Field, Frederick (1801-1885), patristics scholar

Frederick Field was born in London on 20 July 1801, the son of Henry and Esther Field. After attending Christ's Hospital, he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1819, and graduated as tenth wrangler, Chancellor's classical medallist, and Tyrwhitt's Hebrew scholar. He was elected a Fellow of Trinity in 1824, but did not teach, although he served twice as classical tripos examiner and took private pupils. He was ordained in 1828, and combined parochial work with academic work for many years. In 1842 he was presented with the living (in Trinity's gift) of Reepham, in Norfolk. His academic work was in the field of biblical and patristic studies, and his first work, an edition of Chrysostom's 'Homilies on St Matthew' was published in 1839, and was followed by an edition of Chrysostom's 'Homilies on St Paul's Epistles' (1845-62). In 1863 he resigned his living to devote his time to his work on an edition of the fragments of Origen's 'Hexapla' published in two volumes, 1867-1874. While working on the fragments he also published a pamphlet entitled 'Otium Norvicense' in 1864 with three more parts published in 1876, 1881, and (posthumously) in 1887, which served as a synthesis of his research into readings of the Greek text of the Old and New testaments. In part 4 he claimed to have been the first person to reintroduce the ancient interpretation of Mark 7: 18 which was adopted in the Revised Version of 1881. He died 19 April 1881 in Norwich, survived by his sister.

This summary owes much to Joanna Hawke's biography of Field in the Dictionary of National Biography.