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Newmania

If the Patristics Movement were a body, John Henry Newman would be the adrenal gland — the source of its energy and drive. Or maybe he would be the pituitary, since he personally accounts for much of its early growth.

With the works of Newman (who was then an Anglican), patrology made the transition from an academic hobbyhorse to a popular fascination. He knew how to tell a story, and his stories delivered his doctrinal and ascetical points rather painlessly. I’m thinking here particularly of his early books The Church of the Fathers and The Arians of the Fourth Century — and, of course, his novel Callista: A Tale of the Third Century.

Newman’s Fathers are real men, sometimes difficult, enduring heartbreak, quarreling with one another. He doesn’t sugar-coat Jerome or Cyril, for example; they don’t hold the glaze very well anyway. His telling of the up-and-down friendship of Basil and Gregory (in The Church of the Fathers) really tugs at the heartstrings, even as it expands the Christian mind.

All this is a prelude to my expression of gratitude to Father Drew Morgan (like Newman, an Oratorian) for the work of his National Institute for Newman Studies. Based in Pittsburgh, the Institute hosts an enormous Newman research library, publishes a fine journal, and promotes the work of scholars. (I encourage you to donate to the cause. Your money will be put to good use.) The Institute also hosts one of the cleanest, best-kept, and most easily searchable databases on the Web — The Newman Reader — which holds all the collected works of Newman, plus the major biographies. Thus, with just a few keystrokes, you can round up everything Newman ever had to say about Athanasius, Ambrose, Augustine, Anthony … And he did have plenty to say.

Visit the Institute’s websites today. Visit the library if you’re ever in Pittsburgh. And pray for their good work. When God blesses Father Drew Morgan, He blesses all of us who love the Fathers.

I’ll end with a quote from St. Francis de Sales, which I pulled from a letter of Newman indexed at The Newman Reader: “The ancient Fathers … spoke from the heart to the heart, like good fathers to their children.”

One thought on “Newmania

  1. Wonderful — I’ll check it out. One of Newman’s most famous quotes was so relevant to my own conversion: “To be steeped in history is to cease to be Protestant.”

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