Casey, Robert P.

Robert Pierce Casey (1897-1959), professor of Biblical literature, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on December 3, 1897. He graduated from Harvard in 1919 and received a bachelor of sacred theology degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1922. With a Sheldon Fellowship for study abroad awarded by Harvard, he spent the next two years at Jesus College of the University of Cambridge, and in 1924 was the first American to receive a Ph.D. degree in theology from Cambridge. The same year he was appointed research fellow in Greek palaeography in the Department of Classics at the University of Cincinnati. In 1926 he was named professor of the history and philosophy of religions at Cincinnati. In 1934 he was appointed professor of Biblical literature and history of religion and chairman of the Department of Biblical Literature at Brown. He was a member of the Van Expedition, sponsored by the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and the Brown Department of Biblical Literature, in 1938 and 1939 to excavate the ancient city of Van in Turkish Armenia. After a visit in Cambridge, England, he was on his way home aboard the Athenia, which was torpedoed on September 3, when the war broke out in Europe. After a night in a leaky lifeboat with seventy passengers, he was among the survivors picked up by destroyers in the morning and returned to Glasgow. He had lost three notebooks of his archaeological research. During World War II he also taught Russian language and literature at Brown. He served as honorary curate at St. Stephen’s Church in Providence from 1939 to 1946 and was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in 1940. He left Brown in 1950, when he was elected to a lectureship in Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge. The Church Times, a publication of the Church of England, in June 1956 included an appreciation of Casey, which read in part, “The undergraduates who frequent the rooms of the Dean of Sidney Sussex College are introduced to an atmosphere of learning and urbanity, and acquire a remarkable knowledge of dogmatic and ascetic theology, together with a sound devotional practice and good taste in literature, art, and the diverse characters and customs of many nations. They can also enjoy the services of an expert psychiatrist, for Dr. Casey has added to his other attainments a thorough training in psycho-analysis.” He died in Norfolk, England, in April 1959.