Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
BROOKE FOSS WESTCOTT (1825-1901)
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: WAT-WIL
del.icio.us it!
|
See also:BROOKE See also:FOSS See also:WESTCOTT (1825-1901)
, See also:English divine and See also:bishop of See also:Durham, was See also:born on the 12th of See also:January 1825 in the neighbourhood of See also:Birmingham
.
His See also:father, See also:Frederick See also:Brooke See also:Westcott, was a botanist of some distinction
.
Westcott was educated at See also: The See also:time spent at Cambridge was devoted to most strenuous study . He took pupils; and among his pupils there were See also:reading with him, almost at the same time, his school friend Lightfoot and two other men who became his attached and lifelong See also:friends, E . W . See also:Benson and F . J . A . See also:Hort (v.v.) . The inspiring See also:influence of Westcott's intense See also:enthusiasm See also:left its See also:mark upon these three distinguished men; they regarded him not only as their friend and counsellor, but as in an especial degree their teacher and See also:oracle . He devoted much See also:attention to philosophical, patristic and See also:historical studies, but it soon became evident that he would throw his strength into New Testament See also:work . In 1851 he published his Norrisian prize essay with the See also:title Elements of the See also:Gospel See also:Harmony . In 1852 he became an assistant See also:master at See also:Harrow, and soon afterwards he married See also:Miss Whithard . He prosecuted his school work with characteristic vigour, and succeeded in combining with his school duties an enormous amount both of theological See also:research and of See also:literary activity .
He worked at Harrow for nearly twenty years under Dr C
.
J
.
See also:Vaughan and Dr See also:Montagu See also:
In 1865 he took his B.D., and in 1870 his D.D
.
He received in later years the honorary degrees of D.C.L. from See also:Oxford (1881) and of D.D. from See also:Edinburgh (1883)
.
In 1868 Westcott was appointed examining See also:chaplain by Bishop See also:Connor See also:Magee (of See also:Peterborough); and in the following year he accepted a canonry at Peterborough, which necessitated his leaving Harrow
.
For a time he contemplated with eagerness the See also:idea of a renovated See also:cathedral See also:life, devoted to the pursuit of learning and to the development of opportunities for the religious and intellectual benefit of the See also:diocese
.
But the regius professorship of divinity at Cambridge See also:fell vacant, and Lightfoot, who was then Hulsean See also:professor, declining to become a See also:candidate himself, insisted upon Westcott's See also:standing for the See also:post
.
It was due to Lightfoot's support almost as much as to his own great merits that Westcott was elected to the See also:chair on the 1st of See also:November 1870
.
This was the turning-point of his life
.
He now occupied a great position for which he was supremely fitted, and at a juncture in the reform of university studies when a theologian of liberal views, but universally respected for his massive learning and his devout and single-minded See also:character, would enjoy a unique opportunity for usefulness
.
Supported by his friends Lightfoot and Hort, he threw himself into the new work with extraordinary See also:energy
.
He deliberately sacrificed many of the social privileges of a university career in See also:order that his studies might be more continuous and that he might see more of the younger men
.
His lectures were generally on Biblical subjects
.
His Commentaries on St See also: One of his most valuable See also:works, The Gospel of Life (1892), a study of Christian doctrine, incorporated the materials upon which he was engaged in a See also:series of more private and See also:esoteric lectures delivered on See also:week-See also:day evenings . The work of lecturing was an intense See also:strain to him, but its influence was immense: to attend one of Westcott's lectures—even to See also:watch him lecturing---was an experience which lifted and solemnized many a See also:man to whom the references to See also:Origen or See also:Rupert of See also:Deutz were almost ludicrously unintelligible . Between the years 187o and 1881 Westcott was also continually engaged in work for the revision of the New Testament, and, simultaneously, in the preparation of a new See also:text in See also:conjunction with Hort . The years in which Westcott, Lightfoot and Hort could thus meet frequently and naturally for the discussion of the work in which they were all three so deeply engrossed formed a happy and privileged period in their lives . In the year 1881 there appeared the famous Westcott and Hort text of the New Testament, upon which had been expended nearly See also:thirty years of incessant labour . The reforms in the regulations for degrees in divinity, the formation and first revision of the new theological tripos, the inauguration of the Cambridge See also:mission to See also:Delhi, the institution of the Church Society (for the discussion of theological and ecclesiastical questions by the younger men), the meetings for the divinity See also:faculty, the organization of the new Divinity School and Library and, later, the institution of the Cambridge See also:Clergy Training School, were all, in a very real degree, the result of Westcott's energy and influence as regius professor . To this See also:list should also be added the Oxford and Cambridge preliminary examination for candidates for See also:holy orders, with which he was from the first most closely identified . The success of this very useful See also:scheme was due chiefly to his sedulous See also:interest and help . The departure of Lightfoot to the see of Durham in 1879 was a great See also:blow to Westcott . Nevertheless it resulted in bringing him into still greater prominence . He was compelled to take the See also:lead in matters where Lightfoot's more See also:practical nature had previously been predominant . In 1883 Westcott was elected to a professorial fellowship at King's . 
Shortly afterwards, having previously resigned his canonry at Peterborough, he was appointed by the See also:crown to a canonry at Westminster, and accepted the position of examining chaplain to See also:Archbishop Benson
.
His little edition of the See also:Paragraph Psalter (1879), arranged for the use of choirs, and his admirable lectures on the Apostles' Creed, entitled Historic Faith (1883), are reminiscences of his vacations spent at Peterborough
.
He held his canonry at Westminster in conjunction with the regius professorship
.
The strain of the See also:joint work was very heavy, and the intensity of the interest and study which he brought to See also:bear upon his See also:share in the labours of the Ecclesiastical Courts See also:Commission, of which he had been appointed a member, added to his See also:burden
.
See also:Preaching at the See also:Abbey gave him a valued opportunity of dealing with social questions
.
His sermons were generally portions of a series; and to this period belong the volumes Christus Consummator (1886) and Social Aspects of See also:Christianity (1887)
.
In See also: His See also:constant endeavour to See also:call the attention of the Church to the religious aspect of social questions was a See also:special See also:note in his public utterances . He was a staunch supporter of the co-operative See also:movement . He was practically the founder of the Christian Social See also:Union . He continually insisted upon the See also:necessity of promoting the cause of See also:foreign See also:missions, and he gladly gave four of his sons for the work of the Church in See also:India . His energy was remarkable to the very end . But during the last two or three years of his life he aged considerably . His wife, who had been for some years an invalid, died rather suddenly on the 28th of May 1901, and he dedicated to her memory his last book, Lessons from Work (1901) . He preached a farewell See also:sermon to the miners in Durham cathedral at their See also:annual festival on the loth of See also:July . Then came a See also:short, sudden illness, and he passed away on the 27th of July . Westcott was no narrow specialist . He had the keenest love of See also:poetry, See also:music and See also:art . He was himself no mean draughtsman, and used often to say that if he had not taken orders he would have become an architect . His literary sympathies were wide . He would never See also:tire of praising See also:Euripides, while few men had given such See also:minute study to the writings of See also:Robert See also:Browning . He followed with delight the development of natural sciencestudies at Cambridge . He spared no pains to be accurate, or to widen the basis of his thought . Thus he devoted one summer vacation to the careful See also:analysis of See also:Comte's Politique See also:Positive . He studied assiduously The Sacred Books of the See also:East, and earnestly contended that no systematic view of Christianity could afford to ignore the See also:philosophy of other religions . The outside world was wont to regard him as a mystic; and the mystical, or sacramental, view of life enters, it is true, very largely into his teaching . He had in this respect many points of similarity with the Cambridge Platonists of the 17th See also:century, and with F . D . See also:Maurice, for whom he had profound regard . But in other respects he was very practical; and his strength of will, his learning and his force of character made him really masterful in influence wherever the subject under discussion was of serious moment . He was a strong supporter of Church reform, especially in the direction of obtaining larger See also:powers for the laity . He kept himself aloof from all party strife . He describes him-self when he says, " The student of Christian doctrine, because he strives after exactness of phrase, because he is conscious of the inadequacy of any one human See also:formula to exhaust the truth, will be filled with sympathy for every genuine endeavour towards the embodiment of right See also:opinion . Partial views attract and exist in virtue of the fragment of truth—be it great or small—which they include; and it is the work of the theologian to seize this no less than to detect the first See also:spring of See also:error . It is easier and, in one sense, it is more impressive to make a See also:peremptory and exclusive statement, and to refuse to allow any See also:place beside it to divergent expositions; but this show of clearness and See also:power is dearly See also:purchased at the cost of the ennobling conviction that the whole truth is far greater than our individual minds . He who believes that every See also:judgment on the highest matters different from his own is simply a See also:heresy must have a mean idea, of the faith; and while the qualifications, the reserve, the lingering sympathies of the real student make him in many cases a poor controversialist, it may be said that a See also:mere controversialist cannot be a real theologian " (Lessons from Work, pp . 84-85) . His theological work was always distinguished by the place which he assigned to Divine See also:Revelation in Holy Scripture and in the teaching of history . His own studies have largely contributed in See also:England to the better understanding of the doctrines of the Resurrection and the Incarnation . His work in conjunction with Hort upon the Greek text of the New Testament will endure as one of the greatest achievements of English Biblical See also:criticism . The principles which are explained in Hort's introduction to the text had been arrived at after years of elaborate investigation and continual See also:correspondence and discussion between the two friends . The place which it almost at once took among scientific scholars in Great See also:Britain and throughout See also:Europe was a recognition of the great advance which it represented in the use and See also:classification of See also:ancient authorities . His commentaries See also:rank with Lightfoot's as the best type of Biblical exegesis produced by the English Church in the 19th century . The following is a bibliography of Westcott's more important writings, giving the date of the first See also:editions :—Elements of the Gospel Harmony (185x); History of the Canon of First Four Centuries (1853); Characteristics of Gospel Miracles (1859); Introduction to the Study of the Gospels (186o); The Bible in the Church (1864); The Gospel of the Resurrection (1866); Christian Life Manifold and One (1869); Some Points in the Religious Life of the See also:Universities (1873); Paragraph Psalter for the Use of Choirs (1879); Commentary on the Gospel of St John (1881); Commentary on the Epistles of St John (1883) ; Revelation of the Risen See also:Lord (1882) ; Revelation of the Father (1884); Some Thoughts from the Ordinal (1884); Christus Consummator (1886); Social Aspects of Christianity (1887); The Victory of the See also:Cross: Sermons in Holy Week (1888); Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (1889) ; From Strength to Strength (189o) ; Gospel of Life (1892); The Incarnation and See also:Common Life (1893); Some Lessons of the Revised Version of the New Testament (1897); Christian Aspects of Life (1897); Lessons from Work (1901) . Lives by his son B . F . Westcott (1903), and by J . See also:Clayton (1906) . (H . E . |
|
|
[back] 1ST BARON RICHARD BETHELL WESTBURY (1800-1873) |
[next] WESTERLY |
Additional information and Comments
There are no comments yet for this article.
Highlight the code below, right click and select "copy." Paste it into a website, email, or other HTML document.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.
Links to articles and home page are encouraged.
