The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of DublinNewman, John Henry
Religion
The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin
Newman, John Henry
Education, Higher; Universities and colleges
That there are portions indeed of the inspired volume more simple both in
style and in meaning, and that these are the more sacred and sublime
passages, as, for instance, parts of the Gospels, I grant at once; but
this does not militate against the doctrine I have been laying down.
Recollect, Gentlemen, my distinction when I began. I have said Literature
is one thing, and that Science is another; that Literature has to do with
ideas, and Science with realities; that Literature is of a personal
character, that Science treats of what is universal and eternal. In
proportion, then, as Scripture excludes the personal colouring of its
writers, and rises into the region of pure and mere inspiration, when it
ceases in any sense to be the writing of man, of St. Paul or St. John, of
Moses or Isaias, then it comes to belong to Science, not Literature. Then
it conveys the things of heaven, unseen verities, divine manifestations,
and them alone—not the ideas, the feelings, the aspirations, of its human
instruments, who, for all that they were inspired and infallible, did not
cease to be men. St. Paul’s epistles, then, I consider to be literature in
a real and true sense, _as_ personal, _as_ rich in reflection and emotion,
as Demosthenes or Euripides; and, without ceasing to be revelations of
objective truth, they are expressions of the subjective notwithstanding.
On the other hand, portions of the Gospels, of the book of Genesis, and
other passages of the Sacred Volume, are of the nature of Science. Such is
the beginning of St. John’s Gospel, which we read at the end of Mass. Such
is the Creed. I mean, passages such as these are the mere enunciation of
eternal things, without (so to say) the medium of any human mind
transmitting them to us. The words used have the grandeur, the majesty,
the calm, unimpassioned beauty of Science; they are in no sense
Literature, they are in no sense personal; and therefore they are easy to
apprehend, and easy to translate.
Did time admit I could show you parallel instances of what I am speaking
of in the Classics, inferior to the inspired word in proportion as the
subject-matter of the classical authors is immensely inferior to the
subjects treated of in Scripture—but parallel, inasmuch as the classical
author or speaker ceases for the moment to have to do with Literature, as
speaking of things objectively, and rises to the serene sublimity of
Science. But I should be carried too far if I began.
9.
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