Eric Lionel Mascall

Eric Lionel Mascall (1905–1993) was a leading theologian and priest in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England.

He was a philosophical exponent of the Thomist tradition and was Professor of Historical Theology at King's College London (in the University of London).

His name was styled as E. L. Mascall in most of his writings.

Mascall was for many years one of the major figures in British theology and well respected on the Continent and in North America.

He authored more than 20 books, in which he expounded Anglican theology in its most Catholic of forms.

Mascall was arguably the most influential in a group of like-minded theologians, most of whom had predeceased him – Austin Farrer, Gregory Dix, Lionel Thornton and Gabriel Hebert.

Born in London on 12 December 1905, Eric Mascall was the son of John Mascall and his wife Susan.

He was educated at Latymer Upper School, Pembroke College, Cambridge.

In 1931 he entered Ely Theological College and was ordained in the Church of England in 1933.

After a period as a schoolmaster at Bablake School, Coventry, Mascall was ordained priest in 1933 at Southwark Cathedral, serving his first curacy at St Andrew's, Stockwell.

In 1935 he crossed the river to St Matthew's, Westminster in the Diocese of London.

Subsequently, he taught theology at Lincoln Theological College and Christ Church, Oxford.

He joined the Oratory of the Good Shepherd in 1938.

Mascall wrote on many theological themes as well as natural theology; these included the above-mentioned ecumenism in The Recovery of Unity (1958), science and religion in his Bampton Lectures, Christian Theology and Natural Science (1956), regarded by many at the time of its publication as the best book on the subject in English.

His previous training in mathematics served him and readers well throughout his ministry.

He also produced several publications opposing the ordination of women.

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In 1962 he became Professor of Historical Theology at King's College London and followed this appointment by a period as canon theologian of Truro Cathedral.

He retired in 1973 and continued to live in the clergy house of St Mary's, Bourne Street.

He spent part of 1976 as a visiting professor at the Gregorian University at Rome.

Mascall died on 14 February 1993 in Seaford, East Sussex.

Mascall was a devout Anglo-Catholic but his early studies were in mathematics.

He took a first in the subject at Pembroke College, and the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge.

He remained engaged in relations between the Anglican Communion, Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches.