Christopher Da w son:

His Interpretat ion of History

J O H N R. E. B L I E S E

CHRISTOPHERENRY AWSONa s b e e n c a l l e d

“the greatest English-speak ing Catholic histo-

rian of the twentieth century.”’

He

was a lso a

profound conservative crit ic of contemporary

W e s t e r n c u l t u r e a n d h i s i n d i c t m e n t s w e re

ba sed o n a synthetic interpretation of the his-

tory of mankind which is one of the most im-

pressive ever produced. His analysis of the

decl ine of the West must be considered an

i m p o r t a n t c o n t r i b u t i o n t o c o n s e r v a t i v e

thought. Yet Dawson has been strangely ig-

nored by American conservatives, to our dis-

advantage. Now and then one f inds passing

reference to Dawson, but se ldom an y ser ious

recognition of his contribution. As

a typical

exam ple of this neglect, al though Dawson he ld

a chair a t Harvard f rom

1958

to

1962,

he i s

men tioned only on ce in Nash’s history.’ Pa t-

ently we would do well to become better ac-

qu ain ted with Dawson’s thought:

H e

combined

two points of appr oac h in his s yn the sis of his-

tory: th e belief that cu lture s rath er than na tions

are the basic uni ts of history; an d th e develop-

ment of what he called the Christian view of

history.

Dawson would have us e xam ine history from

a cul tural perspect ive .

“Modem

history has

usually be en writ ten from t he nationalist point

of view. . .

.

In the course of the nineteenth

century this movement permeated the popular

consciousness and determined the ordinary

man’s conception of history. .. .And the resul t

is that e ach nat ion c la ims for i tse lf a cul tural

unity an d self-sufficiency that i t do es not pos-

s e s ~ . ” ~he national point of view is actually

dangero us; it was “one of the great pred ispos-

ing causes” of World W ar I.

We s h o u l d a d o p t

ins tead the cu l tu ra l concep t ion o f h i s to ry

“which goes beh ind th e pol it ical uni t and

studies that fun dam ental uni ty which we term a

cu l tu re .”‘

A culture Dawson defined

as “a common

way of l if e-a particular adjustment of ma n to

his natural surroundings and his economic

needs.” Four main components serve as th e

basis for culture: “(1) race, L e . , the genet ic

factor;

(2)

environment , i .e . , he geographical

factor; (3) function or occupation, i . e . , the eco-

nom ic factor,” a nd (4) “thought or the psycho-

logical factor.”5 The first th ree affect the life of

any living thing; the fourth is distinctively hu-

man. These four e lements were ident i f ied in

one of Dawson’s earliest works. In one of his

la tes t , a slightly different analy sis is given, still

containing four factors: “(

1) the sociological

factor, o r the principle of social organization;

(2) the geographical or ecological factor-the

adaptation of culture to i ts physical environ-

ment ;

(3)

th e econ om ic factor-the relation

between man’s ‘way of life’ and the way in

which h e ‘gains his living’; and

(4 )

the moral

factor-the regulation of hu m an life in con -

formity with some system of values and stan-

da rd s of behavior.”6 Dawson ha s also used an

analysis l imited to two elements, intellectual

and mater ia l , of which the intellectual is the

more important since i t “gives a culture i ts

specific form. . . .Essentially the intellectual

element consists in a common set of values

which serv e to unify th e various activit ies of the

g r o u p . S u c h v a l u e s f i n d e x p r e s si o n p r e -

eminen t ly . . n a society’s religio us beliefs.”’

Dawson believed religion to be the key to

history, because i t is th e key to culture. A

Modem Ag e

259

 

religion i s not simply a theology. Religion must

be exp ress ed in sociological ways as well for it

“can never escape th e necess i ty of becoming

incarnated in cul ture an d clothing i tse lf in so-

cial insti tutions an d tradit ions, if i t is to exert a

permanent inf luence on hu man l i fe and behav-

ior.”’ Th e ma nn er in which religion becom es

embodied in temporal socie ty es ta bl ishes the

form of a culture.

A religion may b e introduce d into a society

in on e of thre e ways. T he religion m ay grow up

“as i t were naturally, with th e l ife of a people”

and insepa rable from i t . T his is the normal

process in pr imit ive cul tures , and has occurred

in more advanced civil izations as well,

as

in

the Greek and Roman. Second, a religion may

be fully formed outside a cu l tu re and then be

introduced into i t , as Buddhism entere d China

or Islam Persia. Finally, a fully formed religion

may e nte r a cu lture sti l l in the process of forma-

tion, “thus i tself becoming one of the con-

s t ituent e lem ents of the new cul tu re that i s

growing up,” as ha ppen ed with ear ly medieval

Christianity.

A

people m ay also lose i ts religion and be-

c o m e secularized. “W‘i’iiLoui a

Idigiuii, :io+

ever, a cul tu re cann ot long survive. Seculariza-

tion is inevitab ly a sign of “social decay;” sin ce

religion provides the principle of inner cohe-

sion for a society, a sec ular society will sooner

or la ter disintegrate:”

Th e loss of the historic religion of a society

is a sign that i t is undergoing a process of

social disintegration. . . .We cannot . . .

assu m e the possibil ity of a cul t ure cont inu-

ing to p reserve i ts unity a nd to persist indef-

initely without any religious form what-

soever. W he n the process of secularization

is completed, the p rocess of social dissolu-

t ion is consummated an d the cul ture comes

t o a n e n d . ”

Secularization is precisely what Dawson

bel ieved was hap penin g to the contemporary

West .

Onc e es tab l i shed , a cu l tu re t ends to become

static. However, cultural change may be in -

du ce d in several ways. Dawson del inea ted five

major types of social change. First and most

basic, a people dev elops a partic ula r relation-

ship to i ts or iginal environment . When a work-

ab le way of l ife has been attai ned , i t will per -

s is t . Second, for some reason a people may

come into a new geographical environm ent an d

adap t i t s cul tu re to f it the new area. Third. two

different peoples may mix, usually as the re -

sul t of conquest , and a new cul ture must be

formed. Dawson considered this the “most typ-

ical and important of a l l the cau ses of cul ture

change;’ it ha s be en “the origin of prac tically

all those su dd en flowerings of new civil isation

which impress us

as alm ost m i r a ~ u l o u s . ” ’ ~s

the two peo ples begin to fuse themselves into a

new people an d fo rm a new cul tu re , they pa ss

through a fairly regular cycle. First there is a

period of seve ral centuries of “silent growth

a

the old er cul ture , e i ther that which they have

brough t with them , or that which they found in

the land.”I3 Next there is a period of “intense

cultural activity, when the new forms of l ife

created by the vital union of two different

p e o p l e s a n d c u l t u r e s b u r s t i n t o f l ~ w e r . ” ’ ~

Finally the culture reaches maturity ‘-either

by the absorption of the new elements by the

ta inment of a permanent balance between the

two, the stabilisation of a new cultural varia-

tion.”15 The fourth type of cultural change

resu l t s when a society adopts some material

e lem ent which ano ther people has developed.

Such m ater ia l chan ges may al ter the whole

system of social organization. Yet, being the

result of purely external factors, this kind of

ch ang e very often lea ds not to social progress

but to socia l decay , for “as a rule , to be pro-

gressive change must come from within.”I6 Fi-

nal ly , the f if th type of chang e is induc ed when

a people modif ies i ts cul ture because of the

adoption of some new knowledge or belief.I7

A cul ture tends , especial ly af ter the h igher

level of civil ization has been reached, to ex-

p a n d .

A

civilization attempts to become a

super -cu l tu re ex tend ing over a l a rge area,

dom ina t ing o r absorb ing o ther less a d v a n c e d o r

less powerful cul tures . “T hu s a higher civiliza-

t ion a lmo st a lways contains a t least two sep a-

rate t radi t ion s which may provide the ten sion

t h a t c a u s e s s o ci a l p ro g r es s a n d c u l t u r a l

ach ievement .

. .

Ul lgI I l” : p e u p k a114 its cuhure, or by the at-

260 Summer 1979

 

Dawson’s judgm ent of th e expansive ten-

den cy of a c ivil izat ion c hang ed over the years .

He first regarded terr i tor ia l e xpa nsion as som e-

thing achieved at the e xp en se of the qual i ty of a

civi l izat ion, but la ter h is judgment was re-

versed. “The normal proc ess is qui te the oppo-

site,

e.

g., he great a ge of medieval c ul ture was

also the age of the terri torial expansion of the

F r a n c o - N o r m a n c u l t u r e , t h e g r e a t a g e of

Spa nish cul ture was the a ge of Spanish terr i to-

r ia l expansion and th e la t ter ceased before the

former by a generat ion or O n a larger

scale, the entire history of the world may be

s e e n

as

a process of incr eas ing integration

based on the tendency of civil izations to ex-

pand.”

W hile a cul ture may ch an ge in many ways, i t

is not infinitely malleable. “Precisely because

change is something out of the ordinary and

interferes with th e previou s m ode of a culture’s

functioning, there is a l imit to the amount of

change of which

a

society i s c apab le without

breakdown.”” Th ere is a lso a qualitative l imit:

“Only so long as change i s the spon taneous

expression of t he society i tself d oe s i t involve

the p rogress o f c iv i l i za t ion .”22 Som et imes

changes a re in troduced in to

a

cul tur e that are

not assimilable into th e “spo ntan eou s expres-

sion of the society i tself .” If the culture is

strong enough, i t will so on er or later reject the

alien elements that have bee n thrust upon it. If ,

however, the a l ien e lem en ts are accompanied

by

a

superior technology, they will usually

destroy the cul tu re in to wh ich they have bee n

i n t r ~ d u c e d . ~ ~he former possibili ty may be

il lustrated by the Islamic world’s attempt to

ass imilate Greek sc ience . T h e result was “an

internal confl ic t between the scient i f ic and

religious traditions [which] proved incapable

of solution.”24 Islam rejected Greek science,

and the Moslem world consequent ly is now

technologically inferior to th e West. T he latte r

possibility

is

i l lustrated by the reactions of

pr imi t ive peop les to con tac t wi th Wes te rn

civil izations and the ch an ges being wrought in

A s ia n n at io n s by W e s t e m t e ~ h n o l o g y . ’ ~

Dawson viewed history from a C hristian per -

spective. He believed that Christianity has a

concep t of history inhe ren t in i t , fo r i t is a

uniquely historical religion. I t is “essentially

the religion of the Incarnation, of the divine

intervention in history at a par t icular t ime an d

in a particular so cial context an d of the exten-

sion and incorporation of this new spiri tual

creation in the l ife of humanity through the

mediat ion of an h is tor ic ins t i tu t ion al soci-

ety.”26

Dawson was

a

Catho l ic conver t and h i s

Catholicism pervaded his writings. Yet his

Christian view of history inc lud es much th at a

Protestant could accept ; i t goes much deeper

than

a

simple Catholic notion of the Church.

Bel ief in divine providence is basic : -“ the

Christian is bound to believe that there is

a

spiritu al pur pos e in history-that it is su bj ec t

to the design s of Providence an d th at somehow

or

other God’s will is done.”” In the ancient

world, the do minan t conception of history w a s

one of constant , sense less chan ge; with the

com ing of Christianity “man first acqu ired that

sen se of a uni ty an d a purp ose in his tory with-

ou t which the spec tac le of the unend ing change

becomes meaningless a nd oppressive.”28

Dawson believed it necessary to com bine the

Christian view of history with his analysis of

cul ture s i f one would und ers tand W estern his-

tory. At various t imes h e discu sse d th e compo-

nen ts tha t make up E uropean cu l ture , concen-

trating p rimarily on the intellectual ones. At

on e point he co nsidered four factors: political

exis tence based on the Roman Empire , the

Christian religion, the Hellenic l i terary tradi-

t ion , and the German barbar ians

as a new

rac ial Normally, however, he l isted

two components basic to European cul ture:

Chris t iani ty and th e c lass ic al tradit ion. Th ese

elem ent s are not, of course, entirely compati-

ble ; indeed, there has a lways been tension

between them “which shows itself in the con-

f l i c t be tween the ex t reme idea l s o f o ther -

worldly ascet ic ism and se cul ar humanism. Yet

the coexis tence of both of these e le me nts has

been an essent ia l condi t ion of the Western

development , one which has inspired al l the

g r ea t a c h i e v em e n t s of o u r ~ u l t u r e . ” ~ ’ n e o r

the other e lement may have dominated a t any

mom ent in th e past , but bo th have a lways, from

their origins to th is day, b een p resent . W hen

they com bine , in teract “ in l iv ing an d f rui tful

contact with one another ,” the result i s a period

Modem Age

261

 

of great cul tura l achievem ents. In th e eighth,

twelfth, an d fifteenth cen turi es Dawson be-

l ie ve d s u c h a p ro ce ss o ~ c u r r e d . ~ ’

A

con sequ ence of our inte llectual her i tage is

that W estern socie ty has never remained s ta t ic

for very long;

i t has

neverachieved a n equi lib-

r ium beyond which no change would occur .

The dynamic West is , in th is respect , very

different from th e “unchanging East” and the

reason is to be found in religious differences.

Christianity is uniquely cap ab le of comb ining

with the classical tradit ion precisely beca use i t

is an historical religion. For the Christian,

“deliverance is to be obtained not by

a

s h e e r

disregard of physical existence and a concen-

tration of the higher intellect on the contempla-

tion of pure Being, but by a creative activity

that affects every part of the composi te nature

of

man.”32 Christianity ha s always resisted at-

tempts to in t ro duce into i t Gnost ic e lem ents

which reg ard th e material world as intrinsically

evi l . On th e other hand, there is an unworldly ,

transcenden tal aspect to Christianity which

necessitates a paradoxical att i tude toward the

world. T he tension between these two elemen ts

ha s given Christianity “its charac teristic power

change socie ty and to create new cul tural

f o rm s . 33 C h r i s t i a n i t y h a s p r o v i d e d t h e

dynamism in Wes te rn cu l tu re , a force no othe r

religion p rovides, save perh ap s Judaism . Daw-

son believed this spiri tual dynamism is so

im -

portant for ou r cu ltur e that, if i ts sourc e is long

removed, i t will bring “the progressive move-

ment to a ful l s top, and th us br ing about a s ta t ic

socie ty which has mastered socia l chan ge to

such

a

degree tha t i t longer possesses any

vital momentum.”34

In tracing Christianity’s sociological man-

ifestations, ob viously the Ch urc h is one of the

most important insti tutions on which to focus

attention. Dawson divided the history of the

Chu rch into s ix ages , e ac h las ting for three or

four cen tur ies and

each

following a roughly

similar course:

late. Se con dly there is a period of achieve-

ment w hen the Church seem s to have con-

quer ed the wor ld a nd i s ab le to c rea te

a

new

Chr is t ian cul ture an d new forms of l i fe and

art a n d thought. Thirdly there is a period of

re t reat wh en the Church is a t tacked by new

enemies f rom within or without , and the

achie vem ents of the second ph ase are lost or

deprec ia ted . 35

The Firs t Age of the Church began with

Christ and the l i fe an d death s t ruggle of th e

new re l ig ion wi th the Roman Empi re and

pagan civi l izat ion. In the second phase the

Church faced i ts most important change: the

extension from

a

purely Jewish to a Gentile

environment . The thi rd phase hardly exis ted

as

the las t great persecution threaten ed

to

de-

s t roy the Church but ended in i t s t r iumph.

The Sec on d Age began with the convers ion

of Constant ine and extended for

330

years

unt i l the M oslem con quest of Jerusalem. Th e

period of intense spiri tual activity witnessed

the greates t of the Fathers and the develop-

ment of moriasticisni. In the second phase, the

age of Just inia n, there

was

a flowering of art,

phase sa w the re trea t of subje ct nat ionali t ies

from

the Byzant ine Church, forming their own

nat ional church es , an d ended with th e r ise of

Islam.

The Thi rd Age , dur ing which the Church

was threatened by Moslem power, began with

the C hris tian e xpan sion into nor thern Europe.

There th e Church was the so le representa tive

of higher culture, possessing a monopoly on

edu cat ion which m ade the re la t ionship be-

tween re l igion and cul ture c loser than in any

other per iod. The high point of achievement

was reached in the Caro l ing ian Rena i ssance .

T h e a g e e n d e d w it h a re lapse caused by the

new barbar ian invasions of the ninth century.

The Fo urth A ge began with a spir i tu al reac-

t ion aga inst the secular izat ion of the C hurc h as

i t had b ee n abso rbed in feud al socie ty . Firs t

U IU . . . LY ” . . . I Un-h;tonta.ra -..Y

l;tnirgics!....-

The third

Ea ch of them begin, an d end , in cris is ; and

all

of them except perhaps the first , pass

through three ph ase s of growth and decay .

Firs t there is a period of intense spiri tual

activity when th e C hurc h is face d with

a

new

historical solution and b egins

a

new aposto-

came th e mo nast ic reform in Lorraine and Bur-

gundy, which eventual ly extended to the pa-

pacy i tse l f and reach ed a c l imax in the l i fe of

St. F ranc is . T he Church then re treated in the

face of th e new nat ional monarchies which

tended towards t he disintegration of th e inter-

262

Summer 1979

 

nat ional uni ty of Western Chris tendom, and

which brought the p apacy to the low points of

the great schism and the secular ized Renais-

sanc e Popes.

The F i f th Age began wi th a cr i s i s tha t

threatened the uni ty and exis ten ce of Western

Christendom. Both th e Protestant Reformation

and th e l ay cu l tu re of the I t a l i an Rena i ssance

chal lenged the Chu rch which reacte d with i ts

own reform movement and th e es tablishment of

new rel igious orders . T he Chu rch confronted

secular society with a new form of Christian

humanism and expanded into newly discov-

ered terri tories through intensive missionary

act ivi ty . Th is was the age of Baroque c ul ture

which, however, was depen den t o n the Catho-

l ic monarch ies and when they dec l ined , i t de -

cl ined with them. Final ly , th e Cathol ic monar-

chy of France was dest royed by t he Revolution

and the Church was a vic t im of the change.

The

Six th Age has seen such

a

revival of

C a t h o l i c i s m t h a t t h e C h u r c h w a s i n

a

fa r

stronger position by 1850 than i t had been a

century before. Th is age, of cour se , i s the one

in which we live and is st i l l in progress.36

(Dawson did not spec ulate on which p hase we

are now in.)

A grea t dea l of Dawson’s work applied his

analysis of cul ture and c ul tura l chan ge in de-

tail to two periods of Wes tern history, m edieval

and contemporary. Th e Middle Ag es were s in-

gled out as “the outstand ing exam ple in history

of the a pplication of Faith to Life: th e embod i-

ment of religion in social insti tutions and ex-

ternal forms and therefore both i ts achieve-

ments an d i ts f a i lu res

are

w o r t h y o f s t ~ d y . ” ~ ’

W hile religion is vital to

a

society, i t may be

more or

less

closely re la ted to the external l ife

of

a

given socie ty; in the Middle Ages the

rela t ionship w as espec ial ly c lose:

There has never been an ag e in which Chr i s-

tianity attained

so

c o m p l e t e

a

cul tu ral ex-

p r e s s i o n as i n t h e t h i r t e e n t h c e n t u r y .

Europ e has see n no g rea te r Chr is t ian hero

than St . Francis , no gr eater Chris t ian phi-

losopher than St . Thom as, no greater Chris-

t i a n p o e t t h a n D a n t e , p e r h a p s e v e n n o

grea ter Christ ian ruler than St. Louis. I d o

not m ainta in tha t the g ener al level of re li -

gious li fe was higher tha n a t o the r t imes or

that the s ta te of the C hurc h was heal thier ,

s t i l l less that the scandals were rarer or

moral evi ls less obvious . W ha t one can as-

sert is that in the M iddle Ages more than at

other periods in the l ife of our civil ization

the E uropean cul tu re and the Chris t ian re l i-

gion were in a stat e of comm union: th e high-

e s t e x p r e s s i o n s of m e d i e v a l c u l t u r e ,

whether in ar t , i n l itera ture

or

in philoso-

phy, were religious, and th e greatest repre-

sentatives of medieval religion were also the

lead ers of medieval culture. Th is is not,

of

course, an inevitable state of things. It may

even b e argued that th e dual ism of re ligion

and cu l tu re tha t ex i sted under th e Roman

Em pire , and more o r less generally in mod-

ern t ime s, is the normal condition of Chris-

tianity. Nevertheless, th e other alternative,

that of a co-operation and collaboration be-

tween rel igion and cul ture , i s undoubtedly

a

more ideal system, and f rom this point

of

view the medieval achievem ent rem ains un-

surp assed by any o ther age.38

By contrast , Dawson believed that the W est

today i s characterized primarily by i ts

sec-

ular ism. The Western world has become

al-

most completely secularized, thu s has lost an y

se ns e of direction a nd threatens i tself with de-

st ruction. Even the most basic n eed s t radi tion-

ally fulfi lled by religion have b ee n take n over

by profane pseudo-religions, first by th e cree d

of p r o g r e s ~ , ~ ’nd then by polit ical ideologies

s u c h as c o m m u n i s m o r n a t i o n a l i ~ m . ~ ’How-

ever , as fa i ths by which to direct the inc redib le

p o w e r s c i e n c e h a s m a d e a v a i l a b l e , t h e s e

pseudo-religions are dangerously inadequate .

Secularization threatens to destroy our cul-

ture be caus e i t e l iminates th e spir i tual pr inci-

ple

which has served

as

i ts unifying force in th e

past. Christ iani ty ha s provided the W est with

“a t r a n s c e n d e n t s p i r i t u a l e n d w h i ch g a v e

W es tem cu l tu re i t s dynamic purpose .”41 Once

th e spir i tu al pr inciple is gone, se l f -dest ructive

forces tak e over, for we ar e left with only th e

raw will to power exercised by co mp eting spe -

cia l interests. “Christianity is the sou l of Wes t -

em

civi l izat ion, and when the soul is gone

the body putref ies . What i s a t s tak e

is

not the

Modem Age

263

 

external profession of Christianity, but the

inn er bond w hich holds society together, w hich

l inks man to man and the orde r of the s ta te to

the orde r of nature . And when th is has gone

nothing remains b ut the principle uf bru te force

which is essent ia l ly unreconci lable with a

plural is t socie ty l ike the European commu-

nit^."^'

Within each state, this will to power man-

ifests i tself in the constan tly expanding power

of government. The secu lar s ta te is not content

to rul e in l imited areas but ten ds to expand into

every asp ect of our l ives and to dem and tota l

obed ience .43 Th ese t endenc ies a re mani fes t

throughout Western cul ture . While they have

reached m onstrous proportions in Com mun ism

and Nazism, they opera te equ al ly in Anglo-

Saxon countries. In

1936,

Dawson predicted,

“W e may not have a Total i tarian State in this

country of the same kind that we find in Ger-

many or in Italy. Nevertheless . . .

h e s a m e

forces that make for governmental control an d

social uniformity are at work here [England]

also and i n the U.S.A. , and it seems to me

highly prob able that th ese forces will result in

the formation of a type of Totali tarian State

which b ear s the sam e relation to Anglo-Saxon

polit ical and social traditions,

as

the Nazi Sta te

bears to the t radi t ions of Pruss ia and Centra l

Europe.”& Th e paternalis t ic s ta te wi th i ts in-

finity of governmental regulations and social

services is the Anglo-Saxon equivalent which

may become “a col lective despot ism which d e-

s t roys human l iber ty an d spir i tua l in i t ia t ive as

effect ively as any Communist or Nazi ter-

rorism.

745

Dawson bel ieved that on ce before the W est

faced a sim ilar destr uctio n of its civilization by

secularization:

t h e b a t h s , t h e c i r c u s a n d t h e a m p h i t h e a tr e

gave th e m ajori ty th e luxuries tha t had for-

merly been the privilege of the few, and

com pensa ted them for the loss of civic free-

d o m a n d

T h e R o m a n E m p i r e a n d i t s H e l l e n is t ic

civil izat ion had become sepa rated from any

“l iving re l igious basis” and, a l though Au-

gustu s a t tem pted to res tore that basis , h e was

unsuccessful. In spi t e

o

the high mater ia l and

intel lectu al cul ture , “ the dom inan t civil izat ion

beca me hateful in the ey es of the su bject Orien-

tal world,” an d indeed its own greatest mind s

were a l ienated from i t , a “pr ice that every

civilization ha s to pay when it loses i ts religious

foundat ions , and is contented with a purely

material success.”47

W este rn civilization now fac es

a

grave spiri-

tual cr is is a t the very t ime when i t has , by

conque s t and t echnology and t rade t ended to

unify th e en t i re world.48 If our c ul ture is to

survive i t m ust ob tain some religious roots,

e i the r by convers ion back

10

Christianity or by

findin g some new spir i tual pr inciple . Dawson

.*ns n= fz:&:; heh&..red

&!her

&err.$ivp

possible i f me n would ser iously make the at-

tempt. Naturally, he thought the more desir-

able would be to re turn to Chris t iani ty . Thus

the ch a l lenge i s i s sued

to

Christians:

Th e new Babylon i s th rea tened by a n even

more ca tas t roph ic and su ic ida l end than any

of th e world emp ires of the past . Th us we

f ind ourse lves back in the sam e s itua tion as

tha t which the Chr i s ti ans encounte red dur -

ing the decl in e of the ancien t world. Every-

th ing d epen ds on w he ther the Chr i st ians o f

the new age are equal to their miss ion-

w h e t h e r t he v are ab le to com mu nica te the i r

hope to a world in which m an f ind s himself

a lone and he lp less be fore the mons t rous

serve his own ends but which have now

des t roy h im.49

Dawson proposed a first step towards solu-

tion of the problem of secularism. H e believed

that h igher educat ion should be of most con-

cern to the C hris t ian. “It i s in th is f ield that the

Th e Roman Em pi re was faced by the same

tively high standard of material civilization

had become a source of vital degeneration

rathe r than of socia l progress . Th e l i fe was

passing out of the old City-state and i ts

ins t itu t ions , an d in i ts p la ce th ere had ar is-

en a standardized cosmopolitan civiliza-

tion inspired by no higher m otive tha n mass

hedonism. The State-provided pleas ures of

problem

as

Europe to-day. Its

forces

wh ich have been created by man to

264 Summer 1979

 

secula r is t danger is most formidable . . for] if

[Christianity] loses the right to teach it can no

longer exist ." Moreover , educ at ion i s a lso the

weak point of secularism: "The only part of

Leviathan that is vulnerable is i t s brain."50

Dawson devoted one of his last books to the

proposal to institute, i n private, Catholic col-

leges, a program for the study of Christian

culture." It is a proposal that s t r ikes one as

hope lessly inadequa te , a t l e as t in the United

States, in view of the in cre asin g problems pri-

vate colleges have i n merely surviving. But

those diff icul t ies do indeed point to the im-

mediacy of the issue for ou r chu rche s; their

right to teach is being rapidly eroded away.

Th e central focus of Dawson's works is h is

profound bel ief that th e un derlying disease our

'Daniel Callahan, et al., "Christoph er Dawson," Har-

uard Theologica l Review 66

(1973). 167.

'George H. Nash,

The Conseruutive Intellectual Movement in America (New

York: Basic Books, Inc., 1976), p. 308. William F.

Buckley,

Jr.

includes an essay by Dawson in hisAmerican

Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century (In-

dianapolis and Ne w York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company,

Inc., 1970 . ) 3Christoph er Dawson, The Making ofEurope

(Cleveland: Meridian Books,

1956;

first published,

1932),

p.

20.

4Dawson,

The Age of the

Gods

(London: S heed and

Ward, 1933), p.xiii. V b i d . , pp. xiii f. 'Dawson, TheFor-

mation of Christendom (New York: Sheed and Ward,

1967),

p. 40. 'Dawson, The Dynamics of World History,

ed. by John J. Mulloy (New York: Me ntor

Books, 1%2),

p.

431 . Th e quotation is from Mulloy's closing essay.

"Dawson, Religion and Culture (Cleveland: Meridian

Books,

1958;

first published,

1948),

p.

54 .

'Dawson,

Medieval Essays (Garden City, New York: Doub leday and

Company, 1959; f i r s t publ ished, 1954) , pp. 53f

'Tawson, Progress and Religion (London: Sheed and

Ward,

1933),

pp.

233f.

"Dynamics of World History, p.

105.

"Age of the Gods,

p. xvii. 'Ybid . 141bid .151bid . ,.

xviii. 161bid.171bid. ,p. xvi ff. '"Dynamics of World His-

tb ry ,

p. 392. "Ibid. , p. 407 . Italics in original. '"bid., p.

52 .

"Ib id . , p.

438.

The quota tion is by Mulloy. ''Progress

andRe l ig ion , p. 64. Z3Dynamicsof WorldHistory, p. 442.

From Mulloy's essay. z4Progress and Re lig bn , p. 172.

25Dynamicsof World History, p. 442 . From Mulloy's essay.

cult ure suffers fro is not political o r economic

but spiritual. Dawson was, of course, con-

cerned about the pol i tical and economic issues

confronting

all

contemporary conservatives.

He

opposed the increasing power of modem

governments , the i r cons tan t encroachment

upon individual freedom, and the ossification

of society as "a centralized bureaucratic con-

trol" is substituted for "the s ponta neou s activ-

ity of normal social life."52 But he would have

us always remember that these are but the

superficial symptoms of a much d eeper mala i se

which must be cured before our civilizatioq c an

become healthy again.j3 Otherwise, al l con-

servatives' efforts devoted to political an d eco-

nomic issues will go for naught, eve n if they are

temporarily successful.

"Dawson, The Historic Reality of Christian Culture (New

York: Har per and Brothers,

1960),

p.

6 3 .

"Dawson, Be-

yond Politics (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1939), p. 121.

"Dynamics of WorldHistory,

. 266 . "Making of Europe,

chapters 1 through 5. 30Dawson, The

Crisis

of Western

Education (London: Sheed and Ward,

1961),

p. 122.

31Dawson,The Movement of World Revolution (New York:

Sheed and Ward, 1959), pp . 91f. 32Dynarnicsof World

History, p. 187. 33HistoricReality of Christian Cultu re, p.

77 . 34Movement of World Reuolutwn, p. 109. 35Historic

Reali ty of Christian Culture, p.

4 7 .

3EIbid . ,pp .

4 8 5 7 .

37MedieualEssays, p.

15. 301bid.,pp .

163f.

3sProgress and

Religion, p. viii. 40HistoricReality of Christian Culture, p.

24. Understanding Europe

York: Doubleday and Company, 1960; first published,

1952),

p.

203.

42Dawson, The Judgment of the Nations

(New York: Sheed and Ward, 1942), p. 144. 43Historic

Reality of Christian Culture, p. 97 . 44Dawson,Religion

and the Modern State (London: Sh eed and W ard, 1936), p.

54 .

451bid.,p.

106.

46BeyondPolitics,p. 88. 47Dynamicsof

World History, p. 131. 4"Ibid., p. 455. From Mulloy's

essay. 49Historic Reality of Christian Culture, p. 6 7 .

'"lbid. , pp . 87f. "Crisis of Western Educa tion. See, for a

summary, Leo R. Wa rd, "Dawson o n Education in Chris-

t ian Culture," Modern Age

17 (1973) , 399-407. 52 -

Dynamics of World History, p. 221. 53Religion and the

Modern State, p. xii.

Modern Age

265