My primary field of research is Patristics, which is the study of early Christian thought, history, and literature.  I have published on a number of Greek and Latin authors, among them Clement of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine.

Area of Specialization

Courses include offerings on Catholic thought and history, Augustine, and other early Christian writers, especially the Latin Fathers.  Recent research includes a study of the history of clerical celibacy and an English translation of the Commentary on the Pauline Epistles by Ambrosiaster (in collaboration with Stephen Cooper and Theodore de Bruyn).

About Me

David G. Hunter is the first holder of the Cottrill-Rolfes Chair of Catholic Studies.  He has a joint appointment in History and in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (Division of Classics).

• The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, co-edited with Susan Ashbrook Harvey
  http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199271566 
• Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy
  http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199279784 
• “Sexuality, Marriage, and the Family,” ch. 24 in The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume II. Constantine to c. 600.  Edited by Augustine Casiday and Frederick W. Norris. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. 585-600.
• “Marrying and the tabulae nuptiales in Roman North Africa: From Tertullian to Augustine,” in Marrying in the Middle Ages: The Formation and Documentation of Marriage 400-1600.  Edited by Philip L. Reynolds and John Witte, Jr.  Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. 95-113. 
• “Between Jovinian and Jerome: Augustine and the Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7,” Studia Patristica 43 (2006): 131-136.
• “Fourth Century Latin Writers,” ch. 27 in Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature. Edited by Frances Young, Lewis Ayres, and Andrew Louth.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.  Pp. 302-317. 
• “Augustine and the Making of Marriage in Roman North Africa,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11 (2003): 63-85.
• “Re-reading the Jovinianist Controversy: Asceticism and Clerical Authority in Late Ancient Christianity,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33 (2003): 453-470.  Reprinted in The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography. Edited by Dale B. Martin and Patricia Cox Miller. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005. Pp. 119-135.