Fenton John Anthony Hort

“ Their value and interest were soon widely recognised in the university, and before long no lecture-room then available sufficed to contain the hearers, both candidates for holy orders and older residents; so that leave had to be obtained for the use of the hall of Trinity. Nor was it through his public teaching alone that the university benefited. At a time of theological disquiet and violence outside Cambridge, Lightfoot's deliberate tone of toleration aided in counteracting any tendencies to disunion within the university. ”

“ He was at all times a most efficient supporter of every effort to increase the usefulness of the university. ‘One of the movements in which he’ was ‘concerned was the establishment of the local examinations.’ Though not the chief organiser, he ‘took a prominent part in moulding the scheme, and contributed much to giving it a fair start.’ In 1861 the prince consort, the chancellor of the university, made Lightfoot one of his chaplains. ”

“ The natural meaning of each verse is set forth without polemical matter. The prevailing characteristic is masculine good sense unaccompanied by either the insight or the delusion of subtlety. Introductions, which precede the commentaries, handle the subject-matter with freshness and reality, almost every section being in effect a bright little historical essay. The ample new material was chiefly drawn from Greek and Latin inscriptions and the exact study of localities. To each commentary is appended a dissertation, which includes some of Lightfoot's most careful and thorough work. ”

“ It is a model monograph, supplying a studiously fair and accurate account of that bishop's eventful life, and of his numerous and important writings.
The permanent value of Lightfoot's historical work depends on his sagacity in dealing with the materials out of which history has to be constructed. He was invariably faithful to a rigorous philological discipline, and was preserved by native candour from distorting influences. But history meant not less to him as a man than as a scholar. ”

“ On half-holidays they usually walked and read Greek plays together, and on whole holidays, in company with another friend, they made expeditions of thirty or forty miles on foot, visiting famous places. The intimacy lasted through life.
In October 1847 Lightfoot went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a pensioner, his college tutor being the Rev. W. H. Thompson, subsequently regius professor of Greek and master of Trinity. At the end of his first year he became a private pupil of B. F. Westcott, afterwards bishop of Durham, and read classics with him for the rest of his undergraduateship. ”

“ By will, and an immediately antecedent instrument, Lightfoot created a trust called ‘The Lightfoot Fund for the Diocese of Durham,’ for the erection of buildings for church purposes, the providing of ‘stipends for clergy and other spiritual agents in connection with the Church of England’ in the diocese, and for other purposes under the same conditions at the discretion of the trustees. ”

“ He was one of the original members of the New Testament Company of Revisers, which was at work from July 1870 till November 1880, and he was rarely absent from its sessions (occupying forty days in every year) till he was kept away by the claims of episcopal duties in the north. There is reason to believe that the general character of the revision was in no small measure determined by his earnest pleading at the first session against acquiescence in a perfunctory or inadequate type of revision, and especially in the use of a late and unrevised Greek text. ”

“ Having been elected a scholar of Trinity in 1849, the earliest then possible date, he was elected a fellow in 1852. ‘When Mr. Lightfoot makes one of his charges,’ was the comment of his tutor, Thompson, ‘there is no resisting him.’ The following years were spent in the routine usual for a young resident fellow who had taken high honours—private study, instruction of private pupils (till the end of 1855) , and college lectures. In 1853 Lightfoot obtained the Norrisian prize, the virtual subject being Philo. His essay was never published, and the manuscript was apparently destroyed by himself. ”

“ Westcott had come up from King Edward's School, Birmingham, to Trinity three years before him. The intimacy thus formed exercised thenceforward a powerful, yet never overpowering, influence over Lightfoot's mind. As an undergraduate Lightfoot appears to have matured slowly. ”

“ His first care was for the division of the diocese, which the enormous growth of the population of both its counties (Durham and Northumberland) within this century had long made a crying need. For some while, indeed, he found it inopportune, owing to commercial and agricultural distress, to ask for contributions to the endowment fund for the Newcastle see. But in the course of 1881 the funds still needed were collected, and on 25 July 1882 the first bishop of Newcastle was consecrated (cf. Durham Diocesan Mag. ii. 144 and 170) . ”

“ Some very fragmentary notes prepared by Lightfoot for his lectures on other epistles of St. Paul are extant, and selections from them appeared in 1895. In the first three published volumes the commentary is of a high order, and, though rarely of great length, abounds in valuable and pertinent matter not to be found elsewhere. Technical language is as far as possible avoided, and exposition, essentially scientific, is clothed in simple and transparent language. ”

“ The chief theme of this address, which was published, was the recent proposal that a university college should be founded at Liverpool. He maintained that such a college ought to be established in every great centre of population, and that women should be admitted to take advantage of it, the power of conferring degrees being, however, reserved for some central university. ”

“ With a view to supplementing the work of the parochial clergy, Lightfoot was desirous of creating a staff of diocesan preachers, and as a first step filled up a vacant canonry by the appointment of a ‘canon missioner’ for the diocese. He interested himself especially in the various missions and institutes for seamen in the great ports (cf. ib. iii. 165) , and under his guidance a diocesan board of education was established by the diocesan conference in 1886. ”

“ There never has been an apologist who was less of an advocate than Lightfoot. ... Not only measured by the standard of the official theology of the English church was he an independent free scholar, but he was this likewise in the absolute sense of the words. He has never defended a tradition for the tradition's sake.’
Apart from works already mentioned and separate sermons and addresses, there have been published: ‘Ordination Addresses and Counsels to Clergy,’ 1890, 2nd ed. 1891; ‘Cambridge Sermons,’ 1891; ‘Sermons preached in St. Paul's Cathedral,’ 1891 ”

“ Durham Diocesan Mag. iv. 14 sq.)
Meanwhile the ministrations of the clergy were supplemented by lay readers for many parishes, and (from 1886) by lay evangelists for several rural deaneries; and in some parishes the employment of the Church Army was approved. In order to increase the proportion of university men among his clergy, Lightfoot from the first made ‘Auckland Castle the seat of a small college of graduates preparing for ordination in his diocese ... and his last charge to young Cambridge friends was to “send him up some men to the north.” ”

“ During his episcopate he took part in four Church Congresses, presiding himself at Newcastle in 1881. At Leicester, in 1880, he read a paper on ‘The Internal Unity of the Church,’ and at Carlisle in 1884 on ‘The Results of recent Historical and Theological Research upon the Old and New Testament Scriptures;’ at Wolverhampton, in 1887, he preached one of the congress sermons. ”