Newman and History by Edward Short (review)

Newman and History by Edward Short is a collection of essays, talks, and book reviews that address John Henry Newman’s philosophy of history, his Victorian contemporaries, and his broad historical context.

Three of the essays address early Christianity, especially with regard to the anti-Roman Catholic English gaze, which decried the supposed superstitious elements of contemporary Roman Catholics and of early Christians. The first essay, “Newman, Gibbon and God’s Particular Providence,” explores the differences in philosophy and method between Newman and the historian, Edward Gibbon (1737–1794), who authored the famed and influential Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Newman believed that Gibbon’s refusal to acknowledge the marvel that is the rise of Christianity was reflective of Gibbon’s rationalism and contempt for Christianity. Where Gibbon saw coincidences that would account for Christianity’s eventual dominance, Newman saw providence. For Newman, if there was a confluence of coincidences, then one must account for the cause of such convergence, providence being the only credible explanation. Thus, any authentic account of Christianity’s rise is inseparable from an account of providence.

Gibbon’s lack of empathy with his Christian historical subjects is a failing in Newman’s view. Thus, because Gibbon abhorred “superstitious” Christianity, he treated facts in isolation without probing the motivating role of faith or divine providence. The result, then, was a skewed historical narrative, reflective of the historian’s own prejudices. Accordingly, then, in Newman’s view, Gibbon failed, not only as a scientific historian, but as a philosophical historian.

The essay “Newman, Superstition and the Whig Historians” continues the above discussion, but this time, with Newman’s Whig historian contemporaries. Short argues that Newman’s favorable approach to superstition made him a better historian of early Christianity. According to Newman, the reality that many early Christians were disposed to superstition is not so much a slight against their faith as it is indicative of a temperament open to mystery, and thus, the Gospel. A similar sentiment is expressed in the essay “Hagiography, History, and John Henry Newman,” where Short argues that hagiographies, for Newman, were not scholarly exercises but means of practical evangelization.

Two essays in the book address the recent controversy in Newman scholarship that followed the publication of Frank Turner’s John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion. One such essay is a negative book review of Receptions of Newman, edited by Frederick Aquino and Benjamin King. In “Newman and the Liberals,” Short continues the engagement with Frank Turner’s claims that Newman misunderstood liberalism, that his so-called lifelong battle with liberalism was both cynical and, in reality, a battle against evangelicalism. Short argues that Newman was far from hostile to evangelicalism, which he understood well and even appreciated. Liberalism, for Newman, with its anti-dogmatic biases, was a “ragbag of ideas” that misled people into “contempt for the truth.” Short argues that few if any of Newman’s contemporaries took issue with his repeated characterizations of liberalism.

The essay “John Henry Newman, C. S. Lewis and the Reality of Conversion” describes well the persistent perception that Catholicism was a foreign, Roman, and superstitious religion. Thus, one comes away from this essay with an appreciation of Newman’s reluctance and bravery in converting to Catholicism.

The essay “Newman and the Law” addresses the role the law had in understanding Newman’s identity as an English Catholic in a Protestant country. Protestantism, though initially unpopular, gained traction in England through the law’s coercive “power and majesty” as it was made inseparable from the English sovereign. This is an interesting idea to be sure, but a significant portion of the essay is tied up in Newman’s brushes with the legal system, especially the Achilli trial (the point being that the trial enabled Newman to understand his place as an embattled English Catholic).

Overall, Short’s book is disjointed and lacks a well-defined thematic unity. The title is misleading in the sense that this is not a robust presentation...