Arthur Nock

Nock was born in Portsmouth, England in 1902 to Cornelius and Alice Mary Ann Nock. He was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School.Who Was Who, Published by A&C Black Limited, online edition, 2020

Nock studied at Trinity College at Cambridge University, where he was awarded his bachelor's degree in 1922 and master's degree in 1926. He became a fellow at Clare College in Cambridge in 1923 and then served as a university lecturer in Classics starting in 1926. In 1930, he became Frothingham Professor of the History of Religion at Harvard University in the United States (as successor to George Foot Moore), where he remained the rest of his life.{{cite journal |title=Obituary: Arthur Darby Nock |journal=Journal of Roman Studies |author=Dodds, E. R. |author2=Chadwick, Henry |date=November 1963 |volume=53 |issue=1–2 |pages=167–169 |publisher=Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies |doi=10.1017/S0075435800061888|doi-access=free }} At 28, he was the youngest full professor at Harvard in half a century. As a guest lecturer, he held lectures at various universities, such as Harvard, Trinity College in Dublin (Donnellan Lecturer, 1931), King's Chapel in Boston, and University of Aberdeen (Gifford Lecturer, 1939 and 1946).{{cite web |url=http://www.giffordlectures.org/lecturers/arthur-darby-nock |title=Arthur Darby Nock |work=The Gifford Lectures |author=Kahan, David |date=18 August 2014 |accessdate=5 October 2015}}

As a scholar of religion, Nock was of international importance, as evidenced not only by his extensive work as a guest lecturer, but also by his membership in numerous academies. He was a corresponding member of the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1932),{{Cite web |title=Arthur Darby Nock |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/arthur-darby-nock |access-date=2023-04-24 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en}} the Prussian Academy of Sciences (from 1937), the German Archaeological Institute (from 1937), the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (from 1938), and the American Philosophical Society from 1941.{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Arthur+Nock&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-04-24 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}} He also received a doctorate from the University of Birmingham (Doctor of Letters in 1934) and an honorary doctorate from both the Sorbonne in Paris (1950) and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York (1960). He was an editor of the Harvard Theological Review from 1930 until his death.

Nock believed that religion was an important subject to be studied, saying "The term religion must be regarded as embracing all thought and language and action which man directs towards the unknown forces around him. It includes those proceedings and attitudes which can technically be classified as magical as well as religious; it includes much which later ripens into philosophy and science." To this end, he advocated the creation of a doctoral degree in the History and Philosophy of Religion at Harvard in order to better prepare students to teach the subject of religion.{{cite web|url=http://www.gsas.harvard.edu/scholarly_life/from_church_history_to_tibetan_buddhist_rituals.php |title=From Church History to Tibetan Buddhist Rituals |author=Hall, Ann |date=4 May 2015 |work=The GSAS Bulletin |publisher=The President and Fellows of Harvard College |accessdate=23 October 2015 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20151104000721/http://www.gsas.harvard.edu/scholarly_life/from_church_history_to_tibetan_buddhist_rituals.php |archivedate=4 November 2015 }} The degree program was implemented in October 1934. As a member of the steering committee created to guide the creation of the doctorate, Nock ensured that it would include the study of all manner of religious beliefs, from ancient Greek and Roman to Jewish and Indian. This comparative study of world religions eventually became the main focus of the degree, following a review in the 1950s.

After a week of illness, Nock died on 11 January 1963 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• Sallustius ‘Concerning the Gods and the Universe’, with Prolegomena and Translation, editor, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926).
• Conversion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933).
• St. Paul (London: Butterworth, 1938).

• {{cite book |title=Sallustius: Concerning the Gods and the Universe |date=2013 |orig-year=1926 |isbn=978-1107645035|last1=Nock |first1=Arthur Darby }}
• {{cite journal |title=Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background |journal=Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation |editor=A. E. Rawlinson |editor-link=Alfred Rawlinson (bishop) |location=London |publisher=Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd. |date=1928}}
• {{cite journal |title=The Diis Electa: A Chapter in the Religious History of the Third Century |journal=Harvard Theological Review |volume=23 |issue=4 |date=October 1930 |pages=251–74 |doi=10.1017/S0017816000002844|last1=Nock |first1=Arthur Darby |s2cid=162996789 }}
• {{cite book |title=Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |date=1933 |oclc=231136}}
• {{cite book |title=St. Paul |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.179520 |location=London |publisher=Harper & Brothers |date=1938 |oclc=613423}}
• {{cite journal |title=A Feature of Roman Religion |journal=Harvard Theological Review |volume=32 |issue=1 |date=January 1939 |pages=83–96 |jstor=1508073 |doi=10.1017/S001781600002160X|last1=Nock |first1=Arthur Darby |s2cid=162753898 }}
• {{cite journal |title=Orphism or Popular Philosophy |journal=Harvard Theological Review |volume=33 |issue=4 |date=October 1940 |pages=301–15 |jstor=1508056 |doi=10.1017/S0017816000018800|last1=Nock |first1=Arthur Darby |s2cid=170392558 }}
• {{cite book |title=Essays on Religion and the Ancient World |editor=Zeph Stewart |date=1972 |isbn=978-0674021136 |publisher=Harvard University Press}}

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• {{cite book |author=Rexine, John E. |chapter=Nock, Arthur Darby |editor=Ward W. Briggs |title=Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport CT |date=1994 |isbn=0-313-24560-6 |pages=445–446}}
• {{cite journal |author=Nilsson, Martin P. |author-link=Martin P. Nilsson |title=Arthur Darby Nock |journal=Gnomon |volume=35 |date=1963 |pages=318–320}}

• {{DBCS}}
• [http://div.hds.harvard.edu/library/bms/13001/bms13001nock.html Writings of Arthur Nock] at Harvard Divinity School

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Category:1902 births

Category:1963 deaths

Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

Category:English classical scholars

Category:Harvard University faculty

Category:English theologians

Category:Writers from Portsmouth

Category:People educated at The Portsmouth Grammar School

Category:Corresponding fellows of the British Academy

Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society