1 John Henry Newman on the Three Offices of Christ – Peter Dobbing – 6.11.

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CTC401: Catholic Identity and Its Main Themes

Assessment Task 1 (Portfolio)

John Henry Newman on the Three Offices of Christ

Newman was dismayed by what he regarded as the grossly deficient

understanding of the Church espoused by the victorious Ultramontane party
at the time of the First Vatican Council (1869-70). For this party, the reality of
Christ could be made present to the world only though an authoritarian
Church whose regulating principle was the absolute rule of the Pope.
Newman objected to this, not because he was uncomfortable with this way of
thinking about the Petrine office (though he did have some difficulties with the
doctrine of Infallibility as enshrined in the teachings of the Council), but
because he felt that this account substituted a (legitimate) part of the Church
for the whole. Newman set out his ideas on this in the 1877 preface to the
third edition of his Via Media of the Anglican Church. This was originally
written in 1837 before Newman’s conversion. In the earlier work, Newman
attempted to differentiate Anglo-Catholicism from both popular Protestantism
and ‘Romanism’ (that is, popular Roman Catholicism). In doing so he began to
develop an ecclesiology based on the three offices of Christ, namely, priest,
prophet and king.

Newman’s fundamental idea is straightforward: “When our Lord went up on

high, He left His representative behind Him. This was Holy Church […] ‘His
very self below’ […] He is Prophet, Priest, and King; and after his pattern, and
in human measure, Holy Church has a triple office too […] three offices which
are indivisible, though diverse, viz. teaching, rule and sacred ministry …”
(Preface 4.). The notion of the Church as a complex entity, consisting of
several distinguishable though indivisible parts, accorded well with a particular
(Platonic) epistemological view of Newman, namely that of the ‘idea’ of
something. Newman referred to the ‘Idea’ of something when he wished to
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suggest that the reality under question was complex and impervious to
systematisation. There are two features of Newman’s ‘idea’ that seem to be
particularly apt when applied to his understanding of the Church: one is that
the ‘idea’ can hold together components that could seem to be prima facie
incompatible; the other is that the ‘idea’ cannot be adequately represented by
any of its parts. Interestingly, in spite of the Platonic heritage of this notion of
‘idea’, Newman eschews any a priori understanding of Church based on self-
evidence and adopts the more contemporary approach of starting with the
Church as it is, here and now, warts and all. There is an aspect of the Church,
a factual, developing, ever-changing aspect that cannot be captured in any
pure notion or concept, though the generalised ‘idea’ of the Church can, in its
lack of specificity, enfold the diversified nature of Church as it impinges on
people’s everyday lives. In connection with this reversal of any kind of ‘top-
downwards’ Platonic approach, mention should be made of what Newman
called his ‘method of personation’. Newman’s emphasis on the concreteness
of Christ’s presence in the Church was evident even before his conversion
from Anglicanism. Christ, for Newman, is encountered as priest, prophet and
king in a bodily and direct way through the sacramental and evangelising life
of the Church, and not as a kind of alter ego through prayer and introspection.

So the Church is the continuing bodily presence of Christ on earth and just as
Christ exercised the threefold ministry of priest, prophet and king, the Church
is at once “a philosophy, a political power and a religious rite” (Preface 4.).
According to Newman these offices did not develop simultaneously, nor were
they shared in by the whole (that is, all social classes) of the Church. The
priestly office of worship was evident in primitive times, “springing up and
spreading in the lower ranks of society” (4). Then the “intellectual and
cultivated class” who reflected upon faith and created schools of learning
assumed the prophetical office. Finally, the Church took root among the
holders of political power and chose Rome for its centre. Each of these offices
suffers from a characteristic temptation to excess. I will make further
observations about this later. Points and questions arise in connection with
Newman’s general schema for the threefold office:
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• He refers to the prophetic role as a ‘philosophy’. This seems to be a

rather puzzling term, with its secular, cerebral and slightly elitist
connotations, for a tradition that Dulles describes as the “living and
dynamic reception of the apostolic faith as it pulsates through the
Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit” (‘The Threefold Office in
Newman’s Ecclesiology’ in Newman After a Hundred Years, Ed I Ker
and A. Hill, Clarendon, Oxford 1990; p377).
• He links the teaching function, not with the magisterium of pope and
bishops, but with the theological schools. Even in his earlier, Anglican
phase, he distinguished an episcopal tradition that “preserves and
hands down, in stable form, the apostolic deposit of faith” (Op. cit. p.
377). It could be that Newman’s praise for the theological schools was
inserted to offset criticisms that were made in the earlier 1837 text.
• Contrary to expectations, the priestly function is not assigned to the
ordained. Instead, Newman refers to popular religion and the beliefs of
the simple faithful.

Newman’s apparent enthusiasm for the theological schools as the principal

bearers of the prophetic office does not sit easily with remarks made
elsewhere about the subordinate status of theology. The tension is mitigated,
however, by his insistence that theology requires a corrective principle to
prevent faith from degenerating into an empty rationalism. In his Grammar of
Assent Newman distinguishes between the real assent of faith and the
(merely) notional assent of theology. Newman believed that the Church’s own
dogmatic statements about the Trinity illustrated the maxim lex orandi lex
credendi, that is, what is to be believed (assented to) is not just a matter of the
intellect but is accepted by a kind of Christian instinct that is planted in the
hearts of the faithful by the Holy Spirit. In his Essay on Development, one of
Newman’s aims was to establish the superiority of faith and a mystical sense
of Scripture over theology. “The contempt of mystery, of reverence, of
devoutness, of sanctity are notes of the heretical spirit.” (Op cit. p 354).
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As already noted, the priestly function is assigned, not to the ordained, but to
the simple faithful. The choice of the ‘simple faithful’ as the principal bearers of
this office could well be to answer and offset his earlier Anglican critical
remarks about the popular religiosity of Catholics. Newman wants to
demonstrate that, although some of the practices of the faithful may border on
the superstitious, the religious instinct on which they are based is connatural
with humanity and acts as corrective to the overweening tendencies of
theology. Newman refers to the “poor Neapolitan crone who chatters to the
crucifix” (18) and the woman in the Gospels who “paid a sort of fetish
reverence to the hem of [Jesus’] garment” (17) as examples of faith that may
not be doctrinally sound but whose heart is in the right place. There are a
couple of points that could be made about Newman’s treatment of the priestly
office:

• To the modern (certainly post-Vatican II) reader, Newman’s laboured

attempts to rehabilitate the ‘simple faithful’ are as revealing of his own
embarrassment about popular Catholic devotions and his theological
elitism as they are about possible ways in which the laity participate in
the priestly office.
• In concentrating on popular devotions, Newman missed the opportunity
to develop a more comprehensive theology of the priestly office that
explored the significance of liturgy and the priesthood of all believers.

The third office, that of king, is depicted by Newman as standing in a

dialectical relationship with the prophetic and priestly offices. The kingly office
is necessary to guarantee the Church’s integrity (freedom from disintegrating
forces, whether intellectual (theological) or temporal) and continued existence
in time and space. There will be occasions when the Church’s integrity is
under threat and the regal office will be required to override the requirements
of the prophetic and priestly offices. Any regal conflict with theology, according
to Newman, would be only apparent: “no act could be theologically an error,
which was absolutely and undeniably necessary for unity, sanctity, and peace
of the Church” (Preface p. 83). In spite of language that, in places, smacks of
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an unattractive political imperialism, Newman, it seems to me, is simply

arguing for an office that is related to the Church’s self-preservation (bearing
in mind that it is Chris who is the Church’s essential self). “If the Church is to
be regal, a witness to heaven, unchangeable amid secular changes, if in
every age she is to hold her own, and proclaim as well as profess the truth
[…] she must be more than Holy and Apostolic; she must be Catholic … (see
Preface section 25).

(1495 words)

References and bibliography

John Henry Newman, ‘The Triple Office of the Church’, Preface to the Via
Media 3rd Edition (1877).
A. Dulles, ‘The Threefold Office in Newman’s Ecclesiology’ in Newman After a
Hundred Years, ed I. Ker and A.G. Hill (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990), 375-
99.
J. Coulson, ‘Newman on the church – his Final View, its Origins and Influence’
in The Rediscovery of Newman: An Oxford Symposium ed. J. Coulson & A.M.
Alchin (SPCK, 1967), 123-43.
I. Ker, ‘Catholic Christianity’ in Newman and the Fullness of Christianity (T. &
T. Clark, 1993), 103-22.
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