Introduction

Oliver Chase Quick (1885-1944) was one of the foremost and most widely read British theologians of his day.1 He crowned his varied ecclesiastical and academic career with canon-professorships at Durham and Oxford, and his best-known books, The Christian Sacraments (1927) and Doctrines of the Creed (1938), gained textbook status and remained in print for several decades after his death.2 John Kenneth Mozley hailed the former as ‘the most important contribution to sacramental theology … from the Church of England during the present century’, while John Robinson acclaimed the latter as ‘one of the outstanding books on Christian doctrine of our generation’.3 In a recent review of twentieth-century British theology Rowan Williams singled Quick out as an ‘author of some magisterial work on credal doctrine’.4 Yet he is now almost forgotten. Therefore, this book has two related aims: to provide a long-overdue assessment of his work and to account for his neglect.