Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
of nature, and they may do so plainly or doubtfully, but the common
sense of mankind will call them miraculous; for by a miracle is
popularly meant, whatever be its formal definition, an event which
impresses upon the mind the immediate presence of the Moral Governor of
the world. He may sometimes act through nature, sometimes beyond or
against it; but those who admit the fact of such interferences, will
have little difficulty in admitting also their strictly miraculous
character, if the circumstances of the case require it, and those who
deny miracles to the early Church will be equally strenuous against
allowing her the grace of such intimate influence (if we may so speak)
upon the course of divine Providence, as is here in question, even
though it be not miraculous."--p. cxxi.
And again, speaking of the death of Arius: "But after all, was it a
miracle? for, if not, we are labouring at a proof of which nothing
comes. The more immediate answer to this question has already been
suggested several times. When a Bishop with his flock prays night and
day against a heretic, and at length begs of God to take him away, and
when he _is_ suddenly taken away, almost at the moment of his triumph,
and that by a death awfully significant, from its likeness to one
recorded in Scripture, is it not trifling to ask whether such an
occurrence comes up to the definition of a miracle? The question is not
whether it is formally a miracle, but whether it is an event, the like
of which persons, who deny that miracles continue, will consent that the
Church should be considered still able to perform. If they are willing
to allow to the Church such extraordinary protection, it is for them to
draw the line to the satisfaction of people in general, between these
and strictly miraculous events; if, on the other hand, they deny their
occurrence in the times of the Church, then there is sufficient reason
for our appealing here to the history of Arius in proof of the
affirmative."--p. clxxii.
These remarks, thus made upon the Thundering Legion and the death of
Arius, must be applied, in consequence of investigations made since the
date of my Essay, to the apparent miracle wrought in favour of the
African confessors in the Vandal persecution. Their tongues were cut out
by the Arian tyrant, and yet they spoke as before. In my Essay I
insisted on this fact as being strictly miraculous. Among other remarks
(referring to the instances adduced by Middleton and others in
disparagement of the miracle, viz. of "a girl born without a tongue, who
yet talked as distinctly and easily, as if she had enjoyed the full
benefit of that organ," and of a boy who lost his tongue at the age of
eight or nine, yet retained his speech, whether perfectly or not,) I
said, "Does Middleton mean to say, that, if certain of men lost their
tongues _at the command of a tyrant_ for the _sake of their religion_,
and then spoke _as plainly_ as before, nay _if only one person was so
mutilated_ and so gifted, it would not be a miracle?"--p. ccx. And I
enlarged upon the minute details of the fact as reported to us by
eye-witnesses and contemporaries. "Out of the seven writers adduced, six
are contemporaries; three, if not four, are eye-witnesses of the
miracle. One reports from an eye-witness, and one testifies to a fervent
record at the burial-place of the subjects of it. All seven were living,
or had been staying, at one or other of the two places which are
mentioned as their abode. One is a Pope, a second a Catholic Bishop, a
third a Bishop of a schismatical party, a fourth an emperor, a fifth a
soldier, a politician, and a suspected infidel, a sixth a statesman and
courtier, a seventh a rhetorician and philosopher. 'He cut out the
tongues by the roots,' says Victor, Bishop of Vito; 'I perceived the
tongues entirely gone by the roots,' says Æneas; 'as low down as the
throat,' says Procopius; 'at the roots,' say Justinian and St. Gregory;
'he spoke like an educated man, without impediment,' says Victor of
Vito; 'with articulateness,' says Æneas; 'better than before;' 'they
talked without any impediment,' says Procopius; 'speaking with perfect
voice,' says Marcellinus; 'they spoke perfectly, even to the end,' says
the second Victor; 'the words were formed, full, and perfect,' says St.
Gregory."--p. ccviii.
However, a few years ago an Article appeared in "Notes and Queries" (No.
for May 22, 1858), in which various evidence was adduced to show that
the tongue is not necessary for articulate speech.
1. Col. Churchill, in his "Lebanon," speaking of the cruelties of
Djezzar Pacha, in extracting to the root the tongues of some Emirs,
adds, "It is a curious fact, however, that the tongues grow again
sufficiently for the purposes of speech."
2. Sir John Malcolm, in his "Sketches of Persia," speaks of Zâb, Khan of
Khisht, who was condemned to lose his tongue. "This mandate," he says,
"was imperfectly executed, and the loss of half this member deprived him
of speech. Being afterwards persuaded that its being cut close to the
root would enable him to speak so as to be understood, he submitted to
the operation; and the effect has been, that his voice, though
indistinct and thick, is yet intelligible to persons accustomed to
converse with him.... I am not an anatomist, and I cannot therefore give
a reason, why a man, who could not articulate with half a tongue, should
speak when he had none at all; but the facts are as stated."
3. And Sir John McNeill says, "In answer to your inquiries about the
powers of speech retained by persons who have had their tongues cut out,
I can state from personal observation, that several persons whom I knew
in Persia, who had been subjected to that punishment, spoke so
intelligibly as to be able to transact important business.... The
conviction in Persia is universal, that the power of speech is destroyed
by merely cutting off the tip of the tongue; and is to a useful extent
restored by cutting off another portion as far back as a perpendicular
section can be made of the portion that is free from attachment at the
lower surface.... I never had to meet with a person who had suffered
this punishment, who could not speak so as to be quite intelligible to
his familiar associates."
* * * * *
I should not be honest, if I professed to be simply converted, by these
testimonies, to the belief that there was nothing miraculous in the case
of the African confessors. It is quite as fair to be sceptical on one
side of the question as on the other; and if Gibbon is considered worthy
of praise for his stubborn incredulity in receiving the evidence for
this miracle, I do not see why I am to be blamed, if I wish to be quite
sure of the full appositeness of the recent evidence which is brought to
its disadvantage. Questions of fact cannot be disproved by analogies or
presumptions; the inquiry must be made into the particular case in all
its parts, as it comes before us. Meanwhile, I fully allow that the
points of evidence brought in disparagement of the miracle are _primâ
facie_ of such cogency, that, till they are proved to be irrelevant,
Catholics are prevented from appealing to it for controversial purposes.
NOTE C. ON PAGE 153.
SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE.
The professed basis of the charge of lying and equivocation made against
me, and, in my person, against the Catholic clergy, was, as I have
already noticed in the Preface, a certain Sermon of mine on "Wisdom and
Innocence," being the 20th in a series of "Sermons on Subjects of the
Day," written, preached, and published while I was an Anglican. Of this
Sermon my accuser spoke thus in his Pamphlet:--
"It is occupied entirely with the attitude of 'the world' to
'Christians' and 'the Church.' By the world appears to be
signified, especially, the Protestant public of these realms;
what Dr. Newman means by Christians, and the Church, he has not
left in doubt; for in the preceding Sermon he says: 'But if the
truth must be spoken, what are the humble monk and the holy nun,
and other regulars, as they are called, but Christians after the
very pattern given us in Scripture, &c.'.... This is his
definition of Christians. And in the Sermon itself, he
sufficiently defines what he means by 'the Church,' in two notes
of her character, which he shall give in his own words: 'What,
for instance, though we grant that sacramental confession and
the celibacy of the clergy do tend to consolidate the body
politic in the relation of rulers and subjects, or, in other
words, to aggrandize the priesthood? for how can the Church be
one body without such relation?'"--Pp. 8, 9.
He then proceeded to analyze and comment on it at great length, and to
criticize severely the method and tone of my Sermons generally. Among
other things, he said:--
"What, then, did the Sermon _mean_? Why was it preached? To
insinuate that a Church which had sacramental confession and a
celibate clergy was the only true Church? Or to insinuate that
the admiring young gentlemen who listened to him stood to their
fellow-countrymen in the relation of the early Christians to the
heathen Romans? Or that Queen Victoria's Government was to the
Church of England what Nero's or Dioclesian's was to the Church
of Rome? It may have been so. I know that men used to suspect
Dr. Newman,--I have been inclined to do so myself,--of writing a
whole Sermon, not for the sake of the text or of the matter, but
for the sake of one single passing hint--one phrase, one
epithet, one little barbed arrow, which, as he swept
magnificently past on the stream of his calm eloquence,
seemingly unconscious of all presences, save those unseen, he
delivered unheeded, as with his finger-tip, to the very heart of
an initiated hearer, never to be withdrawn again. I do not blame
him for that. It is one of the highest triumphs of oratoric
power, and may be employed honestly and fairly by any person who
has the skill to do it honestly and fairly; but then, Why did he
entitle his Sermon 'Wisdom and Innocence?'
"What, then, could I think that Dr. Newman _meant_? I found a
preacher bidding Christians imitate, to some undefined point,
the 'arts' of the basest of animals, and of men, and of the
devil himself. I found him, by a strange perversion of
Scripture, insinuating that St. Paul's conduct and manner were
such as naturally to bring down on him the reputation of being a
crafty deceiver. I found him--horrible to say it--even hinting
the same of one greater than St. Paul. I found him denying or
explaining away the existence of that Priestcraft, which is a
notorious fact to every honest student of history, and
justifying (as far as I can understand him) that double dealing
by which prelates, in the middle age, too often played off
alternately the sovereign against the people, and the people
against the sovereign, careless which was in the right, so long
as their own power gained by the move. I found him actually
using of such (and, as I thought, of himself and his party
likewise) the words 'They yield outwardly; to assent inwardly
were to betray the faith. Yet they are called deceitful and
double-dealing, because they do as much as they can, and not
more than they may.' I found him telling Christians that they
will always seem 'artificial,' and 'wanting in openness and
manliness;' that they will always be 'a mystery' to the world,
and that the world will always think them rogues; and bidding
them glory in what the world (i.e. the rest of their countrymen)