HORT, FENTON JOHN ANTHONY: English theologian and Biblical scholar; b. at Dublin Apr.
86823, 1828; d. at Cambridge Nov. 30, 1892. lie went to school at Rugby, and in 1846 entered the University of Cambridge, where he won a fellowship in 1852. In 1853 he began to prepare, with B. F. Westcott, an edition of the Greek New Testament. In that same year he was entrusted with the description of some Greek manuscripts in the university library; he was appointed examiner, and he founded, with J. E. B. Mayor and J. B. Lightfoot, the Journal of Classical aced Sacred Philology, that first came out in 1854. In 1856 he was ordained priest, and in 1857 he became vicar of St. Ippolyts cum Great Wymondley, near Cambridge, but he felt himself that his sensitiveness and shyness hampered his work there, for all the vigor with which he threw himself into it. He was constantly busy with the edition of the Greek New Testament, as well as with other learned tasks, and his health suffered under it all. Cambridge called upon him again and again, especially after 1865. He was four times examiner in moral science, twice examiner in natural science, and in 1871 he gave the Hulsean lectures. He had become in 1868 one of the most important contributors to Smith and Wace's Dic tionary of Christian Biography, and in 1870 one of the chief members of the New Testament Revision Company. Every good work in his neighborhood found in him a promoter.
The university finally received him again within its limits, for in 1871 Emmanuel College gave him a fellowship and lectureship for theology, and he moved to Cambridge in Mar., 1872. For six years he lectured in this college. At the same time he was a member of about fifteen boards and committees, two of which, the university library and the university press, demanded much time and strength. In 1876 his Two Dissertations appeared, on, MovGYe* Bebs and on Eastern creeds. It was in 1878 that he first wrote the rough draft of the introduction to the edition of the Greek New Tester went, and in the same year he became Hulsean professor of divinity. The work upon the revision of the English New Testament closed in 1880, but he then had to take up the revision of the Old Testament Apocrypha that busied him up to within a few days before he passed away. On May 12, 1881, the first volume of the great Westcott-Hort New Testament appeared, and on the 17th of the same month the Revised Edition of the English New Testament, on which he had worked for ten years, and on Sept. 4 of the same year the second volume, the Introduction to the Greek Testament (see Bible Text, II., 2, § 8). In 1885 he published a school edition of the Greek Testament, and superintended the issue of the Prolegomena to Tregelles' Greek Testament; and in 1884 he saw to the issue of a Greek Testament by Scrivener, containing the readings of the revisers in 1611 and 1881, and he practically rewrote the preface to it. His extraordinary knowledge of patristic literature enabled him in 1887 to contribute largely to the clearing up of the history of the Codez Amintinus. In Oct., 1887, he became Lady Margaret's professor of divinity. But all these detailed references to the outcropping of his learned researches need to be supplemented by a background of a full correspondence with all man-
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Bibliography: A. F. Hort, Life and Letters of F. J. A. Hort, by lie son, 2 vols., London, 1896; DNB, Supply tnent, ii. 443-447.
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