The death of T. S. Eliot in the first month of the seventh centenary of Dante's birth could be an occasion for examining a particular poetic influence; or, more generally, for reflecting on Dante's contemporary ‘image'. The subject, however, of the present note is an aspect of Dante's poetry in itself—though considered, as befits the occasion, with an eye to its general relevance to us today. That it has some such relevance is no doubt already implied in allowing this of Eliot's work – in particular of the Four Quartets; for no one, I suppose, would deny that these poems have a contemporary importance, and certainly they, like Ash Wednesday and Animula and even The Waste Land, are inconceivable without the influence and example of Dante. Yet one may doubt whether Eliot's own example has been much followed, in this respect, by more recent poets. Eliot did his best, certainly, and to re-read now the famous essay of 1927 is to be struck once more by its admirable concentration on Dante as artist and a master in his art. The essay was not addressed to scholars, nor even primarily, I think, to the common reader, but to the writer's fellow-poets. The emphasis was all on Dante ‘the master', ‘the greatest master of the simple style', from whom ‘more can be learned about how to write poetry’ than from any English poet. How many of our contemporaries, I wonder, look to Dante in this way? For the modern educated public the Comedy— that epitome of Western pre-Renaissance thought and feeling – remains an important historical document; it is hardly felt as a stimulus to fresh creative writing.

'Tradition’ is one of the most problematic words in the vocabulary of theology. At one end of the theological spectrum it serves as the name for a norm whereby to judge any practice or belief, a standard endowed with authority related – in a way which it is not my concern to define more closely here – to that of the scriptural revelation. At the other end of the spectrum it can approximate to customs, practices, beliefs which are carried by the Church through her history as the debris of the past, a dead weight which may have lost meaning and relevance but is built into the Church's sociological structure. Thus a pope of the eleventh century, Gregory VII, who always liked to stress that his own reforming ideals were only to bring the Church back to the precepts of the holy fathers and the ancient canons, could nevertheless reply to his opponents, who invoked time-hallowed customs to justify their opposition, by remarking in words themselves borrowed from a long tradition – that Christ had said he was the truth, not that he was tradition. In general our talk of ‘tradition’ moves on a level a little lower than the angels of authoritative norm and above the beasts of outworn custom. It is this peculiarity that gives such evocative power to the language, to take a recent example, of Mrs Rosemary Haughton. in one of the more thoughtful contributions to the symposium Objections to Roman Catholicism.

I have been asked to write some account of the place of theology in the new universities, not simply as an academic discipline but as an interpreter of the whole academic process. This is a matter which I have long considered of the highest importance, not only for the Church but for the maintenance of integrated learning in the secular universities. Newman’s writings on this very matter, both in The Idea ofa University and elsewhrre, are too well known to need recapitulation. Indeed his prophetic gifts are only beginning to be realized in this as in so many other matters. The age of the Second Vatican Council is in many ways a Newmanic age and the principles for which he stood, no less than the ethos of true learning which he breathed, interpret, almost magically, the needs of our age.

The whole problem which forms the scope of this article has been admirably delineated this year in a book already reviewed in these columns, Theology and the University, ‘an ecumenical investigation,’ edited by John Coulson. It is a documentary of the first order, and I may be forgiven if I begin by a recapitulation of some of the things which it has to say. The editor himself, sums up the discussions in one sentence : ‘Theology can choose; it can remain dead and neglected, or take the pressure of the times and live; but if it chooses life it has need of three things: a university setting, lay participation, and the ecumenical dialogue’.

The Order of Preachers, which has such a clear individuality in the Church, has nevertheless among its gifted sons many different shades of character and fields of achievement. To the outside world it is the order of the great theologians, the order of strict orthodoxy, the order of St Thomas, of Cajetan, of Bariez, of John of St Thomas, and in our own time of P?re Gardei! and P?re Garrigou-Lagrange. The historian thinks also of the great inquisitors, of Jacob Sprenger and his Malleus Ma/eficarum, of Torquemada and the formidable Melchior Cano. By contrast with these there has always been a strain of the revolutionary, of the liberal and of the avant-garde, Savonarola, Las Casas, Lacordaire Vincent McNabb and Yves Congar. And finally, there is the recurrent type of the dedicated scholar, William of Moerbeke, Heinrich Denifle, Pierre Mandonnet and P?re Vicaire. And where shall we fit in Eckhardt, Tauler and Suso ? Into which of these groups shall we place Fr Daniel ?

His curriculum vitae is a varied one. Angelo Callus was born in 1888 in Malta, of Maltese parents but ultimately of Greek ancestry, and I am told the first Callus in the island was Greek physician to the Grand Master De La Vallette, the hero of the first siege of the island. He became a friar sixty years ago at the age of seventeen, and studied at Florence and Rome with a brilliant record, becoming Master of Sacred Theology at the unusually early age of thirty-six in 1924.

The Romans can, with some justification, claim the credit for having introduced the most important legal and religious concept of war into the history of human thought. Thereby they made a very notable contribution to the historical development of international law. To the Romans we owe the idea of the ‘just and pious’ war which has for centuries characterized and influenced the thinking of Western Christendom about the place and practice of war. The idea is still with us today. Like the conception of natural law, the story of the ‘just and pious’ war is that of successive contents flowing though an ancient concept.

In the Rome of the kings it was the function of a special college of priests, the fetiales, to carry out the somewhat elaborate religious and legal procedures, the Jus fetiale, determining the declarations of war and peace between the Roman people and their enemies. The jus fetiale formed part of the Roman jus sacrum, and thereby imported a moral and legal element, over and above that of religion, into the formal procedures of establishing peaceful and hostile relations between Rome and other political communities. The task of the fetiales was to determine whether the duties owed to Rome by her neighbours had been violated, i.e., whether or not Rome had been wronged. These wrongs were well established and defined in Roman religiolegal thinking and formed part of the substantive content of the jus fetiale. These wrongs constituted the causes of ‘just and pious’ wars, to the Roman mind.

By the time these words are in print the Vatican Council will be about to enter on its fourth, and presumably last, session. Undoubtedly this session will be an important one, its decisions are likely to make or mar the full realization of all its previous work. Pope John had two principal aims in calling together Vatican II. The first was the renewal of the inner life of the Church. A striking manifestation of such renewal would reveal its native truth and splendour to the world, not in pomp and pageantry, but in humble service of mankind. That native truth and splendour have been too often obscured by the slow unrecognized pressures of history, and by human limitation and failings. Their remedy, by sincere self examination, would enable the Church's eternal message to penetrate the world it lives in more acceptably. The progressively widening divorce of world from church might then, in some measure at least, be narrowed and bridged.

The second aim, equally important, but subsidiary to the first, was to promote by a change of heart and mind the unity of all Christians in the one Church, as Christ the Lord wills it and designs it to be. These two aims were of course intimately connected in Pope John's mind, though no doubt he himself learned much, during his short pontificate, of what this first step, so clearly indicated to him, would ultimately involve.

In his recent book Mr Hales has done much to clarify these two aims of the late Pope and how they formed themselves in his mind.

Although the suggestion of a dialogue with Communism has been looked upon by some Catholics as hopeless and unproductive, while being openly criticized by others, the possibility of such a dialogue is at least implied by Pope John XXIII in Pacem in Terris.

The idea of kairos – the time of urgent and providential decision – is something characteristic of Christianity, a religion of decisions in time and in history. Can Christians recognize their kairos? Is it possible that when the majority of Christians become aware that ‘the time has come’ for a decisive and urgent commitment, the time has, in fact, already run out?

There can be no question now that the time for a certain kind of crucial Christian decision in America has come and gone. In 1962, and finally in 1963, there were ‘moments of truth’ which have now passed, and the scene is becoming one of darkness, anarchy and moral collapse. These, of course, still call for a Christian response, a Christian decision. But it might seem that the responses and decisions of Christians will necessarily be less clear and more tragic because it is now apparent that there is little left for Christians as such to do to shape the events – or forestall the tragedies – that are to come. At best they can pray, and patiently suffer the consequences of past indecision, blindness, and evasion. They cannot lead and guide the nation through this crisis, but they can still help others, if they choose, to understand and accept the sufferings involved in order to make a creative and constructive use of the situation for the future. Are they really likely to do this? Who can say?

Islam and Christianity; or should it be, Islam and Christendom? In the difference between the connotation of the words Christianity and Christendom lies the explanation of one of the most essential differences between the two faiths. For Islam is a way of life, and perhaps, in selecting ‘Christendom’ in preference to ‘Christianity’ in the context of comparing the two religions, the tendency is evinced to seek a term referring to Christianity as if it, too, were a way of life in the same, all-embracing way that Islam set out to be. But Christianity is a religion; in some respects an institution that happens in spite of terrestrial life, although a life which it does not inform is death. Christendom remains a territorial concept, so that, though it does in a sense express an antithesis which the existence of Islam called into being, it cannot be used to mean what Islam meant-to refer to the way men worshipped, wrote, thought, practised the law, washed themselves, devised systems of finance that would not break the law and so forth. Christendom was a place; Islam a complete and monolithic concept of human conduct.

Christianity was never a way of life to the same degree because, for one thing, its founder, Jesus Christ, had not been at pains to legislate for this world, only to save it by symbolical and actual death to it. He had preached its unworthiness and left no doubt that what is God's is what counts, not what is Caesar's.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the Catholic theologian could still happily regard himself as the exponent of the most polished set of clear and distinct ideas on earth. This is no longer possible. Catholic theology seems at present in chaos: glorious chaos in the opinion of some, dire catastrophe in that of others. But, however it is to be evaluated, there is no disputing the fact of the present great upheaval in the practice of Catholic theology. Ideas that have been fixed for centuries are in process of revision, positions that have been taken for granted for as long are now under scrutiny for reconstruction. The purpose of this article is to indicate how the situation is shaping inside the German theological arena, and it should be stressed from the outset that this is simply a report, not a hallelujah or a jeremiad.

Perhaps the only surprising feature of the present situation is that it has been staved off for so long. Every form of research undergoes periods of growth-crisis. The very mass of his data forces the investigator to reconsider the presuppositions of his study and the adequacy of the interpretation of his results. There has to be periodical revision of the basic categories with which any science operates. This is how a science ‘advances', not so much by piling up more and more information (erudition) as by revaluing its fundamental interpretative concepts (genius). The maturity of a science is not measured by its immunity from such internal upheavals but by its capacity to produce them.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit surprises the Church. Some small decision or simple gesture turns out to be much more significant than many official pronouncements from high authority. We are pulled forward into a quite new situation by a seemingly inadequate cause. In retrospect we wonder at the modest beginnings of this new venture. But then why should the Spirit not move with a gentleness characteristic of God's grace?

This, I would suggest, is what happened when Pope John decided to invite official delegate observers from other churches to attend the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. (It was not unnoticed that the invitations were extended to churches and not just to individuals, itself an act of considerable ecumenical importance.) One wonders what Pope John himself thought this gesture would lead to. It is no secret that his decision was criticized and opposed. All that we can suppose is that he persisted in it, despite the criticism and anxiety it aroused, simply from the warmth and fulness of his heart. It was a simple yet profound gesture which, perhaps for that reason, commended itself more to the Spirit than to men. And if there was opposition in Rome, there was a strong reluctance in some Christian communions to take it at its face value, an institutional suspicion that it might be some kind of snare. But the gesture was made, and observers are now a firm part of that vast and complicated reality which is Vatican II.

It may seem strange, now that the hierarchies of the world have begun to put the Council's recommendations into practice, to see an introductory article on a linguistic framework for discussing liturgical language. But there are several good reasons why such a perspective is necessary. First, any decisions licensing the use of certain forms and withholding others must always be kept under review, as language is in a continual state of change. In a hundred years time, the language of today may well seem as archaic as the (never-defined) ‘Victorian English’ which biblical translations are frequently accused of being in. One must beware of complacency. There is bound to be further modification, and much future discussion. Secondly, the perspective would be valuable as a therapy for much recent popular discussion, whose utility is lessened by using undefined or irrelevant critical terminology, when words are condemned for being ‘ugly', ‘un-English', ‘incorrect', ‘debased', and so on – all highly subjective and misleading criteria. Thirdly, a linguistically-orientated basis for discussion would provide a means whereby the public's suggestions and views could be of use to any committee working on the liturgy. At the moment, sporadic opinions sent to the Catholic press about the kind of language vernacularization should bring make interesting reading, but because of the haphazard, occasional origins of this information and the variety of critical principles on which views are based (everything from a vague impressionism to a precise logic), the resultant mass of data is unco-ordinated, of little generality, and hence of little assistance. But it is just this knowledge about popular attitudes to language which a committee needs.

The other day, as I was signing the register in a West Country hotel, the proprietress observed to me: ‘Didn't there use to be an actor called Robert Speaight?’ The remark had no importance except to flavour an autobiography or enliven a dinner table; but it had, I think, a certain significance. It signified that a day comes when we must all brace ourselves to realize that other people regard us as fuddyduddies. Jacques Maritain is the antonym of a fuddyduddy, but he is 82 years old. Since the death of his wife, Raissa, he has lived with the Petits Frères de Charles de Foucauld at their headquarters just outside Toulouse. The fine new Dominican church and scholasticate are close at hand, and here the Petits Frères follow certain courses and receive a solid theological formation before dispersing, in their groups of two or three, to the uttermost ends of the earth. They live in huts – purposely provisional, one supposes – and take their meals in ‘messes’ of six or eight. Maritain has his own little hut, partitioned to form a bedroom and a tiny study. Fie is not a canonical member of the community, but he shares its life in so far as he is able to; gives an occasional conference or seminar; and is at hand for advice. Twice a year he leaves Toulouse to visit the house which still belongs to him at Princeton – at present occupied by Arthur Lourié and his wife – or to stay with friends at Kolbsheim in Alsace.

There is one side to the transformation of the Church going on today which might seem to have a purely liturgical bearing but which in fact goes wider and deeper – the general abandonment of the Latin language. This doesn't just imply the return to an intelligible and genuinely public liturgy but the abandonment of the lingua franca of what has been for centuries a clerical world and the moving out into the open and as yet largely unchartered waters of a lay and secular church – a church of the people, fully in the world.

Anti-clericalism is a lot easier to recognize than clericalism and therefore a lot easier to deprecate. Rather than merely deprecating it, however, with its long and ugly history especially in some Latin countries, we would be better employed in finding out to what extent it was justified and in fact at times made necessary by circumstances. It might, for instance, be considered rather significant that the part of Italy where communism and anti-clericalism is strongest, where there are still people who ‘baptize’ their children in wine out of contempt for the Church's sacraments, is precisely that part which formed the Papal states.

Clericalism is a historical phenomenon and has to be studied historically. It is, of course, a pejorative term and does not refer to the existence in the Church of a section of people called clerics, those who, in the definition of canon 108 of the Code, are ‘tied to divine service, having received at least first tonsure'.

The interpretation of the historical process is now a major academic industry. Just as we have bibliographies of bibliographies, we have histories of historical writing. Indeed, the day is not far distant when, in history as in metaphysics, the third degree of abstraction will triumphantly be reached: a history of histories of history. The historians, those who of all men should be urging most strongly a return to the sources, are also those who lead us to the most rarefied heights of speculation about our nature and destiny. The field of history should be for ever unenclosed, and be a free breathing-space for a pallid population well nigh stifled with the fumes of philosophy.’ In the forty years since Augustine Birrell wrote The Muse of History, the Green Belt has become a built-up area; the pallid population now suffocates in libraries beneath the weight of reviews and journals whose learned footnotes tantalize with hints and glimpses of pastures long submerged.

When the theologian ventures on to this scene, the historian may well despair. Understandably, he hesitates before subscribing to Professor Toynbee's declaration that history passes over into theology. ‘It is a bad habit in historians to take at their face value the hysterical exaggerations of the pulpit'; it is also a bad habit to turn to first causes when secondary ones will do. That may be why ecclesiastical history is reckoned a soft option by those academics who rate hard-headedness as highly as any man of business.

This article is concerned with the practice of philosophy in religious institutions such as seminaries or the study-houses of religious orders. But it is clear that the possibility of such a limitation – the practice of philosophy in some particular setting – is itself problematic. Philosophizing would seem to claim that it is independent or can become independent of the setting of its practice in all relevant respects. Speaking as a theologian (as I intend to do throughout this article) and claiming therefore complete freedom to appeal to revelation in Scripture and the Church, I must maintain that there is one setting, one Sitz im Leben, of which philosophizing can never become independent: the concrete economy of sin and salvation which embraces humanity and the whole of creation with it. But to admit this is not yet to commit oneself to the view that the theological Sitz im Leben of philosophizing is philosophically relevant, i.e. that philosophical discourse is dependent for its shape and content on the theological existence of philosophers. If it is possible for any intellectual activity to release itself from the constraints of the concrete conditions of its exercise – we can think in spite of a feverish cold though not when we are delirious – then there would seem to be no obvious reason why philosophizing, the intellectual activity par excellence, should not precisely define itself as just that discourse which actively releases itself from the particularity of all and any concrete conditions of its exercise, including theological ones, by simple (though perhaps costing) pretermission or by reflexive objectivization.

It is ten years since I went along to Stanford’s in St James's to buy a map which would show me where Uganda really was. This was my first move towards becoming chaplain at Makerere, then the University College of East Africa, now a constituent unit in a fully-fledged university.

While my ship turned the corner of Africa off Cape Gardafui the Kabaka was flying back to Uganda from exile to be welcomed by a Governor, the notable Sir Andrew Cohen (whose seat at Entebbe he now occupies as Sir Frederick Mutesa). The train from Nairobi was protected by armed guards against a possible Mau-Mau raid. Jomo Kenyatta was imprisoned in the far north and Sir Evelyn Baring ruled Kenya. Sir Edward Twining governed Tanganyika. Today, under Kenyatta, Obote and Nyerere, it is East Africa which is travelling into an unknown and sparsely-mapped future.

I like to recall what I said when taking over my major teaching assignment at Makerere, the first Honours Class in Political Ideas. ‘I am aware,’ I said, ‘that I am speaking to the the leaders of three future republics'. Neither the class nor I realized how quickly that future would arrive. I do not think that even Dr Jowett's pupils at Balliol reached ministerial or near-ministerial level within three years of gaining their degrees. There have been a few cases of swelled heads as a result of this swift elevation, but in general I find it heartening, on their visits to this country, to observe how these men, recently undergraduates, are conscientiously shouldering their formidable tasks.

No religious Order can stand aloof from the aggiornamento that is affecting the entire Church nor declare itself immune from the impact of Vatican Council II. Even those institutions that are the oldest in the Church, such as monasticism, must reappraise themselves in the light of contemporary trends. Such a re-examination becomes even more urgent in view of the attitude of many that the monastic Orders are to be the preservers of the old or traditional ways while the rest of the Church is updated. Do monastic Orders, in this view, become preservers of a really ancient tradition that is still vital for them, or rather the preservers of a nineteenth and twentieth century interpretation that no longer answers the needs of themselves nor of the Church ? Do they not have a duty to define themselves and their role in the Church, as well as give some consideration to the vitality of the image of monasticism that they have inherited from the great monastic revivers of the last century, before consigning themselves to the preconceived role of museum keepers in the Church ?

Within monastic communities today there is a healthy re-examination of fundamentals. Although not all the answers are present to the questions being asked, it is a sign of growth that such questions are being posed. One of the clearest signs of renewal is a re-awakening of interest in the eremitical life. In the early centuries in the East, the eremitic and cenobitic ways of monasticism existed side by side, and many instances are recorded of monks passing temporarily from one to the other.