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Augustus Hopkins Strong

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The Reverend
Augustus Hopkins Strong
Born(1836-08-03)August 3, 1836
Rochester, New York
DiedNovember 29, 1921(1921-11-29) (aged 85)
Pasadena, California
Alma materYale College
OccupationSeminary president

Augustus Hopkins Strong (3 August 1836 – 29 November 1921) was a Baptist minister and theologian who lived in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His most influential book, Systematic Theology, proved to be a mainstay of Baptist theological education.[1]

Early life and education

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Augustus Hopkins Strong was born on August 3, 1836, in Rochester, New York.[1] He was a descendant of "Elder John Strong, of Northampton, Massachusetts."[2] His grandfather[who?] was a "physician of considerable eminence",[3] who moved from Warren, Connecticut, to Scipio, New York, in 1799, then to Rochester in 1821.[citation needed] His father, Alvah Strong, was the printer of such early Rochester newspapers as the Anti-Masonic Enquirer, the Morning Advertiser, and the Weekly Republican, before becoming the longtime proprietor of The Daily Democrat.[4] Both his father and eldest uncle were deacons of the First Baptist Church of Rochester, and helped found the Rochester Theological Seminary (RTS),[citation needed] in 1850,[5] the institution over which he would later preside.[6] RTS would later become Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School.[7]

Strong's younger brother, Henry A. Strong, was a successful businessman and philanthropist who served as Eastman Kodak's first president.[8] His youngest uncle became a Forty-niner in the California Gold Rush, after losing both his wife and infant son.[2] A first cousin twice removed, Theodore C. Achilles would later become a diplomat,[citation needed] another such cousin would marry Margaret Woodbury Strong,[citation needed] and a niece would marry George R. Carter.[citation needed]

After Strong graduated from Yale College in 1857, he took a year to travel Europe, before he began his theological studies at RTS.[9]: 44 

Career

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In August 1861, Strong was named pastor of First Baptist Church, Haverhill, Massachusetts. After his four-year pastorate there, became pastor of First Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, from 1865 to 1872, and thereafter became president of RTS.[6][9]: 44–45 

It was during his time as president that he wrote his Systematic Theology, which was the main textbook of Protestant seminaries in North America. He received honorary doctorates from Rochester, Alfred, Brown, Bucknell, Princeton, and Yale Universities.[9]: 6 

Personal life

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Strong was married, and his eldest son was the American psychologist and philosopher Charles A. Strong.[10]

He died on Tuesday, November 29, 1921 in Pasadena, California, after which his body was returned to Rochester, where he was laid to rest in the week following, at Mount Hope Cemetery on December 5, in his family's vault, after lying in state in Alvah Strong Hall at the Seminary. Among others, Strong was eulogized by Rush Rhees, then president of the University of Rochester, and by Clarence A. Barbour, a succeeding president of the Seminary.[6]

Theology

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Strong held to a form of inclusivism, that is, he believed that some people from non-Christian religions actually believe in the one true God, the God revealed in the Bible. Thus, it was Strong's view that their faith in God - to the limits of their knowledge and their rejection of the religion around them - constituted "an implicit faith in Christ."[11][original research?]

Triadology

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A.H Strong asserted that the unity of the trinity is not like the unity of three persons among men, since men have only a specific unity of nature, being one species. However, within God the persons of the trinity have a numerical unity of nature, having the same essence. Thus, he asserted that within God the undivided essence belongs equally to each of the three persons, the plurality of the Godhead being a plurality of personal distinctions and not a plurality of essence, the one essence having three modes of subsistence.[12]

Strong asserted the eternal sonship of Christ to be scriptural. Stating that the Bible teaches both the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit.[13]

Atonement

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Strong's Christology began with Christ's presence at the creation of the human couple. Christ's sacrifice for the human race was understood as a Divine sharing of human suffering, in particular the curse of original sin genetically passed through his mother, Mary. The curse of the genetic connection to Adam was prior to the sin that Christ voluntarily took as He died in the crucifixion.[14]

Selected works

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  • Strong, Augustus H. (1907) [1886]. Systematic Theology: The Doctrine of God. Vol. 1. American Baptist Pub. Society.
  • Strong, Augustus H. (1907) [1886]. Systematic Theology: The Doctrine of Man. Vol. 2. American Baptist Pub. Society.
  • Strong, Augustus H. (1909) [1886]. Systematic Theology: The Doctrine of Salvation. Vol. 3. American Baptist Pub. Society.
  • Strong, Augustus H. (1888), Philosophy and Religion: a Series of Addresses, Essays and Sermons Designed to Set Forth Great Truths, New York: Armstrong, OCLC 1965895
  • Strong, Augustus H. (1899), Christ in Creation and Ethical Monism, Philadelphia: The Roger Williams press, OCLC 3313848 [15]

References

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  1. ^ a b Brackney, William H., ed. (2021). "Strong, Augustus Hopkins (1836–1921)". Historical Dictionary of the Baptists. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 575. ISBN 978-1-5381-2252-5.
  2. ^ a b Dwight, Benjamin W. (1871), The History of the Descendants of Elder John Strong, of Northampton, Massachusetts, vol. 2, Albany, New York: Joel Munsell, p. 913, OCLC 2033052, retrieved 2009-10-04
  3. ^ "Death of Alvah Strong", Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York, p. 7, 1885-04-21, ISSN 1088-5153
  4. ^ "Henry A. Strong, Long Business Associate of George Eastman, Dead in His Eighty-first Year", Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York, p. 38, 1919-07-27, ISSN 1088-5153
  5. ^ Rochester Theological Seminary (1920). General Catalogue, 1850 to 1920. E.R. Andrews Printing Co. p. 5.
  6. ^ a b c The NYT Staff (December 6, 1921), "Dr. Augustus H. Strong Buried", The New York Times (published 1921-12-06), p. 19, ISSN 0362-4331, retrieved November 30, 2021.
  7. ^ Tyson, John R. (2019). School of Prophets: A Bicentennial History of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press. p. 1.
  8. ^ Jeffries, Elizabeth (July 31, 2007). "The Strong Family of Rochester, New York" (PDF). University of Rochester. Retrieved June 17, 2025.
  9. ^ a b c Wacker, Grant (1989). Augustus H. Strong. Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0-86554-980-7.
  10. ^ "U. S. Burial Rites Being Planned for Dr. C. A. Strong". Newspapers.com. Democrat and Chronicle. 30 January 1940. Retrieved June 17, 2025.
  11. ^ Strong, Anthony H. (1907) [1886]. Systematic Theology. Old Tappan, NJ: Revell. pp. 842–843. OCLC 878559610.
  12. ^ Strong, Augustus Hopkins (1907). Systematic theology. Robarts - University of Toronto. Philadelphia, Amer. Baptist Pub. Soc. p. 331. The necessary qualification is that, while three persons among men have only a specific unity of nature or essence - that is, have the same species of nature or essence, - the persons of the Godhead have a numerical unity of nature or essence - that is, have the same nature or essence. The undivided essence of the Godhead belongs equally to each of the persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each possesses all the substance and all the attributes of Deity. The plurality of the Godhead is therefore not a plurality of essence, but a plurality of hypostatical, or personal, distinctions. God is not three and one, but three in one. The one indivisible essence has three modes of subsistence.
  13. ^ Strong, Augustus Hopkins (1907). Systematic theology. Robarts - University of Toronto. Philadelphia, Amer. Baptist Pub. Soc. p. 340. That the Sonship of Christ is eternal, is intimated in Psalm 2:7. "This day have I begotten thee "is most naturally interpreted as the declaration of an eternal fact in the divine nature. Neither the incarnation, the baptism, the transfiguration, nor the resurrection marks the beginning of Christ's Sonship, or constitutes him Son of God. These are but recognitions or manifestations of a preexisting Sonship, inseparable from his Godhood. He is "born before every creature" (while yet no created thing existed - see Meyer on Col. 1:15) and "by the resurrection of the dead" is not made to be, but only "declared to be," "according to the Spirit of holiness" (according to his divine nature) "the Son of God with power" (see Philippi and Alford on Rom. 1:3, 4). This Sonship is unique - not predicable of, or shared with, any creature. The Scriptures intimate, not only an eternal generation of the Son, but an eternal procession of the Spirit.
  14. ^ Aloisi, John. “Ethical Monism and Its Impact on Other Areas of Strong’s Theology.” Augustus Hopkins Strong and the Struggle to Reconcile Christian Theology with Modern Thought, Boydell & Brewer, 2021, pp. 72–91. JSTOR website Retrieved 16 June 2025.
  15. ^ a b c "Augustus Hopkins Strong". Thrift Books. Retrieved June 17, 2025.
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Academic offices
Preceded by President of the Rochester Theological Seminary
1872–1912 		Succeeded by
Joseph W. A. Stewart (acting)
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