32 Facts About Ussher

1.

James Ussher was the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625 and 1656.

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2.

Ussher's father, Arland Ussher, was a clerk in chancery who married James Stanihurst's daughter, Margaret, who was reportedly a Roman Catholic.

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3.

Ussher had received his Bachelor of Arts degree by 1598 and was a fellow and MA by 1600.

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4.

Ussher went on to become Chancellor of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin in 1605 and Prebend of Finglas.

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5.

Ussher became Professor of Theological Controversies at Trinity College and a Bachelor of Divinity in 1607, Doctor of Divinity in 1612, and then Vice-Chancellor in 1615 and vice-provost in 1616.

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6.

In 1619 Ussher travelled to England, where he remained for two years.

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7.

Ussher became prominent after meeting James I In 1621 James I nominated Ussher Bishop of Meath.

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8.

Ussher became a national figure in Ireland, becoming Privy Councillor in 1623 and an increasingly substantial scholar.

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9.

Ussher was nominated Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh in 1625 and succeeded Christopher Hampton, who had succeeded Ussher's uncle Henry twelve years earlier.

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10.

In 1633, Ussher wrote to the new Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, in an effort to gain support for the imposition of recusancy fines on Irish Catholics.

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11.

Ussher settled the long-running primacy dispute between the sees of Armagh and Dublin in Armagh's favour.

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12.

Ussher soon found himself at odds with the rise of Arminianism and Wentworth and Laud's desire for conformity between the Church of England and the more Calvinistic Church of Ireland.

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13.

Ussher resisted this pressure at a convocation in 1634, ensuring that the English Articles of Religion were adopted as well as the Irish articles, not instead of them, and that the Irish canons had to be redrafted based on the English ones rather than replaced by them.

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14.

In 1633, Ussher had supported the appointment of Archbishop Laud as Chancellor of the University of Dublin.

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15.

Ussher had hoped that Laud would help to impose order on what was, Ussher accepted, a somewhat mismanaged institution.

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16.

Ussher certainly preferred to be a scholar when he could be.

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17.

Ussher engaged in extensive disputations with Roman Catholic theologians, and even as a student he challenged a Jesuit relative, Henry Fitzsimon, to dispute publicly the identification of the Pope with the Antichrist.

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18.

Ussher had an obsession with "Jesuits disguised as" Covenanters in Scotland, highwaymen when he was robbed, non-conformists in England, it was a remarkable list.

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19.

However, Ussher wrote extensively on theology, patristics and ecclesiastical history, and these subjects gradually displaced his anti-Catholic work.

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20.

In 1640, Ussher left Ireland for England for what turned out to be the last time.

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21.

In early 1641 Ussher developed a mediatory position on church government, which sought to bridge the gap between the Laudians, who believed in an episcopalian church hierarchy, and the Presbyterians, who wanted to abolish episcopacy entirely.

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22.

Ussher became a preacher at Lincoln's Inn early in 1647, and despite his royalist loyalties was protected by his friends in Parliament.

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23.

Ussher watched the execution of Charles I from the roof of the Countess of Peterborough's home in London but fainted before the axe fell.

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24.

Ussher wrote two treatises on the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch while doing his work on church hierarchy.

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25.

Ussher closely examined it and found problems that had gone uncommented on for centuries: differences in tone, theology, and apparent anachronistic references to theological disputes and structures that did not exist during Ignatius's time.

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26.

Ussher researched and found a shorter set, usually called the Middle Recension, and argued that only the letters contained in it were authentically Ignatius's.

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27.

Ussher published this Latin edition of the genuine Ignatian works in 1644.

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28.

Ussher now concentrated on his research and writing and returned to the study of chronology and the church fathers.

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29.

Ussher's work is used to support Young Earth Creationism, which holds that the universe was created thousands of years ago.

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30.

Ussher's chronology represented a considerable feat of scholarship: it demanded great depth of learning in what was then known of ancient history, including the rise of the Persians, Greeks and Romans, as well as expertise in the Bible, biblical languages, astronomy, ancient calendars and chronology.

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31.

In 1655, Ussher published his last book, De Graeca Septuaginta Interpretum Versione, the first serious examination of the Septuagint, discussing its accuracy as compared with the Hebrew text of the Old Testament.

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32.

Ussher's symptoms seem to have been those of a severe internal haemorrhage.

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