EADIE, JOHN: United Presbyterian Church of Scotland; b. at Alva (7 m. n.e. of Stirling), Stirlingshire, May 9, 1810; d. at Glasgow June 3, 1876. He was educated at the University of Glasgow and in the theological seminary of the United Secession Church. He was ordained Sept. 24, 1835, to the pastorate of the Cambridge Street Church, Glasgow, which he retained until, in 1863, he removed with a portion of his people, to form the new Lansdowne Church, of which he was minister until his death. As early as his student days, he showed his leaning to the department of exegesis, in which he achieved his greatest success; and he had so diligently given himself to Biblical study in later years, that, on the death of Dr. John Mitchell, he was elected by the denominational synod (May 5, 1843) to the professorship of Biblical literature in its divinity hall. Such an appointment at that time did not involve the dissolution of the pastoral relationship, and for thirty-three years Dr. Eadie performed the duties of both pastor and professor, finding in the professorship the great sphere of his life.

 

As a preacher, his manner was not elegant and his utterance was often indistinct; but his sermons were eminently instructive. He was particularly excellent as an expositor. As a professor he was affable, easy, and natural, and possessed the magnetic influence which kindles enthusiasm. His scholarship was broad and accurate, and was so generally recognized that he was chosen a member of the New Testament revision company. His commentaries are marked by candor and clearness, as well as by an "evangelical unction" not common in works of the kind.

 

Besides contributions to periodicals and encyclopedic works, he prepared a condensed edition of Cruden's concordance (Glasgow, 1840), and compiled A Biblical Cyclopedia (Edinburgh, 1848; new ed., rewritten, 1869). An Analytic Concordance to the Holy Scriptures appeared in London, 1856, and An Ecclesiastical Cyclopadia in 1861. He published two volumes of discourses, The Divine Love (London, 1855) and Paul the Preacher (1859). Further mention may be made of his biography of, John Kitto (Edinburgh, 1857) and The English Bible, an External and Critical History of the Various English Translations of Scripture, with Remarks on the Need of Revising the English New Testament (2 vols., London, 1876), Scripture Illustrations from the Domestic Life of the Jews and Other Eastern Nations appeared posthumously (1877). His fame, however, rests on his commentaries on the Greek text of the epistles, viz. Ephesians (London, 1854), Colossians (1856), Philippians (1859), Galatians, (1869), and I Thessalonians (1877).

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY: James Brown, Life of John Eadie, London, 1878; DNB, xvi. 307-309.