page_title: F. J. Foakes-Jackson
section_title: Student at Trinity College, Cambridge
hierarchical_section_title: F. J. Foakes-Jackson / Student at Trinity College, Cambridge
caption_attribution_description: Trinity College Courtyard, Cambridge
context_page_description: Frederick John Foakes Jackson was a Church historian. For thirty-four years he taught at Jesus College, Cambridge, serving as dean from 1895 to 1916. Then, at the age of 61, he became the Briggs Professor of Christian Institutions at Union Theological Seminary, New York City, finally becoming emeritus in 1933. He is probably best known for the massive five volume work The Beginnings of Christianity—an edition, translation, commentary, and study of the Acts of Apostles—that he conceived and edited with Kirsopp Lake.
context_section_description: In 1875 Foakes-Jackson went up to Trinity College, Cambridge as an ordinary undergraduate, having failed to obtain a scholarship.  As he explains in his memoir: "The natural thing at this time for such a boy was to read for classical honours.  He could have done perhaps fairly well in the philosophical, historical and literary side, but Cambridge in his time wisely discouraged elegant triflers and demanded a severe and exact knowledge of Latin and Greek as languages.  Our young friend liked to find out what a tragedy or comedy, a dialogue of Plato or a book of Thucydides was about, but the niceties of the language bored him, and to puzzle out a crabbed passage which was quite uninteresting when mastered, even supposing anyone capable of such a feat, seemed a needless waste of time when there were so many fascinating books to read.  No wonder, therefore, he never got a classical scholarship and that he set himself to study theology as a totally new subject, which might become of use if he became a clergyman."
  His principal teachers were J. B. Lightfoot, Henry Melvill Gwatkin, F. J. A. Hort, Henry Barclay Swete, and Robert Sinker.  Lightfoot lectured in the immense dining hall of Trinity college on the Acts of the Apostles and the refutation of the anonymous work Supernatural Religion (later determined to be from Walter Richard Cassels).  As Foakes-Jackson recalls, "Lightfoot was an admirable lecturer, his voice was clear, his arrangement lucid, his learning unquestionable."  However, the "behavior of the audiences was not edifying.  The virtuous attended and took notes, the studious devoted themselves to their own subjects, and read books bearing on them, the frivolous read novels, the utterly profane played surreptitious games of cards, the rest slept."  "Gwatkin, who had no recognized position in the faculty, was a real lecturer, brilliant, incisive and even humorous."  Yet the most profit was derived from Hort and Swete. "Hort lectured on Origen contra Celsum in his private rooms in Emmanuel College to a class of about five, which fell to two before he had given many lectures; but, though there was little to inspire, there was a great deal to be learned. He really showed how a subject ought to be tackled, and the impression produced on his hearer's mind was, 'This is learning.' Swete, less original but a most profound student of dogmatic theology, was almost equally instructive, and both of them deserve the gratitude of a young student for shewing him what it meant to know a subject thoroughly." However, the bulk of his instruction came from his private tutor, the Revd Robert Sinker, Librarian of Trinity College and "a Hebraist of the old school."  Under Sinker he was awarded the Jeremie Septuagint Prize in his second year (1877).  Two years later (1879) he would win the Scholfield Prize in Biblical Greek and earn his B.A., taking a first class in Theology tripos with a distinction in Hebrew.
  Following his graduation, financial circumstances forced him to withdraw from the university.  He was ordained a deacon 8 June 1879 and became the curate of Ottershaw, Surrey, 1879–81, being ordained priest 23 May 1880.  He maintained his ties to the university and was able to secure the Crosse Divinity Scholarship (1879) and the next year, the Lightfoot Scholarship in Ecclesiastical History (1880), finally receiving his M.A. in 1882.  He continued as curate of St Giles' Church, Cambridge, 1882–84, and St Botolph's Church, Cambridge, 1884–90.
caption: Trinity College, Cambridge
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