One Place, One Time…Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD

One Place, One Time…

At one time, I served as president of a student theological society in the United Kingdom. Among my responsibilities was inviting guest speakers for our meetings. Through persistence, good fortune, and the generosity of several distinguished scholars, we assembled a remarkable roster during the year of my incumbency. The speakers themselves were impressive; nearly as interesting, however, were those who came to hear them.

On one memorable occasion, we had the privilege of hosting Professor C. F. D. Moule. “Charlie” Moule, as he was known to friends and generations of students, was already a legend. His scholarship combined intellectual rigor with a profound reverence for the subject before him. He was not simply examining ancient texts as historical artifacts. He was attending to writings through which the Church had heard—and continued to hear—the voice of the living God.

His best-known works included The Birth of the New Testament, first published in 1962, an exploration of the historical and theological circumstances in which the writings of the New Testament emerged, and The Origin of Christology, published in 1977. In the latter, Moule challenged the idea that belief in the divine significance of Jesus was merely a later invention imposed upon the memory of an otherwise unremarkable Galilean teacher. The Church’s understanding of Christ developed and matured, certainly, yet Moule argued that its origins lay in the extraordinary reality of Jesus himself and in the experience of those who first encountered him.

Moule also contributed to the translation of the Apocrypha and the New Testament for the New English Bible. His other works included An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek, which I had used as a seminary text; his commentary on The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon; The Phenomenon of the New Testament; The Holy Spirit; and Essays in New Testament Interpretation. His learning was formidable, yet it was worn lightly. There was nothing theatrical about him. His authority rested not upon performance but upon a lifetime of careful reading, disciplined thought, and faithful teaching.

Following a private dinner with Professor Moule, a brilliant lecture, and a lively period of discussion, the formal gathering began to dissolve into small groups and informal conversations. It was then that I turned and, almost by instinct, took a photograph. In the frame was C. F. D. Moule in conversation with Professor James D. G. Dunn and Professor C. K. Barrett, whose commentary on the Gospel according to Saint John had become indispensable to generations of students. It was half a century of New Testament scholarship gathered in one place at one time.

This was, of course, the age of film. There were no mobile telephones, no limitless succession of digital images, and no opportunity to examine a photograph and immediately take another. The picture I took was the final exposure on the roll. Consequently, I missed the photograph that followed. Professor Stephen Sykes joined the conversation, as did Michael Ramsey, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury and author of The Gospel and the Catholic Church. For a few fleeting moments, they all stood together.

I have sometimes regretted not having that final photograph. Perhaps, however, the absence of the image has made the memory more enduring. A photograph can preserve appearances, but memory preserves something more: the movement of the conversation, the generosity of attention, the quiet humor, and the unmistakable sense of being present at a gathering that could never be repeated.

Scholarship is often encountered through books, footnotes, arguments, and names printed upon title pages. On that evening, those names became voices and faces. They were not monuments but teachers, colleagues, priests, and disciples—men whose learning had been formed through patient attention to Scripture and whose work shaped much of twentieth-century theology. Truly, giants walked the earth. I count myself fortunate not only to have seen them gathered in one place at one time, but also to have  heard  them teach.

Perhaps that is the lasting lesson of the encounter. None of us possesses the truth as though it were ours alone. We receive it from those who have gone before us, attend to it as faithfully as we can, and then place it into the hands of those who follow. The great teachers I knew understood that scholarship was not an exercise in self-importance but a form of stewardship—an offering made in service to Christ and his Church. Their books remain, yet their deeper legacy is found in the lives they shaped and the questions they taught us to ask.

We may never stand among such giants, but we can learn from their example: to listen carefully, study patiently, teach generously, and remain humble before the mystery of God. For a brief moment, they stood together in one place at one time. What they handed on, however, continues from one generation to the next.

Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD