Who is Charles Hodge?

Charles Hodge was born December 28, 1797 in Philadelphia, the last of five children born to Hugh and Mary Hodge. Both parents were of distinguished families; his mother was of Huguenot descent. His father, who descended from Irish roots, died six months after Charles was born, leaving his mother to raise him and his brother (only the two of them survived infancy) on limited means.

Speaking of his forebears in America, Charles Hodge wrote in his journal, “I wish...that those who come after me should know that their ancestors and kindred were Presbyterians and patriots.”


Of his childhood he wrote,

“To our mother, my brother and myself, under God, owe absolutely everything...Our mother was a Christian. She took us regularly to church, and carefully drilled us in the Westminster Catechism, which we recited on stated occasions to Dr. Ashbel Green, our pastor.”

At the age of fourteen years he entered the sophomore class of the College of New Jersey. It was here that he met John Johns, a lifelong friend of whom more will be said under “Friendships”. Revival came to the college in the winter of 1814-15 and the result was that Charles made a public profession of faith by joining the Presbyterian Church of Princeton on January 13, 1815.

In 1816 he entered Princeton Theological Seminary, then in the fourth year of its existence, and graduated in 1819. In May of that year the young Hodge was asked by Archibald Alexander, president of the seminary, “How would you like to be a professor in the seminary (He was only twenty-two years of age)? Acting according to a plan proposed by Alexander, Hodge went home to Philadelphia to study Hebrew. In October of that year he was licensed to preach the gospel and entered upon “missionary” work in the Philadelphia area. Written in his journal from that period of his life are these words, “May I be taught of God that I may be able to teach others also.”

Hodge was appointed in May, 1820 to serve as a teacher at the seminary. In September of 1821 he was ordained to the ministry and in May of the following year he was elected as Professor of Oriental and Biblical Literature of the Seminary. His pay was $1,000 per year.

On June 17, 1822 Hodge married Miss Sarah Bache, who was the great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin. At their marriage Charles was described as slender, of average height, very youthful-looking, with light brown hair, curling over a finely formed head, a light complexion...illumined by the light of blue eyes. In other hand, Sarah was “of full standard height for women, of symmetrical form, dark auburn hair, large bluegrey eyes...”

In the Life of Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge wrote that in 1826, "....the sense of his (C. Hodge) own deficiencies became more intense.” Application was made to the Board of Directors of the seminary to study for two years in Europe. Leaving his family (his wife and two children) with his mother, he sailed from New York in October, 1826. He studied in Paris until February of the following year and then went to Halle, Germany, where he was introduced to Wilhelm Gesenius. Here also he made the acquaintance of Friedrich Augustus Tholuck, with whom he “formed a personal friendship, which on both sides remained unabated to the end of their long lives.”

From Halle he made his way through Germany, meeting Augustus Neander in Dresden and finally arriving at Berlin, October 12, 1827. There, among others, he met Ernst Hengstenberg and Friedrich Schleiermacher. His journal from his stay in Berlin contains this note,

Upon his return from Europe, he resumed his writing for the Biblical Repertory (later to become the Princeton Review) which he had established in 1825 before going to Europe. Hodge would continue to be the editor of the Repertory from the date of its initiation and for the next 43 years.

In 1840, in view of the advancing age of Dr. Alexander, Hodge was transferred from the chair of Oriental and Biblical Literature to the chair of Exegetical and Didactic Theology. Upon the death of Dr. Alexander in 1851, Polemic Theology was added to Hodge’s title. His son said, “This change... was not only not sought by him, but was regarded at first with decided aversion.” The change of chairs, according to A.A. Hodge, “was one of the capital and most advantageous turning points in Dr. Hodge’s life.”

Charles and Sarah had eight children; two born before he left for Europe, and six after his return. But then, on Christmas Day, 1849 Sarah, his wife of twenty-seven and one half years died in the fifty-first year of her life. After her death, Hodge would write to his brother, “No human being can tell, prior to the experience, what it is to lose out of a family its head and heart, the source at once of its light and love.”

In 1852 he was married a second time to a widow, Mrs. Mary Hunter Stockton. In a letter to his friend Bishop Johns he wrote,

“I have known her by sight since she was fifteen years old. For the last six or seven years she was a sister to Sarah, and therefore to me. She was familiarly known and greatly loved by all my children, who were almost as much at home in her house as in my own. She has come into my family as an old friend, every heart already her own, and we all feel her presence as a token and assurance of God’s favor.”

A semi-centennial celebration was observed at the First Presbyterian Church in Princeton on April 24, 1872 for the fiftieth year of his professorship at the seminary. On that occasion $45,000 was contributed for a permanent endowment of the chair which Hodge had filled and, in addition, a gift of over fifteen thousand dollars was given to Hodge himself.

Dr. Henry Boardman addressed him in behalf of those gathered for the occasion, which included, among others, four hundred of his former students. Boardman told Dr. Hodge, “in reviewing this half century of your labors, we reverently glorify God in you.” Speaking of the type of theology taught in the seminary, Boardman remarked, a censorious critic said the other day, derisively in reviewing the volumes of Theology, lately published, ‘It is enough for Dr. Hodge to believe a thing to be true that he finds it in the Bible.’ We accept the token. Dr.Hodge has never gotten beyond the Bible. It contains every jot and title of his theology.

Now we come to the close of his life. After attending the funeral of a friend on May 16, 1878, Hodge began to weaken. During those final days, seeing his widowed daughter weeping while she watched him, he stretched his hand toward her and said, ‘Why should you grieve, daughter? To be absent from the body is to be with the Lord, to be with the Lord'.

Even in his last hours when freedom from pain and from torpor was gained for a little, he was alert and inquisitive with his usual interest in events around him, and events of the day.

Hodge died on June 19, 1878. His funeral was held on Saturday, June 22. Dr. William Paxton preached the sermon. All the stores in the town were closed and all business suspended in token of respect.

**This biography was taken and revised from Robert W. Anderson’s A Short Biography of Charles Hodge.