Henry Chadwick

Henry Chadwick (23 June 1920 – 17 June 2008) was a British academic, theologian and Church of England priest. A former dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford – and as such, head of Christ Church, Oxford – he also served as master of Peterhouse, Cambridge.

A leading historian of the early church, Chadwick was appointed Regius Professor at both the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He was a noted supporter of improved relations with the Catholic Church, and a leading member of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission. An accomplished musician, having studied music to degree level, he took a leading part in the revision and updating of hymnals widely used within Anglicanism, chairing the board of the publisher Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd. for 20 years.

Family and early life Born in Bromley, Kent, Chadwick was the son of a barrister (who died when Chadwick was five) and a music-loving mother. and the Revd William Owen Chadwick and his other brother also became priests. Despite this, it was one of his sisters whom Chadwick would later describe as "the brightest of us all." Although he did not show much aptitude as a Grecian, his lifelong love of music made its first appearance and resulted in his receiving organ lessons from Henry Ley.

After leaving Eton, he went to Magdalene College, Cambridge, on a music scholarship, and was expected to make music his career. He graduated in 1941 and began his theological training in 1942, at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, being ordained deacon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in Canterbury Cathedral, in 1943 and priest by the Bishop of Dover in 1944. He served a curacy at the Evangelical parish of Emmanuel, Croydon, arriving towards the end of the Second World War, as Croydon was attacked by German V-weapons, which provided a difficult pastoral challenge.

Oxford

Chadwick moved to Oxford in 1959, to take up the position of Regius Professor of Divinity (and with it the associated canonry at Christ Church Cathedral) at the relatively young age of 39. and in 1962 Gifford Lecturer at the University of St Andrews lecturing on Authority in the Early Church. He gave a second series of lectures in 1963–64, on Authority in Christian Theology. 1963 also saw him appointed to an early Anglican inquiry into the issues surrounding the ordination of women. In the 1960s, along with scholars like E. R. Dodds, Peter Brown, and John Matthews, Chadwick helped make Oxford a centre in the developing study of Late Antiquity. He clarified the classical philosophical roots of Christian thinkers from Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria to Augustine of Hippo, In 1968 he was appointed a vice-president of the British Academy. This period was not entirely happy; a scholarly ability to see all sides of a question, along with an ingrained desire not to upset his colleagues, sometimes made it hard for him to make a quick or firm decision. However, during his time as Dean the college benefited from a continued programme of renovation with internal changes that provided more student accommodation. as a Delegate of Oxford University Press, as one of the curators of the Bodleian, and as Pro-Vice-Chancellor 1974–75. He was a master of the Anglican approach of producing statements capable of a range of interpretations to enable common ground to be reached; this worked well for simpler historical differences, but did not always impress the Roman Catholic members of the commission when it came to questions of ecclesiology and church authority. Although his scholarly output suffered from the pressures on his time, he was editor of Oxford Early Christian Texts (from 1970), and was able to work on two major monographs, Priscillian of Avila: the occult and the charismatic in the early Church (published 1976) and Boethius: the consolations of music, logic, theology and philosophy (published 1981). The second of these in particular allowing him to draw on the full range of his interests. returning to Cambridge to take up the Regius Chair of Divinity. Additionally, he became a Syndic of Cambridge University Press, a Fellow of Magdalene, and was installed as an honorary canon of Ely Cathedral. He gained a reputation as a popular lecturer in Cambridge, and between 1982 and 1983 gave the Sarum Lectures in Oxford, for which his subject was Augustine of Hippo. Edited, these lectures became the basis for his 1986 book, Augustine. He retired from the professorship in 1983 and settled in Oxford. In 1991 he published a new translation of Augustine's Confessions, with extensive notes revealing Augustine's debt to Plotinus. According to The Times, when reviewing others' writing he was usually generous, though capable of a courteous demolition job when well-deserved. He was made an honorary fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, in 1958, just before he took up his Oxford Chair; and of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1962. He also treasured a stole given to him by Pope John Paul II in 1982, and this was placed on his coffin during his funeral at Christ Church on 25 June 2008. Two Festschriften were made in his honour, one for his contributions to the study of church history (Christian Authority, ed. Gillian Evans, 1988), the other for his ecumenical work (The Making of Orthodoxy, ed. Rowan Williams, 1989). In 1984 The Times reported that both brothers were reputed to have turned down more than one bishopric.

Chadwick's love of music led him to serve for twenty years as chairman of the council of Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd. During this time the company expanded its scope. From producing the hymnbooks Hymns Ancient and Modern (A&M), and The English Hymnal, it also took ownership of Canterbury Press, SCM Press, and the Church Times, leading to jokes that Chadwick was an ecclesiastical Rupert Murdoch.

Chadwick was an International member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

A memorial to him and his brother was unveiled at Westminster Abbey on 2 February 2018.

Publications Chadwick published over 125 books, monographs, articles etc. Mentioned in obituaries as being particularly notable are: Origen: Contra Celsum (1953) Lessing's Theological Writings (Selected and Translated, Stanford University Press, 1957) Early Christian Thought and The Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement, and Origen (Oxford, 1966) Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church (1976) Augustine (Past Masters, Oxford, 1986) Saint Augustine: Confessions (Translation, introduction, notes. Oxford, 1991) The Early Church (The Penguin History of the Church, 1967 revised 1993) Augustine: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2001) The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great (Oxford History of the Christian Church, 2001) East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church (History of the Christian Church, 2003)