Cornelius Ernst and anthropology as a preface to theology

Abstract The English Dominican friar Cornelius Ernst OP left an enduring mark on the intellectual life of the English province. Although some of his lectures and articles were published in the volume Multiple Echo , there are a number of different avenues of Cornelius’ work that remain as seeds. Building on Cornelius’ paper ‘A Preface to Theology’, this article investigates the relationship between Cornelius and Edward Evans-Pritchard and Godfrey Lienhardt. Although Evans-Pritchard is most frequently cited in Cornelius’ works, I argue that it is to Godfrey Lienhardt that we should look for the anthropological roots of Cornelius’ ontology of meaning. This paper also interrogates the question of whether there is such a thing as ‘Oxford anthropology’, and whether this has a particular Catholic character. Although I argue that there is no sign of a Catholic anthropology in Oxford, we have to be able to give some account of an anthropologically engaged Catholic theology in the work of Cornelius Ernst. Building on the idea of Cornelius’ work offering seeds for future development, I conclude with a short exploration of how anthropology could act as a preface to theology today, especially in bolstering fundamental theology.