LIGHTFOOT, John (1602-1675), an eminent rabbinical scholar, was the son of Thomas Lightfoot, vicar of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, and was born at Stoke-upon-Trent in that county, on March 29, 1602. His school education was received at Morton Green near Congleton, Cheshire, and in June 1617 he entered Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he made great progress in Latin and Greek, and was reckoned the best orator among the undergraduates. After taking his bachelor’s degree, he became for some time assistant master at Repton in Derbyshire; at the canonical age he received ordination, and shortly afterwards was appointed curate of Norton-under-Hales in Shropshire. There he attracted the notice of Sir Rowland Cotton, an amateur Hebraist of some attainments it would seem, who made him his domestic chaplain at Bellaport, and was the first to awaken his taste for rabbinical learning. Shortly after the removal of Sir Rowland with his family to London, Lightfoot followed him thither, but for some unexplained reason soon left the capital again, and, visiting his parents at Uttoxeter, took a solemn leave of them, having resolved “to travel beyond the seas.” An unexpected and pressing invitation induced him to change his determination, and to accept a charge at Stone in Staffordshire, where he continued for about two years, and where, on May 21, 1628, he married Joyce, daughter of William Crompton of Stone Park, and widow of George Copwood of Delverne, Staffordshire. From Stone he removed to Hornsey near London, for the sake of the library of Sion College, which he often had occasion to consult; his first published work, entitled Erubhin, or Miscellanies, Christian and Judaical, penned for recreation at vacant hours, and dedicated to Sir R. Cotton, appeared at London in 1629. ...During the summer and autumn of 1630 he lived at Uttoxeter, and in September of that year he was presented by Sir R. Cotton to the rectory of Ashley in Staffordshire, where he continued to discharge his pastoral duties, and to prosecute his rabbinical studies, for the next twelve years. For the more uninterrupted pursuit of the latter he is said to have bought a small piece of land near his parsonage, and to have built upon it a small house “containing a study and withdrawing room below, and a lodging chamber above.” “Here he closely followed his said studies with great delight and unwearied diligence, and did choose to lodge here very often, though it were so near to his family and parsonage house.” In June 1642 he left Ashley for London; the precise occasion of the removal is not known, but probably it arose out of the necessity for personal superintendence of the publication of his next work, A few and new Observations upon the Book of Genesis: the most of them certain; the rest, probable; all, harmless, strange, and rarely heard of before, which appeared at London in that year with a dedication to “my dear and loving countrymen of the county of Stafford, and other my friends residing in the city of London.” Soon after his arrival in the capital he became minister of St Bartholomew’s church, near the Exchange; and in 1643 he was appointed to preach the sermon before the House of Commons on occasion of the public fast of March 29. It was afterwards published under the title of Elias Redivivus, the text being Luke i. 17; in it a parallel is drawn between the Baptist’s ministry and the work of reformation which in the preacher’s judgment was incumbent on the parliament of his own day. Lightfoot was also one of the original members of the Westminster Assembly, which held its first formal meeting on Saturday, July 1, 1643; his “Journal of the Proceedings of the Assembly of Divines from January 1, 1643 to December 31, 1644,” now printed in the thirteenth volume of the 8vo edition of his Works, is a valuable historical source for the too brief period to which it relates. He was assiduous in his attendance from the first, and, though frequently standing almost or even quite alone, especially in the Erastian controversy, exercised a material influence on the result of the discussions of the Assembly. In 1643 Lightfoot published A Handful of Gleanings out of the Book of Exodus, dedicated to the inhabitants of Bartholomew Exchange, and in the same year he was made master of Catherine Hall by the parliamentary visitors of Cambridge, and also, on the recommendation of the Assembly, was promoted to the rectory of Much Munden in Hertfordshire; both appointments he retained until his death. In 1644 was published in London the first instalment of the laborious but never completed work of which the full title runs The Harmony of the Four Evangelists among themselves, and with the Old Testament, with an explanation of the chiefest difficulties both in Language and Sense: Part I. From the beginning of the Gospels to the Baptism of our Saviour. The second part From the Baptism of our Saviour to the first Passover after followed in 1647, and the third From the first Passover after our Saviour’s Baptism to the second in 1650. On August 26, 1645, he again had the honour of preaching before the House of Commons on the day of their monthly fast; in the discourse, which was afterwards published (A Fast Sermon, on Rev. xx. 1, 2), after controverting as erroneous and false the doctrine of the Millenaries, he goes on to urge upon the parliament various practical suggestions for the repression with a strong hand of current blasphemies (“I do hold it a truer point in divinity that ‘ errans conscientia liganda ’ than ‘ ligat ’ ”), for a thorough revision of the authorized version of the Scriptures, for the encouragement of a learned ministry, and for a speedy settlement of the church. “I rejoice to see what you have done in platforming classes and presbyteries, and I verily and cordially believe it is according to the pattern in the mount.” In the same year appeared A Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles, chronical and critical; the Difficulties of the text explained, and the times of the Story east into annals. From the beginning of the Book to the end of the Twelfth Chapter. With α brief survey of the contemporary Stary of the Jews and Bomans (down to the third year of Claudius); and in 1647 he published The Harmony, Chronicle, and Order of the Old Testament, which was followed in 1655 by The Harmony, Chronicle, and Order of the New Testament, inscribed to Cromwell, with an epistle dedicatory to his highness’s honourable council. In the last-named year Lightfoot, who in 1652 had commenced doctor of divinity, was chosen vice-chancellor of the university of Cambridge, but continued to reside by preference at Munden, in the rectory of which, as well as in the mastership of Catherine Hall, he was confirmed, through the influence of friends, at the Restoration. The remainder of his life was principally devoted to the production of the work by which his name now chiefly lives, the Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae, in which the volume relating to Matthew appeared in 1658, that relating to Mark in 1663, and those relating to 1 Corinthians, John, and Luke, in 1664, 1671, and 1674 respectively. Towards the close of 1675, while travelling from Cambridge to Ely (where he had been collated by Sir Orlando Bridgman to a prebendal stall), he caught a severe cold, upon which, by an indiscretion in diet it is said, fever supervened; falling afterwards into a lethargy w hich continued for about a fortnight, he died at Ely on December 6, 1675. The Horse Hebraicae et Talmudicae impenses in Acta Apostolorum et in Ep. S. Pauli ad Bomanos were published posthumously.
The Works of Lightfoot were first edited, in 2 vols, fol., by Bright and Strype in 1684; the Opera Omnia, cura Τexelii, appeared at Rotterdam in 1686 (2 vols, fol.), and again, edited by Leusden, at Franeker in 1699 (3 vols. fol.). A volume of Remains was published at London in 1700. The Ηor. Hebr. et Talm. were also edited in Latin by Carpzov (Leipsic, 1675-79), and again, in English, by Gandell (Oxford, 1859). The most complete edition is that of the Whole Works, in 13 vols. 8vo, edited by Pitman (London, 1822-25). It includes, besides the works already noticed, numerous sermons, letters, and miscellaneous writings; and also The Temple, especially as it stood in the Lays of our Saviour (London, 1650).
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