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Newman and the Fathers of the Church
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
John Henry Newman's study of the Church Fathers began during his years as a fellow of Oriel College and continued through his Anglican and Catholic periods almost to the end of his life. Among the various motives that attracted Newman to patristic theology, there are two that I consider especially important: scriptural hermeneutics and ecclesiology. He saw in the Fathers authentic interpreters of scripture, who read the Bible in and with the church in an exemplary way; he also found in them witnesses to the church's understanding of herself and of her offices. Through his ever more extensive reading on the doctrinal controversies in the patristic period, Newman formulated his theory of the development of doctrine, which is one of his major contributions to modern Catholic theology. Newman read the Fathers as contemporaries, as participants in the theological conversations and controversies of his own day. In the writings of the early bishops and theologians, he found a theological method that was congenial to his own.
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References
1 Newman, J. H., A Letter Addressed to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on Occasion of his Eirenicon of 1864, in Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching Considered, 2 vols., London: Longmans, Green, and Co., new impression 1901, vol. II, p. 24Google Scholar.
2 Among the most recent publications, see Daley, B. E., ‘Newman and the Alexandrian Tradition: “The Veil of the Letter” and the Person of Christ’, in Ker, I. & Merrigan, T., Newman and Truth (Louvain Theological & Pastoral Monographs, 39)Google Scholar, Louvain: Peeters, 2008, 147–188, Daley, B. E., ‘The Church Fathers’, in The Cambridge Companion to John Henry Newman, Ker, I & Merrigan, T. (eds), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, 29–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and King, B. J., Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers: Shaping Doctrine in Nineteenth-Century England, Oxford: University Press, 2009CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the volume Una ragionevole fede. Logos e dialogo in John Henry Newman, Botto, E. & Geissler, H. (eds), Milan: Vita & Pensiero, 2009Google Scholar, see the papers of I. Biffi, ‘I Profili storici di John Henry Newman’, 155–181, and K. Dietz, John Henry Newman and the Fathers of the Church: The Birth of an Ecclesiology, 211–220.
3 They were published in the same year under the title Lectures on Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Submitting to the Catholic Church, London: Burns & Lambert, 1850Google Scholar, and are, according to Gilley, S., ‘Life and Writings’, in The Cambridge Companion to John Henry Newman, Ker, I. & Merrigan, T. (eds), Cambridge: University Press, 2009, 1–28, p. 16Google Scholar, ‘Newman's most anti-Anglican publication’. Later they were published in the first volume of Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching.
4 J. H. Newman, Certain Difficulties, Lecture 12: Ecclesiastical History No Prejudice to the Apostolicity of the Church, p. 371.
5 I owe this information to K. Dietz, John Henry Newman and the Fathers of the Church, p. 212, n. 3.
6 J. H. Newman, Certain Difficulties, Lecture 12, pp. 371–372.
7 This part of my paper follows essentially Newman's own narrative in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua; page numbers in brackets refer to its 1865 edition, later reprinted as: Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Being a History of His Religious Opinions, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., new impression 1908Google Scholar.
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9 Cf. B. J. King, Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers, p. 41.
10 Cf. Williams, R., “Introduction”, in Newman, J. H., The Arians of the Fourth Century (Birmingham Oratory Millennium Edition, 4), Leominster: Gracewing, 2001, pp. xix–xlviiGoogle Scholar.
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17 Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum (18 November 1965), no. 12: ‘But, since Holy Scripture must be read and interpreted in the sacred spirit in which it was written, no less serious attention must be given to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture if the meaning of the sacred texts is to be correctly worked out. The living tradition of the whole Church must be taken into account along with the harmony which exists between elements of the faith’.
18 Cf. B. J. King, Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers, pp. 127–180.
19 Cf. Newman, J. H., Letters and Diaries, ed. by Ker, I., Gornall, T. and Tracey, G., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978, vol. II, p. 256Google Scholar.
20 Augustine of Hippo, Contra epistulam Parmeniani, III,4,24: CSEL 51,131.
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25 Page numbers in brackets refer to An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., fourteenth impression 1909Google Scholar.
26 For a critical synopsis of this ‘discipline of secrecy’, see D. Powell, ‘Arkandisziplin’, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 4 (1979), 1–8; also E. J. Yarnold, The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation: The Origins of the R.C.I.A., Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994, 55–56, and Cyril of Jerusalem (The Early Church Fathers), London: Routledge, 2000, 49–50Google Scholar.
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28 See Schmitz, J., Gottesdienst im altchristlichen Mailand: eine liturgiewissenschaftliche Untersuchung über Initiation und Meßfeier während des Jahres zur Zeit des Bischofs Ambrosius († 397) (Theophaneia, 25), Köln: Hanstein, 1975Google Scholar.
29 First published in Atlantis, July 1858, then in Newman, J. H., Tracts Theological and Ecclesiastical, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., new impression 1908, pp. 329–382Google Scholar.
30 First published the Rambler, 1859–60, later in Newman, J. H., Historical Sketches, vol. II, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., new impression 1906, pp. 217–302Google Scholar.
31 See B. J. King, Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers, p. 224.
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33 B. J. King, Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers, p. 19.
34 Cf. I. Biffi, I Profili storici, pp. 163–165, with reference to Brémond, H., Newman: Essai de biographie psychologique, Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1906Google Scholar.
35 J. H. Newman, The Last Years of St. Chrysostom, p. 223.