Former Southern professor Dale Moody recalled a tense moment from his days as a student in Hersey Davis’s second year Greek class:

“I got Dr. Davis to let me take second year Greek first year I was here because I could sight read the Greek New Testament at that time and I didn’t want to go through baby Greek again. It was quite an interesting thing which accounted for the relationship between me and some–me and particularly Dr. McDowell. Dr. Davis, you had to know his personality. He was a big, booming fellow. He didn’t want me to take junior Greek.

One of the first days–it was the first week of school, and he stood me up and had me sight–More or less if you’ve had baby Greek you ought to be able to sight read the Greek New Testament on some level. So he stood me up–I’ll never forget the third chapter of Philippians. You know it’s a passage that has a lot of words that Paul doesn’t use a lot because he’s talking, you know he starts off, “Beware the dogs.” And all that. So he stood me up and I read the entire third chapter of Philippians in Greek for him, translated it. But I didn’t dare tell him that I had committed that chapter to memory before I had come to seminary.”

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–From An Oral History Interview of Dale Moody