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‘Telling lies on behalf of the Bible’: S. R. Gardiner's Doubts about Catholic Apostolic Teaching
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 June 2016
Abstract
The reasons for the historian Samuel Rawson Gardiner's departure from the Catholic Apostolic Church in the mid-1860s are speculated upon but not generally known. This essay makes use of letters, hitherto in family hands and unknown to researchers, from Gardiner and his wife Isabella to her brother Martin Irving in order to trace the growth of Gardiner's doubts and his alienation from the Catholic Apostolic Church. In particular, the letters show how Gardiner felt the Church was mishandling the intellectual challenges exercising contemporary churchmen. The aim is to shed light on an aspect of Gardiner's biography which has not previously been explained adequately, and so to illuminate the response of one conservative religious movement – the Catholic Apostolic Church – towards the challenges presented by developments in the disciplines of geology and Biblical studies. It is argued that for Gardiner doubt was a necessary function of the quest for truth.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History , Volume 52: DOUBTING CHRISTIANITY: THE CHURCH AND DOUBT , June 2016 , pp. 398 - 412
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2016
Footnotes
I am grateful to †Elizabeth Martin and her son †Graham for granting me generous access to the letters on which this essay is based. Thanks are also due to the editors and peer reviewer of Studies in Church History, and to David Bebbington, Manfred Henke and Timothy Larsen for their assistance.
References
1 Adamson, J. S. A., ‘Eminent Victorians: S. R. Gardiner and the Liberal as Hero’, HistJ 33 (1990), 641–57Google Scholar, at 642.
2 Lang, Timothy, The Victorians and the Stuart Heritage: Interpretations of a Discordant Past (Cambridge, 1995), 146–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Nixon, Mark, Samuel Rawson Gardiner and the Idea of History (Woodbridge, 2010)Google Scholar.
4 An unpublished family history refers to further letters covering the periods 1850–5 and 1875–85: London, Society of Genealogists, Michael Gardiner, ‘The Gardiners Volume One’ (typescript, 1992), 189. However, these appear to have gone missing; I have also been unable to locate the extensive correspondence, said by the same author to exist, concerning Gardiner's not being allowed to proceed to the degree of MA at Oxford: ibid. 190.
5 Lang, Victorians, 148; ODNB, s.n. ‘Gardiner, Samuel Rawson (1829–1902)’.
6 Gardiner, ‘Gardiners Volume One’, 138–9.
7 Among many biographies of Irving, see Mrs Oliphant, M. O. W., The Life of Edward Irving, 2 vols (London, 1862)Google Scholar; Whitley, H. C., Blinded Eagle (London, 1955)Google Scholar; Grass, Tim, The Lord's Watchman: A Life of Edward Irving (Milton Keynes and Eugene, OR, 2011)Google Scholar.
8 On the Catholic Apostolic Church's history, see Miller, Edward, The History and Doctrines of Irvingism, or of the so-called Catholic and Apostolic Church, 2 vols (London, 1878)Google Scholar; Shaw, Plato E., The Catholic Apostolic Church, sometimes called Irvingite: A Historical Study (New York, 1946)Google Scholar; Davenport, R. A., Albury Apostles: The Story of the Body known as the Catholic Apostolic Church (sometimes called ‘The Irvingites’) (London, 1970)Google Scholar; Flegg, Columba Graham, ‘Gathered under Apostles’: A Study of the Catholic Apostolic Church (Oxford, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. None has much to say about the denomination's response to nineteenth-century intellectual developments. I am currently working on a new history, The Lord's Work: A History of the Catholic Apostolic Church (forthcoming).
9 The Testimonies were first issued between 1836 and 1838, and set out the apostles’ assessment of the state and prospects of Christendom, calling upon the baptized to flee the judgement to come. One was addressed to William IV, one to the bishops of the Church of England, and another, the fullest and most often cited subsequently, to the heads of Church and state throughout Christendom. This last was the so-called Great Testimony.
10 H. B. Copinger, ‘Annals: The Lord's Work by Apostles in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’ (typescript, c.1951), 70.
11 Charles served as a deacon until his ordination as priest in 1865: Isabella Gardiner to Martin Irving, 26 February 1865. In 1882 he became angel of the church at Brighton: Newman-Norton, Seraphim, A Biographical Index of those associated with the Lord's Work (London, [1972]), 44Google Scholar. He appears to have ministered there until his death.
12 The Catholic Apostolic diaconate was regarded as a permanent office in its own right, although some deacons were in time ordained as priests.
13 Lang, Victorians, 149.
14 Firth, C. H., ‘Dr. S. R. Gardiner’, PBA 1 (1903–4), 294–301Google Scholar, at 294; ODNB; Lang, Victorians, 148. Subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles, then still required of those proceeding to degrees at Oxford, was not the issue here: Catholic Apostolics would have had no problem with that.
15 [Cardale, John Bate], Readings upon the Liturgy and other Divine Offices of the Church, 2 vols (London, 1879, 1878 respectively), 2: 429, 435Google Scholar. The rite was first administered in 1847.
16 ‘There was an indication of the mind of the Lord in the word spoken to S. R. G. that He would use him to preach the Gospel first to the poor & then to the rich also _ intimating that He would use him first in a lower then in a higher sphere’: ‘Southampton Record of Events’, undated ms book held with the letters.
17 Ibid.
18 Oxford, Christ Church, Dean and Chapter records, D&C, i.b.10, fol. 136v, 31 October 1851: ‘D[ominu]s Gardiner having tendered to the Dean by letter his resignation of his Student[’]s place, it is declared vacant from this day’. I am grateful to the librarian, Judith Curthoys, for providing me with a copy and transcription of this source. Nixon uses the verb ‘expelled' to describe what happened to Gardiner: Gardiner, 83. This is too strong, but he may perhaps have been asked to resign. Removal of his name from the college's books meant that he did not proceed to the degree of MA until 1884: Oxford, All Souls’ College, Anson, S. R. Gardiner to William Anson, 19 November 1884.
19 Southampton Record; Lang, Victorians, 145.
20 E.g. Isabella Gardiner to Martin Irving, 3 June 1856, 11 October 1857.
21 Gardiner, ‘Gardiners Volume One’, 143. Lang, on the basis of Post Office directories for Southampton and London, has the family moving in 1853: Victorians, 146.
22 Tyacke, Nicholas, ‘An Unnoticed Work by Samuel Rawson Gardiner’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 47 (1974), 244–5Google Scholar, at 245. On Thiersch, see Wigand, Paul, Heinrich W. J. Thierschs Leben (zum Teil von ihm Selbst erzählt) (Basel, 1888)Google Scholar; Edel, R.-F., Auf dem Weg zur Vollendung der Kirche Jesu Christi: Die oekumenische Sendung der katholisch-apostolischen Gemeinden an die Gesamtkirche Jesu Christi dargestellt in Leben und Wirken des Prof. Dr. Heinrich W. J. Thiersch, Oekumenische Texte und Studien 18, 2nd edn (Marburg an der Lahn, 1971)Google Scholar, although neither appears to mention Gardiner.
23 Isabella Gardiner to Martin Irving, 18 May 1856.
24 Isabella Gardiner to Martin Irving, 26 September 1867.
25 Martin Irving proceeded to the degree of MA in 1856, although J. A. Froude later suggested that filial piety had kept him from taking a fellowship at Oxford: cited in Martin, John S., Martin Howy Irving: Professor, Headmaster, Public Servant (Melbourne, 2006), 49Google Scholar.
26 Isabella Gardiner to Martin Irving, [June 1856] and 16 December 1858.
27 S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 23 November [1856]. Edward Taplin (1800–62) was the ‘Pillar of Prophets’, the chief representative of that ministry in the Catholic Apostolic Church.
28 [Tudor, John Owen], On the Reconciliation of Geological Phenomena with Divine Revelation (London, 1856)Google Scholar; cf. idem, Sacred Geology; or, The Scriptural Account of the World's Creation maintained (London, 1847), xiv–xvii.
29 S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 3 January 1858. The Catholic Apostolic Church claimed that it alone could rise above all sectarian distinctions, because it was led by apostles, who were intended to head up the whole Christian Church on earth. It therefore accepted no name which would mark it out as a subset of the company of the baptized.
30 S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 15 September 1861. The ‘Gorilla book’ is not identifiable from the letter, but it may have been du Chaillu, Paul, Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa (London, 1861)Google Scholar, which became a best-seller thanks to the interest excited by the author's collection of gorilla bones and skins which he had exhibited in London that February: see Petzold, Jochen, ‘“How like us is that ugly brute, the ape!” Darwin's “Ape Theory” and its Traces in Victorian Children's Magazines’, in Schaff, Barbara, Voigts, Eckart and Pietrzak-Franger, Monika, eds, Reflecting on Darwin (Farnham, 2014) 57–71, at 59–60Google Scholar. I owe this reference to Frances Andrews.
31 S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 19 February 1863.
32 S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 27 April 1863.
33 Bayford, A. F., The Argument of Dr Bayford on behalf of the Rev. G. C. Gorham in the Court of Arches, 2nd edn (London, 1849)Google Scholar.
34 S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 25 May 1863.
35 S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 25 June 1863. He was probably referring to a lecture by Charles Lyell to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1859 arguing for belief in an ‘old earth’, or to Lyell's 1863 book The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man: see Livingston, James C., Religious Thought in the Victorian Age: Challenges and Presuppositions (New York and London, 2007), 155–6Google Scholar.
36 Isabella Gardiner to Martin Irving, 26 September 1863.
37 S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 25 October 1863.
38 Groser, formerly a Baptist minister, was an early convert to the movement. The Gardiners were friends with him, and Sam had earlier expressed appreciation of his preaching: Gardiner to Martin Irving, 1 November 1856. Groser continued to dine with them until at least 1870.
39 S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 27 March 1865.
40 Isabella Gardiner to Martin Irving, 26 March 1865.
41 It had been suggested in 1857 that he offer himself as a candidate for ordination to the priesthood, but he refused, feeling that whilst he was a bad deacon he would make a worse priest: S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 9 September [1857].
42 Irving, Edward, Collected Writings, ed. Carlyle, Gavin, 5 vols (London, 1865), 3: 217–340Google Scholar.
43 However, Groser warned against excessive dogmatism in this matter, and appears to have regarded the six days as long periods: Sermons preached in the Catholic Apostolic Church, Gordon Square (London, 1871), 78–9, 84.
44 Nixon, Gardiner, 121–3.
45 Cf. ibid. 29.
46 S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 12 August 1865.
47 S. R. Gardiner to Martin Irving, 8 August 1858.
48 London, King's College London, Secretary's in-correspondence, KA/IC/G50, Arthur Godson to the Council of King's College, 20 November 1871. Lang thinks that he continued as a communicant Anglican until his death: Victorians, 141; cf. ODNB.
49 Lang, Victorians, 146, citing information provided by the Catholic Apostolic Trustees. The Church's extensive archives are inaccessible to researchers.
50 General Rubrics; or, Rules for the Celebration of the Divine Offices, etc. (London, 1852), Appendix I; cf. Book of Regulations (London, 1878), §635.
51 Isabella Gardiner to Martin Irving, 26 March 1865.
52 Thiersch, Heinrich W. J., Christian Family Life, transl. Gardiner, S. R., 2nd edn (London, 1880), 160Google Scholar.
53 Nixon, Gardiner, 13.
54 Timothy Larsen to the author, e-mail, 31 December 2014.
55 Butterfield, Herbert, Man on his Past: The Study of the History of Historical Scholarship (Cambridge, 1955, repr. 1969), 36Google Scholar.