Tractarian reserve and the veiled figure of Christ: Ascension, mystery, and the limits of imagination

This chapter explores the ascended and hidden Christ in the theology of John Keble, John Henry Newman, and other Tractarians and their sympathizers. Norman argues that reflection on the veiled figure of Christ provided the theological starting point for the Tractarian notions of religious and literary reserve. Starting with Keble’s Christian Year (1827) and Ascensiontide sermons, Norman relates Keble’s Christology to relevant poetic and literary theories found in the Praelectiones: the ascended Christ, concealed behind the “bright veil” of “soft cloud,” enacted an objective veiling in heaven, subsequently reflected in subjective notions of Tractarian poetic reserve, symbolic veiling, and the suppression of religious imagination. Destabilizing and undermining too-easy accounts of positively revealed religious knowledge of the figure of Jesus, Norman shows how Tractarian Christology took an apophatic turn that challenged, subverted, and provided a corrective to the Romantic theological imagination. Tractarians and their religious supporters engaged with the apparent absence of the ascended Christ, his concealment in heaven, and the difficulties and perplexities caused by not seeing Jesus, the “Awful Unknown Truth” (Newman). Ultimately, the Tractarian sense of the sacramental mystery of Christ meant that their “Figure of Jesus” escaped human language and image-making, finding expression in Eucharistic devotion and shared conceptions of the norms and limits of religious poetry.