An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent

by John Henry Newman

Now a mental vision such as this, perhaps will be called cloudy, fanciful, unintelligible; that is, in other [pg 465] words, miraculous. I think it is so. How, without the Hand of God, could a new idea, one and the same, enter at once into myriads of men, women, and children of all ranks, especially the lower, and have power to wean them from their indulgences and sins, and to nerve them against the most cruel tortures, and to last in vigour as a sustaining influence for seven or eight generations, till it founded an extended polity, broke the obstinacy of the strongest and wisest government which the world has ever seen, and forced its way from its first caves and catacombs to the fulness of imperial power?

In considering this subject, I shall confine myself to the proof, as far as my limits allow, of two points,—first, that this Thought or Image of Christ was the principle of conversion and of fellowship; and next, that among the lower classes, who had no power, influence, reputation, or education, lay its principal success.[51]

As to the vivifying idea, this is St. Paul’s account of it: “I make known to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand; by which also you are saved. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” &c., &c. “I am the least of the Apostles; but, whether I or they, so we preached, and so you believed.” “It has [pg 466] pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” “We preach Christ crucified.” “I determined to know nothing among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” “Your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then you also shall appear with Him in glory.” “I live, but now not I, but Christ liveth in me.”

St. Peter, who has been accounted the master of a separate school, says the same: “Jesus Christ, whom you have not seen, yet love; in whom you now believe, and shall rejoice.”

And St. John, who is sometimes accounted a third master in Christianity: “It hath not yet appeared what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him, because we shall see Him as He is.”

That their disciples followed them in this sovereign devotion to an Invisible Lord, will appear as I proceed.

And next, as to the worldly position and character of His disciples, our Lord, in the well-known passage, returns thanks to His Heavenly Father “because,” He says, “Thou hast hid these things”—the mysteries of His kingdom—“from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.” And, in accordance with this announcement, St. Paul says that “not many wise men according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble,” became Christians. He, indeed, is one of those few; so were others his contemporaries, and, as time went on, the number of these exceptions increased, so that converts were found, not a few, in the high places of the Empire, and in the schools of philosophy and [pg 467] learning; but still the rule held, that the great mass of Christians were to be found in those classes which were of no account in the world, whether on the score of rank or of education.

We all know this was the case with our Lord and His Apostles. It seems almost irreverent to speak of their temporal employments, when we are so simply accustomed to consider them in their spiritual associations; but it is profitable to remind ourselves that our Lord Himself was a sort of smith, and made ploughs and cattle-yokes. Four Apostles were fishermen, one a petty tax collector, two husbandmen, and another is said to have been a market gardener.[52] When Peter and John were brought before the Council, they are spoken of as being, in a secular point of view, “illiterate men, and of the lower sort,” and thus they are spoken of in a later age by the Fathers.

That their converts were of the same rank as themselves, is reported, in their favour or to their discredit, by friends and enemies, for four centuries. “If a man be educated,” says Celsus in mockery, “let him keep clear of us Christians; we want no men of wisdom, no men of sense. We account all such as evil. No; but, if there be one who is inexperienced, or stupid, or untaught, or a fool, let him come with good heart.” “They are weavers,” he says elsewhere, “shoemakers, fullers, illiterate, clowns.” “Fools, low-born fellows,” says Trypho. [pg 468] “The greater part of you,” says Cæcilius, “are worn with want, cold, toil, and famine; men collected from the lowest dregs of the people; ignorant, credulous women;” “unpolished, boors, illiterate, ignorant even of the sordid arts of life; they do not understand even civil matters, how can they understand divine?” “They have left their tongs, mallets, and anvils, to preach about the things of heaven,” says Libanius. “They deceive women, servants, and slaves,” says Julian. The author of Philopatris speaks of them as “poor creatures, blocks, withered old fellows, men of downcast and pale visages.” As to their religion, it had the reputation popularly, according to various Fathers, of being an anile superstition, the discovery of old women, a joke, a madness, an infatuation, an absurdity, a fanaticism.

The Fathers themselves confirm these statements, so far as they relate to the insignificance and ignorance of their brethren. Athenagoras speaks of the virtue of their “ignorant men, mechanics, and old women.” “They are gathered,” says St. Jerome, “not from the Academy or Lyceum, but from the low populace.” “They are whitesmiths, servants, farm-labourers, woodmen, men of sordid trades, beggars,” says Theodoret. “We are engaged in the farm, in the market, at the baths, wine-shops, stables, and fairs; as seamen, as soldiers, as peasants, as dealers,” says Tertullian. How came such men to be converted? and, being converted, how came such men to overturn the world? Yet they went forth from the first, “conquering and to conquer.”