Fr David Strong SJ, The Australian dictionary of Jesuit biography 1848-2015, Second Edition, 2017:
Dalton, William

Scripture scholar, administrator; born Benalla, Victoria, 8 November 1916; died Melbourne, 10 May 2004, aged 87.

In 1928 the rector of Xavier College, Edmund Frost, preached the community retreat to the Faithful Companions of Jesus (FCJ) sisters in Benalla, Victoria. The superior and principal of the Catholic primary school which the sisters ran, Mother Euphemia, mentioned to Frost that there was a 12 years old boy from a good Catholic home at a place called the Four Mile, midway between Benalla and the small hamlet of Baddaginnie. She suggested that if Xavier College had a scholarship available, this young boy, William Dalton, would be a promising candidate. The suggestion was accepted, Dalton acquired the scholarship, and nearly 80 years later, the Society of Jesus, the Church in Australia and beyond, scripture scholarship and countless numbers of people, owe the wisdom of that FCJ sister a very great debt.

Dalton entered the Society at Loyola, Watsonia, 10 March 1934, and did his ecclesiastical studies in Australia, studying classics at the University of Melbourne, 1936-7 and 1941. He later gained an MA in Greek by examination. He enjoyed his regency at St Louis School, Perth, 1942-45, his students appreciating his leadership and kindness. Tertianship was at Münster, Germany, 1953.

He will be long remembered for being a man of great encouragement. He is treasured for the memory of his warm, gracious smile, and the approval and acceptance that radiated from his presence simply upon seeing one. He was a consoling companion of those with troubled lives, showing the power and healing of the scriptures.

He was a man filled with the Spirit, in the sense that to meet him and be with him was to catch freedom. He radiated freedom. In his retreats he opened up the scriptures, especially the psalms, and made the liturgy a joyful experience. He had been taught at the Biblical Institute in Rome, 1950-52 and 1962-63, by Augustin (later Cardinal) Bea and Stanislas Lyonnet, and had Carlo (later Cardinal) Martini as a fellow student. Schooled in the spirit of Vatican II, Dalton was superbly equipped for his future ministry - in Australia, the United States, Rome and the Holy Land - of communicating the scriptural and biblical riches for which the wider Church had been so long awaiting.

For all his affability and love of being with people, Dalton was a very good scholar. He gave great leadership, both personally and symbolically, to scripture scholarship in Australia. Long before ecumenism was a word most people had heard of, he was an active member of biblical associations such as the Fellowship of Biblical Studies, based on friendship and love of the Word that simply transcended the rigid denominational boundaries then in place.

At the University of Melbourne and in Rome, Dalton did hard work on the biblical languages and intricacies of the text. Towards the end of his studies at the Biblicum he was told that course requirements demanded yet another ancient language. The choices on offer were Coptic, Akkadian or Ancient Egyptian. Dalton opted for the latter, but later confessed wryly that, though interesting enough at the time, the knowledge acquired proved to be of limited pastoral usefulness.

For a generation or so, Dalton was the world authority on the First Letter of St Peter. Because of a position he had adopted on one of the passages in that letter, describing Christ's preaching to the spirits in prison (1 Peter, 3:19), he was later asked by the editor of a popular series of theology to write the volume on Hell. The thought of Dalton writing on Hell provoked considerable bemusement; so remote did the topic seem from his own human and theological disposition. But he carefully researched the ancient Jewish literature and the Church tradition, and Dalton on Hell remains a standard, if not currently widely consulted, treatment. Needless to say, however, there was not much left of Hell by the time Dalton was finished with it.

As a teacher Dalton adopted the posture of Philip with the enquiring Ethiopian. Rather than lecturing out in front, he preferred in many ways to companion students in their enquiries, to sit alongside them in the chariot of learning and proceed by discussion and mutual investigation.

Dalton's demeanour, enthusiasm and palpable embodiment of scripture had as much if not more impact than the actual content of his teaching. Those who heard him at Pymble (1953-61), as well as at Glen Waverley, Parkville, Clayton, and Christchurch (1969-75), while rector of the Jesuit Theological College, experienced him blow away cobwebs of restrictive interpretations as much by his opening smile and encouragement as anything else.

He loved the liturgy. He never said Mass alone; it was always a celebration for all. He was the best of celebrants. At the start, he used the warmth of his personality to create a welcoming community context for hearing the Word and sharing prayer. Then, without any forced devotion, he would lead all gently into a dignified and reverent celebration of the central Eucharistic moments, to emerge at the end with a wonderful sacramental blend of the human and the truly transcendent.

Apart from his teaching of scripture, Dalton made a lasting contribution to Jesuit life in Australia as the founding rector of Jesuit Theological College. In this enterprise probably no one else could have done what he did: allowed and encouraged so many new things and yet held all together by his faith, his strength of character and confidence in the good sense and decency of people led by the Spirit. He often seemed to be the one furthest out in front; it was the senior students at the time that suggested when the foot needed to move from accelerator to brake. Scholar though he was, his leadership style did not always make things easy for those responsible for the programme of studies.

He put a great deal into the formation of community, with a seemingly limitless capacity for celebration. Later, he tried that, with perhaps less lasting success in the community of the Biblicum, 1977-80. Scholars, who spend most of their day closeted in their rooms, poring over papyri and dusty commentaries, may be devoted to the Lord; they are not easily cobbled into highly interactive community.

Dalton found special friendship with young people. His aggressive, challenging banter, his outrageous protests and suggestions, released in them all kinds of freedom. Never far from the surface, though, was the overall context of faith. Long before Vatican II he worked in Sydney with a group of young adults (in those days it was a 'sodality', now it would be a Christian Life Community). Members of the group gained much life from the meetings.

Jesuit Theological College could not have been part of the remarkable ecumenical achievement represented by the United Faculty of Theology, Parkville, and the wider ambit of the Melbourne College of Divinity, had it not been for the great basis of friendship, trust and mutual appreciation that Dalton enjoyed with scholars and academic leaders such as Davis McCaughey, Robin Sharwood, Eric Osborn and others. They gave the Jesuits great hospitality, especially in the fragile early years.

Dalton had a great concern that the New Testament not be interpreted in a way hostile or repressive to Jews and Judaism. This concern grew particularly during his tenure as director of the Biblical Institute in Jerusalem, 1981-83, where he fostered close links with the Hebrew University, and became personally friendly with Teddy Kollek, the then mayor of Jerusalem, and several Jewish scholars.

In later years, too, Dalton spoke much more of his family - of the wonderful blend of humanity and faith that flourished in the home at Four Mile and spread down the new generations, of whose achievements he was so proud.

Then, in a manner that baffled medical science, came twelve years before his death that mysterious but crippling breathing affliction, cruelly cutting down the capacity of what Dalton most liked to do: talk and hold forth in congenial company. He was able to continue for a while a measure of writing and scriptural commentary through the Internet. His last years were most painful for him, as he became more silent and withdrawn, not desiring to see anyone for more than a short time. This was a complete change of personality.

Dalton wrote ten books among which the more significant were: Christ's proclamation to the spirits: a study of 1 Peter 3: 18-4:6 (1965), Aspects of New Testament eschatology (1968), Mary in the New Testament (1974), Salvation and damnation (1977), The Word of God in the Spiritual Exercises (1979), Galatians without tears (1992), Seeking the word: life pilgrimage of Bill Dalton SJ: an autobiography (1996), Interpretation (1999).

(Reproduced by permission of Fr David Strong SJ.)