BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Johann August Wilhelm Neander was born in Gottingen, Germany, January 15, 1789, and died July 14, 1850. He was by birth a Jew, but in 1806 he renounced Judaism. His name was originally Mendel, but upon his baptism he adopted the name Neander, from two Greek words signifying “new man.” He was at various times professor in the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin. He was the author of numerous works, the greatest of which was his “Church History.” He is universally conceded to be by far the greatest of ecclesiastical historians, and is commonly called “the father of modern church history.”FACC 358.1

Archibald Bower was born at Dundee, Scotland, January 17, 1686, and died in London, September 3, 1766. In early life he was a Catholic, and became a Jesuit. In 1726 he became a member of the Established Church of England, and was made librarian to the queen in 1747. His “History of the Popes” (London, 1750) contains the most copious account of the popes that has ever appeared in the English language.FACC 358.2

Eusebius of Caesarea, called the “father of church history,” was born A. D. 270. He was the first to collect the scattered annals of the first three centuries of the Christian church, in his “Ecclesiastical History,” which covers the ground from the birth of Christ to the defeat of Licinius, A. D. 324. He was very prominent in the Trinitarian controversy, though just which side he espoused in the Council of Nice it is difficult to decide, as his policy through life was to be on the winning side. This led him to be the eulogist of Constantine, whose intimate friend he became, and whose life he wrote, completing it just before his death, which occurred A. D. 340.FACC 358.3

John Karl Ludwig Gieseler was born at Petershagen near Minden, Prussia, March 3, 1793; he died at Gottingen, July 8, 1854. He was appointed director of the gymnasium of Cleve, in 1818, and professor of theology in Bonn University, in 1819. In 1831 he accepted a call to the University of Gottingen, where he spent the remainder of his life. His reputation rests chiefly on his “Church History.” The “Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia” says that this work is in its kind “one of the most remarkable productions of German learning, distinguished by its immense erudition, accuracy, and careful selection of passages.” And “McClintock and Strong’s Encyclopedia” declares it to be “beyond question, the most learned, faithful, and impartial compendium of church history that has ever appeared.”FACC 359.1

Philip Schaff, D. D., LL. D., was born at Coire, Switzerland, January 1, 1819. He studied at Coire, in the gymnasium at Stuttgart, and in the universities of Tubingen, Halle, and Berlin. After traveling through Europe as tutor to a Prussian nobleman, he became lecturer on exegesis and church history in the University of Berlin. From 1843 until 1863 he was a professor in the German Reformed Theological Seminary at Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Afterwards he lectured on church history in the theological seminaries at Andover, Hartford, and New York, and since 1869 has been a professor in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. He is one of the founders of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance, and has been prominent in the councils of that body, both in this and foreign countries. He was president of the American Bible Revision Committee, and attended several meetings of the British Committee, in the Jerusalem Chamber, London. He is the author of very many works, both in German and English, and some of his works have been translated into French, Dutch, Greek, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Syriac, and Arabic.FACC 359.2

Frederic William Farrar, D. D., was born in Bombay, India, August 7, 1831. He was educated at King William’s College, Isle of Man, King’s College, London, University of London, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was ordained deacon of the Church of England in 1854, and priest in 1857; in 1876 he became canon, and in 1883 archdeacon, of Westminster. He is quite prominent as an educator and a temperance worker, and is the author of very many works.FACC 360.1

Thomas De Quincey was born in Manchester, England, August 15, 1785, and died December 8, 1859. He was noted for his conversational powers, and his rare and varied stock of information. He became so proficient in Greek at an early age that his teacher said he could harangue an Athenian mob. His published works are numerous, and stored with information, which is conveyed in a most interesting manner.FACC 360.2

William D. Killen, D. D. (Presbyterian), was born at Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, April 5, 1806. He was educated at the Royal Academical Institution in Belfast, and in 1829 became minister of Raphoe, County Donegal, Ireland. In 1841 he was called to Belfast, became Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Pastoral Theology to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and in 1869 he became president of the faculty.FACC 360.3

John Lawrence von Mosheim, or Johann Lorenz, was an eminent German theologian, pulpit orator, and historian. He was born at Lubeck, in 1694, and died in 1755. He was educated at Kiel, and at the age of thirty-one became professor of theology at Helmstedt, where he obtained a wide celebrity as a teacher. In 1747 he was called to the chair of theology in the university at Gottingen, with the title of chancellor. Though not a prolific writer, he was an able one, and his great work, “Institutes of Ecclesiastical History,” originally written in Latin, has been translated into German, French, and English. Besides the work already mentioned, Mosheim wrote “Commentaries on Christianity before the Time of Constantine the Great” (referred to in this work as “Ecclesiastical Commentaries”), and “Morality of the Holy Scriptures,” a work in nine volumes, besides other works of minor importance. He also translated Cudworth’s “Intellectual System” into Latin.FACC 360.4

Alexander Carson, LL.D., a man eminent for his learning and for his ability as a writer, was born in Ireland in 1776, and died in his native land in 1844. He was educated in Scotland at the Glasgow University, and was for a time a Presbyterian minister, but his allegiance to the plain reading of the Bible caused him to become a Baptist. He was a prolific writer, and the author of numerous religious and theological works, prominent among which is his able and exhaustive work entitled, “Baptism, Its Mode and Subjects.”FACC 361.1

Joseph Bingham was one of the most learned divines that the Church of England ever produced. He was born in Wakefield, England, in 1668, and received his education at Oxford. He afterwards became a fellow of the University College, but being called upon to preach before the University, he expressed some opinions upon the Trinity, which, being regarded as heretical, raised a great storm, which induced him to leave the University. His opinions did not, however, place him under the ban of the church, and he afterwards received the rectory of Havant, in Hampshire, where he continued until his death, in 1723. The great work of his life was his “Antiquities of the Christian Church,” comprising eight volumes, the last of which appeared in 1722. Of this work, McClintock and Strong’s “Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Cyclopedia” says: “This great work is a perfect repertory of facts in ecclesiastical archaeology, and has not been superseded or even approached in its own line by any book since produced.” It has been translated and printed in German by the Catholics.FACC 361.2

Henry Hart Milman, D.D., a distinguished ecclesiastic of the English Church, was born in London in 1791, and died in the same city in 1868. He was educated at Eton and at Oxford, where he took the degrees of B. A. and M. A. Mr. Milman was the author of quite a number of works, but it is to his historical works that his fame as a scholar is mostly due. His “History of the Jews” was first published in 1829, and still later, his “History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire.” The work, however, which has made for him the greatest reputation, is his “History of Latin Christianity, Including that of the Popes to the Pontificate of Nicholas V.” This work consists of eight volumes, and was published in both London and New York in 1854. Though complete in itself, it is really a continuation of the author’s “History of Christianity.” Among Milman’s other works are “Life of Keats” and “Hebrew Prophecy.” In 1849 Mr. Milman was appointed dean of St. Paul’s, a position which he held till his death. He had previously been rector of St. Margaret’s, and rector and canon of Westminster.FACC 362.1

Socrates Scholasticus, the ecclesiastical historian, was born in Constantinople, near the close of the fifth century. He was educated in Alexandria, where for a time he practiced law and taught philosophy. Finally, however, he seems to have devoted himself entirely to the study of ecclesiastical history, and in the latter part of his life undertook to write a history of the church from A. D. 309, where Eusebius’s history ends, down to his own time; the work, which comprises seven books, was completed, however, down only to A. D. 440. It is said of Socrates that “he is generally considered the most exact and judicious of the three continuators of the history of Eusebius, being less florid in his style and more careful in his statements than Sozomen, and less credulous than Theodoret.” Like all the early church historians, he was a Catholic, yet “his impartiality is so strikingly displayed,” says Waddington, “as to make his orthodoxy questionable to Baronius, the celebrated Roman Catholic historian; but Valesius, in his life, has shown that there is no reason for such suspicion;” and he is now held in high esteem by Romanists generally.FACC 362.2

Adolph Harnack, D. D., Ph. D., was born at Dorpat, Russia, May 7, 1854. He studied in the famous university of his native town from 1869-1872; became tutor at Leipsic in 1874, and professor in 1876. In 1879 he became professor of church history at Giessen, and in 1886 at Marburg. His reputation as a scholar and author is very high in the theological world.FACC 363.1