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John Allen Giles (1808–1884) was an English historian. He was primarily known as a scholar ofAnglo-Saxon language and history. He revised Stevens' translation of theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle and Bede'sEcclesiastical History of the English People. He was a fellow atCorpus Christi College, Oxford.[1]
The son of William Giles and his wife Sophia, née Allen, he was born on 26 October 1808 at Southwick House, in the parish ofMark, Somerset. At the age of sixteen he enteredCharterhouse School as a Somerset scholar. From Charterhouse he was elected to a Bath and Wells scholarship atCorpus Christi College, Oxford, on 26 November 1824. In Easter term 1828 he obtained adouble first class honours degree, and shortly afterwards graduated B.A., proceeding M.A. in 1831, in which year he gained the Vinerian scholarship, and took his D.C.L. degree in 1838. His election to a fellowship at Corpus Christi College on 15 November 1832 followed his college scholarship as a matter of course.[2]
Giles wished to become a barrister, but was persuaded by his mother to take orders, and was ordained to the curacy ofCossington, Somerset. The following year he vacated his fellowship, and was married. In 1834 he was appointed to the head-mastership ofCamberwell Collegiate School, and on 24 November 1836 was elected head-master of theCity of London School. The school did not do well under him, and he resigned on 23 January 1840; his resignation, however, has also been attributed to some misfortune connected with building speculations. He was succeeded byGeorge Ferris Whidborne Mortimer. He retired to a house which he had built nearBagshot, and there took pupils, and wrote.[2]
After a few years Giles became curate ofBampton, Oxfordshire, where he continued taking pupils, and edited and wrote a great number of books. Among them was one entitledChristian Records, published in 1854, which related to the age and authenticity of the books of the New Testament.Samuel Wilberforce asbishop of Oxford, required him, on pain of losing his curacy, to suppress this work, and break off with another literary undertaking. After some letters, which were published, he complied with the bishop's demand.[2]
In September 1846 Giles secured an introduction toAndré-Marie Ampère fromSainte-Beuve, and subsequently contributed amongst other works six volumes of Bede toJacques Paul Migne'sPatrologia Latina.
On 6 March 1855 Giles was tried at the Oxford spring assizes beforeLord Campbell, on the charges of having entered in the marriage register book of Bampton parish church a marriage under date 3 October 1854, which took place on the 5th, having himself performed the ceremony out ofcanonical hours, soon after 6 a.m.; of having falsely entered that it was performed by license; and of having forged the mark of a witness who was not present. He pleaded not guilty, but it was clear that he had committed the offence to cover the pregnancy of one of his servants, whom he married to her lover, Richard Pratt, a shoemaker's apprentice. Pratt's master, one of Giles's parishioners, instituted the proceedings.
Giles spoke on his own behalf, and declared that he had published 120 volumes. His bishop also spoke for him. He was found guilty, but strongly recommended to mercy. Lord Campbell sentenced him to a year's imprisonment inOxford Castle. After three months' imprisonment he was released by royal warrant on 4 June 1855.[2]
After two or three years Giles took the curacy, with sole charge, ofPerivale inMiddlesex, and after five years became curate ofHarmondsworth, nearSlough. At the end of a year he resigned this curacy, and went to live atCranford, nearby, where he took pupils, and after a while moved toEaling. He did not resume clerical work until he was presented in 1867 to the living ofSutton, Surrey, which he held for seventeen years, until his death on 24 September 1884.[2]
Much of Giles's work was hasty, and done for booksellers. HisScriptores Græci minores was published in 1831, and hisLatin Grammar reached a third edition in 1833. He published aGreek Lexicon in 1839.[2]
Between 1837 and 1843 Giles published thePatres Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, a series of thirty-four volumes, containing the works ofAldhelm,Bæda,Boniface,Lanfranc,Archbishop Thomas,John of Salisbury,Peter of Blois,Gilbert Foliot, and other authors. Giles published his translation ofGeoffrey of Monmouth'sHistoria Regum Britanniae in 1842[3] and it includes theProphecies of Merlin.[4] Several volumes of theCaxton Society's publications were edited by him, chiefly between 1845 and 1854. Among these wereAnecdota Bædæ et aliorum,Benedictus Abbas, de Vita S. Thomæ,Chronicon Angliae Petriburgense,La révolte du Conte de Warwick, andVitæ quorundam Anglo-Saxonum. HisScriptores rerum gestarum Willelmi Conquestoris was published in 1845.[2]
Giles contributed toBohn's Antiquarian Library translations ofMatthew Paris (1847),Bede's Ecclesiastical History, and theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, (1849), and other works. In 1845 he publishedLife and Times of Thomas Becket, 2 vols., translated into French, 1858; in 1847,History of the Ancient Britons, 2 vols., and in 1848,Life and Times of Alfred the Great.[2] In 1848, he producedSix Old English Chronicles[5] which mostly reprinted previously published material.
In 1847–8 appeared hisHistory of Bampton, 2 vols., and in 1852 hisHistory of Witney and some neighbouring Parishes. While at Bampton, in 1850 he publishedHebrew Records on the age and authenticity of the books of the Old Testament, and in 1854Christian Records on the Age, Authorship, and Authenticity of the Books of the New Testament, in which he contended, in a preface dated 26 October 1853, that the "Gospels and Acts were not in existence before the year 150", and remarks that "the objections of ancient philosophers, Celsus, Porphyry, and others, were drowned in the tide of orthodox resentment" (seeLetters of the Bishop of Oxford and Dr. J. A. G., published in a separate volume).[2] A review of Giles' 1854Christian Records,[6][7] states, "His [Giles] object is to establish ...that the historical books of the New Testament are without any evidence, external or internal, of origin from anapostolical period or source ; and abound in irreconcilable discrepancies."[8]
The testimony of Justin Martyr who wrote his "Apology for the Christians" in A.D. 151 ...does not name a single writer of the eight, who are said to have written the books of the New Testament. The very names of the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are never mentioned by him —do not occur once in all his works. It is therefore not true that he has quoted from our existing Gospels, and so proves their existence, as they now are, in his own time.[9][10]
In 1853 he began to work on a series calledDr. Giles's Juvenile Library, which went on appearing from time to time until 1860, and comprised a large number of school-books,First Lessons on English, Scottish, Irish, French, and Indian history, on geography, astronomy, arithmetic, &c. He contributedPoetic Treasures to Moxon'sPopular Poets in 1881.[2] Ca. 1860, he also created versions of Greek and Latin classics presented in an interlinear style, apparently based on a pedagogical approach advocated byJames Hamilton (1769–1829).[11]
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Giles married in 1833 Anna Sarah Dickinson (died 1896), which required him to give up his college fellowship.[13] Their children included:
His [Giles] object is to establish —against Paley especially— a set of purely negative results ; that the historical books of the New Testament are without any evidence, external or internal, of origin from an apostolical period or source ; and abound in irreconcileable discrepancies. ("Christian Records ; an Historical Inquiry concerning the Age, Authorship, and Authenticity of the New Testament." By the Rev. Dr. Giles, late Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. London: Whittaker and Co. 1854.)
The testimony of Justin Martyr who wrote his "Apology for the Christians" in A.D. 151, must remove all doubt that the four evangelic histories were already in his time the basis of Christian teaching and the exclusive record of Christ's life and miracles. Such also is the common opinion respecting the origin of the Gospels : taking for granted the report made by Lardner, and from him copied into the "Evidences of Christianity", few persons have ever compared the report with the original witnesses ; and never felt a misgiving that statements could, even unintentionally, be so perverted. Justin does not name a single writer of the eight, who are said to have written the books of the New Testament. The very names of the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are never mentioned by him —do not occur once in all his works. It is therefore not true that he has quoted from our existing Gospels, and so proves their existence, as they now are, in his own time.
Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1890). "Giles, John Allen".Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 21. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
