Callista
John Henry Newman

Revised October, 2001—NR.

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Contents

Title Page
  1. Sicca Veneria      1.
  2. Christianity in Sicca    14.
  3. Agellius in his Cottage    25.
  4. Juba    30.
  5. Jucundus at Supper    39.
  6. Goths and Christians    51.
  7. Persecution in the Offing    64.
  8. The New Generation    80.
  9. Jucundus Baits his Trap    92.
10.  The Divine Callista  111.
11. Callista's Preaching, and What Came of it  122.
12. A Death  135.
13. And Resurrection  145.
14. A Small Cloud  159.
15. A Visitation  168.
16. Worse and Worse  178.
17. Christianos ad Leones  189.
18. Agellius Flits  199.
19. A Passage of Arms  212.
20. He shall not Lose his Reward  226.
21. Startling Rumours  235.
22. Jucundus Propounds his View of the Situation   239.
23. Gurta  256.
24. A Mother's Blessing  266.
25. Callista in Durance  274.
26. What can it all Mean?  281.
27. Am I a Christian?  291.
28. A Sick Call  305.
29. Conversion  317.
30. Torres Vedras  329.
31. The Baptism  343.
32. The Imperial Rescript  352.
33. A Good Confession  357.
34. The Martyrdom  366.
35. The Corpo Santo  371.
36. Lux Perpetua Sanctis Tuis, Domine  377.

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A Martyr Convert (Verses, 170)

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Dedication

To

HENRY WILLIAM WILBERFORCE.

{v} To you alone, who have known me so long, and who love me so well, could I venture to offer a trifle like this. But you will recognise the author in his work, and take pleasure in the recognition.

J. H. N.

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{vii} IT is hardly necessary to say that the following Tale is a simple fiction from beginning to end. It has little in it of actual history, and not much claim to antiquarian research; yet it has required more reading than may appear 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 period to which it belongs, and it has been undertaken as the nearest approach which the Author could make to a more important work suggested to him from a high ecclesiastical quarter.

September 13, 1855.

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Postscripts to Later Editions

February 8, 1856.—Since the volume has been in print, the Author finds that his name has got abroad. This gives him reason to add, that he wrote great part of Chapters I., IV., and V., and sketched the character {viii} and fortunes of Juba, in the early spring of 1848. He did no more till the end of last July, when he suddenly resumed the thread of his tale, and has been 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 some misgiving lest, from a confusion between ancient histories and modern travels, there should be inaccuracies, antiquarian or geographical, in certain of his minor statements, which carry with them authority when they cease to be anonymous.

———————

February 2, 1881.—October, 1888.—In a tale such as this, which professes in the very first sentence of its Advertisement to be simple fiction from beginning to end, details may be allowably filled up by the writer's imagination and coloured by his personal opinions and beliefs, the only rule binding on him being this—that he has no right to contravene acknowledged historical facts. Thus it is that Walter Scott exercises a poet's licence in drawing his Queen Elizabeth and his Claverhouse, and the author of "Romola" has no misgivings in even imputing hypothetical motives and intentions to Savonarola. Who, again, would quarrel with Mr. Lockhart, writing in Scotland, for excluding Pope, or Bishops, or sacrificial rites from 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 {ix} story; and to make it clearer, I added in the later editions of this Advertisement, that it was written "from a Catholic point of view;" while in the earlier, bearing in mind the interests of historical truth, and the anachronism which I had ventured on at page 82 in the date of Arnobius and Lactantius, I said that I had not "admitted any actual interference with known facts without notice," questions of religious controversy, when I said it, not even coming into my thoughts. I did not consider my Tale to be in any sense controversial, but to be specially addressed to Catholic readers, and for their edification.

This being so, it was with no little surprise I found myself lately accused of want of truth, because I have followed great authorities in attributing to Christians of the middle of the third century what is certainly to be found in the fourth,—devotions, representations, and doctrines, declaratory of the high dignity of the Blessed Virgin. If I had left out all mention of these, I should have been simply untrue to my idea and apprehension of Primitive Christianity. To what positive and certain facts do I run counter in so doing, even granting that I am indulging my imagination? But I have allowed myself no such indulgence; I gave good reasons long ago, in my "Letter to Dr. Pusey" (pp. 53-76), for what I believe on this matter and for what I have in "Callista" described.

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Title Page

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

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1901

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