- Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers: Shaping Doctrine in Nineteenth-Century England
There is a great deal to admire in Benjamin John King's intelligent account of the different ways in which John Henry Newman read the Church Fathers. I fear, however, that some readers of Victorian Studies may be put off by the title. This observation is not meant as a criticism of the decision to call the book Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers: Shaping Doctrine in Nineteenth-Century England. Publishers in our electronic age place considerable importance on functional titles that can be found easily through electronic searches, and while the specific reference to the Alexandrian Fathers may seem unnecessarily alienating to those who work primarily on the Victorian period, the book has a wider intended readership. In addition to addressing scholars with an interest in nineteenth-century religious history, King addresses those who work on the patristic period. Writing for scholars who work on two different historical eras is difficult enough, but the book is also part of an exciting new series that seeks to explore the interconnections between church history and systematic theology. The challenge of engaging scholars with different chronological and methodological interests should not be underestimated, and it is one that King rises to extremely well.
Despite the recent resurgence of work on nineteenth-century religion, there is still a surprisingly high level of theological illiteracy among Victorian scholars. Whatever the reasons for this, the result is that theological discourse is rarely discussed in detail. Yet King's lucid and incisive account of doctrine makes a persuasive case for theology as a dynamic and vital discourse that repays close study. Newman was profoundly aware of the richness of theology and he invested a great deal of time in interpreting and reinterpreting the Church Fathers. Although, as King argues, the details of patristic history sometimes provided Newman with the means of avoiding contemporary controversy, for the most part patristic history enabled Newman to reflect on wider nineteenth-century concerns, such as interpretation, education, and our relationship to the past.
Newman's shifting personal circumstances led him to read the Church Fathers in very different ways over the course of his life. Rejecting the idea that Newman's theology should be divided neatly between his Anglican and Catholic stages, King outlines three discernable periods in Newman's theological development: he "shifted from the twofold system of doctrine [unchanging core doctrines, supplementary teaching that was more dynamic] in the 1830s, to the idea of the development of doctrine in the 1840s and 50s, to viewing doctrine as a theological science in the 1860s and 70s" (24). Even within these three periods, there were changes and ruptures. In the 1840s and 1850s, Newman came to realise that his ideas on the development of doctrine were "no more appealing to the Catholic Church than to the Church of England he was leaving behind" (53). Later, when he adopted the "hallmarks" of "neo-Thomism" and sought "to read all Church Fathers—patristic and medieval—as if they represented a single metaphysical system in opposition to modern philosophy" (222), this more systematic approach continued to show traces of movement within Newman's thought.
That the subtitle of King's book refers to the changing shape of Newman's theology rather than its linear development or evolution is significant. King tells us that [End Page 340] "there is no continuous road running through the history of doctrine" (255), and he illustrates the point with reference to both Newman and the wider theological tradition. One of the reasons why it is impossible to reconstruct too orderly a roadmap is that the work of earlier theologians is always interpreted through a particular lens. In the case of Newman, his reading of the Fathers was influenced by his own life events and the larger theological agendas that he was pursuing. For example, Newman started his theological life championing Origen. By the time he wrote An Essay on the Development of Christian...