Tuesday, June 24, 2008

More on Henry Chadwick

I noticed the obituaries in The Times, The Guardian, the Telegraph, the Church Times and Cambridge University on Thursday (Death of Henry Chadwick). There are several more to mention. The Times has more personal memories in Lives Remembered,
“There are only two types of young man to whom I would refuse admission to the House,” he said (with a clear glint in the eye). “The first is the young man who, by the tender age of 17, claims to have read the complete works of Dostoevsky.” After a beautifully timed pause for thought, he continued: “The second is the young man who, by the tender age of 17, actually has read the complete works of Dostoevsky!”
The New York Times has an obituary too:

Henry Chadwick, Scholar of Early Christianity, Dies at 87
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

And on Saturday, The Independent published an obituary by Andrew Louth, from which I will excerpt the last paragraph:

The Rev Professor Henry Chadwick: Historian of the early Church who held the Regius Chairs of Divinity at both Oxford and Cambridge
Andrew Louth
. . . . He was a tall man, with a slight stoop that gave him a somewhat Olympian air, enhanced by his habitual courtesy. He did not so much speak as pronounce, though this did not diminish the warmth of his conversation. In lectures, however, he performed, and, a born rhetorician, gave impeccable scholarship elegant expression. In a story he told against himself, he used to relate how, when giving some lectures in America, he was struck by three girls who came faithfully to his lectures and listened without taking notes; towards the end of the series he asked them how they had liked his lectures, and they replied saying they had no interest in what he was saying but just loved listening to his voice. He was an adornment to the world of academe; we may never see his like again.

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