Background to the Apologia (Apologia Pro Vita Sua) (Newman, John Henry)

The Apologia reveals Newman's judgment on the great religious revival known as the Oxford Movement, of which he was the guide, the philosopher, and in a sense, the martyr. It is also his great exposition of how he was drawn to Catholicism. He is the Englishman of his era who best upheld the ancient creed with a deep theological knowledge, a Shakespearean command of style, and a truly infectious fervour. The work was occasioned by a jibe made by Charles Kingsley, a picturesque, but fiercely anti-Catholic writer. Kingsley alleged that "Truth, for its own sake, has never been a virtue with the Roman clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be; that cunning is the weapon which heaven has given to the Saints wherewith to withstand the brute male force of the wicked world which marries and is given in marriage."

Kingsley's attribution of duplicity to Newman had no foundation in fact. Newman demanded proof; a correspondence ensued in which Kingsley airily referred in a generic way to the tenour of Newman's Oxford Anglican sermons; in face of a calm and reasoned reply he had tp withdraw his charge, but he did so half-heartedly and thus brought on himself one of the most cutting replies known to literature. He returned to the assault. "What then does Dr. Newman mean?" demanded Kingsley. The answer came in the shape of an Apologia pro Vita Sua, which lifted Newman above all his detractors, and added a unique specimen of religious autobiography to the English language.

The duel which led up to the Apologia exhibited verbal sword-play the like of which can be scarcely found outside Pascal's Provincial Letters; and in it he annihilated the bombastic charges of his opponent. Not that Newman cherished any personal animosity against Kingsley, whom he had never met. His tone was determined by a sense of what he owed to his own honour and the Catholic priesthood. With extraordinary self-awareness, the old Tractarian told the story of his life with candour, and pathos, and awe; for he felt a guiding power throughout which had brought him into the Catholic Church. It was, eventually, a word from St. Augustine converted him, and its poignant effect is hardly surpassed in the "Confessions" of that saint himself....