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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
John Henry Newman came to see the need to frame what was in effect a new discipline of the history of theology, with rules and subject-matter which would make it a practical working instrument, but with a flexibility which would allow for insights about the interconnectedness and coherence of a living body of knowledge which was sustained in a vital community. This recognition, and Newman’s own response to it are instructive because, mutatis mutandis, we stand in much the same need now. Unlike the history of (say) philosophy or science, the history of Christian theology deals with subject-matter which is understood to be of its nature continuous and semper eadem But it clearly changes within that continuity. And that poses special problems historiographically.
We can get a glimpse of the way one thing led to the other in Newman’s arriving at these perceptions in a letter written in 1826. Newman begins by suggesting that it might be put to the test whether the Anglican divines from the sixteenth century onwards, if read so as to eliminate the adversariality of the polemic in which many of them had been engaged, had amongst them set out an account of their beliefs which formed a coherent and harmonious whole.
‘My dear Rickards,—In our last conversation I think you asked me whether any use had occurred to my mind to which your knowledge of our old divines might be applied. Now one has struck me,—so I write. Yet very probably the idea is so obvious that it will not be new to you, and. … I begin by assuming that the old worthies of our Church are neither Orthodox nor Evangelical … now it would be a most useful thing to give a kind of summary of their opinions. … if, then, in a calm, candid, impartial manner, their views were sought out and developed, would not the effect be good in a variety of ways?
1 November 26, 1826. Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 1. pp. 143–5Google Scholar.
2 See my The Church and the Churches: Towards an Ecumenical Ecclesiotogy, (Cambridge, 1994)Google Scholar chapter 3.
3 November 26, 1826; Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol.1.pp. 143–5Google Scholar.
4 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 11. p. 117Google Scholar.
5 Died before 450.
6 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 11. p. 60Google Scholar.
7 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 11. p. 129–30Google Scholar.
8 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 1. p. 162Google Scholar.
9 Joseph Butler (1692–1752), author of the Analogy of Religion (1736), and see Apologia, p. 10.
10 Newman. Apologia, p. 18. 11 In The Christian Year. 12 Apologia, p 19. 13 Apologia, p.20. 14 He lists these himself in the Apologia, p. 20.
11 In The Christian Year.
12 Apologia, p. 19.
13 Apologia, p: 20.
14 He lists these himself in the Apologia, p. 20.
15 Apologia, p. 20.
16 1 do not know what was the date of this change in me, nor or the train of ideas on which it was founded'. Apologia, p.21.
17 Apologia, p. 22.
18 Apologia, p. 22.
19 Newman, The Idea of a University, 11, ‘Theology a branch of knowledge’, para. 8. (given in Dublin, 1852)
20 Newman, The Idea of a University, 11, “Theology a branch of knowledge', para. 3. (given in Dublin, 1852)
21 Newman, The Idea of a University, 11, “Theology a branch of knowledge', para. 3. (given in Dublin, 1852)
22 Chapter 5, Section 1,4 (on ‘preservation of type’).
23 Chapter 5, Section 11, (on ‘continuity of principles’).
24 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891), Vol.1, p. 238Google Scholar.
25 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891), Vol. 11. p. 156Google Scholar.
26 Rather than the history of ecclesiastical institutions and the outward aspects of Church life which it has since come frequently to be.
27 Newman to F. Rogers, My 12, 1839, Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891), Vol. 11. p. 156Google Scholar.
28 Apologia, p. 7
29 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891), Vol. 1. p. 235.Google Scholar
30 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891), Vol. 11. p. 61Google Scholar.
31 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry, Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891), Vol. 11. p. 129–30Google Scholar.
32 Apologia, p. 13.
33 Apologia, p. 14.
34 Newman to F. Rogers, July 12, 1839, Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. ll.p. 156Google Scholar.
35 Newman to Fronde, January 17, 1836 on Sir James Stephen. Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 11 p. 156Google Scholar.
36 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 11. p. 126Google Scholar.
37 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 11. p. 126Google Scholar.
38 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 11. p. 286Google Scholar.
39 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 11. p. 287Google Scholar.
40 B. Pusey to Newman, 1829. Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 1. p. 212Google Scholar.
41 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 11. p. 59Google Scholar.
42 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Churched. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 11. p. 156Google Scholar.
43 Apologia, p. 23.
44 Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his life in the English Church, ed. Mozley, Anne (London, 1891) Vol. 11. p. 127Google Scholar.
45 Newman never finished this work. It was interrupted by his conversion on Oct. 9, 1845.
46 A term of interest because of modern ecumenical talk of substantial agreement'.
47 Chapter 5, p. 1
48 Then developments might just be corruptions.
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