Dr Alastair Logan came to Exeter's Department of Theology in 1972 to teach early Christian doctrine. His academic career began in Edinburgh, where he studied classics and divinity, and continued at Harvard and St Andrews. His research interest in gnosticism has marked him out in a field where there are very few UK specialists.Interview with Dr Alastair Logan
Name: Dr Alastair Logan
Age: 64
Job: Senior Lecturer in Christian Doctrine, Department of Theology
Education: MA Hons Classics, University of Edinburgh, BD Hons Ecclesiastical History, University of Edinburgh, ThM, Harvard University, PhD in New Testament, University of St Andrews
Based in: Department of Theology, part of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences
What has been the most rewarding moment of your career?
Apart from the joy (and shock!) of having twin daughters, publishing my latest book, The Gnostics: Identifying an Early Christian Cult, in that it marked both the culmination of almost 40 years research on the Gnostics and the happy fusion of that with my most recent research interest, early Christian art and archaeology, centring on the early churches and catacombs of Rome.
On the eve of your retirement what would you consider has been your major research achievement?
It would have to be my work on the Gnostics, based on a library of original Coptic texts found in Egypt in 1945, seeking to identify them, despite recent doubts, as a real entity, an early cult movement that grew up within, seriously challenged and broke away from mainstream Christianity. The sensational recent publication of the Gospel of Judas, on which I am giving the opening paper at an international congress in Houston, Texas, has helped to strengthen my thesis.
What do you hope to achieve in the future?
I would like to continue to produce first class research in my areas of interest, the Gnostics, early Christian heresy and early Christian art and architecture. I have a number of projects to complete in the next few years, a textbook on early Christian heresy, articles on the martyr cult of St Peter and St Paul in Rome which began at the present church of San Sebastiano south of the city, and so on, which should keep me busy in my impending retirement.
If you had not been an academic, what would you be?
I would probably be, like my father and uncle, a minister in the Church of Scotland, for which I trained before escaping into academia.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I love singing classical music in choirs, large and small, playing the French horn, reading novels and rambling on Dartmoor and Exmoor (almost as good as my native Scotland!).
What do you like best about living in the south west?
I love the landscape: the moors, the coast, the sea, the villages, the winding lanes, and I love the architecture: Exeter cathedral and the wonderful parish churches, the grand houses, castles and gardens. I also love the splendid idiosyncratic pubs of Devon and being able to eat outside in the summer.
