LONDON — The Rev. Henry Chadwick, a Church of England priest and renowned scholar of the early centuries of Christianity, died Tuesday. He was 87.

Chadwick died at a hospital in Oxford, his family said.

Much of Chadwick’s research involved controversies in the early church that he sought to explain with sympathy for those involved.

The first of his many books was a translation of “Contra Celsum” by Origen of Alexandria, the third century church father, published in 1953.

His later works included studies of St. Ambrose, Priscillian of Avila, Boethius and St. Augustine.