North American Scholar

A.B. West Baden Coll. (of Loyola U., Chicago), 1938; M.A., 1940; Ph.D. St. Louis U., 1944; S.T.L., West Baden Coll., 1948.

Joined Jesuit Order, 1933; ordained priest, 1947; Eng. & Gk. tchr. U. Detroit HS, 1943-4; travel & photography in Europe, 1949-51; lctr. Lat. & Gk. West Baden Coll., 1951-9; Colombiere Coll. (of U. Detroit), 1959-60; prof. Lat. & Gk. Loyola U. (Chicago), 1960-81; mng. comm. ASCSA, 1951-87; vis. prof., 1961-2; Fulbright prof. (Netherlands) 1956-7; vis. prof. Gk. art Sophia U. (Tokyo), 1964.

"The Classical Canons of Literary Character Portrayal" (St. Louis, 1943).

"The Artistry of Pindar's First Pythian Ode," CJ 38 (1942-3) 401-12; A Reading Course in Homeric Greek with Vincent C. Horrigan, S.J., 5 vols. (Chicago, 1947; rev. ed., 1984; Span. & Port, trans.); Immortal Diamond: Studies in Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. with Norman T. Weyand, S.J. (New York, 1948); "The Common People of Homer's World," CW 41 (1947-8) 184-7; "Vergil in the Divine Comedy," CJ 44 (1948-9) 413-22; "Lucretius' Poetic Problem I, II," CJ 45 (1949-50) 128-35, 177-82; Masterpieces of Greek Art (New York, 1960; eight foreign editions); "Ancient Cumae," Scientific American 209 (Dec. 1963) 108-21; "Agnostos Theos," "Decapolis," "Gadara," "Gerasa," "Perea," New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1967); "On Two Portraits of Vergil," Vergilius 13 (1967) 8-15; Ancient Greece from the Air (London, 1974) = Wings Over Hellas (New York, 1974); Landscape and Inscape, photos, with text by Peter Milward, S.J. (London, 1975); Readings of the Wreck: Essays on Hopkins' Wreck of the Deutschland, ed. with Peter Milward, S.J. (Chicago, 1976); "Aenaria," "Antipolis," "Asisium," "Clitumnus," "Misenum," "Tarracina," "Veleia," Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites (Princeton, 1976); "Vergil's Humane Message," Thought 55 (1980) 65-80.

Raymond V. Schoder enjoyed a prolific life of scholarship and service to his students and colleagues. With a Ph.D. in classics and a subsequent advanced degree in theology, he authored over 200 publications, including several books. As a scholar Schoder possessed not only a sharp philological eye but also an eye for aesthetics: he was a consummate artist with his camera, creating some 20,000 color slides of ancient antiquities, including a unique set of aerial photographs of Greek archaeological sites. Schoder was also a teacher. He reached not only many students at Loyola University of Chicago where he taught for 25 years, but also other audiences via his approximately 1,500 public lectures. Loyola University named him outstanding faculty member in 1974, and the Classical Association of the Middle West and South gave him an Ovatio in 1979. His service to his colleagues was also extensive as president of several scholarly associations, as re-organizer and director of the Vergilian Society for nine years, and as organizer of many archaeological tours.The greatest moment, perhaps, in Schoder's life as a philologist, theologian, and aesthete came when the New American Bible Commission appointed him to do an English translation of Paul's Philippians and Galatlans. This project gave him scope to channel all his different interests, empathies, and scholarly resources. His translation, however, occasioned editorial disagreements. As a result, Schoder withdrew his translation. It was a courageous and highly principled act to give up voluntarily being published by such an official organ of the Catholic Church. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers published the book as Paul Wrote from the Heart.

Daidalikon: Studies in Memory of Raymond V. Schoder, S.J., ed. Robert F. Sutton, Jr. (Wauconda, IL, 1989), 1-7 (bibliography); Ladislaus J. Bolchazy, APA Newsletter (Summer 1989) 2.