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John Henry Newman’s Apologia pro Vita Sua is generally considered not only a great work of theology, but also one of the great classics of English literature. Often compared to Augustine’s Confessions, one of the first reviews (included in this Norton Critical Edition) goes so far as to call it “a far deeper revelation, and a far greater moral achievement” than even the Confessions. Even the Bloomsbury critic Lytton Strachey, who was not only vociferously opposed to Newman’s theology, but was also famous for pouring scorn on much of Victorian literature, is effusive in his praise of the Apologia:


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. [Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians (London 1918) 16.]

But the first time that I read Newman's Apologia I didn’t feel this literary power. Like many Goodreads reviewers, I found Newman’s methodical description of the course of his “religious opinions,” full of detail about the particulars of 19th century Anglicanism, “a bit tedious.”

But re-reading it several times the subtle music of Newman’s prose grew on me (the way Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” are more beautiful with every new listening), and the universal claims that slowly emerge from the particulars of his story became clearer. But it was not till I studied the Apologia closely for a recent paper that I really began to see why it is such a tremendous masterpiece. The Norton Critical Edition was helpful, because it has a number of essays which examine both the challenge which Newman’s story represents to the complacent secularity of the modern world, and the extraordinary literary artistry which he used to get his challenge heard.

One of the most helpful essays in this edition is R. A. Colby’s “The Poetical Struture of Newman’s Apologia pro Vita Sua.” Colby looks at Newman’s use of structural elements from Greek tragedy and epic such as: battle-defeat-triumph (Iliad); voyage-rough seas-arrival (Odyssey);  and reversal-discovery-suffering (Oedipus Rex).

Colby points out that Newman uses more allusions from Virgil than from Homer, since the Aeneid combining the plots of the Odyssey and the Iliad. That remark lead me to think of Ronald Knox’s account of his conversion A Spiritual Aeneid, and that in turn lead me to see deeper connections between Virgil and Newman than the ones identified by Colby. Knox was acutely aware of the parallels between himself and Newman  and much of what he says about the relation of his book to the Aeneid applies just as well to the Apologia. Knox writes of how, in an Aeneid, you are coming home, but coming home to a place you have never been in before.  You must throw yourself upon the guidance of the gods. Nor are there the memories of home to spur you on when you are tempted to turn aside, Knox writes, “it is a mere sense of mission, imperiously insistent, that inflames your discontent: cunctus ob Italiam terrarum clauditur orbis.” And of course, the home to which you are returning is Rome. But the Apologia can be called a spiritual Aeneid for a deeper reason than those listed by Knox. At the beginning of the key chapter of the Apologia Newman refers to Aeneid and thereby shows what is his own intention in writing:
And now that I am about to trace, as far as I can, the course of that great revolution of mind, which led me to leave my own home, to which I was bound by so many strong and tender ties, I feel overcome with the difficulty of satisfying myself in my account of it, and have recoiled from the attempt, till the near approach of the day, on which these lines must be given to the world, forces me to set about the task. For who can know himself, and the multitude of subtle influences which act upon him? And who can recollect, at the distance of twenty-five years, all that he once knew about his thoughts and his deeds, and that, during a portion of his life, when, even at the time his observation, whether of himself or of the external world, was less than before or after, by very reason of the perplexity and dismay which weighed upon him,—when, in spite of the light given to him according to his need amid his darkness, yet a darkness it emphatically was? And who can suddenly gird himself to a new and anxious undertaking, which he might be able indeed to perform well, were full and calm leisure allowed him to look through every thing that he had written, whether in published works or private letters? yet again, granting that calm contemplation of the past, in itself so desirable, who can afford to be leisurely and deliberate, while he practises on himself a cruel operation, the ripping up of old griefs, and the venturing again upon the ‘infandum dolorem’ of years, in which the stars of this lower heaven were one by one going out? I could not in cool blood, nor except upon the imperious call of duty, attempt what I have set myself to do. It is both to head and heart an extreme trial, thus to analyze what has so long gone by, and to bring out the results of that examination. I have done various bold things in my life: this is the boldest: and, were I not sure I should after all succeed in my object, it would be madness to set about it. (p. 81)
“Infandum dolorem” is a quote from the oppening of Book II of the Aeneid:
Infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem, Troianas ut opes et lamentabile regnum eruerint Danai; quaeque ipse miserrima vidi, et quorum pars magna fui. Quis talia fando Myrmidonum Dolopumve aut duri miles Ulixi temperet a lacrimis? Et iam nox umida caelo praecipitat, suadentque cadentia sidera somnos. Sed si tantus amor casus cognoscere nostros et breviter Troiae supremum audire laborem, quamquam animus meminisse horret, luctuque refugit, incipiam… Too deep for words, O queen, is the grief you bid me renew, how the Greeks overthrew Troy’s wealth and woeful realm – the sights most piteous that I saw myself and wherein I played no small role. What Myrmidon or Dolopian, or soldier of the stern Ulysses, could refrain from tears in telling such a tale? And now dewy night is speeding from the sky and the setting stars counsel sleep. Yet if such is your desire to learn of our disasters, and in few words to hear of Troy’s last agony, though my mind shudders to remember and has recoiled in pain, I will begin.

Newman mirrors Virgil’s passage closely even to chillingly transforming Virgil’s musical line “suadentque cadentia sidera somnos” into “years, in which the stars of this lower heaven were one by one going out.” But the echo in imagery points to what this passage most of all shows is that Newman was following Virgil at a deeper level; he was trying to convey the same vision of the deep sadness in greatness of mortal life in its relation to the divine. Virgil’s sadness is deeper than that of the other great classical authors because of his hope. Compare the famous line which Aeneas speaks on seeing the images of Troy, “sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt,” (1.462) with Lucretius on the pain of birth, “cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum” (De Rerum Natura 5.227). Lucretius does not see any meaning in the pains of birth; his sadness is simply despair at the meaninglessness of life. Virgil sees great meaning in the fall of Troy – it is ordered to the rise of Rome – and this gives his sadness a different quality. There is a paradox here. Lucretius’s sadness is shallow, because he is hopeless, and thus lacks a sense of the nobility of mortal life. Virgil’s sadness is deep because he sees human life as playing out a meaningful and divinely guided destiny, his sadness sees the nobility of mortal existence in its very pain and weariness. For Virgil mortal things touch the heart because of a nobility which comes from their being ordered to something greater than themselves. The Christian Middle Ages saw Virgil as a prophet because he is practically unique among the pagans in having a linear, teleological view of history. For Virgil the god’s have destined Rome to great things, and the role of the hero is to contribute to that destiny. It is this grand hope that makes Virgil so different from Homer. Homer has an essentially cyclical view of history; the endless quarrels of the gods go round and round. The role of the hero for Homer is simply to win great honor in a harsh world, to achieve lasting fame. There is no possibility of contributing toward some final goal. It is Virgil’s view, transformed of course by a far greater hope, that Newman is trying to express. Newman is trying to “touch the heart” by the portrayal of the nobility and sadness of mortal existence played out in the attempt to reach for the divine and strive for the eternal goal. That is where the greatest fascination of the Apologia comes from – the pathos and nobility of the relation to divine Providence.

The dramatic nature of Newman’s interior comes largely from the dramatic nature of the estrangement between faith and reason brought by the Enlightenment. This estrangement was (and indeed is) the driving force behind a process of “secularization,” a gradual erosion of religious faith in Western life. Reason estranged from faith, “secular reason” to use John Milbank’s term,  was able to propose a new goal of human life to replace the religious one. The Progress of man’s power over nature as brought about by secular reason itself was to bring about a heaven on earth.

Newman’s story is thus an attempt at showing modern man the possibility of faith in a dogmatic creed. It shows how a intelligent modern man, a reader of Hume and Gibbon, well aware of the claims of the Enlightenment, could have faith. Many of Newman’s key theological insights--including his view of the role of the Church in transmitting and developing the faith, his understanding of the relation between authority and private judgment, his distinctive development of Aristotelian epistemology, his attention to the role of conscience, and his insight into the theandric logic of the presence of Divine Revelation in the world—are presented as they played out in his own life.  And that it why so many people who have listened to “the magical spices” of Newman’s words and been moved by “ the poignant history” of his “intensely human spirit” have followed him into the Faith.