Rate My Professor Mark Edwards

Professor Mark Edwards serves as Professor of Early Christian Studies in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford and as Tutor in Theology at Christ Church. He earned his BA in Literae Humaniores from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1984, followed by a DPhil from the same college in 1988 on 'Plotinus and the Gnostics.' Edwards also holds a BA in Theology from New College, Oxford, completed in 1990, and an MA in Theology from Oxford. His early career featured appointments as Hasker Senior Scholar at Exeter College, Oxford (1988-1989), and Lecturer in Classics at Balliol College, Oxford (1988-1989). He then held the Esmee Fairbairn Junior Research Fellowship at New College (1989-1992) and a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship there (1992-1993). In 1993, he was elected Official Student (Tutorial Fellow) in Theology at Christ Church and appointed University Lecturer in Patristics in the Faculty of Theology. He progressed to Associate Professor in Patristics and received a personal chair as Professor of Early Christian Studies in 2014.

Edwards' research specializations encompass patristics, Platonism, the New Testament, early Christianity, historical and systematic theology, and the history of Christianity. His major publications include Neoplatonic Saints (2000), Origen against Plato (2002), John Through the Centuries (2003), Constantine and Christendom (2004), Culture and Philosophy in the Age of Plotinus (2006), Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church (2009), Image, Word and God in the Early Christian Centuries (2012), Christians, Gnostics and Philosophers in Late Antiquity (2012), and Aristotle and Early Christian Thought (2020). With over 300 publications, his work has significantly influenced scholarship on late antique philosophy and Christian thought. Edwards holds editorial roles as general editor for Early Church entries in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, on the boards of Oxford Theological Monographs and North American Patristics Society Monographs, founding editor and co-editor of Routledge’s Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity, and editorial boards of the Journal of Theological Studies, Church History and Religious Culture, Journal of Inklings Studies, and Schweitzer Journal. He serves on the Steering Committee of the Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity and was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2023 for his distinguished contributions to research.