Peter Levi - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Levi was born in Ruislip, Middlesex. The family of his father (Herbert Simon Levi) came from Istanbul and that of his mother (Edith Mary Tigar) was English. His mother was a devout Roman Catholic and his Jewish father converted to that religion; their three children all entered religious orders.

He was educated in private Catholic establishments starting at Prior Park near Bath, run by the Christian Brothers. When he was 14 Oscar Wilde had become his literary idol. Wilde had said that the Greek text of the Gospels was the most beautiful book in the world, so a school with more Greek was demanded and he changed schools to Beaumont College, a Jesuit school in Old Windsor, Berkshire. While at Beaumont, at the age of 17 he joined the Society of Jesus as a novice, he was to remain a Jesuit until he resigned the priesthood 29 years later in 1977. Levi trained for the priesthood at Heythrop College and read Classics at Campion Hall. During his teenage years he suffered from polio and as an undergraduate was knocked down by a car – the after-effects of these were to affect him throughout his life.

Whilst at Heythrop, then a country house near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, he was not the most ruly of seminarians, this and possible doubts his vocation, led to his ordination being delayed for a year:

We used to translate psalm Beati immaculati in via at Heythrop as Blessed are those who are not spotted on the way out. I was spotted too often ...

This delay had the side effect of enabling his first visit to Greece in 1963. He travelled through Afghanistan with Bruce Chatwin in 1970, looking for traces of Greek culture.