Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/245

Rh buted to Clement as a second epistle, together with short introductions and an admirable commentary. The volume was described as ‘the first part of a complete edition of the Apostolic Fathers.’ At the time Lightfoot contemplated ‘a history of Early Christian Literature,’ for which he reserved matter that would otherwise have accompanied the text. In 1877 he was induced by the discovery of the missing parts of Clement's two works, both in a Greek manuscript and in a Syriac version, to publish an appendix containing these new texts in the original with a commentary, various readings, complete English translations, and enlarged introductions. The preparation of a second edition was what chiefly occupied the hours given to study in the latest years of Lightfoot's life, and especially in the intervals of his illnesses. ‘He was busy with Clement till he fell into a half-unconscious state, three days before his death.’ This unfinished ‘second edition,’ which was issued in 1890, contains abundance of fresh matter, including two great essays on the ‘Early Roman Succession of Bishops,’ and on ‘Hippolytus of Portus.’ The former is the most successful attempt yet made to solve a problem as intricate as it is for purposes of chronology important, together with various subsidiary suggestions less likely to be ultimately accepted. The latter, though left incomplete, is again the most thorough monograph on the subject that we possess. Not the least interesting feature of the book is the attention bestowed on De Rossi's explorations of subterranean Rome, and the careful weighing of historical conclusions drawn from monumental and literary evidence in the field of Roman archæology.

The edition of Ignatius and Polycarp, which forms the second part of Lightfoot's ‘Apostolic Fathers,’ ‘was the motive,’ he tell us, ‘and is the core, of the whole.’ He was fascinated by the Ignatian problem nearly 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 abridgments 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 Antiochien’ (1873). The masterly defence of the conclusions thus slowly reached has already produced a clear though hardly a 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 2,000 pages, and the whole book is of a quality that needs no adventitious flavour of controversy. It abounds in texts and translations not only of Ignatius and Polycarp, but of various writings connected with their names. Much is done towards making Ignatius's own words free from textual corruption. The commentaries reach Lightfoot's usual standard, and in addition the martyrdoms under Trajan and the three following emperors are carefully investigated, with an examination of ‘imperial letters and ordinances’ concerning the Christians in these last three reigns. Another of Lightfoot's masterly contributions to patristic studies is his article on ‘Eusebius of Cæsarea’ in the ‘Dictionary of Christian Biography’ (1880). 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. He found it, he said, the best cordial for drooping spirits. He used all local and personal associations for impressing on others something of his own vivid sense of fellowship with men of different ages and of different nations. This characteristic he also signally exemplified in the sermons which were published after his death under the title ‘Leaders in the Northern Church’ (1890, 3rd ed. 1892).

What impression Lightfoot made on an eminently competent foreign critic and theologian, not personally known to him, may be learned from a tribute paid by Adolf Harnack, professor of church history at Berlin, in the ‘Theologische Literaturzeitung’ of 14 June 1890. ‘His editions and commentaries … as well as his critical dissertations have an imperishable value, and even where it is impossible to agree with his results, his grounds are never to be neglected. The respect for his opponent which distinguished him … has brought him the highest respect of all parties. … 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