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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
This essay examines the Dominican influences on the Catholic philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe while an undergraduate at Oxford University between 1937–1941. It focuses on three Thomists who formally instructed Anscombe and how one Dominican, Victor White, likely instructed her on a radically Catholic perspective regarding the morality of warfare, which would not only influence her 1940 co-authored pamphlet, ‘The Justice of the Present War Examined’, but would shape her writings on war and murder for her entire academic career.
This essay accompanies the republication of Anscombe's ‘I am Sadly Theoretical: It is the Effect of Being at Oxford,’ her earliest known published essay. She wrote this article in response to a public invitation from the Catholic Herald for Catholics between the ages of 18 and 25 to make their voices heard by their fellow Catholics. In this teenage apologia, Anscombe outlines the goals for her life, and what it means for her as a Catholic to be a witness.
My thanks to Michael Baxter, Robyn Boeré, Brian Davies OP, and John Hayes for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay.
1 I discuss the influence of the CSG and the PAX Society on Anscombe in extensive detail in Berkman, John, ‘Justice and Murder: The Background to Anscombe's Modern Moral Philosophy’, forthcoming in Teichmann, Roger ed., The Oxford Handbook of Elizabeth Anscombe (Oxford: OUP, 2022).Google Scholar
2 To see the influence of the PAX Society, one has to read the original pamphlet version of Anscombe, Elizabeth and Daniel, Norman, The Justice of the Present War Examined: A Criticism Based on Traditional Catholic Principles and Natural Reason (Glasgow, John S. Burns & Sons, 1940)Google Scholar. Henceforth JPWE. In her 1981 collected papers, Anscombe only reprints part of the pamphlet. In the preface to the original pamphlet they write: ‘This pamphlet … presents the results achieved in a series of open discussions held at Oxford both before and after the declaration of war. … Those concerned are grateful to the association “Pax” (17 Red Lion Passage, W.C.1), to which many of them belong, and which has constantly upheld an interpretation of the teaching of the Church similar to that expounded here’.
3 Anscombe, Elizabeth, ‘Ruth Daniel: an Address given at the Requiem Mass sung at the Carmelite Church, Kensington, 14th January 1982’.Google Scholar Box 10, File 374, The Collegium Institute Anscombe Archive at the University of Pennsylvania, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.
4 For those surprised to see MacKinnon described as a ‘Thomist philosopher’, see Muller, André, ‘Donald M. MacKinnon: The True Service of the Particular, 1913-1959’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Otago, Dunedin, 2010).Google Scholar
5 From Anscombe's note in ‘I am Sadly Theoretical’, that she ‘Converted in 1935, recently received into the Church’, it is not clear what instruction was needed.
6 The Socratic Club was founded under C.S. Lewis's leadership in 1941 to conduct debates about the truth of Christianity. Between 1942-1947, Kehoe spoke four times to the Socratic Club, Martin D'Arcy SJ spoke three times, Gerald Vann OP spoke twice, and no other Catholic spoke more than once. List of speakers at the Socratic Club courtesy of the Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton, IL.
7 Biographical information on Richard Kehoe OP can be found in Bailey, Bede, Bellenger, Dominic Aidan, and Tugwell, Simon eds. Letters of Bede Jarrett: Letters and Other Papers from the English Dominican Archives (Stratton on the Fosse, Bath: Downside Abbey, 1989).Google Scholar
8 Fergus Kerr writes that ‘Our novice master Simon Blake had been taught Scripture by Richard Kehoe and used his extensive notes to introduce us to his very poetic/ Jungian/ allegorical/ typological exegesis, so my own knowledge of the OT such as it is owes a great deal to RK's approach’. (Email correspondence with Fergus Kerr, OP, May 3rd, 2020).
9 Fr. Louis Roy OP writes ‘I am the one who gave [Anscombe and Geach] the news that the Dominican who had received them into the Catholic Church had died. This Dominican had subsequently left the Order. I do remember that Elizabeth was moved and I was struck by the fact that far from condemning his having renounced the exercise of his priesthood, she spoke of him with compassion and tenderness’. (Email correspondence with Louis Roy, OP, May 24, 2021).
10 See Weldon, Clodagh, Fr. Victor White, O.P.: The Story of Jung's 'White Raven' (Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 2004), 244,Google Scholar n.19, and Cunningham, Adrian, ‘Victor White: A Memoir’ in Lammers, Ann Conrad and Cunningham, Adrian eds., The Jung-White Letters (London: Routledge, 2007), 307-334.Google Scholar
11 As Lammers notes, ‘White was an intense, introverted thinker to whom the world of ideas was a source of both ecstasy and torment. An unresolved intellectual problem could reduce him to physical illness. As one Dominican contemporary recalls, on these occasions he would be literally sick and take to his room, sometimes for days’. Lammers, Ann, In God's Shadow: The Collaboration of Victor White and C.G. Jung, (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994), 90.Google Scholar
12 My thanks to Professor Benjamin Lipscomb, whose original discovery of Anscombe's undergraduate tutorial reports in the St. Hugh's College archives made this article possible.
13 In ‘Scholasticism’(1934), one of his earliest articles, White is setting out a theological agenda for the English Dominican Order. As Nichols puts it, ‘That agenda is neither (with theological Modernism) deconstructionist nor (with the most unimaginative or contemporary neo-scholasticism) merely repetitive, but “constructionist” in both preserving tradition (a sine qua non) and building on it’. See Nichols, Aidan, Dominican Gallery: Portrait of a Culture (Leominster: Gracewing, 1997), 184.Google Scholar In the 1930s, ressourcement theology was in its infancy, and its sources-based method of interpreting Aquinas was viewed by ‘transcendental Thomists’ with great suspicion. For an introduction to this movement see Kelly, Patricia, Ressourcement Theology: A Sourcebook (London: T&T Clark, 2021), 15–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The leading manifesto for the recovery of an historical and source-oriented method of interpreting Aquinas was M.D. Chenu OP's 1937 book Une école de théologie: Le Saulchoir. By February 1938 other Dominicans in the Roman Curia had forced Chenu to withdraw the book, and by 1942 it would be placed on the Roman Index. As Chenu was coming under fire, Blackfriars began to publish articles by him, publishing four by Chenu in 1938 and 1939. For a discussion of Chenu's approach to Aquinas, which highly influenced later generations of Thomists, see Kerr, Fergus, ‘Chenu's Little Book’, New Blackfriars, 66:777 (November 1985), 108-112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14 In the summer of 1939, MacKinnon wrote that ‘My debt to the Dominicans is, I hope, sufficiently acknowledged. No English Catholic who has faced these problems [regarding the moral legitimacy of war] could hope to have made headway apart from the work of Fr. Vann and Fr. White’. (MacKinnon, Donald, ‘The Task of the Christendom Group in Time of War-II’, Christendom: A Journal of Christian Sociology, 9:34 (September 1939), 206.Google Scholar
15 White used the term ‘Paxist’ and phrase ‘Paxist viewpoint’, because Pax members, though they supported conscientious objectors, were in no sense pacifists. They believed a war could be just, but recognized that the vast majority were not, and that individual Catholics must in conscience decide if they would participate in their nation's wars after discerning the justice or injustice of their nation's ends and means for a particular war.
16 See Weldon, Story of Jung's 'White Raven', 11. For more on Fr. Bede Jarrett's areas of scholarly expertise, as well as his vision for the future of the English Dominicans, see Nick O'Brien, , ‘Bede Jarrett, Sir Ernest Barker and the political Significance of the Dominican Order’, New Blackfriars 92:1040 (July 2011), 464-483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17 For White's friendship with Gill dating to the 1920s, see Robert Speaight, The Life of Eric Gill (London: Methuen, 1966), 209.Google Scholar
18 See Weldon, Story of Jung's ‘White Raven’, 10-11, 242.Google Scholar The licentiate was (and is) the minimum academic requirement to teach in a Catholic seminary.
19 The Dominicans typically sent academically gifted students to Europe for 3-5 years of further study, for specialized degrees or for doctorates. In contrast, Bede Jarrett's appointment of White as lector followed more the customs of Oxford University than the Dominican Order. Appointment to a fellowship of an Oxford College upon completion of one's first degree studies or very shortly thereafter was a sign of the brilliance of a young scholar who required no additional training. Fr. Jarrett, being the first Dominican to attend Oxford University since the Reformation, perhaps appreciated that custom more than most Dominicans.
20 Jarrett, Bede, ‘Editorial’, Blackfriars, 1:1 (January 1920), 4-5.Google Scholar
21 Kerr, Fergus, ‘Blackfriars from 1924 to 1934’, New Blackfriars, 84:993 (November 2003), 494.Google Scholar
22 Jarrett, Bede, ‘Editorial’, Blackfriars, 15:166 (January 1934), 5.Google Scholar
23 According to Kerr, a February 1932 article by Thomas Gilby had required the suppression of the printed issue prior to its distribution. For more on the ‘suppressed issue’, see Kerr, ‘Blackfriars from 1924-1934’, 492-493.
24 The first pseudonymous column by ‘Jacobin’ (aka Thomas Gilby) began when Jarrett started editing Blackfriars in December of 1932. Gilby's ‘Jacobin’ persona died out in 1934.
25 For the first few months it was called ‘Extracta’, before settling on the title ‘Extracts and Comments’. From reading these columns it becomes clear that each month ‘Penguin’ was reading at least 10-20 religious periodicals from Britain, Europe, America, and elsewhere. While these monthly pieces ranged widely, Penguin regularly focused on two sets of highly controverted questions: war and ecumenism. Penguin's column bears comparison to Fr. Richard Neuhaus’ much later ‘The Public Square’ column in First Things from 1990-2009.
26 Not included in this count are pieces which White wrote under other pseudonyms, such as ‘Praedicator’, ‘OP’, ‘Henry Gordon’, and ‘M. A. Bousfield’. In addition, the style of some of the editorials published while Carpenter was editor may indicate White's hand.
27 See Nichols, Dominican Gallery, 184.
28 White refers to himself as ‘assistant editor’ of Blackfriars in 1937, both in a January 29th letter to the Catholic Herald and in a September 24th, 1937 letter to Luigi Sturzo. (Luigi Sturzo Institute Historical Archive, Dossier 621, Document 52.) My thanks to Concetta Argiolas of the Sturzo Institute. Over the last 30 years numerous articles on the Catholic press during the 1930s have referred to Victor White as the editor of Blackfriars, but I have found no evidence of White being editor of Blackfriars until a brief period in 1940.
29 This is not entirely surprising, considering the high percentage of White's early articles which he wrote under a pseudonym. Even so, Victor White merits the longest chapter in Aidan Nichols’ Dominican Gallery, which portrays seven exemplary Dominicans of White's era.
30 In fact, it was his work on Jung that seems to have led to his being abruptly denied becoming Regent of Studies at Blackfriars shortly after becoming a Master of Sacred Theology. On this development, See Lammers, In God's Shadow, and Aidan Nichols, ‘The rebellious discipleship of Father Victor White: theology and psychology in a critic of C.G. Jung’ in Craig Titus ed. Philosophical psychology: psychology, emotions, and freedom (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009).
31 An Oxford degree in classics was a four-year degree. With three terms a year, it required 12 terms of study.
32 Results of these exams were published in all the national newspapers. Anscombe's results (Class II) appeared in print on April 8, 1939.
33 Handbook to the University of Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 144.Google Scholar The philosophy curriculum consisted of ‘a thorough study of two Greek books, one of Plato and one of Aristotle, and of the philosophical questions arising out of them, and also of a general study of Logic and Moral Philosophy, and Political Philosophy, including the outlines of Political Economy’.
34 Oxford University Handbook, 146. Italics added by author.
35 Anscombe's single-minded focus on philosophy while studying ‘Greats’ is evidenced from the vast disparity in her ‘Greats’ tutorial reports. While the tutorial reports from philosophy tutors White and MacKinnon were glowing, they were in stark contrast to the reports from her ancient history tutors: ‘She is really more than a little lazy’; ‘Miss Anscombe … has only produced one essay, which … was rather slight. … Miss Anscombe might fail to cover enough of the necessary ground in Greats’; and ‘Of Miss Anscombe I hardly know what to say. On the two occasions when I have seen her, she has … been singularly reluctant to express any definite view’. St. Hugh's College Archives, SHG/J/3/2. With kind permission of the Principal and Fellows of St. Hugh's College, Oxford. My thanks to Amanda Ingram, archivist of St. Hugh's College.
36 Even eminent medieval historians such as Gervase Mathew OP and Daniel Callus OP would only receive university appointments after WWII.
37 While the occasional graduate student might consult with a renowned Dominican scholar in a specialized sub-field, this obviously did not apply for tutoring an undergraduate. Furthermore, this being prior to WWII, the issue of the loss of Oxford dons to military service was not yet an extenuating circumstance.
38 St. Hugh's College Archives, SHG/J/3/2. With kind permission of the Principal and Fellows of St. Hugh's College, Oxford.
39 The second term being Michaelmas (October-December) 1939.
40 Kerr, Fergus, ‘Remembering Donald MacKinnon’, New Blackfriars, 85:997 (May 2004), 266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
41 Kerr, ‘Remembering Donald MacKinnon’, 266. I am much indebted to André Muller's dissertation for insights on almost everything I have to say about MacKinnon in this paper.
42 Knowing that White and MacKinnon were friends, and that MacKinnon shared White's interests in Christian social thought and the ‘Paxist’ viewpoint on war, one cannot help but wonder if White might have been instrumental in Anscombe coming to be tutored by MacKinnon. For Donald MacKinnon's advocacy for a ‘Paxist’ viewpoint, see ‘Review of Reckitt, Religion in Social Action’. Christendom 8 (June 1938), 150Google Scholar; MacKinnon, ‘Christian Social Thought’, Theology 38 (May 1939), 381Google Scholar; MacKinnon, ‘The Task of the Christendom Group in Time of War’. Christendom 9 (June 1939), 139-143Google Scholar and (September 1939), 140-142, 204-206; MacKinnon, ‘No Way Back: Some First Principles of Catholic Social Judgment Restated: Review of Peter Drucker's End of Economic Man’ Christendom 9 (December 1939), 292-298Google Scholar; and MacKinnon, The Church of God (London: Dacre Press, 1940), 81-99.Google Scholar Furthermore, MacKinnon cites White in all of these articles and most of the other articles he writes during this period. In ‘The Task of the Christendom Group’, MacKinnon approvingly refers to Regout's, Robert La doctrine de la guerre juste de saint Augustin à nos jours (Paris: A. Pedone, 1935),Google Scholar which seems to be been virtually unknown in England, but is cited in Anscombe and Daniel's JPWE.
43 St Hugh's College archives, SHG/J/3/2.
44 Anscombe's two philosophy tutors in 1940-1941 were William De Burgh (1866-1943), who had retired from a career at the University of Reading in 1934, and Raymond Klibansky (1905-2005), a Jewish refugee scholar from Germany at Oriel College from 1936-1946, who took up a chair at McGill University after the War.
45 From the time of her appointment to Somerville College, Oxford in 1946 through 1952, all her University lectures series were on Plato.
46 White, Victor, ‘Catholics and War: The Principles Involved’, Catholic Herald, May 12, 1939.Google Scholar MacKinnon's ‘Task of the Christendom Group’, based on a paper read on April 13th, 1939, and published in June of 1939, is similarly devoted to the ‘minimal requirement’ in terms of the witness of the Church in time of war.
47 I have yet to discover whether Anscombe's interest in the PAX Society arose independently of White, or was inspired by White.
48 With the grave injustices of the Treaty of Versailles still fresh in memory, no thoughtful person could again leave their own decisions of conscience to the moral consciences of their country's rulers. When White was challenged in another letter to the editor that he should give his country's rulers ‘the benefit of the doubt’, White responded ‘I agree that, given no reason to the contrary, government be given the benefit of the doubt… However there are some points on which there can be no doubt’; White had no doubt that, giving leeway to make secret decisions concerning the ends and means of a war, Britain's rulers could not be trusted to prosecute a just war. Victor White, Catholic Herald, June 2, 1939.
49 One exception is Anscombe and Daniel's reference to The Names of Christ, a work by the 16th century Spanish poet and political theologian Luis de Leon.
50 MacKinnon commends or argues for a ‘Paxist’ viewpoint in MacKinnon, ‘Review of Reckitt, Religion in Social Action’. Christendom 8 (June 1938), 150Google Scholar; MacKinnon, ‘Christian Social Thought’, Theology 38 (May 1939), 381Google Scholar; MacKinnon, “The Task of the Christendom Group in Time of War”. Christendom 9 (June 1939), 139-143Google Scholar and (September 1939), 140-142, 204-206; MacKinnon, ‘No Way Back: Some First Principles of Catholic Social Judgment Restated: Review of Peter Drucker's End of Economic Man’; Christendom 9 (December 1939), 292-298Google Scholar; and in MacKinnon, The Church of God (London: Dacre Press, 1940), 81-99Google Scholar. Furthermore, MacKinnon cites White in all of these articles and most of the other articles he writes during this period. In ‘The Task of the Christendom Group’, MacKinnon approvingly refers to Regout's 1935 book, which seems to have been virtually unknown in England, but is cited in Anscombe and Daniel's JPWE.
51 Anscombe and Daniel became dues-paying members of the PAX Society on December 2nd, 1939, along with 16 other Oxford students. The March 1940 issue of the PAX Bulletin said: ‘The Oxford branch of PAX is shortly bringing out a pamphlet, The Justice of the Present War Examined…’, so it was published at the earliest in late March. The next issue of the PAX Bulletin, in May 1940, recommended Anscombe and Daniel's recently published pamphlet. By then Anscombe claims to have withdrawn it from publication. However, considering the December 1940 issue of the PAX Bulletin says that their pamphlet is ‘particularly recommended’ to COs preparing statements, one has to wonder how diligent Anscombe was in withdrawing it. (PAX membership records and references to the PAX Bulletin are courtesy of the PAX Society archives).
52 JPWE, 24.
53 JPWE, 29.
54 JPWE, 28.
55 At that time, members of the larger Peace Pledge Union were being arrested and charged for campaigning against the war. For example, in May of 1940 six leaders of the PPU were arrested, charged, and convicted of trying to cause ‘disaffection’ among military personnel ‘likely to lead to breaches of their duty’. (See Morrison, Sybil, I Renounce War: The story of the Peace Pledge Union (London: Sheppard Press, 1962), 45–48.Google Scholar) While these PPU members were not ultimately imprisoned, Anscombe and Daniel could not predict the possible legal consequences of publishing their pamphlet.
56 Hilary Carpenter, OP, ‘Editorial’, Blackfriars, 20:235 (October 1939), 723-726.Google Scholar
57 Anonymous, ‘Reprisals’, Blackfriars 20:235 (October 1939), 765-766.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
58 The October 1939 issue of Blackfriars also featured Gerald Vann's ‘In Tempore Belli’, which immediately followed Carpenter's editorial in that issue.
59 White, Victor, ‘Wars and Rumours of War’, Blackfriars, 20:231 (June 1939), 404-406.Google Scholar
60 Prior to October of 1939, Penguin's ‘Extracts and Comments’ were typically ten or more pages long. After October 1939, his new column ‘Contemporanea’ (which had previously been a subsection of his ‘Extracts and Comments’ column) was allotted 1-2 pages.
61 The same apparently applied to Gerald Vann OP after the appearance in January 1940 of his article ‘Patriotism and the Life of the State’. Vann's article elicited a letter from Dominican Provincial Bernard Delany to Vincent McNabb, asking for McNabb's judgment on its orthodoxy. While White and Vann were apparently banned from contributing full-length articles, Blackfriars would publish numerous articles on the war, including some commissioned from non-Dominicans and military chaplains. Perhaps most tellingly, for the October 1940 issue of Blackfriars, both McNabb and Vann were commissioned to contribute articles on obedience, and they were published alongside the other. My thanks to Fr. Richard Finn OP for providing me a copy of McNabb's March 5, 1940 letter to Delany, which can be found in the Dominican archives at Douai Abbey.
62 For example, on Feb 29, 1940, Eric Gill writes to his brother ‘Im pretty well entangled in pacifist doings at present. Free speech is still allowed but there are those who wish it wasn't and I shd.n't be surprised if they won. … Tell Donald [Attwater] that we've just printed a PAX leaflet entitled conscience for the benefit of C.O.s & their judges. … It ought to be useful, as it's astonishing how few know what a conscience is when asked’. See Shewring, Walter ed., The Letters of Eric Gill (London: Jonathan Cape, 1947), 443.Google Scholar
