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Biography
i Parental
Home
ii
Childhood,
first Lessons and Study
iii Professorship
in Aberdeen and Encyclopaedia Britannica
iv The Heresy Trial
v Edinburgh
and Cambridge
vi Last Years
vii William
Robertson Smith: a Postscript
viii Literature
and Abbreviations
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Notices and Contact
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© Astrid Hess &
Andreas Hess 2006
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The Heresy Trial
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Initially, there was little reaction to the publication
of the “bible” article. Then, in April 1876, an anonymous
review was printed in the Edinburgh Courant, the author of which
expressed his worst fears for the spiritual welfare of those
members of the public who might now freely read such views as
Robertson Smith had expressed. The writer, generally acknowledged
to be Dr A. H. Charteris, professor of Church History at Edinburgh
University, was a highly orthodox member of the established
church. At the time, Robertson Smith together with his friend, the
painter George Reid, unsuspecting were on a journey through the
Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Together they kept an
illustrated travel-diary which later came to be printed in a
private edition as Notes and Sketches. Accompanying the
pair were Robertson Smith’s two youngest sisters, Alice and
Lucy, who were to stay in Germany to complete their education. |
William
Robertson Smith, George Reid, 1876, FP |
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The
Courant article soon stirred up a hornet’s nest. The College
Committee met and, as it wished to have the matter resolved as
quickly and quietly as possible, Robertson Smith was asked to
apologise and publish a recantation. This he refused to do and a
year later, at the May General Assembly of 1877 – for the wheels
of the Presbytery turned very slowly – he demanded that formal
charges (a “libel” in church law) be laid against him so that
he might defend himself adequately against the imputation of
heresy. This resulted in his lectureship being temporarily
withdrawn. Fundamental hotheads of those in favour of a heresy
trial were Dr James Begg, a man of uncompromising Presbyterian
orthodoxy, and Sir Henry Wellwood Moncreiff, leader of the so
called Highland Horde and an eminent Free Church expert in
ecclesiastical law. It was the latter’s request to keep up the
banner of the righteous. Robert Rainy, Principal of the Edinburgh
Free Church College, initially avoided taking sides and made
genuine efforts to reach a compromise but ultimately was to withdraw his support from Robertson Smith. |
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Illustrated
Weekly, 27.05.1880, Sketch
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Apart
from the general charge of expressing “unsettling” opinions
which cast doubt on the divine authority and inspired character of
the Bible, eight separate counts laid against Robertson Smith, all
relating to his expressed views on the biblical text. After
lengthy preparation the first public trial was held at the Free
Church General Assembly - supposed in Glasgow - during May, 1878.
A large audience was present in view of the enormous level of
public interest in the affair. No decision was made, however, and
the case dragged on. Though popular opinion, be it minister, be it
flock, seemed to be strongly on the side of Robertson Smith, the
more conservative members of the Free Church had no intention of
conceding defeat and repeatedly postponed any final, definitive
vote. One by one, the specific counts were dropped until only that
relating to the date and authorship of Deuteronomy remained.
Finally, after three years on May 25, 1880, the Assembly formally
cleared Robertson Smith of heresy but agreed that he should be
cautioned to abstain in future from expressing “incautious or
incomplete public statements”. |
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Nevertheless, peace was to reign only briefly
within the Free Church. Soon after this apparent victory for the
Robertson Smith cause, the next volume of EB9 was
released from the printing press. It contained a further article
from Robertson Smith’s pen, “Hebrew
Language and Literature”, which confirmed the author’s
unchanged critical view concerning the history of the origins of
the Old Testament. This was to prove simply too much for the
orthodox believer. The young professor was accused of dishonesty,
irrespective of the fact that the new volume had been prepared for
printing well before the conclusion of the trial. After an
Assembly debate in 1881, Robertson Smith was dismissed at the end
of May from his professorial chair at the Free Church College of
Aberdeen.
If that verdict and the loss of his teaching work seemed to
represent complete defeat for Robertson Smith, subsequent history
was to demonstrate that the true victory was his. By the end of
the century, the principles of biblical “higher criticism”
were fully accepted by virtually all British theologians and their
findings freely communicated. Even within the Free Church itself
there came a more liberal view of such matters. Greater freedom of
expression was allowed in both pulpit and college lecture rooms,
without detriment to religious faith. And, one might add, the
Scots people felt rather proud of their young, brilliant
fellow-countryman whose sharp mind and polished argument had
enabled him to stand firm against the weight of the clerical
establishment. |
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Free
from the duties of his chair, Robertson Smith had undertaken
several journeys to the Near East during the protracted trial. The
winters of 1878/79 and 1879/80 saw him in Egypt, Palestine and the
Arabian Peninsula where he quickly grew familiar with the language
and culture of a people whose origins and traditions fascinated
him. He visited ancient sites and deciphered inscriptions. With
his ready skill in acquiring Arabic, he was to relate easily to
people of all kinds. At first he followed the usual tourist routes
but soon penetrated deeper into the Arab world which was barely
known to westerners at that time. On his second journey, he
secured permission from the Emir of Mecca to travel from Jeddah to
Taîf crossing the holy district around the pilgrimage places, in
appropriate garb – a burnous. |
Abdulla
Effendi, 1880, B&C |
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During the first months of 1881 Robertson Smith delivered
on invitation of sympathetic friends within the Free Church a
series of extremely popular and well-attended public lectures in
both Edinburgh and Glasgow on bible criticism in relation to the
Old Testament. These were rapidly published in book form under the
title The Old Testament in the Jewish Church (second
edition in 1895, translated into German in 1894) and formed his
first authoritative publication in this field.
A year later, following a second, equally successful
lecture series, The Prophets of Israel and their Place in
History to the Close of the Eighth Century B. C. was published
(second edition in 1895, more editions until now). Thereafter
Robertson Smith’s interest was to turn increasingly to the field
of comparative religion. |
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