@article{AnAlexandrianHermeneutic:3684,
      recid = {3684},
      author = {Walker, Austin},
      title = {An Alexandrian Hermeneutic, or Theology in a Political  Mode: A Study of John Henry Newman's Political Philosophy},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2022-03},
      pages = {277},
      abstract = {After the First Vatican Council defined the dogma of papal  infallibility in 1870, the liberal statesman William  Gladstone accused British Catholics of a forfeiture of  their mental freedom and a disloyalty to their Queen. John  Henry Newman responded with A Letter Addressed to the Duke  of Norfolk, which by all accounts capably defended British  Catholic freedom and loyalty. The Letter’s famous account  of the rights of conscience is credited with laying the  groundwork the apparent reconciliation of the church with  modern political philosophy and political rights of  religious liberty. 

But the Letter contained a more  profound teaching than has been appreciated. The  almost-unspoken conclusion of the Letter was an inversion  of Gladstone’s original accusation: partisans of liberal  principles were the true forfeiters of mental freedom, and  liberal principles were a betrayal of the non-liberal  British constitution. 

The document most often cited as  Newman’s reconciliation with political liberalism is in  fact an indictment thereof. This dissertation will argue  that the failure to appreciate the teaching of the Letter  to the Duke of Norfolk is the result of an insufficient  political philosophy.  Analyses which presuppose modern or  liberal principles distort Newman’s project. 

The first  chapter will distinguish between classical natural right  and modern natural rights, emphasizing the conscience as  the locus where the modern rupture with the past is most  evident. The second chapter will summarize the shortcomings  of contemporary readings of Newman’s Letter and conclude  with a provisional account of Newman’s “Alexandrian  hermeneutic,” an elliptical method of communication derived  originally from the Alexandrian Church Fathers. 

Then, the  dissertation will analyze Newman’s relationship to three  modern political doctrines where scholars have permitted  the hegemony of modern natural rights to obscure Newman’s  suspicion of those principles as principles or solid  foundations for political life.

The third chapter argues  that the Letter grounded itself in non-modern natural  right. The “right of conscience” Newman advocated within  the Letter was a selective and restricted right, not a  foundational or universal guarantee.  The very attempt at  founding politics on a set of inalienable rights was a  result of self-will.

Chapters four treats corporate  “personality,” a concept which appeared in the Letter but  developed over a long period of Newman’s writings.   Personality asserted the permanence of certain  theologico-political issues and allowed sacred history to  re-emerge as a hermeneutical framework for the  interpretation of contemporary political events.

Chapter  five argues that the Letter was an instance of what Ernest  Fortin called “theology in a political mode,” in both  content and style. While Newman consistently advocated  prudential toleration, he perceived that the modern  doctrine of toleration was inimical to the life and  personality of the Church. Newman’s “Alexandrian  hermeneutic” gently insinuated what could not be said aloud  and moved his audience from a liberal to a scriptural  account of history. The Letter to the Duke of Norfolk was  the culmination of a life’s work in how to think and speak  about the relationship between spiritual and political  authority.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/3684},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.3684},
}