Cuthbert Hamilton Turner

1860-1930. Anglican historian of early Christianity, and NT scholar. He came to Oxford as a student in 1879 and there remained until his death, serving in various capacities as research scholar and lecturer, latterly as fellow of Magdalen College (1889-1930) and Dean Ireland's professor of exegesis (1920-30). His research centered in matters of chronology and textual criticism related to the Fathers and canon law. He failed to complete several major writing projects, but published in fascicles an extensive collection of documents relating to early Western canon law Ecclesiae Occidentalis Monumenta Juris Antiquissima (1899-1930) and a flood of learned essays-the more important being a classic study of NT chronology in Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible (vol. 1, 1898); “Greek Patristic Commentaries” in the same dictionary (extra vol., 1904); a general sketch of the development of early canon law for the Cambridge Medieval History (vol. 1, 1911); “Apostolic Succession” in Essays on the Early History of the Church and the Ministry, which he co- edited with H.B. Swete* (1918); and his inaugural lecture on The Study of the New Testament, 1883 and 1920 (1920).

Two collections of his writings were published under the title Studies in Early Christian History (1912) and Essays: Catholic and Apostolic (posthumous, with a memoir by H.N. Bates, 1931). Turner was the first editor of Journal of Theological Studies (1899-1902), to which he contributed throughout his life, and a collaborator in the Patristic Greek Lexicon initiated by H.B. Swete and completed only recently.