There is nothing like an imminent canonisation to focus the attention of publishers. John Henry Newman has for years been well served by biographers, commentators on various aspects of his thought, and (indispensably) by editors of his voluminous writings. But there is still, it seems, more to be said about him.
Pick of the crop is Eamon Duffy’s John Henry Newman: A Very Brief History (SPCK, £12.99; Tablet price, £11.69). What the reader takes from this dense yet limpid book is respect for the immense, but not uncritically presented, scope of Newman’s witness to the Christian faith as a thing living, yet reasonable: our means of touching something objectively constant, benign, numinous.
Newman was in his time, Duffy reckons, “the best mind in the Catholic Church”, and accordingly he considers him under a series of specifically intellectual headings. He begins with a fine account of Newman’s developing relation with the Church Fathers.
10 October 2019, The Tablet
The finest mind in the Catholic Church
Get Instant Access
Continue Reading
Register for free to read this article in full
Subscribe for unlimited access
From just £30 quarterly
Complete access to all Tablet website content including all premium content.
The full weekly edition in print and digital including our 179 years archive.
PDF version to view on iPad, iPhone or computer.
Already a subscriber? Login