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Newman's theology in the Dream of Gerontius
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
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John Henry Newman once remarked to a friend that his Dream of Gerontius. “was written by accident — and it was published by accident”, yet his personal history proves otherwise; it was the fruit of many years of agonizing study and prayer leading him to the Roman Catholic Church. It is rightly considered a major contribution to Roman Catholic spirituality and doctrine which continues to inspire theology and piety.
The Dream of Gerontius expresses in poetical form many truths of Catholic dogma concerning creation, redemption and eschatology. This, Newman’s longest poem, composed in 1865, almost twenty years after his entrance into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, underscores his Catholic beliefs in the mysterious complementarity between God’s justice and mercy whereby at the particular judgment, some souls require a final preparation for heaven. In his Plain and Parochial Sermons Newman had rebutted the 19th century denial of possible eternal damnation. In the Dream of Gerontius, he emphasized God’s merciful dispensation. Eschatology is intertwined with Christology and Christian anthropology. Furthermore, the seeds of an ecclesiology of communion are present as a dominant theme.
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- Copyright © 2001 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Newman, John Henry, The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, (henceforth LD), ed. Dessain, Charles S., et al., vol. XXII, Letter to Lady Charles Thynne, October 29, 1865, p. 86.
2 St. Catherine of Genoa: Purgation and Pargatory, The Spiritual Dialogue, Paulist Press, New York, 1979Google Scholar, Translation and notes by Serge Hughes, Introduction by Benedict Groeschel, pp. 20–21.
3 LD, vol. XXIII, Letter to E. B. Pusey, June 19,1867, p. 256. Manning wrote a preface to an 1858 translation, The Treatise on Purgatory.
4 Two famous Anglican converts well known by Newman, Henry Edward Manning and Frederick William Faber, were influenced by Purgation and Purgatory. Faber referred a number of times to the treatise of St. Catherine of Genoa in All for Jesus or The Easy Ways of Divine Love, John Murphy Co., Baltimore 1854Google Scholar (?), pp. 392–404. Although Newman stated that he had not read Faber's books he had listened to readings of parts of them.
5 Walmsley, G., ‘Newman's Dream of Gerontius’ in The Downside Review XCI. no. 304 (1973) 173.
6 A simple acceptance of Christ as personal Saviour or interior conversion is insufficient to justify the soul. Newman thought that Luther's views differed from orthodox belief ‘in considering that Faith and not Baptism is the primary instrument of Justification, and that this Faith which justifies exercises its gifts without the exercise or even the presence of love’. cf. ‘Faith considered as the Instrument of Justification’ in Lectures on Justification, Longmans, Green and Co., London (1838 edition), 1924, p. 29.
7 Jacques Le Goff describes in his book The Birth of purgatory the legends on Purgatory that were spread especially through anecdotes used in sermons beginning in the 13th century. Caesarius of Heisterbach, a Cistercian monk, and Stephen of Bourbon, a Dominican friar, were largely responsible for the popularization of anecdotes (exempla) in the Middle Ages on the fantastic and sometimes bizarre apparitions of the souls of purgatory. See “Social Victory: Purgatory and the Cure of Souls ‘in The Birth of Purgatory, The University of Chicago Press 1983, pp. 289–333. Faber commented on two views of purgatory. 'The first view … loves to represent purgatory simply as a hell which is not eternal. Violence, confusion, wailing, horror preside over its descriptions’. All for Jesus, o.c., pp. 388–390.
8 Newman, John Henry, ‘Holiness Necessary for future Blessedness’, 1826, in Parochial and Plain Sermons (henceforth P.P.S. 48 vols., ed. Copeland, W. J., 1869, vol. I, p. 12Google Scholar.
9 Newman, John Henry, ‘Purity and Love’ in Discourses to Mixed Congregations, Longmans, Green and Co., London (1849 edition) 1916, p.81Google Scholar.
10 For example at that time he wrote regarding the moment of death ‘0 my Lord and Saviour, support me in that hour in the strong arms of Thy Sacraments, and by the fresh fragrance of Thy consolations. Let the absolving words be said over me, and the holy oil sign and seal me, and Thy own Body be my food, and Thy Blood my sprinkling’ cf. ‘God's Will the End of Life’bid, p. 123.
11 Cf Taylor, Eric, ‘Elgar's Dream of Gerontius’, in Blackfriars XXXII, no. 373 (1951) 156–157CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Dream of Gerontius p. 339.
13 James, Jane M.C, ‘Judgment and Purgatory in Newman's The Dream of Gerontius and in the Treatise on Purgatory of St. Catherine of Genoa’, Downside Review, vol. CXVIII, no. 411 (2000) 141Google Scholar.
14 Dream of Gerontius p. 370.
15 Ibid. p 344
16 Ibid. p 343
17 Ibid. p 344
18 Ibid. p 348
19 Ibid. p 351.
21 ‘Learn that the flame of the Everlasting Love/ Doth bum ere it transform.’Ibid, p 352.
21 Ibid. p 358
22 Ibid. p 358
23 Ibid., p 361
24 'The pains of Purgatory are made up of the Poena sensus and the Poena domni—The Poena sensus is held by Latin tradition to be fire — but it is not a Catholic dogma nor is it clear that the fire, in the Latin tradition, is more than metaphorical. LD, Vol. XXIII, Letter to E. B. Pusey, June 19, 1867, p. 256.
25 ‘O generous love./ that He who smote./ In man for man the foe,/ The double agony in man/ For man should undergo,/ And in the garden secretly,/ And on the cross on high,/ Should teach His brethren and inspire/ To suffer and to die.’, Dream of Gerontius, p. 364.
26 “Beloved we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.' 1 Jn 3,4. The necessary purification includes that of purgatory.
21 Purgation and Purgatory, p. 71
28 He wrote, for example: “Heaven would be hell to an irreligious man ‘, in” Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness’, 1 826, J.P.S., vol. 1, p 7. Faber comments on this notion which St. Catherine develops. Cf. All for Jesus, o.c., pp. 401–402.
29 Purgation and Purgatory. p. 71.
30 Dream of Gerontius, p. 351.
31 ‘In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.’ I Pet 1, 6–7.
32 I Cor 3, 11–15. The Church's belief in purgatory is based on this New Testament text, among others.
33 Purgation and Purgatory, p 78.
34 Ibid., p. 84.
35 Dream of Gerontius. pp. 334–335.
36 Ibid. p.341
37 Ibid. p. 351
38 Ibid., p. 342.
39 Purgation and Purgatory, p. 12.
40 ‘Learn that the flame of the Everlasting Love/ Doth bum ere it transform’…, Dream of Gerontius, p. 352
41 Purgation and Purgatory, p. 15.
42 ‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’
43 Purgation and Purgatory, pp. 19–80.
44 Ibid., p. 81.
45 Dream of Gerontius, pp. 366–361.
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