{{short description|American theologian, minister and writer}} {{Use mdy dates|date=August 2020}} [[File:ScofieldCI.jpg|thumb|C. I. Scofield, c. 1920]] [[File:Scofield books.png|thumb|The spines from a set of six volumes by Scofield]] '''Cyrus Ingerson Scofield''' (August 19, 1843 – July 24, 1921) was an American theologian, [[Minister (Christianity)|minister]], and writer whose best-selling [[Scofield Reference Bible|annotated Bible]] popularized [[Futurism (Christianity)|futurism]] and [[dispensationalism]] among [[Christian fundamentalism|fundamentalist Christians]]. ==Biography== ===Childhood=== Cyrus Scofield was born in [[Clinton Township, Lenawee County, Michigan]], the seventh and last child of Elias and Abigail Goodrich Scofield. Elias Scofield's ancestors were of English and Puritan descent, but the family was nominally [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopalian]]. Abigail Scofield died three months after Cyrus' birth, and his father twice remarried during Cyrus's childhood.Lutzweiler, 60–61. Details of his early education are unknown, but there is no reason to doubt his later testimony that he was an enthusiastic reader and that he had studied Shakespeare and Homer.Lutzweiler, 61–62. Scofield told his first biographer that his personal reading had inspired him to begin making a chart of universal history when he was twelve. ===Civil War service=== By 1861, Scofield was living with relatives in [[Lebanon, Tennessee]]. At the beginning of the [[American Civil War]], the 17-year-old Scofield enlisted as a private in the 7th Tennessee Infantry, [[Confederate States Army|C.S.A.]], and his regiment fought at [[Battle of Cheat Mountain|Cheat Mountain]], [[Battle of Seven Pines|Seven Pines]], and [[Battle of Antietam|Antietam]]. In 1862, after spending a month in [[Chimborazo Hospital]] in [[Richmond, Virginia]], Scofield successfully petitioned for a discharge.Lutzweiler, 63–65. Scofield argued that he was native of Michigan, had never exercised the rights of citizenship in the Confederacy, had enlisted as a minor, was suffering from bad health, and intended to "enter Guerilla service in East Tenn." He was discharged on September 26, 1862. Scofield then returned to Lebanon and was [[Conscription|conscripted]] again into Confederate service. Ordered to [[McMinnville, Tennessee]], Scofield deserted and escaped behind Union lines in [[Bowling Green, Kentucky]].Rushing, 24. After taking the Union oath of allegiance, Scofield was allowed safe passage to [[St. Louis, Missouri]], where he settled.Rushing, 26. In 1903, Scofield was awarded the [[Southern Cross of Honor]] by the [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]], Dallas Chapter #6. Rushing, 105. ===Lawyer and politician=== In 1866, he married Leontine LeBeau Cerrè, a member of a prominent French Catholic family in St. Louis.Lutzweiler, 71. Scofield apprenticed in the law office of his brother-in-law and then worked in the St. Louis assessor's office before moving to [[Atchison, Kansas]], in late 1869. In 1871, Scofield was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives, first from Atchison for one year and then from [[Nemaha County, Kansas|Nemaha County]], for a second. In 1873 he worked for the election of [[John J. Ingalls]] as senator from Kansas, and when Ingalls won, the new senator had Scofield appointed U. S. District Attorney for Kansas—at 29, the youngest in the country.Lutzweiler, 73–74. Nevertheless, that same year Scofield was forced to resign "under a cloud of scandal" because of questionable financial transactions, which may have included accepting bribes from railroads, stealing political contributions intended for Ingalls, and securing bank [[promissory notes]] by forging signatures.Lutzweiler, 74; [[Michael Phillips (historian)|Michael Phillips]], ''[[White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841–2001]]'' (Austin: [[University of Texas Press]], 2006), 47–48. It is possible Scofield was jailed on forgery charges, although there is no extant evidence in the public records.[http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ks/history.html History of the United States Attorney District of Kansas]. The apologetic Mangum & Sweetnam note that "there are discrepancies in these reports as to where his time was served or what the crime was he allegedly committed." Even Canfield, after scouring public records, looking for corroboration of the jail-time stories, concludes that such reports are only "unsubstantiated rumors."(37) Perhaps in part because of his self-confessed heavy drinking,Mangum & Sweetnam, 25. Scofield abandoned his wife and two daughters during this period.Scofield also had a son by Leontine, Guy Sylvestre (1872–74), who died of [[scarlet fever]] at the age of two. Mangum & Sweetnam, 24. Leontine Cerrè Scofield divorced him on grounds of desertion in 1883, and the same year Scofield married Hettie Hall von Wartz, with whom he eventually had a son.Noel Paul Scofield (1888–1962) consistently refused to give interviews about his father. Lutzweiler, 198. C. I. Scofield almost certainly provided deliberately inaccurate personal information to ''Who's Who'' and to his official biographer, Charles Trumball. As another biographer has written, Scofield "was secretive about his past and not above distorting the facts of his shadowy years." John D. Hannah, "Scofield, Cyrus Ingerson" [http://www.anb.org/articles/08/08-01906.html ''American National Biography Online''] February 2000. ===Conversion and ministerial career=== ====Pastorates==== According to Scofield, he was converted to [[evangelical Christianity]] through the testimony of a lawyer acquaintance.Trumbull, 28. Certainly by the late fall of 1879, Scofield was assisting in the St. Louis evangelistic campaign conducted by [[Dwight L. Moody]], and he served as the secretary of the St. Louis [[YMCA]]. Significantly, Scofield came under the mentorship of [[James H. Brookes]], pastor of Walnut Street Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, a prominent [[dispensationalism|dispensationalist]] [[premillennialism|premillennialist]].Mangum & Sweetnam, 11. In October 1883, Scofield was ordained as a [[Congregational church|Congregationalist]] minister—while his divorce was proceeding but not yet final—and he accepted the pastorate of a small mission church founded by that denomination, which became the First Congregational Church of [[Dallas, Texas]] (now Scofield Memorial Church).Lutzweiler, 101. The church grew from fourteen to over five hundred members before he resigned its pastorate in 1895. In 1895, Scofield was called as pastor of Moody's church, the Trinitarian Congregational Church of [[Northfield, Massachusetts|East Northfield, Massachusetts]]. Scofield also attempted with limited success to take charge of Moody's Northfield Bible Training School.When Moody died in 1899, Scofield presided at his funeral service. Mangum & Sweetnam, 15. ====Interest in missions==== In 1888, Scofield attended the [[Niagara Bible Conference]] where he met pioneer missionary to China, [[Hudson Taylor]]. Taylor's approach to Christian missions influenced Scofield to found the Central American Mission in 1890 (now Camino Global).Tucker, 304–305. Scofield also served as superintendent of the American Home Missionary Society of Texas and Louisiana. In 1890, he founded [[Lake Charles College]] (1890–1899) in [[Lake Charles, Louisiana]].{{Cite web|title=Guide to Scofield Memorial Church Selected Records|url=https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/52001452/scofield-memorial-church-selected-records-turpin-library|access-date=August 17, 2020|website=Yumpu}} ====Fundamentalist leader==== As the author of the pamphlet "Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth" (1888), Scofield soon became a leader in [[dispensational premillennialism]], a forerunner of twentieth-century [[Christian fundamentalism]].Mangum & Sweetnam, 13–15. Although, in theory, Scofield returned to his Dallas pastorate in 1903, his projected reference Bible consumed much of his energy, and he was also mostly either unwell or in Europe. When the ''[[Scofield Reference Bible]]'' was published in 1909, it quickly became the most influential statement of dispensational premillennialism, and Scofield's popularity as Bible conference speaker increased as his health continued to decline. Royalties from the work were substantial, and Scofield bought real estate in Dallas, [[Ashuelot, New Hampshire]], and [[Douglaston, Queens|Douglaston, Long Island]]. He also joined the prestigious [[Lotos Club]].Lutzweiler, 182. Scofield left the liberalizing Congregational Church to become a [[Presbyterian Church in the United States|Southern Presbyterian]] and moved to the New York City area where he supervised a correspondence and lay institute, the New York Night School of the Bible. In 1914, he founded the Philadelphia School of the Bible in [[Philadelphia]], Pennsylvania (now [[Cairn University]]).{{Cite web|last=Richardson|first=Sarah|date=2019|title=C. I. Scofield: True Believer|url=https://www.historynet.com/c-i-scofield-true-believer.htm|access-date=August 17, 2020|website=HistoryNet}} ====Personal life==== During the early 1890s, Scofield began styling himself Rev. C. I. Scofield, D.D.; but there are no extant records of any academic institution having granted him the honorary [[Doctor of Divinity]] degree.Mangum & Sweetnam, 46. Scofield did not include the "D.D." in the information he provided ''Who's Who''. Scofield's second wife proved a faithful companion and editing assistant, but his relationships with his children, including librarian [[Abigail Scofield Kellogg]], were distant at best.Lutzweiler, 192-98. Both daughters lived in Atchison, Kansas, and became school teachers. Mangum & Sweetnam, 26. Scofield died at his home in New York, NY in 1921.Mangum & Sweetnam, 18. The funeral was held in the large sanctuary of the First Baptist Church, Flushing, New York, and Scofield was buried in Flushing Cemetery. ==Religious significance== Scofield's correspondence Bible study course was the basis for his ''Reference Bible'', an annotated, and widely circulated, study Bible first published in 1909 by [[Oxford University Press]].The title page listed seven "consulting editors": Henry G. Weston, [[James M. Gray]], [[W.J. Erdman]], [[Arthur Tappan Pierson|A.T. Pierson]], W. G. Moorehead, [[Elmore Harris]], and [[Arno Clemens Gaebelein|A. C. Gaebelein]]. "Just what role these consulting editors played in the project has been the subject of some confusion. Apparently Scofield only meant to acknowledge their assistance, though some have speculated that he hoped to gain support for his publication from both sides of the millenarian movement with this device." Ernest Sandeen, ''The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 224. Scofield's notes teach [[Futurism (Christianity)|futurism]] and [[dispensationalism]], a theology advanced in the early nineteenth century by the Anglo-Irish clergyman [[John Nelson Darby]], who like Scofield had been trained as a lawyer.Nevertheless, dispensationalist [[Charles Caldwell Ryrie]] argues that Scofield was actually following the dispensationalist scheme of hymn writer and theologian [[Isaac Watts]] (1674–1748) rather than that of Darby, although Watts had rejected the Millennium as a dispensation. Charles C. Ryrie, ''Dispensationalism'' (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995), 55. Dispensationalism emphasizes the distinctions between the New Testament Church and ancient Israel of the Old Testament. Scofield believed that between creation and the final judgment there are seven distinct eras of God's dealing with humanity and that these eras are a framework around which the message of the Bible can be explained. It was largely through the influence of Scofield's notes that [[dispensational premillennialism]] became influential among [[Christian fundamentalism|fundamentalist Christians]] in the United States, and these notes became a significant source for popular religious writers such as [[Hal Lindsey]].{{Cite web|last=Richardson|first=Sarah|date=2019|title=C. I. Scofield: True Believer|url=https://www.historynet.com/c-i-scofield-true-believer.htm|access-date=August 17, 2020|website=HistoryNet}} Scofield had a significant influence on the [[Christian Zionism|Christian Zionist]] movement. In the ''Scofield Bible'', he wrote that [[antisemitism]] was a sin. Citing Genesis 12:3—"I will bless them that bless thee"—Scofield argued that "The man or nation that lifts a voice or hand against Israel invites the wrath of God."{{cite web|url=https://www.wrmea.org/2015-october/the-scofield-bible-the-book-that-made-zionists-of-americas-evangelical-christians.html |title=The Scofield Bible—The Book That Made Zionists of America's Evangelical Christians |date=September 24, 2015 |publisher=[[Washington Report on Middle East Affairs]] |accessdate=2024-12-10}} == Other theological views == === Soteriology === Cyrus Scofield was a type of [[Reformed Christianity|Calvinist]]. However, he rejected limited atonement and attempted to teach only a softer form of the [[perseverance of the saints]]. He rejected any notions of placing one's [[Assurance (theology)|assurance]] in their [[Sanctification in Christianity|sanctification]].{{Cite journal |title=Dispensationalism and Free Grace: intimately linked, part 3 |url=https://faithalone.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Hawley-1.pdf |journal=Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society |quote=such as James Hall Brookes, C. I. Scofield, and L. S. Chafer were all Calvinists of a sort, though the idea of Limited Atonement was not apparently held by any of them. Despite this, they did not entirely break from Calvinism and all held to a soft view of the Perseverance of the Saints, namely, that all true believers would have at least some change and works in their lives. But in addition to Dispensationalism itself, two significant developments came through these Dispensational Calvinists. First, they brought to the forefront doctrines other than soteriology (especially eschatology and ecclesiology). Second, they adamantly warned against looking to works for assurance.6}} Scofield's understanding of eternal rewards has influenced those of modern [[Free grace theology|Free Grace theologians]].{{Cite web |title=C. I. Scofield About Eternal Rewards – Grace Evangelical Society |url=https://faithalone.org/blog/c-i-scofield-about-eternal-rewards/ |access-date=2025-02-01 |website=faithalone.org}} === Anthropology === Scofield held to [[Trichotomy (philosophy)|trichotomy]], interpreting man as a trifold being, with a body, soul and spirit, viewing the threeness of humanity to be derived from the image of the [[Trinity|triune]] God.{{Cite book |last=Scofield |first=C. I. (Cyrus Ingerson) |url=https://archive.org/details/inmanypulpits00scof/page/n9/mode/2up |title=In many pulpits |date=1922 |publisher=New York [etc.] Oxford university press |others=The Library of Congress |page=52}} ==Notes== {{Reflist|2}} ==References== * Joseph M. Canfield, ''The Incredible Scofield and His Book'', (Vallecito, California: Ross House Books, 1988). * William E. Cox ''Why I Left Scofieldism'' (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1992) {{ISBN|0-87552-154-1}}. * John Gerstner, ''Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth'', (Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991). * John D. Hannah, "Scofield, Cyrus Ingerson," ''American National Biography''. * {{cite book|last=Hummel|first=Daniel G.|title=The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle over the End Times Shaped a Nation|publisher=Eerdmans|year=2023|location=Grand Rapids, MI|isbn=978-0-802-87922-6}} * David Lutzweiler, ''The Praise of Folly: The Enigmatic Life and Theology of C. I. Scofield'' (Draper, VA: Apologetics Group Media, 2009). * R. Todd Mangum and Mark S. Sweetnam, ''The Scofield Bible: Its History and Impact on the Evangelical Church'' (Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2009). * D. Jean Rushing, "From Confederate Deserter to Decorated Veteran Bible Scholar: Exploring the Enigmatic Life of C. I. Scofield, 1861–1921," MA Thesis, East Tennessee State University, 2011. * Ernest R. Sandeen, ''The Roots of Fundamentalism, British and American Millenarianism'', 1800–1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). * Charles G. Trumbull, ''The Life Story of C. I. Scofield'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1920). ==External links== * [https://archive.today/20130915102057/http://www.knowing-jesus.com/topics/ebooks/c-i-scofield/ C. I. Scofield books] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20060115014944/http://www.biblebelievers.com/scofield_reference_bible/index.html The Scofield Reference Bible Notes 1917] * [http://texashistory.unt.edu/search/?q=&hl=en&pageSize=10&Submit=Find&q1=c.i.+scofield&o1=EXACT&q2=&o2=JUSTONE&q3=&o3=NOTANY&q4=&t4=institution&q5=&t5=collection&q6=&t6=dc.language&q7=&t7=dc.type&nlow=&nhi=&t8=psource Cyrus Scofield letters], hosted by the [http://texashistory.unt.edu/ Portal to Texas History] * [http://www.biblebelievers.com/scofield/index.html Rightly Dividing The Word of Truth] * [[Ernest Reisinger]], [https://web.archive.org/web/20120205015142/http://www.founders.org/journal/fj09/article1.html "A History of Dispensationalism in America."] Criticism of dispensationalism by a Southern Baptist with a [[Reformed tradition|Reformed]] perspective. {{Protestant missions to Latin America}} {{Evangelical Protestantism in the United States}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Scofield, Cyrus}} [[Category:1843 births]] [[Category:1921 deaths]] [[Category:19th-century American male writers]] [[category:19th-century American non-fiction writers]] [[Category:19th-century American Congregationalist ministers]] [[Category:19th-century American Presbyterian ministers]] [[Category:19th-century members of the Kansas Legislature]] [[Category:20th-century American male writers]] [[Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers]] [[Category:20th-century American Presbyterian ministers]] [[Category:American Calvinist and Reformed ministers]] [[Category:American Christian theologians]] [[Category:American Christian Zionists]] [[Category:American evangelicals]] [[Category:American male non-fiction writers]] [[Category:American religious writers]] [[Category:Cairn University]] [[Category:Christian fundamentalists]] [[Category:Christian writers about eschatology]] [[Category:Confederate States Army soldiers]] [[Category:Converts to Presbyterianism]] [[Category:Deserters]] [[Category:Dispensationalism]] [[Category:Former Congregationalists]] [[Category:Republican Party members of the Kansas House of Representatives]] [[Category:People from Atchison, Kansas]] [[Category:People from Lenawee County, Michigan]] [[Category:Premillennialism]] [[Category:Presbyterian writers]] [[Category:Writers from Michigan]]