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Newman and the Tradition concerning the Papal Antichrist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Paul Misner
Paul Misner
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of theology in Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
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Extract

In the successive waves of “No Popery” which ebbed and flowed until the middle of the nineteenth century in British public life, the role played by the oldfashioned identification of the pope of the Roman Catholic Church with Antichrist is not easily discernible. Yet its presence is undeniable, though rarely on the surface or on the lips of those who, in the ordinary sense, “made history.” A study of the background and setting of John Henry Newman's thought on the papacy and the Antichrist has led me to uncover a neglected field of popular and cultured Antichrist thinking which helps to account for the persistence of “No Popery” sentiment in Christian history after its demise had been prematurely announced by more than one reasonable and enlightened politician.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , September 1973 , pp. 377 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1973

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References

1. See Best, G. F. A., “The Whigs and the Church Establishment in the Age of Grey and Holland,” History 45 (1960), p. 110CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Henriques, Ursula, Religious Toleration in England, 1787–1833 (Toronto, 1961), p. 143Google Scholar; Machin, G. I. T., The Catholic Question in English Politics, 1820–1830 (Oxford, 1964), pp. 1–8, 145–146.Google Scholar

2. Examples are to be found in an invaluable source-book for millenarian writings, Froom, Le Roy Edwin, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers (Washington, D. C., 1948), 2: 723–782Google Scholar. This four-volume work is incidentally testimony to the fact that the papal Antichrist still finds erudite proponents. See also Sandeen, R., The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism 1800–1930 (Chicago, 1970), pp. 5–7Google Scholar; Hill, Christopher, Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1971), p. 164.Google Scholar

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4. Sandeen, pp. 14–38.

5. See Ingram, Kenneth, John Keble (London, 1933), p. 66.Google Scholar

6. See Sandeen, pp. 37–38. For William Palmer, see Greenfield, Robert H., The Attitude of the Tractarians to the Roman Catholic Church 1833–1850 (Ph. D. diss. in typescript at the Bodleian, Oxford, 1956), pp. 42–43Google Scholar. For J. H. Todd, see note 59 below.

7. Most recently by Chadwick, Owen, The Victorian Church, Part I (London, 1966), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

8. See Cahill, Gilbert A., “The Protestant Associations and the Anti-Maynooth Agitation of 1845,” Catholic Historical Review 43 (1957), pp. 273–308.Google Scholar

9. Quoted by Newman without attribution in Tract 82 of 1837, reprinted in The Via Media of the Anglican Church by Newman, John Henry (London, 1877), 2:177Google Scholar, The identity of the magazine and its editor is evident from Mozley, Anne, ed., Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman… (London, 1890), 2: 199Google Scholar. When referring to the uniform edition of Newman's works, as here, put out in repeated editions by Longmans, Green, and Co., I will give the year of the first publication, since new editions are identical. The two titles just cited will be referred to by the abbrevviations VM and LC respectively.

10. Chadwick, 1:173–177; O'Connell, Marvin R., The Oxford Conspirators: A History of the Oxford Movement 1833–45 (New York, 1969) pp. 285–287Google Scholar; Church, R. W., The Oxford Movement: Twelve Years, 1833–1845 (1891; Chicago, 1970, ed. Best, Geoffrey), p. 179Google Scholar; compare ibid., p. xxiv.

11. LC, 2: 235–245.

12. InNewsome, David, The Wilberforces and Henry Manning: The Parting of Friends (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), p. 177.Google Scholar

13. Greenfield, p. 215. On the Bisley group's tenacity in holding this doctrine, see ibid., p. 254 and Jones, Owain W., Isaac Williams and His Circle (London, 1971), pp. 24, 57.Google Scholar

14. In Norman, E. R., Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (London, 1968), pp. 180–182Google Scholar, cited from Hansard 114, 1365–1375 (14 03 1851)Google Scholar; emphasis mine.

15. Chadwick, 1: 304.

16. Hill, pp. 121–23, 148, 158–160; compare Rogers, P. G., The Fifth Monarchy Men (London, 1966), p. 91 et passim.Google Scholar

17. See the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. Cross, F. L., (London, 1963), p. 61Google Scholar; “Since the Reformation, the identification of the Pope with Antichrist has been frequently made, esp. in the less educated circles of Protestantism”.

18. To those whom Hill, pp. 148–154, mentions as upholding the traditional identification of the pope as Antichrist in the latter years of the seventeenth century, one may add Pierre Jurieu, a French Huguenot scholar whose Accomplishment of the Scripture Prophecies was quickly translated into English (1687), Drue Cressener, canon of Ely (c. 1638–1718) and Thomas Beverley (d. 1701).

19. For millemarian writers and writings of this period, see Froom, 2:index. On Newton and his interest in the millenarian viewpoint of Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist, see the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. Cross, p. 951.Google Scholar

20. See Froom, 2: 649–655 and Sandeen, p. 5.

21. Whitby, Daniel, A Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament (London, 1718), 2: 451–459, 463–474 and 494–498.Google Scholar

22. William Lowth was the father of Robert Lowth (1710–1787), bishop of London from 1777.

23. Gibson, Edmund, ed., A Preservative against popery… (London, 1738)Google Scholar, 1:preface and table of contents; Antichrist reference is in vol. 3, appendix, “A Dialogue between two Protestants,” pp. 25–26. See also ibid., Title 13, “The Missionary Arts Discovered,” by Mr. Hicks, pp. 19, 22, 25.

24. See Sykes, Norman, Edmund Gibson: Bishop of London (London, 1926), pp. 292–301, 345, 382Google Scholar. Sykes has nothing to say directly on what Gibson may have thought about Antichrist speculation.

25. See Dictionary of National Biography, 40: 404; also Cragg, Gerald R., The Church and the Age of Reason 1648–1789 (Baltimore, 1970), pp. 121, 125.Google Scholar

26. Butler, Joseph had published The Analogy of Religion in 1736.Google Scholar

27. Newton, Thomas, Dissertations on the Prophecies, new edition (London, 1820), 2:378, 385Google Scholar. Of course, he also recognizes its usefulness in the controversy with Romanism; see ibid., 1: 296.

28. Ibid., 2: 385.

29. Ibid., 1: 297.

30. Ibid., 2: 390.

31. See John William Fletcher (or de La Fléchère, 1729–1785), Posthumous Pieces. Fletcher is said to have exchanged thoughts with Wesley on the topic in 1755; see Froom, 2:687.

32. See also the reference to M. Véreté's researches in Hill, pp. 164–165.

33. Quoted by Newman, John Henry, Essays Critical and Historical (London, 1871), 2:130.Google Scholar

34. Quoted in Ward, Maisie, Young Mr. Newman (New York, 1948), p. 21Google Scholar. See also her discussion of and quotations from Newton's Dissertations, pp. 26–30.

35. See Martin J. Svaglic's edition, with an introduction and notes, of Newman, John Henry, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (Oxford, 1967), p. 20.Google Scholar

36. Ibid., p. 57.

37. Ibid., pp. 54–60.

38. Ibid., pp. 20, 254–263; see also the “Biglietto Speech,” in Ward, Wilfrid, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman (London, 1912), 2:460–462.Google Scholar

39. A copy is preserved in the Newman Archives of the Birmingham Oratory, box A 7.2. A microfilm copy of those Archives is housed in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the Yale University library.

40. Ward, , Young Mr. Newman, p. 46Google Scholar; Greenfield, p. 83.

41. Church, p. 42.

42. Keble, John, “Gunpowder Treason,” The Christian Year (Oxford and London, 1876), p. 365 (first published in 1827)Google Scholar. Emphasis Newman's in Apologia, p. 57.

43. See Greenfield, p. 88; Newsome, p. 94; Baker, W. J., “Hurrell Froude and the Reformers,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 21 (1970), p. 246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44. Newman, John Henry, The Arians of the Fourth Century (3d. ed., London, 1871), pp. 3 and 259Google Scholar. He has in mind 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4; for Paul of Samosata and his antichristian behavior, see Eusebius, , Church History 7, xxx, 9–10Google Scholar (compare Apologia, p. 57). In a sermon of this period (27 May 1832), Newman alludes to Antichrist at the beginning, middle and end, having chosen a text from 1 John, which speaks of many antichrists” (1 John 2:18) and the “spirit of antichrist” (1 John 4:3). Here Gibbons (!) and his skeptical rationalist spirit are antichristian, and more generally the worldliness that characterizes university pursuits; see Newman, John Henry, Fifteen Sermons preached before the University of Oxford (London, 1871), pp. 120–135.Google Scholar

45. Newman, , Arians, pp. 393–394 and 474Google Scholar; the sentence on the papal apostasy has been removed to an appendix.

46. Greenfield, p. 95.

47. Newman, , Apologia, p. 113Google Scholar, note containing material excised after the first pamphlet edition. Compare LC, 1: 331, 340–344; VM, 2:432 note; also his Remains of the late Reverend Richard Hurrell Froude (London 1838), 1: 389.Google Scholar

48. VM, 2: 429–430, from “Retraction of Amti-Catholic Statements” for original context, see “How to Accomplish It” in Newman, John Henry, “Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects (London, 1872), pp. 1–43Google Scholar, a reprint of parts of “Home Thoughts Abroad.”

49. See VM, 2:429–431: compare VM, 1:43–44 and the note in Discussions and Arguments, p. 19. The orginal place of the offending material was in Newman's, Lectures on the Prophetical Office … (London, 1837), p. 101Google Scholar. See Artz, Johannes, ed., Newman, John Henry, Ueber die Entwicklung der Glaubenslehre (Mainz, 1969), p. xxivGoogle Scholar, for the Roman reception this language met.

50. The Advent Sermons on Antichrist, first published as Tract 83 in July 1838, are reprinted as “The Patristical Idea of Antichrist” in Newman, , Discussions and Arguments, pp. 44–106Google Scholar. The passages cited may be found there, pp. 51–61.

51. The quotation is from Newman's “Letter to a Magazine on behalf of Dr. Pusey's Tracts on Holy Baptism”, originally written in 1837 for publication in the Christian Observer, then included in the Preface to Volume 4 of the Tracts for the Times and reckoned as Tract 82 (Nov. 1, 1837), and finally reprinted in Newman's, Works in VM, 2:184Google Scholar. The question is one of authority, because the Christian Observer's editor was calling for observance of the beliefs expressed in the Book of Homilies, which enjoyed the authority of the thirty-fifth of the Thirty-Nine Articles. See the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed Cross, p. 651Google Scholar. The Book of Homilies of the Church of England (published on royal authority in 1547 and 1571) contains many references to the antichristian pretenses of the church of Rome; see the Oxford edition of 1822, pp. 113–115, 218, 221, 243.

52. See Froom, 3:540–542.

53. Newman's, “Letter to Faussett” is contained in VM, 2: 195–257Google Scholar; see p. 208.

54. Ibid., pp. 206–207.

55. This passage stretches over pp. 31–38 of the original “Letter to Faussett” (Oxford, 1838), but Newman shortened it considerably for the edition of 1877 without sacrificing anything of significance; VM, 2:219–222.

56. Apologia, pp. 113–115. Even while re-editing the “Letter to Faussett” in 1876 or 1877 Newman still maintains that he had got no further in 1838 than he had in 1833; see VM, 2:208 note. In 1885 his selective memory is still at work on this; see the curious note he makes in that year on the manuscript Dean Church had lent him in Hunt, R. W., “Newman's Notes on Dean Church's Oxford Movement,” Bodleian Library Record 8 (1969), pp. 135–137.Google Scholar

57. Newman, , Apologia, pp. 91–100.Google Scholar

58. See above, note 10, and Ward, , Young Mr. Newman pp. 332–333.Google Scholar

59. Newman's, review article is reprinted as “The Protestant Idea of Antichrist,” in Essays Critical and Historical, 2:112–185Google Scholar. Newman is reviewing the Donellan lecture of 1838 at Trinity College: Todd, James Henthorn, Discourses on the Prophecies relating to Antichrist in the Writings of Daniel and St. Paul (Dublin, 1840)Google Scholar. Todd also gave the Donellan lecture of 1841, the fruit of which was Six Discourses on the Prophecies relating to Antichrist in the Writings of St. John and the Apocalypse (Dublin, 1846)Google Scholar. Todd was named Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Dublin in 1849 and assumed the direction of the library of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1852. See Dictionary of National Biography, 56:430–432.

60. For references to false infallibility in this period, VM, 2:376, and to idolatry, Essays Critical and Historical, 2:367, Correspondence of John Henry Newman with John Keble and Others… 1839–1845, ed. at the Oratory, Birmingham (London, 1917), pp. 166, 168–169Google Scholar and Harper, Gordon H., ed., Cardinal Newman and William Froude, F.R.S.: A Correspondence (Baltimore, 1933), p. 44.Google Scholar

61. Essays Critical and Historical, 2:180; compare Apologia, p. 117. For a tardy reference to Antichrist in the context of “Liberalism” in a letter to Ambrose Lisle Phillips of 12 September 1841, Ibid., p. 174.

62. Compare Newman, John Henry, Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching (London, 1879), 1:160.Google Scholar

63. Newman, , Essays Critical and Historical, 2:173.Google Scholar

64. ibid., pp. 166–173 and 115.

65. Ibid., pp. 132–133. For a recent Catholic appraisal, see Bäumer, Remigius, Martin Luther und der Papst (Münster, 1970).Google Scholar

66. Newman, , Essays Critical and Historical, 2:134Google Scholar; and, for what follows, pp. 134–145.

67. Apologia, p. 20.

68. Essays Critical and Historical, 2:182. See Quinn, J. Richard, The Recognition of the True Church according to John Henry Newman (Washington, D.C., 1954), pp. 47–69.Google Scholar

69. Newman, John Henry, Parochial and Plain Sermons (London, 1868), 2:232–254Google Scholar (for 1835) and Sermons bearing on Subjects of the Day (London, 1869), pp. 218–236 (for 1842).Google Scholar

70. Essays Critical and Historical, 2:113. Pusey's lectures on Types and Prophecies (1836) is evidence of a Coleridgean attempt among the Tractarians to get beyond the “mechanical” eighteenth-century treatment of prophecies as so many “evidences” of the Christian religion, but fear of corrosive criticism seems to have choked off this avenue of development. See Allchin, A. M., “The Theological Vision of the Oxford Movement,” in Coulson, John and Allchin, A. M., eds., The Rediscovery of Newman: An Oxford Symposium (London, 1967), pp. 56, 63Google Scholar. On Newman as carrying on from Coleridge, see Coulson, John, Newman and the Common Tradition (Oxford, 1970), pp. 22–25, 167Google Scholar; also Willey, Basil, Nineteenth Century Studies (London, 1949), pp. 90, 99Google Scholar and Willey's discussion of Dr. Arnold's principles of prophetical interpretation.

71. Essays Critical and Historical, 2:174–185.

72. Ibid., p. 174; compare Sermons on Subjects of the Day, p. 183.

73. Essays Critical and Historical, 2:179, citing Isaiah 2:2, 54:17, 59:21, 60:17–18 and 61:6 in a free arrangement.

74. Ibid., p. 182.

75. I hope to discuss elsewhere the unacknowledged, but crucial role that this authoritarian ecclesiology based on prophecies of the kingdom plays in Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine of 1845. For now it is enough to note that this is the conception to which his Antichrist theories yielded over the years 1835–1840.

76. Such is the judgment of Owen Chadwick on Newman's, intervention in the aftermath of “Papal Aggression” of 1850 in The Victorian Church, 1:293, 306.Google Scholar

77. Froom, 3:733–737.

78. See, for example, Church's remarks in The Oxford Movement, p. 144.

79. In Jowett, Benjamin, The Epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galations, Romans (London, 1859), pp. 178–194.Google Scholar