has received no material
relics, but its very stones are the witness of self/surrender. It holds no
letters written in the dust (as in the ancient ritual) by the bishop's staff,
but letters written by his love on the heart of him who will minister in
it. It teaches you to look beyond England in order that you may feel
your debt and your duty. It reminds you of the widespread glory of
your spiritual ancestry, in which you reckon side by side an apostle of
the far East and an apostle of the far West Ignatius of Anrioch and
Columba of Hy. It discloses, if you study its memories, the secret of
spiritual transfiguration, from weakness were made strong. 1
Moved by the thought of all his generosity, his "sons"
resolved to offer the Bishop 100 a year for three years
toward the Curate Fund of the new Church. In
acknowledging this he wrote:
SANDYKELD,
BOURNEMOUTH.
Christmas 1888.
My dear Auckland Sons,
I cannot forbear any longer, though the dictation of a letter is irksome
to me, expressing to you, if not with my own pen, yet in my own words,
my gratitude for your recent action in contributing towards the stipend
of a Curate for St Ignatius, Hendon. The thought has relieved the pain
of more than one wearisome night.
It is to me a matter of good augury that the Auckland Students are
looking upon St Ignatius, Hendon, as, in a sense, a special charge, so
long as it needs their aid. For some time the incumbent will have
serious financial difficulties in organising the Parish, and such help and
sympathy as you are giving him cannot fail to be most acceptable.
I entertain the hope that in the future the Auckland Students will
regard this Church as a special centre of union, and meet from time to
time to commemorate by solemn services our bond of brotherhood.
1 From Strength to Strength: Three sermons by Bishop Westcott. Mac-
millan, 1890.
THE BISHOP'S THANK/OFFERING 93
Asking the support of your prayers during this trying illness, and
wishing you all every Christmas and New Year's blessing,
I am
Your very affectionate
J. B. DUNELM.
Our St Peter's Day reunion has been held there more
than once.
The ^100 a year payment was steadily maintained till
after the War. Then it became evident that we could not
indefinitely continue. So we began to reduce the sum
handed to the parish by 10 a year; and the balance
received in subscriptions was placed to an Endowment
Fund which received special contributions, notably one
of ;ioo. In this way, with the help of the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners, a permanent endowment has been
secured and the Curate Fund finally wound up.
Bishop Westcott, as we have seen, continued the
Brotherhood in the same spirit as our founder, and on St
Peter's Day 1899 we offered to place a window in the
Chapel at Auckland to commemorate his own ten years'
episcopate. He gladly accepted, suggesting that we
should unite our Thanksgiving with his own, and he
made two conditions: (i) that the subject should be his
predecessor's episcopate, and (2) that our subscriptions
should be limited, that he himself might bear the bulk of
the cost.
In writing to acknowledge our gift of fifty/five guineas,
he wrote:
I took heart, as you know, to come to Durham because I believed
that my lifelong friendship with my predecessor would enable me to
sympathise with his methods of work and to win the confidence of those
who had caught his spirit.
My hope has been more than fulfilled, and my great joy in the close of
94 THE BISHOP'S THANK, OFFERING
my work is to be assured that, by the blessing of God, you will maintain
undiminished, for those who Come after, that energy of love which has
been my stay and inspiration through ten years of anxious yet happy
labour.
No privilege can be greater than to be allowed to call myself with
deep affection, - 7 , . ,
r Your Father in God,
B. F. DUNELM.
AUCKLAND CASTLE,
March zjth, 1901
Two "Lightfoot Memorial Churches" were built in
the Diocese: St Hilda's, Sunderland, and St Aidan's,
Gateshead. The Norman Chapter House of the Cathe/
dral was restored as the Diocesan Memorial to him.
Pbot. Dcknhani & GouU
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT IN 1889
Chapter X
THE CLOSING DAYS
"N recognition of the completion of the ten years of his
episcopate it was resolved in August 1888 to present
the Bishop with his portrait and a pastoral staff. The
proposal was met with enthusiasm all over the Diocese.
In view of the Bishop's illness the Committee decided
to make the presentation on October 29th, 1889, before
he left for the south.
A remarkable gathering met in Bishop Cosin's library
on that October afternoon. The Lord Lieutenant (Lord
Durham) presided. He explained to the Bishop that the
staff could not be finished before the end of the year but
here it was "in its rough state just as it left the workman's
shop, some of its parts put together temporarily for this
occasion" for a strong desire was felt to present it before
the Bishop left for the south.
How Lord Durham felt may be judged from the
following sentences:
I have in my possession and I am proud of and shall always value
it a letter you addressed to me last year from Bournemouth. You were
too feeble except to dictate that letter and append your signature to it,
but I shall never forget that in that letter you expressed your belief that
you might never again come among us, and the only regret, the only
sorrow that the idea of death had for you, was that you would be unable
to work as hard as you had formerly done. Now that we have you with
us again, I can assure you, in the name of all classes, of all sects, and
of all denominations in this county, that we hope you may long live to
resume and fulfil the work among us. But had you never been able
again to do any of this work, I can assure you we are proud of the work
96 THE CLOSING DAYS
you have done for us in the past, and we shall ever remember with
pride the noble record of your life among us.
The Lord Lieutenant then handed to the Bishop the
pastoral staff.
Lord Londonderry and others having spoken, the
Bishop rose and was received with great warmth. He
said:
This is indeed a happy moment for me. I should have felt no com/
mon satisfaction if the purpose of our gathering had been simply the
presentation of the pastoral staff, which, I can see already in its present
unfinished state, will do honour to your intention and will be a most
valuable heirloom of the See of Durham after my death. But I cannot
fail to remember to/day that there is another source of gratification to
me; it is the reception of your kindly welcome, now that it has pleased
God to recover me, at least in apartial measure, in answer to your prayers.
**
May I say something about the double present which this meeting
represents? Mention has akeady been made of the portrait. I am glad
for more reasons than one that it is nearly completed. I hope that the
last sitting is over I am no judge whatever whether it is a good likeness.
My friends who have seen it say that it is. But of one thing I am sure,
that as a work of art it will be no discredit either to Mr Richmond's
great reputation, or to your kindly intentions.
And now just a word or two with regard to the presentation of this
day.
Some years ago, when I was comparatively new to the Diocese, it
was suggested to me that some such gift might be made I said then I
thought it was somewhat premature. The Diocese could not be sup'
posed to understand me, and it might possibly give rise to wrong
impressions. I have no fear of that kind to/day. If I have not proved by
my words and deeds in these ten years that I have not been, and never
intend to be, the Bishop of a party, but the Bishop of the diocese; I am
afraid that nothing henceforward which I could say or do would
correct the impression. But since those times there has been a great
change in public opinion about these matters. I recollect a few years
ago three or four years ago I went down to Wells to preach in the
THE CLOSING DAYS 97
Cathedral there. I found that my venerable friend, the Bishop of Bath
and Wells (Lord Arthur Hervey) was preceded by a pastoral staff, and
that this pastoral staff was carried by a respected Oxford professor. Now
the Bishop of Bath and Wells, as everybody will allow, is the very type
of moderation. And I think it would have very much astonished
Professor Gandell 1 if he had been called in any sense, an extreme man.
In fact, from that time forward it became to me rather a humorous idea
that there was any party notion attached to the pastoral staff.
I have had in my possession, since I became Bishop, a symbol of
another kind a rather handsome mace which I have used, and used
without scruple from time to time. Now a mace is a very good thing. I
daresay you will recollect that in the Bayeux tapestry a certain famous
prelate, Odo, the half brother of the Conqueror, is represented as
bearing a mace. It is at the battle of Hastings. It was considered not
etiquette that a Bishop should shed blood, he must not unsheath his
sword, but there was no harm in his belabouring the brains of the poor
Saxons with his mace. And accordingly he is represented, by those who
were intimately acquainted with him, in the Bayeux tapestry, as doing
this very thing.
Now I do not suppose that you are under any apprehension that I
should use the mace in this way. Whatever my own bloodthirsty
feelings might lead me to do in the case of recalcitrant clergy or laity, I
am afraid public opinion would be too strong for me.
But does not the mace suggest rather civil and political office than
spiritual and ecclesiastical J The Palatinate had its glories, but thank
God it is over. I cannot forget that the only predecessor who bore my
own name in the long line of Bishops of Durham Bishop Butler, the
most humble and modest of all prelates, and the least disposed to earthly
splendours when he became Bishop of Durham made it a condition
that the Lord Lieutenancy should not be separated from the episcopate.
I do not blame him for doing so. He considered himself the champion
of the rights of the See, for if he was not, who else would be 5 But I am
most thankful that at the next vacancy it passed out of episcopal hands.
. . .1 cannot help thinking that the pastoral staff is a much more
suitable symbol of office for a Bishop than a mace. For what does a
pastoral staff means The Christian minister, whatever else he is and
1 Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford. Examining Chaplain to the
Bishop of Bath and Wells. Canon Residentiary of Wells Cathedral.
EM 7
98 THE CLOSING DAYS
I shall not enter upon controversial questions is, before all things, a
pastor, a shepherd. Our Lord Himself takes to Himself the title of
Chief Shepherd. This is the distinguishing mark which separates the
Christian ministry from the heathen priesthood, and even from the
Jewish priesthood. The heathen priests were slaughterers of victims.
The Jewish priests, though they had other functions, yet had this as
their chief work: the pastoral office was not necessarily attached to the
Jewish priest. David was a Pastor: the Prophets were Pastors. But the
priests need not necessarily have been so, though on occasions they were,
when they had the gift. It is, therefore, a distinctly Christian symbol
which you are placing in my hands to/day.
I would add also that the decorations of which you can hardly form
any conception at present, will remind me of the best and most spiritual
days in the history of the Northumbrian See. There will be represented
there Aidan, Hilda, Bede, and others the great makers, not only of
the Church of England, but likewise of the polity and civilisation of
England. I shall have these always before me as this staff is borne
before me, bright examples of the past, which I can only attempt to
follow at a long distance.
For all these lessons, I have to thank you to/day, and I pray that God
may send His blessing upon you all, that you may bear tenderly with
your Bishop, if the state of his health does not allow him to do such
active service physically as he did before, and that the administration of
this great Diocese may notwithstanding, as by your aid I trust it will, go
on as efficiently and successfully as hitherto.
This report, from the record printed at the time 1 , has
been given at some length because it was the Bishop's last
utterance and public appearance in the Diocese. And
also because he revealed almost unconsciously the secret
of his habitual caution and reserve, not due to natural
shyness, but because of his strict avoidance of any sus/
picion of party bias. And he tells us his own estimate of
the principles of his episcopate; the essentially spiritual
character of a Bishop's office and work; the inspiration of
1 Presentation of a Pastoral Staff to the Bishop of Durham. Durham:
Andrews and Co., 1890.
THE CLOSING DAYS 99
a great Church heritage; as well as his gratitude for the
welcome by the whole Diocese there gathered after his
return from his serious illness.
Shortly after, he went to Bournemouth, and died less
than eight weeks later on St Thomas' Day, December 2ist,
1889.
The following extracts from different brethren tell their
own story. The first two belong to the early stages of his
illness, the others to the last.
My most sacred experience was when I went to him at Bournemouth
in his extreme illness. The heart trouble was causing complications
frequently requiring attention. He was much distressed, but not with
the prospect of death, which indeed was not remote. I remember his
saying once, as I sat at his bedside, "What distresses me is the thought
that this illness might produce some unreality of mind, and that I
should say things that are untrue".
Once during that visit at Bournemouth, I was going to give the
Sacrament to a young priest dying of consumption. The Bishop knew
he rose, and resting on his hands, said with difficulty, "Tell him to
be of good cheer. Tell him it is the message of one who has just looked
death close in the face himself".
3
On Sunday, December I5th, the Bishop seemed not quite so well
and the falling off continued on Monday the i6th. He kept on at his
literary work, however, with his usual keen interest and tenacity. On
Tuesday about bedtime he was attacked with faintness and became
exceeding weak and ill. Harmer, and his butler Wakefield, helped him
with considerable difficulty to bed. Next morning he was able to
leave his room, but did very little work. His passion for work, how/
ever, never left him, and even during the doctor's leaving the room for
7/2
ioo THE CLOSING DAYS
a moment, a few words were added to the sentence in his Clement of
Rome, which proved to be the last words he wrote. 1
4
I arrived on Thursday December 19 and found him evidently
drifting into a state of unconsciousness with occasional intervals when
he would open his eyes. When I talked of the Ordination candidates
who would be assembling,* he took little notice and evidently had not
the power to think much of such things.
A Christmas card sent him by the wife of his oldest Chaplain, he
took in his hand and looked at carefully, and said " Please thank her".
When I drew his attention to the verse and said she had chosen that
because she thought he would like it, he read it very carefully and slowly
and smiled, and said "Yes, mind you thank her". The verse was
Romans viii, part of 38 and 39, "I am persuaded that neither death,
nor life. . .nor things present, nor things to come,. . .shall be able to
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord".
This was his last effort of intelligent attention, and these words the
last on which his eyes rested.
* *
1 We may be forgiven if our filial affection recalls in connection
with this moving story the description of the last moments of the great
Northumbrian saint and scholar given by Bishop Lightfoot in Leaders
in the Northern Church (p. 89): "A man past the middle of life lay on
his death'bed, surrounded by his disciples. They were sorrowing, says
a bystander who relates the incident, at the thought that they should see
his face no more in this life. A youth was taking down some words
from the master's lips. 'One chapter still remains', said the lad, 'of the
book which thou hast dictated; and yet it seems troublesome to ask
more of thee.' 'It is not troublesome,' said the dying man, 'get out thy
pen and prepare, and write quickly.' So the hours went on. At intervals
he conversed with his scholars; then again he dictated. At length his
amanuensis turned to him; 'Beloved master, one sentence only remains
to be written.' 'Good,' he replied, 'write it.' After a short pause the
boy told him that it was written. 'Good,' said he, 'it is finished; thou
hast said truly.' And in a few moments more he gave up his soul to God,
with his last breath chanting the doxology, familiar to him, as to us".
3 Bishop Sandford, the assistant Bishop, and a large company of Ordi/
nation candidates were assembled at Auckland Castle on Saturday, St
Thomas' Day.for the Ordination next morning. But the news of the Bishop's
death received in the evening cancelled Bishop Sandford's commission, so
no Ordination could take place. Among the candidates thus delayed were
two Auckland Brothers, who are now English Bishops.
THE CLOSING DAYS 101
The grey old walls of Durham Cathedral can seldom
have witnessed a more wonderful service than the funeral
of Bishop Lightfoot on Friday, December 27th, 1889.
The great church was filled from end to end with a
congregation gathered from all classes and all corners of
the Diocese and of England. Peers and pitmen, Church/
men and Dissenters, representatives of Cambridge Uni'
versity and St Paul's Cathedral were all brought together
by a common sorrow, and all upheld by one triumphant
faith.
The coffin which had rested overnight at a spot in
"the Nine Altars" (still marked by a small brass cross on
the floor) was borne by us "Sons of the House" in our
surplices. By relays of eight at a time the very heavy
burden was borne along the south aisle, and up the nave
till it rested just below the great throne of the Bishop. It
was preceded all the way by his Chaplain, the Rev. E. A.
Welch, carrying the unfinished silver pastoral staffdraped
in crape.
A lifetime has passed since that dark day, yet still we
recall the fellowship of loss, upheld by the faith and hope
that found expression in the music and in fervent prayers.
The service ended, we bore all that could die of our
master along the nave again, and through the cloister to
the Deanery door, where his old coachman and his own
horses were ready to take the hearse to Bishop Auckland,
through pit villages filled with mourners.
A special train meanwhile took many to Auckland.
And there in the dimly lit Chapel we " Sons " stood in
a double row round the open grave that was made before
the sanctuary steps.
Archbishop Thomson of York stood at the "north
end". Archbishop Benson of Canterbury stood at the
102 THE CLOSING DAYS
step at the foot of the grave, and, a sad figure in his black
coat, Dr Westcott stood at the head. Thus the three
schoolfellows were together, Benson reading the commit/
tal, and Westcott casting earth to earth. Standing on the
brink of Eternity we learned that love is stronger than death .
On that dark afternoon in December 1889 Rolt and I went out
after the funeral on to the sunless north terrace with a sense of gloom
unspeakable. I had then no home of my own, and now our Father in
God was taken from us, and the Diocesan Home (we supposed) had
come to an end. No one not of Auckland could understand, any more
than we could explain, what the tie was, or how it became so quickly
knit. Looking back I think it was not because the Bishop was so good
to us, or did many things for us, but because he wanted us, as a father
wants his sons.
The black marble slab over the Bishop's grave, a
"Memorial Offering of the Auckland Students", was
worked out by Mr G. Hodgson Fowler, in conjunction
with Bishop Westcott, who wrote the inscription, as
follows:
HIC REQUIESCIT IN PACE JOSEPHUS BARBER
LIGHTFOOT EPISCOPUS DUNELMENSIS ORATOR
SCRIPTOR MAGISTER DOCTRINA ELOQUENTIA
CANDORE PAENE PROPRIO FIDEM CHRISTI
VINDICAVIT ECCLESIAE ORIGINES ILLUSTRAVIT
INGENIO ET MORIBUS SUOS SIBI DEVINXIT POS-
TEROS BENEFICIIS NATUS MDCCCXXVIII OBIIT
MDCCCLXXXIX.
The lettering for this inscription was copied from the
Lindisfarne Gospels.
The cross, which extends the whole length of the slab,
is copied from the Saxon tombstone in Kirkdale Church,
one of the few stones with an inscription in Runic
characters. Many years ago these runes, then visible,
THE CLOSING DAYS 103
were deciphered as" Cyning (King) Aethelwald". This
is probably the tomb of Aethelwald, or Oidilwald, son of
Oswald, King of Deira.
The two scrolls on either side of the cross are modelled
from scrolls on fragments of shafts of Christian crosses,
and the Alpha and Omega at the head are designed
from the letters on a slab from the Hartlepool nuns'
cemetery of St Hilda's day.
The Greek inscription
ANAPIZE2@E KPATAIOT2@E
written beneath his photograph among the Revisers of
the New Testament in Dr Westcott's Album, is in
letters taken from Celtic manuscripts.
Thus the slab gathers up in itself the history of the
beginnings of Christianity in the North of England.
IN THE LEARNED WORLD
For ten years after his Episcopal consecration he
continued to add to the pile of his Theological achieve'
ments. Had he survived for another twenty years it is
difficult to believe that he would not have gone on
toiling as fruitfully and brilliantly. . . . There he sat to
the instant of his death, analysing, comparing, ad/
judicating. . . .
He neither forgot the Bishop in the Scholar, nor the
Scholar in the Bishop.
"The Times" Obituary, December 24, 1889.
Chapter XI
THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK
(a) Bishop Ligbtfoot's Literary Work at Durham*
BY THE REV. H. E. SAVAGE
NO T many generations have passed since a Bishop/
ric was regarded as the natural goal of a scholar's
life, in which, with much leisure and a few
occasional routine duties, he might devote himself almost
exclusively to his studies. But those days have happily
passed away, and the present danger is rather that in the
demand for practical men of business capacity, the claims
of scholarship to be duly represented in the highest posts
of the Church should be passed over. The calls upon a
Bishop's time and energies are simply endless: the enop
mous growth of population during the past twenty or
thirty years in most of the English Dioceses has by no
means been met by a few tardy subdivisions; and the ad'
ministrator of a large Diocese has his hands so full that
it seems an impossibility for him to save any time for
literary work. Every parish demands individual atten/
tion, and looks for at least occasional personal visits;
Confirmations must be multiplied until they are held
annually within reach of every parish ; there is not a Church
Society but looks to the Bishop to champion its cause in
various centres; conferences, committees, organisations,
gatherings of special bodies, etc., tend to increase on every
side; while the daily post alone brings in enough work to
employ the time of one man. In such a life as this, how
1 Reprinted, by permission, from The Classical Review, February, 1890.
THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK 107
is it possible for a Bishop, however gifted, to secure any
leisure for literary work s
It was such considerations as these that aroused a
serious anxiety in every quarter, when the announcement
appeared in the newspapers on January 28th, 1879, that
Professor Lightfoot had accepted the See of Durham in
succession to Dr Baring. With regard to the episcopal
appointment, as such, the news was greeted with uni/
versal satisfaction; but it was felt that the price would be
altogether too great to pay for a powerful administrator
in the Church if Dr Lightfoot's new responsibilities
should prevent him from giving to the world any more
of the eagerly expected results of his life/work on the
writers of the New Testament and the Apostolic
Fathers. A scholar of less note, it was urged, might
well be found to organise and guide even such a great
and difficult Diocese as that of Durham; but no one
could fill Dr Lightfoot's place as a teacher and an
expositor.
In the three months which intervened between his
appointment and his consecration, while he was still at
Cambridge, letters kept continually pouring in upon the
Bishop/elect from all manner of correspondents imploring
him to find time in some way or another to continue his
literary labours; and Dr Westcott's sermon at the conse/
cration of his friend in Westminster Abbey, in which he
sketched the ideal of a Bishop's work, contained an
earnest plea for patient thought and study and wise
counsel on deeper subjects than mere diocesan detail or
development. To one and all of these appeals the Bishop
himself returned one steadfast answer; "he had not
accepted the oversight of the Diocese to neglect its duties.
Experience would show, but he would not venture to
108 THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK
predict, whether any time would be left him to continue
his literary work".
Accordingly from his first entering on his new sphere
he devoted himself unflinchingly to the administration of
his Diocese; and frequently for weeks or even months at
a time he found it impossible in the pressure of other work
to secure any leisure for literary production. While how/
ever throughout his episcopate his Diocese held the first
and paramount position in Bishop Lightfoot's thought
and energy, he consistently kept before him as only a
secondary responsibility the urgent claim which rested
upon him as a scholar and a theologian to strive earnestly
to finish the work which he had undertaken before he
became a Bishop. It was this constant sense of a great
duty incumbent upon him that led him to devote every
leisure hour that could be spared from diocesan work to
the prosecution of his literary labours.
It is not an easy matter to point to any definite time or
occasion which the Bishop was able regularly to secure
for his books in the midst of his busy life at Auckland
Castle. In the earlier years of his life there, his habit was
to rise very early in the morning, and lighting his own fire
(which had been laid ready for him overnight) to make
sure of two or three hours' quiet work in his bedroom
before breakfast. But after a few years, when the terrible
strain that pressed upon him began to tell upon his health,
he reluctantly abandoned this plan as anything like a
general rule.
When his constant engagements took him from home,
he would sacrifice any personal convenience to return
before night, or at least very early the following morning,
in order to save as much time as possible. But even so
the days at Auckland were seriously broken into. After
THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK 109
breakfast he went through his letters with his Chaplains,
reserving a certain number to answer with his own hand,
amongst which were the numerous communications he
constantly received from scholars in all parts of Europe.
The preparation of sermons, speeches, charges, etc.,
necessarily occupied a great deal of attention. And
though the position of Bishop Auckland saved him from
a large number of the inconsiderate callers who, had he
lived at Durham, would have occupied his time about
matters that could have been dealt with as well by post,
still there were not a few to whom an interview was really
important, and who accordingly found their way to
Auckland Castle. But with all these interruptions the
last hour or two of the morning not infrequently found
the Bishop engaged with his literary work, and he was
often able to keep the greater part of the evening for it.
Unfortunately too he would day after day restrict his
exercise to a short stroll in his park, and then return to his
work for the rest of the afternoon. For a man who had
been used to a considerable amount of walking, this loss
of fresh air and exercise was a serious strain upon his
health.
The habit which the Bishop had formed of turning to
his books at every available opportunity, however short,
was exemplified even in the smallest details. Thus on his
constant railway journeys, or in his long drives to the
outlying villages of his Diocese, he always had with him
as his constant companion a bag (familiarly known as
"the Pandect"), in which were ready to his hand books,
literary periodicals, proof/sheets, etc., for reference at any
spare moment.
There was however one great opportunity for un/
interrupted work open to the Bishop, which he was not
no THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK
slow to seize. When August came round, and he was
able to get away for a summer holiday, he would carry off
his books to some retired spot generally in Scotland,
and by preference to Braemar, where the bracing air and
the quiet enabled him to work freely and there he would
abandon himself once more to a student's life. His dio'
cesan correspondence followed him even there, but it did
not reach him until midday, and the mornings and most
of the evenings were kept sacred for literary work. It was
during these holidays that a great part of his introduction
to the Ignatian Epistles was written.
In the great bulk of his literary work Bishop Lightfoot
depended entirely on his own labours. He never em/
ployed an amanuensis; he rarely allowed anyone else
even to verify his refefences. The only relief which he
would accept was the almost mechanical correction of the
proof/sheets of the new editions, as they were called for,
of his Epistles of St Paul. But latterly he entrusted more
and more of his editing work to his Chaplain, the Rev.
J. R. Harmer, who had prepared the indices for the
edition of St Ignatius. In passing the sheets of his books
through the press the Bishop spared no pains to ensure
completeness in every detail; thus, for instance, one sheet
of Ignatius was kept back for months to enable him to
add if possible an English rendering which would pre/
serve the play upon words in /ca/coSatjuwz/ in the Antio/
chene Acts of Martyrdom of St Ignatius ( n).
One great secret of the Bishop's being able to produce
such a monument of learning and research as his Ignatius
in the midst of an exceptionally active episcopate was the
unique store of knowledge which he brought with him
from Cambridge, and the remarkable accuracy of
memory which enabled him to apply it readily. Page
THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK in
after page was written cumnte calamo with few or no books
of reference at hand, and with only a "ver." here and
there in the margin where future verification was required.
He also had in a marked degree the power of again
taking up the thread of his work after an interruption
without a moment's hesitation. The thought of his com/
plete and minute command of the whole range of the first
three centuries excites a keen regret that the pressure of
other business in the first instance, and afterwards the
state of his health, should have prevented him from
carrying out his original project, of writing a full his/
torical introduction to his articles on "Supernatural
Religion" before re/issuing them in book form.
It would however be an inaccuracy to imply that all
the Bishop's interest and researches were confined solely to
the period of the Early Fathers. Apart from the various
topics of general and current interest which engaged his
attention, he was a thorough enthusiast and expert on the
subject of English Church history and antiquities, es/
pecially with regard to the unique heritage of his own
Diocese. He was among the first to claim for the North/
umbrian mission of the seventh century its true position
in the evangelisation of England; and he was familiar
with every detail of the ecclesiastical antiquities of Durham
and Northumberland.
Auckland Castle came into his hands with few or no
relics of the See: he left it a monument of the history of all
his great predecessors from the days of Aidan himself.
Stained glass windows, shields, episcopal seals, portraits,
books, personal relics such as the one faulty inscription
of Butler, or the desk of Cosin all tell the story of the
past. In the summer of 1 8 86 he began to prepare a mono/
graph on the history of Auckland Castle, at which he
H2 THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK
continued to work to the end as occasion offered. 1 His
sermons on the North/Country Saints, preached at
various churches dedicated in their names, will form a
series 3 which in point of Early English Church history
will carry far more than a merely temporary or local
interest. The Bishop himself intended to publish these
in a collected form when he had completed the whole
cycle, according to the plan he had laid down for himself.
When Dr Lightfoot was appointed to Durham in
1879 there was some hope that he might be able to
continue at intervals to give to the Northern University
some of the lectures on the Greek Testament which had
made him so famous as a teacher at Cambridge. His
official position as Visitor of the University and Patron of
the Canonries, with which two of its Professorships are
endowed, seemed to give a certain ground for asking this
of him. On more than one occasion during the first two
years of his residence in the north he was urged to under/
take such a course of lectures. But nothing would induce
him to accede to this request. He felt that his hands were
more than full of work in other directions, while the
teaching staff of the University was amply sufficient for
its needs. His interest however in the University never
flagged, and it found a practical expression inthefounda/
tion by him in 1882 of the De Bury Scholarship for
students who intend to take Holy Orders in the Diocese
of Durham.
In his own home at Auckland Castle he gathered
round him a band of graduates of the older Universities,
who were reading with a view to taking Holy Orders in
his Diocese. The teaching of these students was entrusted
1 Historical Essays. Macmillan, 1895.
2 Leaders in the Northern Church. Macmillan, 1895.
THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK 113
chiefly to the resident Chaplains, of whom there were
always two on account of this special work. The Bishop
himself occasionally gave them a course of Greek Testa/
ment lectures, and the general direction of their studies
rested with him: but more than this he was unable to do.
Altogether, in the ten years eighty of these students have
been trained at Auckland.
The one impression left upon the minds of all who
knew Bishop Lightfoot, on a review of his ten years'
episcopate, must always be that of a Father of the Church,
who set himself to rule over his diocese with conspicuous
devotion, judgment and ability; whose power of work
seemed to be without limit, whose liberality was without
stint; the motto of whose life was to spend and be spent
for those to whom, as he himself expressed it on the day
of his enthronement at Durham, he had given himself
wholly for better or worse. And when to all his other
labours was added the strain of the Lambeth Conference
of 1888, in which he bore no small part, it was the last
burden which hopelessly broke down his already over/
taxed strength. In the midst of a life of such ceaseless and
varied activity, it was only by the stern exercise of his
inflexible will, and a steadfast and self/denying earnest/
ness of purpose, that he was able in any degree to con/
tinue his literary labours.
H. E. s. (1890)
EM
ii4 THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK
(b) The Bisbop in bis Study
BY BISHOP HARMER
Throughout his residence at Auckland Castle Dr Light/
foot had the continuous assistance of two domestic
Chaplains. He had brought with him from Cambridge
George Rodney Eden (till lately Bishop of Wakefield)
and Henry Edwin Savage (now Dean of Lichfield); and
his delight was great to find that as the son of a leading
clergyman in his Diocese (Canon Eden, Rector of
Sedgefield) Eden was thoroughly acquainted with the
Diocese of Durham from end to end, knew many of its
principal residents both in Durham and Northumberland
and could arrange the Bishop's confirmation tours and
other visits with an expert knowledge of the neigh/
bourhood. This helped the Bishop greatly to become
acquainted with his Diocese from the first.
Over and above the ordinary duties which fall to a
Bishop's domestic Chaplain, such as writing letters,
arranging interviews, organising his confirmation tours
and the like, as well as accompanying the Bishop on his
journeys when required to do so, the two resident Chap/
lains at Auckland Castle were entrusted practically with
the management of a large domestic establishment, in/
eluding the social gatherings, and with the general
supervision of the studies of the Auckland students, "the
Sons of the House".
As one of this Brotherhood before my appointment to
be a domestic Chaplain early in 1884, 1 came to my new
office with a reverent acquaintance with the Bishop's
character, his extraordinary power of work, his boundless
trust in others, his simplicity of life, and his power of
THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK 115
throwing off at a moment's notice all cares, whether
diocesan or literary, and entering with an almost boyish
spirit of detachment into the doings of the group of young
men around him. He looked to them to provide him
with the relaxation which he required from the strain of
official life.
My duties began at a time when much which the
Bishop had set himself to do at the commencement of his
episcopate had been accomplished. It is evident that
from the first he had kept steadily in view his cherished
intention to complete, if possible, his unfinished literary
work. But before he could find time for this he had to
clear himself from three preliminary obligations his
work as a Reviser of the New Testament, the division of
the Diocese of Durham, and the reorganisation of the
diocesan machinery. Step by step he accomplished his
aim. When, in the autumn of 1881 he presided at the
Church Congress held at Newcastle, the Revised Version
of the New Testament had just been published, and his
absorbing work as a prominent Reviser had come to an
end. The creation of the Diocese of Newcastle was also
well in sight, and was happily accomplished in the
following year. Relieved thereby of spiritual responsibility
for Northumberland, the Bishop had set to work to
organise in the completest manner what remained under
his care, the historic county of Durham with its teeming
population of coal miners. Durham presented itself to
him as a strange contrast between the past glories of the
old Prince Bishops, holding sway far North of the Tyne
(of which only the emblems still remained the sword
crossed with the crozier and the mitre encircled with the
ducal coronet) and the overwhelming spiritual needs of
the masses of workers flung upon the old county of
ii6 THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK
Durham by the recent sudden industrial expansion. The
now familiar equipment of a modern diocese was then
almost unknown. Bishop Lightfoot at once saw the
magnitude of the effort needed to meet new conditions,
and had thrown himself into it with characteristic
courage and energy. In this reconstruction he had the
very able help of Archdeacon Watkins, a most loyal
friend and a most alert and capable organiser. The
completeness of this new organisation is evident to all who
have studied the Bishop's Primary Charge. All was done
to concentrate the administrative duties of the Bishop
regardless of the strain upon himself. Meetings of the
principal diocesan societies were held in Durham at fixed
days in each month, crowded together with an economy
of time which must have taxed his powers as chairman.
From the outset his confirmations had been arranged on
a system of grouped parishes under alternate years, and
so ordered that with much physical and mental exertion
the Bishop carried them out for the most part single/
handed in the early months of each year.
In all this we can see the Bishop's determination that
without abating one jot of his episcopal duties, he should
reserve for himself, at whatever cost, time for literary work
at Auckland Castle,
In the .remarkable appreciation of Dr Lightfoot's life
and character which appeared anonymously in the
Quarterly Review of January 1893, and has been since
published separately (Macmillan, 1894), attention is
drawn to the conflict between the "manifold responsi/
bilities of the See of Durham" and the completion of the
Bishop's monumental work on the Ignatian Epistles
which was published in 1885, a year after I commenced
my duties. "For weeks, and sometimes for months
THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK 117
together", the Bishop tells us in his preface, "I have not
found time to write a single line."
But with the organisation of the Diocese completed,
the parishes visited one by one, and the clergy and
principal laity personally known, he now felt himself free
to devote more and more time to the conclusion of his
great theological undertaking.
I had special opportunities of watching him as he sat in
the inner study at Auckland Castle, writing at the desk
presented to him by Trinity College, Cambridge, con'
centrating his attention more and more upon the achieve/
ment of "the magnum opus of his patristic studies and
indeed of his life". His method, both at Cambridge and
at Auckland Castle, was to work alone. As stated
already by the Dean of Lichfield, his habit was to rise
in the early morning before any member of the house/
hold, light his own fire and do some hours of work
before breakfast/time, which was at a quarter to eight.
If there was no diocesan engagement to interrupt him, he
would snatch every possible moment (broken only by a
short walk in the Park) in a day which for him did not
end till the rest of the household were in bed. Except a
few letters of importance, which he reserved for answers
in his own hand, he passed on his diocesan and general
correspondence to his Chaplains, merely indicating in
the briefest manner the line which the answer should take.
On the other hand, his literary correspondence he
conducted himself entirely. This correspondence was very
considerable, for he was constantly exchanging letters
with theological professors, librarians and patristic
scholars of European eminence. He preferred to obtain
what he needed in writing rather than by interviews or
visits abroad. It was to him a more effective method. He
118 THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK
possessed a wonderful memory for finding and bringing
together at the proper moment all the material he re/
quired. He did not accumulate this material in note/
books compiled over long periods of time. In his working
copies of Irenaeus and Eusebius are to be found on the
flyleaves pencil notes with brief headings and references
to the pages. I have also seen a small paper/covered
indexed notebook in which references to articles in
foreign theological reviews were recorded under their
subjects. Possessed of an excellent library, especially
strong in periodical literature in several languages, he had
an almost intuitive perception of the place where material
on any given subject could be found. He would then
read up all the necessary authorities, sit down and write
out his conclusions (whether essay, excursus or important
paragraph), and send the result straight off to the press to
be set up in type, just as it was. Once when I suggested
a fair copy because the corrections, insertions and trans/
positions must add to the difficulty of setting up his
material in type, his reply was: "No send it up just as
it is. It means that the Pitt Press will hand it over to their
best compositor". The Bishop's habit of trusting to his
memory at the moment is further illustrated by his un/
published notes on Pauline Epistles, which after his
death came into my hands. They are of the most meagre
description, and must have been expanded at the moment
of their delivery as professorial lectures. Indeed notes taken
by diligent students and kindly lent to me years after
witness to this habit of amplification. The originals
remained untouched since his Cambridge days.
The Bishop's knowledge of languages was very ex/
tensive. He said to me once in the simplest manner:
"Does it not sometimes happen to you that when you
THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK 119
have read a book you forget in what language it is
written?" To him I suppose that would be true in at
least seven languages (English, French, German, Italian,
Spanish, Latin and Greek). And he had a consider/
able, or at least a working, knowledge of several others,
Hebrew of course, and Syriac, and Arabic and Ethibpic;
moreover he was not unacquainted with Armenian (see
Supernatural Religion, p. 287 note); while Dr Scrivener in
his Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testa*
went, singles him out by name as one of the three or four
English scholars of his day thoroughly acquainted with
the Coptic dialects. He was deeply interested in all Latin
and Greek inscriptions, and I remember that when he
visited the catacombs at Rome with Dr Nevin, the
American Chaplain, our Italian guide blew out the
candles in the hands of half our party, for fear we should
be plunged into darkness, if we had no reserve of lights,
so difficult was it to keep the Bishop from deciphering
inscriptions, as he passed along.
The importance which he attached to ancient in/
scriptions as illustrating Apostolic and sub/ Apostolic
literature is evident in all his published works; and I
recall the great pleasure it gave him to receive for a short
visit to Auckland Castle Professor Ramsay as he then
was, afterwards Sir William Ramsay, fresh from his
important discoveries in Asia Minor, among which was
the famous Abercius inscription (see Lightfoot, Ignatius,
i, pp. 478 flf.) witnessing to the unity of the Christian
faith in the second century. This gave the Bishop
particular delight.
My own very subordinate contribution to the Bishop's
literary work consisted mainly in joining with others in
correcting his proof/sheets, in looking up and verifying
120 THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK
quotations, in collating one or two manuscripts and in
indexing the volumes at the proper moment. He had a
wonderful trust in others, and would generally accept
results done by them just as they were. In the single
volume edition of The Apostolic Fathers, which he was
very anxious should be published, the part which I was
permitted to contribute was supervised by him.
His power of detachment and concentration was extra'
ordinary. I have seen him break off from an incomplete
sentence for a momentous interview with one of his
clergy, give him his undivided and sympathetic attention,
followed by the wisest counsel and a final decision, and
almost before the door was closed upon his visitor
become once more absorbed in his literary work. His
strength of will was such that frequently he would
continue writing until the pen faltered in his hand and
he fell asleep at his desk. Those who were privileged to
minister to him in his last illness at Bournemouth, when,
conscious of failing powers, he was determined to prepare
for the press the last sheets of his larger edition of Clement
of Rome, can recall a visit paid by his doctor (Dr
Roberts Thomson) on the Tuesday before his death
when certain ominous symptoms were beginning to shew
themselves once more. The Bishop was found as usual
writing, and as soon as the doctor left the room insisted on
returning to his work, so intense was his desire to com/
plete what he had in hand. It was the spirit of the Vener/
able Bede once again. He passed away on the following
Saturday afternoon (St Thomas's Day, 1889).
I should convey quite a wrong impression if I pictured
Dr Lightfoot as a scholar mainly, shut up in his study
and devoted to his patristic writings. Throughout he took
the deepest interest in men and affairs and had a quick
THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK 121
perception of the beauties of nature, whether expressed in
flowers or in noble scenery.
His diocesan activities naturally found their centre in
his Cathedral city where he met regularly on diocesan
engagements his principal clergy and laity. But he went
everywhere, and in the chief towns in his Diocese,
especially Darlington, Gateshead, South Shields, Stock/
ton, Sunderland and the Hartlepools his presence and
powerful advocacy in the pulpit and on the platform
were well known.
The article in the Quarterly Review referred to already
enters so fully into that side of his life that I need not
enlarge upon it. Nor need I mention the wonderful re/
sponse made to his appeal in January 1884 for twenty/five
new churches and mission halls. Five years later he was
able to report that "no less than forty/five churches and
mission chapels have been completed, or will shortly be
so, through the instrumentality of the fund ". The public
meetings in support of this great cause, and the actual
consecrations of the churches erected brought him con/
stantly before his people at the happiest moments in a
happy life.
The joys of his holidays he delighted to share with his
Chaplains and three or four of the sons of the house.
Braemar and Norway he specially loved; and those who
were with him in Norway will recollect on one occasion
the entirely absorbed and unconcerned way in which he
sat in a cariole correcting proof/sheets while being driven
down precipitous paths by a small boy.
The Bishop's generosity flowed out at all times and in
many directions, from the Lightfoot Church Institute
built at Bishop Auckland at the beginning of his
ministry, to the noble Church of St Ignatius the Martyr,
122 THE SCHOLAR STILL AT WORK
Hendon, designed to be "a thankofTering for seven years
of a happy episcopate", but actually consecrated by him
on July 2nd of the last year of his life. To the ordinary
channels for diocesan expenditure, deepened and broad/
ened by his strong leadership, he gave a very generous and
continuous support. But I think it gave him the greatest
happiness to help forward individuals and especially
young men such as the sons of the house, or the abler boys
in the Castle choir. Reference to this is made elsewhere
in this volume.
This generosity was the result of an abounding love,
touched with emotion of no ordinary kind. It was a true
comment made to a neighbour by one who saw him first
when presiding at the Newcastle Congress: "Why,
man, don't you see 2 He is all heart". Naturally shy and
reserved, he would at times give an expression to his
affection which was almost embarrassing. I can see him
still as with the tears starting from his eyes he hurried
across the great drawing/room at Auckland Castle to
congratulate me upon my election to a Fellowship at
King's College, Cambridge. Doubtless many others
besides myself treasure precious letters far too sacred for
any other eye in which affection and gratitude well
forth with the tenderness of a true Father in God.
j. R. H. (1931)
Note The Dean of Wells allows us to print a series of letters (in the
Appendix, Letters to a Chaplain) which illustrate in a remarkable way
what is said above by the Dean of Lichfield and Bishop Harmer.
Chapter XII
THE THEOLOGICAL INFLUENCE OF
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT 1
BY THE DEAN OF WELLS
IT is now forty/five years since I got Lightfoot's three
Commentaries on St Paul's Epistles as my first
College Prize. The earliest of these volumes had
appeared thirteen years before, in 1865. He had taken his
degree in 1851 as Senior Classic and thirtieth Wrangler,
gaining also the first of the Chancellor's medals. He was
elected a Fellow of Trinity in the next year: "When
Mr Lightfoot makes one of his charges", said the Master,
W. H. Thompson, "there is no resisting him". He
lectured on classical authors and hoped to edit Aeschy/
lus. When I was lecturing on the Agamemnon, thirty years
later, I found nothing so helpful as the manuscript notes
of his lectures. In 1861 he succeeded Bishop Ellicott as
Hulsean Professor of Divinity. The Commentary on
Galatians was his first book. Its Preface reveals the man.
Let us hear him speak:
The general plan and execution of the work will commend or
condemn themselves: but a few words may be added on one or two
points which require explanation.
It is no longer necessary, I trust, to offer any apology for laying aside
the received text. When so much conscientious labour has been ex/
pended on textual criticism, it would be unpardonable in an editor to
acquiesce in readings which for the most part are recommended neither
by intrinsic fitness nor by the sanction of antiquity.
1 This paper was read at a meeting of the Auckland Brotherhood at
Lambeth Palace on June 2yth, 1923. The intimacy of the occasion will
account for the freedom and familiarity of treatment.
124 THE THEOLOGICAL INFLUENCE OF
This was a new and bold line in those days for a
commentator to take. After naming the principal
workers on textual criticism, and explaining why he
could not adopt any existing text, but must needs con/
struct one for himself, he continues:
Moreover I was encouraged by the promise of assistance from my
friends the Rev. B. F. Westcott and the Rev. F. J. A. Hort, who are
engaged in a joint recension of the Greek Testament, and have revised
the text of this Epistle for my use. Though I have ventured to differ
from them in some passages and hold myself finally responsible in all,
I am greatly indebted to them for their aid.
This was by no means the only innovation which the
commentary presented. His independence of predeces/
sors was startling. Wordsworth we knew; Alford we
knew; Ellicott we knew; but nothing like this had
appeared, if we omit for various reasons Stanley's Corin'
tbians and Jowett's commentaries, which broke new
ground indeed, but not with the same mastery of Ian/
guage and of history. Wordsworth gave us the Fathers in
abundance; Alford and Ellicott the Germans. Of Alford,
Gwatkin used to say that when he began to take pupils
he bought a copy of Alford to see where all their mistakes
came from. Ellicott's verbal accumulations were crush/
ing or smothering: Lightfoot in the Preface says of him
quite kindly that he "has subjected the Apostle's Ian/
guage to a minute and careful scrutiny".
Lightfoot's notes are terse and masculine: he is never
tedious or ambiguous. He refuses to catalogue the inter/
pretations of previous writers; he will not even mention
the names of other commentators, unless there is some very
special reason. Listen to his comments on Galatians iii. 20,
"A mediator is not mediator of one, but God is one":
The number of interpretations of this passage is said to mount up to
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT 125
250 or 300. Many of these arise out of an error as to the mediator, many
more disregard the context, and not a few are quite arbitrary. Without
attempting to discuss others which are not open to any of these objec'
tions, I shall give that which appears to me the most probable.
One precious feature of this commentary which was
also quite new is the plain summary prefixed to each
paragraph of the Epistle. Here in vigorous English, such
as the Apostle himself might have used had he been
writing in our tongue, is a statement of the meaning of
the Greek which the notes that follow are intended to
justify. Put these summaries together and you may read
the Epistle through in modern English. It is this lucidity
which makes these commentaries differ from all others,
even (may I say it?) from the commentaries on St John
and the Epistle of the Hebrews which his distinguished
colleague was producing at his side.
Another characteristic is the insistent recognition that
the Greek of St Paul was not a debased language, loosely
constructed and uncontrolled by the ordinary laws of
grammar. Lightfoot's classical training in the severe
Cambridge school, which produced Thompson and
Jebb and Mayor and Monro, not to speak of Jackson and
Verrall and Peile, prepared him to treat the Greek of the
New Testament, and especially of St Paul, as a form of
the language distinct indeed from that of the classical
period, but no less certainly ruled by a grammar which
would reveal itself to systematic study. His friend Moul'
ton, the Head Master of the Leys school, was hard at
work on a revised edition of Winer's New Testament
Grammar. It is true that Moulton's brilliant son lost,
alas, in a steamer sunk in the war lived long enough to
produce the first part of a work which would have made
his father stare. But the new material for the study of
126 THE THEOLOGICAL INFLUENCE OF
Hellenistic Greek, which was supplied in bewildering
abundance by the papyrus finds in Egypt, had revolu/
tionised the conceptions of the period between 1865 and
1 88 1 the only too memorable year when the Revised
Version of the New Testament was published. Words
and phrases which had seemed unique, or had been
strained in the attempt to interpret them by the scanty
parallels to be discovered in the literature previously
extant, now fell into place, and the grammar by which
they were ruled found abundant illustration. It is one of
the tragedies of scholarship that the revision was made a
generation too soon. But the principles on which Light/
foot and Westcott and Hort and Moulton had insisted
were vindicated by discoveries which they could not have
anticipated, and the later results would hardly have been
achieved if they had not laid the foundation as faithfully
as they did. 1
The Commentary on Philippians followed in 1868.
Lightfoot rejoiced in exchanging the dogmatic con/
troversy of the Galatians for the serener atmosphere of the
Roman Captivity.
We have passed at once (he says in the Preface) from the most dog'
matic to the least dogmatic of the Apostle's letters, and the transition is
instructive. If in the one the Gospel is presented in its opposition to an
individual form of error, in the other it appears as it is in itself. ... If we
would learn what he held to be its essence, we must ask ourselves what
1 Lightfoot's prevision of this possibility is strikingly illustrated by words
from a lecture delivered in 1 863 (quoted by Professor Milligan in his Selections
from the Greek Papyri, p. xx): "You are not to suppose that the word (some
New Testament word which had its only classical authority in Herodotus)
had fallen out of use in the interval, only that it had not been used in the
books which remain to us: probably it had been part of the common speech
all along. I will go further, and say that if we could only recover letters that
ordinary people wrote to each other without any thought of being literary, we
should have the greatest possible help for the understanding of the language of
the New Testament generally".
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT 127
is the significance of such phrases as "I desire you in the heart of Jesus
Christ", " To me to live is Christ", " That I may know the power of
Christ's resurrection", "I have all strength in Christ that giveth me
power". Though the Gospel is capable of doctrinal exposition, though
it is eminently fertile in moral results, yet its substance is neither a dog/
matic system, nor an ethical code, but a Person and a Life.
There speaks the Lightfoot that we knew.
This second instalment of the series of commentaries on
St Paul which he had planned at the outset, when he
parcelled out the New Testament with his colleagues
Hort and Westcott, offers the best illustration of another
characteristic of his work as a commentator. He was
essentially a historian, and he dreaded losing himself in
textual criticism and linguistic interpretation. He wanted
to see the man who wrote these letters and to portray the
period in which he lived. "Above all", he once said to
me, "write dissertations." Two dissertations were ap'
pended in this volume, one on "St Paul and Seneca",
the other famous and fruitful still after more than half
a century on "The Christian Ministry".
For all his acquaintance with the history of theology,
Lightfoot was not a theologian. The mystical and philo/
sophic qualifications essential to the true theologian were
endowments granted in rich measure to his fellow/workers,
the former to Westcott, the latter to Hort; but they were
no part of Lightfoot's equipment for his task. All three
had the love of truth in the smallest details and the
training in scholarship which are indispensable to the
interpreter of Scripture. All three were independent
thinkers and intensely religious and devout. But each
had his own bent, and Lightfoot's natural line was that
of history. His article on " Eusebius ", the father of eccle/
siastical history, in the Dictionary of Christian Biography, is
128 THE THEOLOGICAL INFLUENCE OF
a treatise in itself, and the one contribution that he actually
made to that history of the Church in the fourth century
which at one time he had eagerly desired to write.
It so happened that the most serious attack on Chris/
tianity which its defenders had to meet in the sixties was
on its historical side. The Tubingen school, under the
leadership of Ferdinand Christian Baur, had rewritten
the early story of the Church on the hypothesis that St
Paul was at daggers drawn with St Peter and the other
leading Apostles, and that most of the books of the New
Testament had been written to conceal this fundamental
opposition between the Apostles of the Circumcision
and the Apostle of the Gentiles. Only three of the
Pauline Epistles were undoubtedly genuine and trust/
worthy. Above all, the Acts of the Apostles was the
most brilliant and successful of forgeries. It was "ten/
denzioz" to use their favourite epithet; written after the
conflict was at an end with the definite design of covering
up the last traces of it: the Catholic Church was founded
on the Apostles and required that from the beginning
there should have been complete harmony among its
founders. Lightfoot was supremely qualified to be the
champion of the Faith on such a field as this. His
dissertation on "St Paul and the Three" in his first
commentary, and three dissertations on "the Essenes"
in relation to Christianity, contained in the volume on
Colossians, were but fragments of the contribution
which he ultimately made to the defence of the received
account of the Christian origins. It was not until 1875
that this last volume appeared. I can well remember
the glee with which in my copy of 1878 I underlined
the words of the Preface: "I venture to hope that my
previous commentaries have established my claim to be
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT 129
regarded as an independent worker". His position in/
deed was secure: a second edition of the new commentary
was called for within nine months of the first. But the
series came to an abrupt close. He still gave his powerful
lectures on other Epistles of St Paul in preparation for its
continuance, and he also lectured on the Acts of the
Apostles.
My own studies were not in divinity, and the one time
I heard him was when in my third year of residence I
ventured into the Hall of Trinity College and listened to
his lecture on St Stephen's speech, just after he had re/
ceived the call to Durham. His work on the New Testa/
ment was at an end. Some of you will remember the
illuminated address of welcome presented to him in
Auckland Castle by a group of enthusiastic admirers,
in which, in well/meant if not well/chosen words,
they expressed the hope that "many more Epistles of St
Paul might flow from his Lordship's pen". But it was
not to be. A few fragments of commentary, gathered
from lecture/notes, were piously edited for the Lightfoot
Trustees by one of our brotherhood only enough to
deepen regret that the master's pen was for ever laid aside.
This slight account of Lightfoot's contribution to New
Testament study would be sadly imperfect if we did not
add that he learned enough of Coptic to write an im/
portant chapter on the Sahidic and Bohairic MSS. for
Scrivener's Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New
Testament. He also picked up a little Armenian, of
which hardly another English scholar knew a word at
that time; but this particular venture led to a somewhat
humiliating disappointment. He had taken of necessity
an interest in what could be discovered as to the lost
Diatessaron of Tatian the four Gospels arranged in a
EM O
ISO THE THEOLOGICAL INFLUENCE OF
Harmony he had written about it in the brilliant
articles in the Contemporary Review, in which he disposed
once for all of the unknown author of " Supernatural
Religion", who, under a veil of anonymity, had made a
gross attack on the bom fides of Dr Westcott. While these
articles were in progress there appeared at Venice in
1876 though the book was not known in England for
several years later Moesinger's Latin translation of the
Commentary on Tatian by Ephraem the Syrian, which
was preserved only in Armenian. In a note appended to
the reprint of his articles in 1889, Lightfoot tells how he
had had the original on his shelf all the time without
being aware of it:
I had for some years possessed a copy of this work in four volumes
(namely, the Armenian translation of some of Ephraem's works, pub/
lished in 1836), and the thought had more than once crossed my mind
that possibly it might throw light on Ephraem's mode of dealing with
the Gospels, as I knew that it contained notes on St Paul's Epistles or
some portion of them. I did not then however possess sufficient
knowledge of Armenian to sift its contents, but I hoped to investigate
the matter when I had mastered enough of the language. Meanwhile . . .
Alas for that " Meanwhile " : for it meant that the credit
of an important discovery was by a tiresome mischance
lost to our English scholarship. It is a small point, no
doubt; but Lightfoot's record would be incomplete, if
we did not remember how widely he had cast his net.
Side by side with his New Testament commentaries
Lightfoot was engaged on what he intended to be a
complete edition of the so/called Apostolic Fathers the
earliest extant writings outside the New Testament. The
first instalment appeared in 1869, and consisted of all
that was known of the Epistle of Clement of Rome, and
of the misnamed Second Epistle, a homily of the latter
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT 131
part of the second century. These works were edited with
the same attention to their textual criticism, the same
carefulness of comment, and the same accompaniment
of Introductions, as had distinguished his biblical com/
mentaries.
Then the discovery of the missing parts of both works
in a Greek manuscript (the manuscript from which was
afterwards published the Didache), and also in a Syriac
version, led him in 1877 to i ssue a supplementary volume
to complete the first until a second edition of the whole
could be undertaken.
On this second edition he was actually at work on his
death/bed. The two substantial volumes were practically
finished. The Preface was not written, and its place is
taken by a Prefatory Note by the lifelong friend who had
succeeded him at Durham. Here we learn how, under
conditions of great weakness, "he retained his passion for
work and was busy with Clement till he fell into a half-
conscious state three days before his death. The last words
which he wrote formed part of an imperfect sentence of
the fragmentary essay on St Peter's visit to Rome".
We turn with a pathetic interest to these closing words.
I shall quote to you almost half of the third and un/
finished section. You will feel that his eye was not dim/
med nor his intellectual force abated. There is no rough
draft from which it might be supplemented: for his man/
ner was to master his subject in all its details and plan out
his dissertation in advance, and then write with a free pen,
quoting his authorities from memory, so as not to impede
the flow of his thought, and leaving the verification of his
references till his writing was done. The essay is entitled
"Saint Peter in Rome": its first section is headed "The
Promise and its Fulfilment", the second "The Roman
9<2
132 THE THEOLOGICAL INFLUENCE OF
visit of Peter": these occupy twenty pages. Then comes
the third, "The Twentyfive Years' Episcopate".
The twenty/five years of St Peter's episcopate had at one time a
sentimental and might almost be said to have a dogmatic value. It was
unique in the history of the papacy. Though the records of certain
periods of its career, more especially its earliest career, are scanty, we
know enough to say with certainty that no later bishops of Rome held
the see for a quarter of a century until our own day. Now however all
is changed. The papacy of Pio Nono has been unique in many ways.
It has seen the declaration of papal infallibility: it has witnessed the
extinction of the temporal power; and, last of all, it has exceeded by
more than a year the reputed term of St Peter. The twenty/five years
therefore have ceased to have any dogmatic or sentimental importance;
and in dealing with them critically, we need have no fear lest we should
be doing violence to any feelings which deserve respect. But there is
still a prior question to be settled before we discuss the length of St
Peter's episcopate. Was he Bishop of Rome at alh 1
After pointing out that St Paul is not spoken of as
Bishop of any of the churches that he founded, the
essayist continues: "I cannot find that any writers for the
first two centuries or more speak of St Peter as Bishop of
Rome". Haifa dozen more sentences and the fragment
is at an end. Our loss is the less serious, since the con'
elusion is foregone, and the order of the first five Bishops
had already been fully treated in what Hort speaks of as
"the great essay on the Early Succession of the Roman
Bishops".
Thus much for St Clement of Rome. Of St Ignatius
I cannot do better than quote Hort's words from that
article in the Dictionary of National Biography, the strain of
writing which exhausted his failing vitality, but was a
glad sacrifice to the friendship of a lifetime:
The edition of Ignatius and Polycarp, which forms the second part
of Lightfoot's Apostolic Fathers, "was the motive", he tells us, "and the
core of the whole". He was fascinated by the Ignatian problem nearly
1 Apostolic Fathers, Part I, ii, 501.
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT 133
thirty years before his first edition appeared (2 vols. in 3, 1885; 2nd
edit., 3 vols., 1889). Originally, like many unprejudiced students, he
accepted as genuine only those three (or rather abridgements of three)
out of seven Ignatian epistles which Cureton had found in an early
Syriac manuscript; and the notes which Lightfoot originally wrote
were framed on this assumption. He never saw any probability in the
opinion still held by many, that all the seven alike are spurious, and at
last he convinced himself that the seven epistles unabridged were
genuine. He was partly led to this result by the arguments of Zahn's
Ignatius von Atitiochien (1873). The masterly defence of the conclusions
thus slowly reached has already [and that is now more than thirty years
ago] produced a clear though hardly decisive effect on critical opinion,
in spite of the strong prepossessions which it has had to encounter.
After all, however, this discussion occupies only 120 out of nearly 2000
pages, and the whole book is of a quality that needs no adventitious
flavour of controversy.
This judgment perhaps errs on the side of caution:
Hort was too keenly interested not to dread exaggeration
in estimating the chief critical achievement of his friend.
I am not aware that Lightfoot's position is seriously
challenged anywhere to/day, though I have ventured to
question whether his acceptance of the record of St
Polycarp's martyrdom can be regarded as final.
It was in these great volumes on the Apostolic Fathers
that Lightfoot found free course as a historian. He had
if I may adopt a phrase which he himself employed in
another context knocked the last "nail in the coffin of
the Tubingen theory". But he had done much more:
his work was never merely negative. He had given
vividness and security to the stories of the early Martyrs,
and had unravelled the relation of the various Emperors
to the growing Church. He had set a standard of minute
carefulness, which left no stone unturned in the invest!/
gation of historical documents, and an example of inde/
pendence which led Harnack to say of him that "he never
defended a tradition for the tradition's sake". His clear
134 THE THEOLOGICAL INFLUENCE OF
exposition made him eminently readable: in his Disseiv
tations there is sometimes more than a touch of rhetoric
which he knew how to control. "History", says Hort
again, "meant not less to him as a man than as a scholar. He
found in it, he said, the best cordial for drooping spirits."
How shall we concludes The Great Three dwarfed
their contemporaries and their immediate successors.
Their intimate co/operation among themselves was an
increase of power to each; but the very sufficiency (amdps
Keia) which it produced resulted in a kind of isolation.
As they did not feel the need, so they did not seek the
assistance of the younger generation of would/be workers
in the same fields. Their books and their lectures made an
immediate and abiding impression; personally they were
always eager to assist if asked, but they made no advances.
Hort was the least approachable of the three: he had a
nervous manner of speech which rather terrified the
modest enquirer. Moreover, he positively dreaded the
possibility that what he said might bias the judgment of a
younger man whom he believed to be starting in a right
spirit on an important investigation. No trouble was too
great for him to take in answer to a direct question on
some obscure point: it was fascinating to watch him go
the round of his books: but there was no offer either to
criticise or to supervise.
Lightfoot was quite different. Easy of approach, whole/
heartedly sympathetic, but almost dumb. "Well, what
do you think yourself?" how well I remember it: and
then no more till we were half/way back again from the
top of the Park; and then, as if by a sudden inspiration,
in the intervals of heavy patting of his big dog ("Lion,
old boy! Come here, Lion: Good dog!"): "Go in for
Origen: he made so much"; and so on, till we got home.
But again, while there was eager encouragement and a
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT 135
generous welcome of first efforts, there was no readiness
to guide or control.
But at least these great ones cultivated in others the
spirit of independence and exhaustive research. "I should
advise you to take your New Testament, and form your
own opinion first", was Hort's answer when I asked him
to tell me which of the many Germans I ought to read in
making a beginning in the Synoptic Problem. And
Lightfoot, when Origen was in question, said: "Begin to
write as soon as you possibly can. That was what Prince
Lee always said to us. That is the way to learn. Almost
all I have learnt has come from writing books. If you write
a book on a subject, you have to read everything that
has been written about it." Independence of judgment
and the neglect of no detail more valuable lessons in the
end than any that a fostering guidance might have given.
"We grew up under Westcott and Hort", said a
Cambridge Professor the other day: but he added with
his quiet humour, "like plants under a cedar tree." I am
not quite prepared to endorse the mot. They were taken
from us in one way or another all too soon, and then we
began to sprout each after his kind. We were oppressed,
but not overwhelmed, by the sense of our ignorance. We
felt that they had left a work which demanded to be
carried on. If no one of us could venture to attempt it by
himself, something might come of a joint effort. We were
not lacking in independence of spirit, we had been
taught to take pains. We began to write as soon as we
could, and we learned by writing. But we never ceased
to be conscious how inferior was the breed of the
"Epigoni", inferior in intellectual vigour and in power
of concentration, but inferior above all in that intensity of
moral and religious conviction which makes the worker
so much greater than his work.
Chapter XIII
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT'S PLACE AS A
HISTORIAN
BY THE BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER
I have been asked to write a short estimate of Bishop
Lightfoot's place as a historian, and I gladly comply
with the request. Any value in the judgment which I
express will arise very largely from the fact that I never
came in any way under his personal influence. I only
once met him, when I stayed for a night at Auckland
Castle. Although my home was in Durham during all
the years of his episcopate, and though I was present at
his enthronement in Durham Cathedral, and also at his
funeral, I was resident during all that time in Oxford,
and never came in contact with him personally. Through
all those years I never heard him preach, and only once
make a speech. Although I heard about his administra'
tion of the Diocese, and had learnt in every way to
respect him, I was never influenced in any way by him
personally.
My judgment is based purely on his writings. When I
was at school I read his Commentaries on St Paul's
Epistles, but the important event for me was that his
edition of Ignatius was published just after I had taken my
degree, when I was beginning the formal study of
theology and obtained a Fellowship, which enabled me
to devote myself with leisure and freedom to that study.
For myself, as for Church history, the publication of
Lightfoot's Ignatius represented a quite definite epoch. It
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT AS A HISTORIAN 137
was the definite assertion of the scientific method of study
over the speculative for early Church history. May I
make extracts from what I wrote some years ago S
In an article on "Methods of Early Church History",
delivered first as Birkbeck Lecturer at Trinity College,
Cambridge, I wrote:
The strife of contending opinions has made the need of scientific
investigation more and more apparent, and three different schools in
England, France, and Germany have developed in a distinguished
degree historical methods. One is Anglican, a second Romanist, a
third Protestant or rationalist in its origin. With one is associated the
name of Lightfoot, with the second that of Duchesne, with the third
that of Harnack. It is not necessary to dwell in this country on the work
of Lightfoot or of those associated with him. There may be some who
are attracted more by the subtlety and versatility of Hort; but there is a
greatness in the profound simplicity of Lightfoot to which Hort does
not rise. We must judge men by their productions; and the edition of
the New Testament is not the equal of what Harnack calls the greatest
patristic monograph of the century a monograph which has been the
most important factor in changing the current of critical opinion. 1
And, again, in a review of Lightfoot's Apostolic
Fathers, published first in the Quarterly Review, I wrote:
There are solid attainable facts even in early Church history, and that
there are such is due above all to the labours of a great English scholar.
Bishop Lightfoot was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of modern
English bishops, but he was more than that; he was not only the
munificent administrator of a populous northern diocese, adapting the
Church of the past to the needs and aspirations of the present, but he
also occupied a foremost position among the investigators of Christian
Antiquity. It is the purpose of this essay, making use of the definite
results that Dr Lightfoot arrived at, results which the lapse of time
since his death has only served to establish more surely, to construct so
far as we are able a picture of Christianity at its most obscure and crucial
epoch, the beginning of the second century. We believe that in doing
so we shall be performing a by no means useless task, for Bishop
1 History, Authority anH Theology, pp. 253-254.
138 BISHOP LIGHTFOOT'S PLACE AS
Lightfoot's works, although he writes throughout in a singularly clear
and attractive style, and marshals an intricate subject with great skill,
deal of necessity so largely in the technicalities of scholarship as to
confuse an untrained reader. 1
And again:
Baur succeeded so far as the question he asked was right; he failed
because his method was wrong. His object was historical; his method
was not scientific. He approached the subject with a priori ideas,
derived from the philosophy of Hegel. He developed a theory based on
a one/sided study of a small number of documents, and then proceeded
to rearrange the dates of the remainder in a manner which would suit
his preconceived notions. The opposition to Baur has created a
scientific method. The futility of opposing orthodoxy to orthodoxy, the
old Christian dogmas to the new Tubingen dogmas, became clear. A
method which would enable the date of documents to be fixed, on
evidence which would appeal to the unbiassed investigator, was
necessary. Such a method has been founded, and is being developed
at the present day; and we do not think that we can be accused of
insular prejudice in claiming a foremost place in that work for the
English, or, more accurately, for the Cambridge school of Church
history for, although it has spread elsewhere, Cambridge is its home.
The most scientific works that have been published on Church history
are Lightfoot's editions of the Apostolic Fathers. 2
I can remember now the pleasure with which I studied
Lightfoot's Ignatius when it first appeared. The attractive/
ness of its method, of its sobriety of judgment, of its
comprehensiveness. One felt quite clearly that here we
were on solid ground. The distinguishing features of the
work were, first of all, its scholarly accuracy. No pains
were spared in fixing accurately the texts of the works to
be studied and in a careful exegesis. In many cases the
conclusions arrived at were made possible because there
was a correct text of the documents, because glosses had
been eliminated, and incorrect interpretations corrected.
The next point which appealed to me was the scientific
1 History, Authority and Theology, p. 279. z ItiL p. 282.
A HISTORIAN 139
method. The whole of the external evidence was carefully
collected on every historical point which had to be
discussed, and the breadth of the evidence collected re/
moved the discussion of internal testimony from the pre/
cariousness which so often distinguishes it. Then next, one
was impressed by the completeness of the work. Nothing
which might throw light on it was omitted. There are few
really who have not only the learning and industry but
what I may call the intellectual massiveness which enables
them to grasp every side of a problem. Again and again
one notices how precarious are the results which have
been attained by guesses, often brilliant, based upon a
portion of the evidence. Lightfoot had the power, the
industry, and the thoroughness to neglect no side of the
evidence before him. Then, lastly, there was the sobriety
of judgment. That is the trained historical sense which
comes from the continued exercise of the critical faculty.
We feel that the result is right and true; we feel that the
writer has not allowed himself to be carried away by the
attractiveness of a specious theory.
The result of Lightfoot's work has been that since then
the study of Church history has gone on on different lines
from those which formerly prevailed. Certain questions
are definitely settled. The old uncertainty about the
dates of books is reduced within definite limits. I think
on almost every main point which Lightfoot discussed,
his judgment has prevailed. The one exception is the
Johannine literature, and there our judgment must still
be uncertain. The world of scholars is not prepared to
accept the genuineness of the Fourth Gospel in the way
that it accepts the genuineness of the Ignatian Epistles,
but what will be the final verdict, I don't think any of
us is quite prepared to say.
140 BISHOP LIGHTFOOT'S PLACE AS
But Lightfoot had other and even greater qualities as a
historian. He was an accurate scholar, he was a scientific
investigator, but he was much more. The pages of The
Apostolic Fathers are illuminated by the living interest, by
the historical imagination, by the spiritual insight which
is necessary for a great historian; and in Lightfoot's work
on Leaders in the Northern Churchy those gifts of historical
imagination and insight are conspicuous.
Bishop Lightfoot had always contemplated a great
work on The History of Christian Literature. We can
deplore the loss of it, although the ten years of his ad->
ministration of the Diocese of Durham is an adequate
compensation. For, after all, when the example has been
set, other men can carry on the work. The pages of The
Apostolic Fathers are a mine of information and judgment
on many of the most disputed questions of early Church
history. His encyclopaedic article on Eusebius should
be the prolegomena of the edition of that author, which
should some day be produced. There are still many
problems which demand a thorough and careful investi/
gation, but the attention of living theologians is attracted
rather in other directions. The real fact is that the scientific
criticism which began with Lightfoot has attained almost
as great an amount of certainty as is possible about the
historical facts of early Christianity. We know that the
great body of the Pauline Epistles are genuine, if not the
Pastorals; we have advanced nearly as far as is possible in
the solution of the Synoptic problem; we have no doubt
that the Acts of the Apostles and St Luke's Gospel were
by the author that tradition assigns to them. We have not
solved the Johannine problem, but we know that the
writings ascribed to St John cannot be much later at the
latest than the beginning of the second century. We know
A HISTORIAN 141
the dates of the Apostolic Fathers. So though there are
many interesting historical problems still awaiting solu/
tion, the attention of Christian writers had turned away
to more intricate problems of theology and philosophy.
The possibility of that is mainly due to the influence of
Lightfoot and the historical school with which his name
will always be associated.
In conclusion perhaps I may bear witness to the pro/
found simplicity of character, deep personal piety, the
broad-minded sympathy, the sane theological judgment
which inspires all his writings. As a preacher he always
wrote his sermons. They were always massive and
scholarly. They might seem to be above the heads of a
simple congregation, but his great personality was always
behind the writings, and there is abundant evidence how,
in many a remote village of his diocese, his visit, and the
sermon that he preached, and his inspiring personality
were remembered for a whole generation.
Chapter XIV
THE LIGHTFOOT SCHOLARSHIPS FOR
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
BY THE REV. J. P. WHITNEY, D.D.
Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Cambridge
THE generous foundation of the Lightfoot
Scholarships by Dr Lightfoot, then Hulsean
Professor, dates from 1870, and the first of them
was awarded in 1874. They were founded, it is said, in
gratitude for Dr Westcott's return to Cambridge. Their
usefulness and their influence, direct and indirect, ever
since then have fulfilled the founder's wishes and proved
his wisdom. He himself always looked at Christianity
and studied it first and last from the historical standpoint,
and with absolute historical accuracy. The idea of this
foundation was also that of the joint comprehensive work
on Christian origins which the three great Cambridge
Professors planned at the time of Essays and Reviews, his
share of which Dr Lightfoot most nearly completed. To
much the same impulse we may ascribe the foundation in
1884 of the Dixie Professorship of Ecclesiastical History
by Emmanuel College after Dr Hort had come to it as
Fellow. And we may even go further back to another
great Cambridge scholar, Hugh James Rose, who hoped
and worked for a revival of English Church life, based
on historical study.
For many years the list of books drawn up by the
founder was in force, and it made an admirable, solid
foundation for continuous knowledge likely to inspire
THE LIGHTFOOT SCHOLARSHIPS 143
and suggest lines of further study. I know both from
what others have told me, and from my own experience,
the excellent wise guidance it gave. The books thus set
were:
DE BROGUE: L'figlise et I'Empire Romaine.
BRYCE: Holy Roman Empire.
GUIZOT: Histoire k k Civilisation en France.
MILMAN: History of Latin Christianity.
RANKE: History of the Popes.
History of the Reformation.
In the regulations, which are taken from the Founder's
Deed, the special object of the foundation is defined as
"the encouragement of the study of Ecclesiastical History
in itself, and in connection with General History", and
the range and choice in both cases was limited to the
period between the accession of Marcus Aurelius in A.D.
161 and the Fall of the Roman Empire in 1806.
Of these books, De Broglie is the only one out of date;
Guizot is still most useful, so is Milman for his sweep and
use of original authorities; the three others are classics.
And it will be noticed that a large general knowledge is
required.
By an excellent provision the two examiners each year
were to be one an Oxford and one a Cambridge man,
and we must acknowledge gratefully the continual and
brotherly interest of our colleagues from Oxford. They,
like the Cambridge examiners, have given most useful
help, and have, again like them, often kept up an interest
in the scholars they examined. Many of these have had
the same good fortune as myself; I was examined by Dean
Kitchin and that really remarkable Cambridge man
Archdeacon Cheetham, both of whom were always in
later years very kind to me and took an interest in my work.
144 THE LIGHTFOOT SCHOLARSHIPS FOR
Speaking of the mere examinations, it must be noted
what results have come from the yearly prescription of
Special Subjects by the original scheme. It was his
special subject, John of Salisbury, that turned the late Dr
Figgis to the study of Political Thought, and much the
same thing has happened in other cases. In this, as in
other ways, the foundation worked in the direction of the
founder's own studies. His example had been powerful
in moulding Cambridge men in the past and may, I
think, do so even more in the future.
Looking down the list of scholars since 1874, it will
be seen that many of them have written much and are
well/known historians. Some of them have also done
first/rate work in the teaching of our Cambridge School.
That School would indeed be poor if these names did not
belong to it, and if some of them have since turned to
other branches of study rather than the ecclesiastical, they
have all been better historians for their early work, and so
they have carried what I may call the Lightfoot impulse
into wider fields. Some of them have told me what they
owe to that early influence.
I do not speak of later years, but some of even the very
late scholars have already given us first/rate work and are
teaching excellently. An Oxford examiner once told
me, when I was his colleague, how he envied Cambridge
the existence of such an incentive to study Church
history; that year there were five candidates, all of whom
we thought very creditable young Church historians.
We cannot limit the influence of the Foundation merely
to the winners of the Scholarships. These short notes
indicate what the founder of the Scholarships did for
Cambridge. His gift showed both what he was in
himself, and what he wished his learners to be.
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 145
Many years of study have made me feel more and more
his pre/eminence as a historian of the early Church. His
knowledge, patristic as well as historical, was vast, and
no one can turn, again and again, as I have done, to his
studies of St Clement, St Ignatius and St Polycarp,
without learning something fresh every time, even for
other than the early period (I am thinking especially of
his pages on the Church of San Clemente at Rome, and
on the learning of Grosseteste). Comparing him with
other historians of the same rank, he had the rare merit
of presenting the evidence apart from his own conclusions
and opinions, so that any reader could form his own views
independently: hence no one is a better guide for a student.
He lived, as it were, with the characters about whom he
wrote in their age, and he had learnt for himself the great
lesson of continuity throughout Church history from the
fundamental revelation of Christ downwards. So he is
the best of teachers as well as a great historian, for he
sought to train other individuals as he had trained him/
self. It was wonderful how his great Northern See
appealed to him by its history. To the great actors in it
he did full and yet delicately sympathetic justice. He
lived in its history as he had done in earlier times, and
taught us to know and love the Apostles of the North.
Fresh responsibilities and a great historic place gave him
even a broader view and a deeper grasp of continuity and
Christian life on the historical side, much as in other
ways they did for his great colleague and successor. Some
later writers may lack his balance and exaggerate, but
his own achievement remains.
This coherence and solidity of view is found in his
sermons too. I remember as a Freshman (1877) listening
to an Advent Course of Sermons which he gave at
EM 10
146 THE LIGHTFOOT SCHOLARSHIPS
St Bene't's, Cambridge. I went to them with a scientific
friend from Manchester, who was not then deeply reli/
gious, but is now a keen philanthropist. They dealt with
the place of those who would hardly call themselves
Christians, and with the influence of Christianity upon
them.
I shall never forget the impression made on me then.
We were so deeply impressed that we realised what we
missed by his leaving Cambridge. Long afterwards,
when I read and re/read all his sermons, I saw that his
vast knowledge, his really poetic vision, and the ex/
quisite balance of everything, along with his expressive
and sympathetic style, made him one of our greatest
English preachers.
EPILOGUE
His life from childhood seems to have been strictly of
one piece, pervaded by one continuous thread of earnest
duty, plain uprightness and scrupulous fidelity. The
very idea that Lightfoot in any circumstance at school or
college could have been untrue to his own high stan>
dard of resolve and aim is to me inconceivable. ... All
of us who were brought into contact with him were
swayed by the influence of his unobtrusive goodness, his
patient diligence, his meek sanctity, and gentleness of
strength.
A School friend, quoted in Cambridge Review.
January 23, 1890.
I0'2
Chapter XV
A SERMON, PREACHED BEFORE THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
BY THE RIGHT REV. G. R. EDEN, D.D.
formerly Bishop of Wakefield, Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College
IN GREAT ST MARY'S CHURCH ON SUNDAY,
24 NOVEMBER 1929
PHIL. m. 13. One iking I do.
IT is almost a truism to say that the man who succeeds
in any noble achievement is one who sees the end
from the beginning, and pursues it throughout with
unswerving purpose. To him, among many lesser mo/
tives, there is always one which absorbs into itself all the
rest, and gives a disciplined unity to every thought and
action. Like the tiny red thread, which runs through
every inch of rope made in one of our English dockyards,
and stamps it as belonging to one of the services of the
King, so every strand of such a life is gathered round one
paramount motive, which, though hidden at the heart of
it, controls them all.
In one single word, which we translate by "one thing",
St Paul here lays bare to us the central motive and main/
spring of his converted life. It occurs in one of those
passionate outbursts of fervent devotion to Our Lord,
which so often break the argument he is putting forward.
Devotion to a Redeemer and Master that is the "one
thing" that he pursues "that I may know Him, that I
may win Christ". "I press on, I press on", he cries
twice over. "I forget the past landmarks of the course, as
SERMON BY BISHOP EDEN 149
I press on towards the mark for the prize the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
It is not my intention to expound this passage to/day,
but to use it for another purpose, and in doing so to
depart somewhat from the usual content of a University
Sermon. I wish to recall some memories of a man of this
single-minded duty/loving devotion, a distinguished
Cambridge Scholar and Divine, Bishop Lightfoot of
Durham. I have no special qualifications to attempt such
a theme, beyond the fact that I was one of his pupils here,
and during the whole of his Episcopate knew him more
intimately probably than any other man now living.
There is no biography of Lightfoot at his own earnest
desire and all that can be done is to gather up some of the
fragments that remain, as a tribute, however inadequate,
which is at least humble and sincere.
His life naturally falls into two periods the first at
Cambridge, and the second at Durham the first as a
teacher and theologian, and the second as Bishop.
I. CAMBRIDGE
We can trace some of the early impulses in Lightfoot's
character to a great schoolmaster, Prince Lee, afterwards
first Bishop of Manchester, who (not unlike James Tate of
Richmond School, Yorkshire) sent up from King Ed/
ward's School, Birmingham to his own college of Trinity
many first class men. Within nine years, we are told,
thirteen of Prince Lee's boys took first class honours, of
whom five were Senior Classics, and eight Fellows of the
College; while of the thirteen no less than twelve
including Bishops Westcott and Lightfoot and Arch/
bishop Benson took Holy Orders. Even at school he
was noted for two qualities which ran, like the red thread
I 5 o SERMON BY BISHOP EDEN
in the rope, through his whole career, an immense
capacity for hard work, and a reverent spirit of devotion.
At Cambridge, he read with Westcott, in whose hands
neither the severity of Cambridge classical training, nor
the consecration of all study to the Lord of all truth, were
likely to suffer. After his brilliant degree he took pupils,
and wrote many articles on classical and sacred subjects
of such a character, that it was soon recognised that a star
of unusual magnitude had risen on the horizon. He
became very early first Hulsean and then Lady Margaret
Professor of Divinity. But it is not his public career of
which I would speak. If we could have looked beneath
these distinctions, we should have seen a life of fixed
determination and resolute self/discipline. Take for in'
stance his normal day. It began with early Chapel,
followed by a short walk before breakfast. The morning
was occupied by lecturing, teaching and studying; but
this usually went on, without a break, up to his early
dinner in hall at half past four. Then a slight pause for
recreation and seeing friends though he never spent
much time in social intercourse. And then about six
o'clock his door was shut for study that went on often
into the early morning hours! It seems almost super/
human. But his capacity for work was matched by a
robust constitution a constitution which once took him
to the top of the Jungfrau and back in a single walk from
the Rhone valley, accompanied, before the days of guides,
by a shoemaker of the village of Fiesch. You see the "red
thread" of dogged perseverance here. Yet who knows
but that these Herculean labours may not have strained
even that strong heart, which finally faltered and failed at
the early age of only sixty/one;
SERMON BY BISHOP EDEN 151
LECTURES
His lectures are a vivid memory to those who attended
them. Crowds thronged to hear him expound the
Scriptures as surely they had not been expounded before.
A Master of Trinity, not given to enthusiasm, described
the Senate House passage as "black with the fluttering
gowns" of students bent on hearing the young Professor.
No lecture/room was eventually found sufficient, and the
great Dining Hall of Trinity might be seen filled round
its long tables by an audience which included not a few
Fellows of Colleges.
COMMENTARIES
These lectures grew into his unrivalled Commentaries on
St Paul's Epistles, which, with his unique works on the
second/century Fathers, form a great part of his priceless
literary gift to his beloved Church. His first Comment
tary (on the Galatians), published early in 1865, was a
landmark in New Testament exposition. It broke fresh
ground: largely in its form, which set a pattern for future
Commentaries, and wholly in its lucidity, directness and
moral and devotional application. It was recognised as a
new thing. Two others followed on Philippians, and
Colossians with Philemon.
And here I may pause to call attention to what seem to
me to be the two striking features of all Lightfoot's
literary work: its historical character and its central aim.
Lightfoot's mind was essentially that of the historian. He
has marked his sense of the value of the study of history
by the founding of the Lightfoot Scholarship. There is
little of the mystic about him, still less of the speculative
philosopher. The problems of theology are approached
along historical lines and decided largely on historical
152 SERMON BY BISHOP EDEN
grounds. We must remember that when he first wrote
history was a young science. The popular teaching of
history was largely a matter of dry facts and dates. Now
with the help of archaeology it has made past ages live
again for us in fresh and picturesque scenes. Lightfoot
was a pioneer in this kind of thorough historical research.
His immense labour (though hidden under the surface)
has lighted up the conditions of the early Church. The
actors on the stage are living and breathing men and
women. Take for instance the relations between St Paul
and the other Apostles. Even chief Apostles are human.
They have sharp differences. But while others have in/
vented extravagant theories out of these oppositions,
Lightfoot shows the essential unity of the first Church
throughout. And incidentally he cheers and encourages
us in our modern differences, as Aeneas cheered his
mariners, "O passi graviora", by showing that they are
no new thing and need not lead to disruption. "His/
tory", he says, "is an excellent cordial for the drooping
courage."
And the second characteristic feature of all his lectures,
sermons and books is nothing less than that "one thing"
again, which inspired and controlled all his thought. His
mind always turned, as the needle of the compass turns to
the pole, to the central truths of Christianity. Whether he
were dealing with large questions of sacred history and
theology, or expounding some passage of Scripture, each
point great or small, had its setting in the revelation of
God in Jesus Christ. His treatment of the Church, as the
body of Christ, or even of the Christian Sacraments,
madethem living things indeed in that One Person. There
is no room for controversy on details of faith and practice.
His words seem to be filled with human and divine light.
SERMON BY BISHOP EDEN 153
They lift us to lofty heights and spacious views, and a
larger air for breathing. They appeal to the heart and
conscience as well as to the mind. They satisfy the mind,
and they win the heart. No wonder that his three
volumes of St Paul's Epistles had an almost phenomenal
sale. I know of no single commentator of whom it could
be said that thousands of Christian pulpits must have
lighted their torch at his flame. And I hope and pray
that they do so still.
For we are confessedly, and especially since the war, in
a state of, I will not say confusion but unsettlement in
Church teaching and discipline. We need to come back
in thought to the great central truths of God as revealed
in Christ. There is too much preoccupation with smaller
and secondary things. In the call which our two Arch/
bishops have made to us for more sacred study among
clergy and people, I believe our great Cambridge theo/
logians of Lightfoot's day have the message best calculated
to draw us together again. For it is all centred round the
Person of our Lord. And the nearer we draw to Him,
the closer we shall draw together, as men who pull on one
rope must fall into line.
HIS APOSTOLIC FATHERS
We must pass quickly to his other priceless contribution
to sacred learning, his edition of The Apostolic Fathers of
the Second Century. He himself counted his work on
Ignatius of Antioch the most important of all he had
done. It is difficult to understand this estimate, unless we
recall the highly charged atmosphere of the theological
thought of that day. There had suddenly developed one
of the most serious attacks on the New Testament, from
the historical side, led by some distinguished German
154 SERMON BY BISHOP EDEN
theologians, and apparently supported by vast research
and learning. If their theories were correct, it was not too
much to say that many of the New Testament writings
would have proved to be pious forgeries of the second
century. Our faith would have been in vain. It seemed
to us humbler students to be a battle of the giants for the
citadel of the Faith. Unbelievers were ready with the
taunt flung at the Psalmist, "If the foundations be de/
stroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Ps. xi. 3). It was
then that our English theologians, and especially that dis/
tinguished band of Cambridge theologians of Lightfoot's
day and may we not say more particularly Lightfoot
himself? seemed to be raised up specially to vindicate
the truth of the Gospel. The issue turned upon the
trustworthiness of the second/century Fathers. Light/
foot's monumental work was one of the deciding factors
in the fight. A learned Professor at Moscow remarked in
1912, "It was your English scholars Lightfoot, West/
cott, Hort, Sanday and Armitage Robinson who
turned back and defeated the greatest modern threat to
the truth of the Christian religion". A strange incident
made Lightfoot an active protagonist in the fray. An
anonymous English writer had published an apparently
learned book on the negative side, entitled Supernatural
Religion, which had a sudden vogue in this country. It
had, however, incidentally charged Lightfoot's greatest
friend, Dr Westcott, with intentional deceit. Stung by
this accusation 1 against his friend Lightfoot wrote surely
1 Although this is the motive implied in Bishop Lightfoot's own preface
to the articles published some fifteen years later in book form, he tells us in the
first article that the incentive to his writing them was, partly at least, his
indignation at a cruel rumour which attributed them to a " learned and vener/
able prelate". This was actually Bishop Thirlwall, who had recently retired
from the See of St David's. See Thirlwall's "Letters" by Perowne and
Stokes, London, 1881, p. 379.
SERMON BY BISHOP EDEN 155
the most remarkable series of articles ever printed in the
Contemporary Review afterwards published in a volume
of essays just before his death at the urgent request of his
friends. The articles were never finished. There was no
need; for under Lightfoot's searching criticism the foun/
dation of the book had been destroyed.
Though the fires of argument have long since died
down, those essays are well worth careful study as a rich
storehouse of facts. And incidentally they reveal those
qualities in Lightfoot which have met us before his
patient investigation of facts, his scrupulous fairness, his
generosity to an opponent; above all, his absorbing
motive of loyalty to Christ. Still more it is a lesson to us
all how to conduct such a controversy not by violent
counter/assertions, not by mere denunciation, which, as
he says, "may be unjust and is certainly unavailing", not
by endeavouring to " close the door of enquiry by the hand
of authority", but by patient statement of facts, by
reverence as well as reason, and above all, in a spirit of
earnest devotion to Christ. His opponent had remarked
on his "earnestness". "I am indeed in earnest", he
replies, "as I believe him to be. But it seems to me that
the motives for earnestness are more intense in my case
than in his; for (to say nothing else) as I read history, the
morality of the coming generations of Englishmen is very
largely dependent on the answers which they give to the
questions at issue between us." "I cannot pretend", he
says again just fourteen years afterwards, "to be indifferent
about the veracity of the records which profess to reveal
Him, whom I believe to be not only the very Truth, but
the very Life."
156 SERMON BY BISHOP EDEN
II. DURHAM
From Cambridge we follow him to a totally different
sphere. After more than one offer of high preferment had
been declined, there came early in 1879 the momentous
call to the See of Durham the first that had come to a
man in Priest's Orders for more than two hundred years.
Few men can have passed through such an agony of
choice as we know he suffered. Friends were divided.
Some thought it would be a loss to the Church if his
literary work should be exchanged for an administrative
office. Others, more far/seeing as it proved, and recog/
nising his already great practical ability, urged him,
against all his inclinations, to accept. The task itself at
that moment would have appalled a weaker man. The
county of Durham had just passed through a rapid
expansion in industry. New teeming populations were
on the ground, with scanty provision for their spiritual
needs. New parishes, new churches, mission rooms and
schools were urgently needed on a large scale. There was
no adequate diocesan organisation, such as we know to/
day. And the wave of prosperity in business, strong and
sudden as it had been, was receding as quickly as it had
come. Yet the choice was made upon his knees,
"wrestling with the Angel in prayer". And once made
it was never regretted. With his characteristic singleness
of aim he threw himself wholly into the new and strange
work.
His welcome in the North was astonishing. And
new life came with him to the ancient "Bishoprick" of
the North. Those of us who had known it for many years
could hardly believe our eyes. The visible change which
came over it in those short ten years was almost incredible.
SERMON BY BISHOP EDEN 157
A new Diocese of Newcastle, new parishes and buildings
and endowments an entirely new diocesan organisation
these were the material signs of his energy. But there
was something else much more significant. " In that long
wakeful night", he tells us, "when the decision was
finally made", there arose in his mind a fresh vision. He
loved young men: he believed in them. He would people
his stately palace with young men a succession of Uni/
versity men seeking Holy Orders. They should be not his
pupils only but his sons. The remarkable Auckland
Brotherhood, carried on, on slightly different lines, by his
two successors, Westcott and Moule, ultimately reached
a total of 216 men, many of them with high degrees, and
gave an incalculable fresh impulse to the ranks of the
Ministry in the Diocese. Its distinctive notes were its
freedom from party/lines, its character as a company of
"Sons of the House", and that strange indefinite in/
fluence of a unique personality, of a real Father in God.
In Lightfoot's time it was possible to have them literally
as sons and guests in the house. He refused all payment
for himself. The beautiful Chapel was our spiritual
home. Nothing quite like it had been seen before: and it
is not likely that the combination of circumstances which
made it possible will quickly happen again. Bishop
Westcott counts his creation of the Brotherhood as the
greatest work of his life "greater than his masterpieces
of interpretation and criticism, greater than his master/
pieces of masculine and yet passionate eloquence". But
remarkable as it was, yet the influence which held it
together was more remarkable still. Lightfoot among his
"sons" is not easy to describe.
He never ceased to wonder at their devotion to him.
Nor could we quite explain it ourselves. He had no
158 SERMON BY BISHOP EDEN
conspicuous social gifts, no brilliant conversation, no
commanding and handsome presence. But he had
strength and reality. It was a kind of spell, seen and felt,
but, like a mother's love, not to be analysed. He was
constantly with us. He radiated goodwill and affection,
but without words. When friendship is strong and inti/
mate, a very small sign is enough to convey whole
worlds of love. After some personal interview he would
take both your hands, and even lay his head for a moment
on your shoulder, while his eyes filled with restrained
tears. But that was all there were no more words. It
was a dumb magnetic influence. But you left that room
with a strange attraction not to him only, but to One
in whose presence you felt he always moved.
Such was Lightfoot to his "sons".
His was a strong, manly, sensible religion. He had
little love of symbolism or elaborate forms in worship;
but like his great namesake Butler had a reverent care for
externals. In his last illness not a Sunday passed, even in
extreme exhaustion, without his receiving Holy Com/
munion. Yet speaking of other acts of worship he used
these remarkable words, over which I have often pon/
dered: "Things that edify others do not edify me. I feed
upon four or five great ideas. "
To the very last he was the same. Work was the breath
of his life. Within three days of his death he was working
amid intervals of exhaustion on his edition of Clement of
Rome. And at last the pen literally dropped from his
hand in an unfinished sentence almost recalling the
death of another Durham saint and historian the
Venerable Bede.
We need no closing exhortation. His life and writings
are his memorial. I have only given a scanty and in/
SERMON BY BISHOP EDEN 159
adequate account of a great scholar and saint, who was
so human and yet altogether unlike other men. But I
wanted, towards the close of an already long life, to lay
one more wreath on the altar of his memory, as one who
owes him an untold debt and bore him a deep affection.
It may encourage some of those beginning their course of
study to hear of one who from first to last devoted all his
powers and all his time to his beloved Master, who
learned here a stern self'discipline in his earliest years, who
kept before him this "one thing" one single paramount
aim to press toward the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Appendix A
LETTERS TO A CHAPLAIN
THE following extracts from letters illustrate what has been said in the
Chapter on "The Scholar still at work".
They are from the Bishop to his Chaplain, Rev. J. Armitage
Robinson (now Dean of Wells), either from Lollards' Tower or
Auckland Castle.
They reveal Dr Lightfoot's extraordinary range of learning, and his
infinite pains to verify references no less than his loyalty to his Chaplain,
and devotion to his Auckland "sons".
They have a peculiar interest as giving indications of the final stages
of the completion of the (Introductory) Vol. I of his St Ignatius anH St
Polycarp in 1884 and 1885, while the letter of July 1887 discloses the
early demand for a new edition.
Thus the letter of May 1 9th, 1 8 84, shews that his revision had reached
" The Church and the Empire" section. For in that section (pp. 477-
85, Ed. i) he dealt at considerable length with the epitaph of Abercius,
in the light of the discovery of a fragment of it by Mr (now Sir
William) Ramsay at Hieropolis near Synnada in 1883. The new
matter of these pages could not have been written, in their final form,
before 1884, and it was for them that the Bishop required the journals
which he asked to be sent to him.
Later in the year he gave an interesting resume' of the conclusions to
be drawn from the Epitaph, in a paper which he read at the Carlisle
Church Congress on October ist, 1884.
The books which he desired to consult in February 1885 indicate
that he was then engaged on the last section: "The Date of the Martyr'
dom" (of St Polycarp) as appears from the use made of them on pp.
661-95.
So the Bishop is able on February 24th to write: "I am at length
getting towards the very end of Ignatius and Polycarp". He finished
it by the end of June, dating his Preface "S. Peter's Day 1885".
APPENDIX A i6i
Lollards Tower,
Lambeth Palace.
VST u j May 19, 1884.
Would you send me ^
(a) Pitra's Analecta Solesmensia, Vol. n (I think it is Vol. u but
possibly Vol. in) containing Saint Abercius. A large octavo vol. in
paper back on the first shelf left hand above the ledge as you enter the
anteroom to my study from the passage.
() Two numbers of the Journal of Hellenic Studies I think the last
two containing respectively
(i) The Tale of Saint Abercius by Ramsay.
(ii) A paper of Ramsay's on the Sites of the cities of Asia Minor.
(<;) Durham Diocesan History (Low), lying I think on the table in my
study.
Feb. n, 188$.
Would you have the goodness at your leisure to verify for me this
quotation (which I find in Ussher, Works, vii, p. 356) Oribasius, Lib.
9. Collect. Medicin. cap. 8.
Miyvos Awou <0iiwros TrefWTr} 8' av dj/areAXovTos iyXiov 6 Kvwv rt-
TtAAeiv Trap' f)iuv f.v Hepydfjua TreTrtcrrewai. 1
I do not understand the S' av. I do not know whether there is any
standard edition.
All well here. A grand football match between the Church Insti/
tute and the Castle students to come off this afternoon; the event of the
Season. There would doubtless be all sorts of remembrances if they
knew I was writing.
Feb. 24, 1885.
"One good turn deserves another."
You sent such a satisfactory answer to my last question that I venture
to trouble you again.
(i) Would you have the goodness to look out and send me from the
University Library the books of which I enclose a list.
If you will leave them at Macmillans with directions, they will see
that they are forwarded to me.
1 "Our tradition at Pergamon is that the Dogstar rises on the 26th day
of the month Lous at sunrise." [In the text as quoted Apostolic Fathers,
i. 674 av is omitted.]
EM II
162 APPENDIX A
I believe my numbers are correct, but please verify and see whether;
Hermes xv, p. 363 contains an article of Droysen's relating to an
Ephesian Inscription; Rhein. Mus. xvn, p. 355, one of Ahrens on
names of months (or some allied subject); Rhein. Mus. xxvm, p. 403,
something about a Leyden MS. containing a Hemerologiitm.
(2) I want particularly articles of Unger in Fleckeisen's Neue
Jabrbticher, ,1884, pp. 545 sqq. 745 sqq. on (I think, the day called
i ^ .
These I suppose I cannot get from the University Library, but I am
tolerably sure Prof. Mayor will be able to lend them to me. He shall
have them back in two or three weeks. They may be put into Mac'
millans hands, and come in the same parcel.
(3) Would you at your leisure copy out for me from Waddington
and Lebas Inscriptions, Asie Mineure, in, 1611 (something about ipth
Xanthicos) in 1676 (from Trajanopolis 6th Daisies styled ^e^ao-r^).
If you do not know your way about the book, I am sure Mr Bradshaw
will show you.
If Waddington says anything in his notes on either of these inscrip'
tions which throws light on the Calendar please let me have it.
I am really at length getting towards the very end of Ignatius and
Polycarp. I am sorry to give you all this trouble, and yet I am sure you
will do it cheerfully if you can.
Ap. 30, iSBj.
I am glad to learn from your letter that you had such a successful tour,
and returned home safely. 1
And now my object is to get at Dr Spyridion Lambros, and likewise
if possible, to get someone to look at and (if necessary) collate the Athos
MSS relating to Ignatius and Polycarp.
1 The Dean of Wells writes: "In the Easter Vacation of 1887 1 had visited
Patmos to collate a MS of Origen's Philocalia. In Athens I met Professor
Spyridion Lambros, who was well known for his work in cataloguing the
Greek MSS at Mount Athos, and afterwards gained a brief notoriety as
Prime Minister of Greece. On my return to Cambridge I translated an essay
of his written in German, which contained a collation of portions of the
Shepherd of Hermas from an Athos codex. The edition of this, with a preface
and two appendices, early in 1888, was my first literary effort. It is the book
referred to in a subsequent letter (May i, 1888) of Bishop Lightfoot, who
with his characteristic generosity had undertaken to bear the cost of its
publication at the Cambridge Press".
APPENDIX A 163
As regards Dr Lambros, all I want is permission to print the extracts
(a line or two) out of his Catalogue. Could you get this for me?
The [other] I is a more difficult matter. The gain is not likely to be
considerable, or worth much outlay, but if anyone were going there on
his own errand, and could do mine also, I should be glad. I have
written to Dr Hort about Gregory. Have you anyone to suggest?
June 15, 1887.
In Reimar's note on Dion Cass. LXVII, 14 there is a reference to an
Inscription running DOMITILLA. CONJVX. SATRI. SILONIS.
NEPTIS. VESPESANI. IM. which is to be found "apud Jo. Vig'
nolium in Inscriptt. p. 318".
Would you please look at the book itself (I think the title is Vignolm
De Cokmna Impentoris Antonmi P/V, Romae 1705), and see how it is,
and where it is?
I cannot find it in any of the ordinary Collections of Inscriptions, and
suspect it is spurious.
I am looking forward to seeing you on St Peter's Day.
July 19, 1%.
(1) Would you be good enough to look out the ist series of De
Rossi's Bottettino di Arcfaologia Cmtiam in the University Library, and
take it to Macmillans, directing them to send it to me without delay.
It is, I think, bound in a single volume.
(2) Also would you look at Mionnet Supplement vi, 324 (I sup'
pose this is the number of the page) and copy out the legend and de>
scription of the coin or coins (Smyrnaean) which bear the proper name
KAHT02.
(3) I do not know quite what to do about Sp. Lambros. Would
it be sufficient to send him:
(a) Funk's second vol. of Pair. Apost. I believe the vols. are sold
separately;
(b) Patres Apost. (Gebhardt, Harnack and Zahn Edith Minor) ?
1 The word " other" above is scarcely legible. As a rule the Bishop wrote
a very good hand, but sometimes a familiar word would have the first three
letters well written and the rest a wavy line. Once the manuscript of a
sermon on St Luke x. 7 was sent to a local printer and came back in proof
headed "The Cabman is worthy of his hire".
1 1/2
164 APPENDIX A
These two contain everything and much more than he would want.
And they are convenient and portable and they answer every purpose.
If you think this would be sufficient please tell Deightons, not Mac/
millans, with whom I have a bill, to put them up and send them as you
may direct, charging me with the cost of the books, and postage in
short all expenses.
I am sorry to give you so much trouble. If there is anything in this
which won't work tell me so, or alter it at your discretion, and be sure
to thank Dr Lambros for me.
My foreign friends, one and all, either accept, or regard as highly
probable, my discovery of Hegesippus' Papal List in Epiphanius
which you may have seen in The Academy a few weeks ago.
I shall have to send the parts of my Ignatius and Polycarp which will
be affected by these collations to the press for the new edition before the
end of the year at the latest.
Would it expedite matters to offer remuneration for the trouble of
collating? I am not prepared to pay travelling expenses.
July 31, 1887.
I am much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken on my
behalf. Everything was done as I desired.
Thanks also for directing my attention to the other passage of
Epiphanius. When I mentioned my view of the Papal List to Dr Hort
he expressed the opinion that Epiphanius was elsewhere indebted to
Hegesippus. The passage which you point out is a case in point. I had
reserved the investigation of the portion of Epiphanius relating to the
Judaising Sects till a convenient season, hoping that I might track out
some other obligations, but I have never found the leisure, and mean/
while you have anticipated me.
I was much grieved to hear of your loss, of which I was unaware
when I wrote to you. Otherwise I don't think I should have ventured
to trouble you.
We had a very successful day at Lichfield, and "Prebendary"
Southwell 1 is delighted with the success of the reunion. The day before
1 His Chaplain, Rev. H. B. Southwell, had just been appointed Principal
of Lichfield Theological College, and made a Prebendary of the Cathedral.
APPENDIX A 165
I tied the knot for Willink 1 in quite an ideal Church of an ideal
village near Dorking.
I leave for Norway tomorrow.
May i, 1888.
(1) Can you find out at your leisure the volume, or year, of the
Journal of the Exegetical Society which contains Rendel Harris' "Igna/
tiana", p. 90? I have the paper detached, but want the reference to the
volume.
(2) Do you think there is any chance of my getting the collation of
the Martyrdom of Poly carp or the Acts of Ignatius from Athos before the
end of June, the former more especially? If so, I think I should keep
back those sheets. Something might come out of the Martyrdom of
Polycarp.
(3) I asked Harmer to write to you at Athens, and ask to whom you
had sent presentation copies of your Hermas that I might avoid them,
more especially foreign scholars.
Your conclusions on the main points seem to me to be quite decisive.
I shall be curious to hear when we meet what you say about Arcadia. I
confess to a certain predisposition towards the Arcadian Theory.
I am off to Dublin in less than an hour, to receive a degree, and in
consequence am writing in a great hurry.
1 Rev. J. W. Willink, afterwards Dean of Norwich.
Appendix B
THE AUCKLAND BROTHERHOOD
E = Easter, M = Michaelmas, L = Lent, T = Trinity anH indicates First
Term at Auckland, * = Chaplain, f = Lecturer.
E 1879 EDEN, George Rodney, D.D., Pemb. Coll. Cam.* 1
SAVAGE, Henry Edwin, D.D., C.C.C. Cam.* 2
M 1879 EDEN, Frederick Nugent, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
COPE, Frederick Lorance, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
GLYN, Frederick Ware, M.A., Keble Coll. Oxf.
E 1880 GUY, Douglas Sherwood, B.D., Trin. Coll. Cam.-j-
JEPSON, George, M.A., Caius Coll. Cam.
COATES, Charles Hutton, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
ELMHIRST, William Heaton, B.A., Jesus Coll. Cam.
M 1880 GIBSON, Reginald Daniell, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
COBBOLD, Francis Edward D., M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
L 1881 WILLINK, John Wakefield, D.D. (Lambeth), Pemb. Coll.
Cam.3
E 1 881 WAWN, Arnold Dykes, M.A., Jesus Coll. Cam.
HARMER, John Reginald, D.D., King's and C.C.C.
Cam.*4
M 1881 SOUTHWELL, Herbert Burrows, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Oxf.*
FFOULKES, Piers John B., M.A., Keble Coll. Oxf.
WARD, Walter Francis B., M.A., Keble Coll. Oxf.
WOOD, John Stevenson C., B.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
BANTON, Herbert Rider, M.A., Jesus Coll. Cam.*
BULL, Reginald Alfred, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
L 1882 GORE BROWNE, Wilfrid, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam. 5
DERRY, Percy Augustus, M.A., Trin. Coll. Oxf. 6
1 Bishop of Dover, 1890-1897; Bishop of Wakefield, 1897-1928.
2 Dean of Lichfield, 1909-
3 Dean of Norwich, 1919-1928.
4 Bishop of Adelaide, 1895-1905; Bishop of Rochester, 1905-1930.
5 Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman, 1912-1928.
6 Archdeacon of Auckland, 1914-1929.
APPENDIX B 167
M 1882 JUPP, William Theodore, M.A., Ch. Ch. Oxf.
LAMBERT, Edgar, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
DINGLE, Arthur Trehane, M.A., Ch. Ch. Oxf.
BODDINGTON, Edgar, M.A., Jesus Coll. Cam.
L 1883 APPLETON, Arthur, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
HEDLEY, Herbert, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
M 1883 ROBINSON, Joseph Armitage, D.D., Christ's Coll. Cam.* 1
FRASER, Alexander Campbell, M.A., Edin. and Oriel
Coll. Oxf.
ROWLEY, Herbert Seddon, M.A., Queen's Coll. Oxf.
WELLDON, Charles Edward, M.A., Keble Coll. Oxf.
MACKINTOSH, Alexander, M.A., St John's Coll. Cam.
L 1884 KING, George Lanchester, D.D., Clare Coll. Cam.*
LAW, James Henry Adeane, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
MACDONALD, Frederick Charles, M.A., Oriel Coll. Oxf.
SMYTH, Arthur Worsley, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
E 1884 McMASTER,AchesonArchibald,M.A.,Pemb. Coll. Cam.
CURTOYS, William Francis D., M.A., Oriel Coll. Oxf.
M 1884 HUBAND, Hugo Richard, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
KYNASTON, William Herbert, B.A., St John's Coll. Cam.
SIM, Arthur Fraser, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
NORRIS, Charles Leslie, M.A., New Coll. Oxf.
L 1885 STEWART, Edward Hamilton, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
WESTCOTT, Foss, D.D., Peterhouse, Cam. 3
SYKES, Edward, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
E 1885 EVERY, Edward Francis, D.D., Trin. Coll. Cam. 4 .
M 1885 BALL, Frederick, M.A., Exeter Coll. Oxf.
BARTLETT, William, M.A. C.C.C. Oxf.
BOWEN, Hon. William Edward, M.A., Balliol Coll. Oxf.
PYBUS, George, M.A., Peterhouse, Cam.
SLACK, Austin Ainsworth, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
L 1886 SoMERS'CocKS, Henry Lawrence, M.A.,Trin. Coll. Cam.
1 Dean of Westminster, 1902-1911; Dean of Wells, 1911-
2 Bishop in Madagascar, 1899-1919; Assistant Bishop of Rochester,
1928-
3 Bishop of Chota Nagpur, 1905-1919; Bishop of Calcutta and Metro/
politan, 1919-
.4 Bishop of Falkland Isles, 1902-1910; Bishop in Argentina and E.
South America, 1910- .
168 APPENDIX B
E 1886 CLARK, Edward, M.A., New Coll. Oxf.
M 1886 CHATTERTON, Eyre, D.D., Trin. Coll. Dublin. 1
DOBINSON, Henry Hughes, M.A., B.N.C. Oxf, a
HARDING, Thomas Williamson, M.A., St John's Coll.
Cam.
KIRBY, Edward, M.A., C.C.C., Oxf.
L 1887 WELCH, Edward Ashurst, D.C.L., King's Coll. Cam.*3
BURN, Andrew Ewbank, D.D., Trin. Coll. Cam. 4
FELL, James, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
E 1887 AMOS, Andrew, M.A., Clare Coll. Cam.
FORD, Alfred Henry, M.A., Univ. Coll. Durham
LEAKE, Francis Aubrey Eyton, B.A., St John's Coll.
Cam.
LITTLE, Thomas Wright, M.A., King's Coll. Cam.
M 1887 BAILLIE, Albert Victor, D.D., Trin. Coll. Cam. 5
BOUTFLOWER, Cecil Henry, D.D., Ch. Ch. Oxf.* 6
GREGSON, Francis Sitwell Knight, M.A., B.N.C. Oxf. 7
MACKENZIE, John George Kenneth, M.A., New Coll.
Oxf.
ROLT, Cecil Henry, M.A., New Coll. Oxf. 8
L 1888 ADAMS, Reginald Arthur, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam. 9
BRISTOW, James Berkeley, B.D., Trin. Coll. Dublin.
E 1888 HUNTINGTON, Henry Edward, M.A., Keble Coll. Oxf.
M 1888 BROWN, George Gibson, M.A. Edin., M.A. Balliol Coll.
Oxf.
HUNT, Reginald Coombs, M.A., Wadh. Coll. Oxf.
KEMPTHORNE, John Augustine, D.D., Trin. Coll. Cam. 10
KINLOCH, Michael Ward, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
L 1889 BABER, Francis Villiers, B.A., Ball. Coll. Oxf.
1 Bishop of Nagpur, 1903-1926.
* Archdeacon of the Niger, 1896-1897.
3 Provost Trin. Coll. Toronto, Chancellor of Cathedral, 1895-1899.
4 Dean of Salisbury, 1921-1927.
5 Dean of Windsor, 1917- .
6 Bishop of Dorking, 1905-1909. Bishop of Tokyo, 1909-1921. Bishop
of Southampton, 1921-
7 Archdeacon of Natal, 1908-1914.
8 Dean of Capetown, 1917-1924.
9 Archdeacon of Willochra, 1924-1927.
10 Bishop of Hull, 1910-1913; Bishop of Lichfield, 1913- .
APPENDIX B 169
L 1889 COLLET, Mark Cubbon Humphrys, M.A., Trin. Hall,
Cam.
CRAWFURD, Lionel Payne, D.D., Ball. Coll. Oxf. 1
GLENNIE, Reginald Gerard, M.A., Keble Coll. Oxf.
SCOTT, George Digby, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
E 1889 PALGRAVE, Francis Milnes Temple, M.A., Trin. Coll.
Oxf.
M 1889 HOWE, Henry Arnold, M.A., Univ. Coll. Oxf.
BILBROUGH, Harold Ernest, D.D., New Coll. Oxf. a
CRAIG, Oswald, M.A., Emm. Coll. Cam.
L 1891 KNIGHT, Arthur Mesac, D.D., Pemb. Coll. Cam-f 3
CLARK/-MAXWELL, William Gilchrist, M. A., King's Coll.
Cam.
HAYES, Ernest William Carlile, M.A., Sid. Suss. Coll.
Cam.
SELWYN, William George, M.A., King's Coll. Cam.
WEST, Arthur George Bainbridge, M.A., New Coll. Oxf.
E 1891 HARRISON, William Francis Lightfoot, M.A., Line. Coll.
Oxf,
M 1891 WESTCOTT, Henry, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.*
AITKEN, Arthur William Grant, M. A., Merton Coll. Oxf.
HUDSON, Ernest, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
L 1892 THOMPSON, Arthur Charles, M.A., St John's Coll. Cam.
E 1892 PURTON, Gerald Astley, M.A., Clare Coll. Cam.
T 1892 FOSTER, Ernest, M. A., New Coll. Oxf.
WATSON, Ralph, M.A., Christ's Coll. Cam.
M 1892 WRIGHT, Arthur Samuel, M.A., New Coll. Oxf.
L 1893 PATTEN, Basil Arthur, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
PENNEFATHER, William de Montmorency, M.A., Line.
Coll. Oxf.
E 1893 GILLING/LAX, Thomas Graham, M.A., Jesus Coll. Cam.
M 1893 AITKEN, Robert Aubrey, M.A., Merton Coll. Oxf.
BOLTON, Charles Ernest, B.A., Merton Coll. Oxf.
FYFFE, Rollestone Sterritt, D.D., Emm. Coll. Cam. 4
L 1894 BAX, Arthur Nesham, M.A., Balliol Coll. Oxf.
1 Bishop of Stafford, 1915-
z Bishop of Dover, 1916-1927; Bishop of Newcastle, 192,7-
. 3 Bishop of Rangoon, 1903-1909.
4 Bishop of Rangoon, 1910-1928.
170 APPENDIX B
L 1894 PARRY, Oswald Hutton, M.A., Magd. Coll. Oxf. 1
RAMSBOTHAM, Alexander, M.A., Exeter Coll. Oxf.
M 1894 COCK, Edwin Henry, M.A., Trin. Hall, Cam.
FAWNS, Cecil Anderson, M.A., C.C.C. Cam.
PENNING, Richard Robert, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
HICHENS, Richard Arthur James, M. A., Exeter Coll. Oxf.
PAINE, William Henry, M.A., Magd. Coll. Oxf.
L 1895 BOVILL, F. H., M.A., Ch. Ch. Oxf. '
SMART, Sidney Dallow, M.A., Keble Coll. Oxf.
WARE, Martin Stewart, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
WETHERED, Arthur James, M.A., Ch. Ch. Oxf.
M 1895 LONG, Frederick Percy, M.A., Worcester Coll. Oxf.
MOORE, Daniel Henry, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
PEACOCKE, Philip Grame, M.A., C.C.C. Cam.*
WINDLEY, Henry Ghadwick, M.A., King's Coll. Cam.
L 1896 LEWIN, Charles Herbert, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
WALSH, Herbert Pakenham, D.D., Trin. Coll. Dublin. 2
WIGRAM, William Ainger, B.D., Trin. Hall, Cam.,
D.D. (Lambeth).
BRYANT, Ernest Edward, M.A., Emm. Coll. Cam.
M 1896 CAMPBELL, George Augustus, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
FLEMING, Herbert James, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Oxf.
FRASER, Keith, M.A., Selwyn Coll. Cam.
L 1897 HORT, Francis Fitzgerald, M.A., Emm. Coll. Cam.
KARNEY, Arthur Baillie Lumsdaine, D.D., Trin. Coll.
Cam.3
KEELING, Charles Paul, M.A., St John's Coll. Cam.
WANSEY, Henry Raymond, M.A., Univ. Coll. Oxf.
T 1897 ELPHINSTONE, Maurice C., M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
SMITH, Herbert Saumarez, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
WIGRAM, Harold Frederick E., M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
M 1897 CuMMiNG'BRUCE, Hon. C. E. H. T., M.A., Trin.
Coll. Cam. 4
L 1898 PAGE, Philip Henry, B.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
KNIGHT, Leonard Faulconer Bury, B.A., Univ. Coll.
Durham.
1 Bishop of Guiana, 1921- . 2 Bishop of Assam, 1915-1923.
3 Bishop of Johannesburg, 1922- . 4 Now Baron THURLOW.
APPENDIX B 171
L 1898 PERRIN, Howard Nasmith, M.A., King's Coll. Cam.
WREFORD/BROWN, Gerald, M.A., Oriel Coll. Oxf.*
T 1898 HOLLAND, Ernest Walter, M.A., Oriel Coll. Oxf.
WARRE/CORNISH, Gerald, B.A., King's Coll. Cam.
M 1898 BAILY, George Herbert Johnson, M.A., Keble Coll. Oxf.
DOLPHIN, Arthur Rollinson, M.A., Oriel Coll. Oxf.
L 1899 BURNETT, Charles Ridley, M.A., St John's Coll. Oxf.
GARNETT, Thomas Arthur, M.A., Ch. Ch. Oxf.
T 1899 FORREST, Wilfrid George, B.A., Trin. Coll. Dublin.
MENZIES, Wilfrid Roxburgh, B.A., Caius Coll. Cam.
TROLLOPE, Charles Henry B., M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
TURNER, Percy Reginald, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
M 1899 AUSTEN, Hubert Pearson H., M.A., Keble Coll. Oxf.
BURGESS, Henry Norman, M.A., St John's Coll. Cam.
L 1900 MOILLIET, Bernard R. Keir, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Oxf.
T 1900 STRONG, Thomas Banks, D.D., Ch. Ch. Oxf.f 1
WOOD, Charles Travers, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
M 1900 CHITTY, George Jameson, M.A., King's Coll. Cam.
KITTERMASTER, Digby Bliss, M.A., Clare Coll. Cam.
L 1901 COWIE, Archibald George Gordon, M.A., Trin. Coll.
Cam.
MARTIN, Herbert Craven Lunn, M.A., Clare Coll. Cam.
DAWSON, Robert Basil, M.A., Merton Coll. Oxf.
E 1901 HUTTON, Martin Burnup, B.A., Caius Coll. Cam.
CROFT, John Robert, M.A., Queens' Coll. Cam.
M 1901 CAUSTON, Lilford Jervoise, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.*
M 1902 WHATELEY, Walter Richard, M.A., Christ's Coll. Cam.*
ALLWORTHY, Thomas Bateson, M.A., Christ's Coll. Cam.
LISTER, Arthur William, M.A., Christ's Coll. Cam.
MITTON, Launcelot E. Dury, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
L 1903 CARTER, George Foster, M.A., B.N.C. Oxf.*
M 1903 EDDISON, Frederick William, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.*
BRIERLEY, Joseph Philip Basil, M. A., Queens' Coll. Cam.
DOUDNEY, Ernest Edward, M.A., Christ's Coll. Cam.
DRURY, Robert Ferry, M. A., Wadh. Coll. Oxf.
STORR, Edward Charles, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
TAYLOR, Samuel, M.A., Christ's Coll. Cam.
1 Dean of Christ Church, 1901-1920; Bishop of Ripon, 1920-1925;
Bishop of Oxford, 1925-
172 APPENDIX B
L 1904 VENN, Arthur Dennis, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
M 1904 BUXTON, Harold Jocelyn, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
LEA/WILSON, Harold Wright, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
DICKSON, Gerald William, M.A., Trin. Coll. Dublin.
LISTER, John, M.A., St John's Coll. Cam.
M 1905 LEACH, Robert, M.A., Magdalene Coll. Cam.
PILCHER, Charles Venn, D.D., Hertford Coll. Oxf.*
M 1906 DE LABILLIERE, Paul Fulcrand, M.A., Merton Coll.
Oxf*
RICHARDSON, Harold Samuel Temple, M.A., Trin. Coll.
Cam*
LASBREY, Ernest William, M.A., Emm. Coll. Cam.
ROTTON, Hugh Frederick Arthur, M.A., Corpus Coll.
Cam.
SUMNER, Cecil Carol Winton, B.A., St John's Coll. Cam.
L 1907 ROTHWELL, Mark Sutton, Ex/Lieutenant R.N.
T 1907 ALFORD, Charles Symes L., M.A., Corpus Coll. Cam.
BLOWER, Lester Charles, M.A., Christ's Coll. Cam.
BRADLEY, Arthur Frederic, B.A., Christ's Coll. Cam.
DIGGES LA TOUCHE, Everard, B.A., T.C.D.
LUPTON, Reginald Ellison, M.A., Emm. Coll. Cam.
NIXON, Arthur Lyndon, B.A., Emm. Coll. Cam.
M 1907 PERROTT, Hubert Cecil, M. A., St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
T 1908 LINTON, Robert Cornelius, M. A., Clare Coll. Cam.
NEWMAN, Rowland Allen Webbe, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.
M 1908 WORKMAN, Herbert William, M.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.*
M 1909 GUSHING, Basil Montague, B.A., Wadham Coll. Oxf.
THORMAN, Frederick Pelham, B.A., Queens' Coll. Cam.
BOURDILLON, Gerard Leigh, M.A., Selwyn Coll. Cam.
CODE, George Brereton, B.A., Pemb. Coll. Cam.
T 1910 CORNFORTH, John William, B.A., Jesus Coll. Oxf.
L 1911 AGLIONBY, John Orfeur, D.D. (Lambeth), Queen's Coll.
Oxf.'
M 1911 PETRIE, Stanley Layton, L.Th., Hatfield Hall, Durham.*
DENHAM, Joseph Percival, M.A., St John's Coll. Cam.
L 1912 HOLLAND, Philip Fielder, B.A., Jesus Coll. Cam.
T 1912 BANHAM, John Clifford, M.A., Trin. Coll. Cam.*
1 Bishop of Accra, 1924-
APPENDIX B 173
T 1912 BETTS, Harold Sidney, M.A., Queens' Coll. Cam.
READ, Henry Cecil, M.A., Caius Coll. Cam.
M 1913 ALLWORK, Anthony Thomas, M.A., Queen's Coll. Oxf.
BAILEY, Howard Sinclair, M.A., Queens' Coll. Cam.
BURTON, Charles Kingsley, M.A., C.C.C. Cam.
HOOPER, Handley Douglas, M.A., Queens' Coll. Cam.
L 1914 MAISH, Edward Henry, M.A., Queens' Coll. Cam.*
M 1914 THOMAS, Basil Parker, B.A., Queens' Coll. Cam.
Appendix C
DR LIGHTFOOT'S LITERARY
PUBLICATIONS
A formal Bibliography of Dr Lightfoot's publications would be out
of place in this book of personal Reminiscences, which is not and
does not profess to be a regular Biography. Moreover, fairly full
notices of his works may be consulted both in Dr Hort's account of his
life in the Dictionary of National Biography, and especially in the Memoir
of Bishop Ligbtfoot published anonymously in 1894. & ma Y however be
worth while to draw attention to them from a special point of view,
as in relation to the circumstances under which they were severally
issued; and so to co/ordinate his writings with the successive stages of
his career.
For a review of Lightfoot's life/work falls naturally into four clearly
defined periods:
I. 1851-1861: From his B.A. degree to his Professorship.
II. 1861-1870: His Professoriate.
III. 1870-1879: The Revision of the New Testament; and his
Canonry of St Paul's.
IV. 1 879-1 8 89 : Bishop of Durham.
I. In the first decade he published nothing except some articles and
reviews in the short/lived (1854-1 859) Journal of Classical and Sacred
Philology. He had been actively interested in the promotion of this
Journal; to him was due the inclusion of "Sacred Philology" in its
title, as one of its primary objects; and he was one of its joint/editors.
For each of its first three years it maintained an annual volume of three
parts; but after that, it slowly faded out, with only one part of volume
IV in each of the next three years; there being no issue at all between
March 1858 and December 1859; after which it ceased. The fate of
this Journal is of no particular moment to us in itself, but some of
Lightfoot's articles which were published in it were elicited by its
urgent need of support, and these have a peculiar interest because of the
light that they throw on the trend of his studies in those early years. For
his first contribution, in 1854, was purely Classical; a review of two
APPENDIX C 175
orations of Hyperides, the texts of which had recently been published
from some papyri discovered in Egypt. But after that he devoted him>
self for three years exclusively to St Paul's Epistles; with an Essay on
"The Mission of Titus to Corinth", 1 in 1855; a review of "Recent
Editions of St Paul's Epistles" (by Ellicott, Stanley and Jowett), in
March 1856; a discussion of "The Style and Character of the Epistle
to the Galatians", in December 1856; and an article on "They of
Caesar's Household" (as illustrated by inscriptions in Rome), in
March 1857. Of these the review of the commentaries attracted special
attention outside Cambridge, on account of its unsparing criticism of
Canon (afterwards Dean) Stanley's edition of the Epistles to the
Corinthians. *
When, after March 1857, the Journal began to collapse through lack
of material, Lightfoot came to its rescue, in March 1858, after it had
been quiescent for a year, with a long dissertation on "Some corrupt
and obscure passages in the Helena of Euripides". It was however
not a fresh composition, but a relic of some former preparation for
editing the play. So he himself practically admits in the opening words
of his paper: " In transcribing the following notes for publication I have
confined myself almost without exception to those passages respecting
which I had any conjecture of my own to offer". On the other hand
his last contribution to the moribund Journal in December 1859, was
written specially for it. It is an extensive note, "On the Long Walls
at Athens", which was suggested by a line of Telecleides, quoted by
Plutarch (Vit. PmV/.), and he writes: "as this application of the passage
has never, so far as I am aware, been made, I was anxious to put it
forward". Moreover he refers in it to the 1855 edition of Wordsworth's
Attica and Athens. He had not lost his touch with the Classics. In fact
before a year had passed he found himself upon the brink of being
driven back upon that as his principal subject. At the time however
he was, as these articles shew, concentrating himself more and more on
the Greek Testament.
In 1854 Lightfoot was ordained Deacon, on the Title of his Fellow/
ship, by his old Headmaster James Prince Lee, then Bishop of Man/
Chester, who had first inspired him with a keen enthusiasm for Greek
Testament study; and he was also ordained Priest by him in 1858. It
1 Reprinted by the Lightfoot Trustees in Biblical Essays (1893).
2 It was this very review that led to Lightfoot's first acquaintance,
and subsequent friendship, with Stanley.
176 APPENDIX C
would seem that from the time of his Ordination he began to "draw
all his cares and studies this way". It was at this period that the Apos'
tolic Fathers first engaged his serious attention: "The subject has been
\j \j j
before me for nearly thirty years", he wrote, in 1885, in the Preface to
his Ignatius: but no trace of this interest appears in any of the papers that
he published in the Journal. The time was not yet ripe for that; ten
years later he was still laboriously working his way through the intricate
problems of the genuineness of the Ignatian Epistles, as will appear
presently. But in the meantime the Greek Testament, and particularly
the Epistles of St Paul, and not least in their historical aspects, con'
stituted the focus of his work.
He had already, at this early date, achieved by his College lectures
a unique reputation as a lecturer on the Greek Testament. Many years
afterwards he himself incidentally revealed how those lectures had
attracted larger and larger audiences. In 1877 a Grace was proposed in
the Senate for abolishing compulsory attendance at Professors' Lee/
tures. Lightfoot at once printed, and circulated, an emphatic protest
against this proposition; and-in the course of his argument he cited his
own experience even before he was a Professor: "During the later
courses of my College lecturing, I was obliged to deliver my lectures on
Greek Testament twice, because there was no room nearly large enough
for my hearers".
When therefore the Hulsean Professorship was founded in i860, it
was generally taken for certain that Lightfoot would be appointed. But
the small panel with whom the choice lay elected C. J. Ellicott, then
Professor of New Testament Exegesis in King's College, London, and
the Hulsean Lecturer of the previous year at Cambridge. It was of
course a severe blow to Lightfoot, to be thus obviously put aside; but
he modestly interpreted it as an indication that he was now to devote
himself to the Classics as his chief subject; and he at once set to work
on an edition of the Orestean trilogy of Aeschylus. But that was
destined soon to be abandoned.
II. For in the following year Professor Ellicott was appointed Dean
of Exeter, and vacated his Professorship; to which Lightfoot was now
appointed. And from that time he threw himself entirely into the
proper work of his chair.
He now wrote three articles for Smith's Dictionary of the BiUe, which
was published in 1863, on The Epistle to the Romans, and on The First,
and The Second, Epistles to the Thessalonians.
APPENDIX C 177
He still held the degree of M.A. Indeed, under the regulations then
in force he was not yet eligible to proceed to the D.D. degree, as he
had not completed 12 years from taking his M.A. in 1854. But in
1864 a way was found to surmount this difficulty; for on 18 June in
that year the D.D. degree was conferred on him by a Grace of the
Senate ("by Diploma") under one of the University Statutes; 1 and
with him two other Divinity Professors (both of whom had held the
M.A. for more than twelve years) were similarly honoured W.
Selwyn, the Lady Margaret Professor, and C. A. Swainson the
recently elected Norrisian Professor. (The Regius Professor was
already a B.D.) Thenceforward Lightfoot appears as Dr Lightfoot. It
was a signal witness to the high regard entertained for him in the
University.
Eight months after he received this distinction he published, in
February 1865, his first book St Paul's Epistle to the Galatians; a
Revised Text, with Introduction, Notes, and Dissertations. It immediately
secured a wide and rapid circulation. A second edition was called
for in 1866, and three other fresh editions while Dr Lightfoot still
remained in Cambridge; to be followed again by four more after he
had removed to Durham. He lived, that is, to see it pass through nine
editions; and a tenth was issued shortly after his death. And the reason
for this eager appreciation is not far to seek; for it opened out a new ideal
of what a commentary on a Book of the New Testament could be. In
addition to the appeal of the actual exposition, which was not
burdened with conflicting interpretations, there were certain features
in the scheme of the volume which were novel; among them the
examination of the historical setting of the original composition, and
the adoption of a specially revised text. Both of these practices are now
familiar enough; but they were virtually unknown until Dr Lightfoot
introduced their use, now nearly 70 years ago, in his first commentary.
In that, his "Introduction, Notes, and Dissertations", each and all
contributed to one compact whole. He had worked out his scheme in
the practical experience of his lectures.
1 Stat., cap. 3, sec. 5, par. 2. "lis etiam qui gradum aliquem vel officium
aliquod academicum adepti, et loco suo vel ingenio vel propter egregie
merita insignes sint, academiae liceat gratiam concedere, ut etiam si non per/
ecerint quae per statuta et ordinationes academiae requirantur, ad perfecmm
gradum admittantur." In the University Registry these Degrees are entered
as "Gradus propter merita".
EM 12
178 APPENDIX C
In his Preface to the first edition he stated, "The present work is
intended to form part of a complete edition of St Paul's Epistles which,
if my plan is ever carried out, will be prefaced by a general introduction
and arranged in chronological order". To this purpose he steadfastly
adhered for the next three years; and in July 1868 his edition of St
Paul's Epistle to the Philippims was published as the second instalment
of the proposed series.
At this point however that series was interrupted, and no further
volume of it was issued until 1875. I* 1 tne & st instance the break was
made deliberately by Dr Lightfoot himself. He judged that the time
had come to begin the publication of the "complete edition of the
Apostolic Fathers" for which he had long been preparing; and at the
end of twelve months he brought out his S. Clement of Rome: The two
Epistles to the Corinthians, in July 1869.
At this time he wrote several articles for the (new) Journal of Philology,
which had just been started. It may be observed that in 1868 and 1869,
while Clement was in his hands, his mind was running on Patristics,
as shown by his papers on Cam or Hippolytus, and on certain points in
The Ignatian Controversy; but later in 1869 he reverted to St Paul, in
a lengthy discussion of The Structure and Destination of the Epistle to the
Romans (being a criticism of Renan's St Paul et sa Mission). This article
had a curious sequel, for two years later it drew from his intimate friend
Dr Hort, in the Journal, an elaborate argument concerning the original
ending of the Epistle, in which he contested Lightfoot's solution of the
problem: and to this Lightfoot in turn replied in the next number,
stoutly maintaining his own view.
But more and more serious interruptions followed.
III. The Revision of the Authorised Version of the Bible was
proposed, and the plans for carrying it out were organised, by the
Convocation of Canterbury in 1870; and Dr Lightfoot was invited to
join the New Testament Company of Revisers, though he was not
a member of Convocation. This invitation he readily accepted; but it
was no light task. The labours of the Company lasted from June 1870
to November 1880; and when the Revision of the New Testament was
completed it was recorded that "As a rule, a session of four days has
been held every month (with the exception of August and September)
in each year from the commencement of the work".
When this project of the Revision was announced, and before the
New Testament Company had begun its work, Dr Lightfoot was
APPENDIX C 179
asked to read a paper on the subject to a Clerical Society. Afterwards,
in response to a request that the paper might be printed, he expanded it
into a book (with an Appendix added on 67rtou<no9 in the Lord's
Prayer), and published it, in April 1871, under -the title On a Fresh
Revision of the English New Testament. A second edition was required
in less than three months. 1
Then, in 1871, he was appointed to a Canonry in St Paul's Cathe/
dral. From the first, St Paul's exerted a powerful influence on him, and
on his work. It opened out fresh interests, and offered a wider scope
for his intensely human sympathies, which had hitherto found express
sion chiefly in his academic lectures. His powers both of preaching
and of lecturing to "all sorts and conditions of men" developed rapidly
under this stimulus; and soon he became generally known as a leading
teacher with a clear and forcible message. It was inevitable that the
demands thus made upon his energies must to some extent interfere
with his literary output. But he still resolutely adhered to his larger
schemes of publication; and in fact the seven or eight years during
which he was a Canon of St Paul's shew a considerable record of
achievement.
The nine articles in refutation of the book Supernatural Religion, which
Dr Lightfoot contributed to the Contemporary Review at intervals
between December 1874 an d May 1877, have already come under
notice in this book. In May 1889 he republished them as a book, in
which he included a further article, not of that series, which had
appeared in the same Review in May 1878, on Discoveries illustrating
The Acts of the Apostles.
In April 1 875 he issued his edition of St Paul's Epistles to the Colossians
and to Philemon, which met with a notable reception: it reached its fifth
edition by 1880, and its tenth by 1882.
When Lightfoot published S. Clement of Rome in 1869 there was
only one, imperfect, MS. of the two Epistles known in the "Codex
Alexandrinus" (= A) at the British Museum. At the end of 1875
however the Metropolitan Bryennios published a complete text of both
1 When the Revised Version of the New Testament was published
in May 1881, Canon F. C. Cook at once issued A Protest against the
Change in the Last Petition of the Lord's Prayer. Bishop Lightfoot promptly
took up his challenge with an elaborate article which appeared in The
Guardian in September. This was reprinted after his death in the third
edition (1891) of his book On a Fresh Revision.
12/2
i8o APPENDIX C
the Epistles from a MS. at Constantinople; and early in 1876 the
Cambridge University Library purchased a MS. of the Syriac New
Testament which on examination was found to include in the Canon
the two Epistles of Clement. In the light therefore of these important
accessions of textual matter Dr Lightfoot promptly set about pre/
paring a second volume of Clement, which he published (on his 496
birthday) in April 1877, as an "Appendix" to the former book.
It was about this time that he contributed a remarkable article on
Eusebius of Caesarea to the Dictionary of Christian Biography (the second
volume, in which it appears, was published in 1880). Of this, Bishop
A. Robertson, himself an eminent authority on Eusebius, wrote:
" Lightfoot's article is a magnificent monument of patristic scholarship
and contains the best and most exhaustive treatment of the life and
writings of Eusebius that has been written". 1
The fulness of this treatise may be associated with the abandonment
by Dr Lightfoot of his former "project of a history of Early Christian
Literature" to which he refers in the Preface to his "Appendix" to
Clement of Rome (p. vi). With that project in view, he explains, he had
deliberately refrained in his book of 1869 from discussing the personal
origin of Clement; but as it had since been set aside, he could now, in
1877, deal with the question.
There was also an article by him on The Acts of the Apostles, the
composition of which must almost certainly be ascribed to this period
of his life. It was written for a re/edition of the first volume of Smith's
Dictionary of the Bible. In that Dictionary as at first issued several of the
earlier articles were quite inadequate for instance, only three columns
were allotted to Acts and it was decided to reconstitute volume I on
the fuller scale of the two other volumes. This revision was not pub/
lished until April 1893 ; but after Dr Lightfoot was consecrated Bishop
there was no year in which it could have been possible for him to
prepare this work; especially with the constant claim of The Apostolic
Fathers pressing upon him. Moreover his paper in the Contemporary
Review on Discoveries illustrating the Acts suggests that he was engaged on
the subject in 1878.
IV. With his removal to Durham in 1879 there came the great
breach in the tenor of his work. It was no longer possible, as it had
1 Select Library of Nicene and Post/Nicene Fathers: Eusebius, p. 3
(1890).
APPENDIX C 181
been at St Paul's, to combine his various schemes of literary production
with the new claims upon his energies, for the diocese demanded his
whole/hearted devotion, and he gave it ungrudgingly.
He did, however, when weighing this great sacrifice, make the one
tentative reservation of his " magnum opus", The Apostolic Fathers. His
edition of Ignatius and Poly carp was already well advanced before he left
Cambridge; and he cherished the hope that he might be able, by a
scrupulous use of any intervals of comparative leisure which should
occur, to bring it to completion; but six and a half years passed before
he could publish his masterpiece, in 1885. This great work, although it
could only appeal directly to scholars, was so widely welcomed that
within four years a second edition was required, in 1889.
When this had been completed the Bishop returned once more to
Clement, and began to prepare a thorough revision of his former
volumes, on the same scale as his Ignatius. But a severe illness super'
vened, and, in spite of heroic efforts, he was unable quite to finish it.
The two, greatly enlarged, volumes were published in 1890, a few
months after his death, just as he had left them.
It was while this task was in his hands that he published in The
Academy of May 2ist, 1887 a paper on The Lost List of Hegesippus. 1 It
was his practice when he made an important discovery to announce it
forthwith in some literary periodical, in order to elicit the opinions of
other investigators.
An instance of a somewhat analogous publication of a new pro/
position is his article in The Academy of Sept. 2ist, 1889, on The
Muratorian Fragment, in which he argued that it was originally com/
posed in Greek iambics. This paper however, having little or no
connexion with the work on which he was engaged at the time, seems
to fall into a different category, as intended to put on record, while his
life lasted, a discovery of earlier years that he considered worthy of
preservation.
For similarly in the early months of that year he had published in
The Expositor a Lecture on the Internal Evidence for the Authenticity and
Genuineness of St John's Gospel,* which he had delivered in 1871 as
"one of a series connected with Christian evidences" by different
Lecturers. He had withheld it at the time from publication, with the
design of amplifying it; but now, as he had found no opportunity of
1 Cp. S. Clement of Rome (1890), i, 327. See above, p. 164.
2 Reprinted in Biblical Essays (1893).
i82 APPENDIX C
fulfilling this purpose, he printed it in its original form, to witness that
he had never seen reason to modify his judgment of that Gospel.
So also in 1889, as has already been noticed, he re/issued his articles
on Supernatural Religion in book form.
The useful edition of the text of The Apostolic Fathers, with trans/
lations, in one volume, was projected by the Bishop himself in these
last months of his life. It was his final contribution to the study of this
literature, by making it readily accessible to general readers. He settled
the plan of the book; he selected the writings to be included in it; and
he began the actual preparation of it. But when his strength failed
he commissioned his Chaplain, the Rev. J. R. Harmer, to take charge
of the work and complete it as Editor. It was published in 1891.
Apart from these publications, which were devoted to the comple/
don of work that was already in progress when he was called to
Durham, the Bishop was unable to undertake any further literary work.
His whole time was absorbed by the administration of his diocese, as
he explained in his second Visitation Charge in 1886. Indeed both
that and his earlier Charge of 1882 were confined to reviewing the
progress of the diocese in the preceding four years. And publications of
this nature do not come within the purview of the present sketch;
especially as their relation to the circumstances of his career is patent.
Yet in all that he printed in these years the underlying force of his
scholarship, and of his historical acumen, is manifest, and in some
instances it is the dominant feature; as when, for example, in a paper
read at the Carlisle Church Congress in 1884, on Results of Recent
Historical and Topographical Research, he gave his first impressions of the
newly/discovered Epitaph o/Akrcius, and of the Didache.
With respect however to one class of his writings Dr Lightfoot never
hesitated about publication. From his ordination onwards he had
been accustomed from time to time to print as separate pamphlets
sermons that he preached on special occasions; not so much for
general circulation, as for the benefit of those who were interested in the
particular occasions. The earliest of these pamphlets now traceable is
a Commemoration Sermon preached in Trinity College Chapel on
15 Dec. i860. In process of time, as Lightfoot's influence extended,
more and more of them were printed.
But such isolated publications naturally tend to disappear; and in
fact they are now rarely to be found. The Trustees of the Lightfoot
Fund, therefore, shortly after the Bishop's death, published six volumes
APPENDIX C 183
of selections from his Sermons and Addresses. These include some which
had already been published separately; with many others, which had
not been printed, from his MSS. then in the possession of the Trustees.
These collections are:
Ordination Addresses (i 890) : to Ordination Candidates; to the Auckland
Brotherhood; and to Oxford Fellows in Retreat at Cuddesdon.
Leaders in the Northern Church (1890). The one series of sermons which
Lightfoot contemplated issuing together in a volume, when complete,
was of those which dealt with the past history of the diocese. He
planned it to consist of fourteen such sermons; but had only found
appropriate occasions for ten of his proposed subjects before his
death. These ten are published in this book. (These first two books
belong entirely to the Durham period. The following are drawn
partly from the earlier periods also; as indicated by the range of dates
of the items, given in brackets.)
Cambridge Sermons (1890): in Trinity College Chapel (1861-1875);
and before the University (1868-1883).
Sermons on Special Occasions (1891). (1872-1888.)
Sermons in St Paul's (1891). (1871-1879.)
Historical Essays (1895). (1872-1889.)
These posthumous publications have a peculiar value, as revealing
the Preacher and the Lecturer in contact with his audiences. Without
them he would have been known as a great Scholar, and a great
Organiser. But they portray him, though all unconsciously, by his
own words, as the great modern 'Leader in the Northern Church*.
H. E. s.
PUBLISHED AFTER HIS DEATH
"I BELIEVE FROM MY HEART THAT THE
TRUTH WHICH THIS (ST JOHN'S) GOSPEL
MORE ESPECIALLY ENSHRINES-THE TRUTH
THAT JESUS CHRIST IS THE VERY WORD
INCARNATE, THE MANIFESTATION OF THE
FATHER TO MANKIND-IS THE ONE LESSON
WHICH DULY APPREHENDED WILL DO MORE
THAN ALL OUR FEEBLE EFFORTS TO PURIFY
AND ELEVATE HUMAN LIFE HERE BY IM/
PARTING TO IT HOPE, AND LIGHT AND
STRENGTH; THE ONE STUDY WHICH ALONE
CAN FITLY PREPARE US FOR A JOYFUL
IMMORTALITY HEREAFTER."
BMcal Essays t p. 44
INDEX
Abefcius, 119, 160, 182
Academy, The, 164, 181
Acts of Apostles, "a forgery", 128;
genuineness, 140, 179, 180;
lectures on, 129
Aeschylus, 5, 6, 123, 176
Ahrens, 162
Aidan, St, 69, 73, 89, 98
Aldhun, Bishop, 19
Anakcta Solesmensia, 161
dvSjoieo-0 Kparaiowfle, 52, 103
Apostolic Fathers, 53, 57, 107, 120,
130, 137, 153, 154, 176, 180
Arabic, knowledge of, 118
Arcadian theory, 165
Armenian, knowledge of, 118,
129
Asia Minor cities, sites of, 161
Asia Minor discoveries, 119
Athens, 165, 175
Athos, Mt, 162
Auckland Archdeaconry, 129
Auckland Brotherhood, xi, 22, 23,
48, 157
Auckland Castle, ix, 16, 22, 23,
96, 160; Chapel of, 24, 35, 39,
40, 46, 70, 72; life at, 24,
35-41; monograph on, in;
portrait/window, 73, 93
Auckland "Family", origin of, 32
Auckland Manor House, 72, in
Auckland Park, 16, 29, 70, 109
134
Banton, Rev. H. R., 24, 51, 80
Barber, Mr Joseph, bookseller, i
Barbour, Dr Freeland, 34
Barbour, Rev. R. W., 34
Baring, Bishop, xiv, 59, 107
Baur, Ferdinand C., 128, 138
Bede, Ven., 98, 100, 158; E,cles.
History, 90
Benefices doubled, 59
Benson, Archbishop, ix, 2, 12, 19,
45, 49, 101, 102
Benwell Tower, 61
Birkbeck Lecturer, 137
Birmingham, 2, 149
Bishop Auckland, 24, 35
"Bishoprick, the", 62, 156
Bishoprics Bill (1878), 59
Boddington, Rev. E., 89 f.
Body, Canon, 27, 48, 68, 81
Bollettino di Archeologia Cristiana,
163
Bollig, Dr, 54
Boutflower, Bishop, xi
Boys, promising, 66, 69-71
Braemar, 45, 121
Browne, Bishop (Forrest), x, 90
Browne, Bishop (Harold), 18
Bryennios, 27, 54, 179
Bury, Bishop De, scholarship
founded, 112
Butler, Bishop, ix n., 97, 158
Caesar's Household, 175
Cms or Hippolytus, 178
Cambridge, Great St Mary's, 15;
King's College, 122; Master of
Trinity, 4 n., 18, 123, 125
Cambridge Review, 3 n., 14 n.
Carlisle Church Congress, 160
Castle choirboys, 69-71, 122
Catacombs, 119, 175
Chanticleer, Bishop's article in, 24
Chaplains, Domestic, 16, 113;
Examining, 19, 77; Honorary,
86
Chapter House restoration, 55, 94
Charges, Primary, 116; Second
Quadrennial, 66, 71
Christian Literature, History of, 140
Church Assembly foreshadowed, 63
Church building, 121
Church Congress, 60, 115
188 INDEX
Church Councils, 63 Dixie Professorship, 142
Church, Dean, u, 12, 13, 17 Droysen, 162
Church, idea of a, xiv Duchesne, 137
Classical Association, 4 Dunblane Synod, 84
Claughton, Bishop, n Durham Castle, 40, 57
Clement MSS., discovery of, 131 Durham Cathedral, 40, 61
Clement, St, Epistle, 44, 100, 120, Durham University, 56, 58, 112
130, 131, 145, 178, 181 Durham, and Northumberland
CoatS'oArms, in Chapel, 51; Classical Association, 4; Arch/
"Cambridge and Durham", deacon of, 15; Earl of, 95; the
56-7 Call to, 12, 16, 32, 156
Colossians, commentary on, 128,
179 Eden, Rev. F. N., 22, 87
"Commemoration Sermon", 13 Eden, Right Rev. G. R., xv, 16,
Commentaries on St Paul's Epistles, 17, 22, 34, 36, 51, 71, 114
123,135,151 Eden, Canon J. P., 114
Compline, 46, 47 Edmundbyers quarries, 90
Conference, Diocesan, xiv, 58, els iWpos, 57
59 n., 60, 75; Ruridecanal, 58 Ellicott, Bishop, 123
Confirmations, 62, 114, 116 Ember examinations, 76
Consecration as bishop, 17 Emperors and the Church, 133
Consecration of St Ignatius Church, Encyclical Letter, 74
91, 121, 122 Enthronement, 56
Contemporary Review, 9, 155 Epiphanius, 164
Coptic versions, 119, 129 oriowrtos, 179
Correspondence, 109; with foreign epiOeia-emeiKaa, 79-80
scholars, 117 Ethiopic, 118
Cosin, Bishop, 18, 72, in Euripides, Helena, 175
Cotton, Bishop, 16 Eusebius, 117, 127, 140, 180
Cuddesdon, 79 Every, Bishop, 87
Curate fund, St Ignatius, 92-3 Examination for Orders, 76-9
Curates' Day, 81 EzekielV'face of an ox", 35
Cureton, Dr, 133
Cuthbert, St, 69, 89 Fowler, Mr Hodgson, 72, 89-
102
Davidson, Archbishop Lord, xi, 74 Francis of Assisi, St, 25
Deaconesses, 68 Fraser, Bishop, 18, 57, 60
De Rossi, 163
Diatexaron, Tatian's, 129 Galatians, first Commentary, 123,
Dickinson, Dean, 30 175, 176, 177
Dictionary of the Bible, 1 76 Galatians iii. 20, variety of comments,
Didache, The, 27-8, 131, 182 124
Diocese, division of, 59-61, 115 Gebhardt, Dr Oscar Von, 54
Dion Cassius, 163 "Golden Age", xiv, 20
Dissertations, " StPauland Seneca", Goodwin, Bishop Harvey, 18
127; " TheChristianMinistry", Greek of St Paul, 8, 125
127; " St Paul and The Three", Greek Testament, 3, 8, 112, 113
128; " The Essenes", 128; 134 Guidi, Professor, 54
INDEX
Hammond, Mr M., 69
Harmer, Bishop, 27, 51, 54, 99,
no, 114, etc.
Harnack, 133, 137
Harris, Rendel, 165
Harrison, Rev. W., i
Hay, Bishop, 69-71
Hazlerigg, Sir A., 72 '
Headlam, Bishop, 136
Hegesippus, 164, 181
Hellenistic Greek, 126
Hemerologmm, 162
Henson, Bishop, xi, 21, 73
Hermas, 162 n., 165
Hermes, 162
Hervey, Lord Arthur (Bishop),
97
Hierapolis, 160
Hill, Bishop Rowley, 1 8
Holland, Canon Scott, n
Hort, Professor, x, 4, 8, 124, 126,
132, 134, 142, 154, 178
Houghton, Lord, 59
Hulsean Professor, 4, 14, 123, 142,
150, 176
Hyperides, 175
Ignatian Epistles, edition of 1885, 9,
44, 57, no, 119, 132, 136, 145,
160, 178
Ignatius, St, Church of, 89-94, 121
Industrial Revolution, xiii, 115, 156
Institution services, 53, 70
Irenaeus, 117
Jackson, Bishop, 18; 49
Jayne, Bishop, 82
Jewish priesthood, 98
John, St, authenticity, 181
Johannine literature, 140
Journal of Classical and Sacred PMos
logy, 174, 178; of the Exegetical
Society, 165; of Hellenic Studies,
Jowett's Commentaries, 124
Judges' Rooms, Durham, 57
Jungfrau, 2, 150
Junior Clergy Society, 65
189
no
King, Bishop G. L., xi
KAHTOS, 163
Lake, Dean, 55, 56
Lambeth Conference, 70, 73-5
Laymen, status of, 63; ministry of,
64
Leaders in the Northern Chun}), 112,
140
Leighton, Archbishop, 84
Lichfield Bishopric, 10
Lichfield, Dean of, see Savage,
Very Rev. H. E.
Liddon, Canon, 10, n
Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, birth and
parentage, i; schools and boy
friends, 2; his headmaster, 3,
149
At Cambridge: enters Trinity
College, 3 ; Fellow and Tutor,
4; Ordination, 4; his lectures
crowded, 4, 129, 151, 176;
his rooms, 5; with his pupils,
5, 7; Sermons, Chapel, 6, 14,
145, Great St Mary's, 15; work
in the University, 8; founds
Lightfoot Scholarships, 8, 151;
his day's work, 150; D.D. by
diploma, 177
Canon of St Paul's: friendship
with Liddon, 10; member of
the Chapter, n
Bishop of Durham: restores an^
cestor's grave, i; the Call, 12,
16, 32, 107, 156; farewell to
Cambridge, 15, 20; first visit
to Auckland, 16; consecration
as Bishop, 17-20; his busy day,
24; resides at Durham Castle,
57-8; portrait, 95; implored to
continue literary work, 107;
in his study at Auckland, 114
In Auckland Castle: lectures on
Didache,2$; origin of Auckland
Family, 32; his review of the
Brotherhood, 32; embellishes
and enriches the Chapel, 72;
190
INDEX
Lightfoot, Joseph Barber (cent.)
welcomes Oversea Bishops, 73 ;
serves on Lambeth Conference
Committees, 74; his share in
the Encyclical, 74; illness, 90,
99; death, 100; funeral, 101
In the Diocese: lays foundation of
work, 58; separates Newcastle
Diocese, 59-61 ; reorganises
"the Bishoprick", 62-3; an/-
ticipates Church Assembly,
63-4; founds Lay Readers'
Association, 64-7; appoints
Canon Missioner, 68; Deacon/
esses' Society, 68; Annual
Curates' Day, 81; founds St
Ignatius Church, 89, 121
The Man: capacity for work, 2,
150; moral influence, 42, 47,
48, 158; methods of work, 108,
118; amazing memory, no,
118, 131; estimate of him, 113;
knowledge of languages, 118,
129, 130; power of detachment
and strength of will, 120;
essentially a historian, 127
Lightfoot, Miss, i
Lightfoot, Mr J. Jackson, i
Lightfoot, Rev. W. Barber, i
Lightfoot Memorial Churches, 94
Lightfoot Scholarships, 8, 142,
151
Lightfoot Trustees, 129, 182
Lingua franca of GraeovRoman
world, 8
Liverpool Royal Institution, 2
Lollards' Tower, 75, 160
Londonderry, Marquis of, 96
Longley, Archbishop, 62
Luke, St, Gospel, genuineness of,
140
Mace, Bishop's, 97
Martyrs, early, 133
"Mediator" expounded, 124
Methods of Early Church History, 137
Mionnet Supplement, 163
Mission Room, St Ignatius, 90
Moesinger'sTranslationofEphraem
the Syrian, 130
Moule, Bishop Handley, x, 4, 13,
etc., 23, 157
Moulton, Professor, 8, 125, 126
Muratorian fragment, 181
Newcastle Bishopric, 18, 40, 59-61,
157
New Testament Greek not debased,
125
New Testament, lectures on, 4,
176
Newton, Sir Isaac, 5
North/Country Saints, 112
Northumberland, Archdeacon of,
60; Duke of, 60
Northumbrian Church, 19, 58, in
Norway, 44, 46, 121
Oban, 31, 44
Odo, Bishop, 97
Ordination addresses, 32, 42, 52,
83-4, 88
Ordinations, 76, 81, 100
Oribasius, 161
Oswald, King, 73, 103
Ottley, Canon R. L., 77, 83, 84
Palatinate, vi, xiii, 97, 115
Papyri, 8, 126, 175
Parry, Bishop, 62
Pastoral Epistles, 140
Pastoral Staff, 95
Patmos, 162 n.
Patres Apostolici, see Apostolic
Fathers
Patterson, Canon A. H., 68
Paul, St, not spoken of as Bishop,
132
Pauline Epistles, 140, 176, 178
Pergamos, 161
Peter, Roman visit of, 132
Philip yians, 126, 178
Phillpotts, Bishop, ix n.
Philocalia, 162 n.
Pio Nono's twenty/five years, 132
Pitra's Analecta, 161
INDEX 191
Polycarp, St, 89, 133, 160 Stubbs, Bishop, 12, 74
Polycarp's Epistle, ed. 1889, 9, 145, Stubbs' Charges, 73
160 Sub/Apostolic Age, 9, 119
Prince Lee, Bishop, 3,16,135,149, Supernatural Religion, 9, in, 130,
175 . i54 179
Pseudo'Ignatian Epistles, 54 Sword and crozier, 115
Public Worship Regulation Act, 1 1 Synnada, 160
Purity, Lambeth Report, 74 Synoptic Problem, 135, 140
Syriac, 119, 131, 133, 179
Quakers and Churchmen, 61
Quarterly Review, Article, x, 116, Tait, Archbishop, 7, 10, 12, 16
121, 137 Talbot, Bishop, 22, 82
"TeDeum" window, 89
Ramsay, Sir William, 119, 160, 161 Telecleides, 175
Reimar, 163 Thirlwall, Bishop, 9, 154
Renan, 178 Thompson, Mr (Verger), 2
Renouf, Mr P. le Page, 54 Thomson, Archbishop, 18, 101
Revisers Company, 8, 18, 115, 126, Times, The, Articles, x, 13, 105
178 Titus at Corinth, 175
Richmond, Mr, 31, 96 Trajanopolis, 162
Ritual controversies unknown, 81 Trapani, 45
Robinson, Very Reverend J. Armi/ Tubingen school, 128, 133,138
tage, 51, 154, 160 "Twentyfiveyears'Episcopate",i32
Romans, article on Epistle to, 176
Ruridecanal Conferences, 58 Unger, 162
Ussher's Works, 161
St Paul's Cathedral, 18
St Paul's Chapter House, 17, 19 Vesuvius, 45
St Peter at Rome, 131 Victoria, Queen, 7, 45
San Clemente Church, 145 Vignolius, 163
Sanday, Dr, 154 "Virtus in agendo constat", 3, 16
Sandford, Bishop, 63, 100 n.
crapKtKos Ki Tn/eu/mriKos, 57 Wakefield (Butler), 99
Savage, Very Rev. H. E., 9, 16, 17, Watkins, Archdeacon, 15, 60, 116
22, 51, 77, 114 Winer's New Testament Grammar,
Saxon Saints, 51 125
Scrivener, Dr, 119, 129 Welch, Rev. E. A., xi, 51, 101
S<-/3a<m7, 162 Welldon, Bishop, 15
Shepherd of Hermas, 162 Wells, Dean of, see Robinson, Very
Shepherd of Souls, 98 Rev. J. Armitage
Shute Barrington, Bishop, xiii Wesley, Lightfoot's appreciation of,
Sim, Rev. A. F., 25-7, 78-9, 87 66
Sisterhoods, 68 Westcott, Right Rev. B. F.,
Smyrnaean coins, 163 successor to Lightfoot, ix;
Southwell, Rev. H. B., 38, 51, 77 describes Auckland Brother/
Stanley's Corinthians, 124, 175 hood, xi; coached Lightfoot at
Stephen, St, lecture on, 129 Cambridge, 3 ; inspired the
Stolkjar, 45 Cambridge School, 4; on the
i 9 2 INDEX
Westcott, Right Rev. B. F. (cent.) Wilberforce, Bishop E. R., 61
text of the Greek Testament, 8, Women in Church work, 68
124, 126; at Lightfoot's con/- Wopdford, Bishop, 18
secration, 17; at Braemar, 45; Wordsworth, Professor, 54
his sermons (Lightfoot's con/ Wright, Dr W., 54
secration), 18, 107, (St Ignatius'
consecration), 91 ; his Memorial Xanthicos, 162
Window in Chapel, 93; at
Lightfoot's grave, 102 ; Moscow Zahn, 133
professor's tribute, 154 Zotenberg, Dr, 54
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