Charles Hodge, 1797-1878

Charles Hodge was born to Hugh and Mary Hodge in Philadelphia in December 1797. His father died within six months, leaving him and his two year old brother in the care of his mother alone. She did an excellent job, according to Hodge, providing for both her sons' collegiate and professional education training through hard times. He was raised a Presbyterian and made a public expression of his faith, joining the church, in his last year at The College of New Jersey. After a year of rest, he entered Princeton Theological Seminary and studied under Dr. Archibald Alexander, graduating in 1819. He was soon licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Philadelphia and returned to Princeton as a professor of the Original Languages of Scripture the next year and was ordained in 1821.

He transferred to the chair of systematic theology in 1840 upon the partial retirement of Dr. Alexander. Here he would have great influence. From chairs of exegetical, didactic, and polemical theology in Princeton Theological Seminary, Hodge propagated the most powerful forces in behalf of conservative Christianity which then prevailed among the American churches. He was founder and editor for over forty years of The Biblical Repertory, later renamed The Princeton Review. This journal was full of polemical articles arguing the case of Presbyterian theology. Hodge spent fifty-six years at the Princeton Theological Seminary, and was loved and deeply respected by both his students and contemporaries. Both his son and grandson followed in his footsteps on the faculty at the Seminary.