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Three Trajectories in Nineteenth-Century Anglican Biblical Interpretation: From Narrow to Broad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2024

Cole William Hartin
Cole William Hartin*
Affiliation:
Associate Rector, Christ Church Episcopal, Tyler, TX, USA
*
Email: colehartin@gmail.com
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Abstract

Contemporary studies of Anglican biblical interpretation in the nineteenth century are scant. Those that do exist tend to paint the biblical interpretation of the period as unidimensional and flat. This paper highlights diverse ways the Bible was interpreted by Anglicans in the nineteenth century by looking at the writings of Charles Simeon, Benjamin Jowett, and Christina Rossetti. Each has interesting and distinct ways of approaching the Bible. The paper analyzes their interpretive practices before tracing them to the present and drawing out significant historical themes in each.

Keywords

Anglican biblical interpretationBenjamin JowettCharles SimeonChristina Rossettiinterpretation of scriptureVictorian Anglicanism
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , First View , pp. 1 - 15
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust

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References

1 Darren Sarisky, Reading the Bible Theologically (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), Daniel J. Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recovering a Christian Practice (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008); Ephraim Radner, Time and the Word : Figural Reading of the Christian Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016); Michael Legaspi, The Death of Scripture and the Rise of Biblical Studies (Oxford University Press, 2010); as well as the Brazos Theological Commentary of the Bible series or standalone volumes such as Stephen B. Chapman, 1 Samuel as Christian Scripture: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016). This new wave of interest in premodern exegesis was preceded by a prescient essay: David C. Steinmetz, ‘The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis’, Theology Today 37.1 (1980), pp. 27–38.

2 See John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Matthew Baker, Mark Mourachian and Seraphim Danckaert, eds., What Is the Bible?: The Patristic Doctrine of Scripture (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016) and Brad East, The Doctrine of Scripture (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2021).

3 Farrar, History of Interpretation: Eight Lectures Preached before the University of Oxford in the Year MDCCCLXXXV on the Foundation of the Late Rev. John Bampton (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1886).

4 Farrar, History of Interpretation, p. 14.

5 For a corrective to the oversimplification of the nineteenth century see Timothy Larsen, A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

6 Larsen, A People of One Book.

7 Rowan A. Greer, Anglican Approaches to Scripture: From the Reformation to the Present (New York: Crossroads, 2006), p. 97.

8 Greer, Anglican Approaches to Scripture, pp. 95–127.

9 There is very little recent scholarship on Simeon’s interpretation of Scripture. See Andrew Atherstone, Charles Simeon on the Excellency of the Liturgy (Norwich, UK: Hymns Ancient and Modern, 2011); Hugh Evan Hopkins, Charles Simeon of Cambridge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977); and Alexander C. Zabriskie, ‘Charles Simeon: Anglican Evangelical’, Church History 9.2 (1940), pp. 103–119. Much more has been written on Rossetti’s use of Scripture in recent years. See Emma Mason, Christina Rossetti: Poetry, Ecology, Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), especially pp. 4, 33–69; Lynda Palazzo, Christina Rossetti’s Feminist Theology (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002); Dinah Roe, Christina Rossetti’s Faithful Imagination: The Devotional Poetry and Prose (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007); Elizabeth Ludlow, Christina Rossetti and the Bible: Waiting with the Saints (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014), especially chapter five; Amanda W. Benchhuysen, ‘The Prophetic Voice of Christina Rossetti,’ in Recovering Nineteenth-Century Woman Interpreters of the Bible, Christiana De Groot and Marion Ann Taylor (eds.). (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 165–180; Andrew D. Armond, ‘Limited Knowledge and the Tractarian Doctrine of Reserve in Christina Rossetti’s “The Face of the Deep”’, Victorian Poetry 48.2 (2010), pp. 219–242; and Timothy Larsen, ‘Christina Rossetti, the Decalogue, and Biblical Interpretation’, Zeitschrift für neuere Theologiegeschichte 16.1 (2009), pp. 21–36.

10 William Carus, Memoirs of the Life of Charles Simeon: With a Selection from His Writings and Correspondence (London: Hatchard and Son, 1847), pp. 8–9.

11 Carus, Memoirs of the Life of Charles Simeon, p. 9.

12 Carus, Memoirs of the Life of Charles Simeon, pp. 43–45.

13 Charles Simeon, Horae Homileticae: Or Discourses, Now First Digested into One Continued Series, and Forming a Commentary upon Every Book of the Old and New Testament, to Which Is Annexed an Improved Edition of a Translation of Claude’s Essay on the Composition of a Sermon (London: Holdsworth, 1832–1833).

14 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 17, p. 497.

15 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 19, p. 72.

16 See his discussion of the ‘brasen altar’ and sacrificial cult of Israel in Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 1, pp. 572–573.

17 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 1, p. 571.

18 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 14, p. 189.

19 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 1, pp. i, iii, and iv.

20 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 1, p. xxiii.

21 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 17, p. 232.

22 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 17, p. 233.

23 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 17, p. 235.

24 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 17, pp. 235–236.

25 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 17, p. 236.

26 Simeon, Horae Homileticae, vol. 1, p. 292.

27 See Geoffrey Cust Faber, Jowett: A Portrait with Background (London: Faber & Faber, 1957), Lionel A. Tollemache, Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol (London: Edward Arnold, 1895) and Peter Bingham Hinchliff, Benjamin Jowett and the Christian Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). The term ‘Broad Church’ refers to a nineteenth-century movement within the Church of England that sought embrace reason, open-mindedness, and the best of scholarship (especially in history, textual studies, and science).

28 Benjamin Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, in Essays and Reviews, John William Parker (ed.) (London: Longman, 1861): pp. 330–433.

29 Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, p. 338.

30 Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, p. 330.

31 Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, p. 330.

32 Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, pp. 340–341.

33 Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, pp. 368–369.

34 Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, p. 369.

35 Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, p. 406.

36 Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, p. 404.

37 Benjamin Jowett, Scripture and Truth: Dissertations (London: Henry Frowde, 1907), pp. 125–126.

38 Benjamin Jowett, The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, Romans with Critical Notes and Dissertations, vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1859), p. 384.

39 Jowett, The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, Romans, p. 385.

40 For biographical treatment of Rossetti, see Georgina Battiscombe, Christina Rossetti: A Divided Life (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1981); Jan Marsh, Christina Rossetti: A Literary Biography (London: Jonathan Cape, 1994); Elizabeth Ludlow, ‘Christina Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites’, in The Oxford Handbook of Oxford Movement, Stewart J. Brown, Peter Nockles, and James Pereiro (eds.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 427–436 and Diane D’Amico and David A. Kent, ‘Rossetti and the Tractarians’, Victorian Poetry 44.1 (2006), pp. 93–104.

41 Christina G. Rossetti, Letter and Spirit: Notes on the Commandments (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1883), pp. 44–45.

42 Rossetti, Letter and Spirit, pp. 132–133.

43 Rossetti, Letter and Spirit, p. 45.

44 Dinah Roe, Christina Rossetti’s Faithful Imagination: The Devotional Poetry and Prose (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2007), p. 180.

45 Christina Rossett, Seek and Find: A Double Series of Short Studies on the Benedicite (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1879), pp. 30–31.

46 Christina G. Rossetti, Time Flies: A Reading Diary, seventh ed. (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1902).

47 Rossetti, Time Flies, pp. 109 and 211.

48 Rossetti, Seek and Find, p. 40.

49 Timothy Larsen, ‘Christina Rossetti, the Decalogue, and Biblical Interpretation’, Zeitschrift für neuere Theologiegeschichte 16.1 (2009), p. 29.

50 Larsen, ‘Christina Rossetti, the Decalogue, and Biblical Interpretation’, p. 29.

51 Rossetti, Time Flies, p. 272.

52 Rossetti, Time Flies, p. 272.

53 Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, p. 338.

54 See footnote one.