An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine by John Henry Cardinal Newman

Abstract

Reviewed by: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine by John Henry Cardinal Newman Peter C. Erb An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine BY JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES AND TEXTUAL APPENDICES BY JAMES TOLHURST D.D. Newman Millennium Edition volume XII. Leominster: Gracewing, 2018. lxii + 570 pages. Cloth: £35. ISBN: 9781781820124. In this delightfully well-annotated book, readers are presented with a fine edition of Newman’s An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, a volume, which in many ways reflects much of Newman’s career from his first edition of the work in 1845 (it is the work which marked his turn from Anglicanism to Catholicism) to his reworking of the book thirty years later in 1878 and five (with one small addition in 1881) reprintings during his life to 1890. The lengthy introduction to the volume is well laid out, beginning with an overview of the historical setting of the work. In it the editor briefly reviews the political swirl of Newman’s day from the close of the French Revolution and outlines above all the new thought processes in geology and biology, as well as those made by the industrial revolution generally, noting the impact of the rising “liberal” thought as a whole. In this opening section of his introduction, James Tolhurst quite rightly highlights Newman’s often-quoted section from the Apologia, thus noting its importance for him many years earlier, considering “the world in its length and breadth . . . all this is a vision to dizzy and appal” (Apologia, 242, quoted by Tolhurst, x). Tolhurst frames Newman’s Essay on Development within the context of Newman’s life’s work as a whole before beginning to outline the volume itself. This is evidenced with his reference to Darwin and Huxley, whose impact on the [End Page 108] century came much later than the Essay on Development. He thus places this seminal study in the context of the “whole” Newman, and not only as the significant transitional piece, marking Newman’s turn to Roman Catholicism. Newman began working on the project two years prior to 1845, but, as he noted to his sister in 1843, he had been considering the idea for some twelve years at that point. A large part of Newman’s manuscript of the project remain. Unfortunately Tolhurst did not have the space to discuss this, but in the seventy pages that make up his introduction, he does provide a good outline of the book’s “logical development” as Newman formed the whole and its “development principle,” in which he describes for the reader a simple but accurate outline of the final form of the work. Following this, Tolhurst treats in a general and rather brief section (four pages) the 1845 and 1876 editions, before concluding with an equally brief section on the “impact of the Essay.” With good sense this edition places the pages of the 1878 edition in the margins, allowing the reader to reference the work to earlier studies. One must note as well the excellent annotations to the work. These include not only a full expansion of the publications cited in the work, but of greater use to the modern reader clear and detailed treatment of historical matters, not always obvious to today’s readers. These primarily make the edition useful for contemporary readers and particularly for those who may be only beginning their study of this significant thinker who has influenced not only Catholic, but a wide margin of contemporary thought at large. Peter C. Erb Wilfrid Laurier University Copyright © 2019 National Institute for Newman Studies