Callista : a Tale of the Third Century Read online

  CALLISTA

  A TALE OF THE THIRD CENTURY

  CALLISTA

  A TALE OF THE THIRD CENTURY

  BY

  JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN

  "Love thy God, and love Him only, And thy breast will ne'er be lonely. In that One Great Spirit meet All things mighty, grave, and sweet. Vainly strives the soul to mingle With a being of our kind; Vainly hearts with hearts are twined: For the deepest still is single. An impalpable resistance Holds like natures still at distance. Mortal: love that Holy One, Or dwell for aye alone." DE VERE

  _NEW IMPRESSION_

  LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDONNEW YORK AND BOMBAY1904

  _All rights reserved_

  _To_

  _HENRY WILLIAM WILBERFORCE._

  _To you alone, who have known me so long, and who love me so well, could Iventure to offer a trifle like this. But you will recognise the author inhis work, and take pleasure in the recognition._

  _J. H. N._

  ADVERTISEMENT.

  It is hardly necessary to say that the following Tale is a simple fictionfrom beginning to end. It has little in it of actual history, and not muchclaim to antiquarian research; yet it has required more reading than mayappear at first sight.

  It is an attempt to imagine and express, from a Catholic point of view,the feelings and mutual relations of Christians and heathens at the periodto which it belongs, and it has been undertaken as the nearest approachwhich the Author could make to a more important work suggested to him froma high ecclesiastical quarter.

  _September 13, 1855._

  POSTSCRIPTS TO LATER EDITIONS.

  _February 8, 1856._--Since the volume has been in print, the Author findsthat his name has got abroad. This gives him reason to add, that he wrotegreat part of Chapters I., IV., and V., and sketched the character andfortunes of Juba, in the early spring of 1848. He did no more till the endof last July, when he suddenly resumed the thread of his tale, and hasbeen successful so far as this, that he has brought it to an end.

  Without being able to lay his finger upon instances in point, he has somemisgiving lest, from a confusion between ancient histories and moderntravels, there should be inaccuracies, antiquarian or geographical, incertain of his minor statements, which carry with them authority when theycease to be anonymous.

  _February 2, 1881.--October, 1888._--In a tale such as this, which professesin the very first sentence of its Advertisement to be simple fiction frombeginning to end, details may be allowably filled up by the writer'simagination and coloured by his personal opinions and beliefs, the onlyrule binding on him being this--that he has no right to contraveneacknowledged historical facts. Thus it is that Walter Scott exercises apoet's licence in drawing his Queen Elizabeth and his Claverhouse, and theauthor of "Romola" has no misgivings in even imputing hypothetical motivesand intentions to Savonarola. Who, again, would quarrel with Mr. Lockhart,writing in Scotland, for excluding Pope, or Bishops, or sacrificial ritesfrom his interesting Tale of Valerius?

  Such was the understanding, as to what I might do and what I might not,with which I wrote this story; and to make it clearer, I added in thelater editions of this Advertisement, that it was written "from a Catholicpoint of view;" while in the earlier, bearing in mind the interests ofhistorical truth, and the anachronism which I had ventured on at page 82in the date of Arnobius and Lactantius, I said that I had not "admittedany actual interference with known facts without notice," questions ofreligious controversy, when I said it, not even coming into my thoughts. Idid not consider my Tale to be in any sense controversial, but to bespecially addressed to Catholic readers, and for their edification.

  This being so, it was with no little surprise I found myself latelyaccused of want of truth, because I have followed great authorities inattributing to Christians of the middle of the third century what iscertainly to be found in the fourth,--devotions, representations, anddoctrines, declaratory of the high dignity of the Blessed Virgin. If I hadleft out all mention of these, I should have been simply untrue to my ideaand apprehension of Primitive Christianity. To what positive and certainfacts do I run counter in so doing, even granting that I am indulging myimagination? But I have allowed myself no such indulgence; I gave goodreasons long ago, in my "Letter to Dr. Pusey" (pp. 53-76), for what Ibelieve on this matter and for what I have in "Callista" described.