the College,” but all now seemed ready to concur. The post involved offering instruction in “Natural Theology and the Evidences”; in addition, Fisher would preach and serve as pastor of the university church, officiating at least once a week at prayers. He would receive $1300 annually—and salaries are soon to be raised to $1500 (“beyond a question,” Woolsey assures him). Woolsey claims the faculty’s agreement to Fisher’s appointment shows that Providence must be at work!295
Fisher’s appointment came over the objections of Noah Porter, who for two decades had taught courses in “Natural Theology and Evidences of Christianity” in the College. Porter reasoned that since Fisher had no particular philosophical training, he should not be allowed to teach theology.296 (Porter apparently suspected Fisher of wanting to teach philosophy—his own turf.297) Both appealed to President Woolsey. Fisher hotly rejected Porter’s implication that he was to be “merely like a city missionary or tractdistributor in college—prevented from guiding by thorough and careful discussions the religious opinions of the students—prevented from assailing ‘philosophical’ and all other unbelief.” It appears that Fisher won this dispute, as the catalogue for 1855–1856 lists him as teaching “Natural Theology and Evidences of Christianity” to the senior class.298 In 1858–1859, Fisher is listed as the Livingston Professor of Divinity,299 and in 1861 he was awarded the new Street chair in Ecclesiastical History.300 With this appointment, Fisher resigned his position as pastor of the university church, although he continued to preach throughout the difficult years of the Civil War.301 In 1895, Fisher became Dean of the theological faculty (i.e., the Divinity School), a post he held for five years.302
Upon Fisher’s retirement in 1900–1901, the Yale Corporation noted that he had given Yale more years of service—forty-six—than any other professor (excepting the “elder Silliman”) since the College had been founded, and praised his “expansive learning,” “truly Catholic spirit,” and “temperate attitude as a Theologian.”303 He had taught (after his seven years in the College) in the Theological Department from 1861 to 1901.304 His writings, one commentator claims, “struck the theological and apologetic note, with which was combined the historical approach.”305 After Fisher’s death in December 1909,306 a memorial window was dedicated in his honor. At the dedication ceremony, he was described as neither a liberal nor a conservative, but a middle-of-the-roader.307 Indeed, compared with the other professors here described, he seems rather bland. Since there is no biography of him, we lack details of his life and work that would have sharpened our picture.
Fisher was esteemed outside Yale as well. In 1873, he was invited to become a member of the Philosophical Society of Great Britain.308 He received seven honorary degrees.309 (President Charles Eliot of Harvard himself wrote to convey Harvard’s wish to confer an honorary D.D. on him during its 250th anniversary celebration.310) In 1897, Fisher served as President of the American Historical Association, delivering an address on “The Function of the Historian as a Judge of Historic Persons.”311
Fisher also was an editor of The New Englander, which advertised itself as disavowing “allegiance to any party in theology or politics.” Although the editors claimed that the journal would discuss issues of “public interest in literature, science, and philosophy” beyond the realm of theology, they also assured readers that it “will not be inattentive to the various assaults of rationalism against revealed religion, or to the position of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.”312 Several of Fisher’s essays were published in this journal.
Fisher wrote many lengthy serial articles, some of which, when combined, constitute book-length treatises. Of his published books, I here note the following: Essays on the Supernatural Origins of Christianity (1865);313 The Beginnings of Christianity with A View of the State of the Roman World at the Birth of Christ (1877); Discussions in History and Theology (1880, a collection of his essays); The Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief (1883, another collection of essays); Outlines of Universal History (1885); History of the Christian Church (1887);314 A Brief History of the Nations and of Their Place in Civilization (1896); and History of Christian Doctrine (1896). Several of his scholarly articles, more than his textbooks, show his interest in the Jewish streams of early Christianity and in combating modern German criticism; these essays shall be considered in the chapters that follow.
Colleagues elsewhere knew Fisher as a hard and rapid worker. James B. Angell, President of the University of Michigan, wrote to Fisher that his Outlines of Universal History (1885) has “work enough in it to break the back of a horse. Where under the sun do you find time to turn off books so fast? And when do you get the patience to accomplish such a job as this?”315 Daniel Gilman of Johns Hopkins deemed Fisher’s History of Christian Doctrine his best book, and wondered how its author had found time to write it, since Fisher had other duties associated with “an important chair.”316 Likewise, A. M. Fairburn of Mansfield College, Oxford wrote that the History of Christian Doctrine was “the best book in English on the subject, and for students altogether suitable”—adding his relief that Fisher had “departed from the bad example set by Harnack.”317
Ephraim Emerton (1851–1935)
Ephraim Emerton, the son of a pharmicist,318 was born in 1851 in Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard College in 1871, and attended Harvard Law School. He served for a time as secretary to the mayor of Boston, Henry L. Pierce, and worked as a reporter for the Boston Advertiser to earn money for study in Germany. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig in 1876. While in Germany, he attended the (senior) Droysen’s “practicecourse” (or seminar) in Berlin on historical method, in which, he later reported, students engaged in “unrestrained criticism” of each other’s papers “to the verge of savagery.”319 Returning from Europe, he was made Instructor of German (1876–1878) and History (1878–1882) in Harvard College. Emerton’s specialization was early medieval history, not then a typical subject at American colleges. In 1882, he was plucked from his duties in the College by President Charles Eliot to be the Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School, a post he held until his resignation in 1918.320
Emerton was a founding member of the American Historical Association; at its organizational meeting in 1884, he was one of only nine men present who held the rank of “Professor of History.”321 A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Emerton also served as President of the American Society of Church History in 1921.322 Since no biography remains of Emerton, many personal details of his life and teaching remain unknown.
Among Emerton’s writings are an interesting essay on “The Practical Method in Higher Historical Instruction” (1883); a textbook entitled An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages (375–814) (1888, 1896); Medieval Europe (1893); Unitarian Thought (1911, a scathing reflection on evangelicals); and a book of essays recounting aspects of his life as a professor of history, Learning and Living: Academic Essays (1921). His medieval and early modern interests came more prominently to the fore in his mature years, with books entitled Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1899); Beginnings of Modern Europe (1250–1450) (1917); the Defensor Pacis of Marsiglio of Padua (1920); Humanism and Tyranny (1925); and an edition and translation of the Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII (1932)—works whose subjects indicate that even by the early twentieth century, scholarship on history was not yet strictly regulated by specialization. It is notable that Emerton is the only one of the professors here discussed who did not attend divinity school and who, as a Unitarian, stood outside the evangelical nexus of Presbyterians and Congregationalists.323
These six professors pioneered the teaching of church history in America. The problems they encountered in developing a field that was new to Americans and that lacked most of the supports that
