Theophilus Gale
Encyclopedia
Theophilus Gale was an English educationalist, nonconformist and theologian of dissent.
, Devon
, the son of Bridget Gale (née Walrond) and Theophilus Gale D. D. (d. 1639, vicar of Kingsteignton and prebendary of Exeter Cathedral
). Gale was educated by a private tutor, before attending grammar school, and being admitted to the University of Oxford
, entered Magdalen Hall in 1647 as a commoner. Magdalen Hall was shortly to be the home of nonconforming students: William Conway, John Cudmore, Joseph Maisters and, according to Edmund Calamy
, a 'Mr. Sprint'. In August 1648 Henry Wilkinson
was appointed as Principal; he was a major figure in Civil War and Protectorate Oxford, lecturing at Carfax Church between 10 October 1642 and 16 June 1662.
Gale became a demy (funded scholar) of Magdalen College
following the Parliamentary Visitation of 1648. Here he took his B. A. in 1649, becoming a Fellow and Tutor of Magdalen the following year and being awarded M. A. in 1652. He was then appointed lecturer in Logic (1652) and was later to become a Junior Dean of Arts (1657) and a Senior Dean of Arts (1658). One of his tutorial pupils was Ezekiel Hopkins
. In 1657 he had also been appointed a preacher at Winchester Cathedral
, alongside such luminaries as Humphrey Ellis
, perhaps Faithful Teate
(although this is difficult to substantiate) and George Lawrence (Chaplain of St. Cross Hospital). Magdalen itself was home to some of the most influential radical theologians of the day, including Thomas Goodwin
(President), Henry Hickman
(Fellow), Zachary Mayne (Fellow) and John Gipps (Chaplain). Gale's Congregationalism made him a natural ally of Goodwin, and may also have led to an association with John Owen
, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford and President of Christ Church for much of this period.
(1662) in services for all clergy and teachers. These stipulations permanently barred Gale from University teaching, government employment and the Church of England Ministry.
Gale was fortunate in his contacts. Philip Wharton
had been a supporter of Parliament in the Civil War and had built up a network of ministerial friends, including John Owen, Thomas Manton
, William Bates and John Howe. Wharton, a lay member of the Westminster Assembly
in the 1650s, continued an influential dissenting Member of Parliament for Buckinghamshire
through the Restoration period. He had connections in the United Provinces
and France. In 1662 he offered Gale £40 a year as tutor to his sons, a position which enabled Gale to travel to the French Huguenot College at Caen and meet other scholars including Samuel Bochart
. Gale's strictness as a teacher offended his patron and he was dismissed in July 1664. After taking the opportunity to travel for a few months, he returned to England in early 1665 and was back at Wharton's Quainton
estate before the end of the year.
The latter portion of his life Gale passed in London as assistant to John Rowe
, an Independent minister who had charge of a church in Holborn
, active in the lull of efforts against conventicle
s after the Great Fire. Gale settled at Newington Green
and took pupils: John Ashwood
of Peckham, and the two sons of John Rowe, Thomas
(who succeeded Gale as minister) and Benoni. Gale succeeded Rowe in 1677, and died in the following year.
, and all the theologies, sciences, politics, and literature of pagan antiquity to a Hebrew tradition. In a similar way he dealt with the origin of all philosophies. He also accounted for the errors of pagan philosophy and Catholic divinity by the theory of corruption by successive apostasies from a divine original. Constructively he proposed a reformed Platonism
, and tried to rescue the Calvinistic doctrine of predetermination from difficulties. Work left in store escaped the Great Fire of London
in 1666.
Gale's major work, The Court of the Gentiles, taking its name from the Court of the Gentiles in the Second Temple
, appeared in parts in 1669, 1671 and 1676. It takes the form of a storehouse of miscellaneous philosophical learning. It resembles the Intellectual System of Ralph Cudworth
, though many regarded it as inferior. Gale's endeavour (based on a hint of Grotius) was to provide evidence that the foundation of European Christian philosophy is a distorted reproduction of Biblical truths. Just as Cudworth referred the Democritean doctrine of atoms to Moses as the original author, so Gale tries to show that the various systems of Greek thought may be traced back to Middle Eastern and South Asian sources.
The Court of the Gentiles was attacked by the church and referred to as being chaotic and unsystematic. Biblical scholars claimed it lacked discrimination. Each of the four books is broken into multiple sections and the information organized into dozens of chapters. Most pages have dozens of references to previous authors, a flow of references woven into the text rather than being presented in footnotes.
Ars Sciendi (1681) by T. G. is now attributed to Thomas Gowan.
Early life
Gale was born at KingsteigntonKingsteignton
Kingsteignton is a town and civil parish in South Devon, England. It lies at the head of the Teign Estuary to the west of Teignmouth in the Teignbridge district. It is bypassed by the A380 and is also on the A383, B3193 and B3195....
, Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
, the son of Bridget Gale (née Walrond) and Theophilus Gale D. D. (d. 1639, vicar of Kingsteignton and prebendary of Exeter Cathedral
Exeter Cathedral
Exeter Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter at Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city of Exeter, Devon in South West England....
). Gale was educated by a private tutor, before attending grammar school, and being admitted to the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, entered Magdalen Hall in 1647 as a commoner. Magdalen Hall was shortly to be the home of nonconforming students: William Conway, John Cudmore, Joseph Maisters and, according to Edmund Calamy
Edmund Calamy (historian)
Edmund Calamy was an English Nonconformist churchman, divine and historian.-Life:A grandson of Edmund Calamy the Elder, he was born in the City of London, in the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury. He was sent to various schools, including Merchant Taylors', and in 1688 proceeded to the university of...
, a 'Mr. Sprint'. In August 1648 Henry Wilkinson
Henry Wilkinson (dean)
Henry Wilkinson was an English clergyman and academic, Principal of Magdalen Hall, Oxford and Whyte's Professor of Moral Philosophy, and later an ejected minister.-Life:...
was appointed as Principal; he was a major figure in Civil War and Protectorate Oxford, lecturing at Carfax Church between 10 October 1642 and 16 June 1662.
Gale became a demy (funded scholar) of Magdalen College
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
following the Parliamentary Visitation of 1648. Here he took his B. A. in 1649, becoming a Fellow and Tutor of Magdalen the following year and being awarded M. A. in 1652. He was then appointed lecturer in Logic (1652) and was later to become a Junior Dean of Arts (1657) and a Senior Dean of Arts (1658). One of his tutorial pupils was Ezekiel Hopkins
Ezekiel Hopkins
Ezekiel Hopkins was an Anglican divine in the Church of Ireland, who was Bishop of Derry from 1681 to 1690.-Life:He was born in Devon, and was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a chorister from 1648 to 1653, and graduated B.A. in 1655 and M.A. in 1656...
. In 1657 he had also been appointed a preacher at Winchester Cathedral
Winchester Cathedral
Winchester Cathedral at Winchester in Hampshire is one of the largest cathedrals in England, with the longest nave and overall length of any Gothic cathedral in Europe...
, alongside such luminaries as Humphrey Ellis
Humphrey Ellis
Humphrey Ellis, D.D. , was a Catholic divine, whose true name was Waring.Ellis belonged to a family 'of great antiquity and good account,' and finished his theological studies at the English College at Douay. On 25 August 1628 he was sent from Douay, with nine other students, under the care of the...
, perhaps Faithful Teate
Faithful Teate
Faithful Teate was a Protestant clergyman and poet from County Cavan, Ireland. He is sometimes known as Faithful Tate or Faithfull Teate. He was the father of the poet laureate, Nahum Tate.-Background:...
(although this is difficult to substantiate) and George Lawrence (Chaplain of St. Cross Hospital). Magdalen itself was home to some of the most influential radical theologians of the day, including Thomas Goodwin
Thomas Goodwin
Thomas Goodwin , known as 'the Elder', was an English Puritan theologian and preacher, and an important leader of religious Independents. He served as chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and was imposed by Parliament as President of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1650...
(President), Henry Hickman
Henry Hickman
Henry Hickman was an English ejected minister and controversialist.-Life:A native of Worcestershire, he was educated at St Catharine Hall, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1648. At the end of 1647 he entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and the next year obtained by favour of the parliamentary...
(Fellow), Zachary Mayne (Fellow) and John Gipps (Chaplain). Gale's Congregationalism made him a natural ally of Goodwin, and may also have led to an association with John Owen
John Owen (theologian)
John Owen was an English Nonconformist church leader, theologian, and academic administrator at the University of Oxford.-Early life:...
, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford and President of Christ Church for much of this period.
Ejected minister
Under the Act for Restoration of Ministers (1660) many Puritans and other radicals lost their jobs. Gale lost his place at Winchester Cathedral, and also was forced to resign his Fellowship at Magdalen. The Act of Uniformity (1662) required subscription on oath to the articles of the newly-restored Church of England and a faithful following of the newly-revised Book of Common PrayerBook of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
(1662) in services for all clergy and teachers. These stipulations permanently barred Gale from University teaching, government employment and the Church of England Ministry.
Gale was fortunate in his contacts. Philip Wharton
Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton
Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton , powerful Jacobite politician, notorious libertine and rake, profligate, and alcoholic, was one of the few people in English history, and the first since the 15th century, to have been raised to a Dukedom whilst still a minor and not closely related to the...
had been a supporter of Parliament in the Civil War and had built up a network of ministerial friends, including John Owen, Thomas Manton
Thomas Manton
Thomas Manton was an English Puritan clergyman.-Life:Thomas Manton was baptized March 31, 1620 at Lydeard St Lawrence, Somerset, a remote southwestern portion of England. His grammar school education was possibly at Blundell's School, in Tiverton, Devon...
, William Bates and John Howe. Wharton, a lay member of the Westminster Assembly
Westminster Assembly
The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. It also included representatives of religious leaders from Scotland...
in the 1650s, continued an influential dissenting Member of Parliament for Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
through the Restoration period. He had connections in the United Provinces
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...
and France. In 1662 he offered Gale £40 a year as tutor to his sons, a position which enabled Gale to travel to the French Huguenot College at Caen and meet other scholars including Samuel Bochart
Samuel Bochart
Samuel Bochart was a French Protestant biblical scholar, a student of Thomas Erpenius and the teacher of Pierre Daniel Huet...
. Gale's strictness as a teacher offended his patron and he was dismissed in July 1664. After taking the opportunity to travel for a few months, he returned to England in early 1665 and was back at Wharton's Quainton
Quainton
Quainton is a village and civil parish in Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England, north west of Aylesbury. The population is 1290, of which 1000 are adults. The village has two churches , a school and two public houses...
estate before the end of the year.
The latter portion of his life Gale passed in London as assistant to John Rowe
John Rowe (minister)
John Rowe was an English clergyman, minister to an important Congregationalist church in London.-Life:He was born in Crediton, Devon. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and Oxford, where he attended New Inn Hall....
, an Independent minister who had charge of a church in Holborn
Holborn
Holborn is an area of Central London. Holborn is also the name of the area's principal east-west street, running as High Holborn from St Giles's High Street to Gray's Inn Road and then on to Holborn Viaduct...
, active in the lull of efforts against conventicle
Conventicle
A conventicle is a small, unofficial and unofficiated meeting of laypeople, to discuss religious issues in a non-threatening, intimate manner. Philipp Jakob Spener called for such associations in his Pia Desideria, and they were the foundation of the German Evangelical Lutheran Pietist movement...
s after the Great Fire. Gale settled at Newington Green
Newington Green
Newington Green is an open space in north London which straddles the border between Islington and Hackney. It gives its name to the surrounding area, roughly bounded by Ball's Pond Road to the south, Petherton Road to the west, the southern section of Stoke Newington with Green Lanes-Matthias Road...
and took pupils: John Ashwood
John Ashwood
-Life:Ashwood was born in Axminster in 1657, and was the son of Bartholomew Ashwood. In his youth he was extremely delicate. He was educated by his father, and admitted "as a member of his father's church." Soon after he was sent to London, where he was received into the family of the learned...
of Peckham, and the two sons of John Rowe, Thomas
Thomas Rowe (tutor)
Thomas Rowe was an English nonconformist minister, significant as the teacher of the next generation of Dissenters, particularly in philosophy, in one of the first of the dissenting academies.-Life:...
(who succeeded Gale as minister) and Benoni. Gale succeeded Rowe in 1677, and died in the following year.
The Court of the Gentiles
Gale worked in the 1660s on manuscripts for a large-scale and erudite theoretical work of intellectual history; a hint in Grotius's De Veritate (i. 16) gave him the idea of the derivation of all ancient learning and philosophy from the Hebrew scriptures. He therefore traced European languages to the Hebrew languageHebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, and all the theologies, sciences, politics, and literature of pagan antiquity to a Hebrew tradition. In a similar way he dealt with the origin of all philosophies. He also accounted for the errors of pagan philosophy and Catholic divinity by the theory of corruption by successive apostasies from a divine original. Constructively he proposed a reformed Platonism
Platonism
Platonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In a narrower sense the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism...
, and tried to rescue the Calvinistic doctrine of predetermination from difficulties. Work left in store escaped the Great Fire of London
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...
in 1666.
Gale's major work, The Court of the Gentiles, taking its name from the Court of the Gentiles in the Second Temple
Second Temple
The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...
, appeared in parts in 1669, 1671 and 1676. It takes the form of a storehouse of miscellaneous philosophical learning. It resembles the Intellectual System of Ralph Cudworth
Ralph Cudworth
Ralph Cudworth was an English philosopher, the leader of the Cambridge Platonists.-Life:Born at Aller, Somerset, he was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, gaining his MA and becoming a Fellow of Emmanuel in 1639. In 1645, he became master of Clare Hall and professor of Hebrew...
, though many regarded it as inferior. Gale's endeavour (based on a hint of Grotius) was to provide evidence that the foundation of European Christian philosophy is a distorted reproduction of Biblical truths. Just as Cudworth referred the Democritean doctrine of atoms to Moses as the original author, so Gale tries to show that the various systems of Greek thought may be traced back to Middle Eastern and South Asian sources.
The Court of the Gentiles was attacked by the church and referred to as being chaotic and unsystematic. Biblical scholars claimed it lacked discrimination. Each of the four books is broken into multiple sections and the information organized into dozens of chapters. Most pages have dozens of references to previous authors, a flow of references woven into the text rather than being presented in footnotes.
Works
- 1669: The True Idea of Jansenisme, London
- 1669: The Court of the Gentiles, Oxford, 1669, 1670, 1671, 1672
- 1671: The Life and Death of Thomas TregosseThomas TregosseRev. Thomas Tregosse of Cornwall was a Puritan minister and vicar of the Rebellion period who was silenced for being a Nonconformist.-Early years:He was born in St Ives, the son of William Tregosse...
Late Minister of the Gospel, at MilarMylorMylor is a civil parish in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated approximately five miles north of Falmouth.The church town of the ecclesiastical parish is Mylor Churchtown: however, Mylor Bridge is the largest village in the parish...
and Mabe in Cornwal [sic], London - 1671 Theophilie: or A Discourse of the Saints Amitie with God in Christ, London
- 1672: The Anatomie of Infidelitie, London
- 1673: The Life and Death of Mr. John Rowe of CreditonCreditonCrediton is a town and civil parish in the Mid Devon district of Devon in England. It stands on the A377 Exeter to Barnstaple road at the junction with the A3072 road to Tiverton, about north west of Exeter. It has a population of 6,837...
in Devon, London - 1673: Idea Theologiae, London
- 1673: A Discourse of Christ's Coming, London
- 1676: Philosophia Generalis, London
- 1676: The Court of the Gentiles. Part II., London
- 1677: The Court of the Gentiles. Part III., London
- 1677: The Court of the Gentiles. Part IV., London, 1677, 1678, 1682
- 1678: Dedication to William Strong's A Discourse of the Two Covenants, London
- 1679: Christ's Tears for Jerusalems Unbelief and Ruine, London
Ars Sciendi (1681) by T. G. is now attributed to Thomas Gowan.