John Jortin

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates John Jortin (23 October 1698 – 5 September 1770) was an English church historian.

Life

Jortin was the son of Renatus Jordain, a Breton Huguenot refugee<ref name=EB1911> Template:Cite EB1911</ref> and government official, and Martha Rogers, daughter of Daniel Rogers.<ref name=ODNB> Template:Cite ODNB</ref><ref> s:Rogers, Daniel (1573-1652) (DNB00) </ref> He was educated at Charterhouse School, and in 1715 became a pensioner of Jesus College, Cambridge,<ref name=EB1911/> where he became a Fellow in 1721. He was Rede lecturer at Cambridge in 1724,<ref>Sir Robert Rede's Lecturers (and Mathematical Lecturers) Template:Webarchive</ref> and Boyle lecturer in 1749.<ref name=Venn>Template:Acad</ref> A churchman, he held various benefices, becoming in 1764 Archdeacon of London.<ref name=Venn />

Works

Jortin briefly (1731–2) established a magazine, Miscellaneous Observations upon Authors, Ancient and Modern, in which he wrote on Spenser and Milton.<ref name=ODNB /> In 1722, he published a small volume of Latin verse entitled Lusus poetici.<ref name=EB1911/> Discourses Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion (1746) was a work of Christian apologetics. His Remarks on Ecclesiastical History (5 vols, 1751‑73), has been labelled "the most significant Anglican ecclesiastical history of the eighteenth century"; written "from a markedly latitudinarian perspective", it was respected by Gibbon.<ref name=ODNB />

Jortin mostly avoided controversy, though a dissertation on Virgil's treatment of the dead, by conflicting with Warburton's treatment, drew attack from Warburton's disciple Richard Hurd.<ref name=ODNB /> A two-volume Life of Erasmus (1758, 1760) drew upon Jean Le Clerc: "Jortin was in many ways a late representative of Christian humanism, as well as an active citizen in the protestant republic of letters".<ref name=ODNB /> Jortin published other miscellaneous pamphlets and tracts, and seven volumes of sermons appeared after his death. All his works showed learning, and were written in a lively style.

A collection of three volumes of his works was printed in 1805 and can be found at Internet Archive:

• Discourses Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion and Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, Volume 1
• Discourses Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion and Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, Volume 2
• Discourses Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion and Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, Volume 3

References

Template:Reflist {{#invoke:Template wrapper|wrap|_template=cite wikisource | _exclude = noicon,inline,short,wslink,plaintitle,year | _alias-map = authorlink:author-link, archiveurl:archive-url, archivedate:archive-date,wspage:page,nopp:no-pp, 1:chapter,title:chapter,wstitle:chapter,laysummary:lay-summary,laydate:lay-date | firsticon = {{#if:||1}} | noicon = 1 | prescript = {{#if:|One or more of the preceding sentences|This article}} incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: | last = {{#if: ||Cousin}} | first = {{#if: ||John William}} | author-link = {{#if: ||John William Cousin}} | wslink = A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature | plaintitle = A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature | year = 1910 | publisher = {{#if: ||J. M. Dent & Sons}} | location = {{#if: ||London}} }}Template:Main other