KNOX-LITTLE, WILLIAM JOHN: Church of
England; b. at Stewartstown (12 m. n. of Armagh),
County Tyrone, Ireland, Dec. 1, 1839. He was
educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A.,
1862), and was ordered deacon in 1863 and ordained
priest in the following year. He was curate of Christ
Church, Lancaster (1863-64), assistant master of
Sherborne School (1865-70), curate of Turweston,
Bucks (1870-74), and of St. Thomas, Regent Street,
London (1874-75), and rector of St. Alban's,
Cheetwood, Manchester (1875-85), and vicar of Hoar
Cross, Burton-on-Trent (1885-1907). He has also
been canon of Worcester since 1881, proctor
for chapter in Convocation of Canterbury since
1888, and subdean of Worcester since 1902. He
has written: The Three Hours' Agony of Our Blessed
Redeemer (Manchester, 1877); Sermons preached far
the most Part in Manchester (London, 1880);
Characteristics and Motives of the Christian Life (1880);
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with Schleiermacher and especially Neander. In
1833 he was called to the Johanneum at Hamburg
as professor of Biblical philology and philosophy,
and in 1840 he became professor of theology
at Rostock, where he remained until the end of his
life. He lectured chiefly on systematic and practical
theology. He was also elected preacher of the
university and leader of the homiletical seminar,
in 1844 a member of the theological board of examiners,
and in 1851 a member of the consistory. He
took a very active part in the affairs of the university,
being elected six times its rector. His life
work tended throughout toward the practical side
of religious and churchly life. He made it his chief
task to combat rationalism in the theological faculty,
and in the State Church of Mecklenburg; and he
was especially in harmony with Kliefoth's efforts
(see
KLIEFOTH, THEODOR FRIEDRICH DETHLOF) for
the reassertion of the Lutheran confession and the
Lutheran church order. His most important dogmatic
work is
Die Lehre von der Sünde und vom
Tode in ihrer Beziehung zu einander und zu der
Auferstehung Christi (Hamburg, 1836). According
to Krabbe, Schleiermacher with his doctrine of the
activity of the redemption of Christ had firmly
founded an essential basis of Christian conviction,
but because he ignored the essence and importance
of sin, he had not penetrated to an adequate understanding
of atonement and redemption. Krabbe
developed on the basis of the Old and New Testament
the Biblical doctrines of the original condition,
of the fall and its consequences, emphasizing
the fact of the resurrection of Christ in its central
importance. Other works are:
Vorlesungen über
das Leben Jesu (1839);
Die evangelische Landeskirche Preussens und ihre öfentlichen Rechtsverhältnisse
(Rostock, 1849);
August Neander (Hamburg,
1852);
Die Universität Rostock im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert
(Rostock, 1854);
Aus dem kirchlichen und
ausserkirchlichen Leben Rostocks. Zur Geschichte
Wallensteins und des dreissigjährigen Krieges (Berlin,
1863);
Heinrich Müller und seine Zeit (Rostock,
1866);
David Chytraeus (1870);
Wider die gegenwärtige Richtung des Staatslebens im Verhältnis zur
Kirche (1873).
(K. SCHMIDT.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Allgemeine evangelisch-lutherische Kirchenzeitung,
1874, pp. 99 sqq.; Evangelische Kirchenzeitung,
1874, pp. 209 sqq.