Plummer, Alfred

PLUMMER, ALFRED: Church of England; b. at Heworth (near Gateshead, opposite Newcastle-on-Tyne), Durhamshire, Feb. 17, 1841. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford (B.A., 1863; M.A., 1866), and was ordered deacon in 1866, but has never been ordained to the priesthood. He was fellow of Trinity College (1865–75), and was tutor and dean of the same college (1867–74); he was master of University College, Durham (1874–1902), where he was junior proctor of the University of Durham (1875–77), senior proctor (1877–93), and subwarden (1896–1902). He was one of the last pupils of J. J. I. von Döllinger, and translated that theologian's Fables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages (London, 1871); Prophecies and the Prophetic Spirit in the Christian Era (1873); and Hippolytus and Callistus: or, The Church of Rome in the first Half of the third Century (Edinburgh, 1876). He has prepared Peter and Jude for The New Testament Commentary for English Readers (London, 1879); the Johannine Gospel and Epistles for The Cambridge Bible for Schools (Cambridge, 2 vols., 1880, 1882) and for The Cambridge Greek Testament (2 vols., 1882, 1886), and II Corinthians for the same series (2 vols., 1903); The Pastoral Epistles, James, and Jude for The Expositor's Bible (2 vols., London, 1888, 1890); Luke for The International Commentary (Edinburgh, 1896); and an independent commentary on Matthew (1909). He has also written the historical introduction to Joshua, Nehemiah, and the Johannine Epistles in The Pulpit Commentary (2 vols., London, 1881, 1889), and is the author of The Church of the Early Fathers (London, 1887); English Church History from the Death of Henry VII. to the Death of William III. (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1904–07); and The Church of England in the Eighteenth Century (1910).