Cyrus Scofield
Encyclopedia
Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (August 19, 1843 - July 24, 1921) was an American
theologian
, minister, and writer
whose best-selling annotated Bible
popularized dispensationalism
among fundamentalist Christians.
, Lenawee County, Michigan
, the seventh and last child of Elias and Abigail Goodrich Scofield. Elias Scofield's ancestors were of English and Puritan descent, but the family was nominally Episcopalian
. Abigail Scofield died three months after Cyrus's birth, and his father twice remarried during Cyrus's minority. Details of his early education are unknown, but there is no reason to doubt his later testimony that he was an enthusiastic reader and that he had studied Shakespeare and Homer.
. At the beginning of the American Civil War
, the 17-year-old Scofield enlisted as a private in the 7th Tennessee Infantry, C.S.A., and his regiment fought at Cheat Mountain
, Seven Pines
, and Antietam
. In 1862, after spending a month in Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond
, Scofield successfully petitioned for a discharge.
Scofield's activities during the next four years are unknown. By 1866 he was in St. Louis, Missouri
, where he married Leontine LeBeau Cerrè, a member of a prominent French Catholic family. Scofield apprenticed in the law office of his brother-in-law and then worked in the St. Louis assessor's office before moving to Atchison, Kansas
in late 1869. In 1871, Scofield was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives, first from Atchison for one year and then from Nemaha County
for a second. In 1873 he worked for the election of John J. Ingalls as senator from Kansas, and when Ingalls won, the new senator had Scofield appointed U. S. District Attorney for Kansas—at 29, the youngest in the country. Nevertheless, that same year Scofield was forced to resign "under a cloud of scandal" because of questionable financial transactions, that may have included accepting bribes from railroads, stealing political contributions intended for Ingalls, and securing bank promissory notes by forging signatures. Shortly thereafter Scofield may have been jailed on forgery charges.
Perhaps in part because of his self-confessed heavy drinking, Scofield abandoned his wife and two daughters during this period. Leontine Cerrè Scofield divorced him on grounds of desertion in 1883, and the same year Scofield married Hettie Hall von Wartz, with whom he eventually had a son.
, and he served as the secretary of the St. Louis YMCA
. Significantly, Scofield came under the mentorship of James H. Brookes
, pastor of Walnut Street Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, a prominent dispensationalist
premillennialist
.
In October 1883, Scofield was ordained as a Congregationalist
minister—while his divorce was proceeding but not yet final—and he accepted the pastorate of small mission church founded by that denomination, which became the First Congregational Church of Dallas, Texas
(now Scofield Memorial Church). The church grew from fourteen to over five hundred members before he resigned its pastorate in 1895.
In 1888 Scofield attended the Niagara Bible Conference
where he met pioneer missionary to China, Hudson Taylor
. The two became life-long friends, and Taylor's approach to Christian missions influenced Scofield to found the Central American Mission in 1890 (now CAM International).
Scofield also served as superintendent of the American Home Missionary Society of Texas and Louisiana; and in 1890, he helped found Lake Charles College (1890–1903) in Lake Charles, Louisiana. As the author of the pamphlet "Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth" (1888), Scofield himself soon became a leader in dispensational premillennialism, a forerunner of twentieth-century Christian fundamentalism
. During the early 1890s, Scofield began styling himself Rev. C. I. Scofield, D.D.; but there are no extant records of any academic institution having granted him the honorary Doctor of Divinity
degree.
In 1895, Scofield was called as pastor of Moody's church, the Trinitarian Congregational Church of East Northfield, Massachusetts
, and he also attempted with limited success to take charge of Moody’s Northfield Bible Training School. Although, in theory, Scofield returned to his Dallas pastorate in 1903, his projected reference Bible consumed much of his energy, and for much of the time before its publication, he was either unwell or in Europe. When the Scofield Reference Bible
was published in 1909, it quickly became the most influential statement of dispensational premillennialism, and Scofield's popularity as Bible conference speaker increased as his health continued to decline. Royalties from the work were substantial, and Scofield held real estate in Dallas, Ashuelot, New Hampshire
, and Douglaston, Long Island
. Scofield also joined the prestigious Lotos Club
.
Scofield left the liberalizing Congregational Church to become a Southern Presbyterian
and moved to the New York City
area where he supervised a correspondence and lay institute, the New York Night School of the Bible. In 1914 he founded the Philadelphia School of the Bible in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
(now Philadelphia Biblical University
).
Scofield's second wife proved a faithful companion and editing assistant, but his relationships with his children were distant at best. Scofield died at his home on Long Island in 1921.
, a theology that was in part conceived in the early nineteenth century by the Anglo-Irish clergyman John Nelson Darby
, who like Scofield had also been trained as a lawyer. Dispensationalism emphasizes the distinctions between the New Testament Church and ancient Israel of the Old Testament. Scofield believed that between creation and the final judgment there were seven distinct eras of God's dealing with man and that these eras were a framework around which the message of the Bible could be explained. It was largely through the influence of Scofield's notes that dispensationalism and premillennialism became influential among fundamentalist Christians in the United States.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
theologian
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, minister, and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
whose best-selling annotated Bible
Scofield Reference Bible
The Scofield Reference Bible is a widely circulated study Bible edited and annotated by the American Bible student Cyrus I. Scofield, that popularized dispensationalism at the beginning of the 20th century...
popularized dispensationalism
Dispensationalism
Dispensationalism is a nineteenth-century evangelical development based on a futurist biblical hermeneutic that sees a series of chronologically successive "dispensations" or periods in history in which God relates to human beings in different ways under different Biblical covenants.As a system,...
among fundamentalist Christians.
Youth
Cyrus Scofield was born in Clinton TownshipClinton Township, Lenawee County, Michigan
Clinton Township is a civil township of Lenawee County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 3,624 at the 2000 census. The village of Clinton is located within the township....
, Lenawee County, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, the seventh and last child of Elias and Abigail Goodrich Scofield. Elias Scofield's ancestors were of English and Puritan descent, but the family was nominally Episcopalian
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
. Abigail Scofield died three months after Cyrus's birth, and his father twice remarried during Cyrus's minority. Details of his early education are unknown, but there is no reason to doubt his later testimony that he was an enthusiastic reader and that he had studied Shakespeare and Homer.
Pre-conversion career
By 1860, Scofield was living with relatives in Lebanon, TennesseeLebanon, Tennessee
Lebanon is a city in Wilson County, Tennessee, in the United States. The population was 20,235 at the 2000 census. It serves as the county seat of Wilson County. Lebanon is located in middle Tennessee, approximately 25 miles east of downtown Nashville. Local residents have also called it...
. At the beginning of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, the 17-year-old Scofield enlisted as a private in the 7th Tennessee Infantry, C.S.A., and his regiment fought at Cheat Mountain
Battle of Cheat Mountain
The Battle of Cheat Mountain, also known as the Battle of Cheat Summit Fort, took place from September 12 to 15, 1861, in Pocahontas County and Randolph County, Virginia as part of the Western Virginia Campaign during the American Civil War. It was the first battle of the Civil War in which Robert...
, Seven Pines
Battle of Seven Pines
The Battle of Seven Pines, also known as the Battle of Fair Oaks or Fair Oaks Station, took place on May 31 and June 1, 1862, in Henrico County, Virginia, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. It was the culmination of an offensive up the Virginia Peninsula by Union Maj. Gen....
, and Antietam
Battle of Antietam
The Battle of Antietam , fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek, as part of the Maryland Campaign, was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with about 23,000...
. In 1862, after spending a month in Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, Scofield successfully petitioned for a discharge.
Scofield's activities during the next four years are unknown. By 1866 he was in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, where he married Leontine LeBeau Cerrè, a member of a prominent French Catholic family. Scofield apprenticed in the law office of his brother-in-law and then worked in the St. Louis assessor's office before moving to Atchison, Kansas
Atchison, Kansas
Atchison is a city situated along the Missouri River in the eastern part of Atchison County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 11,021. It is the county seat and most populous city of Atchison County...
in late 1869. In 1871, Scofield was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives, first from Atchison for one year and then from Nemaha County
Nemaha County, Kansas
Nemaha County is a county located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Kansas. As of the 2010 census, the county population was 10,178. The county seat is Seneca.- History :...
for a second. In 1873 he worked for the election of John J. Ingalls as senator from Kansas, and when Ingalls won, the new senator had Scofield appointed U. S. District Attorney for Kansas—at 29, the youngest in the country. Nevertheless, that same year Scofield was forced to resign "under a cloud of scandal" because of questionable financial transactions, that may have included accepting bribes from railroads, stealing political contributions intended for Ingalls, and securing bank promissory notes by forging signatures. Shortly thereafter Scofield may have been jailed on forgery charges.
Perhaps in part because of his self-confessed heavy drinking, Scofield abandoned his wife and two daughters during this period. Leontine Cerrè Scofield divorced him on grounds of desertion in 1883, and the same year Scofield married Hettie Hall von Wartz, with whom he eventually had a son.
Christian minister
According to Scofield, he was converted to evangelical Christianity through the testimony of a lawyer acquaintance. Certainly by the late fall of 1879, Scofield was assisting in the St. Louis campaign conducted by Dwight L. MoodyDwight L. Moody
Dwight Lyman Moody , also known as D.L. Moody, was an American evangelist and publisher who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts , the Moody Bible Institute and Moody Publishers.-Early life:Dwight Moody was born in Northfield, Massachusetts to a large...
, and he served as the secretary of the St. Louis YMCA
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
. Significantly, Scofield came under the mentorship of James H. Brookes
James H. Brookes
James H. Brookes, D. D. , American religious writer, was pastor of Walnut Street Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Missouri.The was named in his honor . Dr. Brookes was a prolific writer, having authored more than 200 booklets and tracts...
, pastor of Walnut Street Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, a prominent dispensationalist
Dispensationalism
Dispensationalism is a nineteenth-century evangelical development based on a futurist biblical hermeneutic that sees a series of chronologically successive "dispensations" or periods in history in which God relates to human beings in different ways under different Biblical covenants.As a system,...
premillennialist
Premillennialism
Premillennialism in Christian end-times theology is the belief that Jesus will literally and physically be on the earth for his millennial reign, at his second coming. The doctrine is called premillennialism because it holds that Jesus’ physical return to earth will occur prior to the inauguration...
.
In October 1883, Scofield was ordained as a Congregationalist
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
minister—while his divorce was proceeding but not yet final—and he accepted the pastorate of small mission church founded by that denomination, which became the First Congregational Church of Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
(now Scofield Memorial Church). The church grew from fourteen to over five hundred members before he resigned its pastorate in 1895.
In 1888 Scofield attended the Niagara Bible Conference
Niagara Bible Conference
The Niagara Bible Conference was held annually from 1876 to 1897, with the exception of 1884. In the first few years it met in different resort locations around the United States...
where he met pioneer missionary to China, Hudson Taylor
Hudson Taylor
James Hudson Taylor , was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, and founder of the China Inland Mission . Taylor spent 51 years in China...
. The two became life-long friends, and Taylor's approach to Christian missions influenced Scofield to found the Central American Mission in 1890 (now CAM International).
Scofield also served as superintendent of the American Home Missionary Society of Texas and Louisiana; and in 1890, he helped found Lake Charles College (1890–1903) in Lake Charles, Louisiana. As the author of the pamphlet "Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth" (1888), Scofield himself soon became a leader in dispensational premillennialism, a forerunner of twentieth-century Christian fundamentalism
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...
. During the early 1890s, Scofield began styling himself Rev. C. I. Scofield, D.D.; but there are no extant records of any academic institution having granted him the honorary Doctor of Divinity
Doctor of Divinity
Doctor of Divinity is an advanced academic degree in divinity. Historically, it identified one who had been licensed by a university to teach Christian theology or related religious subjects....
degree.
In 1895, Scofield was called as pastor of Moody's church, the Trinitarian Congregational Church of East Northfield, Massachusetts
Northfield, Massachusetts
Northfield is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 2,951 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, and he also attempted with limited success to take charge of Moody’s Northfield Bible Training School. Although, in theory, Scofield returned to his Dallas pastorate in 1903, his projected reference Bible consumed much of his energy, and for much of the time before its publication, he was either unwell or in Europe. When the Scofield Reference Bible
Scofield Reference Bible
The Scofield Reference Bible is a widely circulated study Bible edited and annotated by the American Bible student Cyrus I. Scofield, that popularized dispensationalism at the beginning of the 20th century...
was published in 1909, it quickly became the most influential statement of dispensational premillennialism, and Scofield's popularity as Bible conference speaker increased as his health continued to decline. Royalties from the work were substantial, and Scofield held real estate in Dallas, Ashuelot, New Hampshire
Ashuelot, New Hampshire
Ashuelot is an unincorporated village in the town of Winchester near the southwestern corner of New Hampshire. The village is named after the Ashuelot River, which flows through it....
, and Douglaston, Long Island
Douglaston, Queens
Douglaston, population 14,168 , is a community in the New York City borough of Queens. Douglaston comprises six distinct neighborhoods: Doug Bay, Douglas Manor, and Douglaston Hill, all located north of Northern Boulevard on the peninsula abutting Little Neck Bay; Douglaston Park, located between...
. Scofield also joined the prestigious Lotos Club
Lotos Club
The Lotos Club is a gentleman's club in New York City. Founded in 1870 by a young group of writers and critics, Mark Twain, an early member, called it the "Ace of Clubs"...
.
Scofield left the liberalizing Congregational Church to become a Southern Presbyterian
Presbyterian Church in the United States
The Presbyterian Church in the United States was a Protestant Christian denomination in the Southern and border states of the United States that existed from 1861 to 1983...
and moved to the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
area where he supervised a correspondence and lay institute, the New York Night School of the Bible. In 1914 he founded the Philadelphia School of the Bible in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
(now Philadelphia Biblical University
Philadelphia Biblical University
Philadelphia Biblical University, formerly called Philadelphia College of Bible, is a school located in Langhorne, Pennsylvania founded in 1913. Every undergraduate student graduates with a Bachelor's degree in Bible. In addition, students may work towards a dual degree, such as Business,...
).
Scofield's second wife proved a faithful companion and editing assistant, but his relationships with his children were distant at best. Scofield died at his home on Long Island in 1921.
Religious significance
Scofield's correspondence Bible study course was the basis for his Reference Bible, an annotated, and widely circulated, study Bible first published in 1909 by Oxford University Press. Scofield's notes teach dispensationalismDispensationalism
Dispensationalism is a nineteenth-century evangelical development based on a futurist biblical hermeneutic that sees a series of chronologically successive "dispensations" or periods in history in which God relates to human beings in different ways under different Biblical covenants.As a system,...
, a theology that was in part conceived in the early nineteenth century by the Anglo-Irish clergyman John Nelson Darby
John Nelson Darby
John Nelson Darby was an Anglo-Irish evangelist, and an influential figure among the original Plymouth Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism. He produced a translation of the Bible based on the Hebrew and Greek texts called The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation...
, who like Scofield had also been trained as a lawyer. Dispensationalism emphasizes the distinctions between the New Testament Church and ancient Israel of the Old Testament. Scofield believed that between creation and the final judgment there were seven distinct eras of God's dealing with man and that these eras were a framework around which the message of the Bible could be explained. It was largely through the influence of Scofield's notes that dispensationalism and premillennialism became influential among fundamentalist Christians in the United States.
External links
- C. I. Scofield books
- The Scofield Reference Bible Notes 1917
- Cyrus Scofield letters, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
- Rightly Dividing The Word of Truth
- Ernest Reisinger, "A History of Dispensationalism in America." Criticism of dispensationalism by a Southern Baptist with a Reformed perspective.