John William Colenso: a Fresh Appraisal

It is probably no one's fault that general histories of the Church in the nineteenth century are so misleading about bishop Colenso. Unless one gets down to the primary source material, which is almost all in South Africa, there is no way of escaping from the distortions of controversy. Almost...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hinchliff, Peter 1929-1995 (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Cambridge Univ. Press 1962
In: The journal of ecclesiastical history
Year: 1962, Volume: 13, Issue: 2, Pages: 203-216
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:It is probably no one's fault that general histories of the Church in the nineteenth century are so misleading about bishop Colenso. Unless one gets down to the primary source material, which is almost all in South Africa, there is no way of escaping from the distortions of controversy. Almost all the books about Colenso are unreliable. His own biography was written by an ardent admirer who hoped to succeed him as bishop of Natal. The lives of his principal opponents, Robert Gray and James Green, are just as unsatisfactory. Gray's life was written by his son. Green's was written by Dr. Wirgman, a frank and open controversialist. Histories of the Province of South Africa are either missionary propaganda, or else become so immersed in the constitutional and legal issues connected with Colenso, that the character of the man himself is lost. In consequence, the bishop of Natal appears in history as a kind of religious schizophrenic—on the one hand a great missionary who loved the Zulu people with an infinite tenderness and, on the other, a wilful and spiteful heretic for whom no action was too base and mean. Or, worse still, he is represented as a brilliant but misunderstood fore-runner of modern biblical scholars who was also by accident a South African missionary.
ISSN:1469-7637
Contains:Enthalten in: The journal of ecclesiastical history
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900068342