Arts

09 Apr 09

Daniel Inman has found a rare letter by Cardinal Newman

A researcher from Oxford University has discovered a rare letter written by Cardinal Newman, which had never before been catalogued.

Daniel Inman discovered the letter in the Bodleian Special Collections as part of his research on the history of Oxford’s Theology Faculty, of which he is a member.

John Henry Newman was a Roman Catholic priest and Cardinal who converted to Catholicism from Anglicanism in 1845. He was a major figure in the Oxford movement to bring the Church of England back to its Catholic roots but his studies in history eventually persuaded him to become a Roman Catholic. The Pope's visit to the UK next year is, in all likelihood, to coincide with the beatification of Cardinal Newman. There is also some speculation that he will be made a Doctor of the Church, only the second Englishman to be accorded such a status. 

His letters and diaries take up 32 volumes, published by the OUP. Daniel Inman, who is also training to become an Anglican priest, said: 'This discovery was very exciting. Occasionally uncatalogued letters by Newman are found, but one of this length and from his later years is now very rare. The letter has now been transcribed by the editor of the volumes so it can be added to a supplementary volume in due course.

'In the midst of such excitement, the letter - if nothing else  - is a poignant reminder that Newman was, until his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1845, a member of the Church of England and a leading figure within what was an essentially Anglican institution: the collegiate University before reform. Indeed, this letter is written only two years before he was made the first Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, where he was an undergraduate.'

The letter is to J.W Burgon who was Vicar of the University Church, relating to the new Honour School of Theology. There was severe concern about the School in the late 1870s. It had been founded under the aegis of Dr Pusey in 1869, but within a decade it had become a cause of acute concern within the University as so few of its students were winning Firsts; most were scraping Third and Fourth Class degrees.

Burgon produced a pamphlet entitled A Plea for the Study of Divinity at Oxford in 1875, which sought to address the underlying issues, and sent out copies to the great and good of the Kingdom. This letter is Newman's reply, and was found together with a variety of others, including replies from Lord Salisbury, B.F. Westcott (the great Cambridge biblical scholar) and several other leading theologians of the day, in the Bodleian Special Collections.

In the letter, Newman says: “I shall be very glad to hear that you succeed in forming a really learned theological school – but the difficulty is to do so, yet secure for hoi polloi [in Greek] of your clergy such a general and superficial knowledge as is necessary for work in the world.”

Daniel Inman said: 'It is particularly fascinating to me, as his comment about the Honour School is reflective of an emerging divide between the work of academic theology and the 'general and superficial knowledge as is necessary for work in the world' that was required for the future clergy who read for the School in its early days. That chasm between popular religious activity and University theology faculties is all too evident to us today, but was rarely the subject of commentators in the 1870s; Newman, characteristically, hit the nail on the head in his letter to Burgon. It was a remarkably prescient comment.'