# Thomas Kelly Cheyne

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-19 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Crawford Howell Toy, Thomas Kelly Cheyne, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Thomas Kelly Cheyne
> 
> Crawford Howell Toy
> 
> published in Harvard Theological Review9:1
> 
> 1916-01
> 
> 1. Text
> 
> The appearance of the last product of Dr. Cheyne's
> pen[1] offers occasion to review briefly his work, and to
> estimate it as far as is now possible, bearing in mind that
> the significance of a scholar's work is not always clearly
> visible till some time after he has ceased to be active.
> 
> Cheyne was born in London, Sept. 18, 1841, and
> died in Oxford, Feb. 16, 1915. He was educated at
> Merchant Taylor's School and at Worcester College,
> Oxford, was ordained in 1864, became Oriel Professor of
> Interpretation of Scripture at Oxford with Canonry of
> Rochester attached in 1886, and Fellow of Balliol College in 1868. His life was devoted mainly to the critical
> study of the Old Testament, though he did not neglect
> the New Testament, and sometimes passed into the
> larger field of general religious history. His width of
> interests and the fertility of his mind are illustrated by
> the large number of articles that he contributed to the
> Encyclopaedia Britannica and to the Encyclopaedia
> Biblica, of which latter work he became general editor
> on Robertson Smith's death in 1894.
> 
> His Old Testament study seems to have had a very
> intimate relation to his literary and religious life. I was
> told by Professor Robertson Smith that at an early
> period in his career Cheyne fell into a state of perplexity
> and doubt, and seemed at one time to be on the point
> of giving up all interest in religion. From this depressing
> state he emerged through his critical studies, probably
> because these led him to separate the kernel from the
> shell, and to rest in the spiritual conceptions of the Bible.
> However this may be, his devotion to the Old Testament
> remained throughout his life, and he became one of the
> most influential English expounders of the new critical
> views.
> 
> He entered on his life-work at a favorable moment.
> For two hundred years eminent English thinkers had
> favored and to some extent practised a certain freedom
> in dealing with Biblical material, especially by laying
> stress on its higher side; there had been, however, no
> definite conflict of opinions on this subject before the
> nineteenth century. The theory of Astruc and the
> works of certain Continental scholars (especially De
> Wette, Ewald, Kuenen, Wellhausen, and Renan) had
> become known in England,[2] and gave an impetus to
> research. The result was a conflict in the ecclesiastical
> world. The first clash occurred in a Nonconformist
> body. Professor Samuel Davidson, of the Lancashire
> Independent College, had undertaken to edit a new
> edition of Home's Introduction and was asked to rewrite
> the volume dealing with the Old Testament. His treatment of the Old Testament, which was freely critical,
> was pronounced dangerous by the Committee of the
> College with such emphasis that he resigned his position
> (1856). In the Church of England, while the Tractarian
> movement concerned itself little with Biblical criticism,
> its anxiety being to maintain what it held to be the purity
> and authority of the Church, a storm was raised by the
> publication of Essays and Reviews (1860); one of the
> contributors was condemned in the Court of Arches
> but sustained by the Privy Council. Finally came on
> the Colenso case. Bishop Colenso was declared deposed
> by the Bishop of Capetown for his volume on the Pentateuch, and was reinstated by the Privy Council. This
> put an end to ecclesiastical prosecution in England for
> what was called critical heresy; liberty of Biblical research was established (1865). A few years later in
> Scotland Robertson Smith was removed from his chair
> in the Free Church College at Aberdeen for articles in
> the Encyclopaedia Britannica; but this action proved
> ineffective — freedom came to be recognized generally in
> Scotland.
> 
> Such was the atmosphere in which Cheyne began his
> Old Testament work. It was his commentary on Isaiah,
> the third edition of which appeared in 1884, that first
> established him as a scholar of importance. The variety
> of his learning, the vital character of his style, and his
> frankness and courage in the expression of opinion, gradually commended the work to a wide circle of readers,
> and his ideas, though they called forth opposition, were
> accepted by a considerable body of students in England
> and elsewhere. In later years he modified some of the
> critical views expressed in the commentary, but continued to hold his main conception of the constitution of
> the Book of Isaiah; so, for example, in his edition of the
> revised Hebrew text which was published in 1899 in the
> Sacred Books of the Old Testament. Some other prophetic
> writings (Hosea, Micah, Jeremiah) he treated in a similar
> critical manner. In 1888 his volume on the Psalter
> appeared under the title The Book of Psalms or The Praises
> of Israel, and secured immediate recognition by its fine
> religious spirit, the incisiveness and directness of its
> style, and its freedom of thought. Other works which
> revealed his geniality were The Hallowing of Criticism
> (1888), Aids to the Devout Study of Criticism (1892), and
> Founders of Old Testament Criticism (1893). His little
> volume, Jewish Religious Life after the Exile (in the series
> American Lectures on the History of Religions, 1898),
> though popular in style is helpful to other than general
> readers. He was one of the first to bring out clearly
> the value of the Book of Chronicles for the history of
> Jewish religious ideas in the period in which it was
> written (the third century B.C., according to Cheyne).
> 
> His helpful Old Testament criticism was brought prematurely to a close by his adoption of the theory (due
> largely to Winckler) that the main part of the records
> concerning the early history of Israel refer to a district
> in southern Judah called in Hebrew by a name (misr)
> which usually means Egypt. This district is connected
> with the Kenites, from whom, it is widely held, the Hebrews derived their initial cult of Yahweh; and the name
> of one of the clans of the region, Jerahmeel, by its similarity in form to Israel and other Old Testament names,
> suggested to Cheyne that it gives us the central point
> of the Israelite development. Thereupon in a series of
> volumes (Critica Biblica, etc.) he proceeded to rewrite
> the early history, substituting the name Jerahmeel for
> a great number of the names in the Hebrew text, undeterred by difficulties confronting such substitution.
> Though this procedure was generally condemned by
> scholars, Cheyne held on to it to the last. This unfortunate surrender to a baseless hypothesis was and is
> deplored by his friends as a mere waste of fine critical
> power. But it is generally felt that this lacuna in his
> critical work must not blind us to the value of the contributions he has made to Biblical science.
> 
> His latest literary output (in the volume mentioned at
> the head of this notice) is probably to be regarded not
> as a quite new departure, but rather as the formulation
> of ideas that had been long held by him more or less
> consciously. Though he had surmounted his early doubt,
> he seems never to have been in full sympathy with the
> Church creeds. His various writings show an increasing
> divergence from prevailing opinions; he was seeking
> what he thought or hoped to prove a larger scope and
> a purer atmosphere, and he fell in readily with certain
> Oriental conceptions and systems that had been making
> their way gradually in the Western world. He became
> a member of a Brahmanist Society, and was in intimate
> relations with the founder of the Bahaist Movement
> and with his son. He held that peace among nations
> could be secured only through religious union. Each of
> the great religions of the present day, he thought, might
> learn from the others, and a common faith would make
> all men brothers. Though he affirmed the superiority
> of the founder of Christianity to all other religious
> teachers, he seems to have been especially attracted by
> Bahau'llah and his formulation of religious truth — "one
> God, and he a God of love." This is by no means a new
> idea, but it seemed to Cheyne to acquire a new vital
> energy as preached by the Bahaists, and in his latest
> volume he supports it with enthusiasm. He does not
> discuss the details of the hoped-for movement towards
> universal peace; he does not, for example, consider
> whether history shows that social fusion and religious
> unification have always gone hand-in-hand. But whatever the difficulties in his theory and the obstacles to the
> fulfilment of his hope, the reader cannot fail to be impressed by his religious breadth and the nobility of his
> purpose.
> 
> In considering Cheyne's work as a scholar we must
> bear in mind the variety of his interests and his diverse
> intellectual tendencies. He was an omnivorous reader
> in his own special subjects without losing his hold on
> general literature — he was, for example, a student of
> Dante. He seized on new discoveries in ancient history
> and used them with effect for the illustration of his own
> researches. He was attracted by new theories, especially when they attached themselves to generally accepted facts; and his vivid imagination sometimes so
> clothed these theories with life that they seduced him
> into precarious generalizations and into unfortunate
> special pleading. His sympathy with broad ideas was
> strong, yet it sometimes led him to hasty conclusions
> which easily became a hindrance rather than a help to
> progress. He was a simple-minded man, holding to his
> own views with naive tenacity, aware of the existence of
> other views, but seemingly not looking on them as things
> that claimed his serious consideration. Opposing opinions he treated with kindness, never, so far as I have
> observed, speaking of their authors with bitterness or
> even sarcastically. His prevailing tone toward his literary opponents was one of gentle wonder and regret
> that they could fail to see data and inferences as he saw
> them.
> 
> In Cheyne's long career we have to recognize valuable
> contributions to Biblical criticism and exegesis made in
> his earlier books, and to honor him for his devotion to
> all that he believed to make for the discovery of truth
> and the well-being of men.
> 
> Notes
> The Reconciliation of Races and Religion. Thomas Kelly Cheyne. A. & C.
> Black, London. Pp. x, 214. 6s.
> 
> In America also they were not unknown. It will be remembered that the
> translation of De Wette's Introduction by Theodore Parker and Frederick Frothingham
> appeared in Boston in 1848-48.
> 
> 2. Page scans
> 
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> Views6559 views since posted 2015-03-04; last edit 2015-03-06 01:24 UTC;
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> previous at archive.org.../toy_thomas_kelly_cheyne
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> — *Thomas Kelly Cheyne (Used by permission of the curator)*