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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 September 2010
John Henry Newman made two formative trips to Rome, the first as an Anglican priest in the early spring of 1833 when he spent five weeks in the Eternal City accompanied by his friend and colleague Hurrell Froude. The second trip was made shortly after he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1846. On both these journeys, Newman visited the Roman catacombs, which were certainly part of the standard tour of the day but which had become in the nineteenth century sites that were enveloped in considerable ecclesiastical and theological polemical debate. Looking at Newman's reactions to these sites, at these two very important junctures of his life and career, gives a very provocative and enlightening glimpse into the inner workings of his mind and heart. On a different but equally interesting historical plane, such an investigative lens highlights the significant number of people who were part of Newman's life during this period and who were devotionally drawn to these primitive burial sites.
1 J. H. Newman and others, Lyra apostolica, 2nd edn, Oxford 1837, 230.
2 As far as the Roman catacombs are concerned, it is impossible to determine what Newman actually knew before he went. He makes no mention of any books or travel guides that he referred to before his trip. He did, however, have an acquaintance in Oxford who had published a travel account some years before which contained a very sensitive description of the catacombs. The Revd Edward Burton was the Regius Professor of Divinity and a canon of Christ Church. After receiving his MA in 1818, Burton embarked on a continental tour, spending four months in Rome. Upon his return, he wrote an account of the antiquities of the city, which was published in 1821. Burton began his description of the Roman catacombs by noting that an ‘air of suspicion’ surrounded these ancient cemeteries because of the fabulous assertions which were made by the Roman Catholics of the city. These suspicions should not, however, cause the tourist to disregard or ignore all the assertions made about these sites, especially those that claim that they were used by the early Christians as burial grounds and places of refuge. In support of these claims, Burton cited appropriate passages from Eusebius and Jerome, and concluded by arguing that the final proof of the Christian character of the sites could be found through personal observation. By descending into the corridors of the catacombs, the visitor would become convinced that these passageways and chambers were used by the early Christians as cemeteries and places of worship, where religious services were performed by ‘unhappy men, who were prohibited the open profession of their religion in the face of day’: A description of the antiquities and other curiosities of Rome, Oxford 1821, 483ff.
3 J. H. Newman, Apologia pro vita sua, London 1895, 7. Newman speaks of how his imagination had been ‘stained’ at the age of fifteen by his belief that the pope was the AntiChrist, a belief inspired by his readings of Joseph Milner's History of the Church of Christ, and Isaac Newton's Observations on the prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John which continued to inform his thinking until 1843. Such a belief made him very apprehensive about the devotional life and historical claims of papal Rome.
4 LD iii. 284, 290.
5 Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: a biography, Oxford 1988, 63.
6 LD iii. 240, 241.
7 LD iii. 227. Despite his assistance, Newman did not hold the chaplain of the English chapel in high esteem. He wrote to his mother from Naples on 28 February 1833 that ‘At Rome, Mr. Burgess has a great name and has done (they say) much good – and is much followed – so we must say nothing. But we have just heard him, and entre nous he is one of the most perfect watering place preachers I ever heard, most painfully so – pompous in manner and matter – what you might call “an uncommon fellow” for what [want] of better words, and a true specimen of the experimentally abortive style.’
8 LD iii. 268.
9 LD iii. 282.
10 LD iii. 248.
11 LD iii. 234.
12 Daniel Rock, Hierurgia, London 1833, i, p. vii.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid. For the invocation of saints see pp. 347–53; for the preservation and veneration of relics see the discussion of the collection of the blood of martyrs at vol. i. 376–86. Rock also argued (ii. 458) that the Church of Christ ‘at the epoch of its very infancy, taught her members, as she teaches them at present, to offer their prayers for the dead’.
15 Ibid. ii. 809.
16 See, especially, Nicholas Wiseman, Recollections of the last four popes, London 1858, and Fabiola or, the Church of the catacombs, London 1856. See also Wilfrid Ward, The life and times of Cardinal Wiseman, London 1899, i. 34, 35. Ward writes of Wiseman's time in Rome that ‘Two influences are especially to be noted – which became intimately blended – that of the historical associations of early Christian history made by the Catacombs, shrines, museums; and the effect of the frequent sight of the Pope himself. No one can reside in Rome without being affected by both of these aspects of the life there; but with Wiseman the impression they made was the deepest of his life. It was deepened by years of close intimacy with every detail of both aspects: an intimacy represented in later years by the most popular of his books, “Fabiola” and by the “Recollections of the Last Four Popes”.’
17 E. R. Norman, The English Catholic Church in the nineteenth century, Oxford 1984, 29.
18 Burgess first produced a guide book to Rome in 1831: The topography and antiquities of Rome, London 1831. In that work, Burgess's description of the catacombs is certainly not zealously polemical, avoiding any controversy over the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church. During the next winter season, however, the chaplain delivered a lecture series at the English Chapel which dealt with the faith of the apostolic Church as revealed by the New Testament. Once again, he skilfully avoided explicit polemical remarks, but included materials that were clearly controversial, especially those dealing with Paul's doctrine of justification by faith: Lectures on the insufficiency of unrevealed religion, London 1832. Burgess published a second travel account in 1835, this time describing his tour of Greece and the Levant: Greece and the Levant, London 1835. In this book he made several polemical remarks, including an attack on the identification of a martyr's relics taken from the catacombs. In a pamphlet published in 1836, Baggs vigorously attacked the image of the primitive Church that Burgess presented, particularly the assertion made in his lectures that the early Christians were not troubled ‘with ceremonies, or church authority, or wonders, or saints, or images, or clouds of incense, or hosts of angels and departed spirits’. He pointed out that Burgess did not offer any evidence to support these assertions and then he added: ‘The question is historical, and requires historical discussion and not assertions.’ For those English readers interested in the subject, he recommended the recently published work of Daniel Rock, which made extensive use of the evidence of the catacombs: A letter addressed to the Rev. R. Burgess B. D. Protestant chaplain at Rome, Rome 1836.
19 Charles Baggs, The papal chapel described and illustrated from history and antiquities, Rome 1839. The other guide was entitled Ceremonies of holy-week, Rome 1839.
20 Wiseman, Recollections, 296.
21 Ward, Wiseman, i. 36.
22 LD iii. 272.
23 LD iii. 284.
24 LD iii. 290.
25 LD iii. 234.
26 LD iii. 238. See also Ker, Newman, 67.
27 Maisie Ward, Young Mr. Newman, London 1948, 206.
28 Newman, J. H., ‘Home thoughts abroad’, British Magazine v (1834), 8Google Scholar.
29 Ibid. 10. Newman writes of the ‘catacombs of St. Martin’; however, no such catacombs exist. In a letter from Rome, Newman wrote that he saw a church which was once ‘the refuge of the persecuted Christians and in the catacombs, after the place where Constantine held a Council of the Roman Church in A.D. 324’: LD iii. 275. This additional information suggests that the ‘catacombs of St. Martin’ were actually the crypt under the Church of S. Martino ai Monti, a crypt which leads to a subterranean chapel believed to be a titulus from the third century. Contemporary guidebooks suggested that it was the scene of a general church council called by St Sylvester and held in the presence of the Emperor Constantine. Newman must simply have thought that a subterranean chapel dating from primitive times was a catacomb.
30 Idem, Apologia pro vita sua, London 1864, 97.
31 Idem, The Arians of the fourth century, London 1833, 421, 422.
32 Ibid.
33 For Newman's imaginative use of history see A. Dwight Culler, The Victorian mirror of history, New Haven 1985, ch. v.
34 [J. H. Newman], The Church of our fathers, London 1842, esp. chs i, xvii.
35 For Newman's use and understanding of the relationship of belief and imagination see John Coulson, Religion and imagination: ‘in aid of a grammar of assent’, Oxford 1981, ch. ii.
36 Newman, Apologia, 317.
37 LD viii. 172
38 Ambrose Macaulay, Dr. Russell of Maynooth, London 1983, 36. I am indebted to this work for much of the biographical material on Russell.
39 [Russell, C. W.], ‘Maitland's Church in the catacombs’, Dublin Review xxi (1847), 427Google Scholar. The book reviewed was Charles Maitland, The Church in the catacombs, London 1846. See also [Russell, C. W.], ‘Subterranean Rome’, Dublin Review xiii (1869)Google Scholar, which contains his review of De Rossi's monumental work on the catacombs and its English translation by two Anglican converts.
40 LD xi. 284. A few weeks after his conversion, just two days after his confirmation, Newman met with Daniel Rock at Oscott College (xi. 24). After his conversion, one of Newman's ecclesiastical superiors was the apostolic vicar of the Western District, a position held by Charles Baggs from 1844 until his death in October 1845. Baggs, Russell and Wiseman consulted Newman about his Doctrine of development which was just about to be published (xi. 25 n. 3). Just prior to leaving for Rome in early September, Newman attended a dinner party at Alton Towers, the estate of John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, with Nicholas Wiseman and Daniel Rock (xi. 241).
41 LD xi. 284. Newman's reference to the tomb of Santa Cecilia is somewhat misleading. The authentic tomb of Cecilia was not discovered until 1854, by G. B. De Rossi. Before that time, the saint's tomb was thought to be in the catacombs of San Sebastiano because a plaque dating from the early seventeenth century suggested that several popes and martyrs, including Cecilia, were buried there: J. S. Northcote, A visit to the Roman catacombs, London 1877, 146.
42 Alfonso Capecelatro, The Life of Saint Philip Neri, trans. T. A. Pope, London 1882, i. 135. For Neri's use of the catacombs see J. Stevenson, The catacombs, London 1978, 48, and Louis Bordet and Louis Ponnelle, St. Philip Neri and the Roman society of his times, trans. R. F. Kerr, London 1932, 96.
43 Ludwig F. von Pastor, The history of the popes from the close of the Middle Ages, ed. R. F. Kerr, London 1930, xix. 165.
44 LD xii. 74.
45 Marchi began his own investigations by studying the role of arenaria, the ancient pozzolana quarries. Directing the excavations in the catacombs of Santa Agnese, which were especially interesting because it was here that an ancient arenaria was found, as well as the more regular corridors of the Christian cemetery, he began to pay particular attention to the general lay-out and construction of the underground passageways. (The prevalent theory on the origins of the catacombs was that they were abandoned arenaria adopted by the early Christians as burial grounds.) In preparation for his volume on the architecture of the catacombs, Marchi made a detailed study of the construction and floor plan of the arenaria and the catacombs of Santa Agnese and, in 1844, with the publication of his Architectura della Roma sotterranea cristiana, he presented his findings. Marchi was able to demonstrate that the arenaria were constructed in an entirely different manner from the corridors and cubicles of the catacombs. The shafts and passageways of the arenaria moved along irregular lines, turning haphazardly to follow the vein of pozzolana or tufa. The catacombs, on the other hand, were constructed in far more regular patterns, following straight lines which intersected at sharp angles, with cubicles and chapels branching off at regular intervals. The design of the catacomb was distinctive from that of the arenaria, and Marchi argued that this proved that the catacombs were constructed by Christian excavators specifically for the burial of Christian dead.
46 LD xi. 290. Shortly after his colleagues arrived, Newman wrote to Marchi and asked if he would give a guided tour of the Kircher Museum of Ancient Christianity to the entire group which he did on 9 May 1847: LD xii. 76. The museum is filled with artefacts and inscriptions from the catacombs.
47 Ibid. xi. 296.
48 J. H. Newman, Callista: a sketch of the third century, London n.d. 262.
49 See, for example, Ian Ker, ‘Newman's post-conversion discovery of Catholicism’, in Ian Ker (ed.), Newman and conversion, Edinburgh 1997, 55. Ker suggests that the conversion of the heroine Callista mirrors Newman's own intellectual odyssey.
50 Newman, Callista, 22.
51 David Anthony Downes, The temper of Victorian belief, New York 1972, 113.
52 Newman, Callista, 260, 261.
53 See S. Russell Forbes, The Roman catacombs, Rome 1884, 14, 15, and also P. Kirsch, The catacombs of Rome, Rome 1933, 26.