The greatest trust which a denomination can impart to any group of men is the education of its candidates for the ministry. So, in 1843, when over one third of the Church of Scotland’s ministers left to form the Free Church of Scotland, one of the first things that the new denomination’s General Assembly did was to erect a theological college and to elect a faculty from among it ministers for the instruction of its future ministry.
At The Disruption, the name given to the 1843 breach, Professors Thomas Chalmers and David Welsh reigned their Chairs at Edinburgh University and became the first members of the new faculty. Chalmers held the Chair of Divinity and position of Principal, while Welsh held the Chair of Ecclesiastical History. They were soon joined by John Duncan, teaching Hebrew and Old Testament, and by William Cunningham, who was immediately released to go on a delegation to America. On his return, Cunningham assisted Chalmers. Then, at the death of Welsh in 1845, he was appointed to the Chair of Ecclesiastical History. When Chalmers died two years later, he became Principal.
The Free Church College was housed in Edinburgh’s New Town, in Free St George’s Church and in rooms at numbers 80 and 25 George Street, until the magnificent New College was built at the top of The Mound. The seminary, church, and assembly hall complex opened its doors in 1850. The members of its first full faculty, or Senate, were: William Cunningham, Principal and Chair of Ecclesiastical history; John Duncan, Chair of Hebrew and Old Testament; James Buchanan who was inducted to the Chair of Apologetics in 1845 and then to that of Systematic Theology upon the death of Chalmers in 1847; James Bannerman who joined them in 1849 as Professor of Apologetics and Pastoral Theology; and George Smeaton who took the Chair of New Testament Exegesis in 1857. Cunningham died in 1861. Thus, the years 1857 to 1861 were known as those of the “Great Senate”.
Within the Free Church, there was a difference of opinion, which rose to the level of a controversy, over whether there should be one theological college, housing the best possible resources, or whether there should be theological colleges in other university cities in addition to Edinburgh. The latter vision won through, and colleges were opened in Glasgow and Aberdeen. In 1853, George Smeaton and Patrick Fairbairn were appointed Professors of Divinity at the Aberdeen College. Fairbairn was translated to the Glasgow College in 1856, and Smeaton to Edinburgh in 1857.
Having identified the men to whom the church entrusted the education of its students for the ministry, the content of that education can be, to a great measure, recreated from their published works. As Duncan did not leave much of a written academic legacy, adding Fairbairn to the “Great Senate” fills a gap in Old Testament studies and makes contributions to other subjects.
By discipline: Cunningham and Buchanan contribute to Systematic Theology; Cunningham contributes to Ecclesiastical History; Smeaton and Fairbairn contribute to Biblical Studies; and Bannerman, Cunningham, and Fairbairn contribute to Pastoral Theology. However, as approach and method are as important as content, the course material reviewed will be gathered under its author rather than its subject.