Anthony Gervase Mathew (14 March 1905 – 4 April 1976) was a

Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...

and British academic. A member of the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

, he taught at

Blackfriars Hall Blackfriars Priory (formally the Priory of the Holy Spirit) is a Dominican religious community in Oxford, England. It houses two educational institutions: Blackfriars Studium, the centre of theological studies of the English Province of the D ...

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. His elder brother, David Mathew, served as a

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

in the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Early life

Gervase Mathew was born on 14 March 1905. His father, Anthony Mathew, was a barrister, who elected to educate his two sons at home rather than send them away to

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

. In 1924 Gervase followed his brother, David, to

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

, where he read Modern History under Sir Maurice Powicke.Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. (1976). "Obituary Notices: The Rev. Fr. Gervase Mathew". ''Azania: archaeological research in Africa''. 11: ix–x – via Taylor and Francis Online. Following his graduation from Oxford, in 1928 Mathew studied at the

British School at Athens , image = Image-Bsa athens library.jpg , image_size = 300px , image_upright= , alt= , caption = The library of the BSA , latin_name= , motto= , founder = The Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, called the foundation meeti ...

. In the same year he joined the Dominican Order. He was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform va ...

in 1934.

Academic career

In 1934 Mathew returned to Oxford to take a post at Blackfriars Hall. He delivered lectures at both the School of Theology and Blackfriars. Matthew's publications covered a range of fields, including classical antiquity, Byzantine art and history, historical theology, patristics, and fourteenth-century English literature and politics. In collaboration with the Chair of Modern Greek studies, Professor John Mavrogordato, Mathew instituted Byzantine Studies at the University of Oxford. From 1947–1971 he held the post of University Lecturer in Byzantine Studies, and in 1965 he was Visiting Professor at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

.Chadwick, Henry (May 1976). "Obituary: Gervase Mathew". ''New Blackfriars''. 57 (672): 194–196 – via JSTOR. While at Oxford, Mathew was a guest member of a literary group,

the Inklings The Inklings were an informal literary discussion group associated with J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis at the University of Oxford for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1949. The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who pra ...

, which was also frequented by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...

, David Cecil, and

Owen Barfield Arthur Owen Barfield (9 November 1898 – 14 December 1997) was a British philosopher, author, poet, critic, and member of the Inklings. Life Barfield was born in London, to Elizabeth (née Shoults; 1860–1940) and Arthur Edward Barfield (1864 ...

Selected bibliography

* ''The Prayer of Quiet'' (Oxford: Blackfriars Publications, 1936) * ''Justice and Charity in The Vision of Piers Plowman'' (Oxford: Blackfriars Publications, 1948) * ''Byzantine Painting'' (London: Faber and Faber, 1950) * ''The Origins of Eucharistic Symbolism'' (Oxford: Blackfriars Publications, 1954) * ''Byzantine Aesthetics'' (London: J. Murray, 1963)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathew, Gervase 20th-century British Roman Catholic priests 1905 births 1976 deaths