Church History (2014-2015, part-time) 8.2: visit to the Chester Beatty Library

All glass and mirrors? ... in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford,

Church of Ireland Theological Institute,

Church History Elective (TH 7864)

Saturday 16 May 2015, 10 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.

8.1: visit to the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin.

8.2: The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle.

P47 contain portions of the Book of Revelation, Chapters 9-17

8.2: The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle.

Introduction

Our second visit on this morning’s field trip is to the Chester Beatty Library at Dublin Castle. This library has been described by the Lonely Planet Guide as “not just the best museum in Ireland, but one of the best in Europe.” It is the only museum in Ireland to win “European Museum of the Year” and is rated at No 2 in TripAdvisor’s list of recommended cultural attractions in Dublin.

The library’s rich collections from countries across Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe open a window on the artistic treasures of the great cultures and religions of the world.

Manuscripts, miniature paintings, prints, drawings, rare books and decorative arts complete this amazing collection – all the result of the curiosity and efforts of one collector, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968). Beatty moved to Ireland in 1950. When he died, his entire collection was bequeathed to a trust for the benefit of the public. He was Ireland’s first honorary citizen and was given a state funeral when he died in 1968.

In its diversity, the collection captures much of the richness of human creative expression from about 2700 BC to the present. The highlights on display include Egyptian papyrus texts, beautifully illuminated copies of the Bible and the Qur’an, and European mediaeval and renaissance manuscripts.

The Western treasures of the Library include some of the earliest sources on papyrus for the Bible and a great library of Manichean texts.

The Biblical papyri, dating from the 2nd to the 4th centuries AD, include the earliest known copies of the four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, the Letters of Saint Paul, the Book of Revelation and various early Old Testament fragments.

These texts were discovered in Egypt in 1929. Beatty had seen the codices and from Cairo he sent a coded telegram (to disguise his interest) to Eric Millar of the British Museum for his opinion. Millar replied (also in code), strongly encouraging Beatty to acquire as much as he could.

The discovery and acquisition of the Biblical papyri was first made public in The Times on 19 November 1931. Before this find, the earliest and most important manuscripts of the Greek New Testament were parchment codices from the fourth and fifth centuries.

Only a few small fragments of papyrus with portions of the New Testament from an earlier date were known at the time, and most of these were too small to be of much significance. The discovery of the Chester Beatty New Testament papyri caused a sensation because they were at least 100 years older than the most important parchment codices at that time.

These papyrus manuscripts include the earliest surviving codex containing all four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in one codex, the earliest copy of the collection of Saint Paul’s Letters (dated ca 200), and the earliest copy of the Book of Revelation, as well as many other early or unique versions of homilies, epistles or pseudo-canonical texts. By acquiring these manuscripts, the Chester Beatty Library became one of the major centres in the world for the study of the Bible and early Christian texts.

The library has started to digitise these manuscripts with the first phase of the project completed. The work involved a partnership with the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts in Texas (csntm.org), which involved the digitisation of more than 5,000 images from the manuscripts. The process revealed some text that had not been seen before.

A Visitor’s Guide to the Chester Beatty Library

Some highlights of the Biblical collections:

The Gospel of Saint John (ca 150-200):

This fragment is among the oldest-known Gospel texts. It contains part of Saint John’s account of the Crucifixion, including the verse where Christ asks Saint John to take care of his mother.

The Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles (ca 200-250):

Mark 7: 25-37 and 8: 1 in Saint Mark’s Gospel, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin

One of the most striking items in the collection is CBL BP I (P45). This codex contains the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and the Acts of the Apostles. The fragmentary condition of this codex means that some folios preserve more of their text than others. They would have originally measured about 25 x 20 cm.

Until its discovery, only small fragments of the single Gospels on papyrus were known, and it was believed that this grouping of texts did not begin until a much later date. The codex shows that the Gospels and the Acts were being read together in one volume much earlier than many expected. The folios containing Saint Mark’s Gospel and most of Saint Luke’s Gospel are the oldest known copies of these texts.

The Letters of Saint Paul (ca 200-250):

The Library holds one the earliest known copies of the Pauline Epistles

This is the earliest known copy of the Pauline Epistles and the early date of this codex and the content make it extremely important for the study of the text of Saint Paul’s letters.

This folio contains perhaps one of the most famous of Saint Paul’s sayings, “Love is patient; love is kind; …” (I Corinthians 13: 4-7).

The Book of Revelation (ca 250-300):

This contains chapters 9 to 17 of the Book of Revelation. It is likely that the codex originally contained the entire book, but the beginning and end of the manuscript have been lost. Nevertheless, the portion of text that survives is the largest single portion of the text of the Book of Revelation preserved on papyrus.

The Book of Genesis (ca 300-350):

The codex consists of 51 leaves, along with additional fragments, which contain a significant portion of the Book of Genesis. The original manuscript was comprised of 66 leaves, or 132 pages which would have measured approximately 28 x 18 cm. The folios are in varying states of disrepair, with considerable portions of the lower leaves now lost.

The Books of Numbers and Deuteronomy (late 2nd century):

This codex would have originally contained 108 leaves, or 216 pages, of which fragments of 55 pages survive. This is not only the earliest manuscript in the Chester Beatty Biblical papyri collection, but until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid 20th century it was the oldest known manuscript containing a portion of the Old Testament.

The Book of Jeremiah:

This manuscript consists of two fragmentary leaves that preserve text from the Book of Jeremiah. The clear but irregular hand indicates that this was written at the end of the 2nd century or beginning of the 3rd century.

The Hebrew collection:

The Hebrew Collection contains a small number of volumes. The Hebrew manuscripts were mainly acquired in the 1930s and 1940s from the dealer and collector Dr Abraham Shalom Yahuda (1877-1951).

The majority of the Hebrew texts date from the 18th and 19th centuries and consist primarily of Torah and Esther scrolls. Most of these would appear to have originated in Italy, as many are written in an Italian quadrate script.

The collection has a number of illuminated manuscripts including a 16th century Italian Hebrew Bible (CBL Heb 772), a 13th century Hebrew Yemenite Pentateuch bound together with a copy of Tijan’s Grammatical Introduction to the Bible (CBL Heb 761) and a Hebrew cabalistic and astronomical codex from Spain (CBL Heb 762) dating to ca 1762.

The collection also includes a number of Samaritan texts, including two important Pentateuchs (CBL Heb 751 and Heb 752), the only books Samaritans share with Jews. The Samaritan text is written in a variant of the Old Hebrew alphabet, related to but distinct from the Hebrew alphabet used in Judaic texts.

Greek papyri

Some of the papyrus manuscripts in the Library retain their original bindings, composed of boards of papyrus covered with leather on the outside. The majority of documentary texts are single documents or fragments of documents relating to business affairs, taxes, wills and other matters of daily life.

Among the Greek documentary papyri acquired by Beatty is a roughly made codex, largely blank but containing several tax receipts dated to AD 339-345. On closer inspection it was discovered that the codex was made of a number of sheets glued back to back and doubled over to form a single quire. In places were the adhesive had loosened, an earlier text was revealed on the inner surface.

Conservation was undertaken at the British Museum to separate the sheets of the codex, where it was discovered that the re-used papyri came from two long rolls containing the official correspondence of the Strategus of the Panopolite nome (AD 298-300), primarily relating to the impending visit of the Emperor Diocletian to Panopolis (CBL PapPan I & II).

This unique record has provided historians with a wealth of information on Roman administrative practices – and bureaucratic idiosyncrasies).

The Coptic collection:

Coptic texts form one of the largest groups within the Chester Beatty Papyri Collection.

Coptic is the latest stage of the written form of the Egyptian language. It borrows most of its letters from the Greek alphabet but with the addition of several Coptic letters for sounds not found in Greek.

The majority of the Coptic texts are Christian in subject matter and include biblical manuscripts, homilies and accounts of martyrdoms from the period ca AD 300-800, although there are also some fragments of literary and business documents.

The most important and largest collection of non-Christian texts on papyrus acquired by Chester Beatty is the remarkable Manichaean codices, written in Coptic and dated to around AD 400.

The now separated folios are housed in over 1,000 frames and include many unique sacred texts of a lost religion that once rivalled Christianity and Islam and that spread from North Africa to the Near East.

The Iranian prophet Mani, who was put to death in AD 276, believed that he was the successor of Christ. He absorbed the teachings of Christianity, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism and preached a new religion based on the dual forces of light and dark.

The Byzantine Collection:

The Byzantine manuscripts in the library include Gospels, Biblical commentaries, homilies, liturgical works and devotional books that range in date from the 10th to the 15th century. Many are illuminated with miniatures and decorated initials.

Beatty acquired most of these manuscripts from dealers in Paris in the 1920s. His correspondence contains letters from dealers in Istanbul offering Byzantine objects or textiles for sale, but in general he declined.

Among the earliest manuscripts are three dating from the 10th and 11th centuries (CBL W 131, W 132 and W 133) that were originally in the Russian monastery of Panteleïmon on Mount Athos.

The Syriac Collection:

The present plight of Christians in the Middle East is a reminder that south-east Turkey, Syria and parts of Iraq were once predominantly Christian. The language spoken was Syriac until it was replaced by Arabic in the 13th century. The area had many important centres for book production and fine illuminated manuscripts were created by and for churches in the region.

Early Syriac book design and illumination influenced other mediaeval Christian decorated manuscripts.

The Syriac collection includes several early Gospel books and choir books, as well as an illuminated copy of the Harclean version of the Gospels, written in Syriac and dating from the 12th century (CBL Syc 703).

The most important text is Ephraem’s Commentary on the Diatessaron of Tatian (CBL Syc 709), ca 490-510. Although parts of the Diatessaron, a harmony of the four Gospels, is preserved in later translations, the Chester Beatty manuscript is the earliest copy known of this text and the only one in the language in which it was originally written. It is a unique document in the history of Christianity for which Chester Beatty received a special papal blessing from Pope Pius XII in 1959.

The Trustees of the Library have since made two additional acquisitions of leaves relating to this codex.

The Armenian Collection:

The Armenian and Western European manuscripts from medieval, Renaissance and modern times, prints, early and fine books and bindings complete a remarkable conspectus of the arts of manuscript production and printing from many cultures and periods.

The Armenian Collection includes manuscripts, primarily the texts of the Four Gospels, painted miniatures and detached metal covers. These were acquired by Chester Beatty over a 30-year period in the 1920s and the 1930s. Some of most impressive material, however, was not acquired until just after World War II (1946-48).

The highlight of this collection is a 13th century Gospel book (CBL Arm 558), acquired from the Phillipps Collection in 1947.

Beatty employed several Armenian scholars to write the descriptive entries for his manuscripts, but a published catalogue did not appear until 1958.

The Qur’an Collection:

Over 6,000 individual items, mainly manuscripts and single-page paintings and calligraphies, make up the Islamic Collections.

This includes the Qur’an Collection with more than 260 Qur’ans and Qur’an fragments and is one of the most important collections of Qur'ans outside the Middle East. Some date from the late 8th and 9th centuries and they include the work of the leading calligraphers of the Islamic world.

The gem of the collection and one of the most treasured objects in the library is the splendid Qur’an copied in Baghdad in the year 1001 by Ibn al-Bawwab, one of the three greatest mediaeval Islamic calligraphers.

Other collections:

The East Asian Collections include a fine series of albums and scrolls from China, the largest collection of jade books from the Imperial Court outside China and a large collection of textiles and decorative objects.

The Japanese holdings contain many superb painted scrolls from the 17th and 18th centuries, woodblock prints by Hiroshige and Hokusai and many others as well as decorative art objects.

The opening of II Corinthians

Module completed.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological. These briefing notes were prepared for a field trip on 16 March 2015 as part of the Church History Elective (TH 7864) on the MTh course (part-time).

Church History (2014-2015, part-time) 8.1: visit to the National Museum

The National Museum, beside Dáil Eireann in Kildare Street, Dublin, is in a wing designed by Thomas Newenham Deane

Patrick Comerford,

Church of Ireland Theological Institute,

Church History Elective (TH 7864)

Saturday 16 May 2015, 10 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.

8.1: visit to the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin

8.2: The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle.

A reproduction of an early Romanesque church door in the National Museum of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

8.1: Visit to the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin

Introduction

The National Museum of Ireland was founded as the Museum of Science and Art, Dublin, on 14 August 1877 by Act of Parliament.

The decision to establish a state-run museum was prompted by the Royal Dublin Society (RDS). The 1877 Act transferred the buildings and collections of the RDS to state ownership, and the collections were enhanced with the transfer of other collections from places such as the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD).

The new museum building on Kildare Street opened to the public in 1890. The new museum housed coins, medals and significant Irish antiquities from the RIA, including the Tara brooch and Ardagh chalice, ethnographic collections with material from Captain Cooke’s voyages from TCD, and the collections of the Geological Survey of Ireland. These were joined by material from the decorative arts and ethnographical collections of the RDS along with their Irish collections of antiquities, minerals and plants.

The old RDS museum on the Merrion Street side of Leinster House – erected with government assistance and opened in 1856 – was devoted to natural history. It was dominated by zoology throughout much of its subsequent history and had an annexe devoted to geology. It is known popularly to generations of children in Dublin as the “Dead Zoo.”

The building on Kildare Street was designed by Thomas Newenham Deane and was used to show contemporary Irish, British and Continental craftsmanship. State involvement in running the Museum allowed for steady funding and a connection with other state museums in London and Edinburgh.

In 1900, control passed to the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction and in 1908 its name was changed from ‘the Dublin Museum of Science and Art’ to the ‘National Museum of Science and Art.’ The name of the institution was changed again in 1921 to the ‘National Museum of Ireland.’

After the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922, the old RDS buildings at Leinster House were chosen to house the new parliament (Dáil).

Responsibility for the Museum passed to the Department of Education in 1924. In 1984, it was transferred to the Department of the Taoiseach, and in 1993 to the new Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht (later Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands). In 2002, care of the Museum passed to the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism before, finally, being established as a semi-state autonomous agency under its own board in 2005.

Additional museum premises include Collins Barracks, Dublin (previously the Royal Barracks) and the Museum of Country Life at Turlough Park, Co Mayo, beside a Venetian Gothic country house also designed by Thomas Newenham Deane.

The Irish Archaeological Collection in the National Museum is the primary repository of ancient Irish artefacts and an indispensable source for researchers into the development of Irish civilisation from prehistoric times until the end of the Middle Ages and beyond.

The period covered by the exhibitions extends from the Mesolithic through to the end of the mediaeval period, and includes internationally known treasures that we should find of particular interest this morning such as the Ardagh Chalice, the Tara Brooch and the Derrynaflan Hoard.

We should try especially to see the collections of mediaeval ecclesiastical metalwork and the Viking Dublin assemblage.

Early Christian finds

Christianity was introduced into Ireland mainly from Roman Britain during the fifth Century AD, around the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire. The resulting exposure to new influences meant that new styles and technical skills were acquired and added to the repertoire of Irish craftsmen.

It was a time of economic and social change in which the Church played a major role. Liturgical practice required special liturgical objects such as Eucharistic chalices, patens and containers for the enshrinement of books and relics. These were fashioned and adorned by Irish craftsmen. The collections are rich in high quality metalwork, much of it of an ecclesiastical nature. The quality of what was produced, especially during the eighth to ninth centuries, has led to these centuries being referred to as the “Golden Age.”

Some objects that were produced during this time have become important national treasures. They include the Ardagh Chalice, the Derrynaflan Chalice and Paten, the Moylough Belt Shrine and the Tara Brooch.

But there other, less well known treasures, to watch out for too, including the Tully Lough Cross, found offshore of a small crannóg in Co Roscommon; a small, decorated metal bucket from a crannóg in Clooneenbaun, Co Roscommon; and two wooden buckets with ornate metal mounts from Clonard, Co Meath and Derrymullen, Co Laois.

Small tomb-shaped shrines used to venerate the bones of saints have survived, with relatively complete examples found in the rivers Shannon and Erne. A collection of mounts decorated in the Ultimate La Tène style from Donore, Co Meath, are likely to be from a larger tomb-shaped reliquary that would have been carried in procession with the aid of carrying poles. From the monastery of Dromiskin, Co Louth, there is a small stone reliquary inside of which there was a little wooden box containing metal objects, including a key.

Early mediaeval craftsmen were skilled stone carvers who produced a series of splendid high crosses bearing biblical scenes. The collection contains casts of eight of the finest examples made in 1898-1908 by an Italian craftsman, Orlandi, as well as fragments of original crosses from a number of monastic sites.

There are some carved stone slabs bearing cross designs from monastic sites, including fine examples from Inishkea North, Co Mayo, and Carrowntemple, Co Sligo.

A pillar stone from Aglish, Co Kerry, bears a cross design but it also carries an inscription written in the ogham alphabet, the earliest alphabet used to write in the Irish language. The Aglish Stone is one of around two dozen pillar stones in the collection that carry ogham inscriptions.

The arrival of the Vikings at the end of the eighth century marked the beginning of a period in which monasteries were attacked and many church treasures were looted or destroyed. However, the Vikings were traders as well as raiders and their commercial activities brought large amounts of silver into Ireland, some of which has been discovered in ingot hoards.

The Vikings also introduced new types of objects and novel art styles, which led to developments in native metalwork and decorative arts. The easy availability of silver during the ninth and 10th centuries led to new fashions in brooch design with bossed-penannular, thistle and kite-shaped brooches being the popular forms.

The Shrine of Saint Lachtin’s Arm ... dating from a Renaissance in Irish metalwork in the 11th and 12th centuries inspired by Viking art styles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

During the 11th and 12th centuries, a Renaissance in Irish metalwork drew heavily on the Viking Ringerika and Urnes art styles. Notable treasures from that period include the croziers from Kells and Lismore, the Shrine of Saint Lachtin’s Arm, and the shrine made around 1100 AD to house a bell associated by tradition with Saint Patrick.

The Cross of Cong

The Cross of Cong ... one of the best-known treasures in the National Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Perhaps the best-known treasure of the later period is the Cross of Cong whose principle patron was Turlough O’Connor, King of Connacht and High King of Ireland.

The Cross of Cong is an early 12th-century ornamented cusped processional cross, which was, as an inscription says, made for Tairdelbach Ua Conchobair (died 1156), King of Connacht and High King of Ireland to donate to the Cathedral in Tuam, Co Galway. The cross was later moved to Cong Abbey at Cong, Co Mayo, which explains its name.

It was designed to be placed on top of a staff and is also a reliquary, designed to hold a supposed portion of the True Cross. This gave it additional importance as an object of reverence and was undoubtedly the reason for its elaborate beauty. It is considered one of finest examples of metalwork and decorative art of its period in Western Europe.

The cross has inscriptions in Irish, apart from one in Latin. The Latin inscription occurs twice – once on each side of the shaft – in one case the letters of the sixth word are pahus, and in the other pasus, although it should read passus. The Latin inscription reads:

Hāc cruce crux tegitur quā pas[s]us conditor orbis.

This translates as:

With this cross is covered the cross on which suffered the Maker of the World.

The Irish language inscriptions translate:

A prayer for Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair, for the King of Ireland, for whom this shrine was made.

Pray for Muireadhach Ua Dubhthaigh, the Senior of Erin.

Pray for Domnall mac Flannacáin Ua Dubthaig, Bishop of Connacht and Comarb [Successor] of [Saints] Comman and Ciaran, under whose superintendence the shrine was made.

Pray for Mael Isu mac Bratdan O Echan, who made this shrine.

The Ardagh Chalice

The Ardagh Chalice ... one of the finest known works of Celtic art (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The Ardagh Hoard, which includes the Ardagh Chalice, is a collection of metalwork from the eighth and ninth centuries. The collection was found in 1868, and includes the chalice, a much plainer stemmed cup in copper-alloy, and four brooches, three elaborate pseudo-penannular ones, and one a true pennanular brooch of the thistle type.

The chalice ranks with the Book of Kells (in Trinity College Dublin) as one of the finest known works of Insular art, indeed of Celtic art in general, and is thought to have been made in the 8th century. Elaborate brooches, essentially the same as those worn by important lay people, appear to have been worn by monastic clergy to fasten vestments of the period.

The hoard was found in 1868 by two boys, Jim Quinn and Paddy Flanagan, digging in a potato field on the south-western side of a rath (ring fort) called Reerasta, near the village of Ardagh, Co Limerick. The chalice held the other items, covered by a slab of stone; the pieces must have been buried in a hurry, probably temporarily, as though the owner probably intended to return for them at a later time. The brooches found with the chalice show that it was not buried until the Viking period.

The chalice is a large, two-handled silver cup, decorated with gold, gilt bronze, brass, lead pewter and enamel, which has been assembled from 354 separate pieces. This complex construction is typical of early Christian Irish metalwork.

The main body of the chalice is formed from two hemispheres of sheet silver joined with a rivet hidden by a gilt-bronze band. The names of the apostles are incised in a frieze around the bowl, below a girdle bearing inset gold wirework panels of animals, birds, and geometric interlace. Techniques used include hammering, engraving, lost-wax casting, filigree applique, cloisonné and enamel. Even the underside of the chalice is decorated.

The Tara Brooch

The Tara Brooch ... one of the most important works of early Christian Irish Insular art (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The Tara Brooch is a Celtic brooch dating from ca 700 AD. It is probably the most impressive of over 50 elaborate Irish brooches that have been discovered. It was found in 1850 and rapidly recognised as one of the most important works of early Christian Irish Insular art.

Made ca 700 AD, the seven-inch pseudo-penannular brooch is made primarily of silver-gilt and is embellished with intricate abstract decoration, including interlace on both front and back. It was made in many pieces, with much of the decoration on small trays or panels that were then fixed into place.

When it was found only one panel of decoration was missing, but several more have now disappeared, apparently before 1872, when it entered the collection of the Royal Irish Academy. The RIA later transferred its collection of antiquities to the National Museum.

This is probably the most spectacular, and one of the best preserved, of several dozen high-status brooches found in Britain or Ireland, but mostly in Ireland. Although similar in style, each has a completely individual design in detail. Precious metals are used, but only semiprecious stones.

The design, the techniques of workmanship (including filigree and inlaying) and the gold, silver, copper, amber and glass are all of high quality, and exemplify the advanced state of goldsmith skills in Ireland in the seventh century. Like most brooches of the period, it contains neither Christian nor pagan religious motifs, and was made for a wealthy patron, almost certainly male, who wanted a personal expression of status.

Although the brooch is named after the Hill of Tara, traditionally seen as the seat of the High Kings of Ireland, the Tara Brooch has no connection with either the Hill of Tara or the High Kings of Ireland. The brooch was supposedly found in August 1850 on the beach at Bettystown, Co Meath, 50 km north of Dublin. The finder, a peasant woman (or her two sons), claimed to have found it in a box buried in the sand, though many think it was in fact found inland and she claimed it was found at the beach to avoid a legal claim by the landowner.

It was sold to a dealer and then to a Dublin jeweller, George Waterhouse, who was already producing Celtic Revival jewellery. He renamed it the Tara Brooch to make it more appealing.

The Derrynaflan Chalice

The Derrynaflan Chalice ... “represents the most complex and sumptuous expression of the ecclesiastical art-style of early-mediaeval Ireland” (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The Derrynaflan Chalice is an 8th or 9th-century chalice, and was found as part of the Derrynaflan Hoard of five liturgical vessels discovered on 17 February 1980 at Derrynaflan, the site of an early Irish abbey near Killenaule, Co Tipperary.

The Derrynaflan Hoard dates from the same period as the Ardagh Chalice According to the art historian Michael Ryan, the hoard “represents the most complex and sumptuous expression of the ecclesiastical art-style of early-mediaeval Ireland as we know it in its eighth- and ninth-century maturity.”

The chalice was found with a composite silver paten, a hoop that may have been a stand for the paten, a liturgical strainer and a bronze basin inverted over the other objects. This group is among the most important surviving examples of Insular metalwork.

The hoard was probably hidden in the 10th to 12th centuries, at the time of Viking raids and dynastic turmoil. Derrynaflan was an important monastic foundation pre-dating the Viking raids, and later became a Cistercian abbey.

The Derrynaflan Hoard was discovered in 1980 by Michael Webb from Clonmel and his son, also Michael, using a metal detector, and their discovery was kept secret for many weeks.

The behaviour of the Webbs, and nearly seven years of litigation, culminating in the Supreme Court action where they unsuccessfully sought over £5,000,000 for the find, led to new legislation.

The Viking and Mediaeval exhibits

Before an extensive programme of urban archaeological excavation in Dublin, from 1961 to 1981, the main archaeological evidence for the Viking presence in Ireland came from a small number of burial sites and stray finds, many of them from rivers.

Some ninth and 10th century Viking graves were discovered in coastal locations such as Arklow, Co Wicklow, Ballyholm, Co Down, Eyrephort, Co Galway, and in more extensive cemeteries at Kilmainham and Islandbridge on the banks of the River Liffey, in Dublin.

These Viking graves were furnished with grave-goods, including weapons such as swords and spears, together with jewellery and personal items. The presence of well-furnished female graves, and of craftsmen’s tools and weights and scales for engaging in commercial transactions, show that the early Viking presence in Ireland was not simply characterised by the activities of marauding raiders. Finds of Viking hoards with silver ingots, hack silver and coins emphasise the commercial aspect of the Viking presence in Ireland.

The exhibition on Mediaeval Ireland (1150-1550) contains three galleries entitled Power, Work and Prayer, reflecting the three-fold division of mediaeval society – nobles, common people and clergy.

The lifestyle of nobles is explored, while surviving arms and armour reflect the distinctive characteristics of warfare in mediaeval Ireland.

The exhibition looks at the different forms of agriculture (pastoral and arable) practices. Finds from urban excavations illustrate Ireland’s import trade and the various crafts and industries operating in towns.

The Church in Ireland changed fundamentally in the 12th century, although many older church traditions survived. This exhibition also looks at religious practice and devotion as well as church furnishings, including a fine selection of late mediaeval reliquaries: book shrines, bell shrines and croziers.

A selection from the collection of mediaeval croziers in the National Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Next (Field Trip continued):

8.2: The Chester Beatty Museum, Dublin Castle.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological. These briefing notes were prepared for a field trip on 16 March 2015 as part of the Church History Elective (TH 7864) on the MTh course (part-time).

Church History (2014-2015, part-time) 7.3: Challenging myths and memories (3): The Decade of Commemorations and centenaries: how history shapes the Church agenda today

Looking down the Liffey towards Liberty Hall … would the key players in the events 100 years ago recognise the Ireland of today? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford,

Church of Ireland Theological Institute,

Church History Elective (TH 7864)

Friday 15 May 2015, 7 p.m. to 9.15 p.m.

7.1: Making connections (1): Renaissance, Revolution and Enlightenment

7.2: Making connections (2): Rethinking and reshaping Christianity, from Kant and Schleiermacher to Pugin and Biblical Criticism.

7.3: Challenging myths and memories (3): The Decade of Commemorations and centenaries: how history shapes the Church agenda today.

7.3: Challenging myths and memories (3): The Decade of Commemorations and centenaries: how history shapes the Church agenda today.

Introduction

We are almost in the middle of a decade of anniversaries, and we are now into a roll-over series of commemorations of events a centenary ago, recalling the tumultuous events between 1912 and 1922 that shaped not only Irish identity but also shaped the map of Europe.

It is the decade that was marked by the demise of Chinese imperial dynasties, World War I, the Armenian Genocide, the Gallipoli landings, the Battle of the Somme, the Russian Revolution, the Balfour Declaration, the defeat of Germany, the fall of the Hapsburgs, the creation of the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union, the first non-stop transatlantic flight, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the winning of women’s voting rights, and the rise of Communism and Fascism.

But it was the decade too that brought us the modern zipper, stainless steel, and the pop-up toaster. It was a decade that saw the publication of Einstein’s theory of relativity, the first US feature film, the debut of Charlie Chaplin, the publication of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, DH Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers and Women in Love and TS Eliot’s The Waste Land.

For Irish people, this was the decade that saw the death of Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, who was born into a Dublin Church of Ireland family. It was a decade that saw the publication of James Joyce’s Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses, and of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. And it was a decade too that was marked by the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania.

‘The centre cannot hold’

The Rotunda in Dublin … a venue for many of the political meetings and heated debates on all sides in the decade between 1912 and 1922 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The world was so changed and transformed WB Yeats could open his poem The Second Coming with these lines about Europe in the aftermath of World War I:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Dublin Castle … the seat of Government until 1922 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Towards the end of that decade, the Church of Ireland was living with the consequences of a half century of disestablishment. But the Church was more concerned with social political upheaval on this island, and the way we were tearing ourselves apart as a people. Irish identity was changed violently over that ten-year period, so that the lines by Yeats about the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916 could be applied to the whole island and the whole population:

All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Charles Stewart Parnell, founder of the Irish Parliamentary Party, influenced a later generation of nationalists (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

It was a decade that saw the reconstruction of Irish identity through the creation of myths that by-passed the facts, even as the main actors in those myths were still alive.

Language and identity

The Abbey Theatre contributed to the cultural expressions of Irish nationalism (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

It is forgotten that modern Irish nationalism had its incubation and gestation in the revival of the Irish language – a revival in which the main players included Dr Douglas Hyde, the son of a Church of Ireland rector, and Dr Eleanor Hull in hymns such as Be thou my vision (Irish Church Hymnal, 5th ed, No 643).

Sean O’Casey, the playwright of the left, was born into the Church of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The artistic expressions of the new nationalism were found in the Abbey Theatre, founded by Lady Gregory, WB Yeats and George Russell (AE), the poetry of Yeats and the plays of Sean O’Casey – all members of the Church of Ireland.

Since 1916, the leaders of the Easter Rising in Dublin have been transformed into either working class heroes or the personifications of what it is to be Green, Gaelic, Catholic and Irish. But the myths that have been created by those who have a blinkered vision of what it is to be Irish betray the truths of history.

The Garden of Remembrance treats the 1916 leaders as martyrs … but their backgrounds were diverse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Who remembers today that Pádraig Pearse was born Patrick Henry Pearse, the son of a Birmingham Unitarian who had come to Dublin from England as part of the Victorian arts-and-crafts movement?

There are other myths surrounding Pádraig Pearse, including one that he was “President of the Provisional Government,” a post that may have been held instead by Thomas Clarke. There is no manuscript version of the 1916 Proclamation, but on all printed versions, the leaders’ names are not printed in alphabetical order, so that Pádraig Pearse’s name is listed fourth, after Thomas Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada and Thomas MacDonagh.

Ironically, Thomas Clarke was not born in Ireland but in an army barracks on the Isle of Wight in England, where his father was a soldier in the British army.

Thomas MacDonagh had a middle class education in Rockwell College, Co Tipperary, and was a lecturer in English in UCD. In 1912, he married Muriel Gifford, a member of a well-known Church of Ireland family in Dublin. Éamonn Ceannt, an accountant, was born Edward Thomas Kent, the son of an officer in the Royal Irish Constabulary.

James Connolly was born in Scotland and married a member of the Church of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

James Connolly was born in Edinburgh, and spoke with a Scottish accent all his life. After joining the British Army at the age of 14, he spent seven years with the army in Ireland. In 1890, he married Lillie Reynolds, a member of the Church of Ireland, who was born in Co Wicklow.

Joseph Mary Plunkett was the son of Count George Noble Plunkett, and his distant cousin, Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett, was a prominent lay member of the Church of Ireland and a Home Rule MP. The poet was born into a privileged family in Fitzwilliam Street, then an affluent suburb of Dublin, and was educated by the Jesuits at Belvedere and Stonyhurst, a Jesuit-run public school in Lancashire. Hours before his execution, he married Grace Gifford, who, like her sister Muriel MacDonagh, had been born into a prosperous Dublin Church of Ireland family.

In other words, two of the seven signatories were not born in Ireland, one was the son of an Englishman, one had served in the British army, one was the son of an RIC officer, one was born in a British army barracks, one was a titled aristocrat who went to an English public school, and at least three married women who were born into the Church of Ireland.

The General Post Office in Dublin … but the Easter Rising is not the only important anniversary to remember (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

These backgrounds were similar to those of many prominent figures on the Republican side in 1916. For example, Liam Mellows, later executed in 1922 at the height of the Civil War, was born William Joseph Mellows in an army barracks in Manchester, and his father was born in a British army barracks in India.

It should be remembered too in the coming years that while the 1916 Rising was being planned, Arthur Griffith’s Sinn Féin still favoured establishing a form of dual monarchy linking Ireland and Britain, similar to the dual monarchy in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and that Sinn Féin did not take part in the 1916 Rising.

Voices for the oppressed

Dr Kathleen Lynn took command of the rebel position in City Hall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Many of the women who took prominent roles in the Rising were members of the Church of Ireland: Countess Markievicz, the suffragette and a leader of the Irish Citizens’ Army, was born Constance Georgine Gore-Booth in Buckingham Gate, London, the daughter of Sir Henry Gore-Booth of Lissadell House, Co Sligo. She and her younger sister, Eva Gore-Booth, were childhood friends of Yeats, who frequently visited their home and described them in one poem as “two girls in silk kimonos, both beautiful, one a gazelle.”

Dr Kathleen Lynn, a founding member of the Irish Citizen’s Army too, took command of the rebel garrison in City Hall in Easter Week 1916. She remained a pious member of the Church of Ireland until her death in 1955.

Jim Larkin … “The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.” (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Alongside James Connolly, Jim Larkin Countess Markievicz and Kathleen Lynn, the founding members of the Irish Citizens’ Army in 1913, included Captain Jack White, a Presbyterian from Broughshane, Co Antrim, and the son of Sir George Stuart White.

Much of O’Connell Street, Dublin, was destroyed during the 1916 Rising (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Indeed, the first informal meeting to form the Irish Citizens’ Army was held in Trinity College Dublin in the rooms of the Revd Robert Malcolm Gwynn. He was a communicant at Saint Bartholomew’s until his death in 1962, and is buried in Whitechurch Churchyard in Co Dublin. One of his brothers, Brian Gwynn, was the father-in-law of the late Archbishop George Simms. Through their mother, the Gwynns were grandsons of William Smith O’Brien, the exiled 1848 revolutionary whose statue in O’Connell Street is close to the GPO and the statue of Jim Larkin.

The house in Rathgar where George Russell (AE) was living in 1913 during the Dublin lockout (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In a letter of protest during the Dublin lockout, George Russell (AE) accused the employers of “refusing to consider any solution except that fixed by their pride” and he accused them of seeking “in cold anger to starve one-third of this city, to break the manhood of the men by the sight of the suffering of their wives and the hunger of their children.”

Howth Harbour ... the Howth gunrunning must have appeared almost like a Church of Ireland parish vestry meeting! (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

A year after the Dublin lockout, members of the Church of Ireland were among the most prominent organisers of the Howth gun-running. Erskine Childers, a cousin of the Bartons of Glendalough House, sailed into Howth on the Asgard and landed 2,500 guns.

The organisers included his wife Molly Childers, Sir Roger Casement, Alice Stopford Green and Mary Spring Rice – all Church of Ireland parishioners, as were many of those waiting for them on the pier, including Countess Markievicz, Douglas Hyde and Darrell Figgis.

Edward Conor Marshal O’Brien (1880-1952), skipper of the Kelpie, one of the yachts involved in the gun-runnings , was a member of the Church of Ireland from Limerick and his first cousin, Brian Gwynn, was the father of the late Mercy Simms, wife of Archbishop George Otto Simms.

Kilcoole, Co Wicklow ... the gunrunning organised by Sir Thomas Myles is often forgotten in the shadows of the Howth gunrunning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The accounts of the Howth gunrunning in 1914 seem to overshadow the equally dramatic Kilcoole gunrunning in Co Wicklow, which was organised by the skipper of the Chotah and the King’s Surgeon in Ireland, Sir Thomas Myles (1857-1937), who was baptised in Saint Michael’s Church of Ireland parish church in Limerick City.

Sir Thomas Myles ... knighted by Edward VII

Nor can we dismiss Myles as a marginal member of the Church of Ireland: his father-in-law, the Revd George Ayres (1825-1881), was a Church of England clergyman; and his youngest brother was the Very Revd Edward Albert Myles (1865-1951), Dean of Dromore. Sir Thomas Myles was knighted at King Edward VII’s coronation while he was President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

After the Kilcoole gunrunning, when World War I began, he became an officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was later appointed one of the honorary surgeons to the King in Ireland.

Written in or written out?

The War Memorial Park in Islandbridge, Dublin, recalls the Irish dead of two world wars (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The myths that have accumulated over the past century have written members of the Church of Ireland, their consciences and their role out of the shared history of this island.

In these coming years, we must remember that more Irish soldiers – Catholic and Protestant – died at the Gallipoli landings in 1915 or at the Somme in 1916 than died in the Easter Rising.

Five Irish Home Rule MPs fought in the British Army in World War I: Sir John Lymbrick Esmonde, Stephen Gwynn, Willie Redmond, William Redmond and DD Sheehan.

Nor should we forget that more than 400,000 people on this island, including five bishops of the Church of Ireland, signed the Ulster Covenant, and in doing so were led by Sir Edward Carson, who was born in Harcourt Street, Dublin.

A divided family

A family divided ... Colonel Thomas Comerford on his wedding day; and his sister Marie Comerford

Many families in this part of the island – both Protestant and Roman Catholic – were totally divided when it came to loyalties at this time. Colonel Thomas James Comerford (1894-1959), who was raised in Co Wexford and Co Waterford, came from an interesting background. His grandfather, Colonel Thomas Esmonde (1831-1872), was decorated with the VC for his part in the Battle of Sebastopol in the Crimean War, his mother was three times tennis champion of Ireland, and his cousin, Sir John Lymbrick Esmonde, was one of those five Irish MPs who fought in the British Army in World War I.

Thomas Comerford served in World War I, initially with the Royal Irish Regiment and later with the Royal Irish Rifles. He fought at Gallipoli in 1915, where he was wounded, and was at home in Dublin on sick leave in 1916 when the Easter Rising broke out.

The family story says he was taken out of Dublin immediately so he would not be compromised by the curious activities of his sister. He was wounded at the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917, and went on to spend 25 years in India, where he was married in Bombay in 1921 and where he was active in World War II, organising supplies for the Chindits.

His sister, the journalist and writer Mary (‘Máire’) Eva Comerford (1893-1982), was also raised in Co Wexford and in Co Waterford. She became involved in politics initially as a Redmondite Home Ruler activist in Wexford Town, but later became a life-long Republican activist, and took part in the 1916 Rising in Dublin. Little wonder that her brother had to be moved out of the city.

The Four Courts … burned in the clashes of the Civil War in 1922 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Archbishop JAF Gregg of Dublin said in a sermon in December 1921, the month the Treaty was signed:

It concerns us all to offer the Irish Free State our loyalty. I believe there is a genuine desire on the part of those who have long differed from us politically to welcome our co-operation. We should be wrong politically and religiously to reject such advances.

Archbishop Gregg and Eamon de Valera together in the 1930s.

In 1922, after many Protestants were forced to leave their homes because of threats and some had been murdered in Co Cork, a delegation of southern members of the General Synod met Michael Collins and WT Cosgrave, and asked whether the government of the new Free State was “desirous of retaining” the Protestant community. The new government readily gave the assurances sought.

WB Yeats ... We are no petty people

A few years later, when the Irish Free State was poised to outlaw divorce, the poet WB Yeats delivered a famous speech in the new Senate of the Irish Free State on 11 June:

I think it is tragic that within three years of this country gaining its independence we should be discussing a measure which a minority of this nation considers to be grossly oppressive. I am proud to consider myself a typical man of that minority. We against whom you have done this thing, are no petty people. We are one of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke; we are the people of Grattan; we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created the most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence. Yet I do not altogether regret what has happened. I shall be able to find out, if not I, my children will be able to find out whether we have lost our stamina or not. You have defined our position and have given us a popular following. If we have not lost our stamina then your victory will be brief, and your defeat final, and when it comes this nation may be transformed.

The Mansion House in Dublin, where the First Dáil held most of its meetings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

‘No petty people’

Over these ten years (2012-2022), it is important that one single event should not dominate all the other centenaries and the memory of what has made the Ireland we know today. We should remember the Ulster Covenant, the lockouts, Gallipoli, the Somme, the men who rallied to Redmond’s call, and the poetry of Tom Kettle. Nor should we forget the diversity of contributions made by members of the Church of Ireland in those 10 years.

For in the words of Yeats, we “are no petty people. We are one of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke; we are the people of Grattan; we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created the most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence.”

The Luas in Abbey Street … have we moved on in shaping a modern Irish identity? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Tomorrow (16 May 2015). Field Trip:

8.1: The National Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street.

8.2: The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological. This lecture on 15 March 2015 was part of the Church History Elective (TH 7864) on the MTh course (part-time).

Church History (2014-2015, part-time) 7.2: Making connections (2): Rethinking and reshaping Christianity, from Kant and Schleiermacher to Pugin and Biblical Criticism

A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids, William Holman Hunt, 1850 … our understandings of the Bible, the Church, mission, church architecture and church history were reshaped in the 19th century

Patrick Comerford,

Church of Ireland Theological Institute,

Church History Elective (TH 7864)

Friday 15 May 2015, 7 p.m. to 9.15 p.m.

7.1: Making connections (1): Renaissance, Revolution and Enlightenment

7.2: Making connections (2): Rethinking and reshaping Christianity, from Kant and Schleiermacher to Pugin and Biblical Criticism.

7.3: Challenging myths and memories (3): The Decade of Commemorations and centenaries: how history shapes the Church agenda today.

7.2: Making connections (2): Rethinking and reshaping Christianity, from Kant and Schleiermacher to Pugin and Biblical Criticism.

Introduction:

The 19th century is sometimes called the “Protestant Century.” It was a century that saw new missions being established across the world; the formation of new societies, including mission societies (CMS, 1799; CMS Ireland, 1814), the Bible Society (1804), the Mothers’ Union (1876), Sunday Schools and so on; and the meeting of the first Lambeth Conference (1867), which served to identify the Anglican Communion as a cohesive and visible communion.

It was the century of a new thinking and challenges for Roman Catholics too, from Catholic Emancipation in Britain Ireland, to the collapse of the Papal States, the calling of the first Vatican Council, and the declaration of Papal Infallibility (1870).

But it was also the century that saw the beginning of new post-Protestant, post-Christian groups in the US, such as the Mormons (1820s-1840s), Jehovah’s Witnesses (1870s), and Christian Science (1879).

And it was a century when Christianity was challenged by new thinking, new philosophies and new politics, including Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, the publication of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, the development of psychoanalysis and Freud’s psychology.

It was the century of steam travel for both trains and shipping, the century European powers engaged in the scramble for Africa, opening new colonies and finding new resources, and it was the century of Alfred Nobel’s invention of modern dynamite.

It was the century of exploration, colonial expansion and the consolidation of the modern European nation state, from the United Kingdom in 1801, to the declaration of Greek independence, the unification of Italy (1861) and the unification of modern Germany (1871).

We were seeing the world in a different way, we were moving around it in a different way, we were exploiting it in a different way, and we were thinking about it and talking about it and shaping in a different way. And we were thinking and talking about Christianity and shaping it in a different way.

The reshaping of Christianity was expressed in art, architecture, hymn-writing, Biblical criticism, and poetry.

There were new attitudes to the role of religion in society, and a new openness to questioning long-accepted understandings of Christianity. There were new attitudes to the authority of Scripture, ushered in both by new philosophical thinking that led to changes in approaches to theology and to the development of Biblical criticism. There was new thinking too on slavery, racism, women and war.

From the Enlightenment to Biblical Criticism

The influences of the Enlightenment and the implications of the cultural and scientific revolution began to be felt in the churches in the 19th century. German theologians brought new critical approaches to their study of the Bible with Biblical criticism.

This morning I want us to look at the influences on the development and reshaping of Christianity in the 19th century through the works of six key thinkers: René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Georg Hegel, Charles Darwin and Karl Mark; to look at the development and shaping of new approaches to theology through critical thinking, and briefly at how the new thinking and shaping were seen and heard in new church architecture and new church music.

Six influential thinkers:

1, René Descartes (1596-1650)

René Descartes (1596-1650) … Cogito ergo sum

The French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) is best known for his saying “Cogito ergo sum, Je pense, donc je sui, I think, therefore I am.”

His proof for the existence of God starts with the idea of God which he finds within himself: whatever caused the idea must have all the perfections that are represented in it.

William Marshall, in Scripture, Tradition and Reason (Dublin: Columba, 2010), draws attention to the considerable influence the thinking of Descartes had on Archbishop William Wake of Canterbury, and through him on the development of 18th century Anglican ways of doing theology.

Later, however, William Temple would reject Descartes’s methods, and was strongly tempted to consider the most disastrous moment in European philosophical thinking was the day Descartes decided to lock himself away in his room and to ponder his thoughts until he could say: “Cogito ergo sum.”

2, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) … aimed to unite reason with experience

In the following century, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was the leading German philosopher of his day. He spent his whole life in Prussia and was Professor of Logic in Königsberg, the Prussian capital, from 1770.

Kant is known for his ‘Critical Philosophy’ first expounded in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781). He sought to discover a definitive rationale for the admitted validity of mathematics and natural science. He argued that every event has a cause; knowledge is the result of a synthesis between an intellectual act and what is presented to the mind from without; and that all knowledge requires an ingredient derived from nature.

Kant cut at the root of traditional metaphysics, with its claim to provide knowledge of subjects that transcend nature. In doing this, he invalidated the traditional proofs of the existence of God.

But, while he insists that natural theology is an illusion, Kant believes that the voice of conscience in an individual assures us of truths that reason is unable to establish.

Kant defines religion as the recognition of our duties as Divine commands. He holds that there is no place for mystical experience, no place for a personal redeemer, and no place for the historical as such.

3, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) … often called the ‘Father of Modern Liberal Theology’

The German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), who was deeply indebted to the thinking of Immanuel Kant, reacted against both contemporary German rationalism and the dominant formal expressions of Christianity. He tried to win educated and thinking people back to religion. He argues that religion is based on intuition and feeling and is independent of all dogma, and he sees its highest experience in a sensation of union with the infinite.

He defines religion as the feeling of absolute dependence that finds its purest expression in monotheism, with Christianity as its highest form of expression.

He became influential in the evolution of Higher Criticism, and his work is foundational for the modern hermeneutics, and he is often called the “Father of Modern Liberal Theology.”

4, Georg Hegel (1770-1831)

Georg Hegel (1770-1831) … wrestled with ‘the history of the appearance of God’

Schleiermacher ‘s contemporary, the German philosopher Georg Hegel (1770-1831), studied theology at the University of Tübingen and was deeply influenced by the 17th century German mystic Jakob Boehme. Hegel seeks to present all philosophical problems and concepts in an evolutionary perspective. He argues that no idea has an unchanging and eternal validity.

For Hegel, the highest religion is Christianity, for in Christianity the truth that the Absolute manifests itself in the finite is symbolically reflected in the incarnation. Philosophy, however, is conceptually supreme, because it grasps the Absolute rationally. Once this has been achieved, the Absolute has arrived at full self-consciousness, and the cosmic drama reaches its end and goal. Only at this point did Hegel identify the Absolute with God. “God is God,” Hegel argued, “only in so far as he knows himself.”

Scholars are still divided on whether Hegel was a Christian or an atheist. But he remained a Lutheran all his life, and he believed Lutheranism was superior to other expressions of Christianity. By the time he died in 1831, Hegel had become the most prominent philosopher in Germany. His views were widely taught, and his followers ranged across the spectrum of theological, social and political thinking, including Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, Friedrich Engels, and Karl Marx.

Hegel describes one of the deepest fundamental structures of Christian belief – namely, that the death of Jesus is an event in God, and that this event can be understood only if God is the triune God:

The history of the resurrection and ascension of Christ to the right hand of God begins at the point where this history [of Christ’s death] receives a spiritual interpretation. That is when it came about that the little community achieved the certainty that God has appeared as a human being.

But this humanity in God ... is natural death. ‘God himself is dead,’ it says in a Lutheran hymn, expressing an awareness that the human, the finite, the fragile, the weak, the negative are themselves ... within God himself, that finitude, negativity, otherness are not outside of God and do not ... hinder unity with God.... [D]eath itself is this negative, the furthest extreme to which humanity as natural existence is exposed; God himself is involved in this.

... For the community, this is the history of the appearance of God. This history is a divine history, whereby the community has come to the certainty of truth. From it develops the consciousness ... that God is triune. The reconciliation in Christ ... makes no sense if God is not known as the triune God, if it is not recognised that God is, but also is as the other, as self-distinguishing, so that this other is God himself..., and that the sublation of this difference, this otherness, and the return of love, are the Spirit. – GWF Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: The Lectures of 1827, (ed. PC Hodgson, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp 468-469.

5, Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) … ‘Nor can I remember that I have ever published a word directly against religion or the clergy’

Charles Darwin’s work was pivotal in the development of modern biology and the theory of evolution and played a prominent part in debates about religion and science.

Darwin was baptised in the Church of England, and studied at Christ’s College, Cambridge, with the original intention of preparing for ordination as an Anglican priest. There he became interested in the theology of William Paley who presented the argument from divine design in nature to explain adaptation as God acting through laws of nature.

On the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin remained orthodox in his Christianity and looked for “centres of creation.”

His interest in Paley was life-long, and his own theological views are reflected in On the Origin of Species (1859), continuing to believe in God as First Cause. In 1879, he explained that he had never been an atheist. A year earlier, he said: “Nor can I remember that I have ever published a word directly against religion or the clergy.”

Darwin continued to support his local parish in Downe, Kent, and its Sunday school and to contribute to the South American Missionary Society (SAMS). He said: “Science has nothing to do with Christ, except insofar as the habit of scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For myself, I do not believe that there ever has been any revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.”

His funeral took place in Westminster Abbey, with the full rites of the Church of England.

Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (1805-1873) is remembered not so much as the founder of Cuddesdon Theological College but for his strident opposition to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. At a famous debate in Oxford 1860, he asked Thomas Henry Huxley whether it was through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey, and got as answer that “he would not be ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor, but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his great gifts to obscure the truth.”

6, Karl Marx (1818-1883):

Karl Marx (1818-1883) … wrote on ‘the union of believers with Christ’ when he was 16

Karl Marx was born to a Jewish Lutheran family in Trier in 1818. Both his father and his mother were descended from long lines of rabbis, and his father, Heinrich Marx, converted to Lutheranism in 1816 or 1817. Karl was born in 1818 and baptised in 1824, but his mother Henriette did not convert until 1825, when Karl was seven.

At about the time of his confirmation in the Evangelical Church of Prussia at the age of 16, when he was graduating from the gymnasium or high school, Marx wrote an extended essay entitled: “The union of believers with Christ according to John 15: 1-14, showing its basis and essence, its absolute necessity, and its effects.”

The essay is available in full at this link.

The young Marx writes:

When we consider also the history of individuals, when we consider the nature of man, it is true that we always see a spark of divinity in his breast, a passion for what is good, a striving for knowledge, a yearning for truth. But the sparks of the eternal are extinguished by the flames of desire; enthusiasm for virtue is drowned by the tempting voice of sin, it is scorned as soon as life has made us feel its full power; the striving for knowledge is supplanted by a base striving for worldly goods, the longing for truth is extinguished by the sweetly flattering power of lies; and so there stands man, the only being in nature which does not fulfil its purpose, the only member of the totality of creation which is not worthy of the God who created it. But that benign Creator could not hate his work; he wanted to raise it up to him and he sent his Son, through whom he proclaimed to us: “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15: 3)

A few paragraphs later he explains his understanding of what it means to be united with Christ:

In union with Christ, therefore, we turn above all our loving eyes to God, feel the most ardent thankfulness towards him, and sink joyfully to our knees before him. Then, when by union with Christ a more beautiful sun has risen for us, when we feel all our iniquity but at the same time rejoice over our redemption, we can for the first time love God, who previously appeared to us as an offended ruler but now appears as a forgiving father, as a kindly teacher.

Thus, union with Christ consists in the most intimate, most vital communion with him, in having him before our eyes and in our hearts, and being so imbued with the highest love for Him, it also causes us to keep his commandments by sacrificing ourselves for one another, by being virtuous, but virtuous solely out of love for him (John 15: 9, 10, 12, 13, 14).

For an interesting discussion of Marx’s adaptation of Christian ideas, including the Kingdom of God as found in European millenarianism, read: http://mises.org/daily/3769

The development of Biblical Criticism

A copy of the King James Version of the Bible, dating from 1611, at a recent exhibition in Lambeth Palace

Biblical criticism grew out of this rationalism the developed from the 17th to the 19th century.

In the 19th century it was divided between the higher criticism, the study of the composition and history of Biblical texts, and lower criticism, the close examination of the text to establish their original or “correct” readings. These terms are largely no longer used, and contemporary criticism has seen the rise of new perspectives that draw on literary and multidisciplinary sociological approaches.

Historical and literary criticism:

Historical criticism seeks to locate the text in history: it asks such questions as when the text was written, who the author(s) might have been, and what history might be reconstructed from the answers.

Literary criticism asks what audience the authors wrote for, their presumptive purpose, and the development of the text over time.

Historical criticism was the dominant form of criticism until the late 20th century, when Biblical critics became interested in questions aimed more at the meaning of the text than its origins and developed methods drawn from mainstream literary criticism. The distinction is frequently referred to as one between diachronic and synchronic forms of criticism, the former concerned the development of texts through time, the latter treating texts as they exist at a particular moment, frequently the so-called "final form", meaning the Bible text as we have it today.

Both Old Testament and New Testament criticism originated in the rationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries and developed within the context of the scientific approach to the humanities, especially history, which grew during the 19th century. Studies of the Old Testament and New Testament were often independent of each other, largely due to the difficulty of any single scholar having a sufficient grasp of the many languages required or of the cultural background for the different periods of the texts.

Modern biblical criticism begins with the 17th century philosophers and theologians – Thomas Hobbes, Benedict Spinoza, Richard Simon and others – who began to ask questions about the origin of the Biblical text, especially the Pentateuch. They questioned the tradition that these books were written by Moses and asked who had written them.

Jean Astruc (1684-1766), borrowing from methods of textual criticism used in examining Greek and Roman texts, he discovered what he believed were two distinct documents within Genesis.

His methods were adopted by German scholars such as Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752-1827) and Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780-1849) in a movement that became known as the higher criticism. This school reached its apogee with the influential synthesis of Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) in the 1870s.

The implications of “higher criticism” were not welcomed by many religious scholars. Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) condemned secular biblical scholarship in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus, and it was not until 1943 that Pope Pius XII gave the new scholarship his approval in his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu.

The seminal figure in New Testament criticism was Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768), who applied to it the methodology of Greek and Latin textual studies and became convinced that very little of what it said could be accepted as incontrovertibly true. His conclusions appealed to the rationalism of 18th century intellectuals, but were deeply troubling to contemporary believers.

In 1769, Baron d’Holbach (1723-1789) wrote Ecce Homo – The History of Jesus of Nazareth, a Critical Inquiry, the first Life of Jesus in which he is described as a mere historical man. It was published anonymously in Amsterdam. It was translated into English by George Houston, and published in Edinburgh (1799) and London (1813). For this “blasphemy,” Houston was sentenced to two years in prison. It was later published in New York in 1827.

Important scholars in the 19th century included David Strauss, Ernest Renan, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer and others, who investigated the “historical Jesus” within the Gospel narratives. For his part, HJ Holtzmann established a chronology for the composition of books in the New Testament, and established the two-source hypothesis – the hypothesis that the Gospels according to Saint Matthew and Saint Luke drew on the Gospel according to Saint Mark and a hypothetical document, known as “Q”.

In other modules, you have opportunities to explore these and other approaches to Biblical criticism, including textual criticism or “lower criticism,” source criticism, and so on.

But how did these approaches have an impact on Anglican theology in the 19th century?

Benjamin Jowett (centre) outside the Master’s Lodgings in Baliol College, Oxford, 1890 …

These 19th century challenges posed by science, reason and Biblical criticism and by the complete shift in thinking and understanding, at first polarised Anglican theological thinking in England, with many arguing that there was a clear-cut choice between the Bible and atheism.

But Anglicanism woke in a very dramatic way to Biblical criticism in March 1860 with the publication of a collection of seven essays, Essays and Reviews, edited by John William Parker. The topics covered the biblical research of the German critics, the evidence for Christianity, religious thought in England, and the cosmology of Genesis.

Each essay was written independently and there was no overall editorial policy, each contributor choosing his own theme. The seven essayists were: Frederick Temple, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury; Rowland Williams, then tutor at Cambridge and later Professor and Vice-Principal of Saint David’s University College, Lampeter; Baden Powell, Anglican priest and Professor of Geometry at Oxford; Henry Bristow Wilson, fellow of Saint John’s College, Oxford, and the sole layman among the authors; Charles Wycliffe Goodwin; Mark Pattison, tutor at Lincoln College, Oxford; and Benjamin Jowett, Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford (later Master) and Regius Professor of Greek, Oxford University.

The book was published just four months after Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and it summed up a three-quarter-century-long challenge to biblical history by the higher critics and to biblical prehistory by scientists working in the new fields of geology and biology. Essays and Reviews sold 22,000 copies in two years, more than Darwin’s On the Origin of Species sold in its first 20 years.

Today, the essay topics and conclusions may seem innocuous or innocent, but the collection sparked five years of increasingly polarised debate.

Baden Powell wrote of “Mr Darwin’s masterly volume” that the Origin of Species “must soon bring about an entire revolution in opinion in favour of the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature.”

The essay ‘On the interpretation of scripture’ was written by Benjamin Jowett, who insisted that the Bible ought to be treated as scholars treated classical texts.

Jowett contended that revelation was ongoing and that the scriptures were always subject to reinterpretation as each generation encountered them. In 1863, he was brought before the vice-chancellor's court for teaching contrary to the doctrines of the Church of England, but the case was eventually dropped.

In a letter to The Times, the Archbishop of Canterbury and 25 other bishops threatened the theologians with the ecclesiastical courts. In response, Charles Darwin quoted a proverb: “A bench of bishops is the devil’s flower garden,” and joined others in signing a counter-letter supporting Essays and Reviews for trying to “establish religious teachings on a firmer and broader foundation.”

Two of the authors, Williams and Wilson, were indicted before the Court of Arches for heresy and lost their jobs by 1862. They appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and in 1864 it overturned the judgment, “dismissing hell with costs,” to the fury of Bishop Wilberforce. In all, 137,000 members of the laity signed a letter of thanks to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for voting against the committee, and a declaration in favour of biblical inspiration and eternal torments, was drawn up in Oxford and signed by 11,000 of the clergy. Wilberforce went to the Convocation of Canterbury and in June obtained synodical condemnation of Essays and Reviews.

The ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ (from left) … Westcott, Lightfoot and Hort

However, three key Cambridge theologians would develop these approaches and ideas: Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1889), and the Dublin-born FJA Hort (1828-1892). They argued that scientific discoveries, historical-critical arguments and sceptical conclusions deserved rational discussion.

Together, they produced a new, definitive version of the Greek New Testament and were instrumental in producing the Revised Standard Version. Their thinking also influenced Charles Gore (1853-1932) and the other scholars who contributed to the collection of essays Lux Mundi: A Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation (1889). Ten editions were published within a year. Over the span of a generation, Anglican theology had moved from seeing Darwin as an enemy to recognising him as a friend.

Reshaping the Church

The interior of Saint Giles’ Church, Cheadle, designed by AWN Pugin … the Gothic revival reshaped the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford

At the same time as theology and biblical studies were being reimaged, reshaped and reimaged, the Church was being reimaged, reshaped and reimaged by architects, poets, hymn-writers and artists.

In England, the liturgical revival introduced by the Oxford Movement created a demand for new and large churches to cater for the growing population. The movement inspired an interest in Gothic architecture, which was seen as the most appropriate style for parish churches.

The Cambridge Camden Society, through its journal The Ecclesiologist, encouraged Gothic architecture which soon became the standard for new cathedral and parish churches in England and Wales.

Saint Luke’s Church, Chelsea (1820-1824) was the first Gothic Revival church in London.

The Gothic style was developed by AWN Pugin, who also made it fashionable in Ireland, George Edmund Street, Charles Barry, and William Burges, and it replaced the previous preference for classical design.

John Ruskin supplemented Pugin’s ideas in two influential works, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1853).

Ruskin also influenced the Pre-Raphaelites who gave us a new way of looking at Biblical scenes and images, including John Everett Millais (1829-1896), William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882). Consider these works:

John Everett Millais, Christ in the house of his parents (1850)

William Holman Hunt, The Light of the World (1854)

William Holman Hunt, The Scapegoat (1856)

William Holman Hunt, The Shadow of Death (1871)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ecce Ancilla Domini! (1850)

Rossetti’s sister, the poet Christina Rossetti (11830-1894), has given much-loved carols and hymns as ‘In the Bleak Mid-Winter.’

Yes this was a century of great hymn-writers and composers: in Ireland, we had Cecil Frances Alexander, in America there was Ira Sankey, Fanny Crosby; for composers think of the Irish-born Charles Villiers Stanford, or think of Hubert Parry.

By the end of the Victorian era, we had come to read the Bible in a new way, but we had also come to look at churches in a new way, to look at Biblical art in a new way, to sing new hymns, to read new poems. The ways we thought in the Church, and the ways we thought about the Church had been reshaped.

Next:

7.3: Challenging myths and memories (3): The Decade of Commemorations and centenaries: how history shapes the Church agenda today.

Tomorrow (16 May 2015). Field Trip:

8.1: The National Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street.

8.2: The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological. This lecture on 15 March 2015 was part of the Church History Elective (TH 7864) on the MTh course (part-time).