The Descent of the Dove

by Charles Williams

The Descent of the Dove is an unconventional study of the Church as governed by the historical activity of the Holy Spirit. It's the most significant of Williams' theological writings.
"This book encapsulates Williams' view of the trajectory of church history. For Williams, church history has developed around a series of conflicts between opposing theological positions that threatened to tear the church apart. At each juncture, at which the church had the potential to reject some essential doctrine, a figure arose to reconcile the opposites & achieve continuing unity. (In more traditional theology, the Holy Spirit's primary role in the Xian life is to maintain unity, hence Williams' focus on the Holy Spirit in church history--the book is implicitly a history of Xian unity.) Williams suggests that these tensions are actually recurrences of one basic conflict within the church between the "Negative Way" (or the Way of Rejection) & the "Affirmative Way." Theologians will associate these ways with the apophatic & cataphatic traditions, respectively. Williams argues that these two strains of theology, while always in tension throughout church history, aren't only reconcilable, but necessary for the full flourishing of the church's life. Altho the book is quite short, it isn't a popular history of Xianity. Williams' book is a thesis-driven supplement for those who already know the outline of church history but who want insight into it, or for those who once studied church history but have forgotten it. But the book isn't a scholarly treatment of church history; it's neither comprehensive nor densely written, as a scholarly book would be. It's rather an insightful analysis of the resilience of Xian faith."--S. Schuler

Genres: Theology, History, Religion, Christian, Nonfiction, Christianity, Spirituality

230 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Please see: Charles Williams


Charles Walter Stansby Williams is probably best known, to those who have heard of him, as a leading member (albeit for a short time) of the Oxford literary group, the "Inklings", whose chief figures were C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. He was, however, a figure of enormous interest in his own right: a prolific author of plays, fantasy novels (strikingly different in kind from those of his friends), poetry, theology, biography and criticism. — the Charles Williams Society website

Reviews

[Margaret Norwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading "Descent of the Dove" is like being in a very deep conversation with someone you love, but who knows considerably more than you do and is assuming knowledge that you don't yet have. The more I knew of the historical period of which he spoke, the more I understood, appreciated and was enriched by William's work. When I did not know that of which he was writing, I felt an enormous desire to educate myself on the topic and then come back to join him in the conversation. It is a wonderful work. Next time through, I'll read it in tandem with "Ye are the Body" and see if I can learn enough to be worthy of it.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have rarely wanted so badly to give a book five stars and not been able to. Williams was far and away one of Lewis' great influences and he clearly knew and thought more about the Church and theology than Lewis, and I think he was the reason Lewis took certain views of the Reformation and perhaps was the source for the social Trinitarianism in Beyond Personality. Williams' book is glorious and soars over all the sources and facts and dates to get to what really makes interesting history: judging the sentiments, attitudes, affections, and movements of men.

And yet the writing. In Lewis' defense, he did try to go after it, and I want to forgive Williams just because he's doing what so few (to my knowledge) seem to do. So imagine the soaring syntheses of C.S. Lewis, the ways he can capture different times and cultures and mindsets at his most poetic--and then take out the deceptively clear prose, the hard earthy analogies, and the welcoming uncle. Reading Williams is fun at first because it's all good, but the reader feels the strain, as if he were not taking a breath and never really comes down or meets the reader where he is. To make matters worse, Williams is obscure.

Theologoumena: a idiosyncratic theological belief not accepted by most Christians, but really cool in its own way.

I knew something of co-inherence and the doctrine of exchange (or thought I did) from Lewis and Lewis biographies, yet somehow Williams seems to mean everything by it and then tries to explain it in two disappointing pages at the end of the book. He has the analogies, but somehow not the touch. Oh, you so want to enter, but I'm afraid the only explanation is Williams didn't try hard enough. It's an important lesson: try ever so little to write for people who don't understand you.

Still, four stars because of such gems as:

"To call [Paul] a poet would be perhaps improper (besides ignoring the minor but important fact that he wrote in prose). But he used words as poets do; he regenerated them. And by St. Paul's regeneration of words he gave theology first to the Christian Church."

"It was the veil of the Jewish Temple that had been rent in twain, and was the holier for the rending."

"'I think I am about to become a god,' said the dying Vespasian; it was embarrassing to everyone when the Christians solemnly and formally anathematized what no one had ever dreamt of believing." That is so true having looked ever so briefly at the attitudes behind the oft demonized Imperial Cult.

"[Christendom] got the style of Augustine instead, and that style never seemed quite to apprehend that a man could grow, sweetly and naturally--and no less naturally and sweetly in spite of all the stages of repentance necessarily involved--from man into new man." That sums up so much of what good FV is.

"Formally Augustine did not err; but informally? ... He has always been a danger to the devout, for without his genius they lose his scope. Move some of his sayings but a little from the centre of his passion and they point to damnation. The anthropos that is Christ becomes half-hidden by the anthropos that was Adam. In Augustine this did not happen, for his eyes were fixed on Christ. But he almost succeeded, in fact though not in intention, in dangerously directing the eyes of Christendom to Adam." Really nicely nailed.

"The jewelled crosses hid one thing only--they hid the indecency. But original curcifixion was precisely indecent. The images we still retain conceal--perhaps necessarily--the same thing; they preserve pain but they lack obscenity." I might add that we continue to hide from the original barbarity and scandal or better yet embarrassment of the cross. We do it by making sure our Jesus images have exactly the same hair and bodily build (surely the "winebibber" was fatter), and perhaps there is something wrong with not knowing that He was probably naked and it is distinctly possible that his bodily fluids probably attracted flies. I don't think we should over do it, but does the above scandalize a little?

"Only the most subtle theologians can adequately discuss the Nature of that Presence. The taunts flung at the Church concerning her preoccupation with doctrine seem more justified here than in most places ... The answers are lofty and sublime, but we yet await the genius who can make those high speculations vivid."

"Poetry, like faith, can look at the back as well as the front of reason; it can survey reason all round. But the towering castles of the Scholastics would not deign to suppose: it is why the Inferno is readable, while the chapters on Hell in the Summa are unbearable and unbelievable. Once one has read them, the logical glare of that fire casts a terrible light over the whole Summa."

"Dante had written for, as it were, all the world, and all the world has neglected seriously to study him."

"Unfortunately whoever thought of [the idea of Indulgences] dropped a lighted match into the unknown cellar of man's mind, which contains the heavily dynamic emotions known as 'faith' and 'works.'"

Williams' chapter on the Reformation also merits comment: it's actually quite scandalous, much as Lewis' words at the end of Christian Morality and his first chapter in OHEL are scandalous, yet uncommented upon (unlike Reflections on the Psalms which are just ignored). His essay in Christian Reunion is apocryphal, but he definitely wrote that kind of thing. Anyway, I hope people start talking about what he said here, because though Lewis agreed with the Reformers about Paul, but he didn't necessarily think that the charges they laid at the foot of Catholics or the statements they deduced were right.

This is, I think, why NPP is so popular. We know that nothing we can do can save us and certainly Pelagius is wrong and to systematize some way in which we help God save us is quite wrong. And yet, this can be overemphasized. After all, Jesus did say take up your cross. At some point, we must DO. Obviously the hope must be that Jesus is the one that works in you, but we expend moral effort. I wonder whether Protestantism, or some forms of it have pushed so hard against works that any moral effort is sinful, often by saying you aren't relying on God or the Spirit enough and hence the over-introspection. The closest sort of Protestant mysticism is a sort of renunciation of all moral attempts (can you say Keswick method?) Anyway, we need to go back to Romans 7 a few more hundreds of years to figure things out.

"The news of the protest spread; it reached the Lord Leo, who was good-natured, tolerant, amused: 'A drunken German monk! he will think differently when he is sober!' Alas, the inebriation was deep; Luther had drunk of intoxicating Blood."

"In that great age of Homo, with its magnificences of scholarship, architecture, art, exploration, war, its transient graces and terrene glories, it pleased our Lord the Spirit violently to convulse these souls with himself.

Note I think Williams' section on Calvin is quite inconsistent. Of course, he admits better:
"Of all the incomprehensibilities of that difficult time perhaps the most incomprehensible to us is the passion of the Reformed for sermons. That men and women should wish to sit and listen, to do nothing but sit and listen, for hours together, is unbelievable to us [well, not if you're an uber-intellectual reformed geek :)], and we explain it by thinking that they were listening for heresies, listening in fear of the power of the ministers, or listening in terrible delight to hear their enemies denounced to hell, and no doubt all these things sooner or later came in, but not one was the main thing; no, the main thing was simply the spoken word, the energy and accuracy of the spoken word, the salvation communicated in the sacrament of the spoken word. Those congregations returned almost to the "speaking with tongues" of an earlier day, though this speaking did not need interpretation, for the interpretation and the speaking were one. They returned to Pentecost and the Spirit manifesting by tongues[Some reformed guy please write a book with this as the heading so people quote it as much as Lewis' too glad to be true!!!]. And besides the sermons there were other tongues--tongues of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, but especially of psalms. Initiative of God, breath of the Spirit of God, words moulded by the fiery Spirit from the burning hearts of his elect. "Praise him upon the loud cymbals; praise him upon the well-tuned cymbals." The cymbals were the voices; their sound went over the earth, and as the wars grew darker the noise grew fiercer. "Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered."

"Augustine's predestination was safe with him, comprehensible in Calvin, tiresome in the English Puritans, and quite horrible in the Scottish presbyteries."

"The history of Christendom itself would have been far happier could we all have remembered that rule of intelligence--not to believe a thing more strongly at the end of a bitter argument than at the beginning, not to believe it with the energy of the opposition rather than with one's own."

"'Probabilism' had come in: the doctrine that if you were in doubt about the moral propriety of an act, and if you found a reasonable weight of opinion in favour of it among the casuists, that was good enough; even if an equal--some said, even if a greater--weight of opinion were against it. It does not seem a very perilous doctrine, except that it allowed for two opinions upon the details of right and wrong--a thing abhorrent to devout "Puritan" minds. The Dutchman Jansen and his followers saw and trembled; they invoked the truth; they invoked sanctity; they invoked--inevitable and fatal error!--Augustine."

"Soren Kierkegaard had to wait for his [world-wide repute] through some seventy years. It has taken Christendom that long to catch him up; it took it fifty to catch up St. Thomas, and it has not caught up Dante yet." Amen, preach it brother.

Thanks to Chris Miller for lending me this book and marking this quote that I otherwise would have skipped: "The great scientific discoveries of that age (or what then purported to be scientific discoveries) threw both Christendom and non-Christendom very much out of control. The pious feared that they might, and the impious thought they undoubtedly had, upset Christendom. This was excusable in the impious, but inexcusable in the pious." Doesn't that totally get to the heart of so much wrong with the "challenges of science" to the faith. Come on, God's in control, even though if there is no resurrection, we of all men are to be most pitied. A scientific paradigm shift isn't that big a deal.

Williams says enough to upset people on both sides of the property debate. He attributes the entire theological tradition to a pro-property side, and says that capitalism is much kinder and less managerial than socialism: "The Pope, no doubt, meant nothing but good. But the Pope was not a factory worker." But he also says that the Bible doesn't encourage wealth beyond that: "[the middle class'] retention of their possessions under the patronage of the Cross made the Cross too much a sign of their possessions. 'Having nothing,' wrote St. Paul, 'and yet possessing all things.' The second clause was obvious; the first was hidden with God. A few priests, a few laymen, surrendered their lives to the needs of the destitute; the rest consoled themselves with ritual prayers." Jeepers, that should get under our skin, if only for a moment.

Anyway, this book feels like T.S. Eliot, smarter than you, but not as much as some people think, very profound and sometimes troubling and sometimes challenging, but full of hope.

[Joseph Leake]

I didn't expect to find this book to be so abounding in goodness and wisdom; I began it out of curiosity, and with an awareness of its reputation for being highly idiosyncratic (some would say, outright heretical). But it has proved one of the most fruitfully thought-provoking and refreshing works of Christian literature I've ever read. 

First, the controversial and idiosyncratic bits: these are present, and you certainly wouldn't want The Descent of the Dove to be a young Christian's first exposure to the history of the Church and of Christian thought; but the "problematic" portions of the book strike me as relatively small in number, and can be easily ignored by the appropriate reader. 

What stood out to me instead — what made the book simultaneously so intellectually engaging and spiritually nourishing — was Williams' combination of acuity and graciousness. Reading the book amidst the backdrop of so much contemporary Christian intellectual debate and discussion is like stepping out of a close, cramped room into open air and a cool breeze. I'll try to explain what I mean.

For one thing, Williams' ideas are both penetrating and original, as when he sidesteps the question of whether the charges of obscene blasphemy brought against the Knights Templar were true or not; what's really significant, Williams says, is how these charges reflect "a kind of darkening of the imagination" taking place in European culture at the time: "A kind of luxuriance of diabolical thoughts began to spread...The deposition, made in 1308, was, no doubt, false. But someone thought of it, and many liked to think of it." This isn't your basic, dime-a-dozen historical analysis. The book is full of subtle and distinctive thought; for another example, Williams' comment on the Trinitarian theological issues at stake at the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325: "If there had been no creation, would Love have practiced love? and would Love have had an adequate object to love? Nicea answered yes." Or Williams on the depravity and madness of Nazism: "The Race and the greatness of the Race and the Leader of the Race were its dogmas, and for those it rejected both the City of Augustus and the other City of Augustine." 

In addition to Williams' originality and acuity, though, the whole book is suffused with a spirit of generosity and charity: a kind of courteousness. I do not mean that Williams is wishy-washy or merely polite; but neither does he stoop to being merely provocative, merely pugnacious. He is moral without being moralistic; he is the fundamentally humane thinker. Maybe one of the passages best exhibiting this is Williams' remark on "the solitary and devoted lives which were, are, and always must be, the fountains of [the Church's] deeps; her spectacles and her geniuses are marvellous, but her unknown saints are her power." These are depths not plumbed by that type of dreary, hectoring Christian author (left- and right-wing) who insists that Christianity needs to be less private and more political, more public. Williams' analysis is on another level altogether. In his examination of the Inquisition, and the corruption that flowed out of its desire to report and suppress heresy, Williams observes that "The Church committed herself, on the highest possible principles, to a breach of the highest possible principles...Deep, deeper than we believe, lie the roots of sin; it is in the good that they exist; it is in the good that they thrive and send up sap and produce the black fruit of hell." 

Again, "humane" and "refreshing" are the words that come to mind. For one more example: in his discussion of the anti-Christian secularism of the Enlightenment, a discussion certainly consisting of plenty of critique (Williams is no friend of the Enlightenment), Williams comes to Voltaire's famous cry of Ecrasez l'Infame! ("Crush the Infamy!" — the "Infamy" being the Church); at which point Williams makes the rather pointed remark that Christendom really had, after all, fallen into some infamous acts, adding that "Christendom will be unwise if ever she forgets that cry, for she will have lost touch with contrition once more." Compare that with the bog-standard, all-too-easy Christian dismissal of the Enlightenment. (Almost concurrent with reading that passage in Williams, I had come across an article by a Christian author who alluded to "Enlightenment 'values'" — note the scare-quotes — sniffily adding "whatever those are." How much less obvious, how much more sensible, even-handed, and insightful Williams is by contrast!)

In short: the book has some challenges: a knowledge of the major historical trends, movements, and figures is assumed on the part of the reader; Williams is frequently opaque; and there are some ideas that are misguided or wrong. But the good very much more than outweighs the bad. 

One last, excellent remark from Williams: on Bacon's praise of Machiavelli as a new kind of Renaissance writer "who openly and without dissumulation show[s] what men are and not what they ought to be," Williams offers the rejoinder that medieval authors had certainly, in fact, written about "what men are," but with the important advantage that "they had remembered [too] what men ought to be." Superb. 

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

How I made it through church history classes in seminary without having this book assigned is a mystery to me. Most historical surveys of any kind are dry accounts, only a slight improvement from reading chronicles. For Williams, church history is a drama wherein events and characters bear witness of coinherence--the presence of heaven in the matters of earth. Anything I've ever read by Williams is challenging to follow, but the view he gives his readers makes it worthwhile to persevere through obscure passages. One might say that he's just a gifted writer to make church history this exciting, but I believe he saw the drama that everyone else had been missing, even when it was right in front of their eyes. Dorothy Sayers saw the same thrill in church history, claiming that "the dogma is the drama." In Descent of the Dove, one encounters the drama that is Christian dogma.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too intellectual, in the worst way -- presumptuous, abstracted, logically unsound. But it's one of those few books about which I can definitively say: this has changed the way I think about things. Williams is, here as always, comfortably poised at the convergence of orthodoxy, heresy, and and insanity.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

What does he actually mean? In this history of the Descent of the Dove, Williams sweeps through church history and highlight movements and reactions, including moments of re-centering on the simple gospel. He takes Trinitarian Life (hard to speak about, I grant, but Augustine would be a better guide) and pushes these reflections of co-inherence into everything. If one could see it, co-inherence is the goal--the technique to be practiced and pursued.

Well, Charles, yes and no. Of course, the Spirit of Christ has given us adoption and access to new realities of grace-filled love. But no, please do not flatten Triune realities down into a technique to be spoken about apart from Christ. Practicing and walking in the Way of Christ is always a bumbling human process, but his framing is problematic. We don't need schools of co-inherence as a place to practice a technique, we need people captivated by their inheritance of Triune life through the Cross of Christ and trusting that God really does supply His Spirit to work and make possible that love between God and ourselves.

In saying this, I was edified by the reading and challenged by many sections of this book even while I disagreed or didn't understand his elevated, elusive style.

"So extreme, so dreadful, is the inevitable delirium of fallen man. All that is certain is that, from the point of view of Christendom, whatever comes can be but a war of frontiers. The Centre cannot be touched; all that can be done has been done, outside of Jerusalem, under Tiberius," (pg. 210).

[Stephen Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mercy, what a paradigm-shifting book this was for me. I actually finished reading it quite some time ago, but vowed to not mark it as "read" until it had (at some point) left the front of my mind. Well, months later, it remains lodged in my prefrontal cortex. Oh well.

Like Williams' other works, it drips with poetic weight and demands multiple re-readings (I had to start back at the beginning after getting halfway through). It is not a history book, as such; it is no timeline, but rather a midrash upon the timeline of Church history. What is most startling about Williams' approach is his relative lack of concern for Christianity's many divisions and moments (eras?) of foolishness -- not in the sense that they didn't/don't matter, but in the sense that even our divisions and sins against one another and the world will, through the work of the Holy Spirit, be one day bound up into a unified and redeemed whole. As such, Williams' "lack of concern" is not actually apathy or hardness towards the state of the Church and its long train of abuses, but rather a deeply-abiding faith in the promise that the gates of Hell will not stand against the God's people, and neither will our own hopelessly repetitive cycle of tripping over our own feet. We *shall* dwell in Him, and He in us.

Underneath such faith lies Williams' belief that Time is unequivocally on the side of the Church and not on the side of the world. To that end, I offer what might be said to be the theme paragraph of the entire book:

"Time has been said to be the great problem for the philosophers; nor is it otherwise with the believers. How, and with what, do we fill time? How, and how far, do we pass out of time? The apostates are only those who abandon the problem; the saints are the only ones who solve it. The prayer for final perseverance which the Church so easily recommends is but her passion for remaining faithful, at least, to the problem – of refusing to give it up… 'The conversion of time by the Holy Ghost' is the title of the grand activity of the church."

[Nemo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles Williams, best known for his fantasy novels and as a close friend of J.R.R Tolkien and C.S.Lewis, offers a unique perspective in 'Descent of the Dove'. The book presents the history of the church from a Christian viewpoint, which makes for a great read. However, the language used can be challenging at times and may require some effort to fully appreciate.

[Mike Horne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book forty years ago when I went through my Charles Williams phase. His novels are very good. This is more prose poetry than history. He presumes you know a whole lot. I read this again because this book greatly influenced Auden's For the Tim Being.

[Simon Stegall · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief history of the Church by one of the Inklings. From reading it, you wouldn't be able to tell that Williams was an Anglican - you would probably think he was a Catholic since he is remarkably kind to the abominable uses of Indulgences in the Renaissance and the bizarre wickednesses of the Popes, but in fact this is just a characteristic of his charity (and more an indication of my own biases- a Catholic would probably be annoyed by his admiration of Luther and Calvin). He is without fail empathetic to every movement of the Church, from Clement to Constantine and even to the heretics; one of his main theses is that the history of the Church is the working out of the "co-inherence" of the Holy Spirit in its people, and therefore he retains tremendous sympathy for the Church in all its pendulum swings, immoralities, and heresies. In part, that is what makes this such a good read. It is about as un-sectarian as is possible. It presents the Fathers, the Popes, and the Reformers in their best possible light, while being totally honest about their shortcomings (humans being what they are), and showing very little preference for any. He critiques Augustine and Aquinas, who are often blindly followed; he defends Calvinists and the Jesuits, at whom many sneer. But always with an even keel and due credit. As far as I can tell, this is an excellent Church history. Oh, also it's short.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this rather idiosyncratic church history more than the novels written by Williams and probably would have appreciated the latter more if I'd read this first.

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subtitle for Charles Williams’ The Descent of the Dove: A Short History of the Holy Spirit in the Church immediately communicates that this is intended to be an accessible and thought-provoking church history as opposed to a comprehensive effort. Toward the end of the volume, Williams laments that he has not given much space to the specifically missionary aspects of church history (p. 207). That makes sense. After all, the “standard” work on specifically missionary history within the church is Kenneth Scott Latourette’s multi-volume A History of Christianity written about two years prior to the copyright on Williams’ work.

No, Williams did not try to be comprehensive in The Descent of the Dove. He was dealing with the church’s understanding of the spiritual role of the church and, as such, could not help dealing with the church’s application of its spiritual principle of co-inherence, integrating the idea of substance (spiritual reality) and sensuality (physical reality). In so doing, he attempted to break church history (up to the early 20th century when this was written) into roughly co-equal chunks of material. Of course, the first indicator that Williams was not intending a comprehensive work was the lack of an index.

This is a delightful treatment that keeps one turning pages. Though rooted in the formative years of another century and predating the horrifying realities of World War II and the Cold War, the scholar and friend to such dignitaries as C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton does not seem oblivious to the false gods of nationalism and materialistic humanism that foreshadowed these earth-shaking events. Indeed, to jump ahead of any ordered discussion of the material, I particularly liked one observation regarding formative (pre-Stalinist) Communism: “Its atheist societies and its anti-God demonstrations were honestly meant to break the chains of all men, even if they broke the limbs in doing so.” (p. 230)

The initial discussion is called “The Definition of Christendom.” This is, of necessity, a rather swift-moving consideration of what the church of the first century was experiencing. I particularly benefited from Williams’ take on the Imperial Cult of emperor worship. He pointed out that the concept of imperial godhood had functional (economic and political) advantages but wasn’t intensely pious. Williams observed: “…it was embarrassing to everyone when the Christians solemnly and formally anathematized what no one had ever dreamed of believing. It is bad enough to be contradicted on what one does believe; it is intolerable to be contradicted—perhaps with vehemence or superiority—on what one obviously does not believe.” (p. 18) This puts subsequent persecutions in a different and very human light.

Personally, I felt the book really picked up the pace and began calibrating on Williams’ intended subject in the second discussion, “The Reconciliation with Time.” Here, the interplay between time and eternity and the co-inherence between substance and sensuality really communicates. For example, there is a statement which I consider to be the epitome of the moral/dogmatic spectrum (ethics/theology) on p. 31. “In morals, as in everything, There are two opposite tendencies. The first is to say: ‘Everything matters infinitely.’ The second is to say: ‘No doubt that is true. But mere sanity demands that we should not treat everything as mattering all that.” He goes on to say the contention between the former (Rigorous) view and the latter (Relaxed) view is significant and on-going. “The Rigorous view is vital for sanctity; the Relaxed view is vital to sanity.” (p. 31) In this context, he shares about the engagement of the church with the Gnostic heresy and struggles with the doctrine of free will versus universalism. On the latter, his conclusion is congruent with mine, “…such a doctrine almost always ends in the denial of free will.” (p. 40) I particularly liked his discussion of Origen in this section.

“The Compensations of Success” deals with the church in a progressively more powerful state. Williams telegraphs a lot of ideas about Augustine’s City of God in this chapter and refers back to the concept throughout the rest of the book. I particularly enjoyed his rather poignant critique of Augustine portrayed against the backdrop of the Arian (denial of Christ’s divinity). “The anthropos [human] that is Christ becomes half-hidden in the anthropos which is Adam. In Augustine this did not happen, for his eyes were fixed firmly on Christ. But he almost succeeded, in fact though not in intention, in dangerously directing the eyes of Christendom to Adam.” (p. 64) On the other hand, his paradoxical description of Augustine’s concept of predestination being inextricably entwined with free will (p. 71) was spot on (in my opinion).

The ecclesiastical era of “All roads [or ways] lead to Rome” is described by Williams as the “The War of the Frontiers.” It was an uneasy time which Williams describes in the axiom: “What the Church could not use, she tended to despise; …” (p. 79) and so, the cultures swallowed by the church were being digested. “The great pagan chieftains had to become Christians before they could become citizens, and it was citizens, though certainly patrician citizens, that they wanted to be. They had to accept the dogmas before they could display the lictors.” (p. 81) Williams establishes the nascent movement of Romanticism within the church as it pushed the boundaries of the frontier with missionary zeal, particularly with his attention to The Dream of the Rood (pp. 88-90). Yet, I felt the essence of this section of the book was best stated with regard to the church when Williams wrote: “Her victories, among other disadvantages, produced in her children a great tendency to be aware of evil rather than of sin, meaning by evil the wickedness done by others, by sin the wickedness done by oneself.” (p. 86)

For ecclesiastical history, the designations “Middle Ages” or “Medieval Period” serve almost as a pun as Williams introduces the impact of a revived dualism during this era of “The Imposition of Belief.” By using theories of atonement which “accentuated the devil’s existence by giving him a right to man’s soul, which necessitated the shedding of the Precious Blood as a legal ransom,” this epoch opened the door to the physical atrocities done in the name of combating the devil (p. 105). I particularly liked Williams’ line: “The Church committed herself, on the highest possible principles, to a breach of the highest principles.” (p. 107) I agonized again with the persecution of the Templars (though Williams notes that he doesn’t know whether they committed the heretical abominations of which they were accused—pp. 125-127) but chuckled inappropriately when I read, “The Order of Teutonic Knights fought everyone indiscriminately.” (p. 118).

While “Consummation and the Age of Schism” is an appropriate title for the chapter describing by political/theological schisms and the fissiparous faults between emerging intellectual exploration and dogma, it is this chapter that seems the weakest (in my opinion). In what seems to be a recapitulation of the general principles in C.S. Lewis’ The Allegory of Love, Williams attempts to delineate the relationship between courtly love, the ideal of love, and the church’s view of love by spending an inordinate amount of time on the three volumes of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. While both interesting and insightful in their own right, using pages 130-142 for this in a book under 250 pages where each chapter is supposed to be of similar length and dedicated to the major brushstrokes on the canvas of history seemed disproportionate to the author’s intent. Williams did quote a line from Dante that was quite useful to his purpose, however. He reminds us of Dante’s awareness that “the essence is created for the sake of the function and not the function for the essence. The soul, that is, exists to know God, but not God to be known by the soul…” (p. 132) After the literary critique of Dante, Williams goes on to describe the impact of the Black Plague and the Great Schism on the church. In the midst of bloodshed, intolerance, and political manipulation using the name of Christ as a false flag, Williams cites a most ironic pronouncement: “…the Pope can err and can sin, but the Church is so full of love that it cannot wander nor err nor sin.” (p. 150) Such wishful thinking was both ironic and tragic as it played out during this era.

Remember Williams’ earlier suggestion about the near-mistake of Augustine? He begins his discussion of the era of reform with a consideration of the humanism seen in both society and church. “The anthropos [human] had been forgotten for the theos [divine], and now the other anthropos, the Adam of Augustine, the homo sapiens of science, preoccupied European attention.” (p. 160) From this milestone, Wiliams surveyed the movement toward Reformation, “The Renewal of Contrition.” As Williams describes Martin Luther agonizing over the impact he saw indulgences having on his flock, “Yet his parishioners were full of the Indulgences and not at all full of contrition…Neither contrition nor assurance, but an obscene parody of both, seemed to him encouraged by the click-clack of the money and the mechanism of grace.” (p. 167) Williams summarizes the struggle and debate between the Faith and Works parties in much the same way as he described the Rigorous and Relaxed parties of an earlier era. He brings in Calvin and introduces the more militant aspects of the era. “The Religious Wars opened as formulation began. It centred at first on those old recurrent questions of the will, and the will in relation to grace, and grace in relation to the system.” (p. 173) This struggle between Calvin’s idea of Providence and Ignatius of Loyola’s “We ought not to speak of grace at such length and so vehemently as to give rise to that poisonous takes away free will” (p. 175) offers the central ground of the dogmatic battlefield in these faith wars.

But the net result of humanism and the rise of science seemed to mitigate some of the would-be advances of the Reformers when the church reached the age of “The Quality of Disbelief.” During this phase, Elizabeth I’s observation concerning the religious wars describes the entire process (perhaps, including the movements of Skepticism related to scientific advancement) as: “…that metamorphosis where the head is removed to the foot, and the heels hold the highest place.” (p. 186) Yet, there is a cynical reality to Williams’ statement: “The operation of faith was not a matter of which secular governments proposed to take much cognizance, unless and until it became inconvenient to them.” (p. 189) Williams admires a certain quality of disbelief as providing a nicely balanced proportion between belief and disbelief, decisiveness and doubt (p. 190) but he also has a warning about the destructive potential. “Such a method has the same dangers as any other; that is, it is quite sound when a master uses it, cheapens as it becomes popular, and is unendurable when it is merely fashionable. So Augustine’s predestination was safe with him, comprehensible in Calvin, tiresome in the English Puritans, and quite horrible in the Scottish presbyteries.” (p. 191) This leads to an admiration of Montaigne that will inevitably cause me to reread the master. But my favorite line in this chapter was: “…when we are angry we defend our proposition the more hotly; we impress it on ourselves and espouse it with greater vehemence and approval than in our cool and calm moments.” (p. 193) That’s wisdom worth guarding. Similarly, Williams quotes from William Law: “…when religion is in the hands of the mere natural man, he is always the worse for it; it adds a bad heat to his own dark fire and helps to inflame his four elements of selfishness, envy, pride, and wrath…” (p. 196).

The final chapter is entitled “The Return of the Manhood.” It reflects the dark proclivities of the late 19th and early 20th century in which Williams lived. “The creed of Christ and the greed of men ran side by side.” (pp. 208-209) It begins with slavery, admitting that: “It may be conceded that slavery is not, formally, anti-Christian, so long as the state’s natural and supernatural rights are preserved. But the proper preservation of those rights is apt to make nonsense of slavery.” (p. 209)
In other words, the “permission” describes the necessity of the “proscription.” In terms of the Liberalism of the era, both theological and secular, Williams once again recounts something that sounds like an echo of his Rigorous/Relaxed dichotomy in the earlier pages. “For generally those who have wanted liberty have not apprehended dogma, and those who have apprehended dogma have not wanted liberty. Liberalism in religion and liberalism in politics are not the same thing, however, often then are confused by the friends and the enemies of either.” (p. 216) In a similar vein, he recounts the artificial discord between faith and science: “The pious, however, then as always, were in a state of high anxiety to defend and protect, and generally stand up for, Almighty God.” (p. 219) Yes, there has been the thorn in the flesh of my spiritual experience—those who think their Omnipotent God might be vulnerable and, as a result, commit an inadvertent and inconsistent idolatry.

Though The Descent of the Dove: A Short History of the Holy Spirit in the Church may not be the church history volume I would select if I could only have one, it takes such a different perspective that I am delighted that Regent College Publishing opted to reprint this early 20th century volume in the early 21st century. To paraphrase a beer commercial from the East Coast at the end of the 20th century, this book may not be the only church history book you want, but it’s the one you want when you’re having more than one.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Grevel Lindop's CW: The Third Inkling (recently reviewed by me) doesn't delve as deeply as I'd have liked into this idiosyncratic survey, he mentions that the title wasn't the original, but foisted upon the book by the publisher. But that's how I found it in searching for a study of the Third Person as revealed or rumored in popular culture. Not a perfect match, but starting it revived my curiosity about CW, a few of whose novels I dimly recall tackling going on four decades ago, and I needed help.

By the way, I consulted a 1950s paperback with introduction by his friend W.H. Auden. If lacking the Ludovico Brea "Coronation of the Virgin" painting, which other eds. use as a frontispiece or cover...it applies CW's vision of the Beatific, even though I didn't find it as essential to the narrative itself...yet it's a handsome illustration, and complements his other work, The Figure of Beatrice, as it happens.

Like Dante, this lofty guide is dense. It may carry echoes of the skill with which its author has been praised by his student and listeners, in alternatively lucid and arcane passages. My knowledge of the humanities and of religious history is arguably more comprehensive than most nowadays (only because of my teaching, training, and reading), and I acknowledge this not to boast, but to explain that its level of allusion, range of asides, and depth of reference remains impressive, however daunting for laypeople.

He leaps from supposition to explication as he incorporates his pet theories (see Lindop) of "co-inherence" substitution and exchange. Humans may repeat the Trinitarian model in self-sacrifice. (By volunteering to take up the sufferings of others, the better to aspire to the example of Eternal Love.)

He never says as did my Irish Catholic family "offer it up (for the poor souls in purgatory)" as an Anglican congregant let alone a one-time adept of the Rosy Cross or a clandestine practitioner of magic, but CW does embed within this compressed history and eccentric explication of subtle Church doctrine and popular religion his erudite ambition to persuade a WWII audience to consider a bold Christian alternative which elevates dignity of contrite members within a tripled divine framework hearkening back to subversive origins. It's a heady presentation worth reflection if taken with caution.

[Stephen Case · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good friend of mine once called Chesterton’s Everlasting Man “bullshit history.” He meant it in the best way possible. A similar label could be applied to this volume by the famously-forgotten lost Inkling, Charles Williams. I’ve written about Williams’ wonderful yet at-times-exasperating fiction here before. He’s difficult to classify. Like Chesterton, he sort of slips through the cracks by his works’ tendency to resolutely resist any pat classification. His fiction is not fantasy. Neither is it realism. I’ve heard it classified before as “theological thriller,” but if that makes you think of Frank Peretti then you’re still in children’s church. When I heard that Williams had written a history “of the Holy Spirit in the Church,” I tracked it down in Olivet’s library. (Note to Nazarenes: according to the old library card still stuck in it, this copy was checked out by “Dr. Parrott” in 1975. I wonder what he thought of it. And why he felt he needed to sign his name “Dr. Parrott.”)

The Descent of the Dove is not a history of the Holy Spirit. It’s a history of the Holy Spirit in the church. Big difference. I thought I might get a study of how the church has understood the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, throughout its history. Which would have been fascinating. How did the early church come to understand the vague admonitions of the post-Resurrection Christ and the strange happenings of Pentecost? Whence the Filioque? Stuff like that.

I’m sure there’s a study like that out there somewhere, but this is not that book. This is much more along the lines of Chesterton’s Everlasting Man. Because for Williams, of course, the history of the church itself is the history of the Holy Spirit active in the church. So what we have instead is a much more straightforward and less surprising work: an intellectual history of Christianity, unencumbered by detailed analysis of doctrine or careful study of primary texts. Which is fine. Williams wasn’t a historian. He was a literary scholar and a writer and a Christian, and this book-- again, like Chesterton’s Everlasting Man-- is a very intelligent, very erudite man’s apology for the church.

Apology as in explanation. How did the church get to where it is today? What forces and ideas shaped it throughout its history? This is something like modern “worldview” talk; reducing history to broad strokes and generalizations. Not necessarily a bad thing. The big picture. The sweep of history. Williams is understandably Western-centric without being exclusive. He has a grasp of the implications of ideas, even if he plays fast and loose with their origins or evolution. The motivating factor, the explanatory agent, throughout all of this is of course the vague and subtle and undeniable direction of the Holy Spirit.

If Williams has one theme he wants to sell, it’s his idea of co-inherence. This comes into play in his novels as well, and for all the enjoyable ink he’s spilled on it, I’m still not sure what it means. It revolves around the idea that humans and the Divine can share and experience the qualities of one another. Christ took on our pain and our shame through his crucifixion. His divinity co-inheres with the Father. His divinity somehow also co-inheres with us. When we take on the pain and burdens of others (through empathy or prayer or something more mystical, I’m not sure), we co-inhere with each other. It’s a suitably slippery theme that Williams can trace it throughout the history of the church. I’m not saying he’s wrong. I’m just saying its a vague and slippery idea.

If I sound like I’m faulting Williams for trying to nail jello to a wall, I’m really not. This was a very enjoyable and well-crafted book, if you simply enjoy it for what it is: intellectual history by a guy who wrote very well, thought very well, and could hold his own with the likes of Tolkien and Lewis. But historians like to work with concrete dates and events and texts. Scientists like concrete concepts and evidence. Intellectual history sort of floats over both of these, much more the literary creation of a literary mind (an interpretation of history and the evolution of the church) than pure scholarship. More art than history.

Which is, again, okay. In the end, all we really have are our own interpretations of history. Our own ideas of how we got to where we are. Read this book to get Charles Williams’, which are probably worth more than most.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A unique and worthwhile (if somewhat problematic) book. It's quite a conceit to try to tell a history of the church in a scant 275 pages, and if Williams doesn't succeed masterfully, he succeeds well enough to make it worthwhile. To get the problems out of the way, William's writing is as turgid and confusing as usual. It's also only understandable if you already know what he's talking about, sometimes on a very deep level, which means that while some chapters are silver others you basically just have to get through. In short, as usual, Williams doesn't take proper care of his readers.

That said, this is still a good history for several reasons. First, Williams' poetic angle (i.e. not disciplined historian) sheds real light on the past, and seems to make the present and past come together in a beautiful union. Secondly, although it sometimes feels like going through a rummage sale, the work is scattered throughout with real pieces of interpretive gold, for example, his creative and lovely history of the church during the time of Acts.

Finally, and most importantly, Williams is the right kind of ecumenist. As Leithart might say it, Williams clearly believes that, "The church is the church." He honors his Mother Kirk, and never pits her members against each other. He clearly sees that different times, philosophies, and ways are all a result of the Holy Spirit's work in the church. So while he is able to recognize error, he recognizes it in such a way as to redeem it, and place it within the Spirit's dispensation. Recommended, but only if needlessly difficult/confusing writing doesn't drive you batty.

[Kyle Rapinchuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Williams presents in this book a brief history of the church. It is poignant, informed, and surprisingly comprehensive for its comparatively short length. Williams also pierces to the heart of conflict within the Church throughout history, giving helpful insight into the struggles of various eras. He also provides interesting reflections, such as his lament that Calvin and Ignatius of Loyola should have so much in common as contemporaries and yet oppose one another (173). As a friend of Lewis and a fellow Inkling, I was surprised at just how different Williams writes. Unlike the clear and compelling style of Lewis, Williams is dense, less direct, and less understandable. Part of this is personal taste, however, as Williams is able to communicate his points. Consequently, the content is great, but fans of Lewis thinking Williams might be a good next step will find him quite different and perhaps less enjoyable.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd say it's influential to me, but I think I was influenced by it before I read it! I recognize Williams's approach to church history as one with which I've already been inculcated: he influenced the people who influenced me, I think. And those people did a good job of making Williams comprehensible for me. Some of the leaps of his writing style, and his assumed vocabulary are too much for me still, but I could read this far better now than I could have even 5 years ago. I so appreciate how personal this perspective is. I felt like I was privileged to be around the table hearing Williams express himself - share himself - with friends.

[Andrew Stout · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable. More than anything, this history is an attempt to ground Williams' unique theories of co-inherence, exchange, and substitution in the life and heritage of the Church. Surveying Church history through the lens of these themes (as well as the themes of the complementary Ways of Affirmation and Negation) is very effective, shedding fresh light on many of the major events in the life of the Church.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly good poetic history of the church from the perspective of a member of that prestigious Inkling group, and friend of the more famous of the bunch, C.S. Lewis and J.R. Tolkien.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

mega goed boek. zoiets heb ik nog nooit gelezen. je moet wel al vrij veel van kerkgeschiedenis afweten om er iets van te begrijpen , en ik begrijp zeker niet alles, maar ik vond het heel erg mooi

[Justin Wiggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

An epic theological read by one of the members of the Inklings.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating read. By one of the Inklings, an associate & friend of C. S. Lewis & J. R. R. Tolkien.

[Patrick\ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another para-psychological thriller from the master.

[J. Alfred · Rating 4 out of 5]

An off the wall and often impressive history of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian church (i.e. a history of the visual church and a series of theological reflections on what that must mean about a God who promises to be with his church in history) by the off the wall and sometimes impressive Charles Williams, who is more a theologian and critic than he is a novelist and more a novelist than he is a poet, though he remains a little bit of all three at all times.
If I remember correctly, Williams and CS Lewis became friends after Williams wrote to Lewis in appreciation of his Allegory of Love, and so it's cool to see that cited in here. And it seems worth remarking that Williams sort of pulls Lewis's theory together and reduplicates in its theological sense in one sentence: "Christ was anthropos and theos; so, in its own way, is romantic love."
This is a good fresh look at how to believe and treat others, in light of what record we have of people performing the act of belief and the social acts performed in conjunction with that morally primary act. Very interesting and worth your time.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Descent of the Dove was written by Charles Williams, one of the "Inklings" who used to hang out with JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, and other great thinkers in England at the time. The book is small but packs an enormous verbal punch! Williams is a master of words, and in this volume traces the activity of the Holy Spirit ("Our Lord the Spirit") through church history, from Acts through the early church, the Christian martyrs, the Middle Ages, the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, and up to the mid-twentieth century, when Williams lived. Does it sound dry? It isn't. Williams has created a slim work which is part history, part poetry, all scintillating analysis by a man who himself was a devoted Christian. WH Auden writes the introduction and describes the book as "a source of intellectual delight and spiritual nourishment which remains inexhaustible." I quite agree.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to make of this book. I sensed a brilliance and depth in Charles Williams writing that was beyond me to understand. The Descent of the Dove was well written, with many fantastic quotes and ideas. Charles Williams is not shy about talking about the tragedies and compromises in church history. I also found it hard to say what the point of the book was. As a descriptive history The Descent of the Dove was excellent. But I think The Descent of the Dove was also a work of theology about the nature of co-inherence and the Holy Spirit. On that front I'm not sure I understood what I read.

[David K. Glidden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles Williams was a member of the all male Oxford writers group, the Inklings, along with C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, notably. He too wrote fiction but was also the author of several religious works, such as this sweeping history of Christianity, written from a perspective of faith. W. H. Auden treasured this book, which he read over and over —not only for the factual information it conveyed, but for the poetic, elegant way it was written. This volume deeply influenced Auden‘s late Christian long poems: The Age of Anxiety and his Christmas Oratorio.

[Jonathan White · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first and only book I've read on church history.

Williams focuses on a lot of the weird and embarrassing parts of Church history and tries to deduce what the Holy Spirit might have been trying to teach us. Think of it as color commentary for a sports game where you can't see the sports game (I read about half of wikipedia's Church history pages trying to figure out what he was talking about-- but that's the way I love to learn). Other "objective" books on church history are just hiding their bias.

Full of memorable passages that I go back to again and again.

Brilliant.

[Elizabeth Jennings · Rating 4 out of 5]

This history of the church is quintessential Williams. The 3-page Postscript on the natural and supernatural nature of co-inherence and exchange is worth the price of the book. Williams' take on church history is that God has been working both within and without the church to bring her ever back to remembrance of her mission to live out and spread Christ's grace. If only he had lived another century, I would love to read an updated version post-1939!