登陆注册
4910600000007

第7章

At Oxford, he was doomed. He could not withstand the last enchantment of the Middle Age. It was in vain that he plunged into the pages of Gibbon or communed for long hours with Beethoven over his beloved violin. The air was thick with clerical sanctity, heavy with the odours of tradition and the soft warmth of spiritual authority; his friendship with Hurrell Froude did the rest. All that was weakest in him hurried him onward, and all that was strongest in him too. His curious and vaulting imagination began to construct vast philosophical fabrics out of the writings of ancient monks, and to dally with visions of angelic visitations and the efficacy of the oil of St Walburga; his emotional nature became absorbed in the partisan passions of a University clique; and his subtle intellect concerned itself more and more exclusively with the dialectical splitting of dogmatical hairs. His future course was marked out for him all too clearly; and yet by a singular chance the true nature of the man was to emerge triumphant in the end. If Newman had died at the age of sixty, today he would have been already forgotten, save by a few ecclesiastical historians; but he lived to write his Apologia, and to reach immortality, neither as a thinker nor as a theologian, but as an artist who has embalmed the poignant history of an intensely human spirit in the magical spices of words.

When Froude succeeded in impregnating Newman with the ideas of Keble, the Oxford Movement began. The original and remarkable characteristic of these three men was that they took the Christian Religion au pied de la lettre. This had not been done in England for centuries. When they declared every Sunday that they believed in the Holy Catholic Church, they meant it. When they repeated the Athanasian Creed, they meant it. Even, when they subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles, they meant it-or at least they thought they did. Now such a state of mind was dangerous--more dangerous indeed-- than they at first realised.

They had started with the innocent assumption that the Christian Religion was contained in the doctrines of the Church of England; but, the more they examined this matter, the more difficult and dubious it became. The Church of England bore everywhere upon it the signs of human imperfection; it was the outcome of revolution and of compromise, of the exigencies of politicians and the caprices of princes, of the prejudices of theologians and the necessities of the State. How had it happened that this piece of patchwork had become the receptacle for the august and infinite mysteries of the Christian Faith? This was the problem with which Newman and his friends found themselves confronted. Other men might, and apparently did, see nothing very strange in such a situation; but other men saw in Christianity itself scarcely more than a convenient and respectable appendage to existence, by which a sound system of morals was inculcated, and through which one might hope to attain to everlasting bliss.

To Newman and Keble it was otherwise. They saw a transcendent manifestation of Divine power flowing down elaborate and immense through the ages; a consecrated priesthood, stretching back, through the mystic symbol of the laying on of hands, to the very Godhead; a whole universe of spiritual beings brought into communion with the Eternal by means of wafers; a great mass of metaphysical doctrines, at once incomprehensible and of incalculable import, laid down with infinite certitude; they saw the supernatural everywhere and at all times, a living force, floating invisible in angels, inspiring saints, and investing with miraculous properties the commonest material things. No wonder that they found such a spectacle hard to bring into line with the institution which had been evolved from the divorce of Henry VIII, the intrigues of Elizabethan parliaments, and the Revolution of 1688. They did, no doubt, soon satisfy themselves that they had succeeded in this apparently hopeless task; but, the conclusions which they came to in order to do so were decidedly startling.

The Church of England, they declared, was indeed the one true Church, but she had been under an eclipse since the Reformation; in fact, since she had begun to exist. She had, it is true, escaped the corruptions of Rome; but she had become enslaved by the secular power, and degraded by the false doctrines of Protestantism. The Christian Religion was still preserved intact by the English priesthood, but it was preserved, as it were, unconsciously--a priceless deposit, handed down blindly from generation to generation, and subsisting less by the will of man than through the ordinance of God as expressed in the mysterious virtue of the Sacraments. Christianity, in short, had become entangled in a series of unfortunate circumstances from which it was the plain duty of Newman and his friends to rescue it forthwith. What was curious was that this task had been reserved, in so marked a manner, for them. Some of the divines of the seventeenth century had, perhaps, been vouchsafed glimpses of the truth; but they were glimpses and nothing more. No, the waters of the true Faith had dived underground at the Reformation, and they were waiting for the wand of Newman to strike the rock before they should burst forth once more into the light of day. The whole matter, no doubt, was Providential--what other explanation could there be?

同类推荐
  • 道听途说

    道听途说

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 太上洞玄灵宝转神度命经

    太上洞玄灵宝转神度命经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 定公

    定公

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 台湾雾峰林氏族谱

    台湾雾峰林氏族谱

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 教坊记

    教坊记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 吃我吃我

    吃我吃我

    38种具有神奇效果、我们却不知道的平常食材;76道制作简单、营养科学我们却没吃过的超级美味,都藏在这本温情小书里。 脾气大你就吃苦瓜:苦瓜富含能清热解毒、消除火爆脾气的苦瓜素。 多吃蘑菇精神爽:蘑菇富含能恢复活力的菌菇多糖。 压力大赶紧吃猕猴桃:猕猴桃富含能消除疲劳和压力感的维生素C。 烦躁了多吃芹菜:芹菜富含能消除烦躁的生物碱。 吃海鱼抗抑郁:海鱼富含能使人情绪快乐、抗抑郁的Ω-3脂肪酸。 经期烦躁赶紧吃豆腐:豆腐富含能让女性温柔可人的大豆异黄酮。 增强记忆力吃鸡蛋:鸡蛋富含能缓解压力、提升记忆力的酪氨酸。
  • 职罪一刻间

    职罪一刻间

    罪犯的世界,很小,是一个真实残酷的地方,无信任可言,只能相信自己,暴力,恶行,骗徒,逃犯……这是一个巨大的牢笼,监狱。
  • 进击的智人

    进击的智人

    复杂多样的自然界本身就是一个无穷无尽的知识宝库。数十万年前的旧石器时代,一个被大自然筛选的人种——智人,伴随着各式各样的匮乏压力,逐渐成为世界的主宰者。十万年后的我们,依然生活在巨大的历史惯性之中。智人是如何顺利通过造物主的层层考验,最终拥有了主宰世界的力量?而同一时空的其他人种比如直立人和尼安德特人呢?为何会逐渐被大自然淘汰,成为智人在漫长进化过程中的陪跑者?河森堡笔下的旧石器时代,充满了灵动的色彩,有混沌初开的蛮荒,有人性乍现的智慧,还有一种来自大自然的底层力量——匮乏,塑造着人类和历史。匮乏的环境筛选出拥有足够脑力的智人,他们中的一部分走出非洲,来到亚洲大陆,创造了辉煌的华夏文明,然而自然的匮乏始终存在,不同时空的人类又该以何种姿态应对,实现与大自然的交流和对抗,实现自我的平衡与进化?这是个永久的议题。
  • 犯罪心理性本善

    犯罪心理性本善

    人之初,性本善文沫,女,30岁,从事犯罪心理学研究12年,现任国家安全局犯罪心理研究室副主任,与地方刑警一起,将披着人皮的恶魔一一绳之于法。
  • 续一切经音义

    续一切经音义

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 神兵九叠1

    神兵九叠1

    中土大陆,人,兽,魔共存,人族内部以及各族之间攻伐不断,最近的中土大战发生在三百年前,人族中以无极城和月煌城为代表的两大部落与魔族,兽族互相攻伐,最终以魔族战败,兽族被驱逐告终,然而和平之下始终隐藏着野心,复仇和阴谋,似乎战争阴影一直笼罩。景天等一众少年在无极城习武,修炼气元,各种势力角力其中,蹊跷事情不断,景天等人一路磨练,一路成长......
  • 穿越天堂来爱你

    穿越天堂来爱你

    杜氏集团继承人杜林希,拥有美貌与智慧,却冷若冰霜,生人勿近对于她来说爱情是别人的事情与己无关。可偏偏就有那么一个帅气憨厚的男孩一点点的闯进了她的心里,然而让人匪夷所思的事情却发生了——心魂?那是什么东西?阻碍他们走在一起的是心魂还是宿世的积怨。
  • 穷人靠什么赚钱(经典珍藏版)

    穷人靠什么赚钱(经典珍藏版)

    穷人赚钱靠什么?穷人如何才能快速成为富人?这是每一个人都关心的问题,成功创富是他们的愿望,但只有愿望还不够,还要有勇敢地改变自己和积极主动的行动!
  • 智慧谋略宝库3

    智慧谋略宝库3

    雄心勃勃的帝王将相、能言善辩的文士说客、善于经营的富商巨贾、巧夺天工的能工巧匠,《智慧谋略宝库》一书囊括。凭借智慧,运用计谋,达到事业或人生的预期目标,是生存的必须,是生活的必然。变幻无穷、克敌制胜的方法智谋尽在其中。
  • 翡翠绿

    翡翠绿

    美国哲学家霍弗在他的《变革的痛苦》中这样写道:“激发人们去行动的是拐弯即可见的那种希望,而遥远的希望只能起到鸦片的作用。”当这座翠山环抱之中的小县城终于开通了它的第一条公路的时候,县城里单纯而质朴的人们也随之燃起了摆脱千百年来贫困落后面貌的希望。可是一转眼三年过去了,县城里的人们并没有像他们希望的那样富裕起来,依旧过着贫穷而平静的日子。小县城虽然贫穷,却有着唐人诗句中的富山秀水,宛然如仙境。人们是因为先有了面包才懂得了欣赏美,因此对于这小县城里的人们来说山色的秀美丝毫改变不了他们世代生活的贫困。