It was 1991. I was in Oxford to deliver a paper at the International Patristics Conference. I was standing with my good friend Charles Kannengiesser in the quad of Christ Church College, as the bells of the cathedral summoned the faithful to Evensong. Suddenly, Charles pointed out a figure moving rapidly through the cloisters. He was clad in surplice, hood, and tippet for the office, and his snow-white hair flowed behind him. Charles turned to me with a smile and said, “He could be from the 18th century.”
The figure was someone we both knew well.
The Rev. Dr. Henry Chadwick, KBE, FBA, was in many ways the dean of early Church historians in the 20th century and acknowledged as such on both sides of the Atlantic. Former Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, he was also singular in being the first person in over 400 years to have led colleges in both Oxford (Christ Church) and Cambridge (Peterhouse). Honored with a knighthood in England, late in life he was awarded the German Pour le Mérite (the nation’s highest civil award) for services to Church history.
My friend Charles had known Chadwick for years as a colleague. Chadwick had even served as one of Charles’ examiners for his doctoral defense at the Sorbonne. Subsequently, Chadwick graciously agreed to read over some sections of my thesis before I submitted it for examination. His remarks, shared in conversation and written in the margin, were concise and remarkably insightful. I have always been thankful for his kindness and generosity of spirit.
The well-word phrase “We stand on the shoulders of Giants” remains true of Chadwick.
To understand Chadwick’s importance, it is important to understand what church history and patristics looked like in the mid-20th century. The study of the early Church was often divided between highly technical German scholarship—think of Harnack’s monumental but daunting works—and Anglican or Catholic histories that leaned toward denominational apologetics. Chadwick broke those two molds. His prose was clear, elegant, and unfailingly balanced. He did not dilute complexity, and he refused to hide it behind jargon. His scholarship could stand beside the finest of his generation, but he always wrote with the conviction that history was not merely for the academy but for the life of the Church as well.
Chadwick wrote extensively throughout his life, but there is one work that bears specific mention. It is his volume The Early Church, part of The Penguin History of the Church. First published in 1967, the volume was revised and updated by Chadwick in 1993. One can easily find it in paperback, and at just over 300 pages it is not daunting reading. There are very few footnotes (a restriction that Chadwick regretted), but the index is complete and extensive. This is a book that has been written in a clear prose style that makes it a delight to read. Chadwick covers the arc of the Church from its Jewish origins to the time of Jerome and Augustine in the fifth century. There are specific chapters on the rise of asceticism and on the development of Christian worship, music, and art. Best of all, there is no special pleading for any sectarian position or approach to Church history.
It is important to remember that The Penguin History of the Church was not meant for scholars alone. Penguin commissioned the series so that ordinary readers, clergy and laity alike, might have reliable and readable guides to Christian history. To place Chadwick in that role on the first volume was a stroke of genius. He brought not only his vast learning but also the pastoral sensibility of a priest and the ear of a musician. The result was a book that, over 50 years later, remains, in my opinion, the single best entry point into the world of the early Church.
I think Chadwick was singularly suited to write a popular history of this sort owing to his life experience. He began his faith journey in the evangelical wing of the Church of England and retained the values he learned there throughout the rest of his life. It is said that, despite strong convictions, he would never engage in an argument or take a combative stance. Although he was deeply involved with academia through all of his adult life (he had a personal library, now in California, of over 20,000 volumes), he retained his deep connection to the Church of England, never seeing a conflict between these two worlds.
He also looked beyond the Church of England to the wider Church, serving on Anglican commissions in dialogue with both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. At one point in these discussions, Pope John Paul II presented Chadwick with the gift of a stole. Chadwick treasured the gift and left instructions that it was to be placed on top of his coffin at his funeral service, which was to be held according to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and, in a nod to his love of music and his evangelical heart, was to include the spiritual “Steal Away.” He remained who he was to the very end.
What many forget, however, is that Chadwick was not only a historian and priest, but also a gifted musician. He was an accomplished organist and his love for music suffuses his understanding of the Church’s worship. When one reads his descriptions of early Christian hymnody or his account of the development of liturgy, one hears the voice not only of the scholar but also of the church musician, attentive to rhythm, cadence, and tone. In this, Chadwick stands close to Augustine, who confessed that the hymns of Ambrose moved him to tears and shaped his faith. For Chadwick, music was not ornament but substance—it was theology sung.
I recall conversations with colleagues who noticed that Chadwick’s lectures always had a certain rhythm to them, as though they were composed in counterpoint. It was said that he could never quite keep his hands still when music was playing in a chapel. This musical sensitivity added a layer of pastoral depth to his historical writing: he knew that the story of the Church was not only a matter of dates and doctrines, but also of worship and prayer.
Why should one still read The Early Church today, more than half a century after it first appeared? Precisely because it does what few works in church history have managed to do. It tells the story of the Church in a way that is accurate, balanced, and deeply humane. It is not a partisan tract, nor is it a mere collection of dates. It is history written with a pastoral heart.
Moreover, Chadwick’s work reminds us that the questions we face today are not new. How should the Church engage with culture? What does it mean to live faithfully under political powers that are often hostile or indifferent? How do Christians worship in a way that is both true to their origins and open to new expressions? These were questions faced by the earliest Christians, and Chadwick helps us see their answers—not as blueprints, but as witness. His chapter on persecution, for instance, reads with uncanny relevance in a world where believers still face martyrdom. His treatment of asceticism offers insight into the hunger for authenticity and discipline that is just as present in the 21st century as it was in the era of the desert Fathers.
Chadwick once remarked, “Nothing is sadder than someone who has lost his memory, and the church which has lost its memory is in the same state of senility.” That line deserves to be read, underlined, and remembered. For it is memory, not nostalgia, but memory—sustained, nourished, cherished—that keeps the Church from becoming captive to every passing cultural fad or political whim. When the Church forgets, it becomes sectarian, shallow, and confused. When the Church truly remembers, it becomes rooted, resilient, and alive.
In our experience, we have seen how ignorance of history leaves Christians vulnerable. Congregations reinvent the wheel every generation. Worship becomes cut off from the deep stream of Christian tradition. Sectarian divisions harden because no one recalls that unity was once fought for and defended. Chadwick’s The Early Church comes to us as a remedy or, if you will, an antidote. It restores memory. It reminds us who we are and where we came from.
This little volume should be placed on your shelf and you should return to it often. Use it not as a relic of another age but as a companion for your faith. Let it remind you that our faith is not rootless, but planted deep in the witness of those who came before us.
As I think back to that evening in Oxford, watching Henry Chadwick stride across the quad of Christ Church, I realize that Charles was right. He did look as though he had stepped out of another century. Yet perhaps that is precisely what made him and his work so vital. He belonged to another age, but he spoke to ours. He carried memory, and he gave it away freely. That is why he was, and remains, a giant upon whose shoulders we still stand.
Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD, has served in academic and parish posts in Europe and America. His published work includes The Way, The Truth, and the The Life (1982), Francis, A Call to Conversion (1988), The Early Episcopal Career of Athanasius (1991), and Martyrs’ Prayers (2018).
