James Usher, or Ussher, D.D., born at Dublin, Ireland, Jan. 4, 1580, educated at Trinity Coll., Dublin, where he became a fellow; took orders in the Church of England 1601; became chancellor of the cathedral of St. Patrick 1607; was professor of divinity at the University of Dublin 1607–20; drew up the Articles of Faith of the Irish Church 1615; became bishop of Meath 1620, archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland 1623; had his house destroyed by the Irish rebels 1641, while visiting England, in which country he thenceforth remained; was appointed by Charles I. bishop of Carlisle, and was preacher of Lincoln’s Inn 1647–54, residing chiefly at Oxford. Author of numerous theological treatises, mostly in Latin. His Annales Veteris et Novi Testamenti contain a scheme of biblical chronology, since printed in the margin of the authorized version of the Bible, though now admitted to be inexact. Died March 21, 1656.

  Wrote “Annales V. et N. Testamenti, à primâ Mundi Origine deducta ad extremum Reipubliæ Judaiccæ Excidium Ecclesiarum;” “Gravissimæ Questionis de Christianarum in Occidentis præsertim partibus” (1613); “Answer to a Challenge of a Jesuit in Ireland” [William Malone] (1624); “A Discourse of the Religion anciently professed by the Irish and British” (1622); “Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates et Primordia” (1639); “The Original of Bishops and Metropolitans” (1641); “Direction concerning the Lyturgy and Episcopal Government” (1642); “Vox Hiberniæ: or, rather the Voyce of the Lord from Ireland” (1642); “Immanuel: or, the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God” (1638); “The Principles of the Christian Religion” (1644); “Chronologia Sacra et de Romanæ Ecclesiæ Symbolo Apostolico Vetere” (1660); “Episcopal and Presbyterian Government conjoyned” (1679); and many other Works: the whole of which were collected and published, with a “Life” of the author, by Dr. Ebrington, 1847.

Personal

  I heard the Common Prayer (a rare thing in these days) in St. Peter’s at Paul’s Wharf, London; and in ye morning the Archbishop of Armagh, that pious person and learned man, Usher, in Lincoln’s Inn Chapel.

  He was easy, affable, and cheerful in conversation, and extremely charitable. He was of so sweet a temper that I never heard he did an ill office to any one man, or revenged any of those that had been done to him. He envied no man’s happiness, or vilified their persons or parts; nor was he apt to censure or condemn any man upon bare reports. Though he could rebuke sharply in the cause of virtue and religion, yet he was not easily provoked to passion.

  Talking of the Irish Clergy, he said, “Swift was a man of great parts, and the instrument of much good to his country. Berkeley was a profound scholar, as well as a man of fine imagination; but “Usher,” he said, “was the great luminary of the Irish Church; and a greater,” he added, “no church could boast of; at least in modern times.”

  His mildness of disposition, and the faculty of seeing the defects of all parties which belongs to the student, prevented his exercising the influence which his talents would have warranted. It is as a scholar that he is remembered, and it is in that that he is linked to the leaders of the Caroline Church. Men of both parties turned from the turmoil of the war and of political change to talk of Ussher’s manuscripts, of the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Syriac version, of the history of Episcopacy, and of the Ignatian letters. Literature, indeed, in him as in many others of the King’s party, prevented the rift between the men of King and Parliament being very deep or lasting.

  Cromwell required that a public funeral should be accorded to the great Archbishop, and that he should be buried with all honours in Westminster Abbey. The spot chosen for his final resting-place was in St. Paul’s Chapel, close to the monument of his first teacher, Fullerton, and near the steps leading to Henry Seventh’s Chapel. We are told that a large concourse of people met the funeral cortége, including many of the nobility and London clergy. So great was the concourse that a military guard was found necessary. Only on this occasion was the Burial Service of the Church of England read within the Abbey walls during the entire period of the Commonwealth. The sermon was preached by the Archbishop’s chaplain, Dr. Bernard, and afterwards published. He took for his text the suitable words, “And Samuel died, and all Israel were gathered together and lamented him, and buried him.” No stone marks the spot where the Archbishop sleeps. The funeral expenses, it may be observed, reached a far higher sum than the £200 voted for the purpose by Cromwell, and the deficit was made good by his family, who could ill spare the expense.

Annals, 1650–54

  I have with no small eagerness and delight turned over these your learned and accurate “Annals,” wondering not a little at that your indefatigable labour which you have bestowed on a work fetched together out of such a world of monuments of antiquity; whereby your Grace hath better merited the title of χαλκευτερος and φυλοπονος than those on whom it was formerly bestowed.

  Along with the reading of the historical books of the Scripture I would recommend Usher’s Annals, which is a work perfect in its kind, and which well digested will give a very sound knowledge of the history of the world, sacred and profane, to the destruction of the second temple; which knowledge will upon innumerable occasions be of unspeakable use.

  This is a work of great labour and research, which has been followed by the greater part of modern chronologers, though the system of Dr. Hales is perhaps more correct.

  Our learned Archbishop Usher might there have been named, since the first part of his “Annals of the Old Testament,” which goes down to the year of the world 3828, was published in 1650. The second part followed in 1654. This has been the chronology generally adopted by English historians, as well as by Bossuet, Calmet, and Rollin, so that for many years it might be called the orthodox scheme of Europe. No former annals of the world has been so exact in marking dates, and collating sacred history with profane. It was therefore exceedingly convenient for those, who, possessing no sufficient leisure or learning for these inquiries, might very reasonably confide in such authority.

General

  Archbishop Usher, that prodigy of learning and industry.

  All that learning can extract from the rubbish of the Dark Ages is copiously stated by Archbishop Usher in his “Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates.”

  The first writer who instituted a systematic inquiry into the Septuagint version was Archbishop Usher…. This is a work of great merit; it displays much original inquiry, and may be regarded as the ground-work of later publications on the Septuagint.

  The writings of our Irish primate, Usher, who maintained the antiquity of his order, but not upon such high ground as many in England would have desired, are known for their extraordinary learning, in which he has perhaps never been surpassed by an English writer. But for judgement, and calm appreciation of evidence, the name of Usher has not been altogether so much respected by posterity as it was by his contemporaries.

  He was one of the most wonderful men of that wonderful age…. His writings … contain an invaluable mass of historical and ecclesiastical information and of controversial and practical divinity.

  His preference had been for the lighter forms of literature. He knew Spenser, and did not think it impossible that he might himself be a poet. As he grew older, Nature corrected the mistake. Struck one day by Cicero’s saying: “Nescire quid antea quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum” (“Not to know what happened before you were born, is to be always a child”), he found his genius revealed to him in the fascination of the phrase, and from that day devoted himself to history. Before he had reached his thirtieth year he was profound in universal chronology, and known to Camden and other English scholars as the most learned of Irishmen…. It was the pride of the English Calvinists about the year 1632, when the learning of Laud and other prelates of his school was mentioned, to point across the Channel to the great Calvinistic Primate as a scholar who outweighed them all.

  Usher’s works are numerous, and were regarded by his contemporaries as marvels of research. It may be said of the majority of them, however, that the growth of knowledge has thrown them decidedly into the shade.

  Argument means for Ussher the accumulation of authorities; authorities, indeed, weighed with precision, criticised as to their authenticity, but in the last result accepted as authoritative. And with this is connected his renunciation of style; for to style the abundance of quotations must needs be fatal. Fragments pieced together from other men’s works, even where translation is freely used, cannot but lack the unity which the impress of a single personality gives. Ussher’s writing is always a mosaic of quotations. His learning is immense. At an early age, so his biographers tell us, he sat down and read the fathers straight through. Chroniclers, schoolmen, the writers of Greece and Rome, all are at his fingers’ ends. He has wandered in the byeways of Celtic and Scandinavian lore. And in this he was happy, that by his time the sum-total of things knowable had not so swelled as to be beyond the compass of one intellect; so that he does not appear a mere specialist, but a true scholar, with a wide sweep and an adequate survey of knowledge. Moreover, he has at least one gift—an architectonic gift—of style.

  Selden calls him “learned to a miracle” (“ad miraculum doctus”). To estimate his labours aright would be the work of a company of experts. His learning was for use; and his topics were suggested by the controversies of his age, which he was resolved to probe to their roots in the ground of history…. As a writer, his passion for exactness (which made him extremely sensitive on the subject of unauthorised publication) exhibits itself in his use of materials. He lets his sources tell their story in their own words, incorporating them into his text with clear but sparing comment. Few faults have been found with his accuracy; his conclusions have been mended by further application of his own methods. His merits as an investigator of early Irish history are acknowledged by his countrymen of all parties; his contributions to the history of the creed and to the treatment of the Ignatian problem are recognised by modern scholars as of primary value; his chronology is still the standard adopted in editions of the English Bible.