Thursday, January 12, 2023

It is the 12th of January 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

There are some people upon whom reading about and perhaps outlining their life for an episode of this show makes me some combination of exhausted and ashamed for being lazy. Then again, these folks usually lived before there were televisions and professional sports to watch.

Such a man is Henry Alford- a writer, editor, teacher, poet, handyman, Anglican priest, translator, and author of the Greek New Testament- a 4 volume critical edition of the New Testament with philological notes. One of his biographers suggested that he was so smart. Had he not attempted to do everything, he may have risen to be the greatest in one chosen field. 

Alford was born in 1810 to a family of Anglican priests going back 5 generations. His mother died when he was very young, and he was raised by his grandparents, his own father for a time, and then at various boarding schools across England.

He was a precocious young boy- by the age of six, he had written a book on the travels of St. Paul. By 8, he had written several odes in Latin. By nine, he had made a book-length outline of the Old Testament, and by 10, he had written a collection of homilies on New Testament passages in a book he titled “Looking Unto Jesus.”

In 1827 at the age of 17, he went to Cambridge. By 1833 he was a published poet (he was school friends with Alfred Lord Tennyson) and, in 1834, was made a fellow at Cambridge. In 1836 he married his cousin, the daughter of his uncle. During their engagement, Alford wrote a Greek grammar specifically to teach her Greek such that she could read the New Testament with him in the original language.

In 1838 he published a collection of poems by John Donne and wrote the historical introduction. He was offered the bishopric of New Zealand but was more at home with his books than on the move. From 1853 to 1857, he preached at the Quebec Street Chapel in London- his sermons there would later be published in seven volumes.

It was from 1841 to 1861 that he devoted his time to the Greek New Testament- a kind of textual commentary published in 4 volumes. Unlike many commentaries, it was not as theological as it was philological. It is here that we derive the so-called “Alford’s Law,” which states that if a word is used twice in the same context, it is likely to be interpreted the same way.  (This comes from his discussion of the various resurrections in the book of Revelation).

Part of what took him so long to produce his commentaries was his insistence on learning German so that he could read the German critic's books that were increasingly relevant in academic circles. He was himself on the evangelical side of the Anglican Church and sought peace- in writing for a curate in his church, he wrote:

“I want him to teach and preach Jesus Christ, and not the church, and to be fully prepared to recognize the pious dissenter as a brother in Christ and as much a member of the church as ourselves.” 

He would also translate Homer’s Odyssey and write devotions. In 1861 he wrote the words and music to a Christmas play that was performed with Henry himself taking the role of Father Christmas.

He was a member of a metaphysical society and a society for church architecture. It is said that he built his own organ and constructed a walking stick in which he could keep his money and drawing supplies. In 1870 he published a collection of paintings he made of the French Riviera.

A true polymath (or Renaissance man), Henry Alford was a priest, poet, philologist, and New Testament Scholar. Henry Alford, born in 1810, died on this the 12th of January in 1871- he was 61 years old.

 

The last word for today comes from- a hymn by Henry Alford- the first two stanzas of Come, Ye Thankful People Come:

1 Come, ye thankful people, come,

raise the song of harvest home;

all is safely gathered in,

ere the winter storms begin.

God our Maker doth provide

for our wants to be supplied;

come to God's own temple, come,

raise the song of harvest home.

 

2 All the world is God's own field,

fruit as praise to God we yield;

wheat and tares together sown

are to joy or sorrow grown;

first the blade and then the ear,

then the full corn shall appear;

Lord of harvest, grant that we

wholesome grain and pure may be.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 12th of January 2023 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose own walking cane has a secret compartment for emergency coffee and pez. He is Christopher Gillespie. 

The show is written and read by a man still in Arkansas, and in his head, he always says “ar-kansas” I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.