The lectures which his pupils cared most about were those on Plato
and St. Paul; both as tutor and examiner he may be said to have
stimulated the study of Plato in Oxford: he made it a rival to
that of Aristotle.
"Aristotle is dead," he would say, "but Plato is alive."
Hitherto he had published little--an anonymous essay on Pascal and
a few literary articles--but under the stimulus of disappointment
he finished his share of the edition of St. Paul's Epistles, which
had been undertaken in conjunction with Arthur Stanley. Both
produced their books in 1855; but while Stanley's Corinthians
evoked languid interest, Jowett's Galatians, Thessalonians and
Romans provoked a clamour among his friends and enemies. About
that time he was appointed to the Oxford Greek Chair, which
pleased him much; but his delight was rather dashed by a hostile
article in the Quarterly Review, abusing him and his religious
writings. The Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Cotton, required from him a
fresh signature of the Articles of the Church of England. At the
interview, when addressed by two men--one pompously explaining
that it was a necessary act if he was to retain his cloth and the
other apologising for inflicting a humiliation upon him--he merely
said:
"Give me the pen."
His essay on The Interpretation of Scripture, which came out in
1860 in the famous volume, Essays and Reviews, increased the cry
of heterodoxy against him; and the Canons of Christ Church,
including Dr.
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