JOHN HENRY NEWMAN AND THE MEANING OF HISTORY
by John J. Mulloy
John Henry Newman was born on February 21, 1801 and died on
August 11, 1890. He entered the Catholic Church on October 8, 1845. Thus
his life was divided almost equally between his Catholic and non-Catholic
periods. I do not wish to say Protestant period, because Newman was in
reaction against Protestantism from the middle 1830s onward, if not indeed
earlier. In fact, from 1836, with the publication of the <Via Media,> he
was seeking to present the Anglican Church as possessed of definite
Catholic traditions. That effort, to discover and emphasize Catholic
elements in the Anglican past, was brought to an abrupt halt with his
writing of <Tract Ninety> in 1841. That document, which sought to
interpret the Thirty Nine Articles, the Anglican statement of belief, in a
Catholic sense, brought down a storm of opposition and controversy upon
his head. This included the strong opposition of the bishops of the
Anglican Church. It became clear that the Anglican bishops considered the
Church of England to be Protestant, and that they would resist any attempt
to make it appear in any sense Catholic. Thus, for four years, until
1845, Newman wrestled with his earlier prejudices against the Catholic
Church, until he finally came to see that these prejudices were not in
fact justified.
It must be recognized that Newman's thinking about the Church and
about Christianity was always founded on a conception of History. When he
came under Evangelical Protestant influence in 1816, as a result of a
conversion he experienced at that time, he was led to see the Catholic
Church as the Antichrist, and the Protestant Reformation as the rescue of
Christians from their thousand-year bondage to Babylon, to which they had
fallen victim during the medieval supremacy of the Church of Rome. It was
only after many years that he was delivered from this conception. As he
wrote in the <Apologia:>
"My imagination was stained by the effect of this doctrine up to
the year 1843; it had been obliterated from my reason and my
judgement at an earlier date; but the thought remained with me
as a kind of false conscience." p. 27 of Houghton Mefflin ed
(1956).
When Newman abandoned this Protestant view of the history of the
Church because of his understanding of the Church as a visible institution
with sacraments communicating the life of grace, his mind was still
governed by aconception of history. In this conception he looked back to
the early Church, the Church of the Fathers, in order to show that the
Anglican Church was the true heir of the Church of Antiquity and of the
promises which Christ had made to His Apostles.
The first serious blow which he sustained to this justification
of the Anglican Church was when he read an article of Monsignor Wiseman in
1839 in which he perceived the force of Wiseman's argument that Rome had
taken the same position against the Monophysite heresy in Egypt as she was
to take later against the Church of England. Of this jar to his theory
Newman wrote:
"I saw my face in that mirror [of the past history of the
Church] and I was a Monophysite. The Church of the <via media>
[Newman's defense of Anglicanism] was in the position of the
Oriental Communion, Rome was where she now is and the
Protestants were the Eutychians." <Apologia,> p. 121
Newman's greatest work, <The Development of Christian Doctrine,>
written in 1844-45, was based upon an examination of the facts of the
earlier history of the Church. In it he demonstrates that the additions to
the teachings of the Catholic Church which he had earlier condemend as
corruptions, were in fact legitimate developments from its original
content. It was the writing of this book which led him into the Catholic
Church.
Newman's <Apologia,> written in 1864, traces the history of his
own life and of the steps by which he arrived at a conviction of the truth
of Catholic teaching. And in <A Grammar of Assent> (1870), the last
chapter on Natural and Revealed Religion, is essentially historical in its
presentation of his arguments. And a fair number of his sermons, both in
his Anglican and Catholic periods, are strongly influenced by his
conception of history.
Newman's last important work, his <Letter to the Duke of Norfolk>
written in 1874, which was a response to the criticism made by Prime
Minister Gladstone of Vatican Council I and its teaching on Papal
infallibility, draws upon the facts of the history of the Church to defend
that doctrine.
There is no doubt, therefore, that Newman's thought and
apologetics in behalf of both Christianity and the Catholic Faith are
deeply rooted in a Christian conceptionof history. Let us now consider
what are some of the major elements which helped to shape that conception.
In the anthology itself we shall see Newman's enunciation of its basic
principles, and their application to specific historical events and
movements. [Reference here is to an anthology of Newman's view of history
which the author has prepared]
When we consider Newman's conception of history, we find that it
is composed of several different strands. One is a theology of history
derived from Scripture, a second is a psychological analysis of human
nature seen from a Christian perspective, and a third is an evaluation of
the historical events that have contributed to the main course of
mankind's history. Presenting his ideas on the meaning of history in the
middle third of the nineteenth century, Newman includes un his view of
history the religion of primitive man, Judaism and the religion of the
Canaanites, the societies of Greece and Rome, and the history of
Christendom and of the Church down to the nineteenth century.
But he pays very little attention to Islam, China, and India,
despite the fact that these world cultures were becoming much better known
to Europeans since the latter part of the eighteenth century. Thus
Newman's view of history has certain limitations, as compared with the
views of other and earlier interpreters of history--Voltaire and Hegel,
for example, or that of the German Romantic philosopher and convert to
Catholicism, Friedrich von Schlegel.
Nevertheless, the thorough saturation of Newman's mind with the
thought, imagery, and events of both the Old Testament and the New, gives
to his interpretation of history an intensity and a depth which more than
compensate for the limited range of its survey. And, since from the
Christian standpoint, it has been through God's dealings with the People
of God under both the old and the new dispensations that the true purpose
of history is to be realized, Newman deals with the essential elements
which give history its meaning.
Newman's analysis of history is governed by the contrast and
tension between two opposite principles which are at work. The most
fundamental tension is between the creation of the world and of man by God
on the one hand, and the Fall of Man through Original Sin on the other.
The first principle indicates God's ongoing creative concern for the world
by means of His providence. Where man is concerned, this is exercised
through a Divine influence upon the events of mankind's history. The
second principle results in the record of human sinfulness and rebellion
against God of which the history of humanity gives such striking evidence.
Consequently, when Newman looks at history from a secular
standpoint, he seeks in it little indication of God's overruling
providence. Instead he finds that the record ofhuman striving in history
leads one to disillusionment and disappointment. In one passage he tells
of his own struggle--that if his own conscience did not bear witness to
God's existence and to God's concern that man should act rightly, then his
own contemplation of history would tempt him to become either an atheist,
a pantheist or a polytheist. In Newman's opinion, the outward appearance
of history--the record of historical events--reveals a world that is out
of joint with the purposes of its Creator.
Yet, Newman believes that history does not run blind and that it
has not been abandoned by God. God's purposes are active beneath the
surface of history, bringing to fulfillment what God intends. When one
distinguishes between the external appearance of history and the inner
meaning of its events, a prophetic and apocalyptic view of history
results. Prophetic here does not mean so much the foretelling of the
future, although this is often included, as a pointing out of the real
meaning of historical events, a meaning which often contradicts the
surface record of history. In this sense, a prophecy concerning future
events is a means of vindicating the word of the prophet, of showing how
the prophet's vision perceives the deeper significance of what is taking
place. In the following passage Newman contrasts the vision of the
prophets with the attitude of most of mankind:
Men who are plunged in the pursuits of active life, are no
judges of its course and tendency on the whole. They confuse
great events with little, and measure the importance of objects,
as in perspective, by the mere standard of nearness or
remoteness. It is only at a distance that one can take in the
outlines and features of the whole country. It is but holy
Daniel, solitary among princes, or Elijah, the recluse of Mount
Carmel, who can withstand Baal, or forecast the time of God's
providences among the nations. To the multitude all things
continue to the end, as they were from the beginning of the
creation....Thus the world proceeds till wrath comes upon it and
there is no escape. <Parochial and Plain Sermons,> II, 112- 113.
A striking characteristic of Newman's thinking about history
emerges from this passage. That is, his thought is very much indebted to
the Old Testament prophetic tradition. Some of the most powerful and
eloquent of his writings derive their inspiration form this source. This,
in part, results from the influence of Protestant Evangelical writers upon
him, with whom he became acquainted at the time of his first conversion at
age 15. Newman never lost the influence of the Old Testament upon his
thinking, which he ultimately joined with a deep sense of its fulfillment
in the New Testament and in the Catholic Church. As Christopher Dawson
points out concerning this development:
Throughout his life, as he wrote in his last days to the
Secretary of the London Evangelical Society, his mind was
possessed by those great and burning truths which [he] learned
as a boy from Evangelical teaching, which he taught when a man
at Oxford, and which he found at last shining in their true
glory in the Catholic Roman Church. <The Spirit of the Oxford
Movement> (1933), p. 42.
The apocalyptic element in history taken in itself, Newman
asserts, tends to overthrow and visit destruction upon the self-
sufficient societies which mankind constructs. We see this element at work
in the disasters predicted by the Old Testament Prophets, which eventually
did come to pass. And through these disasters, God meted out justice upon
Israel herself and not only upon the nations that surrounded her. At
different times, because of their practice of injustice and their worship
of idols, each of the two kingdoms of the Hebrew people were led away into
captivity.
The harsh prophetic reality, however, is intrinsically linked to
the merciful principle of incarnation; that is, Divine punishments are
intended not only to manifest God's anger against human sinfulness, but
also to prepare the way for new developments in which God's providential
purposes can be realized. Newman sees that the history of the Jews is not
simply one of punishments for their idolatry and their disregard of God's
law; it is also a record of restoration to their homeland, of building a
more purified society dedicated to the worship of the One True God, and
leaving behind the lust for idolatry which had so often characterized
their forefathers. For, in God's design, the fruit of Israel's purified
remnant would be he Messiah, the Savior of all nations.
Moreover, even those members of the Jewish nation who remained
behind in Babylon, subject to the rule of Gentile kings, were a means for
spreading a knowledge of God and His law among the Nations, serving
another providential purpose.
For Newman, of course, the greatest example of this positive
element in history, which overcomes the record of human sinfulness
otherwise so apparent, is the Incarnation itself; and it is the Catholic
Church which is meant to perpetuate and fulfill the purposes of the
Incarnation, by communicating its grace and truth to all the peoples of
the earth.
Because the principle deriving from human sin and error lingers
even within the Church herself, the Church has to define her doctrines
more fully and guard them against perversion of their meaning. And it is
often by means of meeting the challenge of this or that heresy that the
Church herself, according to Newman, achieves a clearer and deeper
expression of the doctrines which she holds. This is what constitutes
development of doctrine,and illustrates how history goes forward to an
ever deeper and richer realization of the Divine purpose.
For Newman, the positive incarnational element does not operate
exclusively within the Church, but within human society as well. The
riches of the Gentile nations, pre-eminently Greece and Rome in Newman's
historical perspective, contribute not only to the Church's own growth and
development, but also are vital principles for the life of society outside
the Church. Newman's <The Idea of a University,> for example, is devoted
to showing how the literary classics of Greece and Rome can become the
basis for the enlargement of the mind through liberal education.
Thus, while Newman's view of history is strongly influenced by
the prophetic element there is also a pronounced emphasis upon the element
of divine progress in history. Through the Incarnation God's creative
power and providential purposes flow out into human history and create a
new hope for mankind. Christopher Dawson has remarked on this element in
Newman's though:
"Newman's doctrine of development was inspired by an intense
faith in the boundless powers of assimilation which the
Christian faith possessed and which made it a unitive principle
in life and thought....Hence, although Newman realized, like Leo
XIII, that the modern world was on the verge of a great moral
catastrophe, he never accepted the fundamental historical
pessimism which is so common today, and which was expressed so
powerfully in his own time by his great Protestant contemporary,
Kierkegaard. For Newman saw that it was only in history that the
process of progressive revelation and spiritual renovation could
be fulfilled. <Religion and World History,> pp. 292
The term "progressive revelation" as used by Dawson refers to the
concept of the development of doctrine--making more explicit certain
elements in doctrine that were implicit in the deposit of faith before. It
does not mean the idea of "ongoing revelation" promoted by neo-Modernism,
which means either something quite new, or else a reversal of what has
been taught before. Newman would characterize the latter as corruptions of
the Church's doctrine, not as its authentic development.
Finally, just as the Incarnation led to the Passion and Death of
Jesus, as well as to His Resurrection, so too the Church must endure
persecution and suffering in order to bring God's redemptive purposes to
fulfillment. Here, the prophetic element in Newman's thinking remains
strong, for, the kingdoms established by human power and pride are still
the dominant forces in the world in every era of history in which the
Church is living out her life. There is, therefore, a continuing conflict
between the power ofthese kingdoms of man and the invisible influence of
the Kingdom of God.
In this conflict the Church often appears to be losing, while in
fact it is through her persecutions by the City of Man that she is wining
the victory; God's purposes for her ultimate triumph are being realized.
As was said by the early Christian community, subject to intense
persecution by the Roman Empire, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of
the Church." In the victory of the Church, which is fully realized only at
Christ's Second Coming, the incarnational principle is brought to its
promised fulfillment.
As a counterbalance to this, there is Newman's sense of the
imminence of Divine judgement. This reaches its complete vindication in
the Last Judgment rendered by Christ at the end of the world. But it finds
partial realization in the different judgments and catastrophes which take
place in the course of history. Moreover since the first coming of Christ,
history as Newman sees it, has entered a new dimension, quite different
from what it was before. Now it is ever awaiting Christ's Second Coming in
Judgment. This hangs heavily over all human plans and hopes for the
future, and it is the last and greatest fulfillment of the prophetic or
apocalyptic principle. For such judgment breaks in upon a world which has
not been expecting it, and it contradicts the basic values by which the
world has ben living its life.
Here is Newman's expression of this conception of the imminence
of the Second Coming.
...Up to Christ's coming in the flesh, the course of things ran
straight towards that end, nearing it by every step; but now,
under the Gospel, that course has (if I may so speak) altered
its direction, as regards His Second Coming, and runs, not
towards the end, but along it, and on the brink of it; and is at
all times equally near that great event, which, did it run
towards, it would at once run into. Christ, then, is ever at our
doors.... <Parochial and Plain Sermons:> Vol. VI, p.241
And that expectation of Christ's Second Coming leads Newman to
draw forth its implications for each one's personal life. As he meditates
on the parable of the laborers in the vineyeard, some called only toward
the end of the day, he points out:
For we are called, as is evident, in the world's evening, not in
our own. We are called in our own morning, we are called from
infancy. By the eleventh hour is not meant that Christians have
little to do, but that the time is short; that it is the last
time; that there is a "present distress;" that they have much to
do in a little time; that "the night cometh when no man may
work;" that their Lord is at hand, and that they have to wait
for Him....
O may we ever bear in mind that we are not sent into this world
to stand all the day idle, but to go forth to our work and to
our labor until the evening. <Until> the evening, not <in> the
evening only of life, but serving God from our youth, and not
waiting till our years fail us. Until the <evening> not in the
day- time only, lest we begin to run well, but fall away before
our course is ended. Let us "give glory to the Lord our God,
before He cause darkness and before our feet stumble upon the
dark mountains" (Jer. xiii. 16) and, having turned to Him, let
us see that our goodness be not "as the morning cloud, and as
the early dew which passeth away." The <end> is the proof of the
matter....
May that day and that hour ever be in our thoughts! from "The
Work of the Christian" in <Sermons on the Subjects> of the Day, pp. 9;
11-12.
Taken from the Winter 1994 issue of "The Dawson Newsletter." For
subscriptions send $8.00 to "The Dawson Newsletter", P.O. Box 332,
Fayetteville, AR 72702, John J. Mulloy, Editor.
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