LIGHTFOOT, JOSEPH BARBER

Anglican scripturist, patrologist, and bishop, known especially for his commentaries on the Pauline Epistles; b. Liverpool, England, April 13, 1828; d. Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, Dec. 21, 1889. After his studies at King Edward's School, Birmingham, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge (1847), where he was a private pupil of B. F. westcott and worked as editor with F. J. A. Hort on the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology (1854–59). He was appointed tutor of Trinity College in 1857 and was ordained the next year. He then became in turn Hulsean professor (1861), chaplain to the prince consort and honorary chaplain to the queen, Whitehall preacher (1866), canon of St. Paul's (1871), and Lady Margaret professor of divinity (1875). Consecrated bishop of Durham in 1879, he administered this office until his death a decade later. His commentaries on the Epistles to the Galatians (1865), Philippians (1868), and Colossians (1875), by reason of their historical insight, mark a new era in New Testament exegesis in England. His works on the Apostolic Fathers are thorough, painstaking studies much esteemed by patristic scholars. For a bibliography of Lightfoot's principal works, see the Quarterly Review 176 (1893): 73.

Bibliography: f. j. a. hort, The Dictionary of National Biography from the Earliest Times to 1900, 63 v. (London 1885–1900) 11:1111–19. Quarterly Review 176 (1893): 73–105. a. c. benson, The Leaves of the Tree (London 1911) 187–211. g. r. eden and f.c. macdonald, eds., Lightfoot of Durham (Cambridge 1932).

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