John GILLIES

GILLIES, JOHN (b. Kilberry, Argyllshire Scotland, 1870; d. Melbourne, Vic, 12 June 1952). Professor of NT, Calvinist activist.

Gillies was born the son of the manse, in Kilberry, and educated at Rothesay Academy the University of Glasgow (MA), and theological training at the Free Church College in Glasgow (BD). Soon after emigrating to Australia he passed the exit exams in the Victorian Presbyterian Theological Hall in 1894. In Nov 1897 he was ordained, and inducted into the pastoral charge of Portarlington where he remained until called to Hawthorn, SA in 1910. He was m. to a fellow Scot and they had four sons. His final pastoral move was to Surrey Hills, Vic, where he was inducted as the minister on 29 Aug 1917. On 31 Dec 1927 he was elected to the professorship of New Testament Studies at Ormond College in succession to Rev L Rentoul (q.v.). He remained in that position for twelve years until he retired at the end of Dec 1939 when he acted as the assistant to the minister at South Yarra. New Life recorded of him that 'He maintained the high tradition of that chair for evangelical scholarship, and exercised a great influence upon his students. He was an earnest evangelical preacher, delighting to expound the great doctrines of the New Testament and always clothing his messages in the choicest language'. During his years at Ormond he served as secretary of the Senatus and a Presbyterian member of the Melbourne College of Divinity.

Gillies played a full part in the life of the church and became involved in various debates in the courts of his denomination particularly as an opponent of Samuel Angus. He was considered by contemporaries a first rate scholar, especially in Biblical languages and Latin. Unfortunately, his scholarship was restricted to the pulpit and the lecture hall with very little of his thoughts appearing in print, with the exception of a few articles which appeared in the Reformed Theological Review. Throughout his life he maintained an avid interest in the history and traditions of the Presbyterian Church and was a founder of the Calvinistic Society in 1939 along with the Rev Arthur Allen, a minister of the Free Presbyterian Church of Victoria in Geelong, and F Maxwell Bradshaw. In Nov 1942, along with the Rev Robert Swanton (q.v.) and his old friend Arthur Allen, he founded The Reformed Theological Review. He also played a prominent role in the Bible Union of Victoria of which he was a member almost from its inception and, in the early years, president for two years. His theology could be characterised in general as reformed but he was open to new ideas of form criticism.

John Gillies, 'Form Criticism and the Bible' RTR, Nov 1942; 'Dora Greenwell', RTR, May 1944; 'Four Centuries of Scottish Psalmody' RTR, Autumn 1950; New Life, 19 June 1952; The Messenger, 4 July 1952

STEWART D GILL